#Protestant Reformations

[nando161mando]

Rehabilitation, not Devastation. Fuck The Police.

[curtwilde]

Bangladesh Protests: Latest Updates

- The death toll from the student protests in Bangladesh has risen to 114, with thousands more injured.

- Tanks have been deployed in Dhaka.

- A curfew was imposed on Saturday, which was relaxed for two hours on the same day to allow people to shop for supplies.

- A near-total internet blackout has been imposed in Bangladesh since Thursday, with text message services and overseas telephone calls remaining disrupted.

Edit: Post was made on 21 July 2024. Check reblogs for updates since then.

[thatdeshigirl]

WHAT IS HAPPENING IN BANGLADESH?

Students of college, universities and even high schools in Bangladesh have taken to the streets in a mass movement named the "Bangla Blockade" demanding the eradication of the quota system. The quota system reserves a massive percentage of the government jobs for specific groups of people. These jobs are earned by sitting for the Bangladesh Civil Service exams.

Effectively, only 46% of the jobs are left to be contested by merit.

The biggest quota sectors are NOT for the disabled, or indigenous people or for women.

THIRTY PERCENT of the jobs are reserved for children and grandchildren of registered freedom fighters.

The police and political wings are using violence on the protesters. Images of armed men beating up women with sticks and rods are going viral. Spread the word. We need more people talking about this.

Link to an Instagram post with information that you can share.

[wafflehouseyuri]

Armand and Daniel being mutually embarrassed by their real/perceived age gap is so important to me like they’re both mortified to have a post divorce boy toy

[greatsitedotcom]

Know the Bible History Better

After the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, the publication of texts got a big boost. During those early years of printing, there were many takers for the Latin Bible. However, things changed after the Gutenberg Bible was printed in 1455. It was followed by 90+ other editions of the Vulgate, some of which came equipped with commentary, and were published by presses spread across Europe.

The 15th and early 16th centuries in Europe are marked by significant intellectual change, which had a direct impact on the Bible’s availability and accessibility in the vernacular language to the commoners.  

Tracing the Bible History

The first hand-written Bible manuscripts in English were produced by John Wycliffe in the 1380’s AD. Wycliffe was a leading theologian and scholar of his time, who believed the organized Church's teaching was in contrast to the Bible.

In the 1450s, after the printing press was invented, Johann Gutenberg printed a Latin language Bible. This became the first book ever to get printed.

Over time, the Latin Vulgate became so corrupt that it could no longer preserve the message of the Gospel. This was exactly what Thomas Linacre, an Oxford professor, stated after he learned Greek and then read the Gospels in Greek. His words couldn't be taken lightly as he was the personal doctor to England’s King Henry VII and VIII.

After he found 6,000+ mistakes in the Vulgate, Erasmus, a priest based in the Netherlands, published a new Greek translation of the Bible by using multiple sources.

In 1522, Martin Luther's translation of the New Testament into German was published, which became renowned as Luther’s September Testament. In 1526, William Tyndale published his New Testament. Later, in 1530, he published the Pentateuch. Often called the Protestant Reformation’s “father,” Tyndale’s work had a significant impact on subsequent Bible translators.

Wrapping Up

In 1539, the Great Bible was published. It was the first authorized version of the Bible in English. Some years down the line, the Geneva Bible and the Bishop’s Bible came into existence, and then came the KJV in 1611, which quickly became the most extensively published text in the English language.

Original Source:

https://greatsitethebiblemuseum.blogspot.com/2022/12/know-bible-history-better.html

[hedgehog-moss]

(TW POLICE VIOLENCE)

France has been feeling like a police state this week, there were 5000 cops deployed in Paris yesterday (watch this video and tell me this is a normal amount of cops and they're behaving normally) and they keep acting like they have total immunity*, to beat up protesters, to arrest protesters, or just random people walking in the vicinity of a protest. My 70+-year-old dad tried to go to a peaceful protest and had to abandon the idea because of all the tear gas being used by police.

*Which they do—as Le Monde pointed out, the cops who are violent risk nothing because they can't be identified because almost none of them wear their identification number even though it's supposed to be mandatory. They're not being penalised for not wearing them, so why should they?

If you can stomach it, please have a look at the photos and videos on this Twitter account documenting French police brutality against protesters—as I write this, the most recent tweet is about a journalist who was beaten up by a BRAV-M cop* using his steel baton; he had his head cracked open and his hand broken.

(* BRAV-M is a motorised repression corps—cops on bikes—a unit that was dissolved in 1986 after some of them beat a student to death, who wasn't even attending a protest but walking near one. Macron changed the unit's name, from Voltigeurs to BRAV-M, and reestablished it to suppress the Yellow Vests protests. This week, a BRAV-M cop deliberately drove over a 19-year-old's leg at a protest after chasing him on his bike. The victim said he heard a cop say to others "Smash him." Another BRAV-M punched a protester unconscious on March 20. And today Le Monde published an article about BRAV-M cops being recorded bragging about "breaking elbows and faces.")

In Paris last week the CRS arrested a 14-year-old kid because they took him for a dangerous black bloc protester I guess?? A child spent a night in police custody without knowing why. They've also arrested several 15 / 16 year-olds. Let's teach the youth what happens when you exercise your right to protest!

On March 16th in Paris, within one evening, they arrested 292 people, and 283 were released without charges, which means they're mass-arresting people for peaceful protests as a strategy of intimidation. The student I mentioned in my post the other day, who spent 48 hours in custody and was eventually charged for refusing to have his DNA samples taken and filed, asked the cops why they were arresting him + 4 other people who were walking down the same street and they said "Because you look like fucking leftists."

The government tells us "We fully support our brave police forces" when the cops are arresting people for "looking like leftists." How are we still a democracy? The guy also mentioned that during the time he spent at the police station, the police was mostly arresting Maghrebis, though they made an exception for him, a Black guy. There are videos from the past week of cops beating up women, tear gassing protesters in the face from 20cm away, kicking protesters in the face when they're already on the ground, crushing their heads under their boot, brutalising a homeless man and old ladies, tear gassing crowds with young children in them. I'm having trouble finding links to these specific incidents I remember because there are so many videos circulating.

Look at this video, they're violently striking the back of people's heads with steel batons even when the protesters are already going in the direction they're told to. The little old lady shoved around and trying to protect her head from the strikes is breaking my heart.

Surely at the point when enforcers of state authority are arresting middle schoolers, beating up citizens for exercising their rights and gassing and pepper spraying elderly people, children and babies in strollers, the government might want to make some sort of statement condemning this state of affairs, but instead they have been telling us they're proud of & grateful for their police forces, which of course angers people and makes protests more violent. The Minister of the Interior, who supervises the police, praises them wholeheartedly and excuses all instances of deliberate brutality as 'isolated incidents' due to 'tiredness'.

Here's a thread in English describing a protester's experience—"Yesterday (March 23) the level of arbitrary police violence clearly leveled up. I was tear gassed three times without being able to move in a very dense crowd; policemen took advantage that people were unable to move more than 20cm to pounce on us and bludgeon us in a totally arbitrary manner." (you can see an example of this behaviour in this video from a different protest)

Yesterday, after a day of nationwide protests that brought a fresh new wave of video evidence of cops beating up protesters and making reckless use of tear gas—at the end of a day when a special ed teacher at a protest got her thumb torn off by a tear gas grenade—this is what the French Prime Minister said:

They're not even trying to play it off like "both sides made mistakes" they're telling us they condone everything the police is doing, that this is what they're deploying them for:

(screencap from this video)

(this is from this video, in which you can hear a woman screaming "Stop it! You're strangling him! You have no right! I'm filming you!" The cops don't seem to care about being filmed. They're beating up citizens with the government's full blessing after all.)

Macron's government is trying to intimidate people into giving up their right to protest, by deploying cops in huge numbers and publicly voicing complete support for their behaviour, by allowing them to beat and arrest hundreds of people and to use tear gas indiscriminately. Tear gas has been completely normalised as a means of state violence, it's very practical that it doesn't leave traces of blood or broken bones I guess, but it's still violence, it burns, it's a chemical whose effects on people's health we don't know a lot about.

^ Paris (from this vid; caption: "one tear gas grenade after the other")

Macron condescendingly told us there's no "magic money" which is why the pension reform is needed, but he did find the money to stockpile these apparently unlimited amounts of tear gas grenades to suppress protests against his reform to make poor people work longer.

^ Nantes (screencap from a vid in which the cops throw three or four grenades at once and you can hear people say "oh come on, seriously? this is crazy. Why? go fuck yourselves" in a tired tone)

We've also found out yesterday that three Corsican MPs were pressured not to support the Assembly's no-confidence vote against the government—by being told if they didn't vote it, a teaching hospital would be built in Corsica.

The island of Corsica is the only region of France that doesn't have a teaching hospital; due to lack of medical resources Corsicans often have to travel to mainland France for healthcare. Just last month the Minister of Health said sorry, still no teaching hospital for Corsica, it's just not possible right now. Then last week some "magic money" was apparently found to build it but only if the Corsican MPs didn't support the no-confidence vote. I know this kind of thing isn't exactly unique in politics but Macron has been slashing hospital budgets to the point that 20% of French hospital beds are closed due to lack of staff, and he used the health of 340,000 French citizens as a bribe to save his ass. The three Corsican MPs ended up voting in favour of the no-confidence vote despite of that, as it was what their constituents wanted (honour to them). Macron's government survived the no-confidence vote by only 9 votes.

Whatever legitimacy Macron has as a President right now is being clung to by MP corruption and police repression. How do we move forwards knowing that, I don't know. How does he have legitimacy to govern on any issues after the way he handled this reform and the following protests? His police forces are drowning city centres in tear gas, a chemical whose effect on birds and other fauna is not known, and we're supposed to listen to him talk about the environment? They're wasting thousands of litres of water using water cannons to disperse protesters, and we're supposed to listen to him talk about low groundwater levels and how we need to save water? I was going to say, what about his legitimacy abroad but other Western governments don't seem too bothered so far by his handling of the protests—though I'm grateful that Amnesty International did condemn it, and that a Belgian deputy made a speech in Parliament this week asking his government to condemn Macron's use of violent police repression.

[Wait, I just saw that as I was writing this post, the Council of Europe condemned the "excessive use of force" in France. Saying that 'sporadic acts of violence' of some protesters can't 'justify the excessive use of force by agents of the State' or 'deprive peaceful protesters of their right to freedom of assembly'. This is the opposite framing as the one our government is standing by—sporadic acts of violence by cops that are either justified or excusable—it's refreshing.]

Between that and Charles III cancelling his visit (and lots of tourists cancelling trips to Paris which is bound to piss off the tourism industry) and our own media waking up and starting to talk about the government's brutality, I hope Macron starts being held accountable. He has been fanning the flames of this crisis at every turn, by telling us that the crowds protesting in the street have 'no legitimacy', by sending cops to break strikes even though striking is a Constitutional right (but the only part of the Constitution he cares about is the one that starts with 49.3), by condemning the protesters when asked to condemn police violence—saying "When [protesters] use violence, unregulated, absolute, we're no longer in a Republic." I agree, but he's describing himself.

When you resort to using article 49.3 to bypass the National Assembly for the 11th time this term to impose a reform that 70% of the country is against (and 93% of working people) that will force the poorer classes of the population to work longer, and your only response to people's distress at being told to work until they die is to force them to accept it by allowing your police forces to beat up protesters, to arrest them and to gas them, you have failed as a democratic leader.

The next organised protest and strike is next Tuesday (if you want to give something to the strike solidarity fund, here it is); in the meantime spontaneous protests are still erupting pretty much every day and cops are getting burnt out (good! There are fun videos from yesterday's protests of cops accidentally tear gassing one another, or a police car accidentally running into another as people laugh and clap.) And yes some protesters are getting more extreme and destructive, but Macron is the one choosing to stand by his reform at all costs and let this country burn. And when I look at what we're being expected to tolerate and to normalise, I'm kind of proud that French people's gut reaction was "burn it all."

Some popular Twitter hashtags for the protests:

#ToutCramer - Burn everything #CensurePopulaire - People's no-confidence vote #MacronDémission - Macron resign #OnLâcheRien - We won't cede an inch.

[thoughts-of-caly]

protestants the entire month of october:

[captainofthetidesbreath]

when someone on this website negatively calls a mentality or a philosophical framework or something "very Catholic", like 7 out of 10 times it's actually something antithetical to Catholic philosophy and doctrine and is actually very Protestant

[protestantworkthatethic]

*autumn draws nearer*

[[PROTESTANTISM INTENSIFIES]]

[firefistjaigio]

I have genuinely only been able to think about Bangladesh rn the fear I have is so immense and I have no idea if people there are ok rn, idk if my family is ok rn. I have no clue what violence is occurring there rn and I have only seen previous examples like tanks on the streets and police sniping student protestors from rooftops and news of many people like a 7th grader being killed and it burns me to see barely anyone fucking talk about it or share anything about it, besides the diaspora rn and some good folks, does the world even fucking care when people are suffering

[apenitentialprayer]

Bro

You're using Catholic iconography in both pictures

[khush-chronicles]

When the sky bleeds along with its people

[leviraaaaaa]

They shut all our social media again. The internet is so slow its practically useless.

I went outside today. Saw a bunch of BSL (Student League) kids with sticks and sharp things. They blocked of a road and shit so I had to take the long way round. Another massacre will happen today. That's why they shut off communication. Can't have people alerting each other, can they?

International community, we're reaching out to you. Every word counts. Every reblog counts. Every small step you take could save someone's life. Talk about it. Speak up. They've taken away our voice and now only you can shout for us. Save lives. Stop a genocide.

[passing-through-bd]

STUDENT PROTESTS IN BANGLADESH

Injuries and casualties are rising!!! Thousands injured. Children dead.

Are you aware of the ongoing student protests in Bangladesh? All schools and universities have been shut down. Even the primary schools in cities. It has led to violence. There have been casualties. All because the students (18-25/26 year olds) wanted an equal foot in the job market.

https://www.cnn.com/2024/07/16/asia/bangladesh-protests-quote-intl-latam/index.html This is a CNN article on this topic. But casualties are rising. We need international support if we are to have any chance at a better future.

https://www.thedailystar.net/opinion/views/news/lecture-halls-the-streets-universities-submerged-dual-protests-3651751 Here is a local newspaper's coverage.

https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/bangladesh-witness-testimony-video-and-photographic-analysis-confirm-police-used-unlawful-force-against-protesters/ Amnesty International's article.

https://x.com/UNHumanRights/status/1813553026357162061 UN Human Rights also commented on this subject.

The network is being impacted.

#savebangladeshistudents

[hedgehog-moss]

French TV journalist having a hard time trying to get woman in the street to comment on Macron's latest speech yesterday

Protesters organised casserolades (aka banging on pots and pans) in front of city halls across the country at 8pm, when Macron was speaking, to symbolically drown out his voice. Later that evening, Macron was filmed singing a song with some 'random people' in a street in Paris, trying to show he can go out and meet people and have fun because protesters don't exist. The people he was singing with (members of a choir, some of whom are 'alt-right-leaning') were using a folk song app created by far-right activists that was criticised a few months ago for hosting a Spanish fascist anthem & Third Reich military marches.

The government's response was that the President "couldn't know the background of the people he met that night." Maybe if he wants to avoid being associated with the far-right (that's a big if, I know), Macron should keep in mind that with the kinds of strategies and positioning his government has adopted lately, people in the street who welcome him with open arms and are proud to be filmed with him have a higher than average likelihood of supporting fascism.

[curtwilde]

The main gate of Begum Rokeya University has been unofficially renamed Shahid Abu Sayeed gate by the protesting students, after Abu Sayeed who was murdered by the police in the ongoing student protests in Bangladesh.