1915's ISIS

The Young Turks and The Islamic State


With the continued spread of the Islamic State terrorists across Syria and Iraq the world has bore witness to what genocide in the modern era looks like. This is not genocide committed by a state, it is not genocide committed by one particular ethnic group; this is genocide being committed in the name of religion. Though the Islamic State (often called ISIS, IS, or ISIL) does not practice Islam, in it's purest form, they do believe that their calling to create a caliphate and implement strict Islamic laws is called for by Islam itself. Their rigid devotion to these goals has created a wave of terror that has rapidly spread across the Middle East. It is so brutal, so barbaric, in it's nature that even old enemies have begun to work together in efforts to suppress the threat ISIS poses to the modern world.

The belief system that has spawned ISIS is not new. It is not the first time extremists within Islam have committed grotesque acts of genocide in their devotion to a perverted ideology which exploits their faith. As early as the turn of the 20th century there were modern day extremists who had found a niche in perverting Islam for their own political agendas. Sure, there have been many since. And there is little doubt that there will many more in the future. But one in particular stands out when thumbing through the history books. One that was just as hedonistic and savage in it's use of genocide to prop up a failed caliphate.

The Rise Of The Young Turks

 
 "You are greatly mistaken. We have this country absolutely under our control. I have no desire to shift the blame onto our underlings and I am entirely willing to accept the responsibility myself for everything that has taken place." 
~ Enver Pasha

In 1889 the Young Turks movement began with a conspiracy hatched in the Imperial Medical Academy in Istanbul, Turkey. What began with the goal of deposing the sultan of the Ottoman Empire and instituting a constitutional government rapidly failed as the students who had organized it fled to Europe. Yet their dream of a more democratic society within the Ottoman Empire did not die. As with most ideological revolutions, the methods utilized by the sultan to combat it were ineffective in crushing the ideals already embedded within Turkish society. Once the seeds of the revolution had been cast, the Ottoman Empire could do little to stop them from taking hold. 

As the movement grew so did the ideas being fed into it. While some within The Young Turks had pushed for more equality amongst the diverse population of the Ottoman empire, many of The Young Turks pushed a policy of "Turkification". The illusion of a more democratic society being constructed under The Young Turks would rapidly vanish as Turkish nationalism took hold amongst it's leadership. When they finally did get the sultan to step aside in 1908 with the creation of a constitutional government the more rabid members of The Young Turks movement took charge. 

In the beginning there was the proposed idea that minority ethnic groups and religions would have equal rights as Turkish Muslims. However, with the rise of the Pashas, the new leaders of The Young Turks, this promise vanished into thin air. Instead of offering unity amongst the diverse population of the Ottoman Empire, the Pashas set out to vilify certain ethnic groups and religions. This goal became easier to achieve as the world was plunged into "the great war" in Europe. With Russia and the Balkan states threatening the spread of yet more war and bloodshed on Ottoman lands, the Pashas capitalized upon the fear these wars created. 

World War One would offer the Pashas the cover behind which they could implement their policy of Turkification. The undesirables, as they saw them, could now easily be disposed of as the world focused on the threat Germany posed to Europe. Old scores could now be settled with the ethnic groups in the Balkans. A long standing hatred of Armenians could now be rehashed across the eastern portions of the Ottoman Empire. And the ancient Christian communities in the Middle East could now be targeted for annihilation without much backlash from Christian Europe or the rising influence of America. World War One offered the Pashas their chance to revitalize what they viewed as their own caliphate. 

Flirting With The Quran

The mixture of patriotism and religion helped The Young Turks rally large portions of the Turkish population to their cause. By not only offering the Turkish citizens greater freedoms than that the sultan permitted them but by also giving them a sense of superiority over "the others", The Young Turks had snared many of their fellow country men. The sense of religious superiority that The Young Turks had fed the Turkish citizens of the Ottoman Empire came through their denial of similar rights to other faiths within the empire. This elevated Muslim citizens to a higher level within society while engineering a new sense of serfdom amongst members of other faiths. And nowhere was this made more evident than with the Christian subjects now trapped under The Young Turks harsh dictate. 

By hen-picking verses from the Quran to support their ideology, The Young Turks set out to segregate Muslims from other faiths within the empire. This process utilized an already existing method that divided society up into "millets", or social classes. This stage of Turkification is also currently recognized in the stages of genocide as the classification stage. By using the millet system to pit Turks against "the others", the Pashas had set the Ottoman Empire on course with seemingly endless bloodshed.

Classification was just the start. Once the Young Turks had created an atmosphere in which millets could thrive they needed to accelerate the Ottoman's race toward all out genocide. This required the Pashas' to utilize their political influence over the mosques within the empire. Through this influence they could twist Quranic verses to take the next step toward genocide, symbolization. 

By taking the labels applied to "indigenous Christians" and mixing in a tone of "us verses them", the Young Turks were able to push toward genocide. This also permitted Muslim leaders across the empire the opportunity to re-institute unjust taxation under distorted interpretations of the Quran. Where the Young Turks had set up labels for the "enemy within", the Muslim community leaders had taken the leap into the stages of dehumanization and organization against Christian minorities. All of which was seemingly justified by the Young Turks' policies dictated by the umbrella of Turkification. And with religious leaders within the Muslim community backing the politics of the genocide, bloodshed was inevitable.

Rivers Of Blood

“Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention.” 

~ Talat Pasha

The Pontic Greeks

(Greeks Mourn After Massacre, 1922)

In 1914 the Pontic Greeks became the first victims of Turkification. Though they had existed along the shores of the Black Sea for far longer than any Turks had, the Young Turks claimed all the land as Turkish. And since both ethnically and religiously the Greeks were seen as unable to be "truly Turkish" the order for their expulsion and destruction came without hesitance.

Ottoman commanders gave the order, "There is nothing but death for the Greeks, who are without honor. As soon as the slightest sign is given you, destroy everything about you immediately. As for women, stop at nothing. Do not take honor or friendship into consideration when the moment of vengeance arrives."

The Greeks within the Ottoman Empire had done nothing to warrant the genocide they would now suffer. They had simply been born Greek in a land where the governing body had embraced radical nationalism and religiously fueled hatred. The "moment of vengeance" had arrived upon them as a result of the Ottomans' defeat in the wars in the Balkans in 1912-1913. Though none of them had, with any real evidence to be supplied, fought against the Ottomans. They simply lived too close to the Balkans and just happened to be Christians.

For the Young Turks the opportunity to expel the Pontic Greeks from the Ottoman Empire was one they had long awaited. The Pashas had eyed a make-believe fortune they thought the Greeks' church and community had stashed away. And then there was the land itself. The millet system had dictated that both the land and wealth of the Greeks was rightfully Turkish. This genocide was therefore obligated by the very policies the Young Turks had set for their failed empire.

Greek men and boys were immediately rounded up to be used as "labor battalions" in the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks justified this by saying that the Ottoman Empire was under assault from the Russians and Balkan states. Their reasons were well picked in the fact that they could easily paint the outside attackers as Christian armies and thus claim that the Greeks should be forced to defend Turkish lives. This permitted the Young Turks to further dehumanize the Greeks and at the same time claim they were forcing the Greeks to prove their loyalty. It was a method that both fed into the nationalistic fervor and the religious ideology that was plaguing Turkish society at the time. No mention was given as to what conditions the Greek slaves would face in their tormentous captivity.

Greek women were often taken as sexual slaves by Turkish military members and their own Turkish neighbors. Girls were considered cheap and their value in Ottoman society was clearly less than that of man when the laws The Young Turks used are scrutinized to any degree. These women, if they survived the rape, were rarely given freedom. Many would be disposed of once the system under which they were held as slaves was finally abolished. Others would die in captivity from relentless abuse and neglect. While others would live out their lives as even less than third class citizens in a nation that had promised equality just a decade ago.

The rest of the Greek population was subjected to outright massacres and deportations. In the massacres the Ottoman military saved their bullets by utilizing knives to slash and kill their victims. Their assaults on unarmed civilians were brutal and personal. The perpetrators of the genocide against the Greeks had to watch as their victims gasped for their last breath and as blood and life slipped from the victims' bodies. This was a savage campaign that one can only guess was meant to harden the soldiers for the genocides still yet to come. It was a method that Hitler's SS death units would utilize in their creation of soldiers that could kill without hesitation.

Those who were deported were raped, robbed, and beaten as they were herded out of their homes and into the barren central lands of the Ottoman Empire. There they were left in concentration camps where food, water, and shelter were not provided. The lands upon which they were left were void of any means with which to support themselves. Those who dared to venture beyond the camps were killed if caught or died in the deserts upon which they had been placed.

The genocide of the Pontic Greeks would last from 1914 till 1923. By the time the killings ended the Young Turks had presided over the massacre of around 700,000 - 950,000 Greek civilians. The genocide had been fueled by the lack of ability on behalf of The Young Turks to "Turkify" the Greeks. Or otherwise put; the Young Turks could not force the Greeks to accept the culture or religion that The Young Turks had wished to impose upon them. The Greeks had kept their faith and their culture in spite of the brutal treatment the Young Turks had given them.

The Assyrians

 (Western Media Reported as Genocide Occurred)

In the third century the Assyrian people of Mesopotamia adopted an emerging faith that was quickly spreading, Christianity. This adaptation within Assyrian society was one for which the Assyrian people would die for time and time again. Yet it is such an intrinsic part of Assyrian society that despite their persecution for it, it still persist to this day.

At the end of the 19th century the Ottoman sultan had grown weak in his control over the Ottoman Empire. In an attempt to break up what the sultan saw as a "troublesome" portion of the empire's ethnically diverse population, the Assyrians suffered deportations from their native homelands. The irregular army, mainly Kurdish cavalry, was brutal in it's treatment of Assyrian civilians. Yet this was just the start of Assyrian suffering in the modern era.

Prior to the political instability of the late 19th century, the Assyrians had embraced the millet system under the sultan. It had provided them with some degree of religious and political autonomy within the Ottoman Empire. Yet when the Young Turks came to power the very system that had protected them became the same system that would permit even greater persecution of the Assyrian people. With the redefining of the millet system came the demonetization of the "indigenous Christian" communities. And thus the targeting of the Assyrian community under the guise of implementing the millet system to the letter of the law.

Assyrian churches became targets of local Turkish militias, often sponsored by the Young Turks, as all signs of Assyrian Christendom came under fire. The community leaders amongst the Assyrians were taken off to be falsely accused of trumped up charges only to end up executed. The Young Turks wished to decapitate the Assyrian community as a whole. They wanted a defeated Assyrian population from the start. The goal was absolute submission and then annihilation. It was a strategy that was designed to limit resistance to the genocide The Young Turks had begun to carry out.


In 1914 the Turkish army began to ethnically cleanse Assyrian villages in mass operations commanded by Pashas. Men and boys from the villages were often killed on the spot while at other times the Assyrian men were forced into slave labor. Those who were forced to work for the Turkish army were given little to no food and absolutely no protection from the elements. These slave labor battalions were worked to death with the intent of killing the Assyrian male population. Those who ended up on the front lines of Turkey's war with Russia were placed in areas where they could be killed easily by both Ottoman forces and Russian shelling. The Young Turks fully intended for all Assyrian men and boys to be dead no matter how loyally they served their oppressive dictators.

Turkish men and soldiers were rewarded for their depravity by the Pashas by allowing them to abduct and enslave Assyrian girls. Women who were too old to be considered useful for sexual slavery were often raped and then killed or simply put to death on the spot. For the sexual slaves, death would come in either its physical form or through the trauma inflicted upon them as they were forced into a living hell. These abducted girls would be forced to denounce their faith, convert to Islam, and rid themselves of any signs of their native culture. To the Pashas, this was the quickest way to destroy the Assyrian culture and ethnically cleanse their bloodlines.

For those who were not outright killed in the initial massacres the horrors of deportation awaited them. The elderly, the ill, the young, and the survivors were forced into cattle cars and sent into the interior of the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks claimed this was for their own good since it removed them from areas close to the war front. Yet the concentration camps they were sent to were nothing more than barren patches of land upon which food would not grow nor could it be found.

In 1915 the London Times reported that thousands of Assyrians were being kept in concentration camps around Baghdad, Iraq. The Turks would not admit to how many Assyrians had started out on the initial death marches into Iraq's barren desert. Yet by the time news was filtering out into the British media there was only around thirty thousand survivors left alive. While the British government petitioned to take these survivors into their protection, the Turks stalled any attempts to rescue the starving Assyrians from the concentration camps the Pashas had established. For The Young Turks, this would have meant that the genocide of the Assyrians would not be complete.

By the end of the Turkish genocide of the Assyrians an estimated 750,000 Assyrians had been slaughtered or starved to death. Their property and their homes had been handed over to Turkish and Arab neighbors. The lives they had led in their homeland were now a memory to those who had managed to cling to life. And the acknowledgement of their suffering under The Young Turks genocidal regime still has yet to be achieved.

The Armenians

(Armenian Community Leaders Hung Publicly in Constantinople)

There was no minority that The Young Turks hated more than the Armenian people. The radical nationalists had long accused the Armenians for every military defeat and political crisis that the Ottoman Empire had suffered. Armenians were the perfect scapegoat for The Young Turks not only for their faith but also because of the Armenians' historic claims to a national homeland. This allowed the Pashas to not only create a "Turkey for the Turks" through the genocide of the Armenians, but also permitted them total control over Armenian lands. The destruction of the Armenians fed both the Pashas' hatred of non-Muslims and their political ambition of reconstructing their empire. 

On April 24th, 1915 the Pashas orders for the arrests and executions of Armenian community leaders was given. On that fateful day the genocide of the Armenian people began in earnest. Turkish military was deployed and prominent Armenians were immediately arrested. The Pashas had desired to eliminate those they viewed as capable of rallying Armenians in a resistance movement against the coming genocide. Yet in spite of the Pashas' attempts, the Armenian people were only galvanized by the attacks on their community. And resistance to the onslaught by Turkish authorities would be met with resistance by the common Armenian civilian. 

The Mountain Of Moses

(Armenian Defenders of Musa Dagh)

As the Turkish military razed Armenian villages and began deportations of Armenian civilians there were four areas where resistance was organized. Musa Dagh was one of those locations.

Six villages laid at the base of the mountain, Musa Dagh. This scenic mountain stands along the edge of the Mediterranean Sea just south of modern day Iskenderun, Turkey. And it was in these six villages that the Armenian civilians were ordered to submit to the deportations ordered by the Pashas. They were told that they would leave the shadow of Musa Dagh and be sent off into the deserts of Syria. Yet none of them believed the reasons The Young Turks were giving for leaving their homes. 

Taking only a few hundred rifles and a months supply of food, the Armenians took to the mountain to seek refuge from the approaching Turkish army. On July 21st the Ottoman forces laid siege to Musa Dagh in an attempt to force the Armenians down the mountain and into captivity, or certain death. Those trapped on the mountain put up fierce resistance in their attempts to keep the Turks from coming up the mountain after them. Every Armenian on Musa Dagh was prepared to die there if help did not arrive. None of the Armenians wanted to be taken by the Turks who had already begun to wipe out their homes below. 

By the time September arrived the Armenians knew that their survival relied upon gaining the attention of passing Allied ships. World War One was still raging and Turkey was still the enemy of the Allied forces. Yet the Armenians knew that there was an off chance that their homemade banners could eventually capture the attention of a passing friendly vessel. 

On September 12th the survivors on Musa Dagh managed to gain the attention of a passing French warship. Once the French forces were able to bring five ships close enough for the Armenians to evacuate the mountain safely the survivors were permitted to board the Allied vessels. By this point only around four thousand Armenians were still alive. Yet for them this was a victory. For this was their salvation from certain death at the hands of their Turkish assailants. 

These four thousand would spend the rest of the genocide in refugee camps in Egypt. Despite the conditions endured as refugees, these were the fortunate ones. They had managed to resist the genocidal efforts of The Young Turks. They had managed to defy the orders of deportation and the horrors of the concentration camps in Syria's deserts. And for the women; they had managed to escape possible rape, murder, and/or sexual slavery.

Slave Battalions

(Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians utilized as slave labor by Turks)

The Greeks and Assyrians suffered the same slavery at the hands of the Turkish military. Yet it was the Armenians who were more regularly forced into this humiliating form of suffering as the Ottomans sent endless battalions of slaves to the front lines. The Young Turks had recognized the fervor with which Turkish soldiers tortured and tormented their Armenian slaves. And therefore permitted more and more Armenian men and boys to be forced into conscripted labor for their failing army. 

In the autumn of 1914 there had been 40 thousand Armenian men serving loyally in the Ottoman military. These men were the first to be turned into slave labor battalions. Their rifles were confiscated and all their equipment that could be used to resist was taken away. Their comrades in arms were suddenly their masters. And their job went from defending their homeland, the empire, from foreign invaders to suddenly being forced to work as slaves for new tyrants. 

Slave laborers in the Turkish military were utilized as human pack-mules. They were made to carry the equipment of their old comrades and pull the wagons upon which weapons of war were taken into battle. There was no job too degrading for them to be forced to do. The more filthy and dehumanizing the task, the more back breaking the work, the more the Turkish slave drivers forced their captives to do the tasks at hand. 

When a slave labor battalion outlived it's uses the Turkish military turned their rifles upon men who had once fought to maintain Turkish sovereignty. If a slave labor battalion would cost too much to transport, if the food to keep them alive was running low, if there was simply a lull in the war; the slaves could be dispensed of without concern or care by the Turkish forces. Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians serving as slaves were not to be considered human. Their torture and torment was dictated from the top down. And their lives were cheap. To outlive their purposes on the battle field was a death warrant for these unfortunate souls. 

Slave labor would continue well after World War One and the war with Russia. The Ottomans kept the institution of slavery alive so that the genocide of the "indigenous Christians" could persist.

The Bounty Of War

(Armenian Woman Tattooed During Her Sexual Slavery)

As men and boys were being sent off to die as slaves the Armenian women were left vulnerable to a different form of slavery. The Young Turks had designed in their dictates certain clauses which permitted the forced marriages and temporary holding of Armenian women as sexual slaves by Turkish men. This form of slavery was meant to reward the butchers who had cleared Armenian villages and executed countless Armenian civilians. It was a perverse incentive for the Turkish soldiers and politicians who supported the genocidal regime in Istanbul. And it permitted Turkish neighbors to literally move into an Armenian home and claim both the building and woman as their own. 

In almost every genocide there is a certain focus on the "blood purity" of an enemy. While Hitler's Nazi's would seek to cleanse their own people of "impure blood", The Young Turks sought to destroy the blood lines of their victims through mixing their own with it. The goal in both is to destroy a lineage that can be idealized by the victims that will inevitably survive even the most thorough genocidal attempts. It is the desire to wipe clean any memory of the victims' culture, community, heritage, and supposed racial identity. 

For the Young Turks this was made evident as they supported practices that not only dehumanized the victims of this sexual slavery but also set them apart from any offspring that might result form their abuses. The Young Turks incited a campaign to tattoo, or mark visibly in some way, sexual slaves that were kept long term in Turkish homes. This act would set aside women who were slaves from the rest of Turkish society. It would permit them to be ostracized by the community in which they were being held captive. And it would further make it easier for Turkish families to take any resulting children and raise them separate of their mothers.

It became common practice for many Armenian women who were taken slaves to be used in mass rapes and then, if they survived the rape, to be killed. When this occurred amongst the Turkish military it often led to Armenian girls being beheaded, having their throats slit, bayoneted, stabbed, shot, or hung. These victims were first made to suffer the barbaric rapes inflicted upon them only to have to be tortured to death by the rapists. 

There was no mercy shown to the sexual slaves taken by Ottoman Turks. Their enslavement was meant to not only separate them from the rest of the Armenians but served as a way to segregate the victims from the rest of humanity. The tattoos, the piercings, the rape, the beatings, the public humiliation; all were ways the Ottomans sought to break their spirits and kill the Armenians' soul.

(Armenian Girl Who Survived Torture By Turks)

Death Marches and Death Camps

"The Ottoman Empire should be cleaned up of the Armenians and the Lebanese. We have destroyed the former by the sword, we shall destroy the latter through starvation."

~ Enver Pasha

In April of 1915 the Pashas gave the order for the Turkish military to begin forced deportations of all Armenians across the Ottoman Empire. The Young Turks wanted every Armenian village cleared out and the Armenians in them to be sent in one way or another to the deserts of Syria. In some cases the Armenians were put in cattle cars and shipped toward Syria. But in almost every case, at some point, the Armenians were forced to march into the desert where they were expected to die from exposure. 

Around 75 percent of all Armenians who were deported would die along the way to the concentration camps. Those who reached the concentration camps were not met by the sight of gas chambers or barbwire fences. These death camps were simply patches of barren earth where the victims themselves were expected to stay under the guard of nearby Turkish soldiers. If they dared to try to leave they would be executed by sword or a bullet. 

There were no means with which to provide themselves protection from the harsh winters of Syria's deserts. There was no way to hide from the summer sun. And water was nowhere to be found. Food was a distant memory for the victims of deportation. There was simply no way for life to continue in these hellish conditions. 

Those who had died along the way had suffered rapes, torture by the Turkish military, and random executions. If the deportees had not been able to carry onward to their deaths the Turkish soldiers were more than willing to oblige them with a beheading or impalement. The corpses of those who had gone ahead of them lined the ditches and pathways. Bodies of victims were strung up in the brush along the way. Rape victims decayed in the streams and behind shrubs. The signs of death were never far away. 

Death marches were used to deplete the numbers of Armenians who would need to be executed later. The Young Turks knew well what would happen to the Armenians as they were forced to walk into the deserts. This was just death by another cruel method. The goal, after all, was annihilation of the Armenians. 

The Aftermath

(Armenian Child Receiving Care In A Refugee Camp)

When the genocides committed by the Pashas and Turks finally did end the carnage was spread across the entire breadth of the Ottoman Empire. While the Ottoman Empire itself would dissolve and modern nation states arose in it's place, the legacy of Turkish atrocities did not dissolve so easily. Mass graves still remained along the trails of death and around the concentration camps and razed villages. Burnt out villages still smoldered in the wake of war. And countless refugees now were left in limbo. 

1.5 million Armenians had been exterminated during the genocide of the Armenian people. Nearly a million Assyrians and a million Greeks had been slaughtered as The Young Turks committed genocide against them. For the Assyrians, those left displaced in Iraq, genocide would strike again in 1933 and under Saddam Hussein. For all three peoples the memory of death would linger for generations so as to never be forgotten. 

Not a single orchestrator, participant, or beneficiary of the genocides committed would ever face trial for their crimes against humanity. The nation of Turkey would be quickly forgiven as the Western allies attempted to gain a foothold in the Middle East. The United States, the nation who documented the Armenian Genocide while it occurred, would go on to becoming allies with the Turks. Both Europe and America would base their military and establish their sphere of influence out of Turkey. If anything, the former Ottomans benefited greatly through their genocides against the Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians. 

Historians now refer to the genocides committed by Turkey as "the forgotten genocides". For the most part, this pathetic analysis of one of history's largest (and unpunished) crimes is very true. Over three million lives lost and history has forgotten them. 

The Islamic State

& 

Humanity

Modern Islamists have little in common with the organized government of the old Ottoman Empire. Yet the crimes that the Islamic State (ISIS, IS, ISIL) commit are eerily familiar. The goal of constructing an Islamic caliphate under which only Muslims (and even then, not all Muslims) are permitted to live directly reflects The Young Turks' ambitions. A desire to force a culture, no matter how perverse it may be from the original, upon all those trapped within a failed caliphate mirrors what the Pashas wished when they said, "a Turkey for the Turks".

When the ISIS militants laid siege to the Yazidis who had fled to a mountain they had, if only for a moment, recreated the crimes of the Turkish military at Musa Dagh. They intentionally isolated and fired upon a surrounded and outnumbered civilian population. Regardless of geography, the intent behind the crime was identical. And the only way out of the snare for the trapped victim was certain death or slavery.

As the ISIS militants force Syrian and Iraqi Christian minorities to convert to Islam or face death they reconstruct the orders given by The Young Turks. And just as with The Young Turks, conversion to Islam does not guarantee the victim that he/she has evaded death. For those who do manage to live under their new oppressors are put into a system of classes where they are the lowest ranking member.

While ISIS beheads, buries alive, burns, tortures, shoots, stabs, and butchers minorities they are following in the footsteps of the Turkish army who came before them. In burning out entire villages the ISIS members ignite the flames that Middle Eastern Christians saw lit under the Ottoman Turks. Forced evictions that often lead to death marches place these minorities in the footsteps of their ancestors. And for the Yazidis, the sexual slavery their girls face is exactly like that which Christians faced under the Ottomans.

There is nothing new that ISIS can bring to their genocide of the Middle East's ethnic and religious minorities. There have been savages like them in the past. And there will be barbaric heathens like them in the future. What must change is the willingness on the part of the outside world in addressing these crimes against humanity. We must learn to combat the perpetrators of genocide not only after the genocide has occurred but also while it is happening. There is no reason that we, in our modern age of information, should be willing to look the other way like we did with the Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians. While there is nothing new that ISIS can bring to the table, there is something we can... the desire to fight.

History is not written by the meek, the pacifists, or those who pray for a better tomorrow. It is written in the blood of those who have fallen while others looked the other way. All evil has ever needed to prevail is the willingness of good men to say nothing, do nothing, and beat their chests when its over as though they won the day. We do not currently face the same tragedy in what was once the Ottoman Empire because of the religion of those perpetrating it. We face the reality of yet another genocide because we have closed our eyes to the reality of it. We have covered our ears so as to not hear the cries of the dead ringing out from graves they never should have had to go to. History has been written in their blood because our "free world" decided to set on the sidelines while others died.

If in a hundred years the genocides being committed by ISIS are not remembered or even recognized it will not be because they didn't happen. If the crimes of ISIS are forgotten it will be because, just as we have done with the Armenians, we will have decided to forever turn our backs upon those left in the killing fields.

We will have once again lost our humanity.

,

You can contact Alder's Ledge on Twitter by tweeting to us at:

@alders_ledge

&

@AL_Staff

Some of the resources used for this post can be read by following the links listed below. 
Please note that not all sources are listed.



Tattooing of Armenian Girls:

• http://www.genocide-museum.am/eng/online_exhibition_2.php
•  http://youtu.be/bwj4e_f_1DI
•  http://womennewsnetwork.net/2012/10/19/armenian-women-genocide/

Basic overview of the Genocide:

• http://www.unitedhumanrights.org/genocide/armenian_genocide.htm
•  http://www.nytimes.com/ref/timestopics/topics_armeniangenocide.html
•  http://www.atour.com/history/london-times/20000803a.html
•  http://www.atour.com/history/ny-times/20001126g.html
•  http://www.atour.com/history/london-times/20000803t.html
•  http://www.armenian-genocide.org/genocide.html
•  http://www.armenian-genocide.org/musa_dagh.html
•  http://www.historyplace.com/worldhistory/genocide/armenians.htm

The Young Turks

• http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/654123/Young-Turks
• http://www.fordham.edu/halsall/mod/1908youngturk.html
• http://www.anca.org/genocide_resource/quotes.php 

ISIS, IS, ISIL

• http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2776268/Raped-tortured-forced-watch-beheadings-beaten-tried-kill-Yazidi-girls-reveal-hell-endured-witnessed-ISIS-captivity.html
• http://au.ibtimes.com/articles/562237/20140811/isis-iraq-christians-genocide-pope-francis.htm#.VDgznudzUXw
• http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/iraq-slave-markets-sell-women-10-attract-isis-recruits-1468506
• http://nypost.com/2014/09/22/isis-terrorists-are-raping-women-to-increase-following/
• http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11142115/Ghost-villages-of-northern-Iraq-ripped-apart-by-Isil-jihadists.html

The First Casualty Of War

Rabid Dogs On All Sides
(PLUCK series)

'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' 

~Samuel Johnson, 'The Idler' 1758

It is the common narrative of those who side with the rebels, often blindly, in Syria that these gun toting militants are somehow valiant characters in the overall plot. They have been cast as the defenders of the downtrodden and oppressed Syrian civilians. They have been painted as noble warriors who arose to take a stand against the savage tyrant in command of Syria. Yet the war which they wage has been brutal in it's depiction of reality. With every massacre there comes the picture of rabid dogs surrounding the citizenry of Syria on all sides. Assad's barbarians remain frothing at the mouth as they clamor for new atrocities. And, contrary to their online propagandists, the rebels are equally savage in their attempts to assert authority in reclaimed areas.

It is the common narrative of the blind support that what you are reading here is wrong. By looking beyond the partisanship of either side we are somehow committing an offense. By sifting through the lies, often pitting them against one another, we are somehow wrong for seeking the hard facts behind the fog of war. If you believe that, if you are so vehemently biased, then this is your chance to leave and go back to the media that feeds your glutinous appetite for lies.

We don't claim to know everything. This isn't a blog to tell you what to think, we didn't start this to make you believe. This is a blog that simply exists so as to make you ask questions. Our only goal here is to make you question everything you have been told. Our mission is to create screamers by unbinding the blindfolds that have covered peoples' eyes for far too long. We don't always have the answers, but we'll be damned if we would ever cease in trying to find them.

Devoured 

Syria's crisis began when Assad violently attempted to crush the spirit which we seek for all mankind. It was in Syria's underclass that the masses began to question the legitimacy of Assad's rule. From the ground up the threat was rising to a tyrant who had held power for generations. Syria's crisis began because the leader of Syria felt his dogs were turning in upon him. 

A system in which the majority of the citizenry do not belong to the same class or religion of the ruling party, is a system that becomes to top heavy to survive. When the masses began to realize that Syria's fighter jets, it's tanks, it's helicopters, and it's savage army were no longer meant to protect them but rather to dominate them... it was already too late.

Guerrilla warfare became the only method by which the underclass could rise up to challenge the bigger dog in this fight. Through ambushing, hit and run, and by utilizing rolling battles to engage the regime; the rebels were seen as fighting for their homes and their people. In the beginning this was symbolic in the fact that it made outsiders believe that Syria's masses were in open rebellion. And yet the people of Syria were not yet ready to sacrifice everything for the whims of this ragtag band of rebels. 

Assad, in all his barbaric glory, launched all out war upon his own nation. Cluster bombs, incendiaries, mortars, heavy artillery, tanks, helicopters, and jets were all thrown into the fight to stop the rebellion his own savagery had inspired. Entire villages were laid to waste as Assad sought to bring Syria back under his control. Nothing was sacred to the now rabid leader as he challenged all conventions of warfare by openly targeting civilians. 

This is how the war began. And in it's own right, this is how Syria was devoured from within. Blood spilled on one side was immediately rectified, if ever it could be, by more blood spilled on the opposing side. And eye for an eye rapidly made all of Syria blind. 

Yet it was the bitterness of war that devoured Syria completely. Rebels who had boasted about their restraint in battle quickly gave into the temptations of war. Retaliatory attacks on citizens who remained loyal to Assad began to mount the death toll on the other side. Men that online supporters claimed were somehow noble turned out to be no less barbaric than the savage they claimed to fight. Leaving many to wonder how the rebels could be praised for fighting Assad when they have mirrored their enemies own sins.

Genocide Produces Yet More Genocides

(A History) 

Namibia, the land of the 20th century's first genocide. It is a country in which the German Second Reich began it's experiments with lebensraum and eugenic philosophies. This is the place where a modern nation imposed race laws, built concentration camps, used chemicals to kill their victims, used slave labor to cause death, and committed outright mass executions of the Herero and Namaqua peoples. All of which occurred a decade prior to the Armenian Genocide. 

Turkish leaders would look back upon their German ally's success in Namibia and learn from the Second Reich what it meant to exterminate an entire ethnicity of man. In Ottoman eyes the colonization of Namibia by Germany was seen as a success because the German people never once said a word against it. Instead the German populace was seen as supportive and as willing participants in their government's atrocities. Thus, without little questioning by Turkish citizens, the Ottomans began their genocides in an attempt to maintain their crumbling empire. 

The Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the Armenians would all suffer the wrath of a failing empire. 1.5 million Armenians would perish as Turkey fought to enforce "Turkification" across their territories. There was no limit to the barbarism that the Ottomans would utilize in their attempts to either deport or kill their victims. 

“Who today still talks about the annihilation of the Armenians?”

~ Adolf Hitler, August 22, 1939

Deir-es-Zor, the Turkish death camp to which Armenians were sent, is to the Armenian people today what Auschwitz is to the Jews. The extermination of the Armenian people was so vast and rapidly committed that Hitler himself referenced it while preparing the Holocaust. It was only 24 years after the Armenian Genocide that the next dictator was preparing to unleash the hell of genocide upon Europe once again. And just as with the Turks, the Nazis were simply expanding upon what their predecessors had done before them. 

Six million Jews would pay with their lives for what Hitler had unleashed upon Europe. My ancestors were taken into the mountains and shot by Hitler's dogs in Croatia. Like the Armenians who were marched away from their homes to die, my ancestors looked back upon their village and knew that they would never return home again. From their blood, from those who clung to life in our darkest hour, I'm here today. 

The suffering of my people was the playbook from which dictators like Idi Amin and Pol Pot took their instructions. Acting in the same savage spirit that had inspired hellish acts like that of the Holocaust and the Armenian Genocide, these modern heathens unleashed genocides across the world. In Cambodia about a quarter of the population would perish as Pol Pot recreated the crimes committed by the Germans in Namibia. Idi Amin, who admitted to adoring Hitler, attempted to recreate the Holocaust as he plunged Uganda into a hell from which it has yet to recover from. 

Genocide has been looked upon by governments as the perfect crime because it is supposed to destroy the "problem" at it's root. Yet there are always those who survive. There are always those who watch the crimes and record them in their hearts and souls. These survivors and onlookers are the ones who refuse to let the sins of the past die in the killing fields. And thus, genocide for all it's absolutes, is never a crime that is easily forgotten. 

It is a crime that breeds more of it's own horrific acts in every generation to follow. In cases like that of Rwanda there is the immediate threat of the victimized community retaliating, and thus perpetrating genocide, once the killing stops. The bitterness that remains once the killings end is the seed that genocide sows wherever and whenever genocide occurs. If it does not obtain fruition in one culture it will seek out another in which to grow. It knows and respects no borders society has attempted to create. Every society is vulnerable to it's lures. 

And this is where we are today in Syria.

The brink of allowing one genocide to breed another. 

A War With No Victors

Assad watched other dictators across the Middle East get away with the very sins he has committed. It was only in recent history that Assad has seen tyrants fall to the hangman's knot. And therefore it may be this reality of repercussions for his actions that keeps the dictator clinging to power. He has nowhere left to run. His followers have nowhere left to cast their support. The battle lines are so deeply drawn that there is no crossing over. There will be no forgiveness, there will be no repentance, this is a fight to the death.

It is in the rigidness of Syria's war that the end has already been made clear. An end that will find both sides defeated in their own ways. Syria has no prize for the conquerors. It has nothing left to offer the side that claims victory. For this is a war that will have no victor. 

Far too much blood has been spilled by the true owners of Syria, it's citizenry. Too many young lives have been altered so drastically that there is no walking their hearts and minds back to civility. Young Syrians will now watch as others return home to families that they no longer have themselves. They will be left with the bitterness that comes with seeing a world move on as they remain in hell. Far too much has been taken from the true owners of Syria's hope... it's youth has been bled out. 

The rebels may be the lesser of two evils in this fight. But they are not the heroes. That is a title that they will never be able to claim. For there have been far too many innocent lives lost as their militants pulled triggers and planted bombs that should have never been. Their excesses have stripped them of any praise that civilized man could have ever offered. It is in their sins that they have been found unworthy of any support.

This brings us to the final point of this long winded method of asking...

If the rebels in Syria do manage to win their war and commit even more retaliatory reprisals against the Alawite minority, will their supporters call these acts genocide?

Just as not all Sunni Muslims have offered their support to the rebels (thus marking themselves for reprisals too), not all Alawites have offered their support to Assad's regime. Yet the genocide that has seen Assad targeting Sunni civilians has bred deep animosity against the Alawites as a whole. And it has already been made clear that the rebels exercise little restraint when claiming Alawite areas. They have often been recorded as targeting Alawite civilians trapped by the sudden shift in power. 

In areas where the population is considered traditionally loyal to Assad, the rebels have done little to stop elements of their forces from savagely attacking the unarmed populace. This occurs in all wars as attacking soldiers take casualties and find themselves unable to directly attack the enemy soldiers. It has always been the civilians who suffer the hatred that feeds the will to fight on both sides. Yet when it comes to the rebels these crimes are rarely admitted by their fiercely loyal followers and supporters online. 

Thus we ask once again... If the rebels do win, and they begin targeting supposed supporters of the old regime, will there be the same "humanitarian" outcry by supporters? 

The ground has already been prepared for the next genocide in Syria. Rebels, engulfed by bitterness and hatred, stand ready to commit massacres of their own in the absence of an enemy regime. Civilians who have been told that their neighbors supported the man who killed their families stand prepared to accept that these traitors deserve to die. All the elements are there. The ground has been salted in such a way that nothing but more genocidal acts can grow here. 

So when the rebels, who many of you reading this have so adamantly supported, do openly commit crimes against humanity... will you scream?

“…the Armenian massacre was the greatest crime of the war, and the failure to act against Turkey is to condone it… the failure to deal radically with the Turkish horror means that all talk of guaranteeing the future peace of the world is mischievous nonsense…”

~ Theodore Roosevelt, 1918 

In 1918 Theodore Roosevelt pointed out to the world what they all seemed to be missing as the fog of war began to clear. For all the deaths that had occurred there were still those that the world was ignoring. For all the governments that the world was punishing after the war, there was still one that remained free of society's outrage for it's crimes against humanity. 

In Syria there are still deaths that remain unanswered for. There are still factions within this war that remain free from the outrage of civilized society for their crimes against all of humanity. This is not a war where there is anyone left untainted by the blood that has been spilled. Each and every war criminal deserves to be dragged out and punished upon the world stage. And the fact that anyone who claims to be a "humanitarian" would turn a blind eye to one side while being so partisan as to attack the other... that is why genocide and crimes against humanity go unpunished today. The apathy of good men.

The Forgotten Righteous

Muslim Heroism During The Holocaust

I have often said that the Holocaust stole from me a heritage, a story, and an identity that I have had to fight to restore. From an early age I felt a pull to recover what was lost. It was a hunger for the stories that my ancestors had left in the past that reached out into the present. From those early years to this very day that hunger has only grown. It has shaped me, it has molded me, and it has brought a sense of reconciliation to a broken family tree. 

When I was in high school the subject of the holocaust was something I didn't want to talk about. Countless classes focused upon the subject with such intensity that it made it almost unbearable. At that time I was learning in my own research what had become of those who came before me. I was reading names of people my family had forgotten. I was reading how they had been abused, neglected, and sent to die at the hands of heartless governments and societies that hated them. For me, the class room was an uncomfortable battle field with the images and stories I was starting to believe were best forgotten. 

But you don't get to look away when this sort of awakening is taking place. You don't get to block out the emotions that claw at your heart and rip at your soul. The faces of the betrayed are constantly there to remind you that their story cannot be forgotten. The realization they bring is that if we forget, if we choose to forget, it will always come back in one way or another to remind us. 

When I was barely old enough to understand what war was I watched the news footage of Rwanda. I remember seeing people being hacked to death in the streets as they screamed for mercy that would never be given to them. The sounds of their tormented cries echo constantly in my mind. And then came Bosnia...

Genocide has a way of showing us the worst aspects of what we are as human beings. It takes from us the hope for humanity as it blinds us the few good aspects of mankind we have left. In that tortuous state it drags us to a point where we must deal with the sins of our collective past. It demands that we pay for our indifference to the suffering of others, our inaction in its presence, and the complicity with its very existence. 

So when Bosnia plunged into the hellish depths of "ethnic cleansing", genocide by another name, I attempted to check out. I didn't want to see it anymore. For a short time I didn't want to believe it could happen. And at that age I couldn't understand all of what was happening to the Bosnian people. 

That was until years later when I read about Jews who helped save Bosnian Muslims during the Bosnian Genocide. For the first time I had found an aspect of this wretched crime that I could study without losing a part of my sanity. For the first time I could see a small glimmer of hope.

Over the years of reading stories like the one in the picture above the ability to look past the seemingly endless darkness of this horrific crime grew. I began reading stories about Rwanda. Then I found stories about Cambodia. And next came stories about the Holocaust. I was slowly learning that even in the nightmare of genocide there are still people who manage to maintain their humanity. That even while the world was burning around them, and even though they had nothing to gain, these people showed all of us what it was to be human. 

For the Jewish people these stories offered a sense of hope. They showed us that even in times of utter despair there were still people that cared enough to help us survive the pogroms and Holocaust. However for all these "righteous among the nations" that I came across there was one group that was missing. 

The Muslims

There aren't many stories that show up when one starts to research the Holocaust in the Arab world. At least not ones that speak of heroism that is. Yet when you start to dig a little it isn't hard to find such stories these days. The accounts of Muslims saving Jewish lives are prolific. And they aren't simply confined to North Africa and the Middle East either.

Here are just a few...

Saide Arifova 

Saide Arifova was a Crimean Tartar who managed to save the lives of 88 Crimean Jews in the Ukraine from 1942-43. She was a mere kindergarten director when the Nazi's rolled into the Ukraine. Yet she knew from the start of Nazi occupation that the children in her care were in danger. And from that realization came a hero that even the Nazi's could not manage to break. 

After forging documents and switching the ethnicity of the Jewish children in her care through tampering with state documents, Saide Arifova's luck ran out. The Nazi's took Saide Arifova in for questioning where they beat her severely. Yet this Muslim woman did not turn her back on the Jewish children she had risked her life to save. She kept to her word and managed to withstand all the abuse the Nazi's had for her. 

This woman survived Nazi torture for children of a religion that was under threat of annihilation in her homeland. She had shown a courage that others had forsaken. And in the face of all this torment, Saide Arifova managed to even keep her life. 

When the Nazi's were pushed out the Crimean Tartars faced their own persecution. Stalin ordered the Sürgünlik, the forced deportation of Crimean Tartars to Uzbekistan, in fear that the Tartars had aided the Nazis during occupation. Saide Arifova, despite all her bravery in resisting the Nazis, was deported to Uzbekistan. 45 percent of the Tartars deported would die in Uzbekistan and yet Saide Arifova survived. 

Only after the Perestroika (reform of the Soviet Party during the 1980s) did Saide Arifova get to return to Crimea where she had so bravely saved those 88 Jewish children. On August 9th, 2007 Saide Arifova passed away. 

Necdet Kent

Necdet Kent was a Turkish Muslim who had been born in Istanbul, Turkey. During years of study and building a career as a Turkish Foreign Diplomat Mr Kent had managed to end up in Marseilles, France. There Mr Kent watched as the Germans entered France and installed the Vichy French regime. He bore witness to the horrific implementation of the Nazi race laws. 

In 1943 Mr Kent was given his first real challenge when faced with Germany's genocide of the Jewish people. Having been informed that the Gestapo had loaded 80 Turkish Jews onto a cattle car for deportation, Mr Kent went down to the station. He would later recall that the cattle car bore an inscription that stated "this wagon may be loaded with 20 heads of cattle and 500kgs of grass". Yet here he stood in front of a Gestapo commandant with a cattle car loaded with Jewish prisoners. 

Mr Kent ordered that the cattle car be emptied on the basis that the Jews inside were Turkish citizens and Turkey had declared neutrality in this conflict. On all legal grounds the Turkish diplomat was correct in his assumption that neutrality should be extended to the the Jews on-board. However the Germans laughed in his face and told Mr Kent that the Jews were nothing but worthless Jews. Their fate was sealed not because their nationality but rather their religion and ethnicity. 

Furious, Mr Kent and his assistant boarded the train and refused to get off. The Gestapo ordered the train to continue to it's next destination. Mr Kent and his assistant stayed on-board as the train of deportees barreled onward. All the while the Germans prepared a car at the next stop and a plan to get Mr Kent off the train. 

Once at the next stop the Gestapo boarded the train and demanded that Mr Kent get off and go back to Marseilles where he belonged. Yet Mr Kent replied that he was a representative of a government that did not believe in such abuses let alone on the basis of religious beliefs. For that reason Mr Kent could not leave the Jewish prisoners on that train in that condition. 

Unable to get Mr Kent off the train and realizing that the Turkish diplomat was bound to remain uncompromising in his stance, the Gestapo allowed the 80 Jewish prisoners to get off as well. Mr Kent would later state:

"I would never forget those embraces around our necks and hands ... the expressions of gratitude in the eyes of the people we rescued ... the inner peace I felt when I reached my bed towards morning."

Yet Mr Kent's bravery and heroism was not limited to this one day or this one action. Necdet Kent would continue to reach out to the Turkish Jews and other Jews who had fled to southern France prior to Nazi invasion. Mr Kent continuously offered the Jews he helped forged documents and passports that could help them get to Turkey or unoccupied lands. He also was recorded to have gone to the Gestapo and petitioned for better treatment of Jews on sever occasions... including after Marseilles Gestapo had begun stripping men in the streets to identify circumcised Jews publicly. 

However when honored for his acts of heroism Mr Kent did not take the opportunity to gloat. Instead Necdet Kent plainly stated that he had a duty to defend and save the lives of all Turkish citizens in France, especially Jews. Necdet Kent died at the age of 91 on September 20th, 2002.

Abdol Hossein Sardari

Abdol Hossein Sardari has become known as the "Schindler of Iran" amongst those who study the Holocaust. Yet for Mr Sardari this title was never one he boasted about. And despite this it is one that he rightfully earned in countless acts of selflessness and heroism. 

Mr Sardari was a very intelligent man who had been given leadership of the Iranian Consular office in Paris, France. He was there as the Germans began their march across Europe and thus overrunning Paris. It was from the very moment that Germans arrived that Mr Sardari began exploiting the agreements that Iran had made with Germany for protection of their citizens across Europe. These were agreements that Germany would violate regularly across Europe and yet Mr Sardari managed to hold Paris's Gestapo to the letter of the law. 

An ever vigilant defender of Iranian Jews, of which there were a sizable amount in Paris, Mr Sardari insured that every Persian Jew he could contact had a viable Iranian passport. For the Persian Jews that did not, Mr Sardari readily forged documents and passports for them. Violating laws and international agreements, Mr Sardari managed to save Persian Jews while holding Germany to it's word. 

As the occupation dragged on Abdol Hossein Sardari began to realize the complete picture of what Germany had in store for Europe's Jews. Slowly he began issuing Iranian passports and documents to non-Persian Jews across Paris. To make sure that his actions were not exposed Mr Sardari did not ask for permission to issue such documents. Instead, with a sense of bravery, Mr Sardari went about his work right under the eyes of the Gestapo. Iran would later applaud Abdol Sardari for his courage and efforts. 

Much like Necdet Kent, Abdol Hossein Sardari did not attempt to make light of his own actions in saving countless Jewish lives in Nazi occupied France. When honored for his actions, Mr Sardari clearly stated that he had a duty to save Persians from German aggression, regardless of religion. Almost forgotten, Abdol Hossein Sardari died in 1981 in Nottingham, England. 

Never Forget

The history of genocide is not filled with very many glimmering lights of hope. For this reason it is vital that history not forget those who bravely stood up to the persecution of others. When all the world would tell them to stand down and ignore the savagery placed at their feet, these brave souls showed us... reminded us... of what we should all strive for. 

These are just three stories of many. They are lives that were lived in defense of others. Their actions according to them were not heroic... they simply did what they saw as being morally correct. And it is for this reason that they are in fact heroes. In the darkness of the Holocaust they chose to shine like candles in our darkest hour. 

We should never forget these stories. We should let them live in our hearts, our minds, and in our words when dealing with such adversity. The legacy they have handed to us must never be allowed to be lost. For there is no guarantee that once lost, once forgotten, that we will ever get it back.

Want to learn more about this issue and others covered by Alder's Ledge?

Follow us on Twitter: @alders_ledge

Follow us on Facebook: Alder's Ledge

The Forgotten Diaspora

Chechen Refugees Attempt To Escape Oppression
(Footsteps In The Dark series)

After the Boston Marathon bombing the United States was stunned to learn that the attackers were from some country that most Americans had never heard much about. The name Chechen comes up from time to time in TV shows and movies in American pop culture. And from time to time the media will drag out a story about Chechnya. But for many Americans who were around in the 90's it was simply one of those countries Russia was bombing into submission. Other than that, we couldn't have spotted the place on a map.

For some in America the question quickly became "why the hell are they even here". The immediate knee-jerk reactions included everything from fear to ethnic hatred and bigotry. Insults about the family were most common on social media outlets, yet hate filled tweets and status updates about Chechens all together were prolific. Two individuals had almost instantly painted an entire nationality an entire community as the "enemy".

So what do we know about Chechnya and it's people today?

There are currently less than 1,000 Chechens living in the entire United States. The vast majority of which are refugees seeking asylum from a devastating war perpetrated by old Soviet aggression. It is a war that Vladimir Putin himself helped carry out and a battle that continues under Putin's command. Thus why this diaspora of Chechen refugees is reluctant to go home today.

Their plight began when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. It was that year that Chechnya declared itself independent of Russian rule. However in 1994 the Russians decided that they didn't care to let Chechnya out from under their boot. With a massive blitz style invasion the Russian bear rolled into Grozny. This battle would be the reason that many of Chechnya's civilians decided to take up the role of refugee rather than be subjected to Russian siege.

Accounts of extremely brutal guerrilla and urban warfare leaked out of Chechnya all throughout the 90's. Refugees told of civilians disappearing to never be heard from again when Russian troops occupied an area. Chechen men and boys were often the victims of Russian roundups that were meant to destroy morale amongst the Chechen community. The Chechen women and girls were kidnapped and subjected to rape as a weapon of war. Yet such war crimes committed by Russia's military were never prosecuted and the international community largely looked the other way.

Today the Chechen government still attempts to push the envelope when dealing with "mother Russia". This testing of it's limitations under Russian occupation keeps Chechnya at threat of further oppression by Putin's rule in Moscow. There is always the reality that war is never that far over the horizon as Putin waits for the slightest indiscretion to excuse another military showdown with "terrorists" in Chechnya.

For Chechen refugees around the world this persistent threat of a sudden outbreak of war in their homeland is reason enough to stay abroad. However for some the decision to remain a refugee may very well be out of their hands. Countries with an unstable relationship with Russia often play politics with these refugees. For these refugees the relationship their host countries have with Putin's regime determines whether or not they stay or go.

In Turkey the fear of forced repatriation is a reality that Chechens have to live with daily. Chechens in Turkey have never officially received refugee status. As "temporary guests" these Chechens are persistently faced with the threat of expulsion and extradition to Russia. Their fate currently relies upon the Erdogan regime and it's hospitality... something that the Occupy Gezi movement has placed at risk.

Across Eastern Europe the Chechen refugees face discrimination and isolation as their hosts governments play chess with Russia. In Georgia the Chechen community is almost constantly under threat of expulsion as the local government attempts to hold back another Russian offensive. The threat of politics leaves Chechens the only option of applying for asylum in Western European countries (a short term solution for many).

But the West isn't a safe bet for Chechen asylum seekers either.

Many Western European governments have also used Chechen refugees as chips in their games with Putin. The United States and Canada however have for the most part left the Chechen refugees off the table when attempting to maintain their stance with Moscow.

So why would all these Chechens want to stay away from Russian dominated Chechnya?

“If you go when they call you, you never come back."

~ Chechen female refugee talking about Russian soldiers.

Russia's war crimes in Chechnya has left a legacy of bitterness and terror in a community that wanted out from under Soviet boots. When the Russians used SCUD missiles, fighter jets, and artillery on Grozny in 1999 they sealed a level of hostility in Chechnya's soul that remains unparallelled. Acts of terrorism against Russia are the results of the seeds Russia sowed in the two Chechen Wars it carried out. Yet these acts of revenge are also the excuses Russia uses to continue pushing it's heel down upon Chechnya today.

An official stance of targeting Chechens by Russian police and military keeps Chechens in their homeland on edge. Disappearances of Chechens linked to resistance movements keeps Russia's dominance in the region. In this way Russia imposes as much terror upon Chechnya as it blames the Chechen community for. Through the constant application of steady pressure the Russian government encourages radicalism of both nationalist sentiment and religious ideology.

This reaction shown by Chechnya's fringe is however not a phenomena solely possessed by Chechens alone. It can be seen in every society that has ever had to live with the assiduous oppression of a tyrant. You can see the violent reaction of a community held under the boot of an oppressor in the history books of American society. When pushed to the limit of our own ability to tolerate exploitation by British dictators we rose up as guerrillas in a war that pitted violent militias against loyalists. Chechens have had to face the same in their history with Russia.

One can see the struggle of a people to obtain self-governance and the right to self determination in the history of Russia itself. Was it not the Soviets who rose up to overthrow the Tsars? Was it not Putin's role models that led violent and partisan wars against the ruling class? And is it not the Russian government today that acts as the Tsarists did when dealing with peoples' desire to determine how they would live and be governed? 

Chechnya's issues with Russia may be far to complex to explain in a short blog post. But the direct correlation between the oppressive nature of their relationship to the annual growth of the Chechen diaspora cannot be ignored. As long as Russia insist upon dominating Chechnya the people of Chechnya will seek other ways to resist. Some will flee while others will fight. It pretty much boils down to that.

While I dare not speak for Chechens anywhere in the world. I can only imagine what it must be like to live so far from a place your family once called home. Let alone imagine what it must be like to be threatened with being forced to return to a place that is only a shadow of what it once was.









Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)

National Geographic
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2013/06/130607-refugee-crisis-war-migration-turkey-syria-afghanistan-iran-chechnya-gay/

IHH.org
http://www.ihh.org.tr/en/main/publications/reports/4/story-of-a-chechen-migrant/121

International Business Times
http://www.ibtimes.com/chechens-little-known-global-diaspora-refugees-1204971#

Derry Journal
http://www.derryjournal.com/news/local/russian-journalist-deported-on-way-to-derry-peace-conference-1-5188359

The Youth Of A Nation

Standing Toe-to-Toe With Fascism
(Uprising series)

~Hell To Pay

A fascist state is defined by how it treats its law abiding citizens. It is characterized by how it responds to dissenters and the voice of opposition. When a state resorts to brute force when met with peaceful resistance it crosses the line into fascism. When a state lines the streets with military like police battalions it defies the nature of a free society. Turkey is a fascist state.

For the past few days the world has been given a front row seat to a dog fight. The youth of Turkey have come out of the wood work to oppose the savage behavior of a cannibalistic regime. Pushed too far, the citizens of Istanbul have united under pressure that was meant to break them. Together they act as one. These are the youth of a nation that has grown tired of surrendering freedoms for promised security. These are Turkey's future that was are watching being beat down by a power drunk madman.

~The Spark

What began as a sit-in style demonstration to save a landmark park (Gezi Park) is now a firestorm that has spread across Turkey. Yet despite it's beginning and the reason for the fight is far from a park now. This battle is about the decade long dictorial rule of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan who has eroded individual liberties and the overall human rights of Turkish citizens. The continued march of Erdogan's regime toward an authoritarian state has left Turkish society unstable for years now. Gezi Park was just the spark that lit Turkey's youth ablaze.

The first rule of dictatorships is that you reward the indolent nature of the oppressed. You give them things like parks and the facade of liberty. If you wish to stay in power for decades on end you placate the underclass till they can't think for themselves. Erdogan simply wanted to steamroll the country as he forced his agenda upon the masses. For a decade the pompous tyrant has manipulated the media in Turkey and bullied his way through politics. Thus Erdogan was the one who lit the spark in the first place.

~The Fight

Only a few days old, Turkish police have turned peaceful protest into rolling battles that leave city streets reminiscent of the war zones just over the border in Syria. Unarmed civilians wrap cloth around their faces so as to keep the gas out of their lungs as they run for cover. Cops wielding riot gear form a phalanx before charging their prey as the rear guard lights up the street with water cannons and tear gas. The term "police brutality" seems mild when one looks at how Erdogan's dogs take the fight.

Holding signs and covering their eyes, the protesters wait to be gassed as they attempt to stand toe-to-toe with fascists. Is this what democracy looks like? Does one expect their government to sick the dogs on them when they oppose the regime's dictates? Should we bow our heads these gods on earth that rule our countries? Why should Turkish citizens be expected to remain calms as their master unleashes the hounds that lick their lips in anticipation?

~The Brave Ones

"Millions of Turkish citizens have been outraged by the violent reaction of their government to a peaceful protest aimed at saving Istanbul's Gezi Park.

Outraged, yet not surprised.

Over the course of Prime Minister Erdogan's 10-year term, we have witnessed a steady erosion of our rights and freedoms. Arrests of numerous journalists, artists, and even elected officials; restrictions on freedom of speech, women's rights, and even alcohol sales have all demonstrated that the ruling party is not serious about democracy. Time and again, the prime minister has mocked and trivialized his nation's concerns while Turkey's own media has remained shamefully silent.

The people protesting bravely throughout Turkey are the proud inheritors of Atatürk's legacy. We are not looters or extremists. We are students, teachers, workers, mothers, fathers. We represent various ethnicities and creeds, religions and ideologies. We stand united now because of our concern for Turkey's future.

We demand an end to police brutality.

We demand a free and unbiased media.

We demand an open dialogue, not the dictate of an autocrat.

We hope that you will join the conversation and stand with us in solidarity."

~ as reported on The Guardian

The people who have come out to fight back against the rule of an arrogant authoritarian aren't revolutionaries in the traditional sense. In their words, they demand to be heard without being met with police batons and tear gas canisters. The desire for freedom isn't revolutionary. The desire to be free to voice an opinion without the fear of violence isn't revolutionary. It is the natural state of man. For we are all born with the deep seeded desire for freedom. And once we have tasted even a little of it, we cannot settle for only a portion of it.

So why should the citizens of Turkey be expected to shut up and go home? Are they supposed to accept limitations to the freedoms they seek? Should they be willing to swallow the dictates of autocrats?

~Undemocratic Democracy

"Mr Erdogan says the protesters are undemocratic and have been provoked by the opposition Republican People's Party." ~ as reported by BBC News

The protest will only end when Erdogan decides he wants to start abiding by the nature of a true democracy. He must back away from the role of a dictator and reclaim his position as the prime minister of Turkey. If the people who have come out to oppose his overreaches are to continue to face violent repression then the fight will continue. Turkey cannot survive as it was if leaders like this one seek to alienate opposing political views and stifle the basic right to free speech. It is in this manner that Erdogan has created an undemocratic democracy for his own self serving purposes. 

As long as freedom is repressed the hunger for it will only continue to grow. With the advent of social media and an ever increasingly connected world, Turkey can no longer isolate it's citizens. Small samples of liberty will leak into even the most isolated societies. Like bread crumbs, these peaks at what true freedom has to offer only increase the desire for it. 

When a society reaches the breaking point... when it can no longer bear the weight of an outdated political system... even a park can become the first shot of a long and violent struggle. 

Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)

BBC News
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-22749750

The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/05/whats-happening-in-turkey-occupy-gezi

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/01/occupy-gezi-protest-erdogan_n_3371428.html

Ifex.org
http://www.ifex.org/turkey/2013/06/01/protests_spread/