Notes on Tajikistan
mattlakeman.org
mattlakeman.org
There’s a reason most rich people stick to developed countries.
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.
Money matters, but so does muscle.
based on the pics in the article, it seems pretty similar to Himalayan regions of Pakistan, India, Nepal. What was so special?
poor countries just shift that number lower. but if I had $100MM I'd rather be sorta-rich in Los Angeles than mega-rich in Bolivia
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
> openly racist towards ethnic Tajiks
Makes me wonder, maybe something happened between ethnic Tajiks and ethnic Russians between Soviet Union collapse and the present.
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.
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grigory_Zass
- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Sea_slave_trade#Circassi...
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.
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?
You describe 1863 as ancient history, so I'm not keen on putting any trust into the words you're using or claims to being educated on the subject.
Not sure why that would make me empathetic towards muscovite genocidaires.
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.
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...
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?
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?
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 warRussia - 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
https://thehill.com/opinion/international/3864092-russias-cult-of-death/
https://maksymeristavi.substack.com/p/free-press-eristavi-russia-is-a-death
https://wavellroom.com/2024/05/14/the-russian-army-death-cult/
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/apathy-keeps-russias-death-cult-aliveThis wiki article has plenty of references, with many pointing to the racist actions by the senior officials https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racism_in_Russia
As an example: https://academic.oup.com/edinburgh-scholarship-online/book/2...
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’.
I understand that people are unhappy with Russia right now, but what a truly gross thing to say (and absolutely not true).
"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."
https://www.politico.eu/article/vladimir-putin-ukraine-war-f...
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.
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
Which has openly broken any established rules of war along with raping & genital mutilation being an actively encouraged tactic.
We?
Please, for your racist views speak for yourself, without 'royal we'.
Also people like you always conveniently omit anything what would show your people not as those saints as you try to portrait it.
Please watch these:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E_xq7WcM_J0
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdtCCi249xE
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
No, but kicking out the greedy WASPs and their lackeys and post-colonial infuence schemes does though - though seldom realized
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 problem is corruption and lack of rule of law, not WASPs or whatever acronym can be used to blame foreigners instead of taking responsibility.
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...
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.
Good governance can be learned and implemented within a short while. We Africans just refuse to.
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.
We should never push for change...it's the colonizer's fault always.
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.
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.
I documented the whole enterprise here http://theroadchoseme.com/shipping-across-the-darien-gap-pt-...
what?
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.
[1] https://www.statista.com/statistics/1096413/main-export-coun...
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?
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.
1- https://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/business/Year-in-Revi....
Depends on which locals. Younger generations never really cared about this. All my friends have always found the movies hilarious, especially the first one.
When the sequel was released, the government finally started acting like adults: https://youtu.be/eRGXq4t9wY4
I'm pretty sure this is also caused by generational change in the government.
“I fully support my government’s position to sue this Jew.”
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/business/business-news/bor...
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).
(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.
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.
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.
It was an awful display which has not aged well and will look even worse over time.
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.
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.
> 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.
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.
They're probably the most common way of organizing societies throughout history. The western individual citizen based society is an anomaly.
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.
So Tajikistan means: the land of Tajiks, Afghanistan means the land of Afghans, Kurdistan means the land of Kurds, etc
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.
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.
Does it come from Persian or some common Indo European language, Sanskrit has something similar as well.
Wiktionary is amazing for such information.
Also, lots of Mid East or central Asia town names end with -abad (https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/%D8%A2%D8%A8%D8%A7%D8%AF#Pers...). Interestingly, so do some large American city names, I can't remember which.
This is also the case in South Asia, especially in areas that were once ruled by Islamic monarchies.
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
https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=1Ml8xrhk9Jwr00_Gdcc...
I do not see dysfunctional countries as beautiful. I prefer well functioning countries where things get done and people understand each other.
I guess the author likes to see people suffer?
It would be a shame to only have known cakes my entire life.
Why do you jump to calling the author sadistic for finding the positive in a complicated situation?
A country is beautiful if it serves its people. Seeing beauty in dysfunction is sadism.
Fascinating pair of countries, and highly recommended to go travel and get off the beaten track.
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.
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
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.
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.
This was back when I was in the aid business, so the gig involved a lot of going around and talking to all sorts of people: local community organisations, farmers, processing plants, schools, local government reps.
A lot of it's the sort of vibes you pick up doing this sort of thing for a while, and having other contexts to base a comparison on. I felt a clear chain running down from the top to bottom. I live in another post-Soviet place, it's a lot more chaotic: still one big man at the top, but the vibe is more of a graph than a tree.
Good things and bad things, well that's almost philosophical. It's one of the poorest countries in the region, one couldn't help but think it might be doing better if there was more space for independent action.
On the plus side, the architecture in Dushanbe (a comparatively new city) was gorgeous. If you've just got one company doing the architecture and build for everything, you get a nice harmony to the place.
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.
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.
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.
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.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/2018_Tajikistan_tourist_atta...
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.
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.
[0] - https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2023/country-chapters/tajik...
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).
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.
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
No it doesn't. Provide one example where this has happened?
various conflicts in Causasus in russia - where caucasians were bankrolled and brainwashed via gulf money (dagestan and chechnya)
Iran during Shah times was relatively open politically, although it was monarchy.
Egypt before the brotherhood took over.
Turkey was relatively sectarian, but with Erdogan it became more and more islamist.
Iraq after occupation was relatively open, yet ISIS ideology took off
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.
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..).
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).
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
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.
There's not much info on it in English, but here you go:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2011_Aktobe_bombing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2016_Aktobe_shootings
https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Контртеррористическая_операция...
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).
> It’s theocratic authoritarianism
Probably closer to theocratic totalitarianism..
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.
In comparison, Islamic extremists do things like kill infidels and seek to establish an Islamic caliphate.
What bothers me is religious groups or people attempting to legislate their morality onto the whole of society by restricting personal freedoms.
If they would just follow their own morals and ethics and leave the rest of society alone, I’m perfectly fine with that.
For example, if you don’t believe in abortion, then don’t get an abortion. Leave people who want to get abortions alone, it’s their choice.
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.
Again, denying the problem exists does not make it go away and actually makes it harder for those who wish to reform islam.
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.
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:
https://www.smh.com.au/national/we-need-to-talk-about-islam-...
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."
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?
https://time.com/4930742/islam-terrorism-islamophobia-violen...
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.
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.
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.
https://islamweb.net/en/fatwa/87390/quran-is-word-of-allah
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'?
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.
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.
https://quran.com/3?startingVerse=67: Abraham was neither a Jew nor a Christian; he submitted in all uprightness and was not a polytheist.
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.
[1] https://archive.org/details/relianceofthetravellertheclassic...
There's pretty broad consensus about the fact that the end times will be preceded by a huge drop in religiosity and rise in sinfulness. Here's just one example: https://islamqa.info/en/answers/78329/signs-of-the-day-of-ju...
And here's the source it's from: https://sunnah.com/bukhari:80
It's pretty cut and dry
Feel free to look up signs of judgment day, it's pretty heavily agreed upon
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.
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
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.
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.
However, many believe that this is the case. The erroneous belief does tend to keep crime down.
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.
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.
Also having “core founding principles” doesn’t mean that they are valid or that you got them right from the beginning.
This is majoritarianism. Not liberalism, and certainly not democracy.
> 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.
https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/applying-sharia-l...
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
Probably why Salafism is outright banned in Tajikistan.
Likewise Islam in Tatarstan is completely benign.
"In check" in this case means a 7-year civil war that ended up with 1% of the country _dead_ and around 15% of the population displaced.
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?
Care to explain that one more?
Inb4 those weirdos who go all in on nurture, but then refuse to discuss nurture, leaving the terrain to conspiracies and racists.
Also the hospitality is pretty legendary.
> I have to admit that I find it kind of funny that Tajikistan spent $3.5 million to win an extremely petty international prestige project contest, and then it lost a few years later to a country with 30X the GDP per capita and 100X the GDP. Saudi Arabia’s lead lasted for seven years until Egypt took the top spot and Russia slid into second place
Quite amusing to see how a man writes about -stan and Saudi Arabia but his mind is firmly not on these countries.
> On this particular point and some others, I wondered whether my companion had an overly rosy and maybe sanitized view of Tajik culture, which isn’t uncommon for immigrants to have toward their homeland.
Or maybe he didn't want to speak freely with some foreign rando. Especially some foreign rando from America. Cue in the next three paragraphs.
> due to an apparent combination of local fashion sensibilities and I guess fabulous Persian hair
That's a funny observation but this is how you instantly recognize Tajik from any other guy from Central Asia.
> How can two countries have so many military fights that result in direct casualties, including straight-up artillery barrages over the border, and not actually declare war on one another?
> I have no idea.
I have no idea how some country can travel to literally the other side of the planet and yet not actually declare war on the country it is invading. *shrug_emoji*
> And of the better armed one-third, I swear, most didn’t have clips in their AKs. Meaning, they either carried no ammo or only a single round in the chamber.
Or they are required not to have a loaded magazine[0] in the firearm because they aren't in the constant direct threat and don't have a need to respond instantly.
I know, it's hard to comprehend to someone from "I bring a loaded AR in Taco Bell (along with two Glocks and assortments of EDC tactical knifes) else I'm feel like naked" nation, but no magazine in a firearm doesn't mean there is no magazines at all.
> Claim 2: The “Taj” in “Taj Mahal” refers to the Tajik people.
After the turmoils of 1990s many ex-USSR countries tried to invent their ancient connections, so if you hear something along that - keep a salt shaker nearby.
> Buzkashi
Oh, yes, a lot of this types of.. activities in the Central Asia. The included video is hilarious for the reaction of the announcer and the comments[1]
Overall this article is.. obviously biased by the US-tinted glasses. I found myself reading it for the author perspective, less for the actual content.
[0] Yes, it's a magazine:
> Clip (firearms)
> Not to be confused with Magazine (firearms).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clip_(firearms)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magazine_(firearms)
[1] It's in the article but if you are lost: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1JUn8MsEyPs
I also struggled there, perhaps that's the wording for Russia doing some flagpoling without claiming 1st place at any point of time.
There's three awfully huge flag poles in St. Petersburg erected last year, perhaps these are the culprits of that sentence. For the curious, these exhibit Emperors' flag, Soviet hammer-sickled and Russian tricolor.