Quote Originally Posted by Titus Marcellus Scato View Post
The common denominator between Turkey, Syria and Iran is that their land was part of the Persian Empire at the time of the Battle of Marathon, so in terms of reenacting that battle, re-enactors from those countries are more likely to identify with the Persian side than they are with the Greek side. That's obviously not true for most re-enactors from Greece itself. So if Turks, Syrians, and Iranians had come, there would have been a lot more 'Persians' at the re-enactment. Hence it's a shame there weren't hundreds of people from those countries at the event.
Just want to point out the dangers of such invalid reasoning. Take southern California, for instance, which is where I'm from. At least a portion of this land was where the Chumash community lived for many years. "So in terms of reenacting" any sort of battle or acting as a Chumash warrior, being from this land, does that make me "more likely to identify with the [Chumash]"? Not really. But considering Orientalism as the late Professor Edward Said has outlined it, it isn't surprising at all to come across similar expectations of peoples from the (Middle) East.