Why did we lose North Africa?
North Africa (Carthage) Colonized by Phoenicians, who, as I understand it, (maybe) were South-Caucasian (South East Black Sea) > Iranian > Semitic > ~Bahrain? Yemen? (jews/yemeni origin?) In other words, they were cousins of then-North africans (theselves of the Iranian distribution)
Carthage, like Sicily, and Crete before it, was in an exceptionally good trading position and far from the high costs of defense in the fertile crescent.
Carthage was an advanced civilization superior to Rome, and culturally similar to what we imagine in greece. If Athens and Sparta were analogous to London and Germany, then Carthage was analogous to Paris.
Due to trade conflicts (that were probably unnecessary), Rome destroyed Carthage (justifiably in my opinion), weakening north Africa west of the Nile. (exaggeration maybe).
The primary damage to rome was the combination of population dilution (over-immigration), inadequate institutions for the scale (failure to develop fiat money in particular), the failure to convert from a slave to a serf and to freemen economy (largely again because an inability to develop soft money), the destruction of celtic civilization resulting in the german invasions, and therefore an inability to resist the germanic hordes. However the substantial crisis (in my view) was the Justinian Plague (the first visitation of the plague upon europe). The second was the conquest by Constantine. And the final blow was the exhaustion of the byzantines against the Persians that weakened the ancient civilizations such that the Turks (who had been kicked out of northern china), and the Arabs (who were no different from the Germans in effect) could occupy and incrementally destroy the advanced civilizations, from which neither Persia, Byzantium, The Levant, and North Africa can recover. And from which the peoples of the steppe may never progress.
In my view the semites, both Jewish and Arab are perhaps an innovation upon earlier versions of man simply by virtue of aggression. WHile the jews adopted the feminine strategy, the arabs adopted the masculine, and these two extremes seem to be extremely effective against the moderate peoples of China/Japan/Korea/India, and the north iranians (persians), and the north (europeans of all delineation).
We will, within a century, decode the genes for low IQ and high aggression, but hopefully we will domesticate (by force) the semitic peoples before either extreme is able to do further damage to mankind.
5 responses to “Why Did We Lose North Africa?”
I assume that “Constantine,” above, is a slip for “Justinian.”
I slip frequently – an unfortunate consequence of prolific fingers.
Fiat money isn’t the only way to facilitate market exchange. Anyone who’s issuing low-risk transferable paper assets is doing the job, doesn’t matter if those assets are pegged to a commodity. I used to know more details about how ancient Delos worked but I’ve forgotten. Byzantines/New-Romans were still around when Northern Italians went hardcore market (w/o fiat money), failed to adopt practices.
Syro-Arabian desert was the source of repeated intrusions of the Semitic language family into the settled Near East. Lots of parallels to the steppe phenomenon (partiarchal, martial, mobile, pastoral) but with a much lower carrying capacity -> slower competitive progression (eg camels domesticated millenia later than horses) and less territory. Never developed the non-kin comitatus. Steppe was the most “aggressive” place on the planet, learned to do it better.
Pre-Islam, settled Semites were pretty advanced compared to contemporaries and had biological aristocratic and priestly castes just like IEs. Had independent states along those lines for thousands of years until IE Achaemenids (Red Sea states stayed independently Semitic much longer but weren’t as sophisticated).
Arab rule doesn’t look like it was so bad to MENA at first. Not as good as Abbasids (Iranic). Slow decline but no collapse. Universal religion as a martial innovation gave S-A desert a one-time advantage, since then Islam has relied mostly on non-Semites for martial class. Steppe-origin Turks and especially Mongols were pretty destructive. Unclear why no recovery under progressively civilizing Turks/Mongols, parallel to High Middle Ages for German/Mediterranean hybrid Europe.
Historically Jews look a lot more like a Libertarian/Producer/Commercial caste, in your terminology. Yes, deficient in landholding, lopsided without Conservative/Aristocratic/Martial caste, but do not look like Female/Consumer strategy. Feminism/Antiracism stuff definitely fits but way too recent. Quite obviously excluded from priesthood. Near Eastern Christians, some Semitic but most not, played a very similar role under Islam. Come to think of it, could be a factor in why Islam weak in the Producer/Commerce arena.
Semites in China/Japan/Korea? I don’t think that’s your claim so I obviously lost the thread.
Like your stuff, hope you find my engagement worthwhile.
You cannot compete today in a market without fiat money (shares in economy). Just can’t be done.
Maybe, I’d be happy to discuss but I doubt I’ve established enough credibility that you’d want to put in the time right now. What I was aiming at, though, was that the idea (failure to develop fiat currency was an important factor in WRE’s fall) struck me as anachronistic.