Did organic molecules, originating in extraterrestrial sources, contribute to the origin of life on Earth? Was life on our planet seeded from outer space? While the theory of panspermia – that the origin life on Earth came from outer space – is rejected, scientists are exploring how life’s building blocks can be found in meteorites, objects from the early solar system.

No, life did not exclusively originate in space, but meteorite impacts did contribute to the chemical compounds that led to the formation of nucleobases, the molecules responsible for DNA and RNA.

Why am I writing about this topic?

In 2020, I wrote an article regarding the Japanese Space Agency’s (JAXA) mission to collect samples from the asteroid Ryugu. The latter is an asteroid relatively close to Earth – given the distance involved in astronomical missions. Asteroid particles were collected from Ryugu by the Hayabusa2 spacecraft. Scientists have been examining these samples for evidence of an organic compounds.

Ryugu is a remnant from the early stages of the solar system’s formation. Roughly 900 metres across, it is older than the Earth, and provides a snapshot of the materials which were predominant in the early phases of the solar system. It was found to contain all five nucleobases necessary for the making of DNA and RNA molecules, the basic building blocks of life.

Such compounds were abundant in the early solar system. They form a crucial step in the transition from the nonliving world to life.

We all learned in high school biology about the building blocks of DNA – adenine, guanine, cytosine, thymine. These molecules, combined with phosphates and sugars, form the nucleotides that combine into now famous double-helix structure of DNA.

These nitrogen-containing organic molecules form the now famous letters of genetic information in DNA.

Uracil is necessary for the development of RNA. Without these nucleobases; adenine and guanine – known as purines – and cytosine, thymine and uracil – known as pyrimidines – life as we know it would be impossible.

This is the not first time that scientists have examined meteoritic and asteroid material for signs of organic compounds. The 1864 Orgueil meteorite, which slammed into southwestern France, contained various nucleobases of life. Meteorite explorations were still in their infancy at the time, but curiosity regarding the origins of life was taking on a scientific turn with the rise of geology.

The Murchison meteorite in Western Australia, which impacted in 1969, was also found to contain nucleobases. Bennu, a near-Earth asteroid has been studied by telescope for decades, but in 2018, a NASA spacecraft collected particles from it. Scientists have found the presence of nucleobases as well.

There were differences found in the relative abundances of the nucleobases when comparing the different meteoritic samples.

Ryugu contained roughly equal amounts of the purine nucleobases (adenine and guanine) and pyrimidine nucleobases (cytosine, thymine, and uracil). The Murchison meteorite mostly contained purines, while the Bennu and Orgueil samples mostly contained pyrimidines.

Bennu and Ryugu asteroids are a type of carbonaceous asteroids, the most common type in the solar system.

The question of abiogenesis, the origin of life, is separate from the subject area of evolutionary biology. Exploring the prebiotic chemistry of the early Earth and solar system is a complex subject, and scientists are working on the chemical pathways which led from inorganic matter to organic life.

The findings from the Ryugu asteroid do not conclusively prove that life was seeded from outer space, as science fiction fans would have us believe. However, the tantalising evidence that nucleobases formed in the early solar system opens up an exciting avenue of enquiry.

The distinction between the biological and geological realms is becoming blurry. Early in the 20th century, Soviet geologist and biochemist Vladimir Vernadsky (1863 – 1945) first suggested that life can be considered a geological force that shapes the Earth’s ecosystems.

He helped to popularise the concept of a biosphere, which consists of considering all living matter on Earth as an interconnected system – what we would today call the ecosystem. He looked for the origins of the animate world in inanimate matter.

Alexandr Oparin (1894 – 1980), a Soviet biologist and biochemist developed the theory of the chemical evolution of organic molecules from prebiotic sources. (I wrote about him in this article). He pioneered experiments which reproduced the prebiotic conditions of Earth, providing a chemical pathway for the emergence of organic compounds.

The Ryugu findings do not decisively prove that Vernadsky and Oparin were correct. It does bolster their findings that organic molecules can arise from non-animate worlds, such as that which prevailed in the early solar system. By piecing together the various lines of evidence, the mystery of life’s origins is beginning to be answered.

The US-Israeli attack against Iran, Operation Epic Mistake….sorry, I mean fury….has had numerous consequences across the globe. It is true that some aftershocks were unintended or unforeseen. However, there is one consequence that was entirely predictable, because Tehran warned the international community it would take a specific action.

What am I talking about? The closure of the Strait of Hormuz. Twenty percent of the world’s oil supply passes through this crucial maritime artery. Now it is closed. Tehran kept its word.

The closing of the Strait of Hormuz, choking off the international oil supply, has echoes of the 1956 Suez Canal crisis. In that year, the Egyptian government nationalised the operation of the Suez Canal, a vitally important maritime trade route. Led by London, Paris and Tel Aviv launched a tripartite aggression against that nation, intending to topple the government of Gamal Abdel Nasser, and reverse the Suez nationalisation.

The aggression backfired spectacularly. The US under Eisenhower, who was keen to avoid Egypt slipping into the Soviet orbit, organised a peace agreement. Foreign forces were withdrawn, and the Suez Canal reopened for business. The limits of British imperial power were exposed, and that episode marked the beginning of the end of the British empire.

The United States faces a similarly crucial defeat in the Strait of Hormuz.

Even prior to the official closure of this vitally important waterway, oil companies were already reducing the flow of maritime traffic through the Strait due to fears of military strikes. There is nothing wrong with protecting human life and the lives of the workers on the oil tankers. However, this reduction in oil traffic endangers the supply of oil and liquefied natural gas to numerous nations around the world.

Qatar produces one fifth of the world’s supply of liquefied natural gas, and with its production shut down due to Iranian missile strikes, gas prices have increased exponentially.

In fact, Tehran has repeatedly struck US bases in the Persian Gulf nations. These petro-monarchies, such as Saudi Arabia and Kuwait, are hereditary royalist regimes; hardly the paragons of democracy that Washington claims to defend.

These nations, collectively organised as the Gulf Cooperation Council, have invested billions of dollars in the petroleum production sector. Shutting down refineries impacts oil deliveries down the line. Dubai, in the UAE, has the world’s busiest international airport – well, it did, until it was forced to shut down due to Iranian drone strikes.

The Egypt-Israel border crossing at Rafah has been closed for months, helping facilitate the genocide of the Palestinians in Gaza. Cuba has been struggling to overcome the detrimental effects of the US blockade. None of these devastating actions has moved my fellow citizens in the Anglophone nations to protest.

Okay, okay, there have been regular protests only a tiny minority has demonstrated against Tel Aviv’s genocidal violence. But the vast majority of the Anglophone population remains unmoved. Perhaps inflation and skyrocketing fuel prices will help them understand how global wars affect all of us, even here in faraway Australia.

You know that asparagus you enjoy eating, the food that makes you feel good because it is ecologically friendly? You are reducing your carbon footprint by avoiding red meat consumption, right? That asparagus is imported – flown to Australia in airplanes that rely on fossil fuel. Those jets, and the ships that bring supplies to Australia, have a massive carbon footprint. Guess how much that beloved asparagus will cost when the oil supply runs dry?

David S. D’Amato, researcher and writer for Counterpunch magazine, makes an astute observation which we need to address here. His article is entitled ‘Why we only hear diaspora voice who want war’. He makes the case that whenever there is a regime change war overseas, such as the current but failed attempt to enforce regime change in Iran – the Anglophone nations only hear those from the targeted countries who advocate warfare.

The lifelong failure Reza Pahlavi, Masih Alenijad, and others, feature regularly as expert commentators on our television screens. They are unanimous in their allegedly expert opinions that a US attack will bring freedom and democracy to Iran.

Thankfully, there are those in the Iranian diaspora who are finally rejecting these self-appointed community spokespersons. Reza Pahlavi’s former supporters are turning against him, citing among other things, his failure to condemn the US murder of Iranian schoolchildren. If he cannot even bring himself to support innocent school students, then what kind of conscience, if any, does he have?

For decades, those on the ecosocialist Left have been warning about the economic and ecological dangers of reliance on fossil fuels. It is not surprising to witness a flurry of commentary from the corporate controlled media about how the global community is currently being held hostage by its exclusive and overwhelming reliance on oil to power the capitalist economy.

It is a shame that it took a crisis such as the Strait of Hormuz closure to bring this issue to worldwide attention. I suspect that such commentary, while commendable, is motivated by an anti-Iranian angle. The ecosocialist Left has highlighted the dangers of reliance on fossil fuels because the world population is being held hostage – by the minority billionaire class.

Transitioning to renewable energy sources is no longer being dismissed as the pipe-dream of loony leftie ecosocialist nutters, but being considered as a matter of urgency. In 2022, even the usually conservative staid, blue-ribbon Australia Institute heavily criticised Australia’s reliance on imported fuel as a source of economic vulnerability.

I hope that we now take the time and dedicate ourselves to diversifying our energy sources, and reduce the operation of the profits-first fossil fuel corporations.

Sometimes, an old Hollywood scene acquires an uncanny resemblance to real life – art does imitate life, occasionally.

This article was first published on my Substack webpage. It is republished here for consistency.

Back in 1989, the Hollywood action blockbuster Black Rain hit the theatres. Michael Douglas plays a zealous, brash homicide detective who tracks down members of the Yakuza. The film is a typical Hollywood over-the-top action flick; Douglas goes to Japan and fights not only the Yakuza, but the bureaucratically inert Japanese police force. 

Why am I talking about this film? There is one, crucial telling scene which is relevant for purposes here. Navigating his way through the Japanese underworld, Nick Conklin (Douglas’ character) confronts Sugai-san, the oyabun (crime chief) who is a primary target of Conklin’s investigation. When challenged, Sugai offers a justification for his criminal activities.

He said “I was 10 when the B-29 came. My family lived underground for three days. When we came up the city was gone. Then the heat brought rain. Black rain. You made the rain black, and shoved your values down our throat. We forgot who we were. You created Sato and thousands like him. I’m paying you back.”

Sato is one of Sugai’s lieutenants, a westernised gangster who wanted to take over Sugai’s business empire. 

Let’s focus here on the point about black rain; the atomic bombing of Hiroshima was a kind of international chemical warfare, making the rain toxic and unfit for human or nonhuman animal consumption. This repercussion on its own constitutes a crime against humanity. No, the 1989 movie is not a historically accurate epic, nor is it meant to be taken seriously. However, let’s keep in mind the point about black rain.

Turning the rain toxic is not just something that belongs in movie fantasy land. The US military has turned the rain black – in Tehran.

In the ongoing US-Israeli attack on Iran, the US deliberately struck the Shahran oil refinery. Residents of Tehran woke up to an apocalyptic scenario, with heavy black clouds of pollutants hanging in the air. An act of intentional chemical warfare, the humanitarian and ecological consequences of this devastation will be felt for years to come, and not just within Iran’s borders.

By striking an oil refinery, hazardous chemicals and pollutants were released into the atmosphere – the United States military turned the rain black and acidic. The Iranian authorities advised Tehran’s residents to remain indoors. The sunshine was blocked out, and the government had begun the arduous task of cleaning up the damage. 

The pro-war Iranian diaspora, long agitating for a US-Israeli attack on their home country, need to ask themselves if this is the result they were seeking. Perhaps the playboy charlatan Shah-in-exile Reza Pahlavi, the man who keeps applying for a job that does not exist, and his imperial supporters, could now live in Tehran, celebrating as black rain falls on their heads.

One of the Gulf nations that hosts US military bases is the United Arab Emirates (UAE). Iran has repeatedly struck American military facilities in the Gulf region, the UAE included. Washington, Tel Aviv and their Gulf allies have been shocked by the scale, efficiency and persistence of the Iranian response. 

I am not one to celebrate missile strikes, simply because I do not know for certain that I would react courageously in a wartime situation. I do not advocate for war, basically because I am not a hypocrite; I like to think I would be brave in a military operation, but I have to be honest and say I do not know how I would react with bombs exploding and missiles falling. As a civilian, I do not advocate that anyone be put in that terrible position.

There is one group of civilians who will, if not cheering be at least grateful, for Iranian missile strikes on the UAE – civilians in Sudan. For the past several years, a paramilitary force, the Rapid Support Forces (RSF), supplied by armaments from the UAE and Israel, have waged a genocidal campaign in the Sudanese civil war. Famine conditions, mass displacement and atrocities including sexual torture, have been inflicted on Sudanese civilians caught up in the fighting since April 2023.

With Iranian missile strikes against the UAE (and Israel), the armaments supply line has been disrupted. The RSF, starved of guns and ammunition, is being steadily defeated by the Sudanese army. The latter has carried out strikes against RSF supply depots and soldiers, already facing a depleting stock of resources with which to fight. A reduction in genocidal violence by the RSF is welcome news for Sudan.

The same criteria which were applied when evaluating the RSF as a genocidal group should also be applied to the actions of the US and Israeli military forces. The political leaders of Washington and Tel Aviv have made deliberate decisions to inflict mass casualties and ecological destruction on the Iranian nation. It is high time to hold them to account for their crimes against humanity.

Looking up at the nighttime sky with a telescope is an irreplaceable experience.

This article was first published on my Substack webpage here. It is republished here for consistency.

The humble telescope is not an instrument that is featured in the media headlines. But it is an invention which has revolutionised our understanding of the planets, the galaxies, the stars and the universe. Getting a telescope as a child was an outstanding experience; looking up at the nighttime sky piqued my curiosity about what makes up outer space.

So here is an idea; how about introducing telescopes in school. No, not every student wants to be an astronomer. No, not every child aspires to be a scientist. However, a telescope in school introduces students to the techniques used, and information gathered by, astronomers and scientists.

Yes, every student now has access to a mobile device or a computer. The ubiquity of the internet has made information about the stars, planets and galaxies easily accessible. You can download the astronomy picture of the day, and that sparks wonder and admiration of the cosmic realm. 

Of course telescopes, like every other scientific device, has undergone massive technological changes over the years. Telescopes are light collectors, and we view space objects in the visible light spectrum. 

They have become updated to observe and collect data from the nonvisible bands of the electromagnetic spectrum. When connected to a computer, a telescope becomes a data processor. Now there are telescopes that, for instance, observe the X-ray portion of the EM spectrum. Ground-based telescopes, while highly sophisticated, are now supplemented by space-based telescopes. 

The James Webb Space Telescope is one of a number deployed to outer space. The Earth’s atmosphere and the artificial electric light of urban environments interfere with the quality of Earth-bound telescopes.

Currently, telescopes are so sophisticated, their capabilities are astonishing. Consider the following; astronomers have made a 3D map of the atmosphere of Uranus.

Ok, okay – let’s get all the juvenile jokes out of the way, about Uranus and gas. Get it off your chest – the infantile urge to make jokes about the name Uranus and butts. Ok, is that over? Fine. 

The planet, correctly pronounced ‘Yoor-an-us’, is named after the Ancient Greek god Ouranos. I have previously written about Uranus here. The first planet to be discovered by telescope, in 1781, Uranus has intrigued astronomers since then. Its atmosphere, thought to be bland and uneventful, is anything but that.

Composed mostly of hydrogen, the upper atmosphere of Uranus has been mapped by astronomers using the James Webb telescope. Learning more about the atmosphere of another planet helps us to understand planetary formation is its early stages. The magnetic field is also bizarre; rather than having a stable dipole structure similar to the Earth’s magnetosphere, Uranus’ magnetic field is unstable, much like a flailing jellyfish.

In Australia, we have a very narrow, parochial and opportunistic view of science education. The question, so after you have stated the science courses you are taking, is ‘so what can you do with that?’ We view education as a kind of garden implement; we learn only so we can ‘do something with it’, like a lawn mower or whipper snipper.

Now it is not wrong to think about the practical application of science courses. But if you study a subject only because you want to ‘do something with it’, then your education will be limited and confining. Education is a lifelong journey, and each topic has its own merits. 

When I signed up for high school geology, I inevitably faced the question ‘do you want to be a geologist?’ My answer was no, not necessarily. So why did I study that course? Because every branch of science is endlessly fascinating, and rewarding in its own right. 

Let us for the moment accept that I should be ‘doing something’ with a subject after studying it. Well, I can say that I am definitely doing something with the geology course. No, I am not a geologist, but I am applying what I learned in that subject to life today.

In 1986, the first lesson of geology class for the year was dedicated to examining the Challenger Space Shuttle disaster. This was the topic that we addressed in class, first lesson back from the summer holidays. We examined, as much as we could given the availability of information regarding that tragedy, the causes and consequences of the disaster.

Here we are, 40 years later, and the Challenger disaster is still a topic of investigative pieces, such as this one on the ABC. It remains a pivotal disaster in the history of the US space programme. I do not wish to disrespect or insult the memory of the seven dead astronauts, but let us observe the following.

In 1988, barely two years after the Challenger catastrophe, the Soviet space programme Interkosmos, successfully launched a team of cosmonauts which included Abdul Ahad Momand, an Afghan pilot and that nation’s first (and so far only) cosmonaut. The Interkosmos programme recruited and trained cosmonauts from non-aligned and Eastern bloc nations into the Soviet space programme.

Science education is one of those things where, you do not notice it until it is gone. With the Trump administration’s cutbacks to science programmes, including NASA, scientific education is under threat. The ability of future generations to tackle the hard scientific questions will be severely undermined if we do not invest now in building the required knowledge capital of students.

My late father admired the Cossacks – I think I now have an explanation for why that was the case.

This article was first published on my Substack webpage here. I am republishing it here for consistency.

My late father was a strong admirer of the Cossacks. Yes, the Cossacks, you know, the fur-hat wearing, horseback riding, sword wielding squat-and-kick dancing people. I was often perplexed why he enthused so much about a people with whom we have no connection. Armenians are not Cossacks, we do not speak the same languages, and we do not inhabit the Cossack territories spread out over southern Russia and Ukraine.

My father repeatedly watched an old historical epic movie Taras Bulba (1962). Based on a famous novel by Russian writer Nikolai Gogol, the movie dramatises (and somewhat fictionalises) the Cossack uprising against the Polish empire in the 1600s. Apart from Yul Brynner’s overacting as the titular character, I found it also perplexing that my father was so passionate about the Cossack revolt. Sure, I understand backing the underdog, but why Cossacks?

I think I have an answer to that question, but first, I need to clarify a few points here.

Vasily Nebenzia, the Russian permanent representative to the United Nations, a man who vociferously supports and promotes the Kremlin’s position on the international stage, made a startling remark only a week ago. He said, formally speaking, he is Ukrainian. If you did a double take, that is okay. Most observers did. What exactly did he mean when he said he was Ukrainian, technically speaking?

His parents were of Zaporozhian Cossack heritage, an ethno-linguistic group located in Ukraine. Cossacks are not a race, but an East Slavic people divided into regional kinship lines. Nebenzia elaborated that his heritage qualifies him as more Ukrainian than the current leadership in Kyiv. Ukrainians and Russians have an intermixed history. 

He related how his father, a Cossack, volunteered to join and fought for the Soviet army in World War 2. The Cossacks are traditionally a conservative force, and were used by Tsarist Russia as strikebreakers and enforcers for royal authority. However, after the 1917 Bolshevik revolution, Cossacks did join the Communist side, and fought with distinction in the Soviet military.

The picture above is of a Cossack regiment marching in the 2021 Victory Day parade, in Red Square, Moscow.

Another film involving Cossacks that my father watched frequently was The Tempest (1958). A dramatisation of the Pugachev rebellion, the insurrection was the largest peasant uprising in Russian history. Led by Russian Cossack and soldier in the Imperial Russian army, Yemelyan Pugachev, he articulated the demands of the long oppressed peasantry. 

Starting in September 1773, the uprising spread throughout central Russia, and the Empress Catherine the Great was compelled to reinforce Moscow’s defences. Eventually, the Russian authorities got their act together, deploying enough troops to finally crush the insurrection. Taken to Moscow in a wooden cage, Pugachev himself was executed in 1775.

In the 1958 movie, an exchange takes place between the captured Pugachev and the Tsarina Catherine. Whether this incident is true or not, I do not know, however, it does highlight a contradiction at the heart of Tsarist Russian authority. When Catherine challenged Pugachev, asking why he should run the country and not her, he shouted “because I’m a Russian and you’re not!”. Technically speaking he was right.

Pugachev was a Russian Cossack; Catherine the Great was German. She invited Germans to settle in Russian territories, especially those which were newly conquered from the Ottoman Turkish empire.

My father was so impressed by the Cossacks. He was emotionally involved in their struggle for self determination. I found all of this perplexing. After all, let’s not forget that while Cossacks rebelled furiously against their Polish overlords, they carried out widespread antisemitic pogroms throughout the lands now forming Ukraine and south-central Russia. 

The Cossack chieftains romanticised in Hollywood movies were also murderers of the Jewish people. Cossacks formed the shock troops of Tsar, ruthlessly crushing any rebellion against royal authority. 

I wrote about the Cossacks in this article, where I took up some of the modern political issues involving the Cossacks. I do not wish to recapitulate all the topics here. Since the early 1990s, there has been a revival of sorts of Cossack culture and influence. Russian president Vladimir Putin has encouraged the growth of nationalistic Cossacks, cultivating a sense of pride in Russia’s imperial past.

Let’s attempt an answer to the question that prompted this article – why was my father so enamoured of the Cossacks? I think I have an explanation – because he was searching for a sense of belonging. He admired the Cossacks for their ties of fraternity and brotherhood. I think my father did not really find a sense of belonging, of being accepted and valued, in Australia.

He had his friends and activities, to be sure. But I think that he lost his anchor in life, his rudder, when he left his native Egypt. The Cossacks, while being a completely different people from Armenians, nevertheless presented a group of people bound together by a collective identity. The need to belong is a deep seated human emotional motivation. Being connected with your shared community, practicing the same values and upholding similar beliefs, is necessary for good mental health.

I hope that he has found his fraternal people, and has filled that particular void in his life. No, there is no afterlife – there is no sequel. But I take comfort in the knowledge that he found a sense of connection among the Cossacks. While I have no interest in promoting Cossack nationalism, I am glad that he finally found the place he was meant to be.

The Nazi party advocated the Aryan race myth, but they did not invent it.

We like to think that misinformation began in the era of social media. Misinformation plagues our networks, making it difficult for readers to sift through the deluge of content. Certainly, misinformation has been amplified by social media. One click of a button, and misleading content can circulate to an audience of millions.

However, we would do well to remind ourselves that misinformation existed decades before the age of social media and the internet. There is one consequential fabrication, a piece of misinformation that predates the internet, and has had frightful consequences. This invented knowledge has resulted in fratricidal conflict, and has cost millions of human lives.

What am I referring to? I am talking about the myth of an Aryan race. The word Aryan is a legitimate label, and has its place in comparative language studies. It is also one of the most misused, abused and misleading words to ever infect public discourse.

The pseudoscientific concept of an Aryan race, a blue-eyed, blonde haired, fair-skinned warrior people, did not originate with the Nazis, but in the European romantic nationalist ideologies and pseudoarchaeology of the 18th and 19th centuries. It may seem like an obsolete curiosity today – why bother going over thoroughly discredited theories? We can learn about ourselves, and our modern history, by retracing the steps which brought us here.

Aryan is not a race, it is an ethnolinguistic category. It means ‘noble’ or ‘honourable’ in Sanskrit and Indo-Iranian languages. It is a self-designated tribal description, referring to a social group of people who participate in specific ritual and religious practices. In fact, the Aryans of Iran and northern India each contain references in their respective holy texts. The Rig Veda in Hinduism refers to Aryans, without any racial or ethnic connotations.

In ancient Persian, the word Aryan has a cognate, eran, meaning honourable. It refers to upright, ethical behaviour, and has nothing to do with race. The revelation that European languages, such as Latin and Greek, bore similarities with ancient languages such as Sanskrit, prompted the categorisation of a language group known as Indo-European. I have written about this huge family of languages in a previous article.

European philologists, such as Sir William Jones, did not intentionally deploy the use of the word Aryan to denote race. However, European scholars did their utmost to give the term a racial inflection, thus perverting the original meaning of Aryan into a racial one.

Biblical ethnography

The standard ethnographic picture of the 18th century world was derived from biblical roots. Organising humanity into a hierarchy. from Noah’s sons, Ham, Shem and Japheth, was accepted by scientists in Europe. Japheth’s descendants formed the Europeans, who were the nobility. Shem’s children and subsequent descendants, the black Africans, were servants and slaves. Ham and his children gave rise to the priestly class.

This nice, neat, hierarchical configuration of humanity was coming undone. The discovery of the Americas, and its indigenous populations, blasted a gigantic hole in the Old Testament chronology. The world could no longer be traced back to Noah’s sons. The mosaic based ethnology needed an upgrade.

It came in the form of a racial hierarchy. 

The new discipline of philology was discerning similarities in disparate languages. Indeed, the Indo-European language family was highlighting the common descent between linguistic groups.

Linguistic affinity between Sanskrit, Greek, Latin and other European languages was transformed into support for a racial hierarchy. Comparative philology was a reasonably new area of enquiry in the 18th and 19th centuries. If languages had siblings and ancestors, and humans have ancestors – could there be an ancestral race of humans? The Aryan paradigm began to replace the biblical construct.

The Volk

European nationalism was undergoing a revival of sorts. The German cult of the Volk, connecting notions of race, blood purity and soil, cultivated biological certainties that applied to groups of humans.

Comparing languages became, not a quest to find what unites us as humans, but a project of social Darwinism decades before Darwin. Language similarities, between Sanskrit, Greek and Latin, moved from philology and hardened into biological verities.

Notice how the construction of a fabricated Aryan race is not the product of a few lunatics on the fringes of society, but an end product of scholars, writers and respectable civil servants. Couched in an aura of scientific objectivity, Aryan became a tool of imperial European propaganda disguised as mere academic scholarship.

What started as a quest to understand non-European languages, was transmogrified into a racial category. 

French writer and diplomat Arthur de Gobineau (1816 – 1882) was one of the earliest theorists to systematise the ideology of racism, and elaborate the Aryan race claim. Descended from French aristocrats, he wrote the influential work An Essay on the Inequality of Human Races. Responding to the 1848 uprisings in Europe, Gobineau theorised that the aristocratic class was mostly descended from Aryans, and that the decline of civilisation was due to race-mixing.

Elaborating a purportedly ‘scientific’ racism, Gobineau stated that the Aryans and their descendants occupied the apex of civilisation, and should maintain their racial purity. Though Gobineau’s essay was criticised in his native France, his book was widely praised in German nationalist circles, as well as among American white supremacist slave owners, who found a theoretical justification for their segregationist worldview.

Hitler and the Nazi party did not invent the doctrine of Aryanism, or the idea that humanity could be organised into a racial hierarchy.

Houston Stewart Chamberlain (1855 – 1927) was a British born proponent of German ethnonationalist racism and antisemitism. Advocating the pseudoscientific theory of an Aryan race, his writings and pronouncements influenced a generation of Germans. He is described by one scholar as Hitler’s John the Baptist. He constructed a pseudo archaeological foundation for an Aryan people, claiming they were an ancient race that invaded India centuries ago. 

In his influential book The Foundations of the Nineteenth Century (1899) he expounded his view that the Aryan race, of which the Germans and white Northern Europeans are a part, would eventually dominate the world. European civilisation, he opined, was weakened by racial intermixing.

It is important to disentangle misinformation no matter how old its provenance. The misuse of the word Aryan, while not as widespread as before, still persists. Old ideas can find new forms of expression. The notion of an Aryan race had lethal consequences for those who were classified as non-Aryan. Let’s understand the provenance and veracity (or lack thereof) of misinformation before it provides a basis for toxic ecosystems.

Cook employed Tupaia, a Polynesian polymath, as a navigator and cultural mediator.

This article was first published on my Substack webpage here.

The ancient Greeks were a maritime civilisation, launching and conducting extensive seafaring trade and exploration missions. We know about them through their writings and legends – the Jason and the Argonauts myth springs to mind. But how many of us, particularly in Australia, realise that we are close to a seafaring people whose achievements surpass that of the ancient Greeks?

I am referring to the Polynesians. They were navigating and seafaring over thousands of nautical miles, centuries before other maritime societies.

While the European Vikings were just beginning their Atlantic maritime travels, the Polynesians were already settling the thousands of islands within the 300 000 to 310 000 square kilometre area that makes up the region of Polynesia. The Polynesian triangle is the area bounded by Hawaii in the north, New Zealand in the southwest, and Rapa Nui (Easter Island) in the east. They began their navigational explorations in 1000 BCE, and settled every island, volcanic or otherwise, by 1250 CE.

This photo is courtesy of the History TL:DR Substack webpage.

They did so by accumulating and passing on to future generations navigational knowledge and skills. Their seafaring covered the Pacific Ocean – in the days when there was no GPS or electronic tracking. Their skill in navigating such a vast ocean territory is truly extraordinary.

The Polynesians did not know about the magnetic poles, nor did they have a compass or sextant. They did develop their own version of the compass, a celestial navigation system – a star compass, if you will. They had a system for dividing the sky into sections, memorising the star patterns in each section. They calculated time by the position of the sun over the horizon. 

They also studied the ocean swells and currents, determining the direction of travel by using those currents for speed. Their canoes were built for manoeuvrability and endurance for those long ocean voyages. They navigated by the migratory patterns of birds, identifying which species migrated when during the year and in what season. The elders of the Polynesian nations were a kind of university, passing on their wisdom to the younger generations. 

The Pacific Ocean was the foundational geographic feature of Polynesian society, in much the same way as the Mediterranean was for Ancient Greek cities.

It is no exaggeration to state, as Karl Sheppard does over at the History TL:DR substack website, the Polynesians created the most extensive maritime civilisation the world has ever known. 

One of the people who used Polynesian navigation knowledge was Captain James Cook. 

Let’s recognise the indispensable role of Tupaia

Cook arrived in Tahiti in 1769. His knowledge of the Pacific and its peoples was limited, to say the least. He was helped by a remarkable Polynesian navigator and high priest, Tupaia. Born in 1725, Tupaia was an educated person, a kind of aristocrat in the kinship-organised kingdoms of Polynesian nations. His role was a custodian of astronomical and navigational education, to pass on the knowledge of maritime navigation and the natural environment. He spoke several Polynesian languages.

Born in what Europeans call the Society Islands, he approached the British when the HMS Endeavour arrived. He sought their help in a conflict his people had with a rival nation. His knowledge of the islands, the edible plants, the depth of the seas, the location of coral reefs, made him an indispensable navigator for Captain Cook. Tupaia basically took navigational control of the Endeavour, given the depth and skill of Polynesian seafaring.

Cook entrusted Tupaia with serving as a kind of cultural mediator with other Polynesian nations, particularly the Māori of New Zealand- Aoetearoa. Tupaia’s skills as a negotiator came into play, and Cook’s voyaging and interaction with the indigenous nations would not have been possible without the support of Tupaia.

The British understood the pivotal role that Tupaia played in their success – their goal was to reach the little understood land of Australia. Polynesian seafaring knowledge, via the teacher Tupaia, enabled the British to survive in unknown waters, find reliable food supplies, and navigate the cultural landscape with the Polynesian peoples.

The indigenous people of Australia are not Polynesian, but Melanesian. Tupaia did not know any of the languages native to the indigenous Australian nation, nor did they understand his. So Tupaia’s role as a cultural mediator ended. Sadly, Tupaia died in the Dutch East Indies of a shipborne illness (most likely either dysentery or malaria) in 1770.

His crucial role as navigator and cultural mediator was ignored by the British. Only in recent years has Tupaia received the kind of recognition that he richly deserved.

There are numerous Captain Cook statues dotting the landscape across Australian cities. In the wake of the debates regarding decolonisation, the toppling of statues of reprehensible figures has arisen in Australia. Should we remove the statues and memorials dedicated to Captain Cook? There are those who wish to retain the Cook statues as they are. If that is the case, and the majority of my fellow Australians decide to keep said statues, I will respect their decision.

I have an alternative suggestion. At the base of each Cook statue let’s attach a plaque of information which states that Cook’s success would have been impossible with Tupaia, the Polynesian navigator. In much that same way that paintings are accompanied by a brief paragraph explaining their provision, each Cook statue should carry a disclaimer that Cook’s hero status was entirely dependent on the knowledge of the Polynesian maritime navigator to whom he refused to give credit.