I googled "Hellenism is Racism" and found one link, see below. This is a good first draft and I hope that after we are through, the Internet will be ful of such examples?
Hellenism and its Intended Objectives
Hellenism as a national policy of the Greek state, aimed at strengthening the socio- cultural ethnogenesis among the Greeks, is an acceptable form of unifying theme. As a rallying point for Greek culture, its basic premise rests on the assumption that Greeks share the same language, same religion and same traditions. Greek religion, Greek language and Greek nationality are the three fundamental fluid components whose constructs are inextricably interwoven into a single entity - the Greek ethnos. This "unifying" thought is highly promoted by the Greek government, widely practised by the clergy, and supposedly, readily accepted by the masses.
Based on Greek government's assertions that in Greece there are no ethnic minorities, one ought to ask the following question:
Assuming that Greece is homogeneous country, one populated by Greeks only, may we inquire as to how was this apparent "purity" achieved? Was this "purity" accomplished through the national policy of Hellenization? And lastly, was this process of Hellenization voluntary one, or was it painfully forceful one. Did Greeks ever asked the Macedonian population if they wanted to forgo their own traditions? To stop using their mother's tongue? Or to change their Macedonian church services with an alien Greek one? Did they ever consider if these Macedonians wanted to remain at their own cities and villages?
The truth is that the process of Hellenization practised in Aegean Macedonia, was a national Greek policy aimed at forcefully changing the Macedonian population into Greeks. It was a policy aimed at eradicating anything Macedonian. It was a policy based on racism then, and it is a policy based on racism today. Hellenism is racism, pure and simple.
To what extent has Hellenism being carried out in Macedonia and what implications did it have on Macedonian political/religious awakening? Please read the following passage lifted from Ferdinand Scevill's book "History of the Balkans", p.303- 304.
"....Another charge commonly flung at the clergy concerns the policy of Hellenization. The patriarch and the members of his immediate circles were Greeks, passionately Greek, and did not scruple to use their immense power to further the Greek national cause at the expense of their Slavic and Romanian fellow-rayahs.
Not only were the prelacies reserved exclusively for Greeks, but systematic warfare was made upon all languages other than Greek in the hope of suppressing their use within the organisation. Not content with gradually eliminating the Slav languages from the religious service, the Greek rulers persecuted Slav seminaries and libraries by closing the former and scattering and even ruthlessly applying the torch to the later."
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
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