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Joined 2 years ago
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Cake day: June 11th, 2023

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  • Is it because it is not PC to call a culture primitive?

    If you know its history and are absolutely sure that your evaluation is correct. But I have the feeling that you haven’t checked Iranian history - because historians don’t tend to put Iran in the same sentence with that.

    So, I would add some notes. Islamic extremism has not been in power “for 1500 years” in Iran - it has been in power since 1979. Iran has political problems. And let me tell you, political problems can quickly bring down a society that might otherwise have its problems under control.

    Did folks call Germany “primitive” when Hitler rose to power? Nope, they used other terms. Do we call Russia “primitive” because of Putin? Will we start calling the US “primitive” if Trump manages to become a dictator? Do we call China “primitive” because they have a one-party dictatorship? Nope, we don’t.

    They’re advanced societies facing difficult problems of various sorts. They are also extremely unequal societies - some people in the capital have modern life, but some in the periphery don’t even have jack s**t.

    Iran could be spending its time selling satellite launches if it wanted, but has an Islamist theocracy in power. Any candidate can be disqualified in the elections if the grand ayatollah doesn’t like them. Iran does various extremely shortsighted and I would really say… extremely stupid things. Like fighting proxy wars with Israel and then fighting real wars with Israel, depending on Russia for ammunition and then supplying Russia with ammunition against Ukraine…

    …but “stupid” and “primitive” are not synonyms.

    After islamic extremists came to power in the 1979 revolution, they broke down Iranian society in many directions. Executions were widespread, terror was used to subdue opposition, women’s rights were trampled on, many things happened. Thing went wrong, got entrenched in the state of being wrong, and remain wrong to this day. :(

    The regime before the islamists was the Shah (king). He had already been ousted and there had been parliamentary democracy in Iran, but the shah came back to power with UK and US support. He also terrorized the population through his secret police. The shah was hated and propped up by foreign powers - a ripe fruit for Islamists to pick and eat.

    Before the shah, Iran had a problem with left-leaning populism and government-parliament relations, but I think this was their smallest problem. The last democratically elected PM (Mosadegh) was somewhat populist and wanted to nationalize the oil industries (wanted to hurt Western business interests), which would have been OK, but he also had problems with the Parliament, which was definitely not OK. With some Western assistance, he was couped out of power, which, in my books, spent Iran spiraling out of control.

    That’s a brief summary of what’s been going on in the center of society, in the Persian speaking regions (I apologize for gross simplification, but I can’t summarize Iranian history into a single post, they have so much of it and it’s not simple - and not primitive).

    In border regions, however, we observe different processes. Persians (Iran’s majority population) have easier access to what little justice their system can ensure, while minorities (the Azeri, Kurds, Arabs and among smaller groups, the Baloch) are marginalized and cannot get just treatment.

    Iran is a former empire and has a considerable number of people who’ve been conquered at some time. Some of them want independence (ask a Kurd in private and you’ll hear). Society is neglecting them. If there was peace, and not islamic theocracy but democracy like in the 1950-ties, minority groups would likely have better living conditions. But as things are… sigh. Minority groups get the highest levels of poverty and oppression.


  • I would put it differently.

    The graph represents immigration. That is another topic, if you read the title carefully (see: “public life”).

    Recent / notable incidents of violence against women in politics, in Sweden, can be fairly blamed on far-right actors who are (perhaps by coincidence or perhaps not) also failing to discuss immigration normally, because discussing things rationally is not their slice of bread. Some parties’ ultra-fans have a culture of threatening and intimidation.

    I know it first hand without being in Sweden. Here in Estonia, we also have a party of that sort, with all the bells and whistles (anti-vaxx, pro-Kremlin, anti-immigration¹ and of course pro-authoritarianism). And their supporters can’t argue with a person much more often than an ordinary party’s supporters. I sincerely hope that party goes below the election threshold soon. They already split because of internal culture (failure to tolerate disagreements).

    ¹ anti accepting Ukrainian refugees, since there is nearly no other immigration coming here, unlike Sweden which has been considered an attractive destination

    P.S. I should note that Sweden has its share of integration problems (which they try to solve, and will likely pull the brakes if they cannot), but as a result of immigration, Sweden experiences less of the demographic problems which press Eastern Europe (read: our population pyramids in Eastern Europe are top-heavy, predicting serious issues with financing of public services in future, their population pyramid in Sweden is relatively square).


  • Out of curiosity, what does the diagram represent? I wonder what value has increased to about two thirds of 18% (and what is the 18%) between 1945 and 2015?

    1945 - I can tell what happened over here on that year. Tens of thousands of Estonians took boats and sailed to Sweden, because they knew that Stalin’s regime had extremely unpleasant surprises waiting for them. Without a clue about the context, I would guess that’s the blue bar in 1945.

    Also, I think your graph is missing the point. Lööf was sure as hell unsettled when psychiatrist Ing-Marie Wieselgren was killed at a political festival, by a guy who arguably intended to kill Lööf.

    https://www.reuters.com/world/europe/swedish-court-finds-man-guilty-murder-politics-festival-2022-12-06/

    Wikipedia tells us a bit more:

    After stabbing Wieselgren, the attacker was tackled by a pensioner and was shortly thereafter arrested by police.[5] The arrested perpetrator was a 33-year-old man who had previously participated in events organized by the neo-Nazi Nordic Resistance Movement and had written for the neo-Nazi newspaper Nordfront.

    So, apparently the motive was political, but I don’t think you expected it was this one.

    Polarization is really stupid, it makes people talk, campaign and vote about identity issues (parties start to have ultrafans who want to beat each other up), when their best interest would be served by discussing other topics. Fortunately the Swedish electoral system does not support unhinged levels of polarization.



  • There’s a small legal step that Ukraine needs to do.

    It needs to declare a blockade and declare which goods are blockaded, e.g. “all liquids transportable by ship”.

    Then, shipping companies will know in advance: “you cannot transport liquids to or from Russia, if your ship looks like a tanker, don’t go” and dangerous drone strikes aren’t needed.

    It’s fortunate that no sailors have been lost so far. But without a policy announcement, the discouraging effect is maybe too small and additional ships may try to run the blockade, which could lead to loss of life and environmental harm - which would be bad.


  • About the donation drive: it seems legit and I encourage people to help her.

    I checked the background of the Qasim Child Foundation and they’re a registered charity in Australia since 2020. Here’s one of their letters from 2022 to the Australian parliament, asking Australia to use its influence on Iran. The director of the foundation, Mehdi Ghatei, is a real person living in Australia and originating from Iran.

    What I think about the case: if a person has been “married off” as a child, not because of her wishes, indeed against her informed consent, has tried returning to her parents only to be sent away to an abusive husband, and has subsequently got into a fight with her husband after he harmed her and their child - a court should not convict of murder, but at most “provoked homicide” (if self defense is ruled out).

    Extracting confessions without a lawyer present, getting signatures from a person who cannot read (what society fails to teach reading and writing?) - all of this is complete bollocks too, of course. But in the state of Iran, so many things are systematically borked that one loses count. :(

    P.S.

    Blood money might be a matter of negotiation. The family of her husband might even reconsider if offered a tangible large sum short of their demands instead of mere blood, which benefits nobody.