    49

    Masa

    da.  For years, they held out against the Roman legions.  Then,

    when the Jews could resist the attackers no longer,  the entire band

    committed suicide.140  These fighters preferred death to a fate as

    featherless chickens on the bottom of the Imperial pecking order.

    No wonder the emotion that follows a disastrous hierarchical

    downfall is called "mortification."  The root of "mortification" is the

    Latin mortis--death. The reason: disgrace is, to many humans, as dire a

    fate as physical extinction.

    Humiliation and the insidious force of the giveaway can trigger

    superorganismic cataclysm.  Take the example of Iran.

    From the late nineteenth century until World War II, the Iranians

    felt the disgrace of living in the shadow of the superpowers.  Iran was

    addicted to superpower help, ashamed of its dependency, and

    resentful of the resulting influence the major nations achieved over its

    affairs.  In 1879, for example, the Shah asked the Russians to raise and

    train a police force in the north.  The resulting "Cossack Brigade" had

    Russian officers and Iranian NCOs141.  In 1907, the Shah grew

    impatient with the newly-convened parliament--the Majlis.  His

    solution?  To call in the Russian-led police brigades, bombard the

    parliamentary building, and reestablish autocratic rule.

    Supporters of a constitutional democracy turned for help to

    Britain.  Ten thousand of them took refuge on the grounds of the

    English embassy.  That same year, the British and the Russians put

    their heads together and carved Iran into three spheres of influence--a

    Russian sector in the north, a smaller British zone in the south, and a

    neutral territory in the middle.

    The policy of playing games with the great powers made the

    Iranians feel like a small dog running between the legs of giants, a dog

    in danger of being trampled.  One Iranian-born writer said bluntly that

    Britain and Russia were quarreling over Iran's dead body.142    Then,

    during World War II, a new white knight arrived to save the Iranians

    from the dishonor of superpower domination.143  This was America.

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