The Inside Assyria Discussion Forum #5

=> Re: Fred Aprim goes to a museum

Posted by Zeph (Guest) - Tuesday, January 17 2012, 14:17:40 (UTC)
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I appreciate the response Rashad. I just want to provide an addendum to your remarks about the Assyrian Genocide/Massacre. By quoting a User from the Talk Page of the article on Wikipedia with the same name.

"I hesitate to get involved in this argument, as this does not seem to be a topic where rational discussion is welcomed, but as the author of the recently-published book The Ecclesiastical Organisation of the Church of the East, 1318-1913, in which I attempted to establish the number of Assyrian Christians in this part of the world on the eve of the First World War, I would like to point out that the numbers given in this article in the table of deaths in Christian villages in the Siirt region are wildly exaggerated (by a factor of about five, to be precise). Without going into unnecessary detail at present, the table in question has been dismissed by all reputable scholars and should not be used as evidence. If invited, I would be happy to cite authoritative sources for the Assyrian Christian population of the Siirt region in 1913, which was rather lower than the number of Assyrians alleged to have been killed there during WW1.

On the wider issue, the total number of Assyrian deaths cited in this article is about three times as high as reputable scholars would place it. There was indeed a massacre of Assyrians during World War I, and it was a deeply regrettable event. It cannot be excused by the fact that many Christians living inside the boundaries of the Ottoman Empire hoped for liberation by the Russians, and were therefore regarded as potential traitors by the Turkish authorities, nor by the fact that some Christian groups took up arms against the Turks before the massacres took place. It was, plainly and simply, a massacre. But please, let's not talk about genocide in this context. Genocide has a clear technical meaning, implying that the killers were aiming at the extinction of an entire race. What happened to the Assyrians was not genocide within the accepted meaning of the term. Most Assyrians living within the Ottoman Empire survived the war, even if they were forced to flee from their homes, and in many cases the Turks encouraged them to flee instead of killing them. We are talking about ethnic cleansing, not genocide. There is a difference.

I think Assyrians have every right to commemorate the events of World War I, which extinguished historic Syriac Christianity in districts where it had existed for many centuries. Some of the Assyrian Christian villages wiped out in WW1 were founded as early as the 3rd century AD, and many others are known to have been flourishing Christian centres during the Sassanian period, before the Muslim conquest. Their destruction is a tragedy, but I do not think their memory is best served by making exaggerated claims on their behalf."

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The full topic:

Fred Aprim goes to a museum Rashad - Wednesday, January 11 2012, 6:20:13 (UTC)
- Re: Fred Aprim goes to a museum Zeph - 01/17 09:17
  - Re: Fred Aprim goes to a museum Rashad - 01/17 10:23
    - Re: Fred Aprim goes to a museum Zeph - 01/17 14:17
      - Re: Fred Aprim goes to a museum pancho - 01/17 18:42

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