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| Middle East |
| Survival of the fittest |
| 2004-01-09 |
| This is a ground breaking interview IMHO. Chilling in parts, but it seems to have arrived at the same conclusions that I’m coming to recently. So grab a coffee and read it all. (extract) "I think there is a clash between civilizations here [as Huntington argues]. I think the West today resembles the Roman Empire of the fourth, fifth and sixth centuries: The barbarians are attacking it and they may also destroy it." The Muslims are barbarians, then? "I think the values I mentioned earlier are values of barbarians - the attitude toward democracy, freedom, openness; the attitude toward human life. In that sense they are barbarians. The Arab world as it is today is barbarian." And in your view these new barbarians are truly threatening the Rome of our time? "Yes. The West is stronger but it’s not clear whether it knows how to repulse this wave of hatred. The phenomenon of the mass Muslim penetration into the West and their settlement there is creating a dangerous internal threat. A similar process took place in Rome. They let the barbarians in and they toppled the empire from within." Is it really all that dramatic? Is the West truly in danger? "Yes. I think that the war between the civilizations is the main characteristic of the 21st century. I think President Bush is wrong when he denies the very existence of that war. It’s not only a matter of bin Laden. This is a struggle against a whole world that espouses different values. And we are on the front line. Exactly like the Crusaders, we are the vulnerable branch of Europe in this place." The situation as you describe it is extremely harsh. You are not entirely convinced that we can survive here, are you? "The possibility of annihilation exists." |
| Posted by:tipper |
| #14 "the Romans didn't have a loonie left sapping their will to fight" Maybe not, but the Sasanids, the first Empire to fall to Islam, certainly did. "Kavad’s reign also saw the rise of Mazdak, a Marxist predating Marx himself by about 1300 years. Mazdak who was Kavad’s close friend, started preaching his ideas of communal life and collective life almost immediately after Kavad took the throne. This was the time that the Sasanian society had been fed up with the increasing power of the Zoroastrian clergy and had started creating alternative cults such as Zardoshtegan. Mazdak’s ideas; therefore, managed to attract a lot of attention, especially since the emperor himself supported the modern day prophet. It is disputed that the actual founder of Mazdak’s cult was a man called Zardosht-i Khvargan who was a follower of Maani. Thus, in a sense, Mazdak can be assumed as a person who revived and updated Maani’s ideas two hundred years after him. Mazdak’s ideas, other than preaching the collective life style, was based on self-discipline and hardship, along with kindness towards the strangers." |
| Posted by: tipper 2004-1-9 11:02:33 PM |
| #13 I thought the Greeks came up with the word "barbarian" by making fun of the speech of non-Greeks and near-Greeks like the Macedonians, which they described as "barbarbarbarbar..." |
| Posted by: Phil Fraering 2004-1-9 6:52:52 PM |
| #12 Yeah, Alcibiades is an interesting character, and not in a good way. Kagan is respectful of him so far (I am not finished with the book) but previous accounts I have read and studied about the subject depict him as an essentially amoral and chaotic force. Alcibiades' charisma got him out of the many jams he got into, which is certainly Clintonian... |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2004-1-9 4:41:04 PM |
| #11 I could easily envision Bill Clinton as Alcibiades...Kegan book was fascinating, wasn't it? Macedonia followed (much later) by Rome ends up picking up all the marbles after Athens and Sparta finish beating each other up.... ________________borgboy |
| Posted by: borgboy 2004-1-9 4:01:56 PM |
| #10 Churchill's not bad; charisma's not all looks, after all. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-1-9 3:40:17 PM |
| #9 RC: yep, JFK is the closest I could come up with in the American milieu. I think Churchill is a better fit for a modern Pericles (not sure about the charisma bit however, unless old fat bald cigar smokers were considered sexy in the 1940s). The key problem with JFK/Pericles comparison is that JFK was not around long enough for an extended crisis (as opposed to a brief crisis like Cuba) |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2004-1-9 3:04:55 PM |
| #8 {barbarian's} a name tossed around, kind of like "kike" and "slopehead" and other derogatory terms used to assign the most brutal and unkind behavior to people we don't appreciate or wish to associate with - the "uncouth".
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| Posted by: rkb 2004-1-9 1:57:54 PM |
| #7 Carl: JFK. |
| Posted by: Robert Crawford 2004-1-9 1:37:45 PM |
| #6 "the Romans didn't have a loonie left sapping their will to fight" Actually, all those ancient Mediterranean societies (Greeks, Romans, Carthaginians) had analogues to many of the types of poltics we see today: conservative, "progressive", rich elites, populists, etc etc. I am reading Kagan's "The Peloponnesian War" right now, and I keep mentally tying to fit the leaders mentioned there into their modern counterparts. Not possible to easily do with, for example, Pericles: wealthy, intelligent, charismatic, inspiring speaker, and proponent of empire. Haven't seen that combination in the US for a while.... |
| Posted by: Carl in N.H. 2004-1-9 12:40:25 PM |
| #5 The western Empire fell to the Goths, Visigoths, Vandals, etc. because they had 1) split the empire and had a civil war. 2) Begun using large numbers of germanic troops. 3) Moved the capitol to Ravenna (yech!) And because they stored wine in lead-lined jars. |
| Posted by: mojo 2004-1-9 11:56:33 AM |
| #4 Rome was destroyed by BARBARIANS I know some barbarians and trust me Arabs aren't in the same league. Why, thank you, Ship! I didn't think you noticed! 8^) Truthfully, we "barbarians" get a bad rap. We're not too good in the PR department, concentrating on what we do best - raping, pillaging, looting, and destroying. Call it primitive urban renewal. Actually, it's a name tossed around, kind of like "kike" and "slopehead" and other derogatory terms used to assign the most brutal and unkind behavior to people we don't appreciate or wish to associate with - the "uncouth". Every society needs a few barbarians, especially when things get nasty. If we get too civilized to carry the war to our enemies, instead sit back and merely try to keep the losses from getting too much out of hand, we've already lost. We need to have the will to go after those that hate us, and show them, emphatically, that, no matter what they THINK they can do, we're meaner, badder, and more capable of inflicting upon them what they think they can inflict upon us. If necessary, we need to prove that brutality has not been bred out of us, but is only thinly controlled by a conscience that considers every man equal, and none superior. We haven't done that in the Arab world yet. We need to. I would suggest the total destruction of Fallujah as an example. Let them, and the rest of the world know, that we will not be squeamish in this war, and we WILL fight to win. If that means getting totally barbaric in dealing with our self-appointed enemy, so be it. |
| Posted by: Old Patriot 2004-1-9 11:33:16 AM |
| #3 With all due sensitivity.... Rome was destroyed by BARBARIANS I know some barbarians and trust me Arabs aren't in the same league. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2004-1-9 10:01:24 AM |
| #2 But the difference is that the Romans didn't have a loonie left sapping their will to fight. |
| Posted by: JFM 2004-1-9 1:34:56 AM |
| #1 ...The important difference is that Augustus Caesar didn't have a Praetorian Guard who went with him everywhere carrying a scroll with the launch codes. Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2004-1-9 12:57:32 AM |