The Tide of Independence in the New World

The Tide of Independence in the New World

Last time we looked at the two holidays, el cinco de mayo and el dieciséis de septiembre. Today, we will explore the wave of New World Independence from Europe that both were part of. Both History and Language are involved!

The Declaration of Independence by John Turnbull

The American Revolution in 1776, rapidly followed by the French Revolution in 1789, were both largely the products of the liberal and liberationist thought of many groups from the Enlightenment and before, notably the Masons and the Rosicrucians (yes, Dan Brown actually got it more or less right in his latest novel—mirabile dictu!). This set off a series of anti-colonial national liberations, especially in the New World.

The Wave of Independence in the Americas: 

1776 American Revolution
1789   (French Revolution)–For reference
1791   Haitian Revolution
1809   Peruvian War of Independence
1810  Mexican Revolution; May Revolution in what is now Argentina, Bolivia, Paraguay
and Uruguay; Chilean War of Independence
1811   Independence Movements in Central America; Venezuelan War of Independence
1819   Colombian Independence
1820   Ecuadorian War of Independence
1821   Guatemala proclaims Central American Independence from Spain. Later becomes
the nations of Costa Rica, El Salvador, Guatemala, Honduras, Nicaragua. Panama
is part of Colombia until 1903. (For Belize, see below).
1822   Brazilian Revolution

Under Rule from Abroad until Later:

1865   Dominican Republic
1867   US purchases Alaska from Russia
1902   Cuba (US grants independence)
1962   Jamaica; Trinidad and Tobago
1966   Guyana (British Guyana); Barbados  (Independent State in the British
Commonwealth Realm)
1973  The Bahamas
1974   Grenada (Independent State in the British Commonwealth Realm)
1975   Suriname (Dutch Guyana)
1978   Dominica
1979   Saint Lucia; Saint Vincent and the Grenadines
1981   Antigua and Barbuda; Belize (Independent States in the British Commonwealth
Realm)
1982   Canada achieves Patriation–Full Independence from the British Parliament
(Independent State in the British Commonwealth Realm)
1983   Saint Kitts and Nevis

Still Administered by an External State:

Anguila (UK)
British Virgin Islands (UK)
Cayman Islands (UK)
French Guyana (A Department of France–DOM)*
Falkland Islands (UK)–Islas Malvinas
Guadaloupe (A Department of France–DOM)*
Leeward Antilles (The Netherlands) (Aruba, Caraçao, Bonnaire)
Martinique (A Department of France–DOM)*
Montserrat (UK)
Puerto Rico (US Territory)*
Saint Barthélemy (A Territory of France–TOM)–St. Bart’s!*
Saint Martin (France & The Netherlands)
Saba (The Netherlands)
Sint Eustatius (The Netherlands)
South Georgia and South Sandwich Islands (UK)
Turks and Caicos Islands (UK)
U.S. Virgin Islands (US Territory)*

*Since the starred areas are officially integrated with the external country, they are considered to now be self-governing by the United Nations. France has a system abbreviated as DOM-TOM (départements et territoires d’outre-mer–Overseas Departments and Territories). Départements are roughly the equivalent of a French “State,” an integral part of France just as Alaska and Hawai’i are part of the United States. Territoires have their own local laws and governments, and also have representation in the French Parliament.

Now, truth be told, independence from Europe has not always meant justice and peace in the nations of the New World, but at least most are free to make their own mistakes. And the few areas still controlled by external powers seem fairly just and peaceful.

The Monroe Doctrine

President James Monroe by Samuel Morse

This freedom from European domination was so important in the minds of US leaders in the 19^th century that President James Monroe proclaimed the “Monroe Doctrine” in  1823:

“The occasion has been judged proper for asserting, as a principle in which the rights and interests of the United States are involved, that the American continents, by the free and independent condition which they have assumed and maintain, are henceforth not to be considered as subjects for future colonization by any European powers…

“We owe it, therefore, to candor and to the amicable relations existing between the United States and those powers to declare that we should consider any attempt on their part to extend their system to any portion of this hemisphere as dangerous to our peace and safety. With the existing colonies or dependencies of any European power we have not interfered and shall not interfere. But with the Governments who have declared their independence and maintained it, and whose independence we have, on great consideration and on just principles, acknowledged, we could not view any interposition for the purpose of oppressing them, or controlling in any other manner their destiny, by any European power in any other light than as the manifestation of an unfriendly disposition toward the United States.”

Although initially welcomed by the Liberators in México and South America, some today view this as a U.S. attempt to become the Hemispheric leader. It was used heavy-handedly in the case of Puerto Rico, Cuba (against Spain) and Hawaii (against Britain). It was, in fact, the British decision to support the Monroe Doctrine by using its vast Navy in favor of the newly emerging nations of Latin America that was most effective. The British had very good economic reasons to do this, as these new countries were major consumers of British goods.

The Reaction of the Monarchies

St. Roque González, S.J. (de Santa Cruz). “The Mission” is loosely based on his life.

21st century people, especially young people, need to realize what monarchies of the past were like. Today, Kings and Queens are primarily romantic figures, constitutionally bound, and very good for tourism and national identity. I have no problem with the 21st century style monarchies of free nations, especially in as it is practiced in Europe.

Monarchies of the past are something else all-together. Just 400 years ago, Europe endured such mass murderers as Henry VIII of England, among many others. Even in the 18th-20th centuries, Monarchs were still quite decadent. The treatment of the Belgian Congo by Belgium’s King Leopold II is one of the most heinous examples. Just watch The Tudors or The Borgias to get a good look at what life was like under these tyrants, or view how North Korea and Iran are governed today, even without Kings. This is what our New World revolted against. Of course, human frailty being what it is, our New World governments sometimes perpetrated the same ills on the people. But we know it is wrong, and therefore can fix it. We are primarily looking at the New World in this essay, but the Arab Spring reminds us that this is a worldwide phenomenon, as all people struggle for freedom.

The Tyrannical Monarchies fought back, with a vengeance. 

Earlier, by 1767, the Jesuits–a major force for the rights of those in Europe’s colonies–were expelled from Portugal, France, the Two Sicilies, Parma and the Spanish Empire. Under pressure from several monarchies, Pope Clement XIV suppressed the Order in 1773. The European Monarchies realized that liberation was in the wind, and made a pre-emptive strike. Catherine the Great of Russia refused to cooperate in the suppression, and so the Jesuits survived in Russia and Prussia until their restoration in 1814. She  probably acted to spite the western powers. The Jesuits’ work in supporting the indigenous peoples is well told in the film The Mission, and through the story of the Pious Fund of the Californias. It is ironic that even though the Jesuits represented many of the ideals of the Wave of Independence, the US Founding Fathers were not all fans. As John Adams wrote to Thomas Jefferson in 1816:

“I do not like the reappearance of the Jesuits…. Shall we not have regular swarms of them here, in as many disguises as only a king of the gipsies can assume, dressed as printers, publishers, writers and schoolmasters? If ever there was a body of men who merited damnation on earth and in Hell, it is this society of Loyola’s. Nevertheless, we are compelled by our system of religious toleration to offer them an asylum.”

Today’s Jesuits, thoroughly part of American society, not surprisingly use this quote themselves to demonstrate their effectiveness.

Adam Weishaupt by C. K. Mansinger (1799)

From 1776-1785, a group of scholars in Bavaria, led by the Jesuit-educated Adam Weishaupt formed a group, the Illuminati, whose goals were to end the Old Order of Monarchic domination and to promote the Enlightenment goals of self-determination and freedom. Again, they were suppressed by the government. (This is where Dan Brown really went wrong in his Angels and Demons–Yikes!)

From 1814-1815, representatives of all the European powers–mostly monarchies–met at the Congress of Vienna to achieve some laudable goals, and some not so praise-worthy. To their credit, they worked out ways of solving disputes without war, and kept the peace in Europe from 1815-1914. Not so happily, they looked for ways to stem the tide of Independence movements which began with the American and French Revolutions, which they knew threatened their rule, and their empires.

Over time, most of the European countries themselves either became Republics, or evolved into Constitutional Monarchies. Nevertheless, conflicts originating in Europe involved most of the world during the 20^th century, which opened with a war originating in Sarajevo, and ended in the same place. I haven’t counted the bodies, but I suspect that the 20^th century was the bloodiest in the planet’s history, from a standpoint of wars and conflict.

Word Meanings: Denotation vs Connotation

Now, to finally come around to some language and terms related to all this. There are three terms that emerge from this discussion which I believe deserve further analysis. These three expressions illustrate very well how the denotation (dictionary definition) and connotation (the “feel” of a term) can be rather different.

Ancien Régime

Marie-Antoinette by Élisabeth Vigée-Lebrun (1783)

Literally this French expression just means, “the old regime.” In Revolutionary France, however, it came to be a pejorative term for the way France had been governed from the 15^th-18^th centuries. The first use of its English version dates from 1794. It has now expanded to mean:

1. Any of the regimes of pre-Democratic Europe.
2. Any former governmental structure that current speakers look down on.

Of course, the very root of the word “regime” links it to royalty. The word comes to us from French, which ultimately stems from the Latin regimen (rule, government, direction, guidance). We have the Latin original in English too, as well as several derivatives (regimen, regiment, regimented, etc.). Is it any wonder that our vocabulary is so large?

In Latin, regimen is related to the verb rego, “I rule.” Rego descends from the Proto-Indo-European *h₃reǵ-, which means to straighten, to right oneself, right, and just. There is a derived term *h₃rḗǵ-s, “king.” From *h₃reǵ- come the Greek ὀρέγω (oregō), which has a large range of meanings, all related somehow to stretching out: (Active/Passive Voice:) reach, stretch, hold out, help, (Middle Voice:) lunge, reach, grasp, attack, seek, desire, strive for, attain, reach.

From the PIE root, we also get “rake” (through Proto-German), something that orders the fallen leaves in my yard. We also get “reckon” through the Germanic line.

It does appear that the root *h₃reǵ-, originally meant to rule yourself, straighten yourself out, and then was applied to ruling others. In Scholastic Latin, the goal of human growth was to become a Dominus/Domina Sui “a Lord of Oneself.” Not a bad goal: the Mastery of Life!

Illuminati

Oh boy! This word is fraught with connotations. Let’s dig deep. This is the masculine plural nominative form of the perfect passive participle illuminatus, from the verb illumino, to illumine, brighten, adorn, made conspicuous. The verb is a compound of the preposition in “in” and lumino “to brighten.” It is related to the noun lumen “light” which in poetry could also denote the eyes, daylight, brighness and the light of life. The closely related noun is lux, “light.” In English we have many cognates from these light words, and have even adopted the Latin lumen itself for four of our sciences:

Physics:  a specific unit of light
Anatomy: a channel within a tubular organ
Botany: a cavity enclosed by the cell wall of a plant
Medicine: the bore of a tube (hollow needle, catheter)

Hermes Trismegistus: Floor Mosaic in the Cathedral of Sienna

The Latin words relating to light ultimately derive from PIE *lewk-, “bright, to see, to shine.” From this come many descendants in addition to the Latin words above:

• Greek λευκός (leukós): bright, shining, gleaming, white, happy, joyful (and also pale, weakly, cowardly, that’s where we get “leukemia”)
• Greek λύχνος (lúkhnos): lamp (cognate with the Latin lucerna, luceo “lamp, to shine”)
• Latin luna:   the moon, a month, a night, a crescent shape–It shines!
• Latin lucubro: to work / make by night, candlelight, lamplight

With all of this background, it is perfectly lucid (!) that Illuminati means, literally, the Illumined Ones, Enlightened Ones. As we saw above, the Bavarian Illuminati were free thinkers, albeit not particularly effective, and the progressives of their day. In general, it seems like it would be a very benign term. But something has happened to this word during the last couple of hundred years.

Complicating the issue is that during the 15^th-16^th centuries in Spain, some Christian Mystics were labeled as the Alumbrados (Spanish for Illuminati) by the Church and tried as Heretics by the Spanish Inquisition, which is brilliantly satirized by Monty Python, and by Mel Brooks in History of the World Part I!

Thus the word took on unhappy associations as far as the authorities were concerned.

Some groups still use the term positively, but mainstream culture has turned the word on its head!  As anyone knows who reads the Internet or watches The Simpsons, most people use the term “The Illuminati” to mean a secret group which runs the world, or tries to, and not for the good of humanity!

(I won’t use the term usually used, cabal, since this is an anti-semitic slur made from the Hebrew Kabbalah, קבלה, used by detractors who thought that the mysticism of the Kabbalah was a secret plot. In a similar fashion, I never use the word “Paddy-Wagon” for a police prisoner transportation van, since that is a racial slur from the New York Draft Riots of 1863 when wealthy men could buy their way out of the draft, but the impoverished Irish could not, and when they rioted, were hauled off in police vans.)

How did this reversal in the meaning of the word happen? I don’t have proof (there never is when you begin to delve into the murky waters of conspiracy theories), but I have a suspicion. And it goes back to the darker side of the Congress of Vienna.

Recalling the concept we have discussed before, Cui Bono, “Whom does it Benefit?” we can look around. Who would like to make us think that there is a secret group that is pulling the strings, and that this group is the Illuminati, who are in actuality the… [insert here whichever groups, movements, etc., any particular writer dislikes]?

When stage magicians want to fool us (for fun), they go through three steps, The Pledge, The Turn, and The Prestige. In the Pledge, they tell us what they are going to do, setting up our expectations. During the Turn, when they actually do the trick, one of the most important elements is mis-direction. They get us to look at or pay attention to something which distracts us from seeing what is really happening. If they are good at their craft, the Prestige is the finale when the illusion is so good, that we don’t want it explained, it’s just fun!

Run on the Seamen’s Savings’ Bank during the Panic of 1857.
On October 13, 1857, after the Ohio Life & Trust Co. declared bankruptcy, panic struck the New York Stock Exchange and hundreds of other banks and individual investors were ruined. This wood engraving from Harper’s Weekly, shows a crowd gesturing and shoving. A ragpicker picks up now-worthless stock certificates, and a pickpocket operates unnoticed to the right,

Less than fun are the pickpockets who either wait for us to be distracted, or cause a distraction themselves so that they can lift our wallets. What if the actual people who are “picking our pockets” socially, economically, politically, etc., are cleverly pointing at those who oppose them (for example, those today who think like the 18^th century liberators) saying “Look out, it’s the Illuminati! They want to rob you!” It’s the mis-direction of the Turn. And of course, in a world where egalitarianism has descended to common mediocrity,* who would like illumined people, anyway? The film Idiocracy portrays the results hilariously! Just a theory…..

*(During the debate over the–unsuccessful–nomination of G. Harold Carswell to the US Supreme Court in 1970, one of his defenders, U.S. Senator Roman Hruska, (R-NE), argued for Carswell, who had been called mediocre: “Even if he were mediocre, there are a lot of mediocre judges and people and lawyers. They are entitled to a little representation, aren’t they, and a little chance? We can’t have all Brandeises, Frankfurters and Cardozos.”

I don’t think Judge Carswell appreciated that very much.)

New World Order

Maya Long Count date

…And now, the $64,000 question! It’s 2012 and we are told that either the Mayan Apocalypse or the New World Order is upon us. I was recently in Quintana Roo, México’s newest State, and can vouch for the fact that the Maya are not expecting the world to end when their calendar restarts on December 21, 2012. Miss Richfield’s comedy routine “We’ll all be dead by Christmas!” is very funny, though!

But what about the New World Order? That sounds scary. The truth is, it’s not so new.

The term New World Order is a (not too accurate) paraphrase of the Latin Novus Ordo Seclorum, on the reverse of the Great Seal of the United States. It is inspired by a passage in the Roman poet Virgil (Vergil)’s Fourth Eclogue:

Publius Vergilius Maro

Ultima Cumaei venit iam carminis aetas;
magnus ab integro saeclorum nascitur ordo.
Iam redit et Virgo, redeunt Saturnia regna;
iam nova progenies, caelo demittitur alto.
Tu modo nascenti puero, quo ferrea primum
desinet, ac toto surget gens aurea mundo,
casta fave Lucina; tuus iam regnat Apollo.

I will cite the translation by no-less than the incredible Philip K. Dick, who uses this passage in his short story, “The Eye of the Sibyl.”

At last the Final Time announced by the Sibyl will arrive:
The procession of ages turns to its origin.
The Virgin returns and Saturn reigns as before;
A new race from heaven on high descends.
Goddess of Birth, smile on the new-born baby,
In whose time the Iron Prison will fall to ruin
And a golden race arises everywhere. Apollo, the rightful king, is restored!

Saeclorum nascitur ordo means, “the order of the ages is born.” Saeclum is a poetic form of the word, which is sometimes also seen as seclum, seculum, and in classical Latin, saeculum. A saeclum is “an age, a time span, a century, a generation, and a race of humans.”  It’s where we get “secular.” In Ecclesiastic Latin, the word is best known as the end of the doxology: in saecula saeculorum:

Gloria Patri, et Filio, et Spiritui Sancto,
Sicut erat in principio, et nunc, et semper, et in saecula saeculorum. Amen.

“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
As it was in the beginning, also now, and always, and to ages of ages. Amen.”

Hieromonk Mark Ciccone, S.J. at Our Lady of Fatima Byzantine Catholic Church, San Francisco

This is a rendering of the Greek:

Δόξα Πατρὶ καὶ Υἱῷ καὶ Ἁγίῳ Πνεύματι,
καὶ νῦν καὶ ἀεὶ καὶ εἰς τοὺς αἰῶνας τῶν αἰώνων. Ἀμήν.

“Glory to the Father, and to the Son, and to the Holy Spirit,
Both now and always, and unto the ages of ages. Amen.”

Both the texts of the Latin and the Greek appear to have originated in the Syriac version:

Shouha tababa, W-brona, W-ruha dqudsha,
min’alam w’adamma L-’alam, Amen.

Glory be to the Father and to the Son and to the Holy Spirit,
from everlasting and for ever and ever.

In all of these, the “age” is not just a time period. In Greek, αἰών, like saeculum, has the same range of meanings. In addition, in the Gnostic movement paralleling Judaism and Christianity, it had the sense of a great spiritual entity emanated from the Divine.

So what does Virgil mean? He is speaking of the Greek understanding of the cycles of the ages, which begin with the Golden Age, when humanity is in communion with the Divine, and eventually descend to the Iron Age, where humanity’s basest behaviors beset the world with troubles, and then a change takes place and the Golden Age returns.

Aquarius by Bode

Compare this with two similar systems, the Mythic interpretation of the Precession of the Equinoxes (“This is the Dawning of the Age of Aquarius!”) and the Hindu system of the Yugas, in which we are currently said to be in the Kali Yuga of the Kali Yuga (the very last stage before the collapse of everything and the return to the Golden Age, the Satya Yuga (सत्य युग), or Krita Yuga). There is some evidence that this is in the same ballpark as what the Maya are talking about, a new beginning.

While Christians saw Virgil’s passage as Christological, others have kept the original meaning as the return of the Golden Age. It was made part of the Great Seal of the United States by the Secretary of the Continental Congress, Charles Thompson, who had previously taught Latin. He also used another paraphrase from Virgil: Annuit Coeptis:

Reverse of the Great Seal of the United States, version by Ipankonin/Wikimedia Commons

Jupiter omnipotens, audacibus annue cœptis,
“JupiterAlmighty, favor [my] bold undertakings” (Aeneid 9.625).

Taken together, the two Latin phrases on the reverse of the Great Seal mean:

“He (God) has approved of our beginnings/undertakings.”
“The New Order of the Ages.”

Our beginning/undertaking is the establishment of the New Order of the Ages. This New (World) Order is nothing less than the Freedoms and Democracy enshrined in the US Constitution and Bill of Rights, and in the Constitutions of free nations everywhere. We are the New World Order, and this is really a return to the way things are supposed to be. Tyrannies are part of the Iron Age.

It’s not the “New World Order.” It’s the “New World” Order, the way the New World has led the world in liberation (or tries to).

As the various Independence Days of the world’s free nations roll around this year, we can celebrate over 200 years of this New Order of the Ages which we are privileged to be part of!

— Steven A. Armstrong
Tutor, Editor, and Consultant