Early River Valley Civilizations: 3500 B.C. – 450 B.C.

Early civilizations began near rivers, where there was a source of water for agriculture, a source of fish, and the possibility of barges for transportation. Dynasties — royal families — ruled ‘city-states’ which were cities functioning as countries. Priests often had political influence. City-states often included a few small villages and the farmland surrounding them. The ‘Fertile Crescent’ is Mesopotamia plus the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. In Mesopotamia, city-states like Babylon, Akkad, Ur, Nineveh, Ebla, and Haran dealt with unpredictable rains and floods by digging irrigation ditches, dealt with their landscape’s lack of natural defenses by building walls around their cities, and dealt with a the region’s shortage of natural resources by trading with distant peoples. As goods were imported and exported, people learned about other types of music, food, and art — cultural diffusion. Around 2350 B.C., a ruler in Akkad named Sargon united the city and region of Akkad with the region of Sumer. Sumer’s area included several city-states in the southern end of Mesopotamia; Akkad was northwest from Sumer. Sargon created an ‘empire’ — a collection of kingdoms. This empire became known as the Babylonian Empire, with its capital city in Babylon. In 1792 B.C., Hammurabi became king of Babylon, and issued one of the earliest known law codes. A written law code is important because the crimes and their punishments are clearly defined so that everyone knows them. The details of Hammurabi’s code give us insights into Babylon’s culture.

In developmental stages of these early civilizations, there is evidence of a difference between a pre-religious stage and a religious stage. The core of the pre-religious stage consists of two desires: the desire to manipulate nature and the desire to explain the phenomenal world. The attempt to manipulate the world is magic: the attempt to produce better weather, good crops, and the fertility of the soil, the livestock, and the humans. This magic also extended to attempting to secure military victories. Sacrifices of various kinds were thought to persuade the deities, or to appease them, and secure from them the desired benefits. The greater the need — e.g., in cases of famine — the more urgent the need to bribe the gods, and this resulted in human sacrifice, which is evident in the earliest phases of nearly every civilization.

In this pre-religious phase, the desire to understand the world led to myths and mythology. For these purposes, a ‘myth’ will be defined as a narrative composed to serve as an explanation. It is clear that some myths are true and some myths are false; this is in opposition to the modern slang usage of ‘myth’ which is understood to mean a falsehood. Myths were generated to answer questions.

The pre-religious phase, then, can be summed up as myth and magic.

The religious phase discards magic’s attempt to manipulate the natural world and instead fosters a sense of acceptance; attempts, such as human sacrifice, to influence a deity are abandoned.

Recognizing that human reason has limits, the religious phase acknowledges that humans might not be able to find answers to some questions, and produces fewer myths.

The centerpiece of the religious phase is a relationship with the deity, instead of attempts to explain or persuade the deity.

In Egypt, the Nile river flooded predictably. Famine was rare and the food supply was steady and plentiful. Deserts served as a natural protection from military attack. At the northern end of the Nile, where it empties into the Mediterranean Sea, it forms a large delta; the city of Memphis is located there. South of Egypt, the Nile flows through an area which has been called Nubia, Ethiopia, or Cush. Originally two kingdoms — Northern Egypt and Southern Egypt — the Egyptian Empire arose around 3000 B.C. when a king named Narmer united the two. The kings of Egypt were called ‘pharaohs’ and Egyptian culture believed them to be gods. They organized the building of the famous massive pyramids. Egyptians mummified their dead. Their system of writing — ‘hieroglyphics’ — was recorded both with inscriptions on stone and on papyrus. Egyptians were good at mathematics and astronomy, and these helped them predict the Nile’s floods.

It is not certain whether individual Egyptians internalized and embraced the cultural belief that the pharaohs were gods. The Egyptians acted as if the pharaohs were gods, and treated the pharaohs that way. But it is possible that many Egyptians saw this as a ceremonial and political duty, and did not have the corresponding quasi-religious belief.

India’s two main rivers are the Ganges and the Indus. In addition to unpredictable flooding, India’s weather is governed by monsoons — winds which bring hot dry weather for half a year, and then rainy weather for half a year. The earliest culture in India is the Harappan culture. Not much remains of it, because around 1750 B.C, a Sanskrit culture — called the ‘Aryans’ — invaded India; this later culture would almost completely replace the Harappan civilization.

China’s geography is defined by two large parallel rivers, both flowing eastward to the sea. In the north is the ‘Huang He,’ also called the ‘Yellow River.’ In the south is the ‘Yangtze,’ also called the Chang Jiang. The first Chinese dynasty was the Xia, led by a ruler named Yu; he designed irrigation projects to prevent the dangerous flood of the Yellow River. This made for a steady food supply. The next dynasty was the Shang dynasty, from around 1700 B.C. to 1027 B.C., also in the north. From 1027 B.C. to 256 B.C., the Zhou dynasty ruled. The Zhou organized a type of feudal system, in which the king lent land to nobles, who farmed it; in return, they owed the king part of the crops, and owed him military assistance in times of war. The Chinese developed coins to improve business, and developed techniques to make iron, which is stronger than bronze. They used the phrase ‘Mandate of Heaven’ to describe a good king’s right to rule; an unfair king would lose the mandate. As different dynasties came and went, a pattern developed: new dynasties brought prosperity and justice and became strong, but eventually became corrupt and were overthrown, making room for another new dynasty. In the last years of the Zhou dynasty, the emperor had little control, and China became a collection of independent kingdoms competing with each other. This is called the era of the ‘Warring States.’

In the cycle of the rise and fall of successive dynasties, one aspect of the phase of the fall was increasing taxation, which led to decreased popularity and eventually to disfavor among the majority of the subjects, leaving the monarch susceptible to a rebellion.

In their early stages, all these river valley civilizations conducted human sacrifice, hoping to appease their idols, to bring good weather, to avoid famine and starvation, and to gain military victories.

The move from hieroglyphs and pictograms to alphabetic writing was an advancement. The advantage of alphabetic writing is that it can be learned quicker, and the acts of reading and writing can be performed quicker.

Other achievements of early civilizations included the moves from polytheism to monotheism, from polygamy to monogamy, and the move away from human sacrifice.

Rebooting the Concentration Camps: How the Soviets Continued the Holocaust

Students are familiar with the basic facts of the Holocaust: how the Nazis forced millions of Jews into concentration camps, and then murdered many of them. These victims came from various countries. Although a relatively small number of the murdered Jews were German citizens, many more of them were German Jews — so classified because, even though they’d never set foot in Germany and did not have German citizenship, they were culturally German and spoke Yiddish. Yiddish is a Germanic language and historians estimate that 85% of the Jews who were murdered were Yiddish speakers.

What is, however, less well-known is the history of the concentration camps after early 1945. As WW2 drew to a close, the Soviet army, advancing toward Germany and eventually into Germany from the east, encountered and liberated the camps. The western Allies, advanced from the west, encountered fewer camps. One by one, all the camps were discovered by the victorious armies.

Newspapers and radios around the world delivered the shocking and horrifying details of the atrocities which the Nazis had committed in the camps.

But what happened to the concentration camps after May 1945 — after the German military surrendered, and the fighting in Europe came to an end? After a burst of coverage in the news, when photographers and reporters were allowed into the camps along with the general public to see for themselves what had happened?

Although the Holocaust remained in the news, with the Nuremberg Trials in late 1945 and most of 1946, and photos of the camps accompanied the news stories of the trials, the camps themselves faded from attention: the images were file photos from the liberations in early 1945. Reporters and photographers were not flocking to the camps any longer, and the general public wasn’t either.

With the camps largely out of sight, the Soviet Socialists began to renovate them one by one. The majority of the concentration camps were located in the areas occupied by the Soviet Army: East Germany, Poland, and other parts of eastern Europe.

Those who’ve read about the Holocaust will recognize the names of the camps which the Soviet Socialists renovated: Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen, etc.

The Soviets updated and improved Nazi concentration camps in Germany and in Poland. Then they put these camps back into operation. The camps which the Nazis had used to kill millions of Jews were functioning again. They would do so for another five years.

The Soviets rounded up a variety of people — those deemed in any way an obstacle to the Soviet military dictatorship — imprisoned them in the camps, tortured them, and murdered them. This was often done without any legal proceedings or trials. Sometimes the people simply disappeared; their friends, family, and neighbors had no clue as to their whereabouts.

Historians Ursula Haertl, Agnes Nattermüller, and Roswitha Burwick describe one specific example at Buchenwald:

From 1945 to 1950, the Soviet occupation forces used the area of the former concentration camp as an internment camp (Special Camp No. 2). The persons sent to this camp mainly included members of the NSDAP (i.e., the fascist party), officials in positions close to the National-Socialist regime, but also people arrested arbitrarily. Among the total of approximately 28,000 internees, more than 7,000 died mainly as a consequence of neglect and undernourishment. The dead were buried in mass graves north of the camp and near the railway station.

The example of Buchenwald was repeated at the other camps. The Soviets refurbished and used the Nazi concentration camps for five years in the territory of East Germany. In Poland, they not only used the Nazi camps, but also built a few new ones of their own.

The horrors of the concentration camps didn’t end when the Nazis surrendered. The Nazis were gone: they’d been sentenced to prison, or executed for war crimes, or rehabilitated, or escaped to South America.

The Nazis were gone, but the Soviet Socialists kept the camps running for another five years. Exact numbers are debated, but in any case, the Soviets murdered hundreds of thousands of Polish, German, and other victims in the renovated Nazi concentration camps.

The horrors of the Holocaust continued long after the Nazis were gone, long after WW2 was over, and long after the rest of the world thought that the brutality had ended.

Trends in European Car Manufacturing from 2006 to 2024: Eastern Europe Emerges

Following the collapse of Soviet Socialism in eastern Europe in 1990-1991, the economies in each of the individual nations — Poland, East Germany, Hungary, etc. — endured the shock treatment as the old communist systems collapsed, temporarily plunging the markets into chaos and short-term hardship. Then began the long ascent into healthy and vital growth, raising the standard of living in those countries for lower-income level workers.

After less than a decade, the eastern European nations were ready to be significant players in the global market. Companies from western Europe were eager to establish themselves in the East, with its lower real estate costs and large labor supply.

By November 2006, John Tagliabue could write:

For Slovakia, the recent inauguration of an $890 million automobile factory was a major event. The prime minister and other government officials attended. French executives from Peugeot Citroën, which built the factory, flew into the tiny town of Trnava, where the sprawling factory is expected to employ up to 3,500 people and churn out as many as 300,000 compact cars a year. After the collapse of Communism in 1989, many foreign carmakers rushed to acquire local carmakers or build their own factories in countries like Slovakia, Poland, Hungary, Romania and the Czech Republic.

By the end of 2022, Slovakia would be home to four car assembly plants as well as several part supplier plants, according to the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association (ACEA).

The Slovakian automobile industry would be producing 12.6 cars per worker by the end of 2023, making it the second most efficient car industry in Europe, as stated by ACEA.

This was the vision back in 2006: the eastern European nations were growing into the world economy, and while recovering from the Soviet Socialist era, they still had advantages and resources which allowed them to complete, as John Tagliabue wrote:

That relative trickle, though, is now a flood. The money has been pouring in, and the pace and frenzy is prompting talk of Europe’s auto industry shifting from west to east.

By 2010, the Czech Republic could nearly double its production over last year, to more than a million cars. Indeed, as a whole, Eastern Europe has become Europe’s backyard manufacturing center, and it could be producing 3.4 million cars annually by 2010, a 33 percent jump over 2005, according to forecasts by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Even Russia’s production is expected to rise to 1.6 million cars a year from 1.2 million now.

The Czech Republic’s efficiency was, however, half of Slovakia’s at the end of 2023. The Czech automobile sector produced 6.3 cars per worker.

In Slovakia, at the end of 2021, 16% of all the country’s manufacturing workers were in the auto industry, making it the most auto-oriented economy in Europe.

In the 35 years of post-Soviet growth, there have been setbacks. In 2022, Slovakia produced 970,275 motor vehicles, all of which were passenger cars. In that same year, the Czech Republic produced 1,221,246 vehicles, of which 1,214,746 were passenger cars.

Despite these impressive numbers, it was in western Europe where the largest per-country numbers of vehicles were manufactured, with Germany in first place in 2022. The former Soviet-bloc countries came in at fourth place (the Czech Republic) and fifth place (Slovakia).

While total European car manufacturing peaked in 2017, with an output of around 14,914,629 units, Slovakian car manufacturing peaked in 2019, with 1,107,902 units. The decline in European totals began pre-pandemic, while Slovakia was going strong until the pandemic.

While Slovakia has returned to almost pre-pandemic levels, with an output of 1,080,000 in 2023, Europe as a whole has not returned to its 2017 peak, manufacturing 10,890,123 cars in 2022.

Industry trends and market trends are constantly changing, but it can be said that eastern European nations have become major players in the auto industry during the last 35 years.

Reasons to Be Cheerful — Part 6

The psychological configuration of the human mind is such that it has a preference for bad news. Swedish scholar Hans Rosling discovered that humans are more likely to believe bad news than good news. When people hear bad news, they quickly internalize it, and proceed to think about what caused this problem, who’s to blame for this problem, what people should do to fix this problem, etc.

When people hear or read good news, they are often skeptical, find it boring, or find ways to minimize what’s encouraging about the good news: “Yes, but …”

Rosling’s work is carried on by his son and daughter-in-law, who created the Gapminder Foundation to further his research.

In the book Factfulness Rosling listed a number of encouraging facts about the world, and studied people’s tendency to ignore, disbelieve, or downplay salutary facts. People readily believe and amplify falsehoods, when those falsehoods are depressing and discouraging. People have a predisposition to embrace propositions which ignite sadness or anger.

Among the uplifting facts listed in the book are:

• In the year 1800, over 190 countries in the world allowed slavery, which Rosling defines as a situation in which “forced labor is legal or practiced by the state.” In 2017, fewer than ten countries had legal systems which permitted slavery.
• In 1979, oil accidentally spilled from tanker ships into the sea amounted to 636,000 tons. After a consistent downward trend, only 6,000 tons were spilled in 2016.
• The price of solar panels in 2016, measured in terms of dollars per watt produced, was one one-hundredth of what it was in 1976.
• In 2016, new HIV infections worldwide were fewer than half of what they were in 1996.
• In 1800, 44% of children died before their fifth birthday. In 2016, only 4% of children died before that point.
• After the United States developed the catalytic converter in the 1970s, the number of countries using leaded gasoline fell from more than 190 in 1986 to fewer than 5 in 2017.
• Measured as a ratio of deaths to miles flown, plane crash deaths in the era of 2012 to 2016 were less than one two-thousandth (0.04%) of what they were in the years between 1929 and 1933.
• Some of Rosling’s definitions are imprecise or ambiguous, but the numbers are still encouraging. He defines “child labor” as “children aged 5 - 14 who work full time under bad conditions.” Whatever ‘bad’ might mean, it’s good that only 10% of children were subject to such labor in 2012, compared to 28% of children in 1950.
• Likewise, the phrase “deaths from disaster” is somewhat vague: what counts as a ‘disaster’? But in any case, those deaths fell from 971,000 per year in the 1930s to 72,000 annually in the years between 2010 and 2016.
• Air quality has improved. In 1970, for every person on the planet, 38 kg of SO₂ particles were emitted in smoke. In 2010, only 14 kg of such smoke particles were emitted per person.
• The planet’s food supply continues to grow quicker than the population. Over the last five decades, the world has produced more food annually than is needed to feed the earth’s entire population. The yield of cereal grain per acre more than doubled between 1961 and 2014.
• The global literacy rate went from 10% in the year 1800 to 86% in 2016.
• “Child Cancer Survival,” defined as “5 year survival of those diagnosed before age 20, with best treatment,” went from 58% in 1975 to 80% in 2010.
• Rosling also lists statistics showing significant increases in the “share of people with some access to electricity” and the “share of people with a cellphone,” as well as the “share of people using the internet.” The number of scholarly articles published per year also continues to increase.

Rosling is certainly not arguing that the world has no problems. The problems are real and significant. But the world is also experiencing some salutary trends.

The innate inclination of the human mind to focus more on problems than on benefits. The structure of the news media, relying as it does on using strong emotions like fear and anger to elicit clicks on websites and keep eyes on continuously updated posts, amplifies this already troublesome human tendency.

To obtain a more accurate understanding of the world, the public must develop an intentional and disciplined habit of looking for good news. It’s there.

The Historiography of Islam in the 1700s: Explaining the Eighteenth Century

Islam, as a socio-political movement, has organized itself in a variety of associations over the centuries, sometimes successively, and sometimes simultaneously in parallel. One of those associations was the Ottoman Empire, sometimes also cited as the Turkish Empire. This empire lasted until 1922, and in previous centuries had ruled, at various times, areas including North Africa, Yugoslavia, Greece, parts of Persia, the Levant generally, and of course the region now known as Turkey.

Islam had at times hoped to expand further northward, and mounted military campaigns to capture Vienna in 1529, 1683, and other times. Islam also invaded and briefly occupied parts of Poland and Ukraine.

The reign of Ahmed III from 1703 to 1730 saw another stirring of Islamic expansionism. He oversaw the Muslim armies which invaded what is now Romania, Ukraine, and Russia in 1711; this invasion was ultimately unsuccessful. Likewise, he ordered his armies to attack Venice; Austria came to the aid of Venice, and in 1716, Prince Eugene of Savoy led an Austrian army to defeat the Islamic army in the Battle of Petrovaradin (also known as Peterwardein).

Describing Islam in the mid-1700s, historian Will Durant explains the expanse of its influence:

It still dominated Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Arabia, Palestine, Syria, Persia, Asia Minor, the Crimea, South Russia, Bessarabia, Moldavia, Wallachia (Romania), Bulgaria, Serbia (Yugoslavia), Montenegro, Bosnia, Dalmatia, Greece, Crete, the Aegean Isles, and Turkey. All these except Persia were part of the immense empire of the OttomanTurks. On the Dalmatian coast they touched the Adriatic and faced the Papal States; on the Bosporus they controlled the sole naval outlet from the Black Sea, and could at will block the Russians from the Mediterranean.

He surveys Islamic culture from Turkey to North Africa to Persia, and then presents his generalizations.

Although he admired Islam and often praised it, Will Durant was not blind to the fact that Muslim “women stayed at home, or walked” subservient “under their burdens and behind their veils.” He gives the date of 1754 for significant Ottoman legislation which made even stricter the requirement for veils and burqas, but he does not cite the source of this date.

Infatuated with a romanticized concept of Islam — an image promulgated by some European poets — Durant describes the Muslim women, wrapped in burqas, carrying baskets or large clay jars on their head, as moving with a “certain ease and grace” and “in stately dignity.” He is either oblivious to, or deliberately disguising, the oppression under which these women lived and worked — or perhaps he sees the situation clearly, and is honoring the character of these women as they carry on despite the most brutal subjugation.

While Christianity appeared as, and developed ever more into, a personal spirituality or belief, Islam constituted a political, social, and military program, as Will Durant explains:

Religion was more powerful and pervasive in Islam than in Christendom; the Koran was the law as well as the gospel, and the theologians were the official interpreters of the law.

Islamic morals were entrenched. The social patterns of Islam persevered. While Christianity promoted an ethic, Islam promoted a morality, as Will Durant writes:

Morals hardly changed from century to century. Puberty came earlier than in the north; many girls married at twelve or thirteen, some at ten; to be unmarried at sixteen was a disgrace.

In the passage quoted above, Durrant’s partiality towards Islam can be detected. If there were any difference between the north and the south in the onset of puberty, then it was indeed slight. No biologist will claim otherwise. Instead, it was merely Islam’s authorization to allow unrestrained male lust. The same was true of “the polygamy that Koranic law allowed.”

The Qur’an dictated such inequality. The same asymmetry in the legal treatment of women was applied to cases of adultery:

A cuckolded husband was not only permitted by law, but was encouraged by public opinion, to put the offending wife to death.

Forgiveness, not only in the case of an adultress, was rare or unknown. “Islamic theology,” writes Durrant, “considered woman a main source of evil, which could be controlled only by her strict subordination. Children grew up in the discipline of the harem.” Women moved “with a certain” motion, which they derived “from carrying burdens.”

The physical role of women in Islam was clear, as Durrant explains:

Polygamy did not prevent prostitution, for prostitutes could provide the excitation that familiarity had allayed. The courtesans of Egypt specialized in lascivious dances; some ancient monuments reveal the antiquity of this lure. Every large town allotted to prostitutes a special quarter where they might practice their arts without fear of the law.

Christianity’s earliest sources were not in Europe, but rather in the same ancient near east which also birthed Islam. Yet while Christianity imperfectly but increasingly gave status to women, Islam did the opposite. While Hildegard of Bingen was issuing written rebukes to popes and kings, Muslim women were bound by their gender to subservient roles.

Yet strict legalism sires energetic defiance.

So it was that Islamic civilizations, based upon the most stringent of written legal codes, rebelled correspondingly in the most excessive exploitation of women. The laws of the Muslims repressed sexuality in an extreme way, so the lives of the Muslims violated those laws in the most extreme way. Islamic rigidity fueled Islamic hypocrisy.

Women skilled in erotic dances were engaged to vibrate before male assemblies, and in some cases, women also took pleasure in witnessing such performances.

Again, Durrant’s fondness for Islam persuades him to understate, or to phrase in the most gentle way, his description of what was standard practice in Islamic society in the mid-1700s. The reader will understand what a less euphemistic account of these realities might be.

Islamophobia and Islamophilia — Two Problematic Words and Their Histories

French author Pascal Bruckner explores some of the vocabulary which has been used to analyze Islam and its relation to the world. Much of this discourse arose in the context of French colonialism. Among the administrators assigned to institute and keep order in the French colonies, especially the colonies in north and northwest Africa, there were competing views about Islam among the native populations.

On the one hand, some colonial governors thought — or felt — that Islam was a threat to French rule, and should be discouraged. On the other hand, other commissioners in the government believed that Islam was not a danger to the French bureaucracy, and in fact might even be in some cases helpful, as it provided an ordering principle or influence in society.

The Oxford English Dictionary explains that the word ‘islamophobia’ did not appear in the English language until 1920, and the adjective form ‘islamophobic appeared in 1980. The noun form ‘islamophobe’ appeared as early as 1877, but remained almost entirely unused for many decades. Even in the twenty-first century, it is little-used.

The vocabulary of islamophobia appeared earlier, and was more frequently used, in French. This seems natural, given the locations of French colonies. To be sure, the British also had colonies in areas populated by Muslims, but the French territory skewed more toward Islam than the British.

The etymology of ‘islamophobia’ remains controversial. It has been pointed out that it is sometimes — perhaps often — used inappropriately, because it strictly denotes fear, as opposed to dislike or aversion. By contrast, the word ‘islamophilia,’ while less frequently used, is also less debatable in regard to its meaning and etymology.

Bruckner reports that Andre Quellian, who authored a book in French about colonial politics, was among those who argued that Islam posed no threat to the French administration. Likewise, Bruckner notes:

During the same period, Maurice Delafosse, another colonial official residing in Dakar, wrote: “Whatever may be said by those for whom Islamophobia is a principle of governing natives, France has nothing more to fear from Muslims than from non-Muslims in West Africa [...]. Thus Islamophobia has not more raison d’etre in West Africa, where, on the other hand, Islamophilia (in the sense of a preference granted to Muslims) is said to create a feeling of distrust among non-Muslim peoples, who are the most numerous.”

Shortly after the beginning of the twentieth century, then, there were at least some writers who argued that Islam was not a threat to order in French colonies, and specifically the colonies in north and northwest Africa. Whether these writers represented a majority or a minority of the colonial administration, of the French home government, or of the French citizenry are three questions which will be left as an exercise for the reader.

Given that the use of these words was documented in French in the early twentieth century, and that there are a few known appearances of them in English in the late nineteenth century, it is a reasonable conjecture to assert that they probably existed in French prior to 1900. And Pascal Bruckner makes exactly that conjecture.

This group of words has been in circulation, hence, for around 150 years. But the meanings — both denotations and connotations — attached to these words have changed.

Originally, these words were used in the context of French colonialism, and perhaps also British colonialism, when Islam posed questions for the administrators of those territories.

So, who was right? Was Islam a danger to colonial administration? Or was it a neutral or even helpful factor in organizing the colonies?

The evidence is mixed: on the one hand, Islam did not seem to play an essential role in the uprisings and rebellions which ended the colonial rule in some places, or in the more peaceful negotiations which ended that rule in other places. But Islam did make itself significantly felt in the post-colonial chaos into which these territories descended in the wake of their independence.

When these words were first invented, those who thought that Islam posed difficulties for those governing the colonies were deemed Islamophobic. Those who found Islam to be neutral or even helpful to the colonial administrators were deemed Islamophilic.

By the end of the twentieth century, ‘Islamophobic’ referred to those who had or showed “a dislike of or prejudice against Islam or Muslims, especially as a political force,” in the words of one dictionary. This word is often used in political conflicts — conflicts which contain more passion than reason. It is used as an insult.

Geographically far from the colonies and former colonies, the word ‘Islamophobic’ is used as a weapon in debates inside Western Civilization.

Over the course of the century, ‘islamophilia,’ never a frequently-used word, became even more rare, but continues to exist. It refers to “a generalized affection for Islam and Muslims” which is “likely to be based on wishful thinking and a politics of fear,” writes Andrew Shryock, who continues:

If we persist in portraying Islamophobia as an irrational force of misperception, we might well render ourselves oblivious to its ultimate causes and consequences. The corrective policies we develop in response to it might, in the manner of a bad diagnosis, end up reinforcing the very syndrome they were meant to counteract.

Islamophilia morphed during a century from a term relevant to colonial administration to a term used by Romanticists and Orientalists. “Romanticists” were authors of a particular phase of European literature which viewed the world through the lens of passion and emotion instead of reason and logic. “Orientalists” were researchers who explored the texts and cultures of what is called the Middle East or the Near East. The intersection of these two — Romantic Orientalists — invented fanciful accounts of the cultures of the Middle East: accounts which often painted Islam in an optimistic light, depicting the Muslims as wise sages, dashing heroes, and shrewd tacticians. These Romantic Orientalists departed from the actual data gathered by Orientalists who did linguistic and historical research; the Romantic Orientalists relied more often on folk tales and accounts of medieval travelers.

The twists and turns in the histories of these words is described by Pascal Bruckner:

Islamophobia: the term probably already existed in the nineteenth century, which explains its spontaneous use by imperial officials. As for its antonym, Islamophilia, whether erudite or popular, since the seventeenth century it has been a constant in European history, which is still massively fascinated by Islamic civilization. But after the Iranian Revolution of 1980 the expression ‘Islamophobia’ underwent a mutation that weaponized it. Between the expulsion of the American feminist Kate Millet from Teheran in 1979 for having protested against the regime’s requirement that Iranian women wear a veil, and the Rushie affair in 1988, which exploded under the influence of British Muslims, this dormant word suddenly awoke and became active in another form. A word does not belong to the person who created it but to the one who reinvented it to make its use widespread. This lexical rejuvenation makes it possible to kill two birds with one stone: stigmatizing traitors to the Muslim faith, on the one hand, and shutting up godless Westerners, on the other.

As these words changed their meanings over the course of a century, the geographical reference changed as well. At first, they were focused on the situation in the colonies. A century or more later, they are now focused both on the relations between the former colonies and Western Civilization, as well as on societal conflicts within Western Civilization.

Who Really Has Control? Who Rules Behind the Scenes?

Who is in command when it comes to global diplomacy, international politics, and the world’s economy? Not presidents, prime ministers, chancellors, and other heads of state. Not the CEOs of major corporations. Not the boards of directors of big businesses. Not the leaders of political parties. Not the opinion-makers and influencers in the new and old forms of media.

The power, and the lust for power, is held by people whose names don’t often appear in the media — people associated with organizations which are equally unknown. Klaus Schwab and Stephanie Kelton aren’t featured in headlines. The World Economic Forum (WEF) and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) don’t trend on social media platforms.

Yet they may have more power than most putative powerholders.

While the media keep ordinary citizens busy with controversies like “socialist vs. capitalist” or “progressive vs. libertarian,” these shadowy figures manipulate the political and socio-economic systems from a much higher level, and are content to use the guise of socialist or capitalist from time to time, choosing whichever of the two suits their agenda. The agenda is simply power and control. In changing situations, they might benefit by promoting one political group or another — such furtherance always anonymous and from unseen sources through unseen channels — and a decade later, it might be to their advantage to support the opposing group.

At the global level, such individuals can use both Democrats and Republicans, both socialists and capitalists, both business leaders and organized labor leaders. The debates and disputes which occupy the attention of the media, the elected political leaders, and the ordinary citizens are merely distractions which the conspiracy has created to keep the average person from becoming aware of a world-wide network of controlling manipulators.

Much of this sinister power is carried out behind the facade of “The Great Reset,” a slogan unveiled in 2020 by Klaus Schwab, the WEF, and other associates.

What is “The Great Reset”? At first glance, it might seem like a list of the usual leftist political agendas: green environmentalism, “stakeholder” economies leading to more equity, and a technocracy empowered to bring these goals to fruition. The reader might wonder: what is new here? Such agendas have been the bread-and-butter of leftism for decades.

What’s different here is the exploitation and insincerity. “The Great Reset” could easily change in an instant and suddenly demand that people burn more fossil fuels and put more CO2 into the atmosphere. It could suddenly pivot from fighting racism to promoting it. For “The Great Reset,” and for the individuals and institutions which are promoting it, concepts like “environmentalism” and “social justice” are merely tools which can be used to control people.

All the causes and movements which “The Great Reset” promotes require regulations, taxes, and laws. The Great Reset uses these idealistic and noble convictions to gain power — to gain the ability to control people. The leaders who empower Green movements and “social justice” movements from behind the camouflage of “The Great Reset” have no interest in the earth’s environment, no interest in reducing CO2, no interest in reducing racism, and no interest in shrinking income inequality. They embrace these ideals temporarily, only long enough to use them to create some regulatory structure.

Neither is the other end of the political spectrum safe. Those who seek free markets and free speech are equally likely to be exploited by “The Great Reset.” At the moment, the megalomaniacs may be using leftist factions to gain power, but they can easily switch and begin exploiting rightist movements in the same way.

To perceive the hidden patterns requires rethinking. The daily media focuses on the micro-controversies of liberals and conservatives, progressives and libertarians, Democrats and Republicans. The media have been fooled by the conspiracy. The reading public must learn to take a step back and look at the big picture. The global question is this: Are the lives of individuals becoming freer and less regulated? Or are the lives of people increasingly managed and subject to rules?

Human beings are the best they can be when no other human being is controlling or ruling them. It is perhaps a good thing to be regulated by moral principles, or by God, but it is destructive to be taxed and regulated by a political power structure.

In the words of a Mercury Radio Arts report,

I want to once again stress the importance of resisting the urge to view the Great Reset as a socialist or even progressive framework.

The clue is this: Why would capitalists promote socialist programs? Why would the producers of fossil fuel promote Green energy schemes?

“There are socialist and progressive elements to the plan,” and yet the reader sees “repeatedly that corporations, bankers, and some of the world’s wealthiest people have proudly stood behind the Great Reset.” Why would an oil tycoon decide to support Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s “Green New Deal”?

Does anyone believe that these Wall Street cutthroats and billionaire entrepreneurs have suddenly become card-carrying members of the Democratic Socialists of America? Of course they haven’t.

If some of these leaders have no faith in the movements which they have suddenly started supporting — movements which oppose the beliefs, livelihoods, and existences of these leaders — then why are they so eager to promote these ideologies? Have they suddenly become suicidal?

No. They’re simply realists. They see that they have been outmaneuvered by forces which are far more powerful than they are. Resistance would be futile. Going along with the demands of the global conspiracy is not self-destructive; it’s survival.

It is important to understand that the most corrupt — and most terrifying — elements of the Great Reset also help explain why so many business leaders and financial institutions have agreed to promote this movement. Many have gone beyond mere promotion and even helped develop some of its primary components. This includes presidents and CEOs from Microsoft, Bank of America, Mastercard, BP, and other highly influential business and investment firms.

The reader will learn to observe world events with an eye to one variable: control. Who’s in control? Who’s being controlled? Is the level of control increasing or decreasing?

In order to focus on this one variable, the reader will learn to see that the concerns and debates of low-level politics are either mere distractions, to prevent the public from perceiving the real impact of the international conspiracy, or they are actively being used by the conspiracy to obtain more power. The powerful individuals who proudly announce their deep concern about CO2 levels and the climate do not care about CO2 levels and the climate. They have simply determined that they can obtain more power by enacting climate policies. Leaders who declare their concern about social justice, income inequality, and racism do not care about the lives of individuals, or about any form of justice. They have learned that these movements can be exploited to allow these leaders to manipulate the lives of individuals — whether by legal regulation or by social trends, it makes no difference.

As the report from Mercury Radio Arts notes,

The crony corporatists running these multibillion-dollar companies have seen the writing on the wall: governments around the world are increasingly pushing for “green” mandates and sustainable development, as well as restrictions on speech — whether businesses and their customers like it or not. Plus, central banks are literally printing trillions of dollars that governments are directing toward the causes they favor, including many focused on social justice. If you were running a business, especially a large multinational corporation, it would be stupid not to do everything in your power to get your hands on some of that “free” cash, right?

On the one hand, there are people who truly believe in some cause and see it as a noble effort. They are manipulated by “The Great Reset” and they believe that “The Great Reset” shares their beliefs and values and is an ally in the noble struggle. They’ve been fooled, and they are being used.

On the other hand, there are those who may not discern the full program of this hidden conspiracy which lurks behind a variety of individuals, movements, and international organizations. They don’t fully understand the plot, but they clearly understand that they will suffer if they don’t go along with the officially sponsored trend of the moment.

In the end, both types of people are serving the purposes of a small handful of masterminds who are operating an international conspiracy. In the end, individual freedoms continue to be lost, and human beings continue to be increasingly controlled by a network of shadowy power mongers who are several layers behind the frontline bureaucrats, media personalities, and political activists who seem to be shaping the world, but who in reality are also puppets.