Lessons from the great Nelson Mandela inspiring Quotes to Live By

mentors quotes

Nelson Mandela, the South African anti-apartheid revolutionary and former president, once said, “The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in rising every time we fall.” This quote reminds us that it’s not about avoiding failure, but rather how we handle it when it happens. Life is full of challenges and setbacks, and it’s how we respond to them that truly matters. Rather than giving up or dwelling on our mistakes, we should strive to learn from them and use them as opportunities to grow and improve. It’s through perseverance and resilience that we can achieve our greatest victories and find true fulfillment in life.

1. “Education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world.”
2. “It always seems impossible until it’s done.”
3. “For to be free is not merely to cast off one’s chains, but to live in a way that respects and…

View original post 102 more words

Vladimir Putin’s war has exploded into Sudan

Daily Telegraph, April 16, 2023: event:

With more than 50 civilians and many more military killed already in the power struggle between rival governing factions that erupted in Sudan over the weekend, there is no good side in this battle. But as with so many other conflicts in Africa and the Middle East in recent years, one thing we do know is that Russian troublemakers are not far from the action. The fighting in Khartoum and elsewhere in the country was triggered by clashes between General Abdel Fattah al-Burhan, head of the Sudanese armed forces, and General Mohamed Hamdan Dagalo, or “Hemedti” for short. Hemedti is commander of the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) Rather unsurprisingly, the RSF has been linked to Yevgeny Prigozhin’s Wagner Group – Putin’s de facto private army. Wagner is believed to have been brought into Sudan by Bashir to help shore up his faltering regime in 2017, following a meeting with Putin in which Bashir promised to make the country Russia’s “key to Africa”

Comment

If you look on a map you will see there is Sudan as a nation and a South Sudan. The country split in two in 2011. “North” Sudan is mainly Islamic whilst the South is mainly Christian. Putin is heavily invested in North Sudan. He wants a port on the Red Sea and is using his private army (Wagner Group) to get hold of Sudan’s gold mines. Russia’s alignment to Sudan is foretold in Ezekiel 38. The AV translates a place called “Cush” in the Hebrew as Ethiopia. Cush isn’t really Ethiopia. Cush at the time of Ezekiel corresponds almost exactly to Sudan. Or to be even more accurate North Sudan. From 1070 BC to AD350 the area we now know as North Sudan was called the Kingdom of Kush. Kush = Cush = Sudan. Cush will be one of the nations joining forces with Gog…

And I will turn thee [Gog] back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords:  Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet: Almost all versions translate Ethiopia as Cush (Ezekiel 38:4-5)

Andy Walton

Weekly World Watch Apr 16th – 29th 2023

+

Preceding

Sukkoth, Gog, Magog, Armageddon, a covenant and Jerusalem

++

Additional reading

1. Signs of the times – “Locust invasions”
2. After ten years of horror still no solution and peace for Syria
3. South Sudan and North Uganda 2021 update
4. Going to the end of 2022 having to see an ongoing invasion
5. 2022 the year of fearing some wars
6. Signs of the Times – A boost for Israel
7. A year of courage, caring, pain, hope, endurance and above all a year of unity (1)
8. Ukraine What we know on day 383 and day 384 of the invasion
9. No one, not even Putin, knows how this war will end
10. 2023 March 14 Ukraine update
11. Begin April 2023 Russia and Kremlin actions
12. The Developments for the second half of April
13. Evacuation from Sudan
14. Rai al-Youm: The proxy war in Sudan
15. Asharq Al-Awsat: If the Sudanese Had the Means to Escape
16. The Developments for the second half of April

Some Conversations Just NEED To Happen

A lot of people have preconceived ideas regarding races and cultures, which more than once cause misunderstandings.

The absurdity in today’s “Woke” culture is that people prefer to exclude certain words and terms and replace them with other words that in turn could be misunderstood in the past, or cause problems in the future.

In Belgium, for example, one can no longer speak of a “negro” or a “black” person, but one has to say now a “white” person when talking about a “Blanke” (someone of the white race) or Caucasian type person (or relating to a racial group having light-coloured skin), who is therefore not white at all and to whom there may not be “black people” opposed to them (?!?). So why is a “White” not racist while “Black” would be racist?

Same for “fat” and “thick” (or in Dutch “dik“)where the English publisher of Roald Dahl’s books has now printed “enormous” (very great in size, extremely large in size or amount, extent) or in Dutch “enorm” (very big, gigantic, huge), while we do imagine something very different with an enormous building or enormous creature than with a shapely or plump person. The chosen word “enormous” or “enorm” is far worse and far more offensive than “fat” or “vol slank”, “full slim” we would say.

Already having some years in this world, we had to change the use of words more than once. Every time they found another word because the one in use had become “offensive”.

In this day and age it is going absurdly far, how some words are abandoned, like we may not say any more Eskimo, igloo, cabane or hut, etc.

Racism is the wrong view of things and people with misjudged word choices.

*

To remember

• There are always subjects that people feel aren’t proper or sensitive issues that may cause a war of words or some form of conflict
• one race may feel that whatever they say = offensive to the person of another race.
• unspoken/unwritten rule

+

Find also to read:

1. Word banning
2. Absurdity of present “woke” rage: The rewriting of Dahl
3. Why censoring Roald Dahl is a dangerous step
4. What about irreverence and sharp-edged spirit of the original text
5. New term names at London School of Economics
6. Not liked or Hated Questions
7. How far does this “Woke” world wants to go
8. Wokeness wars
9. Why Woke? When Will it Wander Away?

The Sapphire Scripts

Sept. 4 Why do you think it is so difficult for people to talk about race?

There are always subjects that people feel aren’t proper or sensitive issues that may cause a war of words or some form of conflict. Some examples are politics, battles of the sexes, and the ultimate, race. Race has been a topic (without being a topic) for a very long time. It has stood the test of time with some changes happening but different races have a hard time facing this conversation.

I think that people have a hard time talking about race because one race may feel that whatever they say may be offensive to the person of another race. Not being sure of the reaction, people tend to avoid those conversations even when a national issue has been brought to people’s attention like a slap in the face.

I also feel that people…

View original post 162 more words

Xinhua: 20 years after blatant invasion, U.S. crimes against Iraq still unpunished

On false pretences on March 19, 2003, the United States, along with coalition forces primarily from the United Kingdom, initiated a war on Iraq, which would not liberate the people of Iraq, but in many cases would even bring them much more misery.

We cannot deny that many have walked in what the US government wanted everyone to believe, that chemical and nuclear weapons would be readied by Hussein’s government to attack the West.

Hans Blix, chief weapons inspector, was clear that they could complete their job of checking Iraqi compliance with UN resolutions in months, not years. Nevertheless, despite the evidence that Saddam was far less powerful and that the moral basis for war was lacking, British participation in the invasion came about because so many of my parliamentary colleagues had managed to convince themselves that it was justified.

In Great Britain many Labour MPs who voted for war later expressed their resentment.

*

To remember

• protracted armed conflict in Iraq from 2003 to 2011 that began with the invasion of Iraq by the United States-led coalition that overthrew the Iraqi government of Saddam Hussein.
• invading a sovereign country+ ousting its government
• Much of the country’s infrastructure destroyed during relentless bombings launched by the U.S.-led coalition.
• more than 200,000 civilians were killed and over 9 million others displaced in Iraq
• justice has not been done for Iraq & its people, many of whom are still suffering from pain created by the unjust war.
• Iraq = rich country before the invasion => degenerated into a poor state and + political instability + economic hardship caused by U.S. invasion & its impact => still mired in poverty + chaos
• United States remains the sole superpower => little can be done to bring the American warmongers + criminals to justice

 

+

Please find also to read:

1. 31 years ago also facing a world threat
2. History.com: This Day In History (March 19-2003): Invasion of Iraq begins
3. Weekly World Watch 1-7 August: UK and US – Iran, Israel, Elam and Media (Our World) =  Weekly World Watch 1-7 August: UK and US – Iran, Israel, Elam and Media (Some View on the World)

+++

Related

1. Jeremy Corbyn MP – 20 years on from Iraq, we must strive to build a more peaceful world
2. Iraq war’s essential outcome was to demonstrate US and UK weakness for all to see
3. I spearheaded invasion of Iraq – we only had 20% chance of survival but when we arrived something bizarre happened
4. I can say British soldiers did not die in vain as we mark twentieth anniversary of the Iraq War, says Head of the Army
5. Iraq war 20 years on: The most mined country on earth and clearance efforts will take ‘decades’, experts warn
6. Dodgy intelligence and US hubris brought death and destruction to Iraq
7. 20 years on, ‘shock and awe’ remains relevant
8. The US in The Middle East: From Glory to Ruins
9. Bush wanted cover from Blair – Lynne Jones on the #iraqWar 20 years on
10. 20 Years Ago Today, the Bush Administration Launched the Iraq War: Juan Cole: “I Have a Bad Feeling About This”
11. War Made Easy
12. From The Archives: The Iraq War
13. 20 years after the invasion of Iraq, will the media’s complicity be ignored?
14. West Virginia Veterans reflect on 20-year anniversary of Iraq War
15. Feehery: The Ides of March remind us to take risks for liberty
16. Twenty years already?
17. The Iraq War didn’t kill liberal internationalism, just our ability to debate it
18. The Iraq War 20 Years On – What Have We Learnt? 
19. McCarthy signals support for Iraq war authorizations repeal
20. Criminals at Large: The Iraq War Twenty Years On – » The Australian Independent Media Network
21. IRAQ 20 YEARS: Sam Husseini — The Lies, and Lies About the Lies, About the Invasion
22. The Invasion of Iraq Wasn’t a “Mistake.” It Was a Crime.
23. How I Became Anti-War, Part 4
24. How America’s $8trn ‘war on terror’ haunts US decisions, from Afghanistan to Ukraine

Levant's Agora

Editor: Li Jiayao.

During the more than eight-year war and ensuing years of violence after the 2011 U.S. pullout, more than 200,000 civilians were killed and over 9 million others displaced in Iraq. Much of the country’s infrastructure was also destroyed during the relentless bombings launched by the U.S.-led coalition.

People hold anti-war banners and wave Iraqi flags during a protest in Baghdad, Iraq, on May 24, 2019. (Xinhua/Khalil Dawood)

Though 20 years have passed since the United States launched a blatant invasion into the sovereign state of Iraq, justice has not been done for Iraq and its people, many of whom are still suffering from the pain created by the unjust war.

During the more than eight-year war and ensuing years of violence after the 2011 U.S. pullout, more than 200,000 civilians were killed and over 9 million others displaced in Iraq. Much of the country’s infrastructure was also…

View original post 450 more words

Preachers belonging to the Whore of Babylon calling Judeo-Christians the anti-Christ

Preachers giving false ideas

On the net, we do find lots of people who claim to be Christian but belong to the Whore of Babylon, according to the Scriptures.

Fritz Berggren writes about the real Bride and a False Bride (the Great Whore).

Too many “Christians” — Judeo-Christians —have joined themselves to the wrong body.Like Eve, they are deceived. {The False Bride (the Great Whore)}

The writer of the site Christian Nations notices

This is the False Wife, the Whore of Babylon who believes she cannot be touched and falsely claims to be the Bride, the Chosen people,  when in fact she is the whore who sits on many waters (is in many nations) {The False Bride (the Great Whore)}

When we look around us, everywhere we can see and hear people who claim to be Christian, but who do not follow the teachings of Christ Jesus and do not worship the God of Jesus, but have made Jesus and other human beings in their gods.

For him

The False Wife is like those call call themselves Jews, but are not, and are rather of the synagogue of Satan. {The False Bride (the Great Whore)}

by which we do hope he sees those Christians who are not Jews but call themselves Messianic, though do not worship the God of the Messiah, nor God of the Jews, because those Messianics worship the Trinity. We have the impression Berggren does not see the difference between the Messianic Gentiles, Trinitarians who call themselves Messianics, Jews who call themselves Messianics, Jews for Jesus and Jeshuaists.

On the other hand, we do hope he does not have it about the Messianic Jews who do not adhere the false doctrine of the Trinity or does not point the finger to the Jeshuaist Jews, who are Jews who accept Jesus Christ as their Messiah.

Strangely he writes

the Great Whore of Babylon, the harlot, the antiChrist, those who murdered Jesus Christ

as if it were the Jews who killed the Jew, Jesus.

and those who persecute His Church, those who call themselves Jews (but lie) are all manifestations of their true father Satan, who was a liar and deceiver from the Beginning. {The False Bride (the Great Whore)}

Giving with that last bit the impression he really has it about the Jews who came to accept Jesus as their saviour. He seems to live in the same sort of groups which are indentified by the Bible messages as the Whore of Babylon, like the Roman Catholic Church.

We are also living in a time the Bible spoke about, when we would come to see a drying up of support for Christendom and/or Christianity, along with other religions, in our day.

“And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared.” (Re 16:12 KJ21)

“And he saith unto me, “The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples and multitudes, and nations and tongues.” (Re 17:15 KJ21)

The King of the North or Gog has started the invasion of Ukraine. But the Scriptures also foresaw that some would abandon false religion not merely because of dissatisfaction or disillusionment but because of a positive purpose. Them leaving the main churches let those who belong to the Whore being angrier. The of away church members makes those churches rise and go even more against those who worship the True God. The Bible prophetically urges:

“Get out of her, my people, if you do not want to share with her in her sins.” (Revelation 18:4)

Getting out of “her” refers to the Biblical symbolic religious whore, “Babylon the Great,” which embraces all the religions of the world, including those of modern Christendom. The “my people” are sincere seekers of truth who leave Babylon the Great because they want to serve God in the way Jesus taught. Christendom has strayed so far from true Christianity that sincere people must get out in order to serve God acceptably.

Though in Fritz Berggren his introduction page the author of that blog seems to be an American who has everything against what smells like a social entourage, or the friendship and peace Christ taught. As such, he considers Marxism, socialism, social justice progressivism to be more than a faith. He writes

it is a hard core religion; it demands total, faith, submission and obedience. It is worse than wrong — it is evil. It dehumanizes those within it. {About}

clearly not seeing that the Nazarene Jesus was a communist avant la lettre.

We do not have any idea where he gets it from that

The Left has a faith. Part of their faith is to deny that it is a faith. They claim their thoughts are “scientific,” and based on “material” facts. But it is neither scientific nor materialist except when it is convenient for them. {About}

That saying betrays his conservative fundamentalist beliefs that give no room for the social attitudes Jesus observed. Politics are not a faith or religion. There might be political parties that demand total, faith, submission and obedience, but that is not so by Marxists or several leftish groups. That is why there is so much variety in Left Wing groups.

He does not explain why his argument would be right, when he consider such people and their believes

worse than wrong — it is evil. It dehumanizes those within it. {About}

That Marxists would dehumanise people is just the opposite what they do. For a Marxist has the person to come in the first place, and not the material, like we see happening so much by the Capitalists.

We notice that in the United States of America there are a lot of very conservative Christians who hate everything that brings something social to the foreground. They do not want to share anything with others. Unlike a Christian should be open to help others, they are not willing to pay for the sick and the poor. Christians who dare to ask to be more social, are then called ‘Communist’ and shunned, being seen as the anti-Christ or devil.

It looks like the writer of the above-mentioned blog wants to see bloodshed, instead, like any Christian should do, aiming for peace, and avoiding bloodshed. But he writes

Blood is primary. Without blood there is no present, past or future. There are no ancestors, no self, no progeny. {About}

For him, the left being against bloodshed and against killing people, even when they have murdered someone, makes him say

The goal of the Left is to destroy blood and faith so that (Marxist) religion alone becomes master and enslaver of all. {About}

which is strange, because most left people want nobody to be a slave of one another. The Communists and Marxists as well as the Socialists are continuously fighting against modern slavery. They are aiming for equality under all people, no matter what sort of culture, race, colour or sex. Fritz Berggren not seeing this, probably because he is so breath in the American Capitalist culture he is blind for reality and probably places himself before all others, calling on the so-called amendments and free rights, not willing to give freedom to others (like asylum seekers, handicapped etc.). The American healthcare system, and how Trumpists and American evangelists are against ObamaCare and other social measures, says it all

He wonders

Why do many Christian hide their name and face on social media? {Anonymity and the Christian}

The problem is there are many name-Christians, people who say they are Christian, but often do not believe in God or have Jesus as their god. It are people who prefer to walk after the flesh instead after the spirit. The majority who call themselves Christian are really not worthy partakers of the Body of Christ. It is mostly people who do not let themselves be guided by the Hand of God, nor by the Word of God, but stick to the human traditions of Church fathers and continued false teachings. They forget that the righteous man runs into the Tower of God and follows the Jewish master teacher Jeshua ben Josef, Jesus Christ from Nazareth.is safe. It are people who might be thirsty but do not go to the Spring of living water.

The blog writer thinks

Nothing has changed in two thousand years, same tactics, same enemy, same self-righteous hypocrisy of the New Pharisees like the ADL — those who call themselves Jews but lie, and are of the synagogue of Satan. {Anonymity and the Christian}

We do not know if with ADL he means the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), formerly known as the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, the international Jewish non-governmental organisation based in the United States specializing in civil rights law. They not being a religious organisation as such, but certainly no church. But here we can see why the writer is so much against that non-profit organisation, becaus they too try to take up one of those social teachings of Jesus.

The immediate object of the League is to stop, by appeals to reason and conscience and, if necessary, by appeals to law, the defamation of the Jewish people. Its ultimate purpose is to secure justice and fair treatment to all citizens alike and to put an end forever to unjust and unfair discrimination against and ridicule of any sect or body of citizens. {“Our Mission”. Anti-Defamation League. Archived from the original on October 30, 2018. Retrieved December 10, 2019.}

He does not want to believe that many Christian claim to want genuine New Testament Christianity as revealed in the book of Acts. He thinks he does not live in a free country any more. He claims that he served his country, which according him is taking over by the church, the children of Satan, who are evil. In one of his podcasts he agrees that all those standard established American churches reduced the gospel of Jesus Christ to the scope of the anti-christ.

He wrongly says that

It was Jesus Christ who gave us the Ten Commandments, He is One with the Father and is the Creator. {Sunday: The Ten Commandments and Christian Nations}

Saying this he goes in against the sayings of God that there is only One God and taht Jesus is His beloved son. Telling people that Jesus gave the ten commandments whilst he himself does not keep to those commandments is making him an anti-Christ and an anti-God. He should know that

The Then Commandments are eternal; {Sunday: The Ten Commandments and Christian Nations}

and that they should also be the foundation of Christian Nations.

He, in one of his podcast, says that when one wsays to be a Christian, that means you have to swear leageons by the words of Jesus Christ. So why does he not keep to the words of Jesus Christ, we wonder, when he is so against Judeo Christians and Christians who do not wordhip like him that threeheaded god?

In that American PhD writer’s attack, we can very well notice how he wildly rants against those who do not adhere to the Trinity doctrine. As an anti-Christ, he goes wild, or rants, like a lion and wants others to believe that those true followers of Jesus are the evildoers in this world. According to him, they are devils when in reality they are children of God and follow the teachings of Jesus.

Let us be fully aware that there have been and still shall come many deceivers who do not confess the coming of Jesus Christ in the flesh. They say God has come into the flesh, instead of believing that God provided His beloved son and accepted his ransom offer. The majority of churches we see today, as well as the church where that writer seems to belong to, do not keep to the doctrine of Christ, but prefer to keep to the human traditions and false teachings.

“7  For many deceivers have entered into the world who confess not that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh. This is a deceiver and an antichrist. 8 Look to yourselves, that we lose not those things which we have wrought, but that we may receive a full reward. 9 Whosoever transgresseth, and abideth not in the doctrine of Christ, hath not God. He that abideth in the doctrine of Christ hath both the Father and the Son. 10  If there come any unto you and bring not this doctrine, receive him not into your house, neither bid him Godspeed; 11 for he that biddeth him Godspeed is a partaker of his evil deeds.” (2Jo 1:7-11 KJ21)

Therefore let us be aware what others say about those who want to be in and with Christ. Coming closer to the endtimes we see how many raise their voice against the true followers of Christ. We should not be sad, but rejoice, because true Christianity is alive and flourishing all around the globe. All over the world we can find true followers of Jesus Christ, who worship the Only One true God.  In spite of their imperfections, those non-trinitarian Christians, Judeo Christians and Jeshuaists are following Christ’s teachings and practices.

In case you believe that Jesus is the son of God, the sent one from God, who came to liberate you from the chains of this world, let yourself not be captivated by those who are calling you an anti-Christ, because most of the time they are the ones who are the anti-Christ, or belong to an anti-Christ cult the ones warned for in the Scriptures.

You are not expected simply to accept that assertion. Why not examine the beliefs of those who really follow Christ, them being Brothers in Christ or Christadelphians or Jeshuaists, in the light of the Bible, and see for yourself. Learn from God’s Word the Christianity of Jesus’ apostles, as opposed to what Christendom’s churches have taught and practiced for centuries. This will, as the apostle Paul explained, bring you benefits for “the life now and that which is to come.”

“For bodily exercise profiteth little, but godliness is profitable unto all things, having promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come.” (1Ti 4:8 KJ21)

+

Preceding

A vital question for believers

A Theology of Culture War Christianity

Culture War Christianity in American history

Hitler and Christianity: Some Trends in Interpretation

Looking at an American nightmare

About a fleshless diet

Submarine ‘treason’ shows Britain is vassal state of US, say fuming French

Knowing The Truth and Loving The Truth

++

Additional reading

1. A famous individual by the name of Jesus of Nazareth
2. Christian in Christendom or in Christianity
3. How adversaries of God twist the word of the Bible and want to tell about heir Jesus
4. Not able to see Jesus working wonders
5. Act of Faith held on February 6, 1481
6. Growing rift between observant parents and their children
7. American Christianity no longer resembles its Founder
8. Fundamentalism is fertile soil for gullibility and denial of scientific fact
9. Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #1
10. Christian fundamentalists feeding Into the Toxic Partisanship and driving countries into the Dark Ages… #2
11. American fundamentalists win
12. Building Babylon the Great
13. Only six of ten commandments of God still important to British Christians
14. How to Save the American Church
15. Points to rescue America
16. For in a single hour all this great wealth …
17. Today’s Thought “God’s servant will succeed! He will be raised up, exalted, highly honoured!” (Weekend of 2020 June 27-28)
18. From nothingness to a growing group of followers of Jeshua 5 What’s in a name
19. Contents of the Book of Revelation
20. Jerusalem and a son’s kingdom
21. This fighting world, Zionism and Israel #7
22. From Jewish Christians to Gentiles and origin of Christianity
23. Charles Taze Russell and what he started
24. Evangelizing in the “Time of the End”
25. Dark times looking like death is around the corner – but Light given to us
26. Thought for today (January 17): Walking not after the flesh, but after the spirit
27. Germinating small seeds, pebble-stones, small and mega churches and faith
28. A new decade, To open the eyes to get a right view
29. Calvin’s view on taking up the cross
30. Relating to God is it possible
31. How do people want to grow and come closer to the Real God
32. Tri-union gods and Pagan, Christian, Muslim and Jewish views on the Creator God
33. Trinitarians making their proof for existence of God look ridiculous #3
34. From those preaching the Gospel and Baptism in Jesus name
35. Difference between a Messianic Gentile, a Messianic Jew and a Christian
36. Jews and Christians against Messianics and Jeshuaists
37. Christadelphians or Messianic Christians or Messianic Jews
38. Religious people and painful absence of spring of living water
39. How should we worship God? #14 True worship
40. Our openness to being approachable
41. Disciple of Christ counting lives and friends dear to them
42. Worthy partakers of the body of Christ
43. Not trying to make the heathen live like Jews #1
44. Not trying to make the heathen live like Jews #2
45. Being a follower of the true Jesus or as a Christadelphian being a Jeshuaist
46. Troubles testing your faith and giving you patience and good prospects
47. After 2,000 UK Church Buildings Close, New Church Plants Get Creative
48. Small churches of the few Christadelphians

+++

Related

1. We Can Right This Sinking Ship
2. The Fate of the Nation is Our Hands
3. Favorite Color – Red or Blue?
4. Joy Reid Now Thinks Floridians are “Far-Far-Far-Right”Wing
5. Letter to the American Church – Chapter 14
6. Some socialist wishes for the new year / by Zoltan Zigedy
7. Welcome 2023 – You Ain’t Seen Nothing Yet
8. Liar! Liar! Pants on Fire!
9. What Will It Take?
10. Have We Forgotten What a World War Would Be Like?
11. God is in your suffering…
12. Religions Are Not Infallible
13. Fireworks: Not religious; it’s a health issue.
14. Chinese – Godless People?
15. Healthcare in America: Income over Outcomes!
16. The Monsters of American Capitalism | The Smirking Chimp
17. Sad: Trump just favored American Capitalists over everyday Americans trying to scrape by
18. American Health Care…… isn’t

How far does this “Woke” world wants to go

Day by day, it becomes more and more laconic or rather sad to notice how we so-called woke culture shakes our foundations by declaring all kinds of words as sinful, null or useless.

Even one of the greatest children’s book writers cannot escape the current censorship embracing our reckless world.

Perhaps we shall find some science fiction or future tellers their stories becoming true before the time they had in mind.

The time is near or the time is at hand when

Children’s author Roald Dahl’s timeless classics have been deemed no longer up to scratch with modern times and will now only be available sealed in black plastic within the deepest corners of adult stores amongst marital aids and vibrating trouts. {Classic children’s books now only available at adult stores}

Please come to read:

1. White versus black in a woke world
2. Absurdity of present “woke” rage: The rewriting of Dahl
3. Why censoring Roald Dahl is a dangerous step
4. Everywhere I Look, I Read ‘Protection’

White versus black in a woke world

In our ridiculous world with its changing fashion and hypes, “Woke” has become the word for a new adverse attitude.

Everything seems to have become woke. We speak about a woke class, a woke capitalism, there is even spoken about a church of woke. You can’t imagine how crazier it gets.

In Dutch for example we may not speak any more of a “blank” person (a Caucasian) but has to say a “white person”, though it is not done anymore to speak about a “black person” when talking of a brown-coloured person.

It has taken me some time before I came to understand what people really meant with Woke, because that adjective derived from African-American Vernacular English (AAVE) meaning “alert to racial prejudice and discrimination“, deemed to be used for so what everything.  Inappropriately, that word woke was used by many people in their conversations, even when they talked about cows and calves. It seemed “cool” to use that word.

A Black Lives Matter die-in over rail tracks, protesting alleged police brutality in Saint Paul, Minnesota (September 20, 2015)

Though the phrase stay woke had already emerged in AAVE by the 1930s, in some contexts referring to an awareness of the social and political issues affecting African Americans it only recently after the international social movement, formed in the United States in 2013, Black Lives Matter movement, following the killings of Trayvon Martin, Michael Brown, Eric Garner, Pamela Turner and Rekia Boyd, among others. Very quickly the hashtag #BlackLivesMatter founds its way internationally on social media.

Up to 2020 the support for the Black Lives Matter movement had grown so much it had also created a social awareness, something had to change. Black Lives Matter also voiced support for various movements and causes beyond police brutality, including LGBTQ activism, feminism, immigration reform, and economic justice and by doing so a new movement arose, being a “Woke generation”.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines woke as ‘originally: well-informed, up-to-date. Now chiefly: alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice’.

Surely being alert to racial or social discrimination and injustice isn’t a bad thing? {‘Why’s it so wrong to be called woke?’}

Suddenly it no longer seemed appropriate to talk about men, women, homosexuals, bisexuals, sexless, and transgender people in a certain way. Asexuality being distinct from abstention from sexual activity and from celibacy, after all the pedo sex scandals there had come an “anti-paedophile activism” encompassing opposition to paedophiles, paedophile advocacy groups, child pornography, and child sexual abuse. But several people presenting too openly their sexual acts, like on Pride parades, all other people to have to accept their actions, otherwise to be labelled not only ‘conservative’ but even “anti-” when it was or is not so.

There have been incidents in which vigilantism intended to be against pedophiles has been mistakenly directed against the wrong person, including:

• A mob confusing a pediatrician with a pedophile, due to the similarities between the words.^[8]
• An incident where a man was misidentified as a pedophile because he was wearing a neck brace similar to the one a sex offender was wearing when pictured in a newspaper.^[9][10] {Wikipedia on Anti-pedophile activism}

In the same vein of misunderstanding and misinterpreting, the whole woke movement has arisen and has grown into something very annoying and discussion limiting something.

In the present time not allowed to say one can see a “community of igloos” or temporary winter homes or hunting-ground dwellings of Canadian and Greenland Inuit (Eskimos) (Illustration from Charles Francis Hall’s Arctic Researches and Life Among the Esquimaux, 1865)

In many museums in the world the curator started relabeling the historical objects and artworks, often making it they had to describe the object with several words instead of previously but now not accepted ‘one word’. As such people have become not allowed to use words like “hut” or “cabane” “or “shag” / “Shack”  you even may not say anymore “primitive dwelling” or “shanty” not allowed to say “roughly built, often ramshackle building”, “igloo“, “Eskimo“, etc.. In some museums, the labels by the works have become so full of words most visitors even do not take time any more to read them. (Proof that all that woke thing creates just the opposite and gives people even less insight into the world events and customs of many peoples. )

I do agree we may not speak about “savages” when there are those pictures of Africans who are depicted as “savages” or vicious or merciless, brutal, not domesticated or cultivated, wild people. But I think there is nothing wrong by saying those white people considered the coloured people they found in Africa, to be very wild and uneducated or regarded as primitive.

White people do have to live with the Atlantic slave trade which played an important role in spurring the Industrial Revolution in its early decades and helping to birth a new financial system. We can not ignore the shameful treatment of coloured people from that time regarded as illiterate areas.

Insofar as the trade encouraged the emergence of a new British commercial class that in turn lobbied for modernising reforms through Parliament, it may even have played a paradoxically pivotal role in the birth of modern democracy. We should never deny or downplay the dark side of Western history – nor the strangely double-edged story of Western freedom.

In concealing certain events and in not being allowed to mention them or not being allowed to use certain words, one misses the ball and is more likely not to achieve the intended goal of integration and respect.

Sherelle Jacobs writes

The evil “whiteness” stuff is getting out of hand. Everywhere one looks there are excesses.
Take the decolonised university courses that seek to purge Dead White Men (the intellectual cousin of the Evil White Male) from the curriculum. Or the obsession with toppling statues of figures such as Cecil Rhodes. {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

Where she refers to the constituent college of the University of Oxford in Oxford, England, Oriel College that the majority wanted the statue to be removed and that the King Edward Street plaque should be removed. Previously in 2016, Oriel College had decided to keep the statue following a consultation, despite protests from campaigners.  Some of the university’s geography dons published a statement saying it is a “source of shame” for the city that the imperialist Cecil Rhodes was still “honoured” with a statue.

When Sherelle Jacobs attended a colourism workshop at her old university not long ago, mixed race women, including her, were prohibited from speaking on account of their “proximity to whiteness”. There you see but how that whole woke business has twisted the whole system and made many not think and act soberly anymore. Rightly she reamerks

Even worse is the trend towards barring white people from black spaces altogether. Two Canadian theatres have sparked an outcry by limiting performances to an “all black-identifying audience”. {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

We should know that taking away historic statues, plaques, memorials or monuments is also going to take away the remembrances to those people and events, making the next generations not even thinking any more about what happened in the past.

Wiping out the past will not correct the things that have gone wrong. By hiding what really happened, one is also clearly not taking any blame but prefers to deliberately conceal what really happened. Which I think is a much more shameful attitude.

In Monroeville, a flyspeck of a town in Alabama, Jacobs recently saw an amateur performance of To Kill A Mockingbird in which local white men in the audience were invited on stage to be part of the jury.

It really worked: residents of this Deep South town, where African-Americans can still remember being forced to sit in a separate part of the cinema, pondering their history and how it made them feel without outside judgment or virtue signalling. Sadly, Monroeville is a rare case. {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

she writes and adds

Banner at 2017 Climate March in Washington D.C.

It doesn’t help that some conservatives have reacted to all this with downright denialism. It cannot be right that, in some Deep South schools, pupils are being taught that the American Civil War had nothing to do with slavery. {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

We have to be very careful by taking away statues and remembrance plates. There are enough people who would love to see the terms Holocaust denial and AIDS denialism to disappear so that the denial of the facts and the reality of the subject matters would not matter anymore. In the States of America we have a beautiful example of the dangers of the denialism that is going on in this “woke world”.

In 2020, cultural scientists Akane Kanai and Rosalind Gill described “woke capitalism” as the “dramatically intensifying” trend to include historically marginalized groups (currently primarily in terms of race, gender and religion) as mascots in advertisement with a message of empowerment to signal progressive values.

On the one hand, this creates an individualized and depoliticized idea of social justice, reducing it to an increase in self-confidence.

On the other hand, the omnipresent visibility in advertising can also amplify a backlash against the equality of precisely these minorities. These would become mascots not only of the companies using them, but of the unchallenged neoliberal economic system with its socially unjust order itself. For the economically weak, the equality of these minorities would thus become indispensable to the maintenance of this economic system; the minorities would be seen responsible for the losses of this system. {Kanai, A.; Gill, R. (October 28, 2020). “Woke? Affect, neoliberalism, marginalised identities and consumer culture”. New Formations: A Journal of Culture, Theory & Politics. 102 (102): 10–27. doi:10.3898/NewF:102.01.2020. ISSN 0950-2378. S2CID 234623282.}

We must always make sure that everything is kept in perspective and that the institutions will make sure that everything is neatly laid out and will not conceal anything even if it ‘discriminates’ against a certain group. We will always have to strive to expose an open honesty.

In his new book Colonialism, Nigel Biggar points out that the British Empire did some good, establishing peace in warring societies, alleviating rural poverty and building infrastructure. Some routinely use facts such as these flippantly to claim that the Empire definitively did more good than bad. But, as Biggar himself observes, the positives and negatives are incommensurable: “How much racism is worth immunisation against disease?” {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

According to Jacobs it would be far more constructive if conservatives focused on challenging the toxic Evil White Male reading of history. She writes

For one thing, it distracts us from the truth of our past: namely, that it was driven not so much by a cabal of racist megalomaniacs but by inescapable ideas in which we are all still, to this day, complicit. {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

Forever, certain groups of people will have to face their past. It does no good, on the contrary, to cover up the past by bringing up all kinds of newer concepts and naming things differently. By honestly stating what those ancestors were doing, future generations will be able to get a fair picture of what was done, which cannot be reversed anyway.

Every generation has flaws and in every demographic one can find people who do not want to face the truth of the times at the time when bad things are happening before their eyes. A great example of this are the young people today who all want the hottest phone but don’t want to think about how several children have been exploited for it.

How different are the hypocrisies of our ancestors from our own? {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

asks Jacobs, who does not see people smashing their smartphones in protest at the Congolese children who have died mining the rare cobalt that is crucial to powering their gadgets.

Fixating on a few Evil White Males is a convenient excuse not to face up to such things. {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

she writes.

And the Evil White Male view of history is feeding Western declinism. Some activists have taken to linking certain values or trends with empire and slavery in order to discredit them. People are, in turn, reluctant to challenge these spurious views for fear of being labelled a sympathiser with the Evil White Male of history – or even worse, compared to them.  {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

Jacobs asks us to

Consider also the post-modernist academics who denounce “objective, rational linear thinking” as Western-centric (as if the idea that words and language are fundamental expressions of an external reality can be simply waved away as a “white cultural trope”).

If societies attitudes’ to their past shape their future, then we should be concerned indeed. Unless the West can shake off some of this racialised self-loathing, its decline seems guaranteed.   {The West is doomed if it blames all its problems on Evil White Males}

It is much too easy to blame racism. With the killing of Tyre Nichols, lots of people shouted “racism”, not seeing that it where five “black” cops that went mad at one of their own folks. Those coloured police officers showed the world how American police is not trained enough and have a superior feeling, wanting to show their power over others, be they white or black persons. Too often we can hear the language of such officers, shouting words which should not be allowed to be said by people of the law. We also should recognise in what happened, how education but also social, institutional, and cultural systems play a significant role in shaping people their behaviour and how their formation and culture may contribute to negative outcomes.

Let us be aware

There are also many people who use ‘woke’ as a pejorative in an attempt to silence those who protest against bigotry. It’s often a word that racists, misogynists and others attempt to hide behind. Ed, Portsmouth {‘Why’s it so wrong to be called woke?’}

So using ‘woke’ as name-calling has become the default for the oafish who hate people daring to challenge their rather one-sided mindset. Unfortunately, ‘woke’ has become a blanket term that is used by those who don’t want to have their views challenged. Matthew, Birmingham {‘Why’s it so wrong to be called woke?’}

+

Interesting to read:

1. The actual behaviour of big business continues to confound its stated wishes
2. The Telegraph Frontpage for 2022 November 08
3. The Telegraph for Monday 21 November 2022
4. The Telegraph Frontpage for Friday 2022 November 25
5. Green lending tops fossil fuel for first time
6. Anglo-Saxon era church bringing the church into disrepute
7. New term names at London School of Economics
8. Not to tell people that God loves them
9. Evil “whiteness” stuff is getting out of hand

+++

Related

1. Martyr by cop
2. ‘Why’s it so wrong to be called woke?’
3. A breakfast restaurant called “Woke” opened in Conn
4. Connecticut breakfast restaurant called Woke sparks political debate
5. S3: E4 – Wokeback Mountain
6. ‘You People’ Review: Everything Wrong with the Modern Comedy
7. It Depends on What The Means
8. 85 ”The Funeral of a Great Myth,” or Evolution and Hegelian Optimism
9. European ‘Christian state’ faces criticism for banning woke lessons, immigration laws: ‘Will of the people’
10. Blind logic, arrogant conclusions
11. How Wokeism Works | Theo Von – YouTube
12. The problem with Atiku is he thinks Buhari just woke up to get 12m votes because of ethnicity—Keyamo
13. Freedom is …
14. Woke culture threatens academic freedom in social sciences at the University of Amsterdam
15. “Walt’s Disenchanted Kingdom” – A New Documentary on Gender and Sexual Ideology Politics and Disney Going Woke & Broke
16. Not Woke Up: Breakfast Cafe Name Sparks US Conservative Rage | Connecticut
17. Go Woke, Go Broke: Paperchase Goes Into Administration
18. Technological Innovations – Episode 1
19. De omgekeerde wereld
20. Wakker of Woke! Lezing door Simon van Groningen.
21. ‘Wakker of Woke?’ Lezing voor Stichting Sense
22. Wokeness is een groot probleem aan de Universiteit van Amsterdam, mede omdat ervoor wordt weggekeken
23. De zwarte gemeenschap zou excuses van Rutte voor slavernij niet moeten accepteren
24. Biologische studies naar gender laten minder maakbaarheid zien dan de progressieve pers graag zou willen
25. Hoe links mij tot zondebok maakte als klokkenluider van woke extremisme

Those not able to remember the past

*
Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”
~ George Santayana, the Spanish-born American philosopher
*

What 2022 brought to us and looking forward to 2023

Liberation

Lots of people thought 2022 would be the year of liberating us from that terrible virus which got the world in its grip. Though not a liberation became several people on their part, an even more senseless killing ‘disease’ came unto Europe.

The leader of the Russian Federation, Vladimir Putin, who would love to find a renewed Soviet Union, said at the beginning of the year he would bring liberation to the Ukrainians. Instead, his “bloodstained” tyranny plunged Europe into the war on a scale not seen since 1945 as Russian troops advanced on Kyiv on Thursday night, February 24th.

The invasion of Ukraine by Russia is shocking and disgraceful. It is the latest terrible aggression by the Putin regime and the latest damaging conflict in our world, with so many people being killed or injured, losing loved ones and seeing their homes destroyed.

2022 has been a tough year to navigate, with a series of political and economic crises that continue to shape our world.

One powerful man

Who could have ever imagined that one man, from up north, would single-handedly turn the world upside down? However, he has succeeded very well in not only bringing black snow over several people, and literally turning the landscape blood-red, he has severely disrupted economic life in several countries.

Following two long pandemic years – with many still experiencing the effects – we’ve witnessed the outbreak of war in Ukraine and could feel in our purse how it affects us also in our region. We cannot ignore this war that has affected many citizens. At our new WordPress Site “Some View on the World” we have given a voice to those suffering in the conflict as well as reporting the situation on the ground and providing the expertise needed to understand geopolitics.

Picturing what is happening in the world

As best we can, we try to give a picture of what is happening in the world on the continuation of “Our World“. 2022 was another year of figuring out how we would be able to keep up with bringing political and religious news alongside our other spiritual websites. We hope to find that balance further in 2023.

By nature, I am not an easy person and have dared to clash several times by speaking my mind outright. Even in the articles, I publish here and on my other websites, my thinking is based on my personal opinion. One can agree or disagree with that view. I, therefore, appreciate that people also dare to express their opinions. But in general, there is a little reaction in that area. Still, I hope the articles brought, can make people think. For instance, I was happy to find that my op-eds on Christmas in the Daily Telegraph were able to bring a debate after all.

Hoping to expose wrongdoings

With the news we place at Some View on the World we do hope we also could be able to expose the mistreatment and deaths of migrant workers in Qatar for almost a decade as well as other wrong attitudes towards people as well as animals and plants. At my personal site and this site as well, in particular on “Some View on the World” we continue to bear witness to the climate crisis as it destroys lives, uproots whole communities and changes the course of our shared future. We hope for 2023 to be able to bring regular news about our environment.

The fallout from the January 6 hearings and Donald Trump’s presidency could get our attention, and we hold our hearts for the intentions of Mr Trump, wanting to come back as president of the U.S.A..

Independence of my websites

For all the reporting we do here, and on my other websites, I would like to remind you, readers, that there is no financial support from companies anywhere and that all reporting is based on personal and independent reporting, where I keep searching for this site among texts that appear on the net what could possibly be fascinating for you to read as well, and thus to reblog them here.

2022 could bring lots of blogs on the net of which we presented some selections over here too. At Firefox several could find their way into ‘Pocket’, like: Why the Past 10 Years of American Life Have Been Uniquely Stupid, How to Want Less, A Neurologist’s Tips to Protect Your Memory, Why You Should Really Stop Charging Your Phone Overnight, A Guide to Getting Rid of Almost Everything, a.o. most read.

Uncovering and unravelling

Whether on social, political or religious issues, we are eager to seek the truth and expose false reports. Exposing wariness is not always appreciated, but is very important in our view. To do that, we can count on several investigative journalists and some newspapers to join in the pursuit of that muddle, so that together we can make certain things known to the world while others would rather see them covered up.

At Some View on the World we have maintained round-the-clock coverage from several places, not always bringing nice news, like mass graves of Bucha, Izium and many war crimes.

The war accelerated a global economic slump, sending costs soaring, throttling energy supplies and raising the spectre of blackouts, malnutrition and a winter of discontent across dozens of countries. As global food supplies fluctuated, we reported on the hunger gripping the Horn of Africa and Afghanistan. In 2022, it became impossible to ignore those victims in poorer countries. But sadly, we had to observe how little the public cared about those people living far from their homes. And closer, many did not wish to have refugees, so we could speak of a refugee crisis again this year.

Here in Belgium, the influx of refugees seems completely uncontrollable and many, even with small children, shamefully had to sleep outside several nights through rain and wind. This while in Great Britain, the reception was also not going smoothly and people started looking for a housing solution in Rwanda, and proceeded to deportations.

Condition of mother earth

A lot of people do not want to realise that things are very bad for Mother Earth. To this, in 2022, several scientists again tried to make it clear to the world that we need to think seriously about this and take action. We were confronted with UK’s hottest summer, a very early and long great Summer in Belgium, drought in Europe, and the accompanying fires.

Heating the houses became for many difficult to keep in the household budget. It looked like mother nature felt the pressure on the energy market, as well. Everywhere in Europe, we had extremely high temperatures for the time of year. In Belgium 2022 became the warmest year since measurements.

The climate emergency ran as a constant thread through much of our Some View on the World journalism in 2022.

While many European countries were suffering from a shortage of water, they had it in other countries, like Pakistan, too much. Devastating floods in Pakistan, encountering one of its worst natural catastrophes, Sydney’s wettest year on record, ferocious heatwaves in the US southwest and the costliest Atlantic hurricane for years, could catch our attention.

At Cop27 in Egypt, the Guardian asked the tough questions. Though, we did not give so much attention to the changing tactics of activists, now more likely to throw soup at a painting as they are to glue themselves to a public highway.

Uprising

In my view, many other protests could get our attention earlier, as they were carried out in a more correct way. Coming from a not expected corner, sparked by the death in custody of a young woman, Mahsa Amini.

Once again, we were able to conclude in Afghanistan and Iran that there is no improvement in human rights yet. The Iranian authorities tightly control reporting inside the country, so we counted on the teams of the Guardian to redouble efforts to reach protagonists to tell their stories. Social media remained also important for this, so it was satisfying to see the Guardian Instagram video on why Iranians are risking everything for change reach more than 2 million viewers.

It is impossible for me to have news sources everywhere, which is why we must also call on professional companies, for which we must also pay. Financial aid is therefore very welcome to cover these expenses. Nevertheless, we try to be as aware as possible of the general events, for which we also make further use of the known news channels and reliable TV channels and newspapers.

United States debacle

In terms of exposure, it was imperative to look at the Trumpists who still claim high and low that the US elections were forged.

The country which was formed on the idea that it could be a free world where everybody could express himself freely and would not be bounded by limitations through a government, in 2022 came to see deep political divisions, caused by a man who as 45th president of the U.S.A. did mutiny on that state and brought democracy in danger. His party made the ongoing climate crisis and racial, economic and health inequalities worsened. It was impossible to ignore the fallout from the January 6 hearings and Donald Trump’s presidency, as well as his willingness to come back as president.

The repeal of Roe v Wade provided a divisive backdrop to the November midterm elections. The conservative, or better said, the extremist Christians in the U.S., made it possible that women lost even the right to their own bodies. They also did not want to give an eye for mother nature nor for all those poor Americans who have no house or anywhere to live except on the streets, where many in the last weeks of the year found their dead by Winter storm Elliott. Buffalo got the worst hit by that bomb cyclone.

Political storms

In 2022 there were more significant elections in America which caught our attention. In Brazil, there were an anxious few weeks as Jair Bolsonaro wanted to do like his friend Trump, saying the votes were falsified. Finally, he suffered a chastening defeat by Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, who completed a comeback from prison to the presidential palace.

To our annoyance, we in northern Europe had to observe an inverse movement towards South America. The far right in Sweden, Italy and Israel, could get most seats in parliament. Despite her political prowess, the 45-year-old from Rome, whose strong will and determination has drawn comparisons to Margaret Thatcher, Giorgia Meloni has spent three decades fighting her way to the top of Italian politics. She is clear evidence that go-getters win. In October last year, after Brothers of Italy managed to draw votes away from the Northern League in its northern strongholds in local elections, a secret recording revealed Matteo Salvini hitting out at Meloni, calling her a “pain in the ass”.

In Belgium, too, the newspapers disguised several polls, clearly showing that the right is making a strong rise and where voices can already be heard that NVA will have to make the choice to form a majority coalition with Vlaams Belang.

As for British politics, prime ministers came and went with alarming regularity and the nation buried the pound, Queen Elizabeth and its global standing in quick succession. For 10 days in September, the future of the monarchy dominated the newsroom. The crazy game of the English conservatives who wanted their leader to put his capsones under the benches and to ask the people to stay at home because of Corona and not to have parties seemed to think it normal that their leader could do that and lie about it too. The whole world could laugh at the blunders of Boris Johnson and Liz Truss, while the British citizen seemed not to mind. In any case, they did not demand new elections and left it to the Tory members to elect the new prime minister.

In Australia Labour could note a historic federal election victory.

Economical storms

The struggle between Russia and Ukraine is also a struggle between the Putin regime and Western Europe.

The war accelerated a global economic slump, sending costs soaring, throttling energy supplies and raising the spectre of blackouts, malnutrition and a winter of discontent across dozens of countries. But we also noticed that certain companies were abusing the war in Ukraine to raise their prices.

Cereals and gas were not released enough by blockades from the Russians, which caused major food problems, especially in Africa. In Western Europe we felt our energy prices skyrocket due to the pressure on the export and import markets. In Belgium, it took forever for the government to take measures to mitigate the costs of its citizens. After several months of calls by the Labour Party PvdA/PtB to reduce VAT to 6% and by their appeals to the public to put pressure on the government, things finally came to a head.

Health matters

2022 received big leaps forward for Alzheimer’s treatments, bowel cancer prevention and understanding depression.

In several countries there was joy that people could come together again to party and that the elderly should no longer be separated from their children and grandchildren. The lockdown had made it very clear how important personal contact is. It was striking how in 2022 teenagers and twens still had many psychological difficulties, which were not resolved. Bad enough, many could not be admitted in time, causing unnecessarily too many young people to die, while this could have been avoided.

Post-pandemic in Europe in danger

For months Europe tried to combat Covid-19. We started the annual overview with the relaxation of the Corona measures. But at the end of December, they now appear to be endangered because Europe does not want to take strict measures for the Chinese who are now allowed by their government to travel outside China again, which will allow them to spread the increased disease further outside China. With the coming Chinese New Year, they could start a new pandemic as in Belgium, it started in Antwerp.

For much of the world, a sort of post-pandemic normality has resumed – with one striking exception: the country where it all began. Chinese leaders faced a rapid spread of public anger caused by their draconian Covid lockdown policy. Only after some activists could ignite a revolt against the lockdown and more people joined them on the streets, even coming to shout to get rid of the Chinese leader and communist party, the government got seriously afraid and eased the lockdown measures. After they had done that another hell broke down, the virus rapidly spreading and killing so many people the mortuaries could not handle it anymore.

While the Chinese seem to be in the first Corona wave, as it were, the rest of the world has gotten out over time and everyone is now looking forward to a shock-free 2023.

We too look forward to an ending of the war in Ukraine and to a peaceful solution between Kosovo and Serbia.

At Some View of the World and at my other personal Space, we shall try to bring you up-to-date news of the happenings in the world, and here on this website, we hope we shall still be able to offer you and share with you, some worthwhile articles to read in this coming New Year.

 

*

A sincere thank you to our readers and supporters – wherever you are in the world,
we wish you a wonderful end to 2022 and an optimistic 2023.

°°°

In case you like our work,
do not forget that we always can use your support.

To help us defray the costs
any gift is welcome at
Bankaccount: Giro: BE37 9730 6618 2528
BIC: ARSPBE22
With mention: support websites

For which we thank you wholeheartedly

++

Additional reading

1. G7 agreed to ban or phase out Russian oil and gas imports
2. 2022 the year of fearing some wars

Coming to the close of 2022: Looking from the top of the mountain

Slowly but surely we are coming to the close of 2022, a year which could have started nicely, but where so many dreams of a good year were crushed even before it went good on its way.

It was a year when a Jewish Young Professional “JYP” felt as though she was standing at the top of an ornate staircase,

looking down at what might have been a grand ballroom of a world, only the world is so broken, it is difficult to imagine the world as a place of celebrations and parties.

In a way, this is nothing new. The heartbeat of the world has always been a pulsing contrast of peaks and valleys between the “haves” and “have nots”.
It is rarer for the fortunate ones at the top to notice those in the lows brightly illuminated on the heart rate monitor.
But at the same time, there has been a massive change.
Hundreds dead.
Millions of refugees fleeing their homes.
The threat of nuclear.
All for an utterly pointless, needless war.
A pillar of world stability feels like it has been removed
and everything is off-kilter.

{At The Top Of, What, Exactly?}

This year, for several moments the world was on the brink of a new world war, that could be the first serious nuclear world war.

Jewish Young Professional “JYP was one moment at the top of the mountain, but she had to admit

it is impossible not to feel the bitter, chilly wind. {At The Top Of, What, Exactly?}

Joseph Farquharson ‘Cauld Blaws the Wind Frae East to West’ (1888). From dVerse

The scariest part of fall

It is very important that the American people come to see that their democracy is in great danger. There are several politicians and (so-called) Christian organisations who are undermining democratic principles and the necessity to tell the truth.

Jewish Young Professional

isn’t Halloween but election season -  
silk-voiced vampires masquerading as politicians,
 
politicians shuffling their constituents and dealing them 
like playing cards, smoking their principles like tobacco.
 
This country I call home feels ripped from its foundation
by an evil crow and I feel powerless.

From The Sunday Muse

***

dVerse, Shay’s Word Garden Word List, The Sunday Muse, TMP

View original post

What’s a historical fact that would shock most people to find out?: Rape of Nanking

The horrific events are known as the Nanking Massacre or the Rape of Nanking, as estimated that 20,000 women including some children and the elder were raped during the occupation.

A large number of rapes were done systematically by the Japanese soldiers as they went from door to door searching for girls and many women being captured and gang raped.The women were often killed immediately after being raped.

The Japanese were infuriated by the strength of Chinese resistance and when China’s Nationalist capital Nanking fell in December 1937, Japanese troops immediately slaughtered thousands of Chinese soldiers who had surrendered to them. The Japanese then rounded up about twenty thousand young Chinese men and transported them in trucks outside the city walls where they were killed in a massive slaughter. Japanese troops were then encouraged by their officers to loot Nanking and slaughter and rape the Chinese population of the city.

For six weeks, life for the Chinese in Nanking became a nightmare. Bands of drunken Japanese soldiers roamed the city, murdering, raping, looting, and burning at whim. Chinese civilians who were stopped on the street and found to possess nothing of value were immediately killed.During this period, soldiers of the Imperial Japanese Army murdered Chinese civilians and disarmed combatants who numbered an estimated 40,000 to over 300,000.

The bodies of thousands of victims of the slaughter were dumped into the Yangtze River until the river was red with their blood. After looting Nanking of anything of value the Japanese started fires that gutted one third of the city.

Subal Das

+

In March of 1945 the Japanese Army did the same thing at Manila in the Philippines. It is estimated that at least 100,000 civilians were murdered.

Japanese General Yamishita was tried and executed for these war crimes. Gang rapes were also wide spread.

These victims were murdered in the Manila Hospital.

Darrell Stanley

It’s the Little Things that Matter

by: Alex Cervantes

It is so important to make time in our lives to feed our faith. Alex advocates how faith grows when it is exercised, when it is stretched and challenged. Much like how we grow physically and mentally through day-to-day work, our faith grows the same way. Whether it’s through reading our Bible and prayer, or how we interact with people we meet each day, our faith can grow by doing the little things.

 

Listen to Alex’s Faith Talk, and many more!

LISTEN NOW

**

+

Preceding

Why are you afraid?

You don’t have to walk through the fire

++

Find also to read

1. Fear of failure, and fear of the unknown
2. Faith antithesis of rationality
3. Faith Launch 2020
4. Looking for something or for the Truth and what it might be and self-awareness
5. Are you religious, spiritual, or do you belong to a religion, having a faith or interfaith
6. The longer you wait
7. Gaining deeper understanding
8. Faith because of the questions
9. Have faith in your faith…doubt your doubts
10. A heart in the right place and brightly burning faith
11. Improving the world by improving the Faith
12. Coming of Age in Christ
13. The chosen ones to fear or not to fear
14. Faith, storms and actions to be taken
15. Many forgot how Christ should be our anchor and our focus
16. Through faith in Jesus Christ for all those who believe
17. Background of Faith
18. Ability (part 2)
19. When having taken a new direction in life, having become a Christian
20. Summer time to spend some more time at the growing process of your faith
21. United people under Christ

Hannah Arendt and the Banality of Evil : What can we learn?

The Curious Mag

As published on Happinez Magazine -The Morning newspaper, Sri Lanka – 8th May 2022. Link to article here

What if what we consider to be “evil” is something that is quite ordinary? The phrase “banality of evil” was coined by the German-Jewish philosopher Hannah Arendt. She received a lot of backlash for it, so much so that it ended up with her excommunication from the Jewish community. Who was Hannah Arendt, and what was this theory all about?

Hannah Arendt

Hannah Arendt (1906-1975) was a holocaust survivor who has authored many works ranging from politics to the nature of power and evil in society. The theory of the Banality of Evil came about after she attended the Eichmann trials in Israel post World War II. She attempted to explain that ordinary people can end up being actors in totalitarian systems – i.e., a dictatorial government – which doesn’t make them…

View original post 583 more words

Oekraïne – Droogenbroodt

mystiek & filosofie

Oorlog in Oekraïne

De amandelbomen staan hier in bloei
een verrukking voor het oog
dat van schoonheid houdt

weldra zullen ook citrusbloesems
een verleidelijk parfum verspreiden

maar elders woedt de oorlog
ziet het oog verwoesting
en menselijk leed

daar bloeien geen bloesems
ze verstikken in de rook
van barbaars geweld.

Germain Droogenbroodt

Marioepol

Vredesduif

Het regent
het regent treurnis

voor onschuldige slachtoffers
voor de vernietiging van een land
voor de vlucht van moorddadig geweld

hongerig verlaat een tortelduif
de beschutting van haar boom

een strop gelijk
de zwarte ring rond haar hals.

Germain Droogenbroodt

Marioepol

Despoot

De nacht heeft de dageraad overvallen
en ontvreemdt van de vrede
het kostbare licht

De stilte verstomt
door schoten, kanongebulder
en huilende sirenes overstemd

Onberoerd door het leed
─ zelfs van zijn eigen volk
de heerszuchtige despoot.

Germain Droogenbroodt

Marioepol

Sporen

De storm is geluwd
met de zandkorrels vermengd
de algen op het strand

View original post 1,248 more words

On this day in history: Burning of Holy Scriptures

On April 16, 2017 the radical Orthodox Jewish rabbi Shneur Odze burned a copy of the New Testament

On June 16, 1242, two dozen carloads of Jewish Talmud were burned in Paris

From 2017 April 17

UK: Rabbi burns New Testament as Passover ritual

On April 16, UK’s Jewish-owned online newspaper Daily Mail reported that Rabbi Shneur Odze burned a copy of the New Testament (Christian Bible canonized by Roman Emperor Constantine in 325 CE) in public as his Chametz (burning of useless or left-over food). He then posted images of it on social media on Good Friday.

Shneur Odze is a candidate for the mayor of British city of Manchester which has second largest Jewish community in the country after London. He is contesting the election as member of pro-Israel, anti-Muslim White Supremacist UK Independence Party (UKIP). Earlier this year, UKIP’s former leader Nigel Paul Farage (2006-2016) supported Donald Trump’s visa ban against seven Muslim-majority nations – claiming that there are several Muslim countries which have banned Israeli Jew tourists.

Shneur Odze claims that he found the Hebrew language copy of the New Testament in his synagogue left by some proselytizing Christian missionary.

Rabbi took it out into the street and set it alight, according to the report. He then posted photos of the book burning and wrote on Twitter:

“Was wondering what I’d burn my Chametz with.”

Rabbi told reporters that he felt he had no choice but to burn the book because he did not want to pass on what he believes is false religion to someone else and said that throwing a religious text in the garbage was distasteful, especially because it also contains the Five Books of Moses (Torah).

No religious or political Jewish group condemned or apologized for Rabbi Shneur Odze’s anti-Christian act nor Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby dared to ask Manchester police to arrest the rabbi for insulting Church of England.

UK’s press called the Bible burning an act of a lone radical Orthodox Jew for whose action the world Jewry don’t need to apologize.

Rehmat wrote

I bet my Canadian Looney if the religious fanatic had been a Muslim – every Jewish-owned newspaper and all British lawmakers would had demanded an apology from UK’s Muslim leaders and condemnation of the jihadi.

Christians, Jews and Hindus have a long history of burning religious scriptures of other faiths, especially Holy Qur’an. In Islam such action is considered blasphemy, a sin and serious crime.

On June 16, 1242, two dozen carloads of Jewish Talmud were burned in Paris on the orders of Pope Gregory IX and King Louis IX of France (here).

Christian Crusaders burned tens of thousands of copies of Holy Qur’an in Jerusalem (1099) and during the Spanish Inquisition (1492).

In December 2015, a Danish Jew, 42, was charged over burning a copy of Holy Qur’an and posting the image on his Facebook page with message:

Yes to freedom – no to Islam. Consider your neighbor: it stinks when it burns.

On May 20, 2008, the Associated Press reported that Jewish students in Israeli town of Or Yehuda burned several hundreds copies of New Testament in Hebrew.

Talmud commands Jews to destroy Christian religious books which is fully practiced in the only democracy in the Middle East.

In order to hide Talmud’s hateful teachings towards non-Jewish people and especially Christians – Rabbis have resisted its translation into languages other than Hebrew. In 2012, when Talmud was published in Arabic language for the first time – several pro-Israel Jewish groups lead by Abraham Foxman urged Jordanian government to take action to ensure that the Arabic translation of Jewish Talmud shouldn’t become a source of hatred of Jews and Israel among the Arabs.

Wartime gedicht uit Oekraïne

Kruzdlosofie

Danyil Zadorozhnyi

Danyil Zadorozhnyi considers the threat and reality of wartime displacement in this poem whose title speaks to W. H. Auden’s “September 1, 1939.”

“trees—that’s what I lack most of all,” she says
“you have so few of them here in Lviv
Donetsk, though, was a green city
greenery all around”

but I didn’t know that
I was young, never spent much time there,
never valued people or the county until after it happened

“second time I’ve lost my home,” she utters with hatred
“officially, this time”

and I get her
and I don’t
hugging her

my mom’s concerned there’ll be tons of internally displaced persons
where will we put them all up, she asks
I don’t mind, but I don’t have any space
except in your room, if you want

containing my emotions, I elect empathy, saying
I get you
but it’s too early to talk about that

View original post 133 more words

Living in peace through restoration

In times of war, there exist the danger, people getting frustrated and angry, wanting to do the wrong things against others.

In wartime, the greatest need is for friends.
Here one should not forget Who is always ready to be the Greatest Friend and the Saviour in high need. In times of fear and suffering, the Elohim Hashem Jehovah, the Most High and Only True God, is there to guide us through those dark times. Best we give Him our hand and let Him lead us through this darkness to light full of hope.

Susan Reimer

With everything that’s going on in our world the idea of living in peace might seem impossible. But what is impossible for man is possible with God.

2 Corinthians 13:11 says: “Finally, brothers and sisters, rejoice! Strive for full restoration, encourage one another, be of one mind, live in peace. And the God of love and peace will be with you.”

Restoration. I don’t think I’ve noticed that particular word before. Restoration means bringing back to a former position or condition. Rebuilding, reconstructing, renewing or recovering. What would restoration look like in your life? Forgiving a betrayal so that a friendship can begin again? Studying every night for an hour instead of scrolling social media to raise your grades? Sitting down with a counsellor to discuss a hurt that is preventing you from moving forward?

Only you know the answer to that question but restoration is possible and the end…

View original post 26 more words

A Friend Like You

In a time when many have to seek refuge, crawl unexpectedly under the table or seek refuge at the alarm signals, friendship is one of the most special necessities to keep each other straight.

+

Preceding

No Friendship is an accident

Friendship born

The one who knows who you are and where you have been

Someone needs …

One of the tasks of true friendship

. . . he who plants kindness gathers love.

What are friends and friendship

A true friend is like the air…

++

Additional reading

1. Offering words of hope
2. Gandhi’s Prayer for Peace
3. The Golden rule not always as easy as its sounds
4. Alternative four letter words
5. Friendship and Offer for the cause of democracy
6. Subcutaneous power for humanity 3 Facing changing attitudes
7. Subcutaneous power for humanity 4 Not crossing borders of friendship
8. Subcutaneous power for humanity 5 Loneliness, Virtual and real friends

+++

Related

1. Companion
2. Broken bonds
3. So let’s talk about anxiety…
4. Of Love: Space
5. Sidelined
6. Friendship Breakups Don’t Get Any Easier in Our 50s
7. My Most Treasured Things / Mis Cosas Más Preciadas
8. The man who had a pair of pliers in his back pocket
9. The Little Things
10. Summary of the essay of friendship by Francis Bacon

Purplerays

.

A Friend Like You

There’s lots of things
With which I’m blessed,
Tho’ my life’s been both Sunny and Blue,
But of all my blessings,
This one’s the best:
To have a friend like you.

In times of trouble
Friends will say,
“Just ask… I’ll help you through it.”
But you don’t wait for me to ask,
You just get up
And you do it!

And I can think
Of nothing in life
That I could more wisely do,
Than know a friend,
And be a friend,
And love a friend… like you.

By Anon.

Artist Inge Look.

Text and image source: Snowwolfs Woodland Nook https://www.facebook.com/531188960392510/posts/2082553225256068/

View original post

They want us to be afraid 🇺🇦🌻🇺🇦❤️🇺🇦🌻🇺🇦

Purplerays

.

“They want us to be afraid.
They want us to be afraid of leaving our homes.
They want us to barricade our doors
and hide our children.
Their aim is to make us fear life itself!
They want us to hate.
They want us to hate ‘the other’.
They want us to practice aggression
and perfect antagonism.
Their aim is to divide us all!
They want us to be inhuman.
They want us to throw out our kindness.
They want us to bury our love
and burn our hope.
Their aim is to take all our light!
They think their bricked walls
will separate us.
They think their damned bombs
will defeat us.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that my soul and your soul are old friends.
They are so ignorant they don’t understand
that when they cut you I bleed.
They are so ignorant they don’t…

View original post 38 more words