(1) September 28th article from The Daily Telegraph, "Dome says everything";

(2) Published version of the American Hellenic Media Project's response (published Friday, November 6, 1998);

(3) The longer of two responses submitted to the Editor by the American Hellenic Media Project; and

(4) The shorter of two responses submitted.

(For "fair use" and educational purposes only)

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(1)

Copyright 1998 Telegraph Group Limited

The Daily Telegraph

September 28, 1998, Monday

SECTION: WAY OF THE WORLD; Pg. 23

LENGTH: 360 words

HEADLINE: Dome says everything

BYLINE: BY AUBERON WAUGH

BODY:

IT CAME as no surprise to learn that the British public would vote by two to one to return the Elgin Marbles to Greece from the British Museum, which has owned them for more than 180 years. Never mind that the same ruling would strip every museum of all exhibits from any foreign culture, and add immeasurably to the ignorance and parochialism of our own.

As an Englishman, I have always been proud that this supreme achievement of the first great European civilisation is available for inspection in London, but the English have lost that sort of pride. We are now a working-class nation and can't be expected to take pride in anything much beyond our football.

Similarly, if I were a Greek, I would be proud to think of my country's products being honoured and admired in a distant capital, but modern Greeks have little or nothing to do with the ancient Athenians who inspired and executed the Marbles in the second half of the 5th century BC. Modern Greeks are largely of Turkish descent, as is shown by their short, hairy legs and low-slung bottoms: their chief interest in the Elgin Marbles is commercial, as a tourist attraction. It is sad that Britons can no longer take pride in bourgeois delights. Terrible things have started happening since the arrival of opinion polls and our new type of populist leader.

Recently, I drew attention to the fact that not a single Briton could be found who was capable of running the Royal Opera House. It had to find an American as its fifth chief executive in 22 months to sort out the havoc. Last week we learned that an American is to take over the construction of the pounds 2.7 billion Jubilee extension Underground line, linking Mr Mandelson's ludicrous pounds 758 million Millennium Dome with central London. The project is running hopelessly late, and there is a danger that it will not be ready in time for the opening. There does not seem to be much that the New Britons do very well.

Perhaps the Greenwich Dome should be seen as the supreme monument to the mediocrity and hopelessness of the new Britain. With a bit of luck, it will have collapsed or been blown away before the Millennium dawns.

1998 The Daily Telegraph plc, September 28, 1998

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(2)

The Daily Telegraph

Friday, November 6, 1988

Letters to the Editor

Victorian myth

SIR -- Auberon Waugh recently asserted that "modern Greeks have little or nothing to do with the ancient Athenians" and "are largely of Turkish descent, as is shown by their short, hairy legs and low slung bottoms".

The subhuman status of the Ottoman Christians, and a death penalty imposed for a Muslim's conversion to Christianity, ensured that the Greeks who did not convert to Islam remained ethnically separate from their Turkish overlords.

Mr. Waugh is deluded by the Victorian myth which assumed that all classical Greeks were blue-eyed Aryans given to plucking serenely on harps.

P. D. SPYROPOULOS New York

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(3)

American Hellenic Media Project
P.O. Box 1150
New York, N.Y. 10028-0008
ahmp@hri.org
http://www.ahmp.org

October 4, 1998

To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph:

One wonders what drives racists to blather remarks such as "modern Greeks are largely of Turkish descent, as is shown by their short, hairy legs and low-slung bottoms". It seems that Auberon Waugh has given us an answer in his September 28, 1998 commentary ("Dome says everything", p. 23).

Ignorance, and its close relation arrogance, have led many a closed mind to bigoted stereotypes. Given similarly disparaging invectives in the past,† it may be too much to ask of The Telegraph to edit out boorish expressions of ethnic loathing, but what about that fundamental of all good journalism: fact-checking?

Had Mr. Waugh (and your editorial staff) done more than simply rely on negative stereotypes, he would have discovered that the subhuman status of Christians—or infidel dogs, "giaours", as the Ottomans preferred to call them—coupled with the death penalty imposed for a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity, assured that the Greeks who did not convert to Islam largely remained ethnically separate from their Turkish overlords. The same cannot be said of the half-millennium when the Romans ruled the Greeks, as the former sought both the Hellenic mind and body with marked zeal. One can imagine Mr. Waugh ask: ‘those hairy legs are Roman then’?

Perhaps Achilles’ "shaggy breast" in Homer’s Iliad provides a clue. But then that would mean a connection between the modern Greeks and those other people who lived in the same country and spoke the same language as them. It is a disturbing thought for Mr. Waugh et al., still clinging to a Victorian mirage of blond, blue-eyed Aryans plucking serenely on harps and vogueing noble poses. This in contrast to the ancients’ proud individuality, their Mediterranean sensibilities of brightly painted marble rather than Waugh’s lily white ideal, their enterprising ethos of selfish innovation, and their contentious yet often brilliant exchange of ideas. All can still be seen in Greece today.

Yet Mr. Waugh’s expression of prejudice has served a purpose beyond reaffirming the extraneous nature of racialist theories, and the ignorance of those who espouse them. Declaring that "modern Greeks have little or nothing to do with the ancient Athenians," Mr. Waugh has shown once more that efforts to deny modern Greeks of their own heritage are most often motivated by bigotry.

What is most disturbing about these efforts is that they have been used in the past to justify the persecution of Greek populations. During the 19th century, Jakob Philipp Fallmerayer fathered the theory that the Greeks were an inferior, mongrel people undeserving of an ancient Hellenic past in order to neutralize the burgeoning philhellenic movement during the Greek War of Independence and palliate the large-scale massacres of the Greek Orthodox population. Given Turkey’s recent history of expansionism into Cyprus and Aegean Greece, Hellenes are right to feel nervous when misograecist bigots are given a pulpit by those who should know better.

Very truly yours,

P. D. Spyropoulos, Esq.
Director

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† "The inhabitants of Athens or Sparta today have no more in common with Pericles and Leonidas than do contemporary Italians with Marcus Aurelius; indeed, rather less . . . a correspondent [once] proposed that the re-establishment of a British protectorate over Corfu should be the price of [the Elgin Marbles’] return. That is too low; but what if we were to talk of Greece having to leave the European Union?", Daily Telegraph, 4/3/96.

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(4)

American Hellenic Media Project
P.O. Box 1150
New York, N.Y. 10028-0008
ahmp@hri.org
http://www.ahmp.org

(the shorter of two responses)

October 16, 1998

To the Editor of The Daily Telegraph:

In his September 28th commentary ("Dome says everything", p. 23), Auberon Waugh mistakenly asserts that "modern Greeks have little or nothing to do with the ancient Athenians [and] are largely of Turkish descent, as is shown by their short, hairy legs and low-slung bottoms".

The subhuman status of Ottoman Christians, and a death penalty imposed for a Muslim’s conversion to Christianity, assured that the Greeks who did not convert to Islam remained ethnically separate from their Turkish overlords.

And those hairy legs? Perhaps Achilles’ "shaggy breast" in Homer’s Iliad offers a clue, but then that would mean a connection between the modern Greeks and those other people who lived in the same land and spoke the same language as them. It is a disturbing thought for those still clinging to a Victorian mirage of blue-eyed Aryans plucking serenely on harps and vogueing noble poses. Yet it is in modern Greece that one can still find the ancients’ proud individuality, their enterprising ethos of selfish innovation, and their Mediterranean sensibilities of brightly painted marble rather than Waugh’s lily white ideal.

One can almost understand Mr. Waugh’s bewilderment at how this nation of short, hairy-legged people could have won the Miss World beauty pageant or thrice clinched the European Basketball Championship within the past decade.

Very truly yours,

P. D. Spyropoulos
Esq. Director