#internal colonization

[emptyanddark]

...contemporary colonial projects tend toward the “operational enclosure,” which describes a digitally-mediated social hierarchy in which the movement and behaviour of certain racialized populations are made automatically detectable and thus controllable, while privileged settler populations are permitted to move around in a relatively frictionless way. [...] this form of enclosure is being adapted by government agencies and corporations across the Global South to slot marginalized populations into the operative logics of actionable intelligence. For privileged settlers, a seamless digitally integrated society brings them pride in the advancement of their country’s capabilities along with consumer convenience. For Muslims, on the other hand, the operational enclosure provokes intense fear."

"...advanced dataveillance technology is key in producing an efficient settler colonial state that can classify and segment its inhabitants. Two interrelated phenomena are at play here, one regarding the technology itself and the other about how it molds social reality. First, the technology is a black box���security workers do not really understand how it works beyond the reductive readouts they see on their screen: 99.11 percent match. Orange tag. Potentially “untrustworthy.” Second, in practice these simplistic characterizations and predictions come to be seen as truth. The technology is viewed as an unquestioned authoritative good, since it is perceived as scientific and state-of-the-art intelligence. The predictions made become legally enforced truths. Together, these two elements, the digital black box and the legal and social discourse of technological intelligence, are producing one of the first mass experiments in the colonial operational enclosure.

A more nuanced view of contemporary colonialisms attempts to show how these different forms of imperialism are entangled with each other and how they need to be opposed simultaneously.

[hussyknee]

This ruling is non-binding (not sure how it would be enforced even if it was considering Israel's chief protector is the U.S., which doesn't recognise the International Criminal Court and keeps trying to punish it for this kind of thing), but there's support for it across the board except from the US and its new vassal state, the UK. The Tory government has backed the US in ignoring every ICJ ruling on Palestine thus far and Starmer has been avoiding the issue but reinstated funding for UNRWA a few hours after the latest one. Starmer is a spineless Zionist maggot and as much of a US shill has the Tories however, so which way his government tips will probably depends on the strength of the US's reaction.

If you still want to vote for that death-worshipping lurching corpse in November and maybe claim back some of the voters who've decided they can't endorse this bloodthirsty maniac, now is the time to take to the streets and threaten to withhold your vote unless he fucking complies. Don't worry, the same amount of you will vote for him anyway since genocide is not a red line for you, but the DNC is jumpy enough now that they might want to err on the side of caution. Please try and stop your precious democracy from massacring any more children, even if only to save your own skins.

[violottie]

🇵🇸 IMPORTANT ICJ UPDATE🇵🇸

This starts today, 19th February 2024 and continues until Next Monday 26th February 2024. See times below, they will all be streamed everyday live here or here on Al Jazeera Live

"The International Court of Justice in The Hague will hear from 52 countries and three organisations on the legal consequences of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem since 1967.⁠" from Al Jazeera English, 19/Feb/2024:

[reverentwormpriest]

jet and zuko toxic yaoi is so real idk how i never saw it . when the hot buzzcut burn scar badboy with a past he doesnt talk about wont join your emo band and youre really upset but its all good cuz you saw his uncle firebending so you just decide to go fucking kill him instead

[political-us]

Israel's defence minister has told its military to prepare a plan to "allow any resident of Gaza who wishes to leave to do so", in line with President Donald Trump's proposal for the US to take over the territory and resettle its 2.1 million Palestinians elsewhere.

But the Palestinian presidency reiterated its rejection of the plan, which it has said would violate international law, and insisted that "Palestine... is not for sale".

[blackstarlineage]

To Black People Who Deny or Reject Their African Ancestry

If you deny or reject your African ancestry while claiming Blackness, you are living in contradiction. Black identity is inextricably tied to Africa—the root of our existence, history, and culture. To reject Africa is to reject yourself, your people, and the foundation of our collective identity. If you do not see yourself as part of the African diaspora, then you have no business speaking on Black issues or involving yourself in Black spaces. You are not needed in the fight for Black liberation, as your mindset weakens the very foundation of our unity and collective progress.

Black Identity is Inseparable from African Heritage

You can not claim to be Black while divorcing yourself from Africa. Our struggles, culture, and resilience stem from the continent, and it is the unifying thread that ties the global Black community together. As Marcus Garvey said, “A people without the knowledge of their past history, origin, and culture is like a tree without roots.” If you deny your African ancestry, you sever these roots, rendering yourself disconnected and irrelevant to Black liberation.

Blackness is inherently African. If you reject this fact, you are not needed in spaces where pride in our roots is essential for collective liberation.

Denying Africa is a manifestation of Self-Hate

To reject your African ancestry reveals a deep internalized self-hate, a byproduct of colonialism and white supremacy. For centuries, we were taught to see Africa as inferior, primitive, and something to be ashamed of. When you reject Africa, you validate these racist ideologies and perpetuate the erasure of our collective dignity.

As Garvey said, “Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery, none but ourselves can free our minds.” Denying Africa shows that you remain mentally enslaved, unable to appreciate the beauty and resilience of your origins. Self-hate has no place in a movement that requires pride, unity, and strength. You are not needed if you are unable or unwilling to overcome this.

Your Trauma Does Not Excuse Betrayal

The transatlantic slave trade, colonialism, and systemic racism inflicted generational trauma that disconnected us from Africa. But rejecting Africa is not the answer. Instead, it is betrayal.

Our ancestors fought, resisted, and survived so that we could reclaim our identity and dignity. Your rejection dishonors their sacrifices and perpetuates the disconnection they worked so hard to overcome. If you can not confront this trauma and begin the process of healing, then you are not needed in the fight for Black liberation. This fight requires strength and a willingness to face the truth.

You Undermine Pan-African Unity

Garveyism centred on Pan-Africanism: the unification of all African-descended people for collective liberation. Rejecting Africa weakens this unity and plays into the hands of colonial systems that sought to divide us.

As Garvey taught, “The greatest weapon used against the Negro is disorganization.” Unity is our strength, and rejecting Africa creates division that our enemies exploit. You are not needed in Black spaces if your mindset contributes to disunity and fragmentation.

You Are Perpetuating White Supremacy

Denying your African ancestry aligns you with the same white supremacist systems that dehumanize our people. Colonialism and slavery aimed to strip us of our connection to Africa to control and exploit us. When you reject Africa, you continue their mission.

Garvey urged us to reclaim Africa with pride, declaring, “The Black skin is not a badge of shame, but rather a glorious symbol of national greatness.” By denying Africa, you aid in the erasure of this greatness. Black liberation does not need those who side, consciously or unconsciously, with white supremacy.

You Have No Place in Black Spaces

Black liberation is rooted in the acknowledgement of our shared struggles, history, and future as African people. If you deny this, your presence in Black spaces is counterproductive. You can not fight for the advancement of a people whose identity you reject.

Garveyite philosophy teaches that Black spaces must be built on unity, pride, and a shared commitment to progress. If you reject your African roots, you are not welcome in these spaces. Your denial undermines the collective mission, and you are not needed to advance a cause you do not fully believe in.

Africa is the foundation of Black Liberation

Africa is not just a part of our history—it is our future. The continent represents the cultural, spiritual, and economic foundation for Black empowerment. Garvey envisioned Africa as a central part of Black liberation, declaring, “Africa for the Africans, at home and abroad.”

If you reject this vision, you exclude yourself from the struggle for Black freedom. You are not needed because the movement requires individuals who see Africa as their foundation, not as something to reject or ignore.

Your Denial Harms Future Generations

By rejecting Africa, you perpetuate a legacy of disconnection and shame that will harm future generations. You rob them of the pride, strength, and knowledge that comes from understanding their origins.

Garvey believed in building for the future: “The ends you serve that are selfish will take you no further than yourself, but the ends you serve for all, in common, will take you into eternity.” If you cannot embrace your African roots, you are contributing to the erasure of our identity and legacy, and future generations can not afford this harm.

Conclusion: You Are Not Needed or Wanted

To Black people who deny or reject their African ancestry: your denial reveals self-hate, trauma, and internalized oppression. It weakens our unity, undermines our liberation, and aligns you with white supremacy. Black liberation requires voices that are unapologetically rooted in Africa, grounded in pride, and committed to unity.

If you reject Africa, you are not needed or wanted in this fight. The liberation of Black people depends on those who embrace their roots, celebrate their identity, and work collectively for progress. As Garvey said, “Up, you mighty race, you can accomplish what you will.” But this vision does not include those who reject their roots and fracture our unity.

Africa is our past, present, and future. If you can not accept this truth, you are not welcome, and you are not needed in the fight for Black liberation.

[pussydemolisher900]

[a-resplendent-mushroom]

chilean miku 🇨🇱

[canisalbus]

For how much Machete is described by others as off-putting, he really is a beautiful dog. Does Vasco ever tell him so? That his eyes make him look earnest, his fur the most comforting shade of white like cream, the way his ears catch light like stained glass? If someone doesn't tell him so, he'd forever think he was ugliest duckling

I think Vasco definitely tries, sincerely and often, but Machete is very reluctant to accept compliments and positive feedback. Especially if it's about something as personal and innate as his looks.

[gamer2002]

So, they are admitting to coming to other country to suck it out of resources, like some colonizers?

[quixoticanarchy]

Ok I read a book on degrowth by jason hickel (Less is More) and I still need to read more but. preliminary thoughts:

I appreciate the quantification of by how much current resource and energy consumption overshoots sustainable limits, and the excoriation of the absurd demand for compound growth on a finite planet; and the book has a decent history of capitalism and the violence and dispossession it rests upon. There is some similar quantification for how proposed degrowth measures would affect resource consumption, though (understandably) piecemeal, so it’s unclear what the full impact of these measures would be vis-à-vis climate meltdown and ecological tipping points, or on what timeline the degrowth transition would have to occur.

Degrowth measures - resource use caps, a shorter work week, basic income, healthcare, income caps, re-localizing supply chains, killing planned obsolescence, moving to a shared rather than personal ownership model for things like vehicles, etc. - are broadly “good” and have been promoted and supported outside of a specifically degrowth context already, which speaks to their appeal but also their pitfalls. Implementing all these measures and more has to carry the explicit intention of improving human and ecological welfare, GDP be damned, and has to be tied explicitly to a commitment to reducing growth and capping profits; otherwise, the trap I see is attempting to enact some of these measures while keeping the capitalist edifice intact - which, as Hickel acknowledges, would spur a new ‘fix’ in which some other domain or market is forced open for exploitation so that growth can continue.

This is obviously at odds with degrowth and it isn’t anything degrowth advocates don’t know, but it seems naïve to envision states whose existence and operation are so inextricable from capitalism being capable of doing such reforms to the degree and with the ideological shift necessary. It would be suicide. Which I’d welcome, but just saying we need to tackle corruption and have more real democracy so that governments can serve people’s actual needs does not convince me that these policies could be sincerely and radically adopted by any state that exists today.

The book seems to walk a line between “degrowth is very radical since it would require ditching the demand for economic growth and probably most of the profit motive itself, which is a huge mindset and ideological shift - if not to socialism per se then to post-capitalism” and also “degrowth isn’t that radical/outlandish since what it takes is all these commonsense reforms that people already want anyway”. Sometimes the degrowth policy package sounds a lot like just welfare-state capitalism, except with resource and energy consumption dramatically scaled back, and without the economic growth imperative. So… no longer capitalism as such, but still using many of the master’s tools to retrofit the master’s house.

In principle, a world exists in which wealthy countries consume far less and the rest of the world is freer and not (or at least less) exploited. In principle, degrowth measures could help us realize that world. Saying it’s not a revolutionary process might keep some readers from being scared off, etc, but I’m left wondering then: where does the force come from to make these changes happen? Are wealthy countries and individuals and corporations going to just agree to resource caps and wealth caps and redistribution? The argument that degrowth is a kind of decolonization and requires the demise of the colonial and capitalist view of people and nature is compelling to me, but that seems to conflict with the idea that degrowth can be implemented as a set of reforms to the systems that exist now, without the messiness of revolution and without somehow being co-opted by capitalism or packaged as ‘green growth’ (which Hickel makes clear would be bad and is bullshit). The ideological shift and end to growth is the big ask here - without that, the reforms are just rearranging deck chairs on the titanic, or maybe on the lawn of the master’s house, if you will.

[cavalierzee]

Over 30,000 Orphans In Gaza

The Palestinians should initiate legal action against Israel so it would be held responsible for all the deaths it caused, all the orphans, all the destroyed residential buildings, schools, hospitals, universities and the rebuilding, the torture in camps, the kidnappings, etc.

Israel MUST pay reparations to the Palestinians.

[hussyknee]

(alt included)

Link to article

Senator Shaheen has to date been paid $572,575 by AIPAC.

Norway, Sweden and Denmark divested from Elbit Systems for selling surveillance systems and weapons for Israel's illegal occupation of West Bank, Denmark outright blacklisting it, HSBC divested when it started manufacturing cluster bombs for Israel that resulted in mass-scale destruction of towns and villages in Lebanon. It also manufactures white phosphorus. It sells spyware not just for Israeli surveillance over its Occupied Territories, but also the US patrol of the Mexican border and the European Union's border control in the Mediterranean to arrest and deport North African refugees. The same systems were discovered to be targeting Ethiopian journalists all over the world.

But apparently throwing paint on its walls and protesting it helping genocide people is "antisemitic".

[nando161mando]

"Bisexual antifascists international" (EN: English)

[azol-otl]

DVD commentary about half footJason. He's such a little guy but God I love him.

Anything, brujay/royjay/jaydick, please tell me more about his relationships.

Ahhh Jaysun (half-foot Jason) my incredibly unwell little guy. For those who don't know, I have two fics about a dcu and dungeon meshi fusion (shameless self plug). There's a lot of words so...whoops lol.

So the thing about the Dungeon Meshi universe, is that when you put in dc, the subtext involving classism, racism and such that the author's don't think about/unwittingly put in becomes straight text. And in that it can lead to a lot of unfortunate implications becoming very...straight up there. And I'll openly admit that I'm pretty biased against Bruce so it won't be kind to him.

Jaysun (Jay + Sun to fit with the half-foot naming convention), was created when I started looking more into the lore of Dungeon Meshi. With half-foots known as thieves, liars, and shady overall and the general populace not even thinking twice about exploiting them or seeing them as the bottom of the hierarchy, it reads a lot like how dc makes heroes view criminals and poverty (if they aren't infantalizing the poor which is also a thing that the setting does to half-foots). And unlike "demi-humans" they're part of overall mainstream society instead of something separate (and not considered human). Which to me felt like a perfect fit for Jason both as Robin and as an adult because it's a life that Bruce wouldn't even be able to fathom. Alongside that, with a lower life expectancy, Bruce's patronizing attitude (and that of everyone else) is only aggravated and increased towards Jaysun.

Meanwhile Bruce, to me, has to be in a position of privilege and wealth for his whole thing to work. A lot of his flaws and skills comes from that disconnect. And in Dungeon Meshi, the most privileged are Elves and Dwarves. And for Bruce I chose the latter as it fits more in his image of masculinity as well as his focus on technology and combat (and Bruce with magic is just, why are you even using Bruce at that point when his whole shtick is baseline human fighting crime/things way above his weight class). Add into that half-foor culture idolizing (or at least seeing as something to strive for) dwarves and their culture, it just made for a really messy situation when Bruce adopts Jaysun.

But the thing is, Jaysun being adopted at 12 going on 13 is different than Jason being adopted at that age because a half-foot is considered a full adult by age 14 and even then we see people under that age doing things we'd connect to "adulthood" (i.e. Chilchuck was a father of two by the time he was fourteen). It leads to a messy situation where Jaysun already feels and considers himself an adult (which Jason does in the comics as well, and is something Bruce straight up says to Gordon because of Jason's experiences despite the guy barely being a teenager). This leads to a Mia-esque situation where Jaysun falls for Bruce in a romantic and sexual sense since he is, by all accounts, soon an adult (he still dies at the same age)(Mia did have short lived crushes on Ollie and later Connor and Roy and it is something normal that happens to older foster kids. Repeat, this is normal and those feelings later morph into something different in most cases.) This is something that Bruce never even considers about because dwarves aren't adults until they're 40 (which means to Bruce even Dick who is an adult man by tall-men standards, is still a kid and this was a major wedge between them as Bruce simply didn't internalize the differences between them).

It also leads to major imposter syndrome in Jaysun as he sees himself as a replacement for Dick (which Jason also does), but in this case it's one who's even easier to control and treat like a pet. Is he right? Only sorta. Bruce probably doesn't mean to do so, but it's in the same way Senshi and Marcille still haven't understood the way they treat their friends (see: Marcille and Falin).

A load of stuff happens between Jaysun's death and him leaving Gotham for Melini (for reasons I still gotta write about 😅)

For relationships:

Jaysun -> Roy: Roy is probably the person Jaysun trusts the most. Roy, as someone from the Western Continent, has had his fair share of experiences close to Jaysun's involving the perception against him as well as experiences being dropped by loved ones even if they have, for the most part, reconciled. Roy is one of the five (him, Kori, Bizarro, Artemis, Talia) people that knows Jaysun's ability to use magic despite his race's infamous lack of skill and capability with it. He doesn't know the reason WHY, but he knows when to push and when not to. Jaysun and Roy are regulars in dungeon parties that the other leads or are a part of. Jaysun meanwhile is someone who will have to be torn apart from Roy because they both have attachment issues worse than Jaysun's self image, self harm, and fear of abandonment issues (which Roy does share). Most of these will take a lot of work to handle but considering Jaysun's stuck on light to no work for the next few months (the actual canon dungeon meshi story), I have faith in them.

Jaysun -> Dick: So so so so many Bruce issues holy shit. As much as Dick and Jaysun don't want to admit it, both have a load of similar experiences as not being seen as a person with agency caused by being raised by a long lived race when both of them are short lived ones (Dick being a tall-man). This is something that's touched upon with Kabru in Dungeon Meshi, but his foster mother was different beast from Bruce though both have absolutely caused issues in their kids. At the same time Jaysun having been taken in second, resents Dick for having a closer place to Bruce while Jaysun feels like he was more of a pet than a son (both part of the family but not equal in it). Meanwhile Dick dislikes Jaysun's overall demeanor and holds what he did in Gotham against him (which, fair) even if in the end both of them are in the same place (away from Bruce, not thought of completely as people by the man they devoted a large chunk of their lives to (most of his life in Dick's case as at 30 he's reached the halfway point for tall-men), and floundering to find footing despite their supports networks (Dick was part of a dungeoneering group called the Titans which are about as close as you can get to celebrity status for their kind of work). Also unlike Jaysun, Dick hasn't accepted his own attraction to Bruce who despite the over twenty years he's known Dick, has changed little while Dick has become a man grown. They had sex once in the dungeon that was ill-advised and hurt both of them and probably have it a few more times specifically for those reasons until they start seeing one another on more equal terms (if that ever happens). Tldr; the spectre of Bruce haunts them.

[l0vefreak]

In all seriousness nosferatu shouldn’t get any flowers for its depiction of the roma. The vampire as a literary genre is heavily influenced by British xenophobia and the small and stereotyped role of Roma in that literature is perhaps one of the most period consistent aesthetics of the 2024 movie. It is also something that is intrinsic to the fearmongering of the other that popularized and relied on depictions of the type in this film to instill horror in its repressed English audience. That mode sees continued use in this movie.