The ethnic group concerned includes members of the Syrian Orthodox Church, the Church of the East (also known as Nestorian), the Uniate Chaldean Church, and Protestant and Catholic derivates of these organizations. From the start the Swedes called them Assyrians, but after a few years it became increasingly clear that that term was controversial, and newcomers vehemently insisted on being called Syriacs. Since the late 1960s Christians from the Middle East have formed a large immigrant group in Sweden. This year as the rivalry grew intense Syrianska supporters turned to violence against the slightly more successful Assyriska team, which now has the best chance to move up. First, their enormous flag (which is also the Assyrian national flag) was destroyed before a match between Assyriska and Syrianska, then after an Assyriska victory an arsonist torched the building of the Assyrian Cultural Association, and lately one of the Assyrian players was brutally assaulted by several persons when he stumbled into the wrong sports bar wearing his team-jacket 1.
Both started as amateur immigrant clubs recruiting mostly Oriental Christians. They are the Assyriska FF founded in 1974 and the Syrianska FC founded in 1977, which have been running neck and neck in results. The feud has been going on since the 1970s and shows no sign of abating.Īs the Swedish 2009 football season draws to a close, two second division football clubs from Södertälje have a chance to advance into the highest division.
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And this split permeates choices of what church to attend, what name to call the language, what alphabet to use in writing, what TV channel to watch, what football team to root for, and so on. As a tip-of-the-iceberg symbolism the immigrants have divided over what name they should call themselves – should it be “Assyrians’ or “Syriacs’. The disagreement is not only verbal, but also expresses itself in arson, physical abuse, and even deaths. But one of the most puzzling aspects of this mass immigration is the extremely aggressive disagreement between the people over their identity, which hinders their collective integration into Swedish society. Entire villages and extended families have settled close to each other in new suburbs of the towns and cities of central Sweden. Instead the Christians have fled to Western Europe: to Belgium, Germany and Holland, but especially to Sweden. Large tracts of eastern Anatolia that previously had a significant presence of unique Christian sects, is now literally empty of them. One of the most remarkable features of modern Turkish history is the nearly complete exodus of its non-Muslim inhabitants.