Two recent books on the collapse of the Roman Empire in the West at the end of the Fifth Century speak trenchantly in many ways to the current condition of Europe and North America. Peter Heather’s Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History of Rome and the Barbarians (2007) and James O’Donnell’s Ruin of the Roman Empire: A New History (2008) offer different, almost irreconcilable, explanations of the legendary decline and fall; but in the minimum of their shared interest in the breakup and disappearance of a longstanding and seemingly eternal world polity, the two historians, whether intending it or not, caution us concerning our own hybris. Heather and O’Donnell are participants in a reawakening of interest in the latest phase of what Peter Brown famously dubbed Late Antiquity. Both men go far in persuading us that the late Fifth and early Sixth Centuries were important for the West, formative of the Middle Ages, and not to be written off as a mere sordid epilogue to greatness.

Last week, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva attributed the current financial crisis to «white blue-eyed» people at a news conference. Strangely enough, the press hasn't attacked him for making such an overtly racist remark yet, and the British government even tried to play down the incident. The contrast with the reception Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi received when he made a bad joke about the then president-elect Barack Obama is quite striking, and it begs the question whether this is so because Silvio Berlusconi is white, or because he belongs to the right side of the political spectrum.

George Handlery about the week that was. The North Korea, Somalia and USA League: The problems of Americans abroad. Confronting bullies: the right way and the wrong way. Military modernization in Russia. Venezuela: the rule, the law and Chavez. Break the law and become successful.
 
1. File this under “How to React to Hostiles”. (Apply the insights to North Korea’s coming missile test and Iran’s Nuclear project.) This is a contribution of a reader who must remain anonymous. (This, in itself, tells much about a lot.) The following conversation on a frequency reserved for (commercial aircraft?) emergencies was overheard on a Europe-Dubai flight.

Iranian Air Defense: Unknown Aircraft, you are in Iranian airspace. Identify yourself.
Aircraft: This is a Unites States aircraft. I am in Iraqi airspace.
Air Defense: You are in Iranian airspace. If you do not depart our airspace we will launch interceptor aircraft.
Aircraft: This is a US Marine Corps FA-18 fighter. Send ’em up. I’ll wait.
Air Defense: … (Total silence follows.)

The writer hopes that, to stay, the patient pilot flew a circle before continuing his mission.

Here is a text from the pen of René Servoise, former ambassador of France to Indonesia. It is posted at Bivouac-Id, Le Post and Terre d'Israel. Despite its length, I chose to abridge it only slightly.

Spain’s pacifist defense minister, Carme Chacón, has ignited a firestorm of criticism for her surprise announcement that Madrid will pull its 630 troops out of the NATO-led KFOR peacekeeping mission in Kosovo by the end of summer. During a visit to the Spanish base at Istok in Kosovo on March 19, Chacón unilaterally declared: “Mission accomplished. It’s time to go home.” Her decision, which came almost completely out of the blue, not only breaks solemn commitments that Spain has with NATO, it also leaves Spanish allies in the lurch and further reinforces Spain’s image as an unreliable partner.

A French “human rights organization” is summoning the Dutch politician Geert Wilders to court. “Wilders made statements about French Muslims which incite to racial hatred,” says lawyer Yassine Bouzrou. The French complaint is based on a speech Wilders made in New York last September. The French courts will probably throw the case out because the event in question took place in New York, not in France.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy has responded to critics of his decision to return France fully to NATO by downplaying the significance of the plan. Sarkozy has argued that France’s full “reintegration” into the military command structure of the 26-member alliance, after an absence of more than 40 years, is little more than a formality, especially considering that France already works closely with NATO on many levels. But there is probably far more to Sarkozy’s decision than he is letting on.

 

All over Europe Islamic banks are establishing branches, Western banks are offering Sharia-compliant financial services, and European governments are trying to outcompete each other in welcoming them. Proponents of banking along the lines of Sharia (Islamic law) claim that the Islamic banking system is “more ethical” than the West’s capitalist system. This is not true. Unfortunately, however, in our age of crashing financial markets, many Westerners – not just the traditional anti-capitalist European left – seem very eager to buy that argument.

The French Catholic websites have been flooded with articles and commentaries on two of Pope Benedict's recent actions: first, the lifting of the excommunication on the four bishops of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), an event that has been widely reported in the English-speaking press, and more recently the remark made by the Pope concerning the inefficiency of contraceptives in the fight against AIDS in Africa.

The advocates of EU membership for Turkey invariably use two arguments: (a) that Turkey geographically is part of Europe (as if for example Denmark is an American country because of its Greenland territory, or Spain is an African country because just across the water it has some remnants of its old empire…), and (b) that Turkey, a supposedly secular Muslim country, would be an ideal bridge to the Middle East and the Muslim world.