Turkmenistan

Turkmenistan was washed by several cultural waves. Indo-European languages show how our tongues are linked, even if our ears hide behind alternative words and accents. The area was once inhabited by Indo-Iranians. Written history starts with its annexation into the Achaemenid Empire of Cyrus the Great. In the 8th Century, Oghuz Tribes moved there, and those who converted to Islam rather than Christianity or Shamanism were known as Turkmen. Like the Romans who converted to, and (temporarily) took control of, Christianity (till the Germanic people stepped in...), westward-moving Turkmen later led the Ottoman Empire. The languages spoken in Turkey, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan belong to the Oghuz family of the Turkic language group.

Turkic Language Family

Indo-European Language Family

Trinidad and Tobago

The twin islands of Trinidad and Tobago are a sovereign state just 11km off the coast of Venezuela. The southernmost in the string of Caribbean islands. When Slavery ended, plantation owners were in severe need of labour. Slavery was replaced with Indentured Servitude with forced work for a particular employer for a fixed period of time. In return for passage 'to the new world', workers would sign contracts with very low wages. 3.5 million Indians were transported to various European Colonies. Indentureship of East Indians in Trinidad & Tobago lasted from 1845 to 1917 and a third of the population (as many as from the slave trade) descend from this group.  Petroleum was discovered in 1857, but became significant only after a sugarcane/cocoa collapse in the 1920s. The rise of an oil economy led to increasing industrialisation.

Indentured East Indian Labourers

Singapore

When 'Greece' fell to Rome, it wasn't an Empire but a bunch of independent city-states who did things differently. The Greek peninsula first came under Roman rule after the fall of Corinth in 146 BC. Roman culture was heavily influenced by the Greeks. Western Rome fell to the Barbarian tribes of the North in 476. Like the Greeks, the Germanic people were part of independent tribes rather than an Empire. In the year 800, King Charlemagne (of the Franks - a collection of Germanic people) revived the Imperial idea and started the Holy Roman Empire. Barbarian culture was heavily influenced by the Romans. Singapore is one of the few modern City States. Ironically, so is the Vatican City. Singapore was a colonial trading post of the British East India Company, and later part of the British Raj. In 1963, it federated with other former British territories to form Malaysia. Ideological difference saw it become a separate sovereign nation in 1965. The country took commerce, finance, and transport by the scruff of the neck and today has the 3rd highest GDP per capita of any sovereign nation (not based on natural resources).

1825 - Singapore Free Port

Samoa

Unlike other islands which were colonised and the populations replaced, the Samoan people's ancestors reached their country about 3,500 years ago. Only a small minority are not indigenous. In most countries, that is the other way around. People tend to wander. Including Samoans! The island group, including American Samoa (still part of the US) were known as the "Navigator Islands" because of their seafaring skills. Although Europeans visited from 1722, contact was limited until 1830s when English missionaries and traders began arriving. Germany, the United States and Britain started backing military efforts to support their respective business interests. Backing different local groups, there was an eight-year Civil War (1886-1894). A proxy for war between colonial powers. In 1899, all three sent warships resulting in the Somoas being divided between Germany and the US. Britain backed off in exchange for Tonga. New Zealand took over after World War I, and independence came (for what was known as Western Samoa until 1997) in 1962.

Samoa v South Africa

(2007)

Saint Vincent

The 'Black Caribs' were a mix of native Carib people and West African slaves who escaped from Spanish shipwrecks and other slave islands. The Caribs aggressively managed to hold off European settlement of Saint Vincent until 1719. Some of the refugees were enslaved by the Caribs themselves, some became part of the community, some set up their own community. The First Carib War (1769-1773) saw initial success by the Black Caribs supported by the French. The British launch a full-scale attempt to subjugate the island, but it eventually resulted in a stalemate. The Second Carib War (1795-1797) again pitted the British against a coalition of runaway slaves, Black Caribs, and French Revolutionary advisers (The French had briefly taken control during the American Revolutionary Wars). Again initial success was met with a major intervention. The defeated natives were deported to the island of Roatán (65 kilometres off the coast of modern-day Honduras). 

Saint Vincent and the Grenadines

Saint Lucia

Saint Lucia was known as "Helen of the West Indies" because it swapped hands between French and British control so many times. The French first signed a treaty with the native people in 1660, and the British took decisive control in 1814 during the Napoleonic Wars. In between that control switched so each country ruled seven times. The majority of the population are the descendants of slaves. Saint Lucia also has a small minority with ancestry from India. Although misnamed the West Indies because of Columbus' ignorance, connection with actual India did occur when Britain started to bring indentured labourers in 1859. With slavery abolished, an indenture was the alternative way of getting the work done (by someone else). Indenture had also been used during 'The War of the Three Kingdoms' (1639-1651) as something to do with captured prisoners from Ireland and Scotland. The Thirteen Colonies in British America also used indenture for about half the almost 500,000 Europeans arriving there before 1775. Indenture was 'slavery with an end date'.

Gros Islet and Rodney Bay

Saint Kitts and Nevis

Saint Kitts is short for Saint Christopher. Saint Kitts and Nevis is an island country in the West Indies. As one of the first British/French colonies in the Caribbean, it is nicknamed the "Mother Colony". In the fourth century, summertime snow fell on one of the seven celebrated hills in Rome. The Spanish named the island for Nuestra Señora de las Nieves - new lady of the snow. White clouds surround the top of Nevis peak. The British/French settled and partitioned the islands in 1623 - expelling, enslaving or killing the local population. As Spanish power went into decline, these islands became the launching point for increased British and French power. It became the richest colony per capita of the British Caribbean because of the sugar trade. Independence from the United Kingdom came in 1983, and it is the newest sovereign state in the Americas.

Caribbean Politics

England and France

North Sea Empire

Cnut the Great was King of England, Denmark and Norway with his North Sea Empire from 1016-1035. Henry IV was the first King of England (1399-1413) to have English as his mother tongue since the Norman Invasion in 1066. His mother was born in Lincolnshire while most of the previous Monarch's had married on the continent. By 1172, the Angevin Empire was at its greatest extent. A big chunk of what we now know as France and England were under the control of the same family. While the elite was Anglo-Norman with conquerors mixing with the ruling class, the common people were mostly Anglo-Saxon. Englisherie was the legal status given to a person that was slain that could be proved to be English rather than Norman. If the dead person couldn't be proved to be English, the administrative district was fined. If they were English, the fine was excused. King John lost Normandy to the King of France, and a resulting Civil War led to the Magna Carta with reduced powers for the Monarchy. The Hundred Years' War was fought  1337-1453 between the House of Plantagenet and the House of Valois over who had claim to the Throne of France. This war was part of the building of the national identity as two separate rival nations (read ruling families). If you want a war, you need an enemy.

The Angevin Empire - 1172

Norman Possessions - 12th Century

Philippines

About 10 million Filipinos live outside the country, making one of the world's largest diasporas. It sneaks into the 13 countries strong 100-million club, by population. Consisting of 7,641 islands, various competing maritime states have been set up there over time. With over 300 years of Spanish colonization, Catholicism became the dominant religion. After Spain lost the American-Spanish war, The First Philippine Republic was declared. In the peace treaty, Spain sold the country to America. The locals had successfully fought off the Spanish, but America asserted its colonial status in the Philippine-American war, which it won. The Catholic Church was disestablished as the state religion and English was introduced as the language of government, education, and business. World War I was an Empire slayer. 1916 brought the Philippine Autonomy Act which was the first formal declaration of the United States' intention to grant independence. World War II delivered the knockout punch. In 1946, The USA relinquished sovereignty and recognised the independence of The Philippines. The wave of independence and decolonization also started in Africa.

Philip II of Spain

Peru

The first city in Peru is estimated to have been built in around 3,500 BCE at Huaricanga. From about 3,100 - 1,800 BCE, there is evidence of large-scale human settlement along three river valleys. This was roughly at the same time as the pyramids were being built in Egypt. Fast forward to independence in 1824 and the neighbouring countries didn't all perform as well economically. From 1879-1884, 'The War of The Pacific' saw Peru ally with Bolivia against Chile. Vague boundaries, differing prospects and competition for resources saw fights over what got dug up, and how it got where it had to go. Tax was the trigger for war. Not dissimilar to today's ambiguity over where 'value is added' and who it belongs to. Throughout the C20th, Peru flipped between periods of stability and growth, and periods of coups, social unrest and internal conflict. Today, it is a upper middle income country with GDP per capita similar to South Africa (92nd and 90th in the world), but lower inequality and less poverty. It is one of 'The Pacific Pumas', a term given to a group of four larger Latin American countries that are showing common signs of growth, stable institutions, improved governance and global integration. We can try do it on our own, in competition and far apart, or we can do it together. 

The Pacific Pumas

Chile, Colombia, Mexico, Peru

Looking Back

I spend a lot of time looking backwards. Both at my own story, and at our shared history. I believe the world is too complicated for us to understand. Much of our behaviour is stuff we ourselves don't understand, but learn through imitation and repetition. Trial and error. Most of our learning is cumulative. Almost all of it. Our contribution is a nudge. A rounding error. Most of our habits are automatic. Learned and passed on. The problem is context changes faster than we are able to learn. By looking back at my own story, I am always learning. I know more than I did, and that changes the way I saw things. By looking at our shared history, I think we can slowly and consciously change some of the behaviours that are no longer useful. We can create a new story.

Learning

Papua New Guinea

The Portuguese called the people in the region below the Senegal River 'Guineas'. Possibly borrowed from the Berber name for their neighbours, 'Ghinawen', which means "the burnt people". Similar to the Greek word Aithiops - "of the burned face". The source of the name Ethiopia. The Greek historian Heredotus (who died in 425 BC) used this for people living below the Sahara in the Ecumene (the known world). Papua New Guinea is a country occupying the eastern half of the island of New Guinea, just north of Australia. A population of 8 million people speak over 850 languages, with just 18% of the population living in cities. Many live in customary communities, some of which are "uncontacted people". The first modern humans arrived there around 45,000 years ago descending out of one of the first waves of migration from Africa. Independence from Australia was declared in 1975. The Western half of the island is a province of Indonesia (having been colonized by the Dutch rather than the Germans & British). 

New Guinea (1884 - 1919)

Panama

Panama is the skinniest bit of the Americas' waist. It hosts the sibling of the Suez Canal. The 1956 Suez Crisis is a decent choice of bookmark for the end of Britain's age as the preeminent global power. With the backing of the United States, Panama ceded from Colombia in 1903. The US had just defeated Spain in the 1898 Spanish-American war that ended Spain's global power. Panama had been under Spanish rule for almost 300 years (1538 -1821). It had been enormously important to Spain as the easiest way to transport silver from Peru to Europe. It was also the cite of the Darien Scheme - a failed attempt by the Kingdom of Scotland to become a world trading nation by setting up a colony. The failure of this commercial venture, and ensuing debt, was a contributory factor in 1707 Act of Union between England and Scotland. An 'independent' Panama allowed the Americans to finance the building of the Panama Canal by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers between 1904 and 1914. Long live the new global power.

New Edinburgh

Palestine

As nations are a story, they need people willing to listen for them to be 'true'. The Middle East is one of the most controversial areas, given different versions of the tale. Palestine is a de jure state recognised by 136 UN member states. Mandatory Palestine was a post World War I area carved out of the Ottoman Empire and put under the control of the British. An Arab uprising had helped the British drive the Turkish Empire out of the area. The British had supported the uprising under the promise of Arab independence (McMahon-Hussein), but had also separately and contradictorily agreed with France to divide the area up amongst the European powers (Sykes-Picot). A further complication came when under the Balfour Agreement, the British promised support for the creation of "a national home for the Jewish people" (who had made up 3-5% of the population of the area). Lots of promises made to lots of people. The promised land.

Areas under Palestinian Administration

Palau

Even good ideas need to be good business ideas in order to happen. Good business ideas can require cover to make them seem like good ideas too. Like the Crusades before them, Religion and Commerce were two key drivers of European Colonialism. Commerce provided the financing. Religion provided the excuses. The islands of Palau were claimed by Spain on first (in passing) sighting in 1522. In 1697 when a group of Palauans venturing to the North West were shipwrecked, they represented their islands to a Czech missionary using pebbles. The missionary drew a map and reported it to his Jesuit superiors causing great interest. Even today, this society is engaged in evangelisation in 112 nations on six continents. Following the defeat of Spain by America in the 1899 War, they sold the islands to the German Empire. Since 1994, the islands have had independence under a compact of free association with the United States.

Spanish East Indies 1888

Oman

After rounding the Cape of Good Hope, the Portuguese occupied the port of Muscat in Oman for 143 years (1507-1650). About 100 years after they were driven out by locals, the current ruling dynasty cemented power in 1744. Holding a strong strategic position at the mouth of the Persian Gulf, the Omani Empire competed with Portugal and Britain for influence in the Indian Ocean from the late C17th. Oman's colonial focus was the Swahili Coast. The Omanis ejected the Portuguese from Zanzibar and the other areas north of Mozambique. Zanzibar became the main slave market. Slavery was outlawed in Oman in 1970 after Sultan Qaboos ousted his father in a palace coup. Oman remains an absolute monarchy, but gradual reforms have been introduced. Unlike most of its neighbours, it only has modest oil reserves and so doesn't have an oil-dependent economy.

Swahili Coast

Nicaragua

European Colonialism was in part a trade war between the rising European empires. It started largely about ports and trade routes before the Berlin Conference that regulated trade and colonisation in 1885. Less than 30 years before World War I rang the first death knells for Imperialism. The Mosquito Coast was an area on the coast of present-day Nicaragua and Honduras. A somewhat less appealing nickname than the Ivory Coast. When the first Spanish Conquistadors arrived in Nicaragua, they fought each other in what was known as 'The War of the Captains'. Two of the first two competing settlement were set up at Grenada on Lake Nicaragua, and Leon near Lake Managua. The winner became the colonies first governor. Without women in their parties, the colonists took local indigenous wives which led to a multi-ethnic population mix over time. 

Mosquito Coast in Orange