Hillarysworld

Members Login
Username 
 
Password 
    Remember Me  
Hillarysworld -> National News -> The first ambassadors (Boston Globe 8/22/10)
Post Info
TOPIC: The first ambassadors (Boston Globe 8/22/10)
Jen the Michigander


SuperModerator

Status: Offline
Posts: 1788
Date:
The first ambassadors (Boston Globe 8/22/10)
Permalink  
 

A little history lesson for y'all...

http://www.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/08/22/the_first_ambassadors/

Hillary Clinton has it so easy.
In today’s world, secretaries of state, ambassadors, and other high-ranking diplomats can connect in an instant to allies and enemies both. E-mails and phone calls give nations immediate contact with one another. And if a face-to-face meeting is necessary to head off war, defuse a crisis, give the media a much-needed photo-op, or stroke some prime minister’s ego, an airplane is fueled up and waiting on the tarmac.

In 2300 B.C., on the other hand, diplomacy was a good bit trickier. Meeting someone face to face took weeks of travel, across strange lands, on foot. A king not pleased with what the visiting ambassador had to say might be inclined to detain him for awhile, forcing the other kingdom to send yet another messenger to find out what happened to the first. Closing the loop on a simple conversation might take three months — or longer. And there were other issues, too. The Mesopotamian kings doing the corresponding, for example, were almost always illiterate.

Still, somehow, between 2300 and 1300 B.C., ancient rulers in Mesopotamia and Syria created the world’s first system for diplomatic relations, a revolutionary idea at the time that changed the way that people thought about themselves and the world. In her new book, “Brotherhood of Kings: How International Relations Shaped the Ancient Near East” (Oxford University Press, 2010), Amanda H. Podany documents how the first diplomats forged long-lasting alliances, staved off bloodshed, and connected kingdoms in an era when people didn’t know their neighbors, much less the size of the Earth.

The system, preserved on clay tablets, was remarkably uniform over time, Podany writes. Rulers agreed to correspond in a single language, Akkadian, which was written in cuneiform symbols and translated upon arrival. Luxurious gifts were shared — and so were offspring. What better way to know your neighboring king than to have him marry your daughter?

When we think about diplomacy today — if we think about it at all — we tend take it for granted. Dispatch the special representative. Have that meeting. Issue the joint communiquè. But Podany takes us back to a time when all this required enormous effort, investment, and, ultimately, patience. “Communication,” Podany says, “was done at the speed one could walk.”


__________________

4145952823_2e0edce16f.jpg

Nobody puts THIS baby in the corner!
freespirit


Moderator

Status: Offline
Posts: 1695
Date:
Permalink  
 

Very interesting, Jen. Of course, the daughters were given away - to seal the peace deal. Women were, after all, mere property, to be used at the will of the ruling men. Little seems to have changed in some of the countries involved. It is noteworthy that women, even back then, provided a path to resolution and peace (even though they had no choice in the matter). Today, it is a powerful, formidable woman who will do the heavy lifting and hard, substantive work to provide a path to resolution and peace - Hillary Clinton. Obviously, she did have a choice in the matter, though, she was forcibly denied the position she won - the Dem Nom - from which, she would have no doubt been elected president. She was forcibly gotten out of the way of Obama, in other words. So, just as in the case of the women of of 2000 BC, there was an element of force which resulted in Hillary holding her current position of SOS - the office through which she will seek to forge a path to resolution and peace. Just thought it was a parallel worth nothing.

Not to go OT, but a side note.
It angers me so to hear about women being traded, battered, treated lower than animals, considered by men to be nothing more than property. And, I've noticed that this anger is becoming increasingly intense. I'm NOT advocating preemptive violence (at least not yet), but we women have got to get militant. In fact, we have got to raise being militant to a new level. We are capable of organizing, demanding change, taking care of business. It's time we really got serious about the importance of protecting and advancing the rights of women, and of restoring power and self-respect to those of our gender who have been stripped of power and self-worth.
End of rant.

__________________
It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union.... Men, their rights and nothing more; women, their rights and nothing less.  ~Susan B. Anthony
Page 1 of 1  sorted by
 
Quick Reply

Please log in to post quick replies.
Hillarysworld -> National News -> The first ambassadors (Boston Globe 8/22/10)
Tweet this page Post to Digg Post to Del.icio.us


Create your own FREE Forum
Report Abuse 		Powered by ActiveBoard