I am bemused by the absurdity of the recent comments made by the Greek Minister of Education, Mr Filis, on Greek national television. Mr Filis has denied that a Pontian Genocide took place. He has stated that what took place was “εθνοκάθαρσης” (ethnic cleansing) and not “γενοκτονία” (genocide). How he chooses to define ethnic cleansing remains a mystery.
Ethnic cleansing is primarily defined as the forced removal of ethnic or related groups from particular areas. However ethnic cleansing does often result in genocide when such forced removal of population leads or contributes to a group’s destruction. Indeed this is what happened to Pontian and other Greeks of Minor Asia.
Most astoundingly, Mr Filis chooses to define genocide as being: “η προγραματισμένη με βιομηχανικό τρόπο εξώντοση ενός ολόκληρου έθνους” (a programmed eradication of a whole nation through industrial means).
Article 2 of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide (1948) provides the legal definition of genocide. Namely it defines genocide as:
“Any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group, as such: killing members of the group; causing serious bodily or mental harm to members of the group; deliberately inflicting on the group conditions of life calculated to bring about its physical destruction in whole or in part1; imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; [and] forcibly transferring children of the group to another group.”
As one may easily deduce, Article 2 makes no reference to “programmed eradication” of a “whole nation” and there is absolutely no reference to “industrial means of eradication”.
Yes, just in case you forgot, Mr Filis is currently the Greek Minister of Education…
* Vasilis Giavris is a lawyer and political scientist based in Melbourne.