By Uzay Bulut , European Conservative. (photo: Assyrian Church in Baghdad, Mar Sharb/Wikimedia Commons)
On June 13th and 14th, an international conference titled ‘1915-2025: 110 Years Since the Assyrian Genocide’ was held in Athens. Many genocide scholars and historians spoke regarding the causes and consequences of the genocide, as well as how its denial by Turkey still affects Turkish politics, amongst other topics.
Scholars participating in the conference and one of the organizers, Kyriacos Batsaras, who is the head of the Assyrian Union of Greece, called on the government of Greece to officially recognize the Assyrian genocide. Batsaras told europeanconservative.com: “We believe it is crucial for our people that Greece formally acknowledges the Genocide. Firstly, because the struggles of the Assyrians of Greece will be finally vindicated and secondly, because when this happens, Greece will be among the European Union countries that will have officially recognized the Assyrian Genocide.”
Assyrians speak a language called Assyrian/Aramaic (sometimes referred to as Syriac or Neo-Aramaic) and trace their heritage to ancient Assyria. Jesus of Nazareth primarily spoke Aramaic, specifically a Galilean dialect, which was the common regional language during his time.
The Assyrians, a native people of modern-day Iraq, Turkey, Syria, and Iran, were exposed throughout history to several massacres at the hands of Muslims. Historians record that the first massacre of Assyrians in modern times took place in the 1840s, in northern Mesopotamia. The Ottoman Turks allowed the Assyrians to be massacred by the Kurdish chieftain Badr Khan Bey, who summoned the surrounding Muslim population to an Islamic ‘Holy War,’ or jihad. From 1914 to 1924, Assyrians—alongside Greeks and Armenians—were victims of a genocide in Ottoman Turkey, leaving around 300,000 Assyrians dead and innumerable women abducted. Assyrians call this crime ‘seyfo,’ which means ‘sword’ in the Assyrian language, for swords were widely used to murder the victims.
Assyrians are predominantly Christian and are still persecuted in Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, where they currently live.