Αγορά Πολιτών

Tigers and Nomads

Tigers and nomads. They were going no place, quickly. Someone says something offhand about tigers and nomads, a crude laugh splits the air, and E. opens his mouth to ask about it but then the train lurches forward. The wheels start to turn and the smoke rises from the chimney in white vaporous billows. The town disappears, not really being a town it disappears in a single breath, one partial turn of the track as the forest closes in. Walls of trees, the darkness of green hillsides while a hawk rides the thermals on the lip of the valley and E. leans his head against the window, despite the chill and the fact that only the upper parts of it are clean enough to see through. He watches the hawk, and then it too is gone.
He thinks about tigers. And yet he doesn’t see any. Miles pass, the forests rise thick and hedge them in, and nothing but the silence and their own conversation emerge to disturb the journey. He’d settle for a wolf, but there is no sign of the beasts either.
“I thought you said there were tigers here?”
“What? Not any more, I don’t think. Not for a long time, but there were tigers here once. They prowled the forests eating up people - before the wolves took over. Honey harvesters, foresters, tea pickers - they all lived in mortal fear of them.” Aisha drags deeply on her cigarette and flicks ash into the aisle. “Fresh tracks found near a stream or a well was enough to clear out whole villages.”
“What happened?” But E. knows. Deep down or even on the surface, he knows what always happens, happened. People get their revenge on the wild for its wildness, sooner or later, even if it was always lopsided, a pogrom inflicted for a scratch.
“They hired some nomads out of the Waste. An old tribe, one of the last, still herding sheep and murdering each other over mares and the best dried up bits of grazing. They came in with these rifles and bows - bows and arrows! Can you believe that?” Aisha shook her head. She clearly didn’t, but she continued with the story as she lit another cigarette, the smoke rising up and then being whipped out of the window by the passing air. “Packs of dogs - well, more like barely tame wolves, bred from the ravenous beasts of the steppe. They hunted the tigers up and down the valleys for months, years, atop their shaggy ponies, it’s said. They lost a lot of nomads and ponies and wolf-dogs of course, but in the end, there were a few of them left and not a single tiger. Then they took their payment in gold, and stole what they weren’t given, even some of the village women, packed up their ill-tempered shitty ponies and left. Pissed back off to the Waste to do who knows what with it all. Didn’t take their mongrels either, and they interbred with the native wolves of the forest to ill effect, who ever since they say, have had no fear of men. The nomads, they never came back, but then neither did the tigers. I expect they’re both all dead by now, anyway.”
There is a loud bang and clatter from the roof and we all jump. Except Aisha. She just puts down her cigarette and pulls a long barreled gun out from under her jacket.
“Stay here. Away from the windows,” she says. “It might be tigers or nomads.” She doesn’t smile.
E. thinks she’s joking, but then she might not be. Aisha is not always a trustworthy narrator he’s come to know. Perhaps the story about the nomads is just that: a story; and somewhere in the forest there are still tigers. Or the other way around. So he watches her, and sees how she holds her weapon in no casual manner.
She goes to the door between the carriages, listens but there aren’t any more sounds to be heard except for the normal clattering and wheezing of the train and the conductor doesn’t appear. E. takes this as a good sign. Or perhaps it's a bad one? The one other traveler who is in the same carriage as we are, some sort of commercial salesman with his portmanteau stuffed full of samples, doesn’t appear to have even woken up. He goes on snoring, a bit of his mustache fluttering at the edge of his mouth, eyes invisible asleep or awake, under the brim of his hat.
Moments go by along with the scenery. The forests are gone and the tea plantations give way to ugly hills scalped of their timber and bleeding orange mud down their blank faces. Aisha puts away her pistol and returns to her seat. She sighs. In the bright light which falls like mortars among the dead hills it is hard to imagine anything ever living here: wolves, tigers, nomads, or villagers.
“I doubt there were ever either tigers or nomads in these valleys,” she says, her eyes reading E.’s own thoughts so precisely that he jumps a little in his seat as her gaze fastens on him. “The people here are known to be terrible liars. Like the Uzbeks say: ‘In the desert there's a man among those dying of thirst selling tickets to the next mirage; and there's always a queue.’ People will believe any nonsense these days.”
She lights another cigarette and blows clouds of blue smoke across the carriage. The sleeper, if he’s a local, but E. seems to recall he got on before they reached the forest and its valleys, while they were passing through the lonely outskirts of the City of A., sees him in his memory in fact, struggling with his heavy bag up the steps with the smell of the city clinging to his coat, doesn’t wake up and contradict her.
“Still, it’s a good story. I wouldn’t have minded seeing a tiger,” E. says, wistfully even, but no one hears him now over the noise of the train.

[Here the moral is exclusively the virtue of the Nomads to protect the innocent human beings. And, I believe, there are always, absolutely non-violent ways and absolutely non-violent means for using them to protect the innocence].

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Muru’ah and the Code of Chivalry

If you want to live free from harm’s way
And in good fortune and honor,
Your tongue, if it utters something indecent, stop it and say,
“Oh tongue other people have tongues.”
If your eyes see something immoral, close them and say,
“Oh eyes other people have eyes.”
Practice beneficence and be magnanimous to ones who attack
And depart with that which is better.
— Al-Hewar

So said Muhammad ibn Idris ash-Shafii, the founder of the Shafiite rite in Islam, when advising about life and its standards of honor. His words of advice were but a part of the continual Arab code of life since the beginning of time. They are part of the concept of chivalry which can be traced back to the Bedouin concept of al-furusiyyah (horsemanship) and muru’ah (manliness and honour) — principles akin to the European Code of Chivalry which includes courage, honor, loyalty and generosity.

Case in point: the chivalry of generosity. Hatim al-Tai, who lived in the 7th century and was made renowned by poets singing of his virtues, is said to have slaughtered his only remaining animal to feed a newly arrived guest is still remembered today for his generous act.

In the deserts of Arabia since time immemorial, a man in Arab dress, sword in the scabbard and spear in hand, riding his pure Arabian horse across the sands to do away with injustice and protect his womenfolk has always been the image of an Arabian chivalrous knight. Without doubt, it is a prototype of the medieval western “knight in shining armor.”

From long before the birth of Christ, chivalry in the Arabian Peninsula became recognized as a social institution. Before the advent of Islam, religion played no part in the evolution of this code of honor. In early Islam some poets exalted muru’ah above religion. However, in the ensuing years, religion began to play some role and chivalry became somewhat identified with Islam.

The Arabs are said to have been the first people to practice chivalry in their way of life and conflicts. Unlike those of other nations like the Greeks, Romans and Persians, Arab wars were usually fought for glory according a strict code of conduct and honor. They were fought fairly and, at most times, without treachery. Champions fought before both armies and battles often took place by appointment. As late as 1492 when the Christians captured Granada, the Muslim champions came out before the battle to challenge their Spanish counterparts.

Writing about these engagements, John Glubb,» a modern British historian, writes:

The Arab nomads were passionate poets and every incident of these chivalrous encounters were immortalized in verse and recited every night around the campfires which flickered in the empty vastness of the desert peninsula.

Arabian chivalry was a code of ethics, life and social structure. It evolved to become synonymous with the quest for freedom and justice as well as a man fighting to the death for his womenfolk. During war, women often accompanied their men to battle, but they were usually stationed behind the lines. R.A. Nicholson in A Literary History of the Arabs» quotes a verse by Amr ibn Ma’dikarib, a famous Arab poet who lived at the time of the Prophet Muhammad:

When I saw the hard earth hollowed,
By our women’s flying footprints,
And Lamis her face uncovered
Like the full moon in the skies,
Showing forth her hidden beauties
Then the matter was grim earnest:
I engaged their chief in combat,
Seeing help no other wise.

Protecting the good repute and honor of women, the knight’s harim (sanctuary), family and tribe was a basic requirement of an Arab knight. In pre- and early Islam, women were very important in society. They inspired the poet to sing and the warrior to fight. The women played a role comparable, to a great extent to the role the ladies were later to play in Western chivalry.

Renowned Arab knights such as Imru’uI al-Qays and Antar ibn Shadad al-Absi were not officially knighted as in Europe. They became knights by reputation of their courage, dignity, noble deeds and the pursuit of honor, through poetry, tales and legends. Incorporating generosity, forgiveness, and a just and honorable reputation as well as advocating justice and freedom, they became the treasure of their people, and a major aspect of Arab poetry. Pride of culture revolved around their adventures and feats.

The most common themes in Arab poetry were love, praise and insults. In their ballads, the poets helped foster the romantic spirit and, hence, furnished the setting for the rise of chivalry. As to honorable love, the Arabs are said to have been the first people to make romance in the unattainable sense, like courtly love, sighs and devotion to the untouchable beloved, a way of life.

Gustav Leabeon writes that Islam, in its early days, gave women exactly the position that European women would take centuries to achieve. Leabeon concludes that after the chivalry of Andalusia (Spain) filtered into Europe, courteous behavior towards women became the main theme of European chivalry.

Titus Burckhardt in Moorish Culture in Spain» writes that the European chivalry of the Middle Ages was learned from the Spanish Moors. Burckhardt maintains that the glorification of women and the depiction of noble knights with their many virtues came about as a result of the impact of the Arab qualities in battles, literature and daily lives — characteristics not familiar in the world of Christendom (in the 7th through 10th centuries — ed.).

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Ancient Arabic emerged from diverse cultural and regional societies. The South Arabians had an ancient, settled civilization,, while the northern Arabs were nomads and dwellers in oases, dependent on caravan trade routes and the pastoral use of an arid expanse of parched semi-desert. The nomadic tribes had neither architecture (only the tent, with three hearth-stones in front of it) nor pictorial art, except rock drawings. However, music was played on the lyre and similar sophisticated stringed instruments, and verses were chanted at social functions. In the company of flute and tambourine their seemingly wild desert life was organized by tribal social convention. Here men were measured by the qualities of their personality rather than their relationships with gods. They had to be loyal to their tribal community and do everything that they could to defend its interests and pride. However, the awareness of honor went beyond social and collective codes; it was engraved in man's character that had been cultivated by the sound and rhythm of poetry for generations. An ideal man had to be honorable (sharaf), generous and hospitable (karam), and give succor (najdah) to the weak (women and children). His manhood should be judged by his prowess, bravery or even personal sacrifice in tribal war to defend its honor.

[Sharron Gu, A Cultural History of the Arabic Language, 2014, McFarland & Company, p. 197]

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Grigoris Lambrakis (Greek: Γρηγόρης Λαμπράκης) (April 3, 1912 – May 27, 1963) was a Greek politician, physician, track and field athlete, and member of the faculty of the School of Medicine at the University of Athens.

Early life

Lambrakis was born in the village of Kerasitsa in the district of Tegea (Arcadia, the Peloponnese). After finishing high school in his home town, he moved to Athens to enter the School of Medicine at the University of Athens.

Lambrakis was a champion athlete throughout his life. He held the Greek record for long jump for twenty-three years (1936–1959). He also earned several gold medals in the Balkan Games, which took place annually, featuring competitors from Greece, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Romania, and Turkey.

During the Axis occupation of Greece during World War II (1941–44), Lambrakis participated actively in the Greek Resistance. In 1943 he set up the Union of Greek Athletes (Ένωση των Ελλήνων Αθλητών, Enosi ton Ellínon Athlitón) and organized regular competitions. He used the revenue from these games to fund public food-banks for the starving population.

Post-War activism

After World War II, Lambrakis completed his medical studies and worked as a lecturer in the Department of gynaecology. He continued to help the poor by running a small private clinic for patients who were unable to afford medical care.

[wiki]

Chivalry constitutes a common knowledge among the Greek and the Nomads' Nations. In Greece we do have wholehearted answers to the questions: “why, one, should remain honest?”; “why, one, should remain just?”; “why, one, should remain non-violent?”; “why, one, should be of service to the others?”, etc.

Unfortunately, there are very few other nations which are able to actively and peaceful comprehend the notions of courage; honor; loyalty; and generosity. For, all the rest Nations, unfortunately, and more or less, monetary profits are more important than the quality of collective life, thus, the manifestations of chivalry are, more or less, social phenomena which, those Nations, may actively believe that they should become extinct.

Though Life is so Beautiful, human beings may freely choose non-civilization and then, probably for the rest of their lives, having to struggle against the consequences of their non-civilized choices.

Alternatively, according to my opinion and within the present circumstances, it is only non-violence (violence is absolutely unable to resolve any problem!), together with close and creative cooperation between groups of Nations which embody corresponding cultures with similar varieties, the one and only peaceful and creative means, for normalizing the current turbulence in most of the international relationships.

There is No Nation on our planet which is obliged to justify its existence exclusively by violence and its weapons. On the contrary; All Nations may put down their weapons and gradually, become acquainted with the notions of: “peace”, “freedom”, “friendship”, “non-violence”, “honest dialog”, “frugality”, “justice”, “honor”, “chivalry”, etc.

Central Asian Civilizations - Nomads throughout History (Kazakhstan)

Note: the photos were found here and here.