I would argue that you yourself are doing the same by lumping the Taliban with ISIS. Say what you will about the Taliban, but they represent a faction that sincerely carried out a national liberation struggle which culminated in the expulsion of Burgerlanders from their country and the liberation of Kabul. Meanwhile, ISIS is just another arm of US imperialism. Much like HTS, who also collaborate with the Zionist entity by not even pretending to fight against the IOF, ISIS has not fired a single bullet against the Zionist entity and has even been caught having their wounded combatants treated in Zionist hospitals. The Taliban at least say their willing to send troops to liberate Palestine when ISIS/HTS can't even do that.
this post was submitted on 24 Apr 2025
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I think we should make a distinction between the Taliban in the 90s who were engaging in sectarian masacres. And the Taliban now, who don't do that. The Taliban now is also significantly better than the previous comprador regime in many ways, the most noticable was the control of the opium trade and production
how to make people not be racist as shit?
yeah but how tho?
the rich racists need to be humbled, the poor racists need to be educated
however this only works half the time, the other half of the time they just get more racist
The only reason people compare these wildly different groups, is because they all (at least claim to) adhere to Islamic principles.
counterpoint: white Americans lump these groups together because of chauvinism and white supremacy
when Arabs have wars it`s because of their religions.
When whites have 2 world wars, well that just nationalism
When white people have wars it's just the beautiful tragedy of human nature or something
or that we need to understand their reasoning before condemning
I emphasize the coalition nature of the Palestinian Resistance, and compare them to the "Viet Cong". I kind of frame it as "knowing what you know about Vietnam, that it was a genocidal war that sucked, who would you rather root for?"
This only works on people who are already kind of cool though
You could invite them to read the political charters of these organizations, and read/listen to any of the vast amount of material these organizations put out describing thier ideology, thier goals, thier actions, etc.
If they actually did this, they'd understand. But they probabably won't, lol. If they were the kinda person who'd actually investigate things like this, they wouldn't be like this in the first place
It's a very uphill battle. Chauvinism is completely pervasive and consumes the mind of the vast majority of Westerners, who still consider themselves to be in the vanguard of antiracism when, in actuality, they're very ignorant. I'd at least show them this statement from Hamas after the death of Pope Francis, I found it very empathetic and comforting.
The Islamic Resistance Movement extends its deepest condolences and sincere sympathy to the Catholic Church worldwide and to all Christians on the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, Pope of the Vatican, who passed away after a distinguished career in the service of human and religious values.
The late Pope Francis was a noted advocate of interfaith dialogue, calling for understanding and peace among peoples, and rejecting hatred and racism. On more than one occasion, he expressed his rejection of aggression and wars in the world, and was one of the prominent religious voices to condemn the war crimes and genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
While we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement movement, value his moral and humanitarian stances, we emphasize the importance of continuing the joint efforts between the bearers of divine messages and people of living consciences to confront injustice and colonialism, and to support the causes of justice, freedom, and the rights of oppressed peoples.
Pope Francis did nearly nothing to clean his own house of the kiddie diddlers.
Yeah, that's largely true. Don't see how that's relevant, though, and as far as cleaning house of child molesters go you'd hardly find a guiltier institution than the state of Israel.
Without a detailed graph of all of the policies, actions and history of each organization so you can compare and contrast them all, and the willingness for each person to study that graph, there is no way to get people to know the difference.
Most people don't know the difference between the United Kingdom, the British Isles, England, Great Britain, Ireland and the Crown Dependencies are, or what all of the different subdenominations of Christianity are, as you mentioned. Without a large degree of interest in learning what the differences are, or a high level of pertinence to someone's life, educating them to the differences and similarities would be next to impossible.
The best you could probably do is have a one-sentence summary of what each group is all about, and hope that your audience doesn't immediately discount it based on what they think they know about that group. For example, "Hamas: Their unifying tenet is armed resistance to Israeli occupation of Palestine". If the general sentiment towards Hamas by the West is anything to go by, your audience would probably question even that. If it was easy, it would have been done already.
It's an uphill battle.
doesn`t matter really, because when all the groups mentioned such as Islamic State getting liquidated by Hamas in the stripe some years ago, they'll go back to ''Arabs are too barbaric and they like to fight each other, hence why we need to put a leash on them''
This is a losing game because like "freedom" in the West for normal people "feminism" is in practice a treat-based ideology. Now you can heap Islamophobia on top of that.
Hezbollah is the best out of all these groups to women. They allow women to participate in all parts of society. They have women-led politcal steering committees setting political positions based on Islamic feminism. Hezbollah has a unique risk because their primary benefactor Iran has a much more conservative political position on the issue.
However Islamic feminism is a tenuous balancing act. Like any other religion it Islam is not coherent or consistent in its texts and oral traditions. Coherence and consistency is made based on social views on choosing what passages to elevate and what passages to deprecate. As such Islamic feminism often has very rough edges and looks different based on different political contexts.
Hamas is lower than Hezbollah here but still not comparable to the Taliban or ISIS. The status of women in Hamas and by its governing principles are not equivalent to Hezbollah or the PLO. Hamas has been changing slowly by allowing more women into leadership and changing some of its views since 2021.
You are absolutely wrong about Ansar'Allah. Ansar'Allah is not as organized as the Taliban but ultimately has the similar views and worse practices. Ansar'Allah does gendered child soldiers. Boys as young as 7 become soldiers. Girls as young as 13 become liaisons in the gendered traditional militaristic sense they do "women's work". They do intelligence, logistics, support, and involuntary sex work. Like female military liaisons in other traditionalist armies including in the West they are extremely vulnerable to abuse and are effectively prizes and play things for the officer class. Ansar'Allah has some women's units but there is actually disagreement about militarization of women both official (as soldiers) and unofficial (as liaisons) within Ansar'Allah on "social cohesion" grounds. The Zainabiyyat batallion (women's battalion) also sources the must vulnerable women in Yemeni society so the poor or groups like the Muhamasheen. The Zainabiyyat batallion's general is a man and it's not really a fighting force, it's a policing / occupation / intelligence force. Zainabinyyat has been accused of being given the duty to create the intelligence networks as a compromise and preventative measure but I haven't seen strong confirmation of that, nor have I seen any strong evidence that if it's happening that outcomes are changing for women and girls forced into these networks.
"feminism" is in practice a treat-based ideology.
What does this mean, exactly?
It's this.
The most hollowed out form of liberal feminism. Not even corpo feminism. Not even white corpo feminism. A feminism that is itself as a vehicle for marketing and driving consumption.
I'd be specific in your phrasing on this topic since feminism in general has plenty to offer when it integrates elements of intersectionality/Marxism/class analysis. Obviously we agree that Katy's liberalism is bringing none of that to the table and can be dismissed.
I was not trying to denigrate feminism. The West's mainstream feminism is extremely syncretic now that it's not even liberal / bourgeoisie feminism anymore. There's no real word for it. Naomi Wolf is a perfect example. In ideology the Naomi Wolf who wrote The Beauty Myth is not the Naomi Wolf who polices women's vocal fry. Both Naomi Wolfs are synthesized within the Western mainstream feminism in 2025. It's only practical effect on the world is reflected in things like Space Katy Perry, which are re-emergent forms of mid-century advertisement patriarchy.
We have gone from Mad Men controlling economic machinery to convince women they need to buy things to enforce a fake beauty standard. To the 90's and 2000's where women took on the roles of men in that system. To a systemic patriarchy (e.g. a social structure where patriarchy can exist without patriarchal attitudes) that sells things to women in a Schrodinger's feminism. Every idea is held in a superposition until society observes it, and society does not categorize it in a logical or consistent way. Society simply collapse the wave function and whether the idea ends up as "pro-women" or "anti-woman" is not deterministic based on the ideas of any specific strain of feminism or even the basic idea of equality between genders.
To explain it in complicated philosophy instead of complicated physics, mainstream feminism is a signifier without the signified or as Lacan put it a pure signifier. I hesitate to say this, but in layman's terms a pure signifier is "a label that doesn't mean anything". I hesitate to use that phrase because it is used in causal conversation that is meant to be simplistic and dismissive. Mainstream feminism isn't inherently meaningless, it's part of a dialectical process that has hollowed it of meaning. It's real meaning should be the history of how it became meaningless. Mainstream feminism is great example of the real social processes that govern how our world works.
To offer an analogy, the last name Carpenter has the same problem as mainstream feminism. Last names were given to people based on certain social meanings. There would be various systems like a literal lineage name like Johnson e.g. Son of John. Occupational names are also a thing like Smith, Miller, Carpenter would literally denote the person's trade. John Smith would be the guy in your town that makes nails, Tim Miller would be the guy in your town that makes flour, etc. You wouldn't even think to ask Sabrina Carpenter to make you kitchen cabinets because Carpenter has through dialectic social processes become just a label. So in effect "Sabrina Carpenter" sings, "John Carpenter" makes horror movies, and "mainstream feminism" sells things -- all of these labels have been imbued and dispossessed of significance from the same dialectic process of meaning making.
in layman's terms a pure signifier is "a label that doesn't mean anything".
this runs through my head every time someone claims they are politically a "progressive" unless they are a time traveler from the early 1900s
Oh I disagree with this one anyone who says "I'm a progressive" means "I'm a good person". That one has been dispossessed of its original meaning and re-imbued with a very clear new one.
It's epithet context used by conservatives means "we don't think you're fascist enough".
great post (I think, maybe someone is going to come problematize those philosophical arguments in 4 hours and make me feel like a caveman)
maybe someone is going to come problematize those philosophical arguments in 4 hours
Wdym? In the history of the internet nobody has ever had posting wars about fuzzy concepts. Nobody has ever had posting wars about the concept of fuzzy concepts.
jesus fucking christ
(that still image, I haven't seen the girlboss spaceflight video before)
i read that as bourgeois white feminism
Girlboss feminism, Raytheon at the pride parade, etc. Obviously it's wrong to generalize all feminism as being treat based, but it's true of bourgeois feminism and we know that the ideas of the ruling class are, in all epochs, the ideas of the working class.
That makes sense, yeah.
It's like comparing the CDU to the KKK or even the Spanish Falange because they're all Christian, in some way or another.
No, don't, we just had this struggle session
No clue. People just tune you out or try and change the subject when you point out their bigotry.
IDF KKK ICE KKKOPS, they are all the same
If you can get them to relate lack of due process to oppression, and connect that to only mutual defense can protect against this, then these groups suddenly start to take on a different place in their understanding ... hopefully
So far I have not really seen anyone within the lib mindset really make this leap on their own, they kinda sheepishly approach it, but they need a strong push to face the reality of it
aggressively misgender their christianity
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