Posted on 10/15/2001 9:01:32 PM PDT by anymouse
A couple of weeks ago I asked a friend of mine, Russian writer and Afghan war veteran Vladimir Grigoriev to find out if "The Foundation", a 1951 sci-fi bestseller by Isaac Asimov, a well-known American author and scientist, was translated and published in Arabic, and if so, under what title? Yesterday, I learned that my friend contacted his former professor Olga Frolova, currently the Chair of the Arab Philology Department, School of Oriental Languages, St. Petersburg State University, and she confirmed that the book was published in Arabic as "Al Qaeda", the title matching the name of the international terrorist network founded and headed by Osama bin Laden. (The Western media usually translates "Al Qaeda" back as "The Base", as if a base of terrorists were been referred to.)
This peculiar coincidence would be of little interest if not for abundant parallels between the plot of Asimov's book and the events unfolding now. The central character of "The Foundation" named Seldon, the pioneer of a new scientific discipline called "psychohistory", predicts that the Galactic Empire is about to fall. While the process of disintegration cannot not be stopped, Seldon decides to send an expedition to a remote place on the outskirts of the Galaxy and establish The Foundation, which is to become the nucleus of the next Empire. Even though the Old Empire tries to destroy The Foundation with its superior military might, Seldon's plan eventually works despite many predicted difficulties and occasional random hiccups. Seldon does not live long enough to see the triumph of his cause, but he leaves videotaped messages at a machine timed to broadcast them to his followers and instruct them at the turning points of The Foundation's history, as his forecasts are coming true.
I think the public would be relieved to realize that the internationally feared Terrorist No. 1 is trying to mimic a scenario from his favorite science fiction novel. I also believe that the study of "The Foundation" (along with its sequels and prequels) can help the decision makers around the globe to better understand what they're up against and what the ultimate objectives of Osama bin Laden are, much in the same way a study of "Mein Kampf" would have benefited Adolf Hitler's counterparts a great deal if they bothered to read the book and paid attention to what it said.
Isaac Asimov, a famous Jewish-American author and researcher, was born January 2, 1920, in Petrovichi, Russia, on the territory of the present day Belarus. He died April 6, 1992, in New York, New York, several months before the first attack struck the World Trade Center on February 26, 1993.
BTW, for those who haven't read his extensions of the trilogy, the Mule turns out to have been merely a renegade Gaian (pls pardon any misspelling here).
Not satisfied with this, Asimov wrote the fifth novel in the series, 'Foundation and Earth', wherein he portrayed every single instance of individuality (except, of course, his protagonist) as corrosive, destructive, and/or innately evil. He ends this work with the (putative) implied ultimate salvation of the universe left to the kind wishes of his earlier creation in the 'Robot' tales, R. Daneel Olivaw. Curiously, the robot is going senile and can only (putatively...presumably Asimov intended to continue the series, but died in the interim) continue preserving things (a theme throughout is that mankind is utterly incapable of doing so) by absorbing the mental faculties of a child of an UTTERLY xenophobic race -- which, of course, being deus ex machina, said robot had assisted in creating some long time before.
Asimov could certainly tell a tale, but when his sociopolitical views began to obtrude SO intensely upon his writings, the writings became worthless.
I postulate that this is why this entire thread still refers to the Foundation 'trilogy'.
That doesn't completely jibe with my memory of things. The problem with Asimov's saga of course is that the underlying theme was that the ends justify the means, so that no matter what the Foundation did, they always had the excuse that they were doing it to "save humanity from a 30,000 year Dark Ages".
But as I recall the Foundation itself, which was initially located on a faraway planet, rose to prominence first by ruling over its neighbors in a theocracy (basically they hid the secrets of their nuclear power technology, and established a "priesthood" to administer it). Then for a while they were a ragtag loose-knit group of freewheeling traders. At times later in the series the "Foundation" became a fairly sinister presence, as I recall. Going after/trying to eliminate people with special mental powers (who would comprise the "Second Foundation")... It was also often ruled, not always democratically, by "Mayors" of dubious morals/ethics. Wars were fought. Wasn't always "benevolent", like you say....
So I dunno...everything becomes hazy after this, but I'm just saying the picture was not so straightforward.
ddd - Thanks for the link on CJ's thread.
Looks like time to re-read the series. Or maybe all three, this time in the order of galactic history.
(The only problem is time, 14 books, about 5000 pages, I read them before there was FreeRepublic. Oh well, sleep is not all that much fun anyway!;-)
Please elaborate. My unconfirmed intel is that bin Laden speaks Farsi fluently, and also English, and for some time he attended Emery U. in Georgia.
Yeah, but the reason the men of the First Foundation were trying to eliminate the men with mental powers from the Second Foundation was they didn't want their freedom of self determination taken away, which was what the Second Foundation was doing.
Also, I'm trying to remember but I don't think the First Foundation purposefully developed those religions that they promoted. I was more under the impression that the masses on the planets who were not scientists had morphed technology into a religion where they viewed the technicians as priests and the Foundation simply took advantage of that fact to keep peace in the region and guarantee their continued existence.
If you remember, the Galactic Empire had completely fallen and those worlds on the outer reaches of the Galaxy had not enjoyed anything like innovation or advance in thought for centuries. They fell into a dark age much the way Europe did after the collapse of the Roman Empire. But Europe was only a continent- we're talking whole planets cut off from the source of their cutural sustainment for centuries. By the time technology had started making a come back via the traders from the foundation- the people on those worlds had reverted to ignorance and superstition themselves and they viewed science as a form of magic because they couldn't understand it.
What this always made me think about is- we are rapidly approaching a situation like that ourselves. Given the reports we're always reading- fewer and fewer people have even a basic understanding of science. If that trend continues for a couple more generations- the latest techs will be incomprehensible to the average man and will seem more and more like so much mumbo jumbo and hocus pocus. When he goes to the hospital for his operation, he won't be putting his faith in his personal understanding of the technology involved with curing him- he'll instead put total faith in the "healer" (doctor) and he'll be getting better because the doctor performs his odd rituals. When it gets like that- science will be practically the same thing as a religion to a lot of people and I figure that's a theme Asimov was exploring with The Foundation Trilogy.
Frankly, it gives a small amount of joy to say Osama gets his best stuff from a jew ;)
True,but let's not forget that the good doctor was always quick to point out that the place of birth wasn't HIS fault,and that his parents quickly moved to the US. Russia's loss was clearly our gain.
Correct. He was a very intelligent man who saw things clearly. He and Heinlein were both thinkers who can't be praised enough.
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