I think the tendency to try and tie various groups to factors understood by western audiences is the understandable, yet naive, belief that having some big powerful other country come in would bring a quick end to the hostilities. In reality it would most likely prolong them and just get more people killed. Also, it simply will not happen here. The last thing any leader in the west wants right now is another lost cause hopeless war. All our state media follow the marching orders and know what to report and what to ignore. That and they fundamentally do not care about anyone besides themselves and therefor only care how it would make them look. e.g. Obama publicly supporting the Arab spring while privately supporting Egypt's coup and joking about "All I need is a few good autocrats in the ME." https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/7/shadi_hamid_obama_egypt_arab_spring
Yeah but now they do ASAP, "African Solutions to African Problems", which means they could try to get Egypt to do it or something. The upside is Chad is somewhat aligned with RSF (Hemedti's tribe is considered Chadian, they always try to portray him as not Sudanese though 4 mil of them live in Sudan) while Ethiopia is having its own problems, and KSA who hired the SAF in Yemen is trying to get out of its failed conflict, so it really may be that everyone is too exhausted.
The whole Horn of Africa/Red Sea region is a total mess
Yeah thats fair lol, obviously there housing hasnt changed much, that style of fence is obviously very ancient, and the huts were framed with sticks, it looked as if some of their containers may be traditional pottery too, but I couldnt be sure.
I also see there is some indications of Early Plastic Age from the jerrycan under the tree, so I think this is going to be a very hard to date site, and somewhere there's a PhD thesis in the making!
hah right. Well that's what's really interesting. In Niger there are a lot of subsistence farmers who live in the most ancient looking settlements, but I found out that they do have cheap cell phones and often a Chinese solar panel to charge them and get data from phone cards, so despite their primitive lifestyle and poor literacy they do still get memes...which has caused them to believe there is a Bill Gates eugenics conspiracy to sterilize them...incredible blend of the ancient and modern, which is common in Africa.
Some time last year I missed my bus to go from Lisbon to the north, and had to wait about an hour for the next one, and ended sitting next to a group of Senegalese migrant workers. Being French speaking myself, I ended striking up a conversation with them. There is this idea of Africa being backwards in everything, but then you discover that villages that have real problems with finding fuel, getting water, and so on, will be hyper connected to the family member working in Europe, with whatsapp groups sharing news, large conference calls between people from the same village and a complete ecosystem of Chinese apps ( !) used to transfer money to the gulf states, from there to China, and from there to Senegal to be picked up at local Chinese shops! It was a very enlightening conversation on "globalization"!
If you can read french, turn on the subtitles (available only in french, and mostly because her accent is quite difficult to follow sometime), this girl will show you one of the biggest Chinese shops in Dakar!
There’s more upward mobility than the US, where such a transition can happen: “a camel trader with a third grade education to a billionaire gold mining magnate warlord.” I utterly despair for the human race.
yeah it's really incredible. I think it partially has to do with their level of economic development, you know kind of like a 19th century American industrialist who would become a fillibuster in Latin America.
Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracus who crowned himself king at the same time Alexander's successors all declared themselves kings, was said to be the son of an artisan, I believe a potter, which was a very low status in their society, so these things do happen, but it's certainly uncommon, especially being as Hemedti isn't any sort of communist. I believe Maduro was a busdriver who became a union leader, but that is a bit less unusual in a socialist state where he inherited power. They do say Genghis Khan was born a slave, so there's that as well.
I’m enthusiastically in favor of those with an honest working class background leading nations, if they manage to avoid corrupting influences. Nations should allocate their geographical resources for their own peoples’ general welfare first, before enriching themselves and their cronies. The US is doing its best to thwart unity among African nations, I don’t think we care who “wins” as long as we’ve got fingers in the pie.
Your reporting is wonderful, with your rich historic and philosophical perspective.
Thanks! I just learned today that David Hume would have likely considered me a moral philosopher lmao, which is to mean someone who studies how human affairs function.
Unfortunately for Sudan Hemedti certainly isnt what you would call "working class" but is more the principal in a gang of bandits, but that is what government generally arises from anyhow so it may be fine.
Catherine I of Russia, the 2nd wife of Peter the Great was orphaned at age 5 by the plague and was a servant until she married Peter. She had 12 kids with Peter, only 2 (both female) survived to adulthood. When Peter died she became the first female monarch of Russia. Though only for 2 years before she died.
Hah, thanks, I was actually sure there was something in Greek Mythology that would work better for my purpose, that you look at it and see what you want to, but I never found it and realized perhaps I was just thinking of a Rorschach rest
I think the tendency to try and tie various groups to factors understood by western audiences is the understandable, yet naive, belief that having some big powerful other country come in would bring a quick end to the hostilities. In reality it would most likely prolong them and just get more people killed. Also, it simply will not happen here. The last thing any leader in the west wants right now is another lost cause hopeless war. All our state media follow the marching orders and know what to report and what to ignore. That and they fundamentally do not care about anyone besides themselves and therefor only care how it would make them look. e.g. Obama publicly supporting the Arab spring while privately supporting Egypt's coup and joking about "All I need is a few good autocrats in the ME." https://www.democracynow.org/2023/7/7/shadi_hamid_obama_egypt_arab_spring
Yeah but now they do ASAP, "African Solutions to African Problems", which means they could try to get Egypt to do it or something. The upside is Chad is somewhat aligned with RSF (Hemedti's tribe is considered Chadian, they always try to portray him as not Sudanese though 4 mil of them live in Sudan) while Ethiopia is having its own problems, and KSA who hired the SAF in Yemen is trying to get out of its failed conflict, so it really may be that everyone is too exhausted.
The whole Horn of Africa/Red Sea region is a total mess
Though I quibble about "neolithic settlement" (frankly, it looks a lot more like a late Iron Age settlement 😆 ), this was a really great write-up.
Yeah thats fair lol, obviously there housing hasnt changed much, that style of fence is obviously very ancient, and the huts were framed with sticks, it looked as if some of their containers may be traditional pottery too, but I couldnt be sure.
I also see there is some indications of Early Plastic Age from the jerrycan under the tree, so I think this is going to be a very hard to date site, and somewhere there's a PhD thesis in the making!
hah right. Well that's what's really interesting. In Niger there are a lot of subsistence farmers who live in the most ancient looking settlements, but I found out that they do have cheap cell phones and often a Chinese solar panel to charge them and get data from phone cards, so despite their primitive lifestyle and poor literacy they do still get memes...which has caused them to believe there is a Bill Gates eugenics conspiracy to sterilize them...incredible blend of the ancient and modern, which is common in Africa.
Some time last year I missed my bus to go from Lisbon to the north, and had to wait about an hour for the next one, and ended sitting next to a group of Senegalese migrant workers. Being French speaking myself, I ended striking up a conversation with them. There is this idea of Africa being backwards in everything, but then you discover that villages that have real problems with finding fuel, getting water, and so on, will be hyper connected to the family member working in Europe, with whatsapp groups sharing news, large conference calls between people from the same village and a complete ecosystem of Chinese apps ( !) used to transfer money to the gulf states, from there to China, and from there to Senegal to be picked up at local Chinese shops! It was a very enlightening conversation on "globalization"!
Yeah and quite a lot of China's business on the continent is in selling goods they can afford.
If you can read french, turn on the subtitles (available only in french, and mostly because her accent is quite difficult to follow sometime), this girl will show you one of the biggest Chinese shops in Dakar!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M7p85gUvs-Q
There’s more upward mobility than the US, where such a transition can happen: “a camel trader with a third grade education to a billionaire gold mining magnate warlord.” I utterly despair for the human race.
yeah it's really incredible. I think it partially has to do with their level of economic development, you know kind of like a 19th century American industrialist who would become a fillibuster in Latin America.
Agathocles, the tyrant of Syracus who crowned himself king at the same time Alexander's successors all declared themselves kings, was said to be the son of an artisan, I believe a potter, which was a very low status in their society, so these things do happen, but it's certainly uncommon, especially being as Hemedti isn't any sort of communist. I believe Maduro was a busdriver who became a union leader, but that is a bit less unusual in a socialist state where he inherited power. They do say Genghis Khan was born a slave, so there's that as well.
I’m enthusiastically in favor of those with an honest working class background leading nations, if they manage to avoid corrupting influences. Nations should allocate their geographical resources for their own peoples’ general welfare first, before enriching themselves and their cronies. The US is doing its best to thwart unity among African nations, I don’t think we care who “wins” as long as we’ve got fingers in the pie.
Your reporting is wonderful, with your rich historic and philosophical perspective.
Thanks! I just learned today that David Hume would have likely considered me a moral philosopher lmao, which is to mean someone who studies how human affairs function.
Unfortunately for Sudan Hemedti certainly isnt what you would call "working class" but is more the principal in a gang of bandits, but that is what government generally arises from anyhow so it may be fine.
Catherine I of Russia, the 2nd wife of Peter the Great was orphaned at age 5 by the plague and was a servant until she married Peter. She had 12 kids with Peter, only 2 (both female) survived to adulthood. When Peter died she became the first female monarch of Russia. Though only for 2 years before she died.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Catherine_I_of_Russia
Hah, thanks, I was actually sure there was something in Greek Mythology that would work better for my purpose, that you look at it and see what you want to, but I never found it and realized perhaps I was just thinking of a Rorschach rest