#Regional & Ethnic

[percypaints]

For those who lived on to remember, and those who cannot.

Hong Kong Miku.

I was originally going to make something more... palatable? I guess? But my partner encouraged me to do one themed on the protest back in 2019. The dust has settled, and it looks like everything is painted over, but I still miss my home. So, see this as a sort of tribute to the people who fought for my home, and a tribute to all the freedom fighters in the world-- Palestine, Ukraine, Yemen, and all the others. I love you all.

[july-19th-club]

house md wildest show on earth. a main character outright assassinates a known dictator, a moment that would be the very beginning or the mid-series crisis in any other show - an act which creates a power vacuum in a foreign nation already filled with child soldiers and genocide, and it's literally only brought up again throughout the season because that guy's wife divorces him over it. and occasionally to explore his relationship with who he is as a person and a catholic after having deliberately taken a life for what he calculates as the greater good, but mostly it's about his divorce

[tanadrin]

One of the arguments Zubok seems to be developing in this book on the fall of the USSR is that a huge factor in its breakup was Russian nationalism: as the other Soviet republics began to assert their rights and identities in '89 onward, the Russians seemed to be looking at each other and being like, "hey, why don't we have the same national rights?" There was no Russia-only branch of the CPSU, no quotas for Russians in universities, no particularly Russian state institutions--Russia was, despite being by far the largest part of the USSR, very unlike the other republics in being sort of a glue holding them together.

This was probably for solid historical reasons--Lenin and co. took very seriously the idea that the USSR should be a multinational state, and whether they succeeded or not the subsequent generations of Soviet leadership carried this idea forward: the USSR was not supposed to be a Russian-chauvinist enterprise. But resentment of protections for minorities--a sort of Soviet version of "white people are the most oppressed ethnicity in America"--in the context of everything else happening politically in the USSR at the time made Russian nationalism politically very salient, including (given how other republics like Lithuania were going) talk of Russian secession.

The USSR could have survived Lithuania seceding in a way it never could have survived Russia seceding, obviously; Russian nationalism was by far the most efficient way to destroy the Soviet Union. And the Politburo recognized this: they discussed in 1989 versions of plans mooted as far back as Andropov's premiership of balancing the internal relationship between the republics by breaking the RSFSR into smaller units, either de jure or just de facto. In the event, it seems like other events (the failure of perestroika, the August coup, etc) overtook them before anything could have been done about it, but it's interesting to note that the breakup of the USSR was not (only) peripheral regions trying to escape a state to which they were unhappily wedded, but also the core region of that state wanting to jump ship as well.

[thinkingimages]

Івано- Франківська область, Городенківський район, Серафинці

Ukraine 🇺🇦

[vexillology-for-brains]

Beautiful Non-National Flags, Part 1

So many people see and love the flags of the 193 UN recognized nations, but I want to take a look at a few of my favorite regional/provincial/people group flags around the world.

One of my favorite flags, and I think one of the most beautiful flags, is the banner of East Turkestan

The Kökbayraq, or sky flag, represents both the geographic region of East Turkestan, and the Uyghur people, a Turkic people group located in what is now Xinjiang Autonomous Region, People's Republic of China (PRC). The flag was flown by the short lived (one year) reign of the Republic of East Turkestan (1933-34), and has been used by the diaspora of the Uyghur people as they flee the authoritarian rule of the PRC. In the modern day, it serves as symbol of protest against the ongoing genocide being conducted by the Chinese Communist Property.

The beautiful simplicity of the flag and its striking blue color make the flag instantly eye-catching. It's similarity to the Turkish flag is no coincidence, it was designed to harken back to the Turkish flag. The beautiful sky blue represents all Turkic people. While the crescent and star can represent Islam, in this flag the crescent represents the idea of being victorious, and the star represents the nation itself.

The flag follows a 2:3 ratio and all of the design aspects follow the same guidelines as the flag of Türkiye. It was formalized and adopted in 1993 and the East Turkestan Government in Exile claims it at the official flag of the Republic of East Turkestan

As this is a flag I personally own, I'm more than happy to fly it when I can and speak about it. This flag is easily in my Top Ten list because of it's beauty, and I've used the the exact shade of blue in a couple of flag designs.

I highly recommend anyone interested research the culture and history of the Uyghur people, and learn about their plight as they're subjugated under the iron fist of the Chinese Communist Party.

[quixoticanarchy]

book about resource extraction in the drc published in 2011 trying to say "activists' focus on the congo as a source of conflict minerals is overblown bc they only supply 5% of world total" and "it's disingenuous to point at consumer electronics and say they're soaked in blood when they have a very small chance of containing minerals from the congo" well ok. consider: 1) in the intervening 13 years the amount of coltan supplied by the drc did not stay at 5% but in fact has risen dramatically (and also it is notoriously difficult to track how much the drc is actually exporting, and how much of, say, rwanda's reported production originates in the congo), and 2) how interesting. is the drc the only place in which rare earth minerals are extracted under inhumane conditions? perhaps ppl criticizing what goes into consumer electronics are not in fact meaning to suggest they would be just fine if they contained no minerals from the congo. perhaps it is ALSO bad when ppl in southeast asia or latin america or in fact, anywhere, are ruthlessly exploited so that you and i can have new cellphones and electric cars

[infiniteglitterfall]

jewish shower thoughts

A Reddit comment I can't stop thinking about: "If you think whiteness is bad, Jews are white to you. If you think whiteness is good, Jews aren't white to you."

[phoebastria-albatrus]

i implore u guys to make more of ur favs asian btw…do it 4 me

[hadescavedish]

Dump my study of Zevran here and leave

[vacantgodling]

god trying to figure out what any of the characters in btaf look like is gonna make me kms

[brick-van-dyke]

The more I learn about the history of the middle east in general, the more I realise that the "Israel-Palestine conflict" is actually just a group killing their own fellow shared ethnic group who are "too brown".

Hebrews and Arabs both originate from Phoenicians, aka "Abraham's descendents" according to their respective oral stories and passed on histories. They are from the same place and people. However, there is a narrative that twists this and claims that Arabs were "always an outside force that invaded", when the various groups within that ethnicity always had their share of cooperation and conflict in various stages of history. Just like, say, the various groups in France. They were of the same group and no particular ethnicity had no more of a "claim" to the land than the other, they just had their beef and eventually integrated.

So when I see "but the Arabs are colonisers" I can't help but ask; what is a colonisers to you? Seriously. If colonisation means "any conflict in the past between a shared group from the same place" every single group would be colonisers. There's no such thing as "an innocent conflict" where atrocities weren't committed by either side. So please get that out of your head if you want to say "but the Arabs did X, Y, Z to the Hebrews so it's colonisation and they don't belong in A, B or C areas". That's just not how colonisation works. It's like calling TERF or cis a slur when they're not. Conflict between the same people from the same area is, yeah, a conflict hit not colonisation. However, a people who are from a completely different place who want to erase an ethnic group and take over their culture, erase their history and get rid of their physical features? Yeah, that's what colonisation is. It's genocide with the aim to erase a specific group or culture and take it and the land over. For example, the British in the Middle East.

The problem with calling Arabs "colonisers" is not only is it completely historically wrong, they're from the same place and have the same origins as the Hebrews, but they (like Palestinian Jews) have been their since before the British came. Compared to European Jews who came later on after having lived in Europe (and became European as that is genuinely a part of their culture and ethnicity as well and shouldn't be erased or forgotten, that's also cultural erasure of Germanic, Polish, etc traditions passed on) and, sure, do have origins there *as well* but it needs to be understood that they, specifically Zionists, are a part of the British colonial project aimed at killing *both* Arabs and Jews. The point isn't to help Jews against a colonisers from the first few centuries (sorry to tell you everyone, but no, the Ottoman Empire, Baylon and the Pharaohs literally do not exist anymore, like how Italy isn't the Roman Empire by default because that's where Rome is), but a group of people who've just been living there for the past few centuries and generations who just want to live. The problem is, they haven't been allowed that and propaganda keeps being pushed that completely jumps around historical facts like, for example, Jews (ethnically speaking) were not always Jews but the Ancient Hebrews, aka, Phoenicians, aka where Arabs came from ethically. They are the same people, just who moved to different areas and developed different cultures and languages. Sort of like, you know, every other nation with specific dialects for specific regions and different cultures and folk stories depending on where you go.

The point is, so much of Jewish history is actively being erased to "protect the Jews" by...commuting cultural genocide of the Jews and Arabs. It ignores the actual impact of Nazism within Israel's formation and history, how much it influenced policy, how Jews who were "too visibly Phoenicians" aka appeared too Jewish or arabic or middle eastern in appearance were deemed as "weaker" and "lesser" for my surviving the holocaust and used as a reason to deny rights to both Jews and Arabs who were too visibly Semitic. It ignores how antisemetic Israel is towards Jewishness and how utterly antisemetic Islamophobia is because they are literally from the same origin and, yes, hatred and fear of one does carry into hatred and fear of the other. So much of the propaganda and denialism of history happening right now is a direct response to dear and hatred of "big noses", "brown skin" and people deemed as too middle eastern because they, just like in World War II, World War I and beforehand, antisemetism is the backbone of British imperialism and conquest of the middle east (yes, this also means a targeting of Arabs and Jews as people who look a specific way). And yes I'm annoyed and yes this is a ramble that's probably not very coherent, but damn I'm so sick and tired of misinformation and the twisting of everything to suit this narrative of "Arabs versus Jews" as if they aren't both just Semites who are being collectively oppressed, erased and reinvented by the west to suit western ends.

[algerian-lady]

~~Some more Annabi traditional wear~~

[insane-control-room]

tfw you see jewish characters being used for pro-palestine content via the pan-arab colors (without acknowledging their yiddishkeit): wow great job misappropriating TWO cultures at once!

[selamat-linting]

autoplayed a bunch of urban legend videos while playing video games. heard this white guy talk about a local myth and he described "makhluk halus" as the realm where djinns and spirits gather. dude cant even get basic facts right.

[cyatzura]

also oda himself always said that he is heavily involved in the live action and the casting so he is probably also at fault like i was never a big fan of the alabasta arc (and skypiea) because the setting can be painfully ... stereotypically ... but to some extent it was an early 2000s manga arc so ... okay but the fact that oda himself is seemingly willing to use so much arabian influence and still does not insist on casting MENA actors in the two most important roles ....

[yugocar]

literally nothing funnier than americans arguing with other americans about whats nationality and whats ethnicity