Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.
- 14
- 3
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
A helicopter carrying Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi suffered a “hard landing” on Sunday, Iranian state television reported, without immediately elaborating.
Raisi was traveling in Iran’s East Azerbaijan province. State TV said the incident happened near Jolfa, a city on the border with with the nation of Azerbaijan, some 600 kilometers (375 miles) northwest of the Iranian capital, Tehran.
Rescuers were attempting to reach the site, state TV said, but had been hampered by poor weather condition in the area. There had been heavy rain reported with some wind.
More options
Context Copy link
Indian and Pakistani students are being harassed in Krygyzstan
https://www.dw.com/en/pakistan-india-urge-citizens-in-kyrgyzstan-to-stay-inside/a-69123379
Looks like some subcontinentals tried to sneak into an Egyptian womens dorm and the Egyptian men drove them out. How this translated into Krygyzs deciding to go on a 'smack all brown' spree is unknown, but it does point to the decreasing goodwill subcontinentals are enjoying even in Central Asia. The last place happy to accept subcontinentals soon would just be the UK and USA.
Do you have any source for that claim? I have tried looking, and found nothing that indicated this. What I could find makes it sound Egyptians got into a fued with Krygyz men, and some how Pakistanis got involved. That morphed into a large anti-foreigner sentiment at large, affecting Egyptians, Indians and Pakistanis as a whole.
"Subcontinentals" is a contrived grouping. India-Pakistan have diverged just as South Korea - North Korea or Turkmenistan-Northern Afghanistan have diverged. The term doesn't provide resolution, is a mouthful and obfuscates for no good reason.
Every international story of brown people & crime involves one of 3 scenarios.
I am not as pessimistic. SEA, Australia & the Gulf have seen no changes in their welcoming-ness towards Indians. East-Asians are as xenophobic as ever. And Europe remains non-commital as ever. If anything, Europe is becoming more welcoming to high skill immigrants, opening new doors for Indians to enter through.
Canada has changed tunes. But honestly, Canada's open door policy was long overdue for a change anyways. Even Indian themselves were confused at how welcoming Canada was of our local rejects. Ukraine and Central Europe have seen conflict, but those are all medicore medical students who want to come back to India anyway. I don't expect there to be any real impact there.
Eventually, India will need to self-sufficient. The country needs to take charge of developing its HDI, re-civilizing the 'subsaharan zone' and derive its sense of identity through internal achievements, and not external validation. The painful path towards it has begun, but it is still a long ways away.
Is it some parody or extreme hyperbole?
That is nonsense. Nepalis, Indians etc (which are not Sikh) also commit crimes abroad, and there are stories about this.
To speak nothing about people descended from there.
It's an exaggeration, but is generally indicative of the main types of crime.
It's hard to find statistics by country of origin, but UK does have numbers by religion. Hindus are easily the least violent group, commiting 4x less crime than the base population. Sikhs are at par with the average British person and Muslims commit 3x as many crimes.
These numbers are less perfect, but 0.2% of the US prison population was Hindu, while making up 1%+ of the population. Similarly in Australia, Indians make up 2.8% of the population, but 0.4% of the imprisoned cohort. In Canada, Hindus make up 0.2% of the prison population, while Sikhs make up 0.7% and Muslims make up 6%!!. For reference, hindus and sikhs are about 2.5% of the Canadian population each, and muslims are about 5% of the population. Prison chaplains consider Hindus to be the least extremist group.
The statistics are very clear. Hindus are the most peaceful immigrant diaspora and by quite some margin.
P.S: I don't consider most Sikhs to be violent just as I don't consider most Italians or Japanese to be violent. Just because your ethnicity runs a major mafia org, doesn't mean that the majority ever interacts with it. A small minority of people jack up the statistics and give the community a bad name.
I do think Pakistani child grooming gangs are a deeply rooted problem that the rest of us 'subcontinentals' do not wish to be associated with. It's their problem. Let them have it.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
New Caledonia
For those of you who don't know, New Caledonia is a large Pacific island territory of France. Proposed changes in voting laws there that would extend the franchise to French settlers who have been resident on the island for ten years, diluting the political influence of the indigenous Kanak people. This has led to violent riots, declaration of a state of emergency, and the deployment of police reinforcements from France proper.
I guess it can be considered "large" for a Pacific island. But it has population of 270,000 and GDP of 2.4 billion dollars.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
A few miscellaneous stories to start us off:
Peru
The president of Peru has signed a decree classifying gender identity disorders as a mental illness and offering coverage for them under the national health insurance plan.
Thailand
The Thai government is considering building a planned city to relocate the business districts of Bangkok due to rising sea levels, perhaps inspired by the similar Indonesian project to relocate their capital.
Ireland
Ireland is moving to recognize Palestinian statehood, making them the first nation in western Europe to do so, as far as I know. The historical relationship between the Irish and Palestinian nationalist movements means this was perhaps to be expected.
Looks like the plan is to do it in concert with Spain, Slovenia and Malta.
More options
Context Copy link
Sweden, Iceland, Malta, Vatican already do
More options
Context Copy link
In what borders?
I assume they're going to be intentionally vague on this, but would fall back to 1967 borders if pressed.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
Sweden and Iceland have already done this.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link