Special to The National Herald
NEW YORK - Sano Halo, the heroine of the memoir “Not Even My Name,” which has helped bring awareness about the Christian Genocide committed by Turkey in the early 20th century to readers all throughout the United States and abroad, was sworn-in as a Greek citizen on Thursday afternoon June 11, 2009, in a touching ceremony at the Greek Consulate in New York. For Mrs. Halo and her daughter Thea – the author of “Not Even My Name” – it was the culmination of a long process which began when they first began to discover their ethnic heritage.
“It makes me feel great,” Thea Halo said in an exclusive interview with The National Herald shortly after officially obtaining her Greek nationality. “I spent most of my life not knowing I was Greek.”
Meanwhile, for centenarian Sano Halo, the event was especially touching. “From now on I will not be listed as having Turkish origin. I will be listed as a Greek,” she said with tears of joy.
The naturalization of these two champions of Pontian Hellenism was a victory for Pontians everywhere, as this issue had been open for the past decade and was finally tabled at a meeting between the Pan-Pontian Federation of USA and Canada and Greek Fore ign Minister Dora Bakoyannis during the latter’s visit to New York last September.
According to Pan-Pontian Federation Alternate President George Tsilfidis “the granting of Greek nationality to two women who are not only Greeks, but who have promoted the values and suffering of Greek Pontians to the entire world is a special occasion. That is why we insisted on this issue. Through the direct intervention of Mrs. Bakoyiannis and other Government officials and agencies, our request was successfully met.”
The event was not without some drama, as the official ceremony was delayed by a week after Sano Halo suffered a mild stroke on June 4th, just one day before the originally scheduled date of the ceremony. Greek Consul General in New York Aghi Balta and consulate employee Stavros Pappas decided to administer the citizenship oath to Mrs. Halo at the hospital where she was recovering, but the latter assured them that she would also come to the Consulate for the official ceremony.
Surely enough, the following Thursday, Mrs. Halo walked up the stairs of the Consulate along with four of her ten children and many members of the Greek Community to take her oath. “I want to thank everyone for their love. I worked hard in my life to raise my ten children, and I have love for everyone,” she said.
“I really have to commend Consul General Balta and Mr. Pappas, for being so kind as to make the long drive to the hospital. It was a wonderful20thing,” Thea Halo said.
Back in 2000, Ms. Halo published her book “Not Even My Name,” which drew international attention to the slaughter of almost 3 million Christian Greeks, Assyrians, and Armenians, through the personal account of her mother Sano’s survival of the forced death march that annihilated her family and countless others. Since then, Thea Halo has dedicated herself to bringing attention to the atrocities committed upon the indigenous Christian peoples of Asia Minor.
For Thea Halo, one of the most important developments in the quest for international recognition of the Christian genocide in Turkey was the resolution passed by the International Association of Genocide Scholars – one of the world's leading scholarly organizations on genocide. “I first began handing in papers on the Pontian genocide to the IAGS in 2003. I noticed that one of the real problems that existed is that Greeks were never represented among the Christian minorities massacred in post-World War I Turkey. It came to be known as a strictly Armenian genocide, and so I decided to start going to the biennial conferences and making waves,” Ms. Halo recalled.
In 2005, Thea Halo was invited to give a lecture to other scholars at Yale University on a paper she had written about the exclusivity of suffering, in which she outlined the natural tendency of ethnic groups to claim exclusivity in regards to calamities that befall the populace of a certain region. “After my speec h, IAGS member Adam Jones asked me if I wanted to put together a resolution and we fought for the issue together. On December 16, 2007 the resolution we drafted passed overwhelmingly and IAGS officially recognized the genocides against Pontian and Anatolian Greeks, as well as Assyrians to be comparable to the Armenian Genocide,” Ms. Halo commented. (Visit TNH’s website to see the full text of the IAGS Resolution).
Noting the significance of a resolution from a worldwide organization like IAGS, Ms. Halo said that “The IAGS passed a resolution some years ago for Armenians and it really helped them.” She also stressed the importance of telling the world that the atrocities that occurred in post-WWI Turkey constitute “a Christian genocide, not just an Armenian genocide.”
According to Ms. Halo, this official resolution adopted by prominent scholars from all over the world “is a really, really big deal. The IAGS resolution is a global resolution, not just statewide.” She also pointed out that it can be the stepping stone with which to bring about resolutions by national legislatures, as well as influence school curriculums and academic literature.
Ms. Halo is a strong proponent of presenting the event within the historical context of a Christian genocide, although she stresses that she does not adhere to anti-Muslim or anti-Turkish rhetoric. “I'm proud of my mother for not raising us to simply hate the Turks. Even at=2 010 years old, she knew it was the Ottoman and Kemalist governments who ordered the death marches and massacres. She placed the blame where the blame belonged. Genocide is almost always, if not always motivated by territorial, resource, and business interests. Getting rid of the Christians made many in the empire wealthy from the confiscated properties and businesses, and opened the door to German economic designs within Asia Minor (Anatolia).”
As such, she does not believe it expedient to make genocide an ethnic issue. When asked if she was encouraged by the progress the Armenian American Community was making in the recognition of the Armenian Genocide in Congress, she answered “absolutely not.”
“Their big mistake is that they turned it into an ethnic issue. Turkey holds a strategic position geopolitically, and many politicians consider Turkey more important than Armenia. The Armenians did themselves a disservice by trying to go up against Turkey alone.”
Ms. Halo believes that it would be easier to gather support in the US Congress to pass a resolution recognizing the genocide in Turkey if the issue was presented with more historical accuracy as a genocide against the Christians of Ottoman Turkey: Greeks, Armenians and Assyrians, as opposed to an ethnic struggle of Armenians against Turkey.
She also feels that there has to be more cooperation between the different communities affected by this genocide. “Greeks have played a key part in supporting Armenian posi tions over the years. Now the time has come for the Armenian Community to reciprocate the help that the Greeks gave them by joining forces with us on this issue.”
In regards to efforts to promote awareness of the Christian genocide in Turkey, Ms. Halo suggested that the Greek American Community invest more money in cultural projects. “There used to be a lot of e-mails going around about how the Greek Community contributed ‘x’ amount of money to political parties. But if you took this money and invested it in producing books and documentaries, offering scholarships, or funding cultural events you would get better results. It is important to reinvest money in the Community. There is a lot of validity behind the old saying ‘the pen is mightier than the sword’. The written word outlasts violence, and it just goes to show you what a powerful force culture is.”
These days, Thea Halo is working on several projects including the script for her book “Not Even My Name,” which she would like to produce as a film. She is also working on a book and documentary with which she hopes to provide a synopsis on the history of the Christian peoples of Asia Minor and their plight during the genocide committed against them in the 20th century.
“Not Even My Name” is now being taught in many high schools and universities around the country – including UCLA’s Teachers as Scholars Program – for a variety of sub jects including, genocide studies, "the end of childhood," social studies, European and Asia Minor history, immigration studies, tolerance studies, etc. To date, it has been translated into Greek, Dutch, and Icelandic.
Thea Halo has also created the Sano Themia Halo Pontian Heritage Foundation, which has a branch in the United States and one in Greece now. More details are available about this project on the Web at haloheritagefoundation.org. The foundation’s Greek branch is located a mere 30 minutes from the northern Greek metropolis of Thessaloniki. “Hopefully the land will be donated for the construction of a Pontian Village Museum and Research Center soon,” Ms. Halo said.
Thea Halo appealed to those who want to see the genocide recognized by saying “if everyone contributed just a little time and/or money instead of leaving it all to the Pontian organizations, etc., you would be amazed by what could be accomplished.”
She urged individuals to become more active in the effort and use the resolutions being passed to create change. “When you have resolutions, people have to get after school boards to include them in the curriculum. There are so many books out there, and there is a need to lobby decision-makers to incorporate them.”
This will also urge scholars to write more books and papers, aiding the information campaign, Ms. Halo said. She noted that the International Network of Genocide Scholars – a European institution – re cently devoted an entire journal to the genocide of the Christian peoples of Anatolia.
Ms. Halo also wished to thank the Pontian organizations for helping her and her mother Sano Halo in their quest to attain Greek citizenship. “Without their help, this probably would not have happened,” she said. Ms. Halo credited the Pan-Pontian Federation of USA and Canada and its President Michael Mouratidis, Alternate President George Tsilfidis, Secretary General Dimitris Molohidis, Haralambos Vasiliadis of the Panagia Soumela Institution in New Jersey, and Elias Tsekerides, President of the International Confederation of Pontian Hellenes. Ms. Halo also expressed her appreciation to Pontians from Greece who offered their assistance to her in this effort, including Kostas Gavrides and Anatoli Mentesidou of the Euxinus Leshi of Thessaloniki, Apostolos Apostolides of Di.Si.P.E., Mr Pacharides of P.O.E. and others.
