#Balkan slave trade

[worldwide-blackfolk]

Don’t ever think that there weren’t other #slaves; damn near every race on earth was enslaved at one time or another. Yes, we’re more concerned about Blackfolk, but it’s helpful to know otherwise too. Research it, look into Asia and other areas. Mankind will take a society that is a peaceful people and enslave them.

European slaves

See also: Balkan slave trade, Black Sea slave trade, and Bukhara slave trade

Saqaliba is a term used in medieval Arabic sources to refer to Slavs and other peoples of Central, Southern, and Eastern Europe, or in a broad sense to European slaves under Arab Islamic rule.[citation needed]

Through the Middle Ages up until the early modern period,[76] a major source of slaves sent to Muslim lands was Central and Eastern Europe. Slaves of Northwestern Europe were also favored. The slaves captured were sent to Islamic lands like Spain and Egypt through France and Venice. Prague served as a major centre for castration of Slavic captives.[77][78] The Emirate of Bari also served as an important port for trade of such slaves.[79] After the Byzantine Empire and Venice blocked Arab merchants from European ports, Arabs started importing slaves from the Caucasus and Caspian Sea regions, shipping them off as far east as Transoxiana in Central Asia.[80] Despite this, slaves taken in battle or from minor raids in continental Europe remained a steady resource in many regions. The Ottoman Empire used slaves from the Balkans and Eastern Europe. The Janissaries were primarily composed of enslaved Europeans. Slaving raids by Barbary Pirates on the coasts of Western Europe as far as Iceland remained a source of slaves until suppressed in the early 19th century. Common roles filled by European slaves ranged from laborers to concubines, and even soldiers.

Christians became part of harems as slaves in the Balkans and Asia Minor when the Turks invaded. Muslim qadis owned Christian slave girls. Greek girls who were pretty were forced into prostitution after being enslaved to Turks who took all their earnings in the 14th century according to Ibn Battuta.[81]

[alatismeni-theitsa]

Hi,

Can I ask your opinion? There is one YouTuber who is lives Spain and USA and he sounds quite basic. Thing that makes me think is that he says that ottoman and Arab slavers weren't as bad as Atlantic slave trade. Reason for that was because slaves can earn their freedom and their children weren't slaves and after they get free they lived part of society etc. He says that best way to find information treatment of slaves is people who own them. What is your opinion of this? Like I know how Balkans they tattooed girls to keep the safe and captured young boys were convert to islam and rise soldiers.

"that best way to find information treatment of slaves is people who own them." oh, really? Let's go read old WASP's accounts of their Black slaves. I'm sure they will be very reflective of the truth, right? 😂😂 It's all "please look at the perspective of the slaves!" until the slaves are European, apparently.

I think this whole discussion of "Arab slavery wasn't that bad" is a way to minimize an extremely wide and despicable slave trade that lasted for more than A THOUSAND YEARS (and still hasn't ended). In comparison, slavery in America lasted from the 17th to the 19th century. (400 years if we are generous)

Also, I'm sure they would change their tune once they learned that "Brown" and "Black" people too were taken as slaves in this slave-trade. Especially "Black" people were taken a lot and in rural areas they were forced to work in the hardest of conditions, often not living more than 5 years.

I will link videos below that mention all the countries where slaves were taken from, reviewed by Black African women. But I will focus here on Europe because that's what USians have in mind when they say "it wasn't that bad".

Whole villages were taken. Villages. For centuries on end. The sheer amount of people who were taken is scary. We are talking about large populations that changed the genetic makeup of certain areas. And we have veeery few accounts of these people earning their freedom. Just because they legally could, it doesn't mean their "masters" let them.

Families were separated. They were killed when they were trying to escape. They could be beaten and lashed at any moment, for any minor inconvenience they created for their "lord". Yes, there were house slaves, too, like in transatlantic slavery, but they were also made to work under extreme conditions (e.g. extreme heat). They were working in plantations and in mining, things that the free people wouldn't do themselves.

They were castrated. They were raped and often carried the child of their rapists. Through these rapes, many children were born and mothers tried to hush this fact and hide it from future generations. Being seen as an "exotic commodity" isn't the flex these people think it is. Being a "white breeding mare" the pirates went all the way to Norway to capture, isn't a flex.

A White woman cost higher than a Black woman (racial discrimination against Black people that spread in other areas too) but that meant that European women were hunted down intensely and they had almost no chance of escaping captivity through ransom. It was more profitable to be sold, than to be returned with a ransom paid by their families or foreign countries. Arabs "preferred" non-Black slaves, and so many non-Black slaves were taken for many centuries. A double-edged sword, because you don't exactly want a slaver to "prefer" your "race" for any reason.

And if you think that highly sought enslaved women in the "entertainment" industry weren't frequently abused or raped, you can look at the abuse numbers of free women in the entertainment industry today...

People born from rape during slavery were much more than we think. Having to "ruin yourself" with tattoos (according to your tradition) and raise your child as another gender, speaks volumes of the lengths people went to avoid a very frequent phenomenon. The Greek revolution against the Ottomans clearly stated "we don't want to be taken as slaves anymore! We prefer one hour of freedom over 40 years of slavery!" In many cases, the slaves were outright called "chattel"!

Taking the male population as children is also looked by the outsiders as "good" because "they lived in good conditions and they were educated" but please go tell that to the mothers who never saw their children again. These children were also stripped of their culture and religion and language, and were often employed to oppress and kill their own people. Many Balkan countries have songs about this phenomenon.

This slave-trade was totally legal and acceptable within the Ottoman and Arab empires but it was also pirating activity that supplied the slave traders. It was mostly the Beber nations but many Africans, and West Asians and Arabs in the Arab peninsula benefited from it. They often took part in the "stealing people" operations. For example, the most exposure to Black people Greeks had was when they saw them as pirates in Arab ships. That's why the slur for a Black person in Greece historically is basically "Arab".

Europeans were building WALLS toward the sea to prevent these attacks. (Ironically, some were built by the same government that took their subjects as slaves) Thessaloniki had these walls, for example. Like, I'm not sure if the USians who often compare the slave trades ever thought of having a wall towards the sea as a normal thing. Some European nations still have sayings like "there are no Moors at the coast" as another way to say "all is safe". That's how much the trauma has stuck.

In the video linked below, there's also mentioned a revolt towards an Ottoman leader because "why won't you let us have slaves from Europe??" Does this conflict ring a bell, fellow US-ian friends? 😂

European nations and the US had created TREATIES with African states (which didn't stop the attacks in many cases) as an effort to basically say "ok, stop taking our people! we will pay you!" The amounts paid were extravagant but they were still small in comparison to how many people (and profit lol) would be lost otherwise.

There were a few cases where a slave could free themselves in the Arab slave trade but this was the case in the American slave trade too! Legally slaves in the Americas could be freed if their master wanted it, if they paid off their master, or if they were illegally enslaved. They could also have court cases to win their freedom, or serve in the military in exchange for freedom. Some were allowed to have side businesses and earn their own money (and eventually pay for their freedom).

We know there were such cases but, as I mentioned above, just because it is the law, it doesn't mean that it happened a lot.

An American would tell you "noo! Despite some legal protections it was still horrible!" and I'm asking, why don't you say this for the millions and millions of slaves in the Arab slave trade when it comes to laws VS actual treatment?

"their children (the children of slaves) weren't slaves". The recorded history shows that they usually were slaves, though. A minority, if lucky enough, could gain freedom while being born a slave. But slaves were often lumped together in certain areas so they had children with other slaves. And even children by free men often were considered slaves, unless the free male master decided to recognize them.

Just because it isn't Louisiana weather and just because the slaves (usually) didn't die on the way to their destination, it doesn't make it less atrocious. There was a reason our traditions speak of people killing themselves before they could get captured into slavery.

Like a gay Greek man said the other day "we are not supposed to be thankful just because you're not dragging us on the streets and stoning us". The laws saying "Provide shelter, and healthcare and don't mistreat your slaves" doesn't mean this was followed. "Shelter" could be a dirty shed. "Medical attention" could be splashing some water on the wounds from the lashing. "Don't overwork them" could be "I work them too much but not to death, so it doesn't count."

The video speaks more about the white slave-trade of US people but it's good to note how this looks "mild" (for lack of a better word) to what was happening in Europe. I'm not saying this as "these slaves had it better compared to the European ones". No. I'm simply saying that the danger and frequency were much larger for European people, mainly those who lived in coastal nations.

This video focuses on other areas, mainly in Africa, where slaves were frequently taken from.

[pogasssm]

i’ve done a lot of self reflection and i’ve come to the realization that im not racist to all white people, i like the spicy whites

[balkanradfem]

So... I'm about to write something messed up, that I learned today and I'm freaking out. If you're from balkan and you knew this please message me and explain how.

I was on wikipedia, reading the page 'Human' because I was curious what it said, and honestly that article is unhinged and sounds copied from an alien textbook. It goes over the history of human development and at one point starts going over slavery and I accidentally clicked on 'atlantic slave trade'. Since the page was open, I thought, why not learn more about this, always good to know about history of slavery since it set the world up into what it is today.

So I am reading, and it explains how big empires relied on slaves to produce sugar, cotton, and other commodities, and at first trafficked and sold people from Africa for this, but then also incorporated religion as a judgment of who can be a slave. So they weren't supposed to enslave people of their own religion, but could enslave someone they believed to be a heretic. Catholics were enslaving orthodox christians and muslims could enslave shia muslims.

I am reading this and thinking how religion is even more evil than I originally thought and this is disgusting and then I read the words 'balkan slave trade' and I'm just ????. Like what do you mean. I know I havent paid attention in history but come on. That I would surely remember?

So I click it, and find out. In 14th century, balkans were pagans, and there was also 'Bogomilism' religion which meant 'dear to god' and it was anti church, gnostic practice that went against christian hierarchy. Since balkan was on the religious borders of christianity and islam, they were allowed to be taken slaves and were trafficked via port in Dubrovnik. The pagan religion of balkan was the confirmation of their slave status, and Bosnians were most aggressively targeted. Women were trafficked to be house help in Italy, while males were turned Egyptian soldiers. The practice stopped when Ottoman empire claimed balkan in 15th century at which point the slave trade was absorbed into the ottoman slave trade.

I've never even heard of any of that before. I'be been mad about destructiom of pagan religion for years but they actually enslaved and trafficked pagans? I didn't know. 

Then I wondered why I didn't know, and asked wikipedia to show me the same article in croatian language. It didn't exist. In fact, the article only existed in english language. I then googled 'balkan slave trade' in croatian. Zero results. Nothing. It wasn't that I didn't pay attention, there are no sources about this written in my language!

We just DON'T TALK ABOUT THIS??!!

Was the only way for me to find out a miniscule chance I stumble on it accidentally on wikipedia? I need more info. Who knew about this and why is it hidden. I need to know everything. I want to understand why things are the way they are. 

[trenchgardens-ooc-ooc-ooc-ooc]

damn this cracker is fire 🔥🔥🔥🗣

Look at rastkos new horns

[strawhatsufi]

me: tattooing predates the slavic migration in the balkans

least racist jugoslav: OH SO YOU SUPPORT THE OTTOMAN SLAVE TRADE???? YOU SUPPORT TURKS IN WOMENS SPACES?????

[beardedmrbean]

[Huey Zoomer Anon]

You the whole attacks on Jewish people…tbh there was several signs the left never gave a damn about indigenous or marginalized people.

Shall I use Woman King as example?

“Oh Hollywood finally using a proper African kingdom and not the Pan Africa bs that interesting- African Americans to the Dahomey is WHAT?!”

The thing that piss me off the most that a bunch of white people knew that shit vs me who descended from the victims of the Dahomey slave trade

Also how many African Americans education professors knew about the Dahomey for decades but purposefully left that out in our curriculum?

Also yes I know the Yoruba tribe (the primarily genome of African American diaspora) had an empire and slave system too. We are all descendants of murderers and thieves

Also I heard the Bantu tribes are second more common genome in my people disporia, though more common in like Louisiana. Didn’t the Bantu create the Mali Empire?

There a creole/Manu masa joke somewhere…

But thing is that the left idea for indigenous is the Hollywood Stone Age noble savage. Because indigenous people can’t modernize themselves to contemporary times?

Wait I think I hear fuckton of tribes in the americas, India, Asia, and Africa screaming in rage.

Well at least a good chunk of Jewish people prepared themselves for when the world turns against them for round #27421973135852197324752247744842!

Ugh they gave the world so many gifts despite the pain humanity inflicted upon them. Yet still the world still prefer weeping for the dead Jews and despise those who are still alive

You the whole attacks on Jewish people…tbh there was several signs the left never gave a damn about indigenous or marginalized people.

Dakota access pipeline protest, didn't want a oil pipeline because it would polloute.

Which even if they hadn't trashed area they're dumb anyhow, the oil is gonna get moved, without the pipeline it's getting moved by truck which not only pollutes more it also costs more in the end.

Also how many African Americans education professors knew about the Dahomey for decades but purposefully left that out in our curriculum?

Depending on the level they're teaching at it could go from very few of them to most of them, I'd hope some of the college ones would have included the whole thing but not sure how much that hope is worth at all.

Wonder what the 'middle eastern studies' Profs in colleges taught about all that too, there's obscenely wide gap in the high and low estimates of number of black African slaves that were brought into the area through the Arabic slave trade, nobody really kept records of the numbers there like they did with the trans Atlantic slave trade.

Arabic one ran longer and in all likelihood had a way higher number than the one bringing them here to the Americas, that and them raiding the european coast to pick slaves up or the stealing children from their parents in the Balkans as a form of a tax and then forcing them to fight in the sultan's army.

Also yes I know the Yoruba tribe (the primarily genome of African American diaspora) had an empire and slave system too. We are all descendants of murderers and thieves

Sooner folks accept that the sooner we can move forward more as a species.

Also I heard the Bantu tribes are second more common genome in my people disporia, though more common in like Louisiana. Didn’t the Bantu create the Mali Empire? There a creole/Manu masa joke somewhere…

I don't know about that one so I couldn't say,

But thing is that the left idea for indigenous is the Hollywood Stone Age noble savage. Because indigenous people can’t modernize themselves to contemporary times?

Whole thing is wild because I see places all over the world where they engage in some traditional celebration with all the trappings including food and dress and activities and all that good shit and then when that's all done they return to current year.

Culture and history celebrated while still remaining in current year

I hate all the noble savage crap.

Well at least a good chunk of Jewish people prepared themselves for when the world turns against them for round #27421973135852197324752247744842!

Ya, there's a whole 'we've got nowhere left to go' mentality added into the 'this is our homeland' one they've got that's got them constantly on their guard and in a state of readiness.

Ugh they gave the world so many gifts despite the pain humanity inflicted upon them. Yet still the world still prefer weeping for the dead Jews and despise those who are still alive

It really does feel that way at times for sure.

Wonder what the name for a prejudice like that is, nit just Jewish people it happens with after all.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Keith Woods

Published: Jul 2, 2023

A look at slavery outside of the West

It has become popular to blame White people for slavery, to the point that many actually believe slavery was invented by or exclusively practiced by Europeans.

But the history of slavery outside the West is far more brutal.

The Arab slave trade emerged in the 7th century, 10 centuries before the Atlantic slave trade

Arabs sold Africans to the Middle East for a variety of jobs such as domestic work or harem guards - castrating male slaves was common, causing over half of males to bleed to death

The Arab slave trade was particularly brutal: it's estimated that 3/4 captured slaves died before they reached the market for sale

Historians estimate that between 10 and 18 million people were enslaved by Arab slave traders, including women and children taken as concubines.

Arabs did not create the slave trade out of nothing, in fact, enslaving conquered tribes was already common practice in Central Africa when they arrived.

The West African Songhai Empire relied heavily on captured slaves in all levels of society, even as soldiers.

Africans themselves also played a large role in facilitating the trans-Atlantic slave trade.

African tribes conducted raids on rival groups to provide slaves for sale. African middlemen facilitated trade between European traders and African suppliers.

The Arabs also had a slave trade in Europe. Estimates are that up to 1.25 million Europeans were enslaved by Barbary pirates, who would raid villages in coastal countries like Italy, France, England and Ireland, bringing them to North Africa for sale.

In some cases entire villages would be captured, such as the Irish coastal village of Baltimore, entirely raided in 1631.

These slaves faced a brutal future, engaging in hard labour or sexual servitude, and spending nights hot and overcrowded prisons called bagnios.

Many slaves captured by Barbary pirates were sold eastwards into the Ottoman Empire. Slavery was central to the Ottoman Empire, most towns had dedicated slavery markets called Yesirs.

Slaves came from Africa, the Caucasus, the Balkans and Eastern & Southern Europe.

Sexual slavery was a big part of Ottoman society. Slavic women were popular slaves, and Köçeks became a popular source of entertainment in the 19th century:

These were young boys, usually from European backgrounds, who were circumcised, cross-dressed and trained as dancers.

Hereditrary slavery is recorded in China dating back to the Xia Dynasty in 2100 BC. Africans purchased on the Silk Road were used as a sign of wealth.

After Chinese law began to treat women as property around 1000AD it was common to sell daughters and sisters into slavery.

The Mongols enslaves tens of thousands of Chinese as punishment for resistance.

In the post-Mongol Ming Dynasty, thousands of slaves were employed to do bureaucratic jobs for the government, and rich families also employed thousands of slaves to perform menial labour.

Slavery was common in American civilizations like the Aztec and Maya

Among the Aztecs, slavery was a punishment for a variety of crimes or even failure to pay taxes. Husbands and wives sold each other in times of economic hardship. Slaves were identified by wooden collars.

Slavery was also common practice in the civilizations of South-East Asia.

The Khmer Empire had a massive slave class that did much of the work building monuments like Angkor Wat. Historians estimate 25-35% of the population of Thailand/Burma were slaves in the 17th century.

Slavery also existed among Native American tribes. Slavery was common practice among Northwest tribes like the Tlingit, for whom one third of their population during the mid-1800s were slaves.

Various tribes practiced debt-slavery and enslaved captives of other tribes.

The only difference between these cases of slavery and that practiced by Europeans is that Europeans abolished slavery on humanitarian grounds, and spread this across the globe.

The intense focus on the White role in slavery is a product of widespread Anti-White animus.

==

American exceptionalism comes in two varieties: "we're exceptionally virtuous," and "we're exceptionally evil."

Both rely on lying about or being ignorant of history.

https://www.nationsreportcard.gov/dashboards/schools_dashboard.aspx

And that's just American history. Can you imagine world history?

[magnoliamyrrh]

the thing is to be very clear too i don't mean this in any sort of "islam is the only religion or culture or etc which has some sort of particular issue with this" way. at all

the very very very old ancestors of my people came to the balkans from most likely central asia and mixed with the indigenous population. they were patriatchal, and practiced polygamy, and the idea was that powerful men needed like at least ten wives to be satisfied. this is as far back as my peoples history can be traced, and women were still treated like property of men and sex-things. and after that? well, centuries on end of women and girls being seen as property to be traded and sold, sex slaves, bridal kidnapping, child marriages, domestic abuse and rape being common, etc. christianity brought its own flavour. islam broutht its own flavour. but. like. there are parts of the world which can, because they werent patriarchies. but i really can't blame either christianity or islam for the patriarchal system my people have held and the endless crap endured

like. its often painted as this so thats why im saying it. islam isnt some sort of unique thing in its history twoards these sort of things. men taking girls as child brides and sex slaves and everything else that surrounds this, is very much a cross-cultural, historical, very widespread issue among humans

[rose-teeth]

it drives me so. incredibly insane reading western anthropological studies about "sex work" prostitution in western europe, it truly does, because 99% of them are written from this god forsaken postmodern narrative

nevermind the cruelty and dishonesty in them so often //barely// bringing up the poverty in the balkans, and that its not just our women being trafficked and horribly exploited but our men as well. nevermind the dishonesty in the idea that this mass migration is somehow a "choice" and whatnot. nevermind that noone wants to point out that economically&racially there is something incredibly fucked abt the dynamic of the entire situation, us being hated by the westerners while our cheap or alltogether uplayed labour keeps western europe running, while in many brothels its ~/+80% romanian and bulgarian/other balkan women. nevermind that this whole choice narrative is not only privileged but it just leads to incredibly lacking science

but. i find it. truly vile and disgusting that these "social scientists" genuinely do not give a single shit about our women, not at all, not even with 0.5% heart and soul. truly downright morally bankrupt and just. disgusting.

how the fuck can you even write this shit. and completely ignore and not bring up the undeniable massive sex slave trade of balkan children that's being directly fuled by the legalization of "sex work." how can you not bring up that the sex traffickers who "help women migrate for legitimate sex work" are th exact same ones who traffick minor girls and produce child pornography. how can you not bring up and care at all that so many already-traumatized refuggee women and girls are being dragged into this fucking nightmare all the time

you know HOW many cases there are of romanian, moldovan, balkan women being sex trafficked? sexually enslaved? tortured in every god awful unimaginable way? having bar codes and numbers tattooed and branded on their skin?? how many cases there are of balkan girls under 17 being raped several times, sold several times, tortured, even killed? how in romania you cant watch the news without hearing of more and more of our minor girls and women being rescued from some other horrific sexual slavery situation in the west??? how here police departments and the government are involved in trafficking minor girls? how foreign men move here to become pimps or rape children?? how, once again, there is case after case of our women being fucking sexually enslaved and tortured???? in large part directly because of this fucking ideology??? how, how, how, xyz every other horrific fucking thing???

how? how can they ignore this. how can these god damned good for nothing "social scientists" ignore this (they dont give a shit abt us and theire privileged and brainwashed). but how can they lack the...... the BASIC fucking Empathy??? How can they write this bullshit and not care how many of the women they talked to were molested as children, started working before 18, were raped before or after they were interviewed, were beaten after they talked to them or got hooked on drugs or sex trafficked again or tortured or killed?? there was this one study that 7/10 moldovan sex trafficking victims left because they were being domestically and sexually abused by male family member - does that matter maybe?? how can they not care of their ptsd, of their exhaustion, of their physical pain????

it truly. disgusts me aint even enough of a word, but it does. it makes me sick to my fucking stomach, the absolute lack of basic empathy and care and especially sense of responsibility these female western anthropologists feel for us - especially considering how mant of these women are 17-19, so, young as hell - when all of this is in large part the fault of the ideology they helped create and spread in the first place anyway. their most basic lack of care makes me vomiting levels of upset and angry.... and again, worse of all.... even if we buy their bullshit choice narratives.... could they PLEASE care that outside of theoretics they're writing about one of the worlds biggest and most profitable child sex slave trafficking currents? please?? lord help us

[bharatnomics]

Stay Hungry

 There is one person whose hunger had changed the world forever. He is someone who abolished slavery and got assassinated. He is none other than Abraham Lincoln, a man who is a great epitome of staying hungry for his goals. He was a lawyer by profession. He was born in 1809 near kentucky.His Journey started at the age of 15 years.When he was passionate about Law.He had no money to buy the books. By looking at his zeal, someone suggested him to cross the river and on the other side , there was a barrister who lives there. So, He started his journey by riding the boat but while crossing the river, his boat got flipped. But he did not lose hope. Here comes stay hungry Philosophy came into play. Despite of heavy river flow and danger, he crossed the river . and he turned to Barrister house. First,barrister refused to share his books. By looking at his not giving up attitude, he allowed him to read his books and in return, he had to do all the home chores work.He did and like this, he became a lawyer.. His First wife died at the young age. He married second time to mary todd . They had 4 children out of which 3 died. He was in depression all his life because of this. He entered into politics, he lost most of the elections in his lifetime.You can also read about sania nehwal  who is a great example of sportsman spirit.

 Despite of having hunger in him, he was elected as president of USA in 1860. His presidency was tough but had changed the world forever. At the time, Slavery was at its peak. Trading of human for labour slave was violation of the human rights. Despite of opposition within the party and outside, He abolished the slavery which the dynamics in history. This abolition led to Civil war within America and southern states which supported slavery in American seceded from rest of America. Like India and Pakisthan, America had its balkanization. Lincoln could not see his nation divided in north and south. Since he was representing Northern Part of America, he sent the Army and he defeated the southern states and unified the country as a whole. 

We always try to give you best information on our websites.so you can follow Manav Gupta Motivation and you will find interesting content every week.

This story is a great example of stay hungry despite of lot of obstacles, challenges, his hunger for his goal made him one of the greatest person of world history.

His grit,perseverence is a inspiration of billions of people around the world.

[thrassa]

I'm glad you found my addition interesting - I hope it could be a bit eye-opening - though, I see that you didn't really understand what I was saying or else you wouldn't respond in this manner. In all honesty, I fear that you missed my point, rather than the opposite.

1) In all honesty, while you might have read about some of the events that have occured throuought our history, I doubt you know even half of it. Not due to personal ignorance, of course, but simply because most of our tragedies aren't discussed as they do not interest the Western World. For example, you're hardly going to hear about the Bulgarian occupation of East Macedonia and how we had our language stolen from us, how we were massacred, how our heads were left by the village well as a warning, how our kids (mainly girls) were stolen and how important structures such as schools and city halls were destroyed. Also, I hardly think that anyone would write about how the Arab Slave trade largely featured the theft of Greek and other South-Eastern European as well as Caucasian women (actual Caucasus, not the current terminology), simply because they were seen as more 'exotic' and therefore, were priced higher.

So, yes, we've lived through horrid atrocities and we deserve respect. However, even if we'd had a relatively peaceful existence without occupation, colonisation and genocide and even if we weren't discriminated against to this day by Westerners, we'd still be worthy of respect and proper representation.

Just like any other person and ethnic group in the world.

2) I believe I addressed your point, earlier, but allow me to do so again. Having POC Greeks or foreigners in this game or any other piece of media isn't bad in the slightest. On the contrary, it's quite positive. The thing is, though, as I understand it, that "representation" for the creators of this game was simply a change of skin colour and ethnic characteristics, following an imperialistic narrative created by the West to further seperate us from our culture - if I understood correctly - as they claim that the Greek Gods aren't Greek and that they were merely worshipped by Greeks but somehow belong to the entire globe (Which is simply erasure of other Pantheons and cultures as well as disrespectful to Hellenes) - despite being made in the image of Hellenes.

Had they wished to show the diversity of the ancient Hellenic world, they ought to have been a) more considerate of the demographics of the region (in other words, depict more Middle Easterners, North Africans, Balkans etc) and b) more considerate of the cultures of those characters and portrayed them properly (as I offered you the example of Michalis Afalagian with his role of Baku in Magissa) - as well as portray Greeks accurately.

3) I understand the fact that there might have been some form of miscommunication between you and @margaretkart - either due to the linguistic barrier or the heat of the moment. Personally, I don't use the term "illegal immigrants" as I don't support the connotation that humans can be "illegal" in any way (mainly because of the Hellenic term 'λαθρομετα��άστες' which has always left me feeling a bit nauseous) but I am certain that is not what they were referring to. They aren't that type of person, to put it simply.

4) Now, Greeks do vary in appearence. As I said, there's a difference between someone being culturally Greek, ethnically Greek but mixed with another ethnic group (and, therefore, having two ethnicities) and just being ethnically Greek (with no intermixings) or, even, being a foreigner who simply lives in Greece but neither is nor feels Greek.

If they were meant to be ethnically Greek (but not mixed) then, yes, they would have certain features commonly found in their region of origin (for example, Cretans are usually darker-featured than Macedonians) or even the country, in general- the same goes for all other ethnic groups, as well, no?

Also, again, while Greeks vary in appearence, I don't believe that skin colour in itself offers representation.

Culture matters.

Ethnic features matter (our noses, our eyes, our lacking height etc).

Now, personally, I am the product of a Peloponnesean-Athenian and Macedonian Union and so I'm a bit on the medium spectrum (somewhat light featured but tan a lot in the summer and without any particular effort - the type of olive-toned that looks like a sickly yellow Victorian child during the Winter, in other words). In all honesty, I just consider myself Greek - involving skin colour in my identity is something I do not really support but I do acknowledge the fact that I am viewed as 'white' by other ethnic groups (especially when it suits them - but that's another discussion all together which I believe is mentioned in the article I sent), without that meaning that I or any other Greek are somehow interchangeable with people of other ethnic groups who have light features or skin or that we feel represented when we see them depict us (Brad Pitt, for example, didn't make me feel the least bit represented. Had they wished for a blond Greek man, or, at least a light featured one, we had options - the same goes for the others with Helen being the most obvious one - a German woman wasn't needed). A few examples compared to him and her:

You see the difference, right?

Lastly, yes, darker-featured and skinned people do face bias in most societies around the world (even in certain African countries) but that is a much larger and complex topic than what we are currently discussing, which - for me, at least - is the proper representation of Greeks in foreign-made media and our erasure as well as the proper representation of people of either a mixed background or even foreigners which - I believe - is something that was handled in a good enough manner (please correct me if I'm mistaken, it's been a year since I watched it) in the Anime Blood of Zeus where an Ethiopian character named Kofi was directly inspired by an actual historical figure. In fact, they did a pretty solid job depicting the variations of (ethnic) Hellenes in terms of skin tone and features.

Side note: I just saw your tags and I feel the need to stress my earlier made point as it seems you might not have read it in the previous response. Your tags:

Once again, "light skinned" characters do not represent us, either. Let me repeat myself: Whitewashing our Gods and Heroes isn't representation for us, either. Wasn't I clear, before?

Ps. I hope I covered your inquiries and objections. If not, I'd love to discuss this topic further and resolve any remaining matter.

When people say "the Greek gods should be ethnically Greek in Hades" they mean white.

Like they literally mean that they want all the Greek Gods to be white in the game

No, they don't mean culturally, if they wanted to talk about culture they wouldn't have brought up the word "ethnicity" and equal that to race (ethnicity doesn't mean just race, it can also mean a shared tradition or shared language, so yes, POC can be ethnically Greek if they had lived all their lifes there)

And it's so silly because like, oh, then Chaos isn't "greek" either because they're Grey and there aren't any actual Grey Greeks?

Also they're Gods! They can be anything they want, like sure, Zeus can be a swan and that's fine, but if he was a man with dark skin, that's too much?

They aren't criticizing the cultural hegemony the US has, they're just being racist and then masking their racism with "progressive" language

And then people here go and be like "Oh, poor little white people!! They have a right to demand a game without POC because it's their culture!!!"

Like what?

I'm sorry but you do remember that Greek mythology has been used, and is still being used as far right propaganda?

Like do you remember that the protagonists of the games are white and green eyed (on one eye) and the only POC are on secondary roles!?

(There can be a valid criticism about cultural hegemony in Hades, but this, isn't that)

[fatehbaz]

Kurdish ecology. Indigenous seeds and food heritage. Palestinian edible plant archive. Ezidi foods and reverence for landscapes. The narratives of “exiled foods.” Suryani, Zaza, Kurdish, and Armenian displacement. Okra and mustard greens. Dispossession and native plants in  Anatolia and the Mediterranean. Imagining alternative worlds and affirmative care structures. Landscapes breathing in slow, deep time. Seed exchanges and “entanglement of solidarity” across regions in defiance of military surveillance, industrial monoculture, and extraction. “Homeland is not where you were born, it is where you are fed.”

---

Okra is strong and can survive the precarity of exile and migration: it can be found in a Bangladeshi vegetable stand in Rome, an Ezidi camp in Diyarbakır, or a guerilla garden along the highway in Kowloon. Okra is one of the world’s oldest cultivated crops, spread by the processes of colonization and the slave trade from Africa and India to the Mediterranean and westward to the new world. Its versatility makes it well suited for states of dispossession and survival. [...] The colonization and standardization of landscapes is always rooted in controlling the cultivation and erasure of localities. [...] Today, the same region [Anatolia and the Mediterranean] is inundated with wars and oppressions that destroy not only biodiversity but also the intangible heritage of ingredients and their narratives across our earth.

“Survival-with” and “through” is something of an entangled kinship that can be described as migrating ingredients, refugee seeds, and exiled foods. Works by artists Seçkin Aydın and Gülsün Karamustafa deal with forced eviction and exile from their homelands in different historical periods in the last century in Anatolia. Aydın is a Zaza minority from an evicted Kurdish town called Kulp (Diyarbakır Province). His work I can’t carry my grandma, i can also not eat her or wear her (2015) uses the metaphor of Aydın’s grandma keeping small fruits in his pocket during their journey of exile when he was a child. [...]

Karamustafa’s work Heimat Ist Wo Mann Isst (1994) depicts three spoons wrapped in an old cloth. The title means “Homeland is not where you were born, it is where you are fed,” which refers to cross-Balkan and Anatolian transnational migration.

---

Practices of collecting and archiving heirloom seeds are a form of solidarity and resistance against extractive capitalism and industrialized agriculture. Such projects protect and aim to restore natural habitats and biodiversity. They are critical of dominant monocultural approaches [...]. How can we consider a more-than-human ethics around seed and seed heritage? How can we collect cross-narrative assemblages of seed heritage? [...]

Indigenous phenomenologies are essential for tracing food heritage and the ingredients that are tightly connected to local communities of Zazas, Ezidis, Armenians, Suryanis, Kurds, and others who are continuously exiled by force in the ongoing extracted landscapes of the Tigris. Often with colleagues we find ourselves discussing, for example, the giyayê xerdelê (mustard greens) that can be easily foraged in the hills of Heskîf, a millennia-old archeological heritage site that has almost been destroyed by the nearby Ilisu Dam, which justifies the expropriation of lands from Kurdish villages and from many nomadic shepherds who were forced to leave. Military surveillance of farmers and of the common grazing grounds of Ezidi, Suryani, and Kurdish villages leads to a loss of the network [...].

Kurdish ecology activists Bişar İçli and Zeki Kanay, who were banned from their municipality and their university positions by the Turkish government in 2017, started an agro-ecological solidarity commune in Diyarbakır. They archive, exchange, and create networks of seeds around the Tigris River basin, producing an entanglement of solidarity infrastructure among Kurdish communities against military surveillance and capitalism-led extraction in this region.

---

Cineria, an Ezidi village near Batman, Turkey, was nearly emptied out in the 1980s due to conflict in the region between the Kurdish movement and the Turkish state. [...] Soil, stone, rocks, caves, and water are fundamental cosmological elements of Ezidi cultural practice connecting the past, present, and future. Each year the village hosts semi-nomadic Zaza shepherds who migrate from another southeastern Turkish city, Bitlis [...]. The Ezidis accommodate the shepherds for six to seven months in Cineria; both communities communicate using the Kurmanji language. [...]

Long walks through landscapes are a basic practice of Ezidi women, where they learn about the land and the cultivation cycle connected to Ezidi cosmology, which is about keeping and protecting ingredients, seeds, and healthy soil. Honouring nonhuman elements is fundamental to Ezidi cosmology. As Ezidi women walk through the landscape, they tell stories of dispossession, mourn for lost soil and seeds, and whisper continously: “av, agîr, erd, ba, roj.” [...]

---

Palestinian geographer Omar Tesdell, who created the Palestinian edible plants archive, tells us that landscapes move in slow, deep time, and that all wild plants, seeds, and healthy soil are our heritages. These heritages will not only support our precarious societies but may create an ethical, responsible entanglement of resilient coexistences for our collective future. [...]

Following an okra plant through narratives, infrastructures, forgotten languages, and entangled exiles is not a metaphor. As artist Jumana Manna writes, we strive toward “imagining alternative/affirmative care structures that remain, within and beyond the current reality, aligned towards plant and human life alike.” Navigating through migrating ingredients, refugee seeds, and exiled foods, we witness and learn about extractive strategies, state-making, and slow violence.

---

Text by: Pelin Tan. “Entangled Exiles.” e-flux (journal). Issue 131. November 2022. [Italicized first paragraph/heading added by me.]

[10blue10]

Drago Bludvist’s Origin Story

As we all know, Drago Bludvist is a victim of the ‘ambiguously brown’ trope, due to the writers inability to commit to a specific culture. He’s described as having Slavic, Asian, Mediterranean and North African influence in his design; all of which are disparate areas with multiple cultures. However, there is one potential melting pot where all four of these areas mixed geographically or via trade/war/slavery, which in the Viking age would’ve been the Byzantine Empire.

Now to narrow it down even further. Drago’s spiel about how his village was destroyed by dragons and he’s out for revenge…should be taken with a grain of salt, since he had every reason to lie. His exact words, however, are “my village, burned. My family, taken.” Now to me, that’s an odd word to use. If they didn’t want to have him say “killed”, why not have him say “lost” or “gone”?

What if there’s a grain of truth to his story? What if his village was burned and his family was taken…not by dragons, but by soldiers? Here’s where things get interesting. The Byzantine Empire had slaves, and according to Wikipedia: “After the 10th century the major source of slaves were often Slavs and Bulgars, which resulted from campaigns in the Balkans and lands north of the Black Sea.” So assuming it’s the 11th century, that lines up with the Viking era.

“The Bulgars were Turkic semi-nomadic warrior tribes that flourished in the Pontic–Caspian steppe and the Volga region during the 7th century. They became known as nomadic equestrians in the Volga-Ural region, but some researchers say that their ethnic roots can be traced to Central Asia.”

There’s the Mediterranean and Asian influence. The Bulgars went on to found the found the Bulgarian Empire in, well, Bulgaria, which is in the Balkans. What else is in the Balkans? Slavic countries. If you want to include African influence, maybe Drago could have mixed heritage in his parents or even grandparents.

I really do think Drago being a Bulgar who was enslaved by the Byzantine empire fits his character almost perfectly. It’s not much of a leap to go from ‘warrior on horseback’ to ‘warrior on dragonback’, it gives him a plausibly tragic backstory as motivation, and he must have gotten the idea to build an empire and/or conquer the known world from somewhere. Why not like this?

TL;DR - my headcanon is that Drago Bludvist was born in Bulgaria to mixed heritage parents (Turkic & African), enslaved in the Byzantine Empire, at some point found a young Bewilderbeast and used it to escape (possibly losing his arm in the process), only to abuse it into obeying so he could start conquering.

[robertmarch82]

You will hate me for historical facts. And call me names.

What's something that sucks about being white?

Olzhas Yessenbayev

, Studied philosophy of history

Updated December 24, 2017

https://www.quora.com/q/worldhistory?__ni__=0&__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=6456142643&__tiid__=5166533&sort=top

Quick disclaimer here: I am not White. I am not European. I am Asian, and I come from such a part of the world where History lessons are not tied up with Identity Politics and the concept of “White Guilt”. So perhaps you will be a bit shocked.

If you are white, everyone will accuse you of racism, oppression, cultural appropriation, sexism, homophobia, Islamophobia - every sin in the world, even though you by all standards are better than 95 percent of the world.

What’s about slavery?

Did you know that slavery existed throughout the entire history of human beings? Europeans were also held as slaves - not only in Ancient Rome, but also quite recently - by historical standards - as part of the Arab, Barbary and Ottoman slave trades.

In Constantinople (present-day Istanbul), the administrative and political center of the Ottoman Empire, about a fifth of the population consisted of slaves in 1609 - many of whom came from Caucasus, Eastern Europe, and Africa. And yet there is no “Turkish” guilt whatsoever. There is no “Arab” guilt. No one in the Arab or Turkish world has a “White Pride Parade” today, nor are Arabs forced by their educational system to cast aside their glorious history and deride their ancestors for slavery.

You can read the same about Slavery in muslim Spain, in Iran, and so on.

Slavery was ubiquitous until it was ended in the 20th century. By Europeans.

What’s about “colonialism”?

Did you know that it also existed pretty much everywhere in the world?

Here, you can see, that almost a third of the European continent was once a place conquered by the Islamic states, let alone the Islamic conquest of the North Africa. Why no one speaks of Islamic colonialism and Islamic guilt?

Colonialism was ubiquitous until it was ended in the 20th century. By Europeans.

Life was a mess before the 20th century - pretty much everywhere in the world. The whole concept of human rights, that we today take for granted, did not at all exist until it was established by Europeans.

I am by no means claiming that Europeans are - or were - holy.

It is just that everything bad that is ascribed to Europeans - colonialism, racism, slavery, sexism - was ubiquitous everywhere in the world, until it was ended by Europeans. It is just that Europeans were more successful at doing these things.

So please, stop hating your(European) history and take pride in it - just as everyone else in the world does. Every history of every race and ethnicity has its bright and its dark moments. Let’s forget what is long gone and look forward to a world where no such things will exist - only beautiful moments!

[beardedmrbean]

Yes the Dahomey went around and kidnapped and murdered their neighbors, selling the most fit ones to the people that came to buy them and then working the rest till they either died or were used for human sacrifice and then when Britain snapped out of it and went ahead and tried get the slave trade shut down for everyone the Dahomey declared war on them in order to maintain the wealth they had accumulated while murdering, enslaving, and using for human sacrifice their neighbors. But colonialism is really the place where blame is. Next up we're going to hear about how the people of the Barbary coast conducting raids on coastal Europe, Ireland, and Great Britain in order to capture people to be used until they died as slaves was also the fault of white colonialism. Can't forget the Ottoman empire doing very much the same thing to the Balkans for hundred of years either. Damn white people.