Friday, September 26, 2014
The Emerald Tablets Of Thoth
https://www.dropbox.com/s/03eoxqs7moj92yn/The_Emerald_Tablets_Of_Thoth.pdf?dl=0
Friday, September 19, 2014
Genocide Of Tasmanians
The Tasmanian genocide (fl. 1826-1829) is where white British settlers wiped out nearly all the native people of Tasmania (then called Van Diemen’s Land) and then sent the few hundred still alive to prison camps where they died of disease and despair. Truganini (pictured), the last full-blooded Tasmanian, died in 1876.
There were 6,000 Tasmanians. They had lived in Tasmania for 30,000 years. They were hunter-gatherers, each band with its own lands which it hunted and maintained with controlled burnings.
In 1803 white British settlers began to arrive.
Native Tasmanians were, at least on paper, British subjects with the full and equal protection of the law. In practice, though, even when the government knew of “murders and abominable cruelties” committed by whites against Tasmanians it did nothing.
Despite killings, there was an uneasy peace of sorts. Whites lived along the coast. Most of the good hunting lands were still under Tasmanian control.
Then in 1817 whites discovered that Tasmanian lands were great for raising sheep. From 1819 to 1824 the British government took, without treaty or payment, huge amounts of Tasmanian land.
From about 1823 Tasmanians grew increasingly violent. In 1826 Governor George Arthur declared them “open enemies” beyond the protection of the law. It was now open season on killing Tasmanians, what some call the War of Extermination.
Reasons whites killed Tasmanians:
- to get revenge for past killings (1 white = 70 Tasmanians);
- to protect “their” land and their sheep;
- to take Tasmanian women and girls for forced labour and sex;
- for sport;
- just because.
By 1829, with only a few hundred Tasmanians left, the governor suffered a sudden a fit of conscience. He changed to a policy of “conciliation and protection” – meaning capture and imprisonment.
The government rounded up the remaining Tasmanians and sent them to prison camps, which featured:
- vermin,
- high-salt diets,
- poor water supply,
- separation of children from parents,
- re-education in Christian civilization,
- white respiratory diseases.
In 1830 the government set up the Aborigines Committee to look into why Tasmanians were so hostile. It mainly blamed Tasmanian treachery and savagery – not its own robbery of their land.
By the 1850s the genocide was already being written off as “natural” and “inevitable”, what the late 1800s would see as Darwinian fate. Good Christians did not like being called animals by Darwin – but were not above using his ideas when they acted like animals.
In the late 1800s when mixed-race Tasmanians, the children of those stolen Tasmanian women and girls, asked for their land back, the government sent them to Cape Barren Island, where they lived until 1951 beyond the reach of the law. From the 1920s to 1970s the government took their children from them to teach them white ways.
Since the 1990s there have been some land given back and apologies made.
The g-word: Most Australian historians do not regard it as genocide – that would require proof of “intent”.
Source: “Forgotten Genocides” (2011), edited by Rene Lemarchand.
#Boycott Exodus Movie
Frustration with an all-white main cast in "Exodus: Gods and Kings"
was voiced earlier this week in the hashtag campaign,
#BoycottExodusMovie.
The Old Testament epic is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Christian Bale as Moses, Aaron Paul as Joshua, John Turturro as Seti, Ben Kingsley as Nun and Sigourney Weaver as Tuya. Earlier this month, Entertainment Weekly released initial photos of the film release, which Twitter users quickly pointed out showed that while Moses, Pharaoh and other Egyptian royalty were played by white actors, black actors were cast as slaves.
This is not the first time that biblical films have been criticized for "whitewashing." In an op-ed for Sojourners last year, Ryan Herring noted that his initial excitement for "Noah" and "Exodus" turned to "disdain" after realizing that "not a single one of the leading roles in either movie was given to a person of Middle Eastern descent."
"Some things never change. In Hollywood, whitewashing, also known as racebending, is one of many longstanding tradition...Historically, this practice was used to discriminate against actors, both male and female, of color," wrote Herring. "The most common examples of this in the past were white actors dressing up in what is known as blackface, redface, and yellowface. While maybe not as controversial or blatant today, the practice of whitewashing still continues in Hollywood...[where] roles from scripts that clearly call for a person of color are given to white actors."
Throughout the history of European imperialism and colonialism this type of indoctrination was present. Depictions of white only Biblical figures (including prophets, angels, Jesus, etc.) were intentionally used to subconsciously indoctrinate the false belief of white divinity (and therefore superiority) upon the minds of the oppressed and conquered," he continued. "By allowing Hollywood to hijack Biblical stories and display them however they please, we as Christians have also allowed them to be cheapened. We often miss out on cultural aesthetics, language, motifs, and overall richness when stories are told through the lens of European ideals and thought patterns."
The Old Testament epic is directed by Ridley Scott and stars Christian Bale as Moses, Aaron Paul as Joshua, John Turturro as Seti, Ben Kingsley as Nun and Sigourney Weaver as Tuya. Earlier this month, Entertainment Weekly released initial photos of the film release, which Twitter users quickly pointed out showed that while Moses, Pharaoh and other Egyptian royalty were played by white actors, black actors were cast as slaves.
This is not the first time that biblical films have been criticized for "whitewashing." In an op-ed for Sojourners last year, Ryan Herring noted that his initial excitement for "Noah" and "Exodus" turned to "disdain" after realizing that "not a single one of the leading roles in either movie was given to a person of Middle Eastern descent."
"Some things never change. In Hollywood, whitewashing, also known as racebending, is one of many longstanding tradition...Historically, this practice was used to discriminate against actors, both male and female, of color," wrote Herring. "The most common examples of this in the past were white actors dressing up in what is known as blackface, redface, and yellowface. While maybe not as controversial or blatant today, the practice of whitewashing still continues in Hollywood...[where] roles from scripts that clearly call for a person of color are given to white actors."
Throughout the history of European imperialism and colonialism this type of indoctrination was present. Depictions of white only Biblical figures (including prophets, angels, Jesus, etc.) were intentionally used to subconsciously indoctrinate the false belief of white divinity (and therefore superiority) upon the minds of the oppressed and conquered," he continued. "By allowing Hollywood to hijack Biblical stories and display them however they please, we as Christians have also allowed them to be cheapened. We often miss out on cultural aesthetics, language, motifs, and overall richness when stories are told through the lens of European ideals and thought patterns."
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