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Comment by zaphirplane | Hacker News Reader

Clearly you dislike gulf countries.

The points raised are a mixture of facts, fiction, jealousy and dislike.

You want them to boil in desert heat with some environmental appeal, while many countries pump the air full of pollution from factories or massive ICE cars

I haven’t heard of back alley executions over there

I don’t feel hate towards someone spending their money on 2 cars or a holiday house or whatever luxury shoes, or paint their house whatever color. Why does it annoy you so much.

Why hate on people with different taste, very strange

I get it’s ok to hate on gulf countries without backlash more than hating on say Denmark

FWIW I’m not from there and don’t live there

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I'm guessing people's distastefor gulf states can be explained largely by their ranking in the global slavery index [1] (three gulf states in the top ten) the global freedom index [2] (Saudi Arabia in bottom ten) and the global corruption index (gulf states are not as good at corruption as slavery or repression but they still give it a good shot).

This seems more likely to me as an explanation than hating on people with different taste. Otherwise everyone would hate Japan for example.

[1] https://www.walkfree.org/global-slavery-index/#the-scale [2] https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/freedom-i... [3] https://www.transparency.org/en/cpi/2022

Most of earth’s 8 billion people are unaware of (1) and shouldnt paint a whole region, I see only 2-3 gulf countries in the top 10 of (2) which painting the whole region for is convoluted reasoning. Not vested enough to decode 3 to see how it relates to hating a region.

In summary, there maybe reasons for an informed person to have an issue with a specific government, there is no reasonable reason to hate on countries because the are adjacent to a government you dislike and lastly the individuals in a country are free to live in reasonable temperatures with their own taste in buildings

I'd say that there are specific reasons to have an issue with each and every government in the region.

I'll call the gulf states Bahrain, Kuwait, Iraq, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Yemen and the United Arab Emirates. Which of these would you say has a good record on human rights, personal liberty, and equality?

Btw none of the points you are raising are the ones the OP has issue with. I responded to the issues they raised which boiled down to. They don’t like their taste in building or how much air con they use in 50 degree heat and a bunch of other hate spray against the ethnic group‘s wealth

An issue can be found in any government, how does that move the conversation forward ?

Ah, the good old western indices that prove that the non-western world is practically in the stone age.

Meanwhile, the US, Germany, and others are currently actively supporting a genocide. And it's not their first one.

Whataboutism or whataboutery (as in "what about…?") is a pejorative for the strategy of responding to an accusation with a counter-accusation instead of a defense of the original accusation.

In Saudi Arabia specifically, atheism is a capital crime. I think it's pretty sensible for atheists to hate a country that literally wants to kill them; do you find that strange?

Straw man argument. I was refuting the back alley execution if that’s what you are getting at

You're technically correct in that the executions there are generally proudly done openly and often in public, and that backalley assassination of Khashoggi happened outside of the country.

There are reasons for someone to hate an ethnic group I can’t help you figure out yours.

"Saudi Arabia" is not an ethnic group. I don't hate Arabs. I hate the state called "Kingdom of Saudi Arabia" and its rulers. If anything, Arabs are among the victims of this state.

> Clearly you dislike gulf countries.

I'll be frank: I have a deep mistrust of any culture present in the Arabian peninsula since about 632 CE.

Could it be racism?

Could it be that they execute honosexuals and treat women like second class citizens?

Nah, it must be racism.

Like abortion rights, let’s see let’s encourage people to hate on Canadians and Americans because the us government has a policy on abortion.

To reiterate, having an issue with a government for a specific reason is informed. Hating an ethic group is racism.

Ps I’m not from there or live there

The above replies did not mention an ethnic group, rather a geographical area. The main ethnic group in that area is also very present in north Africa, and there is much less general "mistrust" (or negative feelings) towards that area than to the other.

Not sure if "geographic discrimination" is in any way better than "racism" but using terms correctly is required for good communication.

Can you name the ethnic group. I’m not as confident as you in saying there is a single ethnic group encompassing gulf to North Africa

I never mentioned "an ethnic group". I mentioned "main" and "very present" - neither absolutes. The main point: comment was not racist. It was discriminatory based on other topics than race (geography or religion).

The implication of using "632 CE" appears to be a reference to the proliferation of Islam after the death of Muhammad (I didn't know this until I Googled)

So if that individuals distrust towards the Arabian peninsula begins in the exact year Islam began to spread, it wouldn't be a stretch to assume that OP is an Islamaphobe (and it would include a number of North African countries as well)

TLDR: OP is using geography as a dog whistle.

I have a problem when governments decide it is perfectly alright to interfere in how citizens should conduct their religion or even what religion they should follow, which I believe is a deeply personal affair. I have a problem when there is no separation of state and religion, and when said governments regularly criminalise (up to capital punishment) things like apostasy and blasphemy, which are decidedly mediaeval attitudes.

It so happens that the large majority of these governments are in Muslim-majority countries, where Islam is the 'state religion' (I have a problem with 'state religions' too). Therefore, a reasonable conclusion: it is that particular religion that demands these of its adherents (and worse, non-adherents), and therefore, I mistrust it.

> a number of North African countries as well

For the record, I have little problem with Tunisia.

> delta_p_delta_x

> I'll be frank: I have a deep mistrust of any culture present in the Arabian peninsula since about 632 CE.

Enough said. This isn’t an informed opinion

> criminalise (up to capital punishment) things like apostasy and blasphemy, which are decidedly mediaeval attitudes.

Another HN post today motivated me to look up the history of British blasphemy law and it turns out it was not medieval. Criminal blasphemy laws appeared right at the end of the Middle Ages (at least in England and Wales) so are mostly modern. Before that the punishment for blasphemy was excommunication.

No. It's neither about race nor ethnicity; it's about culture and religion. It's not about the people, either, since the differences from person to person are as pronounced there as everywhere. It is, though, about the society built with the culture in question as a foundation. You can criticize societies everywhere, starting from your own - it's normal, healthy, and has nothing to do with racism.

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