11150 - Recognition of the Genocide of the Assyrians by the refugee associations

N. Lygeros
Translated from the Greek by Vicky Baklessi

Many refugee associations have a single target, to maintain a tradition through the dances and the cuisine. For example, sometimes they maintain also schools because they are thinking of the future and want to sustain the past. These are the most classical facts in Greece with a few variations. Because the genocide of the Greeks of Pontus has been recognized by Greece in 1994 and the genocide of the Armenians in 1996, there is the impression that there is no substantial struggle in this area. Of course on an international level we know that the concept of recognition is not a target on its own, but the first stage of the correction process that the human rights prescribe. But let’s not extent, at least for now, towards that general direction and let us focus on the field of action of Greece. The two genocides that have been recognized in Greece are not entirely independent. Actually we can prove that they are two results out of three of the same strategy. Not only do we have as a mental scheme one strategy for three genocides, but in essence a triple genocide that has as victims, namely genocided ones, the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Greeks of Pontus. If we realize this fact, then we understand immediately that the approach of Greece is incomplete in an institutional and also on a legislative level. First, as on a structural level it saw these genocides as three different ones, but they are three stages of the same one. Second, because on a legislative level it has only recognized two out of three stages. Meanwhile, on an international level the facts have changed since 2006, since the European Parliament recognized this triple entity as a crime against Humanity. Namely, there is now a common foundation in a European framework. Actually, this has been reinforced with the decision of the Swedish Parliament to recognize as a genocide the crime that was committed against the Armenians, the Assyrians and the Greeks of Pontus. Based on this same action field our own in Australia are moving as well and things have already progressed positively. Now if we examine Greece’s data under this perspective, then it becomes clear to everyone that we need to include the recognition of the two genocides with a third. For this though to take place in Greece on a governmental level, there must be activation at the level of the refugee associations, exactly as it was done with the previous ones. And so gradually within this new condition the political system to realize that there is a human initiative that must then be completed with a legislation that ends up in a law for the recognition of the genocide of the Assyrians.
Consequently, each refugee association now has a specific and actually a strategic role to reinforce the whole effort for the victims and the survivors of the Genocides to practically be united, not only verbally but also in writing and even more specifically, with a collective voting that proves that an association officially recognizes the genocide of the Assyrians, so that we complete the whole framework and for Greece to belong to the countries that demonstrate the paradigm of humanness to the others. So each one of us has a role to play, let him play it so that he is a Just.