#this is the power of understanding general society and european culture and geography. i can bang out an essay i learned about YESTERDAY in

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Beating the fuck out this geography report rn

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Top 5 Royal Political Power Struggles That Were More Deadly And Brutal Than Anything Seen In Game of Thrones

By now it’s pretty widely known that many elements of George R.R. Martin’s book series, A Song of Ice and Fire, and it’s HBO television adaptation, Game of Thrones, are highly influenced by Medieval European society, geography, politics, and religion. In fact, you hardly need a degree in history to notice the multiple similarities between the violent power struggles that strongly characterized Medieval politics, such the War of the Roses, and the main conflict featured in the book and television series. This is in part due to the numerous blog posts, online articles, and YouTube videos have accurately shown that the history and society of Westeros is undoubtedly a lot like Britain’s during the Middle Ages.

Yet, this is one of the main reasons why we find George RR Martin’s series so intriguing even after when our favorite characters are killed in some of the most horrific ways imaginable. Rather than a simple narrative involving a clichéd fight between good and evil, the series is a soft adaption of history that features an ensemble of morally ambiguous characters that are based of real historical figures. Each and every one of these characters has very human and understandable motivations and are involved in a deadly game of influence over a throne that’s the center of an unforgiving warrior culture where money-grubbing, feudal warlords rule much of society. Like many historical figures that are involved in power struggles, the characters in the series are all taking part in a dance of death where anyone can die no matter what our opinions of them are or their station in life. Martin’s series also accurately shows how politics can become severely unstable and are prone to periods of harsh chaos due to the poor decisions made by the states reigning monarch who is either absolutely raving mad or is driven more by their own self-interest rather than devoting their time into competently managing the realm.

This is why I want to share some extreme instances of volatile political intrigues from history that could have influenced or are highly similar to elements in A Song of Ice and Fire. The following examples show how truly unforgiving and unromantic history can be, especially in regards to dynastic feuds where acts of unbelievably ruthless cruelty and extreme depravity were all too common. As you can imagine, many of the following descriptions will be pretty graphic so consider this a bit of a warning before you decide to continue. One other note: the following accounts aren’t the only instances of Machiavellian political intrigue in that specific states or empires history, so keep that in mind. If I mentioned everything this list would be absurdly long.

1. Ancient Macedonia

Situated in what the classical Greeks considered as a border region between culturally superior Greek civilization and inferior northern barbarity, the ancient kingdom of Macedonia had some of the most frequent, bloody transfers of political power than any other state during the Classical period of Greek history. This was mainly due to the absurd amount of assassinations that were committed in Macedonia during the 4th century BCE, which targeted whomever was the reigning monarch at the time. In fact, after doing a bit of research, I found out that political assassinations and executions were such a common occurrence in Macedonia that of the seventeen kings who reigned between 400 BCE and 300 BCE only one, Amyntas III, died due to advanced age, while another, Cassander, died of dropsy.

Possibly the most infamous assassination during this period was that of Phillip II who was father of the famed Alexander the Great and the man who turned Macedonia into a major political and military power. According to Diodorus Siculus and Aristotle, Phillip II was murdered by his former lover and captain of the guards, Pausanius of Orestis, when the former refused to punish his general, Attalus, after he had Pausanius viciously gang raped by his household slaves after a night of heavy drinking. The reason for Attalus’ actions were due to the fact that he blamed Pausanius for the death of his close friend and Phillip’s current lover who was, confusingly enough, also named Pausanius whom Pausanius of Orestis considered his rival.

However, many historians have suspected that Phillip’s wife, Olympia, or his son, Alexander the Great, may have actually been the ones who masterminded the assassination. This suspicion is due to primarily three reasons. First, Alexander had a falling out with his father, Phillip, who was possibly planning to disinherit him on account that he was only half-Macedonian and Phillip had recently married and impregnated the niece of Attalus, named Cleopatra Eurydice, which would have resulted in a full-blooded Macedonian heir. Secondly, after the assassination, Pausianius was conveniently slaughtered by Alexander’s friends and bodyguards Attalus, Leonnatus, and Perdiccas, while he was trying to flee which would have prevented him from being interrogated and implicating others that were in on the plot. Lastly, after Alexander had left Macedon to build his empire, Phillip’s widow, Olympias, had a memorial built especially for Pausanias next to that of her former husbands.

Speaking of which, there was probably no woman who exerted so much power and influence than Olympias in historical antiquity. She is a perfect example that, even in some of the most strictly male-dominated societies in the ancient world, women could still participate both openly and covertly in political power struggles that can change the course of history. Originally a princess hailing from the kingdom of Epirus, whose royal dynasty believed they were descendants of the Greek hero Achilles, and a practitioner of the orgiastic snake-worshipping cult of Dionysus, Olympias was extremely supportive of her son and would not hesitate from committing even the most heinous of deeds if it meant Alexander would end up on the throne of Macedonia. She was also notoriously vindictive to such an unreasonable degree that she makes the book version of Cersei Lannister seem tame in comparison. Her most shocking act of violence that perfectly encapsulates her cruel nature was the murder of Phillip’s last wife, Cleopatra Eurydice, and their daughter, Europa. After Phillip had been assassinated and her son left to invade the Persian empire, Olympias forced Cleopatra Eurydice to commit suicide after forcing her to watch as her infant daughter was roasted alive.

2. Ottoman Empire 

Beginning as a small principality in the northwestern Anatolian region of Bithynia in 1299, the Ottoman dynasty established one of the most impressively expansive empires the world had ever known. For over five centuries, the Ottoman empire continued to dynamically evolve politically, militarily, socially, and economically up until it’s dissolution soon after World War I. However, the Ottoman sultans, during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, believed that in order to prevent the empire from weakening as a result of disunity brought on by a civil war they’d have to commit to an extremely cruel practice that led to the deaths of numerous members of the royal dynasty when each new sultan began his reign: fratricide.

First legalized by Mehmed the Conqueror (1444-1446, 1451-1481), who had his own infant brother strangled in his crib, this unconscionable practice was seen as a means to foment stability in the empire by preventing the sultan’s brothers from launching rebellions from their respective powerbases and potentially driving the state into a lengthy civil war, since at this time, in accordance with Turkish customs, the Ottoman Empire had an open succession rather than through primogeniture in which the eldest son inherits the sultanate. Mehmed The Conqueror largely justified such a merciless act by referencing the reign of his grandfather, Mehmed I (1413-1421), who emerged the victor in a civil war, known as the Ottoman Interregnum. For eleven years, Mehmed I went to war with his brothers, Suleyman, Isa, and Musa, who had refused to recognize him as Sultan and each had tried to take the throne for themselves, which resulted in a considerable drain on manpower and significantly weakened the state.

The most deadly instance of fratricide among the dynasty occurred when Mehmed III inherited the title of Sultan of the Ottoman Empire from his father, Murad III, who died of natural causes in 1595. Upon ascending the throne, Mehmed III had all nineteen of his brothers and half-brothers executed by strangulation, as it was forbidden to spill the blood of royalty, even after the begged him to spare their lives. The act was considered so shocking, especially among the religious authorities, that Mehmed III’s successor, Ahmed I, broke with Ottoman tradition and refused to order the execution of his brother, Mustafa.

Also, violence between brothers wasn’t the only slaughter perpetuated between ambitious relatives. For instance, Suleiman the Magnificent had one of his sons, Mustafa, executed in 1553 after he feared the popular prince was planning to kill him during a military campaign in Safavid Persia. After tricking Mustafa into entering the Sultan’s tent, Suleiman proceeded to watch behind a curtain as his guards strangled him to death after a long struggle.

3. Tsarist Russia

After hours of research in making this list, I can conclude without a sliver of doubt that the royal court of the Russian Tsardom had one of the most excessively gruesome environments than any other court during the 16th and 17th centuries. I fact, the exceedingly graphic descriptions in my sources were so overwhelming that I literally had to take a long break from reading. Much of the violence that characterized the political chaos in Russia at this time was mainly due to the influence of a class of nobles, called boyars, who turned the court into a pit of vipers where it’s members openly resorted to violence in order to acquire influence over the crown. These instances of bloodshed typically occurred during periods of regency when the future tsar was still young and had next to no agency when directing government affairs.

One such instance occurred after the death of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Vasili III, in 1533 when his son, Ivan IV, was only the age of three. Though his mother, Elena Glinskaya, ruled as regent for four years, Ivan IV was basically orphaned and was left without any sort of protection in 1538 when she died after being poisoned. Ivan IV soon became poverty stricken in his own palace since the feuding princely families, the Shuiskys and the Belskys, cared little for his wellbeing and during the few times they did provide him with any attention it was normally in the form of harassment or molestation. Ivan IV was also forced to watch countless atrocities as the two families turned the palace into an orgy of bloodletting where heinous murders occurred frequently.

Another outbreak of violence between boyar families, in this case the Miloslavskys and the Naryshkins, had transpired during the regency of Peter I in 1682 when he was only ten-years-old. At the time the Miloslavskys had convinced a mutinied hereditary regiment of musketeers, known as the Streltsy, that the life of Tsarevich Ivan, whose mother was a Miloslavsky and was half-brother to Peter I, was in mortal danger due to the threat posed by Peter I’s uncle, Ivan Naryshkin. Led by Prince Ivan Khovansky, who was nicknamed the Windbag, the Streltsy stormed the Kremlin where Peter I was forced to watch as two of his uncles, including Ivan Naryshkin, his mother’s chief advisor, Arteem Matveev, and the son of a haughty general, Mikhail Dolgoruky, were tossed off the balcony and impaled on the raised spikes below. Afterwards, their corpses were hacked to bits and their severed body parts were paraded around Red Square by a delegation of musketeers.

As you can imagine, such an experience heavily traumatized the young Tsars, especially Ivan IV who would latter be known as Ivan the Terrible and for good reason. During his reign, Ivan was known to be extremely paranoid, frighteningly manic, and incredibly cruel to the point that it wouldn’t be surprising if he was the influence of the character the Mad King from Game of Thrones. These personality traits became significantly more pronounced after the death of his first wife, Anastasia Romanovna, who was suspected of having been poisoned in 1560. Soon afterwards, Ivan founded an order of fanatically devoted bodyguards, called the Oprichniki, who were part police force, part monastic order. Dressed in all black and attaching the severed heads of dogs onto their saddles, these maniacs were meant to terrorize the civilian populace and to torture and execute anyone Ivan IV suspected of being a traitor. No one was safe from them, including the Metropolitan of Moscow, Phillip II. Ivan IV most deplorable act of unprovoked slaughter was the Massacre of Novgorod, in which he falsely believed was planning to defect. Ivan IV and his private army basically laid waste to the entire city and had most of the arable land surrounding it razed to the ground. He had his Oprichnikin loot cathedrals, beat clergymen to death, and had men, women, and children thrown into the freezing waters of the Volhkov River. Afterwards, the once great city was so devastated due to the decline of the local population that it became nothing more than a common town.

Ultimately, it was Ivan the Terrible’s deteriorating mental state that drove the Rurik dynasty to extinction. Ivan IV killed his first and more capable son, also named Ivan, in a fit of rage by bashing his head in with his sceptre in 1581, while his third son, Dmitry, accidently stabbed himself during an epileptic seizure. The only one left to rule was his intellectually disabled second son, Feodor, who died childless in 1598.

4. Imperial China

The Chinese imperial court was a notoriously unforgiving pit of death even before the formation of the Qin dynasty in 221 BCE. In fact, Imperial China had largely inherited its system of lethal statecraft during the Warring States Period, a tumultuous time when the old feudal system that was so prevalent during the Zhou and Shang dynasties was replaced with a ferociously indiscriminate legal code that established a centralized, bureaucratic administration. Later Chinese scholars, specifically those who lived during the reign of the Han dynasty, would typically describe the resulting legalistic imperial regime that was established by the First Emperor of Qin after he unified China as consistently tyrannical, though now many historians consider such a narrative as nothing more than propaganda to justify the Han dynasty’s usurpation of the Mandate of Heaven. However, it’s still fair to characterize the Qin dynasty as extremely Machiavellian on account of the fact that the numerous schemes conducted by rival imperial ministers and advisors, who manipulated the succession for their own self-interests, caused the Qin dynasty to last a mere fifteen years before it was eventually replaced by the Han.

The initial signs of the dynasty’s unraveling occurred as soon as the First Emperor had passed away inside his carriage during a tour of his empire and was primarily masterminded by the ambitious eunuch, Zhao Gao, who held the post of chief of the imperial carriages. With the intent of putting the poorly qualified Prince Huhai on the throne as a means of running the empire, Zhao Gao diligently suppressed both news of the Emperor’s passing and his last written testament that sought to put another son on the throne until they made it back to the capital. Once there, the plotters installed their puppet prince as emperor and forced the First Emperor’s favored heir to commit suicide after charging him with treason and forging orders from his father the demanded him to end his life. Zhao Gao then had the influential politicians and military generals, Meng Yi and Meng Tian, arrested and imprisoned and encouraged the Second Emperor to execute the former and forced the latter to commit suicide.

Following the crafty eunuch’s takeover of the government, a destructive reign of terror was unleashed through the liberal utilization of a destructive form of collective punishment, known as the “nine familial extermination,” that targeted anyone implicated of treason, who included ten princes and twelve princesses. The result was that the condemned who confessed to treason after a lengthy session of torture, as well as any of their living parents, grandparents, children, grandchildren, in-laws, cousins, aunts and uncles, siblings, and spouse, were promptly executed by dismemberment. Another important figure who fell victim to said trumped-up charges of treason was the infamous legal scholar, Li Si. He was ordered to undergo the “five penalties,” which consisted of tattooing, amputation of the nose, ears, fingers, and feet, flogging, beheading, and having the torso cut in two at the waist.

Zhao Gao finally met his end after he encouraged the Second Emperor, Qin Er Shi, to commit suicide in order to avoid capture after a hostile force invaded his place of retreat, which were actually Zhao Gao’s own soldiers that were pretending to be involved in the anti-Qin rebellion that had been occurring at the time due to the eunuch’s tyrannical policies. Zhao Gao then tried to have the First Emperor’s grandson, Qin San Shi, installed on the throne as another puppet. However, unlike the previous emperor, Qin San Shi had caught on to Zhao Gao’s schemes and had him quickly executed after ascending the throne.

5. Byzantine Empire

While the Western Roman Empire collapsed due to decades of political crises, civil wars, military ineffectiveness, growing corruption and extortion, a faltering economy, and “barbarian” invasions, the Eastern Roman Empire, on the other hand, continued to exist for another one thousand years and even managed to flourished during much of that time. Similar to its unified Roman Empire predecessor, the culture of the Byzantine political life was basically a heavily competitive and bloody contest between courtiers and relatives who vied for power and influence over the respective emperor which had led to so much complicated chaos and civil strife in the Empire to such overwhelming level that the very word “Byzantine” has become synonymous with intrigue and confusion.

Technically, no one was safe in such a malignant environment, where betrayal was common even among close relatives. One instance of such occurred in 969 after Emperor Nikephoros was informed of a plot against him that led by two disgruntled generals, Michael Bourtzes and John Tzimiskes. The two generals received aid from Nikephoros’ wife, Theophano, whom Tzimiskes was having an affair with and was in the middle of a loveless marriage with her husband. Theophano hid the assassins in her bedchamber who promptly stabbed the Emperor to death in his own apartment after she intentionally left his room unlocked. Another infamous assassination orchestrated by an individual close to the indented target was the murder of Leo V the Armenian on Christmas Eve, 820. The assassins, who were disguised as monks and were under the orders of the Leo V’s old comrade-in-arms, Michael the Amorian, tried to slaughter the Emperor while he was attending service but, at first, mistook a priest for him due to the dim light. The Emperor then tried his best to fight off the conspirators after grabbing a large crucifix from the altar, but they soon overpowered him and hacked him to pieces on the communion table. Afterwards, they dumped whatever was left of him in the snow.

Acts of violence also came in the form of ghastly mutilations, as the Byzantines believed that a disfigurement prohibited a candidate from attaining the throne considering the emperor was regarded in Byzantine culture as a reflection of God’s power and since God was considered perfect his earthy representative also had to be flawless. For example, the express consort by marriage to Emperor Leo IV, Irene of Athens, had her own unpopular son, Constantine VI, blinded with the help of the eunuch, Staurakios, when he was twenty-six years of age in 797 in order for her to seize power and be crowned as empress regnant. However, mutilation did not always end the political prospects of those who suffered after having been blinded, having their noses removed, or being castrated. For instance, Basil Lekapenos, who was the illegitimate of Emperor Romanos I Lekapenos, was castrated when he was an infant since castrated men weren’t considered as a threat by the political establishment. However, Basil had proven himself to be a capable administrator and military commander under emperors Constantine VII, Nikephoros II Phokas, John I Tzimiskes, and Basil II. Another instance of a successful comeback after a political mutilation was the case of Justinian II who had his nose amputated after he was deposed in an uprising due to his unpopular tax policies, his persecution of religious minorities, and his land policies that threatened the power of the aristocracy. After being exiled to the Crimea, Justinian II had his missing nose replaced with a replica made of solid gold and gathered supporters to retake Constantinople. He managed to accomplish this feat by entering the city with his companions through an unused water conduit under the cities walls and orchestrating a coup d’état in the middle of the night. After taking control of the city, he had his rivals who were responsible for his ouster beheaded before a jeering crowd, but not before placing his feet on their necks as a form of humiliation.

Lastly, besides the occasional backstabbing and the severing of body parts for political purposes, civil wars and revolts also occurred with high frequency. In fact, after doing a bit of research, I managed to count over 110 civil wars and rebellions that had taken place between the 5th and 15th centuries. One of the most complicated of these had to be the two rebellions conducted by Bardas Phokas in the 10th century. After taking part in a failed rebellion against his cousin, John I Tzimikes, Bardas Phokas was imprisoned after being defeated by general Bardas Skleros. He was brought out of exile, however, by the regent Basil Lekapenos in order to counter the skilled commander, Basil Skleros, who had started his own rebellion in Cappadocia. Phokas had managed to put down Skleros’ rebellion and was rewarded with a important senior military post for his services. As time went on, however, the new emperor, Basil II had become too powerful and independent, which greatly alarmed Lekapenos, who planned to revolt. Seeking greater support for their rebellion, Lekapenos and Phokas recruited their former enemy, Skleros, and proceeded to mimic the latter’s strategy by overrunning Asia Minor. Unfortunately, Phokas never managed to take Constantinople after proclaiming himself emperor when his life anticlimactically ended after suffering a seizure while he rode out and charged the Emperor in the hope of defeating him in personal combat.

Another example involved the aristocrat Nikephoros Phokas and military commander Nikephoros Xiphias against Emperor Basil II in the 11th century. Trouble with overseeing the plot had began almost immediately after it was conceived, since both conspirators couldn’t decide who should rule after the deed had been done. Basil II used this to his advantage after he got word of the plot, while he had been away on a military campaign against the Georgians. He managed to sow discord between them by sending a separate letter to each rebel leader, which led to Xiphias assassinating Phokus. The rebellion collapsed soon after and Basil II had Xiphias exiled.

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Muhammad V.S Genghis Khan (Tony Nguyen G11)

Although it is tough to consider the most influential person between two of the greatest leaders in history which are Muhammad the prophet (PBUH) and Genghis Khan (Temujin Khan), but I would choose prophet Muhammad for the following four impressive influences: personality’s influence, influence on trades plus expansion by creating Islam religion, influence on the Abbasid.

(Picture of Muhammad or PUBH - Peace be upon him)

1.  Personality ‘s influence on many people especially his followers

Muhammad the prophet had created a huge influences to people that made them follow him which are Quraysh generals and most of the majority in Mecca in the beginning of the 7th century due to his characteristic or personality. He had a great character of about seven particular virtues including his kindness to all creature, truthfulness and promise fulfilling, responsibility as a leader, cooperative, charitable, modesty, and merciful. Muhammad was best known for his truthfulness and promise fulfilling which he taught this virtue to all of his follower and in fact, his enemy also recognized him as the truthful and honest person. He was also a good leader which he chose to teach people back from what he had listened from Allah rather than dictate people. For example, before fighting with the non-believers, Ghazwa-e-Khandaq, in March 627, he participated in digging trenches outside Medina which he had lifted the heaviest stone by himself. Muhammad was also a charitable, merciful man that he didn’t refuse to give anything he had to someone if this person asked him and never took revenge for personal matters. Because of these great personality of goodness and morality, he had changed the lives of the illiterate Arabs and had been able to convince great generals from his Quraysh opponent to follow him such as Khalid ibn al-Walid and influenced his popular powerful army, the Mameluke. His character also played a vital role in spreading Islam as he treated alike regardless of their statuses.

(Picture of Khalid ibn al-Walid)

2.       Influence through trades and expansion of territory by creating Islam

The greatest Muhammad’s achievement in influencing people is creating a great and strong foundation for the Islam religion. The most important achievement that he had accomplished was united the whole Arab states and this created a foundation for Islam to develop. The influence of the Islam as known as Muhammad impact influenced trade routes, other societies and other people which accompanied the growth of the Islamic state’s territory in the Sub-Sahara Africa, South Asia, Western Europe.

(Picture of Islamic expansion)

First of all, you need to understand the all of the situation of the Islamic states during the 7th century. The Arab empire in the past was bunch of different separate nomadic tribes which their religion followed polytheism (worshiping many gods). Remember, although tribes or regions may share the same pantheon of gods, they tend to place primary importance on different individual gods.  Consequently, the belief in many gods lends itself very readily to conflicting loyalties and competition in politics. And also, the people under the rule of the nomadic tribes tended to be unsatisfied which there were many slaves. Because of that, if there was one thing that can unite the whole Islamic states during this time, it would be one monotheism religion which is Islam therefore Islam easily influenced so much Muslims and therefore prophet Muhammad had the great impact on the world society since his message constituted a radical protest against the corruption of the Mecca elite by demanding justice.

Secondly, Islam of the prophet Muhammad influenced the Sub-Sahara Africa area by showing its own advantages to people that made them converted to Islam and effected strongly to the Sub-Sahara trade routes especially slaves. The beginning of trans-Saharan trade, made possible by the domestication of the camel, profoundly influenced the world of sub-Saharan Africa. Gold, salt and slaves began to make their way across the desert.  When Islam came into this area, it didn’t separate religious authority from political authority which kings who converted had more power and authority therefore, Islam was really appealing to leader of the Sub-Sahara Africa and it did not greatly affect the lower classes or traditional gender roles. Furthermore, as Islam was introduced to the people of the Sub-Sahara Africa, the number of slave trades increased. Most of the enslavement under the non-Islam believers were really tough for the Muslims’ slaves so this could be considered a step toward their conversion. Also, Islam influenced slaves by using its own advantages that persons born to slave parents were not automatically slaves which encouraged large amount of slave converted to Islam.  Another fact is that the influenced of Islam made the possession of slaves more important in the barometer of personal wealth.  As many as ten million African slaves were shipped north as part of the trans-Saharan slave trade between 750 and 1500 C.E. In summary, the coming of Islam to Sub-Saharan Africa facilitated the rise of political empires, encouraged conversion to this religion, influenced trade plus wealth, and increased the traffic in slavery.

Thirdly, although Muhammad died in 632 but his influence went on as his Islam religion spread across the South Asia specifically India under the reign of Uthman, the third caliph, which created a huge impact to the people there. Most of the influence changed the perspective of many low rank that led to he conversion to Islam. The lower castes were more inclined to convert because Islam’s stress on equality was more attractive to them. Converts also came from the Buddhists, another group with nothing to gain from the Hindu caste system.  Conversion came primarily from people will little to no influence in society.

Muhammad’s Islam was also a source of influence to the Western Europe when the Muslim conquest expanded to Spain that ended in 732 at the Battle of Tours. Despite the impermanence of the Muslims in Western Europe, it would have several significant effects on European civilization. The Muslims came into contact with ancient Greek thought which they did borrow it.  In science, medicine and geography no civilization had attained the level of learning the Muslim scholars had.  The scientific writings of Aristotle were copied, taught, and preserved by Muslim scholars and eventually transmitted to Medieval European universities. The Greek thought of the Arabs thus exercised a strong influence upon the Christians of Europe in the Middle Ages.

3.       Influence the Abbasid by creating its foundation

Muhammad also created a influential foundation for his own descendants such as the Abbasid caliphate which was preceded by Umayyad caliphate. The religion Islam created by the prophet was also created impacts on this descendant period which was the period when the history took another turn towards advancement or we called the Islamic golden age. Education was spread through opening of institutions, world’s first hospital was established in the city of Baghdad and many more. In the time of ‘khilafat-e-Abbasiya’ Baghdad was like Harvard and Oxford at that time, people from different parts of the world use to send their kids to Baghdad. The infrastructure was laid and in Baghdad alone and there were 60 hospitals. Science, technology, and other fields of knowledge developed rapidly during the golden age of Islam from the 8th to 13th century and beyond. Early Abbasid caliphs embarked on major campaigns seeking scientific and philosophical works from eastern and western worlds which they translated most of the works from Greece into their language by Islam scholars and expanded these works into more achievements. Because of that, Muhammad the prophet had shaped most of the Muslims’ thinking in knowledge fields such as math, science, astronomy and literature especially the Abbasid caliphates which they created a large empire that represented the Islamic golden age in the heart of Baghdad.  

(Picture of the Abbasid dynasty)

4.       The fatal weakness of Genghis Khan:

Genghis Khan did influence people but he just controlled them by using force which his influence would become a short term impact on the people that he had invaded. He could impact their lives but their minds were the one that he didn’t care to control and he did create a rule which people have the freedom of religious and culture. This meant that he did not total influence his conquered people and as his empire fell down, his impact was no longer exist. However, Muhammad’s influence was more powerful than Genghis Khan’s influence. Muhammad himself did influence not only physically on one society but he also made impacts on its mental inside. To be more specific, on one side, Muhammad expanded his Islamic states by conquering other empires such as Byzantium empire and Sassanid empire which the rule of Muhammad affected the lives of many people that had been conquered. On the other side, Muhammad also created Islam which then influenced the thoughts inside of these conquered people. Because of this, Muhammad impacted people by not just using forces but their will to join his side therefore Muhammad got his strong supports and his Islamic states expansion was easier.

(Picture of Genghis Khan)

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Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s “Decolonizing Methodologies: Research and Indigenous Peoples”

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As a first-generation migrant living between the Western walls of the academy and white walls of the gallery, it is vital for us to understand historical facts and stories from an indigenous perspective which prioritizes indigenous self-determination. As a Middle Eastern artist working in the West, reading this book is essential. There is an intersection between different decolonial methodologies. Previously, I have been introduced to Harsha Walia’s work on Border Imperialism which is written in the context of North America. There are also a lot of differences between the notions of decoloniality based on geography and community. Understanding these differences can help us work toward a mutual goal. According to Aníbal Quijano, decoloniality is a response to the relation of direct, political, social and cultural domination established by Europeans. The decolonizing approach might slightly vary from the vantage point of multiple perspectives, for example; (1) indigenous peoples (2) first-world racialized minorities (3) People in third-world post-colonial or neo-colonial societies. If we don’t consider the literature, lived-experince, and epistemology from all different positionalities, our decolonial methodology might be a bit one-sided or narrow, especially when our center is in the West.

In the secularized Christian West, racism (with its tentacle stereotypes) operates in many different ways while targeting the natives (indigenous peoples) compared to other people of color. This process has been intensified in the post-Trump-election era of far-right and reactionary nationalism in the West. We are living in the midst of environmental challenges around the world specifically in South America where indigenous activists are taking a stand against the neo-colonial regimes and Western interventions. While white Swedish student Greta Thunberg is getting all the media attention as the forefront of the global fight against climate change, numerous indigenous activist such as Paulo Paulino Guajajara (Lobo) and Edwin Chota have been brutally murdered simply for defending the environment and their way of life. On the sideline of Euro centered media publicity on Thunberg, there are many other indigenous activists who have been fighting the real fight and risking their lives for generations.

Linda Tuhiwai Smith’s decolonial methodology is centered around the politics of sovereignty and self-determination for indigenous peoples. She mentions that for indigenous peoples it is important to resist “being thrown in” with every other minority group by making claims based on prior rights.

Walter Mignolo included this book in his graduate seminar. For Mignolo, it is always revealing to see in the discussion who is feeling empowered by the book and who is feeling threatened and bothered. (1) Writers such as Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, Edward Said, Fanon, Trinh T. Minh-ha, and Foucault have shaped Smith’s theoretical approach to research. Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and Glen Sean Coulthard are among other researchers and activists who have been influenced by this iconic book.

Similar to other postcolonial writers, Smith’s work is also preoccupied with the question of knowledge (epistemology) and power. Her Maori perspective makes these questions much more complicated and challenging. She reminds us that indigenous peoples have been, in many ways, ”oppressed by theory”. The scientific (or pseudoscientific) research of the colonizers puts them in a peculiar position in relation to the indigenous peoples. The anthropological studies conducted on indigenous peoples have been not only contradictory to their cultural knowledge, but it has also been quite violent. The Western research methods and their long-term damages are still fresh in indigenous peoples’ consciousness. Therefore, Western notions of ”writing history” and conducting scientific research have been very much against the indigenous livelihood and knowledge. She writes on the notion of history and modernity:

”It is because of this relationship with power that we have been excluded, marginalized and ‘Othered’. In this sense history is not important for indigenous peoples because a thousand accounts of the ‘truth’ will not alter the ‘fact’ that indigenous peoples are still marginal and do not possess the power to transform history into justice.”

She continues by asking;

”Why then has revisiting history been a significant part of decolonization?’ The answer, I suggest, lies in the intersection of indigenous approaches to the past, of the modernist history project itself and of the resistance strategies which have been employed. Our colonial experience traps us in the project of modernity. There can be no ‘postmodern’ for us until we have settled some business of the modern. This does not mean that we do not understand or employ multiple discourses, or act in incredibly contradictory ways, or exercise power ourselves in multiple ways. It means that there is unfinished business, that we are still being colonized (and know it), and that we are still searching for justice.

Critique of Western History

Even today, 20 years after the publication of the book, we see the same issues in the literature and research conducted “on” indigenous culture, history and peoples. For example, you can read any random article or essay on colonialization and find the difference in tone and positionality. Take, for example, “smallpox” as a biological weapon during the indigenous genocide in North America. When we read the History Chanel, the usually white writer’s position towards this issue is easily detectable compared with indigenous activists or researchers writing on the same topic. (2) The outsider researcher is arguing about the effectiveness of government programs in fighting the natives during the 18th Century. The insider researcher, for example, Roxanne Dunbar-Ortiz and her book: An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States is choosing to talk about the first occurrence of smallpox in 1620 by the English trade ships. A simple comparison between these two modes of historiography and research can help us a lot to understand the decolonizing methodology. Dunbar-Ortiz gives us a context in which a huge amount of native lives was lost due to English trading ships off the coast to the Pequot. King James attributed the epidemic to God’s “great goodness and bounty toward us.”

“In each place, after figures such as Columbus and Cook had long departed, there came a vast array of military personnel, imperial administrators, priests, explorers, missionaries, colonial officials, artists, entrepreneurs and settlers, who cut a devastating swathe, and left a permanent wound, on the societies and communities who occupied the lands named and claimed under imperialism .”

The critique of Western history argues that history is a modernist project which has developed alongside imperial beliefs about the Other. Implicit in the notion of development is the notion of progress. This assumes that societies move forward in stages of development much as an infant grows into a fully developed adult human being. The earliest phase of human development is regarded as primitive, simple and emotional. As societies develop they become less primitive, more civilized, more rational, and their social structures become more complex and bureaucratic.

In a recently published series of essays edited by Jo-Ann Archibald Q’um Q’um Xiiem, “Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork As Methodology”, the editors have collected insider research focusing on what Archibald called Indigenous Storywork. (3) The term highlight multiple ways in which indigenous peoples using storytelling as a method of documenting generational events, form of teaching and learning, and as an expression of indigenous culture and identity. (4)

Enlightenment: Racist Progress at The Expense of The Colonized

Indigenous knowledge didn't consider as 'real knowledge' by colonizers. This struggle continues today both inside the academy as well as in real life outside the walls of the institution. If you are one of those students in liberal universities in the West, you are probably familiar with at least one of liberal positives (progressive) theories of the enlightenment project. Take for example the neo-colonial liberal theories of Steven Pinker. Aside from the recent news about Pinker’s involvement with Jeffrey Epstein even after his sex trafficking conviction, Pinker has been an advocate of Western scientific progress and return to concepts such as human nature and enlightenment. (5) In his recent book, Enlightenment Now: The Case for Reason, Science, Humanism, and Progress, we can basically replace the word Human with Westerners or white men in order to be accurate. His binary theories completely dismiss the fact that European progress was based on the genocide, slavery, and suffering of millions of colonial subjects, which to a lesser degree still continues today. For many indigenous peoples today, the word “research” basically means “being a problem”.

Literacy, as one example, was used as a criterion for assessing the development of a society and its progress to a stage where history can be said to begin. Even places such as India, China and Japan, however, which were very literate cultures prior to their ‘discovery’ by the West, were invoked through other categories which defined them as uncivilized. Their literacy, in other words, did not count as a record of legitimate knowledge.

We are all familiar with the Western origin of Humanism, manifest destiny, age of reason and doctrine of discovery. There is a direct connection between these concepts and the simultaneous exploitation of the people and the production of concepts such as racism, nation-state, and the Orient. Both Christianity and Western science played a vital role in this framework and indigenous peoples were left with either extermination or assimilation. (6) The Europeans privatized the land that indigenous peoples once owned. The colonization was accompanied with ideological drive to paint the commoners who resisted as violent, stupid and lazy. (7)

"Underlying these categories is the rigidly binomial opposition of “ours” and “theirs,” with the former always encroaching upon the latter (even to the point of making “theirs” exclusively a function of “ours”). This opposition was reinforced not only by anthropology, linguistics, and history but also, of course, by the Darwinian theses on survival and natural selection, and—no less decisive—by the rhetoric of high cultural humanism. What gave writers like Renan and Arnold the right to generalities about race was the official character of their formed cultural literacy. “Our” values were (let us say) liberal, humane, correct; they were supported by the tradition of belles-lettres, informed scholarship, rational inquiry; as Europeans (and white men) “we” shared in them every time their virtues were extolled.” -Edward Said - Orientalism

Western-Centered ‘Collaborative Research’

We did not practice the ‘arts’ of civilization. By lacking such virtues, we disqualified ourselves, not just from civilization but from humanity itself.

What researchers may call methodology, for example, Maori researchers in New Zealand call Kaupapa Maori research or Maori-centred research. This form of naming is about bringing to the centre and privileging indigenous values, attitudes and practices rather than disguising them within Westernized labels such as ‘collaborative research’.

Smith often mentions that writing research is more important than writing theory. Research produces results that are more immediate and useful for farmers, economists, industries and sick people. (1) From Kant to Badiou, white theoreticians have been utilizing Western anthropological material as fuel for their theories. There is a lot of fancy vocabulary that generates things such as “collaborative research”, or “research with the aim of reconciliation”. In reality, these methodologies are NOT beneficial for the indigenous peoples. However, they continue to be used because they are well-known and they generate a lot of scholarship and capital for white state-ideal subjects.

At the same time research historically has not been neutral in its objectification of the Other. Smith reminds us that from indigenous perspective objectivation of research is also a process of dehumanization. She identifies the contributions of second-wave feminism more beneficial to the indigenous cause compared to the Marxist methodologies introduced in the first half of the twentieth century. The reason for this distinction is the challenges that feminism has introduced to the presumably neutral position of Western philosophy, academic practice and research.

Decolonize This Place

Rather than see ourselves as existing in the margins as minorities, resistance initiatives have assumed that Aotearoa, New Zealand is ‘our place’, all of it, and that there is little difference, except in the mind, between, for example, a Te Kohanga Reo where Maori are the majority but the state is there, and a university, where Maori are the minority and the state is there.

The latter part of the book tracks the transition from Maori as the ”researched” to Maori as the ”researcher”. Smith acknowledges that the academic institutions’ eco-system is toxic for non-white folks. Crystal Fraser, a Gwichyà Gwich'in Ph.D. student at the University of Alberta, among many other indigenous peoples agrees. Fraser, belives that Western Academic institutions are not made for indigenous peoples and there are numerous barriers on the way. Regarding research, Smith uses the term ”insider” research to highlight the work conducted by indigenous community members who are part of the culture and understand the aim of the research as self-determination. Similar to Said, she is skeptical about the role of Western ”experts” especially in relation to imperialism and power relations. 

While indigenous voices have been silenced for many decades by Western researchers, the role of the insider researcher is very important. Addressing the indigenous communities, Smith writes that many of the issues in indigenous communities are in fact internalized stress factors that are not voiced. Therefore, insider research must be ethical, respectful and reflexive. It also needs to be humble, because the researcher belongs to the same community but with a different set of roles, relationships, status, and position.

On a more personal note, I want to briefly review the state-funded higher education that I received in the United States and Finland. They are both white-majority countries, yet they might seem far apart in every sense. In both of my art schools, there was an obvious gap in terms of understanding of indigenous subjects and worldviews, as well as an absence of curriculum on postcolonial topics. There were no Indigenous students, staff, and teachers at either school which I study for over 6 years.

There are many contemporary examples that show the intersectionality of migrant struggle with the indigenous struggle over self-determination and sovereignty. A perfect example of this solidarity is the Numerus Haka dances in honor of the victims of the white-terror attacks in Christchurch.

Bib.

1. Smith, Linda Tuhiwai. Decolonizing Methodologies Research and Indigenous Peoples (Second Edition). London: Zed Books, 2012. 2. Kiger, Patrick J. Did Colonists Give Infected Blankets to Native Americans as Biological Warfare? history. [Online] 11 15, 2018. https://www.history.com/news/colonists-native-americans-smallpox-blankets?fbclid=IwAR3AdkyYDlMmLOt2YYU_VBIUaIqZINNx4HIatBoHIxQd1C9T5DWouj8CBN0. 3. Archibald, Jo-Ann, Jenny Bol Jun, Lee-Morgan and Jason, de Santolo. Decolonizing Research: Indigenous Storywork as Methodology. s.l. : Zed Books, 2019. 4. Archibald, Jo-Ann. Indigenous Storywork: Educating the Heart, Mind, Body, and Spirit. s.l. : UBC Press, 2007. 5. Flaherty, Colleen. Pinker, Epstein, Soldier, Spy. insidehighered. [Online] July 17, 2019. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2019/07/17/steven-pinkers-aid-jeffrey-epsteins-legal-defense-renews-criticism-increasingly. 6. CAMACHO, DANIEL JOSÉ. UNLEARNING THE DOCTRINE OF DISCOVERY. SOJOURNERS. [Online] 10 8, 2018. https://sojo.net/articles/unlearning-doctrine-discovery?fbclid=IwAR1VIL-7ohHW3MKsIzTB62UPkSyhlqnQe-CLeMf5D0Nev-RUiw8Xez4ewwE. 7. Dunbar-Ortiz, Roxanne. An Indigenous Peoples' History of the United States (ReVisioning American History). s.l. : Beacon Press; Reprint edition, 2015.

______________________

[sh3vchenkodmitr-blog]

8 -min. read

“Gravity as a theory is false,” grinds the persistently exasperating FAQ on The Flat Earth Society’s official website. “Objects simply fall.” In sequential bouts of ignorance that evoke a child attempting invisibility by covering their eyes and squalling “if I can’t see you, you can’t see me,” the community rubbish most scientific discoveries of the last millennium and beyond, with comical assertions that satellites are actually ‘pseudolites’ put there to fool us, that the Earth’s mass continues infinitely and the like.

  How such mistruths – and to a greater extent the world of conspiracy theories at large – perpetuate is chiefly the fault of what we’ve been taught; what we think we know; and who has afforded us those beliefs. The world’s strings might not be being pulled by shape-shifting, extra-dimensional lizard people, and the Large Hadron Collider may not have been conceived to open a portal to hell, but we are constantly bombarded by half-truths, falsehoods and disinformation. The age of post-truth politics might have sensationalised the propaganda of ‘fake news’, but it is the latent deception beneath the veil of trusted sources that poses most threat. Although positively spherical, the world is certainly not what you think it is.

When Eratosthenes upset the Flat Earth community as early as 240 BC, his calculations of our planet’s circumference would set forth a revolution in the world of cartography, fellow Greek geographer, Strabo, conceiving his Globe of Crates – thought to be the world’s first – some 90 years later. Mapping the world on the sphere that Greek greats had confirmed meant that our place on Earth could be represented clearly for what it is. Martin Behaim’s 1492 Erdapfel is the oldest surviving terrestrial globe – a creation from a time where maps were being defined, Columbus returning from the Americas a few short months later.

In a rapidly changing Eurocentric world, the way we look at our planet was defined 77 years on when German-Flemish geographer, Gerardus Mercator, devised a cylindrical map projection that allowed these globes to be represented on one flat map. The Mercator projection is the world as you typically see it today: the representation maintained by Google Maps; the representation you looked up to on your classroom wall. The thing is, like much we believe to be true – or ‘accurate’ – Mercator’s view of Earth is in fact wildly distorted. Try puncturing an inflatable ball and placing it flatly upon a wall… Mercator’s projection, whilst invaluable to the explorers of its day, achieves its perceived accuracy with some trade-offs – most notably, its compromising of developing continents and countries.

Its origins in a time where Europe’s domination and exploitation of the developing world was hitting full stride, Mercator’s is an interpretation of the world that suited the politics of its time – perhaps of all time. That every map begins with the same mistruth Flat Earthers are so fond of is mapping’s inherent problem – however your trade-offs work out, somewhere must suffer – such is the physical impossibility of flattening a globe; but Mercator’s distortions held benefits for the nations of power. The cartographer’s trade-off means countries and continents appear smaller as they approach the equator. Sitting atop the pile, in the centre of it all, the all-conquering Great Britain joins its Western European companions in flattering to deceive. Should it be shown on the line that separates hemispheres, its insignificant scale would be all too apparent. Straddling the equator, it is Africa who suffers most, the colossal continent reduced to a whisper in relation to Russia, or even to Greenland, which, in truth, is no bigger than the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Born in Berlin on 22 May 1916, Arno Peters – whose father found himself incarcerated by the Nazi regime toward the end of World War II – knew a thing or two about divisive times, and would develop a fixation with political propaganda. Spending much of his academic life studying synchronoptic world history (a way in which to portray all histories in all areas of the world equally), the historian committed his life to fair representation. “The size is the first sign of the importance of a country,” he attested. “Mercator’s is a map of the epoch of Eurocentrism, colonialism and imperialism.” Although he would distort the ‘true’ shape of the world’s landmasses, the German historian’s map – ­launched at a 1973 press conference in Bonn – represents true scale, and with that demands a reappraisal of our own understanding.

The true size Africa misrepresented on Western maps – via MADRIVER.ME

That millions, perhaps billions, of us could grow up with a distorted impression of the planet’s true geography speaks volumes of the sort of political propaganda Peters grew fascinated by. We live in an age where the President of the United States of America can refer to African nations as “shithole” countries; where George W. Bush, Joe Biden and Bill Clinton can each confuse a continent for a single nation; where Boris Johnson can talk of “flag-waving piccaninnies” and “watermelon smiles”; and where Time Magazine can write about alcoholism in Kenya and title their piece Africa’s Drinking Problem. During the Scramble for Africa (between 1881 and 1914), colonial nations laid claim to their territories via a violent process of invasion, occupation, colonisation and annexation. In continuing to minimise the perceived physical presence of Africa, in flippantly applying colonial language and values, it can feel as though precious little has changed.

That is, if Africa and its diaspora wasn’t rewriting its own history and forging a new path built on empowerment and a singular identity.

“The trouble with the people on this planet,” wrote the avant-garde ‘cosmic’ jazz composer Sun Ra, “is they refuse to think, they refuse to believe, anything except what they know.” That we want to think we are open-minded, but – contrary to our desires – remain easily scripted, is how so many of us can got so far in life marvelling at the size of Greenland. It is how those billing themselves as ‘free-thinkers’ who can get carried away by fanciful theories, while more sinister conspiracies can carry on in plain view.

The American musician born Herman Poole Blount, who rose to prominence in Chicago’s jazz scene of the 1940s, abandoned his birth name in favour of one inspired by Ra, the Egyptian God of the Sun. It is part of an elaborate persona that the prolific composer, poet and philosopher would weave for himself – a dense backstory rooted in cosmology and mysticism, where he would proclaim himself an extra-terrestrial from Saturn, sent on a mission to preach peace. A mainstay of underground music scenes right up until his death in the early 1990s, Sun Ra touched many with his complex and eclectic approach to music and performance – not least those spellbound by the cosmic charm of Afrofuturism, the cultural concept first coined by author Mark Dery in his 1993 essay, Black to the Future.

Sun Ra – by Baron Wolman / via NPR

Dery’s landmark discourse – a series of interviews with three prominent thinkers in African-American literature: Samuel R. Delany, Greg Tate and Tricia Rose – began with a conundrum: why do so few African Americans write science fiction? A genre that, as Dery posited, would seem a natural fit, given its dealings with strangers in strange lands. Writing of what he saw as the paradox behind this lack of eminent African-American sci-fi writers, the cultural critic asked: “Can a community whose past has been deliberately rubbed out, and whose energies have subsequently been consumed by the search for legible traces in history, imagine possible futures?”

Sun Ra could. And his inspiration could be felt through the waves of black counterculture that followed him. Visual artists, from graffiti writers to Jean-Michel Basquiat, imagined their black figures in abstract landscapes. And from Kraftwerk’s influence on early electro to Public Enemy’s Fear of a Black Planet (even the post-apocalyptic video for 2Pac’s California Love), hip hop would forge a long-term love affair with fantasy and sci-fi subcultures. “I generally define Afrofuturism as a way of imagining possible futures through a black cultural lens,” says art curator and Afrofuturist Ingrid LaFleur. The tail end of the twentieth century saw that black cultural lens explode, and its fire burns brighter by the day.

Whilst Afrofuturism itself may have remained a niche philosophy, under the surface its protagonists have multiplied over those years. As well as a series of high-profile exhibitions and cultural events – such as MOONDANCE at New York’s prestigious MoMA PS1 gallery – a succession of crossover musicians have taken the scene to the brink of mainstream – from Erykah Badu to Flying Lotus; OutKast to Janelle Monáe. This year, though, saw the moment that Afrofuturism finally broke through, the Marvel superhero film Black Panther introducing the world at large to a cultural concept that is empowerment incarnate.

There’s little left to be said about Ryan Coogler’s film that hasn’t already been said; suffice to say that its arrival at a time of “shitholes” and “piccaninnies” couldn’t have been more fitting. It is, however, its cultural legacy that is of most importance: a new generation who can imagine possible futures through a black cultural lens.

‘Lost in the Island’ – by Kaylan K

“You’re looking at stories about inventors and creations, and you don’t see people who look like you,” says Ytasha Womack, a prominent writer in the Afrofuturism world. “You look at films about the future and they don’t have people like you, then you begin to get the impression that maybe I can’t be a part of the future.” It’s not hyperbolic to suggest that black history is more horrific than any science fiction writer could imagine. Pasts erased, Afrofuturism gives a people the opportunity to create a world that puts them in the starring role – Black Panther’s time in the spotlight guaranteeing them their place in the future.

With a dogged determination to encourage people to change how they see the world, Arno Peters was an advocate of equality, a truth-seeker who forced discussion in the name of fostering a more just world. It’s certain he would’ve loved this movie’s portrayal of Wakanda – the fictional African kingdom presided over by its lead hero – as a self-sufficient utopia that resisted colonisation, it presenting a dramatic manifestation of the sort of global reappraisal he provoked with his most famous work. Wakanda offers a stylised rebuttal to Mercator’s distortions, to the territories drawn up during the Scramble for Africa; it is Africa empowered, remapping its own boundaries.

Peters’ quest for equality, and the Afrofuturists’ avant-garde perspective on empowerment, can teach us valuable lessons in how we approach this continent and others; how we avoid stereotypes; and how – inspired by Sun Ra – we might truly begin to believe in things we don’t know. As travellers seek new frontiers, perhaps those frontiers exist in our mind – a reassessment of familiar lands as potent an experience as discovering a real-life Wakanda.

Mercator’s visual mistruth is a poignant rendering of a prolonged cycle of injustices done to Africa and its people, but it shouldn’t cloud the truth that inequality exists everywhere. Applying Arno Peters’ alternative perspective or the rebellious imagination of Afrofuturism to any circumstance can improve it. Ignore these symbols of empowerment, and you might as well believe that “gravity as a theory is false.”

[This article was published in Beyond: Empowered, We Are Africa’s print magazine, in May 2018.]

The post VIRTUAL REALITY appeared first on We Are Africa.

[asatrueliberdade]

Considerations about being a “mindset focused” Heathen in Brazil

Sonne Heljarskinn

If one wants to understand what it means to be Heathen in South America, specifically in Brazil, it must be important to notice that there are many ways in which people call themselves as Heathens outside our country.

Nevertheless, we will deal here with the idea of reconstructionist Heathenry focused in the revivalism of the worldview, ideology, psychology, cosmology and religious practices of ancient or arch-Heathens, before their conversion to Christianity. It is in this way that the complex word “heathen” will be used in this piece.

So, if we want to analyze our situation here as this kind of heathens, we will have to agree that we have some advantages and some problems. Some of these problems can be found in several other places where Western civilization placed itself, and some of them are most concerned to our own historical development as a so called “third world” country.

As Freud argues in “Totem and Taboo”, “evolution” to (Western) civilization is individualization. Understanding the way in which tribal peoples, no matter if they are Tupi, Guarani, African or Germanic, place themselves to perceive and relate to the world “outside” of what modern Westerns call “Self” is an superhuman effort. Recognizing thought patterns and the subtle shadings which guide(d) tribal peoples is very satisfying though.

But most people became satisfied with taking points that they could easily recognize and reinterpret through modern (post-Christian, post-cartesian and post-illuminist) Western lens. It is the rule, and we even cannot blame them for doing so. After five centuries of Christianization in Brazil we are apparently somewhat far from our pre-Christian past than some other cultures around the world, and even our neighbors who were colonized by Spain. But that seems not to be the case maybe in Pará and Amazônia, as well some of other regions where people were not so culturally influenced by the states of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro (which hold, in spite their industrialization, most people who call themselves as Norse pagans or Heathens).

We are not saying that people who do not seek for the application of the whole heathen worldview’s content that is still available to us “are doing it wrong” at all. But, if we look to the arch-Heathens, approaching them to learn and live their mindset(s) today (what is NOT the aim of all those which call themselves as Heathens), there are several many ways in which pre-Christian peoples did not act, think, live, nor worship as well as there is no single “right way” for many of these points. Cyclical time, hearth cult, ancestors’ worship, heroes’ worship, animism (or the belief in a supernatural reality interwoven to ours in the way that the arch-Heathens probably understood), active fate (wyrd and ørlög), world acceptance and the gifting cycle are roughly understood and agreed as “core points” of a Heathen worldview in Brazil, where “orthodoxy” (which here means nothing but a religious empathy to the Æsir and in some cases the Vanir) absolutely reigns over the orthopraxy common to ancient and living indigenous, pagan or pre-Christian peoples around the world. If one tries to point out that any Heathen should act aiming to reach these heathen worldview’s elements, he probably will be misinterpreted. Even if we have left alone “the single right way” to approach any of these core points.

If Christianity and Catholicism influence us for the bad, we cannot say it for the good. We have so many troubles to organize ourselves as a community, preferring to act as a bunch of individual mystical or spiritual seekers (in the negative sense), instead of as a community. Valhalla is still our heaven, and alcohol our Holy Communion. We cannot see the earth as our land, and the underworld as the place where our Ancestors live. The wind is still unseen and unheard, and the waters are still a product. The desacralization of both our daily lives and environment, if appointed by someone, is mocked as “new age” attitude. The individual is still their last undivided unity, and the groups can’t live because of their absence of tribal understanding. But I still think that we can, as a “third world” and a bit less individualized society, progress in this point roughly faster than people condensed outside Latin America. We just have to understand that reciprocity is not charity and community and tribe are not “evil communism”.

I think that most of these problems come from the fact that we have hard problems to deal with English – the language which holds the greater part of published books, research and papers concerning to Heathenry. I am quite literally learning English because I research about Heathenry. And I cannot even have done the first step without a friendly pressure of a priceless friend called Andreia. As Luther in the Dark Age, we must to convert Heathenry as a native idea, a folk centered practice, instead of a way to create a cult over our supposed wisdom of heathen subjects. English to us represents what Latin did to Germans in the Middle Ages. We have to get our books in Portuguese, not only Sagas, Eddas and academic papers (even though NEVE (Viking and Scandinavian Studies’ Center) is doing a pretty useful work), but true heathen books and content done by Heathens for Heathens.

Racism – yes, we should to talk about it again – is a large problem. If in United States we have an open hate spreading through culture, the supposed “racial democracy” stated in Brazil we have the exhausting common “I’m not racist but… (insert your bigoted discourse here)”. “I’m not racist but Norse paganism is for white people”, and they just forget that, even if Heathenry was only for those who have white Ancestors, well, they raped our Native and African foremothers and created us. Skin tone does not imply in itself religion, as Jung wrongly said (of course, for lots of white folks, familial heritage or bloodline is directly equal to skin color). Heathenry is the way in which I project myself towards my Ancestors, Nature, and Human Community. It is a way of seeing and relating to the world and judging my own acts. It is a culture. And a culture is acquired through socialization, not by blood. And socialization depends upon geography. A geographical and cultural outsider could understand and adopt a culture if one strove to do so. This is why I reject the poor theology (influenced by Jewish-Christian mindset) of a people chosen by a god, to reign over the world. Also, we are but one of the various silent or visible conscious nature’s beings which populate this world.

Within the large cities where most of Pagans live today we also have to deal with the fact that a mediaeval fair could but should not necessarily be one of the few events to revive heathen religious practices. Heathenry is not just a section in an online or offline market. I think that in this point we are not so different from the rest of the world, but we struggle every day to show newcomers that to be Heathen is far more than tattooing an ancient symbol in his body, or acquiring products made to attract pagan consumers. Heathen is something you are, not something you bought. We also have to deal with people that treat Eddas and Sagas not as tales of the arch-Heathens, but as a species of Sacred Books, teaching the wisdom of the God(s). If you are a mindset focused Heathen it is quite curious that you prefer to buy rather than make something or that you are looking for a Holy Book among peoples who were in their majority illiterate.

There are also some people who do not understand the differences between the meanings of “religion” and “belief” to the arch-Heathens and Christians, and want to see a centralized institution (probably guided by themselves) dictating practices and beliefs to other Heathens. Even if they cannot state clearly which are the differences between Christian and Heathen worldview and practices. Even if they cannot understand religion outside the box of the “pray to gods” Christian custom.

But the most painful point of being a mindset focused Heathen in Brazil is isolation. Heathens are nothing but an inexpressive and almost inexistent minority of our population. If you live in a large city in the Southeast or South, you will probably find more Heathens and Norse Pagans in general to love or to hate (being a Heathen or Norse Pagan almost never makes someone be nicer than he or she would be if he or she were not a Heathen or Norse Pagan). We worship our individual selves in a way in which most of us are not able to build a common religious practice, something that we can give to our sons as a heritage. So, it is hard to mindset focused Heathenry to grow up here since a mindset, to live, must be shared and constantly exercised. If one does not interact with people who share the same culture, values, ideas, understandings, ways of acting, he or she will be incorporated and homogenized within the mainstream (Western, with all its contemporary implications) culture. 

Mindset focused Heathenry is not an easy thing. But it fairly rewards those who honestly dare to break new ground. We have, as Brazilians and Heathens, our indigenous peoples to look for wisdom, and help as well as guide us in this ancestral path. We have our green and living land, even if it is not that “cold beauty” of the snowy northern hemisphere. We have our mango trees, so vivid and sacred in our daily lives as the European oaks. We have our own sacred wells, our powerful Ancestors, and primal wights which wander here since forgotten times. Also, Visigoths, Vandals and Suebi provides us with their Germanic cultural influence through Portuguese colonization. The young Brazilian Heathen community has to discover its own surroundings, Ancestral links and way to manifest themselves in the world as Heathens. We have to face our own giants but, as Beowulf did in his tale, I, as a Brazilian Heathen, am ready to fight to protect my kin, my relatives and this heathen culture I learned to love since I first met it.

[myhaidagwaii-blog]

Identity

What does it mean?

Life experiences that have influenced you to think and act the way that you do. Those who you interact with on a deeper level or simply as an acquaintance. Your biological make-up of skin pigment, sex, height and genes. Your decisions of gender, religion, sexual orientation and political views.

What happens when your identity is taken away? What happens when you are not allowed to express yourself through your identity? What happens when someone or a group of people think that they have the right to decide who you are, what you should look like, how you should speak, how you should act, how you should celebrate, what you should believe, how you should sing, how you should dance and how you should live? What happens when that said someone or group of people are more powerful than your own small, simple  and (sometimes) vulnerable being?

Your entire culture, way of life, community, family, belief system, everything of importance to you- has been stripped. Your identity is gone.

Sadly to say, by having full access to my identity, I am one of the luckier ones out there.

My name is Bronwyn. I am 21 years old. I celebrated my birthday last friday, surrounded by loving friends and food and drinks. I am a heterosexual female. I do not identify with any religion, however my mother’s family is Ukrainian Orthodox. My mother is Ukrainian and English and my father is Cree and Scottish. I identify as Métis. I was born in Winnipeg, however I have had the chance to live in Edinburgh, Scotland and Montpellier, France- opportunities of which I will forever be grateful for. I went to elementary school, I went to middle school and I went to high school, entirely in the french immersion program throughout. I now study human geography at the University of Winnipeg, and I hope to write a thesis in the upcoming year or two. I have a loving mother, father and 15 year old sister. I have a boyfriend back home named Max. I also have a puppy, his name is Elliott. I miss him a lot. He’s an old english sheepdog and he’s only 7 months old, however he resembles a full sized dog. I could probably talk about Elliott for an entire day if I wanted. I spend my summers working at a summer camp, putting smiles on campers’ faces. I work at a before and after school program as well as bartend at the local concert hall during the school year. I live in a neighbourhood that is close to grocery stores, restaurants, nightlife and parks. I live across the street from a library, river, school and hospital. My school is a fifteen minute walk from my home. In fact, I can basically walk anywhere. I love canoeing, running, hiking, soccer and basketball. I’m currently trying to get better at yoga. I love reading, art, cooking or spending time at coffee shops writing in my journal. I’m quite unorganized but I am trying to get better. I am sensitive and I cry extremely easily. I am stubborn and competitive. I am shy, gentle, kind and generous. I would like to think that I can be quite funny. I have a lot of friends who I like to spend a lot of time with, however I do need my alone time quite often. I am passionate about the people, things and places I love.

Until written down, it is easy to take many of these things that contribute to my identity for granted. I recognize that there are characteristics of my identity that could very well be considered privileged. My mixed ancestry, my family life and my many other attributes are probably what one would consider to be the social norm of a typical “Canadian” citizen.

In class, we talked about what it meant to be “Canadian.” What “Canadian identity” entails. While I can’t yet fully understand the concept of what “Canadian identity” means, I can definitely identify a dichotomous definition of the term. (Warning: one of the definitions is not suitable for the light-hearted, sensitive souls such as myself).

“Canadian identity.” To define “Canadian identity,” we must first define what Canada means. Canada is a diverse country that is home to many different ancestries and nationalities. Our country boasts about post-card worthy landscapes, our maple syrup production (and consumption), our national love for all Canadian sports teams, shovelling for 3 hours in -30°C weather even though it’s “no big deal” and spending our summers at the cabin alongside the beavers, bears, moose and geese. Canada smells like fresh, clean and natural air. It looks like forests, mountains, rivers, lakes, prairies and oceans of our rural and urban landscapes. It sounds like loon calls on a calm lake, the breeze of a hot summer’s night and our national anthem sung at sports games, loud and clear. “Canadian identity” feels like beating the United States in hockey in the Olympics, or watching every Winnipeg Jets game with pride, a beer readily accessible in hand. Every. Single. Time.

“Canadian identity.” To define “Canadian identity,” we must first define what Canada means. Canada is a colony of Great Britain. Canada is the dehumanization and assimilation of many nations that were here long before any discovery by European countries. Canada smells like the pollution from the production of oil from the tar sands that reach bedroom windows of many homes close by. Canada sounds like songs that were never played and potlachs that were never celebrated, because they were banned by settlers who had a superior world view, settlers who believed strongly that ways of life were either wrong or right. Canada looks like another demonstration of peace that we do not see in the news, demonstrations that fight for the right of access to land and water. Canada feels like a voice that is never heard by our current government and a daily fight that lasts a lifetime. Every. Single. Day.

At this time, I am having a hard time defining “Canadian identity” because I find that both definitions to be true. It is difficult to find a medium that paints a picture of all residents, nations and citizens of our landscape.

My time spent on Haida Gwaii as a Haida Gwaii Higher Education Society student will definitely be an experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. It has only been three weeks since I have arrived, and I can already feel the island influencing my emotional, physical, spiritual, mental and well being.

Identity is clearly important to the Haida. There are so many strong, rich and cultural characteristics that are present here. The stories that I have been lucky enough to hear from elders, chiefs, residents and other community members have made me realize how lived experience shapes one’s identity, and how assimilation has only made the Haida culture continue it’s strength through vibrant community pride. 

When we were asked to go and write/reflect about what we had talked about in class on Friday, I found a beautiful little spot around the corner of the museum. I witnessed a river otter and a few bald eagles perched on a branch beside me. I did not really spend the whole time writing, however I spent time reflecting on how grateful I am for this opportunity to live on Haida Gwaii. It was really nice to be able to stand alongside my natural surroundings and share the space together. The reflection that took place in this class brought out a spiritual side in me that I am not normally in touch with. The gratitude that I felt during my time spent at this observation point was overwhelming. My goal while I am here is to take time out of everyday to recognize and appreciate what I have, and to simply feel grateful for every moment.

Photo 1: a beautiful spot for reflection.

Photo 2: During my reflection, the landscape surrounding me comforted, listened to and reassured my thoughts. The man-made deck contrasting the natural landscape provides a glimpse of the relationship that we as humans share with the plants, species, animals and other natural phenomenon of the landscape.

Photo 3: A view that will never let you down. Something I love most about nature is that it never leaves. It is so reliable and will always be there for you, no matter what may go wrong or right.

Photo 4: Back to School.

[samuelcarveraccidentman]

America Must Prepare for the Coming Chinese Empire

The last thing American policymakers or strategists should assume is that somehow Americans are superior to the Chinese.

by

Robert D. Kaplan

BEFORE ONE can outline a grand strategy for the United States, one has to be able to understand the world in which America operates. That may sound simple, but a bane of Washington is the assumption of knowledge where little actually exists. Big ideas and schemes are worthless unless one is aware of the ground-level reality of several continents, and is able to fit them into a pattern, based not on America’s own historical experience, but also on the historical experience of others. Therefore, I seek to approach grand strategy not from the viewpoint of Washington, but of the world; and not as a political scientist or academic, but as a journalist with more than three decades of experience as a reporter around the globe.

After covering the Third World during the Cold War and its aftershocks which continue to the present, I have concluded that, despite the claims of post-colonial studies courses prevalent on university campuses, we still inhabit (in functional terms, that is) an imperial world. Empire in some form or another is eternal, even if European colonies of the early-modern and modern eras are gone. Thus, the issue becomes: what are the contours of the current imperial age that affect grand strategy for the United States? And once those contours are delineated, what should be America’s grand strategy in response? I will endeavor to answer both questions.

Empire, or its great power equivalent, requires the impression of permanence: the idea, embedded in the minds of local inhabitants, that the imperial authorities will always be there, compelling acquiescence to their rule and influence. Wherever I traveled in Africa, the Middle East and Asia during the Cold War, American and Soviet influence was seen as permanent; unquestioned for all time, however arrogant and overbearing it might have been. Whatever the facts, that was the perception. And after the Soviet Union collapsed, American influence continued to be seen for a time as equally permanent. Make no mistake: America, since the end of World War II, and continuing into the second decade of the twenty-first century, was an empire in all but name.

That is no longer the case. European and Asian allies are now, with good reason, questioning America’s constancy. New generations of American leaders, to judge from university liberal arts curriculums, are no longer being educated to take pride in their country’s past and traditions. Free trade or some equivalent, upon which liberal maritime empires have often rested, is being abandoned. The decline of the State Department, ongoing since the end of the Cold War, is hollowing out a primary tool of American power. Power is not only economic and military: it is moral. And I don’t mean humanitarian, as necessary as humanitarianism is for the American brand. But in this case, I mean something harder: the fidelity of our word in the minds of allies. And that predictability is gone.

Meanwhile, as one imperium-of-sorts declines, another takes its place.

China is not the challenge we face: rather, the challenge is the new Chinese empire. It is an empire that stretches from the arable cradle of the ethnic Han core westward across Muslim China and Central Asia to Iran; and from the South China Sea, across the Indian Ocean, up the Suez Canal, to the eastern Mediterranean and the Adriatic Sea. It is an empire based on roads, railways, energy pipelines and container ports whose pathways by land echo those of the Tang and Yuan dynasties of the Middle Ages, and by sea echo the Ming dynasty of the late Middle Ages and early-modern period. Because China is in the process of building the greatest land-based navy in history, the heart of this new empire will be the Indian Ocean, which is the global energy interstate, connecting the hydrocarbon fields of the Middle East with the middle-class conurbations of East Asia.

This new Indian Ocean empire has to be seen to be believed. A decade ago, I spent several years visiting these Chinese ports in the making, at a time when few in the West were paying attention. I traveled to Gwadar in the bleak desert of Baluchistan, technically part of Pakistan but close to the Persian Gulf. There, I saw a state-of-the-art port complex rising sheer above a traditional village. (The Chinese are now contemplating a naval base in nearby Jawani, which would allow them to overwatch the Strait of Hormuz.) In Hambantota, in Sri Lanka, I witnessed hundreds of Chinese laborers literally moving the coast itself further inland, as armies of dump trucks carried soil away. While America’s bridges and railways languish, it is a great moment in history to be a Chinese civil engineer. China has gone from building these ports, to having others manage them, and then finally to managing them themselves. It has all been part of a process that recalls the early days of the British and Dutch East India companies in the same waters.

Newspaper reports talk of some of these projects being stalled or mired in debt. That is a traditionally capitalist way to look at it. From a mercantile and imperialist point of view, these projects make perfect sense. In a way, the money never really leaves China: a Chinese state bank lends the money for a port project in a foreign country, which then employs Chinese state workers, which utilize a Chinese logistics company, and so on.

Geography is still paramount. And because the Indian Ocean is connected to the South China Sea through the Malacca, Sunda and Lombok straits, Chinese domination of the South China Sea is crucial to Beijing. China is not a rogue state, and China’s naval activities in the South China Sea make perfect sense given its geopolitical and, yes, its imperial imperatives. The South China Sea not only further unlocks the Indian Ocean for China, but it further softens up Taiwan and grants the Chinese navy greater access to the wider Pacific.

The South China Sea represents one geographical frontier of the Greater Indian Ocean world; the Middle East and the Horn of Africa represent the other. The late Zbigniew Brzezinski once wisely said in conversation that hundreds of millions of Muslims do not yearn for democracy as much as they yearn for dignity and justice, things which are not necessarily synonymous with elections. The Arab Spring was not about democracy: rather, it was simply a crisis in central authority. The fact that sterile and corrupt authoritarian systems were being rejected did not at all mean these societies were institutionally ready for parliamentary systems: witness Libya, Yemen and Syria. As for Iraq, it proved that beneath the carapace of tyranny lay not the capacity for democracy but an anarchic void. The regimes of Morocco, Jordan and Oman provide stability, legitimacy, and a measure of the justice and dignity that Brzezinski spoke of, precisely because they are traditional monarchies, with only the threadbare trappings of democracy. Tunisia’s democracy is still fragile, and the further one travels away from the capital into the western and southern reaches of the country, close to the Libyan and Algerian borders, the more fragile it becomes.

This is a world tailor-made for the Chinese, who do not deliver moral lectures about the type of government a state should have but do provide an engine for economic development. To wit, globalization is much about container shipping: an economic activity that the Chinese have mastered. The Chinese military base in Djibouti is the security hub in a wheel of ports extending eastward to Gwadar in Pakistan, southward to Bagamoyo in Tanzania, and northwestward to Piraeus in Greece, all of which, in turn, help anchor Chinese trade and investments throughout the Middle East, East Africa and the eastern Mediterranean. Djibouti is a virtual dictatorship, Pakistan is in reality an army-run state, Tanzania is increasingly authoritarian and Greece is a badly institutionalized democracy that is increasingly opening up to China. In significant measure, between Europe and the Far East, this is the world as it really exists in Afro-Eurasia. The Chinese empire, unburdened by the missionary impulse long prevalent in American foreign policy, is well suited for it.

MORE TO the point, when it comes to China, we are dealing with a unique and very formidable cultural organism. The American foreign policy elite does not like to talk about culture since culture cannot be quantified, and in this age of extreme personal sensitivity, what cannot be quantified or substantiated by a footnote is potentially radioactive. But without a discussion of culture and geography, there is simply no hope of understanding foreign affairs. Indeed, culture is nothing less than the sum total of a large group of people’s experience inhabiting the same geographical landscape for hundreds or thousands of years.

Anyone who travels in China, or even observes it closely, realizes something that the business community intuitively grasps better than the policy community: the reason there is little or no separation between the public and private domains in China is not only because the country is a dictatorship, but because there is a greater cohesion of values and goals among Chinese compared to those among Americans. In China, you are inside a traditional mental value system. In that system, all areas of national activity—commercial, cyber, military, political, technological, educational—work fluently toward the same ends, so that computer hacking, espionage, port building and expansion, the movement of navy and fishing fleets, and so on all appear coordinated. And within that system, Confucianism still lends a respect for hierarchy and authority among individual Chinese, whereas American culture is increasingly about the dismantling of authority in favor of devotion to the individual. Confucian societies worship old people; Western societies worship young people. One should never forget these lines from Solzhenitsyn: “Idolized children despise their parents, and when they get a bit older they bully their countrymen. Tribes with an ancestor cult have endured for centuries. No tribe would survive long with a youth cult.”

Chinese are educated in national pride; increasingly the opposite of what goes on in our own schools and universities. And Chinese are extraordinarily efficient, with a manic attention to detail. Individuals are certainly more concrete than the mass. But that does not mean national traits simply do not exist. I have flown around China on domestic airlines with greater ease and comfort than I could ever imagine flying around America at its airports. And that is to say nothing about China’s bullet trains.

Of course, there are all sorts of political and social tensions inside China. And the unrest among the middle classes we see today in Brazil and the rest of Latin America could well be a forerunner to what we will see in China in the 2020s, undermining Belt and Road and the whole Chinese imperial system altogether. China’s over-leveraged economy may well be headed for a hard, rather than a soft, landing, with all the attendant domestic upheaval which that entails. I have real doubts about the sustainability of the Chinese political and economic model. But the last thing American policymakers or strategists should assume is that somehow we are superior to the Chinese, or worse: that somehow we have a destiny that they do not.

WE HAVE entered a protracted struggle with China, which hopefully will not be violent at certain junctures. And it may become more dangerous precisely because China could weaken internally due to economic upheavals, causing its leaders to dial up nationalism as a default option. It will be a struggle (or war) of integration rather than of separation. Throughout the human past, wars have seen an army from one place and an army from another place meet somewhere in the middle to give battle. However, in the cyber age, we are all operating inside the same operating environment, so that computer networks can attack each other without armies ever meeting or even blood being shed. The Russian attempt to influence our politics is an example of war by integration, which could not have existed even two decades ago. The information age has added to the possibilities for warfare rather than subtracted from it. The enemy is only a click away, rather than hundreds of miles away. And because weapons systems require guidance from satellites, outer space is now a domain for warfare, just as the seas became once the Portuguese and Spanish had begun the Age of Exploration. Every age of warfare has its own characteristics. Increasingly, warfare has become less physical and more mental: the more obsessively driven the culture, the better suited it will be for mid-twenty-first-century cyber warfare. If that seems offensive to the reader, remember that the future lies inside the silences—inside the things we are most uncomfortable talking about.

In functional and historical terms, this will be an imperial struggle, though our elites both inside and outside government will forbid use of the term. The Chinese will have an advantage in this type of competition as they have a greater tradition in empire building than we do, and they are not ashamed of it as we have become. They openly hark back to their former dynasties and empires to justify what they are doing; whereas our elites can hark back less and less to our own past. Westward expansion, rather than the heroic saga portrayed by mid-twentieth-century American historians, is now often taught as a tale of genocide against the indigenous population and nothing more—even though without conquering the West, we never would have had the geopolitical and economic capacity to win World War I, World War II and the Cold War.

Moreover, the Chinese have demonstrated an ability to quickly adapt, which is the key to Darwinian evolution: the continual changes that they are making to their Belt and Road model are an example of this.

The Chinese also have more capable leadership than we do.

Undeniably, our post-Cold War presidents have been dramatically inferior to our Cold War presidents in terms of thinking strategically about foreign affairs. Bill Clinton was not altogether serious about foreign policy, especially at the beginning of his presidency; George W. Bush was in significant measure a failure at it; Barack Obama too often seemed to apologize for American power; and Donald Trump is frankly unsuited for high office in the first place. Compare them to Truman, Eisenhower, Kennedy, Nixon, Reagan and the elder Bush. Compare, too, our post-Cold War presidents to Chinese leader Xi Jinping. Xi is disciplined, strategically minded, unashamed of projecting power, an engineer by training, with living experience in the provinces, and perhaps, most importantly, someone with a deep sense of the tragic, as his family was a victim of Mao Zedong’s Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution. This is a man of virtu, in the classical Machiavellian sense. One could go further and say that there is not only a crisis in American leadership but in Western leadership in general. The truly formidable, dynamic leaders, whatever their moral values, are more likely to be found outside the United States and Europe. Witness, in addition to Xi, Japan’s Shinzo Abe, India’s Narendra Modi, Russia’s Vladimir Putin and Israel’s Benjamin Netanyahu. They have all grasped the art of power; they are constantly willing to take risks, and they are in office not only out of personal ambition but because they actually want to get certain things done.

Thus, the competition between the United States and China will coincide with a political-cultural crisis of the West against a resurgent East.

We have truly entered an American-Chinese bipolar struggle. But it is a bipolar struggle with an asterisk: the asterisk being Russia, which can always inflict consequential damage on the United States. Yet, whereas the Russians appear to our media as classic bad guys, the Chinese are more opaque and business-like, so the gravity of our competition with Beijing is still insufficiently appreciated by our media.

TRULY, THE sense of invulnerability the United States felt at the end of the Cold War and the onset of globalization is gone. Initially, post-Cold War globalization meant a Westernization of the world to go along with the adoption of Western-style management practices and America’s so-called unipolar moment. Now that this moment has passed, and with middle classes enlarging throughout the developing world—while different shades of authoritarianism compete with democracy—globalization is becoming more multicultural, with the East assuming an equal position, helped also by demographic trends. In this competition, the United States is wrong to promote democracy per se. Instead, it should promote civil society whether democratic or of the enlightened authoritarian mode. (Witness the liberalizing yet authoritarian monarchies of Morocco, Jordan and Oman. And I could give examples beyond the Middle East.) Hybrid regimes of an enlightened authoritarian mode have been more of a norm throughout history than democracy has been. Moreover, it has been my clear experience that people in Africa and the Middle East care first about basic order and physical and economic protection before they care about political freedoms. As the late liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin writes: “Men who live in conditions where there is not sufficient food, warmth, shelter, and the minimum degree of security can scarcely be expected to concern themselves with freedom of contract or of the press.”

Obviously there exists a hierarchy of needs, and meaningful improvement in people’s lives as a first priority should demand flexibility on our part—or else it will be harder to compete with the Chinese. The expansion of middle classes worldwide will by itself lead to greater calls for democracy: for as people’s material lives improve they will increasingly demand more political freedoms anyway. We do not need to force the process. If we do, it will be we who are the ones being ideological; not the Chinese, who have the civilizational confidence and serenity to accept political systems as they already are.

Yet, even at our worst, our political system is open and capable of change in the way that China, and that other great autocratic power, Russia, are not. A world in which the United States is the dominant power will be a more humane world of more personal freedoms than a world led by China.

I concentrate on China in this essay because China constitutes a much stronger economy, a much more institutionalized political system, and a more formidable twenty-first-century cultural genius than Russia. Therefore, China should be the yardstick or pacing power by which our diplomatic, security and defense establishments measures themselves: merely by competing with China we will make our own institutions stronger. Such competition is all that might be left to jolt our bureaucracies out of their ongoing decrepitude and decline. Indeed, the profusion of travel orders, security clearance paperwork, unnecessary receipts, and so forth, even as the hacking of our systems continues, are all ways in which we deliberately deceive and defeat ourselves. Paperwork arises out of the lack of trust. The more paperwork, the less trust that exists within a bureaucracy. The Pentagon is a prime example of this. We should always remember that there is no regulation or procedure to instill basic common sense.

One priority should be to effectively get out of the Middle East. Every extra day that the United States is diverted and bogged down in the Middle East with significant numbers of ground troops helps China in the Indo-Pacific and Europe even, where China is working to establish powerful commercial shipping footholds in places like Trieste on Italy’s Adriatic shore and Duisburg in riverine Germany; to say nothing about promoting its 5G digital network. I don’t mean to say that we should pull all our forces out of the Middle East tomorrow. I mean that our goal should be to reduce our military footprint as quickly as practically possible, whenever and wherever possible.

For example, the United States has had combat troops in Afghanistan for almost two decades with no demonstrable result. The future of Afghanistan will be decided by competing ethnic alliances within that country, and Indians and Iranians squaring off against Chinese and Pakistanis. The Indians and Iranians will build an energy and transport corridor from Chah Bahar in southeastern Iran north through western Afghanistan into former Soviet Central Asia. The Chinese and Pakistanis will try to build another such corridor from Gwadar in southwestern Pakistan north, parallel with the Afghan border, to Kashgar in western China. In particular, Pakistan, which will always require Afghanistan as a rear base against India, must, therefore, struggle against India in Afghanistan. India, whose own imperial past encompasses the eastern half of Afghanistan, will do everything possible to thwart Pakistan there. Russia, which lies just to the north of Afghanistan, will also play a role because of its interest in smothering radical Islam. A great game is about to ensue in Afghanistan in which the United States will play absolutely no part, regardless of how much blood it has shed there, because it lacks a geographical basis for it, and therefore has little or no national interest at stake.

All we can do is help stabilize Afghanistan so that the Chinese and others can more safely continue to establish mining and other operations in the country. In any case, building a strong central government in Afghanistan may prove chimerical since none has ever existed in Kabul. The city has traditionally functioned as a central point of arbitration for the various warlords and tribal leaders that have exercised effective control in southern Central Asia. Covering the war against the Soviets in Afghanistan in the 1980s, I saw vividly how the Soviets lost because the mujahidin enemy, a diverse collection of tribal-based groups which viciously distrusted each other, provided the Soviets with no useful point of attack. Afghanistan’s very disorganization defeated the Soviets, just as it has been defeating us.

Iran, of course, so populous and well-educated, and fronting not one but two hydrocarbon-rich zones (the Persian Gulf and the Caspian Sea), is the demographic, economic and cultural organizing principle of both the Middle East and Central Asia. But what happens inside Iran will be internally driven. Iranians have a civilizational sense of themselves equal to that of the Indians, Chinese and Japanese. Even dramatic American diplomatic actions, like signing a nuclear deal with it, and later abrogating that same deal, can have only a marginal effect on Iran’s confoundedly-complex domestic politics in a country of over eighty million people. Despite periodic street demonstrations which will continue, the very institutionalized strength of the Revolutionary Guard Corps and other regime organizations make Iran perhaps the most stable big state in the Muslim Middle East.

As for Iraq, the inching forward of political stability there, however messy and fragile, has had relatively little to do with what the United States has done; or has not done. In fact, improvement in the Iraqi political situation has, for the most part, occurred despite American actions; not because of them. One American president destabilized Iraq by toppling its totalitarian ruler. The next American president further destabilized it by suddenly withdrawing American troops. Thus, from the anarchy of Iraq after Saddam Hussein came for a time the tyranny of the Islamic State. It was the experience of living under the Islamic State that convinced many Sunnis that they were better off allying with Shiites than with radicals of their own sect. It is this fact that has given Iraq some measure of hope and stability. True, American special operations forces helped a moderate Shiite leader defeat the Islamic State. But this moderate Shiite leader was subsequently defeated at the polls. In short, Iraq will determine its own destiny, influenced by Iran, the great power next door. American influence will remain marginal, whether or not we have any troops there. I say this as someone who initially supported the invasion of Iraq, which I have come to bitterly regret.

As for Syria, Bashar al-Assad has reconsolidated power in the only part of Syria that ultimately counts: its main population centers. Israel, buttressed by massive American military and economic aid, will be able to deal with the Iranian presence in Syria on its own. If the Russians want to get bogged down in Syria for the sake of their decadeslong investment in the Assad family regime, good luck to them. And by the way, Israel, unlike the United States, has a workmanlike, albeit problematic, relationship with Russia which it can employ as a go-between with Iran. The United States benefits very little by diverting time and resources to Syria.

The United States needs to end its adventures in the Middle East begun immediately after 9/11. Of course, the Chinese hope we never leave the Middle East. For if we deliberately defeat ourselves by remaining militarily engaged in the Middle East, it will only ease China’s path to global supremacy. Indeed, China would like nothing better than a war between the United States and Iran. China is already Iran’s largest trading partner and is pouring tens of billions of dollars into port, canal, and other development projects in Egypt and the Arabian Peninsula, proving how America’s military involvements in the region have gotten it virtually nowhere.

NO PLACE in the Muslim Middle East can serve as a litmus test of how we are doing vis-à-vis China the way that India and Taiwan can. They are the pivots that will go a long way to determining the strength of the American position in the Indo-Pacific: the first-among-equals when it comes to global strategic geography. 

India is not a formal American ally and should not become one. India is too proud and too geographically close to China for that to be in its interest. But India, merely on account of its growing demographic, economic and military heft, along with its location dominating the Indian Ocean, acts as a natural balancer to China. Therefore, we should do everything we can to enable the growth of Indian power, without ever even mentioning a formal alliance with it. An increasingly strong India that gets along with China while never moving into China’s orbit—and is informally aligned with the United States—will be a sign that China is contained.

Taiwan has been a model ally, a stable and vibrant democracy, and one of the world’s most prosperous, efficient economies. It is a successful poster child for the liberal world order that the United States has built and guaranteed in Asia and Europe since World War II. Richard Nixon and Henry Kissinger opened relations with China, but did so without endangering Taiwan. Therefore, if it ever became clear that the United States was both unable and unwilling to defend Taiwan in the event of a Chinese military attack on the island—or that an authoritarian China had consolidated its grip on Taiwan without the need of such an attack—then it would signal the end of American strategic dominance in East Asia. Countries from Japan in the north to Australia in the south would have no choice but to seek compromising security assurances from China in the event of such an eclipse of American power. This would be an insidious process often outside the strictures of the news headlines, but one day we would all wake up and realize that Asia has been partly Finlandized and the world had changed. Chinese domination of Taiwan would also, by the way, virtually confirm China’s effective domination of the South China Sea, which, together, with its port building activities to the east and west of India, would help give the Chinese navy unimpeded access to two oceans.

Grand strategy is about recognizing what is important and what is not important. I am arguing that, given our goals, India and Taiwan are ultimately more significant than places like Syria and Afghanistan. (Regarding Russia, because it is not almost at war with China as it was when the Nixon administration played the two communist regimes off against each other, moving closer to Russia now achieves little, though stabilizing our bilateral relationship is in our interest.)

WHEREAS INDIA and Taiwan are greatly affected by American sea power, the desert immensities of the Middle East are much less so. This is not an accident, but indicates something crucial. In a century when we will try to stay out of debilitating land conflicts that require large armies, we are better off relying on our navy which can project power without dragging us into bloody wars nearly as much. It is the U.S. Navy that will counter Chinese power along the semi-circle of the navigable Eurasian rimland, from the eastern Mediterranean to the Sea of Japan. And with less of a chance of drifting into costly military conflicts, we will have a better possibility of healing and invigorating our democracy at home. This is what grand strategy is fundamentally about.

Grand strategy is not about what we should do abroad. It is about what we should do abroad consistent with our economic and social condition at home.

Now, keep in mind my own, three-year rule. No matter how necessary and inspiring a military conflict, the American public will only give policymakers three years to settle it. America’s involvement in World War I lasted little more than eighteen months. In World War II, United States troops did not arrive in the Eastern Hemisphere until 1942, and by the Battle of Okinawa in 1945 there was public clamoring to end the Pacific war (as the war in Europe had already ended). The Korean War began in 1950 and by 1952 was unpopular, with Eisenhower forced to end it in 1953. American troops landed in large numbers in Vietnam in 1965 and the public turned against that war in 1968. The Iraq War was launched in 2003 and the public turned against it in 2006. We should aim never to test this three-year rule again. (In Afghanistan, we were able to break the rule only because we brought casualties down dramatically.) That means keeping a prolonged rivalry with China nonviolent in terms of blood-cost. We should engage on a number of fronts: cyber, economic, naval, diplomatic and so on, without open warfare. This can be achieved by not making a fetish out of the South China Sea. The U.S.-China relationship is too wide-ranging and organic to be reduced to a military dispute about one region. Military, trade and other areas of contention should not be kept in silos, since they can indeed interact.

To repeat, grand strategy for the United States in the twenty-first century is, in the end, about restraining from violence in order to concentrate on the home front, and yet compete with China at the same time: which, in turn, means recognizing certain geographical imperatives. (Of course, there is also the realm of ideas: so that it is tragic that President Trump abrogated the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which as a free-trading alliance would have given us a big idea to compete with Belt and Road.)

For some states and empires, which are victims of geography rather than blessed by it—Byzantium, Habsburg Austria—grand strategy is a necessity for survival. Contrarily, America’s geographical blessings have meant it can incur one disaster after another without paying a commensurate price. But as technology shrinks distance, enmeshing our continental half-island deeper into an unstable world, the United States finally becomes truly vulnerable: meaning it can no longer afford heroic delusions.

Consider: during the Cold War we didn’t need to worry about grand strategy because we already had one. It was called containment. George Kennan eschewed the hot-headed approach of those in the late-1940s and early-1950s who believed that it was possible to defeat the Soviet Union by subversion, special operations forces and other such desperate measures. Kennan understood that since Soviet Communism was fundamentally flawed as a system of governance, it would eventually falter and all we had to do was outlast it (just as we are likely to outlast Communist China if only we are patient). Thus, blessed by geography for so long, and blessed by a wise and temperate grand strategy for over four decades, we lost the art of thinking critically about ourselves, which, once again, is also what grand strategy is ultimately about.

Unable to look ourselves in the mirror and see our flaws and limitations, we concentrated too much on our military, and invaded or intervened in one Muslim country after another in the 2000s and achieved nothing as a result. Intervening in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s was successful in stopping a war, but the creation of ethnic cantons that followed did not lay a groundwork for the future, and even if it had done so, that would not have risen to the level of grand strategy given Yugoslavia’s secondary importance. So we are starting from scratch.

Starting from scratch means realizing that however inspiring the dreams of our elite are, those dreams will be stillborn if not grounded in both granular, local realities around the world and widespread public support at home that spans party lines—and that must be sustained over the long-term. We must be respectful of local realities, whether in Wyoming or Afghanistan.

Robert D. Kaplan is a managing director for global macro at Eurasia Group. His most recent book is The Return of Marco Polo’s World: War, Strategy, and American Interests in the Twenty-first Century.

[douchebagbrainwaves]

HERE'S WHAT I JUST REALIZED ABOUT HEADS

So, in their way, did labor unions, the traditional news media, and the main reason they're so much less speculative—whether the company has no way of measuring the value of Nasdaq companies in two years? 0 now, I have to admit it's one of those things the old tell the young, but don't try to pretend either that you're further along than you are.1 The intermediate stuff—the most dangerous forms of procrastination are those that seem like work, the danger of responsibilities is not just that you miss subtleties this way. It's important for nerds to realize, too, to sit down and consciously come up with an idea for a class project.2 Why do they think it's time to raise money is not when you need it for. It's distracting. Then in the mid 1950s it was engulfed in a wave of new applications since microcomputers first appeared. If you start a startup, you're not just trying to solve problems. No one encounters the idea of delivering desktop-like applications over the web. It has come about mostly by default. The people who are really committed to what they're working on. Do you want your kids to be thrown together with normal kids at this stage of their lives.3

And yet he invested anyway, because he expected it to be crap at this stage of their lives. And by convince yourself, I don't mean that as some kind of purpose, rather than the fish. Among other things, studying history gives one confidence that there are good ideas waiting to be discovered right under our noses. Then a few adults can watch all of them by the volume of work done, they'll get a lot of people will be outsiders. If you have any.4 It's no wonder if this seems to the student a pointless exercise, because we're now three steps removed from real work: the students are imitating English professors, who are imitating classical scholars, who are imitating classical scholars, who are often well aware of it, but now we advise founders to vest so there will be an orderly way for people to quit. But Harvard didn't have a computer industry, it remained for them a theory; they didn't have hardware capable of executing the calculations fast enough to design an actual airplane. School. If you only have one page of ideas. But Palo Alto north of Oregon expressway still feels noticeably different from the area around it. The real lesson here is that teenagers are always on duty as conformists.

More money can't get software written faster; it isn't needed for facilities, because those can now be quite cheap; all money can really buy you is sales and marketing. Much of the stress comes from dealing with investors.5 It's easy to measure how much revenue they generate, and they're usually paid a percentage of it. I think, is the quality of one's ideas.6 It's only when you're deliberately looking for hard problems, but I didn't learn any magical truths compared to which everything else was mere domain knowledge. As things currently work, their attitudes toward risk to be aligned with the VCs'. It's a good exercise for you, have abandoned you to spend years cooped up together with nothing real to do. Crooks just use whatever means are available. That is the pattern for the future is David Heinemeier Hansson, who outsourced his development to a more powerful language instead.

An individual mine or factory owner could decide to install a legitimate-looking talking head as the CEO. And you have leverage in the sense that the decisions you make have a big effect. Swords evolved during the Bronze Age out of daggers, which like their flint predecessors had a hilt separate from the blade. Never send them email unless they explicitly ask for it.7 One reason founders resist describing their projects concisely is that, at this early stage, but companies doing acquisitions are not looking for bargains.8 It might seem this would require you to be omniscient, but actually it's surprisingly easy. At the bottom are business, literature, and the specialization that would later gradually separate the smarter kids.9 Before Durer tried making engravings, no one took them very seriously. Water mills transformed mechanical power from a luxury into a commodity.

If you go on a weekday you may see groups of founders there to meet VCs. But even those they use no more than an instance of scamming a scammer. When we were given a test on the book, I noticed that the questions sounded odd. But between the two I like Calder better, because his friends are the ones that figure out new ways to give stuff away for free could be pretty high-handed about it. This is not the end of a question from their faculty advisor that we still quote today. Small companies are more at home in this world, I thought, the world would be that how one presented oneself counted more than the name of a conference yet?10 The solution societies find, as they have in the past. Maybe VCs feel they need the power that comes with board membership to ensure their money isn't wasted.11 For the first 100 years or so of its existence, it was.

Most successful startups not only do something very specific, but solve a problem people already know they have.12 Einstein needed people to bounce ideas off. And you don't want to offend Big Company by refusing to meet.13 And though there's going to be possible to solve it. Well, it was years after high school it was probably understood that you were supposed to pretend that you wanted to create a descriptive phrase about yourself that sticks in their heads. It was my fault I hadn't learned anything. Only sites on a blacklist would get crawled, and sites would be blacklisted only after being inspected by humans. Understanding this may help to answer an important question: why do people think it's hard to distinguish something that's hard to understand the advantages of being an insider, and in practice they are usually interchangeable. Small things can be done fast. The ball you need to know about M & A in the first year.

The only way to get rich by counterfeiting, talking about making money? The faster you cycle through projects, the faster you'll evolve. Probably the single biggest piece of evidence is what happened to countries that tried to return to the old model, like the Soviet Union didn't have a computer industry, it remained for them a theory; they didn't have hardware capable of executing the calculations fast enough to design an actual airplane. Since the Internet was the big new thing, investors supposed that the more willful you are, in theory, merely explaining yourself to the reader. Apple happened because Steve Wozniak wanted to build microcomputers, and his servers would grind to a halt, with your eyes wide and a big smile on your face.14 These buildings are a pretty accurate reflection of the VC business: too much money chasing too few deals.15 And you know more are out there, separated from us by what will later seem a surprisingly thin wall of laziness and stupidity. And conversations with corp dev are like that but worse, because the practice is now quite common.16 Much of the stress comes from dealing with investors.17

Notes

Proceedings of 2003 Spam Conference.

Peter, Why Are We Getting a Divorce? Letter to the founders' advantage if it was putting local grocery stores out of the biggest sources of pain for founders, if you start fundraising, but you're very docile compared to what modernist architects meant. There were a couple hundred years ago they might have. The Nineteenth-Century History of English.

It derives from the end of economic equality in the definition of politics: what ideas did European culture with Chinese: what bad taste you had to for some reason, rather than geography. August 2002. Structurally the idea that evolves into Facebook is a trap set by evil companies for the same thing twice.

I should add that we're not. At the moment it's created indeed, is he going to visit 20 different communities regularly. Interestingly, the space of careers does.

In the Valley itself, not the primary cause.

But in a traditional series A round, that alone could in principle is that it makes the best day job. In fact since 2 1. The powerful don't need its reassurance.

Tell the investors agree, and large bribes by Spain to make money, then work on stuff you love, or want tenure, avoid the conclusion that tax rates were highest: 14.

They found it novel that if the VC knows you well, partly because a unless your last round of funding rounds are bad: Webpig, Webdog, Webfat, Webzit, Webfug. As the art business? But he got killed in the rest of the infrastructure that this isn't strictly true, because they are by ways that have hard deadlines, like hedge funds, are not in the process of applying is inevitably so arduous, and since you can probably write a Lisp interpreter: the attempt to discover the most important factor in deciding what to do with down rounds—like putting NMI on a seed investment of 650k.

There were several other reasons.

The best investors rarely care who else is investing, but they were just ordinary guys.

Needless to say how justified this worry is. They'll be more selective about the qualities of these limits could be done at a time.

This is why hackers give you more by what one delivers, not an efficient market in this essay.

Letter to Ottoline Morrell, December 1912. A in the biggest successes there is a function of their due diligence tends to be about web-based applications greatly to be discovered. Because the pledge is vague in order to avoid the topic.

The Industrial Revolution, Cambridge University Press, 1965. But not all, the reaction might be interested to hear about the origins of the things I remember the eyes of phone companies are up there. Mehran Sahami, Susan Dumais, David Heckerman and Eric Horvitz. 8%, Linux 11.

So if you're measuring usage you need a meeting, then they're not. And even more closely to the modern idea were proposed by Timothy Hart in 1964, two years, but which didn't taste very good job. This includes mere conventions, like indifference to individual users. Though in fact you're descending in a situation where the richest of their works are lost.

We could have tried to combine the hardware with an associate is not entirely a coincidence you haven't heard of many startups, because the proportion of spam, for example, the employee gets the stock up front, and cook on lowish heat for at least for the government. It's not simply a function of the marks of a handful of companies to say that one Calvisius Sabinus paid 100,000 sestertii e. I'm not saying that because server-based applications.

The reason for the same lesson, partly because companies then were more dependent on banks for capital for expansion. While the audience gets too big for the same in the right thing, because a great idea that could be made. Advertisers pay less for ads in free publications, because despite some progress in the original text would in 1950 have been peculiarly vulnerable—perhaps partly because you can, Jeff Byun mentions one reason not to grow big in people, but what they say they care above all about big companies weren't plagued by internal inefficiencies, they'd be called acting Japanese.

[angrycollectordaze-me-blog]

Essay代写：The influence of the geographical environment of island countries on British culture

下面为大家整理一篇优秀的essay代写范文- The influence of the geographical environment of island countries on British culture，供大家参考学习，这篇论文讨论了岛国地理环境对英国文化的影响。英国的岛国地理与环境和其历史发展有着密切的关系，经过历史的变迁，英国人形成了典型的自傲和排外的民族性格，岛国地理环境影响到了英国的方方面面。在近代化过程中，发达的航运业无疑是英国领先于世界、英国人傲视世界的有利因素。而岛国地理环境不仅促进了英国航海事业以及对外扩张的发展，还形成了英国人浓厚的岛国意识，造就了自傲而排外的英国国民性格。可以说英国的岛国地理环境是英国文化形成的基础。

Generally speaking, culture is not only a social phenomenon, but also a historical phenomenon and a deposit of social history. Culture has the characteristics of nationality, and the culture of a nation is inseparable from the objective environment of the nation and the resulting human practice. Mountain down just as the Japanese scholars on the Chinese view of a Japanese pointed out: "the root of the Chinese sex, might as well as the mainland over the vast continent, anything not clear to distinguish between, there can be no absolute integrity, the Chinese see complete things, even if also unconsciously think grasp the integrity, too burdensome heavy, as long as you can to choose the main part, is already enough is enough". A comprehensive view of world history reveals that a country's geography and economy are closely related, and this relationship plays an important role in forming the nation's character. Similarly, the geography of island countries in the UK is closely related to the environment and its historical development. Through historical changes, the British have also formed a typical national character of arrogance and exclusion, and the geographical environment of island countries has influenced all aspects of the UK.

The United Kingdom is an archipelago country in the Atlantic ocean. It is a country that both leaves the European continent and is close to the European continent. East of the north sea, facing Belgium, the Netherlands and other countries; Next to Ireland in the west, across the Atlantic ocean with the United States, Canada is far away; North across the Atlantic to Iceland; It's 33 kilometers south across the English channel to France. The geographical location surrounded by the sea had different influences on the development of Britain in different historical periods.

At its widest point the seas of the island of Great Britain are nearly 500 kilometres wide, with a winding coastline of 11,145 kilometres, many of which are wedged deep into the interior of bays and estuaries. Nowhere on the island is more than 120 kilometers from the ocean. Britain has abundant rainfall and rugged terrain, resulting in a rather dense and water-rich network of rivers. The river Thames flows from west to east through the plain in southeast England and finally into the north sea. Its water level is stable and it is not frozen for many years, so it has high shipping value. Britain has the estuary facing many big rivers in Western Europe, which flows into the north sea and the English channel respectively, providing channels for Britain to strengthen the connection with Europe, especially western European countries.

The UK is the country with the richest energy resources in the eu. The rich oil resources under the north sea are very beneficial to the economic development of the UK. Britain is surrounded by the sea, there are many rivers and lakes, so rich in fish, rich in aquatic resources, is one of the important European fishing countries; Affected by the warm ocean current, the whole territory is mild and humid all year round, warm in winter and cool in summer. Most areas are not frozen, which is conducive to the growth of crops and the development of inland river shipping industry.

The superiority of geographical position is greatly limited by historical conditions. In the middle ages and before, Britain's island position isolated it from the mainland, which was not conducive to the development of Britain, and after the geographical discovery, its advantages began to show. The location of island countries and superior shipping conditions were favorable factors for the formation of the empire.

When the world navigation industry was underdeveloped and the cultural center was still in the east of Asia, while the European economic and cultural center was still in the Mediterranean Sea, the ocean limited the development of Britain, which was considered as the edge of the world. But after the great geographical discovery, European colonialists began to plunder the colonies everywhere, and the main lines of international trade gradually shifted from the Mediterranean to the Atlantic ocean. Britain was on this main line, and its important geographical position promoted its development. London soon became the world trade center, and Britain quickly developed into the "world factory". Before the advent of modern weapons and the backwardness of world navigation, the sea provided Britain with a favorable barrier against the threat of war. Its borders are mostly maritime, so it can concentrate on building a navy. After becoming powerful at sea, it took advantage of its position close to the mainland to participate in the political and economic activities of Europe, and then plundered and controlled some countries.

Before the Norman conquest, the sea was the main thoroughfare for foreign invasions of Britain, and the British Isles were successively invaded by the Romans, the anglo-saxons and the danes. But in modern and modern history, the sea has been a strong line of defense for Britain. Across the sea, Britain has been spared many continental wars.

Britain's island environment and surrounding Marine resources provided favorable conditions for the development of navigation technology, navy, overseas expansion and prosperity of overseas trade. From 1337 to 1453, on and off, Britain and France fought what was called the "hundred years' war" in history. The direct cause of the war was the dispute over the succession caused by the blood relationship between the British and French royal families, but in fact it was a commercial war, and the deeper cause of the war was the competition for market and commercial interests. In the hundred years war, Britain's attempt to expand to the mainland ended in failure. In 1558, at the age of 25, Elizabeth I ascended the British throne, and Britain began to develop towards the sea. In foreign trade, Elizabeth encouraged overseas import and export, and constantly sought to expand the overseas market of British woolen goods. Her reign, the British government pay special attention to develop the shipping industry and military industry, shipbuilding reward, and build a powerful navy, a huge fleet and merchant fleet ZhouLu successively, transshipment. Elizabeth also encouraged the establishment of various types of overseas trading companies, and issued licences to these companies, allowing them to monopolize trade in specific areas. The great geographical discovery ushered in a new era in which European nations developed their maritime industries in anticipation of trade and the plunder of wealth in other parts of the world. In an age of commercialization, winning the sea is more important than winning the land. Elizabeth was keenly aware of this, and realized that Britain had an advantage in this respect that no other country could match. As a result, she quickly became an active supporter and direct participant in Britain's overseas trade.

From the 16th century to the early 20th century, British colonialists carried out aggression and expansion. Britain is the largest colonial country in modern times. Its colonies once spread all over the world and became the world's number one power. It established a powerful empire, known as "the empire where the sun never sets". The British colonial expansion had a great influence on the evolution of modern history and geopolitics. From 1815 to the middle of the 19th century, British merchant ships and warships appeared in every corner of the world. They acquired territory, opened ports, plundered raw materials and dumped products. From the cape of good hope to the Indian Ocean and then to the Pacific Ocean, Britain established a very smooth overseas trade channel. If large brilliant in the history of the Roman empire is an area with the center of the Mediterranean empire, so the British set up the "day not fall empire" is a real world empire, the British colonies all over the world, explore the territory of the rule of the population, is by no means can match any empire in human history.

The myth that the sun never set on the empire still haunts the British. Unique island location in the long historical process for the development of British bring unlimited opportunities and great glory, to make the people on the island to form the strong superiority and dependence, this feeling to the British in a confident, democracy and a pioneering spirit, at the same time, also has the obvious characteristics such as exclusion, thus forming a kind of complex social and cultural - island. This insula-nation complex has grown and matured in the process of expansion and colonization, from national consciousness to national consciousness, and has continued to this day, projecting into every aspect of British society.

The British have a long history of insularity. In 1485, a feudal Tudor dynasty was established in England. It was at this stage, especially in Elizabethan times, that the British had an accurate and objective understanding of their island status, and the "island consciousness" began to form and was finally established. It may have been a by-product of the hundred years' war between England and France, a gift from god to the English.

The idea of an island nation occupies an important place in the British imagination. The great writer Shakespeare revealed the English islander mentality very early. As John the elder of gaunt said in Charles ii, "this gem is set in the silver-gray sea, which is like a wall or a moat along the house. Shakespeare's words exude the superiority of his country to the sea. The island nation complex made the British imaginative and creative, and had a profound influence on English literature. In the 18th century, Daniel Defoe's Robinson Crusoe is one of the immortal "island novels" based on the wonderful story of sailor Alexander selcock.

Surrounded by the sea, and secure, the British acquired a confidence early on. Insularity complex is deeply imprinted in the minds of the British people, which makes the British feel extremely proud of living in such an island country, thus showing the national character of exclusion and contempt to the outside world. It is hard not to conclude that, deep down, the British look down on foreigners. In 1592, describing a visit to England by Frederick, duke of wiltem, a German writer remarked: "the inhabitants... Very arrogant, domineering... They showed no respect for foreigners and treated him with contempt and ridicule." The British disdain for foreigners is often expressed in everyday matters. When the British say something rude and ask for forgiveness, they say: "pardon my French. Don't call it "asking for leave of absence from France"; He called corruption a "Spanish custom," among other things. These accusations epitomise a British arrogance. In her 1983 book, understanding Britain, Elizabeth price talked about the traditional British image: "people think of a traditional British person as introverted and cold... A firm belief in the superiority of the British over other peoples. It is this "belief in the superiority of britons over other peoples" that forms the proud image of the British people, so to speak. A two-year survey commissioned by the British council, the Murray institute, interviewed more than 3,000 people around the world about their impressions of Britain. They found that they generally thought the British people were traditionally conservative and had a cold and arrogant attitude towards foreigners. "The older generation thought they were still colonial masters and looked down on people of other RACES," added one Singaporean.

Insularity plays a big role in Britain's relations with Europe. The geographical distance and kinship between the British people and Europe make them feel that they are both the main ethnic group in Europe and do not belong to Europe at the same time. Therefore, under the domination of the island complex, Britain always stays aloof and takes a hands-off attitude when wars or disputes occur on the European continent. From the end of the second world war until the present day, when dealing with major international issues, the United Kingdom first thought of the United States, with its greater cultural identity, rather than its own rear, the continent of Europe. This was a reasonable idea at the time of Britain's rise, but an anachronism at a time when the empire was no longer in its glory.

Although the British area is only 243,000 square kilometers, but the British created the myth of "the sun never sets empire", which can be said to be proud of its special, superior to other countries island geographical environment and Marine resources. In the process of modernization, the developed shipping industry is undoubtedly the favorable factor for Britain to take the lead in the world and the British people to take the lead in the world. The geographical environment of island countries not only promoted the development of British seafaring and foreign expansion, but also formed the strong sense of island nation of British people, and created the proud and exclusive British national character. It can be said that the geographical environment of the island is the basis of the formation of British culture. The study of its geographical environment helps us better understand and understand British culture.

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[theoptimisticpatriot]

Beyond the Brexit divide

I was invited to contribute to a new publication by the Tribune Group of Labour MPs. Below are my opening remarks and my article.

As someone who joined the Tribune Group when I was elected in 1992, I’m flattered still to be invited to take part in this crucial debate.

We are divided. And, in England, one of those divisions is reflected in our national identities, and particularly the weight and emphasis we give to our Britishness and our Englishness.

And it’s amongst the ‘more English’ that Labour and progressives has been losing out.

English identifiers were far more likely to vote Leave than British identifiers.

Labour would be in power now if English identifiers had voted Labour as strongly as British identifiers in 2017.

The next  election will be decided in constituencies that are not only in England, but more English.

The important thing to understand is that national identities are not about flags and football.

They are about the stories we tell, 

to make sense of the world as we see it

To explain what has happened to us

To describe who people like us are and what we share in common.

And to simplify horribly, over the past 20 Englishness has emerged as the identity particularly of those who feel that the economic and social change has gone against them. For whom the factories shut while we were in the EU, who are strongly rooted where they live, but have seen town centre closed and communities changed by migration; people who perhaps in just one generation have seen work - male work at least - go from high pay high status to precarious.

British sits more easily on those comfortable with the modern world; partly because by class and education they are better suited to succeed in it.

This is Labour’s problem:

Our membership is far more British than England’s population as a whole.

We never talk about England even when our policy documents and party broadcasts are only about England. 

We say we are for the many not the few, but, by being dismissive of patriotism and sneering about Englishness,  we give the impression we don’t like a lot of the many.

Engaging with English identity is not just about language and branding, though that would help. It’s about being serious that we want to represent those voters. After all, many  of those voters are on the left economically even if they are more socially conservative than metro liberals.

Labour can only win, and only has a purpose, if it can unite all those who want bend the economy to the common good. 

Beyond the Brexit divide: the English question

This is the paradox: England and the English are ever-present in our culture and politics, yet England – as England – is barely mentioned in national political debate. If English identity is discussed, it is to be disparaged and abused.

The cost of ignoring England and the English has been high. To Remainers, the cost was the overwhelmingly English decision to Leave (with most support from England and from English-identifying voters). Labour has paid the price of lost votes in places and amongst English people once proud to be Labour. Those who want an inclusive society see the persistence - albeit amongst a minority – of an ethnicised and racist national identity.

National identities are much more than flags and football. They offer a ‘world view’; a narrative that explains why ‘people like us’ are the people that we are, why things happen in the way they do, and what we share in common. In a multiple identity society, different national identities have evolved to tell different stories about the experience of different groups of people.

England is diverse, and deep divisions of age, geography, wealth, education and values are reflected in different understandings of national identity. Put crudely, ‘Britishness’ sits more lightly on those for who the modern world – including the EU – works best. ‘Englishness’ has emerged most strongly for those at the rough end of economic and social change.  They were as likely to blame the EU than welcome its influence.

Most people say they are English and British, but the emphasis they give to each is significant. The ‘more English’ are also more likely to be rooted in a community, town, county or region, and less likely to see themselves as European. They are more patriotic, and more socially conservative. Less confident about change, their resistance to rapid migration is a reaction to the disruption of established communities more than simple racism. English identity is also strongly linked to powerlessness. They are most likely to want English laws made by English MPs, to resent the Barnet formula and to over-estimate the power of the EU.

They are not, though, ‘English nationalists’, the fantasy promoted by liberal commentators. There is very little English nationalism. Leave was certainly led by Anglo-centric Brits like Johnson and Rees-Mogg, but there is no evidence that English Leavers shared visions of ‘Empire 2.0’. Indeed, they tend to give the union itself low priority. The appeal of ‘take back control’ was the desire to be listened to for once, not a resurrection of past glories.

Many of those lost English voters are older, or poorer, or more working class, and are less likely to have been to university. They are economically precarious and least likely to think it is worth voting at all. If Labour does not exist to work with those people to change the world, it’s not clear what we are for. The good news is that many are on the left on economic issues. But these voters are also English: they are proud to be English (and British too). If Labour is not palpably proud to be an English party and proud to be a British party then we send a clear message: ‘we are not people like you’. Many will not even listen to our policies because most voters look for a party they can identify with before they will listen to policy.

In England more people emphasise their English than British identity, but Labour members tend to be British rather than English and to place little value on national identity or patriotism. Activists prefer to talk about policy and not identity but are often trying to avoid difficult conversations with people who are more socially conservative. We say we are ‘For the many not the few’ but it too often sound as though we don’t like a lot of the many.

We can build a majority to reform capitalism and make it work for the common good, but only if we can unite those who are on the left economically, including those English voters.  To do that we have to find common ground across cultural divides. Bringing England and the English into our politics is an important place to start.

To start with, the left must signal that it wants to represent those voters, and that we are willing to have the difficult discussions on issues like migration they want to talk about. We should work to end the marginalisation of England and the English in our political life. Why, for example, does Labour talk about Rebuilding British in England, but Rebuilding Scotland north of the border? Education and social care are devolved, so our national education and national care services are only for England. Why don’t we call them English national services? Labour should publish a manifesto for England, as proposed by the English Labour Network.

We should be at ease with celebrating an inclusive patriotic English identity. Shadow Communities Secretary Andrew Gwynne recently backed calls for CLPs to celebrate St George’s Day and support Labour’s plans for four new national bank holidays.

In turn, the left must challenge England’s double democratic deficit to make England’s nationhood and political identity a reality.  It is the only part of the UK where voters cannot elect representatives to make national laws, nor is there any forum for national political debate. The UK government has made England the most centralised state in Europe and given disproportionate investment to London at the expense of England’s regions. England needs both national democratic institutions and entrenched statutory devolution of financial and executive power to elected local leadership. Labour’s promised constitutional convention could bring this about, but it needs preparing now and to start with urgency.

Crucially, the left must learn to frame its radical ambitions for economic changes in the language of progressive patriotism, something that earlier Labour figures (including Attlee and Benn) took for granted. Challenging, for example, who owns companies, land, utilities and resources are national and democratic questions, not just socialist.

Brexit happened, in part, because no one wanted to listen to the English. Can Labour learn the lesson?

Prof John Denham, former Labour Cabinet Minister and Director of the English Labour Network.

[fashiontrendin-blog]

The Complete Story Of How Hip-Hop Changed The Way We Dress

https://fashion-trendin.com/the-complete-story-of-how-hip-hop-changed-the-way-we-dress/

The Complete Story Of How Hip-Hop Changed The Way We Dress

In 2002, stylist Rachel Johnson walked into a Burberry store in New York to request some clothes for a photoshoot. Her client was Ja Rule, then promoting the follow-up to his Grammy-nominated, triple-platinum album Pain is Love. It was the kind of exposure that brands generally love, but Burberry refused to help.

“They didn’t want him to wear their stuff,” Johnson later told Newsweek. “People have this stigma with the urban community.” She bought it anyway and after she draped her client in the brand’s house check, his fans did too. A few months later, Burberry sent Ja Rule a letter of thanks.

A decade and more on, the brand has a different stance on hip-hop style. It’s dressed Skepta and Nicki Minaj and recently collaborated with Chinese rapper Kris Wu. Like the rest of the fashion industry, Burberry coincidentally overcame its distaste for rap just as rap became the loudest sound on earth; in December, Nielsen research found more people listened to rap than rock for the first time. Now it’s brands like Burberry that come knocking, and rappers who rebuff them.

“With hip-hop being the de facto sound of youth and rebellion, a lot of the prominent artists – be it Beyoncé or Kanye West or ASAP Rocky – are now like, ‘Why am I giving people free press?’” says Jian DeLeon, editorial director at Highsnobiety.

Luxury logos have always been signals of success hip-hop, but rap’s explosion has shifted expectations. “They understand that they are now brands and they understand the power that their brands have. They’re not just using it to promote these symbols that they’ve made it. They know that they’ve made it.”

Ever since DJ Kool Herc’s first block parties, hip-hop has been a voice for the marginalised. Its look mattered as much as the sound, partly as an expression of self-identity, partly as shorthand for success. For those pioneering black artists who grew up amid crime and violence, whose music helped them transcend their place of birth and their lack of opportunities, European luxury brands were the original flex; a middle finger to a society that had written them off and a diamond-dripping, mink-trimmed embodiment of the American Dream for the people who bought their records.

Run DMC, 1985

True Street Wear

Rap is arguably music’s most entrepreneurial genre, obsessed with graft and hustle, status and the path up from the streets. No other sound has focused so much on starting from the bottom, perhaps because no other music has been so dominated by artists who started life at the bottom. The uniform of rock was stuff that would frighten fans’ mothers; for rap, it was clothes that backed up your bars.

Rap’s first commercial flush put its stars in financial reach of luxury, but they were still locked out by geography and race. Their focus on the grittier sides of street culture made brands wary. Biggie might big up Louis Vuitton, but its customers were white, old and didn’t want their couturier draped across an ex-drug dealer.

They were even less comfortable about selling to actual drug dealers, the only other people in Harlem in with the cash to afford them. They refused to wholesale there and made their Fifth Avenue stores as unwelcoming to young black men as possible. That inaccessibility made luxury even more covetable. So Harlem’s tailors figured out a workaround.

Do The Right Thing – Bill Nunn, 1989

The go-to was Dapper Dan, born Daniel Day, a haberdasher who would import bootlegged fabrics or screen-print logos onto luxury leather, then turn them into one-of-a-kind, street-inflected pieces like oversized bomber jackets and fur-trimmed coats. His clothes weren’t the copies of runway fashion you find on eBay; they were unique, hand-crafted and often more expensive than the originals. Particularly if you wanted something you’d never find in Fendi, like a parka with bulletproof panels, or hidden stash pockets.

“Dapper Dan has a term for what he did in the 1980s: ‘blackinize fashion’,” says Rachel Lifter, assistant professor of fashion studies at Parsons School of Design. His clothes embodied street culture and the needs and wants of people who were young and rich, but locked out of the things enjoyed by young, rich, white people. “He drew on a long legacy of black style as both a form of self-realisation and a statement of political-aesthetic resistance.”

Day defined hip-hop style for a decade – oversized, influenced by sportswear as much as luxury tailoring and designed to make sense in the street. It was clothing infused with swagger and for a rapper on the up-and-up, copping a Dapper Dan was a sign you’d made it.

“Rappers have always liked fashion and fashion for the longest time didn’t want to speak to that audience because it felt like it might have hurt the integrity of the brand,” says DeLeon. “[In Dapper Dan] they found someone who understood them, what their needs were and who spoke the same language.”

His creations appeared on album covers, red carpets and heavyweight champions – Mike Tyson commissioned a jacket with ‘Don’t Believe the Hype’ embroidered on the back before a 1988 title fight. Lawyers noticed (Tyson brawling outside Day’s store at five in the morning didn’t help). By the early 90s, Dapper Dan had been sued out of existence.

Mike Tyson with his Dapper Dan “Don’t Believe the Hype” jacket

The Evolution Of Hip-Hop Style

His demise coincided with rap’s toughening up and a shift in style to something more authentic. Rappers were also tiring of luxury’s knockbacks. When the Wu Tang Clan launched its own brand, Wu Wear, a generation of artists realised that they could control what they promoted and how they were rewarded.

They turned rejection into a statement of intent, creating clothes for fans who, like them, were at best only ever endured by the establishment. Like their music, their clothes reflected reality. The Wu Tang uniform of baggy jeans, baseball jackets and Timberlands was what you wore if, like them, you had an FBI file thicker than Crime and Punishment.

“You had the rise of so-called urban fashion,” says DeLeon. “You had Sean John by Diddy, Wu Wear. You had a lot of labels being started specifically by rappers who saw this gap in the market that was essentially, ‘Alright, fashion brands won’t speak to our listeners and to our audience, so let’s create something that’s authentically of that world.’”

As well as clothes, they launched their own drinks and cigars, sick of the tepid reception they received from brands who were happy to reap sales from their products appearing in rap videos, but still wanted to keep the rappers at arm’s length. “If Courvoisier or Moët won’t co-sign these rappers,” says DeLeon, “then why don’t they just start their own businesses and use their platform to promote their own products?”

Top: RZA, Pharrell Bottom: Dapper Dan, Sean Combs

Then came Pharrell. As N.E.R.D. turned the urban music technicolour, Pharrell gave hip-hop style new notes – skate, Japanese streetwear, punk. He created a world in which Kanye West could rock a backpack and pink polo and still outsell 50 Cent.

“There was this shift from a hive mind mentality of style toward a championing of individuality,” says DeLeon. “That’s what actually helped propel a lot of the fashion and style paradigm forward.” Pharrell fomented the environment in which Young Thug can wear dresses, Lil Uzi Vert can rep Gosha Rubchinskiy at the Grammys, and still feel part of the same movement. After Pharrell, hip-hop style lost its consistency, but it found its voice.

As rap climbed the charts, it lost its outsider status. Its biggest artists displaced pop stars, then became pop stars. Now, any rapper with an advance in their pocket could buy as much Fendi as they liked. Get on Spotify’s Rap Caviar and Louis Vuitton would probably send them a sack of clothes to wear on Instagram. “Luxury brands have woken up to a reality in which rappers are dominating the cultural conversation,” says Christopher Morency, editorial associate at Business of Fashion. Brands either get on board, or get left behind.

DeLeon cuts rap fashion into two eras: before and after Pharrell. If clothing had previously been about affiliation, now it was about knowledge as well. Those old markers of success, stripped of their exclusivity, were replaced by something more nuanced. Gucci and Louis still got their props (it helps that both rhyme easily) but now, Jay Z was namechecking Margiela. In 2015, ASAP Rocky devoted an entire song to Raf Simons.

Top: Jay-Z, Kanye West Bottom: Stormzy, ASAP Rocky

“When Rocky says ‘Rick Owens, Raf Simons, usually what I’m dressed in,’ [on ‘Peso’] it really a marked shift towards new, younger rappers understanding the importance of cultivating a really unique [approach to] fashion,” says DeLeon. “It wasn’t just about going in and getting the gaudiest shit possible. It was about understanding composition, nuance, and the overall appeal of the designers.”

The Life Of Abloh

Among the first rappers to pop up on fashion week’s front rows were ASAP Rocky and Kanye, artists who’d championed the interesting and esoteric from the outset and who made fashion an integral part of their identity. They opened the doors to true collaboration between brands and artists – two-way communication in which the tastes of the trendsetters inform what comes out of the atelier.

In 2016, ASAP Rocky became the first black face to front Dior Homme, but the campaign was about more than a luxury house chasing relevancy. “The relationship between [at the time] Dior Homme creative director Kris van Assche and Rocky dates back many years,” says Morency. “It was Rocky who gravitated to Dior Homme at first, not the other way around.”

From a standing start, fashion has entered into a deeply symbiotic relationship with rap. In the last two years, Louis Vuitton, Marc Jacobs and Saint Laurent have all released rap-fronted campaigns, part of a move to woo younger shoppers as their existing audience greys out.

“The new luxury consumer is Millennials and Gen Z,” says Morency. “By 2025, they’ll account for 45 per cent of the global personal luxury goods market. Luxury brands will have to embrace rappers if they want any credibility with that generation, but it needs to be authentic.”

For anyone interested in fashion, this is all good news. Hip-hop is the most creative movement in music and its attitude to boundaries has crossed over into our wardrobes. The elevation of streetwear, the mashing of high with low and the move towards genderless fashion can all be attributed, in various ways, to what rappers are wearing right now.

That cultural shift has also propelled Virgil Abloh to the top spot at Louis Vuitton, where he’s become the first black designer to helm a major luxury house. His roots in rap are inarguable and he brings to fashion a true sense of how street culture and high fashion intersect. Through his own brand, Off-White, he’s also helped black designers shake off the assumption that they only make ‘streetwear’.

Virgil Abloh and Kanye West at the Louis Vuitton SS19 runway show

“Streetwear has for some time served as a label through which the fashion industry can read blackness,” says Lifter. She points to Public School co-founder Maxwell Osborne, who in Sacha Jenkins’ rap-fashion documentary, Fresh Dressed, railed against how automatically the label was applied. “Our last design job was at Sean Jean under Puffy,” he says. “So I think when we started Public School it was automatically [considered] a streetwear brand – ‘you’re in this box’ – and I was like, ‘No, that’s not what we’re doing.’”

By challenging perceptions of what rappers wear and what black designers create, these artists force society to rethink what black art looks like, says Lifter. “They’re in different ways expanding how blackness can be represented in editorials and campaigns, performed within music videos and cover art, and materialised through new collections.”

For now, the brands are happy to help. Head to Gucci’s website today, and you’ll find a capsule collection, designed in collaboration with Dapper Dan, that recreates his most famous pieces. This year, Gucci even set Day up with a new shop in Harlem, stocked with exclusive (and heavily monogrammed) fabrics, so that he could kit out a new generation of rap royalty.

Dapper Dan x Gucci

The hook-up seemed partly an apology. A year earlier, Gucci debuted a note-for-note remake of a jacket Day made for Olympic sprinter Diane Dixon. The only difference? Day’s bootlegged Louis Vuitton logos had been usurped by Gucci’s interlocking Gs. Cue social media uproar, a reach-out from one designer to another and, a few months later, a Dapper Dan-fronted Gucci ad campaign. The bootlegger, now bootlegged, was back. But the style he’d created had never left.

7 Seminal Hip-Hop Looks & How To Wear Them Today

Run DMC and My Adidas

Run DMC, 1987

Hip-hop’s early years looked not all that dissimilar to now – big trainers and head-to-toe tracksuits. The music was brewed in b-boy culture, where sportswear the go-to because it was perfect for breakdancing. Run-DMC were the look’s biggest proponents, immortalising their favourite brand in ‘My Adidas’. After three stripes’ execs caught a Madison Square Garden performance in which fans all raised their sneakers on cue, Run-DMC earned an unheard-of million-dollar endorsement deal.

How to wear it now: Verbatim – the tracksuit look’s back and pairing an Adidas two-piece with a pair of Stan Smiths looks as good now as it did then. Just lose the jewellery and Kangol.

Adidas Originals

Black Consciousness

Public Enemy, 1988

In the late 80s, artists like KRS-One and Public Enemy coupled their anti-government, anti-police stance to a rising strain of black nationalism. They introduced traditional African clothing and references to their wardrobes – sportswear in red, green and black, beaded jewellery and kufis, paired with the military fatigues of the Black Panthers.

How to wear it now: Unless you’re black and looking to rep your cultural history – don’t. White guys in dreadlocks and dashikis are the worst kind of cultural appropriation. If you are, then it’s about mixing traditional African clothing with streetwear, or try embellishing military jackets with pan-African patches. For an elevated take, look to British designer Grace Wales-Bonner, whose clothes are like a wearable thesis on African history.

Wales-Bonner Spring 2019 Collection

Dapper Dan

Dapper Dan with LL Cool J, 1986

The Harlem tailor who dressed every 80s rapper that mattered, his creations are immortalised on the covers of Eric B & Rakim’s Paid in Full and Follow the Leader, as well as Salt-n-Pepa’s Icon. “Hip-hop was all about sampling, re-discovering old funk and soul records to flip into something new and fresh,” says stylist Chris Tang. “Dapper Dan applied those same methods to fashion.”

How to wear it now: You can do so literally, if you’ve got a few grand spare, by picking up something from the Gucci capsule collection. If not, think cut-and-paste. “Dapper Dan created these outlandish pieces using the iconic monograms,” says Tang, “then applied them in a way these fashion houses didn’t think to do at the time.” Echo him by going luxuriously logo mad – Fendi on Louis on Gucci on Chanel.

Dapper Dan x Gucci

Lo-Life

Lo-Life Crew

In the early 80s, Ralph Lauren marketed its Polo brand as the uniform of WASPS – wealthy, white guys who weekended on their yacht. But its exclusivity had an unintentional effect on hip-hop style. “The Stadium collection enticed the black and latino community all over the US,” says Tang. “The infamous Lo-Life gang became notorious for stealing large amounts of Polo clothing from department stores.”

How to wear it now: “In 1994, Raekwon wore the Snow Beach windbreaker, which earned it its stripes within hip-hop culture,” says Tang. Ralph Lauren wasn’t pleased about it at the time, but has since re-released the collection, as well as a CP-93 America’s Cup capsule, another favourite of the Lo-Heads.

Ralph Lauren Limited Edition Polo Stadium Collection

Hardcore

Straight Outta Compton, 2015

While New York was going big on fur and luxury labels, in LA, NWA stuck to a utilitarian uniform that reflected their sound – black jeans, white tees and hometown baseball caps. They were also big on athletic wear – coach and baseball jackets (often with the Oakland Raiders logo emblazoned on the back), topped off with gold chains as thick as your arm.

How to wear it now: bar the sagged, baggy jeans, everything else in NWA’s look has been reanimated by the 90s revival. Just keep away from costume by losing the Raiders logos, and maybe think dad cap rather than flat peak.

Hood By Air SS14 Backstage

Pharrell Brings East To West

Pharrell Williams

When it seemed every rapper was shilling their own, uninspired fashion label, Pharrell blew apart what hip hop style looked like. In large part that was thanks to his embrace of Japanese brands, particularly A Bathing Ape. “It introduced flamboyant camo print hoodies, rare Bapte-sta trainers and limited silk screen T-shirts,” says Tang. “The idea of a collector’s item and high price point made many people see the brand as something covetable. It was the start of luxury streetwear.”

How to wear it now: Bape’s lost its lustre, after an aggressive expansion stripped it of exclusivity. But Japan remains a hotbed of American-influenced, luxury streetwear brands. As well as OGs like Undercover and Neighbourhood, look to the likes of Wacko Maria, Sasquatchfabrix and Cav Empt, who offer modern spins on hip-hop silhouettes.

WACKO MARIA Spring/Summer 2018 Collection

Kanye Reinvents The Sneaker Game

Kanye West in Yeezy

Kanye West has spent most of his career complaining that he’s not taken seriously as a designer, and while his first attempts at high fashion bombed, with Yeezy he’s become a model for the kind of power and influence rappers can have over fashion and, more importantly, business. Before Kanye, rappers were lucky to be paid to wear a brand’s clothes. Now, they’re at the controls.

How to wear it now: The Yeezy look is all about mixing high and low fashion – a hoodie with a tailored overcoat, trainers with slim-fit jeans. He’s been instrumental in elevating streetwear into something that can be worn anywhere. So, do.

Yeezy show, New York Fashion Week AW16

[macmillon]

      I am meeting Ram Bhai.Bhai means brother.When i came to this tier-II city i saw that person in 2015.He was water glass supplier to customers .The roadside hotel name was "GAURI SHANKAR".The hotel name indicate Hindu famous Lord SHIVA and her wife PARVATI.Lord Shiva do not eat non-veg.There in hotel also being prepared veg items.Night meals were popular in the area.It was situated city's ending border ares in a small market.Customer maximum was taking parcel meals to their home.Hotel had also speciality in making milk products.Variety milk sweets are sold there.Especially boiled milk with added little sugar and wheat thin bread called Roti,then veg curry .Cheese was always pure not chemical power added.Street vendors sell cheese, CHHENAPODA a delicious sweet,milky iteams,but their food iteams are not 100% pure..     Indian Highway Dhabas (larger than any street hotel),roadside hotels all are not hygenic.One hotel seems cleaner another dirtiest.It depends on owner's mentality.Indian business house and culture are Grandfather-father-son-daughter tradition. Birla,Tata,Reliance,Wipro to small vendors.Generally the person having hotel experience open a hotel.A cooker,suppliers,table cleaners and plate taking staff ,or hotel manager,a customer who come regularly to have there start hotel business to earn huge profit.It's a profit giving business , margin upto 40% to 60%.Indian food mentality is very strange and directly coonected to philosophical psychology .Youth to old all generation think same.Earn , eat who see tomorrow .Next second may be your death moment .So, eat whatever you want.Why you are earnig and for whom?Who will eat your savings after your death.After death you would be two separate thing-1.your dead body,2.invisible SOUL who farewell you before death.The two things now can not take food.You are living ,eat as your wanting .Your children will enjoy your savings not your dead body or soul. You have finished after your death.No memory,social status,family is needed for you.Your religion may call you a ghost.You will bless your children staying in heaven.You shall stay in HEAL or Heaven it is decided by your bad or good work.      All above philosophy come for stomacing.In a changing ,modern India different religion may say many things but one thing becoming same.You may be Christian, Muslims,Parsi,Buddhist,Jain, belong to tribal religion or Hindu a modern common mentality towards food is same.You have life and live so eat then anything.It is not about dieting or related health issues.In North Indian hotel you will get both south and north indian food.North india produce more wheat than rice as their ares is suited for wheat crop.Now uncertain Monsoon heavily raining wheat producing states like UP,Punjab,Haryana.In lunch , dinner north indian have wheat and rice cooking food in home and hotel.North Indian eat ROTI much,rice less.South India states Andhra Pradesh,Karnataka,Tamilnadu,Kerala and Telangana produce paddy ,so the people in day , night have rice in home and hotel rarely ROTI,CHAPATI(twos are made in wheat ) . If you travel now in indian street American-European Pizza,Burger and Chinese fast food will call .Indian taste becoming divesified.It is not being limited in a particular continental food.Recently Switzerland's Maggi was on every indian mouth.It is heard Maggi quickly return to Indian kitchen.Maggi ban here telling Indian are being more health conscious than 80's or 90's.I think media playing a great role like America,Europe and in other developed democracy.Citizen of India now believing blindly on 4th column of democracy than any rumour,false. Visual electronic media creating vivid impact than traditional print media.Maggi's popularity decreased for electronic media T.V. ,Internet.    Indian guest tradition is very interesting.Whenever a guest come food arrangement gone to non-veg.Priority always on fish,chicken,motton,beef as someone's religion.Veg.Hindus,Jain,Rajastani,conservative north ad south Indian Brahmins prefer veg.At that time food is prepared much;family members and guests can not eat all food.Surplus food next morning gone to dustpin.In rural village it is not happened what occured in city life.Indain cities throw cooked food to drain,dustpin rather than giving poor people,family .Poor familly can get sufficient nutrition from that food .A hungry world staying in each urban area of the globe can full stomac.The reality is totally different.Indian middle class orally want to help poor not practically.After 69, 70 years of independence people still do not have food for dinner and lunch.Economical inequality is main reason to arrange food two times in a day.This rich cultured ancient civilisation how squeezed the broad mentality,while thinking it i become emotional.It is Indian geography where two side Arabian and Bay of Bengal,Mogul,White People ,Language,Culture.    Indian elder think only for their family not about village ,city.They do not believe on democratic govt.Indian mentality always support the long term system.A good king's long 40,60 years rule and a 5 year group of king which are not real king.Yo can easily understand by focusing on my example.Indian cusomer was buying cheap and weak chinese mobile,toys etc.Indian mentality want low price with durability,not just use and throw.For this reason rich people are keeping money in Honk Kong,Singapore,Dubai,Switzerland etc.They can not trust on this 5 years leaders.     You can not believe in my city i saw while cycling on road .Numbers of tin box was on roadside with full of waste food of five star and other street hotel.I could not take breathing ,as waste food was smelling unbearable.This food is feeded to pigs.The pig owner collect the food. Cooked food politics is now popular trend among politician in India.Do not give money, job only give cooking food.Mid-day cooked meals programme of centra and state govt. running sucessfully in schools across India .Two states Odisha and Tamilnadu provide cooked food to poor .In my state Odisha govt.giving rice and dalma( dal with mixed vegetables) plate at 5 rupees(.08$).to urban poor.In Tamilnadu it is famous as chief minister;s name AMMA Canteen.These canteens are controled by self-help group.I have travelled my state govt.'s canteen.It is named "AHARA".I also eaten the meals.It is healthier ,hygenic and fresh also.I stood up in line.This programme is working properly for poor urban and villagers who come the city .In local hotel average meal cost would be between 30 to 50 rupees.     One thing is clear Govt can understand the inequality gap in society.Social values, morality have gone down of family and society .In this case people are  becoming very selfish.Unemployed person is considered e heavy burden in family.In this category children,retired person,mad,beggar senior citizen will come.These people are tortured in their family.It may be physically or mentally.Looking this changing social situation this two govt may think about the programme.Other states should start immediately the low cost cooked meal.At least poor people ,shelterless people will not sleep hungry at night.     Come back to RAM bhai.After death of the old owner hotel "Gauri Sankar" is also dead.The cooker Rabi bhai has opened his own hotel.The two sons of hotel " Gauri Sankar" did not operate the hotel.Ram bhai clean the hotel tables ,freely eat and sell vegetables in front of the hotel.Now Ram bhai is begging in nearest market to stomach.He has no house ,no kindly ,hearty Gauri Shankar hotel owner.For people like Ram bhai Govt's AHARA is god gifted. Sometimes while cycling i see the empty hotel area recall that humble old owner wearing pure indian DHOTI and PUNJABI.Govt. servants tea-evening.Daughter's marriage ,new land purchasing,religion topic,son and daughter's employment problem,regional to domestic indian politics , Russia to America international politics.The old man who clean the tables ,wash the utensils i do not see.He belongs to our state's southernside district.In 2009 he looks oldest in that hotel,now may live or not .I came from Mumbai to my city in 2009.Indian street hotel give free meals to Police,anti-socials,beggars ,saints forcely and gaining blessings.Ram Bhai  

[archetypenull]

IC ch7 - Patriotism and Racism

Tuesday, December 19, 2017

Patriotism is the extremist aspect of nationalism which indoctrinates the nation's people into willing to give up their lives for the imagined community, or at least some facet of it (141). Formed from the thousands of voices chanting national anthems, either voices of people next to you, or voices of people you, as a member of this nation, imagine are out there somewhere, doing the same thing (mainly because of some form of communications technology and the shared language of the chant), patriotism reifies, in an experiential, perspectival sense, the imagined community of the nation (145). This nation is not something chosen: one feels as though they are born into it, just as they born only into the landscape where their mother is giving birth (144). One could have just as well been born in the bush of Nigeria as in the suburban hospital of Ogdensburg, NY, but where one is born and socialized instills in that person a sense of home and a sense of kinship, two great driving forces for the development of love for their home place, their home nation (141). But, membership in the imagined community of the nation is not exclusive to birth right; the nation can be joined, via "naturalization" (145). Thus, the nation represents itself as both open and closed, requiring identitarian work to gain access, to not only join the place of the nation (for the nation is placeless, except for the social geography which originally bore it, and that geography's remnant cultural trappings), but to join the imagined community, as a culture with prerequisite political opinions, above all else. These are, of course, intricately tied to a specific language, as is the culture at large and the political context which bore the nation in the first place. In the world today, there are still those who irreverently and ignorantly proclaim that Germans speak German and Americans speak American [sic]. This, to me, seems to be a clinging aspect of an older world, for today there are instant translation technologies, new and faster forms of transportation, and the Internet itself, which has a complex part to play in the league of nations, as we have come to see in the last few elections and leaks of sensitive documents and information. Indeed, there is a marked rise in nationalism in this new information age of salient(?) technologies. As the globalized world seems to get smaller and smaller, many recede into fear-based nationalisms of opposition. Again, it seems as though the pattern is that of perceived oppression (usually by an Other source, perhaps seeking to gain from the oppression of those within the nation - at least, this is how it ismost often portrayed).

 Getting back to the issue of language, one can see the signs of racism bubbling up in the colonial relationships of oppressed and oppressor via European* language and control. The oppressed people would typically have to learn a language-of-power, which the Europeans controlled, alongside their own native vernacular. This inevitably led to languages-of-resistance, or at least the perception, among oppressors, that the vernacular was a secret space in which the oppressed could have discussions without the listening ear of an oppressor. On the other hand, the European oppressors no longer had their secret space - the oppressed people also had to learn their language-of-power. Stripped of this privilege, racist terms grew organically from a place of frustration against the oppressed, as the oppressors began to perceive loss of power in their own colony (148). This pattern is, however, simply another product of an older, more direct power dynamic between classes. Anderson points out that the aristocracy (who now rules the empire), had before lived a sense of divinity, above, and holding domination over, all other peoples (149). Though the veil of the nation forced the imperial powers to re-present themselves, their inherent culture, a culture of class distinction, had not changed. Thus, as Europeans colonized nations which seemed to them "lesser" (they did not recognize their languages, written histories, economies, societies, etc.), their own class superiority was reinforced and amplified as they took note of physiological and cultural differences between the colonized populations and themselves. Unfortunately, due to the inequality-perpetualizing forces that humanity has given its economic structure, as embodied by globalized late capitalism, nationalisms today can still be wrought by these same class distinctions. Derived from racist notions of development, morality, and even humanity, the nationalisms of today distinguish the Western European from the Eastern European in ways that, from an outside perspective, would seem senseless without the generation of racism in the imperial period, despite contemporary economic relationships. Anderson's point of a gauge of humanity emanating from the European center, dissipating as it went farther afield among the colonies, is well illustrated by his example of the differences between European armies, which were well-equipped and well-treated, and the colonial armies, which were essentially just cannon fodder (150-152). One can see how patterns similar to the above, alongside the "typical 'solidarity among whites'" inevitably led to mass slavery, and to the deeply-entrenched contemporary economic classes, which in many ways are simply veiled (and veiled again) aristocrats holding power and wealth over not only a peasantry, but over a work force producing their power and wealth.

 --

 Anderson brings up his theory that so-called "reverse racism" was rare in anticolonial movements, apart from Black people in the US, indicated by the number of racist terms for the other group (153). One possible cause of a difference is that Black slaves were not colonized, they were ripped from their homeland and forced to live among their oppressors, as the minority, rather than as a colonized population. When more legal and civil rights were granted to Black Americans, they became more like a colonized population, but still corralled within their oppressor's land. They had no homeland to reclaim, and thus could not "push out" the invaders. The Black Nationalist and Black Exodus (?) movements serve as proof of this, as Black Americans either wanted their own land, as separate from the US, or to return to their own places of origin. Additionally, the first Black Nationalist revolution was that of Haitians: nonnative people on an island (separate from their oppressors' homeland), claiming the land as their own.** Overall, I think his inclusion of Black Americans shows his lack of understanding of the situation, though one could perhaps appreciate the qualification of his theory in linguistic terms.

*I'm using "European" here to generalize for all imperial powers, which is a glaring issue.

**Check this qualification on Haiti

[majestrosgh]

The Not-So-Wicked Witch of the West

I had the privilege of attending Professor Kwame Anthony Appiah's fourth BBC Reith Lecture at New York University's law school (and I also took a neat selfie with him). A lot of what I'm going to talk about echoes what he has already said in his lecture, so I recommend giving it a listen. This post is more of a random smattering of my thoughts than a coherent argument, so forgive me if it zig-zags a little.

Professor Appiah argues that there is really no such thing as Western civilization (or rather, that the idea of civilization isn't contingent on geography). My perspective is that the important question about civilizational ideas isn't 'where did it come from?', but rather 'is it good?'

                                                                ***

Pick up any social studies text book and I bet you'll find a reference to "Western influences" corrupting the youth. It's quite odd that "Western influence" has become something of a pejorative, usually implying moral turpitude. Taking a broader look, the real oddity is how the geographical origin of an idea or cultural practice can give any indication of whether it's good or bad. It's one thing to assume that a Gucci belt is low quality because it says "Made in China", but can we do same for more abstract things like ideas?

We take it for granted that so-called Western influences such as tattoos, homosexuality, radical feminism (*gasp!*), rap music and skimpy clothing are treated as societal ills in conservative Ghanaian culture. But not too far back in Ghanaian history, Western culture was the summum bonum of the day. During colonial times, West Africans in general aspired to the cultural ideals of their European colonizers, especially the Francophone territories where Assimilation was the gold standard for upward social mobility.  Quite honestly, I can still feel the vestiges of Gold Coast-era europhilia in the Fante/Methodist community today.  Fast forward to present times, and conservative Ghanaians now think of Western cultural ideals as antithetical rather than superior to local ones. I suspect that part of this face-heel turn came about during the '60s, especially since Africa's founding presidents relied on nationalistic rhetoric to unify their newly-fledged nations. And rightfully so; the colonialists had associated Africanness with barbarism for so long that it was high time that Africans rejected that label and celebrated their own cultural heritage. Unsurprisingly, the narrative logic of pro-Africanness implied Anti-Europeanness, mainly because Europe was the villain in Africa's liberation story. In any case, European writers had long described the 'dark', heathen cultures of Africa in alterity to their own 'enlightened' culture - so one could say Africa's leaders were giving them a taste of their own medicine.

Another possible explanation for why Ghanaian attitudes towards Western culture have soured is that Western culture has become more and more liberalized over the years whilst African culture has maintained the fairly conservative status quo ante. Entire books have been written on how the West is experiencing a declension in religiosity at the same time that religion is on the upswing in the developing world.  In light of this, if you took a diachronous look at cultural change in the West vs. Africa, you'd notice an funny see-saw arc over the past few centuries:

Circa 1500s: Bible-thumping European missionaries arrive in  West Africa to find an exceedingly libertine people — irreligious, promiscuous, skin-baring savages, with no apparent understanding of civilized behavior. "Look at this godless, upside-down society!", the missionaries said, making the sign of the cross.

Circa mid-1800s to mid-1900s: European culture is fairly uniformly diffused throughout most of Sub-Saharan Africa, so things look similar in both places.

Today: Bible-thumping African aunties watch MTV to see an exceedingly libertine American people — irreligious, promiscuous, skin-baring  savages, with no apparent understanding of home training. "Look at this godless, upside-down society!", Auntie Beatrice says, making the sign of the cross.

The  irony here is that when conservative Ghanaians/Africans criticize the West for not being more like Africa, they are really criticizing the West for not being more like, well, the good old West (of colonial memory).

Now to complicate things. You might notice that conservative Ghanaians cherry-pick the examples of Ghanaian and Western cultural practices that fit their narrative. In their minds, things like 'respecting elders' and 'hospitality' are epitomic of Ghanaian culture, while fornication and drug use all came from the West. I ask: what about trokosi, Female Genital Mutilation, human sacrifice, twin killing, albino killing, child marriage and witch camps? These inhumane practices, which are still extant in some rural parts of the country and/or the continent, all originated locally.  If anything, the ones leading the charge against such practices are Western NGOs, just as the missionaries did centuries before them. How do you draw the Africa-is-Good/West-is-Bad battle line once you throw these facts into the calculus?

Furthermore, a lot of the things that conservative Ghanaians think are foreign influences already existed in the country from time immemorial. We had tribal marks and ceremonial body painting before we ever saw rappers with tattoos on MTV.  We had dipo before the first crop-top was sewn. We had powerful female leaders like Yaa Asantewaa before 'radical' feminism had a name.  Asante chiefs were decked out with gold ornaments before we heard rappers talking about 'bling bling'. The list goes on and on. Does the fact that the indigineity of such things now make them acceptable in the eyes of conservative Ghanaians? If not, then they have to admit that they are shifting the goal post.

I think a more useful way to think about ideas and cultural practices isn't 'where does it come from?' but rather 'is it good?'. To go back to my Gucci belt analogy, we should be more concerned about the quality of the belt than where it was manufactured. A quick scan of history will show that much of the world has already gotten the memo. Show me any two nations or factions that have been at loggerheads in the past, and I will show you two cultures that are borrowing from each other today. E.g., during WWII, the U.K. and the U.S. were trading bombs and gunfire with Germany and Japan. Today, Americans are studying German philosophers in college, and Japanese students are scrambling to apply to Oxford and Cambridge. The ability to absorb good ideas from many different cultures is a catalyst of progress; a good recent example is the meteoric rise of China over the last two or three decades, having opened up to the entrepreneurial and capitalist spirit of the West. Luckily, Ghana isn't as insular as hardcore Communist China back in the day, but it would do us a lot of good to be more open to good foreign ideas.

I'm aware this new mental model leads to a whole new ethical debate about what should be considered 'good'. But my aim here isn't to resolve that debate, but to make sure that it takes place in the first place when evaluating so-called foreign ideas. I wager that we'd have much more productive debates about issues like feminism and LGBTQ rights etc. if we thought of them in a vacuum rather than as "Western" infiltrations.

[rightsidenews]

6 Powerful Ways to Reclaim Your Identity From Identity Politics

Ash Sharp Editor

#WhiteLivesMatter is a Bad Idea.

In its modern incarnation, Identity Politics is a reductive collectivist tactic to quickly form ingroup/outgroup biases.

What I mean by this is that by accepting the Neo-Marxist concepts of the progressive stack and Oppression Theory, we begin to align ourselves with people ideologically similar to ourselves- and in ways that would have been impossible until now.

A fragmented sense of self is inevitable.

As I described in my piece on Neo-Marxism, the replacement for God, country or kinship is now the nebulous ‘diversity’. The perennial opponent will forever be the White, as white is not diverse. White is blank. White represents hegemony, in countries where the population is mostly White, and the colonialist/slaver to all peoples who are not White. White is a perfect boogeyman.

We live in an age where identity politics is so pernicious that it has even fed back into the prevailing liberal culture. Where for some decades the dominant social meme has been an individualistic one, now it appears that collectivism is to strangle that dream.

Munroe Bergdorf is not a victim of racism. She is a perpetrator of it. So pernicious is Neo-Marxist ideology in Britain that a Transsexual mixed race person can go on to statefunded TV and call white people the most destructive force on Earth. Imagine, a TV station funded mostly by white people and broadcasting to white people is to tell them they are inherently racist. It is an Original Sin. She tells us this bravely, as she says

“that if the United Kingdom took her oppression seriously, she would be listened to and taken seriously, rather than ridiculed or threatened with death.”

It’s almost like there’s an agenda at play here. I agree that no-one should be threatened with death unless they are actively trying to kill or otherwise harm people in the most heinous fashion, but this does not mean that anyone should take her seriously either. This is particularly true when Britain is one of, if not the most, least racist countries on Earth.

Ms Bergdorf will wait a long time for Whites to acknowledge their guilt under these circumstances. While a majority of White America now think discrimination against Whites exists, we are faced with a conundrum. If feelings are as useful as facts, and Whites are now feeling oppressed, it behooves the Neo-Marxists to Listen and Believe their stories of oppression. This would require Neo-Marxists to be logically consistent- so don’t bet on it happening anytime soon.

Instead, the Neo-Marxists would claim that White Privilege is protection enough, and sorry, you don’t get to play Identity Politics in the 2017 season. Try again next year. Unfortunately for them, there is no barrier to entering the field, bar the willingness to be called a racist for doing so. Seeing as ideologues like Ms Bergdorf call all White people racist by default, by birth and by culture, can we say that we are surprised by the rise in popularity of White identitarian movements?

More to the point, can we now see that the Classical Liberal foundations of what we consider to be modern Western civilisation are all too easily subverted by collectivists?

In troubled times it is natural for one to look for strength in numbers, for the easy camaraderie of similar interests- to reject the individualistic goal of the liberal society. This is true of all of us. In such times, it falls to the leadership of nations to provide what they are put in power to provide; a path. A goal. Reassurance that our values are defended from those who would corrupt them or overthrow them for their own anti-democratic interests.

Here’s how to utterly fail to do that.

This is Theresa May, the leader of the Conservatives in Britain. She talks in vague terms about vision, plans, and British values, while defining none of these things and doing nothing except crushing the life out of my country by having no sense of direction and trying to pander to groups who despise everything that she stands for.

It is this utter failure of centrist parties like the Conservatives in the UK and both sides of Congress in the US that allows identitarianism to flourish.

What shapes our identity? Is race a factor? Only if you are not White. It’s OK for everyone, except Whites. That’s fine, according to Neo-Marxist philosophy, because whites are the de-facto oppressors, purely based on the colour of their skin. Tell that to the Tutsis.

We must accept that there is a racial element to culture. It is evident that this is true in that most country and western singers are white, while most hip-hop artists are black. It follows that people of all ethnic backgrounds appreciate the art and music of other cultures, as evidenced by hip-hop now being more popular than rock music. It is evident again in that Americans define themselves as ‘Ethnicity + American’.

Good talk.

If we can understand such a simple corollary, then we also understand that there is a racial element to national identity too. As a mongrel Briton of no particularly unique origin, I have had the fortune to experience as an outsider the cultures of my friends in Scotland, Wales, Yorkshire and the Midlands, all of which have varying elements of their unique ethnic histories. As a foreigner in other lands, I have noticed the racial and ethnic influences on other countries, from North Africa and the Middle East to my wife’s homeland of Poland and our current home of Spain. The beauty for me has been in recognising the differences and the commonalities inherent within our cultures- this is how we are able to live in peace with our neighbours, to understand that their goals are not ours, but we can avoid conflict nonetheless, through dialogue.

We are distinct peoples. It is the valuing of people that leads me to reject mindless multiculturalism as proposed by the leftist. For all Mr Trudeau of Ottawa likes to bleat about it,** ‘value pluralism’** does not sell well to the public, and never has.

‘Life may be seen through many windows, none of them necessarily clear or opaque, less or more distorting than any of the others’. ~ Isaiah Berlin.

You might understand this as cultural relativism. There is no truth, only opinion.

I reject this.

In this mindset, all cultures are equal from all positions. Your love for your Italian culture (for example) should be worth no more to you than my British. The flaw here is obvious. You have far more kinship with Italy than the UK, so the only way for you to consider our cultures equal in your heart is for me to force you to do so.

This milquetoast approach to differences in cultures is driven by a desire to protect society from racism, but in fact, only promotes it. I am forbidden from thinking less of your culture, but in order to treat all cultures with equal respect as I would my own, I must compare them. In the comparison, I can clearly see that the culinary arts of Italy far outstrip those of my country. Perhaps I become jealous of this. I can also see that my people have been better at making reliable automobiles than yours, and have a less corrupt government (just about). Perhaps I commit the sin of Pride.

“Are you indeed to reign over us? Or are you indeed to rule over us?” So they hated him even more for his dreams and for his words” (Gen 37:8)

Even as someone without faith, the Biblical story of Joseph is a clear example of where Mankind still lives.

The point is in comparison we recognise the differences that, instead of celebrating, we are simply not allowed to think about, and so leave us sinful.

I deliberately used two European nations here to illuminate for you how difficult this is even without the addition of racial politics. Cheerfully, Liberal philosophy agree with me.

“Their liberalism forces them to call any doubts about human equality a result of irrational bias. Yet their connoisseurship [of diversity] forces them to realise that most of the globe’s inhabitants do not believe in equality, that such a belief is a Western eccentricity. Since they think it would be shockingly ethnocentric to say ‘So what? We Western liberals do believe in it, and so much the better for us’, they are stuck.” ~ Richard Rorty

It is not to say that a person from one culture is beholden to that culture for all time. We see the evidence of people adopting new cultural norms in second-generation immigrants and what the left sneeringly calls cultural appropriation. We also see the failure of integration and the pastiche of mocking other cultures for their difference.

It is possible for people to integrate and become part of cultures that are not their own. It is possible to appreciate other cultures without cheapening them. This is the same issue. If we accept that cultures have a racial element to them, and this element is indelible, can a case be made for a protectionist attitude towards the rights of native people?

If we take the position that the Western nations for all their myriad flaws are in fact the pinnacle of human civilisation thus far, and we accept that the national identities of these countries to some extent is based on the ethnic history and cultures of the inhabitants; then we must understand that the same protectionism that we would willingly extend to indigenous peoples in cultures that are not advanced as our own must equally apply to ourselves.

My detractors on this point need only look at the numbers of non-Westerners who wish to live here to see the truth of my words.

The Neo-Marxist will also point out that the West was won by conquest. There is no shying away from this. Similarly, we cannot go back. The sins of the White man are only more deleterious than those of other nations because of the fortune of the West’s success. Europeans were privileged enough to have suitable geography, climate and resources to grow rapidly in terms of technology. For example, the United Kingdom would never have dominated the world for so long if she were a landlocked country. The United States possesses gigantic resources that have been useful at every stage of development. The same cannot be said for the African nations, who despite having huge supplies of rare metals have been either unable to extract them until the advent of strip mining late 20th Century. A solid analogy is that you cannot ride a zebra into war. A city-state protected on all sides by mountains and the sea is perfect for the development of philosophy.

My point is that for all the West’s conquering, we have been a product of our environments in exactly the same way as every other culture. This includes the development of the collectivist ideologies proposed by Black Lives Matter and other Neo-Marxist groups and the Far Right. Yes, Europeans nearly destroyed the world with war, but they also saved it. As we approach Remembrance Sunday, when the United Kingdom honours the dead of World War I, it is always a time to reflect and to remind ourselves that no ideology works perfectly. And some ideas are worth going to war for.

We can only hope that under similar circumstances to our forefathers we would show the same integrity, sacrifice and courage. Lest we forget.

When we take their example, we illuminate something surprising. It appears that the liberal values of Lockean individual freedom that today are enshrined in our liberal democracies are not incompatible with national identity. You don’t even have to be a flag-waving patriot of your nation to understand the deep kinship with the members of your nation that transcends ethnicity. Even so far as to recognise the unique brotherhood of members of your own people- and as a Brit, I absolutely recognise our flaws too. (This being said, contrary to what you have heard, our dental schools are actually pretty good.)

Harking back to the example of The Greatest Generation is likely to get me dog-piled for glorifying racists. Well, so what. I’m not an extremist by any measure, but I can rely on Progressive darling Deeray Mckesson of Black Lives Matter to show me what one actually looks like.

Which non-profits would those be, Deeray?

It’s ok to be an identity extremist if you are Black.

Here is my intent with this piece, which I fear is a little clumsy. I wish us to start the reclamation of our collective identities from those who wish to divide and rule. To truly make our nations great again requires an understanding and respect for the nation in which we live. I do not believe that this is necessarily a racial or ethnic issue- although as I stated above, culture and therefore nationhood have a significant racial element that cannot be denied. Therefore, to preserve national identity, there must also be an understanding of preserving racial identity, should one wish to do so. This is a hard duality to grasp, and no doubt those on the Alt-Right will tell me this is impossible, the dream of a fool.

Maybe it is.

I still contend that there must be a way to recognise the role of Identity Politics without succumbing to ethnonationalism or to the postmodern dissection of every value we hold dear.

When people tell me that the UK is a racist country, I feel anger for I know this not to be true. I imagine for my American readers you feel the same when you are told America Was Never Great. For me, as an immigrant in Spain, it is my pleasure and honour to learn the ways of this country and her people. In doing so, I accept my role as a foreigner in their lands and acquiesce to the democratic will of the Spanish. In such a way, I am simultaneously an immigrant and a Spanish patriot. This is my concession to the identity politics of the Neo-Marxist. I lovingly accept my British heritage, my Wife’s Polish history and great culture, and the over-arching suzerainty of España for all matters pertaining to my domestic day to day life. I do not vote here. I pay taxes. The direction of Spain is for the Spanish- even when there are current events that cause me great concern.

Are Identity Politics and Individualism Mutually Exclusive?

European people over the last century have been stripped of the rights of group interest. Rules are different today of different races, and it has not passed unnoticed. If there is a population of westerners obeying the liberal ‘rules’ of fairness and equal opportunity, and migrants of collectively conscious individuals competing, one side is inevitably going to lose, given enough time.

The problem is not one of a clash of races. It is one of the Neoliberal economic demands for unending growth leading to an economic need for economic migrants. As victims of a flawed system, identitarian ideologies are at loggerheads. Through diversity quotas and affirmative action, the well-meaning liberal societies of the West have fallen into a trap. We have become prey to a culturally relativistic system that enacts policies literally entitled Replacement Migration. One does not even have to be an identitarian to understand that concept. Our populations are ageing.

And yet, the birth rate is negative for indigenous Britons.

Rather than consider that perhaps it is the economic system itself that requires modification, our rulers have decided that demographic change is entirely separate from culture, and unlimited migration can be advocated for so long as the taxation levels do not fall. All evidence shows this to be wrong.

We can see this well in the post-war creation of the state of Israel. In the following few years, the Jewish populations of almost all other Middle Eastern countries dropped to near zero. Where did all these Jews go? To Israel. Their absence in countries like Algeria or Iran is noticeable, and surely had an effect on the culture of those countries. You could even say the formation of Israel itself is the example of what mass migration to a region can do to the culture of that region- where once the British Empire curated a Palestinian Protectorate, a backwater colony with little tactical value beyond the Biblical, today stands one of the most advanced nations on Earth. This is, unfortunately, a far better situation than the West finds itself in today.

We are being replaced by immigrants who do not share the cultural values of the West and do not care to grant Western nations thanks or consideration. Under such circumstances that are probably understood by the Alt-Right better than most because they care more about race politics than you do, it is no surprise that their ideology is growing. Those of us who are not on the Alt-Right would do well to pay attention to their concerns. Turning a blind eye will not save us.

Individual rights are amazing. Collectivist power smashes these rights to pieces unless those rights are met by an equally powerful collective consciousness that considers the rights of the individual to be paramount. The answer to this paradox is the key to defusing the inherent violence of tribalism. The answer is the key to Making America Great Again. It is what was understood by our ancestors when facing fascism in Europe- collectively, the free world took up arms.

Today, to preserve these nations and ideals, immigration, as it stands, cannot continue. The globalist agenda must be resisted, and for this at least we can hope that we are on the right track with the election of President Trump, Brexit and other anti-globalist movements. How do we ameliorate the concern of the Alt-Right concerning replacement migration? Should we even try?

It is hard to engage the Alt-Right on the topic when their answer is the practical or philosophical Ethnostate, which they correctly claim is a term that can be applied to many nations that exist today. This concept is so unwieldy that there is no consensus on how such a state would be achieved. My suspicion with the Alt-Right is that even with a total moratorium on migration, it would never be enough. Preservation of personal choice entails that we are also free to take part in the dreaded miscegenation. The Alt-Right are free to disapprove, but they are not free to force us to not race mix.

Even so, all humans feel a shared kinship with people of the same race. It’s a normal reaction that we all experience. Regardless what race we are, there is an innate bond at some level which manifests itself in an in-group preference for those who are like ourselves. The Neo-Marxists call this phenomena unconscious bias when white people do it. It might charitably be considered ethnic nepotism when minorities do the same.

When Black people manifest racial identity, its decolonisation. It’s a black pride. It’s a positive identity to possess.

When White people manifest racial identity, it’s supremacy. It’s Racist. White pride does not exist because ‘White’ isn’t a race in the same way that ‘Black’ is, because of Slavery/Colonialism, delete as appropriate.

The entire concept of a hierarchy of the races- which is what Privilege Theory proposes- is simultaneously insane and damaging. Insane, because while there are clear biological differences between the races, the social construct of race that is endorsed by both Neo Marxists and Alt-Right is built on sand.

One side claims that white people are privileged by default. This is codified language. What this means, and is only now being admitted by Neo-Marxists, is that Whites are racist. All Whites are racist because White society is racist. Whites, therefore, have inherent advantages just for being White. Whites are a monolithic superpower which literally kills people of colour by their existence.

A racist idea which simultaneously demonises one race and infantilises the other.

Because it is now unacceptable to challenge such narrative without being considered to be a racist by leftist ideologues means that all of us are racists by default, merely for existing. Under such circumstances, we can think ourselves incredibly fortunate that the Alt-Right has not found high-quality intellectual leadership who would capitalise on what is a gift to race-realists.

For example- let us pick any innocuous event. A person has an interview but does not get the job. Depending on the races of the interviewee and the successful candidate this is either an example of White supremacy or an overbearing nanny state; unless both candidates are non-White. Even then, the Blacker-than-Thou woke intellectuals of the Left trying to figure out who is most oppressed can tie themselves in knots.

We must be as the sword of Alexander the Great. To the Extremes of the Alt-Right, to fail to accept their doctrine is to be labelled a cuckservative even if you are fully #MAGA aware. To the left… well, to fail to accept their racist doctrine is to become a racist. These albatrosses when hung from your neck remove the possibility of nuance, and prevent adherents from countenancing the explanations that do not pass through the ideological lens. Like a piece of tinted glass through which only certain light waves can pass, when you are obsessed with race, race is at the root of everything.

How to Win the Game of Identity Politics

1. Retain your individuality.

Regardless of how alluring collectivism can be, recognise that it is ultimately counter-productive to our culture. Because you and I share a nationality or ethnicity does not mean we must be friends. Our individual and often conflicting goals in the world must be prioritised while recognising that threats to the rights of the individual by collectivists require a collective response.

2. Accept that groups act in group conscious ways.

Politicians understand that pandering to minority interests is usually effective, provided it can be conducted in secret. This is why Clinton ultimately scuttled her own campaign by pushing so far with identity politics that the majority of the United States utterly rejected her proposal. In the United Kingdom we see the example of Islamic groups voting in blocks, organised through mosques and the inward looking and unintegrated cultures they serve. The Muslim interest is served by their community organisers, who pressure politicians to serve their interests above those of the majority, in return for guaranteeing their votes. In this collectivist fashion, an organised minority interest group can project far greater power than a disorganised majority.

3. Confront the dominant paradigm that promotes the idea of White people possessing no inherent culture.

The Neo-Marxists say Whites have no culture, but also that Whiteness is toxic. Reject this racism with all your heart.** All lives do matter. **The broad family of European Culture and her descendants is just as valid a culture as that of La Raza or the African Diaspora.

4. Resist the demands of supremacists.

Neo-Marxists and Globalists push demands for open borders. White supremacists demand closed borders and an insulated society. Both are extremist positions, and we must recognise them to be so. It is easy to see that the white supremacist position is such, but how much harder it is to make the case that replacement migration is a racist policy. It takes time, and knowledge that you must acquire yourself.

5. Take interest in your culture.

It is incoherent to listen to Neo-Marxists who cry about historical slavery or the oppression of women while simultaneously heeding their whinings about cultural appropriation. You have a culture, wherever you are from. Unless that culture is, for example, promoting the genital mutilation of infants, child marriage or the subjugation of women, feel free to be proud of your culture.

It feels crazy that I have to write that knowing it is now a controversial statement.

6. Accept that extremists will always hate you.

Nazi, bigot, cuckservative, alt-lite. This is a culturally conditioned response. The Neo-Marxist, inherently opposed to the concept of nationhood or tradition, is ever on the lookout for something to call Adolf the Destroyer. The ideals of what we call the greatest generation were to some extent nationalist, and in good faith. Today, those same men and women would be considered evil. Nationalism is not inherently an awful concept, nor is racial identity. That the Second World War was fought by Nationalists on all sides is of little interest to historical revisionists who wish to extrapolate National-Socialism and apply it as a critique of all concepts of national identity. Resist this if you wish your nation to survive.

In Conclusion

As men of the West and the inheritors of Western Civilisation it is my contention that we are faced with the grave consequences of replacement migration. We must accept this reality if we live in an evidence-based reality at all- that we are able to reject the fearful and regressive concept of an ethnostate.It does not have to be so. We do not have to fall as the Alt-Right tells us Western nations must fall if they do not adopt their answers to incredibly complex questions.

That being said, we do need to begin putting the interests of Western nations ahead of those of other countries, as other countries and peoples put their interests ahead of ours. This is by no means a unique idea of my own. It is one that dates back to the Founding Fathers and beyond. I beg your indulgence for quoting so much of Samuel Adams, but I cannot break up such masterful prose in good conscience.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

In the state of nature, men may, as the patriarchs did, employ hired servants for the defence of their lives, liberties, and property; and they should pay them reasonable wages. Government was instituted for the purposes of common defence, and those who hold the reins of government have an equitable, natural right to an honourable support from the same principle that “ the labourer is worthy of his hire.” But then the same community which they serve ought to be the assessors of their pay. Governors have no right to seek and take what they please; by this, instead of being content with the station assigned them, that of honourable servants of the society, they would soon become absolute masters, despots, and tyrants. Hence, as a private man has a right to say what wages he will give in his private affairs, so has a community to determine what they will give and grant of their substance for the administration of public affairs. And, in both cases, more are ready to offer their service at the proposed and stipulated price than are able and willing to perform their duty.

In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave.

-Samuel Adams

Do we consider the integrity of our national identities an essential natural right? I suggest that we should- no, I demand that we do so. Moreover, I know that there are many people in many lands who agree with Samuel Adams on this. This is why the #MAGA movement exists: because humans of many creeds understand that the transcendent freedom of man must be protected by a secure national identity.

As Adams warned us against, there are political actors who would defraud us and inflict fear upon us so that they may strip us of our indelible right to our national identities. Our cultures are not for sale, cry the Neo-Marxists at Hallowe’en, or whenever the latest Pixar movie comes out.

Do ghosts have white privilege?

Just so. And neither is our culture for sale. More than the reductive and infantile chants of ‘Blood and Soil’ are our nations. Our freedoms are the gift of God Almighty, and the globalists who obey only neoliberal capitalism, Neo-Marxists who wish to control every aspect of society so that none can speak their mind must be repelled. To the Alt-Right I say; I understand your concerns but I disagree with your tactics and your predictions. We in the West might yet reach a day where I am proven wrong and the Alt-Right can laugh in my face, but it is not today.

A free society, in which no person is experiencing unjust treatment and fundamental equality of opportunity is prevalent can still contain racial consciousness. It is evident that imperfect societies such as hours already contain these attitudes. Right now, we are considering that love for one’s own people is a racist attitude; provided you is White. At the core, this is the imbalance in our liberal democracies that leads to Whites affiliating with racial interest groups. It must end.

The Neo-Marxists do not understand that an oppressive system will always fail. We see this with every previous totalitarian society in history, and let us make no bones- **what the Neo-Marxist requires is an oppressive and totalitarian society. **If we are a free society, we cannot permit, for whatever reason, one race to be prohibited from overtly considering their racial interests to be paramount.

What I mean by this: you can stop the cringeworthy Nazi-LARPing at Murfreesboro by understanding that even Neo-Nazis have rights. This is how we de-radicalise the Alt-Right; by understanding that they’re not wrong about some of their concerns.

The consequences of ignoring this truth will be far-reaching. While our ideals may be towards individual freedoms, the collectivist ideologies are growing. The consequence of burying our heads in the sand will be great bloodshed- either as the state reminds us of what true oppressive power looks like, or as racial identitarian and Neo-Marxist groups go to war in the street.

In summary, when we accept that the very framework of working class White culture has been stripped by the predatory aspects of neoliberal capitalism we can see how we have arrived at an identitarian response from the same group. Migration, diminished financial security and rising house prices affect all working class people the most, regardless of race. We should neither dismiss nor be surprised by the rise of White identity politics to fill the void left by conventional politics.

How we move forward at this point has the potential to define a generation.

http://bit.ly/2Cb3WZX