In parliament on Thursday 30th April 2009 I spoke about the genocide that took place, toward the end of World War I and after World War I, of the culturally Greek people in what is now Turkey and the Armenians and the Assyrians. Below is a copy of my speech.
“Sometimes we have debates in this place about particular cultural groups or events overseas. Sometimes there are objections to this on the ground that it has little to do with the South Australian parliament. For example, when I raised the plight of the Palestinians, some members said, ‘What has that got to do with us?’ There is a very clear and simple answer to that. Our own citizens, our own Australians, bear witness to some of the horrible events which have occurred overseas, and although these people are Australians, they also bring with them their culture and their history, and that history should not be denied. It should certainly not be denied in the federal parliament of Australia.
Secondly, I make the point that it is unfortunate that politics has entered into the debate. Even today in dealing with this delicate and tragic issue, we have seen the Attorney-General aggressively interject when the Leader of the Opposition was speaking. Those sort of interjections are unnecessary and, unfortunately, they even cast a doubt on the sincerity of those who bring politics into the issue. We need to stick to what happened historically, to recognise it and encourage all Australians to accept it, but we do not need to do that in a partisan political way.
I turn then to the substance of the issue. We are dealing with the genocide that took place toward the end of World War I and after World War I of the culturally Greek people in what is now Turkey and the Armenians and the Assyrians. The debate understandably today has focused on the Greek speaking people, the Pontians and others, because we have a very substantial Pontian population in Adelaide and in Australia. The Armenians, we do not forget, because there is a present day Armenia: they have survived and now have their own nation. The Assyrians have fallen back into history. They originally came from an area which we would now call Iraq.
All of them suffered at the hands of Turkish nationalists some 90-odd years ago. It was as early as 1911 that plans were published for the elimination of Christians in the Ottoman Empire. Those plans were published and translated into English. They were available for those who could find them. Those documents are still there today proving the intention of the Ottoman government of the time.
There was an intense sense of nationalism after the events of 100 years ago in the Ottoman Empire. There was a determination on the part of Turkish politicians at the time to unify their country and to eliminate other than Turkish people. They proceeded, first, through the tehcir law (to which the Attorney-General has referred) by taking away property. Then they came and rounded up the leaders of those communities—and in Constantinople it was just over 104 years ago to the day that 300 leaders (political and intellectual leaders) were rounded up and put to death. They then proceeded to go right through the villages of what is now northern and western Turkey. The area bordering the southern edge of the Black Sea is Pontos and it has been a Greek civilisation for thousands of years, subject to the massacres which went on 90 years ago.
Many people do not understand in Australia that that part of the world was a Greek empire. Some of us learn in the history books about the Byzantine Empire. That was a Greek empire. It is sometimes called the Eastern Roman Empire, but it was a Greek empire based in Constantinople. And so, it is not unusual then that we find, for thousands of years, there have been Greek people living in Asia Minor and in Pontos. And so, even as late as 100 years ago, there was a huge Greek population in Constantinople. When the ANZACs landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula, there were Greek people living there. There were Turkish tax collectors, Turkish police and army, but there were Greek villagers tilling the soil and living their lives. These are the people who were deported; these are the people who were massacred during World War I and after.
Other members of parliament have spoken about some of the horrible things which occurred. Entire villages were surrounded and burned. The male populations of many villages were simply taken out and shot. When Smyrna was entered, as a result of a military struggle in 1922, all the Christians were put to death, apart from very few who escaped. The remaining women and children, in hundreds of thousands of cases, were sent on death marches across the country. Some were sent on death marches as long as 800 miles—that is from here to Sydney—and on the way were prey to rape and starvation.
I am indebted to the research of Dr Panayiotis Diamadis, a scholar who researches these matters. It was due to the information I heard from him that I realised that this is an issue for South Australians, particularly because our own South Australian soldiers witnessed a lot of these deprivations. The soldiers who were taken prisoner at Gallipoli and in Syria, among other allied forces in Mesopotamia as well, were sent on death marches, too. They were sent to prison camps where they were forced to hard labour, as well. There are many memoirs of solders written about these times. They saw the hordes of Armenian and Greek women and children being forced along the countryside in death marches. They saw their pitiful, bedraggled state. They joined with them in some cases in the prison camps. The truth of the massacre and what happened to those Armenian-Greek people is undeniable. It is there in the records and even in the records of our own Australian soldiers.
I believe that one of the aspects of the motion moved by the Attorney-General is most commendable. He says that we should remember and learn from such dark chapters in human history. What then was the essence of the motivation behind these massacres? It was hatred—hatred in the form of racism. We have to ask in Australia today: have we overcome that hatred? Have we overcome racism in Australia? In Australia today how do we deal with people who are different in culture and religion? Of course, we do not massacre them and we do not put them in prison camps—although one has to look at Woomera and Port Hedland when we talk about that.
We do have those issues of living together in Australia today. On the whole we are able to do it fairly peacefully. At the same time we need to remember the depths to which humanity can sink if we allow racism and nationalism to take grip.
I finish on a conciliatory note. I must say that these events occurred around 90 years ago. I do not blame the current Turkish government or the current Turkish community. In Senator Alan Ferguson’s motion there is much to be commended. Australia and Turkey can be friends; there is no reason why not. There is much to commend about what goes on in Turkey today, but history must not be erased or forgotten.
It seems to me that it is essential to move on from injustice, and it is only possible to move on from injustice if the truth is spoken. Sometimes in the face of injustice, especially in terms of what happened long ago, all we can do is remember and speak the truth. I believe that the political squabble which led to this debate has actually resulted in something very valuable—a recognition of a horrible slaughter which is still very real and very heartfelt by Pontians and other Hellenic people and by Armenians in Australia today. Lest we forget.”
