#each genocide is unique but they are all interconnected

[sheburnedlikeabride]

10 SPIRITUAL PLAGUES OF GENOCIDAL ZIONISM by Nomy Lamm, read at the liberation seders at various university encampments for Gaza, Pesach 5784

"The ten plagues of biblical times were material plagues that targeted the oppressors who held the Israelites captive. As American Jews, we have been conscripted into the role of complicity with those, oppressing, murdering, and destroying a people and their history. To accept this role is to sacrifice our own divinity.

There are kabbalists who have mapped the ten biblical plagues onto the ten sephirot (faces of the divine), starting at the bottom of the tree of life and working upward. I used the same method to map out 10 spiritual plagues that befall those who benefit from and support the occupation of Palestine.

As you read these, ask yourself which of these plagues have impacted you? Consider what you may have lost, and what it might take to repair it. The antidote to each plague is held in the energy of the sephira it is mapped onto. Feel welcome to perform the action of connecting with each divine portal as we read, or come back to it at another time."

Loss of Foundational Connection to Truth ~ malchut, shechinah, the physical world

This plague separates us from our foundational truths as inhabitants of this planet. Where do we belong? What is home? How do we ground into connection with the earth and what does it mean to do so?

(anoint your feet and feel the ground)

2. Loss of Ability to Trust our Dreams ~ yesod, portal This plague impacts our ability to dream as a Jewish people. The level of violence that we are witnessing and being asked to be complicit in requires us to separate from the messages of our subconscious and the magic of our dreams.

(anoint your lower belly and feel your aliveness)

3. Loss of Perspective ~ hod, pacing This plague impacts our ability to have a clear perspective on what has happened, what we want, and where we are going. We become split, unclear, and difficult to understand or relate to. Our perspective comes not from our own sense of reality, but from a disembodied dictate.

(anoint your hips and feel your stability)

4. Loss of Allies ~ netzach, power This is the plague of isolation, where we make true our greatest fears, by assuming that we are somehow uniquely positioned as victims, and that any actions we take out of fear are justified. To the rest of the world, we appear terrifying and dangerous.

(anoint your knees and feel your momentum)

5. Loss of Humanity ~ tiferet, beauty With this plague, we lose our place in the human family, the interconnection and common destiny that we all share as inhabitants of this planet. When we attempt to place ourselves outside of and above others, we sacrifice our own humanity.

(anoint your heart/solar plexus and feel your tenderness)

6. Loss of Hope ~ gevurah, boundary This is the plague of despair. It crumbles our belief in the possibility of transformation, severing connection with a loving god, sacrificing our faith to a punishing, war-mongering supernatural dictator.

(anoint your shoulders and feel your edges)

7. Loss of Empathy ~ chesed, opening With this plague, we lose our ability to feel anything for those who are harmed, whether by our own actions or by others. We find ways to blame people for their misfortunes, and assume such things will never befall us if we stay strong and on top.

(anoint your palms and feel your openness)

8. Loss of Clarity ~ binah, understanding This plague impacts our ability to make sense of complex sensory input and to know ourselves as a part of the world, operating by the same laws of the universe as every other sacred fragment.

(anoint your ears and feel your sharpness)

9. Loss of Wonder ~ chochmah, wisdom This plague annihilates our ability to experience the world with openness and wonder, to appreciate the wisdom of child mind, and to merge with the infinite.

(anoint your forehead and the back of your head and feel your magic)

10. Soul Loss ~ keter, source Who even are we? Those who have experienced all these plagues without consciously unwinding them are lost to themselves. Only when we experience this ultimate and final plague is it possible to commit the gut wrenching atrocities we witness at the hands of Zionist soldiers.

(anoint the top of your head, place your hand on your head and feel the blessings pour through you, connecting you back down to your roots, to the earth)

#uploads #palestine #antizionist judaism #jewish mysticism

[hunxi-guilai]

Are you in any other fandoms? Just curious, I feel like I will like anything you like too

Hmm... I’m not an active contributer in any fandom but CQL so I can’t testify to the fandom culture of other media? But I can do a quick skim of things I’ve enjoyed.

If you’re looking for more Chinese period dramas, I gotta say that 《琅琊榜》Langyabang / Nirvana in Fire is worth the hype. To this day it remains my favorite TV show of all time.

I’ve mentioned Brandon Sanderson in too many posts for me to track down and link gratuitously, but suffice to say that my main blog is a Sanderson blog because I was Going Through It back in August and needed somewhere to vent. But if you’re into:

fantasy

steampunk fantasy mystery detective stories wild west thrillers

exceedingly detailed worldbuilding

hard magic systems (no seriously the physics of Mistborn check out)

even more hard magic systems (have I mentioned that BSandy comes up with a brand new magic system for each series/short story that is totally unique but still interconnected)

taking everything you thought you knew and turning it on its head

an entire trilogy’s worth of meditation on faith, morality, heroism, legacy, and the human condition

jk it’s two trilogies worth

jk this also applies to Stormlight, which is outlined as a ten book series

nuanced character arcs 

characters dealing with mental illness in fantasy settings

engaging with the ethics of heroic violence

thousand-page tomes (#willworkoutforcosmere)

arranged marriages that always turn out into really wholesome love stories

the character archetype of the mysterious gremlin jester, because Hoid shows up in every single Cosmere book with no complete explanation as to who he truly is or what he’s up to as of yet

some really kickass one-liners (shout out to my boi Kaladin Stormblessed in Words of Radiance for the most iconic one-liner of all time)

a giant cosmic conspiracy theory that involves killing God, featuring some minor deicide along the way

you might be into Brandon Sanderson’s Cosmere. Personally I’d recommend starting out with the Mistborn series, but Stormlight Archive has saved literal souls, including my own.

WAIT gonna eat my words -- I do know about the Cosmere fandom, and the Cosmere fandom is the best. No, literally, the fandom tag is ‘cfsbf’ aka ‘cosmere fandom is best fandom’ and everyone’s super nice and supportive and enthusiastic in our shared love for this incredible text

I read Maggie Stiefvater’s The Raven Cycle back in November and was surprised at how hard I fell for it? I was like ‘okay YA paranormal romance not really my thing but I’ll give it a try’ and was just??? floored???? It’s so beautifully written and just has this way of crawling inside your brain and articulating a million things you’ve felt but never had the words for??? and also gay?????

Hmmm, what else, what else... oh! I enjoyed The Umbrella Academy last year, I think I watched all ten episodes in 36 hours (I was STRESSED okay), and I’m excited for season 2! What can I say, apocalypse and found family and time travel and black humor, all things I’m down for

I was super into RWBY for a few years, but idk the second half of volume 6 and pretty much the entirety of vol 7 just weren’t doing it for me, but the premise of the show is fun and the fight scenes e x q u i s i t e

oh! more books: I heckin love silkpunk. Ninefox Gambit by Yoon Ha Lee might dethrone The Lord of the Rings as my favorite book of all time. I was personally floored by R.F. Kuang’s The Poppy War -- I don’t usually go for grimdark books, but it’s spectacularly well-conceptualized and researched (though when I say grimdark, I mean grim AND dark -- book one has two genocides and a massacre, and it’s not like the rest of the book is a walk in the park either. Its historical inspiration comes from both the Opium Wars and WWII, which are Chock Full of Drugs and Atrocities, so like... proceed with maximum caution and emergency chocolate). I would die for Chen Kitay, just putting that out there

ummmmmmmm that’s all I got off the top of my head for now! I literally keep a running document of book recs for my friends, but it really depends on what genre they’re looking for

#ask and ye shall receive #do I start every post with 'hmmm' ? #fascinating #cfsbf!

[uncle-sams-dirty-socks]

Why does everyone speak the same language in atla?

Easy answer: it’s a kids show and you can’t rely on subtitles for a show directed at a barely-literate audience.

But where’s the fun in going with that?

Long ago, the people of the different nations all spoke different languages.  Then, everything changed when the Air Nomads attacked.  The Air Nomads were notorious for traveling around the world, meeting new people, interacting with different cultures.  We have evidence for this when Aang talks about his friends Bumi and Kuzon, who were from the Earth Kingdom and Fire Nation, respectively.  The Earth Kingdom was the largest land mass in the world, and the Air Nomads had settlements to the North, South, East and West of it, which frequently interacted with each other.  Airbending and sky bison made travel easier, and the Air Nomads facilitated the world’s communication system.  Over time, the world came to speak one language: the language of the Air Nomads.

With a few character exceptions, the world of atla seems to have the same accent throughout each of the four nations, even after the genocide of the Air Nomads.  Even the more isolated Northern Water Tribe did not develop a distinctive accent in the eighty years following the Fire Nation’s last attack prior to the avatar returning.  So it seems like in this interconnected world, language barriers, and even nation-distinctive accents, are non-existent.

So how do you explain the swampbenders?  

Sure, the swampbenders have a unique, Mississippi-delta twang, but aside from that they are easily able to communicate with the world’s heros.  According to Avatar Wiki, the swampbenders are decendants of Southern Water Tribe members who migrated to the Foggy Swamp thousands of years before the Hundred Year War.

Thousands. Of. Years.

A new language can naturally develop in as little as 500 years, so why do the swampbenders speak the same language as the rest of the world when they are isolated from it?  

When Huu talked about the Banyan Grove Tree, he talked about how he reached enlightenment by sitting under it, and learning how everything was interconnected.  What if the magic of the swamp allowed the swampbenders to stay in tune with the world around them, so that when the time came for them to help end the Hundred Year War, there would be no issues with communication?  The swamp WANTED the swampbenders to be found.  It WANTED them to fight in the war.  It WANTED the avatar to understand the importance of interconnection.  My theory is that the spirit of the Banyan Grove is capable of seeing thousands of years into the future, and, knowing that the swampbenders were destined to fight in the Hundred Year War, prevented their language or dialect from changing to something the rest of the world wouldn’t be able to understand.  In this essay I will 

#atla #avatar the last airbender #Foggy swamp #swampbenders #I put more thought into this than I have for any of my classes during this friggen quarentine

[khicken121]

Persephone (original work)

Oh? Something original?? What a surprise!

WARNING: Heavy violence and mild gore towards the end! ----- Years of revolution held the promise of peace for the planet. For some, it fulfilled that. For the rest, well, their only choices were hiding, death or risk biased punishment by the Persephone.

The Powerful didn’t always control the earth like they do now. In fact, it was only half a century ago that they were on the brink of extinction. Forests were almost completely gone, there was no soil to properly raise crops with, nor was the atmosphere becoming any cleaner. What began as a peaceful movement to restore the environment also gave birth to a small group of radicals, who later called themselves the Persephone. In their minds, the only superior race were themselves and people like them. They call these kinds of people the Powerful. They should be revered as the equivalent to the god most of the people worshipped.

The Persephone slowly drew more and more people to their cause. The fear that drove them to hide their magic dissolved with time and courage. Persephone got what they wanted, but at the great cost of flooding the land and oceans with red.

Billions of guilty people lost their lives during the Era of Cleansing. Every Powerless was responsible for sickening the planet. All of them took her beauty for granted, and they had to be punished for it. Over the course of thirty years, they perished. The food supply for the Powerless was sabotaged by the Powerful, for it was their duty to seek out and destroy the source of Her sickness. Cities of destruction, which they called their home, were overtaken by breathtaking yet dangerous foliage. The buildings crumbled, leaving many without protection from the elements. Many continued to perish, for they didn’t learn to live off the land fast enough. With so few Powerless left, the Earth finally had a chance to breathe. With the assistance of the Powerful, not only was She restored, She was also rejuvenated. Factories stopped intoxicating the air, for there was no one to operate them. Trees weren’t cut down with the intent to produce mundane items like paper money. The virus of humanity that plagued the Earth had died out..

Like every virus, little pockets of it adapted and still exist to this day. Like the elusive masses of slime they were, they were deadly and damn hard to kill. If a Powerful is unlucky enough to encounter one, they better be prepared or they’d never be seen or heard from again.

If the slime was ever caught, they were to be turned in to the authorities to be dealt with permanently.

However, the ‘slime’ had their own interpretation:

For the self-proclaimed Humane, the uprising of Persephone marked the beginning of the genocide. They took everything they could carry and fled into safe havens they carved out of abandoned military bases. Many were left with the clothes on their backs, forced to relearn to live off the land and ration the medicines they had.

Needless to say, survivors with chronic illnesses didn’t last long.

There were few advantages they had in this harsh, beautiful world. One was their ability to hide. No one dared to leave the safe points unless they were greater than a 20 foot radius of any organism from the plant kingdom or if the wind was extra powerful that day. It was the only chance they had at staying interconnected with other safe points without the risk of being tracked. The other advantage was the weapons they held. They could kill anyone in an instant. Everyone who left the safe point was required to be equipped with one. If they were to come into contact with anyone not bearing the crest that deemed them as a Powerless among other Powerless, they were to be killed on sight.

There was no other way of keeping their locations safe.

Not that they exactly regretted having to do this. The same thing happened to them decades ago  at a much worse level. So why not return the favor?

-----

No Powerless ever came close to a Powerful unless it was imperative to get near them in the path of a goal that kept the Powerless surviving under the radar of Persephone. Should a Powerless be discovered among the Powerful, no one exactly knew what happened to them, for no one ever returned to tell the tale, though those who evaded capture had nasty rumors to share. This was what Callie feared most as her child came into the world exactly fifty weeks before the beginning of the 22nd century.

-----

The young woman upon the bed clutched her infant daughter to her chest in a fruitless effort to protect her from the outside world. The harsh, merciless world. The baby would not be allowed to survive in the current circumstances. Nature didn’t flow in her presence, and her lack of power would be recognized instantly. The world had never seen any Powerful give life to a Powerless. If word got out, the child wouldn’t even be given a chance to survive. Her only chance of thriving was far, far away from here. It tore Callie’s heart in two just thinking about it.

Her husband sat next to her, his large hands enclosing his wife’s smaller ones. The presence of the two Powerfuls in the room caused the thick moss along the walls to dance as if the wind was guiding it in all directions, despite the fact that not even a breeze could be felt. Their gazes were transfixed upon their newborn daughter. The medicine in her body caused her words to slur and her movements to sway unnaturally, but the fast metabolism of the Powerful race was quickly rectifying her weariness.

“Is she really...” he asked, knowing full well what the answer was, yet still unable to finish the question.

“It’s exactly as we feared,” Callie sobbed. “She can’t stay here, Keith. She has to go to them. It’s the only way to ensure her safety-”

“I refuse to separate our family!”

“There’s no other way!” she partly spoke through tears. “She has to go to them. They’ll take her in.”

“No one even knows where they are,” he tried to argue, but his wife was stubborn in her words.

“Then they’ll have to find you,” more tears spilled onto her cheeks. “I hate this just as much as you, but there’s no other option. She’ll find her way back to us… she has to, right?”

They glanced at the matching black marks on their inner wrists. The ornate design completely unique to the three of them. A Powerful was given one at birth, then a different one once they committed themselves to a partner. Being irremovable, both knew that one day, they'd find their daughter again.

-----

Keith ran as far north as he could, up and beyond the Canadian border. His chances would have been the same in any direction he went, keeping his daughter close to him so his presence would loom over her lack of magic. He ran beyond the border and into the frosted night. The thick woods of the mountains were motionless in the windless altitude. He had no way of knowing whether he was getting closer or farther. All he had to rely on now was luck.

When hunger invaded his stomach, he willed a nearby bush to prematurely ripen several small blueberries. What he didn’t consume, he crushed into liquid and fed to her. Hopefully that would keep their stomachs satisfied for the next few hours.

The soft cracking of twigs and dried leaves on the forest floor diverted his attention to surrounding people clad in bodysuits that perfectly camouflaged with the branches of the trees. Each of them had mud covering their faces to conceal their identities. Not one didn’t possess weapons that were illegalized nearly four decades ago. The rumors stated they could fire hundreds of rounds in a single minute.

Keith tightened his clutch on his daughter, who was sound asleep at the moment. His free hand which was covered in juices from the crushed blueberries was outstretched, but he showed no additional display of magic beyond the flow of long grass at his feet which swayed in all directions on the windless night. The weapons were aimed at Keith’s center. He half expected them to kill him on the spot, but he still stood in place. Alive, breathing and in one piece.

“You’re bold to come to our territory, Sephy, and with an infant no less,” the leader spoke with a voice muffled by the mask they wore. The suit all the soldiers donned made it near impossible to decipher which were male and which were female. “Lower your arm, and my men will lower theirs.”

Keith did so, and in turn, the weapons pointed towards the earth.

“I mean none of you harm,” he attempted to appear and sound stoic, but the fear crawling into his voice betrayed him. “My daughter can’t survive with me and my wife. She’s a… she’s-”

“Powerless,” the leader finished. “And you want us to take her in, don’t you?”

“...Yes,” Keith brought himself to say, fighting back his own tears and still failing to swallow his hesitation.

“Prove it, then. Give her to me, and take twenty paces in that direction,” the leader ordered as they pointed behind Keith. He did as instructed, and the grass stilled under the Powerless.

“Thank you for telling us the truth, Sephy. You have our word she’ll be safe.” With the wave of their arm, the soldiers began retreating into the deepest part of the woods.

“Wait!” Keith shouted, “can I at least tell her goodbye?”

The leader turned around and began walking toward Keith with the swaddled baby in hand. He ran up to them and placed a kiss to the infant’s tiny forehead as water droplets began falling from the sky, decorating the white blankets with small gray dots.

“Goodbye, Janus.”

The moment he uttered her name, she was pulled from his hold and a deafening ring filled the air. His body hit the ground, staining the luscious green foliage with red liquid. The leader saluted to the sniper hidden in the branches, silently commanding him to return to his post.

“Welcome to the family, Janus.” Medea thought to herself as she headed back to camp, where the rest of her people were waiting for her. -----

Hope you enjoyed! It’s my first original work on Tumblr.

#Story is mine #Persephone #no reposting! #reblog only #there's more to it but I hate it

[perkwunos]

We need to think more in terms of the meaning we interpret within sense-perception: certain sense data signifies that the world is a certain way, and we may act within it accordingly. The smell of a flower means we may walk up and see and touch said flower. But it is an interpretation, and has to be proven valid for whatever purposes as we act. A certain smell or sight could signify a plant substance or fungus that is toxic, just as other such sense-perceptions may signify a predatory animal. If we act accordingly as if there was danger, and escape a possibly fatal result, we were justified in our interpretations, insofar as we want to continue living.

This is the intimate basis for a pragmatic theory of knowledge: truth is based upon a meaning interpreted within our experience by whose signified potential we act accordingly and thus achieve desired results. Thus truth is found within an historically contingent activity of interaction with an environment in which we desire certain potential results and can actually achieve them. It is found within a world that affects our experience to be a certain way just as our experience then affects it to be a certain way: a world of relations in process, where we can will ourselves into achieving certain results.

This same activity of interpretation is also the basis for the meaning-making of our culture as we relate to one another by symbolic means of communication: most importantly language. These all, after all, rely upon sense-perceptions: we have to make certain things within the physical world we can perceive, e.g. make vocal sounds, write letters, dress a certain way, make a certain flag, etc. And just the same, this cultural meaning-making is a process of desire in which certain potential forms are valued and we work to create situations where they may actually occur. This is the basis for human labor: we form relations with one another based upon this communication of desired results, and thus work together to achieve them. Out of these relations of production, human society is produced. Also, as has already been noted, this activity is fundamentally relational, and humans as social animals fully exemplify this relationality in what we desire, for what we really value and want are certain social relations. We desire to have a certain connection with others in which our activities are recognized by each other. Mere things, objects, are simply aspects of the situations we share with one another.

However, modern society has been marked by an incredible confusion in regards to how to theorize all of this. It is driven to a solipsism in which the interpretations of sense-perception as meaning a connection to a wider world is seen as untenable, at least impossible to give theoretical justification. The contents of our experience are seen as entirely separate from the actual physical world. There is a major divide. On the one hand there are mental substances, whose contents are sense-perceptions and thoughts–the world of meaning. On the other there are material substances, bodies of mere extension and motion–lifeless atoms and mechanisms. The human soul takes up the holy place which earlier developments in medieval ideology had begun furnishing for it: it is now sole container of value in this world. With this divide, our values or desires are increasingly seen as existing in a world separate from one in which our bodily activity connects together in a common world of shared results. At the same time, a process of scientific knowledge increasingly accumulates an immensely powerful set of theories regarding a mechanical world lacking any meaning, exemplified by Newtonian physics, proving its “truth” to the modern audience by the rapid accumulation of technological prowess. It does not take long for an uneasiness to develop in regards to the validity of even positing the meaningful world of the mental substance as real, despite the fact it’s the only thing we actually have direct access to knowing. Cross-cultural studies reveal these modern conceptions to be as unique as they are bizarre; no other people have been able to so absurdly separate themselves from the world.

This is the ideological process that occurred within the development of capitalism concerning the cosmological aspect of its culture, by which we still live accordingly. I preceded it briefly by what I perceive as a more accurate positive construction of our experience in its relation to the world to better illustrate its implications. However, my earlier account suggests another important step: I noted that the basis of our society derives from the way we relate to one another’s desires by working together to produce said society. To get at the full meaning of the “great divide” within modern society, “the bifurcation of nature,” we must locate the development of this thought within the social relations of production (according to this interpretation). A cursory glance would result in a large and obvious point: this modern worldview developed alongside capitalism, strikingly parallel. It developed alongside the development of capitalist relations of production, i.e. the development of wage labor producing society for the sake of making a profit for capitalists. A system in which the individual desires of the workers are made null by forcing them to work as mere passive parts of a wider mechanical process predesigned not to benefit them individually or collectively, but rather to make a profit; where the capitalist is forced to constantly run society in terms of profit in order to compete on a market; where money as the abstract value consumes all other values and begins to guide society. It is a social system, in short, of alienation, constantly producing alienation. This is the setting for the development of modern thought. It is one of domination: it creates poor workers that can barely survive, homeless unemployed who can’t survive, and capitalists who get rich off of the process, alongside colonialism, imperialism, genocide, slavery, white supremacy, and, perhaps most urgently, ecological crisis that threatens to eliminate any hope for a better future. These things have all occurred to such horrific heights in the modern day because society has been driven so totally by the compulsion to make a profit.

We’d do well to enter into a process of examination, therefore, into the dynamics of this society and how it functions to create not only such incredible oppression, but also to force humanity to interact with nature in such a way as to possibly render us extinct. At the same time, and for its sake, we must critically examine the theoretical suppositions we inherit from this culture, and attempt to positively construct theoretical tools more amenable to this understanding our social relations, and our place within them. Unlike the various fragmented special knowledges of our current society–defined as it is by division of labor working under the ideology of this modern divide we noted–we will be seeking after an understanding of things in terms of the totality of the interconnections: we must understand humans as they interact with one another, and we must understand these human interactions in terms of interactions with the wider environment. The basis of our thinking must be our desire as we act within the world, for it is ultimately our ability to communicate with one another and share meanings regarding desired results that will be what we fully reclaim by seizing the means of production for the sake of being democratically run by the workers for collective good.

[xtruss]

The Ugliest Face of China

ARGUMENT

The World’s Most Technologically Sophisticated Genocide Is Happening in Xinjiang. The United States Needs to Formally Acknowledge the Scale of the Atrocities.

Over a million Turkic Uighurs are detained in concentration camps, prisons, and forced labor factories in China. What makes it uniquely dangerous is its technological sophistication, allowing for concealment from global attention.

— BY RAYHAN ASAT, YONAH DIAMOND | JULY 15, 2020 | Foreign Policy

A man walks past a screen showing images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kashgar in China's northwest Xinjiang region on June 4, 2019. GREG BAKER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Two recent disturbing events may finally awaken the world to the scale and horror of the atrocities being committed against the Uighurs, a mostly secular Muslim ethnic minority, in Xinjiang, China. One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uighur women. The other was the seizure by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps. Both events evoke chilling parallels to past atrocities elsewhere, forced sterilization of minorities, disabled, and Indigenous people, and the image of the glass display of mountains of hair preserved at Auschwitz.

The Genocide Convention, to which China is a signatory, defines genocide as specific acts against members of a group with the intent to destroy that group in whole or in part. These acts include (a) killing; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm; (c) deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about the group’s physical destruction; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Any one of these categories constitutes genocide. The overwhelming evidence of the Chinese government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to destroy the Uighur people clearly meets each of these categories.

Over a million Turkic Uighurs are detained in concentration camps, prisons, and forced labor factories in China. Detainees are subject to military-style discipline, thought transformation, and forced confessions. They are abused, tortured, raped, and even killed. Survivors report being subjected to electrocution, waterboarding, repeated beatings, stress positions, and injections of unknown substances. These mass detention camps are designed to cause serious physical, psychological harm and mentally break the Uighur people. The repeated government orders to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins”; “round up everyone who should be rounded up”; and systematically prevent Uighur births demonstrate a clear intent to eradicate the Uighur people as a whole.

Ekpar Asat (brother of one of the present authors) is an emblematic example of how Uighurs are targeted regardless of their recognition as model Chinese citizens by the Communist Party. Asat was praised by the government for his community leadership as a “bridge builder” and “positive force” between ethnic minorities and the Xinjiang local government. But Asat still suffered the same fate as over a million other Uighurs and disappeared into the shadows of the concentration camps in 2016. He is held incommunicado and is reported to be serving a 15-year sentence on the trumped-up charge of “inciting ethnic hatred.” Not a single court document is available about his case.

In 2017, Xinjiang waged a brutal “Special Campaign to Control Birth Control Violations,” along with specific local directives. By 2019, the government planned to subject over 80 percent of women of childbearing age in southern Xinjiang to forced intrauterine devices (IUDs) and sterilization. The goal is to achieve “zero birth control violation incidents.” Government documents reveal a campaign of mass female sterilization supported by state funding to carry out hundreds of thousands of sterilizations in 2019 and 2020. This goes far beyond the scale, per capita, of forced sterilization inflicted on women throughout China under the past one-child policy.

To implement these policies, the Xinjiang government employed “dragnet-style” investigations to hunt down women of childbearing age.To implement these policies, the Xinjiang government employed “dragnet-style” investigations to hunt down women of childbearing age. Once apprehended, these women have no choice but to undergo forced sterilization to avoid being sent to an internment camp. Once detained, women face forced injections, abortions, and unknown drugs.

“To implement these policies, the Xinjiang government employed “dragnet-style” investigations to hunt down women of childbearing age.”

And statistics show that the government is meeting its birth prevention goals.

Between 2015 and 2018, population growth rates in the Uighur heartland plummeted by 84 percent. Conversely, official documents show that sterilization rates skyrocketed in Xinjiang while plunging throughout the rest of China, and the funding for these programs is only increasing. Between 2017 and 2018, in one district, the percentage of women who were infertile or widowed increased by 124 percent and 117 percent, respectively. In 2018, 80 percent of all IUD placements in China were performed in Xinjiang despite accounting for a mere 1.8 percent of China’s population. These IUDs can be removed only by state-approved surgery—or else prison terms will follow. In Kashgar, only about 3 percent of married women of childbearing age gave birth in 2019. The latest annual reports from some of these regions have begun omitting birth rate information altogether to conceal the scale of destruction. The government has shut down its entire online platform after these revelations. The scale and scope of these measures are clearly designed to halt Uighur births.

With Uighur men detained and women sterilized, the government has laid the groundwork for the physical destruction of the Uighur people. At least half a million of the remaining Uighur children have been separated from their families and are being raised by the state at so-called “children shelters.”

What makes this genocide so uniquely dangerous is its technological sophistication, allowing for efficiency in its destruction and concealment from global attention. The Uighurs have been suffering under the most advanced police state, with extensive controls and restrictions on every aspect of life—religious, familial, cultural, and social. To facilitate surveillance, Xinjiang operates under a grid management system. Cities and villages are split into squares of about 500 people. Each square has a police station that closely monitors inhabitants by regularly scanning their identification cards, faces, DNA samples, fingerprints, and cell phones. These methods are supplemented by a machine-operated system known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform. The system uses machine learning to collect personal data from video surveillance, smartphones, and other private records to generate lists for detention. Over a million Han Chinese watchers have been installed in Uighur households, rendering even intimate spaces subject to the government’s eye.

The Chinese government operates the most intrusive mass surveillance system in the world and repeatedly denies the international community meaningful access to it. It is therefore incumbent on us to appreciate the nature, depth, and speed of the genocide and act now before it’s too late.

Recognizing or refusing to name this a genocide will be a matter of life or death. In 1994, by the time U.S. officials were done debating the applicability of the term to the situation in Rwanda, nearly a million Tutsis had already been slaughtered. A document dated May 1, 1994, at the height of the genocide, by an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense stated: “Genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to actually ‘do something.’” Four years later, President Bill Clinton stood before Rwandan survivors and reflected on his administration’s historic failure and vowed: “Never again must we be shy in the face of the evidence.”

With the passing of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, the U.S. government has begun to take steps in the right direction to avoid another human catastrophe. Seventy-eight members of Congress have followed up with a call for the administration to impose Magnitsky sanctions on the responsible Chinese officials and issue a formal declaration of the atrocity crimes, including genocide. So far, the administration has officially imposed Magnitsky sanctions on four Chinese officials and an entity in charge of the Orwellian surveillance system and responsible for the expansion of the internment camps in Xinjiang. The U.S. government must now make an official determination of genocide. This will not be difficult, as U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus has already asserted that “what has happened to the Uighur people … is potentially the worst crime that we have seen since the Holocaust.”

A formal declaration of genocide is not simply symbolic. It will catalyze other countries to join in a concerted effort to end the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang. It will also prompt consumers to reject the over 80 international brands that profit off genocide. Furthermore, the determination will strengthen legal remedies for sanctioning companies that profit from modern slavery in their supply chains sourced in China and compel business entities to refrain from profiting from genocide and commit to ethical sourcing.

In our interconnected world, we are not only bystanders if we fail to recognize the genocide as we see it. We are complicit.

— Rayhan Asat is a lawyer, the president of the American Turkic International Lawyers Association, and sister of Ekpar Asat. Yonah Diamond is legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

[tloniq-blog]

Declaration de Visión

We see something no one is reporting. Not yet.

Nosotros vemos algo que nadie está reportando. Aún no.

~~~~~~~

In the first half of the 20th Century, Jorge Luis Borges documented an imaginary world that had been entering existence in ours as early as possibly the 17th Century. Every once in a while you could catch wind of it, if you knew how to look. An odd chapter in an old encyclopedia , a word whispered in a nearby conversation, an odd coin minted using an unknown technique. You, too, would begin to whisper about it with a trusted friend. You would comb through old letters, explore the dusty corners of libraries and rummage through antique shops in hopes of an odd object.

And sometimes you would find more answers in an odd encyclopedia, sometimes more mystery in the description of language that doesn't have nouns, sometimes you would find nothing at all. And perhaps, you would put aside the hunt for weeks, months, years at a time and then suddenly this whispered world would appear again through a letter that arrived at your door, an object in the back corner of the museum, a knock on your door from a stranger who whispers the world's name - Tlon.

~~~~~~~

En la primera mitad del siglo XX, Jorge Luis Borges documentó un mundo imaginario que entra y sale de nuestra existencia tan pronto como posiblemente en el siglo XVII. De vez en cuando se puede oír menciones en el viento de, si usted sabe cómo escuchar. Un extraño capítulo en una vieja enciclopedia, una palabra susurrada en una conversación cercana, una extraña moneda acuñada usando una técnica desconocida. Usted, también, comenzaría a susurrar sobre él con un amigo de confianza. Usted se peinaba a través de las viejas cartas, explorar las polvorientas esquinas de las bibliotecas y revolver a través de tiendas de antigüedades en la esperanza de un objeto extraño.

Y a veces encontrarías más respuestas en una enciclopedia extraña , a veces más misterio en la descripción del lenguaje que no tiene sustantivos, a veces no encontrarías nada en absoluto. Y tal vez, dejarías  la caza por semanas, meses, años a la vez y de repente este mundo susurrado volvería a aparecer a través de una carta que llegó a su puerta, un objeto en la esquina posterior del museo, un toque en la puerta de un extraño que susurra el nombre del mundo - Tlon.

~~~~~~~

In our travels, we too have stumbled across this world. A world in which we all already exist. A world that the future holds. One in which we understand each other through our common human heritage. One in which we celebrate what we share and marvel at what makes us unique. One in which we exchange ideas in fairness, respect and generosity. One in which we cooperate. In which we do not need to explain why caring for each other and for our planet is important.

Whether we want to be or not, we are all interconnected and we are all looking for happiness. Whether we want to be or not, we have all impacted each other with our ideas, our cultures, our fights, our anger, our greed, our hopes and our humanity.

~~~~~~~

En nuestros viajes, también hemos tropezado con este mundo. Un mundo en el que todos ya existen. Un mundo que tiene un futuro unificado. Uno en el que nos entendemos a través de nuestra herencia humana común. Uno en el que celebramos lo que compartimos y nos maravillamos de lo que nos hace únicos. Uno en el que intercambiamos ideas en justicia, respeto y generosidad. Uno en el que cooperamos. Uno en el que no necesitamos explicar por qué es importante cuidar el uno al otro y nuestro planeta.

Si queremos ser o no, todos estamos interconectados y todos estamos buscando la felicidad. Si queremos ser o no, todos nos hemos impactado con nuestras ideas, nuestras culturas, nuestras luchas, nuestra enfado, nuestra codicia, nuestras esperanzas y nuestra humanidad.

~~~~~~~

This mixing has changed us. The world goes viral now - for Gundam Style, for the internet, for science, for space exploration, for freedom, for sustainability, for democracy, for fair trade, for travel so we can finally greet one another face-to-face. We are sharing one world culture, each from our own unique angle. And from this angle, we participate and contribute to this most precious gem we call the human experience. More and more often, we notice this new thing, these new ideas, these odd new objects, these new ways of thinking, of experimenting, of relating to one another.

~~~~~~~~

Esta interconectividad nos ha cambiado. El mundo se vuelve viral ahora - para Gundam Style, para Internet, para la ciencia, para la exploración espacial, para la libertad, para la sostenibilidad, para la democracia, para el comercio justo, para viajar, para que finalmente nos saludemos cara a cara. Estamos compartiendo una cultura mundial, cada uno desde su  propio ángulo único. Y de este ángulo, participamos y contribuimos a esta joya más preciosa que llamamos la experiencia humana. Más y más a menudo nos damos cuenta de esta nueva cosa, estas nuevas ideas, estos nuevos objetos extraños, estas nuevas formas de pensar, de experimentar, de relacionarse entre sí.

~~~~~~~~

This future is popping into existence. We are here to report it and to hear what you have found.

Este futuro está apareciendo en la nuestra existencia. Estamos aquí para informar de ello y escuchar lo que has encontrado.

~~~~~~~~

We will start right here where we are currently headquartered, the aptly named New World. Here we see Tlon appearing every day. Regardless of location in this hyper-region, every person - the Quebecois lesbian worried about how much the weather has changed, the Quechua son helping his mother carry the load, the Trinidadian of Indian descent cooking dinner, the African-American women thinking about running for president, the Syrian refugee looking at the Pacific Ocean for the first time, the Mexican punk rocker in a wheelchair riding the metro, the Bogota graffiti artist laughing as the city white-washes another wall - each one is the child of a common heritage.

Here are children of one of the world's most massive cultural exchanges. Here are the genetics of almost every ethnicity known to Earth. Each shaped and positioned by the common history of the hyper-region:

~~~~~~~

Comenzaremos aquí mismo donde al momento estamos ubicados, el aptamente llamado Nuevo Mundo. Aquí vemos a Tlon aparecer todos los días. Independientemente de la ubicación en esta hyper-región, cada persona - la lesbiana quebequense preocupada porque el clima ha cambiado tanto, el hijo quechua ayudando a su madre cargar lasa compras, el trinitense de descendientes indios cocinando la cena, las mujeres afroamericanas pensando en correr para presidente, el refugiado sirio que mira al Océano Pacífico por primera vez, el punk rockero mexicano en una silla de ruedas montada en el metro, el artista de graffiti de Bogotá riéndose mientras la ciudad cubre otro muro - cada uno es hijo de una herencia común .

Aquí hay niños de uno de los intercambios culturales más masivos del mundo. Aquí están las genéticas de casi todas las etnias conocidas por la Tierra. Cada uno formado y posicionado por la historia común de la hyper-región:  

~~~~~~~

the chaos of organized greed, slavery, genocide and displacemen el caos de la codicia organizada, la esclavitud, el genocidio y el desplazamiento

the power of hope, resistance and cooperation el poder de la esperanza, la resistencia y la cooperación 

the fire of imagination, creativity and human achievement el fuego de la imaginación, la creatividad y el logro humano 

and  y 

the immovable truth that peace and happiness are our destiny  la verdad inamovible de que la paz y la felicidad son nuestro destino

~~~~~~~

They try to tell us the world is slipping away from us, they give us a thousand reasons to lose hope, to shut the door, to stop putting one foot in front of the other. but we see evidence to the contrary.

Tratan de decirnos que el mundo se nos escapa, nos dan mil razones para perder la esperanza, cerrar la puerta, dejar de poner un pie delante del otro, pero vemos evidencia ah lo contrario.

Our future, our collective future, is popping into existence, faster and faster it approaches us.

Nuestro futuro, nuestro futuro colectivo, se está haciendo conocido, cada vez más rápido se acerca.

It's getting closer to Tlon. Se está acercando a Tlon.

It's getting Tloniq. Se está haciendo Tloniq.

~~~~~~~~

~The Tribu tloniq

9th of October 2017 - US observation of Columbus Day, currently under scrutiny

9 de octubre, 2017 - Observación del Día de Colón en EEUU, actualmente bajo escrutinio

#about us #sobre nostros #bilingual #bilingue #panamerican #panamericano #cultura panamericana #panamerican culture #tlon #tloniq #futurism #futurismo #the future is ours #la futura es de nostros #breaking news #noticias #history of the new world #historia de las americas #anti-imperialism #antiimperialismo #ciudadano del mundo #world citizen #resist #culture #world culture #cultura #cultura del mundo

[lovelouisemoriarty]

Love Unedited

Dear World, I am writing to you from Australia. We are so blessed here. Gorgeous landscape, unique animals, wise indigenous heritage, courageous survivor spirt in all. The indigenous survivors of the terrible onslaught of a very different culture, those who come from another land in chains, those who chose this land as home as a better place for their families, as utopian dreamers. Although a magnificent beauty in some place this land can be very harsh and one must be resilient in many ways. So for that I am grateful that we are all survivors here and able to find even better ways to live together with shared respect for this great continent.

One thing it is easy to learn here you need a community to survive. You cannot do it all alone. You cannot just fortify yourself and get out your shotguns when any one else comes near looking for resources because they may be the very person you need to survive the next day. This was always apparent to indigenous mobs. Their main technology was sharing. Even on a river where more than one tribe bordered the river, fish traps were allowed for everyone. You left enough fish even for your traditional enemies. You did not impose on their right to live how they wished to live. You did not break their laws or you knew there would be consequences.

Today is a funny day for Australians. We have been calling it Australia Day, the day when Cook put up the flag for Queen and country and began the battle for possession of what was widely believed as terra nulliuss. For a few decades the mainstream white culture has come together beyond their own differences and had a game of cricket with family and friends to celebrate their community on this day. It wasn't about the nation or a political ideology, it was about being with people you loved and shared with and cared for and celebrating the opportunities we have because we live in relative freedom because of the resources of this beautiful land.

For indigenous Australians it has been a different story. To try and celebrate all that is good and the diversity of our multiple thriving cultures on this day is an affront to our shared history of colonisation, dispossession and attempted genocide. Indigenous Australians and their friends and family cannot celebrate it in its current form, it would be an insult for all their ancestors who fought in the frontier wars that have never been acknowledged, for all the women and children in their families who have been controlled, incarcerated and slaughtered while going about their own lives in their own way. Their culture is a generous culture, they had minimum impact on the land and had complex laws to live in interconnected balance with the environment and other species.

Things have become very complicated now for all of us with so many agendas playing out. One thing I do know, No human wants to live their life as a victim. Whether white or black, rich or poor, at some point once the wolf is no longer knocking at your door and survival is no longer your main concern, your self worth is not blown around in the wind, you find away to love yourself warts and all: We all begin to stand in our power and demand equity and to be seen as a survivor. Not blaming others for our own unwillingness to live by values and have the courage to do what it takes to live the life we actually want. Not backing down from the confrontations that are needed to gain understanding and the changes that will bring fairness. We decide that we will clean up our own backyard, address the ways that aren't working for the greater good of the whole and we learn to be of powerful service to our community. It is also the time we realise that this global community is interdependent on each other and what is playing out at the macro, in our global and community politics, is also playing out in our families and most intimate connections.

We realise that we must act within our own sphere of influence. ‘Over time this sphere of influence grows and the culture at large is determined. What will you do today to stand strong and powerful with respect and dignity for the culture you believe in? Can you connect with another person and make the case for coming together with you sharing your resources, caring for each others needs and understanding and sharing your perspective? Can you do that with anyone who comes in your path. Better still can you just be with them with understanding, share your resources, care for them?

Can you be an inspiration to bring us all together in respect for the human rights of each individual and also each species and environment? Very soon, when we look back on our squabbles about who has what resources we will not even recognise the arguments. Because we will be living in a paradigm where all life has as much rights as we believe we have as individuals right now. We will live in a dreamtime where humanity and other species understand just how much we need the water flowing, the earth being replenished by growing things and we need each others respect for our lineage and journey's. Only then will we begin to honour and restore the diversity of life that is needed for a healthy place.

From "The Poet" Louise Moriarty going from the abundance of the city where all the resources have been taken to back to the drained and devastated drought stricken interior that has been boiling at over 42 to 47 degrees since before xmas. The kangaroos are dying and the fish boiling, people are distressed and scared and trying to hold onto hope. Have an interest in other peoples worlds sometimes your neighbours is very different to yours.

Love to you all PS If you need a poem please contact me it is my favourite gift to uplift with emotional sincerity and all the idiosyncrasies of a human living with passion and devotion to the heart of the planet.

Happy travels to you all #Make creativity viral

#Australia day

[tediousreviews]

The Seventh Gate

Nearly three months after I started, it’s finally time to say goodbye to the Death Gate Cycle. I’m a bit torn to be honest. I wouldn’t describe any of these books or the series as a whole as amazing, but on the other hand, I can’t at this point think of a single other series I’ve read that’s this long, this cohesive, and that maintains this level of quality throughout. And I guess maybe that’s amazing in its own way.

The final entry is a story of love, redemption, and the nature of divinity. It brings together vast forces of unimaginable power in an apocalyptic confrontation, casts down proud and powerful leaders, stymies the machinations of devious foes, and ultimately is resolved by a dog biting a dude in the junk.

As for this review, well… I’m going to do my level best not to write about any of that.

Last book ended with Haplo abducted from the battlefield by his lord, Xar, and Alfred apparently fallen in battle against a swarm of evil dragons. So we’ve got Marit, Haplo’s former and obviously future love interest, and Hugh, the human assassin who was forcibly granted immortality in exchange for a complete inability to kill things, running a rescue plot.

Alfred’s fairly easy to find, as is Haplo. Unfortunately, Haplo is mostly dead. And playing ghost while tethered to his pet dog, which we finally learn explicitly is the physical manifestation of his soul. With evil serpents, good dragons, a starving army of Sartan necromancers, a besieged city of recently defrosted OG Sartan sorcerers, a pair of Patryn cities left leaderless by a champion with delusions of divinity, and a sentient death-maze world raising untold hordes of monsters to cast down the last light of civilization and usher in an eternity of despair, we are very definitely within the final book of a series.

And as with many fantasy series, the true resolution to the epic confrontation between good and evil happens far away from the battlefield.

I enjoyed it. I liked it my first read, and I liked it again on the reread. The series is a large enough time investment that it’ll probably be at least another decade before I reread it, but I don’t regret any of the time I’ve spend within its pages.

In my previous reviews, I’ve talked a fair bit about the Sartan. The Sartan are Alfred’s people, the proud sorcerers who consider themselves benevolent demigods meant to guide the lesser people of the world with their wisdom and might. They’re terrible.

It’s finally time to talk about the Patryn, Haplo’s people.

By now we’ve learned quite a bit more about the history of the Sartan and the Patryn. The Sartan emerged from humanity in the aftermath of a nuclear war at some point in our future. They had vast magical abilities and worked closely with each other towards common goals. The Patryn emerged from the Sartan themselves, dissenters whose interests were much more personal. Where the Sartan cared about society and the world as a whole, the Patryn cared about themselves, their families, and their friends and left the world at large to its own devices.

The Sartan were convinced that the Patryn were working against them in a grand conspiracy to overthrow them and to conquer the world for themselves. That’s why the Sartan ultimately destroyed our world and built the interconnected worlds of the Death Gate Cycle in its place, at the cost of countless lives. In the epilogue to this final volume, it’s obvious that Alfred accepts the basic assumptions behind the Sartan decision. Which is a bit sad really, because the rest of the history he gives us shows exactly why the Sartan fear of the Patryn was never anything but baseless paranoia.

When the Sartan finally went to war against the Patryn, they won easily, quickly, and with almost no meaningful losses. Why? Because the Patryn were never a unified force. When a Patryn positioned themselves as the adviser to a mortal ruler, it wasn’t part of a grand conspiracy, it was pure personal ambition.

It took the Sartan to teach the Patryn to think of themselves as a people or as a nation. It took the Sartan to teach the Patryn how to judge others for their race or their nationality.

And still, through all of it, in the midst of being targeted for a genocide, the Patryn held out their hands in friendship to the many Sartan who were cast into hell alongside them as punishment for dissent. After a thousand years trapped in a death maze, fighting for every moment of peace, every scrap of food, and every sip of water, the Patryn have held onto their basic decency and compassion so strongly that the only reason there are even jail cells in the Patryn city we see is to keep the dangerously insane from hurting themselves or others while they receive treatment.

These are the people who were presented to us as villains at the start of the series.

These are the people who think of themselves as villains. But that seems to be as much of a coping mechanism as anything else.

We only really get to see inside the head of three Patryn over the course of the series. There’s Haplo, of course, who starts the series as a cynical and manipulative racist but is rapidly ‘corrupted’ by his bad habit of getting to know and like other people on a personal level and comes to extend that compassion and empathy well beyond the people who have directly touched his life. Then there’s Xar, the leader of the Patryn, whose main flaw is that he sees his own people as his children and thinks he knows what’s best for him. The entire reason Xar becomes a villain is that he’s blinded to his own flaws by his desperate need to be good enough for his adoptive children. And finally, we get Marit, the nail in the coffin of the idea that Haplo’s unique among his people. With Haplo, Hugh, and Alfred beside her, Marit goes through very nearly the same path of character growth Haplo did, but she does it in two novels rather than five.

The Patryn aren’t evil, they’re that grumpy neighbor who scowls all the time, but will drop whatever they’re doing to help you at the first sign you’re in trouble and never even have it cross their mind that you might feel obligated to repay them somehow.

I’ll wrap up by calling out a part of the epilogue as nice little form of fanservice. Normally that term describes gratuitously erotic content, but occasionally like to use it to describe a work of fiction giving its audience what they actually want. In this case, it’s a few paragraphs where Alfred records that Haplo and Marit have made several trips into the Labyrinth to find their daughter Rue and have come back with ‘numerous’ daughters and ‘several’ sons who all call Alfred their grandfather. And, we’re told, Haplo’s even gotten a new dog to replace the one he lost when he re-integrated his soul.

Maybe I’m just a big softie, but there’s a part of me that just has to smile when I’ve been following a group of basically decent characters through a long and difficult ordeal and at the end I get to hear that they really did live happily ever after.

Of course, while the implication is that many of Haplo and Marit’s new daughters are named Rue and Haplo at least goes around saying that any one of them could be his child by birth, a part of me can’t help but picture a little Patryn girl named Rue who by some bit of magic or other means has lived her whole life knowing faces of the parents she never met but secretly hopes will one day come to rescue her. And that part of me has to cringe just a bit at what her face might look like when she finally meets her parents as a teenager or an adult only to learn that they’re busy raising an entire village of Rues that aren’t her.

#the seventh gate #the death gate cycle #margaret weis #tracy hickman

[armeniaitn]

Armenia Culture News Digest for Friday, February 21, 2020

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/daily-digests/culture-digests/armenia-culture-news-digest-for-friday-february-21-2020-2982-21-02-2020/

Armenia Culture News Digest for Friday, February 21, 2020

This is the Daily Digest of culture news for Armenia for Friday, February 21, 2020. The important articles are the following (we hope you enjoy them):

‘Yerevan Biennial 2020’ Announced at Consulate General’s L.A. Event

GLENDALE—Consulate General of Armenia in Los Angeles held a reception at which the newly established Yerevan Biennial Art Foundation announced the upcoming, first-ever biennial of contemporary Armenian art. The biennial will take place in Yerevan from September 24 to December 31.

In his opening remarks, Ambassador Armen Baibourtian welcomed the idea of the Yerevan Biennial, noting that the project is unique in that it combines art, culture, and education. According to the Consul General, the biennial will be another marvelous opportunity to present Armenia and Armenian culture to the broader international community.

Co-founder of Yerevan Biennial Art Foundation Fabio Lenzi said that more than 30 works of contemporary art representing special value, authored by artists from Armenia and the Diaspora, will be displayed at the biennial. The foundation aims at making the Yerevan Biennial a spectacular, regional event that will ultimately put Armenia on the map as a hub for art and culture in the region.

During the biennial, dozens of events will be organized depicting various fields of art, including opera performances, music concerts, art exhibitions, and theater performances, presenting a broad spectrum of the Armenian art and culture. Caroline Tufenkian, board member of the foundation and director of the Tufenkian Art Gallery in Los Angeles noted that the Yerevan Biennial will attract a number of tourists to Armenia.

The event was attended by numerous representatives of the Armenian community and American art lovers. The evening featured Armenian dance and musical performances.

Read original article here.

Inaugural POMontreal Film Festival to Feature Ani Hovannisian’s ‘The Hidden Map’

Ani Hovannisian’s “The Hidden Map” will be featured at the inaugural POMontreal Film Festival on Mar. 1

Filmmaker Ani Hovannisian’s documentary “The Hidden Map” will be featured at the first-ever POMontreal Film Festival. Organized by Hamazkayin Montreal and the popular Pomegranate Film Festival with roots in Toronto, POMontreal has handpicked 13 acclaimed films to kick off its inaugural festival. The festival will be held from February 28 to March 1.

The vibrant Armenian community of Montreal has been eagerly awaiting the opportunity to gather under one roof to experience the cultural wealth offered by Armenian filmmakers from around the world. With the leadership of Hamazkayin Montreal’s President Tamar Chahinian, Pomegranate’s Sevag Yeghoyan, and their dedicated teams, an eventful weekend of films, camaraderie, and a red-carpet gala have been planned.

In addition to Hovannisian’s “The Hidden Map,” this year’s selections include films by celebrated directors including Robert Guediguian (“La Villa”), Gor KIrakosian (“Honest Thieves”), Anahit Dasseux Ter Mesropian and David Vital-Durand (“Les Temps des Artistes”), Ruben Giney (“Andin”) and Nataliya Belyauskene and Michael Poghosian (“If Only Everyone”) to name a few.

Over the span of her professional career as a broadcast journalist, Ani Hovannisian has produced and directed hundreds of inspiring true stories for television and other international audiences. Most recently, after four journeys deep into Historic Western Armenia, two with her father, Professor Richard Hovannisian, she has just completed her first feature documentary.

Steven Sim and Ani Hovannisian

Hovannisian at Hokeats Vank

Hovannisian and Sim at Khoula Vank

Sim enters the ancient city site of Ani

“The Hidden Map” depicts the gripping encounters of an American-Armenian traveling through Turkey in search of her forbidden ancestral home and a solitary Scottish explorer, Steven Sim, she meets along the way. He, it turns out, has been documenting the relics of the lost Armenian past for 30 years. Though Sim has always traveled alone, almost invisibly, he agrees to set out with the Armenian. Together, the duo digs beneath the surface of modern-day Turkey, discovering lonely relics, silenced voices, and stories of an ominous past, unearthing buried secrets and the hidden map.

Now beginning to debut in festivals, the film has already been recognized with an ImpactDocs Award, Independent Shorts Silver Award, Toronto Pomegranate Film Festival Best Documentary and Audience Choice Honorable Mention Awards, and Official Selection for Best Documentary at the ARPA International Film Festival.

[embedded content]

Active in the American-Armenian community since her youth, Hovannisian was an anchor and reporter at TeleNayiri and Horizon Armenian Television in Los Angeles for more than a decade. She has traveled to present-day Armenia since childhood, and seven years ago, rooted in the stories of her genocide-survivor grandparents and their entire generation, and shaped by the lifelong dedication of her own parents, Ani embarked on the first of several journeys into the historic Armenian homeland, where she continues to document living history through the stories of the land and people.

“The Hidden Map” will be featured at the POMontreal Film Festival at Pastermadjian Hall, L’Ecole Armenienne Sourp Hagop in Montreal on Sunday, March 1 at 2 p.m., followed by a discussion with the filmmaker. Festival information and tickets are available online.

Read original article here.

Houri Berberian to Present ‘Roving Revolutionaries’ in Columbia Lecture

Houri Berberian’s “Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds”

NEW YORK—Professor Houri Berberian of the University of California, Irvine, will give a book talk entitled “Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds” at Columbia University. The talk will be held on Thursday, February 27 at 6:10 p.m. at the University’s Knox Hall, Conference Room 208, located at 606 West 122nd St., New York, NY 10027.

The program is co-sponsored by the Columbia University Armenian Center, Columbia University Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research.

Houri Berberian is Professor of History, Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies, and Director of the Armenian Studies Program at UCI. Her talk will be based on her new book, “Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds” (Univ. of Calif. Press, 2019). The talk explores three of the formative revolutions that shook the early twentieth-century world, occuring almost simultaneously in regions bordering each other.

Though the Russian, Iranian, and Young Turk Revolutions all exploded between 1904 and 1911, they have never been studied through their linkages until now. “Roving Revolutionaries” probes the interconnected aspects of these three revolutions through the involvement of the Armenian revolutionaries – minorities in all of these empires – whose movements and participation within and across frontiers tell us a great deal about the global transformations that were taking shape. Exploring the geographical and ideological boundary crossings that occurred, Berberian’s archivally grounded analysis of the circulation of revolutionaries, ideas, and print tells the story of peoples and ideologies in upheaval and collaborating with each other, and, in doing so, it illuminates our understanding of revolutions and movements.

This event is open to the public and copies of “Roving Revolutionaries” will be available for purchase. For more information, please contact Professor Khatchig Mouradian at [email protected].

Read original article here.

Armenian composer honors Iran plane crash victims with new requiem

February 20, 2020 – 12:32 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The legendary Iranian-Armenian composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian has composed a piece of music in commemoration of the victims of a Ukrainian plane that was downed in Iran in January, IRNA reports.

The Ukrainian Boeing 737 was “unintentionally” shot down by Iran’s military near Tehran minutes after takeoff.

“Requiem for UIA Flight 752” has been written to lament over the demise of the passengers on board the plane.

Razmik Ohanian, Yarta Yaran, Ehsan Beiraghdar, Alireza Rad, Shahu Zandi, Naser Izadi as well as Bardia Sadr Nouri have collaborated on the project.

Commenting on the creation of the artwork, Tjeknavorian said that converting his deep sorrow over the incident into a piece of art in no time was “a miracle”.

Loris Tjeknavorian, born on 13 October 1937 in Borujerd, is an Iranian Armenian composer and conductor.

As one of the leading conductors of his generation, he has led international orchestras throughout the world such as in Austria, the UK, the USA, Canada, Hungary, Copenhagen, Iran, Finland, Russia, Armenia, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Denmark.

Read original article here

Loris Tjeknavorian composes music in memory of Ukraine plane crash victims

The legendary Iranian-Armenian composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian has composed a piece of music in commemoration of Ukraine plane crash victims, IRNA reports.

The song entitled “Requiem for UIA Flight 752” has been written to lament over the demise of the passengers of the plane.

Razmik Ohanian, Yarta Yaran, Ehsan Beiraghdar, Alireza Rad, Shahu Zandi, Naser Izadi as well as Bardia Sadr Nouri have collaborated on the project.

Commenting on the creation of the artwork, Tjeknavorian stated that converting his deep sorrow over the incident into a piece of art in no time was “a miracle.”

Loris Tjeknavorian, born on 13 October 1937 in Borujerd, is an Iranian Armenian composer and conductor.

As one of the leading conductors of his generation, he has led international orchestras throughout the world such as in Austria, the UK, the USA, Canada, Hungary, Copenhagen, Iran, Finland, Russia, Armenia, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Denmark.

The Ukrainian Boeing 737 was shot down near Tehran minutes after takeoff.

Iranian officials admitted that human error was the cause of downing the passenger plane and expressed regret and apologized for the tragedy.

Read original article here.

Actor Yervand Manaryan dies aged 95

Prominent Armenian actor Yervand Manaryan has passed away aged 95.

Manaryan was born in Arak, Iran in 1924 in a family from Agulis, Nakhichevan. In 1946 his family repatriated to Soviet Armenia along with thousands of other Iranian Armenians.

He studied at the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts and Theater, and graduated from the Faculty of Directing in 1952.

He worked as an actor and director at the Paronyan Musical Comedy Theater and the Sundukyan Theater in Yerevan. In 1957-1959 he was the principal director of the Puppet Theater after Hovhannes Tumanyan, and from 1988 he was the artistic director of the Agulis Puppet Theater Studio.

In 1959-1961 he held the same position at the Goris Theater, and since 2007 he is the founding-artistic director of the Armenian Puppet Theater in Kiev. Later he worked at Yerevan Documentary Film Studio and Yerevan Cinema. He was one of the directors of the Yerevan State Puppet Theater.

He prouced a number of documentary and feature films, such as “Armenian Miniature”, “Michael Nalbandian”, “Kiosk”, “Light”, “The Birth of Drugs”, “The Summer Comes” and more.

He is best known for the roles in films such as “Bride from the North”, “Bride from Jermuk”, “Tzhvzik”, “Morgan’s Niece” and others.

Read original article here.

Today on Twitter

These are some of today’s tweets about Armenia. Contact us via Twitter if you want to be part of this Twitter list. We retweet occasionally.

Armenia @armenia·

9h

Happy #MotherLanguageDay! @armenia joins the @UNESCO initiative & wishes “peace-խաղաղություն” to the world.

MFA of Armenia@MFAofArmenia·

5h

Learned with sadness about the tragic incident in #Hanau city of #Germany. Wishing speedy recovery to the injured & patience to the relatives of the victims.

Armenia Mission to UN@ArmeniaUN·

50m

Welcoming H.E. Archbishop Gabriele Caccia, Apostolic Nuncio of @HolySeeUN to the Mission of #Armenia. Good conversation on priorities of #humanrights, #prevention, #CSW64 and –bilateral agenda. History, culture & shared values provide solid foundation for our friendship.

JAMnews@JAMnewsCaucasus·

12h

Round two for the stink bug in the South Caucasus? #stinkbug #azerbaijan

https://jam-news.net/stink-bug-making-moves-on-azerbaijan/

Armenia at NATO@armmission_nato·

20 Feb

Thank you @GermanyNATO for hosting our colleagues from #Armenia and consistent engagement with @NATO partners.

Artsakh Parliament@Artsakh_Parl·

13 Feb

32 years ago, these days, the #Karabakhmovement began. With mass demonstration the people of #Artsakh demanded from the Soviet Union the withdrawal of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) from the #Azerbaijan SSR and its reunion with the Soviet #Armenia. #selfdetermination

4

Armenia Ombudsman@OmbudsArmenia·

20 Feb

On February 19, #Armenia celebrates #Book-Giving Day. On this occasion, the Human Rights Defender Mr. Arman Tatoyan @atatoyan gave an interview to #Armenpress correspondent. @armenpress https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1005384.html?fbclid=IwAR20z8u__Q3U6P_hM6BmRG7xwQDU466ioxqFqE-DKvKvuQm6IvmPdmR2fJc

USC Armenian Studies@ArmenianStudies·

5h

#PODCAST: The #refugee as the ultimate modern person – Keith David Watenpaugh, prof. & dir. of #HumanRights Studies @UCDavis, studies the #MiddleEast & the role of displaced persons. He speaks to @SalpiGhazarian about being an activist scholar & more. https://apple.co/2v53aw0

ArtsakhPress Agency@ArtsakhPress·

11h

Meeting at #Karabakh MOD, protection of servicemen’s rights discussed https://artsakhpress.am/eng/news/121573/meeting-at-karabakh-mod-protection-of-servicemen%E2%80%99s-rights-discussed.html

MFA of Artsakh@mfankr·

18h

Happy #MotherLanguageDay!

We say #խաղաղություն in our mother tongue!

@UN @UNESCO #peace

#Armenia #Armenians #Artsakh #Caucasus #Karabakh #Yerevan #Culture Digests

[ourcommonbowl-blog]

Never Alone Video Game

Jas, Marcus, Laurent

Description and Rationale:

After years of research and interviews, the Truth and Reconciliation Commission has concluded that Canada’s treatment of aboriginals at residential schools not only disenfranchised generations from their heritage, but also, due to the physical and emotional abuse amounted to ‘cultural genocide’ (Curry & Galloway, 2015). The commission released 94 recommendations as part of a summary that entails concrete steps to improve the lives of aboriginal people in Canada. Educational reform is part of the reconciliation process and is calling on provincial education ministers to ensure the history of aboriginal Peoples, the residential school system and its legacy become part of the kindergarten to Grade 12 curriculum (Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012). Never Alone, also known as Kisima Inŋitchuŋa, "I am not alone," is a puzzle-platfomer video game constructed around the tales found in the folklore of the Indigenous Alaskan people. The interactive, student-centered game is targeted towards elementary school-aged children and progresses student learning of Indigenous cultures as they master each level of difficulty. This is a valuable resource for educators because it engages school-aged children with creative visuals, embedded feedback and a powerful narrative that makes learning an authentic experience.

A platform game, or platformer, is a video game which involves guiding an avatar, the user’s graphical representation, to jump between suspended platforms and over obstacles to advance the game. These challenges are known as jumping puzzles and the goal is to avoid letting the avatar fall from platforms or miss necessary jumps.

Research studies support the constructivist view of learning, which emphasizes the active role of the learner in building understanding and making sense of information; learning is more than just receiving and processing information, students participate in their own personal construction of knowledge (Woolfolk, Winnie and Perry 2012).

The player-character is an Iñupiaq (Inuit) girl, Nuna and her Arctic fox. The player must be able swap control between Nuna and the fox when facing environmental and physical obstacles. While the fox is fast, Nuna can pick up things and open new areas using her bola; a bola is a type of throwing weapon made of weights on the ends of interconnected cords, designed to capture animals by entangling their legs.

Along their journey to the source of the blizzard, Nuna and her fox encounter Indigenous folklore characters: Blizzard Man, the Little People (In Inuit mythology, the Ishigaq are little people, similar to fairies), Manslayer, the Rolling Heads, and the Sky People. The game is based on the intergenerational transference of wisdom and takes place on traditional territorial grounds of the Inupiaq people.

Never Alone is developed by Upper One Games in conjunction with the Cook Inlet Tribal Council, a non-profit organization that works with Indigenous groups living in Alaska's urban areas. The Council’s objective in developing this interactive video game was to “promote, share, celebrate, and extend Indigenous culture" (Matos, 2014). Furthermore, the development of an Indigenous perspective in video gaming is the First Indigenous-owned video game developer and publisher in US history"(Matos, 2014). The premise of the game is to expose Indigenous knowledge and oral histories, with a key emphasis on the importance of intergenerational story-telling. It is intended both to share the stories of Native culture as entertainment, and to revitalize interest in Alaskan Indigenous folklore. Proceeds from the game will fund the Council's education mission to funnel proceeds back into local communities for development of Indigenous resources within classrooms (Matos,2014).

The game is available on multiple platforms, including: Macintosh and PC computers, iPhone and iPad, PS3, PS4, XBoxOne, WiiU, and Nvidia Shield. The website for the game is

http://neveralonegame.com/ 

On the website one can find information about the game, how to download it, blog postings (including everything from game updates to origami fox ideas), tech support, as well as press releases.

Indigenous Knowledge:

The narrative of the game follows a story of bringing balance, restoring balance, to the environment that is mired in an “eternal blizzard.” It’s story is based around Alaskan Indigenous folklore that believes balance is restored by visiting its source. The Inupiat (Inuit) girl, and her Arctic fox companion navigate physical and geographical challenges to reach the source of the blizzard. During the obstacles, the player is exposed to the territorial and spiritual components of the Alaskan Indigenous communities; traditional territories that span Norton Sound on the Bering Sea to the Canada-United States border. Their current communities include seven Alaskan villages in the North Slope Borough, eleven villages in the Northwest Arctic Borough, and sixteen villages affiliated with the Bering Straits Regional Corporation (Craig & Taha, 1999). The Bering Straits Native Corporation, or BSNC, is one of thirteen Alaska Native Regional Corporations created under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act of 1971 in settlement of aboriginal land claims. Bering Straits Native Corporation is a for-profit corporation with about 7,300 Alaska Native Alaska Native shareholders primarily of Inupiat, Siberian and Yupik descent (Craig & Taha, 1999). Culturally, Iñupiat are divided into two regional hunter-gatherer groups: the Tagiugmiut, "sea people," living on or near the north Alaska coast, and the Nunamiut, "land people," living in interior Alaska (Craig & Taha, 1999).

Benefits and Challenges:

The Game’s stake-holders have made a behind the scenes the making of video, you may watch it at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yefBjvyTYM. Never Alone delivers innovative approaches to reinvigorating the teaching of aboriginal culture and celebrating the stories and mythologies of the Inupiaq people (Alaskan Inuit). Having purchased a copy from Steam, which is supporting aboriginal artists and culture, the game proved to be quite challenging at times and the experience was touching, thoughtful and beautiful to behold and really enjoyable to play. Never Alone is easily recommendable to teacher colleagues, and young people most importantly. This side-scroller adventure story follows a familiar format for those of us that grew up in the post Super Mario Brothers era (circa 1985), but it adds the more recent achievement and reward systems of more recent video games. The documentaries called rewards are cleverly labelled as Cultural Achievements, and unlocking all 24 of them provides a roughly 35 minute series of short stories / Inupiaq Culture Documentaries that instruct the player on a broad cultural survey of Inupiaq cultural practices and beliefs. These cultural insight video segments can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Iqq4_hoxk.

The decision of choosing a videogame as the vehicle for storytelling as a participant observation platform for Cultural Instruction is also rather novel and speaks to a more outside the box method of reaching today’s youth. Having played Never Alone on a wall-sized screen making use of an HD projector, the visuals from both the game and the documentaries (amazing imagery of the Alaskan continent and of the Arctic) were that much more eye-popping. As for the interactivity of a game as a playable story telling experience adds depth the told and shown stories invoked in the normally only oral stories. The artistic design, the look specifically, is also unique to the Inupiaq culture and the bonus footage documentary shows the extent to which the cultural stake holders influenced the game design as well as the look and feel of the game, it should be pointed out the communities youth help test and craft the game and so too did the elders!

While reaching the next generation can be challenging for educators in general, Never Alone delivers a thoughtful hybrid of traditional cultural relevance via the dynamic stories embracing a modern flare that captivates the viewer/listener perspective. With regards to the difficulties of resisting potentially negative western cultural influence (thinking of popular music, television and motion pictures), using a video game with embedded documentaries is subtle and brilliant and really thusly, really engaging. This dimension of using modern multimedia mechanisms to get back to traditional teachings could be seen as problematic by some I suppose, however we’d ideally see the successes of this project as a collective effort to make a contemporary story vehicle that is made by the Inupiaq/Inuit people for a larger audience than a solely Inuit market.

In a Canadian Pedagogical perspective with regards to doing a better job of teaching Aboriginal Content, embodied in the aims and language of Truth and Reconciliation Recommendations, Never Alone is a monumental cultural achievement for teaching aboriginal culture. Inuit Culture whether in Alaska or here in Canada is generally not really given enough thematic primacy as we tend to study the First Nations more central to our geographic proximity along the 49th parallel, and so Never Alone is teaching Inuit Culture in a way that could potentially have strong appeal to the larger cultures in both the US and Canada. Never Alone speaks to larger themes in the over-arching Pan-Aboriginal Discourse, of course conceding the polemics of the single narrative that SFU’s PDP mandate warns against. The obvious points covered are a care for the harmonious balance of the various stake-holders in an ecosystem for one (human, animal, plants and minerals etc.), human and animal symbiosis (Nuna and her arctic fox), mindfulness of the real and symbolic sacrifices involved in subsistence hunting and trapping, the importance of respecting the subsistence / hunting rights of Indigenous Peoples who wish to practice and maintain traditional diet, seeing the interdependence in the ecosystem and in one’s community as a guide to living well, whether in Alaska or more in general.

Finally, other than the potential challenges already mentioned, the 2 main detractors are the material costs required to participate in Never Alone, it costs money to play. If all the pieces are not already owned, it therefore costs a fair bit to purchase a game system to then buy a copy of the videogame, not including the television device and electricity that would not be required in the sitting down around a fire and listening to an elder share stories. As to the book being better than the movie paradigm, good story telling in a solely oral mode, is mentioned to be the intellectual blockbuster movie experience of old, and perhaps the videogame is not doing that justice in a certain traditional perspective, this is the oral versus written conundrum. Educationally, the lessons being taught around the usage of Never Alone in a school setting should be carefully scaffolded to really do justice to the game and the documentary clips, the hidden curriculum of Never Alone. It’s worth pondering whether or not a child or youth playing the game at home might willingly watch an educational documentary in all fairness also if not prompted by a parent, teacher or elder. Nevertheless, here’s hoping that wonderful short documentaries would be watched and enjoyed for the deeper understandings the elder teachings provide.

Use in Future Teaching Practice:

Never Alone has a wide potential for incorporating Aboriginal Culture Education into one’s teaching practice, however, in order to effectively and authentically utilize the game as a teaching resource it requires a significant amount of front loading on the part of the teacher. Indigenous epistemologies and aboriginal education should be a part of the classroom culture in ways that ensure students are respecting this resource and are not simply viewing it as an opportunity to play a video game at school. Possibly one of the best ways to utilize the game would be to, as a class, take turns playing the game in a location where all students can view the game. The game provides cultural insight video segments throughout the game, which provide a great springboard or theme to base class discussions or units of study around. Cultural insights are gained as one progresses through the game, and because each one must be ‘unlocked’ as players reach certain benchmarks, they act as rewards for the player. Each cultural insight video provides a broad survey of Alaskan Inuit culture and opens up opportunities for discussion and reflection.

One way a teacher could organize game play is by video segments (for example: 3 students each take turns playing a section of the game, each concluding their section when they get to a video segment. After each video segment the class engages in a discussion around that theme. AlterNatively, the three discussions can be saved until the end of gameplay for that day). The entire game length is realistic to complete within 5-10 classes, depending on the students gaming ability.

Other Ideas for Teaching Include:

Writing a story with subtitles (in English or other language) and have voice over (again, in another language or English); good software/app may be AdobeVoice or PowToon.

Have students focus on oral language traditions by choosing an object or an event and have a story teller start, and take turns adding elements to the story. Don’t write it down intentionally. Start the story again with the same objective but allow the group to change the story if they please (or keep elements the same that they really liked).

Create a visual story through only images (e.g. events in a student’s life, perhaps just in black and white such as using black marker on paper to make connections to the Inuit carving art). Depending on age students could also potentially do carving, such as soap carving.

Have students keep a journal that includes questions, connections, predictions about the game/cultural elements and all other experiences to do with using this in the classroom. Possible prompts for journal entries may include the AEIOU method:

A = Adjective: A word or two that describes something they saw or learned

E = Emotion: Describe how a particular part of the segment made you feel

I = Interesting: Write something you found interesting about the content/topic

O = Oh!: Describe something that caused you say Oh!

U = Um?: Write a question about something you learned or want to learn more about

Have students come up with possible open ended math questions that could go along with the game/elements, and then create a book of those questions with some possible discussions/answer keys. For example, about what speed does Nuna run at? How high can the fox jump, compared to Nuna?

The game could be used to supplement, or give context to, a science unit about extreme environments and survival tools/technologies or a social studies unit about cultural practices. Many of the cultural insight videos speak to the harsh climate of the north and how the Inuit have adapted to these climates. The videos also highlight the important role that storytelling plays in this culture.

References:

Bill Curry & Gloria Galloway, Globe and Mail, June 02, 2015 –

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/politics/truth-and-reconciliation-report-calls-for-broad-recommendations/article24761778/

Craig, Rachel & Taha, Chholing P (1999). National Network of Libraries of Medicine. Retrieved from https://nnlm.gov/archive/20061109155450/inupiaq.html

Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada, 2012

Woolfolk, A., Winnie, P., & Perry, N. (2012). Educational Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson Education.

Xav de Matos, 2014. Sharing legends with the world in Never Alone, a game inspired by Alaskan Native communities. Retrieved from https://www.engadget.com/2014/03/19/sharing-legends-with-the-world-in-never-alone-a-game-inspired-b/

Video Footage from the Game, (ALL in HD)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Exls0Y8FSI8 Game Footage

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E4Iqq4_hoxk Never Alone - Cultural Insights (All 24 Pieces) 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yefBjvyTYM Research and Critical Insights of Elders

#resource review #video game

[xtruss]

Argument | Genocide

The Ugliest Face of China

The World’s Most Technologically Sophisticated Genocide Is Happening in Xinjiang.

The overwhelming evidence of the Chinese government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to destroy the Uighur people clearly meets conventional definitions of genocide, Yonah Diamond and Rayhan Asat write.

The United States needs to formally acknowledge the scale of the atrocities.

— BY RAYHAN ASAT, YONAH DIAMOND | JULY 15, 2020 | Foreign Policy

A man walks past a screen showing images of Chinese President Xi Jinping in Kashgar in China's northwest Xinjiang region on June 4, 2019. GREG BAKER/AFP VIA GETTY IMAGES

Two recent disturbing events may finally awaken the world to the scale and horror of the atrocities being committed against the Uighurs, a mostly secular Muslim ethnic minority, in Xinjiang, China. One is an authoritative report documenting the systematic sterilization of Uighur women. The other was the seizure by U.S. Customs and Border Protection of 13 tons of products made from human hair suspected of being forcibly removed from Uighurs imprisoned in concentration camps. Both events evoke chilling parallels to past atrocities elsewhere, forced sterilization of minorities, disabled, and Indigenous people, and the image of the glass display of mountains of hair preserved at Auschwitz.

The Genocide Convention, to which China is a signatory, defines genocide as specific acts against members of a group with the intent to destroy that group in whole or in part. These acts include (a) killing; (b) causing serious bodily or mental harm; (c) deliberately inflicting conditions of life to bring about the group’s physical destruction; (d) imposing measures intended to prevent births within the group; and (e) forcibly transferring children of the group to another group. Any one of these categories constitutes genocide. The overwhelming evidence of the Chinese government’s deliberate and systematic campaign to destroy the Uighur people clearly meets each of these categories.

Over a million Turkic Uighurs are detained in concentration camps, prisons, and forced labor factories in China. Detainees are subject to military-style discipline, thought transformation, and forced confessions. They are abused, tortured, raped, and even killed. Survivors report being subjected to electrocution, waterboarding, repeated beatings, stress positions, and injections of unknown substances. These mass detention camps are designed to cause serious physical, psychological harm and mentally break the Uighur people. The repeated government orders to “break their lineage, break their roots, break their connections, and break their origins”; “round up everyone who should be rounded up”; and systematically prevent Uighur births demonstrate a clear intent to eradicate the Uighur people as a whole.

Ekpar Asat (brother of one of the present authors) is an emblematic example of how Uighurs are targeted regardless of their recognition as model Chinese citizens by the Communist Party. Asat was praised by the government for his community leadership as a “bridge builder” and “positive force” between ethnic minorities and the Xinjiang local government. But Asat still suffered the same fate as over a million other Uighurs and disappeared into the shadows of the concentration camps in 2016. He is held incommunicado and is reported to be serving a 15-year sentence on the trumped-up charge of “inciting ethnic hatred.” Not a single court document is available about his case.

In 2017, Xinjiang waged a brutal “Special Campaign to Control Birth Control Violations,” along with specific local directives. By 2019, the government planned to subject over 80 percent of women of childbearing age in southern Xinjiang to forced intrauterine devices (IUDs) and sterilization. The goal is to achieve “zero birth control violation incidents.” Government documents reveal a campaign of mass female sterilization supported by state funding to carry out hundreds of thousands of sterilizations in 2019 and 2020. This goes far beyond the scale, per capita, of forced sterilization inflicted on women throughout China under the past one-child policy.

To implement these policies, the Xinjiang government employed “dragnet-style” investigations to hunt down women of childbearing age.To implement these policies, the Xinjiang government employed “dragnet-style” investigations to hunt down women of childbearing age. Once apprehended, these women have no choice but to undergo forced sterilization to avoid being sent to an internment camp. Once detained, women face forced injections, abortions, and unknown drugs.

And statistics show that the government is meeting its birth prevention goals.

Between 2015 and 2018, population growth rates in the Uighur heartland plummeted by 84 percent. Conversely, official documents show that sterilization rates skyrocketed in Xinjiang while plunging throughout the rest of China, and the funding for these programs is only increasing. Between 2017 and 2018, in one district, the percentage of women who were infertile or widowed increased by 124 percent and 117 percent, respectively. In 2018, 80 percent of all IUD placements in China were performed in Xinjiang despite accounting for a mere 1.8 percent of China’s population. These IUDs can be removed only by state-approved surgery—or else prison terms will follow. In Kashgar, only about 3 percent of married women of childbearing age gave birth in 2019. The latest annual reports from some of these regions have begun omitting birth rate information altogether to conceal the scale of destruction. The government has shut down its entire online platform after these revelations. The scale and scope of these measures are clearly designed to halt Uighur births.

With Uighur men detained and women sterilized, the government has laid the groundwork for the physical destruction of the Uighur people. At least half a million of the remaining Uighur children have been separated from their families and are being raised by the state at so-called “children shelters.”

What makes this genocide so uniquely dangerous is its technological sophistication, allowing for efficiency in its destruction and concealment from global attention. The Uighurs have been suffering under the most advanced police state, with extensive controls and restrictions on every aspect of life—religious, familial, cultural, and social. To facilitate surveillance, Xinjiang operates under a grid management system. Cities and villages are split into squares of about 500 people. Each square has a police station that closely monitors inhabitants by regularly scanning their identification cards, faces, DNA samples, fingerprints, and cell phones. These methods are supplemented by a machine-operated system known as the Integrated Joint Operations Platform. The system uses machine learning to collect personal data from video surveillance, smartphones, and other private records to generate lists for detention. Over a million Han Chinese watchers have been installed in Uighur households, rendering even intimate spaces subject to the government’s eye.

The Chinese government operates the most intrusive mass surveillance system in the world and repeatedly denies the international community meaningful access to it. It is therefore incumbent on us to appreciate the nature, depth, and speed of the genocide and act now before it’s too late.

Recognizing or refusing to name this a genocide will be a matter of life or death. In 1994, by the time U.S. officials were done debating the applicability of the term to the situation in Rwanda, nearly a million Tutsis had already been slaughtered. A document dated May 1, 1994, at the height of the genocide, by an official in the Office of the Secretary of Defense stated: “Genocide finding could commit [the U.S. government] to actually ‘do something.’” Four years later, President Bill Clinton stood before Rwandan survivors and reflected on his administration’s historic failure and vowed: “Never again must we be shy in the face of the evidence.”

With the passing of the Uyghur Human Rights Policy Act, the U.S. government has begun to take steps in the right direction to avoid another human catastrophe. Seventy-eight members of Congress have followed up with a call for the administration to impose Magnitsky sanctions on the responsible Chinese officials and issue a formal declaration of the atrocity crimes, including genocide. So far, the administration has officially imposed Magnitsky sanctions on four Chinese officials and an entity in charge of the Orwellian surveillance system and responsible for the expansion of the internment camps in Xinjiang. The U.S. government must now make an official determination of genocide. This will not be difficult, as U.S. State Department spokesperson Morgan Ortagus has already asserted that “what has happened to the Uighur people … is potentially the worst crime that we have seen since the Holocaust.”

A formal declaration of genocide is not simply symbolic. It will catalyze other countries to join in a concerted effort to end the ongoing genocide in Xinjiang. It will also prompt consumers to reject the over 80 international brands that profit off genocide. Furthermore, the determination will strengthen legal remedies for sanctioning companies that profit from modern slavery in their supply chains sourced in China and compel business entities to refrain from profiting from genocide and commit to ethical sourcing.

In our interconnected world, we are not only bystanders if we fail to recognize the genocide as we see it. We are complicit.

— Rayhan Asat is a lawyer, the president of the American Turkic International Lawyers Association, and sister of Ekpar Asat.

— Yonah Diamond is legal counsel at the Raoul Wallenberg Centre for Human Rights.

[armeniaitn]

Armenia Culture News Digest for Thursday, February 20, 2020

New Post has been published on https://armenia.in-the.news/daily-digests/culture-digests/armenia-culture-news-digest-for-thursday-february-20-2020-2853-20-02-2020/

Armenia Culture News Digest for Thursday, February 20, 2020

This is the Daily Digest of culture news for Armenia for Thursday, February 20, 2020. The notable articles are (we hope you enjoy them):

Houri Berberian to Present ‘Roving Revolutionaries’ in Columbia Lecture

Houri Berberian’s “Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds”

NEW YORK—Professor Houri Berberian of the University of California, Irvine, will give a book talk entitled “Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds” at Columbia University. The talk will be held on Thursday, February 27 at 6:10 p.m. at the University’s Knox Hall, Conference Room 208, located at 606 West 122nd St., New York, NY 10027.

The program is co-sponsored by the Columbia University Armenian Center, Columbia University Department of Middle Eastern, South Asian, and African Studies, and the National Association for Armenian Studies and Research.

Houri Berberian is Professor of History, Meghrouni Family Presidential Chair in Armenian Studies, and Director of the Armenian Studies Program at UCI. Her talk will be based on her new book, “Roving Revolutionaries: Armenians and the Connected Revolutions in the Russian, Iranian, and Ottoman Worlds” (Univ. of Calif. Press, 2019). The talk explores three of the formative revolutions that shook the early twentieth-century world, occuring almost simultaneously in regions bordering each other.

Though the Russian, Iranian, and Young Turk Revolutions all exploded between 1904 and 1911, they have never been studied through their linkages until now. “Roving Revolutionaries” probes the interconnected aspects of these three revolutions through the involvement of the Armenian revolutionaries – minorities in all of these empires – whose movements and participation within and across frontiers tell us a great deal about the global transformations that were taking shape. Exploring the geographical and ideological boundary crossings that occurred, Berberian’s archivally grounded analysis of the circulation of revolutionaries, ideas, and print tells the story of peoples and ideologies in upheaval and collaborating with each other, and, in doing so, it illuminates our understanding of revolutions and movements.

This event is open to the public and copies of “Roving Revolutionaries” will be available for purchase. For more information, please contact Professor Khatchig Mouradian at [email protected].

Read original article here.

Armenian composer honors Iran plane crash victims with new requiem

February 20, 2020 – 12:32 AMT

PanARMENIAN.Net – The legendary Iranian-Armenian composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian has composed a piece of music in commemoration of the victims of a Ukrainian plane that was downed in Iran in January, IRNA reports.

The Ukrainian Boeing 737 was “unintentionally” shot down by Iran’s military near Tehran minutes after takeoff.

“Requiem for UIA Flight 752” has been written to lament over the demise of the passengers on board the plane.

Razmik Ohanian, Yarta Yaran, Ehsan Beiraghdar, Alireza Rad, Shahu Zandi, Naser Izadi as well as Bardia Sadr Nouri have collaborated on the project.

Commenting on the creation of the artwork, Tjeknavorian said that converting his deep sorrow over the incident into a piece of art in no time was “a miracle”.

Loris Tjeknavorian, born on 13 October 1937 in Borujerd, is an Iranian Armenian composer and conductor.

As one of the leading conductors of his generation, he has led international orchestras throughout the world such as in Austria, the UK, the USA, Canada, Hungary, Copenhagen, Iran, Finland, Russia, Armenia, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Denmark.

Read original article here

Loris Tjeknavorian composes music in memory of Ukraine plane crash victims

The legendary Iranian-Armenian composer and conductor Loris Tjeknavorian has composed a piece of music in commemoration of Ukraine plane crash victims, IRNA reports.

The song entitled “Requiem for UIA Flight 752” has been written to lament over the demise of the passengers of the plane.

Razmik Ohanian, Yarta Yaran, Ehsan Beiraghdar, Alireza Rad, Shahu Zandi, Naser Izadi as well as Bardia Sadr Nouri have collaborated on the project.

Commenting on the creation of the artwork, Tjeknavorian stated that converting his deep sorrow over the incident into a piece of art in no time was “a miracle.”

Loris Tjeknavorian, born on 13 October 1937 in Borujerd, is an Iranian Armenian composer and conductor.

As one of the leading conductors of his generation, he has led international orchestras throughout the world such as in Austria, the UK, the USA, Canada, Hungary, Copenhagen, Iran, Finland, Russia, Armenia, Thailand, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Denmark.

The Ukrainian Boeing 737 was shot down near Tehran minutes after takeoff.

Iranian officials admitted that human error was the cause of downing the passenger plane and expressed regret and apologized for the tragedy.

Read original article here.

Actor Yervand Manaryan dies aged 95

Prominent Armenian actor Yervand Manaryan has passed away aged 95.

Manaryan was born in Arak, Iran in 1924 in a family from Agulis, Nakhichevan. In 1946 his family repatriated to Soviet Armenia along with thousands of other Iranian Armenians.

He studied at the Yerevan Institute of Fine Arts and Theater, and graduated from the Faculty of Directing in 1952.

He worked as an actor and director at the Paronyan Musical Comedy Theater and the Sundukyan Theater in Yerevan. In 1957-1959 he was the principal director of the Puppet Theater after Hovhannes Tumanyan, and from 1988 he was the artistic director of the Agulis Puppet Theater Studio.

In 1959-1961 he held the same position at the Goris Theater, and since 2007 he is the founding-artistic director of the Armenian Puppet Theater in Kiev. Later he worked at Yerevan Documentary Film Studio and Yerevan Cinema. He was one of the directors of the Yerevan State Puppet Theater.

He prouced a number of documentary and feature films, such as “Armenian Miniature”, “Michael Nalbandian”, “Kiosk”, “Light”, “The Birth of Drugs”, “The Summer Comes” and more.

He is best known for the roles in films such as “Bride from the North”, “Bride from Jermuk”, “Tzhvzik”, “Morgan’s Niece” and others.

Read original article here.

Armenia celebrates Book-Giving Day

On February 19, Hovhannes Tumanyan’s birthday, Armenia celebrates Book-Giving Day.

The Day was initiated by the late President of the Writers’ Union Levon Ananyan and has been celebrated since 2008, according to a government decision.

On this day the Ministry of Education, Science, Culture and Sport and the Writers’ Union distribute books published and supported by the government to regional and community libraries, as well as the libraries of Artsakh and Javakhk.

Armenian communities worldwide hold a number of events: books are being donated to libraries, orphanages, schools in an attempt to restore the once important meaning of the book.

Today marks the 151st birth anniversary of poet, writer, translator Hovhannes Tumanyan.

Born in the the village of Dsegh in Armenia’s Lori region, Tumanyan moved to Tiflis (now Tbilisi), which was the center of Armenian culture during the 19th and early 20th centuries.

Tumanyan started writing when he was 10-11 years old, but only became known as a poet in 1890, when his first poetry collection was published.

Tumanyan’s first collection, Poems, published in Moscow in 1890, was a great success with literary critics.

Subsequently, all his collections would have the same generic title, with the exception of Harmonies, published in Tbilisi in 1896. Each volume included a number of previously published poems, to which new ones were added.

The literary technique, unique to Tumanyan, makes him an outstanding storyteller, who masterfully commands verse and word.

Read original article here.

Today on Twitter

These are a few tweets about Armenia. Contact us via Twitter if you want to be part of this Twitter list. We retweet occasionally.

Armenia @armenia·

13h

According to preliminary data, @Armenia registered 7.6% economic growth for 2019, which is the highest record since 2008

Armenia @Armenia_Better·

16h

#StopGenocide

#Armenian Genocide, #Turkey

Viktor Pietschmann (1881-1956) Austrian

Served in Austrian army in World War I in Turkey

Witnessed Armenian Genocide & took many photographs of the deportees

In Erzurum, witnessed Armenian Genocide carried out by the local government

Armenia Mission to UN@ArmeniaUN·

19 Feb

PR of #ArmeniaChair of #CSW64 Mher Margaryan met with @UN_PGA Tijjani Muhammad-Bande, discussing #genderequality agenda across #SDGs in the #Decadeofaction. Upcoming anniversaries of #Beijing25, #SDG5 should serve as momentum for accelerated action for all #women & girls

JAMnews@JAMnewsCaucasus·

13h

Journalist Irina Keleshaeva stands accused of slander against the #SouthOssetia|n authorities – this isn’t the first time she’s come under the gun

https://jam-news.net/trial-in-south-ossetia-minister-of-justice-v-journalist/

Armenia at NATO@armmission_nato·

13h

Thank you @GermanyNATO for hosting our colleagues from #Armenia and consistent engagement with @NATO partners.

Artsakh Parliament@Artsakh_Parl·

13 Feb

32 years ago, these days, the #Karabakhmovement began. With mass demonstration the people of #Artsakh demanded from the Soviet Union the withdrawal of Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) from the #Azerbaijan SSR and its reunion with the Soviet #Armenia. #selfdetermination

4

Armenia Ombudsman@OmbudsArmenia·

18h

On February 19, #Armenia celebrates #Book-Giving Day. On this occasion, the Human Rights Defender Mr. Arman Tatoyan @atatoyan gave an interview to #Armenpress correspondent. @armenpress https://armenpress.am/arm/news/1005384.html?fbclid=IwAR20z8u__Q3U6P_hM6BmRG7xwQDU466ioxqFqE-DKvKvuQm6IvmPdmR2fJc

USC Armenian Studies@ArmenianStudies·

7h

From the #Archives: A promotional drawing from the 1974 US Tour of the #Armenian State #Dance Ensemble (#Հայաստան|ի Պարի Պետակական Անսամբլ)

ArtsakhPress Agency@ArtsakhPress·

11h

The result of the #Karabakh #movement is today’s Republic of #Artsakh. Ashot Ghulyan https://artsakhpress.am/eng/news/121494/the-result-of-the-karabakh-movement-is-today%E2%80%99s-republic-of-artsakh-ashot-ghulyan.html

#Armenia #Armenians #Artsakh #Karabakh #Yerevan #Culture Digests