But I don’t think it is an example of that. There isn’t a coherent ethnoreligious group seeking self determination that leads to Christian Nationalism; there are people of a certain political persuasion who appeal to a fictitious ethnic group that they invented specifically in order to take up the garb of nation-state building.
If you substitute that with an actual ethnic group, even a young one that was forged in the New World, like African Americans, then history could certainly have played out in a way where instead of seeking more rights in the United States they instead expressed their right to self determination and would have been fully justified in doing so.
Same goes for other coherent groups. You could imagine a history where Mormons remain independent in Desseret and develop into their own ethnoreligious group.
But Christian Nationalists are just “white”, in the sense of “not ethnic”. There is no coherent group seeking self determination.
What makes an ethnic group “real” as opposed to “fictitious”? Aren’t ethnic groups a social construct? There is no objective determination of what is or isn’t an ethnic group, or who belongs to it. That’s just more of a social understanding. Part of self-determination is establishing that an ethnic group exists. If “white people” see themselves as an ethnic group, and they are recognized as such, then they are one by definition. Whether you or I agree (and for the record, I don’t agree). Specifically. “white American” is the ethnic group in question here.
Note that I’m not totally equivocating the two situations; in fact, they are practically polar opposites. Jewish people sought a homeland in order to escape generations of bigotry and persecution that they had suffered, while in the United States, Christian Nationalists want to establish a Christian nation (in their specific worldview) in order to solidify and maintain generations of bigotry and persecution being perpetuated by them. It’s the same goal being pursued by two different groups for completely opposite motives.
I get what you mean that states can’t be said to have human rights in and of themselves. But interpreting international law in the framework of “nation-state rights” is a useful shorthand for “how the humans governing state A are allowed to act insofar as their actions impact the humans of state B”.
I think all of those are kind of clumsy ways of expressing baseline principles like the following:
The Islamic Republic of [whichever] is an existing nation-state, and as such, its leaders have the right to govern it as an Islamic theocracy without other states telling them they can’t.
France is an existing nation-state, and as such, its leaders have the right to legislate French as its official language and promote French history and culture without other states telling them they can’t.
India is an existing nation-state, and as such, its leaders have the right to legislate Hindu-nationalist ideology without other states telling them they can’t.
We can just deep-six the obfuscatory “right to exist” rhetoric altogether: what these statements are fundamentally about is what these existing nation-states have a right to do.
(And none of these statements, of course, implies an opinion that it’s necessarily morally right for the state in question to be doing what it’s doing, or fair to the minority groups among their population, or whatever. Just that no other state is entitled to forbid them to make these choices about governing the people of that state.)
I don’t dispute at all that the US played a crucial role in this phenomenon, but I think that to say the US is solely responsible for it is letting the British Empire off the hook to an unconscionable extent. (Not to mention other Europeans.)
It is an amazing thing but true that I can avoid the threads that are thousands of posts of posters loving to hear themselves spout off, thinking they are scoring some … points? … looking for high fives from people who already agree with them, with interest in actually understanding the point of view of anyone else, saying the same thing again and again and again, and yet still have a long history of stating my very consistent views when relevant in a discussion.
My goal for myself here is to be better at walking away, especially when a conversation starts to get me angry. I want to have fun here, which sometimes means experiencing intelligent conversations about difficult issues. Often means learning something. My take is that any thread you are in rapidly becomes poisoned. Whatever forum.
The issue for what those existing nation states have a right to do is all well and good: they are not under existential threat. They have not had multiple countries around them repetitively try to actualize their no longer existing through most of their existence. They do not have terror organizations dedicated to their destruction as parts of their charters. They do not have a neighbor that endorse their non-existence developing nuclear weapons.
The issue in regards to Israel is fundamentally the very right to exist. What they have a right to do is a very different discussion, and spoiler, they do not have the right to enable settler terrorism on the West Bank; they do not have the right to commit massive war crimes; they do not have the right to lots of horrible shit they have been doing. Their right to self-defense, which they do have, does not include those actions.
FWIW I have expressed before that Israel has always been and continues to be under major existential threat, but that currently the major threats are less external than within itself, from religious Zionism. A highly educated secular population has been Israel’s success. Secular Jews are of less and less power, demographically it will only get worse for them. The judiciary “reforms” were beat off for now but may be back. A future that drives secular Jews out of Israel is not too unlikely and without them the country economically folds.
I have no love for oppressive theocracies and wouldn’t be supportive of a Jewish one. Israel is not that now, but it may happen. And if it does it will end of its own natural death. IMHO.
Nah. There are several other nations in the world that are also not recognized by certain other nations, and/or have neighbors hostile to them. Very few of them are as powerful, wealthy or secure as Israel is, in practical terms. They certainly don’t have the degree of unchecked freedom and power to massacre neighboring populations that Israel is currently exercising. And yet none of them have some kind of abstract “right to exist” either.
Persuading other nations to recognize Israel, which has been a slow and uneven process over the decades of Israel’s existence, is indeed a desirable goal for Israel. (And it’s one of many excellent reasons why Israel should rethink its oppression and dispossession of Palestinians, which hardens Arab opposition to its recognition, although it’s far from the only cause of that opposition.) But that goal isn’t going to be furthered by requiring US politicians to recite a performative pledge of commitment to a theoretical “right to exist” on Israel’s part.
Israel does exist, and El-Sayed and all other US national politicians acknowledge that. If (generic) you believe El-Sayed actually wants Israel not to exist, and is promoting specific actions in support of that aim, okay then, criticize/denounce him for that reason. But all this fussing and fuming because he won’t play rhetorical games with a meaningless “gotcha” question is basically a distraction.
I got an uncomfortable reminder of that today. On Friday, I posted a clip of Nani Vazana singing the Shabbat greeting to the angels. She has an angelic voice, that’s all I know. But my friend in Tel Aviv shared a whole different perspective on it:
On Friday evenings now in Israel, Synagogues turn their speakers very very loud, to announce that Shabat is about to begin. they do it 3 times, 5 minutes apart. This song is one of the announcements meant for nothing but indoctrinate us, non religious jews. It is to remind us who has the political power to do as they will here, harassing us, waking up our babies from naps, just so we don’t dare forget, their holy day is about to begin. As if we can forget when there is no public transportation, and almost no open stores or super markets.
Shabat begins also in the occupied territories, and after the meal, families sit and sing this song feeling holy and pure, before their children and youth and men go to burn olive trees and harm Palestinians.
I used to love this song, but it’s ruined for me.
Whenever religion is forced on anyone, it’s a bummer.
Sometimes it helps to mute the thread (or forum), even temporarily. It’s a lot easier to avoid it if it’s not constantly popping up in your feed every every few minutes.
Although that was what I did with QZ eventually after attacks got personal. But never went back. (My positions that closing schools was not justified in what we knew and would cause harms, and that my elderly MIL going out some to have social interaction rather than live isolated was a reasonable choice for her to make was reacted to pretty violently.)
It really is okay that someone is wrong on the internet.
