John R. Houk
© February 2, 2017
As WWI was nearing its end for Ottoman Turkey, their defeat now
guaranteed and the loss of what was left of a large empire was unfolding before
Ottoman-Turkish eyes. The Turkish power elites began to focus on Turkish
nationalism. Turkish nationalism had no place for non-Turkish and non-Muslim
minorities residing on Turkish land.
Eventually a Turkish power elite struggle ended with a
leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk (Greek perspective and Armenian
perspective) winning
the day. Kemal viewed the WWI loss was partly due to a lack modernization that
European nations had experienced. Kemal changed his name to solely Ataturk and
began a secularizing process but still a nationalist process.
Between the Turkish elite struggles through to Ataturk
hegemony, Turkey’s minorities began to experience an ethnic cleansing genocide.
Christians in Turkey experienced genocide. The Armenian and Assyrian Christians suffered
the most. The Greek people of western Turkey had a heritage of the area that
stretched to a time before the birth of Christ.
At the end of WWI and the Greco-Turkish war an exchange of
Turkish Greeks for Greek Muslims are agreed upon. The sadness is that the
Greeks of Turkey were brutalized in their expulsion with loss of property,
assaults, rapes and in many cases death. Also a sad issue: most of the Greeks
leaving Turkey occurred between 2014 and 1922 as the losing Greek army
retreated from Turkey. The fleeing Greeks in this stage were the most
brutalized by the Turks and numbered probably close to a million or so. After
the Lausanne Treaty legalized a population exchange between Greece and Turkey,
the number of Greeks leaving was much smaller:
According to official records of
the Mixed Commission, the ‘Greeks’ who were transferred after 1923 numbered
189,916 and the number of Muslims expelled to Turkey was 355,635 (Ladas 1932:438–9;
using the same source, however, Eddy 1931:201 states that the exchange involved
‘192,356 Greeks from Turkey and 354,647 Muslims from Greece’). While accurate
figures are impossible to ascertain, it is probable that the total number of
Christians who entered Greece at this time was in the region of 1.2 million,
the main wave being in 1922 during the period of hostilities (Bierstadt 1925:
248–250; Eddy 1931: 251; Ladas 1932: 438–442; Pentzopoulos 1962: 96–99;
Kitromilides and Alexandris 1984–5; Hirschon 1998 [1989]: 36–9). (2 The Consequences of the Lausanne
Convention, AN OVERVIEW; Demographic effects [pg. 2]; By
Renée Hirschon; Oxford
University – School of Anthropology; 2003)
The Greek perspective of the genocide can be read at “THE GREEK GENOCIDE: 1914-1923” among other
places you can research. The first paragraph sums up the horrors experienced by
Greeks living in Turkey in the time period:
The Greek Genocide was the
systematic extermination of the Greek subjects of the Ottoman Empire before,
during and after World War I (1914-1923). It was instigated by successive
governments of the Ottoman Empire; the Committee of Union and Progress
Party (C.U.P), and the Turkish Nationalist Movement of Mustafa Kemala Atatürk. It included
massacres, forced deportations and death
marches, summary expulsions, boycotts, rape, forced conversion to Islam,
conscription into labor battalions, arbitrary executions, and destruction of
Christian Orthodox cultural, historical and religious monuments. According to
various sources, approximately 1 million Ottoman Greeks perished during this
period.
Other sources have differing stats to one degree or another.
The point being is that Turkish Muslims were not pleasant toward Greeks then.
Today the unpleasantness continues with illegal refugees flooding into Greece permitted
largely by European Union (EU) multiculturalism. You’d think history would have
taught the Greek government some lessons, right? Some observations by the
essayist Fjordman (Thanks to Anders Breivik now exposed as Peder Jansen),
should not only wake up the Greeks but also Americans. American Democrats are
trying to force Muslim refugees down American throats in the name of
Multiculturalism as if that is our “American values”. IT IS NOT! Our American
values toward immigration is to welcome but to assimilate as in out of many,
one American nation emerges (E PLURIBUS UNUM). NOT
many diverse cultures tearing America apart!
Think of that as you read the Fjordman essay below from the Gates
of Vienna.
JRH 2/2/17
*************
Trojan Seahorses in Greece
By Fjordman
Posted January
16, 2017 11:53 pm
Posted by Baron
Bodissey
I visited Greece in
the spring of 2013. Once a
leader of ancient European civilization, Greece is now at the epicenter of many
of the ills befalling modern European civilization. These include the financial
crisis in the Eurozone and non-European mass immigration.
In Athens, the Thiseio metro
station is situated close to the Temple of Hephaestus at the ancient Agora.
When I visited it on several occasions, I saw immigrants urinating near the
temple in broad daylight. The migrants who gathered in this area seemed to come
from places such as Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan. I doubt all of them
had entered legally.
Twenty-five centuries ago,
Socrates lectured here. Today, Adbul Karim the illegal immigrant urinates here.
This was in 2013. Things were about to get a lot worse.
Aristotle once founded
biology as a scientific discipline while studying marine life on the beaches of
Lesbos. More recently, Lesbos, Kos and other islands in the Aegean Sea have
witnessed a flood wave of predominately Muslim immigrants entering uninvited.
The number of illegal
immigrants coming to Europe was already significant in 2013. It continued
growing in 2014 and exploded the following year. In 2015, more than a million
people from the Islamic world and Africa forced their way into Europe, causing
chaos from the Balkans to Germany. Most of the migrants were young and
physically fit men of military age. Some of the hostile Muslims shouted “Allahu
akbar!” while attacking the local police. Yet these aggressive intruders are
still routinely labeled “refugees” by the Western mass media.
In the autumn of 2015, a
single Greek island could receive thousands of boat migrants in a single day. I
watched several drone videos during the peak of this influx. It looked like an
invasion on a nearly industrial scale. It resembled D-Day on the beaches of
Normandy in 1944, only without the tanks.
An invasion does not always
require tanks or fighter jets.
It would be tempting to call
these culturally alien intruders Trojan seahorses, since many of them arrive in
small boats or rubber dinghies. But perhaps that is unfair. Seahorses are
gentle animals, after all. It is a documented fact that some of these Muslim
asylum seekers were involved in serious crime and deadly terrorist attacks in
Europe afterwards.
In December 2016 and January
2017, I spent some days on the islands of Kos and Rhodes. The town of Kos has a
small but worthwhile archaeological museum, situated next to a mosque dating
back to Ottoman times. Compared to world-class institutions in Athens such as
the Acropolis Museum or the National Archaeological Museum, it was modest. Yet
it contains a fine collection of statues and other ancient artifacts. It is
testimony to the incredible richness of Greek art history that even local
museums contain objects of such high quality.
An Askleipion was a healing temple dedicated to Asklepios,
the ancient Greek god of medicine. In addition to the ones in Thessaly and
Epidaurus in mainland Greece, the Askleipion on Kos was among the greatest such
establishments in the Greco-Roman world. Hippocrates of Kos, perhaps the most
important Greek physician in Antiquity, probably received his medical training
here. Galen, another prominent Greek physician, studied at the Askleipion at
Pergamon on the west coast of Asia Minor.
The Staff of Asklepios, a serpent-entwined rod, is still used
internationally as a symbol of medicine, healing and pharmacies. When visiting
Kos around New Year’s, there were very few tourists on the island. I literally
had the entire Askleipion all to myself. You can see from the ruins that it
must have been a big and prominent temple a couple of thousand years ago.
There is a statue of Hippocrates next to the modern harbor in
Kos town. It is inscribed with the Hippocratic Oath for the ethical practice of
medicine. “Do no harm,” the basic message of the Hippocratic Oath, remains a
guiding principle for many modern physicians.
For several days in a row I could see a small group of
illegal immigrants sitting directly behind this statue. They were literally
hiding in the shadow of Hippocrates. There was some symbolism to this. Muslims
force their way into Europe, using European ethical ideals and humanism as a
weapon to gain entry. The migrants I saw in January 2017 did not speak Arabic.
Based on their looks, I would guess that some of them came from South Asia,
perhaps from Pakistan or Bangladesh, while others may have come from
Afghanistan or Central Asia.
Kos is located very close to the west coast of Anatolia or
Asia Minor, the country we now call Turkey. Using only the naked eye, I could
clearly see individual houses in Turkey. You hardly need a motorized boat to
travel this short distance. A kayak would be enough. In calm weather, an able
swimmer might be able to swim from Turkey to Greece and the EU.
Several other Greek islands such as Samos, Lesbos and Chios
are also situated close to the Turkish coastline. All of these islands have
experienced major problems with illegal immigrants. Some of these problems
still remain in 2017.
Turkey has been rocked by a series of deadly terror attacks
in recent years. The number of foreign tourists visiting the country has fallen
sharply because of this between 2014 and 2017.
The Islamic State (ISIS) is suspected to be behind several
attacks on Turkish soil. This is somewhat ironic. Accusations have earlier been
made that Turkish authorities quietly aided ISIS, as long as they were fighting the
Kurds.[2] 2017 was just a couple of hours old when Turkey was
hit by yet another bloody attack. This time, the target was a nightclub in Istanbul.[3]
For all its substantial social and economic problems, Greece
is still a safer travel destination than neighboring Turkey. You will see more
veiled Muslim women in Brussels, Berlin, Stockholm or Amsterdam, not to mention
London or Paris, than you see in Rhodes or Kos.
Most of the migrants who arrive in Greek islands do not want
to stay there. They want to get to countries in northwestern Europe with more
generous welfare states.
The number of migrants entering Greece from Turkey was
sharply reduced in 2016 compared to 2015. However, some illegal immigrants
continue to arrive in Greek islands. Boat migrants crossing the Mediterranean
along the longer route, from North Africa to Italy, reached record levels in
2016.[4] Moreover, this temporary reduction in the flow of
migrants into southeast Europe is entirely dependent upon the actions and
policies of Turkish authorities.
The Turkish government and President Erdogan engage in open
blackmail and demographic warfare against Europe. They have repeatedly stated
that they want money and visa-free access to the EU for millions
of Muslims in Turkey.[5] Otherwise, they will unleash the
hordes from the Middle East again.
That is not the worst-case scenario. The worst-case scenario
is that Turkey, an increasingly Islamic and unstable country, itself might
descend into a full-blown civil war. Such an event would trigger even larger
population movements towards Europe than we have seen so far.
Greeks have been at the receiving end of one of the longest
campaigns of ethnic cleansing in human history. For nearly 1,400 years, Muslims
have been wiping out communities of Greek-speaking Christians in the eastern
Mediterranean. Greeks fought a long and bloody struggle to liberate themselves
from centuries of brutal and oppressive Turkish rule.
Now, Multiculturalism, the EU and mass immigration bring
Islam back. Greeks and other Europeans are expected to celebrate this. In 2017
Athens will get its first new mosque since Ottoman times.[6] This
happens partly after pressure from the pro-Islamic policies of the EU.
By early 2017, the migrant situation in Greece was calmer
than in 2015. Yet I sensed an underlying fear among some of the local Greeks
that the troubles could restart again at any moment. The Islamic world and
Africa have booming populations and dysfunctional societies.
Hundreds of millions of people in these overpopulated regions
would potentially like to move to Europe. The apocalyptic scenes of 2015 may
simply be a prelude to what is yet to come.
Notes:
1. www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-34675552
Migrant crisis: The lifejacket ‘mountains’ of Lesbos. 30 October 2015.
www.express.co.uk/news/world/640102/migrant-crisis-life-jackets-greece
PICTURED: Images of dumped life jackets show devastation of the migrant crisis.
Feb 1, 2016.
2. www.businessinsider.com/links-between-turkey-and-isis-are-now-undeniable-2015-7
Senior Western official: Links between Turkey and ISIS are now ‘undeniable’
Jul. 28, 2015.
3. www.foxnews.com/world/2017/01/01/new-year-attack-on-packed-istanbul-club-leaves-3-dead.html
New Year’s attack on packed Istanbul club leaves 39 dead. January 01, 2017.
4. www.thelocal.it/20170106/italys-boat-migrant-numbers-surged-20-in-2016
Italy boat migrant numbers surge 20% in 2016. 6 January 2017.
5. www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-38103375 Migrant
crisis: Turkey threatens EU with new surge. 25 November 2016.
6. www.ekathimerini.com/215222/article/ekathimerini/news/greek-capitals-first-modern-mosque-expected-by-end-april
Greek capital’s first modern mosque expected by end-April. January 12, 2017.
_______________
Ponder on the Greek
Genocide, Americans
John R. Houk
© February 2, 2017
_____________
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