Wile_E._Quixote:

/but maybe not... I don't want to put words in his mouth.

Why, just because I believe in the separation of church and state, unlike the dutch?

Bonzo_1116: Listerine:
Was there Arabic and the wheel in sub-Saharan Africa? If so I was unaware. In any event, contact with a more technologically advanced society can be very beneficial to colonized peoples, and I would prefer to be among one of the "contacted" tribes rather than among the "uncontacted" ones. This is of course despite all the wrongdoings of violence etc, which are well known.


Yep, google up the history of Mali (Timbuktu, etc etc) As I recall, one of the premier centers of higher learning in the Islamic world was down there in the 1200-1400 AD period. Also parts of what's now southern Sudan and such.

Arabs got their hands on Sub-Saharan Africa while the Europeans were busy getting their asses knocked in by the Golden Horde.

I think the wheel thing was more a lack of applications because Africa is a little short on tractable beasts of burden.

Well Mali is at best marginally considered Sub Saharan, so my point would in that case be that there wasn't much trickle down effect. Or, that the North Africans benefited from Islamic conquest and sub-Saharans didn't.

The wheel for whatever reason it's conceptually conceived is certainly a benefit to every society it reaches. In addition, the introduction of cattle was beneficial too. End comment being that I don't think it should be looked at as a zero sum scenario where Westerners (and their progeny) got fat (well, ok, they did get fat as hell) and rich and colonials (and their progeny) are necessarily worse off because of it, with hardly a saving grace.

Who ate Captain Cook?

Hey, there's a decapitated & stolen head in our family too. But don't tell the Mexican government; they've been looking for it (unofficially) for quite a while now.

jjpmrogers: I guess he'll never be the head of a major corporation.


Well, actually that's ALL he'll be...

Typical Africans and their "reparations"

Listerine: End comment being that I don't think it should be looked at as a zero sum scenario where Westerners (and their progeny) got fat (well, ok, they did get fat as hell) and rich and colonials (and their progeny) are necessarily worse off because of it, with hardly a saving grace.


I think what rubs folks the wrong way about it is more the nakedly exploitative shiat that went down. Carving places up with borders that made little sense on the ground, slave trafficking, generally being dicks to the locals, that sort of thing.

In a certain sense, being nakedly exploitative of other people in a big, organized way is one of the hallmarks of European culture from the Romans onward. They got busy doing it to each other for more than a thousand years, and were toned and ready to stomp around the globe come about 1450AD.

China should consider themselves lucky they were a nice long boat ride away when the time came. And that there were a bunch of other continents in the way.

Only one head in a duffle bag?

H_is_for_Heretic: Wile_E._Quixote:

/but maybe not... I don't want to put words in his mouth.

Why, just because I believe in the separation of church and state, unlike the dutch?

No, because you are using a straw-man to troll on Fark. It's not working (except apparently for me), and it makes you look silly.

there are two things that I simply will not tolerate: intolerance, and the Dutch.

Ah, the fikking Dutch; wooden shoes and wooden heads.

stoopid 171 year old white guilt bull shiat

What a funny story.
The Dutch should give them some nice warm smallpox blankets to even things up.

Oh, um...thanks. I didn't get you anything...

So the emissaries were collecting slaves and got beheaded. The dutch then responded by killing their king.

A modern analogy might be some islamic terrorists getting killed in the states, and then their people responding by assassinating GW and putting the disembodied head on TV. While two terrorists did die, it is still a disproportionate response to assassinate the president.

That's why the Ghanians have been upset. Does that not make sense?

Big friggin' deal dumbass....it happened 171 years ago...I really DOUBT he would still be alive

"I am hurt, angry. My grandfather has been killed," said Joseph Jones Amoah, the great, great grandson of the chief.

FTFA: The elders demanded the Dutch government provide aid to their tribe to appease the slain chief.

What aid did the tribe offer the Dutch government to appease the two slain Dutchmen?

Yah, I dunno about schools and hospitals, but I think it would still be a sore spot.

Nakito: "needless words! needless words! needless words!"

ftfy

The descendants of an African chief who was hanged and decapitated by a Dutch general 171 years ago reluctantly accepted the return of his severed head Thursday, still angry even as the Dutch tried to right a historic wrong.


This mentality pretty much sums up why much of the third world is still third world. It makes Africa what it is, it makes the middle east into Africa + massive oil wealth.

Therion: Hey, I guessed wrong - before I RTFA I figured it would be the British sending back Maori heads. (Tatooed Maori heads were "collectibles" - so much that a cottage industry sprung up doing Maori tattoos on convict's heads before executions. The Victorians were a fun bunch).

Okay, in spite of my bookshelf full of Bathroom Readers, I had somehow missed this tidbit of history. You, sir, get the Cliff Claven award. I salute you.

As they say, a head in a jar is worth two in the throne room.

smert: Damn, someone in the past 200 years in my family must have died as a result of negligence! I need to find me a lawyer to right this horrible injustice!

This basically sums up my thoughts towards the bullshiat. Take the head, accept the apologies, and get on with your lives. Maybe even open up some communication channels for the hell of it.

"members of the king's Ahanta tribe, dressed in dark robes and wearing red sashes"

///Anyone else read that as wearing red slashies?

Bonzo_1116: Listerine:
China should consider themselves lucky they were a nice long boat ride away when the time came. And that there were a bunch of other continents in the way.

Seriously?? Tell me Professor Peabody... how many continents stand between Europe and Asia?

Farking swamp Germans. Nothin ever changes.

H_is_for_Heretic: Igor Jakovsky:

Sounds like what Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer did was pretty fair to me, and he only took one head not two.

Was Bonsu poking around Holland trying to convert the locals, and in turn basically enslave the region? Unless the king had previously promised no harm would come to them, then the dutch Jesus-nuts had to have seen this coming. It'd be like taking out the PM of Israel over that pretty little american college student that that got crushed while trying to stand down a tank while defending Palestinian homes.


So you're saying that it's OK to murder unarmed people if they are on your property and you don't care for their religious views?

...In that case, the heads of the next pair of Mormons who ring my doorbell are going to adorn my Lazyboy.

/You've got an interesting sense of morality there...

JustTheTip: H_is_for_Heretic: Igor Jakovsky:

Sounds like what Maj. Gen. Jan Verveer did was pretty fair to me, and he only took one head not two.

Was Bonsu poking around Holland trying to convert the locals, and in turn basically enslave the region? Unless the king had previously promised no harm would come to them, then the dutch Jesus-nuts had to have seen this coming. It'd be like taking out the PM of Israel over that pretty little american college student that that got crushed while trying to stand down a tank while defending Palestinian homes.


So you're saying that it's OK to murder unarmed people if they are on your property and you don't care for their religious views?

...In that case, the heads of the next pair of Mormons who ring my doorbell are going to adorn my Lazyboy.

/You've got an interesting sense of morality there...

There were attempts on my life when I was a mormon missionary, so I'm getting a kick out of this reply.

Taleya: bignobody

/wonder if there is an emissary position...

Coitus Interruptus?

Well done ;)

I'm sure if Ghana wanted a little head, they could have travel to Holland long ago. I hear Amsterdam is pretty wild.

poorwhiteboy: So the emissaries were collecting slaves and got beheaded. The dutch then responded by killing their king.

A modern analogy might be some islamic terrorists getting killed in the states, and then their people responding by assassinating GW and putting the disembodied head on TV. While two terrorists did die, it is still a disproportionate response to assassinate the president.

That's why the Ghanians have been upset. Does that not make sense?

1. emissaries do not collect slaves, they are diplomats.

2. where did you get that in this article?

3. Are you retarded?

4. This would be more like we send diplomats to africa, the tribesmen torture and murder them for the hell of it, and we respond to their act of war by sending a scud missile into their hut and obliterate their chief. Which is almost exactly what happened in this story, except it was the 1900's and it would have been cannon balls.

I am willing to bet the religion of the "noble savage" and a racial fear of white people had more to do with the events that transpired then anything the dutch did. Since really, you dont send diplomats to a tribal village you plan on slaughtering/converting. You send armies and missionaries.

honoring his spirit by toasting with Dutch gin and then sprinkling the drink over the floor at the Dutch Foreign Ministry.

Didn't they have the customary 40 ouncer?

The Dutch should give them some wooden shoes, a windmill, and a years supply of Rice-a Roni, the San Francisco treat and call it even.

If no one else wants the head, I'll take it.