I would like to do something to promote global peace. I have decided on what the most important thing is in bringing about understanding of the world. One way to begin an understanding of the world is to focus on the differences between east and west.
But I have found that the best way to understand how the world operates is to divide it into two regions, the north and east and the south and west. Just about everything about the world falls into place around this model of the differences between the north and east and the south and west, and what it all ultimately comes down to is religion. One thing that may be different in my view from how others may look at the world is that my view has Islam as part of the south and west, rather than the east.
PERMANENCE IN THE NORTH AND EAST AND CHANGE IN THE SOUTH AND WEST
In the north and east, mostly the same nations are there today that were there in ancient times. The same nations always remain and invaders just add to the mix. In the south and west, invasions and new social orders are much more likely to result in the formation of new nations.
The primary difference between the north and east and the south and west is based on religion. There has always been dynamic flow and interaction between the two, but each is based on a pair of religions, that are historically connected to one another. In the north and east, those two major religions are Hinduism and Buddhism. In the south and west, the two major religions are Christianity and Islam.
The religions of each pair are related to one another in that Buddhism resulted from an attempt at reformation of Hinduism by Siddhartha Gautama, known as the Buddha, and Christianity and Islam along with Judaism both go back to Abraham. The fundamental difference is that Hinduism believes in many gods and both Hinduism and Buddhism revolves around reincarnation. The personal goal in these eastern religions is to reach a state of moksha or nirvana. The western religions of Christianity and Islam, in contrast, are monotheistic, believing in one god, and are based on the messages of prophets, with the goal of reaching Heaven.
The underlying reason for the difference between the north and east and the south and west is that the eastern religions, mainly Hinduism and Buddhism, are timeless in nature, near-endless cycles of reincarnation and of creation and destruction. The western religions, primarily Christianity and Islam, are new and dynamic, with an emphasis on shunning the old sinful, idolatrous and, pagan past, and embracing the new revelation of God.
The world today can largely be explained as a reflection of these religious differences, transmuted into secular form. When a new social order of some type periodically comes along, the ancient nations of the north and east just absorb it as part of the eternal cycles of creation and destruction. While the south and west is more likely to break away from the old social order in the form of the creation of a new nation.
In the north and east, turmoil and conflict have produced temporary states, down through history, but the established nations remain over the long term. In the south and west, such turmoil and conflict is much more likely to bring about new permanent states. This is the primary difference between the north and east and the south and west.
The west has nations that have been there for a long time, the nations of Europe, but not as long as the nations in the east, the nations of east Asia. Further west, those European nations formed other nations, some by colonialism and empires, that have been there for far less time, the nations of the western hemisphere, Australia and some in Africa.
In the north and east, in contrast, a conquest often results in the conqueror simply being absorbed into, and adding to the mix of the nation that it has conquered, this is familiar in the case of the Aryans in northern India. India is an ancient nation in the east, with a multitude of languages and religions. It has been invaded numerous times over thousands of years, but has simply absorbed the invaders into the mix.
Consider the difference between the Mongols in the east, and the Romans in the west. Both empires conquered large areas, but eventually passed into history. But the Mongols, being in the long-established east, left no new permanent nations, having conquered what was already long-established, while the Mediterranean nations that speak the Romance languages which descended from Latin, and also Romania, are the permanent legacy of the Roman Empire.
The rate of change in the west, relative to the east, can be seen in the reconciliation after the end of wars. The European Union, in the west, formed relatively quickly, among former enemies, after the end of the Second World War, while there still is not complete reconciliation between Japan, Korea and, China. The Korean War, from 1950-53, is still likewise effectively still going on with the intermittent military action between North and South Korea. Yet the permanence of the east, relative to the changeable west, can be seen in that the new nation of Taiwan was created, but is not completely separated from China as it would likely have been if it were in the west.
The primary differences between east and west are ultimately based on religion, but yet there is a difference in how religion is administered. There has been much more emphasis on spreading the religion, and on missionary activity, with the western religions of Christianity and Islam. This is not true in the present time, within the last few decades, India's most famous export is yoga, which is of religious origin, but it was true in centuries past. The older eastern religions spread, but more slowly. There are the Hare Krishnas, which actively promote ideals based on Hinduism, but this group started in the west.
The major eastern religions are considerably older than those of the west, with the exception of Judaism. The so-called Axial Age, centering around the Sixth Century B,C,. is when much of the religion of the east came into being, with the exception of the older Hinduism, which is the original religion of the east.
The change in the arrangement in the south and west would be unimaginable in the north and east. Consider the great changes in the borders within Europe that Napoleon's campaigns brought, uniting Germany but erasing Poland. The First World War, "The war over nothing that changed everything", left change on a scale that would be unimaginable in the more permanent north and east, the dissolution of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires into many independent states that would also be unimaginable in the east.
The modern political and economic ideologies, that tend to originate in the west, are mainly secular replacements for Christian religion. The sometimes-fervent devotion to these ideologies, such as Communism, Nazism and far-right Conservatism, can be explained by the fact that people were designed to believe in something, and when they no longer believe in religion they will just replace it with something else.
Also notice that there are six nations in the world that are named for individual people, but all of those nations practice primarily western religions. There is no nation that is named for an individual which practices primarily an eastern religion. This is a reflection of the more progressive individualism of the south and west.
These six nations are: America, named for Italian map-maker Amerigo Vespucci, Bolivia, named for South American liberator Simon Bolivar, Colombia, named for Christopher Columbus, Israel, named for Jacob whose name was changed to Israel, Saudi Arabia, named for Ibn Saud and, the Philippines, named for King Phillip of Spain. Even though the Philippines is in the far east, it is primarily Catholic by religion.
THE BOUNDARY BETWEEN THE NORTH AND EAST AND THE SOUTH AND WEST
Almost all of Africa is in the south and west, except for the ancient nations of Egypt and Ethiopia. Remember that the factor which defines the east is the same nations having been there since ancient times, while the nations of the west are more recent as well as more changeable. There were great nations in the west of Africa, the Ashanti, Songhai and, Mali, but these, in accordance with the changeability of the west in this view, are now gone except for the nation of Mali.
The most active boundary between the north and east and the south and west is the frontiers in the partition of India, with Islamic Pakistan and Bangladesh being part of the south and west. These two nations are new social orders, more like that of the south and west and with the western religion of Islam, in comparison with the ancient eastern nations all around. The nations of Pakistan and Bangladesh are, of course, not entirely new if they can be rooted in the conquests of the Moguls (or Mughals).
Both of the major religions of the east, Hinduism and Buddhism, began in India. The wheel on the flag of India is actually a symbol of Buddhism, although Buddhism is today very much a minority religion in India. These two major religions are, of course, not the only religious influences on the north and east. There are other minority religions in India, such as Jainism, but is is also rooted in Hinduism. Buddhism is one of the three great historical influences on China, along with Confucianism and Taoism. But Confucianism, although not spiritual or rooted in Hinduism, represents a timeless common-sense approach to life that fits perfectly with the general way of doing things in the east.
(Note-Has anyone ever thought about how the 1947 Partition of India resembles the Reformation in Europe, with it's split of the Protestants away from the Catholics? Did European imperialists, first Portuguese and then British, bring their continent's history to India? If Britain had stayed Catholic, rather than Protestant, in the Reformation, would the Partition ever have happened)?
Consider the Sikh religion, based in the Punjab region of northern India. There used to be a Sikh Empire, and the attempt to restore it as the new nation of Khalistan, but Sikhism, although having a more western concept of God than Hinduism, includes reincarnation like the religions of the east and this brings about the logic, according to our scenario here, of it being a part of India.
Aside from Pakistan and Bangladesh, other examples of how the "real" boundary between the north and east and the south and west does not strictly the more simplistic division of the world into east and west can be seen in Malaysia and Indonesia.
Southeast Asia, known as Indochina for it's historical mixture of influence from both India and China, is definitely in the eastern realm. The famous Cambodian temple of Angkor Wat started as a Hindu temple, but then developed as a Buddhist temple. The nations of Thailand, Cambodia and, Vietnam remain as near-ancient nations of the north and east.
But, to the south, Indonesia and Malaysia were to fall onto the south and west side of the divide. The two were originally practicing eastern religions but were then converted to the western religion of Islam. The process was similar to the bringing of Christianity to the western hemisphere. Malaysia and Indonesia are much newer nations than their neighbors to the north. Australia and New Zealand follow, in some ways, a similar pattern but were settled by Christians from the west making them, regardless of their geographical location, solidly western nations.
Just to show how much a part of the western realm Malaysia is, not geographically but according to our scenario here, a new nation even split off from it, that of Singapore. These clearly are not the permanent ancient nations that are typical of the east. Look, for example, at the difference between the two eastern city states, Singapore and Hong Kong. Both were separated from the countries that they were originally part of. But with Hong Kong, being in the north and east with it's permanence and ancient nations, the separation was only temporary. But with Singapore, being in the south and west and originally part of majority-Islamic Malaysia, the separation was lasting.
Malaysia, by the way, is an example of it is often necessary to separate nation from culture in order to understand the world. The three major ethnic groups in the country are the native Malays, and those of Indian and of Chinese ancestry. This would seem to make the country operate in an eastern way, but the conversion to Islam made it a newer nation that is part of the south and west.
You may be wondering about Korea. It is certainly an ancient eastern nation, part of the north and east and traditionally based on eastern religion, albeit with a strong Christian component as well. But yet Korea, uncharacteristic of the east, did split into two countries and social orders, that of North Korea and South Korea.
But to explain this first consider that, as with Taiwan's partial separation from China, it was the introduction of the western ideologies of Communism, democracy and, capitalism which brought about the split.
Also consider that the split between North and South Korea is actually well-rooted in history, in the so-called Three Kingdoms of Korea. Look at the following map and you will see that the present boundary between North and South Korea is approximately the same as the boundary between the northernmost of the Three Kingdoms of Korea and the others. Image from the Wikipedia article "Three Kingdoms Of Korea".
But the boundary is not exactly the same. The ancient state of Goguryeo, which corresponds to modern North Korea, extends further south than the present border and included Seoul. The present border was drawn by the U.S. and Soviet Union. This explains the Korean War of 1950-53. North Korea's invasion of the South was because it's historic border had been pushed back.
Unlike the division of Korea, the Cold War division of Vietnam into North and South was not rooted in history in the same way, and so did not last.
THE GEOGRAPHICAL EXCEPTIONS OF THE NORTH AND EAST AND THE SOUTH AND WEST
As we have seen, the boundary between the north and east and the south and west, in my scenario here, includes exceptions to the traditional geographical boundary between east and west. Let's have a look at the major exceptions. These exceptions could be considered as a kind of "boundary region" between east and west, where the two merge rather than being defined along a sharp boundary.
Judaism is an obvious exception. It is a western religion, in fact the original western religion from which Christianity and Islam both sprang. But yet, Judaism is bound up in the ancient nation of Israel that is much more typical of the ways of the north and east. However, Judaism is very limited in population and is western in the way that it has spent the majority of it's existence without a nation of Israel, because it had been erased by the Romans and then brought back into existence, in a way similar to that of Poland, nearly 1900 years later.
Egypt and Iran are both ancient nations, more typical of the north and east than the newer nations of the south and west. Both are now majority Moslem, which in our scenario here is a western religion. But, like the nations of the north and east, the two just absorbed Islam and did not break or join into new states because of it. The reason for this is their long history prior to the arrival of Islam. The vast majority of the long history of Egypt came before it was Moslem. The Coptic Christian Church had already been there for centuries.
Iran, or Persia, has been Moslem for about half of it's history. It's pre-Islamic past has never been completely eradicated, and can be seen in the celebration of the Persian New Year, No Ruz, and in the Shah's extravagant celebration of the 2500th anniversary of the Peacock Throne in the ruins of Persepolis. I see the 1979 revolution as a reenactment of the Islamic conquest of Iran, with the Shah representing the pre-Islamic past and the revolutionaries representing the Islamic conquest.
Ethiopia, another ancient nation in the northeastern part of Africa, was in existence long before it simply absorbed Christianity. A reason that these ancient nations nations remain today, and have simply absorbed changes rather than being broken up by them, can be seen in the posting on the world and economics blog "The Binding Power Of Stone Monuments And The Power Of Walls".
Ironically, Egypt and Iran (then Persia), two of the major geographical exceptions to our scenario here, made contributions to the idea of the monotheism which is the basis of the western religions. In Iran there was the early monotheistic religion of Zoroastrianism. In Egypt, King Tut's father, Akhnaton, attempted to lead Egypt to the worship of one god, represented by the sun, to the exclusion of all others. This is known as the Amarna Period, but the monotheistic concept did not last after his death.
(Note-Here is an interesting thought. Was this idea of making one god, the sun or Aten, more important than all the others influenced by the faith that the Egyptians saw in the Israelites, which were in slavery in Egypt around that time)?
In another interesting irony, the religion of the ancient Egyptians was strikingly similar to Hinduism in India. I discussed my ideas of the possibilities in the compound posting "India And The West".
EXAMPLES OF DIFFERENCES BETWEEN THE NORTH AND EAST AND THE SOUTH AND WEST
These differences between east and west, in what I believe to be the best starting point in understanding the world, are not strict rules but they are broad and general rules. Here are a few examples of how things operate differently in the north and east and in the south and west.
If the Roman Empire had been in the north and east, it would have ultimately absorbed the invading Germanic tribes from the north who brought about it's downfall. The Latin language might be like Chinese today, having several regional variations such as Cantonese but still, typical of the north and east, held together as one language. Latin, being a western language, splintered into the Romance languages that are spoken today, such as Italian, French, Spanish, Catalan, Portuguese and, Romanian.
(Note-Here is another interesting question. Given that Christianity is one of the two religious poles, along with Islam, of the west, and the primary difference between the east and the west is that new nations are much more likely to result from invasions and new social orders in the west, would the Roman Empire have still broken apart as it did if it had not been Christian? Remember that the eastern half of the Empire continued for a thousand years as Christian Byzantium).
In the western hemisphere, if the south and west worked in the same way as the north and east, the native Indian nations such as the Aztecs, Maya and, Inca would simply have absorbed the conquistadors and would be as permanent as are China, Japan, Vietnam and, Korea today. It would have been similar to the way India absorbed the Aryans and China absorbed the Manchus.
If the north and east operated the same as the south and west, the Mongols would be like the Europeans who conquered the western hemisphere and those that they conquered would have been absorbed into the new nations that would have formed like the native Indians of the western hemisphere being absorbed into the new nations that the Europeans formed.
If the Netherlands had been in the north and east, the southern Flanders region would not have split into what is now the northern part of Belgium because of the Reformation. The nation would have simply absorbed the differences.
Consider the empires of Greece, and then Rome. The Greek Empire, to the east, splintered and did not leave any new permanent nations, even though it had great influence, in a way similar to that of the Mongols further east. The ancient nations remained, as always. The Roman Empire, to the west, did change the political landscape and leave a number of permanent nations when it splintered. This is a fine illustration of the major difference between east and west.
Another way that we see the primary difference between north and east and south and west is in terms of language. The fragmentation of widely-spoken languages in the east, such as Chinese and Sanskrit, does not produce new nations as it does in the west, such as Latin fragmenting into the Romance Languages.
For that matter, there does not seem to be the extent of fragmentation of languages in the east that there does in the west. Latin, German and, Slavic all have a family of languages descended from one language. Again, the Chinese language can be seen to have begun the process of fragmentation, into such as Cantonese and Fujianese, etc. but, typical of the ways of the east, has not entirely fragmented and certainly the country shows no sign of fragmenting like the Roman Empire.
Another example of language splintering that is typical of the south and west is that of Urdu. Mogul conquests brought the use of Persian and Arabic script to speakers of the Hindustani language. The result is that today we have the two languages of Hindi and Urdu that are mutually intelligible when spoken, but where Urdu uses Islamic Persian script. Remember that the Partition of India and Pakistan is the most active boundary region between the south and west and the north and east, and this split in language is a reflection of that boundary.
The many different nations in the western hemisphere are based on the European nations, which themselves are based on divisions of the Roman Empire, speaking different languages. One of what I consider as the two great examples of western national fragmentation, which would be unimaginable in the north and east, is the many Spanish-speaking nations of North and South America.
The reason for this is that imperial Spain forbade it's colonies in the western hemisphere from communicating with one another, while the other European imperial powers had no such rule. The many Spanish-speaking nations, long forbidden from communicating with one another, did not unite even when liberated together by Bolivar and San Martin.
Mexico is an exception to the many small Spanish-speaking nations of the western hemisphere. I see the reason for this as the influence of Mexico containing the former great Indian nations of the Aztecs and Maya. Mexico would be larger still, on the scale of Brazil, if it had not lost half of it's territory to the U.S., in the Mexican War.
The two religious poles of the west are Christianity and Islam. The other great example of western national fragmentation which would, once again, be unimaginable in the north and east, is in the Moslem countries. We saw in "The Mecca Hypothesis", on the world and economics blog, why the Arabic language has not fragmented as the Latin of the Roman Empire, or the original German of the northern European languages, has. Moslems on the pilgrimage to Mecca have, over the centuries, kept the language as one by communication with others along the way.
This gives the area where Islam is the major religion little basis for national boundaries, and in this region national borders have been especially fluid over the centuries. Caliphates have taken control over given areas, but the entire Islamic and Arabic-speaking domain appears as too unwieldy to be one nation even though some, such as Nasser of Egypt, have tried to start the process of putting a Pan-Arab nation together, just as Libya's Moammar Gaddafi wanted to put the nations of Africa together.
I think that this concept of dividing the world into the south and west and the north and east, with the south and west being historically based on Christianity and Islam and the north and east being historically based on Hinduism and Buddhism, is the best framework on which to found an understanding of the world. it makes the world a unified whole, instead of isolated parts.
OTHER FACTORS IN UNDERSTANDING HOW THE WORLD OPERATES
1) ROOTS IN HISTORY. An event does not absolutely have to have roots in history in order to happen. But the patterns of history very much repeat themselves, and the event is more likely to happen if it does.
2) SUBSTITUTE FOR RELIGION. Humans were designed to believe in something, and if they move away from religion, they will just replace it with something else. This is particularly applicable today in the western countries. Political and ideological movements are very much a substitute for religion. The Nazis, for example, took people who, for the most part, no longer believed in God, and did a magnificent job of giving them something else to believe in. In a way, it was a secular copy of the Reformation, but based on attaining racial purity rather than religious purity. Hitler was like a messianic figure and the promised "Thousand-Year Reich" was just a replacement for the Millennium foretold in the Bible. Even after secularism comes, the patterns of the religion remain and are just manifested in secular form.
3) DEMOGRAPHICS. An important underlying factor in what happens is demographics. Global warming is such an issue because the designers of the postwar suburbs, with the ideal that everyone would have a car, did not factor in how the population of both the United States and the world would dramatically increase. When soldiers return from war, they tend to start families and this creates "waves" in demographics. Rock music has such a place in history because it was the anthem of the Baby Boomers. It is no secret that the crime rate in society is proportional to the relative number of males between the ages of 15 and 25. It is also clear that the Second World War came at a time when the sons of veterans of the First World War reached military age. The same can be said of America's Revolutionary War and the War of 1812. Islam is such an important issue in the world simply because Moslems historically have a high birth rate. The reason that there is so many Moslems in Europe, and why it is such an issue, is simply that Europeans do not have enough children, while the nearby Islamic countries have their high birth rate. The border between the U.S. and Mexico is often in the news mainly because of the very different demographics on it's opposite sides. The reason that the encounters of Europeans with the rest of the eastern hemisphere, in contrast to the native Indians of the western hemisphere, turned out so differently is that the native Indians had missed the disease cycles that the others had been through and so had no immunity to diseases that were brought by the Europeans, greatly reducing their population.
4) UNSTABLE STATES. Not all nations are stable, particularly those that have been created artificially. This is often why dictators are necessary, to hold a diverse nation together until it has completed what I refer to as "The Strong Leader Binding Phase". A nation like Iraq, created from the remnants of the Ottoman Empire, is simply not ready to be a democracy. One reason for wars is that a convenient way to divert internal tension in a nation is to unite the nation against a foreign enemy. Notice that a number of ideologies in the world today need an enemy to focus against. A powerful general can be a political or military threat to the leaders of his own country, and the solution becomes to give him a war to fight somewhere.
5) WELL-DEFINED LAWS. No nation sets out to be a dictatorship. I find that the most important difference is that more free societies tend to have laws that are clear and well-defined, while dictatorships tend to have laws that are more subjective. For example, a law against something like "threatening the social order" can be interpreted in different ways and is likely to result in the government throwing anyone in jail that it decides is a threat to it's authority. We saw in "Civics Made Really Simple", on this blog, that the objective of all law and government is to keep the subjective as far away as possible. even if it cannot be entirely eliminated.
6) THE PARADOX OF PLENTY, ALSO KNOWN AS THE RESOURCE CURSE. One curious fact that is necessary to understand is that countries that are blessed with abundant natural resources are often the countries where the average people are worse off than in those countries with fewer resources. The government of a resource-rich country can use the income from those riches to build up a security force to keep themselves in power. The government of a resource-poor country, in contrast, is more dependent on the will of the people to stay in power, and is thus more likely to be a democracy. The people of resource-poor countries, such as the Netherlands and Switzerland, have no choice but to be thrifty and industrious and this makes them better-off in the long term then those in a country that can live off it's resources. Wealth tends to lie in the finished product, not in the raw material.
