On this day in 1884, the "Berlin Conference" began when delegations from nearly every Western European country and the U.S. met in Germany to develop a set of protocols for the seizure and control of African resources.
The conference, which had no African representatives, was the first international conference ever on the subject of Africa, and dealt almost soley with the matter of its exploitation.
At the time, approximately 80% of African land and resources were under domestic control; the influence of Europeans was most strongly exerted on the coast. Following it, colonial powers began seizing resources further inland.
As a result of the conference, which continued into 1885, a "General Act" was signed and ratified by all but one of the 14 nations at the table, the U.S. being the sole exception. The Act's main features were the establishment of a regime of free trade stretching across the middle of Africa, the development of which became the rationale for the recognition of the short-lived "Congo Free State", the abolition of the overland slave trade, and the principle of "effective occupation".
The Conference's rapacious intentions for Africa were noted by outsiders: socialist journalist Daniel De Leon described the conference as "an event unique in the history of political science...Diplomatic in form, it was economic in fact."
Before the Conference ended, the Lagos Observer declared that "the world had, perhaps, never witnessed a robbery on so large a scale." Theodore Holly, the first black Protestant Episcopal Bishop in the U.S., condemned the delegates as having "come together to enact into law, national rapine, robbery and murder".
Berlin 1884: Remembering the conference that divided Africa
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lol does anyone else have “friends” but only because you’re always the one to reach out
When I was more mentally ill, I was unable to reach out to my friends because I was terrified I would be intruding by texting them and that they couldn't possibly actually like me. While that was pretty extreme, I think a lot of people have more mild versions of that going on.
Now I'm the reaching out guy, and I hold it as like, "I'm filling my social niche by being the stable one rn"
Oh shit oh fuck sounds like I’m mentally ill 😎
For me, the things that helped were:
Powerlifting
Wellbutrin
Canvassing for DSA until I was numb to being intrusive
Counting to 1000 every day with no interruptions (it helps build executive function).
Don't beat yourself up over this. I used to be very concerned about this exact thing when I was younger and more insecure. The truth is, the people you call your friends most likely do enjoy your company and really like you. The reason it feels like you always reach out first is that people get used to interacting with others in a certain way, and if you've been consistently the one to initiate contact with others they'll expect that pattern to continue.
If you feel like it'd be better for your friends to put in effort so it's not just you initiating all contact, the best thing is to be direct and communicate that you don't like feeling like all conversations rely on you to begin them. People won't take it the wrong way. The worst thing you can do, and I've seen many cases, is to stop contacting people as a "test" to see how many of your friends will still get back to you. It's likely that none will, not because they don't care about you, but because they had gotten used to a certain rhythm.
Wow that’s a POV I had never actually considered
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Real
Yeah, but it turned out that most of them were also extremely depressed, or isolated due to autism, or isolated due to chronic illness, or economics, or race shit, so I'm trying to cut them all some slack. The ones who were doing okay and just didn't bother to try I dropped.