Dr Panayiotis DiamadisSeptember 2018
The author has been a genocide scholar for over two decades,
including serving as Vice-President of the Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies since 2000.
A curious discussion has been unfolding recently on various social media platforms around forms of genocide recognition activism. There appear to be individuals (at best a handful) determined to impose their views about recognition and commemoration of the Genocide of the Hellenes regardless of scholarship and other factors. The ‘Genocide crusaders’ focus on three ‘issues’:
Anniversary dates;
Who has the right to organise which commemoration;
Naming rights – Greek, Hellenic or a regional variation?
In reality, all three ‘issues’ are hollow squabbles which lack real substance with very little impact on the cause of academic, governmental and social recognition of the Genocides of the Armenians, Assyrians and Hellenes.
The key factor for the novice to comprehend is that the events of 1914-1924 constitute three genocides by one perpetrator across a very large geographic area. The indigenous peoples of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and neighbouring regions were subjected to a campaign of exterminatory violence by an ideologically radical regime.
Genocide is a legal term defined as ‘any one of the following acts with the intent to’. A genocide is defined first by scholars and legal experts, then by communities and finally by legislative bodies.
Anniversaries
The events that constitute the Genocides of the Armenians, Assyrians and Hellenes began in eastern Thrace (the final corner of Europe occupied by the Turkish state) in the winter of 1913-1914 and spread eastwards. The 1915 deportations of the Armenians and Assyrians and the September 1922 holocaust of Smyrne were two of the most violent episodes.
Such a span of time inevitably produces more than one date considered significant enough to mark with commemorations. These dates are determined by survivors and their descendants as much as scholars. Communities decide, not individual ‘crusaders’.
In the Hellenic calendar, these anniversaries include 6 April (eastern Thrace’s Black Sunday 1914), 19 May (the day Mustafa Kemal arrived in Pontos in 1919 to commence the second phase of the genocide there) and 14 September (the outbreak of the holocaust of Smyrne). To date, the Parliament of the Hellenic Republic has affirmed two dates as ‘a day of national mourning for the Genocide of the Hellenes of’ particular regions: Pontos (1994) and Asia Minor (1998).
In the Jewish calendar, International Holocaust Remembrance Day is 27 January (the 1945 liberation of Auschwitz). Yom HaShoah is marked in late-April or early-May, according to the Hebrew calendar. The 1938 Kristallnacht Pogrom is marked on 9 November. There are other dates marking events of significance to particular geographic regions or communities.
Multiple commemorative dates mean there are more regular occasions to remind the world of the lessons from genocidal episodes yet to be learnt. Multiple commemorative dates are a sign of passion on the part of communities as well as recognition of the unique aspects of different genocidal experiences.
The Genocide of the Hellenes of Thrace has both similarities and differences from the Genocide of the Hellenes of Pontos and both are distinct from the Genocide of the Hellenes of Asia Minor and Anatolia. While collectively these constitute the Genocide of the Hellenes, marking the differences respects the varied local and regional experiences from the period. Mutual respect should never be taken as disunity.
Commemorations
To the ancient Hellenes, Mnemosyne and Kleo (Cleo/Clio) were the Muses of Memory and History respectively, two of Zeus’ famed daughters, each of which were the patron of a particular aspect of the human experience. For the purposes of this discussion, Mnemosyne and her sister Kleo are the most important, reminding us that memories fade when not exercised and stories forgotten when not retold. Lessons not repeated are not learned.
Any commemorative event which brings attention to the Genocides of the indigenous
Armenian, Assyrian and Hellenic peoples of the Ottoman Turkish Empire and neighbouring regions is welcome. Regardless of whether the organisers are Thracian, Pontian, Anatolian or western Hellenes, Armenians, Assyrians, Jews, Rwandans, Australians or anyone else.
Accusations that certain organisers of commemorations are ‘starting to host/take over’
commemorative events around Thrace and Smyrne reveal more about the insecurities of the accuser/s than about the accused. No ‘crusader’ has the right to determine which association has the right to organise commemorations. No ‘crusader’ has the right to determine whether events are being held for ‘personal agendas’.
Names
The favourite assault of Genocide recognition ‘crusaders’ is that the lack of ‘unity’ is the chief cause of relative ignorance around the Genocide of the Hellenes. These ‘crusaders’ regularly insult the intelligence of thinking persons with claims such as references to the holocaust of Smyrna ‘downplay’ the Genocide of the Hellenes because the word ‘genocide’ is not used in the title. Whether ‘Greek’ or ‘Hellene’ is used to identify the systematic government-orchestrated campaign of destruction is largely irrelevant.
Public knowledge and scholarship of the Genocide of the indigenous Hellenes from the lands between the River Evros and the Caspian Sea is woefully inadequate. Particularly in English, the bibliography around the Hellenic experience is a fraction of the Jewish and Armenian experiences of genocide. Rather than squabbling over insubstantial ‘issues’, Genocide recognition ‘crusaders’ should focus on improving awareness and education.