The University of California, Berkeley has recently introduced an Assyrian heritage and history course within their Near East Studies Department (NES).

Albeit a tremendous feat and mission to undertake, there were some glaring and concerning issues with both the course description and the professor who is set to instruct it.

First, we look at the "course description"  had laid out for the instruction of the class:

• He claims that Assyrians have numerous different names that they chose. This could not be more wrong. We are one Assyrian people who have been given different names by those groups who opposed us. One such term is "Nestorian," which was introduced by our theological rivals (the "Jacobites" or "Monophysites") who reduced all our teachings to Saint Nestorius because of his close relationship with a school that was located in Antioch (see: https://www.academia.edu/22095031/The_Assyrians_A_Historical_and_Current_Reality). It was never a term we used to refer to ourselves. Anyone who knows Assyrian history and would teach it from an Assyrian perspective would never use the names our enemies have given us to refer to us.
• He claims that Assyrians "see" themselves as a minority. This is an erroneous statement. We do not see ourselves as the minority; we ARE the minority. As a first-generation Assyrian here in the United States, my family and countless other Assyrians have suffered harrowing atrocities throughout our history within the Middle East. Most recently, via ISIS and other extremist groups/governments. This is why we are considered a diaspora, and to have the course description state that we "see" ourselves is not only a deplorable use of semantics but outright disrespectful.

Second, we feel that has suspicious motives aimed at usurping Assyrian history. To help better illustrate this, we look to history:

• In May 2019, was invited to speak at a conference (and accepted) organized by the Kurd-run University of Salahuddin in Erbil, Iraq, about "Christianity in Kurdistan." This conference expunged any references to Assyrians, either by name or in the flesh. This is part of the Kurdish attempt to rewrite Assyrian history and deny Assyrian Indigenous presence and identity, exactly the kind of view that UCB is trying to counteract by creating this course.
• is also affiliated with the Institut Français du Proche-Orient (IPFO), an organization whose academics partnered with Dr. Narmin Ali Muhammad Amin, Professor of Archeology at the University of Salahaddin. Dr. Amin promoted the erasure and Kurdification of Assyrian Christianity history and identity. Working in tandem with those who would deny Assyrian culture does not bode well for those who would seek to teach it.
• This same conference had representatives of the Ataturk Council of Supreme Culture, a Turkish Nationalist organization, that were invited to speak about the Assyrian population of Hakkari, a population that was murdered, butchered, and expelled during the Seyfo or Assyrian Genocide of 1915. To be in the presence of such a speech would only parallel listening to the children of Nazis talking about Jewish settlement in Berlin.

It is evident here that is neither Assyrian nor interested in genuinely educating others on Assyrian history and heritage.

Bear in mind that this course was made possible by the generous donation of Ms. Nora Bet Lacey, who is an Assyrian woman. It is a shame and outright disrespectful to her that an individual such as M a non-Assyrian who opposes Assyrian history, was chosen to lead a course made possible by an Assyrian.

Thus in closing, we Assyrians request the replacement of with a more knowledgeable and fair academic who has no hidden agenda or mission of ethnic erasure. For too long have we face continuous persecution in our homeland, and the last thing we wish is to have the dissemination of false information within Academia on who Assyrians really are.