“September, oh black September”
Verse from an Ode to the Asia Minor Catastrophe.
The month of September draws with it mixed emotions throughout the Cosmos, in the north we witness a slow rustling in of the end of summer and for the south its bright beginning. For Hellenism however, these mixed emotions carry with them a heavy weight and a very real sense of both happiness and anguish, for on the one hand it signals the beginning of the New Year on the Orthodox calendar and on the other it resurfaces memories of old and deep wounds through the anniversaries of dates which have laid testament to the ravaging of the Hellenic civilization and culture.
One such date is September 14, the commemorative day of the Hellenic “genocide” a.k.a. “the major catastrophe” when we remember the forced expulsion and eradication of the Greek peoples of Asia Minor (over 320,000) which in one fell swoop on that very night in 1922, brought an end to a Hellenic presence of over 3000 years in Anatolia. An incident, considered to be the worst of Modern Greek history, and of the same magnitude as the Fall of Constantinople.
The crown jewel of Anatolian Hellenism, and its true pride was the beautiful city of Smyrna, a unique and thriving metropolis within the then fledgling Ottoman Empire. By the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th centuries, Smyrna had grown to be one of the largest and most cosmopolitan cities in the Mediterranean, boasting the title of the European foothold on the road to Asia.
A city made up of tall buildings, beautiful houses, impressive stores, elegant churches and a bustling port district giving it a truly grandiose feel. It’s inhabitants where in there irrefutable majority Greeks (over 320,000 of the roughly 1,600.000 Greeks living in Anatolia), which at the time is said to have been at least double that living in Athens. There was also a large Armenian and Jewish communities, add to them, Turks and Levantines and you begin to really see the mosaic of cultures that made the city so illustrious.
Smyrna was truly one of the great Hellenistic centres which tragically, like so many others, no longer exist not because of some natural disaster or voluntary migration but the deliberate actions and the systematic policy of “Ethnic Cleansing” both hatched and executed with devilish precision by the father of modern day Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha aka. Ataturk.
Just like that, almost suddenly - on September 9, 1922, four years after the end of WW1, Smyrna was snuffed out in a single week of mass-murder, rape, looting, and one of the greatest acts of arson of the 20th century. By the end of it, few, could have guessed the scale of horrors that were netted out on the city. Estimates vary, but some suggest that by the end of the mayhem over 100,000 people had been killed and many times that number turned into homeless refugees. Accounts from the survivor’s paint a grim picture indeed, rivalling in atrocity the horror’s of the Holocaust.
As Mustafa Kemal’s army arrived at the border of the city, the citizens of Smyrna, even at that late stage were confident that no harm would come their way because in Smyrna’s bay docked 21 allied battleships from the U.S., England, France and Italy. Disappointingly though, there was no protection shown by the allies, nor any mercy shown by Ataturk and his army and the city was burned to the ground.
The once thriving city of Smyrna had by the 14th of September turned into a soulless city engulfed in smoke, nothing more than a gigantic ball of fire visible to those fortunate enough to have escaped with their lives from the grip of the marauding Turkish Army. The “Neo” Turk’s (with Ataturk’s approval), had brought with them many thousands of litres of petroleum from the Petroleum Company of Smyrna, pouring it all over the streets and houses of all but the Turkish quarter, effectively achieving their objective of “Turkification”.
“Turkification” was Mustafa Kemal’s version of the “final solution” to his perceived minority problems who’s removal had become paramount (and “should come at any cost”), thus in his mind ensuring the future stability of his Turkish Republic. A homogeneous nation of one people, one language, one religion did eventually come, but at a high price for Anatolia’s Christian populations, a suffering on an almost unimaginable scale and one of the most horrific humanitarian disasters of the 20th century.
The Smyrna Catastrophe was the signal for the end of an Anatolian Greek homeland of which the Lausanne Treaty involving the 1923 population exchange between Greece and Turkey was the final nail in its coffin. This became the first large scale population exchange, or agreed mutual expulsion in the 20th Century. It involved some two million people, most forcibly made refugees and de jure denaturalized from homelands of centuries in a treaty promoted and overseen by the International community.
A high price paid for the defeat of Greece in the subsequent war with Turkey, resulting from bad Greek decisions both politically and militarily, “allied” treachery, and Turkish opportunism, effectively ruining any advantages gained after the establishment of the Sevres Treaty for the city of Smyrna.
Today we celebrate the 87th anniversary of this “Christian Holocaust” of Asia Minor, so let’s all just take a moment to help resonate in this contemporary period these tragic events of a genocide rarely spoken of outside of the Greek and Armenian communities. Reminding everyone that events like this lay testament of man’s inhumanity of man and reveal to us the importance of commemoration as they will hopefully through remembrance act as deterrents for other such atrocities.
Lest we forget!
P1: “Revisionist” claims answered.
For those that will rush to remind me that this is “ancient history” and thus unrelated to our modern world, I will respond simply, with the phrase “those who ignore history are doomed to repeat it” and remind you all that the process of “Turkification” has played and continues to play a pivotal role in Turkish policy both foreign and domestic to this day, and a quick look at the 1955 pogrom of the Greeks of Constantinople and the 1974 invasion and to this day illegal occupation of 38% of the island of Cyprus as well as the continued purge of the large Kurdish community will undoubtedly attain for this. Let alone the plethora of evidence, testimonies of the survivors and first hand recipients of these tragic for Hellenism events. Accounts verified by eye witnesses, photographic and video footage as well as international organisation memos and affidavits on the said matters.
P2: “Genocide” or a “Security Measure”, the terminology of the Event revisited.
From 1917 -1922 the “Young Turk” regime led by Mustafa Kemal Pasha (Ataturk) carried out a systematic, premeditated, centrally planned genocide against the Greek and Armenian peoples residing in what is today modern day Turkey. Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of “Genocide”, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, reports of diplomats and the testimony of survivors, there has been a systematic denial of the genocide by successive regimes in Turkey and this has gone on since 1915.
The basic argument of denial has remained the same, it never happened, Turkey is not responsible. The term “Genocide” does not apply. The tactics of denial, however, have shifted over the years. In the period after WW1 the tactic was to find scapegoats to blame for what was said to be a security measure gone awry. This was followed by an attempt to avoid the whole issue, with silence, diplomatic efforts and political pressure used where possible and so far in part it has succeeded.
There is much debate regarding the terminology used to describe the events that took place in Asia Minor and indeed across Anatolia. To make things clear I must firstly clarify that the roots of the term “Genocide” was first coined by Raphael Lemkin in 1914. The term signifies the destruction of a nation or of an ethnic group and implies the existence of a coordinated plan, aimed at total extermination, to be put into effect against individuals chosen as victims purely because they are members of the target group. A legal definition is found in the 1948 United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime Of Genocide (CPPCG).
After stating in Article 1 that genocide is a crime under International Law the convention laid down the following definition: Any of the following acts committed with an intent to destroy, in Whole or in part, a national, ethical, racial or religious group such as;
• Killing members of the said group,
• Causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the said group,
• Deliberately inflicting on the said group conditions of life calculated
to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part,
• Imposing measures intended to prevent births within the said group (Forcibly transferring children of the said group to another group
Genocide is distinguishable from all other crimes by the motivation behind it. A quick overview of the events of Anatolia shows an act comprised of murders, rapes, forceful conversions, forced expulsions and missing peoples in their thousands are all casing points and will surely convince any person that the facts do indeed point to the conclusion that “yes, it was a genocide”.
The classic imagery associated with the term “genocide” revolves around the events of WW2 and the persecution of 6 million Jews at the hands of the Nazis, which undoubtedly ranks as the 20th centuries most horrific event, this however doesn’t mean that what transpired in Anatolia is any less of a tragedy. The images are no less chilling and one would indeed struggle to spot the differences, and if anything, the events of those days should undoubtedly rank as a prequel to the events of the Jewish Holocaust for the difference was that this time it was the Orthodox Christians on the end of a barbaric sword.
“Who after all, remembers the annihilation off the Armenians”, these words were spoken by Adolf Hitler, before he began the extermination of the European Jews, in reference to the events that took place a few years earlier and culminated in one of the largest purges of Humanity- the extinction of 3.5 million Greek and Armenian orthodox Christians who occupied Asia Minor and Anatolia.
Thus, the only true difference in the two “Genocides” is, that the events of the Catastrophe of Anatolia in general, and Smyrna in particular have been systematically ignored by western historians, thus leaving the west relatively unfamiliar with the details of this massive human tragedy that transpired. A tragedy to which the politics and pathos that arises from these very events has greatly affected the collective psyche, and indeed the course of history for the entire Greek nation. Remnants of which can still be felt today in conversations with them, in reference to the past they tend to make a clear distinction to Anatolia as their “homeland”, as opposed to their current residence and this in itself is the ‘Real Tragedy’, the hard felt truth of genocide, the stigma of the loss of everything.
There has been an effort of late by the Greek government to remove the offending word, "Genocide" and referring to the massacre of Greek martyrs in Asia Minor as a "Catastrophe." Other reports state that the term "Genocide" would also be referred to as a "Devastation." Does the Greek government actually believe that by doing so it will incur the appreciation of the Turkish government? And which is it to be? Is it a "Catastrophe," or is it a "Devastation?" Either way, the fact that Greek Christians also bore the wrath of Muslim Turks and were slaughtered under hideous and barbaric conditions, "Catastrophe" or "Devastation" is merely a slap on the wrist and an insult to the memory of the Greek martyrs, in what was blatantly an act of Genocide.
Today we mark the 87th year of commemoration of those tragic days which remain stigmatized within the hearts and souls of many Greeks. It is therefore paramount that we as a nation and as individuals reflect upon those events and pay them the due homage they deserve, for it is only just that we make it our duty to ensure that it never happens again.
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