Ilhan Omar will need to be held accountable for how she votes. But
whatever her rationale, no votes today will undue the disgusting
violence of those who slaughtered so many innocents.
Apologies seem about as worthless as shoes on a double amputee.
Sadly, we are a very long way from being civilized.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/1/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Regarding the ‘Armenian Genocide Resolution,’ and Ilhan Omar’s response
Opinion
Thea Haloon October 31, 2019
(1923) Greek and Armenian refugee children from Anatolia standing outside
one-story building, near Athens, Greece. Greece, 1923. [Photograph]
Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709161/.(1923) Greek and Armenian refugee
children from Anatolia standing outside one-story building, near Athens,
Greece. Greece, 1923. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709161/.
Everyone concerned is very proud that the House of Representatives finally,
after over 100 years, passed a resolution (H.Res.296) recognizing the
Genocide of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians by Ottoman Turkey. It is
definitely long overdue. However, although the resolution does include the
Greeks and Assyrians, most news reports fail to mention that the Greeks and
Assyrians suffered the same fate as the Armenians, and continue to call it
“The Armenian Genocide Resolution,” and/or “The Armenian Genocide,” which
misses a few major points.
To put Martin Niemöller’s poem in a new context, it should be pointed out
that:
First they came for the Greeks of Eastern Thrace in 1913,
And no one stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Greeks in Western Asia Minor (Anatolia) in 1914,
And no one stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Assyrians in Eastern Anatolia in 1914,
And no one stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Armenians in 1915,
And no one stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Pontic Greeks in 1916,
And no one stopped the slaughters.
Then they exiled the remaining Assyrians
—who had arrived in Anatolia around 2,400 BC—
and the Greeks—who had arrived in Anatolia in 1200 BC
and the Armenians, who had arrived in Anatolia in 600 BC,
thus ending over four thousand years
of Assyrian, Greek, and Armenian presence in Anatolia.
Then they gave Anatolia to the Turks,
the perpetrators of the Genocides,
and descendants of the Turks
who had invaded Anatolia and
conquered Constantinople in 1453 AD,
almost 4,000 years after the arrival
of the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians.
Then they named Anatolia Turkey.
Total Assyrians slaughtered: 275,000, more than half their population.
Total Greeks slaughtered: 1.2 million
Total Armenians slaughtered: up to 1.5 million.
Totaling 3 Million Assyrian, Greek and Armenian victims of the Ottoman
Genocide.
Yet few news reports bother to mention the Greek and Assyrian victims of
this Genocide.
My mother, a Pontic Greek lived through that genocide. By age 12, she was
the only known survivor of her family. It was an Armenian family who took
my
orphaned mother in and brought her to safety in Aleppo, Syria when the
Armenian family fled Turkey. And it was the Armenian family who arranged my
mother’s marriage to my father—an Assyrian who fled Turkey on pain of death
in 1905, and came to America. My mother was only 15 when she married my
father. My father was 45. My father brought my mother to America in 1925.
Memorialized in“Not Even My Name,”my mother’s story represents the story of
millions of other Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians who lived through that
terrible genocide. They should not be dealt with as an afterthought by the
press or by Congress. As Rep. Anna Eshoo’s reminds us, her Assyrian family
lived through that genocide.
Lest we become complacent, we must remember all the victims of a genocide
equally. This was a Genocide of the Christian minorities of the Ottoman
Empire: Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.
If Ilhan Omar needs confirmation by genocide scholars, that the Greeks,
Assyrians, and Armenians suffered Genocides at the hands of the Ottoman
Turks, she should be directed to the 2007 Resolution of theInternational
Association of Genocide Scholars(IAGS), which was affirmed by hundreds of
the world’s leading genocide scholars. (View IAGS Resolution here)
Elie Wiesel describes denial as a“double killing,”as it also murders the
memory of the crime. But he also reminds us that “To remain silent or
indifferent is the greatest sin.”
Updated: November 1, 2019, 12 p.
