Revenge of History 2

Historical cycles are gigantic. They do not occur over a few years, not even a few hundred years. They take place, often over periods of five hundred or thousand years. Therefore the wrongs committed may get re payed over periods of thousands years. Where is the empire of the mighty Alexander the great? It is lying in shambles. Of course it was disintegrated right after his death but what remains of Greece, the cradle of Western civilization, today? Greece is now a chaotic state which is desperately trying to retain its identity. It was under the dominion of the Ottoman empire and later with the help of allied efforts and already suffering from a civil war, could extract its independence. Spain is a shadow of the past, already reeling under a terrible economic depression, Portugal has fared no better. Spain had seen the worse when it was threatened by a civil war and the Basque and Catalan independence movements pose a grave threat, esp. if its economy continues on a downhill path. Rome is nowhere, the Roman Empire was destroyed by the own weaknesses and excesses and by the repeated attacks of vandals. The birth of Christianity also spelled doom for it. Holy Roman Empire did not last. The Islamic rule which controlled half the world with an iron hand decayed and died out as it could not compete with the Western forces. Timur’s legacy rests with his tomb and he had gone to the people whom he butchered, and is perhaps not very welcome in their midst. Same is the fate with Genghis. The legacies are dead and long gone. Mongolia and other Central Asian states are reeling under poverty and other ills and have been periodically ruthlessly exploited by different big powers at different points of time. As to Europe, its exploits are relatively new, so history’s vengeance is not supposed to occur any time soon, but there are telltale signs of stress. Napoleon is history and so is Adolf Hitler. The colonies are things of past. Financial crisis, ageing population, economic decline, dearth of bold leadership are the signs of things to come.

One would still say, but what about the individual perpetrators? Timur went unpunished, so were all those barbarous kings and emperors, who killed many and destroyed many others. The answer is – how do you know that they did not suffer as a consequence? History’s vengeance works at both levels – macro and micro. At a macro level the circumstances develop over centuries and perhaps even thousands of years. At a micro level it probably takes a lifetime or two. Generations are destroyed owing to the sins of the individuals and its not that individuals who perpetrate the crimes do not suffer in consequence. In India Mughal Empire crumbled within a generation after Aurangzeb’s death. His many sins only aggravated the decline which had already set in. The individual dynasties which established themselves on a firm footing on the basis of atrocities lost momentum in one or two generations and the rulers often had to suffer the consequences of their actions. There is no historical record to show if the tyrants suffered but nobody, however powerful, can escape disease, old age and death. It is seen in such cases that often sons betrayed fathers, friends deserted them or got them killed and their old age was more painful and sorrowful than that of compassionate and great kings who focused on building rather than destructing.