5 ms·

Isn't that the nature of almost every conflict with an ethnic context? If there's no clear weaker and stronger you usually end up with two independent states.

by auganov 10y ago

Isn't that the nature of almost every conflict with an ethnic context? If there's no clear weaker and stronger you usually end up with two independent states. The way Tibet was Incorporated into China, the nature of the Tibetan resistance, the way China governs Tibet, the reason China wants Tibet, the reason China represses Tibetans are all very very different from what's happening in Judea and Samaria. The Israeli Arab conflict is perhaps the most unique of all time. The better analogies perhaps are some of the separatist leaning Russian Republics or India's Jammu and Kashmir

bhouston 10y ago
auganov wrote: > Isn't that the nature of almost every conflict with an ethnic context? If there's no clear weaker and stronger you usually end up with two independent states. Your statement is sort of weird in the above. It presupposes that subjugation of a weaker ethnic group by a more powerful ethnic group is acceptable -- that is how these conflicts are resolved. It is counter to the idea of universal human rights that arose because of the the atrocities that arose because of the ethnic issues in WW2. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights#After_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights#After_... Your point of view, the powerful ethnic groups win and the weak lose and that is how the world works, justifies slavery, South African apartheid, and many other situations where one ethnic group is more powerful and wishes to impose its wishes on the less powerful. That is an allowable perspective, but that is antithesis to universal human rights.
- auganov 10y ago
  No. My point was/is: 1. Stronger vs Weaker is a common pattern in such conflicts. 2. Tibet vs China :: Palestine/Arab states vs Israel differ in almost every other feature. 3. There's places in the world that better mimic the Tibetan situation. 4. Hence the analogy isn't very good. I did not make any moral judgments.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- coldtea 10y ago
  >Your point of view, the powerful ethnic groups win and the weak lose and that is how the world works, justifies slavery, South African apartheid Or a legal system, where blacks are hugely over-represented, the takeover of native american land, Puerto Rico, etc. "Universal human rights" take usually less precedence to "my country, right or wrong".
dave2000 10y ago
No, it's perfectly meaningful to talk about Israel/Palestine - and by extension the US - when criticizing actions by China. Otherwise you end up with the same narrative you get in pretty much every media outlet in the world; whatever the US does is good, no terrorism or support for murderous dictators there (cough south america..cuba...saudi arabia..iran...iraq...indonesia etc etc etc ), and whatever China does is bad.
- douche 10y ago
  China and Tibet is more like what would have happened if the Arab Legion and the other Arab powers weren't so blindingly incompetent in 1947. There's a long, long history of China controlling Tibet, back at least to the Tang dynasty. The ChiComs are nastier about it than most of the previous Chinese governments, but that's what you get when you refute the old mandate of heaven/chakravartin mashup of political legitimacy espoused by the old empire for ... what justification do the ChiComs give for their political legitimacy? Having the biggest boot and the willingness to murder millions and imprison more, I suppose.
  - toyg 10y ago
    > what justification do the ChiComs give for their political legitimacy? Well, it's right there in art. I of their own Constitution, I think: "The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants." It might have its problems (will the country forever have "workers" and "peasants"? Does the working class include peasants? Who does a democratic dictatorship actually dictate to? etc etc) but it's still better than divine mandate, tbh, which might explain why it's not been toppled yet.
  - coldtea 10y ago
    The same legitimacy every other large government has. At least they only piss in their own pool -- not mess with peoples all around the world.
    - iofj 10y ago
rahimnathwani 10y ago
What are these differences?
cscurmudgeon 10y ago
> India's Jammu and Kashmir Except there was no ethnic cleansing by the Tibetans like in Kashmir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Kashmiri_Hindus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Kashmiri_H...
- intended 10y ago
  Yes China is doing it much better. No press, full military control, reincarnation is literally banned (this means the next spirtiual/political leader is decided by the communist leadership), followed by the settling of mainlanders in Tibet. These settlers in turn disdain and look down on the Tibetans and their existence.
- iofj 10y ago
  And yet 5 posts away you see people blaming Israelis for refusing to expose themselves to that same treatment. The big detail always omitted is that Palestinians have their culture in a massive area, yet Israelis don't have one square meter more than what they have there. Oh, and the Palestinian culture is the one with the extensive history of violently oppressing other cultures and religions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians ), including in Palestina itself ( http://int.icej.org/media/palestinian-christians http://int.icej.org/media/palestinian-christians ). All of the world, of course, is silent on that. Not that they just persecute Christians ( https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Persecution_of_Homosexuals_%28Palestinian_Authority_area%29 https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Persecution_of_Homosexuals_%28Pal... http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/08/what-it-s-like-to-be-an-atheist-in-palestine.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/08/what-it-s-l... etc.) All of it doesn't matter. Nobody's willing to fight for Tibet, or for Atheists, or ... Fight, as in "fight, kill and die", credibly, against the dictatorship that rules China, against, well let's be honest here : against most Muslims, and I'm sure there will be occasionally some slight effort required against a Christian too. Looking at a map of 1950's, finding China, and looking at China now will make anyone scared. Can someone point me to a good Mandarin course ?
  - dang 10y ago
sandGorgon 10y ago
J&K has nothing to do with ethnicity. There is a larger number of people who don't want to separate from India than there are who want to. J&K is a territorial flashpoint - with ethnic unrest that is funded.

by auganov 10y ago

bhouston 10y ago

auganov wrote: > Isn't that the nature of almost every conflict with an ethnic context? If there's no clear weaker and stronger you usually end up with two independent states. Your statement is sort of weird in the above. It presupposes that subjugation of a weaker ethnic group by a more powerful ethnic group is acceptable -- that is how these conflicts are resolved. It is counter to the idea of universal human rights that arose because of the the atrocities that arose because of the ethnic issues in WW2. See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights#After_World_War_II https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_human_rights#After_... Your point of view, the powerful ethnic groups win and the weak lose and that is how the world works, justifies slavery, South African apartheid, and many other situations where one ethnic group is more powerful and wishes to impose its wishes on the less powerful. That is an allowable perspective, but that is antithesis to universal human rights.

auganov 10y ago
No. My point was/is: 1. Stronger vs Weaker is a common pattern in such conflicts. 2. Tibet vs China :: Palestine/Arab states vs Israel differ in almost every other feature. 3. There's places in the world that better mimic the Tibetan situation. 4. Hence the analogy isn't very good. I did not make any moral judgments.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
coldtea 10y ago
>Your point of view, the powerful ethnic groups win and the weak lose and that is how the world works, justifies slavery, South African apartheid Or a legal system, where blacks are hugely over-represented, the takeover of native american land, Puerto Rico, etc. "Universal human rights" take usually less precedence to "my country, right or wrong".

dave2000 10y ago

No, it's perfectly meaningful to talk about Israel/Palestine - and by extension the US - when criticizing actions by China. Otherwise you end up with the same narrative you get in pretty much every media outlet in the world; whatever the US does is good, no terrorism or support for murderous dictators there (cough south america..cuba...saudi arabia..iran...iraq...indonesia etc etc etc ), and whatever China does is bad.

douche 10y ago
China and Tibet is more like what would have happened if the Arab Legion and the other Arab powers weren't so blindingly incompetent in 1947. There's a long, long history of China controlling Tibet, back at least to the Tang dynasty. The ChiComs are nastier about it than most of the previous Chinese governments, but that's what you get when you refute the old mandate of heaven/chakravartin mashup of political legitimacy espoused by the old empire for ... what justification do the ChiComs give for their political legitimacy? Having the biggest boot and the willingness to murder millions and imprison more, I suppose.
- toyg 10y ago
  > what justification do the ChiComs give for their political legitimacy? Well, it's right there in art. I of their own Constitution, I think: "The People’s Republic of China is a socialist state under the people’s democratic dictatorship led by the working class and based on the alliance of workers and peasants." It might have its problems (will the country forever have "workers" and "peasants"? Does the working class include peasants? Who does a democratic dictatorship actually dictate to? etc etc) but it's still better than divine mandate, tbh, which might explain why it's not been toppled yet.
- coldtea 10y ago
  The same legitimacy every other large government has. At least they only piss in their own pool -- not mess with peoples all around the world.
  - iofj 10y ago

rahimnathwani 10y ago

What are these differences?

cscurmudgeon 10y ago

> India's Jammu and Kashmir Except there was no ethnic cleansing by the Tibetans like in Kashmir. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Kashmiri_Hindus https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing_of_Kashmiri_H...

intended 10y ago
Yes China is doing it much better. No press, full military control, reincarnation is literally banned (this means the next spirtiual/political leader is decided by the communist leadership), followed by the settling of mainlanders in Tibet. These settlers in turn disdain and look down on the Tibetans and their existence.
iofj 10y ago
And yet 5 posts away you see people blaming Israelis for refusing to expose themselves to that same treatment. The big detail always omitted is that Palestinians have their culture in a massive area, yet Israelis don't have one square meter more than what they have there. Oh, and the Palestinian culture is the one with the extensive history of violently oppressing other cultures and religions ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persecution_of_Christians ), including in Palestina itself ( http://int.icej.org/media/palestinian-christians http://int.icej.org/media/palestinian-christians ). All of the world, of course, is silent on that. Not that they just persecute Christians ( https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Persecution_of_Homosexuals_%28Palestinian_Authority_area%29 https://wikiislam.net/wiki/Persecution_of_Homosexuals_%28Pal... http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/08/what-it-s-like-to-be-an-atheist-in-palestine.html http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/12/08/what-it-s-l... etc.) All of it doesn't matter. Nobody's willing to fight for Tibet, or for Atheists, or ... Fight, as in "fight, kill and die", credibly, against the dictatorship that rules China, against, well let's be honest here : against most Muslims, and I'm sure there will be occasionally some slight effort required against a Christian too. Looking at a map of 1950's, finding China, and looking at China now will make anyone scared. Can someone point me to a good Mandarin course ?
- dang 10y ago

sandGorgon 10y ago

J&K has nothing to do with ethnicity. There is a larger number of people who don't want to separate from India than there are who want to. J&K is a territorial flashpoint - with ethnic unrest that is funded.