I couldn’t decide who my history crush is so I made a little collage. These people aren’t my history crushes because I’m secretly in love with them or because I support their world view. No, they’re just people who I’m interested in and I’m mature enough to be critical of their biographies. Stalin, a dictator who supported the murderer of 20 Million people from his own country, was a BAMF when he was young, but that doesn’t mean that I support the Stalinism. I like the design of the Wehrmacht uniform, but I’m totally aware about the war crimes the German soldiers committed while WWII (same goes for the SS). The person on the picture is Stauffenberg. At least he tried to kill Hitler, one year till the ‘party’ was finally over. I think Richelieu is a really interesting personality, although I think that the Siege of La Rochelle was a crime against humanity. Friedrich II. (HRR) is one of my favorite personalities in history. He was educated, intelligent and very calculating. On the one side he was tolerant and had no problems with ‘talking’ with the Arabs, but on the other side he was a huge supporter of the early inquisition. And Napoleon… well, we all know how he tried to bring the ideals of the French Revolution to Europe. Thousands of soldiers and civilians had to pay with their lives. Friedrich Schiller. Okay, he doesn’t kill somebody and never committed a real crime; he was an author to whom I have a little hate-love relationship. And Rousseau was a BAMF, an intelligent BAMF! And who’s left… ah yes, dear Emperor Caligula. Current historians revise his biography and try to separate between facts and myths/negative propaganda. We will see the results, but at the moment most people might know Caligula as one of the cruelest Emperors of Rome and yet he’s just fascinating.
TL;DR. Most of my ‘history crushes’ are people who were reckless, cruel and committed some awful crimes against humanity, but they also created whole empires and made indeed history. History is war and death, and everybody who can’t deal with that shouldn’t study it. And if people think that Goebbels or even Hitler are their ‘history crushes’, than it shall be. But I can’t understand why so many people make such a fuss about a Nazi crush, but don’t care so much when Stalin, Mao (who killed more people than Hitler) or any other crazy dictator is posted. And if a person is really in love with Goebbels, that person has another problem than haters on Tumblr. Fascination doesn’t necessarily equal admiration. And to have a history crush doesn’t mean that you support their world view. Try to see the difference.
HAHAHA I figured y’all might enjoy this because we get a lot of messages about “so-and-so looks so much like famous-actor” and IT REALLY IS QUITE EERIE SOMETIMES!
(Source: pleatedjeans)
“You know that place between sleep and awake, the place where you can still remember dreaming? That’s where I’ll always love you. That’s where I’ll be waiting.”
Peter Pan
Map of Countries which officially recognize the State of Palestine.
Omar Khadr, a sixteen year old Guantanamo Bay detainee weeps uncontrollably, clutching at his face and hair as he calls out for his mother to save him from his torment. “Ya Ummi, Ya Ummi (Oh Mother, Oh Mother),” he wails repeatedly, hauntingly with each breath he takes.
The surveillance tapes, released by Khadr’s defence, show him left alone in an interrogation room for a “break” after he tried complaining to CSIS (Canadian Security Intelligence Service) officers about his poor health due to insufficient medical attention. Ignoring his complaints and trying to get him to make false confessions, the officers get frustrated with the sixteen year old’s tears and tell him to get himself together by the time they come back from their break.
“You don’t care about me. Nobody cares about me,” he sobs to them.
The tapes show how the officers manipulated Khadr into thinking that they were helping him because they were also Canadian and how they taunted him with the prospect of home (Canada), (good) food, and familial reunion.
Khadr, a Canadian, was taken into US custody at the age of fifteen, tortured and refused medical attention because he wouldn’t attest to being a member of Al Qaeda, even though he was shot three times in the chest and had shrapnel embedded in his eyes and right shoulder. As a result, Khadr’s left eye is now permanently blind, the vision in his right eye is deteriorating, he develops severe pain in his right shoulder when the temperature drops, and he suffers from extreme nightmares.
He has been incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay since 2002, suffering extremely harsh interrogations and torture (methods), and is now 25 years old.
They shot him twice for the crime of hiding behind a bush (from the fighting) and then arrested him for having the gall not to die.
(Source: theamericankid)
BBC Syria Coverage Uses Wrong Photo from Wrong Country and Wrong Year
The BBC published the photo above yesterday to illustrate the massacres taking place in Houla, Syria.
Problem is, the photo was taken by Marco di Lauro south of Baghdad in 2003.
Via the Telegraph:
Mr di Lauro, who works for Getty Images picture agency and has been published by newspapers across the US and Europe, said: “I went home at 3am and I opened the BBC page which had a front page story about what happened in Syria and I almost felt off from my chair.
“One of my pictures from Iraq was used by the BBC web site as a front page illustration claiming that those were the bodies of yesterday’s massacre in Syria and that the picture was sent by an activist.
“Instead the picture was taken by me and it’s on my web site, on the feature section regarding a story I did In Iraq during the war called Iraq, the aftermath of Saddam. “What I am really astonished by is that a news organization like the BBC doesn’t check the sources and it’s willing to publish any picture sent it by anyone: activist, citizen journalist or whatever. That’s all.”
He added he was less concerned about an apology or the use of image without consent, adding: “What is amazing it’s that a news organization has a picture proving a massacre that happened yesterday in Syria and instead it’s a picture that was taken in 2003 of a totally different massacre.”
FJP Pro Tip: a reverse image search could have flagged this photo in seconds. Where to do it? We use Google Image Search (instead of typing a search term in the text box select the camera icon which allows you to either enter the URL of an image or upload one) and Tineye (the process is the same).
Image: An Iraqi girl jumps over body bags containing skeletons found in the desert south of Baghdad. Marco di Lauro, 2003.
(Source: fuckyeah-audreyhepburn)
