During the years of late 1960's, a book was published in Iran which brought to light the misdeeds of United States government through out the world while acting as protector of American oil companies under pretext of US national interests. The author was a journalist named Dr. Mehdi Bahar, with known links to Iranian mainstream medias at that time which were suspected of spreading pro government propaganda by most leftist minded intellectuals in those days. The book's name was "Miras Khar-e Estemar" in Persian which means "Inheritor Of Colonialism". Many of leftist Iranian intellectuals were quick to dismiss it as a conspiracy by government to identify anti-establishment individuals who would rush to buy it! I guess I was a little too numb towards such ideas and that's why I took that book as soon as it was presented to me by the owner of the book store that I regularly visited (and, not very surprisingly, was suspected of being a SAVAK agent by same leftist intellectuals). Many years of passing the time has withered away my memories of the exact materials in that book but I remember fairly well that I was amazed by the amount of information (the book was over 600 pages) that clearly indicated how US government had capitalized on their own magnificent military might and the weakness of old European colonialists to take over the resources of the world. I was even more amazed by the reaction and suspicions of intellectual community which seemed to have its own interpretation of any publishing or event to fit their ideological preset definitions.
Around the same time, Isamil Raeen had published the first edition of his famous book, "Freemasonry In Iran" (Faramasonery Dar Iran) which divulged many secrets of this fraternity in Iran and revealed identity of many of its Iranian members whom would never be known by anyone outside that fraternity otherwise. There were also other publishing which were illuminating about unfair and unjustifiable policies of western governments (especially British and American) towards less progressed nations which varied as far as dept and significance. I remember reading the well known leftist revolutionary book of Nikolay Chernyshevsky (a forbidden book by government which was given to me by a leftist friend to read), "What To Be Done" or "Che Bayad Kard" in Persian, around the same time. To me, it looked as one of the most useless books to enlighten a reader about unjust behaviors of capitalist world towards others while to my leftist friends it was regarded like a sacred document. In fact it was more about sharing poverty and low quality of life rather than inspiring motivation and boosting spirit for advancement. The materials in that book apparently had been one of the major inspirations behind Bolshevik Revolution in Russia which was the bread basket of Europe at that time but, after the revolution, it fell to a level that it had to import wheat and corn from USA for internal consumption. Much later, when I was reading "A Century Of War" by William Engdhal, this made me wonder about what could have been the cause of such upheaval in Russia other than poverty which was commonplace all over Europe in those days but that is another story which requires extensive research and analysis of its own.
With all that said, I must admit that I personally learned more about evil nature of western colonialism and the forces behind them from reading something like Mr. Bahar's book than tons of useless leftist propaganda materials and publishing that, thanks to the lackeys of Soviet Union in Tudeh party, became available to everyone in Iran after Islamic Revolution. But all of that, especially these days, is nothing compared to the enormous amount of materials available to readers and researchers in the libraries outside Iran and also through internet everywhere. After going through many of such resources, I am convinced that we would be very naive to believe that colonialist powers reached such stage to exploit the resources of other nations for their own benefit without resorting to lowest deceptive tactics, committing all kinds of crimes and, engaging in all kinds of inhumane activities against others as an empire would do (or even worse than that) in older times. History shows that, as we get closer to modern days, the use of espionage, infiltration and conspiratorial activities have become the more favorable method to enforce colonialistic agendas by powerful governments in the west through different means including subversion against unfavorable establishments in weaker and less progressed nations.
During earlier stages in history, an empire needed a vast amount of manpower and resources to be able to enforce any expansionist agenda but this matter became much easier and less resource intensive after invention of firearm. After that,the only element to restrict and restrain the greed of European colonialist powers for more wealth and free or cheap resources was their ability to mobilize enough men with firepower to control such resources and the people who possessed them. That's how Portuguese lost their conquered territories and colonies to stronger and greedier colonialists who had bigger and better guns and more soldiers. Use of diplomacy as a tool to advance the hidden agendas of colonialist powers along with military power made the best combination that worked to the advantage of the European conquerors for a relatively long period of time. Awakening of people of the world to the intentions and agendas of advanced western powers posed a real threat to their interests which were heavily dependent on cheap raw materials and resources of colonized nations. This matter called for a new solution that was fulfilled by development of newer methods of control through covert operations of espionage and use of low cost local elements, wherever possible, to achieve desired goals.
British rulers who had won the war among colonialist powers, enjoyed domination of the world stage for a good period of time which still, to some degrees, continues to this day. British Empire spread from far east and Oceania to far west and the New World (continents of north and south America) and, despite the fact that they faced resistance in many of their colonies, one way or another, they managed to sustain influence in the affairs of former colonies through indirect means of manipulation. Social clubs and fraternities that were created of local people at the height of their presence in colonies and semi-colonies, and provided the members with great advantages and privileges, were in fact nothing but training institutions to prepare the members to serve colonialist agenda at the time of need under pretext of socially accepted values. Everything and anything would be done to protect the "status quo" and therefore, during previous century, the relation between colony and colonizer entered a different phase.
After the era of unfair "free trade" between western colonizers and colonies, new terms like "common wealth nations" gave a new look to the ugliness of deceit and greed of colonialist powers while no real effort was put into such relations by advanced nations in order to help in progress of developing nations which their resources and markets were vital to the economy of their colonizers that appeared as equal trade partners at this time. Entering of the United States of America into this equation as a new competition, did not have much effect on the nature of relations between the powerful and the weak nations. In fact, since United States was falsely viewed as a symbol of resistance and victory against colonial powers by most of non-western politicians, it became much easier for them to find a foothold among under-developed nations which suffered from a bitter and unfair relation with old colonialist powers.
In general view at the relations between western and non-western nations, western powers relied on cheap raw materials and sources of energy for production of goods to run their economy and sustain economic growth while expected the producers of raw materials to buy their manufactured goods without attempting to enter in the arena of manufacturing themselves. This unfair relation was one of the main reasons behind many tensions and confrontations between western and non-western nations while western governments seriously intended to remain in full control of the situation as later unfolding events clearly indicate. Development of universal fund and monetary organizations and with that, new and covert methods of influence and control through financial and economic levers, created concealed ways for pulling political strings and manipulating the situations to nullify any unfavorable activities and reactions effectively. In this new order of affairs, even elected officials of many developed nations (including United States of America) have become mere tools of control in the hands of strong financial institutions.
In these days, as we may all notice, the relations between nations can be very complicated due to the fact that many different elements and agendas are at work in order to maintain the "status quo" for the interest of powerful and greedy while the world's wealth continues to flow into the hands of a small number of people who are at the top and in control of all international economic and financial affairs. Almost every political event in the whole world is influenced by these relations which are designed to maintain supremacy of certain group of people over the rest of the world. Recent chain of events in most stable nations of Northern Africa and some Middle Eastern nations, have the hallmarks of this modern day phenomenon written all over them to show how weaker nations can be manipulated under financial/economic strings and political pressure into a direction of subversion to serve certain agendas for the rich and powerful which in these days, although reside in certain geographic areas of the globe but do not consider themselves bound by any man-made borders and territorial divisions.
All of these may constitute ground for a nice and easy label of "conspiracy theory" but what if there are tangible and solid evidence to prove such points without any shadow of a doubt? Believing that western imperial powers, which fiercely rivaled each other over whatever they considered vital for their own interests through-out the history, have given up on old habits and greed, would be very simplistic if not foolish. British and French went to a full-scale war against each other over "Rosetta Stone" which promised a key to decipher Egyptian's glyphic writings and finding the secrets of it's past monumental fortune and glory. Understanding the true cause of that war can lead us to the main motive (other than greed and treasures) behind all activities of western archaeologists through-out the past two centuries in the far territories of the eastern ancient civilizations but, that is a separate issue and is not the point of this writing.
To be continued..
