Director: Sidney J. Furie
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This business of international relations began as early as the time Man picked up a weapon to knock down his neighbour.
Just found out recently, of all the people, the British monarch, Queen Elizabeth I and the Ottoman Empire had a good thing going between the two. After being labelled an outcast by the Roman Catholic Church for the shenanigans of King Henry VIII, there was animosity between England and many European superpowers of that time. The Spanish, Italians, French, Russian and Portuguese were all under the thumb of the Vatican.
The English naturally found friendship in 'the enemy of the enemy'. In the eyes of the Ottoman, the Anglicans (i.e. British) were not idolaters. Unlike the Catholics who found pleasure in worshipping the statues of a caring mother or a man on a crucifix, the Anglican houses of worship were pristinely bare. Beyond all that was business. The British wanted to lay their hands on many Muslim traits like raisins and spices. The Moors from Morocco actually had expansion plans. They had, in their mind, a joint venture with the British, a conquest over the Spanish territories in the Americas. By then, the Spanish armadas were scooping gold by the shiploads from ancient civilisations.
Working within the crowd of Cromwell supporters, Hyde was captured while fighting for King Charles II and was executed in the Tower of London.
If you think Aurangzeb's planned murder of his brother, Dara Shikoh, was brutal, King Ashoka was no saint. He had his 99 brothers killed before sitting on the throne.
We all grew up reading and listening to the covert operations on both sides of the Iron Curtain during the Cold War era. Both ideologies, suffering from extreme delusion and cognitive dissonance, thought the other would annihilate each other. Ultimately, they almost ended up sending the whole planet up in a mushroom cloud twice.
A point to note is that even though the Americans seem to be on the side of the West, they also keep a tight rein on their subordinates. This is just to make sure that they know how the boss is.
We thought spying and honey trappings were only a legacy of the past. Wrong. Even as late as the 21st century, these are ongoing. The US accused the Chinese of using their goodwill to siphon off sensitive state secrets back home, as the US was the innocent party.
It is just how the world works. We don't hold hands and sing Kumbayah.
