BETHESDA, Md., April 13, 2021 /PRNewswire/ -- EDITION Hotels today announced its further international expansion by the end of 2022, with the slated opening of eight new properties across three continents. The new openings include sites in Rome, Madrid, Dubai, Reykjavik, Tampa, Doha, Mexico's Riviera Maya at Kanai and EDITION's second property in Tokyo. With 11 hotels worldwide currently, these planned openings underscore the brand's strong growth and will bring the portfolio to a total of 19 properties globally. In addition to these new properties, EDITION Hotels expects to announce further expansion later in 2022.

EDITION Hotels redefine the concept of luxury through offering an unexpected collection of one-of-a-kind hotels. Conceived by hotel visionary and cultural icon Ian Schrager and Marriott International, the brand also benefits from Marriott's global scale and operational expertise. The commitment to uncompromising quality, true originality and impeccable modern service continue to challenge traditional perceptions of luxury and entrench EDITION's position as an industry leader. Every EDITION hotel is unique, reflecting the social and cultural milieu of the time and place of its creation. Each new property is individually developed in collaboration with one of the world's most eminent designers chosen specifically for that location, and introduces original food and beverage concepts from internationally renowned chefs. The end result offers the best of dining and entertainment, modern luxury services and amenities "all under one roof."

"I've always been committed to being involved in special projects on a global scale that reach new heights.I'm thrilled to work together with Marriott, and the opportunity to see these hotels come to life across the world is a dream come true." Ian Schrager.

Please find further details on the properties and their scheduled opening dates below:

The Reykjavik EDITION

Launching mid 2021

The Reykjavik EDITIONis anticipated to launch in summer 2021 in one of the world's most sustainable capitals. Located in the historical, scenic heart of downtown Reykjavik by Old Harbor port, the hotel is just steps away from Laugavegur Street, the city's vibrant shopping district, and the Harpa Concert and Conference Center.The hotel is the perfect jumping off point for exploring the wonders of the region, with the renowned Blue Lagoon within driving distance and the Northern Lights visible in the city during the winter solstice.

Ian Schrager Company has collaborated with architects T.arch and designers Roman & Williams to introduce EDITION Hotels to Iceland. Poised to offer 253 guestrooms and suites, The Reykjavik EDITION will house a rooftop, nightlife, spacious meeting and event spaces (502 sqm/5,402 sqft) and a spa. In addition, the hotel is expected to offer guests and locals a diverse culinary offering with a signature restaurant, destination bar and a caf.

The Tokyo EDITION, Ginza

Launching late 2021

Following the successful launch of the first Japanese EDITION hotel with The Tokyo EDITION, Toranomon in late 2020, the opening of the The Tokyo EDITION, Ginza will further strengthen the brand's position as one of the most exciting lifestyle pioneers in Asia. Slated to open in late 2021, The Tokyo EDITION, Ginza will be situated just off Chuo Street, one of the largest upscale entertainment and shopping destinations in the city.

The newly constructed property will include 86 guestrooms and suites, three incredible food and beverage destinations including rooftop bar, together with meeting studio and a state-of-the-art fitness center.

The Rome EDITION

Launching late 2021

Expected to open late in 2021, EDITION Hotels' first Italian property will feature 95 guest rooms and suites, including a Penthouse suite with a private 130 sqm (1,399 sqft) terrace. The Rome EDITIONwill offer uniquely designed food and beverage outlets, including a signature restaurant with outdoor dining space that will make locals and visitors fall in love with its cuisine and all that comes with it; a Punch Room Bar with exceptionally crafted cocktails; and a Rooftop Terrace where guests can have the choice of a seasonal bite, a drink overlooking the city, a private gathering with friends, or all of the above. In addition to customizable indoor and outdoor event spaces, the hotel will also be home to a rooftop swimming pool, a very spacious hi-tech gym, and two treatment rooms including a couple-massage experience.

With its central location a few steps from Via Veneto and Bernini's Tritone Fountain in Piazza Barberini, The Rome EDITION is within a short walk of all the best that the city has to offer, such as the Spanish Steps, Trevi Fountain, the Borghese Gardens and Gallery, and many other wonders that make Rome a must-see destination. At the corner of modern luxury and history, the hotel is housed within a historical striking building designed by Cesare Pascoletti in collaboration with architect Marcello Piacentini, one of Italy's most famed architects of Rationalism in the early 20thcentury.

The Dubai EDITION

Launching late 2021

The anticipated opening of theThe Dubai EDITIONin late 2021 will mark a significant expansion for the brand into the Middle East's most popular travel destination. Situated in downtown Dubai, the hotel will be located in one of the city's most popular locations, opposite the world-famous Dubai Mall.

Designed with LW Design Group LLC, the hotel will feature 275 guestrooms and suites. The property will also be home to multiple food and beverage outlets, pool, spa and fitness center, in addition to dynamic events spaces boasting meeting rooms and a flexible ballroom.

The Madrid EDITION

Launching early 2022

The Madrid EDITIONwill showcase 200 beautifully appointed guestrooms and suites, some with terraces, and five unique food and beverage outlets including a signature restaurant, cocktail bar, Sky Bar and rooftop terrace, together with an outdoor pool, state-of-the-art fitness center and spa. Flexible studios with over 350sqm (3,767 sqft) of dedicated space will host creative meetings and events for large or small groups.

Set in a tranquil square surrounded by historic buildings, The Madrid EDITION is near Puerta de Sol in the heart of the Spanish capital, one of the city's most famous sites, and within walking distance to The Golden Triangle of Art three of the most important art museums in Madrid.

Slated to open in early 2022, the hotel will reflect the people and the culture of the city and will become a stunning microcosm of one-of-a-kind food, beverage and entertainment offerings, innovative design, and luxury service. The Madrid EDITION will be the second EDITION Hotel in Spain, following the successful opening of The Barcelona EDITION in 2018.

The Tampa EDITION

Launching early 2022

Planned to open in early 2022, The Tampa EDITIONwill become the fifth US property from EDITION Hotels. Situated withinthe new 56-acre Water Street Tampa neighborhood, the hotel will be home to172guestrooms and suites and six food and beverage outlets, including a signature restaurant, rooftop bar and terrace. The property will also feature a 204sqm (2,195 sqft) Penthouse Suite, expansive spa, fitness center and over 550sqm (5,920 sqft) of flexible meeting and events space. Bringing some of the world's best talents together into one project, design is care of the acclaimed New York-based architecture practice Morris Adjmi in collaboration with Florida-based firm Nichols Brosch Wurst Wolfe & Associates; with interiors designed by the renowned Roman & Williams. The hotel is situated within immediate proximity to the best that Tampa has tooffer interms of cultural institutions, entertainment, recreational, dining and shopping options.

The Riviera Maya EDITION at Kanai

Launching mid 2022

The Riviera Maya EDITION at Kanaiis expected to open in mid 2022. With 180 guestrooms and suites, the hotel will be situated within the luxurious Kanai development, and home to six food and beverage outlets including a signature restaurant, pool bar and beach club, destination spa and an expansive 206sqm (2,217 sqft) Penthouse Suite. In addition to multiple meeting spaces, the hotel will also house an extensive outdoor deck for large scale events and parties.

Located on a pristine beachfront site, EDITION Hotels' first property in Mexico will find its home in the blissful stretch of Caribbean coastline. Riviera Maya is known for its mangroves and lagoons, ancient Mayan cities, tropical beaches, ecological reserves and the world's second largest coral reef.

The Doha EDITION

Launching late 2022

The DohaEDITIONisanticipated to open in late 2022in Doha's central business district, West Bay,whichedgesthePersianGulf.The hotel will have 200 guest rooms including 29 suites, two restaurants, three bars and a nightclub and nearly 929 sqm (10,000 sqft) of event space. The hotel tower will punctuate the already eclectic Doha skyline and will house167 EDITION branded residences.

Note on Forward-Looking Statements:

This press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of U.S. federal securities laws, including expected hotel openings, future expansion announcements and similar statements concerning anticipated future events and expectations that are not historical facts. We (Marriott International, Inc.) caution you that these statements are not guarantees of future performance and are subject to numerous evolving risks and uncertainties that we may not be able to accurately predict or assess, including those we identify below and other risk factors that we identify in our U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission filings, including our most recent Annual Report on Form 10-K. Risks that could affect forward-looking statements in this press release include the duration and scope of COVID-19, including the availability and distribution of effective vaccines or treatments; its short and longer-term impact on the demand for travel, transient and group business, and levels of consumer confidence; actions governments, businesses and individuals have taken or may take in response to the pandemic, including limiting or banning travel and/or in-person gatherings or imposing occupancy or other restrictions on lodging or other facilities; the impact of the pandemic and actions taken in response to the pandemic on global and regional economies, travel, and economic activity, including the duration and magnitude of COVID-19's impact on unemployment rates and consumer discretionary spending; the ability of our owners and franchisees to successfully navigate the impacts of COVID-19; the pace of recovery when the pandemic subsides or effective treatments or vaccines become widely available; general economic uncertainty in key global markets and a worsening of global economic conditions or low levels of economic growth; the effects of steps we and our property owners and franchisees have taken and may continue to take to reduce operating costs and/or enhance certain health and cleanliness protocols at our hotels; the impacts of our employee furloughs and reduced work week schedules; our voluntary transition program and our other restructuring activities; competitive conditions in the lodging industry; relationships with customers and property owners; and the availability of capital to finance hotel growth and refurbishment. Any of these factors could cause actual results to differ materially from the expectations we express or imply in this press release. We make these forward-looking statements as of the date of this press release, and undertake no obligation to publicly update or revise any forward-looking statement, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.

ABOUT EDITION HOTELS

EDITION Hotels is an unexpected and refreshing collection of individualised, customised, one-of-a-kind hotels which redefine the codes of traditional luxury. Displaying the best of dining and entertainment, services and amenities "all under one roof," each EDITION property is completely unique, reflecting the best of the cultural and social milieu of its location and of the time.

Conceived by Ian Schrager in collaboration with Marriott International, EDITION combines both the personal and intimate experience that Ian Schrager is known for with the global reach, operational expertise and scale of Marriott. The authenticity and originality that Ian Schrager brings to this brand coupled with the scale of Marriott International results in a truly distinct product that sets itself apart from anything else currently in the marketplace.

For affluent, culturally savvy and service-savvy guests, the EDITION experience and lifestyle explores the unprecedented intersection and the perfect balance between taste-making design and innovation and consistent, excellent service on a global scale. EDITION manages 11 hotels around the world including two in New York, and one in each of London, Miami Beach, West Hollywood, Barcelona, Shanghai, Sanya (China), Abu Dhabi, Bodrum (Turkey) and Tokyo.

About Marriott International

Marriott International, Inc.(NASDAQ: MAR) is based in Bethesda, Maryland, USA, and encompasses a portfolio of more than 7,600 properties under 30 leading brands spanning 133 countries and territories. Marriott operates and franchises hotels and licenses vacation ownership resorts all around the world. The company offers Marriott Bonvoy, its highly-awarded travel program. For more information, please visit our website atwww.marriott.com, and for the latest company news, visitwww.marriottnewscenter.com. In addition, connect with us onFacebookand @MarriottIntl onTwitterandInstagram.

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EDITION Announces Eight Anticipated New Hotel Openings Across The Globe By The End Of 2022 - Herald-Mail Media

Amit Das recollects a little anecdote from his grandmothers life. If she ever saw any of us praying to an idol before going to school, she would immediately rebuke us, he says. Her point was that if one had studied properly then they would do well regardless of whether they pray to God or not. The 57-year-old is a fourth generation member of the Brahmo Samaj, a Hindu reformist movement that began in the early 19th century.

His great grandfather, Sundari Mohan Das, a freedom fighter, doctor and social worker of the late 19th century, was the first in his family to have joined the Samaj. Like many young Bengali men of the time, he too was a follower of Keshub Chandra Sen, who influenced them to dream of a world devoid of superstition; where widows could remarry and womens education was deemed essential, says Das.

One of the most influential religious movements of the 19th century that took birth in Bengal and spread far and wide from here, Brahmoism is today reduced to a few thousand members. The community, for the past few years, has been demanding minority status from the government of India. Das, an active member of the religious organisation, is a firm believer in the principles laid down by the Brahmo Samaj: denunciation of idol worship and polytheism, rejection of the caste system, emancipation of women, respect for all religions, and others.

Back in the 19th century, Brahmoism was established as an effort to reform Hinduism from within, in response to the criticisms being levelled against Hindu society by the West. It was a movement that struck a fine balance between reform and rejection. These were people willing to change contemporary Hindu society without uprooting themselves from tradition- obviously, this was guided by the emergence of a sense of cultural pride and patriotism to which, paradoxically, modern Western education had greatly contributed, says historian Amiya Sen over the phone. In other words, the Brahmo Samaj was both an effort to alter Hinduism through western ideologies, and at the same time stay true to its traditional principles.

Although the movement lost momentum by the end of the 19th century, the Brahmo Samaj did have an impact on the psyche of the Bengali middle class. At a time when the political landscape of Bengal is witnessing the possibility of inroads being made by the Bharatiya Janata Party, adherents of Brahmoism say the party will be unable to understand the liberal nature of religion practised by them.

Historian David Kopf, who authored the book The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of modern India, explains that the establishment of the Brahmo Sabha by the social reformer Raja Ram Mohan Roy, needs to be understood in context of the Unitarian movement that was raging in large parts of the Western world since the 16th century. Unitarianism was a radical approach to religion, society and ethics which looked to substitute popular religious traditions with a rational faith.

By 1822 he (Roy) had helped form the Calcutta Unitarian Committee and by 1825-26, his scattered writings in their cumulative effect already contained a kind of syllabus for activists dedicated to Hindu reform, writes Kopf. Roy formed the committee in collaboration with a missionary, Rev. W. Adam. Apart from conducting Unitarian services, the committee also established the Vedanta College meant for churning out Hindu Unitarians. But Roy and Adam fell off soon after and the mission was abandoned.

Consequently, in 1828 Roy along with a group of wealthy upper caste men started a more Indian variant of the Unitarian movement. This was named the Brahmo Sabha and its first meeting was held on August 20, 1828 at a house in Chitpore road in Calcutta. Among the most notable supporters of Roy in the Sabha was Dwarkanath Tagore, grandfather of Rabindranath Tagore. Activities carried out by the group included chanting of verses from the Upanishads, and then translating them in Bengali and singing of theistic hymns composed by Roy. There was no organisation, no membership, no creed. It was a weekly meeting open to any who cared to attend. Ram Mohan believed he was restoring Hindu worship to its pristine purity, writes John Nicol Farquhar, a Scottish education missionary in Calcutta who authored the book, Modern religious movements in India.

Throughout this period, the Brahma Sabha played a key role in modernising Indian society. Roy successfully campaigned against Sati or the immolation of Hindu widows, he established a number of educational institutions including the Vedanta College, the English School and the City College of Calcutta popularising English education and promoted a rational and non-authoritarian form of Hinduism. He also played a pioneering role in opening the Hindu School in 1817, which is now the Presidency University.

With Roys death in 1833, the still infant Brahmo Sabha lost its wind a bit. It was in 1842 that the Sabha was given a fresh lease of life under the leadership of Debendranath Tagore, son of Dwarkanath Tagore. Debendra followed Ram Mohan in his belief that original Hinduism was a pure spiritual theism, and in his enthusiasm for the Upanishads, but did not share his deep reverence for Christ, writes Farquhar. He was also the one to give an organised structure to the Sabha. In 1843, he drew up a Brahmo convent or a list of solemn vows to be taken by every member. Some of these included abstaining from idolatry and to worship God by doing good deeds.

In 1857, Keshub Chandra Sen joined the Sabha, and he would soon turn out to be its third leader. Under his influence, Debendranath decided on giving up the tradition of Durga Puja in the Tagore family, which was a grand annual affair. The Sabha also discussed caste, with its members giving it up altogether. Debendranath too got rid of his sacred thread.

Sen was heavily influenced by Christianity. At his suggestion, the Sabha began to follow the example of Christian philanthropy, gathering money and food for the needy.

In 1860, members of the Sabha realised the need to spread out from Bengal. In 1861, the preacher Pundit Navin Chandra Roy went to Punjab to spread the new faith. He established the Brahmo Samaj in Lahore. Another preacher, Atmuri Lakshminarasimham went to the Madras Presidency to spread the Brahmo teachings in the Telugu speaking areas.

Brahmo Samaj was not just restricted to Bengal. It was the first pan Indian movement of Hindu reform, says Sen. But Bengal was the first province to come under western influence through British colonialism. In cultural terms, Bengal was indeed the province of paradoxes. It was to produce the first crop of western educated intelligentsia, many of whom were anglophiles. On the other hand, this early and excessive enthusiasm for Western ideas or ways of life eventually also produced a wave of anglophobia which took the shape of a reactionary, antireformist position, he adds.

But the Brahmo Samaj was a very small community and that too an urban and elite community, explains researcher Snigdhendu Bhattacharya who authored the book, Mission Bengal: the Saffron experiment. Although it was a miniscule community, it remained one of the most influential ones since it included some of the finest social reformers and personalities of Bengal. Two of the most influential Bengali families, the Tagores and the Rays, were both Brahmos, he says.

Speaking about the kind of influence that Brahmo families had on middle class Bengali society, Bhattacharya says, every child in any urban area grows up reading Sukumar Ray. When they read the Ramayana, it is Upendrakishore Roychowdhurys interpretation in most cases. Then of course there is Satyajit Ray whose films have influenced every child and adult in all of Bengal. The influence of the Tagore family not just in Bengal, but all over India, remains unmatched. The essence of all their work remained humanism and rationalism which emerged from the fountainhead of Brahmo philosophy, says Bhattacharya.

From the 1860s, a number of schisms and splinter groups emerged within the Samaj. In 1866, the first formal division between liberal younger Brahmos and conservative older Brahmos led to the establishment of the Brahmo Samaj of India under Sen. In 1878, the marriage of Sens daughter to the maharaja of Cooch Behar in violation of the Brahmo Marriage Act of 1872 caused yet another major schism in Brahmo history, resulting in the formation of the Sadharan Brahmo Samaj. These splits resulted in the dwindling popularity of the Samaj, says Bhattacharya.

I would say that the Brahmo movement began to decline from the 1880s. Firstly, there was a distinct Hindu counter discourse, or Hindu revival. Also by this time, the political overtook the social, says Sen. By 1885 the Indian National Congress was formed. The Hindus realised that the best way to fight against colonialism is to politically unite, rather than focusing on social reform, Sen says.

Despite their decline though, the Brahmo Samaj made an enormous impact ideologically and culturally to Bengal and created an enduring value system in the region. They were the people behind promoting womens education, introducing widow remarriages, inter caste marriages, questioning the very hierarchy of caste, and democratising education. Unlike traditional Hindus, Brahmos gave as much importance to moral uprightness as to a spiritual life. In traditional Hinduism, moral purity was considered subservient to the spiritual call. Not so for the Brahmos. says Sen.

Given the dwindling popularity of the Samaj since the late 19th century, a majority of Brahmo members today are those by birth. Nonetheless, there are instances of those who have taken formal initiation in the community in the recent past. Ketuki Bagchi (67) took up formal membership of the Samaj in 2004. She says her parents were staunch followers of Roy and thereby she had been associated with the Brahmo ideology since her childhood even though not a member. The influence of the Samaj was such that there were many Bengali families who believed and practised the principles of Brahmoism, despite the fact that they were not formal members, she says. She explains that her parents perhaps never formally joined the Samaj because the organisation never went about promoting its beliefs or engaged in proselytising activities.

Prasun Ganguly, 74, a fourth generation Brahmo says the first thing that any new member of the Samaj has to do is give up idol worship and follow the basic principles of egalitarianism and rationalism promulgated by Roy. That apart, the social ceremonies of its members like marriage and funerals are in stark contrast to those in Hindu society. For instance at a Brahmo wedding, the bride and the groom assemble in front of people and declare their vows to each other. Similarly, at a funeral first the preacher presiding over the ceremony says a few words about the departed soul and then the others join in to sing a few Brahmo sangeet (spiritual songs written by Roy and other influential members of the Samaj), says Ganguly.

Speaking about what the current political situation in Bengal means to the Brahmo community, Ganguly says, In most Bengali families even today, there is a reverence for Brahmoism because of the kind of social reforms brought by them. It believes in a kind of religion devoid of the ill practices and superstitions of Hinduism. In that sense, Brahmoism is the essence of Hinduism.

Any political party in power must not try to impose its own understanding of Hinduism on anyone.

Further reading:

The Brahmo Samaj and the shaping of modern India by David Kopf

Modern religious movements in India by John Nicol Farquhar

Hindu revivalism in Bengal, 1972-1905 by Amiya Sen

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Celebrating the essence of Hinduism: How 19th century Brahmo Samaj altered Bengali society - The Indian Express

You may already have seen the viral photos of Lady Gaga and Adam Driver dressed in retro fashion, trotting across Italy, 1970s style. The duo are shooting the biopic House of Gucci, which traces the murder of Maurizio Gucci (Driver), who was killed by his ex-wife Patrizia Reggiani (Gaga) in 1995; she was convicted in 1998 and released in 2016.

It is expected to premiere November 24, but already fans are going so crazy over the movie that there are multiple unauthorized Instagram accounts tracking the progress of this Ridley Scott project. From the paparazzi shots of the star-studded cast (Jared Leto, Jeremy Irons, and Al Pacino are also involved) to sneaky on-set videos showing backdrops of century-old Italian villas, its just the beginning of the hype around this film, which is based on the book The House of Gucci: A Sensational Story of Murder, Madness, Glamour, and Greed by Sara Gay Forden.

Lady Gaga and Adam Driver filming House of Gucci in Lake Como.

The amount of excitement surrounding the film and its production has been utterly surreal, says Wyatt Macgregor, who runs the Instagram account @thehouseofgucci, tracing the day-to-day filming. Just over the past fortnight, weve amassed nearly ten thousand new followers. We developed this page to raise publicity about the upcoming film, the intrigues of the underlying story, and its fabulous cast.

Everyone involved in this film is certainly getting a cross-country tour of Italy, maybe even a free vacation, while shooting in the most sought-after cities. They shot at landmarks in Milan, from the ancient church at the Piazza del Duomo, to the historic Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II shopping center. They also paid a visit to the Villa Necchi Campiglio, a home for the Necchi Campiglio family of industrialists. This masterpiece of Italian rationalism with Art Deco accents was built by architect Piero Portaluppi in 1935. In Rome, theyve been shooting along the retail avenue Via dei Condotti; inside the actual Gucci boutique, which first opened in 1938; and most recently, at the Cinecitt Studios.

The first publicity image from the film to sweep the internet in March shows Gaga and Driver standing before a snow-covered mountain (thats Monte Rosa) in Gressoney-Saint-Jean, a snowy town near the Swiss Alps. They also shot in the mountain resort of Valle dAosta, which is meant to represent St. Moritz, where the Gucci family went skiing every winter.

Continue reading here:

Following Lady Gaga and Adam Driver Across Italy - Architectural Digest

FENG Zhang of the National Institute for South China Sea Studies claims there are several groups and different kinds of strategic thinking inside China concerning the West Philippine Sea (WPS). He discloses that since 2009, there has been an internal debate on the matter that can serve as a useful guide to understanding the nuances of Chinese policy that are not always apparent from behavioral indicators.

Whether this is propaganda to soften the blow of Chinese actions or not, it helps to understand the enemys mind.

According to Feng, there are three dominant groups in this debate: 1) pragmatists, 2) hardliners, and 3) moderates.

PragmatistsWhile it is important for China to maintain a stable and peaceful external environment, Beijing is also determined to protect its own interests and would respond firmly to provocations, encroachments on its territorial sovereignty, or threats to its rights and interests. Thus, there appears to be a dichotomy between (regional) stability and (Chinese) rights.

Pragmatists insist that a rights first approach is not necessarily detrimental to regional stability. The policy goal is to realize Chinese maritime rights in the WPS without engendering conflict, especially against the United States and Southeast Asia. However, they are willing to sacrifice regional stability in order to safeguard Chinese maritime rights.

In terms of strategy, the pragmatists promote a deterrence-based assertiveness approach. This means China should assert itself in the WPS to deter other claimants from further encroaching on Chinese rights. The most clear-cut example of this strategy is Chinese assertiveness during the Panatag Shoal (Scarborough Shoal) standoff with the Philippines in 2012. This is also felt in the reclamation and construction activities of China in the WPS that are meant to strengthen the assertion of their maritime rights over the area.

Pragmatist thinking is guided by a modified version of the American rationalism that was in vogue in the 1960s. Thus, pragmatists utilize Cold War terminologies such as strategic resolve and deterrence in their strategic thinking.

HardlinersHardliners view the WPS as part of Chinas core interests that must be protected at all costs. They are not too concerned about the potential for conflict that can arise from Chinese actions in the WPS. They simply wish to defend, enhance and enforce Chinas rights, and expand Beijings power and influence in the region.

Hardliners usually belong to the military establishment in China. According to Feng, hardliners believe that Chinas rights in the South China Sea require establishing a solid foothold in the region in order to carry out military and law enforcement activities. Such a foothold would also be very useful for protecting the South China Sea as a strategic sea line of communication vital for supporting Chinas economic development and safeguarding its expanding overseas interests.

They see the economic significance of the WPS natural resources and its strategic importance for international commerce. Thus, they want to control as much of the area as they can, primarily through the utilization of various assets. The hardliners imprint can be seen in the recent swarming presence of Chinese maritime militia near the Julian Felipe Reef off the coast of Palawan.

Strategically, the hardliners utilize the principle of opportunistic assertiveness. They avoid making China look like the aggressor if possible and seek to exploit any mistakes committed by rival claimant states like the Philippines by responding forcefully and aggressively to occupy features previously controlled by them. This happened in the Scarborough Shoal in 2012 when the bumbling, clueless and incompetent Aquino 3rd administration was easily outmaneuvered and taken advantage of by the Chinese.

The hardliners pursue a delicate balance of defensive-oriented coercive action through a strategy of deterrence-based assertiveness that demands an equally measured handling by our Philippine national security managers. It requires from the Philippines a thoughtful counter-strategy from experienced national security thinkers unlike the reckless and knee-jerk decision-making of President Benigno Aquino 3rd in 2012.

Chinese President Xi Jinping seems to be the high-profile patron of the hardliners.

Intellectually, Feng claims, the hardliners are influenced by the traditional Chinese military doctrine of active defense. According to Feng: Active defense doctrine is the integration of defense and offense: an overall defensive strategy, it does not preclude partial offense that strikes hard at the enemy. Active defense also promotes the integration of consolidating territorial integrity and recovering lost territory. The Chinese thinking holds that consolidating existing territory and recovering lost territory are both defensive actions. Recovering lost territory through nonmilitary means would be ideal. But should that prove unfeasible or ineffective, force may be used to achieve the objective. The doctrine also advocates the integration of maintaining stability and protecting rights, but among the two goals, protecting rights clearly takes precedence over maintaining stability.

To be continued

* * *

Happy birthday to Luke Cordero (April 2), Zylvette Lim (April 6) and Leticia Andres (April 7).

Continued here:

Inside the enemys mind The Manila Times - The Manila Times

North Korea isnt exactly known as the paragon of rationalism. While its possible that the countrys usual state of closed borders has potentially helped to prevent the coronavirus from spreading too rapidly within the country, experts believe there have been cases of COVID-19 though North Korea denies this wholeheartedly.

Even if the country has somehow managed to scrape through without any cases, that doesnt mean North Korea is completely unaffected by the outbreak of a worldwide pandemic. In fact, its being reported that Kim Jong Un is displaying excessive anger over the entire situation.

Heres whats being said about how North Korea is handling the coronavirus outbreak.

Recently there were two executions in North Korea. One man was a money changer from Pyongyang, apparently, he was blamed for the falling exchange rate, which was actually a result of coronaviruss effect on the economy.

The second man executed was a high level government official who is said to have been caught violating the restrictions against goods from outside the country. The rules were put into place as anti-virus measures as North Korea continues to appear extremely fearful of the virus.

Its also being said that Kim Jong Un has made it so that nobody can go fishing or take part in salt production in the ocean. This is reportedly due to a fear of the seawater either being infected or becoming infected with COVID-19. (There is currently no evidence that COVID-19 can spread through water, whether fresh or salty.)

Many of Kim Jong Uns policies being implemented in regard to the coronavirus are being referred to as irrational.

North Koreas biggest trade partner is China, however since China is where the coronavirus outbreak originated North Korea has staunchly shut its borders to China since January with very minimal exceptions. Business Insider is reporting that so far North Koreas trade with China has dropped 73% as of September.

In fact, its also being reported that North Korea is refusing a delivery of approximately 110,000 tons of rice from China over fears that the coronavirus could enter the country with the shipment. The shipment is currently stuck waiting in the port of Dalian. Though North Korea has reportedly accepted shipments of COVID tests and PPE from China and Russia during 2020.

Obviously, just like most other countries in the world, North Korea has also put a halt on tourism.

There are also reports of lockdowns occurring inside North Korea with the capital of Pyongyang and the northern province of Jagang as the most notable shutdowns currently taking place.

The implementation of lockdowns would seemingly imply the presence of positive COVID-19 tests, though with the countrys lack of transparency this can only be speculated upon. Again, however, experts believe it is highly unlikely North Korea hasnt had any cases, especially after implementing thousands of tests.

North Korea seems eager to get their hands on a vaccine. South Koreas intelligence service has also come forward saying that North Korea had attempted to hack a South Korean drug making company that is currently in the middle of working on a coronavirus vaccine. The attempt was unsuccessful, however, as they were caught.

U.S. analysts stepped forward on Tuesday to say that Kim Jong Un and his family were given an experimental COVID-19 vaccine from China. Theyre saying this likely happened sometime within the last two to three weeks. At the moment nobody knows which Chinese company provided the shots or if theyve even been tested for safety.

There are currently three different Chinese companies known to be working on a vaccine and not one of them have publicly launched phase three trials.

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North Korea: The horrid way they're handling the coronavirus outbreak - Film Daily

You couldnt find a more damning symbol of the reality that the Right has lost the argument: a master at that bastion of male debating prowess, Eton, derided and pitied as a free speech martyr. The story of Will Knowland dismissed for refusing to take down a YouTube video in which he challenges radical feminism has it all. The woke hauteur of the headmaster, Trendy Hendy, has us salivating with outrage. The revelation that the factual difference between men and women is now deemed controversial opinion chills us to the bones.

Still, the tale hits on something else disturbing. The centre-Right has become incapable of winning intellectual disputes. The Mr Knowlands of this world, of reasonable if not flawless intelligence, are elbowed out of respectable society as swivel-eyed loons. Meanwhile, proponents of Marxapocalyptic pap have gone mainstream as reasoned centrists. Our only defence against this double standard seems to be pieties about the need to defend the maiden of free speech.

This with the fidgety disclaimer that we might not always agree with her dodgier claims for example, Mr Knowlands suggestion that men are more vulnerable than women to rape but we defend her inalienable right to make them. The uneasy truth is that, at some point, the Right stopped being a challenge to the Left and faded into a force worthy only of its contempt.

How did the latter pull it off? By ensuring that arguments are evaluated not by their veracity, but their implications. In the Lefts long march through the institutions over the past 70 years, academic inquiry has become drastically utilitarian. The reputable scholar has morphed from objective interrogator of evidence into an activist devoted to dismantling patriarchal capitalism. Free speech with its potential to challenge the moral supremacy of this new orthodoxy has become undesirable. Society cannot be indiscriminate in its tolerance of speech, where freedom and happiness themselves are at stake, Herbert Marcuse railed. The modern, educated mind, in all its pompous rationalism, nodded sagely.

And so the Will Knowlands are vilified not because their views are wrong but because they are considered to be revolting. This is the secret to the Lefts success. Its why academics dont dare point out the holes in the concept of patriarchy. Its why scientists who undermine pro-lockdown modelling have been rejected by leading journals on the basis that their maths is dangerous rather than wrong. It is not enough to say that our opponents views are technically incorrect, when their response is that our propositions are immoral. Perhaps then, we need to beat the Left at their own game. We need to prove that their views are harmful.

Take radical feminism. If we are not too careful, we will soon live in a world where manly rushes of adrenalin are considered as biologically shameful as menstruating. Where boys are inculcated to believe that they are despicable and expendable. More will surely then behave as if they are; society will have more psychopaths and absent fathers. The radical feminists will welcome the latter. They wish to smash the nuclear family as the foundation stone of patriarchy. But the most dangerous tenet of radical feminism is that man is a destructive force that will annihilate the world unless his aggressive, competitive spirit can be deprogrammed.

By the way, this apocalyptic view of history has hung like a millstone around the neck of Western thinking since we stole it from the Zoroastrian Manichaeans. When Extinction Rebellion prophesises lakes of fire lit by mans abominations, they preach from the Book of Revelation. It is the only section of the Bible that has survived the proto-Marxist secular era, passed down through Engels, who lusted over it with a passion.

Yet some experts say that what really makes men and women human is not wanton destructiveness. It is our unique talent for, and cognitive pleasure derived from, problem-solving from making stone-age tools and finishing crosswords to tackling climate change to inventing vaccines. Biological quirks like our astonishingly flexible hands evolved from primates predispose us to adapt to obstacles. As the world becomes more complex, we should thus be trying to grasp the varied strengths and weaknesses of the sexes for solving supermassive crises not delighting in the self-fulfilling prophesy of our own extinction and lambasting maleness.

Perhaps we women are not pulling our weight in mathematics and science because, socially conditioned to feign perfection, and biologically wired to protect rather than explore, we live in terror of failure. Time to move out of our comfort zone of softer subjects, then, where there isnt a wrong answer. And perhaps the most dangerous male flaw in this era of complex risk is not aggression but a tendency to tunnel vision bound up partly in mans hunting instinct and partly in the archetype of the decisive male leader. Maybe society suffers not from toxic masculinity but a toxic modernity that combines the worst flaws in the sexes: excessive risk aversion and one-dimensional thinking.

Will Knowland is right that the radical feminists, in all their prejudice and their pessimism, have got it wrong. But his attempt at a factual takedown does not get at just how wrong they are. Its not simply the truth but our very survival that we are arguing for.

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Eton row is a damning symbol of conservatism's thrashing in the culture war - Telegraph.co.uk

Existentialism is a sort of reaction to traditional philosophy like Idealism, Rationalism, Pragmatism, and Absolutism etc. Existentialism is therefore more specifically represented as a kind of philosophical movement. The chief pioneers being Soren Kirkegaard, Jean Paul Satre, Martin Heidegger, Nietzsche etc. While traditional philosophical thoughts speculated about essence of matter and human essence rather than existence. Existentialism emphasized on human existence rather than essence. In this school of thought existence is a central theme and essence , rather nature, is secondary. While traditional system of thought was more concerned with the nature of things, it skipped the existence of humans. The human as an individual was lost in the crowd, complex societies, and developed towns. His choice of desires and will are defined by society and authorities, while his inner freedom and choice is taken for granted. His freedom of thought is curtailed and set inside the borders of authority. The individual problems are not given any prominence. It is in this backdrop that the loss of individual choice and freedom are given prominence by existentialists. According to existentialists man should define his choice and will, he must not cry inwardly for curtailing of his choices and arrest of freedom by authority which is meaningless and absurd. Man, according to existentialists should struggle and fight with his own self to accomplish his goals which must not get eliminated by any third party. Because, as per this thought man is essentially alone, while the web of relations cannot dictate and define his choices. Man has to try to reform into more humane, thus an individual has to struggle to understand his own self, to realize his ownself, and move to self actualization. Thus man has to progress and evolve into humane by his own efforts and struggle.

While education is reformation of human resource into more humane, in other words to educate is to make all round development; to bring out all intellectual capacities lying dormant by giving a rich and up to mark environment. The modern education system doesnt flourish creativity, rather gives importance to rote learning. This kind of education, which controls creativity of an individual, is dangerous and causes more harm than good as per existentialism. The flourishing of creative ideas in an individual is sine qua non of existentialism. Existentialism focuses on individual capacities, paving way to diverse thinking and concepts leading to creative ideas, which are fruitful to individual self and collective good. But contemporary education system traversing the path from formal to informal is considered vague, and void. Individual choices and will of students are considered absurd and overlooked, rather are designed by single system and decided by one party be parent, or teacher or any other party. Individual choice and will take backseat, while collective decisions take lead and define role and choice of individual, thus leading to conflicts and chaos ranging from self, to society and culminating in violence, be it suicide or murder of self. In contemporary societies students are forced to learn a set stream by parents to get a job, which is done in absence of learners choice, thus triggering chaos. Likewise individual choice is not taken into consideration at schools, colleges, and universities; choice needs to be nurtured by giving rich environment.

Thus teachers need to know, understand, and communicate with a learner to know his choice, and limits of freedom and will. After that he should provide guidance and take him to actuality from his potentiality, this being the significant aim of existential philosophical thought. Also, in current times education has been commercialized by private tuitions and schools, which also focus on accumulation of facts to achieve a single defined goal. Thus understanding the individual traits and capacities of learner need to be prioritized in educational system to cherish the real aims of education which is the focal point of Existentialists.

Mushtaq Ahmad Bhat is a teacher

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Existentialism and Education - Greater Kashmir

Tom Horne, opinion contributor Published 6:00 a.m. MT Oct. 13, 2020 | Updated 6:45 a.m. MT Oct. 13, 2020

Opinion: Columnist Elvia Diaz called for making ethnic studies a graduation requirement. It is a risky move. I know. I fought it as Arizona superintendent and attorney general.

In Jan. 2011, outgoing Arizona schools chief Tom Horne announced in Phoenix that a major school district in Tucson was violating a new state law by continuing an ethnic studies program designed primarily for Hispanics.(Photo: Ross D. Franklin/Associated Press)

In an August column, Elvia Diaz criticized me personally for destroying bilingual education in the state, and Mexican American Studies in Tucson, when I was the state superintendent of schools, and later as Arizona attorney general. She called for making ethnic studies a graduation requirement.

Ethnic Studies in Tucson divided students by race. African American students to Classroom 1, Mexican American students to Classroom 2, etc., just like in the old South.

The students were taught critical race theory. This is their quote: Unlike traditional civil rights, which embraces incrementalism and step-by-step progress, critical race theory questions the very foundation of the liberal order, including equality theory, legal reasoning, Enlightenment rationalism, and neutral principles of constitutional law.

Thats just what we need: teaching our students to be opposed to Enlightenment rationalism and neutral principles of constitutional law.

They referred to the states taken from Mexico in 1848 as Aztlan. Their materials stated,we are slowly taking back Aztlan as our numbers multiply.

They had a table that promulgates racial stereotypes by detailing the differences between white individualism (e.g. white people interrupt a lot) and colored collectivism.

The founders of the program describedthemselves as neo Marxists.Marxism taught that all history is about class struggle, to the exclusion of everything else. Neo Marxists substitute race struggle for class struggle as the only thing worth studying.

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One of the textbooks wasOccupied America. It sings the praises of a leader named Jose Angel Gutirrez, one of whose speeches is described in the textbook as follows: Gutirrez called upon Chicanos to kill the gringo, which meant to end white control over Mexicans.

The textbooks translation of what Gutirrez meant contradictshis clear language.

Another textbook gloatedabout the trouble the U.S. is having controlling the border: Apparently the U.S. is having as little success in keeping the Mexicans out of Aztlan [US states taken from Mexico in 1848] as Mexico had when they tried to keep the North Americans out of Texas in 1830. the Latinos are now realizing that the power to control Aztlan may once again be in their hands (page107).

My main source was other teachers in the schools, a number of them Latinos, who were profoundly shocked at what they saw.

Hector Ayala,whowas born in Mexico and an excellent English teacher at Cholla High School in Tucson,told me thatthe director of Raza Studies accused him of being the white mans agent and that when this director was a teacher, he taught a separatist political agenda. His students told Ayalathat they were taught in Raza Studies to not fall for the white mans traps.

One teacher wrote me that he heard students being told they need to go to college so they can gain power to take back the stolen land and return it to Mexico. Another reported to me that Latino students told him that the land is not part of the U.S. but "occupied Mexico."

This teaching wasa betrayal of the students parents. They came to this country as the land of opportunity. They expected their children to be taught that this is the land of opportunity, not that they are oppressed so it is all hopeless, or to hate the country their parents chose to come to.

After I was no longer attorney general, a judge declared our statute unconstitutional. I hope the state Legislature and a new AG will try again.

Ms. Diaz accuses me of destroying bilingual education. I plead guilty:A periodical published by HarvardKennedy School found that students in English Immersion outperformed those in bilingual in every category studied.

Tom Horne served as Arizona's superintendent of public instruction and attorney general. Reach him at tomhorne2824@gmail.com.

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Ethnic studies teach Latino kids to hate the US. It is dangerous for Arizona - The Arizona Republic

A Karel Appel composition.

Muhammad Yusuf, Features Writer

Opera Gallery, Dubai, is presenting a new virtual exhibition featuring Karel Appel, one of the most influential Dutch artists of the latter half of the twentieth century. Oscillating between realism and an emotionally charged, robustly active and spontaneous abstraction, Appel adopted a material-oriented approach in his practice and promoted a genuine form of expression.

Across a nearly six-decade career, he established a distinct aesthetic. Born in 1921 in Amsterdam, Netherlands, he studied in the 1940s at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten. After leaving the Netherlands in the 1950s, he travelled extensively and lived and worked in New York and Europe. He passed away in 2006 in Zrich, Switzerland.

A founding figure of CoBrA (from Copenhagen, Brussels, Amsterdam) in 1948, a movement that rejected rationalism and geometric abstraction, Appel experimented widely, across painting, sculpture, drawing, and stage design, distinguishing himself for his astonishing capacity to innovate.

He never settled in a signature style, media or subject. Going beyond his classical, academic training, he looked at folk art as well as the uninhibited work of children and the mentally ill, while also drawing from jazzs spirit of improvisation. He was also an avid sculptor and has had works featured in Museum of Modern Art and other museums worldwide.

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As a child he was often called Kik. At fourteen, he produced his first real painting on canvas, a still life of a fruit basket. For his fifteenth birthday, his wealthy uncle, an avid amateur painter himself, gave him a paint set and an easel.

From 1940 to 1943, during the German occupation, while Appel studied at the Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam, he met the young painter Corneille and some years later, Constant; they became close friends for years.

His parents opposed his choice to become an artist, leading him to leave home; this was also necessary because he needed to hide from the German police so that he would not be picked up and sent to Germany to work in the weapons industry.

Appel had his first show in Groningen in 1946. In 1949 he participated with the other CoBrA artists in the Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam; this generated a huge scandal and many objections in the press and public.

Karel Appels work titled Deux Tetes Ensemble (Two Heads Together).

He was influenced by Pablo Picasso, Henri Matisse and the French brute-art artist Jean Dubuffet. In 1947, he started sculpting with all kinds of used materials (in the technique of assemblage) and painted them in bright colours: white, red, yellow, blue and black.

In 1948, Appel joined CoBrA together with the Dutch artists Corneille, Constant, Jan Nieuwenhuys and with the Belgian poet Christian Dotremont. The new art of the CoBrA group was not popular in the Netherlands; but it found a warm and broad welcome in Denmark. By 1939, Danish artists had already started to make spontaneous art and one of their sources of inspiration was Danish and Nordic mythology.

It was also in Denmark that the CoBrA artists started cooperating by collectively painting the insides of houses, which encouraged and intensified the exchange of the typical childish and spontaneous picture language used by the CoBrA group.

Appel used this very intensively; his 1949 fresco Questioning Children in Amsterdam City Hall caused controversy and was covered up for ten years.

As a result of this controversy and other negative Dutch reactions to CoBrA, Appel moved to Paris in 1950 and developed his international reputation by travelling to Mexico, the USA, Yugoslavia and Brazil. He also lived in New York City and Florence. His first American gallery exhibition took place in 1954 at the Martha Jackson Gallery.

He is particularly noted for his mural work. After 1990, he became much more popular in the Netherlands; he had several big shows in Amsterdam and Brussels. Also, the CoBrA museum in Amstelveen organised several shows featuring his work. He became the most famous Dutch CoBrA artist of his generation.

Appels work has been exhibited in a number of galleries, including the Anita Shapolsky Gallery in New York City, Galerie Lelong in Paris, Galerie Ulysses in Vienna and Gallery LL in Amsterdam.

Years before his death, he established the Karel Appel Foundation, whose purpose is to preserve (Appels) artworks, to promote public awareness and knowledge of Karel Appels oeuvre, and to supervise publication of the Oeuvre Catalogue of the paintings, the works on paper, and the sculptures.

Founded in 1994 with exhibition spaces in Singapore and Paris by French art dealer Gilles Dyan, Opera Gallery Group is today comprised of twelve galleries worldwide with additional locations in London, Geneva, Monaco, Hong Kong, Seoul, Singapore, Dubai, Beirut, Miami, New York and most recently, in Aspen.

Since its inception, it has presented a programme of major modern and contemporary works, mostly by established artists, showcasing its expansive collection of works in dialogue with a contemporary visual language. Through an annual programme of exhibitions, each gallery in the group promotes a cross-cultural exchange of modern and contemporary artists.

Opera Gallery was the first international gallery to open its doors in Hong Kong in 2004. Today, it utilises its global network to source and cultivate contemporary artists from around the world, and supports artists in annual exhibitions and art fairs programmes.

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Opera Gallery Dubai showcases the works of Dutch artist Karel Appel - Gulf Today

INDEPENDENCE is the new normal and the mainstream. This is a huge historic shift and moment. It is a dramatic change and opportunity that will require a very different politics and attitude compared to 2014.

Then, independence represented the insurgents and outsiders, the new kids on the block, shaking the insiders, taking independence in from the cold and the margins. This is independences tipping point or getting close to that point; the moment when everything changes: the argument, context and how the public see things with the potential to permanently alter perceptions well into the future.

This is politics for high stakes and with it comes huge challenges for independence, the Union and institutional and public life. Up for grabs is the future of Scotland and whether it becomes independent and what kind of independence.

Independence as an idea won the 2014 referendum something different from the detail of the official SNP offer which lost. Independence then and more so now is something that large numbers of voters find attractive and positive; this sentiment can be found across the electorate, particularly in younger voters, those under 45 and even among soft No voters. BBC Newsnights Lewis Goodall reflected on this observing that: Every time Ive interviewed young voters in Scotland and asked them if theyre in favour of independence, they look at me as if Ive asked a stupid question.

READ MORE:Gerry Hassan: Car crash Donald Trump presidency didn't come from nowhere

Independence as the new mainstream fundamentally changes everything and requires a different kind of independence, in content and style. First, look at what is driving independence: 64% of all voters think Scotland and England are moving in very different political directions according to Ipsos MORI Scotland, while 63% do not trust the UK Government to act in Scotlands best interests both of which attract significant support from current No voters.

Second, as Ipsos MORIs Emily Gray points out, Boris Johnson is just toxic in Scotland. He has 76% dissatisfaction, while Nicola Sturgeon has a 72% rating. These two leaders and styles of leadership have been put in stark contrast by Covid-19 and define the independence debate. Johnsons ratings are about more than the person, as Ailsa Henderson of Edinburgh University points out, with the rise of independence in part being a proxy for dissatisfaction with a UK Government and UK Prime Minister.

Third, independence cannot become identified with the inadequacies of present-day Scotland whether health, education, local government, transport. This is a trap some SNP supporters fall into, defending every aspect of Scottish Government policy. Independence has to be about change and not just constitutional change but economic, social and environmental justice and greater democratisation, not just shifting power from London to Edinburgh, but within Scotland too.

Fourth, the detail of independence matters but so does the wider philosophy. Whether we can embrace maturing as a nation, facing our own strengths and weaknesses, and acknowledging where we fall short what Fintan OToole called the art of growing up.

Fifth, independence involves a psychological dimension about risk, uncertainty, future unknowns and how and by who these are managed. This entails acknowledging that independence involves risk as does all fundamental change, and the central issue is who assesses these and what values inform their decisions.

Running through all the above is the asymmetrical nature of the debate. This is a debate which understandably motivates independence supporters. Yet, it is one that many Unionist supporters would rather not be having as it is not their raison dtre. Look at some of the language of Unionists this week as they attempt to over-compensate.

TORY MP Andrew Bowie declared: The UK Government is back in Scotland. Get used to it. Which did make you wonder where it had been. John McTernan, previously Tony Blairs political secretary in Downing Street reacted to the 58% support for independence stating: You break it, its not ours to fix. Nothing to do with us which seemed to contain many levels of anger and displacement.

The Union argument has increasingly taking shelter in detail whether the currency, EU membership, Barnett consequentials or the economic argument. This is telling. The Union case is a retreating army conceding the principle of independence and laying its last-ditch line of defence on such detail. Such a defensive politics has little chance of winning. At best it can hold out for a period.

It puts all your eggs in one basket: transactional nationalism, Barnett and the fiscal transfers across the UK. This has three weaknesses. First, it reduces the debate to the transfers across an unequal kingdom and the concentrations of wealth and power in London and the South East. Second, it is based on the maintenance of Barnett which is under attack from right-wing English Tories. What happens if a future Tory Government proposes the abolition of Barnett?

Third, the figure cited of 1975 per head per year transfer from the UK Government to Scotland is never acknowledged in context. Scotland like the rest of the UK has suffered from 10 years of Tory austerity and could lose 2400 per head due to a No-Deal Brexit, according to LSE modelling. Pro-Unionists cannot cite the 1975 figure as one-way traffic without noting there is a financial cost of Scotland remaining in the Union: that fiscal decisions are imposed on us without us having a say and which cause us harm.

READ MORE:Gerry Hassan: Scottish Labour faces the future and the rocks

A second dynamic is that independence has got into this place, aided by the continual misrepresentation of it by the Union case. It has been associated with an over-romanticised past, with pro-Brexit historian Robert Tombs writing in The Spectator that victimhood has always been the core of nationalism and presenting the rise of Scottish nationalism as about Bruce, Wallace, the Declaration of Arbroath, and in more modern times about Thatcher, the poll tax, Tory ascendancy in England and the decline of Labour and in this case the European Union. Often flags and symbols are added to this making the case that this is an irrational, emotional politics which will be defeated by rationalism.

The Union argument has consistently ignored the democratic legitimacy argument of independence based on experience and principle. The former has seen 32 out of the past 50 years witness Scotland getting Tory Governments it did not vote for; this has happened two-thirds of the time since 1970 and did not happen before then; the second being the principle that Scotland has the right to decide its own future.

Independence has to be careful not to fall into the same argument, caricaturing all No voters as Unionists or Yoons, completely othering the British state and presenting it as a caricature which can be hard to resist with Boris Johnson, and recognising the emotional attachment many still have to British identity and history.

The SNP are pivotal to winning independence but they cannot claim a monopoly on the project of independence. Rather independence belongs to every single person who lives in Scotland and chooses to make it their home: it is an inclusive, democratic vision.

As it becomes more popular there will be among some long-term supporters a sense of loss: the equivalent but more serious to those times when your favourite band or artist became massively popular and everyone claimed a slice of them. The Timess Kenny Farquharson put this saying that the Yes movement has to recognise that it wont own independence, and wont be able to create it in its own image. An independent Scotland will reflect all of Scotland, including the bits that didnt vote for it.

The SNPs propensity to command and control politics cannot define independence. For example, a future white paper should come from the Scottish Government but not emerge finished as a fait accompli with no warning, rather it should be owned by as wide a constituency as possible. Commentator Joyce McMillan believes that any new white paper has to be much more robust, and preferably produced by an alliance of the independence movement, rather than the SNP and learn from the disaster example of Brexit with a majority voting for something that has never been described or properly debated.

A pivotal issue is holding power to account, scrutiny and challenge. This is not an area in which we have traditionally done well, given how hierarchical and institutionally dominated society used to be. We cannot pose democracy here as just by default better than Westminster, rather we have to practice it, and the politics of centralisation and accumulating power led by the Scottish Government is an increasingly unedifying and unsustainable one.

The diversity and pluralism of an independent Scotland need to be encouraged because the character of our future is being made here and now. It is worrying that, 13 years into the SNP in office, there is still no independence-supporting mainstream think tank to engage with and listen to beyond the example of Common Weal. This is because the main party of independence looks with suspicion upon independent initiatives and ideas. Such an attitude has grown more pronounced the longer the SNP has been in office.

IN the run-up to next years elections and their aftermath there has to be a new seriousness and commitment to nurturing an ecology of debate, ideas and policies beyond the control of the SNP leadership, which is part of a bigger, more open debate. Alex Bell, formerly the First Ministers head of policy, notes: The challenge is as much about getting British thinking out of Scottish politics. We need a leap of imagination to solve issues about poverty, spending and the deficit.

The alternative to this is not an attractive one a Scotland where all the main policy ideas come from the SNP and government and the narrow insider world of corporates and lobbyists who exist in any political system and here, as elsewhere, serve their own interests.

READ MORE:Gerry Hassan: The political and moral collapse of the Conservative Party

This debate is bewildering to parts of pro-Union sentiment. But not all. Some are sanguine and will be open to persuasion to come to terms with this new dispensation. Independence has to have humility towards those not convinced. That figure of 58% is not yet permanent and includes lots of soft Yes voters as well as having the potential to rise. The Yes side has to listen to the soft Nos and ask them what do they need to hear to convince them of the merits of independence.

Finally, there is the challenge to institutional Scotland, public life and the mainstream media. The challenge to the media is an acute one: the print media has for the most part turned its back on the new Scotland emerging and dug into a Unionist bunker. But the issue of the broadcasters: BBC, ITV and Sky, is very different. The former in particular follows behind the curve of this debate, seemingly incredulous of the Scotland it sees before it and scared to take risks portraying and representing it. Stirling Universitys Iain Docherty on the back of this weeks poll observed: If independence is indeed becoming the settled will, at which point and how do the Scottish press and broadcast media pivot to recognise this?

Scotland is changing. That carries with it huge responsibilities. Next years election will be a huge historic moment and opportunity for Scotland to decide its own fate and future. This opportunity belongs to all of us and we should act and recognise that we have the power to do great things which help to shape our collective future.

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Gerry Hassan: Scottish independence as an idea won the 2014 referendum - The National

Why do I love the U.S. Constitution? This instrument formally converted the worth of my great-great-grandfather Sidiphus into three-fifths that of a free person. Living in the East Indies as a free man, Sidiphus had been tricked into enslavementrecruited to a Georgia farm just before the Civil War by the promise of a foremanship. Had he managed to escape Georgia and bondage prior to the onset of the war, the Constitution would not have protected his God-given natural rights.

Article I, Section 2 of the Constitution determined that representation in Congress and direct taxation would be apportioned to the states by adding up the whole number of free people, plus three-fifths of all other personsmeaning enslaved personsexcluding Indians not taxed. These words carried into the Constitution a compromise first formulated in 1783 in a proposed amendment to the Articles of Confederation. That compromise was later adopted in the Constitution to resolve the conundrum of how to tax the plantation wealth of the South without giving white landowners outsize power in Congress by including enslaved people in the official count of the population.

Given the crime against humanity written into the Constitution because compromise was necessary to form a unionand given the sharp and unabating attention that the nations Founders and their writings have received in recent monthsI had better have a rock-solid explanation for my love of that document. Simple love of country, land of my mothers milk, wont do. My love must be sighted, not blind.

Special project: The battle for the Constitution

As it happens, Sidiphuss God-given natural rights had been much earlier asserted by none other than Thomas Jefferson and fellow members of the drafting committee of the Declaration of Independence. They took the trouble to make this assertion in the original draft of the Declaration, when they castigated the King of England for violatingthrough his protection of the trade in enslaved peoplethe sacred rights of life and liberty of Africans who had never done him any harm. We will never know if it was Jefferson who thought up those wordswords that would take many Americans today by surpriseor another committee member, perhaps John Adams or Benjamin Franklin. Adams, from Massachusetts, never enslaved anyone and thought enslavement was wrong. Franklin, from Pennsylvania, who himself had been an indentured servant, did enslave African Americans early in his life, but he eventually abandoned the practice and became a full-throated abolitionist. Pennsylvania and Massachusetts would be the first states to abolish enslavement, in 1780 and 1783, respectively (and gradually in the case of Pennsylvania)years before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, and even before the Revolution was formally over. The Continental Congress, of course, in its revisions to the draft of the Declaration of Independence, struck out any explicit recognition of Africans human rights, postponing their protection until 1865, when the Thirteenth Amendment was ratified.

Already in 1776, Benjamin Franklin could make cutting jokes about the so-called slave interest and its influence on American politics. In the July 1776 debates over the Articles of Confederation, this exchange occurred between Franklin and Thomas Lynch Jr., of South Carolina, as recorded in the Journals of the Continental Congress:

franklin: Slaves rather weaken than strengthen the State, and there is therefore some difference between them and sheep; sheep will never make any insurrections.

Franklin knew that enslaved men, women, and children were fully his equal, as capable of insurrection and revolution as he and his colleagues had been that hot July day in Philadelphia when they resolved to break away from Britain. Franklin recognized that a society built on a foundation of domination would be as unstable as the foundation itself.

Eleven years later, though, Franklin was helping shore up the Great Compromise, the adoption of the three-fifths clause that underestimated my great-great-grandfathers worth. In the final days of the Constitutional Convention, delegates debated whether they would convey their draft to Congress without individual endorsements or seek to have each delegate affix his signature to the document. The latter approach, which in fact played out, would amount to a pledge of commitment and ensure that dissent would die in the Conventionsworn secrets of the debates long concealed until James Madisons unofficial notes surfaced decades later. Franklin was in favor of consensus and for burying reservations. In a statement he said:

With these words, Franklin articulated the deepest, hardest truth of free self-government. People can have the chance of self-government through the institutions of constitutional democracy if and only if they prioritize the preservation of those institutions over wins in substantive domains of policy. For this lesson, Abraham Lincoln is our foremost teacher. When union and policy commitments come into conflict, those who wish to preserve free self-government must choose union. In that spirit, Franklin chose freedom for some over freedom for none.

Yet not all compromises are good ones. And not all are necessary. To understand and embrace the centrality of compromise to the sustainability of constitutional democracy and the self-government of free and equal citizens, one needs to be able to distinguish between good and bad compromises. Both the Declaration and the Constitution (via the Bill of Rights) include another important compromise, this one not about enslavement but about religion. The Declaration simultaneously uses the languages of rationalism and of faith to establish the grounds for its moral commitment, as when it invokes the Laws of Nature and of Natures God. While the text refers to a Creator, to divine Providence, and to a Supreme Judge, it studiously avoids using the vocabulary of any specific religion or doctrine. The text is capacious. Believers and nonbelievers alike are given reason to sign on; no specific form of belief takes precedence. Similarly, the Constitutions inclusion of the protection of religious freedom and the separation of Church and state formed the structure for a profoundly valuable and durable compromise. James Madison led the argument for the provision, responding to efforts in Virginia to pass a law requiring all taxpayers to make an annual contribution or pay a moderate tax in support of churches. (Advocates of the law included some of the old lions of the Revolution, such as Patrick Henry, Edmund Pendleton, and Richard Henry Lee.)

What made the compromises around religion morally legitimate and sound was that they took into account the perspectives of all those in the new country who would be affected by them. Every religious point of view present in the colonies in 1776 was conceivably embraced by the language, including those of the disenfranchised. The compromise about enslavement did not, in contrast, consider the perspective of all those affected by that decision. Standing on partial ground, it lacked moral legitimacy and would ultimately prove destabilizing for the country.

From the October 2015 issue: How the Constitution caused our dysfunctional government

Yet the compromise was made, and Franklin was not the only one who understood himself to have been complicit in it. So too did James Wilson. Wilson, like Franklin, was from Philadelphia. At the Constitutional Convention, he was one of the few elder statesmen who had also signed the Declaration of Independence. (Wilson was 44; Madison was 36.) He repeatedly asserted that the work of creating the Constitution was but an extension of foundations laid by the Declaration. Wilson was Madisons equal at the Convention in terms of learning and influence. Although he was a member of the first Supreme Court, we have nonetheless all but forgotten him, presumably because he was also the first and only Supreme Court justice to go to debtors prison (as a result of failed land speculations). He died of a stroke while fleeing the reach of the law.

Whereas Franklin was an enslaver in the earlier parts of his life, Wilson was an enslaver for much of his life. Even while publicly writing and speaking against enslavement, he owned a man named Thomas Purcell for 26 years. However, two months after marrying a Quaker woman, Hannah Gray, he emancipated Purcell, an act often attributed to Grays influence. Like Franklin, Wilson fully understood the nature of the compromise in the Constitution, and was prepared to accept it. During Pennsylvanias ratifying convention, he responded thus to a Pennsylvanian who objected to the three-fifths clause of the Constitution and to another provision, in Article I, Section 9, protecting the right to import enslaved people for 20 years:

The best, then, that can be said about the compromises regarding slavery that also helped the Constitutional Convention achieve unanimity is this: Those who knew enslavement was wrong but nonetheless accepted the compromises believed they were choosing a path that would lead inexorably, if incrementally, to freedom for all.

We cannot, however, assume with Wilson and Franklin and others like them that incrementalism was the only available path to freedom for all. It is also not clear that the Constitutions compromises even accelerated the march of freedom, whether for enslaved people or for people more generally. Britain offers a natural experiment with which to make judgments about alternative paths. Revolutionary ideas were afoot there too in the 1770s and 80s. Universal suffrage for men was proposed in Parliament for the first time in 1780 by Charles Lennox, the third Duke of Richmond, an ardent supporter both of the American revolutionaries and of radicals in Britain. Yet at home, in the British Isles, the Crown managed to fend off the revolution it could not defeat in 13 of its colonies.

This, however, did not result in the permanent nonfreedom of British subjects. A British legal judgment in 1772 introduced a doctrine against selling enslaved people abroad, a doctrine that was commonly though erroneously thought to mean that no one could be held as a slave on English soil. In de facto fashion it reduced enslavement in Britain and redirected the attention of abolitionists to enslavement in the British colonies. In 1793, Upper Canadain essence, the region just north of the Great Lakespassed the Act to Limit Slavery, the first law of its kind in the remaining British colonies. Britain itself in 1833 passed the Slavery Abolition Act, dismantling enslavement throughout its Caribbean colonies and making Canada a free land for African Americans who escaped slavery in the U.S. The law helped make possible the Underground Railroad, the fights about the Fugitive Slave Act, and the dynamics that eventually led to the Civil War.

As to universal manhood suffrage, there the United Kingdom moved slowly. In 1832, Britain introduced the first of what would eventually be three 19th-century Reform Acts. This act had different rules for those living in counties versus towns. In towns, men who occupied property with an annual rent of at least 10 pounds could vote. That still left six out of seven men without voting rights. Britain adopted another reform measure in 1867 and one more in 1884. The third Reform Act gave the vote to all male house owners and all males paying rent of 10 pounds or more a yearleaving out 40 percent of men and of course 100 percent of women. These changes were accomplished without a bloody internal war.

The U.S. gave the vote to all male citizens regardless of skin color or former condition of servitude only with the Fifteenth Amendment, in 1870. Until that point, African Americans as well as some white men in states that made tax payment a prerequisite had been denied the right to vote. These changes required a bloody civil war, and even they were still partial. Pennsylvania and Rhode Island maintained tax-paying qualifications into the 20th century; women and Native Americans did not yet have suffrage. In both Britain and the United States, true universal suffrage was not adopted until well into the 20th century, and fights for voting rights persist.

In other words, the Constitution did not earn an earlier release from bondage or promote universal suffrage for men much faster than was accomplished under Britains constitutional monarchy. Nor much faster than was achieved in Canada, a country we can look to for an answer to the question of what might have happened had the North American colonies that came to form the United States failed in their bid for freedom.

What did accelerate the march of freedom for all was abolitionism, a social movement that crystallized in both the United States and the United Kingdom in the years immediately following the revolutionary break between the two. Moral leadership made this difference. Freedom flows from the tireless efforts of those who proclaim and pursue protection of the equal human dignity of all.

So why, then, do I love the Constitution? I love it for its practical leadership. I love it because it is the worlds greatest teaching document for one part of the story of freedom: the question of how free and equal citizens check and channel power both to protect themselves from domination by one another and to secure their mutual protection from external forces that might seek their domination.

Why do we have three distinct aspects of powerlegislative, executive, and judicialand why is it best to keep them separate and yet intermingled? A typical civics lesson skates over the deep philosophical basis for what we glibly call separation of powers and checks and balances. Those concepts rest on a profound reckoning with the nature of power.

The exercise of power originates with the expression of a will or an intention. The legislature, the first branch, expresses the will of the people. Only after the will is expressed can there be execution of the desired action. The executive branch, the second branch, is responsible for this. The judiciary comes third as a necessary mediator for addressing conflicts between the first and second branches. The three elements of powerwill, execution, and adjudicationare separated to improve accountability. It is easier to hold officials accountable if they are limited in what they are permitted to do. In addition, the separation of powers provides a mechanism by which those who are responsible for using power are also always engaged in holding one another accountable.

James Madison, in The Federalist Papers, a series of newspaper opinion pieces written by Madison, Alexander Hamilton, and John Jay in 1787 and 1788 in support of the proposed Constitution, put it this way:

To ensure that power could be held accountable, the designers of the Constitution broke power into its component parts. They assigned one power to each of three branches. Then they developed rules and procedures that would make it possible for officers in each branch to not only exercise their own powers but also, to some extent, check and counterbalance the use of power by others. The point of giving each branch ways of slowing down the other branches was to ensure that no branch would be able to dominate and consolidate complete power.

The rules and procedures they devised can also be called mechanismsprocedures that in themselves organize incentives and requirements for officeholders so that power flows in good and fair ways.

We all use mechanisms to limit power and achieve fairness in our ordinary lives. A good example is the kind of rule parents use for helping children share desserts. If Ive got a cake, and I need to divide it up between two children, the easiest way for me to achieve a fair outcome is if I let one child slice while the other child gets first pick. The child who slices has an incentive to slice as fairly as possible, knowing that the second child will surely choose the bigger slice if the slices are not equal. Parenting books do not generally cite Federalist No. 51, in which Madison advised, Ambition must be made to counteract ambition.

The U.S. Constitution is full of mechanisms like this to structure the incentives of officeholders to make sure power operates in fair ways. Here is a smattering of my favorite examples, courtesy of the identification in The Federalist Papers of the highest and best features of the Constitution:

Each branch should have as little agency as possible in the appointment of the members of the other, which means no branch can surreptitiously come to control another by populating its personnel and staff.

Each branch should be as little dependent as possible on the others for emoluments annexed to their offices, which means no branch falls under the sway of another by virtue of hoping for a raise.

No double-office holding is permitted, which means that trying to play a role in more than one branch at the same time is strictly off-limits.

The executive has a veto over legislation, but it can be overruled by a two-thirds vote of the Senate, which means that an executive decision (on legislation) emanating from support of a bare majority of the people cannot overrule a view emanating from a supermajority of the country.

The executive can propose the draft of treaties, but ratification requires senatorial advice and consent, which prevents treaties from being struck as personal deals with benefits to the executive and thereby hinders corruption.

The Senate must approve Supreme Court appointments made by the president, but the Court has the power of review over laws passed by Congress, which means Congress can be overruled by justices to whose appointment the legislative branch has itself consented.

The Constitution is the law of the land and establishes powers of enforcement, but it can be changed through a carefully articulated amendment process, by the peoples standing legislative representatives or by representatives to conventions especially elected for the purposewhich means the final power always rests with the people.

I delight in the cleverness of these mechanisms. There are many more. Instituting a bicameral legislaturehaving a Senate and a House of Representativesis itself a check on monolithic legislative power. I marvel at the Constitutions insight into the operations of power. I respect the ambition of the people who sought to design institutions and organize the government with the goal of ensuring the safety and happiness of the people. I see its limits, but I love its avowalby stipulating the process for amendment, to date exercised 27 timesof its own mutability. Remarkably, the Constitutions slow, steady change has regularly been in the direction of moral improvement. In that regard, it has served well as a device for securing and stabilizing genuine human progress not only in politics but also in moral understanding. This is what figures like Franklin and Wilson anticipated (or at least hoped for).

It would be a mistake to think that Britains own slow march toward the expansion of freedom was in no way prodded along by the example across the Atlantic and domestic pressures flowing from that example, just as Britains earlier abolition of enslavement generated pressures that drove the march of freedom forward here at home.

The Constitution is a work of practical genius. It is morally flawed. The story of the expansion of human freedom is one of shining moral ideals besmirched by the ordure of ongoing domination. I muck the stalls. I find a diamond. I clean it off and keep it. I do not abandon it because of where I found it. Instead, I own it. Because of its mutability and the changes made from generation to generation, none but the living can own the Constitution. Those who wrote the version ratified centuries ago do not own the version we live by today. We do. Its ours, an adaptable instrument used to define self-government among free and equal citizensand to secure our ongoing moral education about that most important human endeavor. We are all responsible for our Constitution, and that fact is empowering.

That hard-won empowerment is why I love the Constitution. And it shapes my native land, which I love also simply because it is my home. The second love is instinctual. The first comes with open eyes.

This article appears in the October 2020 print edition with the headline The Constitution Counted My Great-Great-Grandfather as Three-Fifths of a Free Person.

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The Flawed Genius of the Constitution - The Atlantic

The Satanic Temples Religious Reproductive Rights campaign will expandto more states this fall. But contrary to the recent speculations of some, The Satanic Temple will continue to fail in its efforts to use religious liberty to strike down state laws regulating abortion, as it failed with its initial foray in Missouri, because of the groups poor understanding of laws protecting religious freedom.

Anti-religious confusion and misdirection abound with The Satanic Temple. The group does not worship a personal Satan. Instead, it advocates atheistic, anti-supernatural rationalism that exalts the self with its saying, Thyself is Thy Master. The group misleadingly uses Satanic terminology and symbols to scare and confuse others about its anti-religion agenda.

The groups legal efforts show its contempt for religion by advancing causes intended to shrink First Amendment freedoms that protect everyone. The Satanic Temple has promoted after-school Satan clubs, placed goat demon statues in government spaces with Ten Commandments monuments, and engaged in other such antics to frighten officials into eliminating these expressive forums in order to silence the voices of religious believers.

The groups abortion-related campaigns based on religious liberty are equally disingenuous and flawed. The Satanic Temple explains that the Satanic abortion ritual does not require women to get abortions but sanctifies the abortion process by instilling confidence and protecting bodily rights. Part of its abortion ritual involves the woman reciting the Personal Affirmation: By my body, my blood, By my will it is done.

The Satanic Temple claims to feel so strongly about the sacredness of this abortion ritual that it is conducting a raffle to raise money for its legal efforts, with the winner receiving up to $2,500 toward her abortion. Buying a raffle ticket also allows one to vote for the state in which the group will next work to challenge abortion regulations.

Fortunately, the first foray of the groups legal strategy in Missouri has utterly failed. The Missouri lawsuits involved a female member of The Satanic Temple who challenged two Missouri laws in federal and state courts.

One of the laws requires women seeking abortions to be given the opportunity to read a pamphlet about possible health risks from undergoing an abortion and scientific information about fetal development. The other law requires a 72-hour waiting period before obtaining an abortion. The woman argued that the laws violated the Establishment Clause and the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act.

Both the Missouri Supreme Court and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 8th Circuit rejected The Satanic Temples extreme Establishment Clause argument that these laws are unconstitutional because they coincide with pro-life Roman Catholic theology. That reasoning would wipe out many laws that also happen to coincide with Catholic doctrine, such as laws against theft and murder, and government programs giving aid to the poor.

If a court ruled in favor of The Satanic Temples position, that ruling would also violate the Establishment Clause because it would place The Satanic Temples religious dogma into law. Such an expansive interpretation of the Establishment Clause would make governing and legislating impossible.

As to the state Religious Freedom Restoration Act, the Satanists said they believe abortion is a holy rite, so laws hindering their religious practice must be struck down. But RFRA laws do not grant automatic exemptions from laws merely because someone says, My religion requires me to do something different. A modern-day Aztec could not justify homicide by claiming he was making a human sacrifice to Quetzalcoatl. If a state RFRA actually operated as an automatic get-out-of-jail-free card, the most popular church in town would be the one preaching, Paying taxes is sinful!

A state RFRA is a defense one can raise against a government command, but it does not guarantee that the religious believer will win an exemption from that law. RFRA laws, such as Missouris law, usually have a four-part test that filters the strong religious liberty claims from weak and frivolous ones.

The believer must show (1) sincere beliefs rooted in religion that (2) the governments requirement substantially burdens; then (3) the government must show it has a compelling interest that (4) it furthers by the least restrictive means possible. The Missouri Supreme Court unanimously rejected The Satanic Temples religious liberty challenges to the informed consent law and 72-hour waiting period requirement.

At the first step, one can reasonably doubt whether The Satanic Temple has sincere beliefs about abortion that are rooted in religion. Its past actions show repeated mocking and trolling of religious beliefs. It looks more like the group is invoking religion to promote abortion by using state religious freedom laws to own religious pro-lifers.

Next, Missouris laws dont substantially burden a Satanists beliefs because they dont stop her from getting an abortion. The law did not require her to read the states pamphlet, and she still could get an abortion after the waiting period. These commonsense regulations dont amount to a substantial burden on her religion; she simply disagrees with the law.

Under the third and fourth RFRA factors, the state must show it has a compelling state interest in the specific legal requirements, implemented by the least restrictive means. Here, Missouri has a strong interest in making sure people undergoing significant medical procedures know all the relevant facts and have sufficient opportunity to reflect upon what they have learned in order to consent with an informed understanding of what will happen to them and the risks. Offering women the information and giving them time to consider the information is the least restrictive means to accomplish that goal.

It is difficult to take the pro-abortion advocacy of The Satanic Temple seriously because of its long history of disdaining religious believers with sloppily conceived, publicity-seeking campaigns and lawsuits meant to disrupt and diminish religious liberty protections for all. If the group really wants to advance its religious beliefs, it needs to work seriously within the legal protections that all Americans enjoy.

Perverting constitutional and statutory freedoms because of policy disagreements is wrongheaded, short-sighted, and disrespectful to fellow citizens. May the courts continue to reject these dangerous efforts.

Jordan Lorence is senior counsel with Alliance Defending Freedom, which is defending the freedom of conscience of numerous creative professionals in court.

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Satanic Temple Is Trying To Strike Pro-Life Laws In The Name Of Religion - The Federalist

By Coin & Currency Institute

The Royal Dutch Mint is celebrating the centennial of the Ir. D.F. Woudagemaal (in English: the D.F. Wouda Steam Pumping Station), the largest, still-operating steam pumping station in the world.

It was opened on October 7, 1920, by Queen Wilhelmina, and its job was to pump excess water from the northern province of Friesland into the Zuiderzee, and later into the Ijsselmeer, both bays bordering the North Sea. To this day, the Woudagemaal plays a crucial role within the Frisian water authority.

Water poses many problems, not just in the Netherlands, but in the whole world. There are three main issues: too much, too little, or too dirty. The Woudagemaal is a laudable example of Dutch water management and represents a highlight of the work of Dutch engineers and architects in the war against water.

Three coins are being struck, identical in design but in three different metals, to mark the occasion. Visual artist Berend Strik designed the Woudagemaal coin that is also the first commemorative coin to depict King Willem-Alexander with a beard. On the obverse, the waving flag of the province of Friesland is visible behind the portrait of the king.

Underneath, is a fragment of the canals surrounding the Woudagemaal. On the reverse is a drawing of the Woudagemaal in straight and simple lines. All depicted from a birds-eye view, to show the steam pumping station in the typical flat Friesland landscape. The font used on both sides of the coin is the same as found on the steam engines inside the Woudagemaal.

The proof .900 fine gold 10, weighing 6.72 grams and 22.5 mm in diameter, costs $635.00. It is limited to 1,000 pieces. A sterling silver .925 fine proof 5 piece weighing 15.5 grams, 33 mm in diameter, and restricted to just 4,600 coins, is $69.95. An uncirculated 5 made of silver-plated copper is $19.75 It measures 29mm and weighs 10.5 grams.

Mintage is 60,000. The first day of issue is October 7, 2020.

The Woudagemaal is one of the 10 recognized heritage sites of the Netherlands on the UNESCO World Heritage List. This is the ninth issue in the series of Dutch World Heritage (2012-2021), following the Schokland 5 Euro Coin (2018) and the Beemster 5 Euro Coin (2019).

These and many other issues may be obtained from the Coin & Currency Institute, P.O. Box 399, Williston, Vermont 05495. They can be viewed and ordered online at http://www.coin-currency.com. $5.75 should be added to each order for shipping and handling. Major credit cards are accepted. Call toll-free 1-800-421-1866. Fax: (802) 536-4787. E-mail: mail@coin-currency.com.

An enormous amount of steam and quite some sounds: if you visit the Woudagemaal when it is put under steam, you are in for a treat! It takes about six hours to fill the boilers with water and start the pumps. The result is breathtaking the entire building disappears in the steam the station creates. The facility is put under such steam at least twice a year.

During these predetermined training days, staff and volunteers keep their knowledge about the working of the station up-to-date. When the water rises to dangerously high levels, the steam pumping station is (still) commissioned.

Even when the Woudagemaal is not operational, it never fails to impress. The smokestack, with a height of 197 feet, is a recognizable beacon for sailors on the Ijsselmeer. The special architecture provides a unique appearance for the turbine hall, which houses the four impressive head steam engines. About 120 volunteers work at the Woudagemaals visitor center. Two of the main attractions are the interactive exposition hall and the 3D cinema. The center is open from February until December.

The Woudagemaal in the town of Lemmer has a rich history. The steam pumping station was designed by the Chief Engineer of the Provincial Public Works, Dirk Frederik Wouda, in 1917-1918. The majestic building shows beautiful, traditional architecture in the style of Rationalism (an architectural trend from the early 20th century). It was officially opened by Queen Wilhelmina on October 7, 1920.

Before the station was operational, excess water in the province of Friesland was pumped into the Zuiderzee and the Wadden Sea with windmills and sluices. This became problematic in the course of the 19th century because the peat bogs were sinking. The development of the pumping station in Lemmer was a big step forward in the field of water management in Friesland.

From 1966 onwards, water administration in Friesland had greatly improved and the electric Hoogland pumping station near Stavoren partly took over from the Woudagemaal. The pumping station is however still in use and is owned by the Wetterskip Frysln (the Dutch water board in the province of Friesland). In addition, the building and the steam engines are attractions for architectural or steam enthusiasts.

UNESCO on the Woudagemaal: whc.unesco.org/en/list/867

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Coin Commemorates 100th Anniversary of World's Largest Water-Management Steam Pumping Station - CoinWeek

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The mystery behind the very few Indian names appearing in the long list of foreign fighters in the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) has puzzled strategic thinkers for some time now. This pleasant yet inexplicable surprise finds a historical precedent in the conspicuous absence of Indians from the legions of foreign mujahideen fighting the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan in the 1980s and from the Taliban and al Qaedas Islamic Emirate of the 1990s. One of the reasons for the non-existent mujahideen from India could be that unlike some West Asian states then, India never had disposable radicals at home, nor would it ever pursue a policy of conveniently banishing them to foreign war theatres.

Thus, the apparent apathy of the Indian Muslims towards the ISIS impassioned exhortations for global jihad is not a recent and isolated instance. It can also be viewed as the communitys continuing rejection of the so-called global jihad, since the time it rose to prominence in the Afghanistan-Pakistan (Af-Pak) region four decades ago.

Yet, barring a handful of perceptive articles and a few kumbaya panegyrics that sing the praises of the peace-loving Indian Muslim and a cohesive Indian socio-political milieu, strategic experts have not presented even a modicum of seriously researched or insightfully argued propositions (some of which will be discussed ahead) to explain this conundrum. This issue brief surveys some of the propositions and ideas published in journals or magazines or being aired in various seminars and conferences held on the subject of terrorism or radicalisation in India.

How can a country with the third-largest Muslim population in the world, which was partitioned over the issue of Islamism; has had a history of communal violence since independence; suffered a spate of terror attacks by homegrown and Pakistan-backed terrorists in recent decades; witnesses a continuing insurgency in the Muslim-majority Kashmir; and whose polity is still deeply divided over the Muslim question produce fewer adherents of ISIS and al Qaeda than many Western states having a much smaller Muslim population? The inability to find any clear answer or a set of answers to this question has led to the subject being dismissed as an irrelevant non-issue or an academic red herring of little consequence. Some would argue that the Indian strategic community should consider even the relatively few al Qaeda and ISIS cases as too many, given the danger a handful of terrorists can pose to national security.

However, such questioning in this instance is significant because it calls for the identification of those mysterious elements that promote immunity within the Indian society that hinder the spread of the global jihadist contagion. Counter-terrorism and security experts need to be aware of inhibiting factors that protect the Indian society from the menace of transnational terrorism which has spread to different parts of the world.

Many of the prevailing propositions and explanations are mostly speculative (albeit backed by some historical and statistical evidence) because the premise of the subject makes it difficult to be verified through empirical research. Even the most plausible of them only partially explain some of the reasons behind this phenomenon.

Also read: India was of little value to ISIS. Thats all set to change now

It is interesting to note that out of Indias population of over 172.2 million Muslims (constituting 14.23 per cent of the Indian population), less than a 100 migrants (in several batches) are thought to have left for the ISIS territories in Syria and Afghanistan, while 155 were arrested until last year for having ISIS links.

These numbers constitute less than one per cent of the over 30,000 fighters from at least 85 countries who joined the so-called ISIS Caliphate by December 2015, a count that reportedly swelled to around 40,000 in the following years. The number of recruits from India was much less than that of the European Union (EU), from where between 3,922 and 4,294foreign fighters joined the ranks of the ISIS Caliphate by 2016. A breakdown of foreign fighters from the EU shows that over 1,700 of them came from France, 760 from Germany, an almost equal number from the United Kingdom (UK), and around 470 from Belgium. The numbers from Russia stood at above 2,500, while the tally from the former Soviet Republics exceeded 7,000 as early as 2015. In fact, Indian migrants to ISIS are even fewer than that of the Maldives (173), a country having a population of less than 400,000 people.

Also read:ISIS influence growing in South India, particularly Kerala: Social media monitoring firms

Many well-meaning Indian politicians and Muslim leaders often vociferously state that Indian Muslims are peaceful citizens, who, unlike their co-religionists in other parts of the world, have embraced the pluralistic ethos and culture of India and have moderated the radical zeal and ardour of their faith to live peacefully and harmoniously with other communities in the country.

According to former diplomat Talmiz Ahmad: The rejection of extremist doctrine and action by Indian Muslims results from Indias unique syncretic traditions that have fostered an extraordinarily pluralistic culture. Similarly, Manu Joseph, in his insightful article published in March 2019, states: At the first sign of suspicious outsiders or activities, the local Muslims alert the police. India has faced very few terror attacks, not in spite of its Muslims but because of them.

To David Heyman, former United States Assistant Secretary for Homeland Security, the moderation of the Indian Muslim is reflective of the great Indian identity cherished by all its citizens. He states: India was born a multicultural, multi-ethnic, multi-denominational society that embraces that diversity.

These laudable claims are difficult to contest for any Indian, who lives and breathes in the common and composite cultural air of the country every day. However, this is not a rigorous explanation; moreover, it makes convenient and sweeping generalisations about the Indian Muslim community. It does not anticipate a response to any obvious questions that might be raised against the proposition.

For one, the explanation could have acknowledged and addressed the fact that the Indian Muslim community is not entirely peaceful and has always had its fair share of radical elements that have been involved in communal riots and terrorist attacks. Though not many, homegrown terror groups such as the Indian Mujahideen, Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI), the Base Movement (not to mention several Kashmiri secessionist groups) have posed a security threat. The community is also known for having its share of firebrand leaders, some of whom have even been jailed for making incendiary hate speeches. Many Pakistan-based terrorist groups have exploited vulnerable members of the community to carry out major terrorist attacks such as the Bombay blasts of 1993, Parliament attack of 2001, Mumbai terror attacks of 2008, etc.

Therefore, the idea that the Indian Muslim community is peaceful and has thus rejected al Qaeda and ISIS does not appear entirely convincing. The real issue is that despite the existence of several fundamentalist and radical elements, the Indian Muslim community has so far avoided joining global jihadist groups in large numbers, which remains an unanswered question.

Also read:What Muslims in India say about Balakot, national security, ISIS and Kashmir

A similar, but slightly different explanation posits that the Indian Muslims mainly follow Sufism, a peaceful strain of Islam, which inhibits them from joining its more fundamentalist and militant antithesis, namely Salafi-Wahhabism. It is argued that Sunni terrorism in the world is mainly led by Salafi jihadist organisations like al Qaeda and ISIS, barring a few Hanafi-Deobandi groups like the Taliban and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JeM) in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

In this regard, noted historian Romila Thapar states that Sufi teachers played a central role in the interaction with Bhakti sects and gave Indians a unique belief-system. This consisted of teachers who, brought up either as Hindus or Muslims, gave up the formal tenets and rituals of their faith and propounded devotion to a personal god, while emphasizing social ethics, social equality and tolerance. This was faith of most Indians, Hindus and Muslims, for 500 years.

There is no doubt that Sufism has helped cultivate a syncretic ethos in the Indian society, but the claim that Indian Hindus or Muslims have given up their formal religious tenets, dogma or rituals for the sake of a collective faith is untrue. It is also not correct to assert that Muslims in India exclusively follow the Sufi school of Islam, nor is there any merit in the idea of viewing the Deobandi, Ahl-e-Hadeeth or even Salafi beliefs as problematic vis--vis a supposedly benign Sufism. It is important to note that even the founding ideologues of Salafism such as Ibn Taymiyyah and Ahmad Shah Sirhindi were practitioners of Sufism, although they criticised the scholasticism of some Sufi orders.

Besides, many adherents of Sufism have been known to indulge in acts of violent extremism over the ages. For instance, the Sufi group named Army of the Men of the Naqshabandi Order (JRTN) led by former Saddam Hussain loyalist Izzat Al Dourri colluded with ISIS in fighting the current Iraqi dispensation. Similarly, it is mainly the Sufi Barelvi adherents who persecute and even kill Pakistani Christians on the charge of making blasphemous remarks. Undoubtedly, Sufism teaches peace and universalism but the existence of Christian and Buddhist militant groups goes a long way to prove that extremist violence can be perpetrated even by followers of largely non-violent religions or ideologies.

As for Salafism, the movement is too broad and means different things to different people. Many Salafis of northern Africa follow the teachings of the founder (Jamaluddin Afghani) to embrace Western rationalism and enlightenment. The overwhelmingly large majority of Salafi-Wahhabis in West Asia are known as Quietists because of their belief in eschewing politics and violence which they view as spiritually corrupting influence. The predominantly Salafi-Wahhabi states of the Gulf, such as Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Qatar, are home to millions of Indian and foreign expatriates of various religious denominations, which shows the moderate face of Salafi-Wahhabism.

When it comes to non-Muslim places of worship, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) states are not better or worse than Shiite Iran or Sunni Hanafi Turkey. Still, Ibadism-dominated Oman (a school of Islam having strong theological affinities with Wahhabism) has several Hindu temples, most notably the over hundred-year-old Shiva temple in Muscat. In the UAE, the grand BAPS Shri SwaminarayanMandiris being built inAbu Dhabi, which will be the second Hindu temple in that country after the Shiva-Krishna Mandir in Dubai. Thus, the fact that al Qaeda and ISIS have come from a virulent offshoot of Salafism does not make Salafi-Wahhabi a problematic community in and of itself. Thus, the false binary of peaceable Sufi versus militant Salafi does not make for an informed discussion, nor does it help answer the apparent Indian Muslim revulsion to global jihadism.

Also read: No proof Tablighi foreigners spread Covid, were made scapegoats Bombay HC quashes FIRs

Some counter-terrorism scholars, namely Kabir Taneja of the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) and Mohammed Sinan Siyech of the Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), have presented a more thought-provoking explanation over why Indian Muslims have refrained from joining global jihadist groups such as al Qaeda and ISIS.

They make the case that Indian migration to the former ISIS-held territories in Syria and Iraq did not happen in large numbers due to logistical problems. They claim that Western migrants to the ISIS Caliphate could fly to Turkey with a passport and easily obtain an air ticket. However, the less well-to-do Indian ISIS enthusiast found the trip too expensive and the journey to the ISIS dystopia too treacherous. Thus, Siyech states: The passport ownership rate in India stood at 5% in2017, with Muslims (of whom more than 67% live in poverty) plausibly comprising an even smaller group. For those few who undertook the long process of obtaining a passport, thevisa requirements to enter Turkey for Indians were quite strenuousAdding to this, the idea of travelling to a foreign conflict-ridden land where Arabic (a non-India Muslim language) is spoken without any combat training made it even easier for Muslims to stay back.

On the face of it, this explanation appears plausible in that it presents a more realistic reason for the fewer number of Indian fighters in the ISIS ranks and avoids the speculative theorising of other propositions. However, it has its own shortcomings. A large number of Indians work in Gulf countries and have become quite adept at migrating to countries of West Asia. In fact, over 25,000 Indians currently live and work in Iraq, mainly in Erbil, the capital of the northern region of Kurdistan, which was close to the territories held by ISIS earlier.

In addition, fighters from other South Asian countries would have also faced somewhat similar economic and logistical hardships, yet migrants from Maldives (which sent 173 migrants to ISIS), Bangladesh (40), Philippines (100), etc., turned up in much larger numbers at the gates of the ISIS proto-state.

Also read: Iran, not Israel, becomes the unifying enemy for the Middle East

There is also the argument that the Indian subcontinent has a plethora of old, well-entrenched radical groups (such as Jamaat-e-Islami, Lashkar-i-Taiba, Hizbul Mujahideen, etc.) which new terror conglomerates like ISIS are finding difficult to dislodge.

However, this argument fails to explain the success of ISIS and al Qaeda in other parts of the Muslim world, such as in Africa and Southeast Asia, which have also seen homegrown terrorism for a long time. Even when al Qaeda and the Taliban were ruling the roost in Afghanistan in the 1990s, they could hardly intervene in India. It is also noteworthy that while ISIS has found a strong base in Afghanistan, in spite of its arch-rival Talibans pre-existing presence, it struggles to find any organisational footing in India.

Here, the superlative performance of Indian security agencies cannot be praised enough for maintaining constant vigil, for always being ahead of the curve in foiling attacks of global jihadist groups against the country. However, highly effective surveillance and prevention measures alone cannot explain the limited resonance and traction for their call among Indian Muslims.

Traditional Indian social and family values have also been viewed as an inhibiting factor, yet similar societies in the subcontinentlike in Maldives and Bangladeshdid not show equal resilience to the ISIS message.

Also read: Not your pawn Kapil Mishras Kabul attack tweet doesnt go down well with Sikhs

This issue brief presents a few explanations of its own to advance the ongoing debate, without making any claims of having found the proverbial silver bullet as a solution. The first proposition is that the West Asian Islamism does not appear as revolutionary a phenomenon to the Indian Muslim mind as it might to other Islamic communities around the world. For example, the idea of creating an Islamic state is something Indian Muslims have already dealt with and suffered the consequences of, with many families splitting up due to the creation of the now failing Islamic state of Pakistan. Therefore, any proposal for a new experiment in Islamism, whether by the brutally repressive Taliban or the terrorist proto-state of ISIS, fails to enthuse the Indian Muslims imagination.

The call for restituting the Caliphate also does not appeal to most Indian Muslims. This is because Indian Muslim rulers never paid allegiance to any West Asian caliph, nor did they send their forces to foreign lands to fight for the glory of Islam. The replacement of Persian and Arabic languages in Indian courts with English and Indian vernacular languages as well as the flowering of Urdu literature has further reduced Indias social and cultural links with West Asia.

Therefore, Indian Muslims developed their own distinctive theological schools like Deobandi and Barelvi and their own fundamentalist movements like the Tabligh Jamaat and Jamaat-e-Islami. Unlike other parts of the Muslim world, spanning North Africa to Southeast Asia, that have remained under the theological and cultural influence of Arabia, India has been able to develop its own versions of Islam and holds its own against West Asian influences.

Even radical and extremist Islamic movements such as Abul Ala Maududis Jamaat-e-Islami were not subsumed by Islamist groups like the Muslim Brotherhood. In fact, Hasan Al Banna and Sayyid Qutb the early ideologues of the Muslim Brotherhood acknowledged the formative impact of Maududis political Islam on their intellect and in support of Jamaat-e-Islami, and yet the organisation has no branch in the Indian subcontinent to date.

In sum, Indian Muslims, both of the extremist and moderate kind, are comfortable in their own skins and barring a few exceptions in Kashmir and Kerala do not feel the need for any foreign interference in their religious, political and social affairs.

Also read: In Afghanistan, a new great game with ISIS, ISK and Pakistan is on with a vengeance

For a long time, India did not figure prominently in the grand schemes of al Qaeda and ISIS because radical Salafi-jihadist ideologues consider India Muslims weak of will and bereft of religious ardour. For several centuries, radical leaders of West Asia have looked down upon Indian Muslims for having failed to fully Islamise the Indian subcontinent. In fact, the Mongol marauder Timur invaded India on the excuse of punishing Indian Muslim sultans for showing excessive tolerance toward their Hindu subjects, a sentiment shared by many religious extremists in West Asia to this day. Thus, even among the list of non-Arab Muslims (pejoratively called Ajami or mute) Indians feature below Turks and Iranians. Areeb Majeed, a young Indian Muslim who returned after joining ISIS in Syria, speaks of how ISIS made him and his other Indian compatriots do menial jobs like cleaning the toilet and providing water to soldiers and never trained them to go to war.

It is noteworthy that the Salafi-Wahhabi movement is said to have risen in opposition to the independent reasoning and analogous interpretations (ijtihaad and qiyas) of the Hanafi and Shafai schools of Sunni jurisprudence, to which an overwhelmingly large majority of Indian Muslims subscribe. Many fundamentalist Salafi-Wahhabi ideologues even consider the Hanafi school of Sunni Islam (which include both the Indian Deobandi and Barelvi schools) to be heretical because of their strict adherence (taqleed) of Imam Abu Haneefas jurisprudence. This Salafi-Hanafi divide was the main reason for al Qaeda hard-liners like Abu Qatada and Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi to oppose the Hanafi-Deobandi Talibans emirate as Islamic in the 1990s, and this doctrinal divide remains the principal reason for Salafi ISIS to oppose Taliban to this day.

In addition to doctrinal issues, Salafi jihadists dislike Indian Muslims for having embraced citizenship of a secular nation and to have refused Shariah-based governance since medieval times. For this reason, ISIS equates Indian Muslims with their favourite hate term Murjiah, an extinct Muslim sect that refused to detest people on the basis of their faith.

This brings us to this issue briefs second explanation that the Indian clerical movements led by Darul Uloom Deoband, the Sufi as well as Barelvi schools hold strong sway over the behaviour of Indian Muslims. In March 2009, Darul Uloom Deoband issued a fatwa declaring India as dar al aman (land of peace), where militant jihad is prohibited. Similarly, a joint fatwa was issued by 70,000 Indian Muslim scholars against ISIS, Taliban, al Qaeda and other terrorist groups in 2015, which has helped in refraining a large number of Indian Muslims from joining the ranks of global jihadist terror groups.

Also read: Terror outfits have invaded our social media but India lags in countering it

It should also be noted here that violent extremism and terrorism fester in an environment of repression and exclusion. West Asian polities, where dissent is often quashed, find expression only in violent outbursts and so the region suffers most from jihadist violence than any other part of the world.

The third explanation is that violent extremism does not thrive on the Indian soil for long. Here, the bearded Indian Muslim man and burqa-clad women freely walk the bazaars of Indian towns and villages, just as the naked Digambar Jain or the turbaned Sikh feel equally at home and remain proud of their religious and national identities.

Thus, Muslims find their identity and place in India, which even the liberal West does not openly accord to its increasingly diverse population in that it expects all communities to assimilate and imbibe Western values and ways of life. Indias democratic polity and eclectic demographic allows even homegrown fundamentalist groups to live and express themselves, which inhibits the rise of exclusivist and violently extreme groups like ISIS and al Qaeda to fester. The cost-benefit analyses of such terror mercenaries do not add up here and even a few misadventures fail to give the big returns that these groups find elsewhere.

Thus, the non-dualist (Advaita) celebration of opposites rolls on and even the absolutist elements are swept up in the cosmic sweep of the great Indian juggernaut.

The author is Research Fellow at the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses, New Delhi. Views are personal.

Thisarticle was first published by IDSA.

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Why fewer Indians have joined ISIS - ThePrint

By Insider Staff - Sep 2, 2020 |

City of the Beasts

By Isabelle Allende

(406, young adult fiction, 2002, available on Hoopla in English translated from Spanish)

A fast-paced adventure, this is a difficult book to put down, once begun! Fifteen year old Alex Cold is sent to live with his grandmother, still an active travel writer, when his mother falls seriously ill.

His grandmother takes him on assignment to the Amazon in pursuit of an illusive Beast, rumored to be a violent creature in the heart of the rainforest. Others join their expedition, but motives may not be what they at first appear.

Alex befriends Nadia, the daughter of their local guide, and a shaman tells the two children that their destinies involve helping to stop a great evil.

Rationalism butts head with experiences of the spiritual, as Alex and Nadia begin encountering mystical occurrences. The two are swept into the fray of local powers resisting the threats of western infiltration and modernization, into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, into contact with an ancient civilization and with the deadly Beast creatures. Will the children be able to discern the insidious threats, lurking less obviously than clear cutting forests, and will they be able to stop them before ancient ways and peoples are lost?

Part Indiana Jones-esque adventure, part fantasy, and part bildungsroman, this novel is a fun and fantastical take on many contemporary topics, fun and befitting readers of all ages.

Visit the Concord Public Library online at concordpubliclibrary.net.

Lindsey Hunterwolf

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Book of the Week: Important lessons - The Concord Insider

Some very curious developments have been taking place in Tamil Nadu.

After an anti-Hindu propagandist went obscenely berserk against Hindu Puranas and devotional hymns on his Youtube channel, there came a surge of Hindu anger which forced the government to shut the Youtube channel and initiate legal action against the activist group.

Another Youtube activist, Maridhas, has been relentlessly campaigning against the Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (DMK) and exposing its anti-Hindu agenda. He has also brought out the ideological connections between the core-Dravidianism of DMK and the above-said pseudo-rational propagandist.

The DMK, which was initially confident of winning next years State assembly election because of some crucial blunders the All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government did during the lock-down, is no more that certain. The anti-Hindu label might hurt the DMK in the coming elections.

Udayanidhi Stalin, who being the son of present party chief M. K. Stalin, is seen as the future supremo of the DMK. Though the DMK was started by C.N. Annadurai, a leader who respected democracy, after its capture by M. Karunanidhi, it fast devolved into what looks like more a family corporation than a democratic political party.

It is a paradox of perversion that the Dravidian movement, which criticises the birth-based systems of Hindu society, which have been reformed and reformulated in inclusive ways through millennia, should succumb to birth-based dynasty control within a few decades of its existence.

So, what Udayanidhi Stalin tweets shows not only the compulsions of politics but also the dynamics inside the family. And for the DMK, the line demarcating family dynamics and party politics is often blurred, if not non-existent.

It should be noted that the rationalism of the Dravidian movement is actually nothing but colonial hatred for Hindu Dharma.

The Protestant mindset of colonial rulers could never comprehend the spiritual symbolism and the Hindu aesthetics of Ganesha. Naturally, they hated this deity and singled him out for humiliation.

The Dravidian movement, being its colonial masters voice, followed suit. So one of the great rationalist deeds of EVR was breaking in public an idol of Ganesha.

Subsequently, in the Dravidian orthodoxy, Ganesha Chaturthi is a festival for which no Dravidianist leader of the DMK vintage would extend his wishes. The same goes for Deepavali and Vijaya Dasami.

The popular joke in Tamil Nadu is that generally Tamil Hindus are happy that the DMK leaders do not extend their greetings for Hindu festivals for the festivals are too good for corrupt politicians to extend their wishes on.

Now comes a tweet by Udhayanidhi Stalin showing a photo of a Ganesha idol made from clay and even adorned with the sacred thread .

Original post:

A Few Months Before Assembly Polls, What Is Happening in Tamil Nadu? - Swarajya

By Tunji Olaopa

In recent weeks, I have published a series of essays on Christianity and its historical trajectory. From its humble and tortured beginning in Asia, Christianity has risen to become a universal religion, with the worlds most statistically significant followers. Indeed, the emergence of Christianity in world history has been definitive in so many ways. It has shaped the global consciousness and many cultural practices. All across the world, Christianity has transformed a peoples understanding of themselves and of their cultures. Wars have been fought in the name of Christian faith, kingdoms have been built, alliances have been secured. From Handel to Michelangelo, and from the gothic building to the English common law, Christianity has become the common denominator in the way the global world has been built and fashioned.

It is in this recognition of the world-historical significance of Christianity, and especially its confrontation and engagements with non-Christian cultures and religions, that led to my inquiry about its African dynamics. What is the relationship between the historical emergence of Christianity and the African continent? What were the specific historical issues that led to the arrival of Christianity on the continent? How did Christianity participate in the colonial enterprise? How did Africans respond to the arrival and consolidation of Christianity vis--vis their own indigenous religions? All these questions led to my essay, titled Christianity and the African Indigenous Church. In that essay, I was fascinated with the question of how the core Christian doctrinesimmaculate conception, virgin birth, the birth, crucifixion and resurrection of Jesuscould be accepted by non-Christian contexts like Africa. I cited the popular scriptural case of the Egyptian eunuch who got converted by Philip the evangelist in Acts chapter 8. And more than this, I cited the example of an archaeological excavation of a 4th century Ethiopian church which demonstrated the complex mixture of Christian and indigenous Ethiopian beliefs that led to the formation of Christianity in Ethiopian, and marked the emergence of a unique African understanding of Christianity. And finally, I analyzed the establishment, in 1901, of the African Church in Nigeria, under the leadership of Joseph Kehinde Coker, often now regarded as the father of the indigenous church in Africa.

My humble effort at charting the historical trajectory of Christianity in Africa led to some serious reactions from many platforms to which the essay was posted. This tells me immediately that the issue of religion is not just a mere spiritual exercise. Religion has remained for a long time an ideological and intellectual object of discourse. From Karl Marx to Cheikh Anta Diop, scholars have been concerned with how religion facilitate oppression or how it could be harnessed as a tool for social change. Christianity is particularly a point of resentment because of its collaboration with the trans-Atlantic slave trade and the racist colonial project. It is therefore to be expected that when African scholars come to any discussion about the dynamics of Christianity in Africa, rage and sentiment must always come into play. This is to be expected. The range of reactions to my essay was as seminal as they were significantly historical. My attention was drawn to many angles of arguments and historical issues that space could not have allowed me to attend to, except I have made up my mind to write a book on the intersection between Christianity and the African continent. In this short space, I will briefly outline some of the critical points raised to further push my argument about the historical and universal significance of Christianity.

As one would expect, Christianity is always in the eye of the storm, from the ideological to the intellectual. The most fundamental of the reactions to my essay were arrayed along these two areas. At the ideological level, there are two strands of debate that attend the incursion of Christianity into the African continent and the dynamics of the formation of African Christianity. Let me briefly elaborate. On the one hand, Afrocentric and African scholars of religion and culture have been at pain to iterate that the foundation of colonialism was laid by Christian missionaries. David Livingstone said specifically about his mission in Africa, I go back to Africa to make an open path for commerce and Christianity. And this charge is further aggravated by the impunity with which Christianity undermined the primal religions of Africa. One requires a long and elaborate but complex response to this Afrocentric charge against Christianity. But a short one that space will permit is that one must at all times be willing to dissociate the essence of Christianity from its ugly misuse by ideological forces. Once we are able to achieve this irreducible core of the Christian message, then it becomes easy to see how Christianity can be seen as being mutually exclusive from the horrors of colonialism and the denigration of the humanities of non-Europeans.

On the other hand, the issues about the formative dynamics of African Christianity are those I have hinted at in earlier articles. One of the responders was unequivocal: The real spiritual and theological foundations of the Church were laid by Africans. This is an appealing statement, but it is only partially true in terms of its historical basis. It is already a solid historical fact that the ecclesiological and theological basis of Christianity owe much to the works of the church fathers, most of whom were Africans. We have such famous names like St. Augustine of Hippo, Origen, Tertullian, Clement, Cyprian, Athanasius, Cyril, etc. all these were basically from Alexandria which played a definitive role in the founding of Christianity. However, Christianity also owes so much to other non-African church fathers, from John of Damascus, St. Thomas Aquinas, St. Jerome down to Ephrem the Syrian, Aphrahat, Isaac of Antioch, Irenaeus of Lyon, Justin Martyr, and so many more. It therefore becomes needless to talk about the real spiritual and theological foundations being laid by the African church fathers when they all worked over a continuum to consolidate Christian doctrines.

The second significant issue with Christianity is intellectual. I got critical responders who took issue with my essay based on Edward Gibbons premise against Christianity as the sole cause of the fall of the Roman Empire. This is a critical issue because there is so much to admire in Gibbon and his The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (six volumes, 1776-1788). There is also so much that is intellectually discordant and unfounded. But again, Gibbons theses and arguments must be put in thorough perspectives (which space will still not permit me to elaborate). First, it becomes necessary to dispel the notion that Gibbon was an atheist. Such a claim is easy to make since even his contemporaries were confused as to what religious views he professed. From his Protestant background, his conversion to Catholicism and his reconversion back to Protestantism, as well as his constant engagement with religious views, Gibbon was sufficiently intelligent to understand the fundamental role that religion played in the molding of historical dynamics. And more specifically, he appreciated the more specific foundation that Christianity assisted in laying for human civilization. And this is the reason why, in chapter 38 of the study, Gibbon stated: As the happiness of a future life is the great object of religion, we may hear without surprise or scandal, that the introduction or at least the abuse, of Christianity had some influence on the decline and fall of the Roman empire.

This statement reveals a lot. First, Gibbon recognized the possibility of the distortion of Christianity in its search for the happiness of a future life. And anyone conversant with the great Roman Empire is therefore aware of its historic debauchery and religious complacence. When Constantine the Great, the Roman Emperor, eventually declared Christianity as the official religion of the republic, the downward trend became accelerated. But much more important in Gibbons statement is the methodological allowance that the phrase some influence connotes in the assessment of the factors that led to the decline of the Roman Empire. This tells us that someone of the breath of intellect of Gibbon could not have made the methodological mistake of adducing a monocausal reason for the decline and fall of such an entity as an empire, and the Roman Empire for that matter. Rome was bedeviled by both internal and external dynamics and predicaments that ate at its foundation. For instance, the barbarians outside Romes gate were constantly on its heel. And the politics of intrigues and calumny within was sufficient to weaken the empire for her enemies to triumph.

Lastly, once we critically consider the theological effluence of Pentecostal Christianity, and especially its theology of prosperity, we might be tempted to hail the prophetic analysis of Gibbon and his critique of the distortion of Christianity and the values of hard-work, thrift, personal merit and other values and virtues that are core to the Christian faith. Indeed, Gibbons criticism was leveled not only at the tendency to devote enormous wealth to the church rather than to secular progress, but also essentially to the fetish about the miraculous. Gibbons rationalism was determined to treat Christianity and any religion as a legitimate aspect of general history rather than as a supernatural phenomenon with a final say on human affairs.

My point is simple, and in this I also agree with my responders: Christianity remains a fundamental force in human history. And in this, we are both in agreement with Gibbons readiness to read Christianity as general history. The march of Christianity has done a lot to affect the ways we see ourselves and the destiny of the world.

*Prof. Tunji Olaopa is a retired Federal Permanent Secretary & Directing Staff, National Institute for Policy and Strategic Studies(NIPSS), Kuru, Jos (tolaopa2003@gmail.com tolaopa@isgpp.com.ng)

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Christianity, African Indigenous Church and the Facts of History - THISDAY Newspapers

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Around the time Wesley Lowerydescribedin the New York Times a reckoning over objectivity in journalism, I was reading an introduction to W.E.B. Du Bois Black Reconstruction in Americaby Dr. David Levering Lewis.

Lewis mentions an incident I have not heard much discussed: the censorship of Du Bois by a white editor at the Encyclopedia Britannica named Franklin Henry Hooper. This happened in 1929. A century later, the incident and its implications chime with Lowerys observations about editors seeing the work of Black people as hopelessly biased and the views and inclinations of whiteness as the objective neutral. Then, as now, the forms of liberal rationalism were put to reactionary use. The encyclopedia, Lewis writes, had demonstrated how color-coded cognitive dissonance impelled most educated white people, in the name of objective history and social science, to discount the beliefs of most educated colored people as propaganda or fiction.

The affair played out over a series of letters, which have been digitized by the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. You can find them all here. They contain other echoes of our present media culturethe debate about capitalizing the n in Negro; Du Bois rallying fellow Black writers to the cause, imploring them in a letter to stand as a unit; Hooper reminding Du Bois that facts dont care about his feelings; Du Bois getting stiffed on his payment. The people who are in charge today are the same sort of people who were in charge 90 years ago. They reach for the same tools to beat back any challenge to the sustaining fictions of the social order, whether theyre defending the prerogatives of the Encyclopedia Britannica in 1929 or theNew York Times op-ed page in 2020.

Here is the basic situation: In the mid 1920s, Du Bois was recruited to write for the encyclopedia. He was already a giant of his time, having published The Souls of Black Folk andDarkwater, and having co-founded the NAACP. His project was in many ways a long, twilight battle against the idea of whiteness as neutral. His academic work in the realms of history and economics centered Black lives and Black agency. The Souls of Black Folk discussed how Black self-conception was filtered through a white world, creating a double-consciousness or twoness. Writing for Britannica, that bastion of the objective neutral, Du Bois had a unique chance to reshape consensus narratives from within.

He took it on with zeal. First, he was asked to write an entry on Black literature for the encyclopedia. A few years later, he was tapped for a larger entry on The Negro in the United States generally. Du Bois used the assignment as an opportunity to recruit other Black scholars, among them the famous philosopher Alain Locke. In light of the distortions and even grotesqueries written about people of color in standard reference works of the period, access to the Encyclopedia Britannicawas greeted with an almost pitiable hopefulnessso much was theirs in mainstream America to so little allow, writes Lewis in the second volume of his two-part biography of Du Bois (bothparts of which won separate Pulitzer prizes).

But as Lewis explains, a corporate upheaval at the encyclopedia left Du Bois working with a new editor: Franklin Henry Hooper. Hooper, in the letters, fully inhabits the role of the bad white editor. He is brusque, supercilious, late, and wrong. When he wants to change something in the proof, it is explained as correcting a mistake. (It cannot just be an editorial decision.) Letters are passive-aggressive and condescending. Each is signed: FRANKLIN H. HOOPER. AMERICAN EDITOR.

In May of 1928, Du Bois turns in a draft of a general entry on the American Negro to Hooper. It is long, he admitsabove the 5,000-word mark, nearing 9,000, evenbut hes confident he can cut it down if Hooper could tell him what ground has been covered on the subject by other encyclopedia contributors.

Eight months later, Hoopers editorial assistant, L.P. Dudley, sends back an edited manuscript. Hooper has slashed it. Du Bois responds on the day he receives it.I am very much dissatisfied, he says.

First, Du Bois notes it would be a personal insult not to capitalize the word Negro, a complaint that resonates with todays debate over capitalizingthe b in Black. At least some of Du Bois aggravation is surely due to the fact that Hooper already knows his feelings on the matter. In 1926, when Du Bois first wrote for the encyclopedia about African American literature, hed exchanged letters with Hooper about capitalization, to which Hooper assented despite a general policy of capitalizing as few words as possible.

Du Bois then dives into the factual changes. They are myriad. Du Bois had written that Southern legislation showed a determination to re-establish Negro slavery in everything but name. Hooper has changed it to seemed to show an inclination to re-establish slavery. Du Bois had provided the precise number of lynchings. Hooper has made it vague. (I see no reason why the number of Negroes lynched should not be plainly stated, Du Bois says.) Du Bois had written, Negroes were kept from voting at first by force and intimidation, then by fraud and finally by a series of laws which purported to disfranchise the illiterate, the propertyless, and those who did not pay their poll tax. Hooper has soft-pedaled the description, writing, Negroes were gradually forced from the Ballot Box by one means or another.

Hoping not to appear captious or over-sensitive, Du Bois explains in his response that the article should represent my own thought and conviction and not Hoopers. These edits, he says, are not his beliefs.

That same day, Du Bois writes a letter warning the other Black writers hed recruited for Britannica. Du Bois hopes to push back together. In particular, he wants to stand as a unit on the matter of the capitalization of the word Negro.'

We know that Alain Locke agreed, as well as W.A. Robinson, who had been asked to write an article on the development of education for African Americans. In fact,Robinson was having his own run-ins with Britannicas editorial process at the time. He wound up sending his own letter to editors, saying that multiple changes they made to appease Southern readers were untrue.

Du Bois commiserates and strategizes in a letter to Robinson, also dated February 14 (though he notes that the changes in mine are much more serious).

Evidently, there has been a change in policy among the Editors of the Encyclopedia, Du Bois writes. After conceding that the editors are allowing us to put through a great deal, he says we ought to at least make a fight for morea demonstration of the way even the soft sort of inclusion favored by Americas liberal institutions can bring about real agitation for change.

A few days later, Hooper writes back to Du Bois to explain his edits to the manuscript. He says that he made the changes because certain things were written shall I say in vindication of the colored peoplehe found that quite unnecessary. He adds that, in fact, some of the information contradicted information in other articles of the volume.

Hooper points out that Du Bois claim that Black Americans helped save democracy after the Civil War is a matter of opinion and as such should find no place in an encyclopedia. The editor concedes a few pointsand half-heartedly agrees to capitalize Negro, as if the same conversation had not already happenedbut otherwise brushes off Du Bois, saying his changes are about space while Du Bois proposed changes are inessential. Hooper says he must rush the article to press, even threatening to print the thing if I do not hear from you by return mail.

Du Bois is not satisfied. He sends another letter to Hooper to explain the changes he feels must be made before publication. At the end, he also responds to Hoopers condescension about the necessity of the changes: You say that these other changes do not seem to me to be necessary: but the point is that I am the author of the article and to me some change does seem necessary.

Does this rebuke stop Hooper or give him pause? Of course not. Striking a pose of cool-headed rationalism, he responds with a florid version of what would now be rendered as facts not feelings.

Hooper says he has made his changes and will publish the article with them. But he does not send the new version along.

Du Bois asks to see the actual article and will not allow it to be published until he does.

Du Bois has at this point reached out to a friend, Joel Spingarn,a white writer and fellow leader in the NAACP, for counsel on his interesting experience with Hooper, attaching both his correspondence and that of the other Britannica writers. Spingarn points out that the encyclopedia isnt looking for the fundamental truth so much as a clear picture of accepted wisdom, and thatBritannica is more insular and one-sided than most works of the kind.

Du Bois has also sent a letter to his original editor,Worth Hedden, about the queer experiences of the Black writers hed recruited. The former editor explains that broad editorial changes atBritannica had led to his ousting, and, moreover, that he is not surprised Du Bois recruits were running into trouble.

By the time Hooper finally sends the manuscript alongand tries to finish off the interaction to get final approvalDu Bois has formulated a plan.

Taking a suggestion from Spingarn, Du Bois insists on one last change.

We know from subsequent correspondence with Spingarn that Du Bois had wanted to insert this paragraph:

White historians have ascribed the faults and failures of Reconstruction to Negro ignorance and corruption. But the Negro insists that it was Negro loyalty and the Negro vote alone that restored the South to the Union; established the new Democracy, both for white and black, and instituted the public schools.

Hooper refuses. He kills the article, saying that he cannot pass the article with this new paragraph and I am therefore deleting it altogether.

Let us take a moment with this idea, so objectionable that Hooper kills the entire article. The claim that Black Americans saved democracywouldbecome the bedrock of Black Reconstruction in America, considered Du Bois masterwork. (In 1933, Du Bois would even send his correspondence with Britannicato the publisher of Black Reconstructionthe rejection of the article forBritannica is marked as the genesis of the book, explains a note written by an archivist.)

The bookis foundational on two fronts. Black Reconstruction posited postCivil War lawmaking as a radical, Black-led movement to create a new democracy. It would lead to Eric Foners famous characterization of the time period as a second founding. Black Reconstruction also created a methodological breakthrough. This was a story centered on Black life, Black agency. It upended the prevailing ideas about who were the actors of history and who were the acted-upon. Even in miniature form, in his encyclopedia entry, Du Bois was challenging the very notion of an objective neutral over which the Britannica was created to stand sentry. The question his essay posed implicitly could be asked today of many newspaper editors or for that matter any number of adherents of the new rationalism: What facts, whose truth, are you really defending?

There is one last indignity to be visited on Du Bois. The encyclopedia wont pay him for his work.

A couple months later:

Du Bois got his money in the end: $83.33 (nearly $1,300 todaya decent kill fee). David Levering Lewis says a white sociologist named Edwin Embree wound up writing the encyclopedias entry on Black people in the United States. And Hooper? A few years, he would be promoted to editor-in-chief of Britannica.

You can still read what Du Bois attempted to enter into the historical record, though; multiple drafts exist in Amhersts collections. There is something affecting about reading it now, knowing what hed gone through with Britannica. He ends with an admission that it is difficult to express definitely just what social ostracism of American Negroes has meant in the past and just what it means now. He says the manifestations are subtle and its changes almost imperceptibly gradual.For many years Black leaders felt uncomfortable even admitting they desired equality. Yet now, he writes, under no circumstance, except by compulsion, will they accept a status of social inferiority.

Excerpt from:

The Battle Between WEB Du Bois and His White Editor Was an Early Reckoning Over Objectivity - Mother Jones

What describes a nation, or more importantly who describes a nation? Nations like to tell about heroic, victorious events of their history, it is pleasant; they are proud of their famous compatriots. Moreover, they are flattered to be highly estimated by foreign prominent people for two and a half thousand years and sometimes that words have been even overestimated. But the first-hand sources confirm, consequently, they are real. Accordingly, it is needed to understand why they expressed glorious opinions about Armenians as the authors include famous thinkers of different nations and world greats.

There are many scientific hypotheses known in the history of science, which have been rationally explained for many, even hundreds of years. Great thinkers often come to intuitive conclusions that are incomprehensible to most of their contemporaries, they are even being criticized for their ideas. For decades, I kept viewing an approach by Joseph Pitton de Tournefort (16561708), a great French thinker and member of Paris Academy who noted; Armenian nation is the best nation in the world; they are moral, polite, full of chastity and decency.

At first sight, one may take this kind of statement as unreasonable and exaggerated. Armenians are patriotic, proud, but they are very critical to themselves; even a nationalist Armenian will not express such ideas. At the same time, another French thinker, historian, famous geographer Jacques lise Reclus (18301905) claims: The Armenian villager can be attributed to what Turnefor said; Armenians are the best people in the world without much exaggeration, which, in its turn, means that there are still serious grounds for such opinions.

More than a hundred years after Tournefort, the great English poet Lord George Gordon Byron wrote. The virtues of Armenians are their own, and the shortcomings are taken from others. In short, Armenians are decent and perfect and the like.

At first glance, it seems that such opinions require a lot of different knowledge on many nations, which will let us come to a certain conclusion through comparison. In other words, it was necessary to study a certain set of knowledge, which was still quite narrow at the times of the mentioned authors. Accordingly, the conclusions had to have a different starting point.

From our point of view, that starting point could have been based on several notorious historical facts, in particular:

1) Testimonies of ancient Greek and Roman historians about the Armenian people and Armenia,

2) Although several dozen peoples lived in the Armenian Highlands and Mesopotamia in ancient times, but few survived, including the Armenian people,

3) Starting from the ancient Roman and Persian periods and throughout the Middle Ages, Armenia was the scene of savage invasions (Arabs, Mongols, Seljuks, Ottomans, etc.), but Armenians continued to keep their existence in the Armenian Highlands,

4) the last mentioned outstanding peace-loving characteristic of the Armenian people, which was manifested both during the powerful Armenian kingdoms and after the loss of statehood

5) Existence of Armenian colonies in many countries, including European ones, where Armenians, have both preserved their national identity, and, at the same time, having been integrated in the new national environment, have contributed to the prosperity of those countries,

6) The process of preserving and continuously developing the Armenian language, the theological, philosophical, scientific, literary heritage created in Armenian, and the publishing heritage, too,

7) Existence of unique Armenian culture, civilization, and also contribution of Armenians to world civilization.

These basic ideas, of course, are not exhaustive; there are and there will possible be other ideas, too. It is necessary to understand the main thing: who is the Armenian, what are his peculiarities and what it was that ensured his existence for millennia?

I will emphasize the following description of Immanuel Kant (1724-1804), a great German thinker about Armenians: Hardworking and intelligent people, they have a special origin, all the nations accept Armenians with open arms, they have excellent mettle, it is impossible for us to talk about their preliminary formation.

Till today, modern historiography, linguistics, and ethnography are not able to fully present the preliminary formation of the Armenian nation, but there are certain assumptions. But first, let us consider the special origins of the Armenian people. One thing is certain; the origin, development and formation of the Armenian people are hidden in the thick fog of thousands of years. At all events, according to the modern genetic research, scientists confirm that Armenians have lived in their highlands for more than 7-8 thousand years. The Armenian language and culture also testify to the mentioned facts. It is clear that the perfection of the language, the elaboration, the rich vocabulary, the ability to express thoughts, ideas, knowledge, human emotions could not be created even for centuries, it has, surely, taken millennia. Differently, the development of the language also has required a rich culture, the development of which also took millennia. Language and culture, complementing and enriching each other, as well as creatively assimilating and synthesizing the best values and traditions of neighboring languages and cultures, have become, one may say, a dominant language and culture of regional significance. Thanks to that, the Armenian people have survived in the Armenian Highlands for millennia.

When talking about the special origin of the Armenian people, one cant help drawing attention to the Armenian Highlands. Generally, living in the mountains is viewed to be one of the best ways of protections from outside attacks, but limiting yourself to it does not yet give answers to many questions. The inhabitants of the mountainous regions have to constantly struggle and adapt to the harsh climatic conditions, and in order to achieve the result they need the joint efforts of the people, which, in its turn, forces them to develop special and stricter forms of coexistence as compared with the conditions in the valleys. On the contrary, mountains devote people certain advantages, such as working tools, raw materials for housing (obsidian, copper, tin, iron, various non-metallic building materials, and the like), easier means of self-protection, and all the rest. And finally, the mountains give people spiritual charge, spirituality, and also form a uniqueway of thinkingand a way of life which corresponds to it. The One for all, all for one thinking is typical, first of all, to the mountaineers. The evidence of the last mentioned is not only the way of life, behavior and manners of Armenians, but also of all mountain peoples.

There is not any coincidence that the civilizations formed in Mesopotamia, more specifically in the valleys of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, have constantly been changed, and the Armenian civilization having been formed in the Armenian Highlands has kept maintaining its existence and developing steadily.

The mountaineer, whether he wants it or not, must be honest, decedent, hospitable, hardworking and inquisitive, physically and mentally healthy, conservative, apologist of public and individual order, initiative and courageous, and so on and so forth. Just as he receives guests with open arms, so he will be received with open arms, too. The mountaineer is in need of accepting guests just because he is isolated from the world and needs to be informed about what is going on in the world around him. This is how the excellent mettle, mentioned by Kant, has been formed. It is obvious that the bearer of all this is first of all the villager, to whom Reclu rightly attributes Turnefors words about Armenians.

The open-arms feature is also hardened in the cold. Armenians have also been involved in trade for centuries, which comes to say that they have not cheated in doing business, no matter how much they pursued personal interests, on the contrary, they have been able to attract customers, including members of royal families, great princes and feudal lords, nobles, local big merchants, and also to prove their honesty, kindness, without which they would have never been welcomed with open arms. Armenian merchants often also acted as royal translators, diplomats, achieved high positions in some countries, and became foreign ministers.

It is obvious that during the long contacts the Armenian merchants have not been engaged only in trade, but, simultaneously, have introduced Armenian culture, art, crafts to foreigners, participated in various events of the given country and the like. With their involvement, the Armenians have built churches, schools, established printing houses in the colonies, and came up with charitable initiatives. They have even had a special costume-suit worthy of the time and it is not accidental that Rousseau wore the clothes of an Armenian merchant to avoid political persecution. And, of course, the establishment of that country was well aware of all that.

Another characteristic Armenians have, is their peace-loving nature. Turnefor writes that Armenians consider themselves to be happy when not dealing with weapons, in contrast with other nations, they take up arms only to defend themselves against any attacks. Another thing that is worth mentioning is the assurance of the Russian historian Sergei Glinka (1775 / 6-1847). I am not writing praise, and how far are all stories(about Armenians) from praise? Armenians were not carried away by violent outbursts of conquest by the moral features of their national spirit as all that have been transitory.

Defending the homeland, preserving their own independence, withstanding external violence attempts-these are the main goals for them to get armed. Here is why Mihr, one of their pagan Gods, was a spiritual fire that preserved and would not harm the nature and man. Lets apply to J. Byron again. It is difficult to find a chronology of a nation that is free from vicious crimes than that of the Armenians, whose virtues are the product of peace and whose vices are the result of repression. An English politician, statesman William Ewart Gladstone (1805-1898) is also needed to be mentioned as a known person having written about Armenians; According to him, Armenians are one of the oldest peoples of the Christian civilization and one of the most peaceful, entrepreneurial and sensible one in the world, he also mentions that diligence, striving for peace, common sense are the main reasons why slavery was not formed in Armenia as a society.

We may continue the series of glorifying Armenians may be continued remembering the German orientalist V. Belkin member of the French Academy, Russian military historian Viktor Abaza (1831-1898) and others. Just let me mention that the biggest proof of the Armenians love of/ towards peace is their history, full of episodes of their struggle for independence and liberation, also known in the East for its arrogance, pages about great generals, war heroes and, finally, the best evidence is the epic poem Sasna Tsrer. An example of peace-loving feature of the Armenian people is the King Artashes I of the mighty empire of Greater Armenia, who marked the borders of the Armenian kingdom not through force of arms, but through the presence of an Armenian-speaking population. Generally, peace-loving is conditioned with diligence and the ability to acquire wealth on ones own. For thousands years having lived in the strict conditions of the highlands, Armenians have learned to earn their own living, to work hard, to know the laws of nature, and also to realize that by robbing someone elses property, you impoverish yourself. Having always been constant victim of the surrounding robbers, Armenians have forever realized that robbery is not the right way to live well. Robbery, theft, taking someone elses property always causes resistance and as a result of robbery one should be ready not only to gain, but also to lose; one loses his children, his peace of mind, and often becomes a victim of robbery. There have existed many powerful empires, which have disappeared with their peoples before the eyes of Armenians. Every war, even a victorious one, gives birth to a new war and, predominantly, the winner becomes the loser. This is how the Sumerians, Akkadians, Assyrians, Roman and Parthian empires disappeared from the face of the earth.

Since the ancient times, plunder has been an important part of the way of life of the peoples having in the European continent, but having adopted the ancient Greek philosophical rationalism, the Europeans did manage to greatly promote education, science, technology, develop the arts, and inherit the cruel, malevolent and arrogant path concentrating on urgent political and economic interests and due to that, they succeeded in ensuring a prosperous life for the golden billion of their citizens and subjects.

The thinkers of the European Enlightenment, who advocated the ideas of human rights, freedom, equality, fraternity proclaimed by the French Revolution, in fact did not have worthy followers and did not guarantee the embodiment of the idea of fraternity. It was all this that led archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann Johann Ludwig Heinrich Julius Schliemann (1822-90) to come to the conclusion according to which the tragedy of Europe is that its civilization is stood on the Greek rather than the Armenian culture.

Today, the West is reaping the fruits of its sins; international terrorism and international migration. They are just germs and still Europe has a lot to pay for the atrocities, looting, wars, and damage to hundreds of peoples.

Above we mentioned about the Armenian colonies, which have a history of thousands of years, and not only multilingual literature, references-studies exist but also significant traces of material culture have been preserved. Some Armenian colonies have been created by the migration of Armenians, when for various reasons the Armenians were forced to leave their homeland, others by the forced resettlement or deportation of savage states. The forcible deportation had several goals: first, to evict the Armenian territories in order to appropriate them once and for all, on the other hand, to make those territories unattractive or unsuitable for the enemy neighboring countries. Our immediate neighbors, Byzantium, Persia, Rech Pospolita, Transylvania, Russia, India, have forcibly or peacefully populated villages, towns, and regions with Armenians. By deporting, sometimes taking advantage of, providing land, economic privileges, national educational, cultural, religious freedoms, granting internal autonomy, Armenians settled their uninhabited or occupied territories, using their commercial and craft potential for their own security and development. What was the reason for this kind of friendly attitude towards Armenians? The answer is obvious. Armenians are hardworking, progressive and, also, peace-loving/peaceful.

On this subject, I would love to remind a part from the history of the Crimea. When Russian Empress Catherine II (1762-96) instructed Prince Potemkin to seize the Crimea, he took the following step: invited the Greeks and Christian Armenians, granted tax and property privileges to his country. The caravans of Christian Armenians and Greeks moved to Christian Russia, as a result of which the short-lived worker collapsed economically and lost his resistance on the eve of the Russian invasion.

Byzantium once weakened the Armenian kingdoms, evicted Armenians, paved the way for the Turkish troops to the depths of the country, to Constantinople and perished, so the Turks did not shy/keep away from any means, even resorting to genocide and statelessness, depriving themselves of a viable Christian element.

The West will also greatly contribute to this, as soon as it gets rid of Britains We have no fixed allies, we have no eternal enemies. Only our interests are immutable and eternal(Henry Temple, Lord Palmerson, 1848) destructive philosophy. It is necessary to have permanent friends, which can be achieved only through mutually beneficial cooperation.

Although, at first sight, the words of praise from many famous foreigners about the Armenian people may seem to have been exaggerated, they are really justified. However, this does not still mean that Armenians are the best people of the world, at least because there are many good nations, who have greatly contributed to the development of human civilization. For centuries, Armenians, having been under the brutal rule of foreigners, have taken many of their flaws and now they have left the national-moral image of their ancestors out having lost many values. Accordingly, I am sending a message to Armenians not only to be proud of the glory and praise of the past, but also to make efforts to restore the special majesty and virtue of the Armenian nation, and to get rid of foreign flaws. Only with that self-purification and exaltation you will be able to consider yourself a virtuous people, which is more important than the praise of others.

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In The Bends And Labyrinths Of Civilizations - Modern Diplomacy

In the opinion of many the greatest of all composers, Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart (1756-1791) began his career as a child prodigy, and went on to achieve pre-eminence in every genre to which he turned his hand. His music combines melodic beauty, with innovative formal perfection and a remarkable ability to capture and explore deep ambiguities of emotion and feeling.

Many of his works are immediately familiar, among them Eine Kleine Nachtmusik, K525; Symphony No 40 in G Minor, K550; and the slow movement of Piano Concerto No 21 in C, K467, popularised in the 1960s by Bo Widerbergs film Elvira Madigan, and heard since in countless adverts. (The letter K, appended to Mozarts music, refers to Ludwig von Kchels 1862 catalogue of his output). Ingmar Bergman and Kenneth Branagh filmed Die Zauberflte (The Magic Flute), and countless directors have used his music in their films, including Luis Buuel in LAge dOr and Elem Klimov in Come and See. Peter Shaffers 1979 play Amadeus, filmed in 1984, is a well-known, if inaccurate, dramatisation of Mozarts years in Vienna, coloured by the much voiced, if hugely disputed idea, particularly prevalent in the 19th century, that his music was divine in origin and represents the voice of God embodied in sound.

He was born in Salzburg, the son of a composer-violinist at the citys archiepiscopal court. Leopold Mozart (1719-1787) was determined to exploit Wolfgangs talent, which was apparent by the time he was five, when he composed his first pieces. From the age of six, Leopold took his miracle son on extended tours of Europe, exhibiting him at courts and academies, where his precocity as both composer and pianist was much admired. Wolfgang absorbed and assimilated the music he heard during their travels, composing his first symphony when he was eight, in London, where the Mozarts encountered Johann Christian Bach (Johann Sebastians youngest son), whose own symphonies influenced the boys work.

Mozart wrote his first opera, the Latin intermezzo Apollo et Hyacinthus, when he was 11, following it a year later with Bastien und Bastienne, a singspiel (a work in German with spoken dialogue) and the Italian comedy La Finta Semplice. When he was 17, he entered the service of the new Prince-Archbishop of Salzburg, Hieronymus von Colloredo, though he was later permitted to make forays elsewhere, to Paris and Mannheim in 1777-78, finally without Leopold, and Munich in 1780-81.

He came to detest Salzburg as restrictive, though his years in the city saw the gradual consolidation of his style. Many of his symphonies date from this period, as does his first important piano concerto, No 9 in E Flat K271, commonly known as the Jeunehomme. His five violin concertos were composed between 1773 and 1775: the adagio of the Third is an exquisite example of his bittersweet melodic style. The Sinfonia Concertante for Violin and Viola among the first works to use the viola as a solo instrument dates from 1779.

Mozart lived during the closing years of the Enlightenment, when the philosophical rationalism of the early 18th century was challenged by cults of feeling that pre-empted Romanticism. The philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau, also a composer, encouraged ideas of sensibility and subjectivity, and Bastien und Bastienne parodies Rousseaus 1752 opera Le Devin du Village. Mozart also lived at a time when an emerging bourgeoisie began to challenge aristocratic assumptions about privilege and libertinage, which strongly colours the emphasis on class conflict and differing codes of sexual behaviour in his later operas. His librettist Lorenzo Da Ponte was a friend of Casanova, while the games of erotic manipulation of Cos Fan Tutte echo those of Lacloss 1782 novel Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

Idomeneo, Mozarts first mature opera, was premiered in Munich in January 1781. Later that year, Mozart broke decisively if acrimoniously with Colloredos court, settling in Vienna as a freelance composer, performer and teacher, though in 1787, he secured a part-time position at the imperial court, primarily composing dance music. In 1782 he married the soprano Constanze Weber. Though the idea that Mozart lived in poverty has been much exaggerated, the couple were frequently short of money. Mozart became a Freemason in 1784: his later correspondence with his fellow Mason Michael von Puchberg contains repeated requests for financial assistance.

In the last decade of his life, he produced a sequence of extraordinary masterpieces on which his reputation primarily rests. For his own subscription concerts, he composed 15 remarkable piano concertos, Nos 11 to 25, for himself and his pupils to play, giving the form new prominence, depth and seriousness. Discovery of the works of Bach and Handel strongly influenced his use of counterpoint in both symphonic development and operatic ensembles. He also became friends with Haydn, drawing upon the latters pioneering innovations in symphonic and chamber music. His chamber works from the period also include two major string quintets and the E Flat Divertimento, K563, the first important work for string trio in musical history.

His most familiar symphonies also date from the 1780s, including the concise Haffner No 35 in D, K385, from 1782, and the more expansive Prague No 38, also in D, K504, premiered during his first visit to the city in 1787. His last three symphonies were written in rapid succession during the summer of 1788. Mozarts use of counterpoint is little short of dazzling in No 41 in C, K551, the Jupiter, above all in the final movement, which weaves five themes together in one of the most jubilant passages in the entire symphonic repertoire.

In 1782, meanwhile, the singspiel Die Entfhrung aus dem Serail, an imperial commission, proved popular at its premiere, though its virtuoso vocal writing provoked the Emperor Joseph IIs infamous comment that the opera had too many notes. The late 1780s were dominated, however, by his collaboration with Da Ponte on Le Nozze di Figaro (1786), Don Giovanni (1787) and Cos Fan Tutte (1790). Figaro and Cos are both described as opera buffas (comic operas), while Don Giovanni, with its metaphysical narrative of desire and damnation, is a dramma giocoso, altogether darker in mood. All three are works of tremendous humanity, driven by an astonishing succession of arias and extended ensembles, which reveal Mozarts ability to empathise fully with each of his characters in turn, even in moments of violence, moral uncertainty or existential crisis, resulting in a sense of profound emotional ambiguity that far transcends any conventional notion of comedy and tragedy.

Die Zauberflte was written as a popular entertainment, not unlike pantomime

In 1791, the last year of his life, Mozart composed a further pair of string quintets, his only Clarinet Concerto, and his last two, very different operas. La Clemenza di Tito is an opera seria examining the moral responsibilities of absolute power. The singspiel Die Zauberflte was written as a popular entertainment, not unlike pantomime, for a suburban Viennese theatre, overlaying a sprawling fairytale with esoteric Masonic imagery.

At his death, he left unfinished his Requiem, commissioned by an aristocratic patron, who probably intended to pass it off as his own. We owe the legend that Mozart came to believe he was writing it for his own funeral to Constanze, whose veracity has frequently been questioned. Its first posthumous completion, by his pupil Franz Xaver Sssmayr, is nowadays most frequently heard, though others have prepared performing editions of the score.

Mozarts music has never been out of the repertory, though the reputation of individual works fluctuated after his death: the 19th century, for instance, found Cos Fan Tutte trivial, and it was only in the 20th that its subtlety and sadness became widely appreciated. The depth and range of Mozarts symphonies and concertos, however, have long represented the pinnacle of classical form, and his operas are performed in every opera house in the world. In Mozarts own lifetime, Haydn acknowledged him as a genius superior to himself, and the many composers who later considered him the greatest of all include Tchaikovsky and Richard Strauss.

Mozarts music has been extensively recorded, using both conventional forces and period instruments. Interpreters as far apart as Karl Bhm and Charles Mackerras have tackled the complete symphonies, though few have quite captured the exaltation of the Jupiter more powerfully than Otto Klemperer, and Nikolaus Harnoncourts intense way with the late symphonies is immensely appealing. There are complete cycles of the piano concertos by Alfred Brendel, Murray Perahia and Christian Zacharias, while significant interpreters of the violin works include Isabelle Faust and Giuliano Carmignola. Karl Bhms recordings of the major operas have been much admired over the years, with John Eliot Gardiner and Harnoncourt providing superb alternatives. Klemperers authoritative way with Don Giovanni, though, remains uniquely compelling: his Zauberflte is similarly still considered a classic, as is Erich Kleibers 1955 recording of Le Nozze di Figaro.

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Mozart: where to start with his music - The Guardian