mar 1, 2009
http://www.aina.org/news/20090228185011.htm
the assyrians are an ancient group from mesopotamia that has been decimated. if i am not mistaken, i think they were forced into christism at some point, and later the mohammedans started massacring them. sad fate for the descendants of mighty emperors like the law-giver hammurabi and asshurbanipal.
i remember being startled while walking around the baroque and impressive city hall in san francisco, when i came across a sculpture of asshurbanipal, "donated to the city by the assyrian people". i had thought them extinct, but they do exist as a stateless, oppressed minority group.
incidentally, the limeys made a deliberate falsification (one of many): they decreed manu as equivalent to hammurabi in terms of being a codifier of laws. in point of fact, manu was nothing of the sort: he was merely expressing a minority opinion in manusmrti, which never had any particular sanctity.
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