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Saladman posted:Keeping your neighbors safe is great and admirable, but most people are not going to accept their salary being cut significantly and the cost of living going up in order to help out their country's neighbors. Just because this concern is bullshit in Europe doesn't mean opposition to massive demographic influxes is fundamentally wrong, as it is largely a zero-sum game for countries like Jordan and Lebanon at least on the timescales that matter to an individual person (i.e. up to a decade maybe). It's very noble to keep your neighbor safe for 10 years but it's also very much NIMBY and almost anyone who thinks they're so altruistic that they would be willing to accept this — unemployment or underemployment, which also means no marriage prospects and a life kept on stasis — is lying to themselves or one of those very rare breed who actually care about the collective good over their own good. Not to mention, this will massively disproportionately affect the poorer people already livingin the regions. Lebanese that own apartments or run businesses are going to make bank since the rents are going up, good prices are going up, and the labor costs are going down. That quote and the paper it is from are super weird. It doesn't provide a causal relation between Syrian refugee fluxes into Lebanon and declines in GDP growth rates, nor how the refugee flows increased unemployment among the Lebanese labor force, unless it includes Syrian refugees within that group. If you are going to make controversial claims you should at least provide an argument for them. The literature on the impact of refugees on economic well being is diverse but generally most who study the phenomena believe it tends to be positive or at least negligible, tending to increase employment and not effect wages. If nothing else, the $770 million in aid provided to Lebanon to assist with the refugee crisis should have had a positive stimulative effect. Basically the paper makes a lot of assertions supported by nothing which contradict the prevailing theories of the effects of immigrant flows on economies, and doesn't explain why Lebanon is different. Quite possibly the decline in GDP growth is completely unrelated to immigration.
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Jul 20, 2018 01:59
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One explanation for the "racism" by the Lebanese (are they different race then the guys 100 kms away?), is simply housing costs which almost certainly have spiraled higher in recent years and a general overall cost of living. Also Syrians very possibly are engaged in "non-traditional" employment which may not actually show up clearly in statistics. If you have over a million refugees in a country of 6 million people, a country with already severe problems of its own, it isn't surprising there is going to be growing tension and some negative economic outcomes.
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Jul 20, 2018 11:12
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Squalid posted:That quote and the paper it is from are super weird. It doesn't provide a causal relation between Syrian refugee fluxes into Lebanon and declines in GDP growth rates, nor how the refugee flows increased unemployment among the Lebanese labor force, unless it includes Syrian refugees within that group. Uhh, no, that's really not a cherrypicked paper. The impact of refugees economically is diverse, but that's if you include all countries. For Lebanon ALL literature is negative, but just to varying degrees of "how bad is it." That 40%!!! total population influx of new people in Syria in under 5 years is bad for locals is only controversial for people with their heads up their asses. Literally every single paper I can find on the effect of Syrian refugees on Lebanon is that it's making life more difficult for young Lebanese and more difficult for poor Lebanese. Lol at "yeah but you can't tell if it's causal whether 1.5 million new people in a country of 4 million caused the employment % to go down, or if it was some other effect!!!" Yeah that's theoretically true? But uhhhhhh good luck coming up with any other hypothesis that makes sense. Massive new influx of people -> lower employment % for locals in low-skilled jobs is a pretty well-established cause-and-effect. http://erf.org.eg/wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Marouani-Anda-Bjorn-Nahas.pdf there's another paper that talks about how Syrian refugees have brought down living standards for poor and young Lebanese. It mentions that it has not affected Turkey — which again 5% sudden influx of new people is a far different story than 40% influx. Syrian refugees literally increased the population by 40-loving-percent and you're telling me you don't think that will have any impact on poorer Lebanese? $770 million in aid for 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, over 6 years, is a sick joke that makes Western countries feel better about keeping their borders closed. Yes it's better than having given no money, but no it's worse for poor and young Lebanese than if they had no $770m and no 1.5m Syrian refugees. Jordanians and Lebanese are almost universally opposed to taking more Syrian refugees, and calling it "racism" is an incredibly dumb handwaving of important issues. The paper says they would have needed an additional $1bn -- more than double what they received -- to have a net 0 impact. Literally find me a single research paper, and not something from Jacobin, that implies any improvement per-capita for Lebanese people for sheltering their neighbors from death. Poor Lebanese and those working in low-skill jobs are overwhelmingly negatively affected economically. Again, every single thing I can find shows quotes like: "This negative outcome only affects low and medium skilled workers [...] Lebanese labor income decreases by 9 p.p. with the shock to exports (Table 4), and an additional 5.4 p.p. with the arrival of displaced Syrians. Similar to unemployment, labor income losses are unevenly distributed among skill groups, with high skilled workers seeing their incomes increase slightly (0.25%), while low and medium skilled see their labor income drop by 8% and 5% respectively. " Keep in mind that this is average labor income drop, and does not mention the increase in cost of living, and also it is an average; in reality older people will keep their jobs and keep similar labor income, whereas younger people will simply not get jobs and be unemployed. It's not a uniform drop of 8% (which is pretty small but noticeable if you're living at the poverty line) but rather some people will have stagnant wages while others will be fully unemployed. It's a cool meme that poor people are xenophobic racists, but IRL there are real reasons for them being opposed to open borders and it's not because farmers and taxi drivers are mouth-breathers. Here's a paper on Jordan, which has fewer (proportionately) refugees and the paper only talks about the 'net zero overall' impact, but (1) does not look into specific subgroups of people and (2) Jordan has been more strict than Lebanon on allowing Syrians to work, from what I understand: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/10242694.2015.1055936 again use SciHub to download OTOH here's another paper that shows a negative effect for Jordan and Lebanon which specifically mentions younger people having fewer opportunities because of the influx: https://ec.europa.eu/info/sites/info/files/dp029_en.pdf Like gently caress dude I've been reading about this for years and spent a couple hours yesterday and today flipping through papers again and the literature seems pretty universal in terms of "net near-zero impact overall across all strata, but bad for young and low-skilled Lebanese/Jordanians". Even The Economist, which is extremely liberal with respect to hosting refugees and open borders, has a hard time spinning it positively for the local Lebanese. 100% of glowingly-positive reports I've found about the economic impact of refugees on Lebanon and Jordan have been popular press pieces that distort and spin the actual numbers. "Wow, a $400 million gain in the economy of Lebanon per year thanks to the 1.5m refugees!" Great, another reporter who is garbage at understanding that raw numbers don't matter, only per capita income matters. "Gosh I'd rather live in rural India than rural Switzerland because the GDP of rural India is $1tn and the GDP of rural Switzerland is only $200bn!" said no one ever Saladman fucked around with this message at 12:10 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 11:46
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Ardennes posted:(are they different race then the guys 100 kms away?) Can you think of some superficial difference that lets you distinguish between us and them? Perhaps the way they dress, or the accent they have when they pronounce a word? If so then yes, they are a different race and you can murder them if you're a racist. It's how it has always worked since ancient antiquity.
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Jul 20, 2018 12:12
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Cat Mattress posted:Can you think of some superficial difference that lets you distinguish between us and them? Perhaps the way they dress, or the accent they have when they pronounce a word? If so then yes, they are a different race and you can murder them if you're a racist. So people from Leeds and Newcastle are different races? There other words you can use such as: xenophobia or regional/national/ethnic hatred. Otherwise, if literally everything is race...then nothing is. (Also, race is an artificial construction which doesn't really mean sense, in this case, considering the region, although the cynical geopolitical angle is also here.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 12:45 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 12:25
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Racism has been commonly used to mean "any distinguishing feature, whether inborn genetically or not" for at least the past 15-20 years. I mean people talk about people being "racist" towards Hispanics and Arabs all the time, despite Hispanics and Arabs both having people that are lily white and Sudanese black who would be considered 100% Arab.
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Jul 20, 2018 12:39
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it's not racism, its ephebephobphilia
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Jul 20, 2018 12:41
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Saladman posted:Racism has been commonly used to mean "any distinguishing feature, whether inborn genetically or not" for at least the past 15-20 years. I mean people talk about people being "racist" towards Hispanics and Arabs all the time, despite Hispanics and Arabs both having people that are lily white and Sudanese black who would be considered 100% Arab. Yeah, but Lebanese and Syrians can often look identical. If "racism" is pretty much any linguistic, ethnic, or cultural difference then pretty much dilutes into basically nothing (which is kind of important). If anything it seems its use here is an especially cynical way to attack Lebanon. Also to throw it out there, pretty much any country in the state Lebanon is it is going to see a swell of bigotry, but I think watering down the term "racism" to explain it isn't especially accurate. Anyway, even if you want to call it "racism," attacking the Lebanese at this point seems especially lovely. Basically, you let a refugee situation get so bad that let tempers flare, sit back, call them racist, and pretend that is a moral position? steinrokkan posted:it's not racism, its ephebephobphilia What were you even trying to say here? Ephebophilia? Ardennes fucked around with this message at 13:27 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 12:47
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Just call it bigotry. I mean, people fought and died in wars between groups who wrote the same language down in different alphabets, "racism" doesn't capture that, "bigotry" does.
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Jul 20, 2018 13:46
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Ardennes posted:Otherwise, if literally everything is race...then nothing is. Precisely my point. Or rather, my point is that, from a rigorous and scientific perspective backed by ethnology and biology, nothing is race; which means that people who talk about race are talking about literally anything they want, regardless of how little sense it makes. Cat Mattress fucked around with this message at 14:14 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 14:11
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Absurd Alhazred posted:Just call it bigotry. I mean, people fought and died in wars between groups who wrote the same language down in different alphabets, "racism" doesn't capture that, "bigotry" does. idk, A lot of serbs believed bosnians were literally a race of subhumans, it's just that that was signified by religion (alphabet) rather than skin color. id still call it rascism
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Jul 20, 2018 14:18
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Cat Mattress posted:Precisely my point. The issue is that race (even if it is an invention) has been used systematically by regimes to discriminate and destroy groups. Obviously, it isn't necessary to accept their idea of race, but rather it is a dangerous concept that keeps up cropping up in human history. I think making everything/nothing about race, clouds what we actually gain from that history. As for Bosnians, it is a bit more dicey because the Serbs did internalize a narrative that doesn't exist in Lebanon. Either way, bigotry is usually a process, and in the case of Lebanon, it is pretty clear that economic pressures, rather extreme ones, are putting put on the country. https://www.numbeo.com/cost-of-living/in/Beirut Beirut's housing prices are as out of whack, and 1 one bedroom apartment in outer Beirut is about 50-60% of average wages and inner Beirut is over 100% of average wages. Those are the type of conditions where people start looking for a scapegoat. (It is actually comparable to Moscow which has extremely out of whack rental prices versus wages.) Also, the Lebanese economy is under alot of pressure because it has a large trade deficit since many of its industries are non-competitive. I don't know if the refugee crisis itself is causing lower growth but that Lebanon isn't the most stable country at the best of times, and it is only adding further weight on institutions and the labor/housing markets. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 14:44 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 14:33
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Saladman posted:Like gently caress dude I've been reading about this for years and spent a couple hours yesterday and today flipping through papers again and the literature seems pretty universal in terms of "net near-zero impact overall across all strata, but bad for young and low-skilled Lebanese/Jordanians". Even The Economist, which is extremely liberal with respect to hosting refugees and open borders, has a hard time spinning it positively for the local Lebanese. I didn't say there was no impact, merely that the paper you posted did not even argue there was one. It just listed a bunch of statistics out of context and let the reader draw their own conclusions. The first paper you linked is in complete agreement with what I've said on immigrant flows, however it also addresses the effects of reduced trade between Lebanon and Syria so you may be conflating those impacts. quote:The arrival of Syrian refugees yields a positive quote:Total income per capita of Lebanese is unaffected by the arrival of displaced Syrians. Aid flows The researchers did find some negative effects on low skilled Lebanese workers, which is consistent with what I'd expect from looking at the broader literature. Specifically they found Syrian mass immigration increased unemployment among Lebanese workers by 0,4% hitting informal sector workers especially hard. However this paper is based on computer simulations and is not an empirical study. Empirical research has generally found weaker or non-existent effects on employment and income from mass immigration. Of course most of this research was on cases that were far less extreme than what has happened in Lebanon, so they may not be representative. I'm not trying to get on my high horse here and criticize the Lebanese. What the country has had to bear would be intolerable for anyone. It's unsurprising people would be resentful, especially the most marginal workers that bear the brunt of competition with immigrants. Even if it is the refugees who suffer the most. I'm sure everybody would like to see as many Syrians able to go home as soon as possible. Hopefully, many will be able to do that soon.
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Jul 20, 2018 15:34
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Wasn't that paper on immigration's effect on unemployment from the UK? It seems like trying to mix and match the two cases is a bit much considering we are dealing with two fairly different societies (with different approaches to employment, you probably see far more informal work in Lebanon). Edit: http://migrationobservatory.ox.ac.uk/resources/briefings/the-labour-market-effects-of-immigration/ Also, this study found while it didn't affect unemployment significantly, it did effect wages. Basically, people weren't thrown out of work, it was just a bunch more bitter fight to find a decent paying job especially on the low end. But yeah, that is a Western country. In Lebanon, I wouldn't be surprised that you probably have Syrians working informally, taking money under the table and eventually coming into conflict with locals. (Admittedly, Syrians don't really have a choice.) Ardennes fucked around with this message at 16:07 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 15:53
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Ardennes posted:Wasn't that paper on immigration's effect on unemployment from the UK? It seems like trying to mix and match the two cases is a bit much considering we are dealing with two fairly different societies (with different approaches to employment, you probably see far more informal work in Lebanon). There are lots of different papers that find different effects in different circumstances. How far you can go in applying lessons from one case to another is a matter of professional opinion, and I am not a professional. Some researchers looking at the UK have found negative impacts on specific sectors from immigration. The effect size decreases with time, as immigrants become better integrated in the labor market. The one paper posted by Saladman which I had time to look at found similar immediate impacts as those you have stated. It was a simulation though, and made assumptions that are probably not born out in reality. For example it assumed ALL Syrian refugees would find work in the informal sector, when I assume at least some would be able break into more regular spheres somehow.
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Jul 20, 2018 16:12
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Ardennes posted:The issue is that race (even if it is an invention) has been used systematically by regimes to discriminate and destroy groups. Obviously, it isn't necessary to accept their idea of race, but rather it is a dangerous concept that keeps up cropping up in human history. I think making everything/nothing about race, clouds what we actually gain from that history. South Africa had the "pencil test" to make the difference between the Black and Coloured races, resulting in people from the same family, siblings from the same parents, being from different races. I think that the only way to look at it, besides "this doesn't make any sort of actual sense" of course, is to term it like this: do they see it as different races? There can be other apparent factors in a group's bigotry against another group, but for example, suppose it's sectarian hatred -- will people from group A still hate a member from group B if they convert to group A's faith? If so, then it's not really sectarian hatred, it's racism.
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Jul 20, 2018 17:36
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Cat Mattress posted:South Africa had the "pencil test" to make the difference between the Black and Coloured races, resulting in people from the same family, siblings from the same parents, being from different races. In the case of Lebanon it is quite situational, so I doubt they actually see Syrians as suddenly a new and different race even if there is anger there. As for Yugoslavia, it is a good question if a Bozniak or Croatia converted to Orthodoxy/Serbian nationality, if a Serb might be fine with it, but an Albanian almost certainly not. I know some Maronite Christians have some theories about the Phoenicians etc, but often that is directed against other Lebanese.
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Jul 20, 2018 18:15
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I think "tribalism" would be a better word than racism. I'm sure the Lebanese think the refugees are still Arabs, but they aren't from their local tribes so there is still a way to "other" them.
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Jul 20, 2018 19:15
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On the topic of Yugoslavia, I feel like the answer is a lot more complicated than just 'it was all racist' or 'it was bigotry' or 'it was opportunism'. Really, it was some of all of the above. The rape camps certainly didn't have jack poo poo to do with religious conversion, regardless of what might've been claimed by the torturers, and were primarily just intended to terrorize first and commit racial genocide second as opposed to convert anyone. Then there was all the looting, a lot of it done by envious local neighbors of whichever side was currently winning in the area for petty, selfish reasons, so it's time to steal that neighbor's brand new TV set or whatever and sell it for monies - serves you right for letting your cow graze my fields, filthy balija! And then, of course, there's the degree to which the Serbian government exploited all of this casual animosity and amplified it into white hot rage, quite intentionally. One of the main reasons why they quite quickly gave up over my country (Slovenia) was because there was no ethnic Serb minority they could lean on for local intel/support/pretext. But Croatia they fought hard for the long haul, due to Krajina, where ethnic Serbs truly did exist for a long while along the Croatian border with Bosnia. Of course when NATO bombing began, they very quickly found their positions unsustainable, Croats pushed back and eventually ethnically cleansed the whole region through forced evictions and such so that now I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't that many folks there identifying themselves as Serbs/orthodox whatever. I've found a lot of the religious stuff in the Balkans is just so much pretext for 'government exploits any and all differences to make gains at expense of others.' Whether it was differences between catholics/orthodox/muslims or ethnic ones that had nothing to do with skin color and everything with Serbia trying to salvage the Yugoslavian sinking ship it blew a hole into in the first place by removing a ton of regional autonomy and mismanaged national finances to the point of absurd inflation, something for which every ethnicity that wasn't Serb paid highest for. But the people on the ground don't really care about that, if they bought into the bigotry, but instead into whatever brand they've been served. And it's primarily due to this diverse set of brands that these kinds of things keep going for as long as they do - because history has made these regions complicated and the people currently in power absolutely want to keep it complicated, since it's the simplest way that they can grow their power. It's why the distinctions of racial vs national vs religious bigotry seem superfluous to me, really. Because the entire point of any of these forms is to start poo poo and profit from said poo poo being started at others' expense. To the answer, if they could accept someone else via religious conversion, they could if that is indeed what it was all truly about. But the truth is that it often isn't. The mark of 'former heathen' doesn't just disappear from you and can be exploited for more selfish, petty gains of any kind, foreign fighters were still always given preferred treatment despite all of ISIS' bullshit about religion being the reason they fight, and people like Assad also prefer killing people in paranoid or vengeful spats, no matter how 'secular' or 'rational' they claim to be. CrazyLoon fucked around with this message at 19:28 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 19:22
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Ardennes posted:Yeah, but Lebanese and Syrians can often look identical. If "racism" is pretty much any linguistic, ethnic, or cultural difference then pretty much dilutes into basically nothing (which is kind of important). If anything it seems its use here is an especially cynical way to attack Lebanon. Also to throw it out there, pretty much any country in the state Lebanon is it is going to see a swell of bigotry, but I think watering down the term "racism" to explain it isn't especially accurate. For a guy who claims to live in the Old World, this is really heavy duty New World missing of the point.
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Jul 20, 2018 20:53
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Ardennes posted:I know some Maronite Christians have some theories about the Phoenicians etc, but often that is directed against other Lebanese. In the same way that Germans had about Aryans, and Turkish people had about their Sun Language. It's in the same vein of deranged pseudoscience.
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Jul 20, 2018 22:16
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Do these Maronites think they and only they are descendents of the Phoenicians in Lebanon Because lol if so. That's like Ligurians insisting that only THEY had Roman ancestors, and everyone else in Italy is a German Saracen or something.
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Jul 20, 2018 22:23
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Saladman posted:It's a cool meme that poor people are xenophobic racists, but IRL there are real reasons for them being opposed to open borders and it's not because farmers and taxi drivers are mouth-breathers. Not really, because in this case "being opposed to open borders" means putting refugees, many of whom are wanted by the regime over a Facebook post they made in 2012, at risk of being tortured to death in a regime prison. Over a million people are wanted by the government, and the only reason they are alive today is because they've found shelter in countries like Lebanon. Yet sending them all back to die is the unnamed alternative here. The Lebanese people making these sorts of arguments don't care about the fates of those refugees, which is an inherently bigoted position. It isn't simply pushed by the sorts of small town folks you see in videos committing hate crimes against random Syrians on the street, but by national TV networks like al Jadeed, that broadcast poo poo like this racist song perpetuating stereotypes about Syrian refugees. https://twitter.com/mfwali/status/988454704207355906?s=19 Also by the Lebanese state, which has yet to address the thousands of Syrians who were evicted from their homes, the fates of the Syrians who were detained during raids on refugee camps in Arsal, 5 of whom were alleged to be tortured to death in Lebanese prisons by human rights watch, and the acts of arson committed at refugee camps. As far as bigotry vs racism, the foreign minister, son in law of the president, and your ally in this debate, defended his stance that Syrians shouldn't be naturalized as Lebanese citizens, by explicitly saying Lebanon is racist in its identity, so it's his words not mine. https://twitter.com/Gebran_Bassil/status/916943012655230978?s=19 This is something that's been a major issue since before the Syrian revolution began, with migrant workers. The vast majority of migrant workers in Lebanon have their passports withheld by their employers so they cannot escape, and are locked in their employers house on their day off. Huge chunks of Lebanese society find these workers "unclean," "stupid," and "untrustworthy." Syrians have simply found themselves a very convenient scapegoat for a lot of problems in Lebanese society. The data suggests a neutral impact in the short term and a positive in the long term. Remember, a surprising number of these refugees have money, and are college educated. In the case of Egypt, businesses created and invested in by Syrian refugees are thriving already. Similar trends exist in Jordan and Turkey, tho to a lesser extent. The same could be the case in Lebanon, but it's not. Is that the fault of deeper, systemic issues when it comes to Lebanese governance, economics, and politics? Or is it because Lebanon hasn't adequately defended their women and their country from the hordes of unwashed masses, and the Lebanese traitors that enable them? Those are your choices. Volkerball fucked around with this message at 23:18 on Jul 20, 2018 |
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Jul 20, 2018 23:11
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Ardennes posted:Anyway, even if you want to call it "racism," attacking the Lebanese at this point seems especially lovely. Basically, you let a refugee situation get so bad that let tempers flare, sit back, call them racist, and pretend that is a moral position? You might be using the generic "you" here or quoted the wrong person, but just to make sure: I'm on the exact same page as you for this. Squalid posted:I'm not trying to get on my high horse here and criticize the Lebanese. Sorry, I had the impression you were of the opinion that anyone who opposes accepting literally unlimited numbers of refugees on humanitarian grounds is a bigoted xenophobic racist**. There's certainly a lot of room for studies on how much of an impact it has and on which strata of society, but data points are, hopefully, going to remain few and far between. It's too bad that in popular press the articles are almost always either (A) accept everyone! it will also lead to peace and love and social harmony and better economy because who will pay taxes and take care of you when you're old because your native population is not increasing!? Anyone opposed to unlimited refugees is not only a racist evil bigot, but ALSO they're incompetent and shortsighted!! or (b) all immigrants are rapist murdering clones of Osama bin Laden and it's why gays roam the streets and why Jesus is coming back to Earth soon. **even though in Europe and the US, generally, this is true since the "unlimited" number is really not that much, especially if the issue wasn't incredibly toxic politically and if the EU would hash out a plan instead of either interning people in Greece or letting them all go to Sweden and Germany. Not to mention that the Europeans most virulently against migration overwhelmingly live in places where they are wholly and 100% unaffected in any way and who would never have any idea something was going on if they didn't turn on EU Fox and Friends.
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Jul 20, 2018 23:25
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Ardennes posted:One explanation for the "racism" by the Lebanese (are they different race then the guys 100 kms away?), is simply housing costs which almost certainly have spiraled higher in recent years and a general overall cost of living. Also Syrians very possibly are engaged in "non-traditional" employment which may not actually show up clearly in statistics. 'people cant be racist against their neighbors' is a really weird hill to die on
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Jul 20, 2018 23:34
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Grape posted:For a guy who claims to live in the Old World, this is really heavy duty New World missing of the point. Why should someone living in Moscow understand Lebanon, particularly?
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Jul 20, 2018 23:49
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Saladman posted:You might be using the generic "you" here or quoted the wrong person, but just to make sure: I'm on the exact same page as you for this. It was a generic "you." Nevertheless, it is honestly pretty crap that someone (not you necessarily) can just completely dump on a country put in a completely impossible situation while the West twidles its fingers. Any country, especially an already half-fractured like Lebanon is going to be completely terrible shape if you literally dump something like an extra 20-30% of its population on top of it at one time. Lebanon was already just recovering from the 2006 war that only half a decade earlier. Also, the long-term advantages of refugees usually happen if there is already a stable situation in the country to begin with that can sustain the numbers of people coming into it. This is also not the case of Lebanon. 420 Gank Mid posted:'people cant be racist against their neighbors' is a really weird hill to die on Yeah, that isn't even remotely close to the point of the discussion? fishmech posted:Why should someone living in Moscow understand Lebanon, particularly? I guess if you move to the Eastern Hemisphere at some point you must agree with whatever point he has in his head. I guess my definition of race is too "new world." Ardennes fucked around with this message at 01:25 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 01:23
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I wonder if Lebanese groups may have a relatively recent historical reason to be distrustful of refugees. Like, you don't have to dive into the micro level to see that after the civil war that was sparked by a refugee crisis, the population may have some lingering reservations about the whole thing.
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Jul 21, 2018 01:26
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fishmech posted:Why should someone living in Moscow understand Lebanon, particularly? Insisting on racism as color based in a super literalist way comes across very American.
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Jul 21, 2018 01:37
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Grape posted:Insisting on racism as color based in a super literalist way comes across very American. Sure, what is your point? I mean I am American (and never denied it). steinrokkan posted:I wonder if Lebanese groups may have a relatively recent historical reason to be distrustful of refugees. It certainly could be a factor along with the already existing sectarian tensions and the very evident weakness of the Lebanese state (which isn't news). In general, the Lebanese are put in an impossible situation. Ardennes fucked around with this message at 01:49 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 01:40
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Grape posted:Insisting on racism as color based in a super literalist way comes across very American. Oh so you're one of those idiots who thinks the entire Old World has unified thoughts about race. I forgot how Tokyo, Jerusalem, and OSlo were exactly the same.
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Jul 21, 2018 01:51
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Usually fishmech can at least claim to base his idiotic arguments on technicalities, this time he's just flailing around.
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Jul 21, 2018 02:01
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steinrokkan posted:Usually fishmech can at least claim to base his idiotic arguments on technicalities, this time he's just flailing around. Uh that would be the guy who talks about a monolithic Old World racism, Mr. Slovak.
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Jul 21, 2018 02:03
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Grape posted:Do these Maronites think they and only they are descendents of the Phoenicians in Lebanon Because lol if so. http://lmgtfy.com/?q=Lebanon+Phoenician  e: To the shock of everyone, the main proprietors of this viewpoint are the Kataeb. Also known as the  Falangists
Schizotek fucked around with this message at 02:26 on Jul 21, 2018 |
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Jul 21, 2018 02:21
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Just use the word chauvinism, nerds.
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Jul 21, 2018 02:23
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An interesting in-depth article about reconciliation in the Rastan area. More specifically, it talks about the reconciliation of former Syrian rebel commander Omar Melhem, who was the military commander of Jaysh al-Tawheed: https://apnews.com/f358a6c4ad5e40c7b41a04ca9fb10101 quote:Former Syrian rebel commander Omar Melhem has nearly come full circle. He was a colonel in the Syrian army when the uprising against President Bashar Assad began in 2011. He defected a year later and joined the armed revolt against the Syrian leader. Finally, I find that last line really, really interesting. Even after everything that's happened, Omar Melhem has no regrets about being a rebel, and no regrets about reconciling/surrendering. I don't know if I could say the same. Bonus reddit link, with videos for each paragraph: https://www.reddit.com/r/syriancivilwar/comments/904ow2/under_assads_grip_uneasy_coexistence_with_syria/ quote:Here was Melhem as the commander of Jaysh al-Tawhid in September 2017, rejecting negotiations.
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Jul 21, 2018 02:30
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fishmech posted:Oh so you're one of those idiots who thinks the entire Old World has unified thoughts about race. I forgot how Tokyo, Jerusalem, and OSlo were exactly the same. Slow night in the pedantic argument factory huh?
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Jul 21, 2018 03:00
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Grape posted:Slow night in the pedantic argument factory huh? I notice you refuse to support your absurd notions that there's a unified Old World racism.
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Jul 21, 2018 03:06
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Saladman posted:Sorry, I had the impression you were of the opinion that anyone who opposes accepting literally unlimited numbers of refugees on humanitarian grounds is a bigoted xenophobic racist**. There's certainly a lot of room for studies on how much of an impact it has and on which strata of society, but data points are, hopefully, going to remain few and far between. It's too bad that in popular press the articles are almost always either (A) accept everyone! it will also lead to peace and love and social harmony and better economy because who will pay taxes and take care of you when you're old because your native population is not increasing!? Anyone opposed to unlimited refugees is not only a racist evil bigot, but ALSO they're incompetent and shortsighted!! or (b) all immigrants are rapist murdering clones of Osama bin Laden and it's why gays roam the streets and why Jesus is coming back to Earth soon. I don't pretend to understand the complexities of Lebanon's political or refugee situation. Clearly absorbing a 40% increase in population over just a few years is going to be traumatic for any people. I am just compulsively pedantic, and I fret over how much unsupported, misleading, and flat out wrong information is thrown around about refugees. I don't know what will happen to Syrian refugees. If they can go home safely that is probably the best outcome. If they can't however, I hope they will be able to build secure and permanent futures where they are today. While researchers are divided over the short term impacts of immigrants, in the long term the picture is much more evidently positive in terms of economic effect. The future risks are not so much related to the refugees themselves, who mostly want to build normal lives integrated with the wider community. However there are many mean and cruel spirited people who don't want that to happen, who want to keep them and their descendants second-class citizens. That is a surefire path alienation, violence, and discord. Grape posted:Slow night in the pedantic argument factory huh? I sometimes wonder what drives fishmech to vomit up this kind of garbage. I think he must know how badly he comes off, but I don't think he can control himself. It's like he's having some kind of fit.
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Jul 21, 2018 03:40
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Squalid posted:
It's deeply hilarious that you think "you can't live in the Old World because you don't know the One Racism" is useful to discussing Lebanon.
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Jul 21, 2018 03:42
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