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On this episode Razib talks to his old friend David Boxenhorn. Raised in New England as an American Jew, David made aliyah to Israel in his early 20s. There he married and raised a family, and now he considers himself an Israeli of the. National Religious persuasion.
We discuss the diversity and discrimination in Israeli society, the difference between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, and how international geopolitics is impinging on Israel.
I have a lot of problems with this podcast (which I’m not going to get into here because I’ve made my views clear many times before) but one thing that I must push back on is the characterization of Bernie Sanders as “anti-Israel”. Bernie is definitely against Netanyahu’s policies but what evidence is there that he is fundamentally anti-Israel? He certainly stands for the human rights of the Palestinian people but to characterize this as “anti-Israel” is a stretch. He chose not to attend AIPAC but then so did Mayor Pete and Klobuchar. It is unfair to equate being against Netanyahu with being against Israel as a whole. It is not like those who are anti-Trump are anti America.
The “Israel is a normal country” argument is fine as far as it goes. It is certainly true that many countries have their problems, but how many of those countries are perpetuating an internationally recognized occupation?
I also find it interesting that the possibility of one secular democratic state between the Mediterranean and the Jordan in which Palestinians have equal voting rights as Israeli Jews is equated with the “destruction of Israel”. No one sensible is advocating “throwing Jews into the sea” or anything like that (I’m certainly not). Today’s Israeli citizens are not responsible for the crimes associated with Israel’s founding in 1948. Those of us who argue against religiously-based states anywhere don’t understand why the prospect of genuine equality in Israel-Palestine is so threatening to some. The alternatives to a binational state are the two state solution (which Israeli settlements have made impossible) and the status quo (which is unsustainable). It would have been interesting to hear David’s views on what the path forward is for both parties.
[To those who argue that as a person of Pakistani origin I am being hypocritical in arguing for the secular state, let me state clearly that I would be perfectly happy if Pakistan were to officially become simply the “Republic of Pakistan”. In fact, Pakistan’s discriminatory behavior towards non-Muslim minorities makes me even more convinced of the desirability of secularism everywhere in the world].
Of the countries in the Middle East why just Israel all the time though?
None of the countries there are secular.
All are artificial constructs created by Western powers.
All have populations horribly oppressed by both government and the larger population (I’d rather be a Palestinian than a Pakistani Christian any day).
As I mentioned above, no other country in the Middle East is perpetuating an Occupation. All other countries have legally recognized borders.
Pakistani Christians are citizens of Pakistan and have the right to vote. There are no checkpoints as there are in Palestine. Neither are there any Settler-only roads (or Muslim-only roads in Pakistan). Palestinians are harassed by Israeli troops even inside Palestine.
Christians have attained some of the highest positions in Pakistan. For example, Alvin Robert Cornelius served as Chief Justice from 1960 to 1968 as well as Law Minister in Yahya Khan’s cabinet. Of course, this fact is not meant to whitewash the discrimination faced by minorities including the misuse of the Blasphemy Law. Pakistan definitely has a long way to go in its treatment of minorities.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alvin_Robert_Cornelius
Arabs and Pakistanis mistreat their minorities far worse than Israel treats her patriotic Palestinian Israeli citizens (or Israeli Arabs). By some estimates 23% of Israeli citizens are Palestinian Israelis.
“Settler-only roads”. Palestinian Israeli citizens often have the car license plates to use these roads. So do the West Bank upper middle class.
If the West Bank economically develops; if the percentage of the population that is upper middle class increases, then this problem takes care of itself.
Do Lebanese, Egyptians, Syrians, Libyans, Iraqis, Gulfies, Algerians, Tunisians, Moroccans treat their ethnic Palestinian minorities well?
Chile does, but Chile is not Arab.
Lebanon was under UN occupation (United Nations Interim Force in Lebanon) for over a generation. Syria occupied Lebanon for decades. Turkey still occupies Iraq. Egyptian, Tunisian, Qatari, Saudi, UAE, Turkish special forces were embedded with the Lebanese security forces as advisors and trainers for a long time. Many still are.
Saudi Arabia has been under Pakistani occupation (embedded advisors and trainers in the Saudi security forces) for generations. Yemen has been under foreign occupation for generations, including embedded Iranian combat advisors.
From 2003 to 2008 over 15 middle east countries were in a de facto state of war with Iraq and had troops inside Iraq leading and fighting alongside the Iraqi resistance.
Many middle east countries sent embedded military advisors and trainers for the Syrian resistance since 2011.
The anti Saddam Iraqi resistance had many foreign embedded advisors in their ranks 1979-2003. Mostly Iranian. But some others too. Iraq has been under Iranian occupation since 1979. Albeit the Iranian occupiers were accepted by Iraqis as necessary to fight Saddam, Al Qaeda and Daesh.
The greater middle east is one big extended family where every country thinks what is happening in every other country is their business and regularly intervenes in other countries.
“Palestinians are harassed by Israeli troops even inside Palestine.”
Can we please have a more educated level of discussion?
Israeli muslims might not be treated as well as muslims are in some other countries. But they are treated far better and more respectfully than muslims are in any country in the greater middle east outside of Kurdistan and Turkey.
Israeli muslims have some freedom of thought and art. Israeli muslims have some ability to discuss Islam and practice Islam as they choose. No Arab country nor Iran for that matter allows this.
Would you acknowledge that the West Bank is doing vastly better than Gaza?
Palestinians do have legitimate claims on Israelis and legitimate asks that Israel should give them. Please discuss these.
You cannot use the word “Occupation” as loosely as you are doing. You have a habit of making up your own meanings of words which makes communicating with you frustrating.
“Saudi Arabia is under Pakistani occupation”– that is a laughable statement. Saudi Arabia is run by the House of Saud. If they asked their Pakistani advisers (including our ex-Chief of Army Staff, General Raheel Sharif) to leave, those advisors would have no choice but to do so. Far from Pakistan occupying Saudi, Pakistan is actually a Saudi client state. Many Pakistanis have been criticizing the extreme Saudi influence in our internal affairs for years.
Of course the West Bank is doing better than Gaza. Gaza is an open-air prison under siege by both Israel and Egypt. However, that doesn’t change the fact that the West Bank is still Occupied Palestinian Territory (as is East Jerusalem). We are not talking about my opinion but about settled International Law.
None of them have the same political and cultural influence in America*. I would really like to live in a world where I don’t have to care about Israel more than I have to care about any other country that does shitty things. But it’s completely disingenuous to criticize Americans for focusing on Israel when American politicians are demonized for NOT attending a conference for an Israeli lobbying organization. Or when out of all the countries in the world, we are not allowed to organize a boycott of Israel, and only Israel, or else risk losing our job. I never got behind BDS until those laws were put in place; now I have to consider it my patriotic duty.
I used to be extremely pro-Israel. But I’ve become disgusted by the obscene influence that Israel has on American politics, and I’m disgusted with how so many pro-Israel partisans get offended and assume bad faith over perfectly reasonable criticisms of Israel… right as Israel is going down a path that renders a two-state solution impossible, and makes the only possible outcome look like a one-state solution where the lot of Palestinians is to be permanent second-class citizenship – or to be ethnically cleansed. Comparisons to apartheid South Africa are perfectly fair. Israel can no longer claim that it’s actions are only those necessary to preserve a homeland for the historically oppressed Jewish people.
And again: 4-5 years ago, I was very strongly pro-Israel. But over that time, the actions of Israel and the Israeli lobby in America have been intensely alienating, and if I’m forced to have a political opinion about Israel, it’s not going to be a good one.
*Some Gulf states have similar political influence, though much less cultural power. And yes, I am just as upset about our special relationships with the monstrous governments of these countries as well. I would 100% back BDS Saudi if anyone cared to organize it.
Cmon Kabir, how well have other polarized multi-ethnic republics worked? A unified egalitarian Israel-Palestine would be like Lebanon, but with PCP laced into the water supply. With the level of animosity between Israelis and Palestinians, a fair and workable single state is impossible. It would inevitably degenerate into domination by one group, and outright oppression or ethnic cleansing of the other. That’s why the Israeli push for a single state today is so worrying.
Israelis are perfectly right to set a line at the pre-1967 borders, and say “this is ours, and that’s not going to change.” You can’t expect a country to commit national suicide, no matter the circumstances, and that’s exactly what it would be to merge Israel into a Palestinian-dominated state… which is what any democratic state with a Palestinian majority will be. Do you think Palestinians are going to become tolerant secular humanists as soon as the oppression stops?
Yeah, even the pre-1967 borders were founded on settler colonialism and ethnic cleansing, and Palestinians are only so hostile to Israelis because of what Israelis have done to them. But that doesn’t change anything. The whole situation is shitty, but the least shitty workable solution is a two-state one.
As you acknowledged in your earlier comment, it is Israel which has made the two-state solution impossible. There can be no two states without removing Israeli settlements from Palestine and making East Jerusalem (not Abu Dis) the Palestinian capital. Trump’s “Deal of the Century” with its Palestinian bantustans is a non-starter.
If one concedes that the two state solution is dead, then the only alternatives are a binational state or the status quo (which you correctly link to apartheid). Many Palestinians have now realized this and are fighting for full civil and political rights between the river and the sea.
The two-state solution is dead, so there is no solution. At least none that secular humanists can be satisfied with.
Israel will continue to be an apartheid state in perpetuity, unless the reactionary racists that have taken over the country decide down the line that full-on ethnic cleansing is preferable. What happened in South Africa in the 1990s will probably never happen in Israel. Under present and probable future conditions, Palestinians and Israelis will only grow more radical and racist over time, and the Israel-Palestine conflict will morph into a pure zero-sum ethnic war, without even the slim chance of peace that the two-state dream offered.
My sympathies in such a war naturally lie with the side that didn’t start it (i.e. Palestinians), but victory by either side will be equally ugly. At this point, I just want my country to have nothing to do with Israel.
I would be perfectly happy with a binational state. Equal civil and political rights for everyone regardless of their religion sounds good to me. It would mean the end of the whole “Jewish state” enterprise. In many ways, it would be karma for Israel for refusing to allow a two state solution.
Fraxinicus, America (and Europe vastly more than America) has an epidemic of anti Jewish sectarianism, bigotry and rage. Personally I have seen more anti Jewish sentiment among Americans than I have against any other group of people.
At the same time people should be free to try to organize BDS. And free to oppose BDS. BDS does not support a two state solution. BDS in my opinion is viciously anti Palestinian. It would devastate the Palestinian economy if it were ever implemented.
Palestinians have more of their wealth domiciled in Israel than domiciled in Palestine. Palestinians are incredibly dependent on trade, cross border product development, cross border investment, business/work/student/toursist visas with Israel.
To punish Palestinians for their economic integration with Israelis is immoral, ammoral and cruel.
Loved your comment. I think we should focus on being pro Palestinian rather than anti Israeli.
BDS is an initiative that comes from the Palestinian people themselves. It is intensely ironic that you seem to think that you know better than the Palestinians on a matter that is literally life and death for them.
Kabir wrote: “Palestinians are harassed by Israeli troops even inside Palestine.”
I agree with this statement. Somehow I thought Kabir meant “Palestinians are harassed by Israeli troops even inside Israel.”
I was extremely clear that I was not talking about “Israel Proper” but about the Occupied Palestinian Territory.
For future reference, whenever I use the word “Palestine” in a post 1948 context, I’m referring to the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem.
I’m afraid I don’t see any kind of solution emerging any time soon. If we Hindus, with a huge country and with overwhelming demographic dominance in it, continue to obsess over cases of oppression that occurred hundreds of years ago and consider ourselves to be permanent and unique victims of history, I can’t blame the Palestinian Arabs for remaining bitter about the fact their country (not just Gaza and the West Bank, but the whole of Israel) was taken from them just three generations ago.
It doesn’t matter if the West Bank remains occupied, with or without Israeli settlers, or if it’s given independence. There is enough energy in the Arab public and enough hurt feelings to keep stoking anger among them for maybe another century, if not longer (assuming global warming doesn’t send us all to kingdom come before that). Israel will never be completely safe to the level it desires from terrorist attacks until such anger dies out; there are always going to be a number of people who do want to drive them out to the sea and they won’t ever run out of money and arms.
So continuing the status quo, shitty though a deal it is for the Palestinians (and to some extent, the Israelis), may not be the worst thing.
(Just for the heck of it, I’ll say that if it had been up to me, I’d have carved Israel on the southern shores of the Baltic after WW2. Would have been a much more congenial location for the Jewish people, and just desserts for the Germans.)
The Palestinian leadership accepted the existence of Israel long ago which is why they are only demanding the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem and not all of pre-1948 Palestine. The Israelis then changed the goal posts and demanded that Palestinians recognize Israel as a “Jewish State”.
There is absolutely no excuse for the status quo (which is tantamount to apartheid). The only alternatives are the two state solution (which Israel has made impossible) or the binational state (which means the end of the “Jewish state”).
Hindus don’t think of themselves as unique victims, there is a palpable undercurrent of pride that Hindus at least successfully resisted and survived while Byzantines, Persians, Babylonians, Egyptians, Carthaginians, Transoxiana-ians, Bactrians (including our very own ex-Hindu/Buddhist Ghoris) all were steamrolled and forced to give up the ways of their forefathers(which were at least in some cases obviously superior to what replaced them). I think that had the whole of India been converted to Islam then most of the Muslims here would have had more love for their native-ness and respect for their (Hindu) heritage.
On a more relevant note, try visualizing how would Arabs have treated Israelis(Jews) if the tables were turned. Not a pretty sight.
If anyone wants to see why the Aryan Invasion is such anathema to Hindus, see here.
“We resisted”; we may have been dominated physically and politically, but in a sense we are better than everyone else because our culture remained intact. Aryan Invasion wipes even this last solace away.
The whole “we resisted” trope is mythology anyway. There was nothing to resist, as Muslim conquerors didn’t seek to impose their culture on Indians in any meaningful way.
1) ” If anyone wants to see why the Aryan Invasion is such anathema to Hindus, see here.
“We resisted”; we may have been dominated physically and politically, but in a sense we are better than everyone else because our culture remained intact. Aryan Invasion wipes even this last solace away. ”
I did not follow the logic. Please expand on why would Aryan invasion wipe any solace away? In the light of Aryan Invasion Theory:
1) Descendants of resisting ‘Aryans’ can feel good that they held on to their culture while the descendants of their routed ancestral peers (themselves at best Indo-Iranians) are out trolling their own heritage and ancestry.
2) Descendants of Dravidians can feel good that they held on to their culture and did not cede more ground to Northerners.
3) Nepalis, Bhutanis and Northeastern Indians can watch the rest of us fight from their hills while smoking weed. The whole time Sri Lankans were sunbathing by the beach.
4) Tribal Indians(Mundas, Santhals etc) go about as they have always gone about.
Whose solace is being wiped away?
2)”The whole “we resisted” trope is mythology anyway. There was nothing to resist, as Muslim conquerors didn’t seek to impose their culture on Indians in any meaningful way.”
What can I say on this? You are really cranking up the trolling. I can’t wake up someone pretending to be asleep.
Talk about “trolling your own culture and history”.
Indians are not Aryans. The vast majority of Indians have less than 10% Aryan admixture.
Our relationship to Aryans (I include myself in this as half-Punjabi) was that they invaded our lands, killed our fathers, and raped our mothers. Our languages and religion were replaced by the invaders. Our defeat was so crushing we were Stockholm-Syndromed into calling ourselves Aryan, and claiming a religion whose very existence is a slap in the face to the natives of South Asia.
In comparison, a least Pakistanis, Iranians, and Turks can say that while they adopted the religion of their conquerors, they maintained their language and culture. Indians visa-vis the Aryans fared much worse.
1) ‘Talk about “trolling your own culture and history”.
Indians are not Aryans. The vast majority of Indians have less than 10% Aryan admixture.’
Didn’t know about the percentage information. Thanks!
2) ‘Our relationship to Aryans (I include myself in this as half-Punjabi) was that they invaded our lands, killed our fathers, and raped our mothers. Our languages and religion were replaced by the invaders. Our defeat was so crushing we were Stockholm-Syndromed into calling ourselves Aryan, and claiming a religion whose very existence is a slap in the face to the natives of South Asia.’
Dravidians are true natives right? I mean then we(the natives of South Asia) are mostly Dravidians (~90% as per your comment above) right? I am curious if you are from Punjab and have some(non-Aryan) ancestors other than natives of Punjab? Can we assume they were all still from within the regions today called south Asia(Indian subcontinent) ie our homeland?
“In comparison, at least Pakistanis, Iranians, and Turks can say that while they adopted the religion of their conquerors, they maintained their language and culture. Indians vis-a-vis the Aryans fared much worse.”
But shouldn’t we feel outraged against the destruction of our ‘native’ born anti-Aryan religion ie Buddhism? It is the least retarded of all major religions and was formed by Natives against caste discrimination and Brahmanism. I am willing to consider provisionally co-opting your anti-Aryan ideology but I will not do it if you don’t show equal disdain for Islam. No creating schism within ‘Hindu’ for a ‘so and so hindu faction + Islam’ against caste Hindu, that’s nonsense. I find it silly when Hindus do the same between Sufi vs ‘so and so orthodox’ Muslims. The reason I am saying this is because the brutality of Aryan invasion is being conjectured while the brutality of Islamic invasion is recorded history. And don’t bypass this by saying Buddhist were not persecuted by Muslims they were actually uprooted by the Hindus. Because unlike Hindus (Adi-Shankara), Muslims are recorded to have violently wiped out the Buddhists from Bactria, NWFP(Turkmen), Bihar and Bengal(Khiljis).
On language: Although Urdu is not my mother tongue, like many people born in families based in Lucknow for centuries, I have an innate love for Urdu. And the objective(generalized) truth is that Urdu is Persianized Hindi which itself is an offshoot of Indo-European languages of Aryan Invaders. Similarly Punjabi, Saraiki, Sindhi all have the Aryan connection. Not quite native, So I don’t quite see how can starting to write in Persianized scripts, reading Arabic holy books, be called a victory of the natives of Northwestern India(n subcontinent) ie Pakistanis and Afghans? Also curious, what are examples of the native pre-Islamic (and non-Aryan) culture of Pakistan whose parallels are nowhere to be found in India? Because otherwise, it boils down to Native Indians of current-day Pakistan lost out two times first to Aryans then to Turks/Arabs while North Indians lost out once to Aryans. And if there is no pre-Islamic, non-Aryan heritage then what worthwhile native ‘culture’ that is still preserved in Pakistan but not in India are you talking about?
\The vast majority of Indians have less than 10% Aryan admixture.\
This is the old idiocy of conflating religious/culture groups with some kind of new fangled genetic racial categories. This is a continuation of 19th century European racism which conflated linguistic categories with races. Of course you can trust Pakistani trolls twist anything. After giving themselves up body and soul to Arab nomads, there is tremendous jealousy of Hindus and India.
@Bhimrao
/ I am willing to consider provisionally co-opting your anti-Aryan ideology but I will not do it if you don’t show equal disdain for Islam./
Couldnt have said better than that. Some people are more natives than natives,more Indus related than others, more aryan than others and islamic conquerors of hinduism at same time.
/No creating schism within ‘Hindu’ for a ‘so and so hindu faction + Islam’ against caste Hindu, that’s nonsense. I find it silly when Hindus do the same between Sufi vs ‘so and so orthodox’ Muslims./
In general I agree with the premise of argument. But the difference between the two is that Hinduism in its present form is not entirely same as vedic brahmanism or whatever you may call aryan religion. It has already been indigenized enough to be common heritage of aryans and caste peoples. Islam in its orthodox form is not same as Hinduism in this respect. Sufism for its imperfections tried to do that and the differentiation comes from this attempt.
I dont think people are saying Sufism is best thing that happened to India but that if Islam wants to live harmoniously in subcontinent then Sufism is much better approximation than others.
@iamVY
Two quick points:
1) I wish there were more Pakistani (practicing) muslims who are open to real give and take of ideas. I just wasted an hour reading and fact checking a garbage ‘research paper’ posted by INDTHINGS on religious persecution by Hindus. He makes no sense and I am done wasting my time on him.
2) I have been reading and commenting on Sufism here. My understanding is that people really give it more credit/reverence than is due. Most prominent Sufi mystics were pretty horrible guys. There might be gems in their philosophy and I am very willing to know from senior members what these great ‘universal’ teachings are and how favorably compare against say things like Tao Te Ching, Yogasutras or Lotus sutra in originality/depth/peacefulness/… . But so far I have been disappointed in Sufism and find it grossly over hyped for the sake of ‘all religions are essentially same’ kind of nonsense. And I do not think that ‘Sufism is much better approximation than others.’
Man the mid-east situation makes Kashmir seem clear cut and simple, by comparison. I see no good solutions.
You cannot use the word “Occupation” as loosely as you are doing. You have a habit of making up your own meanings of words which makes communicating with you frustrating.
you do the exact same thing tho language police.
I don’t completely twist the dictionary meanings of words.
Come on, you are seriously defending someone who would make a statement like “Saudi Arabia is Occupied by Pakistan”?
I don’t completely twist the dictionary meanings of words.
ok, gonna be fair. you are in fact more of a word-nazi. at least a word-nazism learned in one class in undergrad. as for anan, his comments are too long.
Listened to the David Boxenhorn interview.
Israel, Jews, India and eastern philosophy are picked on worse than any other place in the world.
Israel India Jews best friends forever!
++++++++++++++++++
David Boxenhorn, have you read and heard Tareq Fatah?:
https://www.amazon.com/Jew-Not-Enemy-Unveiling-Anti-Semitism/dp/0771047843
Tareq does a far better job explaining and defending Israelis against bogus charges than any Israelis.
What do you think about:
—dual citizenship for Palestinians and Israelis . . . allowing settlers in the West Bank and Palestinian Israeli citizens full voting rights for both Israeli and Palestinian elections?
—A complete free trade, free cross border product development collaboration, free cross border investment agreement?
—Mass affirmative action for expat, Gazan and West Bank Palestinians to attend Israeli universities (to give Palestinians “right of return”) with student visas and scholarships
—reserve 25% of all West Bank and Gaza university seats for Israeli citizens
—far more liberal day work, longer term work, business visas for Palestinians who want to do business in Israel
—mass free Israeli tutoring of Palestinian K-12 kids to sharply improve horrendous Palestinian K-12 education outcomes
—encouraging interfaith marraiges
—encouraging far greater interfaith mixing in religious sites, festivals and spiritual practices (a la India where the various religions merge and flow together . . . and where people authentically belong to many religions simultaneously)
—an International (with substancial Israeli contributions) Marshall plan to develop the West Bank and Gaza
+++++++++++++++++++
Can you share more about why you think Corbyn and Labour hate Jews and Israelis so much?
Why do Ilhan Omar and ethnic Somalis in general hate Jews and Israelis so much? Somalia is far away from historic Israel or historic Jewdom.
Israel still has massive high level security collaboration with Turkey and to a lesser degree Malaysia. How can Israel expand the scope of these?
Do you think India and Israel should form a deeper military alliance?
How much deeper do you think the friendship between Israel and Russia; and Israel and China can get?
Should Israel unilaterally refuse all US foreign aid? If Israel did this would Israeli influence over America increase?
Egyptian, Tunisian, Qatari, Saudi, UAE, Turkish special forces were embedded with the “LIBYAN” security forces as advisors and trainers for a long time. Many still are.
My main man Glenn Loury (with Robert Cherry) on “Anti-Semitism, Israel-Palestine, and Bernie”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iQcbNH2aVSI
Glenn Loury discussed the surging anti Jewish attacks around the country and New York, including by blacks.
Glenn mentioned how many blacks think Israelis are abusing Palestinians, and how many blacks empathize and sympathize with Palestinians.
Robert Cherry response was the economic miracle achieved by Israeli Arabs (Israeli Palestinians) and the West Bank.
Israeli Arabs (not Arab Jews but Israeli Palestinians) are academically knocking it out of the park on the extreme top right end distribution of very high performance in K-12, undergraduate university and graduate university. Robert Cherry asked how are American blacks doing on the extreme top right end distribution of very high performance in K-12, undergraduate university and graduate university. {Not good at all.}
I would be curious to learn how the West Bank Palestinians academically perform at the extreme top right end distribution.
Why are the top 1% and top 5% of Israeli Arabs performing so well academically? What can Americans learn from Israeli Arab excellence to improve low academically performing European Americans and black American outcomes?
Fraxinicus and other Israeli critics . . . what do you think accounts for this spectacular Israeli and Palestinian success? Isn’t this an argument for why every country in the world should be best friends forever with both the Israelis AND Palestinians?
The conflict between them is their internal squable and has nothing to do with us. We don’t have to choose between them. We can be the closest of military, intelligence, technology and economic allies with the both of them.
Does anyone disagree?
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is hardly an “internal squabble”. One side is perpetuating an Occupation against the other, stealing their land and denying them political rights. This is an affront to anyone who believes in human rights. In addition, Al Quds is the third holiest city in Islam and the Haram al Sharif (Dome of the Rock) is dear to all Muslims.
One has to choose between being allied with the oppressor or with the oppressed. It is not possible to be equidistant between them. I know which side I am on. Others are free to make their own choice.
Does the fact that Israel call itself a Jewish state not absolve it of all criticism ? Does it now have to rise to the high standards set by Pakistan too ? 🙂
For the umpteenth time, I have consistently stated that I prefer the secular state to religiously based ones (no matter what the religion).
But yes please, keep attempting to use my national origin to attack my arguments.
Man does not live on bread alone. How people feel matters more than Pinkerian statistics… which aren’t on Israel’s side regardless. The relatively small Palestinian minority in Israel proper is doing well, but does that make up for the millions in the West Bank, Gaza, and the refugee camps in neighboring countries? Jordan is probably our best proxy for what Palestine would look like had Israel never come to be; the GDP per capita there is twice that of the West Bank, 4x that of Gaza, and who knows how much more than the GDP per capita of a refugee camp.
And before you bring up Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Jordan is not the country with the moral debt to those refugees. Israel is. Jordan could and should treat them better, but Israel is the country responsible for their status as stateless refugees, and Israel continues to deny them the right to return to their homeland… meanwhile inviting in Americans who haven’t had a single ancestor live in the area for over a thousand years.
Fraxinicus:
“Man does not live on bread alone. How people feel matters more than Pinkerian'”
This is a spiritual question. Isn’t the solution to this LOVE (some call it meditation)? Wouldn’t LOVE increase access to conciousness, cognitive abilities beyond the scope of general intelligence, general intelligence, mental health and physical health?
“statistics… which aren’t on Israel’s side regardless. The relatively small Palestinian minority in Israel proper is doing well,”
Israel has 23% times 8.7 million or 2 million patriotic Palestinian Israeli (Israeli Arab) citizens. That is a very large sample of success and excellence. Perhaps only Indian muslims and American muslims boast comparably large percentages of liberal and muraqabah muslims. Plus Israeli Arabs are extremely academically and socio-economically successful. What is not to admire and emulate? Very likely Mahathir bin Mohamad would agree with me on this.
“but does that make up for the millions in the West Bank, Gaza, and the refugee camps in neighboring countries?”
True. Shouldn’t the international community try to facilitate a West Bank economic miracle? Add a West Bank Asian Tiger 🙂
Peace with Israel would be much easier after the West Bank becomes an Asian Tiger. Palestinians would have more “leverage” in negotations. Plus Israelis would be eager to do business with rich successsful “winner” West Bank Palestinians.
“Jordan is probably our best proxy for what Palestine would look like had Israel never come to be; the GDP per capita there is twice that of the West Bank, 4x that of Gaza, and who knows how much more than the GDP per capita of a refugee camp.”
And before you bring up Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Jordan is not the country with the moral debt to those refugees. Israel is. Jordan could and should treat them better, but Israel is the country responsible for their status as stateless refugees,”
The reason I did “NOT” bring up Jordan is that Jordan “DOES” do a good job treating Palestinians. I have heard that there is a lot of anti Palestinian sentiment from people who have lived in Jordan . . . but I discount these anecdotal reports. It is countries other than Jordan that do a much, much, much worse job.
Plus Jordan “DOES” have as much a moral obligation to Palestinians as Israel does. Jordan is also a successor state to the Ottoman Empire. Jordan was the occupying power of the West Bank 1948 to 1967. Jordan “IS” discharging this “moral obligation” better than Israel is.
“and Israel continues to deny them the right to return to their homeland… ”
What do you think about my ideas for how to handle right of return? See longer comment below.
“meanwhile inviting in Americans who haven’t had a single ancestor live in the area for over a thousand years.”
Hey that is a good thing! Israel should keep doing that. Israel is also very nice to Indians. That is also a good thing. Indians love to work in Israel. 🙂
Kabir your ancestors conquered Hindustan and here you are debating AnAn in the comments section (who I’m still not convinced isn’t a BJP bot).
You should only worry about engaging when you think others are open to changing their mind, or if you think your comments will educate other readers. AnAn won’t change his mind, and even most of the Hindu Nationalist supporters here don’t share his silly views, so you aren’t even challenging their outlook.
‘You should only worry about engaging when you think others are open to changing their mind, or if you think your comments will educate other readers. AnAn won’t change his mind.’
This sounds more like a description of you. Of all people on this blog who want to have their cake and eat it too, you really do ‘Take the cake’
Irrespective of my arguments with Kabir, I still think he changes his position or acknowledges truth from other side if given enough proof /logic. No such success with you.
You have been on record defending girl grooming gangs, falsely accusing a south Indian of being north indian, caught quoting wrong numbers on genetics but in your mind nothing sticks.In that regard you really can be compared to Pak army (e.g. statements like ‘Kabir your ancestors conquered Hindustan….’) which in their own mind is close to world domination due to their assumed Ghouri/ Ghazni genes but in reality just a sad record of over promising and under delivering on every front.
You wear a lot of hats half- Punjabi, more aryan, more steppe, islamic invader, atheist , secular, diaspora South Asian, Pak nationalist etc according to the topic & person you want to troll on
‘I’ve made crude comments (North Indians) but they are intentional and transparent trolling.’
Well that’s your lasting impression here due to your massive success at trolling.
‘I’m trying to have a serious convo with Razib so if you can stop emotionally ejaculating everywhere it would be great.’
Would be great if you remember that advice and not resort to inner ‘islamic born confused desi syndrome’ pop up every now and then !
The vast majority of Indians have less than 10% Aryan admixture.
the overall comment is defensible. but i think this is quantitatively wrong. perhaps the majority. but the vast? i would be surprised if 40% of subcontinentals are 10% of more ‘aryan.’ 60%? perhaps. 30% perhaps.
i should run the numbers…
Using G25 I got everyone besides Northern Brahmans and Kshatriyas below 10%. Which is like almost all of India.
Done using Paniya instead of AHG, IVC samples that don’t have any Caucasus component (so just pure AASI and Iran HG), later BMAC intrusions that brought the Caucasus West Asian components, and of course Sintashta bringing the Euro.
Using G25 I got everyone besides Northern Brahmans and Kshatriyas below 10%. Which is like almost all of India.
that is probably not right then. doesn’t pass the smell test. you know what r1a1a frequency is.
you need to go my graphs with a lot fewer populations.
i mean, g25 could be right. this isn’t physics. but i doubt it.
unless you are a dalit, 10% seems a reasonable FLOOR for peasants in UP. but i can recheck.
doesn’t make that much of a difference (i used pulliyar instead of paniya for sample size)
https://www.dropbox.com/s/nts189qme9ezgxd/finalresults.csv?dl=0
he has a habit of false conjecture that is routinely based on his emotional confirmation biases. I am sure araingang is a great scholar, whom he follows for his logic rather than the fact that he and others like him have a habit of “touching up” Pakistani ancient history, a beautiful oxymoron, if I ever saw one. Just a reddit search on the Paksub can showcase it.
I just messed around with G25 and it seems the post-Aryan West Asian admixture from BMAC is what lowers Steppe.
When I use AHG, Sintashta, and IVC-P for Gujjar’s and Rors, I get Steppe’s of 20 and 39 for them, nearly exactly what you were getting. Switching to a different IVC and AASI-source didn’t change the Steppe at all. However once I added BMAC Dzarkhutan, the Steppe became 14 and 35 respectively (and fits were a bit better).
p.s. also, as i have explained to people, the ‘steppe’ as 100% sintashtha == aryan probably understates aryan impact. the aryans were probably already mixed with other non-sintashta stuff by the time they entered the subcontinent.
ok i will check these numbers again but look https://www.brownpundits.com/2020/02/09/indus-valley-sintashta-and-andamanese-ancestry-in-select-grioups/
kanjars are 16% sintashta. i think that’s the key figure
@indthings
“Indians are not Aryans. “
then why do you keep making us cry over the horrible crimes of aryans?
your own (i.e. pakistani muslim) identity keeps shifting. in one breath you claim descent from islamic warriors…
“Kabir your ancestors conquered Hindustan ”
but just a moment later you are son of the soil indian…
“Our relationship to Aryans (I include myself in this as half-Punjabi) was that they invaded our lands..”
seriously, take a consistent position if you want a meaningful engagement with the commenters here. i have no problem engaging with a hawkish pak-nationalist, as long as he/she can argue cogently and coherently.
i think my ancestors vs your ancestors based arguments are meaningless in hindu-muslim debates, because all subcontinental people are mixed race people. the difference is only in proportions of ancestral components, and even these proportions are broadly similar between the two groups.
hindu-muslim conflict is essentially a conflict of two divergent value systems. their world views are different, and the source of these different world views is their dramatically different religions.
The India-Pakistan conflict is a national/political one (as is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict). I think the religious angle is overstated. India’s relationship with Pakistan is so negative because the two countries have fought several wars and continue to fight over disputed territory. In contrast, India’s relationship with Bangladesh is much more normal, despite the fact that Bangladesh is also Muslim-majority. One of the things that got Sheikh Mujeeb in trouble pre-1971 was his lack of interest in the Kashmir cause. It makes sense since the former East Pakistan did not border Kashmir and didn’t share the ethnic/cultural ties that many West Pakistanis had with Kashmir. This lack of interest in the cause was seen as disloyalty by the West Pakistani establishment.
kabir, you are mixing cause and effect. india-pak relations are not negative because they have fought wars. they have fought wars because their relations are so negative.
political difference between the two countries are a manifestation of something fundamentally different between the character of two peoples.
in fact hindu muslim conflict is not unique in this world. greek-turkish and serb-bosnian conflict is similar in character. basically the native side (i.e indian, greek or serb) thinks of the other side as race traitors. (similar in blood, but disowning of their heritage and bowing to a foreign god). the muslim side (pak, turkish or bosnian) side thinks of the other side as ignorant savages who still haven’t seen the light (noor-ul-islam).
if a nation’s conversion to islam is total, then it makes it little bit easier for them to remember their pagan past with some fondness (for e.g. indonesians or iranians). half converted nations are condemned to remain locked in an eternal conflict.
@Scorpion
‘if a nation’s conversion to islam is total, then it makes it little bit easier for them to remember their pagan past with some fondness (for e.g. indonesians or iranians). half converted nations are condemned to remain locked in an eternal conflict.’
Completely agree, couldn’t have said it better.
I believe that if the Kashmir Dispute didn’t exist, India-Pakistan relations would be quite different. They still probably wouldn’t be great friends, but much more normal than they are now. If the issue was one of Hindu-Muslim conflict, then India and Bangladesh would not have such a good relationship.
In my opinion, the Turkish-Greek conflict is also a national conflict, rather than a religious one.
In general, I believe the role of religion is overplayed in many of these conflicts. It suits many people to frame the situation in the subcontinent as an eternal Hindu vs. Muslim dispute. Just as many people look at Israel-Palestine as Jews vs. Muslims, forgetting that Palestinian Christians are also equally against the Occupation of their homeland.
Bhimrao,
Buddhism in India was mostly destroyed by Hindus before Islam arrived, both physically via violence and ideologically via assimilation. Islam finished it off but their role in its death was minimal. I’m atheist I don’t care for Islam vs. Hinduism debates (though for the record Islam is plainly much better). Punjabis and Sindhis lost their language to the Aryans, but never adopted their religion. They lost their religion to the Arabs/Turks, but retained their language. North Indians lost everything to the Aryans, so thoroughly that they still refuse to accept it.
Scorpion,
I’m teasing Kabir. Hindu vs. Muslim has nothing to do with value systems, it has to do with one group thinking that everything from Kabul to Chittagong belongs to them by virtue of a largely imagined mythos, and everyone else is an interloper.
Razib,
You could be right, I’ll just say G25 inputs don’t give dissimilar results to yours when using the same populations. I’ve just heard the above method is a better way to model South Asians (and gives better fits), as it covers the major early population inputs (AASI-proxy, pure IVC, arrival of Steppe, then West-Asians).
@RAZIB
Can you confirm the impact of Islamic invasions on Buddhism as described by @INDTHINGS?
Suris(related to Sher Shah Suri), most Ghoris(related to Mahmud of Ghor) were ‘Pashtun’ Buddhists who were forcefully converted after military reversals. I have read about Bamyan, Nalanda, Odantpuri, Vikramshila being destroyed and much earlier raids by Turkmen into Gandhara/Buddhist Shahis. Can these be discounted as inconsequential?
I realise that my earlier argument/conversation with @INDTHINGS is going nowhere but I am just interested in putting things into proper historical perspective.
/ I’m atheist I don’t care for Islam vs. Hinduism debates (though for the record Islam is plainly much better). /
You can let the atheist mask fall. Question is really whether you are just plain Islamic supremacist or also crypto – terrorist sympathizer.
/Punjabis and Sindhis lost their language to the Aryans, but never adopted their religion. They lost their religion to the Arabs/Turks, but retained their language./
Reading your own statements, they lost on language, religion to outsiders then what else is left to lose. Oh right they also lost their logic to make a coherent comments which makes sense from beginning to end.
/I’m teasing Kabir. Hindu vs. Muslim has nothing to do with value systems, it has to do with one group thinking that everything from Kabul to Chittagong belongs to them by virtue of a largely imagined mythos, and everyone else is an interloper./
Kabir as already stated by him in mulitple comments considers himself as south asian muslim part of same group from Kabul to chittagong. Only islamist like you living in imaginary Al- Bakistan disagree.
@Kabir,
there was seriously no need to question your ancestors if it would not have been brought up by Indthings for justifying his vain & largely imaginary superiority over rest of us
I’ve just heard the above method is a better way to model South Asians (and gives better fits), as it covers the major early population inputs (AASI-proxy, pure IVC, arrival of Steppe, then West-Asians).
are these anthrogenica threads? could you point me. i’m curious.
will probably do a follow-up post…
I don’t know if its originally from anthrogenica, but I get a lot of my info from Araingang. He has posts on South Asian genetics and history, though I think he’s also on anthrogenica or a similar forum.
You can message him via twitter if you want details, but when I asked him he seemed sure that Paniya was a better AASI proxy than AHG, and that there was a specific IVC sample/group that needs to be used rather than the general “IVC Periphery” that is often seen.
the indus periphery shouldn’t matter for steppe % tho. that would just be a tradeoff of AHG vs. indus. the paniya shouldn’t impact steppe should it? let me check
No idea
lmfao G25 and anthrogenica. Often an unassuming bunch ;). Model mining till one retrofits to their insecure version of history. But then never publishing anything because pretty much all are arm chair geneticists which is a thin disguise for hardcore racialism. No science but just playing with trinkets on R and autistically going through GED match cherry picks till something sticks. Lmfao Sindhis and Punjabis didn’t lose their language to aryans? You are a clown. They are sanskrit derivatives. Ancestors conquered Hindustan lmfao…
Man you are spewing shit. And Punjab and Sindh weren’t hindu lmfao… Open a book man. Oh and I am sure there is no caste in Punjab either and Gujjars and Jats don’t caste discriminate against chamars lmfao. Spending too much time among Pak Redditors and anthrogenica closet hardcore racialist puts you just one step above Pakis claiming full arab heritage. You sound like a bigger troll everyday. At least this time, you made me chuckle
Lmfao someone sent me this comment on reddit. Is this you INDthings? Sure sounds a lot like you.
“Damn the amount of truth he spat just made me thank my ancient great x10000 central asian (or whatever) grandfather for raping grandma and giving me the looks, I was born with really fair milky olive skin, tall, strong facial features and no one ever thinks of me as a Indian and they get shocked saying “I don’t look Indian” when I tell them, i guess all of the people you showed were how the average Indian looks. Like 80% and they just fit into all the bad aspects but not the good ones like dark skinned but not dark enough to look black with the muscles dick sizes and “bad boy” slot, not fair or handsome enough to go in the mideast slot not oriental enough etc etc but all the bad ones like dark, smelly, unattractive, poor, dumb, weird, weak, bad body shape, short etc etc. Let’s be honest even the guy at the end had the the african american blackman look lol. An Indian needs to look the least “Indian” (most of the guys shown on this vid) possible to even get a foot into the game in Western countries, not even mentioning the 200 pack toting chads and tyrones in the competition lol. Personally I’d say I did pretty ok, not sure about tinder and dating apps since most of mine were just rl from primary school there was this blond girl (who we’re still friends today, went to different secondary schools, tried but just stayed really good friends) then a few girls in secondary (mixed bag, one was white, one was a mixed race (ex) and the last one had a crush on me till she found out I wasn’t muslim ended quick lol) then ended and I went to uni, met this Chinese girl (from china) in the student dorms (not uni owned) on the same floor ran with it for first half of the year but she was 22. I was 18. She was cute but she was to go back to China after studies, all parents relatives she had in China. So it just never would’ve worked out, but I can guarantee you the same girl wouldn’t have batted me an eye had I been even 2 shades darker lol.”
anyway Buddhism>>>Islam, just to entertain your goofy paradigm. So your Punjabi pwned ancestors went through the double forced conversion from Indus Valley Paganism to Hinduism then let’s say peaceful convert to Buddhism and finally getting wrecked with arrival and islam and the worst iconoclastic behavior the NW of the subcontinent had ever seen.
Anyway Islam has done wonders in Pak. Building a nation on it has produced a fine democracy with economic prosperity and tremendous stability. No terrorists, average HDI of Bihar, and genocidal campaigns. Also don’t forget a successful majority white collar very wealthy and educated diaspora in the UK known for its respect for women and children.
Halal haleem owasi
May the chokolingam of the Skyfather smile upon you
“anyway Buddhism>>>Islam, just to entertain your goofy paradigm.”
Buddhism is Bihari culture. What’s worse – being spiritually colonised by us or by Arabs?
My personal subjective preference for different traditions/philosophies shaped by my own upbringing is as follows:
1) Tie between Advaita philosophy of Hinduism and Jainism. In my agnostic moods I prefer the latter and in spiritual moods I prefer the monism of the former
2) Tie between Pantheism and Buddhism of the Tibetian variety.
3) Hinduism with personal Gods
4) Reform Jewish traditions ( more in terms of their culture than spiritual traditions, so kind of the odd one out)
While I think it would be fine to have been converted to Buddhism/Jainism but not at the cost of a secondary conversion to any another tradition which does not figure in the list above which happened in Pakistan
southindian:
I know you have made this point about your preference for Jainism a few times on this forum now. Care to elaborate on how you understand Jainism and what is attractive in it for you? 🙂
Plus Advaita/Monism and Jainism are so different that it’s a bit curious that you prefer both equally 🙂
I am spiritually indecisive and unsure of everything non-material. Sometimes I believe in the Advaitic non-dual oneness of the universal consciousnesses especially if I feel a sense of contentedness with the world at large. Other times, I am completely agnostic and doubt even the abstract oneness with the world. In those times, there is no solace in the universal brahman. During such times, I only believe in trying to minimize harm via ahimsa and taking responsibility for my actions via karma. Non-theistic Jainism proves attractive in those contexts. While ahimsa and karma are emphasized by both Hindu and Jain philosophies, Jainism demands a stronger adherence to ahimsa which gives non-harm to human and non-human animals a greater sense of meaning. It helps me believe that there is a higher purpose to minimizing my harm footprint via vegetarianism and trying to do good. The movie “The Ship of Theseus” included a Jainism inspired story of a monk and had a beautiful song on agnosticism and karma which stuck with me. Another reason that I am drawn to Jainism is that I spent time in a Jain establishment with some ascetic Swetambaras who had given up material comforts and family life. While I cannot dream of doing that, I admired their sense of conviction. Lastly, I believe in the eclecticism of all Dharmic faiths so I do not really feel like I’m espousing an alien faith i.e it feels very organic, though I don’t know how all Jains might feel about that. My close childhood friend who happens to be Jain also went to Hindu temples, so the feeling is probably mutual, at least for some people. In sum, I aspire for Advatic connectedness but settle for non-harm. Anything that helps me avoid nihilism.
SouthIndian:
Thanks for your detailed reply.
As for the affinity you feel for Jainism, it is not surprising as all Dharmics share a common language and ethos. And I can say that the feeling is mutual.
Also whether you agree with their beliefs or not, the level of commitment needed to be a Shwetambar ( or Digambar) monk or nun is truly remarkable . If for no other reason, I admire those folks for their conviction and will power.
If anyone wants to see what the Indian insecurity complex looks like (and why right-wing parties that exploit these insecurities have been so successful in India), read Warlock’s comments.
1.) I never said Punjabis/Sindhis didn’t lose their language to the Aryans, you misread.
2.) Ancient Indian texts themselves, written by Hindus in North India before Islam’s arrival, explicitly say Punjabis and Sindhis are not Hindu. There is no ambiguity about this.
3.) Nobody made any mention of caste in Punjab.
4.) Yes it was obviously me who sent that comment, you got me.
5.) I don’t know how to judge Anthrogenica’s models or whatever, but they seem to be somewhat accurate for what they are (their results match up pretty well with Razib’s analysis and published models). There could be racists and weirdos there, but we have those here too.
6.) I think I’ve said this before, but if not, just know I think you are weird, and you come off as weird.
“In comparison, a least Pakistanis, Iranians, and Turks can say that while they adopted the religion of their conquerors, they maintained their language and culture. Indians visa-vis the Aryans fared much worse.”
No Pakistanis lost twice. Language and culture to Aryans and religion to Islamic invaders. N Indians lost once in your weird model. That too not as badly since Hinduism is more of an amalgamation than Islam is.
Hinduism has elements of Indus. Figures similar to Shiva and yogic poses in Indus. Hinduism, like many pagan polytheistic faiths, just adds Gods as it moves through. N Indian ideology wasn’t therefore completely trampled by aryans as Pak was by Muslim invaders as in your own model.
“Kabir your ancestors conquered Hindustan and here you are debating AnAn in the comments section (who I’m still not convinced isn’t a BJP bot).”
Kabir’s ancestors got owned just as badly as all of ours. He isn’t some persianized uzbek. Stop grandstanding one second about grand Muglai past and then lamenting about rape of your grand momma. Also, as a K1a maternal and H paternal, my most distant grandmomma was most likely not raped during dem aryan times; please speak for yourself 😉
“Punjabis and Sindhis lost their language to the Aryans, but never adopted their religion. They lost their religion to the Arabs/Turks, but retained their language. North Indians lost everything to the Aryans, so thoroughly that they still refuse to accept it.”
No they lost so many times they double disown their ancestors with the uneducated jumping to arabs and the educated and insecure (reddit, anthrofora, and Pakdefense) jumping to aryans. Basically doubly humiliated.
So Punjabis and Sindhis retained indus faith post aryan invasion lmfao. You are so full of shit. Punjab and Sindhu are not Hindu in ancient texts lol what. Yeah no ancient temples there. None at all. Earliest religious establishments were all Hindu there. Please read or visit a museum, if that is too hard for you. The Met in nyc has a lot of Hindu statues recovered from Punjab and Sindh from the ancient era. Also, Islamic iconoclasm is well established and desire to overrun local cultures. There is enough documentation of destruction of all places of worship. And please point to evidence of murderous Hindus with Buddhism. Hindus were never even properly united on a subcontinental level since Buddhist Asoka to commit the genocidal atrocities of the Mughals with well documented slave trade of Hindus into central asia. Also, Punjabis Pak are plenty “conquered” by urdu. Hell it is a multi lateral assault with the loss of even their script to persian.
When will you stop lying? Alt universe member you are
Can you all please leave my ancestors out of your weird fights? Thanks.
My family has been on the subcontinent for at least two hundred years (though some of them did come from Iran at some point). As far as I’m concerned I’m South Asian. I identify with Agra and Delhi rather than with Kabul and Tehran.
On a more general note, I really don’t understand the obsession some here have with minor details of genetic ancestry. In my experience, this is not a Pakistani thing. We know who we are–South Asian Muslims– and that is good enough for most of us.
@Kabir So your ‘few’ ancestors were Iranians and your religion is Arabic. Then what is Indian about you? I mean why do subcontinent ‘Indian’ muslims are so averse to their pre-Islamic identity?
What is “Indian” about me? My language (Urdu), food, clothing, music etc. All four of my grandparents were born in British India, two of them within the current nation-state of India (Amritsar and Agra).
Frankly, this is a rather bigoted question. Muslims have been on the subcontinent for hundreds of years. At this point, we should be considered natives and not foreigners.
kabir,
you have zero self awareness, and you keep proving Razib’s point about parroting liberal standard lines and NYTimes type virtue signalling.
Only a couple of posts ago, you claimed that your ancestors have been in India/subcontinent for 200 years. Implicitly you are denying you have any Indian ancestors from before that time. Then you get all self righteous when someone (tongue in cheek most likely) questions your Indian-ness.
yours is the standard Islamonationalist Paknationalist line. Here is how it goes: a) We came 200 to 1000 years ago b) We conquered and ruled c) We brought language, culture, food etc d) however, we have been here long enough that we are Indian (and you are bigoted for questioning it).
Do you see any acknowledgement of Indian ancestry there (not ancestors that came with the various central asian, turkic or persian groups)? Do you hear yourself?
All this when it is quite clear that the vast, vast majority of Muslims in the subcontinent are overwhemingly Indian by ancestry.
Heck, we have seen your pic (since you use your real name on posts here) and you are a standard issue North indian/UP guy.. Whatever your persian or central asian ancestry, you are just another brown guy..but your claim to Indianness is because “we have been here hundreds (200? 300?) years” LOL
I never said that ALL my ancestors came from Iran. Some did. Apparently, reading comprehension is not your strength.
Also, I have no issues being “brown” so that is neither here nor there.
@Kabir
You say your ‘language’, ‘food’ and ‘music’ is Indian.
Your ‘culture’ is definitely not Indian. There is almost nothing ‘Indian’ about ‘Islamic’ culture in India. The little remaining Indian in Indo-Paki muslim culture is also on the vere of extinction. Pakistanis like you even don’t have token appreciation for your pre-Islamic past like Persians or Indonesians.
Now apply same logic to another example. Many east Asian have adopted western ‘attire’, ‘music’, ‘arts’, ‘family system’, ‘political system’, ‘wedding ceremony’ and ‘food habits’. So should we start calling them ‘European’?
Even many Pakistanis have adopted western culture. So are these Pakistanis European?
[should i keep posting this guy? he seems like a dick. but he’s a type -Razib]
No one is insecure except you bro lol. You are the one calling everyone a troll and claiming they make up their ancestries, calling someone a “fake S Indian” just for disagreeing with you, only to be proven wrong.
You are the one with quotes like “I was trying to shit N Indians. Stop trying to defend them.”
You spout irrational nonsense. The hatred and vitriol in your comments is palpable. Seek some therapy man. Maybe do some yoga. You can even skip out on “Om” because it is part of evil Hinduism 😉
Caste in punjab is more proof of hinduism there
You sound like you were bullied as a child.
I wasn’t the only one who thought Mr. “South Indian” wasn’t South Indian, another user voiced the same thought. I still don’t believe he is btw, even if he lives in Karnataka.
I’ve made crude comments (North Indians) but they are intentional and transparent trolling. I’m trying to have a serious convo with Razib so if you can stop emotionally ejaculating everywhere it would be great.
“ejaculation.” Please don’t bring your traumatic childhood into this. I am sorry if it happened. But this isn’t the place.
To quote a great man,
“everyone this is what a highly insecure Pak Punjabi Sunni Muslim origin confused supremacist sounds like”
lmfao. “I still don’t believe…” Of course. You don’t believe in evidence. Generally speaking, you discount anything that doesn’t fit into your warped world view.
You are highly delusional man and need some cognitive behavioral therapy.
Serious discussion lol. It is one sided. Razib just thinks your query was interesting taken at face value. We all know your intention is steppe dick measuring. Don’t project. You sound like you were and continue to be the victim of bullying. Hence your poor attempts at trolling. Good trolling aims to be funny. You just sound butt hurt and engage in constant projection. It’s pretty sad man.
i ran some numbers with population and weighted by fraction. here’s my estimate:
all-india subcontinent steppe ~ 12.5%
adding pak+bdesh increases cuz pak is higher than bdesh is lower.
i estimate about “270,000,000” individuals of pure steppe ancestry would live in s. asia if you pooled them into individuals. for europe i estimate 45% steppe and 340,000,000 people.
showing my work https://www.dropbox.com/s/u14crscru6oe8yr/steppe.xls?dl=0
so even the upper end areas max out at 25% average. Kashmir being just as steppe average as Haryana is interesting.
Questioning my South Indian credentials doesn’t bother me much as my primary identity is that of an Indian, though other identities are also enriching. It is a great testament to India’s unity that outsiders and others are unable to correctly identify me as a South Indian. At the risk of offending some people, I do think on average Kannadigas are more patriotic Indians and more cosmopolitan than others. In the urban areas many Kannadigas are multilingual, speaking 3 or more languages. However, there are the Vatal Nagraj types even in Karnataka who are parochial. While he is not anti-India, he certainly is anti-North Indian. The Vatal Nagraj types are regarded as laughing stocks.
I’m more cosmopolitan than even the usual Kannadiga when it comes to my pan Indian connections. I’m tracing the reasons as an indicator of the general trends in India and the reasons for increasing cosmopolitanism:
1) About 4-5 generations back my ancestors moved from Andhra to Karnataka. While I can understand Telugu, I cannot speak Telugu fluently. I regard myself as a Kannadiga and connect with Kannada literature/culture more so than Telugu literature. However, I can possibly never become a Kannada chauvinist. Geographic mobility will temper regional identities in the long run, though there will be frictions in the short run.
2) Increasingly there is more inter-caste and inter-regional marriages in my family/friend circle. Some people in my family are married to North Indians whom they met at college or in IT firms. In one such wedding, the North Indians dubbed the marriage “North-South integration” which I thought was ridiculous at that time. However, in hindsight I think they did have a point.
3) I have close friends from across India whom I met in college or at work
4) I grew up on Bollywood movies and not averse to speaking in Hindi. Though I am tiny bit peeved when North Indians stubbornly refuse to learn Kannada while living in Karnataka.
When it comes to defining the Indian identity my order of preference for the future is as follows:
1) Top spot : Heterogeneous, open Indic civilizationist identity with a constitutional state. Rooted in diverse local traditions and multiple dharmic/other philosophies, tied together by Indic values. Open to positive influences from other cultures. Focused on modernizing economy while parallely reforming and reviving culture.
2) Second spot : Deracinated, true liberal identity equidistant from all religions. Law and order needs to be under control with no appeasement of minority or majority. All groups have only loose connection with their faiths. Civic identity based on constitutional norms prevails.
I will also live with soft hindutva identity with a constitutional state and a focus on economic progress. Needs to be modeled on Jewish asabiya in terms of its focus on progress in science, technology etc. Law and order needs to be under control with no vigilantism by any group minority or majority
Undesirable outcomes : 1)Communist/marxist identity 2) Woke identity focused on pseudo secularism, demonization of some cultures/groups 3) Hard hindutva 4) India with some states like Kerala and Bengal turning islamist with change in demography.
Another great conversation about soaring anti Jewish hatred and violent attacks between Maajid Nawaz and Bari Weiss:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xaN4bvg5kGE
Why did the fierce and invading Aryans chose to become Brahmins rather than Kshatriyas? This is an out of place question but I saw a lot of discussion here about Aryan invasion so I am posting it here.
In South Central India (Telangana/Andhra/Karnataka) brahmin power was usually limited to temple walls and it was some extraction from Kapu-Reddy/Kamma/Velama clans that ran the show however they patronized brahmins but never let them dominate. It was only after Muslim takeover of the area brahmins began dominating outside the temple walls and it continued until Brahmin dominated congress party rule that lasted up to 1960s. Going back, even after the fall of Mauryan empire Budhists/Jains dominated the area. (Satavahana dynasty- Vashishtaputra satakarni, Acarya Nagarjuna etc.)
My maternal family hails from kolanupaka/kulpakji, one of the important places for Jains/Shaivites. Currently we’re Hindu but I wonder how many people have lost their caste and had to take a different caste when they re-converted back to Hinduism.
Razib, a few years back you had a blogpost on the genetics on chitpavan brahmin,but that post is unavailable or deleted.Can you republish it?there is information available on almost all other castes except chitpavans.
Do you see any acknowledgement of Indian ancestry there (not ancestors that came with the various central asian, turkic or persian groups)? Do you hear yourself?
kabir is a schizo on this. he has literally denied knowledge/plausibility of hindu ancestors. “all the ones we know are muslim.” but then later he implicitly acknowledges that south asian muslims are almost all descended from converts, including himself.
perhaps it’s stupidity or perhaps a mental unbalance. idk.
Two things can be true at the same time:
1) I personally have some ancestors from Iran (which I have been told, it doesn’t really bother me either way).
2) The vast majority of South Asian Muslims are descended from converts. Many Pakistanis’ claims of foreign origin are exaggerated.
Kabir proves Razib right every time 🙂
In any case, I hope Razib goes easier on Kabir (there is not much hope but he is mostly harmless). OTOH hopefully folks have by now learnt that Pakthings has no interest in a discussion – he is textbook Paknationalist / Islamosupremacist. His atheist persuasion is just a distraction.
Once again, SOME (not ALL) ancestors from Iran.
Your reading comprehension skills are really pathetic. I almost feel sorry for you.
Haha Kabir. You seem ready to descend into comparing degrees now. Was it Georgetown or George Washington that you got your undergrad from? I know most people here can’t match up to your stellar liberal arts undergrad from a super prestigious school. No wonder our reading comprehension sucks 🙂
Reading comprehension doesn’t even require an undergraduate degree. Just a basic ability to understand English (SOME is not the same as ALL).
And this comes from the creepy person who says “we have seen your pic and you look brown”. A) who the hell cares that I’m “brown”? B) the fact that you bothered to see what I look like is frankly rather stalker-ish of you.
Your reading comprehension may get you to a passing score on the SAT but your critical thinking leaves a lot to be desired. But that’s OK, we should be kind and that’s why I have been urging Razib to lay off you. I’m on your side buddy.
As far as looking up your pic, you must be new to the internet.If you publish in your name, talk about your classical singing skills etc, it’s totally reasonable to look you up.
And there is nothing wrong in being brown. What is stupid is not writing what you mean. Use your superior comprehension skills to decipher this gem that you wrote: “My family has been on the subcontinent for at least two hundred years (though some of them did come from Iran at some point).”
First of all, it is *in* the subcontinent, not *on* the subcontinent, oh master of English.
Second, your post clearly implies that your family has been here two hundred years, give or take, else you would have said some of your ancestors.
OK, I’m now done wasting time with you. Bye for now (unless I change my mind)..haha
1) Who the hell cares what someone looks like? That’s neither here nor there
2)”On the continent” is actually correct English. “In the continent” makes no sense whatsoever.
3) I literally said “Some of them”. Do you not even read what you copy and paste?
OK, I’m going to let the rest of this pass (Need to get some work done) but I would like help improve your English a bit. Some good should come out of this exchange.
https://forum.wordreference.com/threads/in-the-continent-or-on-the-continent.1678491/
“In general I think that to a degree it depends what you are referring to. For words ending in ‘ing’, you can use ‘on’ – eg its raining on the continent. Its boring on the continent. Whereas for other terms like more geographical terms you would generally say ‘in’ – e.g. Alaska is the largest state in the continent of north america.”
Wow, you are a condescending prick. I don’t need your or anyone else’s help to “improve my English”. You are talking to someone who scored 800 out of 800 on the SAT Verbal. Jesus!
Fraxinicus,
Here are my ideas on how to handle right of return:
—dual citizenship for Palestinians and Israelis . . . allowing settlers in the West Bank and Palestinian Israeli citizens (Israeli Arabs) full voting rights for both Israeli and Palestinian elections
—a complete free trade, free cross border product development collaboration, free cross border business development agreement
—mass affirmative action for expats (Palestinians living outside of Israel, the West Bank and Gaza), Gazans, West Bank Palestinians, Israeli Arabs (Palestinian Israeli citizens) to attend Israeli universities (to give Palestinians “right of return”) with student visas and scholarships
——over three decades increase the number of Israeli university seats set aside for Palestinians to 40% of all seats
——reserve 40% of all West Bank and Gaza university seats for Israeli Jewish citizens
——far more liberal day work, longer term work, business visas for Palestinians who want to work in or conduct business in Israel
——far more tourist and religious visas for Palestinians
——reserve 10% of all English university seats at infinitum for global Palestinians with affirmative action, scholarships and student visas effective immediately paid for by her Majesty’s Exchequer.
This will be part of English reparations for the terrible harm England did by greatly exxacerbating the Israeli Palestinian conflict. As part of this deal the rest of the world (including all common wealth countries) publicly renounces accepting any apologies or foreign aid from England for any and all crimes England has committed from the begining of written history. Now all English foreign aid and efforts related to previous English errors can be directed to doing right by the Palestinians. England will agree to finance 2/3rds of the tuition, room and board of all Palestinaisn attending Israeli universities, and 100% of the tuition, room and board of all Jewish Israeli citizens attending West Bank and Gazan unversities at infinitum.
What do you think about my ideas for solving the right of return? England can over the next few generations absorb much of the expat Palestinian population.
I think Palestinians and Israelis would go for this solution.
I have many other ideas for Palestine Israel (many of which involve Turkey and technical details and adjudicating all remaining property disputes), but that is a much longer conversation.
I don’t really get his comparing of Zionism to Native Americans going back to their ancestral lands, then comparing Palestinians to white colonisers in the USA. Arabs have been there even before Jesus, with peoples like the Nabateans.
Zionism is probably more comparable to Greek Orthodox Christians from Lebanon whose families have lived in Brazil for the past 5 generations deciding to settle in Istanbul and telling the Kurds and Turks living there that they’re foreigners, and this belongs to them because of Constantinople.
Honestly, this entire podcast was mostly a Zionist apologia.
It’s extremely disingenuous to compare Palestinians-the natives of the land– to settler-colonists in the US. Israel is definitely a settler-colonial state (as are the US and Canada) but the comparison works the other way around. It is the European Jews who are the settler-colonists and the Palestinians who are the natives.
Lihyotam xofši beyartsenu,
Erets-tsiyon virušalāyem!
Go Slapstik!
++++++++++++++++++++++
Cyrus,
The origin of Palestinians is extremely diverse. Many Palestinians are Arabs who moved to Palestine after the fall of the Ottomans in 1918. Many Jews also moved to Palestine after 1918. About half of all Israeli Jews (maybe more) are Arab Jews. Most of them moved to Israel from Iraq, Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Libya, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia. Many Israeli Jews are also Iranian and Azerbaijani.
In 1947 the largest Jewish city in the world was Baghdad Iraq, followed by New York, the United States.
Many Israeli non Jews (Druze and Arab Bedoins) are very pro Israel.
Zionism is probably more comparable to Greek Orthodox Christians from Istanbul whose families have lived in Brazil for 450 years who move back to Istanbul.
Technically the Arabs and Jews who moved to Palestine until 1948 did so under UK law. (In fact many Jews had started moving back to Palestine under Ottoman rule.)
“Bhimrao
MARCH 13, 2020 AT 7:26 AM
@iamVY
Two quick points:
1) I wish there were more Pakistani (practicing) muslims who are open to real give and take of ideas. I just wasted an hour reading and fact checking a garbage ‘research paper’ posted by INDTHINGS on religious persecution by Hindus. He makes no sense and I am done wasting my time on him.
2) I have been reading and commenting on Sufism here. My understanding is that people really give it more credit/reverence than is due. Most prominent Sufi mystics were pretty horrible guys. There might be gems in their philosophy and I am very willing to know from senior members what these great ‘universal’ teachings are and how favorably compare against say things like Tao Te Ching, Yogasutras or Lotus sutra in originality/depth/peacefulness/… . But so far I have been disappointed in Sufism and find it grossly over hyped for the sake of ‘all religions are essentially same’ kind of nonsense. And I do not think that ‘Sufism is much better approximation than others.’”
Bhimrao, several podcasts with Sufi masters are planned for Brown Pundits Podcast.
Have some detailed posts in mind but wish to have been vetted with Sufi masters first.
Not all self described Sufis are really muraqaba Sufis or liberal. However some really are. The head of the Chisti silsila order told me that the vast majority of self proclaimed Sufi living Pirs are fakes. I agree with him.
This conversation does not belong in this comment section (which should be dedicated to Israel.) I think you should ask these questions on Slapstik’s post:
https://www.brownpundits.com/2020/03/07/what-are-the-orthodox-hindu-views-of-mohamed/
Your questions need to be answered in detail.
Thanks!