The Unwinable War

We also didn't have any Russians but I know them to be fine people. It appalls me that the Ukraine doesn't have an open door policy for Russians.

 

You mean, for the biggest ethnic minority in the country? Of course, the doors are firmly shut for them. And you do not confuse ethnicity with state, not at all.

 

Also, well played bringing up Russia. In addition to hacking American elections, Russian nationals are known to cause one recent deadly Islamic terror attack on US soil (Boston Marathon) - exactly one more than citizens of countries on travel ban list, combined. Shows how Trump policy is completely reasonable and is not designed to fan ethnic resentment, not at all.

 

Actually, they're Chechens . They'd slit your throat if you referred to them as Russians. Chechens Source - Details of Tsarnaev Brothers? Lives Emerge - NYTimes.com


"The Chechens are a largely Muslim ethnic group that has lived for centuries in the mountainous North Caucasus region. For the past two hundred years, Chechens have resisted Russian rule"


And, as you can see, they have another thing in common with the largest attacks on US soil, they're Muslim which of course is not a race, but a religion prone to periodic outburst spontaneous and (explosive) in nature.


Genetic tests on Chechens, though sparse and not sufficiently thorough so far, have shown roots mostly in the Caucasus as well as slight connections to and influences from the Middle East as well as Europe. As is the case with many other Caucasian peoples, Chechens are connected with Europe on the Y-DNA (paternal) side, but closer to Western Europe in terms of mitochondrial DNA (the maternal side).[42]
The most recent study on Chechens, by Balanovsky et al. in 2011[43] sampled a total of 330 Chechens from three sample locations (one in Malgobek, one in Achkhoy-Martan, and one from two sites in Dagestan) and found the following frequencies: A weak majority of Chechens belong to Haplogroup J2 (56.7%[43]), which is associated with Mediterranean, South Caucasian and Fertile Crescent populations, with its peaks at 87.4% in Ingushetia and 72% in Georgia's Kazbegi Municipality. In the North Caucasus, the largest frequencies are those of Nakh peoples (Chechens (56.7%) and Ingush (88.8%).[43] Other notable values were found among North Caucasian Turkic peoples (Kumyks (25%)[44] and Balkars (24%)[45]). It is notable that J2 suddenly collapses as one enters the territory of non-Nakh Northeast Caucasian peoples, dropping to very low values among Dagestani peoples.[42][43][46][47] The overwhelming bulk of Chechen J2 is of the subclade J2a4b* (J2-M67), of which the highest frequencies by far are found among Nakh peoples: Chechens were 55.2% according to the Balanovsky study, while Ingush were 87.4%. Other notable haplogroups that appeared consistently appeared at high frequencies included J1 (20.9%), L (7.0%), G2 (5.5%), R1a (3.9%), Q-M242 (3%) and R1b-M269 (1.8%, but much higher in Chechnya itself as opposed to Dagestani or Ingushetian Chechens). Overall, tests have shown consistently that Chechens are most closely related to Ingush, Circassians and Georgians, occasionally showing a kinship to other peoples in some tests. Balanovsky's study showed the Ingush to be the Chechens' closest relatives by far.[43][47][48]
A 2004 study of the mtDNA showed Chechens to be extremely diverse in the mitochondrial genome, with 18 different haplogroups out of only 23 samples.[42] Chechens clustered closest to Azeris, Georgians and Kabardins. They clustered closer to European populations than Middle Eastern populations this time, but were closer to Western European populations (Basques and Britons) than to Eastern European populations (Russians and other Slavs, as well as Estonians), despite living in the East. They actually clustered about as close to Basques as they did to Ingush (Chechens also cluster closer to many other populations than Ingush, such as Abazins), but the Chechens were the closer to the Ingush than any other population, the imbalance probably largely being due to the uniqueness of the Ingush on the mitochondrial DNA among those tested.[42]

 

Are you suggesting that Trump's travel ban is about religion or ethnicity, not being nationals of countries with iffy applicant screening capabilities? Because I am not going to argue with that. That'll, incidentally, also make it unconstitutional.

Most Russians, of course, identify as Orthodox Christians. But the less known fact is that vast majority of those "Orthodox" attend a house of worship once a year, if that. It is suggested that Russia's other "traditional faith", Islam, has more practicing adherents than Russian Orthodox Church. Chechen despot Ramzan Kadyrov (who bragged of killing his first Russian at age 16) is a key Putin ally, and is quite possibly the second most powerful man in Russia. At least in terms of the number of people who can tell him what to do (zero - no, not even Putin). Oh, he also has built the biggest mosque in Europe, dedicated to his dad the murdered imam/warlord; he then tried to rig SMS voting for a TV contest to get the mosque declared a "wonder of Russia". It is quite likely Tsarnaevs spoke Russian at home and were under Russian influence as well as Islamist one. Even though, yeah, they'd deny being "Russians". People in this part of the world often don't grasp distinction between nationality and ethnicity.

 

The topic of this thread is the arguably badly-named 'war on terror', not demands that migrants and foreigners be given the power to dictate the terms of their own entry into other people's countries.

Turning to the successive waves of immigrants to the United States, it's just historical fact that they caused huge social stresses and strains when they arrived. Even today, American domestic politics is based far more on ethnic divisions than people typically want to admit. That's why the Democrats practice identity-politics so aggressively. (And why any hint of corresponding cultural American identity-politics is denounced so frantically.) I'm not convinced that history constitutes a good argument for introducing additional problems of that kind.

The only reason why the United States succeeded in developing its own national culture and identity was that it functioned as a huge melting pot. The new arrivals assimilated into a culture that was already there as they added their own new ingredients. That's why the language of the US is English, why our law is based on English common law, why the development of American philosophy was influenced so strongly by British empiricism, and so on. What makes the melting pot work is people reaching the point where they have more things in common than things that continue to divide them. More important things. And it depends on people not obsessing about their remaining differences.

As far as religion goes, diversity has existed here since colonial days. While the New England colonies were originally intended to be devout little Calvinist Biblical commonwealths, Maryland welcomed Catholics and Virginia tended to be Church of England/Episcopalian. Many of the earliest arrivals in America came here to escape the 17th century 'wars of religion' in Europe. So one of the earliest challenges that the new United States faced was bringing some harmony to all of that. The new consensus was built on the growing agreement that religion was a personal and private thing, a matter of individual conscience. So people like Thomas Jefferson argued forcefully that religion and civil law needed to have a 'wall of separation' dividing them.

Islam doesn't fit comfortably into that kind of scheme. From its origin, Islam hasn't been just a matter of individual piety, it's been a social organization that Muslims believe was ordained by God himself for all mankind. God's favor was clearly and obviously manifest as the first Muslims swept over the Sassanid Persians and half the Byzantine empire in the 7th century. The earliest intellectual history of Islam was the history of the codification of divinely revealed Islamic Law (Shariah).

The whole subsequent history of Islam can be read as a struggle between opposing civil and theocratic tendencies. The role of Caliph (Mohammed's successor as religious guide) became separated from the role of King (commander of the armies and executor of civil rule.) Many Muslim kings favored civil law, but when they became tyrannical as they often did, the people turned to an idealized dream of God's law and a rightously-guided community as the route to reestablishing ethical society.

That's what we are seeing in the Middle East today. The villagers (and their mullahs) feel that civil secular society has been given its chance and has been found wanting. The failure of Islamic civilization before European colonialism was evidence of that. The brutality of so many tyrannical secular Muslim leaders today is further evidence of it. The solution is to return to the moral social order commanded by God himself, enshrined in His eternal Law.

So we have Salafism (what the West calls 'Islamic fundamentalism') from the Arabic 'Salaf 'forefathers'. It's the idealization of the early Muslims and their "rightly-guided" 7th century community as exemplars of God's vision of a properly organized society today.

In its most extreme sense, it is what motivates Islamic State and many of their crudest barbarities. In a more moderate sense, it's found everywhere in the Islamic world today, shared by the majority of Muslims in many countries, illustrated in the sudden renewed adherence to Shariah and organizing personal and social life more broadly around Islamic tradition.

What happens when those kind of views are imported into a society like the United States? The US expects religion to be a strictly private thing, a matter for home and church (temple, synagogue, mandir, mosque or wat...) We don't expect religion to contradict secular civil presuppositions (except when Southern Baptists are being caricaturized by New Yorkers). We assume that our secular elite's own personal moral intuitions about women's proper roles, gay rights, blasphemy and all the rest of our "social issues" must take precedence over the contrary teachings of religious tradition whenever they conflict.

To traditional Islam, Islam is the way of correctly organizing all of society both public and private (including the public behavior of non-Muslims within it) in accordance with God's will. Just to become a minority in a predominately non-Muslim society requires strenuous mental gymnastics from the more traditionalist Muslims.

Obviously some Muslims make very good immigrants. Many of them treat their Islam as a personal matter between them and their God. Islam presents no more of a problem in their assimilation then Buddhism does with Asian immigrants. My remarks aren't directed at all Muslims indiscriminately, but at a very traditional and currently very widespread 'fundamentalist' theological interpretation of Islam.

Returning to the 'war on terror', we shouldn't be striving to remake the Middle East in our own image (as the Europeans attempted in the 19th century). That won't work and it will just mobilize a proud civilization against us. We need to redirect the emphasis in the 'war on terror' to our own borders and devote far more attention to the sort of ideas, beliefs, commitments and assumptions that we are so indiscriminately importing, and to the problems that might generate further down the line.

 

I'm quite convinced history constitutes quite good argument against xenophobia. America does have a core of Enlightenment ideals, but wave after wave of immigrants (each "bringing their own alien culture to sacred WASP shores") had proven quite capable of adopting these. And it's not exactly new. One of Washington's brigadier generals is also remembered as a prominent Polish nationalist and is a hero in four countries (Poland, Belarus, and Lithuania). Thaddeus Kościuszko, best known for failed "Kościuszko Uprising".

Yeah, let's ignore the powerful stream in the history of Christianity, back from the time Emperor Constantine (that's Saint Equal-to-Apostles Constantine, btw) brought it into mainstream. Even though it lives in many streams or "Religious Right", and there still exist established Churches and the Holy See with Vatican State. I mean, what are you trying to pull here?

"Some"? Numbers please.
Fighting radicalisation of Muslims is a separate and complex issue. What is NOT helpful is equating 'fundamentalism' and 'Islam' - which is, incidentally, exactly what they try to do. And, oh yeah, 'some Irish make very good immigrants', 'some Jews make very good immigrants', right? Especially if they abandon their backwards ways and just join the dominant Protestant melting pot, right?

Also, you're arguing that relatively small stream of newcomers from Muslim land is inherently harder to integrate than much bigger stream of, well, East Asians. Even though a few million of them, already assimilated. You're saying that Islam (which is essentially a Christian heresy) is more alien than Indian religion? Hmmmmm...

You know, if Salafi ideas and beliefs lose out to American ideas, you're doing something wrong in the battle for hearts and minds. It should be no context. Thankfully, for overwhelming numbers, it is.

Also, what you really trying to argue here is that American way is antithetical to "traditional, fundamentalist" religious one, so in essence America is secularist? That's partially true, although a bit Bernie Sanders. Interesting argument from you though.

 

Indeed. And don't forget that other immigrant "Prominent Polish Nationalist": Kazimierz Michał Władysław Wiktor Pułaski of Ślepowron. Fought against Russian domination. Exiled. Benjamin Franklin recommended he come to America. A General in the Revolutionary War. Saved George Washington's life. Died leading a charge against British Forces. Pulaski is one of only eight people to be awarded honorary United States citizenship. Just sayin'. I remember reading about both Kościuszko and Pulaski in high school American History, 1955-56, here in Canada.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_Pulaski

J.

 

A modern take on Pulaski, from the "Badass of the Week" site. An entertaining read - much more so than my Grade 9 history book. Warning: strong language. Badass of the Week: Casimir Pulaski
I forgot to mention he is known as "the father of American Cavalry."

J.

 

Of course not.

That's true. It was certainly evident in New York.

My father was an Italian immigrant. So were these people: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Galleanists

And persists among even white ethnics.

 

Wow.

Our people were basically mortal enemies at the time, and Schlachta and their pride was the biggest reason Poland was in a sorry state it was. Still, can they to badass, or can they do badass? Between the two, I'd pick Kościuszko, an idealist, liberal (for the time) and intellectual; but. I mean. Wow.

 

I think you'd have a hard time arguing that a nation forged in fire of the Revolutionary War needed forrinners to introduce political violence. Besides, I didn't study the history of Italian Americans, but even with this and the Mafia I suspect their contribution is a substantial net positive.

Oooooh, "ethnic divisions"! Did you have a slaughter like Sarajevo lately? No? Then these don't count.
I believe we both live in terrific countries, in large part because Diversity Is Our F#@ing Strength, and any kinds of ethnic supremacism is backwards and unAmerican. And yeah, initially any new large group brought a boatload of old country cr@p with them to Ellis Island, but the American Spirit chewed it all and spitted out. It's hilarious to suggest the tiny stream of Muslims or, for that matter Catholic Hispanics represent a new and unique challenge. I mean, in the last century, you guys stared down both Nazis and Soviets; a group of desert camel enthusiasts armed with Russian AK47s and half a Quoran will inevitably be relegated to dustbins of history.