ne mai misca cuvintele: Hai sa dam mana cu mana Cei cu inima romana, Sa'nvartim hora fratiei Pe pamantul Romaniei................Amandoi avem un nume, Amandoi o soarta'n lume. Eu ti's frate, tu mi-esti frate, In noi doi un suflet bate. Vin' la Milcov cu grabire, Sa-l secam dintr'o sorbire, Ca sa treaca drumul mare, Peste-a noastre vechi hotare. Si sa vada sfantul soare, Intr'o zi de sarbatoare, Hora noastra cea frateasca Pe câmpia romaneasca. 24 ianuarie 1859 unirea principatelor romane, Tara Romaneasca si Moldova...

citi dintre noi mai simtim cu adevarat romaneste, ca acum un secol si jumatate? citor dintre noi le mai pasa azi de Romania si de glia ei, de poporul ei, de istoria ei ? citi vor mai iubi Romania peste inca 50 ani, nu 150 ...?

citi ne mindrim cu Romania si citi o hulim ?

citi o promovam prietenilor nostri straini? cit cunoastem din valorile reale acestui popor ?

tu ce crezi?

Pero como ya hemos casi dicho la buena mujer no estaba muerta, de modo que por casualidades de la vida lo primero que oyó al despertar, en una duermevela pesada, fue el ruido de la tierra repicar en la madera. Mujer de natural coraje, no se asustó demasiado al reconocer su incómoda situación. Sí, ciertamente intentó avisar desde las profundidades del hoyo a todos aquellos que tan amablemente habían ido a despedirla, pero como además de corajuda Concepción era prudente, prefirió no desgañitarse. Pensó que iba a tener tiempo y que como respiraba suavito le daría para reflexionar sobre un montón entero de cosas que aún tenía pendientes. Y las reflexionó, y hasta pudo darse cuenta de lo bien que está una sola, sin más remedio que hablarse a sí misma para no morirse de aburrimiento. Incluso se permitió el lujo de pensar más lento.

Concepción, sin embargo, no era una mujer que gustara de desperdiciarse con una cosa tan tonta como un entierro en vida, de modo que cuando el famoso profanador de tumbas holandés de nombre Pieter abrió por pura chiripa su ataúd, respiró aliviada y se dijo a sí misma que nunca más volvería a pensar deprisa. De vuelta a Madrid invitó a cenar al holandés y se compró seis revistas y una entrada al teatro. Se dio cuenta entonces de lo ilusa que había sido.

Sonando: America - Trini Lopez

October 1874: Trollope reported the British flag was hoisted, "with the usual formalities," by Sir Hercules Robinson, in Fiji. Anthony Trollope, in The Tireless Traveler: Twenty Letters to the Liverpool Mercury In 1875 reported on his  round the world trip  reported on events in Fiji, from Sydney, but did not visit. He had been to Fiji in 1871.  Trollope appears to have visited Sir Hercules Robinson, the governor of NSW, in Sydney.

Sir Hercules Robinson had taken control of Fiji in 1874: Trollope wrote “In October, 1874—just one year ago when this letter will reach England—Great Britain was strengthened or burdened, as the case may be, by the possession of a new colony. On the 10th of that month, the British flag was hoisted, "with the usual formalities," by Sir Hercules Robinson, in Fiji.  Sir Hercules was and is the governor of New South Wales, and had been commissioned by the Home Government to complete the arrangement, if such completion might be possible; and this he did successfully”.

 "Levuka has been the white man's capital in Fiji"; "In 1835 a few white traders, Englishmen and Americans, probably mixed, first came to Fiji in quest of fortune, and established themselves in a place called Levuka, in one of the smaller islands. From that time to this, Levuka has been the white man's capital in Fiji; and two years later, missionaries settled themselves among the islands.

Joint desire to make money and to proselytise:  "Such have been the commencements of almost all modern colonisation. There has been the joint desire to make money and to proselytise—with the English as with the Spaniards. Now and again the love of freedom, and the desire to find new homes in which a man might say his prayers as he pleased, have driven wanderers forth and have created new countries; but the merchants and the missionaries have been the great discoverers of the world. It was they who by their joint action forced us to colonise New Zealand, and it is they who have now together compelled the Colonial Office to send a great governor to Fiji".

Trollope's view of Cakobau: "The name of Thakombau—here spelt as it is pronounced—will probably be familiar to most of your readers. He was born in 1804, and is still living, and in 1852 succeeded his father as chief of the largest of the Fijian tribes. But he was not then King of Fiji. A few years before the latter date there had appeared among the islands a stranger chief, a Tongan, named Maafu, who succeeded in establishing himself in the eastern or Windward Islands, as a rival to Thakombau.

Trollope dismisses Cak0bau as an ignorant savage: "But it is with Thakombau that we English have chiefly dealt, and whose co-operation with Englishmen has caused Fiji to be this day an English colony. Two years after his father's death he became a Christian—as far as Christianity was possible to him—and renounced cannibalism. He and his wife were baptised, and he seems, at any rate, to have been convinced that there could be neither peace nor prosperity for his people unless they could be made secure, if not by British rule, at any rate by British protection.

 Cakobau sends warclub to Queen Victoria: "The other day, when the cession of the country was completed, he sent over, as a present to our Queen, his war-club, which had ever been to him the symbol of his authority.

Cakobau's 'melancholy conviction': "There is much in the character of the man which recommends itself to us, though he was a cannibal and a heathen, and though now, in his old age, his Christianity is not very intelligible to himself. He seems ever to have trusted the honesty and power of the British nation, and to have mingled with that trust a melancholy conviction that his own people could of themselves do nothing; and yet the Englishmen he had seen had not always been good specimens of their nationality.

What Cakobau said to Robinson: "Of one thing I am certain," he said to Sir Hercules Robinson, when they were negotiating the cession: "if we do not cede Fiji, the white stalkers on the beach, the cormorants, will open their mouths and swallow us." And again he said, "Fijians are of unstable character. A white man who wishes to get anything from a Fijian, if he does not succeed to-day, will try again to-morrow, till the Fijian is wearied out and gives in." He had learned that the weaker must give way to the stronger, and had perceived that it was better to abandon himself and his country at once to the justice of English rule than to be squeezed out of existence by the rapacity of individuals".

Maafu v Cakobau: In the early days of chieftainship, various troubles came upon him. Maafu, his rival from Tonga, was strong against him, stirring up rebellion in the islands and separating the people. And then there were misfortunes with the Americans.

1849: In 1849 the house of the American consul was burned down, and compensation was claimed for that.

1853: In 1853, Levuka was burned, and, among other things, the houses and property of certain Americans were destroyed, for which further compensation was demanded.

 1855: In 1855, an American officer came to assess this property, and demanded a payment of £9000 ($45,000). This seems to have been the beginning of Thakombau's pecuniary troubles. There was no means within his power of paying any such sum! If only England would take the islands and pay the money, things might at any rate be quiet!

1858:  In 1858, the first offer of cession was made. Fiji should belong to England, if England would pay those hard American creditors.

1859: A deed of cession was sent to England in 1859, the British consul resident at Fiji taking it to London. The British residents in the islands were of course quite as anxious for the arrangement as Thakombau could be.

1862: But at that time the British adult residents were only 166 in number, and in 1862 the offer was refused by us. The injury that 166 persons at the other side of the globe could do was not sufficient to induce us to accept the new burden" .

Trollope, Anthony. The Tireless Traveler: Twenty Letters to the Liverpool Mercury. Berkeley:  University of California Press,  [1978,c1941] 1978. http://ark.cdlib.org/ark:/13030/ft1d5nb0hv/

El siglo que va desde la derrota napoleónica en 1815 al comienzo de la Gran Guerra en 1914 estuvo marcado por el auge del nacionalismo en el continente europeo. En este contexto la monarquía de los Habsburgo sufrió no pocas dificultades para mantener unido su imperio plurinacional. Además, el XIX no fue únicamente la época de las naciones; lo fue también de la ideología liberal. Es bien sabido que, de igual forma, los austro-húngaros presentaban en este aspecto numerosas carencias. Por lo tanto, unas estructuras arcaicas tuvieron que hacer frente durante casi cien años a las embestidas de las dos grandes corriente ideológicas del momento. En esta batalla podemos distiguir claramente los elementos disgregadores de los que tendían a fortalecer el viejo sistema. Entre los primeros encontramos a las fuerzas liberales y democráticas del momento, y a los distintos pueblos que formaban parte del Imperio (germanos, eslavos del norte, eslavos del sur, magiares, rumanos e italianos). Dentro del segundo grupo estaban la propia Corona, el ejército, la burocracia, la alta nobleza, los grandes empresarios y los ciudadanos de las distintas etnias que se mantenían fieles al poder central.

Como consecuencia de la victoria sobre la revolución en 1848, se estableció en el Imperio una política centralista y absolutista; al tiempo que se procedió a la modernización de las estructuras económicas. No obstante, con la derrota en las guerras contra Italia (1859) y Prusia (1866) se hizo inevitable el cambio dentro de la estructura estatal. Nació así la Monarquía Dual. Se redactó entonces una constitución que prometía la igualdad de derechos, y que obligaba, en el periodo de diez años, a convocar una votación en los territorios húngaros del Imperio con el fin de ratificar o rechazar la unión con Austria (Ausgleich). Además, el triunfo de Prusia puso fin a la influencia de los Habsburgo en territorio alemán. Esto obligó a los austríacos a reorientar su política expansionista hacia los Balcanes, que ya en esas fechas era uno de los puntos más conflictivos del mapa continental. Allí el Imperio chocó tanto con los intereses italianos en el Adriático, como con las ideas yugoslavistas de los propios serbios.

La situación de los Balcanes dentro del panorama internacional fue, hasta los primeros años del siglo XX, una cuestión de segundo orden. Su cambio de status –la transformación de este en un problema de vital importancia para la paz- fue consecuencia de la intervención de las potencias extra-balcánicas en las luchas de los nacionalismos autóctonos ¿Qué potencias y qué nacionalismos? En el primer grupo destacaron Austria, Rusia, e Italia; y en el segundo Serbia –el sueño de la Gran Serbia- y Bulgaria. Sin embargo, una guerra de proporciones similares a la de 1914-1918 no se produjo en un primer momento gracias a la vigencia del equilibrio bismarckiano. Fue con la ruptura de este –aproximadamente a partir de 1907- cuando comenzaron los problemas. La Monarquía Dual, aprovechando la debilidad exhibida por Rusia en su conflicto de 1905 con Japón, procedió a la anexión de Bornia-Herzegovina en 1908. Esto produjo un enorme malestar en la Corte de Pedro I, que en aquellos mismos meses estaba embarcado en el proyecto de construcción de la Gran Serbia. A continuación los acontecimientos siguieron un desarrollo muy similar a los de 1914: se desató la cadena de alianzas, que involucró en el naciente conflicto a Alemania y Francia. Finalmente, la mediación británica y el sentido común de los gobernantes lograron frenar la escalada belicista. El escollo se salvó en 1908, pero de la crisis se habían extraído enseñanzas muy útiles para el verano de 1914. Además, los bloques que más tarde se enfrentaron en la Gran Guerra quedaron perfectamente perfilados tras estos sucesos.

En 1912 tuvo lugar la guerra entre el Imperio Otomano y la Liga Balcánica. La causa: sacar el mayor provecho a la debilidad del primero en sus posesiones europeas. Los turcos resultaron derrotados, firmándose la Paz de Londres que, sin embargo, no puso fin a la guerra. Una vez vencido el “hombre enfermo” –nombre dado a los otomanos durante el siglo XIX- los miembros de la Liga se enfrentaron para repartirse el botín. Todo acabó con el triunfo de Serbia, que logró hacerse con la hegemonía tras la Paz de Bucarest. Esto reavivó el recelo austro-húngaro hacia sus vecinos eslavos. Tan sólo hacía falta una afrenta como el atentado sobre el Archiduque Francisco Fernando, asesinado junto con su mujer el 28 de junio de 1914 por el estudiante Gabrilo Princep, para empujar a Europa a una catastrófica guerra civil. En esa ocasión volvió a desencadenarse el juego de las alianzas sin que nadie pudiera detenerlo. La Gran Guerra duró cuatro años y provocó millones de muertos, entre ellos la Monarquía Dual de Austria-Hungría.

Bibliografía:

[1] Historia Universal Contemporánea I y II; Javier Paredes (Coord.) - Barcelona - Ariel - 2004.

[2] La guerra del mundo: los conflictos del siglo XX y el declive de occidente (1904-1953); Niall Ferguson - Barcelona - Debate - 2007.

[3] El mundo de ayer. Memorias de un europeo; Stefan Zweig - Barcelona - El Acantilado - 2002.

München ist rot! Derbysieger und geile Stimmung!

Freistoß Toni Kroos

Tooooooooor! 1:0 Deniz Yilmaz!

Auf die Knie! Humba, Humba, Humba...Täteräää, Täterääää!!

© 2007 Traumtorschuetze

White historians view: Matua said "Their ignorance of understanding the issues was interpreted by the Colonialists as a major threat to their chosen leading chiefs led by Ratu Seru Cakobau the then Vunivalu of what was to be regarded by many, as the leading military and naval power in Fiji, supported by white historians.

He was under threat from the Americans to pay up the debts for the burning of the US Counsels residence in Nukulau on July 4, 1846, which plagued Cakobau for the next 20 years. Pressed from all corners to avoid the same fate that Veidovi of Rewa in 1840 faced for his crimes against visiting American ships when he was shipped out of Fiji in chains by Commodore Wilkes to America to answer for his crimes, Cakobau needed a way out.

At the same time, Cakobau, who became fascinated by the Hawaiian monarchial system through his secretary Samuel A St. John, assumed the title Tui Viti. He was sending out the message that he held absolute power throughout the divided yet pocket and strongly entrenched ‘matanitu’.

Pacific Irishman, William Floyd Inaugural Memorial Lecture, given in Holy Trinity Anglican Cathedral Suva, Fiji, on August 28, 1970 by The Venerable C. W. Whonsbon-Aston Archdeacon Emeritus Vicar of Levuka, Fiji, 1931-34, Priest in Charge, Mukawa, New Guinea, 1934-39, Vicar of Viti Levu West, Fiji, 1939-43, Chaplain in Western Samoa, 1943-58 Archdeacon of Fiji and Vicar of Levuka, 1958-64, Archdeacon of Polynesia, 1963-67, Archdeacon Emeritus.