Farid Nuz'ha, an Assyrian Nationalist

Farid Nuz'ha was born in December 10, 1895 in Hama in Syria, of a noble family from Harboot (Turkey who had migrated to Syria in 1760. He has been surnamed as Nuz'ha after his grand mother. In summer of year 1911, while just a teenager of 17 year he migrated to Argentina and lived in Buenos Aires until he passed away in 1971 (date is unconfirmed). As soon as he arrived in Buenos Aires, he became active in the Syriac community. This eventually led to the establishment of the nationalist, literary, cultural and social association of the Assyrian Afremian Club (Centro Afremico Asirio) in August 1934. In the same year, the club published the first issue of magazine Al Jamia'ah Al Syryaniya (Asociacion Asiria or The Syriac League), a monthly first appearing in Arabic, but later added the Syriac and Spanish languages. Nuz'ha was its Editor of this publication. According to the Club's archives, its objectives were to foster and promote a positive approach on nationalism, to organize cultural and educational seminars, to assist in the revival of Syriac sciences and literatures, and to generally expand knowledge the noble Syriac language. We have no clear and specific chronicle of the magazine, but we believe that it continued publishing until Nuz'ha passed away. The magazine and its editor passed through many difficult periods and crisis. These of course affected Nuz'ha in his personal life, but they were also significant in a broader sense.

In early time of his nationalistic activities, he started attacking denominationalism and disclosing the corruption of the high range of clergies and their overlooking of the national, social and cultural activities. Without leniency, he openly declared war through his magazine's pages against the high clergies and he severely clashed with H.H. Mar Ephrem I Barsoum (1877-1957) the Patriarch of the Syriac Orthodox Church(*). He described him in his paper as "The false Sheppard" or "The despotic pontiff who trifle with the nation's dignity and fortune" or " conductor of plots" and so on. Consequently, this led to the excommunication of Farid Nuz'ha by the Patriarch. This action strongly affected him and as a result he started reacting intensively and furiously against the Patriarch and clergies without accepting any compromises offered by his friends and relatives, such as presenting an apology to the Patriarch, that could solve the disputes between both of them and lifting the excommunication, which was considered to Nuz'ha as a honor medal. The rupture of relations and disputes continued until the Patriarch passed away in 1957 and was replaced by H.H. Mar Yacoub III (1912-1980). Undocumented information tells us that the new Patriarch lifted excommunication on Nuz'ha and as a result, his relation with the church and clergies became more stable and quiet, which was clearly reflected on the pages of his magazine, which lately became solely a social and literature publication with much less enthusiasm on nationalistic issues.

Nuz'ha was a real brave and great Assyrian man and at the same time a victim of denominationalism and negligence, he is an ideal example of nationalist's dilemma of past and present situation of the Assyrian society. Denominationally, the man was a follower of the Syriac Orthodox Church. Nationalistically, he was a stubborn militant and a faithful Assyrian to his nation. His dilemma was that neither his denomination accepted him nor the nationalist recognized him. Regrettably to say that most Assyrians, including those who are involved in nationalist issues, in particular among Nestorians and Chaldeans denominations, heard about his name or his nationalist ideas and activities. Although he was contemporaneous with Na'aom Fayiq and David Perley and in good contact and friendship with them, they were all from the same denomination, but these two nationalists, their names and activities, were well known by the Nestorians and Cheldeans Assyrians than Nuz'ha. The reasons could be that Nuz'ha was living and activating in a nearly isolated and exclusive Syriac Orthodox community in Argentina and publishing his magazine and nationalist articles in Arabic, which was an unspeakable language for the most American Assyrians. However, we should consider his sever criticisms to the church & clergies and the excommunication imposed upon him by the Patriarch also as another reason for neglecting him and avoiding his name or nationalistic inheritance.

Comparatively, Nuz'ha was better known among Middle Eastern Assyrians. His magazine was widely circulated among Syriac communities in Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Iraq. Through a separated study, (See my book: Na'aom Fayiq, the Master of the unification Thought, Sargon publishing house, Sweden, 2000) I reached to conclusion that Nuzha's nationalist ideas were the basic ideology for establishing the Assyrian Democratic Organization (Mtakasta) in summer 1957. Two Malfanos; Hana Abidlaki, the founder of the Syriac school in Qamishli, and Shukri Charmokli the teacher of Syriac language in the same school, they were the representatives of the Syriac League magazine in Syria and circulators of Nuz'ha's nationalist ideas among young generation, can be considered real fathers of Mtakasta. On the same scale, with regard to the Assyrian Democratic Movement (Zowaa), Nuz'ha is the pioneer of the contemporary Assyrian nationalism. They considered him as the most courageous nationalist journalist, and there are many article and researches written on him during the 150 anniversary celebrations of the Assyrian journalism and published in Zowaa's publications.

Farid Nuz'ha was an extensive nationalistic writer and a distinguished Assyrian journalist. Although he used a formulated name for his nation such as (The Syriac nation of Assyrian, Aramean and Chaldean), was commonly using Syriac or Syrian (Al Syryan). He was so board-minded to include all historic names of his nation without distinguishes, but for some nationalist and political reasons he frequently used Sryiac or Syrian (Al Syryan) to refer to and include all other names, at the same time, he was so aware and historically and linguistically erudite to trace that name to Assyrian. In 1998 when I published my book, (Political Phobia in Assyrian Society) I referred to the phenomenon of inferiority complex of some Assyrians, disgraceful submission to the despotic ruler and their phobia of Assyrian name. I thought I was the first one who is referring to this phenomenon. But eventually it seems I was wrong after reading many issues of the Syriac League magazine and found out that more than six decades ago Nuz'ha dealt with this problem in one of his most interesting article published in issue no. 2, year 5,of February 1939, P 10. This article was written as a reply message to letter sent to him by a well-known writer in Mosul, north of Iraq and a follower of the Syriac Orthodox Church, in which he "politely" opposed Nuzha nationalistic idea on Assyrians. The following is a quote from the original Arabic copy of the article:

"At a time, one of our honorable and ardent writer wrote to the editor of Syriac League (Farid Nuz'ha) saying: wipe off, correct or change the Spanish name of your magazine (Asiria), because this name dose not please our country's government since it means (Assyrian - Ashori). As you are descendent of an honorable Syriac family know by its enthusiasm and clinging to Syriac doctrine… etc, such naming should displeased you too and must be disregarded. The editor, (Farid Nuz'ha) smiled with a mockery for such conclusion with a pray to God to protect people from such disaster. He said: I would ask the honorable writer, if your right honorable ruler dislikes Assyrian naming, does your manner and dignity of your nation and church allow you to change them for something different just for the sake of blackness of your prince's eyes and to satisfy him? What you will do if your dictatorial master said to you pull out the cross form your church's door and it is forbidden for the Christian community to ring the bells? What you will reply to him if tomorrow he said to you that Syriac teaching is contradictory to the official education system? You are not expecting such disasters will happen! However, since you submitted to him with subservience and cowardice that will encourage him for immoderation with his oppression and absolutism. Tomorrow he will say to you; Hey you Syrians … if you are faithful to your country and government you have to accomplish your faithfulness and obedience by the only way of changing your Syriac language to Arabic, then at that time what you will reply to your government? If Syriac does not mean other that religion or denomination then I truly say we are not in need for it. You, as a "great master, expert and defender of Syriac", must say that Syriac is a nation and ethnicity not a religion and denomination. A religion or faith could be shared by many nations, as it is our status with Copts and Ethiopians, but there is no sharing in ethnicity. If we deprive the ethnicity from our people what will remain to them? I am sure your will say: religion. I say, they can get the same religion from somewhere else, from Egypt and Ethiopia and that what is happening because of your teachings. If we teach our people that Syriac is a real science, a name for our ancient nation and explain its historic nobility, then you will see how they will adhere to this name and they will be proud of it, no matter what the critical times and deadly conditions are. How "sweet' you were when you, full of foolishness and ignorance, said that Assyrian naming means Nestorian faith! Such view is very far away form reality and all experts and public, condemns such misunderstanding. I am sure you cannot deny the reality of the fact that Syrians are the same Assyrians, descendents of ancient Cheldeans/Babylonian and I will never accept your walkout without convincible and glaring evidences of invalidity of my opinion. Anyone with minimum knowledge of language and history knows that Syrian word is originated from the Greek term "Assyrian" which is the same name of "Ashori". Apart from that, everybody knows that Assyrian is not a religious name and if you review documents of the Church history you will find out that our brothers Nestorians never recognized themselves by such name but as Nestorians. If they were recognized by such Assyrian name then they will be at an envy status, but regrettably I say that their denominational naming is Nestorian not Assyrian. However, if that naming of Assyrian is referring to those who had rejected merger with or melting in Arabism and resisted the oppressive governments, and as consequent they suffered murdering, persecution, looting and all kinds of injustices & horribleness, (He is referring to Simel massacre) that is an exclusive great honor to them. Then the future generations will frequently commemorate that martyrdom and will remember these disasters committed by the foes of God and humanity as long as there is a human being on this earth. Syriac Writer (Farid Nuzha) Buenos Aires, February 1939

This was written more than six decades ago and it seems as if it was written today tackling the same problems, which are facing Assyrians, such as Arabization, submission to the dictatorial regimes and phobia of declaring the real nationalist belonging. Moreover, I can assure that Nuz'ha was a futuristic and periscopic viewer of the nation's crisis, particularly when he affirmed that at a time future generations would designate a commemorative day for those Assyrians who sacrificed their live in Semil in 1933. In such a case, would I be wrong if I were to say, that the Assyrian Martyr Day of August 7 was initiated by Farid Nuz'ah? Probably not, because David Perely, was an "ideological" friend of Nuz'ha and a founder of Assyrian American National Federation (AANF) and this organization played an essential role in preparing and establishing the Assyrian Universal Alliance (AUA) and it was, and still it is, the largest affiliated organization of AUA who officially declared August 7 as an Assyrian Martyr Day. Unfortunately, due to unavailability of documents and untraceable history I cannot confirm that.

Oh my God … Did I not say earlier that Farid Nuz'ha is a great Assyrian man and deserve the greatest respect by bending our heads when his name is mentioned, or by studying his career, editing & investigating his nationalist inheritance, reprinting and translating his honorable magazine to be available for those who are in need for nationalistic lessons so that they can understand the past and present crisis of our nation.

The nation who does not respect or commemorate its great men does not deserve life.

Aprim Shapera
United Kingdom

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