Showing posts with label don't know much about history. Show all posts
Showing posts with label don't know much about history. Show all posts

Sunday, February 4, 2018

Travel Lessons: History and Relationships

People ask what I've learned in my travels. Two areas stand out: history and personal relationships. 

In Santo Domingo, I learned Christopher Columbus was an Italian whose voyages were funded by Spain to promote economic trade, including the slave trade. Colombus aka Colombo aka Cristobal Colon was buried in the Dominican Republic but his remains were later moved to Spain. 


His voyages helped Catholic Spain map shipping routes that would allow the Spanish to take gold, silver, and other commodities back to Europe and establish European influence—including the horrific transatlantic slave trade—in the Americas. From what I gather, Catholic Spain exported African slaves to the Caribbean initially to mine gold and silver. Later, governments, even when independent from European influence, could not wean their economies away from manual labor intensive industries and adapted the slave trade to cocoa/cacao, coffee, sugar, and tobacco. The American South was, in effect, colonized by Catholic Spain, who gave the Americas the Spanish word "Negro," thus reducing an entire group of people into a color. 

Colon Park, Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic
In Mexico City, I learned about artist Diego Rivera, featured on Mexico's 500 peso note, and his antipathy towards the Catholic Church and Hernan Cortes, who wiped out or subjugated much of Mexico's indigenous population. Columbus's voyages created new shipping routes and seafaring maps allowing Cortes to go further, and he succeeded, extending the European slave trade to Mexico to exploit Mexico's vast natural resources, especially gold and silver. I gather no one in Cortes' military thought of themselves as exploiting anything or anyone--they were paid to discover new lands and new resources to spread Spain's influence worldwide, and if they didn't do it, surely someone else eventually would. 
Mexico City's Palace of Fine Arts
The collision between Spain's military values and Mexico's farming values--explained well in Mexico City's Museum of Anthropology--generated much bloodshed and conflict. Pre-Cortes, the indigenous population depended on corn/maize to survive. Without advanced farming equipment, they were often dependent on Nature's vicissitudes, which explains much of their culture (human sacrifices, animals as gods, etc.). 

Growing up in California, I had assumed Mexicans always spoke Spanish, but of course the language is not indigenous to Mexico. The similarities between English, Spanish, and French--all European languages--as well as their differences once exported to faraway countries make sense once history is taken into account. So, too, does modern Mexico City, where many of the residents in upper-class neighborhoods look/are white. 


All over the world, once a foreign language is imported into a country by a militarily-advanced opponent, the language usually becomes the official language of the government, which then promotes civilian employment--and export of natural resources--favoring the militarily-advanced country. Lawyers and diplomats operating in the host country's language are also able to draft contracts with trade terms favoring their employer, such as the "most favored nation status" clause, which assisted the growth of the U.S. economy post-WWII. We now understand why educated people in Tunisia speak French, not Arabic; why educated Filipinos speak English, not Spanish; and so on. 


In any case, the aforementioned linguistic policy/practice tends to create internal social strife by generating inequality between government employees and their allies--buffeted by new money and often new currency--and groups outside their orbit. This economic shift also creates cultural and therefore communication gaps between the blue collar workforce and a new intellectual elite where only one of the aforementioned groups is immediately exposed to Shakespeare, the Bible, or whichever conduit is used to promote the values of the now entrenched country. As one might suspect from studying Diego Rivera, the blue collar workforce often feels excluded from the capitalist or white collar sector, which dominates military and banking decision-making. From this lesson, we can begin to understand the catalysts behind Mao's Revolution in China, formally called the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. We can also see how governments that promulgate certain values lose credibility if such values are applied inconsistently to all residing groups. 


One of my gaps in understanding history is trying to figure out from where Spain bought and/or captured slaves. A European Africa Company modeled on the East India Companies in Holland and Britain failed. If Arab merchants were trading slaves in ways that knowingly led to their exploitation rather than integration into the more affluent employers’ families (such as a nanny taking care of her employer’s children and a de facto part of the family), they were violating the Prophet Muhammad’s express and clear edicts. And indeed, the Saharan slave trade occurred primarily from the 16th century onward--after the Portuguese took over the Strait of Malacca from the Arabs, signaling Islam's decline in SE Asia and the world. Even now, the Strait of Malacca is vital to world trade, as evidenced by tiny Singapore's trillion dollar sovereign wealth fund. 

As for the Swahili coast slave trade, "Because of the lack of explicit evidence, [some experts] even question the existence of the slave trade on the Swahili coast before the Omani settlement on the coast in the eighteenth century... Nevertheless, most of the historians of the Swahili world have generally adopted a prudent position, admitting the existence of the slave trade, but maintaining that before the end of the eighteenth century, it remained a minor part of the coastal trade compared to the trade in ivory or gold." (Interestingly, Dibba, Oman was the site of one of the great battles of the Ridda Wars, where Adz troops refused to swear allegiance to the descendants of the prophet Mohammad (PBUH); today, most Omanis practice Ibadi Islam, aka Ibāḍiyya, a unique version of Islam.) 

History rarely provides clarity, but in this case, we know after Malacca fell to the Portuguese in 1511, Islamic influence waned worldwide. Thus, it is not coincidental if greater European influence in Africa post-1511 led to a higher--and more brutal--slave trade where chattel slavery flourished, whereas Islam mitigated the practice and never based it on color. (See, for example, Tippu Tip aka Tippu Tib aka  Hamad bin Muhammad bin Juma bin Rajab el Murjebi aka  حمد بن محمد بن جمعة بن رجب بن محمد بن سعيد المرجبي‎, an Afro-Arab slave trader, ivory trader, plantation owner, and governor.) African Muslims were not allowed to be enslaved, and as Islam spread in Africa from 600 AD, it slowly replaced tribal practices, which included slavery and slave trading. 

"If you read... there's stuff in there about genocide, about slavery, about the breeding of human beings which, if you're of African descent in this [Western] hemisphere, that's your legacy, you were bred into existence. Usually raped, but it was a breeding project of form." -- Junot Diaz (2012)

And so, the slave trade and the reasons for its transatlantic expansion help us to understand Islam, its conflict with Christian Europe, and why Arab merchants and their successors despised Prophet Muhammad and his deliberate regulations against slavery, going so far as to attempt to assassinate him numerous times. (This Islamic conflict between slaveholders and anti-slavery advocates occurred much earlier--over a thousand years before America's Civil War--showing that history does indeed repeat itself.) 

Virginia has a long history to confront. Our nation's experience with slavery began there... in Jamestown in 1619... It was the unfreedom of 40% of Virginia's population that made the liberty of the rest imaginable as well as materially possible. The economic viability of both the colony and the new nation depended on slave labor. -- Drew Gilpin Faust (The Atlantic, "Carry Me Back," August 2019) 

The attempts on the Prophet Muhammad's life forced him to flee from his birthplace, Mecca, to Medina, where he realized the Arab Establishment and their hired mercenaries would not stop trying to kill him, forcing him to take defensive measures. Even after Prophet Muhammad’s death, Arab rulers killed one of his grandsons, Husayn aka Hussein, indicating continuing power struggles within the Arab community. From this lesson, we can begin to understand the reasons for the modern-day power struggle in the Middle East between Shia Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia. 


Until I traveled, I disliked history immensely. I suppose I intuitively realized the way it was taught was a waste of time. I earned top marks in my history classes, but the more I travel, the more I'm angered at America's governmental-academic complex, which seems to teach nothing well--while charging exorbitant tuition or taking state funding from other community-building projects. 


As for personal relationships, that's a story for another time... 


[To be continued?] 


© Matthew Rafat (2018)

Thursday, December 7, 2017

A Primer on Modern History

The study of modern history is needlessly complicated. Unfortunately, most history teachers and professors spent their lives in a few countries or studied only a single subject, rendering them unable to provide the context students so desperately need. I have tried below to provide a straightforward framework acceptable to everyone. Without such a framework, historical understanding will fracture, and humanity will continue to repeat the same mistakes.
Since 1945, every single government and military has been focused on attaining or preventing others from attaining nuclear weapons. After the United States dropped bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, ending WWII, politicians and military leaders realized existing defense/protection paradigms no longer applied. A country with the most skilled troops, superior munitions, most efficient supply chains, best hygiene (to prevent disease, which often killed more soldiers than active combat), and even superior strategy would not necessarily prevail. Now, only three things mattered: technology and the ability and willingness to use it. Developing brawn had given way to developing brains and gaining (accurate) information.

Military budgets prioritized R&D and began to emphasize covert operations. As governments continued competing for the moral high ground, questions became more complex. When was a first strike politically acceptable? How could one determine whether a recruit would keep secrets? How could countries identify the best minds in the world and entice them to relocate? (e.g., Operation Paperclip) 

Such a shift required a mix of intrigue, psychology, persuasion, media influence, and propaganda. Intelligence communities realized they would be key players in the new paradigm and, in an era prior to CCTVs and ubiquitous technological surveillance, reliable human assets and agents would be the difference between victory and defeat. Furthermore, where soft power and persuasion would not work, assassinations and abductions would--preferably through a third party ally. [Evidence: Operation Damocles; Anwar al-Awlaki and his 16 years-old son; Israel assassinating Iranian nuclear scientists Masoud Alimohammadi, Majid Shahriar, Darioush Rezaeinejad, Mostafa Ahmadi Roshan, and possibly Ardeshir Hassanpour, mimicking USA's strategy against Germany.] 

Such tactics were not enough for military and intelligence units, which also resorted to false flag operations or coups on a much wider scale. [e.g., Gulf of Tonkin, Lavon Affair/Operation Susannah, 
Operation Ajax (1953), Operation Musketeer (1956)] Facing potential conflicts between civilian and military objectives, democratic regimes sought to limit international interference with domestic governance, causing ideological splits regarding the balance of law, order, and dissent. As domestic resistance increased, it had the potential to upend military alliances post-WWII, which involved important economic treaties and investments. (See “most favored nation” clause, which used USA's stronger currency to tilt trade in its favor: “The American workman, by 1960, had the highest standard of living in the world, and all due to what they genteelly called ‘the most favored nation’ clause in every commercial transaction with the East.” – Philip K. Dick

The failure of Western governments to foresee strong domestic resistance to international policies led to more secrecy in the name of national security, both at home and abroad. The private security industry, not subject to invasive government oversight, began its ascent. British-based Securicor is one example. In 1953, it specialized in delivery and logistics, eventually making its way into the telecom (aka surveillance and data-gathering) business. Today, it is part of G4S, the world's largest security company. With 585,000 employees, G4S is the world's third largest private sector employer and the largest in Europe and Africa. (See the film Logan (2017) for a dystopian view of the possible evolution of private security firms.) 

Returning to the 1960s, covert operations and violations of territorial sovereignty (Operation Menu) became more accepted within governments as the United States began to realize its superior armaments were not enough in Vietnam. As nuclear energy and more lethal weapons accelerated the risks of being outside established alliances, countries and military leaders were forced into one of two camps: pro-Soviet Union (which in practice often meant pro-China) and pro-American. Meanwhile, existing and aspiring world leaders learned that favorable (or in the case of Vietnam, unfavorable) media coverage and asymmetrical warfare—later used by Osama bin Laden—could defeat larger powers or at least convince them to leave. Like private security firms, the general media industries--in this case, television and radio--began their steady ascent. 

Its ability to influence world affairs now jeopardized by increasing Chinese and Soviet influence in Asia and Eastern Europe as well as domestic turmoil, America began addressing matters under its direct control more forcefully. American police started using the same tactics as the military and intelligence communities on their own people. (Potential lesson: once the military uses a particular strategy successfully, it is only a matter of time before the civilian government deploys similar strategies.) 

Surveillance, infiltration, and financially-debilitating lawsuits were used against antiwar groups and activists from MLK to Muhammad Ali to John Lennon. The term “law and order” became a justification for a proxy war against protesters, later morphing into President Reagan’s "War on Drugs." Ironically, countervailing forces that bolstered social change came partly from the military, which had relied on greater female participation in the private workforce during wartime as well as soldiers of color, including but not limited to Jackie Robinson

Politicians like America's Joseph McCarthy had used the media to blacklist anyone deemed an adversarial nonconformist in the 1950s at the same time the Soviet Union and its satellite forces were blacklisting and jailing dissidents.As power-hungry politicians gained more power, propaganda against dissenters became more widespread, with police officers in some jurisdictions ordered to attack nonviolent protestors while federal agencies (J. Edgar Hoover) spied on civil rights leaders. As lines between international and domestic operations blurred, the Watergate scandal was a natural and inevitable result. (See The Most Dangerous Man in America (2009).) 

Were it not for the courageous work of American whistleblowers and journalists (e.g., All the President’s Men (1976)), who often ignored conservative legal advice from their employers, secretive operations would have continued without abatement. Unfortunately, civilian resistance movements against the Eastern Establishment were not as strong as ones in the West, thus preserving the East's status quo--a status quo that would later prove to be unsustainable, essentially bankrupting the Soviet Union and ending its petro-military-industrial economic model. 

In the West, where the status quo was fraying, greater diversity flourished, both strengthening and weakening authoritarian impulses. Taking advantage of distractions in Southeast Asia and Central/South America, some countries decided to cooperate outside U.S. or Soviet-led alliances, much in the same way China would later exploit America’s failure to “pivot to Asia” after the costly and counterproductive 2003 Iraq War. [Examples: creation of ASEAN in 1967; “mid-level” countries like Argentina and Iran working to resume nuclear cooperation, only to see outside events interfere with their relationships, such as the Buenos Aires 1992 embassy bombing, in which neither Argentina nor Iran strangely derived any benefit.]

In 1973, the OPEC embargo added yet another disruptor to the existing world order, namely the integrity of the oil supply chain, which formed the underlying basis of U.S. dollar strength and numerous economic treaties. Post-Nixon and the cessation of active armed conflict between West and East, economic statecraft became the way forward, with America’s mighty Navy and more developed financial markets giving the West a clear advantage. Trade, oil, weapons development, and continued control of nuclear energy would dominate international relations until the birth of the internet in the 1990s. The formal dissolution of the Soviet Union on December 26, 1991 provided America with the opportunity to create what President George Bush, formerly the CIA's Director, called a “new world order” on September 11, 1990, a period lasting until September 11, 2001. America's 2003 invasion of Iraq, driven by falsified pretenses, shattered America's reputation, allowing other countries to vie for global dominance. And here we are

© Matthew Mehdi Rafat (2017)

Bonus: another historical pattern is that when two countries enter into a treaty—whether to avoid war or after a conflict—often only one party intends on upholding the terms. The other party uses the break in tensions to disarm—both literally and figuratively—the other signatory, eventually invading the former enemy and prevailing through political chicanery.

Bonus: when we hear the term, "divide and conquer," we typically understand the term absent historical context. After WWII, the British, despite prevailing, were in debt and could not maintain their empire, which once spanned a quarter of the globe. They attempted to break up or partition several areas in order to more easily manage them and to allow Western powers to maintain naval supremacy. Singapore's break from Malaysia is one example--keep the port, leave the land. Divide and conquer. Yet, even with lesser security obligations, European powers, particularly the British and the French, could not afford empire status. By the time of the Vietnam War, Europe had effectively handed off empire duties and corresponding security--both for Westerners living abroad as well as Western-owned businesses--to the United States. 

Bonus: from Allison J. Truitt's Dreaming of Money in Ho Chi Minh City (2013): "The United States' massive military expenditures in Southeast Asia led to the collapse of its ability to maintain the dollar's fixed value relative to gold. When the US government put an end to the dollar's convertibility in 1971, it ushered in a new era of more flexible and more volatile exchange rates." 

Bonus: counterpoint from Singapore's Kishore Mahbubani's Has the West Lost It? (2018)

Bonus
: if you enjoyed this post, you may also like this one: Ports, Finance, Power, and Free Trade

Bonus: "History... is not merely something to be read... On the contrary, the great force of history comes from the fact that we carry it within us, are unconsciously controlled by it in many ways, and history is literally present in all that we do.  It could scarcely be otherwise, since it is to history that we owe our frames of reference, our identities, and our aspirations." -- James Baldwin, USA (1965)