EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis). A few days ago, we referred to the damage to ancient knowledge kept in the famous Library of Alexandria and later in Athens by the neophytes in Christianity, early Byzantine emperors Theodosius and Justinian. We explained how the Persians and the Arabs helped save this knowledge and how later, before Rennaisance, Aristotle was translated to the Western languages from Arabic (link here).
Now let’s take the argument a step further, and let’s learn how much the Western Civilization owes to the Arabs!! Many of you will be left with your mouth wide open because Western educational systems, ON PURPOSE, picture the Arabs as “barbarians” and “primitives” who are worth nothing!… This is far away from the truth. We Greeks have nothing to worry about – we have learned our history fairly truthfully since the beginning. I remember learning in high school in Greece that the early Greek philosophers (Thales, Anaximander, and others) had strong roots in Egypt and Mesopotamia. In any case, our ancient and modern culture was never exclusionary: We never formed closed “ghettos” as we traveled around the globe, from 2-3,000 years BC to today. And we never made war the purpose of our lives because our interest was trade and not exploitation.
Above all, since Classical Greece, we never put biological race at the center of our ethnicity. Isocrates, one of the greatest orators of ancient Athens, famously said that “Greeks are called these who share our culture and not our nature/biology” (“Ἕλληνας καλεῖσθαι τοὺς τῆς παιδεύσεως τῆς ἡμετέρας παρά τοὺς τῆς κοινῆς φύσεως μετέχοντας”)… Tragically, those “Judeo-Christian” Europeans and now Americans, who insist that they inherited Greek classical civilization, forgot the most central principle and exterminated or exploited the rest of humanity for the last ten centuries… Please do not force me to give you examples – they are very painful…
I have spent the best part of my doctoral research analyzing “revision/rewriting of history for political purposes,” and I can tell you that Arab history, as it is taught in Western education, is a total disgrace – an injustice beyond belief, which served specific political purposes. I promise you that we will return to this topic, in an effort to correct it.
October 20, 2024, n.stamatakis@aol.com www.helleniscope.com
DISCLAIMER: The views and statements expressed in this article constitute constitutionally protected opinions of this author.
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EDITOR’S NOTE (Nick Stamatakis).
The Greek American Ribert Spencer in his Book THE EMPIRE OF GOD details how the Eastern Roman Empire= BYZANTIUM safeguarded the Ancient Greek knowledge and after 1440 AD with the invention of the printing press in Europe thousands of cheap books were translated from Greek and printed bringing the GREEK RENAISSANCE!
Nobody argues against the great contributions of the middle and late Byzantium in preserving Ancient Greek knowledge. As I said they were the ones who established the first European University in Ravenna. But this is not good enough reason to ignore the damage Theodosius and Justinian had done… They destroyed the Parthenon for goodness sake!! And not a good reason to ignore the huge contributions of the Persians and much more the Arabs. Putting down their contributions is completely “anti-Greek”!! They adopted ancient Greek philosophers and tried to improve on the knowledge they learned. Why would we ever deny this?
The renowned Islamic philosopher Gazilli in the 12 century AD denounced the Ancient Greek philosophers . Since then the CLOSING OF THE MUSLIM MIND prevails as Robert Reilly writes in his homonymous book.There he proposes that the antidote to misanthropic Islamism is HELLENISM
Hellenism is also the antidote to “Judeo-Christian”, crusaders, colonialists and imperialists… I am sure many neophyte Muslims said and did things that we now consider unbearable and contrary to our civilization. But should we close the eyes to the Inquisition? Or to thr historic fact the Jews of Europe were among the first to take part in slave trade from Africa? It’s very easy to generalize but we should try to keep it reasonable: Focus on the crime and not on the race… if we focus on the race – like the black activists do generalize today asking for reparations – humanity will move on circles and will never improve.
Islam has no history but a long criminal record.In the last 1400 years it killed > 270 mill people and continues killing especially christians in its jihad to conquer the World
I would agree with you if you didn’t avoid saying the same for the atrocities committed by Christians in history. Islam did its own atrocities but very few can surpass Inquisition as it was practiced in Spain. Do you know who saved the (Sephardic) Jews from Spain during Inquisition? It was the (Muslim!!) Ottoman Sultan Suleyman the Magnificent in the 1500s. He allowed them to settle in Constantinople, Smyrna, Salonica and many other mostly Greek cities. The Jewish people were eternally grateful to the Ottomans and this explains their deep friendship which lasted until 2009, when Erdogan attacked Simon Peres in Davos, Switzerland… Please tell me now that Suleyman was not a Muslim and that he was not more tolerant than the Catholics… Time for you guys to come down to the land of the truth – Helleniscope…
The Eurooean colonists also did the following: in India they stopped the custom of burning alive the wife of the deceased husband. In China they stopped the strangulation of little girls feet with bandages for beauty purposes rendering them invalid. In the Caribbean , Mexico and Peru they stopped the Human sacrifices and cannibalism the indigenous people practiced to satisfy their blood thirsty gods and brought them the wheel that they had not invented yet.
Leonidas there is no way to convince anyone that colonization by the Westerners had a net positive for the exploited colonised people. A few good things they did but these exploited people have done the accounting for all the centuries of exploitation and the result is very NEGATIVE. Especially in countries like India… or you want me to remind you that just last years African Sahel countries FINALLY kicked the French out completely, who even recently they were paying a meagre 5% for stealing all the uranium and other mineral wealth!!! Please don’t continue down this line – it’s a losing argument.
The british in early 19 century abolished the
slave trade and they patrolled the Atlantic with their Navy to seize any slave ships from Africa. The british in Africa built the railroad from South Africa to Egypt thus connecting the whole continent.In Australia the british found the native aborigines that still live in the stone age roaming the country naked ,as hunters gatherers ,not having invented farming yet.
I have said several times that it was the African Kings and leaders themselves that first practiced slave trade. Everybody else followed. Slavery was practiced in Ancient Athens – although we know that slaves were considered in many regards part of the family/house. So we need to always differentiate the circumstance and always, ALWAYS, try to focus on the crime and not on the ethnicity. Otherwise the end result is that humanity moves in circles back to the same crime. Today Israel practices Genocide in Gaza, which is mathematically certain to lead to a new Genocide against Israel and the Jews.
Islam is a global threat.Fortunately if not pritected Islam ( submission)will collapse ,like USSR in 1989,if we DENOUNCE PSEUDO PROPHET MUHAMMAD,who according to his biography( Sira) and traditions( Hadith) was a pedophile( wife Aisha was 9 yo), rapist, murderer, bandit (keeping20% of the booty for himself),liar and sex-slave trader and also LIBERATE THE MUSLIM WOMEN from barbaric Sharia Law.The Koran states women are dumb, less intelligent than men,wives must be beaten for disobedience by their hudbands ,all women will go to hell unless in the last day their husband says he was pleased with her and all women must hide their curves and wear burkas ,so that men will not be aroused to rape them.Islam is a misogynistic ,violent , imperialist political ideology of Arab male supremacy ISLAMOFASCISM(~70%), DISGUISED AS A RELIGION(~ 30%) that strives through violent Jihad and soft cultural Jihad of immigration ( dawa)to subjugate the World.Jihadists are promised, if killed battling infidels-kafirs,) they will go to Paradise to enjoy 72 virgins ,taking along 70 of their relatives regardless of their sins!Withdraw from UN MIGRANT COMPACT ,that falsely claims immigration is a Human Right expecting Western countries to accept and provide for an endless number of muslim illegal immigrants ,thus islamizing them. Muslim “refugees “should stay in Turkey or vast rich Saudi Arabia ,until they can return to their countries.We must denounce islamic Sharia (=way)law of blasphemer,apostate ,homosexual , adulterer and hypocrite executions,misogyny,honor killings by stoning,hand amputations for theft,child brides,girls exclusion from schools,halal meat from tortured animals,clitorectomies,circumcisions,subjugation and segregation of women,burkas and Sharia banning of short skirts,bikinis,dancing,singing,painting ,sculptures of people,dogs,pork,alcohol and beauty contests .Demand gender equality for ALL muslim women.Punish severely those that kill apostates from Islam,blasphemers,adulterers or muslim hypocrites.Islam is incompatible with our freedom of speech, gender equality, values,way of life, Human Rights,
Thank you for giving praise to Arab contributions to humanity.
Jane I think we should be fair to all nations, races and ethnicities. We all are children of the same God… When we are at war or when we are blinded by false prophets and guided by “ideologies” we are able to commit atrocities, some more than others.
If you read the Koran in Google for free over a weekend you will be convinced that Allah is a different threatening God lacking any love
I think John 1:12 offers a different opinion on who are the children of God.
Ὅσοι δὲ ἔλαβον αὐτόν, ἔδωκεν αὐτοῖς ἐξουσίαν τέκνα Θεοῦ γενέσθαι, τοῖς πιστεύουσιν εἰς τὸ ὄνομα αὐτοῦ·
“But those that took him in, to those he gave power to become children of God, to those that believe in his name”.
The Apostle seems to be of the opinion that to become a child of God, you must first accept Christ.
PS: That aside, I agree with the article and am glad you published it.
Nick: you write”Today Israel practices Genocide in Gaza, ”
The Israelis notify the civilians before they bomb an area but unfortunately the Gazans do not leave either because they are hostages of Hamas or because they also want to kill or die as jihadis which is the ultimate reassurance of achieving admission to theie Heaven. Of note that neighboring Egypt refuses to accept refugees from Gaza and save them from the war the Gazans started
There is no doubt they are committing genocide and they are already condemned by the International Criminal Court. Netanyahu is “wanted”. They kill indiscriminately and they are pushing the Palestinians away from the little piece of land they are allowed to call home. They have been doing the same with the settlers in the West Bank.
Both sides need to sit on negotiations but so far Israel has been killing the true negotiators of the Palestinian side.
With every day that goes by Israel risks 0existence. It is surrounded by 500 million Muslims, mostly Arabs… There is no way to impose their will on so many people… There will be a compromise sooner or later. But most Israelis, not only Netanyahu, insist on their Zionist dreams… And the dreams about “greater Israel” – in which they include Cyprus…