Posted by T on May 05, 2001 at 14:05:54:
In Reply to: Re: a disgrace to your Irish ancestors posted by Maya on May 05, 2001 at 11:45:47:
Dear Maya,
I very much resent the barbed tone of your comment.
"How very typical for Americans!Having no nationality of their own, they are looking for melting pots everywhere else."
Do you consider this vicious comment worthy of the culture of philosophers, scientists, intellectuals, and artists you proclaim to be a descendant of?
"I'm jewish,my family lived hundreds of years in Poland and Russia-none of us looks like a Slav!In Canada people asked me if I'm a lebanese."
I've seen Greeks (in the area of Saloniki) who looked Scandinavians (a product of the migrations of peoples early in history), but also some who much more resembled the people I met in Antalya, Turkey, (their families had lived in Smyrna for centuries before they came to Greece at the beginning of the century - and not were as welcomed by their fellow Greeks as many Greeks wish to believe today) others (Pondii) who looked like the former Soviet-Union-expatriate Georgians in my neighborhood. So, what purity of Greek ethnicity are we talking about? I believe, what really makes them Greek is their professing to certain working models (religious, cultural, ideological, aso), values (family, orthodox christianity, hospitality, aso) and traditions that shape their lives today, their genopond ancestry clearly comes in second after all these in terms of significance. Greeks are still great people, so what's the fuzz?
And this, Dear, does not exclusively apply to Greeks but to many peoples with an eventful, troubled history.
As for the knowledge of people in Canada about other cultures... A Greek friend of mine living in Montreal was once (very seriously) asked by a Canadian student why he wasn't walking around in the traditional Greek dress - a long white robe. So if you pass for a Lebanese, what does that prove? My Jewish aunt looked British, her very blond daughter did too, that didn't make them less Jewish, nor did it save them from the concentration camp. The criteria to exclude or include people are arbitrary. The motives for wishing to exclude others from or include them into a group are significant. These motives merely reveal the rascism, ethnocentrism, or religious fanatism of their advocates.
": As for the G-d's help-we know already that neither yourlikes nor the G-d will not help us, we remember how your beloved USA returned ships with Jewish refugees to Europe where all of them were killed by yourlikes."
If you bring up such things, Lady, get all the facts: If all Jews were turned down, how come there are about as many Jews living in the United States as there are in Israel?
As this is a Greek discussion board - how about remembering the 350.000 Greeks who immigrated into the USA to escape poverty, hunger, and death in their patrida? Did they lose their Greekness by immigrating to the US? As all Americans are immigrants or descendants of immigrants from countries all over the world how dare you say they have no nationalities? All Americans I know will eventually mention where their ancestors came from when you get to know them better. The 'melting pot' has long been exposed a social utopia, so why bring up an idea that has long peen proven a stillbirth of sociology?
T