Myths and Legends

Myths and legends are the sacred narratives of a culture. Like music, they are a human universal. Most myths have ancient origins and are transposed across generations by spoken word or sacred writings. Seldom are they ascribed to a single author. These stories blend religion with history, literature and science. They are the oldest recorded stories in the world.

Myths explain the way the world is through story. Carrying a deeper ‘spiritual truth’, they often deal with the origins of the universe, the deeds of supernatural beings and heroic individuals. Myths encapsulate a culture’s collective values and heritage; they both inform and reflect their worldview. Myths create cohesion and common values across a society and people who have never met.

Yuval Noah Harari, author of ‘Sapiens’:

Fiction has enabled us not merely to imagine things, but to do so collectively. We can weave common myths such as the biblical creation story, the Dreamtime myths of Aboriginal Australians, and the nationalist myths of modern states. Such myths give Sapiens the unprecedented ability to cooperate flexibly in large numbers.

Finnish Folklorist Lauri Honko:

Myth, a story of the gods, a religious account of the beginning of the world, the creation, fundamental events, the exemplary deeds of the gods as a result of which the world, nature, and culture were created together with all parts thereof and given their order, which still obtains. A myth expresses and confirms society’s religious values and norms, it provides a pattern of behaviour to be imitated, testifies to the efficacy of ritual with its practical ends and establishes the sanctity of cult.

‘Mythology’ refers to a culture’s collective body of myths and legends. The word myth comes from the Greek ‘mythos’, meaning story.

Examples of Myth: 

• The Osiris Myth
• The Great Flood
• The Ramayana

In modern English, ‘myth’ is sometimes used to describe something commonly believed but untrue. This is not the scholarly definition, however. Experts seldom speculate whether a particular myth is empirically ‘true’ or not. A sacred narrative is the primary definition of a myth.

Legends, as defined by Oxford Dictionary, are ‘traditional [stories] sometimes popularly regarded as historical but not authenticated.’ Typically, they seem more credible than myths and often focus on heroic or saintly human characters instead of divinities. 

Examples of Legends:

• The Trojan War
• King Arthur and the Holy Grail
• El Dorado

Folk Tales are traditional tales from a particular culture. Unlike myths and legends, folk tales are not religious and focus on ordinary people or magical creatures rather than deities and heroes. While high literature, and epic poetry is often recorded by a culture’s elite, folk tales spring from the oral tradition of the common people.

Examples of Folk Tales:

• Androcles and the Lion
• Brothers Grimms’ Fairy tales
• The One Thousand and One Nights

Because myths, legends and folk tales are primarily oral and are retold by different peoples, the same story can have multiple versions, with names and key details varying. Through that measure, they would constantly improve. Most myths and legends do not have an official version.

Most of these traditional stories are thousands of years old. The staying power of myths is a testament to their value. 

Sources: Lauri Honko – the Problem of Defining Myth, Oxford Dictionary, Philip Wilkinson – Myths and Legends, Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens

See Also:

• Magic and Religion
• Yuval Noah Harari – Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind
  
• Mythology:
  • Māori Mythology
  • Inuit Mythology
  • Venus, the Queen of Heaven and the Dying God
  • The Epic of Gilgamesh
• Folklore
  • Asturian Folklore
  • Folklore of the Orkney Islands
  • How Syuna the Rockfish got his Flat Head

Iranian Civilisation

Iran has one of the oldest and most influential civilisations in the world. Iranian culture dominated Central Asia and the Middle East from the time of Cyrus the Great to the Islamic Conquests and in some ways continues to do so.

Greater Iran includes the countries and peoples who speak Iranian languages, from the Euphrates to Indus Rivers. These include:

• Persians (Iran)
• Kurds (Iran, Iraq, Turkey, Syria)
• Tajiks (Tajikstan, Afghanistan)
• Pashtuns (Afghanistan, Pakistan)

Other nations that were once a part of Iranian empires but today have different cultures include Iraq, Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan and Kyrgyzstan. ‘Stan’ is the Persian word for land.

Persia is the old Greek world for Iran and its English name until 1932. The modern Persian language swapped the P sound for F, so ‘Persia Proper’ is today Iran’s Fars province. The Persian language is Farsi. The Zoroastrians who fled to India when the Muslims took over before the language changed are called the Parsi.

‘Iran’ comes from the Sassanian name for Persia, ‘Eran-Shahr’ which derives from ‘Aryan’. All Persians are Iranian but not all Iranians are Persian.

Five Dynasties ruled Iran before Islam. They mainly followed the teachings of Zoroaster, a Bronze Age prophet:

• Medians (non-Persian Iranians, 678 – 549 BC)
• Achaemenids (Cyrus, Darius etc, 559 – 330 BC)
• Seleucids (Macedonian, 305 – 63 BC)
• Arcasids (Parthians, 247 BC – 224 AD)
• Sassanians (Persians, 224 – 651 AD)

As Western civilisation grew out of Rome, and Chinese out of the Han Dynasty, Iranian civilization sprang from the Achaemenid Persian Empire. Cyrus the Great conquered most of the known world and established an administration system that lasted centuries. Even Alexander the Great, who conquered it, retained the Persian system.

The Muslims who conquered Iran in the 600s ushered an age of foreign rule. Arabs, Turks and Mongols ruled Iran. Although the foreigners adopted elements of Persian culture, they were still considered foreigners. The greatest scientific advances of the Islamic Golden Age were made by Persians like Avicenna and Al Khwarezemi.

The Safavid Dynasty restored native rule in the 1500s. They retained Persian culture, made Persian, not Arabic, the country’s official language and made Iran the centre of the Shia Muslim world. In 1979 clerics overthrew the last Shah, Reza Muhammad of the Pahlavi Dynasty, and replaced the monarchy with a theocratic republic, ending 2,500 years of imperial rule.

Though Greater Iran is overwhelmingly Muslim today, it has given the world four religions:

• Zoroastrianism (900s BC -)
• Mithraism (200s BC – 300s AD)
• Manichaeism (200s AD – 1400s)
• Baha’i (1800s -)

Central to the Iranian philosophical and religious tradition is an emphasis on truth and spiritual purity.

Historically Persia lay between the eastern and western halves of Eurasia. The Silk Road ran through it meaning Chinese inventions like chess, gunpowder and silk came to Europe via Persia.

Among other things, Persia has given the world:

• lutes
• polo
• ice cream
• refrigerators
• windmills
• banks
• armoured knights
• poetry of Hafez and Rumi
• The Shahnameh (Book of Kings)
• Avicenna, father of modern medicine
• hospitals
• trigonometry
• carpets

While the Syrian, Egyptian and Mesopotamian cultures were largely subsumed into Arabic, Iran retained its unique identity. Modern Islamic civilisation is arguably a mixture of Arabic and Persian influences. The Persian example helped internationalise Islam and allow it to spread as far as it has today. Sir Muhammad Iqbal, the spiritual father of Pakistan, claimed:

“If you ask me what is the most important event in the history of Islam, I shall say without any hesitation: “The Conquest of Persia.” The battle of Nehawand gave the Arabs not only a beautiful country, but also an ancient civilisation; or, more properly, a people who could make a new civilisation with the Semitic and Aryan material. Our Muslim civilisation is a product of the cross-fertilisation of the Semitic and the Aryan ideas. It is a child who inherits the softness and refinement of his Aryan mother, and the sterling character of his Semitic father. But for the conquest of Persia, the civilisation of Islam would have been one-sided. The conquest of Persia gave us what the conquest of Greece gave to the Romans.”

Sources: Richard N Frye – The Heritage of Persia (1962), Iran Review

See Also:

• Cyrus the Great
• The Sassanian Empire
• Mani of Babylonia
• Peoples of Afghanistan

Larry Gonick – The Cartoon History of the Universe

The Cartoon History of the Universe is a three part, 19 volume book series by American cartoonist Larry Gonick about the history of mankind up to 1492.  It presents detailed and well researched material in a humorous and accessible black and white comic style. Cartoon History was originally serialised as a comic book series from 1978-1990, when the first book was published.

• Cartoon History of the Universe I: From the Big Bang to Alexander the Great (1990)
• Cartoon History of the Universe II: From the Springtime of China to the Fall of Rome (1994)
• Cartoon History of the Universe III: From the Rise of Arabia to the Rennaisance (2002)

A smaller two part series, Cartoon History of the Modern World takes off where it leaves, but is shorter and slightly more Eurocentric.

In Cartoon History, Gonick’s avatar – a frizzy haired Einstein-esque professor explains the historical narrative while the cartoon panels provide visual representation and gags. The often raunchy and irreverent humour ranges from absurdism to parody, anachronisms and dramatic irony. Running gags, like Byzantines’ penchant for eye gouging and Central Asian nomad’s adversity to vegetables, play a big part. Sometimes the events are funny in their own right. Who would know, for example, that (pre-Islamic) Meccan spies triggered war with Ethiopia by pooping in a church?

Despite its accessible style, content is factual and dense. Gonick explores the lives of history’s big personalities and ordinary men and women with an eye for economic trends and cause and effect. Interesting trivia and gory details accompany the main narrative, often as footnotes. Cartoon History’s topical weight and adult appeal distinguish it from less serious kids’ books like Horrible Histories.

Book One surveys the Big Bang, dinosaurs, and human origins in the first third before moving to the ancient Mediterranean civilisations, with a particular focus on Israel and Greece.

Book Two alternates between the great civilisations of Rome, India and China, including the origins of Hinduism, Buddhism, Chinese philosophies and Christianity. Jesus is portrayed in historical terms as a wondering Jewish preacher called Jeshua Ben Joesph. Gonick has received criticism for his skeptical attitude.

Book Three covers, amongst many, the rise of Islam, Ethiopia, North Africa, the Turks, Byzantine Empire, Crusades, Mongols, Black Death and the Renaissance. Having owned the book for many years I am biased, but do believe this is the best. Gonick’s artwork and humour are better developed, content is more varied and the time period is most interesting. The first volume ‘No Pictures Please’ is especially pertinent, giving an accurate explanation of the life and times of Muhammad and the origins of the Sunni/Shia split, all without idolatry.

Larry Gonick (1946-) was born in San Francisco and studied Mathematics at Harvard.  From 1977 onwards he wrote a series of ‘cartoon guides’ on a variety of subjects including algebra, physics, computer science and tax reform.  The Cartoon History of the Universe, which he serialised from 1977, was his most successful work, and named one of the top 100 comics of the 20^th century by Comic Journal. Jackie Kennedy was an early fan and helped get it published. Carl Sagan described it as “a better way to learn history than 90% of school textbooks”.

How Violent are Hunter-Gatherers?

Leftist thought idealises our hunter-gatherer past as a lost Garden of Eden. Karl Marx described a ‘primitive communism’ without rich or poor. Socialists, anarchists and feminists laud the absence of class, government or gender inequality respectively.

Hierarchy, money, patriarchy and organised warfare are the products of the Agricultural Revolution. This turning point destroyed the old ways 13,000 years ago and left in its place a never-ending squabble for power, land and material wealth that is the source of the world’s woes. Hunter-gatherers, in contrast, live in peaceful utopia.

The murder of American missionary John Allan Chau by the uncontacted Sentinelese raises a question, however – how peaceful are hunter-gatherers really?

Hunter-gatherers live in ‘band’ societies – the oldest form of human organisation. Unlike modern societies, bands:

• do not have specialised occupations – everyone is a hunter-gatherer
• are illiterate
• share resources
• are egalitarian – there is no rich and poor and women are (usually) equal to men
• are nomadic or semi-nomadic
• live in groups of 5-80
• subsist off game and wild plants

Human beings lived in band societies for 90% of our history –  making them our natural state of being. Only a few pockets in the world’s isolated regions maintain the old lifestyle today.

San hunter-gatherers, Namibia

Unlike modern, industrial societies where we interact with strangers every day, our ancestors would meet no more than 100 people in their lifetime, but know them all very well. The average hunter-gatherer society supports one person per square mile. Fewer people meant there was more to go around. Why fight when everyone is equal?

In the absence of the laws, organised religion and power structures that govern ‘civilised’ society, only kinship, mutual trust and fear of retaliation stops hunter-gatherers from killing one another. When crimes do occur, the band mediates. Murder of a fellow kinsman could warrant acceptance, exile or revenge, depending on the circumstances.

If however, a hunter-gatherer should encounter an outsider – one who looks different, does not share their language and knows no one in common, fear takes over and the instinct is to kill or be killed. In-group out-group mentality is strong and no one cares about the murder of an outsider.

There are exceptions. The Jomon of Japan and the Moriori of New Zealand’s Chatham Islands were remarkably pacifistic. Some cultures, on the other hand, practiced cannibalism or headhunting. As with states, however, it is the more violent societies which tend to survive.

According to anthropologists, 25% of modern hunter-gatherers die from homicide. Among the Jivaro of Peru the number is 60%.  The average homicide rate of 0.5% per year far exceeds that of modern states. Hunter-gatherer ‘warfare’ consists of raids against rival bands in competition for food or women.  The oldest example is a 10,000-year-old mass grave of 27 skeletons in Lake Turkana, Kenya. Shards of obsidian were still lodged in some victims’ skulls.

Hunter-gatherers kill at a higher rate. They only kill less because there are less of them. We, on the other hand, are conditioned by centuries of living under law and social norms essential for us to live harmoniously in less space. If the hunter-gatherer reflects our natural state then we are more chimps than bonobos.

Sources: Jared Diamond – Guns, Germs and Steel, The Economist, Nature, Our World in Data 

See Also:

• The Sentinelese
• Were Our Ancestors Better Off?

Spartacus

Spartacus (1960) is a swords and sandals epic starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier. Action, adventure, romance and intrigue abound.  The film follows the rise of a Roman gladiator from the lowest rung of society to public enemy number one.

Last week my local cinema was showing classics on the big screen. I’d seen Spartacus only once, when I was a boy. This was back before I could tell when a film was dated. Back when I enjoyed every movie I saw. I remembered the battles and the “I am Spartacus” scene but little else. Naturally the senatorial politics and Crassus’s monologue on liking both ‘snails’ and ‘oysters’ flew over my head. I also didn’t appreciate just how well written and acted this masterpiece was.

Spartacus is the story of a man who challenges the might of Rome. He is born a slave in the end days of the Roman Republic and forced to fight his fellow men as entertainment.  But Spartacus has other ideas. During a dispute in the kitchens, he kills his trainer and inspires the gladiators to revolt.  They escape and roam the Italian countryside, ravaging Roman estates and freeing slaves as they go. Using the techniques he learnt as a gladiator, Spartacus builds a formidable army and humbles the legions sent his way.

That much is true. Spartacus was a Thracian gladiator who instigated the ‘Third Servile War’ of 73-70 BC, the largest slave rebellion of the ancient world.  When Crassus eventually crushed it, he crucified 6,000 rebels along the Appian Way.

Spartacus’s director, lead actors and screenwriter were among the best in history. They made the film at the tail end of Hollywood’s Golden Age, when technicolor was new and exciting but before television diminished the movie-going audience.

Kirk Douglas plays Spartacus. Well-built and charismatic, he fits the role well.  At 45, Douglas was conscious of being upstaged and used his position as executive producer to insist no one younger be cast as a gladiator. His performance makes up for this nonetheless.

Stanley Kubrick was chosen to direct two weeks into filming.  As much Douglas’s vision as his own, Spartacus is the only Kubrick film in which he did not have total creative control. With CGI not yet invented, Kubrick used 10,000 extras from the Spanish infantry for the final battle scene, filmed on a plain outside Madrid.

Dalton Trumbo wrote the screenplay from behind the Hollywood blacklist. Once Hollywood’s best paid writer, he fell victim to the Red Scare after refusing to ‘name names’ of other Hollywood communists.

Howard Fast, who wrote the book, was also under blacklist. It was only by chance that his self-published work found itself in Kirk Douglas’s hands and was consequently adapted for the big screen.

Though Trumbo wrote Spartacus in exile under a pseudonym, Douglas insisted he take full credit for his work and personally accept its awards. Trumbo did so at risk of arrest and was exonerated only after a newly-elected John F Kennedy defied a conservative embargo to see the film. His endorsement broke the Hollywood blacklist. “Thanks Kirk,” Trumbo said, “for giving me back my name.”

Oscars:

• Best Supporting Actor (Peter Ustinov)
• Best Art Direction
• Best Cinemotography
• Best Costume Design
• Best Film Editing (nominated)
• Best Music, Scoring of a Dramatic or Comedy Picture (nominated)

Pictured right: Peter Ustinov as the slave trader Bataiutus

Good quotes:

“You don’t want to know mine. I don’t want to know your name….. Gladiators don’t make friends. If we’re ever matched in the arena together, I have to kill you.” – Draba

“When a free man dies, he loses the pleasure of life. A slave loses his pain. Death is the only freedom a slave knows. That’s why he’s not afraid of it. That’s why we’ll win.” – Spartacus

“I’m not after glory, I’m after Spartacus!” – Crassus

Part of Spartacus’s draw is the universal appeal of his struggle. He is fighting for freedom. Not freedom in a nationalistic, Braveheart sense, but literal emancipation. His army juxtaposes beautifully with the Romans. While they are scheming and factional, his people are fiercely united. While the Romans buy their love with money and force, Spartacus and Varinia are mutual and pure. While the Romans hold the material advantage, Spartacus holds the moral.

Despite being old, Spartacus is still worth a watch.

Update 05/02/2020: Kirk Douglas, who played Spartacus has died, age 103.

From the Parapet Turns One

I started this blog one year ago. This unfortunate date, I must add, was not by design but an unobserved coincidence – shame on me! I shan’t venture into cliché territory and say I’m honored or amazed at how far I’ve come, but I will settle on happily chuffed.

When it comes to creative projects, I rarely finish anything. A weekly blog however, provides enough gratification to keep me going, so for that I’m glad. One post a week is not a lofty goal, but it sure adds up over a year.

I don’t blog to make money. Sure, a little revenue would be nice, but if that were my aim, I would have given up long ago. For me, this blog serves as a way to write regularly and record topics of interest. Hence I avoid clickbait or a specific ‘niche’. Developing a skill takes work. 10,000 hours and all that. This blog ensures my writing is held accountable.

My audience isn’t big, but grows every month. I still use the free version of WordPress which, though not allowing in depth analytics or SEO, will tell you your number of readers and where from where in the world they come.

WordPress ‘likes’ are a bad gauge of interest. They only tell you what WordPress users like and most of my views come from Google, not the WordPress Reader. My most ‘liked’ post, for example – ‘2018 Blogging Goals’ – is not even in the top ten for most viewed. It’s only liked most because it’s about blogging – a topic WordPress users are interested in by default.

Most of my readers are from the United States, followed by the UK and Australia. I also get a fair smattering of views from around the world, as you can see from the map above. This month I’ve had 77 from Ecuador alone!

My most popular posts:

1. The Caliphate of Cordoba
2. Clairvius Narcisse and the Zombies of Haiti
3. The Moor’s Last Sigh
4. The Historical Babylon
5. Green Eyed Devils

Originally I assumed my political posts would be the most popular. My real life circles prefer such discussions to history, after all, and political commentary on WordPress and Youtube is thriving . For this blog it’s not the case. My history posts get far more hits.

Maybe the market is saturated; maybe my political views are too vanilla. Successful youtubers and bloggers present controversial and/or nuanced opinions – that’s what makes them interesting. Now I understand  regurgitating news reports without a clear bias lacks appeal. If people want a pseudo objective  take on current events, they will read the news.

Political posts aren’t evergreen, historical ones are. My post on the Battle for Idlib, for example, will only be relevant for a couple of weeks at most. After this the news report will be dated and irrelevant. Posts on the past, however, stay the same, and are far more likely to be searched on Google months later.

Blogging is a fulfilling hobby and I would urge anyone who is interested to give it a go. I’ve still got a lot to learn, but am happy with my progress so far. Hopefully I’ll still be posting one year from now!

See Also:

• My first post
• My 2018 Blogging Goals

The Ten Deadliest Civil Wars

Wikipedia does not have a list of civil wars by death toll so I made my own. I filtered the article ‘List of wars by death toll’ to include only civil wars, rebellions and internal conflicts then ranked them by the number of victims.

Casualties of war are always estimates, so I used the geometric mean wherever possible and rounded it to the nearest one hundred thousand.

A civil war is a conflict between factions in the same country. I counted rebellions against foreign governments, like the Dungan Revolt, Bangladesh Liberation War and Indian Rebellion as civil wars because Han Chinese, East Pakistanis and Indians fought on both sides respectively.

1. Taiping Rebellion (1850-1864) – 45,000,000 casualties

• The Taiping Heavenly Army, led by a man claiming to be Jesus Christ’s brother, rebels against China’s Qing Dynasty. Qing victory.

2. An Lu Shan Rebellion (755-73) – 21,700,000

• An Lu Shan, a powerful general of Central Asian heritage, establishes a rival empire against China’s Tang Dynasty. Tang victory.

3. Dungan Revolt (1862-1877) – 9,800,000

• Chinese Muslims rebel against the ruling Qing Dynasty. Qing victory.

4. Chinese Civil War (1927-1949) – 9,700,000

• Warlords, Nationalists and Communists fight for control of China. Communist victory.

5. Russian Civil War (1917-1922) – 6,700,000

• The Red (Communist) and White (anti-Communist) armies fight for control of Russia. Communist victory.

6. Yellow Turban Rebellion (184-205) – 4,600,000

• Taoist secret societies lead a peasant revolt against China’s Han Dynasty. Han victory.

7. Second Congo War (1998-2003) – 3,700,000

• A greater African proxy conflict. Angola, Chad, Namibia and Zimbabwe support the Congolese government against Ugandan, Rwandan and Burundian backed rebels. Stalemate.

8. Bangladesh Liberation War (1971) – 3,000,000

• East Pakistan (Bangladesh), secedes from Pakistan with Indian support. East Pakistani victory.

French Wars of Religion (1562-1598) – 2,900,000

• French Protestants rebel against the Catholic monarchy. Catholic victory.

10. Indian Rebellion of 1857 (1857-1858) – 2,900,000

• India rebels against British colonial rule. British victory.

Not only did half these wars happen in China, but the entire first four! It is not surprising, given China is, and always has been, the most populated country in the world. The Taiping Rebellion cost more lives than the next three conflicts combined. According to Wikipedia more were killed in this conflict than the Second World War! (35 million).

Most are wars the average Westerner have never heard of. The most famous ones, like the American, Spanish and Syrian civil wars, number under one million casualties.

Only two – the Second Congo War and Bangladesh Liberation War- involved significant interference from outside powers.

Note (31/07/18) – If you would like a post on any of the conflicts listed, please suggest it in the comments below!

See Also:

• Wikipedia – List of wars by death toll
• The Laotian Civil War
• The World’s Strongest Militant Groups

Robert Mugabe

Robert Gabriel Mugabe (1924-) is the founding father of Zimbabwe and a dictator of 37 years. At age 93, he was, until very recently, the world’s oldest serving head of state.  A champion of Black Nationalism against white minority rule Mugabe was once a glimmering hope for post-colonial Africa. Nearly four decades later and he has left a nation plagued by corruption and tyranny.

The former schoolteacher was a hero in 1980, fiercely popular within Zimbabwe and without. He had led the insurrection against Rhodesia’s white minority government and won the following election in a landslide. Like Nelson Mandela, he was a Marxist, a revolutionary, an intellectual, a political prisoner for over a decade and a relentless crusader against minority government and Apartheid. At the official independence ceremony, Bob Marley played his ‘Zimbabwe’ to a jubilant crowd in Mugabe’s honour. Mugabe was lauded by both his Communist backers and the western left. The US gave 25 million dollars in aid to his nascent regime.

Mugabe had been born in 1924 in Southern Rhodesia, a British settler colony named for Cecil Rhodes, the famed British imperialist, diamond magnate and De Beers founder. Three ethnic groups called Rhodesia home: the majority Shona, a Bantu speaking people, the Ndebele, a Zulu offshoot comprising 20% of the population, and a minority of white British settlers.  The latter ruled the greater black population as a ‘subject race’, exploiting the nation’s rich mineral reserves and owning the vast majority of its arable land.  In 1964 Rhodesia gained independence but under a white ruled government. Mugabe was Shona and Catholic.

Two parties led the liberation movement. Fighting alongside his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) party, who were largely Shona and backed by China, were the Ndebele led, Soviet backed ZAPU party of Joshua Nkomo. Mistrusting his former ally and fearing a power grab from ZAPU, Mugabe dispatched the North Korean trained Fifth Brigade into the Ndebele homeland of Matabeleland. Suspected Ndebele malcontents and ZAPU members were summarily executed in the ‘Gukurahundi’, ‘the rain that washes away the chaf before spring’. Ndebele men of fighting age were forced to dig their own graves before execution. Others were herded into their houses and burned alive. Genocide watch estimates Mugabe’s government killed 20,000 Ndebele from 1983-1987.

Though the 80s saw substantial improvements in Zimbabwe’s literacy and standard of living, Mugabe’s rule became increasingly tyrannical and corrupt. By the 90s the economy was faltering. The now president’s dubious human rights record and electoral fraud soured western opinion. In 1997 Tony Blair rescinded on Britain’s pledge to compensate the new government and froze Zimbabwean assets.

In 2000 Mugabe violently appropriated white-owned farms, parcelling out the vast estates to landless blacks and political favourites. The new owners, however, had no experience as commercial farmers and the resulting mismanagement, white exodus and foreign sanctions drove Zimbabwe’s once-prosperous economy to ruin.

By now Mugabe’s dictatorship was entrenched in mismanagement and cronyism. Zimbabwe’s vast mineral wealth found itself in the pockets of Mugabe and his followers while the common people starved. In 2016 Reuters estimated over a billion USD a year had been lost to corruption.  To afford foreign imports after the 2000 land reforms Mugabe’s Central Bank printed extra money. Incredible hyperinflation resulted: when Zimbabwe abandoned its currency in 2015 the exchange rate was 35,000,000,000,000 ZWD to 1 USD. Unemployment reached 95%.

On November 14th, 2017, a 93 year old President Mugabe was arrested and expelled from his own party in a bloodless coup. Emmerson Mnangagwa, Mugabe’s right hand man, orchestrated the takeover to ensure his succession on Mugabe’s death. He had been fired from the vice presidency eight days earlier. On the 22nd of November the president officially resigned. The leadership has reshuffled, but Mugabe’s party remains in control, and Zimbabwe must  now face the dismal legacy he has left behind.

Update 7/09/19: Robert Mugabe dies age 95.

The Historical Babylon

Babylon (2300 BC – 1000 AD) was the world’s first metropolis. On the banks of the Euphrates river in modern-day Iraq, it was the capital of four empires and twice the largest city in the world. Babylon was the centre of ancient astronomy, philosophy and science centuries before Greece and the first city with 200,000 inhabitants. Like Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and New York, it was the cosmopolitan capital of its day.

Archaeologists unearthed Babylon and translated its stone tablets in the 1800s. Before then our only records came from the Hebrews and Greeks. The Babylonians called their city ‘Babila’, meaning ‘Gate of the Gods’ in Akkadian, while the Hebrews called it Babel. ‘Babylon’ comes from the Greeks.

Hammurabi’s Code of laws was the first of its kind. Inscribed on a 2.25 metre stone stele, it covers everything from inheritance to payment and contract. The king of Babylon’s laws followed an ‘eye-for-an-eye’ philosophy that applied differently to slaves, freedmen, property owners, women and men. Hammurabi founded the Old Babylonian Empire when he conquered Mesopotamia and Elam (southwestern Iran) in the 1700s BC.

Foreigners ruled for the next thousand years. The Hittites sacked Babylon in 1595, then the Kassites ruled for five centuries, leaving few records. The Elamites, Aramaeans and Assyrians followed. Though Babylon and Assyria were traditional enemies, under the Neo-Assyrian Empire (911-609 BC), Babylon prospered as a secondary capital and centre of Mesopotamian religion.

In the 700s and 600s BC, ambitious princes rebelled from Babylon. Merodach-Baladan II seized the throne three times. Sennacherib of Assyria finally defeated him in 689 BC and razed Babylon to the ground. When Sennacherib was murdered by his own sons, Babylonians called it divine justice. Esarhaddon, his youngest, restored the city and named his younger son Shamash-Shum-Kin governor. When Shamash-Shum Kin rose against his brother Ashurbanipal, the Assyrian king burned down the palace with him inside it.

The fifth uprising, led by Nabopolassar, was successful. In alliance with the Cimmerians, Scythians and Medes he sacked Nineveh and ended the Assyrian yoke. His brief but vibrant ‘Neo-Babylonian Empire’ (626-539 BC) is the Babylon best known today.

Nebuchadnezzar II led Babylon to its peak. On succeeding his father Nabopolassar, he conquered the old Assyrian lands and brought slaves and treasure to Babylon. Nebuchadnezzar built new walls with eight entrances that included the ‘Ishtar Gate’ made of lapis lazuli and adorned with aurochs, lions and dragons. He rebuilt the ziggurats Esagila and 91-meter tall Etemenaki, dedicating them to Marduk, Babylon’s chief god.

The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were a Wonder of the World. According to legend, Nebuchadnezzar built them for Amytis, his homesick Median queen who longed for the verdant hills of her homeland. A terraced pyramid filled with forests and waterfalls, the Hanging Gardens were Nebuchadnezzar’s greatest achievement. Though famous in the ancient world, no trace of them remains today.

Babylon led the world in mathematics and science. Based on the number 60, their numeric system is how we tell the time today. Babylonians invented algebra in the 1600s BC and their discoveries inspired the Greeks and Arabs. Babylonian astronomers were the first to name the planets and figure they orbit the sun. They also calculated the frequency of lunar and solar eclipses and founded western astrology.

Babylon fell to the Persians in 539 BC. As Persia’s administrative capital the city continued to prosper. It was briefly Alexander the Great’s capital too before he died there in 323 BC. By the new millennium, Babylon was in decline and by AD 1000 in ruins.

Rewritten 24/11/2019

See also:

• The Allegorical Babylon
• Rewriting ‘The Historical Babylon’
• Cyrus the Great
• Mani of Babylonia
• Empire

The Fall of Singapore

On the 15^th February 1942 the British Empire surrendered its most prized Southeast Asian possession to the Japanese 25^th Army. Churchill called it the ‘worst capitulation’ in British history.

Colonial Singapore was as strategically significant as it is today. Located at the southern tip of the Malay Peninsula, Singapore commands the mouth of the Malaccan Straits, the causeway between the Andaman and the South China Seas and the prime shipping channel between the Indian and Pacific Oceans. Aptly named the ‘Gibraltar of the East’, Singapore was a heavily protected island fortress. The British thought it impenetrable.

With her efforts devoted primarily to keeping the home island safe, Japan’s rapid expansion in Southeast Asia had come as a surprise to the Empire whose greater strength was bogged down in Europe and North Africa. Since Pearl Harbour the Japanese had invaded the Philippines, seized Hong Kong, northern Borneo and, led by the bullish general Tomoyuki Yamashita, steamrolled through the jungles and rubber plantations of British Malaya in a mere 70 days.

Yamashita’s invasion of Malaya

The British had vastly underestimated their foes.  Dismissed from the war’s onset as bucktoothed savages the Japanese were initially viewed neither as tough nor soldierly by their opponents.  Moreover, the colonies had utter faith in Britain’s renowned naval supremacy. The Japanese could not possibly beat them at sea.

Both assumptions proved false.

Defending Malaya was a composite of hastily formed Indian and Australian divisions, mainly 18 year olds who’d never held a gun. The invaders meanwhile, who included the crème de la crème Japanese Imperial Guard, were hardened veterans of the war in China to whom dying for the empire was the highest honour.

Japanese troops advance through British Malaya by bicycle in 1942

Though no less accustomed to the tropics then his Commonwealth foes, the Japanese foot soldier was conditioned for war by a lifetime of nationalist indoctrination and notoriously harsh discipline. Japanese soldiers carried lighter packs than their British counterparts and advanced through Malaya on bicycle, rather than foot.

No time was wasted taking prisoners and resistance was brutally crushed: after the Battle of Muar 200 wounded Australian and Indian troops were doused in petroleum and burned alive. The conquest of Malaya was swift and brutal.

While the British in Malaya were severely demoralised at the velocity of their downfall, the Japanese fought with growing confidence. The popular infallibility of the British navy dissipated instantly with the sinking of battleships Repulse and Prince of Wales on the 10th of December. The siege of Singapore began on the 8^th of February the following year. Although Yamashita had only 36,000 men to the British 85,000, Singapore’s defenders were severely battered and demoralised. Moreover they were surrounded on three sides. Facing starvation, heavy bombardment, fierce street to feet fighting and with no chance of reinforcement, the British eventually capitulated on the 15^th of February.

Australian POWs in Changi Jail, Singapore after their surrender in 1942

A total 130,000 British troops surrendered. 7,000 would go on to form the backbone the pro Japanese ‘Indian National Army’ that fought the British in Burma and India on the promise of creating an independent Indian state. Others would work on the infamous death railway. Never before had British soldiers surrendered on such a scale. After Singapore, the Japanese could swiftly complete their conquest of maritime Southeast Asia – Borneo, the Philippines, Melanesia and the Dutch East Indies followed in rapid succession. Many feared Australia and New Zealand were next.

The Fall of Singapore foreshadowed much. An ascendant Asian power, in remarkable speed, had defeated and humiliated history’s greatest empire.  The colonies realised their master was not invincible and, after the war, would quickly assert independence. Despite winning this war, by 1945 Britain, had clearly lost its superpower status, would cede world hegemony to the United States and begin dismantling its empire. The Suez Crisis of 1956 was the nail in the coffin. Britannia would never reach her former glory again.