History


Learning the History of the Middle East Descending into Hell

Posted on October 18, 2023

To understand the series of conflicts in the Middle East over the last 100 years takes a lot of effort. If you are not a Middle Eastern expert who has studied and worked in this area, you would have to give up years of your time to fully understand it all. There are lots of good websites though and I have been reading a fair bit, checking sources as I do so. 1917 - A Big Date To even begin to understand the conflict in Middle East, you ...

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A Trip to Tallinn

Posted on April 30, 2023

The first thing I noticed about Tallinn is it is a beautiful city. Its medieval streets are clean, proud, and intriguing. Arrival On our arrival, we were greeted by cold and clean air and a walk straight into the street of the Russian embassy. Outside were tens of banners expressing hate towards Putin and his brutal, imperial fantasies. I felt a sense that if Putin dared have a go at Estonia, they would fight like dogs to retain their ...

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Race & Prejudice

Posted on June 18, 2020

I have been thinking a lot about racism and prejudice this week. I still don’t know enough about it to be anywhere near an expert. Still, I hope what I am about to write makes sense. The problem as I see it, is there are a lot of people who have convinced themselves they are not racists because they are fundamentally decent. They wouldn’t scream racial obscenities like those morons in London last week; so, in their mind, that means they ...

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Who Was Edward Colston?

Posted on June 8, 2020

Born in Bristol in 1636, Colston was an entrepreneur. As his fortune amassed, he gave handsome sums to churches, schools and other good causes and charities. However, Colston’s fortune was made from exploiting roughly 100,000 West Africans. Men, women, and children were taken and thrown on to slave ships heading across the Atlantic. His statue, until yesterday, represented him as an honourable philanthropist who built Bristol. That is over ...

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The Rise of the Nazis – BBC 2

Posted on September 22, 2019

There has been a three part documentary on BBC Two recently about how the Nazis came to power in 1930's Germany. Whatever your political persuasion, it is worth watching as it shows just how quickly Germany changed from a liberal democracy to full on fascist. Now, I know much has changed since then and a fascist movement, you would think, would struggle to gain enough traction for power in the modern world. However, there are striking ...

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