20 March 2013
Egyptian kings loved their massive mega projects, all built to announce their greatness as well as to instil awe and fear among the populace. Today, all around the world, we see the same mad egotism practised by the powerful.
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Many years ago, when I was in the Sixth Form, I took a class
on Egyptology as part of my extracurricular activities. I remember looking
forward to my first lesson. After all, ancient Egypt sounds frightfully
exciting what with pharaohs, pyramids, sphinxes and the like. Unfortunately I
found it all painfully tedious.
The teacher was not the most riveting person in the world, I
can’t even remember if he or she was a man or a woman, but the real culprits
were the books we were referred to. They were drier than a mummy’s armpit.
Thick ponderous things loaded with unpronounceable names of kings and places, which
did not capture a sense of the period or even the high drama of which there is
bound to be plentiful in an empire that spanned nearly four thousand years.
Foolishly, when it came time to fill up my university
applications, I put Egyptology under “interests”. It looked jolly intellectual
in my form. But I had learnt next to nothing and during one interview when I
was asked about what I found interesting about ancient Egypt, I managed to
mumble “it was very, very large”. Pathetic.
Fortunately, nowadays books on the Egyptian empire are being
written in a far more accessible style. And I am not talking about the kooky
“the pyramids were built by engineers from Atlantis using anti-gravity
technology” type books. I mean proper scholarly works like “The Rise and Fall
of Ancient Egypt” by Toby Wilkinson.
One aspect I find interesting when learning about people
from long, long ago, is that how little has changed. Egyptian kings loved their
massive mega projects; all built to announce their greatness as well as to
instil awe and fear amongst the populace. Power and propaganda were the primary
means to keep the peasants in check and amongst the elite, nepotism and kingly
favours ensured a ruling class beholden to the mighty monarch.
Even the form that the propaganda takes has familiar
undertones. For the masses, there were ostentatious displays like coronation
celebrations which seek to emphasise the divinity of the king. These were
elaborate and gaudy shows that were designed to completely bowl over the
average Egyptian.
Amongst the intelligentsia, and remember, very few people
can actually read in those days, there was written (or engraved to be more accurate)
works proclaiming the supremacy and magnanimity of the monarch.
Today, all around the world, we see the same mad egotism
practiced by the powerful; giant structures that stroke the fragile psyche of
their commissioners, overt displays of power and influence to maintain control
and blinding propaganda to maintain it all.
Have we not changed in all these millennia? I would like to
think that we have and I believe the root change is education. The vast
majority of people who lived during the time of the pharaohs were working class
folk who strived and toiled under the most hideous conditions simply to
survive. The life span of the average person did not reach far past thirty with
many dying during the teen years. Hit forty and you are deemed incredibly old
(compare this to the many pharaohs who ruled for scores of years).
Today we struggle too, but the difference is that most of us
can read. And with this ability it is possible for ideas to be disseminated
widely. Ideas that have developed over the course of human history that says we
should not be in the thrall of absolute power; that all of us, peasant and
prince alike have an inherent dignity. And one way that this dignity is
expressed is by our ability to choose our leaders. No more pharaohs thank you
very much. We choose who leads.
Yes, it is true, by and large the lives of the powerful
remains vastly different from that of the person on the street. And the longer
they are powerful, the more distant they become. But the difference between us
and the peasants of Thebes three thousand years ago is that collectively we
have power they can only dream off.
In the climate of the times, let us not forget that power.
Let us not forget how far we have come as a species. Let us not forget that we
have to use our power or risk losing it forever, because those with authority
will always hunger for more, and it is up to us to say when they have had
enough.
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