Home «Islam is Christianity adapted to Arab mentality, or, more exactly, it is...
Previous article «The Revolution of 1821 is no more than the last great phase of the resistance of the Greeks to Ottoman domination; it was a relentless, undeclared war, which had begun already in the first years of servitude. The brutality of an autocratic regime, which was characterized by economic spoliation, intellectual decay and cultural retrogression, was sure to provoke opposition. Restrictions of all kinds, unlawful taxation, forced labor, persecutions, violence, imprisonment, death, abductions of girls and boys and their confinement to Turkish harems, and various deeds of wantonness and lust, along with numerous less offensive excesses – all these were a constant challenge to the instinct of survival and they defied every sense of human decency. The Greeks bitterly resented all insults and humiliations, and their anguish and frustration pushed them into the arms of rebellion. There was no exaggeration in the statement made by one of the beys if Arta, when he sought to explain the ferocity of the struggle. He said: ‘We have wronged the rayas [dhimmis] (i.e. our Christian subjects) and destroyed both their wealth and honor; they became desperate and took up arms. This is just the beginning and will finally lead to the destruction of our empire.’ The sufferings of the Greeks under Ottoman rule were therefore the basic cause of the insurrection; a psychological incentive was provided by the very nature of the circumstances.»
Next article «The process itself is described in its essential details by the Georgian chronicle for northeast Asia Minor and the adjoining Georgian regions. The process which it describes was not unique to the northeast, for we see it in the west and the south of Asia Minor as well.. ‘The emirs spread out, like locusts, over the face of the land…The countries of Asis-Phorni, Clardjeth, up to the shores of the sea, Chawcheth, Adchara, Samtzkhe, Karthli, Argoueth, Samokalako, and Dchqondid were filled with Turks who pillaged and enslaved all the inhabitants. In a single day they burned Kouthathis, Artanoudj, and hermitages of Clardjeth, and they remained in these lands until the first snows, devouring the land, massacring all those who had fled to the forests to the rocks, to the caves…The calamities of Christianity did not come to an end soon thereafter, for at the approach of spring, the Turks returned to carry out the same ravages and left [again] in the winter. The [inhabitants] however were unable to plant or to harvest. The land, [thus] delivered to slavery, had only animals of the forests and wild beasts for inhabitants. Karthli was in the grip of intolerable calamities such as one cannot compare to a single devastation or combination of evils of past times. The holy churches served as stables for their horses, the sanctuaries of the Lord served as repairs for the abominations [Islam]. Some of the priests were immolated during the Holy communion itself, and others were carried off into harsh slavery without regard to their old age. The virgins were defiled, the youths circumcised, and the infants taken away. The conflagration, extending its ravages, consumed all the inhabited sites, the rivers, instead of water, flowed blood. I shall apply the sad words of Jeremiah, which he applied so well to such situations: “the honorable children of Zion, never put to the rest by misfortunes, now voyaged as slaves on foreign roads. The streets of Zion now wept because there was no one [left] to celebrate the feasts. The tender mothers, in place of preparing with their hands the nourishment of the sons, were themselves nourished from the corpses of these dearly loved. Such and worse was the situation at the time.’… By the time [of the late 11th and early 12th centuries, i.e. (1083-1125)]…the nomads had effected permanent settlement in these regions, moving into the abandoned and devastated areas with their tents, families, and flocks of livestock.»
