Category Archives: Sudan

by Robert A. Lindsay | August 28, 2017 · 10:56 PM

Male Homosexuality in the Arab World

Tata writes: Maybe you could help me understand a phenomenon. In the Middle East and especially in the Gulf countries, homosexuality is punishable by the death penalty and decapitation. Paradoxically, I have often heard that the Arabs of the Gulf have many homo relations between them because they do not have access to women. It seems that it is rampant in the Gulf, and apparently the fear of dying does not stop them.

But I read a bizarre story about a Gulf prince who got caught in a fight in a gay nightclub in London with his lover. This guy is a hypermasculine Arab man, and he doesn’t look gay. But maybe Arabs have too much testosterone and are always horny, that’s why they put a tent on the head of their women and could fuck anything. I don’t know, it’s just a reflection.

The prince is in London, and there are no obstacles to have contacts with women, dozens of women if he want. He drives a Ferrari, he is rich, he is a prince, but he continues to go to gay nightclubs and avoids women? Why? Another rumor is of another prince from the Gulf who allegedly murdered one of his employees with whom he had gay relations. It seems that there is a mentality in the Gulf that if the guy is active rather than passive, he is not gay. Are these guys gay, bi or straight? Can a hetero sodomize a guy and be hetero nevertheless and continue to act full macho? I find this crazy and I do not understand this mentality.

I have heard that in the Arab World, you are not considered gay if you play the male role in gay sex. This is true in Morocco and Egypt at the very least. 20-30% of young Egyptian and Moroccan men have played the male role in gay sex. The guys who play the passive role are considered faggots. They are not necessarily persecuted though. It’s more that they are used sexually as a surrogate female by straight men.

William Burroughs and Paul Bowles lived in Morocco for years. Allen Ginsberg visited Burroughs in Tangier. I have also heard that Oscar Wilde went to Morocco with some other European gay men and had sex with teenage boys there. All of these men were basically gay. All of Burroughs neighbors knew that he was gay and was having sex with teenage street boys, but no one ever turned him in. I never heard the dynamics of the type of sex that Burroughs, Bowles and Wilde were engaging in with those Moroccan street boys. Apparently there was quite a bit of this going on in Moroccan society, and as long as you were very quiet about it, no one cared.

There is a lot of gay sex in Saudi Arabia. There are even quite a few of what could be termed gay bars. I am not sure of the sexual orientation of the men who are doing such things. Obviously if you prevent men from having sex with women, a lot of them are going to start screwing guys instead. That’s just the way men are.

Supposedly nothing is done about all of this gay sex in Saudi Arabia as long as they are very quiet and discreet about it. When they start getting loud about it, the authorities crack down. There were a number of arrests in Saudi Arabia recently at a gay wedding of two Saudi men getting informally married. There were female impersonators there, and the whole thing got out of hand pretty fast. The authorities raided the party and made a number of arrests.

Similarly, a group of gay men threw a wild gay party on board a boat on the Nile River recently. This was considered to be flaunting it, and these men were arrested, tried and sentenced to a few years in prison. The trial caused quite a fuss.

But I have heard that there are quite a few gay couples living quiet lives in Cairo. Everyone knows about it, and no one cares.

I read a recent article by a gay man who went to Egypt on vacation. He was on the Nile in Lower Egypt where he was renting boat boys to take him out on the river. He told how some of these teenage boys were openly propositioning him. Later he met with a gay couple living quietly in Cairo. Everyone knew about them, but it was accepted as long as they were discreet about it.

I read another piece by a gay man who went to Kuwait. He said Arab men of all ages were openly propositioning him. He was shocked at how open it all was. He went down to the beach at night, and he said there were all these gay men there cruising for sex on the beach, and quite a few of them were actually engaging in sex on the beach. No one was doing anything about it, but it all had to be kept on the down low.

Nevertheless, it is different in every country. The Shia take a very hard line against gay sex, and many gay men have been murdered in Iraq.

~8,000 gay men have been executed by the clerical regime in Iran.

In Iraq, Ayatollah Sistani issued a fatwa saying that gay men should be killed. After that, there were a lot of murders of Iraqi gay men.

Hezbollah is normally pretty liberal about the things that they allow under the rule, but they take a hard line on male homosexuality too. They don’t kill gay men in Hezbollah areas, but they do beat them up.

Male homosexuality is not accepted at all in Palestine, and gay men are often murdered in the Palestinian areas. Some have even sought refugee status in Israel as a result of this, and Israel did grant some of them this status. Male homosexuality is frowned upon in Syria and Lebanon, but there is quite a bit of it anyway. There are quite a few gay men among the Syrian refugees in Beirut, but they live in absolute terror as male homosexuality is frowned upon on Lebanese Islamic society.

They were also persecuted in Syria. I know of one case where gay men were arrested by Assad’s regime and imprisoned for a while. They were made to have sex with each other in front of Syrian police at the jail while the police sat back and laughed and ridiculed them. Of course, ISIS has been executing gay men in areas under its control, usually by throwing them off the top of tall buildings.

I know nothing about male homosexuality in Qatar, Bahrain, UAE, Yemen, Jordan, Libya, Tunisia, Algeria, and Sudan or in the Islamic parts of Africa. Nor do I know much about it in the rest of the Islamic World, but I do know something about male homosexuality in Pakistan and Afghanistan, which is quite a complex situation. Maybe for a later post.

I’m not much of an expert on gay rights because as a straight man, the subject does not interest me much.

However, it has long been rumored that the leader of Oman is a gay. He has never admitted it, but many think he is anyway. I understand that people in Oman don’t care much one way or the other about their ruler being gay.

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by Robert A. Lindsay | June 7, 2017 · 9:26 AM

The “Iranian Expansionism” Lie: How the US and UK Have Joined the Gulf Arab War against the Shia: The Cases of Iraq and Yemen

Iraq

Iraq is the latest flash point. This is not a case of Iranian expansionism either. Saddam somewhat repressed the Shia, although millions of Shia were Baath Party members, and most of the army were Shia.

When the US military rolled through the Shia cities of the South during the Gulf War, they expected a warm welcome. It was the other way around. A convoy would be driving down a street in Nasariyah with nary a problem in sight. They got halfway down the street when the whole street opened up on them with automatic weapons and RPG’s. Most of them were hiding on rooftops. These were Shia Baath Party people, Shia Iraqi military veterans and also a lot of Shia who were simply Iraqi nationalists who would rather live with Saddam than be conquered by foreign invaders.

Of course, our criminal, Nazi-like war of aggression against the Iraqi people resulted in the overthrow of Sunni rule. With democracy, obviously a Shia government was elected, as 60% of the population is Iraq is Shia. The US and Israel are now screaming that Iraq is a case of Iranian expansionism. The Hell it is. It’s a case of democracy! The Shia are the majority, so democratic elections of course elected a Shia government. Democracy in action. I guess the US and Israel are opposed to democracy now?

Of course the new Shia government has friendly ties with Iran. The Shia Alawi government of Syria also has close ties with Iran. The Shia Hezbollah in Lebanon has close ties with Iran. None of this is “Iranian expansionism” or “Iran conquering the Arab world.” Instead these are Shia populations in the Arab World who have formed a natural and normal confessional alliance with Shia Iran. Shia are going to ally with Shia. What do you expect them to do?

Yemen

In Yemen, the Shia are 45% of the country. This group is called Zaidis, and they are barely even Shia. They only differ from Yemeni Sunnism on one or two things. While most Zaidis call themselves Shia, some call themselves Sunnis, and others say that they are both Sunni and Shia. So the sect isn’t even pure Shia according to their own members.

A tribal group in the north called Houthis who are mostly Zaidi launched a very popular civil war from the north all the way to the south of the country, eventually overthrowing the government. The US- and Saudi-installed president, a man named Hadi, was airlifted out to Saudi Arabia where he continued to insist that he ran the country. Hadi was very unpopular, and frankly most Yemenis hated him.

The Houthi revolt had the support of the majority of Yemenis. The Yemeni Army was loyal to a former president named Saleh, who was also a Houthi Shia. Most of the Yemeni Army, 70-80%, went over to the side of the Houthis. So the vast majority of the army goes over the side of the armed revolution that overthrows the state, and the revolution is still not legitimate? Well, when is a revolution legitimate then?

The US went along with this folly and insisted that Hadi was still the real president of the country. Well, no he wasn’t. Ever heard of a revolution? When an armed revolution happens and overthrows the government, the new armed group is the new government. I would say they are even under international law. Revolutions have been a legitimate way to overthrow states forever now. Or do we now say that all revolutions are illegitimate? Would that apply to our own revolution then? That would have to be illegitimate too, right, because the US says that armed revolutions cannot install legitimate governments?

The remaining 25% of the Yemeni Army started fighting the Houthis, but they were close to defeat. Suddenly, the Saudis, UAE, Bahrain, Kuwait, Jordan, Egypt, and Sudan all jumped into the war and attacked Yemen. They invaded Yemen, a sovereign country. That’s a Nazi like war of aggression, illegal under international law. Yet the US and UK gave full support to this invasion.

Since that time, the Saudis have been bombing all over the country. The Saudi and UAE militaries also invaded, but they did not get far. They set up a few garrisons, but they came under constant attack and suffered heavy casualties. The Saudi military is terrible and is not capable of fighting any war. The UAE military is about as bad. The US has been supplying intelligence and command and control facilities to the invaders from the beginning. At least 10,000 Yemenis are dead at the hands of the US and the UK in this sickening war. Whenever the Saudis start running low on bombs, we rush-deliver more bombs to them.

Al Qaeda has a large presence in Yemen, and they quickly waged war against the Houthis and Saleh’s army. The Gulf states have been funneling supplies to Yemeni Al Qaeda ever since the invasion, using them to help overthrow the Shia Houthis. When the war started, Saudi Arabia and the UAE flew 300-400 ISIS and Al Qaeda jihadis from Syria down to Yemen to fight against the Houthi. The UAE and the Saudis continue to run jihadis into Yemen, typically by ship. The Saudis have never launched one attack against the Al Qaeda and ISIS in Yemen, and the US has had a quite but not completely hands-off policy too, as the US and UK are using ISIS and Al Qaeda in Yemen to overthrow the Houthi.

The Houthi takeover had nothing to do with “Iranian expansionism.” That’s a paranoid lie of a fever dream. The Shia are 45% of Yemen. The Houthis have always been very popular in Yemen. In fact, the Shia Houthis ruled Yemen for centuries with no problems whatsoever. Even many Sunni Yemenis say they support the Houthi because they say that the Houthis know how to run the country. The Houthis have some friendly relations with Iran, but it boils down to little more than moral support. US and Israeli charges of the Iranians running weapons to the Houthis appear to be complete lies.

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by Robert A. Lindsay | October 26, 2016 · 1:39 AM

“The ‘Negro Problem’ Re-evaluated,” by Phil

In the New World and Pre-Colonies alike, efforts were made by Europeans to try to advance Blacks to a European level, which was to be achieved though granting new opportunities in Black societies or instruction via missionaries. Needless to say, overall the results were very much wanting in light of the expectations of the Blacks’ patrons.

Some may claim hindsight bias or that this was to be expected, but it should be remembered this was during a time when, though on occasion challenged up to the early 20th century, racial science was fairly well accepted in regard to innate distinctions (or at least more thoroughly defended during Galton’s age). However there is a perspective that suggests that advancement is indeed possible, though it deviates from traditional projects.

Before I reveal what that might be, we must understand what went wrong with the initial civilization attempts.

Culture:

Much of the efforts put into “civilizing” Blacks by Christian missionaries were based on literary schooling and the building the consciousness of a God from afar that will punish your sins in the future. For the most part however, most of the natives weren’t very compelled to change their behavior by this fear, and even with the customs Blacks did adopt, they were not applied with the same “spirit” as Europeans did.

A very peculiar and important trait of the Negroes, heretofore entirely overlooked, but repeatedly observed by Ellis, is that they do not concern themselves about any god that is exalted to a very great distance above them. Among the Negroes of the Sudan the gods that are far off are not worshiped at all while those near at hand, and ever ready to inflict immediate punishment command the most respect and obedience. The Christian God is represented as being too far away; and since the punishment which he inflicts will not be visited upon the Negroes until after their death, they do not think much of the consequences of their conduct. They have not the necessary foresight for such remote calculations.

The native religion has the merit of furnishing deities that are believed in, understood and feared, and they act so powerfully upon the Negroes that they seldom violate their own moral code. Now, it is very evident that if faith in their native religion is destroyed and another religion substituted which they do not comprehend and which they interpret to be mere conformity to ceremony and routine, their moral character will not only fail to develop to a higher plane but sink to a much lower one. And that is precisely the result of much missionary preaching.

The Negro Races: A Sociological Study, Volume 1 p. 427-428.

At first it might seem that social diffusion would render it impossible to advance Blacks, but that’s not quite the case, as we shall see below.

The reason of the success of Mohammedanism among the blacks is that it does not effect a radical modification of native institutions. The Mussulman does not, as the Christian missionary, attempt, as the first thing to antagonize old doctrines and infuse new ones, but he begins by living among the natives working and trading among them. He is unobtrusive and tolerant and thus the natives convert themselves by imitation. Whatever other objections may be raised against Mohammedanism the truth of Sevin’s statement cannot be questioned to wit that it is certainly a step towards civilization.

The Negro Races: A Sociological Study, Volume 1, p. 452.

Now for the differences in Black behavior between the two major religions, Islam and Christianity, the evidence is bountiful, with this passage possibly being one of the earliest:

“The Negroes possess some admirable qualities. They are seldom unjust, and have a greater abhorrence of injustice than any other people. Their sultan shows no mercy to anyone who is guilty of the least act of it. There is complete security in their country. Neither traveler nor inhabitant in it has anything to fear from robbers or men of violence. They do not confiscate the property of any white man who dies in their country, even if it be uncounted wealth. On the contrary, they give it into the charge of some trustworthy person among the whites, until the rightful heir takes possession of it. They are careful to observe the hours of prayer, and assiduous in attending them in congregations, and in bringing up their children to them.

On Fridays, if a man does not go early to the mosque, he cannot find a corner to pray in, on account of the crowd. It is a custom of theirs to send each man his boy [to the mosque] with his prayer-mat; the boy spreads it out for his master in a place befitting him [and remains on it] until he comes to the mosque. Their prayer-mats are made of the leaves of a tree resembling a date-palm, but without fruit.

Another of their good qualities is their habit of wearing clean white garments on Fridays. Even if a man has nothing but an old worn shirt, he washes it and cleans it, and wears it to the Friday service. Yet another is their zeal for learning the Koran by heart. They put their children in chains if they show any backwardness in memorizing it, and they are not set free until they have it by heart. I visited the qadi in his house on the day of the festival. His children were chained up, so I said to him, ‘Will you not let them loose?’ He replied, ‘I shall not do so until they learn the Koran by heart’.”

Ibn Battuta: Travels in Asia and Africa 1325-1354.

And more:

“Judging by the conduct of those Negroes who were the most regular attendants at the Methodist chapel, I am unwillingly driven to the belief that the Methodist missions have done little for the cause of true religion, and have rather helped to foster dangerous delusion. The Methodists I fear have done harm for they have diffused a general feeling among the Negro population that abstaining from dancing, from drinking (a vice by the way which Negroes are rarely prone to), and a certain phraseology, which is mere form on their part, is Christianity.

Now it would be much better if the Negroes were taught that lying, stealing, cruelty to each other, or the brute creation, slander, and disobedience were sins in the sight of God, rather than level their anathemas against dancing-the favorite, and let me say, the innocent, recreation of the negroes; unless when it trenches as it sometimes does upon the sacredness of the Sabbath.

Domestic Manners and Social Condition of the Population of the West Indies , by Mrs. Carmichael.

However, it must be acknowledged that Islam is, well, Islam. This was noted by G. T. Basden:

….Or again compare the statements of another student many years experience in Northern Nigeria who says in his notes upon the Nupe kingdom and the effects its adoption of Islam.

Mohammedanism has introduced no new manufactures, has drenched the country with blood, has destroyed numberless towns and villages, and has as far as one can learn, distinctly lowered the morals of the people. True it has introduced a better idea of justice by creating the office judge as distinct from that of a king, and we must also place to the credit of Islam the beginnings of the idea of education.

It is also a distinct gain to the people that they have been taught the idea of a life beyond the grave, and of rewards and punishments after this life is over. On the other side must be placed the degradation of womanhood that has followed the introduction of Islam. The average pagan Negro has his own ideas as to the of women, but there is nothing to prevent woman from rising by her industry or ability to high positions. But Mohammedanism changes all this and has a distinctly lower position in a Mohammedan than she occupies among pagans.

Among the Ibos of Nigeria by George Thomas Basden

Genetics:

Something that I think will challenge many peoples’ views of Blacks is the idea that Blacks are not monolithic in behavior. Indeed, with actual slaves who were imported to the West, different tribes were noted to have different attributes.

Of character among the Negro tribes.

The Eboe is crafty artful disputative driving a bargain and suspicious of over reached by those with whom he deals, but withal patient industrious saving tractable. The Coromantee is on the fierce violent and revengeful injury and provocation but hardy laborious and manageable under mild and just treatment. This tribe has generally been at head of all insurrections and was the parent stock of the Maroons. The Congo, Papaw, Chamba, Mandingo &c are of more mild and peaceable disposition than Coromantee, but less industrious and than the Eboe.

The Literary Gazette and Journal of Belles Lettres, Arts, Sciences p. 551

But we still have to deal with the problem of the consistency of some of these descriptions, in part due to regions being confused with or substituted for tribal names. Thus “Eboe” can refer to either Biafran slaves, people from anywhere in SE Nigeria, or a tribe of slaves from the Bight of Benin. Another factor in this confusion was variation within tribes, even with the Mandingo, which was a more consistent tribal name.

As for the rest, virtues vary according to the districts occupy. In Bambuk they are warlike, the Upper Senegal they are more peaceful, but deceiving and thievish, on the Manza and Gambia they are swaggering foul.

The Standard Natural History, Volume 6 edited by John Sterling Kingsley and Elliott Coues p.329

In order, these would correspond to East Senegal/ Mali, North Senegal, and the coastal regions/ Gambia. This makes sense because the desert is harsh and would support violent nomadic lifestyles. This shows that how interior of Senegal, being a more even woodland/ savannah area, and the Gambia being part savannah and swamp-like, would affect natural selection in these groups.

A second factor could be Eurasian ancestry, but that’s most relevant to pastoralists – Chadic expansionists like the Fulani, who average 8-15% Eurasian (varies by region). The Wolof and similar tribes have been found to have only 2-3% Eurasian admixture, possibly derived from the Bafour people, who were described as “Fulani-like.” Razib Khan found that in the Mandinka, the Eurasian intervals were between 0-5%.

Other genetic sources in US Blacks could be from Southeast Bantu, Cushitic, Semitic, and South Asian components, and though each varies by tribe, none of these groups are very significant in African-Americans as a whole. One exception was the Mota Study, but its results were dubious due to errors in calculating the spread.

This post addresses the study’s inconsistencies as well as other admixture results.

Now, it does beg the question of why aren’t the personality disparities as evident as they were in the past? Well, one factor could be that even in the Carolinas and Georgia where Senegambian slaves were preferred, the highest single ethnicity by DNA is West Central Nigerian, at least maternally. And overall, West Central DNA also dominates.

That’s not automatically bad in terms of genetic attributes, though this means that the best groups work with would be the Mandingos of the Upper Senegal or the Kru of Coastal Liberia, though inland they were more disposed to violence, hence the recent coup de etat).

Application:

One notion we should dismiss would be Blacks becoming in any sense “White” outside of contributions due to White admixture. This wouldn’t be likely even with the best “stock” such as the Krus. Regarding the Krus, you can look them up in any book, and they were held among most industrious, intelligent, and moral Blacks, who also lacked any significant non-Black admixture, if their features are to speak for them.

The flat nose, the high cheekbones, the yellow eyes, the chalky teeth pointed like the shark’s, the Erotruded like that of a dog monkey combine to form an unusual amount of ugliness.

Their features are distinctly African without a mixture of Arab; the conjunctiva is brown yellow or tarnished a Hamitic peculiarity, and some paint white goggle-like ovals round the orbits, producing the effect of a loop. This is sometimes done for sickness, and individuals are rubbed over with various light and dark colored powders. The skin is very dark, often lamp black others are of a deep rich brown or bronze tint, but a light complexioned man is generally called Tom Coffee.

The back of the cranium is often remarkably flat, and I have seen many heads of the pyramidal shape rising narrow and ported high to the apex.

The Uncivilized Races of Men in All Countries of the World, Volume 1, p. 545

In other words, a flat nose, prognathism, and dark skin. However, what should be noted here is that their heads were flatter than the average as opposed to the more typical elongation of the skull. Brachycephalic heads are indicative of Guineanid Blacks, better known as “Paleo-Negroids”.

But back to the tribe. They’ve been noted to succeed fairly well in adopting European customs, that is until they rejoined others from their homeland.

Very interesting is the fact that these Kroo negroes who, at a distance from their home, seem fully capable of civilization, sink back into their former barbarism on their return to their native land. While they readily acquire foreign languages, and at times give proof of a real attachment and devotion to Europeans in foreign countries on returning home. They take the greatest pains to forget their acquirements as soon as possible, and woe to the European that ventures into their country. However well they may have been treated, they nearly always, after a few years, quit the service of the whites in order to return to their barbarous condition in their native place. So little attraction has our much vaunted civilization for these children of nature!

Africa by Keith Johnston p. 131

With that said though, as a culture, the Krus were comparatively advanced among SSA populations. They partook in some savage practices related to paganism, though they weren’t the typical image of crude savagery, hence the term barbarism. In a true anthropological sense, it’s used to describe societies that bear semblance to fully developed civilization but have the cruder or more primitives aspects accentuated.

What I’m getting at is that, unless in the unlikely event that Whites want groups of Black living next to them so the Whites can influence them, preparations should be made by blacks to generate an culture of reasonably adaptable standards that will at the same time gradually select for preferred skills to improve the society.

Education, for example, should at least partially focus on life skills in morale similar to the religious teachings of Malian Blacks described by Battuta.

From what my father told me, Black education prior to the scholastic focus of integrated schools taught “life” to Black students. Cultural norms and trades were focused on more than actual “book learning”.

In addition, policies that enforce “compulsion” should be laid out. Commenter Sam describes how crucial this is here.

In order to get Blacks to improve their station in life, a focus should be on active practitioners of Christianity, as they already lead a lifestyle that has led to positive results.

Regionally speaking, Blacks in the South seem to have less animosity and to be more developed in a positive sense. That’s not saying that Black pathology doesn’t exist there, but rather that the South has a stronger Black Christian culture than other regions, which is aided by the less crowded rural setting. The murder and incarceration rates in the South as compared to other areas seem to reflect this improved culture. What is interesting about this is that relative to the rest of the country, not only does the region contain more Blacks, but also the Blacks there are significantly blacker than elsewhere as well.

So if such a a better Black culture and social organization could be developed, it along with a selection against individuals less prone to compulsion may improve the standard of Black living by tackling the roots of Black pathologies from a sociological perspective.

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by Robert A. Lindsay | June 10, 2016 · 10:46 PM

An Analysis of the Iraqi Resistance Part 5 –

I have decided to publish my most recent work, An Analysis of the Iraqi Resistance, on my blog. Previously, this piece was used for the research for “An Insiders Look at the Iraqi Resistance” a major piece that appeared on the Islamist website Jihadunspun.com (JUS got the copyright but I did the research). That long-running top-billed piece is now down, but it is still archived on Alexa here . Note that this material is copyrighted and all reproduction for profit is forbidden under copyright laws.

For information about reprinting or purchasing one-time rights to this work, email me. This article is an in-depth analysis of the Iraqi resistance and is continuously being revised. It is presently 58 pages long in total. It lists all known Iraqi resistance groups who have ever fought in Iraq since the fall of Baghdad until about 2005 and includes a brief description and analysis of each group. There are separate sections covering Size, Tendencies, Motivations, Structure, Foreign Assistance, Foreign Fighters, Regional Characteristics, Regions, Cities or Towns Controlled by the Resistance, Major Attacks and List of Groups by Tendency.

The article was intended to be a political science-type analysis of the Iraqi Resistance, and I tried not to take sides one way or the other. I used a tremendous amount of source material, mostly publicly available news reports from the Internet. Obviously, in an area like this you are dealing with a ton of disinformation along with the real deal, so I spent a lot of time trying to sort out the disinfo from the relative truth.

The problem is that one cannot simply discount sources of information such as Israeli and US intelligence, US military reports, reporting from the resistance itself, Islamist websites, etc. Of course these sources are loaded with disinfo and false analysis, but they also tend to have a lot of truth mixed in as well. In writing a piece like this, you pull together all the sources and get sort of a “Gestalt” view of the situation. When you examine all the sources at once in toto, you can kind of sort out the disinfo from the more factual material. Admittedly it’s a hit or miss game, but that’s about as good as we can do source-wise in the inherently hazy subject area of an underground guerrilla war.

Interviews with resistance cadre by the mainstream Western media were given particular prominence in this piece.

FOREIGN FIGHTERS

Foreign Fighters: In Summer 2003, there were some reports that Syrians were said to often outnumber locals in those carrying out attacks in various locales, including Fallujah, Ramadi, Baghdad, Baqubah, Balad, Tikrit and Mosul. However, these reports are contradicted by reports in 11-03 indicating most fighters in most parts of Iraq have been Iraqis. Most of the foreign fighters in the post-major combat phase (after 5-1-03) have been Syrians and Lebanese, and many of the rest are Jordanians, Yemenis, Palestinians, Kuwaitis, Saudis and North Africans – often Egyptians and Algerians.

In 12-03, Syrians were still fairly common amongst fighters in Husaybah, near the Syrian border. After the major battle in Fallujah from April-May 04, a group of 50-100 largely Syrian Sunni extreme fundamentalist fighters seemed to have control over part of Fallujah’s Jolan District.

Many of these could better be described as Arab nationalists than Islamists, and a number of them were not even particularly religious. Dozens of Arab fighters have come from France and hundreds from Europe. In addition to the nations above, others came from Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Chechnya, Albania, Bosnia, Kosovo, Bangladesh, Qatar, Sudan, Somalia, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia and Libya. Saudi dissident leaders stated that 5,000 Saudi jihadis were present in Baghdad alone in 11-03. US intelligence believed there were up to 15,000 Saudis alone in Iraq in 9-03. Saudis reportedly played a role in the suicide bombings of the ICRC and Baghdad Hotel.

A Palestinian, born in Iraq, a resident of the Al Jihad neighborhood of Baghdad, carried out the suicide car bomb attack on the upscale restaurant in the Karrada District of Baghdad on New Year’s Eve, 2003. In 11-03, the Jordanian and US governments said that they had identified at least 120 Jordanians in the Sunni Triangle fighting US forces. There were reports from Israeli intelligence that 100’s of Kuwaiti (anti-Kuwaiti regime) Islamists were heading into Iraq in 11-03. These reports were verified by Iraqi sources with AQ connections and former Iraqi military officers in Basra, who said AQ was using the Safwan Crossing because it was the easiest one to get across.

Other areas on the Kuwait-Iraq border were also being used. Before the war, the Kuwait-Iraq border was protected by an extensive fence built by the Kuwaitis. During the 2003 US invasion, US forces smashed through the wall in 9 places. In these 9 locations, crossing the border into Iraq is a simple, low-risk stroll.

These sources also said that AQ was also using the wide-open Saudi-Iraqi border. The porous Saudi-Iraq border has no fences at all and there are many Bedouin guides in that area who will ferry anyone across the border, no questions asked, for only $200. After crossing into Iraq from Kuwait or Saudi Arabia, AQ jihadis usually headed to Zubayr or Abu Al-Khasib, towns south of Basra with a substantial Sunni population.

Zubayr in particular was a popular destination due to a high concentration of Sunni Islamists. According to US and Israeli intelligence, Iran filtered in about 11,000-12,000 Iranian fighters to the Shia South, mostly Revolutionary Guards, during the Karbala pilgrimage in Spring 2003. However, this group has so far, for the most part, merely been working to gain influence in the region peacefully, at least for now. They have been involved in only a very few armed actions. They may be stockpiling arms in the South, along with other Iraqi Shia armed groupings, in case they need them later. A number of Iranian fighters have been captured in the guerrilla war phase. Their ideology and political affiliation are unknown.

However, one of the suicide attackers in the 12-11 bombing of the US base in Ramadi caused 15 US casualties was a Lebanese Palestinian member of Hezbollah splinter faction. In 2-04, Iraqi puppet authorities said that about 500 Hezbollah had come into Iraq in 2003, almost all going to the South, but for the most part they were just engaging in political work and not armed activity. However, the source also said that “scores” of Hezbollah had come to Iraq since mid-December. These Hezbollah were heading to northern Iraq to work with AAI. Hezbollah operatives were said to be providing training and guidance to AAI members; few had participated in attacks.

Sources in Pakistan claim that the Taliban, al-Qaeda (International Islamic Front), Hezb-e-Islami, and HUM (Pakistani Kashmiri fighters) all sent fighters to Iraq, with most of them coming after major combat ended. Two Taliban guerrilas were apprehended in 9-03 coming over the Iranian border into Iraq northeast of Khanaquin through the Kurdish mountains. Another Afghan was caught trying to plant a roadside bomb near the Dura Power Plant in Baghdad in 2-04.

By 1-04, indigenous Iraqi groups were employing smugglers to ferry foreign fighters across the Jordanian, Syrian and Saudi Arabian borders into Iraq. Once inside Iraq, foreign fighters are often transported to Ramadi or Fallujah, 2 of the hubs of the foreign fighter network in Iraq. A 3-29-04 interview with a Blackwater USA (the mercenary firm that lost 4 employees in the famous mutilation-burning attack in Fallujah 2 days later) mercenary based near Fallujah said that many of the attacks around Fallujah had turned out to be Jordanians, Syrians, Iranians, and Chechens.
****

****
Foreign Fighters During And Before Major Combat (March 19-May 1): Many foreign fighters came before and during major combat. An attempt was made to put them under central command towards the end of major combat. By the fall of Baghdad, the central command of the Arab mujahedin stated there were 8,000 foreign fighters in Baghdad alone. They took heavy casualties in the fighting, and many just went home after Baghdad fell. But in the postwar phase, they seem to be coming in again.

A large number of Palestinians came during major combat, about 1,500-2,000 (according to sources in the camp below) or 4,000+ (according to Newsweek), mostly from a splinter Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades faction aligned with Syria and located in the Ein Al Hilweh Refugee Camp in southern Lebanon. The leader of this faction is reportedly named Colonel Munir Maqdah. About 30-40 more Al Aqsa Martyr’s Brigades fighters came from just one town in the West Bank. Hamas and Islamic Jihad each sent factions of ~300 fighters. Islamic Jihad’s fighters came through Lebanon.

Fighters from Romania (Communists) and Vietnam (Communists), Indonesia (Islamists), Russia (mixed ideology – Communists, nationalists, Islamists), Dagestan (8,000 Islamists) and Malaysia (Islamists) reportedly announced plans to go fight in Iraq during the major combat phase, but none of them seem to have made it. Hezbollah sent about ~800 fighters, and they continued to trickle in long after major combat ended.

One source claimed that Lashkar-E-Toiba (LET), a Pakistani/Kashmiri group active in Kashmir, participated in the major combat phase. LET cadre in Saudi Arabia (LET purportedly maintains a Saudi presence) claim the group sent a number of fighters, possibly 100-200, during the major combat phase, and suffered casualties.
*****

****
Al Qaeda (AQ) Foreign Fighters: AQ has had an open presence in Iraq only recently. In the couple months before the war, when conflict seemed inevitable, small groupings of AQ were allowed by the Iraqi state to form cells in Baghdad, but told to stay clear of Saddam’s regime. They were allowed in on the basis that war seemed inevitable and anyone who wanted to fight the Americans was basically welcome. This group numbered only 30-40. They fought during the war and remained afterwards, when they were apparently reinforced by others. Many of the AQ who came to Iraq during and after major combat may have come in via Iran, either across the border east of Baghdad, or to the north through the Kurdish areas.

A few others supposedly came across the Turkish border into the Kurdish zone. Some may have crossed the Saudi and more recently the Kuwaiti borders. Few, if any, appear to have crossed the Syrian or Jordanian borders. The number of AQ currently in Iraq is very controversial, with estimates ranging from 300-15,000+. AQ sources in Iraq said there were 4,500 foreign jihadis in Iraq in 11-03, most of them from Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Yemen and the other Gulf countries. It seems certain that there were at least 100’s of AQ fighters in Iraq as of 12-03. In a 12-03 interview, MA cadre said there were at least 150 AQ in Iraq, with almost of them coming after the fall of Baghdad.

They moved around the country regularly. “One or two” of them might participate in an operation with a local resistance group before moving on to another part of Iraq. MA cadre acknowledged that “1 or 2” AQ cadre had participated in “a few” MA attacks before moving on. In 12-03, sources in Pakistan said that AQ was pulling out 1/3 of its 1,000-man force out of Afghanistan and directing them to Iraq. That would mean ~350 more AQ heading to Iraq. The whole question of AQ’s role in the Iraq War or the guerrila war that followed is poorly understood, probably due to the shadowy nature of the group.

The West Hates Assad Because He Is Against Israel

BBC:

Bashar talked about reform. He seemed to be a break with the past. Western leaders tried to befriend him. Tony Blair considered giving him an honorary knighthood. But stubbornly, President Assad wouldn’t give up his opposition to Israel and his support for its enemies.

Wow amazing. Straight from the horse’s mouth. They came right out and admitted that the reason the West or at the least the UK hates Assad so much is because he opposes Israel and supports its enemies.

Though frankly this last part is nonsense. Assad used to let some of the Palestinian groups have be headquartered in Damascus, but those were just political above-ground offices that did nothing but issue press releases and make posters. I assure that the true core armed wing of the DFLP, PFLP, PFLP-GC and Hamas are not headquartered in Damascus! The true hard core armed wings of these groups are simply right there in Palestine. The leaders are in Palestine too, generally hiding out underground. The real political leadership of Hamas has recently been in the UAE and Qatar and their top leaders like Mashaal have always moved between Qatar, UAE, Morocco, Tunisia, Yemen and Iran. So really it is the US allies in the Arab World who are truly harboring the hard core of Hamas. However, most of the US allies in the Arab world have renounced overt support for the Palestinian armed wings. Even Syria doesn’t give them much of anything. Hamas at least is armed by Hezbollah and Iran. I have no idea where the rest of the groups get their guns. They certainly do not get them from any Arab state openly. No Arab state dares to arm the Palestinians openly, however the weaponry they get from Hezbollah does come from the Syrian military. A lot of the missiles Hamas was firing in the last war were Syrian-made but acquired via Hezbollah. Hamas is now manufacturing their own missiles in factories in Gaza, so the notion of who is arming them will soon become moot. Iran and Hezbollah arm Hamas via the Sinai in general. The weapons come from Iran or Hezbollah to either Sudan or the Sinai. If they go to Sudan, they are moved to the Sinai. Once in Sinai, Bedouin smugglers who will do anything for a buck and have a long tradition of living outside the law smuggle the weapons up to El Arish next to Gaza. They are then moved into Gaza via tunnels or possible via small ships from Sinai to Gaza. Iranian and Hezbollah personnel disembark in the Sinai and then are moved by the Bedouins to the El Arish area where they are moved into Gaza via tunnels. Much of the vast underground Gaza tunnel structure was designed by Iran and Hezbollah.

Really the only Muslims who are helping the Palestinians with arms and armed infrastructure are the Shia Iranians and Hezbollah. No Sunni government other than Sudan is doing jack for the Palestinians.

Israel, the US and the rest of the West have decided that Iran, Hezbollah and Syria form an Axis of Resistance Block that are hardline anti-Israel entities. They are all linked and they need to be taken down. If you take down one, the others are weakened. For instance, if Assad can be taken out and a US client like the Free Syrian Army takes hold, they will cut off relations with Iran and Hezbollah and align themselves with the West and probably remove Syria from the Axis of Resistance. This is why so many Syrians oppose the FSA – they are nothing but pro-US puppets who want to sell out to Israel and the US and turn Syria into another US client Arab state.

The West figures if they can take out Syria, the other two will be harmed. Hezbollah is supplied by Iran and Syria. Iran moves weapons to Syria, which moves them to Hezbollah. If you take out the middle of the chain, Iran would have to supply Hezbollah directly and there are no good and easy ways to do that. They could go through Turkey, but Turkey dislikes Iran. They could go be sea, but Israel controls the Eastern Mediterranean. I suppose they could directly fly the weapons in, but Lebanon might not want to let Iranian planes land in its territory to supply Hezbollah. Israel and the US would start seriously threatening Lebanon .

So if you take out Syria, Hezbollah is more or less screwed. They would lose out their main supplier and their link to Iran. Iran would be weakened too by the loss of Syria. Now Iran would be alone and isolated among the hostile Sunni states of the region. And the link between Iran and Hezbollah could be severed, possibly fatally.

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Filed under Africa, Arabs, Bedouins, Britain, Europe, Geopolitics, Iran, Islam, Israel, Middle East, Morocco, North Africa, Palestine, Politics, Radical Islam, Regional, Religion, Shiism, Sudan, Sunnism, Syria, Tunisia, USA, Yemen

by Robert A. Lindsay | December 3, 2014 · 4:47 PM

US Foreign Policy: Create Chaos and Failed States in Enemy Countries

Iraq: Invasion, no more Saddam, now filled with “extremists”, low intensity civil war.

Libya: “No fly zone”, no more Gaddafi, now filled with Al Qaeda extremists, low intensity civil war.

Somalia: US backed Ethiopians, etc., waging war on Al Shahab, low intensity civil war.

Sudan: Now split in half., low intensity civil war

Syria: Being bombed actively, now filled with Al Qaeda extremists, high intensity civil war

Lebanon: Tied tightly to the events in Syria, now filled with Salafist extremists, low intensity fighting

Iran: War TBA, Israel head fakes a strike ever other year.

Venezuela: Constant US subversion attempts, full of fascist extremists, major street rioting and chaos.

Colombia: Largest military aid to any country. Filled with leftist guerrillas and fascist death squads, low intensity civil war.

Ukraine: Democratic government overthrown by NATO coup, Nazi government installed, filled with armed factions including Nazi extremists, low intensity civil war.

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by Robert A. Lindsay | July 29, 2014 · 12:44 AM

Gaza War Report July 29, 2014

July 28:

Ten Israeli soldiers were killed yesterday and at least another four were badly wounded. It was a bad day for Israel in the battlefield – high casualties.

Hamas tunneled out of Gaza into an area just outside Gaza in Israel called Nahal Oz, across from the closed Nahal Oz crossing. They came out of the tunnel and fired on a nearby Israeli vehicle with RPG’s. Five Israeli soldiers were killed in the clash. IDF claims that all Hamas fighters were killed in return fire.

Hamas claims about the same incident: Hamas claims they killed 10 troops in the Nahal Oz operation (not true – they killed 5). They also claim they tried to capture a soldier as POW but were not able to do so. In addition, they claim that they seized IDF weaponry, specifically IDF automatic weapons (not sure if true). Hamas also claims that all Hamas fighters made it back to their base safely – may or may not be true, as IDF says all intruders were killed.

A mortar attack was reported just outside Gaza that killed 4 IDF troops and seriously wounded 4 more. No precise location was given. I can now report that the hit a group of 70 soldiers who were having a meeting in a house. Five 120mm mortar shells were fired. The attack occurred just inside Israel a bit east of the Kaza’a district in Gaza. Kaza’a is in Gaza east of Khan Younis near the fence.

The other soldier killed was killed on the east end of the city of Rafah in a little known place called Khirbat. A fighter popped out of a tunnel and gunned him down.

It is no longer true that the IDF is operating only ~300 yards inside Gaza as they had for some time. Now they are operating considerably further in – the east end of Rafah is considerable distance inside Gaza.

July 27:

The Algerian plane crash is thought to be due to inclement weather now, not terrorism. However, the investigation is ongoing. A top Hezbollah operative and 18 of his bodyguards were on board. ~30 French military officers were also on board.

Rocket fire has been coming from Lebanon for some time. The usual fools have been yelling that it is from Hezbollah. This is not so. It is from from the Ahmad Jibril’s PFLP-GC, not Hezbollah.

The major Salafist group in the Sinai recently swore allegiance to ISIS. Scary.

Numerous social media posts have appeared of Palestinians, mostly in Gaza, swearing allegiance to ISIS.

The very heavy fighting in Rafah has mostly been right around the airport.

The heavy fighting in Beit Hanina has been to the north around the Agricultural College.

The battle for Shujaiyah is not over at all, despite Israeli claims of victory. Hamas keeps pouring in new reinforcements. There is still heavy fighting going on now amid the rubble. Hamas fought very dirty in Shejaiyah. Sometimes they would run at the IDF with a gun in one hand a baby in the other. At other times, young kids with guns were sent running towards IDF troops.

Fighting also continues along the border near Karni.

Heavy fighting in Beit Lahiya is mostly to the northwest of the area (not sure exactly where).

Fighting continues around Al Qarara north of Khan Younis, a fair distance inside Gaza.

The heavy fighting in Khan Younis is around a district called Kaza’a near the border fence.

The Golani Brigade is pulling out of Gaza to be replaced by reserves. Probable reason for pullout was heavy losses. Like Hamas and Islamic Jihad, Golani had serious losses (killed and wounded) in the officer corps. Golani is one of the finest units in the IDF.

Not only Hamas is shooting rockets. The PFLP has shot 10% of the rockets, but they are mostly short-range.

Undated:

The Institute for Palestine Studies admits that 180 minors died in the construction of Hamas’ tunnels. It is doubtful that these were kids; instead they were probably teenagers. Even before this was finished, other Palestinians were complaining about the child death toll, but Hamas kept using kids. Not just the IDF but also Hamas has the blood of quite a few Gazan kids on its hands.

Lebanon-Syria-Iran cadre training and armament lab structure for Palestinians: Many Palestinians leave Palestine regularly to train in Lebanese training camps. These are operated by PFLP-GC – basically a Iran-Syria proxy. Many of the trainers here are Syrian or Iranian. There are also many “labs” in Lebanon operated by the same folks. It is here that new missiles, drones, et al may be tested and constructed. There are also training camps in Syria itself for Palestinians, also operated under PFLP-GC command.

It is well known that Iran is the main supplier for Hamas.

The route for Iranian weapons to Gaza is as follows:

Route 1: Weapons by ship from Iran to the Sinai. Offload in Sinai. In Sinai there are many Hezbollah operatives. They have set up many cells in the Sinai among the Bedouins there. These people may be the Sinai salafi-jihadists, but I am not certain. Weapons are then transported by Bedouins to the Egypt-Gaza border, where tunnels under the Gaza-Sinai border are still working, though many have been shut down.

Route 2: Iran to Sudan. Weapons are either stored or even manufactured in Sudan, often in Khartoum. From there, they go overland to near Djibouti and into the Red Sea, presumably once again to Sinai via route above.

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by Robert A. Lindsay | July 5, 2013 · 10:44 PM

India As an Imperialist Country

Creaders writes:

The man white ally with India. The white man is always covering India. White man media do not report the real truth about India and all India transgression was forgotten. India is a key player against China. But I will honestly say its not a NATO style alliance but a low level type.

India invade Diu, Daman, Goa, Dadra and Nagar Haveli from Portugal, no white man newspaper ever bark.

India invade Hyderabad, white man keep quiet. India invade Kashmir, white man keep quiet. India invade Sikkim, white man keep quiet.

When India invade Kashmir, India say Kashmir ruler like India but so I don care if they people hate India. When India invade Hyderabad, India say Hyderabad people like India, but I don care the ruler hate Indian.

When India annex Manipur and Sikkim, both people and ruler hate India. India say fuck it, I just want your land, never mind if you hate me. In fact, Indian just know how to talk and talk. They are liars and can come out any reason to harm you.

white man keep quiet. India invade China, white man keep quiet.

China arrest India’s aggression in 1962 Sino-Indian war, white man say China is aggressor and send arm to India.

India is really a crap nation.

I thought US imperialism was bad until I heard about Indian imperialism. India is obviously one of the imperialist countries. Even worse, like the early United Snakes, Zionist Israel, Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan, it has been conquering and annexing land since the day of its birth. I suppose one could argue that many new nations engage in a “nation-building project” that involves some sort of conquering of other people’s land to annex their lands into the new nation.

However, if we look around the world, we do not see a lot of examples of new imperialist countries engaging in nationalist conquests upon independence.

In the modern era, the examples are not many:

Nazi Germany: program of conquest, annexation and colonization in WW2.

Imperial Japan: program of conquest, annexation and colonization in WW2.

Fascist Italy: program of conquest, annexation and colonization in WW2.

Indonesia (independence in 1949): Program of conquest and annexation of Aceh, East Timor and part of New Guinea now called Irian Jaya. There was also a project of settling colonized lands with settlers in order to subdue the natives. A number of genocides ensued. This project was led by an openly fascist political party pushing a fascist project called Pangasinan.

Pakistan (independence in 1948): Attempted to annex Kashmir by force (uncertain if Kashmiris wanted to be annexed by Pakistan). Annexed Balochistan by violence soon afterwards after Balochis voted not to join Pakistan.

Israel (independence in 1949): Its very birth was created by invasion, conquest, ethnic cleansing and displacement of natives. Colonization of new land by settlers followed. The following years, more and more land was conquered, more natives were thrown off the land, and more settlers were moved onto new conquered land. The project continues to this day.

Russia (newly independent in 1991): Invaded and conquered Chechnya which declared independence from the new Russian nation. Later invaded other Caucasus republics attempting to break away from the new nation.

Armenia: Invaded and conquered part of Azerbaijan called Nagorno-Karabagh on an uncertain moral basis but strategically because it was full of Armenians. Later conquered “buffer zones” of Azeri territory similar to Israeli “security buffers.”

Georgia: Invaded South Ossetia when South Ossetia refused to join the new country called Georgia.

Morocco: Invaded and conquered Spanish Sahara after the region was decolonized. It then settled the area with 200,000 settlers.

Sudan: Upon independence in 1954, launched a war against South Sudan that continued for decades and killed 2 million people.

Eritrea: Soon after achieving independence in 1991, Eritrea attacked Ethiopia and tried to annex border land. It also attacked Djibouti and tried to annex part of that country.

Ethiopia: After independence, Ethiopia immediately annexed Eritrea. This led to a 30 year war which Eritrea finally won and achieved independence from Ethiopia.

Somalia: The new nation of Somalia attacked Ethiopia in 1977 and attempted to conquer the Ogaden region and annex it to Somalia.

Libya: In 1978, Libya attacked Chad and attempted to annex a strip of land called the Aouzou Strip.

However, India seemingly takes the cake. Soon after independence, India quickly invaded Hyderabad, Diu, Daman, Goa, Dadra, Nagar Haveli, Sikkim, Manipur and Kashmir. All of these places had decided that they did not want to be part of India, but India invaded them anyway. Sikkim was actually a separate country, but India invaded it anyway and annexed the place. Many people died because of India’s imperial conquests. The Manipur conflict lasted many years and the Kashmiri conflict continues to this day. Many other areas in the Northeast also refused to join India in the beginning and all were attacked sooner or later.

In the midst of this wild imperial conquest spree, apparently India received 100% support from US imperialism. When India attacked China in 1962 for no good reason, US imperialism supported them 100%, apparently as an anti-Communist move against China. India was even supplied with weapons with which to attack the Chinese people.

When you talk to Indians (generally high-caste Indians) one thing you will note is the fanatical nationalism many of them have. Many don’t know their country’s history, but if you recite it to those who know about it, almost 100% of them will support Indian imperialism to the hilt. The average Indian is an ultra-nationalist, a nationalist fanatic. In part this is because the media and the government has been pushing fascist like ultra-nationalism from the early days of the Republic. The number of Indians opposed to this fascist ultra-nationalist and imperialist project must be very small, because you never hear of them.

Of late, radical Indian ultra-nationalism has been married to Hindu fanaticism in the form of Hindutva ideology. This is a marriage of fascist ultra-nationalism and with radical religious fundamentalism. The result has been a potent movement that looks fascist in many respects. This nascent fascist movement has taken high caste and middle class Indians by storm. We should not sit idly by and watch this fascist movement form while we twiddle our toes. Instead we should watch this dangerous movement very closely. It threatens not only India itself but parts of the rest of the world too.

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by Robert A. Lindsay | June 2, 2013 · 9:58 AM

The Jihadis Brought Slavery with Them

Here.

All of these people are Black. The Tuaregs and the Arabs are lighter skinned Blacks then the rest, and they have more Caucasoid features, but these are all Black people we are talking about here. In fact, Tuaregs are ~86% Black by genes and only 14% Caucasoid, about the same as US Blacks. Arabs may be the lighter, but the distinction between an Arab and a Black in this part of the world is not strong. An Arab is more someone who is a pastoralist and speaks Arabic. A Tuareg speaks the Tuareg Berber language and is a pastoralist. The Blacks probably speak an African language, are darker and look more African and may be agriculturalists.

But what matters more is if you were born into slavery or not. Slavery has been going on forever in the Sahel. There are still 200,000 slaves in Mali. There are also many in Mauritania and Niger. Food is so scarce at times that some slaves enter into bondage voluntarily just to get something to eat. The slave masters are very cruel to their slaves, treating them worse than animals. Although slavery is illegal in Mali, the law is hardly enforced.

What is interesting is that with the coming of radical Islam in the form of the Islamist jihadis, the slavery issue got worse. Ta Tuaregs and Arabs largely supported the Islamists and they took advantage of the coming of the jihadis by enslaving their Black neighbors, reclaiming old slaves, or enslaving their Black workers. Now that the French ran the Al Qaedists out of Timbuktu, the slaves have been freed, but there are now deep wounds that will take ages to heal. The Blacks here are very angry at what the Arabs and Tuaregs did to them, and they will not forget soon. This is a very brutal part of the world.

In some ways, this mirrors the genocide going on in Darfur, with the pastoralist Arabs committing genocide against the agriculturalist Africans. In the same way, both are Blacks, but the Arabs speak Arabic, are lighter, taller, thinner and have more Caucasoid features. The Blacks are darker, speak African languages and have been African features. The Arabs have always treated the Blacks with contempt in Sudan even before the Darfur genocide.

The war against South Sudan was similar except that it was a religious war. The South Sudanese were more African, spoke African languages, and tended to be Christians and animists. The northern Arabs committed mass murder on the infidels of the South. A favorite way of killing the infidels was crucifying them on a makeshift cross. Similarly, radical Islam was used by the northern Arabs to radically Islamicize their cause and once again, it seemed the extra dose of Islam made the Arabs that much more racist against the Blacks.

It is important to note that this war was seen as a jihad against the infidels by the radical Islamist regime in the North. Their idea was the that Southern infidels should be given the choice of converting to Islam or dying. There were in fact many forced conversions and similar to the situation in Mali, many South Sudanese, especially women, were kidnapped and taken as slaves to the North, where they served in their Arab master’s homes. The slavery often had sexual overtones as the women were made to serve as sex slaves.

As you can see, we are dealing with a Sahelian regional phenomenon here. But note also the deep connections between Arabs and the enslavement of Blacks in this part of the world. Arabs have been enslaving Blacks forever. Saudi Arabia only outlawed slavery in 1963. There was a report recently of a castrated Black slave being offered for sale by a wealthy Gulf Arab. The ad selling the slave appeared on Facebook.

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Filed under Africa, Arab Racism, Arabs, Blacks, Christianity, Darfur, Islam, Law, Mali, Middle East, North Africa, North Africans, Race/Ethnicity, Racism, Radical Islam, Regional, Religion, Saudi Arabia, Sociology, Southern Sudan, Sudan, Women

by Robert A. Lindsay | June 24, 2011 · 1:49 PM

Does Multilingualism Equal Separatism?

Repost from the old site.

Sorry for the long post, readers, but I have been working on this piece off and on for months now. It’s not something I just banged out. For one thing, this is the only list that I know of on the Net that lists all of the countries of the world and shows how many languages are spoken there in an easy to access format. Not even Wikipedia has that (yet).

Whether or not states have the right to secede is an interesting question. The libertarian Volokh Conspiracy takes that on in this nice set of posts. We will not deal with that here; instead, we will take on the idea that linguistic diversity automatically leads to secession.

There is a notion floating around among fetishists of the state that there can be no linguistic diversity within the nation, as it will lead to inevitable separatism. In this post, I shall disprove that with empirical data. First, we will list the states in the world, along with how many languages are spoken in that state.

States with a significant separatist movement are noted with an asterisk. As you can see if you look down the list, there does not seem to be much of a link between multilingualism and separatism. There does seem to be a trend in that direction in Europe, though.

Afterward, I will discuss the nature of the separatist conflicts in many of these states to try to see if there is any language connection. In most cases, there is little or nothing there.

I fully expect the myth of multilingualism = separatism to persist after the publication of this post, unfortunately.

St Helena                        1
British Indian Ocean Territories 1
Pitcairn Island                  1
Estonia                          1
Maldives                         1
North Korea                      1
South Korea                      1
Cayman Islands                   1
Bermuda                          1
Belarus                          1
Martinique                       2
St Lucia                         2
St Vincent & the Grenadines      2
Barbados                         2
Virgin Islands                   2
British Virgin Islands           2
Gibraltar                        2
Antigua and Barbuda              2
Saint Kitts and Nevis            2
Montserrat                       2
Anguilla                         2
Marshall Islands                 2
Cuba                             2
Turks and Caicos                 2
Guam                             2
Tokelau                          2
Samoa                            2
American Samoa                   2
Niue                             2
Jamaica                          2
Cape Verde Islands               2
Icelandic                        2
Maltese                          2
Maltese                          2
Vatican State                    2
Haiti                            2
Kiribati                         2
Tuvalu                           2
Bahamas                          2
Puerto Rico                      2
Kyrgyzstan                       3
Rwanda                           3
Nauru                            3
Turkmenistan                     3
Luxembourg                       3
Monaco                           3
Burundi                          3
Seychelles                       3
Grenada                          3
Bahrain                          3
Tonga                            3
Qatar                            3
Kuwait                           3
Dominica                         3
Liechtenstein                    3
Andorra                          3
Reunion                          3
Dominican Republic               3
Netherlands Antilles             4
Northern Mariana Islands         4
Palestinian West Bank & Gaza     4
Palau                            4
Mayotte                          4
Cyprus*                          4
Bosnia and Herzegovina*          4
Slovenia and Herzegovina*        4
Swaziland                        4
Sao Tome and Principe            4
Guadalupe                        4
Saudi Arabia                     5
Cook Islands                     5
Latvia                           5
Lesotho                          5
Djibouti                         5
Ireland                          5
Moldova                          5
Armenia                          6
Mauritius                        6
Lebanon                          6
Mauritania                       6
Croatia                          6
Kazakhstan                       7
Kazakhstan                       7
Albania                          7
Portugal                         7
Uzbekistan                       7
Sri Lanka*                       7
United Arab Emirates             7
Comoros                          7
Belize                           8
Tunisia                          8
Denmark                          8
Yemen                            8
Morocco*                         9
Austria                          9
Jordan                           9
Macedonia                        9
Tajikistan                       9
French Polynesia                 9
Gambia                           9
Belgium                          9
Libya                            9
Fiji                             10
Slovakia                         10
Ukraine                          10
Egypt                            11
Bulgaria                         11
Norway                           11
Poland                           11
Serbia and Montenegro            11
Eritrea                          12
Georgia*                         12
Finland*                         12
Switzerland*                     12
Hungary*                         12
United Kingdom*                  12
Mongolia                         13
Spain                            13
Somalia*                         13
Oman                             13
Madagascar                       13
Malawi                           14
Equatorial Guinea                14
Mali                             14
Azerbaijan                       14
Japan                            15
Syria*                           15
Romania*                         15
Sweden*                          15
Netherlands*                     15
Greece                           16
Brunei                           17
Algeria                          18
Micronesia                       18
East Timor                       19
Zimbabwe                         19
Niger                            21
Singapore                        21
Cambodia                         21
Iraq*                            21
Guinea-Bissau                    21
Taiwan                           22
Bhutan                           24
Sierra Leone                     24
South Africa                     24
Germany                          28
Namibia                          28
Botswana                         28
France                           29
Liberia                          30
Israel                           33
Italy                            33
Guinea                           34
Turkey*                          34
Senegal                          36
Bangladesh                       39
New Caledonia                    39
Togo                             39
Angola*                          41
Gabon                            41
Zambia                           41
Mozambique                       43
Uganda                           43
Afghanistan                      47
Guatemala                        54
Benin                            54
Kenya                            61
Congo                            62
Burkina Faso                     68
Central African Republic         69
Solomon Islands                  70
Thailand*                        74
Iran*                            77
Cote D'Ivoire                    78
Ghana                            79
Laos                             82
Ethiopia*                        84
Canada*                          85
Russia*                          101
Vietnam                          102
Myanmar*                         108
Vanuatu                          109
Nepal                            126
Tanzania                         128
Chad                             132
Sudan*                           134
Malaysia                         140
United States*                   162
Philippines*                     171
Pakistan*                        171
Democratic Republic of Congo     214
Australia                        227
China*                           235
Cameroon*                        279
Mexico                           291
India*                           415
Nigeria                          510
Indonesia*                       737
Papua New Guinea*                820

*Starred states have a separatist problem, but most are not about language. Most date back to the very formation of an often-illegitimate state.

Canada definitely has a conflict that is rooted in language, but it is also rooted in differential histories as English and French colonies. The Quebec nightmare is always brought up by state fetishists, ethnic nationalists and other racists and nationalists who hate minorities as the inevitable result of any situation whereby a state has more than one language within its borders.

This post is designed to give the lie to this view.

Cyprus’ problem has to do with two nations, Greeks and Turks, who hate each other. The history for this lies in centuries of conflict between Christianity and Islam, culminating in the genocide of 350,000 Greeks in Turkey from 1916-1923.

Morocco’s conflict has nothing to do with language. Spanish Sahara was a Spanish colony in Africa. After the Spanish left in the early 1950’s, Morocco invaded the country and colonized it, claiming in some irredentist way that the land had always been a part of Morocco. The residents beg to differ and say that they are a separate state.

An idiotic conflict ensued in which Morocco the colonizer has been elevated to one of the most sanctioned nations of all by the UN. Yes, Israel is not the only one; there are other international scofflaws out there. In this conflict, as might be expected, US imperialism has supported Moroccan colonialism.

This Moroccan colonialism has now become settler-colonialism, as colonialism often does. You average Moroccan goes livid if you mention their colony. He hates Israel, but Morocco is nothing but an Arab Muslim Israel. If men had a dollar for every drop of hypocrisy, we would be a world of millionaires.

There are numerous separatist conflicts in Somalia. As Somalians have refused to perform their adult responsibilities and form a state, numerous parts of this exercise in anarchism in praxis (Why are the anarchists not cheering this on?) are walking away from the burning house. Who could blame them?

These splits seem to have little to do with language. One, Somaliland, was a former British colony and has a different culture than the rest of Somalia. Somaliland is now de facto independent, as Somalia, being a glorious exercise in anarchism, of course lacks an army to enforce its borders, or to do anything.

Jubaland has also split, but this has nothing to do with language. Instead, this may be rooted in a 36-year period in which it was a British colony. Soon after this period, they had their own postage stamps as an Italian colony.

There is at least one serious separatist conflict in Ethiopia in the Ogaden region, which is mostly populated by ethnic Somalis. Apparently this region used to be part of Somaliland, and Ethiopia probably has little claim to the region. This conflict has little do with language and more to do with conflicts rooted in colonialism and the illegitimate borders of states.

There is also a conflict in the Oromo region of Ethiopia that is not going very far lately. These people have been fighting colonialism since Ethiopia was a colony and since then have been fighting against independent Ethiopia, something they never went along with. Language has a role here, but the colonization of a people by various imperial states plays a larger one.

There was a war in Southern Sudan that has now ended with the possibility that the area may secede.

There is a genocidal conflict in Darfur that the world is ignoring because it involves Arabs killing Blacks as they have always done in this part of the world, and the world only gets upset when Jews kill Muslims, not when Muslims kill Muslims.

This conflict has to do with the Sudanese Arabs treating the Darfurians with utter contempt – they regard them as slaves, as they have always been to these racist Arabs.

The conflict in Southern Sudan involved a region in rebellion in which many languages were spoken. The South Sudanese are also niggers to the racist Arabs, plus they are Christian and animist infidels to be converted by the sword by Sudanese Arab Muslims. Every time a non-Muslim area has tried to split off from or acted uppity with a Muslim state they were part of, the Muslims have responded with a jihad against and genocide of the infidels.

This conflict has nothing to do with language; instead it is a war of Arab Muslim religious fanatics against Christian and animist infidels.

There is a separatist movement in the South Cameroons in the nation of Cameroon in Africa. This conflict is rooted in colonialism. During the colonial era, South Cameroons was a de facto separate state. Many different languages are spoken here, as is the case in Cameroon itself. They may have a separate culture too, but this is just another case of separatism rooted in colonialism. The movement seems to be unarmed.

There is a separatist conflict in Angola in a region called Cabinda, which was always a separate Portuguese colony from Angola.

As this area holds 60% of Angola’s oil, it’s doubtful that Angola will let it go, although almost all of Angola’s oil wealth is being stolen anyway by US transnationals and a tiny elite while 90% of the country starves, has no medicine and lives unemployed amid shacks along former roads now barely passable.

The Cabindans do claim to have a separate culture, but language does not seem to be playing much role here – instead, oil and colonialism are.

Syria does have a Kurdish separatist movement, as does Iran, Iraq, and Turkey – every state that has a significant number of Kurds. This conflict goes back to the post-World War 1 breakup of the Ottoman Empire. The Kurds, with thousands of years of history as a people, nominally independent for much of that time, were denied a state and sold out.

The new fake state called Turkey carved up part of Kurdistan, another part was donated to the British colony in Iraq and another to the French colony in Syria, as the Allies carved up the remains of the Empire like hungry guests at a feast.

This conflict is more about colonialism and extreme discrimination than language, though the Kurds do speak their own tongue. There is also a Kurdish separatist conflict in Iran, but I don’t know much about the history of the Iranian Kurds.

There is also an Assyrian separatist movement in Iraq and possibly in Syria. The movement is unarmed. The Assyrians have been horribly persecuted by Arab nationalist racists in the region, in part because they are Christians. They have been targeted by Islamo-Nazis in Iraq during this Iraq War with a ferocity that can only be described as genocidal.

The Kurds have long persecuted the Assyrians in Iraqi Kurdistan. There have been regular homicides of Assyrians in the north, up around the Mosul region. This is just related to the general way that Muslims treat Christian minorities in many Muslim states – they persecute them and even kill them. There is also a lot of land theft going on.

While the Kurdish struggle is worthwhile, it is becoming infected with the usual nationalist evil that afflicts all ethnic nationalism. This results in everyone who is not a Kurdish Sunni Muslim being subjected to varying degrees of persecution, disenfranchisement and discrimination. It’s a nasty part of the world.

In Syria, the Assyrians live up near the Turkish and Iraqi borders. Arab nationalist racists have been stealing their land for decades now and relocating the Assyrians to model villages, where they languish in poverty. Assad’s regime is not so secular and progressive as one might suspect.

There is a separatist conflict in Bougainville in New Guinea. I am sure that many different tongues are spoken on that island, as there are 800 different tongues spoken in Papua New Guinea. The conflict is rooted in the fact that Bougainville is rich in copper, but almost all of this wealth is stolen by Papua New Guinea and US multinationals, so the Bougainville people see little of it. Language has little or nothing to do with it.

There are separatist movements in the Ahwaz and Balochistan regions of Iran, along with the aforementioned Kurdish movement. It is true that different languages are spoken in these regions, but that has little to do with the conflict.

Arabic is spoken in Khuzestan, the land of the Iranian Arabs. This land has been part of Persia for around 2,000 years as the former land of Elam. The Arabs complain that they are treated poorly by the Persians, and that they get little revenue to their region even though they are sitting on a vast puddle of oil and natural gas.

Iran should not be expected to part with this land, as it is the source of much of their oil and gas wealth. Many or most Iranians speak Arabic anyway, so there is not much of a language issue. Further, Arab culture is promoted by the Islamist regime even at the expense of Iranian culture, much to the chagrin of Iranian nationalists.

The Ahwaz have been and are being exploited by viciously racist Arab nationalists in Iraq, and also by US imperialism, and most particularly lately, British imperialism, as the British never seem to have given up the colonial habit. This conflict is not about language at all. Most Ahwaz don’t even want to separate anyway; they just want to be treated like humans by the Iranians.

Many of Iran’s 8% Sunni population lives in Balochistan. The region has maybe 2% of Iran’s population and is utterly neglected by Iran. Sunnis are treated with extreme racist contempt by the Shia Supremacists who run Iran. This conflict has to do with the fight between the Shia and Sunni wings of Islam and little or nothing to do with language.

There is a separatist movement in Iran to split off Iranian Azerbaijan and merge it with Azerbaijan proper. This movement probably has little to do with language and more to do with just irredentism. The movement is not going to go very far because most Iranian Azeris do not support it.

Iranian Azeris actually form a ruling class in Iran and occupy most of the positions of power in the government. They also control a lot of the business sector and seem to have a higher income than other Iranians. This movement has been co-opted by pan-Turkish fascists for opportunistic reasons, but it’s not really going anywhere. The CIA is now cynically trying to stir it up with little success. The movement is peaceful.

There is a Baloch insurgency in Pakistan, but language has little to do with it. These fiercely independent people sit on top of a very rich land which is ruthlessly exploited by Punjabis from the north. They get little or no return from this natural gas wealth. Further, this region never really consented to being included in the Pakistani state that was carved willy-nilly out of India in 1947.

It is true that there are regions in the Caucasus that are rebelling against Russia. Given the brutal and bloody history of Russian imperial colonization of this region and the near-continuous rebellious state of the Muslims resident there, one wants to say they are rebelling against Imperial Russia.

Chechnya is the worst case, but Ingushetia is not much better, and things are bad in Dagestan too. There is also fighting in Kabardino-Balkaria and Karachay-Cherkessia. These non-Chechen regions are getting increasingly radicalized as consequence of the Chechen War. There has also been a deliberate strategy on the part of the Chechens to expand the conflict over to the other parts of the Caucasus.

Past rebellions were often pan-Caucasian also. Although very different languages are spoken in these areas, different languages are still spoken all across Russia. Language has little to do with these conflicts, as they have more to do with Russian imperialism and colonization of these lands and the near 200-year violent resistance of these fierce Muslim mountain tribes to being colonized by Slavic infidels.

There is not much separatism in the rest of Russia.

Tuva reserves the right to split away, but this is rooted in their prior history as an independent state within the USSR (Tell me how that works?) for two decades until 1944, when Stalin reconquered it as a result of the conflict with the Nazis. The Tuvans accepted peacefully.

Yes, the Tuvans speak a different tongue, but so do all of the Siberian nations, and most of those are still with Russia. Language has little to do with the Tuvan matter.

There is also separatism in the Bashkir Republic and Adygea in Russia. These have not really gone anywhere. Only 21% of the residents of
Adygea speak Circassian, and they see themselves as overrun by Russian-speaking immigrants. This conflict may have something to do with language. The Adygean conflict is also peripherally related the pan-Caucasian struggle above.

In the Bashkir Republic, the problem is more one of a different religion – Islam, as most Bashkirs are Muslim. It is not known to what degree language has played in the struggle, but it may be a factor. The Bashkirs also see themselves as overrun by Russian-speaking immigrants. It is dubious that the Bashkirs will be able to split off, as the result will be a separate nation surrounded on all sides by Russia.

The Adygean, Tuvan and Bashkir struggles are all peaceful.

The conflict in Georgia is complex. A province called Abkhazia has split off and formed their own de facto state, which has been supported with extreme cynicism by up and coming imperialist Russia, the same clown state that just threatened to go to war to defend the territorial integrity of their genocidal Serbian buddies. South Ossetia has also split off and wants to join Russia.

Both of these reasonable acts prompted horrible and insane wars as Georgia sought to preserve its territorial integrity, though it has scarcely been a state since 1990, and neither territory ever consented to being part of Georgia.

The Ossetians and Abkhazians do speak separate languages, and I am not certain why they want to break away, but I do not think that language has much to do with it. All parties to these conflicts are majority Orthodox Christians.

Myanmar is a hotbed of nations in rebellion against the state. Burma was carved out of British East India in 1947. Part of Burma had actually been part of British India itself, while the rest was a separate colony called Burma. No sooner was the ink dry on the declaration of independence than most of these nations in rebellion announced that they were not part of the deal.

Bloody rebellions have gone on ever since, and language has little or nothing to do with any of them. They are situated instead on the illegitimacy of not only the borders of the Burmese state, but of the state itself.

Thailand does have a separatist movement, but it is Islamic. They had a separate state down there until the early 1800’s when they were apparently conquered by Thais. I believe they do speak a different language down there, but it is not much different from Thai, and I don’t think language has anything to do with this conflict.

There is a conflict in the Philippines that is much like the one in Thailand. Muslims in Mindanao have never accepted Christian rule from Manila and are in open arms against the state. Yes, they speak different languages down in Mindanao, but they also speak Tagalog, the language of the land.

This just a war of Muslims seceding because they refuse to be ruled by infidels. Besides, this region has a long history of independence, de facto and otherwise, from the state. The Moro insurgency has little to nothing to do with language.

There are separatist conflicts in Indonesia. The one in Aceh seems to have petered out. Aceh never agreed to join the fake state of Indonesia that was carved out of the Dutch East Indies when the Dutch left in 1949.

West Papua is a colony of Indonesia. It was invaded by Indonesia with the full support of US imperialism in 1965. The Indonesians then commenced to murder 100,000 Papuans over the next 40 years. There are many languages spoken in West Papua, but that has nothing to do with the conflict. West Papuans are a racially distinct people divided into vast numbers of tribes, each with a separate culture.

They have no connection racially or culturally with the rest of Indonesia and do not wish to be part of the state. They were not a part of the state when it was declared in 1949 and were only incorporated after an Indonesian invasion of their land in 1965. Subsequently, Indonesia has planted lots of settler-colonists in West Papua.

There is also a conflict in the South Moluccas , but it has more to do with religion than anything else, since there is a large number of Christians in this area. The South Moluccans were always reluctant to become a part of the new fake Indonesian state that emerged after independence anyway, and I believe there was some fighting for a while there. The South Moluccan struggle has generally been peaceful ever since.

Indonesia is the Israel of Southeast Asia, a settler-colonial state. The only difference is that the Indonesians are vastly more murderous and cruel than the Israelis.

There are conflicts in Tibet and East Turkestan in China. In the case of Tibet, this is a colony of China that China has no jurisdiction over. The East Turkestan fight is another case of Muslims rebelling against infidel rule. Yes, different languages are spoken here, but this is the case all over China.

Language is involved in the East Turkestan conflict in that Chinese have seriously repressed the Uighur language, but I don’t think it plays much role in Tibet.

There is also a separatist movement in Inner Mongolia in China. I do not think that language has much to do with this, and I believe that China’s claim to Inner Mongolia may be somewhat dubious. This movement is unarmed and not very organized.

There are conflicts all over India, but they don’t have much to do with language.

The Kashmir conflict is not about language but instead is rooted in the nature of the partition of India after the British left in 1947. 90% of Kashmiris wanted to go to Pakistan, but the ruler of Kashmir was a Hindu, and he demanded to stay in India.

The UN quickly ruled that Kashmir had to be granted a vote in its future, but this vote was never allowed by India. As such, India is another world-leading rogue and scofflaw state on a par with Israel and Indonesia. Now the Kashmir mess has been complicated by the larger conflict between India and Pakistan, and until that is all sorted out, there will be no resolution to this mess.

Obviously India has no right whatsoever to rule this area, and the Kashmir cause ought to be taken up by all progressives the same way that the Palestinian one is.

There are many conflicts in the northeast, where most of the people are Asians who are racially, often religiously and certainly culturally distinct from the rest of Indians.

None of these regions agreed to join India when India, the biggest fake state that has ever existed, was carved out of 5,000 separate princely states in 1947. Each of these states had the right to decide its own future to be a part of India or not. As it turned out, India just annexed the vast majority of them and quickly invaded the few that said no.

“Bharat India”, as Indian nationalist fools call it, as a state, is one of the silliest concepts around. India has no jurisdiction over any of those parts of India in separatist rebellion, if you ask me. Language has little to do with these conflicts.

Over 800 languages are spoken in India anyway, each state has its own language, and most regions are not in rebellion over this. Multilingualism with English and Hindi to cement it together has worked just fine in most of India.

Sri Lanka’s conflict does involve language, but more importantly it involves centuries of extreme discrimination by ruling Buddhist Sinhalese against minority Hindu Tamils. Don’t treat your minorities like crap, and maybe they will not take up arms against you.

The rebellion in the Basque country of Spain and France is about language, as is Catalonian nationalism.

IRA Irish nationalism and the Scottish and Welsh independence movements have nothing to do with language, as most of these languages are not in good shape anyway.

The Corsicans are in rebellion against France, and language may play a role. There is an independence movement in Brittany in France also, and language seems to play a role here, or at least the desire to revive the language, which seems to be dying.

There is a possibility that Belgium may split into Flanders and Wallonia, and language does play a huge role in this conflict. One group speaks French and the other Dutch.

There is a movement in Scania, a part of Sweden, to split away from Sweden. Language seems to have nothing to do with it.

There is a Hungarian separatist movement, or actually, a national reunification or pan-Hungarian movement, in Romania. It isn’t going anywhere, and it unlikely to succeed. Hungarians in Romania have not been treated well and are a large segment of the population. This fact probably drives the separatism more than language.

There are many other small conflicts in Europe that I chose not to go into due to limitations on time and the fact that I am getting tired of writing this post! Perhaps I can deal with them at a later time. Language definitely plays a role in almost all of these conflicts. None of them are violent though.

To say that there are separatists in French Polynesia is not correct. This is an anti-colonial movement that deserves the support of anti-colonial activists the world over. The entire world, evidenced by the UN itself, has rejected colonialism. Only France, the UK and the US retain colonies. That right there is notable, as all three are clearly imperialist countries. In this modern age, the value of retaining colonies is dubious.

These days, colonizers pour more money into colonies than they get out of them. France probably keeps Polynesia due to colonial pride and also as a place to test nuclear weapons and maintain military bases. As the era of French imperialism on a grand scale has clearly passed, France needs to renounce its fantasies of being a glorious imperial power along with its anachronistic colonies.

Yes, there is a Mapuche separatist movement in Chile, but it is not going anywhere soon, or ever.

It has little to do with language. The Mapudungan language is not even in very good shape, and the leaders of this movement are a bunch of morons. Microsoft recently unveiled a Mapudungan language version of Microsoft Windows. You would think that the Mapuche would be ecstatic. Not so! They were furious. Why? Oh, I forget. Some Identity Politics madness.

This movement has everything to do with the history of Chile. Like Argentina and Uruguay, Chile was one of the Spanish colonies that was settled en masse late. For centuries, a small colonial bastion battled the brave Mapuche warriors, but were held at bay by this skilled and militaristic tribe.

Finally, in the late 1800’s, a fanatical and genocidal war was waged on the Mapuche in one of those wonderful “national reunification” missions so popular in the 1800’s (recall Italy’s wars of national reunification around this same time). By the 1870’s, the Mapuche were defeated and suffered a devastating loss of life.

Yet all those centuries of only a few Spanish colonists and lots of Indians had made their mark, and at least 70% of Chileans are mestizos, though they are mostly White (about 80% White on average). The Mapuche subsequently made a comeback and today number about 9% of the population.

Because they held out so long and so many of them survived, they are one of the most militant Amerindian groups in the Americas. They are an interesting people, light-skinned and attractive, though a left-wing Chilean I knew used to chortle about how hideously ugly they were.

Hawaiian separatism is another movement that has a lot to do with colonialism and imperialism and little to do with language. The Hawaiian language, despite some notable recent successes, is not in very good shape. The Hawaiian independence movement offers nothing to non-Hawaiians (I guess only native Hawaiians get to be citizens!) and is doomed to fail.

Hawaiians are about 22% of the population, and they are the only ones that support the independence movement. No one else supports it. It’s not going anywhere. The movers and shakers on the island (Non-Hawaiians for the most part!) all think it’s ridiculous.

There are separatists in the Chittagong Hill Tracts of Bangladesh, but I doubt that language has much to do with it. Like the myriad other separatist struggles in the NE of India, these people are ethnically Asians and as such are not the same ethnicity as the Caucasians who make up the vast majority of the population of this wreck of a state.

This is another conflict that is rooted in a newly independent fake state. The Chittagong Hill Tracts were incorporated into Bangladesh after its independence from Pakistan in 1971. As a fake new state, the peoples of Bangladesh had a right to be consulted on whether or not they wished to be a part of it. The CHT peoples immediately said that they wanted no part of this new state.

At partition, the population was 98.5% Asian. They were Buddhists, Hindus and animists. Since then, the fascist Bangladesh state has sent Bengali Muslim settler-colonists to the region. The conflict is shot through with racism and religious bigotry, as Muslim Bengalis have rampaged through the region, killing people randomly and destroying stuff as they see fit. Language does not seem to have much to do with this conflict.

I don’t know much about the separatist struggle of the Moi in Vietnam, but I think it is more a movement for autonomy than anything else. The Moi are Montagnards and have probably suffered discrimination at the hands of the state along with the rest of the Montagnards.

Zanzibar separatism in Tanzania seems to have nothing whatsoever to do with language, but has a lot more to do with geography. Zanzibar is a nice island off the coast of Tanzania which probably wants nothing to do with the mess of a Tanzanian state.

The conflict also has a lot to do with race. Most residents of Zanzibar are either Arabs or descendants of unions between Arabs and Africans. In particular, they deny that they are Black Africans. I bet that is the root of the conflict right there.

There were some Talysh separatists in Azerbaijan a while back, but the movement seems to be over. I am not sure what was driving them, but language doesn’t seem to have been a big part of it. Just another case of new members of a fake new state refusing to go along for the ride.

There were some Gagauz separatists in Moldova a while back, but the movement appears to have died down. Language does seem to have played a role here, as the Gagauz speak a Turkic tongue totally unrelated to the Romance-speaking Moldovans.

Realistically, it’s just another case of a fake new state emerging and some members of the new state saying they don’t want to be a part of it, and the leaders of the fake new state suddenly invoking inviolability of borders in a state with no history!

In summary, as we saw above, once we get into Europe, language does play a greater role in separatist conflict, but most of these European conflicts are not violent. In the rest of the world, language plays little to no role in the vast majority of separatist conflicts.

The paranoid and frankly fascist notion voiced by rightwing nationalists the world over that any linguistic diversity in the world within states must be crushed as it will inevitably lead to separatism at best or armed separatism at worst is not supported by the facts.

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