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George C Marshall served because the Chief of Workers of the US Military underneath President FD Rosevelt and Harry Truman after which as Secretary of State and Secretary of Protection underneath President Truman. However he’s extra well-known for his ‘Marshall Plan’ which was utilized by the US to offer unprecedented financial and army assist to overseas nations to comprise communism. I got here throughout a suggestion he gave throughout an tackle at Princeton in February 1947, saying that he doubted “whether or not a person can suppose with full knowledge and with conviction relating to sure of the essential worldwide points as we speak who has not seen in his thoughts the interval of the Peloponnesian Battle and fall of Athens.” This inspired me to learn work of some famend students and textual content of historical occasions and once I completed doing that, I realised that “the extra issues change, the extra they keep the identical.” Many centuries separate us from the time the Peloponnesian wars have been fought — between 431 and 405 BC. But, I might dig out a lot that we will relate to what was taking place then and what’s taking place now. Within the context of Pakistan’s politics many issues are relatable.
All Greek cities skilled revolutions apart from one — Sparta — the soundness of which all different cities envied. The rationale for that was that Sparta was the one metropolis the structure of which by no means modified for hundreds of years. The massive Spartan concern was not who dominated the town however how those that needed to rule might make it to the federal government. Smart, certified and competent folks made it to the federal government as a result of solely a practical structure enabled them to take action. This I time period as Lesson One: if we will’t defend, shield and defend our structure from unconstitutional forces, we’ll by no means obtain political stability.
Then there are wishes which might be peculiar and there are wishes which might be good and ultimate. An ideal and an excellent need is one which not only a individual ready of affect and authority wishes however as a result of it’s so beneficial, helpful, helpful and advantageous that everybody else desires to need it. Socrates was accused of impiety and corrupting the youth. His fault was that he stood up as initiator and driver of social change via the method of dialect. The unconstitutional forces most well-liked and located it a lot simple to silence him by the use of hemlock relatively than remedy the ills of what he was complaining. He was over 70 and had by no means appeared earlier than a courtroom of legislation earlier than he was indicted on prices of treason. This Greek thinker from Athens lived through the occasions of the Peloponnesian wars and even as we speak everybody is aware of who Socrates is and what he desired however hardly anybody has heard the names of Anytus, Meletus or Lykon who have been his prosecutors and who accused him of introducing new divinities and educating the youth about it. Lesson Two from historical historical past is that public approval and public appreciation are extra vital and lengthy lasting than formal indictment, prosecution and punishment on trumped-up prices. Historical past hardly remembers the hangman, however the individual hanged, beheaded for a righteous trigger is remembered perpetually.
Macedonia was about 500 km from Athens and a person by the identify of Alexander the Nice ventured out from the town and in 10-year time i.e. from 334 to 324 BC conquered Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Babylonia, Persia, Samarkand, Bactria and Punjab. To his credit score he defeated the best empire of the time — the Persian Empire. He visited the well-known scholar of the time, Diogenes, popularly often called Diogenes the cynic and as he approached him, he discovered him digging within the filth. When Alexander requested him what he was doing the scholar answered, “I’m trying via the bones of the useless and I discover no distinction between the bones of the slaves and your father, the king.” Lesson Three from historical historical past is the lesson of humility. All males are mortal and a king or a ruler is greatest remembered if he’s a liberator, a deliverer, a rescuer or a preserver. A tyrant king can also be remembered however he’s remembered for all of the mistaken causes.
King Henry VIII appointed Thomas Extra as his chancellor however being a religious defender of Catholic Church, Thomas Extra continued to argue in opposition to Protestantism as he feared that Luther’s reformation would weaken the church. He was tried by the king, convicted of excessive treason and beheaded. All of us keep in mind Thomas Extra for writing in 1516 his well-known ebook Utopia by which he tried to recommend methods to enhance European society. Individuals in search of flawlessness and perfectionism use the phrase utopian and Thomas Extra is remembered on a regular basis greater than the king that executed him. Lesson 4 from historical past is that some males are destined to turn into well-known not solely when they’re dwelling but additionally after they’re useless, and dying for a trigger is extra liberating than dwelling as a consequence of a compromise that shatters the very values you stood up for and propagated.
The Lesson 5 that I need to quote from historical past is for the autocracy and the rulers that get pleasure from absolute energy — the adherers of one-sided Machiavelli’s doctrine. Machiavelli is extra well-known for writing The Prince, however his extra detailed and lengthy work was printed within the type of his ebook, The Discourses. When you’ve got learn The Prince and never The Discourses, it’s as when you’ve got learn Allama Iqbal’s Shikwa and never Jawab-e-Shikwa. In The Prince, Machiavelli suggests {that a} ruler will perish if he’s all the time good, so he have to be as crafty as a fox and as fierce as a lion. He additionally suggests {that a} prince ought to preserve religion so long as it pays to take action. So on events, he could be completely faithless. In The Discourses, one complete chapter appears to be written by Montesquieu and never Machiavelli because the chapter explicitly explains the doctrine of checks and balances. Machiavelli himself writes at first of The Prince that he is not going to converse of liberalism and republic on this ebook as he has handled them elsewhere. The Lesson 5 from historical past is {that a} chief must outgrow his particular person biases, views and interpretations and that may solely occur if their mental curiosity doesn’t cease at The Prince however they’re able to learn and discover The Discourses as nicely. Cussed and one-dimensional leaders should revision their biases and psychological fixations and doing that is solely potential if they permit their mental curiosity to create room for acceptance of various opinions and assumptions which can come not from one however many sources.
Printed in The Specific Tribune, March 17th, 2024.
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