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celebratedrecluse wrote

the site is actually post-left anarchist leaning, with some communists like me, but without any "right" wing presence to speak of.

Why would you describe yourself as right-wing? Let's talk about this, shall we?

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southerntofu wrote

I agree this is a good question. If you identify as "right-wing" based on labels the media places on political parties, you will be glad to learn we have no sympathy for established parties (or political parties as a concept that divides the people not by ideas/concerns but by affiliation).

In fact, an anarchist analysis would say most (all?) political parties are right-wing. We understand left-wing to be "sharing/cooperation" and right-wing to be "property/competition". Most parties presented by the media as left-wing are in fact not, because they don't oppose private property (eg. they don't propose redistributing wealth like the millions of empty apartments waiting to rot while people sleep on the streets). The "socialist"/"democratic" parties in most of the world, when they have come to power (like in France) have only betrayed their people and went further with injustice, and further from socialism (which could be understood as a society of free individuals sharing from each according to their capabilities, to each according to their needs).

Then it's not just a matter of left and right. There's also the question of the means: how do we reach social justice? Authoritarians of both sides would have to believe we need governments, police and prisons to improve humanity. We anarchists stand on the anti-authoritarian (libertarian) side, because we believe in (and practice) autonomous self-organization and challenge all systems of domination and injustice. The only thing i'm imposing on you is to not impose things over others (and vice-versa). We do not want to be ruled, and do not want to become rulers ourselves, because no single person (or parliament) holds as much wisdom as a crowd of folks concerned by a specific issue.

So to recap:

Left Right
Above Authoritarian communism (marxism-leninism) Authoritarian capitalism (neoliberalism)
Below Libertarian communism (anarchism) Libertarian capitalism

I believe most people follow anarchist principles in many aspects of life without realizing it, and i believe most people when asked meaningful questions would tend towards anarchism. What defines anarchists and anarchist communities like Raddle is a common consciousness, or understanding of the world.

Some anarchist tenets may help you get a better feeling of whether you'd feel at home here:

  • "To each according to their needs, from each according to their abilities"
  • "Freedom without equality is the rule of the strongest, equality without freedom is tyranny"
  • "When injustice becomes law, resistance becomes a duty"
  • "Prison is a social crime that does not bring justice to the victims, and does not help the perpetrators"
  • "Borders are imaginary lines created by the powerful to divide us and exploit us"
  • "The police is a criminal organization whose goal is to maintain injustice and State control at all costs"
  • "Social war is inevitable because we are ready to make any concession for peace, except to concede our freedom, and those in power will never concede away their privileges"

These only cover a few issues. We have many other issues/struggles traversing the anarchist movement, such as the gender binary and patriarchal rule, racism (cultural or colorist) and colonization, destruction of nature (extractivism and ecocide), and many others.

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Hibiscus_Syrup wrote (edited )

So long as you keep within the bounds of content policy in the w/terms_of_service you can post here.

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Archimedess OP wrote

I have read the rules, but i'm skeptical regarding "islamophobia" since i live in a muslim country and everyone i know is antisemitic and extremely homophobic, and it's punishable by death to have a same-sex relationship.

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Hibiscus_Syrup wrote

It's not clear to me what you are skeptical about.

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celebratedrecluse wrote (edited )

Ba'athist ideology is pan-arab but firmly secular. Poster is probably opposed to religion and its associated conservatism, like many norte American libertarian were/are re:protestant christian fundamentalists, for example (ignore the islamophobia of those americans for a moment, it breaks the comparison because OP is not speaking as a colonizer but as someone in the arab world)

So, charitably speaking: they want to be able to critique islam and islamic practices, in the ways and in the contexts that these aspects of the islamic world run afoul of, well, much the rest of the Raddle term of services, or in general an anti-oppression/"progressive" politics.

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Hibiscus_Syrup wrote

Cool, that's promising, I suppose? I need to read more about critiques of secularism.

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southerntofu wrote

Criticizing islam (or any other ideology) is fine as long as it's done with a constructive approach. The harsh (sometimes unargumented) judgement we have of fascist/masculinist movements is justified in my view by the fact there is no unsafe place for such people on earth, and these people are actively promoting hatred/violence towards certain categories of people.

When it comes to religion, on the other hand, one faith may be imposed to some people while at the same time being denied to others. We anarchists aim for a society without oppression, and denounce both situations as unfair to a person who may choose their own beliefs.

So if islam is used an argument to justify tyranny in your neighborhood, feel free to denounce that. but please keep in mind that even progressive and secular muslims in other parts of the world are oppressed or outright murdered for their beliefs like in france or myanmar.

I'm from france and islamophobia is definitely a thing here. Public figures and politicians have been advocating for years on (public and private) television that muslims should be deported or reeducated, or that imams should be approved by the government (which sarkozy tried to enforce, and macron is now enforcing).

Since the end of the 80's the propaganda of the government and the racist parties (which includes mainstream left and right parties) has been focused on excluding young veiled girls from school for the sole reason they wore a veil. This has ruined many lives of young girls who just wanted to study and were banned from school and treated like terrorists for a piece of cloth. Note that the same law that applies to religious signs at school does not apply in practice to christian crosses ever, and usually does not apply to kipas: that's why we denounce islamophobia in France.

If you've followed french politics even from afar, you'll notice every time the government is trying to cover up a political scandal or a popular uprising, they'll instantly (with the established media) start a new polemics about muslims. One of those was about the Burkini, if you remember.

At that time, the government pretended (just like they did with the veil at school) that repression against the burkini was justified in order to free the women. A sketchy argument to which feminists replied that controling women's display and behaviors in the public space was sexist, whether to force them to dress more (Iran) or force them to dress less (France). In addition, historians replied that France had a long history of using "feminist" ideals (only in speech, never in actions) in order to promote the colonial enterprise, for example by organizing massive unveiling campaigns for women.

Apart from governmental/police oppression against muslims, there's also a growing trend of anti-muslim terrorism. The media only ever talks about muslim terrorism, entirely disregarding nationalist/white-supremacist terrorism which is a lot more common and growing.

That being said, i'm strongly aware that the cultural context is entirely different elsewhere. I'm merely providing info about "islamophobia", which is of course less of a problem in a majority-muslim country, where there may be defiance or oppression towards atheism/agnosticism and polytheist faiths.

In all cases, i think we will agree that consented sex and faith are a public matter, and no State or tyrant should ever dictate what we should think and who we should fuck ;-)

Welcome around

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[deleted] wrote

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southerntofu wrote

Islam is vast, like any community with so many millions of members (billions in fact). There's a lot of internal debate and contradicting opinions/practices. For example (since the subject was brought up), hostility/oppression towards homosexuality or womanhood is far from widely-accepted in muslim communities.

Or did you mean it does not sound like islam to you to punish folks to death for consented activities and to support antisemitic conspiracy theories? In which case the previous paragraph still applies ;)

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[deleted] wrote

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[deleted] wrote

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southerntofu wrote

wow that escalated quickly no i was just trying to understand what you meant but i'm not really sure i want to anymore, because now apparently i'm a fascist and i strongly respect people who would not talk to a fascist

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[deleted] wrote

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southerntofu wrote

i don't have time talking shit about people i don't even know sorry, i'd rather assume the best and find out the worst than the other way around

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