Randy Newman and the Golden Horde

This is a long one. It's mostly Randy Newman's fault. It's also a depressing one, which is my fault. And yours. And everyone's.

I did eventually start watching “The Black Death” on Amazon. It's a Great Courses title which is really quite good, if you don't mind the 23 half-hour lecture format. I probably won't finish it because it's an Amazon teaser, slated to disappear on July 1.

Last night's episode, tracing the route that death took from Asia to Europe, told the story of Caffa (now called Feodosiya), a Crimean city on the Black Sea. 

In the mid 13^th century there were a lot of Genoan traders in Caffa, largely because the city was built near the mouth of the Don River (of “Quiet Flows the...” fame, for all you Nobel Prize for Literature fans). Just as an aside, there were a lot of Genoan traders everywhere in the 13^th and 14^th century. It's probably not a coincidence that, shortly thereafter, another Genoan ended up in the Americas.

Anyway, in 1343 a conflict broke out between the Genoans and the Mongol occupiers in Caffa. This conflict apparently began as a barfight. It escalated to a siege, by the Mongols (actually called the Golden Horde), who laid siege to the heavily fortified Genoan compound.

Suddenly, the plague breaks out in the Mongol army. A huge (but unknown) proportion of the army dies in a few days. It devastates them in short order, and they organize a retreat.

And here's the point of my story. Before leaving, the Mongols loaded thousands of the plague-wracked bodies of their comrades into their trebuchets and, in “the most spectacular incident of biological warfare ever,” flung them over the walls into the Genoan compound.

Thousands of corpses with bloody pustules raining down on a trading outpost. Thousands. Imagine that.

As you might have guessed, it is generally agreed that it was the Genoan population of Caffa, fleeing this horror, returning to European ports in the Mediterranean, who brought with them the Black Death and the destruction of up to half the population of Europe.

The point I want to draw out here is this: the Mongol soldiers loaded their friends and comrades' bodies – friends and comrades they had just watched die horribly – and, knowing that they themselves would probably die horribly in a day or so, flung those bodies at a bunch of foreigners so that they would die horribly too.

These were human beings, just like you and me. I'll leave it at that for now.

Next up is Randy Newman:

When Karl Marx was a boy, he took a hard look around

He saw people were starving all over the place while others were painting the town

The public spirited boy became a public spirited man

So he worked very hard and he read everything until he came up with a plan

There'll be no exploitation of the worker or his kin

No discrimination 'cause of the color of your skin

No more private property; it would not be allowed

No one could rise too high; no one could sink too low

Or go under completely like some we all know

If Marx were living today, he'd be rolling around in his grave

And if I had him here in my mansion on the hill

I'd tell him a story t'would give his old heart a chill

It's something that happened to me

I'd say, Karl I recently stumbled into a new family

With two little children in school where all little children should be

I went to the orientation; all the young mommies were there

Karl, you never have seen such a glorious sight:

As these beautiful women arrayed for the night

Just like countesses, empresses, movie stars and queens

And they'd come there with men much like me - froggish men, unpleasant to see

Were you to kiss one, Karl, nary a prince would there be

Oh Karl the world isn't fair - it isn't and never will be

They tried out your plan - it brought misery instead

If you'd seen how they worked it, You'd be glad you were dead

Just like I'm glad I'm living in the land of the free

Where the rich just get richer, and the poor you don't ever have to see

It would depress us, Karl, because we care

That the world still isn't fair

                                                   (c) 1999 - SKG Music, LLC 

Tongue firmly in cheek, Newman lays it out like it is: the world isn't fair, and the haves make sure that there are enough have-nots to keep their own larders full.  If you know a better articulation of this, you're free to substitute it.

So, to the point: the new world will be constructed by Mongols and Randy Newman. Which is to say, whatever it is that resulted in the decision to infect Cassa (or to murder six million Jews, or to cut off enemies' feet in Rwanda, or to distribute smallpox-infested blankets to North American indigenous peoples) is still lurking in the complex consciousnesses of those who will forge the new world. It's still there, in all of us, somewhere. And there's no doubt that, for those who benefit from the unfairness of the world, maintaining that injustice and greediocracy will be the highest priority.

So, it seems, those of us who want to overcome the human urges to destroy and prevail – we need to be doing a lot of purposeful and difficult work, starting now.

Where do we start?