Occupation Has Consequences

In the wake of the Hamas led offensive in the occupied regions of southern Palestine the world has once again decided that “Israel has a right to defend itself”. We pretend that Israeli civilians being attacked is an “unprecedented terror attack” because we want to have some excuse to ignore decades of Israeli aggression and violent oppression of Palestinians in both Gaza and the occupied West Bank. The insistence that nothing prior to this attack can be considered when talking about Israel is a calculated attempt to hide the full context of what led to this escalation, how Hamas even came to be, and why Israel is now seeing the consequences of its actions on a scale Netanyahu always wanted.

Christians who support Israel are the same sorts of people who love to quote verses about “you reap what you sow” when people they hate are suffering any given anguish. Many are using those verse right now as Palestinian families are exterminated by Israeli airstrikes. Yet for decades the Israeli state has understood that it would eventually have to deal with “blowback”, consequences, for its crimes against the Palestinians. That is why Tel Aviv has kept an eye on Iran and Lebanon. Because the Jewish ethno-state knows that its violent oppression of Palestinians would make it enemies among its neighbors. Leaders like Netanyahu however didn’t just know that consequences were coming, they have engineered among Palestinians the harvest they wanted all along. For Netanyahu the existence of groups like Hamas has always been politically profitable. Having a boogeyman to scapegoat whenever necessary is what all authoritarians want. And now that we know that Egypt warned Tel Aviv well in advance of this weekend, it is clear that Netanyahu saw the consequences coming. It was an excuse for the total war he wanted to launch. War being historically how Netanyahu has solidified his hold on the government in Israel. How Netanyahu has gained support among Israelis who believed their government all along when they were told they would never suffer the consequences for the occupation and apartheid policies. While Netanyahu appears to have allowed the consequences to come home to the Israelis, it cannot be ignored that the Israelis themselves went along with their government for decades under the promise that they would be shielded from accountability. What Israel saw when the ghetto walls of Gaza were breached was an uprising of people who have been denied their rights, their humanity and their homeland. As violent as this has been, this is the harvest that Israel made possible. The harvest sprouted from the seeds Israel alone spread across Palestine.

As a Jew, I am reminded of the conversations I was able to have with survivors of the Holocaust in Croatia. Partisans who used extreme violence to fight back against the Nazis and Ustaša alike. People who had participated in the reprisals that took place before Tito ended the resulting communal violence in Yugoslavia. Of the three of them, none seemed truly remorseful for taking revenge. At no point did I blame them for that hardness either. Having listened to what the Ustaša did to them, I was in no place to judge what they wanted to do in return. The Croatian fascists had planted a harvest that they believed they would never have to reap. That eventually the Jews, the Serbs, the Roma would be gone. That under the guidance of their Nazi counterparts, Croatia was going to be Catholic only. But each family member they murdered in the forests and mountains, each family member they sent to camps was a seed their fascist sins planted in the hearts of those who remained. Once sprouted, somebody had to pay. An exchange was to be made. And this part of the Holocaust, the part that came after the fascists were defeated, isn’t isolated to the stories I listened to. In Germany the survivors also put forth revenge actions. Be it poisoning SS inmates under American guard or planning to poison German water supplies, the price of the crimes committed against them carried over even after the war had ended. Many would illegally immigrate to Palestine. And many of those would use the crimes European states committed against them as reason enough to force Palestinians to pay the price.

Only in the comfort of privileged distance do we find it convenient to say that killing citizens of an occupying force, which Israel is, is morally unjustified. It has not been our families murdered by Israeli occupation. It has not been our brothers abducted by the Israeli occupation forces, and it has not been our sisters who have endured sexual assault and victimization by Israeli soldiers and settlers. We get to watch Gaza burn while pretending that each new death in this Israeli carpet-bombing campaign isn’t a new seed being planted for a future harvest of bloody revenge. By ignoring the over 80 years of violence perpetrated against the Palestinians we get to “stand with Israel” in feigned outrage over mislabeled “terrorism”. Only when we have decided to ignore Netanyahu’s fascism, Israel’s original sins and the longstanding blockade of Gaza can we get atop our soapbox and shout about how violence is never the answer.

Until Palestinian suffering is recognized, until Israel faces true consequences for its crimes, the Western world will have to get comfortable playing the role of hypocrites. That is unless we somehow decide to start telling our governments to withdraw support for Israel and end financial backing of its murderous campaign against Palestinians. Let Israel face the horror of what occupation looks like. Force Netanyahu to come outright with his desired crimes against humanity so he and the rest of Israel’s leadership can be tried like the Nazis at Nuremberg. But given the Democrats’ current response, appeasement of the genocidal government in Israel, the status quo, seems more likely.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

When Simply Staying Alive Becomes Resistance

The Struggle of Bangladesh's Indigenous Peoples
(part of The Darkness Visible series)

Marma Children in the Chittagong Hill Tracts

Where Dreams Go To Die

We are all born with the desire to have certain things in life. We are born to desire a certain degree of freedom in this life. We are born with a fire inside that rages within us till we can quench this hunger for liberty. It is the natural state of man to crave freedom. It is why we are restless when we are deprived of it. It is why we feel hollow when it is stolen from us and replaced with one form of tyranny or another. It is a fire that either creates within us the desire to sustain our own freedoms or destroy the world as we know it till we can obtain said freedoms. All of human history attest to this.

It is no wonder that societies deprived of their basic human rights, their essential liberties, begin to reflect the symptoms of a staving body. Their minds become fixated upon what the hunger for it. They show it in their view of the world. They show it in the expressions of joy when they get a passing taste of it. But mostly... they show it in the ways they resist those who oppose their rights and keep them trapped in this state of hunger. 

For generations now the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts have been forced to dream of what it would be like to be free in their own homeland. They have been deprived of the rights that their ancestors once enjoyed. They have been kept in a perpetual state of craving what others enjoy daily while they are forced to suffer. For generations now the indigenous peoples of Bangladesh's Chittagong Hill Tracts have simply stayed alive as an act of defiance to a nation that continually pushes them toward extinction. 

This is both what they resist and how they defy a nation. 

This is just a glimpse of what they endure.

The Jumma Tribes Of

The Chittagong Hill Tracts 

To understand the struggle one has to understand the people themselves. This article will not be able to, as no one article ever could, give you a full introduction to the indigenous tribes of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. So in addition to this post we would like to invite all our readers to research and find reliable sources (some posted in the links below) to understand the Jumma tribes more than what we have written here. 

There are eleven tribal groups that are indigenous to the Chittagong Hill Tracts. These include the Bawm, Chakma, Khumi, Khyang, Lushai, Marma, Uchay, Mru, Pankho, Sak, and Tanchangya peoples. Each are linguistically, culturally, and ethnically different from the Bengali majority that lives on the plains below the Chittagong Hills. They have distinct cultures that focus heavily on their traditional ways of life and individual religious beliefs. While the Chakma and Marma, numbering around 350,000, are mostly Buddhists the remaining tribes are comprised of Hindus, Christians, and traditional religions unique to their tribal groups. 

The traditional cultivating practices of the indigenous peoples lends to their collective name of Jummas. It is a system, called jum, of small patchwork fields that rotate in both location and the crops planted in them. It is also a system that the government of Bangladesh attempts to prevent the indigenous peoples from using. 

The Chittagong Hills stretch along the the southeastern border of Bangladesh, Inida, and Myanmar (Burma). It is a stretch of land that contains thick forests and mountain lakes. While difficult to cultivate, the Chittagong Hills do offer enough arable soil for the indigenous peoples to support their communities. 

In 1971 the Jumma tribes were practically the only inhabitants of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Their ancestral land had been exploited under Pakistan's rule yet had not been occupied in the way it would be once Bangladesh gained independence. From the very start of Bangladesh's rule the Jummas began to lose lands to the new tyrant ruling over them. 

First Came The Military

In the late 1970s the president of Bangladesh, Ziaur Rehman, signed into law a series of programs designed to create a government-run "population transfer" in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. His government immediately sat out to displace as many of the Jumma tribal groups as they could in the shortest period of time they could manage. These dictates issued the orders to begin creating a system of military installations that would gut the Chittagong Hills and divide the tribal peoples. Within just a matter of years the Bangladeshi army had created hundreds of military camps across the mountain tops along the roads they paved through the heart of the Chittagong Hills. This was a campaign to divide and conquer the Jumma peoples. 

When the Jumma peoples began to resist the military occupation of their homelands in 1976 the Bengali army moved in even more troops. By 1977 the Bengali military had begun a full scale assault on Jumma lands by ordering Jumma tribes off their land to make way for more roads and military camps. When Jumma tribes dared to stand and fight for their lands the army of Bangladesh willingly committed massacres and torched Jumma villages. The direct response to resistance was the placement of military camps on and near Jumma villages. Any route the Jumma could take to move from one village to the other was suddenly blocked by checkpoints. The strategy had shifted to complete isolation and starvation of the Jumma people in less than a year of resistance efforts by the Jumma tribes. 

The Jana Samhati Samiti, with a military wing, attempted to negotiate with Bangladesh some form of peace between the Jumma tribes and the Bengali military. Yet from 1976 till December of 1997 the government of Bangladesh only sought to forcibly expand it's presence in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Their aim was to displace the vast majority of the Jumma tribes and drive as many of the indigenous civilians as the could out of Bangladesh. This aim was made clear as the number of Jumma peoples internally displaced rose to 100,000 while the number of Jumma refugees fleeing the country rose to 70,000. 

As Bengali troops sat out to put Jumma villages to the torch the issue of rape became ever more prevalent. From 1971 on through 1994 the military of Bangladesh has been reported to have committed over 2,000 rapes of indigenous women in the Chittagong Hill Tracts. This is in part due to the fact that Bangladesh's army was given permission to engage in rape as a means of displacing Jumma families and keeping the victims silent after atrocities were committed. Jumma women were raped both for the fact that Bangladesh had indoctrinated it's troops in the belief that the Jumma women were subhuman and the enemy. In addition it was seen as a way of keeping Bengali soldiers motivated and a perverse way of keeping moral of the troops high in the isolation of the Chittagong Hills. 

It has also been reported several times that Bangladesh's military committed at least 13 large scale massacres of indigenous peoples during the Jummas' struggle to resist occupation. These attacks are often denied by Bangladesh and attributed to "crossfire" incidents. This became very clear when in August of 2013 the government of Bangladesh tried to explain away the deaths of 776 indigenous peoples as "victims of crossfire". The main problem with this explanation is that from 2004 to 2013 the government of Bangladesh only lost 18 soldiers during combat operations. The sheer number of deaths involved in these incidents disproportionately falls in favor of Bangladesh while offering only slaughter as an explanation when talking about indigenous deaths. 

After the Peace Accords of 1997 were signed the military of Bangladesh was supposed to begin dismantling it's camps that now choke the Chittagong Hills. Of the more than 500 military camps installed since the 1970s, Bangladesh has only closed a meager 29 camps. And most of these have simply been moved to other areas of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Of course the government of Bangladesh does come up with excuses for building even more military camps today; such as how they most recently used the migrant crisis in the Andaman Sea as a reason for military expansion.

Today the government of Bangladesh keeps over 1/3rd of it's military in the Chittagong Hills at any given time. The UN called this "excessive" in it's most recent review of Bangladesh's failure to implement the 1997 Peace Accords. The UN went on to note that having 1/3 of the military occupying an area of land that constitutes less than 1/10th of Bangladesh's territory was unjustifiable. It also noted that the Jumma people themselves account for less than one percent of Bangladesh's population and yet are the most policed portion of the overall population. 

Unlawful Settlers

When president Ziaur Rehman began his displacement of the Jumma people he started a program of offering Bengali citizens bribes to uproot and settle on Jumma lands. According to UN mandates, to which Bangladesh has agreed, this policy of displacement not only violates international law but also the human rights of the Jumma peoples. Namely the ILO Indigenous And Tribal Populations Convention No. 107, to which Bangladesh agreed and signed in 1972. 

Yet in spite of having agreed to international laws which prohibit the displacement of indigenous peoples the government of Bangladesh pushed forward with it's policies. Between 1971 and 1997 the government moved more than 500,000 illegal Bengali settlers onto indigenous lands. Each and every one of these settlers were encouraged by bribes from the government and promises of "free" and "open" land in the Chittagong Hills. They were told that areas would be provided for them and all they had to do was squat on lands not their own. 

From the start the Bengali settlers found themselves at odds with the indigenous population of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. Settlers were prone to set up their unlawful settlements near military camps. And since the military camps were inevitably placed directly on indigenous lands this led to the intended conflict. 

Settlers were encouraged by the military to engage in evictions of their own. Bengali men were told that they had the right to utilize rape in order to force Jumma families from their homes. This was an aspect of the settlements that rapidly became one of their defining characteristics. It became so problematic that Bangladesh has resorted to telling doctors in the Chittagong Hills to exclude any evidence of rape when reporting on Jumma women and young girls. And yet at the same time the government of Bangladesh is quick, at times quicker than the actual facts, in reporting the rape of any Bengali squatter in the Chittagong Hill tracts. 

 One such case of Bengali rape of a Marma girl took place as recently as January of 2015. The eight year old girl was on her way home when a Bengali plantation owner brutally raped her. The savage attacker had left the girl to bleed out after his barbaric assault. Yet the hospital staff refused to communicate in the girl's native language and the doctors were unclear as to how they would record the attack. The perpetrator of the rape was not reported to have been arrested. And this is not an isolated incident. It is in fact far too common throughout the Chittagong Hills. 

In 2014 alone there were 75 reported cases of sexual violence against indigenous women in the Chittagong Hills. These 75 cases account for the sexual assaults of 117 indigenous women (57% of these cases also involved children). Of these cases a total of 21 involved gang-rape, 55 were victims of physical assault in addition to rape, seven of the victims were murdered, and 11 involved abductions of indigenous women. Yet despite these staggering numbers the reality is that the majority of rapes in the Chittagong Hills go unreported due to both societal and religious stigmas surrounding the crime itself. 

One could continue by detailing how in 2013 there were 175 reported incidents of sexual violence being committed against indigenous women in the Chittagong Hills (49 of which involving gang-rape). Or how of all the identified rapists from January of 2010 to December of 2011 were never convicted for their crimes against indigenous women and girls in the Chittagong Hills. But the numbers aren't as important here... it's the lives of the victims (who are increasingly ending up dead and are more often now below the age of 18) and their families that matters. This is an aspect of Bangladesh's occupation that is overlooked because it isn't something anyone wants to talk about. It is a part of the genocidal occupation that leaves scars which time itself cannot heal. And yet Bangladesh refuses to put an end to the culture of impunity that allows both Bangladesh's military and it's Bengali settlers to rape indigenous women without ever facing the consequences.

The illegal Bengali settlers are also allowed to forcibly evict and attack the Jumma without facing any legal consequences. Nearly every time the Bengali settlers attack and burn Jumma homes, villages, temples, and crops the army of Bangladesh offers support for the hordes of illegal settlers. This is most evident during incidents as that which occurred in Burighat, Naniarchar on December 16th of 2014.

This was a deliberate attack in which over 500 Bengali settlers marched into a Chakma village with the intent of destroying the entire village. The attack would last for almost two hours before the Bengali assailants would return to their own village. The attackers burned over 50 Chakma homes and several Chakma shops during the attack. They also looted and vandalized the Karuna Bihar Buddhist Temple, making off with several bronze statues. 

This attack was immediately followed by Bengali settlers attempting to take the land upon which several Chakma homes had previously stood. The illegal settlers attempted to pressure the military into offering them protection as they squatted on the land they had just torched. Meanwhile the Chakma tried desperately to keep what was being stolen from them. In the end, the government of Bangladesh blamed the Chakma and rewarded the illegal settlers with rice and cash for their assault on indigenous homes. 

This the climate in which genocidal attacks are permitted to occur. This is the work of a government that has refused to allow peace to once again come to the Chittagong Hills. It is the deliberate attempt to ethnically cleanse the indigenous peoples of the Chittagong Hill Tracts. A government so determined to undermine indigenous rights that it would unlawfully settle over 15,000 Rohingya refugees from Myanmar on the lands of Jumma tribal peoples. This is the face of a government devoid of any sense of morality. 

So Why Does The World Remain Silent?

It is unreasonable when presented with the facts to think that anything in the Chittagong Hill Tracts will change without pressure being applied to Bangladesh from the outside. The government of Bangladesh has carried out it's crimes for generations. It has shown that it is willing to commit the same crimes against humanity as is Israel, Myanmar, North and South Sudan, Eritrea, and any other genocidal regime. 

Yet when it comes to the issue of indigenous peoples facing genocidal regimes the outside world has a long legacy of remaining silent. We tend to respond to genocide only when it is too late. But in the case of indigenous peoples, we tend not to respond at all. Their fate is one that we have relegated to history books and the storylines of romanticized movies. 

In the case of Bangladesh there is also the fact that the perpetrator is often seen as an impoverished nation struggling to provide for it's own people. This is an image that Bangladesh is all to happy to perpetuate as it openly claims (with yet another lie) that there are supposedly no indigenous peoples in Bangladesh. And thus it's conflict in the Chittagong Hill Tracts is one that it continues to lie about by calling it anything but what it is... genocide. 

As for the twitter realm of humanitarians...

The issue of Bangladesh's genocide in the Chittagong Hills is one that does not currently fit the prevailing narrative. It is a genocide in which the perpetrators are Muslims while the victims are Buddhists, Hindus, Christians, and those of indigenous religions. For this reason it does not gain the same favor as that of the Rohingya, Palestine, or the Uyghur of China. And this is an aspect of the silence that should be more damning than all others... but it's one never admitted to. 

There are currently more Bengali settlers on Jumma lands than there are Jumma tribal members. This is a genocide that is already passed the breaking point. It is one that is now headed for completion as the world continues to watch in silence. It is a genocide that needs addressed. And it is one that must be stopped soon before the damage is irreparable. 

We as a world community must start screaming for all those who are suffering in the Chittagong Hills (and across the globe) regardless of their race, religion, social standings, or creed. We must not only scream for the Jumma people but help their voices be heard. We must amplify their voices whenever and wherever we can.

If you call yourself a humanitarian these are not suggestions.

If you call yourself anything related to such a word as that.... then this is your fight as well.

Articles used in the research of this article:

(not all sources listed)

Survival International

http://www.survivalinternational.org/tribes/jummas

http://t.co/18HPBfQlz5

Dhaka Tribune 

http://www.dhakatribune.com/op-ed/2015/jan/22/survivor

IRIN Asia

http://www.irinnews.org//report/92598/bangladesh-chittagong-rights-violations-continue-says-un#.VaXcwGQayc0

Cultural Survival

http://www.culturalsurvival.org/publications/cultural-survival-quarterly/our-home-human-rights-chittagong-hill-tracts

The Citizen (India)

http://www.thecitizen.in/NewsDetail.aspx?Id=3683&Military/Persecutes/indigenous/Communities/in/Bangladesh

IWGIA

http://www.iwgia.org/regions/asia/the-chittagong-hill-tracts-

University of Notre Dame

https://peaceaccords.nd.edu/provision/refugees-chittagong-hill-tracts-peace-accord-cht

The Daily Star

http://www.thedailystar.net/rape-used-as-weapon-35181

Asian Tribune 

http://asiantribune.com/node/83971

UNPO

http://unpo.org/article/17998

http://unpo.org/article/17268

http://unpo.org/article/17798

Asian Center For Human Rights

http://www.achrweb.org/press/2015/BD02-2015.html

We Shall Remain...

Vietnam's War On Indigenous Peoples

(Degar children)

When America went to war in Vietnam it did it without any real understanding of what conflicts were resting just beneath the surface. In the province of Gia Lai this failure to understand past conflict only served to draw the battle lines a little clearer. The Montagnard peoples of Vietnam's central highlands had a long standing conflict with Vietnam's ethnic majority. It was one not of their choosing. And it was one in which America only served as yet a new ally in an endless battle.

The Montagnard people, or Degar people in their language, had been pushed into the mountains long before colonialism. They are culturally, linguistically, and ethnically distinct from the Vietnamese majority. It was these differences that had built a barrier between them and the Vietnamese. An it was this barrier upon which colonialism preyed. The Degar had battled to survive amongst invading Vietnamese, French, and American rulers. It is in those mountains and forests that the Degar have showed the world that they will remain.

"Sons Of The Mountain"

Degar Resistance 

(Degar Resistance, 1962)

The history of the Degar tribes (including the Jarai, Rhade, Bahnar, Koho, Mnong, and Stieng) has been one of resisting foreign invasion. They were once coastal tribes that farmed the lowlands, hunted in the forests, and fished the coastal waters. In the ninth century the Vietnamese and Khmer began encroaching upon their lands. And within a short time period the Degar tribes earned their name by claiming the Central Highlands of Vietnam. They fiercely defended what other ethnic groups had seen as undesirable mountainous areas. Their tribes, around 30 tribes in all, were ethnically distinct yet shared many cultural and social structures which helped them unite in defense of the last homeland they had left. 

When colonialism began in Southeast Asia the Degar tribes were at first left alone. Then came the introduction of the Roman Catholic missionaries in the 19th century. Only a small amount of the Degar tribes embraced the Roman Catholics. Most simply wanted the French to keep the Vietnamese off their lands. And for that matter... also wished the French would stay off their lands as well. But then came the American missionaries with their version of Christianity. Colonialism under the French, with American influence, had brought a new faith to the Degar tribes. By 1930's the Degar people were beginning to adopt Christianity into their cultural practices. 

Then came the communists.

 (Degar boys work as guerrilla soldiers during The Vietnam War)

Colonialism was a brutal source of tyranny in Vietnam as a whole. The French had to combat traditional beliefs and practices in Vietnam to maintain a profit at the expense of the Vietnamese people. Without oppressive practices and a repressive power structure, French colonialism in Southeast Asia would had collapsed much more rapidly. It was no surprise that once communism arrived in the northern parts of Vietnam that the French began to lose control. Communism could be manipulated to fit the cultural structure of Vietnamese society. French exploitation could not. 

Vietnam was set to fall to the communists as France began to retreat toward the south. Those loyal to the French became targets. Everything that resembled the French colonial rule had to go. And this meant the religion the French had spread across a country that was predominately Buddhist. For the Degar people of the Central Highlands this was just one more aspect of the conflict that already existed between them and the Vietnamese. 

Ho Chi Minh set his eyes upon the Central Highlands as the communists sought out to rid Vietnam of anyone loyal to the old masters. Northern Vietnamese guerrillas and regular soldiers began to push into Degar lands. Then came the Americans...

As America began it's war against the communists the Degar people found an ally. The Degar would be pawns in America's war. Yet for them it was a role that allowed them to remain on their lands. It was a war in which they had to choose the better of two devils. The communists offered them nothing but death even if the Degar would fight the Westerners. The Americans offered them a chance to remain on their lands even if there was a horrific price to be paid in their own blood. 

The Degar peoples resisted. Just as they had done for centuries. The Degar tribes did not fight for French or American colonial rule. They did not fight to keep Vietnam free of communist rule. They simply resisted so that they could remain on their ancestral homeland. The war may have very well been a struggle between two political systems, but for the Degar it was one of survival. The Vietnamese had been the ones to push the Degar tribes to these highlands in the first place. During the war the Vietnamese threatened to push the Degar off the last strip of land they had left to call their own. 

The legacy of standing up to Vietnamese aggression is one that still haunts the Degar tribes today. Vietnam went on to win the bloody war against American aggression. The fact that the Degar tribes had sided with the Americans is a memory that has not yet been forgotten. And it is one that is still used for political gains by land-grabbing Vietnamese politicians and military leaders. 

(Degar protest in front of The White House)

Today the Degar people are oppressed in ways that directly mirror the atrocities committed against them in centuries past. The government of Vietnam is directly responsible for the confiscation of Degar lands, the forced conversions of Degar peoples, the continual violence perpetrated against Degar civilians, unlawful and arbitrary arrests of Degar tribal members, and the persistent harassment of Degar villages. The government of Vietnam cordons off Degar lands from the outside world as it blocks access to the Degar people it so readily persecutes. All the while the government of Vietnam exploits the natural resources of Degar lands by allowing Vietnam's elite to sell off it's lumber, lands for plantations, and controlling access to the water sources on Degar lands.

Continual persecution has led many Degar to unite in ways that have blurred the lines between the many different tribes of Degars. Vietnam's harsh treatment of the Degar has led to mass protests within Vietnam (always met with violent oppressive actions by the state) and mass protests in countries that Degar refugees have resettled in. In 2001 the Degar marched on provincial cities across the Central Highlands to demand the return of their ancestral homelands, basic religious freedoms, their basic human rights to be recognized, and ethnic recognition by the Vietnamese government. Since then the oppressive measures taken by Vietnam have only increased. 

Vietnam has sent large numbers of police and military into the Central Highlands in an attempt to seal off the region from outside eyes. Churches (homes used as churches) have been burned in retaliation for Degars preaching the Christian faith. Leaders of the Degar community have been rounded up and sentenced to lengthy prison sentences (many still awaiting trial while being kept in prison). Women and Degar youth are constantly harassed by the military as Degar families are kept as prisoners on their own lands. And the border with Cambodia is heavily monitored in an effort to keep the thousands of Degar refugees from fleeing Vietnamese oppressive rule. 

Meanwhile the government of Vietnam hides behind claims that the Degar are terrorists that are dead-set upon damaging national unity and breaking away from Vietnam. These are claims that have yet to be proven by a regime that forbids foreign journalists and aid workers from entering the Central Highlands. While the regime uses these claims to crackdown on Degar tribes (essentially stripping them of all basic human rights) it outright refuses any outside government to investigate the claims. 

So while Vietnam carries out what has all the hallmarks of ethnic cleansing, the outside world is left to watch. While Vietnam behaves in much the same way as Burma does in the Arakan... the outside world once again ignores signs of what has the potential to become (if it has not already been) genocide.

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:

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&

@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

Left To The Dogs

Iraq's Minorities Threatened With Genocide

(Yazidi struggle to escape the advancing ISIS threat)

Circling like vultures, ever ready to pick at the bones of their fallen victims, the dogs of the Islamic State gather for yet another massacre. Their mouths foam with the disease that has infected the countless generations of hedonistic barbarians that came before them. This plague manifested itself with the colonialists that once spilled blood in these same fields. This disease is the same illness that once sent Europe into the dark days of the 1940s. It is the same hunger that drove on the Khmer Rouge as they turned rice patties into the killing fields. ISIS is the manifestation of the disease that has doggedly nipped at the heels of humanity for all of our existence. Its the disease that now threatens to put the final nails in Iraq's coffin.

Blood still drips from the veins of the crucified, the beheaded, and from the lifeless bodies of those left in ditches after mass executions. The mantra for this new caliphate is written in their blood, the ink of the barbarians that exploited their deaths, a medium that speaks to the indifference of the onlooking world. It is in their deaths that the foundations of Isis's terror has been laid. With every fallen victim comes a new mountain of propaganda in this depraved push for religious dominance. It is a sacrifice, a burnt offering to Isis's own insanity, that feeds the wicked intentions of Islam's radical fringe factions.

Tonight the Yazidi people are the scapegoats that are to be offered up so as to feed the lust of those who claim to fight for All-h. Their women and girls are to be used for sexual deviancy. Their men and boys to be drained of their blood as their bodies return to the sun scorched soil. Their voices to be forgotten as they, in their darkest hours, offers up one final scream in hopes that a deaf world might finally hear.

Never Meant To Be Lambs

(Yazidi Temple At The Highest Peak of Sinjar Mountains)

No community has ever faced genocide with the timidness of a lamb. Once the butcher's knife makes it's first appearance the would be victims always find ways to defy the fate they've been slated. Their voices become raised. The muscles become rigid and the heels dig in for the fight ahead. It is not in the nature of man to take that last breath in peace. There has never been a victim of genocide ready to die for the sinful lust of another. The Yazidi are no exception to this rule.

When ISIS came to Sinjar the Yazidi community already knew what was awaiting them. Due to their religious beliefs the Islamist radicals had already plotted to kill the "devil worshipers" in mass. The black flag that ISIS uses was an unadulterated symbol of their intentions toward the Yazidi minority. No quarter would be given, no mercy would be shown, and no peace could ever be obtained from the clutched fists of the barbarians that comprise Isis's forces.

But what makes the Yazidi such a vulnerable target in Isis's genocide of "non-believers"?

Much like Muslims, Jews, and Christians; the Yazidi are monotheists. They believe in one god who created all life here on earth. Yet the connection with Islam almost ends at that point alone. For it is in the Yazidi religion, Yazdanism, that the belief in one god diverges into other beliefs that Islam does not share. It's these differences that place Islamic fundamentalists at odds with the "pagan" beliefs of the Yazidi.

In Yazdanism the creator god entrusted the world to a Heptad of Seven Holy Beings who were to care for all of creation. These "angels", or heft sirr (the Seven Mysteries), are all to "bow to Adam (man)". Yet the head of the heft sirr, or archangels, does not bow to mankind. Instead, Tawûsê Melek, who was said to be created from the creator god's own illumination, refuses to bow to mankind. This makes Tawûsê Melek a special part of Yazdanism and is revered by the Yazidi faith.

Islam and Christianity have long equated the worship of these "angels" as demon worship. And it is in the worship of Tawûsê Melek that the Abrahamic faiths have created their worst offense to Yazdanism. For it is in the story of Tawûsê Melek that fundamentalists (Muslims and Christians alike) have concocted the belief that this lead angel is their demon Shaitan (Satan). Yet it is in the story of Tawûsê Melek that it becomes most evident that Yazdanism is a distinct and separate religion from Islam, Christianity, and Judaism. For it is in his story that Yazdanism's many other influences becomes more evident (including Gnosticism, Zoroastrianism, and several eastern religions).

However, due to the complexity of any given faith, we will not delve too deeply into the story itself but rather look at how it has been exploited to target the Yazidi minority.

Westerners have long romanticized the Yazidi in as much the same way as they have with any other Eastern religious minority. Their faith is not explained in Western media when it so callously equates it to Islam. The religious practices aren't valued for their unique contributions to world community but are rather slighted by upholding old myths of devil worship. Their culture as a whole isn't recognized for it's depth and beauty but rather is looked at with a passing glance.

The Muslim world has long targeted the Yazidi community with pogroms and social injustices of all sorts. Imams and religious leaders within Islam have accused the Yazidi of serving Shaitan (Satan) due to their incredible lack of understanding when talking about Yazdanism. The methods of worship and prayer that are hallmarks of Yazdanism are considered pagan by Islamic fundamentalists. Throughout the centuries the Yazidi have been rounded up and killed in smaller versions of their current holocaust. Their children are targeted with forced conversions to Islam. Their women used as sexual objects, so easily discarded after they've outlived their purpose. And the Yazidi men have often been massacred by Arab neighbors. All of this because the fundamentalists could not look beyond the strangling hold their own faith places upon the overall conscience of an already ethnocentric society.

Both East and West have failed to recognize the value of a richly diverse society, a society to which the Yazidi culture and beliefs could so greatly contribute. While not all Muslims demonize the Yazidi and their beliefs, and not all Westerners dehumanize them by marginalizing their culture, the damage inflicted by those who do is already visible. In a community, like that found in Iraq's northern regions, the lack of tolerance for differing beliefs and practices is intolerable. It permits a situation in which only the largest faiths and ethnic groups are capable of surviving while minorities are forced to struggle to eek out an existence.

Now the Yazidi prepare to fight back. Now they have no other option but to stand up and defiantly look death in the eye. All because the world, as a whole, has long ignored their screams for help.

From The Hearts of Men

The Yazidi believe that all evil in this world arises not from a "great Satan" or demonic presence of any form. It is in their religion that the true nature of evil is best explained. For it is in the Yazidi faith that evil is said to be the product of man's heart, and man's heart alone. The Islamic State is proving this to be true. The apathy of the world community is proving this to be the only source of evil in this dark and dreary world.

When Saddam tried to exterminate the Yazidi the world generalized their plight by bunching them in with the Kurdish population of Iraq. When pogroms have occurred and the Yazidi were targeted by their Arab neighbors the colonial powers wrote it off as a "ancient rivalry" of sorts. Just as with the Roma in the Porajamos, the world denied the magnitude of Saddam's crimes by denying the targeting of the Yazidi for their faith and ethnicity. Just as with the Bosnian Genocide, the world devalued the lives of the Yazidi by cheapening their plight with excuses for the aggression of the Arabs. In every genocide the Yazidi have faced there has always been an apathetic world ready to look the other way. In every struggle to survive the Yazidi have found themselves begging for help from an increasingly deaf world.

Today we watch as the most powerful nation on the planet offers only tokens of support for their plight as it refuses to commit to the promise of "never again". Cheap air strikes are all the world's most technologically advanced military will give as it's governing body refuses to do all it can to stop the genocide of the Yazidi. So as the dead and soon to be dead drift from this earth we monitor their demise with drones overhead. And as the children of the Yazidi face slavery and sexual abuse at the hands of ISIS heathens we bomb random artillery pieces and abandoned checkpoints. This is the extent of morality in our modern age. We promise the same intervention the allies inadvertently offered the Jews, and yet when the time to commit arises... we are impotent, so to speak.

It was once said, and often repeated, that the only thing that evil needs to succeed is the silence of good men. The Yazidi believe that evil arises from the hearts of all mankind. But they also believe that the good in this world also is a product of the human heart. Thus a war, of sorts, can be depicted as raging within the human spirit. A desire to create, a desire to save, and a desire to protect are all found within the heart of man. Yet the desire to destroy, to devour, and to prey upon others can also be found within the same heart; at times, simultaneously.

The salvation of modern man is the ability of mankind to overcome the evil we so often create. If mankind is truly "good" inside, if there is a hope for a better world still yet to come, then there is a way to conquer the evil tendencies of man. The first, and far from the least of which, is the apathy that so often paralyzes us in this struggle.

If communities like that of the Yazidi people are to survive in this ever shrinking world then we must surrender ourselves to empathy rather than apathy. We must adhere their afflictions to our own sense of survival and thus make their struggle our own. By denying the value of their culture, by giving into the notion that someone else will "save" them... we lose something of ourselves. In remaining silent we hand over the sword to their executioner. By no lifting a finger to stop their demise we join the ranks of the barbarians that slaughter them.

A world that believes in equality, tolerance, understanding, and the value of diversity can not bare the blight of groups like ISIS. No matter what your religion is, no matter where in the world you are, the struggle to stop the spread of genocide and hate is one that you can not turn away from. Either you are willing to fight against racism, religious violence, ethnic hatred, and bigotry or you are a contributor to it. You don't get to remain silent.

Scream Bloody Murder

Many of you won't have the option to get out there and do the physical work required to stop genocide. There probably won't be rallies and protests in support of the Yazidis. And when it comes to the political legwork many of us are intimidated by the actions required to just get the ear of our government long enough to scream for the Yazidis. But there is still the work of raising awareness. And this is a job that all of us should be doing without hesitation. It is a job that each of use are supposed to be doing for all victims of genocide, regardless of who they are and/or who the murderers are. 

In the notes below you will find countless links that are easily shared on twitter, facebook, tumblr, pintrest, and all other social media sites. These articles should be read and used in conversations so that you can help bring awareness of the Yazidis' plight. But they are just a start. You should, and will need to, continue to read more about the Yazidi people and the genocides they have endured. The more familiar you become with the people and their struggle the more convincingly you can share their story. 

In addition to being an online presence for the Yazidi community, you should also be sharing their story in your daily life as well. Each of us have countless conversations daily. Chances are you will spend some time today talking about anything and nothing at all with people from many different walks of life. These are all opportunities to raise awareness. With some tact and patience, you can usually grab the attention of at least one person who is willing to listen. And that one person is a chance to keep the information flowing. That one person is a chance to stir the heart of your fellow man and create the opportunity for positive change... to touch the "good" within their heart. 

As long as you have breath in your lungs...

You should be screaming.

So while you are talking about Gaza, Sudan, North Korea, or the Rohingya... don't forget the Yazidi. While you are talking about television shows, music, politics, sports, or simply making small talk... don't forget the Yazidi. If and when the opportunity arises... scream for them. 





Source Documents
(note: not all are listed)

The Guardian
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/10/pope-francis-iraq-isis-islamic-state-religious-minorities-violence
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/yazidis-tormented-fears-for-women-girls-kidnapped-sinjar-isis-slaves
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/us-arm-peshmerga-iraq-kurdistan-isis
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/11/us-air-strikes-iraq-isis-minimal-impact-pentagon
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http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/aug/13/france-arms-kurds-isis-iraq-military

Times
https://time.com/3099014/isis-iraq-kurdistan-yazidi/

Rudaw
http://rudaw.net/english/kurdistan/100820145
-
http://rudaw.net/english/middleeast/iraq/110820144

The Daily Star (Lebanon)
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/News/Middle-East/2014/Aug-13/267050-us-troops-sent-to-iraq-to-help-trapped-yezidis.ashx#axzz3AIyfSCv5

London Evening Standard
http://www.standard.co.uk/news/world/uk-military-commanders-urge-david-cameron-to-commit-to-intervention-in-iraq-9665224.html

The Straights Times
http://www.straitstimes.com/news/world/middle-east/story/un-monitors-demand-urgent-action-stop-iraq-yezidi-genocide-20140812

The Telegraph
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11029765/Iraq-crisis-the-last-stand-of-the-Yazidis-against-Islamic-State.html
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http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/iraq/11027161/Iraq-crisis-My-night-on-the-mountain-of-hell-with-dying-Yazidi-refugees.html

The Independent
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/iraq-crisis-un-warns-yazidis-refugees-trapped-on-mount-sinjar-are-facing-imminent-genocide-from-is-militants-9665003.html

VOX
http://www.vox.com/iraq-crisis/2014/8/9/5983785/yazidi-americans-to-obama-a-genocide-is-happening-on-your-watch

Al-Arabia
http://english.alarabiya.net/en/perspective/alarabiya-studies/2014/08/11/What-you-did-not-know-about-Iraq-s-Yazidi-minority-.html