by Amy Fagin | Jul 11, 2024
The rich and ancient history of the Armenian people provided ample material for visual exploration in this illumination. The Turkish government’s campaign of genocide against its Christian Armenians at the beginning of the 20th Century eliminated virtually the entire Armenian population from their homeland of nearly three thousand years. The pre WWI Turkish government targeted its Armenian population for annihilation by executing teenage and adult males and organizing mass deportations into the Syrian and Mesopotamian deserts of women and children. The visual details of this illumination spans the breadth of history of the Armenian people recognizing the creation of the Armenian alphabet in the 4th century, holy landmarks and structures, 19th and 20th century folk arts and imagery of the deportations beginning in 1915.
Illumination Completed 2004
by Amy Fagin | Jul 11, 2024
This illumination explores primarily two periods of history where mass annihilation of human life and cultural heritage has taken place in the region of the world now known as Afghanistan. The first episode of mass slaughter examined for this manuscript occurred during the Mongol conquests of the 13th century. In 1219 Genghis Khan and his Mongol warriors completely and permanently transformed the social fabric of ancient Afghanistan with mass slaughter and subjugation of kingdoms and empires which spanned the globe from Germany to Korea. The second period of mass annihilation and conquest ,explored artistically, begins with the Soviet invasion in 1979, and the atrocities of this 10 year occupation. Modern Afghan history is also interpreted artistically with observations illuminating the rise of the Taliban military organization within the country, their destruction of historic cultural monuments and their violent oppression of women in modern Afghani society.
IIllumination Completed 2003.
by Amy Fagin | Jul 11, 2024
The invasion of the Americas spearheaded by Christopher Columbus in 1492 was the beginning of the end for many of the Western Hemisphere’s native peoples. Over the next several centuries, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, the English and the French built empires in their new domains and consolidated their rule from the Arctic Circle int he north to Tierra del Fuego in the south…The native peoples of the New World were devastated by their contacts with the Europeans, and the charge of genocide is frequently leveled at the colonial powers. The scale of the Indians population decline is still being debated by scholars, but whether the losses suffered by the aboriginal population amounted to 50%, 95% or some figure in between, the catastrophic demographic impact of the European exploration and settlement of the New World on the Indian People is an undeniable fact.
The History and Sociology of Genocide Analyses and Case Studies: Frank Chalk and Kurt Jonassohn Yale University Press 1990
by Amy Fagin | Jul 11, 2024
The indigenous peoples in the world today have been described as “victims of progress” (Bodley, 1999)…Variously referred to as aboriginals, native peoples, tribal peoples, Fourth World peoples or First Nations, these populations have suffered from vicious mistreatment, discrimination, and lack of equal opportunity in employment for centuries. Over the past 500 years, literally millions of indigenous peoples have had to cope with destruction of their life ways and habitats, disease, dispossession, and exploitation… Many indigenous groups have suffered from the depredations of governments, private companies, and individuals bent on taking their land and resources – forcibly or through quasilegal means such as treaties and agreements…Indigenous populations frequently have been denied the right to practice their own religions and customs and / or speak their own languages by nation-states, a process describes as “cultural genocide or “ethnocide”… The protection of indigenous peoples from genocide at the international level has generally been ineffective….The failure to prevent genocide of indigenous peoples is the result of a combination of factors, including government inaction, bureaucratic inefficiency and lack of enforcement of international human rights law, racism and outright greed.
Century of Genocide: Critical Essays and Eyewitness Accounts Third Edition : Chapter 13: Physical and Cultural Genocide of Indigenous Peoples: Robert K. Hitchcock and Tara M. Twedt Routledge press 2009 : Edited by Samuel Totten and William S. Parsons
Where today are the Pequot? Where are the Narragansett, the Mohican, the Pokanoket, and many other once powerful tribes of our people? They have vanished before the avarice and the oppression of the White Man, as snow before a summer sun.
Tecumseh: (as quoted) American Indian Holocaust and Survival: A Population History Since 1492 Russell Thornton Oklahoma University Press, 1987
