Constantine

Tears for Armenia - Remembering the Armenian Genocide

 It was a day of tears, rage and remembrance  for Armenians and friends of Armenia all over the world.  91 years ago on April 24th 1915 the Turkish government rounded up 200 leaders of the Armenian community in Constantinople (now Istanbul) and sent them away to be tortured and killed.  There had been massacres of Armenians in Turkey prior to this in the years of 1894 -1896 under Sultan Abdul Hamid and in 1909 under the "Young Turk" government.  In fact all non-Muslim subject peoples of the Ottoman Turkish Empire had faced massacres at the hands of the Turkish rulers.  Greeks, Bulgarians and Serbs had suffered such incredible atrocities perpetrated by the Turks that they finally united in 1912 to drive the Turks out of Europe right to the gates of Constantinople which the Greeks had hoped and prayed to recapture one day. 

For the Armenians that fateful day in 1915 started what became known as the "murder of a nation" or genocide (a term that was invented later on to describe this crime) by the fanatical rulers of the Turkish Empire.  This crime against the Armenian population of Turkey is comprehensively detailed in the book ''Ambassador Morgenthau's Story" which was written by Henry Morgenthau who was the US Ambassador to Turkey in 1915.  The ambassador received first hand reports of what was happening from all over Turkey via foreign businessmen, consular officers and missionaries and there are numerous detailed accounts of the savagery in the historical record.  The death marches that the Armenians were subjected to all across Turkey are a blot on the conscience of humanity.   We commemorate the genocide that resulted in the deaths of an estimated 1.5 million Armenians between 1915 and 1923 because the world must remember the evil that was perpetrated by the Turkish government and to show our support for the survivors and their offspring who ensured that Armenia and the Armenians would live on despite the effort to wipe them out. 

91 years after this despicable crime against humanity the Turkish government continues to deny that the genocide ever happened.  Millions of dollars are spent every year by the Turkish government to try and rewrite history and pressure governments and media outlets to adhere to their make believe version of history.  Here in Massachusetts a Turkish political lobbying group is behind a lawsuit against our state government for teaching about the Armenian Genocide in the school system!  Not only have the Turks denied their shameful past but they have decided the best way to muddy the issue is to hurl baseless accusations that it was actually the Armenians who committed genocide.  One just has to look at the current population of Anatolia which was the ancestral homeland of the Armenians to see through the BS being foisted on the world by the Turkish ministry of disinformation.  What was once a land filled with millions of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians is now virtually devoid of them and the population of Turkey is 98 percent Muslim.  I wonder how that happened.  My grandparents were Greeks living near the great cities of Constantinople and Smyrna and they were forced to flee for their lives during this horrible persecution of the Christian populations of Turkey.  Check out this Web site for an eye opening account from a US Consul General in Turkey who witnessed the atrocities perpetrated against the Greeks and Armenians - www.martyrsofanatolia.org

Millions of your tax dollars go to Turkey every year in foreign aid because they are supposedly our "valuable ally" in the region.  Whatever your views are on the Iraq war this much is certain - when the US needed our Turkish "ally" to allow US forces to enter Iraq from the north as the most effective battle plan called for they refused and caused serious logistics problems for the US military.  Some military analysts have stated that if the pincer attach from north and south had proceeded as planned the US would have had plenty of troops to secure the country more effectively and maybe have nipped the ongoing insurgency before it gained momentum.  With allies like Turkey who needs enemies.

Constantine calls on all people of conscience to contact their legislators and reaffirm that the decent and honorable thing for the US government to do is to formally recognize the Armenian Genocide and to start holding the Turkish government accountable for their crimes against humanity.    

"What thou seest, write in a book, and send it unto churches which are in Asia; unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamos, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea."

  REVELATIONS, I:11

THE MARTYRED CITY

Glory and Queen of Island Sea

Was Smyrna, the beautiful city,

And fairest pearl of the Orient she

O Smyrna the beautiful city!

Heiress of countless storied ages,

Mother of poets, saints and sages,

Was Smyrna, the beautiful city!

One of the ancient, glorious Seven

Was Smyrna, the sacred city,

Whose candles all were alight in Heaven

O Smyrna the sacred city!

One of the Seven hopes and desires,

One of the seven Holy Fires

Was Smyrna, the Sacred City.

And six fared out in the long ago-

O Smyrna, the Christian city!

But hers shone on with a constant glow

O Smyrna, the Christian city!

The others died down and passed away,

But hers gleamed on until yesterday

O Smyrna, the Christian city!

Silent and dead are churchbell ringers

Of Smyrna, the Christian city,

The music silent and dead the singers

Of Smyrna, the happy city;

And her maidens, pearls of the Island seas

Are gone from the marble palaces

Of Smyrna, enchanting city!

She is dead and rots by the Orient’s gate,

Does Smyrna, the murdered city,

Her artisans gone, her streets desolate

O Smyrna, the murdered city!

Her children made orphans, widows her wives

While under her stones the foul rat thrives

O Smyrna, the murdered city!

They crowned with a halo her bishop there,

In Smyrna, the martyred city,

Though dabbled with blood was his long white hair

O Smyrna, the martyred city!

So she kept the faith in Christendom

From Polycarp to St. Chrysostom,*

Did Smyrna, the glorified city!

 *Martyred at Smyrna, September 1922.