#people from thousands of nations ethnicities races cultures call it their religion

[flash-silver-4316]

#for real#white ppl didnt even show up until the book of Acts#when the Holy Spirit told Peter to witness to the centurion (he was either greek or roman i dont remember)

if i hear someone say christianity is the white man's religion one more time 🫠

[lordrevel]

The UN has booked The GOVERMENT of Myanmar Under "Crime against humanity"

International State Crime Initiative at Queen Mary University of London Has stated that the Myanmar government is conducting crime against fundamental HUMAN RIGHTS

History Of Myanmar [ Burma ]

The earliest inhabitants First time Human settlements From Myanmar Around 13000 year's ago to the present day the Earliest recorded Inhabitants history were a tibeto-burman people Who established the pyu city states ranged as far south as pyay adopted Theravada Buddhism

Another group, the bamar people, upper irrawady valley the Burmese language and bamar culture slowly replaced and dominated the pyay Culture in 1044 and pyay Culture lost is glory till 1287

After the first invasion of Mongol In Burma [ 1286 ]

Several Small kingdoms of which the kingdom of aya

The hantawaddy kingdom

The kingdom of mrak U

Shan states

These principle power's came to dominate the landscape replete with ever shifting Alliance and constant war

During this period Mamluk dynasty was rulling over the Sub-india continent

Including modern Day west-pakistan , North india except ladakh and aksai Chin From southern Nepal to modern day Bangladesh [ till the border of Myanmar ]

To modern[ ujjain ]

During the atrocities Done by the Mamluk dynasty the inhabitants of Bangladesh [ Bengali people ] Migrated to pagan kingdom modern day Myanmar

The Pagan Kingdom Ruler Narathihapate Welcomed the Rohingyas [ who are basically bengalis ethnicity mix-raced with Tibeto-buddhist ] during this period Most of Rohingyas were Islamic by Religion due to Forced conversion method of Mamluk dynasty

CAUSES :- BEGINING OF RIOTS

o the South of Arakan state

In Rohingyas Ethnicity :-

There are 93 % Muslim's

3.4% Buddhist

2.82 Hindus

0.78% Christians

The majority Of mulims Rohingya's created atrocities on the Rohingyas [ Hindus ]

And forced many of them To conversion

same thing happened with the Christians and Buddhist

which created tension in Region and Aggressive behaviour of Rohingya' Muslim's towards other community caught in the eyes of Burmese military and GOVERNMENT

CHRISTIAN lady persecuted by the Rohingyas militant

The Real Tension begins in the month of

Now introduction time , let's meet rival of Rohingya's :- Rakhine Buddhist

Ma thida Htwe A Buddhist girl from Rakhine Ethnicity Who was raped by three Rohingyas muslim youth near her village Created Tension the Rakhine Buddhist called social Boycott of Rohingyas muslim and started March in memory of Ma thida Htwe on

2013, August

Some Rohingya's Pelted stones and Used Slurs against the ma thida Htwe and Buddhist people's

looking at such Circumstances the Rakhine Buddhist [ one of the world most peaceful community ] Taken arms against the Rohingya's Which caused

48000+ People killed

13000+ Raped and killed

1.3 Million Refugee Crisis

The Myanmar army / Burmese Army

Taken Action in charge Because of constant Attack done by ARSA and other Anti-rakhine , anti-myanmar groups

ON Hindus and Christian community of Rohingyas

Killing thousands of Hindus and Christians

The Army Taken charge and fled whole. Ethnicity

On the other hand the Powerful Rakhine Buddhist Monks Who were politically supported Made pressure on the Myanmar military to crackdown on Rohingyas

causing destruction of 357+ villages of Arakan state and Rakhine state

the Crime Created by Rohingyas were horrified but what rakhine Buddhist are doing are they justifiable ?

Real Events :-

1] Narathihapate welcomed Rohingya's

During 1286

2] Rohingya's rebellion Against their Own Nation

3] Attack on Buddhist Villages

4] Ma thida Htwe Case

5] Rohingya's social Boycott

6] Atrocities done by muslim Rohingyas

7] Military interference

8] Monk's Taken arms against Rohingyas

9] atrocities of Myanmar military On Rohingyas

10] UN interference

11] Arakan Rebel group attacked on myamar military post

12] Atrocities of Myanmar military on Rohingyas Hindus and Christians

Connection with Bangladesh :-

As per various , Studies and Research Found and came on conclusion that Rohingya's are Mix-raced and inhabitants of Bengal . Here the Bangladeshi People have a deep relationship with their Brother's who are facing discrimination and Persecution

Bangladeshi government Isn't ready to accept that the Rohingyas are Inhabitants of Bengal and they've to Take back in Bangladesh

Bangladesh government And Prime minister Hasina Shaikh Quoted :-

Rohingya's belong to Myanmar

They've to take back and give them

Equal rights

And Bangladesh concern is genuine Because Bangladesh isn't a superpower who can help 1.2 million refugees. Nowadays Bangladesh struggling due to their high - populated cities

How can Government of Bangladesh help out Rohingyas instead Focusing on their People's

The current literacy Rate of Bangladesh is 74.22%

Means 41 Million People are Still Illiterate

so It will take more 3-4 decades to Bangladesh to focus on Rohingya's for educating them

Reaction of Islamic World :-

Member states of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC), which bills itself as "the collective voice of the Muslim world," have a rare opportunity to fulfill its promise by choosing to take the lead in bringing peace and security to Rohingya Muslims.

The following statement was given by Insiderarab article in which they suggest islamic world to cut relationship with Myanmar government and to take actions against the Myanmar military the islamic world officially cut down their Trade with Myanmar

Helping Rohingyas is one of the main Foreign policy objective - Turkiyé goverment

Saudi Arabia won't send Rohingyas back to Bangladesh - Forein minister, Bangladesh

Iranian Government call for joint islamic army to defend Rohingyas - deputy head , Iranian parliament

pakistan will build pressure on Myanmar for betterment of muslim Rohingya's - Ex- pm imran khan , pakistan

Reaction of world leader's :-

Us announced 180 million $ for the aid of Rohingya'

[ Most of these funds will be given to ARSA to attack on Myanmar military post and in result Myanmar military will again Start Massacre ot common Rohingyas ]

Rohingya's refugees provided Safe homes at Bradford

[ While the 227k people in UK are still homeless why UK so called saviour of freedom standing on death bodies of 15 million People now giving Lecture on Human rights ]

The hypocrisy of century

Bangladesh is looking towards Russia, China , india to solve rohingya crisis

Bangladesh argues Russia to mediate with Myanmar on rohingya issue

Theory Based on my Opinion :-

1.3 million population of Rohingys who are persecuted in their own nation was due to their own agression towards another Religious people if they didn't attacked Rakhine people and Buddhist people's

It will be complete different scenarios

Narathihapate Welcomed Rohingya's in 1286 Myanmar People specially Rakhine people are humble and welcoming

But there are some Politically motivated Monks and Group's who had done Atrocitieson rohingyas

Western media had hyped the situation by just showing one image of the picture

Innocent image of Rohingyas which is completely true in case of People killed by Rakhine and Myanmar militants

But Asra Organization who had Massacred 11,000 Myanmar Hindus and Christians

Stating them as Warriors is completely BASELESS

And why World Won't help Bangladesh in Rohingya crisis :-

1] USA and NATO :- they've created mess in middle-east by Giving birth to several TERRORIST group's Asian countries mainly Russia , China , india , Indonesia , Vietnam won't allow them to interfere in Their interest

[ There interest? How these nation are so cruel ? ]

2] Russia : - Russia need support from Myanmar government For their upcoming events And Due to Ukraine war Russia need buyers for their natural gas and oil

Myanmar can be better option

3] China :- China supported Myanmar government and Myanmar military actions on Rohingyas China identify Rohingya's same like Uyghurs Muslim's and China won't ask Myanmar to stop it because if Bangladesh and Myanmar remain in conflict engaging with each other it will provide better opportunities to China in terms of weapon's and Debt trap

Also MYANMAR is situated between two powerful countries' India - China

In this critical condition if china pressurized Myanmar

Myanmar will seek help from India

Same with india

If India pressurized MYANMAR it will seek help from China

4] India :- India Completely have Same interest as China An unstable Bangladesh who is completely engaged in war with Myanmar will be beneficial for India and Indonesia both

India can sell weapons to both sides and can offer soft - loan

And again Myanmar military is very supportive with Indian military in North east to Knock down naxalites

Both countries have signed many Projects and agreement with each other's

5] Indonesia :- Just like India , an unstable Bangladesh and Myanmar will help Indonesia to grow it's power in the region

They can also Take advantage from this situation and Making pressure on Myanmar won't help Indonesia

And they're partners in ASEAN

[blackswaneuroparedux]

Anonymous asked: I have always appreciated your thoughtful views on the defence of the British monarchy, and as a university historian it’s reassuring to see someone using history to make invalubale insights to a controversial institution. I wonder what are your own thoughts on the passing of Prince Philip and what his legacy might be? Was he a gaffe prone racist and a liability to the Queen?

I know you kindly got in touch and identified yourself when you felt I was ignoring your question. I’m glad we cleared that up via DM. The truth is as I said and I’m saying here is that I had to let some time pass before I felt I could reasonably answer this question. Simply because - as you know as someone who teaches history at university - distance is good to make a sober appraisal rather than knee jerk in the moment judgements.

Contrary to what some might think I’m not really a fan girl when it comes to the royal family. I don’t religiously follow their every movement or utterance especially as I live in Paris and therefore I don’t really care about tabloid tittle tattle. I only get to hear of anything to do with the royal family when I speak to my parents or my great aunts and uncles for whom the subject is closer to their heart because of the services my family has rendered over past generations to the monarchy and the older (and dying) tight knit social circles they travel in.

Like Walter Bagehot, I’m more interested in the monarchy as an institution and its constitutional place within the historical, social, and political fabric of Britain and its continued delicate stabilising importance to that effect. It was Walter Bagehot, the great constitutional scholar and editor the Economist magazine, who said, “The mystic reverence, the religious allegiance, which are essential to a true monarchy, are imaginative sentiments that no legislature can manufacture in any people.” In his view, a politically-inactive monarchy served the best interests of the United Kingdom; by abstaining from direct rule, the monarch levitated above the political fray with dignity, and remained a respected personage to whom all subjects could look to as a guiding light.

Even as a staunch monarchist I freely confess that there has always been this odd nature of the relationship between hereditary monarchy and a society increasingly ambivalent about the institution. To paraphrase Bagehot again, there has been too much ‘daylight’ shone onto the ‘magic’ of the monarchy because we are obsessed with personalities as celebrities.

Having said that I did feel saddened by the passing of Prince Philip, the Duke of Edinburgh. After the Queen, he was my favourite royal. Anne, Princess Royal, would come next because she is very much like her father in temperament, humour, and character, so unlike her other brothers.

I have met the late Prince Philip when I was serving in the army in a few regimental meet-and-greet situations - which as you may know is pretty normal given that members of the royal family serve as honorary colonel-in-chiefs (patrons in effect) of all the British army regiments and corps.I also saw him at one or two social events such the annual charitable Royal Caledonian Ball (he’s an expert scottish reeler) and the Guards Polo Club where my older brothers played.

I’ll will freely confess that he was the one royal I could come close to identify with because his personal biography resonated with me a great deal.

Let’s be honest, the core Windsor family members, born to privilege, are conditioned and raised to be dull. Perhaps that’s a a tad harsh. I would prefer the term ‘anonymously self-effacing’, just another way of saying ‘for God’s sake don’t draw attention to yourself by saying or doing anything even mildly scandalous or political lest it invites public opprobrium and scrutiny’. The Queen magnificently succeeds in this but the others from Charles down just haven’t (with the exception of Princess Anne).

However, many people forget this obvious fact that it’s the incoming husbands and wives who marry into the Windsor family who are relied upon to bring colour and even liven things up a little. And long before Kate Middleton, Meghan Markle (very briefly), or Lady Diana Spencer, were the stars of ‘The Firm’- a phrase first coined by King George VI, Queen Elizabeth II's father who ruled from 1936 to 1952, who was thought to have wryly said, "British royals are 'not a family, we're a firm,” - it was Prince Philip who really livened things up and made the greater impact on the monarchy than any of them in the long term.  

Prince Philip’s passing belied the truth of a far more complex individual: a destitute and penniless refugee Greek-Danish prince with a heart breaking backstory that could have been penned by any 19th Century novelist, and also eagle eyed reformer who tried to drag the royal family into the 20th century. At the core of the man - lost scion of a lost European royal dynasty, a courageous war veteran, and Queen’s consort - were values in which he attempted to transform and yet maintain much older inherited traditions and attitudes. Due to his great longevity, Philip’s life came to span a period of social change that is almost unprecedented, and almost no one in history viewed such a transformation from the front row.

Prince Philip would seem to represent in an acute form the best of the values of that era, which in many ways jar with today’s. He had fought with great courage in the war as a dashing young naval officer; he was regularly rude to foreigners, which was obviously a bonus to all Brits. He liked to ride and sail and shoot things. He was unsentimental almost to a comic degree, which felt reassuring at a time when a new-found emotional incontinence made many feel uncomfortable. Outrageous to some but endearing to others, he was the sort of man you’d want to go for a pint with, perhaps the ultimate compliment that an Englishman can pay to another Englishman. This has its own delicious irony as he wasn’t really an Englishman.

There are 4 takeways I would suggest in my appraisal of Prince Philip that stand out for me. So let me go through each one.

1. Prince Philip’s Internationalism

It may seem odd for me to say that Prince Philip wasn’t English but he wasn’t an Englishman in any real sense. He was a wretch of the world - stateless, homeless, and penniless. That the Prince of Nowhere became the British Monarchy’s figurehead was more than fitting for a great age of migration and transition in which the Royal Family survived and even flourished. That he was able to transform himself into the quintessential Englishman is testimony not just to his personal determination but also to the powerful cultural pull of Britishness.

He was born on a kitchen table in Corfu in June 1921. A year later in 1922, Philip, as the the great-great-grandson of Queen Victoria and nephew of Constantine I of Greece, was forced to flee with his family after the abdication of Constantine. He grew up outside Paris speaking French; ethnically he was mostly German although he considered himself Danish, his family originating from the Schleswig border region. He was in effect, despite his demeanour of Royal Navy officer briskness, a citizen of nowhere in an age of movement. From a very young age he was a stateless person, nationally homeless. Indeed, Philip was an outsider in a way that even Meghan Markle could never be; at his wedding in 1947, his three surviving sisters and two brothers-in-law were not permitted to attend because they were literally Britain’s enemies, having fought for the Germans. A third brother-in-law had even been in the SS, working directly for Himmler, but had been killed in the conflict.

Even his religion was slightly exotic. He was Greek Orthodox until he converted to Anglicanism on marrying Elizabeth - what with his wife due to become supreme head of the Church and everything  - but his ties with eastern Christianity remained. His great-aunts Princess Elisabeth of Hesse and by Rhine and Tsarina Alexandra are both martyrs of the Russian Orthodox Church, having been murdered by the Bolsheviks; Philip’s mother went on to become an Orthodox nun and a “Righteous Among the Nations” for saving a Jewish family during the Nazi occupation of Greece, spending much of her time in squalid poverty.

His parents were part of the largely German extended aristocracy who ruled almost all of Europe before it all came crashing down in 1918. When he died, aged 99, it marked a near-century in which all the great ideological struggles had been and gone; he had been born before the Soviet Union but outlived the Cold War, the War on Terror and - almost - Covid-19.

The world that Philip was born into was a far more violent and dangerous place than ours. In the year he was born, Irish rebels were still fighting Black and Tans; over the course of 12 months the Spanish and Japanese prime ministers were assassinated, there was a coup in Portugal and race riots in the United States. Germany was rocked by violence from the far-Left and far-Right, while in Italy a brutal new political movement, the Fascists, secured 30 seats in parliament, led by a trashy journalist called Benito Mussolini.

The worst violence, however, took place in Greece and Turkey. Following the defeat of the Ottoman Empire, what remained of Turkey was marked for permanent enfeeblement by the Allies. But much to everyone’s surprise the country’s force were roused by the brilliant officer Mustafa Kemal, who led the Turks to victory. Constantinople was lost to Christendom for good and thousands of years of Hellenic culture was put to the flames in Smyrna.

The Greek royal family, north German imports shipped in during the 19th century, bore much of the popular anger for this disaster. King Constantine fled to Italy, and his brother Andrew was arrested and only escaped execution through the intervention of his relative Britain’s George V. Andrew’s wife Alice, their four daughters and infant son Philip fled to France, completely impoverished but with the one possession that ensures that aristocrats are never truly poor: connections.

Philip had a traumatic childhood. He was forged by the turmoil of his first decade and then moulded by his schooling. His early years were spent wandering, as his place of birth ejected him, his family disintegrated and he moved from country to country, none of them ever his own. When he was just a year old, he and his family were scooped up by a British destroyer from his home on the Greek island of Corfu after his father had been condemned to death. They were deposited in Italy. One of Philip's first international journeys was spent crawling around on the floor of the train from an Italian port city, "the grubby child on the desolate train pulling out of the Brindisi night," as his older sister Sophia later described it.

In Paris, he lived in a house borrowed from a relative; but it was not destined to become a home. In just one year, while he was at boarding school in Britain, the mental health of his mother, Princess Alice, deteriorated and she went into an asylum; his father, Prince Andrew, went off to Monte Carlo to live with his mistress. "I don't think anybody thinks I had a father," he once said. Andrew would die during the war. Philip went to Monte Carlo to pick up his father's possessions after the Germans had been driven from France; there was almost nothing left, just a couple of clothes brushes and some cuff-links.

Philip’s four sisters were all much older, and were soon all married to German aristocrats (the youngest would soon die in an aeroplane crash, along with her husband and children). His sisters became ever more embroiled in the German regime. In Scotland going to Gordonstoun boarding school, Philip went the opposite direction, becoming ever more British. Following the death of his sister Cecilie in a plane crash in 1937, the gulf widened. As the clouds of conflict gathered, the family simply disintegrated. With a flash of the flinty stoicism that many would later interpret, with no little justification, as self-reliance to the point of dispassion, the prince explained: “It’s simply what happened. The family broke up… I just had to get on with it. You do. One does.”

In the space of 10 years he had gone from a prince of Greece to a wandering, homeless, and virtually penniless boy with no-one to care for him. He got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

By the time he went to Gordonstoun, a private boarding school on the north coast of Scotland, Philip was tough, independent and able to fend for himself; he'd had to be. Gordonstoun would channel those traits into the school's distinct philosophy of community service, teamwork, responsibility and respect for the individual. And it sparked one of the great passions of Philip's life - his love of the sea. It was Gordonstoun that nurtured that love through the maturation of his character.

Philip adored the school as much as his son Charles would despise it. Not just because the stress it put on physical as well as mental excellence - he was a great sportsman. But because of its ethos, laid down by its founder Kurt Hahn, a Jewish exile from Nazi Germany.

Hahn first met Philip as a boy in Nazi Germany. Through a connection via one of his sister’s husbands, Philip, the poor, lonely boy was first sent off to a new school - in Nazi Germany. Which was as fun as can be imagined. Schloss Salem had been co-founded by stern educator called Kurt Hahn, a tough, discipline-obsessed conservative nationalist who saw civilisation in inexorable decline. But by this stage Hahn, persecuted for being Jewish in Nazi Germany, had fled to Britain, and Philip did not spend long at the school either, where pressure from the authorities was already making things difficult for the teachers. Philip laughed at the Nazis at first, because their salute was the same gesture the boys at his previous school had to make when they wanted to go to the toilet, but within a year he was back in England, a refugee once again.

Philip happily attended Hahn’s new school, Gordonstoun, which the strict disciplinarian had set up in the Scottish Highlands. Inspired by Ancient Sparta, the boys (and then later girls) had to run around barefoot and endure cold showers, even in winter, the whole aim of which was to drive away the inevitable civilisational decay Hahn saw all around him. To 21st century ears it sounds like hell on earth, yet Philip enjoyed it, illustrating just what a totally alien world he came from.

That ethos became a significant, perhaps the significant, part of the way that Philip believed life should be lived. It shines through the speeches he gave later in his life. "The essence of freedom," he would say in Ghana in 1958, "is discipline and self-control." The comforts of the post-war era, he told the British Schools Exploring Society a year earlier, may be important "but it is much more important that the human spirit should not be stifled by easy living". And two years before that, he spoke to the boys of Ipswich School of the moral as well as material imperatives of life, with the "importance of the individual" as the "guiding principle of our society".

It was at Gordonstoun one of the great contradictions of Philip's fascinating life was born. The importance of the individual was what in Kurt Hahn's eyes differentiated Britain and liberal democracies from the kind of totalitarian dictatorship that he had fled. Philip put that centrality of the individual, and individual agency - the ability we have as humans to make our own moral and ethical decisions - at the heart of his philosophy.

At Dartmouth Naval College in 1939, the two great passions of his life would collide. He had learned to sail at Gordonstoun; he would learn to lead at Dartmouth. And his driving desire to achieve, and to win, would shine through. Despite entering the college far later than most other cadets, he would graduate top of his class in 1940. In further training at Portsmouth, he gained the top grade in four out of five sections of the exam. He became one of the youngest first lieutenants in the Royal Navy.

The navy ran deep in his family. His maternal grandfather had been the First Sea Lord, the commander of the Royal Navy; his uncle, "Dickie" Mountbatten, had command of a destroyer while Philip was in training. In war, he showed not only bravery but guile. It was his natural milieu. "Prince Philip", wrote Gordonstoun headmaster Kurt Hahn admiringly, "will make his mark in any profession where he will have to prove himself in a trial of strength".

2. Prince Philip and the modernisation of the monarchy

In his own words, the process of defining what it meant to be a royal consort was one of “trial and error.” Speaking with BBC One’s Fiona Bruce in 2011, Philip explained, “There was no precedent. If I asked somebody, 'What do you expect me to do?' they all looked blank. They had no bloody idea, nobody had much idea.” So he forged for himself a role as a moderniser of the monarchy.

He could not have had much idea back in 1939. Back then in Dartmouth in 1939, as war became ever more certain, the navy was his destiny. He had fallen in love with the sea itself. "It is an extraordinary master or mistress," he would say later, "it has such extraordinary moods." But a rival to the sea would come.

When King George VI toured Dartmouth Naval College, accompanied by Philip's uncle, he brought with him his daughter, Princess Elizabeth. Philip was asked to look after her. He showed off to her, vaulting the nets of the tennis court in the grounds of the college. He was confident, outgoing, strikingly handsome, of royal blood if without a throne. She was beautiful, a little sheltered, a little serious, and very smitten by Philip.

Did he know then that this was a collision of two great passions? That he could not have the sea and the beautiful young woman? For a time after their wedding in 1948, he did have both. As young newlyweds in Malta, he had what he so prized - command of a ship - and they had two idyllic years together. But the illness and then early death of King George VI brought it all to an end.

He knew what it meant, the moment he was told. Up in a lodge in Kenya, touring Africa, with Princess Elizabeth in place of the King, Philip was told first of the monarch's death in February 1952. He looked, said his equerry Mike Parker, "as if a ton of bricks had fallen on him". For some time he sat, slumped in a chair, a newspaper covering his head and chest. His princess had become the Queen. His world had changed irrevocably.

While the late Princess Diana was later to famously claim that there were “three people” in her marriage - herself, Prince Charles and Camilla - there were at least 55 million in Philip and Elizabeth’s. As Elizabeth dedicated her life to her people at Westminster Abbey at the Coronation on June 2, 1953, it sparked something of an existential crisis in Philip. Many people even after his death have never really understood this pivotal moment in Philip’s life. All his dreams of being a naval officer and a life at sea as well as being the primary provider and partner in his marriage were now sacrificed on the altar of duty and love.

With his career was now over, and he was now destined to become the spare part. Philip, very reasonably, asked that his future children and indeed his family be known by his name, Mountbatten. In effect he was asking to change the royal family’s name from the House of Windsor to the House of Mountbatten. But when Prime Minister Winston Churchill got wind of it as well as the more politically agile courtiers behind the Queen, a prolonged battle of wits ensued, and it was one Philip ultimately lost. It was only in 1957 that he accepted the title of “Prince.”

Even though he had almost lost everything dear to him and his role now undefined, he didn’t throw himself a pity party. He just got on with it. Philip tried to forge his own distinct role as second fiddle to the woman who had come to represent Great Britain. He designated himself the First Officer of the Good Ship Windsor. He set about dusting off some of the cobwebs off the throne and letting some daylight unto the workings of the monarchy by advocating reasonable amount of modernisation of the monarchy.

He had ideas about modernising the royal family that might be called “improving optics” today. But in his heart of hearts he didn’t want the monarchy to become a stuffy museum piece. He envisaged a less stuffy and more popular monarchy, relevant to the lives of ordinary people. Progress was always going to be incremental as he had sturdy opposition from the old guard who wanted to keep everything as it was, but nevertheless his stubborn energy resulted in significant changes.

When a commission chaired by Prince Philip proposed broadcasting the 1953 investiture ceremony that formally named Elizabeth II as queen on live television, Prime Minister Winston Churchill reacted with outright horror, declaring, “It would be unfitting that the whole ceremony should be presented as if it were a theatrical performance.” Though the queen had initially voiced similar concerns, she eventually came around to the idea, allowing the broadcast of all but one segment of the coronation. Ultimately, according to the BBC, more than 20 million people tuned in to the televised ceremony - a credit to the foresight of Philip.

Elizabeth’s coronation marked a watershed moment for a monarchy that has, historically, been very hands off, old-fashioned and slightly invisible. Over the following years, the royals continued to embrace television as a way of connecting with the British people: In 1957, the queen delivered her annual Christmas address during a live broadcast. Again, this was Philip’s doing when he cajoled the Queen to televise her message live. He even helped her in how to use the teleprompter to get over her nerves and be herself on screen.

Four years later, in 1961, Philip became the first family member to sit for a television interview. It is hard for us to imagine now but back then it was huge. For many it was a significant step in modernising the monarchy.

Though not everything went to plan. Toward the end of the decade, the Windsors even invited cameras into their home. A 1969 BBC fly-on-the-wall documentary, instigated by Philip to show life behind the scenes, turned into an unmitigated disaster: “The Windsors” revealed the royals to be a fairly normal, if very rich, British upper-class family who liked barbecues, ice cream, watching television and bickering. The mystery of royalty took a hit below the waterline from their own torpedo, a self-inflicted wound from which they took a long time to recover. Shown once, the documentary was never aired again. But it had an irreversible effect, and not just by revealing the royals to be ordinary. By allowing the cameras in, Philip opened the lid to the prying eyes of the paparazzi who could legitimately argue that since the Royals themselves had sanctioned exposure, anything went. From then on, minor members of the House of Windsor were picked off by the press, like helpless tethered animals on a hunting safari.

Prince Philip also took steps to reorganise and renovate the royal estates in Sandringham and Balmoral such as intercoms, modern dish washers,  generally sought to make the royal household and the monarchy less stuffy, not to have so much formality everywhere.

Philip helped modernised the monarchy in other ways to acknowledge that the monarchy could be responsive to changes in society. It was Prince Philip - much to the chagrin of the haughty Princess Margaret and other stuffy old courtiers - who persuaded the Queen to host informal lunches and garden parties designed to engage a broader swath of the British public. Conversely, Prince Philip heartily encouraged the Queen (she was all for it apparently but was still finding her feet as a new monarch) to end the traditional practice of presenting debutantes from aristocratic backgrounds at court in 1952. For Philip and others it felt antiquated and out of touch with society. I know in speaking to my grandmother and others in her generation the decision was received with disbelief at how this foreign penniless upstart could come and stomp on the dreams of mothers left to clutch their pearls at the prospect there would be no shop window for their daughter to attract a suitable gentleman for marriage. One of my great aunts was over the moon happy that she never would have to go through what she saw as a very silly ceremony because she preferred her muddy wellies to high heels. 

A former senior member of the royal household, who spent several years working as one of Prince Philip’s aides, and an old family friend, once told us around a family dinner table that the Duke of Edinburgh was undoubtedly given a sense of permanence by his marriage into the Royal Family that was missing from earlier years. But the royal aide would hastily add that Prince Philip, of course, would never see it that way.

Prince Philip’s attitude was to never brood on things or seek excuses. And he did indeed get on with the job in his own way  - there should be no doubt that when it came to building and strengthening the Royal Family it was a partnership of equals with the Queen. Indeed contrary to Netflix’s hugely popular series ‘The Crown’ and its depiction of the royal marriage with Philip’s resentment at playing second fiddle, the prince recognised that his “first duty was to serve the Queen in the best way I could,” as he told ITV in 2011. Though this role was somewhat ill-suited to his dynamic, driven, and outspoken temperament, Philip performed it with utter devotion.

3. Prince Philip’s legacy

One could argue rightly that modernising the monarchy was his lasting legacy achievement. But he also tried to modernise a spent and exhausted Britain as it emerged from a ruinous war. When peace came, and with it eventual economic recovery, Philip would throw himself into the construction of a better Britain, urging the country to adopt scientific methods, embracing the ideas of industrial design, planning, education and training. A decade before Harold Wilson talked of the "white heat of the technological revolution", Philip was urging modernity on the nation in speeches and interviews. He was on top of his reading of the latest scientific breakthroughs and well read in break out innovations.

This interest in modernisation was only matched by his love for nature. As the country and the world became richer and consumed ever more, Philip warned of the impact on the environment, well before it was even vaguely fashionable. As president of the World Wildlife Fund (WWF) in the UK for more than 20 years from 1961, he was one of the first high-profile advocates of the cause of conservation and biological diversity at a time when it was considered the preserve of an eccentric few.

For a generation of school children in Britain and the Commonwealth though, his most lasting legacy and achievement will be the Duke of Edinburgh Awards (DofE). He set up the Duke of Edinburgh award, a scheme aimed at getting young people out into nature in search of adventure or be of service to their communities. It was a scheme that could match the legacy of Baden Powell’s scouts movement. 

When Prince Philip first outlined his idea of a scheme to harness the values of his education at Gordonstoun by bringing character-building outdoor pursuits to the many rather than the fee-paying few, he received short shrift from the government of the day. The then minister of education, Sir David Eccles responded to the Duke’s proposal by saying: “I hear you’re trying to invent something like the Hitler Youth.” Undeterred he pushed on until it came to fruition.

I’m so glad that he did. I remember how proud I was for getting my DofE Awards while I was at boarding school. With the support of great mentors I managed to achieve my goals: collecting second-hand English books for a literacy programme for orphaned street children in Delhi, India with a close Indian school friend and her family; and completing a 350 mile hike following St. Olav’s Pilgrimmage Trail from Selånger, on the east coast of Sweden, and ending at Nidaros Cathedral in Trondheim, on the west coast of Norway.

It continues to be an enduring legacy.  Since its launch in 1956, the Duke of Edinburgh awards have been bestowed upon some 2.5 million youngsters in Britain and some eight million worldwide. For a man who once referred to himself as a “Greek princeling of no consequence”, his pioneering tutelage of these two organisations (alongside some 778 other organisations of which he was either president or a patron) would be sufficient legacy for most.

4. Prince Philip’s character

It may surprise some but what I liked most about Prince Philip was the very thing that helped him achieve so much and leave a lasting legacy: his character.

It is unhelpful to the caricature of Prince Philip as an unwavering but pugnacious consort whose chief talent was a dizzying facility in off-colour one-liners that he was widely read and probably the cleverest member of his family.

His private library at Windsor consists of 11,000 tomes, among them 200 volumes of poetry. He was a fan of Jung, TS Eliot, Shakespeare and the cookery writer Elizabeth David. As well as a lifelong fascination with science, technology and sport, he spoke fairly fluent French, painted and wrote a well received book on birds. It’s maddening to think how many underestimated his genuine intellect and how cultured he was behind the crusty exterior.

He didn’t have an entourage to fawn around him. He was the first to own a computer at Buckingham Palace. He answered his own phone and wrote and responded to his own correspondence. By force of character he fought the old guard courtiers at every turn to modernise the monarchy  against their stubborn resistance.

Prince Philip was never given to self-analysis or reflection on the past. Various television interviewers tried without success to coerce him in to commenting on his legacy.But once when his guard was down he asked on the occasion of his 90th birthday what he was more proud of, he replied with characteristic bluntness: “I couldn’t care less. Who cares what I think about it, I mean it’s ridiculous.”

All of which neatly raises the profound aversion to fuss and the proclivity for tetchiness often expressed in withering put-downs that, for better or worse, will be the reflex memory for many of the Duke of Edinburgh. If character is a two edged sword so what of his gaffes? 

There is no doubt his cult status partly owed to his so-called legendary gaffes, of which there are enough to fill a book (indeed there is a book). But he was no racist. None of the Commonwealth people or foreign heads of state ever said this about him. Only leftist republicans with too much Twitter time on their hands screamed such a ridiculous accusation. They’re just overly sensitive snowflakes and being devoid of any humour they’re easily triggered.

There was the time that Philip accepted a gift from a local in Kenya, telling her she was a kind woman, and then adding: “You are a woman, aren’t you?” Or the occasion he remarked “You managed not to get eaten, then?” to a student trekking in Papua New Guinea. Then there was his World Wildlife Fund speech in 1986, when he said: “If it has got four legs and it is not a chair, if it has got two wings and it flies but is not an aeroplane, and if it swims and it is not a submarine, the Cantonese will eat it.” Well, he wasn’t wrong.

Philip quickly developed a reputation for what he once defined, to the General Dental Council, as “dentopedology – the science of opening your mouth and putting your foot in it”. Clearly he could laugh at himself as he often did as an ice breaker to put others at ease.

His remarking to the president of Nigeria, who was wearing national dress, “You look like you’re ready for bed”, or advising British students in China not to stay too long or they would end up with “slitty eyes”, is probably best written off as ill-judged humour. Telling a photographer to “just take the fucking picture” or declaring “this thing open, whatever it is”, were expressions of exasperation or weariness with which anyone might sympathise.

Above all, he was also capable of genuine if earthy wit, saying of his horse-loving daughter Princess Anne: “If it doesn’t fart or eat hay she isn’t interested.” Many people might have thought it but few dared say it. If Prince Philip’s famous gaffes provoked as much amusement as anger, it was precisely because they seem to give voice to the bewilderment and pent-up frustrations with which many people viewed the ever-changing modern world.

A former royal protection officer recounts how while on night duty guarding a visiting Queen and consort, he engaged in conversation with colleagues on a passing patrol. It was 2am and the officer had understood the royal couple to be staying elsewhere in the building until a window above his head was abruptly slammed open and an irate Prince Philip stuck his head out of the window to shout: “Would you fuck off!” Without another word, he then shut the window.

The Duke at least recognised from an early age that he was possessed of an abruptness that could all too easily cross the line from the refreshingly salty to crass effrontery.

One of his most perceptive biographers, Philip Eade, recounted how at the age of 21 the prince wrote a letter to a relation whose son had recently been killed in combat. He wrote: “I know you will never think much of me. I am rude and unmannerly and I say things out of turn which I realise afterwards must have hurt someone. Then I am filled with remorse and I try to put matters right.”

In the case of the royal protection officer, the Duke turned up in the room used by the police officers when off duty and said: “Terribly sorry about last night, wasn’t quite feeling myself.”

Aides have also ventured to explain away some of their employer’s more outlandish remarks - from asking Cayman islanders “You are descended from pirates aren’t you?” to enquiring of a female fashion writer if she was wearing mink knickers - as the price of his instinctive desire to prick the pomposity of his presence with a quip to put others at ease.

Indeed many people forget that his ‘gaffes’ were more typical of the clubbish humour of the British officer class – which of course would be less appreciated, sometimes even offensive, to other ears. It’s why he could relate so well to veterans who enjoyed his bonhomie company immensely.

But behind the irascibility, some have argued there also lay a darker nature, unpleasantly distilled in his flinty attitude to his eldest son. One anecdote tells of how, in the aftermath of the murder of the Duke’s uncle and surrogate father, Lord Mountbatten,  Philip lectured his son, who was also extremely fond of his “honorary grandfather”, that he was not to succumb to self-pity. Charles left the room in tears and when his father was asked why he had spoken to his son with so little compassion, the Duke replied: “Because if there’s any crying to be done I want it to happen within this house, in front of his family, not in public. He must be toughened up, right now.”

But here I would say that Prince Philip’s intentions were almost always sincere and in no way cruel. He has always tried to protect his family - even from their own worst selves or from those outside the family ‘firm’ who may not have their best interest at heart.

In 1937, a 16-year-old Prince Philip had walked behind his elder sister Cecile’s coffin after she was killed in a plane crash while heavily pregnant. The remains of newly-born infant found in the wreckage suggested the aircraft had perished as the pilot sought to make an emergency landing in fog as the mother entered childbirth. It was an excruciating taste of tragedy which would one day manifest itself in a very princely form of kindness that was deep down that defined Philip’s character.

When about 60 years later Prime Minister Tony Blair’s spin doctors in Downing Street tried to strong arm the Queen and the royal household over the the arrangements for the late Prince Diana’s funeral, it was Philip who stepped in front to protect his family. The Prime Minister and his media savvy spin doctors wanted the two young princes, William and Harry, to walk behind the coffin.

The infamous exchange was on the phone during a conference call between London and Balmoral, and the emotional Philip was reportedly backed by the Queen. The call was witnessed by Anji Hunter, who worked for Mr Blair. She said how surprised she was to hear Prince Philip’s emotion. ‘It’s about the boys,” he cried, “They’ve lost their mother”. Hunter thought to herself, “My God, there’s a bit of suffering going on up there”.’

Sky TV political commentator Adam Boulton (Anji Hunter’s husband) would write in his book Tony’s Ten Years: ‘The Queen relished the moment when Philip bellowed over the speakerphone from Balmoral, “Fuck off. We are talking about two boys who have just lost their mother”. Boulton goes on to say that Philip: ‘…was trying to remind everyone that human feelings were involved. No 10 were trying to help the Royals present things in the best way, but may have seemed insensitive.’

In the end the politicians almost didn’t get their way. Prince Philip stepped in to counsel his grandson, Prince William, after he had expressed a reluctance to follow his mother’s coffin after her death in Paris. Philip told the grieving child: “If you don’t walk, I think you’ll regret it later. If I walk, will you walk with me?”

It’s no wonder he was sought as a counsellor by other senior royals and especially close to his grandchildren, for whom he was a firm favourite. His relationship with Harry was said to have become strained, however, following the younger Prince’s decision to reject his royal inheritance for a life away from the public eye in America with his new American wife, Meghan Markle. For Prince Philip I am quite sure it went against all the elder Prince had lived his life by - self-sacrifice for the greater cause of royalty.

This is the key to Philip’s character and in understanding the man. The ingrained habits of a lifetime of duty and service in one form or another were never far away.

In conclusion then....

After more time passes I am sure historians will make a richer reassessment of Prince Philip’s life and legacy. Because Prince Philip was an extraordinary man who lived an extraordinary life; a life intimately connected with the sweeping changes of our turbulent 20th Century, a life of fascinating contrast and contradiction, of service and some degree of solitude. A complex, clever, eternally restless man that not even the suffocating protocols of royalty and tradition could bind him.

Although he fully accepted the limitations of public royal service, he did not see this as any reason for passive self-abnegation, but actively, if ironically, identified with his potentially undignified role. It is this bold and humorous embrace of fated restriction which many now find irksome: one is no longer supposed to mix public performance with private self-expression in quite this manner.

Yet such a mix is authentically Socratic: the proof that the doing of one’s duty can also be the way of self-fulfilment. The Duke’s sacrifice of career to romance and ceremonial office is all the more impressive for his not hiding some annoyance. The combination of his restless temperament and his deeply felt devotion to duty found fruitful expression; for instance, in the work of Saint George’s House Windsor - a centre and retreat that he created with Revd. Robin Woods - in exploring religious faith, philosophy, and contemporary issues.

Above all he developed a way to be male that was both traditional and modern. He served one woman with chivalric devotion as his main task in life while fulfilling his public engagements in a bold and active spirit. He eventually embraced the opportunity to read and contemplate more. And yet, he remained loyal to the imperatives of his mentor Kurt Hahn in seeking to combine imagination with action and religious devotion with practical involvement.

Prince Philip took more pride in the roles he had accidentally inherited than in the personal gifts which he was never able fully to develop. He put companionship before self-realisation and acceptance of a sacred symbolic destiny before the mere influencing of events. In all these respects he implicitly rebuked our prevailing meritocracy which over-values officially accredited attainment, and our prevailing narcissism which valorises the assertion of discrete identities.

Prince Philip was Britain’s longest-serving consort. He was steadfast, duty driven, and a necessary adjunct to the continuity and stability of the Queen and the monarchy. Of all the institutions that have lost the faith of the British public in this period - the Church, Parliament, the media, the police - the Monarchy itself has surprisingly done better than most at surviving, curiously well-adapted to a period of societal change and moral anarchy. The House of Hanover and later Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (changed to Windsor), since their arrival in this country in 1714, have been noted above all for their ability to adapt. And just as they survived the Victorian age by transforming themselves into the bourgeoise, domestic ideal, so they have survived the new Elizabethan era (Harry-Meghan saga is just a passing blip like the Edward-Wallis Simpson saga of the 1930s).

There was once a time when the Royal’s German blood was a punchline for crude and xenophobic satirists. Now it is the royals who are deeply British while the country itself is increasingly cosmopolitan and globalised. British society has seen a greater demographic change than the preceding four or five thousand years combined, the second Elizabethan age has been characterised more than anything by a transformational movement of people. Prince Philip, the Greek-born, Danish-German persecuted and destitute wanderer who came to become one of the Greatest Britons of the past century, perhaps epitomised that era better than anyone else. And he got through it by making a joke of everything, and by being practical.

I hope I don’t exaggerate when I say that in our troubled times over identity, and our place and purpose in the world, we need to heed his selfless example more than ever.

As Heraclitus wisely said,  Ήθος ανθρώπω δαίμων (Character is destiny.)

RIP Prince Philip. You were my prince. God damn you, I miss you already.

Thanks for your question.

[politicaltheatre]

Empathy, pt.3

Let’s start with this: Jamal Kashshoggi was a man.

Do you remember him? He was a man, a human being, and like any of us he had hopes and dreams and memories.

He was also a journalist. After years of supporting the Saudi royal family and their authoritarian regime, he was murdered in 2018 for writing and speaking out against their abuses and, eventually, their war in Yemen. That was the version of him who fled Saudi Arabia, and the one who was marked for death by the Saudi crown prince he had once called a friend.

Last fall, the Saudi regime commuted the death sentences of the men it offered up as his murderers. Three months ago, an investigation confirmed that it was the Saudi Crown Prince, Mohammed bin Salman, who had ordered his death.

We’re forgetting him. Even now, reading this, we are already forgetting. We can’t help it. At least, we tell ourselves we can’t.

In many ways, Kashshoggi was a lot like Alexei Novalny. Novalny hasn’t left the news quite yet. Like Kashshoggi, he supported the corrupt, authoritarian regime in his country, Russia, before turning against it. The attempt on his life, by poison, failed. Barely. He’s still alive, locked up in a Russian prison, a cautionary tale for those daring to oppose Vladimir Putin.

How long before we’ve forgotten him, too?

It’s a lot to ask of ourselves, remembering everyone around us. Sure, in some abstract way most of us try, “Good will towards men,” and all that, but we have the luxury of looking away and of not having to commit ourselves to thinking of others the way those two men did.

For each of them, it was an inescapable empathy for the suffering of they saw around them that compelled them to risk their lives to draw attention to it. They did so knowing the cost.

That cost - personal loss, imprisonment, death - is enough to keep most of us looking away. So much of what we do is to enable us to look away, to keep unpleasant reality at a distance. When others are already physically far away, it only makes it that much harder for us to do the right thing.

Looking out past our borders, the world today is filled with men, women, and children suffering, more than a few at the hands of authoritarian regimes, and of them far too many paying that cost for standing up against abuse.

The most present case this past week, because videos on social media have made it impossible to ignore in ways that it has been, has been that of the Palestinians.

The facts of this latest series of abuses against them should not be in doubt. During the last days of Ramadan, Israelis began forcing Palestinians out of their homes in the Sheikh Jarrah district in East Jerusalem. This was followed in quick succession by Israeli troops occupying the Al-Aqsa mosque following a confrontation between Palestinians at the mosque for Friday prayers and Israelis celebrating the capture of the mosque in 1967.

This was all a deliberate provocation, beyond the aggressive offense of what the Israelis were doing. The timing of it, during the Muslim holy month while right wing Benjamin Netanyahu struggles to cling to power, was intended to add insult to injury.

It worked. Clearly.

Hamas, ever eager for an excuse to be violent and to be seen to be violent, gave an ultimatum that would make Netanyahu’s regime look weak if accepted, Netanyahu gratefully rejected it, and Hamas began firing rockets, knowing that Israel would escalate and retaliate with a kind of brutality that can only be described as criminal.

The unpleasant reality is that both political powers rely on perpetuating the conflict between them, doing so at the expense of the people they claim to want to serve and protect. And those people pay the cost of it.

Note, please, how I have avoided referring to those instigating these atrocities as Muslims or Jews. That they use their religions and their histories as justification for violence and abuse should not be taken as representative of either religion. If anything, it should be taken as a kind of cruel irony, or perhaps an insight into how the abused, as individuals or groups, can become abusers themselves.

Zionism is not Judaism. It never was and never will be. It grew out of two things: the technology-driven late 19th century belief by Europeans, and their North American “cousins”, in their right to colonial domination of non-Europeans; and the centuries-old, routine and systematic attacks on Jews - pogroms - especially in Central and Eastern Europe that led millions of Jews to flee for their lives, many of them to the United States.

The establishment of Israel in 1948 followed the same pattern: that same, late 19th century belief in the right to claim or assign ownership of others’ land - no matter that it had once belonged to your ancestors; and the routine and systematic attempted genocide of all Jews in Europe - the Holocaust - by Europeans who chose to believe Jews not to be Europeans but some other, lesser race from West Asia.

That, of course, has been the assigned role for Jews the world over: they are accepted as insiders when times are good and scapegoated as outsiders when times are bad. To be Jewish - I am - is to understand that this never quite goes away. There’s always somebody having a bad day, always a big lie ready for justification.

Technically, it is true that Jews are Asian, in the way that Palestinians are also Asian, and that Egyptians are, too, but also African because different people have had different maps which they used for different purposes at different times.

Also true is that these things are only true due to the arbitrary drawing of continental lines on maps made by Europeans, from the ancient Greeks to those carving up the “New World” in the century after Columbus to the 1885 conference in Berlin carving up Africa for colonial exploitation.

This is not, strictly speaking, a European thing. Every culture has a tendency to see themselves as the center of the world. Just ask those living in China, or as they call it, Zhongguo, the “Middle Kingdom”.

The difference here is that modern day Israel was carved out of Palestine, a colonial “protectorate” which was itself carved out of the Ottoman Empire and awarded to the British following World War I. As a spoil of war, formerly-Ottoman Iraq, with its vast oil reserves, had greater value to the British. Palestine had ports on the Mediterranean - “the center of the world” - but was otherwise an afterthought.

Not, however, to the Jews fleeing Nazi Germany. We must remember that the rest of the world didn’t want them. Jews attempting to flee the atrocity they and everyone else couldn’t help but see coming were turned away by everyone else, including the United States.

This in no way justifies what was done in Palestine in the 1930s and 40s, it’s just to place it in context. By turning Jews away, by attempting to forget them and their suffering, the world gave weight and power to right wing groups within the refugees.

Starting in the 1930s, those groups began to engage in terrorism against Arabs to force their position into Palestine and against the British to force them out. Irgun Zvai Leumi (National Military Organization) and later the Stern Gang carried out assassinations and killed hundreds of Arabs and British with bombs.

After what the Nazis did to the Jews in Europe, memorialized in newsreels for all the world to see, who would take the Arabs’ side? Who could? The British were in no position to hold onto their colonial possessions anywhere, so they gave up and pulled out and in 1948 the state of Israel was born. Palestinian Arabs were forced from their homes and stripped of rights they had held under the Ottomans and even the British.

Again, this was not Judaism. As the name “Irgun” suggests, those terrorists were a right wing, nationalist militia doing what right wing, nationalist militias have done before and since, using an ethnic or religious identity to justify committing atrocities to take land and property.

After standing by and allowing the Nazis to do what they did, the world vowed never to forget; part of the price they were willing to pay - that they were willing to allow the Palestinian Arabs to pay - was to forget what Irgun and the Stern Gang had done, and to turn a blind eye to anything the Israelis did going forward.

There was a racist element to it, to be sure. This is part of the pattern of colonial withdrawal, negotiating a partition of land and possessions among the colonized groups, pitting them against each other, and then letting them fend for themselves. Nothing like creating a power vacuum to draw out the worst of us.

The British did the same thing in South Asia in 1947, pitting Muslim and Hindu groups against each other, erupting in spasms of violence before settling into a Cold War, complete with nuclear weapons. Even in their most secular eras, religious nationalism has defined the politics and leadership of each nation.

The result of this, naturally, has been an increasingly corrupt leadership exploiting religious hatred and mistrust to gain more power and wealth for themselves. It should be noted, yet again, that the political entities of Pakistan and India, though led by religious nationalists, do not represent Islam or Hinduism.

Their actions and failures do not represent those religions in any way. They are the actions and failures of men and women seeking power, seeking to acquire it and seeking to hold onto it. They are no different than the Netanyahu regime or Hamas, or our own right wing leaders in the United States.

For all of them, it is in their interest to cling to memory of conflict as a means of manipulation; in Israel and Palestine, nationalist leaders preach as if 1948 or 1967 are now; in India and Pakistan, it’s still 1947; and for America’s white nationalists, it’s either 1865 or 1965, take your pick. For the Serbs slaughtering thousands of Muslims in Srebrenica twenty-six years ago, it was 1389, the year the Ottomans conquered the Balkans.

The wars, cold or hot, can never end because time is never allowed to change. This, again, is a function of proximity. By freezing themselves in the increasingly distant past, the leaders and those choosing to follow them do not have to accept the changes facing them in the present. Their fantasy is to return to that idyllic, earlier time, when they possessed everything and did not have to be accountable to anyone.

And they will all fail for the same reason: in the present or near future, we will have reached a point at which we can no longer allow ourselves to ignore those suffering and in doing so forget them.

That is what we have done to the Palestinians. What has been done and what is being done now is in no small part because we forget them, routinely and systematically and purposefully.

The videos sent from Gaza of children being pulled from rubble should help us remember. They should. Ideally, they will have the same effect as those of last year’s Black Live Matter protests, but the people of Gaza remain far away. For many of us, it will be enough that the missiles and rockets have stopped.

Videos sent from India’s emergency rooms and crematoria should help us remember, but they, too, remain far away. Already, we’re starting to put India’s crisis behind us.

Will we remember either of them a month from now? Two? Or will they fade into the background, as the imprisoned Hong Kong democracy protesters have, or those dying of Covid-19 in Brazil, or those shot down in the streets fighting police brutality in Columbia, or those caught between warring factions in Ethiopia’s Tigray region? Or, for that matter, those half a century ago in Argentina who were simply “disappeared”?

What about the coup in Myanmar? Remember that? How about the ethnic cleansing of the Muslim Rohingya people, supported by the now-deposed and jailed regime of fallen-hero Aung San Suu Kyi? What was done to them was no different than what was done to the Armenians in what is now eastern Turkey by the Ottoman Empire in 1915. That genocide was recently recognized by President Biden, an act of official, international recognition that took over a century and which itself is already being forgotten. The Rohingya may have to wait as long to be remembered themselves, or longer.

The point of all this isn’t that we forget, try as we might, but that despite it we find ways to remember. That Biden recognized the Armenians came because they did not forget and did not allow that crime to be forgotten. 

If this sounds like what nationalists all claim to do themselves - always demanding that everyone remember this date or that insult - remember that actual justice never seems to be their goal.

Justice requires memory, full memory. For us to remember anything fully, we must take the good with the bad. We must recognize the good and bad in each of us and in each group and in each series of actions. We must understand that for the worst act done by anyone in the name of any group or religion, there remain those within those groups and religions who stand against it.

So, let’s end with this: George Floyd 

George Floyd was a man, a human being, and like any of us he had hopes and dreams and memories. He died one year ago today in no small part because we forgot him. 

We remember now, today especially, because of what was done to him on this date, but we should recognize the role that forgetting him and people like him played in the events that led to his murder. We as a society have looked away from the suffering of minorities in this country, and from the violence done to certain groups within our society.

The easiest thing to say, certainly as we watched that video and the countless videos of police brutalizing non-violent protesters all last summer, was that “all cops are bad”. They aren’t. Hard as it may be to hear, they aren’t.

They are, however, led by men and women who push an adversarial culture, who encourage violence and racism, who are corrupt, and who thrive on the failure of reform. And most of them, far, far too many, stand by in silence as men and women are murdered in that culture’s name. In that silence, they have failed us all.

If we want to change that culture, we need those who would stand for justice to stand up and speak. They are there, just as they are in Israel and Palestine, and in Pakistan and India and elsewhere: intimidated, ostracized, and struggling to be heard.

Of course, May 25th, 2020 wasn’t just any other day in America. It was Memorial Day. That is a cruel irony. Another is how little we do to honor that day. It was created to honor those who died for this country, to remember not only them but what they did and what they supposedly did it for. Instead, we grill meats and drink beer and forget our troubles for just one day.

Few deaths may have the lasting impact on this country that George Floyd’s has had and will have, and he died in no small part because he, too, had been forgotten. This coming Memorial Day, let us take a moment to remember him and all of the others everywhere in this world who have died and deserve to be remembered.

- Daniel Ward

[sayedmadkor]

Racial segregation does not stem from the skin but from the human mind, and therefore the solution to racial discrimination, aversion to others and other manifestations of inequality should, first and foremost, address mental delusions that have produced, over thousands of years, false concepts of the superiority of one race over another Human races. At the roots of this ethnic intolerance lies the misconception that the human race is basically composed of separate races and multiple classes, and that these different human groups have varying mental, moral and physical competencies that require different types of interaction.

The truth is that there is only one human race. We are one people inhabiting one planet: we are a human family linked to a common destiny and dependent on being "as one soul".

The principle of the oneness of the human world strikes a chord in the depths of the soul. It is not just a way to talk about ideals of solidarity. Nor is it just a vague concept or slogan. But it reflects an eternal, spiritual, moral and material reality that crystallized during the process of the human race reaching maturity in the twentieth century. This fact has become more evident today because the peoples of the world have many ways to realize the dependence of each element on the other, and to become aware of the inevitable realization of their unity.

The understanding of the idea of ​​the total unity of the human race comes after a historical process during which individuals transform into larger human units. From clans to tribes, then to states and nations, then to federations and ties of states, it becomes natural that the next step is to create a diverse, unified world civilization at the same time. A civilization in which all peoples and cultures are integral parts of one building, the human race itself. And how much

A correct understanding of the "unity of the human world" implies that any law, tradition, or any mental orientation that grants preference rights or privileges to one human group at the expense of the other is not merely a moral error, but rather and fundamentally it is inconsistent with all monotheistic religions.

Finally, it assumes that justice should be the governing principle of the social body and calls for broad measures taken by governments, international agencies and civil society organizations that would address economic injustice at all levels.

[xwestcoastwassyx]

Short Answer Quiz #3// Due- 20 NOV 2020

1. Determine what kind of social media site you are creating. Then answer the following questions, explaining your decisions. (Remember the key here is to create an ethical algorithm model).

      I would create a social media site that run as a microblog – like Twitter or Tumblr – in the sense that I would allow for users to share images, textual work, voice audios and would be able to like and repost another person’s work. The name of my microblog would be “Can You hear Me Now?” and would predominantly be used to openly discuss global issues of oppressions, racisms, sexisms, and further discriminations. The objective of “Can You Hear Me Know?” is to explicitly share your point of view on systemic issues across the glob – with no filter – urging people to listen to what they have to say. The social media blog would call for attention all across the globe and would consist of an inclusive online society where individuals are able to share posts and comment on posts to express their stance on a certain issue. Users would be “heard” as they practice a form of online social activism to address concerns that need to be addressed. My microblog would have people step out of their comfort zone, where they can search for their holistic identity to gain a better sense of who they are as a person and what major change they can do in the world by speaking their voice. However, racist remarks/comments and oppressions will be flagged and will not be acceptable on the microblog. I would establish an online culture that welcomes all ages, race, genders, and nations to come together to address the uncomfortable notions of the White Nationalists who are trying to dominant global culture. I would welcome activist and encourage them to go beyond the form of slacktivism and encourage them to create online movements that are powerful enough to be addressed offline. The algorithms I would use would, again, be tailored to an inclusive online environment. There would be no such thing as virtual redlining – as redlining can be dangerous and can be seen as a form of oppression and further discriminations among the minority races. I would make “Can You Hear Me Now?” easily available to all people coming from all types of social economic statuses. By that, I would create this microblog and structure it in the form of an application – which can be downloaded on a smartphone – and via the Internet on a computer-based tablet or desktop. For those who cannot afford technology, I would encourage users to take their online movements out to the real world – out in the streets – where everyone can be a part of the culture and join in on the new revolution to freedoms.

2. What will you measure? (ex: likes, hashtags, how long someone stays on a page, etc) Be sure to explain all your decisions.

      I will measure the amount of likes a blog post receives to better understand the direction to where my online culture is headed. For example, if I see that a Black Lives Matter page is receiving thousands of likes I will address the need and the importance in highlighting the domains that lie between the issues of oppression and discrimination against the male and female Black body. I will encourage all users to come together on this online platform to address this issue of racism and encourage users to continue to fight for what they believe in. Hashtags are a major part of modern online culture; therefore, I would encourage my users to keep enlisting hashtags in their blog posts so that it will be displayed on the majority of user’s feeds. These hashtags can share the importance of a “Blacktag” – as the “blacktag” is huge on other social media platforms for sparking an online and offline movement. As previously mentioned, I would not limit anything and would encourage my users to feel comfortable to vocalize what they believe in and would offer a platform for all cultures, race, ethnicities, and genders to vocalize the issues they face – whether it be Black Lives Matter, etc. The hastags – or blacktags – will allow other users (who may be allies) to join forces on the online blog and continue the conversation on the importance of the global issue and global movements like Black Lives Matter.

3. How will you weight these factors? (rank factors from most important to least important)

      These factors will be weighed through carful analyzation as to why users choose to go on “Can You Hear Me Now?”. For example, my executive team – software developers – would ensure that my microblog website has no restrictions and provides a free space for social activisms. However, the microblog will take into consideration the social issues the user is interested in vocalizing in. For example, Tommy is setting up an account for “Can You Hear Me Know?”, as a part of activating his account he will be asked what political issues he would like to discuss and be involved in when logging into the microblog. Let’s say Tommy says he is deciding to join “Can You hear Me Know?” because he is a gay male who constantly faces harassment and discriminations out in the offline world. He wants to be heard, he wants to connect with people who feel his pain and who want to spread love and peace in the offline and online culture. This allows for “Tommy” to connect with other users who share similar and common interests and address the issues gay men – around the globe – face in their residing country. Tommy, an American male, is now connected to gay men from Australia, The United Kingdom, Russia, etc. where they can all express their common experiences of oppression. Tommy is now able to join forces and connect on “Can You Hear Me Now?” because he feels that he is being heard for the first time and wants to vocalize how he feels. This is the most important factor of my microblog. A moderate factor would be asking for Tommy’s age so that he can be around people the same age as he is, that way they can have more of a connection and may feel more relaxed and willing to open up to one another. My microblog would be so diverse and act as a safe haven for those who wish to escape the offline world. A minor factor would be providing your religious background – although religion can be seen as a major factor, “Can You Hear Me Now?” is directed towards hearing everyone for who they are, for the social oppression they face in the offline world that stem from systemic issues. Religion is beautiful and an incredible thing to share and talk among one another, however, my blog would be more directed towards – yet again – social oppression of race, sex, culture, and gender.

4. What factors will not be measured? (what will not be measured in your algorithm and why)

      I have previously mentioned religion as being a minimal factor that would be measured, or not measure, because of the fact that my microblog aims at correction and fixing social oppression and allowing for individuals from all over the world to be heard and share their struggles they have gone through. Relationship status would not be measure in my microblog, a lot of blogs and social media websites ask for too much information – such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram. However, no one needs to know if Tommy – a newer user of “Can You Hear Me Now?” – is single, married, in a relationship, or divorced. They only need to know what Tommy stands for – Tommy is a gay American male who is fighting for his right to live in an offline world where people would no longer judge him for his sexual preferences. Tommy is trying to connect with gay men from around the world – not for the purpose of dating – but for the purpose of expressing his hurt through vocalizing the hardships he has experienced through the act of posting a picture, a textual post, a video recording, or even the movement of a hashtag.

5. How will the model learn or adapt to new information? (this can include changes in language, etc)

      The algorithms that are place on “Do You hear Me Now?” would include programing that would make appropriate suggestions that cater and benefit to the individuals needs. This entails that if Tommy is constantly looking up Gay Rights Movements in his search bar, the algorithms and technology will automatically introduce him to a feed of the U.S. Supreme Court legalizing same-sex marriage across the nation or a historical event such as The Stonewall riots. This is crucially important to recollect on because Tommy lives in America, the algorithms know this because when Tommy was creating his profile on “Can You hear Me Now?”, he mentioned that he lived in the United States. The algorithms will be structure to benefit the individual rather than harm them or “redline” them out of oppression and unethical standards. The algorithms work together to help Tommy stay connected and to help him on the issues of gay rights in the American offline culture.

6. What biases will be built into the model? How will this change the algorithm’s outcome?

      I think my own personal biases would definitely interfere with the creation of my microblog, which is why I would hire a team that come from a variety of backgrounds and experiences – a diverse technological team that creates the computational inputs and outputs of the algorithms. However, if I hired a group of people who thought just like I did or who went through the same experiences I did it would lead to the problem of personal bias. Being a gay male in my mid-twenties, I would probably focus too much on gay rights issues in American culture. Knowing this, as previously mentioned, I would hire a diverse team who comes from multiple backgrounds – nationalities, sex, gender, etc. – so that we can complete the mission statement of tailoring each experience to our online users.

7. How will the model live out the (un)ethical practices we have discussed?

      The model and formulation of my blog would be inclusive as it would take ethical standards into consideration. Recently – in this course – we have learned about the systemic issues of racisms in the American culture and how mass media portrays the Black body as “thuggish” and “unnatural”. “Do You Hear Me Now?” would address these issues and would promote the beauty of the Black body and black hair by applying ethical standards that help destroy the issues of oppression. I would encourage users that my blog is definitely an open space for communicating on all issues, however, I would not want my users to get too comfortable on the online platform and would want them to take their measures offline so that they can make an even bigger impact and difference in the world. I mentioned that all were welcome, and they are. But, if they are members of a hate group – such as the White Supremacists – I would not allow for that type of hate to grow any further, especially on my microblog and for what I represent. This is how I can provide an ethical standard, by allowing for all groups and people from all over the world to vocalize their oppressions and to be heard – encouraging social activism both online and offline – but, I would not tolerate the continuity of hate groups to be on my blog.

[questionsonislam]

What are the fundamental or human rights in Islam that had been granted by God?

It should be first looked at the pre-Islamic era to fully understand the human rights that Islam had granted on humans.

1. All of the cultures, nations, and countries during the pre-Islamic era were monarchies. They were ruled by kings, crowns, or emperors. They held absolute authority over their people; hanged, exiled whomever they wanted, and they were responsible to no one.

2. People were divided into various castes. Close relatives of the ruler were considered nobles. They were privileged. The vast majority of people were excluded from the rights of those nobles, they were treated contemptuously. There were great gaps between the classes.

3. Slavery was in use with the utmost savagery. Human dignity was trampled.

4. People were subject to discriminative treatments according to their race, and the color of their skin. Line of descent implied a certain excellence of origin. People were divided up and separated on the basis of their families; abilities, knowledge, morality, virtues did not mean anything.

5. There were no fundamental rights and freedoms. Fundamental rights and freedoms such as freedom of religion and conscience, right of property, latitude of thought were no in use. People had unprecedented tortures because of their beliefs and thoughts.

6. The essential principle of law was trampled. Equality before the law was the last thing that could come to the minds. There was no such a thing as fair and impartial trial. Rights in law were not absolute, personal wishes and interests did for law. Different castes members who committed the same crime were imposed different penalties.

While the world was in such a situation, the religion Islam came and implemented the greatest development of the history of the human kind. If it is examined fairly, long before the declaration of the human rights in Western Cultures, it will be seen that the ultimate humane objectives were ascertained both in the holy Quran and in the Sunnah of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh). In fact, the Prophet Muhammads farewell sermon during the farewell pilgrimage has distinctive principles on the basis of Human rights.

This sermon, in the year 632, was given to more than a hundred thousand Muslims. That is to say, one thousand one hundred and seven years before the declaration of the rights of man and of the citizen in 1789 in France, which is considered the first written text about human rights. Islams new principles about human rights has great impact on the development of Wests human rights struggle.

Humans have distinctive value from other creations. This value increases with believing in God and obeying His rules. By this way, human becomes the most dignified guest of the universe.

Valuableness, because of being a human encircles everyone. Woman or man, young or old, white or black, weak or strong, poor or rich, whichever the religion or race he or she belongs to, this shadow of clemency encircles them all.

Islam, by this way, prevented people from shedding blood unlawfully, protected peoples chastities, properties, and protected them from being exposed to such assaults like breaking into their houses, and moral pressure. Human dignity and honor and the right to have their dignity and honor respected and protected by Islam in the literal sense than ever before.

The principle rights and freedoms that Islam brought are:

1- Any discrimination based on any ground such as race and color has abated by Islam. All men are descendants of Hazrath Adam. No one can choose his race or the color of his skin. It all happens with Gods decision. Discriminating people based on race, skin color and seeing some superior to others is wrong and harmful according to both Islam and Humane reasons. God, in the Quran states, O humankind! Surely We have created you from a single (pair of) male and female, and made you into tribes and families so that you may know one another (and so build mutuality and co-operative relationships, not so that you may take pride in your differences of race or social rank, and breed enmities). (Al-Hujurat Surah, 49:13) as it is clearly seen from the verse, being different should not be simulated as a means of superiority but for building mutuality and co-operative relationships. The following hadith sheds light on the matter. Abu Zarr Ghifari, when, once in a rage called Bilal O son of a Negress, the Prophet did not tolerate this much of intemperance on his part, admonished him and said, "You still smack of the evil traits of Jahiliyah, (that you tried to disgrace him by lowering the dignity of his mother on the basis of color)". Abu Zarr regretted and asked forgiveness from Bilal.

2- Islam has abated the claims of superiority based on descent

3- Islam has given the right to control the administrators to the public. It aimed at abating arbitrary managements, and unjust, unlawful acts of the administrators. Abu Bakr, when he was elected as the first Caliph, did not claim any privileges. In fact, clearly refuted any special status in the opening words (after the pre-amble) of his inauguration sermon, I was assigned to rule you, and I am not the best amongst you. He also went on asking that people would obey him as long as he does his duty properly and that if he does not then he commands not obedience from the people. One day, Omar was giving a sermon in the Mosque and he told the crowd that he was elected as their leader but he was not the best among them. He said that he would try to rule according to the teachings of God and His prophet, but that if he made a mistake, they should correct him. One person rose from the crowd and told Omar that if he deviated from the book, they would correct him with the edge of the sword. He became delighted with the answer.

4- Freedom of thoughts and conscience are the second most important rights of humans after having right to live. Not avowing this right of individuals means decreasing his rank to that of animals. It advocates both freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. With the principle of there is no compulsion in Religion, it does not allow coercing anybody into the Islam.

5- Islam has given great importance to the institution of slavery. And, thus, has given legal status to it. Before Islam, slavery was in use with the utmost savagery. There was no reason to anticipate that slavery would be abated completely, which was widespread in every corner of the world. For this reason, Islam did not abrogated slavery completely but improved it in the most civilized and humane way. On the other hand, made possible the transition from slavery to freedom. Thus, developed such efficient systems to abate slavery completely.

6- Freedom of having property: As well as all the other feelings, God gave us the feeling of ownership and it is a part of our human nature. The Holy Quran states its meaning clear. Islam let individuals to have possessions and laid the groundwork for having possessions lawfully. The right of individual property that Islam acknowledges cannot be intervened without the permission of the owner.

7- Equality before the law: All people are equal before the law (regardless of their ethnicity, belief etc.) as equal as the teeth of a comb. The rule of law is an essential principle in Islam. A state leader or a commoner are both equal before the law. Even if the felon is a state leader he receives punishment. Sultan Mehmed II the conqueror with a Greek architect, Hazrath Ali with a Jew, Salaaddin Ayyubi with an Armenian, all came before the judge. A woman from Banu Makhzum Clan committed theft during Prophet Muhammad's conquest of Mecca, and she was brought to him. the clan of Banu Mahkzum attempted to intercede for her. They sent Usama to God's Messenger (pbuh). Usama, was the son Zayd, and , like Zayd, very dear to him. Unable to resist the insistent pressure from the Banu Makhzum, Usama pleaded with the Prophet for the woman to be excused. Prophet's face turned red with anger and he rebuked the intercessor. And he gave this historic sermon: 'O people! Know of a certainty that the Almighty ruined many of the peoples before you because they did not observe justice. When an influential person among them who had powerful backing committed a crime, they ignored it, but if the same crime was committed by a weak one, they applied the necessary punishment. I swear by God, that if my daughter Fatima steals, I will not hesitate to cut off her hand.' (Bukhari 8:6800; Muslim 3:4187 and 4188) Abu Bakr

8- In Islam, there is no unlawful punishment. No one is responsible for another persons crime. This principle is stated in the Quran as follows, Say: "Am I, then, to seek after someone other than God as Lord when He is the Lord of everything?" Every soul earns only to its own account; and no soul, as bearer of burden, bears and is made to bear the burden of another. Then, to your Lord is the return of all of you, and He will then make you understand (the truth) concerning all that on which you have differed. (Al-Anam Surah, 6:164)

9- Impartiality and independence of the courts principle: Judicial authority in Islam is impartial and independent. Courts are the judicial authority in Islamic countries. Like commoners, the ruler of the states came before the court and punished if seen guilty of a crime.

10- Domiciliar inviolability and privacy of the individual: In Islam, no one or no authority has right to intervene the privacy of the individual. No one has right to enter any ones private property. Inquiring private lives of individuals are strictly impermissible.

11- Freedom of Travel: In Islam, it is stated that traveling is an act both exemplary and healthful, so always prompted.

12- Right to live; protection of the life, property, and chastity: This matter has put forward in the farewell sermon of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in the most perfect sense. O people: your lives and your property, until the very day you meet your Lord, are as inviolable to each other as the inviolability of this day you are now in, and the month you are now in. Have I given the message? -- O God, be my witness. So let whoever has been given something for safekeeping give it back to him who gave him it.

13- Social Insurance: The Religion Islam provided for the needy in view of the facts such as elderness, sickness, calamities, disasters, and accidents; secured their futures by institutions like Zakat (Almsgiving), and social foundations.

14- Freedom to Work, Wage Equality and Justice: In Islam, working and making an effort for livelihood are valued and encouraged; begging, not working are always seen as In fact, working for the livelihood of ones family is regarded as a prayer with the condition of fulfilling the obligatory prayers. The verse, depicts the importance of working that Islam gives. In addition, Prophet Muhammad has instructed people to pay the wages of their workers before their sweat dry out .Workers, on the other hand, should be honest and sincere in their work for the best of the income.

15- Protecting the Children: In Islam, from the very moment of birth, it is given help to the parents for raising the child, and is granted an allowance from the treasury. Today, in most of the wealthy countries, child support enforcement services help the needy families.

16- Basic Education is free and obligatory. The hadith, To seek knowledge is obligatory unto every Muslim both man and woman, makes Basic Education necessary. Besides, religious, moral, and literary education, professional education should be given, too.

[thepatriotplace-blog]

The Patriot Warrior Class

Its been awhile since I’ve posted on Tumblr. In fact I actually kind of forgot I had the account. I created this account a few years ago and I named it “the patriot place”. Pretty self explanatory.

Let me tell you about me. I am first and foremost a patriotic American. I have always called myself a patriot. I’ve been a libertarian party member for many years. I’ve voted in many POTUS general elections for the libertarian candidate (with the exception of 2x). I’ve always had a deep love for the US constitution have spoken out about the blatant corruption of the constitution that has been going on in America my whole life.

I also consider myself a warrior. Although I have never served in the military I was a police officer for 25 years and have since retired. My duties as a police officer included SWAT and emergency tactical medicine. I have been trained by the best warriors America has to offer.

Since the election of Donald Trump (who I didn’t vote for) I have seen the rapid decay of the Libertarian Party. It has become polluted with progressives, pedophiles and people suffering from Trump Derangement Syndrome. My interactions with the neo-libertarians has been sad. Justin Amash has completely flipped in my view and I align more with Rand Paul than I do with Ron Paul. Jo Jorgesen who is the Libertarian’s Party POTUS candidate is and her public support of a Marxist organization was the last straw for me. I am no longer a member of the libertarian party.

I now consider myself a member of the patriot warrior class. I am prepared to fight and die for the Republic and its constitution. I took an oath to uphold the constitution of the United States and that doesn’t end when there is  (Ret.) at the end of my name. There are many like me. Men and women who served and are currently serving to protect our Republic who believe in what I believe in are what will save this country from the Marxist insurrection, which is back politically by the Democrat Party and financed by the CCP and George Soros that is taking place within the US’s borders.

The neo-libertarians wont fight for the Republic. They are feckless and nothing more than internet bottle throwers and trolls. Their mentality is the same as the progressives, ‘Burn it down at all costs to get Trump out.”

The single most important event that turned the page in this chapter in my life had to be Trump’s speech at the National Archives Museum on Constitution Day. I have never heard a politician since Reagan deliver a speech more patriotic than this speech. I’ve included the transcript of that speech. So I will end this post with this.... In 2020 I will vote Vote Trump.

THE PRESIDENT: Thank you very much. Thank you, Mike. A great Vice President. I am truly honored to be here at the very first White House Conference on American History. So important.

Our mission is to defend the legacy of America’s founding, the virtue of America’s heroes, and the nobility of the American character. We must clear away the twisted web of lies in our schools and classrooms, and teach our children the magnificent truth about our country. We want our sons and daughters to know that they are the citizens of the most exceptional nation in the history of the world. (Applause.)

To grow up in America is to live in a land where anything is possible, where anyone can rise, and where any dream can come true — all because of the immortal principles our nation’s founders inscribed nearly two and a half centuries ago.

That’s why we have come to the National Archives, the sacred home of our national memory. In this great chamber, we preserve our glorious inheritance: the Declaration of Independence, the Constitution, the Bill of Rights.

On this very day in 1787, our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution at Independence Hall in Philadelphia. It was the fulfillment of a thousand years of Western civilization. Our Constitution was the product of centuries of tradition, wisdom, and experience. No political document has done more to advance the human condition or propel the engine of progress.

Yet, as we gather this afternoon, a radical movement is attempting to demolish this treasured and precious inheritance. We can’t let that happen. (Applause.) Left-wing mobs have torn down statues of our founders, desecrated our memorials, and carried out a campaign of violence and anarchy. Far-left demonstrators have chanted the words “America was never great.” The left has launched a vicious and violent assault on law enforcement — the universal symbol of the rule of law in America. These radicals have been aided and abetted by liberal politicians, establishment media, and even large corporations.

Whether it is the mob on the street, or the cancel culture in the boardroom, the goal is the same: to silence dissent, to scare you out of speaking the truth, and to bully Americans into abandoning their values, their heritage, and their very way of life.

We are here today to declare that we will never submit to tyranny. We will reclaim our history and our country for citizens of every race, color, religion, and creed.

The radicals burning American flags want to burn down the principles enshrined in our founding documents, including the bedrock principle of equal justice under law. In order to radically transform America, they must first cause Americans to lose confidence in who we are, where we came from, and what we believe. As I said at Mount Rushmore — which they would love to rip down and it rip it down fast, and that’s never going to happen — two months ago, the left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution.

As many of you testified today, the left-wing rioting and mayhem are the direct result of decades of left-wing indoctrination in our schools. It’s gone on far too long. Our children are instructed from propaganda tracts, like those of Howard Zinn, that try to make students ashamed of their own history.

The left has warped, distorted, and defiled the American story with deceptions, falsehoods, and lies. There is no better example than the New York Times’ totally discredited 1619 Project. This project rewrites American history to teach our children that we were founded on the principle of oppression, not freedom.

Nothing could be further from the truth. America’s founding set in motion the unstoppable chain of events that abolished slavery, secured civil rights, defeated communism and fascism, and built the most fair, equal, and prosperous nation in human history. (Applause.)

The narratives about America being pushed by the far-left and being chanted in the streets bear a striking resemblance to the anti-American propaganda of our adversaries — because both groups want to see America weakened, derided, and totally diminished.

Students in our universities are inundated with critical race theory. This is a Marxist doctrine holding that America is a wicked and racist nation, that even young children are complicit in oppression, and that our entire society must be radically transformed. Critical race theory is being forced into our children’s schools, it’s being imposed into workplace trainings, and it’s being deployed to rip apart friends, neighbors, and families.

A perfect example of critical race theory was recently published by the Smithsonian Institution. This document alleged that concepts such as hard work, rational thinking, the nuclear family, and belief in God were not values that unite all Americans, but were instead aspects of “whiteness.” This is offensive and outrageous to Americans of every ethnicity, and it is especially harmful to children of minority backgrounds who should be uplifted, not disparaged.

Teaching this horrible doctrine to our children is a form of child abuse in the truest sense of those words. For many years now, the radicals have mistaken Americans’ silence for weakness. But they’re wrong.

There is no more powerful force than a parent’s love for their children. And patriotic moms and dads are going to demand that their children are no longer fed hateful lies about this country. American parents are not going to accept indoctrination in our schools, cancel culture at our work, or the repression of traditional faith, culture, and values in the public square. Not anymore. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much.

We embrace the vision of Martin Luther King, where children are not judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character.

The left is attempting to destroy that beautiful vision and divide Americans by race in the service of political power. By viewing every issue through the lens of race, they want to impose a new segregation, and we must not allow that to happen.

Critical race theory, the 1619 Project, and the crusade against American history is toxic propaganda, ideological poison that, if not removed, will dissolve the civic bonds that tie us together. It will destroy our country.

That is why I recently banned trainings in this prejudiced ideology from the federal government and banned it in the strongest manner possible. (Applause.)

The only path to national unity is through our shared identity as Americans. That is why it is so urgent that we finally restore patriotic education to our schools.

Under our leadership, the National Endowment for the Humanities has awarded a grant to support the development of a pro-American curriculum that celebrates the truth about our nation’s great history. (Applause.)

We are joined by some of the respected scholars involved in this project, including Professor Wilfred McClay. Wilfred, please. Thank you very much. Welcome. (Applause.) Thank you. Dr. Peter Wood of the National Association of Scholars. Dr. Peter. (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. And Ted Rebarber. Thank you, Ted. (Applause.) Thank you very much, Ted.

Today, I am also pleased to announce that I will soon sign an Executive Order establishing a national commission to promote patriotic education. It will be called the “1776 Commission.” (Applause.) Thank you. Thank you. It will encourage our educators to teach our children about the miracle of American history and make plans to honor the 250th anniversary of our founding. Think of that — 250 years.

Recently, I also signed an executive order to establish the National Garden of American Heroes, a vast outdoor park that will feature the statues of the greatest Americans who have ever lived.

Today, I am announcing a new name for inclusion. One of the 56 signers of the Declaration of Independence was a patriot from Delaware. In July of 1776, the Continental Congress was deadlocked during the debate over independence. The delegation from Delaware was divided. Caesar Rodney was called upon to break the tie.

Even though he was suffering from very advanced cancer — he was deathly ill — Rodney rode 80 miles through the night, through a severe thunderstorm, from Dover to Philadelphia to cast his vote for independence.

For nearly a century, a statue of one of Delaware’s most beloved citizens stood in Rodney Square, right in the heart of Wilmington.

But this past June, Caesar Rodney’s statue was ordered removed by the mayor and local politicians as part of a radical purge of America’s founding generation.

Today, because of an order I signed, if you demolish a statue without permission, you immediately get 10 years in prison. (Applause.) And there have been no statues demolished for the last four months, incredibly, since the time I signed that act.

Joe Biden said nothing as to his home state’s history and the fact that it was dismantled and dismembered. And a Founding Father’s statue was removed.

Today, America will give this Founding Father, this very brave man, who was so horribly treated, the place of honor he deserves. I am announcing that a statue of Caesar Rodney will be added to the National Garden of American Heroes. (Applause.)

From Washington to Lincoln, from Jefferson to King, America has been home to some of the most incredible people who have ever lived. With the help of everyone here today, the legacy of 1776 will never be erased. Our heroes will never be forgotten. Our youth will be taught to love America with all of their heart and all of their soul.

We will save this cherished inheritance for our children, for their children, and for every generation to come. This is a very important day.

Thank you all once again for being here. Now I will sign the Constitution Day Proclamation. God Bless You. And God Bless America. Thank you very much.

[militant-holy-knight]

An ugly truth of history has just been acknowledged. On October 29, the US House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly (405 to 11) in favor of Resolution 296, which acknowledges the Armenian genocide perpetrated by Ottoman Turks during WW1. (Unsurprisingly, Ilhan Omar was among the very few to abstain; her disingenuous logic will be addressed later.)

In order to become official policy, however, the resolution needs to be approved by both houses of Congress, and then signed by the president. The Senate is currently not scheduled to vote on the measure.

It is at any rate a step in the right direction. According to the book Remembrance and Denial: The Case of the Armenian Genocide,

At the beginning of 1915 there were some two million Armenians within Turkey; today there are fewer than 60,000.... Despite the vast amount of evidence that points to the historical reality of the Armenian Genocide, eyewitness accounts, official archives, photographic evidence, the reports of diplomats, and the testimony of survivors, denial of the Armenian Genocide by successive regimes in Turkey has gone on from 1915 to the present.

Indeed, Turkey is currently outraged at this resolution; its president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, called it "worthless" and the "biggest insult" to the Turkish people.

Such willful denial borders the surreal considering how well documented the Armenian genocide is. As the International Association of Genocide Scholars says, "the Armenian Genocide is not controversial, but rather is denied only by the Turkish government and its apologists."

Nor is this a new issue. The Honorable Henry Morgenthau, U.S. Ambassador to Turkey from 1913-16, wrote the following in his memoir:

When the Turkish authorities gave the order for these deportations, they were merely giving the death warrant to a whole race; they understood this well, and, in their conversations with me, they made no particular attempt to conceal this fact. . . I am confident that the whole history of the human race contains no such horrible episode as this. The great massacres and persecutions of the past seem almost insignificant when compared to the sufferings of the Armenian race in 1915.

In 1920, U.S. Senate Resolution 359 heard testimony on the "mutilation, violation, torture, and death" of countless Armenians, to quote American Lieutenant General James Harbord, who further referred to the genocide as the "most colossal crime of all the ages."

In her memoir, Ravished Armenia, Aurora Mardiganian described being raped and thrown into a harem (consistent with Islam's rules of war). Unlike thousands of other Armenian girls who were discarded after being defiled, she managed to escape. In the city of Malatia, she saw 16 Christian girls crucified: "Each girl had been nailed alive upon her cross," she wrote, "spikes through her feet and hands, only their hair blown by the wind, covered their bodies." Such scenes were portrayed in the 1919 film Auction of Souls, some of which is based on Mardiganian's memoirs.

Whereas the genocide is largely acknowledged in the West—long before this new resolution over 40 American states had acknowledged it—one of its primary if not fundamental causes is habitually overlooked: religion (Muslim Turks vis-à-vis Christian Armenians).

The genocide is unfortunately articulated through a singularly secular paradigm that focuses almost exclusively on nationalism, identity, territorial disputes, etc.—thereby projecting modern, secular Western sensibilities onto vastly different characters and eras.

War, of course, is another factor that clouds the true essence of the genocide. Because these atrocities mostly occurred during World War I, so the argument goes, they are ultimately a reflection of just that—war, in all its chaos and destruction, and nothing more. But as Winston Churchill, who described the massacres as an "administrative holocaust," correctly observed, "The opportunity [WWI] presented itself for clearing Turkish soil of a Christian race." Even Adolf Hitler had pointed out that "Turkey is taking advantage of the war in order to thoroughly liquidate its internal foes, i.e., the indigenous Christians, without being thereby disturbed by foreign intervention."

Even the most cited factor of the Armenian Genocide, "ethnic identity conflict," while legitimate, must be understood in light of the fact that, historically, religion often accounted more for a person's identity than language or heritage. This is daily demonstrated throughout the Islamic world today, where Muslim governments and Muslim mobs persecute Christian minorities who share the same race, ethnicity, language, and culture; minorities who are indistinguishable from the majority—except, of course, for being non-Muslims, or "infidels."

As one Armenian studies professor asks, "If it [the Armenian Genocide] was a feud between Turks and Armenians, what explains the genocide carried out by Turkey against the Christian Assyrians at the same time?" The same can be said about the Greeks (some 750,000 of whom were liquidated during WWI). From a Turkish perspective, the primary thing Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks had in common was that they were all Christians—"infidels."

And the same can be said of all those Christians and other non-Muslim minorities who were targeted for what the U.S. acknowledges was a genocide by ISIS—another genocide that was also conducted during the chaos of war, and against those whose only crime was to be "infidels."

[jorjdsfeadle-blog]

mainly as regards to international terrorism

worldwide tensions between Islam and the West. Striking examples of this style encompass Kabir Khan's New York (2008), Karan Johar's My Name is Khan (2010), Rensil D'Silva's Kurbaan (2009) and Apoorva Lakhia's Mission Istanbul, to name a few. Films like Anil Sharma's Ab Tumhare Hawale Watam Sathiyo (2004) and Subhash Ghai's Black and White (2008) consciousness on terrorist problems in the Indian subcontinent itself. The latter films have continued inside the subculture of pre 9-11 terrorist movies like Vidhu Vinod Chopra's Mission Kashmir (2000), Mani Ratnam's Dil Se (1998) and Bombay (1995). Ratnam's Bombay treated the devastating Hindu and Moslem riots in 1991, which value over a one thousand lives. Study in Canada after Graduation Chopra's Mission Kashmir dealt with a situation of neighborhood terrorist activity inside the Kashmir location sponsored by global terrorist cells operating from Afghanistan. In this manner the terrorist style is not a wholly new style in Bollywood, nor is terrorism an strange phenomenon in the day to day sports of the Indian subcontinent (the maximum current and brutal terrorist assault was the Mumbai bloodbath in 2008). What makes the current spate of terrorist movies thrilling is that they have entered the global sphere and have emerge as component and parcel of a transnational talk between East and West and Islam and the opposite.

To make the terrorist style extra palatable, Bollywood has traditionally spiced up the violence and suspense with the hallmark Bollywood music and dance interludes and sentimental romantic exchanges among the hero and heroine. Mission Kashmir is infamous for its swish dances and stirring emotional exchanges between the primary protagonists, played out on the violent backdrop of terrorism in Kashmir. Mani Ratnam's Bombay likewise mixes up the maximum brutal scenes of Hindu and Moslem hatred and violence with scrumptious comedy and a forbidden love affair between a pious Moslem woman and a boy from a highly positioned Shaivite Hindu circle of relatives. His father is the trustee of the village temple and each the family patriarchs are violently opposed to the youngsters marrying out of doors their caste and non secular community.

Karan Johar's My Name is Khan

Following inside the Bollywood lifestyle of blending genres (known inside the enterprise because the masala or highly spiced recipe movie), Karan Johar's My Name is Khan blends comedy and romance with the political hot potato of post Sep 11 bigotry and racial hatred inside the US. The film's theme of ultra-nationalist extremism culminates in the senseless killing of a younger Indian boy Sam or Sameer, who's overwhelmed to dying with the aid of youths within the soccer ground, in part due to the adopting of his stepfather's name Khan. Overflowing gushes of emotion and coronary heart stirring romantic songs, inclusive of the integration of the 1960's counter tradition anthem "We Shall Overcome" (sung in both Hindi and English), arise at some point of the film to both lighten the tension and to exemplify the presence of light and hope in a global darkened with the aid of the bitter shadow of world terrorism. The truth that the imperative protagonist Rizvan Khan is a pious Moslem, and politically impartial to the hysteria of the debate, is considerable. Brought up by using his mom that there aren't any constant labels including Hindu and Moslem, however best good and bad human beings, Rizvan Khan freely practises his religion with identical love and admire for all other races and creeds, simplest differentiating among what is within the hearts and minds of humans, now not to what religion they profess, or to what race, culture and nationality they belong.

My Name is Khan is also considerable for Bollywood fanatics in that it reunites the most important heart throb couple of Hindi cinema from preceding decades, Kajol and Shah Rukh Khan. The duo was previously paired in of Karan Johar's in advance blockbusters Kuch Kuch Hota Hai (1995) and Kabhi Kushi Kabhie Gham (2001). Both of these movies had been sentimental gushy romances, literally overflowing with juicy outpourings of emotion and feeling; a phenomenon which is termed rasa in India. The song and dance sequences were also very elaborately staged and blended a stability of the traditional Indian music and dance forms (Hindustani tune and traditional folk dances) in addition to contemporary Western forms. This ensured the movies' immense reputation in both India and diaspora countries like Canada, the USA and the UK.

Karan Johar continues to utilise the Bollywood masala formula in My Name is Khan, exploiting a sentimental and once in a while drawn out love affair between the autistic hero Rizvan Khan and his eventual Hindu spouse Mandira, a proprietor of a a hit hair dressing salon in San Francisco (the "town of love" which symbolizes the 1960s counter lifestyle motion exploited through Johar inside the "We Shall Overcome" sequence). In the preliminary scenes of the movie, America is portrayed because the land of freedom and opportunity, the nation wherein all races and religions are given the opportunity to move forward and gain prosperity and happiness in a way that is visible to be nearly not possible in a rustic like conventional India, buffeted as it's miles with caste and non secular prejudices and between half of and two thirds of its population living in poverty.

For overseas nationals or NRI's (non-resident Indians), however, Sept. 11 radically adjustments this formulation and shatters the American dream nurtured for decades by using an Indian diaspora which has merged its Indian cultural roots with American beliefs of person freedom and patron prosperity. According to Johar's film, this is now the plight of the Khans who, instead of persevering with to act as fully included contributors of the mainstream community, now find themselves at the outer edge of a post-9-11"us and them" rhetoric, fuelled through an ultra-nationalist Republican President, who perceives the sector in black and white realities, that have little to do with the ordinary lives of the average character. It isn't any accident that it's miles the newly elected President Barack Obama (played by means of his appearance alike Christopher B. Duncan) who greets Rizvan Khan on the quit of the film and applauds him for his faith in God and his humanity and perseverance. For Karan Johar, Obama's election is symbolic of the "us and them" divisions within the US psyche being delivered to a close in conjunction with the restoration of the innate beliefs for which the American Republic and its people stand.

Before the nation's divisions are healed, however, the Khan's revel in intense non-public hardships due to their ethnicity. These hardships culminate within the tragic death in their teenage son Sameer, overwhelmed to death in the school playing field by way of racist youths. In her grief, Sameer's mother Mandira blames her husband Rizvan, accusing him of the truth that if she and her son had not taken the call of Khan, he would now not be dead. She then tells him that the handiest way he can make amends for this stigma of being a Khan and, by means of implication a Moslem, is to fulfill the United States President (at the time it's miles George W. Bush) and to inform him that: "My Name is Khan and I am now not a Terrorist." This easy phrase turns into a form of mantra throughout the film, powerfully confronting the viewer's post-September 11 prejudices by way of refusing to link the two standards of Islam and terrorism together: i.E. My call is Khan, therefore I am a Moslem, however on the identical time just because I am a Moslem, does this mean that I am a terrorist? Unhappily, for the duration of the hysteria that followed inside the wake of September 11 for many Westerners the two terms, Moslem and terrorist became quite plenty synonymous.

This is a movie consequently which, in contrast to its predecessors, isn't always simplest aimed at teaching Indians and West Asians (it broke all data in Pakistan), however is also geared toward teaching and enlightening Westerners. This it does in a completely diffused and didactic way, no longer simplest thru its exploitation of acquainted West Asian icons, however additionally thru its exploration of issues and photographs established to the USA and the West: the 1960s counter way of life, the plight of the coloured people in the South and references to the civil rights movement through the film's subject matter tune "We Shall Overcome." This well-known anti-establishment song from Sixties when sung in Hindi via a religious Moslem in a black gospel church offers the target audience an nearly surreal feeling of each merging and, at the equal time transcending, national, racial and socio-spiritual cultural borders: a direction to global brotherhood and solidarity which has been courageously expounded via of the 20th century's brilliant non secular leaders, India's Mahatma Gandhi and America's Martin Luther King.

Karan Johar therefore attracts upon both the Western ideals of liberty and individualism, as well as propounding the roots of West Asian non secular piety and communal solidarity. By doing this My Name is Khan proposes an alternate version of worldwide brotherhood and transnational identities and exchanges. This new worldwide model for Johar is one that attracts its notion and ideals from the grass roots level- from the terrible coloureds of Georgia, from the socially ostracised Moslems, and from the autistic and mentally handicapped. All of them are an integral a part of this international humanity and in the end the parent of Shah Rukh Khan, the most important megastar in the worldwide forum today (such as Hollywood), speaks for all of them, when he says my call is Khan and I am not a terrorist, now not an outcaste and now not a hazard to the US or the crucial values which it seeks to export to the relaxation of the sector. Rather, as pious Moslems, those like Rizvan Khan have some thing of value to contribute to america and the West, and while the ones in strength allow them to do so, the vital values which have made the US excellent can no longer most effective be maintained however extended and broadened. On the other hand, ultranationalist extremist practises will handiest create increasingly hatred and division, in order that even the ones who have assimilated the American Dream will grow to come to be its maximum sworn enemies. This is the main topic of Kabir Khan's New York, which I will briefly discuss in part of this article.

Kabir Khan's New York

Although now not as a hit on the box workplace as Karan Johar's blockbuster, Kabir Khan's New York is possibly an even more exciting example of the transnational trend in the Bollywood terrorist genre. Released in 2008, New York makes a speciality of the lives of three brand new young Indians analyzing at New York State University together. The usual Bollywood masala romance dominates the first 1/2 of the movie, specializing in a sentimental love triangle between Maya (Katrina Kaif), Sameer or Sam (John Abrahams) and Omar (Neil Mukesh). Both Katrina Kaif and John Abrahams, in addition to Irrfan Khan (gambling the FBi agent Roshan) are properly installed stars in Bollywood (Irrfan Khan also starred as the policeman who interrogates the primary protagonist in Slumdog Millionaire). And the presence of these stars, along with the solid musical score and the dramatic love triangle situation, assured the film's success despite its debatable subject. Significantly, Sam and Maya fall in love and shatter Omar's emotional world at around the same time as the two hijacked passenger planes are driven into the Twin Towers. As with My Name is Khan, real pictures of the terrorist attack at the World Trade Centre is utilised in the film.

From this factor onwards, a film which has been mainly concentrated upon a sentimental love conflict between three friends now becomes a political indictment of the Bush administration's post-9/11 terrorist policies. Sam, as part of the FBI's nationwide hunt for terror suspects, is arrested, incarcerated and tortured. These tortures are graphically depicted within the film and are apparently primarily based on actual life debts of harmless victims, who have been illegally arrested and incarcerated for no other purpose than their having the wrong ethnic historical past and spiritual persuasion. During the final credits a grim word to this impact informs the visitors of the records that: "In the days following 9-11 greater than 1200 guys of overseas origin within the US had been illegally abducted, detained and tortured for as lengthy as three years. The government did not discover proof linking a unmarried one among them to the 11th of September assault.

[lastsonlost]

What does Christopher Priest see when he looks at Vampirella?

Loneliness.

And in his new Vampirella ongoing launching July 17, the veteran writer will give Vampi the human connection she craves... before ripping it all away.

Illustrated by Ergun Gunduz, Dynamite's new Vampirella relaunch begins with the alien vampire as the last survivor of a plane crash which took away any friend or acquaintance she had. Now she's here on Earth and all alone. And this isn't a fictional world known to have vampires, witches, warlocks, or werewolves - this is the real world, and you know how real people would take to someone like Vampirella?

... but do you, really?

As Priest tells Newsarama in an email interview, Vampirella's supernatural abilities are "a metaphor for a univeral human condition, for being either rejected or idealized (or, in the case of our series, both) because you are different. Anyone who’s ever moved to a new town or a new school or taken a new job should be able to identify with Vampi’s challenges."

Priest, an ordained Baptist minister (as a reminder to readers, prefers to be addressed as 'Priest'), shared his thoughts with Newsarama on how the prospect of writing Vampirella was first received by him, how it fits within his religious life, and how he's using it to examine humanity.

Newsarama: Priest, what makes Vampirella interesting to you?

Christopher Priest: The fangs. Definitely the fangs.

When DC Comics approached me about writing Deathstroke, I’d really never thought much about the character. It wasn’t a book I’d normally read because I probably wasn’t the audience the book was targeted toward. But it presented an interesting challenge: what new things could I find to say with this character and what unexplored areas of the character were there to develop?

When Dynamite Publisher Nick Barrucci said “Vampirella,” I had nearly the identical reaction. I was, of course, familiar with the character but wasn’t a Vampirella fan, wasn’t the audience for that book, which made me an odd choice. You’ll have to ask Nick why he made it.

My immediate reaction was exactly the same: what new thing could I bring to this property? Where is the untapped potential? That, for me, is the interesting part; craft a Vampirella narrative that broadens the audience for the property while (hopefully) not putting off the hardcore Vampi fans.

Nrama: So what was the answer to that? What is the story?

Priest: I read this Bruce Springsteen Rolling Stone interview a couple decades back (yah... decades...) around "Born In The USA," where Springsteen said something remarkable that’s stuck with me all this time, about how each of us needs community. He said something like, “Without community (by which I presume he meant human attachment and interaction) we’d likely go crazy and kill ourselves.”

Over many interpretations Vampirella has developed many versions of a supporting cast, but she is fundamentally alone, one of few of her race living on Earth. Considering the Boss’s statement, I wasn’t eager to create yet another supporting cast and then echo adventures she’s had before. For better or worse, I wanted my at-bat with the character to be unique and in some ways challenging.

So the thought occurred to give Vampirella that community, that human connection... and then have it all ripped away. Our story arc revolves around a plane crash which effectively terminates many connections Vampi has built while forging new ones.

Nrama: You're setting this in the real world. A real fish out of water scenario, but one you're playing at for deeper cultural issues. What's a woman like Vampirella likely to face here on Earth?

Priest: With all due respect for the legion of much better writers who’ve handled the character, as I mentioned, I probably was not the audience for this book. Vampirella was created with a satirical flair and Vampi herself was in on the joke; not quite breaking the fourth wall but offering up a knowing come-hither smile. She’s existed in a reality that routinely and, for me, far too benignly, accepts the supernatural as fact.

Here in the real world, vampires are merely a thing of myth and the reality of hyperfactual supernatural events are subject to the interpretation of the particular tribe one belongs to. It bothers me that, in 2019, DC and Marvel universes are still mostly portrayed in an idealized hyper-reality where the average man on the street simply accepts superheroes as fact and, in fact, refers to them literally as “heroes” or “villains,” which is absurd. There’s no news anchor in the world who would start a broadcast piece with, “Arch-villain Saddam Hussein...” even though that description would be apt.

The world our Vampirella series takes place in doesn’t believe in vampires. Or witches or warlocks or werewolves. This world seeks rational scientific explanation for paranormal phenomena which it greets with enormous skepticism.

Which isn’t to suggest no one will believe Vampirella exists but that that acceptance is not as matter of fact as it seems to be in most of this genre.

In terms of what she’s facing, her number one enemy is loneliness. I am, hopefully, writing a woman first, a story about a woman who loves and wants to be loved but whose circumstances are complicated by the fact she has fangs and drinks blood. The supernatural attributes are a metaphor for a universal human condition, for being either rejected or idealized (or, in the case of our series, both) because you are different. Anyone who’s ever moved to a new town or a new school or taken a new job should be able to identify with Vampi’s challenges.

Anyone who wears their hair a different way, listens to a different kind of music, embraces a different religion, anyone who steps outside of or gets shoved outside of the so-called “mainstream” can identify with our take on Vampirella. I hope it is precisely this universality of theme that helps broaden her audience; the Vampi tent is large enough for everyone.

Nrama: Someone walking around in that Trina Robbins-designed costume is bound to get some headturns. If I know you as much as I think I do, you're going to tackle that head on, right? How are you getting into the subject of the costume?

Priest: Well, yes, we will have a go at it. The basic argument is simple: where do you draw the line between women’s liberation and women’s exploitation, and who gets to draw it? Who gets to define femininity and why should an extraterrestrial have to submit to that definition?

It’s like the world woke up in the last few years and realized we actually have two genders and both of them matter.

So we now have heightened scrutiny of themes and behaviors and that poor bastard Joe Biden gets caught up in the switches. I’ll confess, I’m terrified of women because I’m a Joe Biden. I was taught to pay a lady a compliment and open doors and I want to be friendly and accessible but I’m absolutely terrified of having my good intentions taken in a bizarrely paranoid light.

It is comical to me that I am far too often seen as creepy by women - especially black women - because they have been conditioned by their personal experience and their media consumption to misinterpret a simple "Hello." These days I cannot pay a woman a complement without a legal preamble and assurances that, no, I am not hitting on you and even then I get the skunk eye of suspicion.

Which is a little insulting because this “guilty until proven innocent” defensive posture presumes I am other people or that the bar is set so low for me that I’ll jump into bed with just anybody I happen to meet. It’s like we’ve just gone too far now to the point where women are not just being protected but being alienated to some extent because I have no earthly clue how to deal with them and I’m frankly scared to shake their hand.

So, is Vampirella’s wardrobe choice sexist? I don’t know. Vampirella obviously doesn’t think so. As I see her, she comes from a culture much like Star Trek’s Betazed, where people wear little or nothing at all. If anything, Vampi wonders why we humans choose to smother ourselves in so much fabric and why we’re all so bound by self-loathing.

There are hundreds of women who enjoy cosplaying as Vampirella, and maybe hundreds of thousands offended by the character. How do we reconcile all of that for the 21st century?

The one thing I won’t do is cover her up. I accepted the gig: write Vampirella. If you change the outfit, she’s no longer Vampirella. Frankly, her costume is the only thing about her (well, okay, that and her pansexuality) that makes her at all shocking or controversial.

My goal, and the readers will have to let us know if we’re passing or failing, is to make this a book as much about femininity as about bloodsucking. The storyline is driven by women, mostly populated by women, of all shapes and sizes and ethnicities, and most of them dress as sexy as they dare. The singer/rapper Lizzo is a terrific example of this. Is her blatant sexuality liberating or is she being exploited? How about Beyoncé? Do we put Vampi in a raincoat but cheer Bey on?

See what I mean? I’m screwed either way.

Nrama: So Priest - Vampirella's here on Earth. What would you do if you found yourself, I don't know, sharing a cab with Vampi?

Priest: I’d ask the driver to pull over and let me out. I’m a Christian, so I have these issues with all of that “fornicating in your mind” stuff. I don’t live a perfect life but I try to avoid cluttering up my conscience. Among the things the printed page cannot convey is the amazing, intoxicating glow and, yes, smell of a woman.

All women are beautiful, from 8 to 80, regardless of weight, height, or nationality. I wouldn’t share a cab with a woman as under-dressed as Vampi, which sounds hypocritical because I’m writing her. But I write Deathstroke, too, and wouldn’t share a cab with him, either.

Nrama: On the flip side of this, Vampirella's stranded on Earth. What's going through her mind in all of this?

Priest: How stupid and primitive we are. It’s not arrogance. I believe any visitor from another world would surf the net for a few hours and come away shaking their heads. I watched an episode of Little Miss Atlanta yesterday. Jesus. We’re just idiots. The moms fighting and bickering and cursing - cursing - in front of these little girls, berating the little girls. This sickening child abuse... That's entertainment?

I have Christian friends who will criticize me for writing Vampi but they watch that crap.

Nrama: This comes over a decade after your previous stint with Vampirella - Harris Publishing's Vampirella Revelations with artist Eric Battle. That run had some issues, but you're back here again. What makes is something you want to return to?

Priest: *scratches head* Really? I did a run...? I remember doing a silent issue... and vaguely remember doing something with Eric, a good bud. But that was way back. I really hadn’t considered this a “return.” I just pivoted and stared into Barrucci’s hypnotic vampire eyes and ran dozens of scenarios through my feeble brain, coming to one conclusion: this would be an interesting experiment, a writer’s challenge. Writers love challenges.

Nrama: Big picture, what are your goals with this ongoing?

Priest: To not have the women of America torch my house. This run will be as different a take on Vampi as any that have come before.

Which is not to say “better;” “better” is subjective. I’m sure a great many Vampi fans will hate what we’re up to. Maybe they’ll come along, maybe I’ll get fired. If I wasn’t nervous about it, it wouldn’t be worth doing.

Editor's Note: The above interview was conducted via email eariler this week, and we received all of Mr. Priest's responses along with all our original questions. Newsarama asked Priest if he would respond to follow-up questions Friday by email. He agreed and those questions and answers follow.

Nrama: Priest, our original questions to you were about the Vampirella comic book and our role is to talk about that and not audit your personal life, but your responses appear to be hyper aware of a social climate you seem to lament in terms of relationships between genders and conduct towards one another.

Priest: I lament the social climate in general, on all levels. I lament our lack of civility and lack of empathy, lack of patience and understanding. I hate the way we assassinate one another with our thumbs, all this hostility in social and other media. It's not just gender issues.

Nrama: Yet empathizing with Joe Biden without citing the actual specific behavior he’s under scrutiny for, stating things like "the amazing, intoxicating glow and, yes, smell of a woman" and by offering you’re “often seen as creepy by women,” it seems like intentionally inviting the sort of reaction/assumptions you state you’re “afraid” of and inviting the same scrutiny Biden is under.

Was this was your intent and are you prepared for pushback to your words and questions to be asked?

Priest: Wow, there's a lot to unpack, there. But let's start by saying I seriously doubt anyone reading this is NOT aware of the Biden issue to which I am referring. 

I come neither to defend Biden nor to bury him, so I think you're probably taking my "poor" Joe reference a bit too seriously. I wasn't trying to litigate Biden, only to make a point about how hyper-sensitive and overly politicized our nation is and how this will impact Vampirella in her series.

Assembling disparate quotes to paint me as some kind of deviant makes that point for me. I stand by my statements. "...the amazing, intoxicating glow and, yes, smell of a woman..."

 is something difficult if not impossible to convey in literature (which was my point), but your question was about me sitting in a taxi with a near-naked woman and I answered that honestly. 

And my point was relevant to understanding the challenges and conflicts Vampirella will face in this series.

This is the environment Vampirella finds herself in, people misinterpreting her actions, words, and motives. This is why I mentioned it, to place the work we are doing with Vampirella into context.

Were a person like Vampi walking around in our world (or riding in a taxi with me), she would be misinterpreted, and every word she says would be drilled into looking for the worst possible interpretation of it. I can't help but wonder why anyone anywhere speaks publicly because no words spoken by anyone can withstand this level of ridiculous scrutiny.

Nrama: In another response you state “It’s like the world woke up in the last few years and realized we actually have two genders and both of them matter”. While not assuming your intent one way or another, it seems it to overlook genders outside the male/female paradigm. Can you speak to that?

Priest: Gender: noun

1. either of the two sexes (male and female), especially when considered with reference to social and cultural differences rather than biological ones. The term is also used more broadly to denote a range of identities that do not correspond to established ideas of male and female. "a condition that affects people of both genders"

I wrote an ecumenical commentary in support of gender and and LGBTQ issues, Chris. I invite everyone to read it.

It was a simple interview. I was promoting a comic book and, as a really busy writer, I was typing really fast and speaking honestly while engaging with you. What I won’t do, not even for my own safety, is censor myself or try and anticipate every horrible way someone might choose to misinterpret something I've written or said.

 If anything, that just makes my point for me about how free speech is being compromised. It's a tough environment to publish comic books in because every publisher is terrified by the spectrum of extreme possible reactions from an increasingly intolerant environment where everybody's playing "gotcha" and looking for the worst possible and most extremely negative interpretations of everything.

The whole point of free speech is my duty to defend others' rights to have it, not to shout them down or demonize them.

[aneasternsoul-blog]

Starting from India and heading to the west, this area had strong contacts with ancient India from many years ago, and is said to have been a part of greater Bharatvarsha before the war of Kurukshetra, which is said to have been about 5,000 years ago.

In the Ramayana we find wherein Valmiki describes present Afghanistan as Gandarvadesh. It was Pushkal and Taksha, two sons of Bharat, the brother of Lord Sri Rama, who defeated the Gandharvas to rule there in the capital that had been built as Pushkalavati (known as Pukli in Afghanistan) and Takshashila, now in Pakistan. Gandarvadesh became Gandhar in the Mahabharata era. A princess from Gandhar married a prince of Hastinapur, namely Dhritarashtra.

The Gandharvas, when they were defeated at that time, moved farther west where they established the “Gana Rajya” republics. They continued to move farther west and established the Avagana Rajyas republics, which become known as “Avaganasthan” until the arrival of Islam when the name became Afghanistan. The rivers also changed names, such as the Kubha became the Kabul, Krumu became the Kurran, Gomati became the Gomal, Sarayu became Harayu, and the Sarasvati became the Harhaity. The Savastu became Swat Valley, and the mountain Mujavat became Munjan.In about 250 BCE, Emperor Ashok sent Buddhist monks to Avaganasthan and Buddhism was accepted. That is when vihars and stupas were built, along with huge images of Buddha on the hillsides. It was after the 10th century CE when many Islamic invasions took place and changed the Vedic and Buddhist nation to Islamic. Even Panini, the Sanskrit grammarian, was from Salatura, Afghanistan.

The Mahabharata also calls the area of Persia as the land of Parsikas, which some people think of as the Parsu (Axe) wielding people, who carried it for defense. However, this can also refer to those who were removed from Bharatvarsha by Lord Parashurama many years ago. The name Persia is a derivative of the Sanskrit name Parasu, which was the battle axe of Parashurama. Lord Parashurama had led 21 expeditions around the world to chastise the Kshatriya warriors who had swayed from the Vedic principles and became cruel and unruly. This was before the time of Lord Ramachandra. Persia was overrun by Lord Parashurama and his troops and succumbed to abide by his administration. According to E. Pococke on page 45 of his book, India in Greece, the land of Persia was known as Paarasika.

One of the first to begin recognizing how the influence of Indian forces spread throughout the Mideast was E. Pococke. He says, “I have glanced at the India settlements in Egypt, which will again be noticed, and I will now resume my observation from the lofty frontier, which is the true boundary of the European and Indian races. The parasoos, the people of Parasu Ram, those warriors of the axe, have penetrated into and given a name to Persia; they are the people of Bharata; and to the principal stream that pours waters into the Persian Gulf they have given the name of Eu-Bharat-es (Euphrates), the Bharat Chief.”

The Persians or Parsikas, having been banished from Bharathvarsha by Parashurama, later changed their religion even more with the appearance of Zarathustra who established Zoroastrianism. However, it is said that the Parsis who have settled in India are accepted as the Parsikas, the ancient people of Persia, and are also related to the Koknastha Brahmins of Maharashtra who worship Parashurama at Chiplun in coastal Konkan. Dr. Poonai is another researcher who describes the ancient migrations out of Bharatvarsha, India. He explains that several Sanskrit speaking Aryan clans emigrated to the west beyond the Aegean area. He says that in the early part of the third millennium BCE that states of Caria, Miletus,Lydia, Troy, and Phrygia and surrounding areas were occupied by people who spoke various Sanskrit dialects.

The Indian fables, legends and literature also made their way to the West and into the Middle East as early as the 6th century BCE and had considerable influence wherever they went. The earliest of these collections included the Buddhist Jatakas, and the Vedic Panchatantra and the Hitopadesha. Also the Shukasaptati was translated several times into Persian under the name of Tutinamah, and through its transmission many Indian stories found their way into Europe. The story of the two jackals, Karkataka and Damanaka is yet another example of an Indian fable which was rendered into Pehlavi in the sixth century, and then in the seventh century into Arabic before being translated into Persian, Syriac, Latin, Hebrew, and then Spanish. Most of these fables and stories, if not all, were woven into the very fabric of European literature, and Indian motifs continued to be utilized in medieval Europe no matter if people recognized them or not.

Mr. Pococke further explains his conclusions. Even during his day of the mid-1800s, he wrote: “Who could have imagined that latitudes so northerly as the line of Oxus and the northern Indus would have sent forth the inhabitants of their frozen domains to colonize the sultry clime of Egypt and Palestine! Yet so it was. These were the Indian tribes that, under the appellation of ‘Surya,’ or ‘the Sun,’ gave its enduring name to the vast province of ‘Suria,’now Syria. It is in Palestine that this martial race will be found settled in the greatest force.”

Here we can see also, as did Pococke, how the names of the countries changed yet still held the seeds of its original influence, and from where that influence was coming from.

However, things changed, and the Vedic influence subsided, which is briefly described by V. Gordon Childe in his book The Aryans: “In Palestine the Aryan [Mitanni] names have totally disappeared by 1000 B.C., and even in the Mitanni region that have scarcely a vestige behind them. Here at least Aryan speech succumbed to Semitic and Asianic dialect, and small Aryan aristocracies were absorbed by the native population.”

THE SUMERIANS

The Sumerians were considered some of the earliest residents of the Middle East, namely Mesopotamia, who originally came from or had been a part of Bharatvarsha. The Sumerians also claim to have originally entered the valley of the rivers Euphrates and Tigris some four thousand or so years BCE, bringing with them some basic elements of civilization already developed to its final form, such as a script and a code of law. The original homeland has not been positively identified, yet many researchers have stated that the Sumerians were a part of Vedic Aryan culture, meaning that they had to have come from the land of Bharatvarsha.

“After extensive research, Sir Arthur Keith concluded that one can still trace ancient Sumerians eastwards among the inhabitants of Afghanistan and Baluchistan, until the valley of Indus is reached some 1500 miles distant from Mesopotamia.”

L. A. Waddell has also expressed that the Sumerians were a part of the Vedic tradition, as was discussed in Proof of Vedic Culture’s Global Existence. But there was also the discovery of inscribed tablets that are said to be from a period before 3000 BCE that bore the names in Sanskrit of the Sumerian kings in Babylonia. Some of these names coincide with the names of the Puranic personages who were either kings or great sages. This would also further indicate that the Sumerians were of the Indo-Aryan stock, emigrating from the area of ancient Bharatvarsha into Babylonia. This is why the names like Indaru (Indra), Baragu (Bhrigu), Kush, Mana (Manu), Dasratta (Dasaratha), Kashipu (Kashyapa), Varen (Varun), Barama (Brahma), and others are found on these tablets in Sumer. 19 The book called The Sumerians, an Oxford publication, also says: “We find that the Sumerian civilization was an off-shoot of the Vedic Aryan civilization. Archeological evidence, in the form of relics of the past Sumerian language still exists which leaves no doubt as to the real incentive behind the origin of the Sumerian language.”

THE KASSITES

The spread of the Vedic culture into the region of West Asia can be seen with the Kassites in 1750 BCE in Mesopotamia, where they worshiped Surya. Other Vedic groups were undoubtedly in the intermediate region of Iran, which consisted of several ethnic groups including the Elamite and the Turkic.

The Kassites were Indian immigrants who entered Babylonia around or before 1760 BCE. The first Aryan presence is marked by the use of the Sanskrit word suryas, designating the sun, by the Kassites in Babylon. 20

This shows the reason why the clay tablets excavated at Boghazkoi in Asia minor in 1907 invoked the gods as guardian of the treaty with the names of the Vedic gods, such as Mitra, Varuna, Indra, and Nasatyau. This was the treaty between the Hittite king Shubbiluliuma and the Mitanni king Mittiuaza at the beginning of the 14th century BCE. This sheds a good deal of light on the Aryan expansion in that part of the world 1400 years before the Christian era.

SYRIA

The princes and towns and gods bearing Sanskrit names or names derived from classical or Vedic Sanskrit abounded in Syria so freely that it is natural to presume that there had to have been a settlement from India in that region during this period of time or even earlier. Or that the area of Mesopotamia was once a part of the Vedic culture, and many of the people there had been worshipers of the sun, or Surya. This is where Syria, once called Surya, got its name from the tribes of sun worshipers there.

For example, the Indo-Aryan families that had settled in Syria were known as the Mitannies and Hittites, along with a prince named Dasaratha.The Hittites were known to have been in the Middle East since 2200 BCE. Another king in the region entered into a treaty invoking the Vedic gods of Indra, Varuna, Mitra, and Nasatya as guardians of the terms of the treaty. The treaty was drafted near the beginning of the 14th century BCE. And we know that the oath to the gods in the treaty has value only if the members of both parties hold allegiance to the gods who are invoked. 21

LEBANON AND THE DRUZE

The Druhyus ruled in northwest Aryavrata some 5000 years ago, but after being defeated by the Purus, they moved to the northwest. They brought their culture with them as they moved through different areas of Central Asia. The Vedic relics in these areas arrived there because of the Druhyus. However, they were greatly reduced during the onslaught of Islam. Nonetheless, they became known as the Druze and still practice similarities of the Vedic tradition where they can presently be found in Lebanon, Syria, Israel, and Jordan.

They have their scripture, kutub al-hikma, or wisdom books, which is a collection of epistles and correspondence between their great thinkers, one of which is called Epistles of India, indicating some of them are from India. Within their wisdom books you can detect the influence of the Koran along with Greek and Vedic philosophy, especially in their conception of a transcendent God and their acceptance of reincarnation of the soul and karma. 30

Amongst the Druze prophets, Jethro is one of the most recognized, and is a major preceptor of the Druze. Some consider him to be the father-inlaw

of Moses, though the Druze feel Jethro was only the guardian of Zipporah and not her father. Nonetheless, Jethro had great influence over Moses. Jethro was a Kenite, a part of the Midianites, a tribe descending from the sons of Keturah who were sent by Abraham to the East, such as India. It is from there, it seems, that the origins of the Druze oral and written traditions were based. And in turn, Jethro was the teacher of Moses.

In this way, the roots of the Judaic traditions are likely to have been based on the Vedic culture and its philosophy of India, through the instructions given by Jethro.

The Druze are considered to be an Arabic sect of Islam, though an unorthodox one. Still, most Druze believe their roots to be in India. And they can still easily relate to the teachings as found in the Vedic texts today. Their own scriptures describe a history dating back hundreds or millions of years, with avataras of God appearing in human form on a regular basis. They also accept the transmigration of the soul from one body to another as a central tenet of their philosophy.

In fact, the late Druze political hero and renown spiritualist Kamal Jumbalat often glorified Lord Krishna, the Bhagavad-gita, the Ramayana, and other Vedic texts and divinities in his own writings. He also spoke about the Druze going to India and taking up the renounced order, such as sannyasa. Jumbalat himself was a vegetarian, and later lived accordingto the principles of the retired order as found in the Vedic system.

The term “Druze” was coined by the Muslims of the time. Nearly 1000 years ago El Drazi was considered a heretic, and the other Muslims, to deride this new sect that he was a part of, referred to the group in a derisive manner using the name of El Drazi to identify it, which became the Druze.

The Druze considered themselves as the Muwahidoon, meaning the one, eternal religion, similar to the meaning of Sanatana-dharma. 32 The current manifestation of the Muwahidoon, known as the Druze, oiriginate from al Hakim Bi-Amr Allah, the sixth Fitimid Caliph, who ruled Egypt during the late 10th and early 11th centuries. Some Druze have revealed that the original language of their scriptures was Sanskrit, and that avataras such as Buddha and Krishna are described therein.

TURKEY

In briefly looking at Turkey, more recent research by B. G. Sidharth, writing in his A Lost Anatolian Civilization: Is It Vedic? (Research Communication, 1992), relates that he was startled to see a sculpture of the head of a priest, excavated at Nevali Cori in Anatolia (present Turkey) by archeologists headed by Professor Harald Hauptmann of Heidelberg. Sidharth had gone to the Nevali Cori site. Sidharth in mentioning the head said, “It is identical to the head of a Vedic priest, so common in India even today. The sculpture represents a clean shaven head with the typical plait or Shikha.” According to radiocarbon analysis, this head dated to further back than 7000 BCE, thus making it clear that the Vedic Aryans had been in this area from before that time.

[southeastasianists]

In this second part I will explain how Suvarnabhumi politicises history and archaeology. Suvarnabhumi draws its support within national history by representing religious identity as static. Claims to Suvarnabhumi is somewhat like a sports competition among national historians in Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and other countries across Southeast Asia.

Claims of affiliation with Suvarnabhumi mostly correlates with Buddhist and/or Hindu modern communities. Endless research has gone into labelling where and what exactly is Suvarnabhumi. There is value to oral history and local narratives, and as a field researcher, I am always fascinated by the stories of how a particular village or shrine is related to Suvarnabhumi in the Jataka and Asoka eras. On the one hand, it empowers the local community to develop a local and oral history that supports decentralising the regional discourse. On the hand, it obstructs any further investigations into the more dynamic social identity of the region-spirit worship and how different religious traditions amalgamated into their modern forms. Religious identity is more complicated than the Hindu/Buddhist tradition reflected in historical narratives, which have also shaped analysis of material culture. Therefore, the price we pay for our focus on Suvarnabhumi is missing the complexity of religion and culture beyond simplified narratives of religious history.

The key issue is the misuse of contemporary religious categories. We have forgotten the fluidity of interactive spaces and the common lives of those living and producing in a space between the realms of the idea and cultural material. Regardless of its historical accuracy, Suvarnabhumi has been adopted into national history-building for most nations that are predominantly Buddhist. It has even become a historical ‘period’ of its own. Thai history makes reference to the Suvarnabhumi age, or “proto-history”, which marks the beginning of interaction with Buddhism and with India. A time when the golden riches of Thailand attracted traders from Rome, India, and China, launching a glorious age of trade and growth that was subsequently followed by Indianisation.

Heritage, Pseudo-history and Folklore

Suvarnabhumi is important because it represents a deeper sacred identity among modern Buddhists in Southeasts Asia. Despite the absence of any mention of Suvarnabhumi in the edicts of the Indian emperor Ashoka (4thcentury BCE), Southeast Asian Buddhists believe that the Buddha’s missionaries (Sona and Uttara along with their entourage) arrived in Southeast Asia during the time to Ashoka. Suvarnabhumi creates a sacred landscape for the modern Buddhist nations. As a result of the contesting claims over Suvarnabhumi, historians and archaeologists have come under scrutiny for both politicising and commercialising popular religion.

Pseudo-history are attempts to distort or misrepresent historical records. Some of these works are easy to recognise, while others disguise themselves in non-peer-reviewed academic work. Suvarnabhumi as pseudo-history is popularised among amulet retailers and right wing Buddhists in Thailand. From the 1970s to late 1980s, a local controversy emerged when a monk named Dhammadhatto at Sommanas Ravavaravihara Temple proclaimed that he discovered thousands of inscription tablets.

Dhammadhatto declared that these tablets predate the dates ascribed to rise of states in Southeast Asian chronology, and that the inscriptions prove Thai writing systems existed in the first millennium CE. The tablets link Thailand to Suvarnabhumi and claimed that the ancient city of Kubua in Ratchaburi province, which is accepted by scholars as belonging to the Dvaravati culture (fifth to tenth century CE), was actually the royal city of Suvarnabhumi. Dhammadhatto gained the support of some local academics, including the Cambridge educated M.C. Chanchirayuwat Ratchani, a famous Thai historian who publishes both in English and Thai. Chanchirayuwat Ratchani would subsequently publish materials from Dhammadhatto collections as part of his study in Thai Imageries of Suwanbhumi (1987).

Proponents of these sources established that there are colonial conspiracies to downplay the significance of Thai people and history, and that western educated elites were part of this scheme in order to smuggle and sell Thai artefacts. Many non-peer-reviewed popular history books were subsequently published and released to the public. It had a simple nationalistic and decolonial attitude that the Thai and Buddhist public would find intriguing. These are some of the claims put forward by this pseudo-history:

Thailand is Suvarnabhumi

Thai language is as old as Mesopotamian languages

Buddhism reached Thailand during the time of the Buddha, and the city changed its name from Muang Thorng (Gold City) to Suvannaphum with the advent of Buddhism.

The book’s contents play out like a bad Indiana Jones extended episode, without the aliens or evil cults. Desperate to establish some authority over national history, the government declared the  entire room of objects as forgeries without investigation into who, what, and why someone would finance such materials. The perfect declaration to keep conspiracy theories happy and thriving. Currently the objects have been divided into two portions, with a room stored at Sommanat Varamahavihara and another stored at Plibplee Temple in Petchaburi.

Despite the government’s declaration, Dhammadhatto’s version of Suvarnabhumi continues to be popular among a subset group of the Buddhist right wing in Thailand. The narratives that links antiquities to Suvarnabhumihave also been adopted by antique dealers to bolster the supernatural powress and sacredness of antiquities. Prices for both real and forged antiques go up when its sacred.

Dhammadhatto’s book also gave birth to claims by amateur historians that the Buddha is belongs to the Tai ethnic race. Ratchaburi province have adopted the story as a lore to promote Kubua city as Suvarnabhumi, with festivities and performances held to celebrate the story of kings and princes described in Dhammadhatto’s book. While academics in archaeology and history can laugh at these pseudo-historical publications and media outlets, the social phenomenon should not be entirely trivialised. It reflects a deeper social disconnection between academics and the general public, as well as distrust towards the literati.

The contents of Dhammadhatto’s Suvarnabhumi appeals to the public because it offers a decolonised, albeit pseudo-historical, view of local identity and their status as Buddhists. His book borrows content from local folklores, stories, chronicles, and whatever academic publications in Thai accessible to the general public. Dhammadhatto possess a good knowledge of various historical sources, but this only serves to bolster the position of his books and publication that follows his theories for the untrained audience. During the height of the debate, some key sites in Ratchaburi were vandalised to create evidence for the theory. To date, many amateur and pseudo-historians still seek to support the theory that somehow Southeast Asia was a “golden land” of wealth and glory. For policy makers, reverie of a glorious past is as necessary.

Dhammadhatto’s book appeals to the public because it integrates actual historical sources with elements of religion and folklore:

Thai people, as we know, have existed since the time of Kassapa Buddha. We had a city named, ‘Muang Phaen’ and call ourselves, “Lawa-Thai”. [Note: This ties Thai identity to the Austro-Asiatic population who were early migrants into Southeast Asia] The ruler name was “Khun Paen Muang Fah” and “Nang Duang Kwan Kai”, they worshiped Mae Phosop [Rice Goddess] and celebrates the Royal Ploughing Ceremony. About 8,000 years ago, we changed the name of the city to “Muang Man” and “Maung Paen”. It wasn’t until the reign of Khun Sue Thai Fah and Nang Thai Ngam (6,800 years ago) that the first Thai alphabet was invented from the textile patterns designed by Nang Thai Ngam. Their eldest son Khun Laek Thai invented Thai numbers, while the second son, Khun Khom Thi Fah invented the Khom Alphabet [Ancient Khmer Alphabets] and the law.

Debates over Dhammadhatto’s objects emerged during the eve of Thai nationalism in the 1980s and 1990s, when students started protesting over looted Thai artefacts in foreign museums. A greater part of the book spent time attacking George Coedès as a colonialist who looked down on Thais, and portrayed him in a similar manner to the Thai academics who are considered members of a corrupt elite who trade in artefacts stolen from local sites.

This sense of distrust permeates to the modern discourse, in which locals do not necessarily see archaeologists as beneficial for the local community. Appealing to the sanctity of local folklore and stories such as Suvarnabhumi, gives local communities prowess over intellectual pursuits which are neither accessible nor empowering towards the communities. Folklore and stories cannot be taken from the site, and connects community identity to history. Thus, Suvarnabhumi is both locally and nationally empowering for regional identity politics. Whether presented as pseudo-history or history, it has become a literary device to empower local identity, all the while, illicit trades and grey markets of looted and forged items continues to prosper.

Different communities with archaeological heritage construct their own narrative as Suvarnabhumi to connect with Buddhism and Ashoka. Identity drawn from a deeper past, allows modern inhabitants to establish a sense of communal pride and define their inhibiting space as sacred. For many communities in Southeast Asia, connections history interplays with political power and significance. We only need to look at the amount of sites affiliated to historical kings like Naresuan and Taksin in Thailand, and how the ceremonial aspects of these sites draw both power and sanctity to these locations. These places would have otherwise been disregarded without legends that create national significance.In Myanmar, temples in Mon state still venerate sculptures of Sona and Uttara. Their tale give significance to both Mon identity and landscape.

[classyfoxdestiny]

Interview: Elif Shafak, author, The Island of Missing Trees

Interview: Elif Shafak, author, The Island of Missing Trees

“All around the world, wherever there is, or has ever been, a civil war or an ethnic conflict, come to the trees for clues, because we will be the ones that sit silently in communion with human remains,” remarks the talking fig tree in Elif Shafak’s new novel, The Island of Missing Trees, a deeply moving tale of love, grief, eco-consciousness, migration, exile and regeneration set in Cyprus and London, that alternates between the first-person voice of the tree and the third-person narrative woven around the lives of Greek Cypriot Kostas and Turkish Cypriot Defne Kazantzakis, and their daughter Ada.

368pp, ₹699; Penguin Viking

The Island of Missing Trees, as enchanting and magical as most of your novels, is a forbidden love story set against the backdrop of a civil war; the love between Greek Cypriot Kostas and Turkish Cypriot Defne rises above the ordinary and acquires a spiritual, transcendental dimension. Was this love story, marked by distance and division, central to the novel when you conceived it? Did it come to you along with its setting — Cyprus, the island, and Nicosia, the only divided capital in the world?

We live in a world that constantly puts us into boxes, categories, tribes, clashing certainties. Can you love someone who is not of your tribe, your religion, your ethnic background? Yes, you can. Love was central to the story from the beginning, but so was war, conflict, trauma, memory, displacement, partition. How can you tell the story of a divided land? It wasn’t easy. Love gave me a door into the story. There are two types of love in this novel, the first one is the love between humans, and then there is the love between humans and trees, the love humans feel for their land, for their roots, their memories, the love immigrants feel for lost homelands.

The novel shows Kostas and Defne to be an unlikely couple not because she is Turkish and he is Greek, but because their personalities are strikingly dissimilar: Defne considers human suffering as paramount and justice as the ultimate aim, but for Kostas — who carves an island for himself inside an island and retreats into silence — human existence has no special priority in the ecological chain. However, they are both the products of a common culture. Do you see their story as one of commonalities and contradictions, of togetherness forged out of conflicting nationalisms and religious identities?

I believe there is something utterly beautiful and moving when people from different backgrounds, races, religions and/or personalities manage to build a loving, caring and compassionate relationship together, despite all the odds. Love can triumph over hatred. Just like solidarity and sisterhood can triumph over polarisation and extremism. But I am also aware that none of this is easy to achieve. And yet we must keep trying. Especially now, more than ever before. Our planet is burning, our only home, this earth, is burning. We have massive global challenges ahead, from climate crisis to pandemics. Neither ultranationalism nor religious fundamentalism are the answer. Any ideology that takes us away from critical thinking and divides humans into boxes and tells them to hate “the Other” is misleading, wrong. We have entered a new era when we need global sisterhood, international solidarity and cooperation, a new kind of egalitarian, inclusive humanism that respects diversity and basic human dignity. We must all work together to save our planet and our common humanity.

The novel is structured around the act of burying and unburying of the fig tree and is rooted in eco-consciousness; it explores our relationship with nature at a time when ecological concerns are at the centre of global discourse. The pandemic has also forced us to reconsider how we engage with nature. Kostas, a botanist, is in constant communion with plants. The novel, which is narrated in parts by the sagacious fig tree that remains a witness to the trials and tumults of Kostas and Defne’s story, reflects on what nature does to death — it transforms “abrupt endings into a thousand new beginnings”, tending even to those who would never be found after the war. How did you settle on the structure and the narrative device that alternates between the authorial third person and the voice of the fig tree and what did the latter allow you to do in the novel?

I have been wanting to write about Cyprus for many years now but I could never dare because I knew it was not an easy story to tell. This is such a beautiful island. And yet, there is a lot of pain — accumulated pain, intergenerational trauma, loss and distrust, and ethnic partition. The wounds are still open, unhealed. I could not find a voice. How do you tell the story of a divided land without falling into the trap of nationalism? Only when I found the voice of the fig tree, only then, I could dare to start writing. A Ficus carica. The idea of the fig tree came to me during the pandemic and the lockdowns. I had been reading about nature and ecology for a while, but it was the pandemic that really encouraged me to walk firmly in this direction. Like many of us, I felt the need, almost the urgency, to reconnect with nature, to rethink about environment and especially, about trees and forests. Also, trees were important to me in a metaphorical sense. As an immigrant myself, I think about roots a lot. What does it mean to be rooted or uprooted or rerooted? Roots are important throughout my writing. I care about issues like belonging, non-belonging, motherland, adopted land, exile.

Ficus carica; a fig tree. (Shutterstock)

As I was reading The Island of Missing Trees, the wildfires in Turkey raged on, which made the book’s eco-consciousness and environmental concerns even more immediate and urgent. What has been your assessment of the devastating wildfires? Where do you think Turkey has gone wrong with regard to ecology?

The wildfires are utterly heartbreaking. It is devastating. Entire villages, forests, natural habitats have been destroyed. There is a photograph that is imprinted on my mind. It is incredibly sad. The photo of an elderly Turkish woman in Manavgat who has advanced Alzheimer’s. She does not know and understand that she lost everything to the wildfires, her village, her home, her trees. Her family cannot explain or tell her. And there is this innocent woman sleeping on the street, suddenly a refugee in her own land. Climate crisis is happening in front of our eyes, every day, every moment. This is not something that will take place at some vague point in the future. As the recent UN report made it very clear, human-caused climate emergency is unequivocal, widespread and accelerating. That said, in the case of Turkey, there was an additional element that made things worse: the government’s incompetence. Lack of proper infrastructure and coordination to fight the fires. Turkish government spends so much money on building palaces for themselves but no money to invest in protecting forests, no planes to put out the fires. But when you say this out loud they will automatically call you a ‘traitor’. There is no freedom of speech. Zero. Intellectuals, journalists, writers are prosecuted. Even people who have tweeted using the hashtag Turkey needs help have been sued. It is mind-blowing, but this is what happens when democracy is completely lost and civil society is shattered.

Wildfires in Turkey (Shutterstock)

You have written of Istanbul as a ‘She-city’ likening it to an old woman with a young heart, eternally hungry for new stories and new loves. The fig tree is also referred to as female and is equally invested in the act of storytelling; it’s also a memory keeper, a reservoir of stories since it’s a constant in the life of humans and the animal kingdom: “Tangled beneath our roots, hidden inside our trunks, are the sinews of history, the ruins of wars nobody came to win, the bones of the missing.” Do you see it mirroring your own voice and preoccupations?

Such a beautiful question! As a writer my own voice and preoccupations will, from time to time, seep into the book. However, the truth is, for me, writing fiction is not necessarily autobiographical. I have always believed there is something irrational, transcendental, almost mystical, about the art of storytelling. In novels, you journey into other people’s lives and into their minds and hearts, you go beyond the limits of the “self”, even if for a few hours, days. I am interested in those unexpected human connections. I believe you can, both, be attached to your own cultural roots, and feel connected to all humanity at the same time. I do not believe in singular, static identity. I think, as human beings, we all have multiple belongings, or like Walt Whitman used to say, we all contain multitudes.

The novel also deals with the shadows that the past casts on us as well as the possibility of renewal and regeneration. It shows how silences shroud family secrets and trauma runs across generations. Ada, the 16-year-old daughter, who lives in London with her father Kostas, is oblivious to the ordeal her parents went through in the past, how the war tore them apart. What makes you write about people and their difficult struggles of living with the past and, at times, their attempts to survive without one?

Families are composed of stories — and silences, too. I have always believed in the existence of inherited pain. We do not only inherit our noses or cheeks or hair colour from our parents or great-grandparents. We also inherit sorrow and melancholy, even if we might not know their stories in full, even then, we are shaped by silences. Especially within immigrant families, exiled families, or families that come from divided lands, complex histories, there are many such silences. The first generation are the ones who have experienced the biggest hardships and obstacles, but they don’t exactly have a language to talk about their pain. The second generation does not usually want to dig into the past because they are busy adopting, belonging, finding their feet. They would rather focus on this present moment or the future. But then there is the third or fourth generation, the youngest in the families who today are asking the most important questions about the trajectory of their ancestors, questions about identity. They want to know. So, interestingly, you can come across young people who carry the stories of their grandparents, young people with old memories.

There is always a heartbreaking sorrow that runs as an undercurrent in the lives of most of your characters. The fig tree has this melancholy in its genes that it can never quite shake off. Similarly, Ada carries within her a sadness that is not quite her own but part of her DNA, passed down to her by her parents. What draws you to grief and melancholy?

I come from a land of pessimism. The Balkans, Anatolia, the Levant… we are not very optimistic people in general, you know. There is a lot of sorrow in our history, there is melancholy or duende. So the stories that I write reflect the culture where I come from. However, I have always believed there is also a strong element of humour in my writing. I really love and respect humour, especially the compassionate kind. Not the kind of humour that looks down upon people, not like that, but the kind that understands both the weakness and resilience, the complexity and simplicity of being human. So I guess in a nutshell what I am really drawn to is the dance of humour and sorrow, the dialectical relationship between melancholy and hope, between pessimism and optimism.

Attuned to the landscape of the island and the patterns of life of the islanders, the novel is rich in imagery and atmospherics. How did you craft this particular element in the novel? Did you visit Cyprus while working on the novel or did you draw on your memory of the island?

I read across the board, both fiction and non fiction. Fiction is where my heart beats, of course, but I love interdisciplinary studies. I read anything and everything that speaks to me, from political philosophy to botanical sciences to cookbooks and graphic novels. Unlike “information”, “knowledge” takes time to accumulate; it is much slower, interdisciplinary. It requires an inner garden to grow. I have visited Cyprus many times in the past, not during the pandemic. I have met beautiful people from this beautiful island, and I listened to them with respect. What I like best is to bridge the written culture with the oral culture. So there is a lot of research behind this novel, but there is also a genuine interest in oral cultures, superstitions, myths, legends, the things that are not necessarily found in books.

In what ways has your peripatetic life and your diverse identities as an activist, a migrant, a nomad, a cosmopolite, an agnostic, a heterodox mystic and a humanist — a “wandering, independent, carefree spirit” as you wrote in Black Milk — shaped your writing?

James Baldwin was fond of using a word to describe himself, a word that stayed with me: commuter. He commuted between continents, cultures, cities. But he was also aware of how painful or lonely this could be. When I look at my journeys, I have learned so much from multiple cultures. When you travel, you not only learn from differences, you also get a chance to take another look at where you are coming from, perhaps you attain a new cognitive flexibility. I think in this life we learn most from diversity, from people who are “different” than us at first glance, we don’t learn much from sameness. But you don’t have to physically be travelling all the time. Books also help us travel. Stories take us everywhere, across centuries and geographies. Through journeys we learn. We need to be “intellectual nomads” and refuse to settle down in any address, any fixed abode, once and for all.

You have been a traveller between Turkish and English languages. What kind of relationship do you share with language? And then there is a distinct vocabulary of silence manifest in most of your novels. Where does silence figure in your writing and what is your relationship with it? Do you consciously work on it?

Turkish is mother tongue. English for me is an acquired language. I did not grow up in a bilingual house. I started learning English at the age of 10 when I was in Spain. At the time, Spanish was my second language. But English never abandoned me. It gave me a sense of mobility, another zone of freedom. I feel attached to each language in a different way. My connection with Turkish is very emotional, and I am an emotional person, so writing in English, which is more cerebral, gives a different balance, a cognitive distance that I need. If my writing has melancholy, sadness, I find these things easier to express in Turkish, however. But humour, and especially irony, are much easier in English.

The divided city: Nicosia, capital of Cyprus. (Shutterstock)

As a writer and an activist, you have been eminently brave and outspoken, telling gritty and unflinching stories. At some point in this novel, Defne says: “There are moments in life when everyone has to become a warrior of some kind. If you are a poet, you fight with your words; if you are an artist, you fight with your paintings… But you can’t say, “Sorry, I’m a poet, I’ll pass.” Ali Smith recently reiterated how all novels are political even if they do not intend to be so. Do you see the need to speak up against the injustice and oppression of the world or against the curtailments of rights, individual liberty and freedom in countries around the world, especially Turkey, as central to your enterprise as a writer? In a world falling apart all around, where do you derive your inspiration and courage from?

I appreciate your words, but I am not a brave person. I am just a curious person. I love the art of storytelling. I believe literature can rehumanise people who have been systematically dehumanised, pushed to the margins, silenced, forgotten. I am drawn to the periphery rather than the centre. I don’t think a writer’s job is to give answers, to dictate or teach or preach. I find a lot of that off-putting. I believe a writer’s job is to ask questions, including difficult questions. The novel is one of our last remaining democratic spaces. In my novels, I want to create open spaces where questions can be raised, a plurality of opinions and voices can be heard, and then you must always leave the answers to the reader. Because every reader will come up with their own answers. I know couples who read the same book and they don’t read it in the same way. Good friends who read the same novel, but each in their own way. Why? Because each reader’s reading is unique like their fingerprints. That said, as a writer, if you happen to come from a wounded democracy, like Turkey or Brazil or Egypt and so on, you do not have the luxury of being apolitical. Also I am a feminist. I believe the personal is also political. You can write about gender and sexuality, that too, is political.

You write in the note to the reader in The Island of Missing Trees how you drew on historical facts and events for several strands in the novel, including the mysterious deaths of British babies and the illegal hunting of songbirds. You write that while you honour local folklore and oral traditions in the novel, it remains a work of fiction — “a mixture of wonder, dreams, love, sorrow and imagination”. Could one use this to describe most of your writing?

A blend of mind and heart, knowledge and intuition, ruins and remnants, past and present, mysticism and politics, written culture and oral culture, East and West, melancholy and humour… I think I like this hybridity. Because I come from Istanbul you see, and I carry the city with me, and Istanbul herself is exactly like that.

Nawaid Anjum is a Delhi-based freelance feature writer, translator and poet.

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[armeniaitn]

Azerbaijan and Turkey must be held responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region – Armenian President

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/politics/azerbaijan-and-turkey-must-be-held-responsible-for-bringing-paid-killers-and-fanatic-jihadists-to-our-region-armenian-president-63090-15-10-2020/

Azerbaijan and Turkey must be held responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region – Armenian President

Azerbaijan and Turkey should be held responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region thus making achievement of peace even more complicated, Armenian President Armen Sarkissian said in an interview with Kuwaiti daily Arabic-language newspaper Al-Jarida.

“The civilized world should stop this. It is a shame for the 21st century to still have mercenaries who are paid for killing civilians or creating human disasters,” the President said.

The full text of the interview is provided below:

Who started the military actions in Nagorno-Karabakh and in which political context it occurred? Are we witnessing a proxy war? Or another battlefield for energy wars?

Nagorno-Karabakh is a region which was historically part of the Armenian lands and Armenians have been living there for thousands of year. Historically, Nagorno-Karabakh or Artsakh was always a part of Armenia. It is a nice mountainous beautiful region where Armenians, as an indigenous people, were inhabiting those lands for thousands of years and they still live there. Only under the Soviet regime, Nagorno-Karabakh, as an autonomous region, was given by Stalin to Soviet Azerbaijan for 70 years. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, we got the first war and almost 30 years of negotiations. The Azeri side is that it has a legitimate right to free those lands. But free from whom? There are ethnic Armenians 100% living there, and they have been there always. Why one should leave his/her own home just because a newcomer wants to? This is called aggression followed by ethnic cleansing. They want that land without Armenians. For the Azeri side, controlling those lands and justifying their aggression is part of an identify-building narrative, while for the Armenian side, it’s a struggle for life, for cultural heritage and historic memory. It a fight for their houses, parents and children who live there, but who now became direct targets of Turkish drones and Azeri missiles.

So, they started a full war while there is a clear agreement of a cease-fire established since 1994. This is a real war which Azerbaijan and Turkey prepared seriously and long ago. The Azeri sides wants to break the status-quo and impose its will. And Turkey militarily and politically backs this dangerous venture of Azerbaijan pushing the region to the brink of a human disaster. We, Armenians, never challenged any energy infrastructure. Instead, according to some arrangements, Armenia could even export electricity to Turkey as it does for Iran and Georgia. As for your question about a proxy war, I can tell you that Turkey is using Azerbaijan to expand its dominance in the region. By doing so, it threatens the fragile stability in the South Caucasus.

With the regional tension all around, are you afraid the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh will create a new “Syria”?

Yes, I am, because if there is no a strong international reaction to Turkey’s deliberate and unlawful actions in the region, we can turn the region into a Syria-like nightmare. And then, everyone in the region and beyond will be affected. So, if Turkey is not stopped from being directly involved in military offensive activities, the conflict between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan may spiral out of control. We need to stop Turkey and Azerbaijan from levelling up the situation in magnitude, in complexity, and creating something that eventually will become another Syria of the Caucasus. Turkey is permanently recruiting and sending war mercenaries, mujahedin–terrorists, Islamic terrorists Azerbaijan to fight against the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh-Republic or Artsakh, as we say it. Different countries must interfere and put a strong and unequivocal pressure on Turkey to stop it from interfering in the region. If Turkey is restrained, then we have a chance of an effective ceasefire and negotiations, with a possibility of going back to the negotiation table. This Turkish involvement and the Azeri aggression which didn’t stop even under the declaration of ceasing hostilities for humanitarian purposes on October 10, 2020, give feeling to everyone not only in Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenia but everywhere where are Armenians, and those people who are close to the Armenians, that Turkey wants to repeat something that happened 105 years ago-ethnic cleansings of Armenians from their homeland-and creating another genocide. We-Armenians, in Armenia, Artsakh and Diaspora-will never allow another genocide to happen. Enough is enough.

Azerbaijan authorities proclaimed that Armenians volunteers, especially from Syria and Lebanon, are joining the fight. Is that accurate? Are you afraid that this may increase religious dimensions of the conflict?

After the Genocide of Armenians perpetrated by the Ottoman Empire and never recognized as such by modern Turkish Republic, Armenians were spread world-wide, and became proud citizens of a number of countries: the US, Russia, France, Iran, Argentina, Lebanon, Australia, Syria, Georgia, Singapore, Poland, etc. They are effectively integrated into their home countries and societies, and a humble and law-abiding contributors in economy, politics, culture, sports, sciences, technology, education, etc. of the host countries. When there is an imminent existential threat, Armenians seek to get mobilized globally and they also can come to the Homeland and help their brothers and sisters on the ground. Azerbaijan and Turkey, not Armenia, should be taken responsible for bringing paid killers and fanatic jihadists to our region thus making achievement of peace even more complicated. The civilized world should stop this. It is a shame for the 21st century to still have mercenaries who are paid for killing civilians or creating human disasters.

As for the religious dimension, Armenians have nave showed any resentment and intolerance towards other religions. The religious dimension is just excluded from this conflict since the very beginning. Armenia and Armenians have a full respect for all religions and beliefs and thousands years of our history clearly demonstrated our attachment to human values including tolerance and respect for other religions, cultures, race, etc. I don’t know any Armenian having hatreds for representatives of other religions. We adopted Christianity in 301, officially the first in the world. During two millennia, the Armenian nation experienced wars, conflicts, exoduses, and even a genocide, but it never became a blind religious fanatic, as now we see many among those fighting against us on the Azeri side. But you will always find those who want to ignite hatreds and fuel new escalations, and they will say you there is a religious dimension which a non-sense.

Are you satisfied with the Arab gulf countries stance on the situation?

Since the very first day, when the Azeri side backed by Turkey started its unprecedented offensive against Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, I was in touch with heads of the Arab countries, such as the Sultan of Oman, the King of Bahrain, the Emir of Qatar, the President of Egypt, the King of Jordan, the Crown Prince of the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, etc. In my letters and phone call I was expressing my deep concern over the spiraling situation stating that regrettably, Azerbaijan’s intermittent war against the people of Artsakh and the Republic of Armenia was nothing new and that for over three decades, Azerbaijan was trying to solve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue through military means and wipe out the Armenian population from its Homeland. And this is unacceptable.

What are Armenia demands for a ceasefire? How do you envision the political solution?

This is not the first time in about 30 years that Azerbaijan, enjoying the overt support of Turkey, perpetrated horrific aggression against Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, using a wide range of artillery and rocket munitions, including the banned cluster bombs to target the residential areas, situated far from the line of contact. It is important to remind that the routes of this conflict lied back in 1990-1991, when to the peaceful protests of the Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh Azerbaijan then-Soviet Republic responded with brutal military force, committing mass ethnic cleansings, and continued atrocities aimed to forcefully squeeze out the Armenian population. The Armenians then withstood the imposed war and enjoyed 26 years of de-facto independent and peaceful life on own Homeland amidst an enduring process of negotiations.

And now, the Turkish-Azerbaijan ongoing aggression the Armenians are facing now comes to expose the genocidal intentions of them, leaving no chance to the local population but to fight again to safe own homes, families, thousand-years old history and monuments.

Therefore, we are more than convinced that the international recognition of the Republic of Artsakh is the only option that might guarantee the security and the right of the Armenians living in here. So the political solution is clear: the only way to prevent the potential genocide and forced displacement of these people is the international recognition of their self-determination.

Are you optimistic about France and Russia and the United States upcoming meetings. Do you think the international intervention will help or complicate the situation?

The international mediation of OSCE Minsk Group that co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States was one of the factors of lasting peace-oriented to a peaceful outcome, which was blatantly disrupted by Turkey and Azerbaijan blowing up the Caucasus region on 27 September, transferring mercenaries and radical jihadists to fight the Armenians.

Even though the joint statements of leaders of France, Russia and the United States to halt the violence immediately and back to the negotiation table, those were defiantly ignored not only by the Azeri government but first and foremost by Erdogan’s Turkey, who bears responsibility for instigating and militarily involving in Azerbaijan’s unleashed aggression against the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. So, the only international intervention that not only complicated the situation but evoked an existential threat to the Armenians dramatically destabilizing the entire region is Turkey. And here is worth mentioning Turkey’s Foreign Minister Chavushoglu’s statement that his country will continue to stand by Azerbaijan on the ground and on the table, hence confirming Turkey’s military involvement in this war. This fact should inherently raise a concern among NATO members that their ally is an initiator of aggression against its Partnership for Peace partner. With this regard, to my understanding, the imperative for the international stakeholders, particularly to those who are interested in long-term peace or in the conflict resolution namely France, the United States, and Russia and others, is to refrain Turkey, making both Ankara and Baku accountable and responsible for provoking this horrible war.

Armenia is discontent with US over the use of F16 ,and with Israel over the weapon shipments to Baku ,and Russia was very cautious about showing support to you, are you concerned that Armenia will find herself alone?

The issue of Turkish F-16 in this war was raised by Armenia’s Prime Minister Pashinyan, who eventually stated that the United States may want to explain whether those fighter jets were delivered to Turkey for bombing Armenian civilians. It is also about NATO since Turkey is a NATO member and operates those F-16s. I have asked some NATO colleagues to look at this very carefully because we have a situation where a member of NATO-an organization, which has a clear mandate of what to do-is taking part or getting involved in a conflict of third parties, which are not NATO members. Does Turkey have an authorization or a green light from NATO? If yes, we should know that. If not, then I hope that our colleagues in NATO will make their voice heard and put pressure on Turkey that they should not get involved into this conflict because their presence here is not helping at all, it is escalating the situation dramatically.

On the other hand, the issue of Israel’s continued arming of Azerbaijan has long story, which remains confusing for the Armenian society. Even now, at times of the Turkey-Azerbaijan aggression against the Armenians, Israel’s government’s unchanged behavior in arming the aggressor is far from understanding for the Armenian side, who asks a simple question: since the Jewish State is a Genocide-survivor country, so why arming those who wage genocidal war against Armenia? Armenia and Artsakh are not anole, as we are on the side of truth. As for the position of Russia, the President Vladimir Putin made clear that Russia was and will keep its commitments as bilateral and multilateral security treaty ally of Armenia under the terms and conditions of a strategic partnership with Armenia. 

Read original article here.

[newstechreviews]

The humblest food becomes wondrously photogenic in the films of Chen Xiaoqing, creator of the hit Netflix series Flavorful Origins and its progenitor Once Upon a Bite. Dumplings are crafted on timber boards amid billows of flour. Steam shrouds mottled crabs, cooking with ginger and chili in in tall stacks of wicker baskets. Fishermen wade into crashing surf on wooden stilts to snare sardines with A-frame nets. There are aerial shots of emerald rice terraces, time-lapse sequences of drying bricks of tea, and mortar-eye views of pestle-pounded spices.

There’s not a fast-food restaurant or production line in sight in this romanticized glimpse of a homespun culinary culture sadly threatened by industrial kitchens, agribusiness and progress.

“Our food must be delicious, beautiful, with a legacy and connection to local culture and geography,” Chen tells TIME in his Beijing office. “For the people, they must really love the food, put in their labor and have a deep connection with it.”

Chen, 55, originally from China’s eastern Anhui province, has charged himself with keeping many of his homeland’s food traditions alive. Over the past three decades, the world’s most populous nation has become the world’s number two economy and home to the planet’s largest middle class. In the rush to sate 1.4 billion bellies, corners were cut and standards plummeted, leading to a slew of food safety scandals. Today, though, the impetus has shifted from quantity toward quality natural produce. “People are leaning towards healthier options, not just vegetables, but wanting to know their food is processed with care,” says Shanghai-based food blogger Rachel Gouk.

It’s a trend epitomized by the critically acclaimed Flavorful Origins, a series of short films and the first original Chinese documentary to be bought by Netflix. Chefs chosen for inclusion in Chen’s work can see demand for signature dishes soar hundred-fold overnight. The first series spotlighted the coastal cuisine of Guangdong’s Chaoshan region, with the second focusing on the fresh, fragrant spices of southwestern Yunnan province, which draws much influence from neighboring Laos and Myanmar.

The third season, set in China’s central Gansu province, debuts on Netflix next month. Gansu is a thin strip of territory stretching more than a thousand kilometers from dunes in the north to lush mountains in the south. It also boasts a significant Muslim minority. “So they have really different types of food that reflect the local terrain and [cultures],” says the filmmaker.

Chen has given himself an additional brief at a time of historic tensions between the U.S. and China. The superpowers may be embroiled in a trade war, accusations of spying and IP theft, the sanctioning of officials over the detention of one million Uighur Muslims in China’s far west, and the origins of the COVID-19 pandemic—but Chen hopes that food can help soften his country’s image. “Through beautiful food we want to help the world better understand China and the Chinese people,” he says.

DOClabs Beijing In this still taken from Season 2 of the series Once Upon a Bite, which debuted on Apr. 26, 2020, a dish known as multiple-layer oil cake is seen on a table in Yangzhou, China.

Chinese food in the U.S.

The U.S. love affair with Chinese cuisine is long and complex. In fact, one of the most American staples, ketchup, is actually Chinese in origin. The name ketchup derives from the Hokkien Chinese kê-tsiap, referring to a fermented fish-based sauce that became popular with colonial Britons as far back as the 18th century.

When the first Chinese immigrants arrived in American in the mid-19th century, xenophobic ditties made reference to their unfamiliar eating habits. But in New York City, Chinatown flanked the Jewish Lower East Side, and the Jewish community became early adopters of the new cuisine. By 1899, the enduring tradition of Jews eating in Chinese restaurants at Christmas had already been documented. In the early 20th century, the Boston Globe was telling readers to consider Chinese themes for their wedding banquets, while the Chicago Tribune declared Chinese restaurants the perfect place to woo a girl on a first date.

“Chinatowns, which had been framed as dens of iniquity, became the first counterculture cool among the American cognoscenti, and then became mainstream,” says John Pomfret, a former Beijing bureau chief for the Washington Post and author of The Beautiful Country and the Middle Kingdom: America and China, 1776 to the Present.

When a devastating earthquake flattened San Francisco in 1906, that city’s Chinatown was prioritized for reconstruction because of the tourist dollars it brought in. By 1919, the American Chemical Society was advising that Chinese food was good for health. A decade later, nearly a third of American counties had at least one Chinese resident, many of whom opened restaurants. “The Chinese became the most dispersed ethnic group in the country,” says Pomfret. Today, there are more Chinese restaurants in the U.S. than McDonalds and KFC outlets combined.

Read more: The Untold Story of the World’s First Michelin Three-Star Chinese Restaurant

The question is whether food can still build bridges today. A Pew Research Center survey published in July found 73% of American adults had a negative view of China, the highest since the question was first asked 15 years ago. Verbal attacks and assaults on Asian Americans have soared since the coronavirus took hold. At the recent presidential debate, Donald Trump again sought to assign blame for the pandemic, saying “It’s China’s fault.”

For Chen, however, there are more commonalities than differences. He points out that around 10,000 years ago people across the world began cultivating wheat. In the West, they used it to bake bread; in the East, they steamed buns. “People may focus on the difference between East and West as being like fire or water,” says Chen. “But in terms of food—bread or buns—it’s not that drastic.”

Not all of China’s culinary culture meets with acceptance. The consumption of rare, wild species for their purported health benefits has long been of concern. The 2002 to 2003 SARS pandemic was eventually traced to civet cats sold for consumption at a market in China’s southern Guangdong province, and a leading—though unproven—hypothesis is that there is a similar provenance for coronavirus, which first came to light in a market in the central city of Wuhan.

Chen says he is “very concerned” about the protection of wildlife, never features endangered creatures in his programs and even puts health disclaimers on scenes that feature raw shellfish.

“In truth, most Chinese people eat a limited selection of food,” he says. “They don’t even eat steak rare because they think it’s unhygienic. They have to cook everything. The sample of the coronavirus found in the market has nothing to do with food; it has to do with the modernization of the entire country. If we can ventilate and make our markets more sanitary, such problems can be solved.”

DOClabs Beijing In this still taken from Season 2 of the series Once Upon a Bite, which debuted on Apr. 26, 2020, dishes of braised pork rice from Sichuan, China are being steamed.

Chinese cuisine and national identity

In some ways, Chen is riding a wave of national interest in a sentimentalized past—a craze known as fugu. Increasingly, Chinese millennials are donning hanfu robes that date from the Tang Dynasty, playing bamboo flutes and quaffing Osmanthus wine in order to reconnect with their cultural heritage. One father in Sichuan province recently dispensed with the family car and decided to take his son to kindergarten on a bull. He said that while using this archaic form of transport, he would “explain ancient poems and traditional culture” to the youngster. For a rapidly urbanizing society, increasingly disillusioned by a hyper-commercialized race to riches, such affectations prove alluring.

Some academics frame this cultural revival in terms of a restored national pride. It could be seen as “embarrassing that Chinese people attend social functions or major international occasions dressed in suits, ties, and leather shoes, which not only fail to represent their homeland, but also imitate the garb worn by the erstwhile outsiders who once brought China to its knees,” writes Yang Chunmei, a professor of Chinese history and philosophy at Qufu Normal University.

China’s strongman president, Xi Jinping, has certainly made many calls for the preservation of Chinese tradition while decrying the influence of “Western values”—even if much that tradition is awkwardly rooted in Imperial feudalism and at clear odds with the Marxist doctrine that the Chinese Communist Party is committed to upholding.

Read more: A Very Brief History of Chinese Food in America

In this context, Chen’s work coalesces national identity at home even as it seeks to break down barriers abroad. He has set his eyes beyond China, citing Lebanon as his dream destination (“It’s got European influence, Arab influence, that’s very interesting”). He became enamored with the Middle East while filming in Jerusalem.

“We saw that Jews, Arabs, Christians have different religions and cultures,” Chen says, “but they all appreciate the same food.”

Given the intolerance that roils the Middle East, it’s a bit of a stretch to posit some sort of regional amity based on a shared love of olives and flatbread, but Chen is undeterred.

“There are constantly quarrels and tensions, not only between China and America, but between all different cultures,” he says. “The best way to solve them is communication—and people always talk over food.”

—Video by Zhang Chi/Beijing