Slovenia Debate Summer Camp

PHOTO: Anja Serc, left, with Simon, Gorazd and Igor, all staff members

Anja Serc is a veteran of the Slovenian debate experience. This is her tenth high school summer camp, and she has gone from being a wide-eyed beginner to an experienced veteran instructor. She is emblematic of the Slovenian debate program, now in its eleventh year after being started by the Open Society Institute. Under the direction of Bojana Skrt it has become one of the premier debate programs in the world both in terms of penetrating Slovenian society with a debate culture as well as representing at all levels around the world.

This summer sixty students and ten faculty have gathered in the lovely mountain village of Tolmin, where it is cool and lovely as opposed to Ljubljana down on the plains where it has been fairly hot. The camp began on Saturday and ends tomorrow, another Saturday. The camp is being held in a high school boarding dormitory which has lots of classroom space and nice rooms even if the meals could, at times, be a bit better. No meals have been bad, it’s just that I usually expect a little more from breakfast.

One of the major goals of this camp is to guide the transition of Slovenian high school debate from the Karl Popper format of debate to the World Schools format. The speeches are longer and there are more of them, and cross examination has been replaced by points of information. Half the motions are prepared and half are impromptu. The reply speech adds a whole new element to the debate which the students seem to be enjoying.

The days are long and rigorous, but the students seem extremely enthusiastic and are tuned in and on time. The days begin at 9 AM and end as late as 9 or 10 PM, and consist of one lecture, a long series of drills and exercises on the subject of the lecture, and two or more debates, each with a long critique. About half of the students are preparing, receiving instruction and debating in English. This is not because Slovenia is moving away from debating in the native language, because domestic debate will continue in Slovenian, but because there is a new emphasis on international competition, Slovenia increasingly hosts and attends international tournaments in the WSDC format in English. Next year the plan for the camp is to include both a domestic track in Slovene and an international track in English, so that students from other countries will be invited as well.

This is my fourth such camp as an instructor and I can see with each year the increasing skills and seriousness of the students and the staff. What was once a mostly social activity with an eye towards instilling civic virtue has become increasingly a more intense intellectual activity designed to impart critical success skills to the students as well as prepare them for more intense levels of competition.

The Slovenian national team is also here preparing for the World Schools Debating Championship to be held starting next week in South Korea. These five students have been preparing for a full year for this contest, and they fly out on Saturday. I have been debating against and with them as well as helping them with the prepared motions that have been announced for the tournament. When you combine this with my other duties of lecturing and running exercises and drills with the English language group, I have been quite busy. I spent last fall on sabbatical in Slovenia and I worked intensively with them during that period as well. I feel very close to them even though they are not “my” team. I am very proud of their progress and hope they do well in Korea. Slovenia is a tiny country (2 million) and we will see how it competes against huge countries like India and Indonesia, as well as debate giants like England and Australia.

For more information about ZIP, the Slovenian national debate program, go to www.ljudmila.org/debata. You can contact Bojana at bojana.skrt@siol.net . To follow the progress of this year’s World Schools Debating Championship see Claire Ryan’s blog at http://www.schoolsdebate.com/blog/ .

Double European Summer School

I am in the airport in Wichita, Kansas. The National Forensic League's National Speech and Debate Tournament has just ended last night. It was an interesting experience, being the director of tournament operations for the largest forensics tournament in the world (over 5000 people). For more information about that experience, check my blog postings at http://debate.uvm.edu/debateblog/ .

But, now it is on to my next stops, and these are in Europe. I will do a summer school stint in Slovenia at their National Debate Summer Camp for one week (almost half of the students are there to work on debating in English). It is in a semi-Alpine place called Tollmin.

Then it is one to Belgrade, Serbia to teach an intensive one-week course at the Faculty of Organizational Sciences in persuasion theory. On my last visit there to do a short debate workshop they had invited me to return to do something more academic. I can do that. I look forward to seeing all of my friends in Serbia, especially Tomislav, Mila and all the rest.

More from Europe to come later.

Doctor Who - Guess who is back?

End of 2007 season episode 11, "Utopia." I knew they had to bring him back.

Interesting Advertising

Thanks to Bob Corbett for these.

Hello from Wichita, Kansas where I am the Director of Operations at the National Forensic League Speech and Debate National Tournament. 5000+ here for the event. We have 1742 judges alone.

Enjoy these interesting images.

Sarah Jane Snider marries Justin Green

May 27 2007 in Manhattan, Kansas. It was a big weekend of celebration, ritual and fun.

<== Happy couple after the ceremony

Sarah had this one pretty well planned. She apparently had a three page three column to do list, and it all seemed to get done, and she had an awesome posse of people helping her to plan and execute things. Her maids of honor seemed to be doing a lot of it, and since many had married recently, they knew what needed to be done and how to do it. I must also salute Justin's family, who worked really hard to make the whole thing come off well.

Friday night was a welcome at their home at 1615 Humboldt Street in Manhattan (also known as the "Little Apple"). It was for whoever was in town. The food as good and the company even better. It was good to see so many of my dear friends there (especially from the debate world) as well as family members I had not seen in a while and especially family members to be.

<== Radiant Sarah just before the wedding

Saturday was the rehearsal at the Kansas State University Alumni Center. It wasn't much of a rehearsal ( fine with me) but it did let us know where to walk and in what order. That night there was the rehearsal dinner that was held at the Little Apple Brewery. The crowd was big, the food excellent and the spirit was right. A couple of simple toasts, but things did not get carried away. The open bar sort of established a party theme for the weekend. I had a great time. There was a cowboy motif, and before I knew it I had a bandanna on my head and a sheriff's badge on it. No guns seemed in evidence, not even toys, and that was fine with me.

Sunday afternoon the big event started. I got a call from Rae that Sarah had no music in her dressing and prep room, so I took over an ipod and a speaker system so they could hear some Reggae to warm up. I was not sure about the procedure of whether I could see the bride, but Sarah told me to come on in because I am the father of the bride. She looked absolutely fantastic. As I gazed at her I thought, well, maybe evolution does work after all and we are on a long-term climb to becoming a better species. At least a more beautiful species.

<== Rev. Frosty presides

Justin looked awesome in a light suit with a great hat. He was enjoying himself down at the cocktail hour that preceded the ceremony. I had programmed some lounge music (a lot of Brazilian organs, horns, and of course Astrud Gilberto. People liked it. Sarah had asked me to fund the bar (we buy liquor, they serve it) as well as program music for the cocktail hour and the dinner. I wanted something lively and interesting but not too familiar, so people would visit instead of listening or singing. Later during the dancing there would be lots of familiar songs, I knew that for sure. I even dropped by the bar they were at later to celebrate a bit.

Then we matched outside for the ceremony, with the right reverend Frosty G (Gordie Miller) in his black suit to preside. I marched with Sarah's mother and Sarah between us, which I thought was cool. The ceremony was held in the sun and quite beautiful. Frosty got a name wrong but that only lightened things up. The vows were impressive, and I think the most important part. A public declaration to each other in front on family and friends is what such rituals are all about. Their vows were moving and quite frank in what they expected from each other and what they offered.

Following this there was another cocktail hour (same music) and then it was in for dinner. Maxwell Schnurer was the MC for the event and did a very nice job. The meal was great (fajitas were a great idea, Sarah) and I made sure not to eat too much.

I had some duties and I performed them. I had to give the father toast. Shot glasses of Appleton Jamaican rum were delivered to everyone (juice to the young ones) and I did, in fact make a toast. I will now paraphrase it:

As most of you know, Sarah is a very strong woman. I want to specially thank her mother for that. Before Sarah was born we did not ant to know the gender, as either would be fine, but people were concerned about colors for buying things, pink or blue. We decided that Sarah's colors would be yellow and green, and so they were. These colors have stuck with her through the years. As a child she would be glad to tell bewildered adults why the Reggae colors were red, gold, and green -- as the red stood for the blood of those killed by slavery and colonialism, that the gold stood for what was stolen from them and that the green stood for the Earth, which is our salvation. So now the story comes full circle. She has found a partner, and in so doing has now become a Green. And I know that in doing so, she has found gold.

There were a number of other toasts, and I enjoyed them all. Then there was the daddy-daughter dance. I had a really hard time picking a song. Music has been such an important part of my life and Sarah's, and our life together, that there were dozens and dozens of songs. Finally, I picked Marley"s "Three little birds" because it has always been the song that has made me feel better at my times of greatest despondency. It has the right message for this moment.

There was a huge Lawrence Debate Union photo opportunity. I don't have the picture yet, but I will post it when I get it.

<== Rev. Frosty and Bojana

The party continued with dancing and fun. That James Brown piece that Justin picked was awesome, even if other people seemed a bit confused by it. We were all just about to quit quite a bit later when "Uptown top rankin'" by Althea and Donna came on, and the whole debate posse was singing and dancing. I loved the way Justin's family danced, showing their Louisiana roots and having a great time.

The bar shut at 11:30 PM. Good thing, as I was tired.

The next day there was a brunch back at their house and it was, again, fantastic. People started leaving and that was a good session for farewells, something that many of you know that I dislike, but it worked this time. Lots of excellent food, and some really awesome Cajun dishes as well.

Back in the rental car, back to Kansas City, and then back to Mexico. I know that Bojana enjoyed herself and liked comparing the "real" American wedding to the "movie" weddings she had seen.

If anything was appropriate to interrupt my Mexico vacation, this was it. It was a wonderful event and something that created memories which will last a lifetime for me, and I hope for Sarah and Justin.

Justin, the most important thing in my life is now the most important thing in your life. She is a rich and rare treasure, take good care of each other. I cannot think of any other man in the world I would rather have my daughter love.

Baja Natural Mystics - Part 2

<== The porch, looking out into the bay


In 2006 I noticed some amazing things during my stay in Baja California in a small village called Puertecitos, where I own a small beach house I inherited from my father. I reported on it In my blog and you can see it at "Baja Natural Mystics." The point was that if you get more in tune with the natural world you notice a lot of very interesting things. I spend most of my life in a small Vermont town and am too busy to notice a lot of the things going on around me. Not so when I am in Puertecitos. Click here to see more about Puertecitos. I have now completed about five weeks there, so here are my observations of that natural world from this stay. Not all these items are completely natural, but I hope you will understand.
-Fish-go-round
-Pelican fishing
-Mysterious jumping fish
-Female gulls at highest tide
-Coastal wind tunnel
-Global warming and my porch
-Wearing out a pair of flip-flops
-Black helicopters
-Salt water soap
-Lonely male gulls
-Fog bank
-Hot wind from the west
-Infrared lights on the beach
-My last swim for a while

-Fish-go-round
On one of my earlier swimming sessions in front of the house (I usually have several each day) I noticed a lot of very small fish swimming close to me. They were between 1.5 and 2 inches in length, and seemed to be quite willing to swim near to me, within a matter of inches. As I reached for them they would either sense my arm in the water of retreat from its shadow if it was above the water. They did not swim away, just avoided getting too close. I decided to experiment, and I stretched out my right arm and put it in the water. As I began to turn from right to left they would simply stay a few inches ahead of it as it turned through the water with my body as the axis. I curved my hands inward and started turning around and the fish went in front of my hand and arm as if I were herding them. I turned around and around slowly and they kept going around and around me. Thus, I thought of it as a fish-go-round. I did this quite often while swimming after that.

-Pelican fishing
Pelicans really know how to fish and when and where. They often fish in front of the house, but they only do so when the tide and the sun are right. Around sunset when the tide is high is their favorite time for this spot. I noticed that I had to wait for the sun and the tide to get into sync for them to put on their fishing show.

-Mysterious jumping fish
Jumping fish in the bay are a regular feature. However, things seemed to be a bit different from previous years. There were fewer jumping fish but those that did jump tended to be quite a bit bigger, often 8-10 inches long. They also seemed unconcerned with whether you were swimming near them, they just went ahead and jumped. The record for consecutive jumps, as I remember, was five, as seen by Gordie Miller. The most I saw this time was four.

-Female gulls at highest tide
<== Birds on the beach

We had a very high tide this time, one of the highest this year. It came up higher on the beach than I had seen in quite a while. On the afternoon of the highest tide, there was a large group of seagulls standing right along the water line as it rose, and they seemed to be interested in what might be stirred up by the high tide. I also noticed that all of them were female (females tend to be speckled, males white and grey in distinct pattern). Why were the females so interested in what was being stirred up but not the males? Did it have anything to do with the upcoming breeding season? I can only speculate. It was only on this day that such a pattern of birds formed on the beach.

-Coastal wind tunnel
<== Huerfanita, the white dot on the horizon

About 26 miles south is a small island right next to the coast called La Huerfanita (the Orphan). There is is a small fishing camp there. As we look down the coast we can see it as it stands out bight white, covered with bird guano. There is a natural break in the mountains that leads all the way over to the Pacific side, and so often cloud formations and winds come through from the Pacific Ocean. As I sit on the porch I can see the island, and if there is a column of clouds there coming from the west I can tell a weather system is moving our way, as it gets there first. It is interesting to have a weather predictor 26 miles to the south that you can see and depend on.

-Global warming and my porch
At the highest tide the sea washes against the bottom of my porch. A rise of sea levels of two or three feet could mean that my porch could be undermined and threatened. Yes, that's right, global warming and rising ocean levels present a threat to my porch. It is real. I am not sure I will be around to see it, but I am sure that my daughter Sarah will be. I remember about 20 years ago I had an affirmative case I helped students produce that said global warming was coming and that people would not do enough to stop it, so we might as well get ready to deal with it. Another debate case becomes reality.

-Wearing out a pair of flip-flops

<== New and old flip-flops

Those ultra-cheap and highly transitory items of footware with the vast number of names -- thongs, zoris, beach walkers, foam sandals, etc. -- that we are all familiar with. As a resident of a northern zone it has been tough for me to wear out a pair of these. Finally, I have. A pair of 99 cent flip-slops have now been worn out by my due to continued use here in Mexico. Fortunately, Sarah and her new husband Justin Green got me a new pair of flip-flops, and red-green-gold Red Stripe flip-flops to boot. These seem fairly sturdy and it will take me a while to wear these out. Well, I wore out one pair, I an go for two.

-Black helicopters
There has for a long time been some military presence in the area, Mexican army forces who are involved in drug interdiction. About five days into the stay I heard the sound of helicopters in the middle of the night. They woke me and I was concerned. It sounded like a scene from Apocalypse Now. After some major choppers went by, I head another returning, and I went out to the porch in the middle of the night to watch. An attack helicopter came by the house and headed out to the middle of the bay. At the entrance to the bay it turned and came back down the middle of the bay towards the house. It passed low and within about thirty feet of the house, and it is about as close to a major weapon of death as I have ever been. It roared by and then landed about a mile away from us, over at a place called "Bomber Bay," since a military plane had crashed there during World War Two and I had played in its wreckage as a child. I am told now that it is a place where drug activity take place, but that few get arrested there because they have "friends in high places." Not high enough, apparently. There was no repeat of such an incident during the rest of my stay. Good.

-Salt water soap
Fresh water is at a premium and we try to save it for drinking. Besides, what good is a fresh water bath if you are going swimming in salt water four times a day? Yet, there is still a desire to be clean, and that means a need for different kinds of soap. Enter a classic soap brand called "Vel." Vel claims it will work in the "hardest" possible water, and it certainly will, It will suds and soap you uop even in sea water. So, it feels good to give yourself a salt water scrub every day or so with Vel. I have a supply at the house, but it is getting harder and harder to find in stores. I had better use it sparingly so that I can continue such salt water soap baths into the future.

-Lonely male gulls
After returning from Kansas and Sarah and Justin's wedding, all of the female seagulls had vanished. I knew about this from previous years, as late May is the time when they nest and lay their eggs. The male partners also attend them, so most of the gulls vanish. But, this year there were a few male gulls that were still around. These seemed to be males who had not found a mate and were not busy with sharing nesting and feeding duties. It sort of reminded me of the situation in China, where the "one child" policy has meant too many males and not enough females. Thus it was here, with a few males still on the beaches doing what seagulls do during most of the year. I threw them some stale tortillas and they seemed to like that. It was the least I could do.

-Fog bank
One morning all was clear and calm. Then, within minutes, the coast to the south was no longer visible, and the ocean beyond the bay seemed to be vanishing. A fog bank was rolling towards the bay and the house. Because there is such low humidity here, this is somewhat rare. It rolled towards the house but did not reach it. Fragments of the fog hung in the hills around the bay but then quickly burned off. This is the first time I have noticed such a thing.

-Hot wind from the west
Winds from different directions have different qualities. This is especially true of winds from the west. Directly to our west is out 120 miles of bare rock that gets baked by the sun. Thus, when the west wind begins it is usually hard and very hot. The temperature may rise as high as 15 degrees within a matter of minutes. It seems like you are standing in front of an open door to a blast furnace. It will continue for an hour or so (or perhaps a few hours) and then suddenly stop. It can be bad if you are sitting outside in it, but it is far worse inside away from the wind but not from the heat it brings. I prefer out in it. Very strange and very powerful. It doesn't just blow, it rages all around you, like a demon wind spirit.

-Infrared lights on the beach
One night quite late there seemed to be a person on the beach, walking along at the tide line and looking closely for something. Then, all of a sudden, they started using an infrared light (like you see in movies on the end of a rifle barrel) or perhaps a laser aiming device. They walked along and then walked away. Were they looking for drug shipment that had been dumped so they could pick it up? Were they military looking for the same? Were they hunting for shells in a very unconventional way? I was not going to ask. I am not sure I wanted to know.

-My last swim for a while

<== The beach in front of the house

The last night before leaving I took a last swim before the tide went out. It was beautiful and I soaked in all of the spectacular nature of it -- the temperature of the water, the isolation, the way things look from sea level, the fish, and the entire scene. I lingered because I knew I would not be back until December at the earliest. I will come back because I must, because this is my space, and has been since I was nine years old. I feel more in common with this space than any other on the planet. It is mysterious and is always showing me new features. It is a natural mystic that I hope always remains a part of me.

Mexico Reading: The Rape of Nanking

The story attracted my attention. A brilliant young historian, responsible for a worldwide best selling book, had taken her own life. The story the Washington Post ran said:

Prominent Chinese American author Iris Chang, whose international bestseller "The Rape of Nanking" resurrected the long-ignored atrocities by the Japanese military on Chinese civilians during World War II, died Nov. 9 from a self-inflicted gunshot wound in her car along a rural road south of Los Gatos, Calif.
Ms. Chang, 36, had been battling clinical depression, said her literary agent, Susan Rabiner, and had been hospitalized, treated and released five months ago. She was working on another book and maintained an active speaking and reading schedule.

Some items of history are so brutal to encounter and experience in the way that she did, incredible research and interviews, that it leaves a mark. I reasoned that a little bit of that mark might be left on anyone who read this incredible book. I decided to confront it and read it while on vacation in Mexico. It was an incredible experience.

There is no doubt that the detail and descriptions are riveting and disgusting. I reacted the same way as I did on my tour of Auschwitz, angry at the perpetrators and wanting to revenge on them and for them to suffer because they were obviously "not human," and then I pulled myself back, as I had in the middle of my death camp tour in Poland, to realize that I was falling into the same trap. What I needed to do was not to simplify the experience by saying that the perpetrators were evil, but by trying to understand how it could have happened and how the seeds of such cruelty are a part of every person, including myself.

During their war with the Nationalist Chinese the Japanese had, in 1937, occupied the Nationalist capital at Nanking. They had issued an order (fr0m an imperial prince) to "Kill all captives." What was done was brutal and incredible:
-Taking surrendering soldiers, separating them into small groups, telling them they were going to be fed, and then leading them to killing grounds where tens of thousands were brutally murdered -- machine gun, shot in the head, decapitated, and otherwise killed.
-Murdering civilians outright, in much the same way, until over 370,000 corpses had to be dealt with.
-Raping tens of thousands of women, through gang rapes, individual rapes, photographed rapes, deporting them to brutal houses of military sex slavery, and killing those who resisted. Women were mutilated, humiliated and photographed. Children as young as four and matrons as old as eighty-five were raped. Pregnant women were raped, their abdommens slit open, and their quivering fetuses pulled out and killed with swords. In a culture that values female purity this was the worst possible humiliation, and laid the groundwork for other brutal rape war crimes such as in Bosnia. Many soldiers believed that on raping very young girls they would gain strength in battle, just as some in South Africa believe that raping virgins will cure them of AIDS. Westerner Wilhemina Vautrin, who saved many in the safety zone, wrote, "How ashamed the women of Japan would be of they knew these tales of horror." Most rape victims were killed as soon as their sexual victimage had been achieved, all the better to avoid accusations later.
-Men had their penises chopped off and eaten by Japanese soldiers as aids to future potency.
-The rampaging destruction of everything that could be found in the city for a period of many weeks. It wasn't just an example of loot and pillage, as it went on and on for almost nine weeks.

I expected the horrific descriptions and documentation, although it was extremely disturbing. The real value of the book went far beyond the necrological pornography of that section, and provided the real merit of the effort.

Why did it happen? The Japanese are a civilized and dignified people, and yet this horror beyond speaking of was perpetrated by them. Iris Chang provides a number of different reasons, which operated in combination thus multiplying the reasons why it happened.

First, the Japanese training of school children and soldiers had for the previous decades taught that the Chinese were far less than human. This, as Raphael Lemke has told us, is an essential for genocide. These are not human beings, so it is not really murder. The Japanese were documented as saying they were "pigs" and "insects." I swat flies on my porch in Mexico without too much remorse, thus with the Japanese who had been taught this.

Second, proof was given by the fact of the massive Chinese surrenders. Japanese had been taught never to surrender. Real warriors do not surrender, thus these were not real warriors deserving of respect. This seems strange to us, but we need to remember that the surrender rate of Japanese soldiers in World War Two was forty times less than allied troops (Japanese 1 surrender to 120 killed, others 1 surrender to 3 killed). The samurai legacy was used against the Chinese, who saw surrender in defeat a logical move, whereas the Japanese saw it was an indication of sub-humanity.

Third, there was a religious element. Formal Shinto faith had established for the Japanese that the emperor was the ultimate being, and the Japanese his instruments, and thus the Chinese merely objects.

Fourth, there was the process of the "transfer of oppression." Japanese students and soldiers were treated brutally by those who trained them, often beaten and tortured as part of their normal training. The soldiers had been brutalized both as students and especially as military trainees, so when they got the chance to brutalize those they overcame, it was an orgy of overcompensation. Iris Chang documents that "those with the least power are often the most sadistic if given the power of life and death over people even lower on the pecking order, and the rage of this pecking order was suddenly given an outlet when Japanese soldiers went abroad."

There were stories of great heroism as well, including:
-Women who refused to accept rape, fought back successfully, and while receiving wounds and mutilation survived to raise families later.
-The families, like the grandparents or Iris Chang, who struggled to escape and succeeded against all odds.
-The heroic reporters and journalists who documented the events and got stories and even photos out at great personal risk.
-The westerners (including doctrinal Nazis) who worked to create a loosely organized "safety zone" that saved hundreds of thousands. In fact, without these zones very few would have survived at all. Their stories were incredible. These stories include: the Nazi Rabe used his swastika armband to rescue families and women from horror by using it frighten off pillaging Japanese soldiers; the educator Vautrin who stopped Japanese soldiers from coming over the walls of her Girls College to carry away those sheltering their under the cover of darkness; the surgeon Wilson who kept providing assistance to the wounded and mutilated day after day without sleep, and many more.
-The Japanese soldiers who, upon returning home, found ways to express their guilt and remorse in ways that were highly unpopular and led to their ostracism from Japanese society, but it was something they felt as if they had to do.

The more current part of the story is not very much more encouraging. The manipulation of Japanese school textbooks to erase the historical record, the denial by nationalists that only a "few thousand" died and that it was a normal part of war, the harassment of Japanese historians who attempted to bring out the facts, the response by ultra-nationalist Japanese historians to whitewash the event even when their efforts were shown to contain hundreds of blatant historical falsifications and the fact that the major of Nagasaki was shot for suggesting that the rape of Nanking had actually happened. Western governments were too interested in Japan as an Asian bulwark against communism to push the mater too far.

Iris Chang provides three cautionary lessons at the end of the volume. They are:
1. The tissue of civilization is very thin, and we are all closer than we may believe to being the perpetrators of such crimes. Given a different upbringing and a different situation, there could go many of us.
2. The role of power in genocide is real and insidious. When we luxuriate in power, we become creatures that we may not recognize. It can corrupt and pollute almost any of us.
3. We have all become passive spectators to genocide, both in the Balkans and in Rwanda. It is something that we see happening to "others" and to "them" and thus we do not act or call out.

This book is spectacularly well-researched and presented. It provides a view into hell that is disturbing and alarming as well as awakening. The view in to this hell may have, in the end, been too much for Iris Chang.

But, the book is a huge success. Ellie Weisel has said that to forget genocide is to commit it a second time. Iris Chang has done much to make sure that the rape of Nanking will never be forgotten.

Mexico Reading: Shadows in the Desert - Ancient Persia at war

SHADOWS IN THE DESERT: Ancient Persia at war
By Dr. Kaveh Farrokh

This book is an interesting catalog of Persian military history, but it is far more than that. I have long been a fan of neglected central Asian ancient history, beginning with my boyhood fascination with Alexander the Great and the previous conflicts with the Persian Empire. However, I had become aware that there is a lot more to it than that.

A great deal more, actually.

This book charts the early beginnings of the settlement and organization of Persian society. Actually, these are the Aryans, not of Hitler’s imagination, but of historical reality. The word Iran actually comes from the origin of these Aryan peoples. They dominated the center of Asia, and spilled out through the Caucasus and into the Ukraine. The Persian title comes from the coastal province of Persis.

The book tells the story of three great empires, often quite neglected. They are largely neglected because of the Alexander effect (as if these three empires did not even exist after Alexander’s defeat of the first one) and the constant historical focus on Rome. The reality was that Rome was a constant opponent of Persia, and never really defeated it. No Persian monarch was ever marched behind an imperial Roman chariot, and no Persian capital was ever sacked by the Romans. For five centuries Rome tried to crush Persia and failed. No Persian army ever surrendered to Rome.

The three empires cover an immense period of time. The first was that of the Achaemenids, famous for producing Cyrus the Great, Darius the Great, Xerxes and the eventual fall to Alexander under the rule of Darius III. At its height it ruled from India to Greece and also ruled Egypt. After the conquest by Alexander the region was governed by his associated and they called themselves the Seleucids.

The Seleucids could not remain dominant for long and eventually the second great Persian empire, that of the Parthians, came into power. They ate away at and eventually replaced the Hellenized Seleucids. The Parthians were more than a match for the Romans, who poured military forces into the Parthian realm (stretching from Antioch to the end of the Persian Gulf) and suffered only occasional advances and many crushing defeats. During this time the city of Ctesiphon near to Babylon and current Baghdad became the capitol.

The Parthian empire was replaced by that of the Sassanians, a group that could do what Rome had failed to do, defeat the Parthians. The Sassanians continued their struggle with Rome and Byzantium, and could more than hold their own. A number of huge Roman forces were destroyed trying to conquer Sassanian Persia. Under the rule of Khosrow II the empire grew to again stretch from India to Byzantium and included Egypt. This empire, however, was clearly overstretched, and because of the eroding wars with Rome and others, had become weak. Thus, as the Arabians and their new religion of Islam were setting about on their mission to conquer the world, they were able to take advantage of the Sassanian overstretch and conquer the Sassanians.

The military technology story of these eras was mainly one of archers and heavy cavalry. The developments of archery as part of organized warfare, gave the Persians countless advantages, especially in the use of the “Parthian shot.” Even more dominant was the role of the Persian cavalry, known as the Savaran, who became steadily heavier and more armored and adopted new and innovative techniques of thrust, withdrawal and flanking maneuvers. These are all well documented in this book, complete with excellent illustrations, photos and maps.

The part of the book that made it all worth my time on the porch in Mexico was the last section, which dealt with the many contributions that these three Persian empires has made to global culture that have been largely ignored. Certainly, the above two factors (Alexander and Rome) can explain part of this, but there was been a huge realignment of western study of Persian history and influence since the change of vents in 1980 and the rise of the current Iranian state. Departments have been changed, some phased out, and new works suddenly silent about a rich history of contributions. Dr. Farrokh does an excellent job of trying to document and recover from these events without becoming unscholarly.

He documents some of the huge contributions of these three Persian empires to human culture. Many of these accomplishments were shared with the relatively uncultured Arabs who had conquered the Sassanians. Here are just a few of them.
The Persians originated jousting contests between mounted knights that became so popular in Middle Ages Europe. In fact, the idea of chivalry and even the “Round Table” of knights was originated by the Persian Pahlavi knights.
The great Greek classics had been copied and preserved by the Persians, who had a strong love of scholarship and learning. These works were shared with the Muslims who reintroduced them to Europe through Spain. We read some works of Aristotle and Plato today because of this.
Iranian architects laid out and designed the current city of Baghdad,
Persian mathematics allowed for algebra, the algorithm, the use of Hindu numerals, the zero, sine theorem, tangets and calculated the value of pi far beyond hat others had done.
The first accurate measuring ruler came from Persia 5000 years ago, as did the first pen.
Iranian chemists discovered sulfuric acid and alcohol.
The Iranians formulated a theory of the Earth rotating the Sun in the year 1000.
Iranian advances in zoology, botany, pharmacy, mineralogy and lithology paved the way for European advances in textiles, explosives and perfumes.
While a Greek named Heron had invented the windmill, it was the Iranians who redesigned and perfected it, with that form being spread to Spain and reaching England by 1137.
The Persian empire invented the hospital, and pioneered developments in medicine. Their medical techniques were judged superior to that of the Greeks and Hindus. By 1160 there were over 61 hospitals in Baghdad.
The Persians developed surgery techniques for removing kidney stones and doing abdominal surgery.
Medical textbooks written by Zacharia Razi and Abu Ali Sina became standard texts once they reached Europe, demonstrating the use of animal gut for stitching and plaster of Paris for casts.
European holy relics were for centuries only thought to be properly stored when wrapped in fabrics of Persian origin, made from Chinese silks but woven in Persia.
Many learned Sassanians fled to China following the Arab conquest. They were welcome and sponsored by the Chinese emperor and forced long-lasting communities. A distinct Sino-Persian style developed. This artistic influence quickly spread to Japan.
Inside the Chinese imperial palace at Chang’An, Iranian music was held in high esteem, persons of rank were honored by being served Persian foods and women competed with one another in wearing Persian costumes.
The Persian garden was introduced to China, copied there and then spread to Japan. The Nara court of Japan avidly copied Persian styles they learned from China.
The first Caucasian to visit Japan was probably Li Mi I, a Persian, in about 740.
Sassanian designs were very common in Japanese glass bowls, metallic ewers, the Japanese lute and brocades featuring Parthian archers.
Persian music spread to Arabia, Spain, the Caucasus and China. A Sassanian bowls shows the first ever depiction of the bagpipes so common in Scotland, Flutes, mandolins and castanets were Persian exports. Flamenco seems to be a combination of Dorian Greek and Kurdish Persian musical styles.
The Aya Sofia mosque in Istanbul has a depiction of the Byzantine empress Theodora welcoming Persian musicians. The Indian sitar has its origins in Persia. Current Arabic musical scales are taken from Persia.
The Persia “pipa” morphed into the European guitar.
The European harpsichord was combined with the Persian santur to become the piano, copying the ability to muddle the vibrating string by letting up on the keys.
Parthian traders were actively exchanging goods with southeast Asia. During the Sassanian era there was direct trade with Chinese coastal provinces. They got there centuries before the Europeans.
Persian books were translated and venerated by the Champa people of Cambodia. The Orang Bani people of southern Vietnam claim decent from the Persian ruler Koshrow I.
Most of the valorized Arabic mariners and explorers were actually Persians, because of their advanced seafaring tradition. Zanzibar and Malabar are communities that have Persian names on the coast of Africa, established by their mariners. Likewise with the name Tangiers.
The leading Arabic book on horses and equestrian arts notes in the introduction that it is copied from the original Persian text.

Many of us know that the Arab Muslims shared with Europe many pieces of literature and scientific concepts. What we may not know is that the vast majority of this was not Arab at all, but Persian. The 14th century Arab historian Kaldun, known as the “Herodotus of the Arabs,” put it this way:

It is a remarkable fact that, with few exceptions, most Muslim scholars have been non-Arabs. [In fact] all of them were of Persian descent, they invented rules of Arabic grammar, great jurists were Persians, only the Persians engaged in the tasks of preserving knowledge and writing scholarly works. Intellectual sciences were the preserve of the Persians, left alone by the Arabs, who did not cultivate them, as was the case with all the crafts.

It is possible to be suspicious of all of the claims made in this book. Even giving a decent amount of overstatement, the conclusions are impressive. The earlier part of the book is fastidiously documented, and when sources disagree they are both presented in an impartial way. I am not sure that the author would change his method so drastically from one section of historical research to the other.

The author concludes with this statement:

The Iranians have left their cultural, artistic, scientific, theological and political imprint on the great peoples of history. This legacy has yet to be fully appreciated and has been commemorated in silence.

Mexico Reading: Mao - the Unknown Story

I am of a divided mind about Jung Chang and Jon Halliday’s biography Mao: The Unknown Story. It was a powerful read and was densely packed with apparently well-researched facts, and while this is a subject that I desperately want to know more about, I kept getting the feeling that it was a hatchet job on Mao.

About halfway through this book I noticed that there was almost nothing positive said about him. I tried to find positive things, but they were in very short supply. The few positive things that I found were later contradicted. For example, he early on opposed forced marriage as “organized rape” but later on forced himself on women and also forced local women comrades to take husbands they cared little for out of political expediency. In one instance he wanted a visiting Russian technical advisor to be happy, and so told him to select any beautiful woman he saw and Mao would arrange their linkage. He also took a dislike to the cult of personality surrounding Stalin, and asked that some statues of him be taken down, but then later encouraged his cult of personality with 4.8 billion Mao badges and 2 billion little red books as well as countless statues and publicity stunts.

On the other hand, things were done to make him look just plain bad. It was mentioned that he did not have a bath or shower for over twenty years, but it was also clear that he swam often and preferred to be washed with wet towels rather than bathe. He hated pedestal toilets, but of course that is because he preferred the traditional squat toilet. It was said that he never brushed his teeth, but that hardly explains why at 80 he seemed to have a pretty full set of choppers. He loved to read in bed, which was often mentioned and criticized. He took sleeping pills because of insomnia (which many party leaders did, was it because they felt guilty and couldn’t get to sleep?). He loved to use the expression “fart.” Why was there such a focus on such things?

Having said all of that, it is page after well-researched page of documentation about how he was quite an evil person and that the “real” Mao was quite different from the fantasy Mao. Here are a few items:
He was totally dedicated to his own personal power, and Communism was merely a vehicle for this. He was not deeply ideological.
He spent almost all of the “Long March” riding in a sedan chair, carried by underlings who at times died from the strain.
He gladly sacrificed millions of citizens for a personal political agenda of gaining “superpower” status.
He was a quite inadequate military commander, but had the battles changed to victories or captured the credit for victories he had advised against.
He was totally traitorous to his loyal comrades, fully willing to sell them out for small advantage.
He was downright sadistic, enjoying torture and humiliation of even those who were his supporters.
His openly stated desire to rule the world.

Many of you know that I am a fan of science fiction. If there had been a sci fi mad person who seeked world domination and had been given Mao’s character and behavior it would have been so unbelievable as to be silly from a literary perspective. Yet, there he was, openly pining for world domination even if it meant total world destruction. Even the Daleks had more sensibilities than he seemed to have.

His early writing is clear about his sense of moral right and wrong. At twenty-four he wrote a tract on morals that I found quite revealing.

I do not agree with the view that to be moral, the motive of one’s actions has to be benefiting others. Morality does not have to be defined in relation to others… People like me want to satisfy our hearts to the full, and in so doing we automatically have the most valuable moral codes. Of course there are people and objects in the world, but they are there only for me.

People like me only have a duty to ourselves; we have no duty to other people.

People like me are not building achievements to leave for future generations.

All considerations must be purely calculation of oneself, and absolutely not for obeying external ethical codes, or for so-called feelings of responsibility.

How do we change China? The country must be destroyed and then re-formed. This applies to the country, to the nation, and to mankind. The destruction of the universe is the same. People like me long for its destruction, because when the old universe is destroyed, a new universe will be formed. Isn’t that better?

My principle is exactly the opposite: Do to others precisely hat I do not want done to myself.

This was clear in the period of 1953-56 when he imposed a drastic program for modernization at the expense of the people directly. Food was exported to Russia and Soviet satellites in exchange for technological assistance for mostly military purposes at a time when it clearly meant starvation for the people. In 1962 Chinese food exports made up 66% of Russia’s food imports. Moscow tried to refuse food from China, and Chervonenko asked how China could possibly increase meat exports. He was told that was “none of your business.”

Had China not foisted food exports on other nations (they often didn’t want it or said they felt bad about taking it) not a single Chinese citizen would have had to die. As it was, the authors estimated that 30 million people died of starvation in four years. Even the Russian ambassador estimated 30 million.

In 1960 22 million people did of hunger, the largest number in any country in the history of the world.

“Deaths have benefits. They can fertilize the ground.” In Moscow in 1957 he had said, “We are prepared to sacrifice 300 million Chinese for the victory of the world revolution.”

Mao told his colleagues that they must be prepared for riots and mass deaths in 100,00 villages. He noted that people were only without food for four to six months a year. Tree bark became a valued commodity and couples abandoned their babies because of a lack of food.

The cost of China’s atomic weapon program could have prevented all 38 million famine deaths. Thus, the Chinese nuclear program caused 00 times as many deaths as both of the bombs dropped on Japan.

Grain diverted for missile tests would have, in the late 1950’s, saved 1-2 million people from starvation.

A high proportion of the urban population had no sources of protein, and a substance called Chlorella, which was grown in human urine. Chou en Lai tasted it and approved.

In 1960 urban Chinese women were receiving 1200 calories a day. At Auschwitz slave laborers had received between 1300 and 1700 calories a day.

Some of our comrades have too much mercy, not enough brutality, which means they are not so Marxist. On this mater, we indeed have no conscience. Marxism is that brutal.

While condemning millions to death as a conscious part of policy, Mao dreamed of even more difficult transactions, this time involving nuclear war.

For our ultimate victory, for the total eradication of the imperialists, we are willing to endure the first nuclear strike. All it is is a big pile of people dying.

Mao criticized the Eastern European countries for not following his ruthless policies.

The basic problem with some Eastern European countries is that they didn’t eliminate all those counter-revolutionaries. Eastern Europe just didn’t kill on a grand scale. We must kill. And we say it is good to kill.

Education? Mao deemphasized it “We need the policy to keep people stupid,” he said.

In August of 1958 Mao wrote: In the future we will set up the Earth Control Committee and make a uniform plan for the Earth.

In his later days Mao felt very sad at how his plans or global domination had failed. He would often indulge in self-pity and his assistants told of how tears would flow down his face “like a spring.” There is no record that he ever felt anything remotely like this for the more than 70 million people who were killed by his government.

My suspicions about this biography have been felt by others. I looked at over a dozen reviews in notable publications, and many shared my doubts, but not a single one could even begin to question the research and documentation in this book. A couple picked on a few minor points that they thought were insufficiently proven, such as the notion that during the Cultural Revolution there were atrocities committed at “every” school, while they clearly took place at the vast majority of them.

This is a shaking and incredible book. Before I started reading it I already believed that Mao was, probably, the biggest monster of human history. Now, I am sure of it. It was not because of ideological zeal or a strong commitment to communism, but because of his obsession with personal power and control.

There has to be a lesson there. I fear we may not have learned it.