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 Lev Navrozov emigrated from the Soviet Union in 1972 He settled in New York City where he quickly learned that there was no market for his eloquent and powerful English language attacks on the Soviet Union. To this day, he writes without fear or favor or the conventions of polite society. He chaired the "Alternative to the New York Times Committee" in 1980, challenged the editors of the New York Times to a debate (which they declined) and became a columnist for the New York City Tribune. His columns are today read in both English and Russian.
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Marco Polo visited China in the 13th century. Polo came from Christendom (as the West plus Russia were called).
What was Christendom like in terms of freedom?
In the 16th century, that is, about three centuries after Polo's visit to China, namely on the night of 8/24/1572, the Christians called Catholics massacred in Paris the Christians called Huguenots (actually, they were Calvinists). The massacre was part of a CatholicøCalvinist war that raged in France in the 16th century, and the Huguenots disappeared only in the 18th century.
Polo was an Italian. The key organizer of the massacre in Paris was the Italian Catherine Medici.
In Soviet Russia of the 1920s and the 1930s all Christians of all sects and denominations and all religious people were persecuted if their continued to profess their faith, while the churches were closed and demolished.
The massacre of the Huguenots in Paris is known as the St. Bartholomew's Massacre because it began on St. Bartholomew's Day. St. Bartholomew was an apostle, hence a Jew. His name is Aramaic, which Jews spoke. Yet Christopher Columbus, before going to ÒIndia,Ó wrote to the King and Queen of Spain to praise them for the deportation of the Jews from Spain and promised to bring baptized ÒIndiansÓ instead of the rightly banished Jews. In the 1940s Hitler had six million Jews gassed.
And here came Polo to China (in the 13th century!) and what did he see? Christian churches (in 13th-century China!) and synagogues (!) functioning side by side, exempt from taxes! Books were published in all fields, including those for which a European would be sent to the stake.
Had Polo known the word ÒdemocracyÓ he would have said that Òfreedom and democracyÓ were thriving in China!
But what about absolutism?
Absolutism was more absolute, autocratic, unquestionable in China for 4,000 or 5,000 years than at any time in any country of Christendom.
But how was it maintained?
Polo noticed that Chinese wore poison. If arrested, they swallowed it, for no one could bear what could happen after the arrest. But the police forced them to swallow what made them vomit the poison.
Absolutism in Christendom (including atheistic Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia of the 1920s and 1930s) and in China has been maintained on different principles. In Christendom the principle was psychological and in China behaviorist.
The word ÒpsycheÓ is European (originally Greek). The word means Òsoul.Ó A kindred European word is Òspirit,Ó in Greek Òpneuma,Ó which is a direct translation of Hebrew Òruach,Ó meaning Òbreath.Ó
Incidentally, when I refer to Christianity or to the Christian notion of Òsoul,Ó I do not mean that those who destroyed Christians of another denomination in Paris on St. Bartholomew's Day were Christians, and not ruthless savages, calling themselves (true) Christians and parroting the Bible. Indeed, Christ warned that many imposters would speak in his name.
The method of absolutism in Christendom was to create in every inhabitant a soul or psyche that would make the inhabitant ready to live and die for Òour faithÓ and hence Òfor our church,Ó Òfor our country,Ó and hence Òfor our sovereign.Ó
Today's Western scientists who deny the supreme role of one's psyche-soul in human behavior are called Òbehaviorists.Ó The Chinese absolutism has been behaviorist for millennia, and was more absolute than the psychological absolutism in Christendom.
Recently, a Chinese Òperformance artistÓ was shown on television all over the West: he had surpassed the wildest eccentricities of the latest Western performance artists: he ate the flesh of stillborn babies. What freedom and democracy! Even in the democratic West half a century ago, the police would have been called to arrest Òthe artist.Ó Nabokov was sued in the United States for his novel ÒLolitaÓ in which the girl who has a love affair is under age by modern Western standards.
Imagine that Chinese Òperformance artistÓ eating the flesh of stillborn babies in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Russia! He would have disappeared after the first bite.
But the sovereigns of China have believed for millennia that a subject or a citizen eating the flesh of stillborn babies may be loyal to Chinese absolutism, permitting him Òto perform,Ó while Robert Hanssen, a U.S. top FBI official, a family man and an exemplary churchgoer, became a Soviet spy.
Human beings are motivated behaviorally, not psychologically, according to the Chinese millennial absolutism. If Hanssen had lived in ChinaÑin the 13th century for example, he would have known that what awaited him was not comfortable life imprisonment, but something so horrible that he would have to swallow poison on his arrest, but even that would be futile, for the police would force him to vomit the poison. The Chinese sovereigns have believed throughout the millennia that such behaviorist measures would have motivated any Hanssen infinitely more than any regular church services, to improve his soul and to make him hostile to an atheistic (e.g., Soviet) society.
The Òsupreme leadersÓ of China could prevent the Tiananmen gathering right at the beginning as the Soviet rulers did in 1968 when protesters against the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia began to gather on Red Square. The Òsupreme leadersÓ of China could seal off the Square by the police, and the gathering, left without food and water, would have to disperse. But this is not the millennial behaviorism of Chinese absolutism. Let every Chinese know that if he participates in any such gathering, aimed at restricting or limiting absolutism, he or she will be crushed by motorized armor.
The massacre should not be concealed. It should be calm, methodical, behavioralist. No psychology, please.
The Chinese are inclined to disparage Westerners for their emotionalism, psychological exuberance, passion Ñ a word that means both sexual love and agony. The Westerners are apt to believe that the Chinese have no souls because they weep, scream, and roar too little.
Once, when a ruling dynasty changed in China, five million Chinese were found to have been serving the previous dynasty and hence could be suspected of disloyalty to the new one. This happened in the West and Russia during ÒrevolutionsÓ and revolts. The executions of representatives of Òthe old regimeÓ or of rebels were cumbersome and emotional.
The Chinese sovereigns dug up alive those five million representatives of the old regime. This was surely the most practical way, dispensing with means like beheading, hanging, or stabbing as well as with burial. No hatred or malice or unnecessary cruelty.
In the West, rulers like Hitler are depicted as violent madmen: Hitler screams, waves his hands wildly, and proves every moment that he is a villain hating mankind. The Òsupreme leadersÓ of China do not scream, do not wave their hands wildly, and do not hate anyone. For them, the nano-annihilation of the West or the conversion of it into their colony is a purely practical measure necessary for their preservation of their power.
The Western attitude toward China in the past five years or so has been total blindness. Earlier, the Western attitude toward China was total ignorance. The Western ÒChina watchersÓ mistook China for part of Christendom. The critics ascribed to China the oppression in Soviet Russia like the Soviet persecution of Christians in the 1920s and 1930s. On the other hand, the Western optimists spoke of the advance of China toward freedom and democracy. Take, for example, that Chinese Òperformance artistÓ eating the flesh of stillborn babies. My God! China is in the van of Western progress toward the total freedom of expression! From the suppression as total as by the Soviet KGB or the German Gestapo to a performance artist eating the flesh of stillborn babies! The First Amendment at its freest! Whither next? At this rate, China will soon be the world's freest country!
Yes, but remember the poison swallowed by everyone arrested in the 13th century?
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For more information about Drexler's Foresight Institute and its lobbying in Congress, see www.foresight.org
To learn more about the Chris Phoenix report, suggesting a Ònano Manhattan Project,Ó go to crnano.org.
For information about the Center for the Survival of Western Democracies, Inc., including how you can help, please e-mail me at navlev@cloud9.net.
The link to my book online is www.levnavrozov.com. You can also request our webmaster@levnavrozov.com to send you by e-mail my outline of my book.
It is my pleasant duty to express gratitude to the Rev. Alan Freed, a Lutheran pastor by occupation before his retirement and a thinker by vocation, for his help in the writing of this column.
Lev Navrozov's (navlev@cloud9.net] new book is available on-line at www.levnavrozov.com. To request an outline of the book, send an e-mail to webmaster@levnavrozov.com.