I am not sure what the Al-Gabarti relates to as if there are to this day 'Jabarti' present in Ethiopia, they are normally highland Ethiopians, mostly in Tigray and Eritrea but also in Amhara, whom, although they speak the local language and are ethnically undifferentiated from their Orthodox Christian neighbours, and solely distinguished by their Muslim faith. They were often traders by profession, fulfilling a niche, or 'caste' need. One thing they are certainly not, is Somali or Oromo.
If the spread of Western Civ is a cottom fire, it will consume not only itself but the cultures it has aided to package as well, and, far from providing the West with a globalised consciousness, will burn down everyone's past in one single bonfire.
I think of Spengler's pseudomorphism when I see the land of the 'Al-Gabarti' (Toynbee's 'Ethiops') today: not a single piece of their modern living system is indigenous, from the clothes they wear to the transport and means of production and when they dream, they dream western ideas (Oswald Spengler fails to describe Ethiopia in his work, although he does evoke at one point the 'Falasha', today known as the 'Bete Israel', as a type of occupational caste.)
I am sure Ethiopia is a fascinating place, although I have never been there. I am sure they absorbed many Western concepts, just like many other non-Western cultures did. The point that Toynbee makes is that, no matter how "Westernized" they look, they are going to react against this Westernization in ways that right now are difficult to imagine. But the burning of the Western civilization is going to be hard on everyone, Western or non-Westerners. when it consumes itself.
Those of us fortunate enough to live in a cosmopolitan atmosphere appreciate differences. In context of a collapse of existing arrangements, Western Civilization becomes a thread in the fabric of what is to come. Not the whole cloth of cotton waste any more.
I am not sure what the Al-Gabarti relates to as if there are to this day 'Jabarti' present in Ethiopia, they are normally highland Ethiopians, mostly in Tigray and Eritrea but also in Amhara, whom, although they speak the local language and are ethnically undifferentiated from their Orthodox Christian neighbours, and solely distinguished by their Muslim faith. They were often traders by profession, fulfilling a niche, or 'caste' need. One thing they are certainly not, is Somali or Oromo.
If the spread of Western Civ is a cottom fire, it will consume not only itself but the cultures it has aided to package as well, and, far from providing the West with a globalised consciousness, will burn down everyone's past in one single bonfire.
I think of Spengler's pseudomorphism when I see the land of the 'Al-Gabarti' (Toynbee's 'Ethiops') today: not a single piece of their modern living system is indigenous, from the clothes they wear to the transport and means of production and when they dream, they dream western ideas (Oswald Spengler fails to describe Ethiopia in his work, although he does evoke at one point the 'Falasha', today known as the 'Bete Israel', as a type of occupational caste.)
I am sure Ethiopia is a fascinating place, although I have never been there. I am sure they absorbed many Western concepts, just like many other non-Western cultures did. The point that Toynbee makes is that, no matter how "Westernized" they look, they are going to react against this Westernization in ways that right now are difficult to imagine. But the burning of the Western civilization is going to be hard on everyone, Western or non-Westerners. when it consumes itself.
Those of us fortunate enough to live in a cosmopolitan atmosphere appreciate differences. In context of a collapse of existing arrangements, Western Civilization becomes a thread in the fabric of what is to come. Not the whole cloth of cotton waste any more.