MUSINGS ON BABYLON

Otago Daily Times, Issue 24632, 13 June 1941, Page 10

MUSINGS ON BABYLON

Writing of a visit to the ruins of Babylon, Mr Rex Miller says: I came upon a mound of earth perhaps 100 ft in height. This was surprising, for nowhere else in all this arid plain, extending for many miles iri every direction, had I seen any such irregularity. The land of Iraq is. throughout most of its extent, almost as flat as a % floor. One can drive a car across it in any direction, regardless of roads. It is a perfect terrain for the operation of mechanised military units. It dawned upon me that this mound, along with others like it that came shortly into view, was what was left of Babylon. It looked like a natural mound of earth. The summer suns and winter rains throughout the centuries had made of a once great city this rounded pile of dust. Nebuchadnezzar, here in his socalled hanging gardens, must have felt he had the whole world at his feet. Yet Nebuchadnezzar’s conquests, his unbridled power, came quickly to an end. His glory passed, and he himself was reduced to eating grass upon the plain that once had brought him riches. His Babylon crumbled away, became a mound of earth. These are the thoughts, 1 believe, that must come to any conqueror who fights his way into Iraq. So it has always been, and so it will always be, with cities and empires that are based upon ruthless aggression and conquest. A civilisation, to survive, must be concerned not with conquest, but with building of a house not made with hands, a government that rests upon justice and peace. Every conqueror that has pushed from Europe into Asia in modern times has had to learn this lesson; Napoleon learned it in Palestine: the Kaiser’s allies learned it in Palestine and Irak. If Hitler should by any chance succeed in invading Iraq, I hope he will take time to visit the ruins of Babylon and ponder for a moment their meaning. It would be a wholesome exercise for any aggressor.