Just Monkeys

Yet another fulfilling hour of YouTubing, accomplishing this:

Complex, Complex History

A large chunk of land, held to be a part of Europe, historically ruled by many differing empires, split into three categories of big religions, that by themselves count for many differing sects. The Balkan, Turkey and the Caucasus is a very complex area, which perhaps explains the scale of nationalistically inspired violence in the last century. Just have a look at these websites to get a grip on the complexity of this region:

History of the Ottoman Sultans and their successors
Lectures on the History of the Balkan
Balkan History Maps

Clips for entertainment

and Bush uses "The Google"

Afghanistan and the West

I don't know much about Afghanistan, except the broad outlines of its history. Hellenic, Persian, Muslim, British, Russian, Taliban...and then there is now. The free West, allied under the umbrella of NATO is in charge of babysitting the young democracy of Afghanistan. From the debates and information available in general media, the most important issue seems to be the fight against the Taliban in the South. Also there is increasing mention of fighting in the North. There is plenty of fear as we witness the power of tribalism in Afghan politics. So what the hell are we doing over there?

I recently saw two quite different documentaries about Afghanistan. The first one a BBC4 Doc about an Afghan Ladies Driving School in Kabul. This was a very shocking documentary, in the sense that change and opposition to change were very subtle. How a regular Afghan male was supposed to talk to a female and how she ought to respect his authority was made visible in a very personal manner. Seeing this, I became a reserved optimist. People in Kabul are willing to sideline traditional behavior and step into modernity, with all its perversion and questionable freedoms.

Another one I saw this afternoon, is from the Dutch documentary series Zembla (and is in Dutch). Here is a journalist risking his life by reporting unembedded from the Afghan province under Dutch control Uruzgan. Control is something the NATO forces do not have. Development of Afghan infrastructure is evenly unimaginable under these circumstances. This documentary left me thinking how absurd a situation we got ourselves into. Pretending to be peacekeepers, while actually allowing a terrible status quo to grow. Not investing nearly enough to make a sustainable change for security and failing to win a guerilla war with a power that is technologically retarded. I feel that there is a War on Terror, but there is not nearly enough effort to make a real change in Afghanistan...Never mind Iraq.

CNN vs. Euronews

Yesterday I watched a piece on CNN International (the only CNN I can receive in The Netherlands) about some town in Arizona with a legendary wool-factory, which was now taken over by hispanics. This was in a programme (Insight) hosted by this trustworthy Jonathan Mann (i believe this was his name yes). Now, i have heared lots about the hispanisation problem of the USA, as cheap labor is puring in this large country. But the way in which this programme presented this problem was -to say the least - horrific.

The reporter on site interviewed firstly an oelderly woman who admitted that the takeover of the town by hispanics had robben her of "Her Land". Then an older man (whose most notable feature was a photograph with not one, but two (!) presidents) emphasised how Permanent this migration was, still he explained how non of the older - white - youth wanted to stay to work in a big factory.
The CNN report corrected this emotional comments by pointing at the industrial boom this migration has set in motion as more and more immigrants arrive to work. Another profiting business was the local garage. The white owner said he had no complaints whatsoever about the mexicans. They work hard and pay on time.
Next the feature warned for growing racism, but highlighted a cooperative church where one priest was black, the other hispanic.

Now, the threat of hispanisation was neutralised by the show, but the tone in which the threat was presented, allong with the amount of airtime dedicated to people in fear, and people believing in racism, was very unproportional.

Luckily Euronews was only one button away. I love their segment "No Comment"

Perceptions of the World

Many of us are used to the standard projection of the globe with north being up, etc...There are endless ways to project the world, and i will post them all here when i have the time. For now, i ran into this blog on the net. Amazing maps!

George Bush has a job!

When World Collide

What is one planet for one person, is a world full of terrifying alien elements to another. Western Civilisation is supposidly under threat. Our freedom of speech is under siege, no longer can we walk the streets without looking behind our backs. We, esspecially the Europeans, are loosing pride and confidence in our culture, thereby making way for Eurabia, Eurasia of Eurafrica.
Within one or two generations this continent will become a warzone of ancient european/western culture and foreign elements. Popular movement will rise to defend all that is uniquely ours, against the barbarian influence.

So where did we go wrong? What moves were obvious mistakes, for which we now taste the bitter fruit of alien culture infiltrating our huble corner of the world? Why are the Hordes coming to corrupt our distinct civilised citizenry?

Four historically identifyable mistakes European made, i will sum up:

1. Christianisation
2. Crusades
3. European Expansion
4. Imperialism

First of all, being conquered by Romans brought many good stuff: Chiefs became Kings, Hunting Grounds became Farms and howling hordes became disciplines knigthly soldiers, more or less. After the fall of the Empire, another - more evil - empire persisted, the Christian Rome. This empire broke off contacts with the South and East, esspecially after the rise of Islam. As a result of this act of conservative imperialsm, the European backlands became fearful and isolated.

This led to the second mistake: approaching the unknown world by mounting a 20,000-people strong expedition to save Jerusalem and the Holy Land. This legion of stinking, underfed cannibales greeted ancient civilisation of middle east by butchering all it encoutered. This was mistake #2.

Still some rational trading folk build up some good contacts with the middle-east, and learned the art of trade, calculations, science as a result of these contacts. Some actually believed this was their own rebirth! With the new knowledge they set out to find new trading grounds, with the result of worldwide trading companies. These multinationals benefitted from the scope of their trade, and they could easily control import/export martkets in asia by offering produce from the other side of the world. This led to amazing cultural developements back home, as enlightenment came around, science matured and participation in politics grew, as the riches grew in amounts. Becoming rich in the world-market was not unique, but the europeans did it ever more clever by looking for exceptional benefits, such as slave trade and staging various coups and regime changes around the world. (not forgetting destorying civilisations and humiliating indiginious peoples. Mistake #3

Then all really began rising to our heads. The world actually needed our civlisation. We needed the worlds resources to compete against each other. All this eventually led to the subjigation of millions, the deaths of millions in world wars and most of todays borders, of which many still conflicted. Mistake #4: Imperialism.

So now, we would like to spread democracy, and keep all that seek to bath in our wealth on the other side of the border / water.