Ninos Aho

Ninos Aho Poems

Ninos Aho Biography

Ninos Aho (April 24, 1945 – July 15, 2013), was an Assyrian poet and activist. Biography He was born to an Assyrian family in the small village of Gerkeh-Shamo in Syria. He moved to Qamishli and later to Damascus in order to continue his studies. In 1971, Aho emigrated to the United States. After residing in the United States for twenty years, Malfono Ninos returned to Syria with his wife, Ogareet, and their four children in order to authentically promote his belief in the Assyrian cause. In 2001, Aho and his family returned to the United States when Aho was diagnosed with Non-Hodgkin's Lymphoma, he died due to complications in July 15, 2013 in San Pedro, CA. Works and activism Aho was involved in Assyrian nationalist activism at an early age. He joined the Assyrian Democratic Organization in 1961 during an underground assembly. In order to circumvent official crackdown on non-Arab nationalist sentiments he utilized his poems to be recited by local Assyrian Orthodox church choirs in order to reach the public. He gained wider popularity after emigrating to the United States and his poems were performed by prominent Middle Eastern musicians such as Ninib A. Lahdo and Wadi al-Safi. Most of his poems like ''Grain of wheat (ܚܒܬܐ ܕܚܢܛܐ, Ḥabṯo D'Ḥeṭo) were written in Western Syriac vernacular, while others like New Assyrian (ܐܬܘܪܝܐ ܚܕܬܐ, Āturāyā Khātā) in the eastern vernacular.)

The Best Poem Of Ninos Aho

The New Assyrian

From the heart of fire
From the depths of eternity
From under the rocks to the peak of the mountain
From the words of the clouds in the heavens
A New Assyrian is born
From the burden of thousands of years
From hunger and thirst and destitution
From the lies of history
From the merchants of goals and nation, today he is free
For the deniers of rights
For the oppressors of nations
His greeting is a bullet and a bomb
And for those who forsake him, he has more
If you ask him where he is from, or to which church he belongs
He will answer you honestly,
'I am not Tyaraya and not Tkhomnaya,
I am not a son of the valleys nor a son of the mountains,
A Jacobite, a Chaldean, a Nestorian and a Presbyterian also I am not'
And with a firm voice he will tell you,
'I am an Assyrian'
He does not care how he lives, what he wears, and where he dies
And following in his footsteps, a new armed generation
Will come and speak the truth.
With his heart on his sleeve and his book always with him

preaching the nature and existence of Assyria
By force and by blood, and in the name of Ashur, he declares,
'Me? I was born before the earth and the sun
I existed before time; there is no death for me, nor end
I am Assyria's star, shining in the sky between the two rivers

I am the god Ashur,
I turn the wheel of time
I was the torch of light guiding the people of the world,
Is it true that today I do not exist and I am slowly vanishing?
No and one thousand no's!
Assyria endures and time will be silenced
Assyria endures and history will bow
Assyria endures and its tower will rise
Assyria endures and will never fall'

Ninos Aho Comments