#British Colonial Administrators

[communistkenobi]

I know this isn’t a novel observation but I’ve been reading a lot of articles about colonial and imperial policy (specifically demography history papers) & one pattern that keeps coming up is that colonial/imperial governments try to institute what can reasonably be described as “good” social policies in colonised places (like vaccine programs, funding for schools, etc, things that are associated with the smooth functioning of a state), and these are often rejected by local colonised governments and people because like obviously they don’t trust colonial/imperial administrators wanting to become involved with their healthcare or education. And what often ends up happening is this backlash against “progressive” policies because they’re being pushed by colonial governments, so you get shit like the Catholic Church running all the primary schools in Ireland because they refuse to open British-funded state schools, or people refusing to immunize their children because those “public goods” are (rationally & understandably) associated with things like US imperial population management programs. And then these colonial & imperial administrators turn around and say look! These people won’t even accept money for schools and vaccines! Look how backwards they are! And paint colonised populations as Great Rejectors of Democracy which western populations then readily eat up. Just a really horrendous feedback loop of misery that generates a lot of ‘secondary’ death and violence on top direct colonial oppression and plunder

[probablyasocialecologist]

Palestine Action ruined a 1914 painting by Philip Alexius de László inside Trinity College, University of Cambridge of Lord Arthur James Balfour – the colonial administrator and signatory of the Balfour Declaration [1]. An activist slashed the homage and sprayed the artwork with red paint, symbolising the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917.  Arthur Balfour, then UK Foreign secretary, issued a declaration which promised to build “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, where the majority of the indigenous population were not Jewish [2]. He gave away the Palestinians homeland — a land that wasn’t his to give away.   After the Declaration, until 1948, the British burnt down indigenous villages to prepare the way; with this came arbitrary killings, arrests, torture, sexual violence including rape against women and men, the use of human shields and the introduction of home demolitions as collective punishment to repress Palestinian resistance [3] [4]. The British were initiating the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, fulfilling the Zionist aim to build their ‘home’ over the top of what were Palestinian communities, towns, villages, farms and ancestral land, rich in heritage, culture and ancient archeological history [5]. The Palestinians refer to this time as the Nakba — which translates into the great catastrophe. In 1948, the Zionist militia, trained by the British, forced over 750,000 Palestinians into exile, destroyed over 500 villages and forced those who remained to live under a brutal reign of occupation [6].

[fatehbaz]

was thinking about this

To be in "public", you must be a consumer. Or a laborer.

About control of peoples' movement in space/place. Since the beginning.

"Vagrancy" of 1830s-onward Britain, people criminalized for being outside without being a laborer.

Breaking laws resulted in being sentenced to coerced debtor/convict labor. Coinciding with the 1830-ish climax of the Industrial Revolution and the land enclosure acts, the "Workhouse Act" aka "Poor Law Amendment Act of 1834" forced poor people to work for a minimum number of hours every day. The major expansion of the "Vagrancy Act" of 1838 made "joblessness" a crime and enhanced its punishment. (Coincidentally, the law's date of royal assent was 27 July 1838, just 5 days before the British government was scheduled to allow fuller emancipation of its technical legal abolition of slavery in the British Caribbean on 1 August 1838.)

---

"Vagrancy" of 1860s-onward United States, people criminalized for being outside while Black.

Widespread emancipation after slavery abolition in 1865 rapidly followed by the outlawing of loitering which de facto outlawed existing as Black in public. Inability to afford fines results in being sentenced to forced labor by working on chain gangs or prisons farms, some built atop plantations.

---

"Vagrancy" of 1870s-onward across empires, people criminalized for being outside while being "foreign" and also being poor generally.

Especially from 1880-ish to 1918-ish, this was an age of widespread mass movement of peoples due to mass poverty and famine induced by global colonial extraction and "market expansion", as agricultural "revolutions" of monoculture/cash crop extraction resulted in ecological degradation. This coincides with and is facilitated by new railroads and telegraphs, leading to imperial implementation or expansion of identity documents, strict work contracts, passports, immigration surveillance, and border checkpoints.

All of this in just a few short years: In 1877, British administrators in India develop what would become the Henry Classification System of taking and keeping fingerprints for use in binding colonial Indians to legal contracts. That same year during the 1877 Great Railroad Strike, and in response to white anxiety about Black residents coming to the city during Great Migration, Chicago's policing institutions exponentially expand surveillance and pioneer "intelligence card" registers for tracking labor union organizing and Black movement, as Chicago's experiments become adopted by US military and expanded nationwide, later used by US forces monitoring dissent in colonial Philippines and Cuba. Japan based its 1880 Penal Code anti-vagrancy statutes on French models, and introduced "koseki" register to track poor/vagrant domestic citizens as Tokyo's Governor Matsuda segregates classes, and the nation introduces "modern police forces". In 1882, the United States passes the Chinese Exclusion Act. In 1884, the Ottoman government enacts major "Passport Nizamnamesi" legislation requiring passports. In 1885, during the "Tacoma riot" or "expulsion", a mob of hundreds of white residents rounded up all of the city's Chinese residents, marched them to the train station, kicked them out of the city, and burned down the Chinese neighborhood, introducing what is called "the Tacoma method".

Punished for being Chinese in San Francisco. Punished for being Korean in Japan. Punished for crossing Ottoman borders without correct paperwork. Arrested for whatever, then sent to do convict labor. A poor person in the Punjab, starving during a catastrophic famine, might be coerced into a work contract by British authorities. They will have to travel, shipped off to build a railroad in British Kenya. But now they have to work. Now they are bound. They will be punished for being Punjabi and trying to walk away from Britain's tea plantations in Assam or Britain's rubber plantations in Malaya.

---

"Vagrancy" amidst all of this, people also criminalized for being outside while "unsightly" and merely even superficially appearing to be poor. San Francisco introduced the notorious "ugly law" in 1867, making it illegal for "any person, who is diseased, maimed, mutilated or deformed in any way, so as to be an unsightly or disgusting object, to expose himself or herself to public view". Today, if you walk into a building looking a little "weird" (poor, Black, ill, disabled, etc.) or carrying a small backpack, you are given seething spiteful glares and asked to leave.

"Vagrancy" everywhere in the United States, a combination of all of the above. De facto criminalized for simply going for a stroll without downloading the coffee shop's exclusive menu app. "Vagrancy", since at least early nineteenth century Europe. About the control of movement through and access to space/place. Concretizing and weaponizing caste, corralling people, anchoring them in place (de facto confinement), extracting their wealth/labor.

You are permitted to exist only as a paying customer or an employee.

[esyra]

Killing 1300+ Jews in barbaric ways does not make you the good guys. Israel retaliating is Hamas’ fault. Hamas surrendering would mean peace. Israel surrendering would have more dead Jews. But i guess that’s the end goal.

No, we're always the barbaric terrorists. Israel is the good guy for killing 9,000+ Gazans the past 25 days, and trapping 1,000+ under the rubble which will definitely turn out dead if they ever get the proper equipment to lift it off them. Israel is the good guy for killing Shireen Abu Akleh. Israel is the good guy for killing Ahmed Erekat. Israel is the good guy for killing Nadim Nuwarah and Mohammed Salameh. Israel is the good guy for opening fire on 2,400 protesters and killing 52. Israel is the good guy for holding over 1,000 Palestinians as "administrative detainees," meaning they are held indefinitely without charges.

In fact, Israel has been the good guy ever since they got the British to help them colonize Palestine and get rid of the Arabs, as they admitted to wanting it themselves. After all, as Winston Churchill said himself, the colonization of Palestine was righteous because as the Red Indians of America, and the black people of Australia, "a stronger race, a higher grade race, or, at any rate, a more worldly-wise race, to put it that way, has come in and taken their place."

Palestinians, be it on Gaza or the West Bank, can never retaliate or defend themselves. We're to either die and be violated quietly or we are terrorists which will be gleefully eradicated with the help of every colony-based State in the world. Otherwise, we'll disturb the comfortable privilege your racism and religious intolerance ensures.

When Hamas didn't existed the occupation began and the British violently suppressed anyone who opposed. When Hamas didn't exist the Nakba happened. When Hamas didn't exist the Deir Yassin massacre happened. But, you know, that one's fine because it happened after Israel had made Palestine agree to a peace pact, and they would never act unfairly so the brutal murder of over 100 Palestinians is obviously being misunderstood. Hamas doesn't operate in the West Bank, but they're still expelled from their homes, brutalized and murdered. Since October 7, West Bank had 115 killed, more than 2,000 injured and nearly 1,000 others forcibly displaced from their homes because of violence and intimidation by Israeli forces and settlers. They'll bomb mosques with exit points created to save people from settlers' violence, then claim they were used for terrorism. Proof? They don't need it. They'll bomb first then ask questions later.

Do people who blindly defend Israel do anything other than victimize yourselves? Do you even read any actual Israeli news that said the IDF "shell[ed] houses on their occupants," because they're too incompetent to do anything other than bombing everything? Do you ever wonder why the people Israel swears were burned and beheaded always came from reports from houses absolutely destroyed by what could only be shelling? Do you ever hear testimonies from survivors of the massacre saying IDF shoot at their own civilians? Do you ever read about past al-Qassam attacks and noticed they've never had mass casualties because IDF never responded like this? Do you even know what al-Qassam is or do you live to regurgitate whatever you're fed and being spoon-fed your information?

If Hamas' militia surrenders, Gaza will be wiped out and Gazans — those who are not murdered — will be exiled into Egypt's Sinai. That's the end goal since 1948, and that's what you're defending. But who cares? Arab blood is cheaper and racism is always fashionable.

[bookloversofbath]

Kenya: From Chartered Company to Crown Colony: Thirty Years of Exploration and Administration in British East Africa :: Charles W. Hobley

[txttletale]

This is a genuine question, I want to understand your perspective:

The residents of the Falklands/Malvinas themselves overwhelmingly want to remain in the UK, as shown by the 2013 poll, so what would be the point in Argentina taking them over? Who is the beneficiary here?

obviously i think self-determination is important--i think it is much more important than concepts like 'territorial sovereignty' or litigating the legitimacy of centuries old national claims -- and if it were in fact just a matter of some guys living on a rock in the sea who would prefer for their passports to say 'UK' instead of 'Argentina' i would agree that their wishes should be respected. but the UK's control over the malvinas isn't neutral or innocuous--they have 1,300-1,700 military personnel on the islands with air force and naval facilities (this is just over one british soldier for every three actual inhabitants of the falklands!)

additionally, the islands are being used as the base for extremely lucrative oil drilling, which i think is impossible to interpret as anything other than another entry in the long long history of european colonial plunder of the natural resources of south america. so ultimately, i think self-determination is important, but the malvinas/falklands are clearly a case in which the principle of self-determination is being cynically exploited by the UK to maintain a military and economic/industrial presence in south america drastically out of proportion with the tiny population of the islands.

i think any realistic solution would have to involve some kind of joint administration and the ability for the current inhabitants to keep whatever citizenship they want--but the way that national sovereignty works in the world on a de facto level means that 'the people on the islands want to be british' comes packaged with 'and therefore the uk can keep a proportionally enormous military force there and claim exclusive oil rights off argentina's coast' and i think that package is overall a net negative & an enabler of british neoimperialism

[metamatar]

Since the early days of British involvement with Zionism, Churchill sanctioned the dispossession of non-Jewish Palestinians by assuring that they have no voice in the affairs of their own land. “In the interests of the Zionist policy,” he stated in August 1921 as the government minister in charge of Britain’s colonies, “all elective institutions have so far been refused to the Arabs.”

A snapshot of Churchill’s stances on Palestine and race is found in the records of the 1937 Peel Commission hearings, convened to address a major revolt in Palestine. [...]

Horace Rumbold [...] asked whether Zionist policy is worth “the lives of our men, and so on.” And did it follow, he asked Churchill, that having “conquered Palestine we can dispose of it as we like?”

Churchill replied to that and similar questions by invoking commitments given when Britain captured Palestine toward the end of 1917. “We decided in the process of conquest of [Palestine] to make certain pledges to the Jews,” Churchill said.

Apparently skeptical, the head of the commission, William Peel, asked Churchill if it is not “a very odd self-government” when “it is only when the Jews are a majority that we can have it.”

Churchill responded with a blunt argument of might: “We have every right to strike hard in support of our authority.”

The historian Reginald Coupland nonetheless told the hearings that the “average Englishman” would wonder why the Arabs were being denied self-government, and why we had “to go on shooting the Arabs down because of keeping his promise to the Jews.”

Peel, similarly, asked Churchill if the British public “might get rather tired and rather inquisitive if every two or three years there was a sort of campaign against the Arabs and we sent out troops and shot them down? They would begin to enquire, ‘Why is it done? What is the fault of these people?… Why are you doing it? In order to get a home for the Jews?’”

“And it would mean rather brutal methods,” added Laurie Hammond, who had worked with the British colonial administration in India. “I do not say the methods of the Italians at Addis Ababa,” referring to Benito Mussolini’s Ethiopian massacre of February 1937, “but it would mean the blowing up of villages and that sort of thing?” The British, he recalled, had blown up part of the Palestinian port city of Jaffa.

Peel agreed, and added that “they blew up a lot of [Palestinian] houses all over the place in order to awe the population. I have seen photographs of these things going up in the air.”

But when Peel questioned whether “it is not only a question of being strong enough,” but of “downing” the Arabs who simply wanted to remain in their own country, Churchill lost patience.

“I do not admit that the dog in the manger has the final right to the manger,” he countered, “even though he may have lain there for a very long time.” He denied that “a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America, or the Black people of Australia,” by their replacement with “a higher grade race.”

[fairuzfan]

I believe the word Palestine was first written in 5 BCE to refer to a part of Syria specifically. So I was curious about you saying how "Palestine" as a nation goes back 4000 years? From what I've read, the land was called Judaea in pre-biblical times, and then was renamed Syria Palaestina when it was corporated as a Roman province. The people who are from what is today variously Syria/Jordan/Lebanon/Iraq and migrated to the land only began to identify as Palestinian in the 1960s for the national resistance movement (because it had been known as Mandatory Palestine in the 1900s under the British) -- however even pre-British rule, under the Ottoman Empire it was referred to as "Southern Syria" by many who migrated and lived there over hundreds of years, and/or had varying names because the land (known as "Palestine" now) was divided with no one centralised administrative control. I'm in no way saying this delegitimises the liberation struggle for people known as Palestinian today obviously (and I grew up with a friend from there, whose family fled from Israel, who identified as Palestinian + Lebanese simultaneously for political/personal reasons which adds to my understanding of this) Saying Palestine has 4000 years of history seems to me like saying any country has 4000 years of history just because the land existed at all, even though the term is relatively recent & was only ever first used within the common era, and the land had multiple other earlier names, even during the Ottoman rule right before the British gave the name of "Mandatory Palestine" to specified territories within the last century.

This is not true actually, palestine was referred to as palestine in Assyrian transcriptions and among greek scholars. I really recommend reading "Palestine: a 4000 year history" by nur masalha. It dates the use of the word Palestine and describes how zionists often manipulate archeology to align with biblical stories. He also goes more specifically into the names of different regions (Gaza, Askelon, etc) and describes their relevance to identifying Palestine.

Now I feel like I was misunderstood a little that Palestine was a "nation" because in arabic there are 2 words to describe this, "watan" which is more contemporary and used in the 18th century i believe and "balad" which is far far older. Both terms have different implications. I can't exactly describe it but when I say "nation" I'm not speaking contemporarily. Masalha discusses this too.

But yeah he also discusses how Philistines were not a seafaring people as commonly thought but archeological finds suggest that we're indigenous to the geographic area of Palestine.

There's more but even just the introduction summarizes the history of the word "Palestine" and the colonial implications of denying its relevance. Really recommend a lot of Masalha's books actually.

[taviamoth]

Palestine Action activists destroyed a 1914 painting of Arthur James Balfour, the colonial administrator and signatory of the Balfour Declaration.

Palestine Action stated, "An activist slashed the homage and sprayed the artwork with red paint, symbolising the bloodshed of the Palestinian people since the Balfour Declaration was issued in 1917. "

"Arthur Balfour, then UK Foreign secretary, issued a declaration which promised to build “a national home for the Jewish people” in Palestine, where the majority of the indigenous population were not Jewish. He gave away the Palestinians homeland — a land that wasn’t his to give away."

"After the Declaration, until 1948, the British burnt down indigenous villages to prepare the way; with this came arbitrary killings, arrests, torture, sexual violence including rape against women and men, the use of human shields and the introduction of home demolitions as collective punishment to repress Palestinian resistance."

"The British were initiating the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, fulfilling the Zionist aim to build their ‘home’ over the top of what were Palestinian communities, towns, villages, farms and ancestral land, rich in heritage, culture and ancient archeological history."

"In the past 154 days of genocide in Gaza, Israel has killed over 30,000 Palestinians, injured over 72,000 and displaced over 1.9million — 80% of the Gaza population."

"Britain’s support for the continued colonisation of Palestine hasn’t wavered since 1917.

"Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms supplier, who use captive Palestinians in Gaza as a human laboratory to develop their weapons, use Britain as a manufacturing outpost. The Israeli weapons maker build weaponry in factories across the country and work closely with the British government.

"Palestine Action vows to continue their direct campaign until Elbit is shut down and British complicity with the colonisation of Palestine ends. "

[writingwithcolor]

My alternate universe fantasy colonial Hong Kong is more authoritarian and just as racist but less homophobic than in real life, should I change that?

@floatyhands asked:

I’m a Hongkonger working on a magical alternate universe dystopia set in what is basically British colonial Hong Kong in the late 1920s. My main character is a young upper middle-class Eurasian bisexual man.  I plan to keep the colony’s historical racial hierarchy in this universe, but I also want the fantasy quirks to mean that unlike in real life history, homosexuality was either recently decriminalized, or that the laws are barely enforced, because my boy deserves a break. Still, the institutions are quite homophobic, and this relative tolerance might not last. Meanwhile, due to other divergences (e.g. eldritch horrors, also the government’s even worse mishandling of the 1922 Seamen's Strike and the 1925 Canton-Hong Kong Strike), the colonial administration is a lot more authoritarian than it was in real history. This growing authoritarianism is not exclusive to the colony, and is part of a larger global trend in this universe.  I realize these worldbuilding decisions above may whitewash colonialism, or come off as choosing to ignore one colonial oppression in favor of exaggerating another. Is there any advice as to how I can address this issue? (Maybe I could have my character get away by bribing the cops, though institutional corruption is more associated with the 1960s?) Thank you!

Historical Precedent for Imperialistic Gay Rights

There is a recently-published book about this topic that might actually interest you: Racism And The Making of Gay Rights by Laurie Marhoefer (note: I have yet to read it, it’s on my list). It essentially describes how the modern gay rights movement was built from colonialism and imperialism. 

The book covers Magnus Hirschfeld, a German sexologist in the early 1900s, and (one of) his lover(s), Li Shiu Tong, who he met in British Shanghai. Magnus is generally considered to have laid the groundwork for a lot of gay rights, and his research via the Institut für Sexualwissenschaft was a target of Nazi book-burnings, but he was working with imperial governments in an era where the British Empire was still everywhere. 

Considering they both ended up speaking to multiple world leaders about natural human sexual variation both in terms of intersex issues and sexual attraction, your time period really isn’t that far off for people beginning to be slightly more open-minded—while also being deeply imperialist in other ways.

The thing about this particular time period is homosexuality as we know it was recently coming into play, starting with the trial of Oscar Wilde and the rise of Nazism. But between those two is a pretty wildly fluctuating gap of attitudes.

Oscar Wilde’s trial is generally considered the period where gay people, specifically men who loved men, started becoming a group to be disliked for disrupting social order. It was very public, very scandalous, and his fall from grace is one of the things that drove so many gay and/or queer men underground. It also helped produce some of the extremely queercoded classical literature of the Victorian and Edwardian eras (ex: Dracula), because so many writers were exploring what it meant to be seen as such negative forces. A lot of people hated Oscar Wilde for bringing the concept to such a public discussion point, when being discreet had been so important.

But come the 1920s, people were beginning to wonder if being gay was that bad, and Mangus Hirschfeld managed to do a world tour of speaking come the 1930s, before all of that was derailed by wwii. He (and/or Li Shiu Tong) were writing papers that were getting published and sent to various health departments about how being gay wasn’t an illness, and more just an “alternative” way of loving others. 

This was also the era of Boston Marriages where wealthy single women lived together as partners (I’m sure there’s an mlm-equivalent but I cannot remember or find it). People were a lot less likely to care if you kept things discreet, so there might be less day to day homophobia than one would expect. Romantic friendships were everywhere, and were considered the ideal—the amount of affection you could express to your same-sex best friend was far above what is socially tolerable now.

Kaz Rowe has a lot of videos with cited bibliographies about various queer disasters [affectionate] of the late 1800s/early 1900s, not to mention a lot of other cultural oddities of the Victorian era (and how many of those attitudes have carried into modern day) so you can start to get the proper terms to look it up for yourself.

I know there’s a certain… mistrust of specifically queer media analysts on YouTube in the current. Well. Plagiarism/fact-creation scandal (if you don’t know about the fact-creation, check out Todd in the Shadows). I recommend Kaz because they have citations on screen and in the description that aren’t whole-cloth ripped off from wikipedia’s citation list (they’ve also been published via Getty Publications, a museum press). 

For audio-preferring people (hi), a video is more accessible than text, and sometimes the exposure to stuff that’s able to pull exact terms can finally get you the resources you need. If text is more accessible, just jump to the description box/transcript and have fun. Consider them and their work a starting place, not a professor. 

There is always a vulnerability in learning things, because we can never outrun our own confirmation bias and we always have limited time to chase down facts and sources—we can only do our best and be open to finding facts that disprove what we researched prior.

Colonialism’s Popularity Problem

Something about colonialism that I’ve rarely discussed is how some colonial empires actually “allow” certain types of “deviance” if that deviance will temporarily serve its ends. Namely, when colonialism needs to expand its territory, either from landing in a new area or having recently messed up and needing to re-charm the population.

By that I mean: if a fascist group is struggling to maintain popularity, it will often conditionally open its doors to all walks of life in order to capture a greater market. It will also pay its spokespeople for the privilege of serving their ends, often very well. Authoritarians know the power of having the token supporter from a marginalized group on payroll: it both opens you up directly to that person’s identity, and sways the moderates towards going “well they allow [person/group] so they can’t be that bad, and I prefer them.”

Like it or not, any marginalized group can have its fascist members, sometimes even masquerading as the progressives. Being marginalized does not automatically equate to not wanting fascism, because people tend to want fascist leaders they agree with instead of democracy and coalition building. People can also think that certain people are exaggerating the horrors of colonialism, because it doesn’t happen to good people, and look, they accept their friends who are good people, so they’re fine. 

A dominant fascist group can absolutely use this to their advantage in order to gain more foot soldiers, which then increases their raw numbers, which puts them in enough power they can stop caring about opening their ranks, and only then do they turn on their “deviant” members. By the time they turn, it’s usually too late, and there’s often a lot of feelings of betrayal because the spokesperson (and those who liked them) thought they were accepted, instead of just used.

You said it yourself that this colonial government is even stricter than the historical equivalent—which could mean it needs some sort of leverage to maintain its popularity. “Allowing” gay people to be some variation of themselves would be an ideal solution to this, but it would come with a bunch of conditions. What those conditions are I couldn’t tell you—that’s for your own imagination, based off what this group’s ideal is, but some suggestions are “follow the traditional dating/friendship norms”, “have their own gender identity slightly to the left of the cis ideal”, and/or “pretend to never actually be dating but everyone knows and pretends to not care so long as they don’t out themselves”—that would signal to the reader that this is deeply conditional and about to all come apart. 

It would, however, mean your poor boy is less likely to get a break, because he would be policed to be the “acceptable kind of gay” that the colonial government is currently tolerating (not unlike the way the States claims to support white cis same-sex couples in the suburbs but not bipoc queer-trans people in polycules). It also provides a more salient angle for this colonial government to come crashing down, if that’s the way this narrative goes.

Colonial governments are often looking for scapegoats; if gay people aren’t the current one, then they’d be offered a lot more freedom just to improve the public image of those in power. You have the opportunity to have the strikers be the current scapegoats, which would take the heat off many other groups—including those hit by homophobia.

In Conclusion

Personally, I’d take a more “gays for Trump” attitude about the colonialism and their apparent “lack” of homophobia—they’re just trying to regain popularity after mishandling a major scandal, and the gay people will be on the outs soon enough.

You could also take the more nuanced approach and see how imperialism shaped modern gay rights and just fast-track that in your time period, to give it the right flavour of imperialism. A lot of BIPOC lgbtqa+ people will tell you the modern gay rights movement is assimilationalist, colonialist, and other flavours of ick, so that angle is viable.

You can also make something that looks more accepting to the modern eye by leaning heavily on romantic friendships that encouraged people waxing poetic for their “best friends”, keeping the “lovers” part deeply on the down low, but is still restrictive and people just don’t talk about it in public unless it’s in euphemisms or among other same-sex-attracted people because there’s nothing wrong with loving your best friend, you just can’t go off and claim you’re a couple like a heterosexual couple is.

Either way, you’re not sanitizing colonialism inherently by having there be less modern-recognized homophobia in this deeply authoritarian setting. You just need to add some guard rails on it so that, sure, your character might be fine if he behaves, but there are still “deviants” that the government will not accept. 

Because that’s, in the end, one of the core tenants that makes a government colonial: its acceptance of groups is frequently based on how closely you follow the rules and police others for not following them, and anyone who isn’t their ideal person will be on the outs eventually. But that doesn’t mean they can’t have a facade of pretending those rules are totally going to include people who are to the left of those ideals, if those people fit in every other ideal, or you’re safe only if you keep it quiet.

~ Leigh

[haggishlyhagging]

The evidence marshaled by anthropologists showing the effects of Western colonialism on traditional female power and authority is impressive. The work of some writers has led to the conclusion that "the penetration of Western colonialism, and with it Western practices and attitudes regarding women, have so widely influenced women's role in aboriginal societies as to depress women's status almost everywhere in the world." In this chapter two case studies showing the manner in which European influence eroded the bases of traditional female authority are presented.

In one case, the Igbo of southeastern Nigeria, the struggle was between Igbo women and British administrators, with Igbo men playing a passive but supportive role. In the other case, the Iroquois, the struggle was between Iroquoian women and the followers of a charismatic Iroquoian male who, aided by Quaker missionaries, sought to revitalize Iroquoian life and institute a new sex-role plan. In both cases women resisted the forces of change. Igbo female resistance led to the "women's war," in which thousands of women marched against the British and destroyed property. Iroquoian female resistance led to witchcraft accusations, resulting in the execution of some women for following traditional female patterns. The killing and wounding of approximately 100 Igbo women and the token executions among the Iroquois broke the spirit of resistance.

-Peggy Reeves Sanday, Female Power and Male Dominance: On the Origins of Sexual Inequality

[thematicparallel]

I have great respect for your husband, and I know what he wants me to say... that you have no choice but to use me and my men to hunt for you, that I am your only means of survival. But let's be honest. If that is all I can offer you, then my men and I are dead before the sun rises tomorrow, because you know there is always a choice to be made, and you don't trust me at all. So... let us assume that I can offer you something better. You have hidden in this place for a lifetime, hidden from the harsh realities that lie beyond this veil that you have constructed here, but the moment that that shot entered his belly, that veil began to unravel, and sooner or later, you are going to have to confront these realities, chief among them being that England takes whatever, whenever, however it wants. Lives. Loves. Labor. Spirits. Homes. It has taken them from me. I imagine that it has taken it from you. And when that veil drops altogether, they will come for more. You're suggesting that you could help us prevent England from taking these things? No, I am suggesting that we help each other start taking things back, and it starts with Nassau. You cannot stay here. This camp's secrecy is its virtue, but that secrecy is going. Nassau is defendable. Nassau can supply itself. Is that not exactly the sort of place that could replace this? A place that you could settle? Settle? Governor Woodes Rogers holds Nassau Town with a full company of British regulars. He holds the harbor with a small navy. He holds the men on the street with his pardons. Woodes Rogers has an inoperative fort, responsibility for an administrative nightmare that isn't going away just because he wants it to, and an island full of hunters that may be placated for now, but could be awoken. That I could awaken. How do you propose to do that? They pledged to follow me when they thought I was alive. They turned when they thought I was gone. So I will come back from the dead and lay claim to what I am owed. Let's say that by some miracle we could dislodge the British from Nassau. I could not possibly hope to defend it with my numbers. Your numbers? For every man in your camp, there are thousands somewhere in the West Indies living under the same yoke, chained in fields, pressed on ships, sold into indenture. When they see a sitting governor protected by his majesty's navy, deposed by an alliance of pirates and slaves, how many consider joining that fight? How many thousands of men will flock to Nassau, join your ranks, and help you defend it? What does a colonial power do when the men whose toil powers it lay down their shovels, take up swords, and say, "No more"? Bring down Nassau, maybe you bring it all down.

[transmutationisms]

i think you do a really impressive job balancing comprehensive/concise while referencing a lot of complex frameworks(contexts? schools of thought? lol idk what to call that. big brain ideas) but if you have any readings specifically on the institution of psychiatry topic that you would recommend/think are relevant, I'd be interested. it's absolutely not a conversation that's being had enough and I want to be able to articulate myself around it

yes i have readings >:)

first of all, the anti-psychiatry bibliography and resource guide is a great place to start getting oriented in this literature. it's split by sub-topic, and there are paragraphs interspersed throughout that give summaries of major thinkers' positions and short intros to key texts.

it's from 1979, though, so here are some recs from the last 4 decades:

overview critiques

mind fixers: psychiatry's troubled search for the biology of mental illness, by anne harrington

psychiatric hegemony: a marxist theory of mental illness, by bruce m z cohen

desperate remedies: psychiatry's turbulent quest to cure mental illness, by andrew scull

psychiatry and its discontents, by andrew scull

madness is civilization: when the diagnosis was social, 1948–1980, by michael e staub

contesting psychiatry: social movements in mental health, by nick crossley

the dsm & pharmacy

dsm: a history of psychiatry's bible, by allan v horwitz

the dsm-5 in perspective: philosophical reflections on the psychiatric babel, by steeves demazeux & patrick singy

pharmageddon, by david healy

pillaged: psychiatric medications and suicide risk, by ronald w maris

the making of dsm-iii: a diagnostic manual's conquest of american psychiatry, by hannah s decker

the myth of the chemical cure: a critique of psychiatric drug treatment, by joanna moncrieff

the book of woe: the dsm and the unmaking of psychiatry, by gary greenberg

prozac on the couch: prescribing gender in the era of wonder drugs, by jonathan metzl

the creation of psychopharmacology, by david healy

the bitterest pills: the troubling story of antipsychotic drugs, by joanna moncrieff

psychiatry & race

the protest psychosis: how schizophrenia became a black disease, by jonathan metzl

administrations of lunacy: racism and the haunting of american psychiatry at the milledgeville asylum, by mab segrest

the peculiar institution and the making of modern psychiatry, 1840–1880, by wendy gonaver

what's wrong with the poor? psychiatry, race, and the war on poverty, by mical raz

national and cross-national contexts

mad by the millions: mental disorders and the early years of the world health organization, by harry yi-jui wu

psychiatry and empire, by sloan mahone & megan vaughan

ʿaṣfūriyyeh: a history of madness, modernity, and war in the middle east, by joelle m abi-rached

surfacing up: psychiatry and social order in colonial zimbabwe, 1908–1968, by lynette jackson

the british anti-psychiatrists: from institutional psychiatry to the counter-culture, 1960–1971, by oisín wall

crime, madness, and politics in modern france: the medical concept of national decline, by robert a nye

reasoning against madness: psychiatry and the state in rio de janeiro, 1830–1944, by manuella meyer

colonial madness: psychiatry in french north africa, by richard keller

madhouse: psychiatry and politics in cuban history, by jennifer lynn lambe

depression in japan: psychiatric cures for a society in distress, by junko kitanaka

inheriting madness: professionalization and psychiatric knowledge in 19th century france, by ian r dowbiggin

mad in america: bad science, bad medicine, and the enduring mistreatment of the mentally ill, by robert whitaker

[fatehbaz]

Endangered Indian sandalwood. British war to control the forests. Tallying every single tree in the kingdom. European companies claim the ecosystem. Spices and fragrances. Failure of the plantation. Until the twentieth century, the Empire couldn't figure out how to cultivate sandalwood because they didn't understand that the plant is actually a partial root parasite. French perfumes and the creation of "the Sandalwood City".

---

Selling at about $147,000 per metric ton, the aromatic heartwood of Indian sandalwood (S. album) is arguably [among] the most expensive wood in the world. Globally, 90 per cent of the world’s S. album comes from India [...]. And within India, around 70 per cent of S. album comes from the state of Karnataka [...] [and] the erstwhile Kingdom of Mysore. [...] [T]he species came to the brink of extinction. [...] [O]verexploitation led to the sandal tree's critical endangerment in 1974. [...]

---

Francis Buchanan’s 1807 A Journey from Madras through the Countries of Mysore, Canara and Malabar is one of the few European sources to offer insight into pre-colonial forest utilisation in the region. [...] Buchanan records [...] [the] tradition of only harvesting sandalwood once every dozen years may have been an effective local pre-colonial conservation measure. [...] Starting in 1786, Tipu Sultan [ruler of Mysore] stopped trading pepper, sandalwood and cardamom with the British. As a result, trade prospects for the company [East India Company] were looking so bleak that by November 1788, Lord Cornwallis suggested abandoning Tellicherry on the Malabar Coast and reducing Bombay’s status from a presidency to a factory. [...] One way to understand these wars is [...] [that] [t]hey were about economic conquest as much as any other kind of expansion, and sandalwood was one of Mysore’s most prized commodities. In 1799, at the Battle of Srirangapatna, Tipu Sultan was defeated. The kingdom of Mysore became a princely state within British India [...]. [T]he East India Company also immediately started paying the [new rulers] for the right to trade sandalwood.

British control over South Asia’s natural resources was reaching its peak and a sophisticated new imperial forest administration was being developed that sought to solidify state control of the sandalwood trade. In 1864, the extraction and disposal of sandalwood came under the jurisdiction of the Forest Department. [...] Colonial anxiety to maximise profits from sandalwood meant that a government agency was established specifically to oversee the sandalwood trade [...] and so began the government sandalwood depot or koti system. [...]

From the 1860s the [British] government briefly experimented with a survey tallying every sandal tree standing in Mysore [...].

Instead, an intricate system of classification was developed in an effort to maximise profits. By 1898, an 18-tiered sandalwood classification system was instituted, up from a 10-tier system a decade earlier; it seems this led to much confusion and was eventually reduced back to 12 tiers [...].

---

Meanwhile, private European companies also made significant inroads into Mysore territory at this time. By convincing the government to classify forests as ‘wastelands’, and arguing that Europeans would improves these tracts from their ‘semi-savage state’, starting in the 1860s vast areas were taken from local inhabitants and converted into private plantations for the ‘production of cardamom, pepper, coffee and sandalwood’.

---

Yet attempts to cultivate sandalwood on both forest department and privately owned plantations proved to be a dismal failure. There were [...] major problems facing sandalwood supply in the period before the twentieth century besides overexploitation and European monopoly. [...] Before the first quarter of the twentieth century European foresters simply could not figure out how to grow sandalwood trees effectively.

The main reason for this is that sandal is what is now known as a semi-parasite or root parasite; besides a main taproot that absorbs nutrients from the earth, the sandal tree grows parasitical roots (or haustoria) that derive sustenance from neighbouring brush and trees. [...] Dietrich Brandis, the man often regaled as the father of Indian forestry, reported being unaware of the [sole significant English-language scientific paper on sandalwood root parasitism] when he worked at Kew Gardens in London on South Asian ‘forest flora’ in 1872–73. Thus it was not until 1902 that the issue started to receive attention in the scientific community, when C.A. Barber, a government botanist in Madras [...] himself pointed out, 'no one seems to be at all sure whether the sandalwood is or is not a true parasite'.

Well into the early decades of twentieth century, silviculture of sandal proved a complete failure. The problem was the typical monoculture approach of tree farming in which all other species were removed and so the tree could not survive. [...]

The long wait time until maturity of the tree must also be considered. Only sandal heartwood and roots develop fragrance, and trees only begin developing fragrance in significant quantities after about thirty years. Not only did traders, who were typically just sailing through, not have the botanical know-how to replant the tree, but they almost certainly would not be there to see a return on their investments if they did. [...]

---

The main problem facing the sustainable harvest and continued survival of sandalwood in India [...] came from the advent of the sandalwood oil industry at the beginning of the twentieth century. During World War I, vast amounts of sandal were stockpiled in Mysore because perfumeries in France had stopped production and it had become illegal to export to German perfumeries. In 1915, a Government Sandalwood Oil Factory was built in Mysore. In 1917, it began distilling. [...] [S]andalwood production now ramped up immensely. It was at this time that Mysore came to be known as ‘the Sandalwood City’.

---

Text above by: Ezra Rashkow. "Perfumed the axe that laid it low: The endangerment of sandalwood in southern India." Indian Economic and Social History Review 51, no. 1, pages 41-70. March 2014. [Bold emphasis and some paragraph breaks/contractions added by me. Italicized first paragraph/heading in this post added by me. Presented here for commentary, teaching, criticism purposes.]

[crimeronan]

guys. okay. rubs my temples.

i have blacklisted every word u can Possibly think of to block posts i do not want to see and somehow keep seeing them. so Please know that this is not a shit-starting post. hence why it's unrebloggable. because i legitimately just want to communicate to people in my immediate sphere.

it is... Not Acceptable Or Appropriate... to make/reblog posts referring to a collective of "jews" or "jewish people" in response to israel's genocide of palestine.

what i mean by this are posts along the lines of "what jews don't realize is-" "i wish american jews knew-" "can't wait to watch jewish bloggers come up with the worst takes imaginable-" etc etc etc.

it is similarly Not Acceptable Or Appropriate to refer to rabbis, synagogues, jewish practice, and other aspects of judaism/jewish culture as a monolithic hivemind that's loyal to israel. this includes "you're all being brainwashed by your rabbis/synagogues" "synagogues are zionist institutions" "stop speaking hebrew until your people stop committing war crimes" etc etc etc.

your kneejerk reaction (if u are a leftist goy) will likely be along the lines of: but it's simply like referring to a collective of british people or american people wrt imperialism, colonialism, and war crimes. you don't mean LITERALLY all jews, just like you don't mean literally all brits or americans.

this is unfortunately a false equivalence because of the antisemitic history and violence behind the idea of Monolithic Jews and Dual Loyalties. there is a quick overview of some of The Problems here; jewish scholarship and discussion of this is incredibly broad and varied... because jewish people are incredibly broad and varied.

like i'm fucking begging. you have Got to knock it off. i was gonna say something snide about how it's telling that i'm seeing a lot more posts About The Jews than about the fundamentalist christians who fanatically support israel's right-wing fascist govt, but like.... god i don't care i don't care i don't want to be writing this. It Just Sucks.

That's It. It Just Sucks

while i'm here, since i don't plan to talk about this anymore unless i have important resources to share: ACTUAL helpful things you can do are to keep an eye on the news and communicate with your own governments. for americans (just bc i am american) -- the biden administration has pledged to work with israel to allow humanitarian aid into gaza. it's important that the public pressure for that to happen continues & that the documentation of what's happening in palestine continues.

the more you guys turn your issue into an issue with "the jews" or "jewish people," the more time we're going to waste explaining why this is not acceptable or appropriate. which is frustrating because there is shit out there that Matters A Whole Lot Fucking More Right Now.

so keep talking about what matters. and please please PLEASE think for two seconds before you make any posts referencing jewish people.

[blackhistorystoryteller]

AN ARTICLE ON THE BRITISH LOOTING FROM AFRICA

AND SUFFERING OF AFRICANS

The British should return every loot of all kinds back to Africa

IF THEY CONDEMN SLAVE TRADE THEY SHOULD START BY RETURNING THE LOOTS COLLECTED FROM AFRICA ALL IN THE NAME OF TRADE AND RELIGION ,IF OUR CULTURE WAS BAD WHY DID THEY TAKE AWAY OUR HERITAGE AND STORE THEM IN A MUSEUM ?

The looting of Africa during the colonial era occurred through a combination of methods and strategies employed by European colonial powers, including Britain. Here are some of the ways in which Africa was looted during this period:

Military Conquest: European colonial powers, including the British, often used military force to conquer and control African territories. This involved armed conflicts, wars of conquest, and the suppression of local resistance movements. Through these military campaigns, colonial powers gained control over land and resources.

Resource Extraction: One of the primary motivations for colonialism in Africa was the exploitation of its abundant natural resources. European colonial powers, including Britain, extracted valuable resources such as minerals, rubber, timber, and agricultural products from African colonies. These resources were often taken for the economic benefit of the colonial powers.

Forced Labor: Colonial powers imposed forced labor systems on Africans to work in mines, plantations, and other labor-intensive industries. These labor practices were exploitative and often involved harsh working conditions and little compensation.

Taxation and Economic Exploitation: Africans were subjected to unfair taxation systems that drained wealth from their communities. Colonial administrations imposed taxes on land, crops, and other economic activities, forcing Africans to generate revenue for the colonial authorities.

Land Dispossession: Africans frequently lost access to their ancestral lands as colonial governments allocated land to European settlers and corporations. This land dispossession disrupted traditional agricultural practices and led to social and economic dislocation.

Confiscation of Cultural Artifacts: Colonial powers often confiscated cultural artifacts, sculptures, art, and religious items from Africa. These items were frequently transported to Europe and ended up in museums, private collections, or auction houses.

Unequal Trade Agreements: Colonial powers imposed trade agreements that favored their own economies. Africans often received minimal compensation for their raw materials and agricultural products, while European countries reaped significant profits from these trade relationships.

Suppression of Indigenous Cultures: The suppression of indigenous African cultures and languages was another aspect of colonialism. European powers sought to impose their own cultural norms and values, often devaluing or erasing African traditions.

Missionaries played a complex role in the context of colonialism and the looting of Africa. While their primary mission was to spread Christianity and convert indigenous populations to Christianity, their activities and interactions with colonial authorities had various effects on the looting of Africa:

1. Cultural Influence: Missionaries often sought to replace indigenous African religions with Christianity. In doing so, they promoted European cultural norms, values, and practices, which contributed to cultural change and, in some cases, the erosion of traditional African cultures.

2. Collaboration with Colonial Powers: In some instances, missionaries worked closely with colonial authorities. They provided moral and religious justification for colonialism and sometimes acted as intermediaries between the colonial administration and local communities. This collaboration could indirectly support the colonial exploitation of resources.

3. Access to Resources: Missionary activities occasionally granted them access to valuable resources and artifacts. They may have collected religious objects, manuscripts, and other items from indigenous communities, which were sometimes sent back to Europe as part of ethnographic or religious collections.

4. Education and Healthcare: Missionaries established schools, hospitals, and other institutions in African communities. While these services were aimed at spreading Christianity, they also provided education and healthcare to local populations, which could have positive impacts on individuals and communities.

5. Advocacy for Indigenous Rights: Some missionaries, particularly in later years, became advocates for the rights of indigenous populations. They witnessed the injustices of colonialism and spoke out against the mistreatment of Africans, including forced labor and land dispossession.

6. Conversion and Social Change: The conversion of Africans to Christianity brought about significant social changes in some communities. It could lead to shifts in social hierarchies, family structures, and gender roles, sometimes contributing to social upheaval.

1. Cultural Bias: The British, like many Europeans of their time, often viewed their own culture, including Christianity, as superior to the indigenous cultures and religions they encountered in Africa. This cultural bias led to the condemnation of indigenous African religions and gods as "pagan" or "heathen."

2. Religious Conversion: Part of the colonial mission was to spread Christianity among the indigenous populations. Missionaries were sent to Africa with the aim of converting people to Christianity, which often involved suppressing or condemning traditional African religions and deities seen as incompatible with Christianity.

3. Economic Interests: The British Empire, like other colonial powers, was driven by economic interests. They often saw the resources and wealth of African societies as valuable commodities to be exploited. This economic agenda could involve looting or confiscating sacred artifacts, including religious objects, for financial gain.

4. Ethnographic Research: Some British colonial officials and scholars engaged in ethnographic research to study African cultures, including their religious practices. While this research aimed to document indigenous cultures, it could sometimes involve the collection of religious artifacts and objects, which were then sent to museums or private collections in Europe.

5. Cultural Imperialism: Colonialism was not just about economic and political domination; it also involved cultural imperialism. This included an attempt to impose European cultural norms, values, and religious beliefs on African societies, often at the expense of indigenous traditions.

The issue of repatriating cultural artifacts looted from Africa during the colonial era has gained significant attention in recent years. Countries and communities in Africa have long called for the return of these treasures, which hold deep cultural and historical significance. Among the former colonial powers, Britain stands at the forefront of this debate. This article explores the ongoing discussion surrounding Britain's role in returning looted artifacts to Africa.

A Legacy of Colonialism:

Britain's colonial history left a profound impact on many African nations, including the removal of countless cultural treasures. During the height of the British Empire, valuable artifacts, sculptures, manuscripts, and sacred items were taken from their places of origin. These items found their way into the collections of museums, private collectors, and institutions in Britain.

The Case for Repatriation:

Advocates for repatriation argue that these artifacts rightfully belong to the countries and communities from which they were taken. They emphasize the importance of returning stolen cultural heritage as a step towards justice and reconciliation. Many African nations view these artifacts as integral to their cultural identity and heritage.

International Momentum:

In recent years, there has been a growing international momentum to address this issue. Museums and institutions worldwide are engaging in discussions about repatriation. Some institutions have initiated efforts to return specific items to their countries of origin, acknowledging their historical and moral responsibility.

Britain's Response:

Britain, home to several renowned museums housing African artifacts, has faced increasing pressure to address this issue. The British Museum, for instance, has faced calls to repatriate numerous artifacts, including the Benin Bronzes and the Elgin Marbles, which have origins in Africa and Greece, respectively.

In response to these demands, some British institutions have started to collaborate with African countries to explore the possibility of returning certain artifacts. These discussions aim to find mutually agreeable solutions that respect both the historical context and the cultural significance of these items.

Challenges and Complexities:

Repatriation is a complex process involving legal, ethical, and logistical challenges. Determining rightful ownership and ensuring proper care and preservation upon return are critical considerations. Additionally, questions arise about how to address the legacy of colonialism and rectify historical injustices.

The Way Forward:

The debate over repatriation is ongoing and highlights the need for respectful dialogue and cooperation between nations. While the return of looted artifacts is an essential step, it should also be part of broader efforts to promote cultural understanding, collaboration, and acknowledgment of historical wrongs.

The issue of Britain returning looted artifacts to Africa is part of a global conversation about justice, cultural heritage, and historical responsibility. While there are complexities to navigate, the growing recognition of the importance of repatriation signifies a potential path forward towards reconciliation and healing between nations and their shared history. The ongoing discussions reflect a commitment to addressing past injustices and fostering a more inclusive and culturally rich future.

They condemn slave trades yet they’re still with our treasures and cultural artifacts and heritage