Ukraine: 5 articles I’d write if I had the time

It is a fact, that I find pretty damned tragic, that I haven’t written anything about the earth-shaking developments in Ukraine, since I wrote this piece on February 24. To be honest, most of that piece still holds up fairly well. So what happened was basically that, energized by the thinking that had gone into … Continue reading Ukraine: 5 articles I’d write if I had the time

Where to now, the “world order”?

By launching a broad military campaign against Ukraine today, Russia’s President Vladimir Putin has also launched a strong assault against the norms of the sovereignty-based “world order” that has been in place since 1945– or even, one might say, since the Treaty of Westphalia in 1648. Of course, the post-1945 order has been majorly contravened … Continue reading Where to now, the “world order”?

European empires competing in 16th-century East Asia

In 1511 CE, Portugal became the first of the European empires to establish a presence in East Asia. That was the year in which conquistador Afonso de Albuquerque established the first of the Portuguese empire’s characteristically heavily-armed trading/raiding outposts at Malacca, a strategic choke-point in today’s Malaysia that has always been a major node of … Continue reading European empires competing in 16th-century East Asia

Quakers and settler colonialism before William Penn

Last week, I wrote three blog posts about the involvement of Quakers in various phases of the White-supremacist settler-colonial project here in Turtle Island (the United States.) But all those phases were after the allocation by England’s King Charles II of a huge chunk of land in Turtle Island to the Quaker William Penn, which … Continue reading Quakers and settler colonialism before William Penn

White settlers with “good intentions”

Earlier this week, I wrote about some of the activities undertaken by the Indian Affairs Committee of the Baltimore Yearly Meeting (BYM) of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers.) Amazingly, that committee has been in continuous– or sometimes, possibly a bit sporadic?– operation since 1795 CE. In that blog post, I interrogated the commonly voiced … Continue reading White settlers with “good intentions”

Baltimore Quakers & westward expansion in the early United States

On Monday, I wrote about the involvement of Quakers in William Penn’s settler-colonial project in Turtle Island in the 17th century CE. Now, I want to fast-forward to the early 19th century CE, and start looking at the involvement of Baltimore Quakers in various stages of the ongoing westward expansion of the project, which was … Continue reading Baltimore Quakers & westward expansion in the early United States