| Civilizations of the Poor and the Rich Civilization of the Poor The traditional notion of what is the cradle of civilization can be precisely delimited; on the west by the Sahara and the Mediterranean, on the east by the Thar desert of North-west India and the Himalayas, on the north by the Eurasian mountain spine - Balkans, Caucasus, and Hindu-kush - and on the south, by the Tropic of Cancer.1 There were three major reasons why civilization started here and not anywhere else. 1. A gradual desiccation caused the change in the previous ecological balance and initiated the Neolithic Revolution. The desiccation was gradual; there was a time lag of thousands of years until the northward movement of agriculture reached as far as the southernmost part of the European continent and thousands years more until farmers occupied the whole continent. One of the by-products of the Neolithic Revolution was a demographic explosion. It originated in the domestication of animals, which meant availability of animal milk, hence shorter breastfeeding periods, earlier weaning and more pregnancies. Since the Neolithic Revolution started in the Middle East, this area was the first which felt the demographic pressure. 2. Western Asia, where the Fertile Crescent is located, contains the greatest concentration of plants and animals that were domesticated in the Neolithic Revolution. There were plants and animals outside of Western Asia, but nowhere in such a concentration as there, From Western Asia came the ancestors of the sheep, goat, cattle, pig and horse. So did the ancestors of the olive, grape, fig, date, wheat in all its variations, barley, flax, lentil, pea, chickpea and vetch. This multitude of domesticable animals and plants ensured a better food supply, hence more people and more need for more advanced societal organizations. 3. Increased population eventually brought on the need for more land to accommodate the additional population. It was not only the increased population that demanded more land. It seems that their agricultural technique did not proceed much beyond the "slash and burn" method, which needed fresh land when the old fields became exhausted. It is unlikely that the earliest farmers knew about crop rotation and fertilizers. If they used the "slash and burn" method of clearing more land, then the ash provided good fertilizer but they needed much more land than they would have needed with advanced agricultural methods. At the beginning all available land was utilized, then the supply was increased by adapting more land for cultivation. As the need arose in those areas, which suffered most from desiccation and reduced rainfall, i.e. in the southernmost part of the area, only land with easily available supply of water could have been exploited. Easily available supply of water was only in the valleys of the perennial rivers, the Jordan, the Nile, the Tigris and Euphrates, and the Indus. There were other river systems further north, but the need for them arose only at a later stage, Preparing additional land for cultivation and supplying it with water is a vast engineering and administrative task; it must have engaged many people and in addition, it needed the expertise of technical and managerial staff. This is how it would be expressed in modern times, using the terminology of management sciences. In early civilizational times they expressed it differently, but the result was the same. We should not be carried away with comparisons to modern times. It seems that things were rather simpler but probably took longer to come to fruition. If a family or a clan were occupying a plot of land by a river, they could probably extract from their plot enough food to feed themselves, even with a small surplus used for trading purposes to satisfy other needs. What happened when the plot could not satisfy their needs? All other, easily cultivable, land must have been occupied by other families. Fields farther from the water supply could have been available, but without water they were useless. It was a kind of Hobson's choice. Remaining without additional land meant starving; receiving more land without water was useless, and there was always a payment for water, in money or in kind. The elements of future serfdom were there. This is what is called the 'hydraulic theory'. It is not generally accepted. According to the opponents of this theory, it is inconceivable that primitive people, living in Mesopotamia, North China or Mexico, could be aware of the advantages of large-scale irrigation systems when there were no such systems in existence to discover their advantages. Therefore, lacking models to learn from, there was no incentive to pool resources that only larger states would be capable of doing.2 The reasoning against the theory may be sound but disregards other possible scenarios which could have brought on large-scale irrigation projects without the existence of models to duplicate. It is entirely possible that early farmers used the available water from the rivers, either by channeling, or carrying in buckets or even raising the water by some primitive 'shuf' ( a pole with a crossbar at the top, with a bucket at one end and a counterweight at the other. By swiveling the crossbar, the bucket can be filled with water and emptied into an irrigation channel. It is still used on the Nile). Such a rudimentary irrigation system could have been operated by the power of a single family. What happened when they wanted to extend the cultivated fields? Bringing water to these extensions was beyond the capability of a single family. Two or three families together could probably marshal enough resources to accomplish the task. So, even without existing models, more complex irrigation systems could have been developed, leading eventually to social cooperative development. Once these cooperative systems were in place, it could only have been a question of time, until someone from the equal partners became more 'equal' than the others, and we arrived at 'hydraulic societies' by the back door. Probably, we shall never know what really happened. There might have been different developments in different places. The result was that eventually the small settlements and chiefdoms coalesced into larger units. Demographic pressure and the need for more food played a central role in the process. If the preparation of additional land and water supply needed people, material and organization, then no individual family or clan could do it alone. In addition, one must take into consideration the question of security too. People in the hunter-gatherer environment were peaceful and friendly. Agriculture changed that. The reasons for the change are obvious. An individual in a hunting pack is a valued member. It is possible that the success of the next hunt, the survival of the clan in fact, will depend on his effort and skill. Agriculture is different. Each on his field; each depends on his work and skill alone. One might be more successful than the other, generating hatred and envy. In primitive society these allegations might have turned easily into accusations of witchcraft. In addition, he had property that was always at risk. In short, he needed protection. With the decline of the Roman Empire, there was a process of individual farmers - coloni - putting themselves under the protection of powerful men. This was the beginning of medieval serfdom. The same process must have been at work in the Urban Civilizations, a few thousands years earlier. The details of the actual process will probably never be known, but the outward signs are numerous and explicit. The earliest urban centers were fortresses, as well as places of devotion to the common religion. 3 Fortresses and thick city walls indicated that there were enemies around. Who were those enemies? In Sumer the enemies were probably the other city-states, but in Jericho which was practically alone in that area, there could have been only two kinds of enemies. One kind of enemy were the marauding Bedouin tribes and the other were those who were supposed to be defended by those walls. It seems that there was always some doubt in the minds of the protectors about the loyalty of the protected. Defenses could be means of oppression too. It is not only a question of what brought the common people under the power of some central authority. There were objective reasons. Settled life had different needs from a peripatetic hunter-gatherer existence. It needed houses, huts, stables, stores and agricultural implements. The earliest civilization was centered in lower Mesopotamia, where urban centers grew up around farming settlements. That area was extremely fruitful; they reached gains of up to hundredfold on the seed. However, their district was completely bare of all other necessities. It is an alluvial marshy plain, without trees, stones or minerals. Every piece of wood or stone had to be imported from far away, either from the highlands at the source of the twin rivers, or from the Iranian highlands. Only central authority could have organized long-distance trade.4 The number of non-productive people, e.g. people who did not produce anything but consumed, grew with the complexity of the economies and the expansion of the states. To the people who created and maintained the water conduits, who were occupied in external trade, who manned the places of worship, there were joined those who were occupied in internal and external security, soldiers and police, the members of the administration, the scribes, and most importantly, last but not least, the ruling caste.5 One of the basic differences between the two conflicting civilizations is presented here . In early medieval Europe, one of the results of the collapse of central authority was that simple people sought the protection of the powerful and accepted a subordinate status in return for protection. In early Urban Civilization the same process happened; after all it was an obvious, nearly the only solution. There was, however, one basic difference. In Europe the process occurred after the collapse of the Urban Civilization, with the return to an agrarian economy. After a few hundred years the towns grew again and their existence restored previous freedom. Stadtluft macht frei - The air of town brings freedom, meaning that any of the serfs who reached the towns became free. In the early Urban Civilizations the opposite happened. The towns became the centers of authority. The following pages describe the early civilizations in the area that is generally called "The Cradle of Civilization". It must be explained here that this chapter does not intend to replace the histories of those civilizations. The histories are written; they do not need additions or corrections. The purpose of this, and that of the following chapter is different. It was shown in the previous chapter that present patterns of behavior could have originated in earliest times. It was also shown that there is a process of cultural transmission that transmits collective memories from generation to generation. Appendix II lists those behavioral patterns characteristic of both civilizations. This chapter and the next examine those elements of early civilizations that might have caused those patterns of behavior. If it can be demonstrated that the economic, social and communal lives of early civilizations did create those patterns of behavior, and there were no later occurrences which could have deflected them, then indeed it can be shown that the roots of the conflict, which is fueled by implacable enmity, do reach as far back as the earliest times of human history. The list in Appendix II is in three parts: 1. Behavioral patterns as a direct result of the environment in its widest sense 2. Behavioral patterns which could have been caused by the social systems of the earliest civilizations. 3. Social attitudes of individuals in relation to various levels of society This chapter and the next deal with the possible origins of the behavioral traits listed in Appendix II. However, before examining the possible causes and antecedents of those traits, a few points of clarifications are necessary. Each line in Appendix II is a value statement, with contrasting meanings to both sides of it. Examining a simple statement: "Forest conceals, desert reveals" one can arrive at the meaning that anyone who is used to life in a forest can be individualistic, as the forest conceals him from possible enemies and can afford some defense as well, such as a hiding-place behind or on a tree. By way of contrast, life in the desert must be more open and dangerous, no place to hide anywhere and no trees to climb as a way of protection. The only sure defence is being part of a family, a clan or tribe. The desert does not allow much scope for individualism. This is a simple example. Still, even here there are possible conflicts. The West might view the lack of individualism as a loss, which it certainly is, and the other civilization might see the loss in the lack of warm and close family relations. Both viewpoints are equally valid. Taking a more complex example, the results may be even more controversial. The sentence "Search for individual freedom", is one of the basic principles of Western Civilization. Europeans fought many long and bloody civil wars until a "universal human bill of rights" was formulated and its principles became laws (if not always enforced) in most European countries. Without this principle, Western Civilization, as it is today, could not exist. Looking at those principles from the other side of the street, so to speak, seeing the excesses committed in the name of individual liberty, the distortion in the meaning of liberty, and liberty turns into libertinism. Western people can see and dislike the mindless, violent TV shows and the nauseating pornography of the back streets of large cities, but despite that not many would discard the main principles. The excesses of individual liberty, as expressed in modern Western Civilization, only reinforce the Islamic Civilization in its belief, that since human nature is as it is, there is a need to put a restraint on individual freedom, in order not to permit the temptation. Hence the restrictions, the dress code, the purdah and much else. But these restraints too have their negative side. Restraints on individual liberty restrict not only freedom from immorality, but also free speech and freedom of conscience. Thus, the definitions on both sides of Appendix II statements represent not only conflicting patterns of behavior but also areas of constant frictions which add fuel to the burning pyre of the feud. It is said that in this feud there are no neutrals, at least within the members of the feuding civilizations. When it comes to principles, there can be no neutrality. However, before the reader comes to the conclusion that this is a political pamphlet and not a serious analysis, a few points should be reiterated. 1. It is the firm conviction of this book that it was a climatic change that brought on the Neolithic Revolution, Urban Civilization and eventually the world, as we know it today. 2. In addition to the environment, innate biological human traits are the second complement of human history. It is also the strong belief of this book, that there is no basic difference in the racial composition on both sides of the feud, e.g. there are no mutational variants and differences, if they exist, are results of cultural transmission. 3. If the human elements on both sides of the divide are of the same origin, then the differences in behavioral patterns were caused only by that climatic change, and by the path of development since then. 4. This last point needs further clarification. Development of human history since the earliest times followed the lines of innate biological laws that in any society, human or animal, there are individuals who succeed in dominating their societies. The concepts of 'alpha fish' and 'territorial imperative' are well known - an innate biological urge to excel and dominate in society, and it has been demonstrated time and again, that human society behaves much like animal societies. The fact that there is a hierarchy in every society, a pecking order, an expression which is also taken from the field of zoology, is known. These principles are valid at all times and in all societies; those on top, whether they are Egyptian Pharaohs, Roman Emperors or Soviet Commissars, can have first choice of everything. The same for those who assist them to remain at the top, the ruling elite, whether they are called aristocracy or nomenklatura members. This principle is true in the West too; only there importance is measured by money and not by birth or political affiliation. If this is so, then the differences between the contrasting sides of Appendix II are the result of some outside force and not the results of innate biological traits. Indeed, the only differences between the two are the results of the chance climatic upheaval that caused one side of the feud to become rich and the other to turn into desolation. The basic difference between the two is the fact that one side has accepted the verdict of history and the biological code because of environmental restraints and the other side had the luck to be able to struggle to receive a bigger share and eventually succeeded. It was a long struggle but that long fight hallows the principles that are represented on one side of the list. One can look upon the principles on the side of the West on Appendix II, and come to the conclusion that since the West was much richer, and since because of the slow northward movement of the Neolithic Revolution, the demographic pressure was felt less and much later, the ruling elite of the West could afford to be less oppressive and more liberal than in the South, where there was much less wealth and many more people. This is really what this chapter, and the next one has to establish, without making value judgments. Before analyzing the civilizations, it should be taken into consideration that the Middle East is very poor. It is, and always was very poor compared to Europe, but it is poor in absolute terms too. There are comparative figures from the present, as shown in Appendix I. In the early sixteenth century a Flemish visitor, Busbecq , remarked that "a man in his country spends more on food in a day than a Turk in twelve".6 There are no direct testimonies from the beginning of Urban Civilization, but it seems that the environment did not differ much from the present, apart perhaps from the fact that there was less ecological damage and more green cover, at least near the eastern littoral of the Mediterranean. Since the area started to feel the effect of the desiccation after the climatic change, the whole territory of what is known today as Islamic Civilization was very poor land, without much water, and only with winter rainfall. It is an arid zone with endless strings of settlements, built of mud houses, stretching from Pakistan to Morocco 7 . Probably it was the extreme poverty of the land that forced the people to congregate in a few places which could provide some form of livelihood. Urban civilization was not an imperative. Northern Europe managed very well without it until very late times indeed. The earliest urban settlements in the Middle East were around perennial water supplies, in the valleys of the rivers, and next to springs in the Iranian highlands. Outside the valleys of the rivers, there were a few tribes of Bedouins but the great majority of people could not live in the deserts.8 They had to congregate in the few places where they could make a living. There was a price to pay, but they had very little choice, if any. This chapter examines that area, south and east of the dividing line, and evaluates it for: - rule of law , (Meaning that were there some rules by which people were measured or whether life was managed by ad-hoc decisions and personal whims?) - personal liberty (The basic question here is whether everything is allowed which is not specifically forbidden, or whether everything is forbidden which is not specifically allowed). - value of study/knowledge (Were people allowed to advance in life because of their talents or capabilities, or only through family or political associations?) The following few pages survey those civilizations with regard to the points above. The result of the survey is known in advance, there are no surprises. It seems that the expression Oriental Despotism has very deep roots and goes back to the beginning of Urban Civilization. Karl Marx 9 coined the expression: Oriental Despotism . In one of his articles, Marx associated the type of authoritarian government with a type of civilization, which was later called 'hydraulic civilization'. He defined the connection as: "This prime necessity of an economical and common use of water, which, in the Occident, drove private enterprise to voluntary association, as in Flanders and Italy, necessitated, in the Orient where civilization was too low and the territorial extent too vast to call into life voluntary association, the interference of the centralizing power of Government. Hence an economical function devolved upon all Asiatic Governments the function of providing public works". 10 It is true that at the end of the 20th Century, Karl Marx does not count as an infallible oracle, but in this particular case he had a rare and deep insight. 1. He saw that the concept of Oriental Despotism is very old. It has no dependence on any existing religion or civilization, but reaches back to very early times, to the very start of civilizations. 2. Despite his basic belief that the problems of the world could be solved if only the means of production will be given to the producers themselves, in the case of Oriental Despotism he was more pessimistic, and did not point to any possibility of change. Although Marx posited the idea of Oriental Despotism, together with Friedrich Engels, who mentioned the idea in his own writings, he did not elaborate on it. The development of the idea was left to Karl A. Wittfogel, a German Communist who fled from Hitler to the United States. 11 It is worthwhile to quote his definition of the concept, as it certainly applies to most, from the earliest times until the present. It accurately defines the Communist dictatorships of the 20th Century, although they certainly were not 'hydraulic civilizations.' "Oriental Despotism is despotic power - total and not benevolent, employing total terror and total submission". Wittfogel added, that in some places Oriental Despotism can take the form of 'beggar's democracy' where people talk at will, in groups even, but can never expect to change anything. Wittfogel eventually confirmed Marx's verdict. Wittfogel also noted that Oriental Despotism had an architectural dimension too. The masters of 'hydraulic societies' were great builders of monumental architecture. To quote Wittfogel, they had "a minimum of ideas and a maximum of material". And of course, maximums of slave labor. So, the hydraulic societies have built the pyramids of Egypt, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon, the Ziggurats, the huge Mosques and Minarets of Cairo and Damascus, as well as the Great Wall of China, the Aswan Dam in Egypt and the monstrous building of the University of Moscow. The huge building projects seem to have one purpose only; to overwhelm the people and impress on them their nothingness before the power of the State. At the time when there were written documents, i.e. from the earliest periods of the Sumerian and the Egyptian civilizations, they already had a settled social system, which was very far from the equality of the hunter-gatherer tribes. Sometime, between the start of the Neolithic Revolution and that of the Urban Civilization, there was a change that turned the previous equality into slavery. Archeological excavations show us a direct line, starting from simple settlements with pits, caves and lean-to, following larger villages with chiefdom structures, then the first walled cities, such as Jericho, and finally the slave barracks of Tel-el-Amarna and Mohenjo-daro. It is a straight route to despotism and enslavement. We do not know all the details, although it seems that it was not always peaceful. In one of the excavations of pre-Dynastic Egypt it was found that arrows and darts killed about 40 % of the people in a village. That village was still in a hunter-gatherer stage. Was it a war with another tribe or a raid by some local despot? Probably, we shall never know the truth. However, the signs of such violence was in contrast to everything we know about the peaceful behavior of hunter-gatherer societies.13 This was the protection people sought. Religion must have had a bigger role than oppression, at least at the beginning. People were nearer to the good old times, they might have had collective memories of those times, while the new hostility of their world was all around them. Sumer was the earliest civilization. It was not a unified state, but a small number of city-states, about 15 - 20, which were in competition with each other. The rule in these cities was of the gods, represented by a city governor, called 'tenant farmer' or 'Ishaku' in Sumerian. It was not a straight line from being a small agricultural settlement to being part of an oppressive complex state; it was not a fast process either. In Mesopotamia, there was at the beginning an association of city-states, similar to the cities of Classical Greece, or the towns of the Hanseatic league, each with some form of self-government, led by an assembly of citizens. This was a primitive democracy flourishing before the Early Dynastic period. A number of clay tablets remained from this period, on which the ideograms for 'assembly' and 'elders' occur. 14 It is probable that the practice was a relic of the old prehistoric ways. Even when the pressure of circumstances brought the city-states of Sumer to kingship, the king or 'Lugal' in the Sumerian language meant 'great man' without any divine association. In the beginning, the 'Lugal' was appointed only to deal with some emergency. The assembly of citizens 15 derived authority from election Eventually, of course, Mesopotamian kings received their authority by virtue of divine selection, but we do not know how the choice of the gods was recognized. The prerequisites of kingship are also not known. In Assyrian times, the death of kings usually brought many pretenders, not necessarily of royal descent.16 In theory at least, the Ishaku were supposed to administer justice to all citizens. The Ishaku were in charge of public works, especially the maintenance of irrigation and drainage, on which the whole of the Sumerian economy was based.17 They were servants of the gods, just as the citizens were. In practice, the Ishaku became absolute rulers; they were in sole control of the granaries, and they could distribute to whosoever they wished the farmlands, which theoretically belonged to the gods. The city territory of Lagash belonged to some twenty deities. Three-quarters of that land was allotted by the Ishaku to individual families. The rest was the personal estate of the gods, worked by wage earners, by tenants paying rent, or by slave labor.18 After a short period, the rule of the Sumerian city-states became one of divine kingship. It did not reach the status of the Egyptian Pharaohs, even though human sacrifices antedated the Egyptian practice by a long time, but the rule was along the same lines. Rulers were in charge of religion, of the armed forces, they could alter people's status and even inflict death penalties.19 Kings and rulers of Sumerian city-states constantly boasted of the fact that they restored law and order in the land; protected the weak from the strong, the poor from the rich, and wiped out evil and violence. One Lagashian ruler, Urukagina , proudly recorded that he restored justice and freedom to the long-suffering citizens. The citizens of Lagash tried, indeed, to keep their freedom, but judging from the frequent announcements of the rulers, that they restored it, it must have been a losing battle.20 There were no kingly announcements that the liberties were taken from the citizens, but the fact of restoration presupposes previous deprivation. What was the attitude of the citizens? Did they passively accept the rule of the regents of the gods? The official archives were kept by the rulers; there is no sign there of any discontent. Luckily, a number of clay tablets remained and those tablets provide some insight into the real situation. A number of proverbs remained on those tablets, and judging from the content of the proverbs, the people could only hope for some divine intervention to better their situation. 21 "To improve government, Shamash (the god of truth and justice) will speak to the ruler, even if the ruler is an ignoramus". "If a ruler attempts clever deception, the great gods together will harass the ruler endlessly for the sake of justice." It seems that the citizens of the city-states of Sumer put their hope only in the hands of the gods, and resigned themselves to rulers who were all-powerful, taking everything without giving anything in return. There is a very old Sumerian proverb, speaking about rulers as having doubtful value: "There are people who support spouses, there are people who support children. Rulers are people who do not even support themselves. " In Mesopotamia the situation regarding personal freedom went from bad to worse, in Egypt it was so from the beginning. There are opinions that claim that the origin of Egyptian civilization was the result of an outside invasion, probably from Mesopotamia. According to this theory the earliest dynasties in Egyptian history were a rule of a foreign and superior race and culture over an oppressed indigenous population. Looking at the testimonies concerning the huge chasm between rulers and ruled, there must be some factual basis to this theory.22 It is true that the union of Egypt, in the middle of the Fourth Millenium BC, put an end to deadly feuds between villages and frequent wars between the provinces on the Nile. It also prevented the raids of marauding Bedouin tribes from the desert, but it enslaved the population in such an efficient way, that the Hebrew scribe, writing the chronicles of his people in Genesis, wrote that in Egypt there were two classes only, apart from the Pharaoh and the ruling elite, namely priests and slaves.23 Egypt was a feudal kingdom, with all the characteristics of a feudal system. Constant weakening of the central authority alternated with the strengthening of the nobility, until some combination of nobles changed the dynasty, to start the cycle again. In the 3,000 years of Egyptian history, from the unification to its conquest by Asiatic powers, first the Assyrians and then the Persians, there were 26 dynasties. This means that there were 26 changes of rulers, caused either by foreign invasion or by palace revolutions. Palace revolution must have been quite common and not always ended in a change of dynasty. In 1965 B.C. a combination of nobles killed the Pharaoh Amenemhet I 24 , but the dynasty did not fall as his son Sesostris I continued to rule in his place. The son composed an Instruction from his father to himself setting out the principles by which he was to rule. It was issued as the testimony of the slain Pharaoh. Somehow, Egypt was more oppressive than Mesopotamia. Both countries had absolute rulers and a rapacious ruling class. In both countries they built huge buildings to enhance the prestige of the rulers. However, there was a difference between them. The obsession of the Egyptian religion, and of the ruling class, with death and afterlife, was an added burden on the population. Population growth in Egypt could have been a factor in the general poverty of the population,25 but it seems that the squandering of the surplus of the economy on unproductive luxuries, futile ceremonials and monumental burial places was the real cause. The king in Mesopotamia was divinely elected but remained human. Even the title - Lugal - (great man) - testified to this. The kingship in Egypt was completely divine. There was no need for selection; the Pharaoh was not god's representative on earth, he was a god incarnate. Henri Frankfort explains this fact by a possible East African origin of the concept. Accordingly, the Egyptian Pharaohs were extensions of the 'rain-maker kings' of East Africa and the Sudan.26 Indeed, from the time of the unification in the middle of the Fourth Millenium BC, and probably even before that time, until modern times, the vast majority of the Egyptian population lived in serfdom or slavery. They were attached to the land, could be sold or bequeathed with it. It continued so during all the Dynasties and foreign rule.27 They were exploited and oppressed, and suffered passively. So far as we know today, there were no popular uprisings in Egypt. There were many palace revolutions, struggles within the aristocracy, and between the aristocracy and the Pharaohs, but there are no signs in the sources that there were ever-popular uprisings. It does not mean that there were none; it only means that if there were uprisings then they were unsuccessful. The writing of history is always the prerogative of the rulers and the winners, who could disregard failed uprisings. However, the power of the central authority was always so great in all phases of Egyptian history28 that a popular uprising must have been highly unlikely. It must also be taken into consideration that people, who digested the lessons of oppression, and the hopelessness of rebellion, were not prone to further rebellions. Despite that "the actual folk tales of Pharaonic Egypt show us that people took as great a delight in tales of royalty as the public of the Arabian Nights took in the doings of Harun ar-Rashid."29 The author could have added Saddam Hussein or Stalin. It is a paradox, but it seems that the 'Stockholm Syndrome' (the psychological syndrome by which hostages become more identified with their captors rather than with their rescuers) can be effective for whole peoples, not only for individuals, and its effect can be permanent. The situation in the other civilizations of the ancient East was no different. The Indus valley civilization antedated the Egyptian Tel-el-Amarna settlements; they had the same type of layout, with similar blocks of identically planned cottages for the slaves.30 The same condition probably held at the northern tier too, although there are signs that the percentage of free peasantry in Iran and in the early states of Asia Minor was greater than in Egypt, Mesopotamia and the valley of the Indus.31 Judging from historical evidence, it seems that in all early Urban Civilizations a strong despotism developed which mercilessly exploited and oppressed the people. There were objective reasons for a strong central authority. Whatever the reasons, innate biological principles leading to resignation after defeat for leadership, coupled with strong central authority, had to result in despotism. It was so under native rulers, it was so with even greater force under foreign rulers. It should be remembered that the major territories of the region, Egypt and Mesopotamia, as well as the land bridge connecting them, were under foreign rule most of the time since the middle of the First Millenium BC and partially even before that date. The oppression might have been mitigated by better rulers; there were always genuine or manufactured stories of Harun-ar-Rashid and like rulers, but at no time and at no place can one find a sign that the people had any say in their fate, and no hint either that they had any inclination to do so.32 As for the first two questions that were placed, about the rule of law and individual freedom, the answers are simple: 1. Law was what the rulers decreed. They could have done it directly, or they could have done it as representatives of the gods. Usually they chose the latter option. Decreeing something as words of the gods was simpler and ensured better compliance. Since the rulers were seemingly genuinely believed to be the earthly representatives of the gods or even gods incarnate and they usually had an effective propaganda apparatus in the religious establishment to propagate this, such an approach was effective. 2. Apart from the ruling elite, there was a middle class, which usually had better standards of living, but was always at the mercy of the authorities. As for the bulk of the population, they were serfs or slaves without any rights. Indeed, it seems that even the ideas of rights and personal freedom did not exist then. It would be unreasonable to expect behavior according to principles whose formulation was to be more than 5,000 years in the future. However, it will be seen in the next chapter that even in early ages, there were places with principles similar to those we have today. The third question was put about the value of work and knowledge and in their role as a factor in personal advancement in society. The answers to the first two questions, about the rule of law and personal freedom, are straightforward: in any human society, anyone who reaches a leading position will enjoy the fruits of his position, as much as his concern for punishment in case of transgression will allow. The only possible check on the use or abuse of power is a written or unwritten law, known and accepted by all, with directly expressed or implied retaliation if the law is breached. But where there is no law to be followed by rulers and subjects, we have to remember Lord Acton's dictum that all power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. In the early Urban Civilizations there were no sets of laws, which put a bridle on the rulers who had absolute power with absolute corruption prevalent. The third question is not any less important than the first two. It is the question of the value of work and knowledge and whether one can advance in society by merit, or by connections alone. Appendix II records for the Southern Civilizations the following principles: - No value attached to work or study. - Place in society dependent on family or connections. The importance of these principles, or the lack of them, can be shown by analyzing the figures in Appendix I. It shows a table of comparison of the two feuding civilizations and the results of the comparison are distressing indeed. The table compares the population figures and that of the GNP of eight current years from 1987 to 1995, on both sides of the divide. According to the table of comparison, the changes (in percentage terms) within the period were as follows: Middle Europe East Population +19.8 + 2.2 GNP - 21.5 + 126.9 The figures are eloquent; they do not need further elaboration. It is obvious from the figures that the whole area is heading towards catastrophe if no changes will be made. This without the possible effects of the continuation of the feud. The territory of the Middle East is very poor; the only major natural resource is oil, and it is a non-renewable resource. The GNP figures above include oil. Without oil there would be a drop of about 60 %. If there will be no replacement for the income generated by the oil at the time when the oil reserves give out, there will be a catastrophic drop in GNP with unforeseen social and maybe geopolitical consequences. Lacking mineral resources, lacking water for agricultural development, the only alternative is industrialization. However, the present attitude, as far as the value of work and knowledge is concerned, will not allow joining the world economy.33 This is at least the opinion of the three scholars, Fukuyama, Huntington and Paul Kennedy, whose works were analyzed in the Chapter: Tour de Horizon. It seems that industrialization can co-exist with authoritarian rule, as the countries of East Asia do it with considerable success, but there cannot be successful industrialization without educating the available manpower and without utilizing it in the most efficient way The postulates of Appendix II do not hinder industrial development, except for one. If some talented person is educated through the efforts of his family, and the talents and education are wasted because of lack of social or political standing, that person will vote with his feet and make a career elsewhere. Exactly, as is done today. There is no doubt that the postulates of Appendix II about the values of work/talent are correct. However, it is important to establish whether the present attitude is a relic from earliest times, as are the first two points, or is it a new development from a later period. If it is a new development, there might be some success in reversing it, if not, then the chances are negligible. Finding an answer may be simple enough. Urban Civilization sprang up in the middle of the Fourth Millenium BC, ready with agricultural techniques, with writing, with advanced knowledge of astronomy and with metal technology, first with copper, then with bronze and finally with iron. Most of these developments, including the earliest metal technology, were created in the transitory period, between the onset of the Neolithic revolution and the beginning of Urban Civilization. There are many unanswered questions about the initiation of the Urban Civilizations. There are many hypotheses but not many certain answers. It seems that the first Urban Civilization was that of Sumer, but there is no clear answer from where the Sumerians came, and how they developed, whence came their technology and science, which seems to have sprung up without any preliminaries. There are some, who claim that they were neither Indo-Europeans nor Semites, but came from some Ural-Altaic stock. Their language shows some affiliation there. The same obscurity covers Egyptian civilization too. There are some who claim that those who unified the patch of states in the valley of the Nile were invaders who came from Mesopotamia, while there are others who claim that both civilizations were set up by some third party, and the similarities were caused by the influence of the third party on both of them.34 In both countries there was a brilliant civilization and advanced technology. The numeric system of the Sumerians, based upon 'sixty' is much better than the decimal system used today, or the duodecimal system used in some countries. The sexagesimal system combines the advantages of both the decimal and the duodecimal systems, without having the disadvantages. Today we use the Sumerian sexagesimal system in our time reckoning and in geographical notation.35 The start of the Urban Civilization was very promising, with surprisingly advanced science and technology. It was all inherited from the transitional period. The continuation was much less promising and outright disappointing. After the brilliant achievements of the Fourth Millenium BC, with the organization of the civilizations themselves, the developments of the next twenty centuries of the Bronze Age were disappointingly low. Apart from some improvements in transport and armaments, there were very few developments worthy of special mention.36 There is only one explanation for that. In the period of the Neolithic Revolution, before it coalesced into advanced Urban Civilization, there was a special tribe of artificers who served the early settlements. These artificers wore the mark of Cain to show that they do not belong to any tribe but to some sort of inter-tribal trade organization, and the mark of Cain served to protect them. It seems that these craftsmen made their living from what they produced for the early farming settlements. The need was there and they must have had sufficient incentive. The result was that they were inventive and developed techniques for new products, which were there when the Urban Civilizations emerged. Similarly to the craftsmen, the descendants of Tubal-Cain, the early priesthood too were involved in the development of the basis of science. Maybe not science in the present meaning of the word, but they were proficient in mathematics and astronomy. With the Urban Civilization and the despotism that came with it, the situation of the craftsmen and the priesthood changed. Both classes became subservient to the rulers. The priests were used to manipulate the population to acquiesce passively to the dictates of authority. The craftsmen were freed from their previous burden of looking for work and procuring raw material, but with that freedom they lost their initiative and inventiveness. The only metal instruments, which were produced henceforth, were armaments for the army, or some luxury equipment for the use of the ruler and the ruling elite. They were liberated from the necessity of growing or catching their food, so that they might devote their whole time to industry and it also insured them regular supplies of metal. At the same time, it reduced them to servitude; they were utterly dependent on the State for their food and for their raw materials.37 There was an important element which prevented further development, arrested the civilizations at the point where they were, generally to became intellectual wastelands. The early civilizations became stratified and ossified societies. The ruling classes could and did have the best of everything. Any development could only endanger their privileges. So, they were interested only in weapons to maintain their position, and in not much else. This is the reason why then and since then, there is no ordinary way to change rulers, only by assassinations and palace revolutions. In Egypt and in Mesopotamia the simple types of axe, adzes, knife, dagger and spear were perfected at the end of the Fourth Millenium BC The same technique survived for nearly 3,000 years. In a famous tomb picture showing Egyptian smiths from about 400 BC, the same technique and equipment appears as from another tomb picture, 2,000 years earlier.38 The smiths who are shown in both pictures, were working for the Pharaoh or for some great household. The simple people, the serfs and slaves, had to make shift with neolithic equipment of stone hoes and wooden ploughs. Indeed, as far the simple people were concerned, there was regression in the situation.39 The despotism of the early civilizations caused an intellectual barrenness. Apart from armaments and transports, mainly war chariots, there was not much interest in developing anything else. Their own craftsmen did not even participated in the development of new weapons. Archeological excavations on the Ionian islands and in the towns of Northern Syria uncovered metal equipment made by constantly improving technology. The kingdom of Mitanni in Asia Minor developed the light chariot first and the sword was invented in Crete and exploited by the Mycenaeans. The early Oriental Empires eventually became commercial customers of metal equipment manufactured in Asia Minor, the Ionian islands and on the European mainland. As they renounced the possibility of development, and the creation of wealth by means of industry and commerce, as was done by the northerners, they increasingly turned to military adventures, as a means of enriching the ruling caste. From the time of Sargon of Akkad, the warlord of Mesopotamia in the middle of the Third Millenium BC, military conquest became the ideal of the ruling classes. The same principles operated in the Indus valley towns too. They must have had a very rigid set of laws, regulating even the size of bricks, weights and measures, and the type of house. This was accompanied by a backward intellectual development, illustrated by their primitive hieratic script, primarily used for religious purposes, and technological backwardness.40 As those towns were isolated, without easy access to possible producers, unlike the rulers of Egypt and Mesopotamia, they had to use what they produced, which was poor in the extreme. These developments, or lack of them, should not be surprising. During the twentieth century, there were a number of dictatorships in Europe. One lasted 12 years, half of which was passed in war. Another regime lasted more than 70 years. The example of that regime proved that despotism can do many things, it can even inflame the passions of their people, but slavery and oppression cannot coexist with intellectual and technological advance. It is true in the twentieth century, it was true 6,000 years ago too. The oppression was not the only reason for the intellectual barrenness of the Urban Civilizations despite the promising start in the Fourth Millenium B.C. Another reason was the density of population, the demographic pressure. The same reason prevented development in China too. An illustration in a book by J. H. Breasted41 shows the transport of an alabaster colossus, twenty-two feet high. 172 people, arranged in 4 lines draw the colossus. Using rollers, rope and tackle, much fewer people could have drawn the colossus, but the people were there and they were cheap. There was no economic incentive to improve technologies. There was a similar attitude in Imperial Rome. Suetonius reported that Vespasian refused to accept from an engineer the offer of a simple and inexpensive machine to raise columns. 42 The reason for the refusal was his concern for the poor. Suetonius quotes Vespasian : "I must always ensure that the working classes earn enough money to buy themselves food." It is doubtful that the Egyptians had the same consideration. If invasions or palace revolutions could only change the ruling class, there was no industry and no commerce, no small-scale free agriculture, then what remained of a possible middle class? There remained one function alone, which was the administration of the state, and that was also hereditary. In Egypt and Mesopotamia administrative functions were partly filled by the priesthood, partly by scribes. The scribes in both countries, indeed in all countries of the ancient East, were in a privileged position. "You hold the pen. It is yours to command. The clerk is exempt from all manual work," runs a late Egyptian text.43 Who were those clerks and why were they privileged? The new entrants to the profession of scribe were first of all the sons of the scribes themselves. In fact, in Egypt the scribes formed a guild, which was superior to all, except the Pharaoh and the ruling elite. It was a hereditary guild and its very existence prevented inventiveness and development. The state of the art in Egypt clearly shows that the craftsmen of the time were often people with the highest ability, but they could not rise from their humble station, as the scribal and official middle-class looked down upon them. No craftsmen, however talented, could rise above the status of the scribes,44 In Mesopotamia, as in Egypt, the scribes were a privileged class. There were schools for scribes. The graduates of the schools were governors, city fathers, ambassadors, temple administrators, managers, supervisors, clerks and accountants, as their fathers were before them and as their children who were to follow them. It was a closed class, probably the wealthiest below the ruling elite.45 The Urban Civilizations of the ancient East were barren and unfruitful organizations, locked in a fixed pattern, with no possibility of upward social mobility. As the Oriental Despotisms became ossified societies, the only way for a ruler to enrich the ruling elite, whose support kept him on the throne, was by paying them with the spoils of conquests. In time, all Urban Civilizations in the Near East became predatory states. Since the middle of the Third Millenium BC war and conquest were the rule in the Near East. The obvious result was that since people lived for thousands of years in such an environment, the behavioral patterns became the collective memory of the people, transferred between generations by cultural transmission. The same behavioral patterns, as developed in very early ages, still remain today: - Law is what the ruler decreases. - There are no independent centers of power, only the central authority. - Place in society depends on family. Individual talent does not provide means of advancement up the social ladder. - There is no ordinary means to change the social order. - Rule is always a tyranny, mitigated by assassination. Civilization of the Rich This is how V. Gordon Childe opens his book: The Prehistory of European Society46 : "The history of Europe poses two fundamental questions that prehistoric archeology should be able to answer. Four to five thousand years ago the natives of Europe were on precisely the same level, as far as equipment and economic organization are concerned, as the natives of eastern North America - a very similar environment - were on only 400 years ago and as some native tribes in New Guinea are on today. Why then did they not remain illiterate Stone Age barbarians as the Red Indians and the Papuans did? On an answer to this first question prehistorians are agreed: the proximity of Egypt and Mesopotamia. In the Nile Valley and the Tigris-Euphrates delta alone could be created the economic and political organization necessary to get a metallurgical industry started. And there that first step in the 'progress' that has differentiated the Old World from the New was actually taken five thousand years ago. European barbarians profited by that achievement and so left the Stone Age behind. "But this answer at once raises the second question: How could European barbarians outstrip their Oriental masters as they have done? For the essential features of the economy and polity needed to nurture the future metallurgical industry have persisted in the Orient through the Bronze Age empires of Egypt and Mesopotamia have been replaced by others - the Persian Empire, the Hellenistic monarchies, the Caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, and so on. Incidentally the technological differentiate between the first and the last expressions of the primary pattern - iron, waterwheels, alphabetic writing, pure mathematics, etc, - were inventions introduced or imposed by barbarians, and often European barbarians at that." Gordon Childe has put two valid questions and received some partial answers. But he did not ask all the questions and did not receive all the answers. The prehistoric Europeans, who were contemporaries of the earliest Urban Civilizations, might have borrowed many things, among others the concept of agriculture and that of metallurgy, but they did not borrow other elements. The omission of those elements from a list of borrowings makes the real difference. At the end of the book there are two Appendices. One of them is a comparison of the economic strength of the populations of Europe and those who live today in the territories of the first Urban Civilizations, the second is a table of comparison between their patterns of behavior. There is a correlation between the two Appendices with some disagreement as to the direction of the correlation. Does the wealth generate the pattern of behavior or is it vice versa? The chapter dealing with the Civilization of the Poor analyzed that question and came to the conclusion that the original Urban Civilizations developed in a direction which a priori precluded further development, and those elements in the pattern of behavior which are listed on their side were created at that time, and they are still characteristic of the people who are the descendants of the population of the original Urban Civilizations, e.g. those in North Africa and Western Asia. There is a major question not asked by Gordon Childe, and hence not answered. If the prehistoric Europeans borrowed from contemporary civilization agriculture and technology, why did they not borrow those elements that shaped the patterns of behavior of the ancestors of modern Easterners. We can look at the table of comparison in Appendix II and see the difference. A large part of the elements in the table of behavior are a heritage from that period. What caused the prehistoric Europeans, who were at that time on a much lower civilizational level than the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians, to borrow some elements and reject others. After all, there are Easterners today who bait Westerners with sayings like: when we already had writing and civilization, your ancestors wore bearskins and were climbing trees, and they are entirely correct. But, the early civilization, the writing, etc. also brought the rules, prevalent in Eastern societies today that the rule of the elite is ruthlessly clientelist, politics is winner-takes-all, rulers are changed by assassination or by firing squad, and that type of rule is inherent in the nature of things. Nothing is expected of politics. Authority is accountable to God for implementation of religious-legal rules, not to man for the practice of some civic ideal.47 Somehow, the prehistoric Europeans rejected the social structure of the Urban Civilizations and took the material benefits alone. One of the results of this rejection was that the East was free of social uprisings48, the fellaheen of Egypt and Mesopotamia were docile and no popular rebellions were recorded. In the history of the West, slave wars and social conflicts were the order of the day, from the earliest recorded time until our very day. Sometimes, it is assumed that individual rights are a modern development, fought for and achieved in very modern times alone. It seems that this assumption is incorrect. At the end of the 5th Century AD the Franks, one of the German tribes living on the lower Rhine invaded France. They lived there for about 200 years, so they acquired some slight patina of civilization, but by and large they were a tribe of northern barbarians, one of the long line of invaders, starting with the Cimbri and Teutoni in the 2nd Century BC and ending with the Vikings in the 10 - 11th Centuries AD In their invasion the Franks occupied Soissons, and as was their habit pillaged the town and its cathedral. One of the warriors received a costly vase as his share, one of the masterpieces of the cathedral. The bishop of the town begged the leader of the Franks, Clovis, to have the vase returned by its new owner. Clovis was willing to accommodate him and asked the warrior for the vase, but he was refused. The reason given by the warrior was that there is an agreement between the king, Clovis, and his warriors, for the distribution of the spoils, and that agreement is binding on Clovis, just as it is binding on his warriors.49 The vase was not surrendered. It is an early example of a relationship between the ruler and the subject, and the concept of the law as an agreement between the two sides, where the agreement is binding on both sides. The agreement was not always kept, indeed Clovis managed to get his revenge on the warrior a year later, but the principle was certainly in existence much earlier than the time of Magna Carta, and probably much earlier than the incident at Soissons. It is extremely unlikely that such an incident would occur anywhere, apart from Europe. Indeed, one of the main curiosities of the development of European civilization is that it is alone among all early civilizations in this respect. The Neolithic Revolution started in three separate areas, Western Asia, East Asia and Central America. Europe is an extension of the civilization of Western Asia. In all three areas the ruler always made the law, with no say on the part of the ruled. There were many guises for this practice, usually religious. It seems that this is the normal solution, moreover it is biologically correct. In the lives of higher mammals, whichever male wins the rule over the pack or the herd, rules absolutely, with all other males subservient to him, or they leave the pack. In this respect the civilization that developed on the European mainland proved to be a special case; it did not follow the biological code that tends to assist the winner-takes-all solution. As far as genetic principles are concerned, it is only advantageous that the genes of the strong should be handed to the next generation. Human society does not follow the genetic code so precisely, but the principles of leadership and the right of the winners to whatever they see fit to receive are certainly appropriate. In this respect, the civilization that developed in Europe was different. It was not much different looking at it from the viewpoint of the winners, and their coterie of ruling elite, who always wished to enjoy the fruits of their winnings to the full, but it was certainly different from the viewpoint of the losers, who constantly sought to change the verdict, sometimes even with success. Attempts through violence to replace the rulers were common, and still are, in the civilizations of the East. These were attempts to replace the ruler and the ruling elite with a new ruler and a new elite. The ordinary people had no part in those attempts; they awaited the outcome and cheered whoever came out on top. There were similar revolutions, coup-d'etats in Europe too, but these were conflicts which had no corresponding occurrence in the East. Patrician families ruled Early Republican Rome. When the rich plebeians sought to have a role in ruling the city, they carried out a long, drawn-out struggle with the patricians. They made it very clear that they had no intention to replace the patricians and they did not demand rights for all the citizens of Rome, only for the rich plebeian families. They did not demand liberty for all, even the concept was unknown to them, and they demanded liberties for their group. This was a specifically European development. There are other substantial differences. The task of this chapter is to establish the major differences and check whether they are results of later development, or did they originate from the beginning of civilization, as was the case with the civilizations of the east. The two tables below show a comparison of probable dates for the start of civilizational components between the Fertile Crescent and England. It should be pointed out that England was among the last of West European countries to start agriculture, only Scandinavia and the Baltic area came after. The table of comparison is in two parts. The first part contains the material elements of civilizations and the second the social elements. In simpler terms, the first part contains those elements which made life better, the second part those elements, which were unavoidable, but which brought misery to the people of the Fertile Crescent, and which the Europeans succeeded in avoiding.50 It was not a conscious act, it was special good fortune, assisted by gifts from nature. Table I. Approximate date of Lag in years adoption Fertile Crescent England Material elements Plant domestication 8,500 BC 3,500 BC 5,000 Animal domestication 8,000 BC 3,500 BC 4,500 Pottery 7,000 BC 3,500 BC 3,500 Metal tools (copper/bronze) 4,000 BC 2,000 BC 2,000 Iron tools 900 BC 650 BC 250 Table II. Social elements Villages 9,000 BC 3,000 BC 6,000 Chiefdoms 5,500 BC 2,500 BC 3,000 States 3,700 BC 500 BC 3,200 Writing 3,200 BC 50 AD 3,250 The figures are eloquent. The Europeans were eager to adopt the innovations, provided there was a need for them. As can be seen from the figures, the time lag became less and less until the first 5,000 years were reduced to 250 years. The time lag in the social elements shows that they were much less needed. The following pages analyze the meanings of these tables, and the reasons for the different time lag between the material and social elements. There are some problems in analyzing the early European civilizations. Whatever mythologies there are, they are usually of the Indo-Europeans who arrived in Europe from the Third Millenium BC onwards. There is not much left from the myths of the early inhabitants, except some traces of their religion, which will be analyzed in the next chapter. There was no writing either. Reliable written documents exist only from historical times, from the First Millenium BC Therefore, only archeology can provide the answers. Luckily, there are plenty of archeological remains and they provide clear answers. In the chapter Geography, Climate and Environment it was explained that the change in climate started in the south and moved north at a slow pace. The desiccation and desertification of the South was accompanied by the corresponding melting of the European glaciers, generally milder temperatures and the spread of forests over the entire European continent. In addition, the herds of large animals, which were the mainstay of the existence of the hunter-gatherer economy, fled from the desert and moved either to the south or to the north. The figures in Table I. show that there were about 5,000 years between the start of agriculture in the Fertile Crescent and in England. It meant that the hunter-gatherer clans managed to survive in England for 5,000 years without agriculture. Indeed, it was shown that when agriculture reached Denmark at the end of the Fourth Millenium BC, there were Mesolithic hunter-gatherer communities, living next to Neolithic farming settlements. The Mesolithic hunters hunted the red deer, and it seems that the red deer, and their hunters both prospered by the nearness of agriculture.51 According to archeological evidence, the two types of communities lived peacefully side by side; they even had some type of barter commerce between them. The reason for the late start of agriculture, and the subsequent evolution of the European Urban Civilization, was that Europe was much richer than North Africa and Western Asia. The European mainland was also much richer than the northern littoral of the Mediterranean. In the Mediterranean there is a need for constant treatment of the topsoil to prevent erosion. If the soil is not treated, it is washed away, with no possibility of renewal. The situation on the southern littoral of the Mediterranean Sea was even worse. The European mainland was very rich in all respects. Forests covered the land, which was covered by glaciers, after they melted. The Germans had a proverb in the sixteenth century A.D. saying that the French were so rich that: er lebt wie der Hergott in Frankreich . (He lives so well as God in France) The French were really rich, but so were the Germans. After the Thirty Years War, Germany was devastated, but the rich land remained, so the country was rebuilt again.52 The same happened after the Second World War, when the devastation of war in Europe was repaired in a comparably short time and not only in the richer West but also in the poorer parts of the continent. There are no reliable figures about population density in Europe in the period before civilizational times, but it must have been much less than in the south. The same rules applied in Europe as in the Fertile Crescent. Demographic explosion was the by-product of agriculture. The later start of agriculture caused a later start to the demographic explosion. All things being equal, general prosperity and less population pressure meant less conflicts and better relations. According to all archeological evidence, the Neolithic way of life in Europe was peaceful. No fortifications were found and not much by way of weapons either. If people built palisades, they were built to keep out marauding animals and not human enemies.53 The Danubian settlements did not know fortifications like the walls of Jericho. Weapons started to proliferate in Europe at a much later period, when the bronze-weaponed Indo-European tribes started to penetrate Europe. It seems that in the Danubian settlements and on the Ionian islands there was some kind of primitive democracy. There was certainly no equality, there were houses that belonged to rich people, they were bigger and roomier, but they were not built separately, as was the palace of a chieftain. Large houses were built in the neighborhood of smaller houses, obviously belonging to poorer people. They were in stark contrast to the slave barracks of Egypt and the towns of the Indus valley.54 The same quasi-democratic status applied to the craftsmen too. Indeed, as Europe was still before the stage of Urban Civilization, the status of the craftsmen and the population in general, should have been no different from what it was in the Fertile Crescent before the onset of Urban Civilization.55 In matters of religion, the situation must have been identical to what it was in the Fertile Crescent before the time of Oriental Despotism. Worship was done on hilltops and in natural caves56 without the outward signs of organized religion. Indeed, the period in Europe at the beginning of agriculture must have been very similar to what it was in the early settlements of the south, but with two major additions: - Europe was much richer than the Fertile Crescent. The richness of the land allowed managing a mixed economy, (e.g. agriculture mixed with hunting), much more easily than could have been done in the South. - When agriculture started in Europe, there were already Urban Civilizations in the South. Because of political considerations, as was explained in detail in the previous chapter, they became ossified as far as technological advances were concerned. The European settlements on the Ionian islands and on the mainland were near enough so they could barter with the states in the South, but were sufficiently distant, so that the predatory armies of the South could not reach them. The previous chapter evaluated the development of the southern, the poorer side of the feud as regards - rule of law - personal liberty - value of study/knowledge and found that the behavioral patterns of present-day civilization, as regards that part of the feud, originated at the earliest times of human history, and are not results of recent developments. The same three points should be evaluated for European civilization too. Appendix II. shows the attitude of the European - Western civilization as regards these three points: 1. Rule of Law Ancient customs of commonly reached agreements between individuals and authority. 2. Constant search for individual freedom. 3. Study/work has value Advancement in society can be based on work or talent too. The first two points can be conclusively assigned to environmental factors. It was showed that the European mainland is rich now, and it was far richer in prehistoric times. Much fewer people, much less ecological damage. Land was plentiful, so was water, both from the sky as year-round rainfall, or from the ground in the form of lakes, springs and rivers. No need to pool resources to dig irrigation networks; there was plenty of water without it. Prehistoric Europe was probably similar to the Central and Western United States when the first settlers left the Eastern Shore and headed west. Virgin forest, where people could clear the land and start farming. The same process must have happened in prehistoric Europe too. The clearing of the forest provided arable land, the logs provided building material and fences, the surrounding forest gave hiding places in need and defense too. The richness of the land gave them freedom, just as the poverty of land in Western Asia created the slavery. As for the Rule of Law, it was shown in the episode of the vase at Soissons that there was an objective law binding authority and its subjects. The rulers usually attempted to exceed their limits but there were limits even on those encroachments. It was one of the principles of the later European politico-legal system that it allowed rebellion against tyranny. Starting from the middle of the Third Millennium BC, Indo-European nomadic tribes invaded or infiltrated the European mainland and the islands of the Ionian Sea. Since then, most Europeans speak one of the Indo-European languages. From the period before that time there is no direct evidence, apart from archeological sources, but judging from them the original inhabitants of Europe were peaceful people who lived in a form of peaceful democracy. The Indo-Europeans lived in a kind of primitive democratic society. When they emerged into historical times, all the Indo-Europeans had some kind of popular assembly that met from time to time to discuss common problems and make decisions, or at least advise on them. It was so in Rome and in the Greek city-states, with the Celts and the Germans. There were times when the Indo-Europeans slipped into tyranny, but somehow the original systems always came back. The European mainland encountered a type of Oriental despotism only in the late Roman Empire, but it was a desperate and ephemeral measure.It took hold only in the Eastern Empire. European institutions in those early times were certainly not universal democracies; it is doubtful that they would even have a concept for it, but they all had some mechanism for the elders of the clans or those selected by any other method to have a say in common matters. They might have had rulers who claimed divine rights, but were never divine themselves as in Egypt or in Mesopotamia. Even the deification of past Roman emperors was not taken seriously. It was done as a final accolade for past services. For possible advancement in society, based upon work or talent, there are innumerable examples from the earliest of times. People could and did advance even in the most aristocratic of societies. We know about a tanner among the leaders of the Athenian democracy, we know that Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus was called upon to be the Dictator of Rome in an emergency, when he was ploughing his field. Having settled the emergency, he returned to his farm. In later, Christian times, the Church was a useful ladder for talented people. Thomas Becket, the Archbishop and the Chancellor of Henry II of England, was the son of a London merchant. It is difficult to find corresponding cases on the other side of the dividing line. People did advance by force, as a result of palace revolutions, or by outright rebellions, but not by talent and not for a limited period, as was the custom for Roman or Greek officeholders. As far as science is concerned, there is no need to illustrate the scientific predominance of European civilization, now and in ancient times. There was a short period when this predominance slipped away and the Islamic civilization was the predominant scientific power.57 It was an ephemeral episode, the reasons for which will be explained in detail in chapter: The Golden Age. How did the European civilization achieve its scientific predominance and in what way was it connected to its original development? The most accepted explanation is that of Gordon Childe who gave the following explanation : "...thanks to the very backwardness Europe could benefit from the Orient's achievement without paying the full price, could draw upon accumulated capital without accumulating it. For the Urban Revolution created poverty as well as prosperity; the capital required for urbanization, like that used for industrialization in the nineteenth century, was accumulated by the compulsory savings of the masses - and that is an euphemism for exploitation."58 This means that in the Orient there was an accumulation of capital, and that capital was turned into purchases from abroad, from the Ionian islands and from the mainland, instead of developing local industry. This explanation is correct, but it misses a few points. It is possible that the nearness of the Oriental monarchies helped develop the European metallurgical industry.59 But metallurgy, and related fields, are only a small part of science and technology. European civilization developed in a way that it could draw upon the accumulated experience and capital of the Orient, but keep its distance to preserve distinctive European features. Europe borrowed, if that is the proper expression, the material goods and succeeded in escaping the despotism which was a by-product of the Orient.60 When European civilization emerged into historical times, it was a separate entity, without civilizational ties to the Orient. Not only that, but as Appendix II shows, it was in opposition to it in all major civilizational paradigms. European science was based first of all on philosophy. This made it the groundwork for applied science, which might have benefited from the Orient. Democritus, Anaxagoras, Plato, Aristotle and countless others did not benefit from the Orient. They acted, thought and established the basis of European science because of two simple reasons: 1. They were free, there was no supervision from above over what they were thinking and teaching. The case of Socrates was a special case, mixed with politics . Nobody touched or accused his pupils, among them Plato and Xenophon. 2. The philosophers were well off and could afford to think, research and teach. There is an innate curiosity in human beings. Science is the ultimate form of curiosity. If one has political and economic freedom, and has the capability and the inclination, he or she may come to science. Without doubt, the Egyptians and the Mesopotamians had the same innate curiosity as the Europeans, they probably even possessed the same talent, but had neither the opportunity nor the means. Notes: |
