One Genocide, many strategies
07 / 03 / 2010
The genocide was one event and we should first seek joint action and strategy among ourselves as Greeks and then act together uniting our own strengths and efforts with Armenians and Assyrians in order to achieve justice.
After many decades of silence, the Greek people gradually began to develop a historical consciousness on what exactly occurred in the second decade of the 20th century when Christian populations disappeared from Thrace, Pontus and Asia Minor; regions where in the early 20th century Christians made up about 35% of the population but today number not even 1%. The genocide of the Christian populations of Anatolia was a satanic undertaking, which depended on ONE SINGLE PLAN and was committed by identical mechanisms. The victims were Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks.
Armenians who survived the murderous sword of the Turks were scattered across the length and breadth of the world because there did not exist an Armenian state to accept the remains of Anatolian Armenians, unlike Anatolian Greeks who either as fugitives or exchangeable refugees settled in Greece. Assyrians who survived fled to neighbouring countries and to some countries in Europe, while a small number tried to survive in Constantinople, where the Turkish state could not easily apply its noted genocidal practices.
The lack of motherland and national state might have been one of the reasons that prompted Armenians to begin the struggle for justice and international recognition of the genocide following the overthrow (1918) of the Young Turk triumvirate, Enver, Talaat and Jemal who drove 1,500,000 Armenians to their deaths.
The Assyrians, a small but peace-loving people, simply fought for survival.
The Greeks?
After five decades of silence, a silence imposed by the Hellenic state to serve the idea of Greek-Turkish friendship, the Greeks of Anatolia, chiefly second-generation refugees with Pontians at the forefront, gradually began to assert the demand for remembrance. After struggles and conflicts against unacceptable reasons which brought Hellenism to the brink of disaster, regarding resistance to the Turkish threat, we Pontians succeeded in bringing to the public stage the issue of historic remembrance and the demand for justice. And the struggle continues.
Four years after May 19th was recognised as a remembrance day for the genocide of Pontic Greeks, the second-generation refugees from Smyrna and Asia Minor won the right to remembrance when the Greek parliament voted unanimously on a law establishing September 14th as a remembrance day for the genocide of Greeks of Asia Minor by the Turkish state. Last year, Thracian societies operating in the U.S. organised events for the genocide of Greeks of Eastern Thrace by the Turkish state at the beginning of the second decade of the 20th century.
In other words, while the genocide was one event for Armenians, Assyrians and Greeks, we observe many disjointed efforts made for its recognition. And that this division is not only between different nations but even within the Greek family itself.
Of course, there are some reasons that explain what drove us to this point. The most obvious is that if we spoke about the genocide of Greeks of Thrace, Pontus and Asia Minor, Turks could ‘justify’ their crimes by invoking the presence of the Hellenic army in Asia Minor. Naturally, there is a reply, for the genocide had been decided upon from 1911 and had started to be widely implemented from 1913, while Hellenic troops landed in Smyrna in May 1919.
In any event, regardless of the reasons which brought about these choices, it is very difficult to press the issue of international recognition of the genocide, when speaking separately about the genocide of Greeks of Pontus, separately about the genocide of Greeks of Thrace and separately about the Genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor.
The genocide was one event and we should first seek joint action and strategy among ourselves as Greeks and then act together uniting our own strengths and efforts with Armenians and Assyrians in order to achieve justice.
And for this specific case, we can turn to the Ancients, who had said there is “strength in unity”.
Pontiaki Gnomi, Sep 2009 | Savvas Kalenteridis
07 / 03 / 2010 | Tags: GENOCIDE |
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