2 hours ago, nutbean said:

If you want to talk history why stop at 2 thousand years ?  Go back another 100-1000 years. There is more than one claimant to that patch of turf. 

Oh Mr Nutbean. I'm not talking about people who claim to have lived there pre two thousand years ago, I'm talking about the people who have lived there continuously since ad 100 or so, I.E. the people who lived there before the Brits colonized it. And you also don't seem to have a problem about whether the Brits had a right to give away another person's land.

1 hour ago, Choke said:

It's relevant because it's another instance of racism not being a conscious process, with the person in question completely unaware of how the comments were racist.

You are seemingly unaware of the implication of your own comment, just as the woman in the story. I thought telling it would help illustrate this to both you and BBO, who seemed to think Stuie was being hard on you.

 

I'm fairly conscious of my actions and words thanks .

Both of you made the instant leap to the R word instead of the point I illustrated that the many cultures along the Silk Rd have advanced largely to The Royal Navy.

The Ottoman Empire was built on Persian knowledge and Greek .

There was no golden period or leap forward in knowledge emanating from the Ottomans.

They stole , looted,murdered and raped  their way through the Middle East and Europe

After Ww1,When the end was near they murdered 3 million Armenians as a final gesture to the world.

I don't have much nice to say about them .

No offence was directed against any race at all and by your own admission your family were not spice traders anyway.The ottomans were made up of many races?, including white slaves and forced ( Christian) soldiers.

I thought my comments were in context of the discussion but I'm aware people are quick to take offence in this modern world so I will apologise to you.

I haven't got time to keep defending  for every other conquering action of white men  in history which I will admit seem to be numerous and often brutal.

Im pretty over Demonland as well for this .

3 hours ago, nutbean said:

If you want to talk history why stop at 2 thousand years ?  Go back another 100-1000 years. There is more than one claimant to that patch of turf. 

Sorry, Moonie, the year in question is 1948. Those other claimants were making a pretty good fist of asserting their claim at the time, with the endorsement (ever since the Balfour Declaration) and assistance/connivance (depending which side it’s read from) of the British. I don’t know if the Poms were in any position to make offers to the Palestinian Arabs in that year since they’d already announced they were pulling out and there was a war going on between the Arabs and the Jews anyway.

Britain had made various offers to do with self-government (or self-administration) before then, all of them contingent on the Palestinian Arabs accepting a shared/divided country. From the Arabs’ point of view they had good reason to refuse any of these, whatever the competing claims to the territory might have been.

Biffen’s efforts to construe anything that happened at the time as some sort of sign of or preamble to a ‘failed state’ is only another rehearsal of his prejudices. There never was a Palestinian state that might have failed and nothing the Poms ‘offered’ the Palestinian Arabs was going to lead to any kind of stable state (jolly sporting of them to offer nonetheless, even if they were only supposed to be administering the place … although such, according to Rudyard Biffen, is the unending toil of carrying the white man’s burden).

But it fits in nicely with the comic-book version of history retailed in his collection of jaundiced posts above.

15 minutes ago, Biffen said:

I'm fairly conscious of my actions and words thanks .

Both of you made the instant leap to the R word instead of the point I illustrated that the many cultures along the Silk Rd have advanced largely to The Royal Navy.

Really? For some (failing at) presenting themselves as some kind of authority on history, you're exceedingly poor at remembering your own words.

Here, I'll help you with that...

 

On 28/12/2016 at 7:22 AM, Biffen said:

A fact that irks many of them but they would still be flogging spice with an abacus if  the white colonial devil didn't come proselytising .
 

That's not any kind of acknowledgment of "advancement", that's a slight on a couple of races based on your own personal racist views.

 

Yes Dr John I take your point that the Palestinians had these terms pressed on them.

The terms they were offered at the time look increasingly better by the day and I'm not sure the British are responsible for the 3000 year old battle for Israel .

4 minutes ago, stuie said:

Really? For some (failing at) presenting themselves as some kind of authority on history, you're exceedingly poor at remembering your own words.

Here, I'll help you with that...

 

That's not any kind of acknowledgment of "advancement", that's a slight on a couple of races based on your own personal racist views.

 

That's your opinion.

Quite a few races come under that umbrella including Whites and blue eyed aryans from Persia so take your show to Jerry Springer and provoke some outrage there.

I have offended abacus users and spice traders everywhere.

 

3 minutes ago, Biffen said:

That's your opinion.

Quite a few races come under that umbrella including Whites and blue eyed aryans from Persia so take your show to Jerry Springer and provoke some outrage there.

I have offended abacus users and spice traders everywhere.

 

No, you've gone for Africans, Indians and those from the Middle East.

Here's the full quote just so you can get the context of your own post:

 

On 28/12/2016 at 7:22 AM, Biffen said:

We hear a lot of criticism of whitey but as far as colonising goes the British and French improved the world.

Africa,India and the Middle East would be nowhere without them.A fact that irks many of them but they would still be flogging spice with an abacus if  the white colonial devil didn't come proselytising .

 

In other words: British and French "whitey" = Good. Non-whitey = dumb.

That's called racism. Pretty simple really.

 

10 minutes ago, stuie said:

No, you've gone for Africans, Indians and those from the Middle East.

Here's the full quote just so you can get the context of your own post:

 

In other words: British and French "whitey" = Good. Non-whitey = dumb.

That's called racism. Pretty simple really.

 

Not "in other words".

I've written my own.

Funny isn't it that these two nations are copping the bulk of terrorist attacks and from men fromthe areas listed above .

In truth the Dutch were terrible at running a colony and so were the Spanish largely due to the fact that they lost their fleets to the Royal Navy.

If the Dutch had controlled the spice Islands maybe they would be the devils.What they did with their random attacks on the Banda islands was succeed in making Indonesia Muslim because they were as bad as the Ottoman raiders.

17 minutes ago, Biffen said:

Funny isn't it that these two nations are copping the bulk of terrorist attacks and from men fromthe areas listed above .

That's because you only class attacks against "whitey" as "terrorist attacks".

The US dropped 26,000 bombs in the Middle East last year.

But I'm sure they're better off for that given "whitey" improves all the places he goes according to you.

 

18 minutes ago, stuie said:

That's because you only class attacks against "whitey" as "terrorist attacks".

The US dropped 26,000 bombs in the Middle East last year.

But I'm sure they're better off for that given "whitey" improves all the places he goes according to you.

 

Yes  Stuie  ,

ISIS are winning friends and influencing people everywhere but   western decadence is to blame.

Persia has grown under the influence of Islam.They all must be wrapt.

The worlds finest libraries and antiquities all sacked by the Ottomans.

Advancements in maths,Astronomy,music,poetry,shipping and trade , the first culture to make wine- all ruined and wrecked by dogma and every achievement claimed In the name of Allah.

The Ottomans can be held responsible perhaps for Muskets and possibly ripping off another version of a sextant for navigation.

Before Islam the Persians were travelling along very nicely.

 

 

1 hour ago, Biffen said:

Yes  Stuie  ,

ISIS are winning friends and influencing people everywhere but   western decadence is to blame.

Where exactly did I say anything even remotely close to that?

 

15 hours ago, Biffen said:

That's your opinion.

Quite a few races come under that umbrella including Whites and blue eyed aryans from Persia so take your show to Jerry Springer and provoke some outrage there.

I have offended abacus users and spice traders everywhere.

 

Hey, I've seen abacus users out perform people on calculators doing extremely complex mathematical calculations!

1 hour ago, hardtack said:

Hey, I've seen abacus users out perform people on calculators doing extremely complex mathematical calculations!

hey..up until this thread, I thought an ottoman was something I put my feet on. Then they got renamed in Australia to "poofs" then they got renamed back to ottomans for reasons unclear to me.

1 hour ago, hardtack said:

Hey, I've seen abacus users out perform people on calculators doing extremely complex mathematical calculations!

Better than me. I cant get past or over 1 - 9 - 6 - 4

18 hours ago, Biffen said:

Yes Dr John I take your point that the Palestinians had these terms pressed on them.

The terms they were offered at the time look increasingly better by the day and I'm not sure the British are responsible for the 3000 year old battle for Israel .

But that’s exactly what they thought they could take on, Biff; see the Balfour Declaration.

I’m not sure where your obsession with the Ottoman Empire actually leaves us. There really isn’t any denying the various genocides (well, the Turks go on trying to with the Armenian genocide but no one believes them and it was only one of several to boot). But many of your claims about their contributions or otherwise to knowledge etc are contestable at best and probably mostly falsifiable with a bit of research.

You seem to muddle together what’s Ottoman and what belongs to the ‘Golden Age’ or other previous caliphates anyway, and you also ignore the Islamic contributions from elsewhere (the Moors, for example, especially in Spain and we know how that ended or if we don’t we really ought to read more about the Inquisition). But there’s no real point to most of your contumely other than as an effort to condemn anything and everything associated with Islam. Islam, though, isn’t a singular, monolithic thing (as the Shi’a will tell you in between dodging bullet or cleaning up after suicide bombers) but the obsession with the Ottomans looks like an attempt to paint all Islam with the same brush.

In any case – as the Balfour Declaration also indicates – the history of the Levant more or less begins again from 1918, with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Versailles and (in relation to British territories) the Cairo Conference of 1921 when Europeans thought they could divide up bits of land and put them in the hands of people who didn’t necessarily have territorial claims to them. It’s easy enough to say that all of this was done with the best intentions in mind but it certainly didn’t work out that way and it’s the repercussions of all that manipulation (as well as the way in which western countries then pursued their own interests in the region) that we’ve inherited.

The Arabs (or plenty of them who were disadvantaged as a result) saw these deals and agreements between Europeans as a betrayal right from the start, especially of the Arab Revolt which had helped bring down the Ottomans (the Arab Revolt was that thing that in Seven Pillars T.E. Lawrence laid claim to having orchestrated/led or been the hero of, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you read that book since Lawrence makes it clear whom he regards as the real barbarians once the Empire’s forces reach Damascus). So none of the European plans and borderlines got off to a good start and things didn’t improve from there.

As for Islam, any remnants or resonances from the Ottomans are far less significant in relation to the current malignant face of fundamentalism than the Wahhabists. The real problem (in terms of terrorism especially) lies in Saudi Arabia. But we go on dealing with them with one eye closed, or maybe both. That’s a far more urgent question than what the Ottomans did or didn’t do with the Astrolabe or the number zero … although the nineteenth century origins of the fundamentalism as a response to the values and attitudes of those European who were stomping around the place but whom you hold in such esteem is another matter. As Walter Benjamin once said: ‘there is no document of civilisation that is not at the same time a document of barbarism’.

1 hour ago, Dr John Dee said:

 

But that’s exactly what they thought they could take on, Biff; see the Balfour Declaration.

 

I’m not sure where your obsession with the Ottoman Empire actually leaves us. There really isn’t any denying the various genocides (well, the Turks go on trying to with the Armenian genocide but no one believes them and it was only one of several to boot). But many of your claims about their contributions or otherwise to knowledge etc are contestable at best and probably mostly falsifiable with a bit of research.

 

You seem to muddle together what’s Ottoman and what belongs to the ‘Golden Age’ or other previous caliphates anyway, and you also ignore the Islamic contributions from elsewhere (the Moors, for example, especially in Spain and we know how that ended or if we don’t we really ought to read more about the Inquisition). But there’s no real point to most of your contumely other than as an effort to condemn anything and everything associated with Islam. Islam, though, isn’t a singular, monolithic thing (as the Shi’a will tell you in between dodging bullet or cleaning up after suicide bombers) but the obsession with the Ottomans looks like an attempt to paint all Islam with the same brush.

 

In any case – as the Balfour Declaration also indicates – the history of the Levant more or less begins again from 1918, with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Versailles and (in relation to British territories) the Cairo Conference of 1921 when Europeans thought they could divide up bits of land and put them in the hands of people who didn’t necessarily have territorial claims to them. It’s easy enough to say that all of this was done with the best intentions in mind but it certainly didn’t work out that way and it’s the repercussions of all that manipulation (as well as the way in which western countries then pursued their own interests in the region) that we’ve inherited.

 

The Arabs (or plenty of them who were disadvantaged as a result) saw these deals and agreements between Europeans as a betrayal right from the start, especially of the Arab Revolt which had helped bring down the Ottomans (the Arab Revolt was that thing that in Seven Pillars T.E. Lawrence laid claim to having orchestrated/led or been the hero of, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you read that book since Lawrence makes it clear whom he regards as the real barbarians once the Empire’s forces reach Damascus). So none of the European plans and borderlines got off to a good start and things didn’t improve from there.

 

As for Islam, any remnants or resonances from the Ottomans are far less significant in relation to the current malignant face of fundamentalism than the Wahhabists. The real problem (in terms of terrorism especially) lies in Saudi Arabia. But we go on dealing with them with one eye closed, or maybe both. That’s a far more urgent question than what the Ottomans did or didn’t do with the Astrolabe or the number zero … although the nineteenth century origins of the fundamentalism as a response to the values and attitudes of those European who were stomping around the place but whom you hold in such esteem is another matter. As Walter Benjamin once said: ‘there is no document of civilisation that is not at the same time a document of barbarism’.

 

 

Back to the original topic. We would hate to de-rail a thread.

My wife was a teacher in the inner east before we had our first child. Christmas carols and all other forms of Christmas celebrations were forbidden by the the principal at the school she taught at. Unfortunately, that principal still remains.

I have no problem with and infact embrace other cultures celebrations but we should not hide away from our own traditions. My 2 just about 3 year old daughter had the time of her life over Christmas. Now she can't wait for the Easter Bunny. They are both traditionally religious celebrations but as far as I am aware the tooth fairy is not. And as soon as she looses a tooth, money will be under the pillow. The tooth fairy will come and vanish. I am not a religious person but I do believe in providing a magical childhood for children.

 

 

1 hour ago, Dr John Dee said:

 

But that’s exactly what they thought they could take on, Biff; see the Balfour Declaration.

 

I’m not sure where your obsession with the Ottoman Empire actually leaves us. There really isn’t any denying the various genocides (well, the Turks go on trying to with the Armenian genocide but no one believes them and it was only one of several to boot). But many of your claims about their contributions or otherwise to knowledge etc are contestable at best and probably mostly falsifiable with a bit of research.

 

You seem to muddle together what’s Ottoman and what belongs to the ‘Golden Age’ or other previous caliphates anyway, and you also ignore the Islamic contributions from elsewhere (the Moors, for example, especially in Spain and we know how that ended or if we don’t we really ought to read more about the Inquisition). But there’s no real point to most of your contumely other than as an effort to condemn anything and everything associated with Islam. Islam, though, isn’t a singular, monolithic thing (as the Shi’a will tell you in between dodging bullet or cleaning up after suicide bombers) but the obsession with the Ottomans looks like an attempt to paint all Islam with the same brush.

 

In any case – as the Balfour Declaration also indicates – the history of the Levant more or less begins again from 1918, with the Sykes-Picot Agreement, Versailles and (in relation to British territories) the Cairo Conference of 1921 when Europeans thought they could divide up bits of land and put them in the hands of people who didn’t necessarily have territorial claims to them. It’s easy enough to say that all of this was done with the best intentions in mind but it certainly didn’t work out that way and it’s the repercussions of all that manipulation (as well as the way in which western countries then pursued their own interests in the region) that we’ve inherited.

 

The Arabs (or plenty of them who were disadvantaged as a result) saw these deals and agreements between Europeans as a betrayal right from the start, especially of the Arab Revolt which had helped bring down the Ottomans (the Arab Revolt was that thing that in Seven Pillars T.E. Lawrence laid claim to having orchestrated/led or been the hero of, but I wouldn’t necessarily recommend that you read that book since Lawrence makes it clear whom he regards as the real barbarians once the Empire’s forces reach Damascus). So none of the European plans and borderlines got off to a good start and things didn’t improve from there.

 

As for Islam, any remnants or resonances from the Ottomans are far less significant in relation to the current malignant face of fundamentalism than the Wahhabists. The real problem (in terms of terrorism especially) lies in Saudi Arabia. But we go on dealing with them with one eye closed, or maybe both. That’s a far more urgent question than what the Ottomans did or didn’t do with the Astrolabe or the number zero … although the nineteenth century origins of the fundamentalism as a response to the values and attitudes of those European who were stomping around the place but whom you hold in such esteem is another matter. As Walter Benjamin once said: ‘there is no document of civilisation that is not at the same time a document of barbarism’.

 

 

Wonderul stuff, Dr Dee.

 

31 minutes ago, dieter said:

Wonderul stuff, Dr Dee.

 

Always a relief to come across educated discourse on a site like this rather than the display of half baked basically prejudiced views formed on comfortable armchairs.

Well Written and researched as ever DJ but none of this contradicts what I've said about 1948.

Thankyou for acknowledging the genocidal nature of  the Late Ottoman era but I contend it was always done is a similar way and that the Spanish Inquisition is mild by comparison.

 The numbers killed andthe territory re gathered was minuscule  and achieved little.

Lets remember Turkey was Christian- Mary was born there they say.

Persia was in fact Zoroastrian although they are nearly all dead too.Perhaps the worlds oldest faith- far older than Judaism now residing mostly in N India.

I have credited the Ottomans with two inventions already and nobody can really offer up anything else they originated.

The Chinese in fact used a pipe bomb in the 11th c which was hand held .

The British globalised the drug trade and yet all they get is ridicule.

Thank God for Jardine Mathieson and the Royal!!

11 minutes ago, dieter said:

Always a relief to come across educated discourse on a site like this rather than the display of half baked basically prejudiced views formed on comfortable armchairs.

Prejudiced might be the wrong word.

Half baked is wrong also.

I hope some of my assertions cause you to read more on the subject but I assure you my knowledge is researched.

I don't write from a comfy chair either.

I wish had more time to go into further detail.

As much as the Dr of Hopping Dicks.

 

1 hour ago, Wrecker45 said:

Back to the original topic. We would hate to de-rail a thread.

My wife was a teacher in the inner east before we had our first child. Christmas carols and all other forms of Christmas celebrations were forbidden by the the principal at the school she taught at. Unfortunately, that principal still remains.

I have no problem with and infact embrace other cultures celebrations but we should not hide away from our own traditions. My 2 just about 3 year old daughter had the time of her life over Christmas. Now she can't wait for the Easter Bunny. They are both traditionally religious celebrations but as far as I am aware the tooth fairy is not. And as soon as she looses a tooth, money will be under the pillow. The tooth fairy will come and vanish. I am not a religious person but I do believe in providing a magical childhood for children.

 

 

Actually my OP specifically stated I wasn't talking about the Carols issue, but rather the issue of elected officials governing for the entire country.

The whole thread's been derailed almost from the start, no point in trying to get back there lol.

FWIW I'm also not religious either and don't really care if my kids sing carols or not. I did however draw the line when my son once brought home a calendar that had a gruesome poem about Jesus and blood. The school also sent a letter home to parents requesting we petition our local MPs about some changes in legilsation regarding same-sex adoption. Took him out of that school pretty quickly after that and enrolled him in a local state school.

Edit: post was unclear. My son was 4 at the time, and the poem was easily the most gore-filled piece of literature of any kind he had been exposed to. The teachers made the kids decorate it red as well, to enhance the symbolism I guess.

34 minutes ago, Biffen said:

Prejudiced might be the wrong word.

Half baked is wrong also.

I hope some of my assertions cause you to read more on the subject but I assure you my knowledge is researched.

I don't write from a comfy chair either.

I wish had more time to go into further detail.

As much as the Dr of Hopping Dicks.

 

How the hell did you get away with that last line, Mr Biff?

Also, it really depends on who you read.

For example, there's Winston Churchill's History of the World.

You're sure to get a very unbiased appraisal of the world from his vantage.

Today's 'Middle Easter Icon' Historian is that warped warmonger called Bernard Lewis.

Anything he writes about the history of the Middle east - 'The Clash of Civilisations' ( Indeed, if you count saturation bombing as a civilised thing to do) - is pure and utter propaganda.

 

32 minutes ago, Choke said:

Actually my OP specifically stated I wasn't talking about the Carols issue, but rather the issue of elected officials governing for the entire country.

The whole thread's been derailed almost from the start, no point in trying to get back there lol.

FWIW I'm also not religious either and don't really care if my kids sing carols or not. I did however draw the line when my son once brought home a calendar that had a gruesome poem about Jesus and blood. The school also sent a letter home to parents requesting we petition our local MPs about some changes in legilsation regarding same-sex adoption. Took him out of that school pretty quickly after that and enrolled him in a local state school.

Edit: post was unclear. My son was 4 at the time, and the poem was easily the most gore-filled piece of literature of any kind he had been exposed to. The teachers made the kids decorate it red as well, to enhance the symbolism I guess.

Sounds like the indoctrination we so-called Catholic boys got in the 50's and 60's. The lucky ones that only got indoctrinated instead of inseminated by seminarians.

1 minute ago, dieter said:

Sounds like the indoctrination we so-called Catholic boys got in the 50's and 60's. The lucky ones that only got indoctrinated instead of inseminated by seminarians.

Yeah, it was a Christian school, which I was fine with (as I attended one myself and quite enjoyed the debates in the religious studies class).

They said specifically in the interview that they don't push the religion onto the kids, although they offer those services. We learned later from speaking with other parents that the religious parents are told in their interviews "oh yes we very strictly adhere to the bible and integrate Jesus with the curriculum daily", and the non-religious parents such as myself are told "no we don't push anything, our teachers are religious but the content isn't".

Felt pretty pushy to me, so out we went.

57 minutes ago, Biffen said:

Well Written and researched as ever DJ but none of this contradicts what I've said about 1948.

Thankyou for acknowledging the genocidal nature of  the Late Ottoman era but I contend it was always done is a similar way and that the Spanish Inquisition is mild by comparison.

 The numbers killed andthe territory re gathered was minuscule  and achieved little.

 

Not quite true Biff. The inquisition accompanied the Spanish (in particular) to the New World where it was used widely as a tool of repression against native populations.