Aryans of Asia

Aryans of Asia??? Probably - but Aryan waste, Aryan shit.....Scythian clunker, not worthy of that great name.....that is what they actually are - and have become.......

Pashtuns and "foreign powers"

BELOW IS A DIALOGUE ON FACEBOOK I HAD WITH A ZEALOUS YOUNG ANP ACTIVIST, NOW STUDYING LAW IN ENGLAND. I REPRODUCE IT BELOW TO ILLUSTRATE THE TYPICAL ATTITUDES PREVALENT AMONG THE YOUTH OF TODAY CONCERNING THIS ENORMOUS PROBLEM, THEIR "STRATEGY" AND ITS FLAWS......

THE TOPIC STARTED OFF WITH THE USUAL REFRAIN OF HOW MISERABLE PASHTUNS NOWADAYS ARE, AND HOW FOREIGN POWERS ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL THIS.........MY COMMENT WAS THE FIRST........

ME: Well if they are so disillusioned, they have only themselves and their backward loving reactionary mindset to blame. You can not be reactionary and expect to eat the fruits of progress in one go....progressive Pashtuns like me have suffered and been threatened by my own people on that count....let them rot in the juice of their own doings.....

REPLY - Mrs. X: And many other external and internal factors as well along with their own shortcomings.The most important one is their geo-strategic location.

REPLY - Mr.Y: We've been the victims of geopolitics, and understandably so because we happened to be on the borderland of colliding empires, limiting our options, if not in absolute control of others. And Now. Well,the physical geography goes nowhere.

It's unjust, if not unwise, to attribute externally imposed choas and confusion to a society relatively too weak to withstand the overwhelming attacks. Hypothetically, but logically such chaos and confusion can very well be imposed anywhere, even in modern western societies with enviable socio-economic indicators. I mean, it's not that difficult to create Waziristan in Newyork or London; all you need is a complicit or otherwise a relatively weak state unable to neutralize another meddling state.

It's tempting to find escape, as western coalition do now, but is ridiculous to confuse and loss the themes of political science in Sociology.

ME: Sorry Mrs. X, and Mr. Y - but my life's experience is at variance with the opinions expressed here by you both; my experience as a Pashtun, in the present conditions as well as a human being.......

To put it in the words of simple everyday wisdom (that even peasants can fathom), leaving aside the intricacies od Political Science and Sociology, let's face it, we have been too apologetic in excusing ourselves of what has befallen us. The way I see it, if a person has integrity and proper character, no external force or entity can do "shaitanay" to him....we, on the other hand, are notorious in the world for selling our brothers, and murdering our cousins.....pointing fingers at others is almost always the refuge of the scoundrel, and unless we really master true self-criticism and stop looking for a gaggle of excuses, then we will deservedly be bound for oblivion...I will be the first to invite it. I think that at present, we constitute the largest population of excuse makers on the planet. And we are getting what we deserve for that, but this is only the start......

REPLY - Mr. Y: Akhunzada Sb, I can understand, and at times share your frustration. Agree, its absurd to externalize all our problems. But the point is we shouldn't take that to the extent that all the fault lies in our own society. Reasonably the faults ...you're referring to; well every society has its own problems and shortcomings, but we have to look to society on a more generalized and extended level of its historical character and conduct.

I refer to the collusion of empires; just consider the political response of our society. The sweeping social reform based political movement spearheaded by Bacha Khan on this side of the Durand line, and pashtuns as a nation stood by him rendered heroic sacrifices. Across the Durand consider Ghazi Amanullah khan efforts to reform and modernize pashtun society, though that was an effort from the top. This was most reasonable national response to challenges of that time. Now it's not fair to attribute failure to the leadership and society. The fact is we couldn'd withstand the overwhelming force of global powers having most of the world countries behind them out to set the course of future global politics.

There is a consistent historical pattern: domination is not possible with local collaboration and pashtun is no historical exception.

What I'm trying to say is that we somehow need to balance our criticism because our society needs some morale boasting for sensitizing them to face these grave challenges.

ME: My friend, Pashtuns seem to have more than our share of what others have - treachery, mutual backbiting and fractiousness....I know you are young, and like to idealise things....and all youth wear rose tinted glasses! So did I...I speak fro...m years of disillusioning experience. At one time, I literally fought to impose my views. That was before I experienced the knocks and vicissitudes of age and the wisdom it brings. Sorry to sound downbeat, but I just want others to realise........

True, Ghaffar Khan and Amanullah - and many others - did spearhead earnest efforts; but none of those possessed sufficient momentum, nor did they even leave an appropriate legacy; what legacy do we have now of Bacha Khan? The ANP? That makes me smile.....What legacy do we have of Amanullah's Afghan modernism? Nil.

Many societies have their heroic annals of struggle against world powers. And they succeeded. But they were not like us. And they also possessed a rare combination of ideological élan as well as political abilities and fighting skills.....Cuba, Vietnam and China come to mind. In our case, the Khalqis and Parchamis of PDPA used mostly to lecture each other in order to intimidate; they frequently pulled pistols in Central Committee meetings....I witnessed a lot f such episodes. One can not make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, sorry.

The morale boosting you mention is only appropriate when you have an audience that respectfully listens to you - not a pack of snarling dogs, waiting to outdo each other for every morsel thrown their way.....I think they all know what is afoot, yet can't give the slightest damn until they think they can accrue some tiny piece of personal profit from it. That wasn't true in Ghaffar Khan's era, but that was a different time altogether, with different values....US Globalism and immigration were not even visible on the most distant horizon.....

REPLY - Mr. Y: Akhunzada Sb, lets agree to disagree on this.

I do not in anyway attribute more value to the person, character and vision of Nelson Mandela , than I do to Bacha Khan. The organization and conduct of ANC members and the society they were draw...n from, for that matter, would fell far behind KK and pashtun society. This is purely merit based, and very dispassionate without any emotional influences.The goons of ANP are highly civilized than the ANC had. Politics are never conducted, nor are agendas pushed, in vacuum. Context is always important.

The sad reality is that we are not able to engage our own people in a language they can understand and appreciate.

Further, every nation and ethnic group has passed through its various social phases, but ours has been an imposed social formation. Orakzai and Wazir and mehsud are as tribal as they were at the time of Babur and no respectable historian would blame these people for this. So the parochialism and social ills have always been the realities of of any tribal society, and must be seen with reference to socio-economic of society to help us avoid rash stereotyping.

Or do we have any problem in our DNAs?

ME: One of our major mistakes is to perceive ourselves as being of the modern European nation-state style nationalist mould. Nothing could be further from the truth, as our failures have shown. We are at best "tribal nations", and will happily ...remain so until basic cultural changes occur; these will be dismissed by most as removing the very essence of Pashtunhood.There is nothing imposed about it. Correct: we are as good now as we were in 1526......that is the sad aspect. Our context always seemsd to remain the same. That is why history has ripped our society apart, not transformed it qualitatively.

"No respectable historian would blame them for this...." Yes.....but this society lacks the inner impulse of change that motivated others; other societies needed no leader in the sense that you say; it is only when they were ready that the leader appeared, like the conductor of an orchestra - with the orchestra playing itself, and not under the direct orders of the conductor......that is what Lenin said about a leader playing the role of a historical midwife only, although I do not entirely agree, but in the modern context that holds true.

As for the ANP and ANC, no comparison can be made...the ANC waged a relentless practical struggle, while Ghaffar Khan held rustic ("killiwal") meetings in villages and repaired roads and wells, and talked of non-violent brotherhood - a notion alien to the Pashtun tribal psyche; it was only momentarily successful at the time, as Gandhi had set the trend in Indian polity then, and it rubbed off onto the KKs. What happened to this philosophy in the Pakistan era, when Ghaffar Khan associated with the NAP? The ANP now is the faithful lackey of American imperialism, and will go down with the Pakistani state and the American world system when the time for that comes.And it isn't very far off.

REPLY - Mr.Y: If we've to succeed to have to move on to the modern nationalist mould and must do away with the divisive identities on broad political front. Basic cultural changes will go hand in hand with the socio-economic development and political mob...ility, both reinforcing each other. The historical context never changed, and so the social formation.

I'd partially agree; urge to change find leaders for itself, and this would vindicate pashtun society. On a general regional comparison of nations/ethnicities' political expression for its urge to change, there is no comparison of pashtuns. Say, which other nationalist force can match pashtun nationalists and the political backing it has? The visible degeneration resulted from a consistent onslaught orchestrated by a state with the backing of global powers in the last sixty years. However it has stayed its course, and has its partial but remarkable successes.

Bacha Khan's reforms has its lasting and deep impacts on pashtun society and has set a historical course of its own. And by the way, the political set backs and dust of wars could not reverse these.

I've no taste for American imperialism, but again we have to be realistic; by essentially following that formal , we've to make a choice between American Imperialism and Blackleg's Imperialism.Afghanistan's stability will always remain a determinative factor in our successes and failures on this side of the Durand. On a broader look 9/11 has been a game changer in pashtun politics, and hence the ANP's support for international coalition in Afghanistan, notwithstanding the horrors of terrorism in which ANP has its fair share. In fact, since dark nineties all the nationalist forces had their eyes on international intervention in Afghanistan. What was unfortunate was that they couldn't do proper homework.

ME: About doing this, that and the other, my friend - proposals are plentiful; too many in fact, but "who will bell the cat?" Who is there among us who can command the respect of these brash egotists and subdue them with the force of his person...ality, while not tempted by corruption at the same time?....Or as in Pushto: "Da gaz, ao da maidan..." You talk of cultural changes here, agreed; my basic line is a modernising cultural transformation too, but the present corruption ridden mode of Pakistani social mobility and changes is so stunted, that superior culture here is taken as a form of elite intimidation, not overall beneficial social empowerment.

I can't see what Ghaffar Khan's reforms did - other than create another dynastic political legacy, which became Pakistani in the end. I myself remained in the ANP as a student in the crucial 1980s. I saw the "genuine" ANP then, and not the unthinkably pro-American one you guys are touting now. Besides, my cousin Bashir Matta was a important leader in it, and twice remained senator. Even he, after all the sacrifices he has given for Pashtun nationalism - is disillusioned with Pashtun nationalism now, in his 70s, after having sampled Achakzai also.......

I don't know what you mean by Blackleg's imperialism; but what do know is this that America has sown the seeds of corruption here, by promoting cynical and shameless tendencies in politics...the ANP is no exception, having shredded its old anti-imperialist reputation (which Ghaffar Khan gained it) by becoming part of the imperialist bandwagon at a time when the days of US imperialism are themselves numbered. It could have avoided this, but in doing so it proved that it has no real ideological spine. Ideology still matters, and you will soon see proof of this.You are right in saying that the powers that be didn't do their proper homework, and America is notorious for its shoddy homework. But then I will venture to add, that working with the wayward and wild Afghan mentality itself is an impossible task. And I would only commend myself if I had the self-sufficiency of character to need no foreign mentor whatsoever, to follow.

I agree that we need a lot of deep, textural changes for which Pashtuns are not prepared, nor will their rigid egotistic mentality accept it. An important thing to note here, is the general tendency of our young Pashtuns (and I am not that old either, so I should know.....)living and getting educated in the salubrious climes of the West nowadays, tend to get a bit divorced from the ground realities of their own society and culture and start assessing it as they would a civilised European culture. That pitfall is enough to damn everything.

REPLY - Mr. Y: Akhunzada sb, I've no love lost for US Imperialism, and I believe, nor has the ANP. War riddled state of Afghanistan needs support of international community for a transition to viable functional state, and lacking global powers there is no... such thing called "international community". This is a functional reality we've to accept and can't risk losing everything in idealism, or to be more specific, in internationalism.

The blacklegs imperialism (blacklegs: as their Afghan proxies usually deride them) is the paki-mil's efforts to engulf Afghanistan, and this imperialism is more dangerous than the worst imaginable imperialism, for this has much higher cost - the cost of existence as a nation. In given situation in Afghanistan, any one either support the US presence, US Imperialism or call whatever your want; or otherwise the Blacklegs' imperialism. This doesn't mean that we reduce (or should) ourselves to an instrument of American agendas. This is not about character and foreign mentor, but the desperate need for a power to push back the overwhelming onslaught and have some space to manoeuvre.

We can go on and on with arguments. You're very much entitled to your opinions, and let me mention, I've no doubt about your intelligence and understanding. The point I want to make is that , yes we have our problems, many shortcomings which really constrains our ability to fight, but these shouldn't be overstated. We have to live with certain undesirables and try to contribute whatever we can and move forward. Pashtun is a bit difficult creature,and we just shouldn't alienate ourselves from the very people and society we wish to reform and develop.

ME: Thank you for your kind regards Mr. Y. I have no doubt about the honesty of your well intentioned youthful zeal either - except that is major shortcoming is the lack of experience and testing, which often turns out to be the major flaw....... If your contentions are worth anything, then may you succeed where others have not...

Of course I believe in the veracity of my assertions, and I tend to rely, as most people do, on my own experience - and that lends me to the proclivities of a moralist reformer and academician in my approach, rather than cynical politics. That is a mature approach, yet there are many mature people around who cling to cynical politics because of their ulterior motives - in simple words, they are bad or "bad niyatta"......All reformers tend to be "outsiders" more or less in their character. They have to be.

I think it will be quite easy - as it is thorny and difficult because of the terrain involved - for any interested power to "play around" with a fractious assemblage of neolithic hillmen and pastoralists who always focus on violence and mutual hostility among themselves when there is no outsider to distract or "unify" them them.

Yes, Pashtuns may be the world's biggest challenge in the form of being an indefatigable nuisance, but they haven't achieved an iota of anything worthwhile.......

Rather than concern myself with the vagaries and intricacies of geopolitics, I tend to look at worth, quality and character in my assessments. The fact that they all lack even a modicum of common courtesy in public can not be attributed to the machinations of foreign powers; I don't see any foreign power conspiracies when I see my people failing to stand properly in a queue; or coughing down my neck or into my face; or driving like dogs on the roads; or displaying naked "badmashi".....for how long will this tragicomical charade, this insult to one's intelligence continue? I see it every day on the two-penny worth talkshows that proliferate every day, on our equally cheap and tinny media channels.....no wonder there is plenty of babble, yet no solution is in sight. It is a fashion to was eloquent on rubbish. I would in fact be thankful to the powers you and others blame so mercilessly; it is because of them that we have the rudiments of a proper law, commerce, roads, hospitals, electricity, press, education and medicine.....don't tell me that Shaikh Malli, Khushal Khan Khattak, Ahmad Shah Baba or Mirwais Niku or the old man Abdul Ghaffar Khan gave us the telephone or electric bulb which we now take for granted so much; those English dogs did.....Pakhtunkhwa was taken over by them in 1849 and ruled for 98 years, and Kabul was not - the result is that Afghanistan proper is still light years behind us.....I do not favour slavism or colonial rule, but are we strong and capable enough to pick up and internalise the positive traits of the colonials, and then kick them out? No, we are mired in our beloved traditions and religion.....and cynical excuse making......so as long as we are not prepared to transform GENUINELY and INTERNALLY: i.e QUALITATIVELY, we will remain floundering here, where we deserve.....under the feet of the mighty ones. Even if we are the poisonous scorpions we are, a scorpion remains on the ground, and is vulnerable to being crushed by a boot. The truth is, we are a parasitical stone age tribal society of toughs, used to robbing and raiding, until the British made us part of their Indian Empire. Prior to that, we could only settle down and rule in foreign lands like the Khiljis, Lodis and Surs - where our forebears like Allaudin Khilji and Sher Shah/Farid Khan did marvellous things. But the one marvellous thing they could not do was rule their own land or change themselves. And that is the basic thing of all. We are in no position to dictate terms, let alone with the dignity we illudedly think we deserve. You are a newcomer to this, but I have been privy personally to the goings-on in Afghanistan even 25 years ago.... I grew up in it, I was present as a student leader when we created the ANP by the merger of the NDP, PNP, MKP and Sindh Awami Tehrik in 1986 - so I don't need telling what the ANP is, or what it wants, thankyou! The activist youth of today are even oblivious to the goings on of the 1990s not to talk of that time.

I concern myself with more practical matters in my assessment of my people's social viability as humans, and that of their future, without which any talk of politics or development would be meaningless. For one, let us take just one of our basic ailments - the strict segregation of sexes, and the compulsorily fixed marriages (you will say that there are many marriages of choice nowadays; I agree - but even once you chose who you like, you have to send the senior women of your family over to "fix" the rest of the arrangements - no two people can get married "just like that" at a government registry; you may retort: "That is our cherished tradition...." I will reply: "It is a bunch of damned rigid pathological nonsense, needing eradication".....). The result of all this extremist segregation (on the pain of death, by honour killing) and fixing of marriages has resulted in homosexual perversion being a dominant and accepted - though denied - trait in our all-male public life......and that isn't normal at all....it isn't even the nowadays "approved" kind of homosexuality as found in the modern West, but a mass psychopathology of twisted sexual instincts finding an outlet. Moreover, you need to pay attention to your abnormal traditions and "codes" and customary notions of "honour"...that rule you lives and behaviour....they are not normal at all: in this male dominated society, most men even have to sport a moustache to "show" and "prove" their "masculinity" and defend themselves from the "paighor" of "unmanliness" and parade it to others. A moustache is not so much a fashion here as it is a trademark and a compulsion. Many here are so used to this and the notion is so inbuilt, that it doesn't even occur to them...No modern society can progress unless it changes its "traditional" attitudes to women and male power - and the time is near at hand in which any society will find it hard to exist if it does not modernise and join the sea of global humanity. It is customary for our bevy of politicians not to acknowledge and concern themselves with these unsavoury truths in public discourse - but it is a matter that can be avoided no longer.

Big Bang de la Pakistan

Pakistan is in a state of total systemic collapse on the one hand, and is also under terrorist attack. Are these misfortunes a coincidence? Whose doing is this? Are we pinpointing the right culprits and causes? Because until we do, everything is positively screwed.

The economy is collapsing...the electricity system is collapsing...government ...management is collapsing....resources such as natural gas are dwindling...things and people are uncontrollable, and are in the maximum destructive mode of corrupt rapacity.....Who ravaged national development? Who rifled the Treasury? THE ELITE...Who stole Western aid money? THE ELITE...Who ravaged infrastructural and general development? THE ELITE...Who set a bad precedent of lawlessness and corruption? THE ELITE...Who created Taliban terrorism? THE ELITE........Who pays absolutely no taxes? THE ELITE........Who makes a hash of the laws? THE ELITE........And yet, the elite are partying away as if there is no tomorrow.....

Our army is also part of this elite - rather it is the cream; but it is still disciplined, otherwise this joke of a country would not remain to be ruled over.....still, I wonder what kind of an army it is - because with so much dysfunction around, allowed and created by it - what kind of country will they have left to defend? Are they defending this country to defend it - as any army should - or to prey on it?

So, the elite stands fully implicated and marked out as the germ of our national disease in full - the first class multi-criminals that they are, as do its Western patron powers....but nobody can touch them even.....yet. These local ruling elites are NOTHING without the backing of their Western elders. They are all now prominently exposed, but as yet too powerful to touch. That will not always be the case, and there will certainly be those with long memories around, waiting for the opportune time to arrive to pronounce justice; it shouldn't take that long now, and that time may even be less than a year away.....

There are also other powerful upwardly mobile social "wannabes" and lobbies jostling for the same dirty status and power as the traditional British-time ruling elite combine exercises: like the Pakistani middle classes and Pathan tribal smugglers - who are potential rivals of this elite, yet their goal is aspire to berths in it, or to become auxilliaries....the whole "nation" is therefore caught in a criminal, lawless and lowlife pattern.

And a note about the Awami National Party of Pakhtunkhwa is in order here. One of the very few political "entities" here always regarded as being "anti-establishment", that illusion is now fully demolished. In its cynical passion to rule and take power, the ANP hurriedly joined the doomed Pakistani establishment in its final hour. (There were coalition governments by the same elements that constitute the ANP before in Pakistani history, but never were they so in bed with it as they are now). The "successors" of Ghaffar Khan's noble struggle thought it fit to do so, oblivious to the fact that it would spell their end too. But I suppose it was the best thing they were fit to do. In doing so, this party of the rascally and rapidly growing Pashtun "globalised" bourgeoisie of Pakistan, has also signed its own Black Warrant. It is a strange irony of fate indeed, that it effectively put paid to whatever vague neutral reputation it may have had for decades, by taking the plunge and joining the establishment at a time when the end of Pakistan itself was drawing near and clearly visible to those with eyes...But I think they are too callous to care for such considerations now. Our third rate public opinion says that they won't be re-elected in the "next elections"..... That might be true, but what is more true - but as yet not noticed by the extremely myopic Pashtun/Pakistani public mentality - is that a horrendous social catastrophe is in the making....one in which all these forces have taken full part to cause and create. So one can forget about niceties such as elections, and the benign misfortune of losing them. All such considerations are now comfortably and thankfully in the past. Wait for the "Big Bang de la Pakistan"......and that will be thereafter followed by the global decline and fall of the second Anglo-Saxon world imperium, the Empire of the United States of America - Defender in Chief of Global Corruption, Patron of Thieves and the Standard Bearer International Human Moral Indecency.......Frankly speaking, the intensity and magnitude of corruption has reached such a momentum, that only a catastrophic conflagration can remedy it and its effects.

Big Bang de la Pakistan

Pakistan is in a state of total systemic collapse on the one hand, and is also under terrorist attack. Are these misfortunes a coincidence? Whose doing is this? Are we pinpointing the right culprits and causes? Because until we do, everything is positively screwed.

The economy is collapsing...the electricity system is collapsing...government ...management is collapsing....resources such as natural gas are dwindling...things and people are uncontrollable, and are in the maximum destructive mode of corrupt rapacity.....Who ravaged national development? Who rifled the Treasury? THE ELITE...Who stole Western aid money? THE ELITE...Who ravaged infrastructural and general development? THE ELITE...Who set a bad precedent of lawlessness and corruption? THE ELITE...Who created Taliban terrorism? THE ELITE........Who pays absolutely no taxes? THE ELITE........Who makes a hash of the laws? THE ELITE........And yet, the elite are partying away as if there is no tomorrow.....

Our army is also part of this elite - rather it is the cream; but it is still disciplined, otherwise this joke of a country would not remain to be ruled over.....still, I wonder what kind of an army it is - because with so much dysfunction around, allowed and created by it - what kind of country will they have left to defend? Are they defending this country to defend it - as any army should - or to prey on it?

So, the elite stands fully implicated and marked out as the germ of our national disease in full - the first class multi-criminals that they are, as do its Western patron powers....but nobody can touch them even.....yet. These local ruling elites are NOTHING without the backing of their Western elders. They are all now prominently exposed, but as yet too powerful to touch. That will not always be the case, and there will certainly be those with long memories around, waiting for the opportune time to arrive to pronounce justice; it shouldn't take that long now, and that time may even be less than a year away.....

There are also other powerful upwardly mobile social "wannabes" and lobbies jostling for the same dirty status and power as the traditional British-time ruling elite combine exercises: like the Pakistani middle classes and Pathan tribal smugglers - who are potential rivals of this elite, yet their goal is aspire to berths in it, or to become auxilliaries....the whole "nation" is therefore caught in a criminal, lawless and lowlife pattern.

And a note about the Awami National Party of Pakhtunkhwa is in order here. One of the very few political "entities" here always regarded as being "anti-establishment", that illusion is now fully demolished. In its cynical passion to rule and take power, the ANP hurriedly joined the doomed Pakistani establishment in its final hour. (There were coalition governments by the same elements that constitute the ANP before in Pakistani history, but never were they so in bed with it as they are now). The "successors" of Ghaffar Khan's noble struggle thought it fit to do so, oblivious to the fact that it would spell their end too. But I suppose it was the best thing they were fit to do. In doing so, this party of the rascally and rapidly growing Pashtun "globalised" bourgeoisie of Pakistan, has also signed its own Black Warrant. It is a strange irony of fate indeed, that it effectively put paid to whatever vague neutral reputation it may have had for decades, by taking the plunge and joining the establishment at a time when the end of Pakistan itself was drawing near and clearly visible to those with eyes...But I think they are too callous to care for such considerations now. Our third rate public opinion says that they won't be re-elected in the "next elections"..... That might be true, but what is more true - but as yet not noticed by the extremely myopic Pashtun/Pakistani public mentality - is that a horrendous social catastrophe is in the making....one in which all these forces have taken full part to cause and create. So one can forget about niceties such as elections, and the benign misfortune of losing them. All such considerations are now comfortably and thankfully in the past. Wait for the "Big Bang de la Pakistan"......and that will be thereafter followed by the global decline and fall of the second Anglo-Saxon world imperium, the Empire of the United States of America - Defender in Chief of Global Corruption, Patron of Thieves and the Standard Bearer International Human Moral Indecency.......Frankly speaking, the intensity and magnitude of corruption has reached such a momentum, that only a catastrophic conflagration can remedy it and its effects.