The reality in Chechenia and Russia, Israel & Palestine is complicated and
not always black & white, between black and white you have grey area's.
Yes, that is true. But we can't push such relativisation to the extreme. At the sides of grey there are white and black strips. It is Russia who is agressor against Chechenia.
Tuftabis,
Thank you for your reply, I like how you put it in your reply. Your are true. We (Western) Europeans often go far in nuance, putting things into perspective, looking at two side or better three or more (multilateral preference), and sometimes come in the area in which relativisation comes near to indifference. The weakness of the European diplomancy and pluriform position is often that there is no clear united standpoint, no clear view, no choose for one side or the other. I stil believe from my European perspective that the American or Israeli Good guys - Bad guys thinking is too black and white, to simplistic.
But you have clear historical and present examples of states, political ideologies, groups, movements, individuals, regimes or networks which are bad or evil, and in that it is clear who is the bad guy and the good guy. For instance in the First World War I have no clear vision who was the good guy or the bad guy? In the First world war there were stil black, white and grey area's. You had evil elements of extremist nationalists (the Serb extremists who killed the Austrian crown prince for instance is a bad guy in my view, and the war maniac the German Kaiser Wilhelm I was a lunatic). But on both sides all kind of normal people participated in that devastating war. Democrats, monarchists, social-democrats, Marxists, Conservatives and Nationalists or Patriots. Poles fought in three armies, the Russian (my grandfather Jan Kotowicz), the German (Pilsudski) and the Austrian (Wladyslaw Leopold Jaworski). They were forced to fight and had no choice. The same thing was with many Germans, Austrians, Hungarians, British, Italians, French, Australian, Canadian and Belgian soldiers and officers.
You had profiteers, the Big Industrialists like the German Krupp stahl and the British Militairy industry, and the politicians and generals who continued that completely useless and criminal war which losts many millions of young men their lives, destroyed agricultural lands, and complete villages, towns and cities. In this first World War and the equal criminal Versailles treaty lay the root for the Second World War and even further troubles in the 20th and the 21th century. The War reparations which the British, French and Americans imposed on the Germans and Austrians led to huge poverty, misery, hunger and even death in Germany and Austria. That extreme conditions lay the foundation or created the fertile grounds for the growing new totalitarian anti-democratic movements of Communism, Nazism and Fascism.
We were talking here or comparing the Palestinian tragedy with the tragedy of the Chechens who were brutally opressed, tortured and massacred by the Russians and their Chechen henchmen. The only simularity could be that some of the Israeli soldiers and officers that opress the Palestinians in the occupied teritories are Russian immigrants.
The kind of conflict between the Israeli's and Palestinians and the Russians and Chechens is different. First, because Russia occupies Chechenia for strategic, militairy and patriotic reasons, and not for the purpose of a population policy. In Israel religious, geopolitcal, ideological (Jewish nationalism and Jewish living space), economical and militairy strategic
motivations play a role in the occupation of Judea and Samaria also called the Westbank of the Jordan river. At the Israeli election night inn Amsterdam I met a religious Zionist (National religious person), who believed that it was the duty of the jews to regain the holy soil of the Westbank for the Jews (to make the return of the Messiah possible). I also met a centre right Likudnik (Likud party supporter) who believed in a two state solution on the long term, because a large Israel with millions of Arabs would be a threat to the Jewish state, because a democratic jewish state needs a majority of Jews. At the same gathering I met a Dutch representative of Labour Zionism (in Polish pre-war history Polai Zion), who represented Avoda (Labourparty) and the Leftwing Meretz party in the debate. He believed in a peaceful coexistence and future of Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs in Israel, supported Jewish-Arab mixed marriages or relationships and Gay rights in Israel. At the same gathering there was a Dutch Jewish Europarlaimentarian of the Leftwing Socialist Party (Socialistische Partij:
SP), whom you could call a representative of the Diaspora BUND socialism (the Jiddish European jewish culture in contrast with the Ivrit -New Hebrew- culture of the Israeli's),
who fiercly criticized the Israeli policy in the Gaza war, but in the same time criticized Hamas and other extremist Palestinian and Arab movement and states. He was also against Iran, he mentioned the lunatic Amadjinidad. He Had lived in Israel in a leftwing Socialist Kibbutz, and in Israel he would vote Meretz, he told me! Anther Dutch Jewish guy, who was not at the gathering, because he is an anti-Zionist Jewish writer, told me about the rich German Jewish culture of before the Holocaust (he was a German jew who fled to Hollland and was captured by the Nazi's here and transported to Auschwitz, which he miraculously survived), the Jewish history of Humanitarian Universalism which came from the tradition of the Old testamony and the oral commandments, the jewish ethics and the German reform movement of the great German-Jewish philosopher Moses Mendelssohn and the Jewish Enlightenment that came out of that, the Haskalah (
pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Haskala ). He stated that Zionism is exactly the opposite of the great Jewish universal tradition and is in fact narrowing the Jewish perspective or direction of Judaism in the direction of a narrow, primitive Judaism of blunt nationalism, etnocentrism and a monolythical block. Judaism in his view was plurifom, rich (in a spiritual and cultural sense) and broad-minded in the past in contrast to the narrow minded primitive Zionist dominated Judaism of today. He feared that Zionism and Israel was the greatest threat to the existance of Judaism today, and that Zionism was the biggest cause to the rise of anti-semitism in the world. I have two other Jewish girlfriends (who don't know eachother and this jewish writer), but who feel not connected to Israel either. But in the same time they feel 100% jewish, because according to (Orthodox) Jewish law they are Jewish (because their mothers, grandmothers, and greatgrandmother from mothers side were jewish). They are secular artists, poets and radio journalists, who keep the Jewish tradition in their home, with Jewish holidays, the Jewish kitchen, and a specific Jewish atmosphere, I can't describe here. One of them teaches her son both his Jewish and christian roots, because his father is Dutch protestant, from upbringing.
Why did I write all this Tuftabis, whel, because I wanted to show the differant shades in Judaism inside and outside Israel to you, Jaga, and other Forummembers.
Please read my story again, think about Europe as the Middle east or the Arab world and imagine the Israeli-Arab conflict, the conflicts between Arabs, the Arab-Persian conflict (Iraqi-Iranian war 1980-1988) and the Sunni-Shia Islamic conflict within the Islam from the perspective of the European heritage. The Greek times, the Roman times, the Etrusks, the Visigoths, the Huns, the Middle ages (Dark ages), the Renaissance and Enlightenment, the Reformation (and centuries long bloody religious wars between Catholics and Protestants),
the long conflicts and bloodshed between the European peoples, the Inquisition, the Progroms against jews from the Middle ages until the early 20th centuries, Irish Catholic Nationalist and Protestant Loyalist militia's and terorists in Norhtern-Ireland, Neo-nazism and Hooliganism from Great-Brittain until the Russian Federation, the terror of the Sicilian Maffia, Gomorra and the Russian Maffia in large parts of Europe, the Balkan, the fact that Slowakia was a dictatorship in the ninetees and stil opresses it's Hungarian minority (the same thing with Rumania), and the treatment of Gypsies in many Central- and Eastern-European countries (Czech republic, Rumania and other countries).
And the tensions in our large European capitals and cities between Muslim migrants and the original populations who often became a minority in their old innercity neighbourhoods!
There is always black, grey and white! And next to that there are colors, perspective, human expression and creativity, individualsm, humanity, and situations that go further than the cliché of the conflict, people who escape from the stereotype which is made of them, because they are Arab and human, smart, educated, well articulate and selfconfident!
Read this story, your history books, novels of Jewish writers, and imagine that it is about the Palestinian people, Palestinian history, Palestinian writers and Palestinian books!
The Palestinians have a history like the jews, and genetically there is found proof that they are genetically very close to their Israeli jewish neighbours. Palestinian Arabs are differant from the Israeli Jews, because they often stayed for hundreds or thousands of years in the area, and because they are Muslim and christian. Some of them were even jewish many generations back, but were forced to convert to Islam or Christianity, by Arab invaders or Crusaders. The Palestinian identity, Patriotism and international diaspora (and the richness of that diaspora) is created by the Israeli-Palestinian or Israeli-Arab conflict. The Palestinian arabs can learn from the Jewish diaspora who lived spread over the world for thousands of years! And I think they do, because Palestinians speak Hebrew and Russian (those who studied in Moscow), read jewish authors like we do (from Kafka and Proust to Philiph Roth).
What in my view was and is good for the jews in the recent past and present is the fact that they have for the first time in 2000 years created strong bastions of freedom for themselves in the USA (5,1 million people), Europe (a few million) and Israel (5,405,392 jewish Israeli's),
and the fact that they gained political influence, and contributed in the fields of science, culture, economics and education. The biggest importance of Israel for the jews is the fact that Jews became a people of farmers, workers and middle class again!
Not all Jews are zionists, Not all Israeli's and Russians are occupiers,
not all Palestinians and Chechens are terrorists, not all Protestants are
Zionists, and not all Muslims and Poles are anti-semites!
In all these peoples you have reasonable people, moderates, crooks,
extremists, liers and reliable, pragmatic, trustworthy people too!
I must say I don't follow here. Could you say it without the usage of contradictions , please?
Tuftabis,
Jaga explained it already for me, but I want to be more specific. Each people is composed of people of differant fabric. In Judaism there is the differance between Diaspora jews and (Sabra= Israeli born and raised) Israeli's. I have jewish friends who are as Dutch as me and every other Catholic and Protestant Dutchman- or woman. You have jews who are very emotional, cultural and political connected with Israel due to their specific branch of Zionism, or because a familymember lives there. Other jews have nothing whatsoever with Israel, and have for instance more with France or Italy, because they have a vacation house there or because they have studied there and speak French or Italian. Other Chrisitan Dutch people feel connected with Israel due to their religion and their bible, they are Friends of Israel.
But other christians from an Evangelical or Oecumenial point of view feel more connected to the Palestinian christians in the occupied territories and Israel, and their Muslim brothers, because due to their Palestinian arba identity, the Christian arabs of Israel and Palestine feel connected to their Muslim brethern and sisters. Inside Israel Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs work together in schools, universities, hospitals, horeca, shops, media, companies, political parties and unions. Jews and arabs are colleages, fellow students, friends or political and cultural oponents, friendly, neutral (indifferent) or hostile towards eachother. On both sides you have working classes, middle classes and high classes (the elites). In Israel you have arab doctors, nurses, shop owners, professors, intellectuals, artists, writers, poets, journalists, tv hosts, parlaimentarians, activists, mechanics, bakers, butchers, mechanics and farmers.
And you have Palestinian extremists, from far left (PFLP) to violent Islamist fundementalist (Islamic movement within Israel; Hamas and Islamic Jihad) and Secular Nationalist (Al Aqsa Martyr Brigades), who stab people, shoot eith automatic rifles on Israeli people on the streets or in public transport, or Suicide bombers. And ofcourse you have the Israeli equivalent in the Extremist Jewish Underground (Kach movement and Kahana Chai, and the Hilltop youth),
who terrorise Palestinian villages in the Westbank or attack Israeli arabs in Israel!
The same witrh Chechens, I saw a very sweet, intelligent and beautiful Chechen lady who fought for her country via human rights activism and telling her story to Western media and politicians. I saw a beautiful movie about the heroic resistance of the Sufi Muslim (moderate branche of Islam) Chechen rebels against the brutal and blunt force of the Russian army,
special forces (Spetnaz), FSB (KGB) forces and airforce, who crushed the Chechen people, infrastructure and living space of the Chechens with their Russian brutality.
In the same time I saw the Chechen involvement in terrorism in the Middle east, Afghanistan, Iraq and the West. Al Qaida and other terror groups (look at Jaga's example).
I don personally know a little bit more about Israel and the Palestinians than about the Chechens, because I was a less interested in the Caucasus!
Pieter