New Poetry Anthology

 

Today is Nowruz, the Iranian New Year celebration. And also the publication date for a new poetry anthology of poems in support of the current Iranian uprising. One of mine is included.

I urge all and sundry to order their own copy immediately. Show your support! At the link:

Where Words Defeat Bullets – Asemana Books

Perception and the Fall of Empires

The Frogs were living as happy as could be in a marshy swamp that just suited them; they went splashing about caring for nobody and nobody troubling with them. But some of them thought that this was not right, that they should have a king and a proper constitution, so they determined to send up a petition to Jove to give them what they wanted. 

"Mighty Jove," they cried, "send unto us a king that will rule over us and keep us in order." Jove laughed at their croaking, and threw down into the swamp a huge Log, which came down - kerplash! - into the swamp. 

The Frogs were frightened out of their lives by the commotion made in their midst, and all rushed to the bank to look at the horrible monster; but after a time, seeing that it did not move, one or two of the boldest of them ventured out towards the Log, and even dared to touch it; still it did not move.  

Then the greatest hero of the Frogs jumped upon the Log and commenced dancing up and down upon it, thereupon all the Frogs came and did the same; and for some time the Frogs went about their business every day without taking the slightest notice of their new King Log lying in their midst. But this did not suit them, so they sent another petition to Jove, and said to him, 

"We want a real king; one that will really rule over us." 

Now this made Jove angry, so he sent among them a big Stork that soon set to work gobbling them all up.

--Aesop 

Iranian protests continue.

It all makes me recall the sad fate of the Shah of Iran. His regime fell under far less difficult circumstances. Iran had been developing rapidly, was about as rich as Spain at the time, was dominant in the region, and was the fifth-largest military power in the world. The Shah was an autocrat, but a moderate one, who was generally inclined to commute death sentences and declare amnesties. His worst vice seemed to be personal extravagance.

That, and his moderation on matters of religion, which alienated the mullahs.

Governments fall not because they are evil or repressive, but because they appear incompetent.

The Shah, depressed as a result of cancer and the drugs used to treat it, had become indecisive.

Or witness Louis XVI. He lost his crown and the head that held it up not because he was repressive, but because he was bankrupt, and kept changing his mind.

Yet the worst of governments can continue, seemingly indefinitely. Witness the survival of the Kim dynasty in North Korea, despite appalling famines. Witness the ability of Assad to hang on in Syria.

Nor is it just that people fear a repressive government too much. It is not terror that holds them in thrall. That cannot explain the continuing popularity of Mao in China. Stalin in Russia too still has his supporters. These men were, objectively, as bad as Hitler. The difference is not in the extent of their crimes, but that Hitler lost his war, and they didn’t.

It has been argued that the British Empire was doomed, as much as anything, by the loss of Singapore in the Second World War. It made them look incompetent. Their subject peoples around the world no longer looked up to them.

This is now the crisis faced by the Iranian government: they seem to have been revealed as all bluster, but incompetent.

And this is also the crisis faced by “the elites” worldwide—the clerisy, the professions. They are increasingly being shown up by the new, freer flow of information as not really knowing what they are doing.