tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-52277029641643117112024-03-19T08:11:25.951-04:00nomadic days & nightsRuthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.comBlogger4125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227702964164311711.post-72616834862555191422014-04-17T04:23:00.001-04:002014-04-17T04:23:38.070-04:00A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia<br />
A friend shared this photographic story by photographer and travel writer Asher Svidensky, and I think it is magnificent. Ashol-Pan may be the only girl apprentice using eagles for hunting in 2000 years. She frees the birds to find their prey. There is so much that is astonishing here. The distance and heights traveled. The beauty and freedom of the eagles aiding humans. The vistas.The evolution of tradition. The photographs. Something in me soars with this!<br />
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Read and see the other photographs here: <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-26969150" target="_blank">BBC's "A 13-year-old eagle huntress in Mongolia"</a><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic8Pwr-ouUMNzwPt_g_R417KocQcSmKYe62HdvZ1BQWeE52IU3mQ_zhuxHQVgCt6i6EmPliS1FTqS-gp347MrTKvho5I-BpyXcIRCdR3jswcVITJ5pccAV_BVi8OHuQo64k6_2ehNaM18/s1600/_74151933_82.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEic8Pwr-ouUMNzwPt_g_R417KocQcSmKYe62HdvZ1BQWeE52IU3mQ_zhuxHQVgCt6i6EmPliS1FTqS-gp347MrTKvho5I-BpyXcIRCdR3jswcVITJ5pccAV_BVi8OHuQo64k6_2ehNaM18/s1600/_74151933_82.jpg" height="392" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">photo by travel writer and photographer Asher Svidensky</td></tr>
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<br />Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com9tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227702964164311711.post-44865945766537618482014-02-01T13:38:00.001-05:002014-02-01T13:46:49.618-05:00Sir Aurel Stein and paper's 2000-year road<br />
I went to the craft store last week to find paper by the pound. I wanted to write out a poem for my granddaughter (due to be born March 12). Used to be I could find sheets of this stationery in 100s of colors with matching envelopes at this store and another, which has closed. I could buy one sheet or twenty, one envelope or many, and I could mix and match colors at a whim. The system fit my dislike of prepackaging. Plexiglass shelving units are there where the paper used to be, but now they are filled with scrapbooking paper. I can infer from this that people are creating scrapbooks about their lives, but they're not writing letters about them on paper to friends and family.<br />
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That's not a surprise, and I'm grateful when we can preserve trees, minimize waste and all of that, but I felt the loss of all that paper, of the colors and the ability to send someone special a letter written with a black ink art pen and a few doodles and sketches inserted here and there like we do emoticons now. I have not done this more than once or twice in at least a decade, whereas in the 1970s and 80s I did it often. But I felt a twinge that this product was not available, that people — including me — are not writing letters, and that already a valuable part of my life is past.<br />
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Obviously this is not a new topic. It could be that I found this more meaningful because last week I had also read about the origins of paper. I had been under the false idea that paper began with papyrus in Egypt. Although the word "paper" came from "papyrus," paper did not come from the papyrus plant and originated as a pulp papermaking process in China in around 100AD.<br />
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Below is a Sogdian scrap again (see <a href="http://nomadic-days-nights.blogspot.com/2014/01/being-nomad-about-what-to-study.html" target="_blank">last post</a>), but this time it is a piece of the famous Ancient Letters, discovered in 1907 by <a href="http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/stein-marc-aurel" target="_blank">Sir Aurel Stein</a>, Hungarian-born British citizen, in one of the watchtowers of the Chinese frontier wall (Great China Wall). The Sogdian script derived from Aramaic. These pieces of the Ancient Letters are the oldest existing scraps of paper. Stein thought they were from the decades after the inception of paper, but researchers don't see confirmation of that and believe they could be from the 4th century.<br />
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURQOGbsQFXwM41vUt6c8ydPTwY1sYSwGHSvDO_xmtKHj9ztshI9aUnDJVEe30l7Ez0BNXIY3HIW0W1EIED0jQEUiI7mezmpJxVQFEC_AOTVMag_9niBQYOOgTV_1WLCkVo6O6h-sXNas/s1600/sogdian+ancient+letter+whitfieldfig3.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURQOGbsQFXwM41vUt6c8ydPTwY1sYSwGHSvDO_xmtKHj9ztshI9aUnDJVEe30l7Ez0BNXIY3HIW0W1EIED0jQEUiI7mezmpJxVQFEC_AOTVMag_9niBQYOOgTV_1WLCkVo6O6h-sXNas/s1600/sogdian+ancient+letter+whitfieldfig3.jpg" height="287" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">piece of one of the five Ancient Letters<br />
in Sogdian script<br />
photo at Silk Road Foundation,<br />
<a href="http://www.silkroadfoundation.org/newsletter/vol3num2/2_whitfield.php" target="_blank">The International Dunhuang Project</a></td></tr>
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<blockquote class="tr_bq">
"The group consists of five almost complete letters and a number of fragments of similar letters. Each letter was folded several times and bore the names of the sender and addressee on the outside. Most were tied with string; one letter was wrapped in silk and enclosed in an envelope of coarse cloth addressed to Samarkand, 2000 miles to the west. From the letters themselves it may be deduced that at least two were written in Tun-huang [Dunhuang] and one in Kutsang. The inference that they represent the contents of a “mailbag” lost or abandoned in transit from east to west accords well with the general tenor of the letters, which seem to consist largely of reports to wealthy Sogdian merchants by their representatives abroad." — <i><a href="http://www.iranicaonline.org/articles/ancient-letters" target="_blank">Encyclopaedia Iranica</a></i></blockquote>
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<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAu1PCZCkkP8vCoXnw2yuBumL4ZZtoNlh0U0YoHuV4vqFW0cLliLjoDbx8-lMHsHtTYrq3ics7Pjb8TC5LdeWKR8JiHRiwUsgbblxysCefLD5LzYq7Eyh6pn4dUNqkHASM95cDOEAkfvE/s1600/stein_limes_2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiAu1PCZCkkP8vCoXnw2yuBumL4ZZtoNlh0U0YoHuV4vqFW0cLliLjoDbx8-lMHsHtTYrq3ics7Pjb8TC5LdeWKR8JiHRiwUsgbblxysCefLD5LzYq7Eyh6pn4dUNqkHASM95cDOEAkfvE/s1600/stein_limes_2.jpg" height="466" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption">Lime Watch Towers, photo by Sir Aurel Stein, 1914<br />
Photo 392/28(479), © The British Library Board<br />
photo from <a href="http://www.vam.ac.uk/content/articles/t/the-silk-road-finds-map-2/" target="_blank">V&A</a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKVCnnZO21qhcVhKhGynMz4cWXMyEKl37NKJACFuj6WHV2_zVng5Nv3aEfOK0X-K4CEj_UIG_t7HLP91ALuzWrvUoCTVwpwnA4v0otREANd0UCjzm2HwIwvh_9A7Tpfw2OLI0T32Gk4E/s1600/Dunhuang_location.png" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgrKVCnnZO21qhcVhKhGynMz4cWXMyEKl37NKJACFuj6WHV2_zVng5Nv3aEfOK0X-K4CEj_UIG_t7HLP91ALuzWrvUoCTVwpwnA4v0otREANd0UCjzm2HwIwvh_9A7Tpfw2OLI0T32Gk4E/s1600/Dunhuang_location.png" height="504" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Dunhuang, China, wiki map</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pyjpTN9EqswePBA8fauY0Jqblkkb76JxzIASw69gXZTBAsT3-Y-JoOop4YM_xROUXCk8BtHZT7zb4g3FEiXPvuNyEs3oH39qPB9b-D3CVtD65YSLJaVhhJAK-kmcy5yI-56r7Y8fd4k/s1600/Aure%CC%81l_Stein+1929.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg3pyjpTN9EqswePBA8fauY0Jqblkkb76JxzIASw69gXZTBAsT3-Y-JoOop4YM_xROUXCk8BtHZT7zb4g3FEiXPvuNyEs3oH39qPB9b-D3CVtD65YSLJaVhhJAK-kmcy5yI-56r7Y8fd4k/s1600/Aure%CC%81l_Stein+1929.jpg" height="490" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Sir Aurel Stein (1862-1943), archeologist, explorer, geographer<br />
<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aurel_Stein" target="_blank">wiki</a> photo</td></tr>
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Stein found the Ancient Letters and also purchased many discovered manuscripts, including a stash of 500 cubic feet of bundled manuscripts — 10,000 documents and painted scrolls — happened upon by Buddhist monk Wang Yuanlu at Dunhuang. Stein paid him one hundred and thirty pounds.<br />
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Paper by the pound! OK, forgive me for that. In this age of digitization, the value of paper is in debate, but as archeological find, it becomes more precious. One can't help wondering what daily paper documents will be left in 50 or 100 years, and if all the world's known books really will be in digital format, available to the masses, thanks to Google Books and other initiatives.<br />
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As for my poem and writing it out for my grandchild, I found a cellophane-wrapped package of 5 x 8" card stock that fits the purpose well. When she's my age, if she still has the poem, how strange will it be, and how valuable in an archeological sense? I never met my biological grandmothers and grandfathers, and I know how much I would treasure anything written by hand from them to me.<br />
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<br />Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com11tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227702964164311711.post-23792439690928178622014-01-29T11:06:00.000-05:002014-01-29T11:54:04.650-05:00being a nomad about what to study<div style="text-align: center;">
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<i><i>The heart is still aching to seek,</i></i></div>
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<i>But the feet question 'Whither?'</i></div>
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<i>— Robert Frost, from <a href="http://www.poetryfoundation.org/poem/238118?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily+Poem+of+the+Day&utm_content=Daily+Poem+of+the+Day+CID_139ab9ff0e472fec55a8d6662c79efd1&utm_source=Campaign+Monitor&utm_term=Poem+of+the+Day+Reluctance">"Reluctance"</a></i></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifpjjAKIvKktYANaMOKU0iDZKr75eJvKmRucYvNO6dGLUyX-M7TOpbUHt3QvLPUvCa_MC4_xzRT0v93RlUv837_s4sRBksKGSm690BTCQEOqKOCZ8BPQpYerAbed7Oun3xm1DJN35rEkQ/s1600/chso20166_verso.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img alt="" border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEifpjjAKIvKktYANaMOKU0iDZKr75eJvKmRucYvNO6dGLUyX-M7TOpbUHt3QvLPUvCa_MC4_xzRT0v93RlUv837_s4sRBksKGSm690BTCQEOqKOCZ8BPQpYerAbed7Oun3xm1DJN35rEkQ/s1600/chso20166_verso.jpg" height="187" title="" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="background-color: white; line-height: 18px; text-align: start;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: inherit; font-size: x-small;">A list of 'nations' in Sogdian<br />from the <a href="http://www.bbaw.de/bbaw/Forschung/Forschungsprojekte/turfanforschung/en/scripts_languages" target="_blank">Berlin Turfan Collection</a></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaV_6yb3ZA1Z1fsLWvjobGPM9FCpNMnnNJFUK8ke8EdRqdMwQ8o1fxt1EDzRdctzL99P56yDKh0eAc0Zx6nMPmuw9TedWMrHxnJW2sPdG8PjAvKJ6jhR9Rvq9Uhhu_-sRVCPkBXaWbFxY/s1600/chso11600_verso+(1).jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiaV_6yb3ZA1Z1fsLWvjobGPM9FCpNMnnNJFUK8ke8EdRqdMwQ8o1fxt1EDzRdctzL99P56yDKh0eAc0Zx6nMPmuw9TedWMrHxnJW2sPdG8PjAvKJ6jhR9Rvq9Uhhu_-sRVCPkBXaWbFxY/s1600/chso11600_verso+(1).jpg" height="317" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: inherit;">Sogdian script</span></td></tr>
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These scraps of ancient paper with Sogdian writing from pre-Islamic Central Asia, from <a href="http://www.ancient.eu.com/sogdiana/" target="_blank">Sogdiana</a> in fact, are little morsels I glom onto as I slog through information and possibilities to follow. For me, they are representations of the mysterious beauty of the Silk Road. The long tails of letters, the curves and twists — are they not like the long passes through the Pamirs?</div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMJDj4Q8EEH4X4lh8dsSaG6iAG61lGKqodJM5Q4vsx-GVIeUjRuoIeHuiXIx8-c9PME1V0vuvGuHQtKXXz_mi22xt7v_o6UrMK8wvEVyxDrsF0jxxSuLUu4G9xsilk6S7752zsx2W14E/s1600/To-the-Pamirs4.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiXMJDj4Q8EEH4X4lh8dsSaG6iAG61lGKqodJM5Q4vsx-GVIeUjRuoIeHuiXIx8-c9PME1V0vuvGuHQtKXXz_mi22xt7v_o6UrMK8wvEVyxDrsF0jxxSuLUu4G9xsilk6S7752zsx2W14E/s1600/To-the-Pamirs4.jpg" height="297" width="640" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Image from <a href="http://pamirhighwayadventure.com/travel-tour/pamirs/" target="_blank">Pamir Highway Adventure site</a></td></tr>
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The Sogdians were people in a region north of India and west of China who were the primary traders on the Silk Route. Their borders fluctuated with the spread of their language, Sogdian. This script is similar to medieval Iranian scripts. </div>
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I'm grateful I learned — better said, <i>studied</i> — Turkish in Latin script, not <a href="http://www.cs.bilkent.edu.tr/~bilmdg/ottoman/demo.htm" target="_blank">Ottoman</a>:</div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd0jSPLOek9cu6oorYZIRPby5y4pBSwGXYR-FdEm47W5kBG1_FVYSukxWTwwlKhBnPyxZtlCToT0QuiVc627ygvKMTeax8a4TuatQGuc6sfe6uCrINYSzWxzHOBpjkWe0njZlluiqORzc/s1600/osmdoc002.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhd0jSPLOek9cu6oorYZIRPby5y4pBSwGXYR-FdEm47W5kBG1_FVYSukxWTwwlKhBnPyxZtlCToT0QuiVc627ygvKMTeax8a4TuatQGuc6sfe6uCrINYSzWxzHOBpjkWe0njZlluiqORzc/s1600/osmdoc002.jpg" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
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With so much history, research and scholarship about this part of the world, I have to pick out grains with my fingertips, crumbs to follow that will start to make connections. How is the Sogdian language and script like Arabic, Persian, and Sanskrit? Do I care about this? You can see that just following this path of crumbs — the scripts — would take a lifetime's study.</div>
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So my feet question, "Whither?" </div>
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I will probably do what I do in a new city when I travel: venture out and turn at corners or into alleys that intrigue. It is not easy finding new points of interest when you travel the same route day after day, like my drive to and from work. In my Midwestern way, I have lived a semi-nomadic life, having lived in 30+ houses in my 57 years. In fact, ten years in this farmhouse is the longest I've lived anywhere.</div>
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Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com15tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5227702964164311711.post-21691879134794326642014-01-27T10:13:00.001-05:002014-04-05T07:11:53.269-04:00violence, unanimity and poetry<br />
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<div class="MsoNormal">
I have never been competitive in my life. I didn’t play
sports or run track in school. I’ve rarely played board or card games. When my
husband’s family taught me to play euchre, there were times when I
subconsciously wanted the opposing team to take the trick, and I almost played
the wrong card. I would have gotten a seething (though comical) look from my
partner: my father-in-law.</div>
<div class="MsoNormal">
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I was deeply conditioned in my Christian home to be selfless
and submissive. Furthermore, we were discouraged to participate in sports or
any activities that took time away from church, or God. There was no competing
with church. How I felt about things was really of no consequence, so I shaped
my life into the borders I was given.</div>
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Since becoming a mother in 1981, I’ve imagined what I would
do if someone or something were about to harm my child. I believed then without
a doubt, as I do now, that maternal instinct would kick in, and I would
cover their body with my own. While I doubt that I could stab or shoot to protect myself
if an intruder entered my home (maybe I could stun them with a frying pan), I believe
I could hurt someone to protect a loved one. I might even protect a stranger. I
would rather die than live with myself after making someone else die to protect myself. Thankfully, I have never had to test this theory. (Note here that my husband and I have just begun watching the TV series "Breaking Bad" wherein a regular, nerdy guy enters a world of unthinkable choices and repugnance, and I wonder what morality is, and what choices many people in the world are presented with daily.)</div>
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In the 1160s, the mother of Genghis Khan tutored him in the
ways of tribal alliances. (Temujin was his actual name. After he and his men
destroyed other Mongol tribes the title “Genghis Khan”—meaning “universal ruler”—was
bestowed on him by leaders of remaining tribes who wanted peace.) At age nine
(or age 16, depending on your source), he killed his half-brother. Was this
brother another woman’s son? Did his mother advise him to do him in? When you
contemplate the decapitations, boilings-alive, slaughters of whole tribes, and
all the other mind-blowing violence that infused the lives of these nomadic peoples (estimates at 40 million killed, so many that Genghis Khan is credited with cleaning 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere according to <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-1350272/Genghis-Khan-killed-people-forests-grew-carbon-levels-dropped.html">this study</a>),
even inside their own yurts (not so different than Henry I assassinating his
brother William Rufus to become king of England at around the same time), and
our horror at them in 2014, you have to wonder, What changed?</div>
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<div class="MsoNormal">
We know more about what happens in the world now, and more
quickly, than ever before. Violence seems more pervasive than ever, from
Central and South America across to Africa, and on to Pakistan and Afghanistan.
We hear more about mass shootings in the U.S. and Europe, one just yesterday at a mall in Maryland. And yet Steven Pinker and
others point out that <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/22/world-less-violent-stats_n_1026723.html">violence is down</a> drastically since previous decades. A couple of reasons are that we’ve grown more intelligent (IQs are up), and democracies are more
widespread. Our media spread fear and doubt. Our planet is being decimated, that's sure. But what is really happening to us as humans?<br />
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I watched the 2007 Russian film <a href="http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0416044/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1">"Mongol"</a> because I wanted to begin to understand Genghis Khan with as little prejudice and judgment as I could. In some ways it is a sympathetic look at what it means to be born into a culture innately violent. Shamans traveled with the marauders. Were they spiritual counselors or purveyors and protectors of superstitions? It is said that Genghis Khan's ultimate goal was to unify tribes in the largest empire the world has ever seen, from China to the Balkans. He wanted harmony, but he won it by violence.<br />
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There is a warrior-poet from 17th century Afghanistan named Khoshal Khan Khattak. He wanted Afghan tribes to forsake their fighting and unite. He wrote this poem.<br />
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<br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">As I Look On</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">As I look on I am amazed</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">At this world's denizens,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Just seeing what these dogs will do</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">To satisfy the flesh.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">Such dealings as are brought about,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Men being what they are,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Satan himself could not devise,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Still less consider fair.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">They place before them the Koran,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">They read aloud from it,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">But of their actions not a one</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Conforms with the Koran.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">In which direction should I go?</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Where should I seek for them?</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Wise men have now become as rare</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">As the alchemist's stone.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">Good men are like garnets and rubies,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Not often to be found,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">While other common, worthless men,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Like common stones, abound.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">It may be that in other lands</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Good men are to be found</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">But they are few and far between,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">I know, among Afghans.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">However much he counsels him</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">And gives him sound advice,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Not even his own father's word</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Does he consider good.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">And yet Afghans, in all their deeds,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Are better than the Moguls;</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">but unanimity they lack,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">and there's is the pity of it.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">I hear talk of Sultan Baholol,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Also of Sher Shar Sur:</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">They were Afghans who won renown</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">As emperors in Hind.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">For six or seven generations</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">They ruled in such a way</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">That all the people were amazed</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">At their accomplishments.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">Either they were another kind</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Than these Afghans today,</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Or else it is by God's command</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">That things have reached this pass.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;">Once Afghans acquire the grace</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Of unanimity</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Aged Khushal will thereupon</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;">Become a youth again.</span><br />
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span>
<i><span style="color: #45818e;">— Khoshal Khan Khattak (1613-1690)</span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: #45818e;"><br /></span></i>
<i><span style="color: #45818e;">(I regret not having information </span></i><br />
<i><span style="color: #45818e;">on the translator.)</span></i><br />
<br />
<br />
<br /></div>
Ruthhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/14204074161539605133noreply@blogger.com7