What Does The Word Genocide Mean To You?

What does the word Genocide mean to you?

For me... the word Sayfo comes to mind.

Sayfo is the word we use for the Assyrian genocide.

In 1915, my grandfather fled his village of Charbash near Urmia in Iran when he was just 11 years old.

The Ottoman Empire took the land from the Assyrians. The indigenous people native to Mesopotamia (where modern Iran, Iraq, and Turkey exist now).

Over 250,000 Assyrians were wiped out by the occupying Ottoman Empire.

Half of the entire population of the remaining indigenous people.

The rest fled for their lives.

My grandfather and grandmother, being two that, thankfully, made it to New York.

Now, Assyrians have no homeland. No country.

An entire ethnic group that  has been around for around 3,000 years almost completely wiped out of existence by an empire that no longer exists.

It's just so senseless. 

This painting I did of a woman in a Hijab. I have posters of them on my site. 

ssavaart.com

All of the proceeds from the sale of this poster is going to Doctors Without Borders.

I'll sign and ship each and every one of them. 

I know it's not much. It won't stop a genocide. 

But maybe... just maybe... 100 years from now someone's grandchild will be alive and they can tell the story of THEIR people... and what happened to them.

Sending Big Hugs from the Hobbit Hole. ♥♥♥

Scott