Turkey And Europe Must Go Beyond Obsolete Colonial History

By: Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis
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[ Posted On: 2007-04-15 ]

Continuing our approach to ways the Turco-European rapprochement will permit both parts see each other trustfully and rightly, we will concentrate our analysis on the correct perception and diffusion of European History in both Europe and Turkey.

In two previous articles, we insisted on the current – very problematic – European disregard of the Islamic dimension of the European History and Culture (Urgent Task for Turkey and Europe: Reveal True European History to Europeans), and on the determinant European character of Anatolia (Asiatic part of Turkey) for long millennia when Scandinavia’s, Germany’s and Central Europe’s, Poland’s, Ukraine’s and Russia’s, as well as England’s and France’s territory’s cultures did not influence European formation, Culture and History more than Asiatic cultures (First Objective for Turkey and Europe: Assess the Origin and the Confines of Europe). In this feature, we will examine the formation of the Modern European Historiography where an important part of misunderstanding ad misconception lies.

Modern European Historiography

Modern European Science has been based on Humanism that broke with the Middle Ages by rejecting theocratic viewpoints over and approaches to the phenomenon of the Mankind and by replacing it with Humanism. The approach started with Fine Arts, Philosophy and Literature. Soon it expanded throughout the sphere of Sciences that it modified almost totally. Quite indicatively, the sciences dealing with History, Philosophy, Arts, Literature and other fields focusing on the way of life, the social structures and habits, and the material records dating in past periods were called ‘Humanities’.

The way to explore in various fields, from Astronomy to Chemistry, was also revolutionalized because of academics’ and philosophers’ insistence on experiment and observation. It was then stated and accepted that, if the result of a pertinent observation contradicted a religious dogma established long ago, when research did not have the same, developed, means of observation, then surely the religious dogma should be disregarded and obliterated, since it was the result (not of some God’s assertion but) of human poor means of understanding and evaluating situations.

Philosophical methods were added to all that, and Descartes became the starting point of modern academia. Later philosophers intensified work in this direction, and like this various scientific schools emerged only to be soon replaced by other. A better assessment of sources and a new philosophical view would necessarily bring a change in the Search for the Past (History) and in all the other academic disciplines. With the focalization of the research on always more limited fields, greater depth and specialization were achieved, bringing knowledge to unprecedented heights.

In the Renaissance era, the historical interest was concentrated on earlier European periods in which religion did not monopolize the measures, the approaches and the dimensions of Thought. In the same way a Roman priest of Jupiter would not interfere in Dio Cassius’ attempt of compiling a monumental Roman History, Christian priests had no word to say when 15th and 16th century Europeans composed historical works on earlier or contemporary periods. This was the approach that prevailed, and led to the basic division of the World History in three basic periods: Antiquity, Middle Ages, and Modern Times.

Limited Sources of the Renaissance European Historians and Academia

With the European historiographers’ sources being mostly – if not exclusively – Latin and Ancient Greek, the historical exploration’s and study’s interest was monopolized by Ancient Greece and Rome. Extremely few European scholars were well versed in Ancient Hebrew, Syriac, Coptic, Armenian, Georgian, and Abyssinian Gueze that were all Biblical and Patristic languages.

The reason was the fact that, after the Crusades, Christian Europe was quasi-totally separated from the Islamic ‘Orient’ where all the Eastern Christian peoples, using the aforementioned languages, were living.

In addition, the loathsome and criminal Crusaders were most hated by all the Eastern Christian peoples (Greeks included), who have been discriminatorily and irrationally mistreated at the hands of the Crusaders as long as the latter ruled parts of the Eastern Mediterranean.

A third reason was that the few who knew these scriptures, languages, and literatures were monks and theologians, whose interest was diametrically opposed to that of the Renaissance humanists.

Furthermore, the contents of the aforementioned languages – literatures had little attraction for the Renaissance humanists and their followers the classicists of the 16th and the 17th centuries. These literatures had been evolved around the Christianization of the peoples of the East, so there was no a chance for the unilateral and partial humanists and classicists to find a Coptic text to describe the advantages of Free Art and Thought, a Syriac text to laud a democratic system supposedly established in Urhoy – Edessa of Osrhoene or an Abyssinian – Gueze text to refute Christian biased history of the Axum kingdoms. These vast complexes of literatures did not please the European academia, and were therefore disreputably ignored.

For the same and extra reasons, Turkish, Farsi and Arabic were neglected as well.

And then a great number of now deciphered but then unknown scriptures, languages and literatures, involving Egyptian Hieroglyphics, Sumerian, Assyrian – Babylonian, Elamite, Hatti, Hittite, Ugaritic, Urartu, and Old Persian Cuneiform, as well Hieroglyphic Hittite, Hatti and Luwian (to name but a few), could not be taken into account. Names of entire civilizations and peoples like Sumer and Elam were unknown!

It all led to an illogical and counterfeit Greco-Romano-centrism that became the vertebral column of the European academics’ ‘World History’. When the colonial expansion of France and England in Africa and Asia started (second half of the 18th century), Greek and Roman History had already been formed into Modern Scientific Disciplines. This was normal. What was normal was that they were also the backbone of the ‘World History’.

Explorations, excavations, and decipherments led to the creation of new scientific disciplines (Egyptology, Assyriology, etc) during the 19th and the 20th centuries, and the knowledge acquired through the process dismisses either details or the concept itself of the World History that had been formed earlier.

But for various reasons modern European scholars did not undertake a single effort of proper readjustment and modification, and did not embark on a single attempt of the much needed demolition of the obsolete Greco – Romano – centric version (or model, school, etc) of World History before the 1950s and the 1960s.

The issue had immediately been linked with political interests, and that is why it was perpetuated until the 1980s and 1990s, when more serious and complex efforts of rejection of the obsolete model have been manifested in America – not in the European Mausoleum. Even worse, by now the problem became also educational, cultural and professional.

The rejection has to be spread out at the level of education and average culture, and will jeopardize the position of thousands scholars, who have been formed generation after generation under a dictatorially imposed false and obsolete model of World History.

The issue is crucial for the future of Europe, since no country can be successfully formed on a devastatingly wrong conception of its own historical past and of the World History.

The lethal sentence for the still in use obsolete European model of World History will be the title of the next article:

Middle Eastern Civilizations' Expansion brought Civilization to Europe.

It will be essential for Europe and Turkey to cooperate in diffusing throughout their universities, educational systems, and average culture the complete reassessment of the existing so far contributions within numerous scientific disciplines.

Article Source: http://www.afroarticles.com/article-dashboard

About The Author: Dr. Muhammad Shamsaddin Megalommatis - is Orientalist, Assyriologist, Egyptologist, Iranologist, Islamologist, Historian and Political Scientist. Dr. Megalommatis, 49, is the author of 12 books, dozens of scholarly articles, hundreds of encyclopedia entries, and thousands of articles. He speaks, reads and writes more than 15, modern and ancient, languages.

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