March 7th, 2017 - Fort Russ News -
- Op-ed by Samer Hussein -
Of all the alternative historical theories one will encounter in popular culture, among the most popular ones is the theory that ancient aliens created the civilizations on earth.
The rigorous field of history relies on both the hard sciences and the humanities to arrive at a fact and truth based coherent narrative about the past. And while therefore this means they are subject to criticisms, revisions, and healthy debates, the ancient aliens ‘theory’ (really a pseudo-hypothesis) poses serious social and geopolitical problems of scale.Certainly it is beyond the scope of this author to weigh in definitively on any proposed controversy. But an inescapable byproduct of the ancient aliens narrative is that it removes agency, genius, legacy, and creativity from peoples of the ancient past who - at least according to the consensus view put forward by historians - created these themselves.
These type of theories are not only controversial for being based on questionable interpretations of the record evidence, but also because it’s deliberately distorting and revising the empirical historic facts, often in favour of the global elite and their economic agenda.
We can safely say that a vast number of people, interested in subjects related to mysteries, history, and ancient civilization have seen these “documentaries” such as those about the ancient aliens visiting our planet in antiquity. These still on occasion run on some of the flagship TV channels of the cable networks, like the History Channel. In these documentaries it was said that in the past, our planet was visited by various extraterrestrial beings who are said to have been credited with introducing earthlings to certain things - things which are otherwise the achievements of our ancient civilisations. The 'experts' brought onto these shows expressed this with a relatively high degree of certainty, thus giving the viewer the impression that the knowledge, achievements and various pioneering things of some of our earliest cultures may not belong to their modern heirs after all.
The creators of this sort of media manipulation are of course taking into account that the average people who watch these sorts of shows are curious and open minded; people who might at the same time question the dominant narrative in western societies which in fact justifies wars and imperialism.
So while it is not only understandable, but indeed expected that in the west, where the ruling elite has latched onto science - at least scientism - as a legitimating part of its ideology, that people would reject a whole slew of mainstream and scientific views if they reject the establishment which buttresses itself with scientism. But most people have limited formal knowledge of such subjects like ancient history, and since the western global elites have latched onto science, these same regular people are prone to correct an error by making yet another. Especially one as interesting and admittedly fascinating as the ancient aliens pseudo-hypothesis.
To wit, some of the ancient drawing and reliefs, there are objects that admittedly resemble the spaceships and flying saucers. But they could as well be the cooking pots or bread furnaces, or be abstracted and symbolized representations of social processes and religious rites. And it is of course possible that we have been visited in the past by beings from other worlds, and so forth. But this alone cannot explain the popularity of this subject, nor why it is being pushed by the establishment controlled media, entertainment or otherwise.
The ancient aliens hypothesis would not find such a warm and comfortable home on US based flagship cable or satellite TV networks if they actually threatened the status quo. The establishment is toying with the peoples' collective minds, and is diverting their attention from the actual critical questions such as “how big has our international debt become ?” or “what kind of prohibited chemicals and additives are being put on our food? ”.
Undoubtedly, one phenomenon we can point to for the reason for the popularity of these 'theories' could be the traditionally “racist” attitude of some western historians, scholars, orientalists, archaeologists, even politicians, known for their contempt for the Middle Eastern populations, thus claiming that the achievements of some remaining Middle Eastern populations from the past that exist to this very day, are not their own achievements, but rather the work of some alien life force.
Indeed, while looking at the Middle East today, especially its current socio-economical level of development, it’s hard to believe that this was once the center of (nearly) all civilization on earth. The region is being devastated by religious fanaticism, terrorism, wars, famine, illiteracy chaos and disorder. One can simply not imagine that this was once the very forefront of human civilisation. On top of that, the region has become renowned for providing masses of people who are moving away to live in the developed countries, and many of whom are uneducated, drawn to religious fanaticism or simply refuse to observe basic social rules, let alone integrate into societies of the hosting countries, where they cause trouble disproportionate to their numbers.
As such, ideal conditions are given not only for the ideologically driven history revisionists and conspiracy theorists who can spread their thought and convince the people, but the multinationalist global establishment as well who can now push their agenda to achieve their economic goals, freely.
It should be clarified that the propaganda of the ancient-alien ideologues is not necessarily based on any “racist” prejudices about the Middle Easterners being absolutely incapable to do, create or invent anything, but rather to justify the means that would bring certain benefit, even at the cost of the disastrous consequences.
If we were to give a concrete example of where the establishment is using such theories as a legitimization of their activities with devastating results for the affected ones, then this would definitely be Iraq.
Since 2003 Iraq has being invaded and occupied by the western neo-colonialist global elite. Iraq is also the home to some of the world’s oldest cultures, some of which exist to this very day. One of such cultures who, despite multiple attempts of systematic extermination, survive to this very day, are the Assyrians. Assyrians once had one of the world’s strongest, largest and technologically most advanced empires. Later, however, their empire collapsed and ever since then they have lived in the political entities that over the course of the centuries succeeded theirs. Today they live under harsh conditions and are constantly being persecuted.
Assyrians mostly populate the north of Iraq, an area that is nowadays also populated by the more recently arrived Kurds. The latter nowadays have a autonomous area, that was granted to them by the Neo-colonialist world powers and that exists entirely on a historical Assyrian soil. The area is, in a rather autocratic manner, being governed by the Kurdish Barazani clan who were granted the authority due to their strong ties to the Neo-colonial forces.
In order to justify their actions, the Neo-colonialists of course had to resort to certain theories that would legitimize their deeds. As such, the ancient alien theories would fit in perfectly here. The Assyrians, who in historical context used to be the native inhabitants of the land (this fact is otherwise supported by the irrefutable archaeological evidence), now no longer are considered as such, rather they are “confused Arab Christians who base their Assyrian identity on the fact that some of them might be belonging to certain Christian denomination, calling itself Assyrian” and do not know that the ancient Assyrian civilization was in fact the work of a much more sophisticated alien life force.
At the same the establishment had to come up with the theory about the origin of the Kurds to whose favour they invented a theory about them being related to the ancient culture of Medes (which also played an important role in Assyria’s downfall), thus making them the real “owners of the land” and the Assyrians “Arab invaders of a considerably more recent arrival”.
Indeed, the Kurdistan Regional Government PR Offices are loaded with propaganda material, that stretches from everything how Kurds relate to ancient Medes and have pioneered the Zoroastrian religion (itself, as according to the verified historic accounts, also reliant on the ancient Assyrian cult of Ashur in some aspects), to the fact that they descend from Hittites, Gutians, Sumerians and even ancient Assyrians themselves.
It would be wrong to say that the ancient alien theories are to blame for the present-day Assyrian misfortune, they are however one of the many factors that have contributed to the current state of events.
And indeed, this neo-colonialist play has taken a rather high toll on the present-day Assyrian demographics as the numbers of Assyrians living in their ancestral land in Northern Iraq significantly started to stagnate ever since the day when Iraq was invaded by the US-led coalition back in 2003. After the overthrow of the-then Iraqi government, the Coalition Forces assured free reign for the Barazani regime that has since taken various actions that have resulted in the expulsion of the Assyrians from certain parts of the region and are already bordering what would otherwise be called “ethnic cleansing”.
The interesting thing here is that the Neo-colonialists were not so much active in spreading such theories among the Kurds of Turkey, unlike the Kurds of Iraq. This was, however, a rather reasonable move. By starting to play that kind of a game with the Turkish Kurds, the establishment would lose the trust of Turkey, one of its most important strategic allies in the region.
Those interested in the ancient Mesopotamian culture, shall read a book titled "The Graven Image", written by the Iraqi-American scholar Zainab Bahrani. In this book, the meanings of the ancient Mesopotamian representation,iconography and symbolism are nicely explained and provide a better understanding of the ancient relief art that is sometimes mistakenly considered to depict the extraterrestrial elements.
The general problem with all these ancient alien, and similar, conspiracy theories is not only that they are based on no credible or irrefutable evidence, but also that they are being exploited for certain things with a rather negative long-term effect.
While this is no way saying that ancient alien conspiracy theories are one of the main tools of the global elitists, and speaking scientifically we must be open to any possibility that there is evidence for, we shall nonetheless not neglect their contributions in achieving the empire’s goals.
At the end of the day, ancient alien theories - intentionally or not - have the effect of pushing a narrative that deprives real existing peoples of their historical accomplishments and homelands, and in their place, puts the achievements and successes at the feet of pseudo-hypothetical aliens.
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