Nuclear Nightmares!
Mar 8, 2013 2:16:55 GMT -5
Post by Deleted on Mar 8, 2013 2:16:55 GMT -5
Good morning to you all! 'The Times' leads today with some editorial comment on nuclear nightmares: stopping the proliferation of weapons to rogue states requires tough sanctions. Reflecting, in August 1945, on the impossibility of confining knowledge of nuclear weapons to the United States and Britain, Clement Attlee wrote: “The new World Order must start now.” That order has never been realised. Though one source of nuclear threat has been vanquished, with the collapse of Soviet communism, others are emerging. The international order is on the point of becoming far more dangerous owing to the proliferation of nuclear weapons to the worst of states. Western policy must focus on stopping it.
There is a particular urgency in the case of North Korea. As for Iran, the great Persian king, Cyrus, once organised the return to their homelands of a number of people who had been held in Babylonia by the Babylonian kings. Although the Jews are not mentioned in this document, their return to Palestine following their deportation by Nebuchadnezzar II, was part of this policy.
British Museum - Cyrus Cylinder
This cylinder has sometimes been described as the first charter of human rights, but it in fact reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC (BCE), kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms. When Cyrus came to the throne of Persia in 559 BC, his kingdom was restricted to a small area of south-east Iran. He may have extended his power over the important city of Susa, which led to an attack by king Astyges of Media (north-west Iran). Cyrus defeated him and extended Persian control from eastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. Croesus, king of Lydia (western Anatolia) felt threatened by the expanding Persian empire and his forces clashed with the Persian army. The battle ended in a draw and both armies withdrew for the winter. The Persian forces, however, pursued the Lydian army and besieged the capital Sardis for two weeks before it fell.
In 539 BC, Cyrus invaded Babylonia. The Persian army met the Babylonian forces at Opis, east of the River Tigris and defeated them. Cyrus now controlled much of the Near East from the frontier of Egypt, through Anatolia and Iran. He founded a new royal centre in his homeland, Parsagadae (city of the Persians). Later Cyrus turned his attention to Iran and Central Asia and it was while campaigning here that he was killed in 530 BC. The Cyrus Cylinder can be seen as an ancient symbol of good governance in the Middle East, and of Persian domination of the region. More recently, the Iranians themselves have rediscovered and re-appropriated their great imperial past.
Before the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Shah of Iran adopted the cylinder as a political symbol, using it "as a central image in his own propaganda celebrating 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy", and asserting that it was "the first human rights charter in history". This view has been disputed by some as "rather anachronistic" and tendentious, as the modern concept of human rights would have been quite alien to Cyrus's contemporaries and is not mentioned by the cylinder. The cylinder has, nonetheless, become seen as part of Iran's cultural identity. Any visitor to Iran today feels it at once. Here is Michael Axworthy, Director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian studies at the University of Exeter, and the author of 'Empire of the Mind' - a history of the enduring ideal of the ancient Persian Empire:
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BBC - Oxus chariot model
In today's complex and interconnected world, rather than the Oxus gold chariot model, as described so brilliantly in the link above, how about something for more serious travel across our latter-day empires of the mind? We cannot wish away nuclear technology. We have eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Sydney Grew. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you all, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: wherefore, choose life.
There is a particular urgency in the case of North Korea. As for Iran, the great Persian king, Cyrus, once organised the return to their homelands of a number of people who had been held in Babylonia by the Babylonian kings. Although the Jews are not mentioned in this document, their return to Palestine following their deportation by Nebuchadnezzar II, was part of this policy.
British Museum - Cyrus Cylinder
This cylinder has sometimes been described as the first charter of human rights, but it in fact reflects a long tradition in Mesopotamia where, from as early as the third millennium BC (BCE), kings began their reigns with declarations of reforms. When Cyrus came to the throne of Persia in 559 BC, his kingdom was restricted to a small area of south-east Iran. He may have extended his power over the important city of Susa, which led to an attack by king Astyges of Media (north-west Iran). Cyrus defeated him and extended Persian control from eastern Iran to the Halys River in Anatolia. Croesus, king of Lydia (western Anatolia) felt threatened by the expanding Persian empire and his forces clashed with the Persian army. The battle ended in a draw and both armies withdrew for the winter. The Persian forces, however, pursued the Lydian army and besieged the capital Sardis for two weeks before it fell.
In 539 BC, Cyrus invaded Babylonia. The Persian army met the Babylonian forces at Opis, east of the River Tigris and defeated them. Cyrus now controlled much of the Near East from the frontier of Egypt, through Anatolia and Iran. He founded a new royal centre in his homeland, Parsagadae (city of the Persians). Later Cyrus turned his attention to Iran and Central Asia and it was while campaigning here that he was killed in 530 BC. The Cyrus Cylinder can be seen as an ancient symbol of good governance in the Middle East, and of Persian domination of the region. More recently, the Iranians themselves have rediscovered and re-appropriated their great imperial past.
Before the Iranian revolution of 1979, the Shah of Iran adopted the cylinder as a political symbol, using it "as a central image in his own propaganda celebrating 2,500 years of Iranian monarchy", and asserting that it was "the first human rights charter in history". This view has been disputed by some as "rather anachronistic" and tendentious, as the modern concept of human rights would have been quite alien to Cyrus's contemporaries and is not mentioned by the cylinder. The cylinder has, nonetheless, become seen as part of Iran's cultural identity. Any visitor to Iran today feels it at once. Here is Michael Axworthy, Director of the Centre for Persian and Iranian studies at the University of Exeter, and the author of 'Empire of the Mind' - a history of the enduring ideal of the ancient Persian Empire:
"There is a huge and unavoidable pride in the past in Iran ... It's a culture that is at ease with complexity, that has faced the complexity of different races, different religions, different languages, and has found ways to encompass them and to relate them to each other and to organise them. Not in a loose way or in a relativistic way, necessarily, but in a principled way that keeps things together. And Iranians are very keen for people to understand that they have this long, long, long history and this ancient heritage."
BBC - Oxus chariot model
In today's complex and interconnected world, rather than the Oxus gold chariot model, as described so brilliantly in the link above, how about something for more serious travel across our latter-day empires of the mind? We cannot wish away nuclear technology. We have eaten of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, Sydney Grew. I call heaven and earth to record this day against you all, that I have set before you life and death, blessing and cursing: wherefore, choose life.
