the empire strikes back

As the Romans and the Brits discovered -- and the USA may yet discover -- empires have a nasty habit of striking back and especially so, according to Dorcas, if citizenship is given away too freely to immigrants.

“The Roman Empire started to disintegrate when the number of indigenous Romans was vastly outnumbered by immigrant citizens,” says Dorcas. “The number of people who did care about what was happening had lost control and the new arrivals from the empire were angry about conditions in Rome being worse than those they had left.”

"The Empire then struck back at what remained of glorious Rome with a vengeance," says Dorcas. "The city was sacked, historical buildings were trashed, treasure was looted and the patrician families and their country estates were left impoverished. And all of this became the eventual fate of Britain, too."

"Having contributed towards Rome's downfall -- and no longer having a reason to stay in an impoverished city with no jobs, no action and no glory -- the immigrant families moved on to greener pastures, or returned to their original homelands laden with stolen Roman treasure."

"Sure, most of this treasure originally came from the foreign lands that the Romans had conquered and brought into the Roman Empire -- just like most British treasure originally came from the foreign lands that the Brits had conquered and brought into the British Empire -- and there is poetic justice, sort of, in this sort of thing," says Dorcas, "but it's still a slap in the face for the original Roman and British empire-builders who, after all, granted the foreigners equal citizenship as well as a right to share in the glory and wealth opportunities of the empire."

Read more by Dorcas on this issue:

social cohesion and survival

did roman citizenship cost the empire?

Let’s follow Japan on immigration

are all immigrants voracious?

did roman citizenship cost the empire?

Dorcas claims that had Rome held its foreign conquests as equal treaty states and forbidden foreign immigration and Roman citizenship it could very well have remained a great and enduring power.

“I can't prove this claim, nobody can,” says Dorcas, “but you only have to look at Japan and China to see that nations which stringently maintain social, cultural and religious cohesion by repelling immigrants and protecting citizenship remain intact!"

"It took about 300 years for Rome to become unrecognizably Roman -- racially and culturally --even to the point of having African emperors," says Dorcas. "The Roman religion had been supplanted by Middle Eastern Christianity, intermarriage had just about wiped out the indigenous Roman race, and the Roman Empire was disintegrating because there were too few indigenous Romans left to care."

Read more by Dorcas on this issue:

social cohesion and survival

the empire strikes back

Let’s follow Japan on immigration

are all immigrants voracious?

will western civilization repeat history?

Western civilization - now led by the USA - appears to be following the same route as the Hellenic civilization which, in its later years, was led by Rome. The Romans crucified Jesus of Nazareth - a revolutionary Jew whom they saw as a rabble rouser - and in doing so they made a martyr of him, allowing his followers to found a new religion based on his life and teachings that eventually swept through to the four corners of the Earth, destroying not only the Hellenic civilization but also the Roman Empire.

The parallels with the current situation in the Middle East are glaring.

Some claim that the clash of civilizations desired by Islamic revolutionaries - such as Osama bin Laden and the young Muqtada al-Sadr in Iraq - will not eventuate, ever. They base their claim on the fact that the Islamic world did not rise up to support bin Laden after 9/11, and it never will. They claim that the Islamic world is far too divided along national lines - and is far too eager to remain trading partners with the western world - to become a cohesive belligerent force determined to impose its beliefs on the world.

However, the Jews did not rise up to support Jesus either. In fact, they 'betrayed him' to the Romans in much the same way that liberal Islamic nations wash their hands of the Islamic revolutionaries and 'betray' them to the Americans.

By sparing the lives of prominent Islamic revolutionaries - allowing bin Laden to go free, and negotiating with al-Sadr - America will avoid repeating history. This, in fact, is exactly what America is doing.

Had the Romans allowed Jesus to live and carry on his revolutionary social war against his own people - the Jews - Christianity, if it survived, would have probably remained an eastern cult religion and the Romans would never have had to deal with the spread of religion that ultimately destroyed their own.

Although purely speculative, in that Christianity might have spread with or without the crucifixion of Jesus, America is banking on the belief that revolutionary Islam will die out if its leaders are allowed to live.

However, by invading Iraq and deposing Saddam Hussein in order to impose democratic leadership in Iraq - and in doing so hopefully protecting Israel and lessening the spread of Islamic revolutionaries - America is courting trouble because Saddam was more western in outlook than any other leader of the Islamic nations and as monstrous as his regime was it did, at least, keep Iraq free of Islamic revolutionaries and provide its citizens, especially women, with basic freedoms.

The scenario unfolding in Iraq would be like the Romans deposing the Jewish leader in some other city where Jesus was not preaching and imposing upon the Jews of that city a Jewish leader of Roman persuasion in the hope that in doing so the revolutionary Jews, like Jesus, would not spread.

That the Romans did not do this is to their credit for it would have incensed the Jews in that city and no doubt precipitated the very situation that the Romans were trying to avoid.

In invading Iraq, America has, in effect, precipitated the spread of Islamic revolutionaries. In trying to avoid repeating history by making a martyr of the Islamic revolutionaries, America chose a route that the Romans wisely avoided.

If America really wanted to avoid repeating history it might have followed the teachings of Jesus and turned the other cheek.