The end of Western hegemony ("..Europeans may well find ourselves missing..Bush before too long.")

The UK Guardian via The News.com ^ | Monday 25 May 2009 16.00 BST | Paddy Ashdown Guardian.co.UK

[2ndDivisionVet]

We are on the edge of one of those periods of history when the gimbals on which the established order is mounted shift and a new world order begins to emerge. And these are, almost always, the most frightening and turbulent of times.

[lentulusgracchus]

Well, if you're marrying a Polish girl, then pro-Polish is a wonderful foreign policy to have! ;)

Hopefully, you guys will singlehandedly turn around the population lag in both Poland and the States!

Or maybe it takes both hands ....

lolol

[Cronos]

Pro-Polish is the only policy to have :-))))

I think the Population lag in Poland and the US aren't that bad -- in Western Europe it is bad, we're better off in comparison

That doesn't mean that I'm not going to do my bit :))))

[Landru]

"The last thing of note they did was invent zero, about a thousand years ago or so. Nothing since then, however."

Correct.
And we Americans recently trumped theirs with our own version.

[bert]

Very interesting. The more things change, the more they are the same.

My view is that the coming battle will be between groups with common business interests. Cooperation among multistate businesses will influence politics more than the religion. Blood and money will have the power.

Ages old tribal animosities have been covered over as wealth blooms from business. Saudi companies have offices in Dubai. A causeway connects the sinners of Bahrain with the superfaithful of Al Khober.There are roads moving goods across the desert as never before. The tallest building the world is being attempted.

[Cronos]

Interesting bit about Bahrain — I lived there for many years — lovely people there too and quite the opposite of the Sauds. They HATE Sauds there.

[lentulusgracchus]

the Kurds are an Irani people....

But the Kurds of Iran have frequently been at war with both the Shah's and the mullahs' government in Tehran.

There's little love lost nowadays between the Kurds and the Persians.

The Ansar al-Islam group was an Al Q'aeda-affiliated terrorist NGO supported by Saddam Hussein's government that operated against the Iranian government in Kurdish areas of Iran. They were dispersed by peshmerga and Special Forces attacks and bombing attacks by B-52's.

[Malesherbes]

No reference by Paddy to the rise of Islamism in Europe and especially in his own country. Britain is paralyzed by left-wing political correctness in the face of a growing threat on its own soil by an alien and hostile population of young Moslems.

[DoughtyOne]

Ouch...

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks for the responses folks. I appreciate the information.

Thanks also for that link, ‘What Arab Civilization?’

Rather sad isn’t it. Or perhaps rather vile is more like it.

[DoughtyOne]

Can you believe that post only had 68 responses?

Good grief...

[Madame Dufarge]

Perhaps if the title had been “What American Idol?”.....:-)

[DoughtyOne]

Heh heh heh...

[swarthyguy]

very informative posts, there.

But, just to be nitpicky, one could theoretically state the rise of Western Expansionism, not domination to both Columbus’ voyage and also to Vasco Da Gama’s landing in Goa or the Malabar coast in 1498.

I read about the Karmatians in a ME history book, and its quite a story....the only ancient Pagan idol left in Mecca become the cornerstone of the faith.

[Tallguy]

Looks to me like the EU will complete the job of ‘unification’ just in time to hand the keys over to their restive Muslim minorities. Since Russia will be the EU’s babysitter, I wonder how that’s gonna play?

[Gargantua]

Who "ruled" Africa and the gooks, I firmly assert that nobody could care less. Lions still rule half of Africa, that doesn't make them a world force.

The Ottomans, Cholas, Susas, Auxmites, list again the entire irrelevant pack of them; they never fielded a navy that either made historical discoveries in or contributions to the New World (us). The Spaniards, the English and the French did. The Romans ran the Western Hemisphere (the "world," as opposed to the "Third World") from 100BC until Western Europe emerged as a "WORLD-SHAPING force," by having a hand in finding/creating America.

Period. Talk all you want about the Chaldinians and the hootoos and the mongloids. Esoteric is the opposite of "world-shaping, as in, "Nobody but your liberal sphincter college professors will ever give a sh*t!"

Just so you know, I used "mongloids" intentionally.

;-/

[Cronos]

I would change Madame’s article title from ‘What Arab Civilisation’ to ‘what islamic civilisation’ — as I pointed out, the broader term Arab includes the Yemenite civilisations, but we now use the term exclusively for what the Bedos have wrought. And that is NOT a civilisation.

[Cronos]

You’re right — the actual milestone date is debatable, but as you said 1492 was the year of the START of the West’s rise. The 1500s, 1600s were completely dominated by the Asian part of Eurasia, but the 1700s saw the swing around.

[Cronos]

I think you count out the Euros a bit too early.

[Cronos]

Who "ruled" Africa and the gooks, I firmly assert that nobody could care less. Lions still rule half of Africa, that doesn't make them a world force.

you're kidding, right? North Africa bordering the Mediterranean was always part of the Mediteranean civilised world (Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, Carthage, Rome, Greece, Crete, etc. etc.)

Next, the Ethiopians were civilised at least as early as the Greeks and way before the Germanics and Celts (they were part of Kingdoms across the Red Sea like the Shebans/Sabeans etc)

Ethiopia was also Christian before Rome, don't forget that

Finally, the late 1800s was the rush for Africa and it's mineral wealth -- no other continent has that kind of wealth yet and it's obvious the natives aren't able to exploit it, so who rules Africa in the next century will be a superpower

The Ottomans, Cholas, Susas, Auxmites, list again the entire irrelevant pack of them; they never fielded a navy that either made historical discoveries in or contributions to the New World

now that's plain ignorant -- you call the Ottomans irrelevant? When they were what shaped the Balkans, North Africa, the Middle East etc? you say that the Axumite civilisation was irrelevant when it was the second Christian state in the world -- before Rome?? When this civilisation maintained Jewish heritage when they were exiled at different stages in history? sheesh

You think the cholas were irrelevant when the FACT is that they were instrumental in the maritime empires of S-E Asia, when they spread hindu culture and civilisation to the people of S-E Asia (echoed today in Bali, Thailand, Cambodia etc.)

you think that only a country that found the new world was relevant? So, you then think that only Spain and Portugal were relevant as they did the discoveries?

That is so hilarious, it's beyond ridiculous.

The Phoenicians were the first to explore the Mediterranean and bring civilisation to Spain, England etc. -- do you include them in your list of "relevant civilisations"? The Sumerian civilisation ended in 2000 BC, but they had an impact on the Akkadians who had an impact on the Babylonians and Assyrians who had an impact on the Persians who had an impact on the Greeks, who had an impact on the Romans who had an impact on the Germanics and Celts and, through the Church, an impact on the Anglo-Saxons and through them an impact on England, through them, an impact on the US, so do you see the line of civilisation? Do you then agree that the Sumerians, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians etc. had a hand in "making contributions to the new world"?

Never forget that we always stand on the shoulders of giants who came before us.

The Romans ran the Western Hemisphere (the "world," as opposed to the "Third World") from 100BC until Western Europe emerged as a "WORLD-SHAPING force," by having a hand in finding/creating America.

Hilarious -- you mean to say that you've never heard of the opulence of Susa or Shiraz or Persepolis? Of the great capitals of the Persians, the Guptas, the Mauryas, the Khmer, the Song, the Manchu? Those parts of the world were en par or ahead of what is now the "Western world" at various stages in history.

Secondly, Rome once extended (under Emperor Trajan) to the mouth of the Euphrates -- i.e. they rule over what is now IRaq. IRaq you'd now call third world, but this was under Rome at one point.

The Persians were also the great civilisation that brought viniculture and other discoveries to the Greeks.

The Chaldeans were writing and composing epics when Germanics and Celts and Balts and Slavs were still part of the same Aryan group roaming the lands of CentralAsia-NorthernIran-NWIndia.

All the talk what you gave about putting blinkers on our view of the world is what led us to ignore the re-rise of Asia right from Japan to the S-E Tigers, to the rise of China and India. And that would be (in hindsight) the biggest mistake of them all.

[Cronos]

Re-reading your post is so funny and so incorrect: Lions still rule half of Africa, that doesn't make them a world force.

ha ha -- the lions habitat is shrinking to a few spots even in Africa.

Period. Talk all you want about the Chaldinians and the hootoos and the mongloids. !"

And, if you have never heard of the Chaldeans (that is how it's spelt), you've probably never heard of the Syro-Chaldean Church in Iraq? This ancient Christian Church that once send missionaries to the Tungush tribes? And you probably never knew that the Naiman tribe of Mongols were Christian, Assyrian/Chaldean Christian?

Oh, and of course, you would discount all the discoveries of the ancient Chinese, right?