LL-L 'History' 2006.07.10 (02) [E]

Mon Jul 10 16:59:27 UTC 2006

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L O W L A N D S - L * 10 July 2006 * Volume 02
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From: 'Global Moose Translations' <globalmoose at t-online.de>
Subject: LL-L 'History' 2006.07.09 (03) [E]

Paul:
>Not forgetting Alfred, the only English king to get the tag - though the
earliest
>use is several centuries after his death. Of course, all most people know
is
>that he burnt some cakes.....

Never heard of him. Was he a lousy cook, then?

Ron:
>By the way, North Germans and Eastern Netherlanders (who are largely
descendant
>of Saxons) have been routinely taught about Charlemagne's greatness in
school.
>At least in my school there was not explicit mention of his treatment of
Saxons
>and Slavs.

In France, every child knows that Charlemagne is the bloke who "invented
school", and hates his guts accordingly. There are even songs about him:
"Sacré, sacré Charlemagne", "Marie, Pierre et Charlemagne", and others.

Thomas et. al.:
As to the body count discussion: who cares how many were killed exactly and
by whom, as long as these things are still going on? There are very few, if
any, nations in history not guilty of ethnic cleansing at some point in
history, often on a very large scale. Only, even today, some ethnicities
seem to be more "equal" than others, to quote Orwell. There is a great and
continued global outrage about the Holocaust, as well there should be, but
what about the eradication of Native Americans, what about slavery and all
the butchering in African colonies? I don't believe it is just because that
happened less recently that the outrage is not quite the same. I believe it
is because of the mental image of these people as "savages", and therefore
at least somewhat inferior to our European/Western culture.

It must be part of human nature to regard others, even large groups of
people, as "inferior" to some degree, depending on gender, social status,
wealth, looks, health, intelligence, religion, heritage, language, and so
forth. Also, there is an ingrained fear of anything that feels "strange" and
different. What I find much harder to understand is that people can be so
brainwashed that they will suddenly turn against their own friends and
neighbours with whom they have peacefully coexisted for decades because they
are now perceived under the all-overriding label of being
Jewish/German/Hutu/Croat/Arab/Protestant/Kurd/you name it. And, since they
lead to rape, murder and even genocide, these must be very strong feelings
indeed. Yet, there seem to be some cultures that are more or less "immune"
to this - or is that just wishful thinking?

Gabriele Kahn

----------

From: Wesley Parish <wes.parish at paradise.net.nz>
Subject: LL-L 'History' 2006.07.09 (03) [E]

> Sandy:
> > Alexander, Catherine, Peter, Herod...?
>
> Not to forget Karl (Carolus Magus > Charlmagne, German _Karl der
> GroÃŸe_ "Charles the Great") who "integrated" the Saxons.
>
> Perhaps ruthlessness is what "great" stands for in most cases. Or
> something has been omitted: "the great ..."
>
> Not forgetting Alfred, the only English king to get the tag - though the
> earliest use is several centuries after his death. Of course, all most
> people know is that he burnt some cakes.....

In his case, "the Great" is deserved - on the basis of his constant refusal to
give in, even when almost totally beaten.
>
> Canute (Knut) is also sometimes refered to as "The Great", and he was king
> of England for a while.

That's the arrogance of the Pommies! Any foreigner who's basically walked
into a job as their king, and isn't actively disliked, gets the star
treatment. E.g., Queen Victoria's worship of the dead Prince Albert... ;)
>
> As for ruthlessness, in those times at least, if you weren't, you didn't
> stay king for very long.
>
> Paul Finlow-Bates

> From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
> Subject: History
>
> Hi, Wesley!
>
> Didn't Charlie have eight thousand tribal chiefs executed in one say?

Apparently so. Or was it four thousand? Some huge number.
>
> By the way, North Germans and Eastern Netherlanders (who are largely

I once flatted in an attachment flat owned by a Dutch immigrant to NZ, and he
assumed I was Dutch, for some reason best known to god and himself. The only
time he may have revised it, he told me about his trip/s to Frisia and Koln.
(He wasn't impressed by the Frisian inclination to talk Frisian around
him. ;) He may have been fishing for a reaction.
> descendant of Saxons) have been routinely taught about Charlemagne's
> greatness in school. At least in my school there was not explicit mention
> of his treatment of Saxons and Slavs.

True. I learnt about Charlemagne through prose versions/translations of The
Song of Roland". I learnt about his disastrous intervention in Spain, but
nothing about the reasons for it. Of course, it's nice that he had Alcuin
there to protest the Frankish treatment of the Saxons - it would've meant a
bit more if he had've bothered to listen.

Wesley Parish

-- 
Clinersterton beademung, with all of love - RIP James Blish
-------------
Mau ki ana, he aha te mea nui?
You ask, "What is the most important thing?"
Maku ki ana, he tangata, he tangata, he tangata.
I reply, "It is people, it is people, it is people."

----------

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: History

Thanks, Wesley.

You were more right than I.  It was 4500 Saxon heads.

<quote>
North of the Alps Charlemagne extends his territory eastwards to include Bavaria,
but his main efforts within Germany are directed against the Saxons.
   The Saxons, restless Germanic tribesmen, have long plagued the settled
Frankish territories by raiding from their forest sanctuaries. Charlemagne the
emperor is harmed by their depredations; Charlemagne the Christian is outraged by
their pagan practices. From 772 he wages ferocious war against them, beginning
with the destruction of one of their great shrines and its sacred central feature
- the Irminsul or 'pillar of the world', a massive wooden column believed to
support the universe.
   It takes Charlemagne thirty years to subdue the Saxons; not until 804 are they
finally transformed into settled Christians within his empire. It has been a
brutal process. Charlemagne's method is military conquest followed by forced
conversion and the planting of missionary outposts, usually in the form of
bishoprics. In his book of rules, the official punishment for refusing to be
baptized is death.
   The chronicles record that on one day some 4500 reluctant Saxons are executed
for not worshipping the right god.
</quote>
http://www.historyworld.net/wrldhis/PlainTextHistories.asp?historyid=aa20

Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Gabriele.  I cannot argue with any of them.

> Yet, there seem to be some cultures that are more or less "immune"
> to this - or is that just wishful thinking?

I often wrestle with the same question.  When I visited the then Yugoslavia (on
more than one occasion) I was rather taken by what seemed like between cordial
and close interesthnic relations, plus a lot of intermarriage.  At that time I
had no idea that I was dealing only with Dr. Jekill.  In the case of Polynesia,
for instance, we have cultivated this image of lovely island paradises with
gentle people, but there, too, are histories full of feudalism and warfare. 
There are cultures like those of the American Pacific Northwest Coast of which we
know only peaceful behavior, but we don't really know what happened here before
the coming of Europeans, do we?

At the apparent end of the day it is always either the Dr. Jekill image or the
Mr. Hyde image that lingers regarding all nations and historical leaders,
whichever image is pumped up or is convenient to us at any give time or for any
purpose.  The problem is that looking only at one or the other makes us miss out
on really learning from history and relating it to the present and to the future.

Regards,
Reinhard/Ron

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