CABAL: The Curious History of a Word

The word "cabal" is likely familiar to online gamers. Google it and "Images" and you will get nothing but ads for the game "Cabal." 

Today's QAnon activists use "cabal" to denote a secret global conspiracy against freedom. (Secret to everyone except QAnon members, of course, who possess information the rest of us are ignorant of.) 

The origins of the word "cabal" lie in the distant past. It most likely derives from "Kaballah," which refers to the mystical interpretation of the Hebrew Scriptures. In medieval Christian Europe, "Caballa" or "cabale" came to refer to occult doctrines or secrets. In these contexts it related to mysticism and magic. 

In the 17th century "cabal" developed a wider, mainly political meaning. It came to mean a small group of individuals united in secret to achieve a desired political or economic goal. For many people it became a pejorative term used to denote a devious clique or conspiracy opposed to the general good. 

This usage has survived into modern times. Cabal is often used today to denote a clique, faction, gang, ring, junta, and similar groupings, real or imagined.   

In Britain, "cabal" came into prominent use during the turbulent politics of the late 17th century. Opponents of the "Merry Monarch," King Charles II (1660-1685), accused him of leading a cabal. [Image: Charles II, by Sir Peter Lely]

These accusations are particularly interesting, because at the time (1667-74), the King was governing with the advice of a small band of five ministers, the first letters of whose names could be used to spell out the acronym "CABAL." Opponents of royal policies often referred to them as the "Cabal" or "Cabal Ministry." 

The five members of the Cabal were Sir Thomas Clifford, Lord Arlington, the Duke of Buckingham, Lord Ashley, and Lord Lauderdale. They were signatories to the public Treaty of Dover (1670) that created an alliance with the France of Louis XIV against the Dutch. 

The public treaty acted as a screen for a secret treaty in which Charles promised to convert to Roman Catholicism in return for a French pension of £230,000 a year. Louis promised more money if Charles announced his conversion to the British public, which he wisely never did. Most of the CABAL did not sign and were not aware of the secret treaty.

Some historians argue that the present meaning of the word "cabal" derives from the usage of the term to describe this particular political grouping of the late 1660s -- early1670s. That may be true, although claims that the word itself derives from them is likely a myth. 

PS. A prominent member of the CABAL ministry who did not know of the secret treaty eventually turned against Charles II. In the 1670s, Lord Ashley (Anthony Ashley Cooper, later 1st Earl of Shaftesbury) helped found one of the first British political parties, the Whigs. 

The Whigs posed as defenders of Parliament and Protestantism against what they argued was the King's authoritarian and pro-Catholic tendencies. Charles II's supporters coalesced uneasily into what became the pro-royalist Tory Party. (Image: Lord Ashley, later Lord Shaftesbury)

Ashley was the patron of the philosopher John Locke. He was also one of the founders, or Lords Proprietor, of the colony of Carolina. He and Locke wrote the original blueprint for the colony, The Fundamental Constitutions of Carolina. The names "Ashley", "Cooper," and "Shaftesbury" are found all over the oldest settlement, Charleston, which of course, was named for Charles II. At that time, Charles and Ashley were still on good terms. 

In 1682, fearing arrest for High Treason, Ashley fled to the Netherlands, where he died of an illness the following year. By then, the CABAL Ministry was history, but the political meaning of the term "cabal" lived on and thrives today, for good or ill. 

 

 

Pandemics may be Inevitable: Ignorance is Not

"Migration of man and his maladies is the chief cause of epidemics." Alfred W. Crosby, The Columbian Exchange, 2003

(Image: Romanticized depiction of the arrival of Columbus in the New World)

Alfred Crosby's words were written in connection with the European discovery of the New World. In the wake of the discovery, Europeans began to migrate to the Americas, first a trickle, then a flood, then a tsunami. The same is true for Africans, although they did not come by choice. 

Both Europeans and Africans unknowingly brought their microbes along, unleashing an explosion of diseases in the New World. All suffered, but the indigenous inhabitants suffered most -- indeed catastrophically. It was like being attacked by several deadly pandemics at once. War and enslavement worsened things.

Native Americans were extremely vulnerable to Old World diseases. Having been isolated from the rest of the world for thousands of years, they had no experience with or immunity to a host of Old World infections. 

Smallpox, measles, influenza, pneumonia, and many other diseases killed Native Americans in huge numbers. The microbial invasion wiped out, or nearly wiped out, many Native American cultures. It was perhaps the worst demographic disaster in world history. 

The Europeans and Africans, in contrast, grew in numbers. Unlike Native Americans, they had experience and some levels of immunity to the diseases they carried from their own regions, many of which had been around for centuries or even millennia. They suffered, too, just not as much. The only major disease that the New World gave to the Old is, possibly, syphilis. The disease exchange was heavily one-sided.

Africans were vulnerable to some European diseases, especially respiratory disorders such as pneumonia and tuberculosis. Europeans were vulnerable to some African diseases, especially tropical fevers such as falciparum malaria and yellow fever. Bad as these could be, they did not prevent population growth among the new arrivals.

As Western peoples moved around the globe during the orgy of imperialism in the 19th century, the same epidemiological patterns were repeated. Remote island peoples, for example in the South Pacific, faced an onslaught of western diseases. Westerners in some regions faced disease tsunamis of their own when they moved into Sub-Sharan Africa and parts of South Asia. 

There are many other examples of disease that spread through human migration. In the 14th century, the Second Plague Pandemic  (Black Death) migrated along trade routes such as the Silk Road and pilgrimages routes. Swift Mongol horsemen also played a role in spreading plague as they conquered much of Eurasia.  

The Cholera Pandemics of the 19th century followed a similar pattern. Originating in British India, cholera crept along trade routes and reached Western Europe and the Americas by the early 1830s, sparking panic. 

The Third Plague Pandemic, which began in China in the late 19th century, spread around the world aided by steamships and railroads. It reached San Francisco and Sydney, Australia by 1900. It was especially deadly in India, killing about ten million. (Image: Plague in Sydney, Australia, 1900: rat killing)

The mass movement of millions of soldiers in World War I famously spread the Great Influenza of 1918-20. American troops aboard crowded ships brought the influenza to Europe, where it mutated. Then they brought the more virulent mutation back to the Americas. (Image: Pandemic Incubator: US troopship returning from Europe, 1918)

That is history, ancient history for many of us. Today the world is battling against another virulent disease that has spread in part through the temporary migration we call tourism. Commercial airliners can spread microbes around the globe faster rate than even steamships and railways. 

Unprecedented numbers of people are constantly on the move, fleeing from violence, oppression, and poverty. Human migration into hitherto sparsely populated regions like rain forests and increased contact with wild animals have helped to create new deadly viruses like Ebola, SARS and now Covid-19. Unlike the first two, coronavirus is highly contagious and becoming ever more so as new strains like Delta and Omicron evolve. 

One of the main means of controlling Covid, or at least slowing its spread, is to restrict human migration, a difficult and sometimes inhumane thing to do. Countries can close their borders to prevent both in migration and out migration. Many have, but often too late. 

The perceived economic cost led most countries to avoid such restrictions for too long. Governments have mastered the art of closing the barn door after the horses have left. Economies are crashing anyway. 

"No one could have predicted this" is a common but largely false claim. Epidemiologists and public health experts have been predicting something like this for decades. WHO has been warning for decades that "disease X" will come from nowhere and we must be prepared for it. Even the film industry warned us, if often in an overly sensationalized form. Contagion (2011) was the best of these.

Those who made the predictions had science on their side, and history as well. But who pays attention to science and history nowadays?

The present combination of overpopulation, mass migration, tourism, and destruction of natural habitats makes the coming of more more "disease X's" and pandemics almost inevitable. The changes necessary to reduce their likelihood may be beyond the capabilities of the global systems we  have created, with their emphasis on maximizing GDP at all cost to the planet. 

Pandemics may be inevitable. Humans have the ability to minimize their damage if we learn the lessons that history and science can teach us. Ignorance is not inevitable, but overcoming it is a huge task. It will be especially difficult as long as sections of the media, especially social media, give free reign to the spread of false information and bizarre conspiracy theories.