Caveat: I don't know what she's been like in her career in the past, but props to Israel's attourney general Gali Baharav-Miara for appantly putting up a fight against Netanyahu's right wing coalition trying to destroy's Israel's democracy while the right wing rhetoric against her seems to be reaching Rabin like levels.
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
The moves in Israel are interesting (in a 'holy crap this is bad and I'm glad I don't live there' sort of way) to watch because there's no actual way to stop the government from doing what they're doing other than actually convincing them to stop doing what they're doing. Unfortunately there's basically zero incentive for them to stop, and demographics are definitely on their side as far as the next election goes (well, demographics and whatever shenanigans they're going to implement).
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
For some reason the news from Türkiye hit me harder compared to other recent news.
I think it's having a kid now and how many of the stories from the quake involve children. Like the guy just sitting there holding the hand of his daughter buried under the rubble. just fuck
The Gamhoriya editorial they’re referring to has since been deleted, but this is some nasty exchange between the Egyptians and Saudis, through their respective mouth pieces. Especially the Egyptian side of it.
“Don’t let the paupers and the naked, who have only recently donned splendorous garments, insult Egypt – a country that is the object of admiration and the mother of the world, because of its long history, its present and future, its civilization, its victories and its people, a symbol of great people … These lowlifes who have just reached fame have no right to insult their masters. They are nothing but empty air that will blow away with the next light breeze. Countries that are no older than my youngest son have no right to speak about Egypt except politely, and with respect and appreciation. Even if they can buy votes, the trumpets of dwarves and mercenaries, they cannot buy history, the present and the future.” Thus thundered Abdul Raziq Tawfiq, editor in chief of the state-owned Egyptian newspaper Al-Gomhuria, who is considered to be close to President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, in an unusually sharply worded article published last Thursday.
Tawfiq is not just another blogger. He was and remains the flesh of the regime’s flesh and his writing reflects at least the thinking, if not the actual words, of the presidential palace in Cairo. Tawfiq doesn’t say which countries he is referring to as the “paupers” who have covered their naked loins with fine clothes, but the target of his attack is obvious to all: Egypt’s “little sisters” – the Gulf countries and, specifically, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
…
“I do not know why the strength and ability of the great Egyptian army causes them to go mad and become hateful,” the editor Tawfiq wrote. “That is the kind of position we would expect from our traditional and historic enemy [i.e., Israel] …The strength and toughness of our soldiers, the best in the world, caused it to lose its sanity and balance and confuse its calculations... If Egypt were weak and submissive they [other Arabs] would not talk like that. To our misfortune, there are idiots who are blinded by money, who do not understand that if something bad befalls Egypt, they will not be unable to exist a moment longer because they are meaningless and insignificant items and hollow palm trunks.”
It wasn’t printed in Al Ahram, but it’s not that much of a difference; might as well have sent it through an embassy. Everyone knew the end of unconditional Saudi/Gulf aid was coming, so I didn’t think the end of it would leave the government so bitter.
So many feelings about this.
On the one hand I love people telling off the Saudis.
On the other, Egypt's government isn't the best either.
And while it is a very hilarious insult, it also kinda misses the point point that the reason that Egypt speaks Arabic and is Muslim is because of Arabian history.
I've always found it kind of odd that Egypt mostly seems in recent years to just follow the lead of Saudi Arabia, when by all accounts it should be a regional power in its own right. Maybe we're seeing the start of a split and a more "independent" Egypt?
Of course, it's also never good news when two regional powers start exchanging words like this with each other. I guess we'll have to see how it pans out.
Interestingly it seems like Egypt has tried to focus on an independent non-arabic identity in the past few years with things like pushing for more construction of Coptic churches and more identification with the pre-islamic Egyptian past. It certainly hasn’t been to the exclusion of Islam, with the government often building new Churches and Mosques side by side and using rhetoric like saying that the Christian and Islamic past of Egypt go hand in hand, but its a huge 180 from what government policy has been in the past.
Edit: And just to be clear that’s not to say that Copts are not still persecuted, just that the government has been more likely in the last few years to try to at least make the appearance of tolerance and recognition.
Egypt, Turkey, Iran have massive and glorious histories totally seperate from Islam and do not like being lumped in with Arabs. They mostly hate Arabs with a passion. If you want to see racism and cultural shit talk they can bring it to a level that will shock most Americans.
A lot of the nationalist movements in some places are not just about being anti American-West but about not being Arabs and not wanting to be associated with some of the dumb fuckery in that region.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
The Gamhoriya editorial they’re referring to has since been deleted, but this is some nasty exchange between the Egyptians and Saudis, through their respective mouth pieces. Especially the Egyptian side of it.
“Don’t let the paupers and the naked, who have only recently donned splendorous garments, insult Egypt – a country that is the object of admiration and the mother of the world, because of its long history, its present and future, its civilization, its victories and its people, a symbol of great people … These lowlifes who have just reached fame have no right to insult their masters. They are nothing but empty air that will blow away with the next light breeze. Countries that are no older than my youngest son have no right to speak about Egypt except politely, and with respect and appreciation. Even if they can buy votes, the trumpets of dwarves and mercenaries, they cannot buy history, the present and the future.” Thus thundered Abdul Raziq Tawfiq, editor in chief of the state-owned Egyptian newspaper Al-Gomhuria, who is considered to be close to President Abdel Fattah al-Sissi, in an unusually sharply worded article published last Thursday.
Tawfiq is not just another blogger. He was and remains the flesh of the regime’s flesh and his writing reflects at least the thinking, if not the actual words, of the presidential palace in Cairo. Tawfiq doesn’t say which countries he is referring to as the “paupers” who have covered their naked loins with fine clothes, but the target of his attack is obvious to all: Egypt’s “little sisters” – the Gulf countries and, specifically, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.
…
“I do not know why the strength and ability of the great Egyptian army causes them to go mad and become hateful,” the editor Tawfiq wrote. “That is the kind of position we would expect from our traditional and historic enemy [i.e., Israel] …The strength and toughness of our soldiers, the best in the world, caused it to lose its sanity and balance and confuse its calculations... If Egypt were weak and submissive they [other Arabs] would not talk like that. To our misfortune, there are idiots who are blinded by money, who do not understand that if something bad befalls Egypt, they will not be unable to exist a moment longer because they are meaningless and insignificant items and hollow palm trunks.”
It wasn’t printed in Al Ahram, but it’s not that much of a difference; might as well have sent it through an embassy. Everyone knew the end of unconditional Saudi/Gulf aid was coming, so I didn’t think the end of it would leave the government so bitter.
So many feelings about this.
On the one hand I love people telling off the Saudis.
On the other, Egypt's government isn't the best either.
And while it is a very hilarious insult, it also kinda misses the point point that the reason that Egypt speaks Arabic and is Muslim is because of Arabian history.
I've always found it kind of odd that Egypt mostly seems in recent years to just follow the lead of Saudi Arabia, when by all accounts it should be a regional power in its own right. Maybe we're seeing the start of a split and a more "independent" Egypt?
Of course, it's also never good news when two regional powers start exchanging words like this with each other. I guess we'll have to see how it pans out.
Interestingly it seems like Egypt has tried to focus on an independent non-arabic identity in the past few years with things like pushing for more construction of Coptic churches and more identification with the pre-islamic Egyptian past. It certainly hasn’t been to the exclusion of Islam, with the government often building new Churches and Mosques side by side and using rhetoric like saying that the Christian and Islamic past of Egypt go hand in hand, but its a huge 180 from what government policy has been in the past.
Edit: And just to be clear that’s not to say that Copts are not still persecuted, just that the government has been more likely in the last few years to try to at least make the appearance of tolerance and recognition.
Egypt, Turkey, Iran have massive and glorious histories totally seperate from Islam and do not like being lumped in with Arabs. They mostly hate Arabs with a passion. If you want to see racism and cultural shit talk they can bring it to a level that will shock most Americans.
A lot of the nationalist movements in some places are not just about being anti American-West but about not being Arabs and not wanting to be associated with some of the dumb fuckery in that region.
For real, the Persian and Ottoman Empires were every bit as big a deal as Rome and the people that live there are very much aware of that.
Egypt is a bit of a different case since they were a Big Player so much longer ago, but even in the classical period they were a hugely important center of learning and trade. Alexandria is honestly a much bigger deal for early Christianity than Rome was!
Africans. They are nubians to get specific. They are not Arabic in culture either. Culturally for a long time they were the center of the world and trace themselves back to the Greeks and Romans for modern stuff and they want fuck all to do with Dubai and Saudi.
Genetically they are mostly north african it seems. Arab is the second largest component but that's substantially smaller. It's like 68% to 17% and then a bunch of other stuff to fill out the rest (jewish, southern european, east african, anatolian)
Culturally they speak arabic but I believe view themselves as distinctly egyptian and all this fluctuates with various cultural movements afaik.
IIRC it depends a bit on who you ask and what their motivations are.
Unlike Iranians and Turkish people (or Kurds, Pashtuns, etc) Egyptians speak Arabic, IIRC some people still speak pre-Arabic Coptic Egyptian as a second language but it is mostly extinct as a first language.
That being said the people in Egypt are mostly the same as have always been there, there was no massive wave of Arabian settlers that overwhelmed the existing population or anything like that.
Yes. To the extent that Egypt was, for decades, the head of the pan-Arab movement and formed a United Arab Republic with Syria for some years. The Arab League is headquartered in Cairo, and the official name of the country is the Arab Republic of Egypt. The idea that Egyptians aren't Arab is very, very strange.
Yes. To the extent that Egypt was, for decades, the head of the pan-Arab movement and formed a United Arab Republic with Syria for some years. The Arab League is headquartered in Cairo, and the official name of the country is the Arab Republic of Egypt. The idea that Egyptians aren't Arab is very, very strange.
Just depends on what you mean by Arab. If you mean “largely descended from people from the Arabic Peninsula” then no, they aren’t. By that definition you could really go so far as to argue Iraq and Syria aren’t really Arab, and certainly nothing in North Africa is. If you mean Arabic-speaking or “culturally Arab (which can mean whatever someone wants it to mean)” then sure.
This is just uninformed conjecture but if you want to look into why Egypt's current authoritarian leadership is highlighting conflict with the Arabic influences, then it may be useful to remember that the Muslim Brotherhood was a player in the 2011 revolution, and briefly took power afterward.
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
Because Arab and Islam and not synonyms
Yes I know Turkey isn’t Arabic, r_s’s comment was that they weren’t Islamic and that’s the one I am interesting in discoursing more about
Edit: wait, fuck, is Turkey’s “glorious history separate from Islam” what I as an uncultivated buffoon would think of as the people who were championed by Ajax (among other classical stories and history)?
This is just uninformed conjecture but if you want to look into why Egypt's current authoritarian leadership is highlighting conflict with the Arabic influences, then it may be useful to remember that the Muslim Brotherhood was a player in the 2011 revolution, and briefly took power afterward.
That and the fact that Egypt is no longer realistically pushing for hegemony over the entire middle east and Saudi Arabia is a lot more of a regional power than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
Its easy to talk about a Panarabism when you are the only game in town to make that happen, but when it means lining up behind Riyadh it looks a lot less promising.
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
Because Arab and Islam and not synonyms
Yes I know Turkey isn’t Arabic, r_s’s comment was that they weren’t Islamic and that’s the one I am interesting in discoursing more about
Edit: wait, fuck, is Turkey’s “glorious history separate from Islam” what I as an uncultivated buffoon would think of as the people who were championed by Ajax (among other classical stories and history)?
Modern Turkey was built by former Ottoman soldiers and specifically built to be a non-religious state. Only recently an Islamic party has been able to take and hold power. Those who inhabit Turkey are a mix of cultures but the majority who we refer to as Turks are descendants of Central Asian conquerors and invaders. And as far as history goes are super recent to Anatolia. The final conquest of Constantinople was only in 1453 by the Turks.
The majority religion in Turkey though is Islam. The Ottoman Empire very much took on the role of guardian of the faith when in power. Turkey not so much.
Its a complex history with a lot of modern focus on making a modern non-theocratic state and then shifts leading to power of Islamic political parties with Erdoğan being the one that wasn't ousted by the secular military.
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
Because Arab and Islam and not synonyms
Yes I know Turkey isn’t Arabic, r_s’s comment was that they weren’t Islamic and that’s the one I am interesting in discoursing more about
Edit: wait, fuck, is Turkey’s “glorious history separate from Islam” what I as an uncultivated buffoon would think of as the people who were championed by Ajax (among other classical stories and history)?
Modern Turkey was built by former Ottoman soldiers and specifically built to be a non-religious state. Only recently an Islamic party has been able to take and hold power. Those who inhabit Turkey are a mix of cultures but the majority who we refer to as Turks are descendants of Central Asian conquerors and invaders. And as far as history goes are super recent to Anatolia. The final conquest of Constantinople was only in 1453 by the Turks.
The majority religion in Turkey though is Islam. The Ottoman Empire very much took on the role of guardian of the faith when in power. Turkey not so much.
Its a complex history with a lot of modern focus on making a modern non-theocratic state and then shifts leading to power of Islamic political parties with Erdoğan being the one that wasn't ousted by the secular military.
This does get complicated because again you have to seperate culture and genetics. In general as a run of thumb, when 2 equivalent technology peoples come together and one conquers the other, you tend to see about a 10-30% genetic contribution from the invader. It is very rare for a migration to eliminate or greatly reduce an existing population rather than merge in. The exception seems to be when there is a large difference in agricultural technology and or a massive depopulation event preceding colonization such as the European colonization of North America or Oceania.
However, that said, the cultural and linguistic contributions of invaders tend to be very outsized in the successor hybrid culture.
So relevant to both Egypt and Turkey, Egypt speaks Arabic and considers themselves Arabs because the Arabs conquered Egypt, Turkey speaks Turkish and considers themselves Turkic because Turks conquered Anatolia. But there was never a situation where the Arabs or Turks massacred preexisting populations in mass numbers anywhere near enough to eliminate them, and Egypt and Anatolia were heavily populated. So what really probably happened is this: the Turks and Arabs invaded, brought in some of their own guys to run important government related jobs like being soldiers, beaurocrats, aristocrats, etc. There were holdouts and refugees but for the most part the average Anatolian farmer or whatever that just wanted to get on with life and didn’t want any trouble took off his Byzantine Greco-Roman hat, put on a Turkish hat, converted to Islam and learned Turkish. The same in Egypt, but with Arabic.
The genetics that we have access to today largely bear this out. Invader waves tend to contribute 10 or 20% genetics (those soldiers and aristocrats), but the people tend to remain largely the same genetically as were there pre-invasion.
This is just uninformed conjecture but if you want to look into why Egypt's current authoritarian leadership is highlighting conflict with the Arabic influences, then it may be useful to remember that the Muslim Brotherhood was a player in the 2011 revolution, and briefly took power afterward.
That and the fact that Egypt is no longer realistically pushing for hegemony over the entire middle east and Saudi Arabia is a lot more of a regional power than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
Its easy to talk about a Panarabism when you are the only game in town to make that happen, but when it means lining up behind Riyadh it looks a lot less promising.
Because Egypt, Persia, and Turkey were not built by Islam. These are all unique powers with a long history that has fuck all to do with the religion of the hour and they all know it. You're not going to convince a damn one of them to give up a rice grains worth of power to the Arabs because "religion" they'll tell you where to put that and then back it up with bullets and tanks quick.
These are nations that are "Islamic" in the notion that the US or say Poland is Christian. In the loose sense yes. But Egypt traces it's history and values back to the Greek and Roman era its a loose idea and farther back as a hard identity. Iran is Persia, period, end of fucking story. And they will raise hell if you do not treat them as such. The Turks are the Ottoman Empire and the child of Turkey, aka Ataturk, and they know that. None of them have the power they had but their peoples have the memory of it,
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
Because Arab and Islam and not synonyms
Yes I know Turkey isn’t Arabic, r_s’s comment was that they weren’t Islamic and that’s the one I am interesting in discoursing more about
Edit: wait, fuck, is Turkey’s “glorious history separate from Islam” what I as an uncultivated buffoon would think of as the people who were championed by Ajax (among other classical stories and history)?
Modern Turkey was built by former Ottoman soldiers and specifically built to be a non-religious state. Only recently an Islamic party has been able to take and hold power. Those who inhabit Turkey are a mix of cultures but the majority who we refer to as Turks are descendants of Central Asian conquerors and invaders. And as far as history goes are super recent to Anatolia. The final conquest of Constantinople was only in 1453 by the Turks.
The majority religion in Turkey though is Islam. The Ottoman Empire very much took on the role of guardian of the faith when in power. Turkey not so much.
Its a complex history with a lot of modern focus on making a modern non-theocratic state and then shifts leading to power of Islamic political parties with Erdoğan being the one that wasn't ousted by the secular military.
Right, these are things I had in mind when trying to figure out what “Turkey’s massive and glorious history separate from Islam” is
If it’s the history of the Turkic revolution and post WW1 events that created the modern country from the decrepit Ottoman Empire, ok, but I don’t think that’s what r_s was referencing
If we’re talking the Ottomans, that’s where I’m confused given they were definitely Islamic, though religiously tolerant and very socially advanced in their heyday
I then thought of the western antiquity kingdoms in coastal Anatolia/Thrace, but I should have thought “Turkic peoples” who have been around for millennia and occupied various parts of Asia (including northern Siberia)- my dumb brain immediately tried to associate the comment with an empire or modern country
In the modern connonation arab is an extremely nebulous term mainly haggled about for political reasons. Haggling over why something should or should not be considered arabic is something you really shouldn't do.
In the modern connonation arab is an extremely nebulous term mainly haggled about for political reasons. Haggling over why something should or should not be considered arabic is something you really shouldn't do.
"An extremely nebulous term" doesn't sound like something solid enough to base a multinational movement, at least not on the long term. Which probably has plenty to do of why Panarabism didn't got anywhere.
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MonwynApathy's a tragedy, and boredom is a crime.A little bit of everything, all of the time.Registered Userregular
Even before the Seljuks kicked the shit out of everyone and took up residence Anatolians had a *real long history* of punching other major powers in the mouth. They lost decisively to Cyrus, Alexander, Sulla, and basically no one else over the course of a thousand years.
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
Because Arab and Islam and not synonyms
Yes I know Turkey isn’t Arabic, r_s’s comment was that they weren’t Islamic and that’s the one I am interesting in discoursing more about
Edit: wait, fuck, is Turkey’s “glorious history separate from Islam” what I as an uncultivated buffoon would think of as the people who were championed by Ajax (among other classical stories and history)?
Modern Turkey was built by former Ottoman soldiers and specifically built to be a non-religious state. Only recently an Islamic party has been able to take and hold power. Those who inhabit Turkey are a mix of cultures but the majority who we refer to as Turks are descendants of Central Asian conquerors and invaders. And as far as history goes are super recent to Anatolia. The final conquest of Constantinople was only in 1453 by the Turks.
The majority religion in Turkey though is Islam. The Ottoman Empire very much took on the role of guardian of the faith when in power. Turkey not so much.
Its a complex history with a lot of modern focus on making a modern non-theocratic state and then shifts leading to power of Islamic political parties with Erdoğan being the one that wasn't ousted by the secular military.
Right, these are things I had in mind when trying to figure out what “Turkey’s massive and glorious history separate from Islam” is
If it’s the history of the Turkic revolution and post WW1 events that created the modern country from the decrepit Ottoman Empire, ok, but I don’t think that’s what r_s was referencing
If we’re talking the Ottomans, that’s where I’m confused given they were definitely Islamic, though religiously tolerant and very socially advanced in their heyday
I then thought of the western antiquity kingdoms in coastal Anatolia/Thrace, but I should have thought “Turkic peoples” who have been around for millennia and occupied various parts of Asia (including northern Siberia)- my dumb brain immediately tried to associate the comment with an empire or modern country
The Ottomans were an Islamic Oghuz Turkic sultanate that conquered Anatolia and Thrace. (Technically they split off from another Turkic group that conquered most of the Middle East at one point.). This wasn’t that unusual, what specifically is unique is that the Turkic cultural identity sort of overtook the existing identity that was there beforehand, unlike in say India, Persia or Iraq. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that the ottomans were a massively dominant regional power for hundreds of years. But the populated areas they took over were part of the Byzantine empire, and before that the various classical Anatolian states
So you may ask whether the Turkish people descend from the great Oghuz Turkish Khanates and Sultanates or the Anatolian people like the Trojans or Lydians and the only really appropriate answer is “Yes”.
Now after the ottoman empire fell the modern Turkish state arose, and it was very secular. Not Atheistic but as mentioned the founders very much wanted to not have power in the hands of Islamic clergy and took steps to limit that. It has only been recently that this has started to be reversed under Erdogan.
Jealous Deva on
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daveNYCWhy universe hate Waspinator?Registered Userregular
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
It was literally an Islamic Caliphate and Islam was the official religion. Being not-Muslim there wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it wasn't super happy fun equality times either. There was a club and you weren't in it.
Shut up, Mr. Burton! You were not brought upon this world to get it!
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Tynnanseldom correct, never unsureRegistered Userregular
Satellite imagery of the fault. Before-and-after comparisons demonstrate substantial movement. Tweet source claims to be an earthquake expert. Although I don't know anything about them, I think the imagery speaks for itself.
clearly visible fault rupture from the #Turkey #earthquake #deprem near #Nurdagi
Greece is providing a lot of aid to Turkey, and apparently their leaders are now talking via phone. Hopeful that this leads to a decrease in tensions between the two nations.
Greece is providing a lot of aid to Turkey, and apparently their leaders are now talking via phone. Hopeful that this leads to a decrease in tensions between the two nations.
Anecdote from that is a Greek fire fighter that pulled someone alive out of some ruins is the son of a Greek fire fighter who pulled someone alive out of some ruins after the 1999 quake in Türkiye.
Greece is providing a lot of aid to Turkey, and apparently their leaders are now talking via phone. Hopeful that this leads to a decrease in tensions between the two nations.
Greece and Turkey have an earthquake diplomacy policy, where regardless of whatever policy tensions exist between them, in the case of an earthquake they WILL send aid to each other.
Yes. To the extent that Egypt was, for decades, the head of the pan-Arab movement and formed a United Arab Republic with Syria for some years. The Arab League is headquartered in Cairo, and the official name of the country is the Arab Republic of Egypt. The idea that Egyptians aren't Arab is very, very strange.
Notably, though, Egypt and the Gulf monarchies have long been in a deep rivalry. Nasser wanted Egypt to be the leader of the region, and was deeply antagonistic to the Saudis, for example
While pan-Arabianism is absolutely a thing, Egyptian nationalism is also absolutely a thing and I think arguably a stronger force in Egyptian politics, traditionally.
Point is that Egypt is unlikely to ever think of itself to subordinate to other regional powers or indeed anyone. Its a big, proud country.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
So in case anyone wants an update, next week is supposedly going to be the first reading of the Israeli judicial reform bill that basically puts the judiciary under the power of the Prime Minister.
News are that several groups in Turkey had to at temporarily stop their search and rescue missions because they say the security situation in the Hatay region has seriously worsened in the last few hours. Turmoil because of food and supply shortages, different "groups"(not further specified) clashing, and shots fired in the area.
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FencingsaxIt is difficult to get a man to understand, when his salary depends upon his not understandingGNU Terry PratchettRegistered Userregular
So the protests in Israel are getting more significant, and America was essentially told to fuck off, I'm hoping that the next diplomatic effort from America actually has firmer consequences
Yeah, I'm comfortable saying that Israel has almost completely descended in fascism at this point. If those changes go through and stick, then they will have completely shifted to that.
Got to wonder how quickly some might opt to immigrate out of Israel and to a place that isn't doing what their government is doing. Again, in the event that they go through with those changes and the current government isn't forced out, while a new one reverses those changes.
Their finance minister recently stated, in these words, "I am a homophobic fascist." Likud, while a right wing party, was not a fascist party historically. But several of the coalition partners are unarguably fascist parties, and they have posts in the government. So I do not think it is any exaggeration to call Israel's government fascist.
However I remain entirely unconvinced that this development is likely to affect US policy toward Israel in any major way.
Point is that Egypt is unlikely to ever think of itself to subordinate to other regional powers or indeed anyone. Its a big, proud country.
Egypt might not want to think of itself that way, but in practice I do think they are essentially subordinate to Saudi Arabia. Saudi money has essentially been what has kept Sisi's government alive for many years.
I don’t really know what anyone expected. When some asshole wannabe dictator is trying to take over, and everyone who doesn’t want him to take over is in a coalition government while said wanna be dictator is awaiting trial, and said wanna be dictator’s party is polling well and would likely win an election maybe don’t dissolve your government because someone wants to make a protest vote on a routine procedural vote?
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I think it's having a kid now and how many of the stories from the quake involve children. Like the guy just sitting there holding the hand of his daughter buried under the rubble. just fuck
Egypt, Turkey, Iran have massive and glorious histories totally seperate from Islam and do not like being lumped in with Arabs. They mostly hate Arabs with a passion. If you want to see racism and cultural shit talk they can bring it to a level that will shock most Americans.
A lot of the nationalist movements in some places are not just about being anti American-West but about not being Arabs and not wanting to be associated with some of the dumb fuckery in that region.
For real, the Persian and Ottoman Empires were every bit as big a deal as Rome and the people that live there are very much aware of that.
Egypt is a bit of a different case since they were a Big Player so much longer ago, but even in the classical period they were a hugely important center of learning and trade. Alexandria is honestly a much bigger deal for early Christianity than Rome was!
Africans. They are nubians to get specific. They are not Arabic in culture either. Culturally for a long time they were the center of the world and trace themselves back to the Greeks and Romans for modern stuff and they want fuck all to do with Dubai and Saudi.
Other than their at the time exemplary religious toleration, how was the Ottoman Empire not an Islamic empire?
Genetically they are mostly north african it seems. Arab is the second largest component but that's substantially smaller. It's like 68% to 17% and then a bunch of other stuff to fill out the rest (jewish, southern european, east african, anatolian)
Culturally they speak arabic but I believe view themselves as distinctly egyptian and all this fluctuates with various cultural movements afaik.
IIRC it depends a bit on who you ask and what their motivations are.
Unlike Iranians and Turkish people (or Kurds, Pashtuns, etc) Egyptians speak Arabic, IIRC some people still speak pre-Arabic Coptic Egyptian as a second language but it is mostly extinct as a first language.
That being said the people in Egypt are mostly the same as have always been there, there was no massive wave of Arabian settlers that overwhelmed the existing population or anything like that.
Yes. To the extent that Egypt was, for decades, the head of the pan-Arab movement and formed a United Arab Republic with Syria for some years. The Arab League is headquartered in Cairo, and the official name of the country is the Arab Republic of Egypt. The idea that Egyptians aren't Arab is very, very strange.
Because Arab and Islam and not synonyms
Just depends on what you mean by Arab. If you mean “largely descended from people from the Arabic Peninsula” then no, they aren’t. By that definition you could really go so far as to argue Iraq and Syria aren’t really Arab, and certainly nothing in North Africa is. If you mean Arabic-speaking or “culturally Arab (which can mean whatever someone wants it to mean)” then sure.
Yes I know Turkey isn’t Arabic, r_s’s comment was that they weren’t Islamic and that’s the one I am interesting in discoursing more about
Edit: wait, fuck, is Turkey’s “glorious history separate from Islam” what I as an uncultivated buffoon would think of as the people who were championed by Ajax (among other classical stories and history)?
That and the fact that Egypt is no longer realistically pushing for hegemony over the entire middle east and Saudi Arabia is a lot more of a regional power than they were 50 or 100 years ago.
Its easy to talk about a Panarabism when you are the only game in town to make that happen, but when it means lining up behind Riyadh it looks a lot less promising.
Modern Turkey was built by former Ottoman soldiers and specifically built to be a non-religious state. Only recently an Islamic party has been able to take and hold power. Those who inhabit Turkey are a mix of cultures but the majority who we refer to as Turks are descendants of Central Asian conquerors and invaders. And as far as history goes are super recent to Anatolia. The final conquest of Constantinople was only in 1453 by the Turks.
The majority religion in Turkey though is Islam. The Ottoman Empire very much took on the role of guardian of the faith when in power. Turkey not so much.
Its a complex history with a lot of modern focus on making a modern non-theocratic state and then shifts leading to power of Islamic political parties with Erdoğan being the one that wasn't ousted by the secular military.
This does get complicated because again you have to seperate culture and genetics. In general as a run of thumb, when 2 equivalent technology peoples come together and one conquers the other, you tend to see about a 10-30% genetic contribution from the invader. It is very rare for a migration to eliminate or greatly reduce an existing population rather than merge in. The exception seems to be when there is a large difference in agricultural technology and or a massive depopulation event preceding colonization such as the European colonization of North America or Oceania.
However, that said, the cultural and linguistic contributions of invaders tend to be very outsized in the successor hybrid culture.
So relevant to both Egypt and Turkey, Egypt speaks Arabic and considers themselves Arabs because the Arabs conquered Egypt, Turkey speaks Turkish and considers themselves Turkic because Turks conquered Anatolia. But there was never a situation where the Arabs or Turks massacred preexisting populations in mass numbers anywhere near enough to eliminate them, and Egypt and Anatolia were heavily populated. So what really probably happened is this: the Turks and Arabs invaded, brought in some of their own guys to run important government related jobs like being soldiers, beaurocrats, aristocrats, etc. There were holdouts and refugees but for the most part the average Anatolian farmer or whatever that just wanted to get on with life and didn’t want any trouble took off his Byzantine Greco-Roman hat, put on a Turkish hat, converted to Islam and learned Turkish. The same in Egypt, but with Arabic.
The genetics that we have access to today largely bear this out. Invader waves tend to contribute 10 or 20% genetics (those soldiers and aristocrats), but the people tend to remain largely the same genetically as were there pre-invasion.
Because Egypt, Persia, and Turkey were not built by Islam. These are all unique powers with a long history that has fuck all to do with the religion of the hour and they all know it. You're not going to convince a damn one of them to give up a rice grains worth of power to the Arabs because "religion" they'll tell you where to put that and then back it up with bullets and tanks quick.
These are nations that are "Islamic" in the notion that the US or say Poland is Christian. In the loose sense yes. But Egypt traces it's history and values back to the Greek and Roman era its a loose idea and farther back as a hard identity. Iran is Persia, period, end of fucking story. And they will raise hell if you do not treat them as such. The Turks are the Ottoman Empire and the child of Turkey, aka Ataturk, and they know that. None of them have the power they had but their peoples have the memory of it,
Right, these are things I had in mind when trying to figure out what “Turkey’s massive and glorious history separate from Islam” is
If it’s the history of the Turkic revolution and post WW1 events that created the modern country from the decrepit Ottoman Empire, ok, but I don’t think that’s what r_s was referencing
If we’re talking the Ottomans, that’s where I’m confused given they were definitely Islamic, though religiously tolerant and very socially advanced in their heyday
I then thought of the western antiquity kingdoms in coastal Anatolia/Thrace, but I should have thought “Turkic peoples” who have been around for millennia and occupied various parts of Asia (including northern Siberia)- my dumb brain immediately tried to associate the comment with an empire or modern country
"An extremely nebulous term" doesn't sound like something solid enough to base a multinational movement, at least not on the long term. Which probably has plenty to do of why Panarabism didn't got anywhere.
The Ottomans were an Islamic Oghuz Turkic sultanate that conquered Anatolia and Thrace. (Technically they split off from another Turkic group that conquered most of the Middle East at one point.). This wasn’t that unusual, what specifically is unique is that the Turkic cultural identity sort of overtook the existing identity that was there beforehand, unlike in say India, Persia or Iraq. This probably had a lot to do with the fact that the ottomans were a massively dominant regional power for hundreds of years. But the populated areas they took over were part of the Byzantine empire, and before that the various classical Anatolian states
So you may ask whether the Turkish people descend from the great Oghuz Turkish Khanates and Sultanates or the Anatolian people like the Trojans or Lydians and the only really appropriate answer is “Yes”.
Now after the ottoman empire fell the modern Turkish state arose, and it was very secular. Not Atheistic but as mentioned the founders very much wanted to not have power in the hands of Islamic clergy and took steps to limit that. It has only been recently that this has started to be reversed under Erdogan.
It was literally an Islamic Caliphate and Islam was the official religion. Being not-Muslim there wasn't the worst thing in the world, but it wasn't super happy fun equality times either. There was a club and you weren't in it.
They've managed to get artillery fire into northern Syria before any aid, so I wouldn't get my hopes up.
Anecdote from that is a Greek fire fighter that pulled someone alive out of some ruins is the son of a Greek fire fighter who pulled someone alive out of some ruins after the 1999 quake in Türkiye.
Greece and Turkey have an earthquake diplomacy policy, where regardless of whatever policy tensions exist between them, in the case of an earthquake they WILL send aid to each other.
Notably, though, Egypt and the Gulf monarchies have long been in a deep rivalry. Nasser wanted Egypt to be the leader of the region, and was deeply antagonistic to the Saudis, for example
While pan-Arabianism is absolutely a thing, Egyptian nationalism is also absolutely a thing and I think arguably a stronger force in Egyptian politics, traditionally.
Point is that Egypt is unlikely to ever think of itself to subordinate to other regional powers or indeed anyone. Its a big, proud country.
Got to wonder how quickly some might opt to immigrate out of Israel and to a place that isn't doing what their government is doing. Again, in the event that they go through with those changes and the current government isn't forced out, while a new one reverses those changes.
battletag: Millin#1360
Nice chart to figure out how honest a news source is.
However I remain entirely unconvinced that this development is likely to affect US policy toward Israel in any major way.
Egypt might not want to think of itself that way, but in practice I do think they are essentially subordinate to Saudi Arabia. Saudi money has essentially been what has kept Sisi's government alive for many years.