Alexander statue

[MARCvSVIBIvSMAvRINvS]

This is not what I am saying. Greekness was not something fluid at any given time. It is of course a fact that a certain people may have been barbarians in the 9th century and Greeks in the 5th, but this has to do with the hellenization process many peoples went through. The Greeks may be the only people who openly speak about such processes without implying that they have been around forever. You are very wrong if you think that Greeks were not Greeks, but "a conglomeration of languages and culture". Their culture was Greek and their languages dialects of the Greek.

Greeks were characterized (as ALL peoples) by a variety of dialects and peculiarities in all aspects of culture, but they all perfectly understood their common bonds and heritage. Regional identities were very strong, the Hellenic identity was also strong (again as is the case in a great many cultures and states even today). No one would say to a Spartan that he was a Greek THEREFORE an Athenian. This is just wrong and absurd to the ears of any Greek. They would say that he was a Spartan and therefore a Greek though. the mistake many people make here is that they only compare Macedonians to Athenians and then stress the differences. They never make the effort to make such comparisons between the Athenians/Macedonians and other Greek states to see what is going on. This is a grave mistake, the Athenians are what most people not well schooled in the Greek culture are more comfortable with, they are not "Greece".

The big problem being that the Athenians often seemed to see themselves as the most important city state of the Greek region, an attitude which not even Rome could stamp out. And still sadly in present day Greece many Athenians think they are better than other Greeks. (city pride?)

You may not believe in cultural continuity, you may resent national emblems, love for one's history and culture, you may see yourself as a "citizen of the world". It is your right, exactly as it is the right of the great many people who care about such staff to cherish their history and such "nationalistic" staff. Alexander the Great has been a Greek cultural element since day 1 and it is ridiculous to claim that any land he stepped on has the right to claim his heritage and history. We have no problem with Egypt or Syria raising statues, because they do it out of admiration, of pure love and respect and they do not make any effort to change history, to create absurd theories

I do believe in cultural continuity up to a point, indeed i do resent national symbols for they have been misused throughout history for as long as they exist. I care about heritage as well as history. I dont resent people expressing love for their culture and history as long as they do not misuse this as being the main reason for discarding other people as being less valuable. By the way, Alexander did not just step on those lands, he conquered them and placed his own generals in power, which after the diadoch wars turned into respectively the Ptolemees and the Seleucids et cetera.

to persuade their peoples first and those who prefer learning about Alexander from the Internet rather than studying his exploits second that "Homer was a proto-slav writing in the proto-slavic language the Iliad and the Odyssey, a language later usurped by Greeks to create their own idiom..." or that "the true written and spoken form of the Macedonian language is evident on the middle part of the Rosetta Stone, a script wrongly recognized as Coptic Egyptian, when in fact it is pure Slav..." or "When the Romans came, the Macedonians migrated north to Russia, where they formed the glorious Slavic nation. In the 6th century, they came back to their homeland..." and so many other crap theories they propagandize to their population. Respecting Alexander and his history is one thing, usurping Alexander by changing his history is another.

What you say is in part of course very very true.

But it seems that not many people know the real reason why the Slavic people of that region became like that. They and others have been inventing their past since long before 1389 : http://www.deremilitari.org/resources/pd...omides.pdf

The Slav nationalist distortion of history is a fact i dont dispute, we have dealt with the Serbian-Kroat nationalists during the Yugoslav war. They are just very mentally deranged, especially when you hear their ancient folkloristic war songs about heroic battles, and it is a fact that many Slavs are indoctrinated from a very young age by war mongerers.

The real reason why they lack an own identy and therefore "steal" something Macedonian should not therefore immediately be seen as criminal or evil, it should be seen as sad and pitiful. The Greek anger because of this is as ridiculous as the Greek anger because of the strict EU measures to try and save the country. (The EU could also just kick Greece out, but they dont do that because they somehow still care.)

Again, it is your right to be above all that, but, what you have not commented on, is that apart from the "history", there are also political allusions, which cannot be viewed as anything else BUT provocative.
Again, if you would like to discuss and not just make fun, we could do it, but laughing at our national pride is becoming tiresome and provocative too.

Political allusions are sadly part of the equasion, and not really allowed on this forum. Posting this thread was in itself the wrong thing to do. If one then gets attacked or ridiculed by others, take it in stead of starting to whine. I would like to discuss it further, most definetely from my high seat amongst my collegues on mount Olympus, but to get too political on this board is not a wise road to take.

I am not laughing at your national pride alone, i am laughing at ALL national pride of EVERYONE.

Tiresome you can call it, provocative too. It is done with a purpose, and if it opens your or anyone else's eyes to the ridiculousness and unbelievable pettiness of it all so much the better.

Why cant you stand above some things in life? What does a statue do to you?
What influence does it at all have on your daily life ?

NONE WHATSOEVER !!!!!

That is why i dislike national pride and nationalistic feelings so much, they cause trouble, violence and wars.

National pride can be a good thing, but as soon as people start using it to distinguish themselves from others with the undertone of them being better, and it always ends with that, I myself as well as many of my Martian and Venusian friends, yes, we are proud of our alien planetary heritage and do feel galactic pride, reserve the right to vehemently attack anything they say with our own verbal tsunami and laugh in their faces at the same time.

If they lose their temper or get angry it is immediate proof that they have lost the battle, since they obviously do not know the difference between rhetoric, satire, cynicism and things which can really hurt you.

Emotional attachment to these false feelings of pride is the worst sin of them all.
First remove the beam out of your own eyes before trying to remove a splinter in someone else his eye, to quote a famous man.

The pot calling the kettle black is another very well put statement in this case.....

M.VIB.M.
Supreme council member of the Intergalactic Council for Planetary Heritage and Galactic Pride.