Iran: "300" an insult

[Dr Mordrid]

Story....

Also: its first weekend numbers were a March record $70 million USD.

Iranian official lashes out at Hollywood movie "300" for insulting Persian civilization

An Iranian official on Sunday lashed out at the Hollywood movie "300" for insulting the Persian civilization, local Fars News Agency reported.

Javad Shamqadri, an art advisor to President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, accused the new movie of being "part of a comprehensive U.S. psychological war aimed at Iranian culture", said the report.

Shamqadri was quoted as saying "following the Islamic Revolution in Iran, Hollywood and cultural authorities in the U.S. initiated studies to figure out how to attack Iranian culture," adding "certainly, the recent movie is a product of such studies."

The movie's effort wound be fruitless, because "values in Iranian culture and the Islamic Revolution are too strongly seated to be damaged by such plans", said the Iranin official.

Shamqadri, who is also a filmmaker, said that production of more domestic and artistic films which portray Iranian achievements is a proper response to movies like "300".

"300," an ancient epic about the famous Battle of Thermopylae in Greek history, set a new record at the box office in North America this weekend.

The Warner Bros. adaptation of the 480 B.C. battle took an estimated 70 million U.S. dollars in its debut weekend, according to figures released on Sunday by Los Angeles-based box office track firm Media by Numbers.

The R-rated film, based on comic book writer Frank Miller's graphic novel, tells the story that an army of 300 Spartan warriors led by their king Leonidas fought to the death to delay a massive Persian army's invasion, so that the Greeks could reorganize a counterattack.

[Jammrock]

Ok ... uh ... Persians were only one of many, many, many nations to have armies in Xerxes army. True, Xerxes was Persian, but he was a millenia before Islam was even founded. It's just silly.

[Gurm]

Oh don't get the f***ing Iranians started about PERSIA.

They're godd***ed PERSIAN, don't you know?

Persian this, Persian that. Here's a f***ing hint, fellas - PERSIA DOESN'T EXIST ANY MORE.

[Dr Mordrid]

Ties into the whole Islamic "lost empire" theology, though not from the Arab perspective as is usually the case but from the "Persian".

Of course the whole thing plays out just like the Alamo; the small band of sacrificed fighters inspire their absent armies to defeat the larger force in the end. The Mexicans are still as upset about that as the Iranians are about Thermopylae.

[High_Jumbllama]

For some reason the following phrase came to mind. "Tough shit ****ole."

[Gurm]

Ties into the whole Islamic "lost empire" theology, though not from the Arab perspective as is usually the case but from the "Persian".

Of course the whole thing plays out just like the Alamo; the small band of sacrificed fighters inspire their absent armies to defeat the larger force in the end. The Mexicans are still as upset about that as the Iranians are about Thermopylae.

Ahh yes, the mythical Islamic empire of enlightenment and happiness. A la "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time". Giant palaces and a happy populace working together to create a bright future. Libraries filled with manuscripts on all topics. Gardens and towers and...

Let's get real here. The only thing Islam has ever created is more and better ways to oppress and kill.

[schmosef]

Was there even a peep made about Alexander when it came out?

I don't remember hearing anything.

[Claymonkey]

Ahh yes, the mythical Islamic empire of enlightenment and happiness. A la "Prince of Persia: Sands of Time". Giant palaces and a happy populace working together to create a bright future. Libraries filled with manuscripts on all topics. Gardens and towers and...

Let's get real here. The only thing Islam has ever created is more and better ways to oppress and kill.

OK THAT isn't true. 90% of all Greek texts available before and during the Middle Ages to Western culture had to be translated or read in Arabic. The Romans only translated a small portion of Greek philosophy and works into Latin. They were far more interested in overviews and technical works. Before Roman culture was firmly established they were envious of Greek culture and emulated much of it. However, this meant that the first few generations of Roman culture were bilingual in Latin and Greek and read the sources in the original greek. Few of those survived into the western culture post Rome. Both Christian and Islamic leaders found Plato and Aristotle's philosophies useful because it gave them a method to thought and discourse. European culture is based on Roman culture and thus they didn't have access to most greek writing because honestly the romans didn't care enough. SO it was quickly found that if you wanted to read more of Plato you had to read it in Arabic.. and a great deal of learned men in Europe in the middle ages spoke arabic and many when they wrote their own books used arabic names to lend a gloss of authority in a subject.

Both sides of the 'west' and arabic cultures don't like to admit it but we are both products of the Greek and Roman era. Western culture includes the Middle East. We could all stand to learn a bit more about our past.

[schmosef]

OK THAT isn't true. 90% of all Greek texts available before and during the Middle Ages to Western culture had to be translated or read in Arabic. The Romans only translated a small portion of Greek philosophy and works into Latin. They were far more interested in overviews and technical works. Before Roman culture was firmly established they were envious of Greek culture and emulated much of it. However, this meant that the first few generations of Roman culture were bilingual in Latin and Greek and read the sources in the original greek. Few of those survived into the western culture post Rome. Both Christian and Islamic leaders found Plato and Aristotle's philosophies useful because it gave them a method to thought and discourse. European culture is based on Roman culture and thus they didn't have access to most greek writing because honestly the romans didn't care enough. SO it was quickly found that if you wanted to read more of Plato you had to read it in Arabic.. and a great deal of learned men in Europe in the middle ages spoke arabic and many when they wrote their own books used arabic names to lend a gloss of authority in a subject.

Both sides of the 'west' and arabic cultures don't like to admit it but we are both products of the Greek and Roman era. Western culture includes the Middle East. We could all stand to learn a bit more about our past.

source?

[Claymonkey]

MANY sources. I don't have webby links however. I have an interest in the history of Science (Natural Philosophy until a few hundred years ago). http://www.teach12.com/ttcx/coursede...%20Mathematics

Lawrence M. Principe at John Hopkins University has an EXCELLENT audio book lecture on this subject.

It's pretty standard stuff however. Plato and Aristotle were THE starting point for all discourse in Natural Philosophy for years. Oddly for the longest time the only work by Platonic European culture had access to was the Timaeus and overviews talked about in Roman populars (basically an author would read several works and then give an overview for the upper crust of Roman society so they could feel well rounded). Most books on the History of Science will go over this.

[schmosef]

ok well, the link you provided doesn't contain the word "arabic".

I'm specifically looking for a source for "90% of all Greek texts available before and during the Middle Ages to Western culture had to be translated or read in Arabic."

[Gurm]

There are a few common misconceptions at work here. I'm not indicting your exposition, ClayMonkey!

First, a minor technical correction - it is doubtful that anyone (before the Catholic Church adopted "spanglatin" as its official "confuse the shit out of the worshippers" language) was ever "bilingual" in Latin. As far as anyone can tell it was never a spoken tongue. The great orators of Rome likely orated either in Greek or Italian. Latin is simply far too cumbersome to have ever been spoken.

Secondly, I have seen many sources disputing the whole "Arabic Enlightenment" thing. I'm not saying you're wrong - simply that there is a dispute here. Is it possible that while modern Islam kills people for having original ideas, ancient Islam embraced the concepts of argumentation and philosophy? Sure. Likely? Not really, but far more unlikely things have happened in history. I'm simply pointing out that there are a great many experts who feel that this traditional notion of "during the middle ages the only place to get real book learnin' was the great libraries of the Islamic world" is rubbish.

I suspect that the truth lies somewhere in between both extremes, however. There certainly was a rockin' library at Alexandria... but note that name itself (100% Greek). It is entirely likely that the "learned" Arabs were pretty circumspect/ecumenical about the whole "Islam" thing... much as many of the powerful/learned in Europe over the past 2000 years have used Christianity only as a tool to get what they want, paying lip service at best to its actual tenets.

[Claymonkey]

The information in question is inside that course. Not in the description.

Examples i found quickly:

http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/HistTopics/Greek_sources_1.html

Talks about many greek math texts not being available until arabic translations were found.

http://www.umich.edu/~iinet/worldreach/assets/pdf/neh-units/Buehner.pdf

This lecture handout goes into it in more depth.

As for 90% as a number. I admittedly pulled that out of the air as a point of reference as I remembered it from my research. Take Plato. Before the introduction of Arabic translations they only had one work (and many consider it a minor one except for the fact that it shaped much of Western thought due to it being the only one available) and the Roman Populars. We in fact only know about many greek works because they are referenced in these populars and no originals exist.

[Gurm]

Let's draw a distinction between "Arabic" and "Islamic".

[Claymonkey]

The 'fall' of intellectual Islam is likely not due to any one thing but a number of things. The Crusades have been blamed (the germanic states were whomped on a regular basis by the superior military of France forever as an example). The mongul hordes have been blamed. The lack of a central religious leadership has been blamed. It's likely a bit of all of this. I can't remember the names but it's also been said that some Islamic leaders started throwing out Greek thought from there work because it was 'foreign,' the problem with that idea is that it had been used for hundreds of years and was key to how they learned to think and argue and interpret their own religion. How 'new' does an idea have to be before it's integral to your culture?