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#1
10-10-2003, 10:28 PM
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Most oppressed people in the world?
Who are the people most in need of liberation in the world? Will the US liberate them (as our new policy seems to be)?
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#2
10-10-2003, 10:55 PM
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Probably North Korea.
And there is a chance it will happen. The US doesn't act ONLY in humanitarian interest, but there is always a humanitarian aspect to it. But there also has to be some national security rationale for it as well. The only exception I can think of is Somalia, and in hindsight even that would have served a valuable national security interest if it had succeeded.
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#5
10-11-2003, 12:00 AM
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Actually, if you ask any liberal, the USA is the most oppressive country in the world.
That would be a leftist. Liberals don't consider the US to be the enemy because their agenda is liberal democracy. Leftists have an entirely different agenda and there is no greater impediment to it than liberal democracy. How to spot a leftist? THere are some liberals and conservatives alike who have legitimate criticism of US and Israeli policies. Leftists go a bit further. They oppose Taiwan, hate the Cuban exile community, love Hugo Chavez and applaud him in his efforts to stop the recall vote, and don't want to talk about the Iranian dissidents.
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#6
10-11-2003, 12:46 AM
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hhmm... do people in North Korea even know they are oppressed ? Totalitarian states tend to indoctrinate a lot.
Should we consider economic oppression ? Only state oppression ? I would say the palestinians would be on the top 3 list for sure.... economic, political and military oppression. Gays in the bible belt ?
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#7
10-11-2003, 12:49 AM
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Well, North Koreans are constantly trying to escape, so I would say they know they are oppressed.
The Palestinians rank pretty far down the list. They probably the least oppressed of their fellow Arabs. If they knew that, they might not be so quick to want independence from Israel under the ironfisted rule of Arafat.
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#8
10-11-2003, 12:51 AM
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Poor palestinians... they are happy and dont know it ?
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#9
10-11-2003, 01:11 AM
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I wouldn't go that far.
But it's easy to make a case that Palestinians are less opressed under Israeli rule than Iraqis under Hussein, the Saudis under the Saud family, or Libyans under Qaddafi. Just read the comparative Amnesty International reports.
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#10
10-11-2003, 01:22 AM
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I would say people convicted of felonies or worse who didn't commit the crime they were convicted of. The US justice department can really drag those individuals to the edge.
I have a family member who lives with a felony conviction. It has destroyed his life and is still destroying his life...
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#11
10-11-2003, 02:23 AM
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"hhmm... do people in North Korea even know they are oppressed ?"
I suspect that even the North Korean propoganda machine can't cover up the mass-starvation that's killed hundreds of thousands of people in the country. So North Korea is probably the correct answer to the OP though Congo probably is up there in terms of the sheer scale of suffering.
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#12
10-11-2003, 02:31 AM
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True, but Congo isn't really ruled by a powerful central government the way North Korea is. It's more anarchic. In North Korea's case you can probably destroy the regime and then reintegrate it with the South relatively quickly. Congo is a mess, it would take hundreds of thousands of troops and massive money to even begin to make sense of the thing.
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#13
10-11-2003, 02:34 AM
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Youth.
They are universally disenfranchised and have no say in their government. They can legally be over-ridden in their decisions about such fundamental things as their own health. In many places where abortion is perfectly legal, a youth can be forced to carry an unwanted child to term- a decision with lifelong consequences. They cannot enter into contracts, be outside after nine at night (or whenever curfew is) or even legally enjoy something as fundamental as sex with another person. I'm pretty serious here. While I don't think children should have the same rights as adults, you have to admit they (especially teenagers) get pretty shafted. Added to that is a culture that treats them as a mix of a pet and a criminal, and you have one pretty opressed group.
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#14
10-11-2003, 02:53 AM
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My vote goes for whomever is currently a sheep-herder in some wayward section of Israel/Palestine. That poor bastard likely doesn't know it, but he's the product of near-constant occupation or tributary relationship from going back to at least 61 B.C.
Someone actually came up with the bright idea to put two historically occupied and/or oppressed peoples right there next to one another, in the strategic back of the kneecap of the Mediterranean Sea. Whoever first championed that idea should probably be noted as very unwise, since that small region has historically encouraged a victor's occupation of whomever managed to occupy and opress the people who preceded them.
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#15
10-11-2003, 04:44 AM
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If you are talking oppression caused by their own govt: I would say North Koreans with Zimbabweans in second place.
If you are talking about the thugs and profiteers [ie lawless chaos with little effective spokesperson/force to protect you and yours: I would say the Congolese with Liberians in second place. If you are talking about occupied territories: Iraqis, Palestinians, Chechnians
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#16
10-11-2003, 05:04 AM
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Gotta throw Cuba, Libya, China and Saudi Arabia in there for governments.
As for occupied territories, there is always going to be dispute as to what constitutes "occupied". There is no doubt Iraq is occupied, although that's a temporary situation, not a conquest. Palestine is sort of occupied, it's obvious it shouldn't be controlled by Israel, but then who should control it? That's up for questioning. I've never heard Chechnya called "occupied" before. When was Chechnya ever independent? I guess it's more accrurately a rebellion, kind of like Eritrea/Ethiopia. Talk about your bad situations, that one had to be one of the worst.
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#17
10-11-2003, 05:28 AM
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I think that Sudanese Christians are probably up there somewhere. The situation is pretty darned bad.
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#18
10-11-2003, 05:43 AM
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Don't forget the Burmese. The Chechnyans got royally fucked. And as adaher says, the Saudis, especially the women. Though I would dispute the Chinese being on the list. The government is a bitch if you cross it, and there's a lot of repression and state-sponsored going on, but it's nowhere near as bad as a lot of other dictatorships.
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#19
10-11-2003, 06:29 AM
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#20
10-11-2003, 06:48 AM
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Anyway, I'd like to offer up Aceh and West Papua. Their people are subject to the usual TNI and police atrocities but they have the additional slap in the face of hosting American companies like Freeport and Exxon. So when the Indonesian government call GAM and OPM terrorists, obfuscation and whitewashing from Western governments give such claims the appearance of credibility.
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#21
10-11-2003, 06:54 AM
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Don't forget the Burmese. The Chechnyans got royally fucked. And as adaher says, the Saudis, especially the women. Though I would dispute the Chinese being on the list. The government is a bitch if you cross it, and there's a lot of repression and state-sponsored going on, but it's nowhere near as bad as a lot of other dictatorships.
Well, I'm going by Freedom House ratings and Amnesty International reports, and China ranks pretty high. Oops, forgot Iran, but it looks like they might finally be coming out of the dark. What is your timeframe for quick? If it is to be anything like the German experience, and I suspect it will be worse, it will drain the South's economy and have social repercussions for decades at the most optimistic. Full integration would take decades. I was mainly referring to the situation being under control, which would be within months of Kim's toppling. It's not like Iraq and Afghanistan. It would be much simpler. Just let South Korea govern it pretty much immediately and handle security. After total defeat I doubt the Communists would be nearly as fanatical as the Islamists. It would probably be a total collapse and the security situation would be fairly easy. Anyway, I'd like to offer up Aceh and West Papua. Their people are subject to the usual TNI and police atrocities but they have the additional slap in the face of hosting American companies like Freeport and Exxon. So when the Indonesian government call GAM and OPM terrorists, obfuscation and whitewashing from Western governments give such claims the appearance of credibility. I'm not well informed on this, so could someone answer a couple of questions? 1) Isn't the Aceh revolt about trying to set up an Islamist theocracy in the area? And isn't Indonesia democratic, if not exactly liberal yet? 2) Although American companies still do business and participate in atrocities, didn't Clinton end military support for the Indonesian government?
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#22
10-11-2003, 07:56 AM
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[b]Isn't the Aceh revolt about trying to set up an Islamist theocracy in the area? And isn't Indonesia democratic, if not exactly liberal yet?[/B
]The Acehnese want to revert to a sultanate but more importantly, they want an end to the rapes, ethnic cleansing and massacres. Their best best bet in achieving these ends is in doing away with Jakarta based rule altogether. Their movement isn't fired by any kind of zealous Islamic fundamentalism. SE Asian Islam traditionally hasn't been about that. However, the TNI (army) backed militias are the new breed and they are Islamist. They are more or less the same people who pillaged East Timor, West Papua and rattling sabres at the West now. Jemaah Islamiyah have al Qaeda, TNI and goverment connections... and the fuckwits in your administration are indirectly helping them! They still don't understand that you need to see both sides of Megawati's face when she speaks. Although American companies still do business and participate in atrocities, didn't Clinton end military support for the Indonesian government? Well never completely and he soon eased those restrictions with Bush then continuing and increasing the pace of normalisation regarding military aid. http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache...052002.pdf</a>
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#24
10-11-2003, 08:06 AM
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Quote:
__________________
"Wrong, but eloquent" - twickster
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#25
10-11-2003, 08:15 AM
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OK one more time... http://216.239.57.104/search?q=cache...n&ie=UTF-8</a>
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#26
10-11-2003, 09:12 AM
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Just trying to help Gest out here:
RESUMING U.S.-INDONESIA MILITARY TIES (warning, .PDF) That's the link that Gest is trying to provide.
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#27
10-11-2003, 09:26 AM
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Oppressed by governments, though there are many oppressive regimes in the middle-east, only the Kurdish people treatment by Turkey is comparable with the Israeli treatment of Palestinians. The Russian treatment of the Chechychans also has strong paralells with the above two cases.
North Korea is probably the worse with possibly millions of people of dying of starvation there. Probably the worst place to live currently would be in the Congo were currently violence simlair to that which was seen in neighbouring Rwanda during the genocide there, though most of the violence is being carried out by factions commanded by warlords and split along ethnic lines.
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#28
10-11-2003, 09:32 AM
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Checyna is worth at least a second place... those Russian troops are running roughsod all over the place raping and bullying all over. North Koreans are certainly "oppressed" by govt and famine.
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#29
10-11-2003, 09:59 AM
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Quote:
I guess it depends on what qualifications you use. Does the number of people in said group matter? Are you considering the world as a whole or a specific group within one country?
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#30
10-11-2003, 10:10 AM
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Quote:
 The trouble with the question is that both "oppressed" and "people" are not clearly enough defined. How does long term economic or political oppression compare to long term physical oppression? By "people" do we mean religious, ethnical or nationalistic groupings?
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#31
10-11-2003, 06:14 PM
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For oppressed nationalities, I'd nominate the Kurds, who have been taking it on the ear a lot longer than the Chechens. The Iraqi Kurds are no longer oppressed, or at least they think they're not (see the website of the Kurdistan Regional Government http://www.krg.org/), but the Turkish and Iranian Kurds still get stomped on by their governments whenever they start talking about independence or autonomy. Other obvious choices are the Tibetans and the Inner Mongolians (honestly!). I would add the Manchurians, but their territory has been so heavily colonized by Han-Chinese since WWII that it is probably meaningless to talk of a Manchurian nationality as even existing any more.
For a comprehensive list of national minorites with perceived grievances, see the "Sedition and Exile Groups" page of the Micronation and Sovereignty Website Index, http://www.angelfire.com/nv/micronations/exile.html. Some examples there are pitiable, and some are surprising (did you know some Shi'ite Arabs in southwestern Iran want to secede and form an independent "Arabistan" or "Khuzestan"?), and some are just plain amusing (the Kingdom of Frisland, Rockall Island!). I notice nobody has mentioned any of the surviving American Indian nations. Perhaps you all think these are not "oppressed" because they get to live as house minorities in a free republic? I would be inclined to agree with that, actually, but some Indians don't see it that way.
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#32
10-11-2003, 06:45 PM
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Posted by adaher:
Quote:
As for specifics, I have nothing against the Taiwanese and I don't know any leftist who does. Most of us would be tickled pink [rimshot] to see the Communist regime on the mainland go down, and we would not want to see China take over Taiwan unless that happened first. I do hate the Cuban exile community, but that's just because they're such assholes. If they would only shut up, we could normalize relations with Cuba, open the door to trade, and hasten the end of its Marxist-Leninist regime. Why can't they see that? Iranian dissidents were profiled in depth, very sympathetically, in a recent issue of The Nation, and I think I recall some pieces on them in recent broadcasts of Democracy Now or the Pacifica Network News, not sure which. I didn't know Hugo Chavez was involved in efforts to stop the California recall, but if he was, more power to him; the recall was a stupid idea. Chavez is an entirely admirable person otherwise, in his history as a labor organizer.
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#33
10-11-2003, 09:33 PM
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Quote:
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I hope you were kidding with that one...
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#34
10-11-2003, 11:20 PM
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#35
10-11-2003, 11:38 PM
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About the Chechens: Russia gave them autonomy, but Islamist freaks started bombing Russian targets, forcing them to intervene to stop the terrorism. Sound familiar? I think it's time to stop blaming the victim. It seems to be fashionable nowadays to automatically consider the stronger party the aggressor and the weaker party the victim. That's not always the case. If the stronger party was attacked first and is still fighting with one hand tied behind it's back while the smaller foe uses all means possible to attack, the stronger foe is the victim.
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#36
10-12-2003, 02:11 AM
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#37
10-12-2003, 07:01 AM
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#38
10-12-2003, 07:05 AM
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I don't deny that the original Russian intervention led to a rise in Islamic extremism.
But the Russians withdrew and Chechnya had what they wanted. It was over. Then terrorists started slaughtering Russians and it all started again. The war was over, the Islamic extremists fired the first shots in the new war. Russia was the aggressor the first time, no doubt, but they are now the victim.
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#39
10-12-2003, 07:15 AM
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The invasion of Chechnya was prompted in 1999 by terrorist bombings that killed 217 Russians, plus the invasion of Dagestan.
Chechnya initiated the second war. Russia is the victim. Even the first war was preceded by a wave of kidnappings and violence against Russians. Now a common defense is that the Chechnyan government wasn't responsible. Well, tough cookies. If you can't prevent such things from happening, you don't deserve independence and the victim nation has the right to intervene to restore order so they can live in peace. http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/sh...timeline8.html
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#40
10-12-2003, 07:26 AM
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And of course you ignore everything that happened before 1999.
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#41
10-12-2003, 07:29 AM
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Adaher,
The Chechens wanted independence and they only got "autonomy." There's a big difference between independence and autonomy. Why don't you read up some background facts about Chechnya. The latest election was a farce orchestrated by Putin in which a Kremlin handpicked candidate was chosen as its leader. If you bother reading a little about Chechnya you'd find that they have been resisting occupation. Your bit about who's firing the first shot may or may not be true but clearly it isn't the point as the first shot was fired in Chechnya.
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#43
10-12-2003, 08:10 AM
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The Chechen and Acehese situations raise a fundamental issue here. The autonomy offered by the Russians and the democracy offered by the Indonesians were/are a sham but even then they are beside the point. Autonomy and democracy are a little like national security in that they are offered up as justification for myriad abuses. For example, in the US all kinds of freedoms are being whittled away in the name of national security as the primary objective. Freedom of speech, association and expression cultural identity (amongst others) are primary objectives.
We usually accept that autonomy and democracy are the best way of ensuring self-determination and freedom from oppression and we can look around the world for confirmation of this. But as we can see in Central and SE Asia, these guarantees have been worthless in truly liberating the oppressed. Having a Chechen born president or Acehenese voting for a parliament over a thousand miles away counts for zilch when the Russians still napalm you and the Indonesians still burn your schools.
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#44
10-12-2003, 08:54 AM
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In the case of Aceh, a status of 'special region' was offered and accepted in the early 60's. The problem was that all the promises were just a sham. Aceh, which is rich in natural resources, was pretty much there as a cash cow to the central gov't in Jakarta. The region has been relatively poor compared to other provinces in Indonesia.
With the fall of Suharto in 1998--it was during his regime that the most horrible atrocities were committed by TNI--and the subsequent independence of E. Timor, it seemed that there was hope to end the conflict. Especially that TNI (Indonesian Armed Forces) did seem to have lost some of its political power in the parliement. However, it wasn't to be. Abdurrahman Wahid, the previous president, seemed to have good intentions but he miscalculated the apparently still strong elements of TNI. When Megawati came to power, things got worse as she does have strong support from TNI. With the Indonesian national election looming, she probably thought that she would gain popularity by launching an all out war a few months ago. Things, however, have dragged on without an end in sight (reporters have been banned from the area after actually being embedded with Indonesian troops at the start of the war). To make matters worse, GAM (the Acehnese rebels) haven't been behaving in the most positive ways either. The political leaders are nationalistic and idealistic but they all live in exile in Sweden (most are Swedish citizens by now). They don't seem to see what's really happening on the ground. Some rebels do commit atrocities against their own people; some are just thugs. Of course their acts are nothing compared to the atrocities committed by TNI. The Acehnese are caught in the middle and they are basically just fed up by the worsening situation. I do think that the gov't would soon run out of money and wil be forced to negotiate. Such are the sad facts of this conflict.
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#45
10-12-2003, 11:02 AM
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I think that the Sahrawi peoples of the Western Sahara sadly deserve a mention in this context.
They have been occupied for centuries either by France or Spain as the centuries have passed, being used as a source of slaves in the colonies of those nations or second rate peoples in thier own land. Currently Morocco is continuing the same unpleasant colonial role as the previous tenants, but due to the poor showing by their military against the main resisitance group - the Polisario Front, Morocco is simply bulldozing the peoples into the sea. What is happening is that a huge barrier is being raised, and this is being used to push the Saharawi living on the land off it. Naturally this causes resentment an unrest and simple tribesmen are giving the Moroccan army a hard time, but withou subsistance land to sustain them they could well be doomed as they as slowly but surely dispossed. When the Israeli 'fence' is seen on news reports, where there is enclosure of former Palestinian land taken by settlers, it has a pretty unpleasant echo of what has been happening in Western Sahara for 20 years or more. The following is a rather dry account of what is going on, http://web.amnesty.org/report2003/Mar-summary-eng Unfortunately when you look for information on this issue you tend to get a lot of Marxist groups, along with assorted nutjobs, and not enough factual information, the situation is pretty horrific there but you will need to sift through an awful lot of crap to find thoughtful reports.
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#46
10-12-2003, 11:24 AM
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i'd say north korea. Intense repression and starvation are rampant. North korea is so bad people try to escape into China. Considering China is considered one of the worst countries on earth in regards to freedom by Freedom House that is saying alot.
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#48
10-12-2003, 01:47 PM
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#49
10-12-2003, 04:50 PM
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#50
10-12-2003, 05:09 PM
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I agree with Even Sven that youth are oppressed in the US (and FTR, I'm coming up on my never-to-be-trusted-again thirtieth birthday). I agree with other people that they're nowhere near as oppressed as your average peasant in your average dictatorship.
North Korea would win my vote. I was going to make a snarky comment about how some US Conservatives (and Libertarians) are convinced that Christians are the most oppressed group, but I see Dogface has already made this thread's mandatory obnoxious irrelevant partisan attack, so I'll forbear, and apologize for this elided reference. Daniel
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