Jersey - Tax us if you can!

Taxation has been in the UK news a lot in recent weeks - whether in relation to the proposed clampdown on 'tax havens' or the fact that Starbucks has just paid corporation tax in the UK (to the tune of £5 million) for the first time in almost four years.  Whilst people in Jersey would hotly dispute the idea that their island is a 'tax haven', it's commonly perceived as such by taxpayers in the UK.  Jersey has long had its own system of taxation and islanders will maintain that their laws on taxation are every bit as robust, even more so, than in the UK, where many loopholes facilitate cases of tax avoidance. 

Tax evasion or avoidance?

There's a very simple difference between tax evasion and tax avoidance - evasion is illegal, ie. when you don't pay your taxes or you're involved in illegal activities such as smuggling.  Tax avoidance on the other hand is legal - any individual or company with a good accountant can figure out ways of keeping their tax bill at a minimum amount, which might include registering elements of your business in one of the world's 73 'tax havens' or simply setting up an offshore account, where you can transfer your money to a place where it won't be heavily taxed.


Why do we pay taxes in the first place?

Jersey pound note by David Holt London

Well, it's very simple - taxation is the collection of communal funds that provide the infrastructure that a society needs.  Every worker in society produces something - whether it's a more traditional scenario of a farmer growing vegetables which he will then sell in the market, or a modern scenario of a call-centre worker providing customer service via telephone or email, infrastructure (roads, telecommunications) is vital to connect the producer of goods with his/her market.  Not to mention the provision of health care, education, social welfare, defense etc. that anyone who lives in a 'civilised' society should expect to have access to.

The link between civilisation and taxation is an important one and, in the current economic climate, individual nations, such as the UK (but also the US, Germany etc) are feeling less tolerant towards individuals or companies that engage in tax non-compliance and avoid making a full contribution to the country where they live/work/use the infrastructure and resources.  After all, why should someone enjoy the benefits of a civilised society, when they don't pay for it?

Tax as a global issue

In the olden days, before globalisation, the relationship between a tax-payer and his government was a lot clearer.  Most goods were physically produced locally, therefore it was more obvious to which authority the tax-payer should pay his/her taxes.  Nowadays, with many goods being 'services' more than physical things - it's sometimes not so clear as to where the goods are produced and where they are sold.

There is no international taxation system, therefore each country (or tax-independent jurisdictions, like Jersey) is free to decide its own rates of taxation.  This is completely legal and, unless tax-independent jurisdictions deliberately use 'harmful tax competition', they aren't doing anything wrong.

Jersey - VAT and banking

Jersey coin by tigerweet

Jersey has never adopted Value Added Tax (VAT) on goods, a taxation which is common elsewhere in Europe.  This means that the price of luxury goods, in particular, is much lower than elsewhere in Europe and, therefore, those who can afford it, will buy their luxury goods in Jersey, where there is no VAT, rather than in England and France, where VAT adds around 20% to the original price.

With a population of around 97,000, Jersey has 32,000 registered companies and 46 banks - at any given time, it's estimated that there are £189 billion pounds deposited in the island's banks (around £2 million for each of Jersey's inhabitants) - even with the estimated 250 millionaires who live in Jersey, something just doesn't quite add up!  


It's clear that, with the independence of tax systems in places like Jersey and the relative ease of moving people, goods and services internationally in the 21st century, countries with higher taxes are going to lose out on vital revenue that equips the society where these goods and services might be making a profit for the individual or company who is moving their financial assets elsewhere.  In the case of Starbucks - it's easy to compare the number of coffee sales to the amount of the company's taxation - but what about less tangible products, such as the branding, advertisement or even the raw materials used to produce their goods?

International tax Watchdogs

Sailing at Mont Orgeuil by Alex Fearn

The main international watchdogs on taxation are: UNESCO, the EU, individual governments and civil society organisations.  One of these civil society organisations, the Tax Justice network has published an interesting paper called Tax us if you can which is well worth a read, in terms of the background of international tax avoidance and how this has a wider impact on the Developing World. 

UNESCO has pushed for the signing of bilateral Tax Information Exchange Agreements (TIEAs) between countries in the Developed world and those countries most often considered to be tax havens.  These agreements provide a framework for collaboration so countries can find out whether or not their citizens are avoiding paying tax by putting their money in offshore accounts.  I read an interesting article about a recent case between Norway and Jersey, where the Royal Court of Jersey has rejected an appeal on behalf of Berge Gerdt Larse, a Norwegian businessman, regarding an information request the Norwegian government has made under the TIEA signed with Jersey in 2008.  It's thought that this case could set an important precedent for the implementation of other TIEAs around the world.

International co-operation on taxation

Being branded as a tax haven could, ultimately, be bad for business and places like Jersey have been co-operating with the international community, vis-a-vis regularising the situation of international investments in the island.  The case of Starbucks in the UK shows that there is increasing pressure for companies to be 'ethical' when it comes to paying their taxes - ultimately they could lose a lot of business, if customers perceive an unacceptable level of tax injustice.  The Larse/Norwegian case shows increased transparency for wealthy individuals also and, perhaps, signals the beginning of the end of 'banking secrecy' that epitomises many of the world's banking havens.

By contrast, Switzerland, which prides itself on 'discretion' has yet to sign any TIEAs and the Swiss parliament's lower house has recently rejected proposed amendments to the country's secrecy laws, which could see Swiss banks being prosecuted by the US for aiding tax evasion.  The US is one of only two countries in the world (the other is Eritrea) which obliges its citizens to pay taxes, regardless of where they actually live. 

Image credits:

All images have been shared by flickr members, David Holt London, tigerweet and Alex Fearn - thanks to David, Sarah and Alex for sharing these images with us using the Creative Commons license. 

Jersey - Pâl'-ou l'Jèrriais?

Something I didn't know about Jersey and, indeed, the other Channel Islands, is that they have their own languages, which are considered to be dialects of Norman French and, therefore, not closely related to English.  In Jersey, the Norman language is known as Jèrriais and this was regularly spoken in Jersey until the 1950's, when the last monolingual speakers died and English finally took over.  It's now estimated that less than 2,000 people speak Jèrriais as a native language - although it still has an important ceremonial role in Jersey's political and legal systems.

The World's 'big' languages

Unfortunately, the experience of Jersey is pretty typical in a constantly globalising world.  The reality of the early 21st century is that more than 50% of the world's population speaks one of the top 24 languages (ie. those with more than 50 million speakers).  We've met some of these already when I blogged about Chinese linguistics in December last year: Mandarin, Wu and Yue (Cantonese) have around 987 million speakers between them.  Then there are the big languages of South Asia: Hindi, Bengali, Lanhda (which I'd never heard of), Telugu, Marathi, Tamil and Urdu.  The other big East Asian languages include: Japanese, Javanese, Vietnamese, Korean, and Malay.  The big languages of the Middle East are: Arabic, Persian and Turkish.  Finally, the big European languages are: Spanish, English, Portuguese, Russian, German and French.

Sign in English and Jèrriais by Man Vyi

Interestingly, not a single language originating in sub-Saharan Africa, Australia/Pacific or the Americas has made it onto this list and I think this says a lot about the role language has to play in colonisation.  The biggest language from sub-Saharan Africa is probably Hausa, which has 40 million native speakers - you can read more about African linguistics in my blog post from 2010.  The biggest American language is Quechua, which has about 7 million native speakers in Peru and Bolivia.  Most Australian languages are endangered or extinct and you'll probably find more Russian or Mandarin speakers in Australia, than speakers of native Australian languages!

Countries with the greatest number of 'endangered' languages

For most other languages, survival into the 21st century and beyond will be something of a challenge.  UNESCO has published an interesting online map of endangered languages including Jèrriais, which you can visit by clicking on the following link.  I looked at the 'hotspots' for endangered languages around the world and it's surely no coincidence that the countries where languages are most in danger of extinction are also those where the 'big' languages listed above are spoken - according to UNESCO's map, the ten countries with most endangered languages are:

India (197)
The United States (191)
Brazil (190)
Indonesia (146)
China (144)

Many sign posts are written in Jèrriais, photo from Man vyi

Mexico (143)
Russian Federation (131)
Australia (108)
Papua New Guinea (98)
Columbia (68)

Exactly how endangered?

UNESCO employs a useful system of categorisation, to describe exactly how endangered a language is considered to be.  They define the following five main categories:


Vulnerable - most children speak the language, but it may be restricted to certain domains (e.g., home)
Definitely endangered - children no longer learn the language as mother tongue in the home
Severely endangered - the language is spoken by grandparents and older generations; while the parent generation may understand it, they do not speak it to children or among themselves
Critically endangered - the youngest speakers are grandparents and older, and they speak the language partially and infrequently
Extinct - there are no native speakers left

Under this categorisation, Jèrriais is considered to be severely endangered, as is the language of Guernsey, Dgernesiais.  Auregnais, the language of Alderney, is already considered to be extinct.

So what can we do about it?

Coming from Ireland, I feel quite passionate about language revitalisation.  There have been some successful attempts to revitalise languages, probably the most famous example being Modern Hebrew as well as the Celtic languages, which are receiving a lot of government-level support.

Unfortunately, despite all of the hard work people having been doing to revive the Irish language, it seems to be constantly in decline and is considered by UNESCO to be definitely endangered, whereas neighbouring Welsh is merely vulnerable and the revitalisation of Welsh in recent years has been fairly successful. 

Losing a language means losing part of the cultural richness of the human experience and it's a real shame to see the world's big languages take over, even if one of them, English, is my mother tongue.  My partner's mother tongue is Russian, but his people speak Kalmyk, which is definitely endangered, just like Irish, so we are very much part of this shift in language use.  I can't help but wonder how many of these languages will be left in 100 years time?

On a more positive note, I'm going to leave you with a link for the Endangered Languages project - it's great to know that there are people out there who are willing to advocate for linguistic diversity in the 21st century.

I'll also leave you with a video of Jersey poet Michael Vaûtchi, reading a poem in his native Jèrriais. 

 

Image credits:

Both images have been released into the public domain by Man vyi, who has shared lots of images of Jersey on Wikimedia Commons - thanks Man vyi for sharing these images with us. 

Dorset - the Final Word

After almost two months, it's time to say goodbye to my blog posts about Dorset.  It's been an interesting learning journey and also a busy time in my non-cyber life, as I've taken on a new role at work and that has kept me pretty busy (not to mention summer holidays!).

A summary of the themes

This has been my first series of blog posts about England, but hopefully it won't be my last.  Over the past couple of months, I've learned about England's Celtic heritage and the Celtic tribe, Durotriges who gave Dorset its name.  I learned a lot about Iguanadons and other 'remarkable creatures' such as Mary Anning, Dorset's most famous palaeontologist.  I learned about the different types of Doom Metal and Dorset's Wizards of Wimborne.  I learned how to make traditional Dorsetshire food, such as Tea Bread and Lyme Bay Fish pie.  I rediscovered Thomas Hardy's work and read Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach - a truly beautiful novel.  I also learned about Dorset's radical past and the Tolpuddle Martyrs.

Tools for research

I read several books as part of my research for Dorset:

Some of the books I read as part of my research

Tracey Chevalier's Remarkable Creatures.  Ian McEwan's On Chesil Beach. (Extracts from) Thomas Hardy's Tess of the d'Urbervilles. (Chapters from) Patricia Ingham's Author's in Context: Thomas Hardy.  (The first few chapters of) Henry Pelling's A History of British Trade Unionism and, just for the fun of it, I also read PD James', The Black Tower, which is set in Dorset!

I also watched the following movies:

Bill Douglas' Comrades (1986), Roman Polanski's Tess (1979), John Schlesinger's Far from the Madding Crowd (1967), Michael Winterbottom's Jude (1996), Michael Winterbottom's Trishna (2011), which I saw at the cinema and Karel Reisz's The French Lieutenant's Woman (1981), which is also set in Dorset.  I'm a big fan of John Fowles, actually and it's a shame I didn't have more time to explore his work, but I try to concentrate on writers etc that are less familiar to me (eg. PD James).

Other Themes

As usual, there were other themes that I was interested in exploring - these were:

The history of the Olympic torch, as this passed through Dorset when I was researching for this blog.
The influence of the Sea on human culture.
The chalk figures on the hillside, like the giant at Cerne Abbas.
The concept of 'Fool's gold'
George III's fascination with Weymouth
The work of William Barnes
Smuggling
Brownsea Island and the scout movement
The Dorset culture of northern Canada

Dinner party trivia

And here are is some Dorset trivia which you can use to impress people at dinner parties!

A view of Portland by me

People on the Isle of Portland are superstitious about rabbits, to the point that they won't even use the word 'rabbit' when talking about them - instead they call them 'underground mutton' or 'long-eared furry things'.  Apologies to anyone on Portland who might be reading this blog post!

Sir Christopher Wren used around 6 million tonnes of white Portland stone, to rebuild London, after the Great Fire in 1666.

The Isle of Portland was at the forefront of railway development, as rails were used to transport stone and people from sea level to the top of Portland Hill.

Bermuda was once known as The Somers' Isles after its founder, Sir George Somers, who came from Lyme Regis.  Lyme Regis is twinned with Bermuda's capital, St. George's.

In the 1780's, Lyme Regis was equivalent in size and importance to Liverpool.

The Soviet spy, Anthony Blunt, was born in Bournemouth.

One of the first recorded Viking raids on England, happened in Dorset.  Dorset is also believed to have been the entry-point to England for the Black Death, coming from mainland Europe.

Sailing off the Dorset coast by me

Over half of Dorset is designated as an 'area of outstanding beauty' and three-quarters of the Dorset coast is a UNESCO world-heritage site!

There are no motorways in Dorset.

Poole harbour is one of the world's largest natural harbours - it used to be a river valley, until water levels rose, around 6,000 years ago.

37,500 people work in Dorset's thriving tourism industry.

The Bournemouth Symphony orchestra was founded in 1893.

The writer, John le Carre, was born in Poole.

The Final word

Writing this blog always gives me the opportunity to explore new things and read writers that I would never had read otherwise.  PD James is a writer I wouldn't normally read, purely because of her genre, which is 'detective fiction', something I rarely indulge in!  I'm not very good at whodunnits, as I usually fall for the most obvious red herrings and don't have the intuitive skills required to solve whatever mystery is at hand.

I enjoyed reading PD James' The Black Tower and she seems to be a very good writer of detective fiction.  If this month's Bournemouth Daily Echo (Dorset Police clear-up rate one of the worst in the UK), is anything to go by, the characters in PD James' novel wouldn't have had much help from the local Dorset police!

Perhaps there is less crime in Dorset than in other parts of the country?  Or perhaps, it's no coincidence that crime detection rates are falling at a time when the county's police force is faced with cut-backs.  It's a far-cry from Thomas Hardy's idyll of rural England but, I guess, even Dorset will have to deal with the challenges of 21st-century life!

Image credits:

All photos were taken by me - please feel free to re-use them under the Creative Commons license:

Attribution (especially to this blog)
Share-alike
Non-commercial

Yemen - Socotra, the island of blissful Sorcerers

It's interesting that each and every country/place I've researched about for this blog has a region or an area that is very much 'at the edge' of that country/place's culture.  Whether it's Bayan-Olgii, the Kazakh-speaking western province of Mongolia, or Limburg in the southern Netherlands, Oklahoma has its panhandle and Xinjiang/Uyghuristan has the Ili Valley.  Even Hong Kong has its New Territories.  For Yemen, the island of Socotra is the part that doesn't quite fit in - not really Yemeni, it's closer to Somalia and Africa than to Yemen.

Kent in the Indian ocean

Socotra Landscape by Stefan Geens

With a population of 42,000, Socotra is the same size as Kent in England (or Long Island, for my North American readers).  It's an incredibly isolated place, being cut off from the rest of the world for six months of the year by ferocious sea storms that make it too perilous to sail there.  No doubt, in our age of air travel, it's more accessible than ever, but Socotra retains an aura of mystery - it's an island of Makolis (or sorcerers), a windswept outpost in the Indian ocean, where witch-trials continued well into the 20th century. Socotra is far from the mountains of Sana'a and the baking desert sands of the Hadramawt. 

The Island of Bliss

The name 'Socotra' is believed to have come from the Sanskrit for 'Island of Bliss', dvipa sukhadhara, which the Ancient Greeks called dioskouridou.  Perhaps not surprisingly, the people of Socotra speak their own language, Soqotri, which is one of the oldest surviving South Arabian languages, related to Arabic, but linguistically closer to the languages of Ethiopia.  I guess it's the equivalent of Icelandic for us, ie. a language that has existed in relative isolation for a long time, which means it has preserved some archaic words and structures that the mainland languages have since lost. 

Blood from the Dragon's Tree

Dragon's Blood Trees by Stefan Geens

One thing you might already know about Socotra and, again hardly suprising, considering its isolation from the continent land masses, is that it has incredibly high levels of biodiversity.  More than a third of Socotra's plant species are endemic, ie. they're not found anywhere else on Earth.  This is similar to the situation in other isolated island groups, eg. Hawaii, the Galapagos Islands and Madagascar.  Like those other island groups, Socotra has been recognised as a UNESCO Natural World Heritage site.  I've come across UNESCO's work again and again, as I've been researching this blog and I really love what they're doing to help preserve many beautiful sites around the world. 

It's also quite interesting that, despite the diversity of plant life in Socotra, the only mammal that is native to the island is the bat!  Perhaps one of the most interesting trees on Socotra (and an unofficial symbol of the island) is the Dragon's Blood tree.  Not only does it have an interesting umbrella-like shape, but it also has red sap, believed in ancient times to be the blood of a dragon.  Dragon's blood was seen as a cure for many ailments and in the 18th-century, dragon's blood resin was exported to Italy, where it was used as a varnish for violins. 

A very 16th-century Crusade

Crabs on Qansaliyah beach by Stefan Geens

Perhaps it was Marco Polo who started the rumours about a 'lost' Christian tribe living on Socotra and when the Portuguese arrived in the Indian ocean in the early 16th century, they showed a brief interest in Socotra as a stopping point on the way to India. They also had a religious objective in mind, ie. to liberate their supposed 'fellow Christians' from the tyranny of their Islamic overlords.  The British also took an interest in Socotra and I can see why, as an island nation, other islands have always been an attractive subject for the British crown (eg, the Caribbean islands, New Zealand and Hong Kong. Even Aden is an island!). 

Eco-tourism on Socotra

Fish for dinner in Hadiboh by Stefan Geens

Modern Socotra seems as oddly out of the place as it has ever been.  For a poor country like Yemen, the possible implications of an eco-tourist industry on Socotra must seem very promising, far away from the civil strife of the Arab spring.  I guess isolation has its up-side!  Even more isolated than the main island of Socotra are the three smaller islands, Darsa, Samha and Abd al Kuri.  There is something very revealing by looking at a country like Yemen from the point of view of one its most obscure corners.  I would certainly love to visit Socotra, as well as mainland Yemen, when the political situation calms down. It sounds like an incredibly exciting destination, with a lot to offer the curious traveller!



Image credits:

All images accompanying this blog post were taken from Stefan Geen's photostream on Flickr.  Stefan visited Socotra in 2006, when he was living in Beijing, China.  By an interesting quirk of fate, Stefan has also taken lots of photos from Kashgar in Xinjiang/Uyghuristan, which is a place I've also blogged about.  I didn't come across his photos, when I was blogging about Xinjiang/Uyghuristan, but it's well worth having a look at his Chinese photos as well. He's got a very interesting website where you can find out more. 

Thanks Stefan for sharing these wonderful images with us using the Creative Commons License.

 

Veneto - the Rise and Fall of the Most Serene Republic of Venice

When I first moved to Uzbekistan and visited the local history museum, it amazed me to discover a whole timeline of history that I had no idea existed.  It was like a parallel history to the one I had been taught in school, which focused on Europe and Ireland.  Suddenly discovering a whole new set of kings, wars and revolutions, was incredibly bewildering and I'm still not sure I've managed to get my head around the complexity of the history of Central Asia.  I then had a similar experience in Thailand - wars with the Khmer and the Burmese that somehow echoed the turbulent contemporary history of Europe, but happened for reasons that seem somehow unfathomable and involved kings and rulers whose names I find impossible to remember.

Doges, democracy and decadence

With the Veneto, being in Europe, I thought I would have a head start but, oddly, it's been a similar experience.  Until I read Elizabeth Horodowich's excellent overview A Brief History of Venice, I had no idea just how different Venice's history is.  Although it's part of Europe and was affected by and engaged in events that were happening around it, there is a whole parallel world of Doges, democracy and decadence that is often at odds with the history of Europe, as I learned it in school. 

I guess Venice is unique in every way and it should come as no surprise that a city built on water, turned its back on the feudal system of the mainland and built a different kind of society that was surprisingly modern and democratic in appearance.  Comparing the history of mainland Italy with that of Venice, Horodowich notes that Venice's history is shrouded in mystery.  No one can be entirely sure whether or not Venice was indeed the Most Serene Republic with a functioning democracy that engaged its citizens, or whether the reality was a lot more sinister than we imagine. That Venice was some kind of medieval totalitarian state, secretive and repressive to the extent that its darker side has been obscured by the mists of time. 

The Veneto in Roman times

Although there was a region in Roman Italia called Venetia et Histria, the city of Venice didn't exist in Roman times.  As the Roman Empire went into decline, Germanic tribes from the north, most importantly the Lombards, began to take over northern Italy.  The people of the Veneto found themselves at the crossroads of the conflict and raiding, which encouraged many mainland Venetians to get out of the way and seek sanctuary in the islands of the Venetian lagoon, safe from harm and a boat journey away from the marauding tribes.  As Venice turned its back on the chaos of the mainland, it began to build a new civilisation, nominally still under the control of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire with the nearest regional capital being Ravenna. 

It is widely recognised that Venice tended to look east to Constantinople (modern-day Istanbul), rather than west to Rome and I think this is a major factor that led to Venice developing a parallel history to Rome, the rest of Italy and the lands of the Holy Roman Empire, which is now Western Europe.  When Ravenna fell to the Lombards in the 8th century, Venice found itself in the position of being cut off from the Western Roman Empire and many miles away from the Byzantine capital.  From its very early days, Venice nurtured an independent streak that would be characteristic of the republic for the one thousand or so years of its existence.

The Rise of the Venetian Empire

Starting out as an 'island nation', it's hardly surprising that the Venetians became incredible boat-builders.  I'm sure we've all heard of the Atlantic Slave triangle, which brought many West African slaves to the sugar plantations of the Caribbean and North America.  It surprised me to learn that this concept had a precedent in medieval times, where astute traders from Venice, Genoa and Pisa, would take slaves from the Black Sea and, what is, modern-day Russia, bring them to the Middle East, notably Egypt and return to Italy with exotic goods to sell to their Germanic neighbours. 

Venice dominated the spice trade of the Middle Ages.  With protectionist measures that meant the spices they brought back could only be bought or sold in Venice, the city became an incredibly multicultural 'shopping mall' where traders from all around western and northern Europe came to find spices like cinnamon and ginger.  I don't know if it's testament to our mediocre food, but the spice trade was incredibly important to Europe and proved to be the driving force of European expansion in Africa, Asia and the Americas.  For a while Venice had it good and the spice trade brought immense wealth to the city.  Although never particularly concerned about maintaining a land-based empire, the Venetians began to hold onto important trading posts such as Durazzo (Durres in Albania), Crete, Negroponte (Evia in Greece) and Cyprus. 

The role of Venice during the Crusades

The rise of the Franks and Normans in the west and the Seljuk Turks in the east brought about the Crusades, with knights and warriors travelling from Western Europe to recapture the Holy Lands and drive back the growing influence of Islam.  Although the Venetians were more interested in trading peacefully with Muslim tribes, than making war on them, they found themselves in the perfect position to supply the crusading armies, with goods and ships that could transport them to the Middle East. 

By the time of the Fourth Crusade in the early 13th century, the Venetians had managed to convince the Norman and Frankish crusaders to take a detour via Constantinople, then the heart of Orthodox Christianity, to settle some grievances the Venetians had with the Byzantine Empire.  The crusaders ransacked Constantinople, massacring their fellow-Christians and plundering the city's great wealth.  They never made it to the Holy Land during this particular Crusade!

Venetian 'democracy'

One of the reasons for Venice's great success in the early modern period was because of their system of government.  Whilst most European people at this time were landless peasants, who had little direct engagement with government or the decisions of their Kings/leaders, the Venetian doges were elected by a complex lottery voting system that, whilst it didn't involve every citizen of Venice, it did widen the participation of the nobility in the government of the Venetian state.  One doge, Marin Falier, famously tried to usurp power in the 14th century and was publicly beheaded as a grim reminder to future doges that the Venetian people, not the doge, were ultimately responsible for the management of the Venetian state!

Other progressive systems of civic engagement, such as the colleganza form of trading, which encouraged talented individuals to get involved in trading, regardless of their actual wealth and without having a lot of upfront capital, helped Venice thrive and its citizens prosper.  The first ever giro or banking system was used in Venice, as Venetian merchants found that they didn't want to be carrying around large sums of gold.  Venetians were incredibly adept at doing business and turning a profit and its not without good reason that Shakespeare wrote about The Merchant of Venice, rather than The Merchant of Genoa or The Merchant of Pisa. 

Another very obvious factor that helped 'democratise' Venetian society is that the republic's wealth wasn't built on land ownership, as was the case in the rest of medieval Europe, but on trade.  Even small traders could make it in Venetian society and the ideology of the state ensured that Venetian citizens worked together for the greater prosperity of the city.  On the darker side of this were the Signori di Notte, one of Europe's first police forces and the Council of Ten, a secretive group of nobles that took measures to safeguard the security of the state.

Venice in the 14th century

Horodowich argues the decline of the Venetian Republic started as far back as the 14th century.  Three events combined to bring the Venetians to their knees and knock them off their pedestal as a dominant power in southern Europe.  The earthquake of 1348 killed hundreds of people in Venice and coincided with the start of the Black Death.  That both things happened at the same time must have seemed like some kind of vengeance from God.  Venetian and Genoese ships brought rats carrying fleas infected with the bubonic plague back to Europe from Caffa (modern-day Azov in Russia), where the Venetians and Genoese had (uncustomarily) united to fight against the Tatars of the Crimea and the Don. 

An estimated 500-600 people died every day in Venice in the summer of 1348 and the city saw it's population fall by around 50%.  Fifty-five of Venice's patrician families were wiped out by the Black Death.

The third major disaster was the War of Choggia (1378-1381), which saw Genoese fleets occupy the Adriatic and was the closest Venice had ever come to being captured by an invading army. 

The Advent of a New World order

In the 15th and 16th centuries three further factors contributed to the decline of Venice, namely:

- the fall of Constantinople to the Turks (1453) and the subsequent loss of Venetian territories in the eastern Mediterranean, including Cyprus in 1570 and their beloved Crete (although not until 1669 and after a 22-year siege, possibly the longest siege in history!)
- The growing influence of the Portuguese and the fact that they had found an alternative sea route to India. At first the Venetians weren't concerned about Portugal's growing influence on trade and they failed to recognise the significance of the 'New World' and the shift in global power to the West and North of Europe.
- the battle of Agnadello curtailed Venice's growing territorial ambitions in northern Italy.  It was a decisive defeat of Venetian troops by the combined armies of the League of Cambrai, an alliance of European countries that wished to break the power of the Venetian Republic, for once and for all.  In his book, The Prince, Machiavelli famously stated that in one day, the Venetians had "lost what it had taken them eight hundred years' exertion to conquer". 

Decadence and decay

By the early 17th century, Venice had been well and truly surpassed by the emerging powers of France, Britain and the Netherlands.  The independent nature of Venetian society and the great wealth that remained with the many palazzi and noble families, gave Venice a reputation as a place for freedom of expression, decadence and debauchery.  The entire republic was ex-communicated in 1606 and the Jesuits left the city, in a dramatic procession, refusing to live in a city which had fallen foul of Rome.  Venice in the 17th and 18th centuries was a city known for its wildly pagan Carnivale, for its courtesans and Casanova, for its prostitutes who exposed their breasts on the Ponte delle Tette in a effort to discourage Venetian men from engaging in sodomy which was, unsurprisingly, all the rage! 

At a time when the world around them was changing, the Venetians failed to adapt and modernise.  They refused to let English and Dutch ships use the city as a trading port, thereby losing out to Trieste and Ancona.  The Venetian nobility, accustomed to extravagance, continued to spend excessively, despite the decline in trade.  By the end of the 17th century, the city was full of barnabotti, impoverished nobles who'd gambled away vast fortunes and were living on state pensions.  The heavily burdened state began to sell noble titles to wealthy Germans and Spaniards, so that the list of 'official' noble families in the Libro d'Oro became debased by the presence of non-Venetians and the nouveau-riche. 

Napoleon and the destruction of Venice

By the time Napoleon arrived on the scene, Venice was an incredibly weak state teetering on economic collapse.  Before I read Horodowich's book, I had no idea just how much damage Napoleon's army did to Venice.  Just as the Venetians and Crusaders had ransacked Constantinople, the French troops stole, smashed and defiled everything in sight!  Apparently Napoleon hated the decadence of Venice and ordered the destruction of anything containing the Venetian symbol of the winged lion.  By the time Venice was handed over to the Austrians, at the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the French had destroyed approximately 80-90 churches and razed 100 palaces to the ground. 

Venice under Austrian rule was a mere shadow of its former self.  Venetians were living in extreme poverty and, although the Austrians didn't disrespect the city, in the way the French had, neither did they value it, seeing Venice as an unimportant backwater, in their expansive empire.  One thing the Austrians did do was to build a railway from the mainland to Venice, symbolically 'anchoring' the city in a way that confirmed its dependence on the rest of Europe.

Venice in modern times

It's no wonder then that the Venetians welcomed the formation of the Kingdom of Italy in 1861.  When I started researching for this blog, the Irishman in me had decided that Venice was somehow forced into a union with the rest of Italy and that it should somehow still be a free nation.  Whilst I do think it's a real shame that Venice lost its independence after more than 1,000 years, I also now realise that the unification of Italy was a good thing for Venice and helped the city recover some of its former glory.

Of course, the Venice that we know today is one of the Biennale, gondolas, uncontrollable tourism and incredibly expensive real estate.  It's sad that many Venetians can no longer live in their city, which seems to have been transformed into some kind of living museum.  Then there is the concern about rising water levels.  The flood of 1966 devastated the city, contributed to the recognition of Venice as a UNESCO World Heritage Site and highlighted the fragility of this truly historical place, which really isn't like anywhere else on earth. 

Image credits:

The image of the flag of Veneto was provided copyright-free on Wikimedia, the original image having been supplied by wikuser Vajotwo with this derived version being added by wikiuser Flanker - you can see a more detailed description of this image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Veneto.svg

All the images of Venice are from the photostream of flickuser kari_1981 - Kari is a research economist, originally from Bangalore, but now living in Berlin.  You can see his entire series of Venetian photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/kari_1981/sets/72157620826105512/

Thanks kari_1981 for sharing these images with us, using the Creative Commons License. 

Veneto - Benvegnùo!

This is my 100th blogpost on Learning about the World!  It feels quite apt to be starting a new place with this post and I'm really looking forward to learning more about the Veneto in the coming weeks.  I hope you are too!

Veneto is an interesting place in the sense that, although nowadays it's part of Italy, this is only a recent state of affairs and the Veneto, in its former guise - the Venetian Republic - was an independent state for around 1,000 years.  A very powerful state, at that.  It's sort of odd that the Veneto didn't end up existing as a country in its own right in the 20th century and I get the feeling that regional identity is incredibly strong in this 'corner of Italy'.  I'm sure most locals see themselves as Venetians first and Italians second (if at all).

Like neighbouring Lombardy, it's one of the wealthiest Italian regions, famous for its textile and fashion industries, but also made wealthy by the 60 million tourists who visit every year.  Of course, Venice, the Queen of the Adriatic, the City of Masques, the Old Lady of the Lagoon is famous the world over.  It's definitely an iconic city and, like Paris and Athens, is used as a standard for cities the world over.  I used to live in the Venice of the East, Bangkok, but there are other Venices of the East, including Osaka, Udaipur and Basra!  There is also the Venice of the North, St Petersburg or, if you prefer, Amsterdam, Stockholm, Hamburg or even . . . Birmingham?



Piazza San Marco by Scott Ingram

 But the Veneto is not all about Venice, it's also got the Dolomites and Lake Garda, not to mention the UNESCO heritage sites of Verona, Vicenza and Padua.  The region is only slightly smaller than Wales and, perhaps surprisingly, Venice has a relatively small population (about a quarter of a million), which makes it about the same size as Swansea!  For my American readers, the Veneto is about the size of New Jersey and Venice is comparable in size to Newark.  The Veneto is made up of seven provinces, including:

Venice - phenomenally sited in the middle of a lagoon, the city seems to have been built out of desperation, in an attempt to escape the invasions of the Goths from the north of Europe.  The wonder of Venice's existence has inspired artists, writers and myth makers throughout the centuries. 

Verona - on the other hand, has been around since Roman times and was the original 'capital' of the region.  It's famous for its amphitheatre where open-air operas are staged every summer.  It's also the setting for Shakespeare's version of Romeo and Juliet. 

Vicenza - is the industrial heartland of the Veneto.  It's suffered a lot in recent years, due to the decline in the steel and textile industries.  Unemployment is at an all-time high.  Interestingly, Sonia Gandhi was born in the Vicenza region - she met her husband Rajiv whilst she was working as a waitress in Cambridge, where Rajiv was studying engineering. 

Treviso - is the heart of the Veneto's fashion industry and the headquarters of the Benetton Group. 

Padua - is home to one of the world's oldest universities.  It was also the setting for Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.

Rovigo - is in the very south of the Veneto and is a swampy wetland that contains the delta of the River Po.

Belluno - is the mountainous northern province.  It's the most sparsely populated province in the Veneto and is well-know for its production of (eye) glasses.

I visited the Veneto in 2003, spending a few days in Verona, which was an impressive city.  I saw Verdi's Nabucco performed in the Roman amphitheatre, which was one of the most amazing experiences ever!!  I also visited Venice, which was incredibly beautiful, despite the throngs of tourists.  I just happened to be there during the famous Biennale and, although I'm not usually a massive fan of modern art, I found the exhibition fascinating and would love to go back sometime (maybe this year!). 

As usual, I've got some books and movies lined up, I'm definitely going to delve into Opera music and, most of all, I look forward to trying my hand at Venetian cuisine!  I hope you'll join me, as I learn about the Veneto. 

Image credits:

The image of the flag of Veneto was provided copyright-free on Wikimedia, the original image having been supplied by wikuser Vajotwo with this derived version being added by wikiuser Flanker - you can see a more detailed description of this image at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Flag_of_Veneto.svg

I found the amazing image of Piazza San Marco on flickr and this is provided copyright-free by flickruser Scott Ingram Photography - Scott is a self-proclaimed technogeek from Denver, Colorado and has some amazing images on his flickrstream, the most recent being a series of images from Hawaii.  You can visit Scott's flickrstream at http://www.flickr.com/people/scingram/ and you can also visit his website http://www.scottingramphotography.com/

The image of the Provinces of Veneto was taken from Wikimedia Commons.  It was created by Wikiuser NormanEinstein and is distributed using the Creative Commons License.  You can see the description page of this file at http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Provinces_of_Veneto_map.png