I absolutely adore Wikipedia! It has become my biggest source of information, and my favourite time waster.

Today for some reason while I was at work I was thinking about genocide. Somewhere I heard the Doomsday Clock is going to be set a couple minutes closer to midnight. That got me reading about Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and the people who lived through it. I wondered why Chernobyl can't be inhabited for thousands of years from now, but there is a UNESCO heritage site near ground zero in Hiroshima. From there I learned about fusion vs. fission bombs.

From there I touched a little on WW2, and read a little more about the the fall of communist Russia, Sino-Russian relations, and that lead to Albania who was one of the few countries who had aligned with China instead of the USSR. From Albania I wondered how there happened to be a muslim country in Europe. Funny thing was it completely challenged my Greek-biased perception of the country!

Many Greeks are very upset about Albania opening it's borders. There has been a large influx of immigrants into the country, which has caused quite a disruption. There are bigger issues at play, but many Greeks blame them for some new problems in their society. I didn't know that it was a very progressive country, despite being isolated from the rest of the world for so long. People from all religions co-existed, and very often intermarried. Quite a contrast from the impression you'd get thinking about the neighbouring Kosovo War.

It turns out that Albania almost never existed after the Second Balkan War. The Greeks occupied part of the south, and the northern part was going to be given to Serbia. Austria-Hungary complained, and didn't want Serbia to be too powerful, so it was consolidated.

That got me wondering about how many ethnic Greeks were in the area, so I read more about the Treaty of Lausanne, Turkey, secularism in Turkey, the mass transfer of people between Greece and Turkey. Especially the last one. It hits home because of the story of my grandmother.

My grandmother was living in present day Turkey. Somewhere. Apparently she wasn't from Pontus, which probably had the most ethnic Greeks in the country. I don't know where though. 1.5 million Greeks left the country after being given the choice to either convert and assimilate or leave. 500 thousand came the other way. My grandmother walked the hundreds of kilometers alone. She lost her family somewhere along the way.

Somehow there were Turkish families along the way who helped my grandmother out. Someone put a red ribbon in her hair, and called ahead for the next family to find her and take care of her. Thanks to the generousity of strangers she made it to Greece and met my grandfather.

Religion caused societal problems for her family. Government deals kicked her out of her country. These individuals along the way took her in and cared for her. There's a lot of things in the big picture that might make sense. There are generalizations you can make. Sometimes they might be right. Some people say that the population transfers helped strengthen both countries. But when it comes to the individual level we're all the same. We all should be judged on our own merits.

I'm still going somewhere with this, but I'm tired. It's like working out. I don't want to overdo my first day back because I won't want to come back. Haha.