ishtartv.com-
AINA
By
Hermiz Shahen
2015-04-24
02:19 GMT
The
World War I genocide of Assyrians of all Christian denominations has become an
integral part of the life and collective consciousness of the Assyrian nation
until the present day. The extermination took many forms and methods within the
conditions and political realities of different conflicts experienced by the
Middle Eastern countries and the world. The factors that surrounded them
locally and globally affected the entity of the Assyrian nation adversely and
catastrophically. In recent years, history is repeating itself for the Assyrian
nation. They are systematically driven out from their ancestral lands in Iraq
and Syria. They have been subjected to gross violations of human and legal
rights. Murder, rape, assault, and forced conversions to Islam have become
commonplace as armed death-squads attempt to force Assyrians out of their time
immemorial habitats; exactly 100 years after the Ottoman Empire's Caliphate
government started its campaign of ethnic cleansing in 1914 against its
Christian population. Nearly half-a-generation later, on August 7, 1933 over
6000 defenseless Assyrians were massacred by the Iraqi army because they
demanded their rights.
Today,
about one hundred and fifty thousand of Syria and Iraq's dwindling Assyrian
population has been forcefully displaced over a very short period of time. The
jihadists have moved in swiftly and forcefully to claim several Assyrian towns,
forcing their inhabitants to flee. They have destroyed homes ancient churches,
Assyrian artifacts and the Assyrian archaeological sites. The major goal for
committing these massacres has always been ending the national entity of the
Assyrians as the original owners of the land and inheritors of history and
civilization. It also aimed at the elimination of the Christian presence in the
region, which according to the definition of genocide endorsed by the United
Nations, is defined as "crimes against humanity" that pursue the
persecution and physical extermination of national, ethnic, racial and
religious minorities.
On
the centenary of the genocide, the recognition by the international community
of the last century's genocide against the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek peoples
is overdue. The modern Turkish Republic has continued its denial and its
refusal to acknowledge its Ottoman predecessor's involvement in these crimes
against humanity. Recognition is an essential step towards saving humanity from
the threat of future destruction. A defilement of the concept of human dignity
is today the result of humanitarian disasters in many parts of the world
including Africa and the Middle East. As a consequence of the 1915 genocide against
the three nations, the link with eternity was lost when the symbol of that
eternity, which is the Assyrian civilization, was killed in the massacre of
750,000 Assyrians. The most ancient human civilizations come from the region of
Mesopotamia. The Ottoman Empire destroyed the last remnants of this
civilization in that region. At the same time the Armenian civilization was
substantially destroyed and half of that nation was exterminated. Those
Armenians who survived lost almost all their historical territories .The
depopulation of Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks from their ancestral homelands
was part and parcel of Turkey's policy of eliminating the Christian minorities.
The
Assyrians, Armenians and Greeks have been crying out for justice following the
atrocities committed against them a century ago. Our voices had fallen on deaf
ears in Australia for the longest time. Until recently that is, when on 1 and 8
May 2013, a motion recognising the Assyrian, Armenian and Greek genocide was
passed unanimously in the New South Wales Legislative Council and Legislative
Assembly in Australia. This great justice would not have been possible without
the courageous stand of two great individuals who moved this motion in both
houses, namely; Reverend the Hon. Fred Nile MLC, President of the Christian
Democratic Party and The Hon. Barry O'Farrell, former Premier of New South
Wales as well as with the contribution and support of all the esteemed parties
in the New South Wales State Parliament. To date the Swedish, Dutch, Armenian
and Austrian parliaments have recognised the Assyrian Genocide along with the
European Parliaments and His Holiness Pope Francis. We hope that other
countries including Australia will follow suit. The three nations that suffered
this horrific genocide will always remember with pride and honour the
Australian & New Zealander heroes who were eyewitnesses to the inhumane
acts perpetrated against them. ANZACs had rescued survivors of the massacres
and deportations across the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1918, making the
Armenian, Assyrian and Greek genocides a part of the Australian story.
Recognition
of the genocide will guarantee that Turkey understands its contemporary
obligations to protect both the human and collective national rights of its
minority populations and to prevent any future genocide. It will also help to
strengthen our Assyrian national existence in the homeland as well as in the
Diaspora, and will initiate international awareness of the Assyrian nation's
rights to existence among the nations of the world. Let justice be done, souls
consoled, broken hearts mended, nations reconciled, and honor given to all
those who perished so needlessly during a dark hour in mankind's recent
history.
*Hermiz
Shahen is the Deputy Secretary General of the Assyrian Universal Alliance.
