Erika3sis [she/her, xe/xem]

An anarchist here to ask asinine questions about the USSR. At least I was when I got here.

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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: August 18th, 2023

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  • I’ve had the placement of all the African countries more or less down for years, I might even be able to name all the countries of Africa off the top of my head just by visualizing a map of the continent in my mind’s eye. I made two mistakes in the linked quiz, however, namely mixing up Mauritius and Seychelles, and mixing up Mali and Mauritania — for the former mistake I should’ve known better, for the latter mistake, that was just because I was tired and going on autopilot. In any case I did manage to locate all 54 countries in 56 attempts with no skips.

    I can also identify all the African national flags, and could probably draw them all from memory, too. I can also identify all the national coats of arms of Africa, but I definitely could not draw those from memory.

    Testing myself on African capitals, which I used to have 100% memorized, I could only correctly identify two-thirds of them now. It probably won’t take much for me to relearn the capitals I’m weak on, since for a lot of the names that I couldn’t remember off the top of my head, those names did sound familiar once the answers were revealed.

    I also quizzed myself on African national anthems as performed by the US Navy Band.

    Anthems I can identify
    • DRC (Debout, congolais / Arise, Congolese)
    • Kenya (Ee mungu nguvu yetu / O God of All Creation)
    • Algeria (Qassaman / We Pledge — The lyrics to this anthem I’ve heard were first written in blood on a prison wall)
    • Sierra Leone (High We Exalt Thee, Realm of the Free)
    • Senegal (Pincez tous vos koras, frappez le balafons / Everyone strum your koras, strike the balafons)
    • Djibouti (Djibouti)
    • Eritrea (Ertra, Ertra, Ertra / Eritrea, Eritrea, Eritrea)
    • Ethiopia (Wodefit Gesgeshi, Widd Inate Ityoppya / March Forth, Dear Mother Ethiopia)
    • South Africa / Tanzania / Zambia (All use the melody of “Nkosi sikelel’ iAfrika” — South Africa uses this melody followed by the melody of “Die Stem van Suid-Afrika”)
    • Gabon (La Concorde / The Concord)
    • Madagascar (Ry Tanindrazanay Malala ô / O Beloved Land of Our Ancestors)
    • Morocco (Cherifian Anthem)
    • Mauritania (the 1960-2017 anthem — the post-2017 anthem sounds a bit like the 20th Century Fox theme)
    • Burkina Faso (Une Seule Nuit / One Single Night — this anthem was actually written by Sankara himself!)
    • Namibia (Namibia, Land of the Brave)
    • South Sudan (South Sudan Oyee)
    • Niger (L’Honneur de la Patrie / The Honor of the Fatherland)
    • Egypt (Bilady, Bilady, Bilady / Homeland, Homeland, Homeland)
    • Liberia (All Hail, Liberia, Hail!)

    Anthems I should’ve been able to identify but didn’t:

    • Eswatini (Nkulunkulu Mnikati wetibusiso temaSwati / God, Giver of Blessings to the Swazi — this is the only national anthem in the world with click consonants in its lyrics, but you can’t exactly hear that in an instrumental rendition…)
    • Chad (La Tchadienne / Song of the Chadian — I even knew some of the words)
    • Mali (Pour l’Afrique et pour toi, Mali / For Africa And For You, Mali — other renditions are much more distinctive)
    • Somalia (Soomaaliyeey toosoo / Somalis, Wake Up — this is technically the old anthem, in any case other renditions are much more distinctive)
    • Sudan (Nahnu Jundullah, Jundulwatan / We Are Soldiers of God, Soldiers of the Motherland — again, other renditions are much more distinctive)
    • Libya (Libiya, Libiya, Libiya / Libya, Libya, Libya — which in Arabic script looks like three viking ships)

    There are also a few historical anthems, anthems of unrecognized/partially-recognized countries, or subnational anthems I might’ve been able to identify, but which weren’t in the playlist I listened to. There’s also the question of whether you count Yemen as an African country because of Socotra, but I wouldn’t do this personally.

    Which means that I got 21 / 54 countries, or just over two-fifths.












  • Alright, look at me, deer comrade. Look. at. me.

    [“NY Rush” starts playing out of nowhere]

    So you do not seem to understand the implications of what I have written: somehow the parse tree that you have subconsciously drawn in your mind is completely different from the interpretation that I intended when I typed those 26 words. So I will now clarify exactly what I am trying to say: I would feign — that is, I would completely and utterly fabricate — an overtly enthusiastic support for the actually revolting American imperialist project that is the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, if, and only if, doing so would mean that I would attract the attention of a set of anthropomorphized communist hyenas. Emphasis on communist, however: I would decidedly not engage in such behavior if doing so would attract the attention of anthropomorphized hyenas based on famous neoliberal ghouls.

    Regardless, I am attempting to imply that I desire to be publicly humiliated and mayhaps even eaten.

    By furries.

    Sexual style.

    Do you understand what I’m saying now? I mean, I’m a real freak. I’m not normal. Like, I want it to scare the shit out of me, too. I want to be an entirely different person by the end of the first eight hours. But again, only if the hyenas are communist. Only then.