Johan S. McGuinne (Eòghan / Jåhha) Profile picture
Åarjelsaemien / Gàidhlig I'm a poet, translator, teacher, Indigenous scholar and writer, passionate about endangered languages and the sea.
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Jul 8, 2023 13 tweets 2 min read
Just nu, när diskussionerna om huruvida man "borde få bränna böcker eller ej" pågår, och folk sprider all möjlig transfobisk skit på sociala medier, så kan det vara bra att ta ett steg tillbaka, och reflektera över det faktum att Hitlers bokbål påbörjades för 90 år sedan i år. Den 10 maj 1933 anordnades ett uppmärksammat bokbål på Opernplats i Berlin. Folk vill gärna tro att de som brände böckerna var äldre, konservativa, men bokbålen leddes av nitiska studentkårer, som fick stöd av SA-trupperna i huvudstaden.
Jul 24, 2020 15 tweets 3 min read
Some Gaelic proverbs

’S fhearr sùgh a’ mhogain na sùgh lodain - A leaky boot is better than none at all

Na h-alltaichean a’ fàs agus na h-aibhnichean a’ meath - The burns increasing and the rivers failing (said about the passing of generations) Is e iomramh an droch latha a nì latha math gu iomramh - practise rowing in a rough sea and soon the rough sea will seem calm to you

Mionn nach còir a dhèanamh cha chòir a gléidheil - an oath that ought not to be made ought not to be kept
Jun 22, 2020 60 tweets 8 min read
Igår, i samband med midsommarsolståndet, firades urfolkens dag runt om i världen. I Sverige, däremot, glöms denna dag ofta bort. Sverige är fortfarande en kolonial nation, som med hjälp av sin mineralpolitik, sitt skogsbruk och sin förmodat "gröna" energiutvinning fortsätter att inom Sveriges gränser motverka urfolksrättigheter, samtidigt som man agiterar för dem utomlands.
Jan 24, 2020 14 tweets 3 min read
Renen var här innan vägarna. Problemet med saltet ligger hos trafikverket. Det är inte journalistiskt etiskt att publicera sina fördomar i notisform. Hur tänkte ni egentligen, @svtnyheter ?

svt.se/nyheter/lokalt… @svtnyheter Igår stod det dessutom att renarna var dödsföraktande och renen beskrevs som "dumma jävla djur". Skriver man på det viset som reporter så har man helt enkelt valt fel yrke.

Och innan någon säger "men det var väl inte så farligt" - det här är en del av någonting större.
Aug 22, 2019 4 tweets 1 min read
Spare me people who question Trump, not because he's doing what settlers do best, but because he's asking another colonial government to sell him their colony.

Greenland has campaigned for independence for ages. Neither the US nor Denmark has any right to own Kalaallit Nunaat. Spare me satirical texts where the "prime minister of Denmark offers to buy the US".

Spare me jokes that turn colonialism into a fun pastime.

Spare me any commentary that doesn't centre the voices of Greenland's indigenous people.
Aug 18, 2019 25 tweets 4 min read
It's great that the rest of the world is finally catching up, but it would be nice if the mainstream would acknowledge that Indigenous people have talked about climate change for decades. Especially indigenous communities in circumpolar areas have warned of the devastating effects of global warming for over 40 years. As Larisa Pavlovna Adjedeva, the director of the Saami Cultural Centre in Lovozero said to the Snowchange Cooperative in 2009;
Jul 30, 2019 8 tweets 2 min read
That moment when you're willing to send the special presidential envoy for hostage affairs to intervene in a fair trial in a democratic state, but you're keeping migrant children separated from their parents in border concentration camps, just like hostages, in your own backyard Trump's involvement seems deliberate in a way that seems almost too clever for him but perfectly on brand when it comes to how the social media apparatus of the alt-right works
Jun 28, 2019 25 tweets 4 min read
Jobbar du som konstnär? Som slöjdare? Musiker?

Är du också trött på att det du gör förväntas vara gratis?

Har du svårt att förklara varför du inte kan överleva på smulor och glädjen av att få synas och höras?

I så fall - spara denna tråd för framtida bruk. I Sverige ligger den absoluta lägstalönen för en 16-åring på 69 kronor. De flesta branscher betalar dock som minst 80 kronor i timmen för en 16-åring, och den summan stiger markant med åldern.

Som verksam inom kultursektorn måste vi alltså åtminstone kunna anse oss värda 80 kr/h
Sep 21, 2018 7 tweets 2 min read
Har på mig kolt på jobbet idag. För att jag kan, och jag vill. För att jag inte tycker att det är konstigare än att ta på mig en kostym, eller en snygg skjorta. Och just i dag känner jag att det är bra att jag är vuxen, och inte längre en blyg och osäker tonåring med komplex för min kultur. Han som inte så gärna berättade att han kom norrifrån.
Sep 20, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
- Inga centrala krav på minimum-löneökningar.
- Man skall "förebygga" ohälsa.
- Ett avtal för fler och friskare lärare.
- Varje kommun måste nu sätta upp mål för att sänka sjuktalen.
- LR och Lärarförbundet skall delta i turordningsförhandlingar med andra fackförbund 2019. - Bättre ordning i lönestrukturen, kompetens och erfarenhet skall premieras.
- Turordningsreglerna skall utgå ifrån skolans specifika behov.
- Inga väsentliga förändringar i avtalet från det förra kring turordning.
- Lokala parter åläggs arbetsplatsspecifika arbetsmiljöarbeten.
Sep 19, 2018 9 tweets 2 min read
Some of our students' parents were shocked to hear about the amount of Nazi symbols found around our school and on our students' computers at our parent-teacher conference.

I, however, couldn't be less shocked. I've heard so many of the very same parents complain about the mere presence of immigrants in their sons' and daughters' classes, and seen how they've laughed along to sexist and homophobic jokes in front of their children.
Sep 16, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
God bless the Swenglish language. Being an EFL teacher never stops being funny. Some quotes from my students:

Did you go to a whale wake? - translation: Did you attend an election night party? I want to have their stools instead! These stink! - translation: I want to have their chairs instead! These are so bad!
Sep 13, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
The colonial use of the term ‘indigenous’, translates as a unifying, oppressive label used to question our own definitions of authenticity, belonging and hybridity. This use of the term ultimately leads to a future where Settlers, based on their practices of silencing us can claim that the indigene, as defined by the Settler, is gone.
Sep 13, 2018 24 tweets 4 min read
Like so many others from small, colonised communities, I was raised in an abusive family, and growing up, I quickly learnt that remaining silent was an easy way to stay under the radar, but that the very same silence would ultimately drain you and leave you an empty shell. Those of you who know me might have gathered that I’ve never been good at staying silent and though I come from two small cultures more or less stripped of their respective voices by the majority, I've slowly but surely worked myself to a point where I refuse to remain silent.
Sep 12, 2018 6 tweets 1 min read
We are often asked to explain why our languages are important to the world as a whole, and our answers become repetitive and pointless after a while; this is because the question in itself misses the point entirely. In order to revitalise a language, we should not be asked to justify its worth to others, but to think critically about what it means to ourselves.
Sep 12, 2018 23 tweets 4 min read
Tormod was an unmade man in a world of daoine dèante – when others spoke at the opening of some new school, or put on their best Wee Free gloom of a face to talk about the decline, the death, the Deathly Hallows gone Gael, he spent his days minding his own business. The blue of his eyes had long ago told others to leave him alone, the comharradh-cluais carved into the ears of his lone sheep an interrobang of do not try to save me or i’ll save you to hell.
Sep 12, 2018 8 tweets 2 min read


This thread is devoted to a Swedish translation of @Gillebride Mac IlleMhaoil's stunning song "Duan an Fhògarraich". If you haven't listened to it yet, you should do it asap. Flyktingens Vädjan

Du där, som stressat rusar fram genom livet,
och förbi mig som ställts här på bar backe,
Säg mig, vad gjorde jag dig,
förutom att fånga din blick,
säg mig, vad gjorde jag för att förtjäna dina hårda ord?
Sep 12, 2018 5 tweets 1 min read
My third book recommendation of seven (a friend asked me to recommend some books a while ago) is a book that you'd hardly find on any university reading list, but which I read so many times as a child, that it's a wonder that my copy is still in one piece. Carol Carrick's "What Happened to Patrick's Dinosaurs", published some 32 years ago, is a beautifully illustrated children's book in which a young boy named Patrick is told by his older brother that all dinosaurs became extinct more than 60 million years ago, ...
Sep 10, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
"The Stornoway Way" is arguably one of the best examples of recent Anglo-Gaelic literature, and it spoke to me in a way few other books had ever done before the first time I read it. In fact, I liked this book so much that I chose to devote half of my MLitt thesis to this beast. In and of itself, the story seems boring - a washed-out drunkard, complaining about his love-life and island existence, but beneath this layer of prose, there's something else, something much more important.
Sep 10, 2018 4 tweets 1 min read
This peculiar beast of a novel won a Booker Prize in 1985 and upset a lot of literary critics who thought that Keri's language was "too different" and, when they couldn't criticize her prose, that her Maori-ness wasn't authentic enough to allow her to write about Maori characters "The Bone People" focuses on love, and belonging, centering three odd characters who have been rejected, or have rejected society because of past mental and physical, intra-generational and personal wounds, thus making it a poetic but also a hard, traumatic read.
Sep 8, 2018 7 tweets 1 min read
Daenbiejvien veeljemebiejvien rïjhkebeajvan Svöörjen bielesne, daennie Saepmesne.

Mearan almetjh Svöörjesne steemmadieh, saemieh dovne daalhkadahken jah maadtoej reaktaj åvteste vuastalieh Såevmien bielesne. Ij maehtieh neajhkodh ahte mijjieh saemieh gujht ov-våajnoes libie dennie politihkeles digkiedimmesne.

Dan diehte gujht vihkeles ahte daelie aktesne barkebe, jalhts ovmessie laantine årroeminie.