Reconstructing History, Part 2: The Maskirovka of History

Traditional wisdom is the state has a monopoly the power to enact laws and compel their enforcement. As the Commander of CJTF-180 in Afghanistan once told me, “that briefs well, but can you do it?” Over the relevant range of western civilization since the Treaty of Westphalia created the modern nation-state, that is largely true. That is why, when schools teach civics and history they tell us the state monopoly on power. Or at least they once did.

But if we go outside of the rather limited relevant historically speaking, we find the for much of history, religions had the monopoly of power, even if there was an associated state. Look at the first two codified sets of laws our history teaches. History/myth/religion teaches that Hammurabi received his code of law from the god Shamash, and Moses received the Commandments from the Hebrew God.

Now some will say religion and the state were the same. Others may take it farther and say the state used religion as a tool of power. With Hammurabi, I suspect that was the case. So let us go to the middle ages and feudalism. The feudal lord had the power to enforce and compel. At the risk of oversimplification, the feudal lord obtained his power through military might. The ability to set law and compel people to obey it comes from power. As Mao Tse Dung said, “Political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” Or a sword and axe, depending the times.

That is a winding way to get to a point. In cities such as Amsterdam, Copenhagen, Stockholm, and parts of Minnesota, Islamic immigrants implemented Sharia law, and the state allows it. Now the state does not pass a law that enables this religious law, it simply acknowledges the de facto power and pseudo-sovereignty of the Islamic immigrants. At least part of the rationale is the perceived disadvantaged community and the needs to right the wrongs of western colonialism. But this forgets history and creates a new variant of it. In almost every area now controlled by Islam, Muslims spread the religion by conquest and war. The history of Europe turned on a dime at the gates of Vienna when the Islamic invading hosts were defeated by a narrow margin in 1683. Not so long ago, but I suspect very few people that make policy are aware of the battle. If Muslims want the liberal western politicians to remember anything, it is the crusades when Christian armies invaded. They do not want to discuss their conversion of a Christian cathedral to a mosque. The Ottomans converted the Hagia Sophia into a mosque. The secular regime after WWI recognized the problem with this conversion and turned it into a museum. The current Turkish government turned it back into a mosque.

History is malleable and people who understand it can readily use it to shape and influence the opinions of those who do not understand it. And so many liberals who do not understand history think it is fine to allow Muslims to impose Sharia law on parts of vital western cities. They want you to focus—but not too closely—on the woman and her children in the opening image and not on the Ottoman Mamelukes that spread war and conquest. Focusing too closely on the woman draws your attention to the burqa and the oppression of many women in the Islamic world under Sharia law.

Now this is not to attack Islam or Muslims, but rather to provide an example of adepts can manage history. The image of the poor third world person is exactly what the Marxist proponents of World System Theory (WST) and Critical Theory (CT) want the people of the wealthy west to focus upon. In a nutshell, these two schools of thought—they really are not theories—state that the colonialism held back the third world nations, and the west is to blame for their poverty.

Critical Race Theory (CRT) is descended directly from WST and CT. It is part of a family of Marxist dogma that seeks to tear down western society. Therefore, it is part of the toolkit revolutionaries use as the first part of a maskirovka, the Russian art of deception, and then a rebuilding of history.

Simply re-creating an alternative history is nearly impossible without sleight of hand deception to distract people from what is happening.

The Education Institution has largely fallen for the maskirovka, as have the left wing of the democratic party. Sharia law in western cities and CRT and 1619 are all part of the effort.

To paraphrase Santayana (“Those who don’t understand history are doomed to repeat it”), “Those who understand history can manipulate it to control those who do not.”