It’s possible that I shall make an ass of myself. But in that case one can always get out of it with a little dialectic. I have, of course, so worded my proposition as to be right either way (K.Marx, Letter to F.Engels on the Indian Mutiny)
In Mali, the violence exerted by Russian mercenaries against the civilian population is taking place in a climate of total impunity, without condemnation or reaction from the Malian authorities. This strategy of terror worsens an already catastrophic security and social situation.
The country’s president, Assimi Goïta, who came to power in a putsch, justified his coup by the previous regime’s inability to defeat the jihadists. Nearly five years later, his record is catastrophic, both economically and security-wise. Inhumanity
If the religious dimension of the conflict in Mali exists, it should not overshadow social and community issues. Peaceful solutions can only be political and developed by the people themselves. They are urgent, because the more the conflict drags on, the more acts of violence against civilians increase in quantity and horror.
Numerous reports detail the abuses committed by Wagner mercenaries. In Tinzaouaten, drones bombed the town in retaliation. In Moura, hundreds of people were executed for three days. The stories of Malian refugees in Mauritania evoke mass rapes. Journalists from Jeune Afrique have infiltrated a Telegram network called “White Uncles in Africa 18+”, where videos of executions and torture are sold in centres set up in Malian army barracks. Other videos, collected by investigators from the International Criminal Court, show scenes of corpses being butchered and even acts akin to cannibalism.
Testimonies collected by human rights organizations describe the burning of villages, looting and theft of the inhabitants’ meagre possessions. They also report kidnappings for ransom. The main victims are Malians from the Fulani or Tuareg communities, wrongly accused of being accomplices of the jihadists. Deleterious effects
From the beginning of Wagner’s intervention, in December 2021, evidence of crimes against humanity has multiplied. The mercenaries seemed to act with impunity. The replacement of Wagner in 2024 by the Africa Corps, a structure directly dependent on the Russian Ministry of Defence, has unfortunately not changed this dramatic situation, and for good reason: more than 80% of the members of the company founded by Yevgeny Prigozhin have been integrated into the new entity.
The despicable behaviour of these mercenaries encourages the Malian military to more violence against civilians and accentuates divisions, even community hatred. Villagers forced to cooperate with the jihadists are considered accomplices by the Malian authorities.
The members of the Africa Corps obviously have no interest in seeing the situation in the country improve, because chaos remains a lucrative source of income for them.
In fact, Assimi Goïta guarantees total impunity to a foreign private military company that massacres its own compatriots, thus contradicting his claims to defend Mali’s sovereignty.
Paul Martial is a correspondent for International Viewpoint. He is editor of Afriques en Lutte and a member of the Fourth International in France.
Sunday, December 28, 2025
BB EXITS STAGE RIGHT
Muslims are...: When Brigitte Bardot was fined for anti-Islam remarks Brigitte Bardot's career was not only marked by stardom and animal-rights activism, but also by repeated convictions for "inciting racial hatred". French courts fined her repeatedly for remarks in which she accused Muslims of "destroying" France and "imposing" their practices.
French film actor Brigitte Bardot appears at the Mount Royal Hotel in London on April 9, 1959. (File photo/AP)
French film icon Brigitte Bardot, who died aged 91on Sunday, was not only remembered for redefining female stardom in post-war cinema but also for a long trail of court cases over remarks targeting Muslims, immigrants and minority communities.
Bardot, who rose to global fame with the 1956 film And God Created Woman, was fined six times between 1997 and 2008 alone for controversial statements about Islam and its followers.
One of the most prominent cases dates back to 2008, when a Paris court fined her for describing Muslims as “this population that is destroying us, destroying our country by imposing its acts,” remarks prosecutors said went far beyond free speech.
“I am fed up with being under the thumb of this population which is destroying us, destroying our country and imposing its acts,” Bardot had written, a passage that became central to the case.
She also said France was being “invaded by sheep-slaughtering Muslims” and warned of the “Islamisation of France” in her writings, according to Reuters. The court later fined her €15,000, while prosecutors sought a tougher punishment, saying she was a repeat offender.
'MANIA FOR THROAT-CUTTING'
Bardot’s legal troubles over Islam-related remarks dated back decades. In 1998, she faced charges of “provocation of hatred and racial discrimination” after linking Islamic rituals to violence, as per a report by The Independent.
“Islamists have a mania for throat-cutting,” Bardot said at the time. “I’m not making it up. You just have to look at the television.”
She also wrote that Muslims were “cutting the throats of women and children” and warned that “they’ll cut our throats one day and it will serve us right.” An appeals court later fined her for describing France as being “invaded” by Muslims.
LETTERS ATTACKING RITUAL SLAUGHTER
Bardot repeatedly framed her remarks around animal welfare, particularly ritual slaughter associated with Islam and Judaism. In a letter to then French president Nicolas Sarkozy that later became public, she attacked Eid al-Adha practices.
Brigitte Bardot gestures during a demonstration to protest the duration of the transport of animals for butchery in Paris, Feb. 26, 1995. (AP photo/ file)
In 2014, she published an open letter in several leading French newspapers calling for a ban on halal and shehita, or Jewish ritual slaughter, referring to them as “ritual sacrifice,” according to The Times of Israel.
The letter drew condemnation from Jewish organisations. The European Jewish Congress said her depiction of shehita was “deeply offensive” and showed “clear insensitivity for minority groups.”
REUNION ISLAND CASE
In 2021, a French court fined Bardot €20,000 over a 2019 open letter targeting residents of Runion Island, a French territory in the Indian Ocean.
According to Agence France-Presse, cited by Vanity Fair and the New York Post, Bardot described the island’s residents as “natives [who] have kept their savage genes” and a “degenerate population still soaked in barbarous ancestral traditions.”
She accused locals, particularly the Hindu Tamil community, of inhumanely slaughtering goats and invoked “the cannibalism of past centuries.”
APOLOGIES WITHOUT RETREAT
While Bardot occasionally expressed regret in court, she rarely withdrew her positions. During a 2004 hearing, she apologised but said, “I never knowingly wanted to hurt anybody. It is not in my character,” according to the BBC. She added, “Among Muslims, I think there are some who are very good and some hoodlums, like everywhere.”
Brigitte Bardot with the Pope at the Vatican. (File photo/Reuters)
FAR-RIGHT TIES
Bardot’s views often intersected with far-right politics. She married Bernard d’Ormale, a former adviser to France’s National Front, in 1992 and later publicly supported Marine Le Pen, once calling her “the Joan of Arc of the 21st century.” advertisemen
Though she insisted her comments were driven by concern for animals, French courts repeatedly ruled that Bardot’s language constituted racial hatred — cementing a legacy that remained as polarising as her cinematic fame.
- Ends
(With inputs from Reuters, AP)
Thursday, November 27, 2025
Trump's bizarre justification shares a grim parallel with maritime cannibalism
The Conversation November 26, 2025 Donald Trump and Marco Rubio attend a dinner at the White House. REUTERS/Nathan Howard
By Martin Danahay, Professor, English Language and Literature, Brock University
The rationale that the U.S. is justified to kill people at sea in order to save people is similar to what used to be called the “custom of the sea”, which excused “survival cannibalism” if the consumption of one shipwrecked sailor helped the others survive.
This custom, which basically excused “murder by necessity,” was essentially outlawed in a landmark case in 1884.
After three weeks at sea, their situation became so dire that two of the men decided that the ailing youngest member of the crew, a 17-year-old boy named Richard Parker, should be sacrificed so the rest of them could survive. They killed Parker and used his body for food and drink; the third crew member later said he opposed their actions, though feasted on Parker anyway.
Four days after they killed the boy, the three survivors were rescued.
Two of them, Tom Dudley and Edwin Stephens, were arrested for murder and cannibalism. They were brought to trial in the case R v Dudley and Stephens. The trial opened in Exeter, England after Dudley and Stephens pleaded not guilty.
A panel of judges found them both guilty of murder and they were initially sentenced to death. This judgment was later commuted to six months imprisonment due to errors in trial conduct. Nonetheless, the case did establish that their actions constituted murder and that necessity was not a valid defence for cannibalism.
Justifying murder
Like the crew members of The Mignonette, President Donald Trump has claimed that killing people at sea is justified because it will preserve the lives of others.
This is the same reasoning behind the now discredited “custom of the sea.”
Rather than “survival cannibalism,” this amounts to “survival killing” based on the argument that other people will live if those on the boats die.
The Dudley and Stephens precedent means that if anyone ever goes to trial for the boat strikes, they could potentially be convicted of murder following the landmark 19th-century ruling that killing and eating people is wrong.
The case is taught in law classes because of the difficult issues it raises: When, if ever, is murder justified?
If it is justified, in what circumstances would it be viewed as the only viable option? While ongoing American attacks on boats in the Caribbean and eastern Pacific don’t involve cannibalism, but instead military attacks that have resulted in the deaths of the people manning those boats, the case of The Mignonette may still be relevant.
Either international norms turn back to the era of the “custom of the sea” and regard murder for the greater good as legal, or they uphold the verdict in R v Dudley and Stephens and view the actions in the Caribbean Sea as unjustified acts of murder.
Trump-Epstein disinformation is roiling social media - Copyright AFP/File Jim WATSON
Anuj CHOPRA
Left-leaning social media users have amplified an AI-generated audio clip purporting to show President Donald Trump screaming at US officials to block the release of documents related to disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein, researchers said Friday.
In recent weeks, renewed public furor over the so-called Epstein files has consumed US politics, spurring a showdown between lawmakers and Trump, a former friend of the late convicted sex offender.
“Not releasing the Epstein files,” a Trump-like synthetic voice said in a widely circulated clip that social media posts falsely claimed showed the president berating his cabinet.
“If I go down, I will bring all of you down with me.”
The clip was amplified by posts on platforms such as Instagram and TikTok, many of which garnered millions of views and thousands of comments.
Disinformation watchdog NewsGuard said the audio was “an AI-generated fake.”
The clip — apparently first posted by a liberal TikTok user — came from a video showing signs it was generated with Sora, OpenAI’s text-to-video model, NewsGuard said.
The clip was then shared in multiple other videos that lacked Sora’s watermarks, thereby “obscuring its AI origins,” the watchdog said.
Liberal social media users have also wrongly quoted White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt as saying that recently released Epstein emails do not refer to the president.
“It is not President Trump who is in the Epstein emails. It is another person with the same name,” read a post on X that credited the remark to Leavitt and amassed more than four million views.
The false claim also gained traction on Instagram.
Responding on one such post on X insisting that Leavitt had made the remark, a White House account on the platform said: “No … she didn’t. You are a weapons grade moron.”
The left-wing warping of reality underscores how disinformation is peddled across both sides of the political aisle in a hyperpolarized country. The falsehoods stir information chaos on increasingly unmoderated social media sites that has made it harder for ordinary users to decipher fact from fiction.
Trump has insisted he has “nothing to do” with his one-time close friend Epstein.
The Republican president signed into law on Wednesday a bill requiring his administration to release government documents on Epstein.
Trump had for months resisted the release of the files but stunned Washington this week after reversing course and ensuring that the legislation sailed through Congress.
Insiders warn that even with the president’s signature, his administration could lean on redactions, procedural delays or lingering federal investigations to keep explosive details out of the public eye.
Epstein, a wealthy financier, moved in elite circles for years, cultivating close ties with business tycoons, politicians, academics and celebrities to whom he was accused of trafficking girls and young women for sex.
Epstein’s 2019 arrest over a trafficking charge fueled a storm of outrage and pressure for a full accounting of his network and finances.
burs-ac/sla
Trump's Epstein fiasco makes sense if you remember this insanity at the heart of MAGA
Supporters of Donald Trump raise MAGA hats. REUTERS/Brian Snyder
In July, I said the president triggered a crisis of faith in MAGA. It had been revealed that the US Department of Justice would not release files concerning the late financier and sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. With that decision, Donald Trump made his most zealous followers choose between him and their imaginary enemies. Since they were never going to stop believing in evil super-Jews conspiring against “real Americans,” he forced them to rethink their trust in him
On Monday, we saw concrete consequences of that crisis.
Trump spent last week pressuring two key House Republicans, Nancy Mace and Lauren Boebert, to vote against a measure leading to the release of the Epstein files. He summoned them to the Situation Room, along with the US attorney general and FBI director. (This was after Speaker Mike Johnson adjourned the House for nearly two months during the shutdown and refused to swear in Arizona’s Adelita Grijalva. She had vowed to be the 218th vote on the Epstein discharge petition.)
Then Friday, Trump attacked the Republican who is probably the most MAGA of all MAGA, Georgia Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene. He said he was taking back “his support and endorsement.” He called her a “lunatic.” He offered “complete and unyielding support” for anyone who would primary her. In another post, he called Greene a “RINO,” who had “betrayed the entire Republican Party when she turned Left.”
Greene did not back down from calling for the release of the Epstein files.
“It really makes you wonder what is in those files and who and what country is putting so much pressure on him,” she said. “I forgive him and I will pray for him to return to his original MAGA promises.”
Then Trump retreated. Early Monday, he said, “House Republicans should vote to release the Epstein files. We have nothing to hide.”
If that’s true, he could order the Justice Department to release the files.
Some are saying Greene is coming to her senses. Others are saying there’s a place for her among the Democrats.
Let’s not get ahead of ourselves.
Greene isn’t standing up to Trump. She’s exploiting the crisis of faith that he has created. She’s taking command of the story that brought him to power. She doesn’t care about sex-crime victims. She cares about her position in the GOP after Trump is gone. I think she’s been quietly sussing out possibilities for a while. Monday’s head-on collision with Trump was the quiet part getting loud. None of this week’s news makes sense if you forget about QAnon.
In that conspiracy theory, Epstein is part of a shadowy group of Jewish super-elites who control the government, corporations and the media. It is so powerful it can commit any crime — including the most heinous, pedophilia and cannibalism — and get away with it, all while conspiring with allies, foreign and domestic, to destroy America.
In that story, Trump is the hero, “the chosen one” who is supposed to save America from enemies so evil that he must do whatever it takes to defeat them, even if that means committing massive crimes himself. Thanks to that story, Trump could broadcast during his campaign all the crimes he was going to commit once reelected (ie, vengeance), and it didn’t matter to the most conspiracy-addled faction of the GOP.
Anything was acceptable as long as Trump defeated the Great Evil.
On the release of the Epstein files, this supposed pedo-cabal (“Democratic politicians, Hollywood actors, high-ranking government officials, business tycoons and medical experts,” per Wikipedia) was supposed to face immediate justice: mass arrests and summary executions. They called it “The Storm.”
But last spring, US Attorney General Pam Bondi determined that the president’s name appeared too many times in the government’s case against Jeffrey Epstein to risk releasing the files. (Bloomberg reported in August that 1,000 FBI agents reviewed 100,000 documents in order to redact his name. Bondi made her determination after that.)
Trump agreed with Bondi, and once he did, he took his most zealous followers for granted. He failed to consider what he was asking them to do: choose between believing in him, and the heroic role he played in the cosmic story about the fate of America, and believing in the existence of deadly threats to America by imaginary Jewish enemies.
Put another way, he forced them to choose between him and their anti-semitism and they were never going to let go of antisemitism. (QAnon is a 21st-century update of very, very old hatred of Jews.)
In doing so, Trump introduced doubts that have deepened with every revelation about his ties to Epstein. Instead of being the exception to every rule, he seems to be the rule itself. Instead of being the solution to the problem, he seems to be part of it — or worse. Before long, it could be understood that he exploited those who truly fear a phony pedo-cabal to hide his own involvement in a real pedo-cabal.
As long as Trump was a victim — as long as he represented the heroic victimhood of “the nation” — he could be forgiven for anything, even crimes that ultimately hurt his followers. Without the authority that comes with being the exception to the rule, however, efforts to blame his enemies are falling on deaf ears. He has repeatedly tried accusing the Democrats of making up the “Epstein hoax,” as he did with the “Russia hoax,” yet followers don’t look to him. They look to Republicans like Greene who still seem loyal to the One True Faith.
So not only has Trump undermined MAGA's trust in him. He made room for rivals who have been seeking moments of weakness to exploit. Greene presented herself as a true believer who is saddened by the former hero’s fall from grace: “I forgive him and I will pray for him to return to his original MAGA promises.” But she also dared him to reclaim what she had taken: “It really makes you wonder what is in those files and who and what country is putting pressure on him.”
It wouldn’t take much for a figure like Greene to expand the conspiracy theory about a pedo-cabal to include a Russian dictator who is blackmailing the president into covering up a pedo-cabal.
Trump seems to know it. That’s why he balked.
His base is fractured. His rivals are emboldened. His opponents are united. The result was Wednesday's House vote in which members voted 427-1 to force the Justice Department to release the Epstein files.
How this ends is anyone’s guess. But if this ends badly, it will be due to Trump’s hubris — in taking for granted the conspiracy theory that brought him back to power.
Saturday, November 08, 2025
France Antarctique, the forgotten French outpost on the coast of Brazil
Almost 500 years ago, French ships landed in what is now Brazil with a mission to found 'France Antarctique', a new colony on South America's Atlantic coast. Riven by religious divisions and stormed by Portuguese rivals, the project lasted just a few years – but would end up reshaping Europeans' understanding of the so-called New World.
The voyage began in 1555, 63 years after Europeans had learned that the Americas existed – or 67, if you believe some French accounts that the first explorer to reach the continent wasn't Christopher Columbus, but a sailor from Normandy named Jean Cousin.
The Catholic Church had decreed that the new territory would be divided between the kingdoms of Spain and Portugal. But that hadn't stopped French traders venturing to South America to look for valuable commodities to bring back – notably brazilwood, the trees that lined the Atlantic coast and yielded a prized red dye.
They had established contact with indigenous people and some had even settled there. Under King Henri II, France decided it was time to set up a formal outpost in an area the Portuguese were yet to occupy: Guanabara Bay, a natural harbour on the southeastern coast.
Mistakenly believing the area to lie further south than it did, they dubbed it France Antarctique.
Two warships and a supply boat set sail from the port of Le Havre in mid-1555, carrying some 600 colonists. Commanding them was Nicolas Durand de Villegagnon, a swashbuckling vice-admiral who had distinguished himself fighting France's wars against the English and the Ottomans.
He landed on 10 November and was met by members of the indigenous Tupinambá people. Hostile to the Portuguese settlers, they saw a strategic opportunity to ally with their European rivals.
Villegagnon's first task was to build a fort. He and his men chose a rocky island within firing distance of the mainland, where they soon completed Fort Coligny – named for Gaspard de Coligny, the admiral of France's navy and a driving force behind their mission.
Later they would add a settlement on the mainland, Henriville, named after the king.
Tensions soon flared between Villegagnon and the settlers, who resented his ban on relations with indigenous women outside Christian marriage. Some even made an abortive attempt to overthrow their commander.
Resentment was also building among Tupinambá workers, exhausted by relentless labour and an epidemic.
In early 1556, Villegagnon sent to France for reinforcements: soldiers, craftsmen and marriageable women. Faith wars
He issued another invitation that would prove fateful. With the Wars of Religion brewing between Catholics and Protestants in France, Villegagnon – who by some accounts had converted to the reformed faith – opened the colony to Huguenots facing persecution.
The supply mission arrived in March 1557. It comprised nearly 300 settlers, including a handful of women and a dozen Calvinists.
Villegagnon quickly fell out with the Protestants, getting into impassioned arguments over matters of doctrine. By October he had banished them to the mainland, where some settled among the locals and others sailed home.
A few ill advisedly returned to the island, where Villegagnon suspected them of plotting an ambush. He had three of them executed by drowning.
By late 1559, with stories of his excesses reaching France, Villegagnon returned home to defend himself and drum up resources. It was the last he'd see of France Antarctique.
At the same moment, four years after the French colonists landed, the Portuguese decided it was hight time that they left. Not only were they competing for land and trade, the French had brought Protestants to challenge Portugal's strictly Catholic mission.
On royal orders, the governor-general of the Portuguese colony in Brazil, Mem de Sá, gathered a fleet of warships. He surrounded Fort Coligny in March 1560 and, when the French refused to surrender, fired the cannon.
His forces stormed the fort as the French and their Tupinambá allies fled.
Some of the survivors resettled among indigenous communities on the mainland, where they continued to fight for several more years with the Tupinambá against the Portuguese – who by now were determined to claim Guanabara Bay for themselves.
Finally, in January 1567, the Portuguese declared victory and expelled the last remaining French for good.
For a project that lasted barely 12 years, France Antarctique left a considerable legacy.
It spurred Portugal to found a settlement in its place: Rio de Janiero, the city that overlooks Guanabara Bay.
It also set a precedent for other French land grabs. In 1612, France tried to establish another foothold further up the Brazilian coast, this time to be known as France Equinoxiale. The Portuguese once more sent them packing, but subsequent expeditions eventually resulted in the establishment of French Guiana, which remains part of France to this day.
Villegagnon's expedition also generated some of the most detailed accounts Europe had ever seen of indigenous people and customs in the Americas. Scholars say those descriptions helped define the picture that Europeans had of the New World.
Some 25 years after Villegagnon landed, philosopher Michel de Montaigne wrote his essay "Of Cannibals". Based on accounts of the Tupinambà from France Antarctique, it describes their practice of ritual cannibalism – and asks whether this makes them any more "savage" than warmongering Europeans.
"I find that there is nothing barbarous and savage in this nation, by anything that I can gather, excepting, that every one gives the title of barbarism to everything that is not in use in his own country," Montaigne wrote.
It marked a rethink of mental maps that made Europe the centre of civilisation and a step towards a more nuanced, if romanticised, understanding of other cultures.
As for the French colony itself, no physical traces remain. But travel to Rio and, opposite one of the city's airports, you'll spot a small island.
Now home to the Brazilian naval academy, it's what the Tupinambà called Serigipe, "crab water island", and the Portuguese Ilha das Palmeiras, "palm tree island".
Today, it goes by "the island of Villegagnon".
Saturday, November 01, 2025
Listening to Tupac in the Andes
by Julian Cola / October 30th, 2025
A young man sports a Tupac (2Pac) Shakur t-shirt in Parque Carolina (Quito, Ecuador)Photo: Julian Cola
Cruising the streets of Quito, it’s my distinct impression that the top five music artists or groups, their name or image printed on fans’ t-shirts, are Pink Floyd, Nirvana, Black Sabbath, Guns N’ Roses, and Tupac (2Pac) Shakur. The order given is a random selection. No detailed survey indicates which artist stands first to fifth in terms of popularity and groups like Ramones and Metallica would receive special mention. Notably, rock bands score an edge in terms of genre favorite. However, the sole artist on the list whose name pays homage to the impregnable Inca revolutionary, Túpac Amaru, is 2Pac Amaru Shakur.
“I was named after this Inca chief from South America whose name was 2Pac Shakur,” 2Pac told MTV News correspondent Tabitha Soren in 1995. “So my mother named me after this Inca chief… If I go to South America they’re going to love me.”
For his revolutionary crusade against Spain, Túpac Amaru, the Sapa Inca—sovereign King of the Inca Empire—was captured and ordered to the gallows by Viceroy Toledo. The Quechua honorific—Túpac—meaning noble or honorable, re-emerged in 1780 when Túpac Amaru II led a rebellion against Spanish colonizers in Peru. For his efforts, executioners dismembered him in a public square.
In 1781, Túpac Katari, his wife, Bartolina Sisa, and 40,000 mostly indigenous soldiers laid siege to the Spanish colonial city of La Paz in present-day Bolivia. Betrayed by a group of followers, both were captured by Spanish servants of the crown. While Túpac Katari was executed by quartering, Bartolina Sisa was beaten, raped, and hung in what is today Plaza Murillo (La Paz’s main public square). Afterwards, the Spanish severed her corpse into pieces, displayed her head publicly and even sent her limbs on a traveling tour to different villages as a means to intimidate the Quechua, Aymara, and other First Nation people.
A bust of Túpac Amaru, the revolutionary Inca leader, is cemented with a host of other indigenous revolutionaries at the entrance to the Universidade Central (Quito, Ecuador) Photo: Julian Cola
Two centuries later, the Túpac Amaru Revolutionary Movement (MRTA) would emerge in Peru in the 1980s. This armed guerrilla group, along with another called the Shinning Path, aimed to establish a revolutionary socialist state. Beyond the Andes, yet witnessing right-wing movements and military dictatorships sprout up across the region, an urban guerrilla group in Uruguay rose to the challenge in the 1960s and 70s. Paying homage to the enduring legacy of resistance embodied by multiple Túpacs, they named their organization the Tupamaros.
Then, in 1971, while in a New York City jail awaiting trial in the infamous Panther 21 Case, a pregnant Afeni Shakur learned about Túpac Amaru II from a Peruvian female prisoner. Acquitted of all charges after representing herself and other Black Panther Party comrades and released from prison only days before giving birth, Afeni named her only son, Tupac Amaru Shakur.
Tupac/2Pac in the Belly of the Beast
Born into the revolutionary Shakur family, 2Pac became a rapper-activist, actor, and veteran of the 1992 Los Angeles Rebellion. Addressing the country during the heat of the uprising, then US president George Bush Sr. stated that he would “use whatever force is necessary” to reign in the protestors. “What is going on in L.A. must and will stop.” Thousands of active duty army and marine soldiers from the 7th Infantry Division, 1st Marine Division, and the 1st Light Armored Reconnaissance Battalion were deployed to Black and Brown communities across in Los Angeles to put down a revolt against police brutality and other forms of structural racism following the brazen killing of 15-year-old Latasha Harlins and acquittal of all police officers in the Rodney King case.
According to John Potash, author of the book, The FBI War on Tupac Shakur, a US Justice Department worker inadvertently admitted to him that the FBI compiled over 4,000 pages of documents on 2Pac during his short life. Comparatively, Aretha Franklin’s FBI rap sheet contained 270 pages; John Lennon’s , 281 pages; Notorious B.I.G. (or Biggie Smalls) 359 pages; Phil Ochs, nearly 500 pages; the list goes on.
2Pac T-Shirts at Protests
My observances of music artist/band t-shirt-wearing preferences in Quito occurred while simply strolling about the Andean capital. It was nothing i intended to do. Mass demonstrations, such was the case in October 2019 where indigenous-led protests against austerity measures in exchange for a $4.2 billion U.S. dollar IMF loan shut down the country, marked pivotal but certainly not exclusive moments when 2Pac t-shirts prevailed. To the consternation of many, former Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno had promised wage cuts by 20 percent, annual vacation time slashed in half, and a mandatory days-wage paid to state coffers each month. The backbreaker was a fuel subsidy cut, one that guaranteed an increase in food prices and cost of living across the board. According to the government’s own figures, diesel more than doubled, increasing from $1.03 to $2.30 per gallon on the 3rd of October, and gasoline rose from $1.85 to $2.39. The subsequent groundswell was inevitable.
Asked why he had abandoned the capital of Quito for the coastal city of Guayaquil during the state of an emergency he himself had declared, then Ecuadorian president Lenin Moreno told the BBC, “because, in the end, they (they meaning protestors) were coming after me.”
During twelve days of protests, t-shirts with 2Pac’s image emblazoned on them prevailed among the youth. More specifically, 2Pac clothing apparel came in second place, behind indigenous youths and adults wearing their traditional ponchos.
Just look at any country that ain’t controlled by America and ask them what America did to them and I betcha it’s gonna be some pillaging, raping, taking, snatching, beating, shooting, killing, locking up, beating down. — 2Pac Shakur
October 2019 protests against austerity and a $4.2 billion U.S. dollar IMF loan in Quito, Ecuador. Photo: Julian Cola
From T-Shirt Gazing to Conversational English
“i’m colonizing these people (my unwitting English language students),” I joked with a mentee one day. Virtually all of my pupils seemed less than inclined whenever i nudged them to wise up about linguistic colonialism. Likewise, they seemed bored if not bewildered whenever i hinted at using, even appropriating English to serve their own purpose, not to be swept aside entirely and blindly by toxic prosthetic memories and other ideological messaging conveyed by English language western media. Prosthetic memories, which refers to thoughts about people and/or events acquired vicariously through watching films and TV programs based on real events, are also hammered into society’s collective mind via other forms of media and educational systems. Still, it came as no surprise that none of my students ever wore anything remotely resembling a poncho or 2Pac t-shirt. Why would they?
This clothing store in Quito has an entrance sign that reads “God’s Blessing, American Clothes”. Photo: Julian Cola
When one student asked what do i think about Ecuador, I gave him a balanced, per usual answer, purposefully reinforcing his at-ease disposition in posing the question. Then, coarsely, i concluded, “It has a colonial mentality.” Why not? It’s beyond true. Evidence of this mindset and systemic impropriety are too many to spell out here.
Topographically, Quito, a city perched snugly in the Andes is an inspiring beauty to behold. Having deposited some of my grandfather’s, Willis Cola, ashes, as well as an extended family member nicknamed Tof who died here, in the heights of Pichincha Volcano, it’s a place I’ll cherish to my end. Quito, however, has so much more to offer than it does. But just as a casual reference to this insipid mentality, knowing that this student passes by a café and pastry shop named Dulceria Colonial (Colonial Sweets) in the historic center, I thought I’d test his sensibility on this touchy matter. Caught off-guard by what I said, he chuckled, brushed me off, and quickly transitioned to the next line of discussion. Typical.
English classes were just that, a mostly dull sidebar gig on one hand, a blunt exposé of deep class divisions, trite hang-ups and prejudices within the foreign language learning spectrum on the other. Never did i have a student wearing a poncho or 2Pac t-shirt because those who did—though i understand that those who wear ponchos and 2Pac t-shirts can transcend class lines—came from, primarily, poor, working-class communities. Budgeting for private English classes, even those at just $6 per one-hour session, remains a luxury amid Ecuador’s economic crunch. It’s precisely for this reason that the idea of taking private English classes in Quito is associated with middle to upper-class society, even high life, and this is nauseously evident by the grade of visual marketing campaigns promoted by many private English language schools.
How would my students fair if i simply played along, reading script from Cambridge’s English-teaching method while skirting each and every opportunity to develop my own educational curricula resources? Nerving out toxic English language instruction trends, albeit absolutely necessary in this day and age if youths are to develop a healthy sense of who they and their community are, as well as respect for their surroundings, will not come without conscious, serious struggle. Anyway, why learning one of the millenary languages of the Andes is, by-and-large, an afterthought to most people is a question that can take books to answer. Kichwa, the main indigenous group and language of Ecuador, doesn’t inspire thoughts of progress, advancement, might i add “civilization” in this society. This despite Kichwa being offered at Ecuador’s Central University and a few other public and private institutions or among informal groups.
Like foreign languages, I think they’re important but I don’t think they should be required. Actually, they should be teaching you English and then teaching you how to understand double-talk—politician’s double-talk, not teaching you how to understand French and Spanish and German. When am I going to Germany? I can’t afford to pay my rent in America. How am I going to Germany? — 2Pac Shakur
Heading to Part II
My impression holds that 2Pac’s t-shirt popularity in the Andes clearly indicates his international fame as a lyricist extraordinaire. “We ain’t even really rapping, we’re just letting our dead homies tell stories for us,” he told Swedish radio host, Mats Nileskär, in 1994. “The ground is going to open up and swallow the evil. That’s how I see it … And the ground is a symbol for the poor people. The poor people is going to open up this whole world and swallow up the rich people because the rich people is going to be so fat and … appetizing … wealthy … appetizing. The poor is going to be so poor and hungry … It’s gonna be like … there might be some cannibalism out this mufucka. They might eat the rich.”
2Pac Shakur signs autographs for fans in Harlem, New York City. [Source: 2paclegacy.net]
Mere fame, simply for fame’s sake, however, does no justice in explaining 2Pac Shakur’s mass appeal, particularly among disenfranchised youths. It’s my conviction that: whether it’s nearly 30 years ago after a hail of bullets prematurely ended 2Pac’s life in Las Vegas when he was only 25; or when Túpac met his revolutionary fate at the gallows; or when two additional Túpacs, one in Peru, the other in Bolivia, were dismembered; or when guerrilla movements named after one Túpac or another took up arms against oppression; the enunciation of Túpac/2Pac keeps the need for resistance against the status quo relevant, reincarnated, and rolling. A reminder that things haven’t changed all that much, youths instinctively know and treat this revolutionary honorific as such.
Do what you gotta do. And then, inside of you, I’ll be reborn. — 2Pac Shakur
Good night and until next time, “Keep ya head up.”
Julian Cola is a translator (Brazilian-Portuguese to English). A former staff writer at teleSUR, his bylines and editorial work also appears at Covert Action Magazine, African Stream, and elsewhere. Read other articles by Julian.
Friday, October 24, 2025
Fight or flight—and grow a new limb
Study reveals how salamanders rely on sympathetic nervous system to regenerate body parts
Biologists have long been fascinated by the ability of salamanders to regrow entire limbs. Now Harvard researchers have solved part of the mystery of how they accomplish this feat—by activating stem cells throughout the body, not just at the injury site.
In a paper [LINK WILL ACTIVATE WHEN EMBARGO LIFTS 11am 10/24] published in the journal Cell, researchers documented how this bodywide response in axolotl salamanders is triggered by the sympathetic nervous system—the iconic “fight or flight” network. The study raises the possibility that these mechanisms might one day be manipulated to regenerate human limbs and organs.
“We've shown the importance of the adrenaline stress signaling hormone in getting cells ready for regeneration,” said Duygu Payzin-Dogru, lead author of the new study and a postdoctoral researcher in the Department of Stem Cell and Regenerative Biology (SCRB). “Because adrenaline exists in humans, this tells us we can coopt some of the things we found in the axolotl to perhaps improve regenerative outcomes in humans. We have some of the same components and just have to figure out the right way to implement them.”
The new study culminates several years of research by the lab of Jessica Whited, associate professor in SCRB, who studies limb regeneration in axolotls, a species native to Mexico. Axolotls are often examined as model organisms of limb regeneration because they are among the fastest-breeding species of salamanders.
Some invertebrates such as planarian flatworms can regrow entire bodies from small bits of tissue. But salamanders are the only vertebrates that can regenerate full limbs.
When an appendage is severed, salamanders sprout a blastema—a lump that contains the precursor cells that become increasingly specialized to form a new arm, leg, or tail.
This remarkable ability has long intrigued biologists because it may provide insights for regenerative medicine. Some researchers suspect that the ancient common ancestor of all tetrapods (the group of four-limbed vertebrates that includes amphibians, birds, and mammals) was able to regenerate limbs, but this ability was subsequently lost in most evolutionary lineages—but not salamanders.
In 2018, the Whited team reported that limb amputation triggered a proliferation of cells throughout the body—even in limbs and organs that remained unharmed—but it remained unclear what mechanisms governed this response. The team spend more than six years deciphering those processes—an investigation that ultimately involved 38 coauthors.
They discovered that the systematic response was coordinated by the adrenergic signaling network, part of the sympathetic nervous system that also controls involuntary responses such as heart rate, breathing, and blood flow during times of extreme stress. (This system became well-known due to the pioneering studies of Harvard physiologist Walter Bradford Cannon, who coined the term “fight or flight response” more than a century ago). Adrenergic signaling also involves the well-known hormones noradrenaline and adrenaline, both of which also can act as neurotransmitters.
The systemic activation of stem cells and other progenitor cells “primes” the other uninjured limbs to regenerate more quickly—an ability that may help salamanders survive in the wild because they often lose multiple limbs to predators or cannibalism. The researchers discovered that the activated cells reconfigured their DNA architecture to make some genes easier to turn on—thus readying them for future regeneration.
“The animal seems to form a short-term memory of the injury, bodywide,” said Payzin-Dogru. “There is something that senses the injury and kind of goes into ‘getting ready’ mode for a subsequent injury so it can respond faster.”
But the priming was short lived: the researchers found that systemic activation persisted only a few cell cycles, perhaps because the high metabolic costs could only be sustained for brief periods. After four weeks, there was no difference in the speed of limb regeneration.
The study parsed the roles of different elements of this system: one pathway known as alpha-adrenergic signaling is required to prime distant cells for limb regeneration while another pathway known as beta-adrenergic signaling promotes regrowth at the amputation site. The adrenergic signaling also triggered cascades of downstream processes essential for limb regeneration such as activation of the mTOR signaling pathway that promotes cell growth and division.
For two centuries, scientists have known that nerve supply was necessary to regenerate limbs, but many suspected the process involved sensory or motor nerves. “I heard very few people talking about sympathetic nerves,” said Whited.
Until now, many biologists have viewed limb regeneration as a local phenomenon at the injury site. But Whited said growing evidence suggests that it should be viewed as a whole-body event.
“I think it's paradigm-shifting," she said of the new study. "I think it's going to inspire a lot of future work to try to figure out not just how this works in an axolotl but also how it works in other systems."
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