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PaperclipPerfector  19d ago (text post)   30927 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 2, 2024

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Is it realistic to hope that this can/will open a path to the repatriation of Syrian refugees/“refugees” currently in Europe? Like presumably a great many Syrians who fled the country did so because they were either direct opponents of the Assad regime or were otherwise threatened by Assad’s rule specifically. With a rebel Sunni-led government transitioning into power, will this be seen as plausibly obviating those asylees’ original claims?

There's a mention within the webpage for this study (the study itself does not give definite total numbers) saying that 'As of December 2022, approximately five million Iraqi nationals have returned from abroad', though that may include refugees from near abroad (other Middle Eastern countries, that is), and some number of them have probably emigrated again.

Turkish government has immediately made announcements to the effect but I have dim hopes of even Syrians in Turkey leaving. The ones in Europe look basically impossible without a very radical shift

It would be politically interesting to show that look, even if their home country stabilizes, these “refugees” will never ever leave once they are here

I think we always knew that. The anti- side knew that they would become a permanent welfare underclass, and the pro-side thought they would become vibrant and diverse 'new-Europeans'.

It's so insane. It's like the European elites looked at all the problems America has with its black underclass and thought to themselves "I gotta get one of those".

Blame Disney. Making Gypsies hot exotic innocents who deserve pity made all criticism of domestic underclasses impossible to maintain without cries of 'racism', a charge that magnified its weight from the 1960s till now. Guy Ritchie making Travellers hot probably didn't help either.

On a more serious note, the Europeans successfully kicking Irish Travellers and Gypsies out of cultural capitals and into third rate cities (Marseille always had a reputation and right now Malmo is its own meme) probably had a great deal to do with the acceptability of a postracial European polity. Out of sight, out of mind. Some places being perennial shitholes regardless of foreigner presence probably contributed greatly to the presumption that shitheads are race-agnostic, blinding polite society to the racialized nature of shitheads till it became too late.

implying [from a European perspective- they still think they're sovereign, how cute] American fifth-columnists haven't been planting those ideas in European elites for the past 80 years

Europeans are a conquered people (their massive civil wars in the first half of the 20th century saw to that) and naturally align themselves with Imperial aesthetics. Sure, there's the whole power dynamic divide and conquer thing, but that's downstream of there being no real European elite other than that which is legitimized by the Americans.

I think greentexting like that is kind of confusing and the same point could be made without it.

Uh, elites are largely unaware of the problems of the black underclass aside from poverty porn handwringing about the pernicious effects of racism on the community.

If they do not know the problems of the black underclass, then how do they know what to censor? Like the man inventing excuses for the dragon in his garage, they must have a model of black dysfunction hidden somewhere in their brains; otherwise, would not know which thoughts are dangerous. Hence "the woke are more correct than the mainstream"; when a progressive complains that coming down on crime will affect black people the hardest, it is because he realizes on some level that blacks are much more criminal than whites.

From 1984 by George Orwell:

Winston sank his arms to his sides and slowly refilled his lungs with air. His mind slid away into the labyrinthine world of doublethink. To know and not to know, to be conscious of complete truthfulness while telling carefully constructed lies, to hold simultaneously two opinions which canceled out, knowing them to be contradictory and believing in both of them, to use logic against logic, to repudiate morality while laying claim to it, to believe that democracy was impossible and that the Party was the guardian of democracy, to forget whatever it was necessary to forget, then to draw it back into memory again at the moment when it was needed, and then promptly to forget it again, and above all, to apply the same process to the process itself—that was the ultimate subtlety: consciously to induce unconsciousness, and then, once again, to become unconscious of the act of hypnosis you had just performed. Even to understand the word "doublethink" involved the use of doublethink.

Yeah, if they are aware of problems with blacks, european elites chalk them up to the legacy of slavery, american racism, lack of welfare, excessive police and carceral state – all mistakes they could never make. Their superiority complex is hilariously mirrored in american elites view of the european muslim and roma underclass – the europeans obviously don’t know how to integrate people, they don’t have the wonderful american civic tradition, they lack the welcoming culture and ritual turkey-killing, etc.

they don’t have the wonderful american civic tradition

But when they do have this tradition, they can be blamed because their tradition is more aggressive and assimilationist than the US, so maybe that's causing the backlash

The fawning defense of Trevor Noah in that article is remarkable. By saying black people aren't French, what's apparently happening is the following:

Noah ... in his response offers a critique of traditional French approaches to diversity from a progressive, multicultural point of view.

I have never met an American who had anything nice to say about gypsies if they knew what gypsies were. Ironically I've heard more eastern euros come to their defense than Americans.

American elites, or at least blue tribe elites, do seem to legitimately actually believe that Arabs could be integrated if Europeans were more welcoming. To be fair, there's also a huge contingent of Americans who believe 'what do you expect? Muslims are violent savages' and while there's not a ton of true elites in that category, it gets surprisingly close thereto.

They think the (mostly Christian IIRC) Dearborn Arabs are representative of Arabs worldwide.

That belief codes as super low status to me, I would say it’s completely outside the elite’s overton window(of both continents). Even though I think a redneck going off such an uncouth heuristic would likely be more often correct than a member of the elite. Eg, the recent syrian re-shuffling. It’s unlikely to go well, and if you don't have giant 'egalitarian' blinders on, it's obvious that the religion of peace has a lot to do with it. Every time you get rid of a dictator, they start larping as 7th century warlords.

It's so insane. It's like the European elites looked at all the problems Americans have with its black underclass and thought to themselves "I gotta get one of those".

The American elites don't have to deal with the problems of a black underclass. On the other side in the ledger, empires as far back as the Babylonians realized that ethnically divided provinces were easier to rule.

On the other side in the ledger, empires as far back as the Babylonians realized that ethnically divided provinces were easier to rule.

I'd imagine that only applied to remote parts of the empire that are ethnically distinct from the heartland. Close to home, I'm pretty sure you'd rather your territory be ethnically unified to lower chances of rebellions/separatism.

Ethnic rebellion and separatism are rare. The Ottomans successfully played divide and rule for centuries.

The more members of the ruling ethnicity are around, the more credible competitors there are.

This is the problem a lot of ethnonationalist philosophy suffers from, it starts from the assumption that ethnos is primary. If I'm the Ottoman emperor, am I making moves to maximize the odds the empire stays together, the odds a Turk is on the throne, the odds a member of the dynasty is on the throne, or the odds that I and my immediate descendants remain on the throne? All can be in conflict on the margins.

Perhaps outright rebellion or separatism is unlikely, but at the very least stability is far more likely under conditions of ethnic homogeneity? With highly diverse populations, you've got a higher chance of different factions fighting each other, and even if they're not fighting you, that's still pretty detrimental to overall security, the economy etc. As you said, this might take a back seat to certain other priorities, but I'd imagine it's generally pretty high up there. Ethnically divided regions might be easier to rule, but they're also easier for enemies to conquer.

To take the Ottoman example (and I could be completely wrong on this, I'm not a subject-matter expert), I doubt there'd be many Sultans who'd would want core provinces like Anatolia to look like modern-day Lebanon.

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This is the problem a lot of ethnonationalist philosophy suffers from, it starts from the assumption that ethnos is primary.

People are still thinking on 1789-1945 terms. Ethnonationalism (really, it should just be 'nationalism') thrived then because the military meta made loyal mass armies the backbone of a good army. The only other period in history quite like it, as far as I know, was the infantry meta of the Warring States period 475 – 221 BC, and if you look at the institutions of Qin, the winner of that conflict, they sound exactly like something out of 19th century Prussia.

Absent this, empires frequently bring in outsiders to help them rule even their core provinces. The Mamluks had their Circassian slaves, the Turks their Balkan janissaries, the Roman emperors their freemen and barbarian-staffed administrations.

Clearly elites are protected from the worst results of their bad decisions, but I don't think it's some conspiracy to divide the working class.

A better explanation is that it comes from social signalling, where high status people can signal their abundance by not being concerned with petty things like crime and taxes.

As societal wealth gets higher and higher, the signalling required to separate oneself from the commoners gets more expensive. A high end watch is not going to cut it. You need luxury beliefs, the more extreme the better. Among these luxury beliefs, one of the most common is a hatred for white people and the belief that countries need to be reformed by importing large numbers of non-whites. If they are criminals and layabouts, it's actually better because it destroys the existing society more effectively. The signal is clear: "You worry about crime and your community all you want. Your worries are low status. I have so many resources I'll be fine whatever happens."

I've been meaning to write a post about the irony of dirt-poor post-grad white men being the most motivated regime propagandists on Twitter; compensating for lack of real status by signalling luxury beliefs as hard as possible.

The guys who were sneering hardest at every concern about inflation, crime, and woke discrimination were the ones getting mugged on their way to teach a graduate seminar in European history for $14.50/hr, because they'd watched all the tenured positions go to Queer Black History profs.

Yeah, I've noticed that too. I always wonder what kind of man puts himself in that situation.

But it does give me hope that maybe we've reached peak woke. Woke beliefs have filtered down to some very low status people now, and so its time for another turn of the barber pole.

It's quite common now for women to express contempt for sniveling "male feminists". They'll often couch this in terms of these men not being true allies, but I think more accurately it's a disgust reaction to low status men.

Having heterodox beliefs is a luxury afforded to the strong and high status.

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People who fear their neighbour are wont to beg for the elites to protect them from him.

The EU could come to a deal to return them, but it would undoubtedly be blocked by the ECHR. The ECHR ruled that deportation to a country where any part is unsafe (construed extremely broadly, including for ‘human rights’ reasons) is illegal. They’re not going to allow deportation to Syria in any case, and wouldn’t whether under Assad or HTS or (likely) anyone else.

In addition, many Syrian migrants in Western Europe have already received asylum / permanent residency, many are already citizens.

What prevents the EU from just ignoring ECHR if enough countries wants it?

The entire European project is based on obeying signed treaties, protocols and contracts. There's little concrete beyond this mutual structure to hold it together (after all, it doesn't have a military). If countries start to renege on them, the fear is that the whole project starts crashing.

ECHR is however, obviously destructive and acting against interests of particular countries and Europe as a whole. If European politicians can't perform one act of statesmanship and dissolve it, what then ?

The constitutions of many EU countries and established law. Of course every law can be overturned and countries can withdraw or simply ignore the ECHR, but domestic courts (eg in Italy) can prevent or stymie this. It turns into a long, protracted legal battle that outlasts any rightist government.

domestic courts

And herein lies the problem. Courts in Western EU countries are more loyal to Brussels-aligned worldview than anything else (ETA; anything else includes, the intent and letter of laws and treaties). During nearly all of the post-Lisbon treaty years, until 2020, everyone understood that the EU treaties did not permit the EU bonds. In one night, powers that be noticed the treaties are only worth the paper they written on, as nobody really understands what is written on them [1]. Consequently, they could re-interpret them as they pleased, and the EU "recovery" package (NextGenerationEU) was born. Some legal crickets remain, and are loudly ignored ("it does not appear completely implausible that the measure could be based on Art. 311(2) TFEU", the great legal standard of constitutional thought in Germany as it relates to the EU law.)

Similar re-interpretations of treaties have not proven possible (and I predict, will not prove possible) against mass migration. By iron law of bureaucracy, the EU bureaucracy exists only to make the EU bureaucracy more powerful, and by extension, serve interest of the social class of people who fill its ranks. For this class, mass migration is not a concern. Their vision of EU is a multicultural, multiethnicity realm. Import of new peoples is not at odds with the vision, and along the way found a way to make Bertold Brecht poem true -- with mass migration, the government may have found a way to dissolve the people and elect another.

[1] Unlike the US constitution, which generally defines the institutions and their powers, the EU treaties are written in vague legalese fluff. Compare:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

To borrow Money on the credit of the United States; [...]

Art 311 of TFEU

The Union shall provide itself with the means necessary to attain its objectives and carry through its policies. Without prejudice to other revenue, the budget shall be financed wholly from own resources. The Council, acting in accordance with a special legislative procedure, shall unanimously and after consulting the European Parliament adopt a decision laying down the provisions relating to the system of own resources of the Union. In this context it may establish new categories of own resources or abolish an existing category. That decision shall not enter into force until it is approved by the Member States in accordance with their respective constitutional requirements.

The US constitution grants the Congress power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to borrow money on the credit, and so forth. TFEU grants a "system of own resources of the Union" "without prejudice to other revenue" and way to establish a new categories of them, which apparently also included ability to borrow money on the credit of the European Union.

Very very loud leftist politicians.

Yes.

Conditional on there being relative stability in any of the major cities (Aleppo down through Damascus), there is a non-trivial chance that an aid-for-acceptance swap will occur, in which external backers (Turkey / the EU) offer much needed financial / civil governance assistance in exchange for whoever is holding the area to accept returnees. The benefit to the local authorities is not only the assistance in rebuilding what they'd want to rebuild anyway (including housing to absorb more than just the returnees), but the 'import' of a tax and recruit base.

This will be less viable in the areas where there is significant fighting, but with the collapse of the Assad government it's uncertain how much Iran can, or will try, to force a fight. Beyond that, the actual ability of internecine militant conflict is unclear.

The factors that enabled internecine fighting between militant groups in the civil war phase were the presence of a unifying opponent to justify mobilization in general and tactical alliances in particular (Assad as the unifying enemy), the inflow of resources to fight and compete over (foreign aid to groups opposing Assad), and the lack of clear leading groups (mutual relative weakness supporting existential struggles). The later in particular was a goal / function of Russian airpower, which prioritized consolidating / less radical power groups in order to keep the rest fragmented and present Assad as the only alternative to ISIS.

With Assad's fall, those factors have substantially changed. There isn't a single unifying interest to drive mass mobilization, the interest external states have for flooding the anti-Assad movement with weapons has changed now that there is no Assad, there are indeed dominant groups whose clear strength facilitates detente rather than existential struggle, and there isn't likely to be a Russian (or American) air campaign deliberately trying to crack coalitions.

In all likelihood, Syria will be a complete mess, so no hope of that from me.

Obviously no because the Syrian refugees in Europe are economic migrants. European countries are not even deporting rapists and other criminals. Why would they deport people because of a regime change in their home country? Those Syrian refugees and their descendants are there for good. Future anthropologists will study the demographic transition which is very similar to how Corded Ware culture replaced Bell Beaker culture - except that this latest demographic replacement happened more quickly.

Asylum was just a fig leaf in the first place. Refugees are supposed to go to the first safe country, not the place with the most generous welfare benefits and strongest pro-outgroup bias.

Refugees are supposed to go to the first safe country

Is this actually a law or part of a treaty?

No. The system that the 1951/1967 Refugee Convention was supposed to be setting up was one where refugees were registered in the first safe country they reached, and then where they ended up was determined by negotiation between the UNHCR and the receiving countries.

"Refugees are supposed to stay in the first safe country" is not law - it is arguably implied by the clauses in the convention saying that refugees can't be prosecuted for illegal immigration when they cross from a dangerous country to the first safe country.

Refugees are supposed to go to the first safe country

To be fair the vast majority did go to Turkey.

...and those that left for Europe have demonstrated that they don't respect the law.

Countries can set whatever immigration/refugee targets they want, but their selection procedure shouldn't be "whoever is most willing to lie and cheat". They may not have written that policy down anywhere, but that's what happens when you don't enforce the rules.

The more relevant migrant flows wouldn't be from Europe to Syria, but Turkey to Syria, in turn enabling Europe to Turkey (which already occurs in substantial amounts).

Turkey not only has the far greater number of Syrian refugees, but those who did just go to the first safe country. These are a electoral burden, and facilitating their return was a policy goal of Turkish-Syrian relations for a good part of the last year, and Assad's refusal to engage on that was part of the Turkish support for the coalition that just took most of the major cities in Syria.

If/when Turkey pressures its recent partners to accept back Turkish-based refugees in exchange for continued reconstruction / reconsolidation / resist-other-rivals aid, that will create two opportunities for the Europeans. One is leverage the opening for their own aid-for-reacceptance bargains (as countries being willing to accept deportees is one of the big obstacles Europe has to deportation), and another is to make renewed deals with the Turks to accept the European-reached migrants, a deal more possible when Turkey has reduced its own refugee burden.

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