NIMBY Syndrome in History: Deja vù All Over Again

A few years ago, I stumbled upon a podcast called “12 Byzantine Rulers: A History of the Byzantine Empire” by Lars Brownworth who also wrote the book “Lost to the West.”  I was impressed with the podcast and followed it up with the book.  A big take-away for the story of the extinction of the Byzantine Empire was the lack of assistance from the Christian world of the west, meaning Western Europe. They had no interest in helping the Byzantines repel the marauding Ottoman Turks as they ate away at their territory piece by piece until only the city of Constantinople was left in the early part of the 15^th century. 

 

The Turks, under Sultan Mehmed II amassed a huge army, estimated to be around 80,000 troops and besieged Constantinople in May of 1453 and destroyed it.  The Byzantines had only 5,000 troops to defend the city.  The last emperor of the Byzantines, Constantine XI, and his officials, made a last-ditch effort to beg their fellow Christians in Europe for help but were turned down.  Giovanni Giustiniani, a Genoese nobleman and military commander was one of the few to respond.  The Venetians sent a few ships, but they were of little help.  A handful of other Europeans volunteered but too small a number to be effective.  Giustiniani gathered 700 mercenaries and made it to Constantinople, but they were totally overwhelmed by the superior Ottoman forces, both in number and in weapons.  The Ottomans had just acquired a cannon capable of breaking the famous impregnable city walls of Constantinople. Giustiniani died the month after the fall of Constantinople, at the age of 35, probably due to wounds he received during the battle. 

 

Upon breaching the city walls, the Turks went on a killing spree.  Marauding Ottoman soldiers swept the city killing all they encountered.  Those not killed were enslaved. Why did their fellow Europeans fail to help them?  The Ottoman Turks had been on a conquest for hundreds of years.  I asked Lars Brownworth, in an e-mail, the same question.  There is no easy answer.  

 

The Catholic-Orthodox schism of 1054 AD did a lot of damage, not only in religious matters but in the tense relations between the Greek Orthodox east and the Roman west.  As in a feuding family, they despised each other.  This, perhaps, was a major reason for the Byzantines getting no help from their brother Christians.  A second reason could be attributed to the notion of “not in my backyard” (NIMBY) syndrome; meaning if the danger is not in my back yard, I don’t care.  This is a common malady today.  Many liberals and conservatives in the United States do not want to help Ukraine against the invading Russians for the same reason.  The Europeans were very wrong about NIMBY for they, themselves, became the next target of the Ottomans.  Within a 70-year span after the fall of Constantinople, the Ottomans were at the gates of Europe.  In 1529 the first Siege of Vienna happened but was repelled.  By 1571 the battle of Lepanto took place between the Ottomans and a coalition of Europeans, Spanish, Italians, Austrians and others.  The Ottomans lost the huge naval battle at Lepanto, most of their navy and about 25,000 killed.  This marked the largest naval battle since the Greeks and Persians at Salamis in 480 BC.

 

The Ottomans were not yet finished.  They again tried to conquer Europe with the second siege of Vienna in 1683; they were repelled with the help of a European coalition and the fierce counterattack by an army which arrived just in time, led by the king of Poland, King Sobieski, a brilliant military commander.  Finally, the Europeans realized that cooperating was the way to go. With a NIMBY attitude Europe would have been Muslim today.

 

In a fine history book by Victor Davis Hanson called “The Father of us All, War and History,” regarding the Christian League that fought at Lepanto, Hanson says that France and England refused to cooperate in fighting the Ottomans: “both had long ago cut their own deals with the Ottomans.  Indeed, during the winter of 1542 the French had even allowed the Ottoman corsair Barbarossa the use of their harbor at Toulon to refit as he conducted raids along the Italian coast.” (Chapter 7).   Call it what you want but this was treachery at its worst by brother Christians and fellow Europeans.

 

History is a great teacher, but few ever learn.  Same mistakes are committed over and over, whether its World War I or the appeasement of Hitler in World War II.  Hitler did not learn from Napoleon’s invasion of Russia in 1812; the United States learned nothing from the French debacle in Vietnam or the problems encountered in Korea in the early 1950s.  This same mistake is repeated today.  When will they ever learn? to take a que from the 1950s song by the Kingston Trio, “Where Have all the Flowers Gone?”

 

In today’s Europe, we have leaders like Viktor Orban, the Prime Minister of Hungary, who refused to help Ukraine against the evil Russian regime of the dictator Vladimir Putin.  Now, the first question I would ask Mr. Orban would be:  Sir, your country was viciously oppressed by the Soviet Union for over 70 years.  Remember what the Russians did to Hungary in 1956 when they brought tanks to Budapest to crush you?  Perhaps you never heard of it.  Here is a link for you to look up.  Are you suffering from the Stockholm syndrome?  Similarly, we have some right-wing politicians such as Matteo Salvini in Italy who openly admires Vladimir Putin.  Am I missing something?  NIMBY roars its ugly head again. 

Deja vù All Over Gain: The Loss of the Eastern Roman Empire

Since the death of Muhammad in 632 AD the Muslim Turks have been gobbling up territory like the current ISIS conquest; much like the old video game of Pacman.  Muhammad was ruthless, killing all who opposed him. One of his first atrocities was the murder of the remaining Jews in Medina in 627, a few years before his death.  From there the Muslim Empire expanded throughout the Near East, as it was known then, all the way to Russia, North Africa, the Balkans and parts of Europe, including most of Spain, Sicily and Southern Italy.  In 1453 they conquered Constantinople, the seat of Christianity and capital of The Byzantine Empire (the Eastern Roman Empire). The Muslim Turk empire was known as the Ottoman Empire.

Where were the Europeans while the Turks conquered half of the world?  They were all sitting on their hands, thinking it did not concern them.  Sounds familiar today too.  The Europeans paid the price for their inaction:  They had to fight the Muslim Turks for the next thousand years.  Recall that Vienna was besieged by the Turks, not once but twice, in 1529 and in 1683.  Recall the Battle of Lepanto in 1571. The Muslim Ottoman Empire ruled half of the world until World War I.

The Ottoman Turks were defeated in World War I.  The West had their opportunity to get all the territories they lost to the Turks but they failed to do it.  The decisions made by the victorious allies at the end of World War I was nothing short of disastrous, if not laughable.  Not one decision made any sense.  Let's look at their decision to give the City of Smyrna to the Greeks.  A third grader could have told you that this was a very bad idea.  The Greeks and the Turks hate each other with such a passion that no good was going to come out of it.  Indeed, this was what happened.  The Greeks, trying to regain territories lost to the Turks in the past invaded the interior of Turkey but were defeated by the Turks.  Two fine books recount this story very well in fine detail.  Paradise Lost, Smyrna 1922 and The Great Fire.  The Greeks, in turn, were stabbed in the back by their European friends such as Italy who gave the Turks weapons.   France and Britain both refused to help the Greeks.  Had the Europeans cooperated in this matter, the world map would look very different today.

Talking about bad decisions by the victories allies after World War I, consider what they did in redrawing the map of the Middle East.  Can you say, Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Israel and Palestine, just to name a few.  We are still paying the price of these bone-headed decisions made after World War I. This map looks like it was drawn by elementary school children, without regard for any facts, such as ethnic identities for the Kurds, Shiites or Sunni Muslims.  We're now paying a heavy price for these mistakes.  What is even more worrisome is that we have not learned from our mistakes.  The Europeans are still clueless about their threat.  I suppose that they will not wake up until the hordes are at their doors.

The Limits of Diplomacy, or When Will They Ever Learn?

History is filled with examples of nations and politicians refusing to see reality and believe only what they want to believe.  They have learned to regret it - and at times at heavy costs, including the lives of millions.  Let's see some examples:

• The fall of the Byzantine Empire in 1453 to the Muslim Turks.  After hundreds of years of struggle, the Muslim Turks accomplish their desire to conquer the Eastern Roman Empire, then known as the Byzantine Empire, which had lived for over 1,500 years.  This happened while the rest of Christian Europe looked on as if this was some far away continent that did not have any impact on them.  Indeed, the Turks assured the Europeans that they had no intention of molesting them after they took Constantinople, the seat of Christianity at the time.  In his masterful book about the Byzantine Empire, Lost to the West, author Lars Brownworth describes how the leader of the Turks at the time, Mehmed II, known as Mehmed the Conqueror, went out of his way to assure the Europeans that he meant no harm to them.  He had previously made this same promise to the Byzantines earlier too.  They foolishly believed him.  Why?  They had to know that the Turks would not stop there. Appeasement failed miserably.  The Turks spent the next 400 years trying to conquer Europe.  They got as far as Vienna and besieged it not once, but twice, in 1529 and 1683. 

• In 1571 the Turks were preparing to invade Europe but were defeated at the Battle of Lepanto, off the coast of Corinth, Greece; they had learned their lesson from 1453.  A combined European naval fleet defeated the Ottoman Fleet and stopped a sure invasion of Europe.  Again, deeds speak louder than words.   Unfortunately, the Europeans forgot this lesson in 1939 when Adolph Hitler had conquest in his mind and was in the process of following through.

• Neville Chamberlain declares "peace in our time" after Adolph Hitler signed a piece treaty promising not to engage in any additional military action against any other country after his conquest of Czechoslovakia.  The Europeans, wanting to believe what they heard, against their better judgement, believed the tyrant.  Within two to three months of the treaty, Hitler invaded Poland, followed by France, Belgium, Russia, Britain and the rest of Europe. The Europeans chose to be fools.

• In our day we have the example of North Korea.  In the mid 1990s North Korea promised they would not build a nuclear bomb. The United States signed an agreement with them and loosened sanctions.  North Korea violated the agreement almost immediately; they lied; yet the rest of the world, wanting to believe this chose to be fools.

• The United States and Iran.  In the past twenty years, the United States has tried to deal diplomatically with Iran's nuclear ambition to no avail.  The United States has publicly stated that they would not accept a nuclear Iran.  All American presidents from Reagan to Obama have tried diplomacy; it has never worked.  Now, the Obama administration is trying to accept what the French have called "a sucker's deal," agreeing that Iran can build their nuclear program up to 20%.   Now, is there any evidence that the Iranians can be trusted? None whatsoever, but the Obama administration is so eager to agree not to take any military action that they will believe whatever they wish were true; not reality.  Do you remember 1979 and the taking of the U.S. hostages? They have not learned from history; they have chosen to be fools.

The Europeans in 1453 chose to believe what they wished to be true even though they had to know it could not be true so they allowed the Muslim Turks to conquer the hart of Christianity along with all the Christians in the country.  The Turks, to this day, persecute their Christian citizens.  One of our parish priests who was a United States Air Force Chaplain stationed in Turkey, said that the Christians could not even ring the bell of their church without the permission of civil authorities which was rarely given.

Last year the CBS TV program "60 Minutes" broadcast a piece about the persecuted Christians in Turkey. Click here to read the story and watch the video. Among the many things they mentioned was the fact that the Turks have now banned any Christian Seminaries. They want to make sure that Christians will disappear.  Peace at any price?  Christianity in 1453 lost almost half of the territory they inhabited. To give you some perspective of the enormity of this debacle, imagine that the world outside of Europe had refused to participate in World War II to fight the Nazis.  The Nazis would be ruling Europe today.  This was exactly the effect of Europe's failure to help their fellow Byzantine Christians resist aggression by the Turks.  They chose to be fools.

In 1939, the Europeans were so eager to avoid war that they wanted to believe anything even though they had to know that they would pay a heavy price for appeasing Hitler.  Indeed, they paid a heavy price, not only financially but in the enormous loss of life. Eighty-five million people died in World War II as a result.  Peace at any price?  They chose to be fools.

If you follow today's news you will see that we, in the United States, are repeating these same mistakes, as described earlier.  The US looks like it has chosen to be the fools.  When will they learn?