Greek claims to superiority are not something that Greeks tout to outsiders but it is frequently discussed among Greeks in private company. I don’t know if it is a genuine belief but some Greeks do believe that they have given the world everything, from philosophy to science to mathematics to democracy, and that, they believe, makes them superior.
Even if modern Greeks are, in a small and remote way, descendants of the ancient people who lived in the ancient City States, which I doubt they are, some credit is due to them. Unfortunately, not all of what was attributed to the ancient City States is accurate. Archaeology and science have proven that not all of the so-called “Greek contributions” are actually “Greek”. This, however, has not stopped modern Greeks from making claims.
We now know that the atom was discussed in India one millennium before there ever was the ancient City States. Greeks, unfortunately, continue to claim it as their own invention. Even though the Egyptians were using geometry for millennia, to identify their plots of land on the Nile floodplains after the winter floods, the Greeks continue to claim that they invented it. Was the alphabet a Greek invention? Greeks claim it was! But can they explain the etymology of the words “alpha”, “vita”, “gamma”, “thelta” etc? I think not!
The Greek alphabet is actually not Greek at all, it is Phoenician! The Phoenicians were not Greek, they were Phoenician!
If not the alphabet then democracy must have been invented by the Greeks for sure! I think not! Democracy, in the true sense of the word, as it is practised today was also practised by the Phoenicians many years before it was adopted by Athens. Not all ancient City States were democracies! Sparta was not a democracy. What exactly do we mean by “democracy” and how does it relate to the type of “democracy” practised in Athens during its heydays? According to Webster, democracy is “majority rule; the principle of equality of rights, opportunity, and treatment, or the practice of this principle; the common people, esp. as the wielders of political power”.
Athens, on the other hand, was ruled by a very small minority of wealthy white men. These men were not only rulers, but they were also slave owners. Slaves, who comprised about sixty-percent of the Athenian population, were neither Athenian citizens nor did they have any political rights. In fact, these people were bought and sold in the market like commodities. Further, women, who made up about half of the ancient Athenian population, did not have any rights at all, not even to call themselves human. So, if we compare Webster’s definition of democracy to that practised in ancient Athens we find that they don’t compare at all!
In reality, the type of so-called democracy practised by the ancient Athenians was worse than our 19th century Fascism and Nazism, the type of rule popular with white racist regimes. The ancients may have called it democracy but let’s not confuse it with our modern democracy which is more like the original democracy practised by the Phoenicians.
Two and half millennia later Greeks keep on inventing things like Greek coffee, Greek salad and Greek pizza and keep on giving to the world without asking anything in return.
So how are Greeks superior to the rest of us?
One thing they are proving to be is “superior liars”!
THE TRUTH
Modern Greeks, along with their Roman-derived benefactors, have not only falsified “ancient history”, they have robbed other civilizations of their contribution to the world. Clearly the contributions of say the Phoenician and Egyptian civilizations, which were far superior civilizations to that of ancient Athens, are totally ignored and long forgotten. Worse, their contributions have now been expropriated (stolen) by the Greeks and claimed to be Greek.
Two and a half millennia later Greeks continue to expropriate (steal) other people’s ideas and inventions and shamelessly call them their own!
I have already mentioned the atom and geometry, but Greek coffee? Clearly everyone knows “Greek coffee” is actually Turkish coffee. As for “Greek salad”, that too is another “Greek invention”. What is shameful about the “Greek salad”, apart from the fact that it was not invented by Greeks, is that Greek restaurant owners, boasting to their western tourist customers claim it to be “an ancient recipe passed on to them from the time of the ancient City States”.
Thus far the only thing that Greeks have proven is that they are “superior liars”. Other than that, Greeks are no better, no worse and no different than the rest of us. If I may add my own opinion, I believe as a people we are all the same, only our attitudes towards one another differ and that is mainly due to “foreign influence” and ignorance of the truth.
All modern Balkan nations are made from the same stock (raw material) of people. We lived borderless for over two and a half millennia. You figure out the rest.
By – Risto Stefov
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