#western expansionism

[mileenaxyz]

Nah, we heard you the first time. 😒

[ezrazone]

if you are watching the hell on earth unfolding in northern gaza right now, then you understand how essential it is that my friend and his young family in the middle of the strip be able to evacuate into egypt at the very moment the border crossing opens. every day they are trapped in gaza is another day closer to the gaping maw of western expansionism via extermination.

palestine lives forever, and that includes in the global diaspora. this is the cycle that genocides produces, so we may help one another when history gives us a moment of calm. please join me in practicing the skills necessary for the world to come; you can renegotiate your relationship to generosity in real time. you can give something to this fundraiser, be that money or time or effort or creative skill-sharing. you can do something. i have faith in you.

[taiwantalk]

i'm amused by this more than some of you could imagine. for a while, i've come to think that mongolians caused 3 major changes to the world but are mostly poorly told or rewritten by different countries.

for example, did you know that chinese textbook in the last 100 years, even taiwanese textbook, pretty much mentions practically nothing about the golden horde period in russia and ukraine and only consider mongolians as ethnic minority anomaly between 1235 and 1279. meaning, most of present day chinese think europe was only invaded by mongolia after china was taken.

so by this video, mongolians would have been invading both europe and china concurrently. and one could say that mongolians had already occupied moscow and parts of modern day ukraine around 1235 when mongolians were only on the verge of taking the ethnic han dynasty called "southern song" which took nearly 44 years to complete.

the significance is not the accuracy or the truth in history but that the chinese govt and taiwanese govt had systematically brainwashed citizens to believe that mongolians were always part of chinese continuity.

at the same time, most of people outside of china and taiwan probably would not realize nor understand that the communists (ccp) and nationalists (kmt) both paint mongolian as culture of tribal barbarians who were always the hostile threat to han chinese.

weird right? it's quite conflicting if you think about it. here's another subtle thing. during the initial mongolian expansion to conquer china, the 2 neighboring dynasties, western xia and jinn, were always written in textbook as if they were equivalent to barbarian civil wars unrelated to china, or at the time, southern song.

now look at where western xia or jinn were to modern day china. remember, chinese culture paints these dynasties as if they're barbarian dynasties not relating to han chinese. well, by today's geography, these dynasties would be the predecessor of present day beijin, shanghai, tianjin, dalian, or even parts of north korea.

the problem in russia's case, is that the people of russia were looking forward to wars. putin gave russian people a leadership to rally around.

the moral of the story is, democracy does not fall on your lap with you sitting by the sideline.

[tamamita]

Whats the diff bewteen daesh & Al-qaeda?

Al-Qaeda sprung out as a rebel group against the pro-soviet communist government of Afghanistan with the leadership of Bin Ladin. Al-Qaeda is far more concerned about the interest of Muslims in SWANA and seek to overthrow the Muslim governments which they consider corrupt. Bin Ladin was more concerned about building up an islamist vanguard against the Western powers and its "Jewish" elite, and favoured large-scale, dramatic attacks against strategic or symbolic targets, such as the twin towers. While Al-Qaeda adopts some sectarian policies, they do not carry out attacks against Muslims of different branches.

DAESH is a global jihadist group concerned with the establishment of a global caliphate. It began initially as al-Qaeda of Iraq (not affiliated with Al-Qaeda despite its name) following the illegal invasion of Iraq. Composed of Iraqi Baathists, tribal Sunni leaders, etnical groups and Salafists. Al-Zarkawi was the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq and would encourage his followers to carry out attacks against any group that did not swear allegience to their cause. As a precursor group to ISIS, they were far more sectarian and sought to establish an Islamic emirate in Iraq and its environs, often with the sole purpose of eliminating the local Shi'as, non-Muslims and Sunni "apostates". When Zarqawi was killed following a US lead operation, Abu Bakr al-BAghdadi, a former Guantanamo inmate, would shore up support due to the brutal policies of the Iraqi PM Nour al-Maliki, which affected Iraq's Sunni minority, ultimately leading to the formation of ISIS. The Islamic State embraces some of al-Qaeda's goals, but see expansionism as an effective tool to recruit new fighters and while also carrying out indiscriminate bombings against its enemies. As opposed to al-Qaeda, ISIS is also known for its atrocity propaganda, which it sees as an effective tool for mass recruitment.

In short: Al-Qaeda is concerned with the enemies from far away (the west). ISIS is concerned with the enemies nearby (literally everyone.).

[katjohnadams]

So do you believe Israel has the "right" to exist?

I *just* said there's no "gotcha" here but still, still you do this. Come close, let me gently cup your face in my hands: countries are imaginary. They were made up to divide our beautiful earth into little parcels men could use to oppress and exploit the people.

But fine, let's talk Israel.

After World War I, Britain occupied the area and declared borders. Which I remind you are designed to oppress people. Throughout the Middle East, in fact, western countries drew borders and established governments specifically to destabilize the region and ensure they would not be a power able to oppose western interests: read: imperialism.

Jewish people flocked to their historic homeland seeking to find a place they would not be hunted for fucking sport. This put them in direct conflict with the people who lived there. Let us be clear: the Jewish people weren't seeking to oppress others, they were fleeing persecution themselves. But this created open warfare because of anti-Semitism and displacement.

The British decided to create more borders because that is how they thought. Rather than seek integration, they believed that segregation was the path. See also: Indian subcontinent.

So Israel was created, and the Arab states neighboring this new Israel, seeing this as yet more Western imperialism, declared war. Israel at this point was forced to fight everyone, or be destroyed and face yet another diaspora. The mentality was baked in that survival=war.

Peace was declared and the Arab who lived in Israel were expelled. They were stripped of belongings and land and told to fuck off. Israel then pursued a policy of expansionism, settling in lands that had either been coded or were not Israel's.

Today, Israel is still under aggressive, violent pressure from anti-Semitic governments that directly border it. It also directly oppresses and commits violent expansionism against surrounding Palestine.

So, does Israel deserve to exist?

Does any country?

Does the US?

Maybe not.

But it does. Many states around the globe are colonial states, created by imperialism and expansionism and often with a history of genocide. What would you suggest? That we just revert land to people? Great. Cool. From when?

Humanity has never been still. Borders have never been stable. Nothing has ever been simple as pulling a lever. Not once in all human history.

Does Israel deserve to exist? Countries aren't real. People are. Their needs are. Their lives are. The people of Israel deserve peace. The civilians are not a monolith you can judge and condemn or declare innocent as a whole. They are as complex and varied as their neighbors, whose governments I remind you are equally violent and corrupt.

I am asking you, stop thinking of this good guy/bad guy binary. It is not normal has it ever been that simple. Stop seeing people as synonymous with their governments.

Does Israel deserve to exist?

Yes. No. Both.

I cannot answer that for you, I cannot stand here in the river of time and dictate its flow.

I can only say there will be no justice as long as borders, nationalism, militarism, and expansionism rule our lives. Peace will not come as long as violence is the answer.

Countries, as a concept, do not deserve to exist. We are one species, our differences are less than our similarities. We are all one, and it is governments and the ruling class who benefit from borders and a belief that The Other is our enemy.

I refuse to ignore one side's violence to support my world view of the other. This goes both ways, in all situations.

Maybe I'm a dreamer, but I believe that Radical Love, and nothing else, will save humanity. And I believe that all borders and governments are directly in conflict with that.

[howtomuslim]

There’s a common narrative among many westerners of how Islam itself in its early days was a coloniser of many peoples and territories. How during its conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, Islam suppressed the populations and forced upon them a new faith and language, echoing the narrative that its expansionism was strictly conducted by the sword. What was this earth-moving proof that had convinced those who hold this flawed and over-simplified view so deeply?

[eretzyisrael]

by Seth Mandel

The global complicity in Hamas’s brutal reign is quite a thing to behold. Egypt won’t accept even the temporary residency of Palestinian civilians, but it knows that under its nose Hamas leaders mosey in and out of the Sinai. The Qataris only possess leverage in the hostage talks because they are Hamas’s checking account, funding their wayward buddy’s murder habit. Turkey is, for crying out loud, in NATO. And yet Ankara hosts Hamas offices, aids the group financially, gives it diplomatic backing whenever conflict flares up (always at Hamas’s instigation), and even temporarily hosted one of the key planners of the October 7 rampage, Saleh al-Arouri. (Israel eliminated Arouri in Lebanon right around the new year.)

None of this even gets into the support Hamas gets through the various agencies of the United Nations, or from naïve-seeming Western nations, or even the fundraisers on America’s college campuses.

All of which is to say: On this issue, there isn’t much credibility to go around. Israel deserves full support from a chastened community of nations—especially those that will benefit from a Hamas defeat. That includes Egypt, which will sit on its hands while Israel dismantles terror tunnels underneath Egyptian sands. In fact, defeating Hamas will benefit everyone in the region who is threatened by Iranian expansionism. And this certainly includes the Biden administration. Washington’s sudden obsession with taking “irreversible” steps toward the establishment of a Palestinian state cannot even be contemplated so long as Hamas rules a single square foot of land on which such a state would stand.

All these countries’ opinions on Gaza deserved consideration up until the moment October 7 revealed a dearth of clean hands among them. And if the IDF’s operation in Rafah further embarrasses Hamas’s enablers, so be it.

[realjaysumlin]

Western colonialism - Imperialism, Exploitation, Resistance | Britannica

Expansionism under the banner of colonial industrialization and imperialism is something that I don't get why people are so blinded by this evilness. Each time I hear undeveloped countries it tears my heart out, because I could never see good in evil.

There's a deep psychological effect on the people who use these terms when in fact this system destroyed civilizations to build one for themselves. The very people, these sick people destroyed others and stole their treasures and history and then made claims that these people had no history.

Why could you steal something that didn't exist? This makes you out to be a bald face liar and if you lie about something like this, what else are you trying to keep hidden? I tell you everything that shit people who call themselves white lies about everything to make themselves feel better about themselves.

This is your mental situation because you are the only people who try to destroy others morale and their confidence so you can exploit them. No one on earth does this unless they believe in your system of oppression.

The only way to counter this is for Black Indigenous People globally to become Black Supremacists. We have no other options.

[omgpourquoi]

Kofi4ACause- Trying to get to $30 to submit as a donation for the ‘thanksgiving’ holiday

Donate $5 for a short fic request! Read the collection: https://archiveofourown.org/collections/Kofi4ACause

All requests will have a week grace period as I like to think over fics before writing them. Give me the ship, a place, and an action.

Ex) Nurseydex, Annie’s, fighting about pizza toppings

Currently, all donations are going to the Tamástslikt Cultural Museum. It is the only museum on the Oregon Trail that tells the story of western expansionism from a tribal point of view. https://www.tamastslikt.org/

When I change charities, I will make a transparency post with the recipients of donation!

Let’s do some good and write some fun stuff!✍️

List of ships I’ll write on below!

- Nursey x Dex (omgcheckplease)

- Jack x Bitty (omgcheckplease)

- Shitty x Lardo (omgcheckplease)

- Beau x Yasha (Critical Role)

- Caleb x Essek (Critical Role)

- Pike x Scanlan (Critical Role)

- Fjord x Jester (Critical Role)

- Vax x Keyleth (Critical Role)

- Corazon de Ballena x Prudence (Oxventure)

- Any combo (all or some) for Oxventurers tbh (Oxventure)

- Eddie x Silas (Oxventure: Deadlands)

- also non NSFW Oxventure Deadlands! Any combo

- Marlowe x Lyra (Salt and Serpent)

- Piper x Dis (Salt and Serpent)

Pay $10 for NSFW content of ships above👀 be aware that I will write intimacy in a very specific way— bc I’m demisexual— if you would like, go read some of my previous work and see if it’s up your alley!

No NSFW available for these, they are minors! Still some cute fic potential!

- Percabeth (Percy Jackson)

- Tratie (Percy Jackson)

- Fierrochase (Magnus Chase)

- Nick & Charlie (Heartstopper)

- Literally any of the 7 (Dimension 20)

- The Bad Kids (Dimension 20)

- Zelda x Gorgug (Dimension 20)

- Tara x Darcy (Heartstopper)

[religion-is-a-mental-illness]

By: Michael Shermer

Published: Nov 13, 2023

On November 11, 2023, my friend, colleague, and hero Ayaan Hirsi Ali released a statement explaining "Why I am Now a Christian".

I have known Ayaan for many years. She has been a guest on my podcast, and I on her podcast. We have appeared together at conferences. I have read all of her books and support her heroic work defending women’s rights, civil rights, free speech, and freedom of religious expression, along with her brave stand against intolerance, bigotry, and hate, religious or otherwise. I’ll never forget when she spoke at Occidental College when I was a professor there, when during the Q&A two Muslim women dressed in the hijab accused her of Islamophobia for unfairly characterizing Islam as a religion of violence. “Then why do I have to have to travel with armed guards to protect me from death threats I receive from members of my own religion of Islam?” she rejoined understatedly and with characteristic aplomb. Ayaan has pride of place in the pantheon of greats who have had the courage of their convictions to the point of putting their own lives on the line in the name of universal principles of justice and freedom.

Nothing Ayaan has written in her essay changes my evaluation of her as a heroic figure. I simply think she is mistaken. We all are about a great many things. Maybe I am wrong here and she is right. But I think reason and history prove otherwise. Let me explain in the spirit of respect for what is on the line here, starting with the subtitle of Ayaan’s essay: “Atheism can't equip us for civilisational war.” She’s right, but not in the way she thinks.

Atheism per se can’t equip anyone for anything because it is not a belief system or worldview. Atheism just designates a lack of belief in God. Full stop. It is a purely negative statement, an indicator that someone does not believe. A lack of belief can never be the basis of a belief system. I am an atheist in the same sense that I am an a-supernaturalist or an a-paranormalist. There is no such thing as the supernatural or the paranormal. These descriptors are just linguistic place-holders for mysteries we have yet to explain. Once explained, they move into the realm of the natural and the normal. If there is a realm of the supernatural or the paranormal, there is no way for a natural and normal being like us to perceive or understand it.

From this misunderstanding of what atheism is, Ayaan deduces that it can’t handle the stressors of current events:

Western civilisation is under threat from three different but related forces: the resurgence of great-power authoritarianism and expansionism in the forms of the Chinese Communist Party and Vladimir Putin’s Russia; the rise of global Islamism, which threatens to mobilise a vast population against the West; and the viral spread of woke ideology, which is eating into the moral fibre of the next generation.

Again, she’s right. Atheism can do nothing about these threats because it is not a positive assertion of principles that counter authoritarianism, expansionism, Islamism, China, Russia, and woke ideology. What can? Ayaan mentions “modern, secular tools: military, economic, diplomatic and technological efforts to defeat, bribe, persuade, appease or surveil.” She says these are not enough because “we find ourselves losing ground.” Are we? I don’t think so. But it’s a debatable point, so let’s set aside for a moment the matter of whether or not the world is getting better or worse this week, month, or year, and take the long view of what has driven moral progress over the centuries.

In my books The Moral Arc and Giving the Devil His Due I show that it isn’t atheism bending the arc of justice and freedom, but Enlightenment humanism—a cosmopolitan worldview that places supreme value on human and civil rights, individual autonomy and bodily integrity, free thought and free speech, the rule of law, and science and reason as the best tools for determining the truth about anything. It incorporates scientific naturalism, the principle that the methods of science operate under the presumption that the world and everything in it is the result of natural processes in a system of material causes and effects that does not allow, or need, the introduction of supernatural forces. By extension from above, if God is a supernatural being outside of space and time and therefore unknowable in any rational or empirical manner, it is not possible for natural creatures like us to understand a supernatural deity.

Scientific naturalism and Enlightenment humanism made the modern world, and many of the founding fathers of the United States, for example Thomas Jefferson, Thomas Paine, Benjamin Franklin, James Madison, and John Adams, were either practicing scientists or were trained in the sciences, and their construction of the Constitution and the principles on which it is based were thoroughly secular and based on the best science and philosophy of the day. It is my hypothesis that in the same way that Galileo and Newton discovered physical laws and principles about the natural world that really are out there, so too did the founders discover moral laws and principles about human nature and society that really do exist.

Just as it was inevitable that the astronomer Johannes Kepler would discover that planets have elliptical orbits—given that he was making accurate astronomical measurements, and given that planets really do travel in elliptical orbits, he could hardly have discovered anything else—scientists studying political, economic, social, and moral subjects will discover certain things that are true in these fields of inquiry. For example, that democracies are better than autocracies, that market economies are superior to command economies, that torture and the death penalty do not curb crime, that burning women as witches is a fallacious idea, that women are not too weak and emotional to run companies or countries, that blacks do not like being enslaved, and that the Jews do not want to be exterminated. Why?

The answer is that it is in human nature to struggle to survive and flourish in the teeth of nature’s entropy, and having the freedom, autonomy, and prosperity available in free societies—built as they were on the foundation of scientific naturalism and Enlightenment humanism that seek to discover the best way for humans to live— enables individual sentient beings to live out their evolved destinies. This is moral realism, and it doesn’t require a deity to justify its validity. Steven Pinker explains the logic:

If I appeal to you to do anything that affects me—to get off my foot, or tell me the time or not run me over with your car—then I can’t do it in a way that privileges my interests over yours (say, retaining my right to run you over with my car) if I want you to take me seriously. Unless I am Galactic Overlord, I have to state my case in a way that would force me to treat you in kind. I can’t act as if my interests are special just because I’m me and you’re not, any more than I can persuade you that the spot I am standing on is a special place in the universe just because I happen to be standing on it.

This is the principle of the interchangeability of perspectives (developed in Pinker’s 2018 book Enlightenment Now), which is the core of the oldest moral principle discovered multiple times around the world throughout history: the Golden Rule. Pinker notes that it also forms the basis of “Spinoza’s Viewpoint of Eternity, the Social Contract of Hobbes, Rousseau and Locke; Kant’s Categorical Imperative; and Rawls’s Veil of Ignorance. It also underlies Peter Singer’s theory of the Expanding Circle—the optimistic proposal that our moral sense, though shaped by evolution to overvalue self, kin and clan, can propel us on a path of moral progress, as our reasoning forces us to generalize it to larger and larger circles of sentient beings.”

Thus, there are perfectly rational reasons to ground morals and values in universal humanistic principles, and these do not depend on adherents being theists or atheists. That they are universal principles mean that they apply to all people—Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindus, pantheists, deists, agnostics, and atheists. Whether or not there is a God—much less the Christian God—is irrelevant. That’s what universal means.

Are there good reasons to believe in God? Theists certainly think that there are, but atheists are just as certain that there are not. Who is right? I have written numerous articles, essays, reviews, and book chapters on this subject, and in my next book, Truth: What it is, How to Find it, Why it Matters (forthcoming from Johns Hopkins University Press in 2025) I review the top 20 philosophical and scientific arguments for God’s existence and the counterarguments against them, so I won’t adjudicate the matter here. I will simply note that both sides have strong arguments and that, ultimately, it is not a question that can be definitively answered in the affirmative through philosophy or science, so it comes down to faith—one either makes the leap for personal reasons, or not.

As for Christianity, since Ayaan has declared her fielty to that particular faith over all others, I will concede her point that on the three threats facing the West that concern her (and me)—(1) the authoritarianism/expansionism of Islamism, (2) China and Russia, and (3) woke ideology—Christian conservatives have a clearer vision than atheist (or even theist) Leftists about the threat that Islamism, China and Russia, and woke ideology pose to the West (including and especially the LGBTQ community that would not fare well under such regimes). But this is political pragmatism pure and simple—“Say what you want about Christian conservatives, at least they know what a woman is!” I’m sympathetic to the sentiment, but is it a basis for a worldview? I think not. We should believe things because they are true, not just because they are politically pragmatic.

Consider what’s on demand in Christianity—that Jesus was the Messiah, was crucified, and was resurrected from the dead. (As the apostle Paul said in 1 Cor. 15:13-19: “if there is no resurrection of the dead, then Christ is not risen. … And if Christ is not risen, your faith is futile; you are still in your sins!”) Is that true? My first question is this: Why don’t Jews accept the resurrection as real, either in Jesus’ time or in ours? Jews believe in the same God as Christians. They accept the same holy book as Christians do (the Hebrew Bible, or Old Testament). They even believe in the Messiah. They just don’t think the carpenter from Galilee was him. Jewish rabbis, scholars, philosophers, and historians all know the arguments for the resurrection as well as Christian apologists and theologians, and still they reject them. That’s telling.

What would it take for a rational person to accept the resurrection? Let’s put some numbers on it. Demographers estimate that throughout all of human history approximately 100 billion people have lived before the 8 billion people alive today. Not one has died and returned from the dead, unless you are a Christian, in which case you believe that one person did—Jesus of Nazareth. So the claim that one person out of those 100 billion people who died came back from the dead would be extraordinary indeed—100 billion to 1. Is the evidence extraordinary for the resurrection? No. It’s not even ordinary.

According to the University of Wisconsin-Madison philosopher Larry Shapiro in his 2016 book The Miracle Myth, “evidence for the resurrection is nowhere near as complete or convincing as the evidence on which historians rely to justify belief in other historical events such as the destruction of Pompeii.” Because miracles are far less probable than ordinary historical occurrences like volcanic eruptions, “the evidence necessary to justify beliefs about them must be many times better than that which would justify our beliefs in run-of-the-mill historical events.” But, says Shapiro, it isn’t. In fact, it’s not even as good as ordinary historical events.

What about the eyewitnesses? Maybe, Shapiro suggests, they “were superstitious or credulous” and saw what they wanted to see. “Maybe they reported only feeling Jesus ‘in spirit,’ and over the decades their testimony was altered to suggest that they saw Jesus in the flesh. Maybe accounts of the resurrection never appeared in the original gospels and were added in later centuries. Any of these explanations for the gospel descriptions of Jesus’s resurrection are far more likely than the possibility that Jesus actually returned to life after being dead for three days.”

The principle of proportionally—or extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence—also means we should prefer the more probable explanation over the less, which these alternatives surely are. Therefore, I am not a Christian because there is not enough evidence to believe that the core doctrines about Jesus’s resurrection are true. And I don’t want to believe in things that have to be believed in to be true.

What about the moral and political principles of Christianity upon which the West is claimed to be based? In The Moral Arc I make the case that Christianity went through the Enlightenment and came out the other end with the values so revered today by Westerners. This was not due to some new revelation from God (“thou shalt grant women equal rights as men”, “thou shall not enslave thy fellow humans”) or interpretation of scripture (“Galatians 3:28, ‘There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither bond nor free, there is neither male nor female: for ye are all one in Christ Jesus,’ is actually channeling the 1964 Civil Rights act that prohibits discrimination on the basis of race, color, religion, sex or national origin.“) Rather, once moral progress in a particular area is underway due to secular forces, most religions eventually get on board—as in the abolition of slavery in the 19th century, civil rights and women’s rights in the 20th century, and gay rights in the 21st century—but this often happens after a shamefully protracted lag time.

The world’s religions are tribal and xenophobic by nature, serving to regulate moral rules within the community but not seeking to embrace humanity outside their circle—unless they have inculcated the secular values of the Enlightenment, which most Christians have. Religion, by definition, forms an identity of those like us, in sharp distinction from those not like us, those heathens, those unbelievers. Most religions were pulled into the modern Enlightenment with their fingernails dug into the past. Change in religious beliefs and practices, when it happens at all, is slow and cumbersome, and it is almost always in response to the church or its leaders facing outside political or cultural forces.

Even if our morality does not originate in the Bible, religious believers will often argue that Christianity gave Western civilization its most precious assets: art, architecture, literature, music, science, technology, capitalism, democracy, equal rights, and the rule of law. First, no one disputes the magnificence of countless works of art, architecture, literature, and music that were inspired by Christianity: the great cathedrals that make the spirit soar, the requiems that capture the heartache of loss, the psalms of joy that unite listeners, the paintings that dazzle with light and human emotion.

But artists who live in a Christian world, who are surrounded by other Christians, who understand next to nothing beyond Christianity, and who are likely being supported by Christian patrons, are going to produce Christian work. Christianity was the dominant religion at a moment in history when Europe was going through a Renaissance and an explosion of discoveries of new lands and new political and economic systems; no wonder it ended up being the great patron. The fact that artists living in Christendom were inspired by the life and death of Jesus by crucifixion, and not, say, by the life and death of the Buddha by mushrooms, is not a surprise. Christianity was the only game in town.

As for Christianity forming the basis of democracy and capitalism, we can run the historical counterfactual and make a prediction: if this hypothesis is true, then societies in which Christianity is or was the dominant religion should show Western-like forms of democracy and capitalism. They don’t. The Byzantine Empire, for example, was predominantly Eastern Orthodox Christian from the early A.D. 300s, and for seven centuries produced nothing remotely like democracy and capitalism as practiced in modern America. Even early America wasn’t like it is today when, a mere two centuries ago, women couldn’t vote, slavery was legal and widely practiced, and capitalism’s wealth was vouchsafed to only a tiny minority of land holders or factory owners. Throughout the late Middle Ages and well into the Early Modern Period, all the nation states, city states, and various political conglomerates of Western and Central Europe were not only Christian but Western Christian, and yet as late as the 19th century the only quasi-democratic republics in Europe were England, Holland, and Switzerland. In Christian Europe, both England and Spain profited handsomely from their overseas colonial empires, made more profitable yet by the decimation of the native populations and the looting of their troves of precious metals, gems, and other natural resources—actions that by today’s moral standards are condemned.

Finally, social scientist Gregory S. Paul conducted correlational study of the societal health of 17 first-world prosperous democracies—Australia, Austria, Canada, Denmark, England, France, Germany, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United States—and religiosity (to what extent the citizens in each believe in God, are biblical literalists, attend religious services at least several times a month, pray at least several times a week, believe in an afterlife, and believe in heaven and hell, ranking them on a 1-10 scale). The results were striking…and disturbing. Far and away—without having a close second—the United States is not only the most religious of the 17 nations but also the most dysfunctional, scoring the worst on a wide range of 25 different indicators of social health and well being (on a 1-9 scale from dysfunction to healthy), including homicides, suicides, life expectancy, STDs, abortions, teen births, fertility, marriage, divorce, alcohol consumption, life satisfaction, corruption indices, adjusted per capita income, income inequality, poverty, employment levels, incarceration, and others.

Correlation is not causation, of course, and each of these measures has multiple causes having nothing to do with religion (or the lack thereof), but if religion is such a powerful force for societal health as Christian commentators claim, then why is America—the most religious nation in the Western world—also the unhealthiest on all of these social measures? If religion makes people more moral, then why is America seemingly so immoral in its lack of concern for its poorest, most troubled citizens, notably its children? While it would be too much to say “religion poisons everything,” as Christopher Hitchens famously concluded in his book God is Not Great, it is problematic enough to conclude that it is not needed to create a healthy society.

Atheism isn’t the alternative to the Judeo-Christian worldview, Enlightenment Humanism is. We can ground human morals and social values not just in philosophical principles such as Aristotle’s virtue ethics, Kant’s categorical imperative, Mill’s utilitarianism, or Rawls’ fairness ethics, but in science as well. From the Scientific Revolution through the Enlightenment, reason and science slowly but systematically replaced superstition, dogmatism, and religious authority. As the German philosopher Immanuel Kant proclaimed: Sapere Aude!—dare to know! “Have the courage to use your own understanding.” As he explained: “Enlightenment is man’s emergence from his self-imposed immaturity.” The Age of Reason, then, was the age when humanity was born again, not from original sin, but from original ignorance and dependence on authority and superstition. Never again need we be the intellectual slaves of those who would bind our minds with the chains of dogma and authority. In its stead we use reason and science as the arbiters of truth and knowledge. As I said in my 2012 Reason Rally speech before a crowd of over 20,000 humanists and science enthusiasts on the mall in Washington DC:

Instead of divining truth through the authority of an ancient holy book or philosophical treatise, people began to explore the book of nature for themselves. Instead of looking at illustrations in illuminated botanical books scholars went out into nature to see what was actually growing out of the ground. Instead of relying on the woodcuts of dissected cadavers in old medical texts, physicians opened bodies themselves to see with their own eyes what was there. Instead of human sacrifices to assuage the angry weather gods, naturalists made measurements of temperature, barometric pressure, and winds to create the meteorological sciences. Instead of enslaving people because they were a lesser species, we expanded our knowledge to include all humans as members of the species through evolutionary sciences. Instead of treating women as inferiors because a holy book says it is a man’s right to do so, we discovered natural rights that dictate that all people should be treated equally through the moral sciences. Instead of the supernatural belief in the divine right of kings, people employed a natural belief in the legal right of democracy, and this gave us political progress. Instead of a tiny handful of elites holding most of the political power by keeping their citizens illiterate and unenlightened, through science, literacy, and education people could see for themselves the power and corruption that held them down and began to throw off their chains of bondage and demand their natural rights.

The constitutions of nations ought to be grounded in the constitution of humanity, which science and reason are best equipped to understand. That is the heart and core of scientific naturalism and Enlightenment humanism.

==

"Beliefs are not like clothing. Comfort and utility and attractiveness cannot be our conscious criteria for adopting them." -- Sam Harris

[mariacallous]

Vanishing Central Europe

...

“34 years on, Eastern Europe does not exist. The countries of the eastern half of the continent are as diverse of those of the western half of the continent,” the British historian Timothy Garton Ash argued.

“Central Europe encapsulates the divisions that we have in Europe as a whole,” he said, further making the case that the post-1989 era which followed the fall of the Berlin Wall “ended on February 24, 2022 with Vladimir Putin’s full-scale invasion of Europe”.

Looking at the current developments in Central Europe – and the ongoing brotherly feud between Czechia and Slovakia – this observation rings even truer.

And while acknowledging that the Visegrad Group of Central European nations “has already suffered clinical death several times before”, Michal Vasecka considers “this one to be the most serious yet”.

Testament to this growing distrust, local media Denik N reported in late April that Czechia – along with intelligence agencies from other Western countries – were carefully filtering which information to pass on to their counterparts in Slovakia for fear it might fall into the wrong hands. The clear penetration of the Hungarian intelligence services by Russia has meant for some years it is cut out of sensitive intelligence briefings by Western agencies.

Echoing Garton-Ash’s assessment, Pehe, a former advisor to Vaclav Havel, recently wrote that “it has gradually become clear that the political legacies of individual V4 countries contained more differences than what united them”, with Russia’s expansionism and the war in neighbouring Ukraine playing a key role in showcasing and exacerbating these divisions.

“If we return to [Czech writer Milan] Kundera’s central thesis, according to which Central Europe was the ‘abducted West’, current developments rather deny it,” with some governments like the ones currently in power in Hungary and Slovakia “voluntarily distancing themselves from the West”.

This leads the long-time Czech commentator to sombrely note: “The Central Europe that Kundera dreamed of and that the politicians of the first post-1989 generation wanted to revive politically is disappearing before our eyes.”

[warningsine]

Taiwanese President Lai Ching-te warned Wednesday that China’s “growing authoritarianism will not stop with” the island and urged democratic countries to unite to curb its expansion.

China claims Taiwan as part of its territory, and a senior Chinese Communist Party official said Tuesday that Beijing was confident of “complete reunification” with the island.

Speaking at the annual Ketagalan Forum on Indo-Pacific security in Taipei, Lai cautioned that Taiwan was not “the only target” of Beijing.

“We are all fully aware that China’s growing authoritarianism will not stop with Taiwan, nor is Taiwan the only target of China’s economic pressures,” he told politicians and scholars from 11 countries attending the forum.

“China intends to change the rules-based international order. That is why democratic countries must come together and take concrete action. Only by working together can we inhibit the expansion of authoritarianism.”

‘Military expansionism’

Lai, who was sworn in on May 20, has been labelled a “dangerous separatist” by China for his staunch defence of Taiwan’s sovereignty.

Beijing has ramped up military and political pressure on Taiwan in recent years, and launched wargames days after Lai’s inauguration, encircling the island with fighter jets and naval vessels.

Taiwan’s military has been reporting near-daily sightings of Chinese warships around its waters, as well as sorties by fighter jets and drones around the island.

But Lai said China’s “military expansionism” was taking place elsewhere, pointing to Beijing’s joint exercises with Russia in the South China Sea, Western Pacific and Sea of Japan.

“Such actions are intended to intimidate China’s neighbours and undermine regional peace and stability,” he said.

“Taiwan will not be intimidated. We will take responsibility to maintain peace and stability in the Taiwan Strait.”

Lai has repeatedly made overtures for dialogue with Beijing but talks have effectively dried up since the 2016 election of his predecessor, Tsai Ing-wen, who has long said Taiwan is not part of China.

“Taiwan will neither yield nor provoke … On the condition of parity and dignity, we are willing to conduct exchanges and cooperate with China,” Lai reiterated Wednesday.

[punkass-diogenes]

Does anyone have historical evidence for the claim that "from the river to the sea" implies the extermination/expulsion of Jews currently residing in Israel? While there are certainly factions (many of them ignorant westerners) of the Free Palestine movement that believe a one-state solution means expelling all Israeli Jews, many people who are serious about this (especially most Palestinians) support a binational state spanning from the river to the sea, in which all Palestinians will have full citizenship and freedom of movement (I.e. "will be free"). My consistent impression is that this chant is being conflated with Nasser's explicitly genocidal "drive the Jews into the sea" threat (which also appears to have long preceded Nasser).

However, I have also seen "between river and sea" used as a common idiom when referring to the totality of Palestine/Eretz Israel in many contexts, including in the context of Israelis talking about Israeli expansionism. Does anyone have sources on where and when this phrasing was first used? Which phrase originated first, and how have they historically related to one another?

[canichangemyblogname]

“You believe that a movement can simultaneously have deep Zionist roots while relying on antisemitic conspiracies to spread their ideas?”

Absolutely. And I’m tired of y’all pretending that Zionist is synonymous with Jewish or being an ally to Jews.

The RadFem/DivineFem movement is one such example of an antisemitic movement that believes whole heartedly in the Zionist cause. Many of its followers believe “Jewish doctors and billionaires” are “transing” and “gaying” children by funding, supporting, campaigning for, and performing sex changes on children, which they call “synthetic sex.” No such thing is happening. JB Pritzker and George Soros are not performing or funding sex changes for children. The doctors at your local Planned Parenthood or gender-affirming clinic are, by and large, not Jewish AND not operating on children.

The Trans Exclusionary Fem’s rhetoric mirrors the rhetoric the Nazi regime used against Jewish scholars, doctors, and researchers who studied queerness in Germany prior to being shut down and burned to the ground. Right down to the calls for these doctors and successful Jewish business men to be “hunted down” or “prosecuted” for the way they are destroying the “naturally given” (god-given) bodies of (white, Anglo) children.

At the same time that the TER movement frequently traffics in antisemitism, the movement also has deep Zionist sympathies. They believe in the righteousness of the “West’s” military force as a means for furthering human rights. They support Israel despite its Jewish citizens, not because of them, because they believe that the Zionist project more closely aligns to US and UK “western” values in regards to women, and thus will be a “civilizing” force upon the local Arab population, who they see as being a “backwards lot” that cannot respect women. No consideration, of course, for the West’s colonial history of raping and murdering Arab women and imposing upon them the conditions of life designed to bring about destruction. A marginalized group’s material conditions get worse under imperialism, but the TER cares only for the way that Zionism mirrors Manifest Destiny and British “Trade” Expansionism.

This is why when queer people and women in the “West” express concern for the treatment of women and queer people under Imperial invasion, the TER’s usual response is to tell the stupid faggots and cunts that SWANA citizens would rape us and throw us off roofs. They point and laugh, “Look at how these dumb trannies show humanity toward people who don’t respect their human rights,” as they campaign to strip us of our bodily autonomy and access to any public accommodations. “They’ll throw you off roofs,” says the man who posts about wanting to beat queers to death in bathrooms for the protection of “real women.” The “Western State” is somehow our saving grace; the best place for our human rights, but really the only threat to them.

While they feign to care about the treatment of women and queers in SWANA nations, the TER ignores the fact that our brutalization occurs in our own— supposedly “civilized”— countries at the hands of their policies and state actors who support their cause. I truly find it hard to believe that the TER cares about whether I’m thrown off a roof given how they discuss my lack of humanity. They will only ever bring forward the brutalization of people in the “West” when it serves their narrative, like when they want to justify their support for the violent weaponization of the paternalistic carceral state for the supposed protection of women (see: slogans that say “The only good criminal is a dead criminal”). Which women? Certainly not Black women. Not Indigenous women. Not immigrant women. Not queer women. Middle and upper class WASPy ladies.

[howtomuslim]

Early Islamic Expansion- Colonialism or Conquest?

There’s a common narrative among many westerners of how Islam itself in its early days was a coloniser of many peoples and territories. How during its conquests of the 7th and 8th centuries, Islam suppressed the populations and forced upon them a new faith and language, echoing the narrative that its expansionism was strictly conducted by the sword. What was this earth-moving proof that had convinced those who hold this flawed and over-simplified view so deeply?

Firstly, let’s quickly summarise the zeitgeist of the times from a political perspective and then assess what this geographic expansion was and when it all happened. During the life of the Prophet Muhammad, peace be upon him, Western Asia was dominated by two empires that were in a bloody and violent war that had lasted for over eight decades. These two empires were the Byzantine and Sassanian empires. In the Arabian Peninsula, a region that wasn’t included in either’s domain, both intertribal aggression and constant raids were also concurrently rampant. When the fledgling faith became threatened in Medina by its various enemies in the early 7th century, the necessity for defence and thereafter the protection of its believers had to take priority for the Muslim regional minority.

With the Battle of the Trench, the failed attack on Medina by the Quraysh clan and their allies against the Muslims, thus began the eventual conquest of Islam overtaking the entire Arabian Peninsula during the lifetime of the Prophet, peace be upon him, followed by the Rashidun Caliphate. This saw the expansion span from the eastern borders of Persia, Turkey to the north, and Libya to the west. Finally, during the Umayyad Caliphate came the crossing of Islam into Afghanistan and the Indian subcontinent, into the northwestern African lands of the Maghreb, and into the Iberian Peninsula. From 622 to 750 CE, over 120 years, Islam expanded rapidly across three continents.

Now, with this background, we can indulge in the confirmation or repudiation of the element of colonialism in Islam’s conquests. But one more quick digression: let’s define colonialism in simple terms. Colonialism is when one more powerful people invades and occupies another people, usurps their rights and natural resources for the sole purpose of self-interest, like what the British, French, and Spanish empires did to the world from the 15th to the 20th century, as well as what Israel is currently doing in Palestine during the supposedly civilised 20th century.

Beyond the facts, this foundation is how we must establish our conclusions and how we must compare the behaviour of Islam towards those conquered peoples relative to other nations of the time. We can’t expect Islam to behave as per 21st-century standards or even the 20th century. But even we should question that: was Islam actually more humane than even the colonialists of the 20th century?

One would note, when looking at the Islamic expansion and the short duration it took, the accomplishments suggest a speed of success unheard of. It was true that both the Byzantine and Sassanian Empires had fought their way to their eventual collapse over the decades, but still, the number of the Muslims paled in comparison. There are significant factors that played into this dynamic. These empires had shown extreme oppression towards the inhabitants of those occupied regions, while Islam exhibited a tolerance and relatively fair approach to those of other faiths. In general, in most of the conquered nations, the local inhabitants offered no resistance to the invading Muslims as they had little or nothing to lose by the changing of the guard. In some cases, such as in the Levant, Mesopotamia, and Egypt, Islam was a liberator and hence openly welcomed such was the case in the opening of Jerusalem and Jews being allowed to return.

One aspect that differentiated Islamic forces from other preceding victorious armies was that Islam had embedded within its belief system the rules of engagement during warfare, with humanitarian tenets that understood there was to be the protection of women and children and to respect the property and symbols of other faiths. Yes, there were occasions when individuals broke such tenets, but these should be regarded as exceptions.

Was spread by the sword?

This is a narrative originating at the time of the Crusades when the sole ambition was to discredit Islam and give it a barbaric and savage reputation. A common misrepresentation of this narrative was the supposed forced conversions of conquered peoples, whereas the facts suggest that even prior to any imminent military engagement, the Muslim generals would offer the options of conversion to Islam, acceptance of dhimmi status (meaning the payment of an annual jizya tax), or trying their chances at armed conflict. Even upon Muslim victory, the first two options remained available.

The widespread and well-documented dhimmi system that dealt with non-Muslim citizens is proof that no forced conversions took place. There was a structure in place that allowed for religious continuity while also protecting rights with a structure that maintained the retention of physical land and property. Property records show that in the varying lands conquered in the previous Byzantine and Sassanian Empires, Muslims were a small minority during the early Islamic reign, ranging between 10 to 20% of the population up until a century or two after the initial conquest. In certain cases, such as in Iran and Egypt, Muslims as a majority of the population only came into being well into the 9th century. How can that possibly be forced conversion?

Another powerful counterargument for the case against Islamic colonialism is the fact that there was never really any extraction of resources out of the conquered lands and shipped off to Mecca back in Arabia. In actuality, trade and commerce throughout the new Islamic territories blossomed further during Islam’s reign and created a series of powerful cosmopolitan cities across the empire that would eventually become some of the greatest and brightest cities on the planet within the next two centuries: Baghdad, Damascus, Cairo, and Cordoba. Meanwhile, Mecca and Medina, the supposed colonial centres, were humble in their expansion and prosperity for the next millennium and beyond.

A question that can always be asked to further prove this point: would the British ever have moved their capital from London to Delhi?

To exhibit the difference, the capital of the Muslim empire left the Arabian Peninsula with the coming of the Umayyad Caliphate, never to return. Such a decision only reflects that the Islamic empire wasn’t about the benefit of one people, nation, or territory over another, but that a new set of groups of united people, inclusive of those conquered, were now a new nation that had much larger collective aspirations.

One would think that the Islamisation of faith would result in the Arabisation of language, but the reality was the opposite. As the Islamisation of the populations took significant time to materialise, learning the language of the faith, Arabic, was never forced onto others. The fast-paced assimilation of Arabic was principally due to the fact that it was the primary language of trade, governance, and law within the Islamic empires, as well as being a language familiar to the populations of the Levant and Mesopotamia, who were mainly Aramaic speakers.

Arabisation wasn’t about the Muslim faith but was about integrating within a civilisation that was booming not just back in Arabia but everywhere. It became the common language for non-Arabs and non-Muslims to prosper. During the subsequent golden age, thinkers and scholars from across the empire wrote and relayed in Arabic, much in the same way that the English language spread all over the world during the 20th century due to globalisation and technology. Arabic achieved widespread acceptance for the sake of the transfer of knowledge and in aspiring to prosperity.

To learn more about Islam visit: Howtomuslim.org

[fromthedust]

Hergé (Belgian, May 22, 1907 - March 3, 1983)

Belgian author and artist, 1907-1983. Translated into over thirty languages, Hergé’s adventure stories about the brave and resourceful young reporter Tintin are popular with both children and adults throughout the world In twenty-four book-length comic strips, Tintin and his faithful fox terrier, Snowy, embark on a series of thrilling global adventures set in remarkably detailed, meticulously researched landscapes.

Hergé. whose real name is Georges Remi (he devised his pen name by inverting his initials to R.G.), pub­lished the first Tintin adventure in Le Petit Vingtième, the children’s supplement to Le Vingtieme Siecle, in 1929. Published in book form in 1930 as Tintin in the Land of the Soviets, this primitive work is the only one of the series that was not later translated into color, with the exception of Tintin and the Alpha-Art, a work unfin­ished when Herge died and left in sketch form at his request.

The second adventure, Tintin in the Congo (1931), reflects a contemporary European view of Africa based on ignorance and portrays the African people as gullible and naive. Neither Congo nor the fanatically anti-Communist Soviets has yet been published in the United States.

In Tintin in America (1932), Tintin takes on Chicago mobster Al Capone, and Hergé’s sociopolitical satire becomes more sophisticated as he depicts the National Guard driving the Blackfoot Indians away from their ancestral lands. But it is probably The Blue Lotus (1936) that marks Hergé’s refinement of detail and concern for accuracy.

After befriending a young Chinese student who urged him to avoid common stereotypes, Hergé began to delve further into research of the physical and cultural landscape. The story is a clear protest of Japa­nese expansionism on the Chinese mainland and of the treatment of the Chinese people by many Westerners. Hergé’s friend appears as young Chang in The Blue Lotus and later in Tintin in Tibet (i960), a story of true friendship Hergé claims as his favorite.

Ostensibly a journalist, Tintin is seen reporting to his editor only once in the series and follows his sense of adventure and justice rather than any particular assign­ment. In the course of his adventures he encounters a colorful cast of characters who become his cohorts: The bumbling, ineffectual detectives Thompson and Thom­son, the rough old sea dog Captain Haddock with his legendary penchant for drinking whiskey and hurling passionate but innocent insults, and the absent-minded but ingenious Professor Cuthbert Calculus provide both help and hindrance throughout Tintin’s travels.

All of these characters find their way aboard the first manned rocket bound, for the moon in Destination Moon (1953) and Explorers on the Moon (1954), in which Tintin, Snowy Captain Haddock, and Thompson and Thomson set foot on the moon fifteen years before Neil Armstrong landed in Apollo 11.

Hergé constructed a detailed scale model of a German U2 rocket to create the drawings, and his extensive scientific research gives the books remarkable accuracy and foresight. While most of the Tintin stories are noticeably devoid of women, opera singer Bianca Castafiore takes center stage as a strong female character in The Castafiore Emerald (1963).

Charles de Gaulle once remarked, “My only interna­tional rival is Tintin.” 

                       source: Children’s Books and their Creators by Anita Silvey.

Hergé’s Tintin books in chronological order:

Tintin in the Land of the Soviets – (Tintin au pays des Soviets) (1929–1930)

Tintin in the Congo – (Tintin au Congo) (1930–1931)

Tintin in America – (Tintin en Amérique) (1931–1932)

Cigars of the Pharaoh – (Les Cigares du Pharaon) (1932–1934)

The Blue Lotus – (Le Lotus bleu) (1934–1935)

The Broken Ear – (L’Oreille cassée) (1935–1937)

The Black Island – (L’Ile noire) (1937–1938)

King Ottokar’s Sceptre – (Le Sceptre d’Ottokar) (1938–1939)

The Crab with the Golden Claws – (Le Crabe aux pinces d’or) (1940–1941)

The Shooting Star – (L’Etoile mystérieuse) (1941–1942)

The Secret of the Unicorn – (Le Secret de la Licorne) (1942–1943)

Red Rackham’s Treasure – (Le Trésor de Rackam le Rouge) (1943)

The Seven Crystal Balls – (Les Sept boules de cristal) (1943–1946)

Prisoners of the Sun – (Le Temple du soleil) (1946–1948)

Land of Black Gold – (Tintin au pays de l’or noir) (1948–1950) 

Destination Moon – (Objectif Lune) (1950–1953)

Explorers on the Moon – (On a marché sur la Lune) (1950–1953)

The Calculus Affair – (L’Affaire Tournesol) (1954–1956)

The Red Sea Sharks – (Coke en stock) (1956–1958)

Tintin in Tibet – (Tintin au Tibet) (1958–1959)

The Castafiore Emerald – (Les Bijoux de la Castafiore) (1961–1962)

Flight 714 to Sydney – (Vol 714 pour Sydney) (1966–1967)

Tintin and the Picaros – (Tintin et les Picaros) (1975–1976)