#anti-shia

[icedsodapop]

People on social media (aka Tumblr as well):

Me, with my long memory:

Condemnation-Redemption cycles on social media for White celebrities really amazes me. Like the things yall are so willing to forget 😒😒😒

[wetsocksinbed]

I really hope the Bumblebee Movie and ROTB are a reboot of the Live Action Transformers Universe because the Bayverse is my ultimate enemy and I would pay real money to have a Transformers Universe where women weren’t turned into jokes or used as overly sexualised props to the point of being useless to the plot

[labbaik-ya-hussain-as]

[wandalives]

Adam Driver in a movie with Johnny Depp

[wyllsravengard]

idk what ramadan is gonna look like for me this year lol

[margoshansons]

Rewatching the Indiana Jones movies and holy shit they are way more racist than I remember

They are like…really bad

[beforethepoison]

Mia Goth (Born October 25th, 1993)

[zvaigzdelasas]

“It is a huge escalation, involving perhaps 15-20 missiles,” [...]

"It seems like things are spiralling. There's no way they're firing ballistic missiles and not expecting casualties."[...]

The escalation is part of the [PMF's] campaign to pressure the US to leave Iraq. There are about 2,500 American military trainers in the country under the International Coalition against ISIS. Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia Al Sudani [...] has criticised militias for attacking coalition troops on Iraqi territory, but has upped his calls for US forces to leave the country as the conflict escalates. Mr Al Sudani has also fiercely condemned US counter strikes against the militias [which are largely a formal part of the Iraqi Armed Forces] as a “violation of sovereignty”.[...]

The rivalry between US forces and Kataib Hezbollah[, one faction of the PMF, ] is bitter and goes back to the US occupation of Iraq, when the militia killed and wounded hundreds of US soldiers.

Baghdad committed to end presence of US troops in Iraq: Iraqi general - AlMayadeen

Spokesman for Iraq's Joint Operations Command (JOC) Brigadier General Yahya Rasool stated on Sunday that the government of Iraq is determined to terminate the deployment of foreign troops associated with the US-led military coalition, which was originally formed to combat ISIS. "The Iraqi government is resolute to put an end to the deployment of foreign forces in the country. It has devised a vision plan for the next stage, which includes joint technical activities intended for the US-led coalition's departure and subsequent security and military cooperation," Rasool stated. He further stressed that the presence of the US-led military coalition in Iraq is no longer deemed necessary, noting that the capabilities of Iraqi forces are high enough to address terrorism-related issues themselves. On Thursday, Iraqi Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ al-Sudani reiterated the call for the coalition's departure. "The end of the US-led coalition mission is a necessity for the security and stability of Iraq. It is also a necessity for preserving constructive bilateral relations between Iraq and the coalition countries," Sudani stated during a televised event at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Sudani has consistently expressed the desire for foreign troops to leave Iraq, with the country adopting a law to expel foreign forces following the assassination of top Iraqi and Iranian anti-terror commanders in a US drone strike near Baghdad International Airport on January 3, 2020. [...]

Pentagon spokesperson Sabrina Singh admitted earlier this week that US forces in the region came under attack 140 times [since 7 Oct]. Speaking during a press briefing on Thursday, Singh disclosed that the attacks have been "persistent and alarming."

21 Jan 24

[tamamita]

had a random memory of this weird anti-shia interaction i had in hs and i have no one to talk about it w rn but it rlly made me question if shias are viewed this way every where.

the interaction was me asking my school acquaintance if he was sunni or shia, bc we were talking about our ethnic background and religion for whatever reason. and when i asked him if he was shia he got rllyyyyy offended and gave me a nasty look and said ‘no, bc shias are terrorists’ which was a shock to me bc i never heard someone say that about shias (and also bc i just told him my dads fam was shia and i was irreligious shia at the time lol) and i’ve heard some pretty nasty stuff about us, just never that shias are terrorists. is this a prevalent opinion or just a weird one he had?

bc this was like 10 yrs ago atp and i never seen someone say something like that after, but i also avoid muslim spaces generally and when i am involved in muslim spaces it’s always around other shias so i’m not sure if it’s just my ignorance or his lol

Shi'a Muslims are an oppressed group, and is demonized around the Sunni Islamic world on the basis of heresy and geopolitical issues. The fact is that there's no way you can please the entirety of Sunni Islamic world, due to our Rafd (rejection) of the first three and some other Sunni Islamic personalities. My assumption is that they referred to you as one due to various Shi'a Islamic resistance groups and Iran's participation in the Syrian Civil War and the Shi'ite counter-offensive against ISIS.

It's not as prevalent as other terms, since we're often accused of being magians, jews, polytheists and many other things. One particular term is the reclaimed slur "Rawafidh/Rafidha" which means One who rejects (the first three caliphs). Unfortunately, it's not only prevalent among the more conservative Sunnis, but even among the more moderate laymen.

Quite ironic given that we seem to be called terrorists, despite the fact that the overwhelming amount of massacres against Shi'as in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Iran and Iraq were sectarian in nature..

[theangryman]

kink as religion/spirituality

it’s a little gauche to say something is “like a cult” - it’s overused as an expression

but a large problem i have with kink/bdsm subculture is the commonalities with religion, the spiritual aspects

when you think of precedents for “consensual” ritualized harm and self harm, they are religious (several groups have traditions of undergoing full on crucifixions for Easter, there’s similar rites for some Shia Muslims for Ashura - which is today I believe)

the desire for progression as some sort of internal challenge - there’s always a desire and encouragement to expand one’s limits

it’s driven by the same desire for a transcendent experience

the communities’ members have strange persecution complexes, gaslighting victims of abuse, especially when by higher ranking members

the focus on hierarchy (leather culture had formalized rules - serve in a house, train as submissive - tortured gay men wanting to punish themselves - maybe can read a form a Catholicism into this; modern kink culture is like modern Protestantism in that any sufficiently well groomed upper middle class man can claim to have the unique skills to be a good pastor/“dom” and open up a church/dungeon)

the repulsion towards former members/critiques of systemic issues present (expression anti kink opinions has gotten me the same kind of hateful response from other trans men that being a trans man did in the 2010s online - to the point where gendering people correctly appears to be optional for folks who are anti kink? the double whammy of being accused of being a TERF and than insulted with “girl” is always a fucking whiplash - can you not use the term “TERF” to mean “anyone i don’t like,” y’all look like fucking morons)

maybe many of these things can be applied to things like multi level marketing or any other extremely large organizational idea that people subsume their identity into, but the aspect of seeking “ecstasy” adds a hellish intensity to the mix

and like losing one’s religion, it’s difficult to leave. it’s difficult to part with the thought parties the beliefs. it’s difficult to justify to outsiders. (i agreed to let him do X but he did Y - the specifics don’t matter but it’s going to happen to you)

it creates mind bending cognitive dissonance - only puritanical criticisms of kink can be addressed. no matter what critique of kink you make, the response is

men are submissive too! (go actually look at femdom porn/hentai lol and see what they want or make a troll fet dom-F account if you don’t believe me + most submissive men are trans men with self esteem issues - the type who have boyfriends that refer to them as their girlfriend to their family; the religious analog would be something about complementary gender roles perhaps)

it’s all about consent! (what do we say about consent in power dynamics? now this is a subtle point, which is made impossible to address because it is such a fundamental threat to heterosexuality itself, that Dworkin tried to make and was glossed into “all sex is rape” because it is such a threat - what do we say to the idea of consent when we are fundamentally unequal human beings by nature of assigned sex of birth? who makes more money? who can overpower? i think most have gotten the picture that what Thomas Jefferson did to Sally Hemings was unambiguously rape, but what about all of the women throughout history when marital rape was considered the norm? it requires acknowledging that your great grandpa probably raped your great grandma, or up and down that line for thousands of generations - maybe if you acknowledge up front that gooners are going to want you to agree to humiliating and disgusting sex acts up front - that agreeing to have mutual fun with a stranger means rolling the dice on physical assault - maybe if you agree up front and pretend you can set some kinds of rules it’ll work out; similarly, religion is the comfort that life isn’t pointless suffering and maybe we’ll get to see our dog and grandma again if you follow these rules)

you can’t project your trauma onto the community/bad people aren’t doing really kink (i have a fairly large sampling size of kink partners and experiences personally. i genuinely don’t believe my arguments can be dialed down to “i had personal trauma in kink thus all kink is bad” unless one is taking my words at bad faith. this very much reeks of accusing atheists of hating god because of trauma or not getting what they want.)

you don’t actually believe that/you’re lying/you want it (these are obvious comparisons to religion)

these feel like the same kinds of responses i see to ex Mormons/Jehovah’s Witnesses/etc online

modern kink is similar to modern Protestantism in that it facilitates the creation of micro cults. institutionalization of kink is structured such that critique can be deflected onto individual actors. i’d argue Reddit is a major source of kink “education” - and no one can deny that subreddits can have concerning moderators. You have Fetlife, which is primarily heterosexual, male dom/female sub pornography. You have a couple of Booktok tier pop psych books which encourage Bronze Age marriage models. This maps to the diffuse ways in which American Protestantism propagates its ideas - it’s a nebulous mess of ideas that can evaporate when asked to take responsibility. We can’t hold all Christians accountable for Mark Driscoll’s ideas; we can’t hold all kinksters responsible for the actions of [insert the creeps who message you if you take up my suggestion of a troll fetlife account]. But can we not ask what it says about American Protestantism that Mark Driscoll exists and says what he says? And can we not look askew when what he said could be happily echoed by a kinkster as long as it was prefixed with “it’s kinky and consensual btw <3” and had been posted on fetlife anonymously - instead of his own church forum?

Kink is reactionary ideology which has parasitized societal acceptance of queer folks to justify the abusive dynamics of heterosexual relationships and sex, which has replaced religion as the justification for that dynamic.

[icedsodapop]

People on Twitter cheering on Shia LaBeouf kill yourselves

Note: TERFS and Radfems don't fucking interact with this post and I hope yall die ✌🏻

[the-garbanzo-annex-jr]

by Joseph Epstein

Since war broke out between Israel and Hamas, the anti-Israel trope of "settler-colonialism"—or foreign Jews displacing indigenous Palestinians has reemerged.

In the case of Israel, this term is no more accurate than such demonization of the Jewish state as an "apartheid" regime or saying that it is committing "genocide." The refutation of a Jewish connection to the land of their ancestors or the denial of a permanent Jewish presence in Israel stems either from ignorance or malevolence.

These countries have intentionally altered the demographics in war-torn Syria and Iraq to strengthen their geopolitical positions.

The worst offender is Iran, which has manipulated sectarian strife to form a Shia corridor from its borders to Lebanon to supply its main proxy, Hezbollah.

In Syria, Iran has settled Shia families from Iraq and Lebanon in strategic Sunni areas between Damascus and the Lebanese border. Tehran has found a partner in the Alawite Islamic sect, which dominates the Syrian regime. President Bashar Al-Assad and other members of the Alawite minority oppress the Sunni-majority that was largely behind the Arab Spring revolution in 2011. As a result, Syria has helped facilitate the export of Iran's Twelver Shia Islam—a branch practiced by the Iranian regime—to areas under Damascus's control. Assad has allowed Twelver foreign clerics to occupy senior religious positions and relaxed visa restrictions for Iranians and Iraqis, leading to an influx of Shiites.

A similar story has taken place in Iraq. Following the U.S. removal of Saddam Hussein, Iraq fell into religious sectarianism, allowing Iran to quickly become the patron of the much of the ruling Shia majority. Under the pretext of war against terrorism and the Islamic State, Tehran began systemically changing the demographics to solidify its corridor to Lebanon. Iranian-backed militias were at the forefront of sectarian cleansing of Sunnis in areas like Tel Afar, Mosul and Fallujah.

Iran often uses the pretext of Shia shrines to justify the presence of its militia proxies. Following battles in areas around the "Sunni Triangle" city Samara—home to the Al-Hadi and Al-Askari shrines—thousands of hectares of agricultural land owned by Sunnis was confiscated and its residents were not allowed to return to their homes. In Syria, protecting Shia shrines in the capital of Damascus and its suburbs gave Iranian proxies, including Hezbollah, an excuse to fortify its presence.

[girlactionfigure]

🟢 Tue morning  - ISRAEL REALTIME - Connecting to Israel in Realtime

❗️YESTERDAY’S MASSACRE STORY FALLS APART.. the attack DID NOT take place in a designated safe zone but 1 km away.  The fire was caused by a nearby vehicle loaded with EXPLOSIVES - more specifically rockets.  The IDF used a “very small” bomb, and the damage shows no bomb dispersal pattern (meaning it wasn’t from the bomb).  

▪️UNRWA - 1 MILLION LEAVE RAFAH.. everyone who wanted to leave Rafah has.

▪️AID PIER DIFFICULTIES.. most of the aid pier was floated to Ashdod, to shelter during wavy seas.  One part broke away and beached in Ashkelon, along with a vessel trying to pull it off.  Another 2 pieces washed ashore in Gaza.  Several experts weighed in: bad place for this type of pier, there were other better options.

▪️ROBOT / DRONE ARMOR?  Spotted in Rafah: armed APC’s with no humans aboard - new drone armor by the IDF.

▪️HEZBOLLAH LAUNCHES A CROWD FUNDING CAMPAIGN.. you too can buy a drone or missile to kill Jews.  

▪️PROTEST CONVEY.. is slowing traffic along the coastal highway.  The protest for the "return of the mandate to the people" motorcades left from several points in the country as part of the protest calling for the elections.

♦️RAFAH - TUNNELS.. The IDF has so far located more than 10 smuggling tunnels along the Philadelphi axis, crossing from the Gaza Strip to Egypt. Some were destroyed, the IDF is working to destroy the rest.

♦️RAFAH - FIGHT.. a 6th combat brigade has entered the fight.

♦️GAZA CITY TUNNEL DESTROYED.. 800 meter-long and 18 meter-deep tunnel was located close to the Netzarim Corridor, n the Sabra neighbourhood.  Demolished by explosion.

⭕ 3 IRAQ SHIA MILITIA SUICIDE DRONES at EILAT, intercepted.

⭕ NEAR TULKARM, TERRORISTS FIRING AND IED.. shooting attack combined with an explosive device against the Deir al-Hausun checkpoint North of Tulkarm.

⭕ HEZBOLLAH - “WE’RE USING BOMB DROPPING DRONES NOW”.

⭕ 3 ANTI-TANK MISSILES at Shtula.

[mapsontheweb]

Religious Distribution in the Subdivisions (Nahiyas) of the Mount Lebanon Emirate in the 1540s according to Ottoman Tax Registries.

by u/R120Tunisia:

The map wasn't made by me. The original post is here though I modified it by adding a small graph that shows the overall percentages below.

The map uses various books that summarize the results of the tax registries as a source.

In case you might be wondering : "Wasn't Lebanon Christian majority ?" well at that point, no. The largest religious group at the time would have been the Druze followed by Shias. Note the Druze were technically part of the Muslim millet and didn't pay the Jizya so they were included in the Muslim category at the time.

The Druze though were far from united. They originated from the foothills of the Anti-Lebanon Mountains and were settled by the Ayyubids and Mamluks over the years along the central Levantine coast to guard from Crusader naval incursions and raids. In the absence of crusader threats, the various Druze clans started to fight among each other, with a divide appearing between Qaysi Druze clans (who claimed descent from Northern Arabian tribes) and Yamani Druze clans (who claimed descent from Southern Arabian tribes). The former were supported by local Sunnis and Shias while the latter had the support of local Ottoman authorities.

The Qaysis eventually gained the upper hand following the Battle of Ain Dara and most of the Yamani Druze were expelled from Lebanon with most moving into what is today Jabal al-Druze which was sparsely populated at the time (this was how Syria got most of its Druze as well). Meanwhile, the Qaysi clans that prevailed started to invite Christian peasants from the Mt Lebanon area as well as from all over the Levant into the area to repopulate the towns and villages left empty by the Yamanis and to become tenant farmers under them. These new immigrants were mainly Maronite but also Orthodox and Melkite to a lesser degree.

This Christian immigration would increase following the takeover of the Shihab dynasty, a Sunni family from the Anti-Lebanon Mountains, following the death of the last Druze Qaysi Ma'nid Emirs. The new dynasty were in frequent conflict with Druze landlords so to build a power base in the area they started to support the Maronite clergy and created local conditions friendly to Christian life (some Shihab Emirs would even convert to Christianity).

And finally two other factors : Christians tended to be poorer and rural (especially Maronites), and the rural poor tend to have higher birthrates, and at the time, there was a split among the local Orthodox population of the Levant that caused many to join the new Melkite Catholic Church leading to many members leaving their communities for sectarian reasons and moving into Lebanon to create new communities out of scratch (most notables of these is Zahlé, Lebanon's third largest city and the largest Christian majority town in the Middle East, which continues to have a Melkite majority to this day).

Tl;dr : in the late 17th and early 18th century following inter-Druze conflict and the takeover of the Shihab dynasty, a demographic shift occurred in what is today Lebanon that led to a huge decrease in the Druze population and an increase of the Christian population due to immigration (to re-populate areas emptied by the Druze who left and trigged by both the local conditions in the area as well as theological disputes within the Christian communities of the Levant) as well as higher birthrates, eventually leading to Christians becoming a slight majority in the area.

[bobcatmoran]

So, with the 20th anniversary of the US's incredibly ill-advised and generally terrible invasion of Iraq, I've been reminded of where I was at the time that happened. Namely, I was in college, and I was taking a course called "Human Geography of Global Issues." The professor was a Texan, and was known for a) the fact that he loudly and proudly wore cowboy boots everywhere, sometimes capped off with a ten gallon hat — not your typical fashion at my Minnesotan college — and b) his repeated insistence, delivered in his drawling accent, that "Bush Junior is not a real Texan — the whole family are just a bunch of carpetbaggers from New England." (he was also just an absolute gem of a man — I have a very vivid memory of coming into the Geography Department offices the next year, distraught because a computer glitch meant that none of my class registrations for the next semester had taken and the GIS course I wanted to take for my minor was full — and he calmed me down, reassured me that there were ways around this for not only the GIS class but all the classes I was now locked out of, helped me navigate the system, and I got an email within the week saying that despite the GIS class having no room in the online course registration, I was now registered for it)

He was also an expert on the Middle East. And, as it became clearer and clearer as the semester went on that the then-Current Administration (which he had negative respect for) was hellbent on going into Iraq for reasons which seemed to largely amount to "Gonna finish what Daddy Bush started," he made predictions. Predictions about how easy it would be to topple Saddam Hussein and how hard it would be to fill the power vacuum. Predictions about the looming sectarian time bomb between the Shia and Sunni Muslims in Iraq. Predictions about how the Kurds would react. Predictions about how the US would get bogged down and wouldn't be able or willing to leave for years and years and would, in the meantime, commit warcrimes that would just lead to the rise of new terrorist groups.

Every single one of those predictions came true.

(He also predicted in detail during one class, with terrifying accuracy and illustrations, exactly what would happen if a major hurricane hit New Orleans, which it did two years later with Katrina).

Meanwhile, on campus, a "Peace Camp" sprung up in front of the campus center, with students living in tents until…uh…ok, the goals were kind of fuzzy, but it was a fixture for the rest of the school year. At one point, the Young Republicans (all three of them :P) decided to set up a "Freedom Camp" on the other side of campus, which wound up consisting of like, two guys with signs for a single day, and which led to a sprouting of mocking signs for "Weed Camp" and "Space Camp."

Also, a group of anti-war protestors took up a station kitty-corner from campus and they were there every day until I graduated, waving signs, with cars honking as they passed.

[curiooftheheart]

Anytime I see people bring up the 4Chan flag hunt with Shia Lebouf thing as a like fun story of internet people working together I wanna fucking lob bricks at them. It was them harassing him during his anti-Trump displays. It is literally just a bunch of internet jerk offs working really hard for the name of "le funne white supremacy".