Niall Ferguson has made a name for himself as a media savvy Economic Historian who seems to be able to hold down a Professorship at both Harvard and Oxford. Love to see that contract. After his appalling but hugely successful The Ascent of Money (book and TV series) Niall has given us a book about how Westerners beat all the non- Western countries at business and trade therefore giving all us lucky Westerners a lifestyle that non- Westerners can only dream about.
The book Civilisation: The West and the Rest argues that there are ‘six killer apps’ that gave the West hegemony over the rest. (One has to remember these apps were brought into play long before the iPad). The six apps are Competition, Science, Modern Medicine, consumerism, democracy and the Protestant Work ethic.
Reviewer Malcolm Turnball reckons that the thread that runs through each one of these apps is an aspect or facet of freedom.
Now I came to higher education late in life probably around about the time young Malcolm made a fortune selling rainforest timbers from the Solomon Islands. Why the Solomon Islands needed Malcolm to sell their wood is unknown to me. Malcolm made a second fortune when he created sold an email company called Ozemail. With two fortunes in the bank, he married to the daughter of a leading right wing Barrister and with his own thriving legal career to boot our Malcolm bought the thing that all Sydney-siders dream of; a harbour side mansion. With his son off to Harvard and his daughter now through school Mal knocked over the sitting Liberal Federal Member for Wentworth in Sydney’s Eastern Suburbs – the second richest suburb where old money and new money cohabit peacefully, except when views are at stake. So having gained pre-selection as Liberal candidate Malcolm donned a Tweed Jacket complete with a suede vest and a blue and white shirt and strolled around the streets meeting and greeting as he went. A squire was born. He even made it to being leader of the conservative opposition before being usurped for supporting labour’s climate change policy. Malcolm managed to swallow his pride and sits it out on the backbenches waiting for the usurper, Mad Monk Abbot, to self-destruct. Why anyone with all that loot and more than half a brain would want to be involved with politics escapes me
I met Malcolm and his wife Lucy, who was then Sydney’s Mayor, I almost liked him as he seemed to have an interest in history, however he was extremely rude to my wife. He was an admirer of William Dalrymple, an English historian who lives in New Delhi and mines Indian Raj history for a living. I found his book The White Mughuls , intensely boring but Malcolm was so impressed that he invited Dalrymple to stay at the harbourside mansion. I can see him dreaming away about having Niall to stay as well, although I think Niall might be a tad too busy for long flights such as the ones to Australya.
Now when I came across Malcolm’s review of Niall Ferguson’s new book in The Monthly (a magazine for successful graduates that don’t have the time to read newspapers I was keen to see how young Mal the Member had handled it. I think he might have fallen in love with Professor Niall in much the same way he had with Dalrymple. When I had finished reading the review I was annoyed because I knew I had to respond to this example of Eurocentrism and crossing pens with Malcolm was not to be taken lightly given Australia’s liable laws.
What follows is my letter to The Monthly.
Re: Civilisation: The West and the Rest
‘Both the author and reviewer have presented a surprisingly Eurocentric view of the way Europe came to dominate the non-European world from 1492 on. Lets get a bit of balance happening:
Arab and Jewish traders had built the wealth-producing Indian Ocean trade up over hundreds of years with Armenian, Pharisee, India, South East Asian businessmen and others. Europeans had long harboured a desire to get a part of this wealth. Marco Polo’s book about his journey on the silk route to China and his return to the west by sea had fed the dreams of many. It was because of these dreams that the Italian, Christopher Columbus, was sent by the Spanish queen to find away into the Indian Ocean. He obviously came second to Vasco da Gama who six years later found him blown south before strong winds and beyond the southern tip of Africa. When the winds eased he headed north again and saw that the land was now on his left side. Vasco had entered the Indian Ocean. The Arabs had lost their barrier between west and east. Once Vasco sailed into the Indian Ocean it was only a matter of time before the West would come to dominate the Indian Ocean and all the seas to China albeit through the barrels of their cannons and muskets.
The cannon was Portuguese main instrument of trade. Though China had invented the cannon it was the waring European states’ who developed it into a serious weapon from 1320 on as they squandered tax money, and lives, in ‘competitive’ rounds of wars where they desperately sought to dominate each other. The Europeans had little to trade with as nearly everything people desired had originally come from Asia. It was only because of the Spaniards, using slave labour, mined silver in the Americas (which was then brought back to Europe) that the Europe had something the Chinese actually needed – silver for its currency.
The Portuguese did not set up a ‘trading post’ in Malindi in 1498 but on a later voyage. Their opening gambit in the region was to sink a ship off the Malabar Coast of India killing 700 Muslims returning from the Haj. They also killed thousands of Arab, Indian and other merchants when they took control of the trading port on Melaka in 1507. Arab ‘competition’ was blasted out of the water if they refused to pay a licence fee in what had been a free trade zone until the Portuguese arrived.
Europeans did not compete - they stole, defrauded, murdered, monopolised and legislated to become successful in Asia.
The English East India Company operated under a monopoly granted by the English Crown that gave the company the sole right to trade beyond Gibraltar in exchange for a cash fee paid to the English Crown. This company initially went to the Indian Ocean to seek carrying work but after helping a coup to takeover the Kingdom of Bengal they were given the role of Zamindar (collector of taxes on behalf on the Bengali King). ‘Clive ‘ of India understood the value of this and sent a ship home with a message for his broker to buy all the shares he could in the English East India Company. A second ship carried the news that sent the value of shares in the English East India Company through the roof. The English East India Company was able to use taxes collected from Bengalis to buy exquisite Bengali textiles to ship home. Clive made thousands on his share buying and also a large bonus from the company – he was probably the first man convicted for insider trading. English legislation would later stop Indian imports from reaching England when the Europeans mechanised weaving and then the Company forced the shutdown of Indian textile manufacturing so that Indians had to buy machine made English textiles imported into India.
The English and the Americans were selling opium to 40 million people when the Chinese Government finally woke up to what was going on and tried to stop the trade by burning down an English warehouse containing opium. Europeans and the Americans responded by invading a weak China and forced them to open five ports for western traders to be competitive in.
Ferguson and Turnbull both misunderstood the mission of the seven great Treasure fleets under the command of Zheng He.
The renaissance that Europeans like to crow about began after the Arabs, Jews and others arranged for the classic works of the Greeks and Romans were translated from Arabic to Latin in Toledo. The Arabs had had these works translated from Ancient Greek by Syrians in the 11th century.
Arabs still suffer to this day from the British meddling in Arab affairs that began over 300 years ago. Palestine was offered to the French, The Zionists and the Arabs after WWI. No prizes for guess won.
The complete lack of understanding shown by Harvard Professor Fergusson and Liberal treasurer Turnbull is frightening. That Westerners, like these two shining stars of conservatism, still write such rubbish is amazing.
I recommend those interested to read Louise Levarthe ‘s When China Ruled the Seas for the true story of Zheng He; Nick Robins’ book on the East India Company for information on anti-competitive behaviour plus Albert Hourani’s A History of the Arab peoples. For where the Portuguese learned about competition, have a glance at The Suma Oriental by Tome Pires (Google Books or Mitchell library) Tome was the Portuguese trade analyst on board the second Portuguese fleet at the beginning of the 16th Century. He witnessed the Portuguese takeover of Melaka.
It’s amazing to me that Ferguson and Turnbull are unaware of the true story of the ‘Wests’ take over of most of the world.
This review is absolute bollocks and it’s freaky that Malcolm might one day be Prime Minister of Austraya.
PS The letter will be published (in an edited form) in April’s The Monthly.
Stephen O’Rourke
