By Pepe Escobar, posted with permission and first posted at Asia Times
The 20th anniversary summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, enshrined no less than a new geopolitical paradigm.
Iran, now a full SCO member, was restored to its traditionally prominent Eurasian role, following the recent $400 billion-worth trade and development deal struck with China. Afghanistan was the main topic – with all players agreeing on the path ahead, as detailed in the Dushanbe Declaration. And all Eurasian integration paths are now converging, in unison, towards the new geopolitical – and geoeconomic – paradigm.
Call it a multipolar development dynamic in synergy with the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI).
The Dushanbe Declaration was quite explicit on what Eurasian players are aiming at: “a more representative, democratic, just and multipolar world order based on universally recognized principles of international law, cultural and civilizational diversity, mutually beneficial and equal cooperation of states under the central coordinating role of the UN.”
For all the immense challenges inherent to the Afghan jigsaw puzzle, hopeful signs emerged this Tuesday, when Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah met in Kabul with the Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov, China’s special envoy Yue Xiaoyong, and Pakistan’s special envoy Mohammad Sadiq Khan.
This troika – Russia, China, Pakistan – is at the diplomatic forefront. The SCO reached a consensus that Islamabad will be coordinating with the Taliban the formation of a government also including Tajiks, Uzbeks and Hazaras.
The most glaring, immediate consequence of the SCO not only incorporating Iran but also taking the Afghan bull by the horns, fully supported by the Central Asian “stans”, is that the Empire of Chaos has been completely marginalized.
From Southwest Asia to Central Asia, a real reset has as protagonists the SCO, the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), BRI and the Russia-China strategic partnership. The missing links so far, for different reasons – Iran and Afghanistan – are now fully incorporated to the chessboard.
In my frequent conversations with Alastair Crooke, one of the world’s foremost political analysts, he evoked once again Lampedusa’s The Leopard: everything must change so everything must remain the same. In this case, imperial hegemony, as interpreted by Washington: “In its growing confrontation with China, a ruthless Washington has demonstrated that what matters to it now is not Europe, but the Indo-Pacific region.” That’s Cold War 2.0 prime terrain.
With very little potential to contain China now that it’s been all but expelled from the Eurasia heartland, the fallback position had to be a classic maritime power play: the “free and open Indo-Pacific”, complete with Quad and AUKUS, the whole set up spun to death as an “effort” attempting to preserve dwindling American supremacy.
The sharp contrast between the SCO continental integration drive and the “we all live in an Aussie submarine” gambit (my excuses to Lennon-McCartney) speaks for itself. A toxic mix of hubris and desperation is in the air, with not even a whiff of pathos to alleviate the downfall.
The Global South is not impressed. Addressing the forum in Dushanbe, President Putin remarked that the portfolio of nations knocking on the SCO’s door was huge, and that was not surprising at all. Egypt, Qatar and Saudi Arabia are now SCO dialogue partners, on the same level with Afghanistan and Turkey. It’s quite feasible they may be joined next year by Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Serbia and a cast of dozens.
And it doesn’t stop in Eurasia. In his meticulously timed address to CELAC, Xi Jinping no less than invited 33 Latin American nations to be part of the Eurasia-Africa-Americas New Silk Roads.
Remember the Scythians
Iran as a SCO protagonist and at the center of the New Silk Roads restores it to a rightful historic role. By the middle of the first millennium B.C., Northern Iranians ruled the core of the steppes in Central Eurasia. By that time the Scythians had migrated into the Western steppe, while other steppe Iranians made inroads as far away as China.
Scythians – a Northern (or “East”) Iranian people – were not necessarily just fierce warriors. That’s a crude stereotype. Very few in the West know that the Scythians developed a sophisticated trade system, as described by Herodotus among others, linking Greece, Persia and China.
And why’s that? Because trade was an essential means to support their sociopolitical infrastructure. Herodotus got the picture because he actually visited the city of Olbia and other places in Scythia.
The Scythians were called Saka by the Persians – and that leads us to another fascinating territory: the Sakas may have been one of the prime ancestors of the Pashtun in Afghanistan.
What’s in a name – Scythian? Well, multitudes. The Greek form Scytha meant Northern Iranian “archer”. So that was the denomination of all the Northern Iranian peoples living between Greece in the West and China in the East.
Now imagine a very busy international commerce network developed across the heartland, with the focus on Central Eurasia, by the Scythians, the Sogdians, and even the Xiongnu – who kept battling the Chinese on and off, as detailed by early Greek and Chinese historical sources.
These Central Eurasians traded with all the peoples living on their borders: that meant Europeans, Southwest Asians, South Asians and East Asians. They were the precursors of the multiple Ancient Silk Roads.
The Sogdians followed the Scythians; Sogdiana was an independent Greco-Bactrian state in the 3rd century B.C. – encompassing areas of northern Afghanistan – before it was conquered by nomads from the east that ended up establishing the Kushan empire, which soon expanded south into India.
Zoroaster was born in Sogdiana; Zoroastrianism was huge in Central Asia for centuries. The Kushans for their part adopted Buddhism: and that’s how Buddhism eventually arrived in China.
By the fist century A.D. all these Central Asian empires were linked – via long-distance trade – to Iran, India and China. That was the historical basis of the multiple, Ancient Silk Roads – which linked China to the West for several centuries until the Age of Discovery configured the fateful Western maritime trade dominance.
Arguably, even more than a series of interlinked historical phenomena, the denomination “Silk Road” works best as a metaphor of cross-cultural connectivity. That’s what is at the heart of the Chinese concept of New Silk Roads. And average people across the heartland feel it, because that’s imprinted in the collective unconscious in Iran, China and all Central Asian “stans”.
The Revenge of the Heartland
Glenn Diesen, Professor at the University of South-Eastern Norway and an editor at the Russia in Global Affairs journal, is among the very few top scholars who are analyzing the process of Eurasia integration in depth.
His latest book practically spells out the whole story in its title: Europe as the Western Peninsula of Greater Eurasia: Geoeconomic Regions in a Multipolar World.
Diesen shows, in detail, how a “Greater Eurasia region, that integrates Asia and Europe, is currently being negotiated and organized with a Chinese-Russian partnership at the center. Eurasian geoeconomic instruments of power are gradually forming the foundation of a super-region with new strategic industries, transportation corridors and financial instruments. Across the Eurasian continent, states as different as South Korea, India, Kazakhstan and Iran are all advancing various formats for Eurasia integration.”
The Greater Eurasia Partnership has been at the center of Russian foreign policy at least since the St. Petersburg forum in 2016. Diesen duly notes that, “while Beijing and Moscow share the ambition to construct a larger Eurasian region, their formats differ. The common denominator of both formats is the necessity of a Sino-Russian partnership to integrate Eurasia.” That’s what was made very clear at the SCO summit.
It’s no wonder the process irks the Empire immensely, because Greater Eurasia, led by Russia-China, is a mortal attack against the geoeconomic architecture of Atlanticism. And that leads us to the nest of vipers debate around the EU concept of “strategic autonomy” from the US; that would be essential to establish true European sovereignty – and eventually, closer integration within Eurasia.
European sovereignty is simply non-existent when its foreign policy means submission to dominatrix NATO. The humiliating, unilateral withdrawal of Afghanistan coupled with Anglo-only AUKUS was a graphic illustration that the Empire doesn’t give a damn about its European vassals.
Throughout the book Diesen shows, in detail, how the concept of Eurasia unifying Europe and Asia “has through history been an alternative to the dominance of maritime powers in the oceanic-centric world economy”, and how “British and American strategies have been deeply influenced” by the ghost of an emerging Eurasia, “a direct threat to their advantageous position in the oceanic world order”.
Now, the crucial factor seems to be the fragmentation of Atlanticism. Diesen identifies three levels: the de facto decoupling of Europe and the US propelled by Chinese ascendancy; the mind-boggling internal divisions in the EU, enhanced by the parallel universe inhabited by Brussels eurocrats; and last but not least, “polarization within Western states” caused by the excesses of neoliberalism.
Well, just as we think we’re out, Mackinder and Spykman pull us back in. It’s always the same story: the Anglo-American obsession in preventing the rise of a “peer competitor” (Brzezinski) in Eurasia, or an alliance (Russia-Germany in the Mackinder era, now the Russia-China strategic partnership) capable, as Diesen puts it, “of wrestling geoeconomic control away from the oceanic powers.”
As much as imperial strategists remain hostages of Spykman – who ruled that the US must control the maritime periphery of Eurasia – definitely it’s not AUKUS/Quad that is going to pull it off.
Very few people, East and West, may remember that Washington had developed its own Silk Road concept during the Bill Clinton years – later co-opted by Dick Cheney with a Pipelineistan twist, and then circling all back to Hillary Clinton, announcing her own Silk Road dream in India in 2011.
Diesen reminds us how Hillary sounded remarkably like a proto-Xi: “Let’s work together to create a new Silk Road. Not a single thoroughfare like its namesake, but an international web and network of economic and transit connections. That means building more rail lines, highways, energy infrastructure, like the proposed pipeline to run from Turkmenistan, through Afghanistan, through Pakistan and India.”
Hillary does Pipelineistan! Well, in the end, she didn’t. Reality dictates that Russia is connecting its European and Pacific regions, while China connects its developed east coast with Xinjiang, and both connect Central Asia. Diesen interprets it as Russia “completing its historical conversion from a European/Slavic empire to a Eurasian civilizational state.”
So in the end we’re back to…the Scythians. The prevailing neo-Eurasia concept revives the mobility of nomadic civilizations – via top transportation infrastructure – to connect everything between Europe and Asia. We could call it the Revenge of the Heartland: they are the powers building this new, interconnected Eurasia. Say goodbye to the ephemeral, post-Cold War US unipolar moment.
Why did Escobar ignore Western Elitist Great Rest project and depopulation initiative relating to the 4IR as if it is irrelevant to explosive development in Asia. This Great Rest is happening while Western Economies are drifting into an economic Recession and an economic collapse into a economic Depression. The US Dollar as a the global Reserve Currency is also loosing Value with the rise of China and Russian Currency together with their exploding Gold Bullion Reserve as the Western Big Banks and their Oligarchs destroys these economies.
Some argue this is an opportunity for re-creating another Digital Slave society in what remains the West where the population will mere zombies.
There is also the view that if when the US economy and Dollar crash it may have an inverse impact on these Asian economies. Are, they prepared.
Also, it may be noted that Huawei Meng Wanzhou seems to be heading home soon in prep for a Biden – Xi Jinping meet.
See article written by Cynthia Chung titled, “How the Great Reset Was First Thought Up by the Original Proselytizer of Totalitarianism and the Father of Neo-Conservatism.”
He ignored it because maybe he knows the great reset agenda is bat sh-t crazy and will fail.
Thanks for the laugh.
How coinfident are you? The Medical Tyranny is batshit crazy too but that did not prevent it from becoming quite established.
This is the 1st time in history governments embraced a program from the insane asylums – be it WEF, CDC or whatever.
The insane asylums were emptied long ago, under the slogan “All freedom and power to the insane!”
Look at the faces of all the ‘leaders’ in the West today arrayed, if you can stand it.
Trudeau, Soros, Boris ‘Moishe’ Johnson, Ardern, Macron, Tam, Bill and Mengele Gates, Biden, Harris and one of the worst is the CEO of Pfizer. He, and all of them, look like fugitive experiments from The Island of Dr Moreau.
Gotta agree with you there.
They really do look like lizards!
Thanks for mentioned top lizard Albert Bourla of Pfizer.
The animal doctor from Thessaloniki.
I bet he made the deal with Netanyahu.
Meng Wanzhou closer to freedom:
https://sputniknews.com/20210924/huawei-cfo-meng-wanzhou-pleads-not-guilty-to-fraud-and-conspiracy-charges–1089382332.html
She’s free, on her way home to China.
https://sputniknews.com/20210924/canadian-judge-signs-discharge-order-releasing-meng-wanzhou-from-custody-1089385238.html
Another Canadian shame to go with their miserable history.
A quick FYI update for you because release of Meng – who personally must bear the burden of our Motherland – is the centerpiece of a great global reset (which I won’t go into, but we are not done yet post-Meng because US must account for its crimes). Elements of reset include:
(a) US trade secretary Raimodo will visit China in next few weeks after China turned down 7 US requests for meetings that affect the Dollar, US inflation, trade, budget deficit, T-bills…
(b) The question of when we China take back Taiwan by force to minimize adverse impact on US,
(c) Foreign Affairs has on day of Meng, published and released (in Chinese) a 8000-script word charge sheet against US. It lists 102 indictments/charges, against US, mostly committed in HK where Meng was entrapped (unlike US, we don’t issue this sort of thing for propaganda),
(d) The charge sheet is part of a laundry list presented to US on 3 Red Lines and 2 (sets of) Demands. Until and unless all are satisfied, China will have nothing more to do with America, and that includes turning down all meetings including summit with Biden. (US corralled those anti-China campaign action as bargaining chips, but we flip them around to say you atone and pay for those crimes. Only then we talk. Meng and HK are among those demands, given on paper to Wendy Sherman),
(e) In UN China and Russia have put together a core group naming it as nations in Defense of UN Charter. First item on agenda: Restoring the authority of ICC.
I shall say no more, but to end, here are main elements of Meng deal:
1. She won’t plea guilty (US tried this in June, and we say no to demand), prosecution in US court is immediately withdrawn, put on hold until end 2022, thereafter dropped, if US keeps its word,
2. Extradition request dropped, hence bail and arrest warrant become unnecessary, and,
3. Two Michaels are deported but all previous judicial sentences and convictions remain. The drug trafficker Schullenberg is not negotiable. We still decide whether to shoot him or commute sentence, but that depends on Canada’s future.
Hope all this help clarify matters, in place of western propaganda news.
Best wishes from China…
Thanks for this.
Only useful info I’ve seen on what is really happening with Meng.
I knew China had resisted engaging with US….. and wondered at the timing of this, immediately after Canadian s/election.
“Restoring the authority of ICC.”
About the #£°°|¥ time !
“The question of when we China take back Taiwan by force to minimize adverse impact on US”
The answer is: when China develops viable basic suplements for parts that are produced on Taiwan.
Anglos made multiple safeguards not to allow China technological independence.
It’s go something like this:
Patents and key chemicals are from US, key parts produced in Japan, key sub-components in Taiwan, assembly line in China.
Disruption of any link result in bringing Chinese industry to a stand-still.
China is aware of this since forever, and strived for decades to bypass chain of control at first level by devising its own technological base.
With sheer number of highly educated engineers it is most likely that this goal is achieved much faster than western strategists predicted. Big mistake. Now the only hope for Anglos is to pull China into war and to defeat it. While former part of “plan” is easy, the latter could prove difficult.
Taking Taiwan by force is unnecessary. When China begin production of parts they import, Taiwan will beg to join mainland.
It is popular among western economists to predict downfall of China by comparing, for example, realestate market and similar factors.
China and US are incomparable that way.
Reasons are many, but only one is needed to prove such statement. China invested astronomical amount in infrastructure while US did next to nothing. It is only natural that other branches of economy will be strained untill investmens pays off. Which it will.
The quadrillion $$$ question is how and where US managed to burn huge amount of money they (still) make.
Re: “𝘞𝘪𝘵𝘩 𝘴𝘩𝘦𝘦𝘳 𝘯𝘶𝘮𝘣𝘦𝘳 𝘰𝘧 𝘩𝘪𝘨𝘩𝘭𝘺 𝘦𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘥 𝘦𝘯𝘨𝘪𝘯𝘦𝘦𝘳𝘴 𝘪𝘵 𝘪𝘴 𝘮𝘰𝘴𝘵 𝘭𝘪𝘬𝘦𝘭𝘺 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘵 𝘵𝘩𝘪𝘴 [technological] 𝘨𝘰𝘢𝘭 𝘪𝘴 𝘢𝘤𝘩𝘪𝘦𝘷𝘦𝘥 𝘮𝘶𝘤𝘩 𝘧𝘢𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳 𝘵𝘩𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘦𝘴𝘵𝘦𝘳𝘯 𝘴𝘵𝘳𝘢𝘵𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘴𝘵𝘴 𝘱𝘳𝘦𝘥𝘪𝘤𝘵𝘦𝘥…
…𝘞𝘩𝘦𝘯 𝘊𝘩𝘪𝘯𝘢 𝘣𝘦𝘨𝘪𝘯 𝘱𝘳𝘰𝘥𝘶𝘤𝘵𝘪𝘰𝘯 𝘰𝘧 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘵𝘴 𝘵𝘩𝘦𝘺 𝘪𝘮𝘱𝘰𝘳𝘵, 𝘛𝘢𝘪𝘸𝘢𝘯 𝘸𝘪𝘭𝘭 𝘣𝘦𝘨 𝘵𝘰 𝘫𝘰𝘪𝘯 𝘮𝘢𝘪𝘯𝘭𝘢𝘯𝘥”
I agree.
If you look at this interesting review of China’s high-speed train technological leap, it astounded the Japanese and Europeans (Siemens, Bombardier and Alsthom).
It indicates the goal is likely achieved in other areas too.
Never underestimate human ingenuity, particularly under existential duress.
http://www.bluemoonofshanghai.com/politics/3442/
—–
Re: “𝘛𝘢𝘬𝘪𝘯𝘨 𝘛𝘢𝘪𝘸𝘢𝘯 𝘣𝘺 𝘧𝘰𝘳𝘤𝘦 𝘪𝘴 𝘶𝘯𝘯𝘦𝘤𝘦𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘳𝘺.”
For technology yes. But China’s hand could be forced if Anglo-Zionists try to humiliate it (loss of face) through Taiwan recognition of sovereignty. It only takes one to initiate hostilities.
Don’t bother. China has blocked all access to TAIWAN “independence.”
Recognition of Taiwan sovereignty is a ‘casus belli’. In international law Taiwan is Chinese territory.
@Blackring
But wouldn’t the ageing population be an issue for China considering that they still haven’t achieved the ‘developed’ status albeit being the largest economy?
Wonderful! I was mortified and hurt that she was arrested. I have to say that I am terribly disappointed in the cowardly behaviour of Justin Trudeau. He hailed Canada a while back as the first , wasn’t it, post nationalist state? It occurred to me “hey, the first country to arrive there without achieving sovereignty first!”
Your posts are deeply appreciated.
“In entering into the deferred prosecution agreement, Meng has taken responsibility for her principal role in perpetrating a scheme to defraud a global financial institution,” acting US Attorney Nicole Boeckmann said.
Why is asia times saying this?
Thanks for your thorough explanation.
The timing is interesting. For about two years, Meng is wrongfully arrested (held hostage actually by Trudeau, Soros and Freeland. Then Trudeau holds a dumb election in which he slides sideways but thinks he is now God.
And a few days later, Meng is freed.
Is it possible that they had massive dirt on Trudeau (a rhetorical question) and he offered up Meng in return for their silence?
Meng Wanzhou rescued from Hell…
Dirt is easily swept away. You are taking the wrong path… Anyway, CA552 carrying Meng Wanzhou is ETA 19:52 Shenzhen. The flight path from Vancouver detoured. Instead of passing Alaska airspace, it went into Artic north pole then doubled back south into Siberia airspace. On behalf of China and Chinese, please onpass our thanks to Russia to offer aircover and protection. Plane just entered China airspace.
Already replaced. CFO of Russia’s Novatek arrested by the US.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/US-Arrests-Senior-Russian-LNG-Executive-For-Tax-Fraud.html
Meng Wanzhou rescue from Canada: For her CA552 flightpath with detour from US airspace but using Russia’s instead:
https://postimg.cc/gallery/90y8FxJ
Will update you and Saker on the rapturous arrival awaiting her, ETA Shenzhen 19:52
Long live our Motherland! 祖国万岁!
岭外音书绝,
经冬复历春。
近乡情更怯,
不敢问来人。
Thanks, why did the flightpath detour around Alaska? On whose initiative?
A.H.H. asked “why did the flightpath detour around Alaska?”
Because the 2 Canadian spies were already on a plane to Canada.
Because Alaska is US airspace.
Because the US is not agreement-capable.
Because the US is unpredictably crazed.
Welcome to Meng Wanzhou update, Sep 25 evening, Beijing time…
1. AHH: The plane is commercial, China Airlines. Because it is non-scheduled but a chartered aircraft, it has the unilateral right to decide its flightpath, with conditions of course. That is, initiative is China’s.
Here is the normal route: https://postimg.cc/2bzNnnsT.
Here is the detour route: https://postimg.cc/jwZ0cLKT / https://postimg.cc/KK7yK0HR
You’ll see that the normal route hugs close to the coastline but still must cross two seas at the North Pacific. That’s on top of overflying America airspace. Problem #1: American radar and communication interference. The precedent is MH17 over Ukraine wherein the flight altitude was interfered with. Problem #2: Out in the sea, there is no communication with land-based radar. Literally, you are on your own. Precedent is MH370 wherein more than 100 Chinese die and their bodies never recovered to this day. No answers, too, as to why or where the plane had crashed.
In the detour route, the entire flight duration is airspace over land even in the Arctic where Russia has radar cover. We thank Russia for its assistance.
2. Here is partial map of radar cover after CA552 entered Chinese airspace: https://postimg.cc/v15qZ8v5. The plane is circled white.
3. On Weibo alone more than 1 million are online, about 30, 60 minutes ago, on mobile phones, waiting to watch the plane’s arrival. Other platforms add 4-to-5 million more. People outside China have no idea what Meng’s return means to us. Eg, every article headline says either (in translation) ‘Meng Wanzhou returns to Motherland’. Or ‘Meng Wanzhou returns home’. That’s it. Only two headlines out of thousands.
Meng’s return is phenomenal by China’s reckoning. We thought we would never get her back and Americans would simply extract a confession from her. The precedent case is Frederic Pierucci of Alstom. France didn’t lift a finger and so he went to jail, and Alstom was sold then dismembered. Ditto Julian Assange though his is a different kettle of fish.
We would never abandon Meng — we don’t have the Christian value of sacrificial lambs — even if we must go to war or lose billions. Recall the airlift and sea evacuation of more than 8,000 from Libya? Meng’s entire extradition process to rescue her from America required patience, careful planning, and a step-by-step approach, adjusting as we go along. We especially appreciate Meng because she understood and said so in coded Chinese metaphor to us that she, alone, has to shoulder the burdens of China, smack in the middle of a Destroy China campaign by US.
4. Now that Meng is back, our maneuvering space on the ‘Go’ chess board has been freed up. We move in to Phase Two… We won’t forget. There is no status quo to return to, no matter if this struggle with the US takes us 100 years. We will play for broke!
5. Blackring: “Taking Taiwan by force is unnecessary. When China begin production of parts they import, Taiwan will beg to join mainland…” The way you put it, life will be a breeze. (Gabriel Garcia Marquez)
to be continued…
Live report (in Chinese) from the Control Tower of Shenzhen Bao’an airport: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zy74_ofsruM
CA552 touch down: 21:49hours.
continued…Meng Wanzhou:
While we wait the last 10 minutes, I should add this: I am permitted to disclose of confirmation received from Russian intelligence that USAF EA-18G fighter jets were circling above Alaska and its sea ADIZ. Implication…?
Understand this: In the circumstances just described, the chance of a mid-air collision is real and scares us to no end because such an event is out of our control. Meng Wanzhou’s case is, at root, a prisoner exchange: Imagine, thus, the two Michaels return home alive and unmolested, whereas our child dies? The rest of the legal stuff is just fluff.
We must have Meng Wanzhou back alive, if for nothing else then because of her family and our own conscience. Otherwise the 3-year effort would have come to nought. Equally important, Meng’s release from abduction is a test of China’s diplomatic and global political capabilities, coupled to its military and economic muscle. I believe we have passed the test.
Please, let the Games begin! The Global Reset can continue….
Wow! Full on Red Carpet roll-out! I must admit, I’m glad she is home.
rumo ao inferno ocidental!!!!
Machine translate “to western hell”
Wonderful. Hallelujah. I am so happy.
Brother Blue Iconoclast
Congratulations on righting the barbaric actions of The Five Eyes + Israel.
May you and Russia have many more victories to come.
Russia should, today seize some US spy/businessman or men in retaliation for the Novatek case.
Putin is too lawyerish sometimes. He shoud be more of a warrior.
@Platon: “Congratulations on righting the barbaric actions of The Five Eyes + Israel.”
Very much +Israel because Huawei sold telecommunications equipment to Iran — a country on Israel’s endless list of “existential enemies”.
After she plead to “some” wrongdoing. Could have done it 3 years ago and gone home.
We have a Great Reset with Chinese/Russian Characteristics — the Great Reset and the Biosecurity State are worldwide affairs. The “Left” nowadays is on board here (“military-industrial complex bad, but pharmaceutical-financial-media complex good”), likely since their financing is much closer to the latter complex than to the former (which is more scientifically oriented). China and Russia just want a bigger piece of the cake, that’s all the essential difference (the lackmus test is “9/11” and now “Covid” — no dissent).
So far we can gauge, Pepe is not into the ‘Qanon and On’ type of discourse.
Couldn’t agree more. Why isn’t he touching it more seriously. The geopolitical games might be nice to play with, but in dead serious times like these they are completely irrelevant. The Cov Shit is the only real talk in town.
The Great Reset madness is clearly a US-European project. It is clearly recognized as such by the nations outside that sphere of influence. It is clearly antithetical to the notion of sovereignty championed by the BRI. And it is clearly a plan to permanently enshrine a small cabal of Western elite at the top of global supremacy. How is any of that at all appealing to China, Russia, et al? Oh, also, you may have noticed it is falling completely flat on it’s face as people tend to not appreciate totalitarianism, especially when applied in a transparently irrational manner. And it should be patently obvious to everybody on planet Earth that the only possible way a Great Reset could ever be applied in the US is after a very long and destructive civil war 2.0 that completely wipes out the half of the country that is exceedingly well armed and completely resistant to every initiative generated in the coastal cities. The Great Reset is stillborn, that is probably why Pepe isn’t acknowledging it. Klaus and his buddies can meet in Davos or wherever and talk grand schemes and toast themselves for being kings of the world, but meanwhile the world goes on without them.
And I know all the counterpoints here…but how come China and Russia occasionally participate in these WEF type meetings? Gee, I don’t know–intelligence gathering? But what about China’s social credit system and other “totalitarian” measures? What about them? I’m not familiar with China proselytizing what works for them to other nations as a condition for joining the BRI, SCO, or other projects. No one told Iran they needed to adopt an electronic social credit system to join SCO, right? Russia isn’t rolling one out to the best of my knowledge. Thus we get to the heart of the new multipolar world–sovereignty and cooperation. Do what you want inside your own borders, don’t start trouble outside of them.
From where I’m sitting it doesn’t look remotely like the rest of the world is keen to jump on board with yet another insane plane hatched by a bunch of insane Europeans. Besides, you could also surmise from how China treats it’s elites who try to get too powerful that it isn’t interested in participating in an oligarch controlled global government. Chinese equivalents of Bill Gates or George Soros would likely have been executed long before they stirred up a fraction of the trouble and madness those two have. So yes, Mr. Schwab’s dreams are DOA at the SCO.
Thank you for saying this. We’ve been saying this forever, but no, people are still grinding with fear of this Schwab think tank project. It is dead on arrival. A nice website with pretty pictures and a slogan does not make a policy and even less does it make the ability to fulfill. Again! thanks!
“We’ve been saying this forever, but no, people are still grinding with fear of this Schwab think tank project.”
Time will tell.
You’ve been wrong before.
BTW, is that the royal “we”??
This paragraph really summed it up:
The United States and it cronies in Brussels got so power drunk that they took their own citizenry as “givens.” They felt that they could treat their citizenry anyway they wished and it did not matter.
But It does matter.
In both the US and the EU large parts of the citizenry now consider their own governments to be their enemies.
And neither Washington nor Brussels understands that this has happened. Nor – if they did – would they understand its significance.
Yes I agree totally with that sums it up!!!!
The US/UK have psychologically decoupled from the EU and soon will be commercially decoupled from China.
What Wall Street and the Bankers of the West will do about these geopolitical moves is the key to the future of the hybrid war against China and preparation for kinetic war.
Strategically, the West understands it cannot compete in a global market.
Ideologically, the West understands it is bankrupt with its model of governance and economics.
The only role left for the West is hegemony, and that is defied by the Eurasian Integration, size and scale of the collection of nations opposed to the West’s domination.
The most recent actions of the Hegemon portray a military solution (a limited war against China, perhaps, interdiction of its shipping lanes, or forcing China to move to take over Taiwan.) The goal is diminution of China’s economy, interruption of its rise to #1 power, regional fear and loathing of China by ASEAN neighbors and trading partners. It is a conceivable goal.
Will the great investment opportunity by the West’s financial giants in China allow the US to enact a Thucydides Trap war that prevents those investments from paying off their tens of trillions of profit?
Glen Diesen claims in his book that “Eurasia unifying Europe and Asia has through history been an alternative to the dominance of maritime powers in the oceanic-centric world economy”
Forgive me, but when has such an “unifying alliance” existed in recent history?
As Pepe points out in his article above: the only European country on the list set to join the SCO is Serbia.
Instead of becoming part of Eurasia, Europe looks like it will split along 3 zones/alliances:
1 UK will join Five Eyes with the English speaking countries.
2. Northern and Central European countries will stay in a EU/ Fourth Reich type arrangement dominated by Germany.
3. South Eastern Europe countries esp those with large Muslim populations and formerly under the Ottoman yoke will join the Neo-Ottoman empire led by Turkey (currently stetching from the Mediterranean to the Caucasus.)
So the SCO will have to deal, with not one, but three distinct rival alliances…
Early days yet! A lot of things happening one has to wait and see how it pans out!
@Serbian Girl
Very good analysis and projection. Though the marketplace of Eurasia represented by its gatekeeper SCO is very attractive and will surely involve interest from #2 and #3. Ultimately, everything is economic.
I used to think that too, Larchmonter, but now I’m not so sure: The EU and Neo-Ottoman alliances are political/ ideological projects and the leadership does not seem to care for the economic interests of their people…
@Serbian girl
Just because Bosnia and Kosovo support Erdogan’s neo-Ottoman dream, it doesn’t necessarily mean that Turkey can dominate. Turkey is stretched too much and is fighting on several frontiers (Libya, Syria, Caucasus, Afghanistan, the Aegean) not to mention the local elements that loath the wannabe-sultan’s racist policies.
Erdogan’s not going to be in power for too long and even if he does, he doesn’t have the means (diplomatic, military, economic) to enact a Turkic sphere of influence that you mention.
@Serbian Girl: “Glen Diesen claims in his book that “Eurasia unifying Europe and Asia has through history been an alternative to the dominance of maritime powers in the oceanic-centric world economy”.
Same message in McEvilley’s well documented book, The Shape of Ancient Thought. What we are seeing is a revival of an old Eurasian route for trade and ideas, which has been in use for at least 5,000 year, but had fallen into disuse during the recent 500 years of maritime ascendancy.
Trade **and** ideas. “Among the merchant’s goods would be a sack of books”. — McEvilley
@Serbian girl
You are right about forming three aliances, but I do not forsee them rival to SCO as much as to themselves. They could pose trouble for SCO if they are united. They are not.
Since two of them came to existence due to decline of third, they will be at odds with each other for a long time (decades).
I do not see problem for SCO, but oportunity..
Love your work Pepe, but you sound so invested in this new geopolitical paradigm that I think it creates a bias. On the other hand it is probably almost impossible for any reporter to be 100% objective so it works anyway. Lol anyhow keep em coming
A very positive and informative article. A couple of minor corrections; Buddhism also had an early maritime route into China (via Buddhist South-East Asia). One in five Scythians were genetically East Asian, so they were certainly Eurasian, but it is argueable whether or not they were ‘Iranian’.
The Chinese credit their Buddhist connection to India.
“In 2004, Rong Xinjiang, a history professor at Peking University, reexamined the overland and maritime hypotheses through a multi-disciplinary review of recent discoveries and research, including the Gandhāran Buddhist Texts, and concluded:
“The view that Buddhism was transmitted to China by the sea route comparatively lacks convincing and supporting materials, and some arguments are not sufficiently rigorous. Based on the existing historical texts and the archaeological iconographic materials discovered since the 1980s, particularly the first-century Buddhist manuscripts recently found in Afghanistan, the commentator believes that the most plausible theory is that Buddhism reached China from the Greater Yuezhi of northwest India and took the land route to reach Han China. After entering into China, Buddhism blended with early Daoism and Chinese traditional esoteric arts and its iconography received blind worship.”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Buddhism
‘…and took the land route to reach Han China. After entering into China, Buddhism blended with early Daoism and Chinese traditional esoteric arts and its iconography received blind worship’.
‘Blind worship’ is a strangely perjorative choice of phrase for a scholar, as is the use of the propanganda term ‘Han China’ (it was more likely Yue China). Perhaps his suggested East Asian route is meant to align with China’s current expansion into Central Asia.
There is more archeological material concerning the overland route, as one might expect. However, the reality is that nobody has a definitive answer to this question, or even accurate dates. The other overland route (from Bengal to Southern China) is also frequently overlooked.
‘Perhaps his suggested Central Asian route is meant to align with China’s current expansion into Central Asia.’
:-)
Not only is it not at all “arguable whether the Scythians were Iranians”, considering that their language was an Indo-Iranian language (Ossetian is a direct descendent of the Scythian languages) and the fact that a tribe of Scythians called the Arsacids (which you would know as the Parthians) ruled over Iran for near 500 years and fought many famous wars with Marcus Crassus, Marc Antony, and even Pompeii Magnus, but there is evidence emerging that the early Germanic languages are somehow linked to the Scythian branch of the Iranian (Aryan) languages, as well.
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/348306270_About_the_lexical_similarities_between_the_ancient_Germanic_and_Scythian_languages
Aside from the fact that the Scythian Arshaka and his descendents ruled Iran for nearly 500 years, and their language is attested as an Indo-Iranian one, ie. Pahlavi, but then there is also Sanskrit evidence (from the Mahabharata, for example), where the Saka and the Pahlava are mentioned side by side. Is it a coincidence then, that we find a group of Scythians (Sakas) ruling Iran in the wake of the Seleucids, who called their language Pahlavi? A language which is attested today in the form of the “Pahlavi texts.”
https://www.cambridge.org/nz/academic/subjects/languages-linguistics/arabic-and-middle-eastern-language-and-linguistics/pahlavi-texts-volume-1
So, not only were the Scythians undeniably an Aryan tribe (Aryan and Iranian are two different ways of saying the same thing, and they are fully synonymous and interchangable), but one day it will become common knowledge that all the Germanic people are also very closely related to the Scythians.
And I will leave you with one little tidbit to ponder:
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tishtrya
“Tishtrya is Tir in Middle- and Modern Persian. As has been judged from the archaic context in which Tishtrya appears in the texts of the Avesta, the divinity/concept is almost certainly of Indo-Iranian origin.”
Tir is the name of the fourth month of the Iranian calendar, named after the ancient deity. The meaning of the word “tir” in Persian, is arrow.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BDr
“Týr is the eponym of the Tiwaz rune (ᛏ), a letter of the runic alphabet corresponding to the Latin letter T.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/T%C3%BDr#/media/File%3ATiwaz_rune.svg — the Tiwaz rune, is an arrow.
So, Hajduk, would you say it is a coincidence that two gods are worshipped in two distant Indo-European lands, both named Tir, both pronounced exactly the same, while in one land tir means arrow, and in the other land it is represented by a rune that is an arrow?
As far as my own research is considered, and I have a whole bag full of little examples like this, the ancient Aryans of Iran are the direct ancestors of every German barbarian who ever raided Roman lands, and the ancestors of every viking who ever sailed the seas.
In the classic period, there was no Scandinavia, as the whole thing was still submerged, like the Arctic Ocean is still submerged. The landmass slowly rose after the ice melted at the end of the last glacial period, weighed down as it was with kilometers of ice. Finland still hasn’t fully risen, and it pockmarked with fresh water lakes, which are remnants of the great glaciers which covered the entire region. In a few thousand years, Finland will be like Sweden and Norway, ie. fully emerged.
When did Scandinavia emerge? I don’t know, but I do know that ancient Greek writers have stated that at the northern edge of Europe, there was just a sea, but whether that is accurate or not, the Scythians who were already roaming Europe by circa 1000 BC, would have certainly discovered that the Western-edge of modern Russia led to Scandinavia, and according to at least a dozen ancient Greek and Roman sources, the Scythians were tall, blonde, and blue eyed.
The evidence is very clearly spelled out, and unless you can demonstrate another race of tall, blonde, blue eyed people in Europe as early as 1000 BC, who spoke an Indo-European language, then I am afraid you will have to live with the fact that you are related to Iranians. As painful as that must be for some of your white supremacist minded fellows, I’m sure, but the truth is the truth, and perhaps if you look into where the modern Germans of last century got the idea that they were Aryans, while they were at the zenith of their literacy and technological superiority, even though no Germanic people had ever called themselves Aryans at least since the time they came into contact with the first Romans, you will realize that the German linguists and historians simply discovered the same facts that I am giving you here.
And in parting, allow me to point you to Joseph Bosworth, “an English scholar of the Anglo-Saxon language and compiler of the first major Anglo-Saxon dictionary.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joseph_Bosworth
In his book titled “The origin of the English, Germanic, and Scandinavian languages and nations”,
https://books.google.com/books/about/The_origin_of_the_English_Germanic_and_S.html
deduces that the Germanic languages are directly derived from Old Median or Old Persian, which is not surprising considering the fact that Herodotus mentions the Germanii as an Iranian tribe.
And I am sure you know the events which transpired in Europe after this period, namely, the total takeover by Zionism, and all that came with it, especially in the European academic world, which has not produced a single scholar or writer on par with what it was producing before the world wars, ever since.
Modern Germans of last century got the idea that they were ‘Aryans’ from the French pseudo-aristocrat Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882), diplomat and littérateur, author of literary essay (‘An Essay on the Inequality of the Human Races’), in which he argued that what was called in France ‘noblesse d’epee’ was superior to the ‘commoners’. In the French context, the ‘aristocrats’ were the descendants of the Francs who conquered the Gallo-Romans’, the ‘commoners’, the ‘mob’, who recently ‘usurped’ the positions of the ‘aristocrats’. As the Francs were ‘Germanic’, ‘tall and blond and blue-eyed’, superiority was associated with ‘Germanity’ (as a matter of fact Gobineau was claiming a ‘Normand’, Viking ancestry) as a supposed unaltered remnant of a supposed ‘Aryan race’. Germans avidly absorbed his fantasies in the time of the birth of a ‘German nation’ marked for a great destiny. The irony is that Gobineau was secretly tortured by the idea that he might have had some negro blood, transmitted through his ancestors on his mother side, who lived in Saint-Domingue (Haiti)!
As dubious as that claim sounds — that an entire nation took up an idea from one obscure essay — let’s say you are right, although I have in my library an assortment of books from the 1800s from various European authors, which discuss the Aryan issue from a purely cultural, religious and historical perspective, let’s say you are right.
The Franks were a Germanic tribe, which I trust you are aware of. Romans, Gauls, and Germans of antiquity were never — not once — recorded as having identified themselves as Aryans.
The only place you will find that word, is on the tombs of Persian Kings, in the Avesta, and from various sources in India.
For a Frenchman in the 1800s, the average 5 foot tall Iranian peasant, and his similarly shaped and colored Indian cousins, would have borne remarkably little resemblance to a Germanic, or much less Nordic person.
So, the question remains, where did your Frenchman get the idea that Europeans were somehow related to the ancient people of Iran and India — the only people who are known to have ever called themselves Aryans?
Your explanation about an obscure essay on race, is neither here nor there.
And what is more, the ancient Persian Kings were also very proud of their Aryan-ness, and made sure that everyone knew they were of “Aryan stock.” So, just like any good German or Englishman of today, they believed that their race was, if not outright superior, then at least somehow special and worth noting.
Your essay simply confirms that 2300 years later, the descendents of those Aryans, continued to hold the belief that their race was somehow special and worth noting. Is this a coincidence, then?
Now, don’t get me wrong, I am just a little 5 foot tall asiatic dark person. And I can see that in practice, Iran, with its Turks, Arabs, Kurds, Lurs, Taleshis and Gilakis, Balochis, Turkmen, Armenians, Assyrians, with its dark and light, and its Asian-, African- and European-looking people, and the mix of all of the above, and its numerous other races and ethnicities, is proving to be superior to the collective West, in absolutely every way. (Try living under the sanctions that we live under for a month, let alone supporting half a dozen other countries as well, and breaking sieges on the other side of the planet. Yesterday Iran announced that they will be helping Nicaragua get around sanctions too.) My only interest in all this is as a historian and anthropologist.
Gobineau’s ‘Essay…’ was not that ‘obscure’. It made some waves. It was immediately translated in English by two Confederate Americans champions of slavery, Josiah Clark Nott and Henry Hotze, who saw in it a confirmation of the superiority of the ‘white Americans’ over their ‘black’ slaves, essentially a type of vicious animal, rather than human beings, who would always pose a danger to whites (which was not what Gobineau said).
Later on it was translated in German (1897) by Karl Ludwig Schemann, a member of the ‘Bayreuth Circle’ around Richard Wagner, who founded also a ‘Gobineau Association (Gobineau-Vereinigung)’ with a pronounced nationalistic and anti-semitic orientation, which raised ‘Gobinism’ to almost cult-status. Its most enthusiast promoter was the son-in-law of Richard Wagner, the Englishman Huston Stewart Chamberlain.
@Anonymous (the one who filled out linguistic details and origins of the peoples in Pepe’s map: with Parthia in the centre and Scythia to its north, with west Scythia blending into Magna Germania and the Baltic Slavs — those two groups of blond blue eyed Iranians/Aryans).
Many thanks! Case closed. As you say, “white” people attribute too much value to the amount of protective melanin pigment in the skin, and not enough to cultural elements in the brain. Obviously, when Iranians/Aryans moved northwards into the lands of gloomy forest and feeble sunlight their skin and eyes discarded protective melanin, in a desperate attempt to make vitally important Vitamin D. In other respects many Iranians and Indians are remarkably similar to many Western Europeans (“the Aryan cousins”).
“..when Iranians/Aryans moved northwards into the lands of gloomy forest and feeble sunlight their skin and eyes discarded protective melanin, in a desperate attempt to make vitally important Vitamin D.”
I wish it were that simple, Dr., but the mystery is far from being solved, I’m afraid.
https://www.google.com/search?q=nuristani+people
Look at Google’s images for the above search. Does not bode well for the sunlight theory, does it?
In Iran, in the Bakhtiari mountains, in little inaccessible corners reminiscent of Nuristan in the Hindu Kush, we have our own version of the Nuristanis.
There are people, living hidden away in the mountains of Iran, who you would be hard put distinguishing from Swedes and Danes. Their children are born with white-blonde hair, which they keep into their teens, at which point it begins to darken to a golden brown blonde. They grow to be very tall, and they have a ruddy complexion, and whereas the average Iranian tans in the sun and turns brown, these fellows burn and turn red. Their eyes are usually blue, green, or hazel.
https://www.pinterest.com/pin/81557443230691718/ — These children are not Europeans, nor are they European mixed race. They are full blooded Bakhtiaris.
How do you read this riddle now, Dr?
@Anonymous. The coming century (if our technologically advanced civilization does not blow itself up) will solve more riddles about human migration. But this century has increased our knowledge about the vital importance of Vitamin D for general health. It turns out to be a widely used chemical co-factor for all sorts of bodily function. Hence, humans needed to lose melanin from their skin (and thus maximise VitaD production) when our race penetrated into the gloomy North of Eurasia. Note that Red Indians (who came from North Eurasia) did not need to re-develope our race’s original (African) black skin, even though Red Indians penetrated again South, into the American Tropics. They needed a little melanin to protect from skin cancer, but skin cancer (a slow disease) exerts far less evolutionary pressure than lack of vitamin D.
Thus, I buy the theory that NorthWest Eurasians (Germania Magna and the Baltic Slavs) are the blond descendants of Central Asians (Persians, Afghans and Indians).
The Yamanya expansion c.3000BCE (invasion of Northern Europe c.2500BCE), Sumer c.3000BCE, Iran c.1000BCE.
Just like the modern Cossacks the ancient Yamanya were a hybrid of many ethnicities (blond hair from the Ancient North Eurasians and blue eyes from the Caucasus Hunter-Gatherers). Since their homeland was the Pontic-Caspian steppe it would perhaps be more accurate to describe them as (prehistoric) Russians.
Dear Hajduk,
Your argument is absurdly weak.
First of all, the Sumerians were known as “the black headed people” for a reason. The pre-Aryan indigenous farmers of the fertile valleys of Western Iran were also part of the same black headed stock as the Sumerians.
And what evidence do you have to back up your claim that the Yamanya (sic) were blonde and blue eyed, as you insinuate?
The Wikipedia article which you have read about the Yamnaya, is full of unproven hypotheses, like the equation of Yamnaya with the ancestors of the Indo-Iranians, while at the same time claiming that the Yamnaya brought farming to Finland. Do you know why this is a preposterous claim? Because the ancient Aryans were a cowherding people, and they had horses, Bactrian camels, and an assortment of other livestock, and they were nomadic when they first arrived in Iran. So, how did the same people who brought a nomadic lifestyle to Iran, where they learned about agriculture from the black heads, have taken agriculture to Finland, before they ever came to the Middle East?
Look at the Scythians, they were nomads through and through, to the very end. And look at the descriptions of the Germans, which the Romans have handed down to us; they had a bunch of cows which they herded and lived off of as their main source of sustenance. Do you imagine that cows grew on trees? There was one original population of domesticated cows in the world, and every other cow in all of history has been descended from them. Why did the Semites or Native Americans have no cows?
The Aryans were the cow people; just read the Avesta, and look at modern Hindus. Any ancient people who had cows, were connected to the Aryans, ie. they were descendents of the original people who domesticated the cow.
The Avesta is full of stories about aggressive non-Aryan neighbors who would slaughter and steal cows from the Aryans, but would refuse to practice animal husbandry, because their hunter-gatherer mentality, coupled with the commands of their war gods, forbade it.
And then, they (Wikipedia contributes) claim that the Andronovo culture were the forebears of the Bactria-Margiana civilization, even though the Bactrian civilization predates the Andronovo by over 200 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bactria%E2%80%93Margiana_Archaeological_Complex
“The Bactria–Margiana Archaeological Complex (short BMAC) or Oxus Civilisation, recently dated to c. 2250–1700 BC, is the modern archaeological designation for a Bronze Age civilization of Central Asia.”
The Bactrians were the first Aryan civilization. The tales of many of its kings are still remembered in Iran, and are recorded in Sanskrit texts as well. Also, Zarathushtra preached there, and converted the Bactrians to monotheism. The earliest date for their ‘civilization’ is 2250 BC.
Sometimes, it is best to admit that you don’t know, friend. And also, if you do not have a background in history, Wikipedia articles are useless, because they are full of contradictory hypotheses.
And esteemed Dr Maroudas,
My first question, why have the natives of northern Canada not lost pigment, in spite of the fact that they have been living in Northern climes for a good 10,000 years, at least? Same question about the Siberians. Is this pigment adjustment just something the Aryan race is capable of doing? In which case,
My second question, why are there still blondes in the Bakhtiari mountains, where the sunlight is extremely intense at 30° North, and at over 2000 meters elevation? Same question for the Nuristanis in the Hindu Kush? Why have they not become dark?
Third question, but first some facts;
“In artworks, the Scythians are portrayed exhibiting Caucasoid traits. In Histories, the 5th-century BC Greek historian Herodotus describes the Budini of Scythia as red-haired and grey-eyed. In the 5th century BC, Greek physician Hippocrates argued that the Scythians were light skinned as well as having a particularly high rate of hypermobility, to a point of affecting warfare. In the 3rd century BC, the Greek poet Callimachus described the Arismapes (Arimaspi) of Scythia as fair-haired. The 2nd-century BC Han Chinese envoy Zhang Qian described the Sai (Saka), an eastern people closely related to the Scythians, as having yellow (probably meaning hazel or green) and blue eyes. In Natural History, the 1st-century AD Roman author Pliny the Elder characterises the Seres, sometimes identified as Saka or Tocharians, as red-haired, blue-eyed and unusually tall. In the late 2nd century AD, the Christian theologian Clement of Alexandria says that the Scythians and the Celts have long auburn hair. The 2nd-century Greek philosopher Polemon includes the Scythians among the northern peoples characterised by red hair and blue-grey eyes. In the late 2nd or early 3rd century AD, the Greek physician Galen writes that Scythians, Sarmatians, Illyrians, Germanic peoples and other northern peoples have reddish hair. The fourth-century Roman historian Ammianus Marcellinus wrote that the Alans, a people closely related to the Scythians, were tall, blond and light-eyed. The fourth-century bishop Gregory of Nyssa wrote that the Scythians were fair skinned and blond haired. The 5th-century physician Adamantius, who often followed Polemon, describes the Scythians as fair-haired.”
The Scythians which the Greeks and Romans met, and described as above, most likely never had an ancestor that lived on the Iranian plateau, unless the true history of the ancient world is radically different than what we know. And as far back as the 5th century BC, they were already light in pigmentation. What time frame are we allowing here for these people to have lost their pigment, and where was their original homeland? And in that case, why have the neighboring people of Northern Siberia, for example, not lost pigment in the last few thousand years that they have been living up there?
@Anonymous
Your claims about the Aryans being the cattle herders is incorrect because seals containing cow-god figures have been found in ancient Indus settlements. The Indus Civilization was older than the ‘Aryan’ migrations (5500-3900 BP)
Have you read any of the Hindus’ ancient Sanskrit texts? Perhaps you missed the descriptions of the great civilization, which they detail.
And where do you imagine this civilization was?
Even a cursory glance at the sacred texts of the ancient Indians reveals that they describe a great civilization, with details that could not have been made up, and details which are attested in both the Sanskrit texts, and the Iranian texts.
So, who were the Indus Valley Civilization, if not the same people who wrote the Vedas and the Mahabharata?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gavaevodata — in the Avesta, the first man had a cow, the primordial cow, that sustained him
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Au%C3%B0umbla — in the Eddas, the first giant, Ymir, had a cow, the primordial cow, that sustained him
Coincidence, is it? And are you suggesting that it is a coincidence that cow images have been found in India?
Indus people are identified by archeologists as different from Aryans. It is possible that some of their religious beliefs were adopted by Aryans but without deciphering the Indus text, which still remains to be an enigma, your idea is just an assumption
The best political analysis that I have ever seen.
“We all live in an Aussie submarine”. Genius! Hopefully we won’t live in the ‘octopus’ garden’ where the AUKUS will inevitably sink.
It is not the ‘revenge of the Heartland’. It is the inevitable failure of all attempts to encroach on the impregnable Heartland by the cockroaches playing the Sea Wolves and Werewolves.
Great overview Pepe. Your following words masterly nail the nature of the most transformative trend in our late-modern world :
“… the denomination ‘Silk Road’ works best as a metaphor of cross-cultural connectivity. That’s what is at the heart of the Chinese concept of New Silk Roads. And average people across the heartland feel it, because that’s imprinted in the collective unconscious in Iran, China and all Central Asian ‘stans’.”
Absolutely.
And the fact is that this “cross-cultural connectivity” stands in stark contrast with the last 500 years when the West imposed its totalitarian agenda of “Modernity” to the rest of the world.
Think about it. Modernity is the pole opposite of “cross-cultural connectivity”. It was the West imposing itself on the world. And this came at the cost of a multitude of side-effects that have accumulated over the last centuries …leaving the younger generations with the predicament of “the great convergence of Late-Modernity” when our world is in need to restructure its governance while being simultaneously confronted with the side-effects of Modernity (Western societal atomization, the systematic poisoning of ‒ air ‒water ‒ land, climate change, and so on and on).
Regarding the Pashtun Scythian connection,
First of all, Herodotus:
Other Indians dwell near the town of Caspatyrus [Κασπάτυρος] and the Pactyic [Πακτυϊκή] country, north of the rest of India; these live like the Bactrians; they are of all Indians the most warlike, and it is they who are sent for the gold; for in these parts all is desolate because of the sand.
— Herodotus, The Histories, Book III, Chapter 102, Section 1
These Pactyic, were part of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, under the name of Pactyans:
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/2/26/Afghanistan_region_during_500_BC.jpg
And in the Rig Veda, they are referred to as Pakhtas.
Together came the Pakthas (पक्था), the Bhalanas, the Alinas, the Sivas, the Visanins. Yet to the Trtsus came the Ārya’s Comrade, through love of spoil and heroes’ war, to lead them.
— Rigveda, Book 7, Hymn 18, Verse 7
Clearly, we are dealing with the Pakhtuns aka Pashtuns here. They are still the same warlike people, after 2500 years.
A population of Scythians penetrated the Sistan basin, which is named after them (Sakastan, Sagestan), starting around 150 BC, due to pressure from encroaching Yuezhi, who had been defeated and pushed back by the Xiongnu.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indo-Scythians
The Scythians entered the region a good few centuries after the Pactyans were recorded as subjects of the Persian Empire.
There are similarities between Pashto and Ossetian, I am sure. But there are similarities between all Indo-Iranian languages, and this is hardly a basis for claiming that the Pashtuns, who were living in present-day Afghanistan already at 500 BC by the latest, are the same people as the Scythians who invaded the region in 150 BC at the earliest.
The other thing to note about the Scythians or Saka, is that they were not a unified people. The Massagetae and their Queen Tomyris, who killed Cyrus the Great, were Scythians. The Amazons, who were a tribe of female warriors, were Scythians. The Androphagi Man-eaters, who ate people, and lived in the forests of Eastern Europe, were Scythians. The Cimmerians, were Scythians. The Getae who were attacking Thrace during the final years of the Roman Republic, were Scythians. And Maximinus Thrax (=the Thracian) the Roman Emperor who came after Alexander Severus, who was the tallest man in all of history, was a Scythian
And the Neuri Wolf People, were Scythians.
“Herodotus also recounts the tale that, once a year, each of the Neuri became a wolf for a few days before returning to their previous form. Herodotus “himself does not believe the tale, but he says that those who tell the tale swears that it is true”. This tale was later also mentioned by Pomponius Mela.”
Sir Laurence Gardner, believes that even the Scotts were Scythians, and Scotland is an alternate pronunciation of Scythland. As most ancient authors attributed a high incidence of red hair to some of the Scythian tribes, this is also quite plausible.
Saka or Scythian is the name that was given to the near endless profusion of Indo-Iranian tribes that lived between China and Western Europe in antiquity. They were extremely diverse, boasting all kinds of strange people, from Amazons to cannibals, to wolf people, to the Royal Scythians, who were based in Ukraine.
However, the Pashtun, unfortunately, are not Saka, although they may have interbred with Scythians after 150 BC.
You may be disappointed but the Getae, Massagetae, were not ‘Scythians’, but Thracians, who were not Scythians either.
Neither were the Cimmerians (as we know from Herodotus they have been wiped out by the Scythians) who were rather Celts (Cymraeg). Legends about their origins place them firmly beyond the Oceanus, in a land of fog and darkness, at the edge of the world and the entrance of Hades! They were certainly related with the Cimbri who invade, along with the Teutones, Gaul and Italy in 113-101 BC.
Anyhow, the theory that the birthplace of the ‘Aryans’ is Ukraine and that the ‘Aryans’ are the creators of the ‘European civilization’ is false.
“You may be disappointed but the Getae, Massagetae, were not ‘Scythians’, but..”
The Massagetae, as far as the Achaemenids were concerned, were Saka.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massagetae
“Herodotus stated the Massagetae were a great and warlike nation, dwelling beyond the river Araxes and that they are regarded as a Scythian race.”
“Ammianus Marcellinus considered the Alans to be the former Massagetae.”
As far as Herodotus and Ammianus Marcellinus are concerned, they were also Saka.
Now, while some ancient Greek and Roman writers drew a line between Cimmerian, Sauromatae, Scythian, etc — to the ancient Persians, they were all Saka. And the Greeks and Romans who understood that the term Saka/Scythian did not refer to any particular tribe, used it in the same sense that the Persians used it.
You can choose to believe whatever you want, of course. It is the age of liberalism, after all.
And where did I say the birthplace of the Aryans was the Ukraine? Or that the Aryans are the creators of European civilization for that matter?
The Greeks and Romans created European civilization, and this is such an obvious fact, that I didn’t know it was even in dispute.
The Ukraine was the seat of the royal clan of the Scythians, aka the Royal Scythians, and they were no match for the Persians, as it turned out.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythian_campaign_of_Darius_I
Look at the list of belligerents, at those opposite the Persians; they are all Saka, and Darius I considered them all Saka.
Here they are:
Royal Scythians
Allies:
Tauri
Agathyrsi
Neuri
Androphagi
Melanchlaeni
Budini & Gelonians
Sauromatae
Getae
Use of very general and ambiguous appellations (Scythians, Saka, Aryans) for diverse peoples risks of not seeing the trees from the forest.
It is not ambiguous at all.
The Aryans were the race as a whole.
The Saka were the ones who were still living in semi-civilized barbarous states, eating people, dressing up in wolf skins and pretending they were wolves, cutting off their own breasts so they could fight on par with men, drinking beer until they reached a near blackout-drunk state and then raiding their neighbors, etc.
And the Persians were the other end of the spectrum, the most fully civilized of the bunch, if we are talking about the state of affairs in 500 BC.
You are not familiar with Iranian history and mythology, which is why you find all this hard to follow.
There is a narrative in the Avesta and the Book of Kings (Shahnameh) that recounts the tale of an ancient King of the Aryans, Θraētaona, which today we call Fereidun. Θraētaona had three sons, Airik (Erik), Tur, and Salm, which Iranians call Iraj, Turaj, and Salm, today.
Fereydun’s empire stretched all across Eurasia, from China to Western Europe, just like the Achaemenid empire which was created in its image much later on. Bear in mind now, that we are in mythical territory. Fereidun divided his empire between his three sons. Erik got Iran, while Tur and Salm received the Eastern and Western lands.
Eventually, Tur’s people deified him, and worshipped him as a god, which you would know as Thor. The Turanians fought many wars against the Iranians over the ages, and the two people were greatly inimical.
When the Saka Queen Tomyris killed Cyrus the Great, it was just a continuation of the Iran-Turan wars which had raged for centuries.
While the Iranians lifted themselves up, and through the Persians, became the pinnacle of all human civilization, the Turanians slipped further towards barbarism, and through the Germans whom the Romans met, represented the absolute lowest state of Aryan kind, or perhaps the lowest state of all mankind. You would be hard put finding anyone more barbaric than the Germans, unless you look at others of their kin and kith like the Neuri and Androphagi.
The Iranians believed that the Turanians weren’t mere barbarians, but they were Satanists, ie. followers of Ahriman. When Tur killed his brother Erik, which started the whole feud, it was an Ahrimanic act. And when the Turanians deified a human being, a villainous one no less, and worshipped him as a god, it was another Ahrimanic act.
Anyway, the Sarmatians may or may not have been the descendents of Salm’s people, but Salm was just Tur’s useful idiot sidekick, so the Iranians lumped them all up as Turanians, and later Saka.
By the time the Shahnameh/Book of Kings was written in 1000 AD, the Scythians had long been displaced by Mongoloid hordes, which the Iranians mistakenly equated with the Turanians of old, as they seemed to act in the same barbaric manner as the stories told, and they were labelled Turks.
And as a final tidbit, which I don’t know whether it is particularly accurate, but it is interesting nonetheless. Some have noticed that the name of Tur’s father, Fereidun, bears a strange resemblance to Freya+Odin, which is one possible parentage for Thor. Are the words related? Probably not, but it is a strange coincidence nevertheless.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fereydun
In any case, the murder of Iraj/Erik heralded a new beginning, where the Turanians were stripped of the Aryan appellation, which from then on only applied to the civilized portion of the race.
And last but not least, the term Saka, whose exact meaning is unclear. The king of the Saka was called Saganshah, and the word sag means dog, in Persian. Were the Iranians calling these people dogs? As fitting as that name would have been, it is probably not the case, as the dog was considered the most sacred animal of all, by the ancient Iranians.
“The Neo-Assyrian Empire of the time of Esarhaddon record campaigning against a people they called in the Akkadian language the Ashkuza or Ishhuza.
Another people, the Gimirrai, who were known to the ancient Greeks as the Cimmerians, were closely associated with the Sakas. In Biblical Hebrew, the Ashkuz (Ashkenaz) are considered to be a direct offshoot from the Gimirri (Gomer).”
Saka from Ashkuza?
Draw your own conclusions.
Cheers
The problem with the Massagetae is what river is meant by the name Aráxēs, which is often given as the northern frontier of the Achaemenid Empire, beyond which the Massagetae lived. It was suggested that it is not the Oxus, but the river which is called today Aras, which flows along the borders between Turkey and Armenia, between Turkey and the Nakhchivan area of Azerbaijan, between Iran and both Azerbaijan and Armenia, and finally, through Azerbaijan where it becomes a tributary of the river Kura. That would change all the equation of ‘Scythian’ populations.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/5/56/Map_of_the_Achaemenid_Empire.jpg/800px-Map_of_the_Achaemenid_Empire.jpg
If as you say, the Araxes was the frontier of the empire, then it could not have been the modern Aras, because all of the Caucasus, far north of the Aras-Araxes, was Iranian territory.
https://oxfordre.com/classics/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199381135.001.0001/acrefore-9780199381135-e-3488
“The Greeks thought that it flowed into the Caspian (which perhaps was once true—see caspian sea), and sometimes confused it with the *Araxes (now the Aras).”
When Herodotus said Araxes, he was referring to the Jaxartes. There is no confusion here.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/3/33/Syrdaryamap.png/800px-Syrdaryamap.png — This is the Jaxartes.
Now, look at the first map again. The Massagetae were North of Sogdiana, just across the river Jaxartes. That is where Cyrus the Great fell.
But, as you can see from the map, to the East and West of the Massagetae, were other Scythian tribes, and North of the Caucasus, although the map doesn’t specify, it is a well-known fact that more Scythians dwelled there. And further West, all the way to the Ukraine, were just more Scythians.
So, your conclusion that what you are proposing “would change all the equation of ‘Scythian’ populations” — is patently false. It wouldn’t change anything, as the Massagetae were surrounded by other Scythians on every side, except the Persian side.
I have to ask, had you ever looked at any maps of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, before you decided to post this comment?
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/81/Xerxes_detail_three_types_of_Sakas_cleaned_up.jpg — “Soldiers of the Achaemenid army, Xerxes I tomb detail, circa 480 BC”
Three ‘types’ of Saka are depicted, among the countless nations which made up the Achaemenid army.
“the Sakā tyaiy paradraya – “Saka who are beyond the sea”, a name added after the Scythian campaign of Darius I north of the Danube.
the Sakā tigraxaudā – “Saka with pointy hats/caps”
the Sakā haumavargā – interpreted as “haoma-drinking Saka”
The only noteworthy thing here is the haoma-drinking Saka, who would make a concoction of Amanita muscaria mushrooms, which are very common in Northern Eurasia. It is a big red mushroom with white spots, which is called the Fly agaric. Siberian shamans still ingest Amanita muscaria to achieve trance, as they have done for thousands of years. And there is good reason to believe that the Viking berserker rage was achieved as a result of ingesting Amanita muscaria mushrooms.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amanita_muscaria
And a fourth type of Saka:
“the Sakaibiš tyaiy para Sugdam – “Saka who are beyond Sugda (Sogdia)”, a term was used by Darius for the people who formed the limits of his empire at the opposite end to the Kingdom of Kush (the Ethiopians), therefore should be located at the eastern edge of his empire.”
This is how the Persians, who administered a massive empire with a near endless profusion of ethnic groups, languages, and nationalities — whose exact physical appearances they took pains to carefully and meticulously depict on their rock carvings — categorized the Saka.
“Use of very general and ambiguous appellations (Scythians, Saka, Aryans) for diverse peoples risks of not seeing the trees from the forest.”
So no, I don’t think they were missing the forest for the trees. They just knew that all the Saka were one people, who happened to occupy an extremely vast expanse of land.
But over time, as a result of raiding and taking female captives from their neighboring tribes, different Saka started to diverge in terms of physical appearance and genetic makeup. While in the Eastern edge of their lands, they boasted Asiatic men and women among their ranks, in the Eastern edge, they would have come in contact with all the different European people of the time, whose traits and genes they would have absorbed. And naturally, the Scythians would have spoken countless languages.
Think, the Russian Federation.
@When Herodotus said Araxes, he was referring to the Jaxartes. There is no confusion here.
This is your assumption.
@all of the Caucasus, far north of the Aras-Araxes, was Iranian territory.
Not in the time of Cyrus. This is another assumption.
From Encyclopedia Iranica:
”Achaemenid rule in the Caucasus region was established, at the latest, in the course of the Scythian campaign of Darius I in 513-12 BCE. The Persian domination of the cis-Caucasian area (the northern side of the range) was brief, and archeological findings indicate that the Great Caucasus formed the northern border of the empire during most, if not all, of the Achaemenid period after Darius… historians felt obliged to speculate about the border of the empire in that region during the approximately 200 years of Achaemenid rule that followed. Hewsen (1983, p. 128) expresses doubts that the Achaemenid empire ever extended beyond the Armenian plateau… It is not possible to reach a definite conclusion on the incorporation of areas between the Black and the Caspian Seas into the empire during the time of Darius I on the basis of Herodotus’s so-called “satrapy list” (Hdt., 3.90-94, esp. 93-94), as is done by Hewsen (1983, pp. 125 f.) and Ter-Martirosov (2000, pp. 246-50), because this catalogue is not appropriate either for the reconstruction of the imperial administration or for historical geography… How far the Persian rule in cis-Caucasia extended to the east is completely uncertain…”
Now I don’t even know what you are arguing anymore. Do you have a point?
Whether the Massagetae were East or West of the Caspian, makes no difference, look at Pepe’s map; Scythia extended far beyond the shores of the Caspian in every direction.
“@When Herodotus said Araxes, he was referring to the Jaxartes. There is no confusion here.
This is your assumption.”
http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus:text:1999.04.0064:entry=jaxartes-geo
“The exploits of Cyrus and Alexander the Great have inscribed its name in history many centuries before our aera. If we are to believe the traditionary statements about Cyrus, the left bank of this river formed the N. limit of the vast dominion of that conqueror, who built a town, deriving its name from the founder [CYRESCHATA], upon its banks; and it was upon the right bank that he lost his life in battle with Tomyris, Queen of the Massagetae. Herodotus (1.201-216), who is the authority for this statement, was aware of the existence of the Syr-Daria; and although the name Jaxartes, which was a denomination adopted by the Greeks and followed by the Romans, does not appear in his history, yet the Araxes of Herodotus can be no other than the actual Syr, because there is no other great river in the country of the Massagetae.”
This is the current consensus. Have you seen the Aras? It is a very minor river.
North of the Aras, as South of it, you will find very rugged mountainous country all the way to present-day Russia. Not the kind of terrain that nomadic horse people of the steppes generally lived in.
In any case, Herodotus is not the only source of the tale of Cyrus’ death, as it was a fairly well known one, and the general area where it happened is known beyond question to have been on the banks of the Jaxartes.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Massagetae
Look, regarding the Massagetae, there is no debate about where they lived. All of their neighboring tribes and lands are known beyond question.
But what is only vaguely known, is how the Massagetae and Getae relate to the Goths, the Germanic people who captured Rome, with Alaric I at the head of their army. Or the fact that Alaric (=King of All) was preceded a few generations back by an “Aryaric”.
Alaric I was directly preceded by Athanaric. Athanaric was son of Aoric, who grew up in Constantinople. And Aoric was son of Aryaric, which means Aryan King. Aryaric was a Gothic Germanic ‘reiks’.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alaric_I
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ariaric
Jordanes also wrote of Tomyris and the Massagetae, in De origine actibusque Getarum (“The origin and deeds of the Goths/Getae”) — where the Massagetae are considered the forbears of the Goths.
Except in the name of this very early Germanic king, Aryaric, you will be hard put to find the word ‘Arya’ in all of the history of the Germanic people.
I don’t know about you, but I feel like the case is now closed.
The point is that the Massagetae were not Iranian. The Goths were not the descendants of the Getae, let alone of the Massagetae, ergo the ‘Germans’ were not ‘Iranians’.
@Anonymous
Can you please mention the books, articles upon which you present your history of tribes and cultures?
There are too many and require a more time to study than copy-pasting sketchy articles from Wikipedia.
“The point is that the Massagetae were not Iranian.”
“The Massagetae, or Massageteans, (Greek: Μασσαγέται (Massagétai), Iranian: *Masyaka-tā) were an ancient Eastern Iranian nomadic tribal confederation, who inhabited the steppes of Central Asia, north-east of the Caspian Sea in modern Turkmenistan, western Uzbekistan, and southern Kazakhstan. They belonged to the Saka people, and were part of the wider Scythian cultures.”
— From Wikipedia. The information which Wikipedia presents, is the current consensus among academics. But the fact that the Massagetae were Iranian is not in dispute by anyone, except you.
“The Goths were not the descendants of the Getae, let alone of the Massagetae, ergo the ‘Germans’ were not ‘Iranians’.””
When you make a statement like this, the burden of proof falls on you to demonstrate the veracity of your statement. I referred you to Jordanes, who in the fifth century, did believe that the Goths were descended from the Massagetae.
@Man With No Name (“Can you please mention the books, articles upon which you present your history of tribes and cultures?”)
I have provided a link for practically every single statement I have made. As far as books are concerned, when I was doing my studies, I read perhaps every book that has ever been written on Iranian history — which is not saying much. I have also read a great many books of Roman history, and an assortment of other histories.
But regarding the facts and ideas that I have presented here, I know most of them from memory, and I can usually very quickly and easily find them on Wikipedia, which is the easiest way to back up a statement.
If you want book recommendations, I will offer you three, one for Rome, and two for Persia.
As far as Roman Empire histories are concerned, “the decline and fall of the Roman empire” by Edward Gibbon is unquestionably among the greatest of all time.
Actually, since Gibbons hated the Orthodox Church and the East Romans I would question that very much. Also when you use “unquestionably” you base that on what exactly? Have you read all the book written about this in, say, Greek, Russian, Farsi, etc.?
IMNSHO Gibbons was just a propagandist beloved by western academics as he made them feel good. YMMV of course.
The Saker
And there is very valuable information about the Germans and the Persians in that book as well.
For a history of Persia, there are many options to start from, but for you, I would recommend Percy Molesworth Sykes “a history of Persia” for an insider’s view, as Sykes lived in Iran for many years and clearly loved Iran very much, and for something lighter and easier, as an introductory, if you find Sykes a bit hard to follow, I recommend “empire of the mind: a history of Iran” by Michael Axworthy.
I hope you find them as educating and enlightening as I did.
And also, the Anonymous who responded to your question with “There are too many and require a more time to study than copy-pasting sketchy articles from Wikipedia.” — was not me.
Cheers
P.S. If you are interested in the history of any particular country or region, the Cambridge History series are also a good place to start; for example the 8 volume “Cambridge History of Iran” is packed to the brim with historical facts about Iran, or the “Cambridge Ancient History”, which is much more broad and does not deal with any single country, is also an excellent work.
P.P.S. If you look on archive.org, you can probably find Edward Gibbon’s book and Percy Sykes’ book for free as ebooks or perhaps even audio books, as they are both from previous centuries, and free from copyright laws.
“..ergo the ‘Germans’ were not ‘Iranians’.”
And now we have done a full circle, and are back to the very beginning of this debate.
If the Germans are not Iranians, why did they decide to call themselves Iranians* in the early 20th century?
*The words “Aryan’ and ‘Iranian’ are synonyms.
Also, why would Hitler exempt Iranians from the Nuremberg laws, by declaring them to be full-blooded Aryans (ie. equal to Germans), as the “sketchy” Wikipedia articles (and every other source available) states?
Have you read Gibbon’s book, Saker? What part of it did you find offensive?
Gibbon sounds like a devout Christian in the book, sure, but I never noticed any propaganda.
His history is very accurate, and there is nothing in it that is radically different than your run of the mill standard history of the Roman Empire. It is extremely well-written, a joy to read, and very highly acclaimed. It gives a relatively accurate depiction of the Persians, which as an Iranian I can agree with, and it also gives accurate information about the Germans, all of which is from Tacitus and other Roman writers.
And what Roman Empire history would you suggest, as being superior to Gibbon’s, and more comprehensive?
Gibbon was a true and masterly scholar of Roman history, and anyone who has read even a single volume of his work, would undoubtedly agree. You would be hard put finding many other Roman histories that are of the same caliber as his work.
If you had singled out Sykes, because he was a military man and not exactly the most renowned scholar, I would have understood, but to insinuate that Gibbon’s history of the fall of the Roman empire is propaganda? Really?!
And not that it matters, Saker, but Gibbon was much more anti-Catholic than he was anti-Orthodox.
You yourself are anti Anglo-Zionist Empire, does that mean you would not be able to recount an accurate history of the Anglo-Zionist Empire? Often the most accurate histories come from the opposition, and for example, much of Persian history today goes undisputed, indeed exactly because it was all written by Greeks and Romans, who were the enemies of Iran, and not by Persian propagandists.
And I am flattered that you follow my comments, and even more flattered that you decided to reply, even if just to deride Gibbon.
Iordanes believed (by hearsay) that the Gothi were the same with the Getae (know also as Daci), appropriating for the upstart Goths the glorious history of the Getae (a case of ‘invented tradition’). Nowhere does he talk about Massagetae. Queen Tomyris was the ‘Queen of the Getae’. He knew that ”after achieving this victory (against Cyrus) and winning so much booty from her enemies, Queen Tomyris crossed over into that part of Moesia which is now called Lesser Scythia[Scythia Minor]–a name borrowed from great Scythia,–and built on the Moesian shore of Pontus the city of Tomi, named after herself”. So, the Massagetae lived somewhere next to the Black Sea, where all ancient sources place the homeland of the Getae. And whatever historical information we have (relatively abundant) plus scientific consensus show that the Getae were NOT Iranians. Actually they fought against the Iranians, like Queen Tomyris.
“Actually they fought against the Iranians, like Queen Tomyris.”
This is starting to get tedious. What kind of logic is that? The Anglos fought the Germans, are they not both the same ethnicity then? The Kurds are fighting other Iranians right now, I suppose they aren’t Iranians either? In this current atmosphere of extreme Iranophobia, where the Persian walnut has been shamelessly renamed the English walnut, do you suppose that it is just random “sketchiness” that the CIA’s Wikipedia states that the Massagetae and the Kurds are Iranians? — It is not random, nor is it sketchy, but rather, these facts are so indisputable, that for Wikipedia to try and deny them, would only bring down its own credibility. But trust me, if Wikipedia could get away with saying that the Kurds (or the Massagetae) aren’t Iranian peoples, they would do it in a heartbeat.
Either way, I think it is time for me to politely concede this debate and bow out.
You are right, friend. You win. I am wrong, Wikipedia is wrong, and Herodotus was wrong; the Massagetae were not an Iranian people.
English walnut, my a**.
“For all the immense challenges inherent to the Afghan jigsaw puzzle, hopeful signs emerged this Tuesday, when Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah met in Kabul with the Russian presidential envoy Zamir Kabulov, China’s special envoy Yue Xiaoyong, and Pakistan’s special envoy Mohammad Sadiq Khan.”
Hamid Karzai and Abdullah Abdullah, are Iran’s ‘special envoys’.
In Afghanistan, there are currently three main views regarding the situation.
1. The Taliban’s ideology is not the ideology of the majority in Afghanistan, and the majority in Afghanistan are not optimistic about the Taliban, and if the Taliban are given the opportunity, they will probably start displaying brutality and violence, this much is clear. But the people of Afghanistan are tired of war, and they want security and a good economy and livelihood, and a good social space; this much is also clear. So the view is here is, “all things considered, and in spite of the fact that we know the Taliban very well, but for now, no one should fight the Taliban, and other countries should help, so that as far as it is possible, the Taliban, with some small measure of moderation, can organize security and the economy, and bring the Afghan people out of crisis.”
The limitation of this view, is that the Taliban can say that they have changed, and perhaps in some areas they have, but it is unlikely that they can change so fundamentally, as to profoundly change their identity, and as such, even with help from powers such as Russia and China, and official recognition, the Taliban have a very difficult and long road towards setting up a good and desirable government, and perhaps their worldview and ideology may not even allow for such a thing.
In “A Peace to End All Peace” there is a golden quote, it goes something like: the Ottomans had learned the art of war very well, but the art of managing a country, not so much. I think this may apply to the Taliban also.
2. The second view says, “based on the Taliban mentality and ideology, and as there is no real hope that they will change in any meaningful way, an extensive war must be waged against them, and once they are gone, all the people of Afghanistan can form an inclusive government, and work from there to figure out how to manage their country.”
This idea is based on the view that says, “tolerance towards all, except the enemies of tolerance”; and as the Taliban are not partial to tolerance, they in turn should not be tolerated, and they should have no place in government.
The limitation of this view is that the majority of Afghans are sick and tired of war, and they do not even see themselves as willing or capable of organizing a war against the Taliban.
These say that this will just cause more bloodshed, and it will not oust the Taliban anyway, as they were not ousted in the last 20 years. And right now, other than a small area in Panjshir, there is no resistance to the Taliban anywhere; so this second view is also very unlikely to materialize.
3. The third view says, “the Taliban will not be easily ousted; at least some portion of the Afghan people have a perspective and ideology close to the Taliban’s, so it should be possible for the other groups to sit down with the Taliban, and convince them to form an inclusive government, based on shared values rather than exclusivity, and this way the problems of war, security and the economy, will all be solved.
But the issue and limitation of this view is that it is very, very unlikely that the Taliban will concede to form an inclusive government. Some people who are aligned with the Taliban, are on Afghan TV these days, emphasizing and defending this notion, that there is no need to include any other thoughts or ideology in the government. (Like the Anonymous trolls who have been spreading the same view here.)
They say (on Afghan TV) things like “why are you being racist? the Taliban is composed of many races, and they are present in the government”! So basically, what the Taliban are saying here is that “even if we are to include other ethnic groups in the government, they must be Talibanist.”
On the other hand, it is very unlikely that the Taliban, unilaterally and on their own, and without the satisfaction and cooperation of other groups, will be able to govern Afghanistan well and effectively.
So, this view is also unlikely to materialize, and all this leads us to believe that the Afghanistan problem will not be solved so easily; unless a common idea takes shape, shared by the public, which all groups will be satisfied with.
Afghanistan is half-way between a tribal mentality, and a national mentality. To form and espouse a common idea now, shared by all, will push them over the threshold, and make them a true nation. But Talibanism, it seems, is poised to push Afghanistan further towards tribalism and lack of cohesion.
I do not understand where people are getting this wrong idea that when the taliban said that they have changed, they mean to adopt practices that the rest of the world wants them to. They meant that they are ready to work with the rest of the world unlike the previous time.
They have been clearly saying in all the conferences and press releases that they are going to implement the sharia, whether the world likes it or does not like it. Do not forget that they did not just fight to kick out invaders, but they also fought to implement sharia. So those afghanistan’s neighbors crying for inclusive and diverse afghan cabinet and the SCO with it’s democracy in Afghanistan nonsense, who are hoping that things in afghanistan are going to change, nothing is going to change.
The taliban did not just fight all these years with a brutal NATO only to surrender what they fought for without a fight to a meek SCO.
“Hillary does Pipelineistan!”
Pretty sure Hillary never liked getting the pipe, especially when it had crossed as many borders as Bill’s had.
I think the disunity within America is far greater than Pepe or even Buchanan realize. We are 1 nationalist uncucked governor away from a cold civil war.
If someone can suggest me some informative books on the history of C. Asia, I’d greatly appreciate.
For an insight see Alan Mikhail book titled, “GOD’S SHADOW – Sultan Selim, His Ottoman Empire, and the Making of the Modern World”. It was an informative reading.
Mary Boyce ‘Zoroastrians: Their Religious Beliefs and Practices’. Walther Heissig ‘The Religions of Mongolia’.
Angus Graham ‘The Disputers of the Tao: Philosophical Argument in Ancient China’ (intense).
“It’s no wonder the process irks the Empire immensely, because Greater Eurasia, led by Russia-China, is a mortal attack against the geoeconomic architecture of Atlanticism.”
I think that Pepe is underestimating the Anglo American threat.
There is no way that the Anglosphere (led by the USA) will peacefully tolerate any challenge to their centuries of global dominance with the integration of Eurasia.
No frigging way.
That is why the Anglo Americans are escalating the New Cold War throughout Eurasia from the Black Sea to the South China Sea.
Also, in terms of Central Asia, be wary of India, which is working with the USA as destabilizing forces in Afghanistan.
US, India prepare to play spoiler in Afghanistan
https://asiatimes.com/2021/09/us-india-prepare-to-play-spoiler-in-afghanistan/
Quad summit heightens threat of US-led war against China
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2021/09/25/quad-s25.html
The Anglo-American threat is actually, as Saker calls it, the Anglo-Zionist threat. US manifest destiny is a subset of Zionism, which is a European white-supremacist invention. American journalist John O’Sullivan wrote in 1845 that it was “our manifest destiny to overspread and to possess the whole of the continent which Providence has given us for the development of the great experiment of liberty and federated self-government entrusted to us.” This is very similar to what the European Ashkenazim are now doing in Palestine.
There is no way the Empire will go quietly into that dark night like all empires of the past. First of all, they have nukes, lots of them. It is in Zionism’s DNA to ultimately end human history in some kind of apocalyptic Götterdämmerung. Once the missiles start flying, either with Russia or China, the upcoming conflict will go nuclear within hours. Crazy Zionists in the USA pray for this to happen. Trump and Pompeo almost gave it to them. It will be up to the Russians and Chinese to not be suckered into this madness.
@Anonymous
It’s impossible that what India wants would prevail over the consensus of China + Russia and the other SCO countries.
The Asia Times articles mentions “In essence, Modi called on the SCO to harmonize with the US-led moves at the UN Security Council. Plainly put, the SCO should play second fiddle to the Quadrilateral Security Dialogue, which is also holding a summit in Washington, DC, on September 24 where Afghanistan is expected to be a key agenda item. Before the Quad summit, US President Joe Biden is due to meet with Modi on the same day.”
So, India is simply tying to get the SCO behind the Empire even after they were beaten and chased away. That’s highly unlikely because Russia, China and Iran believe that US was the center of the issue in Afghanistan.
India wouldn’t be able to significantly impact the SCO on this matter but they will definitely side with the US through the QUAD to disrupt this integration plan.
This is a last post on the rescue of Meng Wanzhou from the depths of hell — Anglo-America. It is also to thank and to inform Saker, the Chinese and China’s appreciation and gratitude for hosting our outside voice in a hostile, belligerent, calumnious and lying Anglophone world.
This concluding post on Meng, her true name 孟晚舟, is best expressed in an image, available here, via Sina
https://wx2.sinaimg.cn/mw690/001I2HRzly1gusqmn2uslj631l1wwkjo02.jpg
or here…
https://postimg.cc/0MmqLnd9
The artist name is, wūhé qílín 乌合麒麟. On his Weibo: https://weibo.com/qilinshendian?refer_flag=1005055013_&is_all=1
Mission is accomplished. Meng is home, safe. Among her first words upon touching down, Sep 25: “祖國我回來了!My Motherland, I’m home!”. Tibet is prosperous and happy, Xinjiang is secured, Hong Kong is wrapped up. We now have other things to pursue, and Taiwan is next. The struggle never stops….
Again, thank you, Saker.
Let’s recap what Really happened…
1) USSA made some local domestic in-house ‘laws’ against Iran and imagine that its the ‘international rule based order’
2) USSA coerce Canada the pussy to enforced and kidnap a china citizen invoking the USSA made ‘rule based order’ and illegally imprison her, a mother first then a public figure, for 3 yrs (notice a) Meng was not in USSA, b) neither a USA citizen, so how is that a chinese citizen in a foreign country NOT USSA need to bow down and be subject to the USSA made rule based order?) do the USSA citizen be subjected to the CCP china or russian laws?
60M chinese around the world watch LIVE the safe and confirmed visual return of Meng, not as an asset to the country, but mother to her child! Remember that, Donald J Trump!!! and those who has a hand in this shameful inhumane affair! Remember that, looking at your mother, your wife, your daughter! coz that is what the chinese remember!!! for a very very very long time!!!!
Moving forward, do expect your ‘rule based order’ be returned in kindness to you, that is, any one of you that visit/trespass any inch of the ever expending Eurasian, for official capacity or private holiday, may be in kind be treated by the ‘rule based order’ you hv shown the entire world, how to do it!!!
Oh and make sure you and all your baron decedents dont bank w any of the Chinese/Eurasian Banks, 4ever!!! (even when/after all your western bank and money markets collapse soon enough) coz the china/eurasian law may just copy your ‘rule based order’ stun hereafter and your ‘stolen loot’ assets may just be SWIFT-off.
the AZwest has obviously choose ‘hegemony or death’. so be it!!!
tq YL :)
bwbs
p/s if you hvnt pick up, XJP use the same line in july 1st also in the SCO meeting inducting Iran. and XJP repeat the similar ver of ‘hunt the tiger swat the fly’ in UN after joe-jibberish. who, do you think, is the ‘tiger’ and ‘fly’ in the west that XJP is aiming to hunt and swat?!
‘the AZwest has obviously choose ‘hegemony or death’. so be it!!!’
I think you mean a very unrepresentative cabal of unelected functionaries, bankers, security service fascists.
The vast majority of UK citizens have no desire to start another war. We’ve seen a great deterioration in the home nation the past 20 years since Blair initiated the great ‘become the Great Fellatrix of Uncle Schmuel’.
The majority of UK citizens who voted to leave the EU did NOT vote to become a US vassal. They wanted Britain to establish itself as a mid-sized regional economic actor, leveraging its enormous historical hinterland of trading outposts. It wasn’t about making a quick buck, it was about sovereignty, strategic self-sufficiency and not having unelected European Bureaucrats sticking their busybody noses into our affairs.
It is totally ridiculous implying that the UK cannot do that. Switzerland has 1/10th the population of the UK and managed it. Bolivia’s GDP is dwarfed by that of Britain, but they are managing it. Iceland has a population of less than 1 million and they showed the EU a clean pair of heels in how to deal with recalcitrant banks during the 2008 crisis.
The only people who say that Britain cannot do it are the old-style hegemonists in the USA, in the EU and in the security services.
The UK Security Services will have much less to do if the UK becomes a cooperative nation not obsessed with inflaming danger, organising coups and being the US’ bumboy. So they use all their malevolent influence all over the media to try and stop that taking place.
None of the honest businesses that trade internationally have any problem with the concept.
Britain needs to revisit its relationship with the City of London Corporation and basically make the current apartheid system illegal.
@Rhys Jaggar
sir, w due respect, are you saying Britain, UK and the city of London is hegemony? you need to make clear of this in your mind and your speech, sir.
if its it not, or no longer one, then it should know its place. fair enough?
if it is or still want to be, you agree the ‘rule based order in kind’ should apply here?!
notice too, your gov is ‘democratically’ elected, should you not bare the responsibility when our ppl in the east is murdered and massacre by you chosen democratically elected gov?
who should our dead demand justice from?!
Let me make it simple for you, just in case…
if you cannot control you mad dog, of which you paid your money/currency and registered yourself as the owner, and your mad dog maul the child of your neighbor and kill the child, who should be responsible for the dead child?!
there are lots of moving pieces everywhere (almost none on the news media, def not in the white-western media). It seems Nuremberg 2.0 is on track.
I hear you, Rhys Jaggar! this is the dilemma of ‘a few good americans left’ unable to effect anything to stop the ‘mad dog’… so outside forces is called in or being forced in to shouldering the responsibility of ‘hunt the tigers and swat the flies’ under the ‘mandate of heaven’ for all humanity, so no more children needs to die as ‘collateral damage’.
Has the USSA own up to the dead afghan children they drone yet?!!! and that is just one, out of tens of thousands… you want to live? talk to the dead children!!!
bwbs
You are very welcome and thank-you for reporting to us. You managed to translate the flavor and the meaning and context, instead of just the factual picture. That is very valuable!
Congratulations to a successful rescue operation!
Onward, ever onward! Straight up and straight ahead!
Brother Blue Iconoclast
The Empire of Chaos has hit the Rocks. The idea of preventing a major Superpower from controlling the Eurasian Landmass by playing Russia and China off against each other was and is a dumb idea. Why would they think that Civilizations one Millennia and 5 Millenia old would fall for that makes no sense at all. Only Wolfowitz could be that stupid.
“In my frequent conversations with Alastair Crooke, one of the world’s foremost political analysts, ”
I am so glad to see this comment.
I respect Crooke greatly, but had never noticed Pepe referencing him.
Of course Pepe is the best!
And so is Crooke!
Very good article. (many) Comments too. I don’t mind a flavour of excitement and joy in it, typical for Mr. Escobar’s optimism. I also don’t mind traces of bias in methodology. It is a matter of optimism, good will and hope.
Since, Afghanistan trully needs the hope.
Write and say what you want, but the Afghans completed one mont without defragmentation, without civil war (fire exchange in Punjshir valley I treat as an intra family misunderstanding).
The Afghans show that they are fed up with the war, and they expect something better. They show patience, expectations and hope. And it is very good, to start with.
All those stories about inclusive government are superfluous. Do you expect the Talibans to change themselves overnight, and spit on themselves’ face?
Of course, no. They did a lot within this decisive month. A lot – by doing nothing. Let us be patient. This is an interim cabinet. The great news is that the Talibans, as I think, quite well understand where they work in. They are (political leadership) wise men and they shohould to be wise – since there is no alternative. Country reconstruction expects them, with the help of mighty neighbours, which, moreover, offer win win conditions, respecting sovereignty. Is there better way to keep someone dependentable?
Afghnistan is a sort of catena mundi.
As Mr. Escobar implicitely indicates in his article, the whole world attended a big lecture, in a geo-classroom, when one paradigm was (have been) changed into a contrary one, within less than a month. I really couldn’t believe my eyes.
It echoed at all edges of the world. The kneels of a bad giant trembled seriously (as with its highest envoy – Mr. Biden).
At once, we witnesed eg AUKUS agreement (about submarines – see fresh article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AUKUS ).
Not secretly, as it should be, but in public, as a message to, urbi et orbi, that the bad giant is still standing uprightly. At the cost of French reaction. Again in public. All right, I understand that Mr. Macron is scion (or to put it: sCION) or outgrowth of financial-banking complex, and maybe they are making a theater, but why then in public, through devastating message of their weakness and despair. The primary question is is delivery completion of all (8) submarines. Theater again?
Was it reasonable to replace the French SSNs Barracudas with the US (or UK, or some mixture of the two) SSNs, all with nuclear propulsion submarines? (see eg https://www.businessinsider.com/france-australia-deal-submarine-technology-comparisons-2021-9) (here is used the US Navy classification symbols – see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hull_classification_symbol).
Just see on eg Google Earth disposition of straits in respect to Australia (Darwin, see eg https://www.navy.gov.au/establishments/hmas-coonawarra).
Now, one should compare transport capacity (and attack/blockade vulnerability) of tankers, pipelines and railway (high-speed, even freight). Asia is inland, mainland (when I say Asia I mean eurAsia, with Europe as its appendix – now much better connected by Nord and South Streams – geography is a miracle). It seems it is a matter of time. But time is money – someone has a lot of, someone is run out of.
Beware the Saudis cloak of energy trade and ‘cultural’ support, but source of Wahabist poison indoctrination to create terrorists such as what was done in Xinjiang, at the behest of Israel and the Western Zionists. China knows well the consequences.
Pepe explores the incredible changes occurring, not only in Eurasia, but much of the Middle East. What we are witnessing is a slow, but steady shift away from America’s Unipolor vice grip on the world.
What we should be watching next is to closely keep tabs on *where* the EU headed? Currently, it remains under US financial, political, military dictates. Even so, it’s been a “gravy train” of stupendous riches for the multi-billionaires in Europe/elsewhere.
While fascinating to watch this historical shift, chief amongst it all, is WHY the US/EU/Canadian govts. have instituted Covid considering these earth shaking shifts of a dying US Empire.
QUESTION: is the purpose of Covid to intentionally kill off millions of American citizens. Why not? Who would benefit from a dead society….who else but the filthy rich monsters in the US with some in the EU. Does this mean, the Super Rich in the US realizes the Empire is lost so let’s steal and destroy as much as possible before the entire hegemony dies?
Americans are starting to experience incredible amounts of food and other products shortages. Now we hear of upcoming winter shortages/outages with gas and electricity. Will they kill that many more thousands of citizens?
Never put anything past what these tyrants will do to maintain their riches and power.
And no, we’re not pessimists, but realists.
I live in Sistan, previously Sakastan, and it’s people dominate all the way to Kandahar. The 5,000yo Sistan Village still exist and Ayatollah Ali Sistani’s ancestors hail from here and I visited the abandoned family home, took some photos..
It is not far from the archaeological Burnt City on the banks of the Helmand river. This city existed at the same time as the Babylonian civilization.
I am pleased to read an article such as this, which narrates the correct details, and in simple prose, about the historical aspect of current geopolitical issues (the bit about the North Iranians or Scythians) — a surprising deficiency in an epoch when information access and education are at an all time high. But I find Pepe Escobar to be mostly above all such faults. Such information can enable serious readers to form a complete and accurate picture about current situations, and how their roots reach back far over the centuries. Well done!