Blog Number 43

I  don't usually venture into the world of expressing political or semi-political opinions. Certainly not on this blog. My politics, like my spiritual beliefs, I tend to keep to myself, but the current, reprehensible, events in Ukraine have generated fears and concerns across the world. They got me thinking about invasions. Military ones, not animal, or socio-economic.  The list became longer and longer the more I thought about it, looking just for the top of the head ones. Very few of these could be considered altruistic displacements of evil men or "wrong-doers", they were primarily good old fashioned 'force of arms' with defined self interest and aggrandisement at their heart. Somehow honesty goes out the window.

• Alexander the Great's invasion of Asia.
• Caesar's invasion of Gaul, the Roman invasions of Britannia, Germania and elsewhere.
• The Goths and the Vandals return of the same compliment to Rome.
• The Viking invasions of Britain, France and Russia.
• The Norman invasion, of guess where- again. Is there nowhere else you'd like to try for a change?
• The Crusader invasions of the Holy land.
• The Eurasian invasions of Genghis Khan.
• The European invasion of the Americas.
• The British invasion of Zululand, as good (or bad) an example of wanton 'empire and colonialism' as you could wish to find.
• Napoleon's invasion of  Russia.
• The German invasion of France, then twenty years later, Poland et al.
• The American invasion of Vietnam.
•  The Russian invasion of Afghanistan.
• The Gulf wars.

I stopped there, knowing I have missed invasions that other people will find equally or even more compelling. The point is the list goes on and on. This is the tip of the iceberg. Sadly, virtually all of these are relegated to history: books, theses, professorships and academic study. In most of these examples, it was the ego of a single man that drove or instigated them. And the fear of 'crossing the leader' by their supporters permitted them to continue, on and on.

The resilience of the human spirit survives, love, empathy, courage; the madmen die or are killed, but at what a terrible cost.