What is has always been, what is will always be. That’s what humanity noticed at the dawn of history. These observations have been collected and handed down from generation to generation, first, by word of mouth, then they were enshrined in holy scriptures of different peoples, of various faiths or simply in epic literature.
In ancient Greece it was Aesop, a storyteller or – most probably – a story collector, who encapsulated human knowledge in brief fables. Those fables refer not only to human character but also to the life of societies. They are a treasure trove of timeless wisdom.
Take the story about the lion and the farmer’s daughter. The lion fell in love with a farmer girl and wanted to marry her. His requests were turned down by the girl’s father again and again because the father was scared for his daughter if she were to be the lion’s wife. Simultaneously, he feared the lion. The farmer needed to turn down the lion’s requests in a diplomatic way. As the farmer was running out of excuses explaining why he withdrew his permission, he resorted to a trick. He demanded that the lion tear off all his claws because they were an obvious threat to his daughter’s safety if she were to become the lion’s wife. The king of animals complied. When he turned up to eventually receive permission from the girl’s father to marry her, the farmer – now fully confident that there was nothing he could fear once the lion had been defanged – said a final and resounding no. The lion could do nothing about it: he himself had deprived himself of his armament.
Now look for mirror reflections of this story in the history of the world, especially in current politics. The USSR desperately wanted to ingratiate itself with the West. The Soviet Union’s requests were met with demands, which Moscow was all too willing to comply with. Once the Soviet Union had disarmed itself – not merely militarily, but politically and economically – it became easy prey for the world’s powers that be.
China has understood the lesson and refused to follow the Soviet Union’s example. Beijing blazed its own trail out of communism to state capitalism, and it proved successful. Similarly, Iran was attentive at class and consequently has done its homework. The American and Israeli demands that Tehran disarm the country were declined, which eventually led to the war that we are witnessing at present.
Or the fable about the swallow, the flax, and the other birds. The swallow saw people sowing flax. The swallow was knowledgeable about what flax was used for. The swallow gathered the other birds and told them that people had sown flax in order to make cords for traps and nets with which to catch birds. The swallow strongly advised the birds to fly to the newly sown fields and peck out all the seed before it sprouts, before flax grows, before people make the nets and traps. Birds being birds, some did not believe the swallow, others were too lazy to be bothered, still others thought there was plenty of time so why be in a hurry. The birds did nothing. The people grew flax, processed it and made nets and traps, and began to catch birds.
Israel, among others, is like that swallow. Tel Aviv has for decades perceived Iran at first as a field sown with flax seed, then as a field with growing flax, an eventually as a manufacturer of nets and traps with which to entrap Israel: hence Tel Aviv’s insistence on attacking Iran in due time, hence the pressure exerted by Tel Aviv on the United States to strike Iran.
Also Russia viewed Ukraine as a field of flax where the Western countries had sown the seed, with a view to bracing themselves for entrapping Russia with the nets and traps produced from the flax which was to be harvested in the field. The Russian swallow positioned sufficiently high up in the Russian hierarchy to have an influence managed to convince the Russian ruling class (all the other birds) to see in Ukraine such a flax field with all the attendant threats. This time the other birds saw the impending danger and acted accordingly. They flew to the field (Ukraine) to peck out the flax seed and prevent future threat from materializing.
Two fables that reflect typical and hence forseeable political attitudes and the resultant actions. We have only adduced recent examples, but you can multiply them ad infinitum if you delve in the past of the nations and countries.
