83 summarily executed in genocide

Apparently Syria was a signatory to the https://www.un.org/en/about-us/universal-declaration-of-human-rights , presumably if Jolani is to represent Syria at the United Nations he will have to re-iterate that . Though the list of signatories en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Member_states_of_the_United_Nations
does include Afghanistan, China & Iran so maybe it's optional.

Now that doesn’t sound like you want to keep the spotlight on Syria.

Very true. The focus on Israel is completely unbalanced and comes from a complete misunderstanding of history.

Many people appear to think only white people colonised.

I agree, very sad that all muslim deaths are not equal, the important ones are those killed by Israel.

Yes, it's just reduced to simplistic slogans and chants. The accusation of "colonialism" against only one of the nations rings false, as you say @User37482 .

Yeah I think leftists see it as a colonial project which I don’t really get because to me most of the islamic world is a colonial project, most people come from areas of the world where their own people probably engaged in warfare, colonialism, slavery etc etc. My own ancestors definitely did some invading and I’m not white.

The level of obsession people have over Israel vs all the muslims killed by other muslims (far outnumber the deaths over the decades in Gaza etc) suggests to me that there is a very specific hatred of Jews and Israel. I would have a different view if people even pretended to care about the dead in Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, Sudan, China, Myanmar etc. something like 85,000 children under the age of five are thought to have died of starvation since the conflict in Yemen started, thats so unbearably tragic, it hurts your heart to read it. Yet no-one bats an eyelid.

Very good points, @User37482 .. you're right on all counts, except I don't think it's about religion. I suspect many people think that there shouldn't be a Jewish state in that region. If at all.

I also think it’s a bit mad that when Israel bombed jihadis heading towards suwaidya people didn’t criticise the jihadis, they criticised Israel for intervening. Yet we have MP’s in parliment suggesting the british army go and fight the IDF. This perspective is imo purely motivated by religion, not morality.

Morally you could make a case for raising objections to Israels actions in Gaza but you can’t then also believe that it is morally right to criticise them for preventing genocide in Syria.

Yeah I think it’s complicated, India is a good example of this. So the concept of Purdah wasn’t really a “thing” before islamic invasions, yet once rulers were doing it more and more women got shoved into purdah (by this I mean the veil as well, it’s mobile purdah imo) as people aped the ruling classes. Some language/art was absorbed but the ruling classes weren’t big enough to overwhelm the culture/language and religion of the entire area, especially since they never ruled all of India. It was too big, Iran is similar in that it was just too much of a challenge to change the language and culture of the entire region.

People converted because they were poor or because they were trying to get in with the boss and some would have converted because they genuinely want to and many were basically forced. But abrahmic religions are so vastly different from eastern religions that it’s hard to see the attraction. It’s complicated to explain but a lot of it comes down to the idea of afterlife. To someone following an eastern religion the reward is the complete abscence of desire whereas in islam the reward is to have your desires met. Philosophically opposite ends of the spectrum.

I just think the way we talk about conflict in the middle east just ignore the fact that for a lot of people in the world religion is really real, the beliefs are very closely held. The extremism you see in India of some members of the Hindu majority reflect this as well, they really believe.

The secular west struggles with this so don’t know what to do in the face of religious extremism because they don’t really believe that people are motivated by religious belief, it must be because of something else. It’s why people just turn a blind eye to it because it’s difficult to comprehend when you don’t have burning faith yourself.

Yes true - Arabic wasnt so much imported as imposed

@User37482 excellent points

I would say also that this idea that it’s all the west is a bit of a fallacy and provides cover for groups who are motivated entirely by their own ideology, spain and turkey were invaded way before the CIA was a thing and religious oppression was built into the system.

It’s reflected in the “Khyber” chants. I would also gently point out that Islamism has always been a colonialist project. People speak arabic across the middle east, levant and north africa because it was imported. They all had their own languages and dialects before, a language doesn’t spread so far without it, ditto English spread theough colonialism. This is clearly reflected in the dialectic differences in arabic across the regions.

That doesn’t mean it informs behaviour today but the reality is minority groups live uneasily in the vast majority of muslim majority countries. The Kurds in Iraq are doing ok because they live under a federal system and because the population is roughly split between sunni and shia so you don’t have one dominant group (plus a lot of kurds are muslim themselves).

I don’t think it helps to pretend otherwise, there is a severe lack of tolerance around difference.

Yeah I don’t think you are wrong about that, I guess from my perspective right now it’s specifically an effort at ethnic cleansing. They have been arresting kurds in Damascus who dare to speak kurdish in public. There is definitely a campaign against minorities here.

Whenever you point this out, all you get accused of is whataboutery. It's because they have no other answer.

Also, the Marsh Arabs. Ethnically cleansed by Sadam Hussein. He used chemical weapons against them. Tragic.

'Groups of Arabs' were followed around by the BBC in a report yesterday. They 'said' they weren't killing 'all Druze, just the ones that were led by a 'particular leader'. Even the BBC thought they were moderating their behaviours whilst the camera ran.

There is a slaughter of a small minority of Druze and other small tribal groups that aren't the majority, by the majority. Now that's ethnic cleansing. This also happened with the Yazidi who were also slaughtered. Similar happened in Iraq with the slaughter of minorities both religious and culturally. Gradually many countries in the Middle East have fewer and fewer minority tribes/religions/cultures - all ignored by most in the West.

Doesn't gain the flag waving, chanting brownie points of virtue signalling from the Western followers though does it. Guess those people aren't important.

I can't believe the whipping frenzy that's been created. The Kneecap rapper was only meant to have accidentally picked up a terrorist flag. Western protestors don't support Hamas, they are against starving children etc. The left talk about homogeneous groups and are normally the first to cry racism. Why is this any different: why can't they see a long standing oppression, that seeks to end a race of people. They are being played.

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No, I never said that you did, however, I was referring to the oft used trope of blaming "the West" instead of understanding the complex geo political/social and economic reasons of how these Islamist groups emerged.

Respectfully, I didn't use a simplistic blame the West argument. I pointed out how some countries actually contributed to the rise of this movement, and gave a good contribution too. It's naive to pretend otherwise.
Where would this movement be without that support? Without funds and arms from its inception?
And let's not forget the US is a supporter of Syria's current ex-ISIS leader.

Thanks, @quantumbutterfly

There was an interesting thread on fwr, responses to KJK campaign to free your face, overwhelmingly positive from various parts of the middle east but not in the UK.

https://www.letwomenspeak.org/free-your-faces

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Islamism took hold for various reasons, it's a very complex situation. I just get annoyed at people using the simplistic "blame the West" knee jerk response.

I wonder if there's a Druze flag that we can fly. Or a Yazidi one? So many innocent victims of this vile brutality