Webster defines diaspora as people settled far from their ancestral homelands (and states that it is a noun).
What is the Ancient diaspora?
It’s the diaspora of the Ancients (Mesopotamia [Iraq, Iran, Syria, Turkey]) – easily put. We’ve coined the term diaspora as a negative term and a place (the west) to describe the current state of our “situation” (I put that in quotation marks because many have left to the west and will never turn back, so is it a situation or more a permanent decision?). Let’s get back to the negative connotation I mentioned, why is it that? The diaspora signifies the living of a person who is not in their motherland and what does that cause? Inevitable assimilation. Next degree, assimilation causes inevitable loss of community (becoming individualistic with goals), heritage, culture, language, identity, and extinction of indigenous peoples. But let's not sulk on the negative aspect because in anything there is beauty and strength. We tend to always look at the worst as humans and it hinders us from seeing the advantage points that have been gained through situations.
Let me introduce to you, the beauty of the Ancient Diaspora. I have been referring to it so much lately and it kept growing on me over the years. There are so many strengths that have developed from leaving a place of suffering to changing your environment and rebuilding. I have a special niche for somehow finding talented Assyrians and Arabs from around the world through social media. And the best part, they are geographically rooted from Mesopotamia (I use the word Mesopotamia because Assyrians are not only from Iraq, but from Iran, Syria, Turkey and the surrounding areas – “Mesopotamia”). If I say Iraq, I leave out a huge amount who don’t identify with Iraq. If I say Assyria, I leave out a huge population who identifies with the history and heritage of Mesopotamia (as Assyria was one piece of the empires). The beautiful and complex melting pot of the Ancient world, Mesopotamia.
How do we perfectly blend between two lives?
Our parents & grandparents immigrated, leaving everything behind never to look back and built their new lives in their new home. They fully closed one chapter and moved on to the next. How do we maneuver this balance between the two worlds? I was born in America, but it is not home. I lived in Iraq, but I wasn’t allowed to rebuild my roots fully there because I had family and my “new gifted and privileged” life in the west. Our parents worked so hard and sacrificed so much for us to seemingly throw it all away. So how do we take our beautiful roots and intricately mesh them with our new life in the west with continuity for generations to come? How much do we allow ourselves to integrate before it has turned into full assimilation (my writing asks a lot of open-ended questions because I don’t have the answers, but I hope it sparks conversations)?
The Ancient diaspora – an intertwined webbed ecosystem stretching all over the world
What does this ecosystem mean for us?
It means constantly digitally connecting with others like ourselves.
It means becoming friends online first before meeting in person.
It means searching for comfort wherever you go.
It means searching for your people in every location.
It means yearning to find your people in every waking moment.
It means finding a home in your people wherever you are in the world, even as complete strangers. Because the notion of “strangers” does not exist within your people.
It means digging and prying into someone’s family history and tribes to find a connection.
It means taking what we learn in the west and somehow putting our own eastern twist on it.
It means dancing sheikhani and dabke at the end of the night in a McDonald’s parking lot.
It means asking complete strangers if they are the same as you.
It means covering yourself in tattoos of your heritage (I’m biased on this one).
It means solely listening to Fairuz on Friday mornings wherever you are in the world (as I am typing this, I had to switch my Spotify playlist to Fairuz).
It means instantly kicking into high-gear when tragedy hits and come together to help.
It means trying to find love within your own community before searching elsewhere.
It means that the inside of your home is not assimilated, not one bit.
It means not being understood by many in the west.
It means having this deep-rooted yearning to see and feel the motherland.
It means instantly having a wide network of homes all around the world.
It means having a sisterhood/brotherhood wherever you go.
It means having our own Airbnb style network around the world, but it's not with strangers.
There’s a beautiful network of online friends that become lasting relationships (sometimes even leading to marriage). There’s also a heartbreaking reality that our closest friends are spread around the whole world instead of in our neighborhood. We meet at weddings, events, conventions and then go back to our far away distant homes.
What should the Ancient diaspora do?
Stay connected, stay close to your community and culture, and stay true to yourself. Many generations suffered so that you can stand tall and know your roots. Don’t let one generation be the silencer of the hundreds of previous generations.
Stay curious, stay open to learning and understanding, and be steadfast in your journey.
And most importantly, if you were born in the diaspora, make it a birthright trip of yours to return to the motherland at least once.
An anecdotal experience I had just a couple of weeks ago in Brooklyn, New York.
I was out at a show in Brooklyn with a friend. She invited a few other friends (all Assyrians) and instantly we asked where each other is from, where were you raised, what village are your parents from. Peter, a 26-year-old from California who is studying in NY was a special find. I kept digging to see where he was from and I realized he is from the same village of my mother. I pried a little more and got his grandfather’s name and sent it to my mom. Turns out his grandfather and my grandfather (maternal side), were best friends in Urmia, Iran. Our moms grew up together, my mother’s exact words were “we were one family”. Who would have thought, our 2 grandparents, best friends – their 2 grandchildren would meet outside of the motherland in Brooklyn, one at 26 years old and the other 34 years old.
Our generation has a lot of heavy lifting to do as the damaging effects of the diaspora settle in. We will have to always be on the continuous search to find one another and connect. It is a task we didn’t want, but we must accept. And with every find, we connect this web with another thread making it stronger.
As an ode to the diaspora, my collection releasing next week is called “Ancient Diaspora” where western pieces are taken, but with a Mesopotamian theme. This is my most proud collection release because of the intricate details and aspects of each design. Every line, every word, every ink mark has a depth of meaning.
I want to leave you with some motivating quotes that I have come across overtime.
“They thought they could bury us, they didn’t know they were planting seeds.” – Dinos Christianopoulos
“When my seeds blossom, I will rise.” – Mother Assyria
“The Assyrian revival is here. Every day we find more talented Assyrians flourishing in their field. They thought pushing us to the diaspora would kill us – it only gave us time to come back stronger.” – A Diasporian
"When we see us, when we truly recognize us, we begin to see the true potential and power that is engraved in all of us." – A Mesopotamian
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