An amazing place. I visited twice about 15 years ago and have many fond memories of it, but mostly when I think about it I'm filled with sadness, because the people there deserve so much better. They're constantly knee-deep in corruption, both street level and just the very blatant kleptocratic presidential family. There's a lot of ethnic Russians, both expat workers and ones that didn't manage to leave after the collapse of the Soviet Union, that are very openly racist towards ethnic Tajiks but were usually allowed to run free. The people were hospitable and open and very happy to have guests in their country, but it also seemed like a very bleak place, with few good prospects for the future.
The people are friendly and welcoming, and the scenery is amazing. As a tourist, I don't much mind paying a few bribes to policemen (who barely get paid a wage), and I can stand to keep my mouth shut about their president when I'm there (even though he's obviously a bastard). But it's painful to think what it must be like to live there and have nowhere else to go.
And the people who are left are the ones who cannot leave.
This is a pretty common pattern: there's a portion of the population that is mobile and can freely move around, and the rest of the population is stuck in place for one reason or another. When Venezuela went through its instability a couple years ago, about 20-30% of the population left [0]. Syria had 30-40% leave [1]. Ukraine had about 15% leave the country, but more were displaced from the warzone as internal refugees.
So when you say that "about one-quarter of Tajikistan's entire population" went to Russia for work, that suggests that economic conditions are at the same general class as 2018 Venezuela or 2012 Syria, where everybody who easily can move has moved. The people that are left really do have nowhere else to go.
This does not make day-to-day life any less bleak, though. Now they still face the same issues, but on top of it they depend on others’ charity for their income. Surely there are cultural differences and family ties make the pill easier to swallow, but still.
> In 2014, Tajikistan was the most-remittance based economy on earth, amounting to almost half of its GDP. The countryside is dotted with half-finished concrete homes which I was told were the long-term retirement plans of Tajiks working abroad; they build their structures for a few months each year over many years or decades using trickles of funds earned from abroad. When the structures are finished, they prepare them to be their permanent homes once they retire from migrant work.
They aren't settling out of the country permanently and I doubt the quality of life as a migrant worker in Russia is spectacular.
Your link suggests this is largely to remove red tape while working in Russia. It does not answer how many are settling long-term. There is of course also this little complication:
> Anecdotal evidence suggests that recent recipients of that status have been prioritized for military mobilization as the Kremlin forges ahead with its offensives against Ukraine.
"While Tajik expatriates have some scant freedom of movement and residency privileges in Russia as compared to peers from most of the world outside the former Soviet Union, they have limited access to accommodation and credit, making settling long-term a complicated proposition.
Migrant laborers also face recurrent costs like payment for their work permits.
Holding Russian citizenship makes many problems go away."
The vast majority of the world is amazing if you come with western money as a tourist, Cuba, Turkey, Kirghizistan, &c. you'll have a great time, most locals are great people but living there as an average citizen isn't that amazing in term of quality of life, access to necessities, infrastructure, ...
In rich countries the things you want to do are already legal, or are in the rich country next door
but worse case for violent criminal things, there isn't a functional difference between a campaign donation to the district attorney in a wealthy nation or a couple bucks to a police officer in your face in a poor country
That really depends on what you want. A poor place may simply not have a “utility” that you might want to fully entertain due to inherently low standards. They may literally not know any better and nobody went there to fix that.
It really doesn't. Rich countries have base rules that all must follow. Justin Timberlake was just arrested for drunk driving. He might get off because he can afford the best lawyers, but he was arrested. That is a thing that happened. It would not have happened in somewhere like Tajikistan where a roadside bribe would nullify the entire situation. For the equivalent of a few hundred bucks they would have given him a ride home and nobody would be the wiser.
I had a sheriff's officer I knew tell me he'd been stopped five times for drunk driving and each time he'd just pulled out his badge and they'd waved him along.
Some of the most beautiful mountain scenery I've ever seen and very hospitable people. A very nice place to visit. Not a very good place to live though unless you're so rich that you don't have to rely on the local infrastructure and services for survival and quality of life.
I find life to also be bad if you are the only rich person isolated in a bubble when 99% of the people are in extreme poverty. You just can't feel good, unless you don't care.
Being in Venezuela in the first years of Chavez was bizarre.
National university professor's family (so, upper middle class) living behind 3m concrete walls topped with broken glass and shuttling between there and similarly armored swim clubs.
It made me reflect on the difference between token security and actual security.
I visited last year. I agree with everything you said. It was beautiful. I didn't notice many Russians there at all though. Many more in the surrounding stans.
> many fond memories of it, but mostly when I think about it I'm filled with sadness, because the people there deserve so much better. They're constantly knee-deep in corruption, both street level and just the very blatant kleptocratic presidential family
I spent 2 years driving the length of the Pan-American Highway, and 3 years driving right around the African continent.
What you said can equally be applied to many places I spent a good deal of time in. Incredibly friendly, warm, kind and happy people to a degree I did not know was possible on planet earth. Sadly they're held down by corruption, ineptitude and the West.
Happily, virtually every single person laughs, sings, dances and celebrates basically everyday, because they choose to be vibrantly happy despite all the BS.
> Incredibly friendly, warm, kind and happy people to a degree I did not know was possible on planet earth. Sadly they're held down by corruption, ineptitude and the West.
The problems are significantly of their own doing. I live in one such country (Nigeria), and many people say the same thing about my people- warm, friendly, and whatever.
But being warm and friendly doesn’t build a successful nation. Tribalism, high tolerance for corruption from the locals, and lack of the rule of law are what ruin these countries, and citizens are either too apathetic or outrightly support the same incompetent leaders ruining them.
Besides, some people are friendly to white foreigners but hostile to locals from another tribe.
I wonder how much of this is equivalent to small towns in the US passing laws to become speed traps. They get their revenue from out-of-towners passing through as the natural design speed of the highway instead of the posted limit. The difference is that police bribes go directly to the officer's pocket while speeding tickets get sent to the municipal budget, then allocated to the officer's salary.
What do you think of the wave of companies trying to cash in on inexpensive labor from countries in Africa?
My experience working as a vendor to a company that hired Zimworks out of Zimbabwe was rather underwhelming. Pastoral care was all they offered for healthcare to the local Zimbabwean employees, and the time shift the local employees endured seemed to wear heavily on them.
While we can't blame colonialism for everything, "tribalism" throughout much of Africa is as much a product of colonial strategy (divide and conquer) as it is precolonial tension. British colonial administrators mastered this strategy.
>This is the same mentality that contributes to these countries remaining poor. Just kick out the “WASPs”…so that the local kleptocrats take over.
The "local kleptocrats" are usually just lackeys of those WASPs, put in place, supported financially and diplomatically, with arms and so on (and by pressuring their opponents) to ensure the stealing continues. On their own, they're small time crooks, the real bulk of the countries riches still goes back to the post-colonial masters...
>The problem is corruption and lack of rule of law, not WASPs
Corruption and lack of rule of law is a feature, not a bug. A feature kept in place by those bugs, the WASPs, with the help of loyal local scum.
"But, but, but those WASPS kept the rule of law an order when they governed directly as colonial masters"
Yeah, when you rule a colony and live there as ruler, it tends to benefit you to keep the rule of law. You get to stroll safe, and besides all your own colonial stealing is done "by the book" and is a-ok since it's based on your laws.
It's when you leave the place (or get kicked out) that you opt for the "divide and conquer" and "get friendly local scum to power" approaches, and helping keep the country poor, corrupt, and at war, pays dividends...
And you have your establishment scholars point out how it's the local's bad culture and unfitness for rule of law that prevents them for flourishing.
It's the same kind of people who would have written that the locals are inferior races and need taming and someone to keep them in order, a century or so ago...
By your logic, Zimbabwe should be the flourishing paradise of Africa; I'm not sure there's a country that has seen so thorough an enmity between its post-colonial ruling elite and its former colonial master (well, maybe Algeria). Yet ZANU-PF's signature achievement is the forced redistribution of land away from the white settlers, and in the process promulgated the utter ruination of its own economy.
Zimbabwe kicked out all the WASPs. Where did they end up? A failed state.
The issue is not WASPs, it’s bad governance. But I guess life is easy when one can just blame WASPs rather than examine themselves to find fault.
We Africans have autonomy but refuse to use it for good. It’s condescending to assume we have no role in our problems and, to follow the logic, no role in the solutions.
Isn't it a bit a matter of culture, though? Colonial administrations are built to extract wealth from a country. So, when you get independence, that's still what the government, hell, even the infrastructure, is built for. Half the rail lines go straight to a port, all the bureaucrats know is how to squeeze people. So you end up with 'bad governance', even decades later, because that's the culture of governance that gets passed on, generation to generation.
Many previously colonized countries have become very successful, e.g., Singapore, Canada, Ireland, Bahrain, Cyprus, etc. Heck, even the USA was a colony, so previous colonialism is no excuse for not building a thriving country.
Good governance can be learned and implemented within a short while. We Africans just refuse to.
I think the only country you've mentioned that's a) not a city state and b) run by the colonized people, not the colonizers, is Ireland. If you look around the world, there's a pretty strong correlation between length of colonial subjugation, and the misfortunes of the people who were colonized today. I mean, in the USA, it was a colony for a long time, and there are hardly any Native Americans left, and those that survived live in the worst parts of the country, generally in poverty. The same is basically true of Canada, or Australia.
Countries like Japan, never colonized, or China, only briefly and partially colonized, seem to recover way faster. I also don't think it's specifically an African thing: look at the Phillipines, or Pakistan, or large parts of the ME.
Okay, we can keep making excuses. If we follow your logic, these countries (including mine) are destined to be mediocre and nothing can change it in the short term.
We should never push for change...it's the colonizer's fault always.
I guess it's a question of what change you push for. Imagine you go to post-revolution Haiti, and you just try to push for economic growth. You recognize that the country has an internationally competitive sugar industry. So you work out ways to convince everybody to go back and work on the sugar plantations, producing sugar for export. Except, you're in competition with the slave plantations, so you can't really pay people good wages or have good conditions. People don't like that, so they revolt, and you repress them with force. Before long, you have produced something like pre-revolution Haiti.
Sometimes it's important to recognize the history in order to push in the right direction. I don't know what the right direction is, but I think saying that Africans just suck because they've been dealt an awful hand seems unfair. I figure it's just really hard to get out from under the feet of an international system that was built for and by colonizers, and there are very few clearly good choices about how to do it.
Have you ever wondered why Switzerland is the world's second largest exporter of processed coffee, despite never growing a single bean? [1]. Germany is 3rd, Netherlands is 4th. Hmmmm.
Have you ever wondered why all those poor countries around the world sell unprocessed coffee to Switzerland for pennies rather than telling Switzerland to take a hike, processing it themselves and making way more money?
Have you ever wondered why many very poor countries around the world sell their raw minerals for a tiny fraction of the globally accepted price?
After three years on the ground in Africa, my eyes were very wide open. The multi-billion dollar loans from the IMF and World Bank have these countries over a barrel, and if they try to change the status quo, they will be sent back to the dark ages instantly. Spending time in Sudan was very educational, though it means I can never get a visa-wavier for the US. Why do you think that is? (Hint: gas in Sudan was 6 cents a liter..., diesel was half that)
Also very educational to try at get a visa for Ecuatorial Guninea (it has a TON of oil, and a TON of multi-national companies ripping it out). A foreigner can go to the island where the capital is no problem, but try getting permission to go to the mainland - you can't. Even with a valid visa you can't get in. (I camped in view of it here [2] )
Why? Because they don't want you to see what is happening there.
> Have you ever wondered why all those poor countries around the world sell unprocessed coffee to Switzerland for pennies rather than telling Switzerland to take a hike, processing it themselves and making way more money?
Setting up a factory costs a lot of money, and almost no one is willing to make long-term investments in a corrupt and unstable country.
> The multi-billion dollar loans from the IMF and World Bank have these countries over a barrel, and if they try to change the status quo, they will be sent back to the dark ages instantly.
Botswana, the best-governed country in Africa, has managed its economy well enough to never need an IMF bailout. Meanwhile, Ghana has gone begging for IMF bailouts 17 times [1]. If the Ghanaian leaders (voted in by citizens) weren't perpetually inept, the country wouldn't constantly go to the IMF with begging plates.
> Spending time in Sudan was very educational, though it means I can never get a visa-wavier for the US. Why do you think that is? (Hint: gas in Sudan was 6 cents a liter..., diesel was half that)
Sudan had a murderous dictator who reigned for three decades. He was toppled, but it didn't take long for the country to fall into a current bloody civil war.
> A foreigner can go to the island where the capital is no problem, but try getting permission to go to the mainland - you can't. Even with a valid visa you can't get in. (I camped in view of it here [2] )
Because Equitoreal Guinea is run by a comical dictator who lives lavishly while most of his citizens live in penury. Of course, he doesn't want foreigners to see the mess he oversees.
As an African (Nigerian to be specific), I'm actually tired of foreigners always finding excuses for our problems. It's condescending to assume we have no agency, and everything bad that happens to us is the fault of some foreign boogeymen.
Processing coffee yourself takes skill that gangsters who take over a government don't have. The most successful countries after decolonization are meritocracies
>Have you ever wondered why farmers sell unprocessed grains to mills for millions of pennies rather than telling the mills to take a hike, processing it themselves and making way more money, all in the USofA and EU?
because it makes economic sense to do that.
but you can act locally, why do you buy clothing instead of knitting your own, and then with your spare time milling your own flour?
Most Russians hold racist views. It doesn't change if they are expats. As a result of the colonial conquests, Russia is a multiethnic state. But the minorities have never been fully accepted. The govt balances between suppressing the far right and managing it for its own purposes.
Very true when it comes to antisemitic views: only 1 in 10 Russians would be ok having a Jewish friend.
"In a Levada Center poll, for instance, 45 percent of Russians said they had a positive attitude toward Jews in 2021, up from 22 percent in 2010. Russians said Jews were the minority group they were most comfortable having close to them — but only 11 percent said they’re ready to have a Jewish friend, up from 3 percent in 2010."
Oh please, Levada? lol. I understand there's a big psyops push to dehumanize Russians right now, but they are people like the rest of us. Crazy, right?
Hitler and Pol Pot were also humans, yet they did very bad things to other fellow humans.
Nobody is denying that ru are humans, we are simply acknowledging that someone did very bad things against principles of humanity, did it deliberately, at scale, and over a very long time period.
Consider yourself lucky for being from a country that never bombed anyone. Mine killed about 4 million (mostly women and children) in the ME over the last 30 years, and are still at it by helping their friends pound Palestine into smithereens :(
its not only bombing, it is casual everyday racism towards others that is a problem.
same like zionist jews think of themselves as superior to palestinians, same russians think of themselves as superior to Ukrainians and other ex-soviet nations. BTW a lot of Israeli jews immigrated from Soviet Union and some could argue they could pick up this superiority complex from russians
I am aware that this is a bold claim and that it may be hard to believe. I also wish this weren't true. That's why I put a reference to support it. Check out the section on Public sentiments and politics. In particular, that 60% of population support the statement "Russia is for Russians" and what that phrase implies. If you are curious to learn more, check out studies and polls by any organization that you support - Amnesty International, Russian NGO's, universities, etc.
I'm from the US South and am well traveled in Europe and Russia, including minority Russian republics like Adygea. In my experience, Russians are way less racist than Americans and Western Europeans - I almost never heard a racist word from them (I understand the Russian language).
Also, feel free to hit that translate button on videos like these, especially the top voted ones. The comment from Russians are generally very positive (even heartwarming) towards foreigners who are adequate, learn the language and follow the local laws.
It's really not gross if you can accept that the author of such a statement would likely also believe racist is not a term that is used not as a binary (as in - you are either racist or not racist) but that racism is something we are almost all guilty of to some degree or another and not something that means you're going to hell or are a horrible person. In the same way that we are all at times capable of being selfish, or at times capable of being ignorant, or weak to temptation.
Saying they are racist in that light is more like saying that relative to the average, they are a bit more racist than the best of us.
The article studies properties of a nationalist group, which is in extreme minority, especially after 2010s, and doesn’t make claims that ‘most Russians are nationalists’.
You have to lurk really hard to find a nationalist there unless you count people love Dostoyevsky into this group. There are also a lot of glass ceilings in place for ethnical Russians, and distribution in elite universities, politics, and business don’t represent the country average, which suggests there’s an intentional ’reverse racism’ in place towards majority. Moreover, the word ‘Russian’ is banned in media and is replaced by ‘citizen of Russia’.
OP visited about 15 years ago so if you are hinting at the more recent event, it doesn't sound relevant. And if it is not that, I'm not sure what you are hinting at.
Probably the various ethnic cleansings that happened in the *stans at the fall of the USSR, where most more western ethnicities (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarussians, Armenians, ...) were at best swiftly & firmly reconducted to the nearest airport, and at worst killed on the spot.
You are aware that Circassia is 3 countries and more than 4000km away from Tajikistan, right? And that the ethnicities involved in the Circassian genocides are wholly separated from Tajiks?
Circassian genocide was especially nasty, but ancient history (and somewhat inline with America's genocidal colonial conquests West). And not that it justifies the genocide, the Circassians were big slavers of Slavs (especially young girls). Also some of the biggest bastards on the Russian side were actually ethnic German.
The late eighteen hundreds is "ancient history"? That's antiquity to you?
I get the impression that this might come as a surprise to you:
'In the context of the Circassian slave trade, the term Circassians did not necessarily refer to ethnic Circassians, but was used as an umbrella term for a number of different ethnicities from the Caucasus region, such as Georgians, Adyge and Abkhazians, in the same fashion as the term "Abbyssinians" was used as a term also for African slaves who were not from Abyssinia.'
That Moscow is a european colonial project was kind of my point but obviously that flew at a level seemingly mesospheric to you.
I’m well aware of the Mountain of Tongues and Circassia, having traveled that region extensively (including Adygea) and read a number of history books about it.
My country (America) had their own colonial project around that same time period (and also conflated various native groups) - like, ever heard of Manifest Destiny?
What's your nationality? Because it is absolutely relevant. If you don't employ some empathy and self-reflection of your own history when judging the historical actions of others, you literally get no say in the matter.
Well that makes you related to my wife, who’s part Komi (her father’s first language). But even they're not butthurt about what the Russians did to them - it was a long time ago. And actually, the Soviets made an effort to preserve the language - she had to take classes in school and much of the local signage is in Komi. People there on the river will even greet you in Komi, still.
And btw, the fact that Circassia itself was the result of the westward expansion of a Persian speaking people who also subjected other cultures (not to mention were big slavers) just shows that you have literally no idea what you're talking about and grasping deep into history for reasons to be bigoted against Russians. Not to mention that the people running the Russian Empire at the time were actually Germans (who also considered themselves superior to Slavs), including many of the top commanding generals behind the genocide.
Downplaying one of modernity's most complete genocides with 'they were actually persians that sold some slaves' and 'actually some of the people in charge were western european' is frankly disgusting.
Moscow's reach for the Black Sea had nothing to do with anti-slavery idealism or whatever you're getting at, they wanted ports and trade and didn't consider muslims as human as christians. It also seems to me that you don't consider serfdom a form of slavery, only international slave trade, which isn't a position I share.
Do NOT put words into my mouth about what I consider slavery or not (or anything, unless I explicitly write it). Yeah, Slav serfdom was shitty as was Russian Imperialism. And American Imperialism, British Imperialism and so-on.
And I'm not downplaying anything (and sure, the Russian Empire made justifications for what it did), I'm pointing out that my God - that was two centuries ago. By your measure, every modern American and Spaniard is a genocidal maniac...
I didn't. Your reading comprehension in english might not be as good as you think.
Sure you are. You're bringing up excuses.
Antiquity ended at the dawn of medieval times. That's like half a millenium earlier than where you want to put it. 1863 is quite some distance into modernity, well into the age of the railroad.
I haven't made anything in this about individuals, rather centering it around Moscow, which has at times been sacked by mongols, crimean tatars and culturally dominated by Paris. But well yeah, the US is quite genocidal. So what? Do you consider it the golden standard of statecraft or something?
Russians are the ones who conducted actual genocides:
1. Ukrainian holodomor - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
2. Kazakhstan famine - h ttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kazakh_famine_of_1930–1933
3. Genocide of Central Asian people in 1916 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Asian_revolt_of_1916
4. Chechen genocide over two centuries + 2 major wars - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chechen_genocide
5. Transnistria (Moldovan-Russia war) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transnistria_War
6. Russo-Georgian war - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russo-Georgian_War
7. currently Russo-Ukrainian war
..
countless other russian made genocides I am tired of enumerating
Russia - is a failing imperial bloody state and Russians as a nation are bloody genocidal nation of maniacs.
Russia cannot exist in peaceful state, they always create and incite cnflicts and thrive on other peoples' misery and death
Russia has Cult of Death, they thrive, embrace, and preach for death
Russians were specifically targeted. A Russian TV reporter murdered on the street in broad daylight. A school bus evacuating families of Russian servicemen shot with an RPG. Churches destroyed and clergy killed.
No, there were real conflicts, violence, and refugees fleeing both across and outside countries before the fall of Soviet Union (not predicted by anyone) and afterwards. Before you reach for checklists and flowcharts to figure out whether you should call them “atrocities” or “civil outrage”, let me refresh your memory.
First, we need to look at oil and gas pipeline maps from USSR to Europe. It's easy to do, we're on the internet after all. By pure coincidence, when prices of hydrocarbons had been at their lowest for years, budgets had become empty, and most parts of USSR had decided they need some political autonomy, leaders of three Socialist republics which were involved in extraction and delivery of resources had declared that USSR was no more:
By doing that, they shook off the old men from the Party and other parts of Union government who had previously been above them, but became rulers without a country, and they also shook off sharing revenues with other Socialist republics, and supporting all USSR population. Enough of friendship of all Soviet nations!
Newspapers across the world called it “the victory of Democracy”, etc. Sure, the petrostate and two intermediate pieces of land under the pipes were full of debts, and planned to keep pumping valuable resources to the civilized world, so everything was fine.
Of course, honest and reliable bureaucrats and oligarchs ruling new countries mutually dependent on shared pipe system immediately started to argue whose balls were bigger, and tried to break any official agreement any time they felt like it.
Partially it was because government budgets were empty in the '90s, and they had to became creative with money from the main source of income, partially it was because they fought for properties and energy supply for them, were selling industry piece by piece or seizing it. However, all was well as long as civilized world got their cheap oil and gas.
Even in Soviet times, southern Soviet republics were not that rich. Big industry was limited to isolated locations, and depended on exchange of goods and resources with other republics, and often factories were founded proprotionally according to state plans, not because something was logical. Agriculture was a neglected sector across all USSR in its late decades, and farm workers had very little opportunities, were generally poor, and sometimes grew crops no one needed (because distribution of food was also centralized, and US and Canada would sell as much grain as needed). Despite endless propaganda about workers and peasants, they were generally forgotten and ignored part of population. So-called “national specifics”, that is, corruption and nepotism, and remains of tribalism of pre-Soviet era, while not discussed openly until later years, also played a role. Therefore, life in agricultural regions was pretty drab. After the — forced — independence they were plunged into poverty.
Perestroika and economic turmoil uncovered national tensions (not just limited to “Russians go home”). Sure, a lot of people considered such far away places provincial shitholes, especially if they were sent to work there (in many cases, higher education resulted in government assignment that depended on your grades, loyalty, and family connections), and looked down upon locals. However, for a lot of other people the home was right there, sometimes for whole their lives. Of course, those who judged people by the color of their skin or facial features didn't bother with that. (Turns out that reading and even giving speeches about a single family of all nations does not make you friends with everyone, just like talking about colonial past does not make you any less of a white man in a cork hat.) While change of citizenship was offered to any ex-Soviet citizen (but still was not that easy), prices of property in southern republics were next to zero, and most savings disappeared, so many emigrants effectively became refugees relying on relatives and friends. That is, if they had prepared, and had not ran from a local mob.
By the way, it is widely accepted that Brighton Beach has the highest concentration of those vulgar Soviet hoi polloi on Earth, and the only place Soviet service can still exist. Obviously, future historians will agree that annexation of Brighton Beach was completely motivated and adequate move.
To conclude, Anglo-American self-chastising about colonial past can't be globally applied to each and every country as one-size-fit-all tool, just like the horrible bureaucratic concept of “race” (reminding a lot of people about Soviet “nationality” brand mark) does more harm than good outside of its native lands. Decolonial and postcolonial works from actual local researchers do exist, and they also mention that.
That's what I'm talking about. Some people can afford the fancy of believing in belonging to a “state” that has been a single entity through centuries, and introduce mental gymnastics to embrace the “good parts”, and expel the “bad parts” to “the past” to pretend that “modern day person” is automatically different. “We the people”, yada yada. How is Russian Empire the same thing as Soviet Union? You could be killed for making that statement after the Revolution. (There are works that do actually trace the socially inherited features, but they are a bit deeper than newspaper level looking at a name or at a map, and fantasizing about “empires”.)
I am not yet senile, so I do remember that not so long ago everyone living on a stretch of land from Balkans to Bering Straight was a “Russian” with the same thick accent, no matter what they thought about that. That's the level of scientific discourse we're talking about. So current media-induced hyper-attentiveness to proper identification of characters on stage seems a bit hypocritical to me. As I said, there are people from “all those -stan countries lumped together because I'm too lazy to point my finger at any of them”, and also people from Russia who dissect actual dynamics of relationships in local societies instead of winging it with “ugh Soviet empire something something like African slave trade problem solved”.
Let's not forget there were multiple options to emigrate in early '90s. If you had at least some Russian family ties, you could try to flee to Russia. If you had at least some Jewish family ties, you could try to flee to Israel. If you had at least some German family ties, you could try to flee to Germany. Let's say we have twin sisters who were born in Tajikistan, and lived there. One decided to move to Russia (maybe because she had family and kids, and relatives on husband's side), other decided to move to Germany. Assuming they start at the same point in space and time, please tell me when one turns into colonialist, and the other into indirect victim of Soviet forced deportations?
We need you to stop perpetuating nationalistic flamewars (as well as any other type of flamewar) on HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
Russian Federation still maintains freedom of travel with most of ex-Soviet republics. Good luck entering Britain without visa being a former colonial subject.
It's a beautiful country if you love hiking or mountaineering, though certainly has a lot of practical challenges. The article did a very good job of explaining the local situation in Tajikistan and giving you a bit of a feeling of what it's like to be there.
The whole thing is great and worth reading, but I wanted to highlight this anecdote:
> I asked about the criminal justice system and I was told there wasn’t much of a formal one. My companion explained that most matters were handled internally by families. For instance, if a 20-something got in a fight with another 20-something and the cops got involved, the police would most likely contact the families and let the parents and brothers sort that shit out with a warning not to cause trouble again. The families would enforce order through shaming, threats of social ostracization, and possibly physical violence.
Honestly that’s kind of nice compared to our “one mistake and your life is ruined forever” system but I guess it all comes down to how violent their country is and if those tactics actually work.
No, it is not “kind of nice”. That’s how you get blood feuds and honour killings. It might be better than a thoroughly corrupt police force, but it is not the rule of law.
That’s not a given. Some cultures have worked out not to involve the law all that much without devolving into blood feuds and outright violence. The first ones that come to mind are Southern India and SE Asia that don’t have a lot of police presence and their societies have low levels of violence. I just don’t know if Tajikistan is one of them.
> The first ones that come to mind are Southern India and SE Asia that don’t have a lot of police presence and their societies have low levels of violence.
As long as you behave, are not of the wrong minority, do not end up as scapegoats, do not get close to the wrong social group, and do not cross anyone who’s a bit charismatic.
Also, I am not sure which SE Asia you speak of. Myanmar is a genocidal military dictatorship, Thailand is a totalitarian police state, Singapore is a quasi-dictatorship, the Philippines are rife with violence, and I could go on. Sure, some countries of the lot are better but “SE Asia” overall is not really an example to emulate.
And every time I went there, southern India did not look that different from central India, or particularly pleasant if you are in the wrong family or social group.
Anyway. Yes, I’ll take a half competent police and a decent legal system any day.
> The government and locals don’t like when you bring up Borat
Depends on which locals. Younger generations never really cared about this. All my friends have always found the movies hilarious, especially the first one.
yeah at another point he distanced himself from making racist movies about country he has 0 idea about. then you bring up an example of him trying to hide behind his Jewish identity to be above criticism as a "joke".
it's trivial to punch down and then act like a victim by bringing up your own identity.
People who find it easy to make fun of others while being extremely thin-skinned themselves: https://www.timesofisrael.com/sacha-baron-cohen-tells-tiktok... for a legitimate dissent on his holy cow country. I imagine making fun of Israel in the same vein and making a movie about it in the same style would get anyone blacklisted in Hollywood. There will be 10 OP-EDs about how that's antisemitic and disrespectful. But because it's Kazakhstan nobody gives a shit and we're supposed to suck it up and laugh with others a la Oldboy.
It might be hilarious to you, but for ethnic Kazakhs it isn't (self-respecting ones at least).
I live in Kazakhstan as expat, and locals are brought up patriotic pretty much like in America -- national anthem at school every day (I shivered when I learned about it, both about KZ and America), told they're the richest post-soviet country. So the movie that plays the anthem and highlights so much that he's from Kazakhstan (although he looks nothing like a Kazakh), looks like a serious insult.
(edit: to be exact, I don't mean he mocks this partiotism, there's nothing to do with it in the movie.)
I've been told that the true meaning was to film Americans with candid camera and laugh at how stupid they are, but to me, Borat is the only thing people utter when I say where I am, so it's pretty annoying.
OTOH, given this popularity, nat. govt could have paid some petro-uranium-dollars to Cohen for some tourism commercials.
Maybe this has changed in recent years, or it's different in the south or the west of the country where more "ultra-patriots" live, but it wasn't my experience at all in the middle of 2000s. We had to listen to the national anthem several times per year on national holidays, and perform other token gestures like that, but nobody took it seriously and these actions were relentlessly ridiculed.
Not because of lack of patriotism, but because of the synthetic and bureaucratic feeling of the whole deal.
So the parody misses the mark.
Borat is really about the US society anyway, they could have picked absolutely anything else and it wouldn't make a difference.
> But Borat is the only thing people utter when I say where I live now
Own it and as soon as people see you don't care, they drop the subject. The joke was old ten years ago.
He absolutely was punching down. He used his high status to mock a low-status (in the West) ethnicity, and shamelessly used selective editing to make everyone other than himself look like a bigot and an asshole. When rightly criticized for this, he acted like he was the victim.
It was an awful display which has not aged well and will look even worse over time.
Regardless, his movies/tv shows always involved massive amounts of editing and manipulation.
Like the time they portrayed some random (Christian) Palestinian as a leader of a Islamist terrorist brigade which supposedly had a huge negative impact on his life.
Just this incident alone shows that Sacha Baron Cohen is a horrible and a despicable person.
Yeah, but I see his point about getting away with this type of humor only because most viewers hardly know Kazachstan actually exists. I might be upset if I were a Kazakh, or I might not be - but I probably would find I hilarious.
> because most viewers hardly know Kazachstan actually exists
I really don't mean to be insulting to US people here, but I really think this would be a huge difference in the populations between the US and other countries where the film was popular.
Not so new fact that many here may already know: The (in?)famous -stan suffix, coming originally from Persian, is an etymological cousin of State, Street, Statistics, Strategy and Stadt.
In Iran, provinces are called Ostan and some Ostans' names end with -stan (e.g. Ostan of Kurdistan).
By the way, since it's not clear from their names, it may be worth noting that Tajiki and Persian are two dialects of the same language.
I did not know that. Apparently they are both from PIE *sta-, "to stand". -stan is "place (where one stands)". State in the sense of condition, status, standing is "how one stands", and state in the sense of nation-state is an association via "state of the country", "state of the republic".
*Farsi. Persia doesn't exist anymore. I find it strange that somewhat uniquely people refer to Iran by its ancient name. We're not speaking anglo-saxonish
Persian is correct. If you want to go by what Iranians call it themselves when speaking English, you can even call it /'perʃijæn/.
If you want to call it as an educated Persian speaker, It's Parsi. "Farsi" is recent result of a lenition of starting /p/ in "Parsi", and is originally an informal way to say Parsi (starting in 13th century [Solar Hijri calendar]). For a source, if you go to https://ganjoor.net/ (A good source for all classical Persian poems) and search "فارسی" (Fârsi), the oldest Persian poem with this word you'll find is from 13th century [Solar Hijri calendar]. Literature teachers have recently started to address this in their teachings so the next generation will be calling the language Parsi again.
Both Persia and Iran are correct names (As said by son of the guy who renamed the country internationally). So Persia does still exist.
Persia doesn't exist anymore, and I referenced to the country as Iran, if you check a bit more carefully.
The language, however, is spoken by roughly 100 million people, so I believe it is safe to assume that it still exists. Farsi is an endonym, just like the official language of Austria which is known in English as "German" and not Deutsch, its endonym.
Farsi is a Persian dialect, a bit like insisting I (British) speak American or if Spain disappeared as a state that Mexican is the language of Mexico. Or that someone can't be speaking Latin or Sanskrit because they're ancient, it's Italian and Hindi now, or something.
I listened to https://www.theredlinepodcast.com/post/tajikistan-and-region... yesterday. It's an extremely interesting discussion on the geopolitical factors both internal and external that shape Tajikistan's security sitation, and who's interests Tajikistan's security dysfunction serves.
i had the opportunity to travel to central asia last summer for a couple weeks (both uzbekistan and tajikistan, briefly). was really a fascinating trip to a part of the world that i barely knew anything about!
for those who are curious about traveling in central asia in general, there is a great travel blog of sorts called caravanistan -> https://caravanistan.com/forum/
the main website is useful for travel logistics but i find myself returning to the forum pretty often to see travel updates from people on the ground in those places. really interesting to me to read about various border crossings between countries, what to expect when traveling around/between countries, etc
I found their map of border crossings in Central Asia the best source for current and accurate information and very helpful as a shared Google Maps map.
So snow at 13,000 feet in the summer, deep inland. How has there not been attempts to develop this for alpine sports? The quality of the snowfall plus the terrain seems made for it.
Quite a good article on Gambia, but just get you to want to know more about the chinese involvement there on top of Russia. Btw, the sex part is not a click bait and not important part of the article. The usual failed African politics and economy is usual. Just want to know any “success” story. Even if it is odd by western “standard”.
You can't see beauty in a country that isn't perfect? I know plenty of people who have some flaw they would probably be better off without, but I don't say "I don't see imperfect people as beautiful, and if you do it means you like to see them suffer."
Why do you jump to calling the author sadistic for finding the positive in a complicated situation?
Neither I nor the author are saying that the dysfunction is beautiful, just that a country can be both dysfunctional and beautiful. I think it's a pretty extreme viewpoint to say that any dysfunction negates everything else beautiful about a country.
Is a country that changes the value of a citizen's vote based on whether they live in a populated area functional? What about a country where the elections are about choosing between two obnoxious candidates who are both over 80 and out of touch with the issues their citizens care about? If the supporters of one geriatric statesman call the supporters of the other Nazis (both directions) - does that count as understanding each other?
I spent a fortnight with a small group of friends motorcycling along the Pamir highway back in 2022, then another week or so over in Kazakhstan (off the bikes this time).
Fascinating pair of countries, and highly recommended to go travel and get off the beaten track.
Dream trip. Your own bikes ? How "free" were you and how difficult was it ? I've traveled by motorbike on 4 continent now and am dying to visit central asia to do more of that.
Not too difficult, really. Kyrgystan and Tajikistan especially are very popular with bicycle travelers, there's an established tourist infrastructure in the form of guest houses and homestays.
Border crossings into Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan are a nightmare (on some crossings they will demand your unlocked phone to rifle through and have you unpack ALL you luggage onto a blanket). Once you're in the countries it's usually just the odd corrupt official, but I was able to out-wait and charm my way out of those situations.
Biggest headache imho: Almost every Westerner I met had some kind of digestive problem. I suffered from diarrhea coming and going for about two months.
There's motorcycle rentals and guided tours out of Osh, Kyrgyzstan, that will also tour the Pamir Highway and Wakhan Valley in Tajikistan. Highly recommend you check out photos from the area around the Issyk Kil Lake on Google Maps. It's just stunning up there.
Great article, always happy to see my home country featured abroad.
Just to nitpick, however:
> Got independence from the USSR in 1991 and had some power struggles until a Soviet guy took over in 1994 and then won a brutal civil war against a coalition of Islamic extremists and has been running the country ever since
Calling it Islamic extremists is a bit reductive. The coalition (United Tajik Opposition) was with the Islamic Renaissance Party, a couple of pro-democracy parties which were supported by the majority of the intelligentsia, and also included a party for Pamiri Autonomy. The most common thing among them is they were all united against the Communists.
Source: I am Tajik and was born around the Soviet Union collapsed. Also studied the history of the civil war
I visited Tajikistan last summer and spent about three weeks in the country. One week in Khujand (I crossed the border from Uzbekistan) and Dushanbe, and two weeks in the Pamirs.
Just like the author I (from India) travelled with a couple of Europeans, a German girl and a French guy. I very much enjoyed my time there, especially in the Pamirs. I stayed with a local family who hosted me in Khorog. I went hiking, watched Afghan villages from across the border, and also worked remotely.
I did some work in Tajikistan a while back. Really good fun with some great people.
It was also the most vertically integrated place I've ever encountered. I've worked in a lot of places outside of EU/US and it's the only one where I've felt you could stick most people on the country on an organigram.
I wanted to go once but heard that either the taliban or al queda were in the area, which is unideal as an American citizen. Is that not the case anymore?
There has been, as far as I know, one single case of tourists being attacked (and killed) by militant Islamists, which happened a few years ago. So statistically it's probably safer than a lot of places. There is significant resistance to the regime under the surface, but everything is still held together by an aging, kleptocratic authoritarian. So in some sense it's a volatile place, and the situation could obviously change significantly in a matter of hours or days in a way that's unlikely to happen in, say, Europe. (Or at least Europe of five years ago...)
I think it is still a very safe place to visit, and many tourists, including Americans, visit every year. Extreme things can happen anywhere. The likelihood of getting mugged I'd say is effectively zero, at least compared to London or Barcelona.
> There has been, as far as I know, one single case of tourists being attacked (and killed) by militant Islamists
Reading this made me have to ponder the interesting fact that this is several thousand less than the number of people killed by militant Islamists in the city I live in (New York) since I moved here.
I think it's a complicated comparison to make though, you could well be more of a target as a tourist in Tajikistan than as one of the masses in NYC, so the incidence is low but your chances of being involved in a given incident, etc.
Taliban (across the Panj river) has been a threat until recently. But for now they seem to be friends with Russia and Tajikistan has always been a Russian client state.
I think they were on high alert up until recently and are now in the process of trying to figure out how to get along with them. On the border areas, there were a handful of markets in the mountain villages where they allowed Afghans to cross the border to sell products. These markets were shut down once the Taliban took over but have recently been re-opened (within the last month or two).
As of last year but probably since the Taliban came to power, Tajikistan has has military checkpoints along the border. Also, I don't know about for all seasons but during the summer, the river seemed too fast to be crossable along most parts of the border.
Have the Taliban ever conducted any operations in Tajikistan? I know people go back and forth over the river (I went to Badakshan once and saw them swim across!), so there's contact, but I don't think the Taliban have a habit of going to Tajikistan to take hostages or anything like that?
> Have the Taliban ever conducted any operations in Tajikistan? I know people go back and forth over the river (I went to Badakshan once and saw them swim across!), so there's contact, but I don't think the Taliban have a habit of going to Tajikistan to take hostages or anything like that?
I don't think they have. It also wouldn't really make sense for them to do that. The Taliban mostly have issues with Iran and Pakistan so you will see conflicts with these nations most often in the news. I've never heard of them in conflict with any of the other stans. Badakhshan is also quite distant from the core of Taliban power which is mostly in the South. Northern Afghanistan is traditionally Northern Alliance territory.
I haven't heard of any, FWIW.
And they are the official government in Afghanistan now, so I would think it's not their thing anymore? (I can be wrong, of course.)
Tajikistan looks to be an interesting case of Islam being kept in check without resorting to either extremism or terrorism. But this is neither free nor assured, and it probably requires constant wilful effort.
In the long term, I can see it bleeding more territory to China due to the significant difference in military power and aggression. This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.
Islam is extremely important to Tajik identity. But Tajikistan is making the same mistake many other Muslim dictatorships and authocracies did. By not having a real open political system, the only place for dissent to take root is in Islamist circles, and then that's the opposition you get.
Tajikistan had civil war in 1990s where Islamist radicals were the opposition and wanted to turn TJ into sharia run state.
open political system actually makes islam opposition stronger (and easy to influence with $$$ from Gulf monarchies).
Keeping islam in check, also means keeping in check Gulf oil $$$$ that install their own version of islam.
the pipeline of volunteers from *stans to join ISIS/Al-Qaeda was funded and enabled by Gulf monarchies.
If there is another big war in the Middle East - guess from where all the islamist volunteer fighters will be coming from - from these poor 3rd world islamist countries, the *stan countries
i lived there, gulf monarchies are financing construction of mosques all over the *stans, and are sending people to "study islam" in ... Pakistan and Bangladesh, where they are radicalized and brainwashed.
various conflicts in Causasus in russia - where caucasians were bankrolled and brainwashed via gulf money (dagestan and chechnya)
> Afghanistan was relatively open during US and USSR occupations
Coincidentally in both cases the administrations propped up by US/USSR were thoroughly corrupted, incompetent and abusive (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bacha_bazi) so that even the Taliban became relatively appealing to most people.
> Iraq after occupation was relatively open, yet ISIS ideology took off
That was to a large degree just the extension of the whole Shia vs Sunni conflict/civil war which began immediately after the invasion.
Also I'm not sure what do you mean by "open" in all of the cases (besides post 2001 Afghanistan) the countries we ran by semi-secular authoritarian dictatorships which kept the Islamists in check. Most of the population would have (and eventually did) supported them if they were given a choice (like in Egypt).
The USSR was brutal autocracy. Us military occupation was also brutal and not free.
Iran was a brutal autocracy.
Egypt was a brutal military dictatorship.
Turkey is a great example, tbh. The level of radicals and terrorism there is far less than anything else we've described because it has open democracy. If anything, the big terrorists in Turkey are separatists which every nation, even European ones, has to fight.
Iraq after brutal military occupation? All of what you're talking about about are scenarios where brutal authoritarianism led to extremists gaining popularity because they are an excellent alternative to brutal one-man repression of an entire people.
> Turkey are separatists which every nation, even European ones, has to fight.
Generally only undemocratic/oppressive countries have to do that. e.g. violence in the Basque country, Northern Ireland etc. was solved by giving the local people a voice and stopping previous abuses. Escalation of violence was always the outcome of failures by the state rather than started by the "separatists".
Also Turkey only had or has "open democracy" to a very limited state. It was never more than a deeply flawed democracy at best.
> Iraq after brutal military occupation?
I don't think the occupation was even remotely more brutal than Saddam's reign in the 80s and 90s. Most of the casualties were the result of the civil war/conflict between Shia/Sunnis/other factions and general lawlessness. Much of that could have been prevented had the occupation actually been more brutal/oppressive (of course far from ideal either..).
Egypt had been a brutal autocracy for years which led to the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood and just when democracy finally peaked its head out, bam, back to brutal military dictatorship.
You may not believe in democracy, but I do. Democracies lead to progress in nations and balance in political systems around the world. Closed political systems lead to the rise of revolutionaries and in the Muslim world those are Islamic and often extreme
Gaza/Israel is not an open political system. They are subjects and born in a state that doesn't grant them the rights of people equally subject to and born in the same area.
My entire point was that closed political systems embolden radicals, Gaza makes that point extremely well. When you have zero chance of having a say in the government that controls all your borders, any and all food allowed into your area, any and all job prospects you have, etc. that's fertile ground for radicals.
If Israel were a democracy (e.g. open political system) instead of having the majority of its subjects unable to vote or move freely within the land, it's obvious there would be no Hamas.
Citizens of Gaza are not citizens neither subjects of Israel. Israeli citizens vote on Israeli elections, PA citizens vote on PA elections and Gaza citizens vote on Gaza elections. Israel doesn't occupy Gaza and doesn't control all the borders either — that's Israel and Egypt. And both of these countries decided to close borders and install maritime blockade only after Hamas stated indiscriminate attacks against civilians, which happened after it came to power.
They are not citizens (Israel considers them stateless) but they are subject to Israeli law and rule at every turn. Nothing can go into or out of Gaza, not even food, not even collected rainwater, without Israeli permission.
The point is, it's as closed a political system as it gets. No matter what the polity does, their situation cannot change because they have no rights in the government that controls their lives (Israel)
Palestine is not a country according to Israel and they do not treat anyone living there as a citizen of a separate country.
No country in the world has total control of any other country's electricity, food rationing, water rationing, import / export, ability to work, ability to depart and arrive from the country.
You constantly mention Egypt as if it somehow makes all the facts I've stated false. But it does not. If they cooperate to create the same situation the situation does not change. There are still 2 million stateless people whose electricity, food, water, internet, and basically all access to the outside world is controlled by governments they are not citizens of.
What a lot of Westerners don't realize is this kind of sentiment is exactly why Islamist parties and political groups are so popular in the Muslim world.
If your only choice is extremely socially conservative, democratic groups like the Muslim Brotherhood (or worse) or a literal Kim Jong Un alike, then it's pretty obvious who you'd choose.
This is resorting to extremism and terrorism, it's just conducted by the army and police. Did you not hear how many people were assassinated and killed by this dictator to maintain iron grip control over the country? How is that not terrorism?
All of the central Asian “stan” countries have a Muslim majority and Tajikistan is actually the most extreme of them. But Kazakhstan, kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Indonesia, Turkey and Iran are all examples of islam without extremism (although Iran has fundamentalism)
Kazakhstan has a problem with Islamic extremists and the government is very much worried about it and spends a lot of money fighting it. They put cameras in every mosque, for example, and work their people into every religious group of any significance.
There's not much info on it in English, but here you go:
It’s certainly on the governments radar, and they do have an interest in preventing it. Kazakhstan banned hijab in schools and engages in anti terrorism like you mentioned. But overall, the country has a large secular population (due to the Soviet Union) and the country practices a moderate form of Islam called Sufism. I would attribute this to their nomadic culture, which meant the Quran was more of an oral tradition for Kazakhs in the past. The difference between Kazakhstan and Tajikstan is that you can actually find daesh cells in the pamir valley of Tajikistan, while that’s not really a thing in Kazakhstan. Extremism in KZ has manifested as a few isolated attacks and a small amount of individuals who chose to travel to fight in the Syrian war. I spent 9 months in KZ last year and - visited mosques, talked to many locals in various cities and feel comfortable saying that Islamic extremism is rare there.
And in the early 20th century pahlavi’s regime beat women who chose to keep wearing the hijab. Religious extremism in the form of salafi Wahhabism isn’t common in the country, nor is militant jihad. It’s theocratic authoritarianism. I think the difference is worth noting.
> extremism in the form of salafi Wahhabism isn’t common in the country
It’s not like the SA government (as a whole) was ever particularly that keen about the extremism part. Fundamentally they are not that different from Iran in most ways. They started from very different positions of course (secularism never having been a thing in the Arabian peninsula). SA is at least kind of moving into the right direction in some areas when it comes to women’s rights (even if at an extremely slow pace).
Not sure why you want to label what to me is a distinction without a difference. You care about the motivations of a few at the top, I care about the local police and their supporters, which are acting like religious extremists not authoritarians.
The purpose of my example was to demonstrate that oppression of women in Iran is a form of political control because it happens under secular and religious regimes, sorry I don’t think I expressed that clearly enough. I don’t consider Iran religiously extremist for multiple reasons. The populace practices such a moderate form of Islam. The country doesn’t export radicalized people. The government has some degree of tolerance for other religions (as long as you’re not a convert from Islam). The government acts in the name of religion, but in my opinion is guided by power and control rather than ideology.
In comparison, Islamic extremists do things like kill infidels and seek to establish an Islamic caliphate.
> Tajikistan looks to be an interesting case of Islam being kept in check without resorting to either sharia or terrorism.
Because it's done through extreme human rights violations such as torture, kidnapping, kangaroo courts, etc [0].
This only radicalizes the Jihadist movements, who's hardcore believers went into exile Afghanistan, Pakistan, Chechnya, Syria, etc and became extremely prominent in the Islamic State movement (eg. The former head of Tajikistan's Spetznaz defected to ISIS back in 2015 and became their War Minister).
ISKP is extremely Tajik in leadership, and this has helped them commit mass casualty attacks like the Kerman Bombings and the Moscow Theatre Siege
Once Emomali Rahmon dies, the Civil War will restart.
> bleeding more territory to China due to the significant difference in military power and aggression. This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.
Countries like India have had Air Force bases and boots on the ground in Tajikistan for decades [1]
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If in San Francisco or New York, I recommend checking out Halal Dastarkhan or Farida's, Tandir Rokhat (Bukharan Jewish), Aziza 7, and Salute (Bukharan Jewish) respectively.
The owners are all ethnic Tajiks from Uzbekistan. Bukhara is ethnic Tajik but in Uzbekistan because Stalin.
I disagree - the best solution to minimizing radicalism would have been raising living standards and allowing civil society and institutions to form, yet it's the same Soviet apparatchiks who continue to tenuously hang on to power to this day.
By preventing civil society from forming, perpetuating the same autarkic and autocratic economic and political system that has been in place since the 1980s, and failing to raise living standards these leaders exacerbated Jihadist movements, as they were the only semi-organized opposition left.
And banning minors from attending any religious service except funerals, de facto banning the Hijab, and using unrestrained violence in the face of even the smallest protests is not a lasting solution to preventing radicalism.
None of the wounds from the civil war were actually rectified, and it will bubble over into a second civil war once Rahmon dies.
It's the same story in Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkemenistan, and Kazakhstan (eg. The riots in 2021).
This is the exact same playbook that happened in Afghanistan 50 years ago - living standards were trash, inequality was high, and any opposition was violently removed.
It didn't matter if it was Zahir Shah, Taraki, Massoud, or Omar - they were all authoritarian criminals who prevented civil society and institutions from forming.
To be fair if they tried that Islamists would have just taken over. Those things don’t tend to just form on their own when you let people do whatever they want without supervision (you need very specific conditions).
The most effective path for countries in similar positions is probably balanced authoritarianism + focus on education and economic growth and then starting to introduce democracy and other civil rights gradually after a generation or two. Pretty hard to pull off, though (especially in the Muslim world).
Living standards (based on HDI, life expectancy, literacy rate, and other development indicators) in Tajikistan are still approximately at the same level as they were when Tajikistan was the poorest member of the Soviet Union 30 years ago.
Stagnant living standards over 30 years and repression is all Rahmon has to show. This is why radicalism grows. If Rahmon raised living standards similar to peers like Uzbekistan (who also neighbors Afghanistan and also has a major issue with Afghan Uzbeks supporting the Taliban, and who are equally as repressive such as the Andijan Massacre) then Tajikistan wouldn't be in the mess that it is in today.
I think there's more danger of bleeding territory to the Taliban, at least it has been the case until recently. Especially if Russia (who has had a big military base there forever) becomes irrelevant.
The article mentions that China has a military base in the east of Tajikistan and touches on Chinese attitudes towards islam and their behavior internally (in Xinjiang for example) and externally in Tajikistan. Russia appears to be unable to prosecute their own defense let alone the defense of "allies" as Armenia found out.
Russia has no allies. Every single 'compatible' nation ran the hell away from them as soon as it become marginally possible in late 80s, and in typical russian victim fashion west and US specifically is to blame.
Just look at what they are doing to their supposed brothers in Ukraine, for one old man's greed and twisted view on reality and his legacy, 0 other reasons. This is how they treat everybody, including other russians.
What they have are temporarily aligned forces who see some benefit in such action, nothing more. Most of them would take over russian territory and its mineral riches without blinking an eye if they could.
Well this is just sad propaganda. Zelensky (and others) had publicly admitted to sabotaging deescalation agreements.
You don't want to fall for "nothing happened in Donbas before 22" bs.
It is really such a weird situation. Western and Ukrainian politicians had publicly stated they were actually going for a fight for a long time, but we still see people doing wired moral posturing.
February 2014 Moscow invaded Ukraine, occupied Crimea, "referendum" under occupation month later.
12.04.2014 Moscow occupied Sloviansk, started war on east Ukraine, "referendum" under occupation month later. 17.07.2014 MH17 shot down by Moscow Buk.
February 2022 Moscow occupied Kherson, "referendum" under occupation half a year later, faked 87% "support".
Ukraine was neutral by constitution before Moscow invaded in 2014, majority of Ukrainians were against joining NATO, many favored economic ties with Moscow, many schools and universities performed education on Moscow language. Moscow violated Friendship Treaty (2004), Ukraine borders it recognized, Budapest memorandum (1994). How exactly occupation, annexation of friendly country is "complex subject"?
I am not from the west, but rather from one of those countries russia/soviet union (but lets be honest here, it was always good old russia at its core and power) oppressed and destroyed over 4 decades during cold war, to have a nuclear battlefield with western Europe.
I know what I talk about when I bash russia and its society, I saw them destroy soul of not only my own nation but everything around, and legacy of that period is still doing massive damage back home. They have absolutely nothing in common with western values, rather run like mafia clans where power of stronger defines rules. Now of course I don't say every single russian citizen is like that, far from it, but society overall is, like it or not, just look at any news in past 30 years about them.
Absolutely nothing changed in that country since their house of cards collapsed, at least not for the better (list of things that got worse is way too long for posting here, but summary is endlessly greedy oligarchs and uber oligarch putin who is one of richest men in the world, and obviously not from his official salary but stolen from russian state and its citizens).
Look at how carefully Lukashenko dances around putin and whole war, this is how 'enemy of my enemy is my ally' looks like. Look at how russian troops were invited to help with unrests in Kazachstan to shoot few thousands of protesters, but then got very promptly kicked out of the country, and Tokayev shared his negative opinions on Russia many times. People don't forget murderous bullying, and so don't whole nations.
Vladimir Sorokin claims modern Russia was founded by Ivan the Terrible. The war has fortunately caught him in Berlin, so hopefully he won’t end up in a Siberian prison.
Sure, there are more details. Fundamentally that doesn’t change anything at all that much. At no point in the conflict Russia had any interest in a peaceful solution or actually protecting the Russian speaking population in East Ukraine (the opposite, they just wanted to turn them into some sort of perverse “martyrs”. Then again not particularly surprising considering that the Russian society is effectively a deranged death cult..)
The West encouraged Georgia to invade its breakaway former province South Ossetia in 2008. Turns out it was a lousy idea. Why blame Russia for bad voluntary choices of Georgian government?
Soviet/Russian invasion of Poland, Finland, and Georgia, respectively. (gee, wonder why they all want to be in NATO) There's also '56, Hungary, and '68, Czechoslovakia.
>Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany during the early years of World War II
...
>The Siege of Leningrad was a prolonged military siege undertaken by the Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front of World War II. Germany's Army Group North advanced from the south, while the German-allied Finnish army invaded from the north and completed the ring around the city.
>The war in Georgia last year was started by a Georgian attack that was not justified by international law, an EU-sponsored report has concluded.
The conflict erupted on 7 August 2008, as Georgia shelled the breakaway region of South Ossetia, in an attempt to regain control over it. The previous months had seen a series of clashes.
Soviets demanded Finland cede substantial territory and when they said no, the Soviets invaded and annexed a substantial part of Finland to this day.
You’re quoting a 2009 article. Everyone that doesn’t mindlessly watch RT already confirmed that it was South Ossetian separatists that started shelling other Georgians and that Russia has no business also invading Georgia over that. Russia air attacked areas around Georgia’s capital Tbilisi.
Who is this "everyone"? Was the cited EU report updated? I'm quoting a BBC article, which is hardly in a Russian corner. In any case, it has more credibility than a "trust me, bro" on HN.
I think they were on high alert up until recently and are now in the process of trying to figure out how to get along with them. On the border areas, there were a handful of markets in the mountain villages where they allowed Afghans to cross the border to sell products. These markets were shut down once the Taliban took over but have recently been re-opened.
Saying "Islam being kept in check" in this way sounds an implication that religion (or perhaps just this one) ought to be suppressed. This sort of attitude and policy coming from it is like gasoline for religious extremism, and the fact that Tajikistan exports extremists should be enough evidence for that
What other options are there though when the other side has zero interest in secularism and will do whatever they can to institute a theocratic government when given the opportunity?
Some (most?) forms of Islam are just not compatible with western style democracy and secularism. It’s unfortunate but I don’t really see any other realistic options of solving this besides “oppression”.
Some countries like Jordan kind of partially pulled it off but they had very specific conditions which can’t really be replicated elsewhere.
Some Islamic countries are family businesses that have international recognition as states for historical and geopolitical reasons. I don't take the actions of those countries seriously
It is not just a religion, but a legal and societal system. A very medieval one.
Few people care if you believe that Muhammad rode to heaven on a magic horse (Buraq). But quite a lot of people care if you want to introduce hand amputations for theft, as demanded by Sharia Law, or different inheritance rules for sons and daughters where being female = being less valuable.
The medieval-practical parts of Islam must definitely be kept in check, unless the country in question is willing to regress into some very dark ages. That is something that Ataturk understood very well when reforming Turkey.
Hand amputations for theft are not automatic, even in Saudi Arabia. Even pickpockets preying on pilgrims in the Prophet's Mosque do not automatically suffer the penalty.
However, many believe that this is the case. The erroneous belief does tend to keep crime down.
Islamic law is understood by Muslims to be applied only in an Islamic state. In a secular state, the consensus understanding by Muslims is that the secular law is to be followed. A secular state need not suppress Islam
What about a secular state that doesn't want to become an Islamic state, but has a significant minority that has the opposite wish?
AFAIK this is the most important common political problem across the Islamic world. Many organizations such as the Muslim Brotherhood want to Islamize their respective secular countries, some by peaceful means, others by violence. There has already been at least a dozen civil wars around that issue.
A liberal secular state must respect the will of its citizenry, whatever it is. It must also suppress violent sedition with violence. Expressing that responsibility as suppressing religion per se is counterproductive
> A liberal secular state must respect the will of its citizenry, whatever it is
No. A tolerant, secular, liberal state should not respect the will of its people if the will of (the majority of) its people is to become an intolerant, religious, oppressive state. It is OK -- possibly even necessary -- to have a set of core founding principals which must never be abandoned.
> respect the will of its citizenry, whatever it is
How do you define that? Is it always what the majority decides? What if the liberal secular government knows that going along with the will of the people will result in a minority of the population losing most of their rights and potentially suffering extreme oppression?
One could could assume that after learning what happened in Germany in the 30s (and some other comparable situations) most people would agree that even liberal states need to draw a line at some point.
Secular law allows it's citizens discretions for settling family disputes and inheritance. Religious people often use that discretion to use religious rules from their religion. Nonreligious people benefit from the same discretion. This is not an exception from secular law, all secular laws continue to apply.
Not really? Islamists in secular Muslim states are trying to overturn the secular legal all the time (and have succeeded on numerous occasions). Often they end up compromising and end up with a mixed system which is also far from ideal.
So... To keep thieves from having hands cut or people from having sexist inheritance, you need to North Korea the poorest people in the world to keep them poorer?
This is ridiculous, quite frankly. You don't have to approve of every law a foreign people have to not want to basically terrorize them with a despot
Islam does have a specific problem in this regard since its scripture explicitly calls for violent struggle to spread it over the world. Ignoring this fact does not make the problem go away and only serves to undercut those who attempt to start an 'islamic enlightenment'.
> Islam does have a specific problem in this regard since its scripture explicitly calls for violent struggle to spread it over the world.
Which part of the scripture?
Every part of the Quran that involves violence has consistently been understood to apply to a specific context, by almost all classical Islamic theologians and jurists.
That’s why extremist groups rarely cite Quran for justifying perma-war, instead citing opinions of Islamic scholars instead.
> Every part of the Quran that involves violence has consistently been understood to apply to a specific context, by almost all classical Islamic theologians and jurists.
That fully depends on which interpretations you follow. Islam not having a central authority means there is no 'central source' for how to interpret the scripture - Quran but also Hadith and Sunnah - and with that those who are set on taking what is written as the direct and unchanging word from God can claim to have as much justification (or, as they claim, more justification) as those who want to interpret scripture in a more 'modern' fashion.
Here's a sample of Quranic passages which call for muslims to 'fight unbelievers' which are followed to the letter by those who adhere to the literal interpretation of the texts:
https://quran.com/2?startingVerse=190: Fight in the cause of Allah ˹only˺ against those who wage war against you, but do not exceed the limits. Allah does not like transgressors.
https://quran.com/2?startingVerse=191: Kill them wherever you come upon them and drive them out of the places from which they have driven you out. For persecution is far worse than killing. And do not fight them at the Sacred Mosque unless they attack you there. If they do so, then fight them—that is the reward of the disbelievers.
Those who follow the literal interpretation of the texts see 'those who wage war against you' as all 'unbelievers' - those who live in the 'dar al-harb' (land(s) of strife or war) in contrast to those who live in 'dar al-islam' (land(s) under islamic law), especially those who live in places which have been conquered 'for islam' before but taken back later - e.g. 'Al-Andalus', better known as Spain. The main 'problem' in the interpretation of these lines is what is meant by 'those who wage war against you' as this can be interpreted as 'those who refuse to accept islam' in the context of the texts.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=74: Let those who would sacrifice this life for the Hereafter fight in the cause of Allah. And whoever fights in Allah’s cause—whether they achieve martyrdom or victory—We will honour them with a great reward.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=88: Why are you ˹believers˺ divided into two groups regarding the hypocrites while Allah allowed them to regress ˹to disbelief˺ because of their misdeeds? Do you wish to guide those left by Allah to stray? And whoever Allah leaves to stray, you will never find for them a way.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=89: They wish you would disbelieve as they have disbelieved, so you may all be alike. So do not take them as allies unless they emigrate in the cause of Allah. But if they turn away, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them, and do not take any of them as allies or helpers,
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=90: except those who are allies of a people you are bound with in a treaty or those wholeheartedly opposed to fighting either you or their own people. If Allah had willed, He would have empowered them to fight you. So if they refrain from fighting you and offer you peace, then Allah does not permit you to harm them.
https://quran.com/4?startingVerse=91: You will find others who wish to be safe from you and their own people. Yet they cannot resist the temptation ˹of disbelief or hostility˺. If they do not keep away, offer you peace, or refrain from attacking you, then seize them and kill them wherever you find them. We have given you full permission over such people.
These lines can be interpreted as calling for offensive actions against 'unbelievers' - and here it is important to know what the Quran says about its predecessor religions:
https://quran.com/3?startingVerse=65: O People of the Book! Why do you argue about Abraham, while the Torah and the Gospel were not revealed until long after him? Do you not understand?
https://quran.com/3?startingVerse=66: Here you are! You disputed about what you have ˹little˺ knowledge of, but why do you now argue about what you have no knowledge of? Allah knows and you do not know.
According to islamic doctrine the 'people of the book' were given the 'true word of God' but strayed from the path. Christians, i.e. those who believe in the 'holy trinity' of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost - are 'polytheists' since they worship others besides Allah. Taken together these lines are interpreted as cause to fight 'unbelievers'. This is explained in more detail in chapter 'O' (Justice) of 'The Reliance of the Traveller' [1] in the section on jihad:
Jihad means to war against non-Muslims, and is etymologically derived from the word mujahada , signifying warfare to establish the religion. And it is the lesser jihad. As for the greater jihad, it is spiritual warfare against the lower self (nafs), which is why the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said as he was returning from jihad,
“We have returned from the lesser jihad to the greater jihad.”
The scriptural basis for jihad, prior to scholarly consensus (def: b7) is such Koranic verses as:
(1) “Fighting is prescribed for you” (Koran 2:216);
(2) “Slay them wherever you find them” (Koran 4:89);
(3) “Fight the idolators utterly” (Koran 9:36);
and such hadiths as the one related by Bukhari and Muslim that the Prophet (Allah bless him and give him peace) said:
“I have been commanded to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah and that Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and perform the prayer, and pay zakat. If they say it, they have saved their blood and possessions from me, except for the rights of Islam over them. And their final reckoning is with Allah";
and the hadith reported by Muslim,
“To go forth in the morning or evening to fight in the path of Allah is better than the whole world and everything in it.”
There are many more such passages which can be and are interpreted in many ways so as to fit the purposes of those who lead others. It is the absence of a 'true and leading interpretation' which disavows war and conquest in the name of islam which gives rise to islam's specific problems when it comes to violence.
Read the Quran, 'Reliance of the Traveller' (the classical manual on shariah law) and the Sunnah and you'll understand just how open these texts are to interpretation. It is also illustrative to have a look at the history of islam and islamic countries.
Your school and branch of islam don't, that does not mean all schools and branches don't. Most churches don't claim "God hates fags" and "Thank God for dead soldiers" but the Westboro baptist church does.
In what way is this related to the fact that islamic scripture is open to interpretation due to the absence of a 'central authority' or 'leading interpretation' which denounces or abrogates the violent passages in scripture? Islamic eschatology is often used as a source by those who are intent on leading their adherents to violence:
https://sunnah.com/riyadussalihin:1820 : The Messenger of Allah said, "The Last Hour will not come until the Muslims fight against the Jews, until a Jew will hide himself behind a stone or a tree, and the stone or the tree will say: 'O Muslim, there is a Jew behind me. Come and kill him,' but Al-Gharqad tree will not say so, for it is the tree of the Jews."
https://sunnah.com/muslim:2922 : The last hour would not come unless the Muslims will fight against the Jews and the Muslims would kill them until the Jews would hide themselves behind a stone or a tree and a stone or a tree would say: Muslim, or the servant of Allah, there is a Jew behind me; come and kill him; but the tree Gharqad would not say, for it is the tree of the Jews.
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2925 : Allah's Messenger said, "You (i.e. Muslims) will fight with the Jews until some of them will hide behind stones. The stones will (betray them) saying, 'O `Abdullah (i.e. slave of Allah)! There is a Jew hiding behind me; so kill him.'"
https://sunnah.com/bukhari:2926 : Allah's Messenger said, "The Hour will not be established until you fight with the Jews, and the stone behind which a Jew will be hiding will say. "O Muslim! There is a Jew hiding behind me, so kill him."
Da'esh used these Hadith (among others) as justification for their actions because they were intent on bringing about the end of history by instigating the final battle at Dabeq (close to Aleppo) where islam will prevail over the unbelievers.
> islamic scripture is open to interpretation due to the absence of a 'central authority' or 'leading interpretation'
It's not though. There isn't "interpretation" of the hadiths you posted. They are just true. Btw, what's happening in Israel right now can easily be seen as a manifestation of those scriptures. And it didn't start because people wanted to fulfill prophecies. It started because you have a stateless group of 2 million people with no say in the government that controls their every move.
This also has pretty much 0 to do with our original comment thread
Is there anything else besides interpretation of scripture? If so, what? I gave a few examples in this thread of passages which can be interpreted - and in some cases are actually hard not to interpret - as calls to violence in the name of islam. What is your basis for claiming these are not actually such?
Again, denying the problem exists does not make it go away and actually makes it harder for those who wish to reform islam.
What does 'my interpretation' mean in this context? Where do I specifically interpret islamic scripture?
If you don't talk about a problem it can not be solved. If the problem is not solved it grows. If the problem grows it will cause more problems. When do you think the time comes to talk about this problem?
Many Western politicians and intellectuals say that Islamist terrorism has nothing to do with Islam. What is your view?
- Western politicians should stop pretending that extremism and terrorism have nothing to do with Islam. There is a clear relationship between fundamentalism, terrorism, and the basic assumptions of Islamic orthodoxy. So long as we lack consensus regarding this matter, we cannot gain victory over fundamentalist violence within Islam.
Radical Islamic movements are nothing new. They’ve appeared again and again throughout our own history in Indonesia. The West must stop ascribing any and all discussion of these issues to “Islamophobia.” Or do people want to accuse me — an Islamic scholar — of being an Islamophobe too?
Please, read this article or one of the many others on this subject. You are not helping anyone by denying what is plain to see for those who are brave enough to open their eyes.
You do interpret it as a real guide for large groups of people.
I actually think that your criticism is too surface level, and we need to go deeper. I propose that most of those people have very little of any kind of faith — no more than your average football team fans have. Moreover, they are not even substantially different from supposedly secular western football fans. You, on the other hand, try to deduce what people think just by looking at the color of their passport covers.
Again, where do I interpret scripture? I am referring to the fact that others interpret islamic scripture in ways that fit their purposes. I have also cited several well-known islamic reformers who claim the same. Your football-comparison is irrelevant and off the mark since it does not matter how much faith people have, what matters is how they act. Faith is personal, actions based on faith can affect others. Violent actions based on faith - no matter how shallow - have a detrimental affect on society as a whole.
You think there is a direct link between some words on paper and how people act. This assumes that you understand what these words say. That also assumes that people are simple robots with simple input and output.
By the way, both scriptures and laws are just words on paper.
I propose that you actually believe in the power of some sacred book too much, and that “Islamic this, Islamic that” are just fans of Islam in the same manner people are fans of a football team (which sometimes gives them “authority” to riot or beat other people). They may call themselves true believers, but that's an old story.
Are you religious? If so do you take your religion seriously or do you wear it like an outfit, to be donned at the requisite moment and put away when not needed or inconvenient? To people who take their religion seriously scripture is more than 'just words on paper', especially when that scripture is seen by them as the literal word from their God where 'the sound of the reciter is created but the words of the Quran are not created':
Qur'an is Word of Allah, revealed to the Prophet Muhammad (Sallallahu Alaihi wa Sallam); it is an attribute among the uncountable Attributes of Allah. Allah has Spoken these words by sound and letters. Qur'an does not say but it is Allah Who ‘Says’.
Therefore, it is not among the good decencies with Allah to Say: “Qur'an says, or Qur'an said: “Since it might be misunderstood that Qur'an has an independent or a separate existence”.
If one uses such an expression with the intention that the Qur'an is a creature then he is disbelieving in an Attribute of Allah (May Allah protect us from that). If he does not mean it, it is better to avoid such an expression since it may raise misunderstandings.
Allah knows best.
To those who take their religion seriously those comparisons to 'football fans' are just as silly as when someone were to compare you liking (e.g.) Taylor Swift to the way you love your daughter (should you have one).
Also don't fall for the trap of thinking that only those who can talk eruditely on some subject can be 'true believers'. Just because some young person has been convinced by a religious leader that his salvation lies in fighting and dying in the name of Allah does not mean he doesn't take those lessons seriously. Do you really think that those who don suicide vests to blow themselves up (or to be blown up by remote control) are 'just fans of islam in the same manner people are fans of a football team'?
The point here is that scripture doesn't make claims. People do. Scripture is not a person.
You seem to be arguing that the most correct interpretation of scripture is a literal one that ignores its context. If that's the case, then your hermeneutics has a lot in common with fundamentalist extremists.
Those who wish to reform Islam are not in need patronization by islamophobic memes, I assure you.
> You seem to be arguing that the most correct interpretation of scripture is a literal one that ignores its context
No, I'm arguing that scripture can be interpreted in many ways and that some of those ways lead to people believing it calls upon them to commit violence in the name of their religion. I'm also claiming that the absence of a central authority or a 'leading interpretation' of islamic scripture leads to such interpretations being no less 'correct' than interpretations which take a different path.
> Those who wish to reform Islam are not in need patronization by islamophobic memes, I assure you.
I am not assured by your claims nor by your use of unsubstantiated claims of some phobia. Here's Maajid Nawaz (someone who attempts to reform islam) on the subject you try to downplay or ignore:
Some excerpts for those who don't want to follow random links:
People in the West are reluctant to discuss Islamism because they are frightened of being portrayed as racist, according to Maajid Nawaz, a British politician and former extremist who spent five years in an Egyptian jail.
...
"Language can destroy Islamist ideas and propaganda," he said. "But we've got to be able to name exactly what it is that we're talking about. That's where I'm critical of President Obama, because he's unable to name the problem – and if you if cannot name something, then you cannot critique it.
...
"To say this problem has nothing to do with Islam leaves nothing to be discussed within the communities. ... The truth is in the middle: it's got something to do with Islam – not everything, not nothing, but something."
...
The key, he said, lay in the way in which Islamist ideologues hijack parts of the faith's scriptures and reinterpret them to support their political stance. It is critical for Islamic communities to discuss this process and, by so doing, "reclaim their religion from those who use it to justify terrorism. I would encourage everyone to engage in this conversation, not to shut it down," he said.
...
"If you don't have this conversation, only the Islamist extremists prevail. Because by shutting down debate, by shutting down thought, people become closed-minded, and only fascism and theocracy benefit from closed-mindedness."
The US cold war strategy of supporting Islamic extremism in the USSR is well documented. I think the reading of history that you are suggesting is naive
Keeping religions in check as such is incompatible with liberalism. Secular societies need to be maintained, but antagonizing religious people with phrases like that is not how.
This doesn't mean religion ought to receive any special treatment going forward. It is a way of looking at the world, but requires belief which is in opposition to other beliefs and they all are in opposition to scientific approach to understanding ourselves and the world we live in. It is also a way of imposing and enforcing morals that cannot be questioned unless one is prepared to face grave consequences. The "priest" of are predominantly men, who are under no obligation to follow the morals they preach and indulge in the "sins" they condemn without fear of prosecution. In the end, when the veil comes off it's about power, money, and sex. So no, no special treatment of religion ought to be allowed in a secular society. And secular societies ought to have laws and mechanisms preventing them from takeover by religious groups.
Individualism, liberty, consent of the governed, political equality, private property and equality before the law are the bedrocks of liberalism [1]. Religious freedom is closer to a corollary, though hard secular liberal republics (e.g. much of recent French history) have also existed.
I understand how and why such feelings come up—it makes a lot of sense given the cultural context and the history. But I'd ask you to pause and consider taking 'yes' for an answer, i.e. to consider that we might genuinely intend to treat all sides, including yours, fairly and equally. I've been telling HN users that they can't attack Islam (same as any other religion) for as long as I've been a moderator here: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10590568 (Nov 2015)
It's easy to run into a few (maybe only one or two) datapoints and jump to "these assholes are just like all the others". That's how sample bias (and whatever bias this is: https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...) work. But if you do that, you'll miss many cases where someone is on your side and has good will towards you. That's not in your interest—it just leads to more of the same. How about let's for something else.
When people get a mod response they often jump to the conclusion "the mods must be against me / my side". This is understandable but not accurate. We've moderated and/or banned many accounts doing religious flamewar against Islam, just the same as any other religion.
If you see some posts where people are doing that and didn't get moderated, please don't take that to mean "the mods don't care" or "the mods must tacitly support this". Far more likely is we just didn't see it. We don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here.
I don't see it as flamewar style, it was stating a fact, in response to the parent comment but ok maybe it would have been better if I have added broader explanation of the opinion along the fact. Or refrain from commenting on touchy subjects.
"Try to be a bit more self reflective" is definitely crossing into personal attack and not ok on HN. If you had stuck to facts and made your substantive point respectfully, that would have been fine.
Yeah, "the West" lost a lot of goodwill in the region in the last couple of decades to be able to talk from such a high moral ground. I don't have any studies — they're probably impossible to run in an autocratic state — but in my country among people I've talked with through my life all major powers are viewed with roughly the same suspicion. It depends a lot on who you're talking to. If people are worried of possible secession of territory to China or Russia, they're equally worried about Western powers supporting "the fifth column" and color revolutions. Let's not pretend here they don't have any reasons to be worried.
The west in Central Asia want natural resources, like China, partially like Soviet Union, BUT Soviet Union back than have created most of the local infra, bad maybe, oppressing people maybe, but still modernize these countries. The west have financed Arkadag, Innopolis, ... meaning giving much to very few and nothing for the rest.
Back than, hearing my grandmother stories (she have a political activity in Europe that link her to the Soviet a bit), all was Soviet Citizens, of course the non-Caucasian looking was discriminated, the child of Russian there got better schools and services, the locals got far less, but they was still free to learn and move, the western experiment have given exactly NOTHING for 99% of the locals and have instead exacerbated local corruption...
That's why many might dream an European future, but definitively not like being under the IMF rules, they even prefer a historic enemy, China, since at least the Chinese nowadays build a bit of infra, just to pick natural resources or link themselves to EU, but still creating something that give some breadcrumbs to the locals.
The western and middle-east economical initiative have only displaced people. That's how we lost an opportunity...
Your own link says that during the revolution of 1911 in China local theocracy seized power in Tibet and held to it for 40 years.
"After the Xinhai Revolution in 1911, most of the area comprising the present-day Tibet Autonomous Region (TAR) became a de facto independent polity, independent from the rest of the Republic of China"
"At the time Political Tibet obtained de facto independence, its socio-economic and political systems resembled Medieval Europe.[29] Attempts by the 13th Dalai Lama between 1913 and 1933 to enlarge and modernize the Tibetan military had eventually failed, largely due to opposition from powerful aristocrats and monks"
"The Sino-Vietnamese War was a brief conflict that occurred in early 1979 between China and Vietnam. China launched an offensive ostensibly in response to Vietnam's invasion and occupation of Cambodia in 1978, which ended the rule of the Chinese-backed Khmer Rouge. The conflict lasted for about a month, with China withdrawing its troops in March 1979."
In both other wars China helped their neighbors against Americans.
```
Number of countries invaded by China in the middle east: 0
Number of countries invaded by USA in the middle east: 3 and few more got bombed
I mean "This is so long as there isn't a NATO-like structure to keep Chinese aggression in check, constituted of its neighbors.".. try to be a bit more self reflective.
```
You keep referring to the outliers in these citations rather than referring to the ones that clearly make the point. You have done this twice already in this chain, so I do not think any number of citations will satisfy you, since you will just ignore the ones that you do not agree with.
This is hyperbole and not reflective of what I was saying or what the citations lay out as facts. Can you attack the argument instead of putting words into my mouth?
It's always funny to me how facts about previous allegiance are withheld with impunity, apparently in hopes to confuse a distracted reader.
I can forgive people for forgetting to mention that Baltic states were part of Russia for centuries before they were re-annexed by the USSR in 1945. Indeed I can see how people had 20 years of independence and weren't fans of being included into a socialist utopia. But, just yesterday I've read that Georgia had a "Bolshevik invasion of 1921". A province of Russian Empire for a really long time and up until 1917.
It looks like the free press thinks you can make legitimate territorial claims go away by not mentioning their existence.
Certainly many parts of the world aren't too big on democracy and self-determination, but from my point of view any military operation not sanctioned by the target region's people or government counts as an invasion.
Maybe that's not how all the people involved saw it, but we see, judge, and name events through the lens of our own values.
> any military operation not sanctioned by the target region's people or government counts as an invasion
It does not give one an excuse to skip the whole history of the region and start it where it fits them. I wonder if their values include skipping uncomfortable trivia or highlighting it when appropriate.
With regards to values, the legitimacy of a 3 years old government is in deep doubt. The values you've mentioned repeatedly lead to political backing of seriously unpopular regimes just because they fit the narrative that was never true in the first place.
If you only care about the current citizens'/government's opinion, you actually can ignore history leading up to that point. Geopolitics is complicated, however, and I think most people would bring more nuance to any moral judgment. What if a large portion of the previous population was killed/driven out, for instance? What if the citizens are subjected to "brainwashing"?
I do have to disagree on the notion that a government should have a historical or traditional basis to be legitimate. In my eyes it needs foremost the support of its "subjects". In reality, different factors make a stable government, but legitimacy is ultimately a value judgment.
Also, this convention of not digging into a country's history can only ever work before it brings its history as a topic of conversation. In case of small, post-colonial countries that often happens on the first contact.
You're welcome here, but I've noticed that your comments are running a bit afoul of the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. If you'd please review those and recalibrate, we'd appreciate it. It's not easy preserving the commons for everybody.
Edit: it looks like you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. As you know, that's not allowed here and we ban accounts that do it. If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
I know that users holding minority views are under pressure that the rest of us are not, but that doesn't make it ok.
I see my comment as invitation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the statement I replied to and mainstream understanding of western values or as invitation to clarify the values of the author (which might be interesting).
"you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle"
I disagree with this characterization of my comments as a whole, they are often contradictory but informative and rarely combative. Perhaps some are unnecessarily sarcastic.
"If you don't want us to ban this account, please stop doing that"
That's a fair warning, but I wonder why accounts like https://news.ycombinator.com/user?id=mopsi aren't banned despite long history of waging 'political and nationalistic battles' and flamewars.
I'm afraid you're underestimating the provocation and aggression in your comments by quite a lot. That's normal in the sense that everyone does it, but it's important to understand how that dynamic works if you want to use HN appropriately (and therefore not get banned).
Here's how it works: people underestimate their own provocations by at least 10x and overestimate the other side's provocations by another 10x, leading to a 100x skew (I'm speaking metaphorically of course) between their own perception and how things appear to an ordinary reader. It's basically a case of "objects in the mirror are closer than they appear" - a lot closer. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
This is how we end up getting flamewars in which all the participants are certain that their contributions are the reasonable ones, the other side started it, and the only thing the mods need to do is put a stop to the bad behavior of the others.
As for the other two accounts you were asking about, the simple answer is I hadn't looked at their comment histories yet. All three of you are on the wrong side of the line in a similar way, so the moderation response is more or less the same in each case—once we've seen the data, that is. We can't moderate what we don't see, and we don't come close to seeing everything that gets posted here, or even 10% of what gets posted here.
It's common for people to see a post or an account which hasn't been publicly moderated and jump to the conclusion that the mods must be condoning it and therefore taking the other side. That's a non sequitur. By far the most likely explanation is that we didn't see it.
Ok, but when you respond simply by reporting more of your enemies without doing anything to indicate that you've processed my reply or that you care about the intended spirit of the site, I find that a bit demoralizing.
I'm sure you can understand that it gets distasteful after a while when people keep pointing the mods at their political opponents. That's not in the intended spirit of the site as a whole.
Also, the two proper ways to point the mods at things is to either flag a post (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) or email hn@ycombinator.com. If you want to be sure that we take a look at something, you should do the latter, because the number of posts that get flagged is quite large.
Posting comments in the thread reporting on other users' bad behavior is not just off topic, it's guaranteed to be provocative in its own right, so we'd rather that people not do that.
Oh, I apologize for that -- I see your point and haven't replied because I have no objections)
> I'm sure you can understand that it gets distasteful after a while when people keep pointing the mods at their political opponents. That's not in the intended spirit of the site as a whole.
First you say that accounts like that get a free pass only because you missed them, now when I've made sure you haven't missed them -- it's distasteful? I see where you are coming from, but I find fairness to be important.
>If you want to be sure that we take a look at something
No, not really. Normally I'm for freedom of speech but sometimes I want to make a point.
Why is the NATO bombing campaign such a pain point for Russians like you? The wars in Yugoslavia had ravaged for a decade, killed some 140 000 people and forced millions to flee their homes. A short aerial bombing campaign that lasted mere weeks and claimed only around 500 lives put an end to that for good. It is one of the best examples of foreign interference stopping genocide, yet you keep bringing it up as if it was some great injustice. Why?
Please don't perpetuate flamewars like this on HN, and please don't cross into nationalistic attack on a fellow user, regardless of their (or your) nationality.
Having replied as I did to the other user I feel I should add that you also are welcome here. The two of you are equally welcome, but we need you both to follow the site guidelines: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html.
I just honestly don't understand what the issue is with NATO bombing of Yugoslavia and why Russians in particular are so butthurt about it. During some of the worst massacres in Yugoslavia, more people were murdered in the span of a few days than died during the entire aerial campaign. The campaign put a decisive end to wars, and the following decades have brought massive success. Former parts of Yugoslavia like Croatia are now advanced high-income countries.
We see passive-aggressive hints about NATO bombing of Yugoslavia on HN all the time, but rarely anyone explains where that comes from. I can understand why Serbians could be bitter - the campaign had several horrible incidents like the passenger train that got hit during a strike on a railway bridge - but why are Russians complaining more than anyone else about a thing that happened 25 years ago, thousands of miles away, to people they have no relation with? I'd really like to get an answer to that.
> why $nation in particular are so butthurt about it
With this you did again exactly what I just asked you to stop doing. That's not cool.
The historical details you're bringing up are irrelevant to whether you're breaking HN's rules or not—for moderation purposes none of that matters. What matters is that making provocative, pejorative, or scornful references to other countries or their people is nationalistic flamebait which leads to hellthreads, which we don't want on HN. I don't think this is at all hard to understand, so no more of this please.
In addition to the above: having just taken a look at your commenting history, it's clear that you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. Just as I said to the other user, that's not allowed on HN and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of which side you're battling for or against. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
> No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.
With this you do exactly what we're asking commenters to avoid doing on HN. It's not as bad as if you were hurling the insult directly at someone, but it's not so different either—as the reply you got demonstrated.
The issue isn't that we shouldn't reference each other's nationality—it's that we should be open, curious and respectful with each other, most of all when it comes to divisive topics. When people start talking about other people's countries scornfully or aggressively or snarkily, that's when it becomes flamebait and a moderation issue.
In addition to the above: having just taken a look at your commenting history, it's clear that you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle. Just as I said to the other users, that's not allowed on HN and we ban accounts that do it, regardless of which side you're battling for or against. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.
When people start talking about other people's countries scornfully or aggressively or snarkily, that's when it becomes flamebait and a moderation issue.
Can you point to even a single instance where I have done this, please?
Meaning -- in reference to the country or its people per se (as opposed to the actions or ideology of the people who happen to be running it; or perhaps entirely reasonable references to what a measured portion of the population might say or think, as can be easily verified by numerous news reports)?
If not -- then why are you setting forth the implication that this is something I have done?
And lasties -- a lot of postings here (or excerpts from them) are plainly BS. Whether the poster is simply naive, or has less charitable motivations -- there's simply no mistaking it.
I totally get that labeling these cases as such continuously makes for bad reading; and of course one should never to so spuriously. But what is so wrong or uncivil (or even "snarky") about pointing out this simple fact, in egregious cases when there's just no ifs, buts or mitigating factors about it?
Or is just the fecal labeling? Would you prefer we stick to more G-rated terminology like "nonsense" and "balderdash"? I suppose I could live with that.
"self-evidently full of excrement their droppings" seemed both scornful and snarky to me.
(Edit: you put in the last part of your comment while I was writing the below, so I'll respond with an edit too. No, it's not ok to replace that language with words like "nonsense" or "balderdash". Those still count as name-calling in the sense that https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html uses the term; and they don't solve the real problem. Since my reply below is an attempt to explain the real problem, I won't go further here.)
> a lot of postings here (or excerpts from them) are plainly BS
In principle I agree because that's what human beings do, but I don't agree with your word "plainly". That implies that there exists an objective perspective that nearly everyone can easily agree on, if they're operating in good faith. But there's no such perspective—not on divisive topics. The situation is far from that.
> But is so wrong or uncivil about pointing out this simple fact
What counts as BS vs. not-BS, or true vs. false, is no "simple fact"—it's the core of the hardest problem. If you treat it as a simple fact (for example, "I'll just point out the simple fact that what you said is BS"), you're likely to fall into flamebait without intending to.
It's better to explain patiently and respectfully why you believe someone is wrong. That's what we want on HN: to correct false information with true information, and bad arguments with better arguments—always respectfully and assuming good faith.
> Whether the poster is simply naive, or has less charitable motivations
If there's one thing I've learned it's that internet commenters are much too quick to make assumptions about others' motivations. The trouble is that these assumptions don't feel like assumptions; they just feel like completely-obvious-observations. Of course the other side has their own completely-obvious-observations. This is how we end up with flamewars.
The solution is to refrain from making claims about other people's motivations, which you can't know because you don't have direct access to them, and which you're likely to be wrong about because we have so little information about each other from the tiny blobs of text that we're exchanging. Also, humans really dislike having their motivations commented on by others—so even if you've assessed them correctly, it's one of the worst tacks you can take. As a bonus, not doing so will make your comments more likely to be substantive and less likely to break the site guidelines.
By the way, I think I noticed a pattern in the following phrases in your comment: "entirely reasonable", "easily verified", "plainly", "simply", "simple fact", "there's just no ifs, buts, or mitigating factors"; as well as "self evident" from your comment above.
To me these phrases suggest a belief that the material under discussion is somehow obvious or transparent, and that it's obvious what's true and what's false (at least on certain points—I get that you aren't saying this about everything).
When you have that feeling and then you encounter someone who's arguing against that simple/obvious/plain truth, you're almost forced to conclude something about the other person: they must be naive, disingenuous, obtuse—something like that—or maybe they're just dumb or bad. Why else would they deny the obvious?
What I'd love to persuade you of is that this is a bad place to be commenting from on the internet (where we know so little about each other and don't have pre-existing relationships). It's likely to make your comments seem dismissive and/or aggressive and/or personal, even as it will feel completely obvious to you that you're simply pointing out facts. That's again how we get flamewars.
Instead, we all need to realize that the world is a much, much, much bigger place than we thought. There are lots of people out there who have opposite views and feelings to our own, and who therefore have a different idea of what is obvious and transparent. This is not because they're disingenuous, obtuse, or dumb. It's because they have a different background than we do, and a different working set of information.
Evolutionarily we're hard-wired towards assuming that other people feel and look and think the same as we do. In the mythical primordial jungle, we didn't encounter many others; and if we did, we probably tried to kill them (and they us).
Now suddenly on the internet we're exposed, not just to a few more others, but to all the others: millions of others with totally different backgrounds, information, feelings. When we encounter them, our immediate reflex is the primordial fear of kill-or-be-killed—that's how hard-wiring works. And what is flamewar but the internet version of kill-or-be-killed?
What we need to do instead is learn: learn that our assumptions and beliefs and feelings are too small for this new situation; learn to pause our first responses rather than reflexively expressing them; learn to look for information that might not be obvious/simple/plain, and to be willing to receive such information from the other.
To me this is what Hacker News is about: an experiment in learning from each other, which first means tolerating each other: staying connected long enough to get over the initial response of "what kind of idiot, asshole, or sociopath is this" and move into an openness to "what could be the reasons why this person has such a different sense of what's obvious than I do?"
Tolerance is one of the vanilla virtues we all think we're practicing, but actually we've barely begun to realize what it is. Tolerance feels terrible. It means bearing the pressure that the other person is putting on you—just as a beam engineered to a certain tolerance is able to carry so much load without snapping. In human terms, tolerance means being willing to bear the "unpleasant manifestations of others" right up to your snapping point and then letting it stretch your snapping point. Not only is that not easy, it's one of the hardest things a person can do.
I ended up writing a mini-essay here. That sometimes happens. I hope it didn't stop being relevant to you!
I appreciate the detailed response, and will give it careful consideration.
I was hoping you could also respond to the question at the very top ("Can you point to even a single instance ...", up to the "If not, then why ..." part).
I'm not trying to split hairs here -- I'm really genuinely mystified by the apparent insinuation that I was responding to. That is, I don't see why would you bother to inject the phrase "When people start talking about other people's countries scornfully or aggressively" -- if you didn't think that was what you observed me doing.
At the same time I'm pretty that not only do I not talk about entire countries that way -- my language takes pains to avoid precisely such implications.
And just a slight addendum -- I have to say I'm a bit confused about what you mean by "political battle". Is it -- simply too many posts about politics (or history, which tends to get bloody and political)? Or just being too blunt about it? Is for example this post an instance of "political battle"?
I can see how it might look that way (especially if one has only vaguely heard of the political party I'm referring to, and hasn't looked into them in any detail). But I do believe that if one has done any homework at all on these folks -- then what I'm saying is pretty straightforward, and well, basically "obvious".
And in any case, while it certainly takes a position, it's not a pugnacious or uncivil statement I'm making there. The sibling post perhaps makes a better, less brusque explanation of the same basic point. But again, it's just stating major recent events that should be, well -- obvious to anyone who follows basic political events in that country.
I did respond to that question, right at the start; but I must not have been clear enough, so I'll try again. You asked for an example of where you had talked about someone's country scornfully, snarkily, or aggressively. My answer is that you did it in the very comment I was replying to, when you wrote:
> No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.
I know you didn't express it that way explicitly, but context is important, and given the context, it was bound to come across that way. At least, it was how it landed with me when I first read it, and therefore I was unsurprised to see that it generated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751052 as a response from the commenter most likely to hear it that way in this thread.
(tptacek gave you such a good answer about the other stuff that I don't want to try to add to it)
Thanks for clarifying -- but the referent of the implicit "they" in that snippet (via "their droppings") was an (abstract) commenter -- not their country or nationality!
Which is also something you'd also prefer we not do (that is: referring to individuals with implied scorn) -- and since you're asking nicely and it's your shop here, I will make assiduous efforts to catch myself before doing so, moving forward.
So perhaps what I should have said was something like this:
There's never a need to introduce (gratuitous) references to a commenter's nationality or other presumed essential traits... No matter how much we may object to the message or import of what they have written.
Which I would hope is a general policy we can all get behind on.
Just in case this is helpful (I saw this thread because I'm operantly conditioned to read Dan's comments to catch these essays he writes) --- you and I chatted a bunch up until about a month ago, when I sort of deliberately gave up on talking about Palestine on HN. In the intervening time until now, it looks like essentially all of your comments have been political.
I think there's, like, 2 things about that? First: the overwhelming majority of what the site talks about isn't politics, and you're basically not engaging with it. That's fine for some topics; like, if all you engaged with was woodworking or Russian literature, you'd be great. But the 2nd thing is that political threads tend inexorably to become toxic and alienating, in ways that mess up conversations about woodworking and Russian literature and LLMs and APL. People literally hold grudges from the political threads!
I think if you're going to exclusively comment on political threads, the bar is higher to stay assiduously within the guidelines, which basically means avoiding any kind of pejorative writing, even if it's oblique, about the commenters who disagree with you; write as if to a beloved but intractably wrong and somewhat thin-skinned uncle on an email thread just before Thanksgiving.
(Or just mix it up and back away from the political debates. I know that's hard; they're fun.)
I think if you're going to exclusively comment on political threads, the bar is higher to stay assiduously within the guidelines, which basically means avoiding any kind of pejorative writing, even if it's oblique, about the commenters who disagree with you; write as if to a beloved but intractably wrong and somewhat thin-skinned uncle on an email thread just before Thanksgiving.
This is most excellent advice. Thanks for chiming in.
There's nothing political or nationalistic at all in my comment.
My posts refer mostly to historical events, and attempt to correct the various (sometime rather bizarre) cognitive distortions that some people like to hold and promote about them. Along with many much milder and more innocuous misunderstandings.
Personally I eschew all forms of nationalism and nationalist rhetoric.
> It is one of the best examples of foreign interference
During my visit to Syria, Iraq and Libya, I noticed something common between the people of these countries - when I told them I was from the US, they all said: "Thank you for your bombing campaigns, we are liberated now!"
> I can forgive people for forgetting to mention that Baltic states were part of Russia for centuries before they were re-annexed by the USSR in 1945. Indeed I can see how people had 20 years of independence and weren't fans of being included into a socialist utopia.
There's fair bit more history than the 20 years of independence squished by Russians in 1940. Finland, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were always very distinct from Russia in religion, language, culture, education and other key areas. A good example of this are literacy rates in European part of Russian empire recorded during 1897 census.[1] Even two centuries later, the effect of protestantism and the trace of school system established by Sweden is clearly visible. Moreover, Estonia and Latvia weren't even ruled by Russians, but by Baltic German nobility, and the main language used in administrative affairs was German.
Likewise, to portray Georgia as a mere "province of Russian Empire" is ridiculous given that they are so distinct that you cannot even read what they write, because they use a different alphabet. Finland or Georgia are no more "a part of Russia" than than Egypt and India are characterized by labeling them as "former British provinces" (with a subtext that they belong to Britain).
> The subtexts that you are pinning on me are your own invention, I just say about unfaithful representation of history in the press.
What is the purpose of having to mention that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were in Russian Empire in the context of their invasion and occupation in the 1940s if not an attempt to give legitimacy to the invasions?
It's far more important to stress that the people on the Baltic coast are not Russians, have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them. The same applies to the many other indigenous Finno-Ugric peoples[1] on the other side of the border inside the present-day Russia who have been driven away from their land like Native Americans and decimated with hostile policies that have resulted in their rapid decline.
> people on the Baltic coast are not Russians, have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them
That wording already shows an unexpected amount of agitation that would prompt further inquires.
> have been driven away from their land like Native Americans and decimated with hostile policies that have resulted in their rapid decline
That's mostly an unfaithful description of what's been happening, no. It also runs counter to the previous "have nothing in common with them, nor have never wanted to be close with them". If you really didn't want to be close to Russians you would get out of our hair for a chance.
"In Nystad, King Frederick I of Sweden formally recognized the transfer of Estonia, Livonia, Ingria, and Southeast Finland (Kexholms län and part of Karelian Isthmus) to Russia in exchange for two million silver thaler, while Russia returned the bulk of Finland to Swedish rule." [0]
The treaty of Nystad from 1721 is obsolete and has been superseded by other treaties. Estonia[1], Latvia[2] and Lithuania[3] fought successful wars of independence against Russia in 1918-1919 and made peace treaties in which Russians recognized sovereignity and withdrew territorial claims. (These treaties were later violated when Russians entered a secret pact with Hitler and they jointly invaded everyone in Europe between Germany and Russia.)
Here's a helpful map visualizing how Russia and Germany divided Eastern Europe in the secret protocol[1] to the Hitler-Stalin pact: https://i.imgur.com/DvCrPWB.jpeg
As to the "Judenfrei" status, that's a great deal due to the executions and mass deportations[2] that Russians unleashed after invading in 1940. First they banned all Jewish organizations, even fraternities and tennis clubs. Then they started targeting the professional class (politicians, doctors, lawyers, etc) to wipe out people capable of running the country and challenge the Russian rule. Their crime was officially designated as "being socially undesirable". Jews were overrepresented among the victims by a factor of 10. By the time Germans arrived in 1941, only 900 Jews were left in Estonia, as depicted on your map. Some had been deported, others ran away wherever they could. The last 900 remained because they believed that Germans couldn't be worse than the Russian terror of 1940-1941.
When Russians invaded again in 1944 and began their 50-year occupation of the country (which included another wave of terror and mass deportations[3]), they replaced German antisemitic policies with their own and continued suppressing Jewish culture until the very end of the USSR. The Jewish school in Tallinn, for example, opened in 1924, was closed by Germans in 1941, and only in 1990, as the USSR entered the final death spiral, got its confiscated real estate back and resumed teaching. So if you intended to be clever and play the Jewish card, you chose a very wrong place to do it. Germans had the holocaust in store for them, and for Russians they were exploiters of the working class, destined for Siberian labor camps.
Soviet nomenclature did consist of Jews to significant extent. At times more, at times less, but it's disingenous for you to mention Jews being overrepresented among the victims without mentioning they were also overrepresented among Soviet officials, including high ranking ones.
Of course, it weren't these random religious small business owners but people significantly conditioned by the socialist regime, which they participated in creating.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Parrot_Speaking_Yiddish the movie highlights that fact: a Soviet military officer occupying Lithuania in 1939 turns out to be Jew, which does not preclude him from internment of the movie protagonist, also Jew and Polish army soldier at the time in the plot.
Indeed, one of the most notorious war criminals in "Judenfrei" Estonia was Idel Jakobson[1], a Latvian Jew, who in the 1930s tried to overthrow the democratic government, but got arrested and imprisoned. He was freed under 1938 general amnestia and left the country. Returned in 1940 with invading forces as a NKVD officer. In that role, he tortured and executed hundreds of notable public figures, including many Jewish businessmen. Excavations at mass execution sites have shown that his modus operandi was shooting his victims right in the face. The fact that Jakobson was still alive was discovered in 1996, but he died before the massive case against him could be brought to court.
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