#insert ursula k le guin saying that even tho the power of capitalism inescapable so did the divine right of kings!!!!

[exoexid]

i won't let anyone tell me ever again that my history degree is useless. i won't allow anyone to say that humanistic and social sciences don't count under capitalism, and aren't able to help us all """progress""", or bring significant changes to our reality. we are seeing the roots of the "no one of us can be free until everybody is free" quote (thank you maya angelou!!), and how it all comes down to learning and studying and listening to our past and the people all around the world affected by a (western established) multifaceted system that is failing now more than ever because thanks to social media and the global connection it's giving to all of us it cannot look away anymore. a system (and its enablers) that slowly but surely are being exposed and forced to take responsibility in such a impactful and inescapable domino effect.

you start by reading about i/p and then you find yourself reading and informing yourself about yemen. about the ethnocide of the uyghurs. about armenia. about sudan and tigray and the congo. about why namibia is responding to germany. about south africa, and about the numerous human rights violations north american first nations have been suffering for centuries (about the residential schools, about how many reserves don't have clean drinking water...). about thousands of refugee camps and dangerous migrations and why people risk their lives to cross the mediterranean.

it all comes down to caring, even if just a little bit, about things that happened not too long ago actually. in history terms some of them practically happened yesterday. it's beautiful to see so many people fighting for justice and for a better future, but that can only be achieved if we know our past. one of our uni professors used to tell us that we don't study history because of that saying about how a society that doesn't know its past is condemned to repeat it, but because the day might come in which someone might try to deny a fact or event that definitely happened and definitely affected some group of people, and we have to be able to identify it and correct it. we have to be able to identify if oppressive tactics of any kind are being established and pushed again, even if they aren't exactly as they used to be (because they never are) to stop them. we are here thanks to our ancestors, and we owe it to them. we cannot, we mustn't forget.