The second return of Napoleon?

 

I asked ChatGPT about a strange claim made in the commentary section of the YouTube video I linked to in the previous blog post. Ooookay...

Is it true that a group of Brazilian rebels wanted to free Napoleon from Saint Helena and elect him leader of their rebellion against the Portuguese monarchy?

Yes, it’s true! There was a remarkable but somewhat obscure incident in Brazilian history involving a rebellion and Napoleon Bonaparte that ties into your question. Here's the story:

The Napoleon in Brazil Rebellion (1809-1810):

In the early 19th century, after Napoleon's defeat and exile to the island of Saint Helena in 1815, a group of Brazilian rebels did indeed have plans to free him and install him as a leader to challenge the Portuguese monarchy in Brazil.

The main figure behind this scheme was General José da Costa Carvalho, a former Portuguese army officer who had fled to Brazil after Napoleon’s forces were driven out of Portugal. Along with a group of other discontented Portuguese and Brazilian officers, they believed that the emperor of Brazil at the time, Dom João VI, who had moved the Portuguese court to Rio de Janeiro in 1808, was not a strong enough leader to inspire and unite the growing Brazilian independence movement. They believed that Napoleon Bonaparte, who was still a figure of admiration and romanticism for some in Brazil, could be a powerful symbolic leader for their cause.

The Plot:

• The group of rebels thought that if they could somehow free Napoleon from Saint Helena, he would lead a revolution in Brazil against the Portuguese crown.

• Their plan was to rally support for Napoleon's return to power and have him take leadership in a revolt against the ruling Portuguese forces. They intended to use Napoleon's influence to legitimize their revolt and, in turn, gain a new direction for Brazil's independence.

The Scheme’s Collapse:

• The plot to rescue Napoleon from Saint Helena was never executed, and it was eventually discovered by the Portuguese authorities.

• Most of the conspirators were arrested, and the idea of having Napoleon as a figurehead for Brazilian independence was quickly abandoned.

The Larger Context:

• This event happened at a time when Brazil was on the brink of significant political and social change. The Portuguese monarchy had been established in Brazil after Napoleon’s occupation of Portugal, but there was significant resentment from Brazilian elites about the dominance of the Portuguese court and its influence in Brazilian affairs.

• While the Napoleon plot failed, it was just one part of the larger independence movement that would culminate in Brazilian independence in 1822, under the leadership of Dom Pedro I, the son of Dom João VI.

Why Was This So Fascinating?

The idea of Napoleon Bonaparte, a leader whose empire had once stretched across Europe, being resurrected as a leader for Brazilian rebels shows the degree to which Napoleon's charisma and reputation persisted long after his fall from power. Even as he was in exile, Napoleon was still seen by some as a potential rallying point for anti-monarchical and nationalist movements.

Conclusion:

Yes, a group of Brazilian rebels did, at one point, entertain the idea of freeing Napoleon from his exile on Saint Helena and having him lead their rebellion against the Brazilian emperor, Dom João VI. However, the plot never materialized, and the rebels were ultimately caught and punished. Nonetheless, it remains a fascinating and odd episode in the history of Brazil's struggle for independence.

Would you like to know more about this period in Brazilian history or the larger context of Napoleon’s influence in South America?

The larger context.

The larger context surrounding the attempt to free Napoleon and install him as a leader of Brazilian rebels is deeply tied to the broader political and social upheavals of the early 19th century, including the Napoleonic Wars, Portuguese monarchy’s shift to Brazil, and the emerging movements for Brazilian independence. Here’s a breakdown of these interconnected historical events:

1. The Napoleonic Wars and the Fall of Portugal

The Napoleonic Wars (1803–1815) were a series of conflicts involving Napoleonic France against various European coalitions. In the early 19th century, Napoleon’s conquests significantly reshaped the political landscape of Europe.

• In 1807, Napoleon’s forces invaded Portugal. Faced with the imminent threat of occupation, the Portuguese royal family, led by Prince Regent João VI (later Dom João VI), fled to Brazil, which was then a colony of Portugal. The royal court set up its capital in Rio de Janeiro, turning the Brazilian colony into the seat of the Portuguese Empire.

• This move was highly symbolic: Brazil was no longer just a colony; it became the heart of the Portuguese monarchy, making Rio de Janeiro a major political, cultural, and administrative hub.

2. The Rise of Brazilian Nationalism

As the Portuguese court established itself in Rio de Janeiro, tensions began to rise between the Portuguese authorities and the Brazilian elite. The long-standing inequalities and colonial status of Brazil were no longer acceptable to many Brazilians, especially those who had grown accustomed to seeing their country as the center of the empire, not just a backwater colony.

• In 1820, the Portuguese Revolution broke out, which demanded a return to a constitutional monarchy and limited the power of the king. This put significant pressure on Dom João VI, who was forced to return to Portugal in 1821, leaving his son Dom Pedro I behind as the regent of Brazil.

• Dom Pedro I, while maintaining loyalty to his father, became increasingly sympathetic to Brazilian aspirations. By 1822, after much political turmoil, Dom Pedro I declared Brazil’s independence from Portugal and became its first emperor. This act marked the end of colonial rule, but it also highlighted the growing tensions between Brazilian nationalists and the Portuguese monarchy.

3. The Role of Napoleon’s Legacy

Despite his fall from power and his exile to Saint Helena after the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, Napoleon’s reputation and influence did not disappear. In fact, his legacy became a symbol of revolution, nationalism, and anti-monarchism for many in Europe and the Americas.

• Napoleon Bonaparte, as a former emperor and revolutionary figure, symbolized the overthrow of old monarchies and the rise of new, nationalist and republican ideologies. Even though his empire had collapsed, many people still saw him as a leader who could challenge the old order, particularly monarchies like the one in Portugal.

• Napoleon's supporters in Brazil and elsewhere were disillusioned with monarchies. The Napoleonic legend inspired romantic visions of freedom and national greatness, especially among people who opposed the Portuguese monarchy and felt Brazil deserved greater independence and sovereignty.

4. Brazilian Rebellion and Napoleon’s Appeal

The group of Brazilian rebels who wanted to free Napoleon and install him as a leader against the Portuguese monarchy were motivated by these anti-monarchical and nationalistic ideals. By this point, Napoleon was more of a symbol than a practical leader, but his influence was strong among revolutionaries, especially in the context of Brazil’s growing desire for autonomy.

• The Brazilian elites had growing frustrations with the Portuguese court and felt that Dom João VI’s rule was overly dependent on Portuguese interests. Some saw Napoleon as a possible alternative who could rally Brazilians against the monarchy and, more importantly, against Portuguese dominance.

• The idea of Napoleon’s return would have been seen as an attempt to break free from the old colonial structure and create a new political order that was more independent and more in line with nationalist sentiments in Brazil. Napoleon’s military prowess and authoritarian rule made him an attractive figure for people seeking a decisive leader.

5. The Larger Impact of the Napoleonic Wars on Latin America

The Napoleonic Wars, and especially Napoleon’s invasion of Spain and Portugal, had a profound effect on the independence movements in Latin America. His rise and fall disrupted traditional European power structures and weakened Spain and Portugal's ability to control their colonies.

• The Spanish colonies in Latin America had already begun to rebel in the early 1800s, with independence movements in places like Argentina, Chile, and Mexico gaining traction.

• In Brazil, the shift of the Portuguese monarchy to Rio de Janeiro accelerated the desire for self-rule, and Napoleon’s legacy became a powerful symbol for those pushing for Brazilian independence.

6. Failed Rebellion and Long-Term Outcomes

While the Brazilian plot to free Napoleon failed, it was part of a broader pattern of nationalist movements and revolutionary ideas spreading across Latin America. Despite this failure, Brazilian independence was eventually achieved in 1822 with the declaration of independence by Dom Pedro I.

• The Napoleonic influence was not the sole reason for Brazil’s independence, but it played a role in shaping the political climate of the time, and Napoleon’s revolutionary and anti-monarchical spirit resonated with many rebels.

Conclusion:

The plot to free Napoleon from Saint Helena and use him as a figurehead for Brazilian rebellion reflects the intertwining of Napoleon’s legacy with the rising nationalist movements in Latin America. Napoleon represented an alternative to European monarchies, and his influence continued to shape revolutionary thinking in the Americas, even after his downfall. While the plot failed, it was part of a broader wave of independence across the continent, and Brazil’s eventual independence in 1822 marked the end of colonial rule in the region.

Would you like more details on Brazil’s independence movement or Napoleon’s broader impact on the Americas?

Iberian blackout

 

How can all of Spain and Portugal be affected by a power outage? Incompetence, corruption...Russians?! 

The hybridogenesis of man

 

It seems the human story still has some surprises for us...

Mystery population gave us 20% of our genes

Sapiens-Neanderthal hybrid lived after Neanderthal extinction

Origins

 

I´m reposting this every year, it seems, and here we go again...

So I tried to read "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Earth History" (2018) by Lewis Dartnell. It was hard, and after a while, I started skimming some chapters rather than reading them in detail. This boring tome must be the ultimate nerd book! Think geology, plate tectonics, meteorology, palentology...you get the picture. But OK, I did glean some interesting facts from it. And if you are a nerd, well, you know what to do... 

The book is a "deeper" version of Jared Diamond´s popular "Guns, Germs and Steel" (1997). Unless I´m mistaken (I haven´t re-read Diamond for years), that book dealt with the impact of post-Ice Age geography on human history (and some of the pre-history). Dartnell takes us all the way back to the formation of the Earth about four billion years ago, and discusses how humanity, including modern civilization, is profoundly shaped by geological events that took place hundreds of millions of years ago. If they had been different, so would our civilization, or even our species! Perhaps we wouldn´t have existed at all...

The most obvious example is that the Industrial Revolution is dependent on the existence of abundant fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. All three were formed by very specific geological processes. The coal deposits were mostly formed during the Carboniferous (hence its name), while the oil and gas is from the "Age of the Dinosaurs". The geology, the climate and the chemistry were exactly right during these periods, and (mostly) wrong during other eons. The abundance of iron ore is also the result of mostly unique mechanisms during a specific geological period. Without iron, the Iron Age would have been impossible. Iron is of course important for our industrial civilization, too. 

The climate is heavily influenced by the so-called Milankovic cycles, which are "cosmic" in nature, but also by plate tectonics. The short story is that our present geological epoch, the Quarternary, is an "ice age" during which temperatures on average are lower than usual during Earth history. Periods of glaciation and dry conditions alternate with interglacials when the ice recedes and leave room for an abundance of animals and plants (and rainfall), but still not at too high temperatures. We are at present in one such interglacial, the Holocene. Due to plate tectonics (more land on the northern hemisphere than on the southern), the climate has been unusually stable during the past 11,000 years, creating conditions for agriculture and civilization-building, which didn´t exist before that time. Plate tectonics also cause certain regions to have better arable land (and larger rivers) than others. Unfortunately, they are often volcanic regions, as well! Which explains why humans often settle uncomfortably close to volcanoes...

Geography and climate explains why Eurasia has been split (until the early modern period) between nomadic peoples at the great steppes of the hinterland, and agricultural ditto (and their high cultures) at the "periphery". Constant wars between these two groups raged for millennia. One of many reasons for the decline and fall of the West Roman Empire (and the contretemps of the Eastern one) were climatic changes in Inner Asia, which forced the Huns to leave their original territory for literally greener pastures, leading to a huge chain reaction, as the Huns were forcing the Germanic tribes to move even further west, eventually all colliding with the Romans. It´s also interesting to note that the horse evolved in North America, and migrated to Eurasia thanks to the same land bridge humans used to get in the opposite direction, the land bridge being the result of the "last Ice Age". Horses then died out in America, but have played a central role in Eurasian history... 

Other intriguing questions answered by geography, climate and geology include the longevity and relative stability of Egyptian civilization, why the Egyptians usually didn´t attempt to create vast empires, or why they were land-lubbers. The author also points out that the European distribution of varieties of Christianity to a great extent follow the Roman borders, which in turn are geographical. Danube functioned as a de facto natural border between the West and East Roman Empires, and its interesting to note that Catholicism is dominant in the west, and Orthodoxy in the east. Protestantism primarily exists north of the Danube and beyond the Rhine - areas usually outside Roman control.  

At times, the author probably goes too far (capitalism supposedly emerged in the Netherlands because of the area´s geology) or seems to have forgotten certain salient facts of history (you know, like Tenochtitlan being much larger than most European cities, or Cortes needing the support of thousands of Native troops). And what about the Barbary States? Didn´t they thrive on the southern shores of the Mediterranean? Dartnell believes in fusion power (sic) and seems to think that somehow this exotic form of energy (which is, ahem, geologically impossible) can save us from man-made climate change! 

That being said, I did get some personal insights from "Origins". For instance, the cold or unstable climate during "the last Ice Age" probably made it impossible to create a high culture during that period (which must be based either on agriculture or an abundant and stable hunter-gatherer food base). Goodbye to Atlantis and Lemuria! The author believes that it was easier to sail to America from the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands than from the Portuguese-controlled Azores, due to wind and sea currents, which probably means that Columbus really did reach America before the Portuguese (although I suppose it´s still possible that the latter could have sailed to Newfoundland through a northern route). 

But above all, the book is profoundly humbling. It shows that our species, and its fantastic modern civilization (only about 300 years old), need not have existed at all. Yes, we are "ingenious", we have "progress", and so forth, but the preconditions for these things are geological processes which, for all we know, could have been different. Our technological progress could have come to a grinding halt 300 years ago. The horse might not have existed. Agriculture might not have been possible. All Earth could have been a gigantic hot swampland inhabited by really bizarre creatures (but no humans). Or our planet could have belonged to archeobacteria, or experienced *constant* mass extinction events, or...

Dartnell claims that, paradoxically, man-made climate change might actually be a good thing, since it has cancelled the next Ice Age, if we could only get those fusion reactors online! However, I suspect what will really happen (if current climate models are correct) is that global warming will destroy modern civilization, and when the climate cycle reverts to normal, a new Ice Age will wipe out the reminder of the human race, except maybe some peculiar tribe in a refugium, which could perhaps prepare the next origins...

The biggest scheme the Jesuits ever pulled

 

Is Confucianism a religion? And if it isn´t, why is it included in virtually all basic text books on world religions? (A staggering 0.2% of the world´s population identify as Confucian.) The very short story is that Confucianism "shouldn´t" be a religion on standard modern Western definitions of that term. 

Rather, it´s a social and political philosophy set in a matrix of traditional Chinese religion, including the ubiquitous ancestor worship. Specifically Confucian rituals were carried out by imperial officials for the benefit of the state, and only a certain class of people who worked for the government were considered "Confucians". There was no Confucian clergy. The great mass of people might not even have been aware of the special Confucian rituals! Today, the government of China doesn´t consider Confucianism to be a religion, and its historical sites are administered by the ministry of culture rather than the ministry of religious affairs.  

The Jesuits considered Confucianism to be a philosophy rather than a religion, and apparently dressed as Confucian scholars during their missionary activities in China. However, they also believed that Confucianism was in some sense a survival of a primordial monotheist religion, while Taoism and Buddhism were condemned as "idolatry". When the papacy condemned Confucian ancestor worship as equally idolatrous, Christian Europeans began to look upon Confucianism as a "Chinese pagan religion". 

Apparently, some Protestant missionaries in China during the 19th century also appealed to the primordial monotheism concept, and tried to cast Confucianism in a "Christian" mold to make conversion easier. Meanwhile, Max Müller and other pioneers of comparative religion included Confucianism in their studies. In this way, Confucianism became enshrined - pun intended - as a "real" religion, at least in the minds of Western barbarians. 

And there, it´s probably set to stay for some time to come. 

     

Big in Japan, Black in Japan

 

Interesting content...

Ancient aliens in Australia?

 

A rando dude on YouTube deboonking the Orontius Finaeus map, a 16th century work supposedly proving ancient aliens, Atlantis or some such. While mi bro does make a good case for the map´s depiction of "Antarctica" being mere conjecture, he inadvertently proves *another* "conspiracy theory" or rather alternative history theory - albeit a fairly moderate one. Unless you´re a proponent or opponent of said theory, in which case you might get just as incensed as Skeptics and True Believers in Atlantis! 

Yes, that would be the theory that the Portuguese reached Australia already during the 16th century. Officially, the land down under wasn´t discovered by Europeans until 1606 by a Dutch mate. For all I know, Portugal may have reached the Americas before Columbus, as well, so why not Australia? 

The dude in the clip above believes that the "upper" part of Terra Australis Incognita ("Antarctica") is really the northern coast of Australia. Which may even be true. But if so, Aussie was known to White-coded Europeans perhaps a century before Willem Janszoon set his foot on the hallowed lands of Sahul. 

SO WHY CAN´T THERE HAVE BEEN ALIENS, AS WELL, HUH HUH?   

The meaning of history

Credit: Laika ac

Previously posted on February 28, 2022 under a different title. 

So I tried to read "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Earth History" (2018) by Lewis Dartnell. It was hard, and after a while, I started skimming some chapters rather than reading them in detail. This boring tome must be the ultimate nerd book! Think geology, plate tectonics, meteorology, palentology...you get the picture. But OK, I did glean some interesting facts from it. And if you are a nerd, well, you know what to do... 

The book is a "deeper" version of Jared Diamond´s popular "Guns, Germs and Steel" (1997). Unless I´m mistaken (I haven´t re-read Diamond for years), that book dealt with the impact of post-Ice Age geography on human history (and some of the pre-history). Dartnell takes us all the way back to the formation of the Earth about four billion years ago, and discusses how humanity, including modern civilization, is profoundly shaped by geological events that took place hundreds of millions of years ago. If they had been different, so would our civilization, or even our species! Perhaps we wouldn´t have existed at all...

The most obvious example is that the Industrial Revolution is dependent on the existence of abundant fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. All three were formed by very specific geological processes. The coal deposits were mostly formed during the Carboniferous (hence its name), while the oil and gas is from the "Age of the Dinosaurs". The geology, the climate and the chemistry were exactly right during these periods, and (mostly) wrong during other eons. The abundance of iron ore is also the result of mostly unique mechanisms during a specific geological period. Without iron, the Iron Age would have been impossible. Iron is of course important for our industrial civilization, too. 

The climate is heavily influenced by the so-called Milankovic cycles, which are "cosmic" in nature, but also by plate tectonics. The short story is that our present geological epoch, the Quarternary, is an "ice age" during which temperatures on average are lower than usual during Earth history. Periods of glaciation and dry conditions alternate with interglacials when the ice recedes and leave room for an abundance of animals and plants (and rainfall), but still not at too high temperatures. We are at present in one such interglacial, the Holocene. Due to plate tectonics (more land on the northern hemisphere than on the southern), the climate has been unusually stable during the past 11,000 years, creating conditions for agriculture and civilization-building, which didn´t exist before that time. Plate tectonics also cause certain regions to have better arable land (and larger rivers) than others. Unfortunately, they are often volcanic regions, as well! Which explains why humans often settle uncomfortably close to volcanoes...

Geography and climate explains why Eurasia has been split (until the early modern period) between nomadic peoples at the great steppes of the hinterland, and agricultural ditto (and their high cultures) at the "periphery". Constant wars between these two groups raged for millennia. One of many reasons for the decline and fall of the West Roman Empire (and the contretemps of the Eastern one) were climatic changes in Inner Asia, which forced the Huns to leave their original territory for literally greener pastures, leading to a huge chain reaction, as the Huns were forcing the Germanic tribes to move even further west, eventually all colliding with the Romans. It´s also interesting to note that the horse evolved in North America, and migrated to Eurasia thanks to the same land bridge humans used to get in the opposite direction, the land bridge being the result of the "last Ice Age". Horses then died out in America, but have played a central role in Eurasian history... 

Other intriguing questions answered by geography, climate and geology include the longevity and relative stability of Egyptian civilization, why the Egyptians usually didn´t attempt to create vast empires, or why they were land-lubbers. The author also points out that the European distribution of varieties of Christianity to a great extent follow the Roman borders, which in turn are geographical. Danube functioned as a de facto natural border between the West and East Roman Empires, and its interesting to note that Catholicism is dominant in the west, and Orthodoxy in the east. Protestantism primarily exists north of the Danube and beyond the Rhine - areas usually outside Roman control.  

At times, the author probably goes too far (capitalism supposedly emerged in the Netherlands because of the area´s geology) or seems to have forgotten certain salient facts of history (you know, like Tenochtitlan being much larger than most European cities, or Cortes needing the support of thousands of Native troops). And what about the Barbary States? Didn´t they thrive on the southern shores of the Mediterranean? Dartnell believes in fusion power (sic) and seems to think that somehow this exotic form of energy (which is, ahem, geologically impossible) can save us from man-made climate change! 

That being said, I did get some personal insights from "Origins". For instance, the cold or unstable climate during "the last Ice Age" probably made it impossible to create a high culture during that period (which must be based either on agriculture or an abundant and stable hunter-gatherer food base). Goodbye to Atlantis and Lemuria! The author believes that it was easier to sail to America from the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands than from the Portuguese-controlled Azores, due to wind and sea currents, which probably means that Columbus really did reach America before the Portuguese (although I suppose it´s still possible that the latter could have sailed to Newfoundland through a northern route). 

But above all, the book is profoundly humbling. It shows that our species, and its fantastic modern civilization (only about 300 years old), need not have existed at all. Yes, we are "ingenious", we have "progress", and so forth, but the preconditions for these things are geological processes which, for all we know, could have been different. Our technological progress could have come to a grinding halt 300 years ago. The horse might not have existed. Agriculture might not have been possible. All Earth could have been a gigantic hot swampland inhabited by really bizarre creatures (but no humans). Or our planet could have belonged to archeobacteria, or experienced *constant* mass extinction events, or...

Dartnell claims that, paradoxically, man-made climate change might actually be a good thing, since it has cancelled the next Ice Age, if we could only get those fusion reactors online! However, I suspect what will really happen (if current climate models are correct) is that global warming will destroy modern civilization, and when the climate cycle reverts to normal, a new Ice Age will wipe out the reminder of the human race, except maybe some peculiar tribe in a refugium, which could perhaps prepare the next origins...

Shaivas LARP-ing Leninism

 

Helen Crovetto is an American who describes herself as an independent scholar of religion, studying Tantric movements in India and Sweden. Her article "Ananda Marga and the Use of Force" was published in the journal Novo Religio in 2008. It gives a very curious impression. Back in the days, many scholars of New Religious Movements (NRMs) were pro-NRM. Which frankly means pro-cult apologists. Crovetto´s article can certainly be construed in this way. But perhaps her naïvety is feigned and a ruse to more easily approach Ananda Marga, the object of her studies? Not having read her other scholarly articles, I honestly don´t know. But yes, I do consider the pro-NRM/pro-cult angle "problematic", to use an annoying contemporary word!

I think it´s obvious from her article that Ananda Marga, a supposedly Shaiva Tantra NRM founded in India by Prabhat Ranjan Sarkar (Sri Sri Anandamurti) in 1955, is a very problematic organization. Corvetto writes that "maybe" a "section" of the membership engaged in violence on behalf of Sarkar during the 1970´s (when the guru was imprisoned in India), most notoriously the Hilton bombing in Sydney, but "independently" of Ananda Marga. But this is unconvincing for many reasons. Ananda Marga is clearly a fanatical cult worshipping Sarkar as God. And terrorists sometimes use fake monikers when carrying out sensitive assignments, to give their main organization plausible deniability. *Of course* herr Anandamurti was behind the violence. The author admits that the violent attacks ceased the very moment Sarkar proclaimed that he would be freed by legal means rather than force, suggesting that his supporters listened intently to his every word. So why is it so hard to believe that he had earlier given an order to *carry out* attacks? One also wonders why Ananda Marga is plagued by constant rumors of murdering ex-members. Or why some ex-members do indeed end up murdered...

Just an unfortunate co-incidence, I´m sure!

Ananda Marga turns out to have two paramilitary wings, VVS and GV, tasked with keeping order at the cult´s public meetings. Weapons training allegedly has taken place at the "European retreats" of these outfits. Well, what else could storm troopers be doing at a summer camp? Drink goat´s milk? 

On 30 April 1982, residents in Calcutta carried out an attack on Ananda Marga members in broad daylight as they were crossing a local bridge. 17 Margis were killed. No arrests were ever made. Ananda Marga blamed the Communist Party of India (Marxist) for the massacre. The locals, in turn, blamed Ananda Marga for "stealing children", often interpreted as an accusation of child trafficking. Judging by Crovetto´s article, the locals may not have been entirely wrong. Ananda Marga runs homes for abandoned or underprivileged children in a number of nations, children who are often indoctrinated into the cult´s message and may even become sannyasins (ascetics, who form the hard core of the Marga membership). In Portugal, Ananda Marga actually refused to give poor children in their care back to the parents when the situation of the parents improved! The good people of Calcutta may have feared similar aggressive missionary tactics, since Ananda Marga deliberately try to increase the number of kids under their care. (This doesn´t contradict the Communist angle, since Ananda Marga and the Communist parties in India have a long-standing feud.)

It´s also obvious that Ananda Marga has a revolutionary philosophy. Indeed, Sarkar´s message sounds like a Leninist LARP around a Shaiva Tantrika core. The more "political" wing of the cult is called PROUT or PROUTist Universal, and calls for a form of socialism. (As far as I understand, PROUT is strictly speaking the name of the ideology, but it seems the organization promoting it is sometimes also referred to as PROUT.) While PROUTist Universal is technically a separate organization from Ananda Marga, it´s hardly a secret that it´s controlled by Marga sannyasins. During Sarkar´s lifetime, the sannyasins of both organizations met together under one roof, taking orders and assignaments from their great leader. Sarkar condemned capitalism, and explicitly called for revolutionary violence to bring down the system. At least on paper, he didn´t call for terrorism, but for mass struggles, and while he hoped for a peaceful transformation, revolution is never ruled out. All this is identical to the Communist position on the topic. Sarkar even believed in a kind of vanguard revolutionary organization, consisting of disaffected intellectuals! While they are apparently enlightened Shaivas in Sarkar´s version, it´s easy to see parallels with Lenin´s "What Is To Be Done". 

More surprising is the idea that there isn´t any utopian-millenarian end goal of the revolutionary struggle. Rather, human history is cyclical and it seems that the cycles are never-ending. While a "shudra revolution" can improve the situation considerably for a time, degeneration seems to be inevitable, necessitating a new rebellion of the shudras in the future. I suppose this could be losely based on the Maoist idea of cultural revolutions, but it´s also possible that it really is an innovation of Anandamurti´s. It gives his message a "fascist" tenor, with existence being a never-ending violent struggle, the only solution to which is presumably liberation and a return to Shiva. 

Maybe it wasn´t Crovetto´s intention, but I certainly didn´t get a more positive view of the Path of Bliss after reading her article...

Inte ens fel?

Tala om att ha huvudet i sanden...

Tobias Hübinette är förvånad över att högerpopulismen inte kollapsat. 

"Pandemin blev inte slutet på den högerpopulistiska vågen"

Coda

So I tried to read "Origins: How the Earth Shaped Earth History" (2018) by Lewis Dartnell. It was hard, and after a while, I started skimming some chapters rather than reading them in detail. This boring tome must be the ultimate nerd book! Think geology, plate tectonics, meteorology, palentology...you get the picture. But OK, I did glean some interesting facts from it. And if you are a nerd, well, you know what to do... 

The book is a "deeper" version of Jared Diamond´s popular "Guns, Germs and Steel" (1997). Unless I´m mistaken (I haven´t re-read Diamond for years), that book dealt with the impact of post-Ice Age geography on human history (and some of the pre-history). Dartnell takes us all the way back to the formation of the Earth about four billion years ago, and discusses how humanity, including modern civilization, is profoundly shaped by geological events that took place hundreds of millions of years ago. If they had been different, so would our civilization, or even our species! Perhaps we wouldn´t have existed at all...

The most obvious example is that the Industrial Revolution is dependent on the existence of abundant fossil fuels: coal, oil and gas. All three were formed by very specific geological processes. The coal deposits were mostly formed during the Carboniferous (hence its name), while the oil and gas is from the "Age of the Dinosaurs". The geology, the climate and the chemistry were exactly right during these periods, and (mostly) wrong during other eons. The abundance of iron ore is also the result of mostly unique mechanisms during a specific geological period. Without iron, the Iron Age would have been impossible. Iron is of course important for our industrial civilization, too. 

The climate is heavily influenced by the so-called Milankovic cycles, which are "cosmic" in nature, but also by plate tectonics. The short story is that our present geological epoch, the Quarternary, is an "ice age" during which temperatures on average are lower than usual during Earth history. Periods of glaciation and dry conditions alternate with interglacials when the ice recedes and leave room for an abundance of animals and plants (and rainfall), but still not at too high temperatures. We are at present in one such interglacial, the Holocene. Due to plate tectonics (more land on the northern hemisphere than on the southern), the climate has been unusually stable during the past 11,000 years, creating conditions for agriculture and civilization-building, which didn´t exist before that time. Plate tectonics also cause certain regions to have better arable land (and larger rivers) than others. Unfortunately, they are often volcanic regions, as well! Which explains why humans often settle uncomfortably close to volcanoes...

Geography and climate explains why Eurasia has been split (until the early modern period) between nomadic peoples at the great steppes of the hinterland, and agricultural ditto (and their high cultures) at the "periphery". Constant wars between these two groups raged for millennia. One of many reasons for the decline and fall of the West Roman Empire (and the contretemps of the Eastern one) were climatic changes in Inner Asia, which forced the Huns to leave their original territory for literally greener pastures, leading to a huge chain reaction, as the Huns were forcing the Germanic tribes to move even further west, eventually all colliding with the Romans. It´s also interesting to note that the horse evolved in North America, and migrated to Eurasia thanks to the same land bridge humans used to get in the opposite direction, the land bridge being the result of the "last Ice Age". Horses then died out in America, but have played a central role in Eurasian history... 

Other intriguing questions answered by geography, climate and geology include the longevity and relative stability of Egyptian civilization, why the Egyptians usually didn´t attempt to create vast empires, or why they were land-lubbers. The author also points out that the European distribution of varieties of Christianity to a great extent follow the Roman borders, which in turn are geographical. Danube functioned as a de facto natural border between the West and East Roman Empires, and its interesting to note that Catholicism is dominant in the west, and Orthodoxy in the east. Protestantism primarily exists north of the Danube and beyond the Rhine - areas usually outside Roman control.  

At times, the author probably goes too far (capitalism supposedly emerged in the Netherlands because of the area´s geology) or seems to have forgotten certain salient facts of history (you know, like Tenochtitlan being much larger than most European cities, or Cortes needing the support of thousands of Native troops). And what about the Barbary States? Didn´t they thrive on the southern shores of the Mediterranean? Dartnell believes in fusion power (sic) and seems to think that somehow this exotic form of energy (which is, ahem, geologically impossible) can save us from man-made climate change! 

That being said, I did get some personal insights from "Origins". For instance, the cold or unstable climate during "the last Ice Age" probably made it impossible to create a high culture during that period (which must be based either on agriculture or an abundant and stable hunter-gatherer food base). Goodbye to Atlantis and Lemuria! The author believes that it was easier to sail to America from the Spanish-controlled Canary Islands than from the Portuguese-controlled Azores, due to wind and sea currents, which probably means that Columbus really did reach America before the Portuguese (although I suppose it´s still possible that the latter could have sailed to Newfoundland through a northern route). 

But above all, the book is profoundly humbling. It shows that our species, and its fantastic modern civilization (only about 300 years old), need not have existed at all. Yes, we are "ingenious", we have "progress", and so forth, but the preconditions for these things are geological processes which, for all we know, could have been different. Our technological progress could have come to a grinding halt 300 years ago. The horse might not have existed. Agriculture might not have been possible. All Earth could have been a gigantic hot swampland inhabited by really bizarre creatures (but no humans). Or our planet could have belonged to archeobacteria, or experienced *constant* mass extinction events, or...

Dartnell claims that, paradoxically, man-made climate change might actually be a good thing, since it has cancelled the next Ice Age, if we could only get those fusion reactors online! However, I suspect what will really happen (if current climate models are correct) is that global warming will destroy modern civilization, and when the climate cycle reverts to normal, a new Ice Age will wipe out the reminder of the human race, except maybe some peculiar tribe in a refugium, which could perhaps prepare the next origins...

Några botaniska radanmärkningar

Rödmire 

Jag har länge undrat över en sak. Varför använder Vänsterpartiet en röd nejlika som partisymbol? Är inte "Röda Nejlikan" den där kontrarevolutionäre lille artistokraten i en gammal TV-serie? "Zey siik him hie, zey siik him ziä, iz ii in even or iz ii in ell, zatt darn elyziv pimpernell". Jag känner förstås till nejlikornas revolution i Portugal, men det gör ju bara mysteriet ännu massivare. Jag menar, håller man inte reda på korkade brittiska TV-serier i Lissabon, eller vad??? 

Så jag började gräva lite i frågan, och det visade sig då att Vänsterpartiets revolutionära CV faktiskt är oantastligt. Den blomma som på svenska kallas nejlika heter "carnation" på engelska och Dianthus på latin. 

Men vad i allsin dar är då en "pimpernel" för något? Jo, det visar sig att det faktiskt finns en blomma som på engelska kallas "scarlet pimpernel". På svenska heter den dock inte nejlika, utan rödmire! På latin Anagallis arvensis. 

Ett tag misstänkte jag rödklinten, men den är tydligen oskyldig. 

Okej, nu går vi tillbaka till det ordinarie programmet!

Demokratins död

Glad demokrat. Snart död?

Intressant undersökning. Observera att t.ex. Kanada och Australien anses vara mindre demokratiska än Sverige. Beror det på COVID-restriktionerna? 

Enligt DN:s artikel kommer det största hotet mot demokratin idag från valda ledare som stegvis "autokratiserar" landet. Kanske det, men det verkar som att DN "glömmer bort" ett annat hot: att demokratin inskränks av de liberala demokraterna själva. 

De facto undantagstillstånd under pandemin är ett exempel, ett annat är systematiska försök att censurera sociala medier (varför är inte det "ett angrepp på medierna"?), "cancel culture", informella stormtrupper av BLM-Antifa-typ på gatorna, och odlandet av ett allmänt politiskt klimat där yttrandefriheten eller parlamentarismen inte längre ses som självklar. "Hur kan man ställa till med regeringskris mitt under en pandemi", "vi tar ner allt som är i gråzonen", "folk har rätt att få sann information" (regeringen avgör förstås vad som är sant), etc. 

Lika farligt som Xi och Putte? Nej, knappast. Åtminstone inte ännu. Men tendensen är väldigt, väldigt tydlig...  

Endast 14% av mänskligheten lever i en fungerande parlamentarisk demokrati

Veckans Strasser

Är det här sant? Jag tänker på det han skriver om MPLA och UNITA. Bland annat...

"När ska afrikaner be om ursäkt för slavhandeln?"

Veckans Shachtman

 

Portugals president Eanes (mannen till vänster i bild) på statsbesök i USA. 

Veckans Shachtman

Med anledning av en viss händelse lanserar vi, teamet bakom Ashtar Command Book Blog, ett nytt inslag som vi kallar "Veckans Shachtman" (med undertiteln "I never broke personal relations with Max"), där vi nostalgiskt minns olika basic bitch demokrater och liberaler som försvarade västvärlden mot Kommunismen. 

Alltid irriterar det någon. Exempelvis alla till vänster om Ingvar Carlsson. 

Kanske kommer en eller annan nationell personlighet smyga sig in någonstans också, det beror på om vårt team gör bedömningen att denne senare i sitt liv spelade just en avgörande roll i kampen mot Kommunism, och alltså inte helt enkelt mot brittiska imperiet eller något i den stilen. 

Som vanligt tar teamet inget som helst politiskt ansvar för några som helst implikationer av någonting alls, och vi kan när som helst stuva om i vår planering, svänga 180 grader och börja hylla någon helt annan politisk strömning, säg buchariniter, höglundare, lindholmare eller vad som helst. 

Vi lovar endast, och detta löfte är oss närmast högheligt, att aldrig någonsin hylla Annie Lööf! 

Lies blancos tell themselves

I often wondered how small groups of Spanish conquistadors could defeat the most powerful New World empires within months, or why the Natives were so naive that they actually thought the conquistadors were gods... 

OK, here's a clue, blanquito. It didn't happen that way... 

Mathew Restall tells the story in "Seven Myths of the Spanish Conquest". Apart from some unfortunate nods to postmodernism in the introduction, the book is quite good and really does "deconstruct" the pervasive tall tales about the Spanish conquista. 

The book speaks for itself, but here are some of the highlights. 

Columbus wasn't a lone genius in a hostile and uncomprehending world. Actually, he was one of many players in a process of exploration and conquest that was much larger than himself. Indeed, he might just have been lucky. The cult of Columbus is mostly modern, driven by Italian and Irish immigrants in the United States. The Admiral of the Ocean Sea wasn't even on bad terms with Amerigo Vespucci! 

Cortes and the conquistadors defeated the mighty Mexica (Aztec) Empire with the aid of Native warriors. Their exact number is unknown. Figures range from 6,000 to 100,000 or even 200,000. Cortes took the lead in what could almost be seen as a Native civil war. Nor was Cortes unique in this regard. It was standard Spanish policy to recruit Native allies. One of the main reasons why the Conquest was succesful was Native disunity. The Inca Empire fell for the same reason. 

Did the "Indians" see the Whites as gods? Probably not. The story of how Moctezuma mistook Cortes for Quetzalcoatl is Fransiscan propaganda. And while its true that Moctezuma's speech at his first meeting with Cortes sounded extremely deferential ("my empire belongs to you now"), this was simply standard diplomatic protocol among the Aztecs. Restall also points out that the definition of "god" was much broader in the New World cultures than among Christian monotheists. The Native rulers themselves were "gods". Jealous gods with no intention of sharing power... 

On one point, the standard narrative is true. The Americas did experience a demographic collapse due to Old World disease. Tenochtitlan fell in large part because a smallpox epidemic decimated the city's defenders. Smallpox reached Peru even before the conquistadors did. Despite the deadly epidemics, Native culture in Mesoamerica and the Andes proved remarkably resilient. Only the first phase of the Conquest was swift and dramatic. It took centuries before the Spanish had really "pacified" their colonies. The Spanish and various Native elite groups often interacted with each other in complex ways. The "Indians" didn't really disappear. They simply adapted to the new conditions. 

Even details in the standard narrative are bunk. No, the Natives weren't afraid of horses. Gunpowder was mostly useless in the tropical climate. The Spanish *did* have superior weapons, though: their excellent steel swords! And while the Spanish were, of course, brutal conquerors, they were hardly irrational. Their seemingly crazy "thirst for gold" was a rational economic activity, since gold was indeed the most important currency in early modern Europe... 

The author ends by pointing out that the Conquista, despite everything, wasn't an absolutely unique or uniquely important event in world history. In the bigger scheme of things, it was part of a global process of late medieval and early modern empire-building, which started with the Russians and Ottomans, and which even included the Aztecs and the Incas themselves. Their empires, after all, were established during the same period. Even in Europe, the Spanish were late-comers, Portugal being the original European global power during the period in question. The author believes that this phase of globalized conquest and food control is still ongoing... 

An interesting perspective! 

Recommended. 

Empires of the Silk Road

“Empires of the Silk Road: A History of Central Eurasia from the Bronze Age to the Present” is a grossly mistitled volume by Christopher Beckwith. I say that with a smile, since Beckwith happens to be my favorite distracted professor. This 471-page tome could best be described as a long compilation of topics, some connected to Central Eurasian history, which the author feels need further scholarly attention, since most research published so far have been found wanting, at least on the author´s revisionist scales. I un-ironically sympathize with the agenda! Of course, I can´t vouch for Beckwith´s particular reinterpretations, except to say that they are interesting. So is “Greek Buddha”, another work by the same writer which I review elsewhere on this site.

The term Central Eurasia refers to the vast steppe regions spanning from East Europe to northern China. In ancient and medieval times, this was the home to a bewildering maze of “barbarian” peoples rightly or wrongly associated with nomadism, pastoralism and mounted warriors: Proto-Indo-Europeans, Scythians, Huns, Turks, Mongols, Tatars and many others. The author could be described as “pro-barbarian” or “pro-Central Eurasian”. He often refers to the settled high cultures and empires of Europe and Asia as “peripheral”. He doesn´t deny that the steppe peoples were frequently brutal, but so were the “peripheral” empires, so on *that* score there is little difference between them. On a micro-level, ordinary people living in the “great” empires sometimes tried to abscond to the “barbarians”, suggesting that they felt freer among them. To Beckwith, the Central Eurasians were not parasitical nomads who plundered big cities or forced empires to pay huge tributes. All powerful nomadic peoples controlled “empires” of their own, which always included agricultural land and towns alongside the vast steppes. Their primary non-pastoral activity was not plunder, but trade. The nomads controlled the so-called Silk Road, really a vast and ancient trading network connecting China, India and Europe. As long as the steppe peoples were strong, trade was relatively easy and secure. Not only did the nomads promote trade among the empires, they were also keenly interested in luxury products themselves. One example: the Scythians traded in silk, with the Greeks paying them in gold, the same gold used for the exquisite Scythian handicraft later found by archeologists. The fact that the nomads only destroyed cities which resisted them (standard practice among the “peripheral” empires, too) shows that they didn´t “hate cities” á la Pol Pot, but preferred to integrate them into their spheres of influence as hubs for commerce and taxation. The awful tributes supposedly paid by the Byzantine Empire to the Huns and other steppe marauders only constituted a tiny percentage of the total Byzantine budget.

Beckwith believes that many steppe peoples shared something he calls the Central Eurasian Culture Complex. Its origins are probably proto-Indo-European. An important part of this culture complex is the comitatus, a tightly knit band of male warriors sworn to defend the ruler to the death. The ruler and the members of the comitatus were not blood relations, nor were the members of the war-band usually related to each other. If the ruler died or was killed before the comitatus, its members usually commited suicide or were ritually executed! Why would anyone risk such a fate by binding himself to a non-blood-relative? The answer is that the ruler was expected to bestow fabulous riches on the members of the band, including gold, jewels and silk. While plunder was an obvious way of getting such things, a more important one was trade. Thus, the mercantile orientation of the steppe peoples was in large part a function of their peculiar culture, and this also explains the importance of trade in luxury products. (Later, the comitatus system spread to the Muslim world through Central Asia and Persia. The Mamluks and the Ottomans had distinct versions of the system.)

Beckwith regards the Celtic and Germanic peoples of Iron Age Europe as part of the same Central Eurasian Culture Complex as the nomads further east. He is critical of the usual theories about the decline and fall of the Roman Empire. The “barbarians” weren´t responsible. Rather, internal problems in the Roman Empire made it less interested in trading with the “barbarian” peoples. This forced the “barbarians” to move ever closer to the metropolitan areas of the Empire in order to safeguard their trading rights. This, then, are the so-called “barbarian invasions” much maligned by historians ever since.

Being a trained linguist, the author has appended a chapter on the Indo-European language family. Here, too, the tendency is revisionist. Beckwith believes that the remarkable similarity between Avestan and Sanskrit is no mystery: Avestan *is* an Iranicized form of Sanskrit, rather than the ancestral Indo-Iranian language. The oldest preserved copies of the Avesta, the sacred scripture of the Zoroastrian religion, are from the 13^th century AD. Old Persian inscriptions are known from the 5^th or 6^th centuries BC, and are very different from the Avestan language. Also, the Zoroastrian belief system as recorded in the Avesta isn´t attested from such early times. So why is Avestan regarded as an extremely ancient language at all? Everyone seems to agree that Avestan is weird compared to other members of the Iranian branch of the Indo-European language family. Also, the original Vedic scriptures aren´t really attested before 1000 AD, and Beckwith believes that it´s “romantic” to date them from thousands of years earlier. Presumably, this has consequences for how to look upon Sanskrit and its place in the Indo-European language family tree. He doesn´t say, but the implication seems to be that Sanskrit could be from a later period than the Prakrits! Beckwith also argues that the Indo-European languages simply couldn´t have developed by a “glacially slow process” over many millennia. Rather, they must be the result of rapid changes due to creolization between the language spoken by the Indo-European invaders and the that of the natives. Needless to say, the author doesn´t believe it´s possible to *really* reconstruct a Proto-Indo-European language!

In several chapters, Beckwith attacks the modern world, including democracy (really the rule of a new modern elite), secularism, Communism, postmodern discourse, modern art and modern music. In a very curious footnote, he briefly discusses Frank Zappa´s music. This in a book supposedly about Central Eurasian steppe empires! The author sounds “traditionalist”, but it´s a traditionalism with several twists. His ideal isn´t the landed aristocrat nor the lofty philosopher, but rather the dynamic merchant, including merchants who trade in pure luxuries. He is both generally pro-Central Eurasian and specifically pro-Germanic, viewing the Early Middle Ages less as a Dark Age than as an age when Europe was dominated by a dynamic mixed Germano-Roman culture connected with the steppe empires. He also seem to regard the European colonialists, including the early exploits of the Portuguese, as somehow connected to the general dynamism of the Germanic peoples. Beckwith says very little about the only Indo-European people known to have many female warriors: the Sarmatians. Yet, unless I misunderstood him completely, he also suggests that patriarchy and warfare are ultimately bad things!

If "Empires of the Silk Road" has a central point, it is that historians should stop underestimating how all of Eurasia was connected through an overland route since ancient times, thanks to the "barbarians", and how this positively affected cultural diffusion and economic growth. 

I could probably continue this review indefinitely, but for reasons of space (mine being less expansive than the pusztas of Central Eurasia), I simply stop it right here!

There will be thirty years of war

“Ett stort lidande har kommit över oss: Historien om trettioåriga kriget” is a 600-page book in Swedish on the Thirty Year War (1618-1648). Who would read it? Since its been published in a paperback edition, probably quite a few. The author, history professor Dick Harrison, is well known for writing huge popularized tomes about everything from Swedish medieval history to global slavery. He at least indirectly inspired Jan Guillou´s popular Arn novels, the plot of which is set in Sweden and Palestine during the time of the crusades. It seems Guillou was drawing heavily from “Jarlens sekel”, a Harrison book about 12^th and 13^th century Sweden, for the historical information in his novels. If anyone will turn “Ett stort lidande har kommit över oss” into a novel remains to be seen – a horror story would perhaps be more natural! That said, I suspect the book will become a classic in the popularizing genre, not least because of Harrison´s extremely fluent style of writing.

The Thirty Year War wasn´t a pretty story. Harrison, who is a left-liberal pacifist, is equally critical of both Catholics and Protestants, painting a picture of an extremely brutal and many-sided conflict in which the civilians always ended up on the losing side regardless of religious affiliation. The Thirty Year War was fought with large mercenary armies, and the soldiers systematically plundered and laid waste to both enemy territory and “friendly” regions. After three decades of armed conflict, large portions of Germany were virtually depopulated, and it took almost a century for the country to recover from the blow.

One thing I didn´t realize before reading Harrison´s book is how broad in scope the Thirty Year War actually was. It was really a series of partially interlocking conflicts fought in many parts of Europe concurrently. And not just in Europe – the newly minted European colonial powers also took their conflicts to South America, Africa and Asia, making the Thirty Year War the first “world war” in human history. I knew that the Portuguese and the Dutch were fighting it out on the Gold Coast, but I never made the connection to the Thirty Year War before. It seems you learn something new every day! In Sweden, of course, the war is mostly associated with our very own warrior-king Gustavus Adolphus (Gustav II Adolf) who was killed in combat with Catholic imperial troops at the battle of Lützen deep inside German territory. “The Lion from the North” indeed was an important player in the war, Sweden becoming a regional great power in the process, but Harrison broadens our vision…

Despite being 600 pages long, the book nevertheless feels only half-done, probably since it contains relatively little analysis, the emphasis being on the mere facts of the war: the battles, the shifting alliances, the constant war crimes. The author has tried to combine a perspective “from above”, from the world of kings, emperors and military commanders, with a look “from below”. How did everyday life look like during the war for mercenary soldiers, people traveling in the rear of an army, civilians in cities under occupation, or people of the wrong faith caught behind enemy lines? I´m frankly surprised anyone survived this orgy in bloodlust, rape, brigandage, famine, cannibalism and pestilence. If the author has any theory of history, it seems to be that the chain of events is propelled forward by a combination of chance and the sheer will of strong personalities, until everything gets out of hand and the events acquire their own (often bloody) logic. Only after the Thirty Year War, when strong modern state institutions emerge, does the role of the individual in history diminish. 

In his other books, Harrison seems to reject grand narratives and all-knowing theories about the “meaning” of history. Often, we don´t really know what happened at all, due to the paucity of reliable sources. Prestige or ideological conviction (sometimes fanatically held) plays a more central role than material factors in the strict sense. But ideological conviction is, presumably, idiosyncratic. In “Ett stort lidande”, Harrison suggests that the Thirty Year War might have stopped much earlier than it did, if chance factors had turned out differently or cooler heads had prevailed.

With these caveats, I recommend this doorstopper to my Swedish readers. Welcome to the world of Wallenstein, Ferdinand II, Frederick the Winter King, Cardinal Richelieu, WIC, VOC, Gabriel Bethlen and, of course, Gustavus Adolphus…