#protests in history

[itisiives]

I've watched the Les Miserables movie again yesterday. I kept thinking, "I wonder how many of the French revolutionaries would have survived if they had bulletproof vests?"

[drsonnet]

Hind Rajab was a 5 year old girl in Gaza who was killed while she hid alone in a car, along with the paramedics who tried to rescue her. Yesterday students at Columbia seized the administration building and renamed it in her honor.

Gadzooks Bazooka Instagram: gadzooks_bazooka

Remembering #HindRajab & children in #Gaza: This is what the mother of the child, Hind Rajab . https://tmblr.co/ZTeZMyfB_GHeeu00

Update (July, 2024)

UPDATE FROM

@sunnydice: (and please don't forget Layan Hamadeh , her 15 yr old cousin who was trapped with her or Yusuf Zino and Ahmed Al-Madhoun who bravely volunteered to try to save hind and were murdered by the IOF )

DrSonnet — هذا ما قالته والدة الطفلة هند رجب عندما سمعت بخبر... (tumblr.com)

[philsmeatylegss]

As someone who is studying history with a big interest in 1940-1980, it is insane to see the crack down on the college protests. History does nothing but repeat itself. It happened with protests against segregation, against the Vietnam War, against the Iraq war… and how we view it looking back is always the same. People always ask why studying history is important. This is exactly why.

[folk-enjoyer]

James H. Karales, 1965. Collection of the Smithsonian National Museum of African American History and Culture

James Baldwin and Joan Baez in Selma, Alabama, 1965

[ghost-37]

Black people have culturally subsidized this country since our arrival

[rithikap12]

today is an important day to remember this poem 💙

[comrade-onion]

Some more advice to the students ❤️🇵🇸

[sonyaheaneyauthor]

The fall of the Soviet Union in Ukraine.

A majority of people in every Ukrainian region voted for independence in 1991.

[sky-daddy-hates-me]

One day, students will be studying posts like this in law textbooks and history textbooks.

[mysharona1987]

[embodiedfutures]

While this information may technically be new, government infiltration is not. As mentioned in the video, COINTELPRO is a perfect historical example of the insidious downfall of so many leftist grassroots organizations, and guess what? We've made posts about COINTELPRO in the past!

This information isn't made to scare you though, but to empower us all to come together even stronger, even smarter, even more diligently. We owe it to ourselves, to our communities, and to our predecessors to do at least that much. As working class citizens, we must protect one another. Do not get distracted by the divisions those in power wish to ensue.

Confused on where to start? Even if you don't apply as a volunteer, @bfpnola is a safe space for all youth activists to ask questions and receive free resources! Here’s what you need to get started:

Our Linktr.ee | Liberation Library | Discord Server | Open Youth Leadership Positions | Staff Application | Donate

[drsonnet]

On This Day: Kent State shootings leave 4 students dead!

Four Kent State University students were killed and nine were injured on May 4, 1970, when members of the Ohio National Guard opened fire on a crowd gathered to protest the Vietnam War. The tragedy was a watershed moment for a nation divided by the conflict in Southeast Asia. In its immediate aftermath, a student-led strike forced the temporary closure of colleges and universities across the country. Some political observers believe the events of that day in northeast Ohio tilted public opinion against the war and may have contributed to the downfall of President Richard Nixon.

Students dive to the ground as the National Guard fires on faculty and students May 4, 1970, to protest the war in Vietnam. File Photo courtesy of Kent State University Archives

The Kent State Shootings

“… Give Peace a Chance (iastate.edu)

On This Day, May 4: Kent State shootings leave 4 students dead - UPI.com

[pangaeaseas]

The Problem of Religion in Harry Potter (or, what is Wizard God?)

tl; dr: I wish more hp fics did something with religion and the wizarding world

so to state my credentials up front: I've read a lot of hp fanfiction, a little on the Reformation and religious history--like, I have probably more background knowledge than the average person but I am very emphatically not an expert and have never actually taken a class specifically on any kind of religious history, and I'm an ex-Catholic who did ten ish years of religion classes. There are probably a LOT more people more qualified to talk about this than me but whatever I've never actually seen very much meta written out on this specific issue so I'm giving it a try. (if you have written or read such meta, please send me recs)

ahh the Problem of Religion one of the great unsolved mysteries of the hp world building (similar issues include What the Fuck is Going on with Ireland, How Does the Ministry Actually Work, What is the Population, etc) and I call it 'unsolved' because the fandom has no massively popular solution (like Lordships for the Problem of the Wizengamot) and in general tends to just not think about it, much like JKR originally did. Now IMO she probably intended most wizards to be, like, generically Church of England or whatever without much investment--basically copying the Muggle equivalent whenever it isn't spelled out how the two worlds differ, which is I think a lot of her un-filled-out world building is meant to be. Which. OK. You can do that, but, you know, religion is a very very important aspect of worldbuilding and in my opinion ignoring it and expecting it to be just the same as 1990s Muggle Britain is uninteresting and lazy.

This (wizards are meant to be some kind of Christian and probably Church of England just for simplicity's sake) is evidenced by things like Hogwarts having Christmas and Easter breaks, James and Lily having a Bible quote picked out by Dumbledore on their tombstone, and Draco Malfoy, most emblematically wizard of wizard characters who can be taken as a potential baseline, automatically saying things like 'Good God'. Which, you know, implies that the idea of a single God, and probably the Judaeo-Christian God because that's the same cultural background as the rest of Britain, is taken for granted by wizarding society. It doesn't necessarily imply anything about Draco's or even the Malfoys' personal beliefs, and of course you have other characters saying things like 'Oh my Merlin' and "Morgana" and things like that. Which in my opinion wasn't meant to be indications of some kind of Merlin or Morgana worship but more quirky and fun flavor things of the kind jkr loves to include without thinking out the implications. But you absolutely can take those statements that way--this post is absolutely not meant to dictate how people want to headcanon and I am absolutely here for giving wizards a well thought out pagan or Non-Christian religion, I just don't think that was the author's intent. There's also plenty of other things that imply Wizarding cultural Christianity that I'm not remembering off the top of my head.

And, of course, much better writers than me have extensively discussed all the Christian themes in HP. Of course, themes don't need to affect how people worldbuild in fanfic.

So: with HP canon, we are looking at a society that is probably culturally Christian and probably (key word) intended to be Church of England. But, because JKR wasn't putting much thought into it and basically just took a Chrisitian bedrock of society for granted, the implications of this are not really explored at all. So what I'm interested in is how fandom deals with it.

Mostly, that is...not at all, either taking cultural Christianity in the Wizarding World for granted the way JKR does or by ind of handwaving that wizards have evolved beyond the need for religion and that's just how it is. And that's perfectly fine! Not everyone wants to come up with a full, working, wizard society, and even if they are trying to worldbuild some aspects of wizarding society religion is often ignored, because people don't want to deal with it for often valid reasons (religious trauma, just disinterest, grew up agnostic, not Christian but thinks wizards probably are etc, etc, etc, ) Personally I wish more fics delved into what wizarding religious belief actually is, but to put it bluntly, that's just me. And I have never dealt with religion in my own fics. So don't takethis as judgement at all.

But there are interesting headcanons when people do choose to try and worldbuild religion in HP.

Fom what I've seen, one of the major ways to deal with religion in HP (aside from not dealing with it at all) is to give wizards, often pureblood wizards, some kind of pagan, often Celtic-inspired, religion. And this is quite defensible! Sometimes this is badly executed and/or turned into Death Eater apologia, but the idea of wizards having a different religion is really interesting and a good deal more interesting (IMO of course) than just not mentioning religion at all. Most fics that I've seen don't delve too deeply into, like the actual history and theology of these religions, but there are definitely some that do. (Also if you know any PLEASE send me recs). So if handled well, this is a great way to add some religion worldbuilding in the world of Harry Potter.

However, my personal favorite set of possibilities--obviously I have some personal bias as a history nerd with a long standing if never as deeply researched as I would like to interest in the history of Christianity and as an ex-Catholic--is that, well, we know the statute of secrecy started..when, exactly? 1690. So this much is obviously a result of JKR's Hollywood understanding of witch hunts (a subject for another time and someone far more qualified). For interested wrodlbuilders, we can take this as a guideline at best, as personally I think it would have taken a good deal longer than one year to agree on and implement something like the Statute and I tend to take 1690 as an end date, not a start. I also tend to take the Statue as a largely European phenomenon, at least at first. But, uh, what was happening in Britain at the time..oh, right...the Glorious Revolution....what was happening that created the conditions for the Glorious Revolution...oh, the English Civil War...which was because of...oh yeah, and what was also happening on the continent, maybe it involved, wait, thirty years..oooh, the Thirty Years War...wait weren't there a whole bunch of massive social shifts happening in Europe at this point in time isn't that funny but surely the stature of secrecy could be considered a part of these massive social shifts...all of which was heavily influenced by...you guessed it, the Protestant Reformation.

Wait. So. Maybe, the separation of Wizards from Muggles, at least in Britain, wasn't actually about Muggles hating wizards or wizards hating Muggles. Maybe it was about religion. Now personally I find this ABSOLUTELY FASCINATING. The possibilities, the possibilities...

Wizards had a massive religious civil war that created the blood status system in its modern form? Particular families have wildly different denominations? Excellent. Religion both in terms of level of religiosity and in terms of denomination is a blood status marker? Excellent. Purebloods are all Catholic (what does this do to both Catholic and not Muggleborns?) Excellent. Purebloods are all Puritans? Weird, but if you can pull it off excellent. Purebloods are all one of the wacky new denominations that sprung up after the Reformation and then either died out or conquered the world? Excellent. Pure bloods are all Lutherans who really hated Henry VIII? Excellent. One of my favoirite ways to create a wizarding religion was someone who had most pure bloods follow a denomination that split off from Catholicism in the Great Schism and then a small minority being Catholic, with the worlds splitting around the Reformation. Even the paganism headcanons can be incorporated: the Reformation could conceivably have made it much more difficult to keep practicing wizard paganism causing separation of the worlds.

Personally I would love to see a world that used the history of the Protestant Reformation super well, but it's not the only way to relate a Wizarding religion or a Wizarding religious history. I just wish more people tried to do that at all. Let wizards be religious! Or let them be irreligious but have thought about it, instead of just ignoring religion at all as something that might conceivably have influenced human societies. Maybe Wizarding Britain has state sponsored atheism. Just say that outright!

Another thing I'd like to see more fic doing is theology: how does having magic impact people's religious doctrine? Does every major religion essentially have a wizarding branch with its own theology because magic impacts their view of the world so much, or do most wizards simply follow the majority Muggle religion in their country with no modifications? if so, why? Do some wizards disagree, potentially violently, over how to incorporate magic into their religion? Do some people refuse to use magic because they think it goes against their religion? Etc etc etc you could go on forever. I've seen fic, which randomly enough was about Regulus Black, do this pretty well (or I thought so as a non-Jew) for Judaism, and I'd love it if done with other religions.

Anyway. Now I have to figure out how the hell religion works in the Wizarding Britain of my own headcanon.

[kick-a-long]

Jewish Columbia students were chased out of dorms, spat on, and pinned against walls: damning report

By Matthew Sedacca

Published Aug. 31, 2024, 3:44 p.m. ET

Jewish students at Columbia University were chased out of their dorms, received death threats, spat upon, stalked and pinned against walls, as the Ivy League school devolved into a cesspool of antisemitic hate in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 murderous raid on Israel.

The new and disturbing details emerged from the lengthy, 91-page document released Friday by the school’s faculty-led antisemitism task force, which revealed the extent to which the hate permeated the institution.

“Students described being shoved, pushed to the ground, berated for showing support for Zionist causes, and watching Israeli flags burned,” the task force’s authors wrote.

Jewish and Israeli students at Columbia University endured a months-long nightmare of harassment, violent threats and assaults after Oct. 7.

Getty Images

“They recounted seeing drawings of swastikas in their dorms, students yelling pro-Hamas chants, and being denied access to public spaces and opportunities simply because they were Jewish or Israeli.”

Testimony from nearly five hundred Columbia students informed the report, which found visibly observant Jews had been pinned to the wall and had their jewelry ripped off while coming and going from synagogue. Others recounted being spat on and having been called ethnic slurs on campus.

One student, who had installed a mezuzah on her dorm’s doorway prior to the Israel-Hamas war, was forced to move out after people were pounding her door throughout the night beginning in October, demanding she explain the Jewish state’s war in Gaza.

“If I walk on campus right now with my star out or kippah or say ‘am Yisrael chai,’ I could start World War III,” one anonymous student’s testimony read.

Instructors tasked with guiding and mentoring students instead contributed to the sense of isolation and unease among Jews and Israelis on campus, according to the report.

Students recalled being pushed to the ground and watching Israeli flags being burned.

One faculty member leading a class that delved into the Israel-Hamas conflict called a student who previously served in the IDF a murderer. Another professor extensively said a pair of Jewish donors to the university had “laundered” “dirty money” and “blood money.”

During the spring, as protests and encampments roiled the school’s Morningside Heights campus, protesters, including outsiders and members of the university community, bellowed death threats at Jewish students. Demonstrators who held Israeli flags, meanwhile, recalled being assaulted.

“There is a sense of personal threat, and we keep looking over our shoulders,” master’s student Omer Lubaton Granot, an Israeli veteran and father of a toddler, told an Israeli radio station in the wake of protesters seizing the academic building Hamilton Hall in April.

Councilman Eric Dinowitz (D-Bronx) described the students’ testimonies as “horrifying — and not surprising.”

“These are stories we’ve been hearing about, as the report says, even before the encampments,” he told The Post, adding that antisemitism had been on the rise at college campuses even before Oct. 7

“Without any sort of consequence [for students and faculty] this sort of behavior will continue

The task force offered several recommendations to address the issues detailed in the voluminous report, including improved anti-bias training for students and staff along with a new system for reporting complaints about antisemitism.

The report was issued just days before Columbia’s fall semester begins and less then three weeks after embattled university president Minouhce Shafik suddenly resigned, citing the “period of turmoil” that marred her brief tenure at the school.

Interim President Katrina Armstrong called the disturbing incidents “completely unacceptable” before rattling off new initiatives at the university aligning with the panel’s recommendations.

“This is an opportunity to acknowledge the harm that has been done and to pledge to make the changes necessary to do better and to rededicate ourselves, as university leaders, as individuals, and as a community, to our core mission of teaching and research,” she said