well Greece exists as nation today cause we didnt gave up after 400 years ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by doc_bean
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well Greece exists as nation today cause we didnt gave up after 400 years ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by doc_bean
But Greece and the other eastern european parts were more 'occupied' by the ottomans than part of the empire, as far as I can tell, while Asia Minor really did become part of Turkey (culture, religion, ethnic make-up).Quote:
Originally Posted by Idomeneas
But as Mouzafphaerre said, nationalism, certainly in Europe, should be left in the past, it has caused to much harm already.
Sorry, but no.Quote:
The English (well, British now) might as well try to claim France again.
As the king of England was a vassal of the French king (so were William and his folks as well), I wholeheartedly claim that Britain, and if possible, the whole commonwealth should be part of France.
Then we'll teach them how to cook some tasty food, instead of the horrible crap they have to eat everyday ~;)
And unlike our Southern cousins, us Scots have brought haggis to the world of cuisine! Goes to show that all those French relations weren't for nothing eh? At least we eat SOME good food! ~:)Quote:
Then we'll teach them how to cook some tasty food, instead of the horrible crap they have to eat everyday
Unfortunately, racists exist everywhere, whether its Turkey or the UK, they are a constant. However, since most peoples ethnic backgrounds aren't guaranteed, ie just because you appear 'Turkish', doesn't mean you don't have Greek or other genes in your DNA, then the whole concept of 'racism' is a bit absurd.Quote:
We are not wanted there. I know there's good people, but there's a lot of racists as well.
I absolutely agree with these statements.Quote:
Originally Posted by Meneldil
Learning to british children that jeanne of arc was a national hero, that waterloo, trafalgar and azincourt were national defeats, and learning them to speak FRENCH instead of the local and very limited slang they seem to have developped in those isles is a matter of law as well as justice.
The French have no more claim to their former (nominal) vassal than the Greeks have on any former Byzantine land, or the Turks have on any former Seljuk or Ottoman holdings.
You just say this because you are a long haired hippie freak.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
Who shall remain insensitive to the pain of those so pure french population crying under the dark clouds of barbarian separatism?
Who shall seriously pretend that the feudal non written and contradictory traditions upon wich this very legitime claim is founded are total senseless craps?
I think we should invade those wet islands as quickly as possible to bring peace, freedom and civilisation to these populations and liberate them from their own oppressive barbary -wich is a very legitimate claim indeed.
For modern Turkish - the same as for modern Greeks :eeeek:Quote:
Originally Posted by Byzantine Prince
*runs away*
They were the original inhabitants. At least of the area they now live in. Xenophon mentions them by the name Kardushians and they were quite rebellious against their Persian masters even then.Quote:
Originally Posted by sharrukin
In reply to Paul Peru, it is common knowledge that Greeks have always been a closed community to foreigners and especially to conquerors (at least those with a completely different background). As such I find the proposition unlikely. Keep in mind that I am not advocating racial purity, which is a position as ridiculous as it is false.
On the subject of Asia Minor and nationalism, I believe that it was our mistake (Greece, that is) alone that eradicated 2500 years of Asia Minor's Hellenism. And of course, nationalistic wars of aggresion for reclaiming "lost lands" are (thankfully) far from our minds. You will find the occasional nutter who is ready to assault the beaches of Izmir (Smyrne) but that's about the extent of it.
I'm sorry, but that is just completely con (pardon my French). The King of France only controled the Ile de France and a bit of land around Orleans, so I don't think he could claim the whole of England. Edward III had a better claim on the crown than the Valois since he was the grandson of Philippe le Bel, rather than Philippe de Valois who was a distant cousin. And you just invented the salic law to keep the English of the throne. And france no longer has a legitimate claim, since with the Bill of rights, no catholic can sit on the throne. and if you to talk in terms of law, England still has the right to Brittany, Normandy, Anjou, Maine, Poitou, Aquitaine, Gascony, Boulogne, Champagne and Blois (see the marriages and family tree of the English Royal Family). On the contrary, England should invade France and show you the meaning of hygene, toilets (and not a whole in the floor with two footprints on either side), proper service, how to drive, how to park, make your language actually logical, how to build flats WITH good insulation (and not with walls so thin you can hear your neighbour pissing), teach you that joan of arc was a schizophrenic, and that you had/have the crappest army in the world (barring the italians). As I always say "No King of England if not King of France".Quote:
Originally Posted by Petrus
Wow, I wouldn't have thought that this small joke would turn into another french bashing issue.
Furthermore, I won't pull out all the stupid clichés we have about the british (though I still think your food is more than horrible), and I'll advise you to re-study your History :bow:
(your french is perfect, at least concerning the term you used into this very serious debate)Quote:
Originally Posted by King Henry V
(by the way, please excuse my english, mostly misinterpretations(?) from me but at least no aggressivity intended)
Now, you must understand the perfect glory of the salic law and it's absolute strength.
When the barbaric germanic tribes invaded the roman provinces of gaul, it was simply not imaginable for a woman to rule as a warlord.
Since the francs were illiterate, they could not write this as a law but it remained as an absolute law over the centurys.
The french kings, being respectfull of laws, even when they were not written, carried this precious heritage.
When the so called king of england decided to break the law and became a rebel, he was a bit more powerfull than the french king who was out of his gard -how shall he have taken care about who was supposed to be a loyal subject but proved to be a hateful felon?
The rebellion that followed and that was joined by several other rebel lords permitted to the so called english king to put several territories under his tyranny, territories that understood with time the foolishness of their crime and joined back the legitimate power.
If your logic was to be followed, it would be like rewarding a criminal in proportion of the amount he stole!
Also, the bill of right is not a problem regarding this debate, being issued from an illegal form of government, it is also illegal.
You probably made a mistake concerning the size of the possessions of the duke of normandy in france, but it is not a problem : as a loyal subject of the king, the greater his domain, the best for the kingdom!
We have another tradition in france that is more recent than the salic law but wich, i think, is a great argument concerning the ownership of the british isle.
We are used to cut of the head of the royal family members and to proclaim republic.
So, coming back into the rule of the law would be even more interesting for you : to the well being and the great honnor of being french would be added the immense joy of seeing the local landlords off with their heads.
How can you still hesitate?
Concerning your last point.
I think like you, the french army is the crappest in the world, exepted maybe for the italian army.
In another hand, the french army managed to send back to their islands the mercenarys employed by the so called english king upon the continent.
So i must precise that the french army is the crappiest in the world, except maybe for the italian army and except for sure the british army.
Pardon me Ladies and Gentlemen. What appeared to start out as some good natured inter-nation ribbing seems to have lost the humour and turned nasty. No more of that please! If you intend humour, please use emoticons. :yes:
I'm sorry, no offense or insult was intended but it is very difficult to writte some sort of humour in english due to my lack of vocabulary and grammar.Quote:
Originally Posted by Gregoshi
In any case, i retire what i wrote about the italian army.
Well william of Normandy did not have a legitimate claim, having extracted an oath from Harold by force. Therefore the legitimate claimant after Harold's death was Edgar the Aetheling, whose daughter (Margaret) married into the house of Scotland. Her daughter Mary married Count Eustace of Boulogne, whose daughter became the wife of King Stephen, younger brother to the Count of Blois and Champagne. Another daughter of margaret of scotland married Henry I of England, and their daughter was the Empress Mathilda, who fought Stephen for the throne. Her son was Henry II.
My point is thus: William should never have been King, and any legitimacy was received from the Aetheling's daughters. Therefore the French claim of suzerainity over England was illegitmate since William's claim was illegitimate. However, since William's claim over Normandy (and subsequent marriages to various French noble men) were legitimate, And these were inherited by Henry II, these possesions were legitimate. Confused yet? ~:confused:
Is any leader legitimate? No conquer conquered something that was allowed by law. Besides, French and England no longer exist as they did then. France is no longer a monarchy, thus they have no claim to the French Monarch's claim of England being their vassal state.
Petrus, I also consider the Celtic states before Rome, and the Frankish states after as totally different, for the same reason. Just because they are in the same place, doesn't make them continuation of the same entity.
And how far back would we have to go? You use Medieval political realities. An Italian might try and use Roman laws to take back all of their lands. A Greek would use even older laws. A Mongol could use Medieval laws to justify the take over of China, all of Central Asia, most of the Middle East, Korea, Russia, and Hungary.
My point is that when people try and use the far past to justify reclaiming terrortories, there is no set time, thus creating thousands of "legitimate" claims on the same piece of land.
~:cheers: man you really made me start laughing. I didnt see tastefull humour here for long ~:)Quote:
Originally Posted by Paul Peru
The majority of population in Asia Minor was Greek till 1920's. In fact most of today turkish inhabitants are of greek origin and some dont even know it. Asia minoer was as greek as the mainland and even more as it was the center for 1000 years. The mainland was as occupied as Asia minor but it was easier to be free than the region that capital of ottoman empire was (constantinople).Quote:
Originally Posted by doc_bean
anyway thats long before so....
Pardon me if my post was unclear, i was just trying to immitate some authors on this board whose arguments seam to me so absurd ont the subject of nationalism or ethnicism that i never know if they are serious or just jocking.Quote:
Originally Posted by Steppe Merc
Of course, i was just jocking.
I absolutly agree with your point and your argument.
Concerning france and great britain, the nonsense of arguments concerning a legitimity seamed so obvious to my eyes that i thought it would be clear to any reader.
As you say, in a europe wich was not composed of nations and into wich the only real political power was the catholic church, a claim over a land by a warlord was legitimate.
But in a europe constituted of democratic nations with a supranational and democratic political power it simply doesn't make sense.
And as you also say it, the notion of time is also absurd as long as it is impossible to limit this time and that there is alwas someone that was here before, even if nothing remains of the former local populations.
As a general matter, i would add that nationalism is the most direct way to war that generate death, mutilation, ruin, misery and dictature.
So as long as i am concerned, a nationalist argumentation can only be humorous so that it cannot become serious and stinking like all serious nationalist argumentation.
Now i think i just shall learn to use those smileys.
~D
I agree wholeheartedly with you. But I wasn't just talking too you, or really anyone in general. Just trying to point out the futilety of nationalism and any one culture claiming a certaint peace of land.
And yeah, smilies do help. ~:grouphug:
Its a fair offer but I think we should take things in stages. Why don't you send us Sophie Marceau, and we'll send you Jade Goody, and if that goes OK we can work on similarly fair cultural exchanges to bring our two great nations together?Quote:
Learning to british children that jeanne of arc was a national hero, that waterloo, trafalgar and azincourt were national defeats, and learning them to speak FRENCH instead of the local and very limited slang they seem to have developped in those isles is a matter of law as well as justice
I would heartily like to object. You drive on the wrong side of the road -- you started doing it, and have never learned the right way. You're stuck in the Middle Ages! We continentals just realized that the right side of the road is the right side. All Enlightment, baby. Even your wayward subjects, the Yanks, understood that.Quote:
Originally Posted by King Henry V
Although they still have your crazy metric system. I mean, you weigh what? Five stones? Yeah man, I weigh twenty rocks, or fifteen hundred thirty-four pebbles. And you say you're how tall? Five feet two inches? What? Meters, man, meters! METERS AND CENTIMETERS! Not every village its own metric system! Next thing, you'll have Chelsea supporters saying they ran six thousand seven hundred times the distance their keeper kicks a ball to get away from the riot police, and then Man United hooligans say they toppled a police van over weighing eleven thousand watches and then had to run a million large toes! Middle Ages, my friend, it's just plain painful to watch.
~;)
I think it was a case of French English mixed with dry French humor that caused this. Silly French... they really should learn some Wallonian humor, à la Goscinny et Uderzo ~D
And really, get some help with your highway toilets. Professional help. For the love of God -- and for the love of me -- PLEASE! I CAN'T TAKE IT ANYMORE!
As I say:
English for eloquence;
español por sensualidad;
français pour le romantique;
en Nederlands? Alleen om kennis te maken!
~Wiz ~;)
I thought only the Aegean coast of Asia Minor was truly Greek in character after the Selçuks moved in?Quote:
Originally Posted by Idomeneas
And I realize that it wasn't poof, bang, and the Greeks were gone, but took many years. But such desolation as described in the letters of basileios Manuel II Palaiologos in his campaigns alongside Beyazid I in Asia Minor really doesn't convince me of the fact that there were still a lot of Greeks back then. His description of what remained of Pompeiopolis, which lay on the eastern bank of the river Halys, in 1391 is simply pure Romanticism, in his way of accessing your emotion as you read of this sad remnant of Pompey the Great's legacy -- a ghost town, all the inhabitants fled to the surrounding rough country, forgotten and without a name amongst the Turks.
~Wiz
Quote:
Originally Posted by The Wizard
There is actually an historical reason why we drive on the left. Before it was far more sensible, since it was easier to face an opponent such as a highwayman (don't say that you didn't have Highwaymen in France or Holland, becuase you did) by drawing one's sword with one's right hand. Also, It was the way the English drove their carriages. Since the coming of the automobile was not overnight, at one time both carriages and cars were driving on the road.
Coming back to the the thread's topic, the seljuks did enslave and massacre hundreds of thousands of Eastern Roman Citizens I the 1000s and 1100s. One could also say that Turkish expansion is the cause of recent turmoil in the Balkans.
Actually the Wizard is right on this. Greeks in the mainland of Asia Minor fleed a long time ago. And if they remained they probably got sucked into the population. I'm not sure there were many real Greek there anyhow, they spoke greek, but they didn't have the descendents as us.Quote:
Originally Posted by Idomeneas
Now the people on the coast( the 2,000,000 greeks ) were forcibly removed in the 20's. But that was our fault for invading and not holding back.
Here is a positive attitude!Quote:
Originally Posted by English assassin
Altough concerning Sophie Marceau, i am not sur this is a good idea.
You seem to have strange beliefs about french women and i fear some of you well intentionned islanders shall pretend to wash those dark red-brown parts of her while thinking they are due to some lack of hygiene.
Of course this is probably the best sort of idea a man can have but this can be a bit confusing.
Don't you prefere Christine Boutin, for example?
I am not sure she washes herself because this implies some sort of nudity but she loves bibbles and things like that.
I can only imagine the huge value of the cultural exchanges that can come from this!
As we continental french do not have any sort of a priori concerning french women from the isle's hygiene, there is no problem with you sending the person you speak about.
In fact, she should be proud of her personal top ranking hygiene level up to a point where she can be extremely willing to share it with culturaly curious people.
A great way to obtain a productive cultural sharing and, in the end, the mix to join together the different parts of france i agree with you.
Now, reunification is on the way, just a bit of work and everything will be right.
~;)
Well technically the people of Anatolia were not Greek. They were Anatolian 'hillmen' Romanized (or Hellenized, not sure really) when the Eastern empire cleansed its armies of Germanic warriors in the 5th century AD.
Later Heraklios brought them into the fold completely when he made their theme the most important theme, and he Hellenized them. There was also a Byzantine dynasty of these people -- the Isaurian dynasty, begun by Leo III the Isaurian. Although I suspect this dynasty was much like its successors of the Macedonian dynasty: truly Greek.
~Wiz
Well I am not entirely sure how we got onto the idea of washing Sophie Marceau but I certainly don't have the slightest problem with it.
Oh dear now I see why the French refer to perfidious Albion. Alas alas, my English sense of fair play will not allow me to take advantage of you in this way. Ms Goody was a "star" of a reality TV show a few years ago, she is not the delicate English Rose you may be imagining, more a sort of monkey in knickers. Tell you what, you can have Keira Knightly for a bit, there's a girl Blighty can be proud of.Quote:
As we continental french do not have any sort of a priori concerning french women from the isle's hygiene, there is no problem with you sending the person you speak about
Don't think I hadn't noticed all this "continental french" and "french from the isles" nonsense either. If I am French how come I only got a B in French at O level, eh? And, you DO realise this means the French are responsible for Basingstoke (I KNEW it couldn't be us).
Forgetting the nostalgia thing (and the Megali Idea-stuff) I can mention some even more ridiculous theories about the Turkish origins.Quote:
Originally Posted by Mouzafphaerre
In the Anatolian (Asian Minor) origin theory, there is a rather interesting side-theory: that the Etruscans are actually Turks! I've read an extensive article on the subject (a Turkish friend was kind enough to translate it into Greek) several years ago and it was really hilarious.
There are several sources mentioning that the Turks are actually descendants of the Sumerians (the Sumerians were Turks, and then came to MEsopotamia from the steppe, and afterwards returned to the Steppe and fathered the Turks).
And other similarly valid theories.
Amusing, ain't it?
This is a rather huge subject now, ain't it? What Anatolians? Karians? Lydians? Lykians? Isaurians? Kappadokians? Pontics? Those coming from the north or those coming from the south? The inlanders or the coastal?Quote:
Originally Posted by The Wizard
Some of them were Greeks to begin with (the descendants of the huge settling wave of the early 1st millenium BC of Greek immigration). Some others got hellenized before even the Romans arrived (Karians, Lydians, Lykians). Some got hellenized during the medieval times. Some got never hellenized (Kurds!).
A very wide subject, nevertheless. And hairy too, in some aspects.