The Assyrians and Their Forgotten Tragedy: Is It Too Late?

The Assyrians and their Forgotten Tragedy: Is it too late?

Adolph Hitler once stated in his autobiographical political ideology book, Mein Kampf, "[w]ho after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Armenians?" in order to rally Germans on his side of exterminating European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s (Lord 3). This quote is quite paradoxical because although it could be argued that the Armenians have not received proper international recognition of the crimes committed against them by the Young Turk government of the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923, it is inaccurate to say that no one remembers it when several government around the world have given proper acknowledgement and recognition of it. However, the case of the Assyrians is a little different. Although neither the Armenians nor the Assyrians have received full recognition of the atrocities committed against them by the Ottoman Empire from 1915-1923, it is indisputable that the Assyrians have faced a greater struggle than the Armenians. Nearly an equal percentage of Assyrians were killed in the atrocity as Armenians, but unlike the Armenians, the Assyrians did not receive a homeland from the Turkish government to guarantee their safety from possible future annihilation attempts. Hence, what Hitler should have stated instead is "[w]ho after all, speaks today of the annihilation of the Assyrians?"

Before divulging into the aftermath of the Ottoman killings of its ethnic Christian minorities in World War I, it is necessary to know a little bit of the history behind both the Assyrian and Armenian races and cultures. The Armenian people are an ethnic group who were originally from the ancient Armenian Highlands, or modern-day Armenia, eastern Turkey, and parts of Syria, Iran, Iraq, Georgia, and Azerbaijan. They were the first nation in the world to adopt Christianity as the state religion in 301 AD. The Assyrian people are also one of the world's oldest Christians, from the lands of ancient Mesopotamia, which is today divided into parts of Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, and Syria. For 300 years, Assyrian kings ruled the largest empire the world had ever known until that point in time. (Godspeed 401).

Historically, both groups have suffered a great deal of torture and persecution, but the Assyrians are alone in their quest for a homeland and virtually no worldwide recognition for the crimes that were committed against them by the various powers of the Middle East, namely the Ottoman Empire of the First World War. One of the major downfalls in the history of the Assyrian people and its culture is without a doubt the 1915-1923 Ottoman government's nearly full extermination of its people.

In joining the fight in World War I, the Turkish Ottoman Empire gained an optimal opportunity for "Turkification", or the annihilation of its non-Turkish population. Motivated by the curiosity and desire of Germany, Sultan Mehmet VI declared jihad, or holy Islamic war, against all of the Christians living within its territories on October 11th, 1914 (Balakian 47). As a result, over two million Armenians, Assyrians and other Christian minorities were killed. The modern Turkish Republic state was founded on the "Genocide of the Christians" and its foundations were laid upon the bloody soil, and lifeless bones of its Christian victims. The general plan was to homogenize Turkey. Prior to the First World War, the population of Turkey was 14 million; 4.5 million of those were Christians, or about one-third of the population. Today in Turkey, the total number of Christians amounts to only 0.1 percent of the population (Kurian & Johnson 2001).

On April 24th, 2011, the 96th commemoration of the genocide was held in various parts of the world, but all under the term the Armenian Genocide or Medz Yeghern (the "Great Calamity" in Armenian). While the Armenian aspect of the genocide has been considerably discussed and recognized by various parts of the world, most are not aware that the entire Christian population, especially the Assyrians, of the then Ottoman Empire was subjected and suffered under the same genocidal policies of the Young Turk government. In order to recognize the mass killings of the Assyrians as a separate entity than that of the Armenians, it must be given a different name than to let itself fall into the same category as the more renowned Armenian Genocide. It should, therefore, be called the Assyrian Genocide, in order to maintain a separate identity from the genocide of the Armenians and thus, distinguish itself from this group. On the other hand, if this were to ever happen, the proper term for the genocide should be called, "Seyfo," which in the Western Assyrian dialect means "the sword." (Seyfo Center 2) This word has crucial significance in the Assyrian community for historical purposes, and it will be explained further.

The Assyrian Genocide Research Center, called the Seyfo Center, was founded by Assyrians from Europe and the United States several decades ago in Germany, in order to inform the world of the atrocities committed against Assyrians all throughout the world from all eras, and to garner international recognition of these crimes (Seyfo Center 1). The term, Seyfo, has a very profound meaning for the Assyrian people. In the Assyrian Genocide, people were killed with swords, or "seyfos", in Western Assyrian. This term is analogous to "the Holocaust" of the Jews, where its people were burned and killed alive in the concentration camps, because the word "holocaust" literally means "to burn to death". Similarly, the genocide in Rwanda has become known as the Panga Genocide, because of the use of the weapon resembling a big knife known as a "panga" that was used in massacring its people, as well.

Though the Assyrian and Armenian communities share a lot of similarities, there are also a plethora of differences between the situations of the two. For example, The United Nations, European Parliament, and Catholic Church have all condemned the killings of the Armenians in the Ottoman Empire during WWI and have recognized the atrocities as the Armenian Genocide. France, which has the largest Armenian diaspora population outside the USA, has acknowledged the genocide through its parliament. (BBC News 3). The former foreign minister of France, Michael Barnier, has even stated that Turkey must "recognize this tragedy" before its acceptance into the European Union, a desire Turkey has desperately wanted to achieve for the past few decades (BBC News 3). Along with France, the parliaments of Russia, Belgium, Switzerland, Argentina, Canada, Poland, and Greece have passed resolutions declaring the events as genocide. However, not one of these countries