Haplogroups and why race is not defined by them

If you ever become interested in ethnic groups and ethnic demographics, and more specifically in the racial origins of certain groups you might encounter what is known as a haplogroup. As much as these "haplogroups" are used by pseudoscientific Nordicists and other Nordic racialists, they seem to not be as understood by them, making those losers even more cringey. There are many haplogroups and type of haplogroups in the human species, but here's a map with the dominant ones in Europe and the areas around the continent.

As you have probably noticed, Greeks (as well as Albanians, and some southern Slavs) belong to the same Y-DNA haplogroup as northern Africans (and even sub-Saharan ones), E1! Nordicists use this as evidence that Greeks are more closely related to Africans than other Europeans - a claim that's at least funny, and at most embarrassing for the one who makes it. That claim is often made by people who lack a basic understanding of what a haplogroup is. Haplogroups are genetic lineages of the same gender (usually paternal). This map just shows the most recent common paternal ancestor between people groups. How recent that ancestor is, usually defines how closely related these groups are. If that ancestor lived in the 1800s, then chances are they still family members and closely related genetically (around 1-5% common ancestry, just in the 1800s). Maps that cover a wide area show ancestors that lived a long time ago. This common ancestor between Greeks and Africans is thought to have lived a couple thousand years ago, which would mean we have less than 0.000001% common ancestry (proven by that haplogroup, at least). Think of them as surnames that can never change. Your sister's children will not have the same surname as you. That doesn't mean you aren't related. And you 6th cousin might share the same surname with you, doesn't mean you are racially the same. In fact, he could possibly be black and you could be white. The same way somebody who is half black from his mother side, would not have an African paternal haplogroup, does that mean he's not black? So, whenever somebody tries to define you by your haplogroup, laugh it off - they are too pathetic for you to deal with. Furthermore, the European and the African subclades of E1 are distinct, and Greeks belong to the former while Africans belong to the latter, as you can see from the maps below:

Special thanks to @plutarch.research on Instagram for the maps!

The genos

The concept of the genos/yenos (γένος) seems to be a very specific notion, which only exists in Greece, or at least is mostly prevalent there. Whenever our ancestors made sacrifices for our nation, they said they did it for our genos.

• "Us, the genos of the Rhomans[..]" -Chronicle of Morea, a 14th-century book, written by an unknown author. By "Rhomans/Romans/Rhomhaoi", the author is referring to the Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians of the Imperium Graecorum, the Greeks.
• "The genos of the Hellenes, if it has survived until today, [...] it owns it to a miracle."-Kazantzakis
• "The Hellenic genos could prevail if it were politically united."-Aristotle

This word was especially used during the Greek war of independence by Kolokotronis, Rigas Pheraios and others.
From the context, one would assume the word is Greek for "nation". This is incorrect - the Greek word for nation is "ethnos". Instead, genos means race, but it is a more complicated than that. It means common ancestry, and can be used in all scales. For example: oikogenia (also latinized as Oikoyeneia/Ikoyenia, Οικογένεια) literally translates to "house-race" (Oikos = house), and it means "family", while genos itself can mean a whole racial group, or an extended family. Etymologically, the words gene, genetics, etc. are derived from this word.

This word and its usage show how ancestry still plays an important role in the Greek society. Indeed, Greece is one of the few European countries whose citizens believe that common ancestry is just as crucial to becoming a member of the nation, as other factors, such as culture and language. Of course, the people who actually believe that in the country are a minority, but still a lot when compared to other European nations that have been destroyed by degeneracy.

Who are the Barbarians?

In Ancient & Modern Greece

In Hellenism, the distinction between Greek and non-Greek/foreigner/Xenos is very important. Since ancient times, the Greeks used two main categories for the people: "us" and "them". This is evidence of a common Greek national awareness among the politically divided ancient Greeks.
The word Barbarian ("Βάρβαροι") was used, and is still used, by the Greeks to refer to all the people who were not linguistically Hellenic (aka non-Greeks, since language was an important element of Hellenism), or had not been linguistically Hellenized. Barbarian as a word has a very negative connotation, nowadays, and it seems to have been like that since the classical era, although it wasn't originally meant to be used that way. This is because everyone who was not a Hellenophone was considered uncivilized and primitive, so the term eventually came to mean what it means today.

Longobard Barbarian warriors

It's important to note that it didn't always mean non-Greek, even in ancient Greece, and that many Greeks used it against other Greeks. For example, Prodicus of Ceos called "barbarian" the Aeolian dialect (a clearly Greek dialect), Athenian scholars called the Macedonians "barbaric", clearly for political reasons, since Athens' position as the city-leader of Hellenism was threatened by the rapidly growing Macedonian Kingdom, et cetera.

In the Roman empire

Once the Romans conquered the Hellenic world, the idea of such a distinction attracted them greatly, to a point where they decided to copy it and apply it to their own Latin civilization. Of course, since the idea was originally Greek, and since their civilization was influenced by the Greeks, they could not exclude the Greeks from the "us". So the term's meaning changed from "non-Greeks" to "non-Greeks and non-Latins".

Gaelic "barbarian" in front of Roman emperor Gaius Julius Caesar

Everyone who did not speak Greek or Latin was considered a Barbarian (which at the time also meant primitive and uncivilized). More specifically the term was used for Germanic tribes like the Goths, the Visigoths, the Longobards, as well as the Celts, the Gauls, the Berbers, and even the Thracians and the Illyrians, two Hellenic-like peoples who probably spoke languages that were similar to Greek.

In the Imperium Graecorum, medieval Greeks used the term barbarian was, again, for non-Hellenophones (even westerners), but mostly for Turks.

Today

Today the term is still used by modern Greeks to refer to non-Greeks, but usually in a joking manner, while few are the Greeks who use it with hatred towards the subject. The term may be used for all non-Greeks, no matter whether those are civilized, Europeans, whites, etc or not, although philhellenes and those who appreciated Hellenism are excluded.

Also, certain White Nationalist groups use it, but it is ironic (especially when used by Nordicists and Germans against Southern Europeans like Greeks and Italians), considering what the term actually means. I cannot help but cringe every time I see that happen.

~Michael C. Dim

Map of the "Hellenic Race".

This map shows the genetic similarity of modern populations to the Greeks.

As it is clear in the map, Greece, southern Italy, the Balkans, and western Turkey are the regions most closely related to the Greeks.
This should not come as a surprise, since it is thought that Greek, as a language, was closely related to ancient Illyrian (which was spoken in the region of Dalmatia, western Balkans), Thracian (spoken in the region of Thrace, south-eastern Balkans), as well as Phrygian and the Anatolian languages (spoken in western Anatolia). The Illyrians were thought by some ancient Greeks to also be Greek, or at least less-Barbaric compared to other peoples, so it would make sense if they were genetically related. It is also very likely that the genetic similarity between western Anatolians and Greeks has existed even before Greek colonization to the east. Even if that is not true, the western part of Anatolia was an important center of Hellenism in the middle ages and really up until the early 20th century, and many Greeks from the mainland migrated there. Those who converted to Islam during Ottoman rule and assimilated to the Turkish population are responsible for the genetic similarity between western Turks and Greeks. The opposite hardly happened, because it was illegal under Sharia law for Muslims to convert to Islam, and it would be foolish to do so, since Christians had fewer rights in the Ottoman empire.

One might wonder "How come the southern Slavs are related to the Greeks? Did they not come centuries later?". While it is true that Slavs migrated south around the 7th century A.D, it should be noted that Slavs are just a linguistic group and that they are not racially homogenous. Most modern southern Slavs are descendants of slavicisated native Balkan populations, like the Pelasgians, who were genetically related to the Greeks.

In the case of southern Italy, things are very simple. The region is also known as "Great Greece" because many Greeks migrated there. These populations remained Greek-speaking and Hellenic even up until the 11th century AD, when they were de-Hellenized and linguistically Latinized. This is one of the reasons why modern Greek and Italian cultures are considered to be identical. What is odd, however, is that northern Italy is also genetically similar to Greece, which is actually surprising considering they were never Hellenic, never had Greek colonies and the fact that the region was subject to many migrations from Germanic and Celtic tribes. This could possibly suggest that the original people of the region (the original Romans, Etruscans, etc) were actually Hellenic or Hellenic-like. Also surprising is the fact that Ireland and Scotland are not very genetically related to Greece, even though they are anthropologically classified as Mediterranean. This could be explained by the fact that they are from Iberia, therefore west Med, not east Med.

Another conclusion we can draw from this map is that Greeks are more related to European populations than to the Middle East

~Michael C. Dim.