Christos Nicolaou writes about the history of refugees in the Aegean.
[Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are of the author’s own thoughts and opinions.]
History is often tragic in its presence, but it is even more tragic in its absence.
Recent headlines only serve to remind us about the state of refugee re-settlement in Greece, and the conditions in the Aegean especially. It is a process brought on by deliberate indifference by political establishments with no understanding or willingness to find solutions to a humanitarian crisis. The new Prime Minister of Greece, Kyriakos Mitsotakis, is evicting refugees,. Across the Aegean, Recep Tayyip Erdogan continues mistreating refugees and creating new ones in his invasion of Northern Syria. What makes these acts so harrowing is not just their magnitude, but also their complete lack of historicity.
You see, dear readers, the Aegean has borne the brunt of human suffering before.
In 1923, over 2 million people were made into refugees thanks to provisions within the Treaty of Lausanne. The Treaty concerned itself with various claims to land in Asia Minor, and served to renounce both Megali Idea (Greek irredentism in Asia Minor and elsewhere) and Pan-Turkism (Turkish irredentism). These competing nationalisms, indispensable in both Greek and Turkish nationalist narratives, were the cause of over 2 million deportations from one country to the other. Yet what is forgotten is that then, as now, the political elites cared little for this injustice. These narratives only serve to obfuscate and sanitise national narratives.
Prior to the Greco-Turkish War, sites such as Izmir and Thessaloniki were typical international, multi-lingual port towns with cosmopolitan characters. The Ottoman system of Millet had allowed for relative autonomy for the various ethno-religious groups residing in these cities. .This system was based on religion, not language or ethnicity. Greece’s political and military overtures World War I brought what is now Northern Greece and the central coast of Asia Minor under Greek administration. Greece’s liberal nationalism was very much opposed to regionalisms or any of the newly incorporated ethnic minorities. This would cause a lot of friction, with Greeks committing atrocities against Muslims and invading the hinterland of Asia Minor. Across the sea, the Young Turks movement had already begun its various forms of ethnic cleansing, death marches and worker battalions. The Armenian Genocide (which includes Black Sea Greeks and Assyrians among its victims) is a well-documented example of its results.
This is the political context which underpinned the Greco-Turkish War of 1919-1922 and the subsequent Treaty of Lausanne. One of the War’s most sombre moments is the burning of Izmir. There, the Turkish army retook the city, committed atrocities and burned large parts of the city. To them, it was vengeance for what they had suffered at the hands of the Greeks. Locals were left at the quayside, while foreign emissaries took pictures. The deal included the transfer of 1.5 million people from Turkey to Greece and over 500,000 people from Greece to Turkey. The tragedy is that the exchange was done via the Ottoman censuses, which went by religion, not ethnicity. The result was that many were deported to countries whose languages they could not speak. The ones that could speak the languages had not seen and possibly had few relatives in these countries. This was forced, and without the consent of the people involved.
Neither country was prepared or willing to accept the refugees. .In fact, in Greece, camps, shanty-towns and even criminalised migration would often be enforced by the Greek government. Discrimination occurred on a daily basis towards the ‘Turkish’ or ‘Russian’ refugees, as they were misrepresented. The shanty-towns became centres of dissent and the counter-culture, which led to further reprisals by later fascist regimes. At Turkey, the Muhacir, as they were called, faced a lot of economic difficulties and treated as infidels. These policies are oddly reminiscent of today’s policies against other refugees. Camps, lack of housing and hunger happened before in similar situations. Today’s policies have historical precedents in both Greece and Turkey, but are sanitised and half-remembered in service of nationalist narratives. The very absence of this context in history is the true tragedy of history.
As I close this article, I am reminded of the novel ‘Number 31328’ by Asia Minor Greek Elias Venezis. In it, a Turkish soldier who lived with Greeks, but now is a willing participant in atrocities, says to a former Greek neighbour:
- Didn’t we live well together, Nikola? says the Turk.
Then ours (Nikolas) falls to his feet begging:
- Save us! Save us!
- You didn't do well Nicolas! the Turk cuts him severely and helps him get up.
- And why am I to blame? Why am I to blame? the Christian mumbled with tears.
- God judges, birder (brother). You see, I don't forget.
The Turk is speaking of a past where people lived more fraternally, one ruined by these events. Venezis, who suffered through the chaos, manages to add this human touch. His humanity is striking in a world where the refugee is seen as a nuisance at best, and an invader at worst. I wonder, have Erdogan or Mitsotakis ever read these accounts? Can they see what happened in their own history? Or can they not see how history’s repetition can be so disruptive?
Somehow, I doubt it.
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