Ishtartv.com - syriacpress.com

 25/11/2025

BRATISLAVA — At the Conservative Summit in Bratislava, amid a swirl of ideological debates and policy declarations, one intervention cut through the ambient noise with the precision of lived history. Metin Rhawi — grandson of Sayfo survivors, foreign affairs chief of the European Syriac Union (ESU) — spoke for a people long scattered and too often dismissed as a footnote of the Middle East. His message landed with the weight of an overdue reckoning: survival requires power, not pity. 

Raised in Södertälje, the Swedish city where tens of thousands of Syriacs (Arameans-Chaldeans-Assyrians) rebuilt their lives after a century of persecution, Rhawi carries the intergenerational ache of a nation torn from its homeland. His political path began not in the halls of think tanks or diplomatic academies, but at home, listening to stories his grandmother could barely articulate without trembling. He recalls being five years old when she first told him how her two younger brothers were murdered in 1915 during the Syriac Genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks and allied Kurdish tribes. She lived her entire life clothed in black — a quiet sentinel of grief. “These stories shaped my sense of justice,” Rhawi says to Breizh-Info. They followed him into adolescence, echoed by tales of his father being beaten during military service in Turkey, “simply because he was Christian.” 

The turning point came later, in 2004, after viewing The Silent Scream, a documentary chronicling the unspoken history of his people. “After watching it, I knew I couldn’t stay passive,” he says. “I had to act for the dignity and recognition of my people.” 

A Fragmented People on the Edge 

As ESU foreign affairs lead, Rhawi identifies the most urgent threat facing Syriacs not as an enemy from outside, but a long slow erosion from within: fragmentation. After World War I, the ancient homeland of our people was split among the modern states of Turkey, Iraq, and Syria. In each, they faced double vulnerability — persecuted as Christians and erased as indigenous peoples. Their language was banned; their political representation hollowed out; their identity diluted by the geopolitical whims of larger powers. 

European missionary activity, often framed as benevolent in Western narratives, left deep scars. “Missionaries converted people who were already Christian, our own people,” Rhawi says. Far from expanding Christianity, they splintered a millennia-old people into new denominational rivalries. Many Suryoye still feel that Western Christians instinctively favor Catholic or Protestant groups, marginalizing Eastern traditions. Trust fractures linger. 

Yet he credits France with a rare exception. After WWI, French influence in Syria allowed Christian communities to form political, cultural, and educational institutions. “We hope today’s France continues to support a diverse and multi-confessional Syria,” he says, invoking the ideals of fraternity, equality, and liberty that once shaped French engagement in the region. 

Sayfo: A Wound Without Resolution

For over a century, the Sayfo Genocide has remained suspended in a kind of moral limbo. What is missing, Rhawi insists, is not academic debate or partial acknowledgment, but “clear, official recognition — and an apology.” He outlines the responsibilities with a forensic clarity: Turkey must acknowledge the genocide committed by the Ottoman Empire. Iraq must confront the 1933 Simele massacre. The Syrian regime must reckon with decades of enforced docility and cultural repression. Even Lebanon saw tens of thousands perish during the famine [“Kafno”] caused by Ottoman blockades and expropriations in 1915. 

Recognition is existential. “When the genocide is denied,” he says, “our identity is denied. Our history is denied. Our status as an indigenous people is denied.” Without formal recognition, reconciliation becomes impossible — and without reconciliation, the descendants of victims and perpetrators remain trapped in a cycle of unresolved distrust. “Reconciliation is not sentimentality,” he insists. “It is the only path to a just and peaceful future.” 

The Reality on the Ground Defies Western Narratives

During his visits to Arba’ilo (Erbil), the Nineveh Plains, and Syria, Rhawi witnessed conditions that sharply contradict Western claims of protecting minorities after the defeat of the Islamic State. Western governments, he argues, mistake symbolic reconstruction for political security. “Rebuilding a church here, a house there — that doesn’t secure our future.” Communities need political authority: their own administration, decision-making autonomy, and local security forces drawn from their own population. 

In Iraq, even the parliamentary seats reserved for Christians are routinely exploited by external political factions. “We cannot even choose our own representatives,” Rhawi says. “This undermines the very foundation of democracy.” 

Syria offers a starker distortion. Fewer than 10,000 people effectively selected the country’s current parliament, a body appointed rather than elected. According to 2012 statistics, nearly 15 million Syrians should have been eligible to vote. “The contrast speaks for itself,” he says. 

Autonomy for the Nineveh Plains — Not a Dream, but a Necessity

The European Syriac Union has long pressed for administrative autonomy in the Nineveh Plains. Rhawi believes the objective remains entirely realistic. “Yes, absolutely,” he says. In 2017, during a conference at the European Parliament, eight political parties endorsed the proposal, with more joining in the years since. For him, autonomy is not a speculative vision but a practical prerequisite for survival. “Without political authority,” he says, “we will always remain vulnerable.” 

Selective Solidarity: A Strategy of Survival, Not Retreat 

Rhawi often speaks about “selective solidarity” — the idea of welcoming persecuted Christians into Europe for protection, while also encouraging return once safety is restored. For him, this is not contradictory but essential. 

His reasoning is anchored in a sober reality: if every displaced Syriac (Aramean-Assyrian-Chaldean) person stays abroad, the Middle East will lose one of its oldest Christian communities. A people cannot survive without a homeland. 

“We need Europe’s help,” he says. “But we also need the opportunity to live — and remain — where our ancestors lived. 

Metin Rhawi’s words in Bratislava were not delivered with anger, nor with nostalgia. They carried the tone of a leader aware that history can still pivot, but only if acknowledged fully. His people have survived genocide, political marginalization, and decades of forced silence. Their endurance is not a miracle; it is a daily act of will. 

What Rhawi demands is simple: recognition, protection, and the political tools for self-determination. Middle Eastern Christians, he warns, “cannot survive on humanitarian aid alone.” They require rights, not rescue — structures, not slogans — and the world’s willingness to see them not as relics of biblical history, but as citizens with a future still worth fighting for 

His message, delivered beneath the chandeliers of a European summit, is ultimately a plea for moral clarity: a reminder that the survival of an ancient people rests not on charity, but on justice.