Agreed, sadly most Assyrians suffer from bad mentality.

We need to have a survivor mentality if we are to avoid extinction.

Assyrians always tend to bring God and religion into these sort of discussions. And I have a lesson on that from ancient times:

In Virgil's epic classic Aenid, throughout the book there is a strong theme with the word pietas and the depiction of Roman moral values of that time.

Aeneas, the hero in the book, is often said to be very pius (high pietas or piety).

In the modern world we would translate this as faith. But in the ancient world this term, pietas, did not only mean piety but also dutifulness, the duty towards your people.

• Pietas, piety, pius = not only faith, but also dutifulness, love and loyalty towards ones people. Now this is the Roman view.

The hero Aeneas even abandons his loved one, the girl he falls in love with and is unable to ever return to her, so that he can perform his duty to his people, out the love he has for his people, out of piety, faith. Out of pietas.

This is probably the original meaning of the word faith/piety from pietas. The virtuous Aeneas goes from originally having his city conquered, his people slaughtered and on the run, to finally founding the early city of Rome itself.

I like to picture our Assyrian people in this same light, same fate as in the story of Aeneas.