Reporter Géorgienne Touchée par une Balle en Direct Durant les Combats

This is the French translation of the Georgian Reporter Hit by Live Fire During Battle post by ultra-translator Natalie from France.

Charmante vidéo. Récemment durant la courte guerre en Ossétie du Sud, les troupes géorgiennes ont vaincu les rebelles d'Ossétie du Sud et les forces russes; une femme reporter géorgienne qui tournait depuis le théâtre des opérations à Gori, où la bataille faisait rage, a été touchée à la main par une balle ou un autre projectile. La caméra part en vrille dès que les assistants la poussent brusquement dans le fourgon pour l'amener à l’hôpital.

Durant tout ce temps elle continue de faire son reportage. Quelle dévotion pour son métier!

Des Soldats Indonésiens Torturent des Papous

I am looking for translators to translate this post into French, Italian, German, Norwegian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation (en Español). Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). Norwegian translation (på norsk).

This is the French version of the Indonesian Soldiers Torture Papuan Men post.

Ce sont les images extrêmement choquantes de soldats indonésiens torturant un Papou et son père en Nouvelle-Guinée occidentale.
L’Indonésie a volé la Nouvelle-Guinée occidentale aux Papous en 1965 et a mené une guerre génocidaire et raciste contre les Papous depuis. Les soldats sont extrêmement racistes et considèrent les Papous à peine mieux que des animaux.

Les Papous essaient de se battre en utilisant des armes primitives mais ils ne font pas le poids face à une armée moderne. L’impérialisme américain a soutenu les Indonésiens dans cette guerre car les sociétés américaines veulent exploiter les ressources naturelles de Papouasie.

La scène a été prise à l’aide d’un téléphone portable par un des soldats engagés dans une opération militaire dans la région du Puncak Jaya dans les hauts plateaux de Nouvelle-Guinée occidentale.

Les opérations ont été lancées après que le Mouvement de Libération Papoue, un groupe armé cherchant à s’affranchir du colonialisme indonésien, mais l’activité des troupes indonésiennes consiste principalement en des actes de torture, des viols et des meurtres de civils comme cela a toujours été le cas.

Il s’agit apparemment d’« images trophée ». La vidéo n’est qu’un extrait d’une plus longue vidéo montrant les deux hommes torturés. Dans la version complète, le vieil homme est dévêtu, un sac sur la tête et un bâton incandescent est mis sur ses testicules tandis qu’il hurle à la mort. Le jeune homme a un couteau sur son visage.

Les renseignements sur l’identité des victimes sont difficiles à obtenir puisque l’on se trouve dans une zone militaire interdite d’accès dans laquelle les journalistes ne peuvent pas pénétrer. Toutefois, le vieil homme a été porté disparu et est probablement mort, tandis que le jeune homme a été relâché.

Les troupes indonésiennes ont tué, torturé et violé des Papous en toute impunité depuis 1963. Les victimes les plus jeunes n’avaient que 3 ans.

Pendant des années, les soldats indonésiens ont pris des photos - maintenant des films - comme trophée pour leurs exactions sur des Papous tués et violés. Ils montrent ces photos et vidéos aux Papous pour les humilier.

Le film est apparu très récemment, le 20 octobre 2010, et a provoqué quelques remous médiatiques.

Truppe Indonesiane Torturano due Papuani

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German, Norwegian and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation (en Español). French translation (en Français). Norwegian translation (på norsk).

This is the Italian translation of the Indonesian Soldiers Torture Papuan Men post. Translator: Paolo from Trieste.

Queste immagini sono solo un breve estratto di un filmato sconvolgente: la tortura di due papuani, padre e figlio, vittime delle truppe indonesiane.

Ci troviamo nella Papuasia dell'ovest, teatro dal 1963 di inaudite, infami atrocità. Gli indonesiani si sono accaniti su quella povera popolazione con una ferocia degna degli antichi conquistadores.

I papuani sono trattati alla stregua di bestie: vengono uccisi, torturati e stuprati persino i bambini (...anche se di solo 3 anni...).

I carnefici hanno la certezza di non essere puniti. Occupata definitivamente nel 1965, a tutt'oggi si contano più di 100.000 morti. E' un genocidio.

Come può resistere una popolazione dotata solo di armi primitive contro un esercito moderno che gode pure del supporto delle multinazionali USA interessate al controllo delle materie prime della zona? Ancora una volta, complimenti all'imperialismo americano, eh ?

Il video in questione è stato realizzato nel mese di maggio 2010 nella regione del Punkak Jaya, nella catena centrale della Papua Nuova Guinea dell'ovest, durante un'operazione militare contro il 'Movimento di Liberazione Papuano' (flebile resistenza al colonialismo indonesiano).

Nell'ottica della propaganda di guerra, un soldato filma le torture a due prigionieri.

L'anziano viene denudato, una borsa premuto sulla faccia, gli arrostiscono le palle con un ferro rovente: le sue urla d'agonia fanno accapponare la pelle! Il giovane viene schiaffeggiato ripetutamente mentre un soldato 'gioca' sadisticamente sulla sua faccia con un coltellaccio.

Malgrado la stretta censura governativa, si è venuti a conoscenza che il giovane è stato successivamente liberato (e forse bisognoso di plastica facciale...) mentre del padre si è persa ogni traccia.

L'uso dei media per intimidire ed umiliare una popolazione da sottomettere è un classico : se nel passato gli indonesiani non hanno esitato a diffondere bieche immagini fotografiche di stupri e morte, nell'era di internet sono d'obbligo i video, nuovi trofei di guerra da esibire a tutto il mondo.

Diffuso poco tempo fa, il 20 ottobre scorso, questo video ha fatto immediatamente scalpore.

Indonesian Soldiers Torture Papuan Men

I am looking for translators to translate this post into German and Tagalog. Email me if you are interested.

Spanish translation (en Español). Italian translation (traduzione in Italiano). French translation (en Français). Norwegian translation (på norsk).

This is extremely shocking footage of Indonesian soldiers in West Papua torturing a Papuan man and his father.

Indonesia stole West Papua from the Papuans in 1965, and has waged a genocidal and racist war against the Papuans ever since, a war that has killed 100,000 Papuans. Soldiers are extremely racist and view Papuans as little more than animals.

Papuans try to fight back using very primitive weapons, but they are no match for the modern Indonesian military. US imperialism has backed the Indonesians to the hilt in this war because US corporations want to exploit various raw materials in Papua.

The footage was filmed on a cellphone in May by one of the soldiers taking part in a military operation in the Punkak Jaya region of the Central Highlands of West Papua. The operation was launched against the Free Papua Movement, an armed group seeking freedom from Indonesian colonialism, but the troops are mostly just torturing, raping and murdering civilians like they always do.

It is apparently "trophy footage." This video is just a small part of a much larger video that shows the two men being tortured. In the bigger video, the older man is stripped naked, has a bag put over his head and has a burning stick applied to his genitals while he screams in agony. The young man has a knife held to his face.

Details of who the victims are hard to come by since the area is a closed military zone, and journalists are banned from the area. However, the older man is missing and probably dead, while the young man has been released.

Indonesian troops have been killing, torturing and raping Papuans with impunity since 1963. Victims have been as young as 3 years old.

For many years, Indonesian troops have been taking trophy photos, now escalating to films, of Papuans being killed and raped. They show this media to Papuans in order to humiliate them.

The footage appeared just recently, on October 20, 2010 and caused a bit of a media stir.

Georgian Reporter Hit by Live Fire During Battle

French translation (en Français).

Pretty amazing video. During the brief war over South Ossetia recently in which Georgian troops battled South Ossetian rebels and Russian forces, a female Georgian reporter reporting from the scene of Gori, where much fighting took place, is hit in the hand either by by a bullet or by shrapnel. The camera goes wild as helpers bundle her into a van to take her to the hospital.

Through it all, she keeps on reporting! That's some real dedication.

Great Article on Abkhazia

Unbelievable. The London Review of Books publishes an excellent piece by Neal Ascherson on Abkhazia advocating independence for that nation*.

The Abkhazians and South Ossetians followed the post-colonial model of separatism. A colony or de facto colony gains its independence (in this case, we are replacing the USSR's republics with colonies, which is problematic, but the model works the same way).

As soon as independence is declared, the new nation attempts a nation-building exercise and says that it is a coherent whole, typically without consulting the parts of its own body politic.

There are parts of the new nation that may have desired independence from the colony or larger whole (But maybe not; note that Abkhazians so feared Georgian ultranationalism that they voted to retain the USSR.).

Anyway, as soon as the new nation is declared, separatists emerge and announce that they are not part of this new nation, which has barely existed in history anyway, and hence has little to no legitimacy in terms of "territorial integrity".

The former ferocious independence fighters quickly transform into fascist-like ultranationalists safeguarding the fake sacrosanct borders of the new nation with no historical existence.

In most cases, we progressives need to side with those who chose to break away from the very start.

It is little known, but this is the typical model for separatism in the world today.

This is the model that is operative in multiple separatist conflicts in Burma, India, Pakistan, China, Sudan, Angola, Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia, Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Russia, Georgia, Moldova, and any number of other places. These movements never entered into a national compact upon decolonization. They were fighting from Day One.

The article notes that while the South Ossetians may well be comfortable joining Russia, the Abkhazians are not. The Abkhazians want an independent state and have had a de facto one for about 16 years now, but no one wants to give them one. Why not? Because Russia supports the Abkhazians. Russia opposed the Kosovars, so the West lunged to support the Albanians of Kosovo, the only reason being "screw Russia".

As Georgia is little more than a US (and partially, EU) vassal state, it figures that neo-imperialism in its EU and NATO form are backing up this state's fake claim to territorial integrity. The article makes clear that incorporating Abkhazia into Georgia at this late date is a lost cause.

Neither are South Ossetia and Abkhazia being colonized by Russia, which is how the idiot Western press puts it. Neither place wants any part of Georgia, and that's that.

For the moment, they have entered into a completely free marriage of sorts with Russia. Free associational agreements are never examples of colonialism, neo-colonialism or imperialism. They are simply alliances among free actors, states in this case.

This was the error in the ridiculous Cold War model that saw a free and independent Cuba as a colony of some imperialist (to US Cold Warriors) or social imperialist (to silly Maoists) USSR. Cuba was free to leave at any time, and if anyone was exploiting anyone, Cuba (the "colony") was making out a lot better than the "colonizer", the USSR.

Colonialism has always been all about the loot, putting the conceit of the British-inspired White man's burden self-serving model aside for the moment. When the colony is getting the meaty end of the deal, and there is no exploitation of the colony and no coercion by the colonizer, there can be no colonialism or imperialism. Real simple.

The article discusses a particularly idiotic instance of Cold War insanity. Poland grabbed quite a bit of Germany after WW2, to the approval of a vengeful West, who also donated bits of Germany to other states. Germany is lucky to have survived at all. Germans were ethnically cleansed from Poland, and many never lived to tell about it. All in all, it is pretty sordid stuff, but paybacks are a bitch, as they say on the street.

German revanchism would seem to be the rallying cry of the very Nazi sympathizers and German nationalists that had been smashed into discredit by the war. So who would think that as soon as Poland fell into the Warsaw Pact, the West would suddenly throw all its weight behind a German nationalist-revanchist movement with Nazi roots?

Yes, the same West that delightfully chopped up Germany and donated hunks to Poland and twiddled thumbs while 100,000's of German Poles died in the process, now suddenly decided that the evisceration of Germany and donor operation to Poland was an outrage verging on casus belli for war. Insane? Of course. Realpolitik? You got it.

For decades, the West de facto sided with German neo-Nazism and agitated for a return of Pomerania et al to Germany. Willy Brandt finally put an end to this nonsense once and for all in 1971.

The West's embrace of Georgian fascist-like ultranationalism falls into this same quicksand of folly.

Recognize Abkhazia.

*The article downplays the differences between the Mingrelian - Georgian languages and the Abkhazian language, describing them only as mutually unintelligible. Mingrelian and Georgian are related and are members of the same family, but they can't understand each other at all, as Mingrelian and Georgian split 3000 years ago. Beria, Stalin's famous assassin, was a Mingrelian speaker, while Stalin himself spoke Georgian.

The family is known as Kartvelian and has no known relatives. Abkhazian, on the other hand, is Northwest Caucasian. Northwest Caucasian also has no known relatives, but I suspect a relationship at least with Basque and Yeniseien, as I did quite a bit of research on that a while back.

Despite living in close proximity to each other for centuries, Abkhazian is as different from Georgian - Mingrelian as English is from Chinese. And Mingrelian - Georgian and Abkhazian are as different from Turkish, Russian and Arabic (three closely neighboring languages) as English is to Chinese.

Georgian and Mingrelian are written in the very strange Georgian script. Here is an example of it, in this case Mingrelian. Kudos to any reader who can actually read this stuff:

რუსეთ რე ქიანა ბჟადალ ევროპას დო ჩრდილოეთ აზიას. რუსეთ ფართობით მსოფლიოშ უდიდაშ ქიანა რე. ცხოურენს კოჩი. რუსეთც გეშართუნს დიდ გეოგრაფიულ რეგიონეფ: ბჟაიოლ ევროპაშ ხორგული, ბჟადალ ციმბირიშ რზენი, ცენტრალურ ციმბირიშ ნარაზენი. ტერიტორიაშ თია უკებუ გვალამი რეგიონემც: ალტაი, ჩრდილოეთ კავკაცია, კოლიმა, საინი, ურალი. უმაღალაშ კოკი რე იალბუზ

Best Article Yet on the Mumbai Attacks

This sums it up better than any others I have read yet. Keep in mind that the Indians always blame Pakistan every time something like this happens.

Pakistan is blamed 100% for the revolt in Kashmir, which has local roots and is based on imperialist India's colonial occupation of Kashmir, which even the UN says is illegal. India blames Pakistan for most of its other separatist rebellions too, even those in the Far East. Pakistan was blamed for the mass rebellion in the Punjab in the 1980's.

For these reasons, you need to take anything that the Indian government, its "counterterrorism scholars", or really any Indian Hindu author on this subject with a pound of salt.

Your average middle class Indian buys this load of horse manure 100%. I've spoken to a few Indians, and I haven't met one yet who isn't shaking with rage at Pakistan and utterly livid about Kashmir.

India can't even feed or house its own population and is for all intents and purposes a failed state with a wealthy elite sprinkled on top. Why does India need even more people? It doesn't.

Pakistan has no right to Kashmir either. The legal future of Kashmir is up to the Kashmiri people themselves.

Keep in mind that the Kashmiri people never agreed to join India in the first place. The place was 90% Muslim, and they wanted to go to Pakistan. Kashmir had some idiot Hindu governor who insisted that Kashmir go to India, and that's the root of the whole stupid rebellion that has nearly propelled these two powers into a nuclear war.

I have no idea if Pakistan's ISI played a role in all of this. The LeT Pakistani Kashmiri fighters are a bunch of scumbags, but they have denied involvement, and they usually claim responsibility for this stuff.

Lately, LeT are fighting US troops in Afghanistan. That's probably mostly for combat training.

There seems to be a very strong connection to British Pakistanis, 50% of whom are from Kashmir. At least seven of the terrorists were British Pakistanis. Juan Cole suggests that this is the real source of the attack. British Pakistanis in particular are very exercised over the US occupation and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and over the Palestinian cause.

The attackers hijacked an Indian trawler to conduct the attack and used it to come onshore via sea. The entire crew of the Kubar (others put the ship name as MV Alpha), a trawler adrift in the Indian Ocean, was missing. Only its headless, bound captain was found aboard. The attackers left incriminating evidence on the tanker before disembarking.

Hostages in general were released unharmed, unlike unfortunate folks just walking, standing or sitting in the paths of the attackers. However, an exception was made for six Israelis and two US Jews, all of whom were bound and executed in an attack on the Chabad-Lubivitcher offices in Mumbai.

15 Indian commandos and police were killed in the counterterrorist operation. The death toll is 195 and likely to rise, probably to 350 or so.

Keep in mind that these same jihadis are wreaking horrible havoc inside Pakistan itself, tried to kill Musharaff over and over, killed Benazir Bhutto, have killed many Pakistani troops, blew up a hotel in Islamabad, and seem to be threatening the very government of Pakistan itself, yet another failed state.

So saying they came from Pakistan doesn't say a whole lot. The militants tearing Pakistan itself apart "come from Pakistan" too. Does that mean they are part of the very state they are blowing up and shooting at all the time? Hardly.

All nations blame all insurgencies on outside actors. Flush with idiot patriotism and jingoism, vast numbers of the ultra-gullible fall for it every single time. It all boils down to psychological defenses. What nation can admit that its own people are rising up in rebellion against it? No nation can admit this painful fact, hence lies are cooked up about the whole insurgency being imported from abroad.

Our own "field nigger" citizens are cheerful and satisfied on the plantation called the nation. God forbid the slaves should rise up. Such ingrates. Denial plus projection away from the root cause. Blame other people. What works in the individual ego works in the conglomeration of millions of egos called the nation.

The problem with this typical Indian denial and projection subterfuge is these lies have the possibility of setting off a major war between two nuclear powers who seem prepared to actually use their nukes against each other.

I don't mean to support this outrageous crime, but a little context might be nice. India treats its Muslims like crap. The fact that Pakistan treats its Hindus like crap is no excuse.

The roots of this attack are right inside India itself, despite all of India's BS finger-pointing and head-shaking.

The field niggers on the Indian plantation are not so happy after all. Deal with it, India.

Migration and Language Policy

In comments on the The Record of Communist Language Policy post, James Schipper notes astutely:

One very important aspect of language policy is migration. The more migration there is within a multilingual state, the more minority languages are threatened. If Russians are free to move move into Latvia, then the Latvian language will be in danger, even if Latvian remains an official language in Latvia.

We are seeing this in Tibet too. The influx of Chinese in Tibet is the real danger to the Tibetan language. In the capital of Tibet, the Chinese are already the majority. The smaller a people is, the more they have to be able to control immigration if they want to survive as a nation.

Of course, by making its territory rigidly unilingual, the minority can create a linguistic barrier to immigration. If Latvian is the sole language of administration and instruction in Latvia, then Russians will think twice before settling there.

For minority languages there are two basic rules: concentrate yourself in one area and make that area as unilingual as possible. This is really only possible in a federal state in which the provincial borders match the linguistic borders as closely as possible.

In Switzerland, this territorial principle is strictly applied. No French in Zürich and no German in Genève. Of the 26 Swiss cantons, only 4 are not unilingual, but within those four there are internal linguistic borders. As usual the Swiss do it right. They are without doubt the only foreigners that deserve admiration.

It is sad but true that the only to really be sure of preserving your language is to have an independent state. This is one reason that I support many separatist movements - I assume that this may be necessary in order to preserve a minority tongue. James is correct, though.

Immigration into a region does indeed threaten a local tongue. This is a long-standing problem in the Basque Country of Spain. In Northern Italy, there are various Italian "dialects" spoken which are actually separate languages. They include Venetian, Emiliano-Romagnolo, Ligurian, Piedmontese and East Lombard and West Lombard .

These languages are part of a Romance branch called Gallo-Italic that is actually closer to Spanish and especially French than it is to Italian! Emiliano and Romagnolo may be separate languages and some of the Lombard lects are quite diverse.

The first four are in good shape despite having no status or rights at all granted by the Italian state, which has been on a mission since Mussolini to wipe out all of the Italian "dialects" are replace them with Standard Italian (which is actually based on the Tuscan dialect, selected in 1860 as the source of Standard Italian).

Truth is that this is unnecessary. Almost all non-elderly Italians speak Standard Italian well, and the vast majority of older folks do too. Visitors to other parts of Italy simply switch to Standard Italian when speaking to residents, and residents used Italian to speak to outsiders.

Anyway, while the first four are in good shape, East and West Lombard are not doing so well. The usual reason cited is a large number of immigrants to the region.

The Northern Italian languages are interesting in that they are spoken in economically vibrant regions - most minority tongues are spoken in the backwards, poorer and rural areas, and this backwardness is part of what keeps them alive.

But it is the very vibrancy of the Northern Italian economy that threatens the local languages due to many immigrants, most of whom probably don't want to learn the local language, and instead fall back on Standard Italian.

The Balearic Islands, where Catalan is spoken, and Corsica, where Corse is spoken, are also threatened by waves of immigrants and in particular vast numbers of tourists.

I didn't know about the Swiss language policy that James describes, but I have always thought that the Swiss were some of the most admirable foreigners out there.

Support For the Uighurs

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated August 23:

Since it seems like virtually no one outside Muslims supports the Uighur battle for independence, I will support it. I realize that this is a tough time for China and that imperialism, particularly US imperialism, would love to use a new Uighur state to plant bases in it and surround China, but still I believe that something can be worked out.

A major stumbling block for the self-determination of nations, long a Left hallmark for which we Leftists can all be proud, is the cynical abuse of this right by hypocritical imperialist and Realpolitik-dealing large states.

Imperialist states, as I argued in a previous post, have no consistent values at all. They will support secessionism to further imperial goals or weaken enemies and oppose it everywhere else. An imperialist nation has the morals of a hardened criminal -> no legitimate morals at all.

If you follow this article, it seems like the vast majority Uighurs support the armed groups, which is how they are able to function at all in the locked-down police state of China. China has seeded East Turkestan with settler-colonists, as it has despicably done in Tibet. It treats the Uighurs like shit.

Almost no one seems to support Uighur secessionism. I'm sure that Muslims do, but Muslims do not have a very consistent basis for supporting secessionism. Most Muslims I have run into only support secessionism when it involves Muslims separating from non-Muslim states.

In all other cases, I guess they don't support it! In particular, most oppose the liberation struggle of the Kurds, who have as good a case for a state of their own as anyone does.

In the comments section of the South Ossetia post, Dragon Horse, a very smart commenter, made the case for the territorial integrity of borders.

He made several arguments: First, why should we be creating brand new mono-ethnic states? Second, that what I was arguing for was radical devolution. Third, that when the OAS was formed, the member states agreed on the territorial integrity of even colonial borders that made little sense in order to avoid endless secessionist wars. Hence, that in Africa, the principle of territorial integrity had a good record.

Fourth, that I was arguing for a world full of 100's to 1000's of Luxemborgs or Leichtensteins. Fifth, that in an integrating globalized world, the last thing we needed was to move in the opposite direction.

My response is as follows:

The truth is that most nations on Earth simply do not wish to break away from the states of which they are a part of.

Legitimate secessionist movements are actual nations embedded with states that have a valid case for secession. I may evaluate that case in a later post.

In Latin America, I can think of no legitimate secessionist movement.

There are not many secessionist movements even in Africa, which you mention as the horrorshow of secessionist theory. The rebels in Darfur and South Sudan can leave Sudan for all I care. Sudan has forfeited its right to exist as a state. They can break it up into pieces for all I care. Somalia has no right to exist either. When a state is so failed that it cannot even govern its own citizens, it's time to say goodbye.

In the Arab World, we have only the Kurds and that is all. Who have a most powerful case for independence.

I do not think that independence movements are trying to make monoethnic states, but even if they were, it would be more logical than multicultural states, which do not seem to work very well in praxis.

Your logic, in opposing all secessionist movements, leads to endless bloody wars for the bullshit cause of "territorial integrity of states".

Tell me, why did Georgia, instantly birthed as a state in 1991, suddenly have any territorial integrity at all? Let us note that this territorial integrity became immediately sacrosanct the very hour that Georgia became a new state! Brand new states with no history behind them at least have to ask their citizens if they want to be part of this baby state. Those who wish to leave are certainly entitled to do so.

The world is not going to break up into hundreds or thousands of Luxemborgs because tiny states are not viable in the modern era either economically or militarily. There are advantages to being part of a large state in terms of both economics and military.

Even a world of small states could function well. Europe has an increasingly integrated military and economy in the OECD and NATO despite being made up of numerous mostly not very large states. Self-determination and regional integration are not contradictions.

Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.

Support For South Ossetian Succession

The latest death toll figures from Hurricane Katrina can be seen on this website here. The famous Russian neo-Nazi video is on this blog here.

Updated August 28:

A good progressive principle, but one subject to some exceptions, is the principle of self-determination. This leads naturally to support for most if not all separatist movements. In my case, I do support most, but not all separatist movements.

It's interesting of all the people around the world, that only leftwingers and various seceding nationalities support this principle. It's also interesting that once nations secede and become their own state, suddenly they do not believe in the right to secede anymore! We on the Left have always upheld this basic principle.

The USSR held that all Russian nationalities had the right to secede. Unfortunately, it was not enforced much, but it was this very principle that allowed Gorbachev to permit the various USSR republics the right of secession in 1991. At that time, on at least that one variable, the USSR was the most civilized nation on Earth.

Its civilized nature was a direct result of the progressive principles that were embodied in the USSR by the first Bolsheviks in 1917. Later, Czechoslovakia split up into the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The reason they were able to do this so civilly is, number one, because they are White, and number two, due to the decades of internationalism that had been inculcated into them by Communist rule.

I say that being White is important because I am absolutely convinced that only White nations are capable of breaking up civilly and peacefully without slaughtering each other in the process. In a way, breaking up your country without massacring your countrymen is the ultimate civilized act.

Even Asians, as civilized as they are, would never be able to break up one of their countries without turning it into a mass slaughter. On this metric, they are not that civilized.

What is it about Whites that allows them to break up a country? Is it altruism? Although studies are rare, in the US, Whites have rates of civic participation, volunteerism and donating to charity far above other groups.

Now, it is true that Communist China has not done a good job of living up the progressive principles of self-determination. Clearly, Tibet has a right to go free, and I would argue that East Turkestan does too. And Taiwan is a separate country. Mao never was a true internationalist. He was always a Chinese nationalist first and a Communist second.

Another reason to support secessionism is that the people who hate it most are the fascists. Idiots are always saying that fascism and Communism and fascism and socialism are the same thing. Let us call them on this one at least.

This is a prime difference between fascists and Communists, the Left and the Right. The Left supports self-determination and cultural autonomy for national minorities and the Right has always opposed this, instead choosing to force all national minorities into a single ethnoreligiolinguistic entity.

No one opposes separatist movements more than fascists, and no fascist nation has ever given one national minority an inch of cultural autonomy. Even in China, national minorities have considerable cultural autonomy and have the right to education in their national tongue.

It's true that the USSR's commitment to cultural and linguistic freedom varied throughout the lifetime of the state. Its commitment was highest in the 1920's, wavered seriously in the 1930's when Stalin murdered many leaders of national minorities and never attained earlier depths with the subsequent promotion of Russification by Stalin and his successors.

The Left nowadays is sleazy and unprincipled on the question of national self-determination. Sadly, the entire world Left refused to support the right of self-determination for the peoples of the former Yugoslavia, all because Yugoslavia was a Communist state. Then they all opposed the right of Kosova to break away from Serbia, I guess because Serbia used to be Communist state!

This leads us to the recent fighting in Georgia.

First of all, Georgia is pretty much of a fake state. Sure, there have been Georgians living in that area for a very long time, but the Soviet republic called Georgia included not only Georgians but other nationalities as well. Other minorities included Abkhazians, Adjarians and South Ossetians.

It is possible that the republic of Georgia was seeded with these minorities as a divide and conquer strategy by the early Soviets, who were not perfect on the national question. Seeding Georgia with non-Georgians would make it more difficult for Georgia to secede from the USSR. Similarly, splitting the poor Ossetians between Russia and Georgia was probably another sleazy divide and conquer game.

Anyway, in 1991, this completely fake state called Georgia (really just a republic of the USSR) gained its independence. If we are to support the principle of self-determination, we need to allow national minorities in fake states newly birthed the right to secede.

On what fucking basis were Abkhazia, Adjaria and South Ossetia an inherent part of some entity called "Georgia"? On no basis whatsoever! On what basis is some new fake country one day or one month old entitled to the bullshit and fascist principle of "inviability of borders"? On no basis.

So, when the Georgian state (really just a place with lines on the map with a lot of Georgians living in it, but drawn wider than the Georgian nation) got its independence, Abkhazia, Adjaria and South Ossetia surely had the right say, "Screw this, we want no part of this new state. We're out of here."

Adjaria, a Muslim region in the southwest, seems to have settled its beef without fighting, but Abkhazia and South Ossetia both waged nasty and ugly separatist wars and managed to secede from the new state of Georgia.

South Ossetia apparently wants to marry with North Ossetia and become a state in Russia called Ossetia. I'm not sure what Abkhazia wants to do. I think they may wish to join Russia also. Abkhazia is located in the northwest and populated mostly by Orthodox Christians.

South Ossetia is located in the north-central part of Georgia and is composed mostly of Ossetians. The Ossetians were formerly called the Alans, an ancient kingdom related ethnically and linguistically to Iranians. They speak a language that is close to Iranian and resemble Iranians physically.

Russia is being cynical about this, as befits an imperialist state. While Russia under Putin has fascist tendencies in the nasty repression on national minorities such as the Mari and the people of the Caucasus, Putin is willing, like all sleazy imperialists, do support secessionism when it benefits imperial goals.

Russia has it in for Georgia, lately because Georgia has lined up heavily on the side of the US. There are US and Israeli advisors working with the Georgian military right now, and Russia is terrified by Georgian threats to join NATO.

We need to note that NATO doesn't have much right to exist anymore. NATO was set up to deal with the Soviet threat. That's gone. So why is NATO still there? Apparently to form an imperialist bloc to oppose Russia! The Russians are furious about this, and rightly so. Who can blame them?

Sadly, it is also possible that Russia is using this as a payback to the West for supporting the secession of Kosova. The West, including the US in its extreme cynicism, first of all supported the secession of all of the former states of Yugoslavia (apparently on the cynical grounds that since they were seceding from a Communist nation, therefore the right of self-determination was invoked).

Then, just to stick it to Russia for the most part, the US and most of Europe supported Kosova and Montenegrin independence, just so long as they were pro-West. I supported it too, on the basis of solid principles called the right of self-determination. It is sad that the entire world Left opposed the independence of Kosova. This made Russia furious.

Yet in Abkhazia, in the same sleazy West that championed every micro-state to be cleaved out of the former Yugoslavia, not a single Western state, nor any state anywhere, would support the principled secession of the Abkhazian people from Georgian imperialism.

Does fascist Russia under Putin support the right of self-determination, however limited? Of course not. As a capitalist, and in fact fascist and now imperialist state, Russia clearly has no principles whatsoever. As payback to Kosova secession which hurt their pitiful fascist pan-Slavic feelings, the Russians are now supporting secession in Georgia. Principles? Come now!

This whole conflict is shot through with imperialism all the way. The US is supporting Georgia not out of any principles, because as an imperialist state, the US has zero principles other than profiteering, plunder and subjection of other states and peoples. The US supports secessionism when it benefits imperialist interests, and opposes it when it hinders imperialist interests!

And of course, it never admits this. When it supports secessionism, the US apparently invokes the right of self-determination. When it opposes secessionism, the US invokes the right of inviolability of national borders, as it is doing now in the case of Georgia. Contradictory, no? Sure is!

The sleazy and pro-imperialist US media fails to point out this dissonance, and your average educated American will inconsistently invoke, like a moron, either the right of self-determination of the right of inviolability of borders, depending, as they support the imperial projects that they have been inculcated to support.

This conflict, like all imperialist bullshit wars, boils down to various imperialist nations waging armed conflict over access to markets and natural resources.

As is, oil from Azerbaijan and gas from the Stans goes through Georgia and I believe hooks up with Russian pipelines. The US, Georgia, Israel and Turkey wish to cut Russia out of the deal and cut a new pipeline through Georgia to Turkey. At least some of the oil will then go to Israel and from there, through the Suez and out to the Indian Ocean and various nations in that region, in particular India.

Someone suggested to me that the West is cutting this new pipeline because they are afraid that Russia will cut off the flow of oil to the West. Forget it. They will not do any such thing unless pushed to the wall. The US, Israel, Georgia and probably Turkey are all doing this because they are more or less imperialist states.

This conflict is also shot through with old Cold War "Beware the bear" bullshit. Even after the fall of Communism and the return of capitalism to Russia, US imperialism and anti-Communists everywhere have continued to see Russia through and Cold War and anti-Communist lens. It is as if the fall of the USSR never occurred. Any analysis of the conflict between the US and the West that leaves out this essential element is lacking.

As a socialist, I want to ask the supporters of capitalism on this blog some questions.

Show me how advanced capitalism can exist without imperialism. Prove to me that an advanced capitalist state can exist in the modern world without becoming an imperialist power.

It seems to me that large capitalist states are typically mandated to become imperialist states and from there to engage in conflict, often armed, with other imperialist states for markets and natural resources. If this is so (and I think it is) how then can one support capitalism as it now exists, since it seems to be impossible to have large capitalist states that are not also imperialist?

As you might have guessed, I support the right of South Ossetia to self-determination and to secede from Georgia and the right, however sleazy, of Russia to assist them in this principled endeavor.

This conflict is getting real nasty real quick. Russia is threatening Israel and the US over their support for Georgia and the US has incredibly ordered Russia to withdraw its forces from South Ossetia. And the conflict very quickly seems to have expanded to Abkhazia. We have the potential for a really nasty conflict here.

I would like to point out that the neoconservative scum who now pretty much run this country are first and foremost ferocious imperialists. They are some of the most voracious backers of US imperialism out there. In this endeavor, neoconservatives have been picking fights with Russia for a long time now.

Many Jewish neoconservatives are involved in this imperial conflict with Russia, and unfortunately, in this light, they have supported Chechen independence not out of any decent principles, since neocons have no principles, but just to screw Russia.

The fact that elements of imperialism have supported the Chechen separatists rouses Russian nationalism and paranoia and makes Russia all the less likely to give the Chechens and other Caucasian peoples the independence they deserve.

It's not known why the neocons have such a beef with Russia, but they also backed the Russian Jewish oligarchs in their fleecing of Russia. There seems to be an old beef between Jewish nationalists and Russia.

We can see the outlines of this conflict in the campaign to "free the Soviet Jews", which was one of the original catalysts for the formation of the Jewish neocons back in the 1970's. There may also be a "screw the Russians" mindset dating from the hostile history of Russians and Jews in Russia, a history replete with pogroms of Jews.

Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.

A Little Asian in All of Us

Well not quite, but you get the picture.

Taking a cue from the A Little Black in All of Us post, I am going to write a post about Asian genes in non-Asians. Mostly or fully-Asian groups obviously occupy most of Asia. Even if we subtract Australoids from Asians, many Melanesians have some Asian in them, especially those in the east end of Indonesia and along the coast of New Guinea. In this case, the Asian is Austronesian from Taiwan.

Papuans and Aborigines have little to no Asian mix. Polynesians are a highly controversial people who have usually been thought of as being 50% Melanesian and 50% Austronesian from Taiwan. However, there is a new paper out suggesting that they are a mostly-Austronesian people.

Micronesians are said to be the same. Previously, they were thought to be Polynesians mixed with Melanesians. Polynesia is thought to have been populated from Eastern Indonesia. Micronesia is thought to have been populated from around Fiji. Fijians are Melanesians with considerable Polynesian genes.

Obviously, mainland Asia is all Asian. Siberians are mostly Asian. The Yakut, for instance, are mostly Asian, but they do have 6% Caucasian in them.

A beautiful Yakut woman from the Sakha Republic competing for the Miss Russia 2007 contest. That's basically the Yakut Republic. She should have only 6% Caucasian genes, but it seems like she has more than that.

The Caucasian comes from a group called the Sakas who conquered Siberia 1,500 years ago. The Mongolians are 86% Asian and 14% Caucasian.

A beautiful Buryat woman competing in the Miss Russia 2007 contest. Buryats are said to be quite close to Mongolians genetically, so she probably has about 14% Caucasian genes. Note the classic high Mongolian cheekbones. Korean women have this same feature, and they are recent immigrants from Mongolia in the past 4-5,000 years.

The Hui are in interesting group inside China, south of Mongolia, who are 93% Asian and 7% Caucasian. The Han have no Caucasian in them, though NE Chinese are quite close to Caucasians genetically.

Going west of Burma, we run into trouble. In NE India, the people are mostly Asian. Going north to Nepal, you get an odd mix of all sorts of people, some mostly Asian but others more of an East Indian type.

A very interesting, yet unclassifiable, type in Nepal. Clearly there is an Asian component to this phenotype. There are some phenotypes that look something like this in SE Asia, especially hill tribes in Burma and Thailand. Come to think of it, doesn't she look a bit like the Naga below?


Nagas of Northeast India. They cluster genetically with Tibetans. Some think that they are the leftovers of the original people of the region.


The mother of this Nepalese family looks pretty Caucasian, but I have a hard time classifying that phenotype. Something resembling that phenotype can be seen in some of the Kalash. There is also some of a North Indian-Punjabi component. The two daughters clearly have a strong Asian element, thought it does not much resemble other Asian types. The girl on the right looks a bit like a Filipina.


A very Asian type in, believe it or not, Nepal. Yes. This phenotype looks very Chinese and could be related to Tibetans. Nepalese are very difficult to classify genetically due to the divergence of types. Further, the peopling of Nepal is very poorly understood.

All East Indians are considered to be on the border between Caucasians and Asians (though they are Caucasians), yet most East Indians do not have Asian genes. An exception is in the northwest around Punjab.

North Indians, possibly Punjabis. Many Punjabis look something like this. They have 10% Asian genes and it is often apparent, especially in the eyes.

Punjabis have about 10% Asian genes. You can sometimes see it in their eyes.

These beautiful young women are from Ladakh, on the border of China and India. As you can see, the Indians here are heavily Asian. The girl on the right looks very Korean. The other two are very difficult to classify, but the girl on the right left could almost be Mediterranean - Italian or Iberian, other than the eyes. Genetically probably close to Tibetans.

Heading into Pakistan, some Pakistanis appear somewhat Asian. The Kalash, whom we discussed in a previous post, often appear somewhat Asian.

A very interesting Kalash woman. The Kalash are so divergent that they form one of two splits in the Caucasian Race - Kalash and non-Kalash. No one quite knows much about them, but they seem to have come from the Caucasus. Their genes are radically divergent. Either they have experienced tremendous genetic drift or they are some of the most ancient Caucasians of all.

The very early proto-Caucasians may have looked something like this - they had heavy Asian admixture. This mixing of Black and Asian was taking place in the Caucasus region.


More Kalash. There are some very interesting types in this fascinating group. Both the woman and her daughter look Asian, the daughter more so. The woman seems to have an East Indian component.

Some Pashtuns look a little Asian, but many others just look pure Caucasian.

When we head north from this area, we start running into some heavy Asian-Caucasian mixes. This is the zone where these two great major races have seriously mixed. Heading East to Western China, we find the Uighurs, a group that is 61% Asian and 39% White. This Muslim group is heavily repressed by China and some have taken up arms against the state. I do support this secessionist movement.

Uighurs. A most interesting group of people from West China. This area has clearly seen a tremendous amount of Caucasian-Asian mixing for a long time now. It is in this region that burial tombs have been unearthed that revealed Caucasian mummies, some with red hair.

Of course, this drove White nationalist insane people even more insane. China was an ancient White homeland! Except the "Whites" were probably some Iranian or Caucasus types that these idiots have excised from their precious White race. At any rate, a few Caucasian bodies here and there does not a homeland make. There were and are plenty of Asians running around this region too. Truth is that Iranian types from the steppes have been invading this region for ages.

Tocharian, perhaps one of the earliest forms of Indo-European, may have been spoken on these windy steppes 8,000 years ago. The Uighurs are 61% Asian and 39% Caucasian. Their movement for liberation has been heavily repressed by the Chinese. Some have been radicalized and have moved down into Afghanistan and the Pakistan tribal areas to work with the local Taliban, but in general, Islam in this region is quite moderate and reasonable.

It's questionable whether or not China even has much of a claim to this land. The girl on the right has a very interesting phenotype. She looks quite Caucasian, but that Caucasian look is actually specific to the Caucasus. I look at her and think "Dagestani". White-Chinese hapas in the US often look something like this also.

Heading West, Uzbeks in Uzbekistan are clearly a very mixed race people - they are 59% Asian and 41% Caucasian.

An Uzbek man with a turban. A syncretic form of Islam was popular here, but due to religious repression, some Uzbeks have turned to radical Islam. The group is called the IMU. They were defeated in Uzbekistan and the remnants moved to Afghanistan to link up with the Taliban. After the Taliban were defeated, many moved into the tribal areas where many IMU fighters married local women. They form a significant component of the Pakistani Taliban who are fighting in the tribal areas right now.

A young Uzbek man. This man looks very Caucasian, other than the slight Asian eyes. The outfit would not be out of place in Afghanistan.

An Uzbek woman. As you can see, at 41%, the Caucasian element is very high in Uzbeks. The phenotype is difficult to place, but the Caucasian element could resemble a Greek, a Georgian or possibly an Iranian.

Heading further West, the Kazakhs are strangely even more Asian: they are 70% Asian and 30% Caucasian.

Heading back towards China, we come to the Altai, a region where Mongolia, China and Russia all come together. This is thought to be the region from which the Amerindians came from. These people are best categorized as Northern Turkics and they all speak a Turkic language.

Some people here are very mixed (figures here): The Shor are 51% Caucasian and 49% Asian, the Altai themselves are 53% Asian and 47% Caucasian, the Khakass are 72% Asian and 28% Caucasian, the Sojots are 81% Asian and 19% Caucasian and the famous throat-singers, the Tuvans, are 89% Asian and 11% Caucasian.

These people are best thought of as members of a subrace known as the Uralic Race, even though they speak Turkic tongues. The Uralics generally speak languages related to Finnish.

Anthropologically, the Uralics are mysterious. We do not really know much about them or where they came from, but they are the subject of endless speculation, especially by Finnish researchers, who are fascinated by the question. For instance, the proto-Uralics were said to be neither Asians nor Caucasians. Ok, fine, so what were they?

Moving into Europe, we continue to encounter Asian genes. The Turks have a very large component of Asian genes, such that it is difficult to characterize them as Asian or Caucasian. I put them into Caucasian more on appearance than on anything else.

A Turkish Cypriot woman who seems to have a bit of an Asian phenotype. She also looks somewhat Slavic. Slavic phenotypes are very common in Turkey but most Turks do not wish to admit it due to age-old hostility between the Muslim Ottomans and the Christian Slavic regions around it.

Heading north into Russia, it has long been known that Russians are part Asian. One can often note an Asiatic component in Russians. I had a Russian girlfriend once named Natasha who lived in the Bay Area. She had some slight Asiatic phenotypical traits.

A beautiful Russian woman. Unless I am hallucinating, I think I see some Asian eyes on her. She may also have the sparse and straighter body hair that some Russian women have. This is a classic Russian Slavic phenotype.

In the part of Russia called Novgorod Oblast, the Russians are 3% Asian and 7% Finn. The Oblast is in the western part of Russia near Latvia, Estonia, St Petersburg and Leningrad. Heading into Europe now, we are surprised to find that Czechs are 3% Asian.

Although Yugoslavians are Slavs just like Czechs, I am not aware of the amount of Asian genes in them, if any. Some say that Yugoslavs, especially Serbs, look very Mediterranean, but I am not so sure. I am not sure which part of Yugoslavia these young women are from, but they are wearing traditional costumes.

What amazed me was how similar these women looked in phenotype. Granted, they've all curled up their hair the same way and they are wearing the same costumes, but if you look closely at the first five women from the left, tell me I'm hallucinating when I see a common phenotype in their facial appearance. Anyone else see it?

That the Hungarians are part-Asian has long been noted. I am not sure about the exact numbers though.

Hungarians dressed in traditional costumes. Their Asian component is not large, but may be on the order of 7% or so. The Asian element comes from the Magyars, a Mongol group that raided into Europe long ago and settled in the region of Hungary.

Both the Finns and Estonians are thought to have Asian genes and the Lapps surely do, but I believe they only have 7% Asian genes.

It often doesn't take much Asian genes to affect the phenotype. One of the first things you notice is a sparseness of body hair and tendency of body hair to be more straight than kinky. Also, even at low gene levels, you often start seeing a bit of an epicathal fold in the eyes.

Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.

Great Site on Endangered Languages of Europe

Great site on endangered languages of Europe. Tapani Salinem, a Finnish linguist, has done a bang-up job on this stuff. This report was prepared for UNESCO.

The last good report I read on this subject was a great book published in 1976 called something like The Endangered Languages of Europe. Great little book if you can ever find it, and it covers pretty much most of the larger ones anyway.

Salinem is decidedly pessimistic, but I am not so much so. Furthermore, he often pessimistically notes that this or that language is heavily contaminated by some larger nearby language that the speaker usually also speaks. I don't think that this is all that relevant. Most modern languages nowadays are full of borrowings, often from English, for all sorts of modern words.

What matters is that you are speaking. Borrowing is a natural phenomenon, whether for lexis, syntax, phonology, morphology or whatever. It's been happening for 1000's of years. He often notes that not many children are learning these languages well. That may well be the case, but I do not think that is the end of the world either.

In 100 years though, long after I am gone, I think many of these languages may be on their way out. Note that many still have lots of older speakers. To be honest, the only way to almost surely guarantee a tongue nowadays in Europe is to get your own state. This is partially the impetus for separatism in Europe, but Europe is by and large mature enough to handle separatism.

Many of these types of researchers are too pessimistic. Compared to the US, Europe is doing great. Manx on the Isle of Man has 2,500 2nd language learners, many of whom are fluent. Some are even bringing up their kids speaking Manx! However, purists, often folks like this guy, say Manx is still dead because there are no more Manx first language speakers.

This is too pessimistic for our modern era. Cornish has 1,000 2nd language speakers. Both of those languages were actually revived from extinction. As linguists, we are pretty happy that any of these languages are still alive at all, being the language fetishists that we are.

In order to preempt some rejoinders, let us note that hardly any linguists are going around trying to force communities to retain languages to retain their languages. Communities all over decide to suicide their tongues, and as owners of their languages, they are entitled to that decision. Bilingualism is the answer to those who say that retention of a minority tongue is useless in a transnational world.

Truth is that none of these arguments really hold up. Contra this website, Europe is seeing an explosion of language retention and revitalization efforts. It's one of the few places on Earth where this is occurring and succeeding in a big way.

But Europe also has some extremely popular languages of states that in many cases even extend beyond state borders. These languages have many newspapers, magazines, TV and radio shows, are used by governments, and in some cases often have extensive literature and other books published in them. A number are also developing a significant Internet presence.

The separatists are probably correct that in order to guarantee your tongue, you need a state.

Europeans are now mature, wealthy and relaxed enough, and have retained the best Western values, such that they are some of the only people on Earth who are actually prepared to break up states with massacring each other in displays of mass idiocy. Nevertheless, few breakups are actually occurring. It is not known why this is occurring, but economics probably plays a large role.

Europeans are also probably friendlier towards minority tongues for the most part than folks in any other part of the world. The result is an interesting mix of attitudes and trends both help minority tongues in Europe to prosper and also cause them to slowly go extinct.

Note: Readers should carefully read the Commenting Rules before commenting to avoid having their comments edited or deleted and to avoid being banned from the site.