An Interview with Diamanda Galas
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
April 8, 2004
Belgian writer Henri Michaux, Romanian-Jewish poet Paul Celan, Italian
filmmaker Pier Paolo Pasolini, French symbolist Gérard Nerval, Peruvian poet
Cesar Vallejo, Armenian poet Siamanto, Syrian poet Adonis, Assyrian poet Dr
Freidoun Bet-Oraham, and Diamanda Galas' 4-octave weapon of a voice come
together in `Defixiones, Will And Testament' (Defixiones refers to the words
engraved on the graves of the dead warning against desecrating the corpse) ,
a double album (www.mute.com) `investigating the Armenian, Assyrian and
Greek genocides carried out by Turkey between 1914 and 1923', and raging
against the continued Turkish denial of these atrocities. `Defixiones'
received its world premiere performance on 11 September 1999 in Ghent,
Belgium and has since been performed in South America, USA, Europe, and
Australia.
Galas was raised in San Diego, where she received training in classical
music and opera. She studied biochemistry at USC and then continued her post
graduate studies in Europe, before embarking on a journey in music and
activism that would earn her `titles' ranging from the sublime `Diva of the
dispossessed' to the ridiculous `the devil's maiden'. Many miss the point of
her sometimes outrageous, often electrocuting voice, lyrics, and public
statements, but it seems she couldn't care less. After all, `I am doing this
for myself' she says, `so that I continue living an interesting life'.
The word "myself" probably should not be taken literally. Galas' `self' is
rather extended and includes the diseased, the oppressed, the exiled, and
the unburied. Her rage, far from being the expression of a soul gasping for
blood and bitterness, is a genuine refusal of the lies, fabrications, and
misconceptions that surround us.
I spoke with her by telephone on April 5, 2004.
Aztag- Your work in the 80s and 90s was chiefly about AIDS. How did you
decide to tackle the issue of Genocide?
Diamanda Galas- My father's people are Pontic Greeks from Anatolia. Since I
was a little girl, he told me all these stories about the Turks kicking his
people out of Turkey and how they had to escape. He showed me the stories of
Elia Kazan. He told me how they escaped and went to other regions (for
example Smyrna) and then I heard what happened in Smyrna. I have been
hearing these stories for 35 years. So I knew that I was going to work on
this, and then I heard more about the Armenian genocide, which was so
similar to the stories he had told me and the time periods were at times
similar.
I later started to study these (genocides), as well as the Assyrian
genocide, intensively. I realized that the 3 of them were very connected,
even though they were very different as well. I also felt that it is very
important to discuss all 3 and started a process of intensive research. This
meant going into the texts of poets and writers who had witnessed and
documented the crime (like Siamanto). I also studied the works of Nikos
Kazantzakis, Yannis Ritsos and many others, who have talked so much about
the domination of the Turks.
Then I decided to choose certain poets that I would work with musically. At
this stage, I had to study with speakers. For example I studied with Shakeh
Kadejian, an actor in New York. She's an Armenian from Lebanon who performs
Siamanto every year. I studied with her the delivery of Siamanto. As you
know, in the album, she is speaking it and I am singing it. For Adonis'
poem, I studied with Egyptian speakers. It all took five years.
Aztag- I saw the bibliography on your website (http://www.diamandagalas.com)
, it's a good place to start with if someone is interested in researching
these events.
D.G.- You know it is really one tenth of everything; there are so many
papers, and I am not very organized, so I have boxes and boxes of research
papers and printouts. My house is a nightmare...
Aztag- It is evident that you aren't an artist trying to find causes just to
give an extra dimension to her art...you are really into this, aren't you?
D.G.- My father is 87 years old now; when I was little he played Kazan's
film `America, America' and told me these stories so long that it resonates
in my brain. There is another equally important factor here. In the States,
if you are Greek, and especially Middle Eastern/Anatolian Greek, you really
are invisible. Nobody knows anything about your culture.
Aztag- A few years ago, Thea Halo's `Not Even My Name' created some interest
towards Pontic greeks.
D.G.- That's a good book from the genocide perspective but even this book
does not discuss the incredible culture that existed there and was wiped
out, because the Turks were jealous of all of us. They were jealous of the
Armenian, Assyrian, and Greek cultures. Our cultures were so superior to
theirs. They had nothing. They stole their Koran from the Arabs, the art and
everything else from the Greeks and the Armenians. Everything they had was
stolen from somebody, somewhere. And then all they wanted was the money,
they didn't want the people. But when they got the money and the property
they didn't know what to do with it, and those lands became a desert.
It's a question of invisibility. For me, as a second generation, I walk
around this huge country that does not recognize my culture except when
seeing people who sell souflaki, and, at best, they know we had a great
writer, Socrates...
Aztag- Or they have seen `My Big Fat Greek Wedding'.
D.G.- Yeah. That movie is actually very funny but it's the only thing that
anyone knows -although I was not raised like that in my family- Here, there
is a concept of what is white culture, which means culture from the south or
culture from LA, and then there is what people consider black culture, and
there is Hispanic culture, and that's it. Everybody else is invisible. Until
September 11th, Arabic culture was also invisible but now it is visible in a
negative perspective.
I was supposed to be part of the Olympic thing, they didn't want me to do
Defixiones, `Oh, no we don't want you to do Defixiones because the Turks
will get angry', I was so angry and I thought `Jesus Christ, where am I
going to perform this...'
Aztag- It's ironic, because you had difficulty arranging a performance in
Armenia as well.
D.G.- It's so ironic. The places that I want to perform before anywhere
else...I bet we're going to perform it in Istanbul before anywhere else. I
never even call it `Istanbul'; I say `Constantinople'...we'll do a tour in
America for the first time in the fall, I have one performance in Italy,
this is in Serara in June...I don't make my living doing Defixiones. I make my
living from doing more the blues stuff because I could never support myself
doing Defixiones, no one would pay for it.
The reason I am doing it is because I am totally angry at this country for
making the Greeks invisible. I cannot stand to be out with a group of people
who are talking about this culture and that culture and my culture is
invisible...they have these generalizations, for example they consider all
Christianity the same...this is totally insane. Then there is this stupid film
`The Passion'... It's so boring, I think it's a cross between the Tour de
France and a bad menu for spaghetti Bolognese, that's it. You have no
director and there are all these Italians who are hired to do beautiful
effects, just like you have in the film, the Jews hiring Romans to beat
Christ. What's really bizarre in this film is that everyone knows that by
caning you should be able to break someone's spine if you hit him twice. So
you're not going to hit someone a hundred times and he would still be able
to walk with a cross. The Greeks that I know, if they're going to think
about a Christ, they're going to think about him as Kazantzakis' Christ...As
far as I am concerned, if you care about Christ, he was a man. `The Passion'
is like a Steven Spielberg film, why should I be interested in someone from
Malibu riding his motorbike writing a piece about Christ? `Shut up, you
don't know what you're talking about'...
The Coptic, Armenian, Greek, and Assyrian cultures are invisible in this
country. Nobody knows about these cultures, just like nobody knows about the
Pasolini Film on Christ ("The Gospel According to St. Matthew'). It's a very
hard country to live in this sense...I don't work here, I work in Europe, I
work in south America, I work in Mexico, because they respect my culture.
The side of the `New York Times' here is the side of the US, Israel, and
Turkey, that's it. The only concerns they have at all is Israel and
Palestinians. Nothing else exists. And the only reason they're interested in
Palestine is because of the Israelis and because of the Jews in this
country. Nobody else matters and you find yourself in this very curious
position. I get these horrible fights in my living room which has become so
dangerous for me...This is because I don't like seeing my culture castrated,
and it is being castrated by a bunch of ignorant politicians...
Aztag- You have said "My voice was given to me as an instrument of
inspiration for my friends, and a tool of torture and destruction to my
enemies." Who are your enemies?
D.G.- The enemies are people who chose to remain ignorant because they are
cowards and they like to run in packs. They like to be like dogs and they
don't like to speak for themselves. In this country I see a lot of people
like that, I discuss what I'm talking about and they say `what do you mean
`genocide', that's not an important genocide' the only important genocide is
the one that took place in Western Europe' the only people that were chosen
were those people". I have fights with people who don't think for themselves
or who don't think, who really have an agenda and they don't want to change
it. I can think of a million ethnic groups but it really comes down to
individuals. It's a weird story...
I have friends in different areas of the world and they are working in the
same situations over and over again. The same type of situations where you
have missing people, like El Salvador in Argentina...when I went to Mexico to
perform `Defixiones' they said `no one's going to be interested in
`Defixiones' and Armenians' and I said `you are wrong'.
Aztag- People do relate. I know people related when you performed in
Australia as well...
D.G.- The people who were cynical have been the people who are only thinking
about their own genocide.
Aztag- Some individuals want their people to be recognized as the first even
in misery.
D.G.- They want to be first in misery, only celebrate their holidays.My own
father is horrified when I say these things. He's first generation and when
they came to this country they were taught to be quiet just like the Greeks
in Turkey were told to wear the fez and be quiet, be invisible...I don't have
to be that because I'm American and in America nobody is going to threaten
my life because to of the things I'm saying here, nobody!
When you have freedom of speech it's your obligation to use it because of
all the people who don't have it, and that's what I told the Greeks when I
went to Greece I said "I have it, so I can use it and you can say this is
the Greek American who's saying this and you can excuse yourself".
Aztag- You have made some additions to `Defixiones', let's talk about that.
D.G.- When the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1974, `Hurriyet' published this poem
called `Hatred', which talks about how they want to kill the Greeks and cut
them up into a thousand pieces. I added this poem and I do it in Turkish.
Aztag- Was the timing intentional? After all, there are renewed efforts
underway to solve the Cyprus issue.
D.G.- No, I started adding 6 months ago. You know my stuff never has timing;
I'm always doing something when it's the least interesting to everybody.
I started "Plague Mass" in 1983-84 and everybody said `oh, I don't
want to hear this shit about AIDS', then I performed it in 1990 people were
so interested. With me, it takes 5 or 6 years to create these works.
Aztag- Let's talk about the cancellation of your performance in Armenia 2
years in a row. What happened?
D.G.- The reason that I became angry about it was because they invited me
twice at the last minute -the first was 6 months and the second was 4 months
before- saying `we really want you to perform'. So we planned to do it,
everything was set up and they cancelled it the last minute and they said
they had to cancel because there was a national holiday, it became a
national holiday so they had to cancel. I said "ok, fine!"
The second year was after September 11th and I was supposed to do it at the
end of September 25th or something. I booked Aeroflot and all my flights
that were taking me from England to Holland to Armenia, and it cost me a lot
of money and they weren't paying me at all. They were only going to pay me
for the flight, that's it. And then at the last minute they cancelled. They
said that the theater (The Opera House) was being rebuilt and it would not
be ready for my performance the dressing room wasn't going to be ready, I
said `oh, come on, forget the dressing room lets just do it the way it is, I
have done performances with a trailer next to the theater. And then they
wrote this lie that Diamanda needed such incredible technology like Madonna,
and this was just a pile of shit, all I do is sit at the piano and I have 2
other microphones in other parts of the stage and that's it. It's a very
simple show, not a rock show, so they lied 2 years in a row...so I said `you
think you can f--- me like this' , and I wrote a press release and sent it
out everywhere...I don't want to overdo it, I don't want to focus on that
forever, but I felt so bad because after September 11th I felt that I wanted
very much to do this performance because of what happened in NY and because
of what America had done, it was like somebody tying your hands...
Aztag- You have performed `Defixiones' in the US, Europe, and Australia. How
much interest did it create among Greek and Armenian communities on these
continents?
D.G.- The Armenians have been interested in my work much more than the
Greeks. I performed the work in LA, of course there are many more Armenians
in LA, but still, I've noticed a gigantic support from the Armenians and
some support from the Greeks. I think Greeks are not as mobilized (as the
Armenians)...the Greek are trying to do this Turkish-Greek friendship crap,
with friendship committees etc. When I was in Greece, some people told me
`oh, no Diamanda, were now trying to make Greek-Turkish friendship' and I
said `well, good for you but that doesn't mean I can't perform `Defixiones'
because people don't know the history, they have to know before they can get
past it'. And they said `Can't you just sing folk music?' I'm like `f---
you!'
Aztag- `Defixiones' contains works in more than 10 different languages.What
is the message here? Would it not have been easier for Americans to grasp it
if it were in English?
D.G.- What would they get out of it. Would they get an emotional message?
No, they would get my a little political view `isn't it terrible what the
Turks did to the Armenians?' well any idiot can say that. But I am Diamanda
and I work in a certain way, when I'm using different languages each
language has an emotional component, and active component, right out of the
blood that tells you a lot more than just a simple piece of information. And
I think that when you invest time in a language you know more about the
culture and how the culture thinks. At the end of the day I have to say I do
this for me, so that I can keep living an interesting life. I am not
somebody who is thinking `oh well, if I do it in 10 languages then 10
different people will understand it'. No, no, no, that's not me. That's a
politician's job, I'm not a politician and I'm not a rock singer, I'm just
doing this for me. So it's a little different. I do it as a composer.
Composers have traditionally worked with masses in many languages, they used
parts of the Old Testament then they take poets that have expressed their
point of view and they integrate the poets and they always do the poets in
the original language. That's the music of his soul. You don't take Adonis
and suddenly do it in English. A lot of Americans would do that but I just
say, you know, why don't you just write it yourself?
If they want to read it in English they can do research, they can get
scholarly work like the books of Hovannisian, Dadrian, and some Turkish
scholars. They shouldn't come to me if they want to do basic research
because after all I'm a composer.
Showing posts with label Pontic Genocide. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Pontic Genocide. Show all posts
Sunday, June 3, 2007
An Interview with Thea Halo
Companions in suffering
An Interview with Thea Halo
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
`Memory is the only way home,' says the American author, Terry Tempest
Williams. And memory was Sano Halo's only guide, as she embarked, with her
daughter, Thea, on a journey to Turkey in search of Sano's home, 70 years
after her exile. It also seems that home is the only way to memory; it is
only there, in modern-day Turkey, that Thea `fully embraced' herself. `It
was the first time I felt connected to my heritage,' she says in this
interview. `I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my mother's land and
then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I felt connected to
these people, who were finally my people,' she adds.
A journey is incomplete, I believe, if it does not pave way for another
trek. After Thea Halo had visited her Pontic Greek mother's and Assyrian
father's lands, she embarked on another pilgrimage, that of the mind and the
soul, to discover and help preserve a history much forgotten and a genocide
barely remembered. The culmination of this pilgrimage was `Not Even My
Name,' a book that recounts, through Sano Halo's survival story, the
genocides of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians that took place in
Ottoman Turkey during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
However, "Not Even My Name" is also a book about the beautiful things in
life. `I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost, because it is only by
seeing the beauty of what was that you can you understand more fully the
tragedy and injustice of what has been taken away,' says Thea Halo.
`Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear,' says Shakespeare.
I dedicate this interview to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of
Assyrians and Pontic Greeks that perished in Turkey almost a century ago,
just about the same time that a million and a half Armenians were marching
to their deaths.
Aztag- You often speak about "the exclusivity of suffering." In an interview
you say, `It's truly unfortunate that many late 20th Century activists, who
work so hard to make the Armenian genocide known to the world, fail to
include their fellow sufferers.' In your opinion, what is the reason for
this `failure'?
Thea Halo- I have many contacts with Armenians and great affection and love
for them. It was an Armenian family who rescued my mother when she found herself
destitute and alone in Diyarbekir, and they took her to safety as their
daughter. My aunt was also Armenian. So I feel a very great affinity for the
Armenian people. That's why I found it truly disturbing when I discovered
that the failure to mention the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians
by many Armenian historians and activists was not just an oversight, but an
actual agenda of exclusion and denial. The Genocide of the Greeks of Asia
Minor are referred to as "an exchange of population," even though these
historians know that by the time of the exchange in 1923, at least one
million Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks had already been slaughtered. The
Assyrians are never mention at all. Someone once explained this behavior by
telling me, "I'm sure you understand that these
Armenian historians feel so personally tied to this history because it was a
Genocide of their own families and people." And of course I do understand,
because it is the story of the Genocide of my family and my people, which
makes their exclusion even more painful when the exclusion comes from those
who should know better. It also makes it more reprehensible, and it should
stop. The inclusion of the Greeks and Assyrians does not diminish the horror
of what happened to the Armenians. Even my mother, who lost her own family
and people, always describes the slaughter of the Armenians as truly
horrific.
I've come to realize that there is a kind of tribalism in the world that is
the cause of almost all the world's misery. When one thinks of tribalism,
one thinks of underdeveloped or backward nations. But I use this word
"tribal" even for the United States. There is the greater tribe that makes
up the country, and then the sub tribes, which are the various ethnicities.
And there is another tribe, and that's the handful of elite who are ruling
the world, almost all of whom do so from behind the scenes, behind the
presidency. The differences of the peoples of the world: language, look,
customs, food, dress, dance, etc., has been something quite exquisite to me
throughout my life. But on the other side of that coin, we have this drive
by the more powerful tribes who think nothing of obliterating others for
their own greed or ideologies. Then we have Genocide. That's what happened
in Turkey in the first part of the 20th century during and after WWI. It's
what happened during WWII. It's what's happening today.
I do think what happened in Turkey was a Christian Genocide. But I don't
think one can simply use that term without differentiating who the
Christians were, because although the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians lived
in the same land for thousands of years, their languages, cultures and
histories were unique. It's important to acknowledge that there was an
Armenian, Assyrian, and a Greek Genocide, but overall it was a Genocide of
the Christian of Asia Minor. I even differentiate between the Asia Minor
Greeks: the Ionians, Pontians, and Cappadoccians, first because the Pontians
had their own empire, and second, because I think it's important that we
remember their distinctive historical names and regions in Asia Minor.
One of the reasons I think the Armenians do themselves a great disservice by
failing to mention the Genocides of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians is
because there was a small faction of Armenians in Turkey who were fighting
for an independent state for Armenians... obviously for very good reasons.
These so-called "trouble makers" gave the Turks and their supporters, then
and now, the excuse to blame the victims for their own Genocide, even though
the vast majority of Armenians were simply trying to live their lives. It's
only when one looks at the scope of the Genocides that the Young Turk regime
perpetrated, and Mustafa Kemal "Attaturk" continued, against the Armenians,
Greeks and Assyrians, that we see it was not because some Armenians were
causing troubles. Rather, it was a plan to rid Turkey of the Christian
population to fulfill the edict of "Turkey for the Turks."
Aztag- Why is it that few people have heard about the Genocide of Assyrians
and Pontic Greeks?
Thea Halo- In Greece there are a lot of Pontic Greeks and a number of books
about the Pontic Greek Genocide. They have been working for recognition for
at least 35 years, even here in America. Assyrians have also worked for many
years to get this issue on the table without much success. I blame this
failure mainly on two factors: One, there were no viable books that told the
story of what happened to the Greeks and Assyrians, until my book, Not Even
My Name was published. But perhaps equally or more important, those with the
strongest voices in our society, have traditionally had this tribal
mentality I speak of. They have wanted to portray their own people as being
exclusive in their suffering, and therefore, have failed to even make
mention of the Genocide of other ethnic peoples. Until quite recently,
Jewish historians and activists only focused on what happened to the Jews
during WWII. There was a doctrine that the Holocaust is the definitive
Genocide and therefore one need not look further to understand the phenomena
of Genocide. The study of the Holocaust became a mandatory part of the
curriculum in many, if not all, schools in the US. But the other ethnic,
religious, or social groups slaughtered by the Nazis were not mentioned, and
other Genocides were overshadowed or ignored, even the Armenian Genocide.
Now many Jewish Historians have recognized the Armenian Genocide and
Armenians have finally gained a voice. But in turn the
Armenian historians and activists fail to mention the Genocides of their
fellow sufferers: the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the other Asia Minor
Greeks, even while including other Genocides, such as those in Rwanda and
Cambodia, in so-called "comparative studies" programs.
Fortunately, not all Armenians believe that the exclusive approach is the
right one.
Aztag- In an interview, you say: `To remember does not mean stirring up
hatred within or without. Hatred destroys what was good and pure in the past
and the present. It simply means to embrace what is ours'. It is not easy to
overcome feelings of hatred, especially for the very victims of genocide and
their immediate descendants, is it?
Thea Halo- My mother lived through this Genocide; she lost everybody and
everything by the age of ten. She had lived side by side with the Turks.
Turkish villages surrounded the Greek villages. My mother said they bartered
together and had no problems. One can't say that no Turk ever attacked a
Greek, Armenian or Assyrian. Of course some did, for various reasons. But
overall, they lived together peacefully. I've heard countless stories from
Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, of how Turks saved the lives of their
families. My mother says that you must put blame where blame belongs, on the
Turkish government. If you begin to single out the people of a country, and
forget that whatever they did was instigated or sanctioned by the
government, you will then never get rid of the hatred. This tribal mentality
takes over and goes on and on until we're all gone, because there are
hatreds that go back thousands of years between almost every tribe on earth.
We must learn to acknowledge the past without living in the past.
We don't understand how the past has affected us. Because I was born and
raised in New York City, I can say it hasn't affected me, but that's not
true. My parents went through this Genocide. They raised me, and we don't
know all the subtle ways that their lives and experiences have affected us.
We are the product of our parents. If we don't acknowledge their past, and
embrace it as part of ours, we never fully embrace ourselves. Only if we try
to understand where we come from, can we really understand who we are.
Aztag- And when did you yourself come to this understanding?
Thea Halo- It was first when I visited Turkey. It was the first time I felt
connected to my heritage. Here in America, nobody knew who the Pontic Greeks
are. And everybody told me that I couldn't be Assyrian, because the
Assyrians don't exist anymore. `How I can be something that doesn't exist?'
I used to think. Consequently, I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my
mother's land and then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I
felt connected to these people, who were finally my people. And after
writing my mother's part of the story, which included the Genocide of the
Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians, I began to research the general
history for the book, and I realized how important their story really is.
The thought that people who had lived in a land for 3 thousand years and
more, could just be wiped from the face of that land and all memory of them
seizes to exist, not only there, but from the face of the earth, was a
powerful testament. That certainly makes the Genocide complete, when no one
has even heard of your people. People ask me sometimes why I titled the book
"Not Even My Name." The reason was that my mother lost everything, family,
home, language, and country, even her name. But many Pontic Greeks and the
Assyrians tell me that for them the title also has a bigger meaning. It
means that even the names, Pontic Greek and Assyrian, was lost to the world.
It was an interesting revelation for me.
Aztag- Many Armenians attach great importance to the land they lost. For
them the genocide isn't `simply' the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians,
it is also the expulsion of an entire people from its land and the wiping
out of a culture. When you speak about your "father's land" and your
"mother's land", do you have similar feelings?
Thea Halo- Almost every ancient culture has this attachment to the land.
What else is there without a place to call home? When I stood on that land,
for the first time in my life I could actually feel my ancestors, my
grandparents. They became real to me for the first time. They were as much a
part of that land as the trees, the rocks, the grasses. Their blood and
sweat is mingled with the earth for thousands of years. How can one walk
away from that without feeling that a part of oneself is somehow left
behind, somehow missing, like an amputated leg or arm that continues sending
out sensations to the brain, even though it's gone? Just the other day my
mother said to me, "you know, when you are born in a country, there is a
part of you that always feels that that country is your true home."
Aztag- Do you think the recognition of these genocides should be a
prerequisite to Turkey's accession to the EU?
Thea Halo- I don't think that only the recognition of the Genocides is
important,
I think many factors are important for Turkey's inclusion into the EU. But
by recognizing the Genocides they would resolve some of the other important
issues as well. For instance, journalists, publishers, and teachers are
still being jailed for talking about the Genocides. If you recognize the
Genocides, then you don't have to keep jailing your teachers, publishers,
and journalists on this issue. As my father used to say, you kill 2 birds
with one stone. And there are other human rights issues that Turkey has to
deal with. I must tell you, when I went to Turkey I found a very beautiful
land visually, and I found the people to be exceptionally sweet and
hospitable. It's a shame that they can't speak freely and learn what
happened in their own country without fear.
The sad thing is that they lost so much, because the Greeks, Armenians, and
Assyrians had so much culture there. They brought so much vibrancy to the
country that was lost. They were wonderful artisans, intellectuals,
teachers, musicians. At the time, there were Europeans who were saying "What
in the world will Turkey do without the Christians?" After all, it was the
Christians who were the intellectuals and business people, who had the
education to help Turkey progress into the 20th century. When Turkey got rid
of the Christian populations, they set themselves back, way-way back. The
general Turkish population was not well educated at that time, because the
Turkish government didn't bother to educate them the way the Christian
missionaries educated the Christian populations. For the most part, the
government wouldn't allow Muslims to attend the Christian schools, for fear
of conversion, so most Turks of the time remained peasants and farmers.
Consequently, the Turks did themselves a great disservice, because the
removal of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians left a great vacuum in
Turkey.
Aztag- What was the impact of your book? To what extent did it help raise
greater awareness about the genocides of the Pontic Greeks, the Assyrians,
and the Armenians?
Thea halo- One of the first emails I got when the book was published was
from a young Pontic Greek girl living in Holland. She said, the Pontic
Greeks lived in Asia Minor for 3 thousand years and I go to school and no
one in Holland knows we ever existed. It really touched my heart. I knew
what she was talking about because no one knew that we exist in New York.
So, of course, it makes a difference. They could then start to teach this
history in schools. My book was picked up by UCLA and they began to teach
high school teachers how to teach Not Even My Name to their students.
Aztag- "Not Even My Name" is already translated to Greek and Dutch. Are
there any plans to translate it to other languages, including Armenian?
Thea Halo- I think it would be important and I would love to see `Not Even
My Name' translated into Armenian. A Turkish publisher also wanted to
publish it and an Icelandic publisher recently contacted me for the rights.
Aztag- You are one of the very few who are speaking out about the Genocides
of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians; with this comes great responsibility. A
Scholar or an author, who deals with the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide
for instance, might be under less pressure, because there are many others in
the field. How do you deal with this pressure?
Thea Halo- I do feel very responsible and when I'm asked to give a lecture,
I do feel I should go, but I also enjoy going out there. I usually bring my mother
with me. She loves doing this because it's something very important to her.
It's nice to see her with some of the older people who have lived through
this. They hug and kiss each other; because my mother's memory helped put
this history on the map. She became a very important person and a symbol,
and she feels this importance. There's an immediate connection between them
when they meet, even with the younger generations, that's just so wonderful
to see. One young Pontic Greek girl in one of our audiences in New York
stood up and said to my mother, "you are our history; our history alive." It
was very moving. So I do enjoy doing this, but I also feel a great
responsibility, and will continue to feel that way, until there is proper
recognition of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.
Aztag- What about your mother? She is very much involved in this as well,
isn't she?
Thea Halo- My mother is 94. I was amazed the first time we had a radio
interview on NPR. My mom was on the phone and I was in the studio in Boston.
During the interview she laughed and she cried. Then I found Lisa Mullins'
website on the internet for "The World." Mullins said her favorite
interviewees were Thea and Sano Halo. I was surprised, but I could
understand why. My mother was perfect. Her answers were very sweet and
natural. When I read the passage from the book about her mother giving her
away to save her, my mother began to cry. She had to take a moment to
collect herself. Then she said she never saw her mother again. Soon after
she told a funny story about how people would ask her husband if she was his
daughter, and then she laughed. She had a natural instinct not to allow the
interview to become morbid. When I asked her about it later she said, "a
little bit of laughter and a little bit of tears." I again realized how much
there was about her I didn't know. She always loved to sing, and when we go
on our events, she sings old Greek and Turkish songs for the audience that
she learned as a child. She even sings an old Armenian love song she learned
when living with Zohra and Hagop.
Aztag- During a lecture, speaking about your book you said, `The story is my
mother's but the sunsets are mine.' Can you elaborate on this?
Thea Halo- Well, of course she doesn't remember when the sun came up and
when the sun went down, when it was raining, etc. But I wanted to help
people be there, really experience the story. All the facts are hers; the
story of the village, what happened to the people, the couple who ran away
and married, that's all true. But the part where they stare into the puddle
of water as they stand before their parents, of course, that's part of the
things I added to help the reader enter the story. From what people tell me,
it does help them be there. They feel they were actually walking with my
mother on that harrowing death march to exile.
Aztag- Any plans for another book?
Thea Halo- I do think of many other books. The book that I would like to
write is a collection of interviews with people who have experienced
Genocide, because in that way we will see how similar the suffering really
is. Maybe in this way some of the tribalism will be put away. But it's
impossible to get rid of all the tribalism. Unfortunately, Genocide has
become big business. It's not simply a moral issue anymore, and this is what
I find the most objectionable. Some Armenians have told me that certain
survivors have passed away but they have already been interviewed, and
they'll turn over the tapes to me. Same goes for Assyrians and Pontic
Greeks. So I am hoping that for the ones I can't interview directly, I can
at least access the tapes of their interviews.
I guess my focus in life has always been both the beauty of the world and
the injustices. I think that those two things often go together. If you look
at the various cultures that once inhabited Turkey, for instance, they are
all unique and very beautiful. They created great works of art and
architecture and they developed communities that allowed them to survive and
prosper for thousands of years, at least in the periods when they weren't
being slaughtered and oppressed. And that's why I wrote the book the way I
did. I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost. Because only by seeing
the beauty of what was, can you more fully understand the tragedy and
injustice of what has been taken away.
An Interview with Thea Halo
By Khatchig Mouradian
Aztag Daily
`Memory is the only way home,' says the American author, Terry Tempest
Williams. And memory was Sano Halo's only guide, as she embarked, with her
daughter, Thea, on a journey to Turkey in search of Sano's home, 70 years
after her exile. It also seems that home is the only way to memory; it is
only there, in modern-day Turkey, that Thea `fully embraced' herself. `It
was the first time I felt connected to my heritage,' she says in this
interview. `I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my mother's land and
then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I felt connected to
these people, who were finally my people,' she adds.
A journey is incomplete, I believe, if it does not pave way for another
trek. After Thea Halo had visited her Pontic Greek mother's and Assyrian
father's lands, she embarked on another pilgrimage, that of the mind and the
soul, to discover and help preserve a history much forgotten and a genocide
barely remembered. The culmination of this pilgrimage was `Not Even My
Name,' a book that recounts, through Sano Halo's survival story, the
genocides of the Armenians, Pontic Greeks and Assyrians that took place in
Ottoman Turkey during and in the immediate aftermath of World War I.
However, "Not Even My Name" is also a book about the beautiful things in
life. `I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost, because it is only by
seeing the beauty of what was that you can you understand more fully the
tragedy and injustice of what has been taken away,' says Thea Halo.
`Praising what is lost makes the remembrance dear,' says Shakespeare.
I dedicate this interview to the memory of the hundreds of thousands of
Assyrians and Pontic Greeks that perished in Turkey almost a century ago,
just about the same time that a million and a half Armenians were marching
to their deaths.
Aztag- You often speak about "the exclusivity of suffering." In an interview
you say, `It's truly unfortunate that many late 20th Century activists, who
work so hard to make the Armenian genocide known to the world, fail to
include their fellow sufferers.' In your opinion, what is the reason for
this `failure'?
Thea Halo- I have many contacts with Armenians and great affection and love
for them. It was an Armenian family who rescued my mother when she found herself
destitute and alone in Diyarbekir, and they took her to safety as their
daughter. My aunt was also Armenian. So I feel a very great affinity for the
Armenian people. That's why I found it truly disturbing when I discovered
that the failure to mention the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians
by many Armenian historians and activists was not just an oversight, but an
actual agenda of exclusion and denial. The Genocide of the Greeks of Asia
Minor are referred to as "an exchange of population," even though these
historians know that by the time of the exchange in 1923, at least one
million Asia Minor and Pontic Greeks had already been slaughtered. The
Assyrians are never mention at all. Someone once explained this behavior by
telling me, "I'm sure you understand that these
Armenian historians feel so personally tied to this history because it was a
Genocide of their own families and people." And of course I do understand,
because it is the story of the Genocide of my family and my people, which
makes their exclusion even more painful when the exclusion comes from those
who should know better. It also makes it more reprehensible, and it should
stop. The inclusion of the Greeks and Assyrians does not diminish the horror
of what happened to the Armenians. Even my mother, who lost her own family
and people, always describes the slaughter of the Armenians as truly
horrific.
I've come to realize that there is a kind of tribalism in the world that is
the cause of almost all the world's misery. When one thinks of tribalism,
one thinks of underdeveloped or backward nations. But I use this word
"tribal" even for the United States. There is the greater tribe that makes
up the country, and then the sub tribes, which are the various ethnicities.
And there is another tribe, and that's the handful of elite who are ruling
the world, almost all of whom do so from behind the scenes, behind the
presidency. The differences of the peoples of the world: language, look,
customs, food, dress, dance, etc., has been something quite exquisite to me
throughout my life. But on the other side of that coin, we have this drive
by the more powerful tribes who think nothing of obliterating others for
their own greed or ideologies. Then we have Genocide. That's what happened
in Turkey in the first part of the 20th century during and after WWI. It's
what happened during WWII. It's what's happening today.
I do think what happened in Turkey was a Christian Genocide. But I don't
think one can simply use that term without differentiating who the
Christians were, because although the Assyrians, Greeks, and Armenians lived
in the same land for thousands of years, their languages, cultures and
histories were unique. It's important to acknowledge that there was an
Armenian, Assyrian, and a Greek Genocide, but overall it was a Genocide of
the Christian of Asia Minor. I even differentiate between the Asia Minor
Greeks: the Ionians, Pontians, and Cappadoccians, first because the Pontians
had their own empire, and second, because I think it's important that we
remember their distinctive historical names and regions in Asia Minor.
One of the reasons I think the Armenians do themselves a great disservice by
failing to mention the Genocides of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians is
because there was a small faction of Armenians in Turkey who were fighting
for an independent state for Armenians... obviously for very good reasons.
These so-called "trouble makers" gave the Turks and their supporters, then
and now, the excuse to blame the victims for their own Genocide, even though
the vast majority of Armenians were simply trying to live their lives. It's
only when one looks at the scope of the Genocides that the Young Turk regime
perpetrated, and Mustafa Kemal "Attaturk" continued, against the Armenians,
Greeks and Assyrians, that we see it was not because some Armenians were
causing troubles. Rather, it was a plan to rid Turkey of the Christian
population to fulfill the edict of "Turkey for the Turks."
Aztag- Why is it that few people have heard about the Genocide of Assyrians
and Pontic Greeks?
Thea Halo- In Greece there are a lot of Pontic Greeks and a number of books
about the Pontic Greek Genocide. They have been working for recognition for
at least 35 years, even here in America. Assyrians have also worked for many
years to get this issue on the table without much success. I blame this
failure mainly on two factors: One, there were no viable books that told the
story of what happened to the Greeks and Assyrians, until my book, Not Even
My Name was published. But perhaps equally or more important, those with the
strongest voices in our society, have traditionally had this tribal
mentality I speak of. They have wanted to portray their own people as being
exclusive in their suffering, and therefore, have failed to even make
mention of the Genocide of other ethnic peoples. Until quite recently,
Jewish historians and activists only focused on what happened to the Jews
during WWII. There was a doctrine that the Holocaust is the definitive
Genocide and therefore one need not look further to understand the phenomena
of Genocide. The study of the Holocaust became a mandatory part of the
curriculum in many, if not all, schools in the US. But the other ethnic,
religious, or social groups slaughtered by the Nazis were not mentioned, and
other Genocides were overshadowed or ignored, even the Armenian Genocide.
Now many Jewish Historians have recognized the Armenian Genocide and
Armenians have finally gained a voice. But in turn the
Armenian historians and activists fail to mention the Genocides of their
fellow sufferers: the Assyrians, the Pontic Greeks, and the other Asia Minor
Greeks, even while including other Genocides, such as those in Rwanda and
Cambodia, in so-called "comparative studies" programs.
Fortunately, not all Armenians believe that the exclusive approach is the
right one.
Aztag- In an interview, you say: `To remember does not mean stirring up
hatred within or without. Hatred destroys what was good and pure in the past
and the present. It simply means to embrace what is ours'. It is not easy to
overcome feelings of hatred, especially for the very victims of genocide and
their immediate descendants, is it?
Thea Halo- My mother lived through this Genocide; she lost everybody and
everything by the age of ten. She had lived side by side with the Turks.
Turkish villages surrounded the Greek villages. My mother said they bartered
together and had no problems. One can't say that no Turk ever attacked a
Greek, Armenian or Assyrian. Of course some did, for various reasons. But
overall, they lived together peacefully. I've heard countless stories from
Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks, of how Turks saved the lives of their
families. My mother says that you must put blame where blame belongs, on the
Turkish government. If you begin to single out the people of a country, and
forget that whatever they did was instigated or sanctioned by the
government, you will then never get rid of the hatred. This tribal mentality
takes over and goes on and on until we're all gone, because there are
hatreds that go back thousands of years between almost every tribe on earth.
We must learn to acknowledge the past without living in the past.
We don't understand how the past has affected us. Because I was born and
raised in New York City, I can say it hasn't affected me, but that's not
true. My parents went through this Genocide. They raised me, and we don't
know all the subtle ways that their lives and experiences have affected us.
We are the product of our parents. If we don't acknowledge their past, and
embrace it as part of ours, we never fully embrace ourselves. Only if we try
to understand where we come from, can we really understand who we are.
Aztag- And when did you yourself come to this understanding?
Thea Halo- It was first when I visited Turkey. It was the first time I felt
connected to my heritage. Here in America, nobody knew who the Pontic Greeks
are. And everybody told me that I couldn't be Assyrian, because the
Assyrians don't exist anymore. `How I can be something that doesn't exist?'
I used to think. Consequently, I didn't have a heritage until I stood on my
mother's land and then on my father's land. For the first time in my life I
felt connected to these people, who were finally my people. And after
writing my mother's part of the story, which included the Genocide of the
Pontic Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians, I began to research the general
history for the book, and I realized how important their story really is.
The thought that people who had lived in a land for 3 thousand years and
more, could just be wiped from the face of that land and all memory of them
seizes to exist, not only there, but from the face of the earth, was a
powerful testament. That certainly makes the Genocide complete, when no one
has even heard of your people. People ask me sometimes why I titled the book
"Not Even My Name." The reason was that my mother lost everything, family,
home, language, and country, even her name. But many Pontic Greeks and the
Assyrians tell me that for them the title also has a bigger meaning. It
means that even the names, Pontic Greek and Assyrian, was lost to the world.
It was an interesting revelation for me.
Aztag- Many Armenians attach great importance to the land they lost. For
them the genocide isn't `simply' the extermination of 1.5 million Armenians,
it is also the expulsion of an entire people from its land and the wiping
out of a culture. When you speak about your "father's land" and your
"mother's land", do you have similar feelings?
Thea Halo- Almost every ancient culture has this attachment to the land.
What else is there without a place to call home? When I stood on that land,
for the first time in my life I could actually feel my ancestors, my
grandparents. They became real to me for the first time. They were as much a
part of that land as the trees, the rocks, the grasses. Their blood and
sweat is mingled with the earth for thousands of years. How can one walk
away from that without feeling that a part of oneself is somehow left
behind, somehow missing, like an amputated leg or arm that continues sending
out sensations to the brain, even though it's gone? Just the other day my
mother said to me, "you know, when you are born in a country, there is a
part of you that always feels that that country is your true home."
Aztag- Do you think the recognition of these genocides should be a
prerequisite to Turkey's accession to the EU?
Thea Halo- I don't think that only the recognition of the Genocides is
important,
I think many factors are important for Turkey's inclusion into the EU. But
by recognizing the Genocides they would resolve some of the other important
issues as well. For instance, journalists, publishers, and teachers are
still being jailed for talking about the Genocides. If you recognize the
Genocides, then you don't have to keep jailing your teachers, publishers,
and journalists on this issue. As my father used to say, you kill 2 birds
with one stone. And there are other human rights issues that Turkey has to
deal with. I must tell you, when I went to Turkey I found a very beautiful
land visually, and I found the people to be exceptionally sweet and
hospitable. It's a shame that they can't speak freely and learn what
happened in their own country without fear.
The sad thing is that they lost so much, because the Greeks, Armenians, and
Assyrians had so much culture there. They brought so much vibrancy to the
country that was lost. They were wonderful artisans, intellectuals,
teachers, musicians. At the time, there were Europeans who were saying "What
in the world will Turkey do without the Christians?" After all, it was the
Christians who were the intellectuals and business people, who had the
education to help Turkey progress into the 20th century. When Turkey got rid
of the Christian populations, they set themselves back, way-way back. The
general Turkish population was not well educated at that time, because the
Turkish government didn't bother to educate them the way the Christian
missionaries educated the Christian populations. For the most part, the
government wouldn't allow Muslims to attend the Christian schools, for fear
of conversion, so most Turks of the time remained peasants and farmers.
Consequently, the Turks did themselves a great disservice, because the
removal of the Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians left a great vacuum in
Turkey.
Aztag- What was the impact of your book? To what extent did it help raise
greater awareness about the genocides of the Pontic Greeks, the Assyrians,
and the Armenians?
Thea halo- One of the first emails I got when the book was published was
from a young Pontic Greek girl living in Holland. She said, the Pontic
Greeks lived in Asia Minor for 3 thousand years and I go to school and no
one in Holland knows we ever existed. It really touched my heart. I knew
what she was talking about because no one knew that we exist in New York.
So, of course, it makes a difference. They could then start to teach this
history in schools. My book was picked up by UCLA and they began to teach
high school teachers how to teach Not Even My Name to their students.
Aztag- "Not Even My Name" is already translated to Greek and Dutch. Are
there any plans to translate it to other languages, including Armenian?
Thea Halo- I think it would be important and I would love to see `Not Even
My Name' translated into Armenian. A Turkish publisher also wanted to
publish it and an Icelandic publisher recently contacted me for the rights.
Aztag- You are one of the very few who are speaking out about the Genocides
of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians; with this comes great responsibility. A
Scholar or an author, who deals with the Holocaust or the Armenian genocide
for instance, might be under less pressure, because there are many others in
the field. How do you deal with this pressure?
Thea Halo- I do feel very responsible and when I'm asked to give a lecture,
I do feel I should go, but I also enjoy going out there. I usually bring my mother
with me. She loves doing this because it's something very important to her.
It's nice to see her with some of the older people who have lived through
this. They hug and kiss each other; because my mother's memory helped put
this history on the map. She became a very important person and a symbol,
and she feels this importance. There's an immediate connection between them
when they meet, even with the younger generations, that's just so wonderful
to see. One young Pontic Greek girl in one of our audiences in New York
stood up and said to my mother, "you are our history; our history alive." It
was very moving. So I do enjoy doing this, but I also feel a great
responsibility, and will continue to feel that way, until there is proper
recognition of the Genocide of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians.
Aztag- What about your mother? She is very much involved in this as well,
isn't she?
Thea Halo- My mother is 94. I was amazed the first time we had a radio
interview on NPR. My mom was on the phone and I was in the studio in Boston.
During the interview she laughed and she cried. Then I found Lisa Mullins'
website on the internet for "The World." Mullins said her favorite
interviewees were Thea and Sano Halo. I was surprised, but I could
understand why. My mother was perfect. Her answers were very sweet and
natural. When I read the passage from the book about her mother giving her
away to save her, my mother began to cry. She had to take a moment to
collect herself. Then she said she never saw her mother again. Soon after
she told a funny story about how people would ask her husband if she was his
daughter, and then she laughed. She had a natural instinct not to allow the
interview to become morbid. When I asked her about it later she said, "a
little bit of laughter and a little bit of tears." I again realized how much
there was about her I didn't know. She always loved to sing, and when we go
on our events, she sings old Greek and Turkish songs for the audience that
she learned as a child. She even sings an old Armenian love song she learned
when living with Zohra and Hagop.
Aztag- During a lecture, speaking about your book you said, `The story is my
mother's but the sunsets are mine.' Can you elaborate on this?
Thea Halo- Well, of course she doesn't remember when the sun came up and
when the sun went down, when it was raining, etc. But I wanted to help
people be there, really experience the story. All the facts are hers; the
story of the village, what happened to the people, the couple who ran away
and married, that's all true. But the part where they stare into the puddle
of water as they stand before their parents, of course, that's part of the
things I added to help the reader enter the story. From what people tell me,
it does help them be there. They feel they were actually walking with my
mother on that harrowing death march to exile.
Aztag- Any plans for another book?
Thea Halo- I do think of many other books. The book that I would like to
write is a collection of interviews with people who have experienced
Genocide, because in that way we will see how similar the suffering really
is. Maybe in this way some of the tribalism will be put away. But it's
impossible to get rid of all the tribalism. Unfortunately, Genocide has
become big business. It's not simply a moral issue anymore, and this is what
I find the most objectionable. Some Armenians have told me that certain
survivors have passed away but they have already been interviewed, and
they'll turn over the tapes to me. Same goes for Assyrians and Pontic
Greeks. So I am hoping that for the ones I can't interview directly, I can
at least access the tapes of their interviews.
I guess my focus in life has always been both the beauty of the world and
the injustices. I think that those two things often go together. If you look
at the various cultures that once inhabited Turkey, for instance, they are
all unique and very beautiful. They created great works of art and
architecture and they developed communities that allowed them to survive and
prosper for thousands of years, at least in the periods when they weren't
being slaughtered and oppressed. And that's why I wrote the book the way I
did. I wanted to show the beauty of the Pontic Greek culture, at least in
these three villages, and what they actually lost. Because only by seeing
the beauty of what was, can you more fully understand the tragedy and
injustice of what has been taken away.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)