#War on Afrikans

[serious2020]

#african/black experience #afrikan #war on afrikans #terrorism #war on Palestine #war on Gaza #racial profiling #violence #U.S. & U.K. attack Yemen #Houthis #Gaza #West Bank in Palestine

[yarpiebrit]

Finding Smuts' essence!

Finding Smuts’ essence!

Book Review: Jan Smuts and his First World War (1914-1917) by David Brock Katz Finally, a refreshing new look at Jan Smuts, and not a popularist novel, a proper historical treatise, so well researched it stands up to strong academic scrutiny and it will stand for some time to come. Jan Smuts and his First World War 1914-1917 by Dr David Bock Katz is a revelation, it seeks out and finds Smuts’…

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#Afrikaner Rebellion #Allied Forces #Boer War #British Empire #East Africa #First World War #German East Africa #German South West Africa #Germany #Jan Smuts #Louis Botha #manoeuvre doctrine military doctrine #Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck Salaita Hill #Schutztruppe #South African Union Defence Force

[whats-in-a-sentence]

Hardly anybody remembered that General Viljoen – the patriot, war hero and darling of scores of Afrikaners – even had a twin brother.

"Humankind: A Hopeful History" - Rutger Bregman

#book quotes #humankind #rutger bregman #nonfiction #constad viljoen #abraham viljoen #general viljoen #afrikaner #south african history #south africa #patriot #war hero #twins

[shirkers2018dirsanditan]

Israel was openly critical of apartheid through the 1950s and 60s as it built alliances with post-colonial African governments. But most African states broke ties after the 1973 Yom Kippur war and the government in Jerusalem began to take a more benign view of the isolated regime in Pretoria. The relationship changed so profoundly that, in 1976, Israel invited the South African prime minister, John Vorster - a former Nazi sympathiser and a commander of the fascist Ossewabrandwag that sided with Hitler - to make a state visit.

Leaving unmentioned Vorster's wartime internment for supporting Germany, Israel's prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin, hailed the South African premier as a force for freedom and made no mention of Vorster's past as he toured the Jerusalem memorial to the six million Jews murdered by the Nazis. At a state banquet, Rabin toasted "the ideals shared by Israel and South Africa: the hopes for justice and peaceful coexistence". Both countries, he said, faced "foreign-inspired instability and recklessness".

Vorster, whose army was then overrunning Angola, told his hosts that South Africa and Israel were victims of the enemies of western civilisation. A few months later, the South African government's yearbook characterised the two countries as confronting a single problem: "Israel and South Africa have one thing above all else in common: they are both situated in a predominantly hostile world inhabited by dark peoples."

Vorster's visit laid the ground for a collaboration that transformed the Israel-South Africa axis into a leading weapons developer and a force in the international arms trade. [Alon Liel, former Israeli ambassador to Pretoria] who headed the Israeli foreign ministry's South Africa desk in the 80s, says that the Israeli security establishment came to believe that the Jewish state may not have survived without the relationship with the Afrikaners.

"We created the South African arms industry," says Liel. "They assisted us to develop all kinds of technology because they had a lot of money. When we were developing things together we usually gave the know-how and they gave the money. After 1976, there was a love affair between the security establishments of the two countries and their armies.

"We were involved in Angola as consultants to the [South African] army. You had Israeli officers there cooperating with the army. The link was very intimate."

Alongside the state-owned factories turning out materiel for South Africa was Kibbutz Beit Alfa, which developed a profitable industry selling anti-riot vehicles for use against protesters in the black townships.

—

By the 1980s, Israel and South Africa echoed each other in justifying the domination of other peoples. Both said that their own peoples faced annihilation from external forces - in South Africa by black African governments and communism; in Israel, by Arab states and Islam. But each eventually faced popular uprisings - Soweto in 1976, the Palestinian intifada in 1987 - that were internal, spontaneous and radically altered the nature of the conflicts.

"There are things we South Africans recognise in the Palestinian struggle for national self-determination and human rights," says [Ronnie Kasrils, former South African Intelligence Minister]. "The repressed are demonised as terrorists to justify ever-greater violations of their rights. We have the absurdity that the victims are blamed for the violence meted out against them. Both apartheid and Israel are prime examples of terrorist states blaming the victims."

There are important differences. Israel faced three wars of survival, and the armed struggle in South Africa never evolved to the murderous tactics or scale of killing adopted by Palestinian groups over recent years. But, from the 1980s, the overwhelming superiority of Israeli military power, the diminishing threat from its neighbours and the shift of the conflict to Palestinian streets eroded the sympathy that Israel once commanded abroad.

White South Africa and Israel painted themselves as enclaves of democratic civilisation on the front line in defending western values, yet both governments often demanded to be judged by the standards of the neighbours they claimed to be protecting the free world from.

"The whites [in South Africa] always saw their fate in a way related to the fate of the Israelis because the Israelis were a white minority surrounded by 200 million fanatic Muslims assisted by communism," says Liel. "Also, there was this analysis that said Israel is a civilised western island in the midst of these 200 million barbaric Arabs and it's the same as the Afrikaners; five million Afrikaners surrounded by hundreds of millions of blacks who are also assisted by communism."

When Israel finally began to back away from the apartheid regime as international pressure on the Afrikaner government grew, Liel says Israel's security establishment balked. "When we came to the crossroads in '86-'87, in which the foreign ministry said we have to switch from white to black, the security establishment said, 'You're crazy, it's suicidal.' They were saying we wouldn't have military and aviation industries unless we had had South Africa as our main client from the mid-1970s; they saved Israel. By the way, it's probably true," he says.

emphasis mine. this article is from 2006 and is a part of a two-part series investigating whether israel subjects palestinians to apartheid. the first part is here. since this article was published, amnesty international, human rights watch, and the united nations office of the high commissioner on human rights, among other organizations, have declared israel’s occupation of and blockade on palestine (the west bank and gaza strip, respectively) a form of apartheid.

#israel #south africa #apartheid #long post #going to post more highlights from this piece #it is absolutely worth a close read

[opencommunion]

"The racist dimensions of international politics were manifest and explicitly challenged during the many months of intensive meetings at the Versailles Peace Conference of 1919 – at which was established the scaffolding of postwar colonial and imperial arrangements, including the British Mandate over Palestine.

White powers often described the struggle for 'world domination' as a 'race war' in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. British imperialists distinguished between white and nonwhite (or 'coloured') peoples and assumed the former should rule and the latter should be ruled, defining 'Syrians' and Afghans, for example, as 'nonwhites.' ... Irrespective of anti-Semitism and the historically situated and to some degree malleable nature of whiteness as a social construct, Zionist settler-colonialism was understood by its advocates and their British and US allies to be a white socioeconomic project. Racism in Mandate Palestine expressed itself through civilizational discourse, extraction from the native population, the biopolitics of colonial categorizations and counting, and the systematic maldistribution of life, death, and wellbeing by investment priorities. Such maldistribution by priority is underplayed as a systemically racist dimension of settler-colonialism and colonialism in Palestine. ... The 'blueprint' for the Allied postwar geopolitical order, the League of Nations and its Mandate system, was authored by racist war hero Jan Smuts, an Afrikaner from South Africa, at the behest of the British government. Published in December 1918 as The League of Nations: A Practical Suggestion, the document became a worldwide bestseller. Its stated purpose was to establish 'a means to prevent future wars.' Smuts’s use of the terms 'self-determination' and 'no annexation,' drawing on Woodrow Wilson’s Fourteen Points released in January 1918, offered thin ideological cover for European and US imperialist aims to control postwar geopolitics and resources. The 'peoples left behind' by the dissolution of the Russian, Austrian, Ottoman, and German empires, Smuts rationalized, were 'largely incapable or deficient in the power of self-government.' ... Smuts argued ... that the peoples of Palestine and Armenia were too 'heterogeneous' to be consulted regarding any future arrangement. ... By the 1919 Versailles Peace Conference certainly, British colonial politicians recognized, to borrow Helen Tilley's words, that egregiously racist policies threatened the stability of the colonial order by making 'governing far more difficult.' At the same time, policies of social equality or parity threatened to 'undermine' the (extractive and violent) logic of colonial relationships – the colonizer must be above the colonized. When such hierarchy was shaken, the 'prospects of [the colonized person’s] future usefulness [to the colonial state] is destroyed.' This helps explain why criticism of racial prejudice by some colonial elites 'was insufficient to undermine the social hierarchies of colonial states.'"

Frances S. Hasso, Buried in the Red Dirt: Race, Reproduction, and Death in Modern Palestine (2021)

#palestine #colonialism #imperialism #zionism #history #library

[hussyknee]

Please note that who gets to be "white" is contextual to the center of ethnic power in each region.

Dark-skinned people of Asian, African and Indigenous descent will never be white in any part of the world and will always be vulnerable to white skinned people of European descent. (Excepting the times Japanese and some East Asian peoples with an adequate lack of melanin have been granted conditional whiteness.)

However, Slavs, white Jews, white Latinos, white Roma (white skinned and associated with European origins) are fully white in places where they hold ethnosupremacy and achieve/are granted conditional whiteness of varying levels and privileges in the US, Canada, South Africa and other white settler colonies, and some parts of Europe (Jewish South African settlers had no idea what side of the apartheid fence they would fall until the white Afrikaners made clear they were accepted).

Whiteness in the Western world is also entirely in the purview of the imperial core's narrative. In the Western lens, Eastern Europeans eternally hover between the fact of being white-skinned Europeans and being Orientalised due to their histories as colonies of Russia and Ottoman empire and their shared heritage with Asia Minor. Even the narratives of the Holocaust erase the genocide of Soviet Jewry. (That's right, in Soviet Russia the Holocaust had nothing to do with Jews, which is why Putin keeps accusing Zelensky of being a Nazi). The US and Western Europe's manufacturing of consent for NATO's military alliance with Ukraine at the outbreak of its war with Russia involved efforts to elevate them to full whiteness that were routinely hilarious because demystifying and de-exoticising them (is that a word?) revealed the extent to which they had been Othered, paternalised and exotified (lots of "omg they're humans just like us even though they live in a shitty second world country" stories especially from the UK, ntm journalists parachuting in and seemingly being surprised they had McDonald's and internet access. You could not make this stuff up). You can contrast this directly with how much of a shit they don't give about Armenians because they're Russian allies, even though Armenians are literally white in the US. It's why I have to roll my eyes at the "they care about Ukrainians because they're white" discourse. That's entirely backwards— Ukrainians are white because NATO is invested in them. Otherwise they'd just be another former Soviet Republic up to their usual "savage shenanigans" like the rest of the Eastern Bloc.

You'd think you couldn't pull this same trick with non-Europeans, except that Apartheid South Africa deemed Japanese "honorary whites" (much like Nazi Germany proclaimed them honorary Aryans), and then, hilariously, the rest of the East Asians because they were so pissed off about it. White Australia otoh kept them stubbornly out.

Otoh, Islam is fully and irrevocably racialized (associated with the Middle East even though like...nevermind), which is why Bosniaks and Turks will never be given even conditional whiteness, European or not.

Whatever the geo-political hemisphere, under the global influence of white supremacy, the capacity for the casual public to empathize with a person recedes with the rise of melanin in their appearance. This is why abolitionists used white passing Black Americans to drum up support for their cause among Europeans, why more people will always empathize with white Eastern Europeans, why anti-blackness is its own creature and Black people are so universally dehumanized that even people that care about atrocities in the Middle East pay scant attention to the horrors in Africa where the West and Israel are equally implicated. In the landscapes of our imaginations, the Western cultural hegemony has created the image of dark bodies into a faceless, uncontainable, seething hoarde born to suffer and die; lives stripped bare of names, personalities, agency, intelligence, homelands and dreams.

(Please note this blog is anti-genocide no matter the colour of their skin, by which I mean that what's happening in Ukraine is also one, and no amount of Zionists with their flag in their bios makes it any more acceptable for them to be colonized and slaughtered than it is for any of the several Black and brown people being subjected to the same right now. Human rights are not predicated on good behaviour, or else we'd all be dead.)

#racism #anti blackness #white supremacy #congo genocide #sudan genocide #palestinian genocide #colonization #imperialism #holocaust #armenian genocide #apartheid #war propaganda #eastern europe #knee of huss #free palestine

[militantinremission]

Should Black America choose sides on Israel & Palestine?

Mainstream Media has been particularly single minded in its narrative of the (latest) 'Conflict' in Gaza. Palestinian hardship is mentioned, but the focus has been on the Israeli hostages and an International rise in Anti Semitism. For some reason Zionist Groups, and more than a few Zionist individuals have been trying to persuade (guilt) Black America into fighting for their Cause. We understand how Black support for a Cause gives it legitimacy, but should We? The Voices of New Black Media have 2 general opinions, but neither is Pro- Israel.

One Opinion in New Black Media says that We should have some degree of solidarity w/ the Palestinian People. We can identify w/ their struggle, so We should speak out against it. Some opinions offer more support than others, but this is the gist of that Side of the Argument. The other Opinion expressed, is more indifferent. This Opinion says that Black America has problems at Home that require Our attention. We have In House Cleaning to do that will take Time and Energy; fighting for another's Cause diminishes Our ability to 'Do for Self'.

Black 'Personalities' in Mainstream Media are trying to create a schism w/i New Black Media, but it honestly isn't that deep. Black America is not a Monolith, so No One is going after the Other. I don't see a problem w/ 'The Family' having 2 specific mindsets. One is introverted and the Other is extroverted; together they give The Family a panoramic view- from Our perspective. Both Sides identify Jim Crow style Racism on display in Israel, so it's hard to empathize w/ a State that condones that policy. Israeli Officials go On Camera, and nonchalantly excuse War Crimes as necessary for the destruction of Hamas. Black America can't 'Rock w/ That'.

Black America's reluctance to support Israel's actions in Gaza has gotten under the skin of a few Zionists. The Usual Suspects (Ben Shapiro, Ed Blum, Ari Emanuel, Rabbi Schmuley) took their shots, but Michael Rappaport & Juliana Margulies' comments stand out. Both actually believe that Blackfolk OWE Jewishfolk something! They both offered the (early 20th Century) argument of: 'You wouldn't do it to Blackfolk, so why are you doing it to (European) Jews?' Rappaport threatened to make a List, for the 'next time' We come Hat in Hand... Michael Rappaport's family owned the #2 Black Music Radio Station in NYC (WKTU 92.3FM) during his childhood. He also brags about playing basketball in Brownsville, Bklyn as a Teen. I guess he thinks that his friendship w/ Q- Tip, his marriage to a Black Woman, and fathering her babies makes him some kind of 'Negro Whisperer'(?)

Since the Issue of Anti- Semitism & Black America rose (again) around Ye and Kyrie Irving, We have been backtracking Our relationship w/ Eastern European Jews. Professor Black Truth has mentioned on a few occasions that NAACP President Walter White is DIRECTLY responsible for convincing Afrikan Nations to support recognition of Israel in The United Nations. Later, Ralph Bunch was instrumental in Israel's survival after Al Nakba; he won the Nobel Peace Prize for his effort. When We examine the investments of Jewish American Businessmen (Legal & Illegal) in the State Of Israel; focusing on the role that Black labor, culture, and entertainment played in amassing this 'investment capital'- what exactly do We owe them?

Michael Rappaport threatened to compile a List, but Black America is already at work on Ours. It's very interesting to see so many Global Leaders and Corporate Giants concerned about Israel's 'National Security'. The World's outrage over the carnage in Gaza has revealed a soft spot in this Cabal of Governments, Multinationals, & Media. Governmental and Corporate Entities tried to threaten The Masses into compliance, but it appears that the Protesters are more emboldened. Universities that initially threatened Student Protesters are now inundated w/ them. It's South Afrika all over again! The Same Entities running interference for Israel, did the same thing in South Afrika. It took sustained Global pressure to get Corporations to divest in South Afrika, which broke the System of Apartheid.

America calls Israel an Ally, but Israel has attacked and killed American Soldiers dating back to the U.S.S. Liberty. The State Of Israel has identified Black American Men as a threat to their National Security. Why would any Zionist expect Our Support? Israeli History- up to the present, is an account of unprovoked First Strikes against a weaker adversary. They are Masters of 'throwing rocks, & hiding their hands'. Israeli Officials and their Mainstream Media collaborators are quick to start the narrative on Oct. 7th 2023; but Zionist aggression against Palestinians go back to The Stern Gang & other Jewish Mobsters during the 1930s. In fact, Palestinians have been dealing w/ Zionism since Nathan Birbaum's 'pilgramages' began in the 1890s... Norm Finkelstein has been giving lessons about the History of Zionism on various platforms, and people like Rabbi Yaakov Shapiro (no relation) confirm him.

Palestinian support is easy to understand- the daily pictures of Gaza speak volumes. While We can feel for the people, We can also understand the view of those who feel indifferent. Palestinians are similar to 19th Century Irish. In Ireland, the Irish people claimed to be in solidarity w/ Indigenous (Black) Americans. In America, they were active participants in Our oppression. The Ku Klux Klan is an Irish creation. In a similar manner, Palestinians come to America, and also participate in the oppression of Indigenous Black Americans. They set up businesses in Black Communities that rarely hire locally. In the case of Bodegas and Smoke Shops, they allow Street Crews (Sets) to:

Congregate on their Premises

Make Marijuana Sales inside & outside of their Premises

Set up prostitution in Shop Basements

In this regard, 'these' Palestinians are no different from the (so called) Arabs who STILL enslave Afrikans across N. Afrika, and call Black Americans 'Abeed' (Slave). These Store Owners have more solidarity w/ Drug Dealers, than everyday Blackfolk. They tend to look at Us w/ the same expression that Israelis give them. It's ironic how Arab Americans tend to live in close proximity to Jewish American Communities. Despite the friction, Arabs & Eastern European Jews share more similarities than differences.

Both are descendants of Eurasian 'Marauder' Tribes. The Khazarians migrated West, into Europe; The Seljukian Turks migrated South, into Arabia. If we're being honest, 'Modern Day Arabs' are not indigenous to Arabia. The True Arabs are now referred to as 'Bedouins' and 'Nomads', and have been systematically removed from most of their Land, via The Arabian Slave Trade... Black America needs to get better acquainted w/ Geopolitics. We're quick to denounce injustice, but not so quick to read between The Lines. America is NOT a Democracy, it IS a White Supremacist Republic. The 'Smith- Mundt Modernization Act of 2012' ensures that EVERY IMMIGRANT understands and complies w/ the Anti Black element of American Society. We can show solidarity w/ Others, but We have to be mindful that We don't have ANY (Collective) 'friends'. We tried to be 'friendly' for decades, & were disrespected by EVERYONE. We don't have any more cheeks to turn.

-The Ball is now in their Court.

#B1 #Indigenous #ADOS #Freemen #The13Percent #AfroPalestinians #BlackArabs #NewBlackMedia #NotMyPeopleNotMyProblem

[elbiotipo]

I will address the quiet part you're not saying out lout: Hamas is not the ANC, and there's about 1800 years of evidence for why a Jewish population will not get the same nice treatment as Afrikaners. And if you think I'm wrong, consider taking a look at the native, pre-Zionist populations of Palestine, and how well they were treated by Arab nationalists before Israel even became a thing. By all means oppose Israel, but be honest about the body count you're asking for.

Good thing I have never equaled Hamas to the ANC. Though they do have something in common: the ANC was also categorized as a terrorist organization, or do you think Nelson Mandela was always considered an icon of peace? He was considered a terrorist for wanting an equal South Africa.

The fact that Hamas, which is an Islamic extremist organization I do not support and would be disasterous in any kind of goverment or peace process, exists at all is entirely is the fault of the State of Israel for its colonial project that has commited inumnerable crimes against Palestinians and has rejected once and again any peace processes or justice for them, even as it has completely military and state control over them. In such a case, violent organizations will arise. Do not forget that Israel supported Hamas on purpose in an idiotic tactic of "divide and conquer".

If there is no "ANC" in Palestine, it's because Israel has done its worst into destroying the multiple attempts at peace and favoring violence and oppression, with the complicity of other imperial powers. A peaceful solution is still possible, but is increasingly distant the more and more crimes are commited, the more and more violence is perpetuated by the Israeli state. The first step is ending this genocidal war now, and the second is to end the Israeli occupation of what are internationally recognized Palestinian territories. That is just the first step of a inmensenly long journey to peace, and one that can't be done as long as bombs are still falling on Gaza.

Also, this is an inmensely complex historical topic, so you'd better be more specific about "pre-zionist" populations of Palestine.

Also, don't you fucking me accuse of saying "quiet parts" or wanting "body counts". I said what I said. Read it again if you are imagining genocides in your head instead of the actual one that's developing right now.

[3rdeyeblaque]

Today we venerate Ancestor "Phillis Wheatley" on her 270th birthday 🎉

Her masterful talent & revolutionary use of words in poetry, spawned her storied success in becoming the first Afrikan descendant poet to be published in U.S. History.

I place quotations "Phillis Wheatley", because that was NOT her name. "Phillis" was the name of the slave ship that robbed her of her home, dignity, & identity. "Wheatley " was the name of the European slaver who "owned" her. Both names are a lie (as are many of ours today) forced upon her as a reflection of her circumstances. I feel compelled to emphasize this as the dark truth of our history & how it presently affects us generations later, is consistently ignored. Sadly, we will never know her true name. Yet she remains a shining example of how Black excellence always perseveres despite circumstance or any interruption to our history.

Born in Senegal/Gambia, "Phillis Wheatley" was just 8 years old when she was kidnapped and sold into Slavery. She was taken to Boston, MA where she was purchased by the Wheatleys as a hand servant. Even at such a tender age, "Phillis Wheatley" showed exceptional intellectual promise. At the Wheatley's instruction, she learned to read Greek & Latin. At age 12, she discovered Alexander Pope, who she'd begin to model her own literary work after. She was first published at age 13 when her work was featured in a Rhode Island newspaper.

As her prominence grew, the Wheatleys sought a publisher to release an anthology of her work. They pursued her publication in England. There, she garnered the interest of many & the support of a Countess, who was a pro-abolitionist. A publisher approached the Wheatleys with interest, but demanded proof that it was indeed "Phillis'" work. Shortly thereafter, a literary trial unsued. A young "Phillis Wheatley" endured 18 White male arbiters in Boston who were tasked with validating her work; none in the U.S. believed that an enslaved young Afrikan woman was capable of articulating her thoughts into such impeccable work. Of course, she proved them all very wrong. 11 months later, "Phillis Wheatley's" 1773 anthology was published.

Her work was deeply attuned to the societal issues of her time; from Slavery to the Abolition Movement, to the warped irony of the European transplants writhing to escape their British dominants in the wake of the Revolutionary War. Though her classical eurocentric literary training emanated from her work, it never diminishing her voice. Her masterful use of allegories - drawn particularly from Greek mythology- affirmed her perspective as an enslaved Afrikan Woman. Due to her growing popularity & growing wealthy patrons, John Wheatley caved into the pressure to emancipate her. With her life as her own for the first time in her life, "Phillis Wheatley" sought to pursue a career in writing poetry. However, the Revolutionary War quickly redirected the financial resources of her wealthy patrons on both sides of the Atlantic.

"In every human Breast, God has implanted a Principle, which we call Love of Freedom; it is impatient of Oppression, and pants for Deliverance." - "Phillis Wheatley"  

We pour libations & give her💐 today as we celebrate her for her perseverance & revolutionary words, and elevate her in healing. May be remembered for her truth spoken through the power of words & the truth in her identity.

Offering suggestions: libations of water, read/share her poetry, & foods/music from Gambia/Senegal

*Note: offering suggestions are just that & strictly for veneration purposes only. Never attempt to conjure up any spirit or entity without proper divination/Mediumship counsel.

#hoodoo #hoodoos #atr #atrs #the hoodoo calendar #phillis wheatley #maafa #ancestor veneration #libations

[readingsquotes]

"But South Africa’s lawsuit seeking a halt to the Israeli assault on Gaza in response to the Hamas cross-border attack in October comes after years of deteriorating relations rooted in the ANC’s decades-long support for the Palestinian cause and the legacy of Israel’s close military alliance with the apartheid regime during some of the most oppressive years of white rule."

...

"Israel and apartheid-era South Africa developed a close military alliance that included collaboration on nuclear weapons, even though many of the Afrikaner leaders of the time had a history of deep antisemitism. John Vorster, the then prime minister, was feted on a visit to Jerusalem in 1976 despite having been interned during the second world war for Nazi sympathies and membership of a fascist militia that burned Jewish-owned properties."

#palestine #free palestine #genocide #apartheid #isreal #south africa

[serious2020]

#african/black experience #war on afrikans #afrikan #terrorism #protest #revolutionary #freedom #Haiti Action Committee #UNIFA #FANMI LAVALAS #Palestine #Dr Maryse Narcisse #Joel Pacha Vorbe #Dr Rama Ali Kased #Dr Walter Turner #Pierre Labossiere #Marvin X #Andrew Reynolds #culture #violence #racial profiling

[yarpiebrit]

Jan Smuts .. .. a talk with Dr. David Katz and Peter Dickens

Jan Smuts .. .. a talk with Dr. David Katz and Peter Dickens

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#Afrikaner Rebellion #Allied Forces #Boer War #British Empire #East Africa #First World War #German East Africa #German South West Africa #Germany #Jaap van Deventer #Jan Smuts #Louis Botha #manoeuvre doctrine military doctrine #Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck Salaita Hill #Schutztruppe #South African Union Defence Force

[touchlikethesun]

last year, i visited the apartheid museum in johannesburg with a group of exclusively white and (almost) exclusively americans. the museum has you walk more or less chronologically through the never ending list of tragedies and injustices that were propagated by white afrikaners against the black and coloured populations. i had to leave the group more than once to go cry in the other room or in the toilets because not only was i being confronted with truly horrifying facts and images that i had been entirely ignorant to before, but i was also having to see all the bored, impassive expressions of the others, as they tsked and murmured "what a shame" before swiftly moving on to the next horrific image.

now over a month into the war (genocide) going on in gaza, and news keeps coming out everyday about the horrible conditions, about the atrocities being committed by the israeli government, and i can already see the indifference forming in so many people, in addition to those that were supportive of israel's actions from the get-go. how can anyone look at what's happening in gaza and think "this is what they deserve, this is a proportionate response," how??? how can you pull the wool over your own eyes and fight and punch and shout at anyone that tries to take it away.

the reason why i put these two experiences together in my mind is because i think it's the same cognitive dissonance that allows for people to be confronted with tragedy and just dismiss it. none of us are passive observers in this. not all of us have the ability to really make a change, but i do think we all have a responsibility to look at what is happening with humanity and with horror. we can't get desensitised to it and we can't let it just fade to the background.

otherwise we're no better than old shriveled zombies, already aimlessly wandering a memorial and not feeling anything.

#i didn't want to post about this because i don't think i have much productive to say #and whatever i do will end up feeling performative and hollow because it literally has no impact on the horrible things that are happening #not to mention my voice counts for literally nothing because i have no stakes in this but being human and not wanting other humans to suffe #but i was thinking about this today and #just yeah idk i've been upset a lot recently #and ik that i've seemingly been posting business as usual here but i am thinking about this a lot and i have been emailing my representativ #for the little that that does #anyways #politics #palestine

[elle-thinks]

The Woman King - Combatting the Masculinization of Black Women

I was a little scared to watch The Woman King. I saw from the trailers that the movie contained a bunch of badass, Black women, but I wasn't clear on the plot. The ambiguity of the film's story made me worried for what exactly the movie was trying to accomplish in its portrayal of these women. It wasn't until I'd read up on the women who created the film that I became more excited about seeing the movie. Fortunately, Gina Prince-Blythewood, Maria Bello, and Dana Stevens flooded the movie with opportunities to view womanhood in various perspectives, defining Black femininity through an ironically historical and contemporary lens.

Set in nineteenth-century Africa, the film depicts the typical local life found in history textbooks. In a general sense, most communities were patriarchal and expected piety from women. Additionally, a woman's primary role surrounded her family or tribe as a daughter, mother, or wife, etc. However, during this time period, the Dahomey Kingdom had an additional status for women as warriors, who were revered even more than their male soldier counterparts. It is this culture that the film focuses on and embellishes.

In today's context of modern feminism, the film was evidently intended to primarily show female empowerment. I believe the writers did a wonderful job in showcasing this through story. But the layers of the film can be savored in its representation of African, Black women. This was due to great directing.

Overall, I don't think this film was especially good in that it took artistic liberties, fine-tuned dialogue, or had amazing camera work. Additionally, it was a story we've seen in other forms before, and in my opinion, it failed to add a unique twist on the tale. Despite this, the film was impactful (though I'm a bit biased as a target audience member). There are several scenes that are hard to forget due to their level of intimacy and relevance to modern Black women. For example, one moment that lingers in my mind is when a mentor braids a mentee's hair. For me, that was a perfect example of Black femininity. It showcased their sisterly bond and drew upon generations of braiding in the Afrikan diaspora. It also displayed fortitude, as it was a warrior's hairstyle in this culture. This aspect made me recall warriors of the Southern United States who wore map-like braids and risked their lives to help others. There was much to unpack in that scene. Regardless of the film's execution, I think it accomplished it's goal in terms of representation and positive messaging.

The Woman King was an especially interesting film because it purposefully blurred the lines between masculinity and femininity in an appeal to progressive ideology. Additionally, it centered on brown-skinned and darker skinned women, who have consistently been considered less feminine/desirable than their lighter counterparts due to a Eurocentric standard of beauty. Seeing Viola Davis's bulging muscles and contortion of her face into a war cry is not something traditionally viewed as beautiful, and it may have even fed into some stereotypes surrounding the abrasiveness of Black women. Even so, the feminist motif of the film highlights the fact that women have many facets. As any dynamic character, Viola Davis performs in moments of vulnerability and delves into feminine energy in more usual ways later on. Her beauty is then displayed in her multidimensional character rather than relying solely on either her masculine or feminine behaviors.

All in all, the film was a pleasant watch. I appreciated it more for its purpose than its quality.

Additional comments:

Personally, I could have done without the rushed, lightskin subplot. I get, that it was used to show another key definition of femininity (I hope so anyways). Manz was giving body though.

#woman #king #movie #film #commentary #Black #African #viola #davis #viola davis #race #race and ethnicity #masculinization #women #empowerment #feminism #beauty #standards #woman king #historical #true story

[onesettleronebullet]

The ladies pick up where they left off. "The Zulus," says Mrs. Cronje, "have always fought.We came in time to save them from fighting amongst themselves." "These peopel in Zululand are very backward," says Mrs. de Klerk. (There are approximately 5 million Zulus, the largest black tribe in South Africa.) "We whites moved in to teach them agriculture. We are trying to make. them self-reliant." "They haven't got a sense of tomorrow," says Mrs. Cronje. "Traditionally they live for today. And of course, they're warring people. They all carry knives. That's traditional. Crime is almost a daily thing. We're almost getting used to it." They explain that there is an Afrikaner expression "white by night" which refers to the good old days when there was a curfew for blacks in whit areas, where blacks were not allowed to sleep in white houses and were off the streets at night. Now, they say, with the economice situation the way it is, with more and more blacks out of jobs, the women servants are boarding in the houses and their men come and sleep with them there in the servants quarters. The ladies particularly deplore this practice, they say, because, as Mrs. Cronje puts it, "from there they can organize their burgling at night." Still, for a Mrs. Malan, who lives on a farm when she is not in Capetown, thigns are not as bad, she says. "I live on small farm," she says. "My husband tells me when he goes away, be sure to lock the door. But our farm people (the blacks) see me as a mother person. In illness or sickness they come to me, when they have a shortage or something, they come to me. When they have fights with each other, they come and complain. The other side of the picture is the rural area." "Oh the way they treat one another," says Mrs. Cronje. "My servant is old. When she goes to the hosiptal now there are blacks taking care of her. She says they have no sympathy. They treat each other very badly. The servants say if the Afrikaners have to leave they will go with us. They will not stay here. Their people are cruel to them. They're more afraid of them than we are."

The Afrikaners Burden by Sally Quinn for the Washington Post, March 4th 1979

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[kendrixtermina]

Israel is the ultimate Omelas

I always thought that Israel was a perfect microcosm of the duality of man because on the one hand they had brutal oppression and on the other it had all those brilliant futurists and scientists, and a great healthcare system that had one of the best responses to covid.

It always baffled me how those two things could coexist in the same country. How those brutal stories of oppression and books of revolutionary thought could be coming from the same place.

Now I'm realizing that this kind of makes it the perfect tyranny.

In totalitarian states like the Nazi dictatorship or sovjet communist states, the population was severely oppressed. We associate the Nazis with blind obedience but actually there was an assassination attempt on him every few months or so, 42 in the 12 years he was Dictator. Bastard kept surviving due to bad luck, like a speech being cancelled due to rain or some intern moving the suitcase with the bomb. The Nazis demanded total obedience and would execute people for speaking French or drawing modern art.

Then there is the USA's corporate rule - not as bad as dictatorships maybe, but much of the population is dirt poor and know their options to vote for are largely corporate stooges. They don't have health care, decent education or consumer protection, so they have reasons to resent their taxes being used for war.

But Israel? The population lives in one of the most advanced utopias on earth! There is healthcare, luxury, culture, even relative freedom as long as you don't say "palestine". If you don't go in the westbank, you don't realize what's going on. The insidious trick of what segregation does is that it keeps the oppressed out of sight.

If you really want to be ignorant, you can probably manage to stay that way, comfortably, and live with all the same comforts as Swedes Canadians and Japanese.

The tyranny does not touch you unless you become a soldier or there happens to be a resistance attack near you, and even in those cases, the propaganda machine has comforting answers for you. Or at least, you're told that ending the tyranny means destroying your utopia - if it's you or a stranger, many people will pick themselves their lifestyle and their family.

Of course the big lie here, or the point where the analogy totally breaks down, is that doing away with appartment and giving equal citizen rights to everyone will not actually do away with the world-class universities and hospitals or even safety... indeed you'd be safer if you didn't keep producing angry traumatized people by butchering their families. It's a false dichotomy. A trap that presents the status quo as some lesser evil.

Euro-americans are fine without Jim Crow laws; Germans did not perish without conquerring Poland; Afrikaners are fine without apartheid - indeed the former disenfranchised people are still catching up economically exty years later. There should probably be affirmative action or reparations, once Palestinians get equal rights.

Nationalism is a myth cooked up as recent as the 19th century. Historically there have never been "pure, unmixed" peoples. People mix and trade and emigrate and copy each other, as long as people have been. You are going to have to live with people different from you & share with them. It's ok. The rest of us learned that lesson too (albeit imperfectly and often at a great cost; The EU is not clean-handed at all and is unforgivable fucking up in many ways as we speak) - No one needs ethnostates. No one is entitled to ethnostates - not Germans, not Euro-Americans, not Hindus, not the Japanese, not Israelis. Ethnostates do not make you safe. Moreover: Ethnostates are not practically feasible.

Look at the area slightly east of where I live and all the bloodshed that came from being unable to draw a line so that all Poles are on one side & all Germans on the other. And now there's still Poles living here and not even a real border anymore. If only we could have made the EU straight away instead of having all those wars, displacements & slaughter!

One day in the far future when there is peace ppl will look back at today and ask "why didn't they stop it sooner why all this waste?"

Eventually you're just gonna have to SHARE the god damn country. Like EVERY OTHER COUNTRY on earth that has multiple languages, religions and ethnic groups.

The Rwandans managed to make peace! And in that case there wasn't even a detachment of technology involved, ppl killed their neighbors (and those who refused to participate in the killing) with bare hands and machetes. But it's a prosperous, orderly country now. They opened many malls recetly & had a great response to covid.

It can be done. There's nothing special about the middle east. People there are not uniquely depraved, the region has been stable & prosperous before.

#palestine #gaza #free gaza #free palestine #israel #one-state solution #apartheid