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=> Another Take On History

Posted by farid (Guest) - Tuesday, November 4 2003, 11:24:34 (EST)
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> The Assyrians of Turkey Victims of Major Power Policy
> SALAHI. R. SONYEL
>
> Summary
>
> The tragedy of the Assyrians, particularly of those who were Ottoman
> subjects, who themselves admit that their homeland in the Ottoman
> Empire, before their self inflicted exodus took place, was 'Christ's
> Kingdom on Earth', is a story of betrayal. It is the betrayal of a
> Christian minority that had lived under autonomous conditions in
> relative security, peace and some prosperity, benefiting from Ottoman
> Muslim toleration, and all the advantages of the 'millet' system,
> until they were deceived, first by Tsarist Russia, and then by
> Britain, with false promises of assistance in the fulfilment of their
> extraneous aspirations, and were persuaded to take up arms against
> their own country and its government.
>
> The Assyrians themselves admit the folly of their ecclesiastical and
> lay leaders, who had led them to the path of treachery, rebellion,
> atrocities, and all kinds of misdeeds incompatible with the tenets of
> a people who were supposed to be the congregation of the Christian
> Church of the East. It is, perhaps, as a result of their misguidance
> and 'sins' that they were ultimately deprived of 'Christ's Kingdom on
> Earth', and ended up as refugees in an ' alien country '. Even the
> Churches Committee on Migrant Workers in Europe admits: 'The
> Nestorians are historically linked with Armenian politics... They
> joined ranks with the Armenians in alliance with the Russians, took
> revenge on the Kurds, and killed hundreds of thousands of them'.
>
> If the Assyrians of today are in danger of 'complete extinction', as
> Perley seems to suggest, it is a travesty of justice to put the blame
> on the Ottoman Empire and to accuse the Turks of having 'exterminated'
> them together with the Armenians, another Ottoman Christian minority
> that benefited from Ottoman lenience and Muslim toleration for
> centuries, whose leaders have equally sacrificed them on the altar of
> the expansionist major Powers of the time.
>
> Again Perley suggests that, if the 'extinction of the Assyrians
> materialises', which is unlikely, then the British would have
> succeeded in doing, in the course of a few decades, what the Ottoman
> Turks refrained from doing, in the course of many centuries. After
> all, the Turks were by no means illiberal, for they allowed minorities
> a large measure of autonomy, and encouraged them to maintain their own
> religion, laws, language and customs. According to A.H. Hamilton:
>
> 'It is strange that they (the Assyrians) should have survived
> all the terrible waves of persecution of Christians, and yet
> today (1933), while under British protection, seem in danger
> of extinction as a race. Neither Mohammed nor the Caliphs, nor
> the all-conquering Mongols, nor the Seljuk Turks did them much
> harm... and it is only in the last twenty years, during and
> since the war, that they...have been scattered without homes
> or leaders.
>
> The Assyrians had no need to help Russia and Britain in the Great War.
> They had every reason to prefer a strict neutrality; for, whichever
> side eventually won the war, would not have harmed them. But they
> rebelled against their own government, left their mountain heights,
> and poured every man into the ranks of the Allies' armies, believing
> that, by their self-sacrifice and invaluable work, they would pile up
> a debt of gratitude which, in honour bound, the Russians or the
> British must repay if victory crowned their arms. Major Douglas V.
> Duff remarked as follows:
>
> 'The betrayal of your followers by friends you once trusted is
> the basest in history! The lust for economic power rode
> rough-shod over principle and promise, leaving the Assyrians
> stranded in a noman's land, at the mercy of strange and
> hostile Arab tribesmen. They are now deserted, broken, and
> bleeding! They are dying!
>
> The Assyrians had rebelled against the Turks during the Great War, not
> because the Turkish Government was notably bad, but because they
> wanted independence at the instigation of foreign Powers, reveals
> Perley. They relied upon the honour of Russia and Britain not to
> prejudice their aspirations. But their reward was deceit, treachery,
> and suffering. Even British assistant political officer, Iraq, R. F.
> Jardine, admits in a report dated October 1921:
>
> As a result of Russian incitement they (the Assyrians) rose
> against the Turkish Government. One can understand and
> sympathise with their action: but just as much, one can
> understand the resolution of the Turkish Government to deal
> with this danger at all costs. There is no doubt, moreover,
> that in normal times they were just as truculent and no less
> savage than the other Kurdish tribes with whom they were
> allied; and the sight of a Nestorian Malik taking his place,
> as a matter of course, at the head of a majlis, containing
> many Kurdish chiefs, does much to dispel the entirely
> erroneous idea that the Nestorians were a class of
> down-trodden slaves'.
>
> 'And in the name of moral justice, let us ask, was there, in reality,
> any terrible oppression by the despicable Turk?' asks Perley. 'The
> Assyrians, who enjoyed an autonomous existence in Turkey since the
> thirteenth century, and into whose territory the Turkish writ did not
> run, must surely know the answer, and in these days of dispersion and
> exile of their nation and Church, they must surely remember with
> nostalgia the good old days of the Ottoman Empire'. One can hardly add
> anything to this sad epilogue.
>

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