History Repeats Itself

You certainly are aware of it. History repeats. It's part of the cycle (of we don't know what). It means the very same incidents of the past, will happen again or can happen again, at least.

I never was a major in History, while my grades in the subject were not bad either back in the school days. So, you can tell, I liked History a lot.

Well looking at the history of our region, everybody knows we were once a British colony. There was also a brief Japanese occupation. The Portuguese were here. The Dutch were here. Long before that, Siam was here either. So, it seems, occupation of foreign powers had been major as far as our country is concerned.

From my shallow education in History, I trying my best to recall the factors that leads to foreign intervention in our country. One of the most prominent reason is when leaders of states starts fighting one another. It gives them the opportunity to intervene. History says one of the leaders actually asked for foreign help to fight against his opponent. This is one opportunity for them to come in. From history also it seems that these foreign powers are just waiting for the opportunity to step in.

Some of the reasons for them to be very keen in stepping in our country and rule are:
1) strategic geographic location where Mallaca Straits is the commerce path between West and East.
2) abundance of natural resources
3) Mallaca was once seen as the Islamic center of far east. The Portuguese intends to go out and put the Crusade out, once and for all, therefore they travel to try to destroy the Islamic influences scattered in the east.
4) Gold, Gospel and Glory - Protuguese
5) The Arabs are selling them spice at a much higher price, therefore the West have to go and get the spice by themselves.

From all the reasons that I managed to pull, we would have to go through another process to validate them to the present. I would leave this process for you to sort them out. It will be very interesting to analyse from historical perspective to apply it to the current. Afterall, it is will be very good if we have some ideas about national security risks. It will help us check on our gaps internally so that no external influence could easily seep through.