THE ASSYRIAN AND ARMENIAN GENOCIDES OF 1915

Assyrian International News Agency
Oct 16 2007

The genocide of Assyrians in Ottoman Turkey remains one of the darker
pages in contemporary accounts of the Armenian Genocide of 1915.

Despite the fact that Assyrian Christians were exterminated alongside
Armenians, the world hears much less of the Assyrian factor. Some
commentators even state that Ottoman Greeks and Kurds were also
massacred in large numbers in 1915-16, though their massacres were
more area-specific and were to be continued after the extermination
of Armenian and Assyrians.

Ara Sarafian was the guest speaker to the Assyrian Academic Community
of Chicago (29 October 2005) where he examined the 1916 British
Parliamentary Blue Book, The Treatment of Armenians in the Ottoman
Empire 1915-16. This book has come into prominence in recent years
because of the ongoing denial of the Armenian Genocide by Turkish
authorities, and the allegation that the 1916 report was a forgery.

The Gomidas Institute has published two editions of the Blue Book,
and publicly opposes the Turkish position.

"Despite the name of that work" Sarafian explained, "the 1916 blue
book also reflected the experience of Assyrian Christians who were
massacred in 1915." There is a whole chapter about the treatment of
Assyrians by Turkish and Kurdish forces in Persia, and Assyrians are
mentioned in passing elsewhere. Sarafian went on to discuss, based
on his research, why Assyrians were not mentioned in the title of
the Blue Book, and why Assyrians tended to be "understated" though
not entirely ignored. The main reasons were the following:

1. Most of the key informants the British had when compiling the
parliamentary blue book were United States Consuls (who were in
communication to the outside world) and United States missionaries in
the interior of Ottoman Turkey. Since there were no US consulates! in
area s with high concentrations of Assyrians (Diyarbekir, Mosul and
Hakiari), and since American missionaries in these areas were expelled
in the early stages of the genocidal process ( e.g. from Mardin and
Diyarbekir), there was a distinct lack of critical information about
Assyrians from these ‘core’ areas.

2. Outside the main Assyrian inhabited areas, Assyrian Christians were
vastly outnumbered by Armenian Christians and were as a consequence
lumped alongside Armenians in descriptions of the genocidal process.

The fact that many Armenian academic and political activists have
avoided to engage the Assyrian issue over the years, the fate of
Assyrians (and Greeks) have not been redressed in our understanding of
the genocides of 1915. However, not all Armenian academics deny the
genocide of Assyrians. One recent excellent publication reflecting
the Assyrian experience was published in a special edition of
Revue d’histoire Armenienne contemporaine, "Mardin 1915: Anatomie
pathologique d’une destruction" (Paris, 2002). According to Sarafian,
the way to engage the Assyrian issue in a constructive way today is
through scholarship. "That has to be the bedrock of our understanding"
he added.

The ensuing discussion focused on various academic strategies
for modern Assyrians to record and integrate their experience into
mainstream academic debates. Sarafian stated that the Gomidas Institute
could start an Assyrian publications series in the English language
if there was serious interest. Others discussed the possibilities of
cultivating new specialists and soliciting scholarly articles. "At
the end of the day," Sarafian concluded, "the Assyrian experience is
part of a broader common history, in the same mosaic of peoples in
the region."

The Armenian Community (UK) Garod House 42 Blythe Rd.

London W14 0HA

EasternStar News Agency

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress