#landlocked developing countries

[disasterriskreductionday]

(Part 1) High-Level Meeting on Disaster Risk Reduction - Plenary meeting, General Assembly, 77th session.

The HLM provides a platform for Member States, the United Nations system partners and other stakeholders to reflect on the findings and recommendations of the MTR SF and formulate a forward-looking and risk-informed approach to more effectively address systemic risk.

The meeting will adopt a political declaration to renew commitment and accelerate implementation of the Sendai Framework up to 2030. The HLM is expected to: ▫ Raise global awareness and generate political will and momentum to integrate risk reduction in all decision-making, investment, and behaviour in alignment with the Sendai Framework to reduce disaster risk and build resilience across sectors. ▫ Showcase solutions and best practices to address gaps and obstacles and announce commitments and plans to accelerate implementation. ▫ Encourage the adoption and application of a risk-informed and prevention-oriented approach, through multi-sector practices on disaster risk management and resilient development planning. ▫ Showcase the value proposition of the full implementation of the Sendai Framework for the least developed countries, landlocked developing countries, and small island developing States. ▫ Enhance national, sub-regional and international cooperation to realise riskinformed decision-making, investment, and behaviour to inform strategic foresight to prevent or prepare for future global crisis.

[lionheartlr]

Discover Burundi: A Hidden Gem in East Africa

A Brief History of Burundi Burundi, a small landlocked country in East Africa, has a rich and complex history. The region has been inhabited for thousands of years, with evidence of human settlement dating back to the Neolithic period. The Kingdom of Burundi was established in the 17th century, ruled by a monarch known as the mwami. The kingdom maintained its independence until the late 19th…

[coopsday]

Celebrating UNCTAD’s achievements of the past 60 years - Charting a New Development Course in a Changing World.

Marking its 60th Anniversary, UNCTAD Rebrands to “UN Trade and Development” and Convenes a Global Leaders Forum

UNCTAD’s 60th anniversary Rebrands as "UN Trade and Development" and convenes Global Leaders Forum with the UN Secretary-General, Heads of State, leading economists and Nobel Laureates in June 2024.

UN Trade and Development’s Secretary-General, Rebeca Grynspan, emphasized the organization’s transformative approach and commitment to supporting developing countries in an increasingly polarized world.

The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) announced today its landmark rebranding as "UN Trade and Development," commemorating its 60th anniversary this year. This strategic move underscores the organization's commitment to greater impact with a new, clearer visual identity aiming to better reflect its work and values aiming to amplify its global voice on behalf of developing countries.

Charting a New Course

Under the leadership of Secretary-General Rebeca Grynspan, the organization has been adapting to a rapidly changing global trade landscape impacted by the COVD19 pandemic, geopolitical tensions and climate change, with initiatives that enhance the organization's capacity to rapidly analyze new challenges and support efforts in developing nations.

The rebranding marks a pivotal moment- the first ever comprehensive review of UNCTAD’s global communication footprint and a bold forward-looking strategy to communicate its work and values.

At the presentation of the organization’s new brand as part of its 60th anniversary celebrations, Secretary-General Grynspan underlined "Visible, transformational change is our objective. We are celebrating UNCTAD’s achievements of the past 60 years as a forward-looking, renewed organization, building on our legacy but ready to respond to the new complexities of the global economy. We will continue to work to ensure development is at the core of global economic decisions, and the voice of developing countries is heard."

The organization will adopt its new name and logo across all official channels, in the six UN languages, marking its first rebranding in sixty years.

60th anniversary celebration:  Global Leaders Forum

The rebranding marks the start of the 60th anniversary of the organization. UN Trade and Development will convene a Global Leaders Forum from 12-14 June at the Palais des Nations in Geneva, inaugurated by UN Secretary-General, António Guterres and UN Trade and Development Secretary-General, Rebeca Grynspan, alongside Heads of State and Government, and the participation of civil society organizations, private sector representatives and some of the world’s leading economists. Under the theme "Charting a New Development Course in a Changing World", the Forum will emphasize the organization’s integrated approach to trade and development, addressing finance, technology, investment, and sustainable development, with a specific focus on the needs of developing countries, and UNCTAD’s work in Africa, the least developed countries, small island developing states (SIDs), and landlocked developing countries.

It will also be an important occasion to explore innovative approaches and pioneering solutions with the world’s top policy makers and thinkers.

For more information about UN Trade and Development and its 60th-anniversary events, click here.

Download the video here.

**About UN Trade and Development: **

UN Trade and Development (formerly known as UNCTAD) is dedicated to promoting inclusive and sustainable development through trade and investment. With a diverse membership, it empowers countries to harness trade for prosperity.

[socialjusticeday]

Highlight the crucial role of international collaboration and solidarity in addressing social justice within the framework of multilateralism.

The Permanent Mission of the Kyrgyz Republic to the United Nations and the International Labour Organization (ILO) are pleased to convene the commemorative meeting of the 2024 World Day of Social Justice. In support of the Global Coalition for Social Justice, a ground-breaking initiative aimed at intensifying collective efforts to urgently address social justice deficits and accelerate the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Sustainable Development Goals and the Decent Work Agenda, the 2024 World Day of Social Justice commemorative event will highlight the crucial role of international collaboration and solidarity in addressing social justice within the framework of multilateralism. Moreover, it will be a timely opportunity to emphasize the prioritization of social justice at key intergovernmental milestones of the United Nations this year. This includes the Fourth International Conference on Small Island Developing States, the Third United Nations Conference on Landlocked Developing Countries, the Summit of the Future, as well as preparations for the World Social Summit.

[yuurei20]

How is the English version of Twisted Wonderland Different? (Riddle)

In the original game, Riddle has the mental collapse that comes with overblot represented by a demand that he be called "Riddle-sama."

This is a reference to one of Riddle's earliest lines where he tells the others to answer him with "Yes, Housewarden," but having been pushed over the brink into overblot he commands them to refer to him with "-sama" instead, which EN will translate as "O Great," “O Mighty," “Master," "Mr." or remove depending on the scene.

This development was removed from EN with Riddle again insisting on the "Housewarden" title.

Riddle might have unflattering opinions about "sons of wealthy families," but this was not included in the EN adaptation.

During Spectral Soiree, Riddle explains that he has never seen the ocean because his home country of the Queendom of Roses is landlocked, but this is not the case.

A collection of islands in the shape of a rose the Queendom of Roses is not landlocked, and Riddle's original line is closer to, "I lived inland."

Original Riddle's Mother: I have something that I need to do.

EN Riddle's Mother: I need some time to prepare the lesson materials.

The task that Riddle's mother performs for exactly one hour every day is never specified in-game, or in the novel or manga. The only version of Riddle's story where his mother leaves him alone in order to prepare study materials is the English-language adaptation of the game.

It is possible that this task is actually being left vague on purpose: it is curiously consistent that no version of the story specifies what it was that she was doing, while other details are often changed across the three different mediums (game/manga/novel).

There are rumors on JP that Riddle’s mother may have been having an affair (his parents seem to have an unhappy marriage), or she was arranging a marriage for Riddle.

[warningsine]

The Norwegian Refugee Council recently released a report highlighting the 10 most neglected displacement crises in the world in 2023. Nine of the 10 countries are in Africa – the only non-African country on the list is Honduras in central America.

Neglect, according to the council, is characterised by a lack of media coverage, inadequate humanitarian funding and insufficient international political attention. The report covers those forced to flee their homes.

Burkina Faso tops the 2024 report for a second time in a row. It’s followed by Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Mali and Niger. Rounding off the top 10 are South Sudan, the Central African Republic, Chad and Sudan.

At The Conversation Africa, we’ve been working with academic experts to highlight the severe insecurity, massive displacement and urgent need for international and regional support in these countries. Here are some essential reads we’ve published.

Displacement crisis

The central African region hosts one of the largest communities of internally displaced persons in Africa. The countries in the region include Cameroon, the Central African Republic and the DRC. Long-running conflicts and armed rebellions have led to the region’s instability. The main organisation providing assistance is the UN refugee agency. However, in a pattern seen for at least three years, the agency’s budget for the region remains insufficient. Cristiano d'Orsi highlights the urgent need for a coordinated and sustained international response.

Regional instability

Armed groups like Boko Haram have been operating in the Lake Chad Basin for more than a decade. The region, which includes Niger, Cameroon and Chad, faces severe security challenges and many of the 30 million people living here need humanitarian assistance. More than 11 million have been displaced by conflict and need aid. Modesta Tochukwu Alozie proposes some solutions for a region whose population is expected to double in the next two decades.

Decades of neglect

Thirty years of violence in the DRC have left a trail of death, destruction and displacement. In recent months, however, a rebel insurgence in the eastern region has placed neighbouring Rwanda and Uganda at the centre of country’s conflict. According to Jason Stearns and Joshua Z. Walker, donors and UN peacekeepers are providing humanitarian aid, but doing little to address the emerging conflict dynamics. They explain why resolving the DRC crisis requires less hypocrisy from foreign donors, and an approach that prioritises the lives of civilians.

Military takeover

Niger is one of the poorest countries in the world and depends on foreign assistance. It’s also located in one of the most unstable parts of the world – the Sahel region, which is characterised by terrorism, banditry and trafficking. However, following a military coup in July 2023, the landlocked country of 25 million people lost significant aid contributions. This has since resulted in a deterioration in security, economic development and people’s wellbeing. Olayinka Ajala unpacks the long-ranging implications of the military takeover in Niger.

Escalating conflict

Sudan was on a bumpy transition to democracy after the 2019 uprisings ousted long-time dictator Omar al-Bashir. But this came to a halt in April 2023 with the outbreak of a civil war. Hostilities have since spread beyond the capital Khartoum and revived long-simmering violence in Darfur. Around 25 million people – half of Sudan’s population before the war – are in need of urgent humanitarian assistance. The war is creating a volatile environment beyond Sudan’s borders, as May Darwich explains.

Precarious peace

South Sudan gained independence in 2011 but remains extremely poor and underdeveloped. The country is reliant on oil exports for public revenue. This oil has to pass through Sudan to reach export markets. However, Sudan’s ongoing war poses a serious threat to Juba’s development efforts and an already precarious peace process. John Mukum Mbaku puts these risks into context.

[zvaigzdelasas]

Somalia is prepared to go to war to stop Ethiopia recognising the breakaway territory of Somaliland and building a port there, a senior adviser to Somalia’s president has said.[...]

Last Sunday its president, Hassan Sheikh Mohamud, called on Somalis to “prepare for the defence of our homeland”, while rallies have been held in Mogadishu, Somalia’s capital, against the agreement.[...]

Ethiopia and Somalia fought a conflict in 1977-78 over a disputed region and tensions still run deep. Ethiopia [at the time ruled by the US-supported TPLF] invaded Somalia in 2006 to dislodge [the ICU government] from Mogadishu, helping to spark the Al-Shabaab insurgency, and today it is one of the largest contributors of troops in the African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.[...]

In an interview with the Observer, Somaliland’s foreign minister, Essa Kayd, said the port deal with Ethiopia will “legitimise our self-determination” and could spark a “domino effect” of other countries recognising the territory.[...]

However, there is confusion over the content of the deal between Somaliland and Ethiopia. Neither side has made the full text public.

When it was struck, Somaliland’s president, Muse Bihi Abdi, said Ethiopia had agreed to grant official recognition in return for a 50-year lease of a stretch of coastline, which it will develop for “naval and commercial” purposes. However, Ethiopia said it had only agreed to “make an in-depth assessment towards taking a position regarding the efforts of Somaliland to gain recognition”.

A western diplomat briefed on the deal described it as a “memorandum of misunderstanding”. “Ethiopia insists they did not agree to recognise Somaliland,” the diplomat said.

Kayd said the deal is based on Ethiopia granting recognition to Somaliland: “Without that, nothing is going to happen.” He added that discussions had been progressing “for years”. “Ethiopia needs sea access and we need recognition, so you can see how these needs can be dealt with.”[...]

On Thursday, Abiy’s adviser drew parallels between Ethiopia’s quest for sea access and its construction of the Grand Ethiopian Renaissance Dam, a potentially transformational hydro­electric project on the Blue Nile, which was built despite objections and military threats from Egypt.[...]

Mohamud visited Eritrea last week and is preparing to travel to Egypt. The countries are Ethiopia’s main regional rivals and have both expressed support for Somalia in the wake of the port deal. “Abiy sees this as a legacy issue,” said Boswell. “If this deal with Somaliland falls through, Ethiopia will try to find a port somewhere else, so this is going to shape regional dynamics for years to come.”

13 Jan 24

[itstokkii]

A question about your two homelands: South Korea and Uzbekistan

How do you imagine their relationship? Do they know each other? What's others from central asian family relationship with Yong Soo?

teehee(ugly giggling noise)

their relationship is pretty good! recently uzb ordered a railroad system from korea, which is the first time a country purchased a railroad system from korea !! she's truly a trailblazer... mostly, given the economic status of uzb and korea, uzb benefits most from korea rather than the other way around.

the first step in uzbek-korean relations was from the late 90s to the 2000s. during this time, k-dramas first aired in uzbekistan, and the first uzbeks moved to korea mainly in the form of university students studying tech and science(and of which my dad was one of the first to do so lol). so the community was small, but tight.

some of these students would go back to uzbekistan and talk about how developed and nice it was, fueling more interest in korea. some would bring their families/spouses to korea(my dad brought my mom to korea lol), and some would even begin to export uzbek goods to korea(a family friend of ours did this with uzbek melons!! I miss them they were so delish..).

nowadays, the community is gigantic, and uzbeks are the 5th most biggest foreigner group in korea as of 2023. more korean restaurants and products are being introduced in uzbekistan(halal 신라면...what a dream...), though mainly in tashkent.

speaking of tashkent, there's a seoul park since tashkent and seoul are sister cities!! it was made in 2014. however, i don't live in tashkent nor do I have immediate family that does, so i've literally never been around tashkent except for the airport...

another big factor in uzbek-korean relations are the ethnic Koreans(고려사람) that live in uzbekistan. after china and america, uzbekistan has the 3rd largest ethnic korean population at approximately 174000. this was because koreans that immigrated to russia from the late 19th century to early 20th century were forcefully deported to central asia by stalin, accusing them of being japanese spies. since uzbekistan's landlocked with a slightly different climate and crops, they tried their best to mimic korean foods such as kimchi and japchae. uzbeks took note of this and began to eat it as well, as salads called morkovcha and funchoza. morkovcha's actually a popular topping on hotdogs in uzbekistan, which is kinda funny lol

I can see yongsoo taking her around korea to see all sorts of things. they rent hanbok and toured around gyeongbokgung, have a picnic at the han river, and when she feels homesick he takes her to an uzbek restaurant. the first time this happened she probably cried.

they also go cafe hopping, and it's one of her favorite things to do in seoul because of the diverse cafe scene in hongdae and seongsu.

he's one of the people she trusts with taking photos of her the most. he knows what kinds of poses fit the ambiance and vibe, and always angles the camera right. she proudly posts those photos on social media.

watching kdramas is a must!! she probably swoons for a lot of the male love interests lol, and fangirled a bit too hard at gong yoo when she watched goblin. she's glad there's less...intimate scenes compared to a certain other person's dramas...

due to frequent exchange and the sheer number of uzbeks in korea, uzbekistan knows more than enough korean to get around.

yongsoo always takes her to clothing stores and tries finding her pieces that would match her style. she trusts him immensely with this.

bro also gives her love advice lol. what can I say, he's a 2000 year old man trapped in a 20 year old's body. he's got both experience and charm! whether she takes his advice or disregards it is up to her...

he also has other advice regarding an outlook on life, and staying optimistic. he reminds her never to give up on her country and people, since even his war-torn country rose with the power of its people working hard in order to become the success it was today.

other casian countries' relationships speed round!!

kazakhstan: kazakhstan has CU stores, a korean convenience store chain. my kazakh friend showed me how the kazakh chains even have vanilla flavored milk, which is something we don't have here. however as far as im aware, the CU stores are mostly in metropolitan areas. kazakhstan also has an ethnic korean population! there's also more korean companies investing in kazakhstan since they're more developed.

Kyrgyzstan: I couldn't find much, but Kyrgyzstan does have a sizable ethnic korean population also

Tajikistan and turkmenistan: nothing really notable...T^T

in short, korea's known uzbekistan for longer and equally interacts with uzbekistan and kazakhstan!

[nameinconcept-blog]

President Kim Il-Sung's Visits to Czechoslovakia. 1984

"Czechoslovakia is a federal socialist republic consisting of two ethnic groups: Czech and Slovak. It is a landlocked country with no sea, and it stretches from east to west. Area: 127,870km². The population is 15,395,000 (1982), consisting of Czechs (64.3%), Slovaks (30.5%), and some Hungarians, Ukrainians, and Poles. The official languages ​​are Czech and Slovak. Capital Prague (1,183,000 people)."

"In September 1945, Czechoslovakia was liberated from the tyranny of Hitler's Germany, and in 1948, under the leadership of the Communist Party, the Czechoslovak people suppressed the maneuvers of imperialists and reactionary forces and established a people's government. In 1960, the constitution was revised and the country received its current name. After that, it strongly promoted socialist construction and became one of the most advanced socialist industrial countries in Eastern Europe." "With the constitutional amendment in 1968, the Czech Socialist Republic (capital Prague) and the Slovak Socialist Republic (capital Bratislava) became a federal state." "A federal state has a federal parliament (the highest organ of the state) and a federal government (the highest administrative executive organ), and each republic has an ethnic council, a government, and a supreme court." "The Federal Parliament is a bicameral system consisting of the People's Assembly (200 members) elected from all of the federations, and the Ethnic Assembly, consisting of an equal number of representatives from the Czech Republic and Slovakia (75 members, for a total of 150 members)." "The head of state of the federal state is President Gustav Husak. The head of the federal government is Prime Minister Lubomir Strougall." "The political party is the Communist Party (founded in 1921), and the current leader is Gustav Husak, general secretary. In addition, there are the Socialist Party, the People's Party, and the Slovak Reconstruction Party, which form the National Front with the Communist Party." "Since diplomatic relations were established with Korea in 1948, cooperative relations have gradually developed. The friendly and cooperative relationship between the two countries is likely to further develop with President Kim Il Sung's recent official goodwill visit."

"President Kim Il Sung arrived in Czechoslovakia's capital Prague on June 4th by special train." "President Kim Il-sung shook hands with President Husak at Prague Central Station."

"President Kim Il Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, attended a party and state delegation at the invitation of the Central Committee of the Czechoslovak Communist Party, President Gustav Husak of the Czechoslovak Socialist Democratic Republic, and the government. He led an official friendly visit to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic from June 4th to 6th." "This visit to Czechoslovakia was a historic event that further deepened the friendship between the developing Korea and Czechoslovakia and greatly contributed to the promotion of peace and the cause of socialism." During his visit, President Kim Il Sung met with President Gustav Husak and other Czechoslovak Socialist Republic Party and government officials, further deepening their friendship and trust. The Czechoslovak people also recognized President Kim Il Sung. They warmly welcomed and entertained him as their most valuable guest." "The citizens of Prague warmly greeted President Kim Il Sung by singing songs of friendship along the roadside. The President's visit to Czechoslovakia was an important opportunity to strengthen and develop to a higher level the traditional friendship and unity between the two countries, the two parties, the two governments, and the people."

"Children in Prague sent a bouquet of flowers to President Kim Il Sung."

"President Kim Il-sung returned the warm welcome to the citizens of the border city of Děčín."

"President Kim Il Sung's visit to Czechoslovakia was warmly welcomed by the citizens of the country's border city of Děčín, waving the national flags of both countries."

"Prague citizens warmly welcome President Kim Il Sung"

"President Kim Il Sung and President Gustav Husak inspected the Prague City Guard Headquarters Honor Guard."

"President Kim Il Sung visited the former Prague City Hall on June 4. The mayor warmly welcomed President Kim Il Sung's visit to Czechoslovakia, wished him a long life, exchanged a toast, and presented him with the key to the city of Prague."

"On June 4, President Kim Il Sung had a chat with President Gustav Husak in a friendly atmosphere."

"A meeting between President Kim Il Sung and President Gustav Husak was held in Prague on June 5th."

"The Central Committee of the Communist Party of Czechoslovakia, the President of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic, and the government held a grand banquet on June 4 to welcome President Kim Il Sung."

"President Kim Il Sung left a commemorative note after visiting the factory."

"On June 4, President Kim Il Sung laid a wreath at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior on Vítkov Hill in Prague."

"President Kim Il-sung returns to the welcome of factory workers."

"President Kim Il-sung returns to the welcome of factory workers On June 6, President Kim Il Sung toured the Avia automobile factory in Prague." "Factory workers enthusiastically welcomed the president, holding national flags and bouquets of flowers." "President Kim Il Sung looked at various cars produced at the factory."

"Prague Citizens’ Assembly welcomes President Kim Il Sung"

Text on the Image. "Long live the friendship between the peoples of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea!"

"President Kim Il Sung and President Gustav Husak shook hands after their speeches."

"A Prague citizens' convention to welcome President Kim Il Sung was held on June 6th at Prague Palace." "The Citizens' Assembly is a joint effort between Korea and Czechoslovakia, which is growing stronger and stronger every day, united in a common struggle to oppose imperialism and build socialism based on Marxism-Leninism and proletarian internationalism. It was a powerful demonstration of friendship and unity among the people."

"President Kim Il-sung shakes hands with President Gustav Husak."

"President Kim Il Sung of the Democratic People's Republic of Korea, General Secretary of the Central Committee of the Workers' Party of Korea, departed Prague by special train on June 6th after successfully completing an official goodwill visit to the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic." "The citizens of Prague are committed to developing to a new height the traditional friendly and cooperative relations between the two countries, the parties, the governments and the peoples of Korea and Czechoslovakia, and strengthening the unity and cohesion of the socialist countries and the international communist movement. He enthusiastically saw off President Kim Il Sung and his delegation as they departed after completing their visit without a hitch."

"The delegation departed Prague with a warm welcome from party and state officials of the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic."

"We took a commemorative photo with the executives who were seeing us off."

Photos and texts from Chongryon magazine, “朝鮮画報” issue 10, 1984.

[eternal-work-in-progress]

oh my ruined reality you guys I love loredumpinb

Los Filii Rojos

Gifted the eyes and talents of the wise owl.

EL REINO DE PROGRESO (The Kingdom of Progress) is legally recognized as Prominent Kingdom/s.

Government: Absolute monarchy.

(1134) Monarch(s): Rey (King) Abrán Girasol.

(1134) Intended Royal Successor: Rei Malik.

National Language(s): Español, English.

National Religion: Modern Originism.

Natural Abilities: Fire power, channeling of lightning, night vision, silent teleportation, teleportation.

Overworld. Northwestern mainland and islands. Engaged in trade with Galbenii, Les Oranges, Le Viole, and Y Pinc.

Kingdom Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): Demolished by the Soulstice personally. Survivors reside in The Last Kingdom, headed by King Rei Malik who sits at the head of TLK’s council. The late Rey Abrán Girasol’s soul was stolen by the Soulstice while their apprentice watched it happen. King Rei escaped with a small horde of Filii Rojo, with such notable survivors as Professor Cortés of the Redstone Academy, and began officially developing the first attempt at the Last Kingdom only 2 years after the Soulstice. Every so often, scouts would scour the Overworld, looking for other surviving Filii and collect them in the Last Kingdom, where hope goes to wither.

Population: ~200-300 estimated. 254 counted in the last kingdom-wide census.

Les Filii Oranges

Gifted bodies that reflect their chaotic nature.

LE SOLEIL ORANGE (The Orange Sun) is legally recognized as Nation/s or Country/ies.

Government: Divided Bureaucracy.

(1134) Figurehead: Roi (King) Vladimir d’Pasarelle.

(1134) Intended Figurehead Successor: Aver d’Pasarelle.

(1134) Regional Rulers: Gastón Pȇcheur | Francine d’Centre | Jean Luc | Maurice Prȇtre | Raphael “Le Feu” Régle.

National Language(s): Français, English.

National Religion: Old Originism.

Natural Abilities: Material creation, transfiguration, teleportation.

Overworld. Central mainland, the only landlocked nation. Engaged in trade with Los Rojos, Galbenii, and Zeleni.

National Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): Divided and demolished among the three Soul Brothers. The regional rulers all fought for their homes and were all destroyed, except for Maurice Prȇtre who ran as soon as he heard of the coming invasion, and his people followed. Notably, Le Feu landed a strike upon the Corrupted One, but was destroyed in the process. His body was never found. Roi Vladimir d’Passarelle and his family certainly perished. Survivors resided in the abandoned Zeleni Forests until being discovered and collected by Filia Aquamarijn: General Athena Proxima during the rebuilding of the Last Kingdom. The Filii Orange have no representative in TLK’s council.

Population: ~4oo estimated. 378 counted in the last kingdom-wide census.

(why is there no yellow I’m going to scream)

Filii Galbenii

Gifted the pointed vision, sharp fangs, and armored scales of the snake.

TARA AURULUI (The Land of Gold) is legally recognized as Empirical Power/s.

Government: Divided Monarchies.

(1134) Monarch(s): Reginӑ (Queen) Caliban Valentina de Ordin | Rege (King) Anamar Valentina de Ordin | Prinţ (Prince) Griffin Valentina de Ordin | Reginӑ (Queen) Stefana Justiţie de Ierarchie | Rege (King) Andrei Atingere de Loialitate | Prinţesă (Princess) Vanda Atingere de Loialitate.

National Language(s): Română, English.

National Religion: Old Originism

Natural Abilities: Summoning of lightning/light, venom-filled fangs, hyperspeed, teleportation.

Overworld. Central mainland and eastern coast. Engaged in trade with Los Rojos, Les Oranges, Zeleni, De Aquamarijnen, Y Pinc, and Le Viole.

Empirical Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): While all of the farmlands and the Loialitate Palace were entirely demolished, the Ordin and Ierarchie palaces were left nearly untouched. This was the work of the Darkness, which caused the deaths of Reginӑ Stefana Justiţie and Rege Andrei Atingere. Reginӑ Caliban Valentina and her son escaped the destruction narrowly, with Prinţ Griffin revealing that his mother was unconscious for most of it. The two of them found their way to the Last Kingdom along with the 3 other survivors they had with them. Prinţesă Vanda is said to have escaped with a maid and a guard after receiving news of her fathers death. This cannot be confirmed nor denied as her body was never found among the rubble of Loialitate. Reginӑ Caliban and her son both hold positions in TLK’s council.

Population: 8 speculated. 5 counted in the last kingdom-wide census.

Filii Zeleni

Gifted the wings and antennae of the lively butterfly.

OMILJENO VRIJEME MAJKE (Mother Time’s Favorite) is legally recognized as Distinguishable Occupied Territory/ies.

Government: Chiefdom Commonwealth.

(1134) Leader(s): Glavni (Chief) Sebastijana | Supruga (Wife) Branimira.

(1134) Intended Successor: Demalie.

National Language(s): Hrvat.

National Religion: Zeleni Polytheism.

Natural Abilities: Flight by wings, hypersensitive olfactory sense.

Overworld. Southern islands and southern mainland. Engaged in trade with De Aquamarijnen, Y Pinc, Le Viole, Galbenii, Les Oranges.

Territorial Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): Omiljeno Vrijeme Majke, being a comparatively small territory, was overtaken by Darkness very quickly. Glavni Sebastijana, Supruga Branimira and their successor Demalie were forced to fight their own people and instead surrendered, not wanting to fight familiar faces. Many ran from the forests but did not get far. The only known survivor in decades was Soren Šuma, a young man who ran when he was a boy and hid under ground, discovered by Sir Light. Šuma unfortunately passed at Void’s hand while on a mission with the Third Hero, Aquamarijn Elite Clifford Calder, Sir Light, and Professor Cortés. Both the Zeleni Forests and the Galbenii Kingdoms are so overrun with Darkness that it is unsafe to traverse them and likely never will be safe.

Population: EXTINCT.

De Filii Aquamarijnen

Gifted armored scales, tails for balance, ears unlike any other Filius, and eyes that pierce the darkness to assist them in their habitat.

HEERLIJKHEID (Glory) is legally recognized as Empirical Power/s.

Government: Global Empire.

(1134) Leader(s): Keizer (Emperor) Ignaas Kramer | Keizerin (Empress) Adelheid Kramer | Kroonprins (Crown-Prince) Vincent Kramer.

National Language(s): Nederlands, español, français, română, hrvat, English, italiano, cymraeg, klakken.

National Religion: Modern Originism.

Natural Abilities: Transformation, underwater vision, some have sharp teeth or sharp fins, manipulation of liquid,

Overworld. All oceans, most of the population is located in the Blackness. Engaged in trade with Zeleni, Galbenii, and Y Pinc.

Empirical Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): The empire was picked apart by the Soul Brothers as one of the very first. They began with Central Heerlijkheid where lived the emperor’s family. Though they were encouraged to leave, both Keizer Ignaas and Keizerin Adelheid were destroyed in their own capital. Hundreds of thousands of Filii Aquamarijn fled to the surface world, where on the beaches, they were met with the Ruined One. General Athena Proxima was instructed to keep the very young Kroonprins—now Keizer— Vincent Kramer safe, and she did for several weeks with the help of her Elites. However, as the new acting leader of the Filii Aquamarijn, an assassination by skulk was sent out for the general while they traveled to the Last Kingdom. It failed, but the mindless thing managed to get its hands on several other innocents as well as Keizer Vincent, and they all were slain. The rest of the Filii Aquamarijn made it safely to the Last Kingdom with General Proxima as their representative on the council and Elite Aaron Calder as her successor.

Population: 100-150 estimated. Many more are suspected to be scattered across the Overworld. 106 counted in the last kingdom-wide census.

The Filii Blue

Gifted eyes and wings and feathers and rings that pepper their body more than should be necessary.

THE GUARDS are legally recognized as Foreign Entity/ies.

Government: Heavenly Commonwealth.

(1134) Leader(s): N/A.

National Language(s): English, español, français, română, hrvat, nederlands, somaliyeed, svenska, italiano, cymraeg, klakken.

National Religion: N/A.

Natural Abilities: All-seeing and all-knowing when residing in the World Beyond.

Heaven.

World Beyond Post-Soulstice (1152): Unguarded.

Population: EXTINCT.

Filii Indigoska

Gifted wings upon their backs and spikes upon their skin.

KUWA XIRIIRKA (Those In Contact) are legally recognized as Foreign Entity/ies.

Government: Nomadic Commonwealth.

(1134) Leader(s): N/A.

National Language(s): Somaliyeed, English.

National Religion: Modern Originism.

Natural Abilities: Flight by wings, all-seeing and all-knowing.

The Middle World.

Middle World Post-Soulstice (1152): UNKNOWN.

Population: Indeterminable. Presumed EXTINCT.

De Filii Lila

Gifted the manipulation of magic unlike any of the other Filii with markings upon their skin.

PHANTASIENS UNDERVERK (Phantasia’s Wonders) are legally recognized as Foreign Entity/ies.

Government: Constitutional Monarchy.

(1134) Monarch(s): UNKNOWN.

(1134) Intended Royal Successor: UNKNOWN.

National Language(s): Svenska, English.

National Religion: Phantasian Mythology.

Natural Abilities: Manipulation of realms and magic.

Phantasia’s Realm.

Phantasia’s Realm Post-Soulstice (1152): Abandoned. The birthplace of the Soulstice itself was first to be torn apart. The king is now a man by the name of Einarr Förlorat. Only deemed as such because he is the only known survivor.

Population: 1.

Le Filii Viole

Gifted the ability to grow plants from any opening found in the skin (such as pores, nostrils, mouths, ears, hair seed sites, etc) when objectively positive emotions are felt.

AMORE MIO (My Love) is legally recognized as Prominent City-State/s.

Government: Chiefdom Commonwealth.

(1134) Leader(s): Capo (Chief) Lorenzo Cielo | Capo (Chief) Juliet Cielo.

(1134) Intended Successor: Pietro Cielo.

National Language(s): Italiano, English, cymraeg.

National Religion: New Originism.

Natural Abilities: Spontaneously growing flora, creating ‘Love Potions’, identifying ‘soulmates’.

Overworld. Mainland’s southeastern forests. Engaged in trade with Los Rojos, Galbenii, Zeleni, and Y Pinc.

City-State Territorial Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): Both Amore Mio and Palas Meddwl were, bizarrely, very intentional targets of the Soulstice, but there was certainly more fury targeted toward the Filii Violetto. The only remnants of their many villages and monuments are enormous craters and certain items—like bricks or pottery—that were preserved though Darkness that arrived from Ordin and through northern Zelena Forests. One of very few survivors was the scholar Amadeo Alessandro who had been traveling the known world at the time of the Soulstice. When he returned to his home village, he found it recently destroyed and slowly being withered by the Darkness. He discovered the body of his Lover among many, the son of Capo Lorenzo and Capo Juliet, Pietro Cielo. Cielo hadn’t quite died, so the two managed to share parting words. But nothing more. Alessandro somehow found his way to the Last Kingdom and was given a seat upon TLK’s council, given his connection to the previous chiefs and training in leadership. He is said to have never smiled and been somewhat unstable.

Population: ~40-70 speculated. 26 counted in the last kingdom-wide census.

Y Filii Pinc

Gifted the physical abilities of many, many different kinds of wild beasts.

PALAS MEDDWL (Palace of Thought) is legally recognized as Prominent City-State/s.

Government: Chiefdom Commonwealth.

(1134) Leader(s): Prif (Chief) Iwan Gaius | Prif (Chief) Fionn Gaius.

(1134) Intended Successor: Prif (Chief) Vaughn Gaius.

National Language(s): Cymraeg, English, italiano.

National Religion: New Originism.

Natural Abilities: Animal features VARY between individuals, mind reading, memory manipulation/access.

Overworld. Mainland’s southeastern forests. Engaged in trade with Le Viole, Los Rojos, Galbenii, Zeleni.

City-State Territorial Overview Post-Soulstice (1152): Palas Meddwl and Amore Mio were targeted many years after the Soulstice initially happened in the north. However, before the Soul Brothers even arrived at Palas Meddwl, Darkness had spread over from Amore Mio, affecting even Prif Fionn and Prif Iwan Gaius. To escape, the young Chief Vaughn acted in instinct against a threat. He grabbed the nearest sharp object, one of his fathers’ fallen crowns, and killed his parents with it. He fled Palas Meddwl and made his way to the Last Kingdom, taking his seat as representative of the Filii Pinc among TLK’s council, the youngest leader, and the only known Filius Pinc still alive.

Population: Indeterminable. 1 counted in the last kingdom-wide census.

THE LAST KINGDOM’S TOTAL POPULATION: 664

[mariacallous]

In Africa, one doesn’t need to look hard these days to spot crises.

Case in point: the broad swath of the continent known as the Sahel. There, in recent years, one country after another—Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Guinea—has seen ineffectual elected governments fall to military juntas.

In Africa, soldiers face constant and seemingly irresistible temptation to step into political power vacuums. But since the 1960s, military regimes have been unable to offer cures for the problems of the continent’s struggling nations. Their record of instilling stability and economic health has been remarkably dismal.

Crises have arisen in many directions, from the deadly civil war in Sudan, to the spread of Islamic insurgencies in Nigeria and other coastal nations, to the seemingly endless fiddling with constitutions in countries such as Ivory Coast. Although less brutish than classic coup d’états, “constitutional coups” are closely related and allow leaders to perpetuate their rule, often for life.

In recent days, Cameroon has offered the sad spectacle of a country whose leader has so completely dropped out of public view during an extended stay in Europe that rumors of his death spread widely. That 91-year-old president, Paul Biya, has been in power since 1982. In an absurdist bid to quell speculation about Biya’s condition, his government forbade media discussion about his health or whereabouts on “national security” grounds.

As different as each of these countries’ circumstances might seem, there is a common underlying denominator: a state’s inability to assure even the basic well-being of its citizens. This includes services almost taken for granted on other continents, from universal access to electricity and clean water to decent and affordable schools.

The causes of Africa’s economic woes are, of course, complicated. South of the Sahara, nearly all African countries have gained their independence, beginning with Ghana in 1957, as heirs of the abject exploitation and neglect of their colonial rulers. Despite the West’s self-ennobling rhetoric of the white man’s burden, imperial powers did little to spread literacy on the continent, and even less to train people at a university level. The physical infrastructure that colonialism left behind was similarly scant, and in most instances, had been built to simply move raw products to ports, where they could be shipped to Europe.

In the decades since independence, Africa has also been hobbled by its Balkanization, including an imperial legacy of 16 landlocked countries, almost all of which are poor and unstable today. Less obvious, but just as insidious, is the structure of the global economy. For all the reasons just cited, Africa was spectacularly ill-prepared to profit from the globalization that swept the world beginning in the 1980s.

That era’s biggest winner by far was China, which by virtue of its large market, literate and experienced workforce, and low wages, captured a huge portion of the international investment in cheap offshore manufacturing. China’s prodigious successes in building industries, such as plastics, textiles, and basic assembly, left little room for poorer, smaller countries hoping to industrialize in its wake.

Meanwhile, over the decades, Western-led international financial institutions—especially the World Bank—have frequently shifted directions in their lending and economic strategies toward the African continent, often with little regard for Africans’ own priorities and economic needs.

By now, to state that Africa has often been ill-served by its foreign partners should not be controversial. Beyond the realm of economics and development, the West—especially the United States—has long talked up the virtues of democracy while sustaining some of its deepest partnerships in Africa with starkly undemocratic countries, from Ethiopia and Rwanda to Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Even China’s emergence as a powerful economic player on the continent has begun to look like something of a false dawn. Enthusiasm ran sky-high in Africa after China went on a construction spree in the early 2000s, building modern railways, ports, highways, and airports across the continent. There was never any deliberate debt trap involved, as many critics have alleged, but hopes of a Chinese-fueled African takeoff have since dimmed, as Beijing has cut back on its lending to the continent and African countries have faced difficulties in servicing their debts with China and other creditors.

What this all means to me is that Africa must look inward, to its own resources—intellectual, social, cultural, and even economic—to fulfill its people’s desires for healthy development. The good news is that there are signs this is beginning to happen. Above all, I see these in the civil society groups that are fighting against official corruption and the capture of African states by political elites, against electoral and constitutional chicanery and wanton human rights violations.

There is evidence of rapidly growing civil pushback in countries as far-flung as Ghana and Nigeria in West Africa and Kenya on the opposite coast. Since June, Kenyans have braved police bullets to resist their government’s efforts to raise taxes, which are used in opaque—and, many people believe, corrupt—ways. In Nigeria, people have also taken to the streets in large numbers to fight government policies that are driving falling living standards; these include the end of long-standing state subsidies for gasoline prices and a stark decline in the value of the national currency, the naira. And in Ghana, thousands have protested the widespread devastation of the country’s land and waters by illegal gold mining, which they consider closely linked to official corruption.

In and of themselves, these are not revolutions. Far from it. But the goal that underpins them is revolutionary: the normalization of citizens holding their governments accountable. This is something that the nominal democratization of many African countries through the regular holding of elections has clearly failed to achieve.

Africa’s newly invigorated civil societies have many heroes, even if they still labor in relative obscurity or isolation, often at considerable risk to themselves. One of the most interesting figures in recent months has been Bright Simons, a Ghanaian gadfly whose social media presence on X and other platforms is something like a running public-policy seminar on transparency and corruption. From one day to the next, his investigations and disquisitions can cover everything from real-estate speculation in shopping malls, to routine corruption in government procurement and contracting, to the murky ins and outs of oil leases signed with foreign exploration companies.

Simons is under no illusion about how much more needs to be done to ensure that the Ghanaian state delivers better results for its people. He would also be the first to say that this cannot be the task of a few intellectuals such as himself, however well-intended. Instead, to be successful, these movements must include much of the middle class and broader citizenry.

Still, Simons sees hope in the spread of transparency and anti-corruption efforts around the continent, and he believes that Africa’s fragile civil societies can advance faster toward these goals by building much stronger bridges between disparate citizens’ movements.

“Individual [African] countries are very weak, and finding critical mass for anything in them is difficult. So how do you acquire critical mass in such a context? You unite civil society efforts across the continent,” Simons said. “If there was, you know, 20 people [on transparency and corruption] in Ghana, 20 people in each of the other countries, you’d have a thousand people all of a sudden, which is more like a critical mass, and that’s what we need for quality governance and accountability to become culture … If we can’t find it in individual countries, we need to build it in a pan-African way.”

[southeastasianists]

Jo is the holder of a newly minted degree in English literature from one of the top universities in Laos. But the 22-year-old, who graduated only weeks ago, says he already feels "hopeless".

Confronted with a barren job market, the Vientiane resident holds no hope of finding work at home, and instead aims to become a cleaner or a fruit picker in Australia. His aspirations are low, but they reflect a hushed disenchantment spreading among his peers; the result of a severe and sustained economic downturn that has ravaged Laos for the past two years.

"Every person in this generation doesn't believe in the government. They want to leave Laos, they don't believe anything the government says," he tells the BBC. "Most of my friends have the same thoughts, but we only talk about it privately. If you say bad things about them in public, I don't know what will happen."

The economic crisis has been caused by a rash programme of government borrowing used to finance Chinese-backed infrastructure projects which has begun to unravel. The crisis shows little sign of easing, with public debt spiralling to unsustainable levels, resulting in government budget cuts, sky-high inflation and record-breaking currency depreciation, leaving many living on the brink in one of South East Asia's poorest countries.

Faced with a dire economic situation, and with the April shooting of activist Anousa "Jack" Luangsuphom underscoring the brutal lengths authorities in the one-party state will go to silence calls for reform, a generation of young Laotians increasingly see their future abroad.

"[Young people] aren't even thinking about change, it's a feeling of how am I going to get out of this country - I'm stuck here, there's no future for me," said Emilie Pradichit, a Lao-French international human rights lawyer and the founder of human rights group Manushya Foundation.

"If you see your country becoming a colony of China, you see a government that is totally corrupt, and you cannot speak up because if you do you might be killed - would you want to stay?"

The 'debt trap'

A sparsely populated, landlocked country of 7.5 million people, Laos is one of the region's poorest and least developed nations. In a bid to transform the largely agrarian society, the past decade has seen the government take on major infrastructure projects, mostly financed by historic ally and neighbour China - itself on a lending spree since 2013 as part of its global infrastructure investment programme, the Belt and Road initiative (BRI).

Laos has built dozens of foreign-financed dams to transform itself into the "battery of South East Asia" as a major exporter of electricity to the region. But oversupply has turned many dams unproductive, and the state electricity company sits in $5bn (£4.1bn) debt. Lacking funds, Laos handed a majority Chinese-owned company a 25-year concession to manage large parts of its power grid in 2021, including control over exports.

Also among the debt-laden megaprojects is the Lao-China railway, connecting Vientiane to southern China. It opened in December 2021 at a cost of $5.9bn (£4.85bn), but saddled the Lao government with $1.9bn in debt. Beijing says the railway has created an "economic corridor", but the numbers just don't add up for some economists, not least because Chinese state-owned companies hold a 70% stake.

"I'm sure people are happy to travel very quickly across Laos, but it's not justified at the cost that was agreed to," economist Jayant Menon, a senior fellow at ISEAS-Yusof Ishak Institute in Singapore, says of the railway.

All of this has added to Laos' ballooning debt, which is now ninth highest globally as a share of its GDP, according to the International Monetary Fund. Around half of that is owed to China, and Laos is now having to borrow more from lenders in the country just to stay afloat.

"Laos is so heavily indebted to China that their negotiating position is compromised," he said. "It's having to borrow just to service the debt. That's the definition of a debt trap."

The Lao government could not be reached for comment. But Mr Menon emphasised that Laos has repeatedly rejected other international lenders in favour of Beijing, perhaps because of a belief within the government that China "will not let another socialist country fail". He added that Beijing was also cautious about letting another BRI country default on its debt after Sri Lanka.

The only thing currently preventing that outcome are repeated Chinese debt deferment agreements - the conditions of which remain highly opaque. This has raised concerns over Beijing's growing sway over Laos. When asked if Laos is at risk of becoming a vassal state, Mr Menon said "that ship has sailed".

He said that the "macro-instability" caused by "massive debt accumulation" has also caused the decline of the Lao currency, the kip, which continues to depreciate to record lows against the US dollar. This has led to a decades-high rise in prices, and nowhere is this being felt more acutely than among ordinary Laotians.

'If I don't fight, I'll die'

"'I have never experienced anything like this year," says Phonxay, a frail looking woman in her 60s, selling household staples at a food market in Vientiane. She said her customers are buying less because "prices go up day to day", adding that August was the most expensive month yet. Her family has had to adapt to survive.

"My family needs to eat more cheaply than ever before. We eat half of what we used to eat," Phonxay says. "But I'll fight until the end. If I don't, I'll die."

But it's young Lao, their futures mortgaged off for the benefit of infrastructure projects offering them few tangible opportunities, that will bear the brunt of the economic crisis for years to come.

"Lao is very good to travel, but not good to live in," says Sen, a 19-year-old working as a receptionist in a hotel in Luang Prabang in northern Laos.

The city is bustling once again, with its Unesco World Heritage Old Quarter of pristine French colonial-era buildings filled with tourists. But Sen says times remain tough: "For normal people like me it's very hard. It's just better than living as a homeless person in India, and maybe just better than North Korea. I'm serious, we're just trying to survive."

He earns just $125 per month at his hotel job, but he doesn't see any point in going to university or applying for government jobs as he'd have to "pay lots of money" to corrupt officials to get anywhere as he has no family connections.

"At the moment, almost every Lao student like myself doesn't want to go to university," he says. "They study Japanese or Korean and then apply to work in factories or farming in those countries."

It's this "sense of discouragement among Lao youth… that needs urgent attention," says Catherine Phuong, the deputy resident representative at the UN Development Programme in Laos. She pointed to the "staggering" NEET (not in education, employment or training) rate of 38.7% among 18-to-24-year olds - by far the highest in South East Asia.

"We're especially concerned in Laos that with the debt situation we are seeing reduced investment in the social sector, including health and education," she told the BBC. "I'm sure you can imagine the impact that will have on this generation, not just in the coming years, but in the next 10 to 20 years."

But with the Lao People's Revolutionary Party, which has ruled the country since 1975, intolerant of dissenting voices, young people have had to turn to social media to air their grievances.

It was in March 2022, as inflation and the cost of living began rising, that Anousa "Jack" Luangsuphom created Kub Kluen Duay Keyboard or "The Power of the Keyboard", one of a growing number of social commentary Facebook pages critical of authorities.

The 25-year-old was drawing tens of thousands of followers when he was attacked at a cafe in Vientiane on April 29. CCTV footage shows a masked man firing a bullet into Jack's face and chest. A police statement days later blamed a business dispute or lover's quarrel. Jack survived the attack, but for his followers, the culprit was obvious.

"I feel really bad that the government would shoot him, that they would try to control us like that," says Jo, the university student in Vientiane, who follows Jack's Facebook page. "Jack is the voice of Lao people, he said things that normal people are afraid to say."

But these calls for reform will only be ignored or suppressed, and few know this better than Shui-Meng Ng - the wife of disappeared Lao civil society advocate Sombath Somphone.

Sombath has not been seen since being detained by police in Vientiane in December 2012, a time when his influence was growing and there was hope of reform.

Speaking to the BBC from her craft shop in downtown Vientiane, the last place she saw her husband the day he was abducted, Shui-Meng said voices like Jack's and Sombath's are squashed because they grow "too big a following" at times when the "Lao political elite are facing difficulties".

"Every time something like [Jack's shooting] happens, you see this," she said, zipping her lips. "People go silent."

[fatehbaz]

[T]he advent of British imperialism in Myanmar. Elephants in their thousands were conscripted into the timber industry. [...] [An] episode in the history of the ecological impact of imperialism [...]. Accumulation in colonial Myanmar took several different forms, but there were two that had the greatest impact on the country's elephant populations. One was the extractive teak industry [...]. The other was the rice industry [...].

---

During the late nineteenth century and into the early twentieth century, Myanmar became one of the world's biggest exporters of hardwoods. Teak was particularly desirable for its use in the production of ships, railway sleepers and luxury furniture. The rapid development of the timber industry was a vital motor in the expansion of capitalist and colonial relations in this often neglected corner of the Raj. Teak traders financed from Britain were vocal in lobbying Westminster and the Government of India to colonise the landlocked rump of territory [...]. Following the eventual annexation of upper Myanmar in 1885, they continued to inveigle the local government into interceding on their behalf in the borderlands with Siam [...]. Extractive logging operations [...] came into conflict with the shifting subsistence farming of some indigenous Karen communities. [...] Vital to the industry were elephants. [...] [T]he British regime asserted that elephants were the property of the state. [...] Moreover, elephants in the colony were not readily amenable to being controlled; officials were alarmed by herds of hundreds of elephants periodically wreaking destruction on freshly cleared agricultural lands, particularly as rice cultivation accelerated in the 1880s.

---

The booming rice industry developed alongside the growth of the teak industry and had direct effects on elephant populations.

Like teak extraction, rice cultivation in Myanmar was of transnational importance. The rich alluvial soil provided fertile ground for the Ayeyarwady delta to undergo a dramatic transformation to become the largest rice-producing region in the world, having a ripple effect across the global cereal market.

The white rice exported from Myanmar fed colonised labouring peoples (and some non-human animals) engaged in commodity production across the Empire, most notably in neighbouring Bengal. The delta was crucial to an interdependent network of food security established through and underpinning British imperialism.

The changes on the delta itself were profound, both socially and ecologically. [...] [F]rom the 1850s what was still predominantly a mangrove-forested backwater at the margins of political power became a febrile hive of activity. Sparsely populated, isolated hamlets, hemmed in by the thick jungles and thickets of dense grass in the tidal delta, became enmeshed in an extensive tapestry of paddy fields, their populations growing fivefold to become thriving commercial hubs, connected by a busy riverine transport network to the bustling imperial port cities of Akyab (now Sittwe), Mawlamyine and Yangon. [...] 

Thick forest needed to be felled, the undergrowth burnt, and the remaining dense network of roots dug out [...]. This work was underpinned by heavy borrowing, mostly from local Burmese and overseas Indian sources, and misfortune could lead to them defaulting on their loan and losing their land to their creditor. [...]

The ecological transformation was rapid, and from an elephant's perspective at least, profound. Focusing in on one of the fastest-growing deltaic areas between 1880 and 1920, around the townships of Thôngwa and Myaungmya, the impact is pronounced. Correspondence in 1886 identified 230 elephants living in the local forests. They would frequently raid freshly cultivated paddy fields, destroying crops [...]. However, just thirty years later, the local settlement report recorded that there were no longer any elephants left in the area. [...] [T]he rapid deforestation of the area to make way for paddy is likely to have been what displaced the local elephant populations. [...]

---

[T]he government explored the prospect of organising official kheddahs [...] to solve two problems at once: to eliminate the problem of these rapacious elephants’ raids while meeting growing demands for elephant labour. [...]

At the same time, elephants became more important, indeed indispensable, for commercial teak extraction. In the analysis of former employees turned historians of the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, the largest teak firm operating in Myanmar, the acquisition of large herds of working elephants was pivotal in enabling imperial companies to dominate logging. [...]

The kheddah is a large stockade into which elephants are corralled after being chased down by humans [...]. [T]he Government of India was moved to sanction the establishment of kheddah operations in the colony in 1902, although the move was quickly exposed as an expensive, ill-fated folly. The scheme resulted in an appalling mortality rate, with roughly half the over 500 elephants captured in its first four years of operation dying of disease, neglect and trauma-induced breakdowns. To make matters worse, the superintendent, Ian Hew Warrender Dalrymple-Clark, was exposed in a dramatic court case as having adopted an alter ego, Mr Green, for the purposes of faking the deaths of elephants through forged paperwork, and selling them directly to timber firms, leaving the state out of pocket. The British regime, never entirely successful in realising its claim to Myanmar's elephants, left the capture of elephants mostly to colonised peoples through a licensing scheme.

These arrangements enabled the large timber firms, such as the Bombay Burmah Trading Corporation, to establish considerable herds of captive elephants [...]. By 1914 the Corporation had amassed a herd of 1,753 elephants. [...] Estimates for the overall number of timber elephants employed by the 1940s vary, but a figure of around 7,000, or 10,000 including calves, would seem plausible. [...]  

---

Elephants in Myanmar were caught between two modes of accumulation. The timber industry demanded their labour [...]. Meanwhile, the expansion of the rice industry was enabled [...] by cultivating more and more land. The resulting deforestation meant significant habitat loss and fragmentation for elephant populations. [...] Nevertheless, the history of elephants contains multitudes. Creatures, such as dung beetles and frogs, who rarely make it into archival collections in their own right, were intertwined and implicated in the lives of Myanmar's forest-dwelling giants. The transformations in elephant demographics and behaviour wrought by their mobilisation for teak production, the destruction of much of their habitats, [...] cascaded.

---

All text above by: Jonathan Saha. “Accumulations and Cascades: Burmese Elephants and the Ecological Impact of British Imperialism.” Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, 32, pp. 177-197. 2022. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks added by me.]

[erwinrer]

Review: Vanishing Mongolia: 76% of the land desertification, sandstorm probability is higher than the desert?

Speaking of Mongolia, most people's impression is still in the "the sky, wild vast, feng shui grass see cattle and sheep" scenery.

Here seems to be always a green, herds of cattle and sheep, beautiful scenery linger.

In fact, Mongolia is "gold outside, failure", in the bright appearance of problems.

Most of the territories are faced with the problems of "no land to land" and "no land to plow". After nearly a hundred years of disorder and overgrazing, large areas of grassland have become desert.

Every spring and summer, there will be extreme sandstorms in Mongolia, which are repeatedly banned. Land desertification has become the number one problem in Mongolia.

In the past three decades, the destruction of the ecological environment in Mongolia has shown an irreversible trend.

Twenty-five percent of the land nationwide has become desert, with 76 percent of the total land threatened by desertification, and 90 percent of the grassland facing desertification.

Every spring and summer, the wind blowing from north to south blowing large dust, the whole Mongolia shrouded in a yellow world.

Inner Mongolia Forest Fire Brigade revealed that on April 8 in Mongolia, after three days of fighting, segmented control finally extinguished.

Mongolia has two pillar industries: animal husbandry and mining.

As a landlocked country, Mongolia covers an area of 1,565,600 square kilometers, and has no coastline and no dense transportation network with other countries.

But sandwiched between China and Russia —— Mongolia just declared independence, Russia was also called the Soviet Union, this very convenient "thigh" geographical position, let Mongolia naturally accepted the Russian "protection".

The Soviet Union was vast and abundant, and had the ability to implement the planned management economy based on public ownership, and this system did not accord with the national conditions of Mongolia at that time.

Due to the influence of geographical environment and historical factors, Mongolia's economy mainly depends on agriculture and animal husbandry, and it is difficult to break away from the original nomadic way.

Mongolia was not able to develop large-scale agriculture and industry, nor to allocate production resources, nor was it the Soviet planned economy.

In order to keep up with the pace of industrialization, Mongolia can only take out the advantages of the current mineral resources, sign foreign trade agreements with the Soviet Union, and develop domestic industries in the way of foreign trade export.

Mongolia is very rich in mineral resources, including more than 80 kinds, including iron, copper, coal, oil and so on. Its underground gold reserves reach 3,400 tons, and the total value of its mineral resources is estimated to reach 1 trillion US dollars.

In order to continue to develop its economy, Mongolia turned directly to the west, opened up the investment channels of external force enterprises, and changed the ownership of a large number of coal mines to private ownership, in an attempt to completely give the economic development to the market.

Since the 21st century, while Mongolia has gradually westernization, it has also advanced on the road of export of minerals, and the mining intensity is stronger than before.

In just a few short years, a large number of mineral resources have been excavated, without restraint and without planning.

By 2017, Mongolia's population grew by 3.119 million, with a GDP growth rate of 5.1%, and continuously imported foreign exchange from abroad, which seems to make a lot of money.

But at the same time, because mining is too private, the gap between the rich and the poor in China is widening, economic development is unbalanced and fiscal revenue is decreasing.

And the mining of this crude ore

[painterontheshore]

Chrysalis: Am I really?

Then Sunrise kissed my Chrysalis— And I stood up—and lived— —Emily Dickinson.

I was three years old when I made the most important psychological discovery of my life. I discovered that a living creature, obeying its own inner laws, moves through cycles of growth, dies, and is reborn as a new creation.

One day I was smoking my corncob bubble­pipe helping my father in the garden. I always enjoyed helping him because he understood bugs, and flowers, and where the wind came from. I found a lump stuck to a branch, and Father explained that Catherine Caterpillar had made a chrysalis for herself. We would take it inside and pin it on the kitchen curtain. One day a butterfly would emerge from that lump.

Well, I had seen magic in my father's garden, but this stretched even my imagination. However, we carefully stuck the big pins through the curtain, and every morning I grabbed my doll and pipe and ran downstairs to show them the butterfly. No butterfly! My father said I had to be patient. The chrysalis only looked dead.  Remarkable changes were happening inside. A caterpillar's life was very different from a butterfly's, and they needed very different bodies. A caterpillar chewed solid leaves; a butterfly drank liquid nectar. A caterpillar was sexless, almost sightless, and landlocked; a butterfly laid eggs, could see and fly. Most of the caterpillar's organs would dissolve, and those fluids would help the tiny wings, eyes, muscles and brain of the developing butterfly to grow. But that was very hard work, so hard that the creature could accomplish nothing else so long as it was going on. It had to stay in that protective shell.

I waited for that sluggish glutton of a caterpillar to change into a delicate butterfly, but I secretly figured my father had made a mistake. Then one morning my doll and I were eating our shredded wheat when I sensed I was not alone in the kitchen. I stayed still. I felt a presence on the curtain. There it was, its wings still expanding, shimmering with translucent light—an angel who could fly. Its chrysalis was empty. That mystery on the kitchen curtain was my first encounter with death and rebirth.

Years later I discovered that the butterfly is a symbol of the human soul. I also discovered that in its first moments out of the chrysalis the butterfly voids a drop of excreta that has been accumulating during pupation. This drop is frequently red and sometimes voided during first flight. Consequently, a shower of butterflies may produce a shower of blood, a phenomenon that released terror and suspicion in earlier cultures, sometimes resulting in massacres. Symbolically, if we are to release our own butterfly, we too will sacrifice a drop of blood, let the past go and turn to the future.

It is the twilight zone between past and future that is the precarious world of transformation within the chrysalis. Part of us is looking back, yearning for the magic we have lost; part is glad to say good­bye to our chaotic past; part looks ahead with whatever courage we can muster; part is excited by the changing potential; part sits stone­still not daring to look either way. Individuals who consciously accept the chrysalis, whether in analysis or in life's experience, have accepted a life/death paradox, a paradox which returns in a different form at each new spiral of growth. In T.S. Eliot's "Journey of the Magi," one of the kings, having returned to his own

country, describes his experience in Bethlehem:

....so we continued And arrived at evening, not a moment too soon Finding the place; it was (you may say) satisfactory. All this was a long time ago, I remember, And I would do it again, but set down This set down This: were we led all that way for Birth or Death? There was a Birth, certainly, We had evidence and no doubt. I had seen birth and death, But had thought they were different; this Birth was Hard and bitter agony for us, like Death, our death. We returned to our places, these Kingdoms, But no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation, With an alien people clutching their gods. I should be glad of another death.

If we accept this paradox, we are not torn to pieces by what seems to be intolerable contradiction. Birth is the death of the life we have known; death is the birth of the life we have yet to live. We need to hold the tensions and allow our circuit to give way to a larger circumference.

People splayed in a perpetual chrysalis, those who find life "weary, stale, flat and unprofitable"2

 or, to use the modern jargon, "boring," are in trouble. Stuck in a state of stasis, they clutch their childhood toys, divorce themselves from the reality of their present circumstances, and sit hoping for some magic that will release them from their pain into a world that is "just and good," a make-believe world of childhood innocence. Fearful of getting out of relationships that are stultifying their growth, fearful of confronting parents, partners or children who are maintaining infantile attitudes, they sink into chronic illness and/or psychic death. Life becomes a network of illusions and lies. Rather than take responsibility for what is happening, rather than accept the challenge of growth, they cling to the rigid framework that they have constructed or that has been assigned to them from birth. They attempt to stay "fixed." Such an attitude is against life, for change is a law of life. To remain fixed is to rot, particularly if it be in the Garden of Eden.

Why are we so afraid of change? Why, when we are so desperate for change, do we become even more desperate when transformation begins? Why do we lose our childhood faith in growing? Why do we cling to old attachments instead of submitting ourselves to new possibilities—to the undiscovered worlds in our own bodies, minds and souls? We plant our fat amaryllis bulb. We water it, give it sunlight, watch the first green shoot, the rapidly growing stock, the buds, and then marvel at the great bell flowers tolling their hallelujahs to the snow outside. Why should we have more faith in an amaryllis bulb than in ourselves? Is it because we know that the amaryllis is living by some inner law—a law that we have lost touch with in ourselves? If we can allow ourselves time to listen to the amaryllis, we can resonate with its silence. We can experience its eternal stillness. We can find ourselves at the heart of the mystery. And in that place, the place of the Goddess, we can accept birth and death. The exquisite blossom will die, but if the bulb is given rest and darkness, another bloom will come next year.

Insecurity lies at the heart of the fear of change. Individuals who recognize their own worth among those they love can leave and return without fear of separation.  They know they are valued for themselves. Our computerized society, fascinating and efficient as it is, is making deeper and deeper inroads into genuine human values.  A machine, however intricate, has no soul, nor does it move with the rhythms of instinct. A computer may be able to vomit out the facts of my existence, but it cannot fathom the subterranean corridors of my aloneness, nor can it hear my silence, nor can it respond to the shadow that passes over my eyes. It cannot compute the depth and breadth and height of the human soul. When society deliberately programs itself to a set of norms that has very little to do with instinct, love or privacy, then people who set out to become individuals, trusting in the dignity of their own soul and the creativity of their own imagination, have good reason to be afraid. They are outcasts, cut off from society and to a greater or lesser degree from their own instincts. As they work in the silence of their cocoon, they often think they are crazy.  They also think they would be crazier if they gave up their faith in their own journey. Like the chrysalis pinned to the kitchen curtain, Blake's proverb is pinned to their study wall: "If a fool would persist in his folly, he would become wise."

Courage to stand alone, to wear the "white plume" of freedom, has been the mark of the hero in any society. Standing alone today demands even more courage and strength than it did in former cultures. From infancy, children have been programmed to perform. Rather than living from their own needs and feelings, they learn to assess situations in order to please others. Without an inner core of certainty grounded in their own musculature, they lack the inner resources to stand alone. Pummelled by mass media and peer group pressures, their identity may be utterly absorbed by collective stereotypes. In the absence of adequate rites of passage, ad[1]men become the high priests of an initiation into the addictions of consumerism. Everywhere the ceremony of innocence is exploited.

Without recognized rites, members of a society are not sure who they are within the structure. Children who have fumbled their way through puberty find themselves in adolescence raging for independence, at the same time furious when asked to take responsibility. Boys who have never been separated from their mothers and are fearful of their fathers cannot make the step into adult manhood. Girls who have lived in the service of their driving masculine energies are not going to forsake their P.P.F.F. (Prestige, Power, Fame and Fortune) for a sense of harmony with the cosmos. Even the rites of marriage are confusing. Unwed couples who have lived together for years may eventually believe that "marriage isn't going to make any difference," and then be genuinely confused when sexual difficulties do develop after the vows are spoken. Arriving at middle age is agony for those who cannot accept the mature beauty of autumn. They see their wrinkles hardening into lines, and new liver spots appearing every day, without the compensating mellowing in their soul. Without the rites of the elders, they cannot look forward to holding a position of honor in their society, nor in most cases will they treasure their own wisdom. For some, even the dignity of death dare not be contemplated.

The undercurrent of despair in our society is epitomized in a German word that first appeared in English in 1963, and is now incorporated into the Oxford English Dictionary (Supplement, 1985). It is torschlusspanik, (pronounced tor¬shluss-panic), defined as "panic at the thought that a door between oneself and life's opportunities has shut." Words enter a language when they are needed, and torschlusspanik has arrived. The doors that were once opened through initiation rites are still crucial thresholds in the human psyche, and when those doors do not open, or when they are not recognized for what they are, life shrinks into a series of rejections fraught with torschlusspanik: the graduation formal to which the girl was not invited; the marriage that did not take place; the baby that was never born; the job that never materialized. Looking back, we recognize that it was often not our choice that determined which door opened and which door shut. We were chosen for this, rejected for that.

Torschlusspanik is now a part of our culture because there are so few rites to which individuals will submit in order to transcend their own selfish drives. Without the broader perspective, they see no meaning in the rejection. The door thuds, leaving them bitter or resigned. If, instead, they could temper themselves to a point of total concentration, a bursting point where they could either pass over or fall back as in a rite of passage, then they could test who they are. Their passion would be spent in an all­out positive effort, instead of deteriorating into disillusionment and despair. The terror behind that word torschlusspanik is what drives many people into analysis—the last door has shut, the last rejection has taken place. No door will ever open again. Nothing means anything.

Another reason for fearing the chrysalis lies in our cultural loss of containers. Our society's emphasis on linear growth and achievement alienates us from the cyclic pattern of death and rebirth, so that when we experience ourselves dying, or dream that we are, we fear annihilation. Primitive societies are close enough to the natural cycles of their lives to provide the containers through which the members of the tribe can experience death and rebirth as they pass through the difficult transitions. To quote from the classic Rites of Passage by Arnold van Gannep:

In such societies every change in a person's life involves actions and reactions between sacred and profane—actions and reactions to be regulated and guarded so that society as a whole will suffer no discomfort or injury. Transitions from group to group and from one social situation to the next are looked on as implicit in the very fact of existence, so that a man's life comes to be made up of a succession of stages with similar ends and beginnings: birth, social puberty, marriage, fatherhood, advancement to a higher class, occupational specialization, and death. For every one of these events there are ceremonies whose essential purpose is to enable the individual to pass from one defined position to another which is equally well defined.... In this respect man's life resembles nature, from which neither the individual nor the society stands independent.

Through their initiation, for example, boys are recognized as responsible adult men. They are cut off from their mothers, trained as warriors, instructed in the culture of their tribe.

For girls, the meaning of puberty rites is somewhat different. Here I quote from Bruce Lincoln's Emerging from the Chrysalis:

Rather than changing women's status, initiation changes their fundamental being, addressing ontological concerns rather than hierarchical ones.

A woman does not become more powerful or authoritative, but more creative, more alive, more ontologically real. ... The pattern of female initiation is thus one of growth or magnification, an expansion of powers, capabilities, experiences. This magnification is accomplished by gradually endowing the initiand with symbolic items that make of her woman, and beyond this a cosmic being. These items can be concrete, such as clothing or jewelry, or they can be nonmaterial in nature, such as songs chanted for the woman-to be, myths repeated in her presence, scars or paintings placed upon her body.

The scarification is meant to provide an experience of intense pain and an enduring record of that pain. The person is rendered unique. Through this magnification, the woman "steps into the cosmic arena: she is given the water of life, with which she nourishes the cosmic tree."

Such primitive rituals did not change the way people lived. They gave meaning to life. By means of ritual, relationship to the unchanging, archetypal aspects of existence was affirmed and renewed. What would otherwise have been boring drudgery or torschlusspanik was invested with a meaning that transcended animal survival.  Through ritual, human activity was connected to the divine.

In more sophisticated societies, the church and the theater became ritual containers. Within the safety and the confines of the Mass, for instance, the individual could surrender to God and experience dismemberment and death, descent into Hell and resurrection of the spirit on the third day. One could experience the magnification of one's own spirit by experiencing oneself as sacrificer and sacrificed. Like the primitive, the participant left the ritual with enhanced meaning, with a profound sense of belonging to a cosmos and to a community that respected that cosmos.

The theater also provided a ritual container, a public chrysalis. The plays dealt with archetypal realities. On the stage, men and women saw their own psychological depths enacted and were thus encouraged to reflect on their own human situation.

We have lost our containers; chaos threatens. Without rituals to make a firm demarcation between the profane and the sacred, between what is us and what is not us, we tend to identify with archetypal patterns of being—hero, Father, Mother, etc. We forget that we are individual human beings; we allow ourselves to be inflated by the power of the unconscious and usurp it for our own. And we do this not knowing what we do and that we do it. Liberated from the "superstitious" belief in gods and demons, we claim for ourselves the power once attributed to them. We do not realize we have usurped or stolen it. How then do we explain our anxiety and dissatisfaction? Power makes us fearful; lack of it makes us anxious. Few are satisfied with what they have. Despite our so­called liberation from gods and demons, few can live without them. Their absence makes nothing better. It may even make everything worse.

If, for example, a child has acted as buffer between his parents, he may fear his home will disintegrate if he ceases to act as intermediary. Without realizing it, he has assumed the power of the savior in his small world. When as an adult his boundaries are widened, he will tend to take on that archetypal role wherever he goes. He will also suffer guilt when he fails. He may even suffer guilt for being unable to make it snow when his family has planned a skiing weekend. Such hubris is seen as ludicrous once it is brought to consciousness, but, without consciousness, depression and despair fester inside. "I should have been able to do something. I failed," Instead of leaving other people's destiny to them and accepting his own, he attempts to take responsibility for Fate and feels inadequate when the door thuds. The resulting guilt can quickly switch to rage, rage that resonates back to the powerless childhood. "What do you expect of me? I can't do it. Get off my back. Carry your own load. LEAVE ME ALONE."

Many people, for example, think life is a meaningless merry-go-round if they are not being transported by love like Prince Charles and Lady Diana, or living for a  cause like Mother Theresa, or dying for a dream like Martin Luther King. They measure their standard of behavior by comparison with figures who carry immense archetypal projections—Marilyn Monroe, John F. Kennedy, Michael Jackson. A mask ceases to be a mask. Instead, with the help of dyes and surgery, the mask becomes the face. Cosmetics are identity or character or Fate. By identifying with an archetype instead of remaining detached from it, they turn life into theater and themselves into actors on a stage, thus falling prey to demonic as well as angelic inflation. Without the container, they confuse the sacred and profane worlds.

We are the descendants of Freud and Jung, and while poets and madmen had free access to their unconscious before those two giants, the world of the archetype is now an open market for the general populace without any ritual containment. If we are blindly living out an archetype, we are not containing our own life. We are possessed, and possession acts as a magnet on unconscious people in our environment. Everyday life becomes a dangerous world where illusion and reality can be fatally confused.

A life that is being truly lived is constantly burning away the veils of illusion, gradually revealing the essence of the individual. Psychoanalysis can speed up that process.  Sometimes people experience themselves as caterpillars crawling along. Externally, everything seems fine. Some deep intuitive voice, however, may be whispering, "It's not worth it. There's nobody here. I need a cocoon. I need to go back and find myself." Now, they may not quite realize that when caterpillars go into cocoons,  they do not emerge as high-class caterpillars, and they may not be prepared for the agony of the transformation that goes on inside the chrysalis. Nor are they quite prepared for the winged beauty that slowly and painfully emerges, that lives by a very different set of laws than a caterpillar. Even more confounding is the fact that friends and relations who may be quite happy caterpillars have no patience with a silent, hard-edged chrysalis that is all turned in on itself—"selfish, lazy, self indulgent." And they have even less patience with a confused butterfly who hasn't adjusted to the laws of aerodynamics.

Still, it is amazing how often other caterpillars, inspired by butterflies, sacrifice their landlubber condition, make their own chrysalis and find their own wings. Jung writes that coming to consciousness is "the sacrifice of the merely natural man, of the unconscious, ingenuous being whose tragic career began with the eating of the apple in Paradise.

The chrysalis is essential if we are to find ourselves. Yet very little in our extroverted society supports introverted withdrawal. We are supposed to be doers, taking care of others, supporting good causes, unselfish, energetic, doing our social duty. If we choose to simply be, our loved ones may automatically assume we are doing nothing, and at first we may feel that way ourselves. We begin to look at our primeval muck as it surfaces in dreams. All hell starts to break loose inside, and we wonder what's the point of dredging up all this stuff. We argue with ourselves: "I should be out there doing something useful. But the truth is I can't do anything useful if there's no I to do it. I can't love anyone else, if there's no I to do the loving. If I don't know myself, I cannot love myself, and if I do not love myself, my love of others is probably my projected need of their acceptance. I am putting  on a performance in order to be loved. I fear rejection. If nobody loves me, I won't exist. But who are they loving? Who am I?"

That is what going into the chrysalis is all about—undergoing a metamorphosis in order one day to be able to stand up and say I am. The gnawing hunger, the incessant yearning at the core of many lives, began at birth, or perhaps even in utero. In order to survive in a demanding environment where one or both parents projected their unlived dreams (or nightmares) onto their children, the infants gave up trying to live their own lives. As little human beings with needs and feelings of their own, they were rejected. Their mystery was never considered, and so they grew up automatically thinking in terms of other people's response. In other words, they developed a charming persona, a mask they created with infinite care—a mask that, as adults, may be at once their greatest blessing and greatest curse. Outwardly they may be brilliantly successful, but inwardly empty. They cannot understand why their intimate relationships repeatedly end in disaster, a pattern they recognize but can do nothing to stop. They dream they are actors, the spotlight is on them, but they cannot remember what play they are in, let alone what their lines are. If their ego is barely formed, they may not even appear in their own dreams, or may recognize themselves as objects or little animals.

It is important to point out, however, that we all need several personas, that is, the right mask for the right occasion. Jung was once lecturing on the topic when a student accused him of being hypocritical if he used a persona. Jung said that he had just had a fight with his wife, and he was still angry, but that anger had nothing to do with the students, nor with their reason for getting themselves to the Institute that morning. It was neither fair to himself nor to them to show that anger there. However, he said, he intended to finish the fight when he went home. The point is that we must be conscious enough to know when we are using a persona and for what reason. Otherwise we easily identify with a particular persona, which obliges us to repress our genuine feelings and prevents us from acting on them at the right time and place. The persona is necessary because people at different levels of consciousness respond to a situation with very different antennae. Naively or deliberately, making oneself vulnerable to psychic wounding without good reason is foolish. To be wary of casting pearls before swine is not conceit but plain common sense.

As the transformation process goes on, pregnancies and new­born babies frequently appear in dreams. When the conscious ego is able to release repressed psychic energy, or reconnects with unconscious body energy, or makes a decision on its own behalf, that new energy is symbolized as new life. When the psyche is preparing to move onto a new level of awareness, or one's conscious attitude has made a new connection with the unconscious, then dreams may appear where the dream ego, the shadow or the anima is pregnant. Nine months later, so long as the process has not been aborted, there are often dreams of crossing borders, passing over into a new country, moving through subterranean tunnels or actually giving birth (see below, page 158). If the ego maintains the connection, the new­born child is nurtured with soul food. If the ego falters and fails to act on the new energy, the baby may appear mutilated, starving or dead. Or it may simply disappear.

I have found that individuals tend to repeat the pattern of their own actual birth every time life requires them to move onto a new level of awareness. As they entered the world, so they continue to re­enter at each new spiral of growth. If, for example, their birth was straightforward, they tend to handle passovers with courage and natural trust. If their birth was difficult, they become extremely fearful, manifest symptoms of suffocating, become claustrophobic (psychically and physically). If they were premature, they tend to be always a little ahead of themselves. If they were held back, the rebirth process may be very slow. If they were breech­birth, they tend to go through life "ass­backwards." If they were born by Caesarian section, they may avoid confrontations. If their mother was heavily drugged, they may come up to the point of passover with lots of energy, then suddenly, for no apparent reason, stop, or move into a regression, and wait for someone else to do something. Often this is the point where addictions reappear—binging, starving, drinking, sleeping, overworking—anything to avoid facing the reality of moving out into a challenging world.

Many delightful babies appear in dreams, and just as many little tyrants who need firm and loving discipline. One child, however, is noticeably different from the others. This is the abandoned one, who may appear in bullrushes, in straw in a barn, in a tree, almost always in some forgotten or out-of-the-way place. This child will be radiant with light, robust, intelligent, sensitive. Often it is able to talk minutes after it is born. It has Presence. It is the Divine Child, bringing with it the "hard and bitter  agony" of the new dispensation—the agony of Eliot's Magi. With its birth, the old gods have to go.

Since the natural gradient of the psyche is toward wholeness, the Self will attempt to push the neglected part forward for recognition. It contains energy of the highest value, the gold in the dung. In the Bible it is the stone that was rejected that becomes the cornerstone. It manifests either in a sudden or subtle change in personality, or, conversely, in a fanaticism which the existing ego adopts in order to try to keep the new and threatening energy out. If the ego fails to go through the psychic birth canal, neurotic symptoms manifest physically and psychically. The suffering may be intense, but it is based on worshipping false gods. It is not the genuine suffering that accompanies efforts to incorporate the new life. The neurotic is always one phase behind where his reality is. When he should be outgrowing childish behavior, he hangs onto it.  When he should be moving into maturity, he hangs onto youthful folly. Never congruent with himself or others, he is never where he seems to be. What he cannot do is live in the now.

Many people are being dragged toward wholeness in their daily lives, but because they do not understand initiation rites, they cannot make sense of what is happening to them. They put on a happy face all day, and return to their apartment and cry all night. Perhaps their beloved has gone off with someone else; perhaps their business has failed; perhaps they have lost interest in their work; perhaps they are coping with a fatal illness; perhaps a loved one has died. Perhaps, and this is worst of all, everything has begun to go wrong for no apparent reason. If they have no concept of rites of passage, they experience themselves as victims, powerless to resist an overwhelming Fate. Their meaningless suffering drives them to escape through food, alcohol, drugs, sex. Or they take up arms against the gods and cry out, "Why me?"

They are being presented with the possibility of rebirth into a different life. Through failures, symptoms, inferiority feelings and overwhelming problems, they are being prodded to renounce life attachments that have become redundant. The possibility of rebirth constellates with the breakdown of what has gone before. That is why Jung emphasized the positive purpose of neurosis. But because they do not understand, people cling to the familiar, refuse to make the necessary sacrifices, resist their own growth. Unable to give up their habitual lives, they are unable to receive new life.

Unless cultural rituals support the leap from one level of consciousness to another, there are no containing walls within which the process can happen. Without an understanding of myth or religion, without an understanding of the relationship between destruction and creation, death and rebirth, the individual suffers the mysteries of life as meaningless mayhem—alone. To ease the meaningless suffering, addictions may develop that are an attempt to repress the confusing demands of the growth process which cultural structures no longer clarify or contain.

The burning question when one enters analysis is "Who am I?" The immediate problem, however, as soon as powerful emotions begin to surface, is often a psyche/soma split. While women tend to talk about their bodies more than men, both sexes in our culture are grievously unrelated to their own body experience.  Women say, "I don't like this body"; men say, "It hurts." Their use of the third-person neuter pronoun in referring to their body makes quite clear their sense of alienation. They may talk about "my heart,'' "my kidneys," "my feet," but their body as a whole is depersonalized. Repeatedly they say, "I don't feel anything below the neck. I experience feelings in my head, but nothing in my heart." Their lack of emotional response to a powerful dream image reflects the split. And yet, when they engage in active imagination with that dream image located in their body, their muscles release undulations of repressed grief. The body has become the whipping post. If the person is anxious, the body is starved, gorged, drugged, intoxicated, forced to vomit, driven into exhaustion or driven to frenzied reaction against self-destruction. When this magnificent animal attempts to send up warning signals, it is silenced with pills.

Many people can listen to their cat more intelligently than they can listen to their own despised body. Because they attend to their pet in a cherishing way, it returns their love. Their body, however, may have to let out an earth-shattering scream in order to be heard at all. Before symptoms manifest, quieter screams appear in dreams: a forsaken baby elephant, a starving kitten, a dog with a leg ripped out. Almost always the wounded animal is either gently or fiercely attempting to attract the attention of the dreamer, who may or may not respond. In fairytales it is the friendly animal who often carries the hero or heroine to the goal because the animal is the instinct that knows how to obey the Goddess when reason fails.

It is possible that the scream that comes from the forsaken body, the scream that manifests in a symptom, is the cry of the soul that can find no other way to be heard. If we have lived behind a mask all our lives, sooner or later—if we are lucky—that mask will be smashed. Then we will have to look in our own mirror at our own reality. Perhaps we will be appalled. Perhaps we will look into the terrified eyes of our own tiny child, that child who has never known love and who now beseeches us to respond. This child is alone, forsaken before we left the womb, or at birth, or when we began to please our parents and learned to put on our best performance in order to be accepted. As life progresses, we may continue to abandon our child by pleasing others—teachers, professors, bosses, friends and partners, even analysts. That child who is our very soul cries out from underneath the rubble of our lives, often from the core of our worst complex, begging us to say, "You are not alone. I love you."

We dare not drop the tensions. In order to widen consciousness, we have to hold both arms on the cross. If we reject one part of ourselves, we give up our past; if we reject the other part, we give up our future. We must hold onto our roots and build from there. Those roots often appear as a psychic home sometimes a summer cottage that the dreamer loves, or the country of his origin, or his ancestors' origin. The longing to go Home must certainly be looked at symbolically, for it is often more than a regressive longing for the security of the womb. It can be the one solid root that goes right through one's life, becoming the point of genuine nurturance for spiritual growth.

Whether we like it or not, one of our tasks on this earth is to work with the opposites through different levels of consciousness until body, soul and spirit resonate together. Initiation rites, experienced at the appropriate times in our lives, burn off what is no longer relevant, opening our eyes to new possibilities of our own uniqueness. They tear off the protective veils of illusion until at last we are strong enough to stand in our own naked truth.

The process is mirrored in dreams, often in images of cooking, cars, cupboards and clothes. The Cinderella work is accomplished in the kitchen. Having brought the wild things of nature in, taken off their feathers, cleaned out their entrails, cooked them and made them accessible to consciousness, the ego stands firm. Mother and Father no longer drive the car. The incessant sorting through actual cupboards and drawers has ceased, and the sorting in dreams has reached a finely differentiated level of detail. What clothes to wear is no longer a constant frustration, and the incongruous shoe combinations have at last settled into pairs that are the same color with the same size heel. Or maybe no shoes at all—just good solid feet on good solid ground. Usually the Self allows the ego time to enjoy this period of experiencing its new strength—perhaps months, perhaps years. Each process in unique, moving at its own appointed pace.

The existence and continuity of the ego is essential to our lives. It is necessary that we experience the person who wakes up in the morning as the same person who fell asleep last night, despite the fact that what took place during the hours of sleep may appear so unrelated to the waking state that it never enters consciousness. One way in which the ego maintains its integrity is to remove from itself everything that does not directly offer it support. It simply excludes or suppresses everything which does not coincide with its conscious understanding of itself.

The danger in such a limited view is that the ego may harden and dry up, just as the earth will harden and dry up if it is not continually replenished with water. The ego needs the nourishment of underground springs. It requires the compensatory life of dreams if its continuity is to move beyond mere survival and perpetuation. In addition to these, it requires direction and purpose. As soon as it gives itself up to a higher goal, however, it is threatened, not only by the fear that it may not be able to achieve it, but by a dawning sense that that higher goal, because of the demands it makes, is the enemy of the ego. In some sense, the ego feels that it may be working against itself. Ultimately, of course, it is, but for a better good.

The goal of human striving in the individuation process is the recognition of the Self, the regulating center of the psyche. That recognition relativizes the ego's position in the psychic structure, and initiates a dialogue between conscious and unconscious. "The only way the Self can manifest is through conflict," writes Marie­Louise von Franz. "To meet one's insoluble and eternal conflict is to meet God, which would be the end of the ego with all its blather."

If the ego rejects that conflict, then the goal is contaminated by the ego's desire for more and more power, or wealth, or happiness. The result is ego inflation.  According to Jung:

An inflated consciousness is always egocentric and conscious of nothing but its own existence. It is incapable of learning from the past, incapable of understanding contemporary events, and incapable of drawing right conclusions about the future. It is hypnotized by itself and therefore cannot be argued with. It inevitably dooms itself to calamities that must strike it dead.

Paradoxically enough, inflation is a regression of consciousness into unconsciousness. This always happens when consciousness takes too many unconscious contents upon itself and loses the faculty of discrimination, the sine qua non of all consciousness.

The inflated ego tends to idolatry. It focuses on a single image, fashions it and worships it. Determined to create that image, it is trapped in profane ritual.

Religiously speaking, all such profane rituals are contained in the worship of the Golden Calf. A fat woman's body image, for example, may be her Golden Calf. No matter how much she thinks she hates it, her rituals are taking place around it. It is this thralldom before her own body image that she may be called upon to sacrifice. The profane worship must be sacrificed to make way for the sacred. The withdrawal from the one operates simultaneously with the entrance into the other. We withdraw as we enter. Withdrawing is entering. Whether we stress the withdrawing or the entering, we are stressing the same thing.

When this process begins, it may be reflected in the dreams by a bell tolling, an alarm sounding or lightning striking. It can also be heralded by physical symptoms. It can be brought on by loss of faith, loss of relationship or the imminence of death. Something almost imperceptible begins to happen. For people watching their dreams, the bell usually tolls some weeks before the actual events occur. In real life we seem to be carrying on as usual, but a very clear inner voice may begin to comment,  hinting that things are not as they seem to be. We may find ourselves singing songs that put a very ironic twist on our conscious actions. Our inner clown may be singing, "Put your sweet lips a little closer," to the tune of "Please release me and let me go." If the ego has not sufficient strength and flexibility, it will panic and either regress to its former terrors of annihilation, or regress to its former rigid framework—in either case, refusing to go through the birth canal.

The ego now has to be strong enough to remain concentrated in stillness, so that it can mediate what is happening both positively and negatively. It must hold a detached position, relying now on its differentiated femininity in order to submit, now on its discriminating masculinity in order to question and cut away. Something immense begins to happen in the very foundation of the personality, while consciousness experiences the conflict as crucifixion. Ego desires are no longer relevant. The old questions no longer have any meaning, and there are no answers. There may be a few stricken "why's," but they belong to the order of logic and discipline, and what is taking place is irrational, beyond ego control. The ego on some level knows. It knows that what is happening has to happen. It knows that its personal desires have to be sacrificed to the transpersonal. It knows it is confronting death.

It is a period of throbbing pain. It is King Lear howling on the heath, brought to submission and reunited with the daughter whose truth was her dowry. At last, he says,

Upon such sacrifices, my Cordelia,

The Gods themselves throw incense.

It is Job covered with boils, moving from "Do not condemn me; shew me wherefore thou contendest with me" to "I have heard of thee by the hearing of the ear: but now mine eye seeth thee."

It is Jesus in Gethsemane, sweating blood, moving from "Let this cup pass from me" to "Thy will be done."

A woman during such a period of withdrawal and entry had the following vision:

I was walking by the St. Lawrence one sunny, summer day. I thought I was going Home. Instantly the sky darkened; the earth grew cold. I could not see with my eyes, nor hear with my ears. I was seeing inside, hearing inside. Then I realized I was on ice, floating, suddenly not floating, but being thrust by the power of the current. The ice began to crack. I leaped from one floe to another, the ice cracking in front, behind, beside. I thought I might die in the ice-cold water, or be ground by the grating blocks. And all the time I knew I was being propelled toward the ocean. I just kept jumping and screaming, "Please, God, don't kill me. Not yet. Not this time."

At times like this, Rilke's words can be very reassuring:

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and... try to love the questions themselves like locked rooms and like books that are written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.

These situations, whether in analysis or in life, or both, can raise profound religious questions. Is this God confronting me? Was I on the wrong track? Am I being forcibly turned around? Is there some almighty plan that is different from mine? Am I being forced to submit? Should I accept Fate? Do I, in fact, have any free will? Is this God burning away the veils of illusion, or am I facing the devil? Is he making one last stand to cheat me out of my own life?

Psychologically, the questions are equally blistering. Is this the Self demanding a sacrifice? Or is this the real face of the complex that has crippled me all my life? Just when I thought I could be free, there it is to destroy me. Everything I have fought so hard to bring to consciousness is now in question. Why do I suddenly wake up every night at the same time? Why do I feel this searing pain? Why are my hands so weak? Am I really alone? I'm worse off now than I ever was. I'm back in the old pattern. I'm back in the matrix—back in the Garden recognizing the place for the first time. Is this who I really am? Is this who I have been running away from all my life?

Psychologically, the ego, like Lear, Job and Jesus, is penetrating and being penetrated by the archetypal Ground of Being in an effort to bring to consciousness whatever it can of that vast unknown. It experiences another law operating from within, a dawning realization that it has a destiny of its own which must be obeyed. It knows that something new is being born; it has to breathe into the pain and let it be.

Many people in our culture are attempting to suffer these transformations alone, without any ritual container and without any group to support the influx of transcendent power. Like Eliot's Magi, they experience the birth as "hard and bitter agony . . . like Death, our death." They are "no longer at ease here, in the old dispensation,/With  an alien people clutching their gods."

Without the container and without the group, the aloneness is almost intolerable. The individual ego has to be strong enough to build its own chrysalis in order to create a loving communication with its own inner symbols. Their numinosity brings the confidence and integrity, humor and illumination without which the ego could not survive, let alone expand. A childish ego, primitive and unconscious, cannot maintain a living chrysalis; it wants to project everything, and, tuned to a natural order, it explains what happens by magic. The chrysalis becomes too precious in itself, shellacked with sentimentality. A childlike ego can hold the tension, pull in the projections and ponder the inner mystery. At the transpersonal level, the symbols are simultaneously individual and universal. At that level, none of us is alone. New relationships, bypassing the world of transitory disguise, begin at that depth, and from there relate back to the world in a totally new way.

Hours before he died, Thomas Merton, author of The Seven Storey Mountain, gave a lecture which concluded with a plea for openness to the "painfulness of inner change":

What is essential... is not embedded in buildings, is not embedded in clothing, is not necessarily embedded even in a rule. It is somewhere along the line of something deeper than a rule. It is concerned with this business of total inner transformation.

According to his own account, Merton completed his inner transformation on his Asian journey standing barefoot in the presence of the giant Buddhas of Polonnaruwa in Ceylon. "I know and have seen what I was obscurely looking for," he wrote. "I don't know what else remains but I have now seen and have pierced through the surface and have got beyond the shadow and the disguise."

When Merton asked a Buddhist abbot, "What is the 'knowledge of freedom'?" the abbot replied, "One must ascend all the steps, but then when there are no more steps one must make the leap. Knowledge of freedom is the knowledge, the experience, of this leap."

Voices from the Chrysalis

It's hard for me to trust life. I like to take hold of it, grab it by the neck and put my teeth into it, just to be sure it doesn't get away on me.

I try to see how far I've come, rather than how far I have to go.

Now that I'm contacting my own inner clock, I am so slow. My life is on top of me. The collision of values overwhelms me. Am I wasting my time? I don't know.... I don't know.... this terrible aloneness.

I've always identified with what I'm not. But who am I? My guilt and shame and fear are making me human.

I was always waiting until all the responsibilities were completed, then there would be time for me. How? I never thought about that. I've been so busy doing, I've missed something very important to me. I don't think I was ever a child. I have no recollection at all of being a very young child with any sense of being ME.

I wonder if it takes a holocaust, outer or inner, to help us to realize what is really essential in life.

I lived a smile­and­grin, smile­and­grin existence. I was dying.

I rage for life. I want so much to be free.

I'm trying to have faith—faith that I will be born.

I'm so off balance. I pray for daily guidance to avoid tripping over things. I can go to sleep when I orient myself  to the stars.

The spirit is in the volcano inside. My relationships aren't very good right now, so I go back to work. I'm safe there. But even that isn't perfect.

I'll explode if I have to react to one more thing. I'm pulling back. I'm overwhelmed by the pressures of the outside world and the mounting pressures of the interior world are making me feel actually sick.

Used to feel capable, used to speak and write well. Now I never feel secure because I can't find words.

Am I fighting my destiny or does my destiny require I take a stand?

When I touch into that essence and recognize myself as what I've been running away from, I am humbled.

I'm Miss Compassion, Miss Humanity. I'm a missing piece. I'm also a child of God.

To get rid of one's past one has to forgive—confront and forgive—and move into the present. Forgive oneself too, and God.

I hated my father. I imitated hated myself.

--Marion Woodman en "The pregnant virgin"

[yuurei20]

How is the English version of Twisted Wonderland Different? (Riddle)

Have written a lot on this but thought it might be nice to have a more concise reference, limited to significant changes. 

JP-Riddle, for example, has the mental collapse that comes with overblotting represented in a demand that he be referred to as "Riddle-sama." 

This is a direct reference to one of Riddle's earliest lines where he tells the others to answer him with "Yes, Housewarden," but having been pushed over the brink into overblot he is not longer satisfied with the title of a mere Housewarden commands them to refer to him as "-sama" instead, which NA tends to translate as "O Great," "O Mighty," "Master" or just "Mr." depending on the scene. 

On NA this development was ignored, with Riddle again insisting on the "Housewarden" title.

JP-Riddle seems to have unflattering opinions about "sons of wealthy families," but this aspect of his character has not been included in the NA adaptation. 

NA-Riddle claims that his home country of the Queendom of Roses is landlocked, when it is not.

Original Riddle's Mother: I have something that I need to do.

NA Riddle's Mother: I need some time to prepare the lesson materials.

The task Riddle's mother performs for exactly one hour every day is intentionally never specified in-game (or in the novel or in the manga), only in the NA adaptation.

As things that are intentionally left vague in the game can have as much significance as what is said aloud, there are rumors on JP-server that she was having an affair (his parents seem to have an unhappy marriage) or maybe she was trying to arrange a marriage for Riddle.