sorry i needed to edit my post, bc i was meant to answer to malaka, but then i thought better give starhd an answer.
i mentioned before that the four characteristic of a nation that everybody seems to have accepted, without even bothering to question are quite young.
who sais that history religion tradition and language should define a nation ?
and who said that i should accept that in drawing lines between people?
who sais that people themselves drew such lines 200 years ago ?
let me give you some quotes from mark mazowers book "the balkans , a short history"
p.101-02
in the beggining of the 20th century, greek and bulgarians patriots where fighting to receive the support from the people of the ottoman part of macedonia . a greek fighter wrote : concerning the ideas greek villagers (note the "greek" villagers ) have concerning the greek orthodox church and the bulgarian one , their in no position to tell the difference. when they were asked if they were greeks or bulgarians they looked each other with amazement wondeering what this phrase means and replied : we are christians. what greeks what bulgarians ?
a bulgarian patriot was furious with the apathy of the peasants. a "bulgarian" priest who spoke the slavic dialect but used to make the mass in the church in greek told him : the gospel is good so why is it important to say it in bulgarian ? the bulgarian patriot got furious , bc they were all bulgarians (see the similarity with the greek patriot ? ) but they didnot know it and they should have bulgarian priests , but they didnot know that either , and they didnt seem to care about either of the two.
H.N. Breislford asked some kids in a mountain village near ohrida , where they had no teacher or priest. he took them to the ruins of the palace of the bulgarian czar and asked them who build these ?
- the free men
-and who were these?
- our grandparents
- ok, but where they serbs, greeks, bulgarians or turks ?
- they were not turks, they were christians.
when some people tried to calculate the "nations" inside the ottoman empire, they were often found in the weird situation where peasants would not only change their opinion according to who was asking , but also they would answer in bulgarian : i am greek ...or vice versa
the bosnian muslims spoke their slavic language , while ali-pasas from janena (remember our enemy , dont we ?
)spoke albanian and greek but not turkish he was married to an orthodox woman and during his reign their were numerous greek schools in his region. the muslims of crete spoke greek and could sing the cretan national poem erotokritos...
the examples are endless ....even with religion - which you pose as the characteristic of a nation. stories exist where people used to pray both in the christian and the muslim saints.
in some place turk sailors wouldnt sail if the greek priest wouldnot bless the waters.
p128 : lady montaque said : where christians and muslims live together they dont specialise in theological discussions , and they say that they cannot argue which is the best religion. but to be perfectly sure the visit the mosque on friday and the church on sundays.
when asked the mulism of western macedonia they answered : we are muslims but muslims of saint mary
p129 . christians would even use muslim courts even in cases where muslims were not involved. in cyprus a christian farmer sued his son (lol) and said in front of the religious judge "i sold my son a cow, i want the money. he delays. i want them according to the sacret law"
p135 we albanians have very strange ideas. we believe in any religion that allows us to carry owr guns"
can you imagine that thats how the people of the balkans thought 100-150 years ago ?
can you understand how indeffirent the "nation" was for them , what today is supposed to be the most sacred idea ?
can you imagine that in such a short time , the nationalist diseace has spread over the balkans, foorcing the peasants to take position , forcing ideas to the peasants that they never had , forcing them to be proud for sth they never were.
can you imagine that oly some dacades later and until today the balkans
saw the greatest attrocities in the names of "nations" ?
and you want me to accept all those deaths without a sign of critisism ?
do you understand that the idea of the "nation" did not represnt the majority of the oppresed christians but some educated elites ?
........................
now, pause for a minute and think the 4 characterstic of a nation.
did you ever think that perhaps they are 5 or just two , or 3 different ones. why do you accept it without even questioning it?
but lets follow them for a while :
history: whats that supposed to mean? ofcource one of the first civilazation and the most dominant one in cyprus was from the greek settlers. but dont you also forget that for the
last 400 years we live on this island with not mainland greeks but with tcs. we do have common history , and its the most recent one we have.
tradition : well when it comes to that , there exist no greek tradition imo. that shows again the stupidty of nationalism and drawing borders. the traditions in thrace are similar to bulgaria , the ones in macedonia similar to serbia , the ones in ionian islands close to italy, the ones of the aegean similar to turkey. only pellopenese and perhaps eipiros have their own distinct traditions. bc, when someone drew a border between two villages of what now is greece and bulgarian he forced two villages to accept a new identity they never posseced. what makes you think that the village that fell on the greek side had less things in common with the village accross the border than it had with crete or cyprus.
language : ofcource the cypriot dialect originates from the greek. but it has evolved to sth distinct just like it happened to all regions of greece. after the idea of the nation came along , it was decided that we sell away our dialects and we become all the same through a process of homogenisation.
moreover i have asked this question a thousand times :
what makes you think that a christian in cyprus was able to communicate easier with a christian in northern turkey than a muslim in cyprus ?
what makes you think that neighbours could not comunicate ?
religion : i have laready posted , how people viewd religion and how easily they would interchange. it is only lately that we are preooccupied with the "right" religions.
moreover, if we accept religion as a characteristic of a nation i do not accept that any todays mainlant greek fulfills the criteria of a true helene. the ancient greeks were not christians , and imo they mostly developed the foundation of western ideas bc of that. imo thats one of the biggest paradoxes that you can find. you cannot believe that religions make nations , and then consider yourself a christian. plato , aristotele , and aristophanes will be screaming from their graves.
...............
now , could i add a fifth characteristic of a "nation" ?
or does that destroys the way of thinking we have been taught ?
why not create nations according to geography ?
why shouldnt that make a credible characterstic of a nation ?
why can i and my tc neighbour cannot be called a nation , and i shoud identify myself with someone living km away. today ofcource and after the mass nationalist education we both received , that sounds weird. but , give it a thought for a while. it might not be as absurd as it sounds
