The acts of genocide against humans commited by the turkish authorities, are always followed by an extended effort to alter the cultural identity of monuments and historical events, after they are ethnically cleansed. This alteration is intended to remove the slightest trace of existence of non-turkish cultures on what is today's Turkey. This Cultural Genocide is directed not only against Greeks, but against all humanity, which has been over the centuries the benefactor of the achievements of the Greek civilization, from prehistorical, ancient, hellenistic, roman, byzantine and up to the modern times.
Typical examples of such efforts are:
- Presentation of archaeological and other monuments as turkish. This effort is carefully directed by the highest of the turkish authorities, through a strict education of archaeologists and tourist guides never to mention the predominantly Greek origin of thousands of ancient monuments spread around Turkey. In Ephesos, Pergamos, Troy, Halicarnassos (Bodrum), Makri (Fetihye), Constantinople (Istanbul), Nikaia (Izmit), all around Turkey the word "Greek" is simply prohibited when referring to the origins of the monuments. Usually, the ancient monuments are spared from destruction and are decently maintained, because it is the belief of the turkish state that the distortion of history is indeed possible to such a gigantic extent, and convincing the world about the existence of an imaginary "ancient turkish" (!) people is achievable.
- Abandoning of cultural treasures whose identities cannot be concealed, to the destructive effects of wearing. This is the case with religious monuments, like churches, pilgrimages, monasteries, etc., that are left mercilessly to rumble to ruins, in order to vanish all existence of the previous presence of the non-turkic civilizations of Anatolia, Pontos and Thrace. More recently and namely after 1974, this is the case with churches in the occupied areas of Cyprus, where churches are demolished to build houses, they are converted to warehouses. In Cyprus, the exploitation of religious monuments has reached an unprecedented low: Works of art are exported and sold illegally to western collectors and museums. Church paintings are sraped off, icons are smuggled out and sculptures are exported to the constantly admirant of Greek religious art western art market.
All these acts of Cultural Genocide are equally apalling to the physical destruction of human life commited by the turkish state. The loss of cultural treasures and the distortion of historical facts conveyed to the visitors of modern Turkey consist special kinds of crimes against humanity that has to be dealt in astrict and absolute manner. Turkey must be demanded to protect what does not belong to her, which is the legacy of the civilizations, and especially the Greek, that flourished for thousands of years on what is now Turkey, before they were brutally exterminated.
