{"id":297,"date":"2017-10-28T21:23:25","date_gmt":"2017-10-28T18:23:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/?p=297"},"modified":"2017-10-28T21:23:25","modified_gmt":"2017-10-28T18:23:25","slug":"aesop","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/297\/aesop\/","title":{"rendered":"Aesop"},"content":{"rendered":"

Here is a response to the post<\/a> about the so-called African roots of Greek culture.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don’t have much to say except that the unsigned author of this article gives the impression that some people lay claim to a cultural heritage that isn’t theirs due to low self-esteem. This may be true in part. But it is also true that down through the centuries, many European cultures have through imperialism claimed cultural heritage that was not theirs as their own. Case in point: Aesop. I was shocked some months back when I came across the oldest existing portrait of Aesop in a book, and he looked quite Negroid to me. I had to do a lot of research before I stumbled upon accounts of Aesop’s origins being in Africa (Ethiopia specifically, hence his slave name of Esop). Most sources of information put him down as being a “Greek slave”, and almost every picture portrayed him as Caucasian. But maybe it’s no big deal.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

*<\/p>\n

Aesop\u2019s origin is disputed. Most probable seem Thrace<\/a> and Frygia<\/a>, however this is not important to our discussion, as I hope this post will explain.<\/p>\n

First of all, let me thank you for your comment and criticism. Immediately after the circulation of the March issue of Ellopos Newsletter<\/a>, 10 subscribers canceled their subscription, preferring to leave instead of replying. I have always been politically incorrect, trying to speak things with their names, as I understand them, but never before had the occasion to refer to Africa. I have lost some Muslim subscribers, since references to Islam are more frequent, and now I lose black subscribers. In absolute numbers, 10 or 50 subscribers less is not something important, yet I wanted this place as a place of discussion, and it is sad that even just one person decides to leave instead of participating in the discussion.<\/p>\n

We\u2019d avoid misunderstandings if we defined our concepts and were careful to discern the basic point in a discussion. You suggest that perhaps Aesop was of black origin. So what?<\/strong> Let\u2019s assume that he was indeed. No one says, at least not me, that black people are not intelligent. The crucial questions are, why had he to live in Greece in order to develop his thinking as we know it? Where are the other African thinkers? Did Africa produce only Aesop, out of nothing? Where is the knowledge and admiration of Aesop in the African culture? <\/em><\/p>\n

Even if he was born in Ethiopia<\/a>, he is an alien body in Ethiopia<\/strong>. I hope you can understand this. Let me repeat a phrase from the previous post.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we are to claim that Christianity is African, we must prove that the Christian culture is rooted in a culture<\/strong> that is properly and particularly African. We can not assign the roots of Christianity to a geographical reality as such<\/em>, because by themselves stones, trees, waters and dust are not able to have or create a culture. If this was not true, if Christianity is African due to the geographical area called Africa, then Africa would be Christian today, but is not.\u201d<\/p>\n

The same is true about color. If we are to claim that the Greek tradition has even partially african roots, we must prove it to be connected with a properly and particularly African culture<\/strong> \u2013 not with\u00a0the color of a person<\/strong>, because a color as such\u00a0does not have nor is able to create a culture.<\/p>\n

Where is the African culture to which Aesop belongs? Nowhere. No matter his color and origin, it was in Greece that Aesop became what he became<\/strong>, in the Greek environment and society. Aesop in any case can not be considered a root (the root is in Homer<\/a>), and from that aspect I understand why you say \u201cit\u2019s no big deal\u201d, but it is<\/strong> a big deal in our discussion to understand why Aesop can not be considered as even a secondary African influence, since it was Greece that produced Aesop<\/strong>, not the opposite. Place him in Ethiopia, and you will not be able to understand him; what Aesop became has not any precedent or continuation in the African culture(s).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Here is a response to the post about the so-called African roots of Greek culture. \u201cI don’t have much to say except that the unsigned author of this article gives the impression that some people lay claim to a cultural heritage that isn’t theirs due to low self-esteem. This may be true in part. But […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_disable_autopaging":false},"categories":[9,13],"tags":[544,358,546,545,381,547],"class_list":["post-297","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-europe","category-greek-history","tag-aesop","tag-africa","tag-cultural-heritage","tag-ethiopia","tag-greek-culture","tag-political-correctness"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.ellopos.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}