REPORT ON THE PORTRAITS OF CHRISTIAN ASIA MINOR CONFERENCE

The conference was attending by approximately 140 people over its two-day duration (60 on Saturday and 80 on Sunday). Apart from our overseas and interstate speakers, there were also a number of dignitaries in attendance. Acting Consul-General Cenk Karaduman of the Turkish Consulate-General in Sydney, Consul Elizabeth Photiadou of the Hellenic Consulate-General in Sydney, former U.S. Senator John Nimrod from Chicago, Secretary-General of the Assyrian Universal Alliance, and Mr Younatan Bet-Kolia from Teheran, representing the Assyrian community of Iran.

Participation from the Assyrian community was as exceptionally high as participation from the Armenian and Hellenic communities were low. It was pleasing that the Centre was making contact with another community beyond its traditional Jewish/ Armenian/ Hellenic base.

It was disappointing that publicity for the Conference amongst the Armenian community was so poor. This is the reason I kept hearing as being the cause for the absence of Armenians.

The Hellenic community has proven once and for all its unwillingness to travel north of the Harbour for such events. Advertising in the Hellenic-community media was extensive and regular. There have been articles about the Conference in Hellenic and English since late-last year. This aside from the paid advertisements I placed and the interviews I gave on S.B.S. and other Hellenic-radio programmes. Distance is no excuse. The Assyrian community delegates travelled from Sydney’s south-western suburbs for the Conference, a similar distance to travelling from the eastern or southern suburbs.

There was also a group of delegates from the Turkish community. They, too, travelled some distance to attend the conference. The Conference made front-page news in the Sydney Turkish-community press under the headline "Anti-Turkish University Conference". They came as an organised group and seemed intent on being as disruptive as possible, particularly during the discussion periods that followed each session. Their behaviour as a whole was completely unacceptable at an academic conference. Some of them constantly interjected during the presentations of speakers dealing with the Asia Minor Holocaust and preferred theatrical grandstanding to asking relevant questions, as can be seen from the video-recording of the Conference.

There were some unforeseen last-minute changes to the Programme but these did not prolong the Conference by any significant length of time, nor did these changes significantly disrupt the rhythm of the Conference.

A collection of photographs donated by many people to the Pontos Research Unit was displayed during the Conference and generated much interest amongst the delegates. The photographs were mainly of churches, schools and other buildings before and after the Holocaust as well as family portraits from before WW I. There were also a few photographs of atrocities.

There were a number of Centre and other publications on display and available for sale at the Conference which sold well.

328 fliers about the forum were sent to every history teacher in the Sydney metropolitan area (the addresses were supplied by the Board of Studies). 36 fliers were sent to all Modern Greek teachers (the addresses were supplied by the Department of Modern Greek at the University of Sydney). Two teachers attended the forum. They were very pleased with the forum and told me they would gladly attend the next one in two years time.

This session was arranged specifically for those in the Hellenic community who preferred listening to lectures in Hellenic. Unfortunately it was not as well attended as I had hoped. Some found it very difficult to find the building; others said many did not come because of the distance to the University. The presentations were of a high-standard and the discussion fruitful. Dr Vrasidas Karalis and myself gave our papers in Hellenic. Professor Konstantinos Vakalopoulos pulled out of the Conference only days earlier and asked me to read his paper on his behalf.

The fourth speaker was Mr Konstantinos Tsanides, a survivor of the Pontian genocide. At his insistence he addressed the entire gathering (and not just the Hellenic session as originally planned). He spoke in Hellenic and I served as interpretor, translating his words into English. By general consent, he stole the show. His words and his tears brought the Conference back to a personal level, brought the focus back to the individuals who suffered. The most amazing thing about his talk was the total absence of hatred towards the Turkish people. During the refreshment break that followed his talk, some Turkish delegates spoke to Mr Tsanides in Turkish (a language he still speaks). When he finally said he had to leave, they hugged and kissed him. Reconciliation at work.

Two documentary films were screened during the Conference: The Hidden Holocaust and A Wall Of Silence.

The former was produced by a group of local Assyrians and made its world premiere at the Conference. It was due to be screened on Saturday but this was postponed a day at the request of the producers. I unfortunately did not see the 34-minute film but by all accounts, it was excellent (considering it was an amateur production), focussing on interviews with survivors of the Assyrian massacres during WW I.

The latter is a Dutch production that examines the parallel personal and professional lives of two scholars of the Armenian Genocide: Vahakn Dadrian, an Armenian and Taner Akcam, a Turk. It was originally planned to screen A Wall Of Silence at the same time that Dr Sonyel was to speak. However given the complete disregard for common academic courtesy exhibited by Dr Sonyel during other presentations, we decided to screen the 59-minute film after both Dr Sonyel and I had given our papers. It was the right choice. It was also pleasing to see some Turkish delegates staying to watch the film, not following many other delegates who left after my presentation.

Professor Housepian focussed on the individuals and their relationships who played a part in the Asia Minor Catastrophe. Men like Prime Minister Eleutherios Venizelos, President Mustapha Kemal, Prime Minister David Lloyd George, US Admiral Mark Bristol and US Consul George Horton rather than the geopolitics at play.

All evidence points to the fact that two significant dialects, that of Pontos and of Kappadokia, together with a number of local idiomatic sub-dialects, were spoken by the greater part of the Hellenic population at this time. A formal education system was operated by the Church and community leaders, teaching the ‘common’ Hellenic language.

Many terms have been employed to define the population group nowadays referred to as Assyrians: Syrians, Jacobites, Nestorians and Chaldeans are the most common. Although today the Assyrian identity covers all the above-mentioned groups, this was not always the case. When the First World War broke out in 1914, the Assyrians saw an opportunity for independence. Despite their efforts, the Treaty of Sevres (1920) – which provided for an independent Kurdistan and Armenia – did not cater for the Assyrians.

[In the unexpected absence of Mr Sophokleous, his paper was presented by his colleague Mr Stavros Stavrides.] Born on Moschonisia, off the northern coast of Asia Minor, he migrated to Australia in 1927. His writings on Asia Minor, on modern Turkey, on Greece and on Australia, are of interest because they shed light on important aspects of human relations, especially on circumstances where racism, nationalism and xenophobia prevailed.

The Nobel Laureate for Poetry Georgios Seferis was born and raised in Smyrna, fleeing to Athens in August 1914. He returned to his birthplace 34 years later following his appointment to the Hellenic Embassy in Ankara. He visited Smyrna and a number of other Hellenic sites, keeping detailed notes of what he saw in his diary, later published as a travelogue "Three Days in the Stone-Carved Monasteries of Cappadocia" (1953). What does an exile see when he returns home? What is the role of memory, sight and imagination?

It was the scythe of the Ottomans that cut off the continuity of the Assyrian nation that was rooted with the dawn of human civilization. Its ruthless blade cut them off from their ancestral lands and reduced them to desperation and annihilation. I will briefly relate the horrible fate of the Assyrians during World War One.

The paper briefly discussed the situation in which the Oecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople found itself during the first two decades of the 20th century. The discussion was focussed mainly on the central key figure of Oecumenical Patriarch Ioakeim and his policies against the background of the Balkan conflicts before and after World War One.

The purpose of this paper is to present a side of history that is contrary to the opinion of the inherent tension between Hellene and Turk. Symbiosis existed and at some point in time such a confederation may have become a reality. The idea of a Hellenic-Turkish Confederation once existed, even though it seems absurd for such an entity to eventuate today.

The Entente Powers and the USA used the International Red Cross as a convenient front in order to avoid responsibility towards protecting the Christian minorities from Turkish reprisals. They were more interested in winning economic concessions from the Kemalists than preventing the genocidal deportations of Christians, used by the Kemalist regime to permanently solve its ‘minorities problem’.

This paper explored the issue of impunity with a particular focus on war crimes trials, beginning with the 1919 Constantinople trials of, among others, the primary architects of the Armenian Genocide, through to Nuremberg and then to the present-day International Criminal Tribunals for the former Yugoslavia and Rwanda. The (at best) inconsistent enforcement of international criminal law will be cited as a major reason why perpetrators become so emboldened as to implement their genocidal schemes.

After the failure of the Ottoman Turks in 1683, for the second time, to capture Vienna, the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire began. In the words of William Miller, "European statesman anticipated the dismemberment of the Sultan’s European possessions and formed schemes for the partition of the spoils." Thus the process of ‘getting rid of the Turk’ in eastern Europe, including the Balkans, and later in Anatolia (Asia Minor), had begun. This process was one of the main causes, if not the root cause, of the great tragedy that engulfed the peoples of Anatolia, both Muslim and non-Muslim, especially during the First World War, which finally led to the destruction of the Ottoman Empire. If the Christians of the Empire suffered from maladministration, it was because they were given much autonomy in running their community affairs and their community leaders abused this autonomy to plot with the European powers to bring about the destruction of the Ottoman Empire.

In 1919 Turkey held war crimes trials in Constantinople for some of those involved in the Armenian Genocide. The new Turkish government of Mustapha Kemal reversed the policy of acknowledgement and adopted one of total denial. The modern Republic of Turkey continues to go to great lengths and spends vast sums of money blaming the mass murder of Asia Minor’s indigenous Christians on the victims themselves. Turkey’s Nationalist Action Party (M.H.P.) and its paramilitary wing, the Grey Wolves, have platforms that are openly neo-fascist, virulently anti-Hellenic, anti-Armenian and anti-Semitic. The Grey Wolves are proud of the extermination of the Christians of Asia Minor. Their only regret is that their ancestors did not ‘finish the job’.

The Conference can only be described as a success, despite the best efforts of the Turkish delegation. I set out with three goals in mind when I announced the Conference:

Despite the twelve months of hard work that went into the Conference, I can’t wait to begin work on the next one.