Most existing nations evolved only after the industrial revolution. The Middle East provides ample examples; The Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Iraqi nations are the product of haphazard borders drawn in the sand by French and British diplomats who ignored local history, geography, and economy. These diplomats determined in 1918 that the people of Kurdistan, Baghdad, and Basra would henceforth be Iraqis. It was primarily the French who decided who would be Syrian and who Lebanese. Saddam Hussein and Hafidh Al-Asad tried their best to promote and reinforce their Anglo-French manufactured national consciousness.
- Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
- Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
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Most existing nations evolved only after the industrial revolution. The Middle East provides ample examples; The Syrian, Lebanese, Jordanian, and Iraqi nations are the product of haphazard borders drawn in the sand by French and British diplomats who ignored…
نشأت أغلب الهويات القومية بعد الثورة الصناعية. يحتوي الشرق الأوسط على أمثلة كثيرة على هذا الإدعاء؛ القوميات السورية، اللبنانية، الأردنية، والعراقية كلها نتجت من حدود عشوائية رسمها دبلوماسيون بريطانيون وفرنسيون على الرمال، متجاهلين التاريخ، الجغرافيا، والإقتصاد المَحلّي. هؤلاء الدبلوماسيون قرروا عام 1918 أن سكان كردستان، بغداد، والبصرة سيكونون بالنتيجة عراقيين. أمّا الفرنسيون، فهُم الذين قرروا من سيصبح سوريًا ومن سيصبح لبنانيًا. حاول صدام حسين وحافظ الأسد وباقي الحكّام العرب بأفضل ما يمكنهم لدعم والحفاظ على الهوية القومية التي صنعها الفرنسيون والبريطانيون.
Here the past was everywhere, an entire continent sown with memories
- Miranda Richmond Mouillot, talking about Europe
- Miranda Richmond Mouillot, talking about Europe
To build an adult vocabulary of 60,000 words, children must learn an average of 10 to 20 words per day between the ages of 18 months and 18 years. Often these words are learned through a single exposure: an adult points to a bassoon and says "that's a bassoon" just once, and the child knows the word forever after. Human children are word-sponges. By contrast, even the brightest chimps in ape language experiments require at least 20 to 40 exposures before they learn the meaning of a visual sign. One has to do the equivalent of saying "bassoon, bassoon, bassoon" over and over until it loses all meaning to a human and acquires one for the chimp.
- The mating mind, by Geoffrey Miller
- The mating mind, by Geoffrey Miller