Evil Empires - Strengths and Weaknesses

[Othniel]

Not for Vlad the Impaler. You don't get nicknames like "The Impaler" if such behavior is rare for you.

I think he meant wasn't Vlad the exception?

 

[Othniel]

The Ottoman Empire comprised SOME territories that were traditionally richer that the West, but these were AGRICULTURALLY rich, and the most important of these, Egypt, was largely autonomous. The other rich areas were so because of overland trade (Silk Road) and declined into backwaters because of establishment of the Sea Route.

The empire's resources were much harder to extract due to terrain and harder to transport to markets, also because of terrain - for instance, the most minerally rich area of the country was Bosnia, which had no convenient port and was an incredibly expensive place to build railroads. Thus it was hard for the State to marshal the resources to build infrastructure and even harder to attract private capital that would invest in enterprises that would require a huge capital investment for a return that was no larger than it would be in much easier circumstances.

The Capitulations began as grants of priviledges from a position of strength, but were corrupted into tools of economic and political domination by the Powers in the 19th c as the relative strength of Europe became clear, and the multiple oppotunities to exploit them appeared in the enormous troubles that faced the empire in the early 19th c.

Wait, didn't the Ottoman Empire have a large source of Iron and coal somewhere within its huge boarders? couldn't they have tried to make the rail themselves?

 

[MerryPrankster]

I think he meant wasn't Vlad the exception?

Yes. I meant that perhaps Vlad's turban-nailing was the exception to the rule, and most Western leaders didn't treat Ottoman diplomats badly.

 

[George Carty]

Regarding the Caliphate: there's not very much chance of it succeeding. A few people in some small villages may advocate it, but it doesn't have very wide support. Most Central Asian Muslims are fairly moderate and would not support such a regime. This is part of the reason why Karimov is still in power: as much as the Uzbeks may dislike his regime, they dislike the prospect of a Caliphate even more.

(No offense.)

And I spotted another weakness from the Hizb ut-Tahrir draft constitution - it would be unable to form alliances with other states (Article 185: "All military treaties and pacts, of whatever source, are absolutely forbidden. This includes political treaties and agreements covering the leasing of military bases and airfields."). This would make it more likely to unite the world against it.

Isn't this abysmal diplomacy a significant problem for all Islamic societies? Perhaps the easy conquest of the Byzantine Empire's Monophysite lands (easy, because it was in fact liberation rather than conquest given Byzantine persecution), and of the Persian Empire (facilitated because the Byzantines had already done a number on it before the Muslims showed up) made the Muslims feel invincible, able to take on the world alone?

 

[Glen]

- Regarding Chronos' charge of Imperial America as an 'Evil' Empire...

You think this is America as an evil empire? If some ASB came and actually turned America evil (because quite frankly, there are a lot of tradition and social checks that prevent us from going that way, not that we can't have our wrong moments like any other nation), the world would be a LOT worse off than it is. If we were evil, do you really think we'd be futzing around trying to rebuild a civilian government in Iraq? That place would be under a Military government and the Oil would be flowing...and there would be a lot, lot less people in Iraq. And that would just be the beginning...

Fortunately, the USA is not an evil empire. Do we have flaws? Everyone does. But evil? Nope.

- Regarding the question of slavery in Islam.

Just like Judaism and Chrisitianity, Islam came to the world at a time when slavery was taken for granted as a part of life. But the Prophet Mohammed conveyed as one of the main pillars of Islam the freeing of slaves (on an individual basis as an act of charity, granted, not the removal of the entire institution). This was at the time, I think, the most anti-slavery position taken by any religion of the time (maybe Buddhism was better, but I don't recall it being ever specifically addressed, and it wasn't up there as a major tenet).

If you go with a literal following of the Prophet's teachings, then over time the Islamic view on slavery becomes dated and regressive. However, if it is taken in the spirit of the times in which it was promulgated, then it really indicates that the freeing of slaves is an important aspect of Islam, and one would assume that the ultimate fruition of that would be the freeing of all slaves...ie abolition.

Slavery is not an aspect of Islam. On the contrary, freedom is. One could argue that the true follower of Islam should believe that all people should be free of any servitude, except to God, which should be an absolute surrender (thus the name, Islam). Which, BTW, is not all that different from 'Giving one's self to Christ' in spirit, if you think about it.

Of course, just as in Christianity, many things have been and are done in the name of Islam that have very little to do with it....

 

[wkwillis]

Just as an aside, slavery in Europe like slavery in Islam was not at all like slavery in the colonies. In the sugar islands and in the Americans the slaves found it much harder to run away and consequently could be treated worse. The best example I can give is that the traditional Dutch Santa's boss elf was black, because Sinter Klaus was supposed to be a bishop and bishops had black slaves for prestige purposes. Being a bishop's prestige slave got you regular meals. Something not always common in Europe. Also in Europe the many polities meant you could just leave town if you felt like it, or weren't getting treated well.
In the sugar colonies like Sao Tome, it was a four hundred year Auschwitz, with very, very, high death rates. Auschwitz may have been a country club compared to death camps like Belsen, etc, but the death rate was twenty five percent per year.

 

[George Carty]

In the sugar colonies like Sao Tome, it was a four hundred year Auschwitz, with very, very, high death rates. Auschwitz may have been a country club compared to death camps like Belsen, etc, but the death rate was twenty five percent per year.

Have you go these the wrong way round? Belsen was never a death camp - for most of its existence it was used for storing hostages, and only became the infamous disease-ridden hell at the end of the war.

 

[wkwillis]

Have you go these the wrong way round? Belsen was never a death camp - for most of its existence it was used for storing hostages, and only became the infamous disease-ridden hell at the end of the war.

Were Bergen and Belsen separate, and Bergen was the death camp? I classed them with Sobibor, not Theresienstadt.

 

[George Carty]

Nazi Concentration Camps

Were Bergen and Belsen separate, and Bergen was the death camp? I classed them with Sobibor, not Theresienstadt.

No, I would divide the Nazi camps as follows:

'Pure' Extermination Camps (Belzec, Chelmno, Sobibor, Treblinka): Mass murder was the sole purpose of these camps - the only people sent there not immediately murdered were used as slave labour in connenction with the extermination process (eg removing corpses).
'Hybrid' Extermination Camps (Auschwitz, Majdanek): These camps were used for mass murder of Jews, but also as slave labour camps.
Concentration Camps (Dachau, Buchenwald, Sachsenhausen plus many others): These were original built for the punishment of enemies of the Nazi regime, and later on became slave labour camps.

Neither Belsen nor Theresienstadt fit into any of these categories. Most of the emaciated victims discovered by the Allies in Belsen had been sent there in the last months of the war from Auschwitz and other eastern camps which had been overrun by the Red Army.

 

[George Carty]

It seems that the new Caliphate allows slavery. IMO this is a disadvantage (not only for the slaves), since free workers have a higher motivation.

Having a constitution which allows slavery isn't really a weakness. The weakness would be if slaves became a significant proportion of the total population of the society.

 

[LDoc]

I don't think the mongol empire should be considered evil at all. It was the only empire of its time to allow all religions to practice, and actualy go out of its way to bring them all to the mongol capitol. Trade flourished like never before as the silk road was made nearly completely safe from bandits. With the flourishing of the silk road came the greater interactions between cultures and nations, allowing for some of the greatest periods of technological exchange. To be ruled by the Mongols was considerably better then nearly every other nation on the planet.

 

[Paul Spring]

I don't think the mongol empire should be considered evil at all. It was the only empire of its time to allow all religions to practice, and actualy go out of its way to bring them all to the mongol capitol. Trade flourished like never before as the silk road was made nearly completely safe from bandits. With the flourishing of the silk road came the greater interactions between cultures and nations, allowing for some of the greatest periods of technological exchange. To be ruled by the Mongols was considerably better then nearly every other nation on the planet.

Hmm, you seem to be one of those people who romanticize the Mongols way too much. The fact is that they were ruthless empire builders who destroyed cities and depopulated entire regions if they rebelled. They certainly weren't the only people who did this, either in their own time or at other periods of history, but they built a bigger empire and therefore practiced it on a larger scale than anyone else.

Yes, trade did improve. This was a by-product of having almost the entire "Silk Road" under one political authority for a time.

As for religious tolerance, though, I think that has been somewhat overrated. Does it really make a difference if someone was killed because they were of the wrong religion as opposed to the fact that they happened to live in the same city or province where some other people rebelled? The Mongols didn't kill people for being of the wrong religion, but they made up for it by killing lots of people for plenty of other reasons.

 

[LDoc]

I'm sorry but I think your mistaken. There are numerouse written accounts of Mongols being of variouse religions and denominations. And the Mongols used fear as a tool to intimedate cities to surrender. I think you're basing your knowledge on Muslim historians, who used impracticle numbers for civilian deaths. Now I wont argue that the Mongols were brutal. No doubt they did whatever they had to do to win, including the use of human shields. But to claim that these weren't already used by variouse nations is false. The mongols oversaw one of the greatest periods of clutural, thecnological, and religouse exchange in history.