Current Events:

DIES DIEM DOCET

(The previous day is the precursor of another day)

Recently along with a copy of "The Assyrian Observer" which comes out in England we received a letter from its editor -in chief Mr. Andrious Mama Jotyar. In particular, he writes, " Although the contents of Malta are of the past Assyrian history in Russia and Urmia, they are informative for the new Assyrian generation.

May I suggest that you should try to publish the current affairs, history, social life and progress of the present day Assyrians in Russia? You should also arrange group contacts between the Assyrians in Russia and the Assyrians in other foreign countries. In Providence of God our future contacts and communications will be mutually addressed towards the betterment of the Assyrians world wide."

Dear Mr. Jotyar

Thank you very much for a wonderful journal you make. We should like to say that your critical approach in your publication finds, sympathy and understanding. In response to your proposal we should like to make our' point here. The strategy of our Bulletin is to convince our beloved nation that we should get rid of many things that stand in the way of national revival. We think we should criticize sharply what really brings discordance in the ranks of our patriotic and political' forces. But this way it is very difficult to convince someone who take wrong steps insisting on his rightness. And it is also hard to change those who just look on from afar.

Analyzing the activity of many Assyrian public organizations and political parties we are convinced that the majority of our wrong steps and conceptions reflects like in a mirror just anything that we have already known in the history of our nation. The same old ambition, lack of self-control, high emotions, notorious tribalism, and paternalism alike. As a rule, low professionalism just goes with over high opinion about everything we do. It is a pity that it is so hard to get rid of such negative traits of the national character. But we believe that it yet is possible and we should try to highlight the consequences they might bring eventually just like it used to be in the past history of our beloved nation.

There is one more point to our special interest in, the past. This is, actually, the subjectivity that rules the people as they work to hand down to anew generation what the history has preserved to this day. This tendency can be best shown on some Assyrians attitude towards the martyr, Patriarch Benyamin Mar Shimmun. Actually, he so many times was accused without foundation. We just know that only ignorance and subjectivity were the main instruments in this misrepresentation of the great man indeed. That is why we only consider the opinions of his contemporaries who were objective and unbiased in their interpretation of the great man's handouts and deeds unlike some Assyrian heads blinded by tribalism and confessional ideas of opposition. This consistent information about Patriarch Benyamin Mar Shimmun can be found in the books by V. Shklovsky ('Meltha', 1995, Vol l, no.2) and R. Termen (see Part 1), who knew him personally.

Current events in the Assyrian life in Russian Federation will also be highlighted in our Bulletin. But just ill pursuit of objectivity we suppose we should bring to every Assyrian not only the fundamental targets of the national movement, but also a very simple idea that every action we take must be well-thought and finally acceptable. Therefore every problem must be tackled not only on the basis of the current situation analysis, but also with references to the past history as well. ,

We are looking forward to your next publications where we hope to find your opinions about our own efforts, which certainly is very important for us.

Best regards,

The “Meltha” editorial staff.