Piling wrote:
Languages : Persian and Most of European languages are in the same group : Indo Aryan ; Finnish and Hungarian are cousins of Turkish ; Arabic is Semitic, but also Aramaic which is the primitive language of Christianity, while Hebrew is one of the language of Bible, and Ladino (Judeo-Hispano) the language of many Jews of Spain.
Persian is an indo-iranian language, as is kurdish, as is hundreds in the indian sub-continent, as is pashto and dozens in central asia. It doesn't make us closer to europeans. We share alot more with turkic and semitic languages, vocabulary wise. Ladino is a bastardized language specific to jews. Hebrew is never used outside of Jewish communities, europeans don't accept hebrew as a european language. Indo-iranian languages are not indigenous to the middle-east though. There are only vague connections here.
Piling wrote:Ancestors(I'm not talking about race or DNA, i'm talking about bloodlines) : With the migration from Africa to Middle East and Europe in Prehistoric times, and later the successive waves of migration fro Asia to Europe, we have a bunch of common ancestors. Just look at physical aspects.
20000-15000 years ago, sure. But that is a long-time. We're more related to caucasians, and south-central-asians, than we are to europeans. We share ancestry with them there. Wherest europeans were never present in large enough number to make any impact, unless we talk about prehistoric times.
Piling wrote: but as I wrote above, values and conceptions are the same, because they have the same religious and philosophical roots.
Maybe in the past, but today. Europeans basically follow enlightment models, which are hugely different and more relativist than their predecessors. Also i disagree. European theolgians deconstructed islamic conceptions, first as heresies and then as a satanic cult. So there is a big difference. You must have read about this if you read about medieval history.
Piling wrote: Concerning the 'behavior' : too vague, but I guess that Southern European have the same social values than In Maghreb (Mediterranean roots).
Different emotions/sentimentality Different behavior in daily/characteristics. Europeans are introverted, individualist, social hierarchical, cynical, class-focused, fickle, cold, reserved.
West-asians: Community-orientated, extroverted, religious, warm-blooded, spiritual, conservative, supertitious.
That's how i would describe ther characteristics.
There is a big difference between europeans and west-asians. Even in daily life and the way you sense their presence, and how they come off to you(the vibe). Europeans are mostly distant and reserved, while west-asians are more extroverted. There is also a huge difference between spanish(who're more similar to other europeans, and north-africans.
You might think this vague, but you have be really aloof, not to observe such differences. Not to feel the different presence of people.
Piling wrote:Social culture(Social behavior, social values, social conceptions, social norms, family etc.) : Just need precise examples, too vague again. The only evident difference is polygamy (though it is not so common than Westerners imagine); beside that, we are all heirs of the Greek conceptions of 'City' and 'juridical Empires' (Roman).
Look at how west-asians socialize. look at the goal of socialization. F.ex in west-Asia, unmarried men and women do not mix. Elderly are respected. People invite each other to eat very frequently, even someone they briefly have meet(unlike Europe). There is a strong family orientated community culture(Everyone knows everyone in their neighborhood, and everyone looks out for each other). Social gatherings are much larger. People socialize with their family much more often than Europe. Religious values are upheld. Concepts of honor and behavior are upheld(while in europe only concepts of being "friendly" or "nice", are important for social adjustment). Religious spirituality and rituals are important(salat, wudhu) All this is absent in europe.
Europeans are more individualist,
Piling wrote:Appearance(Kurds or west-asians in general look nothing like europeans) : Lool, I know many Kurds with fair skin, blue eyes (especially in some area like Barzan) or green and grey eyes (Bohtan, Sinjar), blond hairs, etc. Beside, just look at Mediterranean populations and see how they are so 'different' with Syrian or Palestinians. There are Southern people and Northern People, but be sure that for a Chinese or an Indonesian, a Persian is the same than a European (they called them all 'big nose' when they saw merchants and sailors).
Inbred villages with recessive phenotypes do not count, they're less than 1% of the entire 30 million of kurds . The overwhemingly majority of kurds are brunet and dark-haired, dark eyed, dark to olive skinned, they have thick hair texture. And different overall facial features(Bigger noses, lower foreheads, bigger ears, more convex nosed, different facial dimensions) With only a very small minority of light-colored people. This becomes more obvious in west-iran, where kurds originate. While even the majority of mediterranean europeans would be considered too light and out of place in west-asia. We do overlap to a small extent, but the overall differences are larger than the similarities. I honestly don't care what chinese and indonesians have to say(As if they were relevant in anyway). Only what west-asians and europeans have to say. And europeans and west-asians indeed see themselves as different.
Piling wrote:Political philosophy : All from schools of Platon (Al Farabi) and Aristotle from one hand, and a trouble to adapt them with Bible or Coran, which give not any indications concerning politics.
Europeans adopted different political philosphies(marxism, third positionist fascism, liberalism) in their post-spiritual, post-christian, post-feudal and post-enlightenment societies. West-asia never had such systems, it was either local dynasties, banana-states with connections to the west, or theocracies. When western-inspired movements tried to implement those systems, they quicky failed. We never shared ideologies with westerners.
Piling wrote:The difference with a so called Political Islam' while Christianity would stay far from Politics : Just read Saint Augustin, God's City. The same tension between theocracy and philosophy.
There is big difference in regency. In islam, atleast early islam, there existed no state, only religious state. While in christendom, the state institutionalized the the religion as a cultural and political mediator, rather as a primary ruler and political foundation.
Piling wrote:History : Islam, Christianity and Judaism are so interlaced that they share many territories (and spent their time to invade each others) : there is a Christianity in Middle East, a European Islam (Eastern Europe) and of course, the great ancestor, Judaism which is a bridge.
We have more ub common with turkics and south-central asians, than with europeans. While for levantines, it's arabs. Only jews are the exception and are mixed between europeans and middle-easterners, culturally. And they have never had a significant impact, as jews.
Piling wrote: Italia, Spain were muslim, Northern Africa was Christian, Bosnia, Albania were shared, and of course, 3 religions were in Middle East for the beginning.
Only briefly, sure but it had no impact. I don't think people care at all about that. Europeans have done everything to remove anything middle-eastern about christianity in europe. They even depict jesus as a blonde man, and talk about jerusalem and biblical names as if they were happening and were located in berlin or prague. Not in west-asia.
Piling wrote:Economic-structure : too vague, precise what are the economical structure of Islam vs European.
Islamic taxes were different, so was the role of the clergy in the economy. Modern day economies are very different. Europeans follow a free-market capitalist model. While west-asians have a developing world economy, and buisness(save for turkey) is largely dependent on selling raw materials and 1st industry produce.
Piling wrote:Goals : precise
Europeans want this westernized globalist world "humanist" world(you're good example of this), and other lame empty stuff(their elite of course want to rule the whole world, economically and politically) . west-Asians want self-determination, security(Not saudis), countrys stability and economical prosperity. Our goals are fundmentally different.
Piling wrote:Geography : lol.
Why lol? West-asia belongs to asia. Even scientifically, our region has more in common with central-asia, south-central asia and caucasus, both in vegtation, soil, mountains and forest(The only exception being border region in west-turkey) and general topography. Not even the levant is similar to greece. Especially west-iran where kurds are from, resemble the terrain in Hindu-kush. European such things, differs very much. Europeans have no semi-desert, desertified region. Europeans have more fertile soil and vegitation. Green-leaf woodland areas in the middle-east(in turkey and north-iran) resembles caucasus. not europe. While the mountainous terrains in zagros and mountain regions resembles hindu kush(only parts of turkey and northern-iran are different).
Piling wrote:Geopolitical and cultural interaction, both historical and present : continuous wars, occupations, and conquests : Italia, Spain were muslim.
Contact(both globally, regionally and locally) : they were always in contact (trade, wars, politics, conversions)
This might be true for anatolia, and during the persian empire, what about the rest of the time? Crusades is a very bad example. Trade is global. Don't tell me hellenism. Hellenism was a colonialist enterprise by greeks, and didn't have a long enough impact on anything. People exaggerate it's effects. Whatever effect it had, it fell with the successor states. The byzantine empire only had a profound effect on armenians and georgians. The rest of west-asia did not view themselves as greeks or romans. Byzantine identity was metropolitan, and only a small number of west-asians were a oart of it. Syrian writers complained about being viewed as inferior locals by romans and greeks. The rest of the population in those areas lived in the country-side, while greek and roman elites ruled the cities. Same thing can be said about spain, italy, and albania, there was never any long-lasting interaction(outside of trade)
Piling wrote:Even DNA(although i know you won't like that though) : well DNA is a joke if you want to definite people and cultures with it.
Well according to you. According to science, there is enough differences in allele frequencies, that the two groups are distinct. Even different west-asian ethnicities are distinct. But you don't care I guess.
Piling wrote:At the end I would say that nowadays, it was another challenge with mondialisation : what you like to call 'western' is no more than an international culture and way of life that spreads and in which Western is influenced by Far East as the contrary also. This is a general melting pot (creating as a reaction 'identical revolts'). But the dichotomy Western/Eastern is no relevant anymore : Where is Russia ? China and India ? Not in 'Islam side' and the problem of Middle East is its position of buffer area between USA/Europe/Russia/China sharing of Eurasia.
It's something very recent, due to the lack of power balance. If it weren't for europeans circumventing ottoman empire and the Safavid empire, it would have never happened(atleast it would be delayed by hundreds of years). The lack of efficient resistance by turkish ottomans and safavid iranics due to declining adminstration, opened up the rest of the world to colonialization. Because those empires were removed as balancing powers to europe, the world became globalized. Saying that it's global culture is offensive.
and if people do not disturb me in library