Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by baybal2 | Hacker News Reader

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I hope that readers will realise more things than just how ridiculous every day life was in a red country.

When state security dominated everything, everything that it didn't like became a security issue, and everything it liked too! Think of a brand of children candy being labelled "counterrevolutionary," a design of apartment called "communistic," and there was even a "state security conscious way to drive a car."

For few Western people that ventured into bloc countries, the experience was just mind breaking. I remember from some memoirs, one guy lauded why in the world a state security officer has to review and issue "state security licenses" for owning a toy air plane, buying a typewriter, or reasons for his child to go through "state security exam" to attend a club.

Think just how petty the state security dominated state was, and then think if the currently forming political establishment in the West went by further.

- Terrorism tax https://www.theregister.co.uk/2018/01/02/ukgov_moots_tax_for...

- "national security tax" - well, that one was shot down

- Rapescan scanners on public transit

- Three letter agencies having nothing better to do than snoop on facebooks of teenage girls

- Being jailed for owning nitric acid

- Being detained for making a clockwork, or, well being effectively jailed for life for owning a "terrorist wristwatch"

- Being denied boarding a flights for owning a "terrorist radio"

- Havala being called "terrorism banking"

- the very term of "cyberterrorism"

- "Chador tax" in Europe

- TSA and DHS tearing down laptops, and stealing "not-state-security-approved" purchases from Chinese dollar stores. Not to mention, any radio gear from abroad.

- All kinds of "terrorism experts," and three letter agency bureaucrats having the best time ever gaining promotions in Western countries

The film Das Leben Der Anderen (The Lives of Others) [1] is an incredible view into this world. I highly recommend it.

[1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTSdhmTJDyY

> Think just how petty the state security dominated state was, and then think if the currently forming political establishment in the West went by further.

https://opendatacity.github.io/stasi-vs-nsa/

Acid in the UK is being used in disfiguring attacks and as a replacement for settling scores with knives.

I've only heard of acid attacks in the context of Muslim "honour" reprisals. So I did a little research.

This BBC article from 2011 details some statistics on "honour" attacks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16014368. Including that London's Metropolitan Police ("MET") reported about 500 Islamic honour related acid attacks for 2010.

Now this search: https://www.google.com/search?q=%22honour+attack%22+acid+Mus... returns as the first hit an article in which the MET claims [1] that Islamic honour attacks are basically a myth.

I wonder how the MET managed to report up to 500 per year to 2010 (first link above), then only one for the subsequent 15 years [1]?

It's curious that there are charities set up to aid acid attack victims[2] which report that in relative terms a lot of "honour attacks" happen in Pakistan; and that with a large UK Pakistani population there's only one attack in London in 15 years.

So, what's going on there.

Obviously it's fantastic if somehow such "honour attacks" were reduced by nearly 100% in one year yet highly disturbing if the police report that and it's not true.

Aside from that question, what I did find is a huge increase in use by gangs and a much wider use than I imagined for "revenge attacks" (spurned lovers, stalkers, etc.).

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5d38c003-c54a-4513-a3...

[2] Eg http://asfpakistan.org/, https://asti.org.uk.

White people do throw actual vitriol from time to time, and not just in Sherlock Holmes stories too.

I followed your search link and just clicked the second article: https://www.bbc.co.uk/bbcthree/article/5d38c003-c54a-4513-a3...

No where does it say that there were only 1 attack in 15 years.

In the article:

>"Only one so-called ‘honour’ attack [using acid] was recorded in 15 years"

But my analysis was flawed in two places (at least).

One, the other page says only (in the video) that the majority of "honour" attacks are Muslim.

Two, it also is counting abductions, mutilations, killings as well when they're classed as "honour attacks".

Its interesting that these sort of offences can lead to life sentences - in the past I believe it was a capital offence ie hanging.

> This BBC article from 2011 details some statistics on "honour" attacks: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16014368. Including that London's Metropolitan Police ("MET") reported about 500 Islamic honour related acid attacks for 2010.

The article does not say Islamic, nor acid-attacks in relation to the 495 attacks.

The article says "so-called honour attacks" and goes on to say:

> Honour attacks are punishments on people, usually women, for acts deemed to have brought shame on their family.

> Such attacks can include acid attacks, abduction, mutilations, beatings and in some cases, murder.

In other words, it says nothing about how many acid-attacks were included among those 495, and does not tie it to specific religions. Honour attacks are more strongly correlated to specific cultural ties than religion. It is likely a substantial majority of those have muslim perpetrators (because the South Asian communities that are over-represented in "honour" related crime are majority muslim), but certainly not all.

> I wonder how the MET managed to report up to 500 per year to 2010 (first link above), then only one for the subsequent 15 years [1]?

Because you're comparing all honour attacks of any type to honour-related acid-attacks.

You're right, in the video interviewee says "the majority of the victims are from the Muslim community" and the interview goes on to question whether the problem of policing it is exacerbated by political correctness in not wanting to confront Muslim communities.

So I did pretty poor analysis.

Do other UK communities have a concept of "honour killings"?

>Honour attacks are more strongly correlated to specific cultural ties //

Any support for this? For example in Pakistan are "honour" attacks equally prevalent across all religious beliefs?

> Do other UK communities have a concept of "honour killings"?

Honour killings are far rarer - only about a dozen a year are reported in the UK. Most "honour" attacks are violent but not deadly. But both Hindu and Sikh communities at least have had issues with both "honour" violence and specifically "honour killings". E.g. here's a case of a Sikh man being convicted for a "honour killing" [1].

> Any support for this? For example in Pakistan are "honour" attacks equally prevalent across all religious beliefs?

I did not suggest they were equally prevalent, but that location/culture is a stronger predictor that religion.

This plays out both in what you yourself have pointed to, namely that countries like Pakistan have substantially larger problems with it than many other predominantly muslim countries, but even within Pakistan you'll find large regional differences, and the same in India where honour violence has been on the rise in recent years but is predominantly correlated to caste, not religion, though it certainly is a problem among both Hindus and Sikhs too. South Asia as a whole have had a significant problem with it, but with large regional variation. E.g in Pakistan it is a problem of tribal culture that remains far stronger in rural areas.

As an indicator that this is about culture rather than religion, here is a case of a Pakistani Christian carrying out a "honour killing" [2]. While the article also point out that Christian "honour" killings are extremely rare in Pakistan, it goes on to say:

> "Unfortunately, I do hear about cases of where Christian daughters are beaten for marrying individuals not approved by the family," Stark wrote. "Again, I have not heard of a Christian family performing an honor killing because their daughter had married someone that was not approved by the family. That is really rare."

But remember that Christian parts of Europe too have had problems with "honour" based violence. Until 1981, "honour" was a mitigating circumstance to murder in the Italian penal code, for example.

[1] https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-shropshire-12431942 [2] https://www.christianpost.com/news/pakistani-man-beats-siste...

>"Honour killings are far rarer - only about a dozen a year are reported in the UK." //

Part of the issue that lead to this sub-thread was the report that:

"police recorded at least 2,823 so-called honour attacks last year [2010], figures from 39 out of 52 forces show." (~500 were in London)

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-16014368

Were they wrong?

The focus on type writers was quite common for a long time in dictatorships. Not as bad as a spirit duplicator but still a possible tool for agitation.

Well the whole idea of samizdat was based on the access to a typewriter. Not necessarily at home, my mom was a librarian and she would use the typewriter in her office to type books.

And the reason for typewriter control is that typewriters are somewhat unique; all the typewriters used to be registered (i.e. the security services have their writing samples together with the owner/location of the device) so that if a particularly unwanted type of samizdat (e.g. actual political agitation) was detected then they could and would determine that this was typed on the typewriter in your mom's office and go in and determine who participated in making these copies.

You can also do forensics on a typewriter and typewritten documents, finding the machine that produces a document.

Also, If you didn't switch the ribbon everything you typed could be reconstructed well for a while.

Most items from your list sound a whole lot like the path the US is on. I don't believe these things are related to communism or capitalism, but more so to a few people who want to stay powerful and in control.

(edit: spelling)

You are giving too much credit to the elites. The State in itself is a ridiculous creation with full of incompetence at the top. Hence the laws.

This touches on a major point of Nineteen Eighty-Four that many people seem to forget, despite the presence of a very striking monologue about it. I mean, it doesn't get much more explicit than:

> Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power.

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