Creo pertinente en esta parte de la observación sobre Siria sacar en este blog lo que publiqué hace pocos años atrás en otro sitio en lengua inglesa. Es un complemento a lo que estamos observando reiteradamente en el mediterráneo oriental por esto días.
Is there life after that?
Igor Parra
Is it possible for a politically organised group to be resilient to Abrupt Civilization Change? That is, is it possible for people to survive temporal Abrupt Change which is rapid, when compared with human small-scale proportions - even when politically organised? This is an interesting question because, in general, the answer is in the negative. There is human life beyond Abrupt Civilisation Change, however.
We have already mentioned the particular case when the whole of Ebla Civilisation was materially destroyed by military invasion. I think that there are many other examples throughout History that will conform to this theory. In the face of terrible violent and catastrophic changes that have been brought about by war for instance, we see very many extraordinary examples of human adaptability.
There are other valuable examples available to us in contemporary western history. Let us look at Germany. Firstly, let us notice that Germany, France, Britain and other European countries have shared significant similarities in religious and political structures for centuries. These civilisations have consequentially developed comparable social organisations. Twice during the 20th century war was resorted to between these close neighbours, in an inter Western Civilization attempt to solve geopolitical differences that had arisen due to colonial matters causing fluctuations in the power balance and because of other influences within Western and Eastern Europe at the time.
These two wars ended the world influence of Europe because ten years of war (4 years of the First World War and 6 for the Second) exhausted Europe in terms of direct material destruction. This temporal 10 % of the 20th century means the decline of the European economy based on the colonies of Africa, Asia and America. This decline was not the result of alien attacks on the European countries; they collided among themselves with all the “efficient” might that their industrial technology could provide them. As a consequence we see the notorious emergence of America as a world power, born from the ashes of these European wars.
Germany is an interesting case, similar to Ebla, because of her big cultural and economical influence on Europe before, throughout and after both World Wars. Huge damage occurred to Russian and Eastern European territories at the hands of Germany during the Second World War but an equivalent revenge was had in 1945.
It took four decades for Germany to disappear as a notable political entity. We must remember that the political and geographical unity that Germany reached by the middle of the nineteenth century was a modern situation. It has recently been shown by a British scholar how terribly the Germans suffered after the Second World War, when more than 3 million died violently. Rapes were often used as punishment by both Soviet and American Forces. These facts were first heard in the Memories of Konrad Adenauer. More recently Gilles Mc Donogh gives us a precise account of this post war event. Never before or since in recent history was defeat so complete, as it was for Germany in 1945. Its fate was similar to that of Ebla and several other old civilisations that were obliterated in total political and material destruction.
The German case here illustrates two somewhat different scenarios rather well. Firstly we have a scenario where destruction happens between close neighbours who share the same Western Civilisation ideologies and socio-economic organisation. Secondly we have a scenario that shows a resilient outcome to Abrupt Change caused by total military defeat. This Abrupt Change was a destructive one, but it did not mean dramatic changes of the socio economic structure in Western Germany, therefore it was an Abrupt Change but not an Abrupt Civilisation Change.
What about when such brutal violent change involves deep changes in the economy, and in the social organisation too?
