#tw sectarianism

[werewolfetone]

It's actually hilarious that Rees-Mogg is so obsessed with Ye Olde English Values that seem straight out of the 1700s imo. wonder if he knows what they did to people who were catholic like he is in the 18th century

[gomillust]

Hello Tumblr nation, I don’t talk to you guys and I feel bad. Most of my ramblings are on twitter and ig stories :(( so have some progress on my latest illustration of the main character (I just call them Rowan) for an rpg maker game idea I had floating in my brain holes.

VERMILLION is based on my experiences with organized religion and sectarian schools (but mostly the first one that caused my traumas), specifically Catholicism in the Philippines. I’ve been loosely inspired by the friars of Jose Rizal’s novels, so alongside BACKTRACK, I have another reason to continue reading up on the novels LMFAO

No blood tw because it’s supposed to be sacramental wine. Don’t ask me about Christianity i dont know anything about Christianity except… it scares me.

[topgadget]

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🙏🏻  🙏🏻 The term meditation designates a mental practice which generally consists of paying attention to a certain object, at the level of thought, emotions, body. For example, meditating on a philosophical principle, with the aim of deepening its meaning. In a spiritual approach, it can be an exercise, even a way of self-realization and awakening.

🙏🏻  🙏🏻 Meditation is at the heart of many spiritual or religious practices such as those of Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism, Sikhism, Taoism, Yoga, Islam, Christianity as well as other more recent forms of spirituality. , or movements sometimes qualified as sectarian, such as transcendental meditation.

This practice may seek to produce inner peace, emptiness of mind, altered states of consciousness, progressive calming of the mind, or even simple relaxation. Some meditation techniques, such as mindfulness, can be used in a therapeutic or secular setting.

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[mallorykeen]

Riordanverse Characters as out of context Derry Girls

Jack: Now, whatever you do, don't forget the Grease Megamix

Sadie: Protestants hate ABBA

Piper: I don't really believe in lesbians

Sally: Why were you pissing on her dead body and making sandwiches?

Sadie: We're not abducting him, Carter, we're... kidnapping him

Alex: Mmmh. Tastes a bit like blood

Magnus: Swear! Swear on Dolly [pointing at a shrine to Dolly Parton]

Lester: EXPAND AND EXPLAIN EXPAND AND EXPLAIN

Leo: Fuck-a-doodle-do!

Apollo, to Meg: THERE IS MORE CHANCE OF ME ELOPING WITH YOUR FATHER TO A FLIP FLOP SHOP IN HAWAI'I

Samirah: Oh my god it's the polar bear

Magnus: I am psychic, Annabeth. I did a course. I got a certificate

Jason: This isn't Windolene, this is mayonnaise

Piper: LESBIANS REALLY DO EXIST

Zia: I do enjoy a good statue, it has to be said

Thalia: Why in under god weren't you writing from the soul!

Alex: JESUS CHRIST

Lavinia: Can you not get Protestant lesbians?

Clarisse: Who put 50p in the eejit?

Silena: I AM NOT A CRAIC KILLER

Luke: Am I in hell? [yes he is]

Luke: I AM NOT LETTING THAT FAT FURRY FUCK RUIN THE BIGGEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Percy: SOMETIMES I FEEL LIKE I'VE GONE THROUGH THE FUCKING LOOKING GLASS

[salted-caramel-tea]

Can you explain what you mean by living in a notorious football derby?

if these anons aren’t referring to the same part of the post lmk and i can explain differently but yeah

so the Old Firm derby is probably the most (in)famous football rivalry in the u.k. and for good reason

both clubs, Celtic and Rangers, and based in Glasgow but are differentiated historically by religion and the more modern perspective of politics.

Glasgow Celtic was founded as a catholic football club and their fanbase is still widely catholic today. Politically, they represent scottish nationalism and anti unionism.

i think you can guess where it’s going but Glasgow Rangers we’re founded as a Protestant football club and are much the same today, with their supporters largely representing unionist ideologies.

This is a wide generalisation of the clubs modern religion and politics, take it with a grain of salt. this is just the general perception of each club.

i’m sure you’ve figured it out but the rivalry between protestant and catholic clubs has resulted in football related sectarianism being rampant in scotland. even when i was liek 8 i was approached by a friend and asked to pick a club and when i said ‘celtic’ because my catholic grandad supports them i was told we couldn’t be friends anymore.

on a more serious note sectarianism in scotland is so bad that there have been government interventions including bills passed to punish sectarian and other offensive behaviour at football matches.

there’s been several incidents between celtic and rangers fans like the ibrox disaster in 1971 leaving 66 dead and 200 injured. after every match there’s known to be fights in the street and harassment of anyone wearing the other teams colours (i was yelled at in glasgow by a group of men for wearing green just by chance that day). as well as disorder in the stadiums and online and prejudice based on what team you support in schools and workplaces. players are attacked and hurled xenophobic, racist or sectarian abuse, sometimes just things that are extremely insensitive like making aeroplane actions everytime an american footballer was on the pitch a week after the 9/11 tragedy. <- that happened.

there’s lots of studies on the correlation between old firm matches and domestic violence rates with some studies citing a 48% increase although the figure can’t be certain because of neglected factors according to GCU but abusive men so tend to use football as a scapegoat for their behaviour much like they would alcohol

obviously things are a little better now, the clubs themselves aren’t tried to religion anymore and you can find catholics supporting rangers and the opposite for celtic, fans are increasingly supportive of players from other countries (although that’s not to say racism in football is nonexistent in scotland it’s still a huge issue there’s a lot of work to be done to reduce aggressive behaviour from fans and within clubs themselves it’s just not as bad as it used to be)

but yeah it’s violent it’s hostile it’s godawful and it’s not limited to glasgow the behaviours widespread all over scotland and there’s other sectarian derbies as well

there’s a whole historical aspect as to why christian denomination has been the centre of scottish conflict but i thought this wasn’t the post for it

[scripttorture]

Your National Styles post is very helpful! I was wondering though if you could talk about what kinds of torture were common in pre-modern India? I don't have a specific time period in mind, I'm just after inspiration for a fantasy setting that's loosely inspired by India. Thanks.

This made me smile. Thank you Anon, any excuse to read more Indian history is a gift.

 I don’t have good sources for the entire sub-continent. Most of what I have focuses on the north. I’m also not 100% sure what you mean by pre-modern so I’m going to try to describe as much as I can, adding rough areas and time periods. That way you can pick and choose things that suit what you’re going for in your story. :)

 I’m not going to try with the Harappans. Partly because their writing system still hasn’t been deciphered but mostly because I intend to continue imagining they created an egalitarian utopia. Until such a time as some one finds proof of kingship or other crimes. We all have our stories we like to cling to.

 I actually started out with Keay’s India: A History (imaginative title isn’t it?) because the local library had it. It actually turned out to be a pretty good sign post for other sources.

 India has an incredibly rich history, but much of that history wasn’t written down until hundreds of years after the events took place. Which is something it has in common with most northern European countries, although most European countries have less thorough oral histories.

 India is quite interesting as a case study in the depth and accuracy of oral history. The presence of separate oral records for the same events and separate strands of written records- well it builds up an interesting picture. Apart from pure historical interest it’s also interesting to see what people remember, attempts to change records and how (with the right systems in place) oral history can be remarkably resistant to change.

 I digress.

 The point is Arthashastra is available in full online here. It’s a kind of guide to the organisation of a state. We don’t have exact dates for it (it was probably written by several people complied over quite a long period) but it’s probably mostly from roughly 200 AD. It is focused on the Mauryan empire dated as beginning in roughly 320 BC.

 It was pretty damned big. Conservative estimates have the empire stretching across the north of the Indian peninsula from ocean to ocean, from Pakistan, Punjab and Nepal all the way across into Bangladesh and south into Orissa and Maharashtra. Just looking at a global map, we’re talking conservatively of an area the size of France, Germany, Poland and Italy.

 The translation I’ve linked to has some issues that I can see from a casual read. For instance the references to ‘eunuchs’ were probably rendered in the original as a domination of tritiya-prakriti; literally ‘third kind’. The closest English translation is probably ‘queer’ as the term encompasses homosexual, bisexual, transgender, gender nonconforming and intersex people as well as people who can’t naturally conceive. Some of the subtleties in the original are probably lost in translation and there may well be references I’m missing.

 Now like most historical cultures the Mauryans tortured and tried to impose legal limits on torture. We know from modern analysis that legal restrictions on torture don’t work: torturers will always ignore them.

 So it’s highly unlikely that the tortures the Mauryans allowed by law were the only tortures that happened in the Mauryan empire. But we can be pretty confident that the tortures they listed as legal were used through their empire.

 Arthashastra describes torture as a punishment and torture as an attempt to force a suspect to confess. At the same time the text acknowledges that torture can force false confessions and appears to cite a named legal case where this happened.

 I feel it’s also worth stressing that the vast majority of punishments the text suggests are fines. Apparently in ancient India you could get fined for almost anything.

 Arthashastra’s description of tortures starts with a list of people who can not legally be tortured. Now torturers will generally ignore this but I feel it’s worth including for some cultural context:

 ‘Ignoramuses, youngsters, the aged, the afflicted, persons under intoxication, lunatics, persons suffering from hunger, thirst, or fatigue from journey, persons who have just taken more than enough of meal, persons who have confessed of their own accord (átmakásitam), and persons who are very weak,--none of these shall be subjected to torture.’

 ‘Those whose guilt is believed to be true shall be subjected to torture (áptadosham karma kárayet). But not women who are carrying or who have not passed a month after delivery.

 Torture of women shall be half of the prescribed standard. Or women with no exception may be subjected to the trial of cross-examination (vákyanuyogo vá).

 Those of Bráhman caste and learned in the Vedas as well as asceties shall only be subjected to espionage.

 Those who violate or cause to violate the above rules shall be punished with the first amercement. The same punishment shall be imposed in case of causing death to any one by torture.’

 Now I know this is a little dense so in case that’s not clear the second passage is saying that women should be tortured less then men and pregnant women or women who recently gave birth shouldn’t be tortured at all.

 The last paragraph states that the punishment for a torturer for violating the rules, or for killing someone while torturing them is a fine. And not a particularly steep one. (Based on modern research I’d say it’s unlikely these limits were enforced, consistently or at all).

 The text describes whipping, beating with canes, suspension and ‘water-tube’.

 It particularly talks about beating the thighs, palms of the hands, soles of the feet (I refer to this as falaka) and the knuckles.

 It states there are two kinds of suspension but doesn’t describe them. Most suspension tortures involve hanging a person by their arms in some manner, but not all. I honestly can’t tell from the text what sort of suspensions were used.

 ‘Water tube’ could mean- well a lot of things. It could mean pumping, which is forcing someone to swallow liquid until their internal organs are painfully swollen (often causing vomiting and diarrhoea). It could mean waterboarding. It could mean the ‘Chinese water torture’ (incredibly misleading name), continual dripping of water on to someone’s eyes, which is actually a form of sleep deprivation.

 There’s also this ‘the hands being joined so as to appear like a scorpion’ which sounds like a form of finger milking. That’s bindings around the hands or arms restricting circulation and causing the hands to swell painfully.

 The last three things acknowledged as torture in the text are these ‘burning one of the joints of a finger after the accused has been made to drink rice gruel; heating his body for a day after be has been made to drink oil; causing him to lie on coarse green grass for a night in winter.’

 I honestly haven’t a clue what the significance of the rice gruel might be in this context.

 The combination of drinking oil and heat sounds like a strange combination of tortures. Drinking oils can uh- basically give someone diarrhoea. Oil can also be flammable but I don’t think this is implying immolation. I think it might be indicating a combination of pumping, dehydration, starvation and a temperature torture.

 Because forcing a prisoner to drink something that would make them sick would quickly make them dehydrated. Subjecting them to extremely hot temperatures would then be even more painful and dangerous.

 The final description seems to a straightforward form of exposure. It’s exposing a victim to cold winter temperatures. The implication is that this also involves sleep deprivation. The ‘grass’ may or may not be significant. There are plenty of plants you wouldn’t want to lie down on for a night but I’m unsure whether the ‘coarse’ description indicates something that could cause pain.

 The text also describes beatings, branding the face (of Brahmans specifically) and amputation as punishments. It describes death by ‘torture’ but the particular torture is not specified. It describes capital punishment in general terms ie ‘those who commit this offence shall be put to death’. A few offences called for beheading specifically. It also describes the use of jails.

 The amputations I could find listed were: a finger, a hand, a nose, a leg, ears, male genitalia. There’s also a description of blinding by the application of chemicals.

 As a final note before we move on there’s an interesting passage on sudden death and signs to look for on a corpse that could indicate the cause of death. It’s pretty interesting as an example of how people conducted investigations into murders before we had forensic labs.

 You can probably assume Ashoka is broadly covered by what I’ve described. His ethical pronouncements including prohibits on torture but nothing suggests a complete and enforced ban on the practice so it’s likely to have continued under his rule.

 Now I tried to find some sources on the southern Indian empires, like the Chola but I couldn’t find anything I felt was a clear description of the criminal justice system. Similarly I didn’t find anything clear on the Sangam period.

 I’m honestly not sure if this is because sources don’t exist or because there are less translations from Tamil.

 There is a lot of Tamil poetry from the Sangam period that’s available in translation and touches on Tamil history and wars. These might well serve as a good source of inspiration but I don’t think they’re necessarily a good indication of common practice.

 I am, admittedly, making assumptions based on epic poetry from other countries. My impression though is that these kinds of literary pieces tend to record unusual practices rather than common ones. When they mention common ones they don’t always give the full context of what terms mean. So for instance the Norse Eddas describe several unusual (for the culture) methods of execution and torture, but references to more common ones are usually a word or two without explanation. The Eddas mention blood eagles but don’t actually tell us what they were. This kind of description seems common in the epic poetry I’ve read and as a result I’m assuming the Tamil poetry will be similar.

 The next thing I went to was a couple of Chinese sources recounting travels to India. These were from Buddhist pilgrims so remember that bias while readings their accounts.

 Faxian (Fa Hian) wrote an account that’s available in translation here. I only had a quick flick through but from what I can see it’s more useful for establishing the wider historical context of the countries and the religious climate at the time then it is figuring out ideas about justice and torture.

 The next thing that really stood out is the famous Record of Western Lands, the inspiration for The Journey West by a monk whose name is Romanised in about half a dozen different ways. Hsuan Tsang and Xuanzang seem to be the most popular renderings with the former used predominantly in Indian studies.

 Now the first volume is relatively easy to find but I’ve had difficulty getting access to the other 11.

 Hsuan Tsang periodically recounts stories of Indian history, some involving ideas of punishment, justice and torture. Now a lot of these probably don’t show common practice and some of them seem to have been misinterpreted by Hsuan Tsang (I think the account of voluntary castration is more likely to be describing a queer Indian identity then a punishment) but they’re useful nonetheless.

 Generally Hsuan Tsang seems to be confirming that the practices described in the Arthashastra were still in use while he was travelling. As well as fines he describes imprisonment and social shunning of criminals which may amount to isolation/solitary confinement.

 He describes amputations as punishment, of the nose, ear, hand or foot. He doesn’t describe castration as a punishment per say but it seems likely this continued even if it was rare.

 Hsuan Tsang claims that torture wasn’t used to force confessions but then describes torture being used to force people to plead when they ‘refuse to admit their unlawful activities ashamed of their faults’. Which sounds to me like torture used to force confessions and/or something analogous to the historical English custom of being ‘pressed to plead’ (ie people who refused to plead guilty or innocent were tortured until they pleaded one way or the other).

 The tortures described are a form of near (or likely actual) drowning by putting a person in a weighted sack and throwing them in a river. He also describes a burning torture using hot iron. The other descriptions in this section sound more like ways of divining a person’s alleged guilt and I’m going to ignore them.

 He describes blinding as a punishment. And also a vampire story that I wasn’t expecting.

 As we get into the 700s there’s increasing Arab contact, which at this point is mostly via traders and pirates. My initial notes include some questions about whether this is when falaka was introduced to India but going by the Arthashastra it seems likely falaka was in use long before the Arabs arrived. In fact the spread may have gone the other way.

 It’s also possible that Ancient India and Ancient Egypt both hit upon similar practices separately due to the simple nature of torture. I digress-

 Writings by Arab scholars and travellers about India start becoming more prominent from the 900s onwards. Most of these recount hostile encounters between Muslim forces and Hindu or Buddhist groups. The accounts are a lot less interested in the history and politics of the region then the Chinese travellers three or four hundred years earlier.

 The most easily available one is probably Chach Nama which was written in the 1200s-1300s and claims to be a translation of an earlier work on Arab conquests of Pakistan and north western India during the 800s. However- it’s accuracy on several points is disputed. A lot of people don’t think it’s a translation but an original work combining and re-imagining earlier historical documents. Some of the older accounts, such as those of Al Baladhuri and Al Biruni, contradict it.

 Personally I have slightly more faith in the accuracy of the Chinese accounts then the Chach Nama. I think it’s likely it was constructed to justify conflicts of the 1200s by creating a supposed historical basis for those conflicts. I think it also displays a vested interest in making conquered people appear uncivilised, a pattern that’s common in a lot of historical accounts of foreign countries by the people who conquered them.

 In light of that- I think Al Biruni’s A Critical Study of What India Says, Whether Accepted by Reason or Refused, a better bet. Especially since he seems to have been more interested in Indian society then Indian rulers. (Though take into account my personal biases here; I think Al Biruni is a nice example of how Islamic scholars influenced scientific and historical thought. I think our modern philosophy of science owes a lot to the ideas of truthfulness (al-haqq) Al Biruni and people like him championed. I’m going to own my academic admiration.)

 This looks like your best bet for an easily accessible copy.

 I feel like I should stress, having recommended a bunch of foreign scholars as sources on Indian history, that throughout this period we’re pretty sure Indians were writing their own histories. However not many of them have survived. That’s thought to be because of a combination of the climate and the way things were commonly recorded. The theory I see repeated is that Indians were commonly recording things by carving on wood. This almost invariably rotted away. Similar things have occurred in other countries as well: much of England’s early history literally went up in flames during the Great Fire of London when one of the principal libraries burned and Alexandria’s destruction is generally cited as the reason we don’t have a lot of important classical Greek works, like first hand accounts of Alexander’s conquests or say more Sappho.

 Aaaaand that was the point where my friends staged an intervention and the library demanded financial restitution for my kidnapping of their books.

 Spoil sports. The rest of this is from my general knowledge.

 European forces and settlements in India would probably have introduced more tortures. The Dutch regularly used waterboarding, but I can’t find any indication that this became common practice in India.

 However the British army’s combination of stress positions and exposure did. A punishment the British called ‘crucifixion’ was used throughout India. It involved tying the victim standing with their arms outstretched in a T shape in full sun.

 The stress position itself is incredibly painful, combined with the climate it was likely to cause dehydration and possibly heat stroke as well.

 I couldn’t find any other instances where it seemed like part of a European National Style had been adopted by Indians.

 I found historical references to murgha stress position in India, including an illustration from the early 1800s. I’m not sure how far back the usage goes but that could be because it was generally used against children. Punishments towards children are not generally recorded as torture historically and it can be difficult to trace their usage.

 I couldn’t find any historical references to pepper (putting irritating substances such as pepper or chilli into mucous membranes, eyes, nose, genitals etc). That doesn’t necessarily mean it wasn’t practiced historically. Again, this is a form of torture that seems to have been associated with abuse of women and children in the home, rather than legislative punishments.

 I think you could use both in a story set in historical India without it appearing out of place. It might not strictly be historically accurate but both would have been possible.

 Judging by the Arthashastra falaka has been in India for a very long time indeed. I couldn’t find enough sources to confidently state it was in continuous from the late BC until today- but virtually every period I could find records of torture in India for included falaka. I think it’s likely that it was used continuously; I can’t prove it.

 Blinding turns up continuously throughout India history as a punishment aimed at people of high social rank or power.

 I’ve read some accounts of burning people alive as a punishment, but these are from later on in Indian history; the 1700s and 1800s. The particular account that springs to mind is Farzana’s ordering a group of arsonists to be burnt alive. The context for this is that they set fire to a group of buildings housing women who lived in purdah and that if the fire hadn’t been put out these women would have burnt alive rather then leave the building. Farzana’s punishment was interpreted as ‘an eye for an eye’.

 I feel like I should probably also briefly mention ritual suicide. There are a lot of historical Indian accounts of people killing themselves rather then renouncing a particular principal. One of the things that shows up repeatedly is women killing themselves when their husbands die. Sometimes this appears to have been voluntary. In other cases it seems as though the women were given no reasonable choice.

 I don’t think this fits the modern legal definition of torture, but it’s certainly an abuse of human rights aimed particularly at women. Starvation, burning on the husband’s funeral pyre and being thrown off tall buildings are the methods I see cited most commonly.

 The position of women in India is- well it’s a couple of books worth of material in itself. And I’d like to stress going in to this that there are very few countries/cultures that treated women well historically. Keep in mind when I describe the position of women and Dalits that the position of women and slaves or ‘barbarians’ in Greece and Rome was not any better.

 There’s a long history in India of confining women and limiting who they can interact with. The Arthashastra describes curfews inflicted on women and recommends barring women from leaving the home without an escort. It also legally limits the people women can invite to their homes.

 In historical Indian society it seems as though- it looks to me as if it would have been very easy for family members to isolate individual women in conditions akin to solitary confinement. This would probably have been unusual but from what I can see of the law and custom it wouldn’t have been seen as illegal or immoral.

 I’ve seen recent pieces claiming that the caste system is a recent invention. But I find this difficult to believe when the caste system is repeatedly cited in historical sources before European colonialism reached India. It’s cited by Al Biruni, Hsuan Tsang and in the Arthashastra.

 Yes there are historical incidences of people taking up occupations that were associated with different castes. Indian farmers and merchants did become Kings. But showing there was some social mobility and that caste was more (or less) flexible at different periods of time isn’t the same as showing that people were in no way limited by their parentage.

 Al Biruni describes the treatment of Dalits as ‘untouchable’ and describes different castes eating and washing separately as well as society relegating Dalits to work that was deemed dirty or unsafe.

 The Arthashastra describes different punishments for different castes (analogous to Old English law ascribing different punishments to different social classes). Unsurprisingly the rulers and ‘pious’ men are usually let off with a fine, while the poorest and the Dalits are supposed to be maimed, tortured or killed for the same transgression.

 It’s more then possible that living conditions and treatment of people at different levels of society was- perhaps not legally torture but certainly inhumane. I can’t find any clear indication that Dalits were made to live separately in the past. But if they were, judging by how the sources say they were treated by law, it seems likely their living conditions would have been worse. They may have had poor access to water, food and adequate shelter.

 I feel it’s also worth noting that Rejali talks about law enforcement targeting these kinds of minority groups for torture as a punishment for social transgressions. Things like- homeless people daring to walk down the streets of a ‘good’ neighbourhood.

 This sort of behaviour is typical of torturers, even when it’s not supported by the law. It occurs today, and I see no reason why it wouldn’t happen in a hierarchical historical society.

 Slavery was present in India. I can’t say for certain that it was present throughout all of Indian history, and it certainly does not seem to be as prevalent as it was in Greece or Rome but it occurred. I’ve seen more accounts of it in the Mughal period then prior to that but this might be due to better record keeping.

 Many of the Black Indian groups around today are descended from freed or escaped slaves brought to India by Arab traders. Beyond that I don’t know much about slavery in historical India. I’m unaware of any one particular industry slaves were funnelled into or of particular punishments (alla the bleeding Romans-).

 If you’re thinking of using slavery in your story I’d suggest sticking to the most common global tortures used against enslaved people: starvation, exposure, lack of medical treatment, beatings, dehydration and over work.

 From what I’ve read I’d say that India generally fits in with my pet theory about changing torture practices over time. I think that it’s only relatively recently that people have thought of torture as primarily a way to ‘get the truth’ (see here for why this idea is bullshit).

 What I’m interpreting from these sources is that in India, like most of the world, torture was used as a punishment, people were sentenced to it. It was also used to force confessions. And although there was an idea that torture could be used to find the truth, this was not seen as it’s primary purpose.

 And I think that’s probably where I’m going to have to leave this. At four thousand words it’s actually shorter/less detailed then I’d hoped. I blame my mates for insisting I have a social life.

 I think it should be enough to get you started though. :)

Availableon Wordpress.

Disclaimer

[werewolfetone]

I am begging you to tell me more about the dangerous politically charged and insane woollen drapery trade of late 18th century Belfast

Oh god. Alright, I'm assuming that everyone reading this has at least a basic knowledge of the fact that there are Catholic-Protestant tensions in Northern Ireland--if not, google it please I don't want to have to explain that to someone for the first time again. I'm also putting the bulk of this post below a cut because it's... a lot about that, and I know I wouldn't particularly want that shoved onto my dash without asking me, so this is your warning for the fact that this is mostly about sectarianism.

The previously mentioned tensions have been around for a long, long, long time, and one point they were particularly heated was the late 18th century. This was fueled by wider anti-Catholic sentiment in the British Isles as a whole, which was itself fueled by King George iii (derogatory) being anti-Catholic to an extreme, and just by... the way people were in the 18th century. idk. There were also events such as the Gordon Riots in 1780, which protested increased rights for Catholics and made the simmering tensions much worse.

To understand Catholic-Protestant tension in Ireland specifically, and by extension to understand what was so insane about the woollen drapery trade, there are few groups you need to know about.

The Peep O'Day Boys. They were the Protestant sectarian murder gang. They would go around smashing the windows of Catholic houses, torching Catholic farms, killing and beating up Catholics who looked at them funny... etc etc. They were also responsible for something called the Armagh Outrages, which was basically an anti-Catholic killing spree that led to thousands of Catholics being run out of Co. Armagh upon pain of death.

The Orange Boys. This is just the Orange Order but they've got a different name. If you're not aware of who they are I envy you, and they still exist today and they suck. They were originally a splinter faction of the Peep O'Day Boys, which claimed to be less violent but... might not have been. Both groups blamed each other for the Armagh Outrages, it's not entirely clear who did it.

The Defenders. They were the Catholic sectarian murder gang, originally created to defend against Protestant attacks, hence the name. They didn't go to quite the extreme level of unprovoked violence as their Protestant counterparts, but they could get close. They were also generally the underdogs, given that the government by and large tended to agree with the Peep O'Day Boys

The groups would often fight, either under cover of darkness or in some cases just in broad daylight, and their fights would get, as expected, extremely violent. You have to understand that these two sides despised each other on every level. They both wanted the other side completely gone from Ireland.

Two more groups who are important to this conflict:

The Whiteboys. They were a secret agrarian anti-landlord society that protested the rent gouging and general existence of landlords in Ireland by killing people. Landlords at this time, of course, managed to be even worse than they are today, and controlled most aspects of their tenants' lives. And the Whiteboys were violent in response; they could and would kill people for charging too high of rent.

The Steelboys. Also called the Hearts of Steel, they were very similar to the Whiteboys, only they were exclusively Protestant and they were just in the North.

So there was the class conflict as well as the sectarian conflict, and it was fueled by the changes brought on by the Industrial Revolution. Irish (and British) society was becoming less agrarian and more industrialised, so people who could work as independent weavers and make a decent living now had to become factory workers, where they were paid significantly less, and they weren't pleased with that. It was also fuelled by British occupation of Ireland--the Brits would significantly underpay Irish workers, and would mistreat the Irish working classes in general. This led to the class conflict also becoming extreme.

The last thing, again, that I have to stress, is the extreme violence. If you pissed off one of the above groups for whatever reason, they would leave a note on your door saying "you have x many days to get out of town" and if you didn't, they would kill you. If they were that polite, of course--the Whiteboys particularly had a reputation for deciding they didn't like someone and showing up to shoot them that night. Oh, and if the government caught you being part of any of these groups (EXCEPT the Peep O'Day Boys) they would also kill you, possibly without any trial.

Now. Take the sectarian violence, take the class violence, take the government's violence, and add to them an extremely competitive by nature market that all of the people involved in the above fighting are having to compete with each other in, an almost cartoonishly evil government that truly could not care less if people die, and the ideas of the French Revolution dividing people further, and you have an approximation of what the Belfast woollen drapery trade was like in the late 18th century.

[thedancingwalrus-blog]

Reuters article on the new Assam ‘citizenship’ test, highlighting how Bengali Muslims appear to being targeted by the new policy. 

Victims of the spate of violence in the 1980s are among those being asked to ‘prove’ they’re Indians. 

There are suggestions that the BJP has backed this divisive policy as a way of distracting voters from the lack of economic gains made under their leadership. While simultaneously stripping several million people (who tend not to vote BJP) of their voting rights.

[duchessofostergotlands]

Not to be a downer but after seeing the Daily Mail gleefully talking about people drinking in the middle of the day, this is just a wee reminder that when the England national team loses, rates of domestic violence increase by 38% (and 26% if they win). Football doesn't create violence or abuse in and of itself but football culture in England and the activities which are almost compulsory to being a fan now - heavy drinking in particular - have a direct causal link. This increase is not apparent when England play in rugby tournaments.

[sopeverse]

hi! first of all, i hope you’re doing okay. i totally understand if you don’t want to/have the energy to explain this, so feel free to ignore me. i’m trying to understand what’s going on in ireland? the news articles are very general and are talking about unionists/nationalists, which i can vaguely glean the meanings of. i was wondering if you could explain what’s actually happening?

of course! i understand it can be very daunting and confusing to those that don't currently live in Northern Ireland, but as someone who is currently experiencing everything first-hand, i'll try to explain it to my best ability.

for the past few nights rioting and violence has occurred in several places around Northern Ireland such as Belfast and Derry. these are two major cities that have wide communities of both loyalists and nationalists, meaning tensions were already quite high before this weeks violence. if you have trouble grasping these two terms and their meanings:

loyalist - primarily protestant individuals that oppose the idea of an united Ireland and remain loyal to England and the crown, trying to put an end to Irish nationalism in the north of Ireland. they can also be referred to as unionists.

nationalist - primarily catholic individuals that are supporters of a united Ireland and opposers to the British occupancy in areas of NI. they can also be referred to as Irish republicans.

first off, a bit of background information to help you fully understand exactly why people are rioting. around a year ago members of the nationalist political party Sinn Féin attended a funeral for the former IRA intelligence boss Bobby Storey, including deputy first minister Michelle O'Neill. strict limitations on social content were being set in place during this time due to covid and the spread of the virus, causing there to be a harsh backlash to their actions - further putting a wedge in the government as Arlene Foster refused to carry on with joint conferences.

this isn't the only reason for the increasing violence however, tensions have gotten thicker due to the success of Brexit, the UK effectively voting to leave the European Union. this involved the introduction of a border being erected between the north and south of Ireland. such a move breached the stipulations in the 'Good Friday Agreement, the treaty that mostly brought three decades of protestant-catholic bloodshed to an end.

this is a large part of the reason for the rioting. as part of the EU-UK negotiations on Brexit, it was agreed that Northern Ireland would partially remain in the bloc's single market, meaning goods sent over to Northern Ireland from Britain would receive EU custom checks at northern Irish ports - cancelling the need for checks between NI and the Republic of Ireland. this effectively draws a sea broader between Britain and Northern Ireland - loyalists arguing this undermines NI's role in the union.

despite the riots being carried out by teenagers and children as young as 12, it is believed that paramilitary groups (particularly the UVF) are inciting the violence. this is incredibly important if you know anything about Irish history, groups like this have has a hold on our nation for decades, using our children as puppets to achieve their goals and not caring for the blood that will be spilt during, all the while the police force stand idly by.

the PSNI also play a huge part in what is happening now and have always been an issue when it came to being impartial.. despite several nights of rioting in loyalist areas, petrol bombs being thrown nightly and innocent bystanders targeted, the police have done nothing but watch. however, only one of these nights was violence occurring in a nationalist area and the extremity of the rioting was next to none when compared to what had happened on the other side of the peace walls - despite this the police force was quick to bring out the water canons, further proving the institutional sectarianism they were brought up to believe.

when asked to speak on the violence and increasing tensions, our first deputy minister Arlene Foster didn't waste a second to condemn it by saying that it distracted from the 'real criminals' in Sinn Féin - shifting the blame and furthering the issue rather than making plans to restore peace.

i urge anyone reading this to educate themselves on Irish history to understand why the divide here is so strong. The Troubles never ended in Northern Ireland, and with people like this in power, it seems like the Irish people have no light for the future.

[slicedblackolives]

If anyone wants to know exactly what's going on in India:

excerpts (please read the whole thing):

..Kashmiris greeted Modi’s decision with protests, claiming that his real goal was to inundate the state with Hindu settlers. After the initial tumult subsided, though, the Times of India and other major newspapers began claiming that a majority of Kashmiris quietly supported Modi—they were just too frightened of militants to say so aloud. Television reporters, newly arrived from Delhi, set up cameras on the picturesque shoreline of Dal Lake and dutifully repeated the government’s line.

As the reports cycled through the news, the journalist Rana Ayyub told me over the phone that she was heading to Kashmir.

...Mobs of Hindus prowled the streets, yelling, “Take revenge and slaughter the Muslims!” According to eyewitnesses, rioters cut open the bellies of pregnant women and killed their babies; others gang-raped women and girls. In at least one instance, a Muslim boy was forced to drink kerosene and swallow a lighted match. Ehsan Jafri, an elderly Congress Party politician, was paraded naked and then dismembered and burned.

...We rode in silence for a while. I suggested that maybe it was time for her to leave India—that Muslims didn’t have a future there. But Ayyub was going through a notebook. “I’m not leaving,” she said. “I have to stay. I’m going to write all this down and tell everyone what happened.” 

[pog-mo-bhlog]

Look, I know a lot of folks gut reaction when they hear people talk about repealing the offensive behaviour at football act is to slam it, but really, it doesn’t work. Racism, bigotry and sectarianism should come under existing hate speech laws. The act is barely a deterrent and rarely leads to a conviction, and when it does, putting someone shouting ‘up the ra’ on the same level as someone doing a nazi salute is absurd. Fundamentally, there is a systematic problem where this behaviour is ignored and excused by the police if they don’t want to hear it, and all the legislation in the world won’t fix that.

[sunflowers-and-sweetviolets]

Introducing myself

OC LIST

Self Ship Spreadsheet (WIP)

---------------------------------------------

Heyo, I'm Stiofán x 

He/Him or Sé/É (Trans-man), Bi-romantic Demisexual, Smarta Hindu

I’m 21, so keep that in mind if you are uncomfortable with following adults.

Personal Tag is "Stiofán shut up" - any TWs for any post are tagged both TW (X) and (X) TW.

Political Views: Communist, Irish Republican , Pro- LGBT, BLM etc etc. 

NSFW tag is Not Safe For Wumbo /// Anti-ship, Anti-harassment, block me and move on and I'll do the same.

Set in stone DNI: Prosh*pper, Lol*con, Homophobe, Sectarian, Xenophobe, Thinspo/Pro-Ana , MAP/Peado, TERF, Racist, etc etc

BYF: I struggle with alcohol use, don’t follow if alcohol is a trigger for you x  Tag RE. Alcohol abuse is: Drunkposting

I'm only uncomfortable sharing my three all-time mains, J/ames L/anik, K/abir S/awant and J/ohn M/unch - all other f/os are fair game x

[antoine-roquentin]

CNN published videos of Murtaja leading a crowd of other children at a bike protest in 2011. He was 10 at the time. It was the height of the Arab Spring uprisings sweeping the Middle East and North Africa and protests had engulfed the largely Shiite eastern provinces of Saudi Arabia. Those protests often ended in bloodshed or mass arrests.

Murtaja comes from a family of activists in Qatif province, part of the largely Shiite area in eastern Saudi Arabia.His older brother, Ali Qureiris, was killed while participating in a protest in 2011.

The defendant’s first court session was in August 2018, nearly four years after he was detained. It was held at the country’s Specialized Criminal Court, an antiterror court first established in 2008 that has increasingly been used to prosecute human rights activists and protesters. His next hearing could be within weeks.

At least three other young men — Ali al-Nimr, Dawood al-Marhoon and Abdulla al-Zaher — who were also underage at the time of their alleged crimes, have been sentenced to death and are currently awaiting execution, according to the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.

This year, the Saudi state-run news agency has reported the mass execution of 37 men. At least 33 of them were Shiites. The men had been put to death for “their adoption of extremist, terrorist ideology and forming terrorist cells to corrupt and disturb security, spread chaos and cause sectarian discord,” the news agency reported.

The executions drew condemnation from the United Nations and demands by rights groups for Saudi Arabia’s de facto leader, Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, to be held accountable.

“The Saudi Arabian authorities have a chilling track record of using the death penalty as a weapon to crush political dissent and punish antigovernment protesters — including children — from the country’s persecuted Shia minority,” Ms. Maalouf said.

The mass execution in April 2019 was the largest since January 2016, when Saudi Arabia executed 47 men for purported terrorism offenses, including an outspoken Shiite cleric, Sheikh Nimr al-Nimr, who had criticized the kingdom’s treatment of its Shiite minority.

Saudi Arabia executed 139 people in 2018, most of whom were convicted of murder and drug crimes, according to the 2019 World Report from Human Rights Watch, which monitors abuses globally. Fifty-four of those executed were convicted of nonviolent drug crimes.

In the first five months of 2019, according to a report from Amnesty International, the Saudi authorities have executed at least 110 people.

[salted-caramel-tea]

Hey Tumblr, Let’s Talk About the Sarah Everard Peaceful Protest

Tw: death, violence against women

For context: On March 3rd, Sara Everard, a 33 year old English marketing executive, was kidnapped and murdered my Metropolitan Police Constable Wayne Couzens.

The death of Everard prompted a mass concern for women’s safety as she was murdered by three system that was promised to protect her. Several hundred people, including the duchess of Cambridge, showed up to Clapham Common to pay their respect to Sarah and protest the violence against women in U.K. streets. There was a place for the police at the Sarah Everard vigil- peacefully reminding people to wear masks and socially distance, acting as marshals. People are defending the met by saying it was an unplanned protest and the protestors were breaching covid rules. But let’s loom at something.

This photo was taken last week in Glasgow, after the foot ball team Rangers had won a game. Mass celebrations in the street. No police enforcement of covid rules. Nobody arrested or forcibly removed. Not a mask in sight. Flares being set off. Sectarian phrases being yelled. Near-riot behaviour.

Police at the vigil for Sarah Everard and the subsequent peaceful protest. These people were standing, just standing with their phone torches turned on. A few had signs condemning the police for failing to protect women time and time again. The police trampled and ruined the flowers left there by mourners. Women were detained. Forcibly removed from the bandstand. These women came together to mourn a woman who was killed at the hands of the police, peacefully so. And the police saw them as a threat and enacted force on them.

Look at the difference. (Tipsy) Men celebrating a football game win vs women mourning the death of a woman at the hands of the police. Can we stop pretending the U.K. doesn’t have a problem with their police forces??? Last year there were multiple incidents of violence against poc, and instances of violence against women are in the rise. Both the Met and police Scotland have to undergo massive reform to ensure that this kind of behaviour is prevented and is dealt with accordingly.

[scripttorture]

I have no idea if you can help me, but I am working on a short story that starts after a Sami girl is recovering from being tortured by Christian police after her father is put on trial for witchcraft. This is during the witch trials in Norway. I wanted to focus on recovery in the community and her animistic religion. However, I don’t know what kind of torture she could realistically be recovering from and if, aside from punishment, it should religiously motivated. Do you have any English links?

I put this one off for a long time hoping that the virus situation would improve enough for me to a) have less stress at work and b) be able to access the university library in my town. It doesn’t look like that’s going to happen.

 Norwegian history in the 1600s isn’t my strong suit. So my focus here is going to be advice on how to research this. I’ll also include the bits I found and some tortures so common that you can throw them in to virtually any setting without it standing out or being inaccurate.

 Before I get any further I don’t know anything about Sami culture. I’d strongly recommend trying to find Sami sensitivity readers if you haven’t already. Because it can be bloody hard to get accurate information on some of Europe’s oppressed minorities and I’d say the Sami fall squarely into that category.

 Historical research is fraught with pitfalls and when you’re starting out it can be really difficult to figure out which sources to trust. This only becomes worse when you’re working across a language barrier. And when the focus is torture it gets even more difficult.

 Torture has always been a hot button issue.

 The fact that virtually every culture has a history of torture doesn’t change that. Cultural ideas about what was ‘more painful’ or ‘more brutal’ or ‘shaming’ have all played a role in what was deemed ‘acceptable’ cruelty. So has the idea of who is an ‘acceptable’ or ‘deserving’ victim.

 And that means that misrepresenting the typical tortures of different countries, cultures, religious groups or past regimes has been part of political practice for literally hundreds of years. It is a very easy way to direct people’s hate and elicit an emotional response.

 I can’t stress enough how important it is to consider an author’s motivations, biases and abilities when you read historical sources.

 Think about whether an author was actually there for the events they describe. Think about their political and religious positions and what they may have to gain by pushing a particular message.

 Apologies if some of this comes across as teaching you how to suck eggs, but I know a lot of people don’t get this lesson in their history classes. So sources-

 Historical sources can be broadly categorised into primary and secondary sources. A primary source is something produced at the time. A secondary source is something produced later.

 Both can be untrustworthy/biased but a primary source gives you information about how events/practices were interpreted at the time, while a secondary sources tells you how they were remembered later.

 Primary sources can be things like diaries, court records of witch trials and objects produced in areas like Finnmark (northern Norway where most of the witch trials took place) at the time. Secondary sources might be things like how the witch trials are discussed in Norwegian history books and local history or stories about the witch trials that are told today.

 By reading about this in English you’re mostly being limited to secondary sources. The danger here is that secondary sources can misrepresent the time period they’re describing, deliberately or not. Authors make assumptions about how historical people lived, thought, what their actions meant and how their beliefs influenced their actions.

 Primary sources can also misrepresent what happened (deliberately or not) but with primary sources they are at least displaying the biases and concerns of the time.

 Generally historical research is about the collation and interpretation of primary sources. Which is a lot of work, requires a degree of expertise and often demands fluency in several languages.

 That level of work and knowledge appeals to some authors of historical fiction. But it isn’t for everyone. There’s nothing wrong with choosing to rely on history textbooks and the like instead of digging through transcriptions of things written back in the 1600s.

 Here’s the problem when you’re doing that for another country: English language sources are often very very biased in favour of other English language sources.

 This means if some bored academic in the 1930s made up a bunch of fan theories based on very little evidence it will probably still be used as a source today.

 And without having another language (with access to other sources it provides) it can be really difficult to spot that kind of fuckery.

 I am not saying that you need to learn Norwegian and believe me as someone with only one spoken language I understand how tackling a new one can be crazy intimidating.

 But I think you do need to know Norwegians. Particularly Norwegians with an interest in history.

 That’s all general stuff about researching historical periods in different countries.

 For torture in particular… I’m not gonna lie it’s a sack of angry snakes.

 Both primary and secondary often have considerable motivation for lying about torture. Historical accounts routinely downplay or outright lie about the damage different tortures cause. They are heavily judgemental about victims.

 And they run in to exactly the same issues we have trying to study use of different tortures today with the added difficulty that accounts from torturers are preserved far more frequently then accounts from survivors.

 It’s only once you start getting to the 1900s that you really start to see multiple survivor accounts of events. For the 1600s as a general period I can think of witness accounts and multiple accounts from torturers or their bosses in various countries. But the testimony of survivors is very very rare.

 This is an issue because we know from modern research that torturers routinely lie about what they do.

 There were laws in most European countries in this period that cover torture. They tend to define a sort of ‘accepted practice’: what torturers were supposed to do and for how long. And don’t get me wrong these are useful historical sources.

 But we know from comparing similar torture manuals used in the 1930s (and indeed more recently) to multiple accounts from torture survivors that torturers do not follow their own rules. I see no reason why torturers today would be less likely to follow ‘the rules’ then their historical predecessors.

 Looking up the laws of the land at the historical time period you’re interested in is a good place to start. But it won’t actually tell you everything that torturers did and it may not represent the most common tortures.

 It will give you a list of things that were definitely used at the time in that place though. Which isn’t a bad place to start.

 Look for history books that cover crime and punishment. If you can’t find one broad enough to do that (or give you a helpful summary of laws at the time) then I’ve found that accounts of specific historical figures in the relevant area/time often contain some of that information.

 The next major pitfall when researching historical torture is the bane of my existence: euphemisms.

 A lot of historical sources use vague or euphemistic terms for different tortures and then leave it up to the reader to figure out what they mean. This was probably perfectly clear at the time but now… less so.

 To use an example from something I’ve been trying to research for a while now I can tell you that the Ancient Egyptians definitely used torture. They say as much in surviving accounts of their justice system. They used it to punish, force confessions and attempt to gain information.

 They definitely beat people with sticks. They say they did, in multiple accounts. There are also wall carvings and paintings that show prisoners of war and enslaved people being menaced with sticks.

 However, I can’t find any definite suggestion that they used falaka, ie beating the soles of the feet with those sticks.

 Did they just hit people at random? This seems unlikely from a practical viewpoint as that’s a very easy way to kill someone. Did they ignore the feet and concentrate on other areas of the body? Did they use falaka and also beat other areas? Do I bring too much bias into this question because I’d love to find a historical point of origin for a torture that’s common throughout the Middle East today?

 Historical sources often just don’t contain the details we need to be certain about what torture they’re describing. Terminology is often vague. Descriptions can be contradictory. Often the only way to be certain is to come across an illustration or surviving device and even then this does not necessarily represent common practice and either piece of evidence could be contemporary propaganda rather then something that was actually used.

 When you’re talking about historical torture it is essential to find multiple sources and make sure they agree.

 Vague terminology like ‘water torture’ can cover a host of different sins. Finding a vague term or euphemism multiple times doesn’t even tell you if this was the same practice carried out in different areas or different practices with superficial similarities.

 If a source doesn’t give you enough information to be sure don’t use it. If a source suggests the meaning of a euphemism based on no clear evidence from the time period don’t use it.

 What I’ve found in my own small collection of books on witchcraft is very sparse on details.

 One of the older books I have suggests that there were almost no witch hunts or witch trials in Scandinavia which is complete bollocks. The book was published in 1959, so I’d suggest being wary of English language sources from that date and earlier.

 A much more recent (2017) Oxford University Press book on the subject gives an estimated 400-500 executions for witchcraft in Norway during the period of 1601-1670.

 This might seem like a small number compared to the thousands that were executed throughout the Holy Roman Empire but it seems a significant number given that the Norwegian trials were so concentrated in a small, sparsely populated region.

 Unfortunately this book is a very general overview of the perception of witchcraft and magic throughout Europe from the ancient world to the present. So it doesn’t really give any details of the kinds of tortures a Norwegian accused of witchcraft might endure.

 The author of the chapter on the witch trials was Rita Voltmer, University of Trier in case that’s helpful. She has published several papers on witch trials and the use of torture and at least one on witch trials in Norway. However a lot of her work is in German.

 These two papers/chapters in particular may be of interest: the english language document on torture and emotion in witch trials and the German paper on Norwegian and Danish witch trials.

 Several of the books I’ve got access to confirmed that Norway burnt witches and provided stories focused on shapeshifting and causing storms at sea. They also confirmed the use of torture in witch trials but nothing so helpful as the kind of tortures employed.

 I found multiple references to ‘water torture’. One of these implied that the particular torture was waterboarding alla the historical Dutch method. But the same source said this caused vomiting or possibly diarrhoea which seems to imply pumping.

 At a guess I’d say pumping is less likely because waterboarding can cause vomiting and so far as I know pumping wasn’t common anywhere in Europe during this period. However absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.

 ‘Water torture’ could also potentially refer to: a temperature torture, near drowning, a method of sleep deprivation or even dehydration. Without more detail it’s really hard to say which of these is being referenced.

 I found one mention of ‘burning torture’ a reference that I think referred to tearing the flesh with hot pincers based on the description of a torn wound. However given I only found this referenced once and I’m unsure of the source I found it in, I would not say this is a good one to pick.

 Which leaves me with common tortures.

 Whatever the time period, whatever the place, beatings the most common torture. Easily.

 If your character gets repeatedly hit, whether it’s clean or not, you are not being historically inaccurate. And I’ve got a lot of posts on beatings generally and clean beatings that can help you write that.

 Starvation and dehydration are also both really common regardless of culture and time period. So are temperature tortures or exposure though I think different countries have favoured different methods at different times.

 Torturous cell conditions were incredibly common across Europe historically. Lack of sanitation, wet cells, inadequate bedding, over crowding and conditions amounting to a temperature torture were all really common. They were also often happening alongside starvation.

 I have a masterpost on starvation and tags covering temperature tortures, exposure and prisons. I think the ‘prisons’ tag should give you most of the posts covering poor cell conditions, ‘historical torture’ and ‘historical fiction’ may also be helpful to you.

 I’m sorry I couldn’t come up with anything more specific.

Available on Wordpress.

Disclaimer

Edit: So this should be my week off the blog but I’ve seen a lot of the responses to this. Most of them are extremely helpful, thank you to everyone who knows Norwegian that is offering to help.

However: if your instinct is to say that any torturer, historical or recent, is ‘honourable’ and follows a code of conduct then this blog is not the place for you. I don’t tolerate that kind of apologia or people using my work to spread it.