MY ETHNIC QUEST

$ 18.00

By Agop J. Hacikyan

My Ethnic Quest delves into conflicts that stem from issues of national identity, religious intolerance and social prejudice against Turkey' s minorities. The book presents a mosaic of ethnicities: of Jews, Greeks, Armenians, Syriacs, Kurds, Yezidis and others. However, it also describes the silence imposed by the state to reduce the centuries-old mosaic into a drab mural. Much of this reflection has been sustained with unique personal narratives reflecting on a range of issues from everyday pressures on minorities to assimilate to such extraordinary episodes as discriminatory conscription into labour battalions (1941), confiscatory taxation with the imposition of the Capital Levy Tax (1942-43), anti-Jewish measures in Thrace (June-July 1934) and organized pogroms against Greek communities (September, 1955). It is against such a background that the author had to leave his native land for good.

Gomidas Institute London (2012)