I wonder if it's how she voted or if it's just that she didn't know about all
of the other ethnicities involved. I certainly didn't.
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Friday, November 01, 2019 1:21 PM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: Regarding the 'Armenian Genocide Resolution,'
and Ilhan Omar's response
Ilhan Omar will need to be held accountable for how she votes. But whatever
her rationale, no votes today will undue the disgusting violence of those who
slaughtered so many innocents.
Apologies seem about as worthless as shoes on a double amputee.
Sadly, we are a very long way from being civilized.
Carl Jarvis
On 11/1/19, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Regarding the ‘Armenian Genocide Resolution,’ and Ilhan Omar’s
response Opinion Thea Haloon October 31, 2019
(1923) Greek and Armenian refugee children from Anatolia standing
outside one-story building, near Athens, Greece. Greece, 1923.
[Photograph] Retrieved from the Library of Congress,
https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709161/.(1923) Greek and Armenian refugee
children from Anatolia standing outside one-story building, near
Athens, Greece. Greece, 1923. [Photograph] Retrieved from the Library
of Congress, https://www.loc.gov/item/2002709161/.
Everyone concerned is very proud that the House of Representatives
finally, after over 100 years, passed a resolution (H.Res.296)
recognizing the Genocide of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians by
Ottoman Turkey. It is definitely long overdue. However, although the
resolution does include the Greeks and Assyrians, most news reports
fail to mention that the Greeks and Assyrians suffered the same fate
as the Armenians, and continue to call it “The Armenian Genocide
Resolution,” and/or “The Armenian Genocide,” which misses a few major points.
To put Martin Niemöller’s poem in a new context, it should be pointed
out
that:
First they came for the Greeks of Eastern Thrace in 1913, And no one
stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Greeks in Western Asia Minor (Anatolia) in
1914, And no one stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Assyrians in Eastern Anatolia in 1914, And no
one stopped the slaughters.
Then they came for the Armenians in 1915, And no one stopped the
slaughters.
Then they came for the Pontic Greeks in 1916, And no one stopped the
slaughters.
Then they exiled the remaining Assyrians —who had arrived in Anatolia
around 2,400 BC— and the Greeks—who had arrived in Anatolia in 1200 BC
and the Armenians, who had arrived in Anatolia in 600 BC, thus ending
over four thousand years of Assyrian, Greek, and Armenian presence in
Anatolia.
Then they gave Anatolia to the Turks,
the perpetrators of the Genocides,
and descendants of the Turks
who had invaded Anatolia and
conquered Constantinople in 1453 AD,
almost 4,000 years after the arrival
of the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians.
Then they named Anatolia Turkey.
Total Assyrians slaughtered: 275,000, more than half their population.
Total Greeks slaughtered: 1.2 million
Total Armenians slaughtered: up to 1.5 million.
Totaling 3 Million Assyrian, Greek and Armenian victims of the Ottoman
Genocide.
Yet few news reports bother to mention the Greek and Assyrian victims
of this Genocide.
My mother, a Pontic Greek lived through that genocide. By age 12, she
was the only known survivor of her family. It was an Armenian family
who took my orphaned mother in and brought her to safety in Aleppo,
Syria when the Armenian family fled Turkey. And it was the Armenian
family who arranged my mother’s marriage to my father—an Assyrian who
fled Turkey on pain of death in 1905, and came to America. My mother
was only 15 when she married my father. My father was 45. My father
brought my mother to America in 1925.
Memorialized in“Not Even My Name,”my mother’s story represents the
story of millions of other Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians who lived
through that terrible genocide. They should not be dealt with as an
afterthought by the press or by Congress. As Rep. Anna Eshoo’s reminds
us, her Assyrian family lived through that genocide.
Lest we become complacent, we must remember all the victims of a
genocide equally. This was a Genocide of the Christian minorities of
the Ottoman
Empire: Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians.
If Ilhan Omar needs confirmation by genocide scholars, that the
Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians suffered Genocides at the hands of
the Ottoman Turks, she should be directed to the 2007 Resolution of
theInternational Association of Genocide Scholars(IAGS), which was
affirmed by hundreds of the world’s leading genocide scholars. (View
IAGS Resolution here)
Elie Wiesel describes denial as a“double killing,”as it also murders
the memory of the crime. But he also reminds us that “To remain silent
or indifferent is the greatest sin.”
Updated: November 1, 2019, 12 p.