| Beliefs,Customs and Habits It is assumed that there is an implacable enmity felt by the spiritual East toward the materialistic West. It is certainly so today. There is much evidence showing that it was always so, from the beginning of history.1There was a time when the hatreds and fears were mutual, and that of the East toward the West was matched by similar feelings toward the East. There was a time when Western chroniclers compared the Eastern armies to a "swarm of bees, with a heavy hand...they devastate everything they meet."2 It is true that the East was based upon spiritual values, at least the East presented itself thus, but it is also true that Eastern civilization was always based upon arms and upon collecting booty instead of generating wealth. It was so from the time of Sargon, in the middle of the Third Millenium BC, until today. That Muhammed himself was a skillful military commander is not a coincidence.3 But then, Moses was also a leader of men, in peace and war. The conflict between the spiritual East and the materialistic West was always on a military level. If one realizes that the spiritual East is based upon the religions of the desert, which can only offer spiritual values and not tangible benefits, it is difficult for the East to compete with other civilizations on any other level, civilizations which might also have their own spiritual values, with much higher standards of living. In old times, the East was able spread its spiritual values by military conquest. Today, it can offer by peaceful means spiritual solace to the poor millions in sub-Saharan countries, but not to the peoples of the West, nor to people in other civilizations. Lacking overt military power, the East substitutes covert actions instead. So the conflict was always a violent one, from the earliest times until today.4 There are a few basic questions that must be asked here: Why the conflict at all? And why is the conflict mainly with the West? After all, the East borders with other civilizations as well, with Eastern Orthodoxy, Indic and Sinic civilizations. Conflicts there have been, but never with the intensity as with the 'materialistic' West. There must be some internal justification for specifically singling out the West as an archenemy. The reasons for the special, hostile relationship are presented in the two Appendices. Appendix I presents the comparison between populations and the GNP as between the Middle East and the West. In order to give a proper historical perspective, only those countries are included in the table, which are parts of the historical conflict. So, no Muslim countries from Central Asia, nor from the Indian sub-continent, and not from the Far East. Similarly, no Western connected countries from North America, South Africa and Oceania. The tables are based upon figures collected from the Yearbooks of Encyclopedia Britannica between 1987 and 1995.The figures in Appendix I are for current years. They reflect the fact that, objectively, the East is much poorer than the West. They also reflect the fact that the East had in recent years what can be defined as 'the greatest financial windfall in human history'. It came in the form of oilfields, which generate tremendous and constant income, without any burden and cost of investment. If the income from oil, which is really unearned income, would be removed from the tables, it would probably halve the total. But even with the oil, the per capita income of the East is only about 10 % of that of the West, and the gap is still growing. One wonders, whether this huge difference is the result of necessity, or is it something much more basic, with deep historical roots. Marvin Harris wrote in his book: Cannibals and Kings: "Western observers have always been astonished by the static or 'stationary' nature of these ancient dynastic systems. Pharaohs and emperors came and went decade after decade; dynasties rose and fell; the life of the coolies, ryots and fellahin, however, went on as always, just a notch above basic subsistence. The ancient empires were full of warrens of illiterate peasants, toiling from morning to night only to earn protein-deficient vegetarian diets. They were little better off than their oxen and were no less subject to the commands of superior beings who knew how to keep records and who alone had the right to manufacture and use weapons of war and coercion. The fact that societies providing such meager rewards endured thousands of years - longer than any other system of statehood in the history of the world - stands as a grim reminder that there is nothing inherent in human affairs to ensure material and moral progress."5 Appendix I. provides an illustration of the picture, eloquently described by Marvin Harris. Appendix II presents the elements of the type of behavior which made possible the sorry figures of Appendix I. In these two Appendices lies the reason for the deep and seemingly unbridgeable chasm between East and West. It would be easy to prepare similar tables for the Indic and the Sinic civlizations. There would be differences even there, but they would be much less in numerical terms, and certainly much less in behavioral patterns. After all, when Marvin Harris wrote about the fellahin of the civilization of the East, he also wrote about the ryots of India and the coolies of China. Both the Indic and Sinic civilizations are based upon older 'hydraulic' civilization, which generated them. The two sides of Appendix II are mirror images. There are no similarities whatever. A comparison of the West with Indic and Sinic civilizations might find some similar patterns; never with the East. The following two chapters analyze the elements of Appendix II, the first for the East, and the second for the West. It must be explained here, that the analysis does not make value judgments. There is no good or bad in history. The social system, as described by Marvin Harris, is general for all civilizations. It seems that it is deeply rooted in human nature. The civilization of the West escaped it, not because human nature was different in Europe from other parts of the world, but because of a quirk in the environment the Europeans could deflect what happened elsewhere. The richness of Europe, compared to the Middle East, and the diversity of its geography, helped the Europeans to defeat attempts to reduce them too to the level of toiling ants. The time lag between Eastern and European civilizations also played an important role. Europe simply escaped those social formations that created the pattern of behavior of Appendix II. European history is full of revolts, wars and clashes against the efforts of the 'betters' to improve their absolute rule over the multitude. The 'betters' sometimes bore the names of Emperors, sometimes Popes, Fuehrers or Duces and sometimes commissars. The names were different, their characteristics identical. If the conflict is analyzed in this light, then the ages-long conflict has a different dimension. Spiritual values may have been trumpeted, but in the end the elite in any country did what it liked and used so-called spiritual values to get itself a bigger share of the wealth. Remember the special shops for the Soviet nomenklatura. It is hoped that these chapters will be read in the same spirit that they are proffered. It is possible that the social system of the East, as seen from the West, is bad, oppressive, placed people into virtual slavery, with huge differences between the rulers and the ruled. A genuine kleptocracy. Viewed from the East, it looks very different. First, conditioning went on for about 6,000 years. Second, the people know the rules of the game, realizing that their best and probably only chance for a better life, is to be on the winning side of the next change of regime. So when Westerners see on the TV screen a huge Eastern crowd cheering some obnoxious dictator, it is not because they are made to do so. They love him, just as they loved Harun-ar-Rashid, Hamurabbi and Sargon, as they loved the Pharaohs and were proud of their achievements. They will love the next dictator too, who will replace the present one; most probably by violent means. It is possible that the huge crowds of demonstrators are manipulated. It is also possible that the slogans, the props and the cheerleaders are controlled from above. However, mass demonstrations in democratic countries are also known to be organized and manipulated. The crowd might be manipulated but the enthusiasm is genuine. To be on the side of the ruler is an element of cultural transmission over 6,000 years. Those who live in that environment are not waiting to be liberated. They also know that Western civilization is not only Motherhood and Apple Pie. (Occasional massacres of schoolchildren are also part of the civilization.) This is the only game they know in the East, and they know the rules. Equality and democracy are not among them. The victims of Stalin's terror wept at his funeral. They were genuine tears6 and that only after less than half a century of brainwashing. The victims of Ivan the Terrible also wept at his funeral. Similar to the opinion of the West about the standards of the East, the latter might also have its own ideas about the West. It is doubtful that people appreciate democracy and liberalism. Freedom for them might mean not liberty but libertinism. Education for all might not mean a better future for the next generation, but turning that next generation against its elders, and so on. It is best to accept the good advice of Bernard Shaw in his Maxims for Socialist Women: "Do not wish for your fellow man what is good for you, he might have different tastes". Notes: |
