August 20, 2022

Rise and fall of the Spanish Empire (whirlwind tour, as background for the rise and fall of its Deep State)

In the series' overview post, we saw that the Roman security apparatus, the Praetorian Guard, collapsed along with the empire itself. But more importantly, it was not present when the Roman state began expanding -- not until after a turbulent period of civil wars were concluded. That draws attention to the matter of internal security risks, not only external ones.

The security apparatus, or Deep State, emerges from this background, to manage internal risks to the increasingly centralized state -- while also in the process becoming a powerful faction of society in its own right. It's not simply a dutiful servant to the imperial leadership, but neither is it an all-powerful shadow cabal that is *really* running things behind the curtain.

Now we look at the case of an Early Modern empire and its Deep State -- Spain. The importance of the Spanish example is that their empire began growing earlier than the other European ones, and it therefore collapsed earlier. So there is a much richer historical picture of what imperial decline and collapse looks like, compared to the other Early Modern Euro empires, which are about a century behind Spain's course.

Also, all of them except Russia were absorbed into the then-still-expanding American Empire, after WWII, so they were rescued and stabilized somewhat from their free-fall of the WWI and inter-war era. Spain was absorbed awhile later, in the 1980s when it joined NATO and the EU (and later, the Euro currency zone). So Spain was not rescued by the American Empire as much as the others were.

But before we examine the Spanish Empire's Deep State (in the next entry of the series), we need a whirlwind tour through the imperial timeline, given how poorly understood it is outside of Spain.

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, Iberia was governed by an invading group of Germanic people called the Visigoths, who were in turn overthrown by an invading group of Saharo-Arabian people in the aftermath of the expansion of Islam and Muslim armies out of the Arabian Desert during the 7th C. By the 700s, these Muslim, Arabic-speaking armies invaded Iberia and took over most of the peninsula by 900 AD, ruling under various dynasties, loosely referred to as the Moors.

They were, as far as a meta-ethnic frontier is concerned, all the same to the Christian, Indo-European-speaking natives. The Muslim leadership brought along with them Jewish professionals and administrators, who were also not Christian or Indo-European speakers or long-term residents from the Iberian peninsula.

Spain's ethnogenesis was forged on this meta-ethnic frontier. For awhile, the native Iberian kingdoms were in disarray, the easier to be conquered by a highly cohesive external enemy. The main faultline split the peninsula into the southern region ruled by the Moors, and a northern strip of Iberian kingdoms.

The northeastern kingdom of Aragon (including Barcelona) was more concerned with expanding to the east in the Mediterranean, namely southern Italy and the islands in between. Nearby Navarre was content to hide away close to the Pyrenees Mountains. Likewise Galicia in the northwest was relatively insulated from the frontier. But in the central part of the northern strip, there was nowhere to run to, and nowhere to hide. That region, Castile, developed the most intense asabiya among the Iberian kingdoms. People in the south (Andalusia) were immediately incorporated into the Moorish state, and did not lie on a frontier.

As Rome united other Italian groups to beat back the invading Celts, so did Castile unite other Iberian kingdoms to beat back the invading Moors. This Reconquista began in the 12th C, and was mostly completed by 1250, although the Emirate of Granada remained in the deep south, near the strategically important Strait of Gibraltar. And all without a Deep State of any kind, just like Rome!

And just as the nascent Roman Empire fell into a period of civil wars after its first major push against the Celts and Carthaginians, namely the Crisis of the Roman Republic, so did the nascent Castilian / Spanish Empire and its neighboring Christian kingdoms. Beginning in 1350 and lasting until 1479, the Christian kingdoms were at war with one another, as well as riven by internal wars of succession. This spans the Castilian Civil War, the related War of the Two Peters (Castile vs. Aragon), the Fernandine Wars (Castile vs. Portugal), the War of the Bands (civil strife in Basque Country), the IrmandiƱo revolts (civil strife in Galicia), the Navarrese Civil War, the Catalan Civil War, and the War of Castilian Succession.

This parallels the civil wars of France and England at the same time, i.e. the Hundred Years War, and the broader topsy-turvy-ness of the late 1300s.

The upshot of these Civil Wars of the Reconquista was to consolidate power for the House of Trastamara, starting with Henry of Trastamara's victory in the Castilian Civil War in 1369, and culminating in 1479, when the Catholic Monarchs triumphed. Isabella won the war for succession in Castile, and Ferdinand (up till then only the heir) assumed the throne of Aragon, so that they were jointly ruling over all of non-Muslim Iberia aside from Portugal.

As much as I've casually read about Spanish history, I've never seen this period of civil war lasting over 100 years mentioned at all. Imagine trying to understand Roman history with most reference sources leaving out the Crisis of the Roman Republic, that whole crossing the Rubicon thing, etc. It's crazy. That's why I've spent a little more time on this era than may seem necessary. It's crucial to the emergence of the Spanish Deep State, but it's just flat-out ignored in English sources that are not geared to Spanish history PhD's.

Soon after the reign of Ferdinand and Isabella, the Spanish Empire reached its Golden Age under the Habsburgs during the 1500s, when it was the preeminent military force in Europe (backed by the elite tercios units). In 1580, Spain added Portugal to its empire, which had always remained out of reach.

But by the mid-1600s, the empire had began to hit stagnation. There was another wave of separatist civil wars in the north (especially Catalonia), and Portugal managed to break free from the empire in 1640.

The War of Spanish Succession of the early 1700s not only ended Habsburg rule, but furthered imperial disintegration within its European territories, and saw yet another Catalan separatist movement that collaborated with the armies of Spain's enemies (the Austrian / Grand Alliance, who lost the succession struggle). In the Seven Years War of the mid-1700s, Spain tried to take back Portugal, but was crushed. And they proved no match for the British Navy in the East and West Indies.

In the early 1800s, the Spanish Empire collapsed, as its Latin American colonies won their wars of independence between 1808 and 1833. During that time, they were also invaded and occupied by Napoleonic France. A series of civil wars (the Carlist Wars) continued to disintegrate the peninsula, since there were the usual separatist groups in the northeast who wanted to take advantage of internal power struggles to win greater regional autonomy from the centralized state. Spain lost its last key colonies in the Spanish-American War at the end of the century.

Spain played no role in WWI or WWII, as those were wars among the still-existing empires, at their twilight. They had already taken whatever there was to take from the Spanish Empire long before the 1900s. There was a Spanish Civil War during the late '30s, again with a strong regional separatist angle. Basque separatist terrorists began under the Franco era, and lasted into the neoliberal transition. But as usual the more important story is in Catalonia, where, during the 2010s, the voters and the political institutions have voted for independence from Spain (which was not allowed by the central government). Given how far things have gotten so far, it's only a matter of time before much of the northeast breaks off for good, presumably during the next round of hot civil wars and state breakdown.

The weak integration of the northeast -- greater Aragon -- within the Spanish Empire and then nation, traces all the way back to the meta-ethnic frontier with the Moors. Aragon was relatively insulated from that faultline, and was expanding on its own eastward in the Mediterranean, so it had something of a pressure release valve. It could not have cared less about Castilians on the front lines against the Moors, and their attempt to expand southward to take back all of Iberia from Muslims and Jews.

As the aftermath of the collapse of the Spanish Empire continues, the Iberian peninsula will probably resemble the Italian peninsula after the collapse of the Roman Empire. The weakest integration was in Southern Italy, as they were the furthest away from the meta-ethnic frontier with the invading Celts (from the north). And right after the fall of Rome, southern Italy became regionally independent, no matter which other empires it may have been paying tribute to. But it was not part of the same polity as the Papal States, the rump state that included the city of Rome itself, in the central and northern regions (shifting around by the century).

Catalonia, Basque Country, perhaps Aragon proper will split off from the Spanish rump state of Castile, Leon, Andalusia, and probably Galicia (weakly integrated historically, but not large and wealthy enough to split off like Catalonia).

9 comments:

  1. Why do seisos like yabais?
    The same behavior IRL or online
    I'm a yabai, up and down my feed
    So why do seisos always sub to me?

    Uoh uohhhhh-ohhhh-ohhhh
    Uoh uohhhhh-ohhhh-ohhhh

    ReplyDelete
  2. Medley for Goomba, from her tribute band LMFA-UOHHHHH.

    * * *

    Loli shark is in the house tonight
    Every chumby just enjoy the timeline
    And we'll be going full yabai
    Every chumby just enjoy the timeline

    Loli shark is in the house tonight
    Every chumby just enjoy the timeline
    And we'll be going full yabai
    We just wanna see ya... fave that

    * * *

    People always say I'm just chasing clout
    Sorry for loli sharking

    Newbies concerned, "Is that word allowed?"
    Sorry for loli sharking

    Jannies so mad they can't ban my site
    Sorry for loli sharking

    When they rage-post, we reply with delight,
    "Sorry for loli sharking"

    * * *

    I'm edgy and I know it

    ReplyDelete
  3. What's going to happen to Australia as the American empire begins contracting?

    ReplyDelete
  4. @agnostic

    Do you send those verses to the Vtubers you are subscribed to?

    ReplyDelete
  5. Another classic sleepover party that the Holo girls let us experience. I can totally imagine this kind of game being played there, like charades or Pictionary etc. Only it was "guess the meaning of Urban Dictionary entries".

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jWvpe0Hs5wI

    Suggestion for the future: each girl brings 3 or 4 words with her, acts as the host when it's her word, and rotate through each girl. Otherwise the host can't have her moment of blursed creativity when it's guessing time, hehe.

    Although it was visually set up like a TV gameshow contest, it was really more like an intimate group of gal pals playing the game at a sleepover, not really keeping score. Sharing relatable girly-girl moments, wondering excitedly about what boy-world is be like, and a bit of cursed / gross-out humor to show that it's a special carnivalesque occasion where it's OK (you can't gross friends out during a work call, just passing by each other, etc.).

    A great big giggle-fest from start to finish. Just think, at an IRL sleepover, this would just be one phase of the entire night -- there would be a movie / TV watch-along, some music / karaoke / dancing, maybe a drinking game, gossip / secret-sharing / Truth or Dare, video games in their case, and on and on. Very intense, but then that's why girls wind up bonding so strongly with each other.

    At one point they talk about how much they hate playing the game of "who can wait longer until responding to a text?" -- and the answer is, you have to make a voice call, or meet face-to-face if they're close. (Crazy that people email or text people who are literally just down the hall from them at work / in their student dorm.)

    Then there's no pause lasting minutes, hours, or days, after you say something. An awkward pause lasts no more than a minute, with real human speech. It's so much more efficient -- you communicate more info, and express more emotional nuance, in a dramatically shorter interval of time, with no effort at all. Texting etc. is just the gist, minimal tonal coloring, takes forever to complete an exchange, and requires reading / typing / editing / etc. Horrible.

    Plus no one can screenshot your voice call, another topic that came up.

    Millennials and Zoomers, who never talked for hours on the phone with each other growing up, may find it hard to get into the swing of things with voice calls, but it's the only way. And hey, that can be a go-to topic for those awkward pauses -- make a meta reference to "Wow, it's still hard getting used to talking in real time with these voice calls, isn't it?" "Yeah, totally know what you mean..."

    Streamers can lead the way forward on that -- anytime they're collab-ing with each other, that's a voice call unfolding in real time. Maybe prod your audience to chat with their friends / family as though they were two streamers having a collab, rather than texting. So much more rewarding!

    ReplyDelete
  6. Any song with "lollipop" will work, but this one in particular is good because it actually breaks the word down into two pieces. Make that loli pop! [devil horns]

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pWIxj4JDtEE

    From one of the horniest years in world history, 2008. Who else was going out clubbing 4 nights a week that summer? Even though gas was $5 a gallon, nothing could stop us, it was total dance fever, rivaling Studio 54 from the disco era...

    And I'm not sub'd to anyone on any platform. Not because I wouldn't like to, I just don't do accounts anymore. I don't have Twitter, TikTok, etc. And my YouTube account is signed in on another computer.

    Needless to say, you don't need to actually have hit the subscribe button in order to be one of their fans, supporters, and tribute song writers!

    What would Gura, Fauna, and Pokimane rather receive? The zillionth drop in the follower bucket, or the waterfall of fan songs and posts that get the word out better, and make them feel all warm and appreciated inside? :)

    Same in reverse. It means infinitely more to me that they respond to my charmingly offbeat posts and songs on their streams, than if hit "follow" on Blogspot.

    Subbing is easy anyway -- what's subs got to do, got to do with it? What's subs but a lazy-handed motion?

    ReplyDelete
  7. Plus subbing is a one-time only affair. How is a streamer girl supposed to thrive, if you only give her one little morsel ever? As performers, they feed off the audience's energy. So if we want them to be the best they can be, we need to feed them well and often!

    Posts, comments, reviews, suggestions, FAN SONGS, fanart, participating in the chat, etc. And we need to keep the tributes coming, not just give them a little attention and then that's it.

    Especially the super high-energy ones like Gura -- she has the metabolism of a hummingbird! Don't let the smol widdle body fool you. She's constantly craving new content and (sincere) validation. And we're only too happy to give it to her, for all that she has given us.

    "Awww, shtawwwpppp..." I can already hear her say. Hehe. But it's true! You have to be a high-energy fan if you want to keep your oshi fully supplied with the good vibes she needs to do these hours-long streams multiple nights a week!

    And to get a little more serious, I think back in the 2010s people went looking for content and validation, no matter what its tone, and a lot of that meant stuff that was cringe, degrading, borderline abusive, creepy, weird, degenerate, etc. Not just spicy or whatever, but warped. There wasn't a whole lot of good vibes being sent around online, especially during the woke psychosis of 2014 or so through 2020.

    But now the internet is getting over that, and there are huge platforms that host good vibes communities, so that both the performers and their audiences can get their validation needs met, but in a wholesome (if sometimes spicy) manner.

    Mmmmm, it's Gooooob-tastic! :)

    ReplyDelete
  8. Also, my fan songs are just as much for the broader fanbase, or would-be audience members who haven't heard about the streamer yet, but are intrigued by my charmingly offbeat levels of devotion to them. Not only for the streamers themselves.

    I don't slide into their DMs, stalk their IRL location, etc. I'm going to interact with them entirely publicly, so that it's part of a public scene that I contribute to. Plus, no screenshots of cringy DMs could ever be found, if everything I say is already out in the open.

    ReplyDelete
  9. From a fave of both Poki and Gura:

    Shawty's like a subathon on day 10,
    And I can't log out, got me feeling like
    Cha-cha-chatting hours away
    It's like my Chrome keep refreshing her page

    Shawty's like a subathon on day 10,
    And I can't log out, got me feeling like
    Cha-cha-chatting hours away
    It's like my Chrome keep refreshing her page

    Speaking of late 2000s goodness, back when R&B was still about finding your special monogamous pair bond. :)

    Gura was singing the chorus during a Rust stream last week, then I checked and yep, it's part of her karaoke canon --

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_0LqovkWn0

    It's also one of those songs that I vividly remember Poki playing and singing along to during the opening section of stream. Several months ago.

    The YouTube comments to both the original music video, and Gura's rendition, are just overflowing with nostalgia. Reminds me of "Cheerleader" by OMI, not just because of the nostalgia trip, but the distinctive all-over-the-place melodic line of each one. Maybe a Caribbean thing, I don't know enough to say.

    ReplyDelete

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