Greek America and developing our own National Issues

I suspect many who may have read my previous op-ed are questioning my intentions; perhaps even manipulating my arguments to paint my proposal as outrageous. However, the development of our own Greek-American Issues does not necessarily mean the abandonment of the ethnika themata we have all grown to know. In fact, what I am proposing is simply that our perspective needs adjusting. Perhaps we should gear our attention towards issues and positions that will preserve our community as an ethnic enclave of Hellenism. As well as set us apart from the established centers of our ethnos that are in decline so that we may be an autonomous beacon of hope and Hellenic culture, thus allowing us to defend Hellenism globally.

Changing the Greek American Paradigm

We have all heard of the Ethnika Themata, a series of issues, which concern Greece, ranging from the continued illegal occupation of Northern Cyprus to the ongoing name dispute with FYROM. These issues, which have been imported from the motherland to the United States, have been adopted as key concerns of our community when advocating on behalf of our ancestral homeland.

The Birth of the Republic of Turkey and the story of the Pontian Muslim

Born out of the ashes of a Theocratic Empire consumed by war and Genocide, the “Turkish” nation, is the child of an ideological struggle that took place within the multiethnic millet-i-hakime of the Ottoman Caliphate. Roughly translated as “the dominant or governing people”, this social group was made up of the Empire’s Muslim subjects, while non-Muslims, were referred to as the millet-i-mankume, which translates to, “the dominated people” or “those born to be governed” ^[35]. These two social groups are associated with what is called the Millet system. Established after the conquest of Constantinople by Sultan Mehmet II, this system was adopted by the Ottoman Empire and grouped people not by nationality or ethnicity ^[1], but rather by religious affiliation ^[2].

21st century Italy and the remanence of its indigenous heritage

“I am from Sicily, in other words from Magna Graecia and there still exists a lot of Greece in Sicily…I am of the same Hellenic heritage, even if from another place. Yes, don’t be surprised. My family name is Pirangellos. The Pirandello is the phonetic alteration of it, Pirangello-Pirandello…” 

Luigi Pirandello to Kostas Ouranis --“Nea Estia” No. 191, December 1934, Kostas Ouranis Foundation, Athens, Greece www.idrimaurani.gr/

 

The Risorgimento, known to English Speakers as the Italian Unification, was a movement, which some argue was simply a Tuscan colonization of the Apennine Peninsula, resulting in the creation of the modern nation-state of Italy. However, what many fail to realize is that the Risorgimento also represents the final fall of the Frankokratia in the Hellenic World. For those that do not know what the Frankokratia was, it is a term used to refer to a period in Greek history after the Fourth Crusade (1204). When, Western European nobles occupied the Greek-Speaking Eastern Roman Empire, and established various Crusader states in its place. This was in part brought about with the signing of the Partitio terrarium imperii Romaniae ^[1] treaty after the sack of Constantinople.