Farmers and Soldiers.

I have just finished Benjamin Merkle's wonderful new history of Alfred the Great, the first British (not English) king: The White Horse King: The Life of Alfred the Great, c. 2009.

While taking a break, I checked the news and saw a photograph of a large group of turbaned men along the Afghan-Pakistan border, identified as Taliban, but looking all the world to me as common laborers, fathers, sons, brothers, and farmers who in the past would have been featured in National Geographic.

Then I thought back to the history of Alfred the Great. It was English laborers, fathers, sons, brothers and farmers who finally rid their island of marauding Danes/Vikings who had been raping and pillaging for centuries.

And then I thought of our own American revolution. It was pamphleteers, common laborers, fathers, sons, brothers, fathers, and Mrs John Adams who finally rid the thirteen colonies of the British bureaucracy and military imposing restrictions and taxes on colonists.

Those Taliban fighters appear no less committed to saving their culture and their way of life.