An analysis, addressed to Commander U.S. European Command and Supreme NATO Allied Commander Europe, Admiral James Stavridis
by George Sidirountios, MA (V. Cult.), MA (Hist.), PhD cand. (Hist.)
Dear Sir, with respect and sincere admiration
Plans for a safe and prosperous future of mankind cannot be made without analysing the past.
Sixty four thousand years ago, people used the oldest arrow heads we ever discovered. Indeed, Humanity has a long presence on the planet and the general assumption is that there is always evolution and progress. This is false, because there had also been disastrous setbacks. Entire civilisations were wiped out by hoards of barbarians who introduced nothing else than slaughter and destruction. For example, the Germanic tribes of Alaric, driven by a savage desire to loot and enslave, invaded almost the entire ancient Greece in the end of the 4th century CE. Not much later, the same tribes invaded and destroyed the Western Roman Empire. As a result, Europe fall into the hands of uncivilised leadership, and the Dark Ages followed. However, the Christian Eastern Roman Empire known as Byzantium, managed to repel barbarians for centuries, and civilisation was preserved there. Byzantium did have higher education foundations, hospitals, social care, banking system, fashion, advanced architecture and other cultural and technological achievements.
In the seventh century, Arabic tribes coming from the unfriendly deserts decided to conquer better lands. In the centuries that followed, they raged repeated destructive wars almost everywhere in the Mediterranean. Although they did not manage to conquer the entire Byzantium, much of the best lands, such as fertile Egypt, fall into their hands. The long lasting process of conquering the Eastern Christian World was completed by certain central Asian Turkic tribes, whom the Arabs converted to Islam. Those Turks, together with the Arabs, imported forces of cultural stagnation to the areas they conquered, to the extent that many of those remain nowadays some of the World's worst places regarding human rights. Repeated Arabic and Turkic aggression destroyed and enslaved not only Eastern Christianity, but also invaded many other parts of Southern Europe, and reached as deep as central Europe. It seems the World has forgotten that long before and after the Crusades, Islam was on the offence and not on the defence. Therefore, it was most unfortunate that the Pontifex Maximus Benedict XVI offered his own apology to the Muslims on the issue of the Crusades. The Islamic World did not welcome this most generous gesture with a reply of their own apologies for their long lasting expansionist and unjust holy wars. On the contrary, the Islamic World perceived the apology of the Pope as an admission that the Christians started the problems. This false perception is one of the main driving forces behind the ideology of religious extremists. Not only this, but also a wider number of myths have been circulated about how good the Arabs and the Turks have been to the World. For example, the numerals that everybody calls Arabic, are actually Indian, and they existed several centuries before the Arabs first show them. Another myth that should be exposed is about the famous ancient Arabic medicine, which, in fact, did not move even one step forward from the medicine taught by Dioscurides centuries before. The World should learn that most of what is presented to us as Islamic cultural heritage, comes directly from ancient Egypt, Persia, Israel, Greece, Rome and other traditions. Even the word Muslim first appears in a Greek text with reference to 4th century BCE Israelite history, and it was the name of a brave Israelite warrior who fought on the side of Alexander the Great. The World should understand that Muslims conquered and area which already had advanced achievements before their arrival. It was there, when, already by the 3rd century BCE, Aristarchos of Samos taught that the earth moves around the sun. The same century Eratosthenes in Hellenistic Egypt calculated the circumference of the earth with accuracy. Ctesibius made clocks and pumps in the same area, and already by the first century CE, Heron the Alexandrian used steam engines. A cultural development of the highest importance was also made in the first century by the Israelite philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who identified the One God with Heraclitus's Reason. Since then, Humanity was introduced to the idea that the One God - Reason is the driving force of the Universe. The World should learn that, although the Arabs and the Turks conquered the richest part of the Ancient World in terms of economy, culture and technology, they did not move a step forward. On the contrary, they moved backwards, to the extent that even nowadays many Muslims believe that the earth is flat and not moving. Some scholars, either intentionally or by ignorance, prefer to compare the best centuries the Arabs had with the worst centuries of the Western Europe during the Dark Ages. They do not compare the Arabic World with Byzantium, or with the Hellenistic or Classical civilisations, which were much more advanced in many aspects. The history we know does not emphasise on that, during the centuries of Arabic and Turkic expansion, waves of refuges flooded Western Europe and brought with them the educational forces that gradually helped to recover from the Dark Ages. After centuries of stagnation, gradually and painstakingly, researchers studied what had survived from the works of ancient thinkers, and this is how they brought Renaissance and Enlightenment. Those two movements resulted to the creation of our own modern civilised World of freedom of speech, human rights, science and the arts.
The question here is, where exactly the World's powers of knowledge and progress came from? In terms of geography, the cradle of the most noble ideas and the most important civilisation achievements, is consisted by the lands of the Wider Middle East. It is evident that since religious fanaticism prevailed in that area, all those ancient powers that gave birth to civilisation, gradually ceased to flourish. However, this does not mean that the seeds of those forces do not exist exactly in the same areas. A significant development in re-discovering and continuing the ancient heritage, was the Greek revolution which started in 1821. The process of liberation of Asia Minor and Armenia from the Islamic occupation ended unsuccessfully in 1922 with the systematic slaughter and persecution of millions of Christians. The World should learn that since 1914 German officers under the guidance of Otto Liman Von Sanders made the genocide plans and gave instructions to the Turks. Not only that time, but also in Cyprus 1974, certain Christians were again on the side of an aggressive Islamic country which fought an expansionist war. US and UK military forces openly sided with the Turks by stopping the Greek army and betraying its positions. The abandonment of Eastern Christianity demoralised the Christian people of the area, and pushed many of them to emigrate. The World should understand that all Christian countries which neighbour Middle East have a very low and very aged population, and is a matter of time when they fall into Islam. All Christian minorities who, nowadays live within Islam, experience rapid decline and often face savage persecutions. On the contrary, all Islamic minorities who live within the West, experience rapid growth.
Apart from the liberating wars various peoples fought in the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and Kurdistan in the 19th and 20th centuries, another significant development took place in the late 1940s. That time, many survivors of the WWII Holocaust, together with certain people who wanted to continue the heritage of the ancient Israelites, liberated some lands of exceptional historical importance. According to Strabo and Josephus, the ancient Israelites were no other than a mixed people of various ethnic descent, such as Egyptians, Phoenicians, Idumeans, Itureans, Galileans, Greeks, Romans, Samaritans and others. Faith to a single God was the most important factor that united people of different races and different ethnic origins. Together with the modern Kurds, Greeks, Copts, Armenians, Alevi, Zoroastrians, Maronites and other ethnic and religious minorities, the modern people of Israel are those who do have a just case for the liberation of the lands which gave birth to the most important civilisations of the entire World. Therefore, it was a mistake that Israel was also left alone in its struggle to liberate Sinai in 1973. Since then, it seems that Israel is heading for a decline, similar in nature like that of the Greeks and the Armenians. Up to recently, all those peoples who want to continue and develop their ancient heritage, have been betrayed by their "Civilised Allies" to a disastrous extent. However, Israel and the Kurds remain combatant and at the very front line in the war against the primitive forces that gave birth to the Dark Ages.
The World should realise that extreme Islamism is nothing more than an old and aggressive ideology which persuaded and prepared the minds of certain people, the Arabs and the Turks, to rage war in order to conquer, loot and enslave. The World's present enemy is nothing else than any ideology which claims that it holds the only truth, and rejects all others as false. Religious, racial or political absolutism is the only enemy of the World, and not any religion, race or political system in particular. The enemy is whoever regards his own religious, political, ideological and/or other views as infallible. Absolutism and inflexibility are the mechanisms, which destroy civilisation.
Many of us have the illusion that we live in a free World, where we could criticise anybody and anything. The reality is that we live in a censored World because we cannot openly criticise a certain person who started a religion and lived fourteen centuries ago. Also, we cannot criticise a certain holy book. Therefore, our World is not free. It is censored. It is the duty of the free people to act collectively in order to extirpate the censors. Conversion of the censors to other ideologies and faiths should become a priority. The methods of conversion should become subject of scientific research. Millions of oppressed people are waiting for their liberation from their censors.
The US is a continuator of the ancient civilisations of the Wider Middle East region because it follows the religions, the political systems, the science and the arts which were born there. The US is currently the most combatant reserve of the civilised World, and is a natural leader in the process for the liberation of the mankind from religious fanaticism. EU is also direct descendant and continuator of ancient civilisations, but is in a weaker position than the US because of the millions of Islamists who reside within its borders. Europe, as a continent, does not notice that already in its South East, the Islamic population is higher than the non Islamic. The fear and the insecurity of the Christian populations in South Eastern Europe cannot result into any prosperous future, and it is a matter of time when that region falls as a whole into the hands of Islamic expansion.
Τhe World should not abandon the remnants of the moderate elements, who still reside in the Wider Middle East. They are waiting for rescue for centuries. That region is the area where Humanity should return to examine the historical and cultural process that gave birth to religions, philosophy, science, the arts and all that which we call our own civilisation. Numerous ancient archaeological sites, written sources and traditions remain unresearched. For example, on the Kurdish mountains, Humanity only recently discovered its most ancient temple that is 12000 years old. A process of restoration in the lands which gave birth to culture, has every potential to result into a new era of global prosperity. How else can Humanity revitalise itself, if not starting from its foundations?
Yours faithfully
George Sidirountios
sidirountios@yahoo.com
by George Sidirountios, MA (V. Cult.), MA (Hist.), PhD cand. (Hist.)
Dear Sir, with respect and sincere admiration
Plans for a safe and prosperous future of mankind cannot be made without analysing the past.
Sixty four thousand years ago, people used the oldest arrow heads we ever discovered. Indeed, Humanity has a long presence on the planet and the general assumption is that there is always evolution and progress. This is false, because there had also been disastrous setbacks. Entire civilisations were wiped out by hoards of barbarians who introduced nothing else than slaughter and destruction. For example, the Germanic tribes of Alaric, driven by a savage desire to loot and enslave, invaded almost the entire ancient Greece in the end of the 4th century CE. Not much later, the same tribes invaded and destroyed the Western Roman Empire. As a result, Europe fall into the hands of uncivilised leadership, and the Dark Ages followed. However, the Christian Eastern Roman Empire known as Byzantium, managed to repel barbarians for centuries, and civilisation was preserved there. Byzantium did have higher education foundations, hospitals, social care, banking system, fashion, advanced architecture and other cultural and technological achievements.
In the seventh century, Arabic tribes coming from the unfriendly deserts decided to conquer better lands. In the centuries that followed, they raged repeated destructive wars almost everywhere in the Mediterranean. Although they did not manage to conquer the entire Byzantium, much of the best lands, such as fertile Egypt, fall into their hands. The long lasting process of conquering the Eastern Christian World was completed by certain central Asian Turkic tribes, whom the Arabs converted to Islam. Those Turks, together with the Arabs, imported forces of cultural stagnation to the areas they conquered, to the extent that many of those remain nowadays some of the World's worst places regarding human rights. Repeated Arabic and Turkic aggression destroyed and enslaved not only Eastern Christianity, but also invaded many other parts of Southern Europe, and reached as deep as central Europe. It seems the World has forgotten that long before and after the Crusades, Islam was on the offence and not on the defence. Therefore, it was most unfortunate that the Pontifex Maximus Benedict XVI offered his own apology to the Muslims on the issue of the Crusades. The Islamic World did not welcome this most generous gesture with a reply of their own apologies for their long lasting expansionist and unjust holy wars. On the contrary, the Islamic World perceived the apology of the Pope as an admission that the Christians started the problems. This false perception is one of the main driving forces behind the ideology of religious extremists. Not only this, but also a wider number of myths have been circulated about how good the Arabs and the Turks have been to the World. For example, the numerals that everybody calls Arabic, are actually Indian, and they existed several centuries before the Arabs first show them. Another myth that should be exposed is about the famous ancient Arabic medicine, which, in fact, did not move even one step forward from the medicine taught by Dioscurides centuries before. The World should learn that most of what is presented to us as Islamic cultural heritage, comes directly from ancient Egypt, Persia, Israel, Greece, Rome and other traditions. Even the word Muslim first appears in a Greek text with reference to 4th century BCE Israelite history, and it was the name of a brave Israelite warrior who fought on the side of Alexander the Great. The World should understand that Muslims conquered and area which already had advanced achievements before their arrival. It was there, when, already by the 3rd century BCE, Aristarchos of Samos taught that the earth moves around the sun. The same century Eratosthenes in Hellenistic Egypt calculated the circumference of the earth with accuracy. Ctesibius made clocks and pumps in the same area, and already by the first century CE, Heron the Alexandrian used steam engines. A cultural development of the highest importance was also made in the first century by the Israelite philosopher Philo of Alexandria, who identified the One God with Heraclitus's Reason. Since then, Humanity was introduced to the idea that the One God - Reason is the driving force of the Universe. The World should learn that, although the Arabs and the Turks conquered the richest part of the Ancient World in terms of economy, culture and technology, they did not move a step forward. On the contrary, they moved backwards, to the extent that even nowadays many Muslims believe that the earth is flat and not moving. Some scholars, either intentionally or by ignorance, prefer to compare the best centuries the Arabs had with the worst centuries of the Western Europe during the Dark Ages. They do not compare the Arabic World with Byzantium, or with the Hellenistic or Classical civilisations, which were much more advanced in many aspects. The history we know does not emphasise on that, during the centuries of Arabic and Turkic expansion, waves of refuges flooded Western Europe and brought with them the educational forces that gradually helped to recover from the Dark Ages. After centuries of stagnation, gradually and painstakingly, researchers studied what had survived from the works of ancient thinkers, and this is how they brought Renaissance and Enlightenment. Those two movements resulted to the creation of our own modern civilised World of freedom of speech, human rights, science and the arts.
The question here is, where exactly the World's powers of knowledge and progress came from? In terms of geography, the cradle of the most noble ideas and the most important civilisation achievements, is consisted by the lands of the Wider Middle East. It is evident that since religious fanaticism prevailed in that area, all those ancient powers that gave birth to civilisation, gradually ceased to flourish. However, this does not mean that the seeds of those forces do not exist exactly in the same areas. A significant development in re-discovering and continuing the ancient heritage, was the Greek revolution which started in 1821. The process of liberation of Asia Minor and Armenia from the Islamic occupation ended unsuccessfully in 1922 with the systematic slaughter and persecution of millions of Christians. The World should learn that since 1914 German officers under the guidance of Otto Liman Von Sanders made the genocide plans and gave instructions to the Turks. Not only that time, but also in Cyprus 1974, certain Christians were again on the side of an aggressive Islamic country which fought an expansionist war. US and UK military forces openly sided with the Turks by stopping the Greek army and betraying its positions. The abandonment of Eastern Christianity demoralised the Christian people of the area, and pushed many of them to emigrate. The World should understand that all Christian countries which neighbour Middle East have a very low and very aged population, and is a matter of time when they fall into Islam. All Christian minorities who, nowadays live within Islam, experience rapid decline and often face savage persecutions. On the contrary, all Islamic minorities who live within the West, experience rapid growth.
Apart from the liberating wars various peoples fought in the Balkans, Asia Minor, the Caucasus and Kurdistan in the 19th and 20th centuries, another significant development took place in the late 1940s. That time, many survivors of the WWII Holocaust, together with certain people who wanted to continue the heritage of the ancient Israelites, liberated some lands of exceptional historical importance. According to Strabo and Josephus, the ancient Israelites were no other than a mixed people of various ethnic descent, such as Egyptians, Phoenicians, Idumeans, Itureans, Galileans, Greeks, Romans, Samaritans and others. Faith to a single God was the most important factor that united people of different races and different ethnic origins. Together with the modern Kurds, Greeks, Copts, Armenians, Alevi, Zoroastrians, Maronites and other ethnic and religious minorities, the modern people of Israel are those who do have a just case for the liberation of the lands which gave birth to the most important civilisations of the entire World. Therefore, it was a mistake that Israel was also left alone in its struggle to liberate Sinai in 1973. Since then, it seems that Israel is heading for a decline, similar in nature like that of the Greeks and the Armenians. Up to recently, all those peoples who want to continue and develop their ancient heritage, have been betrayed by their "Civilised Allies" to a disastrous extent. However, Israel and the Kurds remain combatant and at the very front line in the war against the primitive forces that gave birth to the Dark Ages.
The World should realise that extreme Islamism is nothing more than an old and aggressive ideology which persuaded and prepared the minds of certain people, the Arabs and the Turks, to rage war in order to conquer, loot and enslave. The World's present enemy is nothing else than any ideology which claims that it holds the only truth, and rejects all others as false. Religious, racial or political absolutism is the only enemy of the World, and not any religion, race or political system in particular. The enemy is whoever regards his own religious, political, ideological and/or other views as infallible. Absolutism and inflexibility are the mechanisms, which destroy civilisation.
Many of us have the illusion that we live in a free World, where we could criticise anybody and anything. The reality is that we live in a censored World because we cannot openly criticise a certain person who started a religion and lived fourteen centuries ago. Also, we cannot criticise a certain holy book. Therefore, our World is not free. It is censored. It is the duty of the free people to act collectively in order to extirpate the censors. Conversion of the censors to other ideologies and faiths should become a priority. The methods of conversion should become subject of scientific research. Millions of oppressed people are waiting for their liberation from their censors.
The US is a continuator of the ancient civilisations of the Wider Middle East region because it follows the religions, the political systems, the science and the arts which were born there. The US is currently the most combatant reserve of the civilised World, and is a natural leader in the process for the liberation of the mankind from religious fanaticism. EU is also direct descendant and continuator of ancient civilisations, but is in a weaker position than the US because of the millions of Islamists who reside within its borders. Europe, as a continent, does not notice that already in its South East, the Islamic population is higher than the non Islamic. The fear and the insecurity of the Christian populations in South Eastern Europe cannot result into any prosperous future, and it is a matter of time when that region falls as a whole into the hands of Islamic expansion.
Τhe World should not abandon the remnants of the moderate elements, who still reside in the Wider Middle East. They are waiting for rescue for centuries. That region is the area where Humanity should return to examine the historical and cultural process that gave birth to religions, philosophy, science, the arts and all that which we call our own civilisation. Numerous ancient archaeological sites, written sources and traditions remain unresearched. For example, on the Kurdish mountains, Humanity only recently discovered its most ancient temple that is 12000 years old. A process of restoration in the lands which gave birth to culture, has every potential to result into a new era of global prosperity. How else can Humanity revitalise itself, if not starting from its foundations?
Yours faithfully
George Sidirountios
sidirountios@yahoo.com
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