ABSTRACT
At present there is relatively wide recognition that a genocide was perpetrated during World War I on Christian Assyrians (also known as Syriacs, Chaldeans and Arameans) in the shadow of the much more widespread and intensive Armenian Genocide. Scholarly research on this topic is, however, limited and undigested. This chapter discusses one of the complications of dealing with the Assyrian genocide, namely the inability to develop an iconic narrative of what happened in order to make a shared commemorative memory. During late Ottoman times, the Assyrian peoples were isolated from each other by territory, religion and dialect. In late Ottoman times, the various sects were noted for weak clerical leadership and were plagued by chronic internal strife. Perhaps because of this chaos, foreign missionaries found it easy to convert Assyrians. Genocide is in general not easy to explain. There are often multiple ideological, economic and social causes.
