Marx on historical materialism

The idea of communism has been greatly understated and defamed by our popular culture. Only by understanding Marx's notion of historical materialism can one have a grasp of when the communist revolution is supposed to take place. Marx talks about capitalist system and how it is built into the system spending money on R&D to make the means of production more and more productive. And a time is going to come when because of all this research and improvement, when supply is going to get ahead of demand. But at this time, there is going to be an imbalance of spending power as the majority of people are simply not going to have money to buy stuff. It is then when the communist revolution is supposed to take place in the form of labor unions coming together. The problem of supply and demand still hasn't been met in the modern world. Thus, any nation trying to become communist is simply acting in futile. It is going to fail.

Ferdinand and Inquisition

History of Inquisition is really terrible and it goes on to show how the ugly aspects of human nature can show up at any point in time if the circumstances permit for it. Ferdinand wanted control of not only political power but religious power as well. It was by attaining total control of mind and body he thought he would be able to control the spanish empire, and it was a super power at one point in time. He created the Inquisition to find and destroy the heretics. And Inquisition operated on roman rules where testimony obtained through torture was more reliable one. They picked up Jews from small villages and even if they had slightly different way of behaving from the norm they were tortured until they said they were indeed not christian, perhaps only to stop them from torturing, but this resulted in public burning. This mindset of total submission also effected Latin America that at one point in time were part of the Spanish empire. It was good fit for some parts of the Latin Americas such as the Aztec Empire, which itself was built on Mayan empire, public sacrifices were a common aspect of this civilization. Another idea that was entertained in the lecture is the myth that if you have democratic values in one country the neighboring nations are also going to adopt such viewpoints. How many latin american nations can we name today that are truly democratic. Not many.

Ottoman Empire and Mustafa Kemal

This specific portion of history I am least familiar with, but the calibar and contribution of Mustafa Kemal (Kemal Ataturk) cannot be denied and is worth learning about. The Otttoman Empire was glories during the middle ages but like any other grand empire, it declined as well and by the 20th century it was a shell of its former self. But a man by the name of Mustafa Kemal really turned the Ottoman Empire around. European powers tried to defeat this Empire but they were unsuccessful. Kemal was able to rewrite the treaty agreement with them and the nation of Turkey was given independence. While he was in power he also took efforts to secularize the nation such as forcing the women not to cover their faces and dress like westerns. In just one decade he was able to turn around the face of Turkey and because of his efforts, Turkey is one of the most stable and modernized nation in the middle east. And Mustafa is still recognized for what he was able to accomplish as he is revered as the father of the nation today.

Rise of Islam

It's fascinating to read about the Iranian empire when it was governed by religion other than Islam. The empire that stood most ferociously against the Roman empire was the one that was governed by religion of prophet Zarathustra, who taught in believing in Aruha Mazda, the one true God. In this doctrine, the world was clearly divided into Good and evil, and choosing between these two meant how your soul is going to be judged during the judgment day. Still, no one would have thought that between the roman empire and the Iranian empire, the dominant doctrine would be something that is once again, different from these two. It was the doctrine of Islam, taught by prophet Muhammad during the 7th century. This religion gained a lot of ground very quickly partially because it was able to bring together tribes that were initially in war against each other. One fascinating aspect of Islam is that there is no distinction made between religion and state, for they are both supposed to be governed by god. After all, in Islam, there is no god but god. Also, Islam saw itself as being the next step from Christianity in that Muhammad was the next and last prophet to come from the line of Moses and Jesus. Soon the Byzantine empire would go and conquer even Constantinople, which is konwn as Istanbul today.

Constantine and christianity

I don't really buy into Prof. Rufus Fears thesis that throughout history, the defining moments are the ones that are created by decisions of single individuals but in the case of Constantine, this really appears to be the case. There were many cult religions like Christianity that were about saving one's soul and praying to one god. In fact, the story of Dionysus, the son of Zeus, is eerily similar to that of Jesus. Dionysus was son of Zeus and born of a mortal mother. He was killed but he resurrected. And his followers consumed his blood in the form of wine in order to be saved. Christians in particular began to be prosecuted in the 1st and 2nd century by the roman empire because this religion proposed freedom of conscience. It was because under Christianity, one only prayed to one god and serving the roman gods was prohibited. As the roman empire was facing problems in the middle east and with the Germanic tribes, Christians served as perfect scapegoats. It was because they were not obeying the roman gods that we are losing all these wars, they said. While this religion was almost extinct, the arrival of Constantine changed all that. During one crucial battle, Constantine had a vision of Christ and that he had been chosen to spread Christianity. He was able to surprisingly defeat his opponent and was inspired by the vision he had. Perhaps he had some political motivations as well for selecting Christianity as a state religion. For Romans, all these different gods led to the same divine path, but for Christians, there was only one right path. And by creating the capital Constantine of the roman empire and making himself head of the church, Constantine had become another apostle of the god. He had become a religious figure as well as a political and military figure. As soon as Christianity became the dominant religion, orthodoxy came in full force and if you were not practicing Christianity the right way, you were sinning. Christianity went from being persecuted to the persecutors.

The Romans would never had imagined that 1000 years later, their greatest contribution to the future societies was not their aqueducts or their laws, but two religions, Christianity and Islam. Perhaps our contribution for the societies 1000 years later would not be our love for democracy or freedom but our worshiping of the idol known as Ronald McDonald whose shrines we had built all over the world.

Fall of roman empire

The roman empire fell because of two main reasons, its incapability to deal with the problem of middle east and with the Germanic tribes. As rome had become bigger and badder, many others wanted to emulate it, but deem down all wished for its downfall. For there was nothing to admire about its empire. And even the citizens of the roman empire were not nationalistic any more. After the great rulers had left, the bureaucracy had become more bloated and corrupt. Rulers like Augustus determined that the problem of the middle east (the Iranian empire) and that of the Germanic tribes is best dealt with by limiting our empire. And even though this was a free market economy, the hostilities between the superpowers kept rising and eventually it came to a boiling point. War erupted and the superpowers went to war. The roman empire eventually won many of the middle eastern territories but it had expanded itself too much. And over the century or two, the Iranian empire politically came in the hands of new people, who felt that it was in the will of God that they had risen to power, and that they are now going to fight against the roman empire. And they did, and it was this new empire that had been plagued by various diseases and loss of nationalistic spirit and bloated bureaucracy that lost against the Iranians.

Rome and the middle east

The relationship between the roman empire and the middle east is intriguing because of two reasons; first, it were the Jews that were creating problems for the dominant political power of its day in the middle east, and secondly that the way Rome dealt with these particular problems was fairly secular. The region of Judea can be taken as an example. This was an area with strategic importance, because grain from Egypt shipped through here and into the roman empire; and grain was like oil for the roman empire. But Judea was highly multi ethnic, and it was a pain trying to solve these multi ethic disputes. The way Augustus approached this problem was by having governors who would enforce Jewish laws but also try to solve local disputes as locally as possible. Rome made lots of adjustments in trying to cope with what satisfied and did not satisfy ethnic groups of Judea. Jerusalem for example, was not made into a capital because it was sacred for Jewish people. The roman coins distributed in Judea did not had the face of the king because it would have violated the ten commandments for Jews. The taxes paid by Jews went to the Jerusalem temple rather than to the treasury of Rome. Still, there were problems. Passover was one of the holy days when even the most supportive Jew of Roman empire dreamt of having Israeli nation. There was also a group called Zealots, who committed terrorist acts in order to entice the entire Jewish community revolt against the Romans. The story about Jesus and how he was dealt by the Roman empire is also interesting. Sanhedrin, a group that was made up of 71 leading Jewish leaders, demanded death of Jesus because he had committed a sin, but Pontius Pilate told them that he had not committed any sort of crime under Jewish law. Ultimately he caved in partially because it was a local matter and partially because Tiberius, the successor to Augustus, was paranoid and wanted to suppress any signs of revolt in his kingdom. If pilate had gone against the Sanhedrin, then a revolt might have erupted.

So the relationship between Rome and middle east was certainly shaky. And this relationship became worse as newer dictators that emerged on the scene were not as witty and sharp as their predecessors and tried to rule middle east by dominating them rather than trying to compromise with them. This was also the time that christianity was coming into existence and the timing was not that good.