[John H K]

The fact that such as large Christian community existed and even thrived, to a degree, for hundreds and hundreds of years under an Islamic state, the Ottoman Empire, calls many FReepers assumptions about Islam into question.

The killings and expulsions really didn't kick into high gear until the modern, secular, Turkish state was created after WWI. And it's really more ethnic than religious...more anti-Greek than anti-Christian.

Another thing to keep in mind is that the Greeks tried to take advantage of the collapse of the Ottoman Empire at the end of WWI by invading and trying to take over the entire Western half of Asiatic Turkey..not just the part in Europe. There were horrible mass atrocities committed by BOTH sides in that war. Ataturk finally rebuilt the Turkish military and drove the Greeks out.

Donning flame-retardant suit against the FR pro-Greek contingent now :-) I don't particularly have a bias, just pointing out some salient facts. I'm neither Turkish nor a Muslim. :-)

[weikel]

You are correct on all points except for one. The common freeper assumption that Islam is evil is true. The Turks just don't practice it.

[Pericles]

Yea, 1955 was so near WW1 and this article is contemporaneous.

[Pericles]

Greeks? Hardly.

Assyrians in Turkey: Disappearance of a Culture?

[Map Kernow]

And it's really more ethnic than religious...more anti-Greek than anti-Christian.

"Anti-Greek"? Hmm...yes...They probably thought the Armenians and Surianis (ancient community of Christians speaking Turoyo, a descendent of Aramaic, the language of Jesus, based in Urfa, Turkey, formerly Edessa) they massacred in the past century were Greeks, too.

For everybody else, I heartily recommend William Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East." It'll make you realize that being a Christian in the Muslim Middle East is a tough gig.

[LN2Campy]

There's definitely two sides to the Greek/Turk pancake. I have a lot of admiration for both Greeks and Turks. As to your comment about the Greeks attempting to take over Western Asia Minor, this is true, but I think the Greeks would look at that effort simply as the culmination of their liberation from Ottoman rule, a process that began in the 1820's. All of the major cities on the Western fringe of Asia Minor were originally Greek settlements (Smyrna, Ephesus, Myra, etc.) and still had significant Greek populations at the time. The Turks, faced with the dismemberment of the Ottoman empire, and the loss of most of the land under their control, fought to keep some remnant of territorial integrity, and thus drew the line at keeping Asia Minor exclusively Turkish.

The more I read the more I'm convinced that WWI, and particularly the antics of Clemenceau, Wilson et al. thereafter, really caused all the problems we face today.

[Map Kernow]

And it's really more ethnic than religious...more anti-Greek than anti-Christian.

"Anti-Greek"? Hmm...yes...They probably thought the Armenians and Surianis (ancient community of Christians speaking Turoyo, a descendent of Aramaic, the language of Jesus, based in Urfa, Turkey, formerly Edessa) they massacred in the past century were Greeks, too.

For everybody else, I heartily recommend William Dalrymple's "From the Holy Mountain: A Journey Among the Christians of the Middle East." It'll make you realize that being a Christian in the Muslim Middle East is a tough gig.