Claimants to the Western Civilization

Fundamental Question :

If the Nordic people are the superior master race, what exactly were the purest of them (Scandinavians, Germans) doing until 1500 AD (from 3000 BC) ?

In this post, I will examine the notion of the western civilization and who deserve to claim from it.

Clash of Civlizations :

We are suffering from increasing noise by the so called defenders of western civilization. It has become fashionable to talk about the clash of civilizations – between the Western Civilization of freedom, democracy and everything that is good (read fair, goodlooking people) and the so called Islamic/Chinese Civilization of autocracy, degradation and everything that is bad (read dark, disfigured, freakish looking people). Especially after the end of the cold war, there has been an urgent need of creating a new enemy. Several people are working overtime to create the necessary image of the evil in the minds of the western population.

This is exemplified by popular media which produces movies such as the “300″. The story of the 300 spartans against the Persian army of Xerxes has become a metaphor of the clash between civilizations. In reality, Greeks and Persians were more alike than anybody else. They even looked similar, spoke similar languages, and had similar customs. The movie portrays the battle of Thermopylae as the struggle to preserve the western values of democracy and freedom against the evil eastern autocracy. Nobody seems to care that these values were not the sole propriety of the Greeks. Tribes throughout the world have established republics. The most ancient republic in the world (which has a written record) was Vaishali in the Gangetic basin. People of all these republics fought fiercely against the conquering kingdoms. Stories of these wars are indeed a huge part of Indian mythology. When Alexander the Great was conquering Bactria, he had to fight several Aryan tribes which refused to surrender. Every single member of these tribes had been murdered in the battlefield, and written records exist proving this. However, we don’t see Hollywood making heroic movies on the plight of Assakenois.

But, let’s try to understand what “western civilization” is and who possesses the right to claim from it. What is western civilization all about ? It begins with the Greeks – their ancient philosophers and scientists. It then includes the marvels of Rome. Finally, it merges with the industrial revolution and the renaissance. Some people go to the extent of including the religion of Christianity (in some extreme cases, even Judaism) into this encompassing definition. So, who are the purported claimants of the western civilization and its values ? United States, Europe, Canada and Australia (read – those of pure European racial stock) Supposedly, these values of western civilization are currently under attack by a multitude of freaks.

Any serious student of history would laugh at such a simplistic and stupid worldview. But, let me dissect each of these aspects in detail.

Appropriation of Greece :

First, we have to talk about the Greeks and their marvellous achievements in the sciences and in the arts. Current day textbooks trace the beginings of all sciences to ancient Greece, hardly mentioning about the parallel (and sometimes more profound) developments that took place in other parts of the world. For example, the father of Medicine is considered to be Hippocrates. The father of history is Herodotus. The father of geometry is Euclid. And so on. Nobody mentions Sushrutha, Chanakya, Brahmagupta or to what they have achieved.

In any case, let’s consider that Greeks have somehow uniquely discovered science and technology. But who were the Greeks and where did they live ? They were a mediterranean people who lived on the eastern most boundary of Europe. They occupied hardly any territory in Europe – they didn’t look beyond the Balkan mountains, beyond which they considered lived barbarian tribes. But surprise, the ancient Greeks lived in most of the modern day Turkey. They had an elaborate shared history and trade with the Persian empire. When Alexander the Great unified the tribes of Greece, he set about conquering Persia and Egypt. The north of Europe presented nothing of interest to him !

There had been several Alexandrias (cities of the conqueror) in Persia, Parthia, Bactria, Egypt and even in the western flanks of India. Each of these civilizations flourished with the influx of Greek knowledge. I will examine how much India stands to claim from the Greek civilization. The art of sculpture was highly influenced by the Greeks, and so was the science of astronomy in the later epochs. Greek genetic ancestry is present throughout the western flanks of India. Several Indian princes had Greek wives. The first major religion of India – Buddhism owes a lot to Greek patronage. Greek kings who settled in India became Buddhists and Vaishnavites, studying Indian scriptures with utmost reverence. The impact of Greece on India was so great that the popular Indian dress for women – the saree, was itself a Greek invention. Even to this day, India and Greece share a similar culture which is reflected in music and art. Ancient India and Greece were ofcourse, much more alike – due to the common Aryan civilization. The vedic pantheon of gods is essentially identical to the gods of the Illiad.

In contrast, how much does the rest of Europe stand to claim from the Greek civilization ? Close to nil.

The Europeans hardly knew about the existence of Aristotle until they read the translations from the Arabic scholars. India and Persia have more in common with ancient Greece than any of the European nations.

Appropriation of Rome :

The second important factor of the so called “western civilization” was the Roman empire. Unlike the Greeks, the Romans have made its presence felt in every corner of Europe except for the extreme north which continued to be savage. The Roman empire has also occupied significant portions of north Africa, where magnificent ruins can be observed to this day. It is sensible to call the Roman civilization as a Mediterranean civilization and not as a European civilization. Unlike the Greeks who stand to claim significant discoveries in the sciences, the Romans have discovered very little for their age. One principal reason is the lack of a continuous thread from the Greek civilization, except in some fields such as art and religion. In contrast, the fruits of Greek civilization continued to thrive in Bactria and Parthia, later picked upon by the Arabs.

Finally, the Roman empire was vandalized by invading hordes of Germanic tribes. The very word “vandalized” comes from the Germanic tribe of “vandals”. These barbarian tribes have literally destroyed the civilization in the 500 AD. Ancient Romans probably hated these tribes more than anything else in the world. Now the very descendants of these tribes – Angles, Saxons, Franks, Goths, Vandals, Vrangians (in modern parlance – British, Germans, Scandinavians, parts of French, parts of Italians – the richest countries in the current world) ironically claim to be the heirs of the Roman civilization.

Renaissance or just Naissance :
Then comes the industrial revolution and the renaissance. Both of these owe heavily to the centres of learning set up by the Moorish Arabs in Spain (Andalusia). The Arabs compiled the entire knowledge of the world, taking from Greek, Indian and Chinese souces and improved upon it. They gifted the entire knowledge to the European people through their universities before they got kicked out of the European continent. This ushered in the very first golden age of Europe, the countries began to have their own share in the history of mankind by advancing this knowledge. This began to happen from 1400 AD. The consequent glory of Europe (along with its twin evils of colonialism, slavery and brutal warfare) is less than 600 years old. The term renaissance is misleading because it assumes that the people of the northern Europe had any cultural marvels any time earlier. This not being so, the term renaissance (rebirth) should be replaced by the term naissance (birth). The proud parents of the European civilization should be the Arabs.

Appropriation of Abraham into Europe :

Before I proceed onto anything else, let me inspect the ridiculous entry of Christianity/Judaism in the spectra of western civilization. These great religions were the product of Semitic people who had a different language and a different history (nothing to borrow from the Greeks). These people had indeed suffered attrocities under the Roman empire. The story of Jesus Christ itself is an example of the divergence between the “western civilization” and these religions. The European countries have been meekly conquered by these Semitic religions. In contrast, the ancient Aryan religion continues to flourish and grow in India. Important strands of philosophy such as monotheism, monism, rationalism etc. have been incorporated within the ancient Aryan religion without an explicit overhaul, like how it happened in Persia or in Europe. India continues to be a thriving place of philosophical discovery.

Now, who stand to be the biggest claimants of the so called “western civlization” ? Not the USA. Not the north European states. Before the racist fanboys of these regions ponder about the “problems affecting the western civilization“, they should observe whether their own claim to western civilization holds any meaning at all !

Appropriation of Aryan Culture :

Not satisfied with the theft of all this heritage, the northern European people started to appropriate the ancient culture of India. The discovery of the fact that ancient India was home to some fair skinned people made all its achievements somehow European. Hitler did the maximum of this theft by appropriating the name Aryan and the ancient holy symbol of Swastika. Nowhere in the ancient Indian texts was the word Aryan used to mean a fair skinned person, but instead a cultured person. Apparently, there are Aryan people and there are Barb-Aryan people, as people who continue to abuse this word suggest.

Plain Conclusion :
No civilization on this planet has been bred in isolation. The great thinkers of the past have respected the marvels from every other civilization. Science shows respect only to science, and not to the tribe that one comes from. Humility is the key to any great thinker. The legend goes that Einstein had this written down on the walls of his study “I am thankful to the millions of people who go to work every day and whose fruits of labour I am relishing”. The same should be remembered by every single person and every single civilization.