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28 May, 7 tweets, 2 min read
Germany, one of the richest countries in the world, agrees, after years of negotiation, to pay €1.1 bn over 30 years to Namibia - a shameful pittance in this context - for the cold-blooded state-approved murder of well over 100 000 Herero & Nama victims.
theguardian.com/world/2021/may…
The horror of this genocide is not well understood outside Namibia. I've spent a lot of time there; I've seen the postcards sent by German troops to their wives back home, with photos of dozens of dead Hereros - incl. children - lain out on the ground, or hanging from gallows. 1/
This was an officially sanctioned cold-blooded attempt to exterminate an entire people, a direct forerunner of the Holocaust. There's no atonement possible for wickedness on this scale, but what has finally been dragged out of the German government is shamefully inadequate. 2/
I don't believe in genetic guilt - children should not be responsible for the sins of their parents. But *governments* are another matter: the German government today should absolutely pay reparations to the descendants of people murdered in its name, whenever that happened.
The German commander, General von Trotha wrote: "Any Herero found inside the German frontier, with or without a gun, will be executed. I shall spare neither women nor children. I shall give the order to drive them away and fire on them. These are my words to the Herero people."
Von Trotha was chosen by Kaiser Wilhelm II to command the German forces in Namibia precisely *because* of his psychopathic butchery previously in China, and was in continual communication with Wilhelm II throughout the extermination campaign against the Herero and Nama peoples.
The present value of €1.1bn over 30 years is about €500m. The German state's budget in 2020 was €508 billion. So in return for mass murder & the attempted extermination of an entire people, the German state has now offered to pay one thousandth [1/1000] of one year's spending.

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Incunabula Profile picture
29 May
Jesuit grave-stones in Peking follow a particular pattern established in the Ming dynasty by that of Matteo Ricci. Their design is unique and exclusively used for Jesuit graves: On the left is the Latin text giving the name, nationality, and summary biographical information... 1/ ImageImage
This includes the number of years at the China mission and the exact date of death, occupation etc. On the right is the same text in Chinese and in the centre the large characters give their Chinese name and rank. 2/
These are tombstones of João Andreas Pereira (Chinese name Xu Maode, 1689-1743) and João Francisco Cardoso (Chinese name Mai Dacheng, 1677-1723, Vice-President), Jesuit missionaries who both worked at the Imperial Board of Astronomy in Peking. 3/ ImageImage
Read 8 tweets
Incunabula Profile picture
21 May
Incredibly, this archeologist apparently employed by the Iraqi Ministry of Culture, has now doubled down when told the manuscript was a worthless fake, and insisted they have determined it's genuine. This is an embarrassment, and a terrible indictment of their so-called experts.
Quite apart from all the other screaming clues - the 20th century Star of David, the ridiculous gold, the bizarre iconography never found in any genuine Hebrew manuscript - even a child with kindergarten-level Hebrew reading ability would see the text is just random gibberish.
These "ancient Hebrew manuscripts with gold writing" fakes are made in their hundreds in Turkey, and sold to gullible wealthy Turkish businessmen, usually with the cover story that they were looted from synagogues or the homes of "rich Jews who hide their secret gold" in Syria.
Read 8 tweets
Incunabula Profile picture
19 May
The oldest surviving objects with proto-writing - the very earliest 'books' - may by the enigmatic Aboriginal 'cylcons' of Western New South Wales. The oldest cylcons - rock cylinders with scratched markings - found in dated archaeological contexts are about 20 000 years old. 1/
Older than churingas, cylcons date from the earliest period of Aboriginal occupation, some may potentially be 40000 - 50000 years old. The use and purpose of cylcons is unknown to current Aboriginal peoples, and they do not regard them as sacred objects as they do churingas. 2/
Among the suggestions made is that they're tally sticks - for counting people or animals; or maps - showing various routes, rivers in the wet and dry seasons etc; or calenders – counting days, or lunar cycles; or memorials for the dead; or ritual pointers for shamanistic use. 3/
Read 8 tweets
Incunabula Profile picture
11 May
"Cut off from the world by military clashes, the fate of the Abba Garima monastery and its spectacular Garima Gospels is still unknown. But the area around the monastery is controlled by soldiers who have looted systematically since the start of the war."
theglobeandmail.com/world/article-…
The Garima Gospels are a two volume Ethiopian Gospel Book dating to the 5th century. Garima 2, the earlier of the two, is believed to be the earliest surviving complete illuminated Christian manuscript - an incomparably important heritage for Ethiopia, Africa and all humanity.
The abbott and a monk at the Abba Garima Monastery near Adwa examining the Garima Gospels, thought to be the oldest surviving illuminated Christian manuscript. Local tradition holds that this codex was written before the year 500, a date supported by recent radiocarbon analysis.
Read 6 tweets
Incunabula Profile picture
8 May
Bonaventura Vulcanius’ De literis et lingua getarum, sive gothorum [On the Alphabet & Language of the Getae or Goths], published in Leiden in 1597, contains texts & wordlists in Gothic, Crimean Gothic, Anglo-Saxon, Frisian, Persian, Welsh, Icelandic, Basque, Romani & Rotwelsch. ImageImage
In this pioneering work of comparative linguistics, Vulcanius attempted to define the relationship between the Gothic language and High German, Crimean Gothic (after Busbecq's vocabulary, first published eight years previously in 1589), Anglo-Saxon and Frisian. Image
At the same time, he also considered the Persian, Welsh, Icelandic and Basque languages. When the book went to press, what would otherwise have been blank space at the end of the last gathering was filled with a Romani and a Rotwelsch wordlist. ImageImageImage
Read 7 tweets
Incunabula Profile picture
7 May
Kōetsu Utaibon 光悦謡本 [Saga, Kyoto, 1607].
The 100 Noh libretti called "Koetsu-bon" represent an astonishing leap, something unprecedented in the history of the illustrated or decorated book: this was the first time a book had been conceived as a single unified work of art. 1/
Not until William Blake’s books two centuries later, do we encounter anything like this as a "Gesamtkunstwerk" in the West, and the creation on any sort of scale of books composed as integrated, decorated printed works of art.... 2/
.... did not arrive in the West until the private presses of the late 19th century Arts & Crafts movement in Britain, and the French livres d’artistes produced in Belle Epoque Paris in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. 3/
Read 14 tweets

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