Posted on 05/26/2012 2:15:18 PM PDT by Ravnagora
Book Review of The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks
Studies on the State Sponsored Campaign of Extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor (1912-1922) and Its Aftermath: History, Law, Memory
Edited by Tessa Hofmann, Matthias Bjørnlund and Vasileios Meichanetsidis
ORDERS: Caratzas web site:
http://www.caratzas.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=531
BOOK REVIEW by Modern Tokyo Times
The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks (www.caratzas.com) is a book which digs deep into the deplorable actions of the dying embers of the Ottoman Empire and the foundation of the Turkish Republic which systematically annihilated various Christian communities. These various Christian communities were the indigenous people and suffered such brutality because of their ethnicity and religious affiliation. However, in the vast majority of schools throughout Europe and further abroad, this “hidden genocide” remains “in the dark” because of enormous pressure from modern Turkey and other factors.
Like the title of the book implies, the area covered is the genocide of the Greek community. Indeed, this is the first academic publication on the Greek genocide therefore it will serve to be a valuable source of information. The brutality that occurred during this period of history is unimaginable and clearly it is essential that a major academic publication deals with this very important subject. Therefore, The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks fills this academic gap and sheds light on a genocide which needs more international attention.
On the Greek Genocide website it is stated that “During the years 1914-1923, whilst the attention of the international community focused on the turmoil and aftermath of the First World War, the indigenous Greek minority of the Ottoman Empire, the Republic of Turkey’s predecessor, was subjected to a centrally-organized, premeditated and systematic policy of annihilation. This genocide, orchestrated to ensure an irreversible end to the collective existence of Turkey’s Greek population, was perpetrated by two consecutive governments; the Committee for Union and Progress, better known as the Young Turks, and the nationalist Kemalists led by Mustafa Kemal “Atatürk”. A lethal combination of internal deportations involving death marches and massacres conducted throughout Ottoman Turkey resulted in the death of one million Ottoman Greeks.”
William Ramsay, a British ethnographer, visited the Ottoman Empire and clearly he understood what Turkish Muslim rule meant. He commented that the “Turkish rule…meant unutterable contempt…The Armenians (and Greeks) were dogs and pigs…to be spat upon, if their shadow darkened a Turk, to be outraged, to be the mats on which he wiped the mud from his feet. Conceive the inevitable result of centuries of slavery, of subjection to insult and scorn, centuries in which nothing belonged to the Armenian, neither his property, his house, his life, his person, nor his family, was sacred or safe from violence – capricious, unprovoked violence – to resist which by violence meant death.”
Henry Morgenthau, the ambassador of the United States (1913-1916) to the Ottoman Empire, stated that the policies of the Turkish government led to “outrageous terrorizing, cruel torturing, driving of women into harems, debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at 80 cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands, [and] the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities”, all part of “the willful execution”
Comments and areas covered by the book titled The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks
“The period of transition from the collapse of the Ottoman Empire to the foundation of the Turkish Republic was characterized by a number of processes largely guided by a narrow elite that aimed at constructing a modern, national state. One of these processes was the deliberate and planned elimination, indeed extermination, of the Christian (and certain other) minorities. According to demographic studies, the numbers are stark: In 1912 the areas of Asia Minor and Thrace were inhabited by about 4-5 million Christians and 7-8 million Muslims; by 1923 only 250-300,000 Christians remained.”
“Raphael Lemkin, the legal scholar who introduced the term genocide into international law, formulated his early ideas on the definition of this war crime by studying the destruction of the Christians of Asia Minor, while the distinguished Turcologist Neoklis Sarris has noted that the annihilation of the Christian minorities represented an integral element in the formation of the Turkish Republic. As the editors of this volume note the 2007 resolution by the International Association of Genocide Scholars, recognizing the Greek and Assyrian Genocides suggests a wider range of victim groups. This volume therefore represents an effort to provide an outline and a direction of a more extensive study of the deliberate destruction and elimination of a Greek presence that spanned over three millennia, in the space that became the Turkish Republic.” [http://www.greek-genocide.org/iags_resolution.html]
“The last two decades have seen a massive amount of research of the genocide of the Armenian population in the Ottoman/Turkish space. Much less scholarly work has been done on the genocide of the Greeks of Asia Minor and Thrace; there are many reasons for this, including the fact that Turkish governments have been successful in intimidating diplomats in the context of Turkish-Greek relations of the last generation, and of subverting academic integrity (inducing some scholars to make a career as denialists supported by international NGOs, all in the name of countering nationalism).”
“The volume includes article contributions on the areas subtitled: Historical Overview, Documentation, Interpretation; Representations and Law; Genocide Education; Memorialization; Conceptualization; and a very extensive Bibliography”
Conclusion
This book is essential reading for all people who are concerned about the genocide of Christians by Turkish rulers. The denial of the genocide encouraged Adolf Hitler because he stated “Who, after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians? Therefore, the book called The Genocide of the Ottoman Greeks is a must read in order to fully understand the brutal reality of what happened to the Ottoman Greeks and other minorities.
ORDERS:
Caratzas web site:
http://www.caratzas.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=product.display&product_ID=531
Amazon:
http://www.amazon.com/Genocide-Ottoman-Greeks-Extermination-Christians/dp/0892416157/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1323875017&sr=8-1
Caratzas/Melissa Books
www.caratzas.com
caratzasmelissabooks@gmail.com
*****
So during the period in which the Turks were killing a million-plus Armenians, they were also busy killing hundreds of thousands of Christian Assyrians, and another million Greeks.
If you look at the various holocausts as a single whole, you have a decade-long slaughter of Christians that added up to several millions, with millions more fleeing into exile.
It’s about time this information comes out.
Thanks Ravnagora.
Smyrna burning during the Fire of Smyrna. Thousands of Greeks and Armenians were killed in the fire and accompanying massacres by the Turks.
Ottoman Genocide against Christian Minorities: General Comments and Sources
“It is believed that in Turkey between 1913 and 1922, under the successive regimes of the Young Turks and of Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk), more than 3.5 million Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Christians were massacred in a state-organized and state-sponsored campaign of destruction and genocide, aiming at wiping out from the emerging Turkish Republic its native Christian populations. This Christian Holocaust is viewed as the precursor to the Jewish Holocaust in WWII. To this day, the Turkish government ostensibly denies having committed this genocide.”
Prof. Israel Charney, President of the IAGS
“Turks admit that the Armenian persecution is the first step in a plan to get rid of Christians, and that Greeks would come next. … Turkey henceforth is to be for Turks alone.”
Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, quoting the New York Times, September 14, 1915.
“While the death toll in the trenches of Western Europe were close to 2 million by the summer of 1915, the extermination of innocent civilians in Turkey (the Armenians, but also Syrian and Assyrian Christians and large portions of the Greek population, especially the Greeks of Pontos, or Black Sea region) was reaching 1 million.”
Peter Balakian, The Burning Tigris, p. 285-286.
In an article for the August 1, 1926 edition of the Los Angeles Examiner, Mustafa Kemal (Ataturk) also affirms the slaughters. Kemal writes:
“those … left-over from the former Young Turkish Party, … should have been made to account for the lives of millions of our Christian subjects who were ruthlessly driven en masse, from their homes and massacred …”
GENOCIDES CHRISTIAN POPULATIONS...
It's rare that I discover a brand new subject in 20th Century Western History.
This puts the Armenian genocide in a completely new light for me.
Muslim versus Christian.
Previously, I had read about the Armenian tragedy only in the context of World War One.
I assumed they were just one more unlucky ethnic group that found itself in the middle of someone else’s brutal civil war.
Thanks for the ping.
Syrian Terrorists Train in Kosovo
Posted on May 4, 2012 by friends of kosova
Syrian “Opposition” Studies Terror Tactics in Kosovo: Free Syrian Army (FSA) and Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) Join Hands
A delegation of Syrian rebels has made a deal with Pristina authorities to exchange experience on partisan warfare. The Syrian opposition is sending militants to Kosovo for adopting tactics and being trained to oust President Bashar Assad’s regime.
On April 26, a delegation of Syrian opposition members made a stop in Pristina on their way from the US to hold talks on how to make use of the experience of the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) in Syria, reports the Associated Press.
So far, a poorly-organized Syrian opposition has proven unable to self-organize and form a steady front against the forces of President Assad.
Terror tactics used by militants allow them to kill military and governmental officials, but do not help to hold positions against a regular army.
“We come here to learn. Kosovo has walked this path and has an experience that would be very useful for us,” says the head of the Syrian delegation Ammar Abdulhamid, a Syrian-born human rights activist and dissident. “In particular, we’d like to know how scattered armed groups were finally organized into the KLA.”
Syrian opposition leaders have promised to immediately recognize Kosovo once they seize power in the country.
“We’re in vital need of joint actions as a coalition opposition,” stressed Ammar Abdulhamid, a long-time opponent of the Syria’s President Bashar Assad. In 2005, he left Syria to settle in the US.
The training camp on the Albanian-Kosovo border that has welcomed Syrian attendees was originally organized by the US to help the KLA train its fighters.
The Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) was considered a terrorist organization by the US, the UK and France for years until, in 1998, it was taken off the list of terrorists with no explanation given. The KLA used to have up to 10 per cent of underage fighters in its ranks.
There were numerous reports of the KLA having contacts with Al-Qaeda, getting arms from that terrorist organization, getting its militants trained in Al-Qaeda camps in Pakistan and even having members of Al-Qaeda in its ranks fighting against Serbs.
In 1998-1999 Kosovo separatists started an armed conflict with Belgrade to split the Kosovo region from Serbia. The war in the region was marked with mass atrocities and executions of the civilian population. Most of the Serbs that used to live in Kosovo became refugees.
In 2008, 10 years after the beginning of armed conflict with Serbia, Kosovo unilaterally proclaimed independence from Belgrade. Kosovo’s independence has been recognized by leading Western countries, most members of NATO and countries associated with the bloc.
The same horrors that were witnessed during the war in Kosovo are now apparently being prepared for the multi-confessional Syrian population by Islamist Syrian Liberation Army trained in Muslim Kosovo in the middle of Europe....
http://friendsofkosovo.wordpress.com/2012/05/04/syrian-terrorists-train-in-kosovo/
In Memory Of The 50 Million Victims Of The Orthodox Christian Holocaust
Compiled by Rev. Archimandrite Nektarios Serfes
Boise, Idaho
U.S.A.
October 1999
http://www.serfes.org/printerVersion2.asp?URL=/orthodox/memoryof.htm
Hillary’s people!
This makes you wonder how long there has been a cover up of moslem attrocities.
William Ramsay, a British ethnographer, visited the Ottoman Empire and clearly he understood what Turkish Muslim rule meant. He commented that the “Turkish rule…meant unutterable contempt…The Armenians (and Greeks) were dogs and pigs…to be spat upon, if their shadow darkened a Turk, to be outraged, to be the mats on which he wiped the mud from his feet. Conceive the inevitable result of centuries of slavery, of subjection to insult and scorn, centuries in which nothing belonged to the Armenian, neither his property, his house, his life, his person, nor his family, was sacred or safe from violence – capricious, unprovoked violence – to resist which by violence meant death.”
The descriptions of the maltreatment of the Greeks is almost a word-for-word discription of how sharia instructs moslems to treat dhimmis. I have read many such discriptions on the many anti-jihad websites. These horrors have been going on for over a thousand years.
So the Greeks were betrayed for Turkish oil, even back then.
Is there a pattern here? Are Christians always going to be sacrificed to moslems by western political/money interests?
My maternal grandmother came here with an Armenian lady who said she saw people impaled on sticks.
I think the Armenians had the worst of it because they were wealthy.
Turks stole their property and money.... THEN killed them outright.
Greeks in Asia Minor were not typically wealthy but had been there for thousands of years.
My grandmother's two boys starved to death and she came here with only a daughter. All her other daughters were subsequently born in the US. My mom included.
They arrived here with ABSOLUTELY nothing. They were screened for their health and fitness to work. Then they were instructed in English (enough to be able to take the oath of allegiance to the US and to be able to read a ballot.)
NOW it's different.
My thoughts are that all Christian refugees should be welcomed to America. Muslims should be deported that are here, and those trying to get here should be stopped.
Islam brings death wherever it goes. It should be treated worse than the NAZI party. Should be treated like an incurable and deadly disease.
There is an excellent book on the burning of Smyrna called “Paradise Lost” The allies had ships in the harbor but essentially did nothing to stop the Turks
There is a very good book “Paradise Lost”, about the destruction of Smyrna ( now Izmir) that recounts some of the Turkish depredations.
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