Assyrians in Modern Iraq

Negotiating Political and Cultural Space

Alda Benjamen

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2022
• Print ISBN:
  9781108838795
• eBook ISBN:
  9781108985246
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: Middle Eastern History
• Index: History

Examining the relationship between a strengthened Iraqi state under the Ba?th regime and the Assyrians, a Christian ethno-religious group, Alda Benjamen studies the role of minorities in twentieth-century Iraqi political and cultural history. Relying on extensive research in Iraq, including sources uncovered at the Iraqi National Archives in Baghdad, as well as in libraries and private collections in Erbil, Duhok, and Mosul, in Arabic and modern Aramaic, Benjamen foregrounds the Iraqi periphery as well as the history of bilingualism to challenge the monolingual narrative of the state. By exploring the role of Assyrians in Iraq's leftist and oppositional movements, including gendered representations of women, she demonstrates how, within newly politicized urban spaces, minorities became attracted to intellectual and political movements that allowed them to advance their own concerns while engaging with other Iraqis of their socio-economic background and relying on transnational community networks. Assyrian intellectuals not only negotiated but also resisted government policies through their cultural production, thereby achieving a softening of Ba?thist policies towards the Assyrians that differed markedly from those of later repressive eras.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half-title
• Title Page
• Copyright information
• Dedication
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Note on Transliteration
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction: Identity, Urbanization, and Citizenship
• 1 Assyrians and the Iraqi Communist Party
• 2 The Role of Assyrians and Communists in the Kurdish Uprising (1961-1975)
• 3 Between Reconciliation and Repression: Baʿthist Policies toward the Assyrians in the 1970s
• 4 Compliance, Negotiation, Resistance: Assyrian Press and Popular Culture (1970s-1980s)
• 5 The Reestablishment of the Assyrian Nationalist Political Movement (1970s-1980s)
• Conclusion
• Appendix 1 Census Data Tables
• Appendix 2 The ''Simele'' Song
• Select Bibliography
• Index