#land expropriation

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"NEGOTIATE WITH INDIANS," Weekly British Whig (Kingston, Ont.) September 23, 1912. Page 1. ---- Commission to Secure Surrender of Aboriginal Rights. ---- Ottawa, Sept. 19. - A commission will be appointed shortly to negotiate with the Indians in the newly annexed parts of Ontario, Quebec and Manitoba for the surrender of their aboriginal rights. They will be restricted to reserves and be compensated financially for any rights they may forego.

#indian act #parliament of canada #department of indian affairs #settler colonialism in canada #first nations #land expropriation #first nations reserve #indigenous history #indigenous rights #indigenous people #northern ontario #treaty system #northern manitoba #northern quebec #canadian history

[nem0c]

choosing to believe the important part of The Immoralist is not when Gide does 5 pushups and speaks to some arab boys (they do not get speaking roles) and becomes convinced he has overcome Civilisation and returned to his Gothic roots, but when he is lectured by a 15-year-old on the necessity of consolidating the various scraps of land currently worked by Normandy’s tenant farmers into a single plot upon which modern agricultural techniques can be applied more fruitfully

#milord it is 1902 and you haven't even begun expropriating the peasants from the land?

[imsobadatnicknames2]

What does the "banana republic is a fucked up name for a store" post you reblogged mean? I'm afraid of looking dumb.

The term "banana republic" was originally coined to describe countries in Central and South America (mainly Honduras and Guatemala) whose economies were rendered dependent on the production and export of bananas (among other agricultural goods, but mainly bananas) by American fruit corporations leveraging the power of the U.S. government, the U.S. military and the CIA.

Throughout most of the of the 20th century, American corporations such as United Fruit, Cuyamel, and the Standard Fruit Company owned large portions of these countries' lands, to the point that in some cases they controlled their railway, road, and port infrastructure, and they engaged in a variety of imperialist actions to lower production costs, such as violence against labor activists and anti wage reform lobbying.

The pinnacle of this phenomenon was the 1954 Guatemalan coup, when United Fruit convinced the goverment of US president Dwight D. Eisenhower that the elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Árbenz (who had expropriated some of the company's unused land and given it to Guatemalan peasants) was secretly working with the Soviet Union, resulting in a CIA coup which deposed the Árbenz government and replaced it with a thirty-year right-wing military dictatorship which effectively acted as a puppet government to protect the interests of United Fruit and the U.S. government.

Nowadays the term has broadened to refer to any small, economically unstable country with an economy which has been rendered dependent on the export of a particular natural resource due to economic exploitation by a more powerful country.

[russia-libertaire]

1917 peasants' revolt

'Peasants underwent the same political evolution as the soldiers and workers: at first watchful cooperation with the Provisional Government, then growing disillusion followed by the assumption of direct power over their own lives. ... During the summer and autumn village and volost assemblies proceeded to direct action, in a manner reminiscent of 1905. This time the peasant tide was swelled by soldier deserters beginning to return from the front in large numbers, armed and ready to fight if their should be any resistance. But it was not only soldiers. All households were involved: joint responsibility ruled, as always. Typically, peasants would assemble with their carts and improvised weapons on the village square, then move off toward the manor. The squire was forced to sign a document transferring the property of the estate to the village assembly. Then the peasants would load what they could carry onto their carts and lead away the cattle, leaving behind a subsistence allowance for the landowner and his family. ... After the expropriations, village assemblies redistributed the land as far as possible equitably, either "by eaters" (according to the number of mouths a household had to feed) or "by labor" (according to the number of working hands available in it). "Stolypin peasants" and even former landlords were drawn into the process: each was allowed his norm and no more. Everyone had the right to subsistence. In crisis the old peasant values reasserted themselves.'

Russia and the Russians, by Geoffrey Hosking

#peasantry #russian revolution #expropriation #land and freedom #land redistribution #peasants #joint responsibility #egalitarianism #agrarian socialism

[signipotens]

Observations:

No organic act has ever been passed by Congress to organize American Samoa

Pursuant to Rice v. Cayetano, Pacific Islanders, until such point as the United States Government chooses to recognize them as such, do not constitute a people with whom the United States has a trust relationship, and thus hold no Aboriginal title under the trust and authority of the United States

American Samoa, being both east of the International Date Line and east of the 180º meridian, is west of the Mississippi River

The Indian Removal Act of 1830 has never been repealed or overturned (while only sections 7 and 8 have been codified as 25 USC §174, Title 25 of the United States Code has never been enacted into positive law, and thus §174 merely supersedes the relevant sections of the Act and does not repeal it in its entirety)

Conclusion: Joe Biden can at any time divide all or some of American Samoa into territorial districts and then give those districts to any Indian or Alaska Native Tribal entity who wants them in exchange for equivalent Tribal territorial holdings (or other equivalent compensation) anywhere else in the United States

#i speak #this isn't an actual policy proposal obv #but it's also not illegal so #make of that what you will #gorsuch's opinion in American Samoa v. United States would be a sight to behold #take each piece of the puzzle in turn #← new indian law tag #on second thought the case would be immediately thrown out for lack of standing #it would have to be a private individual whose land was expropriated #and even then that would probably fit under the takings clause of the fifth amendment if the proper due process was undertaken #i guess there is technically some grounds for the justiciability of United States v. United States #it would be so wild tho #i wonder if expropriation for the creation of an indian reservation counts as public use

[apas-95]

As it apparently needs to be restated - race, ethnicity, and nationality are not themselves the basic drivers of history. Political-economic class is.

The European practice of placing African people into chattel slavery was not carried out on the basis of any innate characteristics of 'blackness' or 'whiteness' - those categories did not exist before the slave trade, they were created in support of it. Europe at the time found it would be beneficial to have a class of slave workers for its colonial projects, and it had the military, political, and economic might to subjugate Africa and African people to that end. Had you asked a Prussian and a Scotsman prior to the institution of African slavery if they were both members of a common 'race', they would have found the idea ridiculous - and yet, transport those two ahead in time, and perhaps to settlements in the Americas, and suddenly they were both Whites. Whiteness (and its necessary counterpart, blackness), then, is not some intrinsic quality based on the tone of someone's skin, but a political and economic category constructed to differentiate between those people that could be oppressed and made chattel by the slave trade, and those that could not.

This is true for all these systems of oppression - though they may be divided on supposed lines of biology or locality, they are not inherently based on biological factors, those are functionally coincidental, and are constructed as justifications for a system necessitated by purely political and economic reasons. Nazi oppression of Jewish, and Roma, and Slavic [and etc.] people was not fundamentally based on any inherent quality of e.g. Judaism, but on the economic needs of German capital under the burden of postwar reconstruction and 'war reparations' paid to the victorious powers. It was not blind hatred, but the inevitable result of a society built in pursuit of profit - one whose ruling class held a cold, calculated need to expropriate wealth, weaken worker organisation, and seize and depopulate land to strengthen the composition of capital. It was still necessary for this system to split the population into one group of 'legitimate targets' for victimisation, and one of reassured, protected accomplices, though there were no obvious physical, 'biological' features to base these on - so they were constructed, both through propaganda that exaggerated physiology, and through the appending of obvious badges and marks onto those targeted. Again, these were sets of features, and categories, created to support a system of oppression and exploitation, not the reasons it came into being in the first place.

Again, these are fundamentally political and economic categories, and can only be properly understood as such. If not properly understood as being based, first and foremost, on material interests of classes, then any analysis of them is unstable. For example: appeals to the supposed ancestral claim of zionists to the land of Palestine, and thereby to indigineity, can only be refuted with an understanding that indigeneity is a political and economic characteristic, of relation towards the oppression of a settler state, and not some characteristic of where one's ancestors were born. None of this is to say that race, nationality, etc don't function as axes of oppression - but that they must be understood as manifestations of the existing political and economic material interests of classes that drive the development of history, if they are to be fought against.

[najia-cooks]

[ID: A decorative orange ceramic plate with a pyramid of green herbs and sesame seeds, topped with deep red sumac and more sesame seeds. End ID]

زعتر فلسطيني / Za'tar falastinia (Palestinian spice blend)

Za'tar (زَعْتَر; also transliterated "za'atar," "zaatar" and "zatar") is the name of a family of culinary herbs; it is also the name of a group of spice blends made by mixing these herbs with varying amounts of olive oil, sumac, salt, roasted sesame seeds, and other spices. Palestinian versions of za'tar often include caraway, aniseed, and roasted wheat alongside generous portions of sumac and sesame seeds. The resulting blend is bold, zesty, and aromatic, with a hint of floral sourness from the sumac, and notes of licorice and anise.

Za'tar is considered by Palestinians to have particular national, political, and personal importance, and exists as a symbol of both Israeli oppression and Palestinian home-making and resistance. Its major components, olive oil and wild thyme, are targeted by the settler state in large part due to their importance to ecology, identity, and trade in Palestine—settlers burn and raze Palestinian farmers' olive trees by the thousands each year. A 1977 Israeli law forbade the harvesting of wild herbs within its claimed borders, with violators of the law risking fines and confiscation, injury, and even death from shootings or land mines; in 2006, za'tar was further restricted, such that even its possession in the West Bank was met with confiscation and fines.

Despite the blanket ban on harvesting wild herbs (none of which are endangered), Arabs are the only ones to be charged and fined for the crime. Samir Naamnih calls the ban an attempt to "starve us out," given that foraging is a major source of food for many Palestinians, and that picking and selling herbs is often the sole form of income for impoverished families. Meanwhile, Israeli farmers have domesticated and farmed za'tar on expropriated Palestinian land, selling it (both the herb and the spice mixture) back to Palestinians, and later marketing it abroad as an "Israeli" blend; they thus profit from the ban on wild harvesting of the herb. This farming model, as well as the double standard regarding harvesting, refer back to an idea that Arabs are a primitive people unfit to own the land, because they did not cultivate or develop it as the settlers did (i.e., did not attempt to recreate a European landscape or European models of agriculture); colonizing and settling the land are cast as justified, and even righteous.

The importance of the ban on foraging goes beyond the economic. Raya Ziada, founder of an acroecology nonprofit based in Ramallah, noted in 2019 that "taking away access to [wild herbs] doesn't just debilitate our economy and compromise what we eat. It's symbolic." Za'tar serves variously as a symbol of Palestinians' connection to the land and to nature; of Israeli colonial dispossession and theft; of the Palestinian home ("It’s a sign of a Palestinian home that has za’tar in it"); and of resistance to the colonial regime, as many Palestinians have continued to forage herbs such as za'tar and akkoub in the decades since the 1977 ban. Resistance to oppression will continue as long as there is oppression.

Palestine Action has called for bail fund donations to aid in their storming, occupying, shutting down, and dismantling of factories and offices owned by Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems. Also contact your representatives in the USA, UK, and Canada.

Ingredients:

Za'tar (Origanum syriacum), 250g once dried (about 4 cups packed)

250g (1 2/3 cup) sesame seeds

170g (3/4 cup) Levantine sumac berries, or ground sumac (Rhus coriaria)

100g (1/2 cup) wheat berries (optional)

2 Tbsp olive oil

1 Tbsp aniseed (optional)

1/2 Tbsp caraway seeds (optional)

Levantine wild thyme (also known as Bible hyssop, Syrian oregano, and Lebanese oregano) may be purchased dried online. You may also be able to find some dried at a halal grocery store, where it will be labelled "زعتر" (za'tar) and "thym," "thyme," or "oregano." Check to make sure that what you're buying is just the herb and not the prepared mixture, which is also called "زعتر." Also ensure that what you're buying is not a product of Israel.

If you don't have access to Levantine thyme, Greek or Turkish oregano are good substitutes.

Wheat berries are the wheat kernel that is ground to produce flour. They may be available sold as "wheat berries" at a speciality health foods store. They may be omitted, or replaced with pre-ground whole wheat flour.

Instructions:

1. Harvest wild thyme and remove the stems from the leaves. Wash the leaves in a large bowl of water and pat dry; leave in a single layer in the sun for four days or so, until brittle. Skip this step if using pre-dried herbs.

2. Crumble leaves by rubbing them between the palms of your hands until they are very fine. Pass through a sieve or flour sifter into a large bowl, re-crumbling any leaves that are too coarse to get through.

Crumbling between the hands is an older method. You may also use a blender or food processor to grind the leaves.

3. Mix the sifted thyme with a drizzle of olive oil and work it between your hands until incorporated.

4. Briefly toast sumac berries, caraway seeds, and aniseed in a dry skillet over medium heat, then grind them to a fine powder in a mortar and pestle or a spice mill.

5. Toast sesame seeds in a dry skillet over medium heat, stirring constantly, until deeply golden brown.

6. (Optional) In a dry skillet on medium-low, toast wheat berries, stirring constantly, until they are deeply golden brown. Grind to a fine powder in a spice mill. If using ground flour, toast on low, stirring constantly, until browned.

Some people in the Levant bring their wheat to a local mill to be ground after toasting, as it produces a finer and more consistent texture.

7. Mix all ingredients together and work between your hands to incorporate.

Store za'tar in an airtight jar at room temperature. Mix with olive oil and use as a dipping sauce with bread.

#spice blends #Palestinian #Levantine #za’tar

[marginal-notes]

Love serenading in the new year by realizing that I’m repeatedly getting my ass kicked while writing fic because I keep trying to apply the wrong legal system in my worldbuilding. At this rate I’m going to hunt down a course on civil law systems, jfc.

#the ongoing saga of navi's niche interests #I JUST WANT TO HAVE A BIRTHDAY FIC ABOUT EMINENT DOMAIN #LET ME HAVE THIS #hnnnnnGGGHH yeah I’m back on my bullshit #of contemplating land expropriation by fire nation government vs military vs private developers #along with my BnHA unhinged screaming #because if I see one more fic involving a jury trail I WILL absolUTELY lose it #I miss being in college

[pal1cam]

Land Day - March 30th

Every year on the 30th of March, Palestinians all across Palestine, yet especially those living inside the 1948 green line (governed by the Israeli government) revive the memory of ‘The Land Day’ (in Arabic : Yawm Al-Ard), a day that first became of significance in the year 1976 when the Israeli government announced the plan that it had in mind, to take and expropriate thousands of dunams of land from Palestinian citizens for “state purposes”… this led the Palestinian citizens living under Israeli rule to take on a general strike and go out in protests and demonstrations in large number against such a decision that deprives them from the lands that they own privately.

On the protests of March 30th 1976 the IOF killed 6 Palestinians (Khadeejah Qasem Shawahneh, Kheir Ahmed Yassin, Raja Hussein Abu Rayya, Khader Eid Mahmoud Khalailah, Mohsen Hasan Sayyed Taha, Ra’afat Ali Zuheiri) while injuring and arresting hundreds more…

Many literary and artistic pieces have been dedicated to the memory of Palestinian Land Day by various authors and artists, the most famous piece being a poem written by the renowned Palestinian author and poet Mahmoud Darwish named “Al-Ard” (which translates to “The Land” in English).

The BDS movement is encouraging people from all over the world to organize huge protests and demonstrations on Land Day, as it is a day that holds a big part of the Palestinian struggle, which is the struggle to take back the stolen lands that were expropriated by the occupation’s government.

So what will you be doing this Land Day (March 30th 2024) to help raise Palestinian voices ?

#gaza #palestine #free gaza #from the river to the sea palestine will be free #gazaunderfire #save gaza #gaza strip #gazaunderattack #stand with gaza #free palestine 🇵🇸 #land day #march 30th #يوم الارض #palestinian lives matter #stand with palestine #save palestine #long live palestine #palestinian history #stop palestinian genocide #don’t stop talking about palestine #dont stop talking about palestine #stop the occupation #stop the genocide #stop the war #end the genocide #stop israel #anti zionisim #end the apartheid #end the occupation #end the siege

[opencommunion]

The Stop Cop City movement has sought to prevent the expropriation of part of the Welaunee Forest for the development of an 85-acre police mega training center: a model town to prepare the state’s repressive arms for the urban warfare that will ensue when the contradictions of their exploitation and extraction become uncontainable, as they did in 2020 after the APD murdered Rayshard Brooks.  That murder, and all those that came before, were the lodestars of the Black-led movement during the George Floyd uprisings; their demands were no less than the dismantlement of the entire carceral system. Unable to effectively manage or quell the popular street movements, the Atlanta Police Foundation set out to consolidate and expand their capabilities for surveillance, repression, imprisonment, armed violence, and forced disappearance. One result is Cop City, which has been racked by militant sabotage, land occupation, arson, and popular mobilizations, in an attempt to end the construction and return Atlanta to its people.  As the Atlanta Police Foundation was unable to contain the 2020 Black rebellion, so too have they been unable to quell the resistance against Cop City. The press reports that the project is hemorrhaging money and is mired in delays and difficulties. For their part, the city, the state, and the federal government, have in turn employed every tool in their power to destroy the movement. Last week, the Georgia State Senate passed a bill to effectively criminalize bail funds in the state; RICO charges have been contorted to target networks of support and care that surround the fighters; and last January, APD assassinated the comrade Tortuguita in cold blood while they rested in their tent in the forest. It is clear that Stop Cop City represents one of the conjunctural spear tips for expanding the existing systems of counterinsurgency that span Africa, Asia, and the Arab world.  Today the system’s belly rests atop Gaza, whose rumblings shake the earth upon which we walk. Through its Georgia International Law Enforcement Exchange (GILEE) program, the APD has sent hundreds of police to train with the Zionist occupation forces. And in October 2023, after Tufan al-Aqsa, the Atlanta Police Department engaged in hostage training inside abandoned hotels, putatively intended to “defeat Hamas,” in an advancement of tactics for the targeting of Black people. With every such expansion, the ability of counterinsurgency doctrines to counteract people’s liberation struggles grows. The purpose of counterinsurgency is to marshal state and para-state power into political, social, economic, psychological, and military warfare to overwhelm both militants and the popular cradle—the people—who support them. Its aim is to render us hopeless; to isolate and dispossess us and to break our will to resist it by any and all means necessary. This will continue apace, unless we fight to end it. Stop Cop City remains undeterred: on Friday, an APD cop car was burnt overnight in response to the police operation on February 8; yesterday, two trucks and trailers loaded with lumber were burnt to the ground. An anonymous statement claiming credit for the former, stated: “We wish to dispel any notion that people will take this latest wave of repression lying down, or that arresting alleged arsonists will deter future arsons.”  As the U.S. government and Zionist entity set their sights on the Palestinian people sheltering in Rafah, as they continue their relentless genocide of our people in Khan Younis, Jabalia, Shuja’iyya, and Gaza City, the Stop Cop City movement has clearly articulated its solidarity with the Palestinian struggle. They have done so with consistency and discipline, and we have heard them. Our vision of freedom in this life and the next requires us to confront and challenge the entangled forces of oppression in Palestine and in Turtle Island, and to identify the sites of tension upon which these systems distill their forces. This week, as with the last three years, the forest defenders have presented us one such crucible.

(11 Feb 24)

National Lawyers Guild, Stop All Cop Cities: Lessons For a National Struggle (video, 1 hr 45 min)

#turtle island #palestine #colonialism #imperialism #library #action

[gothhabiba]

It's striking how frequently you can take a Zionist claim, exactly reverse it, and arrive at something much closer to the truth.

Zionists claim that the majority of Palestinian land was unproductive, that Palestinians were neglecting the agricultural potential of the land, and that the مشاع (musha') system of shared landholding (wherein plots were swapped around within a large family unit rather than belonging to one owner and their descendants in perpetuity) held back the land's potential—because the "Arabs" (of course, naturally selfish) would not want to make long-term improvements or allow standard maintenance (e.g. letting it lie fallow) of land if they could not expect the sole long-term benefit from doing so.

I expect that this system, like all systems, had its disadvantages, but Palestinians were demonstrably making long-term changes to the land which their whole unit would benefit from. Terracing, for example, must be accepted to be a long-term project which does not merely immediately extract the maximum yield from the soil year after year?

Meanwhile, while Israelis have invented and instituted developments in agriculture (drip irrigation and irrigation with wastewater as tools of water management, for example), these developments are ones that they have actively prevented Palestinians from making themselves by depriving them of land, water, electricity, capital, the ability to import or export anything, or anything else you would need to technologically innovate anything, since the late 19th century—

—and Israeli methods of agriculture often fall into the ethos of "immediately extract the maximum yield from the soil year after year," with nitrate pollution from their constant use of fertilizers poisoning well water (mostly to the detriment of Palestinians), pollution of soil with salt buildup, use of pesticides leading to high rates of breast cancer, overpumping aquifiers and causing them to fill with brackish water in pursuit of water-hungry crops that should not be grown in the south of Palestine, &c.

And meanwhile the agricultural methods that many Palestinians are now forced to use frequently approach "only think about this season's yield," because they have no faith that they will be able to reap the benefits of their investments (constantly being bombed and driven from their lands and having their farming equipment banned or destroyed) and because they cannot let their land lie fallow for a moment without Israel using that as a pretext to "legally" expropriate it. Zionism is what creates these habits.

Yet even in these adverse conditions, Palestinians use eggshells and fish excrement as natural fertilizers, grow plants without soil, return to the use of historical crops, &c...

#Palestine #Israel #Zionism

[if-you-fan-a-fire]

"Scenes as Residents of St. Vincent and Sydenham Leave New Tank Range," Owen Sound Sun-Times. October 1, 1942. Page 6. --- The northern tips of St. Vincent and Syndenham Townships are today a new Canadian Army tank range. Rolling farm-lands which for years have been devoted to feeding Canadians are now serving another purpose, being used to train men to guard Canadians against the loss of those things they prize more than life itself. All residents of the area have now departed for their new homes. Here are scenes as the evacuation was in full swing. Upper left, Carol Jane McKee, aged 7, and Yvonne McKee, aged 9, 4 sit the steps of the Balaclava school, their books in their arms, as they any well to this school house. They are the daughters of Mr. and Mrs. Russell McKee and will reside near Allenford. Top centre is a view of a Sydenham group, helping Mrs. Margaret Eagles pack her belongings into a truck for removal to her new home at Owen Sound. From left to right are Jimmie Lemon, Carewood White, Miss Katherine Lemon, M. Donald Lemon, Mrs. Margaret Eagles and Clifford King. Upper right is scene familiar in the district in the past few weeks, a truck-load of hay. Standing on the hood of the truck is Rae Bumstead, while at the left is the owner of the hay, John Cathrae, who is moving to a farm in Keppel Township. Lower left is sbown one of the warning signs erected along the boundaries of the area. The man on the right Josh Gammon of Hawkestone, Ont., who was directing William Briggs and Geedon Hedekinson of Meaford in the work of erecting barriers across the roadway. Lower right is a picture of S.S. No. 12, St. Vincent, closed because it stands four rods inside the tank area, although eleven of the school's fourteen pupils reside outside the area and will now have to go as far as five miles to St. John's school. Standing is the school door in the picture is George Moire, a member of the school board of S.S. No. 12 - Sun-Tunes Staff Photo

#meaford #meaford military camp #camp meaford #tank range #canadian army #armored warfare #tank regiment #military training #moved by the state #forced migration #farming in canada #toronto #rural canada #bruce peninsula #canada during world war 2 #land expropriation #world war ii

[probablyasocialecologist]

The notion that humans, especially Indigenous humans, must be removed from nature in order to save it, and that “pristine wilderness” must be quarantined from an inherently destructive humanity has its historical roots in white supremacy. When European colonists arrived in North America, they did not recognize the active management of ecosystems by Indigenous groups as “agriculture.” As Indigenous people lived on but did not “steward” the land in a capitalist sense, the land was viewed as a “virgin wilderness” being “wasted” on “unproductive” peoples. Their dispossession was therefore legitimated by God, who had “given” the land to European settlers to tame and cultivate. Such notions were invoked during the foundation of the United States, and have been used by the religious right in Israel to justify the ongoing expropriation of Palestinian territory.  Of course, the Indigenous people of the Americas, like Indigenous people all over the world, were engaged in active management of the ecosystems in which they lived and in cultivation of resources to support their societies. Advanced agricultural techniques like prescribed burning were used to encourage the growth of gardens of edible food within old growth forests or prairies, just as the purposeful management of Bison and other game stood in for (arguably much crueler) European-style animal husbandry. These practices of cultivation were alien, and indeed invisible, to European eyes.

#conservation #wilderness #indigenous

[leroibobo]

when the homes in the depopulated palestinian village of lifta were originally built is impossible to tell and most likely varies from house to house. the area's been known since ancient times, including having been written about in the hebrew bible. it's retained multiple different names throughout history - lifta by romans, nephto by byzantines, clepsta by crusaders, then lifta again by arabs. in more recent times, the area saw battle in the early 19th century, when it saw a peasant's revolt against egyptian conscription and taxation policies. (egyptian-ottoman ruler muhammad ali had attempted to become independent from the ottoman empire, and sought to use the area of "greater syria" which palestine was apart of as a buffer state.)

the village was predominantly muslim with a mosque, a maqām for local sage shaykh badr, a few shops, a social club, two coffee houses, and an elementary school which opened in 1945. its economy was based in farming - being a village of jerusalem, farmers would sell their produce in the city's markets. an olive press which remains in the village gives evidence to one of the most important crops its residents farmed. the historically wealthy village was known for its intricate embroidery and sewing, particularly of thob ghabani bridal dresses, which attracted buyers from across the levant.

lifta also represents one of the few palestinian villages in which the structures weren't totally or mostly decimated during the 1948 nakba. 60 of the 450 original houses remain intact. from zochrot's entry on lifta:

israel's absentee property law of 1950 permits the state to expropriate land and assets left behind, and denies palestinians the right to return to old homes or to reclaim their property. it's estimated that there's around 400,000 descendants of the village's original refugee population dispersed in east jerusalem, the west bank, jordan, and the palestinian diaspora.

like many depopulated palestinian houses, some of those in lifta were initially used to settle predominantly mizrahi immigrants and refugees, in this case 300 jewish families from yemen and kurdistan. the houses weren't registered in their names, and the area generally saw poor infrastructure and no resources including water and electricity provided by the government. most left in the early 1970s as a part of a compensation program to move out people who'd been settled in depopulated palestinian houses - if they didn't, they were referred to as "squatters" and evicted. (holes were even drilled in the roofs of evacuated buildings to make them less habitable). the 13 families which remain there today only managed to do so because they lived close to the edge of the village.

in 1987, the israeli nature reserves authority planned to restore the "long-abandoned village" and turn it into a natural history center which would "stress the jewish roots of the site", but nothing came of it. several more government proposals on what to do with the land had been brought up since then. this culminated in in 2021 when the israel land administration announced without informing the jerusalem municipal authorities that it issued a tender for the construction of a luxury neighborhood on the village's ruins, consisting of 259 villas, a hotel, and a mall. since 2023, they've agreed to shelve and "rethink" these plans after widespread objection.

the reasons for the objections varied significantly between the opposing israeli politicians - who see the village as an exemplar of cultural heritage and "frozen in time" model of palestinian villages before 1948 - and palestinians - who largely see the village as a witness of the nakba and a symbol of hope for their return. lifta is currently listed by unesco as a potential world heritage site, a designation netanyahu has threatened to remove several times.

many palestinians who are descendent from its former residents still live nearby. like with many other depopulated palestinian villages, they've never ceased to visit, organize tours of the village, and advocate for its preservation.

#palestine #info #nakba #my posts #the dresses link isnt specific to lifta thobs but provides a good overview #i couldn't find anything online abt lifta's embroidery but some of the book pdfs on palestinian costume i reblogged a while ago have info

[russia-libertaire]

Peasants' revolt

'Peasants, though not directly affected by Bloody Sunday, were nevertheless profoundly stirred and outraged by the spectacle of the autocracy acting in a way which was both ineffective (the Japanese war) and in breach of God's law. The "little father" had proved to be not only impotent but also evil: both pravda and vlast (authority) had been undermined. They felt that it should be both possible and right to make the political system more responsive to them. Over the next couple of years they tried various devices: petitioning the authorities, withholding their labor from landlord estates, electing delegates first of all to a Peasant Congress, then to the State Duma, and even taking the law completely into their own hands, seizing the landlord's animals, tools, and seeds, driving him out of the manor house, and burning it down. Different tactics were employed at different times and places according to circumstance. Peasants seem to have been completely pragmatic about the means they used: their paramount concern was to put into effect their own concept of how land should be owned and villages governed.'

Russia and the Russians, by Geoffrey Hosking

#peasants #peasantry #rebellion #expropriation #redistribution #russian revolution #land and freedom

[workingclasshistory]

On this day, 16 June 1531, English king Henry VIII modified the vagrancy laws he brought in the previous year, which were key in creating the working class. People kicked off communal land who were not in wage labour were designated as vagabonds, and on their first offence were to be whipped, then on the second whipped with half an ear sliced off and upon a third offence they were to be executed. This and similar laws enacted across Europe, backed up by intense state violence, created a class of people forced to sell their labour to survive: the working class. Karl Marx described these legal mechanisms in volume 1 of his work, Capital: "Thus were the agricultural people, first forcibly expropriated from the soil, driven from their homes, turned into vagabonds, and then whipped, branded, tortured by laws grotesquely terrible, into the discipline necessary for the wage system." This expropriation was extended across the globe by violent colonialism. Rather than being a natural state of affairs as it is often portrayed, the creation of the working class was fiercely resisted for hundreds of years, and indeed still is to this day in some areas. If you value our work researching people's history like this please consider supporting us on patreon and getting exclusive content and benefits: https://www.patreon.com/workingclasshistory Pic: Contemporary illustration of the punishment of a vagrant in Tudor England. https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=645531507620068&set=a.602588028581083&type=3