ICC Note:
“The Turkish National Education Ministry in Ankara has recently published the 3rd edition of a history textbook used in 10th grade high school classes. The textbook presents distorted historical information about Assyrians (Süryanis in Turkish) and denounces them as traitors who rebelled against Turkey,” Assyrian International News Agency reports.
By Abdulmesih BarAbrahem
10/2/2011 Turkey (AINA) – The Turkish National Education Ministry in Ankara has recently published the 3rd edition of a history textbook used in 10th grade high school classes. The textbook presents distorted historical information about Assyrians (Süryanis in Turkish) and denounces them as traitors who rebelled against Turkey. In its concerted efforts to deny the genocide orchestrated by the Ottoman Government during World War I against the Christian population — Assyrians, Armenians and Pontic Greeks — today’s Turkish Government is not hesitant to distort historical events by inverting victim and perpetrator in order to create what in German is called a Dolchstoßlegende (stab in the back legend). About half of the Assyrian population, were killed or died from starvation or disease in a series of killings orchestrated by the Ottoman Turkish government during World War I.1
An article in the Turkish Newspaper Today’s Zaman titled “Discriminative Discourse in History Textbooks Upsets Assyrians” points to the problematic part of the book, which is the Ottoman period. According to the article
It frames World War I as a breaking point in which Assyrians betrayed and stabbed the country in the back by cooperating with the great powers like Russia. Moreover, it also focuses on recent sociological aspects of the community’s relations with the state. The migration of Assyrians to Europe increased for economic reasons. But this fact is presented in the text from a negative standpoint in which Assyrians are instrumental elements for European political goals, manipulating them for Western interests in their relation with Turkey.
The article quotes an Assyrian writer, who criticizes various aspects of the book, saying “the history of Assyrian people must be rewritten with the assistance of Assyrian scholars and by taking their opinions into account.”
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