Friday, March 4, 1994

Letters

THE GREAT DEBATE OVER QUEEN CLEOPATRA

MONA Charen should have informed your readers of the widely accepted historical fact that Cleopatra was the last of the Ptolemys, Macedonian rulers who governed Egypt for almost 800 years after Alexander the Great conquered the region. She not only spoke fluent Greek, but was keenly conscious and proud of her royal Macedonian lineage.

Does it matter whether Cleopatra was black? Of course it matters whether Cleopatra was black African, Egyptian or Greek -- not only to Greeks but to humanity n general. Standing idly by while the past is counterfeited -- as is being done in the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia at Greece’s expense -- can only lead us one step closer to the nightmarish reality-control postulate of George Orwell’s 1984: He who controls the present controls the past, he who controls the past controls the future.

PHILIP SPYROPOULOS