Then there’s the truth that “Judeo-Christian” as a definition can also be problematic for the faith it leaves out: Islam.
Muslims are as native to Europe as Christians and have been an influential pressure throughout the Continent for hundreds of years. In Iberia, Muslims developed a syncretic tradition the place Jews, Christians and Muslims lived in relative concord. They launched oranges, lemons, cotton and rice — the important thing ingredient in paella. However when the Christians took management of the peninsula, thousands and thousands of Muslim Europeans had been both killed, expelled or compelled to transform.
Nonetheless, even after their expulsion, Muslims left a profound affect on Spanish and Portuguese languages, cultural artifacts and architectural treasures — the Alhambra, the Cordoba Mosque, the Alcazaba (from the Arabic Qasbah) of Malaga — which thousands and thousands nonetheless go to at present.
Discomfort at acknowledging Islam as part of Europe can also be true within the Continent’s southeast, the place the Ottomans dominated for hundreds of years. Hungarian baths, Serbian burek, Mostar Bridge — all European heritage — owe their existence to Islamic medication, culinary traditions and structure. And ignoring that historical past does a disservice to historic fact, in addition to to thousands and thousands of Muslim Europeans made to really feel like they don’t actually belong.
Furthermore, skipping straight to Historical Greece is oddly selective. Placing apart the character of historic Athenian democracy — no slaves or ladies allowed, orgies earlier than and after voting — taking a look at a timeline of how lengthy Europe has been a democracy because the Athenians, one must skip over fairly just a few emperors, Lord Protectors, popes, First Consuls, czars and Führers earlier than attending to free elections with common suffrage.
Even at present, democracy stays a tiny blip, very a lot an exception, to how Europe has been dominated all through most of its historical past, with many European international locations having authoritarian rule till effectively after World Battle II — together with Greece itself. Whereas democracy might have been invented in Europe, simply as distinguished have been its different innovations: fascism and communism. The Roman Empire gave us the phrase “senator” — however it additionally gave us the phrase “dictator.”
