Greek Myth about Ethnic Origin of Minorities and Greek Expansionism
Assimilation policy pursued by Greece in order to Hellenise, by coercion, various ethnic minorities living in the territories she had occupied during the Balkan Wars, has begun to draw the attention of the world opinion.
It is argued (by the Greeks) that peoples living in the territories occupied or even aspired, by Greece descended from the Hellenic race. This allegation has become ridiculous to such an extent that Greek historians have gone as far as claiming that Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots, Egyptians, communities living in northern India, Arabs and even the Turks are of Greek origin!
"Greekness" psychosis with the "Neo-Greeks", refugees of various ethnic origins who had been settled in the empty territories of the Ancient Greek Civilisation, have virtually become a superiority complex. According to them, Greekness underlies every single living or non-living thing on earth.
"Ethnic cleansing" practices, employed as a State policy against the minorities, are an indicator of the Greek race. The supporting-point for the Greek racism is the Greek Orthodox faith. For centuries, Greeks brought their subjects under their inducement, causing them forget their ethnic origins and cultures by numbing them with the opium of religion.
But time has changed. Descendants of the minorities living in Greece have begun to go down to their roots and seek the truth.
"Minorities": An Issue of Greek Expansionism
No matter what nation or ethnic community may it be, Greeks claim that it if it is affiliated to the Christian Orthodox Church, it is "Greek" and this is a tactic of the Greek expansionism. Allegations by the Neo-Greeks that they are the heirs of the Byzantine Empire emanate from this.
The Byzantines had no blood ties with the "Ancient Greeks", apart from the fact that they were Christian Orthodox. In fact, the Turks call "Rum" and the Greeks call "Romeos" meaning "Romans") to the Byzantines. In order to join to themselves, the Greeks gave Greek passport to the "Romans" living in the territories of the Ottoman Empire and under the Empire's rule, declaring them "Greek citizens" and then beginning to make claims on these territories uttering slogans of "Istanbul is Greek", "Izmir is Greek." Greece still makes such claims over the territories of the modern Republic of Turkey.
Greece introduces the "Romans" emigrating from Turkey as being Greek origin. However, a great majority of those who moved to Greece as a result of the regrouping of populations' agreement at the beginning of 1920's was Turkish-speaking Christian Orthodox people of Turkish origin. That's why the "Romans" of Anatolian origin who currently live in Greece have always regarded themselves distinct from the Greeks and could not warm up to them.
Moreover, the regional distinctions constitute yet another issue that makes the Greek administrations feel uneasy. For instance, Cretans, Seven Islanders, Dodecanese Islanders and many others. Sentiments of the peoples living on the Greek territories are quite interesting. An Athenian does not like a Salonican and regards a Cretan a second-rate citizen. Disharmony between the regions has also spread to the political parties as well. They are quite sensitive in determining the candidates for the membership of the parliament so that they do not anger the Athenians who have the greatest number of voters.
A more interesting development is the emergence of forces showing Greece as divided into two, as the North and the South. That the league matches played between the teams of Salonica and Athens are often turned into a battleground has begun to concern the Greek officials.
Minorities in Greece
Coming to the minorities in Greece. During the First and Second Balkan Wars, their patrons granted a significant part of the territories of the Balkans, plundered from the Turks, to Greece, totally disregarding the ethnic origin of the peoples living on them. The Turks, Macedonians, Albanians, Vlachs, and Bulgarians constitute today the minorities in Greece.
When Greece was established at the beginning of 1830s, she had possessed one-third of her present territory. Following the Balkan Wars and under the Bucharest Agreement, she reached her present boundaries.
Greeks claim that the Turks living in Western Thrace are Greek Muslims and that Macedonians are Slavs who had immigrated to northern Greece. And though the Vlachs and Albanians have minority freedoms and rights on paper, these two minorities are going through hard times on the Greek soil.
Turkish Minority in the Western Thrace is not the only minority in Greece whose rights have been guaranteed by international agreements. Under the 1920 Sevri Agreement, all the minorities have the right to education and practicing their religions in their own languages. However, the Greek Governments have often usurped by force, the rights they give to the minorities.
Greece's status as an EU member provides her a basis to cover up her oppressive policy over the minorities. That EU assigns the Greeks the drawing up of the report on the minorities in Greece is a most clear example of the reversal of the realities. The most interesting aspect of such reports is the excessive reference to the human rights and unnecessary emphasis of the claim that "Europeans are the heirs of the classical Greek civilisation". And the meaning of this is clear.
Greece's policy of hellenisation by assimilating the minorities serves no purpose other than creating problems for herself. As her oppression over the minorities increases, these people of distinct origins regard Greece with hostile spectacles, totally break away and alienate from her and they even become rebellious.
Turkish Minority in Greece
Since the beginning of 1950s, Greece has denied the Turkish existence in Western Thrace, presenting this purely Turkish people to the world as "Greek Muslims". Within the framework of this policy, the Greek courts have banned the use of the word "Turkish" from the Turkish Teachers Association, Turkish Youth Association etc., and, in April 1991, endorsed the closure of those associations bearing the word "Turkish", in line with the Supreme Court's decision ref. No. 1729/1987. By 1999, struggle between the Greeks and the Turks living in Western Thrace has reached serious dimensions: those claiming to be Turkish have been imprisoned, lost their property, fired from the jobs and expelled from citizenship on various grounds.
That those who left Greece for paying visits to their relatives abroad or for the purpose of travelling are among those who have been ousted from citizenship is yet another interesting point. While the Turks who go to Europe to work as a Greek citizen of a EU member-state are also ejected from the citizenship, the relevant authorities are similarly informed about the situation so that they are extradited from the European country where they are found. Though the Greek authorities decline to give information as to how many Western Thrace Turks have been expelled from citizenship, it is thought that their number is between 2000-2500.
As a result of its failure to assimilate the Western Thrace Turks, the Greek Government has resorted to the tactic of dividing this minority from within. In a bid to artificially reinvent a Pomak-Gypsy culture, Greece continues incessantly her efforts to split the minority into the categories of "Turks", "Pomaks" and "Gypsies." She does not refrain, in the meantime, from benefiting from EU funds in order to carry out these activities.
Within the framework of the Lausanne Treaty, the Turks of the Western Thrace had also been recognised the right to elect their own muftis through their free-will. By the end of 1990, muftis had been elected by the members of the Turkish minority. But this practice has been annulled through an arbitrary decision, resulting in the appointment of the muftis by the Greek officials, contrary to the will of the minority.
As a result of the resistance put up by the Western Thrace Turks, the Greek authorities have intensified their pressures, repeatedly arresting and giving sentences of imprisonment to the elected muftis of Komotini (Gümülcine) and Xanthi (İskeçe), namely İbrahim Terif and Mehmet Emin Aga, respectively.
According to the official records, on the day when the Treaty of Lausanne was signed, 84% of the territories of the Western Thrace belonged to the Turks. As a result of the policy of usurpation pursued by Greece, the percentage of the territory in the hands of the Turks has dropped to 25%. The Greek Government has seized the most valuable territories that had been owned by the Turks for centuries, on the grounds of building universities, jails, or military installations.
Greek Government that has not sufficed itself by usurping from the minority, the right to administer and supervise the Evkaf (Religious Foundation), has virtually plundered its immovable property as well. For instance, an area of 21 donums, which once used to be a cemetery, has now been converted into a war museum.
Greeks who have not given permission for the repair of the mosques, have been equally disrespectful towards the graves of the Turks. For instance, on 18 March 1989, a bulldozer belonging to the Greeks entered into the Karaköy Cemetery in Xanthi, breaking the mausoleum and grave-stones there and dispersing the bones of the dead.
Yet another target of Greece's policy of assimilating the Western Thrace Turks is the field of "education". Article 40 of the Lausanne Treaty grants the Muslim Turkish minority to establish educational installations giving education in their mother tongue, provided that they met their own expenses. In addition, Article 41 requires the Greek Government to open primary schools for the Turkish children in those areas where regions where the Turks constitute a majority. However, Greece, under two laws enacted in 1976 and 1977, has brought the Turkish schools under her inspection, appointed as teachers, the graduates of the Academy of Pedagogy in Salonica educated in line with her views, to schools and has not assigned any duties to those teachers, holding pedagogical certificates, from the minority.
Struggle for survival being waged by the Western Thrace Turks, despite all the legal rights recognised to them by the international agreements, has reached an explosive point.
Greece Tramples upon Human Rights of the Macedonian Minority
Existence of numerous national minorities in Greece is not recognised. While the Turkish minority in the country is regarded as a religious minority, the Macedonian minority is not recognised even as an entity. Though the national minorities are not recognised, the minority members are subjected to pressures on the level of national minorities.
Policy of the merciless assimilation of the Macedonian ethnic minority is under way, through legal measures and court decisions. Use of the Macedonian language and religion has been banned.
The Macedonian minority has been the victim of the Greek State's determination of de-nationalisation and conscious policies. Greek State has employed all the possibilities and means under its control (ie army, church, press, culture, institutions, associations etc) to advance its cause of hellenisation , going as far as converting the personal names and surnames into ?Greek?, and changing, within this framework, the names and surnames of those of Macedonian origin with the Greek ones. Under a specially made law, put into force after being published in the Official Gazette, the Macedonian names of cities, villages, rivers, mountains etc have been changed; and there has been effort of ignoring all the Macedonian elements in Greece.
During the years of the Civil War in Greece (1946-1949), the Royalist Forces declared the Greeks of the Macedonian origin living in northern Greece as "Communist insurgents" and launched a horrible genocide against them. However, the Macedonians who were labelled as "insurgents" had bravely fought the Nazis during the German Occupation. Between these years, 16 thousand people were killed in the Aegean Macedonia, 440 women and girls were raped, 120 thousand people were tortured at concentration camps, hundreds of people went insane as they failed to endure the tortures, 1291 houses were set on fire, 80 villages were looted and thousands of people were forced to flee from their homes. In the wake of these incidents, the Macedonian people started an organised armed resistance against the chauvinist policies of the Greek administrations, in order to protect themselves from an imminent genocide.
When the Royalist forces began to discriminately kill the Macedonians with the help of the air support given by the Americans and the British, 30 thousand Macedonians, 28 thousand of whom were children, had to take refuge in the Socialist countries in the Eastern Europe (Albania, Bulgaria, East Germany, Yugoslavia, Poland, Romania, USSR, Hungary, Czechoslovakia).
Macedonian political refugees abroad were also banned to return to and be resettled, in their countries.
Among other things, the following is stated in the report on the minorities in Greece, drawn up by the US State Department in 1998:
"Macedonian minority is still unrecognised by the Greek Government, as a result of which it encounters various acts of harassment and discrimination, including restrictions on the cultural expression, violations of the freedom to association, harassment of the political party ?Rainbow', prevention of the ethnic Macedonians and Greek expatriates living abroad into Greece and issues of citizenship.
On 24 June 1996, the European Human Rights Commission found justified, the complaint filed by the founders of the Association called Macedonian Cultural Home. They wanted to challenge the decisions of the Greek courts on all levels. A case involving discrimination against the Macedonian minority reached the European court for the first time and was found justified. The Greek Government claimed that there exists no such minority in Greece, attempting to rule out the arguments of the applicants."
Just like the Turks in the Western Thrace, the Macedonian minority in Greece continues their struggle not to be assimilated into the larger Greek community. Throughout its history, the Greek Government ignored Macedonia and Macedonians altogether and attempted to write them off their territories through assimilation.
Greek rulers have generated policies aiming at doing away with all the indicators of the Macedonian nationalism, patriotism and cultural values. These policies are still maintained today by way of forced exportations, ?voluntary' population exchanges, colonisation, social and cultural discrimination, forced expulsion from citizenship total control of educational systems and political and intellectual life.
Albanian Minority
Yet another minority on the territory of Greece that is oppressed and intended to be destroyed consists of those of the Albanian origin. As is the case with the Western Thrace Turks, Macedonians and Vlachs, Greece has been exerting incredible pressure upon the Albanians as well. However, all of the present-time Greeks who are known as "Neo-Greeks" and who allege to have been descended from the Ancient Greeks are, in fact, a hybrid of those with Macedonian, Albanian, Vlach and Anatolian origins.
Because they have now learnt about the "Greek Reality" from their sources, the intellectuals of Greece, which consists of peoples of different origins, have begun to go down to their roots and carry out research on them. But this angers the Greek Orthodox Church and the chauvinist circles, especially the State officials and serves as an alibi for them to increase their pressures.
The Albanian minority living in Greece consists of Christian Orthodox "Arvanideses" living in the regions of Corinth, Viotia, Fokiada, Hydra, Specha, and Psara, as well as the Muslim Chamerians living in Ioannina (Yanya) and other neighbouring provinces in the West of Greece.
Orthodox "Arvanideses" have also become the target of a radical assimilation policy of Greek Governments. The public use of the mother tongue, Albanian, has been banned and the Albanian place-names have been changed with the Greek ones.
However, as from 1980s, "Arvanideses" have begun to form associations, publish a magazine called BESA, as well as books, and produce CD-ROMs.
The Chamerian Albanians, on the other hand, were living in the area extending from Ioannina, which was added to the Greek territory under the Florence Protocol of 17 December 1913, up to Preveza.
Situation of the Chamerian Albanians was worsened when the Metaxas Government rose to power in 1936: people collected from other regions were transferred to the area with the aim of changing the demographic composition, names of the places inhabited by the Albanians were changed with the Greek names, and a policy of tyranny prevailed characterised by arrests, deportations, property confiscations etc.
The genocidal attempt aiming at the ethnic cleansing of the Chamerian Albanians was launched on 27 June 1944. 2900 elderly and young men, 214 women and 96 children were massacred, 745 women were raped, 76 women were kidnapped, 32 children younger below the age of three were slaughtered, 5800 houses and places of worship were set alight and destroyed by EDES Forces under the command of General Napoleon Zervas.
It is estimated that the number of Chamerian Albanians who could endure no more the pressures of Greece and ultimately fled to other countries is 130 thousand. These people have established the "Association of Chameria" that was admitted to the "Unrecognised Peoples of the United Nations" in January 1995.
Vlach Minority
Vlach minority lives in the North of Greece, along the borders of Macedonia and Bulgaria. Part of this minority speaks "Megleno-Romanian" and the other part "Aromanian". The number of Vlachs in Greece, who have not been shown on the official census, is estimated to be between 250-300 thousand.
In the Middle Ages, the Vlachs formed their states in Greater Wallacia (in Thessaly and south Macedonia) and in 11th and 12th century in Smaller Wallacia (Aetolia-Acarnania and south Epirus). Later, they laid the foundation-stone and contributed to the rule of the "Second Kingdom of Bulgaria" and "Wallacian and Bulgarian Kingdom", respectively. The latter then became part of the "Great Wallacian State". In 14th century, the kingdom was collapsed, giving rise to an autonomous region. In the following four centuries, Vlachs belonged to the Christian Orthodox Community overwhelmed by the Greeks, under the reign of the Ottoman Empire.
Vlachs who rose against the Turks in 19th century took the side of the Greeks during the Greek Uprising (1821-1828). In 1881, Thessaly where the Vlachs constituted the majority was annexed by Greece.
At the beginning of the 20th century Ottomans recognised Vlachs as a separate community and allowed them to establish their own Church. In the years that followed, when the argument broke out as to where the Vlachs belonged to, they found Greeks confronting them. Greek gangs in Macedonia and Epirus attacked the Vlachs; schools were set ablaze, people were killed, and pursuit of national consciousness was suppressed by force of arms.
Following the Balkan Wars, the Vlachs found themselves split in four different states (Albania, Serbia, Greece and Bulgaria). During the Italian occupation, a stillborn attempt was made to form an autonomous Vlach state at the Korice region of Albania. Nonetheless Greece recognised the Vlachs as a minority. As a result of the Bucharest Agreement signed between Romania, to which Vlachs considered themselves close nationally, and Greece, the f financial contribution coming from Romania rendered possible, the opening of Vlach schools, which were active until the end of WWII. After this date, the Communist regime in Romania cared less about the Vlach minority, so all the help was cut interrupted. But these schools were, in time, had to be shut down because of the oppressive policy pursued by the Greek State, going as far as physical violence. The oppressive policy pursued by Greece against the Vlachs has resulted in the assimilation of this community. During the Metaxas dictatorship (1936-1941) Greek state's melting and oppressive policy against Vlachs reached a peak point. Those resisting the assimilation immigrated to Romania, which they now saw as their motherland.
Greece's suspicion and pressure over the minority was furthered intensified by two attempts towards independence after the War. This, of course, led to the perpetuation of assimilation at greater dimensions. This process still continues today.
While Greece shows keen interest in the overseas Greeks and other elements claimed to have descended from the Hellenic race, she insists not to show the same interest in the ethnic elements living on her soil; she even pursues a consistent assimilation policy against them with the aim of their Hellenisation. It seems rather hard to comment on the lack of effective reaction of the human rights groups and particularly EU, to which Greece is a member, in the face of the above facts and realities.
January 1, 1999
© 1999 INAF Newsletter (International Affairs Research Center)
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