Obstacles in Universal Greek Genocide Recognition

The Greek Genocide was the darkest periods in Greek history. Taking place from 1914 to 1923, one million Greeks from Asia Minor and Eastern Thrace were put to the sword by the Young Turks regime and later, the Kemalists led by Mustafa Kemal ‘Ataturk.’ Not only did ethnic cleansing take place, but both nations still hold animosity over the events today.

A population exchange and forced deportations saw Greeks of Eastern Thrace and Asia Minor cede their ancestral homelands, which was ratified in 1923. Many of descendants of genocide survivors to this day still live in diaspora today in countries like the US, Canada, Germany, and Australia, with little to no right of return without threats from the state of Turkey and ultranationalists.

Greeks were not the only ones who were part of a targeted genocidal campaign by the Ottomans, as Armenians, Assyrians, and Maronites were also heavily persecuted and massacred by the Ottoman state. Today, Armenia has gathered support for the most international recognition of their genocide in the Ottoman Empire. 

What makes this so shocking, surprising, and shameful is that Greece itself does not recognize the Greek Genocide but breaks each major region into different days of recognition. Though some may see this as okay, it in fact is not. This has hindered the efforts of genocide scholars and descendants of genocide survivors who continuously fight for universal genocide recognition to this day.

Regional Divisions

The most famously used term for the Greek Genocide is Pontic Genocide. Though it is true, hundreds of thousands of Pontian Greeks were slaughtered indiscriminately, this term is a gross miscalculation to the other Greeks across different regions in Asia Minor and Thrace that were killed in the genocide. Civilians were massacred en masse in Adrianople, Smyrna, Cappadocia, Nicomedia, Constantinople, Bithynia, Cilicia, and other regions and cities throughout the Ottoman Empire.

Kostas Faltaits, a world renown Greek journalist made an emphasis on this in his war reporting on Turkish brutality upon the Christians and that they did not discriminate based on faith, but on the Greek national identity. He later wrote notes, now published in a book on the survivor testimonies of the Greeks of Nicomedia which went into detail of how Turkish troops did not spare anyone, including children. 

The Ottomans emphasized all Greeks of Asia Minor and Thrace would be targeted fully in the policy known Turkification:

“In 1914, most businesses on the Aegean littoral were owned by Ottoman Greeks. When persuasion did not cause the desired effect, the CUP took recourse to more violent methods of Turkification of the economy. It sent emissaries such as Special Organization agent Kara Kemal to assist Responsible Secretary Celal Bayar (1883–1986) in Turkifying the economy of Smyrna/Izmir. In the summer of 1914, this political and nationalist persecution gained momentum as boycotts and expropriations escalated into kidnappings and assassinations of Greek businessmen and community leaders, and even wholesale deportations of villages. The fact that after this terror campaign many Ottoman Greeks opted to emigrate to Chios or Greece, abandoning their territory to the benefit of Ottoman Muslims, was celebrated by the CUP as an administrative success. Turkification was beginning to yield its fruits at a time when the outbreak of the war foreshadowed bad times for the population of the eastern provinces.” –  Quote from Uğur Ümit Üngör, Young Turk social engineer in Eastern Turkey, 1913-50, Journal of Genocide Research, 2008.

Genocide Recognition on Three Different Days

The following map below created by the Greek Genocide Resource Center shows the regional division that exists within the Greek community on the Greek Genocide. Indirectly due to this regional approach, each group effectively boycotts each other’s Remembrance Day events, which does nothing but hamper the nationwide and universal push for full recognition. 

The April 6th Remembrance Day for Eastern Thrace came and went, and some lobbies in the diaspora barely acknowledge it. This is the result of the division; the genocide goes unnoticed which is a big win for the perpetrator who does not need to spend millions lobbying on genocide denial like they do with the Armenians. It is worth noting that the Greek Government does not even recognize the genocide of Greeks in Eastern Thrace, therefore, their denial hampers recognition efforts. Currently, the only two days the Greek Government recognizes is May 19 and Sept 14.

Map of the regions which commemorate different days of the Greek Genocide. Credit: Greek Genocide Resource Center

Why Genocide Recognition should be on one single day

As all descendants have good intentions on recognition for their regions, but this does correlate into progress. The point of a combined Greek Genocide recognition is to start a process of accountability against the Turkish government who to this day still threatens to wipe out Greeks, their heritage, and even in the modern era conducted massacres against Greeks with mass graves in Cyprus

To start the process of other nations recognizing the genocide and eventually writing educational curriculum in their history books, Greece and Greek lobbies need to recognize the genocide. If a European textbook refers the genocide as ‘Pontic Genocide’ or ‘Thracian Genocide’ it would be demoralizing for other Greeks of different regions whose ancestors felt the sword and the pain by the Turkish government. 

Armenia does not recognize their genocide by cities such as Sivas, Kars, and Cilicia, but as a full genocide against Armenians. Assyrians do not recognize their genocide by cities in Mesopotamia like Mosul or cities in Asia Minor like Diyarbakir, but as an Assyrian Genocide as a whole. It is time for Greece to do the same and it is time to end the tribalism amongst the government and lobbies.

[Photo by Library of Congress]

The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect TGP’s editorial stance.

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