Years ago, I picked up a tattered but serviceable edition of the great Eleventh Edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. Published in 1910, the twenty-eight-volume monument to human curiosity about the “arts, sciences, literature and general information” is a testament to scholarly industry. Compared to the mealy-mouthed reference works that clutter library shelves today, which typically compete to outdo one another in the exhibition of moral relativism, the Eleventh Edition (the common shorthand by which the work is known) is also a testament to a neglected virtue: robust cultural confidence. For a Westerner, it is refreshing to dip into its unembarrassed pages and savor its masculine prose. Volume I, for example (“A” to “Androphagi”), contains a most illuminating article about that once-far-away mountain fastness, Afghanistan. After a few pages about the history, climate, and geography of this Asiatic byway, the writer introduces us to the people, “handsome and athletic” but treacherous.
The Afghans, inured to bloodshed from childhood, are familiar with death, and audacious in attack, but easily discouraged by failure; excessively turbulent and unsubmissive to law or discipline; apparently frank and affable in manner, especially when they hope to gain some object, but capable of the grossest brutality when that hope ceases. They are unscrupulous in perjury, treacherous, vain and insatiable, passionate in vindictiveness, which they will satisfy at the cost of their own lives and in the most cruel manner.
That’s in 1910. Does any of that need to be emended?
I have been thinking about Afghanistan again because of the riots that broke out this weekend. So far about a dozen people, including U.N. and NATO personnel, have been killed and scores injured. Why? Because Terry Jones, the Florida “pastor” who made headlines last September when he threatened to burn copies of the Koran, finally made good on his promise on March 20th, when he presided over a “trial” and burning of the Koran.
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