I’m tired, can’t sleep, anxious, and the old men in Cambridge are trolling Singapore for our not-quite 200th anniversary of colonization. Send help.
Convincing everyone in your newly-formed country to not secede (again): lessons from Southeast Asian history.
Somehow, you’re in charge of a country now. Maybe you had a cozy relationship with the old bosses and they left you in charge when they pulled out (Singapore, Malaysia, and the Philippines). Maybe you didn’t, but they could put up with you (Myanmar and Thailand). Maybe you just flat out led a rebellion and won (I’m looking at you, Vietnam and Indonesia). Great!
Whatever the case is, you’re now the boss. Now your problem is: unless your country is a single, tiny village in the ass end of nowhere, you almost certainly have groups from different ethnicities, practicing different religions, speaking different languages, and from different cultures in it. It will be very, very easy for one of them to go “Hey, I’m from X group, why the fuck is someone from Y group leading me?” and boom rebellion/secession.
Bonus points if your new country is geographically vast with areas that aren’t quite in reach of the capital (Indonesia and Thailand), has a LOT of groups with very little in common (Indonesia), or your old bosses believed in ‘divide and rule’ and different groups were treated differently shunted into different areas (Singapore, Malaysia, Burma oh god UK why did you think this was a good idea). Economic disparity between various groups is a given, generally worse if it’s along religious/ethnic lines (Philippines, Singapore, Malaysia, Indonesia, Thailand…) or if some parts are just flat out colonised (THAILAND).
How do you convince people not to secede? You have two options: accommodation, and assimilation. Both have the same end goal: to create an ‘imagined community’, where everyone feels united.
In accommodation, you convince everyone that the multiculturalism is an integral part of the country and to accept it. You should probably use this if you a) have a LOT of different minority groups or b) the ‘minority’ group is still a pretty significant chunk of your population.
In assimilation, ethnic, religious, and cultural identities are subsumed into a larger, monolithic identity as a nation. Use this if a) the minority groups are non-native (eg immigrant Chinese) and likely to put up with it or b) you feel like avenging past injustices by the old bosses (inadvisable, but done in Myanmar).
Three policy types: Language/education, religion, and ideology.
Language/education
Because it’s easier not to hate each other if you can all bitch together.
Basically, get everyone to share a language.
One idea: choose a ‘neutral’ language that none of the majority ethnic groups can ‘claim’ as their first language. Leans more towards accommodation.
Eg. Singapore. English was the language of government and administration for decades. In 1987, it was officially made the language used to teach in all public schools. Because none of the three major ethnic groups – Chinese, Malay, and Indian – actually spoke it as their native language, no one had an advantage over the other. This meant a level playing field to progress in society, since everyone had to speak a language that wasn’t their own to do business or work in the civil service. Success.
Eg Indonesia. Bahasa Indonesia, the national language, is based off a minority language from Sumatra, one of many, many islands in the archipelago. It’s also the regional lingua franca, so even better. In theory, it shows that the Javanese majority won’t dominate the country. (In practice, they actually did. Whoops.) Success, because, granted, the Javanese domination of the government and military was not helped by this, and everyone actually did end up speaking Bahasa Indonesia nbd.
Alternative idea: force everyone to learn the language of the majority, and possibly repress other minority languages while you’re at it. Very much assimilation.
Eg Thailand. Thai was made the medium of instruction and used for government business. Chinese language studies were limited. Result: the already partially-integrated Chinese students ended up mostly speaking Thai outside the home, helping nudge integration along further. Success.
Eg. Myanmar. U Nu (military dictator) made the Burman (majority) language obligatory for government business and made mandatory in schools in 1952. The ethnic minorities who had been in Myanmar for centuries, such as the Karen and the Shan, were Not Pleased at the idea of being forced to speak another language on their own land just to get anywhere in life. Result: the already-ongoing Karen rebellion carried on throughout the 1950s. Failure.
Religion
For the love of your damn neck, handle this with kidskin gloves and at your own peril.
Handled correctly, everyone feels included and no one feels threatened or marginalised. Done badly, people feel alienated and rebel or secede. Tends to be an accommodation strategy.
Eg. Singapore. Presumably having studied history, the first batch of leaders did not attempt to implement a state religion and everyone was given the constitutional right to practice their own religion (so long as it didn’t interfere with others or, say, prevent you from entering military service, since the government drafts all healthy men into the army for a couple of years as a necessity of national defence). The Presidential Council of Minority Rights was formed to attempt to ensure that the inevitably majority-dominated government didn’t marginalise or threaten the interests, including religious, of the minority groups. This helped prevent tensions between the majority and minority religious groups, allowing some level of bonding. Success.
Eg. Philippines. The government formed the Commission on National Integration (CNI), which aimed to equalise the economic disparity between the poorer Muslims (largely in the South) and the wealthier Christians (largely in the North). This included providing university scholarships. In 1977, with Muslims already exempted from laws banning polygamy and a few others I can’t remember, the government attempted to codify Muslim law. However, as is often the case, there tends to be a gap between government rhetoric and actual practice. Christians migrating to Mindanao island displaced the Muslims already living there, raising tensions between the two groups. Throw in the discrimination encountered by CNI scholars when they went to the (northern, near to the capital) universities and, well, a CNI alumnus actually founded the first Muslim separatist front, the Moro National Liberation Front, which declared war on the Marcos administration in 1972. Failure.
Ideology
Because if no one naturally has any beliefs or values in common, GIVE them beliefs or values to have in common.
^that just about sums it up. Ideology strategies usually revolve around the creation of a state-centred ideology for everyone to follow. How this is spread is usually a combination of education, propaganda, and forcing everyone in the civil service to know it by heart. Definitely an assimilation strategy.
Eg. Myanmar/Burma. U Nu, clearly not the brightest spark, thought to create a new, Burmese (not Burman! Burman is the ethnic group, Burmese is the nationality) identity, that was in reality a blend of Buddhism and socialism and more a call to join Burman culture than actually form a new culture. To make things worse, the Karens – the rebels from the Language section – were Christians. Quite understandably, they wanted nothing to do with it and rebelled pretty quickly, seeking secession. Failure.
Eg. Thailand. Thailand is something of an odd duck. While the King was very strongly linked to Buddhism, he was also (thanks to Prime Minister Sarit way back in the 1950s) seen as an integral part of Thai identity, and reverence of the King was just about broad enough a value that everyone, Buddhist, Christian, or not, could get behind it. So basically even if you couldn’t agree about religion, you could at least agree that the King was fucking great and all Thais should be properly respectful and reverent. Luckily, that was about enough to unify even the minority Chinese (granted, who were generally happy enough to roll with what the government was doing) behind a common Thai identity. Success.
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Ok yeah this was honestly just revision practice for my notes.
Daily reminder that Gizmodo is a piece of shit website that doesn’t let people enjoy anything.
Gizmodo author, through gnashing teeth and tears: I’d treat her right…
Look, we’re all hot for Helen but you don’t fucking disrespect Bob like this.
Bob is one of the best dads and husbands in media today and I will fight anyone who says otherwise
this is a pro-bob blog. idiot anti-bobs dont interact.
“But he was jealous!!!! HE CAN’T BE GOOD!” YEAH HE WAS JEALOUS but fuck, she’s literally living his dream, and he went “Fuck it” and just dealt with the jealousy so he could support her and try to be a good dad for his kids – who let’s not forget have goddamn superpowers on top of normal kid problems. And it’s not as if corporate life in Insuricare is excellent preparation for being a stay-at-home dad to an angsty teenager, a ten-year-old struggling with schoolwork, and a baby who has all the powers and no control over it. He literally went “I have to succeed (at being a good dad), so she can succeed” and did his level best to keep things together at home even when he was struggling so she could focus on her job and not worry.
Like. The dude woke up at 4 am to relearn math to help his kid, drove across town in a (failed, but he tried) attempt to fix the relationship between his daughter and her crush, admitted his mistake and apologised to her, then promptly slept seventeen hours straight once he finally caught a break, because he’d been running himself into the dirt trying to parent and not worry Elastigirl/Helen. If he isn’t a good partner, very few are.
The Kingii is an emergency life preserver that you can strap right to your wrist that inflates in seconds and brings you straight to the surface of the water.
WOAH NO WAIT WHAT I AM A LIFEGUARD DO YOU KNOW HOW MANY MORE LIVES THIS SHIT CAN POTENTIALLY SAVE???!!!
As someone who likes doing water-related things like fishing but intensely fears drowning, I’m gonna need like three hundred of these, okay.
No no. No no no no no. No no no. NO.
This thing might help you if you are swimming in a controlled environment (a pool) with a lifeguard nearby and suddenly have an emergency, but it is not a substitute for a PFD (personal floatation device).
Pictured below are the five types of United States Coast Guard-approved PFDs:
Types I and II are designed to keep your head above water with no effort on your part. If you are on the water, regardless of your ability to swim, you need to wear one.
Anyways thanks for coming to my TED Talk.
I also seriously worry how many people will actually have the presence of mind to reach for their wrist and scrabble for a tiny level and yank on it while they’re drowning. Speaking as someone who has nearly drowned before, when you’re drowning, you’re often in such a blind panic, all you can think of is I’m going to die I need to get air I don’t want to die I need to get up. How many people are going to remember that thing on their wrist and how to operate it? For fuck’s sake, people have forgotten how to operate airplane seatbelts during crashes. Never underestimate how much panic can mess with your head.
And it may not even be ‘better than nothing’ if it instead lulls people into a false sense of complacency and they neglect to take proper precautions such as wearing a life vest, etc. that have been proven to work, and far more effectively.
Cellulite is a female secondary sex characteristic and should be celebrated as a rite of womanhood, not despised or eradicated.
it’s really a secondary sex characteristic?!
It is. It has to do with the way our bodies network fat. Female bodies create sort of a mesh network to support fat (female bodies are MUCH more hardy in times of stress) and it can present as delightfully lumpy. More than 90% of women have visible cellulite, but all women store fat in this manner.
why did no one tell me this?!
You know why
Spread this. I only just started to see mine and I started to freak out a bit. More people should/need to know about this
Here’s an illustration of the aforementioned difference in fat storage.
Men’s lattice pattern collagen threads holds subcutaneous fat in a way that, when the skin expands because of the fat storage, it expands evenly. Women’s “pockets” expand unevenly when we accumulate fat, creating that orange peel effect. Our storage pattern means we can healthily store more fat than men. Like a woman with 25% body fat is average, a man with 25% body fat is chubby. Because of that, like OP said, women are hardier in times of stress or famine. It’s also one of the reasons why our bodies can survive pregnancy, which is a massive energy demand on our system.
And there’s absolutely NO “treatment” for cellulite that will work. They are all bullshit designed to separate you from your hard-earned cash. It’s a secondary sex characteristic, it’s perfectly normal and it’s not going away no matter what you do. Like I’m very lean myself and I work out 5~6 times a week, and I still have cellulite. Someone giving a woman shit for having cellulite is akin to giving her shit for having skin. It’s just a mixture of misogyny and corporate greed.
Love your lumpy skin, ladies. It means you are a badass surviving machine shaped by millenia of evolution.
I did not know this, and I pride myself on knowing shit like this.
I’m a teenager, barely healthy weight (think 56kg/124lbs at 172cm/5′8, ribs visible kind of skinny), did Taekwondo for ten years of my life, work out an average 2 hours a week, walk a lot, etc.
Basically, I’m the traditional standard of ‘slim young woman’, and I STILL have cellulite around my nonexistent ass. It’ll happen. Scarlett Johannsen aka Black Widow has cellulite ffs.
I really don’t believe Molly was capable of killing Bellatrix. Bella is a Dark Lord trained Death Eater who frequently is using dark spells. Molly has been a house-wife for most of her life. Surely in reality she wouldn’t know those spells, let alone have ever used them before. Bella knows more and has been practising her skills (even through Azkaban), and yet Molly wins? I cant believe it.
(Taiga’s note: never, ever estimate the power of a mother protecting her children.)
I can’t wait until some of you idiots have children. See what you’re capable of when your child is in danger. She wasn’t just a house wife, she was a mother. Y’all moms should slap the ignorance out of you.
Molly was part of the Order in the first war. She lost her brothers to Death Eaters. She just lost her son, who was named in honour of one of those brothers. Her daughter, her only daughter, is threatened. You can damn well believe that her conviction was strong and she meant every spell she cast in defense of her family. Of course she knows those spells. Of course she wins.
^^^^ This.
Very early on in writing the series, I remember a female journalist saying to me that Mrs Weasley, ‘Well, you know, she’s just a mother.’ And I was absolutely incensed by that comment. Now, I consider myself to be a feminist, and I’d always wanted to show that just because a woman has made a choice, a free choice to say, ‘Well, I’m going to raise my family and that’s going to be my choice. I may go back to a career, I may have a career part time, but that’s my choice.’ Doesn’t mean that that’s all she can do. And as we proved there in that little battle, Molly Weasley comes out and proves herself the equal of any warrior on that battlefield.
Molly was a warrior before she was a mother. Male soldiers become fathers all the time, I really don’t see how this is a problem.
I haven’t read the book in ages, but wasn’t it demonstrated fairly often that Molly was a powerful witch? Did this person miss that because of the fact she used her powers in a domestic fashion?
“Did this person miss that because of the fact she used her powers in a domestic fashion?“
In a word: yes.
Also, supposing she was “just a mother” and all that mothering made her forget everything that happened in her life prior to her children being born
Her house
you know (to be a stereotypical as possible) the thing that she spends all her time and energy cleaning and taking care of
has been a central hub of the resistance against Voldemort’s resurgence
Unless she’s walking around with her wand snapped in half and the bits of it stuck in her ears, she’s probably heard about a killing curse or two
soyeahso and hedwig-dordt hit the nail on the head – Molly is hella powerful. She casts silent spells all the time in her house. She has the pots scrubbing themselves, the broom & dustpan working by themselves, and she’s out in the yard yelling at Fred and George, or whatever. That’s not frickin easy.
And I think there’s still a lot of classism toward the Weasleys just kind of in general, even though the narrative of the books (& movies to a lesser extent) want us to question this (by showing the Malfoys’ classism as A Dick Move). Not only were the Weasleys instrumental in the first war against Voldemort, but their children all kick ass too. Bill is an Auror, which we learn requires very high performance in class as well as incredible technical skill. Charlie works with frickin dragons, nuff said. Percy makes prefect (and head boy right? can’t remember) and goes to work for the government. At sixteen Fred and George are so proficient at charms that they’re able to develop the entire line of Weasleys Wizarding Wheezes by themselves and they also manage the business. Ron, while hindered by persistent self-esteem issues, also on several occasions casts silent spells, performs well athletically, and is a quick thinker and great strategist (book 1 chess game anyone?). Ginny carries around Voldemort’s horcrux for nearly an entire school year and lives to tell the tale, and is basically Professor #2 for Dumbledore’s Army.
If the Weasleys were rich, everyone would know them as the greatest wizarding family in Britain, but they’re not, so instead it’s “red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford.”
The story kicks off with the power of a mother’s love creating magic that is miraculous even by the Potterverse’s standards, and the fact that it was a MOTHER’S love that saved Harry is repeated over and over and over again.
Why would this case be any different?
Not to be flippant but bitch have you SEEN an angry or determined mum?
My grandmother was a battleaxe. Her grown sons obeyed her, her daughters-in-law – proud, educated, professional women with their own careers and children – respected and feared her if they liked their asses where they were. Fun story, the doctors said she’d die by December 1999. She would not live to see the new year. Only, my mum was pregnant then, and my dad being her youngest son, and with how long it took to conceive me, she knew I’d be her last grandchild. But if she died by December 1999 like the doctors predicted, she would never see me.
This woman went “Bitch no” and stuck around not just until I was born in late January 2000, but until the end of February 2000, pulling around her oxygen tank behind her the whole time – which, by the way, she was not supposed to be able to do either. Because not only did she want to see me, she wanted to be around at my full moon celebration (a traditional celebration partially to celebrate the baby making it to a month old). There’s a photo of her holding my ankle with a proud smile while my cousin carried me. Within two weeks, her condition rapidly deteriorated and she died.
Yeah. This old woman out-stubborned death itself for TWO MONTHS because she really wanted to meet her grandchild.
Just because someone’s a mum or grandma doesn’t mean they can’t be metal af. If anything, kids just give them reason to be metal.
Look, I get it if you don’t want hair on things. My mum didn’t, when my family was getting a dog.
But you know what we did? We looked into breeds that didn’t shed and got a maltese-poodle cross we named Oreo, and invest more into keeping Oreo’s fur trimmed and neat since she doesn’t shed.
It’s hardly rocket science. You don’t want hair on stuff? You have the time and are willing and able to pay more to have a dog groomed frequently, if it means no hair on stuff? Fine! That’s valid! So get a non-sheeding breed and commit to investing more time and money into keeping the dog groomed, or if that’s not an option, just plain don’t get a dog!
Other people don’t mind shedding. They can have the labs, corgis, and dalmations, that’s fine. You still have a few terrier breeds, poodles, maltese, etc. and their cross-breeds. Tradeoff is that the grooming is more expensive and labour-intensive, but hey, no fur on couches. That was a commitment my family was willing to and could make. I brush Oreo’s fur everyday, my parents pay for and take her to grooming appointments every couple months, and in return Oreo gets to cuddle with me in bed at night and on the couch with my dad in the morning. We don’t have fur on the couch, Oreo gets to go on the couch, we’re all happy.
Don’t get a dog that sheds if you can’t put up with shedding, but don’t get a dog that doesn’t shed if you can’t invest the time and money into keeping its fur neat, like a halfway decent owner.
Reblogging because I’m sure the comic readers out there could add some more.
yeah
so sorry
i can’t hear you
over the sound
of me crushing my enemies
This list
was looking
a little
white
so here you go
watch tha
bodies hit
tha floor
this is the best post on tumblr, hands down
Never reblog without Shoot gifs. 😉
Writers?
Here’s a little inspiration for you to write many more awesome heroines to add to this collection!
I was a Taekwondo practitioner for over ten years and taught for two. ‘Fighting like a girl’ meant hyperaggressive, fuck-you-and-all-you-stand-for with a heavy dose of more difficult, dramatic attacks simply because they a) knew they had the skill to pull it off or b) wanted to learn to pull it off.
As far as training goes, the girls are also generally more obedient and less likely to goof around, and thus quicker to learn. There is often some difficulty training out the instincts to shy away and/or hold back while sparring, but once that’s done – that’s when the fun begins.
Wonderful vintage corset ad from the Period Corsets archives. Published in April 1910 in The Delineator. #periodcorsetsarchives #periodcorsetsvintagecollection #vintagecorset #vintagefashion #historicalcorset #historicalunderwear #vintagemagazine #corsetry #corset #1900sfashion (at Seattle, Washington)
Ngl, I’m pretty interested by the fact that these only go to 19 inches. Even today, many OTR corsets go to 18 inches (I would know, I just ordered one – it helps that other than my hips, I’m pretty slim). Given the era, though, I’m wondering if I should be so surprised.
FantasyBoudicca 