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Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

economist.com

141–150 of 415 posts

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#141
post #11

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I think ultimately pink washing Israeli war crimes and colonisation with appeals to open lesbianism on the streets of Tel Aviv is a dead end. The point is in the end that human rights are inalienable and not transactional. You don't get to treat the Sudanese worse because they're crap on gay rights and nor should we give Israelis an easier time because they're better on gay rights. How many gay marriages in Tel Aviv does it take to cancel out an ethnic cleansing in the West Bank? It's just stupid.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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Al Jazeera can't be used so you cite....Instagram?

yeah, seeing shit with your own eyes, with links to original tiktoks and time stamps are better than state-sponsored EXTREMELY biased media

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#143
post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They just want to permanently make life of people in Gaza - at least for a generation - a living hell to teach them a lesson to never try Oct. 7 again. Nothing fair about that. Most of the people suffering had nothing to do with the events they're being punished for.

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Most Americans supported or voted for presidents that bombed innocent people. Does that mean Americans therefore “deserved” 9/11? According to your moral logic any action against American civilians is tragically justified retaliation for their support of warmongering US presidents. It’s surprising how easily people justify bombing others when they would never apply those standards to themselves.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#144
post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bring back colonization for limited amount of time ie 50years. During that time establish government, educational, civil structures and start the economy. Re-educate the society, instill the values of high-trust society. Pull out of the country gradually replacing foreigners with local population. The name 'colonization' might evoke some sentiments, but we can call this some other name.

Democracy export? That has worked so well in Iraq and Afghanistan...

We didn't do what throwaway3521 said, though. We tried to do it "on the cheap", just occupying, not actually transforming the society, and not staying for 50 years.

For context: We occupied Japan for, what, 12 years? We technically occupied Germany longer, but practically it was about the same (I think - from memory and not researched). In that time, we transformed them from violent, racially superior, conquer-the-world militarists to more-or-less western-values democracies. But we put a lot of people in there, and we controlled every aspect of their society.

Iraq and Afghanistan, we tried to do it with half-measures rather than a complete rebuild. And it failed.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#145
post #128

At which point we admit that current approaches to helping these countries does nothing and we reach out for other, radical, approaches and ideas?

You suggestion below is getting downvoted which isn't that surprising given the general tilt of HN. But I think there is a related question that's a bit better to ask. What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society? What ideals and values does the culture need to hold before you can have a stable government that in a general way - values liberty for its citizens? While I'd l…

My take is that we should leave them alone and try to keep others from meddling. They have to figure this out on their own. The idea that European enlightenment values are the only path to success is part of the problem though: they have a different culture and success will look different for them than it does for us. Look at China, Japan and other successful Asian countries: they are each different and it’s hard for people of European cultures to judge them without judging them for not being European enough. They have to evolve out of the aftermath of imperialism just like Europe did after the Roman Empire collapsed. We were able to do it on our own and thinking they need us to help them is pretty demeaning IMO.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#146
post #128

At which point we admit that current approaches to helping these countries does nothing and we reach out for other, radical, approaches and ideas?

You suggestion below is getting downvoted which isn't that surprising given the general tilt of HN. But I think there is a related question that's a bit better to ask. What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society? What ideals and values does the culture need to hold before you can have a stable government that in a general way - values liberty for its citizens? While I'd l…

You raise some excellent points.

> What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society?

I think societies don't become free before they get prosperous. Having lived in dirt poor societies and posh societies, individual freedoms culturally seem to have a strong tie to prosperity. When you are so inter dependent for survival on your social network, the concept of freedom or individual dignity seems so distant. When everyone has more than enough resources for their own prosperous survival, the individual freedoms come to the forefront.

Another problem is that countries and societies are almost always resistant to change in absence of a large event. It took WW1 to get women voting rights (and several other social changes) in the west for example.

Sadly there is no magic potion to transform societies in absence of large scale events or them lucking out on a good dictator (LKY, Deng)

> How do you change a culture that in some ways doesn't want to change?

I think across history I find only two ways this happens, either very very slowly, or strongly pushed top down by an authority with the power and willingness to enforce.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#148
post #105

That's not anarchy, obviously

It may not be anarchism as professed by anarchists (which is itself a broad and fractious array of philosophies generally having to do with abolishing involuntary hierarchies, related to classical libertarianism), but it is a form of anarchy, at least as it is popularly understood. Terminology fails here; at this point any serious anarchists need to come to grips with the fact that this sort of "chaotic anarchy" is what people think of when they hear "anarchy", and that trying to reclaim the word is pointless.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#149
post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You suggestion below is getting downvoted which isn't that surprising given the general tilt of HN. But I think there is a related question that's a bit better to ask. What are the social, political, cultural and intellectual preconditions of a free society? What ideals and values does the culture need to hold before you can have a stable government that in a general way - values liberty for its citizens? While I'd l…

My take is that we should leave them alone and try to keep others from meddling. They have to figure this out on their own. The idea that European enlightenment values are the only path to success is part of the problem though: they have a different culture and success will look different for them than it does for us. Look at China, Japan and other successful Asian countries: they are each different and it’s hard for…

Your take sounds reasonable and might be the best idea, but it means change will be very very slow (if at all) and millions of lives will be lost to famine and civil wars.

> China, Japan and other successful Asian countries:

Japan was kinda occupied by the Americans post WW2 and had an American dictated constitution, with a very American influenced society and everything.

The Chinese after years of socialism copied western capitalism (and lots of other things) with a very strong government being the only difference. And before that change they too kept having their share of extreme poverty and famines.

> just like Europe did after the Roman Empire collapsed.

Sadly this might mean waiting for a millennia which might have an unacceptable cost.

> We were able to do it on our own and thinking they need us to help them is pretty demeaning IMO.

Yes but in a millennia in which rest of the world made much less industrial progress than happens in less than a century now.

I have no solutions in mind here. Just highlighting some points to think about.

Re: Anarchy in Sudan has spawned the world’s worst famine in 40 years

#150
post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Truth is Sudan has been at war since it was decolonized in the 1950s There have been internal conflicts, but nothing at the scale of the 2023 Civil War. > I suspect all the aid and help over the decades has really just prolonged things It's being fueled by the proxy war between Iran, UAE, KSA, Egypt, and Ethiopia.

First Sudanese Civil War was 1955 – 1972. Second Sudanese Civil War was 1983 – 2005. Up to a million deaths in the first civil war and between one and two million deaths in the second civil war.

> First Sudanese Civil War was 1955 – 1972. Second Sudanese Civil War was 1983 – 2005

The First and Second were localized in what is now South Sudan (independence from Sudan in 2011) and Darfur.

This is the first time that warfare hit Northern Sudan.

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