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War with Armenia

 

Leaving Baku we would need to head north into Georgia because the border with Armenia is a war zone.  So it's not possible to cross it, at least not in a tour coach, with any safety. The present enmity dates back to 1917 but the roots are much earlier, perhaps going back to the 12th century and the arrival of Islam; or to the fourth century and the arrival of Christianity; or perhaps even to the 5th century BCE and the arrival of Zoroastrianism?

Coming forward to modern times, from the turn of the 19th century Tsar Nicholas II (the bloody) had made a series of catastrophic military mistakes that got worse at the start of the First World War.  So Russia was in turmoil, culminating in the first revolution at the beginning of 1917.  As a result the Russian Army of the Caucuses was withdrawn and the (Turkish) Ottoman Empire saw an opportunity to invade.  Muslim Azerbaijanis for their part saw their chance for independence.  But it did not go smoothly.  A bloody civil war broke out between ethnic (Christian) Armenians, who remembered the Armenian Genocide in Turkey, and (Muslim) Azerbaijanis, supporting the Turks.

Then in October there was a second, Bolshevik, Revolution in Russia and the Russian Civil War began. In Transcaucasia, particularly in Georgia, the Bolsheviks had been opposed by the Mensheviks (see later) and now inroads were being made by the anti-revolutionary forces known as White Russians (remember Dr Zhivago), who enjoyed initial military success here with western support. 

 

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David Lean (movie) and Boris Pasternak (book) - a very popular story in the West during the Cold War
source: public domain

So neither side were in a position to stop the sectarian violence in Azerbaijan. In 1918 a new, but short lived, Azerbaijani Democratic Republic was declared by the separatists but failed to stop the fighting.  Social stability was not restored until 1920 when the Russian Civil War ended in a Bolshevik victory.  The Russians then prevailed and an Azerbaijani Soviet was established under Lenin.  People who had taken part in that violence were still unsatisfied and old memories, passed on to new generations, die hard.  So traditional enmities and disputes over territory flared up again when the Soviet Union collapsed and the Russians withdrew, yet again.  Our local guide made his still bitter partisan feelings on these matters quite clear.

 

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Travel

Canada and the United States - Part2

 

 

In Part1, in July 2023, Wendy and I travelled north from Los Angeles to Seattle, Washington, and then Vancouver, in Canada, from where we made our way east to Montreal.

In Part2, in August 2023, we flew from Montreal, Quebec, Canada, down to Miami, Florida, then Ubered to Fort Lauderdale, where we joined a western Caribbean cruise.

At the end of the cruise, we flew all the way back up to Boston.

From Boston we hired another car to drive, down the coast, to New York.

After New York we flew to Salt Lake City, Nevada, then on to Los Angeles, California, before returning to Sydney.

Read more: Canada and the United States - Part2

Fiction, Recollections & News

The Royal Wedding

 

 

 


It often surprises our international interlocutors, for example in Romania, Russia or Germany, that Australia is a monarchy.  More surprisingly, that our Monarch is not the privileged descendent of an early Australian squatter or more typically a medieval warlord but Queen Elizabeth of Great Britain and Northern Island - who I suppose could qualify as the latter.

Thus unlike those ex-colonial Americans, British Royal weddings are not just about celebrity.  To Australians, Canadians and New Zealanders, in addition to several smaller Commonwealth countries, they have a bearing our shared Monarchy.

Yet in Australia, except for occasional visits and the endorsement of our choice of viceroys, matters royal are mainly the preoccupation of the readers of women's magazines.

That women's magazines enjoy almost exclusive monopoly of this element of the National culture is rather strange in these days of gender equality.  There's nary a mention in the men's magazines.  Scan them as I might at the barber's or when browsing a newsstand - few protagonists who are not engaged in sport; modifying equipment or buildings; or exposing their breasts; get a look in. 

But a Royal wedding hypes things up, so there is collateral involvement.  Husbands and partners are drawn in.

Read more: The Royal Wedding

Opinions and Philosophy

Conspiracy

 

 

 

Social Media taps into that fundamental human need to gossip.  Indeed some anthropologists attribute the development of our large and complex brains to imagination, story telling and persuasion. Thus the 'Cloud' is a like a cumulonimbus in which a hail of imaginative nonsense, misinformation and 'false news' circulates before falling to earth to smash someone's window or dent their car: or ending in tears of another sort; or simply evaporating.

Among this nonsense are many conspiracy theories. 

 

For example, at the moment, we are told by some that the new 5G mobile network has, variously, caused the Coronavirus pandemic or is wilting trees, despite not yet being installed where the trees have allegedly wilted, presumably in anticipation. Of more concern is the claim by some that the Covid-19 virus was deliberately manufactured in a laboratory somewhere and released in China. 

Read more: Conspiracy

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