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Showing posts with label European exceptionalism. Show all posts
Showing posts with label European exceptionalism. Show all posts

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Taha Hussein and the [Ancient] European Civilization

I do know now what is the meaning of my department's name in Ain Shams University : The Ancient European Civilization. It's basically a Greek and Latin (Philology) department, but I've always wondered why it is so called and who coined this name. Taha Hussein, the one who revived Greek and Latin in Egypt, is the one who coined it. Below is p. 386 of the Arabic translation of Albert Hourani's Arabic Thought in the Liberal Age 1798–1939 (Cambridge University Press 1983), which states that Taha Hussein was one of the Arabic intellectuals of the so-called "liberal age", who saw the European civilization as "the superior civilization of the human history". To name "Greek and Latin" (philology) departments in Egypt as the department of "Ancient European Civilization", would have been, back then, very prestigious both for scholars and students alike.

In 2015, I don't think though that this remains the case. Simply because "πάντα ῥεῖ"  and πάντα χωρεῖ καὶ οὐδὲν μένει" καὶ "δὶς ἐς τὸν αὐτὸν ποταμὸν οὐκ ἂν ἐμβαίης (Plato, Cratylus ,402a). The middle east now, as we all know and see, in a state of radical change; not only (geo)politically, but also socially and mentally too.





Thursday, December 18, 2014

Eurocentrism,European Civilization, and European exceptionalism

From Wikipedia; Eurocentrism is:

Eurocentrism is a political term coined in the 1980s, referring to the notion of European exceptionalism, a worldview centered on Western civilization, as it had developed during the height of the European colonial empires since the Early Modern period.

The term Eurocentrism itself dates to the late 1980s and became prevalent in the discourse of political correctness and cultural relativism during the 1990s, especially in the context decolonization and development aid and humanitarian aid offered by industrialised countries ("First World") to developing countries ("Third World").

More about it is to be found in Wikipedia through this link

There is no Arabic translation of this article in Wikipedia, so I translate this passage as follows:

المركزية الأوروبية هو مصطلح سياسي يشير الى فكرة الاستثنائية الأوروبية ؛ وهى نظرة إستعلائيه عن العالم تنطلق من و تتمحور حول فكرة "تفوق الحضارة الأوربية-الغربية كما أُسس لها أثناء أوج إذهار وتوسع دول الإستعمار الأوربية منذ "أوائل العصر الحديث".
ويعود هذا المصطلح  "المركزية الأوروبية" تحديداً إلى أواخر العقد الثامن من القرن التاسع عشر الميلادى( 1970-1979) حيث ساد بعد ذلك في خطاب الباقة السياسية و النسبية الثقافية  بعدها بعقد من الزمن(1980-1989)، وخاصة في سياق محاولة إنهاء تبعية الدولة المستعمرة سابقا لدول الإستعمار وذلك في إطار "مساعدات التنمية" و "المساعدات الإنسانية" التي تقدمها البلدان الصناعية ( "العالم الأول") إلى البلدان النامية ( " العالم الثالث ").