[ SECRET POST #3130 ]

[case]

⌈ Secret Post #3130 ⌋

Warning: Some secrets are NOT worksafe and may contain SPOILERS.

01.


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02.
[Will.i.am and Miriam Margoyles on the Graham Norton show]


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03.
[One Direction]


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04.
[George Takei, Bruce Lee]


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05.
[Tales From the Borderlands]


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06.
[The 100]


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07.
[Sense8]


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08.
[Genshiken Nidaime]


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09.
[Lawrence of Arabia]


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10.
[Doctor Zhivago]










Notes:

Secrets Left to Post: 01 pages, 015 secrets from Secret Submission Post #447.
Secrets Not Posted: [ 0 - broken links ], [ 0 - not!secrets ], [ 0 - not!fandom ], [ 0 - too big ], [ 0 - repeat ].
Current Secret Submissions Post: here.
Suggestions, comments, and concerns should go here.

Comments

[fscom]

09. http://i.imgur.com/mKo4bRL.png?2
[Lawrence of Arabia]

[(Anonymous)]

If it cheers you up, you probably wouldn't exist if literally anything far back in the past had gone differently, including George Bernard Shaw laying a fart in 1914.

[(Anonymous)]

LOL true

I suppose it's just researching it, one can't help but think, "Man, I WISH they could have gotten their way. Think of the suffering we could have avoided."

And then it hits you like lighting that there's NO WAY you'd exist if they had because that would make it basically impossible for your dad to meet your mom.

[(Anonymous)]

Well, I can't imagine anyone else wanting to do it with him...

[(Anonymous)]

Yeah, that's basically literally the story of all human history

[diet_poison]

This is kind of true. I can think of a number of really horrible things that have altered human population placement in such a way that influenced reproduction and, therefore, which people exist today.

(Not sure exactly what's going on in this case, though.)

[(Anonymous)]

But also more specifically - at least for me - when you do study history you run into all these moments where it seems like it *could* have gone better, and you run into all these brilliant, sympathetic failures who you really *want* to have succeeded. But they didn't, and if they did, we wouldn't be here. It's a weird phenomenon, rooting for people you know have to lose.

(my original comment came off as more dismissive than i meant it)

[(Anonymous)]

I mean at what point can we stop publishing these, since they're less secrets and more just anon's musings on Lawrence of Arabia?

[(Anonymous)]

okay :(

There'll still be one more tomorrow, though, since I submitted four.

I didn't think people would mind since there wasn't really a glut of secrets coming in or anything.

[(Anonymous)]

I really don't mind personally

I say get down with your bad self, honestly, that's what F!S is for

[(Anonymous)]

Now I feel bad for pissing on your fun.

Keep on Lawrencing your heart away, OP.

[(Anonymous)]

Do what you want / what makes you happy, OP. I haven't commented, as I don't feel I know/remember enough about it to say anything meaningful (I watched so long ago), but I've read all of them. They're interesting and different from a "typical" secret, which I like. :)

[(Anonymous)]

My mother would love your secrets, she is a total TE Lawrence fan.

[(Anonymous)]

No, don't stop! I've been enjoying these; the best part of fs over the past month. Finally something interesting.

[meadowphoenix]

What do you think he wanted exactly?

[(Anonymous)]

Syria to go to Feisal, for one.

The British had promised that areas liberated by Arabs would go to them. It...didn't end up working out that way, unfortunately.

Instead, Feisal was made King of Iraq.

The biggest problem with the new nations carved out of the Middle East was, famously, how they completely ignored tribal and religious differences.

Although blame has to go to the French as well since it was the French who wanted Syria.

[meadowphoenix]

Hmmm, I thought you were going to say something like he wanted Britain to leave completely.

Because at this time, honestly, short of leaving well enough alone, which none of the imperialist countries were want to do, nothing would have prevented a lot of bloodshed. That area has historical implications for Britain in particular; regardless of whether they kept their promises, they were going to interfere and interfere and interfere so...

And I'm not sure how Lawrence viewed imperialism, tbh. Some people view the mild form of it as benign, which I'm guessing he shared considering his first profession.

[(Anonymous)]

Britain was originally only supposedto have VERY small parts of the Middle East. Lawrence was VERY pro-Arab by the end of the war. He basically committed treason when he told Feisal about the Sykes-Picot agreement between Britain and France that carved the region up.

But I think one important effect of supporting Feisal is that we would have seen a much more moderate form of Islam take hold in the Middle East. Instead, ibn-Saud and the Islamic fundamentalists took hold and the Wahhabists (ultraconservative Islamists) basically became dominant in much of the region.

Lawrence warned that they were fundamentalists and not representative of most Muslims. ibn-Saud was Sharif Hussein's main rival in the region --> it was Sharif Hussein that Lawrence supported and Feisal was one of his sons.

Lawrence was extremely prescient when he said that if the Wahhabist sect prevailed, "we would have in place of tolerant, rather comfortable Islam of Mecca and Damascus, the fanaticism of Naj" and described the Wahhabists as being, not reformists but "with all the narrow-minded bigotry of the puritan" and hardly representative of Islam.

[meadowphoenix]

I mean, what does it matter what Britain was supposed have? My point is that even getting a small part they were always going to want more, and probably would have participated in destabilization attempts until they got it. They and others did just that in several other areas in Asia, Africa and South America.

I'm with you that we would have gotten a less fanaticism in general, however. Fanaticism and fundamentalism depends on strife to succeed, so I agree that he was prescient there. Although, I'm not convinced that the way those countries drew up the Middle East was completely a matter of ignorance, so it's not surprising to me that the government didn't listen to him.

It's nice to know that Lawrence was pro-Arab and willing to actually follow through with it. So many people do not walk the walk. But war is not the only sign of imperialism there is (although he basically never stopped trying to be part of the military, so), and many otherwise progressive folks are fine with mild imperialism, especially when it's an entrenched part of a profession like archeology, or the more insidious cultural version.

Ngl, considering his views and the movie itself, I'm always curious at the reception of Lawrence of Arabia in Britain.

[(Anonymous)]

OT but I feel like suddnenly Lawrence of Arabia is everywhere.