#british tribal class

[neechees]

Historical Indigenous Women & Figures [6]:

Queen Nanny: the leader of the 18th century Maroon community in Jamaica, she led multiple battles in guerrilla war against the British, which included freeing slaves, and raiding plantations, and then later founding the community Nanny Town. There are multiple accounts of Queen Nanny's origins, one claiming that she was of the Akan people from Ghana and escaped slavery before starting rebellions, and others that she was a free person and moved to the Blue Mountains with a community of Taino. Regardless, Queen Nanny solidified her influence among the Indigenous People of Jamaica, and is featured on a Jamaican bank note. Karimeh Abboud: Born in Bethlehem, Palestine, Karimeh Abboud became interested in photography in 1913 after recieving a camera for her 17th birthday from her Father. Her prestige in professional photography rapidly grew and became high demand, being described as one of the "first female photographers of the Arab World", and in 1924 she described herself as "the only National Photographer". Georgia Harris: Born to a family of traditional Catawba potters, Harris took up pottery herself, and is credited with preserving traditional Catawba pottery methods due to refusing to use more tourist friendly forms in her work, despite the traditional method being much more labour intensive. Harris spent the rest of her life preserving and passing on the traditional ways of pottery, and was a recipient of a 1997 National Heritage Fellowship awarded by the National Endowment for the Arts, which is the highest honor in the folk and traditional arts in the United States. Nozugum: known as a folk hero of the Uyghur people, Nozugum was a historical figure in 19th century Kashgar, who joined an uprising and killed her captor before running away. While she was eventually killed after escaping, her story remains a treasured one amongst the Uyghur. Pampenum: a Sachem of the Wangunk people in what is now called Pennsylvania, Pampenum gained ownership of her mother's land, who had previously intended to sell it to settlers. Not sharing the same plans as her mother, Pampenum attempted to keep these lands in Native control by using the colonial court system to her advantage, including forbidding her descendants from selling the land, and naming the wife of the Mohegan sachem Mahomet I as her heir. Despite that these lands were later sold, Pampenum's efforts did not go unnoticed. Christine Quintasket: also known as "Humishima", "Mourning Dove", Quintasket was a Sylix author who is credited as being one of the first female Native American authors to write a novel featuring a female protagonist. She used her Sylix name, Humishima, as a pen name, and was inspired to become an author after reading a racist portrayal of Native Americans, & wished to refute this derogatory portrayal. Later in life, she also became active in politics, and helped her tribe to gain money that was owed them. Rita Pitka Blumenstein: an Alaskan Yup'ik woman who's healing career started at four years old, as she was trained in traditional healing by her grandmother, and then later she became the first certified traditional doctor in Alaska and worked for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. She later passed on her knowledge to her own daughters. February 17th is known as Rita Pitka Blumenstein day in Alaska, and in 2009 she was one of 50 women inducted into the inaugural class of the Alaska Women's Hall of Fame Olivia Ward Bush-Banks: a mixed race woman of African American and Montaukett heritage, Banks was a well known author who was a regular contributor to the the first magazine that covered Black American culture, and wrote a column for a New York publication. She wrote of both Native American, and Black American topics and issues, and helped sculptor Richmond Barthé and writer Langston Hughes get their starts during the Harlem Renaissance. She is also credited with preserving Montaukett language and folklore due to her writing in her early career.

part [1], [2], [3], [4], [5] Transphobes & any other bigots need not reblog and are not welcome on my posts.

[hollowed-theory-hall]

Imho people put too much in the houses. Like they're basically just social cliques, and the sorting hat was definitely taking into account what would or wouldn't destroy their social lives.

I mean, people put as much into houses as the characters seem to put into houses.

For the characters houses are meaningful, they are social cliques and I'm sure the Sorting Hat pays attention to the social situation the student would be in, but there is an element to these traits, to the values a student has when sorted. But more importantly, wizards think about them as so much more. They are a sign of status, legacy, and worth. Like, little 11-year-old Draco says he'd just leave if he was sorted into Hufflepuff because, in his mind, it would mean he isn't worthy of the other "better" houses.

And Draco isn't the only one. Hagrid calls all of Slytherin Evil, practically all the professors play favorites, Ron is worried over not being in Gryffindor because all his family is in Gryffindor, Neville worries about being in Gryffindor because he doesn't think he is worthy of the house reputation because of what his grandmother told him, and students repeatedly fall into the trap of "Wait, why aren't you at X house?" When someone's behavior deviates slightly from the stereotype of their own house. Like, Terry Boot, when told Hermione cast a NEWT Gemino charm, asks her: "How come you aren't in Ravenclaw?" Because they're supposed to be the smart guys.

Basically, the Wizarding World treats houses like a Big Deal. Even adults who graduated decades ago still have pride in their own house. Actually, there are real-world examples of things like that.

I mean, school houses are a British commonwealth thing that exists in public boarding schools. In these irl houses, students take pride in their house, wear their house colors, and are incredibly competitive with other houses. There are schools that apparently have family houses, an in, if a student's sibling/child arrives at the school, they'd go to the same house as their family member.

(I got this from reading online, as I never encountered a school like this irl, but the internet tells me they exist)

But if we talk about something I'm more familiar with, I taught in a sorta summer course thing for teenagers, and we divided the students there into classes since there were over a hundred of them. There wasn't really a difference between the classes, but each class had its name, symbol, and colors (and different staff members), and the students' tribal instincts kicked in. They got super competitive with the other classes and had their closest friends basically exclusively within their own class. We often caught them making fun of other students for being in another class (something that meant literally nothing). So the staff put a lot of effort into creating activities for the entire group without class separation to try and fight that.

Humans are tribal creatures, we have a built-in mechanism that tells us to come together in groups and think our group is the best. A house system just happens to kick that instinct into gear, but it's always there.

So, it's not that weird that that's how Hogwarts houses are treated in universe, and the fandom gives them the same importance characters in universe seem to give them. Because to them they are that important.

(Of course, not all characters have the exact same opinion about the house system. There are adults in the Wizarding World that don't actually care, but then there are many who do)

Now, houses aren't necessarily a bad thing, humans have this tribal instinct for a reason. We need to feel like we're part of a community, a sense of belonging is something most people seek be it subconsciously or consciously. And there is joy in being part of something that has a long history and that you can be proud of. The problem is when these groups start to define people more than their own person as an individual does. And, shockingly, I don't think the Wizarding World has that problem on a cultural level.

Like Scabior says:

“So you aren’t wanted, then, Vernon? Or are you on that list under a different name? What house were you in at Hogwarts?” “Slytherin,” said Harry automatically. “Funny ’ow they all think we want to ’ear that.” leered Scabior out of the shadows.

(DH, 386)

Houses aren't everything. Even a Slytherin who knows where the common room is but has a suspicious name and says Voldemort's name is cause for suspicion. Being a proven Slytherin doesn't necessarily save you because they don't expect all Slytherins to back them. Because there are those who don't and they seem very aware of it. We also don't really see jobs that are reserved for certain houses.

I think some wizards do generalize more based on houses, but I think the majority of their adult population is aware that people are individuals outside of their houses.

Basically, I think the wizarding world's treatment of houses could definitely be way way better, it isn't as bad as it could be (which isn't a high bar since I expect the worst from the Wizarding World).

[beguines]

These thinkers, many of whom were educated in foreign European capitals, would build on the orientalist fascination of European philosophers and scholars who spoke dolefully of the loss of "an archaic Hindu civilization." The Indian subcontinent, these British, French, and German scholars contended, had once been the cradle of all humanity and that "humanism" itself had been lifted out of Hindu values. They argued that Hindu society had faltered, lost its zeal, and through patriotism and nationalism would find reinvigoration. Among these, Dayananda Saraswati (1824–83), Aurobindo (1872–1950), Swami Vivekananda (1863–1902), as well as organizations like the Arya Samaj (Society of Aryans; formed in 1875) and the Hindu Mahasabha (1915), were the most prominent. As a collective, they sought to both resurrect a "forgotten" and "erased" glory of India's Hindu past as well as reformulate Hindus as a respectable, palatable, and intelligible community. To accomplish this project, author Jyotirmaya Sharma says the quartet of thinkers appeared to agree on several ideas they argued would resuscitate the Hindu identity.

First, it meant transforming Hinduism into a codified religion, founded on racial and doctrinal unity. It was foreigner, after all, who had diluted the nation from its Hindu core and made India insular; it was now the duty to recast India anew in the vision of a glorious past. Hinduism was therefore India and India was only Hindu. "Binding them all together was a singular vision of Hindu India and its destiny," Sharma writes. All questions on religion were to be henceforth directed to the Vedas and the so-called golden age (400–600 CE), in what Sharma describes, as "the end of theology." "There was little scope for a diversity of opinions, practices, rituals, observances, and individual choices," Sharma argues. Or as author Anustap Basu explains, "it meant compacting a pantheon of a million gods in axiomatic Hindu icons like Rama or Krishna, absorbing errant, syncretic pieties, and picturing a singular Hindu telos."

Second, it involved recasting Hinduism as masculine, aggressive, and militarily proficient. As Sharma writes, "Hindus had to live and die for an ideal." According to this logic, the Muslim "invasions" and British colonial rule had only succeeded because Hindus had lost their way. The philosophers argued that Hindus would have to adapt, fight back, or perish. Third, to treat Hinduism as the most perfect of faiths, or as the mother of all religions. Fourth, to be forever vigilant of threats from "outsiders." The vilification of Muslims was therefore central to the revitalization of the Hindu quest for self-preservation. But this notion of self-preservation was also contingent on the creation of a majority community (for without it there would be nothing to protect). "Those who did not fall in line had to be marginalized, ignored, harassed, and if need arose, eliminated," Sharma writes. Fifth, the answers to all questions were to be found in the Vedas. The final feature was the authorization to be blunt and harsh when dealing with enemies.

Scholars argue that the codification of the Hindu identity itself was the consolidation of an upper caste identity. In other words, Hindu nationalism itself was a caste project that had instrumentalized the British Census of the late nineteenth century to include all of the different religious and cultural rituals that existed in colonial India under the banner of "Hinduism." Not only did the census compress the different castes and tribal communities into the category of "Hindu," it allowed upper caste Brahmins the opportunity to wield control over all as well as promulgate a fiction that there had once been a unified Hindu civilization. These were the origins of Hindu majoritarianism. "These Brahminical scholars and leaders who talk about Hindutva being the religion of all castes must realize that the Scheduled Castes, Other Backward Classes, and Scheduled Tribes of this country have nothing in common with the Hindus," Dalit writer and activist Kancha Ilaiah argues.

Azad Essa, Hostile Homelands: The New Alliance Between India and Israel

[dailyanarchistposts]

Imperialism, Capitalism, and the State

To understand the current situation, we must first demystify the political system in Iran.

Iran must be understood as a capitalist society and its state, both before and after the revolution, as a capitalist state. No amount of demagogic proclamations can change the fact that the Iranian state, while possessing many features peculiar to itself, is nonetheless a particular form of bourgeois class rule, a fact visible not only in its internal social relations, but also in the role it plays in the world system.

Through the course of the nineteenth century, Iran went through a process of integration and peripheralization into the rising capitalist world system. The Qajar dynasty (1794 to 1925) that ascended the Peacock Throne at the end of the previous century was quickly caught in the “Great Game” between the Tsarist Russian Empire and the British Empire as they both became more assertive in Asia. Military defeats resulted in the imposition of unequal treaties that not only led to a loss of territory but also included terms that established political and economic dominance. Iran was opened up to European commodities, while domestic production increasingly became geared towards the world market.[2]

Qajar Iran was a system that can be described as tribal-feudalism.[3] The state was not a centralized modern state. The Shah (king) ruled through various local nobles, landlords, tribal-chiefs, and senior clergy who formed the landed aristocracy and played the role of the respective powers in their locality. The latter ruled over a large mass of peasant villagers and nomadic tribes-people. There was no national army, only armies tied to local lords and chiefs. People were divided up according to ethnic groupings, tribal or religious sects, and spoke a variety of languages and dialects.

In the urban centers, which often served as provincial capitals, the center of economic life was — and to a large extent still is today — the bazaar, the traditional commercial center in the urban Middle East, with the merchants and artisans who inhabit it being collectively known as bazaari.[4] The bazaar was not just the center for shops and trade, it also often contained public baths, tea houses, as well as the central mosque. It is common for bazaari and clergy to have familial relations. Wealthy bazaaris fund the mosques and seminaries, religious processions, donate to charitable foundations, and form the main financial support for many religious affairs. Landholdings of the senior clergy and wealthy merchants increased over the course of the 19th century, with the clergy gaining land through religious endowments and donations by rich aristocrats and merchants. This relationship between the bazaari, as the traditional bourgeoisie, and the clergy is important for understanding the politics of modern Iran, and the 1979 revolution in particular, for it was this clerical-bazaari alliance that lay at the heart of the revolution, serving as the base of the Islamic Republic.

This process of integration into the world market, particularly in the form of European domination, contributed to the development of bourgeois national consciousness among merchants, clergy, and artisans. Struggles against foreign concessions and other forms of foreign domination became more commonplace as the merchant bourgeoisie of the bazaar became more assertive, solidifying a bourgeois form of national consciousness. This combination of a material-financial force in the merchants and the ideological force of the clergy transformed the traditional bourgeoisie into a genuine political force.

The integration and peripheralization characteristic of the nineteenth century brought with it close economic ties between Iranian and Russian merchants, but also contributed to the embryonic development of a modern working class. The reality of this process hit home in Iran when the global depression of the 1870s provoked a drop in agricultural prices. Worsening conditions in the countryside forced peasants to leave their villages in search of work. Naturally, they were drawn to the growing industrial centers of the Russian Caucasus, particularly the new oil industry, the center of which being the city of Baku.

Baku’s oil fields were a crucible for working-class radicalism. In the late nineteenth century, the city attracted hundreds of thousands of Iranian migrant workers to the growing industry where they encountered the organizing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP), itself formed in 1898. Not only Iranians, but people from all over the region traveled to work in the industry, with the result that the city boasted a significant multi-ethnic and multi-religious working class. Employers stoked hostilities often, and Iranian workers and activists in the region became involved in many of the strikes organized by the party. It was a strike wave in Baku that sparked the events that would lead to the Russian Revolution of 1905. Amidst this wave, workers gained crucial experience in party activities and strikes, and it was during the same year the Social Democratic Party of Iran (SDPI) was founded.[5]

The 1905 Revolution would directly influence bourgeois national revolutions in Asian nations such as China and Turkey, but given its proximity and its historical ties, it was felt most immediately in Iran. For Russian and Iranian Social Democrats, the revolution in Iran was directly tied to the revolution against the Tsar. Following the Tsarist reaction just north of the border, many revolutionaries turned their attention south to Iran. The revolutionary wave landing in Iran at the end of the year marked a crucial turning point, ushering in the twentieth century with the Constitutional Revolution and Civil War (1906–1911).[6] This revolution had a number of parallels with the one in Russia, and can even be seen as an extension of the latter, as it proved to be a similarly bourgeois national-democratic revolution with a strong social democratic element. Although it would not succeed in fundamentally altering the state or economic relations, it was nonetheless of great cultural-political significance, and every political tendency that will go on to shape the landscape of 20th century Iran draw their roots there. It also prolonged the bazaari-clergy alliance that had developed in the protests against foreign concessions, but did so while introducing a revolutionary element into the nascent working class and social democratic movement. Along with the struggle for a national assembly, or Majlis, we also witness the appearance and growth of the anjumans, or provincial councils that — as with the soviets — became sources of popular power that pushed the revolution further. In 1909, the first modern industry-wide trade union was established in Tehran among print shops and newspaper workers. 1910 saw the first industry-wide strike, which included all the major newspapers in Tehran. Their demands included, among other things, the eight-hour day and the installation of a minimum wage.

Faced with the threat of revolution from below and an ascendant Germany that was becoming increasingly more assertive in the Middle East, the Russian and British empires put their differences aside and came to an agreement in Asia which was formalized as The Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907. The agreement made the division of Iran into Russian and British spheres of influence official, and served as a decisive step in the construction of alliances that would eventually erupt into world war.[7] The December 1911 Russian-British invasion and occupation of Iran put an end to the revolutionary wave that had been ongoing since 1905. The Tsarist armies in particular oversaw a reign of terror against Iranian and Russian revolutionaries. While the parliament survived, it did so merely as a basis for aristocratic rule. The constitutional revolution posed, for the first time in Iran, the still crucial question: how should radical socialists relate to broader, popular democratic revolution? And it did so while demonstrating another persistent truth: in the face of social revolution bourgeois democrats will turn to imperialism and reaction.

Two years after the Anglo-Russian intervention that ended the Constitutional Revolution, the imperialist rivalry broke out into world war in 1914. Although the Iranian government officially declared neutrality, it proved powerless to prevent Iran from becoming part of the Middle Eastern theater of war between the Anglo-Russian alliance (‘Entente Powers’) and the Ottoman-German alliance (‘Central Powers’). The war had devastating effects on Iran, as it did on any place that was treated as a battleground for imperialist slaughter. Roughly two million people died from the violence of war, famine, and disease. The situation underscored Iran’s colonial situation, as the country was helpless in the face of foreign powers that effectively did as they pleased within its borders.

At this point, Iran proved to be an independent nation only in name, with the central government serving as a mere shadow for other powers. As was the case before the constitutional period, the central government had no real power outside of the nation’s capital, and even there, such power was constantly disrupted by foreign intervention. Local tribal chiefs and aristocrats seized the opportunity to assert themselves and by the end of the war, clearly constituted the actual powers in their respective regions, going so far as to strike deals and sign treaties with imperialist powers directly without any involvement of, or mediation from, the central government.

The 1917 Russian Revolution fundamentally altered the situation, and breathed new life into the revolutionary forces. The Bolsheviks removed Russian forces from Iran while abolishing all Russian treaties and concessions over the country. The fall of the Romanov Tsar also marked the removal of the Qajars’ principal patron. Following the removal of Russian and Ottoman forces at the end of the war, the British became the dominant imperialist power in the Middle East. The British had initially thought to turn Iran into a protectorate, but the possibility proved untenable. Anti-British sentiment was increasing, and they had quite simply spread themselves too thin. Most importantly, the October Revolution had ushered in a new threat of social revolution. Bolsheviks-aligned Iranian socialists formed the Adalat (Justice) Party, which in 1920 became the Communist Party of Iran. More than perhaps anything else, it was the October Revolution that threatened both the British and the local ruling aristocracy. By 1920, this threat had spread to the northern province of Gilan with the establishment of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran. The Red Army now had an official presence on Iranian soil, and succeeded in pushing out both British and Iranian forces from the area.[8]

This presence forced a change in the imperialist strategy of the British. Whereas the latter had thus far supported various local nobles and tribal chiefs in an effort to maintain their influence, this tactic (in addition to direct occupation) was beginning to prove unstable in the face of the Bolshevik threat. Alongside many among the Iranian ruling class, the British searched for a strongman who could seize power, restore order, and protect their interests from the threat of social revolution. It was in this context that an officer from the Cossack Brigades named Reza Khan distinguished himself as the best candidate for the job.9 He was encouraged to organize a coup, the result of which would be an insurance of security and the withdrawal of British forces from the region.

[icaroid]

are you willing to offer the sacrifice class syllabus to the masses?? or at least a book list?? it's just that the topic is v interesting.

Hi!! I did look up the old syllabus, I'm not going to put it up in its entirety, but here's a list of the readings that we did:

Articles/Excerpts:

Lewis Hyde, The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World

Walter Burkert, Homo Necans: The Anthropology of Ancient Greek Sacrificial Ritual and Myth

Jukka Jouhki, "Orientalism and India"

J. van Baal, "Offering, Sacrifice and Gift" in Numen, Vol. 23, Fasc. 3 http://www.jstor.org/stable/3269590

Alan Morinis, "The Ritual Experience: Pain and the Transformation of Consciousness in Ordeals of Initiation" http://www.jstor.org/stable/639985

Lawrence Babb, "The Food of the Gods in Chhattisgarh…" http://www.jstor.org.remote.slc.edu/stable/pdf/3629382.pdf

Sigmund Freud, Totem and Taboo

C. G. Jung, “Transformation Symbolism in the Mass,” in Baum, Mannheim, Campbell et. al., eds., The Mysteries (Papers from the Eranos Yearbooks, vol. 2)

Euripides, The Bacchae (Lattimore translation)

Abraham's "binding of Isaac" Genesis 22:1-19

Sophocles, Oedipus Rex https://records.viu.ca/~johnstoi/sophocles/oedipustheking.htm

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter. http://www.planetpublish.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11The_Scarlet_Letter_T.pdf

Victor Rosner, "Fire-Walking the Tribal Way" in Anthropos http://www.jstor.org/stable/40458234

Jean Varenne, Yoga and the Hindu Tradition.

Yael Bentor, "Interiorized Fire Rituals in India and in Tibet" in JAOS http://www.jstor.org/stable/606619

Sati: A Review Article by Werner Menski, Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies, Univ.of London, Vol. 61, No. 1 (1998), pp. 74-81. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3107292

Wendy Doniger and Howard Eilberg-Schwartz, ed., Off With Her Head!: The Denial of Women's Identity in Myth, Religion, and Culture.

Joseph S. Alter, Gandhi's Body: Sex, Diet, and the Politics of Nationalism

Mohandas Gandhi, My Experiments with Truth: Autobiography. http://www.columbia.edu/itc/mealac/pritchett/00litlinks/gandhi/index.html

War poems of Wilfred Owen—see " The Parable of the Young Man and the Old" and "Strange Meeting" http://www.rjgeib.com/thoughts/abraham/abraham.html

Shirley Jackson, "The Lottery"

Kevin Rushby, Children of Kali: Through India in Search of Bandits, the Thug Cult, and the British Raj

Books:

Henri Hubert and Marcel Mauss, Sacrifice: Its Nature and Functions

Rene Girard, Violence and the Sacred

C. Marvin and D. Ingle, ed., Blood Sacrifice & The Nation

Sakuntala Narasimhan, Sati - Widow Burning in India

there's a focus on India bc that was the professor's area of expertise! hope this is helpful (its gonna b helpful for me in my writing abt jellowpackets lol)

[3rdeyeblaque]

On October 3rd we venerate Ancestor & Saint Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiakaka aka Black Sparrow Hawk on the 185th anniversary of his passing 🕊 [for our Hoodoos of First Nations descent]

Black Sparrow Hawk was a great Warrior military tactician, & Medicine Man of Sauk Nation, who is best known for the war that bears his name, as the last Indian-Euro war fought east of the Mississippi. It was his defeat signaled the end untimely of 200 years of armed resistance against European colonization on Turtle Island.

Black Sparrow Hawk (Ma-ka-tai-me-she-kia-kiak) was born into the Thunder Clan of Sauk Nation around 1767 & was a member of the Warrior Class. He was the son of a highly respected Medicine Man and would go on to inherit his father's Medicine Bags after he was killed in battle. Though polygamous, had only 1 wife. They had 5 children. They later lost their eldest son & youngest daughter within the same year. Black Hawk mourned the deaths of his children for 2 years - in Sauk tradition.

At age 15 he wounded his first enemy in battle, which initiated him into the Warrior Class & earned him the right to paint his face and wear feathers. From then on he continued to bravery & tactitcal skills on the battlefield. During the War of 1812, Black Hawk's warriors fought alongside the Shawnee on the side of the British Army against the U.S. colonies. Despite the misnomer given by the Europeans, Black Hawk was NOT a chief, he was highly respected & influential leader of a political faction within the Sauk nation that believed in preserving the traditional ways of life before European invasion.

In 1804, five Sauk and Meskwaki chiefs were tricked into signing a treaty with the U.S gov, selling nearly 51 million acres of tribal lands in Illinois, Missouri, and Wisconsin in exchange for various goods & a $1,000 yearly annuity to be paid to the nations. Despite this blatantly illegal act, the U.S. Senate ratified the treaty. The treaty stipulated that the Indians could remain on the ceded lands as long as that land was not wanted for white settlement. As more colonizers invaded Saukenuk territories, tensions rose. To avoid anymore bloodshed, the Sauk and Meskwaki moved to the west side of the Mississippi. However, Black Hawk and his followers refused to give up their lands & remained in Saukenuk. When tensions peaked, the Governor of Illinois dispatched military troops to force out the remaining Sauk and Meskwaki. Black Hawk led his followers across the river out of Illinois & into Iowa during the night.

This spurred Black Hawk to wage the war so named after him, against the U.S. to reclaim their ancestral lands. He led about 1500 followers across to the eastern bank of the Mississippi. This threw the entire frontier into a panic. The Black Hawk War went in for 15 weeks, ending the Battle of Bad Axe in Wisconsin. At its end, starvation, deprivation, & exhaustion killed off 2/3 of his followers. Though he along with 5 of his closest companions, including his eldest son, escaped before the Battle, they was captured 6 weeks later & imprisoned. They were released into the custody a Sauk leader named, Keokuck - Black Hawk's arch political rival - & was directed to follow his counsel and advice. From then on, Black Hawk was no longer recognized as the political leader of the Sauk. In the end, Black Hawk lost more 1,000 folders to the War & more Sauk- Meskwaki territories were taken as war reparations.

Black Hawk would go on to dictate his autobiography to an interpreter. "The Life of Black Hawk" was published in 1833. Despite his dishonor & shame among the Sauk, Black Hawk had ironically achieved fame and great admiration among his former enemies.

After his death, Black Hawk was buried sitting upright inside a small mausoleum of logs. Soon after, his grave was desecrated by grave robbers. His remains were eventually deposited in a museum in Burlington, Iowa which burned down in 1855.

As one of the most feared, yet respected First Nations leaders in history, at the core of his legacy - despite defeat- was his hard-fought battle to preserve the ancestral homelands of his people & preserve their traditional ways of life in the growing shadow of European colonization.

“I am a Sauk…I am a Warrior.” - Black Hawk's final proclamation.

Offering suggestions: play traditional Sauk music, deer or buffalo meat with cornbread/squash/beans/berries/honey, tobacco smoke

‼️Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.‼️

[niibaataa]

Nishnaabe Nagamonan

Disclaimer: Some works deal with historical wrongs, Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls, colonialism, and residential/boarding schools. Exercise caution.

Kateri Akiwenzie-Damm is a member of Saugeen Ojibway First Nation. Akiwenzie-Damm has served as Poet Laureate for Owen Sound and North Grey. In 1993, she established Kegedonce Press, a publishing house devoted to Indigenous writers. She has also authored Without Reservation: Indigenous Erotica.

Works: (Re)Generation, My Heart is a Stray Bullet.

Marie Annharte Baker is a member of Little Saskatchewan First Nation. Annharte's work concentrates on women, urban, Indigenous, disability, and related topics. She critiques life from Western Canada. After graduating with an English degree in the 1970s, she became involved in Native activism and was one of the first people in North America to teach a class entirely on Native women.

Works: Indigena Awry, Miskwagoode, Exercises in Lip Pointing.

Lesley Belleau is a member of Garden River First Nation. She is noted for her 2017 collection Indianland. She has an MA in English literature from the University of Windsor and is working on a PhD in Indigenous Studies from Trent University.

Works: Indianland.

Kimberly M. Blaeser is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation. Blaeser served as Wisconsin's Poet Laureate from 2015-2016. She is a professor of English at the University of Wisconsin-Miluwakee. A contemporary of Vizenor, she is the first critic to publish a book-length study on his fiction. She has been writing poetry since 1993.

Works: Apprenticed to Justice, Trailing You, Absentee Indians and Other Poems.

Diane Burns was a member of the Lac Courte Oreilles band. Burns was Anishinaabe through her mother and Chemehuevi through her father. Burns attended the Institute of American Indian Arts and Barnard College (within Columbia University). She was also an accomplished visual artist. She is considered an important figure within the Native American contemporary arts movement.

Works: Riding the One-Eyed Ford (available online).

Aja Couchois Duncan is a Bay Area educator, writer, and coach. Duncan is of Ojibwe, French, and Scottish descent. Her debut collection won the California Book Award. She holds an MFA in creative writing from San Francisco State University.

Works: Restless Continent, Vestigal.

Heid E. Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain band. Erdrich is a granddaughter of Patrick Gourneau, who fought against Indian termination during his time as tribal chairman from 1953-1959. Erdrich holds a PhD in Native American Literature and Writing. Erdrich used to teach, but has since stepped back from doing it full-time. She directs Wiigwaas Press, an Ojibwe language publisher.

Works: Cell Traffic, The Mother's Tongue, Curator of Ephemera at the New Museum for Archaic Media.

Louise Erdrich is a member of the Turtle Mountain band. Erdrich is a granddaughter of Patrick Gourneau, who fought against Indian termination during his time as tribal chairman from 1953-1959. She is widely acclaimed as one of the most significant writers of the Native American Renaissance. Owner of Birchbark Books, an independent bookstore that focuses on Native Literature.

Works: Jacklight, Original Fire, Baptism of Desire.

David Groulx was raised in Elliott Lake, Ontario. Groulx is Ojibwe and French Canadian. He received his BA in Literature from Lakehead University and later studied creative writing at the En'owkin Centre in British Columbia. He has also studied creative writing at the University of Victoria.

Works: From Turtle Island to Gaza, Rising With a Distant Dawn, Imagine Mercy.

Gordon Henry Jr is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation. Gordon Henry Jr holds a PhD in Literature from the University of North Dakota and is currently a professor of English at Michigan State University. He has authored several novels and poetry collections and is a celebrated writer in Michigan.

Works: Spirit Matters, The Failure of Certain Charms.

Jane Johnston Schoolcraft was Born in Sault Ste. Marie on Michigan's Upper Peninsula. Schoolcraft was given the name of Bamewawagezhikaquay ('Woman of the Sound that the stars make Rushing Through the Sky') in Ojibwe. Her mother was Ozhaguscodaywayquay, the daughter of the Ojibwe war chief Waubojeeg. Her father was fur-trader John Johnston. Johnston is regarded as the first major Native American female writer. She wrote letters and poems in both English and Ojibwe.

Writeup containing works.

Denise Lajimodiere is a citizen of the Turtle Mountain band. Lajimodiere is considered an expert on Native American boarding schools following her work Stringing Rosaries, published in 2019. She is a poet, professor, scholar, and the current Poet Laureate of North Dakota.

Works: His Feathers Were Chains, Thunderbird: Poems, Dragonfly Dance.

Linda Legarde Grover is a member of the Bois Forte Band. She is a columnist for the Duluth Tribune and Professor Emeritus of American Indian Studies at University of Minnesota (Duluth). She has written poetry, short stories, and essays.

Works: The Sky Watched, Onigamiising.

Sara Littlecrow-Russel is of Ojibwe and Han-Naxi Métis descent. Russell is a lawyer and professional mediator as well as a poet. She has worked at the Center for Education and Policy Advocacy at the University of Massachusetts and for Community Partnerships for Social Change at Hampshire College.

Works: The Secret Powers of Naming.

Jim Northrup was a member of the Fond du Lac Reservation in Minnesota. Northrup lived a traditional lifestyle in his early years. As a child, he attended an Indian boarding school where he suffered physical abuse. Later in life, he served in the Vietnam war and experienced PTSD. Much of his poetry comes from these hardships.

Works: Walking the Rez Road, Rez Salute: The Real Healer Dealer, Anishinaabe Syndicated.

Duke Redbird was born in Saugeen First Nation. He became a ward of Children's Aid at nine months old when his mother died in a house fire. He began writing to give words to his experiences as an Indigenous man raised by white foster families. He is recognized as a key figure in the development of First Nations literature.

His poetry is available on his site.

Denise Sweet is a member of the White Earth Reservation in Minnesota. Sweet served as Wisconsin's Poet Laureate from 2004-2008. She has taught creative writing, literature, and mythology at the University of Wisconsin-Green Bay.

Works: Songs for Discharming, Palominos Near Tuba City.

Mark Turcotte is a member of the Turtle Mountain Band. Turcotte is a visiting assistant professor of English at DePaul University. He has published two books of poetry. His chapbook, Road Noise, was translated into French.

Works: The Feathered Heart, Exploding Chippewas.

E. Donald Two-Rivers was raised in Emo Township, Ontario. He moved to Chicago at age 16 and became involved with the Urban Native community there. A playwright, spoken-word performer, and a poet, Two-Rivers had been an activist for Native rights since the 1970s. He was the founding director of the Chicago-based Red Path Theater Company.

Works: Powwows, Fat Cats, and Other Indian Tales, A Dozen Cold Ones by Two-Rivers.

Gerald Vizenor is an enrolled member of the White Earth Reservation. Vizenor has published over 30 books. He taught at the University of California for many years and is currently at the University of New Mexico. He has a long history of political activism and he is considered one of the most prolific Indigenous ironists writing today.

Works: Favor of Crows, Cranes Arise, Empty Swings.

[tristan-47]

Questions on Chapter 3 : Mediations

The relation between words and music have been in 3 terms, one as a Intermediate relation within the Music Industry who produce and compose music, the arising conflicts between them and their CEO and Artists lead to a gatekeeping strategy with a tighter control on how music is distributed, then there is a Transmission relation with how Music is distributed and how technological progress by Instruments and the Media has put the music Industry on a forwards Path and finally, there is a Social relationship with the transition of that Music within people of different classes and their societal struggles of their own time as put forward by HARKER . We can also consider these relations have evolved over time to be conflictual at first but being more and more coordinated, the advent of Printed Sheet Music has been looked back upon by some Historians as a replacement to Oral Tradition with VINCENT responding to these retrospectives as the fact that the change as inevitable with some songs being already handwritten back then as well as it did not replaced Oral Tradition as being "magnified" but Sheet Music rather than being commercialised under the Press as well as rebutting arguments about the instant accessibility of the Early Middle Ages and Antiquity where word of mouth was often not the case. This argument can be further backed up with the "Second Oral Tradition" that is the Radio Broadcasting.

2. About the case of Images, we can see that it also has been seen as a contradiction that resolved into Complimentation. Indeed, with the Advent of the supposed "Competitor" to Radio, the Music Video, the Song became an Audio-Visual Furniture who became use in wider Areas, either at Home or in the public , this led to criticising by KAPLAN and others that Music became nothing more than Tribal with the Image dominating and surpassing Music who is reduced to a "Elaborate Advertisement" where Music became a Score rather than the centrepiece. In response to these criticisms, GOODWIN argued that the "Sound-Image" relation is connected by an Iconographic way, an Index way and a Symbolical way where the Iconography is just the Artist's expression referring to the actual Tone the music is supposed to be played, the Index is the connection between an object projected on the screen and the song itself with backgrounds elements like a Crowd placing the Song in a specific context and a Symbolical way where the Action or Object is linked to a cultural and societal meaning like an Electric guitar representing Power. This three way thinking immediately links the Music Video to the Cinema's Industry where the Video either follows in a diegetic way, rejects in a non diegetic or makes a parallel with the actual lyrics of the song similar to the Cinema's convention, this can be seen in David BOWIE's "Let's Dance" where the dissonance between the message of the Title and the actual message of the Video being to taking action against the Racial Aboriginal Issues in Australia.

3. These impact Audiences in a multitude of ways. Indeed, looking back at the Radio itself as a Object who is receipting waves, it led to the formation of Active Listeners who became more and more nomad with the Advent of the Transistor, this along side the retransmitting of Musical events, something the British Broadcast Corporation was a pioneer at, led to an increased audience of far away people who were never targeted at all by these events. The rise of Radio Programming led to Songs having a shorter popularity lifespan but at the advantage of having a greater audience, this also led to conflict with whenever the Programming should be regulated like in Europe or not like the United States of America, this also led to conflict with promoters and broadcasters who wanted to play Songs on the radio with the Advent of Pirate "Illegal" broadcast who often clashed against the States Authorities.

4. The Lyrics are related to the Music Video because they both are complimentary to each other. Micheal JACKSON's "Thriller" fits the argument perfectly with the title "Thriller" being a reference to the Shock during the viewing of a Horror Movie with the clip appropriately starting at a Cinema. Then, the Lyrics point out that the setting is at Midnight Time and the Listener "You" is in confrontation with the personification of a Monster being called "Evil", "Beast" or "Creature", thus the Clip puts the Action at Night time and expands on the concept by having the Listener in the shoes of a Woman and Micheal himself telling the Story. However, the clip also enhances the story by setting in a Cemetery despite not being reference in the story who is focused on the Sensation of being scared, there is also the Plot Twist of the Storyteller himself being a Monster as we see participating in a Cult of Zombies and being completely deformed by the end which is completely absent from the Original Lyrics which makes it even more horrifying in hindsight.

However, this is not always the Case with Bonnie TYLER's "Total Eclipse of the Heart" being the perfect counterexample. Here, the lyrics and Video does not match up at all. the lyrics talk about a Woman wanting her lover to come back as she completely "Fall appart" and feels "A Total Eclipse of the Heart"... The Video, on the other hand, seems, from further inspection, to be focus on the "Dream of something wild", as we see the Woman's hallucinations seeing a Bird flying off a Door, a Classroom of Men looking like her husband, a Man with Angel Wings and other far fetched visions. This feels like she is completely losing touch with reality the more time passes as she is without her Lover and she doesn't care that the Mansion along with herself is falling through Chaos...

The total disconnect between the Video and Lyrics is something that the "Literal Version" of the Song makes fun off, mostly the fact that TYLER who is acting the Women does not seem to convey well enough that she is "tired of listening to the sounds of my tears", or being depressed and that the Hallucinations presented seems off putting to say the Least with a Presence of a Ninja Clan or a American Football Team interrupting the Action despite the fact of being the point of her "wild dreams".

Then, we have Foster The People "Pumped up Kicks" who we can barely describe as a Proper Music Video where we see then performing their Music in a Studio with a similar energy to a Middle/High School Band, the only link there is with the Lyrics, but Mark FOSTER, Isom INNIS and Jacob FINK, who was one of the mains at the time, made the Right Call to not even attempt to make a Video out of the Lyrics.

The Lyrics talk about a kid named Robert who is disguised as a "cowboy" with a "rolled cigarette" who found a "six-shooter gun in his dad's closet" with a box of Munitions and is on a killing spree of his entire School with his other classmates with their "pumped up kicks" are running away from his "gun" and "bullets", while his dad is "coming home late". Any attempt at trying to tell this story, which is literally a retelling of the Columbine School Shooting in a Video Form, whenever Live Action or Animated, is an immediate non starter because Infanticide is completely censored in all Media across the Western World and would cause an obvious Backlash even if it was Screened in Adult Movie Theatres...

[worldwidemovies012]

Thangalaan review

: Pa Ranjith's film is intertwined with some fantasy and mystical realism. A must watch for Vikram fans.

Thangalaan is a period action drama starring Vikram, Parvathy Thiruvothu and Malavika Mohanan in the lead roles. The film is directed by Pa. Ranjith, produced by Studio Green K.E.Gnanavel Raja and the music is scored by G.V. Prakash Kumar.

Premise:

Britishers are in a wealth hunt, they take tribal people to work for them. Strange visions of Vikram to lead the troop to the Gold-rush area. What happens after forms the crux of the story.

Writing/ Direction:

Gold is the base of the film, the film showcases how it was handled in the 19th century by our rulers. Well-researched in terms of landscape, the way people look and the terms they use, which is sure to take the viewers back in time. The fantasy element is intriguing, the dynamic development of it is one of the few appreciable aspects of the film, the closure to it makes sense, sadly it is rushed by leaving no impact. The first half is like an adventure flick, with many different themes tried, but the result is extremely flat.

No clarity in the fight scenes as to who is winning and who is losing, the Black Panther sequence is a big dud with poor vision and the heavy smoke effects used lowers the visual standard.

Pasupathy’s humour portions are a big relief to the dry screenplay. The second half starts on a promising note with a few good scenes, displaying the happiness of the tribes for receiving new clothes, how the British treat the tribe with respect until they get to the Gold and shows their true nature after that, etc. Post which the film becomes dull with the slavery part not turning out to be emotional on-screen, the payoff is also very weak by bringing in a clumsy platter which is hard to consume. The biggest drawback of the film is the dialogue modulation of the artists which is probably authentic for the period, but had to go through hell to follow and understand.

Performances:

Chiyaan Vikram’s limitless efforts are evident on-screen, showing great variety in makeover, body language and expressions. Parvathy Thiruvothu is very casually natural on-screen, her scenes with the hero are lively, but the script required more to utilize the chemistry between them. Quite a challenging role for Malavika Mohanan, she has given her best, just wish she had more highlight action scenes to prove her full-potential. Pasupathy’s character started off fascinatingly, but then the arc was left abruptly without giving a proper ending it deserved. Stone-faced villains, the issue with foreign actors’ performances which the most Indian films have exists here too. The other supporting characters are written in a half-baked manner that we don’t get to feel for them.

Technicalities:

Meticulous work by G.V.Prakash, top quality songs overall, especially the Minikki Minikki track stands out and it is beautifully placed in the film. Solid score, his music made a lot of weak situations better, he has focused on what instruments to use as well. The visuals are first class, strong production value and location recce have led the team to explore new terrains, however the action is captured in an unimpressive manner. A lot of edit patterns and jump cuts are fascinating, but finesse is missing when things are simple, the packaging fails to engross. VFX is a mixed bag, the models look neat during the static shots, but the motions aren’t done right to make the sequences believable. Stunts lack punch, the approach is realistic but the output feels hurried.

Bottomline

Fantasy element is fine when it stands alone, falters when blent with reality. The film misses to hold the interest except for the initial chunk in the latter half. Had immense potential to be a hard-hitting flick, but it never took off from the ground level.

hindi:- थंगालान समीक्ष���: पा रंजीत की फिल्म कुछ कल्पना और रहस्यमय यथार्थवाद से जुड़ी हुई है। विक्रम के प्रशंसकों के लिए यह फिल्म अवश्य देखें।

थंगालान एक पीरियड एक्शन ड्रामा है, जिसमें विक्रम, पार्वती थिरुवोथु और मालविका मोहनन मुख्य भूमिकाओं में हैं।

फिल्म का निर्देशन पा रंजीत ने किया है, जिसका निर्माण स्टूडियो ग्रीन के.ई. ज्ञानवेल राजा ने किया है और संगीत जी.वी. प्रकाश कुमार ने दिया है।

प्रस्तावना:

अंग्रेज धन की तलाश में हैं, वे आदिवासी लोगों को अपने लिए काम पर ले जाते हैं। विक्रम को सेना को गोल्ड-रश क्षेत्र में ले जाने के लिए अजीबोगरीब दृश्य दिखाई देते हैं। उसके बाद क्या होता है, यही कहानी का सार है।

लेखन/निर्देशन:

फिल्म का आधार गोल्ड है, फिल्म दिखाती है कि 19वीं सदी में हमारे शासकों ने इसे कैसे संभाला।

भूदृश्य, लोगों के देखने के तरीके और उनके द्वारा इस्तेमाल किए जाने वाले शब्दों के संदर्भ में अच्छी तरह से शोध किया गया है, जो दर्शकों को निश्चित रूप से समय में पीछे ले जाएगा।

फंतासी तत्व दिलचस्प है, इसका गतिशील विकास फिल्म के कुछ सराहनीय पहलुओं में से एक है, इसका समापन समझ में आता है, दुख की बात है कि इसे जल्दबाजी में बनाया गया है, जिससे कोई प्रभाव नहीं पड़ता।

पहला भाग एक साहसिक फिल्म की तरह है, जिसमें कई अलग-अलग थीम आजमाई गई हैं, लेकिन परिणाम बेहद सपाट है।

लड़ाई के दृश्यों में कोई स्पष्टता नहीं है कि कौन जीत रहा है और कौन हार रहा है, ब्लैक पैंथर का दृश्य खराब दृष्टि के साथ एक बड़ा डफ है और भारी धुएं के प्रभाव का उपयोग दृश्य मानक को कम करता है।

पसुपथी के हास्य भाग सूखी पटकथा के लिए एक बड़ी राहत हैं। दूसरा भाग कुछ अच्छे दृश्यों के साथ एक आशाजनक नोट पर शुरू होता है, जिसमें नए कपड़े प्राप्त करने के लिए जनजातियों की खुशी प्रदर्शित होती है, कैसे ब्रिटिश जनजाति के साथ सम्मान के साथ व्यवहार करते हैं जब तक कि वे गोल्ड तक नहीं पहुंच जाते और उसके बाद अपना असली स्वरूप दिखाते हैं, आदि।

इसके बाद फिल्म सुस्त हो जाती है क्योंकि गुलामी वाला हिस्सा स्क्रीन पर भावनात्मक नहीं बन पाता है, भुगतान भी बहुत कमजोर है क्योंकि एक भद्दा प्लेट पेश किया जाता है जिसे पचाना मुश्किल है।

फिल्म की सबसे बड़ी कमी कलाकारों के संवादों का उतार-चढ़ाव है जो शायद उस दौर के हिसाब से प्रामाणिक है, लेकिन इसे समझने और समझने के लिए नरक से गुजरना पड़ा।

प्रदर्शन:

चियान विक्रम के असीम प्रयास स्क्रीन पर स्पष्ट हैं, मेकओवर, बॉडी लैंग्वेज और भावों में बहुत विविधता दिखाते हैं।

पार्वती थिरुवोथु स्क्रीन पर बहुत सहज रूप से सहज हैं, नायक के साथ उनके दृश्य जीवंत हैं, लेकिन स्क्रिप्ट में उनके बीच की केमिस्ट्री का उपयोग करने के लिए और अधिक की आवश्यकता थी।

मालविका मोहनन के लिए काफी चुनौतीपूर्ण भूमिका, उन्होंने अपना सर्वश्रेष्ठ दिया है, बस काश उनके पास अपनी पूरी क्षमता साबित करने के लिए और अधिक हाइलाइट एक्शन दृश्य होते। पसुपति के किरदार की शुरुआत आकर्षक थी, लेकिन फिर आर्क को बिना उचित अंत दिए अचानक छोड़ दिया गया।

पत्थर के चेहरे वाले खलनायक, विदेशी अभिनेताओं के अभिनय की समस्या जो कि अधिकांश भारतीय फिल्मों में होती है, यहाँ भी मौजूद है।

अन्य सहायक पात्रों को आधे-अधूरे तरीके से लिखा गया है कि हम उनके लिए कुछ महसूस नहीं कर पाते।

तकनीकी बातें:

जी.वी.प्रकाश द्वारा किया गया बेहतरीन काम, कुल मिलाकर बेहतरीन गाने, खास तौर पर मिनिक्की मिनिक्की ट्रैक सबसे अलग है और इसे फिल्म में खूबसूरती से रखा गया है।

सॉलिड स्कोर, उनके संगीत ने कई कमज़ोर स्थितियों को बेहतर बनाया, उन्होंने इस बात पर भी ध्यान दिया कि कौन से इंस्ट्रूमेंट का इस्तेमाल करना है।

विज़ुअल बेहतरीन हैं, प्रोडक्शन वैल्यू और लोकेशन रेकी ने टीम को नए इलाकों की खोज करने के लिए प्रेरित किया है, हालांकि एक्शन को बहुत ही कमज़ोर तरीके से कैप्चर किया गया है।

एडिट पैटर्न और जंप कट बहुत आकर्षक हैं, लेकिन जब चीजें सरल होती हैं तो बारीकियाँ गायब हो जाती हैं, पैकेजिंग भी ध्यान खींचने में विफल हो जाती है।

वीएफएक्स एक मिश्रित बैग है, स्टैटिक शॉट्स के दौरान मॉडल साफ-सुथरे दिखते हैं, लेकिन दृश्यों को विश्वसनीय बनाने के लिए गति सही तरीके से नहीं की गई है। स्टंट में दम नहीं है, दृष्टिकोण यथार्थवादी है लेकिन आउटपुट जल्दबाजी में किया गया लगता है।

बॉटमलाइन

फ़ैंटेसी एलिमेंट अकेले होने पर ठीक है, लेकिन वास्तविकता के साथ घुलने-मिलने पर यह कमज़ोर पड़ जाता है।

फिल्म के दूसरे हिस्से में शुरुआती हिस्से को छोड़कर बाकी हिस्सा दिलचस्पी बनाए रखने में विफल रहा। इसमें एक दमदार फिल्म बनने की अपार संभावना थी, लेकिन यह कभी भी जमीनी स्तर पर आगे नहीं बढ़ पाई।

[canichangemyblogname]

It seems many colonial conclusions rely on an ahistorical analysis or critical lack of historical context. I saw a post today that claimed there are no terms for US colonial expansion and the people who support it. And— like— yes there is? And a problem is that the words for it are still regarded with positive connotation by most of the US public today.

May I introduce you to:

While coined in 1845, the term refers to an ideology of U.S. expansionism that dates back to the first colonial contact between Europeans and First Nations People.

We also have three terms for the people who subscribed to this ideology, two for the earliest settlers: colonist and pilgrim, and one for the later settlers who expanded west: pioneer. The change in terms came with the change in power following the Colonist Revolution against the British, with “pioneer” being used as early as the 1780s.

However, an overarching term commonly used nowadays is just “colonizer,” and if you did not know this, then there are not enough indigenous North Americans in your life.

Now, I don’t expect non-US Americans to have known this. And, I’m also going to be honest, this post isn’t primarily directed at non-US Americans because the people I hear claiming that the US has no terms for its colonial ideology are Americans themselves. So, this is primarily directed at them.

I know you learned this in history class. Stop lying to people in an intellectually dishonest attempt to paint decolonial movements as hypocritical and supporting a double standard that refuses to call out or critique US imperialism. The only reason you aren’t hearing analysis and critique of US imperialism and expansionism is because you’re not seeking it out and surrounding yourself with people who support movements like Land Back.

Contrary to what Elon Musk and white supremacists like him want people to believe, “decolonization” is not a dirty word and it is not a call for genocide (most of them claim it’s a call for white genocide, specifically).

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mahatma Gandhi leaving the British viceroy’s residence in Simla, 1945 © Hulton-Deutsch Collection/Corbis/Getty Images

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India Against Ghandi :: A Legacy Rewritten Ramachandra Guha

India against Gandhi — a legacy rewritten Seventy-five years after his assassination, the ‘father of the nation’ is a problem for Narendra Modi — but the country still needs his ideas

Just as Russia now officially despises Sakharov, so Modi's India hates Gandhi and lauds the man who murdered him. Ramachandra Guha: Born in 1958, a decade after Gandhi’s death, I grew up in an atmosphere of veneration towards the Mahatma. One of my great-uncles helped to edit Gandhi’s Collected Works; another founded a pioneering initiative in community health inspired by Gandhi. These familial influences were consolidated and deepened by the public culture of the time. Gandhi was the father of the nation, the leader of the struggle for freedom against British rule, whose techniques of non-violent resistance had won admirers and imitators across the world. It was largely because of him that we were free and proudly independent, and it was largely because of him that — unlike neighbouring Pakistan — we gloried in the religious and linguistic diversity of our land. In our school assembly we sang a 17th-century hymn that Gandhi was particularly fond of, which he had rewritten to reflect his vision of the India he wished to leave behind. 

Hindus saw God as Ishwar; Gandhi’s adaptation asked us to see him as Allah too. And it was to these lines that our teachers drew our particular attention.The first criticisms of Gandhi that I remember encountering were in a book I read as a student at Delhi University. This was the autobiography of Verrier Elwin, an Oxford scholar who became a leading ethnographer of the tribes of central India. Elwin knew Gandhi well, and at one time considered himself a disciple. In later years, while he retained his admiration for the Mahatma’s moral courage and religious pluralism, Elwin became sharply critical of Gandhi’s advocacy of prohibition, which he thought damaging to tribal culture (where home-brewed alcohol was both a source of nutrition and an aid to dance and music), and of his exaltation of celibacy, which Elwin thought damaging to everyone. 

In Amritsar in 2006, members of the Congress party place garlands on a statue of Gandhi to mark the anniversary of his birth Elwin’s strictures were mild, even timid, when compared with those of the Marxist intellectuals of Kolkata, whom I encountered in the 1980s when beginning my academic career. These scholars identified with the Naxalites, a band of insurgents who were inspired by Mao Zedong and who vandalised and destroyed Gandhi statues wherever they found them. Books were written arguing that Gandhi was an agent simultaneously of the British colonial state and of the Indian capitalist class; non-violence was presented as a cunning device to wean the masses away from the revolutionary path.

I had many arguments with my Marxist friends about Gandhi. I sought to persuade them that his adherence to non-violence arose out of a disinclination to take human life. I asked them to give Gandhi at least the qualified praise that Mao himself had bestowed on Sun Yat-sen, the first president of the Chinese republic, as creating a rudimentary national consciousness on which was built a superior socialist consciousness. On these subjects my interlocutors at least talked back, but our relations came to breaking point when I chose to focus my own research on a forest protection movement led by Gandhians, which the Marxists dismissed as a bourgeois deviation from the class struggle.

Those debates with Marxists shaped me profoundly, personally as well as intellectually. Yet recalling them here perhaps conveys a whiff of antiquarianism. For now, in the 2020s, the main attacks on Gandhi in India come from the other end of the ideological spectrum. For the past eight and a half years, the Hindu right has been in power in India, and Gandhi’s philosophy of non-violence and his commitment to interfaith harmony are anathema to it. While he is still officially the “father of the nation”, with his birthday a national holiday and his face on the currency notes, the public mood has turned hostile to Gandhi.To understand why Gandhi is increasingly unpopular in his homeland, one must go back to the circumstances of his death 75 years ago. Gandhi was murdered on January 30 1948 by Nathuram Godse, a member of a secretive paramilitary organisation called the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. Founded in 1925, the RSS believed — and still believes — in the construction of a Hindu theocratic state in India. Its leaders and cadres insist that demographic superiority and the Indic origin of their faith makes Hindus natural and permanent rulers of the land. They have a particular suspicion of Muslims and Christians, on account of the fact that their religions originated outside India and their sacred shrines are outside India too.

[Financial Times]  :: [h/t Scott Horton]

[panatmansam]

Churchill at the Battle of Omdurman

I'm an American but I have always been interested in the history of the British Empire. I am not an admirerer. I do admire the British people but not the British class system. Nevertheless, I am particularly fascinated by the final wars of Empire in Africa against tribal peoples and various Islamicist groups.

In one of the final such battles, the battle of Omduran, in 1898, the Brits led their final cavalry charge. The romantic ideal of the cavalry officer mounted on a spirited mount known as a "charger" with saber drawn or a long spear known as a lance at the ready had been a staple of military glory since Roman times. It seemed that the soldiers sensed that times were changing and young officers pulled every string to be transferred into the understrength cavalry outfit known as the 21st Lancers. One such man was the twenty-year-old Winston Churchill. The 21st had never in 20 years of its existence been in a charge. This was about to change.

The commander of the Lancers saw a line of enemy soldiers armed with spears and swords along a ridge. Then, with no reconnaissance and with all of the self-confidence of the white man fighting the black man in 1898 he had the bugler sound the charge and the Lancer galloped forward toward the enemy. What they discovered to their horror was that the enemy on the ridge was just a portion they faced there was a hollow in the landscape FILLED with three thousand enemy soldiers who used their razor-sharp swords to cut the hamstrings of the horses and then to cut the dismounted British soldiers to pieces. Winston Churchill barely made it through alive. History might hare been very different if he had been cut down like so many others in the regiment.

[eduminatti]

Should the reservation system be removed from India?

Should the reservation system be removed from India? The reservation system was implemented in India after the partition of 1947 to provide affirmative action for SC, ST, and OBC people, and to ensure adequate representation in government jobs and educational institutions. 

However, till today the reservation system is hosting a bitter debate between politicians, social activists, and students. The reservation system should be removed from India. It is a kind of reservation. Everyone has his own point of view about reservations. 

As per research conducted by schools in Mumbai most people think that it is helpful and useful for the poor people in India. But I think otherwise. It is not useful for the poor people and it also gives rise to some problems. So, it should be removed from India.

The reservation system was implemented in India by the British empire to uplift the lower classes in India. The system has been a great success and probably has lifted millions out of poverty. 

Another survey done by schools in Pune Today, it is time to remove the reservation system from India. In this article, I will explain my argument for its removal. The reservation system has many consequences and both positive and negative.

 It is proven to be beneficial for the weaker section of the society but also has many cons, which if considered will deteriorate the social system as a whole.    

The reservation system has been a part of our lives since independence and despite that, most of the populations still can't get their education or jobs as per their caste.

 In 2016, the government of India issued a draft bill proposing to remove Section 15(1) and (2), which allow for discrimination on the basis of caste and permit the exclusion of some citizens from public goods and services such as schools, hospitals, and public transport.

Reservation is a controversial topic in India. The origin of the reservation in India can be traced back to the historical discrimination meted out to particular castes or tribes for centuries. The first attempt at the reservation was made by the Britishers with an act called the Communal G.O in 1882 which was for the backward classes like Sudras, Harijans, and Tribals. 

It was later repealed in 1902 and reintroduced again in 1909 as a Communal award (Lingayat). Then, the reservation was introduced by the Indian National Congress (INC) in 1935 mainly for backward classes like scheduled caste and scheduled tribe in government jobs, education, etc.

 Later, the reservation was stopped during the period of British rule but continued after the independence of India through constitutional provision.

Now, reservation has become one of the significant topics to debate in both parliament and public places. Many political parties also built their election manifesto based on this issue only to come into power. 

This issue is also used as a political tool to win elections as well as to gain votes by giving false promises.

In a bold move, the Modi government announced last week that it would do away with the reservation system in India. The decision has been welcomed by large sections of society, but there are still some people who think that reservations should be kept.

I'm one of those people. Reservation has done so much for the country, and it should not be removed until a more robust alternative is found to help backward sections of society.

First of all, we should look at how far we've come in the 30 years since the reservation was first introduced. Back then, most Dalits were illiterate and oppressed by upper-caste Hindus. 

Today, they have made such great strides in education and employment that they occupy significant positions in several companies and institutions across the country. This is clearly due to the reservation policy.

The reason why I feel reservation should not be abolished is that it will affect these communities adversely. If you take away their quota, they will be unable to compete with richer students from big cities who have had access to better education since childhood. 

The only way to ensure equality is to provide them with the same benefits as rich students get — and that's exactly what reservation does.

For example, if a college has a 60% reservation for SC/ST students, then it means that about 20% of the seats are set aside for students who have a poor academic record and have to work extra hard because of their poor family background. 

But when you reserve 60% of the seats, you are actually saying that 60% of the seats are reserved only for those students who can’t make it otherwise!

What happens is – that these reserved seats go vacant if nobody applies for them. In that case, they are rolled over to the general category and hence reduce the total number of seats available in the general category!

 So even though there was no need to reserve those seats, they have been reserved and now there are fewer seats in the general category! This is how reservation policy is implemented in practice!

[dailyanarchistposts]

The Pahlavi Regime

The coup of February 1921 that brought General Reza Khan to power set into motion the creation of the modern centralized Iranian nation-state. The Pahlavi state should be seen alongside the other right-wing nationalist regimes that arose around this time in response to both the dissolutions brought about by WWI and the threat of the October Revolution. Reza Shah may be fruitfully compared to his contemporary in Turkey, Atatürk, as well as the models of authoritarian nationalist development seen in Germany, Italy, and Japan. As with these latter cases, the Pahlavi regime was “the product of a counter-attack by a weak capitalist class against a revolutionary movement, in a country that has slipped behind in the process of capitalist development. This class could only redress this position by repression and state-directed economic growth.”[10]

The political logic of this period can be summarized as state-building. Once the new government negotiated the withdrawal of Soviet and British troops, it moved to crush all remaining forms of opposition and centers of power. The powerful tribal armies were brought to heel, while autonomous and local powers, as well as rival officers in pursuit of power, were all crushed. A modern army capable of effectively asserting state power was assembled, followed soon after by nationwide conscription, government ID cards, the abolition of aristocratic titles, and the imposition of formal sur-names. Since the central pillars of the “new order” were a modern army and bureaucracy, the regime sought to extend the power of the state to all realms of society. Local languages were banned, and Persian was made the official language of the country. A modern educational system operating beyond the control of the clergy was established, and something similar was done with the courts, ushering in a modern legal system independent of the religious orders. Perhaps the most symbolic of these changes was the ban on the chador, which, alongside the rest of such reforms, provoked the ongoing ire of the clergy.[11]

Many reformists, and even some to their left, initially supported Reza Khan. Like the Lasalleans in support of Bismark, they thought that by supporting Reza Khan they could push through many of the reforms that ran into dead ends when employing exclusively democratic channels. In 1925, the Qajar Dynasty was abolished, but unlike Attaturk, who founded a republic, the following year he crowned himself Reza Shah Pahlavi and founded a new dynasty.[12] Reza Shah continued solidifying his rule with an iron fist. The regime promoted a chauvinistic nationalist ideology that appealed to the imperial glories of pre-Islamic Persia. The state in this period can be best summarized as a monarchical-military dictatorship.

While the environment was repressive, the industrialisation projects of this era increased the size and importance of the working class, within which communists organized successful union drives. This culminated in 1929, when a massive strike broke out at the Abadan oil refinery complex, which was under the ownership and control of the Anglo-Iranian Oil Company. The strike shook the ruling classes in both Iran and Britain, and served not only as a key event in the history of the working class movement in Iran, but also as a test for the state’s ability to maintain social order. The government responded with a great show of force, ratcheting up repression against communists. In 1931, a new law was enacted that criminalized the teaching and promotion of “communist” ideologies, banned trade unions, made striking illegal, and initiated a new wave of repression of socialist activists and intellectuals were imprisoned.[13]

Although the Pahlavi state enjoyed a degree of independence from the dominant classes, this also tended indirectly to facilitate the latter’s rule. Under both Pahlavi Shahs, it was through the state that capitalist development and industrialization took place. It was through the state that the modern capitalist class was consolidated and expanded, a fact that would remain no less true under the current day Islamic Republic. In many respects, it could be argued that both the Pahlavi regime and the Islamic Republic share features with the imperial state of Napoleon III after the coup of 1852: the latter built a state that was relatively autonomous from the ruling classes, yet which was in the end to the benefit of those classes as a whole, having “destroyed the political domination of the bourgeoisie only to preserve its social domination.”[14]

The reign of Reza Shah came to an end with World War Two. In the intervening years, the Iranian regime grew closer to the axis powers, particularly Germany, with whom it had affinities both political and ideological. The number of German advisors, engineers, and workers had increased greatly. When Germany invaded the Soviet Union in 1941, the Allies wanted to use Iran to send weapons from the Persian Gulf to the Russian front. When Reza Shah refused, the Allies promptly invaded and occupied the country. Reza Shah abdicated in favor of his young son, Muhammad Reza, and lived the rest of his life in exile.

The Allied invasion of 1941, which caused the fall of Reza Shah’s dictatorship, opened up a period of popular political mobilization and activity. Political prisoners were released, trade unions reconstituted themselves, and political parties began to come into shape. While the invasion caused the fall of Reza Shah, the Allies still maintained the state, particularly the monarchy and the military. The Allies would occupy Iran until after the end of the war, with once again the Soviets occupying the north and the British occupying the south. This is also the beginning of the American involvement in Iran, with a military mission sent to Iran to rebuild the army.

When the communist prisoners were released a core of them founded the Tudeh [masses] Party, which would be the official pro-Moscow communist party in Iran. The party had a democratic-populist platform and attracted many intellectuals and middle-class elements. It was also a major presence among the industrial working class, organizing what would be by the end of the decade the largest trade union confederation in the Middle East.

After the war, Iran would be the stage for the confrontation of many social struggles, as well as the first conflict of the cold war. In 1946, the Soviets continued to occupy the north after the agreed upon allied withdrawal. Two autonomous republics were founded in Mahabad and Azerbaijan under the protection of the Red Army. At the same time, a number of communists were included in the post-war coalition government. The Soviets withdrew their forces, and the imperial army moved in with great repression. The communists were also pushed from government, as would be the case with the fall of the coalition governments of France and Italy in 1947. This was the first victory of the new US-Iran military alliance that had begun during the war.

Following the Second World War, the movement for Iranian national independence experienced an upsurge, focused on the demand to nationalize Iranian oil. At the center of this surge was the National Front, led by Dr. Muhammad Mossadegh, who soon gained a mass following and was made Prime Minister in 1951. The National Front was not a party with a single ideology, but an alliance of various parties united around national independence through the oil question. When parliament voted to nationalize the oil industry, the British reacted immediately by imposing an economic blockade on Iran. The result was a great strain on the economy and a major increase in social tensions. The Tudeh Party was increasingly showing their strength. The United States feared that the uncertain situation would create an opportunity for Tudeh to seize power. This was the beginning of the successful coup by pro-Shah rightist military generals in 1953.[15]

The 1953 coup closed the door on the social movements that had opened up with WW2. The period that followed was one of severe repression. The coup would solidify the position of the Shah and the military against all rivals and competing sources of power. It also established the United States as the dominant imperialist power, supplanting the British. The main weight of the repression came against the communists in the Tudeh Party. The party’s network was rooted out and the trade union confederation destroyed. Many militants were imprisoned, executed, or went into exile. It was in order to facilitate this new order that the US helped the regime set up a new secret police force, the Organization for Information and Security of the Country, known commonly by its Persian acronym, SAVAK. Its name would come to be synonymous with repression and torture under the Shah’s dictatorship.

[jfbuckley]

I couldn’t give two hoots. If they want to “discuss” it, they can discuss it. They can discuss it for ever and ever. They can even make formal, binding resolutions to make us pay. They can do what they like. Again, I couldn’t give two hoots, because:

We ain’t paying!!

The slave trade is of course a shameful blot on our history. Most reasonable people accept that. We have to realise that we can’t change the past.

- As well as recognising how awful slavery was, we also have to realise that all countries were doing it.

- Some are still doing it today, 200 years later.

- We would do well to recognise that Britain was the first country in the world to abolish it.

- We should also remember that in the nineteenth century when the Royal Navy ruled the seas, it spent most of its time patrolling the oceans to stamp the trade out.

- We need to remember those tribal chiefs, kings and Arab traders in West Africa who profited so much from the slave trade.

- We also need to remember that the trans Atlantic slave trade could never have got off the ground without the full scale participation of those African chiefs and Arab traders - why are their descendants not being chased?

- Finally, and not leastly, we need to recognise that the British working classes in the Northern Mill Towns were held in conditions every bit as bad as slavery - where is MY compensation?

=======

I’m sick to death of this hand wringing guilt trip that so many people are on.

I believe that Britain can be rightly very proud of its record in being the first country to ban the slave trade and doing so much later on to keep it stamped out.

We should also recognise that these Caribbean countries that are clamouring for reparations, have been massive beneficiaries of being in the Commonwealth. Britain could have simply walked away, as many other imperial powers did. We didn’t, and many of these countries are far more affluent than their neighbours because of it.

[the-delta-42]

Airfix - Sink the Bismarck - Part 6 - British Tribal-Class Destroyers - HMS Cossack - HMS Sikh