You can block the comments but you cannot silence our voices.
It’s troubling “mean arab terrorist” had such experiences here. I would ask if this was on Lemmy or Lemmygrad?
“I have seen people refer to Chador and Hijab as “wearing trashbags””
This is insanely racist. This should not be tolerated.
“the Islamic Republic of Iran is “enslaving women””
We all have liberal tendencies here that we are in the process of purging however this western feminism should have been called out.
“I have seen people refer to Islam as “a painkiller” and that communists should “free [Muslims] from irrational immaterial thought” and make accusations that all Muslims engage in FGC”
I am unfamiliar with the term ‘FGC’, however the opiate of the masses critique is based. This is a long standing Marxist stance on religion. This should be allowed here.
“I was banned from the Palestine community for “being mean” to an israeli colonizer after I told them to expeditiously get out of Palestine.”
Blaming the individual is radlib however in the Israeli case I would tell them to join Palestine instead of trying to paint them as the entire country of Israel.
“I have had my comments censored and removed when discussing the liberation of Palestine From the River to the Sea and citing the revolutionary leaders from the resistance. The reasoning for censorship repeated the zionist entity language: “advocating terrorism”"
Not ok. We are against imperialist powers and projects.
“Throughout all of this I see invaders who live in the settler-colonies are defended as “comrades like everyone else”. Even though they are repeating toxic discourse about how such and such liberation movement “shouldn’t alienate the [colonizer] ‘workers’.””
It seems that this latest topic in it’s turbulent controversy was the last straw for you and I find it regretful that it has gotten this far considering 90% of what you experienced you shouldn’t have.
Take care and I wish you the best.
I have to note the claims made in that post, that I could attest to, were misrepresented.
The trashbag comment is obviously out of line, but it was never reported to us (I checked the log). We can’t see everything and we might be too small a team at this stage for how large Lemmygrad has grown. We see things as a third-party (unless we’re directly involved in a comment thread) and so we rely on reports to not only tell us about rule-breaking content, but also provide necessary context so that we can take the most appropriate action.
We are also thinking of bringing a Muslim comrade to the administration team so that we can get some more representation and good advice in those situations, especially that we now have many Muslim users on lemmygrad.
Secondly, I personally banned this user from the Palestine community (I’m the only mod) so I know everything about it. The ban was temporary, for a couple days, for breaking our “be respectful” rule. I noted in my comment that I did not necessarily disagree that Israeli communists should leave the country if they don’t join Palestinian resistance groups (contradicting the first claim nameless partisan made), but the user was asking a question in good faith and nameless partisan instantly became aggressive and insulting towards them.
Generally, that user likes to provoke and I think it’s pretty clear from the examples in this post. The goodbye post they made was a provocation too, a sort of ultimatum “either change or I’m not coming back, and I’m taking as many people as I can with me”.
I’ve legit had people – and other Muslims too – message me to ask about nameless partisan, concerned about some of the things they say. The last straw might have been when they hinted towards a total genocide of Israelis, but then when asked for an explicit phrasing, backpedalled (despite everything pointing to the contrary up until then). Even their new display name is a provocation. Nobody has ever called them a “mean Arab terrorist”
or any of those individual three words.edit: NP had a comment removed for “advocating terrorism”, which I was not aware of when looking at the timeline originally (not that they helped establish a timeline of actions taken against them, preferring to talk in vague wording. But anyway). There is a difference between calling someone a terrorist and saying their comment advocated for terrorism. The first one is an accusation, it makes them responsible. It’s something they are. The second wording is saying that they may have inadvertently said something of that nature. It doesn’t accuse them or places the responsibility of them. Big difference. So yes, nobody called NP a terrorist.You might notice then that at no point did nameless partisan contact us to discuss how they felt on lemmygrad or want to engage in dialogue. All they wanted was to provoke and get into arguments.
At this point nameless partisan is not banned from lemmygrad, but it was in discussion. They can claim they were compared to a terrorist all they want, but they’ve been told several times to be more respectful towards other users as we are all communists here (until proven to the contrary) and they didn’t.
The reason I’m only saying all of this now is because as an admin, I don’t want to single out individual users on the site and influence opinion. At this stage however, I think it’s clear nameless partisan is not interested in dialogue and resolving conflicts but thrives in creating it. Don’t dish it out if you can’t take it.
I understand. Thank you for speaking on this issue, your insights have helped me gain a better understanding of the situation.
It should go without saying that all of the mod team, supports Palestine, and stands against the settler-colonialist terrorist state of israel.
Please report any islamophobic content so we can remove it, and issue bans as necessary. If you see it, say it.
As to nameless partisans claims tho, they were not banned, as you can see from the modlog. This comment of theirs received reports and was removed:
In order to liberate Palestine (consequently Greater Syria and the entire SWANA region), between 10-30% of all the Jewish Israeli occupiers currently in Palestine need to be eliminated. The remainder will all need to be expelled and all their stolen property expropriated by the true owners of the land. Every single occupier in Palestine is a legitimate target, including ‘tourists’. Every one deserves a bullet or a rocket. Including and especially the ‘leftist’ ones.
This kind of rhetoric puts the entire site and everyone who uses it at risk.
As communists, we don’t think individualist terrorism and indiscriminate killing of civilians are effective methods for achieving decolonization.
Yes, the last part would be ultra-leftism and adventurism, more specifically.
Obviously this is extreme and hateful rhetoric, but isn’t there a kernel of truth to the idea that settlers need to be driven off of stolen land for decolonization to succeed? If violent resistance is off the table, what exactly does that leave us with?
They absolutely should be forced to leave if that’s what the Palestinians collectively want. Violent resistance (including killing or otherwise incapacitating occupiers who resist) is completely necessary and Muad’Dibber didn’t say that it isn’t. The issue is the last two sentences – stating that every single settler deserves to be killed, regardless of what they’ve actually done besides being born in a settler colony – as well as the subsequent comment where she seemed to advocate killing children because they could grow up to be Zionists like their parents. Violent resistance is unavoidable, but systematically killing those who are willing to leave without fighting back isn’t
I actually agreed with NP to some extent. In a context of occupation such as Palestine, hitting civilians and civilian targets is allowed (targetting is a bit different IIRC). This is even backed up by the UN’s Occupation law (IF I’m not mistaken, it’s been a while).
Israel is also in such a position that it’s not so old people don’t remember where they lived before they emigrated there. It’s a bit more complicated for the US, but to this day people emigrate to Israel, get citizenship, and then hold dual citizenship. Thus under international law, their home country cannot prevent them from re-entering. Their naturalisation laws are actually some of the easiest in the world, exactly because they want to legitimise their project.
And finally, it’s difficult to tell Palestinians they should have the moral high ground when 100 Palestinians have been killed so far this year, including 17 minors.
Palestine is also obviously allowed to engage and start military actions on their own occupied territory, which is a right and territory recognized by the UN. And I’ll even throw in an extra: it’s even true that I don’t really care if some settler gets killed. As for israeli children, it almost never happens that they die due to military operations. If one did, believe me, you wouldn’t hear the end of it. Not like israel that actively targets Palestinian children.
However, when NP and I differed was that there is no reason to “eliminate between 10 to 30% of the settlers”. There is also no reason tourists are a legitimate target (a target, sure, but legitimate, i.e. allowed to strike them?). Finally, there is no reason the “leftists” (emphasis theirs) would be especially legitimate targets too.
None that they could provide, at least. And not for lack of asking.
Regarding tourists and locals: living on this land, there’s no reason you don’t know rockets are eventually going to fly down on you. If you persist in living there despite the risk, then you can’t really complain when it happens. The reason people go to live in Israel is because they want their free stolen house, and the risk of a rocket killing them doesn’t sufficiently deter them from that sweet loot.
And I’ll throw one more extra: I don’t believe it’s possible to live in the occupied parts of Palestine and be innocent. On some level you will benefit from the occupation, if you are white. Like was said in the thread in the Palestine community, you can always decide to leave the country. The whole mess that is israel was actually forcing Jews to become citizens in the 60s and 70s and now that they look more legitimate and have their own population of sorts, they’re sterilising and booting out their non-white Jewish population.
Regarding communists living in Israel, NP would have had an opportunity for dialogue that could have enriched all of us. I remember the israeli communist youth (and believe me I hate it every time I have to type the word “israel”) inviting my party to visit them, and we all looked at each other and understood we’d rather go visit Palestine. Still, I’d be interested in knowing more about them and their positions.
So to circle back around to your question;
settlers need to be driven off of stolen land for decolonization to succeed
Yes, but this also has to take into account Palestine’s own context. I mentioned that the occupation is recent enough that people could easily be sent back to their home country. But it’s likely some of them will stay or be allowed to stay if they might have useful skills.
Hamas, for one, says they would be open to a two-state solution since 2019 (Abby Martin quoting their programme). I don’t see it, but from there we can easily infer that if Israel ceased to exist and Palestine came back, many people would be allowed. Yes, they present a risk because they’re still settlers vying for the good old life they had, but we have to be pragmatic about this. The USSR had to bring back imperial generals for the Red Army too. It’s not a 100% support thing, it’s about who is able to seize the state and impose their authority on the country.
This is upsetting, I hope all can be resolved.
indeed
I was banned from there and called a western chauvinist denying national liberation for global southerners for questioning their source on the PSL being infiltrated by FBI elements, as the same source claimed that the DPRK was functionally a starving capitalist monarchy and China was imperialist. The comrade born in occupied Palestine was concerned over their calls to violently eliminate all Israeli settlers and politely asked how they could aid the Palestinian resistance without having to kill themselves. The individual banned this comrade for being a settler and denying Palestinian sovereignty, somehow, even though the comrade expressed incredible disdain for the Israeli settler project.
In my experience, the individual in question does not want dialogue, but they do want to preach to unquestioning ears. They do not want to help the western left understand, they want to destroy the western left, including the anti-imperialists who do not agree with mass suicide and random acts of terrorism.
My two cents, or more accurately my fuel on the fire as it were.
…the individual in question does not want dialogue, but they do want to preach to unquestioning ears. They do not want to help the western left understand, they want to destroy the western left, including the anti-imperialists who do not agree with mass suicide and random acts of terrorism.
That’s what she struck me as as well. The thing that made me first see her like that was when she made a post linking this article by a virtually inactive third worldist org. The whole premise of the article and post was how third-worldist organizing can be done in the imperial core, but if you actually read the article no actual suggestions for action are made.
