I have been long wondering how long they would take to come up with this:
Quote:
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The curator, Jacques Aillagon, a former French minister of culture, says that the aim of the exhibition is “to illustrate centuries of conflictual co-existence leading to the cultural integration of Barbarian populations into the pre-existing Roman fabric.” Aillagon says “Europe at the start of the third millennium is living through a cultural revolution not unlike that of the first.” The Economist, which reviewed the exhibition, writes that “the Romans decided that assimilation was the best form of defence.”
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A few months ago, while watching a documentary about the Goths and other tribes when they settled in the
limes of the Roman Empire, in 376 AD, under the terms of
hospitalitas offered by Emperor Valens, I realized that there were many similarities between then and now:
- For the civilized subjects of the Roman Empire, these foreign peoples were perceived in a similar way as we perceive immigrants today.
- Emperor Valens not only agreed to the plea of the Goths to cross the Danube to shelter from the Huns. He also helped them to do so. Which is what the organisms and the institutions of the establishment are doing today.
- He did not do it on humanitarian grounds. These tribes were needed and were only granted a settlement in exchange for becoming foederati to Rome, i.e. to serve as federated troops to the Roman Legions, when required. Much like immigrants are being granted residence in Europe, to serve as labour.
This first wave of migration did have precedents. Rome had been recruiting Barbarians for its Legions since earlier, at the same time as its limits were under pressure from these same Barbarians. In 260 AD a short-lived event took place: the Western part of the Empire (Galia, Hispania and Britania) split. The cause was a growing sense of provincial identity increased by the fact that Rome was abandoning the West to protect the East, but also a dislike for Rome's policies of recruiting Barbarians for its Legions.
Well, if we are at that point, perhaps it is a moment to remember that only 30 years after the Goths crossed the Danube helped by the Roman establishment, in 406 AD a larger number of Barbarians crossed the Rhine as the "security systems of the customs borders" failed (i.e., the Rhine froze allowing them to cross it), and they overran the Empire.
Note: There is no need to employ a self version of political correctness, to pretend that there are no parallelisms. There are and they are strong ones. Many of us are today, more or less, or to one extent or the other, the result of the events of those times. I mean that this does not point to modern populations in the North, since these were then home-stayers so to speak.