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swanasource · 2 years

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Western Saharan author Sara Cheikh examines the political conflict that shaped her childhood in Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Insha-Allah. She details her experience returning home in 2020 and having to confront the realities of life at the refugee camp where her grandmother still lives. The book is set for publication in June 2023 by Feral House.

Western Saharan Author Sara Cheikh Debuts Memoir titled Tomorrow, Tomorrow, Insha-Allah

#sara cheikh #western saharan #sahrawi #literature #books

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politijohn · 5 months

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Kissinger’s Murderous Legacy

3 million+ bangladeshis

3 million+ vietnamese

2.5 million+ cambodians

1.1 million+ iraqis

1 million+ indonesians

900,000+ angolans

300,000+ east timorians

200,000+ laotians

60,000+ mozambiqueans

40,000+ chileans

30,000+ argentinians

20,000+ western saharans

15,000+ egyptians

11,000+ guinea bisseauans

10,000+ indians

10,000+ pakistanis

10,000+ zimbabweans

6,500+ cypriots

3,500+ syrians

Henry Kissinger may have had the biggest hand in mass murder than anyone in human history.

Good riddance.

#imperialism #politics #us politics #government #western imperialism #news #current events #war #end all wars #the left #progressive #international politics

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saxafimedianetwork · 2 years

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Blinken's Speech On The Biden Administration’s Strategy For Sub-Saharan Africa

#USA #SecretaryOfState @SecBlinken speaks about @POTUS #Administration #policy regarding #SubSaharan #Africa in a #speech in #Pretoria. @ABlinken articulates four focus areas & enumerates in facts and figures #America's #involvement on the #Continent.

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#Africa #Antony Blinken #China #Democracy #Diplomacy #Geopolitical #Joe Biden #Russia #South Africa #Speech #Strategy #Sub-Saharan Africa #United States #Western powers

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elgallinero · 2 years

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Aprende Castellano

music.youtube.com/watch

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#1357 #African Diaspora #African Pantheon #Aprende Castellano #Hacha y Machete #Hector LaVoe #la Clave #la Musica e Vita #la raza #la vita e Bella #Orishas #Pan African #Pan American #salsa #Western Sub-Saharan Africa

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herpsandbirds · 25 days

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Got any vultures? I love them <3

Why yes cupcake, i have a few vultures...

Herps and Birds (and More) (Posts tagged vulture) (tumblr.com)

King Vulture (Sarcoramphus papa), family Cathartidae, order Accipitriformes, found in Central and South America

Photograph by Greg Homel

Egyptian Vulture (Neophron percnopterus), family Accipitridae, order Accipitriformes, found in parts of Northeern and Western Africa, southern Europe and western Asia

ENDANGERED.

photograph by Till Nierman

photograph by Frank Cornelissen

White-backed Vulture (Gyps africanus), family Accipitridae, order Accipitriformes, found in much of Sub-Saharan Africa

CRITICALLY ENDANGERED.

photograph via: https://wildsafariguide.com/

#vulture #accipitridae #accipitriformes #cathartidae #bird #ornithology #animals #nature

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thatlittleegyptologist · 1 year

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apologies if this has already been asked, did ancient west africans have any relations or connection to ancient egypt?

Not really

In the pre-dynastic period, when the Sahara was much smaller, and parts of it were more savannah like, the Egyptians seem to have ventured further west than they did at any other time, as we have evidence of them at the Gilf Kebir plateau which borders Libya. There are two caves; known as the Cave of Beasts and the Cave of Swimmers. Both of these caves are extremely old, with the Cave of Swimmers being 8000-10,000 years old (c.6000-8000 BCE), and the Cave of Beasts being about 7000-8000 years old (c.5000-6000 BCE). Around 6000 years ago (c.4000 BCE) you have the Holocene Climatic Optimum (HCP), which caused a change in climate and the Sahara to began to form thus pushing people out of the area one way or another. I mention all this because the key problem with the Egyptians interacting with civilisations in West Africa after this point, is the big desert that's in between them. Clearly before this point there are people in the Saharan area, but they're not belonging to any one civilisation as those have yet to form. These are just groups of people, nomadic or stationary, living their lives in the area. Those already living in Egypt along the Nile at this time, share a common material culture, which is not present elsewhere. These are the pre-dynastic cultures of Egypt known as the Naqada period.

After the HCP, we start to see the advent of agriculture and civilisations like the Mesopotamians and the Egyptians begin to form (c.4000 BCE). The Sahara wasn't so arid that routes could not be traversed at this time, so it's possible that there was still some contact with groups or civilisations in Western Africa, but it would have been extremely difficult and things like long distance trade wouldn't have been required just yet. The chance of sustained contact is minimal, and we have no evidence to prove they did either, as far as I'm aware. By 2500 BCE, or around the time the Great Pyramid at Giza was completed, the Sahara is no longer passable due to the arid conditions. The chances of contact after this point are incredibly small. I'm not saying impossible, but when the Egyptians list the people they are in contact with it's always those to the North East (Hittites, Hyksos, Mittani) or the South (Punt and Nubia/Kush - modern day Sudan). They are in contact with the Themehu, who come from Libya, but that's as far West as they mention their contacts.

As far as they depict their contacts, we have this from the tomb of Seti I, which is from a text known as the Book of Gates:

This is a reconstruction since the original is badly damaged, from left to right we have depictions of: A Libyan, a Nubian (Sudan), an Aamu (Levantine), and an Egyptian. Here's part of the scene as seen in the tomb (bottom register where the damage is):

And another part, which you can see is connected to the part above. I'd argue with the facsimile that the Aamu are a little darker in appearance than whoever painted that made them, but still:

And the bit that goes around the corner, again on the bottom register/line you can see the Aamu (Levantine) folks:

Sorry I can't get better photos of them, but I'd physically have to go to Egypt and take them myself at this point. But you can see how the Egyptians are listing and depicting those they are in contact with on a regular basis and there are no Western African civilisations mentioned at all.

N.B. I've actually taken these images from the Theban Mapping Project, which if you've ever wanted to see photos from inside the tombs in the Valley of the Kings, it's a great resource:

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odinsblog · 5 months

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Henry Kissinger's victims:

3 million + Vietnamese

2.5 million + Cambodians

200,000+ Laotians

3 million + Bangladeshis

10,000+ Indians

10,000+ Pakistanis

15,000+ Egyptians

3500+ Syrians

6500+ Cypriots

40,000+ Chileans

30,000+ Argentinians

10,000+ Zimbabweans

60,000+ Mozambiqueans

900,000+ Angolans

11,000+ Guinea Bisseauans

300,000+ East Timorians

1,000,000+ Indonesians

20,000+ Western Saharans

1,100,000+ Iraqis

and so so many more

“…it is very possible that Henry Kissinger has played a role in the mass murder of more people than anyone else in human history.”

Henry Kissinger was a vile, evil man through and through. And while good people are justifiably rejoicing at his long overdue death, please never forget that his evil brand of warmongering, unending “defensive” wars, and colonialism lives on in far too many media pundits, Hollywood + media influencers, and powerful politicians.

Kissinger is dead, but his cruel, cold-blooded, sadistic brand of militarism still lives on, and that is what we must bring an end to.

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charlesoberonn · 4 months

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tumbler-polls · 6 months

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Where do you reside in?

Options:

North America

Central/ South America/ Caribbean

Western Europe

Eastern Europe

North Africa

Sub-Saharan Africa

Northern Asia

Central/ Western/ Southern Asia

Eastern/ Southeastern Asia

Oceania

Here is the second part of this poll, with more specific regions of Europe. And here's a master poll with US states.

Use 🫘/☕️/🌶 and so on, if you'd like to share your answer in the tags.

Tag / comment your country and reblog for a bigger sample size! 🇦🇹 🇧🇼 🇨🇺 🇧🇷 🇫🇰 🇮🇳 🇮🇸

#tumbler polls #tumblr polls #Europe #Asia #Africa #Oceania #America #demographic polls #countries #geography

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secular-jew · 14 days

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Colonialism is a disease

Imagine being an Arab Muslim and having the audacity to call someone else a colonizer. The illustration below is a snapshot of Islamic colonialism and occupation of other people's lands, from the 7th-9th centuries. Islam went on to attack, destroy, occupy and colonize vast swaths of Europe and southeast Asia, as well as what is now called Turkey.

The world has witnessed many colonial empires since the beginning of time. Most notably, the Mongols, Persians, Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, Egyptians, Islam/Ottomans, Portuguese, Dutch, French, Spanish, British, and American. The only empire that didn't take land, even after winning world wars, were the Americans. They actually gave back the Philippines. But I digress.

All of these empires were in large part, created by bloody conquest, and built on the backs of the newly subjugated. The Hebrews were, famously, slaves in Egypt. No one seems to teach this in the west, focusing more on the Romans, but of all the colonialists, one of the most deadly brutal and expansionist empires were the Muslims aka the Islamists. The Islamic empire expanded by sheer, from Medina (where Muhammad massacred and enslaved the 50% majority Jewish population) all the way into western North Africa, much of Europe, and large populations of Southeast Asia (Indonesia, Malaysia, parts of India now called Pakistan, etc). As it expanded using violence and fear, Islam literally took 100 million slaves out of Africa, and was responsible for one of the greatest mass murders in history: killing 10 million (or more) on the forced march from their homelands to the Middle East.

Some examples of Islamic slavery include the Al-Andalus slave trade, the Trans-Saharan slave trade, the Indian Ocean slave trade, the Comoros slave trade, the Zanzibar slave trade, the Red Sea slave trade, the Barbary slave trade, the Ottoman slave trade, the Black Sea slave trade, the Bukhara (Uzbekistan) slave trade, and the Khivan slave trade from which Islam took millions of slaves out of Persia to the Islamic khanates. There are Arab/Islamic societies today (Libya, a well-known example) that still trade slaves.

Compare this to Israel. Israel/Judea was never colonial nor expansionist. The Hebrews (aka Jews) were often properties of and were subjugated by, colonial empires, including the Islamic colonial empire.

They Hebrews themselves, as noted above, were most famously slaves of the the colonial Egyptian empire, some 4,000 years ago, before being murdered and subjugated by Islam starting in the 7th century. Somehow able to escape Egyptian tyranny through their own efforts (some say, by the grace of Hashem), the Hebrews settled in their current indigenous homeland 3.600 years ago - a small area by global standards, smaller than Belize, Albania, or Montenegro. They were happy there, and even at their peak, did not attempt to force convert others or expand much beyond their lands.

As historian Barbara Tuchman wrote, Israel is “the only nation in the world that is governing itself in the same territory, under the same name, and with the same religion and same language as it did 3,000 years ago.” Despite all the occupations and forced exiles, the Jews/Hebrews/Israelites have maintained a continuous presence in Judea/Israel/Samaria for some 3,600+ years. And even though Israel was granted modern statehood in 1948, it is one of the oldest continuously maintained countries in the world. The 'modern' state of Israel came to fruition post WWII, in 1948; the redefinition of borders and modern statehood after the fall of the big colonials was in no way unusual to Israel. Many country's modern borders came to be defined in the post colonial period (post WWI & WWII). While Israel and Lebanon and Iraq and Iran and Syria and Egypt were all ancient civilizations, dating back thousands of years, modern statehood came in the 20th century: For example, statehood was granted to Egypt in 1922; Saudi Arabia and Iraq in 1932; Lebanon in 1943; Indonesia, South Korea & Vietnam in 1945; Syria & Jordan in 1946; India & Pakistan in 1947; Israel, & Myanmar in 1948; Laos, Libya & Bhutan in 1951; Cambodia in 1953; Morocco, Sudan & Tunisia in 1956; Ghana & Malaysia in 1957; and so on.

The problem is, the tribalism and supremacy of Islam, can't stand that it's once-conquered land is now in the hands of the original owners. Islam believes that once it puts a flag in the sand somewhere, it's theirs.

Oh, and by the way, Andalusia (Spain) is next in Islam's sights.

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 8 months

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George W. Bush, the infamously anti-gay and neoconservative former U.S. president who invaded Iraq on a lie, has criticized congressional Republicans for threatening to defund the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR), a largely successful African HIV-prevention program that he launched back in 2003. “There is no program more pro-life” than PEPFAR, he wrote.

Though PEPFAR is estimated to have saved over 25 million lives, its funding is set to expire on September 30. Congressional Republicans are falsely claiming that the program promotes abortion and using its re-funding as a bargaining chip in budget negotiations. Republicans have threatened to defund the entire federal government at the end of the month unless they’re allowed to slash military diversity programs and military aid to Ukraine and to increase anti-immigration measures at the U.S.-Mexico border.

“We are on the verge of ending the HIV/AIDS epidemic. To abandon our commitment now would forfeit two decades of unimaginable progress and raise further questions about the worth of America’s word,” Bush wrote in a Wednesday opinion article in The Washington Post.

Bush said that his Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, his White House chief of staff Joshua Bolton, and his senior policy advisor Michael Gerson had advised him to begin PEPFAR. Gerson reportedly told Bush that it would be “a source of national shame” if the U.S. didn’t try to help end the worldwide HIV epidemic.

Bush’s opinion article cited words that Gerson himself had written in defense of PEPFAR in November 2017: “Are Republicans in Congress prepared to squander a legacy of GOP leadership that has won the United States considerable goodwill around the world? Among evangelical Christians, what definition of being ‘pro-life’ does not include saving millions of lives from preventable disease and death?”

Adding his own thoughts, Bush wrote, “There is no program more pro-life than one which has saved more than 25 million lives. I urge Congress to reauthorize PEPFAR for another five years without delay.”

During his presidency, Bush backed a constitutional amendment against same-sex marriage, and used bans on same-sex marriage to help him win re-election in 2004. While he served, 27 states banned same-sex marriage.

Despite Bush’s anti-gay record, PEPFAR was “a sound investment in U.S. security,” Ben Plumley, the former CEO of the now-defunct international HIV organization Pangea, said in a now-deleted interview with Hornet.com. Plumley said the program “generated very significant goodwill towards the United States” and countered “the spread of radical Islam or radical anti-Western attitudes in sub-Saharan Africa.”

Plumley also noted that most HIV transmissions in sub-Saharan Africa are heterosexual, meaning that conservative Republicans could support PEPFAR without worrying about seeming too overtly supportive of the LGBTQ+ community.

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antiracist-tolkien · 9 months

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Harad Through Fandom Eyes

Plenty of people acknowledge that LOTR's Haradrim, Easterlings and Variags are racist. However, I've seen less discussion about how fandom adds even more racism into the mix. This seems to be mostly because many people have very little knowledge about West Asia and North Africa, aka WANA [Why say WANA/SWANA instead of Middle East?] and what anti-WANA racism looks like.

I'm going to focus on Harad because this is the region that we know the most about. If you need a brief refresher:

Harad, or Haradwaith, is the region south of Gondor. There's a long history of violence between Harad and Gondor which dates back beyond Gondor even existed, to when Numenorians colonised Harad and repressed the people. Since then there were multiple wars and for long periods of time Gondor occupied parts of Harad. The Haradrim fight for Sauron in LoTR, partially due to their hatred of Gondor.

Harad is divided into two. Near Harad is strongly North Africa coded, and Far Harad is sub-Saharan Africa coded.

(Image description in alt text.)

Tolkien uses multiple different names to refer to the people of Harad (Haradrim, Southrons, Swertings, etc.) However, these seem to be the people of Near Harad, who he differentiates from the people of Far Harad. (There's some serious anti-blackness in this next quote, so skip over it if you need to. I only put it here as evidence that the use of Haradrim/Southrons in LOTR refers to Near Haradrim.)

[...] Easterlings with axes, and Variags of Khand, Southrons in scarlet, and out of Far Harad black men like half-trolls with white eyes and red tongues. - Return of the King

There is more to say on this than I would be able to fit into this post. There's a discussion to be had about Tolkien's textual and real life relationship with Black people. There's also a discussion that needs to be had about how Tolkien's racism is often excused with the idea that he was a 'benevolent' or well-meaning racist, a product of his time. It's an excuse that ignores the violence of quotations like this and the way that he wielded his whiteness against Black people in academia and writing.

I don't have time or space for those discussions in this post, but I want to acknowledge them.

What I want to discuss here is fandom portrayals of Haradrim. I'm not going to talk too much about the in-text racism, because that has been extensively covered elsewhere. But in summary:

The idea of the good white guys conquering the lesser brown 'Men of Darkness' is inherently racist

Tolkien's description of the Haradrim, such as repeatedly describing them as a cruel and warlike people, is also racist

The one paragraph where Samwise feels empathy for a dead Haradrim soldier does not lessen the racism.

With that out of the way, let's talk about fandom.

There's a gaping void in the information we're given about the Haradrim, so of course fandom attempts to fill the gaps. Fans often take inspiration from WANA. But many fans don't actually know that much about WANA and don't realise how much of their perception of it is based on racist and imperialist propaganda.

In fannish depictions, Harad all too frequently becomes an exotified fantasy that pulls from Western perceptions of WANA. Orientalist ideals of a mystical, magical, and yet dangerous place predominate the fannish idea of Harad.

The first thing that you should know about WANA is that it's an extremely culturally, religiously and geographically diverse place. If your depiction of Harad is entirely desert, or made of a culturally homogenous people with a narrow range of skin tones and features, you need to expand that. Equally, depictions of Harad as more 'socially backward' than other areas of Middle Earth stem directly from racist propaganda.

Too many stories write Harad as misogynistic and homophobic, often in direct contrast to other areas of Middle Earth. As many WANA people have pointed out, these kinds of sweeping generalisations are often specifically targeted at WANA because of racism.

Mysterious cursed objects from the 'far away lands of Harad', decadent sultans, the fetishization of cultural practices like belly dancing; these are all forms of Orientalism. Female characters may be sexualised, shown as seductresses or members of harems. (By the way, Westerners tend to have a very incorrect understanding of what harems actually are/were. They were the part of a Muslim household reserved for women and pre-pubescent boys. It was outsiders who perceived them as fundamentally sexual spaces and created the modern tropes of sexual harems.)

Male characters may be violent, cunning, greedy, dangerous and strange. There may be public executions and enslaved peoples, regardless of the complete absence of a textual basis. All of these things stem directly from racist ideas of WANA as 'barbaric' and 'uncivilised'.

In fact, Haradrim were once enslaved by Numenorians. They were victims of violent colonisation that continued into the days of Gondor. They have every reason to hate the 'Men of the West' and fight against them.

On a final note, the most major and dangerous WANA stereotype is the portrayal of WANA people as terrorists. This isn't a trope seen in Tolkien's works because it's primarily a post-911 phenomenon. But it's something that you must be conscious of if you're writing about Harad or other WANA-coded regions.

#harad #lord of the rings #meta #racism in tolkien #tolkien fandom racism #personal thoughts

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apollos-olives · 4 months

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what’s crazy about the orientalism and cultural appropriation in mainstream media is that these films and books, etc would be SO MUCH BETTER if they just had POC staff and cast, etc. I’m not saying that all films inspired by our cultures have to have us in them, but imagine if an Arab or an African worked on the creative shit for Dune or Star Wars. Or if futuristic movies actually utilised Asian characters and portrayed them well instead of portraying Asians as dog eating crazies. Imagine if sub Saharan Africans weren’t portrayed as homeless desert people with flies in their eyes and a third world filter whenever they showed up on screen. Imagine if non westerners were humanised.

literallyyyyy like dude i've been saying this for i think a year now but star wars could've been fixed if i was there. tbh. like SO many shows and movies could've been fixed if some poc were in charge and made stuff check out. the racism of the western world is fr so irrational. yall ever watch a show and go "wow. not a single poc was on production for this" 💀💀 ughh

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saxafimedianetwork · 2 years

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Blinken Says US Is "Equal Partner" With African Countries

#US #SecretaryOfState @ABlinken @SecBlinken said in #SouthAfrica that President @JoeBiden's administration sees #Africa’s nations as “#EqualPartners” in tackling #global #problems

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#Africa #Antony Blinken #China #Geopolitical #Russia #South Africa #Sub-Saharan Africa #United States #Western powers

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elgallinero · 2 years

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Oh que sera

I used Shazam to discover Oh Que Sera by Willie Colon. https://www.shazam.com/track/55854833/oh-que-sera?referrer=share

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#African Diaspora #African Pantheon #AmericanToo #Aprende Castellano #fania #la Musica e Vita #la raza #la vita e Bella #Oh que sera #Orishas #Pan African #Pan American #salsa #Western Sub-Saharan Africa #willie colon

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kemetic-dreams · 7 months

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The term 'Sub-Saharan' Africa is a colonial language that was used to belittle African nations south of the Sahara and to separate the other countries from North Africa– Egypt, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, and Sudan due to them being Arab states.

Colored, Negro, Black, Nigger

Every one of these terms come from the mindset of Europeans not Africans. Indigenous African societies do not use the term black as a racial identity outside of influences brought by Western cultures.

Contemporary anthropologists and other scientists, while recognizing the reality of biological variation between different human populations, regard the concept of a unified, distinguishable "Black race" as socially constructed.

Black is a term developed in the Colonial Assembly of Maryland, after a rebellion called Bacon's Rebellion, fought from 1676 to 1677.

The alliance between European indentured servants and Africans (a mix of indentured, enslaved, and Free Negroes) disturbed the colonial upper class. They responded by hardening the racial caste of slavery in an attempt to divide the two races from subsequent united uprisings with the passage of the Virginia Slave Codes of 1705.

White took on the meaning "British, Christian and having rights. Black meaning not having rights.

These divided the two populations, by giving poor Europeans with no power, unprecedented power over all non-Europeans.

The laws were devised to establish a greater level of control over the rising African slave population of Virginia. It also socially segregated white colonists from black enslaved persons, making them disparate groups and hindering their ability to unite. Unity of the commoners was a perceived fear of the Virginia aristocracy, who wished to prevent repeated events such as Bacon's Rebellion, occurring 29 years prior.

By refusing to call you an African, it belittles you, no such thing as black names, black land or black languages. It is like calling a woman big lips or flat butt and refusing to call the woman by her actual name. "Hey colored girl, or black boy".

In social psychology, a stereotype is a generalized belief about a particular category of people.

African populations have the highest levels of genetic variation among all humans.

Why You Probably Shouldn't Say 'Eskimo'

People in many parts of the Arctic consider Eskimo a derogatory term because it was widely used by racist, non-native colonizers. Many people also thought it meant eater of raw meat, which connoted barbarism and violence. Although the word's exact etymology is unclear, mid-century anthropologists suggested that the word came from the Latin word excommunicati, meaning the excommunicated ones, because the native people of the Canadian Arctic were not Christian.

According to the Constitution of India, we are “the people of India that is Bharat”

In English language discourse, the word ‘India’ is used and in Hindi expressions, the word ‘Bharat’ is used. The Anglicised call it ‘India’, and the indigenous call it ‘Bharat’. Our ruling class calls it ‘India’, the others, the janata, call it ‘Bharat’. It has become a trend and fashion to prefer the word ‘India’ over ‘Bharat’. We converse with the country in Hindi and other vernaculars while we govern it in English.

Japanese people usually refer to their country as Nihon or Nippon

The name "Japan" in English is derived from the Portuguese word "Japão," which was used during the 16th century when Portuguese traders and explorers first arrived in Japan. The Portuguese term "Japão" likely evolved from the Malay word "Japang" or "Japang Pulau," which referred to the Japanese archipelago.

The Japanese people themselves refer to their country as "Nihon" (日本) or "Nippon" (日本), and these terms have been used in the Japanese language for centuries.

As European seen themselves as the elites of all races and god's chosen people. They took on the mindset of what I say makes the most sense.

Renaming essentially all populations they came in contact with, using their language as opposed to learning the language of the natives.

And whatever religion or spirituality people had Europeans demonized it and forced converted people to Christianity.

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