“North Fire” in the Cajon Pass

The American Revolution was not a Mistake

It is likely due to some sort of contrarian counter-programming, but a few websites published this month essays with a critically negative slant on the American Revolution and War of Independence. One in particular, written by Dylan Matthews for Vox, argues that the Revolution was a mistake, holding back emancipation for Black slaves, unleashing a genocide against Native Americans, and stuck the United States with a dysfunctional political system that divides the executive and legislative branches and dilutes direct democracy. Matthews essentially argues that, absent the Revolution, what is now the United States would have eventually developed into a better, more democratic nation without the violence of the Civil War, the near-extermination of the Indians, or the political obstructionism of reactionary groups. It is my counter-argument with this essay that Matthews is wrong on all these points and that the United States, and the world as a whole, would have looked nothing like what it does today, and for the worse.

ANZAC Day

100 years ago today, the Australia & New Zealand Army Corps splashed ashore the pebbly beaches of Gallipoli. Over the next eight months, they tried and failed to capture the cliffs immediately above them, which would permit them to lift the blockade of the straights leading to Istanbul, the Black Sea beyond, and ultimately Russia. The landings came ashore at the southwestern tip of a mountainous peninsula and the light defenses had been heavily shelled by the British Navy. On that first day, April 25, 1915, one man rose to the occasion and held the ANZACs at the high tide marker. Mustafa Kemal was the commander of the local Ottoman garrison. His men had endured day and night cannonfire, and suddenly were about to be swept off their hilltop forts by the invasion. Kemal was dangerously low on ammunition and was told that help was still two days away. When his men asked for permission to retreat, Kemal famously told them that he, “Did not expect them to fight, but to die,” to fix bayonets and hold the high ground. The British commanders, for their part, missed several opportunities to capture lightly defended areas on the first day. They stubbornly refused to let what they considered an inferior people defeat an advanced, well-equipped army, and would not give up until nearly Christmas, despite failing to move a single yard.

The entire experience shattered the British government and gave birth to the Labor Party (which until then was a minor collection of socialists). A young Winston Churchill had helped plan out the naval side of the attack and was forced out of the cabinet; he did political penance by volunteering to fight in the trenches in France. Mustafa Kemal, hero of the day, rode out the war in command of the defenses of the Turkish homeland and was the only Ottoman general to never be defeated; he later overthrew what was left of the Ottoman Empire and founded the modern, secular Republic of Turkey on the principles of the famous Young Turk reformers. Russia never had a proper supply line from the West and was gradually squeezed by Germany to the brink of revolution twice, cumulating in the rise of Lenin and the Communists. In the meantime, the disintegrating Ottoman Empire began the paranoid ethnic cleansing of its minorities, climaxing in the Armenian Genocide. The British, looking for a new front, began supporting the Arabs and laying the groundwork for the tragedy of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. (The British and French took advantage of the Arab revolts and created nations on flimsy foundations: Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, and the list goes on.)

Australia and New Zealand saw a different legacy. For them, Gallipoli marked the first time they participated on the world stage specifically as Australians and New Zealanders, not just as British colonists. April 25th became ANZAC Day, similar to Memorial Day in the United States. (It dovetails also with Remembrance/Veterans Day on November 11.) As a friend once told me, on that day, “The whole country shuts down for two minutes.”

For me, Gallipoli offers a chance to ponder the great what ifs of history. How radically different would the Twentieth Century have been if things had played out different on that one morning? What if the British had ordered a more aggressive attack on Y Beach? What if shock troops with little gear had been sent in to climb the hillsides, capture and hold the village of Krithia before lunch? What if a sniper or stray shell had injured or killed Mustafa Kemal, deterring the defenders from staying? What if an additional landing had been made near the town of Bulair, cutting off reinforcements? Would Germany have been defeated sooner and without the humiliating Versailles Treaty? Would a Second World War have taken place? Could the great dictators of the last century been prevented from arising? No Hitler, Stalin, Mao, Franco, Mussolini, or Pol Pot?  No Cold War? What about Russia, would it have been democratized earlier? Would the nations of eastern Europe be free? Could the Holocaust have been prevented? These are not idle speculations or Monday-morning quarterbacking (literally), but an attempt to see how interconnected history is. Events do not take place in a vacuum, nor are their effects only for a day. But neither is it a search for blame, rather it is a question of how we got to where we are today. Gallipoli took place very close to the site of the famous Trojan War. Like the British, the Greeks were stuck on a narrow beach for a long time, stubbornly assaulting the well defended Trojans in their cliff-top forts. And like the Trojans and the famous Horse, the Ottoman Empire only collapsed through more subtle methods, from the adventures of Lawrence of Arabia.

To try and assign blame is to miss the point: it was simply  a tragedy that got thousands of young men slaughtered. Twenty years later, Mustafa Kemal refused to be a proper villain and gloat over the Turkish victory. He told his former enemies,

“Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies And the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side Here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, Who sent their sons from far away countries Wipe away your tears, Your sons are now lying in our bosom And are in peace After having lost their lives on this land they have Become our sons as well.”

The Turkish government eventually labeled an unnamed beach, Anzak Koyu, Anzac Cove.

Paris Is Burning

The events this week in France have shocked the world. I will not here recount the grizzly details of the Charlie Hebdo murders or the events that unfolded a few days later. I will, however, address a rather embarrassing slander, one which I had the disgrace to once participate in. I speak of the idea that the French are cowards who surrender at the drop of a hat.

To Catch a Thief

On the evening of March 14, 2013, while watching the news, I received a telephone call from my father. He was working late and would be home about two or three hours later than normal. No big deal. I proceeded to make myself some dinner and relax. Around 7pm, feeling slightly bored, I telephoned a friend who lived nearby. I had loaned him an item a few days ago and asked if he’d be home so that I could pick it up. I grabbed my wallet & keys and walked outside to the car. It was near twilight, with a strange quiet over the neighborhood. I live just a block off the main road so, at the tail end of rush hour, I expected a bit more background noise. The air had this diffuse orange-blue hue. There wasn’t even any wind.