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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   32253 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of January 2, 2023

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I hope they don't end up like Pakistan, where your entire identity and history is tied up in hating the country where it all comes from.

Without Islam, Pakistanis are just Indians, and that reality is indigestible to them. So instead of making peace with our shared history, they are on a quest to be an Islamic nation like no other. Sadly for them, there is no such thing as a culturally Muslim country. At that point, you're just copying Arab traditions, while the Arabs themselves see you as an impure/inferior race. The people are confused, because at an organic level, their traditions are very much Indian.

Indonesia effortlessly balances its Hindu cultural roots with Islam and Malaysia faces more friction, but still does a better job than Pakistan. You simply cannot build a stable country that is expected to hate its own cultural roots. In the subcontinent - Bangladeshis don't have this issue, because they have a real cultural sub-identity : Bengali. Pakistan can't adopt a similarly dominant local sub-identity for 2 reasons. First, Punjabi would be the most common sub-identity, but Sikhs have wholesale monopoly on that identity. Pakistani Islam can't make peace with a Sikh influenced co-identity. Second, Pakistan is multicultural, and separatist movements are rooted in resentment towards Punjabi dominance. Making that explicit will only give power to Balochi & Pashtun terrorists.

I can see some similar parallels here. From Hatred towards the mother-state, lack of a unifying identity that is separate from the mother-state and fostering snakes in their own backyard. (Islamists, Neo-nazis). Both of them are only important to NATO because they balance out hostile (to NATO) powers in the region. And the second you take the current military aid, their complete economic bankruptcy becomes hard to look away from.

Similarly, if you take away the history, then the mother-state is your most natural trading partner and prospective ally. Living with historic resentment actively makes life harder for your country.

I have more sympathy towards Ukraine because unlike Pakistan, their problems aren't of their own creation. But in 2022, Pakistan is the poster child of 'failed state'. I sure hope that Ukraine can avoid the same predicament.

I really like this framing, but the more I thought about it the less sure I became that it's likely. I'm hugely ignorant in the complexities of both societies, but it seems like Ukraine will have many advantages that Pakistan never had, or had working against it. Things like general level of tech and industry, access to wealth, landmass and sea access, education levels, etc. I'm really not sure about the religious thing. It seems a lot more 'hot' between Muslims and Hindus than it does between Eastern and Western Christians.

I would also predict that the most likely end to this war is a settlement where a big chunk of Ukriane ends up in Russia...likely, the 'more' culturally Russian bits they already have. This will act as a bit of a pressure valve for the two main factions presented in your argument.

I'm skeptical but interested.

It doesn’t fit their general image as a country but Pakistan has quite a lot of sea access by the way.

You know, this parallel never occurred to me, to be honest, but this write-up makes it completely clear. Thumbs up.

All excellent points. Thanks for the write up. I think people from countries undergoing recent nation building processes have a more instinctive understanding of the addictive emotional appeal as well as the absurdity and fragility of the whole thing compared to the Anglos on this platform.

Have you read Naipaul’s Among the Believers?

Similarly, if you take away the history, then the mother-state is your most natural trading partner and prospective ally. Living with historic resentment actively makes life harder for your country.

Good point, often very much overlooked. Soviet industries were designed for interdependence at a gigantic continental scale. Putting (economically) arbitrary borders in the different parts of these supply chains have been absolutely disastrous for everyone involved except the people looting and selling out the factories. Sealing shut the Belarus and Russian borders will destroy any remnants of Ukrainian industry and even if they manage to integrate into European scale supply chains this will be a very painful very long term project.

It's not too unusual for countries to define themselves as "not X and not Y". A famous statement of Finnish nationalism is "Swedes we are not, Russians we shall not be, thus let us be Finns".

Ukrainians define themselves in this way against Russia, of course, but have historically also done it against the idea that they're just "Ruthenians of the Polish nation" or whatever (after all, Poles are what Bandera and the gang fought against). Of course, in recent years, the definition-against-Polishness part has been quite muted.

"Svenskar äro vi inte längre, ryssar vilja vi inte bli, låt oss alltså bli finnar." We are no longer swedes, we don't want to be Russian, thus let us be finns.

Huh? The Finnish people have a peculiar ethnic origin and also a language that make them markedly distinct from both Slavic and Scandinavian peoples. Ukraine is in a different situation.

I will never get over the actual name Pakistan building off an acronym for the regional ethnic groups/regional areas. It would be like a US ethnic minority secession country calling itself Bipocia or the Pacific Northwest seceding as Pwnia.

I will never get over the actual name Pakistan building off an acronym for the regional ethnic groups/regional areas.

Not only this.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pakistan#Name_of_Pakistan

He added that "Pakistan is both a Persian and Hindi word... It means the land of the Paks, the spiritually pure and clean."[35] Etymologists note that پاک pāk, is 'pure' in Persian and Pashto[36] and the Persian suffix ـستان -stan means 'land' or 'place of'.[37][38][39][40]

...

It would be like a US ethnic minority secession country calling itself Bipocia or the Pacific Northwest seceding as Pwnia.

First name sounds good and is well pronounceable, and this is what matters.

Second name needs one more vowel.

Pownia? No, no one wants to be associated with losers who got captured.

Pawnia is it.

Pawnians arise! Fly your flag high and proud! Glory to the great Pawnia!

Pwnia

Pwnia, land of the Gamers and Haxors, est. 1337.

I can see some similar parallels here. From Hatred towards the mother-state, lack of a unifying identity that is separate from the mother-state and fostering snakes in their own backyard.

Pakistan, Ukraine, Ireland... anyone else?

I would argue (North) Macedonia. In opposition to Bulgaria rather than Greece.

To be fair Macedonia had always been a fairly distinct region with its own ethnic religious makeup. It’s also where half the ruling class of the early Turkish Republic came from coincidentally including Ataturk himself who is from Thessaloniki (a Jewish-Turkish-Bulgarian city of historical Macedonia until Greeks took over and ethnically cleansed everyone else).

It’s not super clear to me why the current version of Macedonia is so anti-Bulgaria.

The Bulgarian perspective is that North Macedonia to them is a lot like what Moldova is to Romania, that is that it's an identity constructed in the past by a bigger power to strengthen their hold of the region.

Moldovans in general seem somewhat agreeable or at worst ambivalent towards the claim that they are Romanians, but the people of North Macedonia seem very invested in their new national identity. They've engaged in some weird historical revisionism over the years, and the Bulgarians have viewed this as a kind of erasure of Bulgarian history.

England was supposed to be loving and caring mother of Ireland?

Obligatory Soviet joke is in order.

Teacher: Lil Peter, who are your parents?

Petya: Our great leader Stalin is my father, and our great Soviet country is my mother!

Teacher: You are smart boy. What you want to be when you grow up?

Petya: An orphan.

edit: link fixed

England was still the only nation willing to care about them i.e. she was willing to annex them, at least.

England was still the only nation willing to care about them i.e. she was willing to annex them, at least.

The Spanish are not amused with this answer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ireland%E2%80%93Spain_relations#Early_relations

In 1554-58 Philip Prince of Asturias was married to Mary I and was named as titular King of Ireland in the Papal Bull Ilius ad quem. As a result, during the first plantations of Ireland what is now County Offaly was shired as "King's County", and Philipstown (now Daingean) was named in his honour, the first Irish place named after someone from Spain. Soon after Mary's death he succeeded as Philip II of Spain.

In 1601, Spain supported Irish rebels fighting against England during the Nine Years War, and especially during the Siege of Kinsale. At the time, the Catholics of Ireland saw Spain as a potential liberator of their country from Protestant England and in 1595 Hugh O'Neill offered the crown of Ireland to Philip II of Spain. Philip refused the offer, having already been the titular King of Ireland.

England was supposed to be loving and caring mother of Ireland?

I think the mother nation here is intended in a different way. It’s clear both Ukraine and Pakistan used to be just some subregions of a greater civilisation with minor cultural differences. If early 20th century history worked out slightly differently the chances are they would never exist.

It’s clear both Ukraine and Pakistan used to be just some subregions of a greater civilisation with minor cultural differences.

Most of Ukraine was indeed a part of Poland/Lithuania for 300 years, and large parts were beyond that, as well. I'm sure that's not what is meant here, though, but it's still worth noting that the idea that Ukraine and Russia have been together forever and ever is rather tendentious - it requires an assumption that Kyivan Rus is in perfect equivalence to current Russia, for one, and the RSFSR/Ukraine relationship within Soviet Union has its own complications, as well.

Regarding Pakistan, I can't find it any longer, but I remember an interesting Quora post making the point that the territories currently forming Pakistan have actually spent surprisingly little time being a part of the same political unit as the (most of the) rest of India, and most of that time was during explicitly Muslim empires or other foreign rule - for instance, the British only managed to make headway in Pakistan starting from 1830s, and the British conquest of former Durrani territories in current Pakistan really only got going around some decades later.

Most of Ukraine was indeed a part of Poland/Lithuania for 300 years, and large parts were beyond that, as well.

I think there is a misunderstanding here. The expression "Ukraine" and "Ukrainian" has indeed been in use for hundreds of years in Russia, Poland and also Lithuania, but this is a geographic phrase applied to the same borderland or border/outer region located between the two powers and its inhabitants (this is what the word literally means).

I meant the current territory of Ukraine, here. The point being that the Ukrainian and Russian populations have lived in separate states for centuries before the formerly-Polish territories fell under the Russian Empire control.

Of course, other parts of Ukraine weren't controlled by Poland at any point, but most of those weren't controlled by Russia, either, during that period, but rather by the Golden Horde and the various other Khanates, and were then resettled - as far as I've understood - chiefly from Ukraine.

That’s true. A bit difficult for me to imagine how such a cultural divide is being bridged over by the current nationalist Ukraine. Turkey has its fair share of nation building monstrosities but at least virtually all of its peoples and territories had been the part of same empire since like forever.

The Republic Ireland as such has done markedly better than those two with independence.

How bad can a country located in Northern Europe and didn’t enter the WW2 do for itself in the 20th century realistically though?

See Ireland, Northern.

Also not as bad as Pakistan or Ukraine, but a lot worse than Ireland in terms of ethnic conflict.

Also, Spain, which stayed out of WW2, but nonetheless managed to have a civil war that was even nastier than Ireland's and a very long period of fascism/post-fascism (rather than just De Valera's long fantasy of a Celtic Catholic leprechaun kingdom.)

Isn’t their GDP per capita roughly equal to Wales? I don’t think they could keep up such alright economic standards with so much ethnic violence if they were located in any other part of the world

Fair point. I suppose that raises the further question, "What's wrong with Wales?", but we don't have all week.

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