A bit of history
Talk about the pot calling the kettle black!
I wonder if your detractors have any idea how shrill they sounded
in their letters (Letters,
June 04)? If they do not understand the difference between first
intent and accompanying consequences I suggest they take a course
in logic.
I had no interest in the Middle East conflict until my friend drew
me into it. He had become a fanatic on the subject and the Israelis
were the devil incarnate and the Palestinians were as pure as the
driven snow. As a history buff I found that approach very hard to
swallow so I started to read everything I could get my hands on about
the subject.
Sure enough, there were conflicting stories on virtually every point about the creation of Israel c. 1948, but there was a stark difference in their aims. The militant Arabs (a collective) were determined to erase the Jews from the land and eradicate them entirely. The Jews were determined to hold onto their land at any cost.
The other main point that I determined was that the Jews had been led to believe many things that the British had no intention of honouring. Even then oil was the determining factor. The last straw with Britain was the Jewish gangs, like the Stern Gang, that formed to strike back as counter terrorists. Although the Brits had turned a blind eye to the activities of the Grand Mufti they would not accept the terrorism of the Jewish gangs.
The one abiding belief of the Jews is that they must defend themselves because no one else will. They have good reason to believe that fact.
The one nagging point about the Middle East has been the use of money by the Arab states. So little has been done to improve the plight of the average person at the bottom of the chain that it is deplorable. If some of that oil money was used to better their lot instead of supplying weapons, the area would be a far better place.
Owen Prince, L BA 52
Kanata, Ont.
Questioning Diniacopoulos
In the March 2004 issue of your magazine, an article appeared about
the Diniacopoulos collection (“The
Diniacopoulos Adventure”).
From this article we learned that Mr. Diniacopoulos was roaming Asia Minor looking for ancient artefacts and involved himself in excavations, even though he was not a trained archaeologist. Later on, during the Balkan wars while serving with the Greek Army, he started collecting Byzantine icons and so on. My question is why an institution of high learning like Concordia did not research how this collection was obtained, and if it did, tell us the findings. I know that it is against the law to export ancient artefacts from Greece, but still the collection contains Attic vases.
Telemaque Karras, BSc 75, MSc 76
Montreal
Ed.’s note: Clarence Epstein,
director of special projects in Concordia’s Rector’s Cabinet,
replies: “The Diniacopoulos couple were part of a generation
of antiquarians who were active at a time when ancient art was not
treated as cultural property in the formal sense. (The Diniacopoulos
collection was amassed prior to the UNESCO laws on antiquities.) As
such, art works were removed quite regularly and deposited in museums
and private collections throughout the world.”
Concordia, with the assistance of Olga Diniacopoulos, worked with
antiquities experts from North America and Europe on the management
of the collection. For the countries where these antiquities originated,
unfortunately, the laws and attitudes of the time were not what they
are now. But it is Concordia’s intention that academics, such
as professor Jane Francis and her colleagues in the university’s
classics, modern languages and linguistics department, will continue
shedding light on the Diniacopoulos collection and its provenance.
