The Great Game
Whatever happens we have got
The Maxim Gun, and they have not
— Hilaire Belloc in The Modern Traveller, 1898
Have no fear of atomic energy
For none of them can stop the time
— Bob Marley - Redemption Song, 1980
Iraq isn't Africa, Iraqis shoot back.
— Robert Baer in Iraq's Mercenary King: Politics & Power, 2007
We see Africa as probably the greatest open field of manoeuvre in the worldwide competition between the [communist] bloc and the non-communist.
— President John F. Kennedy, 1962
All for you
It is all for you
— E.T. Mensah & The Tempos - All For You, 1948
Cecil Rhodes - From Cairo to Capetown
How long shall they kill our prophets
While we stand aside and look?
Some say it's just a part of it
We've got to fulfil the book
— Bob Marley - Redemption Song
When you came you had the Bible and we had the land. Now you have the land and we have the Bible.
— Unknown 'native', 19th century
And freedom is the issue. The stakes are that high.
— Ronald Reagan, 1986
There are no rules in [this] game. Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply. If [redacted] is to survive, longstanding American concepts of "fair play" must be reconsidered... It may become necessary that the American people be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.
— Report of the United States Hoover Commision, 1950
One man struggles while another relaxes.
— Massive Attack - Hymn of the Big Wheel
A belligerent state permits itself every such misdeed, every such act of violence, as would disgrace the individual. It makes use against the enemy not only of the accepted ruses de guerre, but of deliberate lying and the deception as well - and to a degree which seems to exceed the usage of former wars.
— Sigmund Freud - Thoughts for the Times on War and Death, 1915
There are only people behaving, and sometimes behaving monstrously.
— Ian McEwan disputing the notion of evil, 2002
Takes behaviour to get along.
Lots of behaviour to get along.
Do you really, really know that?
Social Living is the best
Do you know? Social Living is the best
— Burning Spear - Social Living
Honam mu nni nhanoa
(Humanity has no boundary)
— Akan proverb, Ghana
Ex Africa simper aliquid novi
(Always something new out of Africa)
— Pliny the Elder, 1st Century Rome
Cultural interplay is the name of the Great Game.
I wonder: who is writing today's script?
This note is part of the Things Fall Apart series under the banner of the rough beast.
See also: The Mosquito Principle
Next: The Modern Traveller (Reclaiming the Maxim Gun)File under: interplay, Social Living, Africa, perception, quotes, insight, culture, history, politics, power, empire, perspective, observation, values, morality, philosophy, Great Game, Things Fall Apart, The Rough Beast, toli, sociology, strategy, policy
