Τετάρτη 18 Αυγούστου 2010

Greek genocide - Γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων


Γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων
Από τη Βικιπαίδεια, την ελεύθερη εγκυκλοπαίδεια
Η Γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων αναφέρεται σε σφαγές και εκτοπισμούς των Ελληνικών πληθυσμών της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας στη Μικρά Ασία και Ανατολική Θράκη από την Άνοιξη του 1914 μέχρι το 1923. Θεωρείται μια από τις πρώτες σύγχρονες γενοκτονίες. Η γενοκτονία ήταν ένα προμελετημένο έγκλημα, το οποίο η κυβέρνηση των Νεότουρκων έφερε σε πέρας με συστηματικότητα. Οι μέθοδοι που χρησιμοποίησε ήταν ο ξεριζωμός, η εξάντληση στις κακουχίες, τα βασανιστήρια, η πείνα και η δίψα, και τα στρατόπεδα θανάτου στην έρημο.
Πίνακας περιεχομένων[Απόκρυψη]
1 Διεθνής αναγνώριση
2 Βιβλιoγραφία και Πηγές
3 Αναφορές
4 Εξωτερικές Συνδέσεις
//
Η διεθνής βιβλιογραφία και τα κρατικά αρχεία πολλών χωρών βρίθουν μαρτυριών για το ειδεχθές έγκλημα, που διαπράχθηκε εναντίον του Ελληνικού λαού. Η Γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων πραγματοποιήθηκε παράλληλα με γενοκτονίες σε βάρος και άλλων χριστιανικών πληθυσμών της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας, δηλ. των Αρμενίων και των Ασσυρίων. O πρέσβης των Hνωμένων Πολιτειών στην Kωνσταντινούπολη Henry Morgenthau στο έργο του «Ambassador Morgenthau’s Story» (1918) τονίζει: «Οι Αρμένιοι δεν είναι ο μοναδικός υπό Τουρκικό έλεγχο λαός, ο οποίος υπέφερε στα πλαίσια της πολιτικής «Η Τουρκία για τους Τούρκους». Την ιστορία που διηγήθηκα για τους Αρμένιους, θα μπορούσα να την έλεγα, με μερικές παραλλαγές, για τους Έλληνες και τους Ασσύριους. Πραγματικά, οι Έλληνες ήταν τα πρώτα θύματα αυτής της εθνικιστικής ιδέας.»
Ο Αιγίδης στο σημαντικότατο βιβλίο που έγραψε για το προσφυγικό ζήτημα που προέκυψε μετά το 1922, τονίζει ότι «1।200.000 ψυχές αποτελούν τον τραγικόν εις ανθρώπινας απώλειας απολογισμόν του αγώνος». Ο Θεοφάνης Μαλκίδης, τονίζει ότι «μιλάμε για σχεδόν1. 000।000 Έλληνεςπουδολοφονήθηκαν»। Στις 20 Μαρτίου 1922, ο Άγγλος διπλωμάτης Ρέντελ συνέταξε ένα μνημόνιο για τις τουρκικές ωμότητες σε βάρος των χριστιανών από το 1919 κι έπειτα. Στο προοίμιο αυτού του μνημονίου διαβάζουμε:
«Η επίτευξη της ανακωχής με την Τουρκία, στις 30 Οκτωβρίου 1918, φάνηκε να επέφερε μια προσωρινή παύση των διωγμών των μειονοτήτων εκ μέρους των Τούρκων, που διαπράχθηκαν καθ’ όλη τη διάρκεια του πολέμου. Στην επιδίωξη αυτών των διωγμών, είναι γενικώς αποδεκτό ... ότι πάνω από 500.000 ‘Έλληνες εξορίστηκαν, εκ των οποίων συγκριτικώς ελάχιστοι επέζησαν...»[1].
[Επεξεργασία] Διεθνής αναγνώριση
Στο 1998 η Βουλή των Ελλήνων ψήφισε ομόφωνα την ανακήρυξη «της 14ης Σεπτεμβρίου ως ημέρας εθνικής μνήμης της γενοκτονίας των Ελλήνων της Μικράς Ασίας από το Τουρκικό Κράτος». Τον Δεκέμβριο 2007 η Διεθνής Ένωση Μελετητών Γενοκτονιών (International Association of Genocide Scholars ή IAGS) αναγνώρισε επίσημα τη γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων, μαζί με την γενοκτονία των Ασσυρίων. [2]
Οι τουρκικές κυβερνήσεις αρνούνται πως υπήρξε γενοκτονία και τοποθετούν επισήμως το θάνατο των Ελλήνων στα πλαίσια των ευρύτερων απωλειών του πολέμου, του λιμού ή άλλων κοινωνικών αναταράξεων.
[Επεξεργασία] Βιβλιoγραφία και Πηγές
Γεώργιος Ν. Κοφινάς, , Περί του διωγμού των εν Τουρκία ελλήνων, Αθήνα: 1919.
Μίλτος Παγτζιλόγλου, Η γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων και των Αρμενίων της Μικράς Ασίας, Αθήνα: 1988.
Χάρης Τσιρκινίδης, Επιτέλους τους ξεριζώσαμε... Η γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων του Πόντου, της Θράκης και της Μ. Ασίας, μέσα από τα γαλλικά αρχεία, Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδοτικός Οίκος Αδελφών Κυριακίδη, 2002.
Χάρης Τσιρκινίδης, Συνοπτική ιστορία της γενοκτονίας των Ελλήνων της Ανατολής: Ντοκουμέντα ξένων διπλωματικών αρχείων, Θεσσαλονίκη: Εκδοτικός Οίκος Αδελφών Κυριακίδη, 2009.
Κωνσταντίνος Α. Βακαλόπουλος, Διωγμοί και Γενοκτονία του Θρακικού Ελληνισμού – Ο Πρώτος Ξεριζωμός (1908-1917), Θεσσαλονίκη: Ηρόδοτος, 1998.
Bjornlund, Matthias, "The 1914 cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a case of violent Turkification", Journal of Genocide Research, Volume 10, Issue 1, March 2008, pp. 41-58.
Hlamides, Nikolaos, "The Greek Relief Committee: America’s Response to the Greek Genocide", Genocide Studies and Prevention, Volume 3, Issue 3, December 2008, pp. 375-383.
Hofmann, Tessa (ed.), Verfolgung, Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Christen im Osmanischen Reich 1912-1922, Münster: LIT, 2004. ISBN 3-8258-7823-6.
Vryonis, Speros, "Greek Labor Battalions in Asia Minor", The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies (ed. Hovannisian, Richard), New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2007, pp. 275-290.
[Επεξεργασία] Αναφορές
Rendel, G. W. (20 March 1922). Foreign Office Memorandum on Turkish Massacres and Persecutions of Minorities since the Armistice
Δελτίο Τύπου της Διεθνούς Ένωσης Μελετητών Γενοκτονιών
[Επεξεργασία] Εξωτερικές Συνδέσεις
Η Γενοκτονία των Ελλήνων
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Κατηγορία: Ιστορία της Οθωμανικής Αυτοκρατορίας
Greek genocide
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Greek Genocide
Background
Young Turk Revolution · Ottoman Greeks · Ottoman Empire
The Genocide
Labour battalion · Death marchForeign Aid and Relief:Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor · American Committee for Relief in the Near EastResponsible Parties:Young Turks or Committee of Union and Progress · Three Pashas: Talat, Enver, Djemal · Behaeddin Shakir · Teskilati Mahsusa or Special Organization · Nureddin Pasha · Topal OsmanTrials:Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919–20 · Malta Tribunals
See also
Great Fire of Smyrna · Istanbul Pogrom · Greeks in Turkey · Population Exchange · Greek refugees
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During World War I and its aftermath (1914–1923), the government of the Ottoman Empire instigated a violent campaign against the Greek population of the Empire. The campaign included massacres, forced deportations involving death marches, and summary expulsions. According to various sources, several hundred thousand Ottoman Greeks died during this period. Some of the survivors and expelled, especially those in Eastern provinces, took refuge in the neighbouring Russian Empire. However, after the end of the 1919–22 Greco-Turkish War most of the Greeks migrated or were transferred to Greece under the terms of the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey.
The government of Turkey, the successor state to the Ottoman Empire,[1] maintains that the large-scale campaign was triggered by the perception that the Greek population was sympathetic to the enemies of the Ottoman state. The Allies of World War I took a different view, condemning the Ottoman government-sponsored massacres as crimes against humanity. More recently, the International Association of Genocide Scholars passed a resolution in 2007 affirming that the Ottoman campaign against Christian minorities of the Empire, including the Greeks, was genocide. Some other organisations have also passed resolutions recognising the campaign as a genocide, as have the parliaments of Greece, Cyprus and Sweden.
Contents[hide]
1 Background
2 Origins
3 Events
3.1 Relief efforts
3.2 Contemporary accounts
3.3 Casualties
4 Aftermath
5 Genocide recognition
5.1 Terminology
5.2 Academic
5.3 Political
5.4 Reasons for limited recognition
6 Memorials
7 See also
8 Notes
9 References
10 Further reading
//
[edit] Background
See also: Ottoman Greeks and Pontic Greeks

Hellenism in Near East during and after the World War I, Showing the areas (Western Anatolia and Eastern Thrace) where the majority of the Greek population was concentrated.
Anatolia or Asia Minor is a peninsula that forms the westernmost region of Western Asia, comprising most of the modern Republic of Turkey. It is bounded by the Black Sea to the north, the Caucasus and the Iranian plateau to the east, Greater Syria (Upper Mesopotamia) to the southeast, the Mediterranean Sea to the south, the Aegean Sea to the west and the Balkan peninsula to the northwest. At the outbreak of World War I, Anatolia was ethnically diverse, its population including Turks, Greeks, Armenians, Kurds, Assyrians, Jews, and Laz people.
Among the causes for the Turkish campaign against the Greek population was a fear that the population would aid the Ottoman Empire's enemies, and a belief among some Turks that to become a modern nation state it was necessary to purge from the territories of the state those national groups who could threaten the integrity of a modern Turkish nation state.[2][3]
According to a German military attaché, the Ottoman Turkish minister of war Ismail Enver had declared in October 1915 that he wanted to "solve the Greek problem during the war... in the same way he believe[d] he solved the Armenian problem."[4]
[edit] Origins
Greek presence in Asia Minor has been dated to at least the time of Homer.[5] Prior to their conquest by the Turkic people the Greeks were one of several indigenous peoples living in Asia Minor.[6] The geographer Strabo referred to Smyrna as the first Greek city in Asia Minor.[6] Greeks reffered to the Black Sea as the "Pontos Euxinos" or "hospitable sea" and starting in the eighth century BCE they begun navigating its shores and settling along its coast.[6] The most notable Greek cities of the Black Sea were Trebizond, Sampsounta, Sinope and Heraclea Pontica.[6] In medieval times Trebizond became an important trade hub and capital of its own state, the Empire of Trebizond.
[edit] Events
In the summer of 1914 the Special Organization (Teşkilat-ı Mahsusa), assisted by government and army officials, conscripted Greek men of military age from Thrace and western Anatolia into labor battalions in which hundreds of thousands died.[7] Sent hundreds of miles into the Interior of Anatolia, these conscripts were employed in road-making, building, tunnel excavating and other field work but their numbers were heavily reduced through either privations and ill-treatment or by outright massacre by their Turkish guards.[8] This program of forced conscription later expanded to other regions of the Empire including Pontus[citation needed].
Conscription of Greek men was supplemented by massacres and by deportations involving death marches of the general population[citation needed]. Greek villages and towns would be surrounded by Turks and their inhabitants massacred[citation needed]. Such was the story in Phocaea (Greek: Φώκαια), a town in western Anatolia twenty-five miles northwest of Smyrna, on 12 June 1914 where the slain bodies of men, women and children were thrown down a well.[9]
In July 1915 the Greek chargé d'affaires explained that the deportations "can not be any other issue than an annihilation war against the Greek nation in Turkey and as measures hereof they have been implementing forced conversions to Islam, in obvious aim to, that if after the end of the war there again would be a question of European intervention for the protection of the Christians, there will be as few of them left as possible."[10] According to George W. Rendel of the British Foreign Office, by 1918 "... over 500,000 Greeks were deported of whom comparatively few survived."[11] In his memoirs, the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire between 1913 and 1916 wrote "Everywhere the Greeks were gathered in groups and, under the so-called protection of Turkish gendarmes, they were transported, the larger part on foot, into the interior. Just how many were scattered in this fashion is not definitely known, the estimates varying anywhere from 200,000 up to 1,000,000."[12]

1914 Ottoman Turkish Statistics record the Ottoman Greek population as numbering approx. 1.8 million
On 14 January 1917 Cosswa Anckarsvärd, Sweden’s Ambassador to Constantinople, sent a dispatch regarding the deportation decision of the Ottoman Greeks:
What above all appears as an unnecessary cruelty is that the deportation is not limited to the men alone, but is extended likewise to women and children. This is supposedly done in order to much easier be able to confiscate the property of the deported.[13]
Methods of destruction which caused death indirectly - such as deportations involving death marches, starvation in labour camps, concentration camps etc. - were referred to as "white massacres".[11]
The Turkish Courts-Martial of 1919-20 saw charges brought against a number of leading Turkish officials for their part in ordering massacres against both Greeks and Armenians.[14].
In an October 1920 report a British officer describes the aftermath of the massacres at Iznik in north-western Anatolia in which he estimated that at least 100 decomposed mutilated bodies of men, women and children were present in and around a large cave about 300 yards outside the city walls.[11]
The systematic massacre and deportation of Greeks in Asia Minor, a program which had come into effect in 1914, was a precursor to the atrocities perpetrated by both the Hellenic and Turkish armies during the Greco-Turkish War, a conflict which followed the Hellenic occupation of Smyrna[15][16] in May 1919 and continued until the Great Fire of Smyrna in September 1922.[17] Limited[16] Massacres of Turks were also carried out by the Hellenic troops during their mandate over a region of western Anatolia in May 1919 through to September 1922.[17]
For the massacres that occurred during the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922, British historian Arnold J. Toynbee wrote that it was the Greek landings that created the Turkish National Movement led by Mustafa Kemal:[18] "...The Greeks of 'Pontus' and the Turks of the Greek occupied territories, were in some degree victims of Mr. Venizelos's and Mr. Lloyd George's original miscalculations at Paris."
[edit] Relief efforts

Photo taken after the Smyrna fire. The text inside indicates that the photo had been taken by representatives of the Red Cross in Smyrna
In 1917 a relief organization by the name of the Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor was formed in response to the deportations and massacres of Greeks in Turkey. The committee worked in cooperation with the Near East Relief in distributing aid to Ottoman Greeks in Thrace and Asia Minor. The organisation disbanded in the summer of 1921 but Greek relief work was continued by other aid organisations.[19]
[edit] Contemporary accounts
German and Austro-Hungarian diplomats, as well as the 1922 memorandum compiled by George W. Rendel on "Turkish Massacres and Persecutions", have provided evidence for series of systematic massacres of the Greeks in Asia Minor.[11][20][21] The quotes have been attributed to various diplomats, notably the German ambassadors Hans Freiherr von Wangenheim and Richard von Kühlmann, the German vice-consul in Samsoun Kuchhoff, Austria's ambassador Pallavicini and Samsoun consul Ernst von Kwiatkowski, and the Italian unofficial agent in Angora Signor Tuozzi. Other quotes are from clergymen and activists, notably the German missionary Johannes Lepsius, and Stanley Hopkins of the Near East Relief. It must be noted that Germany and Austria-Hungary were allies of the Ottoman Empire in World War I.
The accounts describe systematic massacres, rapes and burnings of Greek villages, and attribute intent to Turkish officials, namely the Turkish Prime Minister Mahmud Sevket Pasha, Rafet Bey, Talat Pasha and Enver Pasha.[11][20][21]
Additionally, The New York Times and its correspondents have made extensive references to the events, recording massacres, deportations, individual killings, rapes, burning of entire Greek villages, destruction of Greek Orthodox churches and monasteries, drafts for "Labor Brigades", looting, terrorism and other "atrocities" for Greek, Armenian and also for British and American citizens and government officials.[22][23] The newspaper was awarded its first Pulitzer Prize in 1918 "for the most disinterested and meritorious public service rendered by an American newspaper—complete and accurate coverage of the war".[24] More media of the time reported the events with similar titles.[25]
Henry Morgenthau, the United States ambassador to the Ottoman Empire from 1913 to 1916 accused the "Turkish government" of a campaign of "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" of a "scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey."[26]
United States Consul-General George Horton reports that "[o]ne of the cleverest statements circulated by the Turkish propagandists is to the effect that the massacred Christians were as bad as their executioners, that it was '50-50.' " On this issue he clarifies that "[h]ad the Greeks, after the massacres in the Pontus and at Smyrna, massacred all the Turks in Greece, the record would have been 50-50—almost." As an eye-witness, he also praises Greeks for their "conduct [...] toward the thousands of Turks residing in Greece, while the ferocious massacres were going on...", which, according to his opinion, was "one of the most inspiring and beautiful chapters in all that country’s history."[27][28]
[edit] Casualties

Smyrna burning during the Fire of Smyrna

Smyrna citizens trying to reach the Allied ships during the Smyrna fire, 1922. The photo had been taken from the launch boat of a US battleship
According to various sources the Greek death toll in the Pontus region of Anatolia ranges from 300,000 to 360,000. Estimates for the death toll of Anatolian Greeks as a whole are significantly higher.
According to the International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples, between 1916 and 1923, up to 350,000 Greek Pontians were reportedly killed in massacres, persecution and death marches.[29] Merrill D. Peterson cites the death toll of 360,000 for the Greeks of Pontus.[30] According to George K. Valavanis "The loss of human life among the Pontian Greeks, since the Great War (World War I) until March 1924, can be estimated at 353,000, as a result of murders, hangings, and from punishment, disease, and other hardships."[31]
Constantine G Hatzidimitriou writes that "loss of life among Anatolian Greeks during the WWI period and its aftermath was approximately 735,370."[32] Edward Hale Bierstadt states that "According to official testimony, the Turks since 1914 have slaughtered in cold blood 1,500,000 Armenians, and 500,000 Greeks, men women and children, without the slightest provocation."[33]. At the Lausanne conference in late 1922 the British Foreign Minister Lord Curzon is recorded as saying "a million Greeks have been killed, deported or have died."[34]
[edit] Aftermath
Article 142 of the 1920 Treaty of Sèvres, prepared after the first World War, called the Turkish regime "terrorist" and contained provisions "to repair so far as possible the wrongs inflicted on individuals in the course of the massacres perpetrated in Turkey during the war."[35] The Treaty of Sèvres was never ratified by the Turkish government and ultimately was replaced by the Treaty of Lausanne. That treaty was accompanied by a "Declaration of Amnesty", without containing any provision in respect to punishment of war crimes.[36]
In 1923, a population exchange between Greece and Turkey resulted in a near-complete elimination of the Greek ethnic presence in Turkey and a similar elimination of the Turkish ethnic presence in much of Greece. According to the Greek census of 1928, 1,104,216 Ottoman Greeks had reached Greece.[37] It is impossible to know exactly how many Greek inhabitants of Turkey died between 1914 and 1923, and how many ethnic Greeks of Anatolia were expelled to Greece or fled to the Soviet Union.[38]. Some of the survivors and expelled took refuge in the neighboring Russian Empire (later, Soviet Union)[citation needed].
[edit] Genocide recognition
[edit] Terminology
The word genocide was coined in the early 1940s by Raphael Lemkin, a Polish lawyer of Jewish descent. In his writings on genocide, Lemkin is known to have detailed the fate of Greeks in Turkey.[39] In August 1946 the New York Times reported:
Genocide is no new phenomenon, nor has it been utterly ignored in the past. ... The massacres of Greeks and Armenians by the Turks prompted diplomatic action without punishment. If Professor Lemkin has his way genocide will be established as an international crime ...[40]
The 1948 Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (CPPCG) was adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948 and came into force in January 1951. It defines genocide in legal terms. There are a number of other genocide definitions used by historians and genocide scholars which some consider better suited for academic use.[41]
Before the word genocide came to exist in the 1940s, the destruction of Ottoman Greeks was known, by Greeks, as 'the Massacre' (Greek: η Σφαγή) or 'the Great Catastrophe' (Greek: η Μεγάλη Καταστροφή) or "the Great Tragedy" (Greek: η Μεγάλη Τραγωδία).[42] Primary source accounts would use improvised terms, such as "annihilation", "systematic extermination", "persistent campaign of massacre" and "wholesale massacre".[27][43]
[edit] Academic
In December 2007 the International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS), an organization of the world’s foremost experts on genocide, passed a resolution affirming that the 1914-1923 campaign against Ottoman Greeks constituted genocide.[44] Employing the term "Greek Genocide", it affirmed that Ottoman Greeks were subject to genocide alongside other groups, namely Armenians and Assyrians. The resolution was adopted on 1 December 2007 and the press release issued by the organization on 16 December.[45] The IAGS resolution was passed with an "overwhelming" majority. However, a few members of the organisation argued that more scholarship should be completed before a genocide resolution was endorsed. They included scholars who had researched and published on the Armenian Genocide, namely Taner Akcam, Peter Balakian, Stephen Feinstein, Eric Weitz and Robert Melson.[46]
Mark Levene has speculated that some historians avoid using the term genocide in order to prevent their magnification by comparison with the Armenian Genocide.[3]. Historian Mark Mazower states that the deportation of Greeks by the Ottomans was on a "relatively small scale and do not appear to have been designed to end in their victims' deaths. What was to happen with the Armenians was of a different order."[47]. On the other hand, and as per the IAGS resolution, Niall Ferguson, for instance, has drawn a comparison with the fate of the Armenians and believes the term genocide is fitting.[48] Moreover, genocide scholars, such as Dominik J. Schaller and Jürgen Zimmerer, have stated that the "genocidal quality of the murderous campaigns against Greeks" is "obvious".[49]
Seminars and courses in several western universities examine the events. These include the University of New Mexico[50] the College of Charleston[51], the University of Michigan Dearborn [52] and the University of New South Wales [53] which has a dedicated research unit.
[edit] Political
The Greek Parliament has passed two laws on the fate of the Ottoman Greeks; the first in 1994 and the second in 1998. The decrees were published in the Greek Government Gazette on 8 March 1994 and 13 October 1998 respectively. The 1994 decree affirmed the genocide in the Pontus region of Asia Minor and designated 19 May a day of commemoration, while the 1998 decree affirmed the genocide of Greeks in Asia Minor as a whole and designated 14 September a day of commemoration.[54].
The Republic of Cyprus also officially recognizes the events as genocide.[55]
In response to the 1998 law, the Turkish government released a statement which claimed that describing the events as genocide was "without any historical basis". "We condemn and protest this resolution" a Turkish Foreign Ministry statement said. "With this resolution the Greek Parliament, which in fact has to apologize to the Turkish people for the large-scale destruction and massacres Greece perpetrated in Anatolia, not only sustains the traditional Greek policy of distorting history, but it also displays that the expansionist Greek mentality is still alive" the statement added.[56] The law passed by the Greek government also met some opposition domestically. For example, incorrectly interpreting the decree as pertaining to the Smyrna 1922 events and believing it to be politically motivated, the late Greek historian Angelos Elefantis claimed the Greek parliament was acting "like an idiot".[57]
On 11 March 2010, Sweden's Riksdag passed a motion recognising "as an act of genocide the killing of Armenians, Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans and Pontiac (sic) Greeks in 1915".[58]
[edit] Reasons for limited recognition
The United Nations, the European Parliament, and the Council of Europe have not made any related statements. According to Constantine Fotiadis, professor of Modern Greek History at the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, some of the reasons for the lack of wider recognition and delay in seeking acknowledgment of these events are as follows:[59]
The Greek Genocide was overshadowed by a larger Armenian Genocide, a view also shared by the historian Mark Levene.[3]
In contrast to the Treaty of Sèvres, the superseding Treaty of Lausanne in 1923 dealt with these events by making no reference or mention, and thus sealed the end of the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
A subsequent peace treaty (Greco-Turkish Treaty of Friendship in June 1930) between Greece and Turkey. Greece made several concessions to settle all open issues between the two countries in return for peace in the region.
The Second World War, the Civil War, the Military junta and the political turmoil in Greece that followed, forced Greece to focus on its survival and other problems rather than seek recognition of these events.
In his book With Intent to Destroy: Reflections on Genocide, Colin Tatz argue that Turkey denies the genocide so not to jeopardize "its ninety-five-year-old dream of becoming the beacon of democracy in the Near East".[60] In their book Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society, Elizabeth Burns Coleman and Kevin White present a list of reasons explaining Turkey's inability to admit the genocides committed by the Young Turks[61]
[edit] Memorials
Memorials commemorating the plight of Ottoman Greeks have been erected throughout Greece, as well as in a number of other countries including Germany, Canada, the United States and, most recently, Australia.[62]
[edit] See also
Academic quotes on the Greek genocide
Armenian Genocide
Assyrian Genocide
Genocide denial
Greek refugees
Istanbul Pogrom
Human rights in Turkey
Megali Idea
Republic of Pontus
[edit] Notes
^ Rae, Heather (2002). State identities and the homogenisation of peoples. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. pp. 129. ISBN 0-521-79708-X.
^ Bloxham. p. 150
^ a b c Levene (1998)
^ Ferguson (2006), p. 180
^ Hobsbawm, E. J. (1992). Nations and nationalism since 1780 programme, myth, reality. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press. pp. 133. ISBN 0-521-43961-2.
^ a b c d Travis 2009, p. 637.
^ Hull (2005), p. 273.
^ King, William C. (1922), p. 437
^ Staff, The Atlanta Constitution, 17 June 1914, p. 1.
^ Avedian, Vahagn, The Armenian Genocide 1915: From a Neutral Small State's Perspective: Sweden, p. 40
^ a b c d e Rendel G. W. (20 March 1922)
^ Henry Morgenthau, Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Doubleday, Page & Company, Garden City, New York, 1919.
^ Avedian, Vahagn, The Armenian Genocide 1915: From a Neutral Small State's Perspective: Sweden, p.47
^ Akçam, Taner (1996). Armenien und der Völkermord: Die Istanbuler Prozesse und die Türkische Nationalbewegung. Hamburg: Hamburger Edition. p. 185.
^ Toynbee, p. 270.
^ a b Rummel (Chapter 5)
^ a b Taner Akcam, A Shameful Act, p. 322
^ Toynbee (1922), pp. 312-313.
^ Nikolaos Hlamides, ‘‘The Greek Relief Committee: America’s Response to the Greek Genocide,’’ Genocide Studies and Prevention 3, 3 (December 2008): 375–383.
^ a b Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies: the genocide and its aftermath
^ a b Halo pp. 26, 27, & 28
^ The New York Times Advanced search engine for article and headline archives (subscription necessary for viewing article content).
^ Alexander Westwood and Darren O'Brien, Selected bylines and letters from The New York Times, The Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies, 2006
^ Our Company, Awards, New York Times. See also Pulitzer Prizes awarded to the New York Times' staff.
^ Kateb, Vahe Georges (2003). Australian Press Coverage of the Armenian Genocide 1915-1923, University of Wollongong, Graduate School of Journalism
^ Morgenthau Calls for Check on Turks, New York Times, 5 September 1922, pg. 3
^ a b Horton[page needed]
^ James L. Marketos (2006). "George Horton: An American Witness in Smyrna". ahiworld.org. http://ahiworld.org/pdfs/George_Horton_remarks.pdf.
^ United Nations document E/CN.4/1998/NGO/24 (page 3) acknowledging receipt of a letter by the "International League for the Rights and Liberation of Peoples" titled "A people in continued exodus" (i.e., Pontian Greeks) and putting the letter into internal circulation (Dated 1998-02-24)If above link doesn't work, search United Nations documents for "A people in continued exodus"
^ Peterson[page needed]
^ Valavanis, p.24.
^ Hatzidimitriou, Constantine G., American Accounts Documenting the Destruction of Smyrna by the Kemalist Turkish Forces: September 1922, New Rochelle, New York: Caratzas, 2005, p. 2.
^ Bierstadt[page needed]
^ "Turks Proclaim Banishment Edict to 1,000,000 Greeks", The New York Times, 2 December 1922, p.1.
^ Treaty of Sevres
^ Bassioun, pp. 62-63
^ Geniki Statistiki Ypiresia tis Ellados (Statistical Annual of Greece), Statistika apotelesmata tis apografis sou plithysmou tis Ellados tis 15-16 Maiou 1928, pg.41. Athens: National Printing Office, 1930. Quoted in Kontogiorgi, Elisabeth (2006-08-17). Population Exchange in Greek Macedonia: The Forced Settlement of Refugees 1922-1930. Oxford University Press. pp. 96, footnote 56. ISBN 978-0199278961.
^ Ascherson p. 185
^ MA Mcdonnell, AD Moses, "Raphael Lemkin as historian of genocide in the Americas", Journal of Genocide Research, Volume 7, Issue 4, December 2005, pp. 501-529
^ "Genocide", New York Times, 26 August 1946
^ Karin Solveig Björnson, Genocide and Gross Human Rights Violations in Comparative Perspective: In Comparative Perspective, Transaction Publishers, 1998 ISBN 0-7658-0417-4, 9780765804174. p 133
^ See e.g. Hatzidimitriou, Constantine G., American Accounts Documenting the Destruction of Smyrna by the Kemalist Turkish Forces: September 1922, New Rochelle, New York: Caratzas, 2005, p. 1
^ Morgenthau, p.153
^ Genocide Scholars Association Officially Recognizes Assyrian, Greek Genocides
^ Greek Genocide 1914-23 Resolution from an IAGS press release as issued on 16 December 2007
^ http://www.genocidescholars.org/blog/?cat=40
^ http://www.lrb.co.uk/v23/n03/mazo01_.html
^ Ferguson (2007) p.182
^ Schaller, Dominik J.; Zimmerer, Jurgen, "Late Ottoman genocides: the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire and Young Turkish population and extermination policies", Journal of Genocide Research, Volume 10, Issue 1, March 2008, pp. 7-14.
^ The University of New Mexico University Honors Program, The Holocaust, Genocide, and Intolerance (.pdf), p.28 Archived on December 21, 2006, from http://www.unm.edu/~honors/students/courses/PDFDescription-booklet-SPRING07-UPPER.pdf
^ College of Charleston, New Carolina, Managing Diversity Syllabus, Migration Patterns. Retrieved on 2007-02-04.
^ Before the Silence,The Armenian and Greek Genocides
^ The Pontian Genocide and Asia Minor Holocaust Research Unit
^ Issue 2645/98 & 2193/94, Government Gazette of the Hellenic Republic
^ Cyprus Press Office, New York City
^ Office of the Prime Minister, Directorate General of Press and Information: Turkey Denounces Greek 'Genocide' Resolution (1998-09-30). Retrieved on 2007-02-05
^ Fisk, Robert (13 February 2001). "Athens and Ankara at odds over genocide". The Independent (London). http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/athens-and-ankara-at-odds-over-genocide-691559.html. Retrieved 4 May 2010.
^ "Motion 2008/09:U332 Genocide of Armenians, Assyrians/Syriacs/Chaldeans and Pontiac Greeks in 1915". Stockholm: Riksdag. 11 March 2010. http://riksdagen.se/templates/R_PageExtended____21484.aspx. Retrieved 12 March 2010.
^ Fotiadis,[page needed]
^ Tatz[page needed]
^ Negotiating the Sacred: Blasphemy and Sacrilege in a Multicultural Society, Elizabeth Burns Coleman, Kevin White, p.82
^ The Greek Genocide 1914-23: Memorials Accessed on 2008-09-18
[edit] References
Ascherson, Neal (1995). Black Sea, New York: Hill and Wang, ISBN 0-8090-3043-8.
Avedian, Vahagn, The Armenian Genocide 1915: From a Neutral Small State's Perspective: Sweden, Unpublished Master Thesis Paper, Uppsala University, 2009 http://www.armenica.org/material/master_thesis_vahagn_avedian.pdf
Bassioun, M. Cherif (1999). Crimes Against Humanity in International Criminal Law, The Hague: Kluwer Law International, ISBN 90-411-1222-7.
Bierstadt, Edward Hale (1924). The Great Betrayal; A Survey of the Near East Problem, New York: R. M. McBride & Co.
Bloxham, Donald (2005). The Great Game of Genocide: Imperialism, Nationalism, and the Destruction of the Ottoman Armenians, Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Ferguson, Niall (2006). The War of the World: Twentieth-Century Conflict and the Descent of the West, New York: Penguin Press, ISBN 1-59420-100-5.
Ferguson, Niall (2006). The War of the World: Twentieth-century Conflict And the Descent of the West, Penguin Press.
Fotiadis, Constantinos Emm. (2004 ed.). The Genocide of the Pontus Greeks by the Turks: Volume 13, Thessaloniki: Herodotus.
Horton, George (1926). The Blight of Asia. Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill Company. http://www.hri.org/docs/Horton/.
Hull, Isabel V. (2005). Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany, Ithaca: Cornell University Press.
Hulse, Carl (2007). U.S. and Turkey Thwart Armenian Genocide Bill, New York Times, 26 October 2007
King, Charles (2005). The Black Sea: A History, Oxford: Oxford University Press
King, William C. (1922). King's Complete History of the World War: Visualizing the Great Conflict in all Theaters of Action 1914-1918, The History Associates, Massachusetts.
Koromila, Marianna (2002). The Greeks and the Black Sea, Panorama Cultural Society.
Levene, Mark (1998). Creating a Modern "Zone of Genocide": The Impact of Nation- and State-Formation on Eastern Anatolia, 1878–1923, Holocaust and Genocide Studies, Volume 12, Number 3 Winter 1998, pp. 393–433. (abstract).
Lieberman, Benjamin (2006). Terrible Fate: Ethnic Cleansing in the Making of Modern Europe, Ivan R. Dee.
Mildrasky, Manus I. (2005). The Killing Trap, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Morgenthau, Henry (1918). Ambassador Morgenthau's Story, Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company.
Naimark, Norman M. (2001). Fires of Hatred: Ethnic Cleansing in Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge and London: Harvard University Press.
Peterson, Merrill D. (2004). Starving Armenians: America and the Armenian Genocide, 1915–1930 and After, Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press
Rendel, G. W. (20 March 1922). Foreign Office Memorandum on Turkish Massacres and Persecutions of Minorities since the Armistice
Rummel, R. J.. "Statistics of Democide". Chapter 5, Statistics Of Turkey's Democide Estimates, Calculations, And Sources. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/SOD.CHAP5.HTM. Retrieved 4 October 2006.
Staff "Massacre of Greeks Charged to the Turks",The Atlanta Constitution, 17 June 1914.
Stanford J. Shaw, Ezel Kural Shaw. "History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey", Cambridge University.
Taner, Akcam (2006). A Shameful Act
Tatz, Colin (2003). With Intent to Destroy: Reflections on Genocide. Essex: Verso. ISBN 1859845509. http://books.google.co.uk/books?vid=ISBN1859845509&id=khCffgX1NPIC&pg=PR13&lpg=PR13&vq=&sig=VgQBQ4-HVjDy2Kju1RpfDdy3N8E.
Halo, Thea (2001). Not Even My Name, New York: Picador USA.
Totten, Samuel; Jacobs, Steven L (2002). Pioneers of Genocide Studies (Clt). New Brunswick, New Jersey: Transaction Publishers. ISBN 0765801515. http://books.google.co.uk/books?vid=ISBN0765801515&id=g26NmNNWK1QC&pg=PA210&lpg=PA210&dq=pontian+isbn=0765801515&num=100&sig=D8lv0QCu9iCqIji5nfiYvhBRC_Q&hl=en.
Toynbee, Arnold J. (1922). The Western question in Greece and Turkey: a study in the contact of civilisations, Boston: Houghton Mifflin.
Travis, Hannibal (2009). "The Cultural and Intellectual Property Interests of the Indigenous Peoples of Turkey and Iraq". Texas Weleyan Law Review, (Texas Wesleyan University School of Law) 15: 601–680. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1549804.
Valavanis, G.K. (1925). Contemporary General History of Pontus (Σύγχρονος Γενική Ιστορία του Πόντου), Athens.
[edit] Further reading
Books
Akcam, Taner. From Empire to Republic: Turkish Nationalism and the Armenian Genocide, New York: Zed Books, 2004.
Andreadis, George, Tamama: The Missing Girl of Pontos, Athens: Gordios, 1993.
Barton, James L. The Near East Relief, 1915-1930, New York: Russell Sage Foundation, 1943.
Barton, James L., Ara Sarafian, "Turkish Atrocities": Statements of American Missionaries on the Destruction of Christian Communities in Ottoman Turkey, 1915–1917, December 1998
Compton, Carl C. The Morning Cometh, New Rochelle, N.Y.: Aristide D. Caratzas, 1986.
Karayinnides, Ioannis. Ο γολγοθάς του Πόντου (The Golgotha of Pontus), Salonica: 1978.
Henry Morgenthau, Sr.. The Murder of a Nation, New York: Armenian General Benevolent Union of America, 1974, 1918.
—. I Was Sent to Athens, Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, Doran & Co, 1929.
—. An International Drama, London: Jarrolds Ltd., 1930
Hofmann, Tessa (ed.), Verfolgung, Vertreibung und Vernichtung der Christen im Osmanischen Reich 1912-1922, Münster: LIT, 2004. ISBN 3-8258-7823-6. (pp. 177–221 on Greeks)
Housepian Dobkin, Marjorie. Smyrna 1922: the Destruction of a City, New York, NY: Newmark Press, 1998.
Murat, Jean De. The Great Extirpation of Hellenism and Christianity in Asia Minor: the historic and systematic deception of world opinion concerning the hideous Christianity’s uprooting of 1922, Miami, Fla.: [s.n.], (Athens Greece: A. Triantafillis) 1999.
Oeconomos, Lysimachos. The Martyrdom of Smyrna and Eastern Christendom; a file of overwhelming evidence, denouncing the misdeeds of the Turks in Asia Minor and showing their responsibility for the horrors of Smyrna, London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1922.
Papadopoulos, Alexander. Persecutions of the Greeks in Turkey before the European War: on the basis of official documents, New York: Oxford University Press, American branch, 1919.
Pavlides, Ioannis. Pages of History of Pontus and Asia Minor, Salonica, Greece, 1980.
Tsirkinidis, Harry. At last we uprooted them…The Genocide of Greeks of Pontos, Thrace, and Asia Minor, through the French archives, Thessaloniki: Kyriakidis Bros, 1999.
Ward, Mark H. The Deportations in Asia Minor 1921-1922, London: Anglo-Hellenic League, 1922.
Articles
Bjornlund, Matthias, "The 1914 cleansing of Aegean Greeks as a case of violent Turkification", Journal of Genocide Research, Volume 10, Issue 1, March 2008, pp. 41–58.
Hlamides, Nikolaos, "The Greek Relief Committee: America’s Response to the Greek Genocide", Genocide Studies and Prevention, Volume 3, Issue 3, December 2008, pp. 375–383.
Vryonis, Speros, "Greek Labor Battalions in Asia Minor", The Armenian Genocide: Cultural and Ethical Legacies (ed. Hovannisian, Richard), New Brunswick, N.J: Transaction Publishers, 2007, pp. 275–290.
Internet Resources
Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Greek genocide
Greek Genocide 1914-23
The Australian Institute for Holocaust and Genocide Studies
The Greek Genocide:1914-1923: Pontus, Asia Minor, Thrace

Balkans

A GREEK VIEW ON THE ALBANIANS IN FYROM Theofanis Malkidis and Theo Perilis
Although the Albanian population composed an important demographic and political size in ex-Yugoslavia after the war, as well as reasons of unity of the multinational state were keeping this issue in the fridge. In Kosovo and in the “Federal Socialist Republic of Macedonia” now ex-Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, in the “Federal Socialist Republic of Serbia” (Presevo) and in Montenegro, the Albanians were a big part of the population, where the leader of the country Josef Brose Tito managed them quite carefully. The way the Albanians handled the situation during the Second World War and their cooperation with the Axis Powers having as a final aim the creation of the idea of “Greater Albania” was the main reason for the negative attitude of the Yugoslav leader and the regime which was represented mainly by Alexander Rankovic, the leader of national security. However this wasn’t the only fact. The Albanian demographic explosion pressured the situation to the direction of the Serbia presence in Kosovo and the Slavo-Macedonians in FYROM because the Albanian leadership was trying to find a role and position in the medley of the ethnic groups of the country. Although after the end of the war (WWII), the Albanian groups were recognized as minorities in FYROM and a peculiar regime in Kosovo, substantially the Albanians had neither wider rights, as for example the Hungarians in Vojvodina, nor their own democracy, as the Muslims of Bosnia and Herzegovina.
In FYROM the Albanian groups faced two facts. The first one concerned the creation of this “state” called “Macedonia”, “Macedonian language” , “Macedonian culture and nation” oppressed the distinct and large Albanian community which locally composed the overwhelming majority. The propaganda of the regime for the state of “Macedonia”, which was the major priority, pushed aside the Albanian purpose and expectations.
The second one concerned the Albanian group. The cooperation between the Yugoslav Communist Party and the Albanian Work Party was buried for a small period, the expectations of the Albanian groups. The Tito-Stalin rupture and as a consequence, the rupture between Tito and the leader of the Albanian Work Party Enver Hoxha, made the attitude of the Yugoslav regime even tougher. On the other hand the Albanian leadership, for reasons of the internal cohesion and identification with USSR, considered that it was the right time to defend the rights of the Albanians in FYROM. However the nature of the Albanian Work Party wasn’t strong enough to give the right results. At the same time the Albanians of FYROM realized that the «motherland » was unable to defend them. The resumption of relations between Yugoslavia and the USSR and the rupture between Hoxha and Kruschev seemed to have very important negative implications for the issue of the Albanian groups. Meanwhile Yugoslavia had the chance to resort to vanishing measures (obligatory immigration to Turkey) and also some small important benefits. The Albanian community couldn’t react, resulting in the isolation of the Albanians in Istanbul and in the villages of Tetovo and other towns of FYROM. The process of the issue later on is connected with Kosovo proving once more the theory of communicating vessels. The Albanians of FYROM “sailed together” with the Albanians of Kosovo, when at the same time their “mother-land” followed the Chinese experiment and the international isolation.
The collapse of Yugoslavia caused the Albanian factor to mobilize politically. The rise of Sali Berisha in the leadership of Albania strengthened the state’s support for the requests of the institutions and the government. The Dayton Agreement for the peace in Bosnia and Herzegovina and the establishment of the new state was a great disappointment to the Albanians in and outside Yugoslavia. However the International Community’s priorities accelerated the process. The military troops in Kosovo also appeared in FYROM in a move to stop illegal activities (drug dealing, trafficking, gunrunning from the plunder of supply depots in Albania, illegal immigration). The Albanian activities were also assisted by the remittance of the Albanians who lived abroad. After the NATO intervention in Kosovo in 1999 and the internal crisis in FYROM, the Albanians abroad acted more organized and methodically. The conflict between Albanians and governmental powers and the pressure of the west on the FYROM government to sign the 2001 Ohrid Peace that signalized a new situation in this country, and foretold great re-arrangements and realignments. The European perspective of FYROM would be an interesting process for Greece and the whole area, however the internal facts until now indicate a negative prospect.
The Albanian issue in FYROM is not a fantastic story, but has to do with the reality. An independent Kosovo will be the start for the achievement of the Albanians’ demands in FYROM (recent comment of Arben Jaferi leader of the DPA) for the unity of the western area of FYROM with Kosovo and Albania.

Genocide



Pontos - The Sequel
Australian Macedonian Advisory Council
October 17, 2008
A moustachioed, fez-wearing man is galloping across a plain, to the right. The camera focuses upon his face. Turning to his companions, he points off the screen and shouts: «Από εδώ!» They all turn their horses and gallop off. Next scene: a voluptuous girl dressed in Pontian traditional attire is walking slowly through the fields with a semi-hypnotic, ecstatic smile on her face. Pan back to Fez-man, galloping this time in the opposite direction. He points across the horizon to his companions once more. «Από εκεί!» he shouts and the host gallops off the screen once more. Meanwhile, the hallucinogenic Pontian damsel traipses across the Swiss meadow until she comes to the foot of an olive tree. A wizened old man sitting at the base of the tree holds his kemenche and starts to bow it, producing a Pontian tik. The girl, contracting in the throes of ecstasy, throws up her arms and begins to dance. Pan back to Fez-man who is still galloping across the plain. Pointing once more to the horizon, he shouts: «Από δώ!» and his band of merry men ride off into the next scene.This lame, "Sound of Music΄ scenario, was a Greek attempt at making a movie about the Pontian genocide and it impressed Australian-born Pontic doyen Peter Stefanidis not a bit. In fact, as secretary of the Pontian Federation of Australia and committed to perpetuating and maintaining Pontian culture in the antipodes, he was incensed enough by Greece΄s paltry efforts to resolve upon a bold undertaking: to make his own film that would portray some of the more human aspects of the Pontian Genocide.It is no small wonder that of all the diatribes that get posted upon the Diatribe website, the one that receives the most hits, is the one entitled "Pontos: The Movie," and which purports to be a review of Stefanidis΄ short film. In fact, not a week goes past that I do not receive an email from a reader, requesting more information about the film and its gifted creator. Most of these enquiries come from overseas, primarily from Russia, though I did once receive a bizarre email from a reader in France, written in Karamanlidika – Turkish, in Greek characters.If teaching yourself film-making and making your own film about a topic that has eluded the inspiration of the greatest of Greek film-makers is not audacious enough, try this for size: Stefanidis΄ short film, "Pontos," a masterpiece of redemption and reconciliation has just been shown at the prestigious Cannes Film Festival, to critical acclaim. Considering that most prospective entrants to the Festival are rejected, this surely is no mean feat and speaks volumes not only as to his enormous talent as a film-maker, but also as to the boundless breadth of his artistic vision. Indeed, his presence at Cannes just last month is also of vast historical importance to our community, as it marks the first appearance of a Greek-Australian film-maker upon the Cannes scene. Further, his appearance is manifested through an artistic creation that is purely Hellenic in its inspiration, though tempered by his antipodean experience.Stefanidis΄ latest achievement, in having his masterpiece screened at Cannes, is significant for another reason. Up until now, the Genocide discourse has been primarily an endo-hellenic one. Both in Greece and in Australia, campaigns to raise awareness of the Pontian genocide have concerned themselves with preaching to the converted within the comfort zone of the largely disinterested community, (and this in turn has had the lamentable effect of various warring Pontian organizations abrogating the Genocide as a means of sparring with each other), save for Jenny Mikakos΄ spirited speech in State Parliament and the ill-fated Return to Anatolia conference, which though initially promising, has, through the machinations of its self-appointed chairperson, seen the successive alienation of the Pontian, Armenian and Assyrian communities from what was supposed to be a joint, communal endeavour. In the single act of making and showing a film, Stefanidis has globalised a message, not of antagonism, ethnic hatred or revenge, but of suffering, triumph in the face of adversity, hope and regeneration. He has done so without demonizing or alienating anyone and in such a broad and culturally pluralistic a manner, that arguably, could not in any way have been mastered by Greeks living within Greece.For as Fanis Malkidis, renowned Genocide scholar noted during his recent visit to Melbourne, after being barred from addressing the Return to Anatolia Conference by its chairperson, it is of enormous significance that a Greek from outside Greece, has placed an ostensibly "Greek" issue upon the global proscenium, while simultaneously carving out for it, an international context. He argues passionately for the role Greeks abroad can play in promoting Greek issues and creating sympathy for Greece. According to his views, Greeks abroad are often able to perceive the whole Greek package in its wider context, divorced and untrammeled from the petty indignities of the everyday struggle for existence in the motherland. Being thus able to view the bigger "picture," they are in a unique position to repackage it in a manner palatable to an audience not as well acquainted with it and thus ensure its easy digestion and assimilation.Endeavours such as those of Stefanidis, which, owing to broad and easily accessible form of media in which they manifest themselves, should thus be given the full support of the Greek government. Essentially, Stefanidis and the countless other nameless apodimoi devotees of Greek culture who spend countless hours trawling through the internet for information, write letters to politicians, ring talk-back radio, write letters to newspapers or give lengthy lectures to their non-Greek friends on diverse Greek-related subjects, are doing the Greek Ministry of Foreign Affairs΄ job with much greater agility and panache than the ΄career diplomats΄ could ever do themselves, simply because by living here, they have a better knowledge of their target audience and the methods that need to be employed in order to effectively pass on various messages. Most of the time, their efforts pass unnoticed and unrewarded by the Greek government and the impotent and navel gazing Greek community, whose own practice of contemplating itself until it disappears up its own fundamental orifice constitutes it for the most part, incapable of rendering these passionate apostle of Hellenism, most of them belonging to the second generation, any worthwhile assistance.It was thus heart-warming to see that the Council of Greeks abroad most generously offered to put up the cost of Stefanidis΄ travel to Cannes, in order to get his message out into the celluloidsphere. This is more than the Pontian communities of Melbourne have done for one of its brightest sons. Indeed, enmeshed in the throes of internecine strife, most of their leaders, especially those purporting to guide the organization that he once served with great distinction, into the future, attempt to malign him and his good works at every opportunity. Of course it comes as no surprise that their children are conspicuously absent from the cause they say they are promoting. Also unsurprising is the lack of first generation interest in Stefanidis΄ historic achievement. The letters in the Greek competent of this publication continue to discuss such weighty issues as mediocre poetry, community redevelopment pipe-dreams and the perpetual spewing forth of really bad karma. It is thus with great satisfaction that I recall my advice to Stefanidis, years ago, upon him giving an inspiring speech to the Pontian youth about how they could involve themselves in their organizations more, and asking me how one could avoid the pitfalls of hatred, jealousy and indifference while traversing the minefield that is Greek community endeavour. "Carve yourself a niche where no one can touch you," I told him "Do something that is so noble and high that it will cause you to rise above their petty criticisms, plots and schemes and render them unable to even come close to you." At least that is what I think I said.Stefanidis has done this and more. He has placed himself in an unassailable position vis a vis the stagnant Greek community by refusing to enter into its dialectic. Instead, he is carving his own, with a medium so awesome as to only be engaged in by the most dexterous. The Greek community and the Greek dialectic in general, which predictably enough will be the first to capitalize upon his successes and genius, without of course ever providing any practical assistance will have much growing up to do before it could ever attain the requisite maturity with which to assail his position.Cannes was a surreal experience for Stefanidis. In many ways it demythologized much of the glitz and glamour of film-making. He was able to witness at first hand, some of the darker and more exploitative aspects of the whole scene, including the way producers, directors and executives pressed themselves upon nubile, would-be young film-makers, in order to extract sexual favours. He noticed how some members of the guild jealously guarded their secrets from each other, lest another benefit from their experience. Most importantly, he discovered that Cannes is a dump in which it is impossible to obtain a decent bite to eat and that in order not have one΄s stomach abandon one on strike, the only solution is to seek refuge in the culinary paradise of Lyons.Peter Stefanidis also discovered that integrity, selflessness and dedication to a cause may also pay dividends. For in the make-believe world of Cannes, he was granted the unique privilege of explaining his motivation and techniques to some of the most important members of the industry, from which he has garnered a wealth of advice. Furthermore, he has had tantalizing nibbles from various European production companies, who are encouraging him to develop his short film into a movie length feature, for their consideration – truly a sound measure of the extent of the potential of this remarkable artist and are lesson to those who would despair of our own self-imposed, narrow horizons.We owe a great debt of gratitude to Peter Stefanidis. Not only because his indomitable love for his people and their history has caused him to push the boundaries of the Greek discourse into the global context, so that finally the Pontian genocide may obtain the publicity that it deserves, but also because his determination serves as a lesson to the small-minded, weak-hearted and despondent among us, who cannot see beyond the confines of the walls of the ghetto we have constructed for ourselves. The lesson is that we can still work miracles and that even when we cannot, we have nurtured a generation among whom there are visionaries that will set us free. Just how much we will nurture them so that they will feel comfortable enough to identify with us and stand by our side, is ultimately, up to us.by DEAN KALIMNIOUinfo@macedonian.com.auwww.macedonian.com.au