DECEMBER 2023

FEATURE
Dr. Sabah Yacoub, Saad Murad,
Dr. Adhid Miri, Weam Namou,
and Roy Gessford.
Beth al-Nahrain
2nd Annual Writers of Mesopotamia Conference
BY ADHID YOUSIF MIRI, PHD
The Chaldean Community Foundation,
in partnership with the
Chaldean Heritage Center in
West Bloomfield (Shenandoah Country
Club), took the initiative to host the
second annual Mesopotamian Writers
Conference (Beth al-Nahrain) on Saturday,
November 11 in the Wireless Vision
Gymnasium located in the Chaldean
Community Foundation building
in Sterling Heights.
This gathering was attended by several
participating writers and guests
interested in literature, poetry, culture,
and heritage. The symposium covered
different topics, and participating writers
made brief presentations. Roy Gessford,
who has been studying the Aramaic
language for years, talked about
developing new writers in the Aramaic-speaking
community. Saad Murad
spoke about writing about the Yazidi
genocide and survival. Weam Namou,
executive director of the Chaldean
Cultural Center, addressed the legendary
women of Mesopotamia. Dr. Sabah
Yaqoub spoke about certain aspects of
Arabic poetry, and Dr. Adhid Youssef
Miri shared the experience of writing,
the importance of education, and the
Chaldean identity.
Roy Gessford
Roy Gessford is the author of Preserving
Chaldean Aramaic, an English
teacher, publisher, Aramaic educator,
public speaker, and founder of Let
the Light Shine Through Publishing,
which he founded for the purpose of
sharing knowledge with others and
encouraging aspiring authors to submit
and print completed language
manuscripts.
In his presentation, Roy discussed
This gathering was
attended by several
participating writers
and guests interested
in literature, poetry,
culture, and heritage.
in detail the practical steps and studies
that he took to educate himself and
enhance his strong desire to preserve
the precious Aramaic language, which
he considers the mother of all languages.
He believes the history of humanity
has been intertwined with this
language since ancient times.
Gessford highlighted his passion
and love for languages and explained
the reasons that started his personal
journey to learn the Aramaic language
(which according to Roy is an
endangered language worth saving)
through an experimental project to
teach the Aramaic language in cooperation
with Chaldean Father Michael
Bazzi in San Diego, California.
In 2013, he began publishing Bazzi’s
books that deal with heritage
and linguistic topics such as modern
and classical Aramaic, Chaldean, the
village of Tel Kaif, and the speakers
of variations of Aramaic languages
such as Chaldean, Syriac, Assyrian,
Hebrew, Arabic, Nabataean, and other
Semitic languages.
Gessford concluded by summarizing
his findings and made recommendations
for future researchers and
academics to encourage students and
those interested in learning the Aramaic
language to contact him directly.
Saad Murad
A journalist and human rights activist,
Saad Murad has the passion and
ambition to highlight the plight of
the Yazidis in Iraq and hopes to bring
change and develop awareness about
the genocide of the 21st century. He
currently serves as a board member of
Yazda (the International Yazidi Organization)
and the Yazidi Cultural Center
in Lincoln, Nebraska. Previously, he
held pivotal roles as Director of Media
and Communications at Yazda and as
Media and Administrative Director for
Yazidi activist and 2018 Nobel Peace
Prize laureate, Nadia Murad.
Saad provided a detailed perspective
not only about his work, his
personal journey—a testament to his
resilience, having survived the 2014
genocide in Sinjar during ISIS attacks
on Yazidis. He presented a comprehensive
and clear historical picture of
the extent of the Yazidi tragedy that
resulted from ISIS campaigns and the
ongoing decrees in Sinjar and Tal Afar,
as well as tragedies that resulted from
the massive killings in Yazidi villages
and people as well as victims of captivity
and what they were subjected to at
the hands of ISIS members after they
took control of the area in August 2014.
Murad was an eyewitness and victim
of that tragedy and listed evidence
and pictures which included a set of
compelling documents of the genocide,
the mass graves of women, children,
and the elderly.
He stated that although government
forces expelled the organization
from the judiciary in November 2015,
the conditions still lack security and
stability because of rivalry between
the armed groups in the Nineveh Plain
region. This reflects negatively on the
services and the faltering reconstruction
campaigns, which leads to the
reluctance of the displaced citizens to
return to their homes.
“The federal government in Baghdad
is ineffective,” said Murad. “We have repeatedly
asked our government to support
survivors and their families without
success. The displacement camps are
hours away from Sinjar, and these camps
represent an extension of the genocide
that is tearing apart the entire fabric of
Yazidi society. An entire generation of
Yazidis remains without access to appropriate
education, job opportunities, or
basic rights such as personal privacy and
freedom of belief. They need government
aid and compensation.”
There are about 3,000 Yazidis
based in the state of Nebraska and a
small group living in the city of Lansing,
Michigan.
Weam Namou
Weam is the Executive Director of the
Chaldean Cultural Center, an author
of 16 books, and an award-winning
film director of two feature films. The
first is a documentary called The Great
American Family, and the second is a
feature film called Pomegranate. She
is also the winner of the Eric Hoover
Award and an ambassador for the Authors
Guild of American Books, which
is the largest and oldest book organi-
CONFERENCE continued on page 26
24 CHALDEAN NEWS DECEMBER 2023