To use an analogy from evolutionary biology, the last four hundred years — the heyday of Western Civilization — have been characterized by “punctuated equilibrium”. Decades of relative stability and coherence are punctuated by sudden bursts of chaos, violence, turbulence, and irrationality. Each discontinuity that breaks the equilibrium has its own interior logic, and after it runs its course, another stable period begins. The punctuation resolves into a new equilibrium based on an emergent balance of forces and political entities, different from the one that preceded the upheaval.
For Western Civilization, the punctuations of the last 250 years may be defined as follows:
| 1789-1815 | The French Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars. The new equilibrium was ushered in by the Congress of Vienna with Metternich as the architect. | |
| 1848 | The year of revolutions. In the aftermath of 1848 the two great ideological strains of modern times — socialism and nationalism — were born. The equilibrium that followed was ultimately unstable, and led to the cataclysms of the 20th century. | |
| 1914-1945 | The Great Wars. Our most recent equilibrium was structured by the formation of the United Nations and the long standoff between the United States and the Soviet Union. |
The second of these equilibria — from 1848 to 1914 — was the peak of European power and cultural influence, the great flowering of Western Civilization that spread across the globe.
The most recent punctuation, the one that ended in 1945, severely weakened the cultural fabric of the West, guaranteeing that we would eventually face the next crisis. A new discontinuity seems to be upon us now, a perfect storm formed by convergent political, cultural, and economic winds.
When the next punctuation has run its course, there’s no guarantee that the West will retain its ascendancy in the aftermath. As Conservative Swede has often pointed out, there are manifold signs of spiritual and civilizational enervation in all Western countries. All of our political systems have been infected in varying degrees by the postmodern Marxist virus that manifests itself as Political Correctness and Multiculturalism.
This blog focuses on the struggle of the West against Islam, but Islam is the symptom, not the disease itself. Islamic culture is a parasite upon the wealth and benignity of Western Civilization, and cannot survive without it. The petrodollars are a large part of the problem, but the main issue is a severely diminished cultural resistance that grants the Islamic virus an opportunity to take hold throughout the West.
When the West falls, Islam will fall with it. The civilization that rises to replace us will not share our Multicultural fastidiousness, and will deal with the Muslims in whatever manner seems expedient when the time comes.
And who will our replacements be?
Three articles from today’s news stories offer us some hints. The first one is from AKI:
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India: Nuclear-Capable Missile Tested
New Delhi, 12 Nov. (AKI) — India test-fired a nuclear-capable missile Wednesday from the eastern state of Orissa, defence sources said, quoted by media reports.
The submarine-based ballistic missile K-15, has a range of up to 700 kilometres and is considered a medium-range missile. It can easily reach targets deep inside neighbouring Pakistan and China.
The test was carried out from the Integrated Testing Range at Chandipur, 200 kilometres northeast of Bhubaneswar, capital of Orissa, reports said.
Recently, India Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and US President George W. Bush reached a bilateral agreement on civilian nuclear cooperation.
The deal lifts the US moratorium on nuclear trade with India, provides US assistance to India’s civilian nuclear energy programme, and expands US-Indian cooperation in energy and satellite technology.
India is a powerhouse, with only a slightly smaller population than China’s and at least as much technical competence. Its more politically open society gives it an advantage that China cannot match.
China is worried about India, and with good reason. With the likely departure of the United States from its traditional dominant role in the region, the Indians and the Japanese are co-operating with each other to their mutual advantage. According to Asia News:
Beijing Worried by India-Japan Space Alliance
By the end of November Tokyo and New Delhi will finalise a deal reached in October by their prime ministers, Taro Aso and Manmohan Singh. The agreement calls for co-operation between the two countries’ space agencies, ISRO and JAXA, in various fields, ranging from coastal protection and defence to natural disaster monitoring and anti-terrorism.
New Delhi (AsiaNews/Agencies) — India and Japan have signed an agreement to increase co-operation between their respective space programmes. It follows guidelines agreed to by the two sides at their annual summit meeting held in Tokyo on 22 October when prime ministers Taro Aso and Manmohan Singh signed a joint declaration that included an “action plan with specific measures to advance security cooperation”.
By the end of this month Tokyo and New Delhi will lay down the principles of co-operation between the Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency (JAXA).
Several fields of activity will fall within the initiative, ranging from coastal protection and defence to environmental disaster monitoring and anti-terrorism.
The deal comes at a time when the two space agencies are coping with different challenges. ISRO is getting pictures of the moon sent by the Chandrayaan spacecraft (22 October launch pictured), a success much celebrated by new Delhi. By contrast, JAXA is sailing through rough waters, still unsure about its funding. What is more for the first time however the deal marks a departure for Japan which is now considering deployment of hitherto excluded space assets for national security.
[…]
The existing satellite-based multinational weather and disaster management system depends upon signatories’ willingness to accept rapid surveillance satellites tasking. But it can also transcend simple weather information.
The ISRO-JAXA deal “could be seen by some as a sensitive undertaking with obvious dual use possibilities which Japan will attempt to handle with great care,” said Lance Gatling, head of Tokyo-based Gatling Associates, which closely monitors JAXA and the Japanese space program.
The ISR0-JAXA agreement has in fact a component about defence-related use of missile and satellite technology, including the possibility of jointly developing ballistic missile defence (BMD) technology like that of the United States from which only Japan now benefits.
The new system would involve developing and deploying a new generation of surveillance satellites to monitor disasters and security threats.
India in particular has never been shy about its intention to increase satellite surveillance of all Chinese military activities, especially along its border with China.
For this reason the ISR0-JAXA deal is also worrying China, the third major player in Asia’s rush to space and the region’s major military power.
Until now Japan had a space security agreement with Australia. But the Bush administration has signalled its support for closer Indian-Japanese co-operation to counter China. And this has triggered heightened concern in Beijing.
One of the things I like about the lame-duck Bush administration is that it is doing its best to help our allies in Asia survive what is almost certain to be their virtual abandonment by President Obama. When Mr. Obama and his team kill or maim missile defense, gut the development of new weapons systems, cut the defense budget by a quarter, and route the money into a “civilian security corps”, you can bet that our friends on the Pacific Rim will get the short end of the deal.
But India seems to be confident that it can handle its role in the Brave New World, and is willing to extend its defensive umbrella to include the petroleum-rich nations of the Persian Gulf. According to AKI:
India: PM Vows to Defend Tiny Qatar ‘If Needed’
New Delhi, 12 Nov. (AKI/Asian Age) — In a clear indication that India’s strategic sphere of influence is rapidly expanding beyond its immediate neighbourhood, the Indian government has agreed “to go to the rescue of Qatar, if Qatar requires it.”
In marked contrast to the previous government, blocking US-backed moves by his deputy L.K. Advani to station Indian troops in Afghanistan, persistent efforts since 2005 by the tiny, energy-rich Gulf nation of Qatar to get a security deal bore fruit when Prime Minister Manmohan Singh agreed to protect Qatar’s considerable assets — petroleum and gas fields and sea lanes — if they were in peril.
“We will go to the rescue of Qatar if Qatar requires it, in whatever form it takes,” an official said as Singh concluded a visit to the energy rich Gulf state, even as an Indian naval vessel thwarted attempts by pirates to hijack a vessel off the pirate infested waters off the coast of Somalia.
The Indian Navy has been deployed off the Gulf of Aden for a little over a month.
Qatar has been most persistent, and being a tiny country, the energy rich nation was concerned about its own security, despite a large US base, strategically placed at the narrow mouth of the Strait of Hormuz, from where Washington monitors nuclear Iran, an unstable Iraq and China’s growing footprint in the region, especially in developing the Pakistani port city of Gwadar.
Officials downplayed the agreement’s significance, saying it would not be a precursor to similar agreements with other friendly Gulf countries like Oman, saying: “India will not station troops in any foreign country. We don’t want to fight other people’s wars in foreign countries. This agreement is Qatar-specific.”
The landmark security pact is however part of a larger area of cooperation where India and Qatar will work together to fight terrorism and cooperate on tackling transnational crime. A greater Indian naval presence could be seen in the Gulf as US troops shift their focus to Afghanistan-Pakistan.
US troops will not just be shifting their focus to South Asia; they will be shifting it stateside to help implement the new administration’s Mandatory Civil Service Plan. If the socialist ideologues on Mr. Obama’s team have their way, our military assets will be redeployed to become “block wardens” implementing Hope and Change in every neighborhood in America.
The United States of America, signing off…
As the West implodes with its final triumphant burst of Socialism, the Asian powers are poised to fill the resulting vacuum. India or China: who will win?
When the youngest of Gates of Vienna’s current readers reach my august age, they will in all likelihood be inhabitants of exhausted and diminished satellite states of the new hegemons of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
Where we think of London, Sydney, Los Angeles, Paris, New York, Rome, and Berlin, they will think of New Delhi, Tokyo, Taipei, Mumbai, Beijing, Seoul, and Hong Kong.
Much of the new civilization will contain recognizably Western elements. English will still be widely spoken as a lingua franca. India is already quite Western in culture and outlook, and allows its people at least as much political freedom as any country in the EU.
As for the Muslim world…
Islam will have to mind its p’s and q’s with the Asians running the show.
Hat tip: C. Cantoni
47 comments:
The world would be lucky to have the Indians win the Asian game plan.
I fear China.
Even the Bible predicted a world dominated by the yellow race.
As regarding our western world, we had our chance, but we killed ourselves in so many tribal wars and we allowed communism to destroy the rest.
Even the Bible predicted a world dominated by the yellow race.
Really? To what passage in the Bible are you referring?
When the youngest of Gates of Vienna’s current readers reach my august age, they will in all likelihood be inhabitants of exhausted and diminished satellite states of the new hegemons of the Indian Ocean and the Pacific.
That is a horrible, depressing thought. Yet you suppress all and any race-consciousness at your blog so I guess young white Europeans who doesn't relish the prospect of being subjugated and colonised by invading soldiers from the far-East will just have to like it or lump it.
I don't think he actually meant invasion. Just a political and diplomatic centre of gravity shifting to South Asia.
Afonso may doubt the power of minor nations putting just 4 to decide for Europe, but as an example for opposite read/translate from German on Politically incorrect
"Tariq Ramadan kapituliert vor Wien" (T.R.capitulates in front of Vienna)
Hahaha Tariq did not come to the conference in Vienna at all after all and the issuing facts are goood: Let your Austrian friends translate, the article has also a list of rules for the muslims living in Austria. Quite strict.
Limiting the power of muslims on a smaller ground seems to be viable.
The Germans and the French cannot dream of such a clear language and attitude.
Remove the top islam cops and the rest may crumble. Tariq Ramadan eliminated himself anticipating his defeat or what? Study the case in detail.
If China is worried, that's a good thing. I trust India a hell of a lot more than them, and India is a democracy to boot.
islam o'phobe --
H.H. is right -- I don't mean conquest or colonization. I mean that the remnant of Western culture in various countries will be subordinate to and dependent on whichever new civilization is dominant. Kind of a reversal of what India's status has been for the last 60 years.
Imagine if Flanders actually did secede from Belgium. Imagine if it also seceded from the European Union and adopted its own currency. Imagine if it reached out to Dutch speaking people throughout the world, including Suriname, the Netherlands, and South Africa. Imagine if it reached out to Americans. Imagine if secession from the European Union effectively made Antwerp the premier center for commerce in Europe.
It could happen. It could turn European politics upside down. It could stop the Euro-socialist juggernaut in its tracks. If Flemish separatists are sincere in their desire to create a new state for their nation, they have a potential for revitalizing the West.
It may be a long winter in the next four years in the United States, but many people in the States are accustomed to hunkering down to long hard winters. Spring will come. It may come sooner than we expect. After all, the Obama machine may not be quite so invincible as its propaganda would proclaim.
Yes, India and China are rising in the East. I won't count out North America or Europe, though. At least not yet.
Czechmade --
I know about Tariq's cancellation. I'm hoping for a report from ESW.
For India to be a major power it will need to reform its economy enough to be economically and militarily powerful. If it does this it will be a democratic, mostly English speaking, capitalistic nation with a major influence on the culture of the planet. By that time it will also have a far larger Christian minority. In other words, it will not have replaced America, it will BE America. All be it a strongly Hindu flavored America.
And there will be a similarly shaped but larger area of land made up of mostly English speaking, mostly Christian people ready to act as partners to India - Africa. And given the speed of China's missionary and English language acquisition, Africa, India and China might just become one large America.
"..... the new administration's Mandatory Civil Service Plan."
"Mandatory Civil Service Plan???"
Ahem..... for those of you who may be a bit rusty about your history, I strongly suggest that you refresh your memory. Do some google searching for: Freikorps, Sturmabteilung (SA or "Brownshirts,") or Waffen SS.
Or for that matter, Moa's Red Guards.
ooops..... I mean't >>> MAO's <<< Red Guards.
There have been so many mass-murdering dictators, it is difficult to keep them all straight in my mind.
The "yellow" race? Oi... Indians aren't really "yellow", neither are Koreans or Japanese. Not even all Chinese are "yellow".
India and China will eventually get closer, Korea will eventually be united, Taiwan, Korea and Japan will eventually ally. I'm expecting some sort of Asian Union within the next 50 years, but without the flaws they can observe in the European Union. They watch and learn, then they go ahead and make it better.
The rise if Eastern civilization?
Well, that goes back a few... hundred years. Let's not forget, the Chinese invented maths, the Indians invented the Zero. Algebra is also an Indian invention, which is, falsly, credited to the Arabs.
Or take Japan, which had some 250 years of relative peace (with a few, local rebellions against the Tokugawa) during which the country was a lot more civilized than Europe (and interestingly feudal Japan in the Edo Period was better armed than America.)
It becomes totally clear during Europe's Thirty Years War. The sacking of Magdeburg, for example, is an event that has no equivalent in Japanese history. The only similar event that happend was the Rape of Nanking, but that was in 1937 and has nothing to do with the 17th century.
When William Adams landed in Japan Europeans believed that bathing makes you sick, while the Japanese had a working bathing culture, and had that for centuries.
Tokyo's already beating every single European city, and not only in size, but also in infrastructure. I LOVE riding on the subway there. It's reliable, fast, clean and people actually behave (not always, of course, but it's a lot different -or shall I say superior- than the subway I ride in my home country every day). Police officer actually do their job, better yet, they are allowed to do their job.
The problem with China right now is the government, which will eventually also fade. In some 50 years China won't be communist anymore. Communism already has massive cracks in China and the people are becoming more and more unhappy. All the anti-Japanese protests which were ordered to happen by the government can't deny that. Dissent is spreading in China.
North Korea always amazes me. The country is down on the ground but somehow it keeps on running. But those days will eventually be over. The Koreas will be united within the next 50 years.
Me? I'm as good as gone from Europe. Just a few more years.
"India and China will eventually get closer, Korea will eventually be united, Taiwan, Korea and Japan will eventually ally."
Given the idea that the influence of the US is waning and the eastern star is rising does not bode well for Taiwan me thinks.
Decline of the West is relevant reading for today.
Takekaze: The Chinese did not invent mathematics. The truth is that given the size of their economy and their population, the Chinese were surprisingly weak in mathematics and in the abstract sciences in general. This proves that although some minimum level of wealth is certainly a necessary cause for the growth of modern science (extremely poor people concentrate on surviving, not on inventing comparative linguistics), it is by no means a sufficient one. The Chinese believed the Earth was flat until the seventeenth century AD, and they only corrected this after their astronomy - and their mathematics - had been virtually displaced by European astronomy. This was after European (Greek) astronomers had known that the Earth was spherical for more than two thousand years, a knowledge which, despite popular myths to the contrary, was never lost during medieval times. Asian rockets weighed a couple of kilograms at most and were powered by gunpowder. None of them would have been able to challenge the Earth's gravity, leave the atmosphere and explore the Solar System. In fact, Asians never coined the concept of "gravity" in the first place. Space travel is the invention of only one civilization, the Western one. None of the Asians ever came remotely close to achieving something similar on their own, not even the Japanese. In fact, without Europeans mankind might not have been able to explore the Solar System for many centuries yet, if ever.
India's mathematical tradition was more important than the East Asian one in a global perspective, but no, Indians did not invent algebra, the Mesopotamians did. Frankly, from the fourteenth century AD, which is to say the Italian Renaissance, until the twentieth century, almost all important global advances in mathematics were European. I would be tempted to say that the European global leadership was stronger in mathematics than in any other scholarly discipline. Perhaps the simplest explanation for why the Scientific Revolution happened in Europe is because the language of nature is written in mathematics, and Europeans did more than any other civilization to developed - or discover - the vocabulary of this language.
1848... I never really understood that year...
"This blog focuses on the struggle of the West against Islam, but Islam is the symptom, not the disease itself."
Great true Baron. It's like, nobody dies with HIV+.
"Islamic culture is a parasite upon the wealth and benignity of Western Civilization, and cannot survive without it." ... in the West, that is.
"One of the things I like about the lame-duck Bush administration is that it is doing its best to help our allies in Asia survive what is almost certain to be their virtual abandonment by President Obama."
Yes indeed. True again. I bet Taiwan will be a province of China before 2012. Hail Change!
"But India seems to be confident that it can handle its role in the Brave New World, and is willing to extend its defensive umbrella to include the petroleum-rich nations of the Persian Gulf."
This is horrible. India has been one of the greatest allies of Israel. There was a sort of "equilibrium" India-Israel vs Pakistan-Saudis. The Indian abandonment of Israel may simply derive from the Indian vision that Israel is already doomed and has no future.
"India is already quite Western in culture and outlook, and allows its people at least as much political freedom as any country in the EU."
No it is not. I prefer to be a very poor European than an average or "middle class" (very few) Indian. And when I say very poor, I mean very poor in Serbia or Moldova...
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In the end, there is no doubt that both India and China will be great powers. But they will not "rule" the West. They will be regional powers. That's the multipolar world. In Asia there are China and India as great powers and then there are lesser powers but that cannot be ignored like Russia or Japan. The world will indeed be multipolar.
Also interesting to debate is weather the West should support Hindu Nationalism like the BNP. Is it even moral? Don't we have anything to do with it? It is quiet challenging.
Somebody said they never understood 1848. The year of revolutions was produced by basically two things (both themselves sparked by a big European economic downturn): (1) a revolution in France produced by the failure of the July Monarchy in France to even try to broaden its support beyond the lower upper class -- the regime still might have pulled through had Louis-Philippe been more resolute; and, (2) the fundamental weakness of Metternich's Austrian state as opposed to the increasing economic vitality (despite a temporary downturn) of the rest of Germany.
When the revolutions in Germany failed, America benefited because it got scads of educated and articulate European refugees. In Europe itself the eventual beneficiary of the year of republican revolutions was the monarchial Prussian state.
"Afonso may doubt the power of minor nations putting just 4 to decide for Europe..."
Come on Czechmade... haven't you heard about the European Union?
Actually, there only needs to be a consensum between Germany, the U.K., France, Italy, Spain and Poland.
What are the real power of Spain or Poland? None.
Even Italy's power is more cultural than any other...
Look to the map of Europe!
Another reason for me to be against the Slavic inundation of the E.U. when I was pro E.U. was that the "King of the E.U." would cease to be France and Germany would take that place. The difference is that the French may not like us but they know they have to consider little Africa south of the Pyrinees to act, always. The Germans do not care at all if we exist or not. Actually, they only care if they can hit France trough the South.
The Benelux is a territorry that is French leaning or German leaning. They cannot "act" against the interests of both.
But... Poland? Czech Republic? That has been German lands for long... even the Balts, the three Baltic States have shown that they are German leaning.
Austria? I cannot distinguish Austria from Germany. The anschluss got more than 95% of the vote, did you knew that?
Slovenia and Croatia are also pro German and let's not even talk about Scandinavia.
So, do you really think that the small Nations coalition will be a viable "hope"? Really? Especially you being a Czech?
From what I have read, when Hitler came to power, Poland, Checoslovakia, France and Yugoslavia were allied. When Hitler said he wanted Sudetenland to be part of Germany and the big power France cowardly refused to honour its compromise, the alliance broke and even Poland attacked Checoslovakia. And yet, you want to repeat the same mistakes?
Tell me one such "little Nations coalition" that has ever made a difference? They were thirteen and now are ONE BIG NATION.
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Yeah, now come and say that there is no difference between East and West Europe. I am the first one to defend that European Civilisatin IS ONE, from London to Moscow, from New York to Los Angeles, from Buenos Aires to Sydney...
but for you to say that "there is no Eastern Europe" is nonesense.
I would not feel at home in Sweden. That is Western Europe. Though, I'd feel at home in Sweden if I had to opt between going Northwards 2000Kms or going South 300Kms to Morocco. That does not mean that Stockolm "is" like Lisbon. Northern Europe exists, Southern Europe exists. Just like West and East.
Thank you Supreme Boss!
"a big European economic downturn" ... I need to study more about that.
And Cobra, can you please tell us how the Bible say "the yellow race will rule the world"??? I am very curious.
"can you please tell us how the Bible say "the yellow race will rule the world"??? "
I think what Cobra is referring to is the Gog and Magog myth. Certain apocalypticists have speculated that Gog and Magog refers to Asian powers. Apparently, Magog might have been the historical Scythians who ruled a region north of the Black Sea. One blog I found mentions (without references) that the Arabs referred to the Great Wall of China as the "Wall of Al-Magog" -- a wall to keep out the Magog.
Supposedly Gog is the leader of the Magog. All this is supposed to refer to the last days in apocalyptic mythotypes.
So it could be that the people to worry about are not "yellow" but Russians -- what are Russians anyway, beige? :)
Europe was able to outpace China and the Orient because it was christian.
"The religion of Technology" is a book worth reading as is "The Triumph of the Reason" and they explain the why and how of this.
Afonso, you suffer greatly under snow ball effect. I do not expect to teach you something, I do it as an exercise for all.
So I should be carefull not to bicycle closer to the German border. There is gigantic cultural disruption
visible from Portugal?
The truth is we find Bavarians little bit stupid often not knowing the other Germans have the same feelings. However Bavarians think they are closer to us than to the Germans north of them. It may be true to some extent, I am unable to define what extent.
Rubbing maps with your nose is not good, rub some books. From my perspective the French are oriental. Speaking for hours and saying nothing is like Monty Python to me. Vivid zombies. Sarkozy or Chirac are great clowns insulting deeply my Western perceptions. I know enough Asia and French to appreciate their mental condition. I do not know much about Portugal but I know some funny stories from my friends. The word manana hunts my mind. If it is true, please do not claim to be Westerners.
So we donť have the prestige to hit you with a big cultural stick, but we have our little pointed observations which cannot bother you.
The regions identified with Gog and Magog are generally taken to be areas around persia and the middle east. They don't exist any more. Some people try and associate them with Russia via creative mispronunciation of Tubal and Meshech as Tobolsk and Moscow, and by mistranslating "Rosh" as a national name rather than as "chief" - associating the whole passage with Russia. It was believed that the soviet union would bring about the end times. They still try and make it fit but the truth is, Gog and Magog were most likely symbolic, not to be associated with real places.
Baron,
The question is not the "rise of Eastern Civilisation" but the "Return".
The reference to yellow race comes not from the Bible but from the prophesies of Nostrodamus.
Erich,
Thank you.
Basil, Nostradamus? That is a prophet I respect... But he did not said that Europe would perish in the hands of the "yellow race", did he?
Czechmade,
"So I should be carefull not to bicycle closer to the German border. There is gigantic cultural disruption..."
I never said that. What I say is that there is a... continuum?
Man, get over it! Why are you so desperate to be concerned Western European?
Really, I think you are really THE birdge. Historically speaking you can be seen as Western Europeans almost as much as you can be seen as Eastern Europeans.
However, I'd say that since... 1815(?) you have been "politically" Eastern Europeans.
Man, you see, I cannot consider any Swede to be Southern European nor can I consider one Portuguese, or Spaniard, to be Northern European.
However, I'd consider Northern French to be 80% Northern European and Southern France to be 80% Southern European. Thus, I'd consider France, a bridge between North and South.
My point remains. And "manana" is not even Portuguese, I have no idea of what you're talking about.
H.H. and B.B.,
Thank you for the clarification. The ongoing Islamic jihad against Europe has left me feeling more paranoid that I might otherwise be.
However I do not think that India is deserving of trust just because it is a great democracy. In India, massacres of Christians are often perpetrated by Hindu fundamentalists.
When the Indian Army invaded East Pakistan (Bangladesh) in the late 1970s their preferred method for pacifying the population was mass rape and terror.
Without even taking Communist China into account, I think that India is given far more diplomatic leeway than it realistically deserves. If India becomes a superpower then God help us all.
There is a lot of idealization of India and the Far East going on here, along with the denigration of the United States that has seeped over from far leftists and tinges discourse even here.
Japan is reverting to some kind of bizarre psychological cocoon with young adults ducking out of procreating responsibilities, the women surrounding themselves with Hello Kitty juvenalia, the men with pornography and paid sex, the elders left with their robotic substitute dogs, grandchildren and caregivers. A widely traveled friend just returned from India and said she will never return because she felt suffocated by the widespread and deep endemic poverty.
These nations and China for that matter enjoy success exactly in proportion to how well they follow the British-European-American model of rule of law linked with capitalism.
The USA still has a little less than half of its population that has retained its commonsense. I would not count them out while glorifying peoples most of the posters here have little understanding of even if they are living in their cities.
We as a culture have gone from one extreme, xenophobia "fear of the other" to the other extreme, exaltation of the other for no good reason.
They all have their weaknesses, just as we have ours. Lately they've been playing our weaknesses like a violin while we've been talking up their good points.
We need to see and talk about their their clay feet instead of politely ignoring them. Lord knows they concentrate on ours in the most rude way. But most importantly, WE NEED TO APPRECIATE OUR OWN CULTURE and don't say it doesn't exist when it simultaneously gets blamed for everything that has ever gone wrong on this earth.
Why do we give a minute's credibility to people who blame without any counterweight of appreciation for America's many fine points? These are not people of integrity.
Apologies if this in a misconception - but I get the impression some people here are confusing culture with civilisation. This is why I recommend Spengler's The Decline of the West which is the finest examination of culture and what it means.
Civilisation occurs in the autumn of a culture.
Afonso your journalistic obsession with bridges is amazing. Someone ascribes me a role and I should play obediently? This is disgusting.
EU declared Turkey to be a bridge to ME. The Germans created an official web qantara.de (bridge in Arabic)in English and German.
But can anyone explain this in really political terms? Any country with a big harbour is naturally bridged to any other harbour country. The bridge effect is much more obvious but somehow stupid to be put in words.
The main theme is you are totally ignorant of the reality on the ground, so you need some imagery to fill the void. Since education is too much work you are adamant with your opinion. I know nothing about Hungary, I took special pain to learn Polish and I was amazed at the differences and still continue to learn the Polish mindset. It is a tough job indeed. You have an easy job, you draw a line which is a pure non-sense. And I study. It is unjust. Learn in a second the term Central Europe and stop deporting me culturally in steppes and regions dominated by Kozaks and Tatars, exOsmanic empire (incl. Crimea), Byzantine
orthodoxy rites, icons etc. etc.
I am not part of this multiethnic carneval.
In fact I am Central Central European. Walking or bicycling around my territory I am amazed how far I can feel at home in various directions. In Germany Mittel Europa.
Central European mindset we can trace in Belgium as well. Not in Holland however. Around Hamburg, Kiel, Schleswig Holstein you sense strongly more Scandinavian winds. (Friesland is a mystery to me : divided between Holland and Germany). The language does not change much however.
Czechmade seems to seriously mean that Czech Republic is *purely* Western European, while at the same time Portugal is not Western at all.
I think Afonso's description of Czech Republic as a bridge between the West and the East was nicely put, and capture well the truth of the matter. But strangely enough Czechmade was very upset over it and found it offensive.
Czech Republic is very Western for being an Eastern European country. But let's get real. It's not closer to Bavaria then Slovakia.
stop deporting me culturally in steppes and regions dominated by Kozaks and Tatars, exOsmanic empire (incl. Crimea), Byzantine orthodoxy rites, icons etc. etc
You are a Slavic people, and culturally connected to the East by that. Even if we would dig up Czech Republic and trow it out in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean, it would still have this cultural connection to Eastern Europe.
However, you are also Catholics, which is Western Christianity. But surely there are Catholics in Africa too, and that doesn't make them Western Europeans.
No, it's the history of Czech Republic that makes it differ, being more developed, more industrialized, more Western, among the Eastern European countries -- a bridge, as Afonso so aptly put it.
We could of course also toy around with concepts such as Central Europe. But if both Czech Republic and Belgium are in that, the rest goes to the North, and Portugal is not Western, there will be only two countries left of Western Europe: France and Spain. But Spain is the country of "mañana" and France is colonized by Muslims, so suddenly Western Europe does no longer exist...
IN reality, the concepts Western/Eastern Europe are clear and established. However, anyone is free to toy around with the concepts any way they want. Just don't count on the toy concepts to catch on.
Western civilization did indeed once rise. If Eastern civilization were to rise, that woiuld be a good thing, but the fall of the West cannot be a substitute for that.
The only reason the East has finally risen in the last century is the pull and example of the West. As the West derails itself, the East will find it did not imbue itself with the fuel that once built the West, but only the leavings.
@Cobra, et al--
MiEven the Bible predicted a world dominated by the yellow race.
While I am a practicing Christian (have to keep practicing, hoping to get it right), casual Biblical prophecy is not something I trust.
One has to study the history of prophetic literature in its context for a long, long time in order to understand it, much less actually apply it to anything. I recommend beginning with Heschel's two volumes on the subject. His bibliography will keep one busy for years...too busy to use Scripture as a predictor of anything except how to live a moral live. And that's not prediection, it's prescription.
But hey, if a "yellow race" is going to take over everything, why couldn't this purported race simply be the result of much migration and intermarriage?
Thus, eventually, all our descendants will be some hue of "yellow" -- café au lait, golden brown, maple syrup, autumn leaf, burnt sugar, etc.
Just take a look the next time you're in the hardware store at all the fanciful names that they use for wall paints and you have the future colors of the human race right in front of you.
Eventually, there won't be anyone who isn't some variation on that theme of so-called "yellow".
It won't eliminate cultures, however. Just means they won't be tethered down to a person's hue.
IMHO, it will be all quite interesting...wish I were going to be around to listen to the conversations..."so this boy you plan to marry. Is he maple or is he autumn leaf? What does his father do?" (some questions never change).
I have great hopes for my Indian/Asian/European/African descendants.
Czechmade,
"Learn in a second the term Central Europe and stop deporting me culturally in steppes and regions dominated by Kozaks and Tatars, exOsmanic empire (incl. Crimea), Byzantine
orthodoxy rites, icons etc. etc.
I am not part of this multiethnic carneval."
Fair enough. So, it is a matter of concepts. To me Eastern Europe starts in the Easternmost neighbourhood of Vienna... while for you, it only starts East of Kyev...
but just a question, where does it end? In Xinjiang?
Maybe it is my fault... I see Finland and Czech Republic as "bridges" 40/60... and Greek is of course, classically Eastern...
Try to understand, from my window, I see a river that is 2 Kms from facing the Atlantic. Here there is even a current (or was) that we were Atlantic and should form the "Atlantic Axis" with, the U.K., Ireland, the U.S., Brazil and Africa... even France is too Eastern from us (no sarcasm)...
Besides, do you know how we call Eastern Spain? Valencia and such? The "Levante", like the West of the Middle East... Lebanon and Syria and Israel...
So, sorry if I have difficulty to see an Eastern Europe starting from Kyev, I bet your concept of Europe is well suited to you.
And yes, Turkey is "a bridge" between the East and Europe, for the better and the worst... I recommend you the book by Ohmar Pamuk over Istambul...
I did not meant to offend.
"Thus, eventually, all our descendants will be some hue of "yellow" -- café au lait, golden brown, maple syrup, autumn leaf, burnt sugar, etc."
And aren't we already mixed enough?
Compare the invasions Europe have suffered and those of East Asia and Africa...
and yeah, we are the pure ones...
And by the way, golden brown is such a great corporal colour... it is really great, unfortunateley, the fashion here went to extremes:
From soaps that promised that would turn the skin of the women "as white as the Englishwomen" in the 1920s to tans, the "browner" the better...
And my loved golden brown was lost in the way...
There goes the white power...
Try Lwow/Lwiw/Lemberg, not Kiyev.
Remember also that we civilized Sweden - they plundered all possible art objects and books they have never seen before during the 30 years war.
5 km from my village you might be happy to see then one of the most devastating typically eastern european battles - Swedes won over Austrians. It is nice to know that most Westerners are the fish in the Atlantic - as seen from your window. Do you have books in Portugal - besides windows and fish?
Maybe the Turks would love to know they are the bridge to Kurdistan.
Unfortunately this word is not yet in circulation there.
"Do you have books in Portugal - besides windows and fish?"
No we don't. Czech literature rules. And is very Western.
Czechmade,
Remember also that we civilized Sweden - they plundered all possible art objects and books they have never seen before during the 30 years war.
Well thank you indeed. As our prime minster Reinfeldt said, Sweden was nothing but barbarity back in the times. If it hadn't been for the Slavic people, the Arabs etc., we would still be running around naked, hacking flint stones up here. (Well oops, we are still running around naked according to the Qaddafi.)
5 km from my village you might be happy to see then one of the most devastating typically eastern european battles - Swedes won over Austrians.
Well duh! Böhmen and Mähren was full of Germans back then. But you decided to throw out the Germans, and thereby you firmly established yourselves as an Eastern European country. You cannot both eat the cake and keep it.
Try Lwow/Lwiw/Lemberg, not Kiyev.
Fair enough. Let Ukraine go to the deep east, i.e. the Russian domain :-)
I also like your urge to define your identity according to the extension of the Austrian Empire (which extended as far as Lemberg/Lviv). As I have said I'd like to see the Germans coming back as an "imperial" player on the European stage. And these countries/regions (which once belonged to Austria) will very clearly prefer to be ruled by Germans before being ruled by the Russians (including the Ukrainians of the Lviv region). And American imperialism and Wilsonian Lilliputian mosaic won't be available by the end of this century, I expect.
Btw, Austria = Österreich = Eastern land.
"And American imperialism and Wilsonian Lilliputian mosaic won't be available by the end of this century, I expect."
Wow... are you saying it is the end of Nations???
I don't think so. However one of the criterious to discern Western for Eastern is that Historically, the East has been controled by foreign powers: Germany, Austia, Russia and Otomans while the West has been more or less European. Even Portugal or Denmark or Switzerland; Even the many German and Italian States... Scotland, Ireland was always Ireland though being "ruled" by England. I think France was the exception instead of the rule in the West.
I think that only the Eastern Nations are at risk. I think we will see more federalism in Germany and Italy but also a stronger National Italian and German sense. Here in Hispania, we will definetly see the end of Spain: Or we will unite in a kind of Hispanic federation with a great Portugal and a independent Catalonia and base our foreign politics in mutual well being, or we will balkanize.
This of course, if Europe still exists in 150 years...
Afonso,
Wow... are you saying it is the end of Nations???
Not at all.
Have no illusions. Today we are ruled by the Americans. What I am saying is that this is going to change. That's almost a platitude.
Other great powers will fill the space of a withdrawn America. As we have recently seen in e.g. Abkhazia and South Ossetia. And as you might have noticed that gave birth to nation states, not the other way around.
Your question is posed as if nationalism was an invention of the American president Woodrow Wilson. I can tell you it's not. Take a look at a map of Europe from before WWI.
This is what I call true diversity. A mix of multiethnic empires and nation states. And you should pay attention, Afonso, to how the nationalist movement was started in the East. By Greece, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria breaking free from the Ottomans.
But then came Wilson with his ideologically imposed Lilliputian mosaic. In his ideological mindset, empires had to be banned. He didn't care much for reality, ideology was more important. He made it into a "human rights" issue to have one's own nation state. Not regarding the least how his illusionary "organized peace" ripped away the naturally evolved and necessary power balance in Europe, creating dangerous vacuums. As it has been pointed out, if Hitler had a sense of humour he would have raised a statue of Woodrow Wilson.
Nevertheless, the Europeans still live under the very same Wilsonian Lilliputian mosaic delusion (yes the EU is an expression of that). But this is merely a house of cards. The day a major conflict breaks out on European soil it will fall apart almost instantaneously, and Europe will rearrange itself accordingly. Most smaller nations will feel "naked" and exposed as hermit crabs, and immediately look for a protective shell. Europe will go back to its natural state of a multipolar system of power balance between the bigger states.
And it does not matter much in this perspective whether the smaller nations have their own flags and their own coloured blob on maps. Their true protection comes from somewhere else, and along with that political and cultural influence. It's the very same today under the Americans. Only that America is an empire-in-denial, so part of the deal of being ruled by Americans is that one has to pretend one is not ruled by Americans. Denial is a very complex and paradoxical thing. And it makes Europeans true believers in Wilsonian Lilliputian mosaic and that "organized peace" is a natural state of things. Since the Americans have been so keen on not being seen as rulers, the Europeans have taken this literally and truly believe that America is not at all necessary for the peace in Europe or the order or the world; that the EU is a power in its own right, and not just a fantasy construction under America's protective wings.
This belief is taken so far by the Europeans that they have come to see America as the one threatening this beautiful order of things. This is how delusional people truly are. The whole thing is the most absurd parody.
Have to agree 100% with conservative Swede on Europe's delusions and contempt for her American sugar daddy who will be appreciated more by hindsight in his coming absence than all the years of devoted protection by a defence umbrella that let Europe spend all her money on Welfare candy.
The USA is over extended and the pampered European princess is going to have to handle her own self-inflicted traumas. The boyfriend she swoons for, Obama is an effete poseur who thinks he can talk bullies into good behavior. Good luck with that combination - petulant princess and King of the Gasbags.
"The USA is over extended and the pampered European princess is going to have to handle her own self-inflicted traumas. The boyfriend she swoons for, Obama is an effete poseur who thinks he can talk bullies into good behavior. Good luck with that combination - petulant princess and King of the Gasbags."
Laine, you don't get it do you? can't you take conclusions out of the polls?
70% Europeans aprove an Obama for America, but if the question is an Obama for their European countries that plummets to like 38%.
Europe is not a princess, it's a ethnocentric bully who thinks he is so much bigger and powerfull than what he really is, that facing a islamization or colonization of sorts as a serious threat is so ridicule it can only be a sign of racism. So they prescribe an Obama for that America who lives in their minds and needs a "change". But when faced with shit like racial quotas coming from affirmative action and a pampered by the elites ethnic presidential candidate, the confortable feeling of being sooo safe goes away.
You don't want to push a medium sized bully to the scared zone, when shown his real sized and faced with a real threat he will go for the neck and nuts, no apologies and no remorse.
We're like a slightly more moderate Russia, i know that now. What Europeans lack now in resolve and motivation, they will compensate later with desproportionate ruthleness (French are a clear example, they get lectured allot by their elites about being racist, but they don't seem to change, apart from being pushed a little more against the wall). Our sense of kin is still very well rooted, wich makes us "racists" big time in american eyes.
Have a nice day :)
"This is what I call true diversity. A mix of multiethnic empires and nation states. And you should pay attention, Afonso, to how the nationalist movement was started in the East. By Greece, Serbia, Romania and Bulgaria breaking free from the Ottomans."
This is what I've been saying lately as well. Multiculturalism is an unreal intellectual abstraction that relates to real cultural interaction and variety like a vampire relates to a healthy man.
The same can be said for today's liberal democracy. It's a mockery of it's pre 1914 equivalent.
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