Karmak Bagisbayev's Blog
February 25, 2017
HOW LONG TRUMP WILL REMAIN IN POWER?
Karmak Bagisbayev
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
Today, anyone and everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is busy predicting how long Donald Trump will remain at the wheel of power in the United States. We are making our own prediction based on the principles of The Last Faith.
Trump’s election promises can be divided into two main categories. The first, to increase the population’s standard of living by reducing taxes and re-shoring manufacturing jobs. In other words, to improve conditions necessary for Gene Preservation. The second category includes Trump’s promises and open threats to reduce levels of Freedom of Choice in the United States, first and foremost for African Americans, Latin Americans, immigrants, Muslims and women by building walls, restricting entry and banning funding for abortion services. Trump continues to attack the independent justice system and America’s free press.
In my previous article written immediately after Trump’s election prior to his assumption of office as President of the United States, I tried to make a short-term forecast regarding his political future. However, Trumps’ first decrees aimed at implementing his threats allow me, in fact require me, now, to speak more definitely.
First of all, let’s look at the following question: Just exactly who is the Trump voter?
As I wrote in The Last Faith, the number of people who actively practice Freedom of Choice on a daily basis, even in a democratic country like the United States, barely exceeds one-third or even a quarter of the population. The portion of the population that needs improved conditions essential for Gene Preservation more than they need Freedom of Choice, as we saw after the election, accounts for no less than half (by comparison, in Russia it’s 86-91%). These are the people who voted for Trump and this fact has to be acknowledged. About 20% of the population voted for Clinton for various reasons.
So does this mean that Trump will be settling into the White House for a long time to come? Absolutely not! This is why.
Firstly, America is not North Korea or post-Soviet Russia. Two hundred years of practicing democratic freedom, in other words, broad Freedom of Choice, won’t just disappear just because Trump or anyone else wants it to. And even though, as we said, the number of people in America practicing Freedom of Choice on a daily basis is no more than a third or even a quarter, look at the types of people who make up this portion of the population. The group includes almost all America’s celebrities: famous scientists, Hollywood directors and actors, well-known musicians and singers, artists, architects, sportspeople and writers i.e. people with huge moral influence over the people of the United States. The protests we see happening won’t just settle down all by themselves. Most importantly, Trump’s policies are being harshly criticised by CEOs of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others who represent the face of large-scale business in twenty-first century America.
In our last article, we said that if Trump were to begin his busy activities of office by raising living standards i.e. by improving conditions for Gene Preservation, then he stood a chance of winning the support of at least half the population of the United States thereby remaining in office – at least temporarily! Instead, Trump began his term in office by curtailing Freedom of Choice across the entire country. Without complete Freedom of Choice in manufacturing relations the economy will be doomed! This is a fact that has been illustrated many times by the economy of twentieth century communist countries, which could not be saved from ruin even by shooting millions of peaceful civilians. Only China, which maintained its Communist regime but blatantly replaced communist industrial relations with limited capitalist equivalents, managed to keep its economy afloat. Sooner or later, evolving Chinese capitalism will exhaust its limited resources of economic freedom and demand the establishment of true democracy in the country, or, in other words, full Freedom of Choice. It is inevitable.
Trump however, has not limited himself to threats which curtail political freedom. In his election program, he promised to re-shore manufacturing capacity with the goal of creating new employment opportunities. It was strange to hear such statements from a businessman evidently not comprehending the inflation of prices that would ensue to say nothing of all the other obvious ramifications associated with implementing such madness. Something tells me though that this won’t happen. The law of Humandynamics, in the form of the American business world, won’t allow Trump to enforce limitations Freedom of Choice in industrial relations to such a degree that he dictates where and how manufacturing companies may do their business. If Trump attempts to curtail these freedoms, he’ll be forced to stand down.
P.S. The news has just come in that the Court of Appeal in the United States has upheld a block on Trump’s immigration ban. Now it is up to the United States Supreme Court to bring an end to this dispute. Is it quite possible, that America has reached a bifurcation point in its democratic development. Whether or not the Supreme Court realises this or not, we shall see in due course.
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
Today, anyone and everyone who hasn’t been living under a rock is busy predicting how long Donald Trump will remain at the wheel of power in the United States. We are making our own prediction based on the principles of The Last Faith.
Trump’s election promises can be divided into two main categories. The first, to increase the population’s standard of living by reducing taxes and re-shoring manufacturing jobs. In other words, to improve conditions necessary for Gene Preservation. The second category includes Trump’s promises and open threats to reduce levels of Freedom of Choice in the United States, first and foremost for African Americans, Latin Americans, immigrants, Muslims and women by building walls, restricting entry and banning funding for abortion services. Trump continues to attack the independent justice system and America’s free press.
In my previous article written immediately after Trump’s election prior to his assumption of office as President of the United States, I tried to make a short-term forecast regarding his political future. However, Trumps’ first decrees aimed at implementing his threats allow me, in fact require me, now, to speak more definitely.
First of all, let’s look at the following question: Just exactly who is the Trump voter?
As I wrote in The Last Faith, the number of people who actively practice Freedom of Choice on a daily basis, even in a democratic country like the United States, barely exceeds one-third or even a quarter of the population. The portion of the population that needs improved conditions essential for Gene Preservation more than they need Freedom of Choice, as we saw after the election, accounts for no less than half (by comparison, in Russia it’s 86-91%). These are the people who voted for Trump and this fact has to be acknowledged. About 20% of the population voted for Clinton for various reasons.
So does this mean that Trump will be settling into the White House for a long time to come? Absolutely not! This is why.
Firstly, America is not North Korea or post-Soviet Russia. Two hundred years of practicing democratic freedom, in other words, broad Freedom of Choice, won’t just disappear just because Trump or anyone else wants it to. And even though, as we said, the number of people in America practicing Freedom of Choice on a daily basis is no more than a third or even a quarter, look at the types of people who make up this portion of the population. The group includes almost all America’s celebrities: famous scientists, Hollywood directors and actors, well-known musicians and singers, artists, architects, sportspeople and writers i.e. people with huge moral influence over the people of the United States. The protests we see happening won’t just settle down all by themselves. Most importantly, Trump’s policies are being harshly criticised by CEOs of companies like Apple, Google, Facebook, Microsoft and others who represent the face of large-scale business in twenty-first century America.
In our last article, we said that if Trump were to begin his busy activities of office by raising living standards i.e. by improving conditions for Gene Preservation, then he stood a chance of winning the support of at least half the population of the United States thereby remaining in office – at least temporarily! Instead, Trump began his term in office by curtailing Freedom of Choice across the entire country. Without complete Freedom of Choice in manufacturing relations the economy will be doomed! This is a fact that has been illustrated many times by the economy of twentieth century communist countries, which could not be saved from ruin even by shooting millions of peaceful civilians. Only China, which maintained its Communist regime but blatantly replaced communist industrial relations with limited capitalist equivalents, managed to keep its economy afloat. Sooner or later, evolving Chinese capitalism will exhaust its limited resources of economic freedom and demand the establishment of true democracy in the country, or, in other words, full Freedom of Choice. It is inevitable.
Trump however, has not limited himself to threats which curtail political freedom. In his election program, he promised to re-shore manufacturing capacity with the goal of creating new employment opportunities. It was strange to hear such statements from a businessman evidently not comprehending the inflation of prices that would ensue to say nothing of all the other obvious ramifications associated with implementing such madness. Something tells me though that this won’t happen. The law of Humandynamics, in the form of the American business world, won’t allow Trump to enforce limitations Freedom of Choice in industrial relations to such a degree that he dictates where and how manufacturing companies may do their business. If Trump attempts to curtail these freedoms, he’ll be forced to stand down.
P.S. The news has just come in that the Court of Appeal in the United States has upheld a block on Trump’s immigration ban. Now it is up to the United States Supreme Court to bring an end to this dispute. Is it quite possible, that America has reached a bifurcation point in its democratic development. Whether or not the Supreme Court realises this or not, we shall see in due course.
WHAT IS MORE IMPORTANT: GENE PRESERVATION OR FREEDOM OF CHOICE?
Karmak Bagisbayev
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
This question is inspired by the almost million-strong anti-Maduro march that took place yesterday in Venezuela. Why is it that the population who put up with and even welcomed N. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, can no longer tolerate his heir?
Let’s begin at the very beginning. In ancient times when man still knew nothing, or almost nothing of Freedom of Choice, this question would never have arisen. There was no doubt at all that physical Gene Preservation among human beings, as well as all living matter, was the ultimate priority. At that time, the only Freedom of Choice that existed for the individual was the dream of becoming the wise Chief of the tribe, who would understand that the preservation of his personal genes depended directly on the preservation of the genes of the other tribe members. It is true that such leaders did exist, albeit rarely and their grateful tribesmen would compose songs and legends in their honour. As time passed though, kingdoms and queendoms appeared; chiefs turned into kings and queens to whom the peoples transferred their attitudes towards the former chiefs. The only Freedom of Choice a person had, was the possibility of secretly escaping from one king for the sake of another at the risk of losing one’s life. Only one in thousands would ever take the risk.
Time passed and rudimentary elements of Freedom of Choice that were permitted in the economy came into conflict with the feudal structure of society that existed under the kingship. Freedom of choice demanded full freedom in the production and promotion of merchandise, freedom to accumulate wealth from one’s labour, in short, laws which would establish equality among all members of society. Then the great bourgeois revolutions began rolling across Europe and endorsing the basic human freedoms: the freedom to vote, the freedom to elect and be elected, the absolute equality of all citizens before the law and so on. The most vehement adherents of Freedom of Choice rushed to assimilate the American continent.
As a result, the opportunity to preserve one’s genes increased for all members of society. However, all nature of crisis and particularly ongoing significant inequality between various members of a society who now possessed considerable freedom, made them seek again and again for a different choice.
Time passed and then politicians and their parties began to appear on the historical stage offering very simple solutions to problems, solutions that could be easily understood by poorly educated segments of society. They would claim that the people’s problems were the fault of self-indulgent, robbing-capitalists (in the case of the communists) or hostile robbing-States, or even robbing-Jews (in the case of the Nazis). To deny the robbers the possibility of robbing, they would ask the people to permit them to limit their Freedom of Choice, just a little bit. Lacking in sufficient historical experience, the peoples would grant them their request, readily and voluntarily. In Russia in 1917, the Communists took power into their own hands without asking the people for permission and deprived the population of Freedom of Choice. For example, on the third day after coming to power, they shut down all non-communist newspapers.
Usually all new political authorities are able to achieve this for an initial period under slogans such as “Expropriate the expropriators” and “Rob what was robbed!” as was the case at one time with Stalin and Hitler and very recently, with Hugo Chavez. Any economy though, when deprived of Freedom of Choice begins to stall and soon falls apart either for objective inner reasons or under fire from the peoples who refuse to sacrifice Freedom of Choice.
And if, as has already been stated, in ancient times, human Gene Preservation was barely dependent on individual Freedom of Choice, by the end of the nineteenth century (in Europe and North America), it had become increasingly dependent on Freedom of Choice. Today, in the twenty-first century, more and more people throughout the world understand that without Freedom of Choice the people cannot be fed, which means that they cannot protect their genes. Now Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice are inseparably linked and it is impossible to implement Gene Preservation successfully whilst negating the existence of Freedom of Choice.
In the light of the recent million-strong march in Caracas, one thing is certain: Nicholas Maduro’s days are numbered.
The main conclusion of this short article is that in the twenty-first century, in countries in which there is no Freedom of Choice, the reliable realisation of Gene Preservation becomes extremely difficult to achieve and this is why we are seeing huge streams of refugees fleeing their homelands for other countries in which Freedom of Choice is guaranteed. Moreover, the overriding majority flee taking their children with them, not for the sake of Freedom of Choice of which they have only a very vague conception, but solely for the opportunity to protect and pass on their genes.
As far as some developing countries are concerned, dictator-leaders who claim that economics comes first and politics second are simply lying! An economy can never grow in conditions of total corruption which is always the inevitable consort of life in a society deprived of freedom. Even in the case of China, where economic freedom devoid of political freedom has generated tremendous results, there is no doubt that these results will soon exhaust themselves and the world of business will demand the provision of total Freedom of Choice.
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
This question is inspired by the almost million-strong anti-Maduro march that took place yesterday in Venezuela. Why is it that the population who put up with and even welcomed N. Maduro’s predecessor, Hugo Chavez, can no longer tolerate his heir?
Let’s begin at the very beginning. In ancient times when man still knew nothing, or almost nothing of Freedom of Choice, this question would never have arisen. There was no doubt at all that physical Gene Preservation among human beings, as well as all living matter, was the ultimate priority. At that time, the only Freedom of Choice that existed for the individual was the dream of becoming the wise Chief of the tribe, who would understand that the preservation of his personal genes depended directly on the preservation of the genes of the other tribe members. It is true that such leaders did exist, albeit rarely and their grateful tribesmen would compose songs and legends in their honour. As time passed though, kingdoms and queendoms appeared; chiefs turned into kings and queens to whom the peoples transferred their attitudes towards the former chiefs. The only Freedom of Choice a person had, was the possibility of secretly escaping from one king for the sake of another at the risk of losing one’s life. Only one in thousands would ever take the risk.
Time passed and rudimentary elements of Freedom of Choice that were permitted in the economy came into conflict with the feudal structure of society that existed under the kingship. Freedom of choice demanded full freedom in the production and promotion of merchandise, freedom to accumulate wealth from one’s labour, in short, laws which would establish equality among all members of society. Then the great bourgeois revolutions began rolling across Europe and endorsing the basic human freedoms: the freedom to vote, the freedom to elect and be elected, the absolute equality of all citizens before the law and so on. The most vehement adherents of Freedom of Choice rushed to assimilate the American continent.
As a result, the opportunity to preserve one’s genes increased for all members of society. However, all nature of crisis and particularly ongoing significant inequality between various members of a society who now possessed considerable freedom, made them seek again and again for a different choice.
Time passed and then politicians and their parties began to appear on the historical stage offering very simple solutions to problems, solutions that could be easily understood by poorly educated segments of society. They would claim that the people’s problems were the fault of self-indulgent, robbing-capitalists (in the case of the communists) or hostile robbing-States, or even robbing-Jews (in the case of the Nazis). To deny the robbers the possibility of robbing, they would ask the people to permit them to limit their Freedom of Choice, just a little bit. Lacking in sufficient historical experience, the peoples would grant them their request, readily and voluntarily. In Russia in 1917, the Communists took power into their own hands without asking the people for permission and deprived the population of Freedom of Choice. For example, on the third day after coming to power, they shut down all non-communist newspapers.
Usually all new political authorities are able to achieve this for an initial period under slogans such as “Expropriate the expropriators” and “Rob what was robbed!” as was the case at one time with Stalin and Hitler and very recently, with Hugo Chavez. Any economy though, when deprived of Freedom of Choice begins to stall and soon falls apart either for objective inner reasons or under fire from the peoples who refuse to sacrifice Freedom of Choice.
And if, as has already been stated, in ancient times, human Gene Preservation was barely dependent on individual Freedom of Choice, by the end of the nineteenth century (in Europe and North America), it had become increasingly dependent on Freedom of Choice. Today, in the twenty-first century, more and more people throughout the world understand that without Freedom of Choice the people cannot be fed, which means that they cannot protect their genes. Now Gene Preservation and Freedom of Choice are inseparably linked and it is impossible to implement Gene Preservation successfully whilst negating the existence of Freedom of Choice.
In the light of the recent million-strong march in Caracas, one thing is certain: Nicholas Maduro’s days are numbered.
The main conclusion of this short article is that in the twenty-first century, in countries in which there is no Freedom of Choice, the reliable realisation of Gene Preservation becomes extremely difficult to achieve and this is why we are seeing huge streams of refugees fleeing their homelands for other countries in which Freedom of Choice is guaranteed. Moreover, the overriding majority flee taking their children with them, not for the sake of Freedom of Choice of which they have only a very vague conception, but solely for the opportunity to protect and pass on their genes.
As far as some developing countries are concerned, dictator-leaders who claim that economics comes first and politics second are simply lying! An economy can never grow in conditions of total corruption which is always the inevitable consort of life in a society deprived of freedom. Even in the case of China, where economic freedom devoid of political freedom has generated tremendous results, there is no doubt that these results will soon exhaust themselves and the world of business will demand the provision of total Freedom of Choice.
Karmak on Karmak
Karmak Bagisbayev
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
I was born on the banks of the dried-up Aral Sea. The Aral was only called a sea. Strictly speaking, at the time of my childhood, it was a huge, seemingly limitless lake, the fourth largest in the world. The residents of the coastal town of Aralsk were primarily engaged in the fishing industry. In those years the ethnic composition of the Aral Sea area was about as diverse as Babylon. Aside from the autochthonous Kazakhs and the Russians who brought with them Soviet rule, there were many representatives of peoples deported by Stalin from their native lands: Ukrainians, Koreans, Chechens, the Ingush, Greeks, Karachay, Kalmyks, Meskhetian Turks and Crimean Tatars. In local schools and hospitals one would often come find repressed Jewish teachers and doctors from Moscow and Leningrad who had been exiled and forced to resettle. As a result the standard of secondary education in the average Aralsk school was no inferior to the best schools in the capital.
The local kids would knit together in international “gangs” on a regional basis, and periodically hold battles on the outskirts of the town to establish their areas of influence and power. From an early age, in accordance with the fashion for criminal romance, popular in the post-war period, the boys carried penknives, and knuckle dusters around with them in their pockets, as well as homemade playing cards without which it would have been unthinkable to appear in “polite society”. The older lads had guns. Most were home-made but some were real fire-arms, captured weaponry, which had been given to them by soldiers who had returned from the war. At that time though, serious crime in the city was a rarity. Young lads were more often drowned at sea in a storm, or in the lake having fallen through the ice playing hockey in winter.
Our “gang” was called the naval gang because all the kids in it lived on streets that ran adjacent to the sea. We blocked all approaches to the shore keeping any strangers out. We were all excellent swimmers. The year round we wore striped sailor’s vests under shirts with the collars gaping wide and quilted jackets. We sang pirate songs and even tried to make pirate’s smoking pipes like those we had seen depicted on the front covers of maritime adventure novels. We all dreamed of sailing round the world on pirate ships dreaming of lands, where dark-skinned men lay around in white trousers for days on end under the palm trees, lazily sipping rum and dancing the rumba. We younger boys were convinced that these lands began exactly where our sea ended and so with inexpressible anguish we escorted ships which left for sea watching them until the smoke from their funnels had completely disappeared beyond the horizon.
Once, whilst rigging work was being undertaken in the port, a friend and I snuck onto a ship that was set to sail for the town of Muynak situated on the lake’s opposite shore. We hid under a tarpaulin where we were discovered only once the ship was already far out to sea. We weren’t thrown overboard or even severely reprimanded. The sailors just laughed and fed us in the galley along with the others. A greater shock awaited us though. Muynak turned out to be a small provincial town, even smaller than our native Aralsk. It had no palm trees, no dark-skinned men, no rumba or rum. When we returned to shore, the ship’s captain gave us both a sailor’s cap, saw us onto the quay and did not report us to anyone. After the war people were all very kind.
We fished a lot and took every opportunity to go out in the boats onto the open sea. A boy’s childhood spent at sea could only be a happy one.
I loved and hated school at the same time. There were some subjects I loved and found very interesting: mathematics for its internal beauty, physics for its ability to explain the uniform movement of the heavenly bodies, aircraft and ships and history, particularly ancient history, which opened windows onto worlds that have long since disappeared. I hated all the subjects related to languages because of the repetition involved and the grammatical rules, which seemed to me artificial and contrived so that I always wished to simplify them. I detested the strict daily schedule and boring classroom assemblies. I also hated the activities organised by the pioneer and Komsomol organisations for their insincerity and tediousness, preferring the lively games of street boys.
In my thirteenth year, the family moved to the capital city of Alma-Ata, where I joined the Republican Physics and Mathematics School, and so had the opportunity to participate in and subsequently win at All-Union Physics and Mathematics Academic Competitions. Next came the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Novosibirsk University which was elitist for the time and there I made friendships that were to last my entire life.
After university I returned to Alma-Ata, where I started work at the Institute of Mathematics, Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences. This was the time when the persecutions of academician Sakharov began, when the ruling Communist Party started “tightening the screws” across the entire country and one could go to prison for making a joke about Brezhnev. Under the leadership of local party authorities, a wave of rallies and meetings were held in all academic institutions of the Soviet Union, at which letters were to be signed condemning and shaming A.D. Sakharov. A rally of this kind occurred at the Institute of Mathematics where I worked. I have never been a hero and in this lion’s den I found myself unable to speak out against what was happening. Neither could I conceive of the idea of signing such a letter and so, pretending to be stupid with a deadpan face I asked the bureau of the assembly, when academician Sakharov would speak, so that we could hear his point of view, and then discuss it, and if necessary condemn it, in accordance with the common procedure of a scientific seminar. Silence reigned in the room for about a minute and was then followed by a growing rumble of approval. The Communist Party representative glanced first at me with undisguised pity, as at one mentally impaired, and then turned angrily to the Institute management before rising sharply from her chair and leaving the meeting without a word.
In the morning of the following day, I quickly switched jobs. More than twenty years later, after the Soviet regime had been overthrown, former colleagues congratulated me on the fact that the Institute of mathematics was the only institute of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan to get away without enduring the disgrace of having to sign the anti-Sakharov letter.
I remember another occasion that occurred a little earlier, also at the Academy of Sciences. According to the requirements of the time, any young doctoral candidate had to sit a preliminary exam on Marxist-Leninist philosophy. During this exam, I was given a question on the issue of morality. Having given the examiners a detailed answer to the question in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist philosophy receiving the highest grade possible: “Excellent”, I asked the examiners if I might be allowed to express my own thoughts on morality. I then outlined to them roughly what is written about morality in The Last Faith. If I had been a hero, I would have openly declared that the Marxist-Leninist moral doctrine that acclaims the dictatorship of the proletariat over the rest of society is criminal to its core but, as I have already said, I am no hero and so I just said quietly that I simply could not accept the idea that some unknown proletarian should tell me how to live. At that point, the examiners announced that I had in fact been awarded the grade “Unsatisfactory” which meant that the road to an academic degree in the USSR would be closed to me. I told them they had no right to award me this new grade because they had only just evaluated my knowledge on the same question as “Excellent”. I was asked to leave the room and await their decision in the corridor. The examiners deliberated for more than four hours and at around midnight invited me back into the room. It was explained to me that I would be awarded the grade “Satisfactory” and could retake the exam if I wish to improve my grade on the understanding that I would refrain from adding ‘improvisations from self’ after my formal answer to the exam question. To put this into some context, the grade most commonly awarded to candidates for Marxist-Leninist philosophy was “Excellent” and only occasionally “Good”. As far as they could remember, this was the first time in the history of the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences that the grade “Satisfactory” had ever been awarded. I thanked the Commission but turned down their invitation to retake the exam, saying that if the Supreme Certifying Commission chose to deny me a degree in mathematics on account of my grade for Philosophy, then such a degree was not worth the paper it was written on. Some time later I successfully defended my dissertation and to this day am proud of the “unique” grade I was awarded for philosophy.
As an aside, on the topic of morality, I must mention my grandmother, who at that time, in an atmosphere of total totalitarian morality, managed to communicate to me as a seven to eight year old child the notion that different people think differently, that this is their God-given right, that people have a right to hold to any kind of morality they choose as long as they do not cause other people harm. My grandmother was an illiterate, quiet, discreet Kazakh woman, who very rarely involved herself in family conversations unless she was asked her opinion directly. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had such a grandmother, who instilled in me as a child the initial ideas of The Last Faith.
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
I was born on the banks of the dried-up Aral Sea. The Aral was only called a sea. Strictly speaking, at the time of my childhood, it was a huge, seemingly limitless lake, the fourth largest in the world. The residents of the coastal town of Aralsk were primarily engaged in the fishing industry. In those years the ethnic composition of the Aral Sea area was about as diverse as Babylon. Aside from the autochthonous Kazakhs and the Russians who brought with them Soviet rule, there were many representatives of peoples deported by Stalin from their native lands: Ukrainians, Koreans, Chechens, the Ingush, Greeks, Karachay, Kalmyks, Meskhetian Turks and Crimean Tatars. In local schools and hospitals one would often come find repressed Jewish teachers and doctors from Moscow and Leningrad who had been exiled and forced to resettle. As a result the standard of secondary education in the average Aralsk school was no inferior to the best schools in the capital.
The local kids would knit together in international “gangs” on a regional basis, and periodically hold battles on the outskirts of the town to establish their areas of influence and power. From an early age, in accordance with the fashion for criminal romance, popular in the post-war period, the boys carried penknives, and knuckle dusters around with them in their pockets, as well as homemade playing cards without which it would have been unthinkable to appear in “polite society”. The older lads had guns. Most were home-made but some were real fire-arms, captured weaponry, which had been given to them by soldiers who had returned from the war. At that time though, serious crime in the city was a rarity. Young lads were more often drowned at sea in a storm, or in the lake having fallen through the ice playing hockey in winter.
Our “gang” was called the naval gang because all the kids in it lived on streets that ran adjacent to the sea. We blocked all approaches to the shore keeping any strangers out. We were all excellent swimmers. The year round we wore striped sailor’s vests under shirts with the collars gaping wide and quilted jackets. We sang pirate songs and even tried to make pirate’s smoking pipes like those we had seen depicted on the front covers of maritime adventure novels. We all dreamed of sailing round the world on pirate ships dreaming of lands, where dark-skinned men lay around in white trousers for days on end under the palm trees, lazily sipping rum and dancing the rumba. We younger boys were convinced that these lands began exactly where our sea ended and so with inexpressible anguish we escorted ships which left for sea watching them until the smoke from their funnels had completely disappeared beyond the horizon.
Once, whilst rigging work was being undertaken in the port, a friend and I snuck onto a ship that was set to sail for the town of Muynak situated on the lake’s opposite shore. We hid under a tarpaulin where we were discovered only once the ship was already far out to sea. We weren’t thrown overboard or even severely reprimanded. The sailors just laughed and fed us in the galley along with the others. A greater shock awaited us though. Muynak turned out to be a small provincial town, even smaller than our native Aralsk. It had no palm trees, no dark-skinned men, no rumba or rum. When we returned to shore, the ship’s captain gave us both a sailor’s cap, saw us onto the quay and did not report us to anyone. After the war people were all very kind.
We fished a lot and took every opportunity to go out in the boats onto the open sea. A boy’s childhood spent at sea could only be a happy one.
I loved and hated school at the same time. There were some subjects I loved and found very interesting: mathematics for its internal beauty, physics for its ability to explain the uniform movement of the heavenly bodies, aircraft and ships and history, particularly ancient history, which opened windows onto worlds that have long since disappeared. I hated all the subjects related to languages because of the repetition involved and the grammatical rules, which seemed to me artificial and contrived so that I always wished to simplify them. I detested the strict daily schedule and boring classroom assemblies. I also hated the activities organised by the pioneer and Komsomol organisations for their insincerity and tediousness, preferring the lively games of street boys.
In my thirteenth year, the family moved to the capital city of Alma-Ata, where I joined the Republican Physics and Mathematics School, and so had the opportunity to participate in and subsequently win at All-Union Physics and Mathematics Academic Competitions. Next came the Mechanics and Mathematics Faculty of Novosibirsk University which was elitist for the time and there I made friendships that were to last my entire life.
After university I returned to Alma-Ata, where I started work at the Institute of Mathematics, Kazakh SSR Academy of Sciences. This was the time when the persecutions of academician Sakharov began, when the ruling Communist Party started “tightening the screws” across the entire country and one could go to prison for making a joke about Brezhnev. Under the leadership of local party authorities, a wave of rallies and meetings were held in all academic institutions of the Soviet Union, at which letters were to be signed condemning and shaming A.D. Sakharov. A rally of this kind occurred at the Institute of Mathematics where I worked. I have never been a hero and in this lion’s den I found myself unable to speak out against what was happening. Neither could I conceive of the idea of signing such a letter and so, pretending to be stupid with a deadpan face I asked the bureau of the assembly, when academician Sakharov would speak, so that we could hear his point of view, and then discuss it, and if necessary condemn it, in accordance with the common procedure of a scientific seminar. Silence reigned in the room for about a minute and was then followed by a growing rumble of approval. The Communist Party representative glanced first at me with undisguised pity, as at one mentally impaired, and then turned angrily to the Institute management before rising sharply from her chair and leaving the meeting without a word.
In the morning of the following day, I quickly switched jobs. More than twenty years later, after the Soviet regime had been overthrown, former colleagues congratulated me on the fact that the Institute of mathematics was the only institute of the Academy of Sciences of Kazakhstan to get away without enduring the disgrace of having to sign the anti-Sakharov letter.
I remember another occasion that occurred a little earlier, also at the Academy of Sciences. According to the requirements of the time, any young doctoral candidate had to sit a preliminary exam on Marxist-Leninist philosophy. During this exam, I was given a question on the issue of morality. Having given the examiners a detailed answer to the question in accordance with the Marxist-Leninist philosophy receiving the highest grade possible: “Excellent”, I asked the examiners if I might be allowed to express my own thoughts on morality. I then outlined to them roughly what is written about morality in The Last Faith. If I had been a hero, I would have openly declared that the Marxist-Leninist moral doctrine that acclaims the dictatorship of the proletariat over the rest of society is criminal to its core but, as I have already said, I am no hero and so I just said quietly that I simply could not accept the idea that some unknown proletarian should tell me how to live. At that point, the examiners announced that I had in fact been awarded the grade “Unsatisfactory” which meant that the road to an academic degree in the USSR would be closed to me. I told them they had no right to award me this new grade because they had only just evaluated my knowledge on the same question as “Excellent”. I was asked to leave the room and await their decision in the corridor. The examiners deliberated for more than four hours and at around midnight invited me back into the room. It was explained to me that I would be awarded the grade “Satisfactory” and could retake the exam if I wish to improve my grade on the understanding that I would refrain from adding ‘improvisations from self’ after my formal answer to the exam question. To put this into some context, the grade most commonly awarded to candidates for Marxist-Leninist philosophy was “Excellent” and only occasionally “Good”. As far as they could remember, this was the first time in the history of the Kazakhstan Academy of Sciences that the grade “Satisfactory” had ever been awarded. I thanked the Commission but turned down their invitation to retake the exam, saying that if the Supreme Certifying Commission chose to deny me a degree in mathematics on account of my grade for Philosophy, then such a degree was not worth the paper it was written on. Some time later I successfully defended my dissertation and to this day am proud of the “unique” grade I was awarded for philosophy.
As an aside, on the topic of morality, I must mention my grandmother, who at that time, in an atmosphere of total totalitarian morality, managed to communicate to me as a seven to eight year old child the notion that different people think differently, that this is their God-given right, that people have a right to hold to any kind of morality they choose as long as they do not cause other people harm. My grandmother was an illiterate, quiet, discreet Kazakh woman, who very rarely involved herself in family conversations unless she was asked her opinion directly. I consider myself extremely lucky to have had such a grandmother, who instilled in me as a child the initial ideas of The Last Faith.
THE MYTH OF MALE POLYGAMY AND FEMALE MONOGAMY
Karmak Bagisbayev
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
We often hear natural male polygamy and female monogamy being referred to in the context of scientific fact. This myth, which has no biological foundation at all, was thought up by men back in the day of patriarchy and continues to be supported by men for obvious reasons. No species whose breeding strategy differs among its male and female representatives can ever survive! Nature has no examples of a species in which the males are polygamous and the females monogamous, or vice verse. Either both sexes are polygamous or both are monogamous. Contrary to widespread assumptions, all ‘harem-forming’ species are totally polygamous i.e. polygamy is evident in both the males and the females. When a lioness is on heat, she will mate with any other male in the absence of the harem leader. The opposite example can be seen among wolves, swans and some other animals, where both male and female are monogamous.
The human species is decidedly polygamous. Polygamous behaviour in men and monogamous behaviour in women emerged in the early stages of patriarchal society, first and foremost as a result of the different physiological roles played by men and women in the task of preserving the common gene, which lead to the withdrawal of women from social and working life for long periods of time after giving birth. We speak about this in more detail in the 9th conversation in The Last Faith. Today, this artificial distinction is still supported in patriarchal societies with a totalitarian religious ideology and low levels of Freedom of Choice, where any attempt a woman makes to step beyond her accepted role could cause her to sacrifice her life through stoning.
There have always existed reasons to justify a gender specific upbringing for boys and girls. I remember the self-education of the boys of my own generation in a country that had recently been released from World War II, when we were breathing the air still saturated with war. At the age of five it was already unthinkable that a boy should cry with pain or walk away from a fight, when faced with the aggression of another boy, otherwise you could find yourself becoming an outcast overnight. They made heroes of us all, preparing us for war and instilling the idea in us that our country was surrounded by a permanently hostile environment. Thank God, these times are passing. Education in the West is becoming increasingly unisex in nature. Boys and girls are bought similar toys and dressed in similar clothing and places in the world, that educate boys and girls separately are becoming all the more rare and archaic.
The Last Faith: A Book by an Atheist Believer
We often hear natural male polygamy and female monogamy being referred to in the context of scientific fact. This myth, which has no biological foundation at all, was thought up by men back in the day of patriarchy and continues to be supported by men for obvious reasons. No species whose breeding strategy differs among its male and female representatives can ever survive! Nature has no examples of a species in which the males are polygamous and the females monogamous, or vice verse. Either both sexes are polygamous or both are monogamous. Contrary to widespread assumptions, all ‘harem-forming’ species are totally polygamous i.e. polygamy is evident in both the males and the females. When a lioness is on heat, she will mate with any other male in the absence of the harem leader. The opposite example can be seen among wolves, swans and some other animals, where both male and female are monogamous.
The human species is decidedly polygamous. Polygamous behaviour in men and monogamous behaviour in women emerged in the early stages of patriarchal society, first and foremost as a result of the different physiological roles played by men and women in the task of preserving the common gene, which lead to the withdrawal of women from social and working life for long periods of time after giving birth. We speak about this in more detail in the 9th conversation in The Last Faith. Today, this artificial distinction is still supported in patriarchal societies with a totalitarian religious ideology and low levels of Freedom of Choice, where any attempt a woman makes to step beyond her accepted role could cause her to sacrifice her life through stoning.
There have always existed reasons to justify a gender specific upbringing for boys and girls. I remember the self-education of the boys of my own generation in a country that had recently been released from World War II, when we were breathing the air still saturated with war. At the age of five it was already unthinkable that a boy should cry with pain or walk away from a fight, when faced with the aggression of another boy, otherwise you could find yourself becoming an outcast overnight. They made heroes of us all, preparing us for war and instilling the idea in us that our country was surrounded by a permanently hostile environment. Thank God, these times are passing. Education in the West is becoming increasingly unisex in nature. Boys and girls are bought similar toys and dressed in similar clothing and places in the world, that educate boys and girls separately are becoming all the more rare and archaic.
RACISM, NATIONALISM, PATRIOTISM AS THE CONSEQUENCES OF XENOPHOBIA. WHY AND HOW DID THEY ARISE AND HOW LONG WILL THEY CONTINUE TO EXIST?
Karmak Bagisbayev
The Last Faith: A book by an atheist believer
Xenophobia as a primordial instinct, arose with the appearance of living beings on Earth as a natural response to the threat posed by other species, and even members of the same species who belonged to external groups. We have all witnessed a child between the ages of 1-3 start to cry when they are approached by a stranger.
The phenomena of racism, nationalism and patriotism exist among humans as a result of the kind of xenophobia that existed when primitive humans, gregarious by nature, could only survive and Preserve their Gene with members of their own tribe existing on the same habitat, considered the homeland. Exactly the same phenomenon can be observed in the animal kingdom only then we use different terms to describe it. This same behaviour can be clearly observed in a pack of wolves for example, who will fight other wolf packs as ferociously as other species of animal such as bear.
Unlike xenophobia, neither racism, nationalism nor patriotism can be said to be biologically inherent in human beings. Take children’s pre-school groups for example. Children of different races will play together without it ever occurring to them that they are in some way different from their play-pals. All racial prejudices are adopted from by the child from their parents as they get older, who in turn adopted the prejudices from their own parents etc, going back to the era of race wars.
Aside from ethnic racism, other forms of discrimination exist in the world against religion, gender and class. Why do these forms of discrimination continue to existence in modern society? The answer is simple – apartheid. Wherever schools exist in which children are separated into groups on account of race, religion, sex or class, discrimination in all its forms will continue to exist. The adoption of desegregation laws in the USA more than half a century ago, represented a significant step forward in achieving the eradication of ethnic racism in America. On the territory of the former Soviet Union, class racism proclaimed by Marxism-Leninism that asserted the superiority of the proletarian class, receded into oblivion together with the Communist regime that fostered the ideology.
Whereas racism born of xenophobia is condemned throughout the world and nationalism disapproved of, patriotism is universally encouraged. Yet even this tendency is changing. In united Europe attempts are clearly being made to foster in children a feeling of pan-European patriotism in place of an ethnic, state-based patriotism. There is every reason to suppose that the consequences of xenophobia will be mitigated by examples of rapprochement between nations and increasing globalisation as all these developments are accompanied by an increase in global Freedom of Choice driven by the Law of Humandynamics. And yet, it is still very early days.
The Last Faith: A book by an atheist believer
Xenophobia as a primordial instinct, arose with the appearance of living beings on Earth as a natural response to the threat posed by other species, and even members of the same species who belonged to external groups. We have all witnessed a child between the ages of 1-3 start to cry when they are approached by a stranger.
The phenomena of racism, nationalism and patriotism exist among humans as a result of the kind of xenophobia that existed when primitive humans, gregarious by nature, could only survive and Preserve their Gene with members of their own tribe existing on the same habitat, considered the homeland. Exactly the same phenomenon can be observed in the animal kingdom only then we use different terms to describe it. This same behaviour can be clearly observed in a pack of wolves for example, who will fight other wolf packs as ferociously as other species of animal such as bear.
Unlike xenophobia, neither racism, nationalism nor patriotism can be said to be biologically inherent in human beings. Take children’s pre-school groups for example. Children of different races will play together without it ever occurring to them that they are in some way different from their play-pals. All racial prejudices are adopted from by the child from their parents as they get older, who in turn adopted the prejudices from their own parents etc, going back to the era of race wars.
Aside from ethnic racism, other forms of discrimination exist in the world against religion, gender and class. Why do these forms of discrimination continue to existence in modern society? The answer is simple – apartheid. Wherever schools exist in which children are separated into groups on account of race, religion, sex or class, discrimination in all its forms will continue to exist. The adoption of desegregation laws in the USA more than half a century ago, represented a significant step forward in achieving the eradication of ethnic racism in America. On the territory of the former Soviet Union, class racism proclaimed by Marxism-Leninism that asserted the superiority of the proletarian class, receded into oblivion together with the Communist regime that fostered the ideology.
Whereas racism born of xenophobia is condemned throughout the world and nationalism disapproved of, patriotism is universally encouraged. Yet even this tendency is changing. In united Europe attempts are clearly being made to foster in children a feeling of pan-European patriotism in place of an ethnic, state-based patriotism. There is every reason to suppose that the consequences of xenophobia will be mitigated by examples of rapprochement between nations and increasing globalisation as all these developments are accompanied by an increase in global Freedom of Choice driven by the Law of Humandynamics. And yet, it is still very early days.
