Steve Georganas (Adelaide, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I congratulate and other speakers before me, and the member for North Sydney for bringing this motion to the House. It would be remiss of me if I didn't participate in this debate as a member of this parliament who represents one of Australia's largest Greek Australian communities, many of whom are descendants of those atrocities that took place that we are discussing here today. So I rise to support this motion, which recognises the United Nations International Day of Commemoration and Dignity of the Victims of the Crime of Genocide and of the Prevention of this Crime, but I also rise to support this motion that actively recognises the genocides committed by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923 of Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and other Christian minorities—in what was known as Asia Minor—and one of the greatest crimes against humanity in modern history.

The term 'genocide' is relatively new as a historical concept. Genocide itself isn't a very old term. It was developed partly in response to the horrendous murder of Jewish people during the Holocaust, but also in response to the brutal cleansing that took place in this campaign committed by the Ottoman Empire between 1915 and 1923. In this period millions of Greeks, Armenians, Assyrians and other Christian minorities from the Pontus region and other parts of modern day Turkey, were deported, massacred or marched to their deaths. Some of these stories have been handed down. It's only two generations ago. In fact, my son's best friend's grandparents came from Pontus. He was a small child and I recall him telling us the story of the long march from the Pontus region through to modern day Greece. Along that March, many perished from starvation, being murdered along the way, and through illnesses et cetera. Approximately 300,000 people lost their lives. It was a brutal cleansing campaign.

It all started in the early morning of 24 April 1915, when the Ottoman authorities arrested some 250 Armenian political, religious, educational and intellectual leaders and community figureheads in the capital Constantinople, making the first stage of the Ottoman Turks' attempt to exterminate the Armenian, Assyrian and Greek populations of the Ottoman Empire.

The Greek genocide began with a series of pogroms in eastern Thrace and on the Aegean coast of Anatolia, beginning in January 1914, when the Ottoman Turkish government declared that only those Greeks who became Muslims or changed their religion would be allowed to remain in Thrace. Maps and history were rewritten. Churches, schools and cultural monuments were desecrated and misnamed. There were even stories of children being snatched from their parents; they would be renamed and farmed out to be raised as Ottomans.

On that particular day, 300 kilometres south of the empire's capital, young Australian men began to fight against the Ottoman soldiers during the Gallipoli campaign, one of the most significant and formative events in the military history of Australia. Some of the first documented evidence of genocide taking place was from ANZACs, some of whom were prisoners, who witnessed some of the atrocities and began writing little notes on pieces of paper that still exist today.

The neglect and the plight of the peoples of this region, the Assyrians, the Greeks, and the Armenians—I'm sure it was an absolute bloodbath in terms of the cleansing that took place—is absolutely something that should be recognised by our government and by this parliament. As we heard earlier, President Biden has recognised the genocide. Many countries around the world have recognised it, and it's about time that we did too.

If we don't recognise humanity's mistakes, they're there to be committed again. It's not about pitting one ethnicity against another. As we heard, we recognised the Holocaust of World War II. It doesn't mean that German people are bad; it just means that we recognised an atrocity so it could never ever take place again.

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