Tomorrow, 19th of May, is Pontian Greek Genocide Remembrance Day.

I highly recommend you read this exceptional post by Stavros at My Greek Odyssey. Here are some extracts, but do read the whole thing:

May 19 has been recognized by the Greek parliament as the day of remembrance of the Pontian Greek Genocide by the Turks. There are various estimates of the toll. Records kept mainly by priests show a minimum 350,000 Pontian Greeks exterminated through systematic slaughter by Turkish troops and Kurdish irregulars. Other estimates, including those of foreign missionaries, spoke of 500,000 deaths, most through deportation and forced marches into the Anatolian desert interior. Thriving Greek cities like Bafra, Samsous, Kerasous, and Trapezous, at the heart of Pontian Hellenism on the coast of the Black Sea, endured recurring massacres and deportations that eventually destroyed their Greek population. The genocide started with the order in 1914 for all Pontian men between the ages of 18 and 50 to report for military duty. Those who “refused” or “failed” to appear, the order provided, were to be summarily shot. The immediate result of this decree was the murder of thousands of the more prominent Pontians, whose names appeared on lists of “undesirables” already prepared by the Young Turk regime.

[..]

U.S. Ambassador Henry Morgenthau accused the “Turkish government” of a campaign of “outrageous terrorizing, cruel torturing, driving of women into harems, debauchery of innocent girls, the sale of many of them at 80 cents each, the murdering of hundreds of thousands and the deportation to and starvation in the desert of other hundreds of thousands, and the destruction of hundreds of villages and many cities,” all part of “the willful execution” of a “scheme to annihilate the Armenian, Greek and Syrian Christians of Turkey.” US Consul-General George Horton reported that “one of the cleverest statements circulated by the Turkish propagandists is to the effect that the massacred Christians were as bad as their executioners, that it was “50-50.”” On this issue he clarifies that “had the Greeks, after the massacres in the Pon­tus and at Smyrna, massacred all the Turks in Greece, the record would have been 50-50—almost.” As an eye-witness, he also praises Greeks for their “conduct toward the thousands of Turks residing in Greece, while the ferocious massacres were going on.”, which, according to his opinion, was “one of the most inspiring and beautiful chapters in all that country’s history.”

Stavros also includes in his post a graphic eyewitness account of the destruction of a Greek village, one of hundreds that met the same horrific fate:

The mothers, stood pale and disheveled in the bitter cold, trembling with fear while holding their clinging infants in close embrace. The young girls, some with their old parents and others with old women or holding up the sick, were herded like sheep, ready for slaughter, into the middle of a pandemonium punctuated by heart-breaking cries and lamentations. Then they ordered their victims to enter two pre-selected houses in the vicinity of the square where they could complete their crime. They herded this unwilling flock into the houses with kicks and shouts. There was no doubt now about the fate that awaited them. The Tsets crammed over three hundred into those houses, anxious to finish their macabre enterprise. When they were sure that no one remained outside, they locked the doors oblivious to the cacophony of cries and supplications for mercy that reverberated in the surrounding mountains and forests.

The final phase of this tragic event needed only a few handfuls of dry grass set alight to create a firestorm that engulfed the two houses in bloodcurdling screams through the pungent black smoke. What followed during the next hour cannot be adequately described…

Crazed mothers clutched tightly, with the all the force of their souls, their crying babies to their bosom. Children cried for their mothers. The girls and the other women with the elderly, the children and the sick, screamed and seized each other as if they wanted to take and give the other courage and help until their hair, clothes and bodies were engulfed by the flames. Piercing cries, maniacal screams and thunderous, wild howls of people, overcome by terror and pain. They beat and flayed the air and the walls to no avail. Hell on earth!

Some women and girls, in their despair and pain, threw themselves out of windows, preferring death from the bullets to the blazing inferno. Osman’s men who looked on smiling, enjoying the spectacle before them, were more than happy to accommodate these poor women by shooting them dead. The screaming began to dwindle, replaced by the noise of the crackling timbers and the crumbling walls falling on the smoldering bodies. Nothing remained but the ash and ruins of what used to be two homes in the town of Beyialan.

I’ve quoted quite a lot there, but please go and read the whole post, “Bitter Homage”.

You can also read another excellent article/post on the subject here, written by a young Pontian Greek girl called Olga, born in Russia and now living in South Africa. She also has a version of it in Russian.

Ted Laskaris comments on the current situation between Greece and Turkey on his blog Augean Central.

The Remembrance Day is currently recognised only by Greece and Cyprus and a half a dozen US states. Armenia also recognizes that the genocide occurred. Last year Jenny Mikakos raised the issue in the Victorian Parliament, seeking acknowledgement from the Turkish Government that the genocide took place. A minor scandal followed, with Jenny Mikakos being called racist and being accused of “inter-ethnic hate speech”. Here are extracts from her speech, from an article in The Age:

[..] On May 19 the Pontian community in Victoria and around the world will commemorate the 87th anniversary of the Pontian genocide that occurred in present-day Turkey.

“Between 1916 and 1923, over 353,000 Pontic Greeks living in Asia Minor and in Pontus, which is near the Black Sea, died as a result of the 20th century’s first but less-known genocide. Over a million Pontic Greeks were forced into exile. In the preceding years, 1.5 million Armenians and 750,000 Assyrians in various parts of Turkey also perished.

[..] The Turkish Government must begin the reconciliation process by acknowledging these crimes against humanity. The suffering of the victims of the Pontian genocide cannot and will not be forgotten.

[..] The Pontic people lived in Asia Minor and in Pontus from ancient times. When the Turkish nationalists took power after the collapse of the Ottoman Empire, a deliberate policy of creating ‘Turkey for the Turks’ was adopted, essentially to rid Turkey of its Pontian, Armenian and Assyrian Christians.

The process began with Christian businesses being boycotted, leading to bankruptcies and property being confiscated. Eventually, intellectuals and community leaders were rounded up and executed; women were raped and enslaved. Most victims died from exhaustion or dehydration on forced marches or work in the so-called labour battalions.

[..] Unlike Germany, which has taken responsibility for the Jewish holocaust, Turkey has never apologised to its victims.

Turkey of course won’t be apologizing anytime soon, but I wonder if a way forward may be to ask the Government of Kurdistan to apologize for the involvement of the Kurds. That would certainly put pressure on Turkey, to put it mildly. Although realistically it is unlikely, the Kurds may find reason to agree, given the recent war of words between them and Turkey over the PKK and the upcoming Kirkuk referendum.

Edward Luttwak on the anti-democratic goals of Turkey’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), which grew from the ashes of an Islamist party banned for extremism:

Since coming to power, the AKP has done nothing revolutionary, but it does have a revolutionary agenda. For all their suavity, its leaders seek to transform the country into a Sunni Muslim republic. This collides with institutions and laws strictly limiting Islam’s role in public life, and with a long-standing security alliance with Israel.

It also collides with democracy itself, for no Koranic state can have a sovereign parliament free to legalise such abominations as equal rights for women and homosexuals or the drinking of alcohol.

A sinister slogan attributed to the AKP is that democracy is ‘a bus we can ride until we reach our station’. Under Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his foreign secretary Abdullah Gul, the party has been cautious until now.

But abroad the AKP has been more strident. Turkey has stepped up relations with Muslim countries and cooled them with Israel. They have capitalised on public suspicion of the Western war on terror and yet have pursued Turkey’s application to join the EU.

There is no inconsistency. The AKP’s apparent ambitions in Europe are its most strategic deceptions. Ostensibly, the aim is simply to accelerate Turkey’s climb to prosperity.

However, a key condition imposed by the EU is the army’s abrogation of political authority – which suits the AKP just fine, for the military is the greatest barrier to Islamization. Moreover, the party shares the Islamist belief that Europe will inevitably be conquered by the high birthrates of its Muslim inhabitants – and Turkey’s entry would immediately add some 70 million.

There is also some essential Luttwak reading in this month’s Prospect too, on why the Middle East is “less relevant than ever” and the rest of the world should learn to ignore it. Interesting theory, if only that were possible and “it” hadn’t gotten so damn good at drawing attention to itself. Any ideas on how to distract all the Christians, Muslims and Jews of the world?

If thats not enough Luttwak controversy for you in one post, check out “Give War a Chance” and “Civil war: the only way to bring peace to Iraq”. Although the titles sound like they could be for same article they were in fact written seven years apart.

The Sydney Morning Herald travel blog recently had a post about “travelling through the developing world as a single female”, where people were invited to share their travel stories and opinions on which countries were the worst for Western female travellers.

The starting point for the discussion was an email from a reader:

Jane wrote to me a few weeks ago to suggest this topic, saying she was shocked at the hard time she’d been given while travelling by herself through countries such as Morocco and Egypt. In Egypt she was on a Nile cruise, but still got hassled whenever she stepped off her boat full of English tourists.

“When I managed to escape the confines of my floating little Manchester and actually go into the port towns (Luxor, Aswan), the locals were terrifying,” Jane writes. “I’m not a stupid traveller, nor a disrespectful traveller. But I was spat at, called a white bitch and hassled by one guy who went into great detail about what he and his four mates would like to do to me.

“With this in mind, when I flew into Morocco last week I decided to keep to daylight hours as much as possible and stick to only touristy spots. Even so, on my penultimate day in Casablanca, while walking to Hassan II Mosque, a guy walked up next to me and shoved his exposed tackle against my thigh while trying to herd me down another street. This was about 11am on a main road.”

And here are some of the comments:

Interestingly, the place I had the most trouble was London.

I lived in North London for the better part of a year in an area that was predominantly Turkish. I was spat at on a couple of occasions, groped a couple more and had more leers and snide comments made at me in the months I was there than I’ve had in my entire life. There was also a memorable occasion where two boys of no older than 17 threw rocks at me while I was jogging (in trackpants and a baggy t-shirt, I might add).
Emma at April 10, 2007 8:23 PM

The worst place I’ve been for harassment is Casablanca in Morocco. Like the story from Jane, almost every man I passed spat on me or at me. I had lots of really scary occasions where men followed me around for hours. Even the male hostel manager attacked me in the ladies bathroom and broke into my dorm room to try the same thing.
Posted by: Jessie at April 10, 2007 8:23 PM

however having a man with you doesnt necessarily keep you out of trouble… i was in Morocco with a girl i had met earlier in my trip and she still was treated like dirt. We ended up cutting short our trip to morocco by a couple of days because she felt so uncomfortable. Its a shame though because it was such a nice place, sadly marred by the locals…

I can say Morocco would be great… if not for the Moroccans.
* Posted by: Rich at April 10, 2007 9:56 PM

However, despite always wearing loose-fitting clothing, covering up and wearing a fake wedding band, I still ended up being groped on a few occassions in India (once shockingly), being hassled by men to buy me in Egypt, and generally being stared at and touched by men throughout Asia. Unfortunately it is just one of those things that comes with travelling in those sort of countries.
Posted by: Laura at April 10, 2007 11:55 PM

I know of a couple who travelled Turkey together. It was fine when they were by the coast, but one day in a restaurant/bar they met an (supposed) government official who seemed very friendly and with whom they enjoyed dinner and a night out. At the end of the night, he offered to give them a present – a trip to the mountains so they could have a romantic picnic. it was an offer which they thought twice about but, as often happens when you’re travelling, sometimes a little risk can bring about a great adventure. So, they accepted his offer.

the next morning, a jeep picked them up and drove them to a beautiful spot in the mountains. They started to picnic and then heard a vehicle approach. It turned out to be filled with armed men. Next thing, the men were out of the jeep and held the guy at gun point while they took turns raping the woman. A disgusting tragedy and needless to say, the relationship did not survive the holiday. the guy is sort of broken and as for the woman, I can only imagine….

I myself travel solo and have had to defend myself physically on a few occasions (india and Egypt were worst) but generally I just ignore the more benign stuff. Of course I wish I didn’t have to deal with it – that I could just enjoy the journey but what can be done if that is the culture of the men in that country?
* Posted by: anouk at April 11, 2007 6:54 AM

I lived in Egypt for a year, and it was hard work. As a white woman, every day was an obstacle course of being hissed at, spat at, yelled at, ripped off and propositioned by Egyptian men.
posted by: ejcd at April 16, 2007 2:07 PM

i had a wonderful experience in alexandria, egypt. i was walking aone around the souk (far too deep into the souk really) when a bloke in a salwar kameez began vigourously masturbating (imagine the fabric going up and down). i was very tired and sarcastically said to him, in english, ‘not getting any mate’.
Posted by: monica at April 17, 2007 10:28 PM

As an explanation for this kind of behaviour a number of people wrote that the inhabitants of these countries think all Western women are “sluts”, “‘whores” and “prostitutes” because of what they see on Western TV shows. There was even the token clown who’s “lived in Australia for a long time” and wrote that Western women deserve this treatment (“but im telling you that the western women get all what they deserve in this regard”), just to prove to any unbelievers that there really are men out there who think this way. Hmm, he’s lived in Australia all these years and he still hold those views? Amazing. Well, this is multiculturalism and thats his culture. Plenty more like him.

Maybe those men did think of Western women as “sluts”. Or maybe some of them thought of Western women as Bible-readers. Maybe even Bible-spreaders. Or maybe they were just bored mysogynist cowards who saw an easy target and what they did reflects a general cultural attitude towards women. Because there was this little incident in Egypt, when women didn’t need to be either hijab-less nor foreign to be randomly sexually assaulted.

Maybe they did because their own religious leaders tought them hatred:

Al-Fawzan: “Someone who denies Allah, worships Christ, son of Mary, and claims that God is one third of a trinity – do you like these things he says and does? Don’t you hate the faith of such a polytheist who says God is one third of a trinity, or who worships Christ, son of Mary?
“Someone who permits and commits fornication – as is the case in Western countries, where fornication is permitted and not considered a problem – don’t you hate this? Whoever says ‘I don’t hate him’ is not a Muslim, my brother.”
[...]
“But if this person is an infidel – even if this person is my mother or father, God forbid, or my son or daughter – I must hate him, his heresy, and his defiance of Allah and His prophet. I must hate his abominable deeds. Moreover, this hatred must be positive hatred. It should make me feel compassion for him, and should make me guide and reform him.”

So maybe they were expressing their “positive hatred” and “compassion” through attempt to “guide and reform” the infidel harlots.

Maybe even Dr. Tawfik Hamid (who was once a member of Jemaah Islamiya_ has a point about a simple but shocking truth:

“North Americans are too squeamish about discussing the obvious sexual dynamic behind suicide bombings. If they understood contemporary Islamic society, they would understand the sheer sexual tension of Sunni Muslim men.

Maybe this explains some other things too, Dr Hamid continues:

Look at the figures for suicide bombings and see how few are from the Shiite world. Terrorism and violence yes, but not suicide. The overwhelming majority are from Sunnis. Now within the Shiite world there are what is known as temporary marriages, lasting anywhere from an hour to 95 years. It enables men to release their sexual frustrations.

“Islam condemns extra-marital sex as well as masturbation, which is also taught in the Christian tradition. But Islam also tells of unlimited sexual ecstasy in paradise with beautiful virgins for the martyr who gives his life for the faith. Don’t for a moment underestimate this blinding passion or its influence on those who accept fundamentalism.”

A pause. “I know. I was one who accepted it.”

This partial explanation is shocking more for its banality than its horror. Mass murder provoked partly by simple lust. But it cannot be denied that letters written by suicide bombers frequently dwell on waiting virgins and sexual gratification.

“The sexual aspect is, of course, just one part of this. But I can tell you what it is not about. Not about Israel, not about Iraq, not about Afghanistan. They are mere excuses. Algerian Muslim fundamentalists murdered 150,000 other Algerian Muslims, sometimes slitting the throats of children in front of their parents. Are you seriously telling me that this was because of Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians or American foreign policy?”

He’s exasperated now, visibly angry at what he sees as a willful Western foolishness. “Stop asking what you have done wrong. Stop it! They’re slaughtering you like sheep and you still look within. You criticize your history, your institutions, your churches. Why can’t you realize that it has nothing to do with what you have done but with what they want.”

The MEMRI blog on a Turkish Daily report about honour killings:

According to the Turkish Daily News website, in a report on Turkey’s family protection laws, the Turkish daily Radikal enumerated some of the 18 reported “honor killings” that had taken place in Turkey since August 2006 including:

1. A widow who started working at a bus firm and was shot to preserve her family’s honor
2. One whose husband cut her throat for “taking too many showers”
3. An 18-year-old girl killed by her brother for talking to her boyfriend on the phone
4. Another strangled by her husband in front of the couple’s three-year-old son because she prepared breakfast late.

The MEMRI blog also has some statistics on who the Turkish public views as their enemies and friends:

The Turkish daily Vakit has published the results of a survey on Turks’ views of Israel and the U.S. The paper said that the survey, by the Başkent Research Company, was conducted through face-to-face interviews with 1,512 people in 15 Turkish cities. According to the survey, 91.5% of the respondents saw Israel as an enemy, while 77.1% felt the same about the U.S. Respondents also considered Armenia (88.7%) and Denmark (85.2%) to be enemies.

Countries viewed by respondents as “friends” of Turkey were Afghanistan (82.7%), Palestine (92.7%), Pakistan (90.5%), Indonesia (75.8%), Iran (70.2%) and Egypt (63.2%).

The survey found U.S. President George Bush, followed by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, to be the most unpopular world leaders for Turks.

Ironies abound in these numbers. The Turks may see the Palestinians as their best friends, but I somehow doubt the Palestinians would return the sentiments, as they have a somewhat different view of their past under the Ottoman Empire than their former overlords, Caliphate or not. Iran and Turkey have a recent history of enmity, while the US is of course supposed to be their good friend and ally. How absurd Turkey’s membership in NATO seems in light of these numbers. Afghanistan is after all the only place where NATO troops are currently engaged in a war and something tells me these Turks are batting for the other team. Denmark also deserves special mention – the only EU member in there making it into the top enemies list on the strength of the Danish cartoons alone.

Speaking of the EU, and membership thereof, these attitudes should find close correlation in most of it, so perhaps there is a chance for Turkey’s EU hopes coming to fruition after all?