Assyrian International News Agency, CA
April 25 2005
Assyrians in Brussels Mark 90th Anniversary of Turkish Genocide
Brussels (AINA) — On Saturday 23rd April 2005 Assyrians from world
wide gathered to commemorate the ancestors that were killed during
the genocide of 1915 in Turkey. Two thousand people walked first
their demonstration through Brussels to the Ambriorix Square in front
of the European Parliament in Brussels. The people who gathered there
are the grandchildren of the Seyfo, the genocide committed by the
Ottoman Turkish government. And they still feel: there is still no
justice in this case. The grandchildren of the survivors and those
that did not survive the genocide gathered and felt the pain: young
and old, members of different churches of our people. Bishop Julius
Jesuh who is leading the Syriac Orthodox congregation of Middle
Europe, preceeded in the commemoration. Together with the Chorbishop
Abdo and the priest Sabri from Belgium, they started with a prayer
for the lost souls.
Ablahhad Stayfo from Belgium hosted the programme for the day. Bishop
Julius Jesuh started the first speech to the big crowd and mentioned
first that the Synod of the Syriac Orthodox church had decided in
1998 to commemorate the martyrs of our people of 1915 each year from
now on. ‘Ninety years after 1915 we have gathered here to commemorate
our people that became martyrs for Jesus Christ’, he said. They had
to die because they were Christians. When the bishop mentioned this,
his tears came down. The tears of a leader that felt sorry for the
lost souls: ‘these souls were not guilty but thrown into the rivers,
the wells and killed with swords’ he said with a broken voice.
Malham Ishak said in his speech that although only his grandfather in
his family had survived the genocide, and although all the villages
in mount Judi have been wiped out by the Turkish authorities, he
would like to see a Turkey that wants to develop a democracy in the
future. And if Turkey is not prepared to do that, including admitting
the genocide it had committed, then our wish is that the European
Union does not allow Turkey as a future member of the EU. ‘If Turkey
does not want us and accept our requests, then we do not want Turkey
either’, he said. After all, does the European want to accept a
member state that denies its past and the requests of its citizens?
Sabri Atman, expressed in his speech that on 23rd April 1923 the
Young Turks celebrate the foundation of the Republic of Turkey. For
them it symbolises a day of happiness, one day before the start of
genocide on the Christians. Naturally, one could not observe a nation
celebrating the start of the genocide annually and at the same time
eager to become a future member of the European Union. Mr. Atman
spoke part of his speech in Turkish. He said: ‘The Turkish media are
here, and since they do not understand our language, and are not
interested in learning it, I will have to talk their language to make
them understand my story’. He did this courageously. After that black
balloons were thrown into the air. They looked like the black grapes
in our parents’ vineyards, cut from their plants and lost in search
of their soul. They went high and remained dark, while the crowd
shouted with one voice: ‘We will not forget the Seyfo, martyrs do not
die’! Next year I want to see balloons that will not express the
sadness in my people’s hearts any more. I want to see balloons which
our future children will like; colours that humanity likes. Mr. Atman
ended his speech with the story of an Assyrian mother whose family
members were all killed and she was sent with her four years old
daughter on a death march. This march into exile ended sad for her
too: her last family member, her daughter, was taken from her and
kidnapped by Ahmed Pasha to become his future wife. The Assyrian
mother did not see her girl after that any more. Sabri Atman ended
his speech saying: ‘the question of the Seyfo is the question of all
our people; we all suffer and therefore it is not the question of a
few individuals only. This year, the bishop is here with us. Next
year I want our Patriarch and many more of our priests to precede in
the commemoration of genocide victims’.
August Thiry from Belgium read a short story from the Armenian
William Saroyan’s book ‘Seventy Thousand Assyrians’, which he wrote
in 1923. It is the story of the Assyrian Badal who ends up in Los
Angeles and works as a barber after having escaped the genocide. The
author Saroyan, who assumes that the Assyrian is an Armenian finds
out later that he is not, but that their story is similar: both their
people are decimated to a degree that Turkey can deny today that
there are and there were Assyrians or any other people except Turks
in Turkey. The sad tone in which the barber tells his story to the
Armenian author is striking: ‘once my people were a great people and
had a great civilization in Mesopotamia, and today I am just a barber
in Los Angeles’.
The young singer Ninorta Coban from Germany sang two songs in which
she expressed love and unity. The first song she sang was Gabriel
Assad’s song’Moth Beth Nahrin , lo nethe lech hdamo lmauto’
(Mesopotamia my motherland, I will never forget yout). The bishop and
the people were impressed by the performance of the eleven years old
girl.
Willy Fautre, director of Human Rights Without Frontiers hold a
speech in three languages. One of the elements he mentioned was that
the names of the Assyrian victims need to be inscribed on a black
wall in the city of Brussels where the European Union is based.
Elias Hanna from America represented the Assyrian American National
Federation and expressed their support to the stand of their people
in Europe regarding the Seyfo in Turkey.
George Farag (also known by his artists name Holo Melke) poet, actor
and director of plays and films, read from his poem ‘On the Night of
1st April I saw a dream’. In his dream he saw the atrocities
committed to the Assyrians in the Ottoman Empire. He ended his poem
questioning why the Mesopotamian heroes had not come to save his
people.
Today, seventeen organizations and churches of our people from all
over the world gathered to commemorate the victims of the genocide.
It got attention from different media, such as two Belgian TV
channels, Ashur TV and Beth Nahrin TV. Beautiful, colourful souls
shared with each other the sorrows of the last ninety years which
they had brought with them in the diaspora. The media recorded their
requests: Turkey should recognize the genocide it committed in WW I
and allow the rights of our people from today. The Assyrian
eyewitnesses that survived this genocide could not be with their
grandchildren on this day in Brussels. They stayed home to spare
their energy and to keep the memories alive, until justice is done to
them and to humanity.