Divide et impera
Divide et impera ( Latin for divide and rule ) is a phrase (in Latin imperative ); it recommends dividing a group to be defeated or dominated (such as a people) into subgroups with conflicting interests. This is to ensure that the subgroups turn against each other instead of standing united as a group against the common enemy.
In information technology , this strategy is also known as divide-and-conquer .
The idiom is probably not ancient, although the political sociological strategy it describes is very old and z. B. can be recognized without a doubt in Roman foreign policy.
origin
The Latin formulation is partly Niccolò Machiavelli , who in his 1532 book The Prince explains to the Prince Medici how he should exercise his rule, partly also Louis XI. Attributed to France. In conclusion, the origin of this proverb has not yet been clarified.
This maxim was already practiced in the legal organization of the Roman Empire . The individual member states only had contracts with the central power Rome. They were forbidden to conclude contracts among themselves. In addition, Rome ensured that the individual allies were clearly different. The spectrum of valence ranged from the subject, the subiecti , through allies ( foederati ) and allies ( socii ) to legally equal friends of the Roman people (amici populi Romani) who were granted the civitas Romana , Roman citizenship, for their loyalty to the alliance was excellent. Within this tier, the states could rise through good behavior, even to different degrees of self-administration.
According to Prosper Mérimée ( Chronique du règne de Charles IX , 1829, Vorr. P. 7), diviser pour régner ( French for divide in order to rule ) was a maxim of the French king Louis XI. (15th century).
In a later time
Heinrich Heine wrote on January 12, 1842 from Paris about current French politics: "King Philip exercised the maxim of his Macedonian namesake , 'Separate and rule', to the most damaging excess." By this, Philip II of Macedonia (359 -336 BC) had gained dominance over the Greek city-states.
Johann Wolfgang von Goethe reformulated the maxim in proverbial (1814) and added a counter-proposal:
- “Split and command! Proficient word;
Association and direct! Better hoard. "
In recent times it has been pointed out several times that the strategy of the American President Donald Trump uses the old maxim. "In his first two years in office he rarely emphasized the unity, but almost always the dividing," writes Gianluca Wallisch in Der Standard ; in the time titled Daniel-C. Schmidt commented on Trump's media scolding with parts and rule .
See also
Individual evidence
- ^ Joseph Vogt: Das Reich, Festschrift for J. Haller for his 75th birthday. Stuttgart 1940, p. 21ff.
- ↑ Büchmann: Winged words.
- ↑ Heinrich Heine in Lutetia, Chapter XL, January 12, 1842, page 164, in mixed writings , 3 volumes (including confessions, the gods in exile , the goddess Diana, Ludwig Marcus, poems 1853 and 1854, Lutetia. First part and Lutetia . Second part).
- ↑ Power politics à la Donald Trump: Divide and rule , derstandard.de of January 2, 2019
- ↑ Share out and rule , zeit.de of February 17, 2017