thethirdgracchi [he/him, they/them]

ἐγὼ τὸ μὲν δὴ πανταχοῦ θρυλούμενον κράτιστον εἶναι φημὶ μὴ φῦναι βροτῷ·

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Joined 5 years ago
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Cake day: July 26th, 2020

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  • To be fair to Dr. Hawass, a lot of his work is actually around preventing archeological sites from degrading and getting vandalised. Dude is undoubtedly a media whore but he’s done a lot of good for the state of antiquities in Egypt.

    In interviews, several Egyptologists said that most of what Dr. Hawass was doing for their field was long overdue, things as simple as installing air conditioning at the Egyptian Museum in Cairo. He has instituted zoning around major antiquity sites and built visitor centers to prevent further degradation. He also has plans to build regional museums in Egypt, including a sprawling new structure beside the pyramids.

    In addition, Dr. Hawass has pushed through a law making antiquity theft a serious crime, and he has limited excavation of new sites in favor of conserving old sites and artifacts. “I made rules for people to follow, for the first time,” he said. “People don’t like this.”

    “People don’t like dramatic changes,” Dr. Hawass said. “But I am well trained, and I believe Egypt antiquities needs this passion. I know who my enemies are, and I don’t care. They are the amateurs who want to drill in the pyramids, and the antiquities dealers we put in jail. The failures who do nothing in their lives. They don’t like success in general.”

    Per https://archive.is/MbK19#selection-2215.0-2215.357















  • So I’m only vaguely familiar with this because of the historical context with the First and Second Congo Wars (this is really the Third one), but Rwanda and therefore M23 (Rwandan-backed rebels) are nominally US backed. Rwanda is very much not a “tool” of American imperialism, they have their own agenda and Kagame is a very savvy player in leveraging (and indeed causing) chaos to Rwanda’s benefit. M23 directly benefits Rwanda by siphoning off the mineral wealth of the DRC, specifically in the Kivu provinces, which is where this conflict is taking place.

    China has some mines in South Kivu, but I don’t think they care one way or another so long as the region is stable. They’ll play with the DRC or Rwanda. Russia has some mercs hired by the DRC.