--------------------- [u][b]Isfahan, Persia[/b][/u] --------------------- Isfahan was an ancient jewel in Persia's crown, a city brimming with history and art. Yaqob was frustrated that he didn't get to see any of it. What he saw from the window of the airplane was the small shapes of buildings against the far away mountains. He sat in his chair, itching to explore, pent up by Akale Tebebe's schedule and the expectant Chinese. When they were done refueling, they headed east toward the purple of approaching night. The desert looked like the husk of a cheese all laid out below them. Here was the land of Cyrus, Alexander, and Shapur. He wanted to take a year and tour it all, to pay homage to the ruins at Persepolis, feel the warmth of the flame at a Zoroastrian fire temple, listen to the call to prayer from golden minarets. Instead he sat back in his chair, sipped a glass of ice water, and lamented how tragic it was to be royalty. "Put the things you don't want them snooping through in your personal luggage." Akale sat down across the hall. Today he was wearing a robe adorned with galloping golden giraffes. "I have nothing to hide." "I don't have anything to hide either, but I have plenty of things I don't want people to see." Akele looked out the window into the dark, "I'm going to sleep. You should too. We have a long flight ahead of us. It'll be morning before we reach Urumqi." "I'm going to do a bit of reading first." Yaqob held up a book; [i]Selected Essays of Hou Sai Tang, Translated by Kifle Mesrak[/i]. "Just a few minutes." "Suit yourself." Akale went to the back. Yaqob took a sip of water and started to read. [indent][indent][i] On Power and Politics Hou Tsai Tang December 9th, 1954 It is no secret that in the past half-century a dynamic shift has been undertaken in China greater than any mass movement or revolution in at least Asia. With the changing of the eras the once great Qing found themselves out of touch and out of power. And with the passing of the eras so too did the people of China find themselves captured by the movement of consciousness and foreign ideology which not only shone a light on the inability of the Qing to rule, but on the modernity of its dynasty and its institutions. [/i][/indent][/indent] Yaqob took a pen and underlined where it said "Foreign Idealogy." Wasn't Houism naturally opposed to foreign ideologies? Like a man following clues on a treasure map, Yaqob felt like he was on the right path to find Hou's unspoken intentions. [indent][indent][i] Conspiring powers ultimately brought to the Qing its autumn period, which rapidly accelerating came upon its early winter days with the the revolution in Wuchang. The assumption to power of Sun Yat-sen as president of the nascent Republic of China in Nanjing marked what many believed at the time to be a course set to modernity and westernization under the new Republic. To the intellectual and the traveled the hopes of the Republic was that it would become a bend in the river of history, steering the waters of China from stagnant archaic antiquity to the fresh clean streams and bends of the modern world with modern government. [/i][/indent][/indent] Yaqob rubbed his eyes. He wanted to complete the essay. He didn't realize he was this tired. [indent][indent][i] But principally at the completion of the Revolution and the abolition of the monarchy in 1912 the conditions in China did not change for the better as the nation divided and peeled back at the seams. The nation no longer came to resemble a cohesive whole but a broken house with each room a feuding member of the same family. With a house divided, the Chinese Nation came to question its course and its self. Was modernity fundamental to Chinese sovereignty in the 20th century, or did our futures lie in the past, with monarchy? As the century wore on and as the Japanese invaded our homeland we as a people grappled with this question, seeking to answer it until we got our final question in its latest revolution. [/i][/indent][/indent] He wrote in the margins "The monarchy was..." but he didn't complete his thought. His eyes were heavy. He nodded off a few times, fought to stay awake, but sleep took him in the end. When he woke up, they were over the jagged snow capped peaks of a colossal mountain range. He felt cold, but put that off as his imagination, and sat up straight. "Welcome back." Akale said. He was sitting in the seat across the aisle again. "Back?" Yaqob knuckled the sleep from his eye. "From?" "We're arriving in Urumqi very soon." The mountains gave way to foothills, and the foothills to an irrigated farmland. Urumqi, much like the farmland, followed the terrain in square blocks. They aimed for an airport on the plains north of town. Chinese military men waited on the tarmac for them, standing like statues, dressed in uniforms the color of evergreen trees. When the plane came to a stop, they surrounded it, and two of the men came inside. Akale Tebebe stood up and welcomed the leading officer like a salesman greeting his mark. They spoke Chinese. Yaqob didn't understand them, so he sat tight and waited. They motioned to him several times, but he didn't know why. More soldiers boarded the plane and the search began. It didn't bother him much. The only time he felt uncomfortable was when an officer picked up his book from the chair next to him and flipped through it. The man must not of had any opinions, because he put it back and moved on. When the search was over, they were off. Yaqob returned to his reading. [indent][indent][i] The breaking of aristocratic and bourgeoisie power in China by Communist Revolution has thus far shown and created the single strongest and single most stable government in the Chinese nation since the abolition of the monarchy in 1912. Infusing the state with the sort of stability and peace of mind it has not had in over half a century it has conducted itself with grand shifts in power to bring formally to an end the warlords, the emperors, the viceroys, and the banker which had so far lorded over the Chinese state with hungry eyes. But how is this so? What change has there been in the national fabric of the nation for there to be so? Has there been something for once with so much power that it able to impress itself over the heads of dynasty seekers, or could there be said to be something more subtle woven into the social fabric of the state? [/i][/indent][/indent] Yaqob circled the end of the first sentence and wrote in the margins on that page "Hou identifies with the Emperor." He kept reading. [indent][indent][i] To understand this history of stability so far, the principles of power must be understood. For it is in power and its use and its distribution that determines the success of a state and the revolutionary character on which it rides. What structure does power manifest itself in? What physical material and in what way is material used to benefit and shape the structure and the power? And of the amorphic, abstract state? The law? The Ideology? These facets of power can be defined simply into three categories, the Three Material Facets: the state's capital, the national structure and the state's ideology. [/i][/indent][/indent] Yaqob underlined the second sentence. [indent][indent][i] To further break down the definitions the state's capital is inclusive of those resources which it needs to survive; its water, its food, its industrial and raw materials, and its capacity to manufacture commodities with these resources and the means by which it operates it. The ideology is its politics, its religion, and its structure, simply the way in which the physical resources of the realm are ordered and structured. And then how it is all packaged and structured. If the material conditions are the locations, the cities and villages in a country side than the ideology is the road, and the structure the placement. To understand this flow of power is however not as simple as simply knowing its definitions. For it is in its use that can be truly understood. [/i][/indent][/indent] "What is Hou's true ideology?" Yaqob wrote on the bottom of the page. The dinner bell rang and he closed the book. Dinner was served mid evening. It consisted of two hard-boiled eggs, slices of grilled steak, fried potatoes, and rolled up strips of [i]injera[/i]. Akale took wine with his meal, and Yaqob took coffee. "You're going to need to learn Chinese." Akale said, looking down at his food. "Yes. I look forward to it. Was it hard to learn?" Akale smiled. "It's a whole lot different than any other languages. Their writing system makes very little sense honestly. Don't know if I'll ever learn it." "I'll consider it a challenge. How is my education to be handled? My brother and sister went to school in Europe." "Wait a few years and you'll probably be able to apply to a European school. For now, we'll make sure you have tutors so you aren't far behind." "Would China be an option?" Akale paused. "China? Well... probably not. Europe accepts aristocracy as a matter of fact, but the Chinese... I'm not sure you'd receive the right lessons from people who believe some barefoot dirt farmer is your equal." Yaqob disagreed, but he did feel like arguing the point. He turned back to his studies and read for several more hours, midnight when they made they arrived over Beijing.