Learning from History: Atlantis and the Present

a pre-election reprint from 2009

The Past:

Atlantis existed. It was in the area of the African Continent in the East African Rift, the zone which separates the Nubian sub-plate of the African tectonic plate from the Somalian sub-plate of the African plate.

It was situated in approximately what is now the middle of Lake Victoria, or Victoria Nyanza - Nalubaale in Luganda - in an inland fresh water sea that was approximately 1000 km. long with a maximum width of 500 km.

In Plato's account of Atlantis in the Timaeus, he describes the island as beyond the pillars of Hercules. There have been various interpretations of these pillars, or stele. There is an ancient account of "pillars of Shango". referring to the god of thunder of Western Africa, but the story is placed in East Africa!

The pillars of Shango form a trinity of volcanoes, the three which form Mount Kilimanjaro: Kibo, the central volcano with a permanent snow field and glacier; Shira, the most westerly and the oldest; and Mawenzi, a peak that stands just under

5350 meters, or just under 17,600 feet.

In this vicinity was the very old city we call Atlantis. It was on an island within the much larger Nyanza that existed at the time, and it was the center of a great empire which extended around the margins of the Rift Valley inland sea - of which today only the small necklace of lakes in the valley remains.

In old Islamic accounts, the city is referred to as Madinat Al-Launain, the city of the two colors, these colors being red, ahmaru, and white, abyadu, the colors of Shango. The people of the land were said, however, to be of three colors, red, white, and black.

Geology indicates we are speaking of a time about 62 million years ago. This is much too early for human life, according to present science.

However, the story continues that the Atlanteans became debased, and the forces of Nature and the forces of Justice conspired to destroy Atlantis.

Then we come to the Present, and we stand and stare into the Future:

We are becoming as estranged from each other as was Spain in the years leading up to its Civil War in the 1930s.

For a spokesman for a political party - the Republican - to forcefully state in the middle of great danger and uncertainty that he wishes that the President of the country fail...and by failure, we obviously imply that the country fail also...is a great change in America that I have never seen in my long, long life.

In the past, we fought tooth and nail, but we came together to do at least the minimum of actions required for the well being of the country. And we never, ever wished that the country go down to ashes, so that we - the latter day messiahs of our tortured imaginations - could then come down from our slum Galilee and scream - as if in a nightmare - Lazarus, arise!!

Horrid blasphemy of the Present age! Unnatural men and women!

We are entering the Faun's Labyrinth - Laberinto del Fauno - wherein the spoken stories of the horror of fratricide, passionately hot, become congealed into despairingly cold aspic of novel terror.

Stop...now.