#Balkan irredentism

[gemsofgreece]

No dispute at all my friend… One Ali Pasha isn’t enough to bring the false spring you dream of though…

Somewhere in Tzoumerka (Athamanian mountains), Epirus, Greece. Photo by giotisr on Instagram.

[head-post]

UN Secretary-General Guterres defends his work in Security Council

UN Secretary-General António Guterres defended the work of the Security Council amid talk of its ineffectiveness, according to Euractiv.

Guterres made the comments ahead of the annual high-level week of the UN General Assembly, which opens on 24 September in New York.

He said it was “not fair” to judge the institution by the paralysis of the Security Council, which in two years failed to influence the wars in Ukraine or Gaza due to geopolitical divisions.

After seven years as secretary-general, Guterres faces challenges amid the UN’s declining prestige, especially as the United States, Russia, and China struggle to reach consensus on major and minor conflicts.

Guterres also emphasised the UN’s key role in negotiating solutions to climate change, regulating the digital world, and promoting sustainable development. He has repeatedly argued in recent years that much of the UN’s political ineffectiveness stems from the organisational model created 70 years ago by the victors of World War II.

However, the outdated model failed to take into account modern Africa and the current demographic and economic power of Asia.

He denounced the growing anti-immigration rhetoric seen around the world, even in countries with progressive governments. Without an international consensus recognising that migration was “indispensable” and without policies that encouraged regular migration, the movement of people would be increasingly controlled by smugglers, he added.

Asked about a possible negotiated end to the war in Ukraine and, in particular, whether a peace-for-territories approach could be acceptable, Guterres strongly rejected any changes to Ukraine’s borders.

If we abandon the principle of territorial integrity, the world will descend into chaos.

Guterres pointed to Europe, where numerous ethnic minorities could provoke similar conflicts, recalling the irredentism that fuelled previous wars on the continent, especially in the Balkans.

Read more HERE

[mapsontheweb]

Map of Balkan Irredentism.

by @kos_data

[mjalti]

idk if you've seen but dua lipa posted a tweet with a map of ethnic albania and, like, i'm not here to get aggy in your ask box about it badgering you for your opinion, and i also know it's a very serious topic.. but there's now a ton of 15 year old western dua lipa stans on twitter suddenly trying to understand the past 150 years of balkan history, conflicts, and irredentism from various nationalists in order to make their little call-out/defence threads and it's uhhh. quite funny 😭

[warsofasoiaf]

Going on your last answer I saw, how did germany achieve so much succes at the beginning of the war? Can't be only luck and bad decision from France?

A couple of reasons.

Appeasement and the strength of the global disarmament movement severely eroded French foreign policy in central Europe. In an attempt to combat Hungarian irredentism, Czechoslovakia, Romania, and the Kingdom of Croats, Serbs, and Slovenes (later Yugoslavia) had established the Little Entente, and France had enacted treaties with each of the member states as a way of stopping German and Hungarian power projection, and later, Italian war aims in the Balkans. A Bulgarian revolutionary assassinated King Alexander I of Serbia in 1934, and due to accidental friendly fire, French Foreign Minister and Little Entente proponent Louis Barthou was shot by French police. In that sense, that was bad luck for the French, he had been one of their most vocal supporters of ensuring that their foreign policy would focus on deterring Germany. By 1938, France did not believe it was ready for war and so left Czechoslovakia out to dry at the Munich Conference. Hitler lucked out considerably at Munich, his forces were significantly outnumbered by France and Czechoslovakia, and the Czech Skoda Works produced high quality military materiel. He was also facing domestic pressure at home, delivering the Sudetenland was able to smooth over any domestic unrest and secure his regime. It’s worth noting that while there were elements within France who did not support going to war over Poland who had slogans like “Why Die for Danzig,” it was primarily only the far-right Liga and the intelligentsia that gave considerable support against the war; the French public overwhelmingly favored intervening to save Poland and to stop German militarism by roughly 3:1.

During the Phoney War, the Anglo-French Supreme War Council elected to fight a defensive strategy, which left Poland out to dry. So in that sense, letting the Germans bring their forces to bear rather than stranding them in a two-front war was a strategic decision.

The entire Ardennes offensive was an incredibly risky gamble. Had the German push been discovered and identified, France could have torn them to pieces. But they didn’t, and the gamble worked. Manstein and Guderain were able to establish a breakthrough, throwing the Allied war effort into chaos and splitting the French and British forces. The French forces also had training troubles, many of them were relatively new recruits or ill-prepared reserve forces. 

It wasn’t just bad luck and poor enemy planning though. German forces integrated wireless communication in their units to enable rapid response, by contrast the French were using telephones and couriers. They avoided tank-tank engagements and instead tried to lure Allied tanks into fire zones where they had anti-tank guns in place. The Germans were also able to acquire and maintain air superiority, part of that was due to a lack of French anti-air but the Luftwaffe were trained for air superiority missions.

Thanks for the question, Anon.

SomethingLikeALawyer, Hand of the King

[vhyral]

thereluctantinquisitor

 I really wonder these days, when people from other...

For a complete outsiders perspective, the first thing I think of is “Alexander the Great” lol. After that it gets a bit hazy, because I don’t know a lot of the history between Macedonia/Greece and most of my knowledge is based on ancient history. But in my mind I autopilot towards Macedonia as more of a neighbour/ally to Greece than a part of Greece, but its society was significantly influenced by Greek culture (similar to Thrace).

Thinking of Alexander the Great is somewhat correct as he was indeed born here in Macedonia, in Pella. (I’ve visited his father’s tomb one too many times with my primary school XO)

But by saying here, I mean Macedonia in Greece. We’re still calling a northern area of our country Macedonia and we have nothing to do with our neighbouring country (a country that has no cultural right to be called Macedonia; their official name in the European Union, the Council of Europe, and NATO is FYROM, former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia) when it comes to our ancient history, culture and language.

The ancient kingdom of Macedonia used to stretch to the lands that belong to FYROM as well but Slavic peoples settled in the Balkan region including Macedonia by the late 6th century AD. They were granted lands there in exchange of aiding the Byzantine Empire instead of being its enemies. Their language, to this day, is of slavic origin and their alphabet is, as far as I know, the Cyrillic, a descendant script of the alphabet devised by Cyril and Methodius, scholars sent again by the Byzantines.

Ancient Macedonians spoke a language that was closely related to ancient greek (probably a dialect) and their prestige language was Attic and later in time, Koine Greek. They were essentially considered a greek tribe. Alexander himself aimed to spread the greek culture as far as he could.

And yet, our neighbouring country has been spreading for years information about the Macedonians and Alexander not being greek, has been calling us Turks, tried to use the Vergina Sun for their flag while having no right to do so and more. Their constitution talks about macedonian irredentism, about taking back areas that belong to Greece.

To sum this up because I’m no historian, our neighbouring country doesn’t intent to claim the name Macedonia because of geographical reasons but they are also trying to take a part of our history and identity for themselves and I find this to be very wrong and rude and disrespectful. They have claimed the name Macedonia and have made sure their nation is presented as such in world maps throughout the world when this name is not theirs to claim. The history they’ve been teaching in their schools deviates a lot from that which ancient sources and archeological finds point towards.

And now, yesterday to be exact, after years of dispute, our president, the greek president, signed an agreement with them, allowing them to call their nation “North” Macedonia. He promised that the name will be used for purely geographical reasons yet the agreement also allows them to be callling themselves North Macedonians, an ethnicity that has not existed since the ancient kingdom of Macedonia because we, who are born in greek Macedonia, may be calling ourselves Macedonians but our ethnicity is Greek. He allowed them to call their language, a language that has nothing to do with either ancient or modern greek, Macedonian.

It just makes no sense. Even the mixed name “North” Macedonia makes no sense because the agreement allows them to call their nation simply Macedonia and themselves Macedonians when interacting with any other country that’s not Greece. It’s like, what’s the difference with the problem existing up to now? It’s even worse cause now, they’re making it official.

The agreement at least makes it clear that FYROM has to change its constitution and remove every mention to macedonian irredestism and to make clear that they, as a people, have nothing to do with ancient Macedonia and its history.

Yet, to a citizen of a foreign country, who is, for logical reasons, not going to search in depth about all this stuff, hearing the name Macedonia leads directly to thinking about Alexander the Great and his ancient kingdom of Macedonia. Their constitution talking about how there’s actually zero connection between the people living in FYROM right now and ancient Macedonians does very little to help when people are never going to know about it and are just going to make the connection on their own because the name is basically the same.

And I know that, with time, people will start to associate Alexander and ancient Macedonia with this new “North” Macedonia (many people do this even now) and not with Greece and this way, they really are going to take away from us a part of our ancient history and cultural heritage. And the worst is that our own goverment gave it freely to them, despite thousands of greek people gathering and leading protests against this.

[party-hard-or-die]

Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say

On Sunday, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of Macedonia said he was “optimistic” and expected an agreement to be announced “very soon.” Last Wednesday, he said that any deal would be put to a referendum in the fall. He spoke after his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, said that increased cooperation between Greece and Balkan countries would thwart aspirations by countries like Turkey for dominance in the region.

But there is strong opposition to a compromise in Greece.

Panos Kammenos, the Greek defense minister and Mr. Tsipras’s right-wing coalition partner, has said his party would not support a solution that allowed the Balkan nation to continue using the name Macedonia, and he declared, “The Skopjans are living with the myth of Macedonia.” But some question whether Mr. Kammenos would risk political turmoil at a critical moment for Greece, which is set to exit its third international bailout in August.

Recent surveys in Greece on the issue indicate that opposition has eased, with about half of those polled objecting to letting the nation of Macedonia continue using the name, compared with 8 out of 10 earlier this year. Greeks are apparently more concerned about potential irredentism by Turkey, a traditional foe, amid a recent deterioration in bilateral ties, surveys suggest.

Still, for Greeks, besides stoking fears about potential threats to the nation’s territory, the Macedonia dispute touches on issues of identity, culture and history.

The post Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2kV0Y1D via Breaking News

[gemsofgreece]

I think that very often the history of Pontic Greeks does get overshadowed by the Asia Minor Catastrophe. I live in Thessaloniki, and every time I go to Public (the bookstore/electronic store) they have a dozen and more historical books about Asia Minor being advertised, and almost no books about the Pontic Greeks, not even the most popular ones like Not Even My Name (okay they did have one historical novel, I give them that, but it’s still way too little in my opinion). Some other bookstores like Protoporia have a bigger collection, but it’s still frustrating to me (as a Pontic Greek) that books about Pontus aren’t receiving more attention. And you’re right about education, they’re isn’t really an effort to teach about Pontic Greek history more specifically, and I know that the Pontus and Caucasus regions were further removed than the Asia Minor Coast but we are part of Greek History as much as everybody else. I really wish that the day commemorating the Pontic Greek Genocide would get equal treatment with the Macedonian Struggle and the 17th of November which are celebrated in school with activities to educate students about them. So I was very grateful that Kokkino Potami at least seemed to make people more aware of our history, even if it was very frustrating that some people seemingly had no idea about Pontic Greeks before watching the show. I heard a person say “this show revealed the crimes of T people against Pontic Greeks” and I was like Em no this show didn’t “reveal” anything? Everything that is happening in the show is based on actual historical events that were known before the series. But it’s a testament to how lacking our education is.  

Contrary to what certain foreign people might think, the teaching of history in Greek school is pretty mild. Even the wrongdoings against Greeks are mentioned in a rush or without too many “graphic” details, unless it’s crucial in order to understand what happened. It kind of tries to avoid creating impassionate reactions to the students (except for pride) which is both good and bad for different reasons, a bad one being that some parts of history remain in the shadow and young people do not learn about them. I mean, that was my experience. I suppose it depends on the teacher too. 

Apart from that, I think the Greek state had always strived for a not-always-very-healthy homogeneity (that probably started as a competitive measure to cope with the raging irredentism present in all the Balkans), not only towards minorities but even at the expense of ethnic Greeks themselves at times. I would add that the Pontic dialect (one of the most archaic Greek dialects surviving) should be taught to students with Pontic background or whoever wants to. Same with the Tsakonian dialect in the Peloponnese, which originates from Ancient Doric Greek and is severely endangered. Even more prominent ones like the Cretan will eventually start struggling. Instead of just jumping up and down at the sound of a Pontic or a Cretan Lyra, maybe it would be best to actively protect the richness of the heritage. All the preservation comes from citizens’ associations and initiatives, almost never from the state’s actions.

I don’t know if it’s any consolation to you but my experience has been better; almost all people I have met and discussed something relevant seemed to know about the hardship Pontic Greeks have gone through. Not with many details of course (I need to educate myself more too) but they knew that the story goes well beyond the Asia Minor catastrophe.

[dragnews]

Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say

On Sunday, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of Macedonia said he was “optimistic” and expected an agreement to be announced “very soon.” Last Wednesday, he said that any deal would be put to a referendum in the fall. He spoke after his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, said that increased cooperation between Greece and Balkan countries would thwart aspirations by countries like Turkey for dominance in the region.

But there is strong opposition to a compromise in Greece.

Panos Kammenos, the Greek defense minister and Mr. Tsipras’s right-wing coalition partner, has said his party would not support a solution that allowed the Balkan nation to continue using the name Macedonia, and he declared, “The Skopjans are living with the myth of Macedonia.” But some question whether Mr. Kammenos would risk political turmoil at a critical moment for Greece, which is set to exit its third international bailout in August.

Recent surveys in Greece on the issue indicate that opposition has eased, with about half of those polled objecting to letting the nation of Macedonia continue using the name, compared with 8 out of 10 earlier this year. Greeks are apparently more concerned about potential irredentism by Turkey, a traditional foe, amid a recent deterioration in bilateral ties, surveys suggest.

Still, for Greeks, besides stoking fears about potential threats to the nation’s territory, the Macedonia dispute touches on issues of identity, culture and history.

The post Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2kV0Y1D via Today News

[cleopatrarps]

Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say

On Sunday, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of Macedonia said he was “optimistic” and expected an agreement to be announced “very soon.” Last Wednesday, he said that any deal would be put to a referendum in the fall. He spoke after his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, said that increased cooperation between Greece and Balkan countries would thwart aspirations by countries like Turkey for dominance in the region.

But there is strong opposition to a compromise in Greece.

Panos Kammenos, the Greek defense minister and Mr. Tsipras’s right-wing coalition partner, has said his party would not support a solution that allowed the Balkan nation to continue using the name Macedonia, and he declared, “The Skopjans are living with the myth of Macedonia.” But some question whether Mr. Kammenos would risk political turmoil at a critical moment for Greece, which is set to exit its third international bailout in August.

Recent surveys in Greece on the issue indicate that opposition has eased, with about half of those polled objecting to letting the nation of Macedonia continue using the name, compared with 8 out of 10 earlier this year. Greeks are apparently more concerned about potential irredentism by Turkey, a traditional foe, amid a recent deterioration in bilateral ties, surveys suggest.

Still, for Greeks, besides stoking fears about potential threats to the nation’s territory, the Macedonia dispute touches on issues of identity, culture and history.

The post Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2kV0Y1D via News of World

[mapsontheweb]

Map of Turco-Persian states.

by Brother_Judas:

This map shows most notable societies of the Turco-Persian tradition. Not the most easy on the eye, but it's the only way to show them all together. General idea is to get the approximate extent. This was the idea of u/Thephalanx23 , he wanted to see this map realized so here it this. Also special thanks again to u/Thephalanx23 for helping out with the research.

​

EDIT: Yellow line is Afsharid dynasty

Feel free to click the “follow” button on my account if you would like to see more maps of this type. Check out some of the highlights of my work below, and post suggestions in the reply of this comment, and I’ll consider making a map from your proposal.

​

MORE OF MY WORK HERE:

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Old world around the time Jesus died

https://i.redd.it/9yw9uk44eyu21.jpg

USA, TEXAS and MEXICAN EMPIRE

https://i.redd.it/ehavhhud7vj21.jpg

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Pre-colonial South America

https://i.redd.it/a4obgta4pdy21.png

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Ethnicity in Balkans, 19th century

https://i.imgur.com/QdcDghD.jpg

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Crusader States, 12th century

https://i.imgur.com/8aHTzwV.jpg

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Balkans, 11th century

https://i.redd.it/lyhx7l0epyg21.jpg

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Asia, 500AD

https://i.imgur.com/QOJ7yAM.jpg

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Britain and IRELAND

https://i.redd.it/plpeohyalmt21.png

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Byzantine Empire, territorial peak

https://i.redd.it/gp22t67gnvt11.png

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Reign of Charlemagne

https://i.redd.it/6tps6y3q89x11.jpg

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Sumerian Empire

https://i.redd.it/pci37f5khrn11.png

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Mediaeval Russia and Ukraine (Kievan Rus’)

https://i.redd.it/kbf8vx9d73t11.jpg

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[GIF] Important Balkan States

https://i.redd.it/kwr8b00wjb611.gif

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[GIF] Balkan irredentism

https://i.redd.it/bz0b5rr5fpq11.gif

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European Colonization of Africa

https://i.redd.it/oabskpkl7j031.jpg

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Ethnic cleansing of Muslim populations in former Ottoman territory

https://i.redd.it/enj9g4s44ed31.jpg

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CALRADIA :P

https://i.redd.it/8gzbw1ffm4o31.jpg

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Balkan, 1850

https://i.redd.it/2avedtrm4pt31.jpg

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[GIF] Earliest iterations of Balkan nations in history

https://preview.redd.it/j4awzxguppr31.gif?format=mp4&s=b8b8556850716b33fb6b251bebb415dd6ad156bf

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[GIF] The ever-changing borders of the Balkans (1st and 2nd Balkan Wars, WW1)

https://preview.redd.it/jkzydcb03ny11.gif?format=mp4&s=cd9ad62dd4cca0ee0074916f48ee732b4a614da4

[newestbalance]

Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say

On Sunday, Prime Minister Zoran Zaev of Macedonia said he was “optimistic” and expected an agreement to be announced “very soon.” Last Wednesday, he said that any deal would be put to a referendum in the fall. He spoke after his Greek counterpart, Alexis Tsipras, said that increased cooperation between Greece and Balkan countries would thwart aspirations by countries like Turkey for dominance in the region.

But there is strong opposition to a compromise in Greece.

Panos Kammenos, the Greek defense minister and Mr. Tsipras’s right-wing coalition partner, has said his party would not support a solution that allowed the Balkan nation to continue using the name Macedonia, and he declared, “The Skopjans are living with the myth of Macedonia.” But some question whether Mr. Kammenos would risk political turmoil at a critical moment for Greece, which is set to exit its third international bailout in August.

Recent surveys in Greece on the issue indicate that opposition has eased, with about half of those polled objecting to letting the nation of Macedonia continue using the name, compared with 8 out of 10 earlier this year. Greeks are apparently more concerned about potential irredentism by Turkey, a traditional foe, amid a recent deterioration in bilateral ties, surveys suggest.

Still, for Greeks, besides stoking fears about potential threats to the nation’s territory, the Macedonia dispute touches on issues of identity, culture and history.

The post Deal for Macedonia Name? High Treason, Some Greeks Say appeared first on World The News.

from World The News https://ift.tt/2kV0Y1D via Everyday News

[hallsp]

Travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry, and narrow-mindedness, and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. Broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one’s lifetime.

That was old Samuel Clemens, the redoubtable Mark Twain, concluding his humorous book about a trip through Europe to the Holy Land in the year of our Lord 1867. The Innocents Abroad was his second book and helped to make his name before he put pen to paper with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer. Twain made the journey by sea at the ripe old age of 32.

I’ve decided to take a similar trip at the same age, going by land through southern Europe to Greece, then on to Israel and Palestine, to Turkey and Iran, and ending up in the Lebanon.

The mystery that attends every journey is how the traveller got to his starting point.

My reasons for setting out on this journey are manifold, but my primary motivation is an abiding interest in the Middle East. This troubled region, often placed at the centre of the world in medieval mappae mundi, is the birthplace of the world’s three monotheistic faiths, and has been at the centre of human activity since humankind first ventured out of Africa.

Today is no different. News from the area dominates all others. The Islamic world is in a state of fitna, a classical Arabic term that might best be rendered as strife or distress; of that there can be no doubt. Al-Qa’eda’s stated goal of bringing their war to the West has succeeded. It has become a meaningless cliché to say that the world changed on 9/11, but the world is obviously markedly different. Historians of the future will surely talk of the time pre- and post-9/11. This was the first large-scale attack on the West, propaganda of the deed on an extraordinary scale, but this was not the first incident of its kind. This problem has been festering for some time. Now the situation is escalating and deteriorating before our eyes, first with the war on terror, then the Arab Spring and civil war in Syria, the rise of ISIS, and now the normalisation of global terrorism. The consequences of all of this will only be known in the years and decades to come.

“To understand a man,” Napoleon is supposed to have said, “you must know what was happening in the world when he was twenty.” Well, Napoleon was twenty in 1789, l’année sans pareille. I turned twenty in 2005: a post-9/11 world, with the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq still in full swing. My burgeoning atheism, a result of my studies in the physical sciences, meant that I was beginning to look more critically at the consequences of religious faith, particularly its more extreme forms.

In 2013, I spent some time learning Arabic in Cairo, Egypt. I chose Cairo as it’s the unofficial capital of the Arab world. After all, one in four Arabs are Egyptian. It’s also the headquarters of the Arab League. The Al-Azhar Mosque, dedicated in 972, is one of the oldest seats of learning in the world, and, without doubt, the foremost theological centre of (Sunni) Islam.

That’s not all. The Egyptian music and film industries are gigantic. As a result, their colloquial dialect of Arabic is the most widely understood. Plus, Egypt has all of that amazing history, all the way back to the Pharaohs of the Early Dynastic Period. Then there’s politics. Egypt may not have started the Arab Spring, but it was certainly centre-stage.

I was there in January and February, after the fall of Hosni Mubarak, about six months after the election of Mohammad Morsi. The Muslim Brotherhood, persecuted for decades, finally had their grip on power. A couple of months later, of course, Morsi would be overthrown by large-scale protests and the inevitable intervention of the army, in the person of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi.

Egypt remains very much politically divided: Islamist versus Secular, Rural versus Urban, Rich versus Poor. Egypt, though, is the Arab world in microcosm. This same dynamic is happening everywhere from Tunisia to Iraq.

Now, on this trip, I’m consciously following the refugee trail in the opposite direction, making my way over land from Europe to the Middle East, from Ireland through England, France, and southern Europe, through the Balkans, that forgotten part of Europe most recently affected by inter-religious and ethnic conflict, and on towards Greece, and the Middle East proper.

I have one question on my mind: what is the root cause of all this conflict?

Obviously I have certain ideas about the causes, but I’d like to put them to the test, and to talk with people on the ground.

I have a number of other interests, not unrelated to the above. Firstly, having grown up in Ireland, I’m interested in partition, and irredentism around the world. I’m also fascinated by the connection, real or imagined, between a people and a land. Then there’s the question of identity: ethnic, cultural, religious, and everything in between.

My own philosophy, for what it’s worth, is humanistic. I don’t believe in a chosen people, anecclesia, or an ummah. Every human being on the Earth is my brother and sister, absent any distinction.

I don’t particularly like the term freethinker, but the first person to be referred to as such was an obscure Irishman by the name of John Toland. He was giving a lecture once, at the turn of the eighteenth century, and someone in the audience asked him for his credo, a statement of his beliefs. “The sun is my father,” he replied, “the earth is my mother, the world is my country, and all men are my family.” I regularly toast to John Toland, and I’m in absolutely no need of any excuse to drink.

I also occasionally drink to the memory of Muhammad ibn Ahmad Al-Burani, whose underlying concept was that all cultures are distant relatives of one another because they are all human constructs. This is manifestly true.

All things considered, I am now convinced that religion does great harm, because it is fundamentally sectarian, but much more importantly: I think that religion is based on falsehood, and I care deeply about the truth.

In the first instance, religion divides humanity into separate, mutually exclusive, groups. The process of “othering” can then proceed at pace.

Extremist Jews, viewing Judaism as supreme, support the expansion of the Jewish State, and the settlement of the West Bank; while Fundamentalist Christians, viewing Christianity as supreme, support these Jews in the hope of hurrying the End Times, and attempt to impose their own twisted morality onto the rest of secular society; while Radical Muslims, viewing Islam as supreme, wish to return to the Age of the Caliphate.

My own philosophy couldn’t be more dissimilar: viewing Reason as supreme, I’d like to reshape this world for Everybody.

[iamthetruenhaz]

> Claims about irredentism among native communities

And if those "claims" are true, so what? Is the conclusion that because there is some irredentism among natives, that they deserve to be left under an empire?

Funny that the author cited saw fit to compare Central and North Asia to the Balkans. You see, as a Balkan person, I really, really hate the image of the Balkans as a place of squabbling nationalists and the term "balkanization" defined as some tragic Ragnarök-tier breakdown of an oh-so-pure and noble empire into a bunch of warlike chauvinists with the pretentious, tea-sipping implication that the empire had no fault in this, that it was somehow better and not at all the major cause for the region's irredentism and nationalism which started out as freedom movements, and that the breakaway nations should have stayed subjugated in order not to disturb the precious golden empire.

If anything, irredentism among newly liberated nations, while tragic and ultimately to be eliminated, is more understandable as a collective trauma response which makes the healing of that national trauma a priority. It is not a reason to deny that nation's right to freedom. To say otherwise is imperialist apologia.