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I don't think you understand what nationalism is. I admit that my reply could be read as a tacit endorsement of tribalism, but there's nothing nationalist about

I don't think you understand what nationalism is. I admit that my reply could be read as a tacit endorsement of tribalism, but there's nothing nationalist about it. You should not presuppose that conflicts are "petty, local squabbles." Minimizing language like that reinforces the mindset that the mighty are justified in interfering in the sovereign destiny of a people. Anyway, my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting. If you'd like to engage on this beyond the invocation of the Taliban bogeyman, I'm happy to. But if you're just gonna presume that I'm equating the exercise of sovereign rights with wholesale destruction, I'm not interested.

deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
pbhjpbhj 9y ago
Whose conception of sovereign rights. Sovereignty is the historic acquisition of power through violence in all cases that spring to mind (W. European bias). How far back do you go. Does Russia now have sovereignty over Crimean history?
- FroshKiller 9y ago
  Please note that I've taken care to say "people" rather than "nations" or "government." People organize themselves into all sorts of forms with all sorts of power. I get that sovereignty is a particularly loaded term, but what I'm getting at is that culture is a product of a people, and a people is entitled to determine its own fate with the powers available to it.
- ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
  FYI, Crimea has been a part of Russia for over 200 years, except for the post Soviet Union period, which in and of itself was the result of a symbolic transfer of Crimea to the Ukranian SSR in 1954, marking the 300th year of the Ukraine under Russian rule. A move, which was supposed to have no strategic consequence, until the Soviet Union broke up and twenty years later NATO attempted to bring the Ukraine into their fold. Of course Russia could not allow their warm water port to fall under NATO jurisdiction
lucozade 9y ago
> I don't think you understand what nationalism is. I was misusing the term nationalist in a literary device in order to deliberately mimic your misuse of the word colonialist. I wasn't so condescending as to assume you didn't know what colonialist meant so I assumed its misuse was deliberate too. > my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting. My mistake. It's rare to see colonialist used as a term of endearment. > sovereign destiny / sovereign rights I guess this is the meat of the point. See I don't believe that just because someone in temporarily in charge of a country that they should have carte blanche to do whatever they fancy. Now, in the case of the Coptic monasteries in the Sinai, there is no threat from the present government. If, say, the Sinai Insurgency escalated and the monasteries were under threat, it would be entirely appropriate, in my view, to pressure Egypt to do something about it. I can't envisage a realistic situation where external forces would be appropriate in this case. I do believe that it is both right and proper to care about, and if necessary act for, our fragile collective cultural heritage. If that makes me a colonialist in your eyes then so be it. I've been called worse.
- FroshKiller 9y ago
  As I've said elsewhere in this thread, it's that you consider culture in general to be "collective," and that's a dangerous idea. I'm pretty okay with the idea of sharing my culture with you, but unless you're one of my people, you certainly don't have any claim on it.
  - lucozade 9y ago
    What a scary notion. I'm Egyptian Christian descent (genuinely, my father was from Alexandria). Do I get a golden ticket? If I want to set fire to the library are we good with this as its "my people"? What about if I asked an external power in to preserve it? But wait, I'm not Coptic. Are they not my people now? Am I a colonialist for wanting to preserve the library because of the church my old man attended? What could possibly go wrong with cultural ghettoisation?
  - keyboardtyper 9y ago
    > "...but unless you're one of my people..." This is complicated. Are we to assume that we aren't in a culture group unless we are born from a group's member or born in a specific location. If a culture resonates with an individual that doesn't fit into the "culture group" definition, can they never see the culture as their own? It definitely seems to bring into question what the definition of culture is and when is a culture added to the collective. Isn't that what sharing does? Aren't there arguments about writers writing books and readers interpreting the story in their own way? The story is now everybody's, right? I do feel the danger in the idea, but it also feels sort of correct.
nradov 9y ago
"People" don't have sovereign destiny. Only states are sovereign, and even then there are limits to sovereignty.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

pbhjpbhj 9y ago

Whose conception of sovereign rights. Sovereignty is the historic acquisition of power through violence in all cases that spring to mind (W. European bias). How far back do you go. Does Russia now have sovereignty over Crimean history?

FroshKiller 9y ago
Please note that I've taken care to say "people" rather than "nations" or "government." People organize themselves into all sorts of forms with all sorts of power. I get that sovereignty is a particularly loaded term, but what I'm getting at is that culture is a product of a people, and a people is entitled to determine its own fate with the powers available to it.
ZoeZoeBee 9y ago
FYI, Crimea has been a part of Russia for over 200 years, except for the post Soviet Union period, which in and of itself was the result of a symbolic transfer of Crimea to the Ukranian SSR in 1954, marking the 300th year of the Ukraine under Russian rule. A move, which was supposed to have no strategic consequence, until the Soviet Union broke up and twenty years later NATO attempted to bring the Ukraine into their fold. Of course Russia could not allow their warm water port to fall under NATO jurisdiction

lucozade 9y ago

> I don't think you understand what nationalism is. I was misusing the term nationalist in a literary device in order to deliberately mimic your misuse of the word colonialist. I wasn't so condescending as to assume you didn't know what colonialist meant so I assumed its misuse was deliberate too. > my reply was thoughtful, not pointlessly insulting. My mistake. It's rare to see colonialist used as a term of endearment. > sovereign destiny / sovereign rights I guess this is the meat of the point. See I don't believe that just because someone in temporarily in charge of a country that they should have carte blanche to do whatever they fancy. Now, in the case of the Coptic monasteries in the Sinai, there is no threat from the present government. If, say, the Sinai Insurgency escalated and the monasteries were under threat, it would be entirely appropriate, in my view, to pressure Egypt to do something about it. I can't envisage a realistic situation where external forces would be appropriate in this case. I do believe that it is both right and proper to care about, and if necessary act for, our fragile collective cultural heritage. If that makes me a colonialist in your eyes then so be it. I've been called worse.

FroshKiller 9y ago
As I've said elsewhere in this thread, it's that you consider culture in general to be "collective," and that's a dangerous idea. I'm pretty okay with the idea of sharing my culture with you, but unless you're one of my people, you certainly don't have any claim on it.
- lucozade 9y ago
  What a scary notion. I'm Egyptian Christian descent (genuinely, my father was from Alexandria). Do I get a golden ticket? If I want to set fire to the library are we good with this as its "my people"? What about if I asked an external power in to preserve it? But wait, I'm not Coptic. Are they not my people now? Am I a colonialist for wanting to preserve the library because of the church my old man attended? What could possibly go wrong with cultural ghettoisation?
- keyboardtyper 9y ago
  > "...but unless you're one of my people..." This is complicated. Are we to assume that we aren't in a culture group unless we are born from a group's member or born in a specific location. If a culture resonates with an individual that doesn't fit into the "culture group" definition, can they never see the culture as their own? It definitely seems to bring into question what the definition of culture is and when is a culture added to the collective. Isn't that what sharing does? Aren't there arguments about writers writing books and readers interpreting the story in their own way? The story is now everybody's, right? I do feel the danger in the idea, but it also feels sort of correct.

nradov 9y ago

"People" don't have sovereign destiny. Only states are sovereign, and even then there are limits to sovereignty.