Santa Barbara AHEPA Chapter 243

BLACK SEPTEMBER

By: Theodoros Georgiou Karakostas

The month of September brings with it the end of summer, the beginning of a new year on the Orthodox calendar, and the anniversaries of dates that have ravaged Hellenic civilization and culture. On September 14, we commemorate the Hellenic Genocide. We remember once again the Hellenes of Asia Minor who were systematically murdered by the governments of the Young Turks and Mustafa Kemal Pasha.

The destruction of Asia Minor Hellenism began in 1071 when the Byzantine armies were defeated by the Seljuk Turks. In this historical event lies the origin of the Hellenic Holocaust which continues up to the present day. In 1453, Constantinopoulis fell to the Turks. The great, honorable, and brave Constantinos Palaiologos led 5,000 brave Greek soldiers against 80,000 Ottoman Turkish soldiers. The fall of Constantinopoulis, and the fall of the Empire of Trebizond eight years later extended the Hellenic holocaust to all Hellenic regions.

The Ottoman Empire brought with it massacres, torture, slavery, the kidnapping of boys for the Janissaries, the enslavement of women into the harems, and intolerable political and economic pressure that resulted in the further decimation of Hellenism. For even when Hellenes were not massacred, the destruction of Hellenism occurred with the loss of national identity. Conversions to Islam and Turkification contributed to the nightmare of the loss of independence and national sovereignty.

In May 1919, the armies of a free and independent Greece entered the glorious and long suffering city of Smyrna. For a brief time it appeared that the extermination of the Hellenic race had ceased. During the First World War, the Young Turks began to murder the Hellenic populations in Asia Minor , along with the
Armenians and the Assyrians.

Ultimately, Mustafa Kemal Pasha became an instrument of western imperialism and as such Turkish racism earned the unconditional assistance of the United States, Great Britain, France, and Italy. The murderous psychopath Mustafa Kemal was aided by the western powers while the Greek Army in Asia Minor was cut off by an embargo imposed by the western powers. In September 1922, beautiful Smyrna was conquered by the20Kemalists and burned. Over 100,000 Greeks and 30,000 Armenians were slaughtered.

Special mention must be made of Metropolitan Chrysostom of Smyrna. This brave and noble Greek Orthodox Cleric supported the Greek liberators in 1919, and was a voice for the aspirations of a nation that had been enslaved, humiliated, massacred, and denigrated for centuries. When the news broke that the Kemalist
Aggressors would retake Smyrna; it became apparent that the Greeks and the Armenians would not survive.

Metropolitan Chrysostom was offered refuge by the French Consulate. This Saint refused the offer of safety and chose to share the fate of his flock. Metropolitan Chrysostom was handed over to a fanatical Muslim mob by the crazed and sadistic Kemalist General Noureddin Pasha. He was humiliated by having his beard cut off, and then his eyes, ears, nose, and hands were cut off. Metropolitan Chrysostom was canonized as a Saint by the Orthodox Church of Greece in 1992. (He is very much AXIOS and deserves to be remembered and prayed for).

When the Kemalist-Young Turks murder machines ceased-over 1,500,000 Armenians, 1,000,000 Greeks, and 800,000 Assyrians had lost their lives. The decimation of Hellenism continued when the west supported Kemal's plan to ethnically cleanse Asia Minor and Eastern Thraki of well over 1,000,000 Hellenes. In this day and age, we are inundated with stories of ethnic cleansing throughout the world, but there is still no recognition of the horrors that have been perpetrated against Hellenism.
Over 1,000,000 Hellenes were forced to abandon the land and homes where their ancestors and descendants had lived for over 3,000 years. This ethnic cleansing and Genocide was supported by the "civilized" powers in the west and legitimized by the Treaty of Lausanne. Today the world commemorates Auschwitz and the crimes of Stalin, but there are no memorials for the dead of Smyrna and Pontus in those ancient Hellenic lands.

On September 6, 1955 crimes against humanity took place in a country that was a member of the NATO alliance. The Turkish government of Adnan Menderes (of the so called "democratic" party) incited terrorism against the Hellenes of Constantinopoulis and Imbros. First, the Turks bombed their own consulate in Thessaloniki and then blamed the Greeks. Then they organized the fanatics, the criminals, and the parasites, and encouraged them to attack the Greek population, the Churches, homes, and businesses.

In Smyrna, Greek Army officers serving with NATO were assaulted and their wives violated. Throughout these terrorist attacks, the police did not interfere. On September 6 we remember the end of Hellenism in Constantinopoulis and Imbros. In the 1960's, the Turkish authorities proceeded to finish the job by ethnically cleansing the last remnants of Hellenism.

During these attacks in Constantinopoulis, Imbros, and Smyrna, there were absolutely no condemnations, protests, or sanctions coming from Washington (that universal protector of "human rights" and "democracy") . Following the September 6 pog roms, Secretary of State John Foster Dulles wrote identical letters to Greek Prime Minister Alexander Papagos and Turkish Prime Minister Adnan Menderes urging the "allies" to consider NATO. There was no sympathy for Greece expressed, nor was there any condemnation of Turkey’s blatant aggression.

Hellenism is today being eradicated in Cyprus. Over 200,000 Greeks have been ethnically cleansed in the occupied territories. In 1996, Turkish death squads murdered Cypriots Tasos Isaac and Solomos Solomou. As in Asia Minor in 1922, and Constantinopoulis in 1955, there is not a single protest emanating from the "civilized powers."

Black September, a month to commemorate and recall our losses, and to reevaluate where Hellenism stands today in Cyprus, Macedonia, the Aegean Sea, and Northern Epirus; the losses of Hellenism have been numerous in terms of lives lost, and in terms of territory that has been conquered. Let us remember, commemorate, and mourn all that has been lost in Asia Minor and Constantinopoulis. Remember Smyrna and Pontus, and the victims of the Hellenic Genocide.