The Modern World in Five Pictures

I thought this would be something interesting I would try out. I'd describe how the Modern world has formed in 5 interesting pictures. Perhaps I'll do this more often involving other topics but here goes.

This picture depicts the Storming of the Bastille during the French Revolution. This was a very fascinating time in world history. A country's citizens rose up to toss out the old oder and bring in a new order which would bring happiness to alll. The revolution tries to bring ideals to people everywhere but ultimately it flops due to the chaos of revolution and the self-interested nature of humanity. The Revolution officially ended when Napoleon returned from Egypt to seize power from the Directory and the Little Corporal soon became the Emperor of the French Empire. As thousands of French young men were conscripted to die all over Europe, the Revolution did devour its' young.

The above picture displays the brutality of slavery and the Atlantic Slave Trade which tens of millions of Africans were sold to bondage in the New World. Through the intelligence of very effective scholars, doctors, politicians such as William Wilberforce the Slave trade was stamped out by the British navy and slavery in the Empire was elimated in 1833. No Empire is perfect but an entire nation decided to care about the enslavement of foreigners and the money that was created by it. From Sierra Leone, to Jamaica to the "Slave Coast" the British Empire found a vehicle to expand it's laws..and it's might.

In 1853, when black-hulled ships blowing steam entered Tokyo Bay the Japanese universe was flipped upside and inside out. The country had been ruled by a Shogun for centuries, it was a pirate island archipelago which raided China and Japan occasionally and it had kept out foreigners like the Portuguese..until now. What makes a nation modern? Modern science? Modern medicine or modern warfare..note that 100 years before the United States had been a collection of British provinces along the eastern seabord of North America numbering less than 2 million people. Maybe Japan had to emulate the Europeans (and Americans) to avoid the fate of China and it did by creating a "modern" government...and a modern Empire in East Asia. Japan was now...modern.

How does science operate usually? One day a primate was slapping rocks together just to see what will happen. A chip flakes off, a finger is cut. They primates starting breaking rocks on purpose to make tools for food and other stuff. They also use these tools to kill their enemies. Is it worth it? The scientific revolution had produced a weapon that could vaporize cities and kill millions of people and all of it came from examining how light works. Electromagnetism gave us telegraphs, telephones, electric currents, generators and the atomic bomb that ended a world cataclysm and started another one between two groups of primates that had the Atom bomb.



On September 11th, 2001 the world did change. Back in 1897 when the British were launching a punitive measure against the Pashtuns near the Khyber Pass they never thought that the Arab allies of the Pashtuns would be able to launch a strike against Whitehall which would kill 3000 Britons. Such a thought was unimaginable. Also like thinking about the economic collapse of the USSR in the 1970s, a wealthy China in the 1960s, a European Union in the 1910s, the State of Israel in 1850s. Times change. People remain the same. A Mullah Omar existed 100 years ago, it's just that the he couldn't lead Jihad on the back of a Toyota pick up truck. Such is history.

Culture Wars: Jamaica Vs Canada

You don't have to be a big country to export your culture to the rest of the world. Amongst a few others Jamaica has managed to do so. From music to religion to language Jamaica has a definitive influence on the Caribbean and the rest of the world. Now let's compare that to the second biggest country in the world, recent host of the 2010 Vancouver Games - Canada. Not so much eh? Why is that? Let's look at a few aspects of these cultures and compare.

Music: Jamaica happens to be a musical breadbasket for the Caribbean and North America. In fact, one of the most popular forms of music today (rap) hails from MC's who used to supervise Dancehall parties on that island. We can't forget reggae which has become a global phenomenon thanks to Burning Spear, Peter Tosh, Bob Marley and the Wailers etc. Furthermore, Ska in the 1970's and 80's converted millions of young with British teenagers to skank to Jamaican vibes. Wherever Jamaicans go in the world their music reverberates and adapts to it's new environment.

Canada has no significant indigenous music..except from the indigenous peoples themselves and I highly doubt Inuit throat singing is going to make a roaring comeback this decade. Instead, Canadians pride themselves on terrible East coast fiddle music, awful Quebecois teenage pop, atrocious bands from Ontario and rustic cowboy music from Alberta. Any good Canadian musician knows it's always best to leave that forsaken country to the US so they can actually make some money or be appreciated by their talents and when they do leave they're often derided by their fellow Canadians for being rich and successful. Canadians should stick to copying American culture. Far easier than inventing something uniquely Canadian.

Food: Jamaican cuisine along with other Caribbean cuisines are famous the world over for their spicy varieties, succulent meats and delicious pastries. Jerk chicken and Jamaican patties are slightly addictive along with ackee and anything curried. It's truly scrumptious food.

The most famous Canadian foods are beaver tail and poutine. Beaver tail essentially is pastry dough covered with brown sugar,cinnamon and icing. Nothing too special about it. An Austrian restaurant in downtown Vienna could probably whip up something ten times tastier and three times more unique than fried dough with sugar on it. Poutine is even worse because it's fries covered with gravy and cheese. It must've taken a genius to whip that up and find a way to clog the arteries of millions of French Canadians. You can't even export that to other nations because i'm sure McDonalds, Burger King and Wendy's can easily put that on their menu and call it "Gravy Fries". Simply pathetic.

Religion: Most Jamaicans are Protestants or Catholics. Nothing special right? Wrong! They're a messaniac cult that you've probably heard of called the Rastafarians who believe the dead Emperor of Ethiopia Haile Selassie (who was strangled and buried under a bathroom or something like that) is the Messiah and that Ethiopia is the holy land. It's a funny religion especially considering Rastafarians can't cut their hair and must braid it to attempt to look even basically decent. Their consumption of the drug marijuana too also brings it at odds with the authorities in Jamaica but what Messianic faith didn't have problems with the authorities?

Canada sadly doesn't have a messianic cult. You can say that hockey is it's natural religion but Canadians only truly worship during the NHL season thus making it a crappy faith even if it did qualify as one in the eyes of some Canucks. Canada really needs to invest in inventing some religions. They can start by making the Vancouver Olympic Mascots (a Sasquatch, a Bear-Bird and a Whale-Bear) spirits which they sacrifice beaver and baby seals to in arcane rituals. Also, giving a shout out to Cthulhu wouldn't hurt the Great White North.

Language: Jamaicans speak English, but English in a distinctive flavour known as Jamaican Patois. This melodious dialect of English is known the world over as characteristically Jamaican. Jamaican English is also peppered with African, Taino (The natives who lived in Jamaica before the arrival of the Spanish), Spanish and French.

Canadians speak chiefly two languages. French and English. Which is fine of course but these languages are used at the expense of thousands of native languages in Canada such as Inuit, Cree, Ojibway, Mohawk, Haida, Miqmaq, Blackfoot which are all disappearing from the Canadian linguistic landscape. At least it wasn't the Jamaicans fault that the Tainos were wiped out, their ancestors were still in Africa before slavery brought hundreds of thousands of Africans to Jamaica. The Natives in Canada are facing a cultural genocide which has been ongoing since the foundation of that country, no matter what the opening ceremony of the Vancouver Olympic Games tried to convey a sad situation is the reality in a lot of Aboriginal reserves in Canada.

This isn't saying that Jamaican culture is superior than any "Canadian" one. Virulent homophobia kills hundreds of gays in Jamaica and spreads a message of violence against them whenever MC's perform abroad. The gang-culture in Jamaica's cities between various neighbourhoods chokes Kingston as well as the corruption and poverty which is the norm in that nation. The fact is, is that Canada barely has a culture and any indigenous culture that it possesses it's trying to slowly rub out via cultural genocide. A pow-wow here or there isn't going to fix things and perhaps this is why Jamaican culture is at least more popular globally than Canadian culture.