Ihe French Senate adopted on February 8 by an overwhelming majority of the votes cast the resolution presented by Valerie Boyer and Bruno Retailleau, relating to the recognition of the genocide of the Assyrian-Chaldeans, committed by the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1918. This is obviously an important and historic event. For the first time in France the question of the genocide of the Assyro-Chaldeans is submitted to a public examination, followed by a vote.
The dramatic news of Eastern Christians in Iraq, Syria and Artsakh has undoubtedly contributed. In this context, the situation of the Assyro-Chaldeans, a community that suffered from persecutions, wanderings and dispersion, means that history has been traced.
In doing so, a parallel was drawn between the persecutions by the Islamic State organization and the genocidal and ethnocidal tragedy of the Assyrian-Chaldeans by the Ottoman Empire in 1915-1918. This explains why this tragedy gradually entered people’s minds, and politicians then seized on it to include it in the public debate.
Great tragedy called “Seyfo”
It should be remembered that proposals had been submitted to the National Assembly over the past ten years, even if they were unable to pass the various stages. For years, Francois Pupponiformer deputy of Val-d’Oise and former mayor of Sarcelles is fighting for the recognition of the Assyro-Chaldean genocide, in the name of the truth and the memory of the victims.
What happened ? The beginning of the XXe century is at the origin of their drama and will remain in their collective memory, that of the great tragedy, called Seyfo, i.e. “the sword”. The extent of the devastation and the field of injury are enormous. The tragedy of 1915-1918 profoundly upset their lives and disrupted their society. Social and religious hierarchies have been ruined and completely disintegrated. This was the starting point of their dispersion in the world.
Recall that between 1915 and 1925, the Assyro-Chaldeans were a widely debated international issue, even if the memory of their tragedy somehow faded between 1925 and 1970, to reappear from 1980.
These massacres took place over a very wide perimeter, in Eastern Anatolia, in Hakkari, in Mardin, Diarbekir, Kharpout, in Tur Abdin, in the north of Iran, precisely in Azerbaijan, on the Turkish-Persian front, in the same conditions and almost on the same places as the Armenians and with a similar intention, which aimed, according to fixed objectives, to homogenize the Empire and “Turkify” the country.
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