TDK Score

I always talk about The Dark Knight movie, but this time I will spare you my obsessive fascination with the movie itself and instead promote the score (it too does not disappoint)—especially tracks 2, 11, and 12 of the soundtrack which are “I’m Not a Hero,” “Agent of Chaos,” and “Introduce a Little Anarchy,” respectively.  

Also, in case you are a Batman junkie, check out The Gotham Times (and click on the burning top left corner of the paper) and IBelieveInHarveyDent.Com. They were part of the promo for the movie, and they are fun to navigate.

A Blast From The Past

The Economist republished a March 8, 1924 article titled, “The abolition of the Caliphate.” Here is an excerpt:

THE REPUDIATION of the Caliphate by the Turks marks an epoch in the expansion of Western ideas over the non-Western world, for our Western principles of national sovereignty and self-government are the real forces to which the unfortunate ‘Abdu’l Mejid Efendi has fallen a victim.

[...]But what of the vast Muslim populations in India, Russia, China, and the African colonies of the Western Powers, who are “dispersed abroad: among the Gentiles” and subjected to alien rule? For these Muslim subject minorities the spread of nationalism throughout the world means submergence if not extinction, while the Caliphate carries a message of salvation through an international Muslim solidarity. This is the explanation of the Indian Muslim’s distress at the Turkish Nationalists’ action. We are possibly on the eve of a profound cleavage of policy within the Muslim world. [Read the full article here]

The superpowers’ support for Turkish nationalism was of course part of a larger plan for the fallen Ottoman Empire. The League of Nations further allowed Britain and France to create mandates out of the Arab provinces under this banner of spreading independence and the glories of nation-states.  The rest, of course, is history. You know? Exploitation, colonization, etc. You see, spreading “nationalism” in the aftermath of World War I was kind of like spreading “democracy” today. However, back then there was a healthy competition among the superpowers.