#iranian imperial family

[royal-confessions]

“The pahlavis of iran looked so glamorous 😍 (im not talking politics or anything just 60s 70s glamor dont come for me)” - Submitted by Anonymous

[royal-hair]

Former Empress Farah Pahlavi of Iran at former King Constantine's funeral at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Athens, Greece - 16.01.23

[natandacat]

Its become clear to me rather early that intelligence as we discuss it today is baked into eugenics, bc of the way people get genuinely grandiloquent and emotional about my intellect, always in a way that reinforces a kind of biological hierarchy. Like I'm not just smart, I'm "superior", I "dominate", etc. And its not lost on me how many of these hyperbolic admirers have been white adults, although I've sadly seen it parroted and internalized by all my peers (especially more racialized peers who were made to feel especially inferior). What is also not lost on me is how vehement my father was about the importance of being an intellectual, his way of desperately hanging onto that idea as a way to retain respect, how different his desperation was compared to the confidence of those white adults, and how many other migrants of his generation say the exact same words I've heard him say ad nauseam. So yeah. I dont much care about intelligence.

[envolvenuances]

That video that circulates pictures of Socialist Afghanistan and Iran under Zehedi's dictatorship post USA-backed coup of 1953 as the same because women dressed in western clothing and were allowed work and study kinda pisses me off

[mariacallous]

The spectacularly rapid fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad and his regime is the Middle East’s 1989. Like the fall of the Berlin Wall, this weekend’s end of 54 years of Assad family rule signals an earthquake in the regional order—with tremors that will be felt for decades to come. Just as 1989 was marked by a series of falling dominoes in Poland, Hungary, East Germany, and elsewhere, the collapse of the Syrian regime is part of a chain of events, including Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah, Iran’s loss of its most potent proxy forces, and the weakening of Russia due to the war it started in Ukraine.

And just as 1989 marked the end of communism in Europe, Assad’s flight to Moscow signals the demise of the ideology of anti-Western, anti-Israel resistance in the Middle East. For more than half a century, the Assad family was the backbone for a political order in the Middle East in which a bloc of states styled themselves as the resistance to what they labeled Western imperialism and Zionism. The appropriation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict proved to be a powerful tool to mobilize the masses across the region who wanted justice for Palestinians—sentiments that the Syrian regime and its allies instrumentalized to distract from their domestic failures, oppress their own people, and extend their regimes’ regional influence. In reality, these regimes cared little about the Palestinians.

Within this bloc, Syria and Iran believed they had entered a mutually beneficial and durable alliance—and each thought it had the upper hand. Syria was crucial for Iran because it was the heart of the land bridge between Iran and its most valuable proxy, Hezbollah in Lebanon, while Syria saw alignment with Iran as increasing its own stature against Israel and bolstering its influence over Lebanon.

For Iran, the ideology of resistance was an indispensable tool to rally support from Arabs and Sunnis as Tehran vied for dominance in the Middle East. As the leaders of a self-styled Axis of Resistance, the clerics in Tehran were able to supplant the old ideology of pan-Arab nationalism, as espoused by the Syrian Baath Party and others, and ultimately dominate several Arab countries through well-armed proxies. The Assad regime ignored this challenge even as Iran manipulated the Baath Party to serve Tehran’s own objective of achieving regional dominance. For example, Iran presented Hezbollah to Syria as an ally when Hezbollah’s primary purpose was to support exporting the Islamic revolution.

The Syrian uprising of 2011 and the war that followed shifted the balance of power toward Iran, which intervened to prop up the Assad regime. Most consequentially, Tehran summoned Hezbollah to support the Assad regime against the Syrian rebels.

In the course of the Syrian war, the country moved from being a partner to a client of Iran. A much-diminished Assad regime was now dependent for its survival on Iran and its proxies, including Hezbollah and Tehran-controlled militias from various countries. In other Middle Eastern states, including Iraq, Lebanon, and Yemen, Iran’s proxies consolidated their status as dominant political and military actors. Iran increased its investment in them as its outer lines of defense and tools of geopolitical influence.

Iran’s rise and dominance as a regional power came to define an entire era of Middle Eastern politics. Across the region, most countries either were under direct Iranian influence via the country’s proxies or were forced to configure their foreign policies around the threats posed by Iran. The Gulf Arab states, for example, ended up pursuing de-escalation with Iran to stave off the instability caused by its activities.

The United States, other Western countries, and Israel did not like this Iran-dominated order, but they tolerated it. They saw it as lower risk compared with the unknown forces that sudden political change in Iran or Syria could unleash. This Cold War-like arrangement with a confrontational status quo made Damascus and Tehran feel confident in their power vis-à-vis the West and its allies.

U.S. disengagement from the Middle East under the Obama administration paved the way for Russia to insert itself into the regional order. When Iran and its proxies showed themselves unable to prop up the Assad regime on their own, Moscow saw the Syrian war as a low-cost opportunity to reclaim its status as a global power and arbiter of the region. Russia’s substantial naval and air bases in Syria also served as critical logistical centers for Moscow’s expanding military operations in Africa.

For almost a decade, Russia thus became a major actor in the Middle Eastern cold war. Russia, Iran, and the rest of the Axis of Resistance appeared to form one bloc, while Western allies such as Israel and the Gulf Arab countries formed another. But Russian support for Assad was little more than a transactional partnership, and Russian-Iranian relations were never frictionless. From the beginning of Russia’s military intervention in Syria, it sought to undermine Iran’s influence in the country so that Russia remained the dominant actor.

The Iranian regime, in turn, was concerned about the challenge that Russia presented to its influence in Syria. Yet Tehran had no choice but to remain in Moscow’s orbit, regarding its influence over Syria as a small price to pay in return for gaining a powerful backer for its Axis of Resistance.

Tehran presented Hezbollah and the Assad regime to the Iranian people as a worthy investment: the front line of resistance to Israel and the crown jewels of Iran’s regional clout. Tehran needed to reassure Iranians that the economic sacrifices and political isolation that its support for Hezbollah and Assad generated were not in vain. Otherwise, Tehran argued, Iran would be under threat of erasure by Israel and the United States.

The collapse of the Assad regime has jolted this dynamic to an abrupt stop. Russia’s abandonment of Assad—and by extension, Iran’s project in Syria—creates additional rifts in Iran’s already shrinking network of proxies. The Iranian leadership will struggle to justify to its people decades of investment in Syria that have gone down the drain in a matter of days.

Standing alone without Syria and Russia in the face of a still-strong Western-backed bloc, the regime in Tehran will be revealed to its people as having imposed a futile sacrifice that not even its nuclear program can redeem. This poses a serious risk to the survival of the Islamic Republic—potentially the biggest fallout of last week’s events.

The repercussions of Assad’s collapse will also ripple across Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen as Iran’s proxies find themselves without an important lifeline. In Lebanon, in particular, the political dynamics set off by Israel’s decimation of Hezbollah are likely to accelerate with the loss of the all-important land bridge for weapons supplies from Iran. The sudden vulnerability of an already weakened Iran also means that Tehran’s remaining proxies may doubt the reliability of their patron.

The domino effect of the collapse of the Assad regime will inevitably mean the end of the Iran-dominated regional order. Replacing it will be a regional order dominated by Israel and its partners. Israel has shifted its perspective from an uneasy tolerance of Iran’s influence in the Middle East to actively seeking an end to this status quo and has succeeded in practically neutralizing the biggest threat to its security, Iran. Israel will move from being a state surrounded by adversaries and clawing at regional legitimacy to becoming the Middle East’s agenda-setter. Enjoying good relations with both the United States and Russia also makes Israel a key player in ending the cold war in the Middle East.

For the Gulf Arab countries, Iran’s degradation as a destabilizing actor also bolsters the implementation of their economic visions. The defeat of Iran’s revolutionary project will pave the way for widening the scope of normalization between Arab countries and Israel on the basis of shared business, political, and security interests. This recalibration will likely push Turkey to act more pragmatically in the way it engages with the region.

The anti-Western ideology nurtured by the Syrian Baath Party for 54 years and successfully appropriated by Iran blossomed for decades but is rapidly withering. Just as the Cold War ended with the defeat of communism, decades of confrontation in the Middle East will end with the defeat of the resistance ideology.

[aqlstar]

In the context of whatever was going on on @spot-the-antisemitism ‘s inbox- I wrote down some thoughts about Islamophobia and anti-Muslim biases:

I tend to think that attitudes towards Muslims in the West and in West Asia and North Africa should be analyzed separately because they come from such radically different historical experiences and pre-existing power structures.

I therefore understand people that feel frustrated by the term “Islamophobia” because it implies (or may be considered to imply) uncritically that non-Muslim west Asians or North Africans are necessarily subject to the same kind of bias present in, say, some American Christians.

For example, we live in America, but my dad’s side of the family (Assyrian) is generally rather wary of Muslims and afraid of the spread of Islam. By some definitions, this makes them Islamophobic. We do have culturally Muslim Iranian family friends, it just took a little while for us to trust that they were not anti-Semitic or anti-Assyrian and were actually very open to unlearning some of their biases.

It bothers me that their generational trauma response that has unfortunately been proven useful and necessary would be grouped in with ignorance and bigotry that some American Evangelical Christians display when it comes to Islam. (Saying things like all Muslims worship the devil or that they hate Jesus or defending Christian imperialism while condemning Islamic imperialism.)

On the other hand, I support combatting said ignorance and bigotry, whether we call it Islamophobia, xenophobia or just anti-Muslim conspiracy. I don’t really want to die on the hill of word choice.

I also believe, contrary to the opinion of most young leftists, that it isn’t okay to dehumanize people that are part of the historical “oppressor class.” I can see how a very rational generalized wariness of Muslims in a West Asian context could hypothetically be weaponized to promote hatred and violence against Muslims. What word would be used for that phenomenon?

Does anyone have any thoughts, additions, objections, concerns?

*also note that I think a similar distinction needs to be made for the phenomenon of Christian oppression.

In North America? We have Christians whining about not being able to evangelize in public schools and calling it Christian oppression.

In Egypt? Christian oppression means violence against copts, burning churches, and human trafficking.

[abla-soso]

I've said before and I'll keep saying it: Palestine exposed Western liberals and Syria exposed Western leftists.

Their unchecked racism and ideological blind spots are just as nasty as liberals..

You can easily figure out how much these Leftist Western experts on Syria don't actually know a goddamn damn thing about Syria when you ask them a simple question.

Don't ask them if they can understand Arabic, or if they have ever spoken to actual Syrians who lived through Assad's brutal regime, and how long ago they figured out where Syria is located on the map.

Don't ask why the vast majority of Palestinians are staunch supporters of the Syrian revolution. Don't ask them why Hamas has always supported Syrian rebels.

No.

Just ask them about the Assad family's very long and loving relationship with America.

Just ask them about the Assad Family's very friendly and servile relationship with Israel from the late 60's onwards. Ask them why Syria was such a good neighbor to Israel all these many decades.

Then ask them how exactly Bashir differed from his family regarding his policy towards Israel, enough for Israel to waste resources on toppling him. Bashir is still every bit an Assadist royal as his father before him.

Temporarily allying himself with Hezbollah to save his own ass (because he could no longer trust America to not replace him with another Assadist royal), doesn't fucking mean he has suddenly become anti-Israel or anti-American imperialism.

This is an utterly deranged, completely laughable "analysis" that can't be uttered by anyone familiar with the history of the Assad royal family and its loving relationship with America and Israel.

Asssad is not and has never been against America, but his main concern - after the Arab Spring - is keeping himself in power, and if that necessitated Russian and Iranian propaganda portray him as a revolutionary leader fighting against American imperialism, he'd gladly take it.

You might be ignorant enough or dumb enough to believe Russian and Iranian propaganda, but America isn't.

America knows Assad is a cowardly rat who would crawl back - after crushing the rebellion - to the biggest superpower that can secure his power. That's America and Israel.

This is why America and Israel never bothered to topple Assad the same way they toppled their other puppets in the Middle East. That is why they've only sent their terrorist mercenaries to fight off Hezbollah and Syrian rebels but never targeted Assad's forces. I was there in 2011. I saw countless videos of these US-backed terrorists fighting and slaughtering the Syrian rebels while not harming a single fucking Assad-backed fighter.

They want Assad weakened enough to crawl back to them and only rely on them for protection, but they don't want his regime or his royal family gone. They're their biggest fucking allies in the Middle East, for fuck's sake! They might get rid of Assad in the future if he proved to be too concerned with his own survival (like Gaddafi did), but they won't ever get rid of the Assad Family.

[ghelgheli]

nothing unusual about a bunch of iranian diaspora girls being zionists online, unfortunately. most of all we're talking about descendants of the royalist upper classes who had stakes in the pahlavi economic empire. these are families that left so they could cut their losses to the fused popular-bourgeoisie revolution that was to be consolidated by khomeini into the IRI. with wealth built up by a zionist puppet monarchy i would expect nothing else from their children and grandchildren. the communists of the 60s and 70s were right, of course, that the fight of their time was against their state as an arm of western imperialism. that arm is cut off now, but its fingers still writhe alive in the suburbs of socal posting islamophobic tiktoks.

[cincinnatusvirtue]

Countries that are no more: Achaemenid Empire (550BC-330BC)

It was not the first empire of Iranian peoples, but it arose as probably the greatest in terms of influence and became the measure by which all subsequent Iranian empires tended to compare themselves and its influence on culture, government & civil infrastructure would influence others beyond the span of its territory and the span of time. This is the Achaemenid Empire.

Name: In Old Persian it was known as Xšāça or the "The Kingdom or the Empire", it was named the Achaemenid Empire by later historians. Named after the ruling dynasty established by its founder Cyrus the Great who cited the name of his ancestor Haxāmaniš or Achaemenes in Greek as progenitor of the dynasty. It is sometimes also referred to as the First Persian Empire. The Greeks simply referred to it as Persia, the name which stuck for the geographic area of the Iranian plateau well into the modern era.

Language: Old Persian & Aramaic were the official languages. With Old Persian being an Iranian language that was the dynastic language of the Achaemenid ruling dynasty and the language of the Persians, an Iranian people who settled in what is now the southwestern Iranian plateau or southwest Iran circa 1,000 BC. Aramaic was a Semitic language that was the common and administrative language of the prior Neo-Assyrian & Neo-Babylonian Empires which centered in Mesopotamia or modern Iraq, Syria & Anatolian Turkey. After the Persian conquest of Babylon, the use of Aramaic remained the common tongue within the Mesopotamian regions of the empire, eventually becoming a lingua franca across the land. As the empire spread over a vast area and became increasingly multiethnic & multicultural, it absorbed many other languages among its subject peoples. These included the Semitic languages Akkadian, Phoenician & Hebrew. The Iranian language of Median among other regional Iranian languages (Sogdian, Bactrian etc). Various Anatolian languages, Elamite, Thracian & Greek among others.

Territory: 5.5 million kilometers squared or 2.1 million square miles at its peak circa 500BC. The Achaemenid Empire spanned from southern Europe in the Balkans (Greece, Bulgaria, European Turkey) & northwest Africa (Egypt, Libya & Sudan) in the west to its eastern stretches in the Indus Valley (Pakistan) to parts of Central Asia in the northeast. It was centered firstly in the Iranian Plateau (Iran) but also held capitals in Mesopotamia (Iraq). Territory was also found in parts of the Arabian Peninsula & the Caucausus Mountains.

Symbols & Mottos: The Shahbaz or Derafsh Shahbaz was used as the standard of Cyrus the Great, founder of the empire. It depicts a bird of prey, typically believed to be a falcon or hawk (occasionally an eagle) sometimes rendered gold against a red backdrop and depicts the bird holding two orbs in its talons and adorned with an orb likewise above its head. The symbolism was meant to depict the bird guiding the Iranian peoples to conquest and to showcase aggression & strength coupled with dignity. The imperial family often kept falcons for the pastime of falconry.

Religion: The ancient Iranian religion of Zoroastrianism served as the official religion of the empire. It was adopted among the Persian elite & and had its unique beliefs but also helped introduce the concept of free-will among its believers, an idea to influence Judaism, Christianity & Islam in later centuries. Despite this official religion, there was a tolerance for local practices within the subject regions of the empire. The ancient Mesopotamian religion in Babylon & Assyria, Judaism, the Ancient Greek & Egyptian religions & Vedic Hinduism in India was likewise tolerated as well. The tolerance of the Achaemenids was considered a relative hallmark of their dynasty from the start. Famously, in the Old Testament of the Bible it was said that it was Cyrus the Great who freed the Jews from their Babylonian captivity and allowed them to return to their homeland of Judea in modern Israel.

Currency: Gold & silver or bimetallic use of coins became standard within the empire. The gold coins were later referred to as daric and silver as siglos. The main monetary production changes came during the rule of Darius I (522BC-486BC). Originally, they had followed the Lydian practice out of Anatolia of producing coins with gold, but the practice was simplified & refined under the Achaemenids.

Population: The estimates vary ranging from a low end of 17 million to 35 million people on the upper end circa 500BC. The official numbers are hard to determine with certainty but are generally accepted in the tens of millions with the aforementioned 17-35 million being the most reasonable range based on available sources.

Government: The government of the Achaemenid Empire was a hereditary monarchy ruled by a king or shah or later referred to as the ShahanShah or King of Kings, this is roughly equivalent to later use of the term Emperor. Achaemenid rulers due the unprecedented size of their empire held a host of titles which varied overtime but included: King of Kings, Great King, King of Persia, King of Babylon, Pharaoh of Egypt, King of the World, King of the Universe or King of Countries. Cyrus the Great founded the dynasty with his conquest first of the Median Empire and subsequently the Neo-Babylonians and Lydians. He established four different capitals from which to rule: Pasargadae as his first in Persia (southwest central Iran), Ecbatana taken from the Medians in western Iran's Zagros Mountains. The other two capitals being Susa in southwest Iran near and Babylon in modern Iraq which was taken from the Neo-Babylonians. Later Persepolis was made a ceremonial capital too. The ShahanShah or King of Kings was also coupled with the concept of divine rule or the divinity of kings, a concept that was to prove influential in other territories for centuries to come.

While ultimate authority resided with the King of Kings and their bureaucracy could be at times fairly centralized. There was an expansive regional bureaucracy that had a degree of autonomy under the satrapy system. The satraps were the regional governors in service to the King of Kings. The Median Empire had satraps before the Persians but used local kings they conquered as client kings. The Persians did not allow this because of the divine reverence for their ShahanShah. Cyrus the Great established governors as non-royal viceroys on his behalf, though in practice they could rule like kings in all but name for their respective regions. Their administration was over their respective region which varied overtime from 26 to 36 under Darius I. Satraps collected taxes, acted as head over local leaders and bureaucracy, served as supreme judge in their region to settle disputes and criminal cases. They also had to protect the road & postal system established by the King of Kings from bandits and rebels. A council of Persians were sent to assist the satrap with administration, but locals (non-Persian) could likewise be admitted these councils. To ensure loyalty to the ShahanShah, royal secretaries & emissaries were sent as well to support & report back the condition of each satrapy. The so called "eye of the king" made annual inspections of the satrapy to ensure its good condition met the King of Kings' expectations.

Generals in chief were originally made separate to the satrap to divide the civil and military spheres of government & were responsible for military recruitment but in time if central authority from the ShahanShah waned, these could be fused into one with the satrap and general in chiefs becoming hereditary positions.

To convey messages across the widespread road system built within the empire, including the impressive 2,700 km Royal Road which spanned from Susa in Iran to Sardis in Western Anatolia, the angarium (Greek word) were an institution of royal messengers mounted on horseback to ride to the reaches of the empire conveying postage. They were exclusively loyal to the King of Kings. It is said a message could be reached to anywhere within the empire within 15 days to the empire's vast system of relay stations, passing message from rider to rider along its main roads.

Military: The military of the Achaemenids consisted of mostly land based forces: infantry & cavalry but did also eventually include a navy.

Its most famous unit was the 10,000-man strong Immortals. The Immortals were used as elite heavy infantry were ornately dressed. They were said to be constantly as 10,000 men because for any man killed, he was immediately replaced. Armed with shields, scale armor and with a variety of weapons from short spears to swords, daggers, slings, bows & arrows.

The sparabara were the first line of infantry armed with shields and spears. These served as the backbone of the army. Forming shield walls to defend the Persian archers. They were said to ably handle most opponents and could stop enemy arrows though their shields were vulnerable to enemy spears.

There was also the takabara light infantry and though is little known of them it seems they served as garrison troops and skirmishers akin to the Greek peltast of the age.

The cavalry consisted of four distinct groups: chariot driven archers used to shoot down and break up enemy formations, ideally on flat grounds. There was also the traditional horse mounted cavalry and also camel mounted cavalry, both served the traditional cavalry functions and fielded a mix of armor and weapons. Finally, there was the use of war elephants which were brought in from India on the empire's eastern reaches. These provided archers and a massive way to physically & psychologically break opposing forces.

The navy was utilized upon the empire's reaching the Mediterranean and engaged in both battles at sea and for troop transport to areas where troops needing deploying overseas, namely in Greece.

The ethnic composition of Achaemenid military was quite varied ranging from a Persian core with other Iranian peoples such as the Medians, Sogdian, Bactrians and Scythians joining at various times. Others including Anatolians, Assyrians, Babylonians, Anatolians, Indians, Arabs, Jews, Phoenicians, Thracians, Egyptians, Ethiopians, Libyans & Greeks among others.

Their opponents ranged from the various peoples they conquered starting with the Persian conquest of the Medians to the Neo-Babylonians, Lydians, Thracians, Greeks, Egyptians, Arabs & Indians and various others. A hallmark of the empire was to allow the local traditions of subjugated areas to persist so long as garrisons were maintained, taxes were collected, local forces provided levies to the military in times of war, and they did not rebel against the central authority.

Economy: Because of the efficient and extensive road system within the vast empire, trade flourished in a way not yet seen in the varied regions it encompassed. Tax districts were established with the satrapies and could be collected with relative efficiency. Commodities such as gold & jewels from India to the grains of the Nile River valley in Egypt & the dyes of the Phoenicians passed throughout the realm's reaches. Tariffs on trade & agricultural produce provided revenue for the state.

Lifespan: The empire was founded by Cyrus the Great circa 550BC with his eventual conquest of the Median & Lydian Empires. He started out as Cyrus II, King of Persia a client kingdom of the Median Empire. His reign starting in 559BC. Having overthrown and overtaken the Medians, he turned his attention Lydia and the rest of Anatolia (Asia Minor). He later attacked the Eastern Iranian peoples in Bactria, Sogdia and others. He also crossed the Hindu Kush mountains and attacked the Indus Valley getting tribute from various cities.

Cyrus then turned his attention to the west by dealing with the Neo-Babylonian Empire. Following his victory in 539BC at the Battle of Opis, the Persians conquered the Babylonia with relative quickness.

By the time of Cyrus's death his empire had the largest recorded in world history up to that point spanning from Anatolia to the Indus.

Cyrus was succeeded by his sons Cambyses II and Bardiya. Bardiya was replaced by his distant cousin Darius I also known as Darius the Great, whose lineage would constitute a number of the subsequent King of Kings.

Darius faced many rebellions which he put down in succession. His reign is marked by changes to the currency and the largest territorial expansion of the empire. An empire at its absolute zenith. He conquered large swaths of Egypt, the Indus Valley, European Scythia, Thrace & Greece. He also had exploration of the Indian Ocean from the Indus River to Suez Egypt undertaken.

The Greek kingdom of Macedon in the north reaches of the Hellenic world voluntarily became a vassal of Persia in order to avoid destruction. This would prove to be a fateful first contact with this polity that would in time unite the Greek-speaking world in the conquest of the Achaemenid Empire. However, at the time of Darius I's the reign, there were no early indications of this course of events as Macedon was considered even by other Greek states a relative backwater.

Nevertheless, the Battle of Marathon in 490BC halted the conquest of mainland Greece for a decade and showed a check on Persia's power in ways not yet seen. It is also regarded as preserving Classical Greek civilization and is celebrated to this day as an important in the annals of Western civilization more broadly given Classical Greece & in particular Athens's influence on western culture and values.

Xerxes I, son of Darius I vowed to conquer Greece and lead a subsequent invasion in 480BC-479BC. Xerxes originally saw the submission of northern Greece including Macedon but was delayed by the Greeks at the Battle of Thermopylae, most famously by Spartan King Leonidas and his small troop (the famed 300). Though the Persians won the battle it was regarded as a costly victory and one that inspired the Greeks to further resistance. Though Athens was sacked & burnt by the Persians, the subsequent victories on sea & land at Salamis & Plataea drove the Persians back from control over Greece. Though war would rage on until 449BC with the expulsion of the Persians from Europe by the Greeks.

However, the Greeks found themselves in a civil war between Athens & Sparta and Persia having resented the Athenian led coalition against their rule which had expelled them from Europe sought to indirectly weaken the Greeks by supporting Greek factions opposed to Athens through political & financial support.

Following this reversal of fortune abroad, the Achaemenid Empire not able to regain its foothold in Europe, turned inward and focused more on its cultural development. Zoroastrianism became the de-facto official religion of the empire. Additionally, architectural achievements and improvements in its many capitals were undertaken which displayed the empire's wealth. Artaxerxes II who reigned from 405BC-358BC had the longest reign of any Achaemenid ruler and it was characterized by relative peace and stability, though he contended with a number of rebellions including the Great Satraps Revolt of 366BC-360BC which took place in Anatolia and Armenia. Though he was successful in putting down the revolt. He also found himself at war with the Spartans and began to sponsor the Athenians and others against them, showcasing the ever dynamic and changing Greco-Persian relations of the time.

Partially for safety reasons, Persepolis was once again made the capital under Artaxerxes II. He helped expand the city and create many of its monuments.

Artaxerxes III feared the satraps could no longer be trusted in western Asia and ordered their armies disbanded. He faced a campaign against them which suffered some initial defeats before overcoming these rebellions, some leaders of which sought asylum in the Kingom of Macedon under its ruler Philip II (father of Alexander the Great).

Meanwhile, Egypt had effectively become independent from central Achaemenid rule and Artaxerxes III reinvaded in around 340BC-339BC. He faced stiff resistance at times but overcame the Egyptians and the last native Egyptian Pharaoh Nectanebo II was driven from power. From that time on ancient Egypt would be ruled by foreigners who held the title Pharaoh.

Artaxerxes III also faced rebellion from the Phoenicians and originally was ejected from the area of modern coastal Lebanon, Syria & Israel but came back with a large army subsequently reconquered the area including burning the Phoenician city of Sidon down which killed thousands.

Following Artaxerxes III's death his son succeeded him but a case of political intrigue & dynastic murder followed. Eventually Darius III a distant relation within the dynasty took the throne in 336BC hoping to give his reign an element of stability.

Meanwhile in Greece, due to the military reforms and innovations of Philip II, King of Macedon, the Greek speaking world was now unified under Macedon's hegemony. With Philip II holding the title of Hegemon of the Hellenic League, a relatively unified coalition of Greek kingdoms and city-states under Macedon premiership that formed to eventually invade Persia. However, Philip was murdered before his planned invasion of Asia Minor (the Achaemenid's westernmost territory) could commence. His son Alexander III (Alexander the Great) took his father's reforms and consolidated his hold over Greece before crossing over to Anatolia himself.

Darius III had just finished reconquering some rebelling vestiges of Egypt when Alexander army crossed over into Asia Minor circa 334BC. Over the course of 10 years Alexander's major project unfolded, the Macedonian conquest of the Persian Empire. He famously defeated Persians at Granicus, Issus and Gaugamela. The latter two battles against Darius III in person. He took the King of Kings family hostage but treated them well while Darius evacuated to the far eastern reaches of his empire to evade capture. He was subsequently killed by one of his relatives & satraps Bessus, whom Alexander eventually had killed. Bessus had declared himself King of Kings though this wasn't widely recognized and most historians regard Darius III, the last legitimate ShahanShah of Achaemenids.

Alexander had taken Babylon, Susa & Persepolis by 330BC and effectively himself was now ruler of the Persian Empire or at least its western half. In addition to being King of Macedon & Hegemon of the Hellenic League, he gained the titles King of Persia, Pharaoh of Egypt & Lord of Asia. Alexander would in time eventually subdue the eastern portions of the Achaemenid realm including parts of the Indus Valley before turning back to Persia and Babylon where he subsequently became ill and died in June 323BC at age 32. Alexander's intentions it appears were never to replace the Achaemenid government & cultural structure, in fact he planned to maintain and hybridize it with his native Greek culture. He was in fact an admirer of Cyrus the Great (even restoring his tomb after looting) & adopted many Persian customs and dress. He even allowed the Persians to practice their religion and had Persian and Greeks start to serve together in his army. Following his death and with no established successor meant the empire he established which essentially was the whole Achaemenid Empire's territory in addition to the Hellenic world fragmented into different areas run by his most trusted generals who established their own dynasties. The Asian territories from Anatolia to the Indus (including Iran and Mesopotamia) gave way to the Hellenic ruled Seleucid Empire while Egypt became the Hellenic ruled Ptolemaic Kingdom. The synthesis of Persian and Greek cultures continued in the Seleucid and Greco-Bactrian kingdoms of antiquity.

The Achaemenid Empire lasted for a little over two centuries (550BC-330BC) but it casted a long shadow over history. Its influence on Iran alone has persisted into the modern age with every subsequent Persian Empire claiming to be its rightful successor from the Parthian & Sasanian Empires of pre-Islamic Iran to the Safavids of the 16th-18th century and the usage of the title Shah until the last Shah's ejection from power in the 1979 Islamic Revolution. Even the modern Islamic Republic of Iran uses Achaemenid imagery in some military regiments and plays up its importance in tourism and museums as a source of pride to Persian (Farsi) & indeed Iranian heritage. Likewise, its form of governance and the pushing of the concept of divine rights of kings would transplant from its Greek conquerors into the rest of Europe along with various other institutions such as its road & mail system, tax collection & flourishing trade. Its mix of centralized & decentralized governance. Its religious & cultural tolerance of local regions even after their conquest would likewise serve as a template for other empires throughout history too. The Achaemenid Empire served as a template for vast international & transcontinental empires that would follow in its wake & surpass its size & scope of influence. However, it is worth studying for in its time, it was unprecedented, and its innovations so admired by the likes of Alexander the Great and others echo into the modern era.

[hussyknee]

I don't know what's going on and I'm not sure I want to find out, but I thought the "people seeking self-determination" thing was about Palestine. Iran is very much not seeking self-determination, it's a theocratic state crushing its own people to the extent that some Iranians hate Palestine just because its government is supporting it.

In this instance, the US and its allies are absolutely at fault because they allowed their rabid dog to provoke Iran into open war, which they've been trying to do for entirely too long. But whatever happens is not in fact entirely on them (for God's sake stop glossing over all the other genocidal western nation that lent their enthusiastic support thus far), it's also on Iran because they chose this. Iran is invested in Palestine and helping Hamas and Hezbollah as a proxy war against the axis of Saudi Arabia-Israel-United States (that now seems to be escalating into a direct war) which has been the case for decades, partially because of the ethnic and religious battle lines and partially because of oil and nuclear interests. The United States and Saudi and Israel being evil doesn't mean Iran isn't also evil, especially considering two of its closest allies are Assad and Erdogan, ntm Putin. If you want to deny that they're also all genociders and despots, I can only call down all the curses of their millions of victims and their families down on your head. They matter no less than Palestinians. They matter as well as Palestinians right the fuck now, because being caught between two nuclear powers at open war is fucking terrifying for the whole region, especially Iranians. This is not a victory strike, it's an escalating disaster that might lay waste to multiple Global South countries in a myriad ways.

Someone said that the US left-wing has realized that US exceptionalism and imperialism is bad, but doesn't understand that part of it is centering the US in all world politics and conflicts and seeing the US as special in any way, including as a special evil or oppressor. If you want to be anti-imperialist and decolonial please internalise that all nation states are oppressive, artificial, post-colonial evils, that the US is just one colonizer and imperialist among many, and its fascism nothing unique. Please follow the geo-politics and news of other nations, especially in the Global South. The only special thing about the US is that it has the most military and economic power and too much influence in the Security Council, but that doesn't mean every other military power and SC member is either a puppet or a brave resistance.

Decolonization and anti-imperialism is learning to situate yourself as just one among many, just another settler colony benefiting from white supremacy, just another imperialist, just another nation state headed by power hungry supremacists. Casting every opposing power as a plucky little underdog champion is just your usual noble savage racism out in force, silencing and dehumanizing the people in those countries fighting for their own rights and freedoms.

[newnitz]

The thing is this. Zionists view Antisemitic bigots who hate you for existing as exactly as bad as people who say "hey maybe the idf doing mass murder on a bunch of innocent civilians is bad actually", and you justify it by invoking the holocaust like its relevant. You being the victims of genocide 80 years ago means the idf can brutalise and murder as many children as they want. You think being the victims of religious persecution 80 years ago means you can perpetrate it against Muslims now. You think that you can literally be insular racial supremacists now because in the past you were persecuted by insular racial supremacists. Jewish people are as complex and flawed as any other group, but have a prevalent attitude that you are simply above criticism as a result of the oppression you experience. You think that being the victim of oppression and bigotry means any action you take is automatically justified and tell yourselves the only reason anyone would disagree with that is they simply hate Jewish people.

You think this began or ended with the Holocaust? MENA Jews were violently expelled from all across the Middle East since 1929, though it really took off in the 1950s. My own extended family was tortured by the Junta in the 70s. Iranian Jews fled by the skin of their teeth in the 80s. French Jews have been living under constant threat of bombing, stabbing, and especially as of late, "retributive" rapes since 2014, to the degree many fled the country.

And how dare you call an industrialized effort to exterminate an ethnic group, based on their ancestry, regardless of religious affiliation, "religious persecution"? You not only minimize the Holocaust, but also the Romani Holocaust, and the Sami and Armenian genocides who were blueprints for Hitler's theory and practice respectively. Funny how you call it "religious persecution" and term us "racial supremacists" at the same breath.

I recognize history. I know most groups to have been colonized in the Bronze and Iron Age are no longer here to tell their story, or have only barely survived in too small a number to feel safe telling it. I literally mentioned some of those ethnic groups(Carthagians who were culturally genocided, Assyrians who can't risk speaking out under threat of escalating their cultural genocide, Kurds who are treated as badly only in the Muslim world because they demand self-determination but have had very little negative sentiments among Western Empires) in that reblog. I know antisemitism is a function of colonialism and imperialism. just like anti-Black racism(which is a different and equally horrible issue altogether) and other forms of anti-indigenous racism(of which antisemitism is part of the umbrella).

[royal-confessions]

“If the Russian and Persian monarchies were not abolished, we would see the most beautiful jewellery worn at weddings, coronations and dinners.” - Text & Image Submitted by cenacevedo15

[dailyanarchistposts]

Imperialism, Capitalism, and the State

To understand the current situation, we must first demystify the political system in Iran.

Iran must be understood as a capitalist society and its state, both before and after the revolution, as a capitalist state. No amount of demagogic proclamations can change the fact that the Iranian state, while possessing many features peculiar to itself, is nonetheless a particular form of bourgeois class rule, a fact visible not only in its internal social relations, but also in the role it plays in the world system.

Through the course of the nineteenth century, Iran went through a process of integration and peripheralization into the rising capitalist world system. The Qajar dynasty (1794 to 1925) that ascended the Peacock Throne at the end of the previous century was quickly caught in the “Great Game” between the Tsarist Russian Empire and the British Empire as they both became more assertive in Asia. Military defeats resulted in the imposition of unequal treaties that not only led to a loss of territory but also included terms that established political and economic dominance. Iran was opened up to European commodities, while domestic production increasingly became geared towards the world market.[2]

Qajar Iran was a system that can be described as tribal-feudalism.[3] The state was not a centralized modern state. The Shah (king) ruled through various local nobles, landlords, tribal-chiefs, and senior clergy who formed the landed aristocracy and played the role of the respective powers in their locality. The latter ruled over a large mass of peasant villagers and nomadic tribes-people. There was no national army, only armies tied to local lords and chiefs. People were divided up according to ethnic groupings, tribal or religious sects, and spoke a variety of languages and dialects.

In the urban centers, which often served as provincial capitals, the center of economic life was — and to a large extent still is today — the bazaar, the traditional commercial center in the urban Middle East, with the merchants and artisans who inhabit it being collectively known as bazaari.[4] The bazaar was not just the center for shops and trade, it also often contained public baths, tea houses, as well as the central mosque. It is common for bazaari and clergy to have familial relations. Wealthy bazaaris fund the mosques and seminaries, religious processions, donate to charitable foundations, and form the main financial support for many religious affairs. Landholdings of the senior clergy and wealthy merchants increased over the course of the 19th century, with the clergy gaining land through religious endowments and donations by rich aristocrats and merchants. This relationship between the bazaari, as the traditional bourgeoisie, and the clergy is important for understanding the politics of modern Iran, and the 1979 revolution in particular, for it was this clerical-bazaari alliance that lay at the heart of the revolution, serving as the base of the Islamic Republic.

This process of integration into the world market, particularly in the form of European domination, contributed to the development of bourgeois national consciousness among merchants, clergy, and artisans. Struggles against foreign concessions and other forms of foreign domination became more commonplace as the merchant bourgeoisie of the bazaar became more assertive, solidifying a bourgeois form of national consciousness. This combination of a material-financial force in the merchants and the ideological force of the clergy transformed the traditional bourgeoisie into a genuine political force.

The integration and peripheralization characteristic of the nineteenth century brought with it close economic ties between Iranian and Russian merchants, but also contributed to the embryonic development of a modern working class. The reality of this process hit home in Iran when the global depression of the 1870s provoked a drop in agricultural prices. Worsening conditions in the countryside forced peasants to leave their villages in search of work. Naturally, they were drawn to the growing industrial centers of the Russian Caucasus, particularly the new oil industry, the center of which being the city of Baku.

Baku’s oil fields were a crucible for working-class radicalism. In the late nineteenth century, the city attracted hundreds of thousands of Iranian migrant workers to the growing industry where they encountered the organizing of the Russian Social Democratic Workers Party (RSDWP), itself formed in 1898. Not only Iranians, but people from all over the region traveled to work in the industry, with the result that the city boasted a significant multi-ethnic and multi-religious working class. Employers stoked hostilities often, and Iranian workers and activists in the region became involved in many of the strikes organized by the party. It was a strike wave in Baku that sparked the events that would lead to the Russian Revolution of 1905. Amidst this wave, workers gained crucial experience in party activities and strikes, and it was during the same year the Social Democratic Party of Iran (SDPI) was founded.[5]

The 1905 Revolution would directly influence bourgeois national revolutions in Asian nations such as China and Turkey, but given its proximity and its historical ties, it was felt most immediately in Iran. For Russian and Iranian Social Democrats, the revolution in Iran was directly tied to the revolution against the Tsar. Following the Tsarist reaction just north of the border, many revolutionaries turned their attention south to Iran. The revolutionary wave landing in Iran at the end of the year marked a crucial turning point, ushering in the twentieth century with the Constitutional Revolution and Civil War (1906–1911).[6] This revolution had a number of parallels with the one in Russia, and can even be seen as an extension of the latter, as it proved to be a similarly bourgeois national-democratic revolution with a strong social democratic element. Although it would not succeed in fundamentally altering the state or economic relations, it was nonetheless of great cultural-political significance, and every political tendency that will go on to shape the landscape of 20th century Iran draw their roots there. It also prolonged the bazaari-clergy alliance that had developed in the protests against foreign concessions, but did so while introducing a revolutionary element into the nascent working class and social democratic movement. Along with the struggle for a national assembly, or Majlis, we also witness the appearance and growth of the anjumans, or provincial councils that — as with the soviets — became sources of popular power that pushed the revolution further. In 1909, the first modern industry-wide trade union was established in Tehran among print shops and newspaper workers. 1910 saw the first industry-wide strike, which included all the major newspapers in Tehran. Their demands included, among other things, the eight-hour day and the installation of a minimum wage.

Faced with the threat of revolution from below and an ascendant Germany that was becoming increasingly more assertive in the Middle East, the Russian and British empires put their differences aside and came to an agreement in Asia which was formalized as The Anglo-Russian Treaty of 1907. The agreement made the division of Iran into Russian and British spheres of influence official, and served as a decisive step in the construction of alliances that would eventually erupt into world war.[7] The December 1911 Russian-British invasion and occupation of Iran put an end to the revolutionary wave that had been ongoing since 1905. The Tsarist armies in particular oversaw a reign of terror against Iranian and Russian revolutionaries. While the parliament survived, it did so merely as a basis for aristocratic rule. The constitutional revolution posed, for the first time in Iran, the still crucial question: how should radical socialists relate to broader, popular democratic revolution? And it did so while demonstrating another persistent truth: in the face of social revolution bourgeois democrats will turn to imperialism and reaction.

Two years after the Anglo-Russian intervention that ended the Constitutional Revolution, the imperialist rivalry broke out into world war in 1914. Although the Iranian government officially declared neutrality, it proved powerless to prevent Iran from becoming part of the Middle Eastern theater of war between the Anglo-Russian alliance (‘Entente Powers’) and the Ottoman-German alliance (‘Central Powers’). The war had devastating effects on Iran, as it did on any place that was treated as a battleground for imperialist slaughter. Roughly two million people died from the violence of war, famine, and disease. The situation underscored Iran’s colonial situation, as the country was helpless in the face of foreign powers that effectively did as they pleased within its borders.

At this point, Iran proved to be an independent nation only in name, with the central government serving as a mere shadow for other powers. As was the case before the constitutional period, the central government had no real power outside of the nation’s capital, and even there, such power was constantly disrupted by foreign intervention. Local tribal chiefs and aristocrats seized the opportunity to assert themselves and by the end of the war, clearly constituted the actual powers in their respective regions, going so far as to strike deals and sign treaties with imperialist powers directly without any involvement of, or mediation from, the central government.

The 1917 Russian Revolution fundamentally altered the situation, and breathed new life into the revolutionary forces. The Bolsheviks removed Russian forces from Iran while abolishing all Russian treaties and concessions over the country. The fall of the Romanov Tsar also marked the removal of the Qajars’ principal patron. Following the removal of Russian and Ottoman forces at the end of the war, the British became the dominant imperialist power in the Middle East. The British had initially thought to turn Iran into a protectorate, but the possibility proved untenable. Anti-British sentiment was increasing, and they had quite simply spread themselves too thin. Most importantly, the October Revolution had ushered in a new threat of social revolution. Bolsheviks-aligned Iranian socialists formed the Adalat (Justice) Party, which in 1920 became the Communist Party of Iran. More than perhaps anything else, it was the October Revolution that threatened both the British and the local ruling aristocracy. By 1920, this threat had spread to the northern province of Gilan with the establishment of the Soviet Socialist Republic of Iran. The Red Army now had an official presence on Iranian soil, and succeeded in pushing out both British and Iranian forces from the area.[8]

This presence forced a change in the imperialist strategy of the British. Whereas the latter had thus far supported various local nobles and tribal chiefs in an effort to maintain their influence, this tactic (in addition to direct occupation) was beginning to prove unstable in the face of the Bolshevik threat. Alongside many among the Iranian ruling class, the British searched for a strongman who could seize power, restore order, and protect their interests from the threat of social revolution. It was in this context that an officer from the Cossack Brigades named Reza Khan distinguished himself as the best candidate for the job.9 He was encouraged to organize a coup, the result of which would be an insurance of security and the withdrawal of British forces from the region.

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Adam Zivo

Published: Nov 30, 2023

Given the chance, Hamas would murder every LGBTQ person in the world

Amid renewed conflict in Gaza, a startling number of queer progressives are romanticizing Palestinians and playing down their hatred towards LGBTQ people. This whitewashing is wrong, no matter how legitimate Palestinian calls for self-determination may be.

Since the early 2000s, radical queer activists have fervently advocated for Palestinian rights under the assumption that, as both communities oppose the capitalist West, “queer liberation” cannot be disentangled from “anti-imperialism.”

This has never made much sense. Strategically aligning against a shared enemy does not necessarily make two groups friends. There are obvious tensions between Palestinians and the LGBTQ community that cannot be ignored — mainly the fact that most Palestinians, along with their political leaders, hate gay and trans people and many want them dead.

In a 2019 poll conducted by the BBC, only five per cent of Palestinians in the West Bank approved of homosexuality — which was the lowest rate within the Middle East and North Africa. Gazans are generally excluded from this research, but local Islamic law mandates death or 10 years of imprisonment for homosexuality.

LGBTQ people face such dire threats to their safety in Gaza and the West Bank that hundreds have fled to Israel as refugees. When interviewed by the United Nations, escapees have recounted harrowing torture and death threats from both family members and Palestinian security forces. Yet even abroad, these people are not safe. Last year, Ahmad Abu Marhia, a 25-year-old gay man living under asylum in Israel, was kidnapped and then beheaded in the West Bank just two months before he was scheduled to immigrate to Canada.

Despite this, activists throughout the West have paraded signs bearing the message “Queers for Palestine” — a slogan that some have ridiculed as the equivalent of “Chickens for KFC.” Earlier this month a banner was hung in the University of British Columbia reading: “Trans liberation can’t happen without Palestinian liberation.”

It’s unclear why LGBTQ rights are in any way dependent on Palestinian self-determination — activist explanations here tend to be vague and muddled at best.

Is the argument that no disadvantaged social group can be free until all are? If that’s the case, then why is this logic rarely, if ever, applied to antisemitism? And if all disadvantaged groups need support, then why should any LGBTQ person, who has limited resources and time, prioritize the Palestinians over the many other communities fighting for rights and attention in the world today?

While LGBTQ people have no special obligation to support Palestinians, there is nothing wrong with defending Palestinians’ fundamental rights despite their rampant homophobia — the validity of these rights is not conditional on moral perfection, after all. If a gay man can support Afghan and Iranian women, or Uyghur Muslims, all of whom have their own prejudices, then Palestinians can be reasonably supported as well.

Deciding what social causes to support is a deeply personal choice for anyone — some LGBTQ people prioritize Palestinians, and others don’t. Each option is understandable, but which path one chooses to take should, ideally, be based on accurate information.

Rather than allow this, though, the queer left uses misleading arguments to inflate support for the Palestinian cause — firstly, by fabricating an artificial obligation to Palestinian liberation, and, secondly, by playing down the severity of Palestinian homophobia (and, by extension, Islamic homophobia).

Queer leftists are quick to argue that the Qur’an’s language on homosexuality is ambiguous, while ignoring the fact that the hadiths, which are the canonical teachings of the Prophet Muhammad, explicitly prohibit homosexuality. Muslim-majority countries do not pass discriminatory legislation arbitrarily — they work off mainstream interpretations of Shariah law.

Some queer leftists try to exonerate Palestinians of any moral responsibility for their homophobia by blaming western colonialism. To make this argument, they typically fixate on the fact that legal prohibitions on homosexuality were first introduced into the region by the British in 1936.

But the British ruled this part of the Middle East for only 30 years (from 1918 to 1948) and implemented sodomy laws for barely more than a decade. Palestinians have had 75 years to improve their attitudes and laws, but haven’t done so and show no desire for change — even though the Israelis, who also inherited these laws, were able to shed this baggage decades ago.

To blame contemporary Palestinian homophobia on a relatively brief, long-dead period of colonial rule is inane and patronizing. It implies that the Palestinians have no moral agency; that their beliefs and institutions are simply dictated by western policy choices; and that they are incapable of being held to the same ethical standards as Europeans.

Another minimization strategy is to argue that Islamic homophobia is not much worse than what is experienced in the West. For example, world-famous drag queen Katya Zamolodchikova (an Irish-American who cosplays as a Soviet citizen) recently claimed on X that anti-LGBTQ violence in Gaza is comparable to that in Scotland or Massachusetts. The post went viral and was liked over 140,000 times.

The last time I checked, gay people are not beheaded or routinely tortured in the West. While some anti-LGTBQ violence exists, only very coddled westerners can delude themselves into believing that this is similar to what occurs in Gaza, the West Bank or the rest of the Islamic world.

Some queer leftists also nonsensically claim that criticizing Palestinian homophobia “erases the existence of queer Palestinians” — but absolutely no one, except maybe Hamas, is saying that LGBTQ Palestinians don’t exist. Calling attention to social prejudice actually spotlights victims who would otherwise be forgotten. This should be glaringly obvious.

The queer left’s tendency to romanticize Palestinians and ignore their homophobia may seem strange at first, but it becomes intelligible when one remembers that this crowd often subscribes to a strain of “anti-imperialism” that interprets the world through a simplistic and reflexively anti-western framework.

This framework divides the world into a simple binary: oppressors (who are unambiguously evil) and the oppressed (who are morally pure). “Anti-imperialists” assume that: i) communities that oppose the West overwhelmingly fall into the “oppressed” class; ii) members of this class tend to have similar political and social priorities; and iii) political violence committed by the oppressed automatically counts as morally justified “resistance.”

Of course, the world does not actually conform to this framework, because global conflicts are far more nuanced than anti-imperialists are willing to admit. There is no black-and-white divide between good and evil, and no grand coalition of victims — real life is too diverse and fractured for such a simplistic narrative.

Yet false simplicity provides comfort to many queer activists, because it conceals the uncomfortable compromises that come with political life. Many progressives feel anxious about their own privileged positions in the world, and, as a result, often resort to performative righteousness to assuage these insecurities. The dynamics here are not much different from what is sometimes seen among the devoutly religious — the presence of doubt, compromise and moral greyness is psychologically unacceptable.

In the context of the Palestinians, this fundamentally selfish need for black-and-white thinking leads the queer left to minimize homophobia that, in any other context, would be unacceptable. It encourages the romanticization of Hamas, a terrorist organization that would, if given the chance, murder every LGBTQ person in the world.

If queer leftists wish to ensconce themselves in fairytales, then that’s their prerogative — but other LGBTQ people are justified in taking a skeptical approach, which, yes, can include support for Palestinians’ self-determination that uncomfortably co-exists with clear-eyed recognition of the very ugly parts of Palestinian culture.

[yuri-alexseygaybitch]

some people have gotten so absorbed into the circus of internet jousting as politics that they can describe hiroshima and nagasaki as "getting their shit pushed in" because to them it's all just teams. people on the internet just carry on the dehumanization of capitalist imperialism and try to disguise it as social justice. i need them to go to the hiroshima peace park memorial and throw up at the child art of family members' skin melting off when they realize each 1 of the 250,000 was a person. if they are even still capable of realizing that, they might be too well primed to view [ n koreans / russians / iranians / etc ] as barbarian invaders who deserve the comeuppance of having their rivers filled with corpses and their children die vomiting blood. sorry for the ask itt's just hard to find anything as sickening to me as so called anti imperialists who would celebrate the usa's development, use, and proliferation of nuclear weapons as long as the civilians targeted are inside the borders of a country they think deserves it

.

[fuckyeahmarxismleninism]

Struggle - La Lucha newspaper and the Socialist Unity Party mourn with the Iranian people and stand in solidarity with Iran.

Our immediate duty as organizations functioning in the United States is to demand that U.S. imperialism respect the sovereign rights of Iran and cease any interference, overt or covert, in the affairs of Iran and its constitutional process.

Again, we amplify our call for an end to the sanctions in the United States.