The Advent of the Chinese Imperium


“Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”

Our Czech correspondent Gemini sent me this email today:

Speaking of formative books in the field of history, recently I have found one that i find crucial. It is an academic work dealing with one social phenomenon that covers all eras, cultural memory namely. It can be fully applied also to what has currently been happening when it comes to islam. It was written by the German egyptologist Jan Assmann in 1990 and not long ago it was also translated into English. I appreciate it dearly!

Cultural Memory and Early Civilization: Writing, Remembrance, and Political Imagination

Below is my reply.

Thanks for the recommendation. That kind of cultural-anthropological reflection on what Jung would call our collective unconscious fascinates me.

Why do those books have to be so very expensive?

What makes the new world — particularly the North American continent — different is the up-close encounters/clashes/amalgamations that have taken place in the last 300+ years. And what a long strange trip that has been. Not to mention the mass destruction of the indigenous peoples.

Also, the effect of large genocides — the Armenians are but one example — on the Old World’s collective memory has to be taken into account. There are the ones we permit ourselves to know about and those which have fallen into The Oubliette…

…this German scholar: does he mention the massive collapse of Egyptian culture and commerce due to the repeated invasions of Arabs over generations?

Egypt was the breadbasket of the Mediterranean; its cheap papyrus allowed widespread literacy to spread; it fostered commerce (and peace) throughout the Mediterranean. Its prosperity spread thru North Africa, and all that was wiped out by a repeated barbarity of monumental proportions.

The nomads who invaded Egypt permitted their animals to graze on the wheat shoots and trample the complex terraced irrigation infrastructure of the Nile farmers. In Egypt, as elsewhere, the wheel was UNinvented. The tribal warriors’ “justice” system allowed any Muslim to take from any non-Muslim to the point that it became futile to continue building carts in any area controlled by the Arabs. Or to do much of anything.

If he doesn’t cover the desertification of MENA, then he has missed the main point of the Middle East and North Africa: that its culture was exterminated by Arab depredations over the course of centuries.

The same goes for Persia and India.

The so-called Dark Ages of Europe were caused by the flight of Mediterranean coastal peoples into the mountains and fortified redoubts. This happened due to the Arabs’ insatiable appetite for slaves to do their work. Even the Norse sold them slaves from their own incursions into Russian territories.

The rise of the Cosa Nostra in coastal Sicily and surrounding areas was a response to exposure to Arab methods of control of property and women, and so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseam.

The harrowing of civilization by Arabs has yet to be fully told. It is being unearthed to some extent — literally — by archeology. And what is being revealed is not only artifacts but also what isn’t there; for example, in the digs in Spain they are finding no evidence of the so-called Andalusian splendor of the Moors. It turns out they built nothing — their effects can be seen in some minor modifications to already extant churches, which they converted into mosques. No splendid baths, no palaces, etc. Just brutal occupations.

Arabs and Arab-dominated countries hate history. It’s un-Islamic. That’s why they’re so busy destroying the oldest edifices in Medina and Mecca — history is idolatry. They’ll get around to the Egyptian monuments eventually — when they can figure out how to destroy them.

The history of the Arabs is one of horrific destruction of peoples, places, artifacts, and memory. The real history of India has yet to be written but it is, again, one of repeated mass destruction and genocide.

So unless this scholar has taken into account those elements — beginning in both the country of his origin and that of his expertise — his collective memories will have walled off a significant amount of information. Being human, he has to look away, avert his eyes, or die of despair.

The more I learn, the less do I like the sinkhole of Arab “culture”. Eventually we’ll understand the extent to which the Arabs directly influenced Hitler’s genocides.

I don’t see much TV — we got rid of ours decades ago. But our son brought home the whole collection of the Firefly series, including the movie. The depiction of the Reavers in that series reminded me of Arabs, at least in outline. There is something in desert tribal living that erases normal human feeling very early in the children. This is what I think happens: the common and condoned widespread use of infants and young children as sexual objects insures that each new generation will grow up deeply crippled and destructive.

Early on, the Jewish tribes were able to curtail and then eliminate the use of children as objects, turning them instead into projects for the future. Ritualizing circumcision walled off that urge to destroy and turned it into a measure of belonging. The development of writing (was that due to exposure to the Egyptians during their servitude?) also permitted further distancing from destructive primitive urges. More use of ritual: animal sacrifice in place of child sacrifice was another giant step toward civilization (“civilization” here being defined as beginning with careful attention to the children. It has to begin there).

And, of course, from that crucial beginning of slavery to the eventual codification of moral behavior in the Ten Commandments put them just a step ahead of the Greeks. However, the flowering (and preservation) of Greek/Roman mythology was also crucial to the development of the mature Western psyche.

*   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *   *

Oh dear. I do rattle on. But looking at the editorial and the reviews of the professor’s book just kind of opened the faucet.

The more I watch our Western culture deteriorate, the more I am convinced of the Arab Effect. I’m sure you’re aware of the glorification of homosexuality here and in Europe. It is unfortunate particularly because it has led to a new plague of modern pedophilia every bit as bad as the old Roman Imperium permitted its children to suffer. Always, we must begin by protecting the children.

My prediction is that western culture will go the way of Japan, that the next logical step after homosexuality is asexuality. I am seeiing an increase in this movement toward asexuality in the generation coming up. The children imbibe culture’s strengths and weaknesses, and when they process them via their sexuality, we are given a clear and obvious reflection of what’s going on in the culture’s collective unconscious, which is where our past and future are contained. (The collective unconscious is not tied to temporality in the same way we think of time.) What is occurring now is a kind of die-out via asexuality.

Despite our concerns, it is probable that the Arabs will not prevail. They’re not intelligent enough; sheer brutality isn’t enough. But I do think the Chinese will prevail eventually. They are buying up much of European and North American and South African real estate. Heck, they own the Panama Canal and a lot of port space on both sides of the North American continent. It’s likely that if ‘hostilities’ ever break out it will be the Chinese who win the whole enchilada.

Why? Because their very old culture is also very adaptable — for example, a state-controlled version of Christianity already exists since Christian doctrine and practices placed within a Chinese framework ensures the productivity and usefulness of its adherents. And there is the educational edict that children must learn Western musical notation and play the piano.Again, for utilitarian reasons: internalize Bach and Mozart at a young age and math intelligence increases. Yes, the Chinese are great cultural borrowers and they’re not borrowing anything from the Arabs, are they?

So get out your Chinese syllabary and start practicing. Just imagine the many varieties of patois that will develop (though I think they will be like the Romans and leave local customs in place). In the hierarchy of inherited intelligence the Asians are above the Negro and Caucasian. Only Ashkenazi Jews are ahead of them.

Given the way China respects intelligence, I predict they will colonize heavily wherever the Ashkenazi mutation is prevalent (as opposed to Sephardic Jews, whose DNA wasn’t affected by that mutation. Nor do the Sephardic Jews suffer the genetic malformations that came with the Ashkenazi change, either — there’s a price for everything).

China knows it doesn’t invent much, but it’s a very good thief and preserver of others’ useful innovations. That’s why they’ll “keep” the Ashkenazis — to the point of preserving the most congenial habitat for them, though I have no idea what that environment will be. Part of their respect for the Jews will entail their mutual endogamy.

Again, I’m sorry for going on for so long. But it’s your doing — exposure to that book did it. 🙂

Ozymandias
by Percy Bysshe Shelley

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
“My name is Ozymandias, king of kings:
Look on my works, ye Mighty, and despair!”
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.

72 thoughts on “The Advent of the Chinese Imperium

  1. I think it’s safe to say that anything good or beneficial to mankind that may have occurred in muslim dominated lands is despite islam and not because of it.

    • Every now and then while excoriating Islam, I (figuratively) slap myself upside the head and ask,

      The caliphate in Spain (Moorish Golden Era) supported scribes both male and female, Christian, Jewish, and Islamic in copying books for the Great Library at Cordoba, esp. during the 10th through 12th centuries. Many of these books were key in the re-introduction of Classical Learning to Europe in the early Renaissance.

      What happened to *that* Islam?

      The arches of the Great Mosque of Cordoba (the red-and-white tile one, for those who’ve seen photos) inspired Gothic architecture. The cathedrals in Northern Europe (north of the Pyrenees) reached for the heavens, unlike earlier Romanesque churches, under this influence (the “flying buttresses” were also an imported idea).

      What happened to *that* Islam?

      Where is Gabriel, to heal Islam from within and remove the jihadic instructions?

  2. And yet when you debate with a muslim they’re always quick to point out the golden era in Andulasia when they enriched the area with their culture,im beginning to think now that all muslims are taqiyya tacticians

    • If you are only begining to think of Muslims as liars you are seriously behind the times.

    • Re. the muslim ‘Golden Age’ in Andalucía, when the ‘wonderful, inventive’ muslims were chased out, why did they create and invent NOTHING thereafter?

      Because the Jewish and Christian slaves did the work–and paid the jizya, while muslims took the credit, as usual.

    • Ah Mr. Spahn, it is obvious you don’t read our sidebar. There you will find a link to that same book. It is written by an Irishman, Emmet Scott. I have been beating the drum for that book since it first came out several years ago. I have a short list of books I call “transformative” and that is one. It is where I learned that Egypt, that poverty-stricken basketcase, had once been known as “the breadbasket of the Mediterranean”. Only Emmet Scott places the Arabs’ arrival in the Med a little earlier than most scholars. He looks at the archeological information.

      The “revisit” in the title is to a book by a Belgian, written in the 1930’s:

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Pirenne

      There is a Fjordman essay I can’t find now that deals with that first book.I thought it would be useful to read the original by Pirenne; it wasn’t. There had been so much archeology done since then that Scott’s book is more pertinent.

      Here is the Gates of Vienna REVIEW of Mohammed & Charlemagne:

      https://gatesofvienna.net/2012/08/who-really-killed-the-pax-romana/

      As usual, the Baron’s essay is masterful. It would be to your benefit to read it.

      • Actually, Dymphna, an earlier version of my note referred specifically to your sidebar notice about Emmet Scott’s book. Later I did a search on its title and found a brief review at a different website, thinking that a link to an Islamophobic website like GoV would scare off people who might benefit from learning of its thesis. Yes, I remember reading the Baron’s review, and the thesis is indeed “transformative”.

      • Rome was eager to bring Egypt under its control so that good Egyptian wheat would fill the stomachs of poor Roman citizens.

        Cleopatra VII, last of the Ptolemaic pharaohs, did her level best to maintain Egyptian independence but, as we know, that didn’t end well. The fleets of ships navigating the Mediterranean month-in and month-out were an all-consuming logistical enterprise from approx. 40 BCE on. When the wheat transport ships were delayed, lost, or otherwise interfered with, food riots broke out.

        Why couldn’t Rome grow its own food anymore? The vast tracts of land once owned by individual “yeoman” farmers had been consolidated into latifundia, owned by Senators and worked by slaves, who didn’t have to be paid. Their olive oil and wine undercut independently produced oil and wine (hmm…sound familiar?), leaving traditional farmers with no income and no means of support. Those families moved to the Eternal City simply in hopes of something to eat.

        In most years, the Nile’s flood (start date traditionally 1 August, with the rise of Sirius) renewed the land with rich silt, guaranteeing a good crop. Heavy years–floods–did occur, but the preponderance was that the Nile renewed the land and the land produced grain.

        Right up until the Aswan Dam.

        • “Right up until the Aswan dam”.
          Ah, the stupidity of building dams on rivers laden with silt–and engineers are supposed to be smart!
          Another prize example: The three Gorges dam in China. I certainly didn’t have far to go to find one: The Clyde dam in Otago, NZ, which is silting up so quickly one of the floodgates is inoperable after only 20 years. (OT I know, sorry)

    • Thank you. This one kind of wrote itself. It really was a response off the top of my head to a note from our correspondent, Gemini.

      As the Baron will tell you, sometimes I get wound up and he just has to wait for the rubber band to untwirl and I come to a stop.

      You’ll notice I haven’t really sourced anything. I’ve been immersed in the material for so long it would be hard to link just one source.

      So it’s obviously just all speculation.

      • If you pulled together research on the subject, it would make for an interesting and informative book. It is an important piece of the puzzle in the ability to articulate the reasons why Islam must not be allowed to colonize any more nations. The easy arguments speak to the loss of freedoms, the terrible barbarisms and the loss of life that Islam brings to those it conquers or attempts to. The more complex and longer term argument against Islam is that which you have articulated above: Moslems are culture annihilators.

    • If you’ve seen Firefly and Wheedon’s ideas on the Reavers, you get the idea…

      …in the end, a culture must be judged on its treatment of the very young and the very old. How do we welcome the children in, how do we bid our old people farewell.

      In the final analysis, that’s why widespread abortion and euthanasia are of concern. Notice I said widespread.

  3. “for example, in the digs in Spain they are finding no evidence of the so-called Andalusian splendor of the Moors. It turns out they built nothing — their effects can be seen in some minor modifications to already extant churches, which they converted into mosques. No splendid baths, no palaces, etc.”

    The Alhambra is a pretty darned spectacular palace. When the Catholics retook Andalusia in the late 1400’s they built a church right next to the Alhambra. You can tour both in one visit. The church looks like Lincoln logs compared to the Alhambra. I really was stunned by how primitive the church was in comparison.

    • Thx. I wondered about the Alhambra, too, and the (former) Great Mosque of Cordoba.

  4. Yes, re Alhambra. But it’s a polite fiction to call it Arabic. They do not build things, though they may order them built. They do not design things, though they may order them designed.

    Mohammed was an illiterate caravan robber and it was considered un-Islamic to learn to read or write. Un-Islamic to laugh, because Mohammed said that’s how the devil gets in.

    In the case of this building, they took architects, engineers, stonemasons, etc., from the conquered countries…because an Arab doesn’t labor. That’s what slaves are for. In this case, iirc, they came from Damascus and Baghdad.

    The poets, philosophers, etc., are descended from non-Arabs and lived a life at risk. Averroes was a polymath, an “Islamic” scholar who saved/translated the Greeks – though the Arabs had little use for anything beyond what was useful for their war machine and he had to be careful. Averroes was not Arabic. He was descended from the Berbers, a people who from the area of No Africa who could trace their lineage back to the Phoenicians. Part of their land is now Libya, and some Berber people are still extant.

    If the Arabs had built Alhambra they’d have had their names in place.But it is denoted to the ruler of the times.

    At the height of their conquering they owned the educated classes of every place under their thumb. But they used those people, they didn’t learn from them. Thus the Persians designed the intricate patterns of their non-representational art. The Copts were their clerks in Egypt, or their garbage collectors.

    Few Arab conquerors had the inclination to become literate. The Koran was recitative memorization in honor of the illiterate Mohammed, who didn’t think much of the Jewish scribes because they laughed at him. “Off with their heads” eventually came to pass.

    In Persia, the wonderful poet Hafez often went into hiding. If you’ve ever read his mystical, funny and amazing poetry, you’d know he wasn’t an Arab.

    • Oh com’mon D,

      “Yes, re Alhambra. But it’s a polite fiction to call it Arabic. They do not build things, though they may order them built. They do not design things, though they may order them designed.”

      I never imagined I would play devil’s advocate in this discussion.

      Whether indigenous people or slaves designed and built it or whether Muslims conceived of it and ordered it built, it is still a spectacular example of Muslim historic culture. And it is to the Muslim’s credit. After all, weren’t the pyramids built by slaves?

      One may totally disagree with the history of Muslim culture and possibly the Alhambra is an outlier. However, it still remains one of Islamic culture’s greatest architectural achievements (that they haven’t torn down as of yet.)

      • See comment by Mrityunjay. Particularly the part about the Phoenicians – later the Berbers, who still exist in small pockets.

        • What would you like me to see here? That the Muslims had nothing to do with the building of the Alhambra?
          Again. I find myself on the opposite side of the argument…..
          Yes, they did employ slave labor and those that wished not to be killed to build their monuments.
          OTOH, the Alhambra still stands as the pinnacle of Muslim invasion to the Iberian coast.

          • We fundamentally disagree on this point. You visited the Alhambra and you believed what they told you. I have not visited but I have read what others say about Islam’s “buildings”…there have been a number of comments refuting what you say, right down to the fact that the building is oriented incorrectly to have been constructed as a mosque.

            I have studied the many claims made by Islam on their knowledge, inventions, and accomplishments. They are at variance with reality, including this one.

            So we will not come to any agreement here. I’m not willing to give it any more energy.

        • Not always small, Dymphna; I believe the Berbers constitute about a third of Algeria’s population. Non-Arab Tunisians still resent their conquerors.

      • Pyramids were built by Egyptians who designed and engineered the whole project and used slaves for the grunt work.

        Dymphna has described the exact reverse situation with a grunt commanding slaves to design, engineer, and build.

        If your point is something great got built then they are equivalent.
        If your point is who should we credit for the creativity then they are not.

    • Never forget Rumi, a Sufi who transcended Islam in his poetry. Ethnic Persian; his poems are still published in many languages, including English (I have an edition).

  5. As a 84 yo Chinese, I saw “urgly Americans” in the 60s, and nowadays I see
    urgliest Chinese spreading all over the world !

    • I didn’t say it was “pretty”, only that it is probably inevitable and we can blame our greedy leaders for that. We are “free” in some superficial ways that individual Chinese are not but mostly those are at a trivial level. For instance, we are free to sell our property to anyone. The professional Race Grievance Resenters made sure of that.

      As China’s hegemony grows, in order to maintain some sense of the outer appearance of control, they’ll have to let some of the little stuff slide. Even now I’ll bet they’re studying the Roman historians.

      I feel sorry for the Japanese, though. They will be in for a rough ride – whatever remnant of them is left at that time. After all, the demographic implosion isn’t due till mid-century. There will be a lot of chaos, not all of it bad. It will be in the vacuum that arises, say at the tail end of the century, that China will have to decide if it can overcome its insular character. China is better than Russia, imho. But then that speaks to my own historic grievances.

      • The “insular character” of China is not regarded as something to be overcome. You should always be cautious about taking the particular statements of Beijing concerning their intentions at face value, but if you step back and look at the broader pattern, some truths emerge.

        The Chinese really do despise the idea of empire or even hegemony, as it is understood in Western terms of military supremacy and leadership. What the Chinese seek is to be the nation which is the foremost source of blessings (and the dualistic distinction between spiritual and material is not a consideration). Of course, modified through a Communist totalitarian outlook, the upshot of all this benevolence is that the first thing from which the rest of the world must be freed is the false, destructive values of Western Civilization, such as individual freedom, free-market capitalism, democracy, human rights, etc.

        The engineered collapse of the global economy is not just the most expeditious way to achieve Chinese supremacy (not dominance, in the sense of forcing other nations to deal with China, but clear cultural and economic superiority which makes dealing with China the most desirable possibility). It is the most consistent with creating a future in which Western Civilization is seen as having failed as a result of it’s own false value system. Of course, those with any real sense of the history of the last century realize perfectly well that it is the poison of anti-Western values which have doomed us, but how many people believe that?

        A world of impoverished nations begging for the scraps that fall from China’s table is the goal. Don’t count on them to actually try and fix anyone else’s problems. Non-interventionism isn’t just a pose, its a fervent wish of the Chinese (shared by, not imposed through, the Party leadership) to be respected without having to actually DO anything helpful or messy for anyone else. Of course, the Party treats the rest of the Chinese (and they treat each other) much the same way.

        Or tries to, anyway. There are practical limits to how much you can present yourself as being a fount of every blessing without actually lifting a finger to help. And it’s easier to secretively undermine those who don’t pay proper homage than to really attend the needs of all who come begging.

        • The “insular character” of China is not regarded as something to be overcome.

          If I conveyed the impression that I thought China would ever be motivated to change its character than I mis-spoke myself. Character doesn’t change; not even if one wants it to or finds a change needful. IMO, China is an entity (it’s too far a stretch to call it a “nation” in the Western senses and wants the world’s attention because it is much easier to get the others to do whatever is necessary if you have their attention…
          —————————–
          You should always be cautious about taking the particular statements of Beijing concerning their intentions at face value, but if you step back and look at the broader pattern, some truths emerge.

          Generally speaking, I don’t believe anything ANY government says. However, I do try to pay attention to behavior. When it comes to China, one behavior is its treatment of the Christian church. China appears to be utilitarian, thus a state-sponsored Christian church would be considered a plus because it inculcates obedience and separates out what belongs to God vs. what belongs to the state. I mentioned Western classical music and the benefits that flow from mastery of baroque instrumentation. If children enjoy the aesthetics of it, all to the good – it makes them practice more.
          ———————————
          The Chinese really do despise the idea of empire or even hegemony, as it is understood in Western terms of military supremacy and leadership.

          Yes, but as Malvolio famously said, some are born great, some achieve greatness, and some have greatness thrust upon them. While he was one of The-Fool-Who-Says-Wise-Things characters that pop up in Shakespeare, it’s a good way to look at China’s non-chosen leadership. China may have empire thrust upon it, given its own behavior; a shrinking violet does not buy the Panama Canal and the expect people to simply ignore such behavior. Or if it does, then China is not as smart as I’d given it credit for.

          China’s build-up of its blue-water and brown-water navies continues apace. As America cuts back on its expenditures, China won’t follow suit just because it’s safe to do so. I think it has plans to re-opening the Silk Route in a big way and controlling it.
          I don’t expect China to be particularly charitable. One has only to look at Tibet to know what China does in its own self-interest.

          I don’t think China would attempt to engineer the collapse of the global economy. At present, the endgame has too many unknowns in it for Chinese comfort; it would have to be more certain of the outcome.

          My point is that due to its behaviors – its grasping of property and mineral wealth, its production of consumer goods, and its desire for others’ indebtedness as a security measure – China will lead, like it or not. And if we don’t like it, China won’t lose any sleep over it. Its support of Pakistan in the face of India’s intense dislike of same may be a flash point for the two, at least for a the next bit while they both have similar numbers in the cohorts of cannon fodder.

          A team-up between Israel and China would redound to China’s benefit. The former has proven it can grow food in a desert. Due to China’s sheer numbers, it has devoured most of its flora and fauna. China would be the recipient of Israeli innovation, Israel would benefit from China’s protection on the world stage.

          Some of China’s practices are downright creepy to a Westerner. For example, its harvesting of organs from still-living “donors” – criminals, political prisoners, etc. Again, the utilitarian impulse that makes them almost a tertium quid: West, Russia, and China. Russia wouldn’t hesitate to do that, but there seems less personal animus in the Chinese. However, if Russia and China are ever to break free of their widespread -vertically and horizontally- corruption, THAT would be a revolution.

          As I understand it, Chinese philosophical thought flows from three main streams: Buddhism, Daoism, and Confucianism. For all our quoting of Confucius, it may be that we in the West understand his place least of all. But at least China is spared the dualism of Cartesian philosophy; in that it is most fortunate.

          I agree with your views on China’s non-interventionism. That is the West’s heritage from Christianity.

          In order to survive, I’ll bet there are many who are quite willing to “pay proper homage” to stay out of trouble. But we will see whether or not that’s true eventually. Or rather, we may not, but our children or our children’s children certainly will.

          • I think China will rather easily evade the “greatness” of being expected to intervene in the affairs of other nations when it does not suit them. Feigning weakness when you are strong is significantly easier than feigning strength when you are weak, after all.

            But the first thing to understand is that China has been deliberately undermining the global economic order for decades now. It isn’t a question of whether they would or not, nor any longer of whether they will succeed, but only of whether enough people will realize that the destruction of the global economy was intentional, and that the main culprit was the Chinese Communist Party.

            To suppose that the Chinese leadership would not do such a thing out of concern for their own position can only be justified by the presumption that they are unwilling to kill large numbers of the Chinese people in order to maintain order and conserve resources. I cannot imagine on what evidence this presumption can be based, everything the current Communist leadership has ever done should demonstrate otherwise.

            In any case, it can hardly matter. The global economic collapse can no longer be avoided, even if Beijing hadn’t deliberately caused it, they most certainly are planning how to benefit from it. One only has to look at the kind of language they are now using in reference to the territorial issues they are deliberately fomenting in their region. When the Chinese talk about the need to consider disputes in light of the traditional China-centric history of national relationships in the region, and characterize the norms of international behavior established by Western nations as a kind of historical aberration that cannot be expected to provide enduring resolutions to disputes, they are not merely being obtuse.

            They are laying groundwork for a narrative that will only make any sense in the aftermath of the nearly total eradication of Western influence in the Pacific.

            Not just an alteration in the relative military and economic strengths of China and America…the arguments China is making will only ever make sense if America and Europe functionally no longer exist even as influences in the region. That makes them seem very unhelpful to the current situation, but given that those tensions only exist due to Beijing’s actions, it should be obvious that the agenda is something more than resolving disputes.

            I do fully expect Beijing to play up the role of innocent bystander grievously injured by the fiscal irresponsibility of America. The massive economic losses (both overseas and domestically) by Chinese citizens (most of whom really are acting in good faith, after all) will be roundly denounced and blamed on everything from racism to deregulation to pop-music. The Japanese are too useful as stock villains to eliminate, and too smart not to re-adapt to something much more closely resembling the old regional order. Taiwan will discover that Beijing has long outgrown any real desire to subjugate them. The South Koreans will find themselves in quite a pinch, I don’t see how the collapse of the global economy can possibly make the world’s most insane country any nicer to have as a neighbor (credit where credit is due, I don’t believe most other peoples could even survive one generation under a system that insane).

            Well, and I have my own plans for dealing with Beijing, in the end. All I’m really saying is that you shouldn’t be looking to the Chinese Communists to do anything to prevent or mitigate the coming disaster.

          • All I’m really saying is that you shouldn’t be looking to the Chinese Communists to do anything to prevent or mitigate the coming disaster.

            Agreed. I look to them to give the odd push here and there to push along the coming disaster. But the disaster is not due to the Chinese; it’s simply useful.

            I mean Chinese leaders. No one else has a say.

          • I suppose that it will be a more pressing concern to hold the Western elites responsible for their role before looking for less-winnable fights elsewhere. But I do see a danger that some parts of the Americas, even in the former United States, my fall under the persuasion of Beijing. Nothing that can’t be handled with a few judicious assassinations, but fewer is better.

          • There is a small branch of science fiction that writes about this scenario. The conceit being that those areas will be coastal, mostly the West Coast – not necessarily beginning with California.

            The great sci-fi preoccupation post WWII was the morning after -the years after – the nuclear Armageddon. “A Canticle for Liebowitz” comes to mind.

            Now the great fear – which I find credible given the insanity of the apocalyptic crazies who hold sway in Iran – is an EMP attack. The thing about EMPs is that we don’t need to wait for the bloated Feds to act. Each state can act on its own to ‘harden its skies’ against this attack. AFAIK, only Maine is doing so.

          • The best EMP hardening is to have the individual capacity to go off-grid. The amount of damage an EMP of any type can to is directly proportional to the longest length of unshielded wire in a system. Honestly, having a grid in the first place is a fundamentally flawed concept.

      • Sorry for my belated reply.
        I do appreciate for your in-depth observations of our positive side. My watch is from within, and my focus is on the seamy side. Remember the army-size 7,000 Chinese tourists who landed on LA, flying the national colors and chorusing the revolutionary songs, tantamount to ” Veni,vidi,vici.”? Chopsticks are more powerful than M-16s, and a new kind of ” Yellow Peril ” is coming your way. CAVEAT !

  6. The Chinese have technology and work ethic, plus rare earth metals – the Arabs have oil.

    Both, one may say, have a similar attitude to democracy, human rights and “justice”. And a similar attitude, in general, to the West – enjoy its riches, to hell with its “values”

    Historically speaking, the most important Muslim explorer, Zheng He, was also Chinese.

    And, as was highlighted by Samuel Huntingdon as having existed in the past, the Chinese tended to ally with the Arabs many times.

    So could such an alliance not occur again in the near future? And what could its consequences be?

      • Point taken about their “practicalness”. But what does this mean in practice? Is defending free speech always practical? Or the freedom to draw a cartoon, of certain religious figures? Or is it more practical to not say certain things that may “offend” the easily-offended?

        As for Chinese-Arab cooperation, one does not need to go back to the historical era. The Taliban were using Chinese weapons against the Americans and British. China, Bangladesh and Pakistan are also cooperating vs. India. And I recall Gulf states banned the Dalai Lama from visiting a few years back.

        And Uighurs may be badly treated – but worse so than certain Muslim groups by Pakistan, Saudi Arabia or Isis? coming down hard on opponents seems to be a big thing both for Muslim countries and China.

        That’s not to say that many Chinese aren’t worried about the influence of the Religion of Peace. I myself know a few. And Singapore for many decades has been weary of the Muslim states around it.

        But is an alliance of convenience out of the question? Seems that more extraordinary agreements have taken place in the past. (the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact being a prime example)

        • The Chinese already give significant material assistance to anyone useful to them in their efforts to undermine America. Events in the Middle East, particularly with respect to Iran’s push to acquire nuclear weapons, make that abundantly clear. But an “alliance” (formal or not) is completely off the table. China has no allies (about which Beijing occasionally complains for artistic effect), purely and simply because China neither needs nor desires any allies.

          The Chinese will give Islamist states and non-state actors any assistance they might desire in their efforts to destroy “The Great Satan”. But this does not translate into any kind of broader relationship. The Chinese know perfectly well that the Islamists have absolutely nothing of value to give in return (even their vaunted oil cannot be extracted without foreign assistance) and could never be trusted to deliver it if they had. When America and Europe are in ruins, then the Chinese will quietly exterminate the troublesome local populations in areas that have desirable resources and take what they please without any bothersome interference or negotiation.

          • In America, particularly in the rural and mountainous areas, they’ll get more pushback. Going down into those West Virginia “hollows” to clean them out won’t be easy. My guess is that China will leave them in place to sort it out for themselves. That’s what everyone does with the clans there.

          • I was really only talking about what the Chinese would do in the Middle East rather than make allies. As far as I can tell they hope that America dissolves as a national entity and never comes back. And, hypothetically speaking, that might not be too hard to achieve if they can recast the unification of the disparate states as having been a fundamental mistake. An impoverished, autocratic, and vengeful Russia should be a very good way to keep Europe down (as well as being a pretty good source of raw materials, including oil).

  7. China’s future problem is the demographic time bomb they have waiting for them in about 10-15 years. Their baby boom to replace the large chunk of population lost during the civil wars and the Japanese depredations didn’t start until 1950, and was brought to a screeching halt by the massacres of the Cultural Revolution and then the One Child Policy. By the mid 2020s the last of that baby boom generation will be hitting the end of their working lives, and there just aren’t enough younger Chinese to support them. The aging population problem that is already affecting so many Western nations will be much, much worse in China, and they just aren’t wealthy enough, with enough long term wealth, do deal with it.

    • If the demographic time bomb were due to detonate only in China, I’d agree with you. But from the reading I’ve done, it will be within the time frame you mention and it will be global. Everybody gets to play.

      So that will level the playing field. Will it ever. David Goldman says that in the US and Israel only the groups who foster the idea of children – the Christians, Mormons, and Orthodox Jews – will see an uptick in their numbers. Those numbers are relative, of course, and the relation is in contrast with all the other groups, who do NOT reproduce even at replacement levels.

      His book:

      How Civilizations Die: (And Why Islam Is Dying Too)

      You can also look at Sir Gregory Copley’s ideas on the subject. He’s on our sidebar and I’m too tired to look up the link. I consider his writing and thinking transformative. His earlier foray into this area, called “Energy Security 2.0” is excellent. Polish off your globe, though. Google maps doesn’t give you a sense of geo-strategies in one go the way a globe does.

      You don’t even have to buy that book:

      http://www.artofvictory.com/PDFs/Energy%20Security%202.0%20PDF%20Editi..pdf

      The strength of his “UNcivilization” (the one on the sidebar) is that it’s descriptive, not normative. Many readers complain about that. They want solutions that supply them with a sense of security and Copley refuses to go beyond description…

      The solution to confusion is to read what’s out there, to keep reading. But clarity doesn’t bring comfort necessarily…at least not the comfort of easy answers.

      • A demographic time bomb is only a problem if you’re unwilling to exterminate those who are no longer useful to the ruling elite.

        China has problems, but an unwillingness to systematically exterminate their own people isn’t one of them.

        • It sure isn’t a problem exterminating undesirables in China.

          When a country is like “The Old Woman Who Lived in a Shoe” (must have been a single mother, that one) babies aren’t viewed as a cultural project toward the future but as a burden borne in the present, and not very graciously. If Chinese peasants had had their way, they’d have had far fewer forced abortions and more children to ease the burdens of age. That period of modern Chinese history is/was an internal genocide against the future; the unconscious burden for rural Chinese women as they face old age is sad to contemplate. More than 65 million babies killed, often after birth by armed soldiers.

          One of the reasons I like the psalms is Jewish scripture is the celebration of families.

          Don’t forget America is equally willing to eliminate people, especially the unborn and the less-than-perfect newborns. We also stash large numbers of underclass males in prison for non-violent crimes. When they come out they are no longer non-violent. On the other hand, we are willing to let the seriously mentally ill roam freely. Just another cultural contradiction.

          http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There_was_an_Old_Woman_Who_Lived_in_a_Shoe

          • I wouldn’t generally categorize American willingness to exterminate the unwanted as being equal. Certainly, there are those in America’s elite who delight in pointless slaughter, and this is not an attitude which is much tolerated in the Chinese leadership. But in terms of cool, rational determination to execute deliberate programs of mass murder to achieve clearly defined objectives, there really isn’t any comparison.

            Western elites may revel triumphantly over the mounds of corpses they pile up on the alters of their pagan gods, and fantasize about epic deeds of meaningless bloodshed, but they are a tiny minority and they have no real concern for whether their murders actually accomplish any further object. To the Western mind, killing the innocent is, at some level, inherently insane, and once that decision is made the murderous impulse itself seems to become the decisive factor. This is far less true of the Chinese generally, and even more so of those who attain leadership in the Party.

  8. “the collective unconciousness is not tied to temporality in the same sense as we percieve time.”

    Forgive the lack of a rudimentary grasp on this statement, but could you further illucidate on this?

    • It’s a contested idea, and one not all people find congenial, especially in the West with our hyperfocus on what we control.

      Here’s a start:

      http://www.simplypsychology.org/carl-jung.html

      Essentially the claim is that we carry a lot more history/future within ourselves than it is ever possible to access but as we learn to trust the whole Self, some of the barriers move a bit. We are such an admixture of creativity and destruction…

      Jung began with the idea but it has moved in different directions under the influence of a great many people since then.

      • More to the point, humans generally do have both instincts and unconscious learning of unverbalized cultural cues. And when a moment of crisis appears to which your conscious habits and knowledge are inadequate, you will act based on those deeper patterns.

        The argument about how much of common human behavior in response to extraordinary events is driven by instinct and how much by unconscious learning of unverbalized culture is very wide-ranging, not least because nobody really knows where the line between instinct and unconscious knowledge really lies. It’s a bit like the question of whether Arabs have low IQ’s and a predisposition towards violence because of genetics or because of the endemic horrific child-abuse in their culture. The low IQ’s and violence tend to perpetuate the endemic child-abuse patterns, the child-abuse lowers IQ’s and increases violence. Jung may have been on to something in refusing to try to figure out how much of the collective unconscious is genetic and how much is implicit cultural inheritance.

        Then again, that refusal did make his ideas sound like some kind of mysticism.

        Anyway, in context I think that Dymphna was saying that the mass refusal of increasing numbers of people in developed nations to engage in reproductive activity indicates that they unconsciously realize something bad is happening to their future. And I frankly think that’s pretty likely.

        • Yes. I was saying that, but also was trying to make the point – or ought to have made the point – that the current extremes of politicizing everything including – or maybe in particular inclusion of – sexual orientation (especially by the Left) is giving children a platform for rebellion they wouldn’t have otherwise. Declaring oneself asexual is not only rebellion but reclusiveness and a cry for some kind of privacy which might not otherwise be available. It’s cutting the Gordian knot and then gluing the ends together.

          The mass refusal to reproduce among the fertile adults in developed nations is a different matter. Sadly, it’s too often done because children are inconvenient. Since people live in the present, they presume they will always have the funds to allow them to be taken care of by strangers in end-of-life arrangements. Part of the global die-off expected at mid-century will be the tail end of the enormous numbers of those born in the relief and giddiness of the end of WWII’s suffering. Those children were supposed to be the sunshine after a long dark time of Depression and War. Ironically they turned into brats, many of them.

          If you personally know any of those old-time families who had large numbers of children, you have experienced the generational discontinuities of sib groups born along the years from, say, 1946 to 1960. The sibs seem to ‘clump’ in quite different universes and with quite different sets of expectations. The sib tensions are sometimes markedly obvious.

          One of the sad consequences re the lack of family formations and/or the bizarre arrangements in the 21st century is that people are less likely to comprehend at a deep level the complexities of family alliances. Family life, while materially affluent, is often emotionally poverty-stricken. I don’t know if the phenomenon of a wider-spread bullying has anything to do with this or not. I often wish Daniel Moynihan were still around to ask him.

  9. Evidence for the origins of three Great monuments of Islamic Spain, the Mosque of Cordoba, Madina Azahara and the Alhambra, suggests attributions that preceded Islam.

    The assumption is that the building that became known as the Mosque of Cordoba existed prior to the reign of the Umayyads for the second/eighth to the fifth/eleventh century is based partly on serious doubts concerning the efficacy of its design as a mosque. What then could the Mosque of Cordoba originally have have been designed to be? Apparently not to be a mosque? A basic requirement for a Mosque is that it face Makka. This building orients 48 degrees away from the south of Mekka.

    There are many more unexplained features of what must later have become a mosque?? Why does it have basement areas, whose original extent is not yet documented? Mosques do not have basements. Was this the basement of an earlier church or was it even earlier Phoenician storage space for products?

    Why the 73-meter high minaret? No call by a human voice to prayer could have been heard from its high balcony? Perhaps it was a signal tower and observatory.

    Why the formidable defence design of the exterior wall including massive rectangular buttresses and crenellated parapets? From whom was there fear of invasion of a mosque? But a Phoenician warehouse containing valuables metals would have been a temptation requiring a fortified exterior wall.

    Why is its location at the edge of the city on its waterfront prime commercial area? Why not in the center of the city where it would have been more accessible as the city’s congregational mosque? Phoenician temples were located apart from the city and close to water where they served as commercial centres.

    One of the samples from a wood ceiling beam in the sanctuary roof that had carbon-14 dated showed it to be of the 7th Century BC. This wood plus four other samples provided a range of dates extending from the 7th century BC to 14th century BC. Apparently, the mosque had a long history of repair, work and change of function.

    • I would say it had a 73 metre minaret as a show of supremacism Mrityunjay,the muslims had conquered Spain and they wanted to build their mosques taller than the nearest churches,this was also the name the muslims had conjuered up for the ground zero mosque,Cordoba House.Back in 2007 German journalist Ralph Giordano caused international outrage when he outted the german/turks for planning to build a mosque in cologne with minarets at 55 metres tall,dwarfing the church next door

  10. Like many other Phoenician settlements, the Alhambra is located on a height for protection with the help of an encircling stone wall. There are certain problems with the current explanation of the Alhmabra as an Islamic palce-city of the 13th – 14th centuries, supposedly basically a product of the Nasrid Dynasty which ruled Grand from 635/1237 to 898/1492. If Granda was the last gasp of Power of Islam in Spain, would they have built such an expensive and ambitious project at that time. Nor it is known why the rooms were arranged the way they were and how they functioned. Names attributed to the Rooms like Halls of the sisters are only fanciful later Spanish titles based on legend. Dario Cabanelas Rodriguez does not rule out the possibility of an even earlier castle existing in Roman times, there is abundant evidence for a jewish castle erected in the eleventh century.

    As in the Mosque of Corodoba, the two small Alhambra chapel “mosques” do not face Mecca……,it misses Mecca by about 50 degress. The (so-called) Mosque in Cordoba,and the Kaba may possibly be oriented towards the heavens in the same direction for the same reason but it does not follow that the (so-called) mosque based on its orientation on a Moslem veneration of the kaba. The supposed use of Cuarto Dorado’s south wall as the location for a throne for the king to receive visitor’s is almost too ridiculous to comment on. It is obviously too cramped a space and beset by pedestrian traffic. The lack of information about the location of a mosque ample enough to serve a large congregation in the vicinity of the palace, and the absence of a mosque in the fortified Alcabza, should create doubt concerning the supposed Islamic design of the layout.

    Like the other Phoenician settlements The court of Lions & its surrounding buildings and the room could have housed the royal family & administrators. The famous Lion’s Fountain, focal point of the court of Lions, was probably Phoenician, which would explain this perplexing anomaly of naturalistic sculpture in an Islamic building. A possible grand reception hall on the east side of the plaza could have been used to accommodate large meeting.

    However, the mosque in Madina Azhara may be original mosque because it faces toward Makka. On the other hand, the mosque may have been a pre-existing Phoenician temple, reworked and used as a mosque.Based on the historian of choice, Ibn Hayyan, Azahara made use of 400 columns, 15000 door leafs, 10,000 workmen and slaves. Yet, the detailed account does not include an account of the excavation. The explanation may be that he is describing rework, not original construction.

    There is a relating consistent stylistic continuity in the structure though it is said to have been built by Moslem invaders over a 250 year period. The curiosity elongated shape is not typical of mosque layouts. The facades have battlements and bastions which suggest a fortress-like appearance and function. Why did Abdur Rahman III have to rebuild the original minaret supposed to have been built earlier by Al-Hikam I, with curious large with curious large Gold and silver fruit and lily leaves decorations at the top which are inconsistent with Muslim practice? “Why are so many
    of the interior columns and capitals in the Visegothic and Roman styles? How were the Moslems of Spain able to decorate the(so-called) mosque in such intricate and beautiful mosaics when, according to lbn Idhari, only one mosaicist was brought from Constantinople who taught two ‘slaves’ and returned home. According to Terrasse, being an infidel he was probably not even allowed in the (so-called) mosque. ”

    It is quite- probable from professor Mills’ observation above that those ancient spectacular buildings in Spain are neither Christian nor Muslim but are earlier Vedic temples, forts and palaces. The fact that the mosaicist was an Infidel indicates that the mosaic decoration is non-Muslim and therefore pre-Muslim. Moreover how could the So-called Muslim expert train the two novice ‘salves’ in mosaic art in such a short time and leave them to execute the job all by themselves? The reference to ‘salves’ arises from the wicked Muslims tradition of terming and treating all non-Musilms as slaves. The fatality of Muslims claims discovered all over the world proves that most Muslims historians have been liars and that hereafter every Muslim letter, word and claim in historical chronicles and documents must be subjected to the strictest scrutiny.

  11. What criteria are used to make a claim that some accomplishment is Islamic? If the criteria include the fact that the accomplishment is/was achieved by someone who happened to be a Mohammedan, why is that so? What attribute does Islam impart on the deed? And why can’t the same claim be made of any other religion? And in the same vein, why are there those, especially in the West, disavowing any connection between Islam and the Mohammedan perpetrators of god-awful barbarism? If the same criteria are applied today, then ISIS, et al are all Islamic. Or, is Islamic attribution made only when it shows Islam in the best light?

    • In terms of architecture, much can be attributed to Greek and Levantine craftsman. What happened is this: The Arabs rolled in as conquerors and set up shop, in many cases they converted churches to Mosques and used infidel laborers to design and build it since Arabs have no tradition of manual labor nor of architecture. Even to this day, they will not do any sort of manual labor as it’s considered beneath them.

      Even their metaphysics as found in Sufi teachings aren’t Islamic but pre-date Islam. Greek Neoplatonism was one and Central Asian shamanism was another.

      In Spain, when the Muslims invaded, Spain would still have had people who knew Greek and Roman style architecture and construction methods. whom they could enslave or threaten to build their mosques – often on existing buildings.

      In Egypt the Pyramids were originally covered in casing stones. When the Muslims conquered Egypt they used these casing stones for their buildings and used the books in the library of Alexandria to heat their baths.

      In short almost all their intellectual and artistic claims are not theirs but the people they conquered and often forced at sword point to do their bidding. And oh after they finished assimilating them into Muslims a couple centuries hence, the artistic and intellectual developments ceased. Why? Because people cannot thrive in corrosive and mentally reducing atmosphere that Islam creates. This is why their Golden Age was over within 300 years of conquest of the Levant, Egypt, Iraq and Persia.

      They killed the cradle of civilization.

  12. “There is a Fjordman essay I can’t find now that deals with that first book.”–Dymphna

    One of many things for which I am grateful to this blog.

    As someone who was drawn to this site by its energy, wide range of knowledge and devotion to discovery, and then “absorbed” by it, I recall that my first detailed, objective education in the historic distinction between the West and Islam in all manner of practical and cultural endeavors was due to Fjordman. He was my first practical insight into the cultural divide and the Soviet-like claims of Islamic contributions to the West.

  13. I am still curious why we assign the attributive adjective Islamic to particular historical episodes or artifacts. What makes them Islamic? There is also some irregularity in its use, as in Arabic numerals, although some refer to the numbers as Hindu-Arabic. Why not Hindu-Islamic or Islamic numerals? Why was Arabic used in place of Islamic? Didn’t the Arabs adopt the numbering system while they were Muslims? Are there examples of the use of Christian as an attributive outside of its practice, that is, referring to secular things?

    • Until approx. 13th-century Italy, Westerners were still using Roman numerals for all calculations, financial, calendrical, etc.

      The introduction of “Arabic numerals” came directly *from* Arabic-speaking traders with whom the Venetians, Genoese, and other far-sailing Italian city-states dealt. Even though there were ready-reference tables for multiplication and division in Roman numerals, they were still slow to use.

      Fibonacci’s Liber Abaci opened up western mathematics not only to Arabic numerals, but to the concept of zero.

      • The Arabs stole that from the Indian continent and claimed it as theirs. The historical proof? Eons later the Indians are still winning Nobel prizes for their maths. The Arabs? Not so much. As in zero – and zero is an Indian concept.

      • Here is the wiki on Leonardo Fibonacci:

        http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fibonacci

        Wiki says it was Arabic-Indian, but I’ll have to wait for the mathematician in the family to come back and tell us more. He has worked extensively with Fibonacci’s system – I understand little beyond the 1-2-3-5-8-13 …and so on theory, though the B had repeatedly pointed out its beauty.

        Many mathematicians, programmers, and quilters have bought and used the B’s system to design their own work. My favorite was a school in China – they asked and got permission to replicate the system throughout the school.

        Here are some customers’ designs: http://chromatism.net/cfsgcust.htm

        The B called his painting work “chromatism” because he used a theory of color placement he devised based on Fibonnaci’s ideas.

        Now you just wait: he’ll come home and tell you where I got it wrong. Sigh.

  14. D .. i thought your piece was just great ..

    hated all the petty alhambra squabbling. it’s gonna be toast anyway .. i’m never going to see it !!
    was very impressed with chiu chungling’s thoughts ..
    she sounds like the voices from
    j clavels great novels .. only more microscopic in intensity.
    i’m exhausted following this blog post alone.
    i need to seek refuge @ shady rest .. and
    thinkin’ of going to the doc & gettin’ a shot of b-12
    before i embark on el ingles latest.

    what a place this is ..

  15. This is, without qualification, one of the most interesting and “civilised” discussions regarding an iinteresting and important topic I have ever had the pleasure to read..Sadly, almost no one I know…actually KNOW…people I care about…people who could benefit from this…will never, ever understand, much less read the whole thing…

    Doomed we are

Comments are closed.