Governor Siegelman,
Let us a assume for a moment that you are my grand father.
Your name is George Garyfalakis, you have a wife, a house, and 5
children all the way from 2 to 13 years of age - two boys and three girls.
You live in Smyrna and the time is September 1922.
All the years of your life you have done nothing wrong to the
Turks and in reality you work with them, you drink with them
you eat with them and you enjoy life together since you were born.
One night, some Turkish soldiers knock your door and they want
to take you away to kill you. The wife throws herself between
the soldiers and you. Your children start screaming
"Please don't kill our father". The soldiers maybe are good people
but they follow the orders of the State of Turkey. The order is
"kill at least 5 Christians." Why? Because they are Christians.
The soldiers do their duty. They knock the wife away, they throw
the kids to the floor and they take you away to kill you
together with another 3/4 millions Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians.
No, the Genocide was not done over a night but over a lot of years
In reality, they do not kill you. They do not want to waste bullets.
They walk you for days, weeks, months with no foot, no water until
you body cannot take it any more and you drop dead. I wish I was
there to see how you felt. Read Not Even My Name by Thea Halo
and you will get an idea.
Your wife, takes the children and in panic goes to the docks of Smyrna
where she finds herself among 300.000 other Christians and between
the burning Smyrna and the Aegean Sea.
People are screaming, Turks are raping young girls, man are taken
away for the "death marches", women are throwing themselves into the sea
and
disappear under the water and the glorious navy ships of US, England,
France, Japan, Italy play music to kill the desperate noise of 300.000 women
and children. Total CHAOS. At the end an American by the name Asa Jennings
comes with 25 Greek Navy ships and take your family to Greece.
You Mr. Siegelman, my grandfather, are lost forever and no one
hears what happened to you.
The years are passing. Your wife see her children having their own
children and before she pass away she even see grand children who immigrate
to United States and become American Citizens.
Now here comes the question Mr. Governor. How this wife, the children,
the grand children, you whole family feels about the Turks who killed their
husband, father, grandfather?
Hate of course is your answer.
You are wrong Mr. Governor. I grew up among these refugees.
I have never hear any Greek, Armenian, Assyrian hating the Turks.
In the reverse. They are Christians and they want to forgive them
for what they did to 3/4 millions of Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians.
This is what Christ have teach them. They want to get over the
Turkish Genocide and forget about it. But how can they forgive
when there is not acceptance of the Genocide by the Turks?
How can they forgive when people like you, the Governor of Alabama,
comes and places the killers in the same level with the victims?
Mr. Governor, here comes the second question.
After all what happened to you and to your family a Governor
from ALABAMA comes forward and places the victims in the same
level with their butchers? How you will feel when the same Governor tries
to re-write your history which was written with your own blood and the
blood of another 3/4 millions of Christians?
I am sure the word is going to be DISGUSTED.
Mr. Siegelman, let us come back to the real word.
You are not my grandfather and you were not killed
by the Turks.
You are the Governor of the State of ALABAMA
and you have done an injustice to humanity,
history, the Greeks, the Armenians and the Assyrians.
There is only one way out of this "fiasco".
Please RETRACT your proclamation. Have a look
at www.greece.org/themis. You will see another [2,500]
people asking you to take the same action. In case you
don't, thousands of people from all over the word will
demand from you to act as a man. Please don't embarrass
the state of ALABAMA.
For the sake of Justice, I hope you will do it.
Capt. Evangelos Rigos
Tudor City - NY