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PaperclipPerfector  1yr ago (text post)   36481 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of April 10, 2023

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I do occasionally see online Egyptians pointing out that claiming the pharaohs were black implies that they are themselves foreign invaders or colonialists, a charge they resent.

Also, not to invoke Godwin's Law, but this whole business reminds me a bit of prewar Germany's obsession with Aryans, as they were ashamed of their own ancestors' lack of sophistication at the same time the Greeks and Romans were building great empires and so had to find historical validation through an imagined descent from a comparable civilization that had nothing to do with them, in this case the Indo-Iranians.

While I can understand the impulse to find belonging in the great achievements of one's ancestors, such validation is ultimately hollow if the traditions being venerated are museum pieces rather than living and breathing culture. The wiser course if one lacks illustrious ancestors is to try to become one, and to make one's people thereby worthy of remembrance. Many scoff at "made-up holidays" like Kwanzaa and various other attempts to create a unifying black American culture from scratch, but culture is all made-up in the end and at those people are trying to build something new.

I do occasionally see online Egyptians pointing out that claiming the pharaohs were black implies that they are themselves foreign invaders or colonialists, a charge they resent.

I wonder how that plays with their Arab identification.

Many Arabs take some pride in their pre-Islamic ancestors in the same superficial sort of way that the French call themselves Gauls or the English commemorate King Arthur despite him being a Briton rather than a Saxon, though with the exception of a few Lebanese Christians all of them would still claim to be Arabs first and foremost.

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