You deny one thing, you deny next.


Sad.

care to explain ?
I don't deny anything, there are 3 statements I made

-Islamic science in arabic was made by many non-arabs and some non-muslims
-Byzantine history had always been and is still quite despised in Europe
-A lot of people use historical facts for political purposes, frequently the case with islamic science

The consequences are :

- too many arabs claim a legacy they are not exactly entitled to.
- some greeks, including a bunch here hate their culture. Ancient greece was great, but politically completely disunited, totally dysfonctional without slavery, a culture where exposure of little children and pederasty was normal. Should we really regret it?
- politics in history are the worst thing you could mix, distorting the facts and the knowledge. If we are going to defend arabs or muslims or anyone against racism, we must use the same argument we could use with aborigenals from Australia, which didn't bring me anything (well, the boomerang).

But if you need to read it, I completly disagree with Nikephoros generalisation on people or culture. We, christian arabs have very good relations with arab muslims, well may be not all of them but a lot of them. They can be the most welcoming and generous people I have me. But that doesn't change anything to the fact that Islam as a whole has been an aggressive culture, whether you like it or not.

I think this is a false statement.

Good !

Not to the level of completely wiping out a continent full of natives and converting all the original population and using slavery in a mammoth fashion.

Where are you going with this?

More on this later.

hey, have you seen that old topic from SK ?
http://greekturkish.18.forumer.com/index.php?showtopic=76

What a surprise, which religion did almost exclusively overlap and erase the others? Of all the great religions shown, which one has attacked ALL the others?

Then you can always say, that's the human kind, not religion. That's what catholics say when someone tell them about inquisition or crusade (in the Middle east or against the cathares in southern France). Well, that's a complicated debate, which almost always ends bad and I don't want to argue this now. But the same question applied to Islam provides an immediate answer : the prophet was a warrior, the holy text explicitly encorages conquest, Mehmet II army in front of Constantinople was shouting "Allahu Akbar"...It's pretty clear, then.

But when during the christian fast in Syria, we used to ask for a vanillia Ice cream without milk; then the ice cream man prepared them and gave them to us with a nice "For our christian brothers". How do you want to bear grudges, then

In Turkey, for the last two decades, number of women marrying with european men is increasing a lot more than number of men marrying with european women.

Especially italian and greek men.

source?

Ooops, i made a mistake. I mean it's increasing rapidly.


It's all on the turkish newspapers and on my facebook account.

Actually, I agree with all of your three statements.

It's true that perhaps the most of the great arab scientists or philosophers were not really ethnic Arabs, and that non-Muslims played a very important role. And of course, they profited from the fact that they could use many different sources, greek, persian, indian, chinese etc. However, this is not important for me. They all wrote in Arabic, so we can call this an arabic civilization. And this civilization is one of the fundaments of the modern european civilization.

Yes, it's true that Westerners traditionally didn't like Byzantines, and this must have influenced the historiography. But Ok, the historical textes we have access to were mainly written by Westerners, what can we do about it? And from this basis I drove a conclusion. The Byzantines had knowledge of many of the ancient science and philosophy, but they didn't really develop it. There were of course some exceptions in some period, like Photios who you mentioned, and I think in the late stages of Byzantine Empire there was also some kind of a revival of ancient greek culture. But generally, the Arabs seem to have done better in this area. Up to a point. Of course, you may be right, I may have the wrong idea about it.


And of course it's true that the issue of islamic science is used for political purposes. Both from people who overestimate this contribution and from people who underestimate it.
But this is not important for me. Over- or underestimated, it is there, and people like Nikephoros shouldn't deny it.
Of course, this doesn't mean that Europeans should love Islam. People have every right to hate Islam and even to dislike Muslims, if they want to. Or they can just not care about it. But they cannot pretend it is something alien. It is a part of the cultural tradition of Europe. And actually, also a part of the european culture in the last centuries, at least in Southeastern Europe.

About self-hating Greeks:
I think you got a wrong idea about me. Generally I'm proud of our cultural tradition.

I don't miss especially the ancient times, and I don't know if I would prefer to live then as in the byzantine times, if I could choose it. You already mentioned some of the negative sides of ancient Greece. I respect all of the parts of our history more or less equally: our ancient, our byzantine, and (why not) our ottoman past.

Greeks should hold their heads up high that their government is so open minded about the EU vocation of Turkey. As I wrote in the Thread: Memri Institute Exposing Mid-East extremism, but Greece nothing, a serious country would have had its own Institute to close the gap between the niceties Turkish ambassadors like Fuat Tanlay say in French to his stationed hosts, and what extremism he displays to their backs when interviewed by soldier-journalists of Turkish media.

The Turkish amb-ASS-a-door called in for verbal spanking:

It is a FACT that countries like Belgium and Denmark is where PKK gathers significant amount of money and support.

I know from my relatives who lived in Switzerland telling me that they would let Kurds 'in' the country with the only requirement being criticizing the Turkish government.


The paperwork and everything was ready for them to be in as immigrants.

Bit fishy don't you think?


PS Where is ROJ tv broadcasting from?

I don't agree with him, and i'll keep my own ideas out of this discussion.

But Fuat Tanlay's sentiment is quite understandable if you see the whole picture. There are thousands of evidences and video records showing Fehriye Erdal participating in the murder 3 unarmed people (a businessman, his manager and secretary) in their offices. Inspite of all these facts, and inspite of the criminal exchange treaties, Belgian authorities didn't gave her to Turkey. They let her escape in the daylight. These words could be said by any ambassador under these circumstances. It has nothing to do with extremism. It's anger.

The expansion of rabid Turkishness agenda continues in Turkish communities abroad as in home. This time a proud Tourkala(Turkish women) politican that the Greek Neo-Ottoman loser Yeni Demokrasi Partsi(please use only Turkish names for Neo-Ottoman parties if you can) is supporting a made in Turkey(since she insists Turkey has a bilateral say in internal Greek affairs over Greek citizens!!!!), Turkishness agenda for the "muslim minority" but which she insists is all Turkish, even insulting Greek parties for associating with someone who put out a Pomak grammar(just like back in her Turkish "homeland":

How on earth some terrorist (doesn't matter if west consider her as terrorist or murderer) with full video/picture proof kills 3 people, 1 of whom is Özdemir Sabancı - a great businessman, and so called western modern developed country like Belgium release her?

Someone explain me this situation!!!

This is lame and a big shame for humanity.

Don't tell me Italian leftist peaceactivist making a pilgrimage of peace to the Mideast got raped and killed in Turkey. Turkish media and whole people got really ashamed of that crime...

I agree with Afrosiastis, whether you like it or not, Islam and Turks are a part of European culture just like that mid-dark-ages of Europe...

Islam was an agressive culture maybe some consider it still is...

But Christianity was agressive too and maybe still is...

- Why? The expansion of Christianty in Americas was done by massacaring %99 of the native Americans that Islam couldn't reach that far and atack there. And my GOD !!! Christians atacked India, China, Indonessia, whole Affrica...in European expansionism...

- Why? Just like Islam have Jihad, Christianity has Crusades in much more effective manner...

Don't tell me Orthodoxes didn't do that stuff. Orthodoxes didn't have the chance to atack because of stucking between 2 agressive culture (Islam and Catholics). No one can tell what would happen if Orthodoxes had a chance...

I do accept that Islam is agressive (maybe the Turks was the most agressive nation in Islam), that's for sure.

But just because Islam atacked YOU, that does not makes it the most agressive religion...

I think Western Europeans were the most agressive culture...

I wonder, what would you think if e.g. a greek MP in the Albanian parliament was stating that Voreioipeirotes are a part of the greek nation? Would you consider that as provocative statement?