#well france this is your fault for colonizing us

[rayatii]

Among the many delicious meals concocted by the Lebanese, there is one monstrosity that haunts the nightmares of French people...

[nevermindirah]

I've been drafting and redrafting this meta post for weeks now. It's about to be 5781 and my country that was founded on settler colonial genocide and slavery and a deeply flawed but fierce attachment to democracy might go full dictatorship in about 6 weeks and it's time for me to post this thing.

All our immortals are warriors, all have been traumatized by war. But only three of them died their first deaths as soldiers in imperial armies. This fandom has already produced gallons of meta on Nicky dealing with his shit, because Joe would not fuck with an unapologetic Crusader. But there's very rich stuff in Booker and Nile's experiences and the parallels and distinctions between them.

Nile was 11 when her dad was killed in action - that was 2005, meaning she and her dad both died in the same war that George W Bush started in very tenuous response to 9/11. Sure, Nile's dad could have died in either Iraq or Afghanistan, or in a training accident or in an off-the-books mission we won't know about for a hundred more years, but he died in the War on Terror all the same. I had to look it up to be sure because Obama "drew down" the Afghanistan war in his second term, but nope, we're still in this fucking thing that never should've happened in the first place. The US war in Afghanistan just turned 19 years old. A lot of real-life Americans have experiences like the Freemans, parents and children both dying in the same war we shouldn't be in.

I know a lot of people like Nile who join the US military not just because it's the only realistic way for them to pay for college or afford decent healthcare, but also because they have a family history of military service that's a genuine source of pride. Military service has been a way for Americans of color to be accepted by white Americans as "true Americans" - from today's Dreamers who Obama promised would earn protection from deportation by enlisting, to Filipino veterans of WW2 earning US citizenship that Congress then denied them for several decades, to slaves "earning" their freedom through service in the Union Army and in the Continental Army before it. As if freedom is a thing one should have to earn. Lots of Black Americans have the last name Freeman for lots of different escaping-slavery reasons, but it's possible that this specific reason is how Nile got her last name.

Dying in a war you know your country chose to instigate unnecessarily and that maybe you believe it shouldn't be waging is a very particular kind of trauma. It is a much deeper trauma when your military service, and your father's, and maybe generations of your ancestors', is a source of pride and access to resources for you but your sacrifice is nearly meaningless to the white supremacist system that deploys you. That kind of cognitive dissonance encourages a person to ignore their own feelings just so they can function. How do you wake up in the morning, how do you risk your life every day, how do you *kill other people* in a war that shouldn't be happening and that you shouldn't have to serve in just so that your country sees you as human?

We see Nile do her best to be a kind and well-mannered invader. Depending on your experience with US imperialism, Nile giving candy to kids and reminding her squad to be respectful is either heartwarming or very disturbing propaganda. We also see Nile clutching her cross necklace and praying. From the second Christianity arrived on this land it's been a tool of white supremacist assimilation and control, but like military service, it's a fucked-up but genuine source of pride and access to resources for many Americans whose pre-Columbian ancestors were not Christian, and it's a powerful source of comfort and resilience. This Jew who's had a lot of Spanish Inquisition nightmares would like to say for the record that it's not Jesus's fault that his big name fans are such shitty people.

Nile is a good person trying to do her best in a fucked-up world. "Her best" just radically changed. Her access to information on just how fucked up the world is has also just radically changed, because everything's so fucked up a person needs a lot of time to learn about it all and not only does she have centuries but she won't have to spend that time worrying about rent and healthcare and taxes, and because she now has Joe and Nicky and Andy's stories, and because she now has Copley's inside scoop on just what the fuck the CIA has been up to. Like, I want a fic where Copley tells Nile what was really behind the brass's decisions that led to her experiences on the ground in Afghanistan, that led to her father's death, but also I Do Not Want That.

Nile was 19 when Alicia Garza posted on Facebook that Black Lives Matter. She grew up in Chicago well before white people on Twitter were saying maybe police violence against Black people is a problem. She knows this is a deeply fucked up country, and she put on her Marine uniform and deployed with her team of mostly fellow women of color, and maybe she and Dizzy and Jay marched in the streets between deployments, maybe they texted each other when a white manarchist at a protest sneered at one of them for being a Marine. Nile's been busy surviving, and she knows some shit and she's seen some shit but she hasn't had much time to think about what it all means. Now she's got time. And Joe, Nicky, and Andy are willing to listen. (Is Copley willing to listen? I could see that going either way.)

Booker might also be willing to listen. The brilliant idea of cleaning up the rat Frenchman so that Nile can have millennia of emotional support and orgasms sent me down a Wikipedia rabbit hole, and holy shit do Booker and Nile have a lot of shared life experience as pawns of imperial wars. Obviously Booker is white and a man and that makes a very big difference. (Though G-d help me, Booker could be Jewish and France was knocking its Jews around like ping-pong balls in the 18th-19th centuries. Jewish Booker wouldn't make him any less white but it does add a shit ton of depth of common experience: military service as a way for your country to see you as a full member of society who matters, because who you are means that's not guaranteed.)

Booker was hanged for desertion from the army Napoleon sent to invade Russia as part of his quest to control all of Europe. We learn in the comics / this YouTube video that Booker was on his way to prison for forgery when he was offered military service instead of jail time. While we don't know how he felt about the choice beyond that he did choose soldier over inmate, it's unlikely he thought invading Russia was a great idea, given he tried to desert because Napoleon like a true imperialist dumbass didn't plan for how he was going to feed his army or keep them from freezing to death in fucking Russian winter.

I find it very interesting that the French Empire was at its largest right before invading Russia and fell apart completely within a few years. My country has been falling the fuck apart for a while now - see aforementioned War on Terror, growing extremes of economic stratification in the richest country in the world, abject refusal to meaningfully deal with climate change that US-based corporations hold the lion's share of blame for - but between Trump's abject refusal to meaningfully deal with the coronavirus and strong likelihood that he'll refuse to leave office even if a certain pathetic moderate I will hold my nose and vote for does manage to earn a majority of votes, ~y~i~k~e~s.

Our only immortals who have never known a world before modernity and nationalism happen to have been born of wars that were the beginning of the end for the imperialist democracies that raised them, and I think in the centuries to come that's going to give them some very interesting shit to talk about.

Nile's a Young Millennial, a digital native born in the United States after the collapse of the USSR left her country as the world's only superpower. She's used to a pace of technological change that human brains are not evolved to handle.

Napoleon trying to make all of Europe into the French Empire was a leading cause of the growth of European nationalism and the establishment of liberal democracies both in Europe and in many places that Europeans had colonized. Booker's first war produced the only geopolitical world order Nile has ever known and I just have so many feelings ok. Nile the art history nerd is probably not aware of this, and why would she be? This humble meta author is, like Nile, a product of US public schools, and all they taught me about world history was Ancient Greece/Rome/Egypt/Mesopotamia and then World War 2. Being raised in The World's Only Superpower is WEIRD.

Nile the Young Millennial is used to the devastating volume of bad news the internet makes possible. But she has absolutely no concept of a world where the United States of America is not The World's Only Superpower. In order to get up in the morning and put on her gear and point guns at civilians in Afghanistan, she can only let herself think so much about whether that American exceptionalism thing is a good idea.

She's about to spend many, many years where the only people who she can truly trust are people who are older than not only her country but the IDEA of countries.

She's got time, and she's got a lot of new information at her disposal. But there comes a point where my obsession with her friendship and eventual very hot sex life with Booker just isn't about sex at all. Nile needs someone to talk to about the United States who Gets It. Booker the rat Frenchman coerced into Napoleon's army, and Copley the Black dual citizen of the US and UK who's retired from a CIA career that he half understands as deeply problematic but half still believes in hence his mind-bogglingly stupid partnership with Merrick, are the only people on the planet Nile can talk to honestly about, and really be understood in, all the thoughts and feelings and fears and hopes of her experience as a US Marine.

And one more thing before I go get ready for Rosh Hashanah: Orientalism was a defining element of the Crusades and that legacy is painfully clear in current US-led Western military activity in Afghanistan, Syria, Israel/Palestine, you name it. Turns out memoirs by French veterans of the Napoleonic Wars are full of Orientalist language about Russia as well. I am maybe/definitely writing a fic where Booker spends his exile reading critical race theory and decolonial feminism and trauma studies monographs because he can't be honest with a therapist but maybe he can heal this way and become the team therapist his own damn self. I just really need him to read Edward Said and Gloria Anzaldúa and then go down on Nile, ok?

[unicorns-bookshelf]

Title: The Gilded Wolves

Author: Roshani Chokshi

Genre: fantasy, young adult

Rating: 4/5

~Beware of spoilers~

I feel like lots of people picked up The Gilded Wolves expecting it to be Six of Crows 2.0. Because of that the review section is full of people who were either disappointed that it’s not similar enough or enraged that there are some parallels between the two but they aren’t “good enough” to be an actual copy. It’s disappointing because there’s so much more to say about this book than comparing it to another.

The story takes place in Paris in the year 1889 during Exposition Universelle. Séverin, a hotelier at day and a treasure hunter at night, is trying to restore the inheritance that was unjustly taken from him by the Order of Babel - an organization focused around a fragment of the Tower of Babel that supposedly brings magic and fortune to the place where it’s located. Séverin was supposed to become one of the Patriarchs - heads of the four houses of the Order in France, but, as he believes, his test had been falsified and he was stripped of privileges. However, during his search, he comes across a compass with a map to an artifact that could turn the world and the Order upside down. and along with a group of friends decides to find it.

The Gilded Wolves is a treasure hunt book. Reading it I couldn’t help but think about Indiana Jones, The National Treasure or The Mummy movies. There was even a scene where the characters are chased by a flaming rock rolling down the tunnel. The book was action-packed but between the action, there was always time for some banter or sweet, familial moments. Not to mention the writing that was absolutely beautiful, full of lush descriptions absolutely raw one-liners. The plot had some great twists. One at the end left me hungry for more and I can’t wait for the second part of this book.

A common complaint I heard is that people found the magic system confusing. I personally can’t understand that since to me the magic system basically boils down to “people born with magic can modify things to give them special functions”.  Some do it with flowers, some with stone and some with human brains. “Forging” in this context means “shaping”, shaping the object to do your bidding or shaping the human mind to see what you want it to see. Sure, we don’t exactly know the limits or laws regulating it but I don’t feel like it’s necessary for the story. In this book, magic is closely connected with building the aesthetics of the world - guards with Sphinx masks, animals made of precious stones guarding magical artifacts, dresses that have burnable layers - all of it is supposed to show that magic is deeply ingrained in the world and make it feel extraordinary and unique. Even the history of the world presented in The Gilded Wolves is connected to the magic - where the Babel Fragments were located after God destroyed the Tower civilizations grew and people were able to Forge. Europeans stole one of the Babel Fragments during their crusades and brought it to France. Along with it, they took plenty of Forged objects that the Houses collect and keep in their treasuries away from thieves’ reach.

The only thing I had a problem with was the number of Forged objects the author introduced. After a while, it was difficult to keep track of them and remember which one was supposed to do what. Not to mention there were some that even the characters weren’t sure how to use.

The Gilded Wolves had six main characters, all wonderfully diverse with their own goals. Séverin and Hypnos are French and Algerian and Haitian, respectively. Enrique is half-Spanish, half-Filipino. Laila is Indian and Zofia is Jewish and autistic. Enrique is also bisexual and Hypnos is gay. Through them, the author tells a story of racism and the effects of colonization in that period of time. Laila often gets mistaken for a maid, Enrique is considered “not Philipino enough” to be taken seriously by the group of Filipino writers he wants to join, Hypnos is looked down upon by the other house Patriarch because he’s mixed. 

I loved the characters separately and I loved the friendship between them, especially between them and Hypnos. I was pretty sure he was going to betray them at first but he turned out to be an absolute sweetheart and one of my favorite characters together with Zofia. One thing I didn’t appreciate, however, was the amount of absolutely overbearing and unnecessary romance. 

Each part of Séverin’s POV was full of Laila. No matter what was going on, if he remembered Laila (and he always did) his train of thought would stray thinking about that one single time they’d slept together and how he should forget about it but he can’t. It was sometime really overtaking the plot and simply tired me out. At the end of the book, I realized that Séverin was a horribly selfish character - longing for things he had but they were taken from him instead appreciating what he still had and then taking his frustration out on other people for his failure when he lost that too. The finale would go completely differently if Séverin stopped being so horny just for a moment. 

Laila’s POVs were more bearable because she wouldn’t forget that she cares about other people on the team when it was convenient. Her relationships with Zofia and Tristan were sweet and caring and I also loved her banter with Hypnos and how she always wanted to believe he’s on their side. She was really fierce and honestly could do much better than Séverin.

But with just those two the romance subplot wouldn’t be so bad. Sadly it had to extend to Enrique, Zofia, and Hypnos. Zofia and Hypnos were my favorites and they deserved something better than a love triangle with a guy who can’t pick between them. Not to mention that Zofia getting upset that Enrique and Hypnos kissed came out of the blue because before them she showed absolutely no interest in him romantically. It was just so forced compared to Enrique’s relationship with Hypnos where the attraction at least went both ways from the very beginning.

Another thing that bothered me was the ages of the characters. They absolutely didn’t fit the way they acted. I would say that Séverin and the rest were around 20-25 and based on how he acted and how others treated him, Tristan was like 13. It feels so weird to see Laila mothering a boy who’s just two years younger than her. At one point Laila says that she was told she won’t live until her 19th birthday and my reaction was “Oh well, looks like they were wrong” and then she said that she still has a year and I was picking up my jaw from the floor so... yeah. 

I’m also a little sad that I can’t say more about Tristan, Séverin’s adopted brother with love for big spiders and ability to Forge plants but there was just so little of him. He seemed like a character I’d grow to really love.

To sum up, The Gilded Wolves is a novel with spectacular writing, a beautifully crafted world that comes alive when you’re reading, a treasure hunt plot that felt really nostalgic to me and a cast of diverse characters. It does have its faults but saying that it’s just milder Six of Crows is doing it a great injustice. The book is also a beautiful commentary on racism and colonialism and what consequences does it has for people. I will gladly add the already announced sequel to my To Be Read list. 

Amazon / Goodreads

[wesleyv21-blog]

Headin to the Galapagos!

¡Hola todos y todas! ¡Espero que todo les vaya bien atrás en los EE.UU.!

Ya es muy difícil escribir, hablar, y a veces pensar en el inglés. Los otros estudiantes estadounidenses hablan en ingles frecuentemente cuando estemos juntos, pero aparte de esos ratitos, vivo completamente en el castellano. Y claro una lengua nunca es solo una manera de hablar, sino que es otra manera de pensar, identificarse, e interactuar con lo que se llama el mundo.

Language really is constitutive of reality itself. That sentence was very hard to write after the preceding paragraph haha. The structures and vocab of my language permit me to think about certain realities and also prohibit me from imagining others. Thus my very world is conditioned by my language. For example, last week I spent learning the basics of Kichwa or Runashimi. There’s a particular possessive form in Kichwa that is used exclusively to denote a relationship of such intensity that it can never be broken. So, for example, if I have an unbreakable, inalienable relationship with a particular llama, I can express everything I just expressed in one simple syllable attached to the end of the name of the llama: llamayuk. Fascinating, no? Thus Kichwa conceives of relationships in different ways from the others languages I can speak (not necessarily better or worse ways, just different). Por eso, no se puede aprender una lengua sin que a la misma vez se aprendan una cultura y una filosofía también.

Anyway, here’s some things that have impacted me apart from learning the basics of Kichwa. No, I’ll stick with Kichwa first. Kichwa has 3 vowels, does not change inflection for questions, and is agglutinative (which means to form sentences or change the meaning of words, you add morphemes to the beginning, middle, or end of a word. To some extent, all languages are partially agglutinative, but Kichwa, among others, is particularly so. For example, tanta is bread, tantata makes bread the direct object of some verb, and tantatachu makes it a question as to whether or not the bread exists, is being eaten, etc.). The structure places the subject first, the object second, and the verb last. Always. There are no irregular verbs either. In many ways, it’s a much easier language to learn than either English or Spanish! I just need much more practice because it requires a completely different way of thinking about language than I’m used to. Ñukaka Wesleymi kani (nyoo-KA-ka We-SLEE-mee KA-nee) means “my name is Wesley.” Kanka allkuta charinkichu (KAN-ka ash-KU-ta cha-reen-KEE-choo) means “Do you have a dog?”. Counting is very hard haha. To say 30, you say three-ten. Thus, a number like 5,678 would be as follows: five-thousand six-hundred seven-ten eight, or pichka waranka sukta patsak kanchis chunka pusak! We only did four days of formal instruction, but I’d like to continue learning and practicing. It’s a really unique language that is completely different from anything I’ve ever experienced, and if possible, I’d love to continue speaking it when I return to the U.S.

The legacy of colonialism is long. VERY long. As in, it still traps Ecuador to this day. Here’s a tiny example. During the age of formal colonialism, Ecuador’s natural resources were extracted by Ecuadorians (or African or indigenous slaves) and shipped to Spain. Spain, or another European country, refined those raw materials into a finished product that was then sold back to Ecuador. Even after gaining independence in 1822 and later from Gran Colombia in 1830, this trend has only slightly abated. So, given this, I was only mildly surprised to hear from my host dad as we were eating KFC one day for lunch that until very recently (like a couple of years), Ecuador exported potatoes and imported French fries. Potatoes originated in the Andes, and Ecuador has over 100 different varieties of potatoes. French fries are not that difficult to produce. This is an example of the enduring economic patterns inherited from colonialism that continue to wreak havoc on formerly-colonized countries. This isn’t exclusively the fault of the neocolonial powers (U.S., China, Britain, France, the standouts), as domestic elites benefit from this arrangement of power (which Aníbal Quijano calls the coloniality of power). So, yea, colonialism is still being felt today.

Here’s another example: the state system itself. Originating from the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648, the concept of the nation-state with unbreachable sovereignty was quickly incorporated into the colonial project begun nearly 200 years earlier in 1492. The state system justified the seizure of alien lands, the violence perpetrated against the original inhabitants of these lands, and the privileges of economic, social, religious, and political control. This system was imposed through physical, structural, and cultural violence. Today, the state system and the concept of citizenship it has engendered obscures the diverse nations that inhabit what is known as Ecuador. These nations have had other names imposed on them, such as “indigenous” or “Indian” or even Kichwa. Those who speak Runashimi call themselves Runa, which simply means people. Let’s not forget the Afro-descendant (this is the English equivalent of the Spanish afrodescendiente which is one of the common words used to self-identify) communities who were kidnapped from their homes and forcibly transplanted here; they constitute their own nation as well. There’s also the Montubio nation out west who forms their own distinct culture as well. Thus the title “Republic of Ecuador” presumes to be a homogenous whole, when it in fact conceals a plurality of peoples and cultures that call this arbitrarily-drawn territory home. It’s the same in the U.S. and every other state in fact.

But, what is so interesting is that the latest Constitution of Ecuador (composed in 2008) defines this place as “democratic, sovereign, independent, unitary, intercultural, plurinational, and lay” (my translation). The Constitution is actually quite progressive, far more so than that of the U.S. It was drafted by civil society members rather than elites. The environment has rights. Healthcare, access to drinking water, and education are declared human rights. Each ancestral nation is recognized and is guaranteed rights and a status concomitant to that of the state itself. Now, of course, the extent to which this amazing document is carried out is not as progressive. But it nevertheless is a high water mark in the history of drafting constitutions. Y’all should check it out.

I went to a soccer game last Wednesday, and damn was it exciting! Soccer really is the ‘beautiful game.’ I would love to investigate it sociologically as well, because it’s a fascinating cultural and political phenomenon. As a tiny example, the first inter-African international organization was, in fact, the CAF, or African Confederation of Football. I think soccer thus possesses interesting socio-political dimensions that as of now are unknown to me. But, as a purely entertaining event, I was thoroughly pleased. Liga Universitaria was playing Phoenix Rising from the U.S. in a friendly match. Liga is the only Ecuadorian team to have won an international tournament, and they’ve won several. Phoenix Rising is a new team that features one of the best players ever, Didier Drogba, in his presumably final years in the game. It was incredibly exciting to watch the match tie 2-2 and then go in Liga’s favor in a penalty shoot-out.

My host mom and grandmother in particular never cease to rave about Ecuador’s food, places to travel, and artisanal crafts and clothes. It’s really cool actually to see that they have so much pride in their country, and I get to find out new things to do or see or buy with each conversation. The individuals I’ve met so far (which is a very small number) have so much to say about the natural beauty of Ecuador as well. Favorites are the Galápagos and the Amazon out in the eastern provinces, and no wonder! La Amazonía is simply incredible, and I’m sure Galápagos will be too!

Over the weekend a group of us went to Baños, which is a tiny, cheap, and fun tourist attraction—and not just American tourists. Baños is especially popular with the Quito crowd, but there were also many people from other Latin American and European countries that I met or observed. When I say Baños is cheap, I mean I got a two-course lunch for $2.50. Our hostal was $10 a night per person. We rented bikes for the entire day for $5 each. Incredible. So we spent the weekend hitting up various nightclubs, going to the hot springs after which Baños is named (though they are nothing compared to the hotsprings at Papallacta), eating at delicious restaurants, ascending a small mountain on whose peak is this swing that is positioned right on the edge of the cliff; but my favorite part was the bike ride we took on Saturday. Our destination was 20 km away, this giant waterfall called Pailón del Diablo. To get there, we biked along the main road for about 2 hours, at times in pouring, driving rain coming down so hard you had to close your eyes and hope for the best. It was an existential experience for me. I don’t think I’ve ever felt so alive, precisely because I didn’t know if I’d make it out unscathed. That plus the natural beauty of the landscapes (green mountains shrouded in mist on all sides) and the thrill of reaching high speeds going downhill, through a car tunnel, or climbing a ridge was nothing short of inolvidable. The waterfall too was spectacular and well worth the bike trip. We caught a bus back which only took about 20 minutes! Definitely a weekend well spent!

Yesterday and today we’ve been in class wrapping up our Kichwa section as we transition to the thematic seminar at the heart of the program: Paradigms of Development, which, as my professor declared, is basically a class all about hegemony, power, and resistance. Tomorrow we leave for Guayaquil, Ecuador’s largest and most financially powerful city. Thursday we head to the Galápagos Islands! The actual Galápagos Islands! I’m so freaking excited I can’t even begin to describe it! ¡No puedo esperar ni un minuto más! ¡Espero que hayan disfrutado de este episodio del blog! ¡Tendré mucho que contar al regresar de los Galápagos!

Til next time!