Mereja.Forum

[Naga Tuma]

This intuitive commentary is a follow-up to an intuitive reaction to coming across the term American Empire a few days ago.

Intuitive because I have no expertise in social science. As such, my intuitive thoughts augmented by a limited reading of history may be a pile of hay. Nonetheless, I hope to have a grain or more in it that can grow into an academic exercise in order to validate or invalidate them down the road.

Academic exercises are simple for those inclined to practice them. They can start from simple but accurate definitions and establishing metrics that gauge those definitions. They are important because if one doesn't get a theory correctly, one is bound to see it in practice less correctly.

So, starting from a simple definition, what is an empire or how is it defined?

Here is one definition that I have just referred to at online dictionary: "a group of nations or peoples ruled over by an emperor, empress, or other powerful sovereign or government: usually a territory of greater extent than a kingdom, as the former British Empire, French Empire, Russian Empire, Byzantine Empire, or Roman Empire." Other famous empires that the dictionary doesn't include in its list include the Mongol Empire, the largest contagious land empire in history, the Persian Empire, Ottoman Empire, Spanish Empire, Greek Empire, and so on.

The dictionary also adds that the root of the word empire is empery, which means absolute dominion.

Once the definition is that much clear, what might be the metrics that characterize it?

To begin with, how were old empires born and how did they grow to become one? How long did a nation or society exist before it started to be ruled by an Emperor or Empress?

For good historical reasons, it suffices to take a closer look at the history of the Greek people and the Greek Empire.

Some writers indicate that the history of the Greek people dates back to the time of Abraham in the 18th century BCE or even earlier. Alexander the Great, its arguable Emperor, was born in the 4th century BCE.

Some historians also suggest that before the rise of Alexander the Great, Greece consisted of a group of constantly warring city-states.

This state of infighting Greek society groups can be a simple focal point in terms of gauging the transition of a society from a primordial absolute dominion urge to conventional civil society norms.

Granted that such a transition from primordial state to civil state is perceptible in about every society around the world, it may not be difficult to bring out indicators that remind such a transition time in any society.

Because of widely published records, the ancient Greeks may have some of the richest indicators, including the records of its philosophers Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle, that remain persistent reminders of that transition. I would add here Aristotle's glaring characterization of humans as rational animals as a persistent reminder of the quest for and labor it took to transition from that primordial state to civil state in that ancient of a time in that particular society.

If I am not mistaken, to say Shalom has been a norm among the Jewish society for a very long time now. However, I have no idea when this word of wisdom was first ever said and by whom it was said for the very first time. Yet, I can speculate that it is another indicator of the infighting among the various groups of ancient Jewish society before using such a word of wisdom became a norm. Granted that this may not be farther from the truth, it may not be difficult to imagine that this particular society also had its transition from its primordial state to a civil state.

It took the rise of Prophet Muhammad and his preaching of submission to relegate the infighting of the Quraysh Arab clans into its primordial history. His rise was in the 7th century, which was about 2.500 years after Abraham lived.

It is my understanding that the British people also had bloody infighting before learning to relegate it into its primordial history and transitioning to be ruled by its Magna Carta, which was first published in the early 13th century.

The British Empire was born in the late 16th century, more than three centuries after the Magna Carta was written. In the meantime, crown modesty was preached.

These sample historical precedents are suggestive of how empires are born and how long it takes for them to emerge after all.

The U.S., which is fallaciously also called America, was officially born in 1776 in order to become independent from the old British Empire. Its birth was defensive in nature not only against the old British Empire but also against the old Roman Empire. Historians have suggested that when writing the checks and balances in the form of three branches of government, the writers of its constitution were looking over their shoulders for old Roman emperors.

Evidently, those writers borrowed ideas of democracy primarily from ancient Greece, not either from the old British Empire or the old Roman Empire. Also evidently, they were beneficiaries of the enlightenment movement in Europe and the subsequent Renaissance that had its pivot on Greece's ancient Classical Civilization.

Based on my limited reading, I posit that Europe's medieval carnage was its own primordial state that invited for the search of wisdom in order to get out of it. That search for wisdom landed some of them, not all of them, on the experience of ancient Greece. It took them a period of transition in which its searchers and researchers for wisdom became the hunted. I am positive that the sanctuaries of Switzerland may have plenty to substantiate this position.

If my memory serves me right, I also remember hearing in one history documentary that the searchers and researchers of Europe raided the Temple of Solomon, became knowledgeable about knowledge that they were unaware of prior to that, and then started to discover new things and invent things. That documentary didn't pronounce what that knowledge is and what makes it helpful for people to discover and invent things.

It suffices to be reminded here that wherever its seeds originated, a scientific frontier was primarily the ingenuity of Europe since the time of enlightenment and before 1776. If America pioneered this frontier in recent years, it is arguable that it did so as an outpost of European ingenuity of that era.

If my comments above have any grain of truth, and I stand to be corrected if they can be invalidated rationally, America was neither an Empire nor a scientific frontier when it was born.

If it was not born an Empire, it must have gone through a transition to becoming one. As recently as the start of the so-called second world war, it was a self-defensive state. It entered the war in self-defense after the emergence of Hitler's primordial urge to attempt to undo age-old wisdom.

Granted that it was not born an Empire in 1776 or when it entered the second world war in 1941, how reasonable is it to say that it can be called an empire in 2021, only about 80 years later? Add to that a recent pronouncement in 2021 by one of its highest-ranking military officials that he genuinely wants to understand the source of that primordial urge of his own people. According to his own words, he has read plenty and concluded that people who rose to riot against democracy in America in 2021 are the same kind of people that America rose to fight against during the second world war.

Its current President, Joseph Biden, has explicitly stated that he entered the 2020 presidential race in order to fight for the soul of America.

In my view, when any citizen pronounces that he wants to fight for the soul of his country and becomes its leader, it suggests that the country is in a transition process from a primordial state to a civil state. Such a process takes an evolutionary course instead of becoming an empire that wasn't born one.

Only a few years ago, Charles Blow of The New York Times wrote that this is a country that was fast evolving to treat its citizens equally.

This kind of evolution of any state is easier said than done. This is particularly true of the U.S. because of the nature of its birth in 1776. I have tried to make a point about it a few months ago when I wrote:

... it is quite evident that democracy and hostility intertwined are characteristic of U.S. history of just under two and a half centuries. Those who professed about inalienable rights are the same leaders that took part or became a party to conquering a continent, unleashed genocidal destruction against the natives of the continent, willfully abducted natives of yet another continent in order to exploit as they wished the labor of those abductees, tried to establish the idea of borrowed democracy from ancient times that they did not give birth to but studied and endeavored to interpret while still keeping some relics of the British monarchy in it, and attempted to forge a nation-state out of all of it.

Obviously, this is an observation of a mere individual. Then again, ideas are transcendental.

Some years after Charles Blow wrote that America is fast evolving to treat its citizens equally, a sitting American lawmaker goes public with such a primordial urge that states that rioting against democracy is patriotic.

Does this make him a vice of an emperor in the country that was born by fighting against an old empire? I do not think so.

As a matter of fact, I have argued several years ago that the primordial urge of the 45th President of the U.S. has unhinged the myth of western civilization and brought to the surface some cultural orphans. I am not alone in making this observation. To mention a similar observation, an American journalist has authored a book titled Gaslighting America about the leadership of the same man.

I do not view America's 46th President stating that he entered the Presidential campaign in order to fight for the soul of the country far from what I had suggested then.

I happen to think that it is in the process of such a soul-searching struggle that the words of wisdom such as Shalom and Karma emerge to enter the vernaculars of the society that didn't have it. It is in such a process that self-awareness, self-consciousness, and self-reflection emerge to be exercised promptly.

It goes without saying that there is a reason why such vernaculars exist in the languages of some societies and not in those of others. I do not think that it is by coincidence that the word Karma is present in the vernaculars of the societies in the more densely populated eastern side of the world and that one of the rising powers in it, China, pronounces that it refrains from interfering in the internal affairs of other countries.

Instead of those words of wisdom, the term raiders is still used and clapped for as if to remind the raid of the temple where new knowledge was acquired and helped relegate Europe's Dark Age to the back seat of history. As it has been said before, you can raid the temple of Solomon. However, you can't raid the wisdom of Solomon out of the temple of Solomon.

Even though they have been preaching and preached to for a long time that they descended from Adam, the primordial man's fine men have that urge to march in this era against their own heritage in the country that is fast evolving to treat all of its citizens equally.

These comments are to show what it takes for an empire to emerge on one hand and for an evolutionary process to take its course on another. Based on these limited readings and intuitive thinking, it appears to me that America is more of an evolving state than having become an empire.

Historically, the ruins of an evolving state have been many. It offends anything and anyone in its way, both nature as well as nurture. This is exactly what I felt when I came across a book title Amazon Unbound authored by Brad Stone.

At some point, those offenses become self-evident that the offenders start to buy wisdom to defend both nature and nurture. The observation of the wild west by many is not perfunctory. It is quite arguable that violence in America in the last several years is the highest compared to any country in the world that has been in a state of peace. In my view, this metric alone is indicative of an evolving state than an established empire.

Various indigenous communities around the world have some level of reverence for the environment. In America, the Environmental Protection Agency was formally founded in 1970. That was after the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation had done a lot of development activities only to be called later by some observers as the Bureau of Wreck. While native land and soil are endeared by these various communities, others have the urge to lecture and lie to many that they can conquer the Moon and Mars. Such are the pronouncements of elements that perceive material mores as virtues instead of vices. Psychotic intimidating tactics are their vices.

Tendencies for peace in civil society and serenity for the environment come naturally for various indigenous communities that have transitioned from their primordial state to civil state a long time ago. Tendencies for disarmament, not armament, are the norms among those communities. To those with primordial urges, building armaments in secrecy instead of building bridges openly is the norm.

To his credit, after the second world war, an American Senator tried to sway people toward peace by selling off armaments and appropriating its proceeds for a scholarship, which charted a virtuous path that was quickly forgotten by some other Americans.

With so much said, if an argument remains that America is an empire instead of an evolving state the soul of which its current President has pronounced to fight for, the follow-up questions would be finding out the leverages that make it an empire. Joseph Biden is not alone in his search for America's soul. I remember years ago a historian saying in a documentary that a society that assassinates people like the late President Kennedy is not a good society. If my memory serves me right, Edward Snowden has given me the impression during his interview on TV that the practice that he observed is unbecoming of a good society that he decided to flee his own country. As the old saying goes, you can execute but you can't hide the execution.

At no time have I heard America expressing on its own accord that it is an empire, which is opposite to what old empires have done. The only time that I remember anything stating that it is an empire is the Klan calling itself the invisible empire. That invisible Klan empire was brought down successfully by the pioneering efforts of an African American mother who lost her son to it.

In addition, if it is arguable that an empire can't emerge in less than 80 years in this era of delicate global competition, what old empire's appendage is this perceived American empire? That of ancient Greece from which democracy was borrowed? The old British Empire against which independence was fought and achieved while still keeping some relics of its old laws? Or the old Roman Empire from which some architecture of its political institutions were copied even though its founders kept looking over their shoulders as they wrote the checks and balances in the three branches of government? To be sure, the current President and Vice President of America are not from any of the founders of those ancient and old Empires.

Furthermore, has any empire existed in the history of humankind with such a large portion of homeless people in its midst?

If such a perception comes from limited interactions with elements that are in the service of the current U.S. government, it would be a disservice to plenty of hardworking American citizens that pay taxes not knowing their tax money may be used in unlawfully interfering in the internal affairs of other countries. If because of such limited interactions, it is perceived that "if it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it probably is a duck," that may only be an expedient explanation. Such elements can't interfere on their own in the internal affairs of other countries if they don't have willing participants in those countries. As much as we feel to think that humanity has reached a level of civility and civilization, we must be reminded that elements with those primordial urges have been in it all along. It is not very hard to say no to adulterers of civilization's mores.

I am sure that this is easier said than done, especially when these elements have a level of monopoly of present-day technology. Then again, they can't have a monopoly on timeless ideas. It is unfortunate that we spend more time exchanging ideas about today's America instead of some timeless ideas of Africa's Pharaohs.

[Horus]

Naga Tuma,
I suggest - you read
Samir Puri, The Shadows of Empire (2021)
Kair

[Naga Tuma]

Horus,
Thank you for the suggestion.
I will read it when I get a chance.
ነጋን፣ ኬር

[dano]

Nega Tuma,
US has 750 military bases outside of it's border and scattered around the world on every continent(except Antarctica).
How can you ask if US is empire?
https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/unit ... rventions/

[Naga Tuma]

Nega Tuma,
US has 750 military bases outside of it's border and scattered around the world on every continent(except Antarctica).
How can you ask if US is empire?
https://revista.drclas.harvard.edu/unit ... rventions/

Which part of my comments above does that piece of information address? ማን ነህ ኣንተ ደግሞ? ዳኖ ወይስ ሬሳ? ሬሳ ላይ ነብስ የመዝራት ሙያ የለኝም።

I have yet to read any piece of information where the U.S. has ever officially referred to itself as an Empire. If you have any, please provide a reference.

[Naga Tuma]

Hearing the phrase "empire of lies" reminded me this commentary. Here is a simple question that comes to mind after hearing it: Is the phrase "empire of lies" qualitatively closer in meaning to the phrase "evolving state" or the word "empire?"

[Somaliman]

Your list is very limited, and whichever one I choose would still be flattering the Great Satan.

To me and many others, the Great Satan, is most of all the most hypocritical country in the world.

"O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave!"

As you know that is a line from the lyrics to "The Star-Spangled Banner", which celebrated the US as 'the land of the free and the home of the brave', while new slaves were being imported into the country and there were outlets displaying banners that read " Auction & Negro Sales" all over the country, particularly in the Slave States, and that such freedom was only valid for a select group, since the Native Americans and slaves of African descent had none at all and there were some four million slaves in the country, of men, women, and children enslaved, exploited, and often abused by slave owners!!

There's no a single line that says something like, the land of whatever was built on slavery!

Apart probably from the UK, which is another demon, no country on earth excels better than the Great Satan at saying one thing and doing something else!