Wednesday, May 8, 2013

Introduction to the Greece–Hellas Conflict

Ziontruth

NOTE: This piece is satire, showing how the conflict between Greece and Turkey would look like if given the same revisionist, denialist makeover as the Jewish–Arab Conflict. See the end of the article for more on this thought-experiment.

The Greece–Hellas Conflict, also called the Greek–Hellenic Conflict, is one of the most important regional conflicts in today’s world. This territorial dispute between the two peoples, the Greek people and the Hellenic people, provokes spirited debates and heated arguments despite the fact that many people are oblivious to its origins. The following article will explain the matters in a clear and easily understood way.

The Greek Nation

The Greek nation is the nation that has resided in Greece and Asia Minor from time immemorial. This is confirmed by all respectable historians today, while the opinion that the Greek population in Greece is a result of a relatively late current of immigration is an outmoded revisionist opinion not accepted by any serious historian.

The Greeks speak a language related to those of Central Asia, which the Hellenic revisionists have seized upon as “proof” that the Greeks are not really Greeks but Turks, part of the Turkish nation. Even if it is true that the language of the Greeks is a Turkic language, this does not change the reality that the Greeks are the indigenous people of Greece and have the right to be free of the Hellenes’ colonial rule.

The Greek nation has a tangible cultural presence in Greece, as seen in, among other things, the magnificent edifices built by the Greeks, especially the Ayasofya mosque in Istanbul, which is rightly considered the pinnacle of Greek architecture. Istanbul is situated within the bounds of Greece today, but most of the Greeks’ heritage is centered in Athens, which is still under Hellenic occupation.

Byzantism and the Roots of the Conflict

The Byzantist movement arose out of the desire of the Hellenic people to set up a Hellenic national home in Greece (which they call Hellas). The Byzantists claim that they have the right to a state of their own in Greece on the basis of their descent from people who, according to their mythologies, lived on that land in the far past. They also argue that, by virtue of their being Christians, they are inherently linked to Greece whereas the Greeks, being Muslims, have no connection to the land. In other words, they bring religion as an argument for the legitimacy of their colonialist project, an atavistic throwback in our modern age.

The Hellenes settled Greece in the few centuries before Hellas’s declaration of independence, dispossessing the indigenous Greeks of their lands in the process. In 1829 the Hellenes declared the independence of their new state, flagrantly violating the principle of balance of power in Europe that had been delineated in the Congress of Vienna fourteen years beforehand. The Hellenes took all the Greeks’ lands in Europe for themselves, apart from Eastern Thrace; in Europe as well as in Asia Minor they constructed Hellenic settlements for the purpose of future appropriation of Greek lands.

World War One was an excellent opportunity for the Hellenes to realize their dream of “Greater Hellas,” wherein Hellas would annex Eastern Thrace, including its capital Istanbul (which the Hellenes call Constantinople—yet another pillar in their denial of Greek history in Greece), and the western part of Asia Minor, already teeming with many illegal Hellenic settlements. However, at the end of the war the Greeks succeeded in repulsing the Hellenic invasion and expelled all the Hellenes from within their borders. In retaliation, the Hellenes expelled all the Greeks from within Hellas.

The Significance of the Conflict
and the Necessity of a Solution

It must be made clear that this article does not strive to stoke hatred toward the Hellenes; quite the contrary, it is Byzantism that causes the world to hate the Hellenes, while those who understand the conflict know that there is no connection between anti-Byzantism and Hellene-hatred. The Hellenes, as an eminently honorable nation, must absolve themselves of this sordid episode in the history of their nation, which shames their magnificent past. Those who constantly pride themselves on being the fount and origin of Democracy ought to be specially clean in their conduct.

The existence of an oppressive colonial occupation of one nation over another cannot be allowed to stand in the 21st century. A solution to the conflict will be possible only when the legitimate grievances of the Greeks are addressed, both in their own state and within Hellas. The solution must be just and viable, and of course it must be responsive to the security needs of Hellas’s Hellenic inhabitants, but not on expense of justice for the Greeks.

First of all, the Hellenes must relinquish their dream of “Greater Hellas.” Secondly, they must do away with the apartheid rule in Hellas itself, which is manifested in the denial of Greek history in Greece and in the shirking of the responsibility of Hellas for the catastrophe that has befallen the Greeks in Hellas, when the latter were ethnically cleansed in the course of World War One. Hellas must take steps to become a multicultural state, where cultural autonomy shall be granted to all the Greeks living within the borders of Hellas. The Greeks shall be permitted to read books written from their point of view, for examples books where the Greek cities are called their original names, such as Edirne, Konya and Izmir, instead of Adrianople, Iconion and Smyrna as they appear in the Byzantist versions.

Hellas will see the end of this conflict only when the Right of Return is applied—the right of all the Greeks who were expelled or fled during World War One to return to their original population centers within Hellas. Even those who prefer the Two-State Solution (Hellas and Greece side-by-side) must admit that it would be unjust to prohibit the Greeks’ return to the lands stolen from them. The returning Greeks shall be citizens with equal rights in the state of Hellas, which shall be a state of all its citizens, no longer defined as a “Hellenic and democratic state,” a racist definition for which there is no room in the 21st century.

Afterword

We must believe that a solution to this conflict is possible, perhaps even in our generation. The greatest danger to peace in the region is extremists on both sides, for example those Byzantist extremists who cling to the messianic dreams of reconquering Constantinople and converting Ayasofya to a church. In hindsight, we could say that it had been better back then, in 1829, to set up a national home for the Hellenic people in another area of the world, but this is all water under the bridge, and it is better to advance the idea of coexistence between the two nations. If this article looks biased toward the Greeks, this is because world opinion has for too long been sold on Byzantism’s colonialist narrative, which denies the history and even the particularity of the indigenous Greeks. The Greek–Hellenic Conflict must be viewed as part of the worldwide struggle against Western colonialism. Byzantism, as one of the recent expressions of white, Christian imperialism, is worthy of going down the trashcan of history like all such ideologies.


Alright, I know what you’re thinking: “Either I’ve fallen into a parallel universe, or the author of this article is on some strong stuff.” It’s revealing that a reader would think that way, because it’s patently obvious that no one would be so crazy as to rename the Turks “Greeks” and posit the descendants of Pericles and Leonidas as “colonial occupiers.” The Greek nation being world-famous for its heritage in early science, philosophy and political theory, everybody knows the Greeks are the indigenous of Hellas and that there is no other place in the world of which that could be said. Case closed—if we’re talking about the Greeks.

One would think, owing to the fact that the Jewish nation too is world-famous for its heritage—the message of the Bible, the most widespread book in the world—that the case would be closed for the Jews as well. This is not so. In a feat of revisionism that so many people are unaware of, a group of Arab invaders has been renamed “Palestinians” whereas the true Palestinians (in the sense of being inherently connected to the Land of Israel a.k.a. Palestine) are now called “colonists,” “settlers,” “occupiers” and kindred names. Since a lot of people don’t realize the enormity of such a revisionist feat, of such denialism, I have written this satire piece to show how things would look like if the Greeks, the Jews’ equals in national antiquity and world fame, were given the Arab-Soviet treatment to their history and nationhood. I don’t know about you, but as far as I’m concerned it ain’t a pretty sight; all the more so because, in our case, it is the lynchpin of the legitimization (as “resistance”) of the murder of Jews on their own soil, and even abroad. The issue merits consideration.

12 comments:

  1. Brilliant piece, Zion.

    I'm rethinking certain things these days, but I'm not quite sure I can put those thoughts into anything resembling a sensical summary at the moment. Probably because I'm still trying to sort it out myself.

    The main thing I'm trying to reconcile is my belief in granting a people the right to define their own identity, with the obvious fact that one particular group in the world today is doing such a thing for nefarious purposes, and taking advantage of tendencies and sensibilities such as my own.

    The main obstacle, as I see it, is that this rhetorical part of the conflict should have been waged and more fully engaged like 40 years ago.

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  2. The way I see it, Jay, it all boils down to "The freedom to lift your finger ends at the tip of my nose." I may not think that the various tribes amalgamated in the Congo region have enough cohesion to be considered a real, single nation, but I don't care much about it, because it's no skin off my nose, and in fact it's no skin off anyone's nose as far as I'm aware. Most of the decolonial new "nation" creations are legacies of the neat, straight lines the European powers drew over Africa and Asia, long ago. It's sad, but there's no malicious intent involved when those groups regard themselves as nations.

    In contrast, Jewish national rights are up against a purposely calculated narrative with the very goal of denying those rights. It's the question of "What do they want? State or antistate?", hat tip to Geoffff for that latter term. As long as I believed they wanted a state of their own alongside the Jewish one, I could even grudgingly accept their nation-creating narrative, but as soon as I realized their only desire is to appropriate everything that's ours, I could no longer concede ground on it. That realization also made it clear to me that their very choice of the term "Palestinian," instead of "Southern Syrian" as they'd been up until 1920 (when Britain and France split Greater Syria between themselves), is on the same order as the Turks calling themselves "Greeks." Denial of our rights, that's all it comes to.

    "The main obstacle, as I see it, is that this rhetorical part of the conflict should have been waged and more fully engaged like 40 years ago."

    It wasn't completely ignored; for example, there's a famous quote by Golda Meir where she counters the faux-Palestinian fiction head-on. But in the course of time the defenders of Israel dropped the ball and decided to adopt the strategy of showing how good and beneficial Israel is. Big mistake. The world isn't interested in that. "OK, you've built great things here," say the detractors, "but you've built it all on stolen land." Justice, that's where it's at. Nor can the emphasis on Arab/Islamic terrorism be effective in defending our rights, as there are many who think it's justified as "resistance." It all goes back to the core narrative, then.

    I could say that my obsession over this issue stems mainly from the fact that I see no other effective way to uphold the rightfulness of Zionism. I may be missing some way, of course; but my experience tells me this is the best way, the best defense, because it's also a good offense that shows the anti-Zionists to be exactly that which they accuse pro-Israel people of being: Supporters of imperialist, colonialist injustice against the self-determination of the indigenous people of a particular land. I can in no way resist such delicious irony.

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    1. Agreed on all points, really, but the only problem would seem to be getting that horse back into the barn, as a rural Oregonian friend of mine would say.

      This lie has had decades to make its way around the world, while the truth seems to have spent that same period of time hitting the snooze button dozens of times, let alone putting its shoes on.

      I guess people like me are also partly to blame for that. How the hell do we realistically undertake the task of reversing it quickly, though, is the problem?

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    2. Despite my tendency to impatience, Jay, I'm rather calm on this one. Belated or not, I don't care, I think that if the ball gets rolled again, it'll work. I'm not worried about the credibility of a rollback, either; it hasn't held the Arabs back that they've repudiated their own former position. They used to talk about "the Arab nation against the Zionists" until the 1960s or 70s, now they talk of "the Palestinian nation against the Zionists" instead; nobody batted an eyelid even when that change was recent. It's all a matter of maintaining a firm hand at the taps of information.

      This reminds me of something I read on another forum after Netanyahu's apology to Erdoggone. When the deal got worse, the poster on the forum said, "Can't do anything now, it'd look immature if Bibi retracted the apology." Having read this, I thought, "Immature?! Excuse me?! What is this, a kid's playground?" The faulty analogy of nations to people is at work here again. Bibi should have retracted his cowardly apology, no matter how "immature" it would have looked—that small price would more than have compensated for the big humiliation, as well as the real money to be paid, that Israel now has to endure.

      What's gone by is gone by. No use whining about it or trying to apportion blame. I'm not impatient to see the reversal of the situation accomplished, I'm impatient to see the effort at reversal being begun in the first place. As soon I see a beginning, I'll be cautiously yet tangibly optimistic.

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    3. Much food for thought here, Zion. Particularly taking down the playground analogy. This really is helping. Thanks...

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  3. I do not know what to say.

    This piece is largely satirical and will fly over the heads of most who read it... but I am glad that you wrote it.

    I will do my best to stand with you because I believe we understand one another very well.

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    1. "This piece is largely satirical and will fly over the heads of most who read it"

      What say I move the last two paragraphs (those after the horizontal line) to the head of the article? Although it would be somewhat of a spoiler, I think you're right that making the actual message of the article clear to the reader is a more important consideration.

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    2. You could do that, I suppose, but really it's just a matter of a few lines of introduction to orient the reader toward what you are up to.

      Excellent piece, nonetheless.

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    3. Done. I decided to add a short notice at the top, leaving the last two paragraphs as a more expansive version of it—didn't manage to see how I could rewrite it seamlessly, so...

      It's true, it's not wise to use deadpan humor or satire if there's a serious point you want conveyed.

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    4. btw, you should know that your piece, "Anti-Zionism: A Racist Ideology," leads the pack over the course of the last week with 186 page views.

      FYI and congrats.

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    5. What?! People actually read that longwinded academic rambling article? :) Oh, you said "page views." Alright then. ;)

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    6. Page views!

      The numbers do not include my own.

      But we have a readership.

      Sure, it's small and ill-tempered, but they're out there.

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