Quote;
Have you seen these nice "Coexist" stickers around your town? The symbols making up the word "Coexist" are book-ended by the Crescent and the Cross, representing Islam and Christianity with their one-plus billion Muslim and two billion Christian followers, respectively. The Yin-Yang symbol from ancient Chinese philosophy is a nod to the Far East and its one billion Chinese. It is less clear, however, why the Star of David was included among such heavyweights. Overlooking the fact that the Jewish star looks nothing like the letter it is intended to represent, there are only 13 million Jews worldwide, or 0.23% of the world's population. While the designer may have included the Jewish faith alongside Christianity and Islam based solely on the amount of oppression and suffering it begets, perhaps a better choice for the letter "X" would have been the swastika, a sacred symbol in Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism. There are 10 million Jains, 350 million Buddhists, and one billion Hindus worldwide - and unlike the Jewish star, the swastika actually does incorporate the letter "X."Briefly, some well-known or popular Jewish names, in part and in whole, are appended here for convenience. Also watch for spelling variants (e.g. "Abram-"/"Abrahm-," "Aron-"/"Aaron-," "Bloch"/"Block," "Siegel"/"Segal," "Schwartz"/"Swartz," "-witz"/"-wits").Surname Prefixes: Aaron-, Abram-, Adel-, Alt-, Berg-, Berk-, Block-, Bloom-, Blum-, Brook-, Brown-, Corn-, Dersh-, Duch-, Edel-, Ehren-, Eisen-, Fei-, Fein-, Feld-, Fier-, Fine-, Fink-, Fire-, Fish-, Frank-, Free-, Fried-, Gold-, Golden-, Green-, Gross-, Gut-, Halper-, Heitz-, Hirsh-, Kapl-, Katz-, Kirsh-, Klein-, Lev-, Lewin-, Licht-, Lieber-, Low-, Mandel-, Mendel-, Nus-, Pearl-, Perl-, Rabin-, Rose-, Rosen-, Roth-, Ruben-, Rubin-, Schwartz-, Schwarz-, Segal-, Selig-, Silver-, Spiel-, Spring-, Stein-, Stern-, Wasser-, Wein-, Weis-, Weiss-, Weitz-, Weiz-, Wise-, Wolf-, Zahl-, Zimmer-, Zucker-.Surname Suffixes: -baum, -berg, -feld, -heim, -itz, -man, -mann, -heim, -stein, -stone, -thal, -witz.Whole Surnames: Aaronson, Abramsky, Adelman, Aharon, Alterman, Aronson, Avigdor, Axelrod, Behrman, Belzer, Ben-Ezra, Bender, Bergman, Berkowitz, Berman, Bernbaum, Bernstein, Beshar, Bethel, Binder, Block, Bloomberg, Blumenthal, Borowsky, Braunstein, Brin, Brock, Broder, Brodsky, Brody, Bromberg, Brownstein, Buchwald, Cahn, Cohen, Cohn, Cornblum, Cornfeld, Cowan, David, Davidson, Diamond, Dreyfuss, Drucker, Druckman, Dubowsky, Duchovny, Eberman, Eckstein, Edelman, Edelsberg, Edelstein, Ehrlich, Eisen, Eisenberg, Eisenman, Federman, Fein, Feldman, Fine, Fischer, Fisher, Fishman, Frank, Friedman, Frum, Geffen, Gettleman, Gold, Goldberg, Golden, Goldfarb, Goldman, Goldstein, Green, Greenberg, Greenspan, Gross, Grossman, Haim, Halperin, Hecht, Heitz, Heitzman, Hersch, Hersh, Hirsh, Horowitz, Jacobson, Kanter, Kaplan, Katz, Kaufmann, Keller, Kirshner, Klein, Kohen, Kohlberg, Kohn, Leven, Levenson, Levi, Levine, Levy, Lieberman, Lipsman, Low, Mandel, Markowitz, Mayer, Meyer, Miller, Moses, Myers, Nussbaum, Pearl, Pearlman, Perelman, Perlman, Rabin, Rabinowitz, Resnick, Reznik, Rose, Rosen, Rosenbaum, Rosenberg, Rosenblatt, Rosenthal, Ross, Roth, Ruben, Rubin, Sachs, Salomon, Sandler, Schwartz, Schlesinger, Schwimmer, Segal, Selig, Seltzer, Setnick, Segal, Shalev, Shapiro, Siegel, Silberman, Simon, Spelling, Sperling, Spielberg, Spitzer, Springer, Stein, Steinberg, Stern, Stone, Schwartz, Schwarz, Susskind, Tenenbaum, Waxman, Weigel, Weil, Weinberg, Weiner, Weinstein, Weintraub, Weiss, Weitz, Wertheim, Wertheimer, Westheimer, Wolf, Wolfson, Zeitlin, Zelig, Zidell, Zidle, Ziebel, Zinn, Zucker, Zuckermann, Zweig.Given Names: Aaron, Adam, Alex, Ari, Benjamin, Daniel, Ira, Judith, Noah, Ross.Other potential candidates: 1) Surnames containing (and especially beginning with) the letter "Z," which are otherwise uncommon in English names; 2) Polish surnames (often ending with "-sky" or "-ski") and German surnames (especially containing "-ie-" and "-ei-"); 3) Any surname that sounds as if the surname suffixes above such as "-man," "-berg," "-stein," etc. has been removed from it (e.g. "Keller" from "Kellerman," "Ruben" from "Rubenstein"); 4) Any surname or surname prefix evoking something desirable or impressive (e.g. "Gold," "Silver," "Crystal," "Diamond," "Wein" (wine), "Fine"/"Fein," "Stein" (stone), "Stern" (star), "Blumen-" (flowers), "Rosen-" (roses), etc.). 5) Surnames which are names of colours in German or English (e.g. "Weiss-," "Schwarz," "Green-," etc.)
"Sometime around the beginning of the Common Era, a nice Jewish girl comes to her fiancé with a problem. She is pregnant; he is not the father.""The beginning of the Common Era" is what most of the Western World refers to as "Anno Domini" (Latin: "In the year of our Lord") or simply "A.D." Some people (usually Jews, but also others) object to using the word "Lord" (as in "Lord, Son of God") to designate calendar dates because of this reference to Christ, and they would prefer we all use "Common Era" or "C.E." and also "Before Common Era" or "B.C.E." when differentiating between dates before and after the Year Zero.Uncle Semite would like to point out:Very few people actually read or write in Latin nowadays and Latin terms are easily recognized as historical or at least dated.People don't typically use the expression "Anno Domini"; they simply use "A.D."Outside of a historical context, "A.D." is almost always omitted when referring to dates (very few of us say "AD 2004").Four of our twelve months are named after Roman gods and goddesses (Janus, Mars, Maia, Juno), seemingly without objection.Five of our seven days of the week are named after pagan gods (Tew's Day, Woden's Day, Thor's Day, Frige's Day, Saturn's Day), again without objection.Yet somehow we (they) must all be protected from this religious / historical, two-letter artifact. Again, a minor point, but a sign of things ahead. Highlights from the Newsweek article are continued below in red, and you may read the entire Holy Family Values article at msnbc.com. "On reflection, though, the man, who is profoundly decent - "righteous," as the story goes - decides that he cannot bear to inflict upon the girl the rare (but wholly legal) punishment for such crimes, which is stoning."The author makes it sound like Joseph's "wholly legal" option to stone his [barely legal] wife Mary was simply a matter of criminal law and had nothing to do with the Jewish Law under which Mary and Joseph lived (and lived as Jews, as we are reminded). "As the world's 2 billion Christians prepare to commemorate the birth of the figure they believe to be the Son of God..."In this context, an article extolling Jewish virtues written by a Jewish author in a predominantly Jewish magazine, the words "they believe to be the Son of God" seem a bit insulting. Christians don'tbelieve Jesus is the Son of God. For Christians, Jesus is the Son of God. Ms. Miller could have used words such as "Christians prepare to commemorate the birth of the figure they herald as the Son of God" or simply "Christians prepare to commemorate Christ's birth" or other words available to a writer of her ability. What shows up on the page is either a backhanded compliment or an insult. "A woman's virginity, for example, was a sacred possession, to be given away or stolen at great cost... an unmarried woman who willfully had sex with a man other than her fiancé could be put to death. In ancient Israel, this value was probably a matter of pragmatism more than theology; is assured men who lived in a culture that prized family above all that their children were their own."In the article, the author credits Judaism as being benevolent at almost every turn, and thus chalks up killing an adulterous woman to "pragmatism"? Was Deuteronomy not considered part of Jewish theology? "If a man takes a wife, and goes in to her, and then spurns her[...] because he did not find the tokens of virginity in her[...] And if the thing is true that the token of virginity was not found in the young woman, then they shall bring out the young woman to the door of her father's house, and the men of her city shall stone her to death with stones[...]" -- Deuteronomy 22:13, 20, 21 "In a culture so devoted to children, married sex was a blessing.""If a man have a stubborn and rebellious son, which will not obey the voice of his father, or the voice of his mother, and that, when they have chastened him, will not hearken unto them: Then shall his father and his mother lay hold on him, and bring him out unto the elders of his city, and unto the gate of his place; And they shall say unto the elders of his city, This our son is stubborn and rebellious, he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton, and a drunkard. And all the men of his city shall stone him with stones, that he die: so shalt thou put evil away from among you; and all Israel shall hear, and fear." -- Deuteronomy 21:18-21 "Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones." -- Psalm 137:9 "A Roman father could, for any or no reason, choose to kill his newborn infant either by cutting the umbilical cord too close or by leaving the baby outside, and the Jewish refusal to do this was seen as peculiar."The way this is worded, one might think Roman fathers were running around killing their infants pell-mell while Jews were busy cherishing their own - at least until they were old enough to stone properly. For the record, Romans found another Jewish custom peculiar - so much so that Emperor Hadrian outlawed it on pain of death. (Let's just say the Romans thought the Jews were cutting thepenis too close [to the baby].) "In a final act of human compassion, he called to his disciple John. "And he said to his mother 'Dear woman, here is your son,' and to the disciple, 'Here is your mother.' From that time on this disciple took her into his home." At the end of his life, then, Jesus took care of his mother, the penultimate act of a nice Jewish boy..."Oh Dear Lord... Update: Kristen Fyfe of the Culture and Media Institute posted her own Holy Family Values critique from a conservative perspective. Read her article for points Uncle Semite missed and for proof that liberals and conservatives actually can agree on a thing or two.Gentile MutilationMensch HealthUncle SemiteHollow CostFourth JulyWej IssueMisraelbeNewsbeakMein KampShitler's ListSticker Schlock
THE TAIL WAGGING THE DOGIt is not surprising that Israel and its American supporters want the United States to deal with any and all threats to Israel’ security. If their efforts to shape U.S. policy succeed, then Israel’s enemies get weakened or overthrown, Israel gets a free hand with the Palestinians, and the United States does most of the fighting, dying, rebuilding, and paying.Furthermore, the Lobby’s campaign for regime change in Iran and Syria could lead the United States to attack those countries, with potentially disastrous effects. We do not need another Iraq. At a minimum, the Lobby’s hostility toward these countries makes it especially difficult for Washington to enlist them against al Qaeda and he Iraqi insurgency, where their help is badly needed.But there is a ray of hope. Although the Lobby remains a powerful force, the adverse effects of its influence are increasingly difficult to hide. Powerful states can maintain flawed policies for quite some time, but reality cannot be ignored forever. What is needed, therefore, is a candid discussion of the Lobby’s influence and a more open debate about U.S. interests in this vital region. Israel’s well-being is one of those interests, but not its continued occupation of the West Bank or its broader regional agenda. Open debate will expose the limits of the strategic and moral case for one-sided U.S. support and could move the United States to a position more consistent with its own national interest, with the interests of the other states in the region, and with Israel’s long-term interests as well. THE ISRAEL LOBBYThe explanation lies in the unmatched power of the Israel Lobby. Were it not for the Lobby’s ability to manipulate the American political system, the relationship between Israel and the United States would be far less intimate than it is today.The core of the Lobby is comprised of American Jews who make a significant effort in their daily lives to bend U.S. foreign policy so that it advances Israel’s interests. Their activities go beyond merely voting for candidates who are pro-Israel to include letter-writing, financial contributions, and supporting pro-Israel organizations. But not all Jewish-Americans are part of the Lobby, because Israel is not a salient issue for many of them. In a 2004 survey, for example, roughly 36 percent of Jewish-Americans said they were either “not very” or “not at all” emotionally attached to Israel.Jewish-Americans have formed an impressive array of organizations to influence American foreign policy, of which AIPAC is the most powerful and well-known. In 1997, Fortune magazine asked members of Congress and their staffs to list the most powerful lobbies in Washington. AIPAC was ranked second behind the American Association of Retired People (AARP), but ahead of heavyweight lobbies like the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association. A National Journal study in March 2005 reached a similar conclusion, placing AIPAC in second place (tied with AARP) in the Washington’s “muscle rankings.”A DWINDLING MORAL CASEThe “shared democracy” rationale is also weakened by aspects of Israeli democracy that are at odds with core American values. The United States is a liberal democracy where people of any race, religion, or ethnicity are supposed to enjoy equal rights. By contrast, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Given this conception of citizenship, it is not surprising that Israel’s 1.3 million Arabs are treated as second-class citizens, or that a recent Israeli government commission found that Israel behaves in a “neglectful and discriminatory” manner towards them. Similarly, Israel does not permit Palestinians who marry Israeli citizens to become citizens themselves, and does not give these spouses the right to live in Israel. The Israeli human rights organization B’tselem called this restriction “a racist law that determines who can live here according to racist criteria.” Such laws may be understandable given Israel’s founding principles, but they are not consistent with America’s image of democracy.A STRATEGIC LIABILITYSaying that Israel and the United States are united by a shared terrorist threat has the causal relationship backwards: rather, the United States has a terrorism problem in good part because it is so closely allied with Israel, not the other way around. U.S. support for Israel is not the only source of anti-American terrorism, but it is an important one, and it makes winning the war on terror more difficult. There is no question, for example, that many al Qaeda leaders, including bin Laden, are motivated by Israel’s presence in Jerusalem and the plight of the Palestinians. According to the U.S. 9/11 Commission, bin Laden explicitly sought to punish the United States for its policies in the Middle East, including its support for Israel, and he even tried to time the attacks to highlight this issue.[Another] reason to question Israel’s strategic value is that it does not act like a loyal ally. Israeli officials frequently ignore U.S. requests and renege on promises made to top U.S. leaders (including past pledges to halt settlement construction and to refrain from “targeted assassinations” of Palestinian leaders). Moreover, Israel has provided sensitive U.S. military technology to potential U.S. rivals like China, in what the U.S. State Department Inspector-General called “a systematic and growing pattern of unauthorized transfers.” According to the U.S. General Accounting Office, Israel also “conducts the most aggressive espionage operations against the U.S. of any ally.” In addition to the case of Jonathan Pollard, who gave Israel large quantities of classified material in the early 1980s (which Israel reportedly passed onto the Soviet Union to gain more exit visas for Soviet Jews), a new controversy erupted in 2004 when it was revealed that a key Pentagon official (Larry Franklin) had passed classified information to an Israeli diplomat, allegedly aided by two AIPAC officials. Israel is hardly the only country that spies on the United States, but its willingness to spy on its principal patron casts further doubt on its strategic value. THE GREAT BENEFACTORSince the October War in 1973, Washington has provided Israel with a level of support dwarfing the amounts provided to any other state. It has been the largest annual recipient of direct U.S. economic and military assistance since 1976 and the largest total recipient since World War II. Total direct U.S. aid to Israel amounts to well over $140 billion in 2003 dollars. Israel receives about $3 billion in direct foreign assistance each year, which is roughly one-fifth of America’s foreign aid budget. In per capita terms, the United States gives each Israeli a direct subsidy worth about $500 per year. This largesse is especially striking when one realizes that Israel is now a wealthy industrial state with a per capita income roughly equal to South Korea or Spain.As discussed below, Washington has given Israel wide latitude in dealing with the occupied territories (the West Bank and Gaza Strip), even when its actions were at odds with stated U.S. policy. Moreover, the Bush Administration’s ambitious strategy to transform the Middle East - beginning with the invasion of Iraq - is at least partly intended to improve Israel’s strategic situation. Apart from wartime alliances, it is hard to think of another instance where one country has provided another with a similar level of material and diplomatic support for such an extended period. America’s support for Israel is, in short, unique.Below is a recent Working Paper courtesy of Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government about the Israel Lobby. Whether you agree with the authors' conclusions or not, as they say in the article, the "facts are not in serious dispute among scholars."A few of the interesting points from the article (there are many more):The U.S. gives $3 billion annually to Israel, or $500 per Israeli citizenWhile Israel was an asset in the Cold War, it is now a strategic liabilityIsrael spies on the U.S. more aggressively than any other allyFrom Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government's website, what follows are select paragraphs from a 2006 paper by University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer and Harvard University's Stephen Walt.Joe LiebermanOfficial Democratic apologist for the Bush administration and the Iraq war, Mr. Lieberman has lately been promoting military strikes against Iran. It is not known what Bush was telling Lieberman in the picture below, but Uncle Semite suspects it involved tips on cheerleading.
Michael ChertoffUnited States Secretary of Homeland Security.David FrumFormer Bush speechwriter.Brad BlakemanFormer deputy assistant to George W. Bush. President of Freedom's Watch; created in 2007, Freedom's Watch is spending $15 million in 20 states to falsely link the Iraq war to September 11.Ken AdelmanA lifelong neo-con activist and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Adelman editorialized in the Washington Post - not once, but twice - that liberating Iraqwould be a "cakewalk."Josh BoltonBush's Chief of Staff.John HannahSenior aide on national security to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Recently sourced by the Washington Post as having said "that a U.S. attack [on Iran] was a real possibility."Bill KristolA neo-con's neo-con. Son of one of the founders of the neoconservative movement,Kristol cofounded the neoconservative Project for the New American Century and is a member of the board of trustees for the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. Kristol was a strong advocate for the Iraq war and favors a war with Iran. He has also been a vocal supporter of the Israeli attack on Lebanon, stating that the war is "our war too," conflating Israel's interests with those of the United States.James SchlesingerHomeland Security Advisory Council; member of the Defense Policy Board.David WurmserVice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser for four years. Even now, Wurmser calls war in Iraq a "great success" and now wants to force regime change in Syria and Iran.Elliot AbramsDirector of the National Security Council's Office for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations.Douglas FeithFormer Under Secretary of Defense, Feith is famous for the abolition of the Iraqi army and the "de-Baathification" of Iraq, both of which are now considered serious errors in the U.S. occupation. The former put armed men out of work; the latter ended the careers of countless civil servants who had much-needed skills such as running power / water plants and hospitals.Colonel Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff at the State Department until early 2005, had this to say about Doug Feith later that same year: "Seldom in my life have I met... [pregnant pause] a dumber man." Certainly such criticisms are made often privately inside the Beltway, but they are rarely made publicly, especially by senior military who take seriously their subordination to civilian government. The accolades continue with a quote by General Tommy Franks in Bob Woodward's 2004 book Plan of Attack, in whichFranks calls Feith "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."Richard PerleChairman of the Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war, Perle asserted (disingenuously) that Iraq had a hand in the 9-11 attacks. In 1996, he authored the strategy paper “Clean Break” that argued for regime change in Iraq. The paper was produced for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others.Paul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith were members of a pro-Israel network inside the administration. In part to strengthen Israel's hand in the Middle East, these men urged and architected a war against Iraq during the 1990's, then misused the tragedy of September 11 as their call to invade. If you want a group on whom to blame this disastrous war and its many military and civilian deaths, you can start with Cheney, Rumsfeld, Bush, and these three Jewish neo-conservatives. Paul WolfowitzWhen reporting progress on the war to Congress as Deputy Secretary of Defense, Wolfowitz did not know - even approximately - how many servicemen had diedimplementing his own war plan. Wolfowitz was later appointed president of the World Bank, where he could count something perhaps more interesting to him than human lives. His abrasive management style alienated many career staffers at the Bank and he was left with little support when it was discovered he had arranged a nice raise for his girlfriend, who also worked at the Bank. Wolfowitz has since resigned over the scandal, sticking around only long enough to receive a generous severance package.Richard PerleChairman of the Defense Policy Board during the run-up to the Iraq war, Perle asserted (disingenuously) that Iraq had a hand in the 9-11 attacks. In 1996, he authored the strategy paper “Clean Break” that argued for regime change in Iraq. The paper was produced for the incoming Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was co-signed by Douglas Feith, David Wurmser, and others.Douglas FeithFormer Under Secretary of Defense, Feith is famous for the abolition of the Iraqi army and the "de-Baathification" of Iraq, both of which are now considered serious errors in the U.S. occupation. The former put armed men out of work; the latter ended the careers of countless civil servants who had much-needed skills such as running power / water plants and hospitals.Colonel Larry Wilkerson, Chief of Staff at the State Department until early 2005, had this to say about Doug Feith later that same year: "Seldom in my life have I met... [pregnant pause] a dumber man." Certainly such criticisms are made often privately inside the Beltway, but they are rarely made publicly, especially by senior military who take seriously their subordination to civilian government. The accolades continue with a quote by General Tommy Franks in Bob Woodward's 2004 book Plan of Attack, in whichFranks calls Feith "the fucking stupidest guy on the face of the earth."Elliot AbramsDirector of the National Security Council's Office for Democracy, Human Rights, and International Operations.David WurmserVice President Dick Cheney's Middle East adviser for four years. Even now, Wurmser calls war in Iraq a "great success" and now wants to force regime change in Syria and Iran.James SchlesingerHomeland Security Advisory Council; member of the Defense Policy Board.Bill KristolA neo-con's neo-con. Son of one of the founders of the neoconservative movement,Kristol cofounded the neoconservative Project for the New American Century and is a member of the board of trustees for the conservative think tank Manhattan Institute. Kristol was a strong advocate for the Iraq war and favors a war with Iran. He has also been a vocal supporter of the Israeli attack on Lebanon, stating that the war is "our war too," conflating Israel's interests with those of the United States.John HannahSenior aide on national security to U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney. Recently sourced by the Washington Post as having said "that a U.S. attack [on Iran] was a real possibility."Josh BoltonBush's Chief of Staff.Ken AdelmanA lifelong neo-con activist and member of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, Adelman editorialized in the Washington Post - not once, but twice - that liberating Iraqwould be a "cakewalk."Brad BlakemanFormer deputy assistant to George W. Bush. President of Freedom's Watch; created in 2007, Freedom's Watch is spending $15 million in 20 states to falsely link the Iraq war to September 11.David FrumFormer Bush speechwriter.Michael ChertoffUnited States Secretary of Homeland Security. "Honorary" RepublicanJoe LiebermanOfficial Democratic apologist for the Bush administration and the Iraq war, Mr. Lieberman has lately been promoting military strikes against Iran. It is not known what Bush was telling Lieberman in the picture below, but Uncle Semite suspects it involved tips on cheerleading. Gentile MutilationMensch HealthUncle SemiteHollow CostFourth JulyWej IssueMisraelbeNewsbeakMein KampShitler's ListSticker SchlockIrving Lewis "Scooter" LibbyDick Cheney's Chief of Staff, Libby was convicted on four of five felony counts in the grand jury investigation into the disclosure of the then-classified identity of covert CIA operative, Valerie Wilson Plame.Jack AbramoffRepublican über-lobbyist Jack Abramoff pleaded guilty in January 2006 to a total of five criminal felony counts related to the defrauding of American Indian tribes, corruption of public officials, and his fraudulent dealings with SunCruz Casinos. Abramoff, described by one associate as a "super-Zionist," heavily padded bills paid by Indian tribes and then diverted the funds to his Orthodox Jewish school in Maryland and to Jewish settlers occupying the Palestinian West Bank. Along with his partner Michael Scanlon, Abramoff even coordinated lobbying efforts against his own clients, the Tigua Tribe, in order to force them to pay for further lobbying services. Perhaps Abramoff was inspired by Israel's Mossad intelligence agency, who simultaneously trained both the Sri Lankan army and their enemy, the Tiger Tamils, in their bloody civil war.Ken MehlmanMehlman was Chair of the Republican National Committee from 2005 to 2007 and Bush's campaign manager for the 2004 election. He is rumored to be gay and is often accused of hypocrisy in working for a party that demonizes gays. It is not known what Mr. Mehlman is depicting below, but it likely has nothing to do with fish.The event depicted above is the overwhelmingly less common (and decidedly more gruesome) "metzitzah b'peh," where blood from the circumcision wound is sucked directly from the penis by the attending Mohel (versus using a sterile glass tube). Although uncommon overall, it is not uncommon in an orthodox Jewish bris. In 2005, a New York mohel infected with herpes in turn infected three babies, including one who died as a result, and another who suffered brain damage.: In their zeal to protect genital cutting of their own non-consenting children, far too many Jews strive to preserve this mutilation for ALL children, often by Jewish reporters / doctors / organisations over-reporting the "benefits" of circumcision or by withholding information on its harms. Here are just a few examples:NPR - An overwhelming percentage of Jewish hosts, guests, and underwriters, along with an apparent unwillingness to do stories critical of circumcision (and an eagerness to offer pro-circumcision viewpoints and coverage of anything even remotely Jewish in nature) distinguishes Hebrew National Public Radiofrom its peers - or at least all its peers exceptPRI. Searching NPR's website reveals no record of a critical story about circumcision since February 2001, and even then the author interviewed on NPR's Fresh Air segment on that episode waffled in his position. Considering the number of well-established anti-circumcision organisations and authors available for interviews in 2001, Terry Gross could have easily found others better able to speak critically on the subject had she wanted to. You can hear about an Israeli Tax Museum or "Hanukah Harry" on NPR, but you won't hear about one of the most controversial procedures in children's health today. PRI - In a radio piece from Public Radio International's The World, reporter Sheri Fink went as far as to liken circumcision to a "vaccine," a dangerous statement which could encourage circumcised men to be less cautious sexually. The audio is seemingly no longer available from the theworld.org website; only a gushing pro-circumcision update to the original story can be found. As a side note, any reader concerned that some small minutiae of Jewish existence might somehow be overlooked by The World will find comfort in today's home page. (NB: The highlighting in red is mine, but otherwise, that was the exact home page the day I visited.)If the shedding of Gentile blood (both military and neonate) is considered "acceptable" in order to protect Israel and her rituals, it should surprise no one that Jewish organisations would minimise the suffering of mere animals. The idea that creatures experience daily conditions virtually identical to those found in Nazi camps is "insulting," at least to those who presume to speak for the Jewish population on the issue. An example of this outrage was the Anti-Defamation League's reaction to PETA's "Holocaust on Your Plate" campaign of 2003.PETA’s controversial exhibit, which consisted of eight 60-square-foot panels, each showing photos of factory-farm and slaughterhouse scenes side by side with photos from Nazi death camps, graphically depicted the point that Yiddish writer and Nobel laureate Isaac Bashevis Singer made when he wrote, "In relation to [animals], all people are Nazis." Ari FleischerAs Bush's press secretary from January 2001, Fleischer skillfully lied and/or dodged reporters' questions, and then wisely bailed from the Bush administration in mid-2003 just as the wheels were coming off. Fleischer is now the front man for Freedom's Watch, a group that even now claims a pre-9/11 link between Iraq and Al Qaeda despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Shown below in 2003, Fleischer illustrates how long his nose will be by the end of the press conference.
Babylon's 3;
1. Jew- Talmud (Arabic of Abraham descendents-Ashkenazi Gaul-German Nordic Jews)
2. Mandi; Mandaean (Arabic of Abraham descendents of Ishmael-Islam)
3. Syriac - Jesuit Holy Roman Catholic-Presbyterian-Russian Sephardic Jews)
The primary language of Babylon (and the administrative and cultural language of the Sassanid Empire) at that time was Eastern Middle Aramaic, which included three main dialects: Judeo-Aramaic (the language of the Talmud),Mandaean Aramaic (the language of the Mandaean religion), and Syriac Aramaic, which was the language of Mani, as well as of the Syriac Christians. "Mani" is a Sanskrit name used in all three Aramaic dialects and therefore common among their speakers.
Islamization[edit]
In the tenth century, the Karluks, Yaghmas, Chigils and other Turkic tribes founded the Kara-Khanid Khanate inSemirechye, Western Tian Shan, and Kashgaria, and later conquered Transoxiana. The Karakhanid rulers were likely to be Yaghmas who were associated with the Toquz Oghuz, and some historians therefore see this as a link between the Karakhanid and the Uyghurs of the Uyghur Khaganate, although this connection is disputed by others.[60]
The Karakhanids converted to Islam in the tenth century, the first Turkic dynasty to do so, and modern Uyghurs see the Muslim Karakhanids as an important part of their history. However, Islamization of the people of the Tarim Basin was a gradual process. The Buddhist Kingdom of Khotan was conquered by the Muslim Karakhanids from Kashgar in the early 11th century, but Qocho remained mainly Buddhist until the 15th century, and the conversion of the Uyghur people to Islam was not completed until the 17th century.
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The 12th and 13th century saw the domination by non-Muslim powers: first the Kara-Khitans in the 12th century, followed by Mongols in the 13th century. After the death of the Genghis Khan in 1227, Transoxiana and Kashgar became the domain of his second son, Chagatai Khan. The Chagatai Khanate split into two in the 1340s, and area of the Chagatai Khanate where the modern Uyghurs lived came to be known as Moghulistan, which meant "land of the Mongols". In the 14th century, a Chagatayid khan Tughluq Temür converted to Islam, and the Mongols of Chagatai Khanate became largely Islamised by the mid-14th century. His son Khizr Khoja conquered Qocho and Turfan in the 1390s, and the Uyghurs there became largely Muslim by the beginning of the 16th century.
Islam was also spread by the Sufis, and branches of its Naqshbandi order known as the Khojas seized control of political and military affairs in the Tarim Basin and Turfan from the Chagataid Mongols in the 17th century. The Khojas however split into two rival factions, the Aqtaghlik Khojas and the Qarataghlik Khojas. The power of the Khojas lasted until the 19th century.
Qing rule[edit]
During the 17th century in Zungharia, the Buddhist Oirat Mongol Zunghar Khanate grew in power, conquered and took control over the territory of the Chagatai Khans. The Aqtaghlik Khojas became vassals to the Zunghars while the Qarataghlik Khojas sided with the Qing Chinese against the Zunghars and Aqtaghliks.
The Qing dynasty, with the support of the Chagataid ruled Uyghur Kumul Khanate, Turfan Khanate and the Uyghur Qarataghlik Khojas conquered Xinjiang in the 18th century from the Zunghar Khanate and the Zunghar allied Aqtaghlik Khojas.[61] In Beijing, a community of Uyghurs was clustered around the Mosque near the Forbidden City, having moved to Beijing in the 1700s.[62] In the Dungan revolt of 1864, Andijani Uzbeks from the Kokand Khanate under Buzurg Khan andYakub Beg expelled Qing Dynasty officials from parts of southern Xinjiang and founded an independent Kashgariakingdom, called Yettishar (English: "country of seven cities"). Under the leadership of Yakub Beg, it included Kashgar,Yarkand, Hotan, Aksu, Kucha, Korla, and Turpan.
Large Qing Dynasty forces under Chinese General Zuo Zongtang attacked Kashgaria in 1876. After this invasion, the region, which had been known as the Xiyu special administrative area, was reorganized into a province named "Xinjiang", which when literally translated means "New Territory".
Modern era[edit]
In 1912, the Qing Dynasty was replaced by the Republic of China. By 1920, Pan-Turkic Jadidist Islamists had become a challenge to Chinese warlord Yang Zengxin (杨增新) who controlled Siankiang. Uyghurs staged several uprisings against Chinese rule. Twice, in 1933 and 1944, the Uyghurs successfully gained their independence (backed by the Soviet Communist leader Joseph Stalin): the First East Turkestan Republic was a short-lived attempt at independence aroundKashghar, and it was destroyed during the Kumul Rebellion by Chinese Muslim army under General Ma Zhancang and Ma Fuyuan at the Battle of Kashgar (1934). The Second East Turkistan Republic was a Soviet puppet Communist state that existed from 1944 to 1949 in what is now Ili Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture after the Ili Rebellion.
Mao declared the founding of the People's Republic of China on October 1, 1949. He turned the Second East Turkistan Republic into theIli Kazakh Autonomous Prefecture, and appointed Saifuddin Azizi as the region's first Communist Party governor. Many Republican loyalists fled into exile in Turkey and Western countries. The name Xinjiang was changed to Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, where Uyghurs are the largest ethnic group, mostly concentrated in the southwestern Xinjiang.[63] (see map, right)
Uyghur identity remains fragmented, as some support a Pan-Islamicvision, exemplified by the East Turkestan Islamic Movement, while others support a Pan-Turkic vision, such as the East Turkestan Liberation Organization. A third group would like a "Uyghurstan" state, such as theEast Turkestan independence movement. As a result, "[n]o Uyghur or East Turkestan group speaks for all Uyghurs, although it might claim to", and Uyghurs in each of these camps have committed violence against other Uyghurs who they think are too assimilated to Chinese or Russian society or are not religious enough.[64] Mindful not to take sides, Uyghur leaders like Rebiya Kadeer mainly try to garner international support for the "rights and interests of the Uyghurs", including the right to demonstrate, although the Chinese government has accused her of orchestrating the deadly July 2009 Ürümqi riots.[65]
Uyghurs of Taoyuan, Hunan[edit]
Around 5,000 Uyghurs live around Taoyuan County and other parts of Changde in Hunan province.[66][67][68][69] They are descended from a Uyghur leader, Hala Bashi, from Turpan, sent to Hunan by the Ming Emperor in the 14th century, to crush the Miao rebels during the Miao Rebellions (Ming Dynasty).[8][70] Along with him came Uyghur soldiers from whom the Hunan Uyghurs also descend. The 1982 census records 4,000 Uyghurs in Hunan.[71] They have genealogies which survive 600 years later to the present day. Genealogy keeping is a Han Chinese custom which the Hunan Uyghurs adopted. These Uyghurs were given the surname Jian by the Emperor.[72] There is some confusion as to whether they practice Islam or not. Some say that they have assimilated with the Han and do not practice Islam anymore, and only their genealogies indicate their Uyghur ancestry.[73] Chinese news sources report that they are Muslim.[8]
The Uyghur troops led by Hala were ordered by the Ming Emperor to crush Miao rebellions and were given titles by him. Jian is the predominant surname among the Uyghur in Changde, Hunan. Another group of Uyghur have the surname Sai.Hui and Uyghur have intermarried in the Hunan area.[74] The Hui are descendants of Arabs and Han Chinese who intermarried, and they share the Islamic religion with the Uyghur in Hunan.[74] It is reported that they now number around 10,000 people. The Uyghurs in Changde are not very religious, and eat pork.[74] Older Uygurs disapprove of this, especially elders at the mosques in Changde, and they seek to draw them back to Islamic customs.[74]
In addition to eating pork, the Uyghurs of Changde Hunan practice other Han Chinese customs, like ancestor worship at graves. Some Uyghurs from Xinjiang visit the Hunan Uyghurs out of curiosity or interest.[74] Also, the Uyghurs of Hunan do not speak the Uyghur language, instead, they speak Chinese as their native language, and Arabic for religious reasons at the mosque.[74]
Genetics[edit]
The Uyghurs are an Eurasian (mixed ancestry) population with Eastern and Western Eurasian anthropometric and genetic traits. Uyghurs are thus one of the many populations of Central Eurasia that can be considered to be genetically related to European and East Asian populations. However, various scientific studies differ on the size of each component.[75] One study, using samples from Hetian (Hotan) only, found that Uyghurs have 60% European ancestry and 40% East Asian ancestry.[76] A further study showed slightly greater European component (52% European) in the Uyghur population in southern Xinjiang, but slightly greater East Asian component (47% European) in the northern Uyghur population.[77]Another study used a larger sample of individuals from a wider area, and found only about 30% European component to the admixture.[78] A study on mitochondrial DNA (therefore the matrilineal genetic contribution) found the frequency of western Eurasian-specific haplogroup in Uyghurs to be 42.6%.[79]
The admixture may be the result of a continuous gene flow from populations of European and Asian descent, or may be formed by a single event of admixture during a short period of time (the hybrid isolation model). If a hybrid isolation model is assumed, it can be estimated that the hypothetical admixture event occurred about 126 generations ago, or 2,520 years ago assuming 20 years per generation.[76][80]
According to the paper by Li et al.:
STRUCTURE cannot distinguish recent admixture from a cline of other origin, and these analyses cannot prove admixture in the Uyghurs; however, historical records indicate that the present Uyghurs were formed by admixture between Tocharians from the west and Orkhon Uyghurs (Wugusi-Huihu, according to present Chinese pronunciation) from the east in the 8th century CE. The Uyghur Empire was originally located in Mongolia and conquered the Tocharian tribes in Xinjiang. Tocharians such as Kroran have been shown by archaeological findings to appear phenotypically similar to northern Europeans, whereas the Orkhon Uyghur people were clearly Mongolians. The two groups of people subsequently mixed in Xinjiang to become one population, the present Uyghurs.— [78]
Culture[edit]
Religion[edit]
The ancient Uyghurs believed in Shamanism and Tengrism, thenManicheanism, Buddhism and Church of the East.[81][82] Most modern Uyghurs are Muslim.[83]
Language[edit]
Main article: Uyghur Language
The Uyghur language belongs to the Karlik Turkic (or Karluk) branch of theTurkic language family. It is closely related to Äynu, Lop, Ili Turki, the extinct languages Old Turkic and Chagatay (the East Karluk languages), and more distantly to Uzbek (which is West Karluk).
The Uyghur language is an agglutinative language and has a subject-object-verb word order. It has vowel harmony like other Turkic languages, and has noun and verb cases, but lacks distinction of gender forms.[84]
The earliest Uyghur written language was in the runic Orkhon script. After the Uyghurs moved into the Qocho/Turfan area, the Uyghurs adapted the Sogdian alphabet, writing it vertically and this system came to be known as the Old Uyghur alphabet. They later adopted the Arabic script after the introduction of Islam, and this is now known as theChagatay alphabet. Political changes in the 20th century lead to numerous reforms of the writing scripts, for example theCyrillic-based Uyghur Cyrillic alphabet, a Latin Uyghur New Script, later a reformed Uyghur Arabic alphabet, and a new Latin version, the Uyghur Latin alphabet was also devised in the 21st century.
Literature[edit]
Most of the early Uyghur literary works were translations of Buddhist and Manichean religious texts,[85] but there were also narrative, poetic, and epic works apparently original to the Uyghurs. The literary works from the Kara-Khanid period are considered by modern Uyghurs to be an important part of their literary traditions. Amongst these are Islamic religious texts and histories of Turkic peoples, and important works surviving from that era are Qutatqu Bilik (Wisdom Of Royal Glory) byYüsüp Has Hajip (1069–70), Mähmut Qäşqäri's Divan-i Lugat-it Türk- A Dictionary of Turkic Dialects (1072), and Ähmät Yüknäki's Atabetul Hakayik. Perhaps the most famous and best loved pieces of modern Uyghur literature are Abdurehim Otkur's Iz, Oyghanghan Zimin, Zordun Sabir's Anayurt and Ziya Samedi's (former minister of culture in Sinkiang Government in 50's) novels Mayimkhan and Mystery of the years.[citation needed]
Music[edit]
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Muqam is the classical musical style. The 12 Muqams are the national oral epic of the Uyghurs. The muqam system developed among the Uyghur in northwest China and Central Asia over approximately the last 1500 years from the Arabic maqamat modal system that has led to many musical genres among peoples ofEurasia and North Africa. Uyghurs have local muqam systems named after the oasis towns of Xinjiang, such as Dolan, Ili, Kumul and Turpan. The most fully developed at this point is the Western Tarim region's 12 muqams, which are now a large canon of music and songs recorded from the traditional performers Turdi Akhun and Omar Akhun among others in the 1950s and edited into a more systematic system. Although the folk performers probably improvised their songs as in Turkish taksim performances, the present institutional canon is performed as fixed compositions by ensembles.
The Uyghur Muqam of Xinjiang has been designated by UNESCO as part of the Intangible Heritage of Humanity.[86]
Amannisa Khan, sometimes called Amanni Shahan, (1526–1560) is credited with collecting and thereby preserving the Twelve Muqam.[87] Russian scholar Pantusov writes that the Uyghurs manufactured their own musical instruments; they had 62 different kinds of musical instruments and in every Uyghur home there used to be an instrument called a "dutar".
Dance[edit]
Sanam is a popular folk dance among the Uyghur people. It is commonly danced by people at weddings, festive occasions, and parties.[88] The dance may be performed with singing and musical accompaniment. Some dances may be alternate between singing and dancing, and Uyghur hand-drums called dapmay be used as accompaniment to the dance.
Art[edit]
During the late 19th and early 20th centuries, scientific and archaeological expeditions to the region of Xinjiang's Silk Road discovered numerous cave temples, monastery ruins, and wall paintings, as well as miniatures, books, and documents. There are 77 rock-cut caves at the site. Most have rectangular spaces with rounded arch ceilings often divided into four sections, each with a mural of Buddha. The effect is of an entire ceiling covered with hundreds of Buddha murals. Some ceilings are painted with a large Buddha surrounded by other figures, including Indians, Persians and Europeans. The quality of the murals vary with some being artistically naive while others are masterpieces of religious art.[89]
Education[edit]
Uyghurs in China, unlike the Salar and Hui who are also mostly Muslim, generally do not oppose coeducation (grouping male and female students together).[90] Conversely, women are generally excluded from public Uyghur Muslim life, also in contrast to Salar and Hui practice.[83]
Medicine[edit]
Today, traditional Uyghur medicine can still be found at street stands. Similar to other traditional medicine, diagnosis is usually made through checking the pulse, symptoms, and disease history, and then the pharmacist pounds up different dried herbs, making personalized medicines according to the prescription. Modern Uyghur medical hospitals adopted modern medical science and medicine and adopted evidence-based pharmaceutical technology to traditional medicines.
Cuisine[edit]
Main article: Xinjiang cuisine
Uyghur food shows both Central Asian and Chinese elements. A typical Uyghur dish is polo (or pilaf) a dish found throughout Central Asia. In a common version of the Uyghur polo, carrot and mutton (or chicken) are first fried in oil with onion, then rice and water are added and the whole dish steamed. Raisins and dried apricots may also be added. Also found here is kawaplar, i.e. kebabsor grilled meat. Another common Uyghur dish is läghmän (لەغمەن), a noodle dish with stir-fried topping usually made with mutton, tomatoes, onions, green peppers and other vegetables. This dish likely to have originated from the Chinese lamian, but its flavor and preparation method are distinctively Uyghur.[91]
Uyghur food (Uyghurche Yemekliri) is characterized by mutton, beef, camel,chicken, goose, carrots, tomatoes, onions, peppers, eggplant, celery, variousdairy foods, and fruits.
Uyghur-style breakfast is tea with home-baked bread, hardened yogurt, olives, honey, raisins, and almonds. Uyghurs like to treat guests with tea, naan and fruit before the main dishes are ready.
Sangza (Uyghur: ساڭزا) are crispy and tasty fried wheat flour dough twists, a holiday specialty. Samsa (Uyghur: سامسا) are lamb pies baked using a special brick oven. Youtazi is steamed multi-layer bread. Göshnan (Uyghur: گۆشنان) are pan-grilled lamb pies. Pamirdin are baked pies with lamb, carrots, and onion inside. Xurpa is lamb soup (Uyghur: شۇرپا). Other dishes include Tohax, a different type of baked bread, and Tunurkawab. Also, 'Girde' is very popular bagel-like bread with a hard and crispy crust that's soft inside.
The Uyghurs (Uyghur: ئۇيغۇر, ULY: Uyghur ; [6] [ʔʊjˈʁʊː];simplified Chinese: 维吾尔; traditional Chinese: 維吾爾; pinyin:Wéiwú'ěr) are a Turkic ethnic group living in Eastern and Central Asia. Today, Uyghurs live primarily in the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in the People's Republic of China. An estimated 80% of Xinjiang's Uyghurs live in the southwestern portion of the region, the Tarim Basin.[7] Outside Xinjiang, the largest community of Uyghurs in China is in Taoyuan County, in south-central Hunan province.[8] Outside of China, significantdiasporic communities of Uyghurs exist in the Central Asian countries of Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan. Smaller communities are found in Afghanistan, Pakistan, Germany , theNetherlands, Russia, Saudi Arabia, the United States, andTurkey.[9]
Uyghur king from Turfan region attended by servants. Mogao cave 409, 11th-13th century.
Manichaeism (/ˈmænɨkiːɪzəm/;[1] in Modern Persian آیین مانی Āyin e Māni;Chinese: 摩尼教; pinyin: Móní Jiào) was a major Gnostic religion that was founded by the Iranian[2] prophet Mani (in Persian: مانی, Syriac: ܡܐܢܝ, Latin: Manichaeus or Manes) (c. 216–276 AD) in the Sasanian Persian Empire.[3][4]
While most of Mani's original writings have been lost, numerous translations and fragmentary texts have survived. Manichaeism taught an elaboratedualistic cosmology describing the struggle between a good, spiritual world of light, and an evil, material world of darkness. Through an ongoing process which takes place in human history, light is gradually removed from the world of matter and returned to the world of light whence it came. Its beliefs were based on local Mesopotamian gnostic and religious movements.[5]
Manichaeism was quickly successful and spread far through the Aramaic-Syriac speaking regions.[6] It thrived between the third and seventh centuries, and at its height was one of the most widespread religions in the world. Manichaean churches and scriptures existed as far east as China and as far west as the Roman Empire.[7] It was briefly the main rival to Christianity in the competition to replace classical paganism. Manichaeism survived longer in the East than in the West, and it appears to have finally faded away after the 14th century in southern China,[8] contemporary to the decline in China of theChurch of the East – see Ming Dynasty.
An adherent of Manichaeism is called, especially in older sources,[9] aManichee, or more recently Manichaean. By extension, the term "manichean" is widely applied (often disparagingly) as an adjective to a philosophy or attitude of moral dualism, according to which a moral course of action involves a clear (or simplistic) choice between good and evil, or as a noun to people who hold such a view.
Mani, an Arsacid Iranian by birth,[10] was born 216 AD in Mesopotamia (Iraq), which was ruled by Persia,[11] then within the Sassanid Empire province ofAsuristan. According to the Cologne Mani-Codex,[12] Mani's parents were members of the religious sect of Elcesaites. The king of Persia put him to death in 274 or 277.[11]
Mani believed that the teachings of Buddha, Zoroaster, and Jesus were incomplete, and that his revelations were for the entire world, calling his teachings the "Religion of Light."[11] Manichaean writings indicate that Mani received revelations when he was 12 and again when he was 24, and over this time period he grew dissatisfied with the Elchasaite sect he was born into.[13]Mani began preaching at an early age and was possibly influenced by contemporary Babylonian-Aramaic movements such as Mandaeanism, and Aramaic translations of Jewish apocalyptic writings similar to those found atQumran (such as the book of Enoch literature). With the discovery of the Mani-Codex, it also became clear that he was raised in a Jewish-Christian baptism sect, the Elcesaites, and was influenced by their writings as well. According to biographies preserved by Ibn al-Nadim and the Persian polymath al-Biruni, he allegedly received a revelation as a youth from a spirit, whom he would later call his Twin (Aramaic Tauma (תאומא), from which is also derived the name of the apostle Thomas, the "twin"), his Syzygos (Greek for "partner", in theCologne Mani-Codex), his Double, his Protective Angel or Divine Self. It taught him truths which he developed into a religion. His divine Twin or true Self brought Mani to Self-realization and thus he became a gnosticus, someone with divine knowledge and liberating insight. He claimed to be the Paraclete of the Truth, as promised in the New Testament.
Mani composed seven writings, six of which were written in Syriac Aramaic. The seventh, the Shabuhragan,[14] was written by Mani in Middle Persian and presented by him to the contemporary King of Sassanid Persia, Shapur I in the Persian capital of Ctesiphon. Although there is no proof Shapur I was a Manichaean, he tolerated the spread of Manicheanism and refrained from persecuting it in his empire's boundaries.[15] According to one tradition it was Mani himself who invented the unique version of the Syriac script called Manichaean script, which was used in all of the Manichaean works written within the Persian Empire, whether they were in Syriac or Middle Persian, and also for most of the works written within the Uyghur Empire. The primary language of Babylon (and the administrative and cultural language of the Sassanid Empire) at that time was Eastern Middle Aramaic, which included three main dialects: Judeo-Aramaic (the language of the Talmud),Mandaean Aramaic (the language of the Mandaean religion), and Syriac Aramaic, which was the language of Mani, as well as of the Syriac Christians. "Mani" is a Sanskrit name used in all three Aramaic dialects and therefore common among their speakers.
Manichaeism's views on Jesus are described by historians:
"Jesus in Manichaeism possessed three separate identities: (1) Jesus the Luminous, (2) Jesus the Messiah and (3) Jesus patibilis (the suffering Jesus). (1) As Jesus the Luminous… his primary role was as supreme revealer and guide and it was he who woke Adam from his slumber and revealed to him the divine origins of his soul and its painful captivity by the body and mixture with matter. Jesus the Messiah was a historical being who was the prophet of the Jews and the forerunner of Mani. However, the Manicheans believed he was wholly divine. He never experienced human birth as notions of physical conception and birth filled the Manichaeans with horror and the Christian doctrine of virgin birth was regarded as equally obscene. Since he was the light of the world, where was this light, they asked, when he was in the womb of the Virgin? (2) Jesus the Messiah was truly born at his baptism as it was on that occasion that the Father openly acknowledged his sonship. The suffering, death and resurrection of this Jesus were in appearance only as they had no salvific value but were an exemplum of the suffering and eventual deliverance of the human soul and a prefiguration of Mani’s own martyrdom. (3) The pain suffered by the imprisoned Light-Particles in the whole of the visible universe, on the other hand, was real and immanent. This was symbolized by the mystic placing of the Cross whereby the wounds of the passion of our souls are set forth. On this mystical Cross of Light was suspended the Suffering Jesus (Jesus patibilis) who was the life and salvation of Man. This mystica cruxificio was present in every tree, herb, fruit, vegetable and even stones and the soil. This constant and universal suffering of the captive soul is exquisitely expressed in one of the Coptic Manichaean psalms" [16]
Historians also note that Mani declared himself to be an "apostle of Jesus Christ" [17] Manichaean tradition is also noted to have claimed that Mani was the reincarnation of different religious figures from Buddha, Lord Krishna, Zoroaster, and Jesus.
"Other than incorporating the symbols and doctrine of dominant religious traditions, Manichaeism also incorporated the symbols and deities of indigenous traditions, in particular the Hindu deity Ganesha into its fold, demonstrated by the image available in the article, Manichaean art and calligraphy by Hans-Joachim Klimkeit. Mani was allegedly claiming to be the reincarnation of the Buddha, Lord Krishna, Zoroaster and Jesus depending on the context in which he was carrying out his preachings. Such strategic claims fostered a spirit of toleration among the Manicheans and the other religious communities and this particular feature greatly assisted them in gaining the approval of authorities to practice in different regions along the Silk Road." [18]
Also academics note that since much of what is known about Manichaeism comes from later 10th and 11th Century AD Islamic historians like Al-Biruni and especially the Shia Muslim Persian historian Ibn al-Nadim (and his work Fihrist); "Islamic authors ascribed to Mani the claim to be the Seal of the Prophets" This topic is discussed by an Israeli academic Guy G. Stroumsa[19][20]
Another source of Mani's scriptures was original Aramaic writings relating to the book of Enoch literature (see the Book of Enoch and the Second Book of Enoch), as well as an otherwise unknown section of the book of Enoch called the "Book of Giants". This book was quoted directly, and expanded on by Mani, becoming one of the original six Syriac writings of the Manichaean Church. Besides brief references by non-Manichaean authors through the centuries, no original sources of "The Book of Giants" (which is actually part six of the "Book of Enoch") were available until the 20th century.
Scattered fragments of both the original Aramaic "Book of Giants" (which were analysed and published by Józef Milik in 1976)[21] and of the Manichaean version of the same name (analyzed and published by W.B. Henning in 1943)[22] were found with the discovery in the twentieth century of the Dead Sea Scrolls in the Judaean Desert and the Manichaean writings of the UyghurManichaean kingdom in Turpan. Henning wrote in his analysis of them:
It is noteworthy that Mani, who was brought up and spent most of his life in a province of the Persian empire, and whose mother belonged to a famous Parthian family, did not make any use of the Iranian mythological tradition. There can no longer be any doubt that the Iranian names of Sām, Narīmān, etc., that appear in the Persian and Sogdian versions of the Book of the Giants, did not figure in the original edition, written by Mani in the Syriac language.[22]
From a careful reading of the Enoch literature and the Book of Giants, alongside the description of the Manichaean myth, it becomes clear that the "Great King of Honor" of this myth (a being that sits as a guard to the world of light at the seventh of ten heavens in the Manichaean myth,[23]) is identical with the King of Honor sitting on the heavenly throne in the Enoch literature. In the Aramaic book of Enoch, in the Qumran writings in general, and in the original Syriac section of Manichaean scriptures quoted by Theodore bar Konai,[24] he is called "malka raba de-ikara" (the great king of honor).
Noting Mani's travels to the Kushan Empire (several religious paintings in Bamiyan are attributed to him) at the beginning of his proselytizing career, Richard Foltz postulates Buddhist influences in Manichaeism:
Buddhist influences were significant in the formation of Mani's religious thought. The transmigration of souls became a Manichaean belief, and the quadripartite structure of the Manichaean community, divided between male and female monks (the "elect") and lay followers (the "hearers") who supported them, appears to be based on that of the Buddhist sangha.[25]
While Manichaeism was spreading, existing religions such as Christianity and Zoroastrianism were gaining social and political influence. Although having fewer adherents, Manichaeism won the support of many high-ranking political figures. With the assistance of the Persian Empire, Mani began missionary expeditions. After failing to win the favour of the next generation of Persian royalty, and incurring the disapproval of the Zoroastrian clergy, Mani is reported to have died in prison awaiting execution by the Persian Emperor Bahram I. The date of his death is estimated at AD 276–277.
Later history[edit]
Manichaeism continued to spread with extraordinary speed through both the east and west. It reached Rome through the apostle Psattiq by AD 280, who was also in Egypt in 244 and 251. It was flourishing in the Fayum area of Egypt in AD 290. Manichaean monasteries existed in Rome in 312 AD during the time of the Christian Pope Miltiades.
The spread and success of Manichaeism were seen as a threat to other religions, and it was widely persecuted in Hellenistic, Christian, Zoroastrian,Islamic,[26] and Buddhist cultures.
In 291, persecution arose in the Persian empire with the murder of the apostle Sisin by Bahram II, and the slaughter of many Manichaeans. In AD 296,Diocletian decreed against the Manichaeans: "We order that their organizers and leaders be subject to the final penalties and condemned to the fire with their abominable scriptures", resulting in many martyrdoms in Egypt and North Africa (seeDiocletian Persecution). By AD 354, Hilary of Poitiers wrote that the Manichaean faith was a significant force in southern Gaul. In AD 381 Christians requested Theodosius I to strip Manichaeans of their civil rights. He issued a decree of death for Manichaean monks in AD 382.
Augustine of Hippo (AD 354–430) converted to Christianity from Manichaeism, in the year 387. This was shortly after the Roman Emperor Theodosius I had issued a decree of death for Manichaeans in AD 382 and shortly before he declared Christianity to be the only legitimate religion for the Roman Empire in 391. According to his Confessions, after nine or ten years of adhering to the Manichaean faith as a member of the group of "hearers", Augustine became aChristian and a potent adversary of Manichaeism (which he expressed in writing against his Manichaean opponent Faustus of Mileve), seeing their beliefs that knowledge was the key to salvation as too passive and not able to effect any change in one's life.[27]
I still thought that it is not we who sin but some other nature that sins within us. It flattered my pride to think that I incurred no guilt and, when I did wrong, not to confess it... I preferred to excuse myself and blame this unknown thing which was in me but was not part of me. The truth, of course, was that it was all my own self, and my own impiety had divided me against myself. My sin was all the more incurable because I did not think myself a sinner. (Confessions, Book V, Section 10)
Some modern scholars have suggested that Manichaean ways of thinking influenced the development of some of Augustine's ideas, such as the nature of good and evil, the idea of hell, the separation of groups into elect, hearers, and sinners, and the hostility to the flesh and sexual activity.[28]
How Manichaeism may have influenced Christianity continues to be debated. Manichaeism may have influenced the Bogomils, Paulicians, and Cathars. However, these groups left few records, and the link between them and Manichaeans is tenuous. Regardless of its accuracy the charge of Manichaeism was levelled at them by contemporary orthodox opponents, who often tried to make contemporary heresies conform to those combatted by the church fathers. Whether the dualism of the Paulicians, Bogomils, and Cathars and their belief that the world was created by a Satanic demiurge were due to influence from Manichaeism is impossible to determine. The Cathars apparently adopted the Manichaean principles of church organization. Priscillian and his followers may also have been influenced by Manichaeism. The Manichaeans preserved many apocryphal Christian works, such as the Acts of Thomas, that would otherwise have been lost.[29]
Manichaeism maintained a sporadic and intermittent existence in the west (Mesopotamia, Africa, Spain, France, North Italy, the Balkans) for a thousand years, and flourished for a time in the land of its birth (Persia) and even further east in Northern India, Western China, and Tibet. While it had long been thought that Manichaeism arrived in China only at the end of the seventh century, a recent archaeological discovery demonstrated that it was already known there in the second half of the sixth century.[30]
Some Sodgians in Central Asia believed in the religion.[31][32] Uyghur rulerKhagan Boku Tekin (AD 759–780) converted to the religion in 763 after a 3 days discussion with its preachers,[33][34] the Babylonia headquarters sent high rank clerics to Uyghur, and Manichaeism remained the state religion for about a century before the collapse of the Uyghur empire in 840. In the east it spread along trade routes as far as Chang'an, the capital of the Tang Dynasty in China. In the ninth century, it is reported that the Muslim Caliph Al-Ma'mun tolerated a community of Manichaeans.[35] However, al-Mahdi persecuted the Manichaeans, establishing an inquisition to root out their "heresy", even resorting to outright massacre against them.[36] In the Song andYuan dynasties of China remnants of Manichaeanism continued to leave a legacy contributing to sects such as the Red Turbans.
Manichaeism claimed to present the complete version of teachings that were corrupted and misinterpreted by the followers of its predecessors Adam, Zoroaster, Buddha and Jesus. Accordingly, as it spread, it adapted new deities from other religions into forms it could use for its scriptures. Its original Aramaic texts already contained stories of Jesus. When they moved eastward and were translated into Iranian languages, the names of the Manichaean deities (or angels) were often transformed into the names of Zoroastrian yazatas. Thus Abbā dəRabbūṯā ("The Father of Greatness", the highest Manichaean deity of Light), in Middle Persian texts might either be translated literally as pīd ī wuzurgīh, or substituted with the name of the deity Zurwān. Similarly, the Manichaean primal figure Nāšā Qaḏmāyā "The Original Man" was rendered "Ohrmazd Bay", after the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda. This process continued in Manichaeism's meeting with Chinese Buddhism, where, for example, the original Aramaic karia (the "call" from the world of Light to those seeking rescue from the world of Darkness), becomes identified in the Chinese scriptures with Guan Yin (觀音 or Avalokitesvara in Sanskrit, literally, "watching/perceiving sounds [of the world]", the Chinese Bodhisattva of Compassion).
Persecution and extinction[edit]
In 732 Emperor Xuanzong of Tang banned local conversion to the religion.[37][38] In 843 Emperor Wuzong of Tang gave the order to kill all Manichaean clerics, and over half died.[39] Caliph Abdullah al-Mahdi Billah also killed thousands of Manichaeans and Al-Muqtadir killed some that Ibn al-Nadim knew only 5 Manichaeans in Baghdad, the headquarters of the religion.[40]
Later movements accused of "Neo-Manichaeism"[edit]
During the Middle Ages, several movements emerged which were collectively described as "Manichaean" by the Catholic Church, and persecuted as Christian heresies through the establishment, in 1184, of the Inquisition.[41] They included theCathar churches of Western Europe. Other groups sometimes referred to as "neo-Manichaean" were the Paulicianmovement, which arose in Armenia,[42] and the Bogomils in Bulgaria.[29] An example of this usage can be found in the published edition of the Latin Cathar text, the Liber de duobus principiis (Book of the Two Principles), which was described as "Neo-Manichaean" by its publishers.[43] As there is no presence of Manichaean mythology or church terminology in the writings of these groups, there has been some dispute among historians as to whether these groups were descendants of Manichaeism.[44]
Present day[edit]
Some sites preserved in Xinjiang and Fujian in China.[45][46] Several small groups claim to continue to practice this faith such as http://manichaean.org[47][48]
Teachings and beliefs[edit]
General[edit]
Mani's teaching dealt with the origin of evil,[11] by addressing a theoretical part of the problem of evil by denying the omnipotence of God and postulating two opposite powers. Manichaean theology taught a dualistic view of good and evil. A key belief in Manichaeism is that the powerful, though not omnipotent good power (God) was opposed by the semi-eternal evil power (Satan). Humanity, the world and the soul are seen as the byproduct of the battle between God's proxy, Primal Man, and Satan. The human person is seen as a battleground for these powers: the soul defines the person, but it is under the influence of both light and dark. This contention plays out over the world as well as the human body—neither the Earth nor the flesh were seen as intrinsically evil, but rather possessed portions of both light and dark. Natural phenomena (such as rain) were seen as the physical manifestation of this spiritual contention. Therefore, the Manichaean worldview explained the existence of evil with a flawed creation God took no role in forming and was the result of Satan striking out against God.[49]
Cosmogony[edit]
Manichaeism presented an elaborate description of the conflict between the spiritual world of light and the material world of darkness. The beings of both the world of darkness and the world of light have names. There are numerous sources for the details of the Manichaean belief. There are two portions of Manichaean scriptures that are probably the closest thing to the original Manichaean writings in their original languages that will ever be available. These are the Syriac-Aramaic quotation by the Nestorian Christian Theodore bar Konai, in his Syriac "Book of Scholia" ("Ketba de-Skolion", eighth century),[24] and the Middle Persian sections of Mani's Shabuhragandiscovered at Turpan (a summary of Mani's teachings prepared for Shapur I[14]). These two sections are probably the original Syriac and Middle Persian written by Mani.
From these and other sources, it is possible to derive an almost complete description of the detailed Manichaean vision[50] (a complete list of Manichaean deities is outlined below). According to Mani, the unfolding of the universe takes place with three "creations":
The First Creation: Originally, good and evil existed in two completely separate realms, one the World of Light, ruled by the Father of Greatness together with his five Shekhinas (divine attributes of light), and the other the World of Darkness, ruled by the King of Darkness. At a certain point, the Kingdom of Darkness notices the World of Light, becomes greedy for it and attacks it. The Father of Greatness, in the first of three "creations" (or "calls"), calls to the Mother of Life, who sends her son Original Man (Nāšā Qaḏmāyā in Aramaic), to battle with the attacking powers of Darkness, which include theDemon of Greed. The Original Man is armed with five different shields of light (reflections of the five Shekhinas), which he loses to the forces of darkness in the ensuing battle, described as a kind of "bait" to trick the forces of darkness, as the forces of darkness greedily consume as much light as they can. When the Original Man comes to, he is trapped among the forces of darkness.
The Second Creation: Then the Father of Greatness begins the Second Creation, calling to the Living Spirit, who calls to his five sons, and sends a call to the Original Man (Call then becomes a Manichaean deity). An answer (Answer becomes another Manichaean deity) then returns from the Original Man to the World of Light. The Mother of Life, the Living Spirit, and his five sons begin to create the universe from the bodies of the evil beings of the World of Darkness, together with the light that they have swallowed. Ten heavens and eight earths are created, all consisting of various mixtures of the evil material beings from the World of Darkness and the swallowed light. The sun, moon, and stars are all created from light recovered from the World of Darkness. The waxing and waning of the moon is described as the moon filling with light, which passes to the sun, then through the Milky Way, and eventually back to the World of Light.
The Third Creation: Great demons (called archons in bar-Khonai's account) are hung out over the heavens, and then the Father of Greatness begins the Third Creation. Light is recovered from out of the material bodies of the male and female evil beings and demons, by causing them to become sexually aroused in greed, towards beautiful images of the beings of light, such as the Third Messenger and the Virgins of Light. However, as soon as the light is expelled from their bodies and falls to the earth (some in the form of abortions – the source of fallen angels in the Manichaean myth), the evil beings continue to swallow up as much of it as they can to keep the light inside of them. This results eventually in the evil beings swallowing huge quantities of light, copulating, and producing Adam and Eve. The Father of Greatness then sends the Radiant Jesus to awaken Adam, and to enlighten him to the true source of the light that is trapped in his material body. Adam and Eve, however, eventually copulate, and produce more human beings, trapping the light in bodies of mankind throughout human history. The appearance of the Prophet Mani was another attempt by the World of Light to reveal to mankind the true source of the spiritual light imprisoned within their material bodies.
Outline of the beings and events in the Manichaean mythos[edit]
Beginning with the time of its creation by Mani, the Manichaean religion had a detailed description of deities and events that took place within the Manichaean scheme of the universe. In every language and region that Manichaeism spread to, these same deities reappear, whether it is in the original Syriac quoted by Theodore bar Konai,[24] or the Latin terminology given by Saint Augustine from Mani's Epistola Fundamenti, or the Persian and Chinese translations found as Manichaeism spread eastward. While the original Syriac retained the original description which Mani created, the transformation of the deities through other languages and cultures produced incarnations of the deities not implied in the original Syriac writings. This process began in Mani's lifetime, with "The Father of Greatness", for example, being translated into Middle Persian asZurvan, a Zoroastrian supreme being.
The World of Light[edit]
- The Father of Greatness (Syriac: ܐܒܐ ܕܪܒܘܬܐ Abbā dəRabbūṯā; Middle Persian: pīd ī wuzurgīh, or the Zoroastrian deity Zurwān; Parthian: Pidar wuzurgift, Pidar roshn)
- His Five Shekhinas (Syriac: ܚܡܫ ܫܟܝܢܬܗ khamesh shkhinatei; Chinese: 五种大 wǔ zhǒng dà, "five great ones"):[51]
| Shekhina: | Reason | Mind | Intelligence | Thought | Understanding |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Syriac | ܗܘܢܐ haunâ | ܡܕܥܐ madde´â | ܪܥܝܢܐ reyana | ܡܚܫܒܬܐ mahšabtâ | ܬܪܥܝܬܐ tar´îtâ |
| Parthian | bâm | manohmêd | uš | andêšišn | parmânag |
| Chinese | 相 xiāng, "phase" | 心 xīn, "heart" | 念 niàn, "idea" | 思 sī, "thought" | 意 yì, "meaning" |
| Turkish | qut | ög | köngül | saqinç | tuimaq |
| Greek | νοῦς Nous | εννοια | φρονησις | ενθυμησις | λογισμος |
| Latin | mens | sensus | prudentia | intellectus | cogitatio |
With the discovery of the Mani-Codex, it also became clear that he ( mani of Manichaean) was raised in a Jewish-Christian baptism sect, the Elcesaites, and was influenced by their writings as well.
The Sakha (Yakutia) Republic (Russian: Республика Саха (Якутия), tr. Respublika Sakha (Yakutiya), IPA: [rʲɪsˈpublʲɪkə sɐˈxa jɪˈkutʲɪjə]; Sakha: Саха Өрөспүүбүлүкэтэ, Sakha Öröspǖbülükete) is a federal subject of Russia (a republic). It has a population of 958,528 (2010 Census),[7] consisting mainly of ethnic Yakuts and Russians.
| Sakha (Yakutia) Republic | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Республика Саха (Якутия) (Russian) Саха Өрөспүүбүлүкэтэ (Sakha) | |||
| — Republic — | |||
| |||
| Anthem: National Anthem of the Sakha Republic | |||
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.svg)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuts
Evenki-Iran Khan as Korean Ancestry;
The Evenks have most likely been in the Baikal region of Southern Siberia (near the modern-day Mongolian border) since the Neolithic era; "The origin of the Evenks is the result of complex processes, different in time, involving the mixing of different ancient aboriginal tribes from the north of Siberia with tribes…related in language to the Turks and Mongols. The language of these tribes took precedence over the languages of the aboriginal population" (Vasilevich, 623).
Elements of more modern Evenk culture, including conical tent dwellings, bone fish-lures, and birch-bark boats, were all present in sites that are believed to be Neolithic. From Lake Baikal, “they spread to the Amur and Okhotsk Sea…the Lena Basin…and theYenisey Basin” (623)
17th century-Evenki Siberia(korean Ancestors of Ice Age) neighboring
Russian-Cossack-Tsar attacked Evenkis.
Russian-Cossack Tsar Sephardic Jews pushed
Evenki Siberian Tribes to Sakhalin Island.
In the 17th century, the Russian empire began to expand enough to contact the remote Evenkis. Cossacks, men who served as a kind of “border-guard” for the tsarist government, imposed a fur tax on the Siberian tribes. The Cossacks exploited the Evenki clan hierarchy and took hostages from the highest members in order to ensure payment of the tax. Although there was some rebellion against local officials, the Evenks generally recognized the “great need of peaceful cultural relations with the Russians (624).
Contact with the Russians and constant demand for fur taxes pushed the Evenkis east all the way to Sakhalin island, where some still live today (Cassell’s).
In the 19th, some groups migrated south and east into Mongolia and Manchuria (Vasilevich, 625). Today there are still Evenki populations in Sakhalin, Mongolia, and Manchuria (Ethnologue), and to a lesser extent, their traditional Baikal region (Janhunen).
Traditional life[edit]
Traditionally they were a mixture of pastoralists and hunter-gatherers—they relied on their domesticated reindeer for milk and transport and hunted other large game for meat (Vasilevich, 620-1). Today “[t]he Evenks are divided into two large groups…engaging in different types of economy. These are the hunting and reindeer-breeding Evenks…and the horse and cattle pastoral Evenks as well as some farming Evenks” (620). The Evenks lived mostly in areas of what is called a taiga, or boreal forest. They lived in conical tents made from birch bark or reindeer skin tied to birch poles. When they moved camp, the Evenks would leave the dwelling’s framework and carry only the more portable coverings. During winter, the hunting season, most camps consisted of one or two tents while the spring encampments encompassed up to 10 households (Vasilevich, 637).
The skill of riding the domesticated reindeer allowed the Evenkis to “colonize vast areas of the eastern taiga which had previously been impenetrable” (Vitebsky, 31). The Evenks use a saddle unique to their culture which is placed on the shoulders of the reindeer which lessens the strain on the animal. Also, the Evenks traditionally did not use stirrups but used a stick to balance (31-32). Evenks did not develop reindeer sledges until comparatively recent times (32). They instead used their reindeer as pack animals and often traversed great distances on foot, using snowshoes or skis (Vasilevich, 627). The Evenki people did not eat their domesticated reindeer (although they did hunt and eat wild reindeer) but kept them for milk. (Forsyth, 49-50).
Large herds of reindeer were very uncommon. Most Evenks had around 25 head of reindeer because they were generally bred for transportation purposes. Unlike several other neighboring tribes Evenk reindeer-breeding did not include “herding of reindeer by dogs nor any other specific features” (Vasilevich, 629). Very early in the spring season, the winter camps broke up and moved to places suitable for calving. Several households pastured their animals together throughout the summer, being careful to keep “[s]pecial areas…fenced off…to guard the newborn calves against being trampled on in a large herd” (629).
Clothing[edit]
The Evenks wore a characteristic costume “adapted to the cold but rather dry climate of Central Siberia and to a life of mobility…they wore brief garments of soft reindeer or elk skin around their hips, along with leggings and moccasins, or else long supple boots reaching to the thigh” (49). They also wore a deerskin coat that did not close in front but was instead covered with an apron-like cloth. Some Evenkis decorated their clothing with fringes or embroidery (50). The Evenki traditional costume always consisted of these elements: the loincloth made of animal hide, leggings, and boots of varying lengths (Vasilevich, 641). Facial tattooing was also very common.
Hunting[edit]
The traditional Evenki economy was a mix of pastoralism (of horses or reindeer), fishing, and hunting. The Evenki who lived near the Okhotsk Sea hunted seal, but for most of the taiga-dwellers, elk, wild reindeer, and fowl were the most important game animals. Other animals included “roe deer, bear, wolverine, lynx, wolf, Siberian marmot, fox, and sable” (Vasilevich, 626). Trapping did not become important until the imposition of the fur tax by the tsarist government. Before acquiring guns in the 18th century, Evenks used steel bows and arrows. Along with their main hunting implements, hunters always carried a “pike”—“which was a large knife on a long handle used instead of an axe when passing through the thick taiga or as a spear when hunting bear” (626). The Evenks have deep respects for animals and all elements of nature: "It is forbidden to torment an animal, bird, or insect, and a wounded animal must be finished off immediately…It is forbidden to spill the blood of a killed animal or defile it…It is forbidden to kill animals or birds that were saved from pursuit by predators or came to a person for help in a natural disaster" (Sirina, 24).
Evenks of Russia[edit]
The Evenks were formerly known as tungus. This designation was spread by the Russians, who acquired it from the Yakuts and the Siberian Tatars (in the Yakut language tongus) in the 17th century. The Evenks have several self-designations, of which the best known is evenk. This became the official designation for the people in 1931. Some groups call themselves orochen ('an inhabitant of the River Oro'), orochon ('a rearer of reindeer'), ile('a human being'), etc. At one time or another tribal designations and place names have also been used as self-designations, for instance manjagir, birachen, solon, etc. Several of these have even been taken for separate ethnic entities.
There is also a similarly named Siberian group called the Evens(formerly known as Lamuts). Although related to the Evenks, the Evens are now considered to be a separate ethnic group.
The Evenks are spread over a huge territory of the Siberian taigafrom the River Ob in the west to the Okhotsk Sea in the east, and from the Arctic Ocean in the north to Manchuria and Sakhalin in the south. The total area of their habitat is about 2,500,000 km². In all of Russia only the Russians inhabit a larger territory. According to the administrative structure, the Evenks live, from west to east, in Tyumen and Tomsk Oblasts, Krasnoyarsk Kraiwith Evenk Autonomous Okrug, Irkutsk, Chita, and Amur Oblasts, the Buryat and the Sakha Republics, Khabarovsk Krai, andSakhalin Oblast. However, the territory where they are a titular nation is confined solely to Evenk Autonomous Okrug, where 3,802 of the 35,527 Evenks live (according to the 2002 Census). More than 18,200 Evenks live in the Sakha Republic.
Anthropologically the Evenk belong to the Baikal or Paleo-Siberian group of the Mongolian type, originating from the ancient Paleo-Siberian people of the Yenisei River up to the Okhotsk Sea.[citation needed]
The Evenki language is the largest of the northern group of the Manchu-Tungus languages, a group which also includes the Even and Negidal languages.
Evenks of China[edit]
According to the 2000 Census, there are 30,505 Evenks in China mainly made up of the Solons and the Khamnigans. 88.8% of China's Evenks live in theHulunbuir region in the north of the Inner Mongolia Province, near the city ofHailar. The Evenk Autonomous Banner is also located near Hulunbuir. There are also around 3,000 Evenks in neighbouring Heilongjiang Province.
The Manchu Emperor Hong Taiji conquered the Evenks in 1640, and executed their leader Bombogor. After the Manchu conquest, the Evenks were incorporated into the Eight Banners.
In 1763, the Qing government moved 500 Solon Evenk and 500 Daur families to the Tacheng and Ghulja areas of Xinjiang, in order to strengthen the empire's western border. 1020 Xibe families (some 4000 persons) followed the next year. Since then, however, the Solons of Xinjiang have assimilated into other ethnic groups, and are not identified as such anymore.[5][6]
| Stadt Beijing | keine | Stadtbezirk Haidian |
| AR Inner Mongolia | City Hulunbuir | Evenki Autonomous Banner |
| ProvinceHeilongjiang | Stadt Qiqihar | Stadt Nehe |
| ProvinceHeilongjiang | Stadt Heihe | Kreis Nenjiang |
Evenks of Ukraine[edit]
According to the 2001 census, there were 48 Evenks living in Ukraine. Only 4 of them indicated Evenk as their native language. The majority (35) of Ukrainian Evenks told that their native language is Russian and for 3 Evenks the native tongue is Ukrainian.[7]
Prior to contact with the Russians, the belief system of the Evenks was animistic. Many have adopted Tibetan Buddhism.[2][3][4]
The Evenki, like most nomadic, pastoral, and subsistence agrarian peoples, spend most of their lives in very close contact with nature. Because of this, they develop what A. A. Sirina call an “ecological ethic.” By this she means “a system of responsibility of people to nature and her spirit masters, and of nature to people” (9). Sirina interviewed many Evenks who until very recently spent much of their time as reindeer herders in the taiga, just like their ancestors. The Evenki people also spoke along the same lines: their respect for nature and their belief that nature is a living being.
This idea, “[t]he embodiment, animation, and personification of nature—what is still called the animistic worldview—is the key component of the traditional worldview of hunter-gatherers” (Sirina, 13). Although most of the Evenkis have been “sedentarized”—that is, made to live in settled communities instead of following their traditional nomadic way of life (Fondahl, 5)—“[m]any scholars think that the worldview characteristic of hunter-gatherer societies is preserved, even if they make the transition to new economic models (Sirina, 30 quoting Barnard 1998, Lee 1999, Peterson 1999). Although nominally Christianized in the 18th century, the Evenki people maintain many of their historical beliefs—especially shamanism (Vasilevich, 624). The Christian traditions were “confined to the formal performance of Orthodox rites which were usually timed for the arrival of the priest in the taiga (647).
The religious beliefs and practices of the Evenks are of great historical interest since these retain some extremely early archaic forms of belief. By the beginning of this century, the religion of the Evenks included the remnants of various stages of development of religious ideas. Among the most ancient ideas are spiritualization of all natural phenomena, personification of them, belief in an upper, middle, and lower world, belief in the soul (omi) and certain totemistic concepts. There were also various magical rituals associated with hunting and guarding herds. Later on these rituals were conducted by shamans. Shamanism brought about the development of views of spirit-masters (Vasilevich 647).
Hamnigan Buryats or Khamnigan are Mongolized Evenks of Tungusicorigin. Khamnigan is the Buriat-Mongolian term for all Ewenkis. In the early 16th century, the Evenks of Transbaikalia or Khamnigans were tributary to the Khalkha. The Khamnigan are only ethnic group of Tungus origin in Mongolia.[4] They who lived around Nerchinsk and the Aga steppe faced both Cossack demands for tribute and Khori-Buriats trying to occupy their pastures. Most of them came under the Cossack rule and enrolled the Cossack regiments in the Selenge valley. The Khori Buriats occupied most of the Aga steppe and forced the Ewenkis to flee to the Qing Dynasty.
After 1880 Russia's Khamnigan Evenks moved to semi nomadic herding of cattle, sheep, camels and horses. Some time after 1918 the Evenks, along with their Buriat neighbors, fled over the border into Mongolia and Hulun Buir, establishing the current Khamnigan communities there. The Khamnigan of Mongolia, numbering 300 households, are scattered among the Buriats and speak only the Khamnigan dialect of Buriat language. They live around the Yeruu Lake, Dornod and Khentii provinces as well asMöngönmorit of Töv Province.
There are 535? Hamnigans (3 000 people in Selenge province) in Mongolia.All Hamnigans are not of Tungusic origin and there are some Mongols among the Hamnigans who fled from Manchu soldiers.
The rebellion of An Lushan in the Tang empire in 755 forced the Chinese emperorSuzong to turn to Bayanchur Khan for assistance in 756. The khagan agreed, ordered his eldest son to provide military service to the Tang emperor, and helped to quell several rebellions, as well as to defeat an invading Tibetan army from the south and to take from rebels together with Tang forces both capitals, westernChang'An and eastern Luoyang. As a result, in 757 the Uyghurs received 20,000 rolls of silk as tribute from the Chinese. Bayanchur Khan was given the daughter of the Chinese Emperor to marry (princess Ninguo), while Emperor Suzong was given a Uyghur princess.
In 758, the Uyghurs turned their attentions to a rival steppe tribe to the north, theKyrgyz. Bayanchur Khan destroyed several of their trading outposts before slaughtering a Kyrgyz army and executing their Khan. In 759, Bayanchur Khan died after drinking heavily at a celebration.[citation needed] His son Tengri Bögü succeeded him as Khagan Qutlugh Tarkhan sengün.[citation needed]
Khagan Tengri Bögü met with Manichaean priests from Iran while on campaign and was converted to Manicheism, adopting it as the official religion of the Uyghur Empire in 763. One effect of this conversion was the increased influence of theSogdians in the Uyghur court. In 779 Tengri Bögü, incited by his Sogdian advisers, planned an invasion of China to take advantage of the accession of a new Emperor,Dezong. However, Tengri Bögü's uncle, Tun Bagha Tarkhan, opposed this plan: "Tun Bagha became annoyed and attacked and killed him and, at the same time, massacred nearly two thousand people from among the kaghan's family, his clique and the Sogdians.[6] The rebellion was supposedly sponsored by the TangAmbassador to the Uyghur Empire. Tun Bagha Tarkhan ascended the throne with the title Alp Qutlugh Bilge ("Victorious, glorious, wise") and enforced a new set of laws, which he designed to secure the unity of the khaganate. He also moved against the Kyrgyz once more, finally bringing them under the control of the Uyghur Khaganate.
Relationship with the Sogdians[edit]
In order to control trade along the Silk Road, the Uyghurs established a trading relationship with the Sogdian merchants who controlled the oases of Turkestan. As described above, the Uyghur adoption of Manichaeism was one aspect of this relationship—choosing Manichaeism over Buddhism may have been motivated by a desire to show independence from Tang influence.[7] It must be noted that not all Uyghurs supported conversion—an inscription at Karabalghasun states that Manichaens tried to divert people from their ancient shamanistic beliefs.[8] A rather partisan account from a Uyghur-Manichaen text of that period demonstrates the unbridled enthusiasm of the khaghan for Manichaeism:
| “ | At that time when the divine Bogu Khan had thus spoken, we the Elects of all the people living within the land rejoiced. It is impossible to describe this ourjoy. The people told the story to one another and rejoiced. At that time, groups of thousands and tens of thousands assembled and with pastimes of all sorts they entertained themselves even unto dawn. And at the break of the day they made a short fast. The divine ruler Bogu Khan and all the elects of his retinue mounted on horses, and all the princes and the princesses led by those of high repute, the big and the small, the whole people, amidst great rejoicing proceeded to the gate of the city. And when the divine ruler had entered the city, he put the crown on his head... and sat upon the golden throne[8].. | ” |
— Uyghur-Manichaen text.
|
As conversion was based on political and economic concerns regarding trade with the Sogdians, it was driven by the rulers and often encountered resistance in lower societal strata. Furthermore, as the khaghan's political power depended on his ability to provide economically for his subjects, "alliance with the Sogdians through adopting their religion was an important way of securing this objective."[7] Both the Sogdians and the Uyghurs benefited enormously from this alliance. The Sogdians enabled the Uyghurs to trade in the Western Regions and exchange silk from China for other goods. For the Sogdians it provided their Chinese trading communities with Uyghur protection. The 5th and 6th centuries saw a large emigration of Sogdians to China. The Sogdians were main traders along the Silk Roads, and China was always their biggest market. Among the paper clothing found in the Astana cemetery near Turfan is a list of taxes paid on caravan trade in the Gaochang kingdom in the 620s. The text is incomplete, but out of the 35 commercial operations it lists, 29 involve a Sogdian trader.[9] Ultimately both rulers of nomadic origin and sedentary states recognized the importance of merchants like the Sogdians and made alliances to further their own agendas in controlling the Silk Roads.
Karabalghasun[edit]
The Uyghurs created a highly civilised empire with clear Iranian influences, particularly in areas of government.[10] Soon after the empire was founded, they emulated sedentary states by establishing a permanent, settled capital, Karabalghasun (Ordu-Baliq), built on the site of the former Göktürkimperial capital, northeast of the later Mongol capital, Karakorum. The city was a fully fortified commercial center, typical along the Silk Road, with concentric walls and lookout towers, stables, military and commercial stores, and administrative buildings. Certain areas of the town were allotted for trade and handcrafts, while in the center of the town were palaces and temples, including a monastery. The palace had fortified walls and two main gates, as well as moats filled with water and watchtowers.
The khaghan maintained his court there and decided the policies of the empire. With no fixed settlement, the Xiongnu had been limited in their acquisition of Chinese goods to what they could carry. As stated by Thomas Barfield, "the more goods a nomadic society acquired the less mobility it had, hence, at some point, one was more vulnerable trying to protect a rich treasure house by moving it than by fortifying it."[10] By building a fixed city, the Uyghurs created a protected storage space for trade goods from China. They could hold a stable, fixed court, receive traders, and effectively cement their central role in Silk Road exchange.[10] However, the vulnerability that came with having a fixed city was to be the downfall of the Uyghurs.[7]
Decline and collapse[edit]
After the death of Tun Bagha Tarkhan death in 789, the power of the Uyghur Empire declined, and the empire started to fragment. The Tibetans took the area of Beshbalik, and the Karluks captured Fu-tu valley, which brought considerable fear to the Uyghur people.[11] In 795, the khagan bearing the title Qutlugh Bilge died, and the Yaghlakar dynasty came to an end. A general named Qutlugh declared himself the new khagan, under the titleTängridä ülüg bulmïsh alp kutlugh ulugh bilgä kaghan("Greatly born in moon heaven, victorious, glorious, great and wise Kaghan"),[3] founding a new dynasty, the Ediz (Chinese: A-tieh). With solid leadership once more, the Khaganate averted collapse. Qutlugh became renowned for his leadership and management of the empire. Although he consolidated the empire, he failed to restore its previous power. On his death in 808, the empire began to fragment once again. He was succeeded by his son, who went on to improve trade in inner Asia. The name of the last great khagan of the Empire is unknown, though he bore the title Kün tengride ülüg bulmïsh alp küchlüg bilge ("Greatly born in sun heaven, victorious, strong and wise"). His achievements included improved trade up with the region of Sogdiana, and on the battlefield he repulsed a force of invading Tibetans in 821. This khagan died in 824 and was succeeded by a brother, Qasar, who was murdered in 832, inaugurating a period of anarchy. In 839 the legitimate khagan was forced to commit suicide, and a usurping minister named Kürebir seized the throne with the help of 20,000 invited horsemen of Shato fromOrdos. In the same year there was a famine and an epidemic, with a particularly severe winter that killed much of the livestock the Uyghur economy was based on.[12]
The following spring, in 840, one of nine Uyghur ministers, Kulug Bagha, rival of Kurebir, fled to the Kyrgyz tribe and invited them to invade from the north. With a force of around 80,000 horsemen, they sacked the Uyghur capital at Ordu Baliq, razing it to the ground. The Kyrgyz captured the Uyghur Khagan, Kürebir (Hesa), and promptly beheaded him. They went on to destroy other cities throughout the Uyghur empire, burning them to the ground. The last legitimate khagan, Öge, was assassinated in 847, having spent his six-year reign fighting the Kyrgyz, the supporters of his rival Ormïzt, a brother of Kürebir, and Tang China boundary troops in Ordos and Shaanxi, which he invaded in 841. The Kyrgyz invasion destroyed the Uyghur Empire, causing a diaspora of Uyghur people across Central Asia.
Aftermath[edit]
After the fall of the empire, two kingdoms, Yugor (848–1036) in Gansu, and theKingdom of Qocho (856–1369) near Turpan, were formed by the Uyghurs who fled (southwest and west respectively) from the Yenisei Kyrgyz. The Uyghurs in Qocho (Kara-Khoja) converted to Buddhism, and according to Dīwānu l-Luġat al-Turk (Dictionary of Languages of the Turks) by Mahmud al-Kashgari, were "the strongest of the infidels". In 1209, The Kara-Khoja ruler Idiqut Barchuqdeclared his allegiance to Genghis Khan, and the Uyghurs became important civil servants in the later Mongol Empire, which adapted the Uyghur script as its official script.
According to Xin Tangshu, a third group went to seek refuge amongst theKarluks.[13] The Karluks, together with other tribes such as the Chigils andYagmas, later founded the Kara-Khanid Khanate (940-1212). Some historians associate the Karakhanids with the Uyghurs as the Yaghmas were linked to theToquz Oghuz. Sultan Satuq Bughra Khan, believed to be a Yagma from Artush, converted to Islam and seized control of Kashgar.[14]
List of Uyghur Khagans[edit]
The following list is based on Denis Sinor, "The Uighur Empire of Mongolia,"Studies in Medieval Inner Asia, Variorum, 1997, V: 1-25. Because of the complex and inconsistent Uyghur and Chinese titulatures, references to the rulers now typically include their number in the sequence, something further complicated by the non-inclusion of an unnamed ephemeral son of 4 between 5 and 6 in 790, and the inclusion of a spurious reign between 7 and 9.
- 744–747 Qutlugh bilge köl (K'u-li p'ei-lo)
- 747–759 El-etmish bilge (Bayan Chur, Mo yen ch'o), son of 1
- 759–779 Qutlugh tarqan sengün (Tengri Bögü, Teng-li Mou-yü), son of 2
- 779–789 Alp qutlugh bilge (Tun bagha tarkhan), son of 1
- 789–790 Ai tengride bulmïsh külüg bilge (To-lo-ssu), son of 4
- 790–795 Qutlugh bilge (A-ch'o), son of 5
- 795–808 Ai tengride ülüg bulmïsh alp qutlugh ulugh bilge (Qutlugh, Ku-tu-lu)
- 805–808 Ai tengride qut bulmïsh külüg bilge (spurious reign: tenure belongs to 7, name to 9)
- 808–821 Ai tengride qut bulmïsh külüg bilge (Pao-i), son of 7
- 821–824 Kün tengride ülüg bulmïsh alp küchlüg bilge (Ch'ung-te), son of 9
- 824–832 Ai tengride qut bulmïsh alp bilge (Qasar, Ko-sa), son of 9
- 832–839 Ai tengride qut bulmïsh alp külüg bilge (Hu), son of 10
- 839–840 Kürebir (Ho-sa), usurper
- 841–847 Öge, son of 9
- 744–747 Kutlug Bilge Köl Kagan
- 747–759 Bayan Çor
- 759–779 Bögü Kagan
- 779–789 Tun Baga Tarkan
- 789–790 Ay Tengride Kut Bulmış Külük Bilge Kagan
- 790–795 Kutluk Bilge Kagan
- 795–808 Ay Tengride Ülüg Bulmış Alp Ulug Kutlug Bilge Kagan
- 805–808 Ay Tengride Kut Bulmış Alp Külük Bilge Kagan
- 808–821 Ay Tengride Kut Bulmış Alp Bilge Kagan
- 821–824 Kün Tengride Ülüg Bulmış Alp Küçlüg Bilge Kagan
- 824–832 Alp Bilge Hasar Tigin Tengri Kagan
- 832–839 Alp Külüg Bilge Kagan
- 841–847 Üge Kagan
The Evenks (also spelled Ewenki or Evenki) (autonym: ЭвэнкилEvenkil; Russian: Эвенки Evenki; Chinese: 鄂温克族 Èwēnkè Zú; formerly known as Tungus or Tunguz; Mongolian: Хамниган Khamnigan) are aTungusic people of Northern Asia. In Russia, the Evenks are recognized as one of the Indigenous peoples of the Russian North, with a population of 35,527 (2002 Census). In China, the Evenki form one of the 56 ethnic groups officially recognized by the People's Republic of China, with a population of 30,505, as per 2000 Census. There are also 535 Mongolized Evenki in Mongolia, referred to as Khamnigan.
 | |||||
| Total population | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| approx. 67,000[citation needed] | |||||
| Regions with significant populations | |||||
| Russia - 35,527 (2002) China - 30,505 (2010) Ukraine - 48 (2001) [1] | |||||
| Languages | |||||
| Evenki, Russian, Chinese Ancestry of Korean-Manchu Jurechen -Iran Khan sunni muslim mixed Kaifeng Jews.
|
By 1600 the Ewenkis or Evenkis of the Lena and Yenisey valleys were successful reindeer herders. By contrast the Solons and the Khamnigans (Ewenkis of Transbaikalia) had picked up horse breeding and the Mongolian deel from the Mongols. The Solons (ancestors of the Evenkis in China) nomadized along the Amur River. They were closely related to the Daur people. To the west the Khamnigan were another group of horse breeding Evenkis in the Transbaikalia area. Also in the Amur valley a body of Siberian Evenki-speaking people were called Orochen by the Manchus.
Origin[edit]
The Evenki or Ewenki are sometime conjectured to be connected to the Shiwei people who inhabited the Greater KhinganRange in the 5-9th centuries, although the native land of the majority of Evenki people is in the vast regions of Siberia between Lake Baikal and the Amur River. The Ewenki language forms the northern branch of the Manchu-Tungusic language group and is closely related to Even and Negidal in Siberia.
Yakuts (Yakut language: Саха, Saxa) are a Turkic people[7] who mainly inhabit the Sakha (Yakutia) Republic.
The Yakut or Sakha language belongs to the Northern branch of the Turkic family of languages. Yakuts mainly live in the Republic of Sakha (Yakutia) in the Russian Federation, with some extending to the Amur, Magadan,Sakhalin regions, and the Taymyr and Evenki Autonomous Districts.
The Yakuts are divided into two basic groups based on geography and economics. Yakuts in the north are historically semi-nomadic hunters, fishermen, reindeer breeders, while southern Yakuts engage in animal husbandry focusing on horses and cattle.[8]
The Republic of Dagestan (/dɑːɡɨˈstɑːn/ or /ˈdæɡɨstæn/;Russian: Респу́блика Дагеста́н, Respublika Dagestan; also spelled Daghestan) is a federal subject (a republic) of Russia, located in the North Caucasus region. Its capital and largest cityis Makhachkala, located at the center of Dagestan on theCaspian Sea.
| Republic of Dagestan | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Республика Дагестан (Russian) | |||
| — Republic — | |||
| |||
| Anthem: National Anthem of the Republic of Dagestan | |||
 | |||
| Coordinates: 43°06′N 46°53′E | |||
| Political status | |||
| Country | Russia | ||
| Federal district | North Caucasian[1] | ||
| Economic region | North Caucasus[2] | ||
| Established | January 20, 1921[3] | ||
| Capital | Makhachkala | ||
PHoenix root in Dagestan -Russian roots;
The word Dagestan is of Turkic and Persian origin. Dağ means 'mountain' in Turkic and -stan is a Persian suffix meaning 'land'. The word Dagestan therefore means 'the land of mountains'. Dagestan used to be called Kohestan 'mountainous place' in Persian and Arabized as Ghahestan. When the Persian language gradually faded in those regions and the Turkic language prevailed, the Persian koh (kuh in contemporary Persian) was replaced with its Turkic equivalent dagh. The present city transliterated as Derbent is from the Persian Darband, meaning a point on a mountain that one cannot climb further. In Persian Islamic mysticism Darband is the place where Simorgh (Shahrokh or Phoenix) lives and is the end point and farthest point of the world that man can imagine.
Some areas of Dagestan were known as Albania, Avaria, and Tarkovat various times.[17]
The oldest records about the region refer to the state of Caucasian Albania in the south, with its capital at Derbent and other important centres at Chola,Toprakh Qala, and Urtseki. The northern parts were held by a confederation of Dagestani tribes. In the first few centuries AD, Caucasian Albania continued to rule over what is present day Azerbaijan and mountains of Dagestan. It was fought over in classical times by Rome and the Persian Sassanids and was early converted to Christianity.
In the 5th century AD, the Samian peregrinations took place from Ukraine to this land, they returned to their natal country by 150 BC. The Sassanids gained the upper hand and constructed a strong citadel at Derbent, known henceforward as the Caspian Gates, while the northern part of Dagestan was overrun by the Huns, followed by the Caucasian Avars. It is not clear whether the latter were instrumental in the rise of the Christian kingdom in the Central Dagestan highlands. Known as Sarir, this Avar-dominated state maintained a precarious existence in the shadow of Khazaria and the Caliphate until the 9th century, when it managed to assert its supremacy in the region.
In 664, the Persians were succeeded in Derbent by the Arabs who clashed with the Khazars. Although the local population rose against the Arabs of Derbent in 905 and 913, Islam was eventually adopted in urban centres, such asSamandar and Kubachi (Zerechgeran), from where it steadily penetrated into the highlands. By the 15th century, Albanian Christianity had died away, leaving a 10th-century church at Datuna as the sole monument to its existence.
Due to Muslim pressure and internal disunity, Sarir disintegrated in the early 12th century, giving way to the Khanate of Avaristan, a long-lived Muslim state that braved the devastating Mongol invasions of 1222 and 1239, followed by Tamerlane's raid in 1389.
As the Mongol authority gradually eroded, new centres of power emerged in Kaitagi andTarki. In the 16th and 17th centuries, legal traditions were codified and mountainous communities (djamaats) obtained a considerable degree of autonomy, while the Kumykpotentates (shamhals) asked for the Tsar's protection. Russians intensified their hold in the region in the 18th century, when Peter the Great annexed maritime Dagestan in the course of the First Russo-Persian War. Although the territories were returned to Persia in 1735, the next bout of hostilities resulted in the Russian capture of Derbent in 1796.
The 18th century also saw the resurgence of the Khanate of Avaristan, which managed to repulse the attacks of Nadir Shah of Persia and impose tribute on Shirvan and Georgia. In 1803 the khanate voluntarily submitted to Russian authority, but it took Persia a decade to recognize all of Dagestan as the Russian possession (Treaty of Gulistan).
The Russian administration, however, disappointed and embittered the highlanders. The institution of heavy taxation, coupled with the expropriation of estates and the construction of fortresses (including Makhachkala), electrified highlanders into rising under the aegis of the Muslim Imamate of Dagestan, led by Ghazi Mohammed (1828–32), Gamzat-bek (1832–34) and Shamil (1834–59). This Caucasian War raged until 1864, when Shamil was captured and the Khanate of Avaristan was abolished.
Dagestan and Chechnya profited from theRusso-Turkish War, 1877-1878, to rise together against Imperial Russia for the last time (Chechnya rose again various times throughout the late 19th and 20th centuries).
After the Bolshevik Revolution, Ottoman armies occupied Azerbaijan and Dagestan and the region became part of the short-lived Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus. After more than three years of fighting White movement reactionaries and local nationalists, the Bolsheviks achieved victory and the Dagestan Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic was proclaimed on 20 January 1921. Nevertheless, Stalin's industrialization largely bypassed Dagestan and the economy stagnated, making the republic the poorest region in Russia.
As with its neighbors Georgia, Azerbaijan and Chechnya, Dagestan developed a renewed nationalist movement in the late 1980s. Dagestani nationalism, however, rested on very unstable foundations, as the republic was (and is) extremely multiethnic, with many of its regions being recent additions, and even the existence of a unified Dagestan was relatively new with little historical context (previously, Avaria had been a separate entity, and most areas were completely unrelated to any sort of centralizing government). Dagestan's new elite, composed overwhelmingly of Avars, Dargins and Russians founded and consolidated its power. To this day, Dagestan is a very troubled region. There are various undergroundWahhabist/Islamist movements (some more moderate than others, there was also a constitutional Islamizationist party before it was banned), originating as early as the late 80s.
Dagestan's poor population, often displeased with the "official" clergy (who they deem as government puppets, either of the Dagestani government or of Russia), is occasionally drawn to these groups as a form or reaction against the government (not in the least because of the unifying power of the common Muslim religion in a highly multiethnic area paired with the promises of the Islamists to "end inequality, patriarchalism and corruptions of the true faith" paired with their occasional assistance to poor communities). However, attraction to Islamism varies between sectors of the population. People from Southern Dagestan, poorer people, people with a lower education level and people from certain ethnic groups are more inclined to support Islamist tendencies.[citation needed] Whilst people from Northern Dagestan, Russians (who are not Muslim), Turkic peoples (who are often highly syncretic in their practice and often drawn instead to Turkic nationalismas a revolt against the authorities), more wealthy people, people from the hundred-or-so "governmental families", people with a higher education, and groups who are officially "not-native" to Dagestan (Russians, Azerbaijanis, Chechens, etc., regardless of actual nativeness they are not "titular groups") are less inclined.[citation needed] Separatism is also prominent: various groups resent the dominance of Dargins, Avars and Russians in government and revolt against this by calling Dagestan an artificial nation and demanding higher self-determination (i.e. secessionism). This is most noticeable among the Kumyks.[citation needed]
In 1999, a group of Muslim fundamentalists from Chechnya, led by warlords Shamil Basayev and Ibn Al-Khattab, launched a military invasion of Dagestan, with the aim of creating an "independent Islamic State of Dagestan". Although Basayev and Khattab had expected that they would be welcomed as liberators, the Dagestanis instead saw them as occupiers and unwelcome religious fanatics, and the initial resistance against the invasion was provided by the Dagestani police, spontaneous militias and villagers.[citation needed] Once Russian military help arrived, the invaders were beaten and driven back to Chechnya. As a retaliation, Russian forces subsequently reinvaded Chechnya later that year.[citation needed]
The Huns were a group of nomadic people who first appeared in Europe from east of the Volga River, region of the earlier Scythians, with a migration intertwined with theAlans.[1] They were first mentioned as Hunnoi by Tacitus. Initially being near the Caspian Sea in 91 AD, the Huns migrated to the southeastern area of the Caucasus by about 150 AD[2] and into Europe by 370 AD, where they established a vast Hunnic Empire. Since de Guignes linked them with the Xiongnu, who had been northern neighbours ofChina 300 years prior to the emergence of the Huns,[3]considerable scholarly effort has been devoted to investigating such a connection. However, there is no scholarly consensus on a direct connection between the dominant element of the Xiongnu and that of the Huns.[4]Priscus mentions that the Huns had a language of their own; little of it has survived and its relationships have been the subject of debate for centuries. Numerous other languages were spoken within the Hun Pax, including Gothic (East Germanic), which would become the lingua franca of the Hunnic elite.[5][6][7][8] Their main military technique wasmounted archery.
The Huns may have stimulated the Great Migration, a contributing factor in the collapse of the western Roman Empire.[9] They formed a unified empire under Attila the Hun, who died in 453; their empire broke up the next year.
In 451, Attila's forces entered Gaul, with his army recruiting from the Franks, Goths and Burgundian tribes en route. Once in Gaul, the Huns first attacked Metz, then his armies continued westwards, passing both Paris and Troyes to lay siege toOrléans.
With the arrival of the Huns, a tradition of using more bone laths in composite bows arrived in Europe. Bone laths had long been used in the Levantine and Roman tradition, two to stiffen each of the two siyahs (the tips of the bow), for a total of four laths per bow. (The Scythian and Sarmatian bows, used for centuries on the European steppes until the arrival of the Huns, had no such laths.) A style that arrived in Europe with the Huns (after centuries of use on the borders of China), was stiffened by two laths on each siyah, and additionally reinforced on the grip by three laths, for a total of seven per bow.
In warfare they used the bow and javelin.[43] Early writers such as Ammianus (followed by Thompson) stated that they used primitive, bone-tipped arrowheads. Maenchen-Helfen outright disputes this claim. He states: "Had the Huns been unable to forge their swords and cast their arrow-heads, they never could have crossed the Don. The idea that the Hun horsemen fought their way to the walls of Constantinople and to the Marne with bartered and captured swords is absurd." (See: Maenchen-Helfen The World of the Hunsp 12) They also fought using iron swords and lassos in close combat. The Hun sword was a long, straight, double-edged sword of early Sassanian style. These swords were hung from a belt using the scabbard-slide method, which kept the weapon vertical.[citation needed] The Huns also employed a smaller short sword or large dagger which was hung horizontally across the belly. A symbol of status among the Huns was a gilded bow. Sword and dagger grips also were decorated with gold.
The Magyars (Hungarians) in particular lay claim to Hunnic heritage. Although Magyar tribes only began to settle in the geographical area of present-day Hungary in the very end of the 9th century, some 450 years after the dissolution of the Hunnic tribal confederation, Hungarian prehistory includes Magyar origin myths, which may have preserved some elements of historical truth. The Huns who invaded Europe represented a loose coalition of various peoples, so some Magyars might have been part of it, or may later have joined descendants of Attila's men, who still claimed the name of Huns. The national anthem of Hungary describes the Hungarians as "blood of Bendegúz'" (the medieval and modern Hungarian version ofMundzuk, Attila's father). Attila's brother Bleda is called Buda in modern Hungarian. Some medieval chronicles and literary works derive the name of the city of Buda from him. There is a legend among the Székely people that says: "After the death of Attila, in the bloody Battle of Krimhilda, 3000 Hun warriors managed to escape, to settle in a place called "Csigle-mező" (today Transylvania) and they changed their name from Huns to Szekler (Székely)." When Magyars came to Pannonia in the 8th century, the Szeklers joined them, and together they conquered Pannonia (today Hungary). There is also a lineage of that follows five generations rulers of the Huns and Magyars: Attila, his son Csaba, his son Ed, his son Ügyek, his son Előd, his son Álmos. Álmos was the ruler of the Magyars. Álmos son was Árpád. Taken from the ancientGesta Hunnorum et Hungarorum ("The Deeds of the Huns and Hungarians")
On July 27, 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion in China, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany gave the order to act ruthlessly towards the rebels: "Mercy will not be shown, prisoners will not be taken. Just as a thousand years ago, the Huns under Attila won a reputation of might that lives on in legends, so may the name of Germany in China, such that no Chinese will even again dare so much as to look askance at a German."[67]
The term "Hun" from this speech was later used for the Germans by British propaganda during World War I. The comparison was helped by the spiked Pickelhaube helmet worn by German forces until 1916, which would be reminiscent of images depicting ancient Hun helmets, some British[who?] found. This usage, emphasising the idea that the Germans were barbarians, was reinforced by Allied propaganda throughout the war. The French songwriter Theodore Botreldescribed the Kaiser as "an Attila, without remorse", launching "cannibal hordes".[68]
The usage of the term "Hun" to describe Germans resurfaced during World War II. For example Winston Churchill 1941 said in a broadcast speech: "There are less than 70,000,000 malignant Huns, some of whom are curable and others killable, most of whom are already engaged in holding down Austrians, Czechs, Poles and the many other ancient races they now bully and pillage."[69] Later that year Churchill referred to the invasion of the Soviet Union as "the dull, drilled, docile brutish masses of the Hun soldiery, plodding on like a swarm of crawling locusts."[70] During this time American President Franklin D. Roosevelt also referred to the German people in this way, saying that an Allied invasion intoSouthern France would surely "be successful and of great assistance to Eisenhower in driving the Huns from France."[71]Nevertheless, its use was less widespread than in the previous war. British and American World War II troops more often used the term "Jerry" or "Kraut" for their German opponents.
Caspian Sea International Port is the a key port handling crude oil, petroleum, construction materials, grain, cargo and timber and operates 24 hours a day.[12]
The port connects with the rest of Russia, as well as with Belarus, Ukraine, Baltic states, Iran, Turkey and Central Asia.[12]
A railyard at the port connects the port to the North Caucasus Railway network.[12]
Makhachkala is twinned with:
Sfax, Tunisia
Siping, China
Spokane, United States
Vladikavkaz, Russia
Yalova, Turkey
Ndola, Zambia
Oldenburg, Germany
Maharajganj, India
Sufism or taṣawwuf (Arabic: الصوفية) is a religious branch historically deriving fromSunni Islam,[1] defined by some adherents as the inner, mystical dimension of Islam, others contend that it is a perennial philosophy of existence that pre-dates religion, the expression of which flowered within Islam. Its essence has also been expressed via other religions and metareligious phenomena.[2][3][4] A practitioner of this tradition is generally known as a ṣūfī (صُوفِيّ). They belong to different ṭuruq or "orders"—congregations formed around a master—which meet for spiritual sessions (majalis), in meeting places known as zawiyahs, khanqahs, or tekke.[5]Sufi turuq/orders may trace many of their original precepts from the Islamic ProphetMuhammad through his cousin and son-in-law 'Alī, with the notable exception of theNaqshbandi who trace their origins through the first Caliph, Abu Bakr.[6] Prominent orders include Ba 'Alawiyya, Chishti, Rifa'i, Khalwati, Mevlevi, Naqshbandi,Nimatullahi, Oveyssi, Qadiria Boutshishia, Qadiriyyah, Qalandariyya, Sarwari Qadiri, Shadhiliyya and Suhrawardiyya.[7]
Sufis believe they are practicing ihsan (perfection of worship) as revealed byGabriel to Muhammad: "Worship and serve Allah as you are seeing Him and while you see Him not yet truly He sees you". Sufis consider themselves as the original true proponents of this pure original form of Islam. Sufism is opposed by Wahhabiand Salafist Muslims.
Classical Sufi scholars have defined Sufism as "a science whose objective is the reparation of the heart and turning it away from all else but God".[8] Alternatively, in the words of the Darqawi Sufi teacher Ahmad ibn Ajiba, "a science through which one can know how to travel into the presence of the Divine, purify one's inner self from filth, and beautify it with a variety of praiseworthy traits".[9]
Muslims and mainstream scholars of Islam (such as René Guénon and Cyril Glassé) define Sufism as simply the name for the inner or esoteric dimension of Islam[2] which is supported and complemented by outward or exoteric practices of Islam, such as Islamic law.[10] In this view, "it is absolutely necessary to be a Muslim" to be a true Sufi, because Sufism's "methods are inoperative without" Muslim "affiliation".[11] In contrast, author Idries Shah states Sufi philosophy is universal in nature, its roots predating the rise of Islam and Christianity.[12]Some schools of Sufism in Western countries allow non-Muslims to receive "instructions on following the Sufi path".[13]Some Muslim opponents of Sufism also consider it outside the sphere of Islam.[2][14]
Classical Sufis were characterised by their attachment to dhikr, (a practice of repeating the names of God, often performed after prayers)[15] and asceticism. Sufism gained adherents among a number of Muslims as a reaction against the worldliness of the early Umayyad Caliphate (661-750 CE[16]). Sufis have spanned several continents and cultures over a millennium, originally expressing their beliefs in Arabic, before spreading into Persian, Turkish, Indian languages and a dozen other languages.[17]
The Bektashi was closely affiliated with the Ottoman Janissary and is the heart of Turkey's large and mostly liberal Alevi population. It has been spread westwards to Cyprus, Greece, Albania, Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, Kosovo and more recently to the USA (via Albania). Most Sufi Orders have influences from pre-Islamic traditions such as Pythagoreanism, but the TurkicSufi traditions (including Alians, Bektashi and Mevlevi) also have traces of the ancient Tengrism shamanism.
Sufism is popular in such African countries as Morocco and Senegal, where it is seen as a mystical expression of Islam.[52]Sufism is traditional in Morocco but has seen a growing revival with the renewal of Sufism around contemporary spiritual teachers such as Sidi Hamza al Qadiri al Boutshishi. Mbacke suggests that one reason Sufism has taken hold in Senegal is because it can accommodate local beliefs and customs, which tend toward the mystical.[53]
The life of the Algerian Sufi master Emir Abd al-Qadir is instructive in this regard.[54] Notable as well are the lives ofAmadou Bamba and Hajj Umar Tall in sub-Saharan Africa, and Sheikh Mansur Ushurma and Imam Shamil in the Caucasus region. In the twentieth century some more modernist Muslims have called Sufism a superstitious religion that holds back Islamic achievement in the fields of science and technology.[55]
A number of Westerners have embarked with varying degrees of success on the path of Sufism. One of the first to return to Europe as an official representative of a Sufi order, and with the specific purpose to spread Sufism in Western Europe, was the Swedish-born wandering Sufi Abd al-Hadi Aqhili (also known as Ivan Aguéli). René Guénon, the French scholar, became a Sufi in the early twentieth century and was known as Sheikh Abdul Wahid Yahya
Tengrism (sometimes stylized as Tengriism), occasionally referred to asTengrianism , is a modern term[1] for a Central Asian religion characterized by features of shamanism, animism, totemism, both polytheism andmonotheism,[2][3][4] and ancestor worship. Historically, it was the mainstream religion of the Turks, Mongols, Hungarians, and Bulgars as well as theXiongnu and the Huns.[5][6] It was the state religion of the six ancient Turkic states: Göktürks Khaganate, Avar Khaganate, Western Turkic Khaganate,Great Bulgaria, Bulgarian Empire and Eastern Tourkia.
As a modern revival, Tengrism has been advocated[dubious ] among intellectual circles of the Turkic nations of Central Asia, including Tatarstan,Buryatia, Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan, in the years following the dissolution of the Soviet Union (1990s to present).[7] It is still actively practiced and undergoing an organised revival in Yakutia, Khakassia, Tuva, and other Turkic nations within Russia. Burkhanism is a movement kindred to Tengrism concentrated in Altay.
Khukh and Tengri literally mean "blue" and "sky" in Mongolian and modernMongolians still pray to "Munkh Khukh Tengri" ("Eternal Blue Sky"). Therefore Mongolia is sometimes poetically referred to by Mongolians as the "Land of Eternal Blue Sky" ("Munkh Khukh Tengriin Oron" in Mongolian). In modern TurkeyTengriism is also known as the Göktanrı dini, "Sky God religion",[8] Turkish "Gök" (sky) and "Tanrı" (God) corresponding to the Mongolian khukh (blue) and Tengri (sky), respectively.
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Montpellier#Modern_history
Hérault is one of the original 83 departments created during the French Revolution on 4 March 1790. It was created from part of the former province of Languedoc.At the beginning of the 20th century, viticulture in the region was devastated by a slump in sales combined with disease affecting the vines, and thousands of small scale producers revolted. This revolt was suppressed very harshly by the government of Georges Clemenceau.The catastrophic frost of the winter of 1956 damaged the olive trees, and the olive-growing regions did not recover until the late 1980s. Many of the olive-industry co-ops closed.During the second half of the twentieth century the Montpellier basin underwent one of the most rapid population increases experienced anywhere in France.
A gardian is a mounted cattle herdsman in the Camargue delta in Provence, southern France. The work is akin to that of the charro or cowboy.
Camargue Equitation is the traditional style of working riding of the gardian herders of theCamargue region of southern France. It is closely associated with the Camargue horse, withCamargue cattle, and with the bouvino, the traditional cultural world of cattle-farming in the Camargue.[1]
- Umay - Goddess of fertility and virginity
- Bai-Ulgan - Highest deity after Tengri
- Erlik - God of death
- Flag of Sakha Republic
- Flag of Kazakhstan
- Flag of Chuvashia
- Flag of Turkey
- Göktürk coins
- Tree of Life
Holy mountains and lakes
- Ak Deniz (White sea)
- Kara Deniz (Black sea)
- Kara Sea (Black sea)
- Beydigin Mountains
- Gökırmak (Sky river)
- Kızılırmak (Red river)
- Tian Shan
- Khan Tengri
Kazakhstan
- Kyzyl-bash
- Altai Mountains
Mongolia
- Issyk Kul:
Kyrgyzstan
- Musala
Bulgaria
- Perperikon[13]
Historical Tengri
Main article: Tengri
Historical Tengrism surrounded the cult of the sky god and chief deity Tengriand incorporated elements ofshamanism, animism, totemism andancestor worship. It lost its importance when the Uighuric kagans proclaimedManichaeism the state religion in the 8th century.[15]
Tengriism also played a large part in the religious denomination of the Gok-Turk Empire and the Great Mongol Empire. The name “Gok-Turk” translates as “Celestial Turk” which directly points out to the devotion to Tengriism. In the 13th century, Genghis Khan and several generations of his followers were also Tengrian believers until his fifth generation descendent Uzbeg Khan turned to Islam in the 14th century.
The original Great Mongol Khans, although they were followers of Tengri and believed to have received a heavenly mandate to rule the world from him, were nonetheless known for their tolerance towards other confessions.[16] Ancient Mongols' main symbolic items were Great khan and Suld tug for Eternal sky. Tengeriism main ideology consisted three good things which are Eternel sky, Great king and Suld banner. This fact is well described a statement made by Möngke Khan, the fourth Great Khan of the Mongol empire: “We believe that there is only one God, by whom we live and by whom we die, and for whom we have an upright heart. But as God gives us the different fingers of the hand, so he gives to men diverse ways to approach Him.” (“Account of the Mongols. Diary of William Rubruck”, Religious debate in court. Documented by W. Rubruck in May 31, 1254.). In the context of the modern revival, the term is sometimes used in a much wider sense of the mythology of the Turkic and Mongolian peoples and Central Asian shamanism in general.
Tengrist movement in Central Asia
A revival of Tengrism has played a certain role in modern-day Turkic nationalism in Central Asia since the 1990s. In its early phase, it developed in Tatarstan, where a Tengrist periodical, Bizneng-Yul, appeared from 1997. The movement spread through other parts of Central Asia in the 2000s, to Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan in particular, and to a lesser extent also to Buriatia and Mongolia (Laruelle 2006).
Since the 1990s, it has also become usual in Russian language literature to use the term Тенгрианство (variously rendered tengrianism or tengrianity) in a much more general sense of "Mongolian shamanism, to the inclusion of all "esoteric traditions" native to Central Asia. Buryat scholar Irina S. Urbanaeva developed a theory of such "Tengrianist Esoteric Traditions of Central Asia" during the years following the collapse of the Soviet Union and the resulting revival of national sentiment in the former Soviet Republics of Central Asia.[17]
While the Tengrist movement has very few active adherents, its discourse of the rehabilitation of a "national religion" reaches a much larger audience, especially in intellectual circles. Presenting, as it does, Islam as being foreign to the Turkic peoples, adherents are mostly found among the nationalistic parties of Central Asia. Tengrism can thus be interpreted as the Turkic version of Russian neopaganism. Another related phenomenon is that of the revival ofZoroastrianism in Tajikistan (Laruelle 2006).
By 2006, there was a Tengrist society in Bishkek, and an "international scientific centre of Tengrist studies", run by Kyrgyz businessman and politician Dastan Sarygulov. Sarygulov has also established the civic group "Tengir Ordo" ("army of Tengri"), his ideology incorporating strong features of ethnocentrism and Pan-Turkism, but his ideas did not find large support. After the Kyrgyzstani presidential elections of 2005, Sarygulov received the position of state secretary, and he also set up a special working group dealing with ideological issues.[18] Another Kyrgyz proponent of Tengrism, Kubanychbek Tezekbaev, was put on trial for inciting religious and ethnic hatred in 2011 because of statements he made in an interview, where he described Kyrgyz mullahs as "former alcoholics and murderers".[19]
In the judgement of Laruelle (2006), Tengrism
- " allows, in urbanized and deeply Russified circles, a hope for reconnecting with the past: nomadism, yurts, cattle breeding, the contact with nature, all those elements that form part of the Kyrgyz and Kazakh national imaginative world which people have tried to rehabilitate since the disappearance of the Soviet Union and its ideology. [...] One can, however, notice the risks of a radicalization of the Tengrist discourse into words tinged with anti-Semitism, anti-western views and xenophobia"
Tengriism in Arghun Khan's letter to the King of France (1289 AD)
Arghun Khan expressed the association of Tengri with imperial legitimacy and military success. The Majesty (Suu) of the Khan is a divine grace or stamp granted by Tengri to a chosen individual and through which Tengri controls the world order, in other words it is the special presence of Tengri in the person of the Great Khan. Note in this letter that the divine name 'Tengri' or 'Mongke Tengri' (Eternal Heaven) is always placed at the top of the sentence, even if the former sentence has to look like it is incomplete when the divine name is moved to top of the next sentence. In the middle of the magnified section, the sacred phrase 'Tengri-yin Kuchin' (Power of Tengri) stands completely separate from the other sentences, forming a sacred pause before being followed by the phrase 'Khagan-u Suu' (Majesty of the Khan):
“Under the Power of the Eternal Tengri. Under the Majesty of the Khan (Kublai Khan). Arghun Our word. To the Ired Farans (King of France). Last year you sent your ambassadors led by Mar Bar Sawma telling Us: "if the soldiers of the Il-Khan ride in the direction of Misir (Egypt) we ourselves will ride from here and join you", which words We have approved and said (in reply) "praying to Tengri (Heaven) We will ride on the last month of winter on the year of the tiger and descend on Dimisq (Damascus) on the 15th of the first month of spring." Now, if, being true to your words, you send your soldiers at the appointed time and, worshipping Tengri, we conquer those citizens (of Damascus together), We will give you Orislim (Jerusalem). How can it be appropriate if you were to start amassing your soldiers later than the appointed time and appointment? What would be the use of regretting afterwards? Also, if, adding any additional messages, you let your ambassadors fly (to Us) on wings, sending Us luxuries, falcons, whatever precious articles and beasts there are from the land of the Franks, the Power of Tengri (Tengri-yin Kuchin) and the Majesty of the Khan (Khagan-u Suu) only knows how We will treat you favorably. With these words We have sent Muskeril (Buscarello) the Khorchi. Our writing was written while We were at Khondlon on the sixth khuuchid (6th day of the old moon) of the first month of summer on the year of the cow.”
Tengriism in Arghun Khan's letter to Pope Nicholas IV (1290 AD)
Arghun Khan expressed the non-dogmatic side of Tengriism. (Note the divine name 'Mongke Tengri' (Eternal Tengri) is always at the top of the sentence in this letter, in accordance with Mongolian Tengriist writing rules):
“...Your saying 'May [the Ilkhan] receive silam (baptism)' is legitimate. We say: 'We the descendants of Genghis Khan, keeping our own proper Mongol identity, whether some receive silam or some don't, that is only for Eternal Tengri (Heaven) to know (decide).' People who have received silam and who, like you, have a truly honest heart and are pure, do not act against the religion and orders of the Eternal Tengri and of Misiqa (Messiah or Christ). Regarding the other peoples, those who, forgetting the Eternal Tengri and disobeying him, are lying and stealing, are there not many of them? Now, you say that we have not received silam, you are offended and harbor thoughts of discontent. [But] if one prays to Eternal Tengri and carries righteous thoughts, it is as much as if he had received silam. We have written our letter in the year of the tiger, the fifth of the new moon of the first summer month (May 14th, 1290), when we were in Urumi.”
Nestorianism and Tengriism
Tengrism is often called as Nestorianism by Christian devices.[20] Turkish Nestorian manuscripts, that have the same rune-like duct as the Old Turkic script, have been found especially in the oasis of Turfan and in the fortress of Miran.[21][22][23][24][25][26] When and by whom the Bible or any part thereof have been translated into Turkish for the first time, is completely in the dark.[27] Most of these written records in the pre-Islamic era of Central Asia are written in the Old Turkic language.[28] Nestorian Christianity also had followers among the Uighurs. In the Nestorian sites of Turfan, a fresco depicting the rites of Palm Sunday has been discovered.[29]
Principles of Tengrism
- There exists one supreme God, Tengri. He is the unknowable One who knows everything, which is why Turks and Mongols say 'Only Tengri knows' /gagtskhuu Tenger medne/. He is the Judge of people's good and bad actions, which is why it is said 'Tengri will be angry if you sin' /Tenger khilegnene/. Tengri can bless a person richly but can also utterly destroy those whom he dislikes. His actions cannot be predicted. His ways are difficult to know.
- Tengri is the intelligence and power behind all of nature. Everything is ultimately controlled by him, from the weather to the fate of individuals and nations, which is why Genghis Khan says in the Altan Tobchi: 'I have not become Lord thanks to my own bravery and strength, I have become Lord thanks to the love of our mighty father Tengri. I have defeated my enemies thanks to the assistance of our father Tengri. I have not become Khan thanks to my own all-embracing prowess. I have become Lord thanks to the love of our father Khan Tengri. I have defeated alien enemies thanks to the mercy of our father Khan Tengri.'
- There exists many other spirits or 'angels' besides Tengri. These spirits are diverse. They can be good or bad or of mixed temperament. They can be gods residing in the upper heavenly world, wandering evil spirits from the underworld, spirits of the land, water, stars and planets or spirits of the ancestors. They can be in charge of certain tribes or of certain nations. Under Tengri these spirits all have some limited influence, but it is near impossible for normal people to contact them. Only chosen people can contact them. Chosen people can also do the same thing these spirits do, like send destructive thunderstorms on enemy soldiers (as occurs in the Secret History of the Mongols).
- The spirits can harm people or act as agents in transmitting a message or prophecy about the future. In the Secret History of the Mongols it is said the spirits of the land and water of Northern China were angry about the slaughter of the local population and harmed the Mongol Ogedei Khan with an illness that left him in bed unable to speak. In the Secret History, a spirit called Zaarin transmits a prophecy about the future rise of Genghis Khan.
- There is no 'one true religion'. Humanity has not reached full enlightenment. Nonetheless Tengri will not leave the guilty unpunished and the virtuous unrewarded. Those upright in spirit and righteous in thought are acceptable to Tengri, even if they followed different religions. Tengri has given different paths for man. A man may be Buddhist, Christian or Muslim, but only Tengri knows the righteous. A man may change his tribal allegiance but still be upright. Tribal customs can be changed if they are harmful to people, which is why Genghis Khan did away with many previous customs in order to ensure orderly government.
- All people are weak and therefore shortcomings should be tolerated. Different religions and customs should be tolerated. Like the life of the nomads, peoples' lives are difficult enough and subject to the pressures of nature. No one is perfect before Tengri, which is why Genghis Khan said: 'If there is no means to prevent drunkenness, a man may become drunk thrice a month; if he oversteps this limit he makes himself guilty of a punishable offence. If he is drunk only twice a month, that is better — if only once, that is more praiseworthy. What could be better than that he should not drink at all? But where shall we find a man who never drinks? If, however, such a man is found, he deserves every respect.'
Camargue horses are always gray. This means that they have black skin underlying a white hair coat as adult horses. They are born with a hair coat that is black or dark brown in colour, but as they grow to adulthood, their hair coat becomes ever more intermingled with white hairs until it is completely white. They are small horses, generally standing 135–150 centimetres (13.1–14.3hands) at the withers, and weighing 350 to 500 kg (770 to 1,100 lb).[2] Despite their small size, they have the strength to carry grown adults. Considered rugged and intelligent, they have a short neck, deep chest, compact body, well-jointed, strong limbs and a full mane and tail.The head has many similarities to the Barb horse. It is often heavy, square and expressive, with bright, wide-set eyes, a straight profile, flat forehead and well-chiseled cheek bones.The ears are small, short, and set well apart. The forelock is full. The breed has a neck of medium length with an abundant mane. The chest is deep and wide, and the shoulder is powerful and muscular. Thewithers must be defined but not exaggerated. The Camargue horse has a medium length back, well-supported, and a slightly sloping full croup, well-muscled hindquarters, and a low set, fulltail. The Camargue horse has long legs which are well proportioned, strong and resistant, with large knees and hocks. Their hooves are hard and tough, with soles that are large and wide, suited to its original marshy habitat.
Registration
Since 2003, three registration categories exist to identify Camargue horses:CamargueHorses registered in the stud book, foaled and identified in Camargue area, branded before weaning, and from a manade (a small, semi-feral herd structure). The berceau or cradle of the breed is strictly defined, and consists of 45 communes in the départements of Bouches-du-Rhône, Gard and Hérault.[3]Camargue hors manadeHorses registered in the stud book, foaled and identified in Camargue area, and not from a manade.[3]Camargue hors berceauHorses registered in the stud book, foaled and identified outside of the Camargue area.[3]There exists a strong sense of regionalism in Camargue area, so registration for the horses is treated similarly to an Appellation d'origine contrôlée.[4]
The "Cavallo del Delta"
The Camargue horse was introduced in the 1970s to the Po delta in Italy, where under the name "Cavallo del Delta" it is treated as an indigenous breed.[5] In 2011 the registered population numbered 163.[6]The Camargue is home to more than 400 species of birds and has been identified as anImportant Bird Area (IBA) by BirdLife International.[1] Its brine ponds provide one of the few European habitats for the greater flamingo.
The marshes are also a prime habitat for many species of insects, notably (and notoriously) some of the most ferocious mosquitos to be found anywhere in France. It is also famous for the Camargue Bull and the Camargue Horse
The Camargue horse is an ancient breed of horse indigenous to the Camargue area in southernFrance. Its origins remain relatively unknown, although it is generally considered one of the oldest breeds of horses in the world. For centuries, possibly thousands of years,[1] these small horses have lived wild in the harsh environment of the Camargue marshes and wetlands of theRhone delta, which covers part of the départements of Gard and Bouches-du-Rhone. There they developed the stamina, hardiness and agility for which they are known today. Traditionally, they live in semi-feral conditions in the marshy land of the region. The Camargue horse is the traditional mount of the gardians, the Camargue "cowboys" who herd the black Camargue bullsused in bullfighting in southern France. Camargue horses galloping through water is a popular and romantic image of the region.
.The flora of the Camargue is specially adapted to cope with the saline conditions. Sea lavenderand glasswort flourish, along with tamarisks and reeds.
Humans have lived in the Camargue for millennia, greatly affecting it with drainage schemes,dykes, rice paddies and salt pans. Much of the outer Camargue has been drained for agricultural purposes. The Camargue has its own eponymous horse breed, the famous white Camarguais ridden by the gardians, who rear the region's fighting bulls for export to Spain, as well as sheep. Many of these animals are raised in semi-feral conditions within a Manade.
Romani people in France
Guitar player Django Reinhardt.Ritual bath in Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer, a shrine associated with Romani people.A seal on a document on theMontreuil-Bellay "nomadconcentration camp (1943).French Romani people are generally known in spoken French as "Manouches" or "Tsiganes". The terms "Romanichel" and "Gitan" are considered pejorative[citation needed], and "Bohémien" is outdated. The French National Gendarmerie tends to refer to "MENS" ("Minorités Ethniques Non-Sédentarisées"), a neutral administrative term meaning "Travelling Ethnic Minorities".Approximately 400,000 Romanies live in France as part of established communities. Additionally, French Romani rights group FNASAT report that there are at least 12,000 Roma (Romani subgroup) who come from Romania and Bulgaria living in illegal urban camps throughout the country. French authorities often close down these encampments. In 2009, more than 10,000 Roma were sent back to Romania and Bulgaria.[1]In 2009, the European Committee of Social Rights found France to violate the European Social Charter (rights to housing, right to protection against poverty and social exclusion, right of the family to protection) in respect of Romani population.[2]
2010 repatriationsEdit
Main article: French Romani repatriationOn 16 July 2010, French police shot and killed a 22-year-old French Romani man who fled a police check-point by driving through it in a BMW car. In retaliation, a group later identified as 'travellers' ("Gens du voyage") attacked and pillaged the village of Saint-Aignan in central France. The local mayor described the disturbances as "a settling of scores between the travellers and the gendarmerie".[3][4][5] On the same night and for a few nights thereafter, riots erupted in aGrenoble neighborhood. French police in pursuit, having been shot at on three occasions during the chase, in turn shot and killed Karim Boudouda, a 27-year-old resident involved in a robbery at the Uriage-les-Bains casino near the border with Switzerland.[6][7][8]On 30 July, the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, made a speech in Grenoble concerning the recent events, both there and at Saint-Aignan. He said that anyone who "threatens the life of a police officer or anybody involved in public policing” should have their nationality revoked.[9] He criticized demonstrations against the police that occurred in both cases after perpetrators were killed while committing criminal acts and wantonly endangering police officers' lives, and in this context he was reported as saying that 'he had asked the interior minister to "put an end to the wild squatting and camping of the Roma" as well as to prevent further destruction by the rioters in Grenoble. As president, he said, (he) could not accept the fact that there were 539 illegal Romani camps in his country, and he promised that half of them would be gone within three months.[10]On Sunday, 15 August, a group of Roma and nearly 250 of their vehicles blocked a major bridge near Bordeaux after being evicted from their campsite in the nearby town of Anglet. The blockade was the first major public protest of Sarkozy’s evictions of Roma all over France.[11]Sarkozy's office released a statement naming the camps as "sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime".[1] The first groups of Roma left the country on 19 August 2010, and French authorities insisted that they did so voluntarily after offered a resettlement sum of €300 for each adult and €100 for each child.[12] However, the alternative is facing the chance of forcible expulsion in a month.[13] The first flight carried 79 Roma back to their original Romania and over 290 more deportations were scheduled for the following week. Interior Minister Brice Hortefeux planned to work with Sarkozy to dismantle half of the illegal camps in France by November 2010. By the end of the month Hortefeux broke up 51 camps and expelled 700 Roma.[14] France recognizes a threat in Roma returning after they are repatriated to Romania (since many have Romanian passports). The French fingerprint the deportees to ensure that they cannot receive more “handouts” from France. Many repatriated Roma say they will return to France after they are expelled, prompting authorities to fingerprint them upon repatriation. An advisor to the Romanian foreign minister and an ethnic Roma himself, Gheorghe Radulescu, has said of the deportations, “It’s a waste of money with no result. They just opened up a way for our Gypsies to get some money.”[15] In 2009 alone, approximately 10,000 Roma were deported from France, and virtually all of them returned several weeks after they were deported.[14] If they are citizens of the European Union, Roma from Romania and Bulgaria are permitted to travel to France and stay for up to three months. If they “find work, start studies, or find some other way of becoming established in France” they are allowed to stay, but if they do not then they risk deportation. The French government said that the Roma that were expelled in the 19 August group had overstayed their three-month limit without meeting any of the requirements to legally stay for longer.[16]There were more protests on 4 September, this time totaling between 77,000 and 100,000 people protesting the government’s Roma deportation policy in over 130 French towns. Hortefeux downplayed the protests, calling them a “disappointment” for the organizers.[17]On 14 September, Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for Justice, Fundamental Rights and citizenship made a statement on the recent developments on the Roma situation in France. She called the repatriations “a disgrace”. She also stated, "I am personally convinced the commission will have no choice but to initiate infringement action against France".[18] Her speech came after the 9 September leak of instructions from the French interior ministry saying that the evacuation of 300 illegal camps within three months, with the Roma camps being a “priority.”[19] A few days before the memo was leaked, France’s immigration minister, Eric Besson, insisted that the eviction policy was not being aimed at the Roma and that all migrants not meeting France’s residency laws were being treated equally.[20] Even though Reding threatened initiating legal action against France, on 19 October she said she was content that France responded “positively” to the official request from the European Commission and that the Commission would not be pursuing any infringement procedures. Although the Commission did not pursue any procedures, it did demand that France provide more evidence that Roma were not being intentionally targeted.[21]Opponents of the expulsions claimed that France, as a member of the European Union, violated the individual rights to freedom of movement as citizens of Romania and Bulgaria, both EU member nations.[13] In fact, according to the terms of accession of Romania and Bulgaria to the EU, France and several other EU countries had reserved the right to limit immigration from these countries (for a few years) to those with work permits, and the expulsions thus did not violate EU rules or France's obligations to the EU. Nevertheless, on 18 August, the EU Commission for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship reminded France of this right of EU citizens and announced that it would continue to monitor the deportation procedures.[22] French authorities argue that they have not violated their obligations to The Freedom of Movement directive because the directive allows for deportation of an EU citizen under circumstances where an individual has resided in a certain country for more three months and cannot provide evidence of sufficient means to stay, for example through employment, or poses a "genuine, present and sufficiently serious threat for public policy or public security".[23] Immigration minister Eric Besson has also said, “Free movement in the European area doesn't mean free settlement. What has been forgotten is that each of the European countries is responsible for its own national citizens."[20]In response to the events, Romanian President Traian Băsescu acknowledged the problems arising from Roma encampments but insisted on the "right of every European citizen to move freely in the EU". Members of the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have also criticized the expulsions, labeling them as signs of racism andxenophobia.[1] France responded to the Committee’s claims and insisted that the actions that had been taken, "fully conform with European rules and do not in any way affect the freedom of movement for EU citizens, as defined by treaties."[24] Critics accused Sarkozy, whose approval rating had dropped to a low of 25 per cent and whose government has been involved in several scandals, of using the incident for his political gain.[25] Opinion polls conducted of French voters indicate that a majority approved the deportation measures.[1]
2011 repatriationsEdit
France continues to deport Roma back to their homeland of Romania even after Sarkozy’s three-month Roma eviction policy ended last year. On 12 April a chartered flight left northern France headed for Timisoara in western Romania with as many as 160 Roma on board. Like in the 2010 deportations, those who left France received 300 euros and each Roma child was given 100 euros. The Roma on the 12 April flight all signed declarations that they would never return to France.[26] On 9 August, the city of Marseille in southern France forcibly evicted 100 Roma people via a municipal order who had settled in a makeshift camp near Porte d’Aix. They were given 24 hours to break down their camps and leave.[27] It has also been reported that a chartered flight carrying approximately 150 Roma back to Romania left the Lyon area on 20 September.[28]France’s goal for 2011 is to deport 30,000 Roma back to their home country.[29] As of 2012, France sent about 8,000 Roma back to Romania and Bulgaria in 2011, after dismantling illegal camps where they were living on the outskirts of cities. The actions prompted controversy and calls for greater inclusion of Roma people.[30]
2012 evictions and repatriationsEdit
In August 2012 the Socialist government of François Hollande began evicting and dismantling Roma camps and deporting Roma. Reuters reported that a charter plane flew 240 Roma, including children, back to Bucharest, Romania, from Lyon.[31] According to Manuel Valls,Minister of the Interior the evictions were based on sanitary concerns and tensions with working class neighbors
Romani people
Not to be confused with Romanians, an unrelated ethnic group and nation.For other uses, see Romani (disambiguation).This page has some issuesRomani peopleRromane dźeneRomani flag created in 1933 and accepted by the 1971 World Romani CongressTotal populationUncertain; estimates range from 2 million to more than 12 million[1][2][3]See Romani people by country for the entire list of countries and other estimations.(Estimations might differ substantially.)Regions with significant populationsUnited States1,000,000(0.32%).[4]Brazil800,000(0.41%)[5]Spain650,000(1.62%)[6]Romania619,007(3.25%)[7]Turkey500,000(0.72%)[8]France500,000(0.79%)[9]Bulgaria370,908(4.67%)[10]Hungary205,720(2.02%)[11]Greece200,000(1.82%)[12]Slovakia189,920(1.71%)[13]Russia182,766(0.13%)[14]Serbia147,604(2.05%)[15]Italy130,000(0.22%)[16]Germany120,000(0.15%)[17]United Kingdom90,000(0.15%)[18]Macedonia53,879(2.85%)[19]Mexico53,000(0.05%)[20]Sweden50,000 - 100,000[21]Ukraine47,587(0.098%)[22]Portugal30,000 - 50,000(0.3%)Languageslanguages of the region, RomaniReligionChristianity(Catholicism, Orthodoxy, Protestantism),Islam,[23]Related ethnic groupsDom, Lom, Domba; other Indo-AryansRomani Wagon in Germany in 1935Recent Romani wagon inGrandborough (Grandbourough Fields Road is a popular spot for travelling people)The Romani are an ethnic group living mostly in Europe and the Americas.[24] Romani are widely known in the English-speaking world by the exonym "Gypsies" (or Gipsies) and also as Romany,Romanies, Romanis, Roma or Roms; in their language, Romani, they are known collectively asRomane or Rromane (depending on the dialect).Romani are widely dispersed, with their largest concentrated populations in Europe,[citation needed]especially the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe and Anatolia, followed by the Kale of Iberiaand Southern France.[citation needed] They originated from India and arrived in the Middle East first and then in Europe by the 14th century,[25] either separating from the Dom people or, at least, having a similar history;[26] the ancestors of both the Romani and the Dom left North Indiasometime between the 6th and 11th century.[25]Since the 19th century, some Romani have also migrated to the Americas. There are an estimated one million Roma in the United States;[4] and 800,000 in Brazil, most of whose ancestors emigrated in the nineteenth century from eastern Europe. Brazil also includes Romani descended from people deported by the government of Portugal during the Inquisition in the colonial era.[27] In migrations since the late nineteenth century, Romani have also moved to Canada and countries in South America.[28]The Romani language is divided into several dialects, which add up to an estimated number of speakers larger than two million.[29] The total number of Romani people is at least twice as large (several times as large according to high estimates). Many Romani are native speakers of the language current in their country of residence, or of mixed languages combining the two; thosevarieties are sometimes called Para-Romani.[30]
Names
Population and subgroups
History
Society and traditional culture
Contemporary art and culture
Spatial distribution of dialects in Alsace-Lorraine prior to the expansion of standard French in the 20th centuryBoth Germanic and Romance dialects were traditionally spoken in Alsace-Lorraine before the 20th century.Germanic dialects:Central German dialects:Luxembourgish Franconian in the north-west of Moselle (Lothringen) around Thionville(Diddenuewen in the local Luxembourgish dialect) and Sierck-les-Bains (Siirk in the local Luxembourgish dialect)Moselle Franconian in the central northern part of Moselle around Boulay-Moselle (Bolchinin the local Moselle Franconian dialect) and Bouzonville (Busendroff in the local Moselle Franconian dialect)Rhine Franconian in the north-east of Moselle around Forbach (Fuerboch in the local Rhine Franconian dialect), Bitche (Bitsch in the local Rhine Franconian dialect), and Sarrebourg(Saarbuerj in the local Rhine Franconian dialect), as well as in the north-west of Alsace aroundSarre-UnionTransitional between Central German and Upper German:South Franconian in the northernmost part of Alsace around Wissembourg (Waisseburch in the local South Franconian dialect)Upper German dialects:Alsatian in the largest part of Alsace and in a few villages in the extreme east of Moselle. Alsatian was the most spoken dialect in Alsace-Lorraine.High Alemannic in the southernmost part of Alsace, around Saint-Louis and Ferrette (Pfirt in the local High Alemannic dialect)Romance dialects (belonging to the langues d'oïl like French):Lorrain in roughly the southern half of Moselle, including its capital Metz, as well as in some valleys of the Vosges Mountains in the west of Alsace around Schirmeck and Sainte-Marie-aux-MinesFranc-Comtois in 12 villages in the extreme south-west of AlsaceIn this chaotic situation, Alsace-Lorraine's Landtag proclaimed itself the supreme authority of the land with the name of Nationalrat, the Soviet of Strasbourg claimed the foundation of a Republic of Alsace-Lorraine, while SPD Reichstag representative for Colmar, Jacques Peirotes, announced the establishment of the French rule, urging Paris to send troops quickly.[11]While the soviet councils disbanded themselves with the departure of the German troops between November 11 and 17,[12] the arrival of the French Army stabilized the situation: French troops put the region under occupatio bellica and entered Strasbourg on November 21. The Nationalrat proclaimed the annexation of Alsace to France on December 5, even though this process did not gain international recognition until the signature of the Treaty of Versailles in 1919.Alsace-Lorraine was divided into the départements of Haut-Rhin, Bas-Rhin and Moselle (the same political structure as before the annexation and as created by the French Revolution, with slightly different limits). Today, these territories enjoy laws that are significantly different from the rest of France – these specific provisions are known as the local law.The département Meurthe-et-Moselle was maintained even after France recovered Alsace-Lorraine in 1919. The area of Belfort became a special status area and was not reintegrated intoHaut-Rhin in 1919 but instead was made a full-status département in 1922 under the nameTerritoire-de-Belfort.[13]The French Government immediately started a Francization campaign that included the forced deportation of all Germans who had settled in the area after 1870. For that purpose, the population was divided in four categories: A (French citizens prior to 1870), B (descendants of such French citizens), C (citizens of Allied or neutral states) and D (enemy aliens - Germans). Until July 1921 100,000 people categorized as "D" were expelled to Germany.[14][15] German-language Alsatian newspapers were also suppressed.
Aftermath
After France was defeated in the spring of 1940, Alsace and Moselle were not officially annexed by Germany. However they were administered from Berlin until German defeat in 1945, when they were returned to France. During the occupation, Moselle was integrated into a Reichsgau namedWestmark and Alsace was amalgamated with Baden. About 130,000 young men from Alsace-Lorraine were also drafted or volunteered to serve in the German Wehrmacht or the Waffen-SSduring the Second World War, mostly on the eastern front (40,000 of them were killed or missing in action). When Alsace-Lorraine was returned to France after the Second World War, the fact that many young men from the area had served (mostly by force) in the German Army, and even theWaffen-SS, resulted in tensions between Alsace-Lorraine and other parts of France.[16]
DemographicsEdit
First language (1900)
German: 1,492,347 (86.8%)[17]Other Languages: 219,638 (12.8%)[17]French: 198,318 (11.5%)Italian: 18,750 (1.1%)Polish: 1,410 (0.1%)German and a second language : 7,485 (0.4%)
Religion
When Alsace and the Lorrain department became part of Germany, the French laws regarding religious bodies were preserved, with special privileges to the then recognised religions of Calvinism, Judaism, Lutheranism and Roman Catholicism, under a system known as theConcordat. However, the Roman Catholic dioceses of Metz and of Strasbourg became exemptjurisdictions. The Church of Augsburg Confession of France, with its directory, supreme consistory and the bulk of its parishioners residing in Alsace, was reorganised as the Protestant Church of Augsburg Confession of Alsace and Lorraine (EPCAAL) in 1872, but territorially reconfined to Alsace-Lorraine only. The five local Calvinist consistories, originally part of theReformed Church of France, formed a statewide synod in 1895, the Protestant Reformed Church of Alsace and Lorraine (EPRAL). The three Israelite consistories in Colmar, Metz and Strasbourg were disentangled from supervision by the Israelite Central Consistory of France and continued as separate statutory corporations which never formed a joint body, but cooperated. All the mentioned religious bodies retained the status as établissements publics de culte (public bodies of cult). When the new Alsace-Lorrain constitution of 1911 provided for a bicameral state parliament (Landtag of Alsace-Lorraine) each recognised religion was entitled to send a representative into the first chamber of the Landtag as ex officio members (the bishops of Strasbourg and of Metz, the presidents of EPCAAL and EPRAL, and a delegate of the three Israelite consistories).
Religious statistics in 1910
Population 1,874,014 :[17]Protestant: 21.78% (18.87% Lutherans, 2.91% Calvinists)Catholic: 76.22%Other Christian: 0.21%Jewish: 1.63%Atheist: 0.12%
Statistics (1866–2010)
YearPopulationCause of change18661,596,198–18751,531,804After incorporation into the German Empire, 100,000 to 130,000 people left for France and French Algeria19101,874,014+0.58% population growth per year during 1875-191019211,709,749Death of young men in the German army,Deportation of German newcomers to Germany by the French authorities19361,915,627+0.76% population growth per year during 1921–193619461,767,131Death of young men in the French army in 1939–45,Death of young men in the German army in 1942–45,Death of civilians and many people still refugees in the rest of France19752,523,703+1.24% population growth per year during 1946–1975, a period of rapid population and economic growth in France known as the Trente Glorieuses20102,890,753+0.39% population growth per year during 1975–2010, a period marked bydeindustrialization, rising unemployment (particularly in Moselle), and the migration of many people from northern and north-eastern France to the milder winters and economic dynamism of the Mediterranean and Atlantic regions of France
Languages;
But after the rise of Hitler, Bolivia became a haven for Jews fleeing the Nazis. Unlike neighboring Peru, which kept a tight lid on immigration before and during World War II, Bolivia granted thousands of visas to stranded German, Polish and Russian Jews in search of refuge. After the war, between 1946 and 1952, another wave of Jews — Holocaust survivors from as far away as Shanghai, China — settled in Bolivia.Read more: http://www.jta.org/2003/10/22/archive/around-the-jewish-world-bolivian-jews-keep-low-profile-amid-new-anti-government-violence#ixzz2kIGpfOtA
Natusch is of German and French descent,[1] and nephew of former President of Bolivia Germán Busch, was born in the Department of Beni, he was a career military officer who in the late 1970s rose to the rank of Colonel in the Bolivian Army. He was for many years a trusted member of the cabinet of the military dictator Hugo Banzer.Alberto Natusch;
Currently, over one third of the population of Marseille can trace their roots back to Italy.[50]Marseille also has the second-largest Corsican and Armenian populations of France. Other significant communities include Maghrebis, Turks, Comorians, Chinese, and Vietnamese.[51
]Major religious communities in Marseille include :Roman Catholic (400,000)Muslim (150,000)Armenian Apostolic (80,000)Jewish (80,000, making Marseille the third largest urban Jewish community in Europe)Protestant (20,000), Eastern Orthodox (10,000)Buddhist (3,000).[53]
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Jean-Claude Izzo
Catching the Mediterranean tragedy in tales of old Marseille Tuesday 1 February 2000 20.35 ESTDouglas Johnson"By birth, I am a pure Marsellais. That's to say I'm half Italian and half Spanish, with a touch of Arab blood." So the writer Jean-Claude Izzo, who has died of lung cancer aged 54, described himself.And he was an aggressively Mediterranean man. He liked to quote his fellow Frenchman Flaubert, who, arriving in Cairo, noted that what was expected rarely happened. This, according to Izzo, was because, in the Mediterran- ean light, one never found what one was seeking; the discovery of its beauty changed everything.Yet last September, when his latest novel, Le Soleil Des Mourants (The Sun Of The Dying), was among the seasonal bestsellers, and his name was listed alongside the accepted successful writers of France, he told interviewers that he was growing tired of Marseille. He no longer wanted to be its accepted spokesman. He spoke of going to live in Laos.It had been a long time before Izzo had decided to become a writer. Trained as a metal worker, he volunteered to do his military service early in Djibouti before going to live for some time in Ethiopia.On returning to Marseille he joined the Communist party, and started to do odd jobs on the local party newspaper, La Marseillais. He was put off literature by the "new novel" and by prevailing literary ideas, such as structuralism. He believed in social realism, and this was what he wrote about in his newspaper. The only exceptions were poetry - he published a volume in 1971 - and working on cinema and television scripts.During the 1970s, he hoped that a socialist-communist alliance would come to power in France and wrote a number of editorials in favour of this coalition. But in 1978 the alliance broke down, leaving the conservative government of Raymond Barre in power. Izzo had had enough. He resigned from the newspaper, sent back his party card and started to live on the edge of literature as a bookseller, librarian and organiser of literary conferences. The most important of these was the annual festival of adventure travel writers, held at St Malo, with its emphasis on exploration and discovery.Izzo himself went in for this sort of writing when he told of his journeys from Tangiers to Istanbul, Naples to Barcelona, and Marseille to Alexandria, and of climbing the hill of Le Planteur, behind Oran. But he published these in reviews and newspapers. He did not turn wholeheartedly to books until he had absorbed the implications of the American crime thriller, which he discovered surprisingly late.In 1995, at the age of 50, Izzo produced his first novel, Total Kheops - the title, taken from a rap group song, means "total catastrophe". Published in the Série Noire, it was a great success, as were its two successors, Chourma (1996) and Solea (1998), and was translated into many languages.The books invoke a tired and disillusioned Marseille detective, Fabio Montale, whose melancholy is tempered by a love for women and good food, and whose pessimism is put in its place by his horror of injustice, racism and violence. But in the final volume, Solea, the policeman hero is still looking for reasons to live in a Marseille where the smell of death predominates in a city surrounded by fire. Izzo turned the detective novel into tragedy.He accepted, however, that he could not continue in the same vein. He went on to publish some poetry, and another bestseller about sailors who could not put to sea, Les Marins Perdus. His last novel, Le Soleil Des Mourants, was about the excluded - the homeless, refugees and people on the run.Izzo claimed that in writing about the horrors of everyday life, he was in the Mediterranean tradition. The novelist Jean Giono, known for his stories of peasant life and who lived in the Basses Alpes, once said that under the light of the sun, there was no mystery, only tragedy; and Izzo always claimed that what he had written was the fatalist acceptance of the drama which began when Cain killed Abel - on one of the coasts of the Mediterranean.He is survived by his wife and son.• Jean-Claude Izzo, novelist, poet and travel writer, born 1945; died January 26 2000
http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marseilles
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Brunswick
New Brunswick (French: Nouveau-Brunswick;pronounced: [nu.vo.bʁœn.swik], Quebec French pronunciation:[nu.vo.bʁɔn.zwɪk] (
listen)) is one of Canada's three Maritime provincesand is the only province in the Canadian federation that is constitutionallybilingual (English–French).[6] Fredericton is the capital and Saint John is the most populous city. Greater Moncton (Moncton Dieppe, Riverview) form the province's largest Census Metropolitan Area. In the 2011 nation wide census, Statistics Canada estimated the provincial population to have been 751,171. The majority of the population is English-speaking, but there is also a large Francophone minority (33%), chiefly of Acadianorigin.