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Comment by enriquto | Hacker News Reader

everybody is freaking out about Hong Kong, and not without reason, but there are much larger movements going on elsewhere (Ecuador, Kurdistan, Yemen, ...)

Edit: if you think all these places are too far from the "western world", well, think about Catalonia. We have a lot of arrested political prisoners without trial.

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> there are much larger movements going on elsewhere (Ecuador, Kurdistan, Yemen, ...)

Nation building is hard. Instilling modern democratic values is hard.

Those fights are worth fighting. But Hong Kong is low-hanging fruit. (There is also loss aversion, Hong Kong slipping backwards feels worse than Ecuador remaining Ecuador.)

> Ecuador remaining Ecuador

what do you mean, exactly? This is just a personal thing, but I know many ecuadorians and I feel very strong emotions to the current events there. For me it is much closer culturally than Hong-Kong.

The idea of Hong Kong, a city-state with Western freedom + democratic values, falling to authoritarian China is far scarier than Ecuador not changing because it shows that China is willing to put in the effort (and we already know they have the power) to strip other places of their human rights.

If Hong Kong falls, what's next? Likely Taiwan, Tibet, most of SEA...it's a disaster scenario that results in the de-normalization of Western values.

I'm from Albania. I totally understand that you may feel ignored by the world when your country too is fighting for Western values against evil authoritarians. Unfortunately, China is a bigger threat to the entire world than any shitty military dictator our countries can install.

I hope domino theory doesn't come back, I don't know if I could stomach another 30 years of proxy wars.

Hong Kong is important coz it's a business and financial center, people around the world care about their money, and the lingering hope of American political designs on China.

https://www.heritage.org/report/the-collapse-clintons-china-...

People are being hypocritical sure, but it's for an alright cause so I'm good with it in this case. I file that under:

"If I can get someone to do the right thing, for the wrong reason? Then score one for me!"

Also, a lot of the hypocrisy stems from the propaganda that our government puts out. The US just doesn't put out much propaganda about those other conflicts. Let's be honest, people think they are acting freely and being critical thinkers and open minded, but we are all controlled mainly by the propaganda we absorb in whatever society we live in. We Americans are no different. So really, if you have a problem with people not talking about those other conflicts, you should bring it up to the government. The people are just following where the government leads.

In Catalonia there is a trial in process, that will edict verdict very soon.

And there are no political prisoners. There are people that believed they could unilaterally break the law of Spain, that is the State they currently belong to, with no consequences.

They are consequences to braking the law. Even considering Catalonia sovereighn, that is not, they would need 2/3 of the parliament to pass laws they passed with simple majority.

> There are people that believed they could unilaterally...

If they only did! Once they go out of spanish prisons for not having delivered the independence that the people voted, they will have to go to prisons of the catalan republic for the same reason; the second time will actually make sense.

But I was not talking about the coward catalan politicians that surrendered themselves. I was talking about the 7 common citizens that were kidnapped at night last week by the spanish paramilitary and are currently in jail, falsely accused of "terrorism".

Comparing Catalan independence with Kurdish independence is a quite a stretch IMO. A more honest comparison might be Flemish or Padanian independence movements.

Iraq - 100+ dead

Did you really just compare Catalonia: A bunch of rich, entitled Spanish brexiter equivalents to Kurds who are being slaughtered by ISIS, Assad, Russia, and Türkiye?

Really???? I spend 2 months per year in Catalonia. There are no kids without legs in the streets. There are not 4 million refugees there.

Catalonia is identical to a bunch of Rich British wankers feeling that they are entitled to "more".

this is getting downvoted but its essentially true. The separatism in Catalonia has strong roots in a sort of local superiority complex, not oppression. It's similar to Lega in Northern Italy.

Are you sure that, existence of separate language and suppression of Catalan culture during the Franco period have nothing to do with the desire to have separate country, and only some strange superiority complex causes it?

I think the comparison in situation/contrast in international attention being made is more between Catalonia and Hong Kong. There's certainly a ton of other important issues causing the unrest, but there is a certain element of xenophobia/ superiority complex in play in Hong Kong as well, that has been simmering for many years.

https://www.scmp.com/comment/opinion/article/3032041/hong-ko...?

Catalan here (and not exactly rich). I think OP's comment was completely out of place, but trying to disregard the independence movement as rich guys entitlement is a an extremely distorted representation of the political reality of Catalonia.

Please don't take HN threads further into political or nationalistic flamewar. Perhaps the GP was provocative, but on HN the idea is not to take provocation and definitely not to blow it up much larger.

We'd appreciate it if you'd read and follow the site guidelines, which you broke badly with this post.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

No.

Hacker News has become a forum for uber nationalistic right-winged libertarians. Be them Israeli, Catalanian, Amurrikkkan, or other, HN lays somewhere in-between 4chan and the daily stormer.

Imma keep posting what I want, Adolf.

People with passionate politics usually perceive Hacker News as favoring their enemies. This is a cognitive bias: the comments we dislike make a stronger impression than the comments we agree with, so it feels like the community is against us. In reality, it's a large community with a wide spectrum. The people with opposite politics notice the opposite comments and so have the opposite picture of HN. Here are some examples from what I assume is the opposite side to yours:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21192430

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20956287

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20645202

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20644122

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20438487

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20384662

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=20202305

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19912334

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19471335

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19325297

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18664482

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18544961