19 September 2008
Why is Georgia so important? Let us follow the trail to its conclusion. When the self-styled ‘Commander-in-Chief’ of the USA denounced the Russian Rescue operation in Georgia he stammered out that breaching Georgia’s territorial integrity was against ‘International Law’, and rabbited on about the rights of the sovereign State. Of course, this, coming from the head of an army which under the banner of “Shock and Awe” had invaded first, Iraq, and then Afghanistan, simply caused international laughter which covered over the intended indignation. However, this charge in turn raises profound issues of law and justice which the brilliant Russian Foreign Minister immediately saw, thus opening up a wider and deeper issue. He immediately drew comparison with Kosovo. The reaction of the media was to see this as the expected Pan-Slavism out of Russia. His powerful argument went much further. It was not to argue that Serbs had a claim, an ancient claim, to the romantic site of their defeat by the Ottoman army. His case was that Kosovo had been conquered by a mercenary international military entity, one which was above all national laws. Ossetia-Abkhazia had been taken by a national military entity, the Russian Federation.
What was this legal ‘international’ system that could deal justly with both these state-creating interventions? The claim of peoples wanting self-government made a long list. Scotland and a territorially integral Ireland had an ancient historical claim. So did the Navaho, and a broken treaty in modern times. Kashmir. Basque peoples. Corsica (recently championed by the now silent Hungarian president of France). Malaysia can claim Singapore. The Flemish are poised to carve Brussels out of Belgium at the heart of the now geographically ludicrous European Union.
The reality is that statehood is a product of military power. Never a product of ideology. The monarchy of Nepal was cleverly annexed by China under the guise of a conflict between monarchy and republic – but it is, in turn, an anomaly.
Russia restored freedom to Ossetia and Abkhazia by military power. Under the guise of ideology Nato had taken over Ukraine and Georgia. It had moved on Lebanon using the same ‘soft’ technique as in the Caucasus, conquest presented as political evolution from dictatorship to political democracy. The irony being that at the moment these countries imagined they were gaining national independence as sovereign states, they had been transformed into vassals of the Samurai alliance of a non-national army.
Today, the United States of America is in ruins, in economic freefall from its last national adventures, with its so-called democratic system a disaster of its own, and its Presidency a choice between incompetents.
It only requires the moment when Nato’s leadership reaches the hands of a ‘man of destiny’ and a new and more terrible age will have dawned. As things stand, with the nation-states providing the cannon-fodder unprotestingly, it is only a matter of a little time. The ‘West’ awaits its Wallenstein and desolation.
At this juncture it is necessary to review the growing power of the post-national army and the old system of law now powerless to prevent it.
Look again at Georgia. What Georgia can stand as an entity and on what grounds?
The first we know of Georgia was in the 6th century BC. It was then under Achmenidite Persian rule. Two and a half centuries later it was Alexander the Great who gave it statehood, making its western side the Kingdom of Colchise. In the 2nd century BC it was annexed by the Romans. By the 6th century AD it had become Christian.
In 654 Arab Muslims invaded Georgia and took the Jizya tax from the people. In the 9th century AD, Georgia became a Muslim Amirate. In 1184 Queen Thamar, married to an Ossetian prince, ran a Byzantine kingdom, both fighting the Muslim Seljuks and in alliance with the Muslim Egyptian Mamlouks.
In 1238 the Mongols took over. In 1387 Tamburlaine laid waste to the country. 1555 saw Georgia cut in two by the Treaty of Amasya, portioned out by the Safavid Persian state and the Ottoman Empire. This fatal position, between two empires, gave Georgia turbulent centuries with only phases of peace under Ottoman suzerainty.
In 1783 Georgia signed an agreement not to go to war without Russian permission. Russia posted troops in Georgia to secure the peace. On February 16, 1801, Czar Paul I annexed Georgia to Russia. Its frontiers changed in 1800, 1830, 1918 and 1920. With the Russian Revolution Georgia swung from White to Red. Its most famous citizen, Joseph Jugatchvili, changed his name to Stalin. From 1931-38 the country saw waves of repression under another Georgian, the notorious Lavrenti Beria.
By the Treaty of Kars in 1922 an autonomous republic, Adjara, was founded. This status still stands, its populace Muslim! The recent conflict has been, not merely the chaotic break-up of the post-Soviet Caucasus, but the final stage of a long history which demonstrates two things –
- Caught between two great empires Georgia has suffered untold misery.
- Under Russian protection, Georgia has known relative peace.
Look for a moment at the State of Israel. In 1948, “By natural and historical law the Jewish people, in conformity with the resolution of the General Assembly of the U.N.O.,” declared the State of Israel to be founded.
Now, natural law, would imply a genetic (racial) claim to a territory, something nowhere granted. By historical law it would imply that a) there had been a statal entity in continuity to justify the claim, and b) that this was the same people who inhabited the land.
The truth is very far from the romantic and emotional claims of the Israelis. Such claims cannot hold up to investigation, and can only damage the Israelis’ position in the modern world. The truth of the matter is, and should be recognised – that the State of Israel was won by conquest. Israel won two wars. The Egyptians under their two despicable dictators, Nasser and Sadat, launched attacks against Israel which were the great disaster of the Arab nations all around. With overwhelming technological and strategic superiority the Israelis won. Using the ideological ground derived from Nasserite and Fifties socialism, which insisted “on the right of self-determination”, a rebel army was created to “liberate” Palestinian land. Fighting in the name of liberation the Muslim ‘Umma was blackmailed into fighting for them. Guiltily, the oil states poured in millions of dollars in lieu of going to war. The P.L.O. never met the Israelis in open battle – their only war was waged against other Palestinians. Against the known Shari‘at which forbids Muslims to fight when hopelessly outnumbered, they fought the unwinnable fight by descending into terror. As for the deceit of claiming it an Islamic cause – look at the reality. The “Ex-”P.L.O. on the West Bank are governed by a military-enriched mafia and the Hamas are now only Shi‘a – under the flag of Iran. The Mufti of Nablus told us that if the Mufti of Jerusalem gave a Fatwa against suicide terror he would be executed by Hamas. The suicide policy assures the on-going reduction of the sons of Palestine and the survival of the coward generation sacrificing their young and thus their future.
If the Deen of Islam had manifested, the young men, admitting defeat realistically, would have taken four wives, refused to use the paper shekel, traded in gold dinar and silver dirham – then from the Sadati defeat to now they would be a demographic majority and financially wealthy, alongside a diminishing jewish population with a bankrupt financial backer.
The plight of the Palestinians is nothing compared to the persecution and genocide visited on the Muslims all over China, actually banned from practising the fast of Ramadan on pain of prison and torture – the millions of Chinese and Uighur Muslims.
Military power determines the outline of a State. Wise governance will grant it its allotted time.
Russia is entering a Renaissance. Its first task is to finish with the rogue oligarchs. Berezhovsky is the worst of them – he has stirred up trouble in the Baltic and the Caucasus, but so too is Abramovich in England. Their loyalty is always to the banking system, never the nation.
This is a moment for the Muslims to be wise and turn away from the outdated thinking of the Arabs. Our one hope, in Allah, is to move towards an Eastern Abbasid Khalifate. This means recognising the heroic and liberating power of the Pakistani people. They freed Pakistan from the Nato coup d’état set up under Musharraf, a Turkish-trained Nato operative. This means using all our influence to see a change of leadership inside the Taliban with a renunciation of the suicide of Muslims. Pakistan and Afghanistan should unite and seek fraternal security with Russia in its North. Be wise – look on a Russo-Afghan treaty as being as rewarding a possibility as a Franco-German one was after World War II.
Turkey will never, ever be allowed into Europe. Its geographical neighbour is Russia. A Turco-Russian alliance can only happen by the cleansing of the Turkish military’s subservience to Nato and the taking-on of a wealth-giving turning to the East. This in itself will assure the safety of the Kurdish people.
The defeat of Nato will bring a liberation for Afghanistan, and security to the victim-families of its soldiers, whose states are helpless to bring them home.
The ‘Eid, by Allah’s vast generosity, will see the awakening of the Muslim World Community, the ‘Umma, and the restoration of a collected Zakat.
