OPEN LETTER FROM 19,000 ASSYRIANS TO TURKEY: DO NOT TOUCH ST. GABRIEL MONASTERY

Assyrian International News Agency

Feb 5 2009

The group "Aktion Mor Gabriel" in Germany, held a protest demonstration
in Berlin (AINA 1-27-2009) against Turkey’s attempts to confiscate
the Mor Gabriel Monastery. According to official figures from the
Berlin police, more than 19 000 people gathered. It is undoubtedly
the largest Assyrians demonstration ever in Europe.

Buses filled with young, old, men and women from Belgium, Holland,
Switzerland, Austria, and from several cities in Germany emptied
outside the magnificent cathedral, the Berliner Dom. In an hour the
cathedral’s park area turned to a meeting place for Assyrians from
all over Europe.

Just a stone’s throw from the gathering is the Pergamon Museum. Inside
the museum you can watch the impressive Babylonian procession street,
built by the Assyrian king Nebuchadnezzar II (604-562 BC). Lions in
the relief walking along the procession street’s blue and ocher colored
glazed walls towards the mighty gate of Ishtar. They are witnesses of
a great past and have seen many generations of Assyrians come and go.

The contrast in Berlin

Inside the Pergamon Museum, you can watch the Babylonian procession
street and the gate of Ishtar, one of ancient history’s most unique
remains from the great Assyrian empire, while outside, a stone’s
throw from the museum you are met by today’s brutal truth, where the
remains of the Assyrian empire protest against Turkey’s attempt to
confiscate the Mor Gabriel Monastery, which has become a symbol of
the Christian Assyrians since it was built in 397 A.D.

Before the protest march was moving towards its final destination,
the Syriac Orthodox Church Archbishop of Germany, Julio Hanna Aydin,
made a short speech.

– I am extremely pleased to see so many young people involved in
the Mor Gabriel issue. I am overwhelmed with joy to see all of our
organizations, regardless of name, flags and colors. It is the day
of unity, said Bishop Hanna Aydin.

Under the leadership of Bishop Hanna Aydin the crowd prayed the
lord’s prayer, after that the demonstrators began to move towards the
Brandenburg Tor, the arch of triumph that has become the symbol of
a free, democratic and reunited Germany, where several demonstration
speeches would be held.

Berlin’s main avenue, Unter den Linden, was closed for car traffic
for the demonstration. This avenue which is Berlin’s cultural and
political center is heavily visited by tourists. Some curious tourists
asked the organizers in yellow vests what it is about.

The demonstration took the march from the Berliner Dom at Pariser Platz
to the Brandenburg Gate in one hour. "Do not touch the Mor Gabriel"
the crowd scanted all the way.

The list of speakers consisted of representatives from various
organizations, Assyrian, Armenian, German Evangelical Church
representatives, other coreligionists and human rights activists. Also
the authors Yelda Ozcan and Recep Marasli showed their solidarity
and gave speeches during the demonstration.

The line of argument in the speakers’ message was that Turkey should
stop harassing the Assyrians. Most speakers noted that the feudal
system is a problem and the village guards armed with government
weapons are raging freely and terrorizing the Assyrians in the
area. The Turkish State which has started this systematic state terror
by using Kurdish clans and village guards has to immediately stop it
if they want to belong to the civilized world, emphasized the majority
of speakers.

History is present

A few hundred meters south of the Brandenburg Gate, where 19 000
Assyrians were assembled, the Holocaust Mahnmal, a monument to the
Holocaust, which covers a 19 000 m2 area in the middle of Berlin’s
most central neighborhoods. The monument was built as an unforgettable
symbol of the crime that Nazi Germany had committed against the city’s
once flourishing Jewish community.

Turkey, however, does the contrary, and responds to its dark history in
an entirely different way. Just a few kilometers from the demonstration
site is Hardenberg Strasse, the street where the genocide architect
of Seyfo, Talat Pasha, was killed in March 15, 1921 by an Armenian
survivor of the genocide. Seyfo-genocide was staged by the young
Turks under the direction of among others Talat Pasha. The current
Turkish government continues its policies in the same spirit. With its
aggression and its harassment of the Assyrians and other Christians
in the country, the Turkish state shows that even today they follow
in Talat Pashas footsteps.

Turkey seems to have difficulties to put up with the fact that there
are a couple of thousand Assyrians left in Turabdin, the origin area
of the Assyrians, and that they have a monastery in the area, although
they already have eradicated several hundred thousand of them during
the Seyfo genocide. Turkey wants to erase the last remains and to
complete the genocide that Talat Pasha and the young Turks began in
the shadow of the First World War. A country which does not recognize
its crimes and apologize for them is always prone to commit the same
crimes against humanity. Learn from Germany, Turkey! Dare to face
your dark history and make up with it!