[Mpls] Mis-readings of history

[Guy Gambill]

  I will take these one by one:

1). Assyrians: The Assyrian conquests in Mesopotamia
were, I agree, quite brutal. For example, the
dispersion of the tribes of Israel throughout the
Empire and the destruction of their cities. However,
the Jewish Kingdom of the south, with Jerusalem as its
capital, continued for over 200 years as a vassal of
the Assyrian state-readily attested in the Bible and
inthe historical chroncles of the Jewish, Assyrian,
and
neighboring peoples...Hebrew and Aramaic continued in
use, the Jewish state paid its tributes to Ninevah...
they continued to exist as an semi-autonomous state,
their culture in tact. The culture lives on today, the

Assyrians did not seek to root out the religion, the
language, or the cultural practices of the Jewish
people.

2. Babylonians: Babylon was a polyglot empire, both
culurally and linguistically. The official state 
records were kept in the Akkadian language, though
using the cuneiform adopted from the Suumerians.
Elamite continued in use as did many of the other
languages of the peoples within the Empire. Babylon,
as an empire, grew out of a systematic progression
of cultures, combining them; artistically,
linguistically, theologically...in terms of
architecture, political forms, legal practices,
etcetera. The code of Hammurabi had its precedents
in previous legal codes, the epic of Gilgamesh traced
back to Sumerian sources. 

3. Roman civilization: Rome was not concerned with
the eradication of other cultures, they merely
required
military victory and the acquiescence of subjugated
populations to Roman rule. It took the Etruscan
language over 800 years to finally dwindle away within
the Empire. Gothic dialects, Greek, Aramaic, Gaulish,
Celtiberian, and Egyptian all continued to be used
within the empire--as did the religious beliefs,
architecture, art, literature, and cultural practices
of the speakers of these languages. Rome did not
systematically attempt to destroy any ethnic group
in the same sense the Europeans did in their conquest
of the Americas.

4). The Mongols. Again, the Mongols required complete
surrender and the payment of tribute...if this was
not accomplished, they destroyed your city and
everyone
in it. If a treaty was made, they usually kept it-as 
long as tribute was paid. But they did not seek to
eradicate the Scythians, the Parthians, the Chinese,
the Russians...these cultures and their languages 
survived. The Mongols, however, come closest to the
examples that you provide.

5) The Chinese: I am not aware of the Chinese ever
having practiced anything which may be deemed
genocide...the closest possible example might be
modern Tibet and its annexation by the Maoist regime.
Apart from that, China remains an incredibly diverse
country-in terms of languages spoken, ethnic groups
comprised within its borders, religious beliefs,
etcetera...China was first unified over 2000 years
ago, yet Turkmen and Uzbek, Uyghur and Mongol....
Buddhism and Taoism, Christianity and Islam still
survived up until the advent of communist rule...
this was the first time in Chinese history where
a cultural uniformity became the aim of state policy.

6). MesoAmerican empires (having lived there a long
time, my personal speciality). The Mayan "Empire"
was a series of city-states, not all that unlike
Greece...but it was, perhaps, an even looser
confederation...the religious practices, writing 
systems, languages differed widely from the Yucatan
into Guatemala...That much diversity comprised this
group survives today in central America...in 42
separate languages characterized as "Mayan", many
mutually unintelligible....the Guatemalan
government(s)
of the past 30 years, and the Mexican government(s)
following the conquest, continue to ensure that the
cultures of these people will eventually die as living
cultures...Nahuatl, Popoluca, Zapotec, Maya,
Zarahumara...are losing ground every year in Mexico.
If you wish to read someone's personal experience
about the on-going decimation of a culture, read
about Rigoberta Menchu, Nobel Peace prize laureate...

   Yes, with the exception of Genocide, many of
these cultures practiced the things that you cite...
and yet, the cultures they encountered survived
them...
where are the Sauk-Fox, the Arapaho, the Wabenaki
confederacy, the Menominee....the Dakota-Lakota
people were driven to the brink of extinction,
there languages and cultural beliefs virtually
eradicated. Think this is something of the past?
they were still taking native children in the US
to Boarding schools into the 1960s, prohibiting the
use of their language, forbidding the practice of
their religion(s)-supplanting them with English
and Christianity. The Native languages of the
Americas were completely eradicated in many areas...
as were their cultural beliefs...in many cases the
people were totally obliterated from the face of the
earth. Find me an example of the duplicity of what
was done to Atahualpa by the Spaniards---the double-
dealing of the Romans amongst themselves was
legendary, but not in terms of formal political pacts
with other states. There are literally hundreds of
languages in the Americas that will vanish in this
century...

Guy Gambill


		
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