83 summarily executed in genocide

[mids2019]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c056q0zgy8jo

You're right, but arming and funding these groups helps them to develop. That is what has happened.

@Corinthiana That's part of the horror really. Geopolitical alliances flex and some of our allies are countries in which we would not (particularly as women) wish to live ourselves. Sometimes I imagine a kind of underground railway for women who want to escape such places, but it is their home and their culture and where would they go?

But back to the thread (apologies) all sexes in minority groups in the middle east are in great danger of genocide from the expansion of militant islamism.

I agree. And it's especially sad considering that these communities have lived there for thousands of years and are part of the country's identify. Moderate Muslims are also in danger, ISIS killed them too.

I remember Isis crucified a teenager for eating during Ramdan fasting hours.

I think in this specific case though it’s anyone who is not a sunni muslim who is in danger of eradication. They are asking if people are Druze or Muslim. They aren’t fussing about anything else.

Until you disagree with them. I know what you mean, but it never stops there.
They killed any and all Sunni Muslims who disagreed with something, tried to stand up for others, were not devout enough etc etc.
They just need one excuse.

I'd love that - an underground railroad to help women and girls escape Islamism.

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

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.

👏 👏

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

Thanks, @quantumbutterfly

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.

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.

🏆 🏆 🏆

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.

'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.

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

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

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.

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.

@User37482 excellent points

Yes true - Arabic wasnt so much imported as imposed

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.

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.