A Head of State has a symbolic importance for the nation, that transcends the personalityand politics of the individual in office. I am therefore very sorry for the Polish people at the loss of President Kaczynski and the Polish delegation in the air crash at Smolensk.
Looking at the list of victims, I knew at least five of them, though not colse friends, from my time in the British Embassy in Warsaw, which makes the tragedy more real to me.
The massacre at Katyn was one of the most dreadful chapters in Poland’s tragic history. It was not just a massacre of 22,000 soldiers – it was a determined attempt by Stalin to wipe out the entire Polish officer class, as a step towards eliminating Poland’s indigenous leadership potential.
You have to understand Polish history to fully guage the significance of this. In the eighteenth century Poland was wiped off the map in successive partitions by Austria, Prussia and Russia. For two and a half centuries the Polish nation disappeared from Europe. Poles werensplit between different Empires, with Poles expected to fight Poles on their new masters’ behalf. A brief period of existence under Napoleon helped keep Polish identity alive – and along with the Chopin story sparked a lasting attachment to France..
So when Poland reemerged from the mists of time – to quote Norman Davies – in 1918 as a nation again, it was a nation with a sense of the precariousness of its own existence, which was to be strengthened by the hard but succesful battles against Soviet invasion in 1921.
It was only 18 years later, and Poland had only existed anew for 21 years, when Stalin and Hitler treacherously invaded Poland and partitioned it yet again. Britian’s declaration of war was no practical help to the Poles. As Poland was fighting for its very existence, even the least warlike had signed up for the hopeless fight against both Hitler and Stalin, so the 22,000 Polish officers among Stalin’s prisoners of war were a broad cross section of Poland’s educated classes.
Stalin’s decision to massacre them was an attempt to eradicate the very idea of an independent Poland.
When I was in Uzbekistan I was astonsihed to find that in Uzbek schools and universities the Stalin-Hitler pact had been eradicated from the history books. That is true today. They are told the “Great Patriotic War” started inn 1941. The Soviet invasion of Poland is a banned subject.
Since Putin’s new brand of Russian nationalism, the Stalin/Hitler pact has again diasppeared from Russian school books, although it is not formally a banned subject and is taught at some universities. But Putin – who of course is a product of the Soviet secret services – has discouraged at every turn openness about the crimes of Stalin, and archives on the subject have again been closed to the public.
The Poles were therefore quite right to press the Russians hard on Katyn, and you can be sure that the ceremonies would not have been given much prominence in Russian media. The fascinating thing now will be to monitor just how much depth the Russian media give to explaining just what President Kaczynski was on his way to Russia for
Suhayl, thanks for clarifying the Polish-Irish connection. I doubt, though that you’ll learn much about the empire from the life of Dickie Battenberg (Batternberg, better known as a kind of cake: pink and white inside and wrapped in marzipan, very good.).
The empire, surely, was just the outcome of a run of luck. Britain was an island, which meant no need for a standing army to resist invasion. The only risk was from the sea, therefore money saved on the army could be devoted to the navy. With a better navy, Britian was better able than her rivals to project power overseas. Hence, in the age of colonialism, Britian got the best colonies: the empty spaces of North America, Australia and Southern Africa; the best places for tropical crop production in the Caribbean, and the best locations for trade: India, and Hong Kong.
The colonies generated wealth from sugar, tobacco and cotton, trade in calicos, jute, etc. The profits, particularly those from the slave plantations (The saintly Willian Ewart Gladstone, owed his wealth and position to the 2,183 Jamaican slaves owned by his father ?” for which the Government paid 85,600 pounds when they were freed.) were available for investment in processing industries at home: rum tobacco, textiles, etc. The rise of British manufacturing, with its abnormally high profits due to the lack of foreign competition, stimulated investment in new technology, which enhanced the productivity of labor and thus further enhanced profits. Enormous wealth supported the world’s largest and most modern navy.
Hence, until the rest of the world caught up, Britain ruled. But there was no real plan. The Brits were on a roll, they just went rollicking along, until their advantage ran out in the 1930’s. It ran out because Britain, a rather small and insignificant country, was no longer particularly wealthy. Had they played their cards better in the 30’s the second world war, “the Unnecessary War” as Churchill called it, might have been averted, in which case the decline of Britain might have taken another fifty years or so.
If ideas, personalities or social factors come into an account of the British empire, they are surely ideas and personalities relating to the rise of science and industry, and the social conditions that allowed Britain so readily to become a highly innovative industrial state, when a unique economic opportunity arose.
Hello? Did I just read ‘the empty spaces of North America’ in Alfred’s post? Where did the Native Americans go? What about the deer and the antelope? And the buffalo? Oh, that’s right, they were murdered en masse by our friendly roaming colonial adventurers, some with small pox, some with guns.
Gosh, doesn’t nationalism make things simple.
The fate of the North American natives is discussed here:
1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann
http://www.amazon.ca/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/140004006X
The details will never be known, but it is clear that a large proportion of the population died from European diseases, often before direct contact with Europeans. Thus the Caribbs carried smallpox and other diseases from the West Indies to the continental mainland. These diseases then spread throughout both continents with devastating effect. It was an unintended genocide. The deadly effect on the American Indians of European diseases was attributable to the more limited immunological resources of the native people. Thus, although smallpox and other diseases killed many Europeans, the death rate among Europeans from smallpox epidemics was, maybe, 70% versus 90% for the North American indians. But in any case, much of North America was essentially vacant by the time European settlers arrived, which is why the Americans, in the name of Yahweh and the doctrine of Manifest Destiny were able to sweep the remaining population aside.
At least, here in Western Canada, the government, in the name of Victoria, signed treaties with the first nations, treaties that are still honored.
As for nationalism, I don’t think that had anything to do with it. Colonization is not a matter if ideology, it’s just doing what all territorial species do, expanding their territory when they have the chance. Take a look at the history of your own ancestors. If they were always losers, you wouldn’t be here today.
Alfred, the decline of Britain’s economic dominance began in the 1890s. Britain had been overtaken by Germany by 1890. That’s one of the reasons WWI happened.
Furthermore, the colonies – India in particular – would most definitely have tossed Britain out in the early 1940s if the mass movements (except the relatively small ‘Indian National Army’ which decided to support the Japanese) hadn’t done a deal with Britain to support the war effort in exchange for independence immediately after the war was won.
There is absolutely no way hypothetically Britain could have staved-off imperial decline in the manner you suggest for another half-a-century. Yes, WW2 made it a fait accompli, but it would’ve happened during the 1940s in any case.
Communicable disease certainly played a part in the decimation of the American Indian as it did in South America. But there was also widespread de facto genocide – by starvation, forced winter marches, herding onto barren reservations and of forked-tongue broken treaties and course war. There’s no point attempting to deny, or should I say, sublimate or justify, all this. very recent history.
Human history and evolutionary theory are two entirely different disciplines. Evolutionary theory is complex, it’s not just ‘survival of those who are able to bash the others over the head’. It’s also ‘survival of those who are able to engage in a sustainable manner with their environment’ and much more besides.
I was descended from a single-celled organism, the same single-celled organism from which you also are descended. This does not mean that we have to behave like single-celled organisms for all eternity. Though sometimes I do think that it would be mellow being an amoeba again… dream it, man, everything-in-one and one-in-everything, just like the Three Musketeers.
“But in any case, much of North America was essentially vacant by the time European settlers arrived”
Goodness, that’s a handy way of looking at it. Doesn’t Alfred sound remarkably self-satisfied? Does he have a similar handy theory as to where the 2 million Irish went who disappeared during An Gorta Mor?
“Take a look at the history of your own ancestors. If they were always losers, you wouldn’t be here today.”
Ah, but I am.
In any case, nearly 300 years of Indian Wars were not fought against empty space!
Dreoilin’s poignant comments also reminded me to allude to the Highland Clearances in Scotland.
Of course, the irony is that many of those ‘cleared’ to make way for sheep ended up in North America. But that’s human history, it’s complex, it’s messy, it’s the product of many forces – economics, resources, ideologies, luck, disease, faith, community, the quest for power, technology and occasionally, in the right circumstances, individual impact (Alexander, Genghis, Hitler and the rest, not forgetting Cleo and the Viper). It cannot be reduced to simple, all-embracing hypothesis.
Yes indeed, here we are! And we’re no longer amoebas.
Mmm. Thanks for the reminder & perspective, Suhayl.
My own highland ancestors, from Easter Ross, were cleared along with the rest. So do you mind according me the respect that a victim group member deserves.
As for the North American Indians, maybe dreoilin has a better source on their demographics than I have provided. If so maybe he will reference it. But it is obviously the case that if a society of mostly hunter gatherers is reduced by 90% due to smallpox, measles, influenza and other diseases, the landscape will be desolate, which is what the first settlers in New England reported: numerous large native settlements deserted.
Alfred
Churchill was not saying that the war was unnecessary in 1940 as you very clearly infer. He may well have thought that it would have been unnecessary if the right steps had been taken much earlier – but that isn’t what you said or inferred – when you suggested that Churchill was in favour of coexistence with facist Germany – which he never was.
In addition, Churchill was not in the Government in 1934 – so the blunder of not working with France and Poland to remove Hitler was not one of his – as you rather nastily infer by the previous quote from Buchanan – Churchill was agitating against German rearmament from 1932 onwards.
As always you will twist the facts and pile on a few insults to present your distorted view of the world. I’m afraid I know your game even if others haven’t cottoned on yet.
And I don’t need to read Churchill memoirs (or Jenkins biography which certainly doesn’t support your viewpoint either) or Buchanan’s disgusting book – although the latter didn’t take very long.
And BTW the ambassador in Berlin was Nevile not Arthur Henderson, who was someone else. The cod round here is beginning to smell somewhat.
I could spend more time pulling your many inaccuracies apart – but as past experience is you will only misquote yourself – I see little point in doing so.
Since, we’re so far off topic, I thought I’d add a link to a picture of the Battenberg cake, which for some reason came up earlier with reference to the Polish-Irish link:
http://tiny.cc/49l6c
If you follow the link you will find a BBC report that this iconic British food item been declared illegal by the EU’s evil bureaucrats.
I think this should be the prime election issue for the BNP: Give us back our Battenberg cake. I’d vote for that.
Suhayl is quite correct, we are no longer amoebas, a wise observation, and nicely put.
I recall, though, being taught that we did not, in fact, evolve from the amoeba.
But I wonder. You know those amoeboid things, slime molds, that swarm together into a huge mass that can roll along the ground, climb fences, engulf dogs and babies, until eventually rearing up to form a complex fruiting body.
Now suppose one of those things turned into Adam and Eve. I’m sure H.G. Wells could have made something out of the idea. Then one might have a throwback, a true shape shifter, human (Nick Griffin, perhaps)- blob – giant cockroach, or whatever.
Yes, I could see that Alfred was gearing up for a bit of revisionism a la Pat Buchanan.
It’s good to see Stephen, the New Laborite, staunchly siding with that old racist Winston S. Churchill. The BNP would be proud of you Stephen.
Arundhati Roy, provided a vivid appreciation of Churchill’s Zionist racism here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7vnaf8R_SJo
Yet like all his views, Churchill’s views about race were complex and reflected a deep appreciation for the realities of life and power. Thus, of the Jews, to which race he could claim membership through his mother, Jenny (Jacobson) Jerome, he wrote:
“Some people like Jews and some do not; but no thoughtful man can doubt the fact that they are beyond all question the most formidable and the most remarkable race which has ever appeared in the world.
And it may well be that this same astounding race may at the present time be in the actual process of producing another system of morals and philosophy, as malevolent as Christianity was benevolent, which, if not arrested would shatter irretrievably all that Christianity has rendered possible … ”
(I’d put in a link to the rest of it, except that the blog software doesn’t seem to allow more than one URL per comment. So if you wish to read the rest you’ll have to Google it.)
Re: the Unnecessary war, Stephen, as usual accuses me of what he imagines I said, not what I actually said.
Thus Stephen asserts:
“The libel on Churchill re saying the war was unnecessary is really outrageous. in the context of 1940 Churchill most certainly not think that the war was unnecessary.”
The absurdity of alleging libel of a dead person, aside, I said nothing about anything “in the context of 1940.”
Self-evidently, when Britain was at war and Churchill was Prime Minister, Churchill did not consider the war unnecessary.
To quote myself:
“In his memoirs … Churchill, who led Britain to victory in World War II, wrote:
“One day President Roosevelt told me that he was asking publicly for suggestions about what the war should be called. I said at once, “The Unnecessary War.” There never was a war more easy to stop than that which has just wrecked what was left of the world from the previous struggle.”*
*Memoirs of the Second World War: Part 1, The Gathering Storm.
It is quite clear from this that I was not calling the war unnecessary “in the context of 1940,” as Stephen alleges.
It is the case, though, that the cabinet discussed further concession to Germany after Churchill became Prime Minister and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary argued strongly for this course of action.
Alfred
“It is the case, though, that the cabinet discussed further concession to Germany after Churchill became Prime Minister and Lord Halifax, the Foreign Secretary argued strongly for this course of action.”
But Churchill vigously argued the opposite and won the argument – and VISCOUNT Halifax was despatched to Washington DC as ambassador shortly thereafter.
I note that you do not address my comments on your slur re Churchill in 1934. You first of all talk about the Britain scuppering the French Polish plan to remove Hitler in 1934 – and then in the next para say that Churchill was a nutter seeking co-existence with Nazi Germany – without making clear that Churchill had no part in the 1934 decision. Although you do not make the direct link – the insinuation is pretty clear, and given past form is in my view pretty deliberate.
And i don’t side with Churchill on all his actions – my position is similar to Christopher Hitchens in the linked article – Churchill was wrong on many things, but on this matter he was right. Of course such a nuance will be igored by those like yourself who are well versed in the guilt by association game.
If you want to know who the “Guilty Men” were they were pretty well identified by “Cato” at the time – but of course the revisionists have Churchill in their sights – and if only Poland had been more reasonable in their negotiations with Hitler about Danzig blah blah blah.
Since Albert doesn’t tell us who took the census in North America and what the result was, before these diseases arrived, I have no idea what the starting figure was for a reduction of 90% to be calculated.
“maybe dreoilin has a better source on their demographics”
The source you gave is a book cover on Amazon. I can’t read the book, but I did read the reviews, some of which are quite critical. But none of them mention the precise argument you have made above. So I’m still wondering who took the census and where it is.
I have noted that you said, “the details will never be known”, and, “the death rate among Europeans from smallpox epidemics was, maybe, 70% versus 90% for the North American indians” — which depends on a big fat “maybe”. Because you provide no starting figure, and no evidence that anyone has one.
As for the reference to “limited immunological resources of the native people”, surely the word you want is “different” and not “limited”, since their immunological resources were tailored to their own environment.
You then casually remark about “what the first settlers in New England reported: numerous large native settlements deserted.” I don’t know about you, but deserted to me means people left and moved on. You didn’t say that there were a couple of hundred graves alongside. So maybe they just moved to better hunting grounds. Who knows? And even if they did die of disease, I still have no idea where your 90% figure comes from or who counted the original population.
Sorry, Alfred, and not Albert!
I have an Amazon link for Alfred:
http://tinyurl.com/y2uyhuu
Dreoilin,
Obviously there was no census. How could there have been?
Mann’s book is the only one I know that deals comprehensively with the impact of European contact on the native peoples of the Americas. But no doubt there are many other works that bear on the topic. And I am sure that the nature of the impact can be debated endlessly. One hopes that the debate is always conducted with the goal of understanding more about what happened and what was lost.
Stephen, you say,
“then in the next para say that Churchill was a nutter seeking co-existence with Nazi Germany – without making clear that Churchill had no part in the 1934 decision.”
This is entirely false. I say nothing of the kind. I have never referred to Churchill as a “nutter” or suggested that he sought co-existence with the Nazis. Had I done so, you would no doubt have quoted me directly. But as you cannot do that you make the lie up out of whole cloth.
Your comments are shear provocation.
“But I wonder. You know those amoeboid things, slime molds, that swarm together into a huge mass that can roll along the ground, climb fences, engulf dogs and babies, until eventually rearing up to form a complex fruiting body.
Now suppose one of those things turned into Adam and Eve. I’m sure H.G. Wells could have made something out of the idea. Then one might have a throwback, a true shape shifter, human (Nick Griffin, perhaps)- blob – giant cockroach, or whatever.” Alfred
Alfred, you, I (and technicolour) have been grooving to far too much ‘Dr Who’ (or else, in the USA, re-runs of the excellent and monstrous, ‘The Twilight Zone’), I suspect!
Are you a paleo-conservative, by any chance? Don’t mind my asking.
“One hopes that the debate is always conducted with the goal of understanding more about what happened and what was lost”.
Alfred: I’m afraid that’s not going to be possible if you don’t reference or back up your lengthy assertions when asked to.
Slime molds that rear up & engulf dogs and babies? Brilliant!
Suhayl,
I have heard of “Dr. Who” but quite honestly I have never heard of “The Twilight Zone.” We once had a television with a rabbit ears aerial, on which I could sometimes watch Star Trek. But that set broke down about twenty years ago, never to be replaced. Since then, the only TV I see is when away from home or via U-Tube.
Star Trek probably has influenced me. I think it has largely replaced the Bible as the universal shared cultural experience of our civilization.
The slime mold idea appealed to me because it might be made a reality with a bit of genetic engineering. Start with some fairly blobby thing to begin with, hence my suggestion of Nick Griffin, set off a process of cellular de-differentiation, and then run a new program of differentiation to produce a porpoise with a Cambridge law degree. Whether personal experience would be retained throughout the transformation is a little uncertain. But the idea seems worth exploring. As you can tell, I am no writer, therefore, I freely present you with the idea, should you feel able to make anything of it.
As to politics, I am not a sufficiently deep or systematic thinker to have an ideology. I started out on the left, naturally, before realizing that life cannot be organized satisfactorily in accordance with a few slogans and simple-minded good intentions. I later read Adam Smith, the Austrian economists, Milton Friedman, Michael Polanyi, a genius at Manchester University whose rather less talented son came to Canada and won a Nobel prize. My conservative phase ended at about the time Margaret Thatcher was acclaimed the savior of western civilization.
Now, my ideas are more tentative, but I retain a few heroes: Winston Churchill, certainly, Desmond Tutu, Sam Johnson, and many more, not all conservatives.
Technicolour,
I did reference my assertions:
“1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus, by Charles C. Mann
http://www.amazon.ca/1491-Revelations-Americas-Before-Columbus/dp/140004006X”
This book provides what appears to be a conscientiously assembled review of current research. It was top of the New York Times non-fiction best seller list for months. Of course there must be thousands of primary works, but that’s not my field, so I cannot quote any of that.
“Obviously there was no census. How could there have been?”–Alfred
My point exactly.
“Mann’s book is the only one I know that deals comprehensively with the impact of European contact on the native peoples of the Americas.”
If you haven’t already read Bury my Heart at Wounded Knee (which is at the link I left) maybe reading part of the story from the “Indian” point of view would be a good idea. I highly recommend it. Especially the notes, which include what was said in Congress, which treaties were broken etc.
Dreiolin,
If that’s your point, that there was no census because there could not have been, it does not seem much of a point.
Mann attempts, at least, to piece together a broad picture of what happened to native societies throughout the Americas.
I am sure that from the native point of view, much of what happened was heart-rending. Literally, so, in the case of the alleged 80,000 humans sacrificed by Aztec priests who ripped the beating heart from the breast of each victim — to assuage the anger of the gods.
Nice picture of the process here:
http://www.crystalinks.com/aztecreligion.html
See, it’s not just white people who are beastly.
Alfred: thanks. The book’s unavailable to most people, and the survey you quote and the facts you give do not appear to be online elsewhere, or substantiated by anyone else, so relevant extracts, and sources given in the book would be the way to go.
Still, I’m reading what I can find of the book online from your link. So far, the book seems to say that, instead of leaving the landscape empty, the Native Americans had in fact had thriving agricultural communities, including complicated networks of fishing nets.
The writer castigates today’s green activists for, among other things, their belief in the Indians’ ‘inherent simplicity and innocence’. This belief is, he argues, based on the mistaken assumption that the ‘Indians’ (what did they call themselves, I wonder?) had left the environment untouched. Whem on the contrary, they had altered it substantially.
He then equates the impact of modern day pollution with the impact of traditional crop growing and fishing nets.
The book then quotes the man who argued that the place was an ‘unproductive waste’ when the settlers arrived; George Bancroft. He seems an interesting & decent person, apart from calling the Native Americans ‘feeble barbarians’.
I can’t stand reading books online, as a rule, so could you quote the parts from which you reached your conclusions?
Alfred
12 April 4:45pm
“Further, Churchill is said to have remarked after the war that it was the most unnecessary war ever fought. So if the attempt to coexist with fascist Germany was nuts, there were a lot of nutters in the British Government –including Churchill.”
Alfred 14 April
I have never referred to Churchill as a “nutter” or suggested that he sought co-existence with the Nazis.
Compare and contrast.
I think you will find that it is your comment’s that are sheer provocation.
Alfred,
I’m afraid we can’t discuss anything if you keep changing the goalposts. I understood you were talking about, “the impact of European contact on the native peoples of the Americas.” So dragging in “not just white people who are beastly” and Aztec priests, is hardly relevant.
Goodnight
PS “If that’s your point, that there was no census because there could not have been, it does not seem much of a point”
Unfortunately, it makes rubbish of your 90%. Goodnight again