When saying a word can be a matter of life-and-death
by Szandra Karacsony
Troubled, belligerent areas somewhere in Iraq or Syria, where Kurdish and Iraqi forces fight against the barbaric Islamic State (IS). At a checkpoint, IS militants stopped civilians and forced them to quote verses from the Quran in exchange for passage. If they fail, they will not be ‘righteous’ Muslims. One of the passengers started to cite a paragraph. The unknown armed men let them go. One of the civilians asked the eloquently-speaking other one how was he brave enough to quote sentences from the Bible. The other said; if the gunman knew the Quran, he would not kill people in the name of Islam.
This story appeared on my Facebook news feed a couple of weeks ago and I do not know whether it is true or not. In the past year, we watched gory videos about what happens when someone believes in a different religion or when those are not affiliated to the so-called fighters of the Islamic State. We also remembered pictures of beheaded journalists, mobbed Yazidi villages and, lately, cruel child soldiers.
While I read the story above, I recalled two other horrible episodes in history which are also connected with religion and language. They are not linked with each other but I think it is not pointless to express from time to time that history can easily repeat itself.
In 1937, up to 20,000 Haitians died because the Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo exploited the hidden hostility between the two countries and made a hateful speech. During five days, Dominican soldiers and civilians mobbed and brutally killed Haitians with guns, bayonets and machetes.
The Dominican Republic and Haiti are neighbours on Hispaniola island. The East side of the island was colonized by the Spanish Empire while the smaller West side was part of the French territory. Living under different hegemony drastically changed the development of the two regions on the island. The Dominican area was, and currently is, the bigger and richer; poor Haitians have been coming here and looking for jobs. Furthermore, the distinction between populations is noticeable, as well. Dominicans’ ancestors were white-skinned Spanish conquerors and mixed-race mulattoes. Haitians, by contrast, have black African heritage.
Historians still are not certain of the reason of the massacre. On that day of October, Trujillo blamed Haitians living near the border for theft of cattle and fruits from Dominicans. He promised to ‘fix’ the plight and bring peace to the border. Besides, he told the masses that 300 Haitians have already died and reassured them that ’this remedy will continue’. Afterwards the dreadful slaughter started against the darker-skinned Haitians.
But not every case was obvious; darker-skinned Dominicans could find themselves in danger of being killed. Impeccable proof had to be found that the future victim is a Haitian. Here comes the name of the bloodshed. It is called the Parsley Massacre. Parsley in Spanish — perejil — is extremely hard to pronounce correctly for Haitians whose language is French-based creole. It is said that Dominican soldiers carried a piece of parsley with them and killed those who could not say the Spanish name of the herb.
As I mentioned, the actual motivations of Trujillo are not clear. It may be economic or simply racist. Haitians mostly worked on sugar plantations in the Dominican Republic but the global economic depression significantly affected sugar exports, and the whole Dominican economy itself. It was easy to find a scapegoat for recession.
Haitians practicing Vodou in the view of some scholars could be also a reason for the killings, in consideration of Dominicans’ different religious beliefs. For many profoundly Christian Dominicans, mysterious Vodou was equal to the devil. There was, and continuously is, living an aversion against the different looking, different speaking and different religion-believing Haitians in the Dominican Republic.
Despite the name of the bloodbath, there is no evidence that parsley was involved in any killings. Lauren Derby, a historian at UCLA interviewed survivors and witnesses of the massacre and nobody remembered the herb being used.
Saying the right word at the right time was a matter of life-and-death for others in history, as well. We change continent and era; the place is Soviet Azerbaijan, the year is 1988. In the last years of the Soviet Union, Armenians living in the territory of Azerbaijan tried to achieve their freedom and the ethnic conflict between them was so deep that clashes were inevitable. Their religious differences, regarding Armenians are Christians while Azerbaijanis are Muslims, also could have been the reason for enmity but in this case we cannot undervalue the nationalistic motive and their common history.
The hostility is long-standing between the Armenian population and Azerbaijanis due to territory disputes. In the 1920s’, Nagorno-Karabakh, mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians, was annexed to the Soviet Azerbaijan instead of staying under Armenian control. Although the enclave of 4,400 square kilometres received autonomous status, Armenians could not make peace with the status quo.
The Armenian population started to demonstrate over the transferring of Nagorno-Karabakh to the jurisdiction of Soviet Armenia in 1988. At the end of February, initially the feud between the two nations erupted in a violent pogrom in Sumgait, near the Caspian Sea. In less than a week, 32 people (26 Armenians and 6 Azerbaijanis) were killed by infuriated Azerbaijanis groups. According to unofficial statistics, the number of victims were up to hundreds.
There were no palpable distinctions between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, moreover, ethnic Armenians could speak the Azerbaijani language very well with the exception of articulating at least one word. They pronounced a word differently which usually did not matter but that difference was crucial during the riot. Olga Grjasnowa, a German writer of Azerbaijani origin, wrote about the Sumgait pogrom in her first novel, All Russians Love Birch Trees. She mentioned a hearsay how the attackers could select their victims. They forced them to say ‘fundukh’, Azeri word for hazelnut, because Armenians dissimilarly uttered that.
Sumgait pogrom is an indelible part of the Armenian national consciousness but it was only a prelude to the Nagorno-Karabakh War. After six years of fighting, the territory became de facto independent but de jure it still belongs to Azerbaijan.
The massacre in Haiti and the pogrom in Azerbaijan happened only a couple of decades ago. Many innocent people died because of political and economic interests, anger and aggression. Parsley Massacre was so-named after the inhumane selecting process which an aforementioned historian could not find proof for. About the pronounciation checking in Sumgait, one can read in witnesses’ memoirs but it may be not essential part of the history books.
I hope the story appeared on my Facebook news feed is only a rumour or a hearsay, not reality in a place where people try to reason unreasonable killings.
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