title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Though Napoleon's imperial title was viewed with distaste, Austrian officials immediately realized that if they were to refuse to accept him as an emperor, war with France would be renewed. Instead, the focus became on how to accept Napoleon as an emperor while still maintaining the pre-eminence of their own emperor and empire. France had officially accepted parity with Austria as a distinct state in 1757, 1797 and 1801 and in the same settlements accepted that the Holy Roman Empire outranked both Austria and France. Thus, it was decided that Austria would be raised to the rank of an empire in order to maintain the parity between Austria and France while still preserving the Roman imperial title as pre-eminent, outranking both.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Francis II proclaimed himself as Emperor of Austria (without the need of a new coronation, as he had already had an imperial coronation) on 11 August 1804, in addition to already being the Holy Roman Emperor. Cobenzl advised that a separate hereditary Austrian title would also allow the Habsburg to maintain parity with other rulers (since the Holy Roman title was viewed by Cobenzl as merely honorific) and ensure elections to the position of Holy Roman Emperor in the future. A myriad of reasons were used to justify the Austrian Empire's creation, including the number of subjects under the Habsburg Monarchy, the vast extent of his crown lands and the long association between the Habsburg family and the elective Holy Roman imperial title. Another important point used to justify its creation was that Francis was, in the traditional sense, the supreme Christian monarch and he was thus entitled to award himself with any dignities he wished. The title "Emperor of Austria" was meant to associate with all of Francis II's personal domains (not just Austria, but also lands such as Bohemia and Hungary), regardless of their current position within or outside the Holy Roman Empire. "Austria" in this sense referred to the dynasty (often officially called the "House of Austria" instead of the "House of Habsburg"), not the geographical location.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The title of Holy Roman Emperor remained pre-eminent to both "Emperor of the French" and "Emperor of Austria" as it embodied the traditional ideal of the universal Christian empire. Neither the Austrian nor the French title made claims to govern this universal empire and thus did not disturb the traditional and established world order. The imperial titles of Austria and France were seen as more or less royal titles (as they were hereditary) and in the minds of the Austrians, there still remained only one true empire and one true emperor in Europe. To illustrate this, Francis II's official imperial title read "elected Roman Emperor, ever Augustus, hereditary Emperor of Austria", placing the Austrian title behind the Roman title.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Though Napoleon was reluctant to tie his own imperial title to any concessions, he needed recognition from Austria to secure wider recognition and thus agreed to recognize Francis II's new title. Prior to his own coronation, he sent a personal letter of congratulations to Francis. George III of the United Kingdom recognized the new title in October and although Russian Emperor Alexander I objected to Francis "lowering himself to the level of the usurper Napoleon", he recognized the title in November. The only significant objections to Francis II's title were raised by Sweden, which through holding Swedish Pomerania, an Imperial Estate, had a place in the Reichstag. The Swedes saw the title as a "clear breach" of the imperial constitution and, invoking their prerogative as a guarantor of the imperial constitution, demanded a formal debate in the Reichstag, a threat that was neutralized by the other parties of the Reichstag agreeing to an extended summer recess until November. To defend the title, imperial representatives argued that it did not infringe on the imperial constitution as there were already other examples of dual monarchies within the empire, states such as Prussia and Sweden were not part of the empire, but their possessions within the empire were.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The War of the Third Coalition came too soon for Austria, which moved against France in September 1805. Defeated at the Battle of Austerlitz on 2 December 1805, Austria had to accept terms dictated by Napoleon in the Peace of Pressburg (26 December). These created deliberate ambiguities in the imperial constitution. Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg were granted "plénitude de la souveraineté" (full sovereignty) while remaining a part of the "Conféderation Germanique" (Germanic Confederation), a novel name for the Holy Roman Empire. Likewise, it was left deliberately unclear whether the Duchy of Cleves, the Duchy of Berg and the County of Mark—imperial territories transferred to Joachim Murat—were to remain imperial fiefs or become part of the French Empire. As late as March 1806, Napoleon was uncertain whether they should remain nominally within the Empire.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The Free Imperial Knights, who had survived the attack on their rights in the "Rittersturm" of 1803–04, were subject to a second attack and a spate of annexations by those states allied to Napoleon in November–December 1805. In response, the knights' corporation ("corpus equestre") dissolved itself on 20 January 1806. With the dissolution of the Empire, the knights ceased to be either free or imperial and were at the mercy of the newly sovereign states.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Contemporaries saw the defeat at Austerlitz as a turning point of world-historical significance. The Peace of Pressburg, too, was perceived as radical shift. It did not affirm previous treaties in the usual way and its wording seemed to raise Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg into equals of the empire while downgrading the latter to a merely German confederation. Nevertheless, Bavaria and Württemberg reaffirmed to the Reichstag that they were subject to imperial law. Some commentators argued that "plénitude de la souveraineté" was just a French translation of "Landeshoheit" (the quasi-sovereignty possessed by imperial estates) and the treaty had not altered the relationship between the members and the empire.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Throughout the first half of 1806, Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg attempted to steer an independent course between the demands of the empire and Napoleon. In April 1806, Napoleon sought a treaty whereby the three states would ally themselves to France in perpetuity while forswearing participation in future "Reichskriege" (imperial war efforts) and submitting to a "commission de méditation" under his presidency to resolve their disputes. Despite all of this, they were to remain members of the empire. Württemberg ultimately refused to sign.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In June 1806, Napoleon began pressuring Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg for the creation of "confédération de la haute Allemagne" (Upper German confederation) outside the empire. On 12 July 1806, these three states and thirteen other minor German princes formed the Confederation of the Rhine, effectively a French satellite state. On 1 August, the Reichstag was informed by a French envoy that Napoleon no longer recognized the existence of the Holy Roman Empire and on the same day, nine of the princes who had formed the Confederation of the Rhine issued a proclamation in which they justified their actions by claiming that the Holy Roman Empire had already collapsed and ceased to function due to the defeat in the Battle of Austerlitz.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In the face of Napoleon's assumption of the title "Emperor of the French" in 1804 and the Austrian defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz in 1805, the Habsburg monarchy began contemplating whether the imperial title and the empire as a whole were worth defending. Many of the states nominally serving the Holy Roman Emperor, such as Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria, had openly defied imperial authority and sided with Napoleon. Even then, the significance of the empire was not based on actual control of resources, but on prestige.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The main idea behind Francis II's actions in 1806 was to lay the groundwork needed to avoid additional future wars with Napoleon and France. One concern held by the Habsburg monarchy was that Napoleon might aspire to claim the title of Holy Roman Emperor. Napoleon was attracted to Charlemagne's legacy; replicas of Charlemagne's crown and sword had been made for (but not used during) Napoleon's coronation as Emperor of the French and he consciously revived Roman imperial symbols and aspired to create a new order in Europe, something akin to the universal dominion implicit in the title of Emperor of the Romans. Napoleon's vision of Charlemagne was completely different from the German vision of the old emperor, however. Instead of seeing Charlemagne as a German king, Napoleon viewed him as a Frankish conqueror who had extended French rule across Central Europe and Italy, something Napoleon aspired to accomplish as well.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Austria was slow to respond to the fast pace of events. Already on the 17 June, Francis had taken the decision to abdicate at the moment that seemed best for Austria. Klemens von Metternich was sent on a mission to Paris to discern Napoleon's intentions. On 22 July, Napoleon made them clear in an ultimatum demanding that Francis abdicated by 10 August. Still, as late as 2 August, Joseph Haas, the head of the principal commission's secretariat, hoped that the end of the Holy Roman Empire might yet be averted. The general opinion among the Austrian high command was however that abdication was inevitable and that it should be combined with a dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire through relieving the vassals of the emperor of their duties and obligations. A formal dissolution of the empire was perceived as necessary, as it would prevent Napoleon from acquiring the imperial title. During an interregnum, the two imperial vicars Saxony and Bavaria would be entitled to exercise imperial authority and since both were aligned with Napoleon, such an arrangement could cause an abdicated Francis (as only Emperor of Austria) to become a vassal of Napoleon (as Holy Roman Emperor). Though there is no concrete evidence that Napoleon actually aspired to become Holy Roman Emperor, it is possible that he entertained the idea, especially after he had formed the Confederation of the Rhine and beaten back Austria in early 1806. Perhaps Napoleon did not think that the title could be combined with "Emperor of the French" (even though Francis II was emperor of both the Holy Roman Empire and Austria) and because of this he might have abandoned any potential Roman aspirations since he did not wish to relinquish his other imperial title. The ephemeral Roman aspirations can also be gathered from Napoleon's correspondence with the papacy; in early 1806, he warned Pope Pius VII that "Your Holiness is sovereign in Rome but I am its Emperor".


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: More crucially than fearing Napoleon potentially usurping the title, the abdication was also intended to buy time for Austria to recover from its losses as it was assumed that France would meet it with some concessions. Although the Roman title and the tradition of a universal Christian monarchy were still considered prestigious and a worthy heritage, they were now also considered things of the past. With the Holy Roman Empire dissolved, Francis II could focus his attention on the continued rise and prosperity of his new hereditary empire, as Emperor Francis I of Austria.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: On the morning of 6 August 1806, the imperial herald of the Holy Roman Empire rode from the Hofburg to the Jesuit Church of the Nine Choirs of Angels (both being located in Vienna, the capital of the Habsburg Monarchy), where he delivered Francis II's official proclamation from a balcony overlooking a large square. Written copies of the proclamation were dispatched to the diplomats of the Habsburg monarchy on 11 August alongside a note which informed former princes of the empire that Austria would compensate those who had been paid from the imperial treasury. The abdication did not acknowledge the French ultimatum, but stressed that the interpretation of the Peace of Pressburg by the imperial estates made it impossible for Francis to fulfill the obligations he had undertaken in his electoral capitulation.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Holy Roman Emperors had abdicated before—the most notable example being the abdication of Charles V in 1558—but Francis II's abdication was unique. While previous abdications had returned the imperial crown to the electors so that they may proclaim a new emperor, Francis II's abdication simultaneously dissolved the empire itself so that there were no more electors.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The Holy Roman Empire, an institution which had lasted for just over a thousand years, did not pass unnoticed or unlamented. The dissolution of the empire sent shockwaves through Germany, with most of the reactions within the former imperial boundaries being rage, grief or shame. Even the signatories of the Confederation of the Rhine were outraged; the Bavarian emissary to the imperial diet, Rechberg, stated that he was "furious" due to having "put his signature to the destruction of the German name", referring to his state's involvement in the confederation, which had effectively doomed the empire. From a legal standpoint, Francis II's abdication was controversial. Contemporary legal commentators agreed that the abdication itself was perfectly legal but that the emperor did not have the authority to dissolve the empire. As such, several of the empire's vassals refused to recognize that the empire had ended. As late as October 1806, farmers in Thuringia refused to accept the end of the empire, believing its dissolution to be a plot by the local authorities. For many of the people within the former empire, its collapse made them uncertain and fearful of their future, and the future of Germany itself. Contemporary reports from Vienna describe the dissolution of the empire as "incomprehensible" and the general public's reaction as one of horror.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In contrast to the fears of the general public, many contemporary intellectuals and artists saw Napoleon as a herald of a new age, rather than a destroyer of an old order. The popular idea forwarded by German nationalists was that the final collapse of the Holy Roman Empire freed Germany from the somewhat anachronistic ideas rooted in a fading ideal of universal Christianity and paved the way for the country's unification as the German Empire, a nation state, 65 years later. German historian Helmut Rössler has argued that Francis II and the Austrians fought to save the largely ungrateful Germany from the forces of Napoleon, only withdrawing and abandoning the empire when most of Germany betrayed them and joined Napoleon. Indeed, the assumption of a separate Austrian imperial title in 1804 did not mean that Francis II had any intentions to abdicate his prestigious position as the Roman emperor, the idea only began to be considered as circumstances beyond Habsburg control forced decisive actions to be taken.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Compounded with fears of what now guaranteed the safety of many of the smaller German states, the poet Christoph Martin Wieland lamented that Germany had now fallen into an "apocalyptic time" and stating "Who can bear this disgrace, which weighs down upon a nation which was once so glorious?—may God improve things, if it is still possible to improve them!". To some, the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was seen as the final end of the ancient Roman Empire. In the words of Christian Gottlob von Voigt, a minister in Weimar, "if poetry can go hand in hand with politics, then the abdication of the imperial dignity offers a wealth of material. The Roman Empire now takes its place in the sequence of vanquished empires". In the words of the English historian James Bryce, 1st Viscount Bryce in his 1864 work on the Holy Roman Empire, the empire was the "oldest political institution in the world" and the same institution as the one founded by Augustus in 27 BC. Writing of the empire, Bryce stated that "nothing else so directly linked the old world to the new—nothing else displayed so many strange contrasts of the present and the past, and summed up in those contrasts so much of European history". When confronted by the fall and collapse of their empire, many contemporaries employed the catastrophic fall of ancient Troy as a metaphor, due to its association with the notion of total destruction and the end of a culture. The image of the apocalypse was also frequently used, associating the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire with an impending end of the world (echoing medieval legends of a Last Roman Emperor, a figure prophesied to be active during the end times).


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Criticism and protests against the empire's dissolution were typically censored, especially in the French-administered Confederation of the Rhine. Among the aspects most criticized by the general populace was the removal or replacement of the traditional intercessions for the empire and emperor in the daily church prayers throughout former imperial territory. Suppression from France, combined with examples of excessive retribution against pro-empire advocates, ensured that these protests soon died down.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In an official capacity, Prussia's response was only formulaic expressions of regret owing to the "termination of an honourable bond hallowed by time". Prussia's representative to the Reichstag, Baron Görtz, reacted with sadness, mixed with gratitude and affection for the House of Habsburg and their former role as emperors. Görtz had taken part as an electoral emissary of the Electorate of Brandenburg (Prussia's territory within the formal imperial borders) in 1792, at the election of Francis II as Holy Roman Emperor, and exclaimed that "So the emperor whom I helped elect was the last emperor!—This step was no doubt to be expected, but that does not make its reality any less moving and crushing. It cuts off the last thread of hope to which one tried to cling". Baron von Wiessenberg, the Austrian envoy to the Electorate of Hesse-Kassel, reported that the local elector, William I, had teared up and expressed lament at the loss of "a constitution to which Germany had for so long owed its happiness and freedom".


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Internationally, the empire's demise was met with mixed or indifferent reactions. Alexander I of Russia offered no response and Christian VII of Denmark formally incorporated his German lands into his kingdoms a few months after the empire's dissolution. Gustav IV of Sweden (who notably hadn't recognized the separate imperial title of Austria yet) issued a somewhat provocative proclamation to the denizens of his German lands (Swedish Pomerania and Bremen-Verden) on 22 August 1806, stating that the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire "would not destroy the German nation" and expressed hopes that the empire might be revived.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire was constituted by Francis II's own personal abdication of the title and the release of all vassals and imperial states from their obligations and duties to the emperor. The title of Holy Roman Emperor (theoretically the same title as Roman emperor) and the Holy Roman Empire itself as an idea and institution (the theoretically universally sovereign "imperium") were never technically abolished. The continued existence of a universal empire, though without defined territory and lacking an emperor, was sometimes referenced in the titles of other later monarchs. For instance, the Savoyard Kings of Italy continued to claim the title "Prince and Perpetual Vicar of the Holy Roman Empire (in Italy)" (a title originating from a 14th-century imperial grant from Emperor Charles IV to their ancestor Amadeus VI, Count of Savoy) until the abolition of the Italian monarchy in 1946.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In the aftermath of Napoleon's defeats in 1814 and 1815, there was a widespread sentiment in Germany and elsewhere which called for the revival of the Holy Roman Empire under the leadership of Francis I of Austria. At the time, there were several factors which prevented the restoration of the empire as it had been in the 18th century, notably the rise of larger, more consolidated kingdoms in Germany, such as Bavaria, Saxony and Württemberg, as well as Prussia's interest in becoming a great power in Europe (rather than continue being a vassal to the Habsburgs). Even then, the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire, with a modernized internal political structure, had not been out of reach at the 1814–1815 Congress of Vienna (which decided Europe's borders in the aftermath of Napoleon's defeat). However, Emperor Francis had come to the conclusion before the congress that the Holy Roman Empire's political structure would not have been superior to the new order in Europe and that restoring it was not in the interest of the Habsburg monarchy. In an official capacity, the papacy considered the fact that the Holy Roman Empire was not restored at the Congress of Vienna (alongside other decisions made during the negotiations) to be "detrimental to the interests of the Catholic religion and the rights of the church".


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In the Holy Roman Empire's place, the Congress of Vienna created the German Confederation, which was led by the Austrian emperors as "heads of the presiding power" and would prove to be ineffective. The Confederation was weakened by the German revolutions of 1848–1849, whereafter the Frankfurt Parliament, elected by the people of the Confederation, attempted to proclaim a German Empire and designate Frederick William IV of Prussia as their emperor. Frederick William IV himself did not approve of the idea, instead favoring a restoration of the Holy Roman Empire under the Habsburgs of Austria, though neither the Habsburgs themselves nor the German revolutionaries, still active at the time, would have approved of that idea.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In the Austrian Empire, the Habsburg dynasty continued to act as a substitute for nationality, though the Austrian imperial title was not (unlike for instance the French or Russian imperial titles) associated with any nationality in particular. Though the German vassals of the Holy Roman Empire had been released from their obligations, Francis II and his successors continued to rule a large German-speaking population and the Holy Roman imperial regalia continued to be kept within their domains (and are to this day stored and displayed at the Imperial Treasury at the Hofburg in Vienna). The dynasty retained its prominent status among the royal families of Europe and were in the eyes of many of their subjects still the only true imperial family. Although the new Austrian Empire lacked many of the key elements of the Holy Roman Empire, it remained close in practice and ideals to the pre-1806 empire. In many respects, the Austrian emperors continued to act as protectors of the Catholic Church, just as the Holy Roman emperors had before them. During his 1809–1814 imprisonment in France and after his subsequent release, Pope Pius VII looked to Emperor Francis as the protector of the church, for instance petitioning the emperor to help him in re-establishing the Papal States.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In the aftermath of Francis II's abdication, the new Austrian Empire took steps to distance itself from the older empire. The symbols and formal titles of the Austrian monarchy were altered to stress Austria as a distinct entity. Because the term "Kaiserthum Österreich" (Empire of Austria) had entered everyday speech, the monarchy soon dropped the original prefix "hereditary", which had been used from 1804 to 1806 to stress the difference between Austria and the Holy Roman Empire.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: In addition to the Austrian Empire (and France under Napoleon), the most prominent potential claimant to the Holy Roman Empire's legacy (in the sense of ruling Germany) in the wake of its collapse and dissolution was the Kingdom of Prussia, ruled by the House of Hohenzollern. Alongside the growing crown lands of the Habsburgs, Prussia represented the sole major power in Central Europe during the last century or so of Holy Roman imperial rule. It was frequently rumored that the Prussians had imperial ambitions, and Frederick II of Prussia was a rumored candidate to the position of Holy Roman Emperor in 1740. Frederick II, and other Prussian kings, dismissed these ideas while they remained under imperial rule, arguing that additional territory and power would be more beneficial than the imperial title. In 1795 and again in 1803 and 1804, French representatives suggested that Prussia might convert its northern German territories into an empire, but the Hohenzollerns were not interested in going through with such a plan. Though the Prussian rulers and their officials expressed sorrow at the collapsing state of the Holy Roman Empire from 1792 onwards, they were also critical of nostalgia for Germany's history under imperial rule. The Prussians viewed the survival chances of the Holy Roman Empire as very low and saw the French as the true successors of the ancient Carolingians, an enemy which they believed could not be defeated by normal military means.


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: The reluctance of the Hohenzollerns to assume an imperial title shifted in 1806 as they feared that with the formation of the Confederation of the Rhine and the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon might aspire to claim the hypothetical position of "Emperor of Germany". Though preparations were made to create an "imperial union" in northern Germany, with an emperor of the Hohenzollern dynasty, these plans were dropped in September 1806 after they found little support, and Emperor Alexander I of Russia objected to them. Because the Hohenzollerns lacked imperial ancestry they did not see themselves as an imperial dynasty and, even after Napoleon's ultimate defeats in 1813 and 1815, their position changed little. Although Germany was united into the German Empire in 1871 under the Hohenzollern emperor Wilhelm I, the proclamation of the new empire was ideologically problematic and the Hohenzollerns found themselves mostly ill-at-ease with its implications. Attempts were made to associate the German Empire with the institutions of the Holy Roman Empire, but its emperors continued to enumerate themselves after the Kings of Prussia; Emperor Frederick III (1888) was enumerated after his predecessor as king, Frederick II, not after the previous imperial Frederick (Emperor Frederick III of the 15th century, the new Frederick would then have been Frederick IV).


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Both the German Empire and Austria-Hungary, the Habsburg-ruled Dual Monarchy, fell in 1918 in the aftermath of the First World War. Over the course of the centuries, the many states of the Holy Roman Empire would evolve into the 16 modern states of Germany. As partly sovereign polities, the German states, especially in more or less independently administrated areas such as culture and education, harken back to the old empire. Historians Norman Stone and Johannes Burkhardt have compared the Holy Roman Empire, especially in regards to its locally administrated component states, to the modern Federal Republic of Germany, with Burkhardt writing that "I can state unequivocally that the Old Reich was the true predecessor of the Federal Republic of Germany" and Stone writing, in regards to the modern republic's foundation, that "This time it [has been] a Germany minus Prussia and Austria. It was a return to the old Holy Roman Empire, to a Germany where true civilisation existed on a very local level, that of the prince-bishopric".


title: Dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire

text: Despite the Holy Roman Empire ultimately failing to prevent war with France, the late empire's nominal role in working for peace and forming a loose sort of hegemony and partnership offered an alternative to both the universal absolute monarchy of Napoleon's French Empire and the universal republic advocated by Revolutionary France and it served as a model for the constitutions of international bodies and organizations of the future.


title: Shan State

text: Shan State (, ; ) also known by the endonyms Shanland, Muang Tai, and Tailong, is a state of Myanmar. Shan State borders China (Yunnan) to the north, Laos (Louang Namtha and Bokeo Provinces) to the east, and Thailand (Chiang Rai, Chiang Mai and Mae Hong Son Provinces) to the south, and five administrative divisions of Burma (Myanmar) in the west. The largest of the 14 administrative divisions by land area, Shan State covers 155,800 km, almost a quarter of the total area of Myanmar. The state gets its name from Burmese name for the Tai peoples: "Shan people". The Tai (Shan) constitute the majority among several ethnic groups that inhabit the area. Shanland is largely rural, with only three cities of significant size: Lashio, Kengtung, and the capital, Taunggyi. Taunggyi is 150.7 km northeast of the nation's capital Naypyitaw.


title: Shan State

text: The Shan state, with many ethnic groups, is home to several armed ethnic armies. While the military government has signed ceasefire agreements with most groups, vast areas of the state, especially those east of the Salween River, remain outside the central government's control, and in recent years have come under heavy ethnic-Han Chinese economic and political influence. Other areas are under the control of military groups such as the Shan State Army.


title: Shan State

text: According to data from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), Shan State is the region that produces the most opium in Myanmar, accounting for 82% (331 metric tons) of the country's total output (405 metric tons) in 2020. With that said, opium poppy cultivation has declined year-on-year since 2015. In 2020, cultivation in Shan State declined a further 12%, with reductions taking place in East, North and South Shan with respective decreases of 17%, 10% and 9% from previous levels in 2019.


title: Shan State

text: Muang Tai (Shan: ) is the native name for the region as well as a term used for the Tai-inhabited parts of Myanmar outside of Shan State. "Muang" (မိူင်း) means country in Tai languages and is used before the names of other countries, e.g. "Muang Maan" (Myanmar).


title: Shan State

text: Shan Pyi () derives from a Burmese corruption of the name "Siam" which is an old name for Lower Thailand. "Pyi" is a Burmese word meaning country and thus "Shan Pyi" can be translated as Shan State or Shanland. Officially, the region is called "Shan State" in English and "Shan Pyine" in Burmese but the "ne" in often dropped in colloquial speech.


title: Shan State

text: Tailong is a recently coined term to give the region an English name that derives from an endonym rather than an exonym. The etymology comes from the term Tai-Long (Shan: "taj4 long1") which means "Great Tai" and is a commonly used identifier by the people to differentiate their specific branch of the Tai peoples.


title: Shan State

text: Shan State is the unitary successor state to the Burmese Shan States, the princely states that were under some degree of control of the Irrawaddy valley-based Burmese kingdoms.


title: Shan State

text: Historical Tai-Mao states extended well beyond the Burmese Shan States, ranging from full-fledged kingdoms of Assam in the northwest to Lan Xang in the east, to Lan Na and Ayutthaya in the southeast, as well as several petty princely states in between, covering present-day northern Chin State, northern Sagaing Division, Kachin State, Kayah State in Myanmar as well as Laos, Thailand and the southwestern part of Yunnan, China. The definition of Burmese Shan States does not include the Ava Kingdom and the Hanthawaddy Kingdom of the 13th to 16th centuries, although the founders of these kingdoms were Burmanized Shans and Monized Shans, respectively.


title: Shan State

text: The founding of Shan States inside the present-day boundaries of Burma began during the Pagan Kingdom in the Shan Hills and accelerated after 1287, when the Pagan Kingdom fell to the Mongols. The Tai people, who came south with the Mongols, stayed, and quickly came to dominate much of northern to the eastern arc of Burma—from northwestern Sagaing Division to Kachin Hills to the present-day Shan Hills. The most powerful Shan states were Mong Yang (Mohnyin) and Mong Kawng (Mogaung) in present-day Kachin State, followed by Hsenwi (Theinni), Hsipaw (Thibaw) and Mong Mit (Momeik) in present-day northern Shan State. Smaller Shan states, such as Kale in northwestern Sagaing Division, Bhamo in Kachin State, Yawnghwe (Nyaungshwe) and Kengtung (Kyaingtong) in Shan State, and Mong Pai (Mobye) in Kayah State, played a precarious game of paying allegiance to more powerful states, sometimes simultaneously.


title: Shan State

text: The newly founded Shan States were multi-ethnic, and included other ethnic minorities such as the Chin, the Kachin, the Wa, the Ta'ang, the Lisu, the Lahu, the Pa O, and the Kayah. Although Burmanised Shans founded the Ava Kingdom that ruled central Burma, other Shan states, Mohnyin in particular, constantly raided Ava territories throughout the years. A Mohnyin-led Confederation of Shan States finally conquered Ava in 1527.


title: Shan State

text: In 1555, King Bayinnaung dislodged Shan king Sithu Kyawhtin from Ava. By 1557 he went on to conquer all of what would become known as the Burmese Shan states under his rule, from the Assamese border in the northwest to those in Kachin Hills and Shan Hills, including the two most powerful Shan states, Mohnyin and Mogaung. The Shan states were reduced to the status of governorships, but the Saophas were permitted to retain their royal regalia and their feudal rights over their own subjects. Bayinnaung introduced Burmese customary law and prohibited all human and animal sacrifices. He also required the sons of Saophas to reside in the Burmese king's palace, essentially hostages, in order to ensure the good conduct of their fathers and to receive training in Burmese court life. Burmese kings continued this policy until 1885 when the kingdom fell to the British. (The northernmost Shan states, in Yunnan, had already fallen to the Chinese Ming dynasty by the middle of the 15th century.)


title: Shan State

text: The reach of the Burmese sovereign waxed and waned with the ability of each Burmese monarch. Shan states became briefly independent following the collapse of the first Toungoo dynasty, in 1599. The Restored Toungoo dynasty under King Nyaungyan and King Anaukpetlun recovered the Shan states, including the two strongest—Monhyin and Mogaung by 1605 and Lan Na by 1615. In the early-18th century, the rule of Burmese monarchs declined rapidly and by the 1730s, the northernmost Shan states, many of which had paid dual tribute to China and Burma, had been annexed by the Qing Dynasty of China. The annexed border states ranged from Mogaung and Bhamo in present-day Kachin State to Hsenwi and Kengtung in present-day Shan State to Sipsongpanna (Kyaingyun) in present-day Xishuangbanna Dai Autonomous Prefecture, Yunnan.


title: Shan State

text: In the middle of the 18th century, the Burmese Konbaung dynasty's reassertion of the easternmost boundaries of Burmese Shan states led to war with China. It made four separate invasions of Burma from 1765 to 1769, during the Sino-Burmese War. The Burmese success in repelling Chinese forces laid the foundation for the present-day boundary between Burma and China.


title: Shan State

text: The present-day boundary of southern Shan State vis-à-vis Thailand was formed shortly thereafter. Burma lost southern Lan Na (Chiang Mai) in 1776 and northern Lan Na (Chiang Saen) in 1786 to a resurgent Bangkok-based Siam, ending more than two centuries of Burmese suzerainty over the region. It retained only Kengtung on the Burmese side. The southern border of Shan State remained contested in the following years. Siam invaded Kengtung in 1803–1804 and 1852–1854, and Burma invaded Lan Na in 1797 and 1804. Siam occupied Kengtung during World War II (1942–1945).


title: Shan State

text: Throughout the Burmese feudal era, Shan states supplied much manpower in the service of Burmese kings. Without Shan manpower, the Burmans alone would not have been able to achieve their victories in Lower Burma, Siam, and elsewhere. Shans were a major part of Burmese forces in the First Anglo-Burmese War of 1824–1826, and fought valiantly—a fact that the British commanders acknowledged.


title: Shan State

text: After the Second Anglo-Burmese War of 1852, the Burmese kingdom was reduced to Upper Burma alone. The Shan states—especially that east of the Salween River, were essentially autonomous entities, paying token tribute to the king. In 1875, King Mindon, to avoid certain defeat, ceded Karenni states, long part of Shan states, to the British. When the last king of Burma, Thibaw Min, ascended the throne in 1878, the rule of central government was so weak that Thibaw had to send thousands of troops to tame a rebellion in the Shan state of Mongnai and other eastern Shan states for the remainder of his six-year reign.


title: Shan State

text: On 28 November 1885, the British captured Mandalay, officially ending the Third Anglo-Burmese War in 11 days. But it took until 1890 for the British to subdue all of the various Shan states. Under the British colonial administration, established in 1887, the Shan states were ruled by their saophas as feudatory princely states of the British Crown. The British placed Kachin Hills inside Mandalay Division and northwestern Shan areas under Sagaing Division. In October 1922, the Shan and the Karenni states were merged to create the Federated Shan States, under a commissioner who also administered the Wa States. This arrangement survived the constitutional changes of 1923 and 1937.


title: Shan State

text: During World War II, most of the Shan states were occupied by the Japanese. Chinese Kuomintang forces who illegally entered Burmese territory came down to northeastern Shan states to face the Japanese. Thai forces, allied with the Japanese, occupied Kengtung and surrounding areas in 1942, annexing the territory to the Thai state.


title: Shan State

text: After the war, the British returned, while many Chinese KMT forces stayed inside Burmese Shan states. Negotiations leading to independence at the Panglong Conference in February 1947 secured a unitary Shan State, including former Wa states, but without the Karenni states. More importantly, Shan State gained the right of secession in 10 years from independence.


title: Shan State

text: Soon after gaining independence in January 1948, the central government led by U Nu faced several armed rebellions. The most serious was the Chinese Nationalist KMT invasion of Shan State in 1950. Driven out by the Chinese Communist forces, Nationalist KMT armies planned to use the region east of the Salween River as a base from which to regain their homeland. In March 1953, the KMT forces, with US assistance, were on the verge of taking the entire Shan State and within a day's march of the state capital Taunggyi. The Burmese army drove the invaders east across the Salween, but much of the KMT army and their progeny have remained in the eastern Shan State under various guises to the present day. The Burmese army's heavy-handedness fueled resentment.


title: Shan State

text: In 1961, Shan saophas led by Sao Shwe Thaik, the first president of Burma and saopha of Yawnghwe, proposed a new federal system of government for greater autonomy, although the Shans had the constitutional right to secede. Though Shan leaders promised not to exercise the right, the Burmese army led by Gen. Ne Win thought the proposal was secessionist. Gen. Ne Win's coup d'etat in 1962 brought an end to the Burmese experiment with democracy and with it, the call for greater autonomy for ethnic minorities. The coup fueled the Shan rebellion, started in 1958 by a small group called "Num Hsük Han" ('young warriors'), now joined by the Shan State Army (SSA).


title: Shan State

text: By the early-1960s, eastern Shan State festered with several insurgencies and warlords, and it emerged as a major opium-growing area, part of the so-called Golden Triangle. Narcotics trafficking became a vital source of revenue for all insurgencies. Major forces consisted of the SSA and the Communist Party of Burma (CPB), as well as those of the drug lords Khun Sa, and Lo Hsing Han. By the mid-1960s, CPB had begun receiving open support from China. Thailand also began a decades-long policy of support for non-communist Burmese rebels. Families of insurgent leaders were allowed to live in Thailand, where insurgent armies were free to buy arms, ammunition, and other supplies.


title: Shan State

text: In the late-1980s and 1990s, the military government signed ceasefire agreements with 17 groups, including all major players in Shan State. An uneasy truce has ensued, but all forces remain heavily armed. Today, the 20,000-strong United Wa State Army (UWSA) is the largest armed group, and is heavily involved in the narcotics trade. Under the 2008 Constitution, endorsed by the Burmese junta, certain UWSA-controlled areas were given the status of an autonomous region.


title: Shan State

text: In recent decades, Chinese state and ethnic Chinese involvement in Shan State has deepened. Hundreds of thousands of immigrants from China have come to work in Upper Burma since the 1990s. Chinese investment in the state has funded everything from hydro power and mining projects to rubber plantations, logging, and wildlife trade. Wa and Kokang regions, led by local leaders, use the Chinese yuan and operate on Chinese Standard Time.


title: Shan State

text: In the general election of November 2010, 117 seats were open for Shan State Parliament (or Shan State Hluttaw): two each for 55 townships and seven seats for different ethnic constituencies. But elections for Mongmao, Pangwaun, Pangkham, Namphan, and Mong La Township Constituencies were canceled. Fifty-four candidates from Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP), 31 from Shan Nationalities Democratic Party (SNDP), six from PaO National Organization, four from Ta'ang (Palaung) National Party, three each from Inn National Development Party and Wa Democratic Party, four from three other parties, and two independent candidates were elected. Only one candidate from National Unity Party (Burma) was elected for Shan State Hluttaw (2011), although it was the second largest party in term of numbers of candidates.


title: Shan State

text: In 2011, Aung Myat (aka Sao Aung Myat), a former military officer of the Myanmar Army and a USDP candidate of Pindaya constituencies, was named as Chief Minister of Shan State Government. Two candidates from SNDP were named for the first Shan State Government. Sai Ai Pao (aka Sai Aik Paung) was named for Industry and Mining Minister and Sai Naw Kham (aka Tun Tun Aung) was named for Construction Minister. In the Shan State cabinets (2011), one was from the Myanmar Army and six were from the Union Soldiery and Development Party (USDP).


title: Shan State

text: Sai Mauk Kham (aka Maung Ohn), one of the two vice presidents of Myanmar (2011-2015), was elected from Shan State No. 3 Constituency as a National Assembly candidate in the November 2010 election.


title: Shan State

text: Most of the Shan State is a hilly plateau, the Shan Plateau, which together with the higher mountains in the north and south forms the Shan Hills system. The gorge of the Thanlwin (Salween/Namhkong) River cuts across the state. Inle Lake where the leg-rowing Intha people live in floating villages, in the great Nyaung Shwe "plain", is the second largest natural expanse of water in Burma, shallow but long and wide. Pindaya Caves near Aungpan are vast limestone caverns which contain 6,226 Buddha images.


title: Shan State

text: The road to Taunggyi via Kalaw and Aungpan branches off at Thazi from the main Yangon–Mandalay Road; another road via Ywangan and Pindaya branches off from Kyaukse south of Mandalay. The railhead stops short of Taunggyi at Shwenyaung, again from Thazi junction, and nearby Heho has an airport.


title: Shan State

text: A severe magnitude 6.8 earthquake struck in Tarlay, Tachileik Township, the eastern part of Shan State, on 24 March 2011. It killed more than 70 and injured more than 100 people. 390 houses, 14 Buddhist monasteries, and nine government buildings were damaged.


title: Shan State

text: Shan State is traditionally divided into three sub-states: North Shan State, East Shan State, and South Shan State. It is officially divided into 11 districts:


title: Shan State

text: An additional district, Hopang District, was formed as 12th district of Shan State by combining Mongmao, Pangwaun (Panwai), Namphan (Ngaphan) and Pangsang (Pangkham) Townships from Lashio District; Matman Township from Kengtung District; Hopang Township, Panlong and Namtit Sub-Townships from Kunlong District in September 2011.


title: Shan State

text: The legislature of Shan State in Burma, called Hluttaw was established on 8 February 2016. It is a unicameral body, consisting of 137 members—103 elected members and 34 military representatives.<ref name="uec3/16"></ref> As of February 2016, Sai Long Hseng of the Union Solidarity and Development Party (USDP) leads the Hluttaw.


title: Shan State

text: The national anthem of Shan State (Shan: ၵႂၢမ်းၸိူဝ်ႉၸၢတ်ႈတႆး "Kwam Jue Jaat Tai") was composed by Dr Panyan on 7 February 1947.


title: Shan State

text: The people of Shan State can be divided into nine primary ethnic groups: the Shan (Tai), Pa-O, Intha, Lahu, Lisu, Taungyo, Danu, Shwe Palaung Ngwe Palaung, Ahka, and Kachin (Jingpo).


title: Shan State

text: The valleys and tableland are inhabited by the Shan people, who in language and customs resemble the Thais, Sam, and the Lao. They are largely Buddhists and are mainly engaged in agriculture. Among the Shans live the Bamar, Han-Chinese, and Karens. The hills are inhabited by various peoples, notably the Wa, who are numerous in the north and along the Chinese border. The Ta'ang People are numerous in the Northern Shan State, in Namkham, Muse, Namhpaka, Kutkai, and Lashio Townships along the Burma-China Border and also in the middle of Shan State, in Namhsam, Kyaukme and Thibaw Townships. The population of the Palaung people is over 1,000,000. Some of the Ta'ang people can be found in Kalaw and Aungban in the Southern Shan State.


title: Shan State

text: The Lisu people are numerous in Mongmit, Hsipaw, Kyaukme, Namhsam, Namhpaka, Kutkai, Namtu, Lashio, Hopang, Tangyan, and Kokang of northern Shan State. Lisu also has numerous population in Taunggyi, Pekon, Hopong, Mongpon, Loilem, Panglong, Lai-Hka, Namsang, Mongnai, Mongpan, Mongton of southern Shan state. A few Lisu population in Kengtung and Wa Region. There is a dwindling population of Anglo-Burmese in major hill stations, such as Kalaw and in Taunggyi, a hold-over from the colonial period. The Jinghpaw People are numerous in the Northern Shan State, in Namkham, Muse, Namhpaka, Kutkai, Kawng Hka, Mungmyit Kodawng, Kengtung and Lashio Townships and along the Burma-China Border. The Jinghpaw people in Shan State is estimated to number over 200,000.


title: Shan State

text: According to the 2014 Myanmar Census, Buddhists make up 81.7% of Shan State's population, forming the largest religious community there. Minority religious communities include Christians (9.8%), Muslims (1%), Hindus (0.1%), and animists (6.6%) who collectively comprise the remainder of Shan State's population. 0.9% of the population listed no religion, other religions, or were otherwise not enumerated.


title: Shan State

text: According to the State Sangha Maha Nayaka Committee’s 2016 statistics, 77,513 Buddhist monks were registered in Shan State, comprising 14.5% of Myanmar's total Sangha membership, which includes both novice samanera and fully-ordained bhikkhu. Shan State is home to Myanmar's largest samanera community. The majority of monks belong to the Thudhamma Nikaya (97%), followed by Shwegyin Nikaya (2.9%), with the remainder of monks belonging to other small monastic orders. 3,814 thilashin were registered in Shan State, comprising 6.3% of Myanmar's total thilashin community.


title: Shan State

text: Silver, lead, and zinc are mined, notably at the Bawdwin mine, and there are smelters at Namtu. Rubies are extracted in large quantity in Mong Hsu Township with output peaking in the late-1990s and early 2000s.


title: Shan State

text: Teak is cut, and rice and other crops are grown. Shan State is known for its garden produce of all sorts of fresh fruit and vegetables thanks to its temperate and sunny climate. Itinerant markets that travel from place to place, setting up on every fifth day in each small town or village, are typical, although large towns have permanent markets. It is part of the Golden Triangle, an area in which some of the world's opium and heroin are still illegally produced, and it has become a leading global production area for methamphetamine. Drug trafficking is controlled by local warlords in partnership with foreign organized crime groups, some of whom have private armies amounting to thousands of soldiers. Much of the methamphetamine ("ya ba") that ends up across the Mekong and wider Asia Pacific region is produced in Shan as well.


title: Shan State

text: There are some border trading centers along the Shan State border and neighboring countries. Muse (Muse, Burma), the biggest border trading center along the Myanmar China border and Tachileik, another important trading center between Myanmar and Thailand are in Shan State.


title: Shan State

text: The construction project of Sino-Burma pipelines of oil and gas that passes through northern part of Shan State was started in September 2010 and was finished in June 2013.


title: Shan State

text: Educational opportunities in Myanmar are limited outside the main cities of Yangon and Mandalay. It is especially a problem in Shan State where vast areas are beyond government control. According to official statistics, only about 8% of primary school students in Shan State reach high school.


title: Shan State

text: Taunggyi University is the main university in the state, and until recently the only four-year university in the state. The military government, which closed down universities and colleges in the 1990s to quell student unrest, has "upgraded" former colleges and two-year institutes. The government now requires that students attend their local universities and colleges, such as Lashio University, Kyaingtong University, Panglong University.


title: Shan State

text: The general state of health care in Myanmar is poor. The military government spends anywhere from 0.5 to 3% of the country's GDP on health care, consistently ranking among the lowest in the world. Although health care is nominally free, patients have to pay for medicine and treatment, even in public clinics and hospitals. Public hospitals lack basic facilities and equipment. The following is a summary of the public health system in the state, in fiscal year 2002–2003.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: K.A.S. Eupen (short for Königliche Allgemeine Sportvereinigung Eupen, English: "Royal General Sports Association Eupen", simply referred to as Eupen) is a Belgian professional association football club located in Eupen, Province of Liège, which currently plays in the Belgian Pro League, the top tier of Belgian football. The club was formed on 9 July 1945 through the merger of two older Eupen clubs, "Jugend Eupen" and "FC Eupen 1920".


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: The club has been playing at the Kehrwegstadion in Eupen since its inaugural season. Eupen is the first Belgian club based in the German-speaking Community of Belgium to have played in the Belgian top division.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: K.A.S. Eupen were formed on 9 July 1945 from the merger of Jugend Eupen and FC Eupen 1920, and played its first official match on 21 July during a festive tournament during a national holiday.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: A few weeks later, the club would begin on its inaugural season in the Liège Provincial Division II. While the first stand was built in 1947 and lighting was installed the following year, and the infrastructure thus improved, the club could not avoid relegation to the Regional Division II. Under the leadership of player-coach Roger Burgers, Eupen won the first title in its history, which was then repeated the following year, enabling the club to reach national divisions for the first time in 1951.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: The club's stint in the national division was short-lived at first, but the club secured another promotion at the end of the 1955–56 season. The team was then led by Albert Bertrand. After a further descent two years later, the club returned with promotion before the 1961–62 season to stabilise in the higher divisions until 1969.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Having arrived at the club in 1966, Hubert Van Dormael took the team to a second-place finish in the 1967–68 season before taking a historic first promotion to the Belgian Third Division the following season, ahead of LC Bastogne and Herve FC in the standings. The club then decided to construct a new stand the following year. In the process, Van Dormael led the team to the Third Division title, which meant its first promotion to the Belgian Second Division. The title-winning team featured some of the most iconic players of the club's history, including Werner Pirard and Karl Franssen, the emblematic captain Günter Brüll, as well as goalkeeper Elmar Keutgen, future mayor of the City of Eupen and member of the Parliament of the German-speaking Community.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Prior to their first season in the second tier of Belgian football, Eupen and their manager Paul Brossel were ambitious in the off-season: although considered one of the three best goalkeepers in the Bundesliga by the German sports press along with Sepp Maier and Manfred Manglitz, Gerhard Prokop signed from Alemannia Aachen before the 1970–71 season. Eupen lost their first home match against FC Malinois but won the next against Jean Nicolay's Daring Club Bruxelles, earning their first win in the second tier.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: After surviving their first season in the second tier, the club recorded another big signing during the off-season as Philippe Garot arrived at the Kehrweg. A few weeks later, a second German player, Helmut Graf, signed from Bonner SC. Eupen survived in the second division once again, finishing in tenth place in the 1971–72 season. At the end of the season and after six years at the club, Hubert Van Dormael was replaced by Gerhard Prokop, who took over the reigns as player-coach. But, lacking the funds, the club was forced to part with some key players at the end of the season, including Philippe Garot.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Paul Brossel once again chose to recruit players in Germany in the off-season, with Rot-Weiß Oberhausen top goalscorer Ulrich Kallius arriving in Eupen at the start of the 1972–73 season. Kallius would go down in club history as one of their best strikers, scoring 16 goals in 25 games that season. Despite this, Eupen had an average season, finishing only in thirteenth place.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Still in the throes of their financial woes, the club was once again forced to sell some of their best elements. Kallius and Graf joined Olympique Charleroi. To compensate for these departures, Paul Brossel managed to sign another German striker: using the money received for the sale of Kallius, he signed Rainer Gebauer, a striker from 1. FC Köln. The 1973–74 season also marked the return of Hubert Van Dormael, as coach, with Prokop regaining his status as a player. This proved a positive change, as the team occupied the top of the league standings in the fall. Slightly running out of steam, Eupen remained on course for promotion before the last matchday of the season against Lokeren. While Eupen were up 0–1 fifteen minutes before full-time, Lokeren scored on a penalty kick to equalise, before scoring a second goal at the very end of the match. This meant that Lokeren went past Eupen in the standings, and meant that they missed out on direct promotion. The "Pandas" then turned to the play-offs for a chance to win a historic promotion, but morale was gone and the team recorded six defeats in as many games.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: To the sporting disappointment were added new financial problems which forced the club to once again sell its best players: Gebauer left for Charleroi, Taeter signed with Winterslag and Prokop with Aachen. The club, however, continued developing its infrastructure, creating its first board of directors and installing new lighting at the home ground. The team would struggle performance-wise the next few seasons, and suffered relegation to the Third Division at the end of the 1974–75 season.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: With René Irgel as new manager, Eupen won the title the following season, allowing them to return to the second division. This was, however, short-lived and the club relegated the following year.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: After several seasons in the third tier, the club won promotion again at the end of the 1980–81 season. During this period, three major changes took place at the club: the club chose to focus its sports policy on training, the City of Eupen bought the club's facilities for a period of 30 years in May 1979, and the club changed its name to become the "Allgemeine Sportvereinigung Eupen".


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: With mainly young players, Claude Siemianow won the club another title in 1984 on the final day of the season, beating Spouwen 5–1, while their main rivals for the championship, Alken, were beaten 2–0 by Mol. This title allowed Eupen to return to the third division. Top goalscorer in the league for the second consecutive year, Pierrot Thissen played an important part in this success.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: The club remained in the third division until the end of the 1987–88 season. For a few seasons, Eupen played in the Belgian Fourth Division. It even took the providential return of club legend, Hubert Van Dormael, to save the club from relegation in the spring of 1989. From 1992, performances improved. In 1995, under the leadership of Tony Fagot, Eupen finished second in the league and once again reached the third division, this time through promotion play-offs. Among the key players of this period are local goalkeeper, Frank Neumann and Frank Mockel.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Behind the scenes, too, the club was recovering. In 1993, an agreement was struck between the club and the city for the construction of a brand new all-seater stand, including among others a cafeteria and a business section. On 26 March 1993, the old terracing stand was demolished. On 2 January 1994, the new structure was inaugurated during a friendly match between two renowned neighbouring clubs: Standard Liège and 1. FC Köln.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Back in the third division, the club celebrated its fiftieth anniversary on this occasion, obtaining the "Royal" prefix on 28 September 1995. On the pitch, the club returned to the top of the division under head coach Claudy Chauveheid, who arrived in 1996. During this period, primarily young players from the region represent the first team, including Marc Chauveheid, son of the coach and scorer of 90 goals during his career at Eupen. Thanks in particular to this father-son connection, the club won another title and returned to the second division for the first time since 1977. Surprisingly, the club pushed on for promotion to the First Division, which they were close to reaching in the 2002–03 season, before eventually losing in the play-offs.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: After this run, Eupen's results worsened, and after the departure of Claudy Chauveheid, the club fell to the bottom of the second division in the winter of 2008. At that point, Italian investors, represented by Antonino Imborgia, took over at the Kehrweg. Many players from Italy and Switzerland, in particular, were signed to the club. The club started the spring season with Danny Ost as manager and managed to avoid relegation to the third tier. In the wake of this, the club started the 2009–10 season with increased ambitions and found themselves at the top of the second division a few rounds in. Eupen eventually qualified for the third time in its history to the play-offs for promotion to the Belgian Pro League (after 1974 and 2003). Although not deemed favourites before the play-offs, Eupen managed a historic promotion after a 2–1 victory over Mons to win in the final round. The promotion marked the first time, that a club from the German-speaking Community of Belgium reached the top tier.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Fully professionalised, requirement set by the Belgian First Division as part of the granting of the licence necessary to be able to play in the top division, notably involved the modernisation and expansion of the Kehrwegstadion. During construction, Eupen played their first home matches at Stayen in Sint-Truiden. Their start to life in the top tier was difficult, and the team suffered five defeats in five matches. Danny Ost was dismissed and replaced by Ezio Capuano. He only stayed in charge of the team for 19 days before resigning and being replaced by Albert Cartier. Under the French manager the team gradually improved. For their first home match at the rebuilt stadium, Eupen won their first match at top level in a 6–0 blowout over Sint-Truiden. The club quickly recorded other positive results, but would struggle against relegation for large parts of the 2010–11 season.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: In the final matchday of the regular season, Eupen played away against another relegation candidate, Mechelen, while Lierse, themselves also fighting relegation, played away at Club Brugge. While Eupen lost their match 2–0, Lierse managed a 0–0 draw to heed themselves from relegation. Eupen then had to go through relegation play-offs where they managed to qualify for the final rounds, while direct competitor Charleroi were relegated. Eupen would, however struggle in the final round against teams from the second division, where Eupen finished dead last which meant relegation and a return to the second division.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: In June 2012, the club was purchased by the government of Qatar and its Aspire Zone Foundation, who also own Paris Saint-Germain. Aspire Academy announced their intent use the club as a launching pad into European football for its academy graduates from Africa, South America and Asia.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: Eupen finished second in the 2015–16 Second Division, gaining promotion to the top flight of Belgian football for the second time in their history, staying up at the end of the season for the first time.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: The 2017–18 season began with a major upheaval in the squad; the best scorers of the last season, Onyekuru and Sylla, were given up. Until the winter break, AS Eupen never got past third from last place and were bottom of the table from matchday 14 to 23 before they defeated the runners-up, Charleroi, 1-0 at home. In the meantime, head coach Jordi Condom was dismissed on November 7, 2017 and replaced by the former French international Claude Makélélé. KV Mechelen became their main relegation competitor. Before the last game day, both teams were tied in points. Eupen had a goal difference that was one goal worse, but scored more goals, so if both teams won or lost at the same time, they had to change goal difference in order to stay up.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: On the last day of the regular competition Eupen played against Royal Excel Mouscron, whilst Mechelen played against Waasland-Beveren. At halftime, it was still 0-0 in both places. In the 51st minute, the hosts took a 1-0 lead in Mechelen and increased to 2–0 in the 59th minute. Now Eupen had to score three goals to stay in the league. Winter newcomer Yuta Toyokawa scored the first goal in the 73rd minute after a free-kick from captain Luis García, with another goal three minutes later by García 2-0. In the 79th minute, Toyokawa with his second goal increased the result to 3–0, which meant Eupen was "saved" at this point. Since nothing changed in the score in Mechelen, and Toyokawa even scored again 4–0 in the 89th minute, the "miracle of the Kehrweg" was perfect and Eupen stayed in the first division.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: In the 2018–19 season , the club reached 12th place in the table. For the first time, Eupen was not involved in the relegation battle. Nevertheless, on 14 June 2019, the dismissal of Claude Makélélé was announced. Despite his statement that he will be available to the club as an ambassador for various projects, he resigned after a month and moved to Chelsea as a mentor for youth players.


title: K.A.S. Eupen

text: On 24 June 2019, Beñat San José was announced as the new head coach with a contract term of two years. Stefan Krämer took over the managerial role in July 2021, but was dismissed in February 2022 following a streak of poor results.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Atlantis II: Milo's Return (also known as simply Atlantis: Milo's Return) is a 2003 American animated science-fiction film produced by DisneyToon Studios, and a sequel to the 2001 animated film "". Directed by Victor Cook, Toby Shelton, and Tad Stones, the film received a direct-to-video release on May 20, 2003.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Originally, Disney was developing a sequel titled "Shards of Chaos", but it was abandoned once "The Lost Empire" was less successful than anticipated. The released sequel consists of three segments, which are "Kraken", "Spirit of the West" and "Spear of Destiny". They were originally meant to be episodes of a series that was never completed called "Team Atlantis". Some additional animation was done to link the stories more closely.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Cree Summer (Kida), Corey Burton (Mole), Don Novello (Vinny), Phil Morris (Dr. Sweet), Jacqueline Obradors (Audrey), John Mahoney (Mr. Whitmore), and Florence Stanley (Mrs. Packard) all reprise their roles from the first film, with James Arnold Taylor replacing Michael J. Fox as Milo and Steve Barr replacing Jim Varney, who died before the first film finished production, as Cookie. This is Stanley's final film; she died months after production ended.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: After the decline in Atlantean culture following the sinking, Kida (Cree Summer), now Queen Regnant and married to Milo Thatch, now Prince Consort (James Arnold Taylor), are using the heart of Atlantis to restore the city's former glory. Suddenly, Milo's comrades and Mr. Whitmore (John Mahoney) arrive in Atlantis; while their arrival is unexpected, the Atlanteans welcome their old friends. Unfortunately, they have come to inform them of a mysterious creature causing trouble on the surface. Kida suspects that the creature might be Atlantean, stirring mixed feelings about her father's decision to keep the Crystal hidden.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: They arrive in Trondheim, Norway and discover that the mysterious problem is actually the creature known as the Kraken, which had been attacking shipping freighters and taking their cargo to a cliffside village. At first they presume it to be an ancient Atlantean war machine gone rogue (like the Leviathan from the previous film), but they discover that the town magistrate, Edgar Volgud (Clancy Brown), seems to be controlling the Kraken. They soon learn, though, that the Kraken itself is the master, having made a deal with Volgud to preserve the life of the town and Edgar's lifespan in exchange for their souls. When they blow up the Kraken, Volgud's immortality ceases and he disintegrates, while the spirit of the village is restored.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: All the while, Kida is learning about the outside world and is adapting well. However, she still feels guilty, as there could still be other Atlantean war machines in the world causing problems, like the Leviathan. Their next mystery is in the Southwestern United States, involving coyote spirits opposing them. They later find a hidden city in Arizona that contains Atlantean architecture, which Kida realizes is an abandoned Atlantean colony. Unfortunately, a very sly shop owner, Ashton Carnaby (Thomas F. Wilson), intends to pillage the place for its valuables, but the spirits then turn him into one of them. A mysterious man named Chakashi (Floyd Red Crow Westerman), who is a Native American wind spirit, trusts them with the knowledge of their sanctuary and informs Kida that she can choose Atlantis' destiny.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Returning home, the adventurers discover that one of Whitmore's old competitors, Erik Hellstrom (W. Morgan Sheppard), who, after the stock market crash sank his company, went insane believing he was Odin, the Norse king of the gods, broke in at night and stole one of Whitmore's possessions, an ancient spear called the Gungnir, an artifact of Atlantean origin. When they track him down in the frigid Nordic Mountains, he presumes Milo to be the God of Mischief, Loki, and Kida to be his long lost daughter, Brünnhilde. Then, "Odin" uses the spear to cast Milo, Mole, Vinny and Audrey out of "Asgard" before kidnapping Kida and dressing her in Norse clothing. He explains that his intentions are to end the world in Ragnarok, the prophesied apocalypse told in Norse mythology. He creates a lava beast and an ice beast to destroy the world, but well-placed explosives used by Vinny distract the monsters long enough for Kida to retrieve the spear and vanquish the beasts. During these escapades, Kida comes into a greater understanding of just how powerful the Atlantean Crystal is, and that she must choose between hiding it and sharing it with the rest of mankind.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Having retrieved the spear, Kida realizes her father was wrong to hide the Crystal from mankind. She combines the Spear with the Heart Crystal and lifts Atlantis above water. Fishermen are shocked at seeing the entire city rise before them. With Atlantis above the water for the first time in over 8,000 years, Mr. Whitmore narrates that from then on, the world was a better place.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: The series would have featured episodes with different legends incorporated, such as Puck, the Loch Ness Monster and the Terracotta Warriors.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: James Arnold Taylor, who voices Milo, said in a vlog posted to his personal YouTube channel that the show would have been either 18 or 24 episodes long.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: One of the episodes of "Team Atlantis" that was never animated featured an appearance by Demona from "Gargoyles". It introduced the hunter known as Fiona Canmore, known friend to Dr. Sweet. The episode would have Demona using the Praying Gargoyle statue to bring Gargoyle statues in Paris alive to kill the local humans.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Scripts and voice recording of the episode can be seen at "The Gathering" conventions. Marina Sirtis reprises her role as Demona, and Fiona Canmore is voiced by Sheena Easton. Greg Weisman, who wrote the episode, planned to use the story for the "Gargoyles" comic book series. He said if he is unable to use the Atlantis characters, then he will use analogs for the story.


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: Greg has mentioned that while the episode itself is canon in the "Gargoyles" universe, the entire series "Team Atlantis" is not. In fact, the "Team Atlantis" interpretations of the Loch Ness Monster and Puck differ from those seen in "Gargoyles" (notably, the Loch Ness Monster in "Gargoyles" actually is a surviving plesiosaur belonging to a colony, like the common depiction).


title: Atlantis: Milo's Return

text: In August 2004, it was announced with the third installment of "Atlantis" titled "Atlantis: Invasion of Atlantis", was released with the film focused Milo and Kida's daughter named Neka. In November 2006, John Lasseter canceled the film.


title: The Real McCoys

text: The Real McCoys is an American situation comedy starring Walter Brennan, Richard Crenna, and Kathleen Nolan. Co-produced by Danny Thomas's Marterto Productions in association with Walter Brennan and Irving Pincus's Westgate Company, it was broadcast for six seasons: five by the ABC-TV network, from 1957 to 1962; and a final year, 1962–1963, by CBS. Set in California's San Fernando Valley, it was filmed at Desilu studios in Hollywood.


title: The Real McCoys

text: "The Real McCoys" concerns the lives of a family originally from the Appalachian Mountains of West Virginia, from a fictional place named Smokey Corners. They relocated to California to live and work on a farm they inherited from a relative. They consist of Grandpa Amos McCoy (Walter Brennan), his grandson Luke (Richard Crenna); Luke's new wife Kate (Kathleen Nolan); Luke's teenage sister Tallahassie "Hassie" (Lydia Reed); and his 11-year-old brother "Little Luke" (Michael Winkelman). The double-naming of the brothers is explained in the first full episode ("Californy, Here We Come"), when the elder Luke introduces Little Luke to Pepino Garcia (Tony Martinez) and says, "Well, you see, in the excitement of having him, Ma and Pa plum forgot they already had me." Only Crenna appeared in all 225 episodes.


title: The Real McCoys

text: The McCoys' farm was previously owned by an uncle, Ben McCoy, who died. The former West Virginians join the Grange farm association, and hire Pepino when he informs them he was Ben's foreman. In the episode broadcast January 8, 1962, Pepino becomes an American citizen and assumes the surname "McCoy." The McMichaels, a brother and sister played by Andy Clyde and Madge Blake in twenty-nine and twenty-one episodes respectively, lived on the hill not far from the McCoys. Amos McCoy and George McMichael, both mischievous, crotchety old men, sometimes quarreled, often about their games of checkers and horseshoes. Kate is friendly with the much older Flora McMichael, George's sister, and becomes involved with life in the community.


title: The Real McCoys

text: Though still in her twenties, Kate serves as a mother figure for Luke's younger siblings, Hassie and Little Luke. One episode shows her bewilderment in trying to entice the children to take responsibility for their school studies. Many episodes have a moral theme consistent with the conservative opinions of Walter Brennan, such as two 1957 segments entitled "You Can't Cheat an Honest Man" with Joseph Kearns, later of the television series "Dennis the Menace", and "Gambling Is a Sin", in which Amos allows a casino to advertise on McCoy property before the ethics of the matter is brought to his attention. Other such episodes are "Go Fight City Hall", "The Taxman Cometh", "You Can't Always Be a Hero", "You Never Get Too Old", "Where There's a Will", "Beware a Smart Woman", "Money in the Bank", "How to Win Friends", "You're as Young as You Feel", "Honesty Is the Best Policy", and "Never a Lender Be".


title: The Real McCoys

text: In "Little Luke's Education" (February 6, 1958), Amos confronts bigotry among the local children against hillbilly peoples such as the McCoys. In "Grampa's Private War" (February 12, 1959), Amos gets so enthusiastic with patriotic fervor that he claims to have fought as a soldier commanded by Theodore Roosevelt in the Spanish–American War, but Amos was only seven (Walter Brennan was four) years old when that war was fought during 1898. Then Amos is invited to speak at a Veterans Day ceremony.


title: The Real McCoys

text: Jon Lormer was cast seven times as an actor for "The Real McCoys" during 1959 and 1960, six as the character Sam Watkins. Joan Blondell appeared three times near the end of the series as Aunt Win. Marjorie Bennett was cast three times as Amanda Comstock. Pat Buttram and Howard McNear also appeared three times; they were subsequently cast as Eustace Haney on CBS's "Green Acres" and as Floyd the Barber on CBS's "The Andy Griffith Show". Olin Howland and Willard Waterman appeared five times each as Charley Perkins and Mac Maginnis, respectively.


title: The Real McCoys

text: Early in the series, Charles Lane, who often appeared in a character role on "I Love Lucy", was cast twice as Harry Poulson, a fast-talking egg salesman; Hassie McCoy has an interest in Harry's son. During 1963, Jack Oakie appeared three times in the role of Uncle Rightly. Dick Elliott was cast twice as Doc Thornton, and Lurene Tuttle appeared twice as Gladys Purvis, the widowed mother of series character Kate McCoy, with Jay Novello in one of those appearances as Gladys' intended second husband, a retired photographer from Fresno.


title: The Real McCoys

text: Malcolm Cassell appeared several times as Hassie McCoy's boyfriend, Tommy. Edward Everett Horton (the narrator of "Fractured Fairy Tales") played J. Luther Medwick, the grandfather of Hassie's other boyfriend, Jerry; Medwick and Amos soon clash. Verna Felton, a member of the "December Bride" cast, appeared once as Cousin Naomi Vesper. Jesse White, known later as the actor portraying a Maytag repairman for television commercials and subsequently a cast member of CBS's "The Ann Sothern Show", portrayed a used car salesman named "San Fernando Harry" who clashes with Amos in "The New Car" (October 2, 1958). On June 1, 1961, Amos, Luke, and Kate return to West Virginia for the 100th-birthday gathering of "Grandmother McCoy", played by Jane Darwell. In one episode, Lee Van Cleef played a sentry; in another Tom Skerritt appeared as a letter carrier.


title: The Real McCoys

text: The episode "The Tycoon" (August 30, 1960) four years later coincidentally shared the title of Brennan's next ABC sitcom, "The Tycoon", with his co-actor Van Williams. Barbara Stanwyck made a cameo appearance in the 1959 episode "The McCoys Go To Hollywood", which also features Dorothy Provine, and a glimpse of the Desilu Studios, where the series was filmed. In 1961, Fay Wray is featured in the episode "Theatre in the Barn", as herself. She volunteers to direct a local amateur production to raise money for the Grange.


title: The Real McCoys

text: Just before "The Real McCoys" ended as an ABC series, Nolan quit the series due to a contract dispute and was written out of the remaining scripts: her character died, but details were never given. Hassie left home to attend college, and Little Luke joined the United States Army; for the final season she appeared only in the first episode—he never did. Amos McCoy did not appear in the last eleven episodes; he was said to be back visiting family in West Virginia. Luke was a widower, and many of the stories concerned Grandpa trying to find him a new wife. This nearly succeeded when Luke met Louise Howard, portrayed by Janet De Gore, a widow with a young son, Greg, played by Butch Patrick, later of CBS's series "The Munsters", a relationship which continued through the end of the series.


title: The Real McCoys

text: Infinity Entertainment released the first four seasons of "The Real McCoys" on DVD between 2007 and 2010.


title: The Real McCoys

text: On May 7, 2012, it was announced that Inception Media Group (IMG) had acquired the rights to the series. IMG subsequently re-released the first two seasons on DVD.


title: The Real McCoys

text: On June 4, 2012, IMG announced that it would be releasing a complete series set, featuring all 224 remastered episodes. Release of this set never happened, and the rights to the series' home videos later moved to SFM Entertainment, which released "The Real McCoys: The Complete Series" on August 29, 2017 in Region 1. This is a manufacture-on-demand (MOD) release, available exclusively from Amazon.com.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The Chicano Movement, also referred to as El Movimiento, was a social and political movement in the United States inspired by prior acts of resistance among people of Mexican descent, especially of Pachucos in the 1940s and 1950s, and the Black Power movement, that worked to embrace a Chicano/a identity and worldview that combated structural racism, encouraged cultural revitalization, and achieved community empowerment by rejecting assimilation.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Before this, "Chicano/a" had been a term of derision, adopted by some Pachucos as an expression of defiance to Anglo-American society. With the rise of "Chicanismo", "Chicano/a" became a reclaimed term in the 1960s and 1970s, used to express political autonomy, ethnic and cultural solidarity, and pride in being of Indigenous descent, diverging from the assimilationist "Mexican-American" identity. Chicanos also expressed solidarity and defined their culture through the development of Chicano art during El Movimiento, and stood firm in preserving their religion.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The Chicano Movement was influenced by and entwined with the Black Power movement, and both movements held similar objectives of community empowerment and liberation while also calling for Black-Brown unity. Leaders such as César Chávez, Reies Tijerina, and Rodolfo Gonzales learned strategies of resistance and worked with leaders of the Black Power movement. Chicano organizations like the Brown Berets and Mexican American Youth Organization (MAYO) were influenced by the political agenda of Black activist organizations such as the Black Panthers. Chicano political demonstrations, such as the East L.A. Walkouts and the Chicano Moratorium, occurred in collaboration with Black students and activists.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Similar to the Black Power movement, the Chicano Movement experienced heavy state surveillance, infiltration, and repression from U.S. government informants and agent provocateurs through organized activities such as COINTELPRO. Movement leaders like Rosalio Muñoz were ousted from their positions of leadership by government agents, organizations such as MAYO and the Brown Berets were infiltrated, and political demonstrations such as the Chicano Moratorium became sites of police brutality, which led to the decline of the movement by the mid-1970s.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Other reasons for the movement's decline include its centering of the masculine subject, which marginalized and excluded Chicanas, and a growing disinterest in Chicano nationalist constructs such as Aztlán.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The Chicano Movement encompassed a broad list of issues—from restoration of land grants, to farm workers' rights, to enhanced education, to voting and political ethnic stereotypes of Mexicans in mass media and the American consciousness. In an article in "The Journal of American History", Edward J. Escobar describes some of the negativity of the time:


title: Chicano Movement

text: The conflict between Chicanos and the LAPD thus helped Mexican Americans develop a new political consciousness that included a greater sense of ethnic solidarity, an acknowledgment of their subordinated status in American society, and a greater determination to act politically, and perhaps even violently, to end that subordination. While most people of Mexican descent still refused to call themselves Chicanos, many had come to adopt many of the principles intrinsic in the concept of "chicanismo".


title: Chicano Movement

text: Early in the twentieth century, Mexican Americans formed organizations to protect themselves from discrimination. One of those organizations, the League of United Latin American Citizens, was formed in 1929 and remains active today. The movement gained momentum after World War II when groups such as the American G.I. Forum (AGIF), which was founded by returning Mexican American veteran Dr. Hector P. Garcia, joined in the efforts by other civil rights organizations. The AGIF first received national exposure when it took on the cause of Felix Longoria, a Mexican American serviceman who was denied a funeral service in his hometown of Three Rivers, Texas after being killed during WWII. After the Longoria incident, the AGIF quickly expanded throughout Texas, and by the 1950s, chapters were founded across the U.S.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Mexican American civil rights activists also achieved several major legal victories including the 1947 "Mendez v. Westminster" court case ruling which declared that segregating children of "Mexican and Latin descent" was unconstitutional and the 1954 "Hernandez v. Texas" ruling which declared that Mexican Americans and other historically-subordinated groups in the United States were entitled to equal protection under the 14th Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Throughout the country, the Chicano Movement was defined by several different leaders. In New Mexico, there was Reies López Tijerina who worked on the land grant movement. He fought to regain control of what he considered ancestral lands. He became involved in civil rights causes within six years and also became a cosponsor of the Poor People's March on Washington in 1967. In Texas, war veteran Dr. Hector P. Garcia founded the American GI Forum and was later appointed to the United States Commission on Civil Rights. In Denver, Rodolfo "Corky" Gonzáles helped define the meaning of being a Chicano through his poem "Yo Soy Joaquin" ("I am Joaquin"). In California, César Chávez and the farm workers turned to the struggle of urban youth, and created political awareness and participated in "La Raza Unida" Party.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The most prominent civil rights organization in the Mexican-American community is the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (MALDEF), founded in 1968. Although modeled after the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund, MALDEF has also taken on many of the functions of other organizations, including political advocacy and training of local leaders.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Some women who worked for the Chicano movement felt that members were being too concerned with social issues that affected the Chicano community, instead of addressing problems that affected Chicana women specifically. This led Chicana women to form the Comisión Femenil Mexicana Nacional. In 1975, it became involved in the case "Madrigal v. Quilligan", obtaining a moratorium on the compulsory sterilization of women and adoption of bilingual consent forms. These steps were necessary because many Latina women who did not understand English well were being sterilized in the United States at the time, without proper consent.


title: Chicano Movement

text: While the widespread immigration marches flourished throughout the U.S. in the Spring of 2006, the Chicano Movement continued to expand in its focus and its active participants. As of the 21st Century, a major focus of the Chicano Movement has been to increase the (intelligent) representation of Chicanos in mainstream American media and entertainment. There are also many community education projects to educate Latinos about their voice and power like South Texas Voter Registration Project. SVREP's mission is to empower Latinos and other minorities by increasing their participation in the American democratic process. Members of the beginning of the Chicano movement, like Faustino Erebia Jr., still speak about their trials and the changes they have seen over the years.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The movement started small in Colorado yet spread across the states becoming a worldwide movement for equality. While there are many poets who helped carry out the movement, Corky Gonzales was able to spread the Chicano issues worldwide through "The Plan Espiritual de Aztlán." This manifesto advocated Chicano nationalism and self-determination for Mexican Americans. In March 1969 it was adopted by the First National Chicano Liberation Youth Conference based in Colorado. Adolfo Ortega says, "In its core as well as its fringes, the Chicano Movement verged on strivings for economic, social, and political equality." This was a simple message that any ordinary person could relate to and want to strive for in their daily lives. Whether someone was talented or not they wanted to help spread the political message in their own way. While majority of the group consisted of Mexican-Americans many people of other nationalities wanted to help the movement. This helped moved the movement from the fringes into the more mainstream political establishment. The "Political Establishment" typically consisted of the dominant group or elite that holds power or authority in a nation. Many successful organizations were formed, such as the Mexican American Youth Organization, to fight for civil rights of Mexican Americans. During the early 1960s in Texas many Mexican-Americans were treated like second class citizens and discriminated against. While progress has been made for equality immigrants even to this day are still a target of misunderstanding and fear. Chicano Poetry was a safe way for political messages to spread without fear of being targeted for by speaking out. Politically, the movement was also broken off into sections like chicanismo. "Chicanismo meant to some Chicanos dignity, self respect, pride, uniqueness, and a feeling of a cultural rebirth." Mexican-Americans wanted to embrace the color of their skin instead of it being something to be ashamed of. Many Mexican-Americans unfortunately had it ingrained on them through society that it was better socially and economically to act "White" or "Normal." The movement wanted to break that mindset and embrace who they were and be loud and proud of it. A lot of people in the movement thought it was acceptable to speak Spanish to one another and not be ashamed of not being fluent in English. The movement encouraged to not only discuss tradition with other Mexican-Americans but others not within the movement. America was a land of immigrants not just for the social and economically accepted people. The movement made it a point not to exclude others of other cultures but to bring them into the fold to make everyone understanding of one another. While America was new for many people of Latin descent it was important to celebrate what made them who they were as a culture. Entertainment was powerful tool to spread their political message inside and out of their social circles in America. Chicanismo might not be discussed frequently in the mainstream media but the main points of the movement are: self-respect, pride, and cultural rebirth.


title: Chicano Movement

text: While Chicanas are typically not covered as heavily in literature about the Chicano movement, Chicana feminists have begun to re-write the history of women in the movement. Chicanas who were actively involved within the movement have come to realize that their intersecting identities of being both Chicanas and women were more complex than their male counterparts. Through the involvement of various movements, the main goal of these Chicanas was to include their intersecting identities within these movements, specifically choosing to add women's issues, racial issues, and LGBTQ issues within movements that ignored such identities. One of the biggest women's issues that the Chicanas faced was that Mexican men drew their masculinity from forcing traditional female roles on women and expecting women to bear as many children as they could.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Sociologist Teresa Cordova, when discussing Chicana feminism, has stated that Chicanas change the discourse of the Chicano movement that disregard them, as well as oppose the hegemonic feminism that neglects race and class. Through the Chicano movement, Chicanas felt that the movement was not addressing certain issues that women faced under a patriarchal society, specifically addressing material conditions. Within the feminist discourse, Chicanas wanted to bring awareness to the forced sterilization many Mexican women faced during the 1970s. The film "No Mas Bebes" describes the stories of many of these women who were sterilized without consent. Although Chicanas have contributed significantly to the movement, Chicana feminists have been targeted; they are targeted because they are seen as betraying the movement and being anti-family and anti-men. By creating a platform that was inclusive to various intersectional identities, Chicana theorists who identified as lesbian and heterosexual were in solidarity of both. With their navigation through patriarchal structures, and their intersecting identities, Chicana feminists brought issues such as political economy, imperialism, and class identities to the forefront of the movement's discourses. Enriqueta Longeaux and Vasquez discussed in the Third World Women's Conference, "There is a need for world unity of all peoples suffering exploitation and colonial oppression here in the U.S., the most wealthy, powerful, expansionist country in the world, to identify ourselves as third world peoples in order to end this economic and political expansion."


title: Chicano Movement

text: Scholars have paid some attention to the geography of the movement and situate the Southwest as the epicenter of the struggle. However, in examining the struggle's activism, maps allow us to see that activity was not spread evenly through the region and that certain organizations and types of activism were limited to particular geographies. For instance, in southern Texas where Mexican Americans comprised a significant portion of the population and had a history of electoral participation, the Raza Unida Party started in 1970 by Jose Angel Gutierrez hoped to win elections and mobilize the voting power of Chicanos. RUP thus became the focus of considerable Chicano activism in Texas in the early 1970s.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The movement in California took a different shape, less concerned about elections. Chicanos in Los Angeles formed alliances with other oppressed people who identified with the Third World Left and were committed to toppling U.S. imperialism and fighting racism. The Brown Berets, with links to the Black Panther Party, was one manifestation of the multiracial context in Los Angeles. The Chicano Moratorium antiwar protests of 1970 and 1971 also reflected the vibrant collaboration between African Americans, Japanese Americans, American Indians, and white antiwar activists that had developed in Southern California.


title: Chicano Movement

text: Chicano student activism also followed particular geographies. MEChA established in Santa Barbara, California, in 1969, united many university and college Mexican American groups under one umbrella organization. MEChA became a multi-state organization, but an examination of the year-by-year expansion shows a continued concentration in California. The Mapping American Social Movements digital project shows maps and charts demonstrating that as the organization added dozens then hundreds of chapters, the vast majority were in California. This should cause scholars to ask what conditions made the state unique, and why Chicano students in other states were less interested in organizing MEChA chapters?


title: Chicano Movement

text: In 1949 and 1950, the American G.I. Forum initiated local "pay your poll tax" drives to register Mexican American voters. Although they were unable to repeal the poll tax, their efforts did bring in new Latino voters who would begin to elect Latino representatives to the Texas House of Representatives and to Congress during the late 1950s and early 1960s.


title: Chicano Movement

text: In California, a similar phenomenon took place. When World War II veteran Edward R. Roybal ran for a seat on the Los Angeles City Council, community activists established the Community Service Organization (CSO). The CSO was effective in registering 15,000 new voters in Latino neighborhoods. With this newfound support, Roybal was able to win the 1949 election race against the incumbent councilman and became the first Mexican American since 1886 to win a seat on the Los Angeles City Council.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The Mexican American Political Association (MAPA), founded in Fresno, California, came into being in 1959 and drew up a plan for direct electoral politics. MAPA soon became the primary political voice for the Mexican-American community of California.


title: Chicano Movement

text: After World War II, Chicanos began to assert their own views of their own history and status as Mexican Americans in the US and they began to critically analyze what they were being taught in public schools. Many young people, like David Sanchez and Vickie Castro, founders of the Brown Berets, found their voices in protesting the injustices they saw.


title: Chicano Movement

text: In the late 1960s, when the student movement was active around the globe, the Chicano Movement inspired its own organized protests like the East L.A. walkouts in 1968, and the National Chicano Moratorium March in Los Angeles in 1970. The student walkouts occurred in Denver and East LA in 1968. There were also many incidents of walkouts outside of the city of Los Angeles, as far as Kingsville, Tx in South Texas, where many students were jailed by the county and protests ensued. In the LA County high schools of El Monte, Alhambra, and Covina (particularly Northview), the students marched to fight for their rights. Similar walkouts took place in 1978 in Houston high schools to protest the discrepant academic quality for Latino students. There were also several student sit-ins which objected the decreasing funding of Chicano courses.


title: Chicano Movement

text: The blowouts of the 1960s can be compared to the 2006 walkouts, which were done in opposition to the Illegal Immigration Control bill.