Greeks, do you feel culturally closer to Turks or to Lebanese?
Posted by New_Bat_9086@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 88 comments
Posted by New_Bat_9086@reddit | AskBalkans | View on Reddit | 88 comments
Mestintrela@reddit
The only cultural contact the average Greek has with Lebanon is to go once every 2-5+ years, to a Lebanese restaurant.
But the average Greek has a ton of cultural contact with Turkey in most aspects.
So Turkey.
Btw I love lebanese cuisine, I like it more than turkish because it is not so heavy, and I think it is one of the best in the world and is criminally underrated. I also like Lebanese people so it is nothing personal.
johndelopoulos@reddit
can you name a few cultural things that Greece and Turkey share, which are unknown to Lebanon?
Mestintrela@reddit
No because I have no contact with the culture or people of Lebanon as do 99% of the Greeks.
johndelopoulos@reddit
then how did you decide that "so Turkey"?
Mestintrela@reddit
If you have no contact with anything from a culture or its people how the hell could it possibly be any different? Are you kidding me or what?
We are so far apart that our people dont even meet, communicate or have any cultural exchanges. And you are so delulu to think we are close? Lmao
johndelopoulos@reddit
By the way you talk, i bet you are that meme looking owner of the "the balkans group" in facebook, but anyway, let me give you the chance to know that when we do not know about a culture, but know about another one, the proper/correct way is to say "I don't know", not name Turks or anyone else in particular
Greeks rarely communicate with Turks either, if you exclude Greeks living in places with vast Turkish Tourism. To be honest in Athens I have seen more lebanese than Turks myself
Mestintrela@reddit
No that is YOUR opinion. Keep it to yourself.
When we as a nation have everyday contact with some culture and NADA, ZERO, NONE with another then naturally my choice is not "I dont know". That is completely disengenuous.
The correct answer is to choose the one that there is actual contact with not IMAGINARY hypothetical connections.
Spare me the preaching too mate. Keep your opinions to yourself and thats it. You are already annoying af as it is so I would really appreciate it if you keep your patronising bullcrap away from me and my posts.
Thanx and bye.
johndelopoulos@reddit
no this is the objective reality, meme-looking-er. When you have zero contacts with an A nation, but this A nation shares absolutely everything with a B nation you are supposed to be closer, then you are equally to A and to B, but here I have already mentioned the FACT that we share a more common religion with Lebanese, which with Turks we do not share. Now let me introduce you to the fact that with Lebanese (and that is the reason we are closer by religion) we have been in contact since some HUNDREDS of years before we have been with Turks. Not saying we are close to Lebanese either, but certainly closer than to Turks
Mestintrela@reddit
The fact that your comments are upvoted while mone downvoted means that there are just a couple more short sighted people here. And? Who cares about it. I have had comments that get 1000+ likes and? In contrast with you I dont take the likes pr dislikes of my comments as a green card to impose my subjective personal beliefs and delusions on others or that I am some short of wise woman.
Who cares if we have been in contact with the Lebanese for hundreds of years? We havent been in contact for the last hundreds+ years and that is WHAT MATTERS. I dont give a damn what happened millenia ago to judge who is culturally closer to me NOW.
We also have been in contact with Iran for thousands of years. And? Or Egypt. And?
With the Turks we share borders which WE DO NOT with Lebanon. Every single day thousands of Greeks go to Turkey and thousands of Turks come to Greece. My North Aegean Island has LITERALLY hundreds of interactions with Turks every single day. There are cities in Greece were TURKISH is spoken.
And now I am supposed to believe in an imaginary delusional connection with a nation that Greeks never contact with?
Sorry but no. As I said again, keep your own delusional opinion to yourself. B Y E
johndelopoulos@reddit
wow, a meme-looking chabby girl is the decider of who is short-sighted :D:D:D:D:D:D:D
I am not talking about all of your comments in you reddit profile history, I am talking about those in our dialogue in particular, damp futty
What happened millenia ago often or even USUALLY has MORE impact than an OCCUPATION, and I gave enough of how We are culturally closer to Lebanon NOW
Egypt has no significant Christian population, nor was under Byzantine impact for so long, not Crusaders or other Europeans there either
And now I repeat: name a few, a facking few, things that we share with Turks which the Lebanese ignore, like I did name religion and proved me right, and you wrong. Do it, or admit being wrong, futty
Mestintrela@reddit
Did you just call me a fatty? :) Great thank you for giving me the opportunity to get you banned.
johndelopoulos@reddit
lebanese Christians, and it is not even close. But thanks to Secular Turkish wannabes' crowd, the poll looks distorted af
technically outside religion, there is no Turkish thing in Greek culture that is not shared with Lebanon (and further there are thousands of things that Turks and Lebanese share with each other that Greece lacks), but religion is a good part that we partly share with Lebanon, to make us closer with each other
New_Bat_9086@reddit (OP)
I feel the turkey option was selected by turks lol
fyate@reddit
ok bro
New_Bat_9086@reddit (OP)
Thank you bro for being honest š
Btw your profile pic is me when I was 3 š
fyate@reddit
Okay, but the comments are crazy
to say that Turks have all Greek DNA and at the same time say that Turks are closer to lebanese is a very good example of anti-Turkism as you will see in the comments. I really wonder how their minds deal with this dualistic cognitive dissonance.
when some people come and see the only civilized and non-failed state in MENA and see that this whole chain of narrative that they have been taught before is not true, instead of breaking down their own prejudices, they try to twist the data and somehow fit it into their narrative.
āoh, how can a non-European, non-Christian nation in this region have a country like this. these people cant really be Turks, they must be something else because I was taught that Turks are very badā
this is the POV of the average anti-Turkist who has been poisoned by the clash of civilizations and orientalism discourse for decades and has subconsciously internalized these ideas.
johndelopoulos@reddit
literally no European person I know ever said "how come... have a country like this", other than hospitality, everyone has the worst to say
fyate@reddit
of course, of course
when I go to your profile, I see that all your posts are about Turkey, you wake up and spend the whole day being anti-Turkist, it's like an obsession with you
that's why I cant take what you say seriously as it only confirms what I said, I am sorry
johndelopoulos@reddit
whatever makes you happy bro, visit any post in generic groups even in facebook, to see what people say about Turkey :D
fyate@reddit
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Tourism_rankings
nuff said.
johndelopoulos@reddit
nuff said where? Where is it implied that Europeans have a good opinion about Turks and Turkey, and how your article is relevant?
New_Bat_9086@reddit (OP)
To be fair, when you talk about civilized and non failed states in MENA, I m thinking about UAE, Qatar, and Kuwait, but yeah, Turkey is at some extended stable(factor out coup d etats in the past), industrialized and safe (since Kurdish reblion stoped).
And I believe economically Turkey is healthier compared to Greece.
fyate@reddit
artificial states sustained by oil money. U.S could change the regime in these countries overnight if it wanted to
I dunno how greece's economy is, but the turkish economy is far from healthy right now
there is also no such thing as a kurdish rebellion. the pkk first clashed with the kurds because this organization, which lived a commune life in the mountains with men and women, was strange to the people and the average peasant people complained to the turkish state when these groups first appeared
johndelopoulos@reddit
you correctly feel :D
Axil_GR@reddit
Definitely Turkey due to geographic proximity, shared music and food. Some Greeks will argue that its Lebanon because of Lebanese Christians, but nowadays Lebanon is incomparable to how it was a few decades ago. Religion is not a sufficient trait though to make us closer to them.
johndelopoulos@reddit
can you name some musical elements, or food, that differentiates Turkey from nearby Arabs, Lebanon included?
If you ask me about Greece, I can name PLENTY of dishes not common in Turkey, and same with music
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
The Lebanese Orthodox Christians.
Broke will say Turkey, woke will say Lebanon. I am only half-joking, most people just donāt know our common history with the Rum of Lebanon.
johndelopoulos@reddit
Ivoted for LEbanon. But to be fair, there is no common history between Greece and Lebanon, other than the period of Roman and Byzantine empire, for about as many years as Byzantines ruled Andalusia as well
insanebison@reddit
Factually correct answer. Not all Lebanese but this. Also southern ethnically Greek Albanians if they count as Albanians.
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
Obviously ethnic Greeks, even if they are Albanian citizens, are the closest to ethnic Greeks. But even a few Lebanese and Syrian Orthodox are starting to call themselves Greek.
insanebison@reddit
Byzantine Empire reduxĀ
cmaj13@reddit
A fun fact related to this topic is that Turkish coffee (widely consumed in every household in Greece) is called "Greek coffee" due to politics, and I'd guess the insecurity of the common modern Greek to embrace their Ottoman heritage.
Greeks in general are very confused about their modern identity and in denial about how it morphed through the centuries. I'd guess the creation of an independent modern Greek state sponsored by Western Philhellenism and fought mainly by Albanian speaking Greeks (Arvanites) can do that to someone.
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
I am sorry but this is the classic uninformed mantra of those who think that modern Greek culture is an Ottoman product or that Greeks were āorientalizedā because of the Ottomans and that this means we are supposed to feel some sort of intense brotherhood with the Turks or else we are in denial. The substrate of our culture is Byzantine, a culture that was seen as āorientalā anyway by western Europe, and a lot of its elements are falsely attributed to the Ottomans (who they themselves adopted a lot from the Byzantines). I am not talking about coffee, but things from our folk art to our attitude have their roots there. This does nothing but alienate Greeks from their own identity because we are being told that itās not ours, itās Turkish and we are in denial of being semi-Turkified, which is wildly incorrect.
Modern Greeks are confused about their identity not because they arenāt accepting some supposedly intense Turkish influence but because they keep clinging onto ancient Greece while they are just the 21st century version of the Byzantines.
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
So who made you oriantal then ?
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
Nobody, thatās what we were always like. And Iād still put āorientalā in quotation marks because thatās only in comparison with western Europe that has been othering us for centuries until they wanted ancient Greece to be considered western.
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
Ancient Greece ? They Werenāt oriantal
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
Yeah, you really sound like you know what you are talking about lmfao
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
Persian were oriantal not ancient Greeks.
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
If you read any of my comments youād know why this is an idiotic take. I didnāt say that Greece was literally oriental, thatās why I said Iād put it in quotation marks.
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
Yes but people were disagree with me
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
Because you are saying that Greece was western when the west didnāt even exist yet. Thatās why people disagree with you.
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
They said they were oriantal all the time which isnāt true. Greeks become oriantal after adopting Christianity. Is that true ?
LettuceDrzgon@reddit
No, itās not true. Wtf bro, make a bit more effort at trolling?
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
Okay answer me then. When they became oriantal ?
Inside-Equipment-559@reddit
Yeah, I can accept it as Turkish. However, the culture itself is changing thing. You can not claim that it stored concretely during the ages.Ā
YpogaTouArGrease@reddit
BullshitĀ
ZhiveBeIarus@reddit
Turks, Turkey is geographically closer than Lebanon and there are modern day Turkish people originally from Greece and the adjacent region.
Lebanon is culturally Arabic style oriental and barely different from Saudi Arabia.
dimiteddy@reddit
Well Turkey is closer to Greece, the people I met from Izmir-Smyrna other are closer to Greeks than other Europeans outside Albania-Cyprus
johndelopoulos@reddit
you mean geographically, i will agree. Other than that, of course not
YpogaTouArGrease@reddit
There are more Greeks in Lebanon than in Turkey.
There are more Christians in Lebanon than in Turkey.
More than that,I am from Southern Greece and neither of my great grandparents were from the late 19th/early 20th century Ottoman Empire.
I feel closer to Albanians.
markohf12@reddit
Ehhhhhh, why?
johndelopoulos@reddit
he is an Arvanite, as he said
YpogaTouArGrease@reddit
Apart from geography and history,we score like 90%+ in ancestry similarity(a bit lower than the one we do with North Macedonians), plus Albanian and Greek languages are paleobalkanic and probably split in like 3.000BC.
They are also,by far,the best assimilated ethnic group in Greece.
Besides that,my family is Arbereshe from Southern Greece.
I have found a lot of similarities (both in real life and in this sub) between Albanians and Greeks.Even more,Orthodox Albanians and Arbereshe Greeks are practicaly the same,excluding only their respecive ethnic consiousness.
Lothronion@reddit
Albanians are the Greeks' long lost brother, since they split about 5000 years ago. At the end of the day, we are both the only Paleo-Balkan people in the Balkans.
New_Bat_9086@reddit (OP)
I asked the same question to my Albanian friend, and he said he feels a little bit closer to turks, he s muslim. But hated the Ottoman empire
LuckyStar117@reddit
The Lebanese Orthodox is the correct answer but Turkey is getting more votes because we rarely get the chance to meet our long lost siblings in the Levant.
johndelopoulos@reddit
no, it gets more votes because Turks can vote as well, you know :)
janesmex@reddit
I think it depends on the Lebanese (like the secto and group they're belonging to) and on the Turk like they're from regions that are closer to Greece (Eastern Thrace, Wester Coast)m for instance Izmir/Smyrna, even though I have limited experience and therefore I can't be completely sure.
johndelopoulos@reddit
what are some things (with examples) that Western coast of Turkey (izmir included) shares with Greece, that do not exist in lebanon?
Goated549@reddit
Lesbians of course
CallofMargin@reddit
turks have already started voting for greece.
New_Bat_9086@reddit (OP)
I feel like it is always a one-way love relationship,
Is always turks looking after Greeks.
ayayayamaria@reddit
No, it's just this sub, and ultimately it's people who want to prove they have nothing in common with Arabs.
Go to any other subreddit with many Turks and search "greece" or "greek", the results are always full of hatred.
New_Bat_9086@reddit (OP)
What do you think about Persians?
Cause historically is been Persian vs Greeks, before turks squeezing themselves in between both.
ayayayamaria@reddit
Great cinema ig. Overall opinion of Iran is poor. Not because of events 2000 ago, but because islam is very disliked here and nobody likes their islamic regime. Now if you ask about Iranian people, we don't have any interactions with them (they're very anti-west anyway) so there's no much opinion either way about citizens.
Kitsooos@reddit
You would be surprised to know that even though Iranians don't like "the West", they hold Greeks in very high regard.
ayayayamaria@reddit
Nobody holds us in high regard, c'mon. We're the lazy freeloaders in the rest of the world.
Kitsooos@reddit
Go to Iran and talk with Iranians.
ayayayamaria@reddit
I don't think it's a good time. Also being polite to tourists means nothing. Do we love Germans because we serve them in summer?
vbd71@reddit
THIS IS SPARTAAAAAAAAAAAA
apo--@reddit
I believe most Greeks respect Persians although essentially we don't know them but it would have been better if they were Christians or even Zoroastrians. Better for them too.
FacelessVodi@reddit
That is correct
ayayayamaria@reddit
greece is not a poll option
fyate@reddit
dont you look for too much intelligence from a loser?
look at his profile and you can see that he is a self-hatred turk. i really dunno if there are such losers in greece too
I live in italy rn, and one of my closest friends here is greek, but i've never seen a loser like the one above
fyate@reddit
??
omg, I took a look at your profile and you are a self-hatred loser turk and you are larping another country
I chose the results option in the poll, but I bet you purposely went to lebanon
Only-Dimension-4424@reddit
Sorry mate we are not wannabe Italian like you guys
cmeragon@reddit
I am Turkish and not even I consider myself culturally close to Turkey
LexYeuxSansVisage@reddit
Thatās mean you are not Turkish lol
cmeragon@reddit
Damn you got some dumb ahh takes
Only-Dimension-4424@reddit
šµāš«šµāš«šµāš«
BalkanTurboChad@reddit
Lebanese christians for sure
BalkanTurboChad@reddit
neither?
apo--@reddit
Lebanese Christians.
Lothronion@reddit
Lebanon has a very large number of Orthodox Christians, with a great part of them also being Rum, which ethnic identity is basically that of the "Romios", an alternate name of the Greeks, and the name Turks usually use for Greeks when not referring to Greeks from Greece (for which it is Yunanlar). Some Lebanese Rum do not recognize or understand this connection, while others fully embrace it and view themselves as Lebanese Greeks. By that alone Lebanon feels closer to Greece, in comparison to Turkey, for both Rum and Orthodox in Turkey are pretty much extinct.
mystmeadow@reddit
I used to date a Lebanese Rum who was aware of this connection and he never even felt like a foreigner to me, besides that fact that we spoke in English/ French. Out of all the non-Greek people Iāve ever interacted with they are by far the closest to us. His family also saw me as āone of themā. They are just never Greek peopleās first thought whenever someone asks who is the most similar to us because there arenāt that many of them and most Greeks havenāt met one.
Lilitharising@reddit
These questions always cause some type of havoc because they'll always be someone who will throw their toys out of the pram when you don't give the answer they like. Point in case, What's more, not all of us feel the same way and similarities or differences are also very region-dependent.
Also, the word 'culturally' goes a long way. There are people who will focus on national costumes or religion in order to assess cultural proximity. For me, it's a lot of things: mentality, mannerisms, emotional expressions, how progressive a nation is, and so forth.
In this case, whilst I think we share some similarities with the Lebanese, I'd say Turkey - not further inland through.
GoHardLive@reddit
Greeks and Lebanese in Australia get along very well. Thats all i know
ayayayamaria@reddit
neither