If an average person is constantly subjected to food insecurity, lacking access to clean water and sanitation, lacking medical treatment, random injury and death through constant bombings, random injury and death of relatives and friends through constant bombings and limited access to education and working opportunities, how likely are they able to concern themselves with social progress?
If we look at western countries, social progress came in times of relative safety and wealth for the broad population, while reactionary politics came in times, where these were lowered or cut. It is no coincidence that reactionary politicians combine economic hardship for the masses with scapegoating and fighting against minorities.
The way to progressive politics in Gaza is paved with working infrastructure, proper access to basic needs and a perspective for social and personal development.
Palestinians are quite liberal and progressive compared to other Arabs, and being gay is legal in the West Bank – that doesn’t mean that there’s no issues, this article about a planned LGBT youth camp gives a good impression. There’s allies, but keep your head down and out of sight of religious nutjobs. It’s pretty much the same thing atheists do over there: Plenty of them around with all that secular history but the religious nutjobs are simply too rabid to allow public discourse about the topic. It’s way easier to go the “secular Muslim” route: Fast, but not for Allah.
In Gaza the legal situation is undetermined (scholars disagree on whether British mandate law prohibiting gay sex still applies) but anyway Hamas is in power, they instituted a religious police, tried to enforce headscarfs, go after male hairdressers cutting women’s hairs without any legal basis etc. don’t look at the statute book Hamas doesn’t care and they’re crazy. Also you don’t want to go to Gaza right now. Also, you probably can’t even if you’re an UN aid worker.
IMO that’s not very pertinent since we have the privilege of not being in that situation. Here’s a quote from something I read that might help reconcile this:
If we understand this sense of negative and positive freedom, what appears as a contradictory stance within anarchism makes perfect sense. An anarchist might firmly believe that the Palestinian people deserve to be liberated from occupation, even if that means that they set up their own state. That same anarchist might also firmly believe that a Palestinian state, like all states, should be opposed in favor of nonstatist institutions. A complete sense of freedom would always include both the negative and positive senses—in this case, liberation from occupation and simultaneously the freedom to self-determine. Otherwise, as both actually existing Communist and liberal regimes have demonstrated, “freedom from” on its own will serve merely to enslave human potentiality, and at its most extreme, humans themselves; self-governance is denied in favor of a few governing over others. And “freedom to,” on its own, as capitalism has shown, will serve merely to promote egotistic individualism and pit each against each; self-determination trumps notions of collective good. Constantly working to bring both liberation and freedom to the table, within moments of resistance and reconstruction, is part of that same juggling act of approximating an increasingly differentiated yet more harmonious world.
-Cindy Milstein, Anarchism and Its Aspirations (2010)
This is something I just happened to read, but we’ve been discussing Palestine a lot in my discord server. If anyone would like links to some more readings about Palestine and why things are the way they are, I have a lot of links to free ebooks I’d be happy to share (freely accessible, non-pirated). I’m not sure it would be appropriate to post them here, and I lack the mental bandwidth to deal with the possibility of sea lions and other bad-faith responders, but I’d be happy to share the links in a DM.
I’m not sure if you are attempting a platitude or are making a point, but to make a point your logic should be sound.
Your logic is that if an average first world person cannot live in a place comfortably, then you have an unstated implication that they should not receive support against death. Please correct if you were implying something else, would have been easier to know if you had spoken less vaguely.
Nonetheless regarding said “logic”, (TLDR it’s not logical) I don’t see the logical connection between the tourism experience of visiting a country under siege and how that determines whether the residents of that country should be exterminated.
If you were making a point, could you elaborate on this connection? If however you were attempting a platitude, no explanation needed, you succeeded.
Ah great, well thank you for the explanation regarding their implication. That is helpful.
Do you happen to also understand if their position is logical, or is your meaning then, “They murder, so we must murder them, so that all of the murderers have been murdered.”
(Please correct the above if I am misunderstanding)
Because there is a bit of a problem with that sentiment as well.
I’m not stating that you take this position, so do not take this next statement as targeted at you, rather it is targeted at those who may hold the above sentiment. That is, progress is rarely generated from the barrel of a gun. Then we live in a world where B’s hate against A is justified, because A hates B. This is a perpetual cycle of endless violence and war, that is the end result of this type of thinking, and why these comments are so negative because a lot of us have lived long enough to see this cycle, every day, it does not end through bloodshed.
They make a valid point, that most of the residents of Gaza despise the rainbow community, and many of them would physically harm them given the chance.
With this in mind, it’s quite bizarre that a Lemmy community built around the rainbow community is formally in support of them. I personally think the best thing to do in this situation would have been to stay out of it.
Plenty of people in the rural southern Appalachian county I grew up in would and did physically harm me when given the chance. Am I supposed to be okay with bombing their kids and hospitals now or something?
I think the best thing to do in this situation is not bomb hospitals and children. 🤷♂️
If it is, I guess we could all take a minute and talk about how Israel has such a problem controlling violent homophobic religious extremists that Jerusalem Pride has needed a ratio of 1 armed guard for every 6 marchers.
With all that dysentery, lack of food, shelter, constant threat of getting blown up? Ehh maybe 2 days cuz I’m twice as old as the average person there.
if an average 196 community member stands among Palestinians, in Palestine, obeying Palestinian laws, how long would they last?
I don’t decide whether or not bombing children is moral based on how their parents feel about me. 🤷♂️
israel would probably bomb their home so not too long
If an average person is constantly subjected to food insecurity, lacking access to clean water and sanitation, lacking medical treatment, random injury and death through constant bombings, random injury and death of relatives and friends through constant bombings and limited access to education and working opportunities, how likely are they able to concern themselves with social progress?
If we look at western countries, social progress came in times of relative safety and wealth for the broad population, while reactionary politics came in times, where these were lowered or cut. It is no coincidence that reactionary politicians combine economic hardship for the masses with scapegoating and fighting against minorities.
The way to progressive politics in Gaza is paved with working infrastructure, proper access to basic needs and a perspective for social and personal development.
Palestinians are quite liberal and progressive compared to other Arabs, and being gay is legal in the West Bank – that doesn’t mean that there’s no issues, this article about a planned LGBT youth camp gives a good impression. There’s allies, but keep your head down and out of sight of religious nutjobs. It’s pretty much the same thing atheists do over there: Plenty of them around with all that secular history but the religious nutjobs are simply too rabid to allow public discourse about the topic. It’s way easier to go the “secular Muslim” route: Fast, but not for Allah.
In Gaza the legal situation is undetermined (scholars disagree on whether British mandate law prohibiting gay sex still applies) but anyway Hamas is in power, they instituted a religious police, tried to enforce headscarfs, go after male hairdressers cutting women’s hairs without any legal basis etc. don’t look at the statute book Hamas doesn’t care and they’re crazy. Also you don’t want to go to Gaza right now. Also, you probably can’t even if you’re an UN aid worker.
IMO that’s not very pertinent since we have the privilege of not being in that situation. Here’s a quote from something I read that might help reconcile this:
-Cindy Milstein, Anarchism and Its Aspirations (2010)
This is something I just happened to read, but we’ve been discussing Palestine a lot in my discord server. If anyone would like links to some more readings about Palestine and why things are the way they are, I have a lot of links to free ebooks I’d be happy to share (freely accessible, non-pirated). I’m not sure it would be appropriate to post them here, and I lack the mental bandwidth to deal with the possibility of sea lions and other bad-faith responders, but I’d be happy to share the links in a DM.
I’m not sure if you are attempting a platitude or are making a point, but to make a point your logic should be sound.
Your logic is that if an average first world person cannot live in a place comfortably, then you have an unstated implication that they should not receive support against death. Please correct if you were implying something else, would have been easier to know if you had spoken less vaguely.
Nonetheless regarding said “logic”, (TLDR it’s not logical) I don’t see the logical connection between the tourism experience of visiting a country under siege and how that determines whether the residents of that country should be exterminated.
If you were making a point, could you elaborate on this connection? If however you were attempting a platitude, no explanation needed, you succeeded.
They murder gay people, that was their point.
Israel murders those gay people too, as well as their families and friends. The answer to homophobia just isn’t genocide 🤷
Ah great, well thank you for the explanation regarding their implication. That is helpful.
Do you happen to also understand if their position is logical, or is your meaning then, “They murder, so we must murder them, so that all of the murderers have been murdered.”
(Please correct the above if I am misunderstanding)
Because there is a bit of a problem with that sentiment as well.
I’m not stating that you take this position, so do not take this next statement as targeted at you, rather it is targeted at those who may hold the above sentiment. That is, progress is rarely generated from the barrel of a gun. Then we live in a world where B’s hate against A is justified, because A hates B. This is a perpetual cycle of endless violence and war, that is the end result of this type of thinking, and why these comments are so negative because a lot of us have lived long enough to see this cycle, every day, it does not end through bloodshed.
They make a valid point, that most of the residents of Gaza despise the rainbow community, and many of them would physically harm them given the chance.
With this in mind, it’s quite bizarre that a Lemmy community built around the rainbow community is formally in support of them. I personally think the best thing to do in this situation would have been to stay out of it.
Plenty of people in the rural southern Appalachian county I grew up in would and did physically harm me when given the chance. Am I supposed to be okay with bombing their kids and hospitals now or something?
I think the best thing to do in this situation is not bomb hospitals and children. 🤷♂️
so doesn’t the us
Not as a matter of policy, no.
texas, florida, ohio, and utah would like a word
Those states execute people for the crime of being gay?
Is that relevant?
If it is, I guess we could all take a minute and talk about how Israel has such a problem controlling violent homophobic religious extremists that Jerusalem Pride has needed a ratio of 1 armed guard for every 6 marchers.
The fact that Israel has a pride march at all kinda works against whatever point you’re making.
Do you feel that needing 1 armed guard for every 6 marchers is indicative that it is incredibly safe to be out as queer in Jerusalem?
Who provides the armed guards, out of interest?
Why are the armed guards needed?
Who are they being protected from?
Do you think a pride march in the Gaza strip would be any safer?
I also support not making polar bears extinct.
With all that dysentery, lack of food, shelter, constant threat of getting blown up? Ehh maybe 2 days cuz I’m twice as old as the average person there.