NEWS CENTER – In a new series of articles, the English Nûçe Ciwan will be publishing the 3 English translated works of the Manifesto for Democratic Civilization by Rêber APO (Abdullah Ocalan) chapter by chapter every 2 days.
Today we will start with the first work:
“Manifesto for a Democratic Civilization: The Age of Masked Gods and Disguised Kings”
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Introduction
- On Method and the Regime of Truth; Section 1
2.1 – Continuation
2.2 – What constitutes the Human Being?
2.3 – Continuation
2.4 – Moral metaphysics
2.5 – Continuation - The Main Sources of Civilization; Section 2
3.1 – Interpreting the Evolution of Social Structures in the Fertile Crescent - Urban Civilized society; Section 3
4.1 – An Analysis of Civilized Society
4.2 – Problems Associated with the Expansion of Civilized Society
There is general agreement in the scientific discussion of our key question: when and where did the worlds current dominant civilization develop? The location of this development was in the Upper and Lower basins of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. And, indeed, my analysis in the previous two sections indicates that the mountain basin skirting the Upper Tigris and Euphrates is the root of civilization —the ovule. The fertilization of the ovule by the Sumerian priests led to the foundation of civilized society. The process that I have described in one sentence, however, took place over thousands of years of trial and error. As there is not a single event, notion, institution, action, personality or society that does not bear the effects of time and location, a method of investigation that takes these two factors into account will necessarily add to a meaningful result. Thus, in agreement with Fernand Braudel, hold that it is essential for the establishment of a meaningful sociology that the concept of term —or duration — forms a fundamental part of the methodology. But I want to go further than Braudel and propose that location should also be included. (It remains a puzzle to me why Western scientists generally ignore the factors of location and time. Could it be a result of a Eurocentric approach or a tendency to universalize Europe?)
A methodology of sociological investigation that includes history and location will reveal not only what we have been and what we are now, it will also reveal how life could proceed. If past and present are within reach of one another, and if locations complement one another like the steps of a staircase, then it follows that humanity is a whole and it can live up to this unity without the need for ethnicity, religions, nations, states, alliances, and international bodies like the UN and Socialist Internationals. These introductory notes indicate the approach I will follow in my analysis of civilization’s expansion over location and time.
a. Problems with the expansion of the Sumerian and Egyptian civilizations
As previously stated, the Neolithic institutionalization was the ovule out of which civilization grew. Without this ovule, the Sumerian fertilization would have been meaningless; there was no other ovule from which it could have sprouted. Just as we can’t think of the United States without the existence of Europe, one can’t think of the Lower Tigris and Euphrates becoming what it is without the existence of the Upper Tigris and Euphrates civilization. An important question regarding expansion is why were advanced settlements in the Middle Tigris and Euphrates region, and even in Anatolia, unable to make the transition to urbanization. Looking back 5,000 years, we see that there were many regions that nearly reached the civilization stage and many big villages that entered into the stage of urbanization. However, for reasons still unclear, they collapsed before making the transition to a more advanced level. Examples of this are Catalhoyiik in southern Anatolia and the excavated villages in the border region between Iran and Turkmenistan.
Urbanization will occur only in the presence of a sizable and permanent population. Populations expand drastically only when there is a surplus in food production. Oversupplies of food occur only where there is artificial irrigation of the alluvial earth at river mouths, as in the alluvial region around the Nile and the Tigris-Euphrates rivers. Besides the preconditions of population size and permanence, certain cultural factors must be present in the surrounding regions. No single alluvial region could have formed the Neolithic culture because the preconditions were not all met. On the other hand, not all the preconditions needed for urbanization existed in the Neolithic culture. At around 3,500 BCE, the Uruk urban civilization developed at the lower end of the basin. It established a colonial order and developed a system that multiplied the number of cities under its domain. It has the honor of being the first civilization in history. It collapsed around 3,000 BCE —likely due to the rivalry of systems with more fertile and numerous cities— but the survival of the cult of the goddess Inanna and the Gilgamesh legend attest to the immortality of the culture.
The dynastic period of Ur began at about 3,000 BCE. It continued to exist in the form of three dynasties until it collapsed at around 2,000 BCE. The first written law codes, literary epics, academies, conflicts between cities just as ruthless as those of today (striking examples of this are found in epics such as the Nippur Lament and the Curse of Akkad), are just a few things that come to mind about this period. It seems that Ur had an extensive colonial system. In fact, many of the early colonies in the Zagros-Taurus arch were theirs, but they ceased to
exist just as quickly as they developed. One may conclude that this was due to the cultural strength of the society within which they formed their colonies. The age of Babylon began at around 2,000 BCE. Although it adopted the written Akkadian language for official use, Sumerian was retained as sacred language. In essence, Babylon formed part of the Sumerian civilization and Babylon, especially with regards to science and institutionalization, can be seen as the apogee of the Sumerian civilization. The city of Babylon can be likened to the European city of Paris. It was a city of science, culture and commerce; cultures from all over converged there, and there, for the first time, cosmopolitanism occurred. The age of the Nimrods (the initial strong kings) started in Babylon. Keeping in mind that many of the Greek philosophers (including Solon) took
their first schooling in Babylon, will help us appreciate that its influence spread like a chain reaction. The Enuma Ellish myth, depicting the sorrowful story of women’s plight, is renowned for its description of the struggle between the god Marduk and the goddess Tiamat. Its astronomy, its sages’ prophecies, its captivity of the Israelites, its huge written literature and its resistance to the Assyrians are some aspects of this culture that cannot be forgotten. Despite it being conquered and ruled by, amongst others, the Kassites, the Assyrians and
the Persians, Babylonian culture never lost its influence in this region. The Babylonian era, in total a period of 1,500 years, has left a strong imprint on human memory, albeit nowadays not always consciously noticed.
The Assyrian era can be divided into three periods. The first period (about 2,000-1,600 BCE) was the period of the merchant kings. They constructed trade colonies in Cappadocia, for instance Kanesh (close to today’s Kiiltepe in central Anatolia). The trade colonies stretched from the eastern Mediterranean to the shores of the Punjab and from the Black Sea to the Red Sea, with Nineveh — located near today’s Mosul— as the center of their activities. This was a blossoming period not only for trade but for architecture too, as can be seen from the remains of temple-palaces in ancient cities like Nineveh. In the next period (approximately 1,500-1,300 BCE) Assyria lost its influence when it became a vassal of Mitanni, a Hurrian-speaking state. In the Neo-Assyrian Period (approximately 1,300-612 BCE) Assyria became the most powerful and largest empire the world had ever seen. Neo-Assyria is infamous for its brutality in war, for ethnic cleansing and for the total evacuation of a region. In the
Assyrian era, strong resistance grew amongst the various peoples; the strongest resistance coming from the proto-Kurds (the Hurrians) under the leadership of the Urartu kings. The fact that the Kurdish people still exist in this area is due to that resistance. As a matter of fact, the alliance of the Medes (who also had Hurrian roots) with the Babylonians led to the collapse of this huge empire around 612 BCE. Assyria was the last empire of Sumerian origin and made a huge contribution to the development and expansion of this civilization, especially with regard to trade and architecture. Central Mesopotamia was the likely conduit through which the Sumerian civilization expanded when the first centers of civilization (aside from those of Lower Mesopotamia) developed, even though differences of form and essence occurred in the new centers of civilization.
This area was the homeland of the Hurrians. The Hurrians are the first group to be identified in written sources as being related to the Aryan language and culture group. It may be meaningful to postulate them as the proto-Kurds. The structural similarities of the languages, as made obvious by etymological and linguistic analyses, show their connection to the Kurds. What information we have about them came from archaeological, linguistic, and ethnological research. The records indicate that they were an ethnically identifiable group since 6,000 BCE. They probably settled in the Zagros-Taurus system during the last ice age. where they were part of the Neolithic village and agricultural revolution and the development of animal husbandry. It seems that some Hurrians lived a sedentary life in the open plains while others lived a nomadic life in the mountains and plateaus. During the Neolithic, the inhabitants of this zone had the most contact with the Sumerians, followed by the Arameans —a Semitic group. Indications of the first civilization with Hurrian origins (if the period of Neolithic institutionalization from 6,000 to 4,000 BCE is ignored) can be seen from 3,000 BCE. Those Hurrians that settled in the Sumerian region made an early transition to urban civilization; those that stayed behind turned their settlements into city-states as well, but this happened very slowly due to irrigation and weather conditions. Findings at archaeological sites in the Tigris and Euphrates river basins such as Kazane, Titris, Gre Virike, Zeytinlibahce and lately Gobekli Tepe (close to Urfa), including castle walls, internal and external settlements, structures resembling temples, statuettes and samples of trading goods, prove the formation of cities.16 With some of these cities going back as far as 3,000 and 2,750 BCE, it is realistic to say that they were the first non- Sumerian city groups.” New archaeological work may well show that the Middle Tigris and Euphrates river basin was the next big center of the civilization. The findings and the consequent analyses at Gobekli Tepe may even rewrite history.
The next civilization of Hurrian origin expanded to such a degree that its political administration resembled that of an empire. The state of Mitanni, with its origins in Central Mesopotamia, lasted from 1,600 BCE until the rise of the Assyrian empire around 1,250 BCE, The Mitanni capital city, Washukanni, was probably located on a tributary of the Euphrates, the Kabhur River, in Syria.” At its height, the Mitannian Empire controlled northern Mesopotamia and Syria — from the Tigris and the region of Assyria to the Mediterranean. The fact that Thutmosis described Mitanni as an important military force, indicates just how influential the empire was. —as does the fact that it was able to hold off the Assyrians and Babylonians for four hundred years and prevented Thutmosis III from expanding over the Euphrates. The Mitannians used hieroglyphics and cuneiform script. Their cultural legacy includes a unique architecture and a manual on chariotry by a Mitannian named Kikkuli. Recovered tablets indicate that the language structure of the Mitanni differed from Hurrian, but the two languages had the same origins. The Mitanni and the Hittites both spoke Aryan languages. It is often claimed that the Hittites came through the Straits or that they were Caucasian and came from the east through Iran. Neither of these assumptions seem plausible. From the significant traces of Hurrian language and culture in the Hittite artifacts, we can deduce that the Hittites were a ruling group of Hurrian noblemen. Their gods, literature, diplomatic relations, and remnants of Egyptian palaces display their similarity to the Mitanni of Central Anatolia.
In the same period that the Mitanni took control of the center of the Assyrian empire, the Hittites overwhelmed the Assyrian colonies and established the Hittite empire. It lasted from about 1,600 to 1,250 BCE. It is quite possible that the Mitanni and Hittite states were actually two large regions of one huge Hurrian state that we know nothing about, with a “missing link” between the Mitanni and Hittite regions. I believe that further investigation may yet uncover evidence to this effect. Excavations of the important Hittite centers, such as the capital of the empire, Hattusa, indicate the significant contribution the Hittites made to the progress of civilization. For instance, Hattusa far surpassed the sacred settlements of the Ziggurat: temples for religious activities, palaces for the administration, residence for the workers and storage rooms for produce were separated and a larger area was protected by castle walls. Many similar cities can be encountered. As far as governance is concerned, significant political reforms were proclaimed in the constitutional edict of Telipinus —for instance, he prescribed that nobles should have legal means to seek redress should they be dissatisfied with the conduct of the king or royal family and to not take the law into their own hands. He also decreed that the pankus (“whole body of citizens”) should constitute the supreme court for punishment of lawbreakers. Furthermore, in the military field, the Hittite state was the most advanced of its time. The cities of Troy and Ahhiyawa to the west of the Hittite empire, Askava and Kaska to the north, and Cilicia were all neighbors of the Hittites and had relations with their infamous rival in the south, the Egyptian pharaoh-state. In the central region lived the unique people, the Hattians. They called themselves the people from the “country with thousand gods” —an indication that their relationship with their gods was one of friendship, not of rivalry. One of the most famous documents in history is the treaty between the Egyptian pharaoh Ramses II and the king of the Hittites, Hattusili III.
Much has already been said about the Egyptian civilization on the banks of the Nile. Although this civilization seems to have developed independently, we have to acknowledge that it carried traces of Aryan cultural values, as shown below. Neither the inner dynamics of the society on the Nile nor that of its close neighbors had the ability to produce such a civilization. There is a third possibility, namely that the Egyptian culture is a reflection of the Aryan culture, absorbed through the widespread reciprocal migration of the time. The greatness of the Egyptian civilization cannot be disputed, but neither can the fact that it did not permanently expand beyond the Nile, nor the fact that there was no native culture in the Nile area capable of developing into the Egyptian civilization. The development of the Nile culture, then, must either be a miracle
from above or the result of the Neolithic revolution in the Taurus-Zagrossystem. On the other hand, I believe that the influence the Egyptian civilization had on the Sumerian civilization was far smaller than its influence on the Greco- Roman civilization.
The center of the Old Kingdom (more or less 2,700-2,200 BCE and encompassing many dynasties) was the alluvial area in Lower Egypt around the capital Ineb-Hedg (called Memphis by the Greeks) close to modern-day Cairo. The numerous monumental gravesites that were built by the pharaohs during the Old Kingdom, also known as the Age of Pyramids, display the god-like power of the kings. The abundance of temples built during the Middle Kingdom (about 2,030-1,64O BCE) reflects the strong influence of the priests during this period. During part of the Middle Kingdom, the capital was in Upper Egypt at Waset (Thebes) at today’s Luxor; Amenemhat I built his capital at Itj-Tawi in Lower Egypt (probably at today’s town of El-Lisht, close to Cairo). The Middle Kingdom ended when the Hyksos, a group of mixed Semitic-Asiatic origin, overthrew the pharaoh regime in about 1,630 BCE. This accomplishment, something that no one before them could achieve, shows their cultural and organizational strength. They ruled Egypt for about one hundred and fifty years. The period of the New Kingdom started in about 1,550 BCE. This period coincided with a period of development in trade, just as it did in Assyria. Initially, the New Kingdom had its center in Upper Egypt (the formidable temple complex of Karnak is an indication of the power of the Theban priests); later, the capital was moved back to Lower Egypt —to Avaris (close to the Nile Delta) and Memphis. Although the priests were still strong during this period, they were secondary to the kings —except in isolated cases as during the reign of Ramses II, when the high priest of Amun at Thebes in effect ruled Upper Egypt. The Semitic Hebrew tribe arrived in Egypt in about 1,600 BCE (that is, after the arrival of the Hyksos) and returned to the Middle East after three hundred years, in about 1,300 BCE. Their stay in Egypt thus coincided with the rule of King Akhenaton (1,350 to 1,334 BCE), famous for declaring the first monotheistic state religion in history.
Many princesses from both the Hittite and Mitanni kingdoms were sent to the Egyptian palaces as brides. Since about 1,000 BCE, tribal attacks from the south by groups of Sudanese-Abyssinian origin, and attacks by the Assyrians since 670 BCE, weakened the Egyptian state. In 664 BCE, the Assyrians conquered Memphis and Thebes. Egypt, then, was no match for the Achaemenid Persians, and in 525 BCE it became part of the Persian Empire.
Alexander conquered Egypt in 333 BCE. When in 30 BC, toward the beginning of the Christian era, the Ptolemaic queen Cleopatra was defeated by Rome, it meant the end of the third phase of the four thousand year old civilization. The question will always be: Sumer or Egypt, who influenced whom? The Egyptian civilization shows authenticity in terms of shipbuilding, the erecting of stone columns, wall paintings, the art of calendar making, medicine, astrology and mummification. But the hieroglyphic writing system is more primitive than the
cuneiform system of the Sumerians —its functionality is limited. The Egyptian religious structure is more like a complex copy of the Sumerian system: while the Isis-Osiris tradition could be derived from the Inanna-Enki tradition, the Amon Ra tradition is very close to the Ziggurat system of the Sumerian priests. Excavated tombs attest to the advanced architecture of the Egyptians. Though these are architectural wonders, they also are the manifestation of a frenzy that consumed a frightening amount of slave labor. This civilization, which has left as
big a footprint in history as Sumer, practiced the classical slave system in its purest form. In no other civilization has the unity of slave and master reached the level it had in Egypt. As in Sumer, the promise of an after-world offered by Egyptian religion was a strong legitimization device needed to convince the slaves, who certainly did not have an easy life. It is this strong civilizational region that invented the paradigm of heaven, hell and the life to come. There is a strong possibility that Egyptian religion influenced the Abrahamic religions as much as the Sumerian and Babylonian religious beliefs did. The fact that Moses was brought up in the Egyptian culture, and that his ancestor Abraham fled from the Babylonian Nimrods, reminds us of the strong influence of these two cultures upon, and their synthesis in, the Abrahamic religions. In its original form, the Egyptian pharaoh regime shows many characteristics of what today we would describe as state communism.
Urartu was also a first generation civilization. It is believed that after a long era of being a confederation, the Urartu civilization took its first step toward becoming a centralized kingdom around 870 BCE due to a continuous struggle between the Assyrians and the Nairians.25 The Assyrian inscription stating that King Sarduri defeated all those that crossed him with the support and protection of the god Haldi may have heralded his magnificent march to a centralized kingdom; It is presumed that Urartu was the first state consisting of provinces with a centralized government. This strong, centralized state stretched from the eastern skirts of the Zagros to the western shores of the Euphrates, from the Aras valleys in the north to the Assyrian region in the south, as far as the northern border of today’s Syria. The area around today’s Van was their headquarters. It was named Tushpa, most probably after the ancient god of the sun, Teshup. Many castles were built in the area of their headquarters.
Their system of belief was strongly influenced by the Sumerians and the Assyrians. They exchanged their hieroglyphic script for Assyrian cuneiform script. Besides Urartu (which seems to be related to Hurrian and the languages of the tribes migrating from north-eastern Caucasia) Assyrian was used as court language. After the fall of the Urartian state in the sixth century BCE, the use of Urartu was limited to the elite while the common people spoke a language related to prom-Armenian. It may not be unwarranted to call Urartu the strongest civilization of the Iron Age. Many weapons, cauldrons, plates and clothes made of an iron-copper mixture have survived. It seems that they were the earliest civilization to have used processed iron on a huge scale. Besides advancing to a civilization stage of urbanization and having an official capital, they developed the new concept of a centralized state. Their road network was excellent-one can still make out the routes. The royal tombs carved into rocks are magnificent. Enslaved neighboring peoples were used in the construction of castles and cities. They were quite advanced in their water channel systems and the making of ponds. They resisted the Assyrians for three hundred years-a conflict that led to both states being defeated by the Medes and their allies. History has not witnessed a similar political formation in this geographical since.
The Medo-Persian Empire constituted the final, magnificent rise of this first generation of civilizations. The word Mede came from the ancient Greeks. The historian Herodotus said, “The Medes were called ‘ancient’ by all people Aryan” and, indeed, we can call the culture of the Median descendants authentically Aryan because no other group has succeeded in occupying their land. The Median culture was shaped at the Zagros mountain range and can be traced back to the Gutians and Kassites. (A common approach is to classify all these tribes as Hurrian.) These tribal clans were probably the groups that suffered most from constant clashes with the Assyrians and we can surmise that this resistance was the reason behind their statehood, although they also had clashes with the Scythians that came from the Caucasus. The Medes had a reasonably successful confederation after the tribal clans loosely united in 715 BCE. The continuous oppression by Assur and Urartu led the Medes into an alliance with the Scythians (forming alliances seem to be a historical tradition). Despite the fact that the leadership often changed hands, they destroyed the Urartu palaces (around 615 BCE) and shortly afterwards burnt down the city of Assur —one of the capitals of Assyria— to end these last two strong civilizations of Mesopotamia. According to Herodotus, their famed capital Ecbatana (present-day Hamadan in Iran) was surrounded by seven circular walls of different colors. Their short-lived period of rule was closely linked to their relation with the Persian tribes, who were close relatives. The political formation that they had built up over three hundred years was snatched by the Persian Achaemenid Empire. The Persian Cyrus the Great, grandson of the Median king Astyages, allied with the military commander of the palace, Harpagus, in order to overthrow his overlord, King Astyages, in a terrible coup. The historical records of Herodotus claim that, faced with this coup, Astyages said to Harpagus, “What a wretched soul! Now that you have overthrown me, why have you given the power to a Persian bastard? Why did you transfer the power to the Persian and not be ruler yourself? At least it could have stayed with the Medes!” I believe Herodotus called all those of Hurrian cultural origin “Medes.” He
respected them highly, seeing the Persians as secondary to them. He was correct in conceiving the cultural stamp of the region to be that of the Medes.The Persians, at the time, were at the beginning of their fame in history. The magnificence of the Hurrian culture was even then famous from the shores of the Aegean to Elam and from the Caucasus to the Egyptian palaces, as disclosed by Herodotus.
A similar role as the one played by the initial priests, namely to construct the new mentality and gods within the Sumerian civilization, was played by priest in the establishment of the Urartu and Medo-Persian civilizations. The priests called the Magi were probably symbolic figures or else magi was the title for the Zoroastrian priests, who had their central, sacred town at Musasir. We can thus assume that the initial pantheon of their gods was established there and later taken to Tushpa, Ecbatana and Persepolis. Without an old tradition of priesthood it is difficult to build important civilizations. The philosophers and their philosophy in the Greek culture, and the intellectuals of the Age of Enlightenment in the European civilization, played a similar role. (It may be instructive to see the sheikh of the Semitics and the Hebrew prophets in the same role.) The role played by the Magi and Zoroaster should also be recognized-especially in the rise of the Medes. It is my conviction that the Magi and the foundation of the Zoroastrian belief and morals reflect the values of the Neolithic society by seeing fire, agriculture and livestock as sacred. A belief and moral system like that could not have been contaminated with the impurities of civilization. It is different from the inventions of the Sumerian priests, such as their masked god-kings. In fact, it is the opposite. It rests on the idea that the universe is full of contention between good and evil,
light and darkness. The fundamental norm Within the Zoroastrian priesthood is the existence of free morality —it does not speak of how to manufacture gods, but of the sacredness of agriculture, livestock and the characteristics of free human beings. These morals played a determining role in the defeat of Assur and the rise of the Medo-Persian Empire. After the death of Cyrus, a group of Mede origin gained power during a coup in
528 BCE. However, they were easily eliminated and the infamous rule of Darius began. In a very short time, after the collapse of the Ionian cities in Babylonia, Egypt and the Aegean shores, the most extensive empire was established that history had seen till then-stretching from the Aegean to the shores of the Pencav (“Five waters,” the Punjab River). It was the strongest civilization of its time, excluding China. Undoubtedly, it had been influenced by the cultures of the Sumerian, Assyrian, Babylonian and Urartu civilizations. On the other hand, it had been nurtured by the free spirit of the Aryan culture. It also had relations with the Scythians coming from the north via the Greek culture and the proto-Turks from the East, and certainly had been influenced by these cultures as well. It thus presented history with a unique example of a synthesis of numerous cultures.
The Medo-Persian Empire is the final and most extensive representative of the first generation civilization. It reached the highest level attainable in a first generation civilization. Their innovative architecture and the agnificence of their headquarters can still be seen in the remnants of Persepolis. The power of the state centers was almost on par with that of the Roman Empire and it prepared the ground for the Greco-Roman world. The Medo-Persian Empire is famous for its political system of multi-states, each with a degree of autonomy and governed by a satrap-a vassal king. It is also famous for its tremendous postal and transportation systems, its special security forces, the Immortals Regiment, and an army consisting of hundreds of thousands of people. The
Zoroastrian belief system and religious rituals were totally new. A distinction developed between the religion of the nobles, who were Zoroastrians, and the ordinary people, who continued the ancient worship of the sun god Mlthru. The development they brought to the different fields of civilization was greater than the sum of those who preceded them. They were the first to unify numerous numbers of tribes, clans, religions, sects, languages and cultures. It is the last glorious and dazzling Middle-Eastern civilization of antiquity and superior in all aspects to the newly developing Greek civilization. Alexander, the student of Aristotle, was one of the new breed of barbarian invaders craving to possess this magnificence, but with a profound feeling of inferiority toward the Eastern culture. What the Roman Empire meant for the Goths, the Persian Empire meant for the Macedonian and Greek tribal chiefs and petty kings. If we look a Alexander’s invasion from this perspective, a more meaningful and accurate interpretation may be achieved.
Let us conclude this section with a few additional points, the first of which concerns the Hebrew clan. Let me reiterate that from 1,700 BCE onward, the Aryan language and culture, the Semitic language and culture, the civilizations of Sumerian origin and the civilizations of Egyptian origin shared some characteristics. In the sacred book of the Hebrews the names of Suruc, Urfa and Harran are explicitly mentioned as the ancestral location of Abraham, from where the tribe seemed to have traveled to Egypt. They made a living mainly through animal husbandry, although they seemed to have practiced some trade as well. Their religious belief apparently hovered between Yahweh and El (which was later to become Allah). They resisted assimilation into civilization-their monotheistic belief may have much to do to with this resistance. They have the privilege of developing tribal theism. It began with Abraham’s opposition to the Babylonian King Nimrod and continued with Moses’s opposition to the pharaoh, and would later continue in Palestine as conflicts with many of the tribes and their gods. They continued to preserve their uniqueness for a long time under the leadership of priests of which Aaron, Moses’ younger brother, was the first.
The initial period of leadership by priests, initiated by Moses, ended with the renowned priest Samuel. In 1,020 BCE started the period of the kingdoms with kings like Saul, David, Solomon and others. They constructed a small kingdom with a strong military and political character. There seemed to have been continuous conflict between the kings and the priests. “Both those who resisted and those who collaborated with the Assyrians were defeated around 720 BCE and around 540 BCE their exodus to Babylon began. They were freed when the Persians ended the rule of the Babylonians. Two collaborationist parties, the Sadducees and the Pharisees, came to the fore during the conflicts between the Persians and the Greeks. Later, resistance against the Romans resulted in the
first and second waves of exiles, first to Egypt and Anatolia and later to all parts of the known world. Then the resistance of Jesus followed. His death by crucifixion started the second religion of Abrahamic origin —and the troublesome relationship between the Greco-Roman and European civilizations on the one hand and the small Hebrew tribe on the other. Most leaders of the Hebrew tribe were rabbis or nabis; the long list of prophets ending with Jesus and Mohammed (though the last two are not recognized as prophets in Judaism). Religious conflict accompanied by political conflict continued. The period of scribes started with the end of the Roman rule and this tradition continues to date with a generation of writers and intellectuals as strong as that
of the prophets. In time, the prehistoric small step in the direction of trade played a leading role in the birth of capitalism and the dominance of today’s finance capital. The Hebrew tribe has always been small in numbers but they have a strong influence on the history of civilization. The Hebrew tribe should be studied as intensively as civilization itself as, even today, they appear to be the emperors of science, law and money. My personal story reflects the history of this tribe in the miniature: I too started my resistance by making my exit from Suruc in Urfa, similar to Abraham. However, my resistance led to a crucifixion different to that of Jesus.
Another point that needs to be noted is the Scythian influx from the north around 800 BCE. The Scythians had Caucasian roots. These tribes, who expanded to inner Europe and Asia and from the Russian steps to Mesopotamia, did not really leave strong traces behind, as their expansion was physical rather than cultural. However, they did play a role in the establishment and collapse of many empires, including that of the Hebrew tribe. They served as soldiers and chamber women in the palaces. This continued in the time of the Ottoman Empire and even today in the Republic of Turkey. It is evident that they could not protect their own identity as well as the Hebrews did. Scythian and similar peoples of the first generation civilized society should also be
studied thoroughly. The center-periphery model is useful when studying the formation of historical systems. When talking about centers of civilization, the question of what happened in the periphery is obviously important. When Sumer and Egypt, the first centers of civilization were constructed, the Amorite and the Apiru were the peripheral powers in their areas of influence; for the Chinese it was the proto-Turk Huns and for the Romans the Goths. When the chiefs of these tribes acquired and learnt how to use the weapons of civilization, they were either in a continuous state of offense or defense with the civilized states. Their fate was either to dissolve in one of the dominant centers of civilization or to establish a similar center of civilization in the periphery. For example, the Amorite Akkadians constructed their own dynasty after being on the offensive for a long time. The Hebrews established their own kingdom based on what they learnt from Egypt. Although the Huns were one of the strongest peripheral groups, they finally dissolved within the civilization centers of China, Europe and Iran. Usually, the chief of a peripheral tribe remained in the center of the civilization as an administrative chief and became totally integrated; the clansman, on the other hand, remained marginal for a long time or made new attempts at establishing their own center of civilization under a new chief.
The Gothic attacks on Rome laid the basis for the German princedoms —at times Gothic leaders even wore the Roman crown. An interesting example is the Mongolian and Oghuz tribes that developed as a peripheral force to the Byzantine Empire’s central force. However, the conflict that continued for hundreds of years ended with these tribes transforming themselves into central powers. The Scythians were a peripheral force for the first generation centers of civilization, playing their role mostly in the north, especially in the Caucasus. When they became acquainted with the various civilizations and took up their arms, they became a force of extraordinary offensive strength. It is thought that they were quite active between 800 and 500 BCE. Although they played their role well as mercenaries and palace servants, they were not able to establish significant centers of civilization on their own behalf.
