Nearly 102 years after the Komagata Maru sailed into Vancouver, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has offered a full apology in the House of Commons for the government of the day's decision to turn away the ship, which was carrying hundreds of South Asian immigrants, most of whom were Sikhs.
The Komagata Maru arrived on Canada's West Coast on May 23, 1914, anchoring in Vancouver's Coal Harbour. Nearly all of the 376 passengers were denied entry and the ship sat in the harbour for two months. It was ultimately forced to return to India and was met by British soldiers. Twenty passengers were killed and others jailed following an ensuing riot. The Maru was a Japanese steamship chartered by wealthy Sikh businessman, Gurdit Singh, who was then living in Hong Kong. Its passage was a direct challenge to Canada's immigration rules, which had grown increasingly strict — and discriminatory — at the turn of the century.
Canada needed immigrants to cultivate western farmland but preferred those from the U.S, Britain or northern Europe.
India had been a British colony for almost 200 years at this point, and Singh believed British citizens should be able to freely visit any country in the Commonwealth.
Passengers from the Komagata Maru, shown in 1914. (James L. Quiney/City of Vancouver Archives) Too bad if you think you're all equal to us superior white people...oh...you did...this is awkward...
The steamship departed Hong Kong on April 4, 1914, making stops in Shanghai and Japan. Previously used to transport coal, the Komagata Maru had been transformed for the long journey.
Word of the ship's intended destination quickly reached Vancouver, where anti-Asian sentiment was already in full swing. Local newspaper headlines of the day decried its arrival as a "Hindu invasion." Yeah - like Hindus and Sikhs are the same...
In Vancouver, the Komagata Maru was immediately greeted by immigration officials who refused to let its passengers disembark. Twenty people determined to be returning residents were eventually permitted entry, but no one else stepped foot off the boat.
For two months they sat there. Eventually, they gave up and headed back home to Calcutta. Where they were promptly arrested, and 20 people were killed. Thanks Canada.
Party Boat? The Komagata Maru sits in Vancouver's Coal Harbour in 1914. The ship became a spectacle for locals during its two-month stay at the waterfront.
The Prof. Mohan Singh Memorial Foundation, founded in 1990, has been lobbying for an apology for nearly 25 years, working with local, provincial and federal politicians.
Finally, after everyone is dead, Canada gets around to apologizing. While I am glad of it, and for my Sikh friends, it's a typical move by our country to apologize for being shits to certain groups of people long after the fact. I have an idea: maybe we should stop being racist shits. Maybe?
I'm a huge classical and ancient music fan, which is code for geek. Big news then for me is that a lost piece of Medieval music has been reconstructed and performed. After a 20-year reconstruction effort, Sam Barrett, a senior lecturer in music at the University of Cambridge, has brought "lost" songs from the Middle Ages back to life.
Get down, get down, and bring the house down.
Reported by LiveScience writer Kacey Deamer, the "Songs of Consolation" were recently performed at the University of Cambridgein the United Kingdom. Reconstructed from "neumes" (medieval symbols used to represent musical notation), the tunes accompanied poems from Roman philosopher Boethius' magnum opus, "The Consolation of Philosophy."
A millennium ago, music was written in melodic outlines and not the modern "notes" that musicians rely on today. Music in medieval times was then shared through aural traditions and musicians' memories. Since these traditions died out hundreds of years ago, it is nearly impossible to decipher music from this era, because the pitches are unknown, experts have said.
Sam Barrett, a senior lecturer in music at the University of Cambridge, spent the past 20 years painstakingly identifying the musical techniques and melodies for "Songs of Consolation." He then worked with Benjamin Bagby, a member of Sequentia, a group of performers who have built a working memory of medieval song. Together, the two tested theories of the music with practical accompaniment.
"Ben tries out various possibilities, and I react to them — and vice versa," Barrett said in a statement. "When I see him working through the options that an 11th-century person had, it's genuinely sensational; at times you just think, 'that's it!' He brings the human side to the intellectual puzzle I was trying to solve during years of continual frustration." The researchers faced one major hurdle in their reconstruction project: a missing page from an 11th-century manuscript called "Cambridge Songs," the final part of an anthology of Latin text. The lost page included vital notations used to understand the musical principles of the era.
Barrett said the notations allowed him and Bagby to "achieve a critical mass" that may have been impossible without that puzzle piece.
"There have been times while I've been working on this that I have thought I'm in the 11th century, when the music has been so close it was almost touchable," Barrett said.
I've been so busy with the two theatre companies I'm involved with, that history had taken a back seat. Well, here I am in the saddle again, and what better way than to write on my favourite supernatural western - High Plains Drifter.
And don't forget there is no historical accuracy.
Yep, that's what I said: Supernatural Western. They are rare but this one is the best in my opinion. Eastwood plays a wraith that is looking to payback the townspeople who didn't help him as three men whipped him to death. It's a gritty, dark film that I first saw at the age of 12. Which explains my love of revenge movies and westerns. Even then, I knew this was revisionist history: the real American Western frontier was rough but it was more about colonialism than shoot em ups.
The Real American West
High Plains Drifter is a film about one white town in California sometime around the 1870s. People are still screwed up from the huge changes: completion of the railroads to the West following the Civil War opened up vast areas of the region to settlement and economic development. White settlers from the East poured across the Mississippi to mine, farm, and ranch. African-American settlers also came West from the Deep South, convinced by promoters of all-black Western towns that prosperity could be found there. Chinese railroad workers further added to the diversity of the region's population. These two groups are missing from the film, but some Mexican men who are treated very kindly by Eastwood are present. Their stories, however, are not explored as they are background characters.
The Library of Congress says that this time period, while pivotal in the creation of the USA as we now know it, was not a win-win for everyone:
Settlement from the East transformed the Great Plains. The huge herds of American bison that roamed the plains were virtually wiped out, and farmers plowed the natural grasses to plant wheat and other crops. The cattle industry rose in importance as the railroad provided a practical means for getting the cattle to market.
The loss of the bison and growth of white settlement drastically affected the lives of the Native Americans living in the West. In the conflicts that resulted, the American Indians, despite occasional victories, seemed doomed to defeat by the greater numbers of settlers and the military force of the U.S. government. By the 1880s, most American Indians had been confined to reservations, often in areas of the West that appeared least desirable to white settlers.
I Wanna Be A Cowboy
By the middle of the 1870s, the term “cowboy” described the young mounted riders driving cattle out of Texas. This term was originally used east of the Rocky Mountains; the preferred term on the other side of the Great Divide was “buckaroo,” coming from the Spanish word for cowboy, vaquero. But this did not last for long. By the early 1880s, bolstered by the mostly mythical image of the “wild west” portrayed in dime novels, the love affair between the general public of North America and Europe and the “cowboy” had begun.
The cowboy became the symbol for the West of the late 19th century, often depicted in popular culture as a glamorous or heroic figure. The stereotype of the heroic white cowboy is far from true, however. The first cowboys were Spanish vaqueros, who had introduced cattle to Mexico centuries earlier. Black cowboys also rode the range. Furthermore, the life of the cowboy was far from glamorous, involving long, hard hours of labor, poor living conditions, and economic hardship.
And no women to dance with. But I wonder if some didn't mind so much,as the source FairClassrooms points out.
The myth of the cowboy is only one of many myths that have shaped our views of the West in the late 19th century. Recently, some historians have turned away from the traditional view of the West as a frontier, a "meeting point between civilization and savagery" in the words of historian Frederick Jackson Turner. They have begun writing about the West as a crossroads of cultures, where various groups struggled for property, profit, and cultural dominance.
So, in High Plains Drifter, there is no gay cowboys, no Indians, no Chinese, no African Americans...no historical accuracy. It's pure fantasy and myth building, and it's fun. Or is it a bad thing? All this violence is very self-indulgent I admit.
In the ongoing historical analysis, the culture of violence in the American West of the late nineteenth century was created almost entirely by the U.S. government’s military interventions, which were primarily a veiled subsidy to the government-subsidized transcontinental railroad corporations. Should we point out the controversial genocide against the American Indians that's happily ignored in every film? (Controversial because was it intentional or just a "happy coincidence?")
But the one part they do get right is the need for a bath. Eastwood's character needs one and a shave. You can just see the stink coming off him. I'm sure the bath scene made my mom swoon though.
Today in history, a man lost an ear which started a war.
So lend me an ear and give a listen to my tale of woe...
In April of 1731, British Captain Robert Jenkins loses an ear to a band of Spanish brigands, starting a war between Britain and Spain: The War of Jenkins’ Ear. Asked to appear in Parliament to recount his tale in 1738, he reputedly displayed his ear during his testimony. Yuck: he kept that ear for seven years? In what? A hanky, a box, his coat pocket?
During the war, there was a lot more to worry about then your ear.
War of Jenkins’ Ear, war between Great Britain and Spain that began in October 1739 and eventually merged into the War of the Austrian Succession (1740–48). It did not start over an ear, as detailed by Historian Kennedy Hickman:
As part of the Treaty of Utrecht which ended the War of the Spanish Succession, Britain received a thirty-year trade agreement (an asiento) from Spain which permitted British merchants to trade up to 500 tons of goods per year in the Spanish colonies as well as sell an unlimited number of slaves. Though the asiento was in effect, its operation was often hindered by military conflicts between the two nations. In the wake of the Anglo-Spanish War (1727-1729), Britain granted Spain the right to stop British ships to ensure that the terms of the agreement were being respected.
Believing that the British were taking advantage of the agreement and smuggling, Spanish authorities began boarding and seizing British ships, as well as holding and torturing their crews. This led to an increase in tensions and an up swell of anti-Spanish sentiment in Britain. Though wishing to avoid war, First Minister Sir Robert Walpole was pressured into sending additional troops to Gibraltar and dispatching a fleet to the West Indies.In return, King Philip V suspended the asiento and confiscated British ships in Spanish ports.
Wishing to avoid a military conflict, both sides met at Pardo to seek a diplomatic resolution. The resulting Convention of Pardo, which was signed in early 1739, proved unpopular in Britain and the public clamored for war. By October, both sides had repeatedly violated the convention's terms. Though reluctant, Walpole officially declared war on October 23, 1739.
So - in reality - the ear issue really was an excuse or incident that added wax to the drum...ahahahah. No.
Public opinion had already been aroused by other Spanish outrages on British ships, and the Jenkins episode was swiftly exploited by members of Parliament who were in opposition to the government of Robert Walpole. By declaring war, Walpole hoped to appease the public and the opposition.
Archaeologists have used satellite imagery to identify a site in Newfoundland that could be the first new Viking site discovered in North America in over 50 years.
Satellite imagery, magnetometer surveys, and a preliminary excavation of the site at Point Rosee in Southern Newfoundland last year could point to a potentially fascinating discovery.
Until now, Newfoundland has the only Viking site in North America, found in the 1960s at L’Anse Aux Meadows on the northern tip of Newfoundland, about 300 miles from Point Rosee.
Discovery News online reports that the new site was identified by Archaeologist Sarah Parcak of the University of Alabama, Birmingham, used high-resolution satellite imagery to spot ruins as small as 11 inches buried below the surface:
From Discovery. To the trained eye it still looks like..a mossy bog.
Satellites positioned around 478 miles above the Earth enabled Parcak and her team to scan a vast section of America and Canada’s eastern seaboard.
The satellite images, two magnetometer surveys, and preliminary excavations suggest “sub-surface rectilinear features,” according to the experts, who also identified possible evidence of ironworking in the form of roasted iron ore. Radiocarbon technology has dated the site to between 800 and 1300 AD.
The project was led by Parcak and co-directed by Gregory Mumford, an associate professor at the University of Alabama at Birmingham and Frederick Schwarz, of Black Spruce Heritage Services. Douglas Bolender, an archaeologist at the University of Massachusetts, Boston, and historian Dan Snow also participated in the investigation.
Less in the middle of Nowhere, Newfoundland than the other one as the ferry dumps you off in Port-au-Basque.
We all know that the vikings brought the fun in New-Fund-land...ok bad attempt at pun. But the fact that if this data is confirmed as Norse by further research, the site will show that the Vikings travelled much farther in North America than previously known, pushing the boundary of their explorations over 300 miles to the southwest.
And another tourist site for Newfoundland to promote the hell out of.
It's not a well known story outside of Asia or among non-historians: the actions of a few brave foreigners trying to hold off the massacre in Nanking (Nanjing) in 1937 to 1938. One was Minnie Vautrin, an American woman who was the Principal of the Ginling Women's College. The Chinese call her the "Goddess of Mercy".
On December 13, 1937 the Japanese Imperial Army invaded Nanking and the ensuing six weeks became known to history as the Nanking Massacre. Estimates by the Tokyo War Crimes is that 20,000 women and girls were raped. The general consensus among historians is about 200,000 to 300,000. The rape and looting was so nightmarish that the stories that came out are worse than any horror movie. I had to study it in university and I wish I never had in some ways.
Goddess of Mercy
A group of foreigners, mainly missionaries and businessmen, created the Nanking Safety Zone. The Japanese authorities never formally recognized the Zone, but did say that they would not attack an area which was not occupied by Chinese troops. On this narrow margin of agreement, the Chinese promise to evacuate the area and the Japanese statement that they would not intentionally attack an unoccupied place, the Safety Zone was finally put through.
Central to saving thousands of people, Was Minnie Vautrin. Her biography on the Yale Divinity site tells of her bravery but sad end:
Minnie Vautrin was born in Secor, Illinois on September 27, 1886. She worked her way through the University of Illinois with a major in education, graduating with high honors in 1912. Vautrin was commissioned by the United Christian Missionary Society as a missionary to China, where she first served as a high school principal for a few years and then became chairman of the education department of Ginling College in Nanking when it was founded in 1916. She served as acting president of Ginling College when President Matilda Thurston returned to America for fundraising.
With the Japanese army pressing on Nanking, Vautrin again was called on to take charge of the College campus, as most of the faculty left Nanking for Shanghai or Chengtu, Szechwan.
Minnie Vautrin's writings provide a detailed account of the situation in Nanking under Japanese occupation. In the last entry of her diary, April 14, 1940, Minnie Vautrin wrote: "I'm about at the end of my energy. Can no longer forge ahead and make plans for the work, for on every hand there seems to be obstacles of some kind. I wish I could go on furlough at once, but who will do the thinking for the Exp. Course?"Two weeks later, she suffered a nervous breakdown and returned to the United States. A year to the day after she left Nanking, Vautrin ended her own life.
She was so tough: accounts of her not even backing down, even when the soldiers insisted on taking girls under her care as prostitutes. The Japanese soldiers slapped her, threatened to murder her and all the other foreigners, and to destroy the safety zone. She did not give in: only once was she fooled into letting women return home by the Japanese to disastrous results as many were killed or raped when they left her protection.
She was eventually forced after 6 weeks to give up the zone but Vautrin and the others are credited with saving approximately 250,000 people. However, I can understand why she committed suicide: what human could survive this level of insanity and be sane?
I find it amazing what she did and I think often of her amazing bravery. We like to pat ourselves in the back in Canada a lot for letting in Syrian refugees, or bitterly debate the issues over taking them in. Then I read what happened in Nanjing and what Vautrin did, and I think we have done the minimum of what our humanity demands. We have everything and she had nothing but saved 250,000 people in a war zone. Yeah, that's real sacrifice.
Note:
The best archive for Minnie Vautrin's personal letters and material is online now through the Yale University Divinity School Library's Special Collections. There are first hand accounts and photographs from Westerners who remained in Nanking after the Japanese invasion. These resources do not provide a comprehensive understanding of what occurred in Nanjing during 1937-1938, but the observations made by these men and women provide an important historical lens to complement additional research.
As well, there is a good list of sources that you can look up and read further on the actions of Vautrin and the others.
Just a huge warning: I've purposely kept a lot of horrific details out of this blog to focus more on Vautrin, but the other sources do not. Unless you have a strong stomach don't investigate too much unless you want to be crying your face off in a matter of seconds and hating humanity.
This week on the " Historical Places I Can Never Go" list is one I have cherished for a long time. When I was young, many of my friends were immigrants, and many were from Cambodia. I never asked why they came to Canada, but I assumed that the whole French Resistance/Killing Fields/Khmer Rouge/Vietnamese thing had a lot to do with them fleeing in the early 1980s. I hope that one day the lovely people of Cambodia will get to have peace and fat tourists coming to spend money in their country. Again, I don't hold my breath.
According to the Cambodia Tourism website, it's the "kingdom of wonder. There's lovely buses to take tourists to lovely places and see their lovely historical and artistic places. And that's true. It looks incredible.
Angkor is an "important archaeological sites in South-East Asia. Stretching over some 400 km2, including forested area, Angkor Archaeological Park contains the magnificent remains of the different capitals of the Khmer Empire, from the 9th to the 15th century. They include the famous Temple of Angkor Wat and, at Angkor Thom, the Bayon Temple with its countless sculptural decorations." But these awesome faces are also being eaten by trees. Because the forest just does not give a shit.
Temple of Preah Vihear, and this is a bad picture compared to what else they have. Copyright UNESCO
The Temple of Preah Vihear is "dedicated to Shiva. The Temple is composed of a series of sanctuaries linked by a system of pavements and staircases over an 800 metre long axis and dates back to the first half of the 11th century AD. Nevertheless, its complex history can be traced to the 9th century, when the hermitage was founded. This site is particularly well preserved, mainly due to its remote location. The site is exceptional for the quality of its architecture, which is adapted to the natural environment and the religious function of the temple, as well as for the exceptional quality of its carved stone ornamentation."
Well, the years of war have really fucked this place up. Right at the Temple of Preah Vihear there have been frequent clashes between Thailand and Cambodia over a border dispute in this region, including exchanges of gunfire and artillery, which resulted in numerous fatalities and the evacuation of civilians. In 2013, the International Court of Justice ruled that Cambodia has sovereignty over the entire territory of the Preah Vihear temple. While the situation has improved, tension may remain.
Thanks to the wars, the presence of landmines has been reported everywhere.Cambodia remains one of the most heavily mined countries in the world. Landmines can be found in rural areas, especially in the provinces of Banteay Meanchey, Siem Reap (except in the town of Siem Reap and the Angkor temples, which are safe), Battambang, Kampong Thom and Pursat. The border area with Thailand is especially dangerous. Do not walk in forested areas or in dry rice paddies unless you want your leg gone. And forget visits to outlying temples, particularly in the areas of Phnom Kulen and the River of a Thousand Lingas, as they are heavily mined.
Also, the people have not been educated enough about tourism development or sustainability. Things like waste management, food safety, and historic preservation are largely ignored, even in areas that are seeing lots of tourists. For example, more and more people (millions of them) visit the Angkor temples each year, but the infrastructure in Siem Reap — not to mention the preservation of the temples themselves — remains quite basic. What's going to happen 10 or 20 years from now due to over-visitation and unsustainable development? And do I really want to just add to it?
Angkor Wat - home of the Gods or home to the fifth ring of hell? You decide.
The blog A Dangerous Business I think sums up why I can't go there yet: I don't want to break my heart. I've already had that done in China, which I will write about one day. The author of the blog writes:
Seeing stark economic disparity broke my heart. The Royal Palace in Phnom Penh, for example, is immaculately well manicured, with buildings covered in gold and filled with valuables. But then you walk out into the city, where there is trash all over the streets and people living in extreme poverty. According to the United Nations’ Human Development Index, Cambodia only ranks #138 out of 195, with 23% of people living on less than $1.25 per day...According to the Corruption Perceptions Index from 2013, Cambodia ranks in the top 20 most corrupt nations in the world, and it’s painfully evident if you look for it.
And there are plenty more heartbreaking examples: kids begging on the streets (many of whom do this “professionally” instead of going to school); touts (hawkers) pestering tourists inside religious sites; locals — including tour guides — throwing rubbish on the ground. Add to this rampant exploitation of the poor and the weak (Cambodia has one of the worst reputations in the world when it comes to child sex trafficking) and it’s beyond heartbreaking.
So, maybe instead of holding my breath to see the historical beauty of Cambodia I can at least donate to something to give to that country regardless. I'm sending off some money to a charity a friend gives to after they saw the good work they did: Cambodian Children's Fund. And then maybe I can go one day, if not, there's always this:
The list of amazing places I hope to visit in the world is really long. I've been very lucky that I have gone to Asia, North America and the UK so far. But these places are relatively safe. When I say relative I mean I don't have to worry about a bazooka shot to the face or getting thrown off a bus, or worse.
One place I really hope calms the fork down is Libya. Every since I read about the Muslim invasion of the area around 660 CE as a kid, I've wanted to go and see the amazing Greek, Roman, and Berber cultural leftovers which Muslim culture graphed on to. The past dude in charge, however, had no interest in a little Canadian kid getting the chance to let her run around the desert. Mr. Gaddafi had bigger problems and he was...removed in 2011 in the civil war.
Since the defeat of Gaddafi's loyalist forces, Libya has been torn among numerous, rival, armed militias affiliated to regions, cities and tribes, while the central government has been weak and unable to bring its authority over the country. Competing militias have lined up against each other in a political struggle between Islamist politicians and their opponents.Can you say power vacuum? And that means those wankers Daesh are there too doing their crap.
So I'm out of luck getting to see this:
From National Geographic
Copyright- Mike Gadd
Copyright: Federica Leone
This is the amazing Old Ghadames, an oasis town in the heart of the Sahara desert is on the edge of Libya, close to both the Algerian and Tunisian borders. It was named an UNESCO World Heritage site in 1986.
Copyright: Federica Leone - UNESCO
It is a whole abandoned city that's a labyrinth of interconnected rooftops and narrow dark tunnels, contrasting the brilliant white-washed walls which make the old town an architectural spectacle. The people of Ghadames are largely Amazigh Berbers and the old town of Ghadames has been inhabited since approximately 400 BCE. The Romans first mention the town, Cydamus, around 100 BCE. Ghadames was an important trade town until the late 1800s CE.
The last family voluntarily withdrew from the old town in the late 1990s, "due to a lack of water and electricity." I think more they were forced to move as that sounds like a suddenly odd reason now. The old town now stands as a monument to what was a feat of architectural engineering for a Saharan oasis town.
Local guide Mohammed tells me, "growing up in the old town as a child you quickly have to commit to memory the numerous tunnels and passages, determining which are true and which are dead ends. It stimulates a healthy memory!" 50 years on, Mohammed can still navigate the old town maze by heart as I blunder around behind him, barely able to see my hand in front of me. The stark contrast of dark and light, as well as the bright white buildings play tricks on the eyes and it's easy to become quickly bedazzled by this unique walled town.
Moving into one of the traditional dwellings, one is immediately hit with a burst of colour which starkly contrasts the white outer walls. Traditional Ghadamesy colours are utilised, predominantly red with complimentary yellow, green and orange. Some front doors are also decorated with these colours to denote that its inhabitants have undertaken the Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca.
Copyright: Federica Leone - UNESCO
Each of the rooms within the uniform 4 story houses has a designated purpose, whether it's wheat storage or rooms for washing the dead before burial. The high roofs and light colours make the houses intensely cool as a relief to the outside Saharan heat. As light is rare within the old town, mirrors are strategically hung on the walls throughout the houses to cleverly reflect light into each room. As one moves up the house to the rooftop you are greeted by a silent city. The roofs of all of the houses in the old town are connected by narrow walkways. Traditionally only women could roam the rooftops, acting as lookouts for Saharan caravans and news as well as being the primary location for them to socialise with one another.
So...too bad for me. It's too unstable and violent now for me to go safely into Libya and see this amazingly historically important and beautiful place. For now.
1907 Oahu College women’s soccer team (photo courtesy Futbol Heritage Archive).
I love watching Women's Football (Soccer) especially cheering for the Women's National Team! They are getting ready for the Olympics in Rio. The team won a bronze in 2012 and I'm hoping for even better next time as the coach is very good:
"Canadian women's soccer coach John Herdman has summoned the heart of his World Cup team along with an injection of youth for his first camp on the road to Rio. Herdman's roster includes captain Christine Sinclair and fellow World Cup veterans Erin McLeod, Rhian Wilkinson, Allysha Chapman, Diana Matheson, Sophie Schmidt and Melissa Tancredi..."It's an exciting group we've brought together." Herdman said Sunday from Vancouver. "I really do hope we can find some of the quality that we are going to need to get on the Olympic (podium)."
It's been a real hard slog for the ladies in soccer though. Their history is marked by extreme prejudice and male-domination over their actions. Despite that, the ladies love the sport and have stayed strong over the 100 plus years of playing.
In the early 20th century, women were playing
the game seriously in different parts of the US, Great Britain, France and
Canada. The picture above is a college competitive team picture from Hawaii. (Educated and playing soccer? Wow they must have pissed a lot of old white dudes off) Some facts point that in Central Europe, competitive soccer was
not uncommon. Such games were often played without compliance with the
civil and church authorities.
One of the popular records of the game comes from Boxing Day in 1920, at Goodison Park in Liverpool. A spectacular
game took place on England’s biggest soccer ground where Dick, Kerr
Ladies played with a Lancashire team called St. Helen Ladies in front of
a crowd of 53,000 people. It is noted that more than ten thousand fans
had to be locked out when the ground became fully occupied.
The winning team - sexism not in picture.
However, the men in power did not like it.
The crowd size on that day was seen as a major
threat at the headquarters of Football Association in London. Also many men complained that it was "distasteful" for women to play. In 1921,
the influential central body of the game set a ban on women for playing
soccer for an incredible period of 50 years. The repercussions could be
seen immediately as this decision crippled women soccer players in a few
countries. However, Italy and France established women’s leagues in
early 1930s. Women continued to play soccer despite the bans across the world as amatures. The Dick, Kerr Ladies FC continued to play.
After the
war, the graph took an upward turn with Italy establishing its national
association in 1950 and Germany organizing the first informal women
European championship in 1957. Northern European countries were also
part of the development, especially Norway and Sweden. Even though most countries had women’s teams, it wasn’t until 1971
that the ban was lifted in England and women could play on the same
fields as the men.
A year after the ban was lifted, women’s soccer in America became
more popular due to Title IX. Title IX required that equal funding was
given to men’s and women’s sports in colleges. The new law meant that more women could go to college with a sports
scholarship, and as a result, it meant that women’s soccer was becoming a
more common sport at colleges all over the United States.Surprisingly, it wasn’t until the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta that
women’s soccer was an Olympic event. At that Olympic Games there were
only 40 events for women and double the amount of men participants as
there were women. One massive step forward for women’s soccer was the first Women’s
World Cup, which is a soccer tournament that has teams from all over the
world play each other. This first tournament was held in China on
November 16-30, 1991. Dr. Hao Joao Havelange, the president of the Fédération
Internationale de Football Association (FIFA) during that time, was the
person that initiated the first Women’s World Cup, and because of that
first World Cup, the United States created a name for itself in women’s
soccer.
The original 1986 Canadian Women's National Team wore second-hand boys' jerseys (Canadian Soccer Association)
Overall, the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s were years of enormous success for
Canadian women in sports. The 1960s and 1970s witnessed the emergence of
the “women’s liberation” movement
in North America. Women increasingly fought restrictions in all areas
of life, including sports. Plaintiffs brought sex-discrimination cases
to court, arguing that girls should be allowed to play in games, and on
teams, that were traditionally reserved for boys. In 1981, feminist
athletes and activists established the Canadian Association for the
Advancement of Women and Sport (CAAWS).
It was Canada Day, July 1, 1986, when the Canadian Soccer Association brought together 20 players to make up the first women's national team. The squad had three days in Winnipeg to get to know each other and
sort out strategy before embarking on a day-long bus ride to Blaine,
Minn., to face the U.S. in their first game.
But sexism reigns still in soccer and in women's sports. Despite the success of women in all types
of sport, female athletes are still judged to some degree on their
physical attractiveness. Another challenge facing female (and
male) athletes is that of homophobia, which continues to persist in the
world of sports. There has long been paranoia about homosexuality
in women’s sports, and many female athletes and teams have taken pains
to emphasize their heterosexuality and femininity in response to
societal fears about masculine women athletes. Few
gay athletes have felt comfortable revealing their sexuality while in
active competition. However, in September 2013 Olympic speed skater
Anastasia Bucsis stated publicly to the Globe andMail that she was “proud to be gay”; her statement may be a sign that the Canadian sporting world is becoming more inclusive.
Hello all! After a brief
respite and working on contracts, I'm back looking at the history in current
events through my own slightly fractured abnormal lenses.
Because
this is normal where I'm from.
This week in world events, something is happening I never thought I would see:
Burma opposition leader Aung San Suu Kyi's
party said Monday that it had won 56 of the 57 parliamentary seats from
Burma's main city of Rangoon, a result that portends a massive sweep
in historic elections that could eventually give it the presidency next year. CBC
reports that "the National League for Democracy announced that it had
won 44 of the 45 lower house seats and all 12 of the upper house seats from
Rangoon, a party stronghold, in Sunday's general election. It also won 87 of
the 90 seats in the Rangoon state legislature. Elections for regional
parliaments were held simultaneously."
About 30 million people are eligible to vote for more than 90 parties that are
contesting. The main fight is between the National League for Democracy, led by
Nobel Peace laureate Aung, and the ruling Union Solidarity Development Party,
made up largely of former junta members. A host of other parties from ethnic
minorities, who form 40 percent of the country's 52 million people, are also
running.
As usual, history
has screwed Burma so much, and these people deserve the chance to finally
have the rights we do. In other words, freedom in all forms, including forking
up their own country and not someone else always doing it to them. They may
finally be freeing itself from the stranglehold of the military, which ruled
the country for a half-century until 2011.
Hang on to your hats: the primer on Burma's "Highlights of History"
are here! Remember kids, everyone dies, horribly. So don't say I didn't warn
you.
The
double tap of Mongols and British Rule
Way back in 1057,King
Anawrahta founds the first unified Myanmar state at Pagan and adopts Theravada
Buddhism. But nothing was untouched by the Mongols anywhere: in the late 1280s
they conquered Pagan and ran it till 1531, when the nation of Burma was formed.
And like the Mongols, things get crazy when the British show up. From 1824-26
the First Anglo-Burmese war ends with the Treaty of Yandabo, according to which
Burma ceded the Arakan coastal strip, between Chittagong and Cape Negrais, to
British India. They took the rest in 1852as Britain annexes lower
Burma, including Rangoon, following the second Anglo-Burmese war. Burma becomes
a province then a crown colony of Britain.
During
WWII, the Japanese tried to copy the Mongols (that whole militarism thing)
and Britain (the whole colonialism thing) and take Burma. The Burmese people
rose up and were ‘liberated’ by the British. Aung San and six members of his
interim government were assassinated by political opponents led by U Saw, a
nationalist rival of Aung San's. U Nu, foreign minister in Ba Maw's government,
which ruled Burma during the Japanese occupation, asked to head the AFPFL and
the government. England now looks at the chaos of what they have partly been
responsible for and as per usual, fork off. Burma gets independence in 1948.
In 1960 U Nu's party faction
wins decisive victory in elections, but his promotion of Buddhism as the state
religion and his tolerance of separatism angers the military. U Nu's faction ousted
in military coup led by Gen Ne Win, who abolishes the federal system and
inaugurates "the Burmese Way to Socialism" - nationalising the
economy, forming a single-party state with the Socialist Programme Party as the
sole political party, and banning independent newspapers. Many minority groups
begin their fight against the government including the Shan, who up till very
recently were still kick can all over the place.
Fast forward to the 1980s and
the people are pissed. A currency devaluation wipes out many people's savings
and triggers anti-government riots. Thousands of people are killed in
anti-government riots. Martial Law is declared, arrests thousands of people,
including advocates of democracy and human rights, and the country is renamed
'Myanmar'.
The
cartographer's
clearly gave up and just started using brackets.
Our
heroine enters?
NLD leader Aung San Suu Kyi,
the daughter of Aung San, is put under house arrest for her whole “I like
democracy” button collection. After years of absolute bull-crap including
multiple arrests, and no chance of seeing her dying British husband in the UK
unless she concedes to these right wing nut jobs in uniform, Aung finally gets
out in 2002. However, not all is rosy in the country as activists are
continually arrested including Buddhist monks, who are not down with the whole
“Do what I say or I’ll kill you deal” they keep getting.
Finally, it takes a fucking
cyclone to get the government to move towards democracy. Cyclone Nargis hits in
2008. Some estimates put the death toll as high as 134,000. Referendum on new
constitution proceeds amid humanitarian crisis following cyclone. Government
says 92% voted in favour of draft constitution and insists it can cope with
cyclone aftermath without foreign help. After a few more deaths – like 1000s –
and more house arrests, the Banana Republic of Asia Called Myamar finally gets
a break. In 2011, pro-democracy leader Aung says she will stand for election to
parliament, as her party rejoins the political process. Myanmar abolishes
pre-publication media censorship. The hard liners are either dead or removed
from power.
Pictured:
Aung San Suu Kyi. She's just plain awesome.
Now What?
Current President Thein Sein
dismisses rival Shwe Mann and allies from leading roles in ruling Union Solidarity
and Development Party. Opposition leader Aung says ready to work with Shwe
Mann, and she wins the most seats!
This does not mean things are
going to be ok: these people lived through civil war, famine and death, a
military run government with no freedoms, and they seriously have a country to
re-build. But at least now they have hope.
Warning: This article does not involve any vegetables.
I come from a long line of professional bakers: my father was a cook/baker in the military, his grandfather owned a bakery in Kingston, Ontario, his father before him...we have icing sugar in our veins. And one favorite of the family was cake. Cake was the king of all deserts in my house, even the raisin pie my dad made was humbled before his chocolate cake. It didn't hurt my mom was awesome at baking too.
Cupcakes however, were never in their repertoire. They are in mine though as I love these mini cups of heaven. Over the last five years, there's been an explosion of cupcake specific bakeries across Canada. Now the first flush of love is dying down, many of these places are now offering assorted cookies and other pastries as well. But the passion of the cupcake got me thinking...who was the first to develop cakes and cupcakes specifically?
Thank You Miss Simmons!
Cup Cakes (called Fairy Cakes in England) were first mentioned in American Cookery by Amelia Simmons in 1796, the first cookbook written by an American. She was probably a domestic cook in a family and was an orphan. Simmons probably knew about cupcakes from English bakers who made the lighter and smaller version of the cup cake. She writes:
A light Cake to bake in small cups:
Half a pound sugar, half a pound butter, rubbed into two pounds flour,
one glass wine, one do rose water, two do. emptins, a nutmeg, cinnamon
and currants.
Lovely Fairy cakes - note the absence of a tower of icing. But the designs are modern.
Another type of cup cake was the number cake, or 1234 cake, or quarter cakes as the baker could remember how much of what ingredient would go in. One such Victorian era cup cake recipe that would have been a number cake:
CUP CAKES.
Two cups of sugar, one cup of butter, one cup of milk, three cups and
a half of flour and four eggs, half a teaspoonful of soda, large spoon
cream of tartar; stir butter and sugar together and add the beaten
yolks of the eggs, then the milk, then flavoring and the whites. Put
cream of tartar in flour and add last. Bake in buttered gem-pans, or
drop the batter, a teaspoonful at a time, in rows on flat buttered
tins.
To this recipe may be added a cup of English currants or chopped
raisins; and also another variety of cake may be made by adding a half
cup citron sliced and floured, a half cupful of chopped almonds and
lemon extract.
Further refinement to cup cakes came int he 20th century. As you can tell from the two recipes from above, icing wasn't used. Cupcakes were finally decorated with frosting in the 1920’s and only with chocolate or vanilla. Taking a cue from modern baking methods, the first commercially
produced cupcakes were launched around 1918, originally produced by the Taggart Bakery - then bought by Hostess. Early in the 20th century, the advent of multi-cupcake molded tins
brought modest mass production methods to cupcake making, and a modern
baking tradition was born! (Thanks University of Florida for the info). During the 1940’s cupcakes were available with Malted icing. Then it got even easier to make your own: Cake mixes, sold by Duncan Hines and others, made it easier and more popular to bake cakes and cupcakes at home.
The overwhelming popularity of cup cakes came about in early 2000s with the first cupcake only bakeries in America. Before this, cup cakes were made by general bakeries or at home. Magnolia Bakery in New York gained fame with their cupcakes from the huge hit show Sex and the City. One of the first cupcake only bakery was Sprinkles Cupcakes in 2002 in Beverly Hills.
Here's an amazing infograph just on cupcakes for you to enjoy before you head to the baking bowls to make your own.
Nothing makes my blood boil more than people who appropriate other people's culture for their own uses or with no understanding of the original culture. Let's be clear: I am a Canadian who studied Chinese History, and that's not a problem to me. It's cool to study and write about other cultures, just don't think I'm going to wander around in yellow face ever. I study and practice yoga, but no way am I going to start spouting off about ancient Hindu texts as I have zero idea on that.
The absolute worst cultural appropriation award should go to the German Nazi Party of the early and mid-20th century. Why? Because not only did they decide that the ripping off the past glories of other nations and mythologizing their nation was a great way to cement their Fascist nationalism, but that stealing the icons of cultures that they barely knew about and probably would have tried to kill off anyways. One image was the Svastika.
First, what is this odd cross like symbol? According to my go-to place of first blush information, Britannica Online (eat that Wikipedia) it's an ancient symbol always with with arms bent at right angles, all in the same rotary direction,
usually clockwise.
The word is Sanskrit: svastika, meaning
“conducive to well-being.” It was a favourite symbol on ancient coinage. In Scandinavia, the left-hand swastika was the sign
for the god Thor’s hammer.(They missed that detail in the movies.)
The swastika also appeared in early
Christian and Byzantine art where it became known as the gammadion
cross, or crux gammata, because it has four Greek
gammas [ Γ ] attached to a common base. The symbol is universal in that it occurred in South and
Central America among the Maya and in North America among
the Navajo peoples.
Here's where I laughed my ass off: The swastika as a symbol of prosperity and good
fortune is widely distributed throughout the ancient and modern world. So...the Nazis were wishing themselves prosperity and good fortune. Ugh.
Peace and prosperity to you all, and...OMG what is that gargoyle doing up there?
In India the swastika continues to be the most widely used auspicious symbol of Hindus, Jainas, and Buddhists. Among the Jainas it is the emblem of their seventh Tirthankara
(saint) and is also said to remind the worshipper by its four arms of
the four possible places of rebirth—in the animal or plant world, in
hell, on Earth, or in the spirit world.
A clear distinction is made
between the right-hand swastika, which moves in a clockwise direction,
and the left-hand swastika (more correctly called the sauvastika),
which moves in a counterclockwise direction. The right-hand swastika is
considered a solar symbol and imitates in the rotation of its arms the
course taken daily by the Sun, which in the Northern Hemisphere appears
to pass from east, then south, to west. The left-hand swastika more
often stands for night, the terrifying goddess Kālī, and magical
practices.
In the Buddhist tradition the swastika symbolizes the feet, or the footprints, of the Buddha.
It is often placed at the beginning and end of inscriptions, and modern
Tibetan Buddhists use it as a clothing decoration. With the spread of Buddhism,
the swastika passed into the iconography of China and Japan, where it
has been used to denote plurality, abundance, prosperity, and long life.
The legend goes that the Gautama Buddha (the historical Buddha) was inscribed with this symbol on the chest by his disciples upon his death. We often see statues of him with this symbol on the chest or on the sole of the feet. Many Buddhist texts start with this symbol, thus it has started being used in Japan as a symbol representing temples, especially on maps as the torii gate represents Shinto shrines.
"My goodness there's a lot of Nazis in Kyoto. I guess they really were allies in WWII"
Goose-Stepping Thieves!!!
"Seriously don't associate me with those people"
The Holocaust museum has an amazing amount of research available on the acquisition of the Germans of the swastika. The advent of using the symbol begins pre-World War I. In 1910 a poet and nationalist ideologist Guido
von List had suggested the swastika as a symbol for all anti-Semitic
organizations; and when the National Socialist Party (NSP) was formed in
1919–20, it adopted it. They knew about the symbol from being nuts about archaeology: the famous archaeologist Heinrich Schliemann discovered the hooked cross
on the site of ancient Troy. He connected it with similar shapes found
on pottery in Germany and speculated that it was a “significant
religious symbol of our remote ancestors.” His work soon
was taken up by the NSP movements, for whom the swastika was a symbol of “Aryan identity” and German nationalist pride.
This conjecture of Aryan cultural descent of the German people is
likely one of the main reasons why the Nazi party formally adopted the
swastika or Hakenkreuz (Ger., hooked cross) as its symbol in 1920.
The Nazi party, however, was not the only party to use the swastika
in Germany. After World War I, a number of far-right nationalist
movements adopted the swastika. As a symbol, it became associated with
the idea of a racially “pure” state. By the time the Nazis gained
control of Germany, the connotations of the swastika had forever
changed.
In Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler wrote: “I myself, meanwhile, after
innumerable attempts, had laid down a final form; a flag with a red
background, a white disk, and a black swastika in the middle. After long
trials I also found a definite proportion between the size of the flag
and the size of the white disk, as well as the shape and thickness of
the swastika.”
On Sept. 15, 1935, the black swastika on a white
circle with a red background became the national flag of Germany.
This use of the swastika ended in World War II with the German
surrender in May 1945, though the swastika is still favoured by neo-Nazi
groups.
I said Neo, not Neon...
Screw You I'm Still Using It
Can the symbol be-reclaimed in the modern world? Well people use it still all the time outside of Europe and the Americas because fuck the Nazis. And they had it first. So when I went to China and Japan, I did see it on a few statues. There's a lot of people out there who want to reclaim the symbol from its misuse by the Nazis. But my friend John and I once talked about this and he was vehemently opposed, as it was a sensitive issue for many people. And I think he sums up a lot of what people feel: I'd rather just forget about it and never talk about it again.
I have to disagree: I watched a great BBC4 documentary on reclaiming the swastika and I think that's the better answer. I think we should commit to sharing information that reveals its long and varied history and the spiritually deep meaning that underlies it. For, if we allow the swastika to remain forever distorted, then those responsible will have won.
No way are we going to take this sitting....down...I mean....
If you haven't noticed, I didn't include one picture of a Nazi Swastika, because those assholes have gotten enough mileage out of stealing other people's stuff. And to more appropriately express my feelings, here's comedian Eddy Izzard on the Nazis and Hitler "the mass-murdering fuck head":
Books more your take?
Heidtmann, Horst. “Swastika.” In Encyclopedia of the Third Reich, 937-939. New York: Macmillan, 1991.
Heller, Steven. The Swastika: Symbol Beyond Redemption? New York: Allworth Press, 2000.
Quinn, Malcolm. The Swastika: Constructing the Symbol. London: Routledge, 1994.
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