What bothers me is religious groups or people attempting to legislate their morality onto the whole of society by restricting personal freedoms.
If they would just follow their own morals and ethics and leave the rest of society alone, I’m perfectly fine with that.
For example, if you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t get an abortion. Leave people who want to get abortions alone, it’s their choice.
Individualism, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, private property and equality before the law are the bedrocks of liberalism [1]. Religious freedom is closer to a corollary, though hard secular liberal republics (e.g. much of recent French history) have also existed.
Which part of the scripture?
Every part of the Quran that involves violence has consistently been understood to apply to a specific context, by almost all classical Islamic theologians and jurists.
That’s why extremist groups rarely cite Quran for justifying perma-war, instead citing opinions of Islamic scholars instead.
That fully depends on which interpretations you follow. Islam not having a central authority means there is no 'central source' for how to interpret the scripture - Quran but also Hadith and Sunnah - and with that those who are set on taking what is written as the direct and unchanging word from God can claim to have as much justification (or, as they claim, more justification) as those who want to interpret scripture in a more 'modern' fashion.
Here's a sample of Quranic passages which call for muslims to 'fight unbelievers' which are followed to the letter by those who adhere to the literal interpretation of the texts:
https://quran.com/2?startingVerse=190: Fight in the cause of Allah ˹only˺ against those who wage war against you, but do not exceed the limits. Allah does not like transgressors.
https://quran.com/2?startingVerse=191: Kill them wherever you come upon them and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out. For persecution is far worse than killing. And do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque unless they attack you there. If they do so, then fight them—that is the reward of the disbelievers.
Those who follow the literal interpretation of the texts see 'those who wage war against you' as all 'unbelievers' - those who live in the 'dar al-harb' (land(s) of strife or war) in contrast to those who live in 'dar al-islam' (land(s) under islamic law), especially those who live in places which have been conquered 'for islam' before but taken back later - e.g. 'Al-Andalus', better known as Spain. The main 'problem' in the interpretation of these lines is what is meant by 'those who wage war against you' as this can be interpreted as 'those who refuse to accept islam' in the context of the texts.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=74: Let those who would sacrifice this life for the Hereafter fight in the cause of Allah. And whoever fights in Allah’s cause—whether they achieve martyrdom or victory—We will honour them with a great reward.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=88: Why are you ˹believers˺ divided into two groups regarding the hypocrites while Allah allowed them to regress ˹to disbelief˺ because of their misdeeds? Do you wish to guide those left by Allah to stray? And whoever Allah leaves to stray, you will never find for them a way.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=89: They wish you would disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so you may all be alike. So do not take them as allies unless they emigrate in the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take any of them as allies or helpers,
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=90: except those who are allies of a people you are bound with in a treaty or those wholeheartedly opposed to fighting either you or their own people. If Allah had willed, He would have empowered them to fight you. So if they refrain from fighting you and offer you peace, then Allah does not permit you to harm them.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=91: You will find others who wish to be safe from you and their own people. Yet they cannot resist the temptation ˹of disbelief or hostility˺. If they do not keep away, offer you peace, or refrain from attacking you, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them. We have given you full permission over such people.
These lines can be interpreted as calling for offensive actions against 'unbelievers' - and here it is important to know what the Quran says about its predecessor religions:
https://quran.com/3?startingVerse=65: O People of the Book! Why do you argue about Abraham, while the Torah and the Gospel were not revealed until long after him? Do you not understand?
https://quran.com/3?startingVerse=66: Here you are! You disputed about what you have ˹little˺ knowledge of, but why do you now argue about what you have no knowledge of? Allah knows and you do not know.
https://quran.com/3?startingVerse=67: Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian; he submitted in all uprightness and was not a polytheist.
According to islamic doctrine the 'people of the book' were given the 'true word of God' but strayed from the path. Christians, i.e. those who believe in the 'holy trinity' of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost - are 'polytheists' since they worship others besides Allah. Taken together these lines are interpreted as cause to fight 'unbelievers'. This is explained in more detail in chapter 'O' (Justice) of 'The Reliance of the Traveller' [1] in the section on jihad:
Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada , signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad,
“We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.”
The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic verses as:
(1) “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216);
(2) “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89);
(3) “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36);
and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:
“I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah";
and the hadith reported by Muslim,
“To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.”
There are many more such passages which can be and are interpreted in many ways so as to fit the purposes of those who lead others. It is the absence of a 'true and leading interpretation' which disavows war and conquest in the name of islam which gives rise to islam's specific problems when it comes to violence.
Read the Quran, 'Reliance of the Traveller' (the classical manual on shariah law) and the Sunnah and you'll understand just how open these texts are to interpretation. It is also illustrative to have a look at the history of islam and islamic countries.
[1] https://archive.org/details/relianceofthetravellertheclassic...
Again, denying the problem exists does not make it go away and actually makes it harder for those who wish to reform islam.
You seem to be arguing that the most correct interpretation of scripture is a literal one that ignores its context. If that's the case, then your hermeneutics has a lot in common with fundamentalist extremists.
Those who wish to reform Islam are not in need patronization by islamophobic memes, I assure you.
No, I'm arguing that scripture can be interpreted in many ways and that some of those ways lead to people believing it calls upon them to commit violence in the name of their religion. I'm also claiming that the absence of a central authority or a 'leading interpretation' of islamic scripture leads to such interpretations being no less 'correct' than interpretations which take a different path.
> Those who wish to reform Islam are not in need patronization by islamophobic memes, I assure you.
I am not assured by your claims nor by your use of unsubstantiated claims of some phobia. Here's Maajid Nawaz (someone who attempts to reform islam) on the subject you try to downplay or ignore:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-need-to-talk-about-islam-...
Some excerpts for those who don't want to follow random links:
People in the West are reluctant to discuss Islamism because they are frightened of being portrayed as racist, according to Maajid Nawaz, a British politician and former extremist who spent five years in an Egyptian jail.
...
"Language can destroy Islamist ideas and propaganda," he said. "But we've got to be able to name exactly what it is that we're talking about. That's where I'm critical of President Obama, because he's unable to name the problem – and if you if cannot name something, then you cannot critique it.
...
"To say this problem has nothing to do with Islam leaves nothing to be discussed within the communities. ... The truth is in the middle: it's got something to do with Islam – not everything, not nothing, but something."
...
The key, he said, lay in the way in which Islamist ideologues hijack parts of the faith's scriptures and reinterpret them to support their political stance. It is critical for Islamic communities to discuss this process and, by so doing, "reclaim their religion from those who use it to justify terrorism. I would encourage everyone to engage in this conversation, not to shut it down," he said.
...
"If you don't have this conversation, only the Islamist extremists prevail. Because by shutting down debate, by shutting down thought, people become closed-minded, and only fascism and theocracy benefit from closed-mindedness."
If you don't talk about a problem it can not be solved. If the problem is not solved it grows. If the problem grows it will cause more problems. When do you think the time comes to talk about this problem?
https://time.com/4930742/islam-terrorism-islamophobia-violen...
Many Western politicians and intellectuals say that Islamist terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. What is your view?
- Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy. So long as we lack consensus regarding this matter, we cannot gain victory over fundamentalist violence within Islam.
Radical Islamic movements are nothing new. They’ve appeared again and again throughout our own history in Indonesia. The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to “Islamophobia.” Or do people want to accuse me — an Islamic scholar — of being an Islamophobe too?
Please, read this article or one of the many others on this subject. You are not helping anyone by denying what is plain to see for those who are brave enough to open their eyes.
I actually think that your criticism is too surface level, and we need to go deeper. I propose that most of those people have very little of any kind of faith — no more than your average football team fans have. Moreover, they are not even substantially different from supposedly secular western football fans. You, on the other hand, try to deduce what people think just by looking at the color of their passport covers.
By the way, both scriptures and laws are just words on paper.
I propose that you actually believe in the power of some sacred book too much, and that “Islamic this, Islamic that” are just fans of Islam in the same manner people are fans of a football team (which sometimes gives them “authority” to riot or beat other people). They may call themselves true believers, but that's an old story.
https://islamweb.net/en/fatwa/87390/quran-is-word-of-allah
Qur'an is Word of Allah, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam); it is an attribute among the uncountable Attributes of Allah. Allah has Spoken these words by sound and letters. Qur'an does not say but it is Allah Who ‘Says’.
Therefore, it is not among the good decencies with Allah to Say: “Qur'an says, or Qur'an said: “Since it might be misunderstood that Qur'an has an independent or a separate existence”.
If one uses such an expression with the intention that the Qur'an is a creature then he is disbelieving in an Attribute of Allah (May Allah protect us from that). If he does not mean it, it is better to avoid such an expression since it may raise misunderstandings.
Allah knows best.
To those who take their religion seriously those comparisons to 'football fans' are just as silly as when someone were to compare you liking (e.g.) Taylor Swift to the way you love your daughter (should you have one).
Also don't fall for the trap of thinking that only those who can talk eruditely on some subject can be 'true believers'. Just because some young person has been convinced by a religious leader that his salvation lies in fighting and dying in the name of Allah does not mean he doesn't take those lessons seriously. Do you really think that those who don suicide vests to blow themselves up (or to be blown up by remote control) are 'just fans of islam in the same manner people are fans of a football team'?
There's pretty broad consensus about the fact that the end times will be preceded by a huge drop in religiosity and rise in sinfulness. Here's just one example: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/78329/signs-of-the-day-of-ju...
And here's the source it's from: https://sunnah.com/bukhari:80
It's pretty cut and dry
Feel free to look up signs of judgment day, it's pretty heavily agreed upon
https://sunnah.com/riyadussalihin:1820 : The Messenger of Allah said, "The Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews, until a Jew will hide himself behind a stone or a tree, and the stone or the tree will say: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him,' but Al-Gharqad tree will not say so, for it is the tree of the Jews."
https://sunnah.com/muslim:2922 : The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2925 : Allah's Messenger said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews until some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O `Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.'"
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2926 : Allah's Messenger said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Da'esh used these Hadith (among others) as justification for their actions because they were intent on bringing about the end of history by instigating the final battle at Dabeq (close to Aleppo) where islam will prevail over the unbelievers.
It's not though. There isn't "interpretation" of the hadiths you posted. They are just true. Btw, what's happening in Israel right now can easily be seen as a manifestation of those scriptures. And it didn't start because people wanted to fulfill prophecies. It started because you have a stateless group of 2 million people with no say in the government that controls their every move.
This also has pretty much 0 to do with our original comment thread
Some (most?) forms of Islam are just not compatible with western style democracy and secularism. It’s unfortunate but I don’t really see any other realistic options of solving this besides “oppression”.
Some countries like Jordan kind of partially pulled it off but they had very specific conditions which can’t really be replicated elsewhere.
Few people care if you believe that Muhammad rode to heaven on a magic horse (Buraq). But quite a lot of people care if you want to introduce hand amputations for theft, as demanded by Sharia Law, or different inheritance rules for sons and daughters where being female = being less valuable.
The medieval-practical parts of Islam must definitely be kept in check, unless the country in question is willing to regress into some very dark ages. That is something that Ataturk understood very well when reforming Turkey.
However, many believe that this is the case. The erroneous belief does tend to keep crime down.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/applying-sharia-l...
What about a secular state that doesn't want to become an Islamic state, but has a significant minority that has the opposite wish?
AFAIK this is the most important common political problem across the Islamic world. Many organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood want to Islamize their respective secular countries, some by peaceful means, others by violence. There has already been at least a dozen civil wars around that issue.
No. A tolerant, secular, liberal state should not respect the will of its people if the will of (the majority of) its people is to become an intolerant, religious, oppressive state. It is OK -- possibly even necessary -- to have a set of core founding principals which must never be abandoned.
Also having “core founding principles” doesn’t mean that they are valid or that you got them right from the beginning.
This is majoritarianism. Not liberalism, and certainly not democracy.
> respect the will of its citizenry, whatever it is
How do you define that? Is it always what the majority decides? What if the liberal secular government knows that going along with the will of the people will result in a minority of the population losing most of their rights and potentially suffering extreme oppression?
One could could assume that after learning what happened in Germany in the 30s (and some other comparable situations) most people would agree that even liberal states need to draw a line at some point.
This is ridiculous, quite frankly. You don't have to approve of every law a foreign people have to not want to basically terrorize them with a despot
Probably why Salafism is outright banned in Tajikistan.
Likewise Islam in Tatarstan is completely benign.
open political system actually makes islam opposition stronger (and easy to influence with $$$ from Gulf monarchies).
Keeping islam in check, also means keeping in check Gulf oil $$$$ that install their own version of islam.
the pipeline of volunteers from *stans to join ISIS/Al-Qaeda was funded and enabled by Gulf monarchies.
If there is another big war in the Middle East - guess from where all the islamist volunteer fighters will be coming from - from these poor 3rd world islamist countries, the *stan countries
No it doesn't. Provide one example where this has happened?
various conflicts in Causasus in russia - where caucasians were bankrolled and brainwashed via gulf money (dagestan and chechnya)
Iran during Shah times was relatively open politically, although it was monarchy.
Egypt before the brotherhood took over.
Turkey was relatively sectarian, but with Erdogan it became more and more islamist.
Iraq after occupation was relatively open, yet ISIS ideology took off
Iran was a brutal autocracy.
Egypt was a brutal military dictatorship.
Turkey is a great example, tbh. The level of radicals and terrorism there is far less than anything else we've described because it has open democracy. If anything, the big terrorists in Turkey are separatists which every nation, even European ones, has to fight.
Iraq after brutal military occupation? All of what you're talking about about are scenarios where brutal authoritarianism led to extremists gaining popularity because they are an excellent alternative to brutal one-man repression of an entire people.
Generally only undemocratic/oppressive countries have to do that. e.g. violence in the Basque country, Northern Ireland etc. was solved by giving the local people a voice and stopping previous abuses. Escalation of violence was always the outcome of failures by the state rather than started by the "separatists".
Also Turkey only had or has "open democracy" to a very limited state. It was never more than a deeply flawed democracy at best.
> Iraq after brutal military occupation?
I don't think the occupation was even remotely more brutal than Saddam's reign in the 80s and 90s. Most of the casualties were the result of the civil war/conflict between Shia/Sunnis/other factions and general lawlessness. Much of that could have been prevented had the occupation actually been more brutal/oppressive (of course far from ideal either..).
Coincidentally in both cases the administrations propped up by US/USSR were thoroughly corrupted, incompetent and abusive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi) so that even the Taliban became relatively appealing to most people.
> Iraq after occupation was relatively open, yet ISIS ideology took off
That was to a large degree just the extension of the whole Shia vs Sunni conflict/civil war which began immediately after the invasion.
Also I'm not sure what do you mean by "open" in all of the cases (besides post 2001 Afghanistan) the countries we ran by semi-secular authoritarian dictatorships which kept the Islamists in check. Most of the population would have (and eventually did) supported them if they were given a choice (like in Egypt).
Oh, and before you note that they have hijacked the elections and killed their opponents, hence it’s not an open political system anymore — that's exactly the point.
My entire point was that closed political systems embolden radicals, Gaza makes that point extremely well. When you have zero chance of having a say in the government that controls all your borders, any and all food allowed into your area, any and all job prospects you have, etc. that's fertile ground for radicals.
If Israel were a democracy (e.g. open political system) instead of having the majority of its subjects unable to vote or move freely within the land, it's obvious there would be no Hamas.
The point is, it's as closed a political system as it gets. No matter what the polity does, their situation cannot change because they have no rights in the government that controls their lives (Israel)
That's not true at all, Israel doesn't operate any courts in Gaza.
> Nothing can go into or out of Gaza, not even food, not even collected rainwater, without Israeli permission.
As I already explained, that's not true either — Gaza has a border with Egypt, too. But regardless, that's how borders between countries work: both parties have to agree over what can cross.
If you're making an argument about one country having a lot of economic and geopolitical influence on another, then you would have to make the same argument about any country on Earth and United States, and conclude that US is the only open political system.
No country in the world has total control of any other country's electricity, food rationing, water rationing, import / export, ability to work, ability to depart and arrive from the country.
You constantly mention Egypt as if it somehow makes all the facts I've stated false. But it does not. If they cooperate to create the same situation the situation does not change. There are still 2 million stateless people whose electricity, food, water, internet, and basically all access to the outside world is controlled by governments they are not citizens of.
Right - the people there are under martial law, which is even worse.
Gaza has a border with Egypt
Which Israel has seized control of.
You may not believe in democracy, but I do. Democracies lead to progress in nations and balance in political systems around the world. Closed political systems lead to the rise of revolutionaries and in the Muslim world those are Islamic and often extreme
Just look at what they are doing to their supposed brothers in Ukraine, for one old man's greed and twisted view on reality and his legacy, 0 other reasons. This is how they treat everybody, including other russians.
What they have are temporarily aligned forces who see some benefit in such action, nothing more. Most of them would take over russian territory and its mineral riches without blinking an eye if they could.
Sure, there are more details. Fundamentally that doesn’t change anything at all that much. At no point in the conflict Russia had any interest in a peaceful solution or actually protecting the Russian speaking population in East Ukraine (the opposite, they just wanted to turn them into some sort of perverse “martyrs”. Then again not particularly surprising considering that the Russian society is effectively a deranged death cult..)
> I blame the west for that.
Oh no.. whatever will we do.
No, it's not complex at all. Russia invaded a sovereign country. Just like they did in 39', 40', 08'.
Ok lets see ..
Finland invasion.
>Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany during the early years of World War II
...
>The Siege of Leningrad was a prolonged military siege undertaken by the Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front of World War II. Germany's Army Group North advanced from the south, while the German-allied Finnish army invaded from the north and completed the ring around the city.
https://www.state.gov/reports/just-act-report-to-congress/fi...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Leningrad
Georgia:
>The war in Georgia last year was started by a Georgian attack that was not justified by international law, an EU-sponsored report has concluded. The conflict erupted on 7 August 2008, as Georgia shelled the breakaway region of South Ossetia, in an attempt to regain control over it. The previous months had seen a series of clashes.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8281990.stm
>gee, wonder why they all want to be in NATO
Gee, I wonder if its the same motivation as for Poland to be in eu:
https://www.statista.com/chart/18794/net-contributors-to-eu-...
You’re quoting a 2009 article. Everyone that doesn’t mindlessly watch RT already confirmed that it was South Ossetian separatists that started shelling other Georgians and that Russia has no business also invading Georgia over that. Russia air attacked areas around Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.
I would love to watch RT but its censored in EU.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Russo-G...
>Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany during the early years of World War II
Which happened after (and never would have happened without) the Winter War.
We don't know that now do we?
Reading EU Report: sure its criticized, it does not make it wrong.
Oh and since we are counting dead:
The siege of Leningrad of which Finland was a part of:
>The siege became one of the longest and most destructive sieges in history, and it was possibly the costliest siege in history due to the number of casualties which were suffered throughout its duration. An estimated 1.5 million people died as a result of the siege.
Moscow invaded Finland in 1939.
Siege of Leningrad was in 1941.
"Poland provoked occupation by Germany" (1939)?
That makes it ok?
>Moscow was Germany ally for two years of WW2
Are you high?
Poland also signed non agression packt with Germany:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Polish_declarat...
Does it make them allies now?
I know what I talk about when I bash russia and its society, I saw them destroy soul of not only my own nation but everything around, and legacy of that period is still doing massive damage back home. They have absolutely nothing in common with western values, rather run like mafia clans where power of stronger defines rules. Now of course I don't say every single russian citizen is like that, far from it, but society overall is, like it or not, just look at any news in past 30 years about them.
Absolutely nothing changed in that country since their house of cards collapsed, at least not for the better (list of things that got worse is way too long for posting here, but summary is endlessly greedy oligarchs and uber oligarch putin who is one of richest men in the world, and obviously not from his official salary but stolen from russian state and its citizens).
Look at how carefully Lukashenko dances around putin and whole war, this is how 'enemy of my enemy is my ally' looks like. Look at how russian troops were invited to help with unrests in Kazachstan to shoot few thousands of protesters, but then got very promptly kicked out of the country, and Tokayev shared his negative opinions on Russia many times. People don't forget murderous bullying, and so don't whole nations.
12.04.2014 Moscow occupied Sloviansk, started war on east Ukraine, "referendum" under occupation month later. 17.07.2014 MH17 shot down by Moscow Buk.
February 2022 Moscow occupied Kherson, "referendum" under occupation half a year later, faked 87% "support".
Ukraine was neutral by constitution before Moscow invaded in 2014, majority of Ukrainians were against joining NATO, many favored economic ties with Moscow, many schools and universities performed education on Moscow language. Moscow violated Friendship Treaty (2004), Ukraine borders it recognized, Budapest memorandum (1994). How exactly occupation, annexation of friendly country is "complex subject"?
Well this is just sad propaganda. Zelensky (and others) had publicly admitted to sabotaging deescalation agreements.
You don't want to fall for "nothing happened in Donbas before 22" bs.
It is really such a weird situation. Western and Ukrainian politicians had publicly stated they were actually going for a fight for a long time, but we still see people doing wired moral posturing.
There's not much info on it in English, but here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Aktobe_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Aktobe_shootings
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Контртеррористическая_операция...
It’s not like the SA government (as a whole) was ever particularly that keen about the extremism part. Fundamentally they are not that different from Iran in most ways. They started from very different positions of course (secularism never having been a thing in the Arabian peninsula). SA is at least kind of moving into the right direction in some areas when it comes to women’s rights (even if at an extremely slow pace).
> It’s theocratic authoritarianism
Probably closer to theocratic totalitarianism..
Not sure why you want to label what to me is a distinction without a difference. You care about the motivations of a few at the top, I care about the local police and their supporters, which are acting like religious extremists not authoritarians.
In comparison, Islamic extremists do things like kill infidels and seek to establish an Islamic caliphate.
Number of countries invaded by USA in the middle east: 3 and few more got bombed
I mean "This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.".. try to be a bit more self reflective.
Back than, hearing my grandmother stories (she have a political activity in Europe that link her to the Soviet a bit), all was Soviet Citizens, of course the non-Caucasian looking was discriminated, the child of Russian there got better schools and services, the locals got far less, but they was still free to learn and move, the western experiment have given exactly NOTHING for 99% of the locals and have instead exacerbated local corruption...
That's why many might dream an European future, but definitively not like being under the IMF rules, they even prefer a historic enemy, China, since at least the Chinese nowadays build a bit of infra, just to pick natural resources or link themselves to EU, but still creating something that give some breadcrumbs to the locals.
The western and middle-east economical initiative have only displaced people. That's how we lost an opportunity...
"After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, most of the area comprising the present-day Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) became a de facto independent polity, independent from the rest of the Republic of China"
"At the time Political Tibet obtained de facto independence, its socio-economic and political systems resembled Medieval Europe.[29] Attempts by the 13th Dalai Lama between 1913 and 1933 to enlarge and modernize the Tibetan military had eventually failed, largely due to opposition from powerful aristocrats and monks"
Anyway, from your own link:
"The Sino-Vietnamese War was a brief conflict that occurred in early 1979 between China and Vietnam. China launched an offensive ostensibly in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, which ended the rule of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge. The conflict lasted for about a month, with China withdrawing its troops in March 1979."
In both other wars China helped their neighbors against Americans.
``` Number of countries invaded by China in the middle east: 0
Number of countries invaded by USA in the middle east: 3 and few more got bombed
I mean "This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.".. try to be a bit more self reflective. ```
I was pointing out that this seems to misrepresent the acts of China, due to its numerous armed conflicts with its neighbors in recent history. Though incidentally, this sidebar does seem also shore up the point for the "I can see it bleeding more territory to China" regardless. Here are more citations if you need them: - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Occupation_of_Mongolia - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020%E2%80%932021_China%E2%80%... - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territorial_disputes_in_the_So...
So which country has China invaded in the recent history? Bringing up events that happened more than hundred years ago looks strange.
Ahhhh, anti-China narrative is not working! China is evil, my western propaganda won't lie!
I can forgive people for forgetting to mention that Baltic states were part of Russia for centuries before they were re-annexed by the USSR in 1945. Indeed I can see how people had 20 years of independence and weren't fans of being included into a socialist utopia. But, just yesterday I've read that Georgia had a "Bolshevik invasion of 1921". A province of Russian Empire for a really long time and up until 1917.
It looks like the free press thinks you can make legitimate territorial claims go away by not mentioning their existence.
Maybe that's not how all the people involved saw it, but we see, judge, and name events through the lens of our own values.
So who sanctioned the invasion of Serbia by NATO?
> It is one of the best examples of foreign interference
During my visit to Syria, Iraq and Libya, I noticed something common between the people of these countries - when I told them I was from the US, they all said: "Thank you for your bombing campaigns, we are liberated now!"
Having replied as I did to the other user I feel I should add that you also are welcome here. The two of you are equally welcome, but we need you both to follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
Edit: it looks like you've been doing this in other places too, e.g. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40541225. That's definitely not ok here, so please stop doing that.
We see passive-aggressive hints about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia on HN all the time, but rarely anyone explains where that comes from. I can understand why Serbians could be bitter - the campaign had several horrible incidents like the passenger train that got hit during a strike on a railway bridge - but why are Russians complaining more than anyone else about a thing that happened 25 years ago, thousands of miles away, to people they have no relation with? I'd really like to get an answer to that.
No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.
No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be."
@dang
So how comments like this fit the site's guidelines?
Btw, that's another account "using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle".
My posts refer mostly to historical events, and attempt to correct the various (sometime rather bizarre) cognitive distortions that some people like to hold and promote about them. Along with many much milder and more innocuous misunderstandings.
Personally I eschew all forms of nationalism and nationalist rhetoric.
With this you do exactly what we're asking commenters to avoid doing on HN. It's not as bad as if you were hurling the insult directly at someone, but it's not so different either—as the reply you got demonstrated.
The issue isn't that we shouldn't reference each other's nationality—it's that we should be open, curious and respectful with each other, most of all when it comes to divisive topics. When people start talking about other people's countries scornfully or aggressively or snarkily, that's when it becomes flamebait and a moderation issue.
In addition to the above: having just taken a look at your commenting history, it's clear that you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. Just as I said to the other users, that's not allowed on HN and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of which side you're battling for or against. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on, we'd appreciate it.
Can you point to even a single instance where I have done this, please?
Meaning -- in reference to the country or its people per se (as opposed to the actions or ideology of the people who happen to be running it; or perhaps entirely reasonable references to what a measured portion of the population might say or think, as can be easily verified by numerous news reports)?
If not -- then why are you setting forth the implication that this is something I have done?
And lasties -- a lot of postings here (or excerpts from them) are plainly BS. Whether the poster is simply naive, or has less charitable motivations -- there's simply no mistaking it.
I totally get that labeling these cases as such continuously makes for bad reading; and of course one should never to so spuriously. But what is so wrong or uncivil (or even "snarky") about pointing out this simple fact, in egregious cases when there's just no ifs, buts or mitigating factors about it?
Or is just the fecal labeling? Would you prefer we stick to more G-rated terminology like "nonsense" and "balderdash"? I suppose I could live with that.
(Edit: you put in the last part of your comment while I was writing the below, so I'll respond with an edit too. No, it's not ok to replace that language with words like "nonsense" and "balderdash". Those still count as name-calling in the sense that https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html uses the term; and they don't solve the real problem. Since my reply below is an attempt to explain the real problem—at perhaps unfortunate length!—I won't go further here.)
> a lot of postings here (or excerpts from them) are plainly BS
In principle I agree because that's what human beings tend to do, but I don't agree with your word "plainly". That implies that there exists an objective perspective that nearly everyone can easily agree on, if they're operating in good faith. But there's no such perspective—not on divisive topics. The situation is far from that.
> But is so wrong or uncivil about pointing out this simple fact
What counts as BS vs. not-BS, or true vs. false, is no "simple fact". If you treat it that way (for example, "I'll just point out the simple fact that what you said is BS"), you're likely to fall into flamebait without intending to.
You're certainly welcome to explain patiently and respectfully why you believe someone is wrong on something. That's what we want on HN: to correct false information with true information, and bad arguments with better arguments—always respectfully and assuming good faith.
> Whether the poster is simply naive, or has less charitable motivations
If there's one thing I've learned it's that internet commenters are much too quick to make assumptions about others' motivations. The trouble is that these assumptions don't feel like assumptions; they just feel like completely-obvious-observations. Of course the other side has their own completely-obvious-observations. This is how we end up with flamewars.
The solution is to refrain from making claims about other people's motivations, which you can't know because you don't have direct access to them, and which you're likely to be wrong about because we have so little information about each other from the tiny blobs of text that we're exchanging. Also, humans really don't like to have their motivations commented on by others—so even if you've assessed them correctly, it's one of the worst tacks you can take. As a bonus, not doing so will make your comments more likely to be substantive and less likely to break the site guidelines.
By the way, I think I noticed a pattern in the following phrases in your comment: "entirely reasonable", "easily verified", "plainly", "simply", "simple fact", "there's just no ifs, buts, or mitigating factors"; as well as "self evident" from your comment above.
To me these phrases suggest a belief that the material under discussion is somehow obvious or transparent, and that it's obvious what's true and what's false (at least on certain points—I get that you aren't saying this about everything).
When you have that feeling and then you encounter someone who's arguing against that simple/obvious/plain truth, you're almost forced to conclude something about the other person: they must be naive, disingenuous, obtuse—something like that—or maybe they're just dumb or bad. Why else would they deny the obvious?
What I'd love to persuade you of is that this is a bad place to be commenting from on the internet (where we know so little about each other and don't have pre-existing relationships). It's likely to make your comments seem dismissive and/or aggressive and/or personal, even as it will feel completely obvious to you that you're simply pointing out facts. Again, that's how we get flamewars.
Instead, we all need to realize that the world is a much, much, much bigger place than we thought. There are lots of people out there who have opposite views and feelings to our own, and who therefore have a different idea of what is obvious and transparent. This is not because they're disingenuous, obtuse, or dumb. It's because they have a different background than we do, and a different working set of information.
Evolutionarily we're hard-wired towards assuming that other people feel and look and think the same as we do. In the mythical primordial jungle, we didn't encounter many others; and if we did, we probably tried to kill them (and they us).
Now suddenly on the internet we're exposed, not just to a few more others, but to all the others: millions of others with totally different backgrounds, information, feelings. When we encounter them, our immediate reflex is the primordial fear of kill-or-be-killed—that's how hard-wiring works. And what is flamewar but the internet version of kill-or-be-killed?
What we need to do instead is learn: learn that our assumptions and beliefs and feelings are too small for this new situation; learn to pause our first responses rather than reflexively expressing them; learn to look for information that might not be obvious, simple, plain, and to be willing to receive such information from the other.
To me this is what Hacker News is about: an experiment in learning from each other, and that means tolerating each other: staying connected long enough to get over the initial response of "what kind of idiot or sociopath is this" and move into an openness of "what might be the reasons for this person having such a different sense of what's obvious than I do?"
Tolerance is one of those vanilla virtues that we all think we're practicing, but in reality we've barely begun to even realize what it is. Tolerance feels terrible. It means bearing the pressure that the other person is putting on you—just as a beam engineered to a certain tolerance is able to carry that much load without snapping. In human terms, tolerance means being willing to bear the "unpleasant manifestations of others" past the point that one would have snapped in the past.
[editing - bear with me...]
I was hoping you could also respond to the question at the very top ("Can you point to even a single instance ...", up to the "If not, then why ..." part).
I'm not trying to split hairs here -- I'm really genuinely mystified by the apparent insinuation that I was responding to. That is, I don't see why would you bother to inject the phrase "When people start talking about other people's countries scornfully or aggressively" -- if you didn't think that was what you observed me doing.
At the same time I'm pretty that not only do I not talk about entire countries that way -- my language takes pains to avoid precisely such implications.
And just a slight addendum -- I have to say I'm a bit confused about what you mean by "political battle". Is it -- simply too many posts about politics (or history, which tends to get bloody and political)? Or just being too blunt about it? Is for example this post an instance of "political battle"?
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40731093
I can see how it might look that way (especially if one has only vaguely heard of the political party I'm referring to, and hasn't looked into them in any detail). But I do believe that if one has done any homework at all on these folks -- then what I'm saying is pretty straightforward, and well, basically "obvious".
And in any case, while it certainly takes a position, it's not a pugnacious or uncivil statement I'm making there. The sibling post perhaps makes a better, less brusque explanation of the same basic point. But again, it's just stating major recent events that should be, well -- obvious to anyone who follows basic political events in that country.
I think there's, like, 2 things about that? First: the overwhelming majority of what the site talks about isn't politics, and you're basically not engaging with it. That's fine for some topics; like, if all you engaged with was woodworking or Russian literature, you'd be great. But the 2nd thing is that political threads tend inexorably to become toxic and alienating, in ways that mess up conversations about woodworking and Russian literature and LLMs and APL. People literally hold grudges from the political threads!
I think if you're going to exclusively comment on political threads, the bar is higher to stay assiduously within the guidelines, which basically means avoiding any kind of pejorative writing, even if it's oblique, about the commenters who disagree with you; write as if to a beloved but intractably wrong and somewhat thin-skinned uncle on an email thread just before Thanksgiving.
(Or just mix it up and back away from the political debates. I know that's hard; they're fun.)
This is just a guess, for what it's worth.
This is most excellent advice. Thanks for chiming in.
> No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.
I know you didn't express it that way explicitly, but context is important, and given the context, it was bound to come across that way. At least, it was how it landed with me when I first read it, and therefore I was unsurprised to see that it generated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751052 as a response in the commenter most likely to hear it that way in this thread.
(tptacek gave you such a good answer about the other stuff that I don't want to try to add to it right now)
Which is also something you'd also prefer we not do (that is: referring to individuals with implied scorn) -- and since you're asking nicely and it's your shop here, I will make assiduous efforts to catch myself before doing so, moving forward.
So perhaps what I should have said was something like this:
There's never a need to introduce (gratuitous) references to a commenter's nationality or other presumed essential traits... No matter how much we may object to the message or import of what they have written.
In case it interests you, the above was a kind of variation on another mini-essay I wrote a few years ago: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23308098.
With this you did again exactly what I just asked you to stop doing. That's not cool.
The historical details you're bringing up are irrelevant to whether you're breaking HN's rules or not—for moderation purposes none of that matters. What matters is that making provocative, pejorative, or scornful references to other countries or their people is nationalistic flamebait which leads to hellthreads, which we don't want on HN. I don't think this is at all hard to understand, so no more of this please.
In addition to the above: having just taken a look at your commenting history, it's clear that you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. Just as I said to the other user, that's not allowed on HN and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of which side you're battling for or against. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
If you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules from now on, we'd appreciate it.
You're welcome here, but I've noticed that your comments are running a bit afoul of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you'd please review those and recalibrate, we'd appreciate it. It's not easy preserving the commons for everybody.
Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. As you know, that's not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it. If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
I know that users holding minority views are under pressure that the rest of us are not, but that doesn't make it ok.
"you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle"
I disagree with this characterization of my comments as a whole, they are often contradictory but informative and rarely combative. Perhaps some are unnecessarily sarcastic.
"If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that"
That's a fair warning, but I wonder why accounts like https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mopsi aren't banned despite long history of waging 'political and nationalistic battles' and flamewars.
Here's how it works: people underestimate their own provocations by at least 10x and overestimate the other side's provocations by another 10x, leading to a 100x skew (I'm speaking metaphorically of course) between their own perception and how things appear to an ordinary reader. It's basically a case of "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" - a lot closer. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
This is how we end up getting flamewars in which all the participants are certain that their contributions are the reasonable ones, the other side started it, and the only thing the mods need to do is put a stop to the bad behavior of the others.
As for the other two accounts you were asking about, the simple answer is I hadn't looked at their comment histories yet. All three of you are on the wrong side of the line in a similar way, so the moderation response is more or less the same in each case—once we've seen the data, that is. We can't moderate what we don't see, and we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here, or even 10% of what gets posted here.
It's common for people to see a post or an account which hasn't been publicly moderated and jump to the conclusion that the mods must be condoning it and therefore taking the other side. That's a non sequitur. By far the most likely explanation is that we didn't see it.
I'm sure you can understand that it gets distasteful after a while when people keep pointing the mods at their political opponents. That's not in the intended spirit of the site as a whole.
Also, the two proper ways to point the mods at things is to either flag a post (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) or email [email protected]. If you want to be sure that we take a look at something, you should do the latter, because the number of posts that get flagged is quite large.
Posting comments in the thread reporting on other users' bad behavior is not just off topic, it's guaranteed to be provocative in its own right, so we'd rather that people not do that.
Oh, I apologize for that -- I see your point and haven't replied because I have no objections)
> I'm sure you can understand that it gets distasteful after a while when people keep pointing the mods at their political opponents. That's not in the intended spirit of the site as a whole.
First you say that accounts like that get a free pass only because you missed them, now when I've made sure you haven't missed them -- it's distasteful? I see where you are coming from, but I find fairness to be important.
>If you want to be sure that we take a look at something
No, not really. Normally I'm for freedom of speech but sometimes I want to make a point.
It does not give one an excuse to skip the whole history of the region and start it where it fits them. I wonder if their values include skipping uncomfortable trivia or highlighting it when appropriate.
With regards to values, the legitimacy of a 3 years old government is in deep doubt. The values you've mentioned repeatedly lead to political backing of seriously unpopular regimes just because they fit the narrative that was never true in the first place.
I do have to disagree on the notion that a government should have a historical or traditional basis to be legitimate. In my eyes it needs foremost the support of its "subjects". In reality, different factors make a stable government, but legitimacy is ultimately a value judgment.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/article/2024/jun/19/georgi...
Also, this convention of not digging into a country's history can only ever work before it brings its history as a topic of conversation. In case of small, post-colonial countries that often happens on the first contact.
Wrong word.
"In Nystad, King Frederick I of Sweden formally recognized the transfer of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and Southeast Finland (Kexholms län and part of Karelian Isthmus) to Russia in exchange for two million silver thaler, while Russia returned the bulk of Finland to Swedish rule." [0]
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Treaty_of_Tartu_(Estonia%E2%80...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian%E2%80%93Soviet_Peace_T...
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet%E2%80%93Lithuanian_Peac...
Wow, I didn't knew Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are located between Germany and Russia.
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/8/8c/Map_used...
As to the "Judenfrei" status, that's a great deal due to the executions and mass deportations[2] that Russians unleashed after invading in 1940. First they banned all Jewish organizations, even fraternities and tennis clubs. Then they started targeting the professional class (politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc) to wipe out people capable of running the country and challenge the Russian rule. Their crime was officially designated as "being socially undesirable". Jews were overrepresented among the victims by a factor of 10. By the time Germans arrived in 1941, only 900 Jews were left in Estonia, as depicted on your map. Some had been deported, others ran away wherever they could. The last 900 remained because they believed that Germans couldn't be worse than the Russian terror of 1940-1941.
When Russians invaded again in 1944 and began their 50-year occupation of the country (which included another wave of terror and mass deportations[3]), they replaced German antisemitic policies with their own and continued suppressing Jewish culture until the very end of the USSR. The Jewish school in Tallinn, for example, opened in 1924, was closed by Germans in 1941, and only in 1990, as the USSR entered the final death spiral, got its confiscated real estate back and resumed teaching. So if you intended to be clever and play the Jewish card, you chose a very wrong place to do it. Germans had the holocaust in store for them, and for Russians they were exploiters of the working class, destined for Siberian labor camps.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molotov%E2%80%93Ribbentrop_Pac...
Of course, it weren't these random religious small business owners but people significantly conditioned by the socialist regime, which they participated in creating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parrot_Speaking_Yiddish the movie highlights that fact: a Soviet military officer occupying Lithuania in 1939 turns out to be Jew, which does not preclude him from internment of the movie protagonist, also Jew and Polish army soldier at the time in the plot.
There's fair bit more history than the 20 years of independence squished by Russians in 1940. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were always very distinct from Russia in religion, language, culture, education and other key areas. A good example of this are literacy rates in European part of Russian empire recorded during 1897 census.[1] Even two centuries later, the effect of protestantism and the trace of school system established by Sweden is clearly visible. Moreover, Estonia and Latvia weren't even ruled by Russians, but by Baltic German nobility, and the main language used in administrative affairs was German.
Likewise, to portray Georgia as a mere "province of Russian Empire" is ridiculous given that they are so distinct that you cannot even read what they write, because they use a different alphabet. Finland or Georgia are no more "a part of Russia" than than Egypt and India are characterized by labeling them as "former British provinces" (with a subtext that they belong to Britain).
> the main language used in administrative affairs was German
> to portray Georgia as a mere "province of Russian Empire" is ridiculous given that they are so distinct that you cannot even read what they write
Please don't tell me that many Englishmen could read Devangari script or that many Frenchmen could read (pre-Latin) Vietnamese.
You may not like it today, but these territorial claims were seen as completely valid.
The subtexts that you are pinning on me are your own invention, I just say about unfaithful representation of history in the press.
What is the purpose of having to mention that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were in Russian Empire in the context of their invasion and occupation in the 1940s if not an attempt to give legitimacy to the invasions?
It's far more important to stress that the people on the Baltic coast are not Russians, have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them. The same applies to the many other indigenous Finno-Ugric peoples[1] on the other side of the border inside the present-day Russia who have been driven away from their land like Native Americans and decimated with hostile policies that have resulted in their rapid decline.
[1] https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FeoDW20WQAESJuZ?format=jpg&name=...
That wording already shows an unexpected amount of agitation that would prompt further inquires.
> have been driven away from their land like Native Americans and decimated with hostile policies that have resulted in their rapid decline
That's mostly an unfaithful description of what's been happening, no. It also runs counter to the previous "have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them". If you really didn't want to be close to Russians you would get out of our hair for a chance.
Because it's done through extreme human rights violations such as torture, kidnapping, kangaroo courts, etc [0].
This only radicalizes the Jihadist movements, who's hardcore believers went into exile Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, Syria, etc and became extremely prominent in the Islamic State movement (eg. The former head of Tajikistan's Spetznaz defected to ISIS back in 2015 and became their War Minister).
ISKP is extremely Tajik in leadership, and this has helped them commit mass casualty attacks like the Kerman Bombings and the Moscow Theatre Siege
Once Emomali Rahmon dies, the Civil War will restart.
> bleeding more territory to China due to the significant difference in military power and aggression. This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.
Countries like India have had Air Force bases and boots on the ground in Tajikistan for decades [1]
---------
If in San Francisco or New York, I recommend checking out Halal Dastarkhan or Farida's, Tandir Rokhat (Bukharan Jewish), Aziza 7, and Salute (Bukharan Jewish) respectively.
The owners are all ethnic Tajiks from Uzbekistan. Bukhara is ethnic Tajik but in Uzbekistan because Stalin.
[0] - https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/tajik...
By preventing civil society from forming, perpetuating the same autarkic and autocratic economic and political system that has been in place since the 1980s, and failing to raise living standards these leaders exacerbated Jihadist movements, as they were the only semi-organized opposition left.
And banning minors from attending any religious service except funerals, de facto banning the Hijab, and using unrestrained violence in the face of even the smallest protests is not a lasting solution to preventing radicalism.
None of the wounds from the civil war were actually rectified, and it will bubble over into a second civil war once Rahmon dies.
It's the same story in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkemenistan, and Kazakhstan (eg. The riots in 2021).
This is the exact same playbook that happened in Afghanistan 50 years ago - living standards were trash, inequality was high, and any opposition was violently removed.
It didn't matter if it was Zahir Shah, Taraki, Massoud, or Omar - they were all authoritarian criminals who prevented civil society and institutions from forming.
To be fair if they tried that Islamists would have just taken over. Those things don’t tend to just form on their own when you let people do whatever they want without supervision (you need very specific conditions).
The most effective path for countries in similar positions is probably balanced authoritarianism + focus on education and economic growth and then starting to introduce democracy and other civil rights gradually after a generation or two. Pretty hard to pull off, though (especially in the Muslim world).
Stagnant living standards over 30 years and repression is all Rahmon has to show. This is why radicalism grows. If Rahmon raised living standards similar to peers like Uzbekistan (who also neighbors Afghanistan and also has a major issue with Afghan Uzbeks supporting the Taliban, and who are equally as repressive such as the Andijan Massacre) then Tajikistan wouldn't be in the mess that it is in today.
It's easy to run into a few (maybe only one or two) datapoints and jump to "these assholes are just like all the others". That's how sample bias (and whatever bias this is: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) work. But if you do that—and most people definitely do—you'll miss many cases where someone is on your side and has good will towards you. That's not in your interest—it just leads to more of the same. How about let's for something else.
If you see some posts where people are doing that and didn't get moderated, please don't take that to mean "the mods don't care" or "the mods must tacitly support this". Far more likely is we just didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
If you see a post that ought to have been moderated but hasn't been, you can help by flagging it or emailing us at [email protected]. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&qu...
"In check" in this case means a 7-year civil war that ended up with 1% of the country _dead_ and around 15% of the population displaced.
If your only choice is extremely socially conservative, democratic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (or worse) or a literal Kim Jong Un alike, then it's pretty obvious who you'd choose.
This is resorting to extremism and terrorism, it's just conducted by the army and police. Did you not hear how many people were assassinated and killed by this dictator to maintain iron grip control over the country? How is that not terrorism?
Care to explain that one more?
In the long term, I can see it bleeding more territory to China due to the significant difference in military power and aggression. This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.