by Israel W. Charny
An excellent conference has been held in Athens, Greece, December 6-8, entitled “International Conference on the Crime of Genocide.”
The conference, which was sponsored by the Pan-Pontian organization of Greece which sports a remarkable 450 or so branches in Greece and around the world, was dedicated on the one hand to the 100th anniversary of the Greek Genocide of the Pontians, and by extension to the genocide of the Greeks in Anatolia as well. Approximately 350,000 Pontian Greeks were victims joined by 1,150,000 Greeks in Anatolia for a total of 1.5 million dead. The Pontian Greeks date the 100th anniversary of their genocide differently than the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide in 2015 because the Greek Genocide hit its higher intensity in the years after the Armenian Genocide had lessened. However, both genocides overlap a great deal, in many cases were executed simultaneously in adjacent areas for the two peoples, and both obviously were executed by the same perpetrator in an overall genocide devoted to the removal of non-Muslim Turks. Both genocides were carried out by both the Ottoman Turks and then continued by the emerging new Turkey led by Ataturk.
The conference was also explicitly dedicated to mark the “UN International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime 9 December,” a day in memory of the genocides of all peoples of our world. It was thanks to Armenia that the resolution for this International Day was introduced in the UN several years ago.
Indeed, much of the conference proceedings were devoted explicitly to the universal theme of preventing genocides to all peoples in the world. For Greeks, the participation in the conference of the Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, was electrifying. This was the first time that the government played a full and influential role in a conference on the Greek Genocide, and at the same time the Prime Minister indeed referred explicitly and powerfully to the wish that the proceedings will contribute to the lessening of genocides in our contemporary and oncoming world.
The Prime Minister spoke as follows:
Welcoming the conference, Mitsotakis said its key contribution lay in its focus on the future, or “how we shall learn from it, how we shall prevent the reliving of similar tragedies in our own lives, anywhere in the world.” The historic event, he said, must lead to “results that will arm the modern world to avoid experiencing such brutality again. This will be a heritage for all of humanity, not just Pontian Hellenism.”[1]
Some 300 people participated in the conference which included presentations by a wide variety of Greek scholars and activists as well as invited scholars from other countries among whom were Alfred-Maurice De Zayas, Tessa Hoffman, Steven L. Jacobs, Harut Marutyan, Vassilios Meichanetsidis, Nikos Michailidis, Benny Morris, Dror Ze’evi, Henry Theriault (by Skype), and Samuel Totten (by Skype), and the author of this report.
The conference included a dramatic ceremony in the evening on Mount Pynx which faces the mountaintop Acropolis in Athens in which a Declaration of the conference was proclaimed. The declaration was further entitled, “Submitted to the International Community for the International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and the Prevention of this Crime, December 9, 2019,” in honor of the UN Day devoted to the victims of all genocides in the world. The declaration focused on the “Genocide of the Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and other Christian populations” and on the continuing “denialist behaviour on behalf of the Turkish state,” and also singled out the current ongoing Yazidi genocide and called for “the immediate release of the Yazidi hostages.”
The plenary session of the conference featured a proposal by Israel W. Charny from the Institute on the Holocaust and Genocide in Jerusalem for a “Worldwide Campaign for Life: ‘Respect, Protect Life.’”
It will be happily noted that the representation of International Association of Genocide Scholars (IAGS) was strong, including a significant presentation on denials of genocide by the current IAGS President, Henry Theriault, and there were indeed many references to the important pacesetting roles of IAGS, first in its resolution to recognize the Armenian Genocide soon after IAGS was launched during the presidency of Helen Fein, and then in the resolution to recognize co-victims of the Armenians including the Greek Genocide in a process that spanned the presidencies of Israel Charny and Gregory Stanton.
The following are materials from the conference:
- A full video of all presentations to the conference will be found in two parts. (See A below)
- The text of the Declaration of the conference (See B below)
- Partial List of Other Participants in the Conference in Addition to those Named Earlier (See C below)
- A TV news interview regarding my plenary, “A Worldwide Campaign for Life: ‘Respect, Protect Life,’” and a transcript of the text of this interview. (See D below)
I am very happy to report that the organizers have written since the conference to convey that a decision has been made to implement the proposed project: “In the next few years we will try to implement this very plan of yours, ‘Respect, Protect Life’, we‘ve been discussing the previous months. We will get there step by step.”
- See also the unpublished Op Eds, in English and Hebrew, that were submitted by Profs. Israel Charny and Yair Auron to Israeli newspapers but were not published. The Op Eds include a strong criticism of Israeli Jews for not recognizing and relating to the genocides of many other peoples in the world and makes a painful comparison with the way in which the world did not respond to the Holocaust when it was taking place. (See E below)
_________
A.
Videos of Full Conference
Part 1 – International Conference on the Crime of Genocide, Athens, Greece, December 7, 2019 full proceedings of conference
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H_-ck4klT1U&t=2965s
Part 2 – International Conference on the Crime of Genocide, Athens, Greece, December 8, 2019 full proceedings of conference cont’d
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOB1lGVRxmY&t=6865s
B. Declaration on behalf of the International Conference on the Crime of Genocide on top of Pynx Hill facing the Acropolis in Athens, Greece on December 8, 2019 https://www.ihgjlm.com/2019/12/19/declaration-read-by-prof-israel-charny-pynx-hill-athens-greece-december-8-2019/
C.
Partial List of Other Participants in the Conference in Addition to those Named Earlier
Cengiz Aktar
Hripsime Haroutounian
Matthew Smith
Carl Wilkens
Savvas Anastasiadis
Panayotis Giatagantzidis
George Kotanidis
Lambros Couloubaritsis
Georgios Parcharidis
Mary Stylidi
Angelos Syrigos
Konstantinos Fotiadis
Benjamin Weinthal
D.
TV Interview of Prof. Israel W. Charny on the proposal of “A Worldwide Campaign for Life: ‘Respect, Protect Life’”
- TV Live Media News Interview (English) https://www.youtube.com/watch?time_continue=5&v=kx_zQs5Wf0U&feature=emb_logo
- Transcript of text (slightly edited)
https://www.ihgjlm.com/2019/12/24/ live-media-news-interviews-professor-israel-w-charny-in-athens-greece
E.
Op Ed calling for recognition of Armenian Genocide by Israel and reporting on the conference in Athens – submitted in English to Jerusalem Post and in Hebrew to Haaretz but not published by either. https://www.ihgjlm.com/2019/12/24/if-not-now-when-will-israel-recognize-the-armenian-genocide/
[1] ANA (December 9, 2019). Greek PM Mitsotakis at Pontian Genocide Conference: Greece Has Always Overcome the Storms of History. National Herald. https://www.thenationalherald.com/272846/greek-pm-mitsotakis-at-pontian-genocide-conference-greece-has-always-overcome-the-storms-of-history/