My father*, may he rest in peace, was born in Russia-Poland in 1908. Many of the adults he knew, the Jews in the village of Yenzhiveh where he lived, were veterans of the disastrous Russo-Japanese War that had occurred only a few years before he had been born. Some of these veterans came home famous, like Joseph Trumpeldor, a man who didn’t live in Yenzhiveh. He lost an arm in battle, and emigrated to the Land of Israel to help found Jewish villages there. He died fighting Arabs in 1920 at Tel Hai. His name is memorialized in the Zionist youth organization, Beitar, for which this mnemonic is used - brit hano’ár ha’ivrí ‘al shém yósef trumpeldór – “Covenant of Hebrew Youth Founded upon Joseph Trumpeldor’s Name”. Most of the veterans of the Russo-Japanese War, however, resumed their daily lives and did not rise to such fame.
But my father heard from these war veterans nevertheless. They would talk about the battles they fought, the country they fought in, and the wondrous and terrible sights they saw there. One needs to understand some history to realize that the Russo-Japanese War of 1904-5 was not fought in either Russia or Japan. It was fought in China, over Chinese territory. At the time, the Chinese Empire was so weak it could not keep out foreigners from fighting over its land. During this humiliating period in Chinese history, Jewish Russian soldiers saw China, its millions of inhabitants crowding Manchuria, and saw, amongst other things, that the symbol of this country was a dragon.
Only one dragon was known to Jews – the Leviathan.
In stories my father related, he told me to beware the Chinese – that they were a sleeping giant who would one day awake. He told me that the Chinese were like the Leviathan – which he called livi-yússen, the Yiddish pronunciation of the Hebrew word líviatán.
His description was as follows:
“The livi-yússen is a giant whale, and the world rests on this giant whale. One day the livi-yússen will overturn, and when it does, the world will overturn.” I would listen to this fantastic yarn and say, “Yes, Dad.” But my father had a nasty habit of being right, even when it appeared that it was impossible that he should be so at the time.
A more detailed description of the livi-yússen is found at the site “Judeo-Christian Demons”:
Leviathan was a large whale-like sea creature, who may have had 7 heads according to some legends. A lengthy description of him comes from the Hebrew Bible, the Book of Job:
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Horace Mungin
Ruvy, adsolutely lovely writing - I was often remained of the cadance and sentences of Issac Beshevis Singer, a write from whom I have learned the art of self expression. I have read many of Singers books and short fictions and when I lived in New York City while he still lived - I followed his career. He only wrote in Yiddish (which I do not read) so all of his work had to be translated into English and other languages. He wrote for the Daily Forward, a newspaper I know you are aware of. I heard his voice in much of your style in this piece. Maybe later I'll re-read the piece so I can comment on what it was you were talking about - so caught up was I in the flow of your words that I didn't pay real attention to your saying something about - was it China?
2 - Glenn Contrarian
Ruvy -
I agree with your dad that, barring sheer catastrophe, civil war, or other unforeseen events, China's ascendancy is practically assured. I've known it for some time, and that was one of the themes of a book I wrote (which book was roundly rejected by all agents and editors).
And in the larger scheme of things, is that not natural in the march of history, in the intercourse of nations? I consider myself patriotic...but I also consider myself a student of history. In the past, empires could last for over a millennium...but in those times, information and learning traveled at a virtual snail's pace. Now that we have the internet, we can access knowledge in minutes what would have taken months or years or even decades to research in the past...and as a result, the world changes so much more quickly.
China's advantage is that they not only have a preponderance of manufacturing, but they also have the political will borne not only of secular tradition but also of racial unity.
But China is also threading a minefield. They are not only facing (along with the rest of the planet) global warming accelerated by their own progress and particularly overpopulation, but also the unrest of its people who are not Han Chinese - and they know this. That's why their army is not meant so much for offense or defense against external countries, but for rapid and effective response to internal disorder.
In addition to the above, despite the well-deserved nationalistic pride of most Chinese who see how far they have come in a single generation, perhaps the greatest danger - again, one that is well-recognized by the government - is the desire for civil rights such as those enjoyed by citizens of the West. But I think that whether China continues as they are, or whether she transitions to a more democratic state (even violently so), China will continue to grow in power and influence...and will sooner or later exceed America's influence.
The reasons to resist China's ascendancy are legion - the foremost of which is probably their policy of forced abortion, and their tradition of female infanticide. However, short of incredibly destructive war, is there really any way to stop this particular dragon? I say our most effective weapons are those of information, of ideas, of concepts of freedom and self-determination.
To paraphrase Mel Gibson - whose movies I used to love but now refuse to watch (and you know why) - thanks to the internet, "They can take our lives, but they can't take away our freedom!" The internet is a Pandora's Box that China tries mightily (with some success) to close...but the fast, easy freedom of information available today is our surest guarantor against tyranny.
China's ascent is almost assured, but once she reaches that summit, I suspect she won't be the same dragon that China once was, for the lessons of the necessity of benevolence and equality will have been forced on her...
...which is why even now, China - that bastion of free enterprise (as long as it's on China's terms), that paradise of capitalist achievement (as long as they don't embarrass the government e.g. melamine in milk) - is experimenting with social benefits for its people like a homegrown form of Social Security and even universal health care (like ALL the modern democracies of the world except the U.S.).
3 - roger nowosielski
What you're saying in effect, Glenn, is that if there's to be any future to the world, it will have to depend on cooperation between nations rather than warfare and open conflict - in which case, the idea(s) of hegemony sort of fade away.
In fact, Einstein's quote (see Ruvy's link, page 2) speak to this issue:
"I advocate world government because I am convinced that there is no other possible way of eliminating the most terrible danger in which man has ever found himself. The objective of avoiding total destruction must have priority over any other objective. (Albert Einstein, 1947)"
4 - Glenn Contrarian
Roger -
Well said, and completely true. Of course, that means the right wing will now see Einstein as a commie socialist too....
5 - roger nowosielski
Well, my friend. I have really stopped worrying about what the right wing will say or do. It's out of my hands. Just hope that the extremists on both sides will be fewer and fewer and we can set about rebuilding the country.
The China menace that Ruvy's talking about is real, but I think your response was excellent. And we won't be able to stop them by retrenching and going back to the old values - fuck everybody else (if only because we no longer can). We've got to be progressive and be the leader of that movement.
One the other thread concerning the "green revolution" I made a comment following yours - about the opportunities that are now open to come up with a technological breakthrough. Check it out, too, and see how it all connects.
6 - roger nowosielski
I'm reprinting this from another thread because it's relevant to Ruvy's piece:
Well, there's another argument, zing, for "going green," and you just alluded to it. Many have argued that to get us out of the present economic crisis, it may take nothing less than a tremendous technological breakthrough - something akin to the steam engine invention and the computer revolution in the early sixties.
Well, this is one area which is ripe for technological innovation on a scale we can't even imagine. And it could re-establish our leadership for another hundred years or so (if only to slow down the People's Republic).
7 - Ruvy
Shavua Tov! Have a good week, all of you!
Horace,
Thank you for your kind words. You make this young geezer blush some. I too, read many of the stories of Isaac Baashevis Singer, and when I grow up, maybe I'll be able to read his works in the original Yiddish. Then, I'll first actually understand what he was saying.
MY favorite writer, Isaac Babel, wrote in Russian, and I've only been able to read his works in translation (reading Cyrillic is no great feat - understanding Russian with its six noun cases, on the other hand....). But even in translation, Babel's influence has been a huge one on me.
I hope when you reread this article for content, you'll not be disappointed.
Glenn,
To be truthful, this article was a memorial to my father more than political analysis, but he did have a disgusting habit of being right. And it got downright annoying.
In thinking about him, and the many things he would tell me, I remembered what he told me about the livi yússen. And when I was a kid, I thought what he was talking about to be nothing more than a fairy tale, the kind of thing that old men say when they don't understand what they see and look to the Bible for the answers. But my father was making an analogy, and I was too stupid to comprehend it when he told me.
This article, or an article like it, should have been published here a week ago, the Hebrew anniversary of his death, what we call in Yiddish yahrtzeit. But I did not have the ideas laid out in my head clearly.
As for me, I'm not an American patriot (I once was, and you may be able to see that in this article). I do not think that America will be able to stop this lívi yússen. I honestly think that America has shot her wad, and will not find the will or strength to rise to the tasks of leading a world in which she if the chief debtor. Usually, it is a creditor who runs the show and tells the piper what tunes to play, and the Chinese are the creditors.
barring sheer catastrophe, civil war, or other unforeseen events, China's ascendancy is practically assured.
The "unforseen events", or shall I say long forseen events, are why I do not think China will achieve the acendancy it appears that she will. Isaiah's quote is also an analogy - but it's prophecy. I can't rightly call myself a "believer" if I do not believe in the prophecies of my own prophets!
So, there is both belief - and hope.
Roger,
Tjhere is nothing wrong with a world government. The Redemption aims at such a thing; Jewish prophetic tradition talks of such a thing. Indeed the Jewish prophetic tradition talks of something called tikkún 'olám, "repair of the world", which, if you think about it, has to do with repairing the damage we indolent stewards have done to the planet G-d entrusted us with. There is plenty of work to do to repair the environment, from the the seas to the forests.
8 - roger nowosielski
Welcome back. I sent you some of the old writings for perusal and comment. Whenever you get to it.
9 - Ruvy
Thanks, Roger. That is what I was about to do. I probably won't get to it tonight. It is past 10 in the evening and I have to drag one of my sons with me to J-lem tomorrow to do some errands. I have to catch the 5:45 bus in the morning to hit all the bureacrats in J-lem, they should only live and be well.... Israel is not all that different from Poland in many ways. There is a line for everything - and nobody wants to stand on line!
10 - roger nowosielski
As they say, Ruvy, talk is cheap. It's what you do that counts.
Later then.
11 - Komoo
And why, pray tell, would China attack the US? They can gain everything they want by other means.
12 - Ruvy
Komoo,
why, pray tell, would China attack the US?
Where is it written here that China will attack the US? It only says that they have threatened to (check the link), and that these threats are no longer extant, and that the ruling elites have noted the threat.
13 - Glenn Contrarian
Ruvy -
China won't attack the U.S. - not overtly, because it would not be in their best interests in the foreseeable future.
I agree that America cannot stop China - but my point effectively was that China's model of government may be its downfall. A people that is strongly unified by race, language, religion, and culture will normally have a strong sense of nationalism and have a greater measure of political will.
But the American model of government is far more inclusive, and becomes more so each and every year. America will not stop China, but if China is not able to pass the crisis point that its internal strife will bring about sooner or later, America will still be standing strong. China's much smarter and wiser than the Soviet Union...but they're making some of the same mistakes too.
14 - roger nowosielski
Yes, Glenn. And the trend towards multiculturalism and coalescing of cultures is evident not just in US - although we're the best example - but it likely to spread worldwide, because of globalization.
I refer you once more to Einstein's quote, cited above, concerning a world government and perhaps the best reason I've heard yet for some such solution. True, the threat of a nuclear war was perhaps more real then that it is today. But one can also argue that the world certainly isn't a safer place just because we no longer live in a post Cold-War era.
15 - Ruvy
Hi guys! Just got back from patrol in J-lem. To change the topic just a bit, we were discussing some changes in the unit I belong to - changes that would increase training opportunities, increase the quality of service that we can give the public, and increase the toughness of the unit somewhat. To be truthful, I look forward to possible changes in the unit, with the upcoming retirement of the present commander. Terrorist actions seem to go in styles - like bell-bottoms and tight-bottoms. Attacking tramp spots seems to be out of style with the Arabs - at least for the moment.
16 - Ruvy
Anyway, back to the Leviathan that is China, I do not really foresee a military confrontation between China and the USA. But I do foresee the Chinese puting the screws to the Americans in a number of different ways, demanding a real share of the rich booty that is the American continent. This, is my eyes, would be an overturning of the Leviathan, and thus an overturning of America.
If we entirely disregard the prophecies of Isaiah, we can expect to see a world where China is the "primus inter pares", a role that various Chinese regimes seem to have liked in the past.
But, I can't entirely disregard the prophecies of Isaiah....
17 - roger nowosielski
I still like Glenn's point, the last paragraph of #13.
18 - Ruvy
China certainly will have problems of her own and certainly walks a minefield of the minority Han ruling over an empire. But America's weaknesses are more fundamental. She cannot pay her bills. At some point the shit and shinola has to end and the creditor has to be paid - or killed.
And China, the livi-yussen, is trhe creiditor.
19 - Ruvy
It's not a matter of liking or not liking what Glenn has to say. It's a matter of realizing that Americans cannot talk themselves out of the dsebts they owe.
20 - roger nowosielski
I'd like to think there'll be a push towards globalization (of government) in the near future, which could well cancel the old debt and eradicate the debtor-creditor relationships, everyone starting with a new slate. It's a matter of reinvigorating the American economy, and that of the West, perhaps by means of some major technological breakthrough - in the area of energy, perhaps, and in conjunction with the "green revolution" (a kind of stimulus comparable to the invention of the steam engine).
I wouldn't count off the West just yet; it's still the leader in brain-power and innovation.
21 - roger nowosielski
China would also have a great deal to lose by adopting a hard line policy. Like it's markets.
22 - zingzing
of course, if china calls in our debts, we'll call in israel's. (and everyone else's too, i suppose.)
23 - roger nowosielski
It ain't gonna happen, because going that route is a sure lose-lose proposition for everyone concerned. There'll be no winners, only losers.
One way out of this dilemma - perhaps to negotiate some kind of international settlement and then start from scratch.
The world must and will go on, and cooperation will have to be the governing principle. Otherwise, we all will be heading to hell in a handbasket.
24 - Bliffle
Globalization of government is a disaster. It'll have all the faults of corporate monopolies. As Godfrey Cambridge said of theSoviet Union: "one big telephone company".
25 - roger nowosielski
Yet you're pushing the idea when it comes to integrating government services under one umbrella. The only difference is of scale.