Chunderban Desai tells Tatiana Thane:
"' My lady...among the horrors with which I live is this knowledge, based on all the history I have studied and all the direct experience I have had. It is terrifyingly easy to swing a defeated and occupied nation in any direction.'" (7, p. 125)
As I read this, I began to think of twentieth century examples but Desai continued:
"'It has occurred over and over. Sometimes, two victors with different ideologies divided such a loser among them. for purposes of 'reform.' Afterward the loser stayed divided, its halves perhaps more fanatical than either original conqueror.'" (ibid.)
And he says a lot more, even disagreeing with "'...the pretensions of the psychodynamicists...'" (ibid.)
Desai will give Flandry the benefits of his study of history in A Knight Of Ghosts And Shadows.
People can have systematically false views of their history and even of contemporary events. My mother watched TV news every evening and simply assumed that a high profile strike was about a closed shop whereas in fact it was only about union recognition. A future history series could present social conflicts, then show later generations divided by contradictory misunderstandings of those, to them, historical conflicts. In The Game Of Empire, Tachwyr the Dark remains unaware that Aycharaych had systematically deceived the Merseians. If still alive, Aycharaych would be amused to learn that the Merseians still regarded him as fundamentally on their side.
3 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That bit, about the Merseians in THE GAME OF EMPIRE still not realizing how Aycharaych had deceived them, was amusing! Plainly, Imperial Intelligence decided it was more useful for the Empire for that to remain hushed up.
Ad astra! Sean
I seem to hear bitter laughter from generations of British colonial officials in Ireland and Russian ones in Poland on hearing about how easy it is to transform opinion that way... 8-).
Kaor, Mr. Stirling!
The Russians, under both the Tsars and then the Soviets, were utterly unsuccessful in Poland. But the British Anglicans did manage to partially Protestantize Ulster. But even that now seems to be fading away.
Ad astra and Merry Christmas! Sean
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