TigranG

Good point, but the real freedom ideology I think is more American than European, but it doesn't matter... Lets just stop this topic, I have found out what I needed to know, I am satisfied... We are all probably right in certain respect...

So just Like I have been saying, the Proto-Europeans came from Africa, why designate the term Caucasian, and call it a white race? It is a known fact, when those people were in Africa, they did not posess white skin until they have evolved in the European climate! My theory is, Europeans are racist and they want their opinions to be more dominant than other people's...

So we have finally come to a conclusion after all this time... Armenians are geographically and culturally middle eastern, but with western orientation, which they very are proud of... Finally Phantom, thank you for your dead-on explanation... I am glad for this lengthly topic to end!

Well said! I wish more people had the mentality to explain it as well as you have... Instead of arguing...

I agree, but the fact that people still look at each other as being racially different, creates a problem not a solution, so we either abolish the idea of different races, or correctly categorize people without bias motives such as modern racial categories present these days, where a person of mixed race is labeled as white/caucasian by the western minds...

I completely agree!

The correct way to interpret that, is to say that Armenians are thriving towards the western ideology not spacifically European, because the first nation in the west to adopt "freedom" and "open-minded" ideas was America when they wanted more freedom from Europe... You are wrong in terms of "Europe being an Ideology", it is a region/a geographical term. What you are describing is the western Ideology... Many Asian countries practice the same ideology, without the claim of being European!

He came here to critisize my topic! Every body has the right to come here, but PLEASE dont waste my time on useless remarks... Anyways, I did not insult him, he still has the right to post his opinion just like any other member, but post an opinion which is intelectually coherent to this topic, instead of being critical and full of assumptions of what my motives may be... Just as I have respect for every member, I expect others to have respect for me...

Why do you claim/attribute modern culture and the ideology of freedom to Europe, when the first place to practice such ideology was AMERICA, not Europe... So it is more correct to describe Armenian and other modern day open-minded cultures as Western and not primarily European... I disagree, MOST Armenians are darker rather than lighter skin, and are just as dark and sometimes even darker than Spaniards, Italians, and Greeks, and I already mentioned that the reason for darker skin in Spain,Italy and Greece is due to the colonization and contact with the North African and Middle Eastern regions... I never said that skin color was the reason for Armenians not being European, it is the geographical factor... Australian culture is western by modern standards, but for the record, no one considers or even calls Australia a European country, even though the population is mostly of European descent...

I agree that no race is better than any other... The reason why I started with these topics is because I am tired of Armenian people disguising themselves in America and Europe, to be European, falsifying that Armenia is in Europe... I am sick and tired of Armenians trying to disconnect themselves from the rest of the middle eastern people... I am not starting a new thread to gain support, I started this spacific topic to break away from the issues in my other thread such as race... Because I did not receive any explanations as to why Armenian people consider their culture to be European, that is all... "Europe" in its purest form is nothing more than a region which was created by ethnically/culturally political and physically geographical borders...

MUSIC "Folk music is still very much alive in Armenia and in the diaspora. Armenian music in its authentic, unadulterated form belongs to the Middle Eastern tradition". (zurna,davul,dhol,doumbek,santur,kemenche,tar,oud, kanoon, saz, etc)... http://www.geocities.com/tomzara/tai.htm FOOD Shish kebab, lavash, kofta, pilaf, matnakash, tabouleh, etc... CUSTOMS Tradition of rug making (mostly middle eastern), the use of henna with the wedding ceremonies (middle eastern), traditional clothes (middle eastern to a certain degree), traditional dances (middle eastern to a certain degree)... ANCIENT ARMENIAN CULTURE Armenians worshiped Assyrian and Zoroastrian gods in the pre-christian era... (Khaldi,Tesiheba, Shivini, Khutuini, Turani, Ua, Nalaini, Shebitu, Arsimela, Anapsha, Mihr, Astghik, Vahagn, Tir, and Anahit) Armenian culture strongly resembled the pre-islamic Persia... Even now Armenian culture is the closest to Persian, without Islam of course...

I will not move on untill the people who claim Armenia to be culturally European, explain their reasoning for such statements! This topic has nothing to do with the race issue...

Lately I have been hearing a lot of Armenian people on this forum depicting Armenia to be a European country and its culture as European... I still cant understand why people ignore facts so here is a little information on this matter... Lonely Planet website states the following: "If you're unsure what the flavour of southwest Asia is, a quick look around Yerevan will tell you it's Middle Eastern, albeit Middle Eastern without mosques and Islam". http://webcenter.travel.aol.com/travel/lon...ia/culture.html Although "Lonely Planet" recognizes the correct geographical area of Armenia (Southwest Asia), with much ignorance they still list it as part of Europe... I believe that in certain areas, America, though being an Industrial giant, lacks much education, or atleast the common Americans do...

The reason why I chose to say "so called caucasian race" is because it is a theory, anthropologists dont know for sure where the race comes from, and the reason why they chose the Caucus region is only because of the bible depicting mountain Ararat as the cradle of civilization... http://www.answers.com/topic/caucasian-race-1 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caucasian_race The reason why I talk about race is because its the unknown ancient history that mankind tries to puzzle together, thus very interesting to many people, not just me... dear VAVA, please dont come to this topic to attack an open-minded discussion, I already mentioned that you are wasting your time, so dont bother coming back to this topic, your words show offensiveness with much ignorance!

Well, they look to be African in their origin, but it is very interesting to note that a lot of them have kinky/curly blond/red hair, but all other features are African, including their black skin, wide nose, thick lips, high cheek bones, etc... For some unknown reason the anthropologists categorize them in the so called "caucasian" race... My personal belief concludes them to be a mixed race... MULTI-RACIAL, White/Black... They cannot be categorized in just one race, they are both!

This new topic will be based on an open-minded discussion about the so called white/Caucasian race. I welcome and encourage everyone to give their opinion... I was always puzzled as to why the Caucasian race is considered white, bare with me for a moment please... The new "out of Africa theory" is becoming the most popular since caucasoid bones have been found there which predate the european ones... Now, given the factor that people in africa cannot be of white color due to the sun exposure, and since scientists say that europeans developed white skin due to the harsh European climate, then can it be that the so called Caucasian race was in actuallity not white at all, instead a brown race which over the period of migrating became lighter in skin color... And for that matter, can a race even be categorized by skin color? I know that the most accepted modern theory states that there were two migrations to Europe, 1st, from N.Africa to western Europe and 2nd, from Middle East to south-eastern Europe... Given these facts, should we consider the so called "caucasian" race to be white or not white, since there are many people of dark skin and dark features that supposably belong to that racial category... What are some of your opinions on this matter? PS. Dont bother writing if you are not serious about the topic, you will be wasting your time!

your professor doesn't know what he is talking about, there are only three races, Latino is not a race, its a mixture of races...

OK, first of all, the NAZI thing was just a stupid joke, dont read much in to it... Second of all, I am not turkish,russian or chinese, I can speak the languages thats about it, I already mentioned that Im part Armenian,Semitic, and turko-mongolian... I sympathize with the armenian nation in morning for the genocide victims, but I dont have interest in armenian political or economic views, I am too mixed to get into that, I would have to care about a lot of different perspectives... I KEEP HEARING PEOPLE SAY THAT ARMENIANS ARE CULTURALY EUROPEAN, PLEASE I REALLY WANT TO KNOW HOW SOME OF YOU ARE COMING UP WITH THAT STATEMENT, since before the christian religion came to armenia, armenian culture was identical to persian, even now our music sounds middle eastern, most of our food resembles arabic and persian food, and even now our culture resembles our neighbors... I CANT BELIEVE that an armenian would say that their culture is european, thats beyond my capacity to grasp something as ridiculous as that statement... By the way I never mentioned that armenians have african blood, they dont, I said that semitic people do, and thats a proven fact... We could sit here and discuss who armenians are mixed or not mixed with, but logic speaks for itself, neighbors mix with other neighbors, so I am sure we have some Greek blood, Indian blood, Persian blood, and even the blood of the so called enemy, Turkish blood, who knows maybe a little bit of semitic too, that is the reason why I dont accept the statement that armenians are white, they are part white, but also other mixtures too.... Think about this, if Indian people are a mixture of non-white and white, persians being a mixture of indian & afghan, not to mention mongol genes that they have accuired from the mongols who settled there after chinggis past away, and Armenians used to intermarry with persians, then the non white genes are already introduced to armenians... If a person is quarter "other" and 75 % white, he is not just white any more and not just "other" anymore, he is now racially mixed... WHY IS THIS CONCEPT NOT ACCEPTED BY MOST OF PEOPLE ON THIS FORUM? In my theory, Armenians believe that the European people are smarter than middle eastern so the Armenians cling on to them to be with the more smarter people, thus wanting to be much more white than they are... LISTEN, other middle eastern people are multi-racial, but you dont see them claiming to be just one of their mixtures as the armenians claim to be, Arabs dont accept the label white when it comes to their ethnicity, nor do the north africans, nor Indian people, they are all proud to be multi-racial.... When I lived in russia as a little child, all the russian kids use to call me black-ass, why? because most armenians do not have white skin, but light brown sometimes really dark brown, most have jet-black hair, and dark eyes, if those features are white, then tell me why they are not common among the europeans? Its true that a good % of armenian children are at first born with european features, but they change in a short period of time to dark features, WHY? because MIDDLE EASTERN people are not just white, they are not pure to any race, but instead mutli-racial, appearently non-white features are more dominant and they end up taking over the white features... Kakachik77, dont get mad, I am not picking on you or your people, I am just trying to understand the armenian drive towards europe and the claim to be as white as the europeans, when that is simply false... Plain and simple, I dont believe that certain ethnicities or regoins of the world can be put in a mono-racial category, thats impossible, and not reallistic, even if one set of features are stronger than the other it still doesnt matter because the other blood still exists, forever... There was a genetic scientist, always forget his name, but he said that every type of blood thats introduced to the genetic stream stays in that stream and never leaves, instead it hides and shows up at random time in different generations, and that makes sense to me, thats logical. I am sorry if I have offended anyone, I didnt mean to... God knows that I just like having a strong discussion, along with my strong opinion, and to ultimately gain an idea behind the thoughts that are coming from the other person's mind...

White to me means white skin,skinny pointy nose,thin lips, light eyes (light brown,blue,green), light hair (brown,blond,red), I dont believe that jet curly black hair (such as a fro = african like hair), dark brown almost black eyes, wide nose, and thick lips are of white origin, NO WAY... Spainiards, greeks, and Italians have some of those features only because the Phoenicians who where semitic in their origin, colonized the Mediterranean coasts... In case you dont know the semitic origin, their language is known as Afro-Asiatic, and originated in Africa, modern day ethiopia, linguistic scientists found over one hundred semitic languages that are native to Africa and that never existed in the middle east... I was watching the history of the Greeks on the History Channel, and they were showing a ancient painting depicting a dark skin proto-Greek man with black curly hair and dark eyes, hairy too, sitting on the rock with a white skin woman whose hair was blondish and blue eyed, they were explaining how the original proto-greeks had very dark skin and were very middle eastern in appearance, in fact the greek word to "chat with some one" is "BABLE", which derives from the word Babylone... Pretty interesting, I thought... And I have done some reading on Greek,Italian, Spanish, and even French DNA, which showed a good amount of African (black) genetical markers, thus explaining their darker look... Even the ancient Greek cave pictures depicted people of different skin colors, white, brown, and black, mingling with each other and being part of the same society... Plus the DNA researchers explained that the African genes in Greek people are traced to Ethiopians... You dont have to believe this, I am not writing this for a debate, I am simply recounting what I have read and seen on the history channel... Dear Va-nazi When a person types his thoughts very fast he doesn't notice every little detail... Knowing 3 different languages (russian,english, and chinese) can do that to a person... ooops mispelled your name, sorry!

Listen, technology doesn't tell the whole history of the people, because for example if you have an african ancestor in your family but after him your family tree continued to mate with non-african people over time genetics will show very few african markers, thus the anthropologists decline to acknowledge them, which to me doesnt make sense... As for the Proto-Europeans being from Africa, read the modern "out of Africa theory". I dont know who is right and who is wrong because genes and origin are very difficult and almost unsolvable...As far as the DNA tests go, north african arabs/jews, saudi arabs, and Indian people are considered white/caucasian yet they have a lot of African and no- white genes, but according to the white anthropologists that doesn't matter they still label them as white even if they look non white... So as long as the Europeans (white) people keep making the rules, they will advance to attribute as many civilizations to their own race to be more superior... Mexicans are considured to be a white race according to anthropologists & American law makers (INS), yet they are a mixture of native american indians and spaniards... So tell me where is the justice in this white washed world... Plus the label caucasian is just a theory no one can prove that white people are from the caucus region, even the anthropology professors teach that... Mongoloid race is just a theory as well who knows maybe Chinese existed before the mongols, and the name mongolia, but yet they label them as mongoloid race... To be honest there is only ONE RACE, the human race... I believe there is not enough evidence to divide people into theoretical races... But if there is such a thing as race,then middle east is a mixture of races, and thus cannot be considered as just one, same goes for racially mixed Mexico, Australlia, India, Afghanistan, Central Asia, North Africa, and South Eastern Asia... The world is not BLACK and WHITE, its full of grey areas... Person who is half white half black cannot be concluded to be only white or only black... I've seen so many armenians with mongol, semitic, european, indian features... How can you say that Armenians are a pure race... The pure races are on the extreme opposites of levels with profound phenotypes... Such as Chinese look pure and most likely are pure, north europeans look pure, deep inside africa people look pure... But please dont include parts of the world such as I mentioned and say that they are mono-racial, thats BS... By the way Armat, funny pinguine pic... And yes Gamavor they are close to my kin, because besides being part armenian I am also part semitic and turko-mongolian, and I am damn proud of both of those ancestry lines as well...

Vanetsi, Point out where in my statement I mentioned that Aryans were blond-haired, blue-eyed people... Are you blind? I know damn well that they were not just of that description... They had blond,red, and brown hair, including brown,blue,grey, and green eyes... Dont assume next time what people mean... When you assume, you make an ASS out of you and me, but in this case only you! You must be very good at writing fiction... You must teach us all how to take a fly and turn it into an elephant...

Ok, the GATE of all gates and the trading route of all trading routes is not Cilicia, it is the SILK ROAD which ran from Europe through central Asia to China... maybe, to some armenians cilicia is important and to some european countries, but if it wasnt for the silk road which Marco Polo travelled, Europe would remain in dark ages for longer than it did, if it wasnt for the Great Wall that made the Mongols move west, the silk road would not be as safe as Chinggis Haan made it to be, thus because Timuchin's empire, made it safe for foreigners to go through silk road, before him if you travelled through it, you would most likely be robbed and killed for your posessions... In fact, if it wasn't for Chinese wisdom which Marco Polo brought back to Europe, the region which is geographically known as Europe would be in the dark ages for a very long time... So if you want to credit the enlightenment of the dark age Europe, attribute that fact to Chinggis and his greatest biggest empire that the world ever witnessed... PS. In case you don't know history well enough, although Mongolian empire only lasted no more than 50 years, it was the biggest empire in the whole history of the world, bigger than Greek, Roman, Arab, Persian, etc...

Religion has nothing to do with ethnicity, Christianity is as middle eastern as Islam, Jesus was a middle eastern man not European... Just because Armenians were at one point Aryans (thousands of yrs ago) they have heavely intermixed with non-Aryans, same thing goes for Persian people, by the way label such as middle eastern simply means that your country is in the west asian region of the world, Pakistani, Afghani, and north Indian (Punjabi) people also claim to be Aryan, but there are no more pure aryan people in the west asian region, everyone is too mixed... So that statement is invalid... PS. Just because you found some websites that list Hayastan as a European country, doesn'tt mean anything, its not geographically correct, its an Armenian wish and nothing more, because geography cannot be changed, west Asia will never be Europe, so consult with a professional geogrophist and he will tell you that its impossible for Hayastan to be in Europe since European border is across the huge caucasian mountain north of Georgia. And as for the silly statement that can only be said by the funny armenians is "Whether the Europeans are armenian... LOL that is the most ignorant statement I've ever heard, you ignore the anthropological facts!... READ ANTHROPOLOGY and you will find that the first migration of the proto-europeans went directly to western europe from north africa through what is now morroco... SORRY, the closest armenian people will be to white/european,is the small % of their Aryan ancestors which swims in a pool of other ancestors such as Urartian and semitic ones that mixed with them...

Factual bases are the Chinese and Mongolian accounts about the roots of the Turks and the Huns, not to mention the languistic and the anthropologiacal facts...

http://www.armenianhistory.info/cilician.htm I do know what I am talking about, Cilicia was an armenian destination after some were forced out by muslims,which became a small Armenian kingdom like place, ruled by the descendents of the royal Armenian family of Rubenids.... And to me that doesn't matter... Who cares!