Epistemic status: Low. I don’t know Farsi. I don’t particularly follow Iran.
That said, I am hardly alone in this.
Bryan MacDonald: “Even I’m kinda astonished by how many American “Russian experts” have suddenly become “Iran experts” in the past 48 hours. молодцы товарищи!! #ачтивмеасурес”
- Widely divergent reports about how many people are protesting. Some say mere hundreds, others are saying entire towns have been seized.
-
Revolutions need to turn some part of the elites to succeed – otherwise, you just have a raging mob whose energy gradually fizzles out.
In the late Soviet Union, national leaders came out against a disintegrating center. In the Orange Revolution, it was the Ukrainian Supreme Court that ruled Yanukovych’s election win invalid due to fraud. In Euromaidan, a critical mass of Party of Regions deputies “owned” by pro-EU oligarchs defected.
There do not appear to be any Iranian regime elements sympathetic to revolution, nor any popular leaders around whom the opposition is uniting. This suggests its prospects are bleak.
- There are differing explanations for the protests: They generally stress economic hardship, especially in the context of Iran’s costly foreign interventions.
a) Unfortunately, getting to what Iranians “think” is hard, since there don’t seem to be any independent pollsters regularly operating in the country – at least so far as sensitive questions are concerned.
The Iranian diaspora makes no secret of its strong dislike for the mullahs, but as persecuted political emigres, they are hardly representative of the average Iranian.
b) I just checked Iran’s economic statistics.
Since sanctions were dropped, growth has been high: An amazing 12% in the past four quarters, which I assume reflects post-sanctions recovery. Inflation, currently running at 10%, is also near historical lows by post-Shah standards.
Their economy is not exactly thriving from a long-term perspective – GDP per capita (PPP) has been about flat for the past decade (and real incomes have fallen by 15%), unemployment typically ranges between 10%-12%, the economy is over-regulated and state-dominated.
Still, it doesn’t strike me as absolutely catastrophic, and its now on an upsurge, anyway.
c) Many of us can sympathize with Iranian secular nationalists who have no interest in supporting their Shiite Arab coreligionists, let alone the Sunni Palestinians (many of whom repaid Iran’s kindness by joining the Islamic State), in the name of some obscurantist “anti-imperialist” and “anti-Zionist” grand strategy foisted on them by unelected ayatollahs.
Still, it has to be said that now of all times is a strange time for them to express such sentiments.
The US is currently far more hostile towards Iran than under Obama, and is drawing up an anti-Iranian alliance with Israel and Saudi Arabia. Shouldn’t there be more of a fortress mentality now?
Besides, the regime should have gained foreign policy legitimacy with their successes against Islamic State in 2017. While people don’t tend to like costly foreign entanglements, they like them a great deal less when they are losing them. But Iran has been winning, not losing, of late. Iraq has a friendly government, and Assad’s reconquests have reopened a direct overland route from the Iranian border to Lebanon. Meanwhile, it is the Saudis who have gotten humiliatingly bogged down in Yemen.
Very suspicious timing, as I said.
- Prediction: These protests aren’t going to be any more significant than the abortive “Green Revolution” in 2009.
That said, I was also sure that Yanukovych would remain in power until late January 2014. I don’t have a great predictive record on identifying successful color revolutions.
- If it does succeed: Russia’s entire position in the Middle East goes pretty much kaput.
Assad will probably be doomed. The Syrian regime is kept afloat by Iran transfers on the order of $1 billion a month, and Iranian militias play an important role in ground operations. Moreover, not clear that Hezbollah will stay in Syria either, since its own position will become suddenly imperilled. So either Russia will have to take up Iran’s slack there – a frankly unrealistic prospect, if the Kremlin has any sanity left – or sign off as well.
A liberal/nationalist Iran that does not have a bone to pick with Israel or the United States will be inherently hostile to Russian interests. A reorientation towards ethnic rather than religious ties will bring it into conflict with Russia in Central Asia, especially with respect to Tajikistan. It will also put pressure on Russia’s position in Armenia, since such an Iran will be far friendlier with Azerbaijan. The prospect of competing Iranian gas pipelines to Europe – which can also be hooked up to Turkmenistani production – will also suddenly become very realistic.
I wouldn’t be happy if it really happened, but if I were Iranian I’d wish it to succeed, probably.
Sending a billion $ to Syria per fucking month sounds like total lunacy to me.
Pretty much my opinion as well, sadly.
Would the US foreign policy establishment even want to attack them if they totally withdrew from the Arab world? I guess the main reason Netanyahu wants to bomb them is their support for Hamas and Hezbollah. In the absence of those factors, maybe they wouldn’t care for that mythical nuclear weapons program.
I would extremely cautious taking statistics on GDP growth at face value from the developing world, at least the poorer parts of it.
Turkey is cooking their books: https://erikmeyersson.com/2017/02/16/will-the-real-real-gdp-in-turkey-please-stand-up/
So is India: http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/58qihTaOIRd3rPyf1eK09L/Real-GDP-is-growing-at-5-not-71.html
China is legendary. If Iran says they are growing at double digits, you should always counter-check by looking at retail sales, car registrations and similar fast-moving metrics. If you do this for Turkey, you don’t see their 11% GDP growth that they supposedly registered last quarter or their more “modest” 5-6% in the previous two.
There is probably real stress in the Iranian economy, but I’d agree with you that the chances of success for Iranomaiden is slim. Also, these protests often have a Western hand behind them because Israel has a deciding vote in any US middle-eastern policy(see AIPAC and campaign contributions in general). That’s why it’s very hard, if not impossible, to verify how much of a real movement this is and how much is manufactured.
Fully agree with Elijah J. Magnier, Al Rai Chief International (30-year veteran War correspondent):
“Those new mushroomed “Iran experts” (after #Iraq, #Syria and Terrorism experts) need to start learning about #Iran from scratch. Start with this beautifully written article:
Misreading Qazvin in Washington: On the Protests in Iran
http://www.jadaliyya.com/Details/34931/Misreading-Qazvin-in-Washington
”
See also the latest from (award winning journolist & writer) Tam Hussein:
https://twitter.com/tamhussein/status/947443144894935040
BUT
choice probably do not go between
– support Assad
– live free and normally
The choice is being doomed OR stay free and independent.
When did that happen? If true , the supreme court sure took its sweet time. Yanukovych had been president since 2010, and he wasn’t overthrown until 2014. According to the story we were fed, he was removed from power by a voice vote in the Verkovna Rada.
Sure got Ahed Al-Tamimi out of the news!
In 2004, during the Orange Revolution. Not during Euromaidan.
I don’t think Assad’s fall in 2013 or 2014 would’ve precipitated Iran’s fall. They could’ve spent that money on their military, for example. 15 billion a year (according to Wikipedia – might be an exaggeration) buys you a lot in Iran.
There’s always been a total lack of decent Iran content in the alt-sphere. Even the most astute analysts seemed to be operating under the presumption that since American neo-cons are wrong on Iran, PressTV talking points had to be more or less accurate and anyone who addressed the domestic situation was just a Zionist shill of some sort to be ignored.
The Iranian diaspora makes no secret of its strong dislike for the mullahs, but as persecuted political emigres, they are hardly representative of the average Iranian.
Iranians are obsessed with VPNs and Telegram so the past few years the contacts between the diaspora and the population have grown much closer. The ranks of the various nationalist groups have exploded exponentially this way.
As I’ve said, Unz.com is always pro-nationalism except when it’s not. You’d think people here would applaud cries of ‘We’re Aryans not Arabs’. Oh well.
Anecdotally, speaking to Iranians they mention that the government response to the many earthquakes and natural disasters this year has been negligent. Everyone believes all the resources and personnel are tied up in Syria.
This is a quite weird ‘colour revolution’ event, for a couple of reasons. One is that – although a lot of Western propaganda is nonsense – Iran is a super-surveillance and super-internet-control society. It is a bit improbable that what is happening was not foreseen by Iranian authorities, clearly monitoring if not censoring all the social media etc platforms.
It is somewhat logical, that Iran itself is allowing the Western-supported colour-revolution feint, to identify more of its own dissidents, and later suppress them. So local ‘revolutionary leaders’ inside Iran, may well be state provocateurs. Iran has a nice expanding file now on who needs to be watched, jailed, or killed.
Similar technique to how, as Iran well knows, the CIA and Mossad (with Putin’s help!) massively dupe Western dissidents into believing the fairy tales about ‘brave investigative journalists’ and CIA fake dissidents Edward Snowden and Julian Assange … people contact Wikileaks or Glenn Greenwald or the NY Times or UK Guardian, and then, because they trusted those fakers, they wind up dead or in jail (Dead: Seth Rich, Peter W Smith; jailed: Reality Leigh Winner, Lauri Love). Hilariously, Assange’s and Snowden’s friends at the ICIJ, the ‘International Consortium of Investigative Journalists’, are co-managed by official Israeli Mossad historian Yossi Melman and Israeli military and political writer Uri Blau.
The second thing is that the protestors would know, Iran is horrifyingly brutal toward its own citizens, one of the most savage of all countries in per capita executions of its own citizens, sometimes hanging 100 people or so in a month, typically done by slow-torture hanging, often in groups of 6 or 8 people in public squares.
It seems that usually, Iran does not even try to break the neck of its hanging victims with a long drop, which can induce a merciful coma before the victim dies, typically some 15 minutes to an hour later. As is often observed in Iran, smaller people such as women typically die more slowly, their lighter weight leading to a longer period of torturous choking.
People don’t realise that hanging is nearly always a slow death, and the coma inducement through neck breaking is not reliable. E.g., New Zealand’s final hanging in the 1950s was a slow strangulation that took the better part of an hour of torment, the rope drop was mis-calculated, and not long enough to break the guy’s stiff neck.
The reason for ‘sanctions against Iran’, is not the ‘nuclear weapons development’ bullshyt, its anti-Zionist rhetoric, or other nonsense … but the fact that it is extremely brutal in the slow-torture hangings and a bunch of other Islamic barbarisms … Iran burying women alive up to their necks, only their veiled heads above the ground, and stoning them to death; the floggings and amputations, sometimes the victim marked for death is flogged bloody before being hanged from a crane etc.
A great thing suggested by the European Islamic scholar Tariq Ramadan – now apparently also hit with some ‘Me, Too!’ sexual harassment allegations – is Ramadan’s proposal that all Muslim countries join Russia in a moratorium on the death penalty, plus, Ramadan says, ending all physical penalties, the floggings and judicial chopping off of hands etc … Ramadan’s Qur’an exegesis to justify this, is that the Islamic penalties would only ‘apply’ in a perfectly just society, which we do not have yet.
One thing the outside world underestimates regarding the Shia, is that Shia males love the ‘temporary marriage’ provision in Shia religious practice. Not only can you have 4 wives as the Sunnis do, one of those can be a ‘wife for the weekend’, legally, provided you go to the imam to be officially ‘married’ … you can then divorce Monday morning, e.g., by saying the word ‘talaq’ 3 times. Iranian women advertise themselves as ‘temporary wives’ (not ‘prostitutes’ of course!) for a small marital ‘gift’ of € 60 or so. Due to that, and with Iran’s practice of educating its women, Iran’s birth rate has collapsed even more than in much of Europe.
Surrendering geopolitically when you are winning and doing what your enemies who literally want to wipe you out would want you to do doesn’t sound very nationalistic to me.
Also whether the anti-islamic Iranians like it or not, the vast majority of their countrymen are Muslim. It’s far from the worst version of Islam, it’s better than the Saudi/Wahhabi one and this is not the time for Zoroastrian revival or whatever, as much as I find that religion fascinating.
This is like claiming to be a white nationalist while being anti-Christian and shouting “We will not worship a kike on a stick”, a bit counter-productive.
Is the military reliable enough not to turn against the regime while the police or revolutionary guards did a crackdown? Is the Revolutionary Guard totally reliable? Is the regime prepared to do whatever it takes to quash the riots? If the answer to all of these questions is yes, then of course the regime is here to stay. But from what I know, it might not be the case. Apparently even the grandson of Khomeini is opposed to the regime, so it looks pretty much like a tired and sclerotic regime engaging in needless and extremely costly military adventurism. Let’s hope it still has some decades in it.
Nationalism is about supporting one’s ethnic interests. It’s not about supporting abstract ideas as such. The nationalism of our enemies, for example, is not the favorite ideology of ours.
In this case we mostly just don’t wish our globalist overlords to score a victory. I just wish that they lose. And I’m willing to sacrifice the Iranians’ well-being for a few more decades for this.
In terms of outcomes, the issue is whether Rouhani will survive politically. If he does, his position should be strengthened. If he doesn’t, another, more massive round of protests can be expected within a couple of years.
Oh, and don’t forget to ask Churchill about victory in war. (Appearing to have done so is a sign of Putin’s intelligence.)
They are part of the Arab world.
Why do you think did the Iraq invade them in the 1980s?
There is always Saudi Arabia and the other Gulf Arabs.
Well, they are not. For one, they are not even Arabs.
But would they care if they didn’t perceive that Iran was meddling everywhere where there was a Shia minority of any size? I don’t think so. They must be concerned because of their own sizable Shia minorities and because of Iran’s perceived military superiority (due to Iranian soldiers not being nearly as shitty as Arabs).
Good points, despite my dislike for Islamic systems of government you’ve convinced me that overthrowing the Islamic republic would be an undesirable development under current conditions.
But it seems very unlikely to me anyway, I still expect these protests to fizzle out.
And yes, strange timing…but can it really be possible that the Americans/Israelis could organize large-scale protests? Sure, they can manage to murder Iranian nuclear scientists or support some separatist groups…but a mass movement? In any case, Iranians accepting help from the US or Israel would rightly be regarded as traitors.
Arabs make up a third of the population of Khuzestan, one of Iran’s most important provinces.
They are not recent migrants either.
Iran is a natural hegemon of the region.
Do you think the same people who call the Persian Gulf Arabian Gulf would accept that?
It is either half the ME creates a fictitious disaster in Iran, or Iran leads the other half to war somewhere – probably against Israel.
There are always dissenters, even some close to power, but Shia Islam is arraigned hierarchically which explains the mullah’s longevity.
What is obscurantist about opposing imperialism and zionism for Middle Easterners, and why the scare quotes? Looking closer you see that this is what arab secular nationalists opposed as well. Can it be argued that US and Israeli choices have been extremely deleterious for the region? There is no need to be a bigoted radical to see the obvious.
The forces eradicating Middle Eastern christians are all US-Israeli funded and backed. From the muslim brotherhood, to salafi monarchies, to jihadist militias doubling as terrorist organizations in Syria.
Thanks about the clarifications on hangings and the references to the Jewish Conspiracy So Deep That Everything is Constructed, possibly even Unz and the Very Existence of Putin Itself, but what’s your point?
Also, Talaq divorce is Sunni, not Shia.
I hear no good things about Iranian customs from local Iranians but apparently stoning is out: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_Iran#Stoning
Even from a purely utilitarian viewpoint, would the collapse of Syria be a good thing?
The US sure is spending officially ~400 million, so it’s probably around the same for reals.
Absolutely not, it would be disastrous for Europe as well (even more refugees), and I’d add that from a moral standpoint it probably would also be very bad, with all the carnage and elimination of minorities that would probably follow. I don’t think Assad’s dictatorship should be romanticized like some alt-right people do, but it’s still better than the likely alternatives.
The US has a little more money to spend on propping up shaky regimes or trying to topple them. It’s detrimental to their interests as well, but at least they can better afford it.
I meant humanitarian.
Syria is the only Arab country that had from the beginning consistently positive relations with Islamic Republic of Iran. Syria’s importance to Russia has often been overstated, but at the same time it is importance to Iran should not be understated.
Food prices went up, some people got angry and started to riot. Very 19th century, the government will stay on.
Predictions: a million Iranian march in 2018 to Europe…they have seen how well it has worked for the assorted Syrians, Iraqis, Afghanis (and all the others joining in). They are packing their bags and smart phones. We will get some entertaining ‘Aryan’ identities, mass conversions, and – as always – South Asians and North Africans will join in. World Cup chaos will make it easier. Merkel will mumble and stumble, and most likely end the year hiding somewhere, but still in charge of both Germany and EU.
The Israelis (hence US) care about Iranian capabilities – intentions can always change:
http://m.jpost.com/Middle-East/Iran-News/Iran-is-Israels-shaping-trauma-says-ex-deputy-chief-of-staff-504641
“Iran, he continued, “are a higher form of civilization. They have nice, academic infrastructure, impressive industry, good scientists and many talented young people. They are very similar to us, and because they are similar to us they are much, much more dangerous”.
The US wants to destroy Iran because it’s an independent actor that has successfully defied the US in the past. Withdrawing from the Arab world wouldn’t change that.
Also, a liberal nationalist Iran’s attitudes towards Armenia and Azerbaijan would be largely unchanged. Armenian-Persian relations have been traditionally friendly for a long time, many Armenians live in Iran, and many Iranians holiday in Armenia regularly to enjoy certain freedoms.
Most people in Iran still tepidly support the government, at least from what I’ve heard from expatriate friends. People hostile towards the government are largely drawn the same demographics as in Russia and not much larger.
Iranians of any political stripe all despise Arabs (more so than Jews, whom they have a grudging respect for), only the government pays lipservice to Islamic solidarity.
While I’m at it I nominate Hossein Khosrow Ali Vaziri for Shah.
Don’t forget that US was preparing to shitcan the Shah after he started getting too uppity and making noises about national sovereignty etc. Some Iranians even believe that the ’79 Revolution was partly instigated by the CIA but the whole thing spectacularly backfired on them.
Why would a nationalist Iran necessarily be “inherently hostile to Russian interests”? Would a nationalist Iran just forget about the US support for Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war, when Iraq was regularly using chemical weapons against Iranian soldiers and civilians? Also, why would a (presumably Persian) nationalist Iran become more friendly with Azerbaijan against Armenia? What would they have to gain from this? Regarding Tajikistan, are you suggesting that they would try to take over this country that they don’t even share a border with on some “pan-Persian” shit or what? Easier said than done, and I don’t see it happening.
What a non-theocratic Iran would do in the region would largely depend on the extent to which “Shiite interests” overlap with secular Persian/Iranian national interests and “imperial ambitions”. I’m sure they would end the conflict with Israel, but I’m not sure that they would become friends with Sunni Arabs, especially after all that has happened.
This is because the number is obviously complete nonsense, as should be clear for anyone who has followed the war in Syria. This would be a lot higher than the entire prewar defense budget!
Why would with such amount of funding measures be necessary as the use of barrel bombs because of lack of standard aircraft bombs? With such sums, the war would have been won years ago.
It really seems that Anatoly as a big thinking futurist – transhumanist is not too much bothered about a few trivial order-of-an-magnitude implausibilities.
https://www.csmonitor.co m/World/Middle-East/2011/1108/Imminent-Iran-nuclear-threat-A-timeline-of-warnings-since-1979/Rhetoric-escalates-against-axis-of-evil-1998-2002
The early 1990s saw a concerted effort by Tel Aviv to portray Iran as a new and existential threat.
1992: Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres tells French TV that Iran was set to have nuclear warheads by 1999. “Iran is the greatest threat and greatest problem in the Middle East,” Peres warned, “because it seeks the nuclear option while holding a highly dangerous stance of extreme religious militanCY.”
Then this from Cato Institute – More important, perhaps, the Green Peril could revive, in the long run, Israel’s role as America’s strategic asset, which was eroded as a result of the end of the Cold War and was seriously questioned during the Gulf War.[21]
Israel could become the contemporary crusader nation, a bastion of the West in the struggle against the new transnational enemy, Islamic fundamentalism. According to Daniel Doron, “With the momentous upheavals rocking the Muslim World, the Arab-Israeli conflict is a sideshow with little geopolitical significance.” It is a derivative conflict in which Israel is “the target of convenience for Islam’s great sense of hurt and obsessive hostility towards the West.”[22]
Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland put it, an “urge to identify Islam as an inherently anti-democratic force that is America’s new global enemy now that the Cold War is over.”[4]
also in https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/1993-03-01/what-green-peril
Iran mania has deep roots It is part of the Green Peril which was created intentionally . It will not disappear anytime soon despite very attempt by Iran
[“ Saddam is not like the Saudi Princess who spend lives abroad and fritter away – oil profits on pristitutes and wine
No, Saddam is building creating and laying foundation of the country
He is rebuilding his
He will make Iraq most advanced power . We can not allow this happen ]
Dr Edward Luttwak
( author , historian , military strategist
and Pentagon consultant)
to Maurizio Blondet 1991
In neo- CONNED Again
Hypocrisy Lawlessness and the Rape of Iraq
—————
It was Egypt , it was Iraq , it is Iran
Tomorrow it would be Pakistan and later Indonesia
It generates profits grants donations and doles
It also gives political – military- economic platform to the potential otherwise unemployable youths and help them earn livelihoods .
Without risk to self or fellow people , they can guide the US to target new area as enemy . Making war is their livelihood and way of life .
This is why Israel never agreed to a reasonable peace settlement .
Peace will bring them down to the level of rest of the humanity who works to survive . Israel wants to steal and be pampered and glorified . War gives the existencial meaning they seek .
They are not Arabs, and their cultural influence flows northward towards Tajikstan and eastward towards Afghanistan and Pakistan, not southwards. Like Turks, they are contemptuous of Arabs. It’s hard to understand why they care at all about Palestine.
12 billion a year? Jesus man… they’re Persians not King Midas…
Syria would be Israel 2.0 by now with that funding.
https://twitter.com/V4Analysis/status/947694198383349761
As the world’s number 1 Iranophobe, I gotta admit, I’m worried.
This protest like the the 2009 Green Revolution has exposed a divide between the non-retard wing of the Paleocon/WN/Russophile movement (about .001%) and the much larger, more prominent, retard wing.
The best (and possibly only) rep of the non-retard wing is Justin Raimando of antiwar.com. This board’s paleofag “utu” is also part of the non-retard wing but unlike Raimando, he has no platform and nobody cares what he thinks, even other paleocons.
Anyway, the non-retards actually understand Iran and Iranians and they know that secular Iranians are approximately 10 billion times more anti Semitic than the religious nutters. But the difference between the two groups in anti Semitism isn’t really important, what is important is the difference between the two groups in competence.
The Ayatollah’s have turned Iran from a shitty but functional country into a super shitty and dysfunctional one. This is a good thing because Iranians are an evil people who deserve as low a quality of life as possible but also because it is much easier for Israel to bully the moron mullahs than it will be for Israel to push around any crypto Nazi regime that would take over from the mullahs.
Now we shouldn’t get carried away, the Jews beat the Iranians every day of the week and 3x on the Sabbath (would be 4 except we don’t use electricity that day) no matter who the Iranians have leading them. But whereas the Mullahs are even easier to deal with then Assad Sr. and Nasser were, a secular Iran promises to be the toughest opponent that Israel has ever faced.
Anatoly is saying that these protests won’t go anywhere. Maybe, but that’s almost besides the point. The fact that nation wide protests to replace Islamism with secular Nazism keep popping up in Iran show that there is real dissatisfaction with the Mullahs/Revolutionary Guard. That tells me that eventually the Mullahs are going to have to step down, if not now, then perhaps 10 or 20 years from now. And that would be a very bad thing.
The main argument for Trump’s election was American nationalism…and while one may deplore the fact, American nationalism (as it actually exists, not as one would like it to be in an ideal world) in general doesn’t respect the sovereignty of other nations, and never has. Anything else is just wishful thinking.
It’s also a bit bizarre though to state “It’s everyone’s duty to support the Iranian government” (how? I don’t think the Islamic republic guard takes non-Islamic volunteers). It’s a bit sad how Western nationalists get enthusiastic about the Islamic republic, about Assad’s Syria or even about the North Korean regime…a bit of a mirror image of the “I stand with Israel” cretins. Just shows how powerless and marginal Western nationalists still are, no true champions for their cause, so they project their hopes and sympathies onto foreign movements and governments.
I don’t think you really get it, Israel is the enemy of the white race, so it is completely reasonable to support those that Israel declares as their enemy. What happens inside Iran does not bother me, anyone who pretends that hanging people (or all the other things the neocons mention) in Iran is important is an insincere concern troll.
Since I whole heartily support the destruction of Israel, if Iran launched a lot of missiles into Israel and wiped it out that would be a very positive event. Now if Iran became yet another land where jews pulled the levers of power, that would be a disaster, why on earth would I be happy with Iran becoming yet another US puppet regime?
Why should then any non-American respect American nation? Why should then any non-American support Trump (and you need support, 60 million red state Americans cannot stand alone against whole “progressive world”)
More comical than sad, if you understand that Islamic republic is specifically Shiite Muslim state dedicated to promotion True Shia Islam worldwide and Assad’s Syria is conglomerate of many nations. Only North Korea resembles “ethnostate” of alt-right dreams, and it keeps half of their “ethnonation” in state of starvation and threatens the other half with nuclear destruction.
More like the revolutionary left that cheers every third world thug who raised the red flag, only by several magnitudes more stupid and repulsive. For all its faults, the left have stirring music, great art and sexy icons like Che. The “alt-right” have some crayon-style drawings and Pepe (and they had to steal the ugly frog).
You’re f***ing obsessive. I’ve come to feel intense dislike for the state of Israel as well since the general mendacity and hypocrisy of its supporters in the West (and the cultish worship of Jews among a lot of gentile “conservatives”) disgusts me. But if Israel ceased to exist tomorrow, there’d still be millions of Muslims intent on Islamizing Europe, there’d still be millions (or soon rather billions) of Africans who think they have a right to send their demographic surplus across the Mediterranean, and there’d still be millions of stupid white “antiracists” who think it’s our duty to hand over everything to primitives from Somalia or Afghanistan. None of this would change if Israel was destroyed.
This kind of nationalism lost and will lose against global and universal ideas, even so stupid ones as communism or today’s liberalism. Remember some history – when nationalism started, it used to be universal idea. Young Germans, Young Italians, Polish and Hungarian exiles worked together “For our freedom and yours”. This is why they won.
I’m not American, I’m German, so you’re asking the wrong person. No idea how those MAGA cretins with their braindead bellicosity imagine this to work. They’ve learned nothing, it’s the same nonsense as during the Bush administration.
Agree with you about the alt-right and its romanticizing of various regimes which are quite horrible in some ways…I’m absolutely against any regime change projects, but frankly, if you’re starting to worship regimes that execute people for religious “crimes” or run a Gulag-like system of labor camps, you’ve kind of lost the plot…just stupid imo.
Well a secular Nazi regime will get you there much faster then the current idiots who we bully and kill with impunity.
It’s sad that I have to bring this up again, but I’m sorry guys, there is not going to be a US attack on Iran. Can you guys please give me a time frame of when you will finally admit that you were wrong and that the US will never attack Iran under any circumstances ever? Like, I know you guys will still be hyping the coming US assault on Iran this time next year, after yet another year of said assault not happening, but is it too much for me to hope that you will get off it by around 2040 or so?
Why don’t you check out the Israeli reaction to the recent elections in Austria to see what they really think about those who speak out against Muslims (and remember this is supposed to be a right wing regime in Israel). Or how about even closer to home where that USE supporter Schulz declares that Germany exists to support Israel, then there is giving them free submarines and heavens knows what else, or how every German politician needs to grovel at the sacred jewish Holocaust shrines – who exactly is the obsessed one here?
If Israel was no more the immediate benefit would be that an enormous amount of resources and time spent serving Israel will be saved. It should it also make it easier to deport Muslims from Europe if Israel was suddenly destroyed. Finally by depriving jews of a safe harbour even the international jew types will suddenly lose a lot of the chutzpah, it is they after all that fund antifa, Hollywood, the mass media, etc, to push for third world immigration into Israel.
The other side of the argument, that Israel is beneficial to the West, that it can help stem the immigration tide or be a “bulwark against Islam” is utter nonsense, a casual look at a map should dispel that logic. The actions of Israel point to the very opposite what some jews try to deceive right wingers with.
Also again I see the non American’s here are slandering Trump supporters as being pro war. Trump supporters absolutely do not want war with Iran. While the overwhelming majority of Trump supporters don’t care about Iran one way or the other and will not abandon Trump if he attacks Iran (will never happen, but hypothetically) they also are opposed to war. This isn’t 2003. The whole of the American people do not want anymore wars in the Middle East. Europe had to drag us into Libya but that hasn’t stopped you Euros from blaming us for it.
You guys are angry that your beloved Iran is showing weakness and are lashing out at the American people as a way of soothing your frustrations.
A regime change in Iran will not be “secular Nazi regime”, it will be more the same US puppet regime setup. A US puppet regime is generally all of the following:
– making holocaust worship the official religion
– multinational corporations running the economy
– mass immigration
– censorship of all nationalist ideas
– permanent US troops in your land
Israel is completely happy with such regimes.
I doubt he said it like that. Funnily enough Schulz (an absolutely despicable person) has even been accused of antisemitism because he called a speech by chief Palestinian Abbas in the EU parliament “inspiring”…and allegedly Abbas had claimed in that speech Israelis were poisoning wells to kill Palestinians or something of the sort. Germany also didn’t support Trump’s Jerusalem decision in the UN.
Anyway, I find your idea that the destruction of Israel would somehow solve all our problems quite irrational. You’re also forgetting that Israel has nuclear weapons, and presumably would use them if faced with destruction.
This is what I’m talking about. These are the words of a man who just doesn’t know Iran or Iranians.
I don’t know you and I don’t have a problem with you but you are thinking like a Paleocon/WN/Russophile retard, not a far sighted Jew. Learn to think like a Jew.
The Iranians protesting their government are protesting because they want Iran to do more to fight Israel. These certainly aren’t the type of people who are going to be building Holocaust museums. And if you think that the ultra nationalist Iranians would ever brook mass immigration, censorship of nationalist ideas or US troops in Iran, well, like I said: you don’t know Iranians.
Multinational corporations running the economy probably would happen though. I’ll give you that one.
What’s the basis for that statement? Do you have some sort of poll what Iranians, including secular ones, want to do about Israel? Last time I asked you about this, your only reply was referring to Purim (whose historical basis is uncertain and which in any case was about ancient Persians) and a general statement “Iranians are evil”…wich isn’t very convincing.
He might have said something like this as a part of a response to the accusations. Often the most absurd and groveling Stalinist or Maoist declarations of loyalty came from self-criticism sessions. Our leftist self-criticism sessions are no different. I imagine it would be possible to say “how can you accuse me of anti-Semitism, when I have always believed that in light of our horrible history the sole purpose of the existence of Germany should be to support Israel?”
What are you, an Iran fan now?
I’m just kidding. Happy new years assuming you guys celebrate it in Europe. New Years in my least favorite holiday. I don’t really like any holidays, now that I think about it.
Anyway, I used to troll irandefense.net, I think the site is defunct now. They were secular Iranians who HATED the mullahs. I mean like absolutely murderous hate. Understandable, but striking none the less.
I would say that about 100% of them were Stormfront style Nazis. Remember, even though Arabs are “white” some of them do kinda look brown. And Arabs have a very mud culture. Iranians really don’t have a middle eastern identity and are very big on the Aryan Master Race thing. In fact, the reason that they changed their name from Persia to Iran was to hype their Aryan lineage.
Now I think it is totally rational assume that the handful of English speaking secular Iranians that I talked to on IranDefense are an accurate representation of the views of the other 10s of millions of secular Iranians.
In all seriousness, the Iranians that I have met in person have all been huge jerks. I never talked to them about Israel or anything, I just couldn’t stand them. I would say that Iranians and Chinese are the most nationalistic peoples on the planet and while I don’t like Chinese nationalism either, at least the Chinese have a beautiful culture and don’t bother anybody else. Neither of those things are true about Iranians.
Also, on IranDefense there was actually a large amount of Turkish, Mexican. Egyptian and American posters as well. Even though they were just as hostile to Israel as the Iranians, I really enjoyed speaking with all of them and learned some interesting things from them. The Iranian posters, however, were all unbearable.
Well it’s true that German politicians do say sometimes similar things, the most egregious example being Merkel who back in 2008 said Israel’s security was part of Germany’s raison d’etat. Reality is more complex though, there is no unconditional German support for everything Israel does like its settlement policy.
I admit though that all the Israel fanbois one encounters among “conservatives” and right-wingers get on my nerves, these people are braindead.
Well yes, I know some Iranians are into all this Aryan stuff, and hate Arabs, Turks etc. (maybe you remember the teenage spree killer in Munich in 2016…that guy was of Iranian descent and hated Turks whom he regarded as racially inferior). But how representative is Irandefense or whatever this site is called? If you look at fringe communities on the net, you can get a very distorted picture…that probably applies to Unz review as well…
Anyway, happy new year to you as well! I expect 2018 to be absolutely dreadful, but at least it probably won’t be boring.
Well, such universalism was the theory. In practice, the Hungarian nationalists excluded Slovaks from their universal rights, starting with Hungarian national revolutionary leader Kossuth (who himself had Slovak ancestry, and even imprisoned a Slovak nationalist leader who happened to be… his cousin), since they wanted to assimilate them. As a reaction to that, some Slovak nationalists started supporting the anti-nationalist Habsburg monarchy.
In any event, we obviously believe that it would be better for Iran to be governed by nationalists. We (most of us, at any rate) also didn’t condemn the Iranians for supporting such an outcome. We* merely said that this would be a bad outcome for us, including
*I skimmed through the comments of Anatoly, German_reader, and myself.
Correction: I did not learn anything from the Mexican posters on IranDefense as no Mexican has ever had anything remotely interesting to say on any subject ever.
None at all. The protests are against wars abroad and corruption at home.
https://www.quora.com/What-are-the-slogans-of-the-Persian-people-in-the-current-nationwide-protests-and-demonstrations-in-Iran
etc, etc. Face it: the world does not revolve around Israel.
I agree, officially they don’t support these issues. But they keep supplying Israel with cheap (or even free) weapons, so their position is not widely different from the official US policy until Trump. It’s a bit like whether your mom supports your alcoholism – she doesn’t approve of it, but keeps giving you money, which she knows well what you’ll spend on…
If this is really what the protesters are saying then this is a fake protest. I don’t believe the protesters are saying this.
We all remember how during 2011 the media tried to cover up how the anti Mubarak protests were really just anti Israel protests.
In this case Germany is not just giving money to support the alcoholism, she is giving straight alcohol.
Maybe, but the Germans and other Europeans have also given lots of financial support to the Palestinians. The American stance seems much more one-sided to me. But frankly, at this point I’m not even sure one should still care about that stupid conflict. There is no solution, everyone involved is more or less nuts, and neither Israelis nor Palestinians can be regarded in any way as friendly towards Europeans. It would be better to end European involvement there completely, though unfortunately that probably isn’t possible for various reasons.
I just did a cursory search for the issue, and I found the last available data for 2012 (it could only have gotten worse by, say, 2015), when the Syrian budget deficit stood at over 11% of GDP. In nominal terms, that’s something like 7 billion dollars. I guess it wasn’t financed by hedge funds. So at least half of the number is very easy to believe for 2012. Should it have gotten worse by 2013 (easy to believe, tax revenues must have dried up, and they lost control of the oil fields), then the 10-15 billion number becomes quite plausible. Maybe other costs of Iranian involvement are added in, like the costs of direct military intervention. But to be honest, I think the costs of direct military intervention are on top of the support for the Syrian budget.
Not really, they don’t use those submarines to build settlements or something.
If it was all spent on their military (I don’t think so), in peacetime (i.e. when they’re not fighting a costly war), then they’d be (almost) UAE 2.0.
Are you for real, you just pointed out all the things that have to do with Israel being chanted by some rabble.
It would be much worse for Europeans to have another however many million Jews living in North America and Europe
https://twitter.com/rich_goldberg/status/947488660408107008
Yes!
While I agree with Anatoly and others here that an implosion or regime change in Iran would be a disaster, I’m not too worried at the moment. My impression is that a lot of the energy behind the initiation, at least, of these protests came from the nationalist and conservative right. Remember Rouhani is a leftist (“centrist” or “reformist” in the Newspeak language of the US sphere elites), in Iranian politics.
As the US color revolution types get more involved, they’ll inevitably alienate much of the base support for the unrest.
And of course Anatoly makes the very important point that a color revolution needs a betrayal by some key elements of the existing elite in order to succeed, and that’s not looking particularly likely in Iran at the moment.
The amounts are uncertain, but the principle is the same as the one clamed by US interventionists: “we fight them there so we won’t have to fight them here”.
What is a stupid lie in the mouths of the advocates of military interventionism for a continental superpower facing no plausible military threats in its own territory, is a simple and honest recognition of basic reality when it comes to a regional power facing direct and absolutely plausible military and subversion menaces from “the world’s only superpower” and its regional proxies.
The actual evidence we have in the real world strongly suggests that secularist/militarist regimes in the ME are generally very happy to cooperate with Israel, from the pre-Erdogan Turks to the Shah of Iran, via the quietist Syrians and actively collaborating Egyptians. Apart from anything else, that’s where the US sphere money-fountain falls.
Religious faith seems to be a prerequisite for sustaining resistance in the face of defeat after defeat, and lucrative temptation after temptation.
Necessary, at any rate, if clearly not sufficient, to judge from the abject collapse of Christianity in the face of the multi-culti immigrationist/homosexualist/feminist onslaught of the C20th.
Nothing lasts forever. But most likely this wave of dissatisfaction will be dealt with within the Iranian constitutionally democratic system just as the last one ultimately was, by the election of a few populist leaders.
Post-revolutionary Iran has a constitutional democracy constrained and mediated by religious authority just as the US has a constitutional democracy constrained and mediated by money. While the latter seems inherently more flexible, the former has strengths of its own as well. From our perspective we tend to assume that Islam will inevitably go down to defeat at the hands of the liberal left, based upon our own experience with Christianity, but that need not necessarily be the case.
Time will tell.
I disagree. The threat of a color revolution inside of Iran or a direct military attack by the US is totally different in nature from the kind of tribal disintegration which (with considerable foreign help) struck Syria. Arguably the chance of a color revolution actually increased due to the squandering of resources on supporting incompetent Arabs, whether Hamas or Assad. The military probably also suffered as a result, though it was at least partly compensated for by having gained some military experience (some of it under direct Israeli or American aerial attacks). But I don’t think it’s possible to avert the threat of a US military attack by fighting jihadists in Syria. Don’t forget the Americans didn’t even throw significant resources at Syria. Their ability to attack Iran is in no way smaller than it would be if Syria was a jihadi playground.
Iran is doing phenomenal give the continuous sactions (which ARE acts of war) laid upon them. Iranians are related to Europeans in language and in blood. They are more like us than any semites ever were. As far as Israel, I could care less. I am neither a Jew nor an Israeli. It could fall into the Med and I couldn’t give a damn.
Really? If any Arabs are incompetant it’s the fat Saudi slugs supported by Israel and it’s proxy, the U.S.A.. Saudis can’t even mange to defeat sandal wearing, khat chewing Stone Age Huthis.
No I think that it will go down in Iran only at the hands of fascistic ultra nationalism, not leftism. Anybody who thinks that the left could ever triumph in Iran doesn’t understand Iranians. You yourself even said these protests are so far being led by the Nazi sector of the Iranian populace , opposed merely pro-Nazi Islamist sector.
Ultra nationalists could never take over in Pakistan, Turkey or the Arab countries because ultra nationalism just doesn’t fit the temperaments of those people. You’d get an ultra nationalist government in the UK or Ireland before you’d see it in a Sunni country. But Iranians, despite their stupidity and primitive backwardness are extremely proud of their shitty culture and view themselves as biologically superior to all other peoples of the region. They are exactly the kind of population who would embrace Nazism and that’s what these protests are about, even if some Iranian libtard trolls are currently joining in the protests. Remember that Iranian libtards protested the Shah too, not realizing that doing so would bring into power a government that was even worse from the libtard perspective.
It forces them to divert attention to Syria which is more limited than their resources.
The point is that the US interventionists (and those of the US’s “influential” regional proxies Israel and Saudi Arabia) desperately want to attack Iran, but fear to do so because of the risk of severe consequences for themselves if things go badly. A large part of that risk derives from Iranian alliances with Hezbollah and with Syria.
Syria falling would allow Hezbollah to be picked off, which would remove the threat of retaliatory escalation by that route. Further, Syria falling would enable pressure to be increased at will on the broadly pro-Iranian government of shia Iraq.
I don’t think the amounts involved are particularly significantly influential on the quality of life of ordinary Iranians, any more than overseas aid is really a significant factor in the spending on poor people here. It’s a politically powerful symbol, in both cases, that’s all.
Iranians have suffered economically mostly from being excluded from the “benevolence” of the US sphere elites by virtue of their refusal to kowtow. Whether such benevolence is worth the price paid for it is a whole other question, but regardless there are clearly material benefits in submitting to Mammon.
In the longer run, Iranian involvement in Syria has probably helped to develop links with Russia and China which can potentially be leveraged to mitigate the costs of being outside the US sphere, especially if Turkey can be drawn in.
But unless Iran wishes to submit to the US sphere, defending Syria is legitimately a military necessity for Iran.
Seems unlikely to me, though I could imagine a situation in which “fascistic ultra-nationalists” were used as a battering ram for the ultimate benefit of greedy US sphere color revolution globalists as in Ukraine. But as in Ukraine the tools would be marginalised and excluded pretty quickly once the main thug work had been done.
But my impression is not that the religious constitutional order in Iran has reached the point that the Shah’s regime had in 1979, in terms of loss of popular credibility and legitimacy, nor that the various parties will be prepared to cooperate in their overthrow as the religious types, the communists and the liberals did in that case. The US sphere itself has done a stand-up job of repeatedly re-accrediting it, after all, by constantly proving it to have been correct about the hostility, menace and moral degeneracy of the US sphere.
But like Anatoly, I could also easily envisage being proved wrong on this. The world’s a complicated place.
Well this is a pretty standard figure that has been throw around, including by the Syrians themselves:
Onus is on you to disprove it.
Besides military expenses, Syria has to pay its civil servants and its pensions – including in occupied territories (from which it obviously can’t collect taxes).
It also has to import food and fuel.
As you know I don’t have a dog in your tribal fights, but still, this doesn’t sound plausible.
ADL survey of anti-Semitism: http://global100.adl.org/#map/meast
56% of Iranians have anti-Semitic opinions by the ADL’s standards (which in reality basically makes them philo-Semites). This is the lowest figure bar none in the Middle East.
The ADL can’t find better things to do with their resources than to badger Iranians about how they feel about Jews?
Not sure any of those sources are particularly credible. Such calculations are notoriously open to weighting one way or the other according to how you count things like, for instance, wages paid to people involved (which would likely have to be paid anyway), exchange rates applied, nominal versus actual costs of resources utilised, loans versus “loans”, etc.
$15 billion per annum would certainly go a long way in Syria (it’s the entire Turkish military expenditure for 2016, for instance, according to SIPRI)!
That said, Iran has presumably spent quite a lot in Syria. Enough to seriously affect its economy, over and above the stimulatory benefits some at least of such spending should have? I don’t know, but clearly enough people in Iran are prepared to believe in it to make it a politically effective slogan, I suppose.
I think it’s plausible. Russia spends around a billion dollars annually on the 3.5 million population of the LDNR.
Syria has ~5x the population.
Prior to the conflict, Syria and the Donbass had comparable salaries and consequently comparable expectations in quality of life. At least before the conflict the Donbass was also the Ukraine’s largest foreign currency earner, and even today it can still pay for itself at some modest level (e.g. coal exports to Russia, which are then resold to… the Ukraine). Syria was running a current account deficit even before the conflict.
Also of course the Syrian conflict is much more intense, and one in which Iran is actively involved in, unlike Russia in the Donbass (apart from a couple of occasions in 2014-15).
Iran’s nominal GDP: $400 billion; Russia’s: $1.3 trillion.
“Stop feeding the Donbass” is one of the slogans of the traitor opposition, they obviously don’t have much hold but if the fiscal strain was to increase by an order of magnitude, as with Iran in Syria, then I could potentially see that changing, especially if it came in tandem with a recession.
Moon of Alabama:
This sounds plausible.
Good analysis and very valid points/questions.
I don’t think these protests have a lot of traction at this point from what I can see, but I think much will depend on how the government reacts to the protests. If they play the heavy hand, that may backfire and swell the numbers; now is time for caution knowing they are in the target sights.
Peace.
Right. Thanks for the clarification.
Anecdotally, most of the Iranians I speak with are happy with the recent victories Iran has had including Syria.
Also, everyone complains after natural disasters including Puerto Rico. The many trillions we spent supporting Isreal in the ME could have helped them a lot. But nothing much will come of it here in US or in Iran.
Iran is spending money in Syria so they can fight their enemies away from Iran. Iranians aren’t stupid, if they lose Syria, Iran is going to be targeted by Isreal anyway.
Also (((Anon))) is a Jewish commenter so you wouldn’t expect his comments to be impartial.
No. Iran sending money to Syria allows Iran to fight it’s enemies away from its own country. A smart move.
So $1 billion a month is not being spent on charity, it is being spent on defending their country which most Iranians understand having seen what happened to Lybia.
If Syria was under wraps by Usa/Isreal do you really think they would stop picking on Iran?
Of course not.
Which enemies? Sunni jihadists? Those wouldn’t come to Iran anyway.
The question is, would it be more intense if Syria was a catastrophe similar to Libya? Maybe yes, maybe no. What is for sure is that those 15 billion dollars would go a long way toward improving Iran’s own military.
Those are some good arguments for expecting the Iranian expenditure in Syria to be high enough to impact on day to day wellbeing for ordinary Iranians.
Here are some counter arguments.
Iranian military expenditure in Syria would presumably mostly either be military establishment costs that would be incurred anyway, apart from expendables, increased wear and tear and healthcare costs etc. The latter would likely have some compensatory stimulatory benefits in Iran, where they are presumably buying their expendables, paying for wear and tear replacements, etc. Much of such expenditure presumably comes from established government contingency funds anyway. (I’m not particularly clear where funding for the Iraqi and other volunteer militias comes from, but I don’t think it’s by any means all funded from Iranian government sources).
Direct support for Syria government expenditures would presumably be by way of loans of various kinds, or by utilising unofficial oil sales funds where hard currencies are needed. Again, much of these loans would go on buying Iranian-sourced goods. Payment of internal Syrian state wages and pensions would presumably be in Syrian printed currency anyway.
Overall it seems unlikely these kinds of expenditures would have much immediate net effect upon the lives of ordinary Iranians. Any deleterious economic effects would surely be seen accumulatively a few years down the road rather than immediately. In my experience, indirect economic changes experienced by the masses usually lag policy changes by at least five years and often more. Hardship in Iran over the past year or so is more likely related to the short term consequences of implementation of fuel subsidy reforms and past US economic warfare, I’d have thought, than expenditure in Syria in the past few years. And popular support for Iranian foreign policy has generally apparently been high (understandably).
US sphere reporting of the Iranian government spending proposals that supposedly triggered the latest unrest (before the latest supposed opportunity for regime change appeared, at least), seemed to suggest the issues are persistent Iranian political and economic ones about how the pie is to be divided, with no mention of a supposed unpopular cost of foreign engagements:
“Rouhani’s New Budget Focuses on Creating Jobs, Fixing Banks
Bloomberg 10th December 2017
That’s a fair point. But I’m sure it wouldn’t deter Netanyahu or any of the neocons if tomorrow he could somehow convince Trump to attack Iran. Hezbollah is not the existential threat to Israel as it’s described to be by neocon warmongers.
But Iraq couldn’t be toppled the same way Assad could, because demographics. It might also have the effect of alerting the Iraqi Shiite government and making it more Iran-friendly.
We don’t know, we cannot know. I agree that Iran now doesn’t have the option of simply abandoning an ally it has been propping up for six years now.
It’s proportionally way way larger than any US foreign aid.
I am personally astonished that the Russian government in spite of such large-scale Iranian support for Syria voted for the sanctions against Iran. (OT On the other thread which is now dead I just brought up an angle how the North Korea sanction could easily be used as a propaganda tool against China and Russia because of smuggling. It was always obvious there would be a lot of mostly Russian and Chinese smugglers – which is now used as a propaganda tool against them. They deserve it for being stupid.) In any event, we shall see how beneficial that will be for Iran.
Let’s hope for the best.
I’m happy about it. Let’s hope it stays like that!
From the Moon of Alabama piece linked by Karlin above:
http://www.moonofalabama.org/2017/12/iran-early-us-support-for-rioters-hints-at-a-larger-plan.html#more
The Iranian government certainly seems to think that emphasising the threat of IS is a good way to maintain Iranian popular support for their defensive interventions in Syria and in Iraq, and it seems to have worked so far:
Iran’s involvement in Syria is costly. Here’s why most Iranians still support it.
Washington Post, October 19th 2017
OK, you at least half-convinced me that it was at least not total lunacy to prop up the Syrian regime.
In any event, this is what I’d hope for if there was a re-run of history, since it led to the globalists punched in the nose, especially after Putin’s intervention.
Well, basically all Arabs are incompetent, but you do have a point, the Saudis are basket cases even among the Arabs.
Yes that’s true But it is potentially a grave political threat to them and to their political influence, if they grossly mishandle things again (and let’s face it, they almost certainly will). And that is after all what really matters to them.
Maybe not, but it can certainly be destabilised.
Yes, that seems very likely, but I’m not convinced of some of the figures put about, nor of their supposed economic and political influence inside Iran.
Not sure when you are referring to here, but certainly I’ve long taken the view that the Russian leadership has been rather unreliable as an ally for resisters against the US sphere. Then again, who else is there?
I haven’t been fully keeping up with online commentary over the past week or so due to family distractions (damn Christmas and New Year get togethers! Bah humbug!) But I did notice this highly amusing story on the BBC official news site:
North Korea: South seizes ship amid row over illegal oil transfer
This incident predates the latest sanctions, but it illustrates how voting for US-inspired UN sanctions against US target states creates a rod which will ultimately be used against China and Russia if and when they want to be flexible again in their dealings with NK in the future.
Literally stupid.
That’ll do for me, by God!
🙂
Happy New Year to you and yours by the way.
Israel – bad cop, America – good cop?
https://twitter.com/BBassem7/status/947884768246427648
This kind of elaborate planning would be uncharacteristic for the US, don’t you think? A more plausible explanation is that US actually believes, that by endorsing the protests they are giving protestors a boost. In other words, US really is as dumb as it sounds.
That should explain it a bit.
http://abload.de/img/russiaselite2016surve3osao.png
I’m surprised there’s still so much support for coalition with EU countries (which is actually positive imo).
Why did support for China as a coalition partner decline from 2012 to 2016? I would’ve expected the opposite, haven’t Russia and China become much closer in recent years?
Collectively that clearly is the case. Stupid is as stupid does, after all. And one should be careful about attributing to villainy what is adequately explained by stupidity.
But that doesn’t of course mean that all of the contributing actors are stupid in the same way. Some of the stupid people around and within the US establishment are undoubtedly more than capable of thinking that actively supporting protests in Iran is a good idea for a variety of stupid motives, including the one suggested by Moon of Alabama, and quite capable of getting parts of the US military/security establishment to act on their opinions.
After all, prominent amongst the US stupidity elite on the topic of Iran in particular is the current US Secretary of Defence.
2010
http://www.spiegel.de/international/europe/from-lisbon-to-vladivostok-putin-envisions-a-russia-eu-free-trade-zone-a-731109.html
This year he admitted that it was a major mistake to trust the other side that much.
Mostly because they got another option, “none of the above”.
Russian elite want(ed) to be part of Europe, they do not want to be part of China.
Also, the successes of this partnership were still limited in 2016.
If projects like the CR929 end up being success for Russia, there might a plurality for a coalition.
http://www.ato.ru/files/in_text_pictures/site/in_texts/cr-929-600-640px.jpg
So, just my pov:
My Iranian expertize consists of reading a couple of books, dating a highly nationalistic Persian lady, and playing entirely too much Crusader Kings 2. Still makes me more qualified then the majority of the sudden “Iran experts” who used to be “Russian experts”.
Couple of generalized points:
Akarlin is indeed correct that the importance of the economic issue cannot be overstated. Economically speaking, the right wing is a lot more populist and the current leadership.
Persian support for Palestine is somewhat popular even with Nationalists. Basically, being the “bestest protector of the poor oppressed Palestinians” is somewhat akin to the more or less prestigious position of “defender of the faith” in early times. Even nationalists find it effing hilarious that the oh so holy and pious Sunni Arabs dont ever get anything done vs Israel.
In game terms, its + prestige for Iran and -prestige for all major Sunni arab powers.
The would prefer to have this cheaper though and frequently believe that Irans resources are spent in an overly indulgent manner.
The Nationalists do value their rockets scientists quite highly, and are pretty displeased about people who blow up their rocket scientists. Especially because the Nationalists regard Iranian nuclear, mathematical and rocket science as exhibit 1,2 and 3 why “PERSIANS ARE NOT ARABS! WE ARE CIVILIZED!!!”
Saudi conduct in Yemen is pretty shocking, both in terms of cruelty and incompetence. Iranian nationalists do care somewhat about the Houthis because a) Zaydi is a comparably relaxed form of Islam (basically, Houthis are Arab hillbillys. Frequently either drunk and/or on Quat, pretty useful in a fight and they typically leave others alone) and b) anyone who fucks Saudi Barbaria is a friend.
Here is your answer.
https://thesaker.is/iran-protests-western-salivation-agitation-desperation/
TLDR, Iran will not be divided and conquered like Iraq was. It is much more of a cohesive society with ancient roots that will be harder for the West to topple.
http://www.vdare.com/articles/is-population-transfer-the-solution-to-the-palestinian-problem-and-some-others
Iran’s enemies in order are USA, Isreal, Arab Sunnis such as the Saudis. And if Syria was toppled they would 100% go after Iran next.
So, obviously, supporting Syria provides immense benefit to Iran as none of these countried want to provide enough troops to fight in Iraq, Syria, and Iran at the same time.
The goal is to topple the countries one by one and save the strongest country for last after you have weakened it significantly.
Also, by spending a billion or so a month in Syria, it helps to bleed dry the enemy as they have to spend much more fighting off the insurgents. This is exactly what is happening in Saudi Arabia and to a lesser extent the US. Guaranteed, for every billion Iran spends there, there enemies spend a multiple much greater to respond to the threat.
So it is actually a brilliant use of funds that makes their country safer.
A lot of what you said is true, but misses a big part of what is going on.
A big driver between the Arabs and Persians has to do with pipelines and who is going to get rich selling oil and gas to Europe.
Everything from the one belt one road to the pipelines depends on creating a coalition that extends beyond that countries border.
Also, the oil rich part of Saudi Arabia is mainly Shiite and not Sunni. So the stakes are very high beyond just nationalistic feels.
We are already targeting them anyway. They are weak as they are dumb.
That people seriously believe Iran is winning against Israel when Israel regularly kills their scientists, blows up their nuclear facilities, openly supports separatist terrorism within Iran, slaughters Gazans, assassinates Hezbollah figures and bombs Iranian positions in Syria all without getting any retaliation from Iran shows just how delusional Paleocons/WNs/Russophiles are.
I thought about that as an explanation at first as well, but even the 2012 survey had options like “refusal” and “hard to say” which presumably people would have taken if they didn’t want to pick one of the offered choices. So I still find that drop in enthusiasm for partnership with China strange.
If the Israelis did that (which much of the right in Israel probably would like to do), it would be very hard for all but their most hardcore supporters in Western countries to still pretend they have the moral high ground. Now of course it’s possible that conditions in Europe deteriorate to such an extent because of mass immigration and tensions between Muslims and native populations that forced mass expulsions will eventually be seen once again as a legitimate way of solving interethnic/interreligious conflict, especially ones involving Muslims. But the situation in Israel-Palestine isn’t really comparable to that in Europe. The Palestinians in the West Bank have nowhere else to go, and they aren’t recent immigrants, but have lived in the area for many generations (certainly longer than present-day Jewish settlers). Even many people who dislike Muslims would regard their expulsion as rather unjust.
Easy to talk big when you’ve had the world’s only superpower and all its dependencies and vassals backing you up for 50 years.
Only a fool would think Iran is “on top”, but what the Iranians have actually achieved in defying US sphere control and US sphere liberalism dwarfs any of Israel’s Washington-subsidised achievements in terms of being worthy of any respect.
The “Refusal” crowd, yes, but the “Hard to Say” people are the true Undecided and only slightly affected by the new option.
Aside from the new option, there is another reason, more realistic expectations.
http://www.intellinews.com/macro-adviser-russia-s-asian-pivot-starts-to-pay-off-123788/
Interesting, thank you for posting this.
Germany and Sweden have been paying for Palestinian population growth. The Palestinians rejected Clinton’s deal and preferred to wage subsidised demographic war in the expectation that things could only get better for them. Population transfer from Israel would mute the most dangerous anti-nationalist force in the West. That power cannot be broken or removed, so it must be come to terms with. Trump understands this, and the Jerusalem decision is a harbinger.
The Palestine Mandate was split into Transjordan and what became Israel (“Palestine”). Israel took the West Bank and Arabs from there currently travel on Jordanian passports. Thus West Bank Arabs have the already existing Palestinian state of Jordan to live in, and it is a country they were citizens of before 1967 and they still get passports for.
Iran talks big. Paleocons talk big. Jews, however, act. We conquer and we kill. You type comments on Unz.
Being G-d’s Chosen People has it’s benefits. What can I say? The Creator always provides for his children. You should have learned that by now.
The US will be gone in 20 years anyway and we will still continue to toy with your Iranian and Syrian pets like a cat with a cornered mouse, assuming we bother leaving any alive. What’s your excuse going to be then?
So all of your fellow Paleocons are fools? I suppose I can’t argue with that.
Yeah we all know about Iran’s great achievements, like turning a functional country into a backwards theocracy, failing to reverse engineer the 1950s technology in the F-5, failing to master the 1940s technology to make nuclear weapons over the course of 40 years, failing to lift a finger to help the Palestinians in Gaza in the 2008, 2012 and 2014 despite repeatedly promising to do so, failing to respond to assassinations of their nuclear scientists before finally screaming “uncle” and dropping their nuke program to get the sanctions lifted.
If I were you, I’d find better heroes. Failing that, enjoy the remaining time you have left with your Iranians, they won’t be around much longer.
Can you make that a bit more explicit? Which force do you have in mind and why would it be muted if Israel expelled the Palestinians?
(and how do you expect this to work in Jordan? There’s probably a non-trivial chance such a scenario would lead to the collapse of the Jordanian monarchy and all manner of unpleasant conequences).
I am glad you wrote that, admitting to the true nature of the jew is always good for whites to know.
Sadly, the absence of “None of the Above” as an option in the 2012 survey makes all comparisons meaningless. (Given its high percentage in the 2016 study, its presence in the 2012 study would surely have depressed the percentages for all other options.) I’m amazed no one thought of this when they carried out the new study (if comparison was indeed the goal). Total waste of money.
https://twitter.com/notinabluemoon/status/947916533686251520
It’s about time.
The ones who really needed that option badly in 2012 chose to refuse any of the coalition partner options.
And those who only needed it a little bit?
Split among the rest.
Right, as everyone does. Mostly though you only do it when someone overwhelmingly powerful has got your back or when you are picking on somebody already basically defenceless.
As Hezbollah showed, however, things go differently when your lot accidently picks on somebody not already basically defeated and the US isn’t there to bail you out.
There seems no evident reason to take your faith-based fantasies on this score seriously.
There is clearly a general human tendency to wishful thinking, and it is certainly evident in some paleocons (as in all groupings) on the subject of Iran/Syria/Russia/Israel.
I don’t have heroes and again there seems no evident reason to treat your particular faith-based fantasies seriously.
In general I respect national achievement, as I do personal achievement, the more, the greater the odds faced and the fewer the external advantages enjoyed. Israel’s “achievements” are the equivalent of a weak boy getting his big brother to help him beat up some smaller enemies, whilst Iran’s are more like a small boy standing up against a group of hugely physically superior bullies and somehow still remaining standing a few rounds later.
Not necessarily wise, but worthy of respect regardless.
Well…in the sea of “the usual” on this site your comment is refreshing.
Free speech, opposing views, seeking balance, etc.
I was going to add my 2 cents, but this
with
took me out of it.
This may well be so, but “Refusal” strikes me as an odd way of phrasing a preference for, say, Belarus.
When I was at UCLA (surrounded by the Persians in Irangeles) they were pretty obnoxious. The religious ones were pretty cool and more down to earth. The secular types were like what Greasy mentioned; totally enamored by Persian awesomeness.
So I think it’ll come down to which way the population trends – religious or otherwise?
I don’t personally understand secular Persian fetish over ancient Persia. Persia had a great run during the Abbasid times and later; practically all her scientists, poets, etc of note come from that time.
Peace.
Don’t you type comments on Unz as well, or is it just in your free time between all that conquering and killing?
Which Jews are you talking about here, the American ones, who you claim will soon cease to exist due to intermarriage? Or Israeli Jews, who you claim live in a shit hole and are as weak as cobwebs?
If you are going to answer my questions, I have one more: in the upcoming American civil war, which is sooooo obviously going to happen, what will the sides be, and, more generally, how do you see it playing out?
The other options were America, China, EUrope or undecided.
If you favored another country or power, it was the closest available option.
A logic move if you reject Islam, but love non-Islamic Iran.
On the other hand, during Abbasid era and later, Iran was ruled by non-Iranians.
It makes for sense for nationalists to reject eras when their country was run by foreigners, even if it was otherwise a good time.
What do you think of the Iranian empire of the Safavids?
I don’t think you can really form any useful judgement of a nation from its expats.
Perhaps. Though the question is not just applicable to Iran, but the entire muslim world.
Will it go the way the entire Christian world did (certainly the non-orthodox part, but informed people frequently tell me the same is true of Orthodox communities, only to a slightly lesser degree), of defeat by and abasement to the political and cultural, socially radical left, with all their dogmatically based untruths about the nature of humanity and of the world? Or will some elements of reality be retained, along with religious self-respect? (And I do appreciate the irony implicit in talking about dogmas in this context).
Many would see that as a good thing, taking the scary bits out of Islam. Personally I have no problem with the scary bits, if I’m only able to return to a sensible exclusion of mass immigration from my country (and rectify its past excesses).
In general, my experience has been that secularists tend to have a visceral hatred for religion (as, for instance, liberal atheists in the US sphere often have for Christianity) and frequently are utterly unable to accept even an implication of any good within it. So their hatred for the religious establishment in Iran means they are compelled to deny anything good anywhere or any time about muslim Iran and look further back to pagan Persia for inspiration. Certainly that has seemed to me to be the case with some secularist Iranians I’ve spoken to.
Can you blame them? The regime in Iran imprisons, tortures and occasionally kills people for religious “crimes”. Its general ethos is not like Victorian Britain or whatever golden age some Western Christians may look back to, but more like that of the early modern fanatics who drowned Europe in a sea of blood and whose aspirations were quite totalitarian in some cases. Any faith that leads to such consequences will rightly be discredited in the eyes of many people. I don’t see why there should be some special exemption for religious belief in this regard, if anything, it’s treated too mildly compared to secular ideologies.
Large scale economic cooperation with Iran is Russia’s remaining best hope to avoid becoming even more or an EU satellite than it already is. China is just another EU. This, if real, is a serious threat to Russia’s economic autonomy (not necessarily a bad thing for anyone other than Russian nationalists). The 2 Iranian revolutions were swift coups launched from within the mob against what seemed to be strong actors. I was all ready to do my share in building a high speed railway from Tehran to Tabriz when the Shah was overthrown. It didn’t take much to defeat him.
The Chinese promised much but delivered little. For example, they wanted to send their roubles back to Russia to pay for a small stretch of railway line which would have allowed them to control the trains used on most of the proposed high speed system (by banning non Chinese locomotives). It is one of the reasons, Ulyakaev, something of a Eurasianist, was removed. Siemens is back now.
Hey Mitleser,
During the Abbasid times the ruling class were Persianized Arabs and ethnic Persians. The Abbasid revolt was exactly an overthrow of the Umayyad rulers (who were Arab supremacists) by the Persian Mawali and their allies. Yes they spoke Arabic, but that was the lingua franca of the Muslim world at the time. The Persian contribution to Islamic theology, doctrine, jurisprudence, etc. equals or eclipses that of the Arabs (this is no hyperbole).
The Safavids were a fairly capable gun-powder empire. It would have been nice if they weren’t rivals to the Ottomans, but hey what’re you gonna do – people fight over these things. As a Sunni, I do wish they hadn’t forced much of the population to go Shiah (since Persia was a powerhouse of Sunni scholarship for around nine hundred years), but that’s old history now.
Peace
Hey Randal,
For me, I think this comes down to whether or not the institutions – or rather the people – who define the religion can be kept from being compromised. Thus far, I am sometimes shocked at how well our scholarship has withstood the onslaught of post-modernity. You just don’t have any of the top scholars in the Muslim world rethinking things like homosexuality or usury or even substantially redefining marriage laws. I think a lot of that has to do with our method of transmission of the religion and its verification – the fact that scholars are on a verifiable human chain back to the first generation:
https://www.amazon.com/Insad-Islam-Shaykh-al-Fattah-Ghudda/dp/1909460060
I’ve talked about the scary bits before, and I don’t think there is any way to get rid of the fact that extremist groups will arise now and again and go against consensus. It’s happened before and is happening currently, I doubt we’ll ever be rid of it. If you defang the religion completely, well then it loses its defense mechanism which is useful when fighting back against an aggressive Left Liberalism so it’s a balance that must be struck. But I understand the apprehension some people in the West have regarding things that seem positively “medieval” which is a pejorative in their eyes; different histories, different conclusions.
I agree with you about the secular Persians and why they would take the stance that they do.
Peace.
It’s all about Russia’s geopolitical interests, for some people. Nationalism is good until it becomes real inconvenient for Russia (Ukraine, Iran).
This province, on the Iraqi border, is only 1 of 31. Arabs are 2% of Iran’s total population. If this makes Iran part of the Arab world than so it Michigan. Or Sweden.
I think you misunderstand it, like Greasy William, who thinks we’re all “Iran fanboys”. We just want our globalist overlords to lose, and destroying Syria would be a huge win for them.
Besides, it’s obvious that the destruction of Syria would be a huge humanitarian catastrophe, it would destroy Christianity in Syria, also be a source of millions of more refugees into Europe. Do you disagree on these three points?
https://twitter.com/V4Analysis/status/948034312255000576
All flows from national sovereignty, including border controls (migration) and a rejection of Globalism as mutual respect for national sovereignty is a precondition for it.
To the Iran sanctions in place until Obama’s nuclear deal. It was during that time that Iran did all the heavy lifting of propping up the Syrian regime, and Russia stabbed them in the back by allowing the sanctions to go through.
Shame on you!
I was referring to this thread. I also came across the stories of Russian and Chinese smuggling operations. My conclusions were slightly different from yours, in that I think the sanctions regime would not only be used against Russia and China if they decided to go more flexible on North Korea, but they can be readily used against them regardless of their government policies.
The reason is simple. Where there are sanctions, there is smuggling. Smuggling is more likely to be overwhelmingly from neighboring countries. That’s Russia, China, South Korea, and maybe Japan. It’s less likely from overly hostile countries. It’s also less likely from rich first world countries. Finally, it’s also less likely from higher trust or at least transparent countries than from corrupt second world cultures. All this essentially excludes South Korea and Japan, and leaves us with substantial smuggling from China and Russia. This without the knowledge, let alone approval of their respective governments.
Also, there doesn’t need to be “substantial” smuggling. Even a country of 20 million is huge, a few tankers are but drops in a bucket. But any such story – and some were bound to happen – will be used as evidence of Russian and Chinese perfidy. I’m not sure if the Tweeter-in-Chief knows this or if he’s being duped by his neocon associates, but it’s unlikely that there would be no story of smuggling from China or Russia.
Did the Chinese and Russians not know this? They must be literally stupid.
They are part of the Arab world because they share the same religion and geography.
It doesn’t mean they are literally Arabs.
I’m expecting someone to chime in with the statement that they know it, but just don’t care about western propaganda. Which is again stupid, since the US and EU cannot do much without some consent from the electorate. This is why they have the most effective propaganda machine in all of written history. So such propaganda means that the neocons are now in a stronger position if they want to institute further sanctions on Russia, or any sanctions against China.
The Russians and Chinese are stupid either way.
Syria being taken out is a prerequisite to any attack on Iran. Iran was right to see they had a key national interest at stake in Syria, and they won for very little cost.
If the US attacked Iran it would be a long air campaign, there would be no ground forces involved. Iran has no airforce and they don’t have the finances to acquire one. Iran now has the S300, thanks to the partnership with Russia in Syria, as well as experienced irregular and regular forces from service in Iraq and Syria. Hard to see Iranian involvement in Iraq and Syria as anything but an enormous success.
Do you live in the US? The country is clearly headed for a civil war and breakup. Most Americans agree with me.
The US managed to overthrow the Ukrainian government in Russia’s own backyard. The CIA has destabilising Iran as a key priority and is devoting a great deal of resources to it.
Not really Russia is a European country, good relations with China are obviously a priority, and economically will be of great import, but with Europe it is a case of culture as well. The US is losing influence over Europe and it is a simple matter of patience.
Nope, I just don’t care about the Ukraine or Iran.
A survey among the “elite” that is among the specially selected people. It is unlikely that this survey is of great importance. Any “Alliance” between Russia and the EU is absolutely impossible in the foreseeable future.
Blame them? Yes, they are traitors to their nation at a time when it is facing a real, imminent and existential threat. Do I understand them? For sure. The world isn’t a simple place of easy judgements based upon supposed universal values, as far too many Americans think.
It’s nothing really to do with the particular faith, it’s government, and the people it enables, that do that. Governments have killed and tortured for power and for ideology throughout history, and with no need for any particular justification other than the retention of power and the suppression of dissent.
The secular faith of your own country, liberal democratism, has caused many thousands of brutal killings and tortures in countries that have been the targets of wars for democracy and human rights, all in the name of the supposed greater good (as official killings in Iran are in the name of the supposed greater good). One could easily say that it is therefore a discredited ideology. But where does that get you?
Yeah, but that was not what the Russian elite wanted.
The sooner the Russian elite will get rid of illusions about the possibility of rapprochement with the EU the better for everyone.
Ah, ok. For explanatory purposes, I’d say that in the early days the Russians were probably expecting the Syrian government to collapse and weren’t willing to fully commit to saving it until there was reason to believe it could be saved. But the Russians had been letting Iran down by collaborating with US abuses of the UN for many years before that, of course.
Yes, I missed that one.
Actually I agree entirely with you on that.
As I noted elsewhere the obvious opportunity was there for the Russians and Chinese to turn the whole thing around on the US and change the entire dynamics of the situation. They chose not to do so, probably in the hope that a united face and increased economic pressure would force NK to stop rocking the boat.
That might work or it might not, but even if it works the result is another victory for US bullying.
It wasn’t hard. US play in Ukraine was very simple and straightforward, and everybody except president Yanukovich and the Kremlin so it coming.
I agree with Randal: the intelligence of people making foreign policy decisions, both in Russia and the US, should not be overestimated. US open endorsment of Iranian protests appears to be a mistake, don’t look for some Machiavelian strategy here.
I agree with you wholeheartedly here – this is, in essence, what was done to Christianity.
At the risk of depressing you, Dreher at TAC has a piece highlighting the ongoing corrosive effect of US sphere culture on Islam. Dreher is a problematic writer for a number of reasons (most importantly because he is a dishonest race denier and censor), but he is very alert to this particular issue in relation to his own faith.
A Benedict Option For Muslims?
No doubt you can dismiss as fringe irrelevance this kind of nonsense:
“‘Yes, actually, I am queer, and hands down I am Muslim,’” Nur said.”
But a Christian would have said the same about someone saying the equivalent about being Christian whilst openly flouting the fundamentals of the faith, a hundred years ago. The rise in the number of compromised individuals of this kind claiming to be within the faith is a big part of the corrosion process. In the Christian history, divorce and contraception played large parts in building this kind of compromised population supposedly within the faith. (A direct equivalent of this statement would not have been likely, of course, mostly because active homosexual behaviour was too universally recognised as profoundly morally corrupt for this kind of extreme to be possible at the time.)
So would-be regional overlords such as Russia or Iran are better than America? Having a multipolar world in which the other poles are positive forces (as was the case prior to World War I) is good, but it’s not something that is a good for its own sake. Russia is no North Korea, but would you want North Korea to be a world power just for the sake of America not having a monopoly on power. Would you want America balanced by a large Caliphate? Do you wish the USSR was back in all its power? I wouldn’t.
I view Russia as the lesser evil in Syria than ISIS or Sunni Islamists, certainly. In general Islam is a bad force politically and socially. So secular Baathism is not as bad as ISIS, but secular Iranian nationalism and Christianity are better still.
I’m no expert on the Middle East, however. Wasn’t there a time when Lebanese Christians were allied with Israel? Presumably the fall of Iran might shift the balance of power and be cause for a renewal of such an alliance. I suspect that with the Baathists/Shiites gone the West ISIS would n longer be useful for the West and instead stuff like this would be happening:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sabra_and_Shatila_massacre
But again – I don’t pretend to have deep knowledge of these things.
Just to clarify – I do not support massacres by Christians. I used that simply as an example of a Christian-Israeli anti-Muslim alliance. I don’t view Jews as any worse than Shiites. If Christians can live as well when they are allied to Jews as when they are allied to Shiites (as is currently the case) what is the difference? Such an alliance, combined with a non-theocratic Iran, would probably be a good thing.
Well, I mean, duh, dude.
Sending Lenin in a sealed train to Russia was perfectly congruent with the interests of German nationalism.
At the present time, American and many European nationalisms are congruent with Russian nationalist interests. Ukrainian nationalism isn’t, since it directly competes with Russian nationalism (down to sharing the same audience), and has friendly relations with Russia’s globalist enemies – even if they otherwise don’t much like each other.
In my opinion, “altruistic” nationalisms are maladaptive and will be selected against. We see this in the US, after all; didn’t take the Trumpists long to transition from principled opposition to globalism/intervention, to “fuck you, I got mine” mode.
Or take the question back to Ukraine: Do Ukrainian nationalists like Russian nationalists (incidentally, even the small percentage of pro-Ukrainian Russian nationalists who went to fight to Ukraine got shafted)? For that matter, do they like Serbian nationalists? Do they have any opinion about Chinese or Mexican nationalists? Of course not. Nationalists are concerned with what they see as their own national interests. They like those who support them, hate those who oppose them, are indifferent to those who don’t do much of either.
The Iranian government might be glad to subsidize travel, food, phones, for KURDS or AZERIS who want to leave Iran and head to Europe to mooch off, rob, and rape the infidels. Kills two birds with one stone. Removes non-Persians from Iran and creates more costs and problems for Europe.
I’m American. We cannot, in fact, afford to spend money propping up or destabilizing regimes abroad, any more than Iran can afford to do so. Nor can we afford to have a war with them or to occupy or rebuild their countries, any more than iran could afford to do.
Every single dollar that we have spent on the unnecessary, nondefensive invasion and occupation of Iraq, and the unnecessary, nondefensive occupation of Afghanistan, and the interference in Egypt, Syria, and Yemen, etc., has been BORROWED.
Better yet, the US gov borrowed a lot of it from China and Saudi Arabia, regimes that certainly do not have the best interests of Americans, or westerners or Christians generally, at heart.
The US government is broke. Any additional spending results in yet more borrowing. That necessitates some combination of domestic spending cuts, higher taxes, and/or more inflation (printing dollars not backed by additional production of good and services or by redeemability for gold or silver or some tangible usable commodity) to monetize the debt.
Adding to the Fed gov debt (“national debt”) for a war against Iran or anything else, will only hasten the day when the US dollar loses its status as world reserve currency, a day that is already coming. We will be lucky if the reserve currency mechanism, at least at first, is a basket including the Yuan, Dollar, Yen, Euro, and Ruble. It could be the Yuan alone after that if we are not careful.
In the end, they paid for this.
Nowadays, German nationalism is broken and dying.
Same one that the Balfour Declaration was intended to get on Britain’s side. This is World War I(mmigration), and we need certain powers that be to stay neutral.
If the family dictatorship in Jordan is something we must protect and human rights mandate a second Palestinians state, we are going to be slowly but surely replaced. I see no prospect at all of mass repatriation of European immigrant communities . That will not happen and there is no available way way to avoid acceleration mass immigration by Western political bootstrapping.
Human rights weaponisation and demographic armament is something that Western countries are helpless against, unless the aforementioned power is subtracted from the enemy coalition. The chattering class and intellectuals of the West would lose confidence if their ally within the West stopped supporting them because of a Middle East war involving Israel in which the West Bank Palestinians were transferred. I see no prospect at all of mass repatriation of European immigrant communities–whatever happens. Halting the inflow is possible though.
You really think Jewish organizations in Western countries would end their support for mass immigration and multiculturalism if Israel got away with massive ethnic cleansing? Sounds terribly naive to me. And since you mention the Balfour declaration as a precedent, it’s not like that one worked to Britain’s benefit in the end either.
Hey Randal,
That was a good article – especially his summary points. I generally enjoy Mr. Dreher, though I can see why you have your concerns. I think with religious people, they just have different priorities. I mean, I recognize biological differences and patterns between races and ethnicities (even tribes), but I consider them my brothers – even while rejecting a Pakistani who is genetically similar but an atheist*.
We’ve been aware of this phenomenon among the Muslim masses. One teacher told me that it used to be rare that a person would leave their religion, but now it is so common that it does not surprise him any more. One thing though, since I’ve observed trends in our community – I’m not very impressed by the people that leave the religion (usually they go atheist, Left-liberal, full-on-SJW – basically they left it for feelz and “muh gay pride parades”), but I have been very impressed by the people coming into the religion.
The one thing that I see in our community is that; 1) there is a crisis of authority (meaning many people are not listening to the ulema or trying to “wing it” on their own, but 2) our authoritative institutions have not been compromised as yet (since the authority still resides with the ulema who have – for the most part – faithfully kept up their guardianship role).
So for instance, Tunisia recently made some changes to the inheritance rules for women and also now allows Muslim women to marry non-Muslim men – this was denounced by the ulema:
“Mainstream Muslim clerics almost universally see the inheritance rules as enshrined in the Quran, Islam’s holy book, and consider the rules on marriage to be equally unquestionable in Islamic law.
The country’s leading imams and theologians have issued a statement denouncing the president’s proposals as a ‘flagrant violation of the precepts’ of Islam.”
http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2017/09/tunisia-lifts-ban-muslim-women-marrying-muslims-170914154657961.html
Government edicts wax and wane, but if the ship of religion (its institutions and guides) can weather the storm, we’ll make it out of choppy waters eventually. The problem is if people start panicking and people hurl their principles overboard hoping to make the load lighter. The thing is that it’s really a belief issue – if one actually believes in Islam and its core doctrines, then there really is no room for pessimism – belief in its doctrines assumes it wins out in the end:
“It is He who sent His Messenger with guidance and the religion of truth to manifest it over all religion. And God suffices as a witness.” (48:28)
It’s like watching a movie with the lead character hanging off the cliff and getting shot at – you don’t know how he’s getting out of it, but you know he will. Christianity seems to have lost that confidence and it seems to be struggling to hang on (I can’t tell you how many emptying churches our community keeps buying for use as mosques) – and when you feel you are in that position – compromise is inevitable. But with religion, it’s not something you simply academically revive based on statistics and a theory of how it helps manage society – you actually have to believe it in your core.
Honestly, I am still reeling from how quickly I saw things shift just within my lifetime that it was totally acceptable to ostracize this or make fun of it on TV and even public and that it has now become a complete 180 turn. At least in the West. And it seems other ancient traditions are also under the gun to bring things up to date:
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/dalai-lama-faces-tough-questions-683960
Peace.
*Doesn’t mean I’m for Pakistanis demographically taking over a place like Britain – it would cease to be the historical and distinct Britain.
Rejecting interventionism abroad isn’t just a matter of “altruism”, there are lots of reasons for scepticism of such interventions based on pure self-interest (e.g. waste of money better spent at home, loss of troops killed or maimed, loss of prestige when the intervention fails and turns out to have negative consequences, unnecessary hostility with other great powers, loss of “soft power” due to being perceived as imperialists, warmongers etc.).
And I have my doubts whether the dumb MAGA “nationalism” of the “let’s liberate some Muzzies by bombing them!” kind will prove to be adaptive in the end; it certainly won’t redound to the benefit of many of its adherents.
That’s the plan.
And then Iran blocks Hormuz.
To unblock it just with the air power feels………difficult.
No I do not.
Disagree.
I believe you. I also have contacts there who would disagree and those guys do know something about civil wars and such.
Make an inventory re those Americans that agree with you. Simple criteria. “Ever been involved in a civil war in any capacity?”
There are a couple of elements required for a civil war. Big topic. I don’t see those in USA.
Hell, I don’t even see huge unrest there.
People like …no….love…to underestimate USA.
It’s just surprising that “Israeli firster” would do the same.
Agree.
Dreher is a moron, and the kind of sympathy for Islam he shows once again in this piece will come back to haunt Christians in the future. The way things are going, at least in Europe, Christians are very, very foolish by becoming pro-Islam apologists and trying to link up with Muslims (who apart from a few special cases like North Korea are the biggest persecutors of Christians in many countries today) in a common fight against secularism. I’m against the kind of endless war of civilizations in the form of military interventions some on the US right seem to be enthusiastically looking forward to, and Muslims do have some legitimate grievances in this regard. But Islam really is a force of persecution and oppression in large parts of the globe, and its growth in Europe is a completely negative phenomenon (and will be viewed as that by ever larger numbers of native Europeans). Given that, the Christian establishment in Europe with its support for Islamization (which they seem to be more enthusastic about than helping persecuted Mideast Christians) is simply demented. This will have extremely negative repercussions for the future of Christianity in Europe, which will, with some justification, seen by many as a religion of traitors, collaborators and fools.
They’re only traitors when accepting the help of foreign powers or selling out national interests. Mere opposition to Iran’s clerical regime isn’t treason imo.
I certainly regard liberal interventionism as a completely discredited ideology, its failures and the carnage it has caused should be pointed out at every opportunity.
Interesting interview with an anonymous Iranian journalist about the protests here (in German):
https://www.cicero.de/aussenpolitik/Iran-Proteste-Ajatollah-Rohani-Naher_Osten
Main points:
– The protests were started by “radicals” (of an Islamic kind) with ties to the supreme ayatollah and the military; originally they were only directed against president Rohani. However the “radicals” quickly lost control of the protests (which according to the journalist weren’t monitored at first by the police) which spread to other sectors of dissatisfied Iranians and took on a generalized anti-regime character.
– He makes much of economic conditions as reason for the protests, claims the Iranian stock exchange has collapsed (is that true?), and that prices for fuel and gas were set to increase by 50%. Also lots of rumours that welfare benefits were to be cut, or that state support for some religious institutions was to be scaled down.
– He claims many protesters are young people, including the unemployed; protests are supposedly organized over the messenger service Telegram.
– He thinks the protests will be repressed and fail.
– Despite being anti-regime himself, he thinks an “Iranian spring” would be disastrous, and lead to civil war along ethnic and religious fault lines, with Iran’s neighbors intervening in support of their coethnics/coreligionists.
It would take the wind out their sails. The Balfour Declaration led to displacement of Arabs, but was to help make sure Britain didn’t lose the war. As things stood in 1916, Britain could not beat Germany, and as things stand today the West cannot beat replacement immigration. The kind of victory that you seem to advocate going for is impossible. International law isn’t irrelevant, but it isn’t a suicide pact either.
Jewish support wasn’t important for Britain winning WW1, the British were basically duped by Chaim Weizmann and his kind (and hilariously enough, their motives for the Balfour declaration – belief in powerful Jewish interest groups – are nowadays seen as antisemitic). All they got in return was having to deal with that stupid Palestine issue, British soldiers killed by Jewish or Arab terrorists and anti-British Hollywood movies like Exodus.
I think it’s very unlikely expelling the Palestinians would mean an end to the mendacity and hypocrisy of pro-Israel forces in the West. At best, it might make it easier to point out that hypocrisy and to make them shut up, but I wouldn’t count on it.
I’m an Azeri, where is my complimentary blonde with huge tits?
Better get one quick before they go out of stock; they are manufacturing less and less of that model nowadays. And apparently the current owners seem to be complaining quite a bit on these forums. I think there is a recall…
If you let it veer too far to the left, it blows up your marriage and takes your kids…
Or so I hear.
I’ve known a lot of very smart Iranians, and a look at the architecture of Isfahan and Shiraz shows they can accomplish things.
I’m curious about why you have such a bee in your bonnet about them. Did some Leila give you the clap or something?
Ah, you’re a Jew. You celebrate an imaginary slaughter of them every Purim.
Hilarious if true. Congrats on the 666D chess move, LOL.
Just looked it up – apparently not.
http://tse.ir/en/indices.html
Click the 2y option, it seems it has actually boomed since the removal of sanctions (consistent with other economic indicators such as the GDP boom).
I have been reading the Russia war blogger El Murid on Iran in the past couple of days: https://el-murid.livejournal.com/tag/%D0%98%D1%80%D0%B0%D0%BD
Don’t know if he has any special expertise, but according to him, this has more of the markers of 1979 than 2009. The protesters are lower class, not liberal urban hipsters like in 2009, which makes using the Basij (which he described as being “militarized titushki“) against them much more difficult because of their common low class origins
Some interesting comments here:
http://turcopolier.typepad.com/sic_semper_tyrannis/2018/01/iran-open-thread.html
especially Nr.4 (“Babak”), who confirms that the city where the protests started (Mashhad) is known in Iran as a “hisbollahi” place, that is full of hardline Muslims.
Hard to see what to make of this, one reads a lot of contradictory things, but yes, many of the protesters seem to be lower class, not the urban bourgeoisie (with ties to reformists) like in 2009.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stormtrooper#Stormtroopers_in_1918
The Americans were slow to fully commit the mass of their forces, and the Balfour declaration speeding that up a bit could have been crucial. It was the right thing to do. Letting Israel resolve their only outstanding problem is the right thing to do now. I wouldn’t count on the stuffing being knocked out of the immigration lobby, but it’s worth a try. We are not going to get a total victory anyway.
They were slow to commit the mass of their forces, because their army had been pathetically small before entry into WW1 and it took time to raise and equip sufficient forces for full-scale participation in the fighting in France. The Balfour Declaration was irrelevant, by the end of 1917 much of the US was quite hysterically anti-German anyway, and Wilson wanted to send US troops to Europe, to make the US the arbiter of the post-war settlement in his quest for making the world safe for democracy.
And I know about Sturmtruppen. But on the other hand, Britain had tanks by 1918, which the Germans failed to develop in sufficient quality and quantity.
I find your enthusiasm for expelling the Palestinians from the West bank rather strange and misguided. But Palestine isn’t really my conflict, so I’m not going to argue with you.
Yes it is debatable how important US forces were. Bear in mind British troops were diverted from the western front to Palestine to make good on Zionist promises. The evolution in British offensive tactics happened regardless, as was the naval blockade with the slow collapse of German industry.
Balfour was as much about access to finance, but there is a lot of evidence this was still withheld until the Tsar had been overthrown and Russia was no longer an ally.
A lot of the dumb stuff America does is due to the Israel lobby. The US remains preeminent in many spheres.
How dumb they are allowing Israel to hijack their foreign policy is a separate issue.
Jewish support wasn’t important for Britain winning WW1, the British were basically duped by Chaim Weizmann and his kind
According to a common history textbook used by British students in 1980s – the Schools Council History Project 13-16 – the government hoped that the Balfour Declaration would convince American Jews to use their significant influence to push the US government into the war on the British/French side and encourage similar Jewish interests in Russia to help keep that country in the war. (I’m guessing present day textbooks are more PC). Also, some officials thought having a population base near the Suez Canal owing gratitude to Britain would be good too.
As to gratitude if there’s one nation Jews ought to feel it for it’s the Anglo-Saxon American nation yet they’ve done nothing but take one dump after another on it for decades. Gratitude is hard enough to come by from Western nations so expecting it from any Near Easterners – all religions and ethnic groups – is pretty naive. If anything the end of Iranian threat would remove what leverage exists to restrain Jewish ambitions both in the Near East and US/Europe.
<
blockquote>I agree with Randal: the intelligence of people making foreign policy decisions, both in Russia and the US, should not be overestimated</blockquote
Russia has greatly improved its relations with China,Belarus,Kazakhstan,Azerbaijian,Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan,Kyrgyzstan the last 4 years. Relations with Japan and South Korea have shown improvement, India and Armenia relations have stayed at the same positive level. China obviously a key success, great skill to improve the relations with Azerbaijan and post-Kerimov Uzbekistan, Belarus/Kazakhstan and even Krygyzstan are impressive successes given the stresses on theirs and Russia's economies from sanctions and the occasional historical/cultural/trade disputes that arise occasionally.
Ukraine and Moldova who have become US puppets have become basketcases/laughing stocks, Georgia too is a mess. Russia can't be held responsible for the Americans and EU cretinous actions against them
To say that the Kremlin has a bad FP department is incorrect, it's the US that does…..the only problem being that by and large, the US can create all these catastrophes without suffering anything from them.
Russia did have an Olympics at the time it should be noted, and the EU AA was, to anybody with a functioning brain…an idiotic deal for Ukraine ( as proven beyond doubt now)
China,Belarus,Kazakhstan,Azerbaijian,Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan,Kyrgyzstan the last 4 years. Relations with Japan and South Korea have shown improvement, India and Armenia relations have stayed at the same positive level. China obviously a key success, great skill to improve the relations with Azerbaijan and post-Kerimov Uzbekistan, Belarus/Kazakhstan and even Krygyzstan are impressive successes given the stresses on theirs and Russia's economies from sanctions and the occasional historical/cultural/trade disputes that arise occasionally.
Ukraine and Moldova who have become US puppets have become basketcases/laughing stocks, Georgia too is a mess. Russia can't be held responsible for the Americans and EU cretinous actions against them
To say that the Kremlin has a bad FP department is incorrect, it's the US that does…..the only problem being that by and large, the US can create all these catastrophes without suffering anything from them.
Russia did have an Olympics at the time it should be noted, and the EU AA was, to anybody with a functioning brain…an idiotic deal for Ukraine ( as proven beyond doubt now)
Even I agree with it, leave all this Israel stuff for another columnist, Phillip Giraldi writes incessantly on this topic every week.
It was in 2011 and 2012 when Russia clearly did not seem to know yet what it was doing or what it wanted to do or what it could do. It was under Medvedev’s rule. It took Russia to wake up another couple years. The 2014 Ukraine Maidan was the final wake up call which seemed to make Putin take risky actions (like Crimea and deployment in Syria).
I can see such a possibility that this kind of thinking actually goes on among Israeli elites. But to make this kind of offer to Europeans there must be Europeans who are willing to consider it which necessitates among them a belief that the influx of immigrants to Europe as something negative. So far with few exceptions this kind of thinking is foreign and even abhorrent among European leftist elites. One may wonder whether the immigration waves to Europe were engineered to let the New Right elites arise in Europe to make the deal eventually possible.
Natanyahu is very friendly with anti-immigrant V4 countries. I am sure it is in his power to call off pro-immigration activists like Barbara Spectre. There is one problem however, what would keep Israel and Jews from reneging on the deal after Europeans look the other way when the Palestinians get cleansed?
Jewish support wasn’t important for Britain winning WW1, the British were basically duped by Chaim Weizmann and his kind (and hilariously enough, their motives for the Balfour declaration – belief in powerful Jewish interest groups – are nowadays seen as antisemitic).
They helped to bring the US into the war. There is no question about it. Did they play on the so-called “anti-semitic” beliefs in their omnipotence? Certainly, this is part of it. It still goes on. Many 2nd and 3rd wold countries when trying to gain favors form the US start their solicitations in Tel Aviv because of this belief and no Israeli is trying to dissuade them form this “anti-semitic” belief. On the contrary.
Wrong. Russia was planning to deploy to Syria in 2013, before Maidan. Maidan only delayed it.
True enough, but it was a close thing that it didn’t matter and only obvious in retrospect. No US president could have let Germany win the war the US came in mainly because it looked like that was going to happen but the US left it so late that Germany might have still had a chance for victory if they played their cards right in 1918. In the event the Stormtrroop attack was on the strongest part of the allied line (ie theBritish). It was 3d artillery barges that were the really successful British innovation in WW1, not tanks.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IiWgB_P8cfY And you know what that led to.
Russia or China are not the Islamic State, nor are they the USSR. The USA is currently a force of evil in the world. In the Middle Eastern context it is creating the conditions for the ethnic cleansing of Christians (in Iraq under the occupation forces of Bush II the Christian minority decreased by over 50%, it also supported Syrian jihadists), and the rearrangement of alliances what you propose is a fantasy: following the collapse of secular authorities, Christians are ethnically cleansed quickly from anywhere where they don’t form a majority of the population, which is, basically, anywhere outside of Lebanon. So there’s simply no time for such a rearrangement. Of course, from Israel, it was Jews who ethnically cleansed Christians, and Lebanese Christians gained nothing from being allied to Jews. Which is why now all of them support the Shiites.
But for readers of the Unz Review it’s well known that the USA is a force of evil in its own sphere of influence and even domestically, spreading feminism, “anti-racism” (anti-white racism), LGBTQETC “rights”, and similar things. I understand you seem totally unconcerned about whites quickly becoming a minority in the USA, or indeed in much of Europe and the settler colonies, but you might understand that even if we accept your premise that countries like Poland, Ukraine, Hungary etc. will retain their original ethnic majorities while staying within (or joining) NATO and the EU (questionable in my opinion), it’s a highly inferior outcome compared to keeping white majorities in all white countries. Long term, losing white majorities (and perhaps even Islamicisation) will be an outcome greatly inferior to even communism. So the way most commenters see it here, while communists murdered millions and liberalism didn’t (at least not domestically), long term it’s a greater evil than communism.
So the question is, which is better: having an evil empire as an uncontrolled hyperpower, or a balance with some powers at the very worst equally evil, but at best considerably better. For example China seems to be indifferent to whites’ fate, and doesn’t spend millions of dollars on financing leftist media organizations (like the USA State Department), doesn’t criticize Hungary for making laws targeting Soros organizations (like Tillerson and some of his officials did recently) etc. Actually, even the Russians seem to be indifferent to the internal workings and immigration or racial policies of their allies or vassals.
In any event, having a liberal hyperpower is not what we wish for. I understand that a stronger Russia is bad for Ukraine, and I don’t expect Ukrainians to sacrifice themselves for the greater good, but then again, you didn’t seem to be very understanding why Hungarians are unhappy about the ethnic minority being deprived of its right to attend Hungarian secondary education. I don’t blame you, just mentioning that interests can be misaligned in some cases.
The Russian state is a “pacified” oligarchic state that is indifferent, rather than hostile or supportive, towards European traditions and cultures. It has linked itself to Muslim Central Asia, provides Muslim Chechens with special status, and promotes nasty elements abroad (such as Yanukovich in Ukraine). It was one of Mugabe’s biggest sponsors, for example:
https://www.news24.com/Africa/Zimbabwe/champion-of-land-redistribution-mugabe-hounoured-by-african-youths-in-russia-report-20171019
By neither saving Donbas by annexing it and keeping Ukrainian forces out completely as in Crimea, nor allowing Kiev to take fully control, but instead providing enough to support to keep the war gong at a simmer for years, the Russian state makes a policy that insures the maximum number of dead Europeans. It’s a reasonable policy for the Russian State – don’t waste funds feeding Donbas, keep Ukraine busy and wasting its own lives and funds in the conflict. But- not good for those who value European people.
Depends where. In the Middle East – yes.
And Russia, supporter of Mugabe, promoter of BLM on its media, is some kind of positive force here? It will use European nationalists if it finds them useful, and will oppose them if it doesn’t. It is not an uncommon idea among Poles for example that Russia played its part in the Syrian crisis precisely in order to flood the West with refugees. Weakening and destabilizing Europe by filling it up with refugees, and strengthening nationalists whom Russia funds, is a win-win for the Russian State.
Hungarians are spoiled because they are far from Russia. If Ukraine is thrown under the bus and reduced to a Russian satellite, you will be next. Maybe it will support the Roma for destabilization purposes if Hungary isn’t compliant, or maybe support some corrupt businessman with financial ties to insure compliance (how would you like your own Yanukovich?). Those with borders next to the Russian state, such as Poles and the Baltic peoples, are less pro-Russian than Hungarians for a reason. You might consider why.
It is Russia’s right to pursue such policies, to improve its State’s position at the expense of European peoples. But the stronger Russia is, the worse it is for its neighbors (particularly if they are small, divided, or weak).
There is a zone of countries that are very European – Poland, the Baltics, Hungary, Slovakia, Czechia, Ukraine, Romania, Belarus, Croatia. Essentially – the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth plus Austria-Hungary (minus Austria itself, alas). A fully European world. For the Russian state this could be a challenge, so it seeks to divide them, and perhaps absorb some of them into Orthodox-Islamic Eurasia, making the last real European space smaller. You think it will hold out if it is reduced to just Poland and Hungary?
It is much less so on these things than is the EU. No EU country elected a Trump, after all.
Venice commission criticized how Russian was treated, not Hungarian. Didn’t you read the link?
Prior to reform Hungarian students didn’t know the national language and couldn’t pass university entrance exams. They could either live in ethnic ghettos or move to Hungary. The reforms simply mean that Hungarian kids will still go to Hungarian primary schools but will have Hungarian no more than half the day in secondary schools. Do you think this is unreasonable? When I asked you before you didn’t answer. Would you support gypsy schools with no more than 1-3 hours of Hungarian per week in Hungary?
That sounds quite paranoid tbh, like a parody of the domino theory the Americans had about Vietnam, or all those appeasement tropes so beloved by neoconservatives. I’m all for credible deterrence against Russia, and sure, there’s a lot to criticize about its conduct in Ukraine…it certainly was a flagrant breach of international law, and deliberately creating a “frozen conflict” can indeed be regarded as quite cynical. But there’s nothing to indicate that Russia intends to expand again into east central Europe, or indeed would be able to, apart maybe from the Baltic states with their Russian minorities (the latter being a possibility one obviously has to be prepared for, just in case). Sorry to be blunt, but in the end Ukraine isn’t a part of NATO and the EU, and is rather marginal to European security.
As for Putin somehow being behind the “refugee” crisis and the upsurge in support for nationalists in Western Europe, these are pretty ridiculous conspiracy theories on a level with the “Putin stole the election” nonsense in the US. It’s a convenient excuse so that all those wonderful cosmopolitans, liberals and progressives don’t have to face up to the reality how badly they’ve f***ed up and how brittle their fake consensus is.
Trump has shown himself to be mostly a con man, and in all likelihood his presidency will end in failure. The EU is indeed pretty bad, but you can’t get away from the fact that much of the multiculturalist, “antiracist” nonsense plaguing Europe is an import from the US. We now have a situation where “progressives” in Europe use concepts like “white privilege”, “no such thing as reverse racism, only whites can be racist”, “deconstructing whiteness” etc. These concepts aren’t products of an authentic European development, they originate in America.
But the largest flood of refugees came before Russia’s intervention, and slowed considerably afterwards, especially once the intervention started showing considerable success. One could more easily make the claim that it was American anti-Assad policy that drove the migrant crisis in an effort to weaken Europe (if you’re not Polish, of course). In the end, though, it was the Europeans’ own stupidity in not combatting illegal migration that was most to blame.
I think the more rational Poles realize this, which is why they’re going to the mat with the EU on the issue, despite EU disunity also playing into Russia’s hands. I don’t think Polish nationalists are pro-Russian, like some their Western European counterparts. Correct me if I’m wrong about this.
You don’t think domino theory was valid?
Russia (logically) wants to be surrounded by friends, and if it doesn’t have friends but rivals it would naturally prefer those rivals to be weak, unstable, etc. Ukraine is in this situation currently. Why don’t you think that if Russia expanded its sphere of influence, the ones next would not fall into this category also?
Ukraine is marginal for the EU as a whole, but with 40 million people it would be a very large piece for a potential eastern Europe zone of conservative, European countries.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/syria/12180073/Nato-chief-Vladimir-Putin-weaponising-refugee-crisis-to-break-Europe.html
Vladimir Putin is purposefully creating a refugee crisis in order to “overwhelm” and “break” Europe, Nato’s military commander in Europe said today.
“Together, Russia and the Assad regime are deliberately weaponising migration in an attempt to overwhelm European structures and break European resolve,” Gen Breedlove told the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Polish media was more detailed:
http://niezalezna.pl/77702-jak-putin-i-asad-produkuja-uchodzcow-rosjanie-stosuja-taktyke-z-wojny-czeczenskiej
It seems the European migrant crisis coincided with Russian intervention in Syria, and benefited Russia. Of course the West needed to have stupid elites that could be exploited in this way.
Correct, but don’t these ideas seem stronger in progressive Western Europe than in the USA as a whole, however?
Мaybe it’s not an uncommon idea among Poles, but this idea is absolutely wild delirium. You discredit your posts, telling such an obvious absurdity.
I appears the Turks were also supporting this idea. I suspect that this was one reason among others..
It sure wasn’t in Southeast Asia. And while I don’t approve of the methods used by Russia, I don’t think you can totally ignore the role of NATO expansionism in all this. There were persistent proposals of admitting Ukraine (and Georgia) to NATO. I don’t think any self-respecting Russian government could ever have accepted that and not tried in some way to prevent such an outcome.
You don’t get to create a zone of “conservative, European countries” if you’re in NATO and the EU. It’s like hoping for a zone of capitalist, Christian countries in the Warsaw pact would have been. And your Intermarium is a fantasy for the foreseeable future.
Breedlove is a militarist nutcase who deliberately wanted to increase tensions with Russia. He’s absolutely not trustworthy. And even if Russia had any role in provoking the “refugee” crisis (which I’ve never seen any evidence for – it’s not even explained how the Russians are supposed to have done this, especially so given that the “refugees” aren’t all Syrians), the responsibility for this disaster is clearly with political elites in Europe, especially in Germany.
Absolutely not, public discourse in the US comes across as anti-white to such a level we haven’t yet reached in Europe. The general public in the US also seems to be much more favourable to immigration and multiculturalism than in similar surveys taken in Europe.
This is my point. It’s indifferent. Unlike Tillerson’s State Department, it will never lecture Orbán on how to target Soros organizations or if campaigning against refugees was problematic. It just won’t give a shit. It’s not actively hostile, just indifferent. That’s my point.
Coincided, as in, preceded it. As the great logician Steve Sailer wrote, earlier things cannot be caused by things which came later. The big picture is the same: the civil war was caused and prolonged by those who sold weapons to the – predominantly jihadist – rebels, not by the Russians who all along supported the only force capable of governing Syria.
The Hungarians in Transcarparthia live in a land which had until 1919 for a thousand years belonged to Hungary. In 1919 (de iure in 1920) they came under Czech rule, so had to learn Czech or Slovak. Then in 1939 for a brief period they were back under Hungarian rule. In 1944/45 they became Soviet citizens, and like all good Soviet citizens, were expected and encouraged to learn Russian. Yes, many people close to where they lived spoke a Ruthenian dialect, but the majority of Hungarians live very close to the border in villages or towns which are roughly 90% or more Hungarian. So until 1991 they learned more Russian than Ukrainian. (Coincidentally, of the three Hungarians from Ukraine I spoke to, all said they could speak better Russian than Ukrainian.) Now they are expected to learn Ukrainian, a language vastly less useful than Russian, but without the Ukrainian state helping it in any way. Like, sending well-trained Ukrainian language teachers.
A few suggestions how to teach them Ukrainian:
one of the ethnic Hungarians from Ukraine said Ukrainian television was mostly in Russian. Is it true? If so, then have Ukrainian language television, which is a way for less educated people to learn Ukrainian. I mean, how can you expect Hungarians to learn your language if your own people don’t use it?
a kid who grew up in a Hungarian village (you know, which has been Hungarian for a millennium), saw some TV in Russian (but at least as much TV in Hungarian, you know, open society, European Union and all that jazz, these are villages on the border), but didn’t much see a Ukrainian speaker in his life (let alone talk to him), will not speak much Ukrainian. If at age ten you expect him to start studying math in Ukrainian (especially if you promise not to lay off half or more of the present Hungarian teachers, who will from now on have to teach in Ukrainian), then not only will he not learn Ukrainian, but he won’t learn much math either.
The law was clearly not thought out, with only Russian speakers and Russian schools in mind. There is the promise of having “up to half” of classes being taught in Hungarian (as a European Union language), but we’re not quite satisfied with that. Why should we sacrifice ourselves for the greater good of Ukrainization of Ukraine, especially when, looking at statistics, it was obviously happening anyway? You didn’t even need that law to reduce Russian. Because let’s not kid ourselves, that’s why you made the law, not out of concern for the 0.2% of schoolchildren who are ethnically Hungarian.
Oh and of course you will have to close those schools. I don’t expect a flood of trained Ukrainian teachers to move to that part of the country… So either they’ll keep teaching in Hungarian, or they won’t teach at all.
What does “culture” have to do with the issues? Russia (under any government) will not support (or destroy) culture in European countries – this question is the concern of the local population.
If you mean “culture” in Russia, how it relates to economic relations with the countries of Central Asia? These economic relations not affected the culture . “Eurasianism” concept exists only in the minds of a few intellectuals, practice absolutely this concept is not consistent. Here’s an example of a new city block in St. Petersburg
http://yestate.ru/assets/images/news/2014/f019bd_4854caafdf36470d8da098b04b0679db.jpg
After Maidan Ukraine is ruled by such people
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mrToWiKHqfA
To see in maidan Ukraine nature reserve of European culture – for this must have a huge capacity for self-deception
It would if Orban wasn’t friendly to Russia and did things Russia wouldn’t like. It would label him a Nazi (as it describes Ukrainian or Baltic nationalists) and support the Gypsies.
Remember Russian media was friendly to BLM.
The Syrian was started in 2011 but didn’t the massive refugee wave into Europe begin in 2015, at the time of the Russian intervention?
Ukrainian government promised no teacher would lose their job. The law would be implemented in a way that would be feasible (that is, they would switch the language over with time, in accordance with teacher training, not simply shut down all those schools and make students not go to school at all).
Russia is in customs union with Central Asian Muslim countries. Didn’t it ban that Borat movie in order not to offend Muslims?
A man from Kharkiv. Were Yanukovich and his people more refined?
And Western Europe and the USA 50 years in close Alliance with Saudi Aribia. But culture is irrelevant to this.
rather not to offend Kazahs. However, the argument does not work because Borat was shown on Russian TV.
By the way the film Borat was banned in ” very European”(АР) Belarus. How can you comment this?
The Maidan revolutionary (and representative of the new “European” elite of Ukraine) Zoran Shkiryak from Western Ukraine, supported Gerashchenko. He’s saying “I always do the same”. That is not a bug but a feature. “Very European country” lol
This is irrelevant, but I think so. Yanukovych was rural scum, but the Maidan “euroelite” even worse
It was building up well before the fall of 2015 when things escalated, as can be seen in the increasing numbers of asylum seekers in Germany. Just look:
https://de.statista.com/statistik/daten/studie/76095/umfrage/asylantraege-insgesamt-in-deutschland-seit-1995/
From roughly 50 000 applications for asylum in 2011 to 200 000 in 2014, well before the Russian intervention.
And the escalation afterwards was probably mostly the result of several disastrous political and judicial decisions taken in Germany (e.g. there was a court ruling that decided asylum seekers would basically get the same sort of benefits as native welfare recipients, then the decision by Merkel’s government not to enforce the Dublin agreement in regard to Syrians anymore and to pretty much just open the borders, and never really close them again).
Blaming Russia for this is ridiculous. If anything, it would make more sense to blame the US with its destabilizing regime change projects (though that would also be one-sided and not quite get at the root of the problem, the US isn’t responsible for the population explosion in certain parts of the globe either).
Alliance is not Customs Union.
Europeans never drink from plates? Perhaps they never fart either?
Interesting to see what parts of Ukrainian news get spread in Russia.
I remember a sign someone placed in an underground passageway in Kiev: “Please do not urinate here. This is not Donetsk.”
This demonstrates exactly why this reform is necessary. With little exposure to Ukrainian in TV and from neighbors, exposure in schools is the only way to prepare the kid to later go to a Ukrainian-language university or if he chooses, to move to a Ukrainian-speaking city (the ones closer to the Hungarian are mostly Ukrainian-speaking).
It’s useful for Hungary’s demographic problems if these people have no choice but move to Hungary but why should the Ukrainian state enable such a situation?
So better to have him be completely clueless at age eighteen, unable to attend universities or function outside his Hungarian ghetto?
Yes, you expect the Ukrainian state to run virtually Hungarian-only schools, creating Hungarian speaking-only kids who can’t function in general Ukrainian society because they don’t speak the language at all. With the schools taught up to half in Hungarian and with Hungarian families and neighbors, the Hungarian kids will still speak their ancestral language under the reforms. But what you want – for those kids to not speak Ukrainian at all.
I wonder if you would want your own country to pursue similar policies for its gypsy and other minorities?
Gradual escalation until 2015, then an explosion.
I’m inclined to view the idea that the whole point of Russia’s actions was migrants to be ridiculous. But it was a factor and I doubt Russia was unaware of the potential consequences for the West of its actions. Do you think that Russia would have done something with such negative consequences for Europe, had relations been better?
This is a silly debate.
Why don’t you just look up when Merkel announced to take in any number of refugees, and Orbán started building the border fence? Yes, it was in August 2015. By September the German states were complaining to have reached the end of their capacity. Then maybe you could look up the time Putin started his Syrian intervention? September 30, 2015. What came later couldn’t have caused what came earlier, could it?
Yes, it must have been aware that by restoring the legal and internationally recognized government of Syria, it could reduce the number of refugees. But it went ahead regardless.
There’s absolutely no proof for that at all, and as reiner tor has pointed out the time frame doesn’t even fit. It’s an entirely fabricated accusation, intended to deflect responsibility from those who are really responsible for this disaster (that is Merkel’s government, Western “antiracists” in general, and to some degree maybe the US, France, the UK, Turkey and the Gulf states who prolonged and escalated the Syrian civil war through their meddling, well before Russia played much of a role there).
Seriously, Russia can be legitimately criticized for quite a few things regarding Ukraine, but this “Putin’s big bad empire is behind every ill in the world and is out to get all of us” can’t be taken seriously.
Refugee wave spiked in October:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/European_migrant_crisis#/media/File:Sea_arrivals_to_Greece_and_Italy,_2015.png
Obviously Russian intervention wasn’t the only factor (the problem preceded Russia’s actions, of course) but it was probably responsible for the surge. And Russians, being less clueless than Americans, were probably aware of the consequences of their assaults.
What effect the Customs Union. (unlike Alliance) has on the culture?
European Minister licking the plate by tongue at the restaurant? I think this is a unique feature of the revolutionary Ukraine. As well as public approval by government representatives (in particular the same Gerashchenko) of the murder of opposition journalists
Strange then to be surprised that the Donbass rebelled.
Well, I remember that “svidomye” Ukrainians wrote a lot (on the Internet) about their superiority over the inhabitants of Donetsk. In particular (before certain events) was a popular flattering comparison, of “conscious” Ukrainians with the Israelis, and residents of Donbass with the Palestinian Arabs. But I don’t remember cases that the Arabs drove through the streets of their cities crowd of captured Israeli soldiers. For this self-assessment is a deceptive thing.
“Exposure in school” doesn’t mean suddenly teaching math to them in Ukrainian at age 10. It means a proper education in Ukrainian as a foreign language. (Which is already being done, but with teachers who can barely speak the language themselves. The solution would be, as I wrote, to send Ukrainian native speaker teachers who are trained in how to teach Ukrainian as a foreign language.) It might come as a surprise to you, but Hungarian is quite different from either Ukrainian or Russian (but Russian is simpler and so easier), so it’s a bit like putting a kid into a classroom where the teacher starts speaking Chinese. They just won’t learn it. Neither the language nor the subject in question. (Immigrant children learn fast because their peers also speak the new language, and they spend their time in cities with large native populations.)
That is what was reported in Hungarian media. As you write, the Ukrainian government is quite ridiculously planning to train the Hungarian teachers to speak and teach their subjects in Ukrainian. Do you not understand the problems with it? Most of those teachers are older (even with a normal age distribution, the median age would be above 40), how can they learn a language with sufficient proficiency to teach it to children? At the very minimum, they will speak a very shoddy Ukrainian with a heavy Hungarian accent and a lot of grammatical mistakes. It will be impossible to learn from them, even for proficient Ukrainian speakers.
So the result will be that the Hungarian children there will still not learn Ukrainian, but now they won’t learn any subjects at all after the few years of primary school.
Look, in Hungary, it was compulsory to learn Russian from age 10 til age 18 between 1949 and 1989. But because Hungary didn’t have enough Russian teachers, they simply “retrained” the existing masses of German teachers (and other foreign language teachers, including Latin teachers and the like, though the most widely learned language had been German before 1945), and the results were, as could be expected by anyone not being a hardcore Stalinist, quite meagre. Quite hilariously, my Russian teacher was the same one who taught my father decades earlier (she was really old, I think she only worked part-time as she was a pensioner), and she was retrained from a German teacher. Though over the decades she learned Russian relatively well, a parent (a Russian teacher herself, though one properly trained) noticed that in written tests she occasionally gave worse marks for something which the student wrote correctly, and instead corrected it to something incorrect.
This Ukrainian proposal to train the teachers in 3 years to teach a subject in Ukrainian which they had taught in Hungarian previously for years or decades is literally on the level of the Stalinist 1949 government in Hungary.
If the Ukrainian government really wanted to teach Hungarian kids Ukrainian, why don’t they send proper Ukrainian native speaker teachers trained in teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language? The kids already learn Ukrainian I think six hours a week, this should be more than enough to teach them the language, but they don’t learn it, because the teachers themselves cannot properly speak the language they are supposed to teach. Ukraine just wasn’t very interested in teaching these Hungarians Ukrainian.
Actually, two of the three Hungarians from that region I talked to moved to Hungary after Euromaidan. They both said that the situation in Transcarpathia is now getting “horrible” or “very bad” (their words), because organized nationalist thugs are traveling there from other regions of Ukraine and marching on their streets, intimidating and occasionally beating up the inhabitants, while the police does nothing. I’m not sure if those are exaggerations, but it seems like a motivation for them to leave the country and move to Hungary.
Just as the Hungarian state runs virtually German-only schools for the (settler) German minority. Though most people of German extraction (like yours truly) aren’t much interested in them. There are also virtually Croatian-only schools (hilariously after 1991 separated from Serb-only schools) etc. I also expect the Ukrainian state to first provide Ukrainian native speaker teachers who are trained in teaching Ukrainian as a foreign language before going full retard and trying to force to teach in Ukrainian the ethnically Hungarian teachers, who cannot speak Ukrainian properly, and due to age cannot be trained properly anymore.
So if there were no barriers with Mexico it would not affect American culture?
That guy was a trend-setter:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/quora/2013/01/11/is_it_ok_to_lick_the_pasta_sauce_off_my_plate.html
I saw it when visiting in 2013 (or 2011), when Yanukovich was still president.
Well, it wasn’t really a spike, it was a steady increase until October, the numbers started decreasing after October. I guess you’re well aware that most of these people spent some time in Turkish camps before starting their hegira to Germany. So they probably reached Greece weeks or even months after leaving Syria. This means that it took weeks or even months for the Russian intervention to have any effect. You could easily argue the opposite here, that Russia’s intervention actually reduced the number of refugees. But I don’t think there’s much of a causative relationship here.
I don’t think this is a good hill for you to die on.
You make a valid point that the teachers ought to be competent in the Ukrainian language. I agree that it a serious problem if they are not. But in this case, if what the Hungarian media reports is accurate, the problem is in the implementation of the law (not having adequate teachers) and not in the law itself which is reasonable. Criticism ought to then be focused on the problems you highlight.
I also suspect it will be a lot easier to teach these teachers Ukrainian (they probably already know Russian, which is close, and they live in Ukraine) than it was to retrain Hungarians into speaking Russian if the latter was totally knew. Russian is very far from German.
Do these schools produce students who are incapable of speaking Hungarian at all, can’t go to Hungarian universities or function outside the German community? Because that’s the current situation of the Hungarians in Ukraine. It’s not acceptable.
If Croatian or German kids in Hungary go to such schools and are ghettoized as a result, that is a problem. This problem exists for Hungarians in Ukraine, and the reform is a legitimate attempt to address it.
The October increase was double the September increase.
Good points.
It’s admittedly outside expertise but there seems to be something to it. Clearly it benefits Russia (helps pro-Russian parties) and punishes Europe. And, there is a correlation.
Because Russians are assholes? Like most other peoples? For God’s sake, even Ukrainians, when they have a small enough neighbor..?
But actually, the reason why Orbán is so chummy with Putin are more complex. He was pretty anti-Russian throughout his first term (1998-2002), and he was quite the staunch Atlanticist. It came as a surprise to him when in 2001 the American ambassador appointed by President Bush II started lecturing him about “far-right tendencies”. (It must be noted that Orbán has shifted quite a bit to the right since then, he was more of a mainstream, if slightly nationalistic conservative then. He started out as a liberal, and was a vice president of the Liberal International until 1999, when he decided to join the EPP instead.) This was probably a factor why he quite narrowly lost in 2002, and it led to a leftist government running amok for 8 years. (They got reelected by spending a lot of money, and then it led to Hungary being almost bankrupt by the summer of 2006. Before the financial crisis, which must be something…) This is what I say: America is a force of evil. No matter how friendly you are to them, it’s not enough for them: you have to be a humanrightist multiculturalist pozzed liberal as well.
Anyway, Orbán was still quite anti-Russian throughout his years in the wilderness (as an opposition leader 2002-2010), he condemned the Russian government for its “aggression” in Georgia in 2008. His planned strategy for 2010 was to present the Russians with a united Polish-Hungarian front (with perhaps other countries like the Baltic countries joining in, and if we’re lucky, we could convince a few Western Europeans as well), and that way negotiate the new gas import deal when the old was about to expire. However, it soon turned out that the then Polish leadership (Tusk et al) weren’t much interested in cooperation with Hungary, because Hungary was too small for them, and they wanted to be a leading European state, which they are bound to be, being the size of Spain. Anyway, Poland struck a separate gas deal with the Russians, and started a détente. (Part of this was the official condemnation of the Katyn Massacre by Putin, and organizing a commemoration, inviting the Polish leadership. That resulted in a catastrophe.)
So, Orbán recognized that Poland is not interested much in cooperation with him, so he sent out feelers to Putin if he was interested in getting chummier with him. He was. That’s how Orbán’s so-called Eastern Pivot started. It’s not because Orbán thinks Putin is some kind of angel, but because he saw around him others doing business with Putin, despite the rhetoric. So he started doing it, too. He had just struck the biggest business (allowing Putin build a new nuclear plant in Hungary, with Russia providing the financing loan for the project) when Maidan was happening. Obviously, Orbán was now out of sync with the rest of Europe, and maybe he even regretted it, but he didn’t want to give up his new Russian friend to help Ukraine, which had never been much of a friend for Hungary. In any event, he also sent troops to the Baltics (like all other NATO countries), and there were some Russian accusations that maybe even some Hungarian weapons found their way to Ukraine in 2014 (when Ukraine was at its weakest – they obviously wouldn’t need such weapons now). He also didn’t veto any Russia sanctions (though he did criticize them publicly a few times back in 2014 – he doesn’t much do that anymore).
As to popular opinion, it’s still more anti-Russian than pro-Russian. But since Orbán now seems to be BFF with Putin (far from it, but the optics are there), nationalist opinion is now at the very least ambivalent (because of our historically close and friendly ties to Poland) if not outright friendly. Also, the same dynamics as with other nationalists in Western Europe (Putin, for all his faults, is still a counterweight to the American Liberal Empire and the Wizards of Poz). And yes, it’s easy for us because we’re far away. And yes, it would probably change if Russia occupied and annexed a part of Hungary.
But it’s a bit more complicated than simply distance from Russia.
The problem is in the implementation of the old law. The old law was reasonable in that it didn’t expect students to learn the language on the fly while learning a subject. Would you (or your children, or grandchildren) be able to learn Chinese and mathematics if you were sent to a school where a Chinese teacher started teaching math in Chinese, but none of your peers would understand a word from it? My guess is, you would learn neither. The same thing is expected in the new law: children will have to learn Ukrainian and the subjects they are taught simultaneously.
With the new law, the problem is both with the implementation (retraining teachers) and the law itself (expecting the children to learn a subject in a language they don’t understand, in order to facilitate them learning the new language).
No, but Hungary doesn’t have such areas where an ethnic minority forms a majority. All such areas (with sizable chunks of areas with ethnically Hungarian majority) were taken from us in 1918-20 and then again in 1945. I’m not happy about it, but then at least all of our citizens speak our language properly. If they didn’t, the solution would be to send Hungarian native speaker teachers, who would teach Hungarian 6-8 hours a week. It should be enough, if the methods and the teachers are good.
Well, first, the reform was an attempt to forcibly de-Russify the country. (Which, as I wrote, was happening anyway. No need for the heavy-handed approach.) It had nothing to do with Hungarians and other minorities, who were clearly an afterthought.
Second, the law won’t change the fact that the Ukrainian language teachers are not proficient enough. Instead the law introduces new problems (the children will have to learn math in a language they don’t understand, as if math wasn’t hard enough in itself). And multiplies the implementation problems (now not only Ukrainian language will lack proficient Ukrainian teachers, but other subjects as well). So no, it is not a legitimate attempt to address the problem.
If the Ukrainian government really was worried about the Hungarian “ethnic ghetto”, it should first worry about the Ukrainian language education within the existing schools in the framework of the previous law. But obviously the Ukrainian government couldn’t care less.
I can also tell you why it’s important: if we cave in, this can and over time probably will be used as a precedent elsewhere (Slovakia, Romania, Serbia), where there are also sizable (much larger than in Ukraine) Hungarian minorities with vastly better Hungarian language educational opportunities than in Ukraine.
Thank you, a nice explanation.
The old law resulted in 1-3 hours a week of Ukrainian in some schools. Students were graduating with basically zero knowledge of the Ukrainian language. Even if the teachers were perfect, this would be a problem.
If I simultaenously were learning the Chinese language and if I were 10 years old than after a learning curve I would adjust. It’s a lot easier than getting thrown into a Chinese university – the current system.
Moreover, do you really think there would be zero phase-in – that the kids would just start “learning” math with not a word being allowed in Hungarian? The standard practice on immersion schools is that they phase it in over the first year or two until the kids get more comfortable. That is, the class is in French or whatever but there is liberal use of English until the kids get the hang of it. Children are not simply ignored if they didn’t understand a concept in the non-English language. I sent one of my kids to such a school. If the teachers are normal the kids should be fully adjusted after 2 years. Ifg there is a problem – it is with the implementation, not the reform itself.
There aren’t gypsy enclaves? Would you want the people there to be rendered completely unable to speak Hungarian? Would that be acceptable government policy? How would you feel if another country tried to interfere to make this a reality?
Do Slovakia, Romania and Serbia allow Hungarian-only schools where the kids graduate and are unable to speak Slovakian, Romanian, or Serbian respectively?
I think the reason was the lack of teachers, because Ukrainian language and Ukrainian literature were both to be taught in Ukrainian. And I do accept that this is a problem, not learning Ukrainian in Ukraine.
My personal experience is that Hungarians in these countries speak the languages of their respective countries well. For example an acquaintance of mine from Slovakia regularly reads books in Czech, apparently the two languages are quite similar. But then again, the Slovak government sends good language teachers to all the schools.
It’s a ridiculous comparison, because Latinos make up 17% of the U.S. population (Mexicans about 10%). Central Asian migrants from countries of the customs Union are in Russia, about 0.7% of the population. All Central Asian migrants and residents of Russia of Central Asian origin together – about 2.5% of the population https://sevabashirov.livejournal.com/235675.html
So please, tell us what effect the Customs Union had on the culture, without false analogies.
So it is obvious that the hatred to Kiev in the Donbas growing long before the rebellion broke out. It happens with any uprisings
But if they didn’t speak the local national language at all, don’t you think the government would have the rigtht to make some reforms?
Also, I suspect most radio stations and TV station were in Slovak.
It may be true that no matter how good the teacher, having only one class a day in Ukrainian won’t be enough in that region.
If you add native Turkic Muslims (Tatars, Bashkirs) the % grows.
You are the one who first brought up culture with repsect to Customs Union, not me.
Customs Union means open borders with the Muslim world of central Asia. You don’t think increasing the Muslim population has an influence on the place’s culture or way of life?
Historically thre are Central Asian influences on Rusian culture – in food (plov, bilyashi, etc.). But mostly it just dilutes Rusisa’s European-ness. Thre’s a difference between being in a place that is 1% Central Asian and one that is 10% Central Asian (which includes Tatars, Bashkirs, etc.).
Mosque in Moscow:
https://www.christiansinpakistan.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/muslims-moscow.jpg
The theme of the customs Union have sunk into oblivion. But Tatars and Bashkirs are irrelevant, because if the Tatars and Bashkirs to appreciate on a cultural level, they are more European than “very european” Ukrainians (in particular IQ of the Tatars is clearly higher than IQ of the Ukrainians)
No, here is a quote from your post.
Then you explain what “linked itself” – is the customs Union
.
Yet the Muslim population in Russia is rather reduced. But we’re discussing today? So explain the importance of Ukraine as an Outpost of European culture. In this stage of the discussion, such claims are very similar to wishful thinking
So plov is the Russian food? O_o!
It is a completely worthless argument. The Myth of Moskvabad http://www.unz.com/akarlin/myth-of-moskvabad/
LOL.
Good that you admit your understanding of European culture.
Tell us how now how Chinese are more culturally European than Ukrainians. Average IQ is higher so it must be, right?
You deliberately cut off my entire statment:
“The Russian state is a “pacified” oligarchic state that is indifferent, rather than hostile or supportive, towards European traditions and cultures. It has linked itself to Muslim Central Asia, provides Muslim Chechens with special status, and promotes nasty elements abroad (such as Yanukovich in Ukraine). It was one of Mugabe’s biggest sponsors, for example”
The overall picture is one of indifference to European culture. Links to Central Asia by Russian elites predate the Customs Union but you broought up the Customs Union and so I answered you.
Islam in Europe:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islam_in_Russia#/media/File:Islam_in_Europe-2010.svg
Ukriane is part of the Islam-free zone. Russia is the most Islamic place outside the Balkans.
Ukraine, along with its immediate Western neighbors, is the among the most European places on Earth (see the map I linked to). The last remaining such places, other than tiny abberations such as Iceland. The Russian authorities, indifferent to such things, have linked their country to central Asia. They have granted special status to Chechens. Do you think that by culture I simply mean examples of high culture? China has plenty of that. So? A Ukrainian or Polish peasant is more European than is a well-mannered Chinese, or Bashkir, violinist who plays Mozart.
It might as well be. How about bilyashi? Cheburyki? Doesn’t the samovar have central Asian origins?
Does Moscow not have the most Muslims of any Europen city other than Istambul? Is it not strikingly less European than Warsaw or Kiev? Is it not more Muslim than any capital in eastern Europe? Those are more relevant comparisons than Paris or Manchester.
Read more European books, listen to more classical music. Better know a European science, and European art.
So, Yes, for example the Chinese from Singapore more culturally European than Ukrainians.
About Kazan Tatars at all ridiculous to argue
http://kazan.ruc.su/upload/KAZAN_UPLOAD/NIR/2015-01-26_00002.jpg
http://m.prokazan.ru/userfiles/old/newsinnerpic/rokov.jpg
http://kpfu.ru/portal/docs/F1348662350/11.jpg
http://zoozel.ru/gallery/images/1246960_volontery-universiady.jpg
http://prokazan.ru/userfiles/picitem/img-20150531080359-457.jpg
Will argue that it’s not the Europeans?
So explain your statement. About European culture in Russia (the other culture in Russia is virtually absent), the government still cares – funded theatres, libraries, museums, etc.. This includes Tatarstan and Bashkortostan, where local authorities support European culture (the schedule of performances of Opera theatre in Kazan http://kazan-opera.ru/afisha/ Verdi, Rossini, Gershwin..). Or you have something else in mind?
In this case, Romanian Gypsy are probably even more European than Ukrainians? They are all Christians
Again went fancy. Meanwhile Ukrainian authorities associated with the jihadists,
http://odessa-life.od.ua/gallery/2014/2014-10/n22878/n22878_1533.jpg
and want to Islamize Crimea (you recently defended the ridiculous thesis that the Crimea should belong to Muslims)
It is not
Bashkir cellist performing Mozart, definitely more European than Ukrainian peasant. Europe is a European culture, not a lack of culture
Read the article http://www.unz.com/akarlin/myth-of-moskvabad/ there to explain everything
A cultured Chinese is a cultured person, but not European. An uncultured Ukrainian hick is an uncultured hick, but still European.
Since European is a not a set in the mathematical meaning of the word (i.e. there are always people for whom you cannot say with any certainty if they are European or not), it will always be a little arbitrary or context-dependent. Usually in WN circles Jews and Muslims are not considered whites, though a conversion might be enough for some (Bosniaks? maybe not for Turks? or not all Turks? maybe enough for Volga Tatars?) to overturn that verdict. Regarding Jews, some don’t even think they should be excluded at all, or at least not Ashkenazy Jews.
However one thinks, it’s likely that Tatars will be considered less European than even Ukrainians with lowest cultural levels, even if Alina Ibragimova looks white to me and she plays Mendelssohn well. (I haven’t heard anything else from her.)
Moscow has a lot of Muslims (apparently more than Paris, though it might depend how one counts the suburbs, and whether the numbers one can read are underestimates or not), but for example only a few mosques, because the mayor didn’t want to allow many mosques to be built. So I’d characterize Moscow as less Islamized than Paris or London, which are full of Muslims. Russian leadership seems mostly indifferent, but the Moscow mayor is definitely part of the elite, and he doesn’t strike me as that indifferent. So Russia still has more bones left in it than Western Europe. We’ll see.
Good point. But! If it’s a Chinese immersed in European culture, it is difficult to draw the line. For example, the Russian Koreans – who are they? Their culture is purely European.
However, the Tatars are European people of course. Even in religion the Tatars are a special case (red Christianity, gray atheism and theism, paganism, blue , green Islam):
http://www.imageup.ru/img53/2958610/417773_original.jpg
However, only 3% of Tatars consider themselves Sunni, and 1% consider themselves Shiites. The rest are Muslims in name only. That is the real Muslims among Tatars – about 4%.
In all other areas of life, the Tatars have long been a purely European people. Here hardcore Tatar art
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byez68Y-jz8
I think civilization origin of this ballet does not cause question.
I think it is a logical problem. “White” is an anthropological characteristic (europeid with fair skin), it (logically) can not depend on religion. If Norway accepts Islam, or Judaism or Buddhism, he will not cease to be white.
The Tatars for “WN circles” is a mystery. Tatars Christians are white. the Tatars Muslims – non white. Then who the Tatars pagans and the Tatars atheists? If Tatar are formal Muslims (who do not follow the requirements of Islam, and did not suspect about existence of these norms ) – he white?
This lady here (the actress Chulpan Khamatova) – who? White? Nobody knows what religion she professes (in the Russian Internet about this discuss without success)
https://vibirai.ru/image/1198099.jpg
This is the idea that whites as a race should be a kind of meta-ethnic political group, of which ethnic groups should be kind of sub-groups. The idea is that such a political grouping is needed due to the left (and broadly speaking, this includes the housebroken mainstream faux conservatives) attacking each and every manifestation of white ethnic or racial consciousness, while encouraging it among others. In other words, either whites hang together, or they will hang separately.
It is not illogical to exclude from such a meta-ethnic political grouping Jews (who are often the most prominent among the left, and are often exempted from the ban on whites’ ethnic consciousness, even to the point where Jews publicly or semi-publicly speak about their pride in the blood that binds them all together – any other ethnic group would not be permitted to say things like that), or Muslims (who are, after all, usually not considered white by leftists, and who don’t feel much in common with Europeans and don’t show much affinity for their culture).
It’s not very well defined, and I don’t think it’d be easy to define it precisely. For most practical purposes you don’t have to know if Ms Khamatova or Ms Ibragimova are really white or not. We can leave it up to them if they feel so or not.
In Russia, in this case, the situation is different. We have two different kinds of Muslims (simplified Volga Muslims and Caucasus Muslims). Volga “Muslims” feel much in common with Europeans and show much affinity for their culture. It’s funny, but they also share migrantophobia, and (in disguised form) Islamophobia.
Reiner Tor adequately addressed this ridiculous statement:
“A cultured Chinese is a cultured person, but not European. An uncultured Ukrainian hick is an uncultured hick, but still European. ”
Playing Chopin, speaking English, and reading European literature does not make a Chinese person a European. A Chinese person doing all of these things is simply not a European, he is Chinese, whereas some European peasant who never heard of Chopin, and who doesn’t read, is a European.
One gets into a some gray area with, say, Mexican Mestizos or Tatars but these peoples are certainly not fully European. Tatars less European than Mestizos, because most Tatars are not Christians and their language is Turkic.
Indeed it is. They are Muslims, and they speak a Turkic language.
Maybe you think the Chinese,Muslim Uyghar girl is a European because she is blond?
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-5gU4ehBoAgs/UZtb32M-9wI/AAAAAAAAA_Y/Ivgi0zLHQ4w/s1600/Girl_in_Turpan,_Xinjiang,_China_-_20050712.jpg
If she develops a taste for Tchaikovsky will this make her fully European, in your world?
A State that valued (vs. being indifferent to) the European nature of its culture would not becomes a Eurasian Customs Union, allow open borders with Central Asia, would not allow special privileges to Chechens, etc.
Gypsies are from India. They retained a lot of Indian practices.
No Muslim has as much influence in Ukraine as Kadyrov has in Russia.
Nonsense. I pointed pout the obvious fact that the Crimean Tatars, not Russians, are the peninsula’s natives. But at 12% of the population they are too few to own it.
Bashkirs who according to Melanf are Europeans if they play Mozart on cello:
https://i.pinimg.com/736x/a9/8e/53/a98e537a35728d4f5bdc1e3d6610d1a0.jpg
You write like a non-European cargo cultist if by culture you simply mean high culture. European language, religion, traditions, descent.
Doesn’t contradict what I said – Moscow has most Muslims of any European city, and more Muslims than any eastern European city. It is a myth that it is as Islamic as, say, Paris.
Nutcracker in Baghdad:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uuNR4jb7BSY
According to Melanf Iraqis are now Europeans 🙂 Or were, when this was filmed.
Look at the Europeans of Nigeria:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JpygOuKeKjo
Moscow is about 11% Muslim. In terms of percentage Moscow is about 25 times more Muslim than Kiev and 80 times more Muslim than Warsaw. Percentage-wise it is as Muslim as Berlin was prior to the Syrian flood of refugees. It is slightly less Muslim than London in 2011 (12.4% Muslim) and a lot less Muslim than Paris (23% Muslim) though Paris plus suburbs has a similar percentage as Moscow.
Al Jazeera about Moscow’s Muslims:
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2015/07/animosity-moscow-muslims-change-city-150720093306298.html
What a boring (and predictable) propaganda.
Of course Bashkirs semi-mongoloid semi-evropeids and Tatars evropeids with weak mongoloid admixture. If to be guided by this criterion – they are not Europeans. However, the Ukrainians are (partly) descendants of Turkic tribes known as Chorni Klobuky (Qaraqalpaq). These tribes lived around Kiev in the middle ages, and mingled with the Slavs became the progenitors of modern Ukrainians. If I wanted to make xoxlosrach, I could (using your “genetic” criteria) easily to defame your dreams about the “very European” Ukrainians. Еspecially given the fact that the Russians and the Belarusians (unlike the Ukrainians) do not have Turkic admixture , and are (by your “genetic” criteria) pure “Europeans”.
Oh, started a remake. Well, tell us how Central Asian migrants from countries of the customs Union (less than 0.7% of the population of Russia), affect the culture. And explain why the customs Union makes Russia an enemy of European civilization, but does not affect the “very European” Belarus (which is also a member of the customs Union).
But Ukraine in our days committed to the EU. EU migration policy is much, much, much worse migration policy of the customs Union. So let’s cry about Yanukovych, who unsuccessfully defended the European future of Ukraine against Merkel and Obama.
Well, let’s look at Ukraine through the eyes of European nationalists. Ukraine is a poor country managed by multi-cultural oligarchy, and under full control of the Washington neocons (these people are certainly not the friends of white Europe). For a normal European Russia (with all the Tatars and Buryats) certainly better than Ukraine simply because Russia is living on their money, not like Ukraine which trying to pull money out of the purse of the European citizen.
From the point of view of Islamophobia, in the Crimea, Ukraine is trying to use the most radical part of the local Muslims against the Christian majority. So from that point of view in the conflict of Russia with Ukraine, Ukraine is evil.
P.S.
On blondes and ballet. You look not hair, but the dress of Tatar girls .
And “the Nutcracker” in Baghdad, this is interesting, but irrelevant. You need as the equivalent of “Shurale” to bring the original Iraqi ballet, with music written by an Arab composer
Under 2% admixture according to studies. Ukrainians are darker due to Balkan mix, not Turkic mix.
Russians have something like 1% Asian admixture.
Not enemy, just indifferent. Customs Union is something like 20% Muslim, if memory serves. Much higher % than EU.
The same proportion of “Eastern” genes are in the genome of other European ethnic groups (British, French, Germans, etc.)
“As for the second major migration associated with the Mongol conquest of the medieval Russian principalities, its genetic traces is impossible to detect. This conclusion is mutually confirmed by the analysis of mtDNA and Y-chromosomes, and the data of anthropology. For example, the total frequency of Eastern-Eurasian mtDNA haplogroups in Russian populations of less than 2%: the same frequency is typical for the Western European Nations. For the Y-chromosome typical “Mongolian” marker is haplogroup C (the medium was believed to be Genghis Khan, – this haplogroup is most common among Mongols and related peoples). However, for the Russian population this haplogroup almost completely absent (frequency below 1%, i.e., from the formal standpoint of genetic polymorphism on this basis, the Russian population can be considered fully “genetically European”).”
E. V. Balanovskaya And O. P. Balanovsky. Russian gene pool of the Russian plain. M., 2007. P. 296
The same according to anthropology:
“Thus, the Russian population of Eastern Europe in the anthropological indicators or coincide with the average Western European , or deviate from them, remaining within the limits of variability of the Western European groups…”.
Bunak, V. V., the Origin and ethnic history of the Russian people according to anthropological data. M., 1965
For this Russian and Belarusians “genetically” pure Europeans.
For the real interests of European nationalists Russia in General, indifferent. But there is a certain common interest – when the Russian spetsnaz killing jihadists it is in the interests of sane Europeans.
Also for the real interests of the European nationalists, Ukraine in General, indifferent too. But the Maidan Ukraine is bad (for European nationalists) because the Maidan Ukraine is a parasite on the European money.
As for European civilization, Russia part of European civilization. This fact is very difficult to challenge.
http://katze_johns.users.photofile.ru/photo/katze_johns/200490819/xlarge/204120548.jpg
Ukraine is also part of European civilization, but Ukraine contribution (in terms of per capita), much more modest (it can be numerically determined – for example by Britannica).
In the British Commonwealth of Nations, the proportion of Muslims is even higher. But the EU is much, much, much worse because the European Union is arming and financing jihadis, and the (resulting) crowds of refugees, the EU settles in Europe in the role of alien parasites.
Correct. Mongol or Tatar genetic influence on the Russian people was top-down, mostly limited to the Russian aristocracy which intermarried with the overlords. The significant Eastern influence on Russian culture is not reflected in Russian population genetics.
From Vernadsky, via wiki:
The period of Mongol rule over Russia included significant cultural and interpersonal contacts between the Russian and Mongolian ruling classes. By 1450, the Tatar language had become fashionable in the court of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Vasily II, who was accused of excessive love of the Tatars and their speech, and many Russian noblemen adopted Tatar surnames (for example, a member of the Veliamanov family adopted the Turkic name “Aksak” and his descendants were the Aksakovs)[15] Many Russian boyar (noble) families traced their descent from the Mongols or Tatars, including Veliaminov-Zernov, Godunov, Arseniev, Bakhmetev, Bulgakov (descendants of Bulgak) and Chaadaev (descendents of Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai Khan). In a survey of Russian noble families of the 17th century, over 15% of the Russian noble families had Tatar or Oriental origins.[16]
In the religious sphere, St. Paphnutius of Borovsk was the grandson of a Mongol baskak, or tax collector, while a nephew of Khan Bergai of the Golden Horde converted to Christianity and became known as the monk St. Peter Tsarevich of the Horde.[17] In the judicial sphere, under Mongol influence capital punishment, which during the times of Kievan Rus’ had only been applied to slaves, became widespread, and the use of torture became a regular part of criminal procedure. Specific punishments introduced in Moscow included beheading for alleged traitors and branding of thieves (with execution for a third arrest).[18]
Correct.
Ukraine is a state of 40 million that is 99% European, the largest (though Poland may tie it) of purely European states in the world, by population. Thus whatever economic problems it has, it cannot be considered “bad.” Someone willing to sacrifice or abandon the most populated purely European place in the world because it has a bad economy can be considered hostile to Europe.
It is challenged by many Russian themselves. Often.
Both Slavophiles and more explicitly Eurasianists challenge it.
In reality Russia is basically European, but not quite. I would compare it to Spain – there are expressions that Europe ends at the Pyrenees or Africa begins at the Pyrenees. These are obvious exaggerations: Spain like Russia is basically a European country. But centuries of Mongol rule and separation from Europe (Russia missed feudalism, the Renaissance, Baroque, etc.) have had their effect. Production of high culture (ballet, symphonies, literature) doesn’t change that, despite your silly idealistic belief that production of this style of arts makes a place “European.” Indeed Russia’s Europeanization project begun by Peter had an imposed, artificial quality (analogous to Japan’s Meiji reforms 150 years later).
“Badly” is not Ukraine, but the Maidan government. The money from the purse of the European citizens is partly stolen by multicultural oligarchs ( Poroshenko, Kolomoisky, etc.), and partly spent on the war against 99% white, christian population of Donbas. Yanukovych was better for Europe
By the way, by your logic, Russia is a state of 120 million European, the largest European states in the world by population and the largest European states in the world by population of Nordic blondes (this is a soft spot of European nationalists, I know). So (by your logic) Russia for a white nationalist must be like the Kingdom of Jerusalem for the Crusader.
Oh really? Ukrainian white is threatened with an invasion of Africans? Or maybe Ukraine is fighting against the Caliphate? Tell us what the threat is looming over the Ukrainian white population.
The idea that Poroshenko is half-Jewish is a myth ( I once believed it too). He is Ukrainian.
War in Donbas exists because of Russian actions in a different country – Russia plays the role in Ukraine that the West plays in Syria. War would have been over long ago had Russia cut off contact/arms/advisers with rebels. A country fighting to preserve its own borders is not equivalent to arming and supporting a civil war inside another country’s borders.
So thanks to Russia, a civil war continues, with about 10,000 dead Europeans. This is far larger than the number of Europeans Russia has saved with its anti-jihadist activities. So in the 21st century the Russian state has on balance more European blood on its hands than any other state.
Russia is only about 82% European. Its capital is about 10% Muslim. It has a half-Armenian foreign minister and Korean defense minister. It has chosen to tie itself to the Eurasian Customs Union, linking itself to Kazakhstan and Kyrgystan. Azerbaijan, Syria and Tunisia have made intentions to join it.
Among “pure” European countries – Poland, Ukraine, Belarus, Baltic Republics, Czech Republic, Croatia (while Hungary and Romania has almost no Muslims, they also have large gypsy populations), Iceland.
Ukraine is about 99.5% European (it was 99% before Russia grabbed Crimea). It wants to join Europe, rather than Eurasia.
Objective reality means more than the opinion of freaks. Here is a European painting, regardless of the views of the Slavophiles.
http://brandproducts.ru/thumbs/images/37815_0/Serov-valentin-kartina-deti.jpg
The same thing will happen with music, literature, architecture, etc.
Of course there are paintings in the European style by Japanese, Persian, etc. artists. But for Japan and Persia this is the exception. And for Russia it is the mainstream (and in any kind of arts).
About the “place” I said nothing and know nothing . I was talking about a civilization which consists of “ballet, symphonies, literature” and other “production of this style of arts”.
Justify this statement.
By the way sinification of Japan and the Christianization of Rus ‘ is also an artificial event? And if not, what is the fundamental difference between Peter Alexeyevich and Vladimir Svyatoslavovich?
To move away from high culture – consider the literature of fantasy. This is not ballet, this is a book for ordinary people, and reflects the tastes of the common people. If the Eurasians were right – Russian fantasy should be about the nomads (such books do not exist). If Slavophiles were right -Russian fantasy would talk about the rural community and the Orthodox Church (such books do not exist too).
In fact 95% of Russian fantasy books have a “European” story, just as the English-language fantasy.
But you may be able to give examples of “non-European” parts of civilization in Russia?
Ukraine’s Interior Minister is full-Armenian, and the country has a slight Georgian infestation problem.
I did not write that Poroshenko is a Jew. He is a member of the multicultural oligarchy, and has Motherland where his offshore accounts.
As you well know, I think this statement is ridiculous.
This is all very funny. It is possible for conscious Ukrainians you are very convincing, but for the rest of mankind – your argument is an example of self-aggrandizement in the course of dick measuring contest
But Europe does not want to join Ukraine.
You think many silly thoughts.
No Russian arms, volunteers, advisers, rebellion gets snuffed out quickly, thousands of lives saved.
Conversely, massive Russian annexation, Ukraine doesn’t dare try to take back its own territory (as is a state’s right to do), also thousands of lives saved.
Russian state pursues a policy that maximizes the amount of dead Europeans.
Simple facts. Russia is less European even than the flooded western Euro countries (though Moscow still more European than Paris).
Russia – 82% or so European.
Ukraine, Poland, Baltics, Czech Republic, Belarus – 99% + European.
I had no idea that such significant thinkers as Tyutchev or Aksakov were “freaks.” Good for you, that you are so proud of yourself.
Good that you agree with me that Russia is basically a European culture. I just point out that, like Spain, it is not completely European (though Russia rejoined Europe much later than Spain did).
You seem to have failed to understand the point being made.
Peter the Great and Vladimir were indeed similar.
In the 10th century Vladimir imposed a foreign, alien belief system upon the unwilling Slavic people.
Only 300 years ago, Peter imposed foreign, alien European practices upon the unwilling Russian people. T%he [process was such that even in the 19th century an early 20th centuries there was serious debate within Russia about whether Russians belonged to Europe or were their own civilization.
Never read it other than Tolkien (would Dracula count also?), so can’t comment. I suspect fantasy is by definition “western”, because Tolkien.
But then you read passages from Dostoyevsky, Blok’s famous poem (also freaks?), etc.
And Bodrov’s Монгол was a very good film.
Good catch. Though Chechens and Dagestanis are more prominent/troublesome in Russia than Georgians are in Ukraine.
And – one can find examples of Russians making European paintings but Serov is of largely German-Jewish descent.
Just returning the favor of keeping you honest, AP. Anyway, Lavrov isn’t some kind of AA diversity hire, he’s one of the more competent Russian cabinet ministers (I know, I know, that’s not saying very much). I didn’t mention Groisman, either, (I doubt you’re going to try and convince us his Jewishness is a myth), or the prominence of Jews among Ukraine’s elite, in general.
No doubt, but I was referring specifically to the government, where Georgians were, at one point, quite prominent, but have since moved into the troublesome category. That being said, Christian South Caucasians are arguably a better fit for Slavic culture than Muslim North Caucasians. Not to mention that, in general, they tend to be more pleasant people, if we’re talking about society at large.
While I find the conversation over who’s European slightly silly and puerile, melanf has a point that the Customs Union doesn’t have much of a cultural influence on Russia, certainly relative to, for example, Europe’s current migrants in Europe. Most of Russia’s Central Asian migrant workers are from non-Customs Union countries. Kyrgyzstan is small, and Kazakhstan is comparable to Russia economically.
While arguments that Russia should close its borders to Central Asians, or build a beautiful wall, are perfectly legitimate in their own right, I think its proponents purposefully ignore a few features of post Soviet Russian society that mitigate some of the deleterious effects. For one thing, these people are pretty segregated. I don’t have any statistics available, but, anecdotally speaking, intermarriage seems quite rare, and you don’t often see Russians and CAs socializing together.
Additionally, they’re kept on a somewhat tight leash. If you tried to tell a Russian cop that racial profiling is a controversial issue in the West, he’d laugh his ass off. It’s policy among Russian law enforcement. We used to have a Tajik do summer work at our house, he pined for the Soviet Union and cursed Gorbachev more than any Russian I’ve ever heard. His explanation was that he was just another citizen back then, he could go to a disco or whatnot, now he can’t even walk on the street without being harassed by the cops.
If ever there was a political decision at the top, Russia could expel its CAs tomorrow. There wouldn’t be any cries of racism (domestically, of course), it would just happen. I personally find the Chechens and Dagis bring down the quality of life in Russia much more so than the CAs. But, they’re Russian citizens so the problem there won’t be so easily solved. I like Zhirinovsky’s idea of giving those territories away to Georgia in exchange for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, but we all know that’s probably not very feasible currently.
This xoxlosrach here (in the blog of Anatole Karlin) started and ended already 2000 times. For 2001 times find another companion.
“For a long time in Europe there are only two real powers: Russia and the Revolution. First of all Russia is a Christian country, and Russian people is Christian not only through the Orthodoxy of its beliefs but also by something more intimate. … Revolution is first and foremost the enemy of Christianity.”
Russia and the Revolution Fedor Tiutchev 1848
Of course Tiutchev and Aksakov – freaks, but they are quite European freaks
by the way: if, hypothetically, Aksakov would have written that Russia is an African country and Russian is the blacks, you would have thought it a convincing argument? It seems to me that objective reality is more important than the opinion of freaks.
All this is certainly interesting, but beyond debate is the fact that “civilization” in Russia (i.e. literature, music, painting, architecture, etc.) are purely European. And in particular (a funny fact) literary works of the Slavophiles Aksakov, Khomyakov, etc. – are purely European.
If you otherwise understand the word civilization, then give a definition of what civilization is.
Gogol, A. K. Tolstoy, and Bulgakov was writing fantasy long before Tolkien. Now exists ( in English, and in Russian literature equally) many “non-European” fantasy-books.
Of course this is a very important argument for the Polish nationalist – the mother of Valentin Serov was from the baptized Jews!
Well then, that’s purely Nordic painting (by Alexander Novoselov “the Birth of a hero” 2012).
https://i.imgur.com/Pd58ebk.jpg
But I confess that the genealogy of the artist is not checked. So maybe in the future it turns out that great-aunt of the artist had the surname Rosenblum? Then it will also be non-kosher painting.
Generally agree with your post. A few points:
Poroshenko’s Jewishness is, actually, a myth, one I took for granted also. The idea that he has a different “real” surname isn’t true.
Groisman is Jewish. He’s from Vynnytsia, a small central Ukrainian city. In American terms, it would be like a Jewish guy from Indianapolis rather than NYC – not as exotic.
Migrants make European cities much less safe and dirty, but it’s not like Germans are marrying them or hanging out with them socially to any large extent either. Mere presence has an impact – the population isn’t native and doesn’t look native. There is a noticeable contrast between Kiev (or Warsaw) and Moscow from this perspective.
A friend of mine in Moscow wants to give these territories independence, build a big beautiful wall, and deport the Chechens out of Russia proper. He likes his Georgian neighbor though. He’s an MGIMO grad.
High culture, yes. Of course in this case one would find Mexico to be purely European.
Dictionary defines it as: “the society, culture, and way of life of a particular area”
Russia is basically European, but in certain ways it is different from Europe. High culture is the same, way of life not quite. More collectivistic, more Eastern approach to government, more fatalistic, less trusting of outsiders. These are nuances – Russia is certainly not alien to Europe.
The label for Gogol’s or Bulgakov’s works is mystical or magical realism, not fantasy (magic realism is common in Latin American literature, also). Fantasy would be Game of Thrones type stuff which is clearly derivative of Tolkien. Fantasy seems to be, by definition, Western-themed.
Serov’s mother was German Jewish and his father was 1/4 German-Jewish. Serov was a non ethnic Russian cosmopolitan. Russia’s adoption of Western culture was recent and took hold much more strongly in urban areas than in rural ones (typical of a top-down imposition), particularly in Serov’s time. I think it was a mistake of yours to demonstrate Russia’s European culture by using someone who wasn’t fully Russian as an example.
Considering the other classical European Russian painters that I recall from Tretyakov gallery visits – Brullov born in St. Petersburg to two French parents, Repin seems to have been a Ukrainian of Kharkiv Cossack descent, Vrubel was of mixed Russian, Polish and Danish ancestry, Roerich Baltic German and Russian..
Sergey Ivanov, Vasnetsov, and Nestorov were Russians and not coincidentally their works were very Orthodox or pre-Petrine Russia in theme. Shishkin and Kramskoy were Russians. Still, the high number of cosmopolitans is telling.
Then I agree that Russia and Western Europe have a common culture, but have differences in lifestyle (these differences genuinely European – Russia is not in contact with the agricultural civilizations of Asia, and borrowing from the nomads is not possible ). But the idea “Russia – a threat to European culture” is obvious nonsense.
Well, about “collectivistic” funny to read. What absent in Russia – so it’s “collectivism”
Bulgakov – possible. In the case of Gogol’s “the Nose” and “Portrait” can be called magical realism. But “Evenings at Khutor near Dikanka” it’s definitely fantasy, not magical realism.
Just out of curiosity, why do you mention that in this context?
This is just nonsense.
“Sergey Ivanov, Vasnetsov, and Nestorov were Russians and not coincidentally their works were very Orthodox or pre-Petrine Russia in theme”
ha ha
http://www.tphv-history.ru/images/kartiny-Nesterov/007m.jpg
These artists often painted medieval Russia (but not only – see above), but then the “very Orthodox” are the Jews Levitan and Antokolsky
https://img1.badfon.ru/original/1920×1080/0/98/levitan-tihaya-obitel-reka.jpg
http://imagesait.ru/photos/aHR0cDovL3d3dy5qdW5pb3IucnUvZ2FsbGVyeW1oay9hbnRva29sc2t5L2FudG9rb2xza3kxMS1pdmFuLWdyb3pueTE4NzUuanBn/m-m-antokolskij-ivan-groznyj.jpg
Vyacheslav Schwartz (german for your)
http://www.artsait.ru/art/sh/shvarc/img/3.jpg
etc, etc
At the same time, there are lot “racially pure” Russian artists who drew on classical, European scenes, etc.
https://regnum.ru/uploads/pictures/news/2016/04/08/regnum_picture_1460074279585025_normal.jpg
In General, your “genetic” analysis is nonsense.
The way I understand correctly that you think Stanislav Lem – Jewish writer, Henryk Sienkiewicz is Tatar writer, and Chopin – a Frenchman….?
I met this friend on my first stay in the late 90s. It was fascinating for me to hear such opinions from an educated, successful person, I hadn’t been used to that in the USA.
There was much historical borrowing and history does not change so lightly, even if labels change. Vernadsky via wiki:
“Under Mongol occupation, for example, Muscovy developed its mestnichestvo hierarchy, postal road network (based on Mongolian ortoo system, known in Russian as “yam”, hence the terms yamshchik, Yamskoy Prikaz, etc.), census, fiscal system and military organization.”
“The period of Mongol rule over Russia included significant cultural and interpersonal contacts between the Russian and Mongolian ruling classes. By 1450, the Tatar language had become fashionable in the court of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Vasily II, who was accused of excessive love of the Tatars and their speech, and many Russian noblemen adopted Tatar surnames (for example, a member of the Veliamanov family adopted the Turkic name “Aksak” and his descendants were the Aksakovs)[15] Many Russian boyar (noble) families traced their descent from the Mongols or Tatars, including Veliaminov-Zernov, Godunov, Arseniev, Bakhmetev, Bulgakov (descendants of Bulgak) and Chaadaev (descendents of Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai Khan). In a survey of Russian noble families of the 17th century, over 15% of the Russian noble families had Tatar or Oriental origins.”
Russian politics and relations towards government by the governed (the one area where Asians had the greatest historical impact) remains heavily Asian in Russia.
If you don’t think that political and economic links, coupled with immigration, isn’t a threat to native way of life, I can’t help you.
So you do not dispute that most of Nestorov’s work was very Orthodox and Slavic in theme.
Schwartz was not German but of partial Danish descent but his Danish ancestors came to Russia generations before he was born. He was perhaps 1/16 Danish or whatever. By such logic Chaadayev was a Mongolian thinker.
In contrast, the examples I provided were literally cosmopolitans. Both of Briullov’s parents were French people who moved to St. Petersburg for work. Roerich’s father was a Baltic German from Latvia. Serov’s mother was the child of Jews from Hamburg Germany and Serov’s father was 1/4 Jewish (from Germany). Repin was from Kharkiv, the son of local ethnic Little Russians/Ukrainians. Vrubel was only half-Russian – paternal grandfather was a Pole (Wrobel family – I know a distant Polish relative of his), and maternal grandmother was a Dane.
My observation that in general European-themed art in Russia of the 19th century was the work of non-fully Russian cosmopolitans (children or grandchildren of immigrants to Russia, of mixed descent) and Russian or Orthodox themed art the works of natives stands, despite occasional exceptions you provide.
Lem – Jewish from Lviv. Family lived in this mostly Polish and Polish-speaking city for generations. He was as Polish as Wittgenstein was German/Austrian. Lem was not Jewish from Germany or wherever, unlike Serov whose recent ancestors were Jews who came to Russia from Germany.
Henryk Sienkiewicz – some distant Tatar ancestors. Maybe 1/32 or less Tatar. I didn’t claim Bulgakov was a Tatar, rather than a Russian. Silly for you to bring him up.
Chopin – was indeed a cosmopolitan, his father was a Frenchman, mother a Pole.
Vernadsky was a great dreamer (and his work written long ago). His hypothesis did not find evidence.
It is easy to check. Unique European trait is the appearance of a medieval parliament of the feudal Estates type. In the East, in ancient and medieval times was (occasionally) democracy, was a Republic, but the parliament of the Estates was never.
That is, Russia with the feudal parlament obviously not Asia
That is Valentin Serov (whose mother was of baptized Jews, who lived in Moscow) – it is not Russian but “cosmopolitan”. However, a Jew Stanislas Lem, of course, the true Polish writer. Amazing.
Let’s test your hypothesis: look at the work of Roerich (cosmopolitan – according to you)
http://picsbot.ru/images/195461_rerih-zamorskie-gosti.jpg
http://germany-art.com/painting/roerich/images/messenger.jpg
etc., etc.
And this Bryullov
http://stene.ru/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/osada-pskova-polskim-korolem-stefanom-batoriem-v-1581-godu.jpg
In General, the theory of “genetically deterministic” art is not working
Muscovite state that emerged under Mongols was neither feudalistic nor democratic. Novgorod and Pskov were dead ends.
You dismissed Vernadsky but ignored the facts he provided.
Serov’s Jewish mother’s parents were from Hamburg. They moved to Russia. Lem’s family lived n Lwow for centuries. Lem is as Polish as Wittgenstein is German/Austrian.
If you don’t see the difference I can’t help you.
In general, cherry-picking exceptions by you isn’t working. (and the Roerich example is silly – the first one depicts Scandinavians in Slavic territory)
You promoted high art as evidence of Russian innate Europenness, but many of the examples (Briullov, Serov, Vrubel, Roerich) – far more thjan among the general Russian population – were children or grandchildren of European immigrants to Russia.
The monarchy is using the Parliament chosen by the estates in the struggle with the feudal aristocracy. It is solely a European phenomenon.
Николай Борисов “Возвышение Москвы” One Chapter is devoted to an analysis of Vernadsky’s ideas about the Mongolian influence. As a whole – Vernadsky hypothesis was not confirmed.
Muscovite state developed a despotism with little contact with Europe but extensive contact with Mongol tutors and overlords.
Verndasky is a greater historian than Borisov.
Which specific facts were wrong:
“Under Mongol occupation, for example, Muscovy developed its mestnichestvo hierarchy, postal road network (based on Mongolian ortoo system, known in Russian as “yam”, hence the terms yamshchik, Yamskoy Prikaz, etc.), census, fiscal system and military organization.”
“The period of Mongol rule over Russia included significant cultural and interpersonal contacts between the Russian and Mongolian ruling classes. By 1450, the Tatar language had become fashionable in the court of the Grand Prince of Moscow, Vasily II, who was accused of excessive love of the Tatars and their speech, and many Russian noblemen adopted Tatar surnames (for example, a member of the Veliamanov family adopted the Turkic name “Aksak” and his descendants were the Aksakovs)[15] Many Russian boyar (noble) families traced their descent from the Mongols or Tatars, including Veliaminov-Zernov, Godunov, Arseniev, Bakhmetev, Bulgakov (descendants of Bulgak) and Chaadaev (descendents of Genghis Khan’s son Chagatai Khan). In a survey of Russian noble families of the 17th century, over 15% of the Russian noble families had Tatar or Oriental origins.”
It affects neither the genes nor the “cultural environment”. Just a sample of the ridiculous mental acrobatics.
Roerich (and Briullov) you pointed out yourself. However I would be interested to see a statistical analysis of works by Russian artists, depending on their origin. But this analysis from your I not seen – just a random cherry-picking and nothing more.
Roerich (you choice) systematically paint ancient Slavs https://yandex.ru/images/search?text=%D0%A0%D0%B5%D1%80%D0%B8%D1%85%20%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%8F%D0%BD%D0%B5
And what does this have to the issue? The above-mentioned persons (Briullov, Serov, Vrubel, Roerich) in any encyclopedia will be marked as Russian painters.
Just a sample of the fact that a disproportionate number of people responsible for European-themed art in Russia, were children or grandchildren of immigrants from Europe.
That is, instead of the argument (I gave you a clear example, the Parliament, exclusively European phenomenon) you are trying to use non-verified propaganda. Слив защщитан
All the facts wrong. “Мestnichestvo hierarchy” was formed after the fall of the Horde, the census was first conducted by Peter the Great, fiscal system, and military organization were very different, etc.
The Mongols tried to create an Empire with a bureaucracy, roads, communications, etc. in the 13th century (the Mongols this task failed), but a centralized state in Russia created in the late 15th century. Because of this, Ivan 3 “technically” (because of the time interval) could not build a state on samples of Genghis Khan and Ogedei.
Parliament was a vestige from pre-Mongol times that in Moscow atrophied under Mongol rule.
Mestnichestvo system was developed in 1475; Moscow stopped paying tribute to the Mongols in 1480. So it was developed under the Mongols, though it outlasted their rule.
So this is wrong:
The first census taken by the Mongols occurred in 1257, just seventeen years after their conquest of Rus’ lands. The population was divided into multiples of ten, a system that had been employed by the Chinese and later adopted by the Mongols who extended its use over the entirety of their empire; the census served as the primary purpose for conscription as well as for taxation. This practice was carried on by Moscow after it stopped acknowledging the Horde in 1480. The practice fascinated foreign visitors to Russia, to whom large-scale censuses were still unknown. One such visitor, Sigismund von Herberstein from Hapsburg made note of the fact that every two or three years, the prince conducted a census throughout the land (Wittfogel, 638). Census taking would not become widespread in Europe until the early 19th century. One significant observation that we must make is that the extent to which the Russians so thoroughly conducted the census was not achieved elsewhere in Europe for another 120 years or so, during the Age of Absolutism. The impact of the Mongol Empire at least in this area was obviously deep and effective and helped to create a strong central government for Russia.
,
So why did the Russians take from the Mongols their very word for money – dengi? This suggests some importance.
http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/65998/1/__lse.ac.uk_storage_LIBRARY_Secondary_libfile_shared_repository_Content_Neumann%2C%20I_Europeans%20and%20the%20steppe_Neumann_Europeans_and_the_steppe.pdf
Despite the objections of hypersensitive Russian historians, there is a compelling case that Muscovy did indeed borrow a variety of Mongol political and administrative institutions, including the tamga, the seal for the customs tax as well as the tax itself; the kazna, the treasury; the iam, the postal system; tarkhan, grants of fiscal or juridical immunity; and den’ga for money. ;uscovite bureaucratic practices, including the use of stolbtsy, scrolls to preserve documents, and perhaps some feature of Muscovite bureaucratic jargon, may also derive from the Qipchaq Khanate, as well as selective legal practices such as pravezh, beating on the shins. Certainly Muscovite diplomatic norms for dealing with steppe states and peoples were modeled on Tatar ways. Finally, the Muscovites had no choice but to study Tatar military tactics and strategies, if only to survive by countering them in battle, but the Muscovites also copied Mongol weapons, armaments, horse equipage, and formations.
The first Parliament in Russia – 1549 (Ivan the terrible decided to use the Parliament against the aristocracy). Prior to this, Parliament in Russia did not exist ( Veche is not Parliament).
“случаи местничества на Руси до середины XV в. – не фиксируются вообще. Во второй половине XV века – первой трети XVI века случаи местничества очень редки и носили скорее служебный, чем родовой характер. По принципу “я раньше командовал вот этим, значитв дальнейшем мне под его началом ходить неудобно”. А в 1533 г. Елена Глинская померла – и началось... ”
Final disposition of vassalage from the Horde – 1472 http://litresp.ru/chitat/ru/Г/gorskij-anton-anatoljevich/russkoe-srednevekovje/13
And then the census was carried out by Peter in 1718-1722. Succession between 1257 and 1718 is absolutely impossible. Before Peter there was no census . In the 17th century was carried out by the government (according to my memory, in 1678) census households (not population!). Before that, there was no nationwide census
So why the Americans borrowed from the Czech their very word for money – dollar?
For agricultural countries copy the military organization of the nomads is impossible.
PS – the first census in England, 1086 (Domesday Book).
So your quoted text is explicitly incorrect
So Euro-style Veche atrophied under Russian/Mongol times.
Didn’t the Mongols have assemblies of nobles – kurultai? Muscovite elite were historically directly and personally familiar with this:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurultai
a political and military council of ancient Mongol and some Turkic chiefs and khans. The root of the word is “Khur” (assemble/discuss) and that helps form “Khural” meaning political “meeting” or “assembly” in Turkic and Mongolian languages. Khuraldai (written Khuruldai) or Khuraldaan means “a gathering”, or more literally, “intergatheration”.
“Russian princes and boyars, who often had to wait in Sarai for the Kurultai to elect a new khan, who would then re-issue their yarlyks (patents), would no doubt often witness this khan kutermiak rituals, which became increasingly more frequent and futile during the mid-14th century time of troubles in the Horde, giving rise to the Russian word “кутерьма” (kuter’ma), meaning “running around pointlessly”.[3] ”
So which was more familiar to Muscovites and likely to be a model, the Mongolian kurultai or the English parliament?
Not quite.
“This practice was carried on by Moscow after it stopped acknowledging the Horde in 1480. The practice fascinated foreign visitors to Russia, to whom large-scale censuses were still unknown. One such visitor, Sigismund von Herberstein from Hapsburg made note of the fact that every two or three years, the prince conducted a census throughout the land (Wittfogel, 638). Census taking would not become widespread in Europe until the early 19th century. ”
Dollar came to the USA from the Dutch and reflects Dutch influence (New York, America’s financial center, had been a Dutch colony and the currency still circulated after the Dutch left).
Dengi came to Russia because Mongol influence on Russia.
The question is irrelevant but Popular assembly (Veche, ting, etc.) in different forms exist everywhere (in Europe, Asia and America), but everywhere disappeared with the development of civilization. In the Russian principalities which were not under the rule of the Mongols (Smolensk, Belarus) the Veche also disappeared
Kurultai was not parliament of the feudal Estates type, for this completely irrelevant.
Definitely no. The first national census (not people but households) – 1646 (second – 1678). From 1718 begins is a national census of men. Before 1646 there was no nationwide census in any form, and for this scientists can only guess about population.
The word dollar is distorted Joachimstaler, after Joachimstal town in the Czech Kingdom.
.
Source I link to below states that Boyar Duma was the counterpart to the Council of State of the Khanate where the four qaraci beys sat. Boyar council initially also only had four members, as in the Khanate. It later expanded.
So the census that the Russians got from their Mongol teachers counted households rather than individuals.
A lot more details here:
Princes Ivan I and Semen made at least 12 rips to Sarai between 1332 and 1350, adopting Mongol administrative practices because of their role as tax collectors for the Mongol overlords. Moscow princes served as basqaqs for the khan, appointing namestiki (functional equivalent to daruyacin) and volosteli (equivalent of basqaqs). Diaki of the Muscovite court served the same function as bitcvhechi of Uighar chanceries. Dvorskii were equivalent to Khanate’s viziers.
By the 14th century, Muscovite princes adopted the idea that all land belonged to the ruler. In Rus times, when a boyar left a prince’s service, he kept his own lands.
Book goes into detail about military influences. Muscovites adopted from Tatars the use of short stirrups in cavalry, used Tatar-style bows, used silk underneath armor (very useful for removing arrows without causing internal damage – Europeans weren’t aware of this).
And then – the large influx of Mongol/Tatar nobles into Muscovy (Vernadsky estimated 15% of Russian nobles families had Mongol origins). For example in 1471 Murtaza, son of khan Mustafa, entered Muscovite service and was awarded the town of Novogorodok on the Oka river.
Khudai Kul, captured in 1487, converted to Christianity and was baptised as Petr Ibraimov. He became one of the closest advisers of Vasily III, married Vasily III’s sister, and became namestnik of Moscow. Kudai Kul/Petr had two daughters, who married into princely families – thus the prominent Muscovite noble families Mstslavskis, Shuiskys and Belskiis were descended from this Tatar prince.
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%A5%D1%83%D0%B4%D0%B0%D0%B9-%D0%9A%D1%83%D0%BB
Sure. The point is that it came to America from the Dutch, and reflects Dutch influence. Just as the Russian word dengi comes from Mongols and reflects Mongol influence.
The boyar Duma is an analogue kurultai, and the analogue of the house of peers. Similar institutions were everywhere – from Britain to Japan. But zemsky sobor – parliament of the feudal Estates type, is a uniquely European phenomenon.
You are contradicting yourself. Quote:
nothing common with Russian practice. In any case, between 1257 and 1648 insurmountable times abyss ..
This is pure fantasy. Under Ivan 1 (as well as under his son and grandson), Moscow remained primitive Principality, absolutely indistinguishable from the principalities of the pre-Mongol era. A sharp restructuring of “administrative practices” of the Moscow state began much later (in the late 15th century).
Why would you copy obviously absurd assertion?
“Если князь затевал войну без совета с боярами, те могли покинуть его и поступить на службу к другому князю. Их право на отъезд подтверждали все без исключения междукняжеские договоры. Время великого князя Дмитрия Ивановича с полным правом называют золотым веком боярства. По словам летописи, Дмитрий советовал своим сыновьям править государством в согласии с боярами: «И бояры своя любите, честь им достойную воздавайте противу служению их, без совета их ничто же не творите». В прощальной речи к боярам великий князь сказал: «Великое княжение свое вельми укрепих… отчину свою с вами соблюдах… И вам честь и любовь даровах… И веселихся с вами, с вами и поскорбех. Вы не нарекостеся у мене бояре, но князи земли моей…». Сочиненные много позже речи, при всех их риторических красотах и преувеличениях, достаточно верно отражали характер взаимоотношений великого князя и его бояр.”
Руслан Скрынников ТРЕТИЙ РИМ
Boyar duma was specifically modeled on the Council of State of the Khanate where the four qaraci beys sat. Boyar council initially also only had four members, as in the Khanate. It later expanded. The model was Mongol, not British or Japanese or native Rus.
Not a universal opinion. Historian Vasily Klyuchevsky described it as “особый тип народного представительства, отличный от западных представительных собраний.”
I was repeating your claim, which contradicted other observations. Again: “This practice was carried on by Moscow after it stopped acknowledging the Horde in 1480. The practice fascinated foreign visitors to Russia, to whom large-scale censuses were still unknown. One such visitor, Sigismund von Herberstein from Hapsburg made note of the fact that every two or three years, the prince conducted a census throughout the land (Wittfogel, 638).”
You claim it is pure fantasy, Harvard historian/specialist of medieval Russian history in a book published by Cambridge writes that Ivan Kalita and Semen the Proud made numerous visits to Sarai and learned from their Mongol lords, borrowing the system of dual administration to aid in tax collecting and governing.
Whom to believe?
As for indistinguishable – I already posted, “Moscow princes served as basqaqs for the khan, appointing namestiki (functional equivalent to daruyacin) and volosteli (equivalent of basqaqs). Diaki of the Muscovite court served the same function as bitcvhechi of Uighar chanceries. Dvorskii were equivalent to Khanate’s viziers.” Also, Muscovite princes borrowed the entire higher administrative system from the Khanate, the tysiatskii (until 1374) and bolshoy namestinik (after 1374) were equivalents to beylaribey.
These were all 14th century developments, which coincided with Ivan Kalita’s and Semens’ extensive contacts with the Khanate.
Your source is a Soviet historian, mine a Harvard historian published in Cambridge. From my source:
Mongols were not sedentary so they borrowed the idea of land ownership from the Chinese. This system was based on the principle that all land belonged to the ruler. “Previously, in Kievan Rus, when a boyar left a prince’s service he kept his land. Our earliest indication of the invoking of this principal of ownership [the Chinese one, adopted through the Mongols] by the Muscovite prince was the confiscation by Dmitri in 1375 of the estates of Ivan Vasiliyevich Veliaminov when the latter defected to Tver.”
:::::::::::::::::
Nothing more to say about dengi?
How about the mass influx of Tatar aristocrats into Russian society?
Boyar Duma was first mentioned in sources in 1517. The Boyar Duma at the time included 10-12 boyars (this is a special study http://personalhistory.ru/papers/zimin.htm). Fantasy is not confirmed, alas
Irrelevant, because a “представительные собрания” (как особые так и неособые) is a uniquely European phenomenon
This is an obvious fantasy. National censuses until 1646 did not exist. There was a “писцовые книги” (Cadastres probably mentioned by Grebenstein). “Писцовые книги” were compiled locally (this was not a census) it was a list of arable lands. With the practice of the nomadic Mongols (or Chinese censuses) there is no similarity.
They visits to Sarai , but borrowed nothing. There were no elements of “system of administration” (during the reign of Ivan Kalita and Semen the Proud) borrowed from the Tatars.
Specify at least one such element mentioned in the Chronicles in ages Ivan Kalita and Semen the Proud ? you will fail
Yes, in addition, the credibility of the Cambridge/Harvard in medieval Russian history is equal to zero.
Yeh? Seriously? In this case, the confiscation of the lands of Henry the Lion probably indicates the dominance of the Mongols in medieval Germany?
But if without jokes, from the agreement of the great Prince Dmitry Ivanovich with Grand Prince of Tver Mikhail Aleksandrovich, 1375:
“А кто бояр и слуг отъехал от нас к тобе или от тобе к нам, а села их в нашей вотчине, в великом княженьи, или в твоей вотчине, во Тфери, в ты села нам и тобе не въступатися.”
That is, rights of Moscow aristocrats of the 14th century, were superior to right of Western European aristocrats of the era.
Explain how borrowing for words money could affect the social structure?
Similarly, what could the nomads (coming into the service of the Moscow Prince in the 15-16 century) to teach agricultural state? About the Chinese experience (in the 15-16 century) the Tatars know nothing.
Your source includes a section describing Boyar Duma in 15th century.
The Harvard/Cambridge work states that the Boyar duma was specifically modeled on the Council of State of the Khanate where the four qaraci beys sat. Boyar council initially also only had four members, as in the Khanate.
Whom to believe, a historian from Harvard who specializes in this history in a book that was published by Cambridge, or anonymous internet guy “melanf?”
Anonymous internet guy melanf states that nothing was borrowed. Anonymous internet guy writes that it wasn’t in the Chronicles, therefore it must not have existed.
Work by actual historian from Harvard published by Cambridge details the 14th century borrowings:
“Moscow princes served as basqaqs for the khan, appointing namestiki (functional equivalent to daruyacin) and volosteli (equivalent of basqaqs). Diaki of the Muscovite court served the same function as bitcvhechi of Uighar chanceries. Dvorskii were equivalent to Khanate’s viziers.” Also, Muscovite princes borrowed the entire higher administrative system from the Khanate, the tysiatskii (until 1374) and bolshoy namestinik (after 1374) were equivalents to beylaribey.
According to anonymous internet guy “melanf.” Whom to believe?
If confiscations prior to Mongols were not widespread but became widespread afterwards, then probably yes. But Mongols did not dominate Germany. They did however dominate Moscow. So from whom was this new practice in Muscovy borrowed? England? The Aztecs? Perhaps Zulus?
It, rather, reflects impact on social structure. If Mongols didn’t impact Moscow’s financial system, Muscovites wouldn’t have taken the very word for money from Mongols. Just as, if the Dutch didn’t impact the American colony’s financial system, Americans would not have taken the name of their currency from them.
Mongols became sedentary in the early 14th century in the Ilkhanate and developed practices that were then spread to others lands ruled by Mongols. They developed agricultural estates known as iqta, characteristics of which were adopted in Moscow. The ruling class of the Golden Horde also underwent a process of becoming sedentary; Sarai became a huge city. Iqta system was introduced to northern China. It was the basis of Russian pomeste.
:::::::::::::::::
I’ll end with this observation by Russian specialist from Columbia University, Halperin. He vehemently disagreed with some of Ostrowski’s observations that I posted but also stated:
“It was endemic on the medieval religious frontier not to admit consciously that one had borrowed institutions from conquered or conquering peoples of a different religion. This was true of Crusader Valencia in 13th-century Spain about Islamic Moorish institutions, of the Arab Umayyad dynasty from the 7th century or the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century about Byzantine institutions, and of the French Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem from the 12th century about Islamic institutions.
In general the most reliable evidence of the foreign origin of an institution was its name: calques or loan-words betray borrowed institutions even in the absence of admissions of borrowing, even, it must be added, when there is confusion or disagreement about the nature of the borrowed institution itself. In other cases sufficient credible and contemporary evidence about the institution substantiates the reality of borrowing. Despite the objections of hypersensitive Russian historians, there is a compelling case that Muscovy did indeed borrow a variety of Mongol political and administrative institutions, including the tamga, the seal for the customs tax as well as the tax itself; the kazna, the treasury; the iam , the postal system; tarkhan , grants of fiscal or judicial immunity; and den’ga for money. Muscovite bureaucratic practices, including the use of stolbtsy , scrolls to preserve documents, and perhaps some features of Muscovite bureaucratic jargon, may also derive from the Qipchaq Khanate, as well as selective legal practices such as pravezh, beating on the shins. Certainly Muscovite diplomatic norms for dealing with steppe states and peoples were modeled on Tatar ways. Finally, the Muscovites had no choice but to study Tatar military tactics and strategies, if only to survive by countering them in battle, but the Muscovites also copied Mongol weapons, armaments, horse equipage, and formations.”
The Boyar Duma was first mentioned in 1517, but (presumably) has existed since the late 15th century.
«В изучаемое время термин «Боярская дума» не упоминается. Но термин «дума» встречался под 1517 г., когда Шигона Поджогин назван сыном боярским, «который у государя в думе живет»
А. А. Зимин Формирование боярской аристократии в России во второй половине XV — первой трети XVI в.
specially for you, a summary of the issue:
«Примерно так обстоит дело с двумя особенностями управления страной, которые зарождаются при Иване III и Василии III, – Боярской думой и бюрократическим аппаратом. Боярская дума впервые упоминается в источниках именно при Василии III, в 1517 г. … Численный состав думы определяется в 10–12 человек, однако из этой формулы еще не следует, что в совещании с государем участвовали все бояре…Боярская дума оставалась совещательным органом при государе. Ее значение возрастет лишь после смерти Василия III, в малолетство Ивана IV. Такой же путь подобные органы власти проходили в соседних странах – Польском королевстве и Великом княжестве Литовском.»
Сергей Полехов (Кандидат исторических наук, научный сотрудник Института российской истории Российской академии наук. ) «Великий князь Василий III Иванович»
Fantasy is not confirmed, alas
That is, you can’t specify even one single example of borrowing elements of “system of administration” during the reign of Ivan Kalita and Semen the Proud (mentioned in Chronicles). Слив защщщитан.
On your quote – explain how Dvorsky and the Тysiatskii were borrowed from the Mongols, if these positions are well-known in pre-Mongol times? For example:
“Данилъ со воии Д 15 . со 16 Холъма . и бъıвшю емоу . третии дн҃ь оу Галичи . любѧхоуть 17 же и гражане . подъехавшоу же емоу подъ городъ . и реч̑ имь ѡ моужи градьстии . доколѣ хощете терпѣти иноплеменьнъıхъ . кнѧзии 18 державоу . ѡни же воскликноувше 19 рѣша ӕко се есть держатель нашь Бм҃ь данъıи Б 20 . и поустишасѧ ӕко дѣти ко ѡч҃ю В 21 . ӕко пчелъı к матцѣ . ӕко жажющи 22 водъı ко 23 источникоу Г. пискоупоу же 24 Артѣмью 25 . и дворьскомоу Григорью . возбранѧющоу 26 емоу . оузрѣвшима же има 27 . ӕко не можета оудерьжати града”
Ипатьевская летопись 1235 год
No. The era of Mongol power – the Golden age of aristocratic liberties in Russia (see the Treaty of 1375). But after the fall of the Horde the princes of Moscow deal with the aristocracy (along with the Western European monarchs). That is your hypothesis is chronologically untenable.
Russia had no relations with the Ilkhanate. So irrelevant
Of course. You didn’t mention it before. So you admit it began its existence under Mongol rule.
So, Russian specialist in this area, professor at Harvard published by Cambridge, vs. a guy with a master’s degree in history (kandidat is somewhere between a master’s and Ph.D.). Whom to believe?
Your silly mention of Chronicles has already been addressed, by Dr. Halperin, specialist of medieval Russian history at Columbia University:
About lack of open descriptions in Chronicles:
“It was endemic on the medieval religious frontier not to admit consciously that one had borrowed institutions from conquered or conquering peoples of a different religion. This was true of Crusader Valencia in 13th-century Spain about Islamic Moorish institutions, of the Arab Umayyad dynasty from the 7th century or the Ottoman Empire from the 14th century about Byzantine institutions, and of the French Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem from the 12th century about Islamic institutions.
In general the most reliable evidence of the foreign origin of an institution was its name: calques or loan-words betray borrowed institutions even in the absence of admissions of borrowing, even, it must be added, when there is confusion or disagreement about the nature of the borrowed institution itself. In other cases sufficient credible and contemporary evidence about the institution substantiates the reality of borrowing. Despite the objections of hypersensitive Russian historians, there is a compelling case that Muscovy did indeed borrow a variety of Mongol political and administrative institutions, including the tamga, the seal for the customs tax as well as the tax itself; the kazna, the treasury; the iam , the postal system; tarkhan , grants of fiscal or judicial immunity; and den’ga for money. Muscovite bureaucratic practices, including the use of stolbtsy , scrolls to preserve documents, and perhaps some features of Muscovite bureaucratic jargon, may also derive from the Qipchaq Khanate, as well as selective legal practices such as pravezh, beating on the shins. Certainly Muscovite diplomatic norms for dealing with steppe states and peoples were modeled on Tatar ways. Finally, the Muscovites had no choice but to study Tatar military tactics and strategies, if only to survive by countering them in battle, but the Muscovites also copied Mongol weapons, armaments, horse equipage, and formations.”
So – anonymous internet guy “melanf” says if it wasn’t explicit in the Chronicles it didn’t exist. Specialist from Columbia says it’s typical for such things not to be openly described, and language gives a good clue with repsect to reality. Whom to believe?
Name may have existed, function may have become equivalent to Khanate’s vizier. That being said, on this specific point Halperin agrees with you may not be wrong here, as you are everywhere else.
Mongols had relationship with Ilkhanate and themselves adopted practices from Ilkhanate. They took from Ilkhanate the idea of the iqta agricultural system and spread it to Muscovy, where it was called pomeste, and northern China. So relevant.
Vassal relationship with the Horde formally abolished in 1472. Boyar Duma (first mentioned in 1517) appeared clearly later.
This “specialist in this area” judging by the quotes you cited, allows a huge number of gross errors (Dvorsky and tysyatsky a vivid example). However if you need a “counterauthority” – the above links to work of Zimin.
What an honor for Anonymous internet guy melanf 🙂
Strange fancy. “Pomeste” is a system which was formed under Ivan III (after the collapse of the Horde). How this system “spread” by the Tatars? Do you think that Ivan III studied the land system of Persia and China? 🙂