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  Macedonia, led by Alexander the Great, conquered Persia who had taken power from the Egyptian Pharaohs. He would eventually control most of the Middle East. Upon his death, the region fell into chaos as various factions fought to take control.9 The Roman Empire emerged and was later split into two.10

  From the beginning of the first civilization of Mesopotamia to the fall of the Ottoman Empire spanned nearly 5,000 years. In that time, the Middle East had been controlled, completely or in part, by the Greeks, Egyptians, Romans, Kushans, Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Mongols, Macedonians, the Byzantine Empire, and the Arab Caliphates; all conquering along the way.

  Africa

  Much of central and southern Africa was ruled by sacred chiefdoms.11The area consisted of various peoples conquering neighbors or defending themselves from others. Many Nubian kingdoms battled each other to expand their power. As Vansina, noted authority on the Oral Tradition, says, “Probably all the African kingdoms have been enlarged by conquest.”12

  Egypt controlled much of northern Africa. At their height, they extended as far south as Sudan, conquering less powerful kingdoms. However, Kush, a Nubian empire, conquered Egypt but was in turn conquered by Assyria.13 14 Carthage was a city-state in northern Africa, which was controlled by the Romans after the Punic Wars.15

  Makaba II of Botswana conquered neighbors before being invaded by south Africans. The Khoi and San people of Angola were displaced by Bantu arriving from Nigeria and Niger. In western Africa, the Ghana Empire was consumed by the Malli Empire.16

  In south Africa, growing population led to tribal empires trying to conquer each other. This gave way to the rise of Shaka Zulu.17 “During the 1820s, the Zulu kingdom became increasingly predatory. Shaka sent the army on annual campaigns, disrupting local chiefdoms to the north and south, destroying their food supplies, seizing their cattle.”18

  Asia

  China was ruled by various dynasties from the Xia dynasty in 2000 BC to the end of the Qing dynasty in 1912.19 They, like the rest of the world, were wrought with constant uprisings with each subsequent dynasty gaining power by force. “Warfare could lead to the overthrow of a rival feudal lord and expansion of territory, but more often the aim appears to have been simple looting and the capture of prisoners. Ten or twenty or more prisoners at a time were taken to be enslaved and used for household service, as soldiers, and sometimes as victims in human sacrifices.”20

  In fact, while the Great Wall of China we see today was finally built to control its border with foreigners, it started with a series of walls built to block invasion or raids by mounted tribes and torn down to allow those in charge to demobilize armies and control the population.21

  This changed with the Mongol Empire. From its founding, Genghis Khan wanted to increase his kingdom and amass wealth and power. At the end of the 13th century, the Mongol Empire controlled most of Asia and Eastern Europe. Similarly, India endured centuries of fighting for control with various short-lived kingdoms until the Delhi Sultanate of the 13th century. The Mughal Empire took control of northern India in the 16th century.22

  Europe

  Starting with ancient Greece, the inhabited areas of Europe were controlled by many of the groups who were in power in the Middle East.23 These include the Greeks, the Phoenicians and the Persians. In northern Europe, the Germanic Tribes came to power in the 2nd century CE. These tribes included the Goths, Vandals, and Franks, among others.24 They moved south, expanding their territory at the expense of the Celtic people. After the Roman Empire split, the western empire was attacked by both the Visigoths and the Vandals, while Attila the Hun attacked several areas of the eastern empire.25

  By the 8th century, Muslims had invaded Europe and the Vikings began to rise. They used their navigational skills to extend into North Africa, the Middle East, and North America. They raided, pillaged, acted as mercenaries, and settled colonies. William the Conqueror, the Norman leader who defeated England, was a descendant of Vikings.26

  Americas

  The Olmecs were the first major civilization in what was known as Mesoamerica. They diminished, either by environmental strife or conflict, and were followed by the Mayans.27 The Mayans and Aztecs controlled much of Mesoamerica in Pre-Columbian times. They fought wars with the intent purpose of conquering their opposition.28 29 They remained in power until the Spanish, with help from some indigenous allies, conquered them.30 In South America, the Incans held expansive power and, like the Aztecs, they conquered their way north.31

  As you can see, conquering other tribes or opposing kingdoms was the norm throughout history. While some of these actions were for survival, most were motivated by greed, a thirst for power, or bloodlust. These conquests are less frequent today, but still have happened in modern history. Even after creation of the League of Nations and later the UN, countries still tried to take land by force.32 Japan occupied Taiwan, Indonesia annexed East Timor, Saddam invaded Kuwait, and Putin attempted to invade the Crimea.33 34 35 36 Even ISIS, in a more rudimentary way, is a land grab. Their intent is to create a new caliphate.37

  This conquer cycle experienced a surge beginning around the 15th century, when the greed of the past was combined with advanced naval forces and cultural conflicts. We will now address the result of this phenomenon: colonialism.

  COLONIALISM

  The age of discovery changed the world’s landscape forever. People often say Christopher Columbus was lost and is credited for finding a land where people already lived.38 But if you look at it in their time, 15th and 16th century explorers like Magellan, Vespucci, Henry the Navigator, and others, found places no outsider had seen, connected cultures, which expanded knowledge, and found quicker routes that changed warfare and trade forever. It was an arduous undertaking and accelerated the advancement of their civilizations.39

  The initial purpose of exploration was innocuous, the same cannot be said for the results. Had it not been for greed, cultural differences, and disease, it may have been beneficial for the people they encountered as well for the exploring nations. Unfortunately, human nature had its way. Looking back with hindsight, however, we know it was destined to fail. If tribes had been at odds for years with people who looked like them, had similar cultures, and understood their language, how could anyone expect conflicting cultures to coexist without conflict?

  Colonialism differs from conquests in some ways, though the results are the same. While force was used where necessary, colonists used bribes, tricks, and advanced wealth to gain access and coerce local leaders to give them access to ports, land, labor, and resources.40 The first European countries to colonize a foreign land were Portugal and Spain.41 Other European powers quickly joined them. They could not allow their adversaries to have unfettered access to this new stream of revenue and resources.

  Britain, France, and the Dutch challenged the exclusivity of Spanish and Portuguese exploration. They set out on their own and attacked Spanish ships in an effort to control lands to which they had laid claim. Belgium, Germany, Italy, Sweden, and Russia also expanded into foreign land.42 At the height of colonialism, these empires would control over 80% of the world.43 This is also where the transcontinental slave trade began. These colonies remained intact for several hundred years.

  WAR

  Wars have been prevalent from antiquity to modern times. While various actions can start a war, most wars fall into three categories: aggression (Germany, Napoleon, Japan, and Polk’s ‘Manifest Destiny’), revolution (France, Haiti, and America), and the most common: border wars.

  Border wars are common because land rights are difficult to settle. In early civilizations, people were nomadic. There were no formal claims to land. If you found fertile land that was being occupied, your choices were to move along in search of other suitable land or try to settle in occupied land. Sometimes tribes peacefully coexisted. In many cases, they did not. This was a chance you had to take as your survival was at stake.

  Even countries that had establi
shed land agreements had disputes. Either the parties disputed the dividing line, or accused each other of not respecting those lines. In other cases, the power who had control of the land was defeated, so new groups came in to claim that land. The Korean War, the Crimean War, and the Chaco War were all border wars. The US had border wars with Mexico, Spain, and several Indian tribes. Pakistan and India have fought no less than three border wars.

  Civil wars are another common type of war. They usually come from a group feeling oppressed by the power structure within a nation and rising up. The Vietnam and American civil wars are easily the best known and bloodiest. The Colombian Conflict, Sri Lankan, Angolan, and Afghan civil wars are the longest. Some, like the War of the Roses and the Columbian Conflict, are the result of internal power struggles, while others, like Vietnam and Afghanistan, have global implications and grow into proxy wars.

  While history will show that war is as old as man, with many countries born out of war, it is not something we have evolved beyond. In the last 100 years, there have been civil wars on every continent except for Antarctica.44

  SLAVERY

  Slavery is one of the most horrific human flaws. It’s also one of the most widespread. There is evidence of the practice in nearly every civilization. Those who didn’t hold slaves were probably enslaved. The most common form was indentured servitude. While many volunteered their services as payment of a debt, most were treated poorly and were not released when their debt was paid.

  Beginning in the 7th century, Arabs started the practice of transporting slaves as forced labor; a full 700 years prior to the transatlantic slave trade.45 Once the transatlantic slave trade started, every prominent empire joined that practice. As David Forsythe notes, “The fact remained that at the beginning of the nineteenth century an estimated three-quarters of all people alive were trapped in bondage against their will either in some form of slavery or serfdom.”46

  When people discuss slavery in America, they rarely mention the role of Native Americans. Slavery was common before colonization, though those captured were not viewed as property. After colonization, the five ‘civilized’ tribes: Cherokee, Chickasaw, Choctaw, Creek, and Seminole, all owned African slaves.47 Many also were paid to return runaway slaves to white owners. When the Civil War ended, the 1866 Indian Treaties compelled them to give their slaves full tribal citizenship. The Cherokee Nation, instead, implemented a blood descendant rule to block their benefits.48

  Many think slavery is a problem of the past, but the practice is thriving today in various forms. End Slavery Now estimates that over 70 million people have been forced into one of these servile positions: domestic servitude, sex trafficking, forced labor, bonded labor, child labor, and forced marriage (This of girls under the age of 18).49

  GENOCIDE

  Genocide or ethnic cleansing is another human atrocity that has been prevalent throughout history. The best example of this is the Holocaust. Yet this has been far more common than many believe. In antiquity, the Roman siege of Carthage in 146 BC is often called the first genocide.50 However, 250 years earlier, Athenians carried out a vicious attack on Melos.51

  In modern times, The USSR killed millions of Pols, Kulaks, Latvians, Chechens, Kazakhs, and Ukrainians through pogroms and intentional starvation in the Holodomor.52 Nearly two million Armenians, Greeks, and Assyrians were killed by the Ottoman Empire, and Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge killed two million Cambodians, nearly 20% of the population.53 54 In Rwanda, nearly one million Tutsis were killed by the Hutu, and nearly one million Bengali Hindus were killed in Bangladesh.55 56 Many suggest that the Rohingya people are experiencing a genocide in Malaysia today.57

  We can’t forget the large number of people who are killed or displaced by extreme violence and poverty in their native land. I call this inadvertent genocide. For instance, since the beginning of the second Congo War, over 2 million people have been killed in five years. In 2017 alone, 1.7 million Congolese, about 5,500 per day, fled the conflict.58 In recent years, people have fled oppression in North Korea;59 civil wars in Syria, Afghanistan, and the Sudan;60 61 62 drug cartels in Mexico and Columbia; extreme violence in Latin America;63 and the economic collapse in Venezuela.64

  RELIGION

  Religious persecution is another common form of oppression. The methods of mistreatment have changed, but religious minorities have rarely been given equal treatment. Unlike previous empires, Constantine’s Byzantine Empire and the Arab caliphates conquered with the intent of expanding Christianity and Islam respectively. This means to achieve their goals they had to suppress the freedoms of opposing religions.65

  Jerusalem is unique in that all three major religions consider it holy land.66 From the time of Rome’s control, in the 1st century CE, to the end of the Ottoman Empire, control of the city changed many times. Each change brought with it some form of religious persecution. Jewish temples were destroyed by Muslim empires, Muslims and Jews were banned by Christian empires, and Christians were slaughtered by Jews.6768 The Fatimid Caliphate expelled Christians from Jerusalem. In time, the Catholic Church gained political power. Pope Urban II sanctioned the move to take Jerusalem from the Fatimid. This began the first of several Crusades.69The Ottoman Empire would gain control and hold power until the end of WWI when the League of Nations administered the areas they formally controlled as well as those controlled by Germany.70

  The Catholic Church established inquisitions to root out heresy.71 While much of this was sectarian, in Spain and Rome these attacks were committed primarily on Jews and Muslims. Many fled Spain and Rome to avoid persecution. Others faced the choice of convert or die; hence the birth of the Marranos and Moriscos.72 73 People were tortured, drowned, forced to do public penance and killed.

  Millions were killed in the religious battles that culminated in the creation of Pakistan.74Coptic Christians have been singled out in the Middle East. Many have been killed in Egypt or displaced from Muslim majority countries.75Christian persecution in the Middle East has reached a point where even the New York Times wrote an article decrying “Is This the End of Christianity in the Middle East?”76 Sectarian violence has also been common among sects in Christianity and Islam. The most obvious examples are the Thirty Years’ War and the recent conflicts in Syria and Iraq.

  Leaders with no religious affiliation can also be detrimental to religious freedom. Socialist countries like the USSR, Albania, and China banned all religious practices. “In China churches were burned and open practice of religion was dangerous. The persecution reached its climax during the Cultural Revolution when all religion became a special target for Red Guard malevolence.”77 In contrast to banning religions, today there are 43 countries with state-sanctioned religions.78

  DICTATORS

  Dictators occupy a special area of human depravity. They share a toxic combination of narcissism, violence, and lack of empathy. They use violence and intimidation to gain power, ramp it up to maintain power, and will use any scorched earth tactic, usually short of suicidal means, to kill as many on their way down. Stalin, Mao, Hitler, Pol Pot, Duvalier, Amin, Bokassa, Kim, and Assad, these names engender thoughts of the most abhorrent acts man has inflicted on others.

  They killed indiscriminately, tortured their detractors, and sought greater power. Some raped, most stole, and they all wanted absolute adulation. In the case of Kim, Assad, and Duvalier, they passed the power on to their children. In addition to the constant brutality, they also limited freedom and sapped their respective countries of valuable resources. They made their citizens poorer and orchestrated the world’s largest genocides.

  CULTURE

  Cannibalism was practiced in several cultures. African albinos butchered and ate humans to obtain magical powers. The Aztecs and Incans engaged in the practice as a sacrificial religious rite, as did the Iroquois, Mowak, and other Native American tribes. A cult in Australia and Papua New Guinea was found practicing cannibalism in 2012.79

  Human sacrifice is another practice that w
as common in ancient history. Many polytheistic religions made these sacrifices to their gods. The Phoenicians and Carthaginians, the Shang and Zhou dynasties of China, native Hawaiian, and the Incans all practiced human sacrifice.80 The practice was found as recently as the 19th century in West Africa and India. Sometimes these practices created a clash with other cultures.

  Here’s an interesting exchange between the British colonists and Hindus addressing a cultural issue. The British colonists in India banned Sati, a religious funeral practice of burning widows alive on their husband’s funeral pyre. When the Hindu priests complained, arguing it is their custom, Sir Chares Napier, Major General of the Bombay Army said, “Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.”81

  SEXUAL DEPRAVITY

  Some may not see sexual depravity as a human flaw. It is common in today’s culture to say that people should be free to do what they want to do. Still others will say that as a civilized society, we should make distinctions between acceptable and unacceptable behavior. Homosexuality, fornication, and adultery are all but normative in modern society. The acts we’re describing here are different.

  Bestiality, rape, incest, pedophilia, and necrophilia are sexual acts that most find reprehensible. Not only do these acts take place, but they are not new to modern society. Pederasty was common in Greek society.82 The Romans were notorious for their sexual exploits. The mere mention of Caligula elicits images of sexual excess. While these stories are re-told in a folksy manner, keep in mind that many of these acts were done, as they are today, without consent of the other party, unless you think a horse can sign a consent pledge. This separates these acts from those of consenting adults.