Obelisk #7

May 11, 2024 by Sailoil

Most tourists in Rome are drawn to the Piazza Navona for the fountains. I remember sitting in the shade on a doorstep with my wife and the three kids, eating some lunch in the shade around 2005. When you have visited as many hippodromes and circuses as I have you have an instinct for how they morph into long narrow plazas. It came as no surprise to me that this was once the Circus Argonalis, a sports arena constructed in the 1st Century AD by Emperor Domitian. The obelisk should also be a dead giveaway as they are such a popular installation on the spina of the chariot track. But in this case it seems the obelisk was never associated with the stadium.

The Piazza lies between the Pantheon and the Tiber not far from the Elephant and Obelisk also associated with Domitian. But while the obelisk on the elephant is a real Egyptian obelisk the obelisk in the Piazza Navona, which I will call the Obelisk of Domitian, is a fake. It is not an ancient-ancient obelisk like all the other Egyptian pillars in Rome. It is only an ancient obelisk. Domitian commissioned it himself. He had it constructed in Egypt and inscribed with Hieroglyphs with dedications to Vespasian, Titus and to himself.

It was Jean Francois Champollion, translator of the Rosetta Stone who decoded the text. Some scholars simply see this as Domitian attempting to legitimise the Flavians as many Romans would never see them as “proper” Emperors. The Julio-Claudian line was still in living memory in this era so the Flavians could easily be seen as jumped up usurpers.

Personally I think that the production of this obelisk shows something deeper in Domitian. He was a 17 year old boy in the year of the four emperors. While his father Vespasian and brother Titus were in the East Domitian was in Rome when hostilities broke out. Vitellius had him placed under house arrest and he was in real danger of being executed. He had no illusions about the fact that he was a hostage. This must have been a deeply traumatising event in the young mans life.

When he became Emperor Domitian began to sign documents with Dominus et Deus (Lord and God). He was no longer content to be a Princeps, a first among equals. But also he assumed godhood, an honour often granted to Roman Emperors, but generally after their death. These are the acts of a deeply insecure person. He was paranoid, and was right to be. He ended up being stabbed to death.

As a result I interpret the creation of this obelisk as a crutch, Domitian trying to associate himself with an Egyptian legitimacy far far older than the Roman Senate. The obelisk was not installed in the hippodrome he built, but was more likely located in the temple of Isis or the Temple of Gens Flavia dedicated to his family.

It was moved out of Rome in the 4th Century by Emperor Maxentius who is most famous as the loser at the Battle of the Milvian Bridge which made Constantine the Great Emperor. Maxentius built the Circus of Maxentius three miles outside Rome on the Appian Way. There it ultimately collapsed, broke and sank into the ground. Pope Sixtus V was aware of its existence but chose not to restore it. It was in 1649 that Pope Innocent X restored it and had it erected in front of his own mansion in the Piazza Navona. It forms the centrepiece of the Fountain of Four Rivers which was designed and contructed by Bernini. Documents from the construction of the fountain incorrectly attribute the obelisk to Caracalla.

-=o0o=-

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Dow Jones 40,000

April 24, 2024 by Sailoil

Back in the Summer of 1999 I was on a train talking to some American tourists when the Dow Jones hit 10,000 and they were really excited. It was my first time to realize how deeply embedded the Dow Jones index is in the USA as a bellweather for prosperity. It is an idol they worship. It is the American equivalent of a moving statue.

In 18th Century Japan it was Munehisa Homma who spotted the irrationality of the behaviour of traders in the rice futures market. He invented the candlestick chart to logically analyze the movements in the market. But he realized that most traders were acting on hunches and instincts, and chasing the market in a herd manner.

A market threshold such as 10,000 or 40,000 index points is pretty meaningless in real terms. But these thresholds are anticipated in awe by traders and investors alike. The political world makes capital on the thresholds. If the Dow hits 40k Joe Biden will bask in reflected glory. He will be seen as the president who made it happen. This will secure his bona fides as a leader who looks after the economy. The Trump supporters will hate it.

The NASDAQ and the FTSE and the S&P 500 are all demigods to be worshipped and prayed to, but the Dow is the granddaddy of them all. Dow Jones is God the Father, Zeus, Jupiter, Odin. Founded in 1885 it is a composite of only 30 large companies and is focused only on the USA. But as a barometer of global economics it remains top of mind. Rational traders will tell you it is out of date and does not represent the globalised finance world. The Faithful are those who don’t read their holy books too critically because religion is an act of faith. A rational trader can make a solid living on the market. A true believer might be a millionaire next year.

How to Cook Rice; by Koon Woon

Measure two handfuls for a prosperous man.
Place in pot and wash by rubbing palms together
as if you can’t quite get yourself to pray, or
by squeezing it in one fist. Wash
several times to get rid of the cloudy water;
when you are too high in Heaven, looking down
at the clouds, you can’t see what’s precious below.
Rinse with cold water and keep enough so that
it will barely cover your hand placed on the rice.
Don’t use hot water, there are metallic diseases
colliding in it. This method of measuring water will work
regardless of the size of the pot; if the pot is large,
use both hands palms down as if to pat your own belly.
Now place on high heat without cover and cook
until the water has been boiled away except in craters
resembling those of the moon, important
in ancient times for growing rice. Now place lid on top
and reduce heat to medium, go read your newspaper
until you get to the comics, then come back and turn it down to low.
The heat has been gradually traveling from the outside
to the inside of the rice, giving it texture;
a similar thing happens with people, I suppose.

Go back to your newspaper, finish the comics, and read
the financial page. Now the rice is done, but before
you eat, consider the peasant who arcs in leech-infested
paddies and who carefully plants the rice seedlings
one by one; on this night, you are eating better than he.
If you still don’t know how to cook rice, buy a Japanese
automatic rice cooker; it makes perfect rice every time!

-=o0o=-

Why Russia will lose in Ukraine

April 7, 2024 by Sailoil

Abstract from “Why Big Nations lose Small Wars” by Andrew Mack, 1975.

The Vietnam and Algerian wars have demonstrated that the overwhelming conventional military superiority of major powers is no guarantee against their defeat in wars against small nations. For external powers such wars are necessarily “limited,” which constrains escalation above certain levels. With no direct survival interest at stake, fighting the war does not take automatic priority over the pursuit of other social, political, and economic objectives. Prosecuting the war consumes resources–economic, human, and political–which are thus not available for the pursuit of these other objectives. In the absence of a quick victory this creates the potential for those political divisions which historically have shifted the balance of forces in the metropolis in favor of withdrawal. For the insurgents, the fact of invasion and occupation generates cohesion, minimizes constraints on mobilization, and maximizes the willingness to incur costs. Precisely the opposite effects tend to characterize the war effort of the external power.

Vladimir Putin rose to power during the Chechen war, and secured his tenure as leader of the country by “winning” that war in 2000. This victory was followed by a decade of brutal guerilla warfare before insurgency largely petered out in 2009 amid widespread accusations of torture, rape and brutality on all sides.

The success of the annexation of Crimea in 2014 led Vladimir Putin to believe he could repeat the process in Donbas and annex a broad swathe of southern and eastern Ukraine. He has fallen into the trap experienced by the French in Algeria and Vietnam, the British in Ireland, India, Malaysia and Kenya and by the Americans in Vietnam and Afghanistan. It was the same trap Napoleon fell into in Spain when the concept of the little war, la Guerilla, was invented.

Putin got away with Chechnya because he was dealing with an enclave within former Soviet territories, with no border conflicts with other nations. He was also dealing with Islamic separatists at a time when the western world had no sympathy whatever for radical Islamism. Chechens are probably seen by most Europeans as an Asian race, although they are actualy Caucasian. They literally live in the Caucasus mountains.

In Ukraine he is fighting a nation who are identifyable as white Christian Europeans. A nation that has borders with Russia and Belarus, but also with Poland, Sovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. This makes the conflict both an EU matter and a NATO matter. It impacts on the Eurovision Song Contest and on sporting events. It is also a matter for Human Rights NGO’s such as Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, MSF, UNICEF and many many more.

The political trend experienced by large nations involved in long, drawn out conflicts where they are the aggressors is falling support accross the board. In the modern world of social media, satellite phones and private VPNs centralized message control has become very difficult for governments. Economic sanctions that are initially seen as a minor annoyance become more and more wearing on the people. Draft dodging becomes not merely accepted but expected, as an act of patriotism. Political divisions widen and the cracks begin to show everywhere in the administration. The distance between Putin and his advisors grows not only psychologically, but physically, as he fears for his life.

The contrast with Zelensky is very telling. The lack of movement in the hot war on the ground in Ukraine may make it seem that the Russian Bear need only squeeze harder and they will eventually win. But think about this. France held Vietnam in the years before WW2 with a force of only 15,000 men. By 1954 they could not hold the country with 200,000 men deployed. The USA thought they could do it with half a million men. See how that worked out?

-=o0o=-

Yedikule fortress

March 19, 2024 by Sailoil

I said in my blog post “Walking the Walls 1” that the approach to the landwalls of ancient Constantinople seems very political. Today I think I confirmed this. Back in 1458, only 5 years after taking the city, Mehmed had Yedikule fortress built into the older Roman wall.

Because this is an Ottoman and Turk construction it seems to be more politically acceptable to restore the fort than to “waste” money on the Roman walls.

When I arrived it was all hustle and bustle. A van was delivering building supplies and was honking at the gate to gain entry. Inside gangs of workmen are reconstructing a building in the centre of the site. At the front gate the local politician has photos of himself plastered all over the building proudly displaying his role in the restoration. Municipal elections were in full swing.

There is a kiosk to take your (modest) entry fee. Inside is a café pavilion. I found myself behind a school tour as a gang of pre-teen Turkish schoolgirls giggled at me and made inside jokes and then called me “effendi” to great hilarity.

Mehmed II added three new towers to an existing four tower section of Roman wall to enclose the ground and create a fortress. Yedikule literally means seven towers. This has a couple of interesting points to it.

Firstly the walls serve to defend the city from without. A fortress defends from both without and within. From the very beginning a different dynamic was at play. This fortress was to be used as both arsenal and treasury.

The new towers are round. Mehmed was the Conqueror who knocked down the flat walls and square towers of the Romans. He realized that a round tower was a better design to defend against cannon. Any shot that is not a direct hit is likely to ricochet off a curved surface.

Instead of steps they found ramps in some parts of the towers. These may be innovations to allow for cannon to be moved about with ease within the towers.

This tower has original timbering in place to show how an internal framework used to give access to all levels from within.

So the locals are funding a part of the Roman Walls that was reconstructed by the Ottomans and are turning this into a tourist attraction. There definitely seems to be a “Turkish Good – Roman Bad” mentality at play. If you want to learn more read my Walking the Walls 2 and The Marble Tower when they are published.

This final photo is of Yedikule taken from what used to be outside the Long Walls. You can see the second, ceremonial portal that sits outside of the Yedikule Fortress proper. This was the Golden Gate of Constantinople, the Porta Aurea. It was a symbolic and ceremonial entry point to the city. The bronze door used to be sheathed in gold leaf or foil. This gate existed long before the walls themselves. It was a triumphal arch built 1.5 kms west of the Constantinian walls and played a role as a commencement point for Triumphal marches into the city. When the Theodosian walls were constructed they came out to meet, but not surpass the original arch. This suggests that the placement of the original arch had deep religious significance.

-=o0o=-

A great year

December 31, 2023 by Sailoil

The images above depict the Roman God Janus, who has two faces. One faces forward and one looks back. As the God of doormen and watchmen this may represent the need to have eyes in the back of your head for any trouble. He is the God of doors and gates, arches and passages. He is also the God of January, as this month was seen by the Romans as the gateway to the new year. New Year’s Eve is a good day to reflect on the year past and the hopes and dreams for the year to come.

A decade ago I reflected on the year 2013 as a year worth forgetting, for a variety of reasons. Following the recession of 2007 was not a great time for many reasons and it all seemed to come to a head for me in 2013. Gradually things got better, in my career in particular. I changed direction in 2015, I got out of Dublin in 2016 and I moved out of contracting and into a permanent role in Cork City in 2021.

We also bought ourselves a home in Cork in 2021 after some disappointing let downs in the prior year. In 2022 the company I joined was bought out, so my shares came good. The new owners ramped up our pension fund contributions in March 2023.

This year I hit my 60th birthday and was treated to some great Rugby in Paris as a result. I passed through 10 airports in 2023: Cork, Birmingham, Lanzarote, Manchester, Beauvais, Paris-Orly, Paris – Charles de Gaulle, Amsterdam – Schiphol, Tenerife South and Tenerife North. I also made the effort to motivate myself and to share good will with others. A symbol of this was Chinese New Year 2023 when I wrote and sent out good wishes and red envelopes to family and friends. Joining the Knights of Munster was another affirming step. We Knights have some great things coming in the month of January. In January 2023 I signed up in work for the 100 days walking challenge, to log 10,000 steps per day. When the 100 days ended I kept up the discipline. In this week I was ill from Chrismas day and logged nothing, but despite this blip I have, on average, logged 11,160 steps per day in the entire year of 2023.

Fixing my hearing was another big step for me. The right ear has not worked properly since I was run over by a car at age 7. In 2023 I had a Cochlear implant installed to bypass the damaged middle ear and I am hearing sounds that were lost to me a long time ago. Emerging research on hearing and balance show they are crucial to extending active ageing and avoiding dementia or alzheimers.

For the first 23 years of my career I worked in the Public Sector and my (partial) pension matured on my 60th Birthday. I have no immediate plans to retire, but I can bank that money in a tax efficient manner for the next five or six years to pad out my company pension fund. That will make retirement a lot more comfortable when I am ready for that step. More importantly it represents a security blanket that removes any anxiety around money should anything go wrong. This must be what it feels like to grow up as a trust fund bunny. You don’t need a lot of a cushion to eliminate fear, and this reinforces my belief that our social welfare system is a broken victim blaming Victorian workhouse model. It should be replaced with a system of Universal Basic Income.

Just over a year ago Esha graduated with her Masters in Engineering from UCC. She has been working in a well paid job here in Cork. This year Jerry passed his Viva and next April he will officially become Dr. Jerry. His income level has been rising bit by bit but in the new year he will at last be earning a proper salary. Louise also moved role in 2023 and instead of opportunistic piecemeal contracts has been working in a steady role with the associated regular income. All of these elements combine to provide us with a far more comfortable household income and the ability for all of us to enjoy a bit of retail therapy. For Louise it provided the opoportunity to fully reskill in the workplace, a social existence outside the immediate family and the self respect that comes from earning your own income.

Gavin passed his 3rd year Engineering exams and is working now towards his degree. There is a very real possibility all five of us will be earning decent salaries by the end of 2024.

All in all I can say that the view of 2023 from the couch where I now sit is that it was a great year. One of the best.

Now here is a poem from one of my favourite poets; Brian Bilston

-=o0o=-

Instalife vs real life

December 22, 2023 by Sailoil

Content warning: may be upsetting to people affected by suicide or body image disorders.

The internet is rife with real vs idealized images of people. Most take the form of the before and after, did she or didn’t she, real vs photoshop, no makeup selfies etc. Some take the form of exposing the impossibility imposed on people by heavily photoshopped images in the media. Others are more nefarious, like the way OJ Simpson’s image was doctored to make him look blacker and more sinister.

We live in a world of people who will not share an unfiltered selfie. Many of my colleagues apply filters to their Zoom or Teams meetings image.

A lot of people assume that this is a product of social media and the internet. But the gap between the outdoor image and the person behind closed doors has always existed. My mother had an old Dublin saying about money “you can eat it or wear it”. It refers to those who spend their money on image rather than the basics like putting food on the table. In the movie “The Cinderella Man” Paul Giamatti plays the part of Joe Gould, Braddock’s manager. During the great depression his on street appearance is flawless all the way up to his front door. Inside his apartment is bare, as all possessions have been sold off to maintain the public image.

Maine poet Edwin Arlington Robinson captures this in the poem below. Robinson won three Pulitzer prizes and was nominated four times for a Nobel prize in literature. He was born on this day, December 22nd 1869. Happy birthday Edwin!

Richard Cory by Edwin Arlington Robinson

Whenever Richard Cory went down town,
we people on the pavement looked at him:
He was a gentleman from sole to crown,
clean favored, and imperially slim.

And he was always quietly arrayed,
and he was always human when he talked;
but still he fluttered pulses when he said,
“Good-morning,” and he glittered when he walked.

And he was rich—yes, richer than a king
and admirably schooled in every grace:
In fine, we thought that he was everything
to make us wish that we were in his place.

So on we worked, and waited for the light,
and went without the meat, and cursed the bread;
and Richard Cory, one calm summer night,
went home and put a bullet through his head.

-=o0o=-

Stalin’s week off.

December 13, 2023 by Sailoil

In June 1941 Hitler launched Operation Barbrossa, his invasion of the Soviet Union. Stalin had spent the month of June 1941 discounting intelligence reports of the pending invasion. The accepted story is that Stalin had some kind of nervous breakdown and ran away to hide in his Dacha for a week.

When Stalin heard that the Nazi army was at the gates of Minsk in Belorussia he supposedly had a fit and shouted in anger “Lenin founded our state and now we’ve f**ked it up!“. When he did not turn up at the Kremlin for work the next week it is said that a delegation including Mikoyan, Beria and Molotov drove off to see him at his Dacha outside Moscow.

In an emotionally charged encounter Stalin seemed distracted and out of his normal sorts. He asked the delegation “Why have you come?”

Mikoyan later wrote that “Stalin appeared very guarded, somehow strange, and it was even stranger that he asked us that question. After all, considering the situation he should have called us himself. I have no doubt that he had decided that we had come to arrest him.”

The accepted explanation was that Stalin had a sort of crisis of confidence, or a mini-nervous breakdown. That he believed he was about to be arrested and imprisoned, or shot out of hand. Instead he was begged to return to the Kremlin and lead the people.

Here I differ from accepted wisdom and offer an alternate explanation for Stalin’s actions.

Stalin worshipped Ivan the Terrible. Ivan, the first Czar of Russia, defeated the Tartar Mongols who terrorized Russian lands from the 13th to the 16th centuries. Ivan ruled with the co-operation of the boyars, the Russian nobility, for the first half of his reign. His worst impulses were curbed by his wife, whom he loved “terribly“. In 1560 she died and Ivan suspected she was poisoned. Indeed recent archeology has proven that he was correct.

In December 1564 Ivan had enough of bargaining for power. He abdicated and left Moscow for his fortress in Alexandrov. In a letter he cited the corruption and treason of both the Clergy and the Aristocracy. The citizens of Moscow were incensed and the Boyar Court of Nobles found itself unable to rule in his absence. They sent a delegation to beg Ivan to return as ruler.

Ivan had his terms already written up, as though he knew exactly how the situation would play out. He said he would return only on condition of absolute power. He had the power to condemn and execute traitors and to confiscate their estates. He created the Oprichnina, his personal estate. His army of secret police imposed his rule of terror. Black coated horse riders bearing a dogs head and a broom stalked the land imposing a brutal rule over the people. The Oprichniki served Ivan, not the Russian state.

Joseph Stalin was a keen student of Ivan the Terrible. When most of Europe focused on the name “The Terrible” and repudiated the brutality of his rule, Stalin saw strong central rule, unity, purpose, loyalty and obedience. He saw the Greatness of Russia.

In 1944 Stalin commissioned Sergei Eisenstein to film the biopic of Ivan the Terrible. Part 1, released in 1944 depicted the young Czar, his corontion, the defeat of the Tartars, and the love of his life, up until her death by poisoning. The film ends with his abdication and the people begging him to return.

Part 2 of the film was also filmed, showing the Oprichnina years, and Stalin hated that. He had it banned and it was not seen until 1958. Eisenstein had planned a redemption in part 3 but it never saw the light of day. Stalin had any footage destroyed.

My point here is that Stalin loved the story of how the abdication was followed by the people begging the Czar to return to power. My theory is that this is how Stalin saw himself. He did not want to see himself associated with the Terrible Ivan. After the purges of the 1930s there were few candidates left who could possibly replace Joseph Stalin. Those of his inner court lived in constant fear of any accusation of treason. As a result they all distrusted each other. Had any one of them attempted to take power in June 1941 the others would have turned on him.

So Stalin may have held some small concern that the inner circle might turn up to arrest him, but it was a very small risk. At his lowest point, facing invasion by the Germans, what he needed was the kind of absolute power that Ivan the Terrible had secured in 1564. So Stalin did what Ivan did; he abdicated and waited. And it worked. They turned up and begged him to return. He established without doubt that they needed him more than he needed them.

-=o0o=-

Happy Birthday Edvard Munch

December 12, 2023 by Sailoil

Born Dec 12th 1863 Edvard Munch, the Norwegian painter celebrates his 160th birthday this year. His iconic painting “The Scream” is amongst the top 5 highest grossing artworks at auction.

Four versions of the painting exist and two of them have been stolen and subsequently recovered. The Scream is a study of Munch’s own soul or state of mind, a style he called soul painting. He was a man with borderline personality disorder and bore a heavy weight of psychological trauma with him throughout his life.

Initially inspired by impressionists he travelled to Paris where he observed Paul Gauguin, Vincent van Gogh, and Henri de Toulouse-Lautrec—who inspired him with how they used color to convey emotion. But ultimately he found impressionism too restrictive for his desire to expose the inner soul. From Paris he moved to Berlin and explored post-impressionism with the synthetist style. His 1892 exhibition in Berlin was so controversial that it closed after only one week. He went on to inspire the Paris Fauvists and maybe even the later Bauhaus. He certainly had enough influence to be branded a degenerate by the Nazis, but not degenerate enough to prevent them from stealing his artwork when they invaded Norway in WW2.

All in all you get the impression that he was a troubled and very lonely person, even for a Norwegian man. He spent periods of his life between drinking and brawling and then in therapy or isolation.

The solitude of night; by Li Bai

It was at a wine party

I lay in a drowse, oblivious.

Fallen petals fell and filled my lap.

When I arose, still drunk,

the birds had gone to roost,

and but few of my companions remained.

I walked by the river—alone in the moonlight.

-=o0o=-

Stockholm syndrome

December 9, 2023 by Sailoil

The first time I heard about Stockholm syndrome was in a 1980’s staging of the Bernard Farrell play “I do not like thee Dr. Fell” which centres around an eclectic group of therapy junkies who throw out the Syndrome as an accepted standard.

Bernard Farrell wrote the play and first staged in in the Peacock Theatre in Dublin in 1979. It was a massive hit for Farrell allowing him to throw in the day job and become a professional writer. It has remained a standard of the Irish Amateur Drama scene.

The events that led to the categorization of the syndrome occured in 1973, only 6 years previously. After a bank robbery in Norrmalmstorg in Stockhom, Sweden a number of people held hostage by the bank robbers refused to co-operate with the police and actually defended the bank robbers.

The police enlisted a psychiatrist, Nils Bejerot, to categorize the syndrome. Subsequently it emerged that Bejerot never actually spoke to any of the hostages. He was enlisted by the police to rationalize dreadful failures by the police force, who behaved aggressively and exacerbated the danger to the hostages. One of the hostages, Kristin Enmark, even spoke to the Prime Minister, Olaf Palme, who told her that the government would sooner see her, and her fellow hostages, die rather than negotiate with bank robbers. Enmark understood that the Goverment and police placed no value on the lives of the hostages.

Bejerot was challenged to rationalize why the hostages sympathised with the bank-robbers. The bank robbers were trying to ensure the hostages actually survived.

So today Stockholm Syndrome is pretty much a discredited diagnosis. It was a police cover up for incompetence. What is sad is that it was so readily embraced by the media and so easily captured the public imagination. As a concept it has resided in my consciousness for 40 years. I never aggressively tested it, I just accepted that others had done so. I was wrong. I was lied to for 40 years for a police cover up. That’s a bit scary.

-=o0o=-

Stout walls vs strongmen rulers.

December 4, 2023 by Sailoil

Does the lack of castles in Russia explain why the Russian people support Putin?

There are 1,300 castles in Russia. To put this in context Russia is a land spanning 17 million square kilometers. Ireland is 0.0844 million square kilometers and we have about 30,000 castles on this island. What is the reason for this disparity and what difference does it make to Vladimir Putin?

To answer this I will take you all the way back to the battle of Marathon in 490 BC during the first Persian invasion of Greece. The Persian civilization arose on the pains of Iran, Iraq and Syria; open horse country which favours manoeuvre and movement. Control in such an environment relies on a strong central ruler, supported by regional governors (or Satraps) who can manage their areas effectively. The central ruler must be politically astute enough to make membership of the Empire worthwhile, and at the same time prevent any one Satrap from becoming too powerful, or several banding together to overthrow the centre. The central ruler does not want his Satraps building fortifications, because then, should one of them rebel, it could be difficult to oust them from their defenses. So the Persians stressed the role of the Imperial army in defending the borders of the Empire. Under this system the Persians became the greatest empire of its day, ruling the four corners of the earth.

Up in the North-West corner of their lands the Persians bumped into the Greeks. Greece is a land of narrow rocky valleys and small islands. Valleys are easy to turn into fortresses, and Islands are relatively easy to defend from invading fleets if you know what you are doing. So Greece developed into a land of multiple city-states. There was no central authority to determine who should or should not build castles. So the Greeks, a fractious lot, raided and pillaged from their neighbours, and needed to defend themselves from the raids of the same neighbours. Instead of defense being outsourced to a professional army as happened in Persia, every Greek saw to his own defense. It was a duty of citizenship in a city state to train for war and to serve in the ranks.

Following several bloody noses at the hands of the Greeks the Persians learned how difficult it is to subdue a people who have evolved in a culture of independence. The Greeks did not have one form of government, they tried everything. There were monarchies with one hereditary ruling family, Sparta had two kings who served for limited terms, Athens tried democracy, tyrannies, oligarchies, you name it they tried it. There is a theory – challenge it if you wish – that the “Western” way of thinking evolved as a counterpoint to the “Eastern” way of thinking in this period.

Roll forward to modern times and we see that Western Europe is a sea of old castles. In the feudal era there were literally thousands, maybe tens of thousands, of Kingdoms, Duchies, Earldoms, Bishoprics, Baronies, Electorates, Principalities, Free states and Free cities. Putting together central control over this mess was a titanic task. Charlemagne was “Great” because he succeeded in pulling together such a sprawling “Holy Roman Empire”. The Magna Carta was signed by King John in England because his Barons would not give him unlimited power. In the West power was negotiated, and stout walls gave a local ruler the ability to question his King.

The Czars of Russia emerged from the Northern Wars of the 16th to 18th Centuries by centralizing power in the Persian model. The Danes, Swedes, Prussians, Poles and Lithuanians all observed more representative power systems where the ability of the King to act independently was goverened by the approval of various power systems or proto-parliaments. No such constraint existed for Russia. The power of the Czar was absolute. This is reflected in the built environment. Ivan the Terrible, the first Russian Czar, initially served in a chosen council to support the Grand Duke of Moscow. But when he rose to power he eliminated representative controls. He created the first KGB, the oprichniki, a group of political police who imposed his rule with a iron fist. The regional rulers, the boyars, were oppressed under his rule. On no account could a boyar erect his own fortress or castle. The Russians learned that the opposite of loyalty was death. Independent thinking was not an option.

To this day in Russia, and indeed in much of the Arabic and Muslim world, the cult of the strongman ruler dominates. The people see democracy as confusion and dissent. Only a strong central ruler can defend the nation from exterior threats. Vladimir Putin plays this violin to perfection. He has made it clear to the Russian people today that they lost their empire through the weakness of the last Soviet rulers. He represents the EU and USA as existential threats to the rump nation of Russia. He tells his people that they will not be safe until they restore their borders by taking back the central Asian republics, the Baltic republics, Ukraine, Georgia, maybe even Finland, or a bit of Poland.

Putin is all about Making Russia Great Again. So his people supported him when he brutally repressed a Chechen seperatist movement. They supported him snipping South Ossetia and Abkhazia off Georgia. Today the support him in “defending” the occupied Ukranian territories against the “invasions” by EU and US backed Ukranian “Nazis”. Vladimir Putin is the Cyrus the Great of the 21st Century and his people may not love him, but they fear him, respect him and they feel that the rest of the world will also fear and respect him. Over here in the West we find this hard to understand.

-=o0o=-

Mindship

Category Archives: Psychology

Obelisk #7

Dow Jones 40,000

How to Cook Rice; by Koon Woon

Why Russia will lose in Ukraine

Abstract from “Why Big Nations lose Small Wars” by Andrew Mack, 1975.

Yedikule fortress

A great year

Stalin’s week off.

Happy Birthday Edvard Munch

The solitude of night; by Li Bai

Stockholm syndrome

Stout walls vs strongmen rulers.

Does the lack of castles in Russia explain why the Russian people support Putin?