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Geschrieben von Andreas am 18. Mai 2003 22:28:27:
Als Antwort auf: Wieder einmal eine Kostprobe Beasly und Widdowson; Thema: knappe Ressourcen geschrieben von Andreas am 18. Mai 2003 21:56:24:
THE COMING DARK AGE
Newsletter
March, 20031. INTRODUCTION
This is the second issue of the 'Coming Dark Age' newsletter. At the
time of writing, the world is expecting imminent war in Iraq. In fact,
'war' is something of a misnomer. Few people expect that the largely
disarmed Iraqi military will present much of a challenge to the
technologically advanced United States forces. The test of American
power is not really its ability to bomb the hell out of Iraq -- that
goes without question. It is more whether the coming action is a
genuine form of imperialism that brings peace and stability to the
world, or whether it simply adds to the chaos, hatred and economic
troubles of our pre-dark age society.
This issue of the newsletter contains a description of the military
embroilments of the later Roman empire, plus some observations on a
modern 'innovation failure', and a piece by a reader explaining the
background to London's new 'eruv'.
Comments, suggestions and contributions are welcomed. Please forward
this newlsetter to anyone who might be interested.
Marc Widdowson.2. BYZANTINE POLICY IN THE WEST
After the fall of Rome, the western half of the Roman empire was in the
hands of a variety of barbarian tribes: Anglo-Saxons in Britain, Franks
in Gaul, Visigoths and Sueves in Spain, Ostrogoths and later Lombards
in Italy, Vandals in North Africa. To the Byzantine emperors, who
continued to rule the eastern empire from Constantinople (aka
Byzantium), this situation was not as inevitable or unrecoverable as it
may seem to us now. They continued to take an active interest in the
west, with the aim of either ruling through the barbarians or, where
possible, reasserting direct imperial government. A key technique was
that of paying subsidies to one barbarian group to wage war on another.
This is the phenomenon of 'hegemony by bribery', which is familiar to
us today as the United States buys influence over lesser countries with
aid packages and trade deals. It was how the Visigoths came to occupy
Spain, as they originally entered the peninsular alongside Roman
generals in a campaign to defeat the Vandals who were the first to
overrun the former imperial province. After the Vandals had crossed to
Africa, the Visigoths remained, nominally as Roman allies who had been
rewarded with tax-gathering rights. Similarly, during the sixth
century, the Franks received a number of payments from Byzantium to
cross the Alps and attack the Lombards. The hope was that the barbarian
groups who were induced to fight each other would both be weakened as a
result, and the empire would be able to step in and pick up the pieces.
Unfortunately, the barbarians were clever enough to see through this,
and they tended to fight only in a limited way. Another technique
favoured by the Byzantine emperors was to back particular candidates
and pretenders to the throne in the barbarian kingdoms. The idea here
was naturally that those who came to the throne with their assistance
would adopt policies more favourable to the Romans. Again, this policy
seldom worked out in practice. In some cases, the Roman-backed
rebellions failed in their objectives. And when the rebels did gain the
leadership, they often turned against their Roman supporters. In the
modern world, the United States has coined the term 'blowback' to
describe this problem, whereby the 'freedom fighters' that have been
supported with American resources end up using them to attack the west
itself.3. CONGESTION CHARGING
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, has introduced a 'congestion
charge' zone in the centre of the city. Drivers must pay 5 pounds to
enter the zone, the idea being to discourage traffic and make the
streets flow more easily. Roughly a month into the scheme, it seems
that traffic levels have been reduced by about 20 per cent. Widespread
predictions that traffic would merely be diverted to the boundary of
the zone, which would then be gridlocked, have failed to materialise.
Predictions of a high error-rate in the process of identifying and
fining drivers who enter the zone without purchasing a ticket have come
true, but perhaps these can be reduced with time, and it remains the
case that traffic is less. By its own terms, the congestion charging
scheme has been a success. However, this scheme is also a classic
example of the failure of imagination that one gets in a declining
civilisation. In Calcutta, traffic problems are also horrendous, but
the mayor of that city is building an ambitious configuration of roads
and flyovers in order to get the traffic moving. In Britain, by
contrast, the approach seems to be to discourage people from moving at
all. Yet traffic is a sign of economic vigour. People need to move
around in order to make an economy work. Historical societies, or
modern countries with minimal transport infrastructures, are inevitably
poor, as customers cannot get to suppliers. Congestion charging is
itself part of a wider campaign designed to slow things down and
discourage movement -- including speed bumps, more stringent speed
limits, and proliferation of traffic cameras. This is not to say that
there are no problems with congestion and road accidents, but the
significant thing is that we adopt crude social solutions rather than
technological ones. Instead of meeting people's need to travel -- a
need that was obviously strong enough not to be put off by the
congestion that used to exist in central London -- we try to make the
prospect so daunting that they simply give up. The road safety
campaigners, it sometimes seems, would be glad to get us back to the
stage where a man with a red flag had to walk in front of every car.
Ken Livingstone would like to ban cars from London altogether. Perhaps
that will eventually happen. It comes as no surprise to know that Rome
was 'pedestrianised' during the centuries of decline, and traffic was
only permitted in the city after nightfall.4. LONDON'S ERUV
London recently saw the launching of an 'eruv' -- a zone, marked out by
poles and wire, within which the Sabbath restrictions on Orthodox Jews
are somewhat relaxed. This seems to be a kind of self-imposed
ghettoization, or at any rate an accentuation of cultural difference.
It is typical of the process of socio-cultural fragmentation or
polarisation that, in dark age theory, is known as 'social
discohesion'. This polarisation is not just between Jews and the wider
society, but within the Jewish community itself. Dark age reader, Naomi
Ogus, explains...
The eruv is put in a place where there are many shades of Jewish (and
non-Jewish) people, i.e. different levels of observance and philosophy.
The authority that is responsible for making this eruv (boundary)
kosher, is the London Beth Din (Jewish Law Court) who oversee matters
of kosher meat and have the power to define "who is a Jew" in Britain.
Since they have to accommodate all Anglo Jewry in Britain, they have
limited effectiveness. Most Orthodox folk living in Golders Green,
Hendon, Temple Fortune, Finchley Central etc. will not use it because
it is a good thing to be seen to be following the highest authority
(even those who work within the Beth Din itself will not use their own
creation). In effect, a competition of who is more religiously
observant takes effect. So, by creating this invisible boundary for
twenty five hours, it's creating a visible division within Anglo Jewry
for the first time -- those who will be seen to be pushing buggies and
those who won't. I know from experience that this part of the world is
extremely inward looking and social coercion is rife. It may seem
petty, but to those within it, it is anything but. So maybe by
physically making this boundary it is creating others, or making others
that were already there more sharply defined. Of course the people who
most violently react against it are the non-observant community --
usually reform and liberal Jews who are strongly against anything
Orthodox. They feel threatened by observance going on around them, and
self conscious as if they are somehow second best, illegitimate. The
non-Jews couldn't care less, unless someone decided to use this issue
and stick an anti-Semitic spin on it if they so choose. What makes this
eruv different from others is the fact that there are so many different
shades of tradition and observance concentrated in one small area (a
bit like Israel if you think about it). The difference is, of course
that it is in England and not the Middle East where differences of
opinion can be avoided and denied. Israel is good at getting things out
into the open. There are successful eruvs in other places because a
more uniform (in belief) orthodox community lives side by side and so
there are never usually many arguments -- Antwerp, New York (Crown
Heights, Flatbush etc). It's just a British thing. Suddenly the big
thing that they have been talking about for years comes along and
people can't cope. This thing is asking them to put their colours to
the mast, so to speak.