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Notes on Tajikistan

mattlakeman.org

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Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#381

Post by Wytwwww »

aprilthird2021 wrote: post #316
slt2021 wrote: post #299

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Afghanistan was relatively open during US and USSR occupations, still radical islamists prevailed. 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

The USSR was brutal autocracy. Us military occupation was also brutal and not free. 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. I…

> Turkey are separatists which every nation, even European ones, has to fight.

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..).

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#382

Post by dang »

racional wrote: post #348
dang wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"self-evidently full of excrement their droppings" seemed both scornful and snarky to me. > a lot of postings here (or excerpts from them) are plainly BS In principle I agree because that's what human beings do, but I don't agree with your word "plainly". That implies that there exists an objective perspective that nearly everyone can easily agree on, as long as they're in good faith. But there's no such perspective—…

I appreciate the detailed response, and will give it careful consideration. I was hoping you could also respond to the question at the very top ("Can you point to even a single instance ...", up to the "If not, then why ..." part). I'm not trying to split hairs here -- I'm really genuinely mystified by the apparent insinuation that I was responding to. That is, I don't see why would you bother to inject the phrase "W…

I did respond to that question, right at the start; but I must not have been clear enough, so I'll try again. You asked for an example of where you had talked about someone's country scornfully, snarkily, or aggressively. My answer is that you did it in the very comment I was replying to, when you wrote:

> No matter how self-evidently full of excrement their droppings here may be.

I know you didn't express it that way explicitly, but context is important, and given the context, it was bound to come across that way. At least, it was how it landed with me when I first read it, and therefore I was unsurprised to see that it generated https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40751052 as a response from the commenter most likely to hear it that way in this thread.

(tptacek gave you such a good answer about the other stuff that I don't want to try to add to it)

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#383

Post by protomolecule »

brnt wrote: post #350
ogurechny wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm talking about. Some people can afford the fancy of believing in belonging to a “state” that has been a single entity through centuries, and introduce mental gymnastics to embrace the “good parts”, and expel the “bad parts” to “the past” to pretend that “modern day person” is automatically different. “We the people”, yada yada. How is Russian Empire the same thing as Soviet Union? You could be killed f…

[flagged]

[dead]

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#384

Post by protomolecule »

dang wrote: post #342
protomolecule wrote: post #226

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see my comment as invitation to resolve the apparent contradiction between the statement I replied to and mainstream understanding of western values or as invitation to clarify the values of the author (which might be interesting). "you've been using HN primarily for political and nationalistic battle" I disagree with this characterization of my comments as a whole, they are often contradictory but informative and…

I'm afraid you're underestimating the provocation and aggression in your comments by quite a lot. That's normal in the sense that everyone does it, but it's important to understand how that dynamic works if you want to use HN appropriately (and therefore not get banned). Here's how it works: people underestimate their own provocations by at least 10x and overestimate the other side's provocations by another 10x, lead…

And here is another one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40756960

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#385

Post by riehwvfbk »

justsomehnguy wrote: post #27
rvense wrote: post #6

An amazing place. I visited twice about 15 years ago and have many fond memories of it, but mostly when I think about it I'm filled with sadness, because the people there deserve so much better. They're constantly knee-deep in corruption, both street level and just the very blatant kleptocratic presidential family. There's a lot of ethnic Russians, both expat workers and ones that didn't manage to leave after the col…

> ones that didn't manage to leave after the collapse of the Soviet Union > openly racist towards ethnic Tajiks Makes me wonder, maybe something happened between ethnic Tajiks and ethnic Russians between Soviet Union collapse and the present.

There was this little thing here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1990_Dushanbe_riots

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.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#386

Post by riehwvfbk »

a_c_s wrote: post #272
cpursley wrote: post #253

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Most Russians hold racist views I understand that people are unhappy with Russia right now, but what a truly gross thing to say (and absolutely not true).

Very true when it comes to antisemitic views: only 1 in 10 Russians would be ok having a Jewish friend. "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 per…

That simply doesn't pass the smell test. I think you would be very surprised if you actually talked to any real Russians.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#387

Post by riehwvfbk »

RecycledEle wrote: post #197

> all rolled into one beautiful, weird, dysfunctional country, and I couldn’t get enough of it. 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?

Is a country that changes the value of a citizen's vote based on whether they live in a populated area functional? What about a country where the elections are about choosing between two obnoxious candidates who are both over 80 and out of touch with the issues their citizens care about? If the supporters of one geriatric statesman call the supporters of the other Nazis (both directions) - does that count as understanding each other?

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#388

Post by dang »

brnt wrote: post #350
ogurechny wrote: post #301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's what I'm talking about. Some people can afford the fancy of believing in belonging to a “state” that has been a single entity through centuries, and introduce mental gymnastics to embrace the “good parts”, and expel the “bad parts” to “the past” to pretend that “modern day person” is automatically different. “We the people”, yada yada. How is Russian Empire the same thing as Soviet Union? You could be killed f…

[flagged]

We need you to stop perpetuating nationalistic flamewars (as well as any other type of flamewar) on HN. It's not what this site is for, and destroys what it is for.

We've had to ask you this more than once before:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=31962578 (July 2022)

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28322571 (Aug 2021)

We have to ban accounts that keep doing this, if you'd please review https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and stick to the rules when posting here, we'd appreciate it.

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#389

Post by dang »

protomolecule wrote: post #384
dang wrote: post #342

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm afraid you're underestimating the provocation and aggression in your comments by quite a lot. That's normal in the sense that everyone does it, but it's important to understand how that dynamic works if you want to use HN appropriately (and therefore not get banned). Here's how it works: people underestimate their own provocations by at least 10x and overestimate the other side's provocations by another 10x, lead…

And here is another one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40756960

Ok, but when you respond simply by reporting more of your enemies without doing anything to indicate that you've processed my reply or that you care about the intended spirit of the site, I find that a bit demoralizing.

I'm sure you can understand that it gets distasteful after a while when people keep pointing the mods at their political opponents. That's not in the intended spirit of the site as a whole.

Also, the two proper ways to point the mods at things is to either flag a post (https://news.ycombinator.com/newsfaq.html#cflag) or email hn@ycombinator.com. If you want to be sure that we take a look at something, you should do the latter, because the number of posts that get flagged is quite large.

Posting comments in the thread reporting on other users' bad behavior is not just off topic, it's guaranteed to be provocative in its own right, so we'd rather that people not do that.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

Re: Notes on Tajikistan

#390

Post by racional »

LtVodka wrote: post #327
reducesuffering wrote: post #265

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Soviet/Russian invasion of Poland, Finland, and Georgia, respectively. (gee, wonder why they all want to be in NATO) There's also '56, Hungary, and '68, Czechoslovakia.

>bunch of nonsense Ok lets see .. Finland invasion. >Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany during the early years of World War II ... >The Siege of Leningrad was a prolonged military siege undertaken by the Axis powers and co-belligerent Finland against the Soviet city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) on the Eastern Front of World War II. Germany's Army Group North advanced from the south, while t…

The 2009 EU report has been widely criticized as flawed, both at the time in years since. You can drill down on the details here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_for_the_Russo-G...

>Finland was a co-belligerent with Nazi Germany during the early years of World War II

Which happened after (and never would have happened without) the Winter War.

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