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The Armenian Genocide And The Assyrian Factor
9, 27, 05
By Nora Vosbigian
British historian, Ara Sarafian (Gomidas Institute, London),
was one of the main speakers at a recent commemoration of the
Assyrian Genocide (or Seyfo) of 1915 (AINA, 9-22-2005). The event
was at Aula Magna, Stockholm University on 24 September and was
organised by the Assyrian Youth Federation in Sweden, who asked
Sarafian to give a lecture on the 1916 British Parliamentary
report, The Treatment of Armenian in the Ottoman Empire 1915-16.
One of the central questions in Sarafian's paper dealt with
the relative absence of the destruction of Assyrian Christians
in the British report. Was it an oversight or was the report
prejudiced? This question arose in more forceful terms at the
conference, when a member of the audience suggested that there
was a 200 page Assyrian section to the blue book which was stolen
by Armenians and was never published as a consequence.
Sarafian pointed out that the British blue book covered the
Assyrian issue within the context of what happened in North-West
Persia, but it missed the core of the Assyrian experience because
there were no key communicants and witnesses in the key Assyrian
populated areas of Mardin-Midiyat in Ottoman Turkey. Elsewhere,
the destruction of Assyrians was subsumed in descriptions of
the destruction of the much more numerous Armenian communities.
This lack of information about Assyrians was mainly because
the accounts informing the British about events in the Ottoman
Empire were communicated by United States consuls and missionaries.
Since there were no United States consulates near the main Assyrian
regions of the Ottoman Empire, there were no ready channels of
open to the outside world. Furthermore, the few American missionaries
in Mardin and Diyarbekir who might also have reported on the
destruction of Assyrians were expelled from these regions in
the Spring of 1915. Consequently, there was little information
available about the destruction of Assyrian communities to the
British in 1916, except from North-Western Persia, where American
missionaries bore witness to the carnage that took place.
Sarafian related some accounts of the destruction of Assyrians
he had read, such as the memoirs of Raphael de Nogales describing
what he saw in Siirt, or the private letters of Dr. Floyd Smith
in Diyarbekir describing Assyrian victims of a massacre at Karabash
he treated in Diyarbekir in May 1915.
Sarafian pointed out that since 1915 there has been a lot
of information about the Assyrian issue, but mainstream Armenian
historians have generally ignored the destruction of Assyrians
due to poor scholarship, chauvinism, or both. Consequently, many
Armenians today remain ignorant of the destruction of Assyrian
Christians in Ottoman Turkey in 1915. This is clearly wrong and
should be changed with education he argued.
However, it should be added that not all Armenian historians
have avoided the destruction of Assyrian Christians in Ottoman
Turkey. Only three years ago, the French Armenian Revue d'histoire
arménienne contemporaine published a special issue, "Mardin
1915: Anatomie pathologique d'une destruction" (edited by
Yves Ternon).
By Nora Vosbigian
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Who are
the Christians of Iraq?
The Armenian Genocide And
The Assyrian Factor 9, 28, 05
Assyrian Cultural
Festival in Ceres CA. 9, 27, 05
Swedish
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Assyrian
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A cry
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samples of songs
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USAID:
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4 Assyrians Killed in
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Seminar in Stokholm
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Iraq
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The
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A New Satellite
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First
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Books by
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Reply
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Iraqi
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Fire
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Capital of Musasir
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The Ordeal
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Kurdish
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For
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Assyrian Restuarant
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Assyrians
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Iraq's
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Conflicts between
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New Iraq constitution
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Assyrian
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New Iraq
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The text of
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Iraq TV's
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Young
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Kurdish
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IRAQ:
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Photos form homeland 8, 14, 05
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Iraqi-American Translators:
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Life
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Assyrian
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Speech
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72nd
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Unresolved
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Information wanted
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Assyrian
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Iraqi
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Looted history 8,
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Assyrian Granny
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Iraq Constitution
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Iraqi Christians
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Assyrians in northern
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Appeal
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International
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Request
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Iraq's
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ASSYRIAN UNIVERSAL
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Report to the U.K Parliament
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Debate in the U.K. Parliament
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Upcoming Press Conference in Washington
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Assyrian Tennis Player
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