[Except once. During
World War II, Hitler and his henchmen devised an agenda, both political and
genetic, that was nothing less than the Nazification of nature. The human cost
is well known: the extermination of millions while, in baby farms scattered
around Europe, robust SS men and blond, blue-eyed women produced thousands of
babies to use as seed stock for Hitler’s new master race. What’s little known
is that their scheme for redesigning nature didn’t stop with people. The best
soldiers needed to eat the best food, which Nazi biology argued could grow only
from the purest of seeds. So using eugenics, a method of breeding to emphasize
specific traits, the Nazis hoped to invade the genetic spirals of evolution,
seize control and replace “unfit” foreign crops and livestock with pure ones.]
 |
The Gallery Collection/Corbis
Portrait of Genghis Khan, who through pillaging and raping created a vast number of descendants. |
An international team
of geneticists conducting a 10-year study of men living in what once was the
Mongolian empire has discovered that a surprisingly large number share the
identical Y chromosome, which is passed down only from father to son. One
individual’s Y chromosome can be found in 16 million men in Asia, from
Manchuria, near the Sea of Japan, to Uzbekistan and Afghanistan in Central
Asia.
The likeliest
candidate is Genghis Khan, a warlord who raped and pillaged one town after
another, killing all the men and impregnating the women, sowing his seed from
China to eastern Europe. Though legend credits Genghis Khan with many wives and
offspring, he didn’t need to do all the begetting himself to ensure that his
genes would flourish. His sons inherited the identical Y chromosome from him,
as did their sons and their sons’ sons down a long, winding Silk Road of
legitimate and illegitimate progeny.
His equally warlike
oldest son, Tushi, had 40 legitimate sons (and who knows how many misbegotten),
and his grandson Kublai Khan, who figured so large in Marco Polo’s life, had 22
sons. Their genes scattered exponentially in an ever widening fan, and the
process really picked up speed in the 20th century, when cars, trains and
airplanes began propelling genes around the planet and stretching the idea of
“courting distance,” which used to be only 12 miles — how far a man could ride
on horseback to visit his sweetheart and return home the same day. Now it’s
commonplace to have children with someone from thousands of miles, even half a
world, away.
Khan wasn’t trying to
create a world in his image; his fiercest instincts had a mind of their own,
and his savage personality spurred them on. Most people don’t run amok on
murderous sprees, thank heavens, but history is awash with Khan-like wars and
mayhem. In their wake, gene pools often change. One can only surmise that
wiping out the genes of others and planting your own (what we call genocide)
must come naturally to our kind, as it does to some other animals, from ants to
lions.
Typically, wandering
male lions attack a pride, drive off the other males and kill their offspring.
Then they mate with the females, ensuring that only the invaders’ genes will
flourish. A colony of ants will slaughter millions of neighbors, provided
they’re not family (somehow they can spot or whiff geographically distant kin
they haven’t met before). Human history is riddled with similar dramas, but they
are war’s legacy, an unconscious motive, not a blueprint for action.
Except once. During
World War II, Hitler and his henchmen devised an agenda, both political and
genetic, that was nothing less than the Nazification of nature. The human cost
is well known: the extermination of millions while, in baby farms scattered
around Europe, robust SS men and blond, blue-eyed women produced thousands of
babies to use as seed stock for Hitler’s new master race. What’s little known
is that their scheme for redesigning nature didn’t stop with people. The best
soldiers needed to eat the best food, which Nazi biology argued could grow only
from the purest of seeds. So using eugenics, a method of breeding to emphasize
specific traits, the Nazis hoped to invade the genetic spirals of evolution,
seize control and replace “unfit” foreign crops and livestock with pure ones.
To that end, they
created an SS commando unit for botanical collection, which was ordered to raid
the world’s botanical gardens and institutes and steal the best specimens.
Starting with Poland, they planned on using slave labor to drain about 100,000
square miles of wetlands. Draining the marshes might well have lowered the
water table and created a dust bowl, and it would certainly have killed the
habitat of wolves, geese, wild boar and many other native species, but
despoilers rarely see downstream from events.
Elsewhere, the Nazis
proposed planting forests to sweeten the climate so that it was more favorable
for their own crops, and they spoke openly about reshaping the landscape to
better suit Nazi ideals. That revision included people, railways, animals and
land alike, even the geometry of farm fields (no acute angles below 70 degrees)
and the alignment of trees and shrubs (only on north-south or east-west axes).
It’s bone-chilling how close they came to a feat of genetic domination that
dwarfs all of Genghis Khan’s exploits.
Today, though we
deplore genocide, it stubbornly persists, and we may have our work cut out for
us because it seems to tap a deeply rooted drive. But how about the more
gradual eradication of genes, without fanfare, perhaps even driven by good
motives?
We’re dabbling in
eugenics all the time, breeding ideal crops to replace less aesthetic or
nutritious or hardy varieties; leveling forests to graze cattle or erect
shopping malls and condos; planting groves of a few familiar trees that
homeowners and industries prefer. On factory farms, the animals are now
essentially clones. The same is true in plant nurseries. We’re at a dangerous age
in our evolution as a species — clever, headstrong, impulsive and far better at
tampering with nature than understanding it. Who knows what vanishing life
forms — and their DNA — we may one day regret losing?
When my mother teased
about my being part Mongolian, she may have been right, since Genghis Khan and
his clan reached into Russia, home of some of my ancestors. But I like knowing
that the further back one traces any lineage the narrower the path grows, to
the haunt of just a few shaggy ancestors, with luck on their side, little
gizmos in their cells and a future storied with impulses and choices that will
ultimately define them.
@ The New York Times
The
concept that most people have about Barça, Dalí, Josep
Carreras, Chupa-Chups, the Costa Brava, the Sagrada Família or Les Rambles of
Barcelona, just to mention a few examples, could be redefined in short: from
typical Spanish icons to symbols of a new Catalonia.
[Apart from demonstrations defending the Estatut and the 'right to decide', there was still another point of friction between both communities. Between 2009 and 2011 private institutions organized tens of referendums in many cities, towns and villages, in fact Spain does not allow public institutions to call referendums of independence, as does happens in the United Kingdom or Canada.]
By
Siarl Ferdinand
Catalonia is nowadays a
nation split in four sovereign states, namely Spain, France, Andorra, and
Italy. The once powerful Kingdom of Aragon joined the Spanish Catholic Monarchy
in 1475 as a confederated kingdom with its own institutions, languages and
culture.
The first important hit
to the Catalan nation was the Treaty of the Pyrenees in 1659, when the Spanish
King, against all legality, ceded the northernmost part of Catalonia –
Roussillon – to the French Monarchy. After that, the new Spanish dynasty, the
Bourbons, forbade the Catalan institutions and language and again in the
twentieth century, the fascist General Franco condemned Catalan culture to stay
home again as he encouraged the Spanish speaking immigration from Andalusia
towards Catalonia.
In spite of all those
inconveniences, Catalan nationalism has always been evident, the Catalan
language has enjoyed a high prestige in the region, and Catalonia has been
regarded with mistrust from the Spanish speaking Spain. However, the events that
changed the current situation of the relation Catalonia-Spain are dated no more
that fifteen years ago.
The socialist
government of Pasqual Maragall proposed the creation of a new Estatut (a
Regional Constitution). After a long debate, the new law was endorsed by the
Catalan Parliament with the support of all the groups except for two of the
unionist parties: People's Party and Citizens Party. Afterwards the Spanish
Parliament also ratified the new regional law.
Following the
endorsement of the Estatut and under the slogan “Spain is getting broken”, the
People's Party, in those days the main party of the opposition in the Spanish
Parliament, organized tens of demonstrations all through Spain. Thousands of
people carrying fascists flags along with current
Spanish flags and
claiming to be there “against the Catalans” took the streets. The People's
Party took the Catalan Estatut to the Supreme Court of Spain. As a result, some
of the articles approved by both, the Catalan Parliament and the Spanish
Parliament were declared illegal. The sentence that in Spain was regarded as a
defence of the unity of the country (Spain does not recognize any nation within
the country), in Catalonia was considered an attack to her devolved powers.
Apart from
demonstrations defending the Estatut and the 'right to decide', there was still
another point of friction between both communities. Between 2009 and 2011
private institutions organized tens of referendums in many cities, towns and
villages, in fact Spain does not allow public institutions to call referendums
of independence, as does happens in the United Kingdom or Canada.
Although the
referendums were unofficial and non-binding, the Spanish government
unsuccessfully tried to prevent them. However, the whole process was carried
out and the results were even more worrisome for the Spaniards and for the
unionist minority of Catalonia. There was a turnout of about 30% with almost a
95% of the votes backing the independence.
Moreover, more than a
50% of the Catalans voted for nationalist or secessionist options in the
regional elections held in November 2010. The unionists, in turn, fell down to
33%, mainly backed by the Spanish immigration of the industrial quarters of
Barcelona and Tarragona.
The cold war between
the two powers became evident to the world when Catalonia forbade bullfighting.
The Catalan parliament endorsed a law forbidding spectacles that include
cruelty against animals which also included the Corridas.
The Spanish
nationalists considered the law another attack against the unity of Spain. They
reacted organizing demonstrations and the last corridas in Barcelona and
encouraging people from all regions of Spain to attend the events in order to
show their discomfort and to prove the support that bullfighting had in
Catalonia. The fact is that even in the capital of Spain, Madrid or in the
unionist and poor region of Andalusia, among others, there is a strong movement
against bullfighting. Moreover, in Catalonia, the company that managed the
bullrings had announced several times the closure of them due to lack of
public, mainly tourists and a few locals.
Economy has got a big
role in the claiming for the independence. Catalonia produces more than 20% of
the Spanish GDP, but her population is about 15% of the total of the country.
According to some studies the government budget deficit is negative for
Catalonia, since she loses an average of 14 billion Euro every year. That money
is invested in Madrid and some other Spanish regions like Andalusia or
Extremadura.
The economic crises
have not help the unionism. Spain has an unemployment rate of 23%, the highest
in the developed world. In Catalonia the situation is not so extreme, but just
slightly better. Many Catalans feel that they are paying the Spanish bad
administration and according to the latest polls, between 45% and 54% of the
population of Catalonia would vote for the independence in a referendum, while
only 33% would be definitively against it. The interesting point is that the
ethnic Catalans are no more than 50% of the population.
