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bu1410 · 10 months ago

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Good morning TUMBLR - March 9th - 2024

''Mr. Plant has owed me a shoe since July 5, 1971."

Ch. XI.1 - Morocco - 1989 - 1991

The ferry ''Marrakech Express'' in the port of Sete - France

TRIP TO MOROCCO So on Dec 18th 1989 I left Italy, heading towards the French port of Sete, where I was supposed to board the ferry ''MARRAKECH EXPRESS'' to Tangier. My Range Rover was packed to capacity, since in a few months my wife and son would be joining me by plane. And so in addition to my luggage, there were suitcases and boxes with their clothes, shoes and toys. I filled the tank at the nearby petrol station and paid the considerable sum (at the time) of 94,000 lire! In any case, the journey was smooth and problem-free till Sete: Autostrada dei Fiori, Menton, Nice, Aix en Provence, Arles, Montpellier and than Sete, an important port in Languedoc region. I arrived there on a gray and foggy afternoon, around 3.00 pm – no sign of the Marrakech Express ferry at the port. Near the dock, a local fisherman was repairing a net.  ''Sorry Sir…is it here where the ferry to Tangier leaves from?''  ''The Marrekesh Express? ''  Yes…….  Ahh well yes…but it's already set sail…'  How come did it already set sail? It's only 3. 10 pm..?  Yes but… the Captain said they'll find heavy seas on the route….  So???  So he decided to leave early…… '' WTF....….  And .....sorry… may I ask you when does the next ferry leave?  Ahh….well...........in seven days, next Tuesday……

Suddenly the kilometers I would have had to travel by car went from 1,100 to 3,600!! You can imagine my state of mind, to tell the truth I was more angry than worried: after all it was a matter of retracing roads that I had traveled several times in previous years, and with cars that performed much less well than the Range Rover I had now. After a few minutes of confusion, I was already on the highway to get back to the Autoroute du Sud. The journey to South - alone and on a ''winter'' highway was unparalleledly boring - I crossed the border at La Jonquera, and than via Girona, Barcelona, Valencia, Almeria, Malaga and then finally Algeciras. Again I chose the ferry to Ceuta, since it was the first to leave. Quiet crossing, even I had to stay indoors, given the cold wind blowing over the Strait of Gibraltar. The disembarkation operations were faster than usual, because in winter few people are crossing the Strait. It was just after 2.00 in the afternoon, and the day was grey. I soon reached the Moroccan border post and entered the border police offices, where I immediately noticed the presence of couple of Italians (which was quite unusual for that time of the year). Two rather elderly men, who were animatedly discussing each other in MY DIALECT!!! Yes, with that particular inflection, which replaces the ''s'' with ''z'' and the ''a'' with ''ooo''. I stayed for a few seconds listening to them, and than I realized that I had forgotten my registration document in the car, necessary for transit procedures. I then suddenly said, without giving the two Italians time to reply:  ''Could you please keep my luggage a moment? I'll be right back! (Talking in common dialect) The two looked at me in shock!! But I had already left the office, leaving them speechless. Upon returning, after a few moments, the two guyscontinued to look at me as if I were an alien.  ''Good afternoon… I understand that you're coming from my area'' I said  One of them, suddenly cautious: ''why you said so …from where are you''????  ''Well……Just few km North of Milan.....''  ''We...we are from Monza !! You know where's located the famous racing circuit!!???  Well – I replied after the introductions – (One's name was Perego and the other Fumagalli) May I ask you what are you doing at Spain-Marocco border on Dec 20th?

(All this conversation in pure North Milan's dialect).

 Ahhh… Perego said - ……we're traveling with two campers you know– when it starts to get too cold in Munza, we are used to pack and go heading South – so in addition to avoid the cold season, we save lot of money house's heating''. At this point, once the customs operations were completed, we went out into the border parking and Perego invited me 'to have a cup of coffee' in his camper.  Hey…Italian expresso ehh…!!! I willingly accepted, and therefore got to know the respective ladies - who, too, showed amazement in meeting an Italian (even from their very same area) 2,000 km away from Italy and in that particular period of the year. We had a chat inside their beautiful camper, sipping good Italian coffee and than Perego asked:

 ''And you, where are you going''?  ''I'm on the way to Agadir'' - I said  ''Than we'll see you there because we'll be still around for at least 3 months ehh…''  Okay guys, I'll be for at least 2 years, therefore I'll see you again next year… if you'll come back''. That's caused an embarrassing glance between Perego and Fumagall, which their faces were expressing all the disappointment of not to be ''the ones who hang around the most.....'' So we shaked our hands, promising to see each other again in a couple of months at the campsite South of Agadir.

I than took the state road, heading South, passing through Tetouan, the Rif region where the road is flanked by extensive cultivations of kif, the Moroccan's renowned''smoke''. Once past Rabat and Casablanca, instead of turning towards Marrakech, I decided to continue along the coastal road. I than saw El Jadida (the ''New'' in the local language) and than Oualidia, the city that has made oyster cultivation its main livelihood. And then down to the splendid Essaouira, a city founded by the Carthaginians in the 2nd century BC, and which regained strength when the Portuguese settled there in the 15th century, renaming it Mogador. In the 17th century the Arch. Frenchman Theodore Cornut, on behalf of Sultan Muhammad III, redesigned the entire layout of the city - wide tree-lined avenues were created, hence the new name of Essaouira (the well-designed). On the bastions of the walls surrounding the city, called '' Skala'', overlooking the Atlantic Ocean, Orson Welles set his famous film ''Othello''. The coast between Essaouira and Agadir is truly wild: sometimes it overhangs directly into the Atlantic, other times the road climbs the mountain, passing through the argan forest, an endemic plant that grows only in this region and on the other side of the 'Ocean, in Brazil. Particularly spectacular is the stretch of coast of Tamri, which runs alongside the 'Parque National de Tamri' - This national park is a paradise for birdwatchers and also offers breathtaking views of the ocean. The park is home to very rare bird species believed to survive only in Morocco, including the Northern bald ibis. Finally towards late afternoon I came in sight of the bay of Agadir: the road makes a final turn behind the mountain, and suddenly the white of Agadir makes its appearance. I stopped on the side of the road, because after over 3,000 kilometers I wanted to enjoy this moment in peace. Great impression, of course - and satisfaction, in the sense that I had reached the destination alone and without problems. And while I was there fully enjoying of having reached my destination, two cyclist racers appeared! They also stopped in the lay-by area where I had parked the Range Rover, also admiring the view of Agadir. That's how I had the opportunity to read the writing on their shirts, and to my amazement I read ''ASD Brugherio Sportiva''!!!! I mean… after having run all those roads, at a sidereal distance from home, who do I meet? Two Moroccan cyclists, that, after a chat, I discover they were living in Brugherio, at the walking distance from my home in Italy! They were coming from Casablanca and in two days they had covered the 460 kilometers that separate Casablanca from Agadir, arriving at that lay-by area almost at the same time as I had arrived from Italy! Life is really made up of crazy coincidences....or not? I don't know….

AGADIR Agadir was founded by Portuguese sailors in 1505 with the name of Santa Cruz do Cabo de Gué. In 1541 it became a territory of Morocco and in 1911 at the height of Franco-German tension Germany sent the warship Panther in front of the city. The incident (known as the Agadir Crisis) threatened to spark war between the two countries and caused France to declare Morocco its protectorate in 1912. A serious earthquake devastated the city at 11.40pm on February 29, 1960. The tremor lasted 15 seconds, with a magnitude of 5.7 on the Richter scale - with its epicenter right under the city, hence the many deaths, despite the relatively low magnitude. In the neighborhoods of Founty, Yachech and the Kasbah, all buildings were destroyed or seriously damaged, and 95% of the population of these areas remained buried under the rubble. In the Talborjt district, 90% of the buildings were destroyed or severely damaged, while the new town and the waterfront were relatively spared. In the end, around 15,000 dead were counted, that is, around a third of the population, and around 25,000 wounded. The kasbah was completely abandoned, and the city was built on the plain, facing the sea. King Mohammed V, visiting the city immediately after the earthquake, spoke of ''Divine punishment'' following the sinful conduct of the inhabitants of Agadir.

My Company mission team on the construction site for the new airport was made up of:  Eng. Alfonzo, Head of Mission - He was a very particular character. Argentinian by birth, son of an Italian immigrant, his mother of Indian ethnicity, native of the province of Santa Rosa.  Alfio Curreli – Supervisor of aeronautical aspects - Sardinian from Quartu Sant'Elena, in possession of a pilot's license for tourist aircraft.  Myself – looking after the civil works of the project  Antonio Argento – taking care of the electro-instrumental of project's aspect. Sicilian from Palermo, boasted a relationship with the famous director. Then there were external collaborators, among which one stood out: Architect Bozon, a Frenchman who had lived in Morocco since long time, so much so that he was now mistaken for Moroccan. The new airport was under construction about 20 km from South of Agadir - Main Contractor was the famous French company Bouygues, which had snatched the contract from SAMPROGETTI thanks to the support of the French Government - which had guaranteed a twenty-year loan of 300 million dollars to Morocco, at the preferential rate of 3%. In any case, the Moroccan Ministry of Transport had insisted that SAMPROGETTI remain as ''Ingegneur Conseil'' (Works Management Supervision) as the original Italian design was still in place. The airport area was located in an argan trees forest, which required the uprooting and subsequent replanting of approximately 6,000 trees before proceeding with earth movement.

PROJECT HALT About 8 months after the start of work - and with the structures of the airport and control tower already erected, a ''Royal Order'' suddenly arrived to stop all construction activities. King Hassan II's architect, a Frenchman named Penseau, had secretly flown over the construction site a few days earlier. Once back in Rabat, Arch. Penseau had asked for an audience with His Majesty the King. During the meeting Penseau had reported to King Hassan II his concern that the new Agadir airport ''did not present any 'Marocain' cache''. Practically Penseau believed that the tourists, once off the plane, should immediately realize that they arrived in Morocco on the first sight of the airport. Contrary, the Italian design envisaged an airport that could easily be in any Western city. Arch. Penseau wasn't wrong, but infact this was actually his last desperate attempt to get back into one of the greatest project being carried out in the country during those years. It is worth remembering that the Architect Penseau was the designer and director of works of the Great Hassan II Mosque of Casablanca, a gigantic work that employed more than 8,000 Moroccan artists and artisans then. This gives the measure of how egocentric Penseau was, not content with already being at the center of a megaproject, but also wanting to have his hand in the new Agadir airport. So at the beginning of March the construction site was stopped, awaiting decisions from His Majesty the the King. The decision arrived after about 3 months, and it was a total acceptance of Pinseau's suggestions. The terminal completely changed its appearance, taking on the famous ''Marocain cache'' invoked by the architect. Furthermore, a ''Pavilion Royal'' was added (a building reserved for the Royal Family and its guests upon departure/arrival). As a partial excuse, it must be said that the Sovereign of Morocco, during the years of his reign, had suffered two serious attacks, including one while he was on board his personal DC9, while returning from France. Therefore the security measures against him were particularly stringent.

''Al Massira International Airport'' - Agadir, Morocco

''Le Pavillon Royal''

LIFE IN AGADIR After couples of months I was still sleeping at the Anezi hotel, waiting to find suitable house. From financial point of view, the mission suffered a problem on money's transfer from Italy to Morocco to pay for all the current services. Speaking of payments, the Anezi hotel Manager appeared particularly nervous (he was a Moroccan of the Jewish religion and in theory the hotel policy required the invoices to be paid every 15 days). Director did not fail to show all his uneasiness since we were not paying any hotel's invoice after months. . A morning Eng. Alfonzo and I were going down the imponent hotel staircase, which led directly into the large entrance hall. Out of the corner of my eye I glimpsed the hotel manager leaving the reception desk and rushing towards us. I whispered to Alfonzo ''The Director… watch out for the Director…'' He reached us at the staircase landing, but as he was about to start speaking Alfonzo with the most classic coup de teatre hit him with:  DIRECTOR!! This is already the second time this has happened!!!  What happened Mr. Alfonzo??? - said the Director with a worried face.  Alfonzo: ''Yesterday afternoon I returned from work, and in my room there was no trace of the fresh fruit basket hat you have to have deliver daily!!! THIS IS INADMISSIBLE, DEAR DIRECTOR! MAKE SURE THAT THIS UNFORTUNATE EVENT IS NOT REPEATED IN THE FUTURE! AHHH.......HAPPY JOURNEY! And we left the place without looking back, but sure that the Director was looking at us transfixed at the large entrance door of the hotel, repeating his ''Oui Messieurs …oui…sans douts…excuse' moi Messieurs…bonne journee Messieurs' '

Hotel Anezi - Agadir, Morocco.

MADAME RACHIDA. In the meantime, the fact ee were looking for houses to rent had spread around the city, and every evening alleged ''Real Estate Agents'' were waiting for us at the gate, upon our return to the hotel. An initial selection was made, excluding the proposals that weren't right for us, and than we set off to check the conditions of the proposed houses. Very often it happened that the same house was offered several times, by different brokers, on different days. This ordeal lasted about 3 months, during which we visited half of Charaf, the residential neighborhood where almost all the available terraced houses were concentrated. In the end, I decided to accept Mme Rachida's rental proposal. She was the widow of a Royal Armed Forces officer who had crashed in his helicopter a few years earlier. Upon the disgrace, the FAR (Force Armee Royal) had given M.me Rachida excellent compensation: in addition to the pension, she had been gifted the terraced house that I would rent, a car with a driver always available, and the possibility of stocking up at the Army store free of charge. I Ivisited the house on a late Saturday afternoon. At the moment it was still occupied by a Saudi tourist, who would be leaving it in a few days, after a 3-month stay. The house was a made up by ground floor and first floor, in good condition, with a small garden and a little courtyard at the back. I accepted even though the rental was higher, as much as 5,000 Dihrams. The final negotiation was directly with Mme Rachida, to woum I asked to provide a washing machine for the house.  Mme. Rachida: ''And why do you want the washing machine? Would you like to say that you want to take away from a good ''good'' Moroccan the possibility of a job and a salary, with which she will probably also help the family to survive?  Me: ''Of course not, Mme. Rachida! Maybe you have someone you know to suggest to us?  Of course I have her ! said Mme Rachida That's how ''la bonne'' (as it is called in French) Saadia joined us - and it was a real stroke of luck: the girl, despite having practically never left the house in her 27 years of life, turned out to be very good at all the household chores, in preparing meals, and subsequently in taking care of my son, which was increasingly revealing itself to be a real naughty boy.

Charaf - Agadir's neighborhood.

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davidwarner2 · 1 year ago

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Effortless Voyage: Dubai Visa for Gibraltar citizens

The Dubai Visa for citizens of Gibraltar paves the way for an extraordinary experience in the heart of the United Arab Emirates. Crafted for Gibraltar travelers, this visa ensures a smooth journey to explore Dubai's iconic landmarks, cultural richness, and opulent lifestyle. With a simplified application process requiring a valid passport and essential documentation, Gibraltar citizens can embark on a remarkable adventure through the dazzling cityscape of Dubai. Whether for business, leisure, or cultural exploration, this visa offers an invitation to immerse in the unique fusion of tradition and modernity that defines Dubai. Apply now and set the stage for an unforgettable journey.

#dubaivisa #exploredubai #visaprocess #visitdubai #dubaiadventure #traveltodubai #dubaidreams #traveltags #visaapplication #dubaiwonders

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marryabroadsimply · 1 year ago

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Getting Married in Gibraltar in 2024

Gibraltar is always such a special venue that everyone loves.. Renowned throughout the world as a wonderful place for people to marry quickly and easily. As the marriages are non religious legally binding civil ceremonies that are recognised all over the world it is a wonderful location for all religions, situations, sexuality, and requirements. You need only stay 36 hours - just enough time to present your documents and then marry. No wonder it now attracts international and foreign couples from around the world to marry abroad easily, and each day throughout the year people for all corners of the globe are married in these amazing surroundings. If there is space & availability we can organise you a wedding very quickly - within days weeks, although usually for a registry office wedding you need at least 4-6 weeks leadtime. For a speciality wedding there is usually more availability and the registrars are available weekends and evenings. So if you want a Saturday wedding then Speciality is going to be your best option. Mondays in the registry office have best availability as the document presentation is the business day before (the Friday). So for best chance of a fast wedding, if that is what you need, do see if you can make your travel plans work for a long weekend, arrive Thursday night and marry on the Monday. And if you use your time wisely that is all you need you see, hear and make enough memories to last a life time! Have a look at the awesome Welcome to Gibraltar or Gibraltar Tourist board sites for some great ideas of things to do whilst you are there. The country is part of the UK but on the Southern Spanish border. You can fly directly into Gibraltar (interesting fact that our own Leanne's Dad was in charge of rebuilding the runway a few years ago so think of us when you fly in and land safely!). You can also fly directly into Malaga and there is a bus service that leaves regularly to take you to La Linea - which is the Spanish border town of Malaga and it is a 3 minute walk from La Linea into Gibraltar over the walking land border. Or you can very easily drive from Malaga, it is quite often a fraction of the cost to fly into Spain and drive or get a bus to Gibraltar. The weather is tropical and warm all year round as you would imagine from Southern Spain, and it is nice to see Palm Trees and such greenery with tropical plants and flowers. The language spoken is English, but there is a very strong Spanish influence, so it is the best of both worlds with culture, fusions, food, and language. Monkeys are a big part of Gibraltar as they roam freely, and you have got to keep your balcony door closed when staying at The Rock Hotel as they are known to pop in and steal any snacks you have left laying around. Take a cable car up to Mons Calpe and you can see and hold the monkeys yourself. Chill out in the square that is Casemates and have a sangria and some fish n chips for a real UK meets Spain experience! If you like seafood you are spoilt for choice with options as of course Gibraltar is right on the sea! But the locals all head to The Ocean Restaurant For those who are pure carnivores have a look at Gaucho's, where the steaks and sides are really impressive, and it has an awesome atmospheric interior which is a bit like a cave, and there is a really sweet courtyard. If Spice is your thing the place to head is Little Bay, which is famous in Gibraltar for Curries, Cocktails and Spanish/Indian Tapas. This restaurant is also a really firm favourite recommendation from many of our Vegan couples as somewhere to try as there is a wide variety of really nice vegan dishes.

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Why do we personally love Gibraltar so much? Well Leanne's family lived there for many years so she has strong connections anyway, but in addition...

You have the romanticism of John Lennon and Yoko Ono, maybe the greatest love story.

You have the wonderful geographical location, its the UK but its hot!

You have the amazing registry office where thousands have wed. You are always welcome, same sex, mixed religion, whatever your situation - Gibraltar is all about the love and one of the easiest, nicest and best places to get married in the world.

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You have all the external venues, be it a cave or a hotel or a restaurant or a yacht there are 18 venues to choose from. They are all very different with regards to minimum spend for a booking, maximum or minimum guests, availability, length of time for the booking - so we will narrow down and advise the best options for you.

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Gibraltar and the whole wedding team thrive off marrying people, and every year Gibraltar becomes more and more popular. There are lots more apartments to rent, and the wonderful Caleta hotel is currently under refurbishment and we eagerly await news of its re-opening.

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So how do we get married in Gibraltar? The process (as with getting married in Denmark) is simple and stress free (especially as we will do ALL of it for you!) as we take all of the official stress, documents and booking headache away from you as your expert wedding planners in Gibraltar. As there are so many different ways to marry in Gibraltar we have adapted our services to suit...

Registry Office

This ceremony is a wonderful simply ceremony in the glorious ceremony room at the registry office, there are multiple appointments here every weekday and you will marry in the cool, calm room away from Main Street with the registrar, guests and witnesses. This is with our "Everything Gibraltar" service that is €795

External Ceremony registrar only

If you are staying at a hotel in Gibraltar or planning a meal or reception in one of the hotels and restaurants that offer a wedding package that you can incorporate in your stay on "The Rock' you can take this option. We will arrange the documents, license, notary, paperwork and the registrar, and we will just let them know where to be at what time, at that point we hand over all the other arrangements to the hotel/restaurant as they are the experts and will ensure that you have everything that you need!

External Ceremony

For some external ceremonies you only need to hire the space for an hour, for example the wonderful Botanical gardens. In these instances we will arrange the registrar to be there, we will arrange the venue that they are booked and confirmed and all of this is included in the fee. So you can have a wedding in one of these wonderful locations, they are €1495 which includes the venue, registrar, license, documents, booking, marriage certificates. You just turn up at your chosen location and marry! We can also organise you the witnesses if you need.

Please take a look at our other blogs for external venues;

The Rock Hotel

The Mons Calpe Suite

The Botanical Gardens

For all of these services we will of course look after all the documentation, liaise with the registry office, book and confirm your ceremony, your document presentation and arrange for you to sign the affidavits at the notarial office.

Gibraltar is a great location to look at marrying abroad all year round, and 2024 is set to be an incredible year to get married in Gibraltar!

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Let us help you on this journey, you can be assured that we will follow you through the whole process, and we won't stop until you are married, we will hold you hand and take you through the process, and we have a wonderful concierge service after support to help you organise anything else you would like, from hair and make up to photographers, and tips on trips, hotels and restaurants. All you need to marry in Gibraltar are your original long version birth certificates, and if you have been married before then we also need to document that. That is all!

And you know that in Gibraltar you can also get a civil partnership as well as a marriage ensuring that all couples have the choice to be able to choose the right option for them.

We are happy to provide advice and a free no obligation documents list of which documents you will require to get married in Denmark or Get married in Gibraltar – just contact us on any of the methods below. We are experts in all documents and situations, so if you are a foreign or international couple, and you are concerned your case may be complicated then we are the best agency in Denmark for you. Have a look at our awesome YouTube channel for short information Vlogs on how easy it is to elope and get married abroad!

Or check out our podcast on Spotify!

You can easily contact us by clicking here or by e-mail at [email protected] or call us on +447934933356 or what’s app +447934 933486

#elopement #denmark #marryabroad #getmarriedindenmark #gettingmarriedindenmark #love #marryabroadsimply #destinationwedding #weddings #copenhagen

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best-euro-casinos · 1 year ago

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European Casino Regulations: What You Need to Know

In the dynamic world of European online casinos, understanding the regulatory landscape is crucial for both players and operators. At best-euro-casinos.com, we're dedicated to providing you with essential insights into European casino regulations, ensuring that you can enjoy a safe and secure gambling experience while staying informed about the rules governing this vibrant industry. The Importance of European Casino Regulations

European casino regulations serve as a framework to protect players' rights, ensure fair play, and maintain the integrity of the industry. These regulations vary from one country to another, as each European nation has its own approach to overseeing the gambling sector. Here's what you need to know: 1. Licensing and Regulatory Authorities

In Europe, online casinos must obtain licenses from regulatory authorities to operate legally. These authorities are responsible for overseeing and enforcing gambling laws within their jurisdictions. Examples of prominent regulatory bodies in Europe include:

United Kingdom: The United Kingdom Gambling Commission (UKGC) is known for its stringent regulations, ensuring that operators meet high standards of fairness and player protection.

Malta: The Malta Gaming Authority (MGA) is a widely recognized authority that licenses and regulates numerous online casinos, offering a reputable seal of approval.

Gibraltar: The Gibraltar Regulatory Authority (GRA) regulates online gambling operators based in Gibraltar, ensuring compliance with strict standards. 2. Player Protections

European casino regulations often include provisions to protect players. These protections may encompass:

Age Verification: Online casinos are required to verify the age of their players to prevent underage gambling.

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Fair Play: Regulations ensure that casino games are fair and random, often requiring regular audits and testing by independent agencies. 3. Anti-Money Laundering (AML) Measures

European casino regulations also include anti-money laundering measures to prevent illicit funds from entering the gambling industry. Operators must implement robust AML procedures, including customer due diligence and reporting of suspicious transactions. 4. Advertising and Marketing Rules

Regulations govern the advertising and marketing practices of online casinos. Operators must adhere to strict guidelines to ensure that their promotions are not misleading or targeting vulnerable individuals.

5. Cross-Border Gambling

While European Union (EU) member states typically respect each other's licenses, some countries may impose restrictions on cross-border gambling. It's essential to be aware of these regulations if you plan to gamble while traveling within the EU.

Staying Informed and Playing Safely

To ensure a safe and enjoyable gambling experience in Europe, it's crucial to stay informed about the specific regulations that apply to your region. Here are some tips for playing safely:

Choose Licensed Casinos: Play at online casinos that hold licenses from reputable regulatory authorities. Check for license information in the casino's terms and conditions.

Understand Terms and Conditions: Familiarize yourself with the terms and conditions of the casino you're playing at. This will help you understand the rules and regulations specific to that platform.

Practice Responsible Gambling: Use responsible gambling tools provided by online casinos, such as self-exclusion and deposit limits, to stay in control of your gaming activities.

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Stay Informed: Keep up to date with the latest developments in European casino regulations by visiting best-euro-casinos.com. We provide expert insights and updates to help you navigate the ever-changing landscape of online gambling. Conclusion: Informed and Responsible Gaming

European casino regulations are in place to safeguard players and maintain the integrity of the gambling industry. By understanding these regulations and choosing reputable, licensed casinos, you can enjoy a secure and enjoyable gaming experience in Europe. Stay informed, practice responsible gambling, and make the most of your online casino adventures while prioritizing your safety and well-being.

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solvingyourmysteries · 2 years ago

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Naval and military records can sometimes be challenging to find when doing family research. Not all databases such as ancestry or familysearch.org house the correct collections to view records. It can be worth reaching out to local archives and national archives — some countries or counties might even have specialized collections for navy and military records you can consult — for all the information regarding your ancestor.

In my own family, we have an ancestor who was part of the UK Royal Navy, having joined when he was only 15 years old. Over the course of decades, William Henry Pollard, travelled the world on numerous different vessels, having gone from England to the Straits of Gibraltar and Naples and more. Census records taken aboard the vessels list the exact location when the documents were filled out on — for example, on April 7th, 1861 the 1861 English census records William Pollard aboard the ship “Queen” off the coast of Beirut, Syria. At only 17 years old, William had explored more of the world than just his tiny town in Cornwall, England.

Being a part of the navy or military gave ancestors — as well as people today — opportunities they would not have had otherwise. William stayed in the UK Royal navy for over two decades, dying in 1915 at the age of 71, leaving behind a wife and five daughters — some of whom emigrant to the United States and some whom went to Australia.

Don’t forget tomorrow starts the 15% Holiday Sale! Ends 12/14.

#ancestry #etsy #etsy small business #family history #family research #genealogist #geneaology #etsy seller #family #england #English records #uk Royal navy

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usafphantom2 · 2 years ago

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After being banned from entering Turkey, São Paulo aircraft carrier is returning to Brazil

There are concerns about the toxic components of the Brazilian aircraft carrier Nae São Paulo in relation to asbestos.

Fernando Valduga By Fernando Valduga 08/09/2022 - 08:39in Brazilian Navy, Military

Portrayed in service with the Brazilian Navy, São Paulo should be dismantled in Turkey. (Photo: Alcluiz / Wikimedia Commons)

The deactivated aircraft carrier NAe São Paulo of the Brazilian Navy, which remained in limbo for almost a month after the Turkish authorities banned it from entering its waters, has now been tracked as returning to Brazil.

The former São Paulo aircraft carrier was next to its tugboat, the Alp Center, maintaining a position northeast of the Canary Islands, on the coast of West Africa, after leaving Brazil in early August. The controversy persecuted São Paulo after his departure amid fears that it could be filled with asbestos and other dangerous materials.

In 2000, the then Foch aircraft carrier of the French Navy was sold to Brazil for €12 million, where it served as the flagship of the Brazilian Navy. Seven years later he was removed from service and deactivated a year later. In 2021, the aircraft carrier was sold to be demolished at the Turkish demolition shipyard SÖK Denizcilik.

His journey began on August 4, 2022, when the aircraft carrier left Rio de Janeiro towed by the Dutch towboat Alp Center. Was it intended for the Alia shipyard? a, on the west coast of Turkey, where it would be dismantled.

However, on August 26, 2022, when the ship and its towboat were on the Moroccan coast and were preparing to enter the Mediterranean Sea through Gibraltar, the train stopped.

Neighboring Gibraltar had already closed its waters to the ship, with a government spokesman informing that he was "aware" of the possible transit from São Paulo through the Strait of Gibraltar to Turkey.

"Unless a ship (or its towboat) schedules a stopover at the Port of Gibraltar, the Port Authority of Gibraltar cannot prevent its transit through the Strait. The vessel will not be allowed to enter the British territorial waters of Gibraltar," the spokesman said.

The NGO Shipbreaking Platform and the Basel Action Network argue that the Basel Convention should be applied to prevent the aircraft carrier from traveling through territorial waters.

Originally referred to as Foch when in service with the French Navy, the aircraft carrier was traveling to a Turkish shipyard so that it could be dismantled. Meanwhile, the Turkish authorities consulted the Brazilian documentation while the replacement licenses, which should be presented, were not provided.

The current route that São Paulo and Alp Center is taking would result in a transit through the Strait of Gibraltar in the Mediterranean to Turkey, violating the Basel Convention. The requests of the Brazilian justice to release the ship in Brazil were unsuccessful.

However, on September 2, it emerged that Turkey banned the toxic aircraft carrier from entering its national waters. The aircraft carrier's trip was criticized by local labor and environmental rights groups, supported by international NGOs due to non-compliance with the Basel and Barcelona Conventions.

Gokhan Ersoy, project development officer of Greenpeace Mediterranean, in a statement: "From a wonderful public march with the participation of thousands of people in Alia? a the theatrical demonstrations in the center of Izmir and public statements in front of official buildings, all people gathered around a single requirement: to stop this toxic ship!

"Digital and conventional signature petitions reached more than 150,000 people in a month! The will and endless commitment of people forced policymakers to reconsider the mistake they made."

Due to environmental concerns, many opposed the trip of the aircraft carrier. Greenpeace also wrote to the Minister of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) of the United Kingdom, Steve Double, in support of the NGO Shipbreaking Platform and the Basel Action Network.

When contacted, a DEFRA spokesman said that any traffic through the waters of Gibraltar was the responsibility of the Government of Gibraltar.

Concerns were raised about the toxic components of the ship, because its sister ship, the Clemenceau, contained hundreds of tons of asbestos and PCBs. Due to the amount of toxic material in the Clemenceau, in 2006 the ship was rerouted from a shipyard in India to the Graythorp shipyard near Hartlepool. The dismantling was eventually taken over by the British company Able Ship Recycling.

In Brazil, in a letter released by the general coordinator of Environmental Quality Management, Rosângela Maria Ribeiro Muniz, IBAMA reported that "the authorization issued by the agency for this movement is suspended, and the Brazilian exporter should arrange for the return to Brazil of the vessel". According to IBAMA, if the determination is not complied with, the ship's exporter is at risk of incurring illegal trafficking in hazardous waste. The vessel was exported by Oceans Prime Offshore, the Brazilian representative of SÖK.

According to the inventory of NAe São Paulo, the ship does not have PCBs on board, but has 9.6 tons of asbestos.

In a statement, Fernanda Giannasi, founder of the Brazilian Association of Asbestos Exposed, said that the situation could have been avoided if there was transparency and lawfulness in the dispatch process on the ship from the beginning, when there was the notice for the auction of the aircraft carrier.

According to her, "if the ship docks in Rio de Janeiro, we will have to create a front that has transparency in the information, correct inventory of the toxics present, in addition to the demiantization under the supervision of public institutions and social control in all spheres of the process".

Megan Corton Scott, a political activist at Greenpeace UK, said: "Our shared oceans, like our atmosphere, need collective international action to be properly protected.

"We agree with international legal instruments such as the Basel Convention to regulate risks like this, but it requires nation-states to comply with their legal duty and apply the convention. This is all we are asking the Minister to do - ensure that DEFRA fulfills its legal duties under the Basel Convention."

As the last move of this case, the towboat Alp Center returned to its port of departure. The aircraft carrier NAe São Paulo is now sailing back to Rio de Janeiro, but its destination remains uncertain.

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sciencespies · 3 years ago

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In 19th-Century Gibraltar, Survivors of a Deadly Virus Used 'Fever Passes' to Prove Their Immunity

https://sciencespies.com/history/in-19th-century-gibraltar-survivors-of-a-deadly-virus-used-fever-passes-to-prove-their-immunity/

In 19th-Century Gibraltar, Survivors of a Deadly Virus Used 'Fever Passes' to Prove Their Immunity

Survivors received “fever passes” that certified their immunity, allowing them increased freedom of movement at a time when a substantial portion of the population was being held under strict quarantine. Photo illustration by Meilan Solly / Photos via Wikimedia Commons, courtesy of Lawrence Sawchuk and Lianne Tripp

In August 1804, a shopkeeper named Santo entered the gates of Gibraltar, unaware that a pernicious virus was coursing through his blood. He had taken a trip to neighboring Spain, where, it seems, his skin was pricked by a mosquito carrying yellow fever. Within a day of his return, Santo had fallen ill—the first documented victim in Gibraltar of a disease that would wreak havoc on the Mediterranean fortress town during the early years of the 19th century.

Over the course of just four months in 1804, yellow fever claimed the lives of more than 2,200 people in Gibraltar, an estimated quarter of the permanent residents and military personnel who lived within the fortress. This epidemic was followed by four others, fueling repeated bouts of fear and despair. Time and again, residents watched as their loved ones and neighbors succumbed to an illness that, in its severest forms, causes an alarming litany of symptoms: jaundice—a yellowing of the skin and eyes that gives the virus its name; black vomit; bleeding from the eyes, nose and mouth. Health officials tried to stamp out the disease but didn’t understand how yellow fever was transmitted. It was only at the turn of the 20th century that the Aedes aegypti mosquito was revealed to be a vector of yellow fever, silently transmitting the virus as it flits from person to person, sucking up its meals.

Illustration showing the development of yellow fever in a patient in Cadiz, Spain, in 1819

Wellcome Collection via Wikimedia Commons under CC BY 4.0

But authorities were quick to recognize one important truth: People who contract yellow fever and survive are not vulnerable to subsequent infections. Today, this concept is known as immunity; in the 19th century, the term “non-liability” was used. By Gibraltar’s fifth epidemic in 1828, an innovative measure had been put in place to accommodate those with protection against yellow fever. Survivors were granted “fever passes” that certified their non-liability, allowing them increased freedom of movement at a time when a substantial portion of the population was being held under strict quarantine.

This concept resonates today, as countries wade through the Covid-19 pandemic and grapple with the challenges of easing lockdown restrictions while the virus continues to mutate, infect and spread. As part of their reopening plans, some governments and businesses have mandated “vaccine passports”—documents, either digital or paper, that prove vaccination status—to ensure that only those with a high degree of protection against Covid-19 are able to cross borders and access certain public spaces, like restaurants, movie theaters and concert venues.

Documents testifying to an individual’s good health have long been deployed during times of rampant sickness. As far back as the 15th century, travelers could carry “health passes” certifying that they came from a location free of the plague. According to a recent paper published in the journal BMJ Global Health, however, the earliest evidence of passports showing that the holder is immune to a disease comes from Gibraltar 200 years ago.

“Having this passport gave you the freedom … to be able to do something that was almost normal, and that is to move about somewhat freely,” says study co-author Larry Sawchuk, an anthropologist at the University of Toronto Scarborough whose research focuses on the population health of Gibraltar and the Maltese Islands.

1828 yellow fever pass for 14-year-old Anna

Courtesy of Lawrence Sawchuk and Lianne Tripp

Located at the southern tip of the Iberian Peninsula, Gibraltar is a small strip of land dominated by a soaring promontory—the famed Rock of Gibraltar. For hundreds of years, this slip of a territory was coveted by diverse nations for its strategic location next to the Strait of Gibraltar, the only route into the Mediterranean via the Atlantic Ocean. Gibraltar was occupied by the Moors in the eighth century C.E.; captured by Spanish forces in 1462; and taken by the British in 1704, during the War of the Spanish Succession.

When yellow fever first struck in the early 1800s, “the Rock,” as Gibraltar is known colloquially, was a closely guarded garrison town under the absolute authority of a British military governor. Residents lived within the walls of an imposing fortress that had been built, modified, damaged and repaired over centuries of tumultuous history. Police surveilled the population, and the gates of the town were constantly guarded by soldiers. Permits were required to leave and enter these gates, which opened at daybreak and closed at dusk.

“Under that sort of system, the citizen had absolutely no rights,” says study co-author Lianne Tripp, an anthropologist at the University of Northern British Columbia who studies health and disease in the Mediterranean in the 19th and 20th centuries. “They had to do whatever was needed to be done to serve the fortress.”

In spite of the restrictive nature of life on the Rock, Gibraltar was an important trade hub and a pulsing, crowded, cosmopolitan town. People from Italy, Spain, Morocco, England and other diverse locations flocked to Gibraltar, drawn in by its free port and the promise of year-round employment that couldn’t be found in the nearby south of Spain, where jobs tended to be seasonal.

1803 map of Gibraltar

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

The virus that would come to plague the fortress likely originated in the rainforests of Africa, making its way to the Western Hemisphere via ships carrying enslaved people in the 17th century. Yellow fever eventually spread to Europe, possibly hitching a ride on trade ships coming from the Americas. A 1730 epidemic in Cadiz, Spain, killed 2,200 people and was followed by outbreaks in French and British ports. Yellow fever may have been introduced to Gibraltar in 1804 by someone coming from Spain—Santo, perhaps, or another traveler who escaped the notice of medical authorities. When it breached the walls of the fortress, the virus found a perfect storm of conditions that allowed it to proliferate to devastating effect.

The colony was, for one, notoriously overcrowded. Its residents, many of them impoverished, packed into the fortress, living in “patios,” or multi-tenant buildings that shared an open common area. “You’d have a room with ten people in it, and they would sleep in that room, and they were separated by about two inches,” says Sawchuk. For Aedes aegypti mosquitoes, which do not fly particularly long distances, these dense urban conditions served up an easy smorgasbord of human hosts. Late summer heat and humidity also provided ideal temperatures for the insects to thrive, and an ample supply of standing water offered plenty of breeding grounds; no springs or rivers run through Gibraltar, so residents relied on rainfall for drinking water, which they collected in buckets and jugs.

Most people in Gibraltar had no previous exposure to yellow fever and thus no immunity against it. The virus usually causes mild flu-like symptoms, but some patients who seem to recover enter a toxic second phase that kills up to 50 percent of patients. In Gibraltar, the dead piled up so quickly that coffins could be produced fast enough for only one out of every four bodies. Corpses were heaped onto carts that trundled through the town, a haunting reminder to the living that they were surrounded by death. But the carts couldn’t keep up. One journal from the period records a young woman “throwing her dead father out of the chamber window,” perhaps knowing that his body would likely not be collected anytime soon.

1828 yellow fever pass for 17-year-old Juan

Courtesy of Lawrence Sawchuk and Lianne Tripp

The epidemic slowed its fatal march through Gibraltar once cold weather set in and yellow fever’s bloodsucking vectors died off. Local authorities who had been blindsided by the virus established a Board of Public Health and were ready to act when a smaller series of epidemics broke out in 1810, 1813 and 1814.

One significant measure involved the creation of a quarantine encampment on the isthmus between Gibraltar and Spain, an area known as the Neutral Ground. The site was established in 1810, quickly and secretly. In the dead of night, authorities rapped on the doors of households affected by yellow fever and forcibly escorted the sick to the Neutral Ground. They stayed there, sequestered in tents and monitored by guards, until the epidemic had waned.

Later, in 1814, a cohort of civilian volunteers was enlisted to keep track of the population’s health. Every day, the volunteers went door-to-door within the fortress, making note of residents who were sick and those who remained vulnerable to the virus. These observers recorded overcrowding and uncleanliness and doused homes that were affected by yellow fever with lime and hot water.

Some of these protocols were quite innovative. Tripp notes, for example, that the practice of conducting door-to-door surveys during public health crises is typically associated with John Snow, a physician who mapped out cholera cases in London in the mid-1850s, nearly three decades after Gibraltar’s last yellow fever epidemic. Still, authorities on the Rock were basing their management strategies on two incorrect theories of yellow fever transmission: They believed the disease spread directly from person to person or that it dispersed through foul air emanating from rotting filth. It is largely coincidental that, after the first epidemic in 1804, Gibraltar managed to avoid a second severe epidemic for nearly 25 years. Factors like ample rainfall, which was used to cool feverish bodies, may have done more to temper yellow fever deaths than quarantines or sanitization efforts, according to Sawchuk.

Map of the Neutral Ground, where yellow fever patients—and later those susceptible to yellow fever—were quarantined

Courtesy of Lawrence Sawchuk and Lianne Tripp

Despite officials’ best efforts, yellow fever returned to the fortress in fall 1828 with a virulence that recalled the first epidemic, ultimately killing more than 1,600 people. As the crisis raged, health officials decided to tweak one of their key management protocols. Instead of quarantining the sick in the Neutral Ground, they ordered all those who had not been infected by the virus to immediately relocate to the encampment, along with the rest of their households.

Scholars cannot definitively say why this change in policy was made, but it required a “formidable” level of contact tracing, write Sawchuk and Tripp in their paper. Authorities relied on meticulous house-to-house surveys to identify and segregate people lacking immunity from those who had survived past epidemics. The measure was likely life-saving for reasons that officials wouldn’t have understood. Unlike the densely concentrated town, the Neutral Ground wasn’t filled with barrels of standing water where mosquitoes could breed. Windy weather on the isthmus also kept the insects away.

Not all of the 4,000 people relocated to the encampment needed this protection. Some had survived previous epidemics but were carted off to the Neutral Ground because they lived in the same household as an individual who had never been sick. The Neutral Ground wasn’t a particularly pleasant place to be: “You’re living in a tent or a shed,” Sawchuk says. “There’s no escaping everybody looking at you, hearing exactly what you’re saying. For four months … that would drive me a little crazy.” Life in the encampment would have been terribly dull, he adds. Those quarantined at the site were kept from their jobs, their friends, the bustle of the town—until authorities began issuing passes that allowed yellow fever survivors to travel in and out of the encampment and even reside in the town.

Only two such fever passes are known to survive today. Housed in the Gibraltar National Museum, they are printed on small squares of yellowing paper, with blank spaces for a physician to fill out the patient’s name, age and religious affiliation. The documents belonged to a pair of teenagers, Juan and Anna; their last name is difficult to decipher, but they were likely siblings. Juan was 17 and Anna was 14 at the time of Gibraltar’s last yellow fever outbreak. A physician’s signature certified that each had “passed the present Epidemic Fever.”

1878 illustration of soldiers returning from Cuba being fumigated to protect against yellow fever

Public domain via Wikimedia Commons

Experts don’t know how many fever passes were issued in 1828, but the fact that the documents were standardized and printed suggests there were “a good number of them,” says Tripp. The relief that came with obtaining one of these passes, particularly considering that residents were not afforded the luxury of quarantining in their own homes, must have been palpable. “[Fever passes] gave you the freedom to escape the monotony of living in this encampment,” Sawchuk says.

Modern vaccine passports are a comparable measure intended to ease restrictions for those with protection against Covid-19. But the case study of Gibraltar does not provide easy answers to the thorny questions raised by the vaccine passport system. After all, 19th-century Gibraltar was clearly not a free state. Even prior to its spate of epidemics, citizens’ movement was controlled through permits required to enter and leave the fortress. Fever passes may very well have seemed like business as usual to residents of the garrison town.

Today, by contrast, vaccine passports have caused considerable hand-wringing among ethicists, policy makers and citizens. Proponents argue that the documents allow individuals to safely return to gathering indoors, which comes with numerous benefits, like reuniting families and reviving the global economy. But good-faith critics have voiced concerns that the passports violate civil liberties and open the door for “chilling” invasions of privacy and surveillance.

Many of the fundamental mitigation strategies that we put in place have been around for hundreds of years.

Another fear is that vaccine passports worsen existing inequalities both within countries and on a global level. Requiring such documents for international travel “restrict[s] the freedom of people in low- and middle-income countries most because they have the least vaccine access,” says Nancy S. Jecker, an expert on bioethics and humanities at the University of Washington School of Medicine who authored a recent paper on vaccine passports and health disparities. She adds that domestic vaccine passports are also problematic because they have “unfair and disproportionate effects” on segments of the population that do not always have equal access to Covid vaccines, like low-income groups and racial and ethnic minorities.

Jecker does not broadly oppose the idea of a health pass; for domestic travel, she supports a “flexible” system that allows people to show proof of vaccination, past Covid infection or a recent negative test. “There’s a lot of emphasis in my field [on] this notion of respect for individual autonomy,” she says. “And it’s really not the value we need right now as a standalone. We need to balance it against other values like public health.”

Officials in 19th-century Gibraltar wouldn’t have been particularly concerned about striking this balance, and both Sawchuk and Tripp acknowledge that the colony is an imperfect model for contemporary pandemic management strategies. “It was a different time,” Sawchuk says, “a different disease.” But the researchers believe it is important to reflect on Gibraltar’s historic epidemics, which show that key experiences during times of public health crises are repeated across the centuries.

“Many of the fundamental mitigation strategies that we put in place have been around for hundreds of years,” says Tripp, citing the examples of quarantines and health passports. “The idea of immunity has been around even before we understood how diseases were transmitted. So when we talk about unprecedented times, [today] really isn’t that unprecedented.”

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dwellordream · 3 years ago

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“In 711, the growing antagonism between Christians and Jews came to an end, as did the Visigothic Empire. In swift and unexpected victories, a motley group of Berbers, Arabs, and other Muslims crossed the Straits of Gibraltar and smashed the Visigothic Empire into pieces. The victory of Islam in Iberia dramatically altered the lives of Jews and Christians in the region and reversed the traditional hegemonic relationship between Christians and other religious groups. Conditions for the Jews improved greatly. Though Islamic rulers in Spain were not always tolerant, the early centuries of Muslim rule proved particularly beneficial for Jews. Under the protection of Islam, Jews, as people of the Book, rose to positions of influence and power.

Christians, especially in southern Iberia, flocked to the new religion, adopting not only Islam as their faith but also Arabic as their language and Muslim dress, dietary customs, and lifestyle. A small number of Christians fled to the northern mountains and over the next centuries waged war on Muslim lands. Other Christians remained under their new masters and, although retaining their faith, assimilated into the higher civilization of Islam, benefiting from its culture and expansive economy. A few resisted and sought martyrdom. In general terms, one could say that when Muslims were on top in the Middle Ages, they often behaved with far more tolerance toward Christians and Jews than Christians did toward Muslims and Jews when they had the upper hand.

This was the case in Egypt in the late seventh century and in Iberia in the eighth, ninth, and tenth centuries. During the early decades of Islamic rule in Spain, relations were still sufficiently fluid, and the Muslim invaders were few in number and heterogeneous enough that conversion provided significant social, economic, political, and cultural benefits. Promotion within Muslim society could also be swift for recent converts and even for those who retained their religion but cooperated with the ruling Muslim groups. Christians and Jews, though often still at odds, were placed in a new situation in which cooperation and willingness to get along were necessary, and often rewarded, under Islam. How did this work in Muslim Iberia?

Jews under Islam Jewish communities in Lucena, Toledo, Barcelona, Tarragona, and other communities grew in number under Muslim protection. Jewish merchants, in association with Muslims or sometimes even with Christians, enjoyed the advantages of Islamic control over the Mediterranean and access to profitable eastern markets. Documents from Cairo show the far-flung commercial ties joining Spanish Jews to their brethren and other trading communities in the eastern Mediterranean. Jews were also found in prominent administrative positions in eighth-century Islamic Spain and even more so after the formation of the Caliphate of Cordoba in the ninth century. Jewish communities enjoyed jurisdictional autonomy and the right to practice their faith (subject to a special tax). European Jews migrated to Spain, finding there a haven from the harsh conditions faced by Jews in Christian northern Europe.

Yitzhak Baer even reports that a Christian cleric named Bodo traveled to Zaragoza, converted to Judaism, and married a Jewish woman in 839. The first Jew for whom we have sufficient information to fully trace his life and activities under Islamic rule is Abu Yusuf Hasdai ibn Shaprut (ca. 917–970). A physician at the court of Caliph Abd-arRahman III (912–961), he not only treated the caliph and other Muslim notables (as well as Christian kings who came to Cordoba in search of cures for their ailments—or, in one case, to lose weight) but also served as a special legate to Christian courts. Hasdai ibn Shaprut also collected taxes and may have supervised the activities of foreign merchants. Other scholars and teachers, such as Dunas ibn Labrat (ca. 920–980) and Judah ibn Daid Hayyuy (ca. 940–1010), contributed to the splendor of Jewish culture in this period. It was a culture deeply intertwined with Muslim or Arabic culture, and often articulated in the Arabic language.

If Jewish life under Islam was generally peaceful and prosperous, Christians did not always fare equally well. From the mid-eighth century into the tenth, a series of small Christian realms began to emerge in the northern areas of the peninsula: the kingdoms of Asturias, Leon, Galicia, Navarre, Aragon, and Castile. These fledgling Christian kingdoms defined themselves in opposition to the Muslim Caliphate. Although they were as yet no match militarily, economically, or culturally for the sophisticated Cordoban Caliphate, they provided an alternative and a glimmer of hope for Christians in the south.

Many Christians had converted to Islam shortly after 711. There is no reason to believe that their conversions had not been sincere: in fact, although there were few conversions from Islam to Christianity, the contrary was not uncommon. Other Christians embraced many aspects of Islamic civilization without abandoning their faith. These became known as Mozarabs, developing their own language (Mozarabic), their own Christian liturgy, and a distinctive cultural identity. They prospered and even held positions of power in the caliph’s court and, above all, in the city of Toledo, a place that became strongly identified with Mozarabic culture and politics.

When unrest flared up, as it did in the tenth century, some Mozarabs fled to the Christian north, where they played a significant role in shaping Asturias and Leon’s political culture in the tenth and eleventh centuries. A few other Christians challenged Islamic rule directly by provocative denunciations of the religion and of Muhammad’s teachings. The most notable of these forms of resistance was that of the so-called martyrs of Cordoba, a group of Christians who sought martyrdom in Cordoba in the early 800s. Although Christian authorities often condemned their actions, the martyrs, through the hagiographical writings of two Cordoban Christians, Eulogius and Paulus Alvarus, who witnessed the events, became emblematic of Christian resistance to Islam.

Their actions, the ideological support they garnered from some Christians, and the language of Christian chronicles written from the mid-eighth century onward—in both Muslim Spain and the Christian north—created a discourse of opposition to Muslim occupation. The 711 invasion and defeat of the Visigoths came to be seen as a catastrophe, the invaders as cruel and barbaric (even cannibals), Muhammad as a false prophet, and the teachings of the Qu’ran as a pack of lies. Admiration for, and assimilation into, Islam were tempered by these antagonistic attitudes. As the power of the Caliphate began to wane as a result of internal dissension, growing pressure from the Christian north, and a harsher and more fundamentalist religious stance in the Muslim south, some Christians and Jews began to migrate to the Christian realms in the north, hoping either to find better opportunities to practice their religion or to benefit from the growing prosperity there.

By 1035, the Caliphate fragmented into a series of small kingdoms known as the kingdoms of taifas, and the context in which Muslims, Jews, and Christians interacted changed. From 1035 to 1212 The period between the collapse of the Caliphate and the early thirteenth century was marked by important changes. Some of the taifa kingdoms— those of Seville, Zaragoza, Granada, Valencia, and Murcia—prospered in spite of the growing Christian threat. Some Jews, such as the great Solomon ibn Gabirol (ca. 1020–1058), could still produce seminal works such as his Fons vitae, written in Arabic at Zaragoza. Maimonides (1135–1204) taught, wrote, and tended to his duties as a physician in the court of the Muslim ruler in Cordoba before migrating to Egypt in search of a less volatile society. In many respects the period between 1035 and 1085 represented a liminal period in the relationship among the three religions.

The slow process by which Christians made territorial gains at the expense of the Muslims—the so-called Reconquest—was never a simple affair. Christian gains often led to Muslim reactions, including invasions from North Africa: the Almoravids in the eleventh century, the Almohads in the twelfth. Spanish Muslims were caught in a bind. On the one hand, they did not cherish these North African invaders. The Almoravids and Almohads brought with them harsher measures, stricter interpretations of religious rules, and an end, or at least a threat, to the independence of the taifa kingdoms. On the other hand, without these invaders, the Muslim kingdoms would have become easy pickings for the Christians.

One of the results of these political changes within Islamic Spain was a growing intolerance of Jews and Christians and a growing demand for a more faithful observance of Islam. That meant no wine, less flexibility, more antagonism. Christianity in Spain underwent a similar transformation, which had dire consequences for the future. The rapid growth of the pilgrimage to Compostela in the eleventh and twelfth centuries brought numerous northern Europeans into Iberia. Cluniac monasteries rose along the pilgrimage road, and Cluniac monks began to play a significant role in the culture and politics of Iberian kingdoms. The Reconquest, which until then had been a complex process of shifting alliances and conflict over territory and tribute, became now a crusade, acquiring an ideological bent that led to growing hostility between different religious groups.

Even if reality was often otherwise and Christians could pragmatically ally themselves with Muslims against Christian enemies and vice versa, a crusading discourse pervaded the writings and actions of rulers and, most of all, ecclesiastics. This gave a hard new edge to Christian attitudes toward Muslims and Jews. This change was most obvious in Alfonso VI of Castile’s conquest of Toledo in 1085. As a young exile, Alfonso had lived in the city, and his relations with the Muslim rulers of the kingdom of Toledo had been amicable and even close. His mistress, Zaida, was a Muslim woman. When he conquered the city in 1085, he granted rights to the conquered Muslims and to the many Jews who lived in the city and its territory—the largest Jewish population in Iberia.

He proclaimed himself the “emperor of the three religions” and envisioned a city where the three groups could live in harmony and understanding. But the northern knights (mostly from France) who had joined the siege of the city wanted to kill all the “infidels,” actions that the king had to prevent by great effort. Within days of his coming to power in Toledo, his hand was forced by his Cluniac ecclesiastical advisors. The main mosque of the city became a Christian cathedral. Faced with the king’s anger against this breach, the Muslims, to avoid further conflict, acquiesced in the action. Tolerance was replaced by hostility.

As for the Jews, they fared poorly under the Almoravids and even worse under the Almohads. Although Jews continued to engage in trade and other activities in the great cities of al-Andalus, many fled to the urban centers coming into being along the road to Compostela in Castile, to Catalonia and Aragon (mostly to Barcelona, Zaragoza, and Girona), and to the new cities settled along the advancing frontier of the Reconquest (Avila, Segovia, Cuenca, and others). Jews in Christian Spain engaged in a variety of economic pursuits: from farming to mercantile activities and crafts, medicine, soldiering, money lending, and financial or fiscal occupations.

As possessions of the Crown, they paid substantial taxes to the kings while enjoying autonomy from municipal jurisdiction and taxes. Jewish communities (aljamas) were self-governing, responsible only to royal authority. In many respects, their organization paralleled that of the Muslims living now under Christian rule, known as Mudejars: they too lived in their own self-governing communities (morerías), enjoying autonomy from local governments but paying a tax to the Crown. The Muslims’ economic profile, however, became different. In Aragon, many of these Mudejars became a semi-servile peasant population, tied to great lords and constituting the basis of their wealth.

In Castile, they could be found in agricultural labor and as small traders and craftsmen. By the twelfth century and afterward, pejorative representations of Jews and, to a lesser extent, Muslims were on the increase, and these two groups suffered from stereotyping. The classical example is that of the Poem of the Cid (ca. 1206). It depicts two Jews of Burgos, Raquel and Vidas, as greedy moneylenders who, in the end, are cunningly and (in the eyes of the author) rightly deceived by the Cid. The same text, like its mid-twelfth-century predecessor the Historia Roderici, reflected the ambivalence of Christians toward Muslims: respected warriors, neighbors, and even friends, but also infidels and enemies.

This ambivalence was particularly marked in the period when, following the demise of the Caliphate, the Christians began to make gains against the fragmented taifa kingdoms and to extort substantial tribute. Nonetheless, Christians understood the complex nature of their relations to the Muslims. In reality as in the Poem of the Cid, Muslims could be enemies, but they could also be friends and allies. Equals in the battlefield, they were to be treated with respect. The tide of war had not yet turned decisively in favor of the Christians, and thus certain proprieties had to be maintained.

Enemy cities that surrendered were treated leniently. Rights of property and of religious practice were protected in the treaties that regulated conquest and surrender. Christians knew that harsh measures would stiffen resistance and would be returned in kind. Although ecclesiastical propaganda and literary representations often vilified Muslims and their religion, the reality on the ground was different, at least until 1212. The early thirteenth century witnessed the confluence of two signal events. One was the great victory by an international Christian army over the Almohads at Las Navas de Tolosa in 1212. This victory changed the peninsular political landscape forever.

After the Christian victory, the relationship between Christians and Muslims (but also between Christians and Jews) underwent a dramatic transformation. The battle for control of the peninsula was essentially over. Although Granada was not conquered for another 280 years, the Christians were now securely on top. The second development, affecting all of medieval Christendom, has already been summarized in the introduction to this essay: in 1215 the edicts of the Fourth Lateran Council also reached the Spanish kingdoms. Together with the recent victory at Las Navas de Tolosa, these edicts provided the impetus for harsher treatment and growing resentment of religious minorities.

But once again, we should not be misled into seeing any particular period as being one of either great tolerance or unrelenting persecution. Despite the establishment of Christian hegemony in the peninsula and growing church militancy and intolerance, the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries witnessed both tolerance and intolerance. At the court of Alfonso X (1252–1284) of Castile and, to a lesser extent, those of other Iberian kings in this period, Muslim, Jewish, and Christian scholars worked together in ambitious cultural programs. In fact, the court of Alfonso X, known as Alfonso the Wise, has long stood as a model of convivencia.

The Castilian king had an abiding interest in Arabic science and magic and promoted the work and scholarly cooperation of religious minorities. Jews also played an important role in the fiscal affairs of the kingdom. Great Muslim lords accompanied the peripatetic royal court, witnessed royal charters, and often proved to be reliable and faithful allies in Castile’s internal strife. When Alfonso X fought a losing civil war against his own son, the Infante Sancho, in the late 1270s and early 1280s, he sought refuge among Andalusi princes and military support from them. Jewish and Muslim music; the artistic and architectural forms known as the Mudejar style; agricultural practices such as irrigation and vertical watermills; craftsmanship in silk, iron, and leather work; Arabic words; types of food; and forms of eating, dress, and other aspects of cultural and material life were deeply woven into Spanish society.”

- Teofilo F. Ruiz, “Jews, Muslims, and Christians.” in Medieval Christianity

#teofilo f. ruiz #jewish #muslim #christian #medieval #history #religion #spanish #high middle ages

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blackswaneuroparedux · 4 years ago

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Education is all paint - it does not alter the nature of the wood that lies under it, it only improves its appearance a little. Why I dislike education so much is, that it makes all people alike, until you have examined into them; and it sometimes is so long before you get to see under the varnish!

- Lady Hester Stanhope (1776-1839)

Before there was Gertrude Bell or any other modern female explorer there was Hester Stanhope. Three volumes of travels and three of memoirs published after her death record her extraordinary journeys and unconventional views.

Hester was headstrong and brilliant, and terrified people with her sharp tongue. Lord Byron met her in Greece and complained she had “a great disregard of received notion in her conversation as well as conduct”. Which is pretty rich, coming from Byron. Despite being a woman and a Christian, Hester defied tradition by riding into Damascus unveiled. “The crowds who watched must have been shocked into inaction” is the verdict of one biographer.

She was the eldest child of the 3rd Earl of Stanhope, whose wife was sister to William Pitt the Younger, Britain’s youngest ever Prime Minister at 24 years old, and in 1800 went to live with her grandmother, the Countess of Chatham, widow of the ex-statesman and prime minister, William Pitt the elder. So Lady Hester could be counted to have lived in the households of the highest political circles. Her grandmother, the countess, Hester Pitt, who our Lady Hester was obviously named after died in 1803 at the age of 82. Our Hester was then 27 and still unmarried. She was on the shelf in our regency terminology.

Headstrong, she fell out with her father, but later went to live with her uncle, William Pitt the Younger. At this time, Pitt the Younger was Prime Minister and also unmarried. (Nothing scandalous here I believe though Lady Hester was accounted a great beauty) The Prime Minister needed a hostess and his niece had just finished doing duty to his mother. She did this task with great success and when Pitt was out of office, she served as his private secretary. In effect she was the unofficial First Lady, running his household and hosting Number 10’s dinner parties.

Upon his death the government awarded her £1200 a year. She first lived in Montagu Square in London, then moved to Wales but left England for the second act of her life in 1810. Being the grand daughter of a man who made his fortune after discovering an enormous diamond in India, she was all set up for a life of comfort. Instead, shaken by a failed love affair, she left England when she was in her 30s, never to return.

It is claimed that when she and her party (which included a man who became her lover) arrived in Athens, Lord Byron dived into the sea to greet her. En route to Cairo her ship encountered a storm and was shipwrecked on Rhodes. All possessions gone, the party had to borrow Turkish clothes. Here Lady Hester wore male garb. And this was how she met the Pasha. For the next two years she visited Gibraltar, Malta, the Ionian Islands, the Peloponnese, Athens, Constantinople, Rhodes, Egypt, Palestine, Lebanon and Syria.

Her entourage to visit Palmyra was so large (22 camels just for her luggage) she was greeted as Queen Hester.

In 1815, she was now a fixture of the middle east. A document came into her possession that said a great treasure was hidden in the ruins of the mosque in Ashkelon. She journeyed there, and the governor of Jaffa was ordered to accompany her. They did not find the three million gold coins she thought she would find. But they did find a seven foot headless marble statue. She ordered it to be smashed into a thousand pieces and thrown into the sea. Aside from the horrific destruction, this was considered the first modern archealogical excavation of the Holy Lands.

One should note that Lady Hester began her travels and continued them while the Napoleonic Wars were taking place.

Now the last act of her life was her settling permanently in the Middle East. She settled in Sidon, in now Lebanon. These last years she provided sanctuary to the Druze and the local emir, Bashir Shihab II who at first greeted her with courtesy turned against her. However she had such power that she had near absolute authority over the surrounding districts. Truly, ‘Queen Hester.’

Ibrahim Pasha had to consult with her when he was about to invade Syria in 1832.

This did change. She accumulated debt, and when the money ran out, she became a recluse. Her servants began to take off with her possessions when she could not pay them any longer. She would not receive visitors in the end until it was dark, and then they would only see her hands and face.

Byron described Lady Hester as “that dangerous thing, a female wit”. To that she was seen as headstrong. Though too tall to be conventionally beautiful in her era – she measured nearly six feet – Hester was a striking and charismatic presence. In old age, she preserved her mystique by receiving visitors in a darkened room and making them drink a weird black concoction before they saw her. She also shaved her head for convenience, and wore a turban.

Hester spent the last seven years of her incredible life in her draughty fortress outside a Lebanese village, heavily in debt and going increasingly out of her mind. When asked if she wouldn’t prefer to return home and live out her days in relative comfort, she was contemptuous, insisting that she had no intention of going back to “knit or sew like an Englishwoman”. She died in her sleep in 1839, aged 63.

#hester stanhope #lady stanhope #quote #britain #travel #explorer #adventure #femme #beauty #society #aristocracy #nobility #class #middle east #byron #history #pioneer

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anotherkindofmindpod · 5 years ago

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I’d love for you guys to have Mark Lewisohn on your show just to grill him. As someone who’s experienced workplace bullying and sexual assault, that he would go so far as to paint Klein as “heroic” when he said things like “reluctant virgin” is just so devastating to me. It makes me feel ill. I do NOT want this man to have a say in Beatles history. I love the Beatles. I don’t want that tainted by people who will paint over abuse just to feed their own self importance.

We vehemently agree, Listener! Thank you for writing in.

Our list of grievances with Mark Lewisohn is long, but in a nutshell we believe his intent is to publicly “redeem” John Lennon and we have seen copious evidence that he will go to whatever lengths he has to in order to do this.

That includes, but is not limited to:

Claiming that readers of his Tune In Series may consider Klein the “hero” of the Beatles break-up

Deliberately spreading the demonstrably false lie that John (and Yoko) did not have a significant heroin problem in the late 60s and early 70s (Lewisohn suggests Cold Turkey is just John playing make believe)

Displaying unapologetic favoritism by using glowing terms to portray John and Yoko as the world’s most perfect romance, as opposed to Paul and Linda, whose 29-year marriage he dismisses as “conventional” and motivated by appearances (namely Linda’s pregnancy, even though it was planned) and Green Card needs

Stating that he could tell from watching the infamous “it’s a drag” clip that Paul was kind of sad, but primarily annoyed at how much positive attention John was getting on the day of his murder

Apparently suggesting to an audience of his Power Point Show that Paul maybe stole a leg off Yoko’s bed (the bed she had delivered and built in the Beatles’ recording studio, mind you), a personal “theory” which is based on the fact that Paul later wrote a song called “Three Legs” (you know that song: “My dog, he got three legs, like the bed you inappropriately brought into Abbey Road 2 years ago which I secretly vandalized behind your back because I have nothing better to do, am certainly not busy writing the Beatles Swan Song and don’t have a fucking 7 year old at home or anything”)

This isn’t even to mention Tune In, which could be a whole separate post and episode. Suffice it to say, this book often reads less like a Beatles biography and more like John Lennon Fanfiction to us.

Lewisohn managed to distinguish himself by doing (some) research and unearthing some original documents. That he had some skill in research is not surprising given that he started his career in Beatledom as a researcher for Norman, on his book Shout — which Lewisohn still contends is a good book. Norman, on the other hand has evolved his opinion of his own work and thinks Shout was flawed, so has written a whole biography on Paul to make up for what he sees as the failure of Shout, which is his underestimation of Paul. Unfortunately, Lewisohn does not seem to have made this same journey. He pays lip service to John and Paul being equal, and then spends all of his time and energy trying to prove otherwise. Norman says that he has created a monster in Lewisohn. We take his point.

One of our biggest issues with Lewisohn is that he vigorously promotes himself as an unbiased truth teller, and his calm manner seems to telegraph this. But it is not true. The research that Lewisohn does and the spin that he applies to his findings are all heavily biased. As we mentioned in one of our episodes, he travelled to Gibraltar simply to experience where John and Yoko got married. Yet when Paul calls the May 9th meeting over management the metaphorical cracking of the Liberty Bell, Lewisohn doesn’t even bother to Google it so he can understand the metaphor.

What he chooses to research is also a form of bias. For example, we at AKOM are very interested in Paul’s relationship with Robert Fraser during the Beatle years — since Paul has commented that Fraser was one of the most important, influential people in his life. Paul McCartney was the concept artist behind Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band, the Magical Mystery Tour film, the iconic Apple logo, and he co-designed the covers of the White Album and Abbey Road. All of these are pretty defining moments in the Beatles’ career. As Beatles fans, we’d like to know more about Paul’s art education and influences. But we would be shocked if Lewisohn dug into Fraser at all beyond his relationship as John and Yoko’s gallerist/curator (and heroin dealer, but since that isn’t a thing in Lewisohn’s world then maybe he will be ignored).

We think Lewisohn benefits massively from the fact that Beatles authorship was like the Wild West since its inception, when everyone with a connection to the Beatles (plus or minus a personal axe to grind) wrote a book about their experience. It was absolute chaos, with no rules, no checks and balances, uncredited sources, etc. Just an absolute shit show. What Lewisohn did was bring some order to the chaos with some proper documentation. But again, what he chooses to dig into often reflects bias. And this certainly does not mean that he is intellectually or emotionally equipped to interpret his findings. Doing this takes social intelligence and insight, which is a very different skill. As a creator of myths, he is no better (and no more insightful or original) than many of the others who came before him; he worships John Lennon and freely admits it. He is not even close to being unbiased. But in this dumpster fire of a fandom he has at least checked some boxes and done some digging. The fact is, the bar has been so low for so long that Beatles fans don’t even know how to expect or want better. But WE certainly expect better. We expect some breakthrough, fresh thinking. Not just Shout with Receipts.

We think it’s significant that Lewisohn was deeply disliked by George Harrison, who lobbied to get him kicked him off the Anthology project. He was fired from Paul’s fan club magazine, and yet no one seems to think he might hold a grudge about that, too? Lewisohn so distorted John and Paul’s relationship in Tune In that he believes he is the target of the lyrics in Paul’s song “Early Days.“ And he either thinks that’s flattering or funny, because Lewisohn seems to truly believe he knows John Lennon better than Paul McCartney does. We find it almost tragic that Paul is so bothered by the way his experience and relationship is being portrayed by authors (perhaps Lewisohn) that he wrote a song about it. In it, he conveys his frustration and heartache about how everything is misconstrued and we find it absolutely outrageous that Lewisohn would not take this to heart. Perhaps Lewisohn thinks Paul should listen to him for a change? And if he doesn’t like it, then tough, because Lewisohn knows better? We think Lewisohn should do some serious soul-searching about “Early Days” because if one of his main subjects is saying, “you are getting it wrong and it is breaking my heart”….maybe, just maybe, he should listen and rethink things. Maybe apply a little creativity, out-of-the-box thinking and empathy. This is what his heroes did.

Meanwhile, Jean Jackets are SO BUSY complaining that Paul McCartney doesn’t like Lewisohn because he “tells the truth!” that they fail to notice that Lewisohn has become a mouthpiece for Yoko Ono. He has already started white-washing John Lennon’s history, promoting John and Yoko as the true and only geniuses versus Paul as the craven, small-minded Lennon disciple who (through no virtue of his own) was born with the ability to write some nice tunes. Lewisohn’s version of John, on the other hand, is ALWAYS a sexy, visionary genius on the right side of every issue. He even went out of his way to recently trash Paul’s early 70’s albums, which -in addition to being obnoxious and we believe wrong (since we love them)- is totally outside his purview.

Lastly, to address your original point, Lewisohn’s claim that Klein may be viewed as the “hero” of his Beatles History reveals that he hasn’t shown sufficient empathy or interest in Paul’s experience. This claim at best ignores and at worst condones the fact that Klein was an abusive monster to one of the two founding members of the Beatles. As we discussed in Episode 4, Klein was a criminal who bullied Paul in his creative workspace, disrespected Paul in his own office in front of his own employees and actively pitted Lennon against McCartney for years. It’s hard to imagine ANYONE who inflicted more damage on the Beatles and Lennon/McCartney than Allen Klein. In addition to the wildly inappropriate “reluctant virgin” nickname, he verbally threatened to “own Paul’s ass” (to which Paul responded “he never got anywhere near my ass”). Klein was so disrespectful to Paul and Linda’s marriage he pitched the idea of procuring “a blonde with big tits” to parade in front of Paul to lure him away from Linda and destroy their relationship. Let’s also never forget that Klein contributed lyrics to the song “How Do You Sleep.” Allen Klein literally gave Paul nightmares. Anyone who so much as pretends to care about Paul’s break-up era depression (including his alcohol abuse, his inability to get out of bed and his terrifying sleep paralysis) would not champion Allen Klein.

Yes, Klein is a human being and therefore has his own POV, same as anyone else. But a Beatles biographer is beholden to four points of view only: John, Paul, George and Ringo. And when an outsider is openly hostile to one of the Beatles and damaging long-term to all of the Beatles, it is beyond inappropriate to portray him as a hero. This type of comment, made publicly to an audience of Beatles fans, invalidates and seeks to erase the real trauma inflicted on Paul McCartney by Allen Klein, and we think Lewisohn should apologize for his comments.

Instead, Lewisohn’s current buddy is Peter Brown, whose book, The Love You Make so offended and angered Paul and Linda that they literally burned their copy (and photographed it burning for good measure). This information doesn’t appear to bother Lewisohn in the least. Why not?

George referred to Norman’s Shout as “Shit.” But Lewisohn thinks it’s a great book. Why?

How any Beatles or Paul or even George fans tolerate Lewisohn is baffling to us; we don’t recognize a real human being in his version of Paul, and his version of John is a superhero rather than a man. We suspect that fans have come to accept the traditional story and at least appreciate some properly-documented facts.

But as we are constantly trying to demonstrate on our show, just because the story has always been told one way, doesn’t mean it’s right. Because in the end, Mark Lewisohn has no special insight. He wasn’t there. He is a guy who bought into a narrative during the Shout era, and is cherry picking his findings to support it.You can find a discussion of Lewisohn here

#MarkLewisohn #anotherkindofmind podcast #Beatles #Lewisohn is a joke

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herald-divine-hell · 4 years ago

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The Failure Toward Islam in Dragon Age

This is a response to @shimmrgloom. He asked to go into detail about why I consider the Qunari a poor representation of historical Islam.

Warning: this will be a long post.

Let us start off the bat with most likely the most superficial reasoning why the Qunari and the Qun are meant to represent Islam. First and foremost, the world: “Qunari” is merely a switch around of the world “Qu’ran”, the holy book of Islam, just with an added “i” at the end. But you may be wondering: Herald, surely that was so coincidence? Not particularly, I say, no. BioWare does not accidentally name things - Templar is not coincidentally a term that they used to describe violent oppressors who serve the Thedas’ most religious and centralized body. Something so similar, describing a people who come from a land that is foreign to the rest of Thedas, a foreign way of life, and who are - to the minds of the Thedosians - quintessentially different that it leads to contempt and distrust almost automatically in their first meetings.

Background:

Now, some history over Islam. Islam, as most people know, was founded in the 7th century by the Prophet Muhammad, who revolutionized the societal framework of the Arabian Peninsula. Once a sandy land filled with bickering tribes that fought each other more and less than the outside the great powers of their heyday, the Eastern Roman Empire and the Sassanid Persian Empire. What Muhammad did, and not only did he start the world’s second largest religion, was unthinkable at the time. Instead of unifying the tribes in a manner of merely just conquest, though Muhammad was indeed a fearsome warrior and tactian, Muhammad utilized religion, and bounded everyone under the idea of the Ummah - the community of Islam - which thoroughly demolished any idea that kinship was greater than religion (though the idea would continue on to the modern age, with the rise of nationalism, to muddy the waters even further.) Now, it was near impossible for any one tribe to claim superiority over the other. All were equal in the eyes of God, and so the community should see each other as equals. (Again, the idea was there, but slavery was, and still is, prevalent, though Muhammad was known to have freed many of slaves throughout his life, with one of the first converts in Islam to have been an African slave.)

During the time of the Prophet, and the later successors to him after his death, known as the Caliphs, raids were conducted against the warring Romans and Persians at their Arabian border. It was only after a while did the Arabs commit a full offensive attack, utterly demolishing and annexing the Persians, and conquering large swaths of North Africa, including one of the Eastern Romans’ most prized provinces, Egypt. In only a few short decades, the Rashidun Caliphs - those who were companions and close friends and were, actually, elected by a council to be the successors, akin to a weaker sense of democracy - crafted an administrated dominion that was larger than Rome during its height. Most commonly, a lot of Westerners believe that the Arabs actively sought to convert their newly conquered subjects to Islam, and while there is a law that says a non-Muslim may not take a high ruling position in the government, (which would later change, as many religions and ethnics became the second highest positions in some islamic states) and that they must pay a higher tax, known as the jizyah, most of Islam’s converts came from the people’s own free will (if they lived under the Caliphate, most likely paying less in taxes was a large incentive) or from trade, as the Mali Empire and others showed, or it came from other governing powers, like the Turks or the Mongolians, adopting the religion of their subjects. Though, it primarily came from trade.

After the fall of the Rashidun Caliphate under Caliph Ali (and I’m not even going to get into the First Fitna, or the First Islamic Civil War, nor am I going to get into the Sunni-Shia split that occurred during the rule of the first Caliph, Abu Bakr.) the Umayyad family rose to power and claimed the Caliphate for themselves. Now, the Umayyads were different then the Rashidun - all five Caliphs were elected - but the new Caliphs were hereditary, adopted with even more practices from the more sophisticated Byzantines and Persians. During their rule, the first contacts between Islam and the West properly. (Prior to this, the only real meetings were between the Eastern Romans and the Caliphates, with a few incursions into Sicily.) The Umayyds swept up into the Iberian Peninsula, where Spain and Porturgal, and a little bit of the United Kingdom through Gibraltar, now resides, and moved into a little of southern France - though it was merely a tiny raid, Western History would compare it to a major victory for Christendom. (It did stop Islamic movement into Western Europe, but the Ottomans would show that Islam did not leave Europe entirely. The Umayyads would not continue heading into France for numerous reasons. Number one being that there was a massive rebellion occurring in the central part of the Caliphate, and two, their power would be extremely diminished.)

Now, after the Umayyads, come the Abbassids, the new Islamic Caliphate - and though not the largest, it was considered to be the greatest in terms of cultural and scientific importance for Islam. For under the Abbassids, Islam would begin its golden age. In this time, men like Ibn Sina, the Father of early medicine, or ibn Musa al-Khwarizmi, the Father of algebra, or ibn Hayyan, the father of modern pharmacy, would live in thrive. The Islamic Marco Polo, ibn Battuta, who traveled across Asia and Africa more times that one would consider necessary, would be born. The House of Wisdom, created by Caliph Harun al-Rashid, where Muslims, Jews, and Christians would work side by side, peacefully. (And even in Islamic Iberia, under the rule of the overthrown Umayyads, intellect bloomed, especially for the Jewish people.) And one of the first modern university in Islam, and the known world at the time, the University of al-Qarawiyyin, by Fatima al-Fihri, was also established during its time, and is still open to this day.

Why am I harking on and on about the glories of men and women long dead? What does this have to do with the Qunari? Well, everything.

The Qunari:

As I mentioned before, the Qunari are meant to be the historical counterparts of the Islamic caliphates during its time. Why, you may ask? Well, for starters, their entire relationship with Thedas (Europe) is identical to Islam...from a European perspective.

The Qunari are invaders, fanatics about spreading their philosophy/religion/way of life to all the world who does not follow it. Now, out of everything I just explain, surely it has no connection to Islam? But it does. To Europe, their safety was in constant threat by Islam, especially the Byzantiums. Which was not unwarranted to be believed - the Arabs had tried to siege down Constantinople twice, and the Seljuk Turks, whom overwhelmed the Caliphate to establish their own nation over the Middle East, while allowing the Caliph to remain nominally head of Islam, had pushed deep into Anatolia, nearly to Constantinople, which sparked the Crusades.

What we got from the Qunari wasn’t not Islam as we noted, not totally at least. (which is fair. You typically don’t want to take everything from real life in your fantasy world) But it is the way Europe has viewed Islam for over one thousand and four hundred years. But unlike Europe being wrong, from what we get of the Qunari, from actual interactions, especially from the Iron Bull, of the Qun, we can assume that the Thedosian xenophobia is seemingly justified. Islam is foreign, and the West has always perceived the Near East as foreign, mystical, animistic. (This goes way back to Ancient Greece and Rome) And unlike our world, the Qunari is all of that, and more.

Instead of getting intellectual growth and cultural prosperity, we get what the modern West considers the Islamic fanatics, but as the entirety of the group. The Qunari wants to subsequent Thedosian and Andrastian doctrine to the philosophy of the Qun (Sha’ria) Instead of wearing armor, they wear tight ropes that show off skin that is alien in color, and have horns that are exotic. (Just like how Europe saw Muslim women as seductresses, with near-translucent cloths for clothing) Instead of being tolerant to other peoples religions - which the early Muslims were very much were, especially during their times - the Qun would take no one else, but Qunari. All will have to convert, or risk death, imprisonment in a mine, or worse. They are “reeducated” by the Qun, to follow orders and to die for their philosophy. Where do we see that? ISIL, Al-Qaeda, the Taliban - contemporary fanatics, but they are the near closet to Islam as the Qunari get. What we see is a mockery to beliefs that Islam had stood for over a thousand years.

We do not get the Qunari preserving ancient Tevinter documents. We do not get ibn Sina, and other Islamic philosophers and investors that changed the world - for better, or for worse. We get nothing that shows Islam during the time period that Thedas is meant to take place, but the rest of the Thedas easily can pass for their historical time period, except with fantastical creatures. Even with the Ottomans, sure they took boys to make them guards and an elite infantry, and thats the fairest you can say that looks like the Qunari during that time period, but thats it.

All in all, the Qunari is meant to take the place of Islam, while demolishing everything Islam was and is, instead propping forth centuries old propaganda and stereotypes and fears.

I do acknowledge that the Qunari are not entirely Islamic in society - they have large aspects from Communism and Confucianism - but their historical and geopolitical placement in Thedas, alongside their foreign policy toward Thedas is merely Islamophobia in its entirety. And that hurts to say, because the Qunari could had been something more, but BioWare did not even try to recon it. Sure, they are technologically advance, but at what cost? Slavery? Conquest? Everything that I have learned since I was a child about the terror of Islam? It’s true for the Qunari, and its hurt. Don’t get me wrong, I find the Qunari fascinating, and I can’t (hopefully) wait to learn more about them in DA4, but it still hurts to see my history so tarnished by BioWare’s lack of even proper research.

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vipusimo · 3 years ago

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What to do when you are applying for a Gibraltar passport

By using the Gibberers' International Travel Services you can get a ferry from Marseille to Gibberers which can take you as far as Valladolid.

https://ru.ivisa.com/gibraltar-passenger-locator-form

All tourists who wish to travel to Gibraltar's small coastal town have access to a new service. On departure from mainland Spain you are not required to leave through the international airport as you enter into the Malaga International Airport. Instead, you can simply go through a port of call along the coast to book a car to take your to your next destination. This port of call is located on the Costa del Sol and as such is an important departure point for those travelling from continental Europe.

When booking your car and arranging your passport details it is important that you fill in your Gibraltar passenger locator form with details of the destination you wish to visit. Every traveller must have a valid passport to leave Spain. The "arm's-length" application period, which can last up three months, requires that you provide details about any destination you are planning to visit. Once the application period has expired then you must return to your originating country and the documents must then be presented for onward processing. You can still apply online via the authorized website or by telephone, but your details will not be posted to Spain's authorities due to privacy concerns.

Before you travel to Gibraltar, it is essential to contact the Port of Gibraltar. If you are unable or unwilling to contact a port of call, there is an option to arrange a direct service from Malaga once you have crossed the straits. However, there is no railway service to take you from the airport to visit Gibraltar. You can only reach the small coastal village of Cuerne de Verde by either road or boat.

You can use the Gibberers International Travel Services to get a ferry from Marseille, France to Gibberers that can take you as far south as Valladolid. You can then travel by road to the island. It takes approximately four hours to complete the journey. You can also hire a car and travel to Madrid from Marseille. A bus service runs from Charles de Gaulle terminal to Valle Escondido. A journey by train leaves Valle Escondido every day, arriving at the international terminal in Barcelon early in the morning.

In order to avoid the need for a contagious sickness test, you should arrange to have yourself examined upon arriving in Spain. Once you have arrived in Spain you can arrange for onward travel to any destination within the European Union. You should be aware that certain EU member states will require you to adhere to their laws. For example you may need to remain at least six hours after landing to have your temperature checked.

The final step in the Spain passenger locator application is to provide information about you and any documents that may be relevant to your entry into Spain. You will then be sent a Spain representative, usually known as an escritura, who will assist you throughout the application process and also assist you with documentation and advice in respect of the civil contingencies emergency in Spain. Throughout the processing of your application for entry clearance into Spain, you will be in constant contact with your consul. If you are unable to make a decision on your application for entry clearance to Gibralfonair airport you should ask your representative to inform you of your right of appeal.

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