Meltha Magazine Online

2002 May Conference pages 11-12

The 'Futile Exodus' of Assyrians from Persia: Extravagance and Organized Welfare

Dr. Daniel P. WOLK

In the 10-14 years prior to World War I, the Assyrians of Persia developed an organizational life that cannot be understood apart from their participation in a transnational community. At a time of developing national consciousness, movement from serfdom to the middle class, and unprecedented competition among foreign missionaries, many Assyrians of Persia were emigrating to the United States, usually with the intention of earning money and returning. Critics in the Persian Assyrian press, especially in Zahrlre d-Bahrii and KoiJ!2.ii, identified a major problem to be a new "extravagance" (badharjuta) or "loss of modesty" {bereezutii), and they blamed it on the "corrupting" influence of returnees from America. They warned would-be emigrants against what they called the " Mapqana Magmun, II loosely translatable as " Futile Exodus" -an out migration both disappointing to the migrants themselves, and fruitless for the betterment of the Assyrian millet. Such critics argued that Assyrians emigrants to America would adopt immoral ways as a result of joining the American working class.

Assyrians in the "colonies" abroad and returnees countered such criticism by presenting themselves as hardworking and frugal, and by organizing Assyrian charitable societies, both in America and Persia. These societies were the first notable nonsectarian institutions among Assyrians, and they formed part of the foundation for a secular Assyrian nationalist movement. Before World War I, the most important such aid society was the Assyrian Aid Society [Sotaputa d-'Udrana d- Suryaye), founded by one of the most influential of the returnees, Qasa Yarib Nisan. Criticism in Kokhwa against the sojourners in America reached such a high pitch by 1910, the Assyrians of Chicago decided to withhold contributions not only to the Sotaputa d-'Udrana, but also to Kokba itself. Nevertheless, the efforts of Assyrians in the Diaspora before the war served as a model for the much more massive relief efforts during and after the war, under the auspices of Syrian (later Assyrian) Relief.

Such developments show that conflicting interpretations over what it meant for Assyrians to adjust to life in America, whether temporarily or permanently, were an important catalyst for social change. Those who remained rooted in Persia imagined adjustment to American life to be a corrupting process, whereas those who took up residence in America saw it as a disciplining process that enhanced their moral sense of thrift and charity. The energy unleashed by this tension spurred the process of institution building.