When I was growing up in England in the 1950s and 1960s, we were all pretty proud of the NHS. It really did a lot to define “British-ness” at a time when the Empire that had done that for previous generations was being unceremoniously sloughed off. At least our generation could be quietly proud that, … Continue reading Britain once swapped an expensive empire for a National Health Service… Today–?
So Charles, from the family of Windsor (formerly known as Saxe-Coburg-Gotha) will be getting formally “crowned as King of England, Wales, and Scotland on May 26, 2023. A few weeks ago I wrote about the opportunity this would give us to consider the imperial origins of the “Crown Jewels” that will be flaunted on that … Continue reading WaPo picks up on UK ‘Crown Jewels’ story…
I am already looking forward to the coronation of Charles Windsor, to presumably be held during peak tourist season in 2023? This gives us enough time to do more research into the provenance of the obscenely extensive holdings of the House of Windsor (known until a speedy 1917 name-change as the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha)… and … Continue reading Britain’s Crown Jewels: Time to decolonize, repatriate!
1. Writing and publishing a printed and bound book is like sending a postcard into the future. (Just possibly, releasing digital materials has the same capability, but I’m not sure?) So here, on my desk, is a postcard from the end of the last century in the form of a copy of Sven Lindqvist’s book … Continue reading A postcard from the 20th century
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
On Friday, I sent out an “institutional” email blast on behalf of Just World Educational, the non-profit educational org that I founded in late 2015 and have headed ever since. That email/newsletter took me much longer than usual to write, hampered as I am by the eye problem that first struck me in early November… … Continue reading My January Syndrome strikes again…
Whoa. September was a complete washout, a zilch, for my plan to return to being a writer and getting my own voice back out there after nearly a decade of supporting other people’s voices. I have been super-busy in other parts of the Just World (anti-imperialist) “Empire”. I planned and then have been managing challenges … Continue reading What I’m not writing about when I’m not writing…
Sometimes, you find a book. And sometimes, when you are ready for it, a book finds you. Such has been my experience this past week with Sven Lindqvist’s slim 1992/96 volume “Exterminate All the Brutes”: One Man’s Odyssey into the Heart of Darkness and the Origins of European Genocide. In recent weeks, as alert readers … Continue reading To Zinder
I’ve been researching and thinking a lot about the forms of settler colonialism unleashed and maintained by “White” European nations– mainly, my own people-of-birth, the British– against people of color in many parts of the world. At times, doing this research– reading these accounts, seeing and trying to understand these pictures– makes me deeply, deeply … Continue reading The British genocides against Australian First Nations
Last week, I had the pleasure of conversing with Amb. Chas W. Freeman, Jr, on the “World After Covid” webinar series that Just World Educational has been running. Freeman, you may remember, was the man notably removed from consideration as Barack Obama’s first Director of National Intelligence because the pro-Israel lobby wanted to ensure that … Continue reading “White” European domination of the world screeches to an end
