TONY ON HISTORY, TIME & THINGS

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There’s a lot of time stuff in the post today.
If I had to live at a different time in history, when would it be? Well, I suppose it would have to be the 1940s. Now, this isn’t because of war, but because I love the old 1940s films. To me, they knew how to make them then.

So okay, I wouldn’t actually want to live then.

Rather, there is just something about its representation I like. Now, you could argue men were men, and women were women, back then. But there are many more important reasons, such as a world in transition, a period of great intellectual pursuits, a world still to explore …
But let’s not get hooked on a specific period. Rather, just what is different about previous times to ours? Well, in some ways they are very different indeed. But in other ways, they are hardly different at all.

Culture and tech differs greatly.

Indeed, I would also argue that so do elements of our personalities. For instance, there is the theory that media defines changes in us, and thus causes those changes to be made real in society. One episode that comes to mind is Shakespeare.
Prior to Shakespeare, there is little literature that actually expresses modern human emotion, and the argument goes that we were not fully emotional beings until Shakespeare had told us how to be so.
However, these cultural and technological changes hide the greatest reality of history. Such changes give the impression that we advance. Hence, when something vile happens today, we can say: how can such things happen in the 21st century?
My answer would be, of course they can happen. And it can happen because we haven’t really advanced at all. The same form of hierarchies, fanaticisms and desires rise in every age, made different only by wearing different clothes.
Maybe if we realized that we haven’t begun to advance yet, we might be able to actually do it.

© Anthony North, October 2008

WHEN WOULD I LIKE TO BE?

When would I like to be?
A time when clearly I could see,
the pitfalls in life,
the troubles and strife,
avoiding them with absolute glee

To such a time I would bow,
no worry lines on my brow,
but could such a time actually exist?
I think so if I persist,
with my body still here …
but my mind 30 seconds before now

(c) Anthony North, October 2008

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FINGER OF SUSPICION – Horror Fiction

Oh, life can be such fun – at times. Well, in this ‘time’, at least. You see, I’m a bit of a rogue – okay, some would call me a vindictive super-criminal, but I deny that. Although that didn’t stop the Time Directorate pronouncing sentence once they caught me. I gave them a good run for their money, escaping into century after century, but when they did, I was banished to the early 21st century – you know, close to the end of the Age of Barbarism.
They often sent us back to this time, locking us out of the future, ‘cos they argued there was so much mischief going on, our own antics would hardly be noticed. Except, that is, for Dixon. Now Dixon was one smart cop, even for this age. And always he was on my tail. No matter what I tried to do, there he was, and to be honest with you, I’d had enough. I tried to fix him several times, but the reality was, he was too smart to be fixed in his time. And that’s when I hatched the plan.
I still had enough tech and know how for brief jumps into the past, and it was this I was going to manipulate. And sure enough, I planned it just perfect, arriving exactly 42 years, 243 days back in time. The mother was asleep, and as I looked at the new born child, I took out the knife …

Well, that was me off the hook – although I had quite a shock soon afterwards when I bumped into Dixon. We got talking. He was a salesman, but had always wanted to be a cop. Which he would have been if he hadn’t been born with a finger missing.

© Anthony North, October 2008

LIFE BEFORE THIS

This is a website as well as a blog. The pages (top) link
to lots of essays in my research archive, written and
re-written over 25 years (many are excerpts from as yet
unpublished books). You’ll find a sample below. Why not
come back when it’s quiet? Or even check out the pages.

Who were you in a previous life? This question is now so popular that many westerners accept that they must have lived before. Believing in the phenomenon of Reincarnation, it is almost a spiritual system in itself.
But what is the reality to reincarnation? I don’t know. Maybe it is exactly what people believe. But it is also possible to place other mechanisms upon the subject, and even place it in a totally new paradigm …
… read more …

HOW TO DO CONSPIRACY – HISTORY

To what extent can we know the world? We exist in the world, we sense the world, but is what we experience how the world really should be? Or is it more likely that ‘reality’ is fine tuned by a wider force?
The world we experience is the result of its past. We know this as history, and we take for granted that historians have a reasonably accurate account of that past. But if a wider force IS at work, maybe we should treat the subject with suspicion.

We are certainly suspicious of the contemporary world.

This is evident by the proliferation of conspiracy theories. Everything, it seems, is NOT how others say it is. A mentality is arising that nothing can be trusted.
Think JFK. Think Diana, Princess of Wales. These are just two iconic figures who met violent death. But it is just too unimaginable for most to accept that one was murdered by an inadequate loner, and the other a statistic from a drunk driver.

How did the more fantastic conspiracy theories arise?

Well, fundamental to the process were irregularities in the official view of what happened. This is inevitable, for official versions have to be built slowly out of the chaos of events.
The result of this is that conspiracy theorists fill the gaps quicker than the authorities. And the inevitable urge arises in those authorities to counter the theories to make the event even more mundane than it may have been.

The result of this process is that neither version is correct.

Hence, if the initial appreciation is wrong, how can we possibly be dealing with a ‘reality’ concerning what actually happened?
Such an inability to correctly record a definite ‘reality’ has led me to conclude that an event is more than the ‘event’ itself. Rather, ‘reality’ is an event, plus the appreciation of the event after it has occurred.

Now, this is obviously not a real ‘reality’.

Rather, ‘reality’ is relative to a consensus that later grows. The sociologist, Baudrillard, understood this with his idea of ‘infotainment’. Stated simply, media is such, today, that fact and fiction merge into a ‘reality’ that is not a true reflection of what ‘is’.
If this is so with the contemporary, so, too, with history. Nothing ever has been correctly documented, as always there is the parallel views of the mundane and fantastic battling it out for supremacy, and manipulating the ‘facts’ along the way.
This is further compounded by the on-going processes of historical writing. Whenever a historian writes about an event of the past, it is inevitable he will weigh it against the consensus of his day.
Thus, history is not only wrongly recorded at the beginning, but is constantly twisted by contemporary manipulations time and time again, as history moves on. Thus, nothing can ever be what it seems. And the wider force I speak of becomes the very recording of history itself.
For a long time, this didn’t really matter, as only high intellectuals were interested in knowledge. Now, in a mass information world, we all seem to want to know more. So maybe it is time to understand this process of history before conspiracy theorists begin writing history themselves.

© Anthony North, June 2008

TT #8 – HOW TO UNDERSTAND THE PAST

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What’s on today: A post inspired by the Thursday Thirteen meme … PLUS … Click Eye On the World for my current affairs.
YOU KNOW IT’S THE WRITE WAY

INTRODUCTION

Time for THursday THirteen #8, and I’m still having fun. Further, I’d like to thank everyone who’s posted comments over the weeks. Your input is always appreciated, whether with good comments or bad.
This week I’d like to take my somewhat off-beat mind on a journey through history. Like most things, I’ve got my ideas on it. Indeed, I’ve a few opinions on why history happens like it does. Let’s see if you agree.

COUNTDOWN

13. They say you have to know what happened in the past so as not to repeat the same mistakes again. This is quite true, but it leaves out something important. Namely, why things happen. This requires more than history. It requires us to look at the processses behind it.

12. The first thing to understand about history is that it is a terrible guide to what happened in the past. The first reason for this is that ‘history’ is old contemporary events, initially left as a record by those people who had the most power to have their ‘version’ stand the test of time. Hence, history is mainly the version of the victor.

11. The second important point about history is that it tells us more about the present than the past. By this I mean history is constantly re-written by modern historians who place today’s values on the past. Hence, history becomes a continually changing process, forever reinventing the past.

10. So, the first processes we have to understand about history is the process by which history is recorded and analysed. It is, basically, lies. Hence, to understand history, you have to read deeper than what the historian tells you.

9. In order to feel important, the historian delves deeper and deeper into specific events of history, so that we know everything about the characters involved (points 12 and 11 excepted), including the colour of their toothbrush. In many respects, this is pointless. First, their voluminous tomes put people off history. And second, it does not allow the overall patterns of history to become evident.

8. True historical analysis should be about such patterns – processes in history that seem to repeat. Now, this can be a dangerous affair. People like Marx identified such patterns, and it led to communism, totalitarianism, death. So, in searching for patterns, we must realise that it is only a theory, not a reality, and in all things, knowledge should be moderate.

7. One thing to understand about the past is that, contrary to what we think about our advancement, nothing changes except culture. Below culture, we’re all exactly the same. Now, you may say this isn’t true. For instance, we no longer believe in an ethereal, non-existant higher entity like God. No? Okay, what would happen if everybody had to pay off their debts? The world would go bust, ‘cos the money isn’t actually there. Rather we’re ruled by an ethereal, non-existant higher entity called Credit.

6. The con that we think different comes from the science revolution, beginning some 400 years ago – which is, itself, interesting. Prior to this, most of history was worked around the idea of the supernatural, i.e. religion. Science banished religion, but rather than being ‘rational’ today, we’ve simply see-sawed from one extreme to another. To realise this would be a marvellous understanding of the processes of history. It would tell us that we could now have the knowledge to find a true balance betwen these two mentalities.

5. The ‘culture’ of the past has often changed, and when it does, it is usually down to a book – think Bible, Newtons’s Principia, Marx’s Das Kapital. This book will echo the frustrations of the time, and a person, or a movement, will come along and change the way we view things. This is the moment the paradigm changes, and a new ‘culture’ of history will inevitably rise.

4. This new idea will fuel certain personalities, who will become fanatical about the new idea. By force, or theory, they will impose the idea on the people, but by the very nature of their psychology, the idea will be tinged with their own brand of fanaticism. Hence, at every turn of history, the new idea is radical, and as such, it will begin to build up frustrations in the populace – which is, of course, the process through which the new idea eventually rises, as shown above.

3. Does this out a general theory of advancement? I think it does. It tells us that historical change has frustrations built into the system, guaranteeing that every phase of history will end in revolution. Frustration seems to be the driving force of social and cultural evolution.

2. Frustrations begin to be noted by people at a specific point in the process. A new idea can lead to a new empire or philosophy. This gives people meaning and direction. As long as an impulse to further the idea is abroad, the people go along with it. But eventually the momentum ceases. Decisions become based on pragmatism, and mere problem-solving the only ideal. Basically, this period comes at the end of the system. Oh dear. Rather pragmatic nowadays, aren’t we?

1. Am I as bad as the historian, imposing my views on history like this? Yes! But does it make sense?

(c) Anthony North, April 2008

THE NEW INTELLECT

Following Newton the universe was seen as a mechanistic concept. Like a machine, actions in the universe were predictable and answerable to a simple set of laws. So complete was this picture that towards the end of the 19th century scientists were predicting the end of science, for all the questions were nearly answered.
Such a view is intransigently stuck to by many scientists today. There are still factors to be answered, but they say they are on the right track and it is only a matter of time before all is revealed. But this is dogma. The reality is very different.

PARTICLE PHYSICS

Rather than being a predictable machine, quantum theory, which arose from theorising on the existence of the subatomic particle, tells a different story. Enshrined in the idea is the ‘uncertainty principle’.
Fundamental to this well accepted principle is the fact that a particle cannot be observed in its natural state. So small that they cannot be seen, you can only gain evidence of their existence by observing the reaction upon the particle by a bombardment of light.
Seeing light is, itself, made of particles, this reaction is the result of, not its natural state, but its bombardment. As particles are the fundamental building blocks of the universe, then the foundations of existence are forever shrouded in uncertainty.
Later theorists came to the conclusion that the natural state of the particle is probabilistic, in that until it is observed it can be in any state possible. This point is further complicated when we ask how this probabilistic state becomes definite through observation.
The most widely accepted answer is that it is the act of observation itself which turns probability into a definite. In other words, fundamental to the state of the observable universe is the act of observation by a consciousness capable of defining a definite from a probability.

RELATIVITY

This techno-Hinduism suggests that the universe is anything but a predictable machine. And the plot thickens when we look at Albert Einstein’s ‘relativity theory’. Fundamental to the theory are two points. First of all, nothing in the universe is at rest.
Rather, everything moves. Hence, there is no static place in the universe from which to measure it. The second point is a simple one – light travels, and can only travel, at a constant speed throughout the universe.
This means that wherever we are in the universe, we will always measure the same constant speed of light. But the problem is this: how can the speed of light always be constant if, at different points or states in the universe, the observer is travelling at different speeds?
The answer is that, dependent upon the speed you are travelling, time slows down to compensate for the constant speed of light. And the closer you get to travelling at the speed of light yourself, the more time slows down to compensate. Hence, the speed of light becomes relative to the state of the observer.

ENIGMATIC UNIVERSE

These concepts are at odds with the dogma of science. The universe is an enigmatic concept where consciousness can manipulate the universe and the actions of the universe can differ dependent upon the state of the observer.
As for the reality of the universe itself, it is forever locked out of understanding, existing in a probabilistic state. So what can we say about our state of knowledge and psychology today?
This history has followed human intellectual endeavour from early religious forms, through the great religious movements, their death in the Enlightenment, and the growing primacy of reason. One thing that becomes clear is that none of the systems of thought devised by man have been totally satisfactory.

INTELLECTUAL INFECTION

They have failed – and continue to fail – to answer who we are, what we are, or why we are here, other than a means of identity through local mythology based on individual cultures.
As soon as science and reason took over the reins of knowledge from religion, they too followed the same road of descending into cultural expressions from fascism to the present primacy of the scientific ethos of genetics.
And what must be remembered is that intellectualism, whether religious or scientific, always filters down to affect the society to which it belongs.

THE INDIVIDUAL AND GLOBALISATION

And so to today, and the scientific reality that the universe is without true explanation and devoid of certainty. Thus, filtering down to society, the same degree of uncertainty exists regarding who or what we are.
Hence, the only certainty we can grasp is that we exist in our individuality. The individual exists because we can see our reflection in the mirror. And to intellectualise further is to become uncertain, and our individualistic egos cannot take that, so we glory in our individual selves.
Into this world came globalisation and the multi-national, feeding our individuality and creating a world of sameness where identity doesn’t seem to matter – and our institutions, our families, our gender roles, our nation states, collapse.
They collapse because they are above our individuality and must be suspect; must be uncertain, perhaps, even untrue.

SOCIAL GLUE

But whether true or not, they are the glue, the cultural adhesive, of society, and without them only anarchy can truly rule in the end. Religions may not be an exact truth as was once thought, but in creating religions to bolster the institutions of society, they kept us together in our communities and offered guidance for life.
To leave them behind for the onward march of science and its spin-off, the multi-national, is to lose the sense of who we are. And in this realisation, the root of our psychologlcal ills is found.
So what sort of world does this predominance of individuality really leave us? Next to religion, the predominant institution that defined who we are is class. In one sense, this history identifies this with every society and every worldview being toppled by revolution to define the power of the class structure.
Today, class revolution has removed class to the point where the institution can no longer define our place, leaving ideology behind and problem-solving as the only occupation of government.

PROBLEM SOLVING

Most people would say this leads to a safer world, but we must remember this history. When the Roman Empire got to this stage, with ideology gone and problem-solving the only task, it disintegrated.
So, too, the Islamic empires. So, too, Christendom. And if war had not broken them, so would Napoleonic and Nazi Europe, and the Communist states that followed. Basically, when problem-solving becomes predominant, society is really on the point of fundamental transition.
This is because they destroy local identity and place a sameness on everything. And if this is correct, the onward march of globalisation as presently defined, bolstered, as it is, by our fear of facing anything above our individuality, could be sending us straight back to this repeatable error of history. So maybe we should look once more at our seemingly innocuous globalism and question it.

DIVERSITY

It is all to do with diversity – the way of nature and the road of evolution . Neither could have been successful without diversity, which is, of course, the very opposite of the mono-culture being devised by globalisation.
Without diversity – without alternatives – evolution would not have occurred, so it is fair to say that without diversity, the evolution of society can do nothing but cease.
Of course, such a resurgence of local identity providing diversity could well lead to antagonisms between nations and races, but surely this is the lesser evil to ceasing the evolutionary process through complacency?
And haven’t we yet grown up enough to find answers to these problems through cooperation as opposed to integration? Diversity CAN work with people finding identity in their local culture, yet also being tolerant of other ideas and aware that no one can ever be really right in the truths they utter.
Such a new world could allow the person to be secure in his individuality yet still connected to a local identity, and from here, be equally aware that he is a global man. Yet into this equation we must also remember that many advances, such as the European empire building, began when a particular society becomes bored with its achievements and wanted to move in directions new.

THE NEW FRONTIER

Applying such an idea to today, there appears to be nothing more to do on planet Earth.
Yet, in answering this, let us remember that day in April 1961 when Yuri Gagarin completed the first orbit of Earth. In July 1969 Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. A world apart in technological terms, but remarkably similar to that time when Columbus walked on the New World.
Is space the new frontier? If so, remember Armstrong’s words: ‘A great leap for mankind’. Not America. For mankind!
There is yet much to explore, still much for multi-nationals and hi-tech to achieve away from the trivia of consumerism, so perhaps man DOES have a future. And as long as he has a future, he will also have a history. For man will still be around to read about it.

(c) Anthony North, March 2008

Click History of Man on Blogroll for more posts in this series

MODERN SOCIETY

Moses came down from the mountain with the Ten Commandments, laying the basis of the rules of western morality. The world has changed a great deal since then, but, in a social sense as opposed to religious dogma, regardless of time, culture or creed, no one has come up with a better principle. But the history of man seems to be one of flagrant contravention of those ideals. But is this still the case?

PROTEST MOVEMENTS

Due to trade and technology the powers of destruction rise in kind with advancement and culture. Hence the two great conflagrations of the last century. But since 1945 there has been a profound change in man.
With the immense social problems following the Industrial Revolution and massive rise in city population social needs eventually began to take prominence in the eyes of governments.
Due to this notice, peaceful movements of reform began.
Perhaps the first major reform was equality for women, but following World War Two ethnic equality rose as an issue. In America activists such as Martin Luther King spearheaded the movement, leading to equal status for blacks in most civilised countries today.
Many such minorities would disagree, but the greatest freedom you can achieve is the right to vote.

YOUTH CULTURE

Youth also looked for better standards, moving on from the naive feelings of relief following World War One which surfaced in the Charleston, to great rock and roll and eventually modern popular music forged by Elvis Presley and bands such as The Beatles.
They were saying, ‘hey, remember us’. The advent of mass media, bringing moving pictures to the homes straight from the battlefields of Vietnam inspired the youth to a plea for peace. They didn’t want the conflagrations that had been the lot of all past generations. They wanted peace, no matter how naive that was seen in political terms.
Failure to achieve their aims led to the drop out in the same way as social injustice in the previous century had led to the Romantic. And on the other end of the scale, it led to mass movements of nuclear disarmament.

CHANGING THINGS

Imbued with this spirit of protest, other anomalies of life were heightened. Ecology came to the fore as people realised what our industrial trend was doing to nature around us; a fact that must eventually lead to a cleaner industrial might, but technology just the same.
Despite the occasional conflict which will always occur, despite the problems of crime and drugs in all modern societies, at the dawn of the 21st century we have seen a change in the attitude of man.
We seem to be no longer satisfied with our lot. We are all, at heart, reformers now, even if we also have a tendency to be apolitical. The Humanist is in every one of us. Politics has become the individual, trying to find his harmony with the world.

A GLOBAL VILLAGE

Why is this? Perhaps because there is no other area of land to colonise, and we can talk to the other side of the planet by logging on to the internet. In a word, we could well be bored by lack of stimulus, our individuality and consumerism the only thing of value. So does this mean our pattern of history is exhausted?
No. But it is, perhaps, on the point of transition.
In 1945 the United Nations came into being. Since then we hear politicians talk of limited wars. It appears we can now contain our major aggressions with increasing success. At first this occurred through fear of nuclear destruction, but now it seems to have become a habit.
Yes, troubles still exist around the world. People power came to a sticky end in China in Tienenman Square. The former Yugoslavia is held together only by massive military intervention, Islamic fundamentalism has produced a new type of terrorist, reacting wrongly to otherwise justified grievances against the west.
Power struggles still go on in the Middle East fuelled by the importance of oil. But this is countered by the fall of Soviet communism, an annoyance concerning failure to answer the Palestinian question, and new found freedoms in South Africa, not to mention the new awareness that led to Live Aid.

PROBLEMS REMAIN

Perhaps the human race has already become the peaceful global community, the ravages of war being the last cry of the imperialist.
But on the other hand we seem to face immense psychological ills, and in society political correctness and anti-intellectualism suggests we still fear the future and are unsure of who we are.
Throughout society AIDS ravages, drug abuse fragments, the role of family and gender itself is under threat, a new consumer middleclass rises on the back of a disenfranchised underclass, and the Nation State is itself under threat to a new capitalist globalism which seems to have no direction but to produce and sell.
In government, ideology is abandoned to be replaced by that dangerous ultimate ethic of mundane problem-solving, fearful of anything revolutionary. As to a new ethos, this is science and its latest expression, genetics. But whilst it has given us major technological advances, can science ever be enough? Or has science itself assisted in our insecurity?
In the last post next week, we will discuss this possibility.

(c) Anthony North, March 2008

Click History of Man on Blogroll for more posts in this series

THE PATTERNS OF TRADE

I am coming close to the end of my History of Man, with only two more posts to go after this one. So maybe, at this point, I should look at one of the most important patterns within world history.
In the last three posts we’ve seen a modern expression of this pattern in the clash between capitalism and communism. For one of the major things these two systems shared was an inherent idea of trade.

A BRIEF HISTORY OF MAN

At the dawn of history events happened in apparent isolation. This ended when empires began to dominate as powerful men built powerful nations that attacked and subdued their neighbours, culminating in the might of the Roman Empire.
Monotheism – the belief in the One God – then siezed the psyche of man. From the initial idea in the Jews, it spread to create Christianity and Islam. From Arabia an Islamic Empire grew and then declined, but in growing the Christians came together in the Crusades.
This gave Europe its first taste of colonisation, and also turned Christianity into a mighty administrative force. In Europe, learning became the preserve of the Christians. Then secular man began questioning his authority.
It was the time of the Renaissance and the birth of Humanism. The spirit led to a split in the Christian Church and then moved from the arena of the scholar to the soldier. This culminated in the Age of Enlightenment and French and American Revolution, people power triumphant over religious dogma and the rights of kings. But people power was an ominous thing, inevitably turning into further repression.
Napoleon rose through people power and change the face of Europe, bringing politics close to the national interests of today, whilst overseas the European empire builder forged the world into a global society where things could no longer happen in isolation.
The Industrial Revolution brought another surge of people power as the affluent middleclass thrived and the majority led impoverished lives. Marx grasped the essence of the times and the communist revolt stood just around the corner.
Meanwhile a new power – Germany – rose in Europe, thrusting the continent into a bloody civil war based on an ideological clash of left and right, encompassing two world wars and ripping Europe apart.
The wars over, and Europe a sick man, it lost its grip on empire, and people power imbued the oppressed Third World. Seeing communism as the opposite of this imperial dread, they grasped it, turned it into nationalism and grasped independence.
Further, the decline of Europe left a power vacuum soon to be filled by Superpowers and a new left/right ideological clash, the eventual fall of Soviet communism leaving a single Superpower in America, with a wave of Islamic fundamentalism beginning to break out in the Middle East, suggesting a new ideological clash of the secularist and religionist.

GLOBAL VILLAGE

Now, nothing can happen in isolation. The human race is a family on a small planet, becoming increasingly claustrophobic and unsure where the future lies. Troubles seem that much greater nowadays, turning man against thinking at all lest he surfaces a feeling of doom, intellectualism scoffed at, fearful of the political dangers it caused.
But is he correct in this pessimism? Is man close to some great reckoning, or has he just risen from adolescence with a new, exciting future ahead of him in, not doom, but peace and togetherness?
It is easy to see the history of man as a continual process of invasion and warfare, but it should be remembered that there is an underlying trend to such activity.

TRADING MAN

The first expansionist policy in global terms was that of Alexander the Great. And once his empire had come into being the Hellenistic world flourished as a trading society.
The empire which followed this – Rome – forged the whole of Eurasia through trade, providing the first technologically based infrastructure to aid the process with a network of roads.
Similarly, with the unification of the Arabic world through Islam, the Arab trader organised himself and from that time on the famous caravans have continually padded the Sahara.
In line with the Renaissance, northern Italy rose to be the first large scale urban connurbation and trading centre. Venetian merchants created the world’s largest maritime merchant fleet, cementing ties with the whole Mediterranean world and reaching as far as England.
With the beginnings of European expansion worldwide, Venice lost importance as the New World of America was discovered, rich in gold and silver. Indeed, it should be remembered that the initial reason for Spanish and Portuguese seafaring was to find a western route to Asia for trade.
Industrialisation soon came to this New World and the US had their civil war, shooting them forward to lead the economic, capitalist world, the final problem to unlimited trade being overcome by the development of transcontinental railways and rise in tonnage of merchant vessels, together with the transfer from sail to steam.
The Depression of the 1930s, seen after the fact, had benefits in that it made the world economists take a breather and contemplate. The nature of trade had become so complex that it was, by the 20th century, an integral factor in civilised life.
Just as agriculture had regulated civilisation before 1500, trade and technology regulate us now, with multi-nationals competing with governments for power.
The crippling of Europe following the world wars was only alleviated by the US Marshal Plan, flooding European trade with money, and the creation of the European Economic Community following the Treaty of Rome, leading to European Union and ideas of European integration.
Arab oil and US/Japan-led high technology, being the main elements of present life, must be seen, not as a new element of man’s civilisation, but perhaps the latest expression of a major factor in our story of advancement – a story that, although scarred by war and oppression, has been changed fundamentally by only four major events; the agricultural revolution, the development of the city-state, the Industrial Revolution and the present Hi-tech Revolution.
I don’t think, for a minute, that we have this trading impulse right, even now. Multi-nationals are clearly more a process of empire-building in a new world, but it is, nonetheless, trade. And the answer to our present problems will also come from trade.
Trade is, it seems, what we do.

(c) Anthony North, March 2008

Click History of Man on Blogroll for more posts in this series

SOUTH AMERICA

One final region pre-occupied with the ideological struggles between capitalism and communism was Latin and South America, itself affected by the US need to keep communism at bay.
Following the Mexican-American War of the 1840s, Mexico lost a great deal of territory and was forced to reform. However, during the 1860s the country was briefly occupied by France. Finally withdrawing, Mexico became a dictatorship under Diaz until the Mexican Revolution from 1910-40.

CENTRAL AMERICA

A process of reconciliation brought Mexico into the modern world, bolstered by oil. Although burdened by heavy debt, massive industrialisation followed, and by the 1990s the country moved towards free trade with the US, although much of the country remains underdeveloped.
Further south, following a period of Mexican rule, Central America became a confederation in the 1820s and 30s, but local rivalries led to it falling apart, allowing US, British and French involvement in the region.
The formation of the Organisation of Central American States in 1951 led to more cohesion, but by the late 1970s the US was involving itself in the region clandestinely as left wing movements attempted to steer the region towards communism.
In the main these movement are beaten and Central America is entering free market economics. However, with Colombia to the south, many of these states form the hub of the drug trade.

SOUTH AMERICA

Most of South America was under Spanish control, but by 1825 Simon Bolivar had led a mass independence movement that saw the creation of Colombia, Venezuela, Equador, Peru, Bolivia, Chile, Argentina, Uruguay and Paraguay.
Portuguese Brazil also gained independence at this time. Predominantly Catholic, much of the continent flirted with fascism, but in Chile Marxism was democratically endorsed with the rise Allende in 1970.
This was too much for the US, who became hostile, leading to the military coup of General Pinochet in 1973, imposing a dictatorial right wing regime. The Junta was born, remaining until 1988 when democracy returned.
Argentina gained a National Constitution in 1853 following a period of instability, with an agricultural revolution now taking place to bolster its economy of cattle and grain. The Depression badly affected Argentina, leading to military dictatorship in 1930.
Following World War Two a populist movement led to the presidency of Peron until 1955, and briefly again in the 1970s before the country again became a right wing military dictatorship. In the early 1980s internal instability led the Junta to invade the disputed Falkland Islands in an attempt to reunite the country.
The British response caused the Falklands War of 1982. Argentina was defeated, leading to the fall of the Junta and reinstatement of democracy.
Brazil became a federal republic in 1891 but fraudulent elections and the Depression led to military dictatorship in 1930. Under Vargas, this survived until 1915. Brazil then began a period of rapid economic expansion, even building a brand new capital, Brazilia.
However, a number of peasant leagues attempted to force land reform, prompting the landowners to back a right wing military coup in 1964. A number of regimes followed until the establishment of civilian rule in 1978. A new constitution followed in the late 1980s with rapid industrialisation. Today, with Mexico, Brazil is an emerging economy which will no doubt increase in global importance.

(c) Anthony North, February 2008

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THE FAR EAST

In 1911 a nationalist revolt broke out in China, helped by their secret societies, including the Tongmenghui, or United League, led by Sun Yat-sen. The following year they deposed the last Manchu emperor but the movement fell apart into warlordism.
The May Fourth Revolt of 1919, caused by worries of Japanese intentions, led intellectuals to study Marxism and liberalism. In 1925 Chiang Kai-Shek took command of the Nationalist army, working with the Communist Party, formed in Shanghai in 1921.

CHINESE REVOLUTION

However, the Nationalists turned on the Communists, Shanghai falling in 1927. A Communist Red Army then formed, but as Japan invaded, causing the ‘ Sino-Japanese War, the Red Army carried out its Long March to Hunan in the north in 1934.
The following year Mao Zedong came to head the Chinese Communist Party. In 1946 he attacked the Nationalists, taking Beijing by September 1949, declaring the People’s Republic of China. The Nationalists retreated to Formosa, present-day Taiwan.
The Chinese revolution turned the country communist, with Mao leaving the country to run itself other than two periods of interference. From 1958-62 he imposed his Great Leap Forward, whole populations moved into agricultural and industrial communes, causing 20 million deaths through violence and famine before re-instigating a market economy. And in his Cultural Revolution of 1966, some half million intellectuals were slaughtered.
In 1989 students protested against communism, ruthlessly put down in the Tianenman Square massacre, but the reality is China has never been truly communist. Communism is simply the latest means of instituting central bureauocracy, the Chinese heart being capitalist, suggesting that the future of China could well be in this direction, if such a bureauocracy could allow it. However, the revolution in China de-stabilised the whole region.

KOREAN WAR

This began with Korea, which had been annexed by Japan in 1910. Following the Second World War Korea was split at the 38th parallel, with Soviet influence in the north and western
in the south, the eventual idea being to unite the country.
The Soviets disagreed with the means to achieve this, but both the Soviets and Americans withdrew in 1949 leaving different governments in the north and south. In June 1950, the north invaded the south, US forces landing the following month but the north broke through.
The south was saved by MacArthur’s amphibious landing at Inchon, close to Seoul, thus threatening the north’s supply lines. With a break-out in the south, the north was pushed back, the front reversing when China entered the war in 1951.
The war dragged on into trench warfare on the 38th parallel until a ceasefire in July 1953. Korea remains in this position to this day.

VIETNAM WAR

Vietnam was to suffer further war. In 1954 the country was split at the 17th parallel between communists in the north and capitalists in the south pending elections. Bad relations developed and the south attempted to eliminate communist guerillas now known as the Viet Cong in the south.
Ho Chi Minh, who now led the north, decided to assist the guerillas, leading to the south asking for help in 1961. Kennedy sent US advisors, but mission creep led to full participation by 1965, the US strategy being to place artillery fire support units deep in enemy territory, supporting fast response helicopter transported airborne cavalry.
They failed to suppress the Viet Cong, and media coverage led to protests at home. The Tet Offensive of 1968 led the north’s armies to besiege the south, leading to peace talks in Paris. The war dragged on into 1970 with US/southern invasions of Cambodia and Laos to attempt to stop the Ho Chi Minh Trail supply lines.
The 1972 offensive by the north led to US withdrawal when mass bombing failed to stop them by 1973. The following year, the south fell, Vietnam united in communism in 1976, the revolution going to other parts of Indo China, particularly Pol Pot’s Cambodia.

TOWARDS TODAY

Elsewhere in south east Asia, US led western policy was more successful by peaceful means. In Hong Kong Britain adopted a free market economy which led to the city becoming a bastion of capitalism prior to its return to China – a capitalism that was followed by Malaya and Singapore.
Japan turned its endeavours away from imperialism by military might and became one of the richest capitalist countries – a model followed by US inspired Taiwan and South Korea.
During the 1990s these countries drove the eastern Tiger Economy. The instabillty of these economies at the end of the 1990s sent a shock wave through the region, the future of the region very much in the hands of the Chinese, who are at present adopting a dual system of capitalism with communist rule.
Whether this system can be maintained, it is too early to tell.

(c) Anthony North, February 2008

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THE COLD WAR

The Cold War was born out of the 1945 Yalta Conference to define areas of responsibility in a post-world war world. Stalin gained most, communist governments existing in Hungary, Poland, Bulgaria and Romania by 1947, with Czechoslovakia and East Germany to follow.
Yugoslavia became communist under Tito but retained independence. Berlin itself was split into 4 zones – the USSR, US, Britain and France – but was in East Germany, only accessible by a ‘corridor’ to the west.

PACTS AND THINGS

In 1948 the 3 western powers created the state of West Germany, the Soviet response being to blockade Berlin. The west responded with the Berlin Air Lift, supplying the city and daring the Soviets to shoot down the planes.
The blockade was lifted in May 1949. To stop further expansion of communism, in 1949 the west devised NATO, the Soviets responding with the Warsaw Pact, mass armies beginning to appear on both sides.
Continued migration to the west became a hindrance to the east, so in 1961, the Berlin Wall was built, extending to become what Churchill called the Iron Curtain, splitting Europe into two camps.
Hungary rebelled against Soviet domination in 1956, and Poland in 1968, both uprisings put down by the Soviet Red Army. But things nearly got out of hand in 1962.

THE NUCLEAR THREAT

In 1959 Fidel Castro won a revolution in Cuba, turning the country to communism and friendship with the USSR. The Soviets had become the 3rd nuclear power in 1949, and in 1962 a US spyplane photographed a missile site under construction in Cuba.
Kennedy put the island under naval quarantine and threatened nuclear war if the site was not dismantled. Powerless in naval terms, the USSR backed down, but began building up their navy from this point.
But a more rational form of diplomacy arose. Throughout the period MAD, or Mutally Assured Destruction, was the policy of deterrence, both sides having thousands of nuclear warheads, the idea being that neither side could win a war.

END GAME

In 1963 a nuclear test ban treaty was signed, followed by Strategic Arms Limitation Talks, or SALT. And whilst espionage was ripe throughout the period, relations settled down to detente.
By the late 1980s, the Soviets faced trouble. In Poland the trade union Solidarity under Lech Walesa rose to sweep away communism. In the Kremlin the communists of the Soviet Union had realised the west was spending their way to victory, the Soviet economy unable to afford the arms race.
Out of this realisation, Gorbechov, a more moderate leader, rose. The INF Treaty was signed in 1988, limiting intermediate nuclear weapons, followed by reduction talks. Spurred on by Polish freedom, peaceful uprisings erupted throughout the Warsaw Pact and in 1989, German youth ripped down the Berlin Wall, uniting the two Germanies.
The Soviet infra-structure began to break down, crystallised in Boris Yeltsin, who, after a communist hardline attempt to depose Gorbechov, spurred on the people to rise.
Communism was swept away, Yeltsin becoming the President of a new Russia.

TODAY

Today, that new Russia is democratic, but under Putin, old-style central control is raising its head once more. In the west, NATO struggles to find a role, peacekeeping the new ethos following the break-up of Yugoslavia and the ambitions of a Greater Serbia.
Following wars in Croatia, Bosnia and intrigues in Kosovo, NATO finds itself in a new form of protectorate, keeping opposing hatreds apart. However, communism affected more than just Europe, as we shall see in the next post.

© Anthony North, February 2008

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THE MIDDLE EAST

Many would argue that the problems of the Middle East begin with Israel, so maybe we should begin with the history of the Jew following the Exile of the 6th century BC. The destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem in 70AD added to what became known as the Jewish Diaspora, with Palestine ceasing to exist.

DIASPORA

Jewish centres had already risen in Babylon, Egypt, Syria and other places. Jamina now rose as the center of rabbinical Judaism. Oppression of Jews began under Constantine, the Jewish tradition now centred on Babylon, beginning the golden age of Middle East Judaism, brought to an end by the Crusades.
Throughout Europe Jews were banned from the professions, many turning to money-lending to live, creating the myth of Jewish avarice.
Jews were finally expelled from England and Spain, many gathering in Polish ghettos in the 18th century. The 19th century improved their lot in western Europe and the US, Jews forging great business enterprises, but anti-Semitism was on the rise, 3,000,000 Jews fleeing Russian persecution to America by 1910.
However, many Jews had risen to financial status in Germany, whilst elsewhere the Zionist movement, created by Leo Pinsker after the Russian Pogroms, and demanding a Jewish Homeland in Israel, was gaining ground.
Britain controlled Palestine at the time, and their Balfour Declaration allowed some immigration by Jews to the region.

HOLOCAUST

In 1883 the British eccentric Francis Galton coined the term eugenics, advocating selective breeding to improve mankind. Victorian Britain liked the idea, feeling they were the ultimate in evolution, whilst in Germany the idea mingled with ideas of ‘race biology’, in many ways a natural step from the idea of Prussian mastery. Even before Hitter, the idea was abroad that ‘unfit’ races like the Jews should have restricted procreation.
When Hitler came to power, concentration camps appeared for undesirables, including Jews, the Nuremberg Laws of 1935 stripping them of citizenship and banning inter-marriage.
With the Depression hitting, Jews were scape-goated for Germany’s ills and persecuted. With the invasion of Poland Jews were shot or used for slave labour, with many rounded up into ghettos.
By 1942 the Final Solution was decreed at the Wannsee Conference, 6,000,000 Jews murdered in death camps such as Auschwitz, using industrialised gas chambers and mass crematoria.
The Holocause became the darkest period of human history, with the attempt to do Genocide to a race who were traditionally thought guilty of killing Christ, but in reality, simply didn’t have a home.

ISRAEL

Spurred on by the Holocaust, Zionism increased with Jews arriving in Palestine. The British put restrictions on numbers entering, resulting in the setting up of Jewish terrorist operations against the British, with the Hagana, Irgun and Stern Gang killing 300 British soldiers.
In November 1947 the UN partitioned Palestine into Jewish and Arab states with Jerusalem under international control. On 14 May 1948 the British withdrew, David Ben Gurion declaring the state of Israel.
Arabs attacked, beginning the series of Arab-lsraeli conflicts in 1956, the Six Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Determined to push the Jews into the sea, the result was the displacing of two thirds of the Palestinian people, with Yasser Arafat rising to perfect international terrorism with the Palestine Liberation Organisation.
The Camp David Accords of 1977 led to peace with Israel and Egypt. However, 1982 saw Israeli operations in Lebanon to create a buffer zone against attack, the first of the Palestinian Intifadas, or uprisings, beginning in 1987 in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

ISLAMIC-WEST RELATIONS

Internationally, the 1980s saw international terrorism in pursuit of Arab causes involving bombings and hi-jackings, with the US being seen as the Great Satan for its support of Israel and interference in the Middle East generally.
Such a clash became inevitable, as Middle East stability and oil were essential for the US economy. When the Organisation of Oil Exporting Countries (OPEC) raised the price of oil dramatically in 1973, the west realised just how important the region was, causing a Recession.
Following British manipulation in the Gulf between the two world wars – especially in Saudi Arabia and Iran – America began supporting repressive regimes such as the Shah of Iran to guarantee stability.
Arab nationalism began with Nasser in Egypt and later Gaddafi in Libya, but in 1979 Iran had an Islamic revolution, with the Ayatollah Khomeini coming to power, inciting hatred of the west, and, with Syria and Libya, began sponsoring terrorism.
By 1980 leadership of the region was up for grabs and Saddam Hussein of Iraq bid for control with his attack on Iran. The Iran-lraq War raged for 8 years, Saddam strengthened by western aid.
However, his invasion of Kuwait in 1990 led to a US-led coalition which kicked him out in the Gulf War, a new mood arising in the west through fear of an Islamic Bomb and weapons of mass destruction, actively sought by Saddam.
The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 also led the US to support freedom fighters intent on kicking them out. With the fall-out from the 2003 Anglo-US invasion of Iraq, the tensions between Muslims and the west increased.

RADICAL ISLAM

In 1992 elections in Algeria were suspended when it became clear that Islamic Fundamentalists would win. It sent a shock wave throughout the west and moderate Arab states. A new mood was arising, seeing the west as oppressors and moderate Arabs as traitors.
In Afghanistan US-backed fighters turned into the fundamentalist Taliban, with Saudi radical Osama Bin Laden forming his Al-Qaeda organisation to train terrorists, setting up bases in Taliban territory.
A terror campaign began against the west, reaching its height on 11 September 2001 when two hi-jacked planes destroyed the World Trade Centre in New York.
Within months a US-led operation removed the Taliban from Afghanistan, a worldwide hunt beginning to smash up Al-Qaeda, and the west began to look again at countries such as Iran, intent on getting rid of rogue states and the terrorism they deal in.

© Anthony North, February 2008

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