Autobiography - The Galindo Group

Ram Galindo THE MAKING OF AN AMERICAN Page 13
to bring tectonic change to European society. And indeed they did. Though we now
perceive that the changes brought by the Spanish Visigoths in their fight to evict the
Moors were glacially slow, the rest of pre-Crusades Europe was literally deep-frozen in
time. Other Europeans were totally isolated and in disarray. For more than three
centuries internecine fighting among feudal lords had been the order of the day. Some
leaders realized that the power necessary to overcome internal conflict could only come
by joining forces with each other. Sometimes, as an un-intended result, such alliances
opened the way to consolidation. Far from devolving power to the people, the
consolidation of smaller fiefdoms concentrated power in the hands of even fewer. This
historical movement, though opposed to our concept of freedom, proved to be critical for
the birth of autonomous, viable nations.
Upon the disaggregation and fading of Charlemagne’s Holy Roman Empire in the late
9 th Century, feudalism in Europe became resurgent again. Processes of consolidation
often gave way to disintegration because the lower nobility was reluctant to give up any
of its powers. More than three centuries after Charlemagne, the Pope’s solution of
taking on a common enemy provided the desired impetus for uninterrupted
consolidation and was the seed for future Renaissance kingdoms. The religious fervor
rekindled by the goal of conquering the Holy Land, and the need to amass a force large
enough to achieve the objective, brought about a new social order. The conditions were
now given to justify greater central powers while at the same time guaranteeing rights to
the noblemen who had to do the fighting. The common man was still in bondage but
freedom was tasted by many more.
Near the outset of the 13 th Century’s turmoil, the knights of England, which at the time
still included parts of France, forced their king to limit his own governing powers.
Although they had their own dreams, they realized a superior lord was necessary for
their common good. It took close to 1,750 years (17.5 centuries) after the Roman
noblemen formed the Roman Republic by exiling their king to arrive at another historical
pivotal point where vassals imposed limits to the rights of their sovereign. The Magna
Carta of 1215 marks the first recorded effort at implementing rules written by the
governed rather than by the governing. It was a new beginning toward having citizen
input in setting the rules-of-the-game, although the citizens were themselves princes
and thus part of the governing class. But at least they respected the integrity of the
kingdom while peacefully forcing their sovereign to accept limits on his power over
them. A potent seed for a new strain of social order harking to the Classical Greece
concepts of democracy was planted.
For more than five centuries Europe had been caught in a seemingly constant struggle
between a social system that allowed elites to keep most of their freedoms and another
where all powers were consolidated in the king. The Magna Carta was a compromise
that allowed a union of both systems, carrying with it the yet unseen seed for the birth of
nations. However, the agreement affected only the nobility. Regardless of the Magna
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