The issue of recognising the Pontian, Armenian and Assyrian genocides has garnered attention once again in Australia.
United States President Joe Biden’s move to recognize the Armenian Genocide in an official statement on 24 April, upped the ante.
Greek-Australian Labor MP Steve Georganas submitted a proposal for the recognition of the Genocide of the Pontians, Armenians and Assyrians in the Australian parliament.
“This is a proposal that does not have a partisan character and is supported by several MPs. I believe that the climate for the issue has changed, following the move by Joe Biden. There has always been doubt from governments, all parties, but this time I think we will succeed,” Mr Georganas told SBS Greek.
Adem Ekiz, a Muslim Greek-speaker from Köprübaşı in Pontos on Turkey’s eastern Black Sea coastline, dedicated an extremely moving and touching song to his father, sung entirely in Pontian Greek, also known as Romeika.
“I cry and mourn for you, I mourn for you,” the Pontian Greek-speaker, with a lyra in hand, sings in evident anguish for his father.
In speaking about the song, Ekiz says “love and respect your parents because you never know which day will be your last to see them.”
Thousands of Turkish citizens continue to speak Romeika, however Turkey does not allow them to open schools to ensure that the language survives in its native homeland.
An audience exceeding 400 people attended an event commemorating the 19 May Genocide Remembrance day in Sydney, co-hosted by the Greek Genocide Commemoration Committee of NSW together with the Federation of Pontian Associations of Australia and its NSW members
And while Archbishop Makarios was the event’s keynote speaker, the highlight of the evening was arguably the honour bestowed to Kostantinos Antoniadis, former President of the Coordinating Committee of the Greek Genocide Victoria.
He also served as President of the Australian Federation of Pontian Associations, and President of the Pontian Community of Melbourne and Victoria.
In their media announcement, the Federation of Pontian Associations of Australia points out that Mr Antoniadis was never a member of the Federation nor a board member.
Timeline of the Greek Genocide of Pontus (1914-1923)
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Pontus (Pontos), an ancient Greek word for “sea”, refers to the Black Sea and the surrounding coastal areas.
Greek presence in Asia Minor dates as back as 1500 BC, the late Bronze Age, and among those who walked its soils was the epic poet Homer, author of the two central works of the ancient Greek literature, the Iliad and the Odyssey. The age-old presence of Greeks would be brutally interrupted in the early 20
thcentury. The dying Ottoman Empire and its heir apparent to the Young Turks managed to eliminate anything Greek from Asia Minor within only nine years. The fate of other Christian populations was the same, as Armenians and Assyrians were also either exterminated or deported.