#Only educational establishments of the empire

[bulgariaadvice]

Only educational establishments of the empire

The schools of these Ulema, or Wise Men, who say they are not priests and yet act like them, were until within a generation the only educational establishments of the empire, if we except the schools of the pages carried on within the Sultan’s palace for training courtiers. The aim of these schools is to raise up for the people instructors in practical religion, who shall at the same time solve the problems of the people, like Moses when he used to “ judge between one and another and make known to them the statutes of God and his laws.” The scope of the schools includes the nature and attributes of God, all the acts, relations and interests of man during life, the disposition of his body and soul after death, and, what may be thought more difficult, the division of his property among those who survive.

The schools might be classed as schools of Law if they studied a code. They might be called schools of Sociology if scientifically based on experience and dealing with rules applicable to any besides Muslims. What they study is the Koran and the obligations of men who believe in it, evolving these obligations from the example and the oral teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as explained by the learned men who have studied such questions from the beginning of Islam. The opinions of these learned men rival the Talmud in keenness and fancifulness of argument and in hair-splitting delicacy of casuistry. What these schools produce therefore is a body of men who are necessarily legal experts, and whose chief attribute is that of the Judge. In practice the decisions of these judges have the weight and possibly the scope of theological dogmas jeep safari bulgaria.

Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo

A type of schools of this class is the great Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo, which is familiar to all travellers. It is said of the Cairo Medresse that the students there studying are preparing to be missionaries of Islam. The statement is due to a misunderstanding. Men taught at any school of the Ulema go forth, according to ability, as teachers, scribes, lawyers or judges. They are the “ Pillars of Religion,” and are supported by the Religious Endowment Funds wherever they are sent, and they teach diligently wherever they go. But the missionary idea, as understood in the West, does not exist in Islam. It impels one to seek to better the condition of men through pity or love. The attitude of Islam toward unbelievers is that of scorn and even of anger for stupid obstinacy.

I once asked a member of the Ulema why Mo-hammedan missionaries are not sent out to convert the nations. The pious Turk made a reply which recalled that of the Baptist minister who thought to silence Carey, although characteristically it excluded the idea of eternal profit to the heathen through conversion. “ Man,” said he, “ the religion of every human being, bom or to be born, is written on the Reserved Tablets by the hand of God. Those who are Muslim are so because the Most High wrote ‘ Islam ’ upon the egg from which they came. Those who arc not Muslim are misbelievers by Divine decree from the foundation of the world. Though prophets came to call them to the faith, they would not hear. Of course it is our duty to see that the faith is taught wherever there are Muslims, for all Muslims need instruction in the truth. But the winning of the people of Islam was done before you or I were born.”

Schools of the Ulema are found in many of the large towns of Asiatic Turkey, and many students get no farther than the course of these smaller schools. There is no real grading of the schools. But the higher schools are necessarily those in the larger cities. There are fully equipped Medresses at Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Brousa, and Adrianople, because these cities are reputed to have the highest legal ability in their courts.

The Arabic speaking students frequent the first three of these on account of the difficulty of attending schools where students use Turkish. But the very highest of these schools of the Ulema are at Constantinople. Cairo alone pretends to rival the Medresses of this city. The largest of these schools at Constantinople are connected with the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and the mosque of the Conqueror Sultan Mohammed II. From 10,000 to 15,000 students are at the mosque schools of the city all the time. They are regarded as a separate class of the population, and are called softas.

[bulgariastreets]

Only educational establishments of the empire

The schools of these Ulema, or Wise Men, who say they are not priests and yet act like them, were until within a generation the only educational establishments of the empire, if we except the schools of the pages carried on within the Sultan’s palace for training courtiers. The aim of these schools is to raise up for the people instructors in practical religion, who shall at the same time solve the problems of the people, like Moses when he used to “ judge between one and another and make known to them the statutes of God and his laws.” The scope of the schools includes the nature and attributes of God, all the acts, relations and interests of man during life, the disposition of his body and soul after death, and, what may be thought more difficult, the division of his property among those who survive.

The schools might be classed as schools of Law if they studied a code. They might be called schools of Sociology if scientifically based on experience and dealing with rules applicable to any besides Muslims. What they study is the Koran and the obligations of men who believe in it, evolving these obligations from the example and the oral teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as explained by the learned men who have studied such questions from the beginning of Islam. The opinions of these learned men rival the Talmud in keenness and fancifulness of argument and in hair-splitting delicacy of casuistry. What these schools produce therefore is a body of men who are necessarily legal experts, and whose chief attribute is that of the Judge. In practice the decisions of these judges have the weight and possibly the scope of theological dogmas jeep safari bulgaria.

Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo

A type of schools of this class is the great Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo, which is familiar to all travellers. It is said of the Cairo Medresse that the students there studying are preparing to be missionaries of Islam. The statement is due to a misunderstanding. Men taught at any school of the Ulema go forth, according to ability, as teachers, scribes, lawyers or judges. They are the “ Pillars of Religion,” and are supported by the Religious Endowment Funds wherever they are sent, and they teach diligently wherever they go. But the missionary idea, as understood in the West, does not exist in Islam. It impels one to seek to better the condition of men through pity or love. The attitude of Islam toward unbelievers is that of scorn and even of anger for stupid obstinacy.

I once asked a member of the Ulema why Mo-hammedan missionaries are not sent out to convert the nations. The pious Turk made a reply which recalled that of the Baptist minister who thought to silence Carey, although characteristically it excluded the idea of eternal profit to the heathen through conversion. “ Man,” said he, “ the religion of every human being, bom or to be born, is written on the Reserved Tablets by the hand of God. Those who are Muslim are so because the Most High wrote ‘ Islam ’ upon the egg from which they came. Those who arc not Muslim are misbelievers by Divine decree from the foundation of the world. Though prophets came to call them to the faith, they would not hear. Of course it is our duty to see that the faith is taught wherever there are Muslims, for all Muslims need instruction in the truth. But the winning of the people of Islam was done before you or I were born.”

Schools of the Ulema are found in many of the large towns of Asiatic Turkey, and many students get no farther than the course of these smaller schools. There is no real grading of the schools. But the higher schools are necessarily those in the larger cities. There are fully equipped Medresses at Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Brousa, and Adrianople, because these cities are reputed to have the highest legal ability in their courts.

The Arabic speaking students frequent the first three of these on account of the difficulty of attending schools where students use Turkish. But the very highest of these schools of the Ulema are at Constantinople. Cairo alone pretends to rival the Medresses of this city. The largest of these schools at Constantinople are connected with the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and the mosque of the Conqueror Sultan Mohammed II. From 10,000 to 15,000 students are at the mosque schools of the city all the time. They are regarded as a separate class of the population, and are called softas.

[hotbulgaria]

Only educational establishments of the empire

The schools of these Ulema, or Wise Men, who say they are not priests and yet act like them, were until within a generation the only educational establishments of the empire, if we except the schools of the pages carried on within the Sultan’s palace for training courtiers. The aim of these schools is to raise up for the people instructors in practical religion, who shall at the same time solve the problems of the people, like Moses when he used to “ judge between one and another and make known to them the statutes of God and his laws.” The scope of the schools includes the nature and attributes of God, all the acts, relations and interests of man during life, the disposition of his body and soul after death, and, what may be thought more difficult, the division of his property among those who survive.

The schools might be classed as schools of Law if they studied a code. They might be called schools of Sociology if scientifically based on experience and dealing with rules applicable to any besides Muslims. What they study is the Koran and the obligations of men who believe in it, evolving these obligations from the example and the oral teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as explained by the learned men who have studied such questions from the beginning of Islam. The opinions of these learned men rival the Talmud in keenness and fancifulness of argument and in hair-splitting delicacy of casuistry. What these schools produce therefore is a body of men who are necessarily legal experts, and whose chief attribute is that of the Judge. In practice the decisions of these judges have the weight and possibly the scope of theological dogmas jeep safari bulgaria.

Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo

A type of schools of this class is the great Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo, which is familiar to all travellers. It is said of the Cairo Medresse that the students there studying are preparing to be missionaries of Islam. The statement is due to a misunderstanding. Men taught at any school of the Ulema go forth, according to ability, as teachers, scribes, lawyers or judges. They are the “ Pillars of Religion,” and are supported by the Religious Endowment Funds wherever they are sent, and they teach diligently wherever they go. But the missionary idea, as understood in the West, does not exist in Islam. It impels one to seek to better the condition of men through pity or love. The attitude of Islam toward unbelievers is that of scorn and even of anger for stupid obstinacy.

I once asked a member of the Ulema why Mo-hammedan missionaries are not sent out to convert the nations. The pious Turk made a reply which recalled that of the Baptist minister who thought to silence Carey, although characteristically it excluded the idea of eternal profit to the heathen through conversion. “ Man,” said he, “ the religion of every human being, bom or to be born, is written on the Reserved Tablets by the hand of God. Those who are Muslim are so because the Most High wrote ‘ Islam ’ upon the egg from which they came. Those who arc not Muslim are misbelievers by Divine decree from the foundation of the world. Though prophets came to call them to the faith, they would not hear. Of course it is our duty to see that the faith is taught wherever there are Muslims, for all Muslims need instruction in the truth. But the winning of the people of Islam was done before you or I were born.”

Schools of the Ulema are found in many of the large towns of Asiatic Turkey, and many students get no farther than the course of these smaller schools. There is no real grading of the schools. But the higher schools are necessarily those in the larger cities. There are fully equipped Medresses at Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Brousa, and Adrianople, because these cities are reputed to have the highest legal ability in their courts.

The Arabic speaking students frequent the first three of these on account of the difficulty of attending schools where students use Turkish. But the very highest of these schools of the Ulema are at Constantinople. Cairo alone pretends to rival the Medresses of this city. The largest of these schools at Constantinople are connected with the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and the mosque of the Conqueror Sultan Mohammed II. From 10,000 to 15,000 students are at the mosque schools of the city all the time. They are regarded as a separate class of the population, and are called softas.

[bulgariant]

Only educational establishments of the empire

The schools of these Ulema, or Wise Men, who say they are not priests and yet act like them, were until within a generation the only educational establishments of the empire, if we except the schools of the pages carried on within the Sultan’s palace for training courtiers. The aim of these schools is to raise up for the people instructors in practical religion, who shall at the same time solve the problems of the people, like Moses when he used to “ judge between one and another and make known to them the statutes of God and his laws.” The scope of the schools includes the nature and attributes of God, all the acts, relations and interests of man during life, the disposition of his body and soul after death, and, what may be thought more difficult, the division of his property among those who survive.

The schools might be classed as schools of Law if they studied a code. They might be called schools of Sociology if scientifically based on experience and dealing with rules applicable to any besides Muslims. What they study is the Koran and the obligations of men who believe in it, evolving these obligations from the example and the oral teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as explained by the learned men who have studied such questions from the beginning of Islam. The opinions of these learned men rival the Talmud in keenness and fancifulness of argument and in hair-splitting delicacy of casuistry. What these schools produce therefore is a body of men who are necessarily legal experts, and whose chief attribute is that of the Judge. In practice the decisions of these judges have the weight and possibly the scope of theological dogmas jeep safari bulgaria.

Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo

A type of schools of this class is the great Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo, which is familiar to all travellers. It is said of the Cairo Medresse that the students there studying are preparing to be missionaries of Islam. The statement is due to a misunderstanding. Men taught at any school of the Ulema go forth, according to ability, as teachers, scribes, lawyers or judges. They are the “ Pillars of Religion,” and are supported by the Religious Endowment Funds wherever they are sent, and they teach diligently wherever they go. But the missionary idea, as understood in the West, does not exist in Islam. It impels one to seek to better the condition of men through pity or love. The attitude of Islam toward unbelievers is that of scorn and even of anger for stupid obstinacy.

I once asked a member of the Ulema why Mo-hammedan missionaries are not sent out to convert the nations. The pious Turk made a reply which recalled that of the Baptist minister who thought to silence Carey, although characteristically it excluded the idea of eternal profit to the heathen through conversion. “ Man,” said he, “ the religion of every human being, bom or to be born, is written on the Reserved Tablets by the hand of God. Those who are Muslim are so because the Most High wrote ‘ Islam ’ upon the egg from which they came. Those who arc not Muslim are misbelievers by Divine decree from the foundation of the world. Though prophets came to call them to the faith, they would not hear. Of course it is our duty to see that the faith is taught wherever there are Muslims, for all Muslims need instruction in the truth. But the winning of the people of Islam was done before you or I were born.”

Schools of the Ulema are found in many of the large towns of Asiatic Turkey, and many students get no farther than the course of these smaller schools. There is no real grading of the schools. But the higher schools are necessarily those in the larger cities. There are fully equipped Medresses at Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Brousa, and Adrianople, because these cities are reputed to have the highest legal ability in their courts.

The Arabic speaking students frequent the first three of these on account of the difficulty of attending schools where students use Turkish. But the very highest of these schools of the Ulema are at Constantinople. Cairo alone pretends to rival the Medresses of this city. The largest of these schools at Constantinople are connected with the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and the mosque of the Conqueror Sultan Mohammed II. From 10,000 to 15,000 students are at the mosque schools of the city all the time. They are regarded as a separate class of the population, and are called softas.

[bulgariablo]

Only educational establishments of the empire

The schools of these Ulema, or Wise Men, who say they are not priests and yet act like them, were until within a generation the only educational establishments of the empire, if we except the schools of the pages carried on within the Sultan’s palace for training courtiers. The aim of these schools is to raise up for the people instructors in practical religion, who shall at the same time solve the problems of the people, like Moses when he used to “ judge between one and another and make known to them the statutes of God and his laws.” The scope of the schools includes the nature and attributes of God, all the acts, relations and interests of man during life, the disposition of his body and soul after death, and, what may be thought more difficult, the division of his property among those who survive.

The schools might be classed as schools of Law if they studied a code. They might be called schools of Sociology if scientifically based on experience and dealing with rules applicable to any besides Muslims. What they study is the Koran and the obligations of men who believe in it, evolving these obligations from the example and the oral teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as explained by the learned men who have studied such questions from the beginning of Islam. The opinions of these learned men rival the Talmud in keenness and fancifulness of argument and in hair-splitting delicacy of casuistry. What these schools produce therefore is a body of men who are necessarily legal experts, and whose chief attribute is that of the Judge. In practice the decisions of these judges have the weight and possibly the scope of theological dogmas jeep safari bulgaria.

Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo

A type of schools of this class is the great Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo, which is familiar to all travellers. It is said of the Cairo Medresse that the students there studying are preparing to be missionaries of Islam. The statement is due to a misunderstanding. Men taught at any school of the Ulema go forth, according to ability, as teachers, scribes, lawyers or judges. They are the “ Pillars of Religion,” and are supported by the Religious Endowment Funds wherever they are sent, and they teach diligently wherever they go. But the missionary idea, as understood in the West, does not exist in Islam. It impels one to seek to better the condition of men through pity or love. The attitude of Islam toward unbelievers is that of scorn and even of anger for stupid obstinacy.

I once asked a member of the Ulema why Mo-hammedan missionaries are not sent out to convert the nations. The pious Turk made a reply which recalled that of the Baptist minister who thought to silence Carey, although characteristically it excluded the idea of eternal profit to the heathen through conversion. “ Man,” said he, “ the religion of every human being, bom or to be born, is written on the Reserved Tablets by the hand of God. Those who are Muslim are so because the Most High wrote ‘ Islam ’ upon the egg from which they came. Those who arc not Muslim are misbelievers by Divine decree from the foundation of the world. Though prophets came to call them to the faith, they would not hear. Of course it is our duty to see that the faith is taught wherever there are Muslims, for all Muslims need instruction in the truth. But the winning of the people of Islam was done before you or I were born.”

Schools of the Ulema are found in many of the large towns of Asiatic Turkey, and many students get no farther than the course of these smaller schools. There is no real grading of the schools. But the higher schools are necessarily those in the larger cities. There are fully equipped Medresses at Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Brousa, and Adrianople, because these cities are reputed to have the highest legal ability in their courts.

The Arabic speaking students frequent the first three of these on account of the difficulty of attending schools where students use Turkish. But the very highest of these schools of the Ulema are at Constantinople. Cairo alone pretends to rival the Medresses of this city. The largest of these schools at Constantinople are connected with the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and the mosque of the Conqueror Sultan Mohammed II. From 10,000 to 15,000 students are at the mosque schools of the city all the time. They are regarded as a separate class of the population, and are called softas.

[blgrll]

Only educational establishments of the empire

The schools of these Ulema, or Wise Men, who say they are not priests and yet act like them, were until within a generation the only educational establishments of the empire, if we except the schools of the pages carried on within the Sultan’s palace for training courtiers. The aim of these schools is to raise up for the people instructors in practical religion, who shall at the same time solve the problems of the people, like Moses when he used to “ judge between one and another and make known to them the statutes of God and his laws.” The scope of the schools includes the nature and attributes of God, all the acts, relations and interests of man during life, the disposition of his body and soul after death, and, what may be thought more difficult, the division of his property among those who survive.

The schools might be classed as schools of Law if they studied a code. They might be called schools of Sociology if scientifically based on experience and dealing with rules applicable to any besides Muslims. What they study is the Koran and the obligations of men who believe in it, evolving these obligations from the example and the oral teachings of the Prophet Mohammed as explained by the learned men who have studied such questions from the beginning of Islam. The opinions of these learned men rival the Talmud in keenness and fancifulness of argument and in hair-splitting delicacy of casuistry. What these schools produce therefore is a body of men who are necessarily legal experts, and whose chief attribute is that of the Judge. In practice the decisions of these judges have the weight and possibly the scope of theological dogmas jeep safari bulgaria.

Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo

A type of schools of this class is the great Medresse of At Azhar at Cairo, which is familiar to all travellers. It is said of the Cairo Medresse that the students there studying are preparing to be missionaries of Islam. The statement is due to a misunderstanding. Men taught at any school of the Ulema go forth, according to ability, as teachers, scribes, lawyers or judges. They are the “ Pillars of Religion,” and are supported by the Religious Endowment Funds wherever they are sent, and they teach diligently wherever they go. But the missionary idea, as understood in the West, does not exist in Islam. It impels one to seek to better the condition of men through pity or love. The attitude of Islam toward unbelievers is that of scorn and even of anger for stupid obstinacy.

I once asked a member of the Ulema why Mo-hammedan missionaries are not sent out to convert the nations. The pious Turk made a reply which recalled that of the Baptist minister who thought to silence Carey, although characteristically it excluded the idea of eternal profit to the heathen through conversion. “ Man,” said he, “ the religion of every human being, bom or to be born, is written on the Reserved Tablets by the hand of God. Those who are Muslim are so because the Most High wrote ‘ Islam ’ upon the egg from which they came. Those who arc not Muslim are misbelievers by Divine decree from the foundation of the world. Though prophets came to call them to the faith, they would not hear. Of course it is our duty to see that the faith is taught wherever there are Muslims, for all Muslims need instruction in the truth. But the winning of the people of Islam was done before you or I were born.”

Schools of the Ulema are found in many of the large towns of Asiatic Turkey, and many students get no farther than the course of these smaller schools. There is no real grading of the schools. But the higher schools are necessarily those in the larger cities. There are fully equipped Medresses at Cairo, Damascus, Aleppo, Brousa, and Adrianople, because these cities are reputed to have the highest legal ability in their courts.

The Arabic speaking students frequent the first three of these on account of the difficulty of attending schools where students use Turkish. But the very highest of these schools of the Ulema are at Constantinople. Cairo alone pretends to rival the Medresses of this city. The largest of these schools at Constantinople are connected with the mosque of Sultan Suleiman the Magnificent, the mosque of Sultan Bayazid, and the mosque of the Conqueror Sultan Mohammed II. From 10,000 to 15,000 students are at the mosque schools of the city all the time. They are regarded as a separate class of the population, and are called softas.

[thehmn]

I finally got to watch Viften (Empire) and it’s such a fascinating movie. It was written by Anna Neye who also plays Anna Heegaard, a rich free black woman who’s dating the Danish governor of the island.

It’s sold as an absurdist comedy and I think there’s no other way to describe it. There aren’t any real jokes but you often end up laughing at the absurdity of it all.

It’s extremely honest about the horrors Danes put the black population through but thankfully it only shows it in quick flashes of art as seen in the trailer. I once watched a video where they explained why most women aren’t into slasher movies and why black people generally don’t rewatch movies about racism and slavery. It’s because the the horrors shown are very real fears and a fact of life so the only people who can really enjoy watching a woman get horribly murdered as entertaining are men and only white people can watch a black person getting whipped to death with cinematic lighting and have a fun night out. By showing the horrors in art they get to be clear about exactly what is going on without coming off as exploitative.

But it’s also very honest about the ways a society based on slavery fucks with everyone. Most of the servants at the manor are slaves except the cook who bought her own freedom years ago. She tells the housekeeper Petrine that some day she too will be able to buy her freedom and get her own slave. That’s right, the freed black people aspire to get their own slaves because that’s the sort of values a society like this instills in people. And Anna tries to be as nice as possible to her own slaves but doesn’t take her own success for granted and is more afraid of an uprising than her white lover and ends up doing some really horrible things to her slaves to keep them down.

It also touches on how people viewed being black or white back then. That it wasn’t all about skin colour but also status. That’s why all the white people treat Anna as one of them. She’s a rich, educated lady so of course she’s “white”. Even Anna express contempt at being called black because she doesn’t work in the field. The poor freed black people also call Petrine white because she dress and acts like a Dane. Not as in “you are pretending to be white” but as in you are white.

And hats off to the director Frederikke Aspöck. There’s a scene where a woman buys her freedom and they put on a symbolic slave auction where she gets up on the podium and bids on herself. All the white neighbors have come to witness it because it’s seen as this joyous day and they all clap, she’s offered to drink with them and she’s all smiles. The director managed to make the scene wholesome while highlighting the absurdity of it and all you can do is chuckle because what the fuck? The white people think it’s a good thing that she’s free but continue to keep and mistreat their own slaves, and she no doubt dreams of getting her own down the road. It’s very much depicted as institutionalized racism and not just “a few bad eggs”.

And I didn’t know where to put this but there’s a lot of interesting symbolism going on with Anna’s dresses. She always wears dresses that match the colors of the rooms she’s in, establishing her as fully part of the system, but as she begins to realize that the Danish state will never see her as fully equal her colors start to clash with her surroundings.

I watched it on Netflix and it has English subtitles so it should be somewhere for English speakers to watch if you feel so inclined.

[radiofreederry]

Happy birthday, Edward Said! (November 1, 1935)

A highly influential Palestinian academic, author, and activist, Edward Said was born in Jerusalem to Christian Palestinian parents. After receiving his education, Said began a teaching career at Columbia University, and would also teach at institutions including Stanford and Yale. A prolific academic, Said also contributed editorially to publications including the Arab Studies Quarterly and as the president of the Modern Language Association. Said is best known as a cultural critic through such books as Orientalism and Culture and Imperialism, the former of which, his best-known work, laid out his critique of European and American perceptions of "the East," and those perceptions' link with imperialism and colonialism. He also advocated for the Arab and Palestinian perspective on the issue of Palestine, and from 1977 to 1991 Said served on the Palestinian National Council, where he critiqued the Oslo Accords for not establishing an independent State of Palestine. He died in 2003 in New York City.

"Every single empire in its official discourse has said that it is not like all the others, that its circumstances are special, that it has a mission to enlighten, civilize, bring order and democracy, and that it uses force only as a last resort. And, sadder still, there always is a chorus of willing intellectuals to say calming words about benign or altruistic empires, as if one shouldn't trust the evidence of one's eyes watching the destruction and the misery and death brought by the latest mission civilizatrice."

[blackhistorystoryteller]

Africa has been very rich even before colonialism

The truth you should know about African

Blacks know your history and divinity

They gave us the Bible and stole our natural resources

Community and Social Cohesion: Traditional African religions often emphasized communal values, fostering a sense of belonging and mutual support within the community. Rituals and ceremonies were communal events that strengthened social ties.

Respect for Nature: Many African traditional religions were deeply connected to nature, promoting a harmonious relationship with the environment. This connection often led to sustainable practices and a respect for the natural world.

Ethical Guidelines: These religions often included moral and ethical guidelines that governed interpersonal relationships. Concepts such as honesty, hospitality, and respect for elders were commonly emphasized.

Cultural Identity: Traditional African religions played a crucial role in shaping cultural identity. They provided a framework for understanding the world, explaining origins, and passing down cultural practices through rituals, myths, and oral traditions.

Islam reached Nigeria through a combination of trade, migration, and cultural interactions. The trans-Saharan trade routes were crucial in bringing Islam to the region. Muslim traders from North Africa and the Middle East ventured into West Africa, establishing economic ties and introducing Islam to local communities.

The city-states along the trade routes, such as Kano and Katsina, became significant centers for Islamic influence. Merchants not only engaged in commercial activities but also played a role in spreading Islamic teachings. Over time, rulers and elites in these city-states embraced Islam, contributing to its gradual acceptance.

Additionally, the spread of Islam in Nigeria was facilitated by the activities of Islamic scholars and missionaries. Scholars known as clerics or Mallams played a key role in teaching Islamic principles and converting people to Islam. They often established Quranic schools and engaged in educational activities that promoted the understanding of Islamic teachings.

Military conquests also played a part in the expansion of Islam in Nigeria. Islamic empires, such as the Sokoto Caliphate in the 19th century, emerged through conquest and warfare, bringing Islam to new territories. The Sokoto Caliphate, led by Usman dan Fodio, sought to establish a strict Islamic state based on Sharia law.

Overall, the spread of Islam in Nigeria was a gradual process influenced by trade networks, migration, the activities of scholars, and, at times, military expansion. The interplay of these factors contributed to the integration of Islam into Nigerian society, shaping its cultural and religious landscape.

In the vast tapestry of Africa's rich cultural heritage, herbal traditional healing stands out as a profound and time-honored practice. African herbal traditional healers, often known as traditional or indigenous healers, play a vital role in the healthcare systems of many communities across the continent. Their practices are deeply rooted in the natural world, drawing on centuries-old wisdom and an intimate understanding of local flora.

African herbal traditional healers are custodians of ancient knowledge, passing down their expertise through generations. They serve as primary healthcare providers in many communities, addressing a wide range of physical, mental, and spiritual ailments. The healing process involves a holistic approach, considering the interconnectedness of the individual with their community and environment.

One of the hallmark features of African herbal traditional healers is their profound knowledge of medicinal plants. These healers have an intricate understanding of the properties, uses, and combinations of various herbs. Passed down through oral traditions, this knowledge is often a well-guarded family secret or shared within the apprentice-master relationship.

The methods employed by herbal traditional healers encompass diverse approaches. Herbal remedies, administered as infusions, decoctions, or ointments, form a significant part of their treatment. These remedies are carefully crafted based on the healer's understanding of the patient's symptoms, lifestyle, and spiritual condition. Additionally, rituals, ceremonies, and prayers are often incorporated into the healing process, acknowledging the interconnectedness of physical and spiritual well-being.

African herbal traditional healers frequently integrate spiritual elements into their practice. They believe that illness can be a manifestation of spiritual imbalances or disharmony. Through rituals and consultations with ancestors or spirits, healers seek to restore balance and harmony within the individual and the community.

Herbal traditional healers are integral to the social fabric of their communities. They often serve not only as healers but also as counselors, mediators, and keepers of cultural traditions. Their practices are deeply intertwined with community life, contributing to the resilience and cohesion of African societies.

While herbal traditional healing holds immense value, it faces challenges in the modern era. The encroachment of Western medicine, issues related to regulation and standardization, and the potential exploitation of traditional knowledge pose threats to this practice. However, there is also a growing recognition of the importance of integrating traditional healing into mainstream healthcare systems, leading to collaborative efforts to preserve and promote this valuable heritage.

African herbal traditional healers are bearers of an ancient legacy, embodying a profound connection between humanity and the natural world. Their healing practices, rooted in herbal wisdom and spiritual insights, offer a unique perspective on healthcare that complements modern medical approaches. Preserving and respecting the knowledge of these healers is not only crucial for the well-being of local communities but also for the broader appreciation of the diverse cultural tapestry that defines Africa.

[munsons-mutiny]

I’ve had this headcanon forever and it’s just never come up anywhere, so I figured it’s time to write about it.

Caleb’s spell that he makes for Veth, Widogast’s Transmorigification, has major implications for Exandria’s trans population! This could be the magical equivalent of top or bottom surgery only it’s down to a biological level! I’m sure they’ve had their own procedures, but a body that you can personally design does seem like an upgrade from whatever technology/magic they have available!

I like to believe that Caleb doesn’t think about the spell in that context at first, why would he? It was designed for someone with a different type of body dysphoria, and he doesn’t interact with too many trans people (at least that he knows, I have no clue if he knows about Yussa, and they haven’t seen Bryce in ages).

But once he starts teaching, and establishes himself as a safe space for queer kids (you can’t tell me the empire is super open minded, especially their most prestigious traditional institution) the application becomes obvious. The first time his favorite student, a small purple tiefling named Aza who reminds him so much of Molly it hurts, comes to him mid-breakdown because of how bad the dysphoria is the solution just immediately pops into his head. He could fix this for her, give her the body she should’ve been born in.

He comforts her the best he can and then calls a meeting of the lgbt club he has set up (it’s run under the radar to make it safe even for students who aren’t out to their peers yet). Where he gives a presentation on the spell, and it’s capabilities, even has Veth come in to show the results and have her talk about her experience and if there had been any side effects.

A couple students in the room cry at the possibility, some remain uninterested, but many are enraptured with the idea.

In what seems like the blink of an eye Caleb has suddenly become an underground queer hero, he starts performing the spell free of cost to anyone who wants it and is above the legal age (you just have to help dig up the clay if you can). Ends up having a whole medical procedure to the spell, where he takes them to the blooming grove (which I imagine has plenty of clays heheh) where it’s peaceful and they can talk everything over with caduceus before and after. Who can guide them through their feelings much better than Caleb though he always tries his best. He always offer the option to go back as well (though they have to wait a year, which is of course stated beforehand) if it isn’t the solution they were hoping for.

(Totally off track but I fully believe Caduceus ends up super involved in Caleb’s queer club, there’s so little aro ace rep and seeing someone whose so confident in it would be so helpful for them, and I think it would be so comforting for Caddy to see others like him and to know he’s not alone in that)

They keep the whole operation quiet, but it spreads silently throughout the queer community, Astrid even stepping in a time or two to keep it off the Assembly’s radar (She may be straight, but she’s poly with a bi partner, and I believe she’ll use her powers for causes she believes in for better or worse. Thankfully this is one of them).

There’s still discrimination against the queer community, but this quiet movement starts to spread to the point that almost every member of the nein is involved. Beau uses her connections at the Soul to get new documentation for people with proper names and pronouns. Yasha starts running Rexxentrum’s first self-sustainable lgbt safehouse for kids with nowhere to go (the garden is incredible). Jester and Fjord turn Fjord’s old orphanage into a second lgbt safehouse after he gets it shut down. Veth adds lgbt education to her camps curriculum, and is an advocate for same sex healthcare in the Nicodranas school system. She has a tunic that says proud mother of a bisexual wizard that she wears a little too often much to Caleb’s chagrin. Even Kingsley (illegal pirate king that he may be, my beloved) ends up becoming as involved as possible in Caleb’s group. Loves learning more about gender identity, and becomes the first Plank King to be openly gender fluid (probably who knows, I don’t know much about Darktows history but I def didn’t get super queer vibes). Makes sure Dark-Tow is accepting of all who turn to piracy, and imposes harsh laws against discrimination.

Essek looks on all of this with pride, so proud of Caleb and even the small role that he got to play in the spells creation. It’s the first time he gets to see something he helped with create good in the world. With Caleb’s permission he ends up sneaking back into the dynasty and leaving a copy of the finished spell on the Bright Queens desk, with a big created by Caleb Widogast across it (with whatever the wizard equivalent of copyright is). In a culture that centers around rebirth in different bodies, the idea that you could choose to have your original body back is a big deal. Dysphoria after consecuted individuals get their magic back is a huge problem within the dynasty, and it does Essek a lot of good to know that he’s done something actually helpful for his country.

Basically this got super long winded and out of hand, and I know Matt has largely cut homophobia, transphobia, and non-fantasy racism from Exandria but this idea would just not leave me alone!! And either way the spells implications for a gender affirming procedure are still super relevant.

[hussyknee]

hi, i hope i am not crossing a line, please ignore if this is bad question. i am just curious

in one of your posts u said your caste is karava. this is the first time i am hearing a sinhalese talk about caste (i speak tamil and never really felt confident in my sinhala to make sinhalese friends)

can you explain about the castes or tell me where find information about it

Caste is a fucked up concept across the board, obviously, but Sinhalese castes are different from Tamil Hindu in that they involve the cultural and socio-political organisation of the Sinhalese community, and has no connection to religious scripture.

There are thirteen castes that still exist today. We used to be a chiefly agrarian society, so the majority of Sinhalese are Govigama ("Govi" means farming) and they're the kind of "bourgeoisie" of the social order in that few are above them and anyone else is below them. Those that rank below them are castes like Bathgama and Kinnara (who are meant to be agricultural labourers) Vahampura (something to do with making cinnamon or treacle) Navadanna (artisans, especially makers of jewelry) and Rada (launderers). Radala is the caste of the nobility, and afaik the only one above Govigama. They're all from highlands of Kandy, the last Sinhalese holdout against the Europeans for about 200 years. There's no nobility among the lowlanders (between the Portuguese, Dutch and British, they were either killed, assimilated or fled to Kandy) so the Govigama caste is the highest one everywhere else. This means Govigama used to be the only one that was qualified to join the Theravada Buddhist priesthood* and also receive education and job opportunities as government servants—right up until the mid-20th century, when the karava gentry turned into robber barons under the British Empire's demand for cash crops.

Karava people are the majority inhabitants in the Southern coastal lands, which are predominantly Sinhalese Buddhist, as opposed to the Tamil lands of the Northern coast (Eelam really) and the proliferation of sparsely-populated Muslim communities in the rest of the coastal belt. Karava is called the fisherfolk caste by the rest of country, despite their own strong objections. Caste is reckoned patrilineally. I'm Karava through my Dad and I married into a Karava family. Nearly every Karava person I know insists that we're actually the warrior caste and were given the coastal lands as reward for our service to the king. I'm sure there's a legitimate case to be made for this, (this site keeps being referred to me) but I don't care enough to find out because the Karava insistence that being called fisherfolk is a Govigama conspiracy is incredibly funny. I mean, it could be true, what do I know, but so much of the cope and seethe stem from our lingering inferiority complex and resentment at having been treated as inferior until a few decades ago. After being ground under the Radala and Govigama feet along with the rest for ages beyond record, suddenly us lowlanders were rolling in money from our toddy, coconut and rubber plantations, matching or surpassing the wealth of the nobility. We were chasing off Tamil and Muslim minorities to establish our own lost cultural capitals in Anuradhapura and Pollonnaruwa that predated the Kandyan kingdom and making our own sect of the Buddhist priesthood (Amarapura Nikaya) that would ordain Karava people. The robber baron types also got very chummy with the British colonial administration and were awarded cushy jobs in government over the Govigama, who still disdained industrialization and commerce. (To this day my mother's family looks down on business people no matter how rich. Merchants are considered grasping and untrustworthy.) By the time of Sri Lanka's independence from the British in 1948, we had two varieties of equally rich, snooty, virulently ethnonationalist Sinhalese elites who had gotten ahead by selling us out to the British, but with the highland Radala still believing they were too pure-blooded to mix with the hoi polloi and the lowland Karava resentful at being considered the polloi no matter how hoi they'd become. Post-independence, Sri Lanka's adoption of free education and free state universities saw masses of lowlanders, Karava, Durava and Salagama all, sending their kids to university to attain upwardly mobile careers in engineering, medicine and teaching. "If the boy is Karava he's probably in engineering" is a common joke. It's a clear shift away from our rural agrarian roots into urban sprawl and high socio-economic competition in place of social stratification.

We also have a caste of Untouchables called the Rodiya. In ancient times, you and all your family being stripped of their lands and titles and banished into the Rodi Rahaya was one of the punishments reserved for the noble houses that ran afoul of the monarchy. It condemned your entire lineage forever. This was such a dire fate that some would have favoured execution.

Rodiyas were not permitted to cross a ferry, to draw water at a well, to enter a village, to till land, or learn a trade, as no recognised caste could deal or hold intercourse with a Rodiya [...] They were forced to subsist on alms or such gifts as they might receive for protecting the fields from wild beasts or burying the carcasses of dead cattle; but they were not allowed to come within a fenced field even to beg [...] They were prohibited from wearing a cloth on their heads, and neither men nor women were allowed to cover their bodies above the waist or below the knee. If benighted they dare not lie down in a shed appropriated to other travellers, but hid themselves in caves or deserted watch-huts. Though nominally Buddhists, they were not allowed to go into a temple, and could only pray "standing afar off"

(Source)

Allegations of witchcraft and cannibalism aside, the Rodiyas themselves were known to be a proud folk that considered themselves the pure-blooded descendants of the royalty that were punished this way. Here's a Reddit post that expounds on them more, along with photographs. It seems that the strictures against covering up had fallen away between the turn of the 20th century and the '70s. Not much is known about their current living conditions, but I believe that, like India's own Untouchables and the low caste of Eelam's Tamil Hindus, they must have converted to Christianity to escape the stigma.

Casteism is still somewhat of a problem in the Sinhalese community, but it's lessening every generation. My maternal grandparents weren't entirely happy about my mother marrying my Karava father but conceded because he was an engineer with a stable career. My older cousin had to fight his Karava family to marry his school sweetheart because she was both poor and Bathgama caste (I think "Padu" might be a derogatory name for it). The fact that he succeeded is noteworthy because it would have been a huge scandal in my parents' time. The Radalas are still a bunch of insular dipshits who try to keel over and die if one of them tries to marry out. But many of them are also migrating abroad so Idk if it's too much to hope that they leave the caste shit behind when they assimilate into Western society. It certainly hasn't worked for the Brahmin Indians. But the outlook is better for the rest of us.

*There is no caste system in Buddhism. The Buddha in fact was an egalitarian social reformer who advocated against the Vedic caste system and ordained Untouchables as well as women. So obviously the Theravadin priesthood of Sri Lanka, that bastion of the Buddha's Word, would make sure that only high caste men could ever be ordained. Love the fact that the Karava social revolution just made sure they had their own sect instead of, y'know, pushing for anything more equitable. I always say that if we really want to protect Buddhism we have to abolish the Sinhalese.

[barblaz-arts]

Seen your post about Israel/Palestine which is very good to care about, but I'm not sure everyone in the world are aware how fucked up the whole situation is. People think it's either this or that, but they should support the actual people, not Israel, not Hamas.

People from both sides got hurt, but the ones who were hurting longer in short term historical perspective, are Palestineans, if we take the long term (which only maniacs and fanatics actually care about) those are of course Jews, but it's more of a religion/ideology thing than some actual suffering.

The problem of this lack of knowledge, in my opinion, is that both sides, politically are shit bcs they use people and their feelings as pawns. Hamas has their military bases near civilian objects in Gaza, and at the same time Israel doesn't give more than two fucks about the civilian population, because they state that terrorists are hiding within the population, and Israel just makes attempts to swipe it under the rug a but by allegedly telling people to evacuate. If they wanted peace they should have started this whole bullshit conflict of interests half century ago. But I really have doubts that for them, being a very much newly established country, it was a fully uninfluenced decision. It was a way for the USA and Nato to weed their way into the Middle East and be able to control the situation. They have been getting ready for war for decades, hense females in regular military service, which isn't a thing in countries that don't really wait and want for any war happening, or have a stable way to enlist their immigrants into their military. But that's another topic. I made this example only as a means to explain why it was obvious Israel was getting ready for war. You can hide the actual point under the feminism and such, but it's not about feminism if it's not your right but your responsibility to serve the country. I don't really mind of course, but the militarization of society usually shows what is it going to be in the future. Especially if such militarization isn't sporadic, but been happening gradually over the years.

Back to history, The whole thing with Israel been festering previous decades, and first UK and after that USA allowed it to fester. It was the Osman empire region first (and I don't really like those slavers on principle, because they've been torturing my country with slave trader's raids on religious principle, for couple of centuries which prompted several huge wars to stop it from happening). After the dissolution of the Osman, as far as I remember, UK swooped in and basically did the colonising of sorts, they usually did, with no respect for local population and thinking they're the ruling caste while being unable assimilate the people into their culture because a) you can't make people want what they don't understand b) any more or less peaceful assimilation is when they actually want to be with you as allies and understand why exactly.

After that they synthetically made a country for jews, which is idiotic on its own merit and on everyone's merit. Like, their thing is that you had to be jew BY BLOOD to settle in the country, which is the beginnings of ultra nationalism, that's what I'm thinking. Not that many societies aren't nationalistic, but the sheer level of it is very odd. And the forefathers of the Israel aren't some lgbt activists who shine with rainbows and shit with butterflies, they are orthodox zionists. Which means, that their religion makes them free to kill people of other, opposing religion.

But it doesn't make the Hamas, as in the organisation, in any way clean and clear. They are terrorists, and they don't enjoy anything but sharia law, or their own charter, which states basically Jihad and jew killing. That is a very dangerous thing to support, because it's a very obvious thing - in this kind of tribalistic society that spurs from lack of education and all other good things in life, people with guns and moxie will rule the people who can actually make the whole thing better by promoting cooperation. You literally cannot negotiate with people who say that they will kill you if you're this or that, killing is bad, period. There's no way out of it, and I think we all need to step back and actually look at the reasons of conflict that go way back, not just the today's situation. It may lead us to the fact that, yes, Israel could've existed peacefully if it wasn't being militaristic, but only - only if they were no political powers in surrounding countries that made their goal the cleansing of Palestine from Jews. And why the Jews even started to get there? Not because they came on their own, no, it was a fucking plan by the actual colonisers, when they were more toothy and bold with their actions.

On a side note, that's partially why Russia/Ukraine situation is drastically different, they have deep ties to each other and speak the same language, had ability to talk to each other all these decades while being torn apart and pit against each other by lies about Russian colonisation of them, and lies of how it would be better if they join the EU. All the while, Ukraine was the best in agriculture in Europe before the whole EU and fracturing from the Russian orbit shebang, and now the industry was in shambles, even before the russian invasion. The same goes for their trading fleet - the whole Ussr built Ukraine the trading fleet and most of it was left there after the dissolution. What they did, they sold it out even if they couldve used it and by the 2018 they had about 5 big ships of their own. And that's how it was with all the economy - thieving it all out and then blaming it on Moscow.

In 2018 polls there were about 20 percent of Ukrainians who said they knew official Ukrainian, and 80 who spoke Russian and the eastern dialect mix of Ukrainian and Russian. You can make your own opinion out of this, ofc. That's not the same with Israel /Palestine situation, those nations are literally alien to each other in many things.

Yes, Ukraine was the synthetic country as well, but instead of being monogenous like both Israel and Palestine, they weren't, and had a very best economy in the Ussr, which made the whole notion of "Russia was is and will be bad" take lots of time in taking root in most of the people who weren't nationalistic, all the while Ukrainians were welcomed into Russia and not discriminated against in any way. Which is totally different to what was happening between Israel and Palestine, they had no actual ties, nothing except the USA military support for Israel so it stays on top, all the economic support to Gaza being settled in the pockets of all the middle men, and that's actually it.

But please, let's not forget, that the radical islamists are actually dangerous, and it's not a reaction to the USA involvement, or the reaction to anything at all but Quran. If there's someone who reads Quran and finds some Jihad mentions, there will be blood spilled over it. The whole, it's these guys fault or those guys fault doesn't really work when it's about politics, domestic or international. For things to work, there should be no radicals in the upper echelons of power. Which is not true in Israel / Palestine war from both sides. It's a very bad situation that may cause all kinds of tensions in all the world, because people aren't being well informed about the whole history of the conflict, without this or that side pushing their narrative.

At first, my knee jerk reaction was reading it as you thinking I support Hamas in any way. Which i dont. I must reiterate i DONT. I decided to revisit this later and calm down a bit and give you the benefit of the doubt here and assume that you're talking about other people, as I have myself seen say they support Hamas because history has often called rebellion groups of oppressed people terrorists and it's... Frankly terrifying to see.

Hamas specifically is a complicated situation that I have not yet dived deep enough into to talk about in detail, which is why I dont much talk much about them. I need to know more, I dont wanna talk outta my ass. But I do understand that radical Islamists are no good. I live in the Philippines. We have that too.

But the fact of the matter will always be that Hamas never mattered when it comes to what Israel is doing now and what they've been doing for decades. We must always remember this.

And while I'm on that topic, the "long term" suffering of Jews does not matter here either, because Palestinians didn't do that to them. A lot of zionists use it as an excuse and I am sick of it.

I'm not sure if you're saying one must be neutral about this. You're either hard to read, or I'm too sleep deprived and exhausted for reading comprehension. I think you are, but ai could be wrong. And I completely agree that it's the radicals in power that are to blame. In all my responses it is always the leaders I condemn most.

In any case, I'm just going to take this opportunity to say staying neutral isn't an option either because of the sheer power imbalance. Israel would be counting on the world looking away so they can erase all Palestinians. For this cycle of violence to be over on BOTH sides, Israel has to be the one to back off, as they are and always have been the ones with more power.

[randomnameless]

Revisiting Yuri and Dee's support in Nopes :

It has bonkers things like :

Yes, and it's also got me thinking about how best to help those of more meager standing. Originally, I'd thought that establishing medical facilities or investing in the church were the best pathways to this cause. But after seeing the people here, I realize they are not indigents standing around with open hands awaiting salvation.

What are you talking about Dee? Medical facilities aren't anything like "salvation", it's just a place where people are healed?

Sure, some people want to participate in their life, decisions and politics so to associate them to those processes is an interesting thing... but they'd still need somewhere/someone to help/heal them, right?

And it's really where Yuri shines - and reminds us that this support can only happen in AG - because he completely corrects Dimitri, if Dimitri wants to associate commoners to decision-making, they should at first receive education :

Of course, they're already fully capable of telling you when they're hungry or if taxes are too high... But they'll need education to understand the policies and laws established by their lords and hold any kind of thoughtful opinion on them.

I love this last sentence, because man does it ring differently when you consider Yuri was the de facto guy in charge of the Abyss - where people complained in every explore section about Church/Nobles BaD - special mention to Hapi "CoS BaD they promised me they'd cure me but it has been a year since I'm here, I know I am a danger to the people living on the surface, I most likely never told them who experimented on me nor where she was nor what kind of stuff she did to me, and I haven't been cured since!"

Thoughtful opinions on policies and decisions uh?

Problem is, people aren't in the mood to learn anything when they don't know where their next meal is coming from or where they'll sleep that night.

I know some politician I love to joke about once said "morality don't feed your belly", but this is in the same vein - people can think about education/doing the "right thing" and whatnot... only when their lives aren't in immediate danger, like, say, because they're starving or on the streets.

That's where I think we have the closest "thoughts" Yuri has about the Abyss - sure it's not all roses and daisies, far from that, but it's still a place where people who have nowhere to go, well, can go, and eat.

Regardless of the Abyss...

Yuri is here to remind Dimitri that people still need to survive before receiving proper education, aka, they need "support" to be able to walk on their own legs, or decide to do what they want.

Compare this to Supreme Leader's "if the weak remain weak it's because they're too used on rely on others" and while I really dislike how Dimitri was teetering to close to that edge on his own and only reconsidered when Yuri reminded him of, uh, something that should be common sense - for a Fodlan game, I still find it very nice that this issue was adressed (and it even recontextualises the Abyss from FE16, something FE16 couldn't do bcs, Church BaD).

Now, I know Yuri can join Tru Piss and Supreme Bullshit, but is it any wonder that his paralogue is AG oriented, his supports are AG oriented (save for the ones who are always available + Marianne) and he has no interaction with members of the Empire?

Mmh...

[vibratingskull]

Hello! I was thinking you said you didn't master Thrass yet how about you start "small" with him not been exactly the main character?

How about a F!reader she was in relationship with Thrass and by the time he died she is pregnant and she leaves to the empire.

Thrawn finds her in his exile. You could focus more on her relationship with Thrawn if it's easier.(?)

Obviously, this is just a suggestion not a request. You can totally ignore this if you like.

Art by @jorrmund

Thrawn and in laws... That sounds interesting

Thrawn & Chiss!F!reader

Tags : Hurt and little comfort

You apply the final touches with your brushes on your blue skin, finishing to perfect your traditional make up for the day. You check your coiffure one last time and rise on your feet to enter the salon and take your place. 

You’re alone at the tea house today, your two apprentices have their day off but that’s not a problem for you. Your first family was in the tea business for generation and educated you in its ways. You later trained your husband at this art when you entered the Mitth for your wedding. 

Now that you are in the human Empire, this traditionnal Chiss tea house that you built for yourself is the last bound you have to your former life. When Mitth’raw’nuruodo came back from his mission, distraught, his first action was to come to you and warn you about Thrass disapearance. Without thinking twice you prepared a bag and with Thrawn complicity you stealed a ship to fly after Thrass while pregnant.  

You were not letting your husband disappear when you had a baby on the way! 

You searched for him for a months, visiting numerous planets, meeting nuemrous species. 

To no avail. 

At some point you got lost in the chaos and end up in lesser space, the term was really close and you needed an hospital or a maternity to give birth to your baby safely. You had to give birth alone, without any familiar faces and surrounded by aliens. 

A chance there was a near-Chiss species, humans, who helped you in this trial. But traveling with a week old baby without any concrete destination and on unsafe routes was simply impossible and you had to stop. The danger was simply too great.  

So you worked different jobs to make ends meet, hiding your skin color or your shiny red eyes, you traveled across this city planet called Coruscant, changing apartments, sometimes running away from creditors and hiding somewhere  until things settles down. You saw the end of the Republic and lived through the first days of the Empire, keeping a low profile... 

Things could have gotten a lot worse if you didn’t hold on to your principles and bared your teeth to adversity. But you managed to gain some money, bought that building for next to nothing, renovating it yourself into a proper establishement worthy of Chiss standards, and now you have two trainees to train. They are nice girls, diligent and hard working with the will to do great and by the rules but they are still far from the Chiss excellence in the ways of the tea. 

You check your questi... datapad to know your shedules of the day. Lately you have more than 25 clients per day. It forces you to rush some aspects of the ceremony but it is still manageable. 

... 

Only one client? 

Weird. 

Your apprentice who took the reservation left a note. 

“Navy Officer who specifically requested the entire day to himself.” 

You sigh, annoyed. You are a tea house, not a pleasure house. You don’t stay an entire day here! What was she thinking when she took the reservation? You cannot permit yourself to dedicate a full day to a single client! 

A Navy Officer no less.  

You sniff with disdain. Another one of those men who thinks because he has money and rank everything is due to him! 

But what’s done is done now. You’ll conduct the ceremony as always and push him to the door and took the rest of the day to yourself. You will be able to come back home earlier and spend some time with your son. 

You lay down the pad and aligns all your ustensils on the clothe on the floor, seating heels on the little mattress dedicated to this effect. That’s when you hear the door of the salon open and steps entering the room. 

At least this Grand Admiral respects the schedule. 

You also notes he had the presence of mind to take off his shoes to walk on the tatami. Not all clients knows that. You begrugingly give him another point as you lay down the last utensil and turns towards your client, eyes closed as you bow down to him respectfully. 

“Welcome to the Primordial Tea house.” 

“I thank you Mitth’(Y/n)’(F/n).” 

You froze, opening your eyes in a shock. 

Before you, impeccably seated on his heels, raising from his bow and in a perfectly neat green uniform, stands another chiss. 

And not any Chiss! 

“Mitth’raw’ nuruodo...” You say with a white voice, barely audible. 

His expression is serene and aloof, but his gleaming red eyes shine with tenderness and a controlled joy. You are utterly speechless. Why is he here? What is he doing in this parts of the Galaxy? Why... 

“I rejoice seeing you thriving in this Empire, my sister.” He finally says before your resonnating silence, “You must have a lot of questions.” 

You look at him up and down, not believing your sight. 

But that’s him! Older by a decade but it is unmistikably him! Your husband’s little brother! 

Your own little brother now. 

“I... How?” You utter. 

“I was sent in a mission by the Ascendancy to find new allies and study this Empire.” 

You look at him with round eyes, feeling your hands starting to tremble on your knees. 

“I was terrified for you when you stopped sending me news years ago, but I heard rumors about a woman with blue skin and red eyes in this part of Coruscant. I had to verify it for myself.” He continues before your disarray, “I hoped with all my heart it was you, and I was not mistaken.” 

“Mitth... raw...” 

“Call me Thrawn, my sister. As you used to do back in the day.” 

“Thrawn...” You breath, heart clenching painfully, “Did you get any news? Anything?” 

His shoulders lower and he shakes his head slightly. 

“No. Nothing.”  

Your heart starts to bleed and a sob rises in your throat. 

“He will never come back...” You manage to say with a shaky voice, a tear rolling on your cheek. 

“I am affraid.” He concedes gravely. “Hope gets thiner by each passing day.” 

And you burst out in tears. You hide your face behind your hands, sobbing as you are forced to face your most horrifying fear. Thrawn remains silent, repectful of your pain. He lets you cry with compassion in his eyes. 

“I am truly sorry (Y/n).” He murmures. 

“Oh my warrior... What will I say to Thabim?” Your entire body shakes between sobs. 

Thrawn tilts his head. 

“Thabim?” 

You sniff unelegantly, going against the reserve and modesty of your role as a tea master, but frankly you don’t care at that moment. 

“Thrass’ son... Our child...” You gasp, trying to breath. 

Thrawn’s eyes round up slightly, clearly taken by surprise. 

“You had a child?” 

You nod as tears fall down from your cheeks to your folded legs, soiling your precious traditional attire for tea ceremony. 

“We didn’t want to announce it to the family just yet... It was supposed to be a surprise...” You pull on your collar to open your attire and take out a medallion that you open, revealing an old picture of you and Thrass together. 

Smiling. 

Carefree. 

Simply happy to be together. 

You still remember vividly the day you announced your pregnancy to your dear Ch’acah. Thrass was checking files on his questis when you agitated the test under his gaze. Surprised, he threw his head backward, hitting the back of his skull against the bedrame. You chuckled as he massaged his painfull head, turning his gaze to you, wondering what you wanted to tell him. You showed him the test again with a big smile and saw the shimmer of his red gaze intensify by ten fold. He jumped out of the bed, seized your hips and made you spin in the air, laughing loudly, before embracing you, pulling you into a deep kiss, happy and hopefull. 

Now he is lost... 

You press the medallion against your heart, forgetting Thrawn’s presence because of the pain. Thrass hide the same pendant under his sydyc tunic. You fold your body in two in a soothing gesture. You feel Thrawn’s hand seize your shoulder gently, squeezing it softly. 

“I am sorry (Y/n).” He repeats  

“It is so painful...” You cry. “It feels like I’m hoing to die!” 

“Yes.” He agrees, “It is the most terrible pain. But you are not alone anymore, I am with you now. I will help you and Thabim.” 

You raise you gaze to him, full of pain and pleadings. 

And you throw yourself in his arms, all etiquette be damned!  He frozes under your touch, taken by surprise once more. You squeeze him tight, burying your face in the crook of his neck, soiling his uniform with your tears. You feel him responding to your hug after an hesitation, caressing your back comfortingly and circling your shoulders. 

“I am here now, sister. And I will remain.” 

You hiss in your pain, breathing with difficulty with your lungs so tight. 

“Thank you brother... Thank you...” 

@bluechiss @thrawnalani @justanothersadperson93 @al-astakbar@thrawnspetgoose @readinglistfics @elise2174 @debonaire-princess @twilekchiss @pencil-urchin @ineedazeezee @mssbridgerton @dance-like-russia-isnt-watching @Cortisolcosplay @obbicrystaleo @germie2037

[mariacallous]

The Times has a rather odd piece today about Radek Sikorski, the new Polish foreign minister. Headlined “Why Poland’s new foreign minister reminds people of Boris Johnson,” it points out that Radek, like Johnson and indeed David Cameron, went to Oxford and joined the Bullingdon Club.

Well, yes, he did, and thank you for reminding us, but we should not hold that against him because there is one glaring and obvious difference between Boris Johnson and Radek Sikorski. Unlike so many Conservatives and Republicans, Sikorski did not succumb to populism. His return to power in Poland is an optimistic moment as it came as part of the regime change that drove the crank right law and justice party from power.

Sikorski fell out with Johnson over Brexit. He knew perfectly well that Johnson did not believe in leaving the EU because had Johnson had told him as much. But then 2016 rolled along and Johnson realised that Brexit was the cause that could propel him to power.

The story of their relationship is told by Sikorski’s wife Anne Applebaum in her memoir Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends, one of the best accounts of the rise of the new right in Europe, the UK and the US I have read.

When I gave it a glowing review in the Observer, a few readers complained. Why was I praising a conservative? I pointed out that her background meant that she understood the extent of the right’s betrayal of free markets and free societies better than any leftist. Give me a compromised insider over a purist outsider any day. The insiders know where the bodies are buried.

Here is what I wrote

Anne Applebaum can look at the wreck of democratic politics and understand it with a completeness few contemporary writers can match. When she asks who sent Britain into the unending Brexit crisis, or inflicted the Trump administration on America, or turned Poland and Hungary into one-party states, she does not need to search press cuttings. Her friends did it, she replies. Or, rather, her former friends. For if they are now embarrassed to have once known her, the feeling is reciprocated.

Applebaum’s latest book, Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and the Parting of Friends, opens with a scene a novelist could steal. On 31 December 1999, Applebaum and her husband, Radosław Sikorski, a minister in Poland’s then centre-right government, threw a party. It was a Millennium Eve housewarming for a manor house in the western Poland they had helped rebuild from ruins. The company of Poles, Brits, Americans and Russians could say that they had rebuilt a ruined world. Unlike the bulk of the left of the age, they had stood up against the Soviet empire and played a part in the fall of a cruel and suffocating tyranny. They had supported free markets, free elections, the rule of law and democracies sticking together in the EU and Nato, because these causes – surely – were the best ways for nations to help their people lead better lives as they faced Russian and Chinese power, Islamism and climate change.

They were young and happy. History’s winners. “At about three in the morning,” Applebaum recalls, “one of the wackier Polish guests pulled a pistol from her handbag and shot blanks into the air out of sheer exuberance.”

Applebaum was at the centre of the overlapping circles of guests. For the Americans, she was a child of the Republican establishment. Her father was a lawyer in Washington DC and she was educated at Yale and Oxford universities. Now her Republican friends are divided between a principled minority, who know that defeating Trump is the only way to save the American constitution, and the rest, who have, to use a word she repeats often, “collaborated” as surely as the east Europeans she studied as a historian collaborated with the invading Soviet forces after 1945.

Even when she was young, you could see the signs of the inquiring spirit that has made her a great historian. She went to work as a freelance journalist in eastern Europe while it was still under Soviet occupation and too drab and secretive a posting for most young reporters. She then made a standard career move and joined the Economist. But it was too dull for her liking and she moved to the Spectator in the early 1990s. The dilettante style of English conservatism charmed her. “These people don’t take themselves seriously and could never do serious harm,” she thought, as she watched Simon Heffer and his colleagues compete to see who could deliver the best Enoch Powell impersonation. She came to know the conservative philosopher Roger Scruton and Margaret Thatcher’s speechwriter John O’Sullivan, figures taken with unwarranted seriousness at the time. They had helped east European dissidents struggling against Soviet power in the 1980s and appeared to believe in democracy. Why would she doubt it? How could she foresee that Scruton and O’Sullivan would one day accept honours from Viktor Orbán, as he established a dictatorship in Hungary, whose rigged elections and state-controlled judiciary and media are now not so far away from the communists’ one-party state.

What was life in the English right like then, I asked in a call to her Polish lockdown in that restored manor house in the countryside between Warsaw and the German border. “It was fun,” she said.

It isn’t now.

Her husband knew Boris Johnson. They were both members of the Bullingdon Club at Oxford. She assumed that he was as much a liberal internationalist as Sikorski was. When the couple met Johnson for dinner in 2014, she noted his laziness and “all-consuming narcissism”, as well as the undoubted charisma that was to seduce and then ruin his country. In those days, Johnson appeared friendly. He was alarmed by the global challenge to democracy, he told them, and wanted to defend “the culture of freedom and openness and tolerance”. They asked about Europe. “No one serious wants to leave the EU,” he replied, which was true enough as Johnson was to prove when he came out for Brexit.

As for the Poles at the party, they knew Applebaum as a friend who had co-authored a Polish cookbook, and published histories of communism, which never forgot its victims.

Today she is a heretical figure across the right in Europe and America. Many of her guests would damage their careers if they admitted to their new masters they had once broken bread at her table.

Heretics make the best writers. They understand a movement better than outsiders, and can relate its faults because they have seen them close up. Religions can tolerate pagans. They are mere unbelievers who have never known the way, the truth and the light. The heretic has the advantages of the inside trader. She can use her knowledge to expose and betray the faithful. One question always hangs in the air, however: who is betraying whom? Although Applebaum has left the right, and stopped voting Conservative in Britain in 2015 and Republican in the US in 2008, she can make a convincing case that the right betrayed her.

In person, Applebaum combines intense concentration with an exuberant delight in human folly. You can be in the middle of a deadly serious conversation and suddenly she will break into a grin as the memory of a politician’s hypocrisy or an incomprehensible stupidity hits her. As the western crisis has deepened, the intensity has come to dominate her writing as she provides urgently needed insights.

You can read thousands of discussions of the “root causes” of what we insipidly call “populism”. The academic studies aren’t all wrong, although too many are suspiciously partial. The left says austerity and inequality caused Brexit and Trump, proving they had always been right to oppose austerity and inequality. The right blames woke politics and excessive immigration, and again you can hear the self-satisfaction in the explanation.

Applebaum offers an overdue corrective. She knows the personal behind the political. She understands that the nationalist counter-revolution did not just happen. Politicians hungry for office, plutocrats wanting the world to obey their commands, second-rate journalists sniffing a chance of recognition after years of obscurity, and Twitter mob-raisers and fake news fraudsters, who find a sadist’s pleasure in humiliating their opponents, propelled causes that would satisfy them.

Applebaum let out a snort that must have been heard for miles around her Polish home when I mentioned the journalist and author David Goodhart’s pro-Brexit formulation that we are living through an uprising by the “people from somewhere” against the “people from nowhere” – a modern variant on the old communist condemnations of “rootless cosmopolitans”, incidentally. It’s a war of one part of the elite against another part of the elite, she says. Brexit was an elite project. “The game was to get everyone to go along with it”. Were all the southern Tories who voted for it a part of the oppressed masses? “And who do you think funded the campaign?”

She is as wary of the commonplace view that supporters of Trump, say, are conformists, who have been brainwashed online or by Fox News. They may be now in some part, but brainwashing does not explain how populist movements begin. Their leaders weren’t from small towns full of abandoned shops and drug-ridden streets. They were metropolitans, with degrees from Oxford in the case of Johnson and Dominic Cummings. The men and women Applebaum knew were not loyal drones but filled with a dark restlessness. They may pose as the tribunes of the common people now but they were members of the intellectual and educated elite willing to launch a war on the rest of the intellectual and educated elite.

Populist activists are outsiders only in that they feel insufficiently rewarded. And their opponents should never underestimate what their self-pitying vanity can make them do.

One of Applebaum’s closest Polish friends, the godmother of one of her children, and a guest at the 1999 party, provided her with the most striking example. She moved from being a comfortable but obscure figure to become a celebrated Warsaw hostess and a confidante to Poland’s new rulers. She signalled her break and opened her prospects for advancement with a call to Applebaum within days of the Smolensk air crash of April 2010. She let her know she was adopting a conspiracy theory that would make future friendship impossible.

Outsiders need to take a deep breath before trying to understand it. Among the dead was Lech Kaczyński, the president of Poland, who controlled the rightwing populist party Law and Justice with his twin brother, Jarosław Kaczyński. The party has grown to dominate Polish politics, and the supposedly independent courts, media and civil service. The flight recorder showed that the pilot had come in too low in thick fog, and that was an end to it. Jarosław Kaczyński and his underlings insist that the Russians were behind the crash, or that political rivals in Warsaw, including Applebaum’s husband, allowed the president to fly in a faulty plane, or that it was an assassination. Repeating the lie was the price of admission to Law and Justice’s ruling circles and the public sector jobs they controlled. As Applebaum noted in the Atlantic magazine: “Sometimes the point isn’t to make people believe a lie – it’s to make people fear the liar.” Acknowledge the liar’s power, and your career takes off without the need to pass exams or to display an elementary level of competence.

Other friends from the party showed their fealty to the new order by promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories. The darker their fantasies became, the more airtime Polish state broadcasters gave them. “They had not suffered or been ‘left behind’ in any way,” Applebaum says. Yet they happily worked for propaganda sites that targeted her family. Because she is married to a political opponent of Law and Justice, and because she writes critical pieces in the international press, Applebaum, who had faced no racism in Poland until Law and Justice came to power, was turned by the regime’s creatures into the clandestine Jewish coordinator of “anti-Polish activity”.

I once believed you should never let politics destroy a friendship. But that maxim depends on politics not turning into a danger to you and those you love. Applebaum could not stay friends with women who would not protest as the state they supported went for her and husband.

The Anglo-Saxon world is not so different from Poland and Hungary. Britain has handled Covid-19 so disastrously because only servile nobodies, willing to pretend that a no-deal Brexit would not harm the country, could gain admittance to Boris Johnson’s cabinet. As Johnson politicises the public sector, showing “fear of the liar” looks like becoming the best way to secure a job in the higher ranks of the civil service as well. American Republicans have had to go along with every lie Trump has told since his birther slur on Barack Obama. As for breaking friendships, British Jews broke theirs when they watched friends in Labour cheer on Jeremy Corbyn and thought: “If they ever came for me and my family, you would stand by, wouldn’t you?”

Careerism is too glib an explanation for selling out, and Applebaum is too good a historian to offer it. Likewise, bigotry and racial prejudice were never enough on their own to move her friends away from liberal democracy. Among Applebaum’s acquaintances is one of Orbán’s greatest cheerleaders. She has a gay son, but that has not stopped her espousing the cause of a homophobic regime. Laura Ingraham, a Fox News presenter, became one of the earliest supporters of Trump, despite the fact that she has adopted three immigrant children.

Rather than grab at standard explanations, Applebaum understands that a society based on merit may sound fine if you want to live in a country run by talented people. But what if you are not yourself talented? Since the 1950s, criticisms of meritocracy have become so commonplace they have passed into cliche. Not one I have read or indeed written stops to consider how one-party states represent the anti-meritocratic society in its purest form. Among her friends who became the servants of authoritarian movements, Applebaum sees the consequences of the lust for status among resentful men and women, who believe the old world never gave them their due.

They were privileged by normal standards but nowhere near as privileged as they expected to be. Talking to Applebaum, I imagined a British government abolishing press freedom and the independence of the judiciary and the civil service. I didn’t doubt for a moment that there would be thousands of mediocre journalists, broadcasters, lawyers and administrators who would happily work for the new regime if it pandered to their vanity by giving them the jobs they could never have taken on merit. Hannah Arendt wrote of the communists and fascists that they replaced “first-rate talents” with “crackpots and fools whose lack of intelligence and creativity” was the best guarantee of their loyalty. She might have been talking about contemporary Poland, Britain and America.

“Given the right conditions any society can turn against democracy,” Applebaum says, and explains why better than any modern writer I know. To the political consequences of offended vanity – Why am I not more important? Why does the BBC never call? – a sense of despair is vital. If you believe, like the American right, that godless enemies want to destroy your Christian country, and prove their malice by not giving you the rewards you deserve, or think, like Scruton and the Telegraph crowd of the 1990s, that English culture and history is being thrown in the bin, and you are being chucked away with it, or agree with the supporters of the new tyrants of eastern Europe that a liberal elite is plotting to extinguish your culture by importing Muslim immigrants, and proving its contempt for all that is decent by laughing at you, then any swine will do as long as the swine can stop it. You will pay any price and abandon any principle in the struggle against a demonic enemy.

Shouldn’t she have seen it coming, I ask her. Shouldn’t she have realised that the world she inhabited included authoritarians, who would turn on her and everything she believed in. Typically, instead of huffing, puffing, and trying to pretend she has never been in the wrong, she laughs and admits that she probably should have asked harder questions sooner of her former friends.

Readers should be glad she bided her time. Applebaum can bring a candle into the darkness of the populist right precisely because she stayed on the right for so long. She does not know whether it can be beaten. She’s a journalist not a soothsayer. But I know that if you want to fight it, her writing is an arsenal that stores the sharpest weapons to hand.

[gsirvitor]

You’re welcome, sorry this about the Dahomey.

I know you’re Canadian, but why wasn’t my people, the black community taught about the Dahomey?

People done DNA research and discovered what groups most Africans in north America came from and figured out which routes we came from. And when I got into tumblr I learn that most Africans were second handed sold off by other Africans

(Which is damn near impossible to find in American education courses including college stuff. Jeez I wonder why?)

Then the women king trailer came out, it was people like you not people in positions, tell me in the black American version of “Jews lionizing the Nazis”

I’m sorry if I sound like mess, but the truth about women king shown the core of my existence? We weren’t my people taught about our first oppressors? To keep this pan African bullshit alive? To keep African Americans and native Africans relationships toxic as fuck as my community have a fetishized view in Africa even as fully grown adults? To make sure my people never heals?

Sorry, perhaps we can talk about it in the DMs, but it just…how could Hollywood make this movie? How could popular black actors agree to do this film? Do they have such hatred towards white people in their souls?

I think I will never recover from such revelations. Perhaps I can teach the next generation of black Americans on why we can never truly call Africa home

Also, my people situation is why I can’t buy decolonize USA, where the fuck I’m supposed to go? The Dahomey purposely made sure I can never call Africa home so 🤷

Well it depends, the Dahomey are taught about, the issue is with American education, the Trans Atlantic slave trade isn't taught about in great detail.

The education system simply states Europeans enslaved Africans, it doesn't state how slaves were procured, who procured them, or why Africans were chosen over other people.

It glosses over the fact the Trans Atlantic slave trade brought most of the slaves to South and Central America, how American slavery was mainly indentured servitude until Anthony Johnson, a freed slave, changed that, etc etc.

People are taught slavery is a uniquely European advent, that Africans only went into the Trans Atlantic slave trade, ignoring the Barbary pirates and the Islamic slave trade, I can go on, the point is, they aren't taught the facts because the education system is not designed to educate, it is designed to create factory workers, it's an antiquated system, a product of the Industrial Revolution.

Today we are in an information revolution, we have more access to information today than anyone in history, education needs to be tailored to this, to critical thinking and understanding information, and it isn't, but that's enough of my rambling about the education system.

Well, yes, we know that a majority of African diaspora who came here from the Slave trade came from West Central Africa, they came from the Slave Coast, as it was called then;

This region is where the Slaver Empires rose and fell, and it wasn't Europeans who established them, it was however Europeans who took advantage of them, enriching them.

The core of your existence isn't slavery, that is a mindset you must abandon for it will destroy you, everyone has dark times in their family history, it's what we choose to keep with us that defines us, the Holocaust doesn't define me, nor does the Potato famine, Irish slavery, or Fascist Italy, I choose who I am, and what I keep within me.

Yes, Pan-Africanist ideas first began to circulate in the mid-19th century in the United States, led by Africans from the Western Hemisphere.

It was an attempt to create a sense of belonging, or brotherhood and collaboration among all people of African descent whether they lived inside or outside of Africa.

It isn't very successful, as it ignores the different, often opposed cultures of Africa, and holds to a very American idea that they are the same because of their skin, it's the same notion behind other organizations like the European Union, the CCP, and of course Nazi Germany, not saying Pan Africanism is Nazi-esque, just that the idea of a Pan racial state is a very common theme.

Where was I going with this? Oh yes, it lead African Americans to view Africa in a very fetishistic and idealized way, the same way European Americans had at one point viewed Europe.

It isn't some malicious push by someone or something to keep African Americans down, or ignorant, it's simply a combination of a poor education system, and common tribalism, nothing other groups haven't suffered from, or continue to suffer from.

Hollywood made it because slavery movies sell, their ESG goals were also met by making the Africans the heroes, and having a female lead, that's it.

Oh yeah, teach your children proper history, don't rely on the education system.

Oh don't worry, the decolonize crowd excludes non white people from those they wish to eject from the US, though they seem to call Asians white.