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Culture War Roundup for the week of November 14, 2022

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Net Africans will never pay your good deed forward, at least I do not think so; compare that to when Native Americans donated cattle to Ireland in their famine, and 170 years later Ireland returns the favor and sends aid to tribes dealing with COVID. This sort of cross national charity is possible with sophisticated states, but not with net Africans.

I think this is a strange example to choose to support that point. The Irish didn't have a sophisticated state back when the Native Americans donated to them, the Irish tenant farmer had a lot in common with today's net African in his ability to repay. From the point of view of the Native Americans it must have looked like a one time good, straightforward altruism, which is why it made enough of an impression to be remembered nearly 2 centuries later.

Or maybe they just saw some of themselves in the plight of the Irish, as Devalera put it when he was made a chieftan of the Ojibwe Nation in 1919: “I want to show you that though I am white I am not of the English race. We, like you, are a people who have suffered, and I feel for you with a sympathy that comes only from one who can understand as we Irishmen can.”

As an aside, the Turks are also remembered fondly, and the crescent in Drogheda's crest is often (mistakenly?) thought to originate in the Ottoman Sultan's donation of £1,000 for famine relief.