7h ago

How to make people realise organisations like Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar'Allah are not the same as the Taliban or the Islamic State?

People really seem to struggle to realise how different they are. Hamas is not ISIS, that should be obvious to anyone with cursory knowledge on the history of the region. Hamas, Hezbollah and Ansar'Allah are not going to, nor have the capacity to, gut gay people and women who don't wear a niqab or hijab. They are not Salafists, for the love of Christ.

The only reason people compare these wildly different groups, is because they all (at least claim to) adhere to Islamic principles. If you think for even a second, you'd realise how ridiculous this is. It's like comparing the CDU to the KKK or even the Spanish Falange because they're all Christian, in some way or another.

It's plain ridiculous, though the liberal (and conservative) types never seem to get it.

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Without a detailed graph of all of the policies, actions and history of each organization so you can compare and contrast them all, and the willingness for each person to study that graph, there is no way to get people to know the difference.
Most people don't know the difference between the United Kingdom, the British Isles, England, Great Britain, Ireland and the Crown Dependencies are, or what all of the different subdenominations of Christianity are, as you mentioned. Without a large degree of interest in learning what the differences are, or a high level of pertinence to someone's life, educating them to the differences and similarities would be next to impossible.
The best you could probably do is have a one-sentence summary of what each group is all about, and hope that your audience doesn't immediately discount it based on what they think they know about that group. For example, "Hamas: Their unifying tenet is armed resistance to Israeli occupation of Palestine". If the general sentiment towards Hamas by the West is anything to go by, your audience would probably question even that. If it was easy, it would have been done already.
It's an uphill battle.

I would argue that you yourself are doing the same by lumping the Taliban with ISIS. Say what you will about the Taliban, but they represent a faction that sincerely carried out a national liberation struggle which culminated in the expulsion of Burgerlanders from their country and the liberation of Kabul. Meanwhile, ISIS is just another arm of US imperialism. Much like HTS, who also collaborate with the Zionist entity by not even pretending to fight against the IOF, ISIS has not fired a single bullet against the Zionist entity and has even been caught having their wounded combatants treated in Zionist hospitals. The Taliban at least say their willing to send troops to liberate Palestine when ISIS/HTS can't even do that.
- I think we should make a distinction between the Taliban in the 90s who were engaging in sectarian masacres. And the Taliban now, who don't do that. The Taliban now is also significantly better than the previous comprador regime in many ways, the most noticable was the control of the opium trade and production

No clue. People just tune you out or try and change the subject when you point out their bigotry.

IDF KKK ICE KKKOPS, they are all the same
If you can get them to relate lack of due process to oppression, and connect that to only mutual defense can protect against this, then these groups suddenly start to take on a different place in their understanding ... hopefully
So far I have not really seen anyone within the lib mindset really make this leap on their own, they kinda sheepishly approach it, but they need a strong push to face the reality of it

You could invite them to read the political charters of these organizations, and read/listen to any of the vast amount of material these organizations put out describing thier ideology, thier goals, thier actions, etc.
If they actually did this, they'd understand. But they probabably won't, lol. If they were the kinda person who'd actually investigate things like this, they wouldn't be like this in the first place

I emphasize the coalition nature of the Palestinian Resistance, and compare them to the "Viet Cong". I kind of frame it as "knowing what you know about Vietnam, that it was a genocidal war that sucked, who would you rather root for?"
This only works on people who are already kind of cool though

how to make people not be racist as shit?
- yeah but how tho?
  
  the rich racists need to be humbled, the poor racists need to be educated
  however this only works half the time, the other half of the time they just get more racist

The only reason people compare these wildly different groups, is because they all (at least claim to) adhere to Islamic principles.
counterpoint: white Americans lump these groups together because of chauvinism and white supremacy
- when Arabs have wars it`s because of their religions.
  When whites have 2 world wars, well that just nationalism
  
  When white people have wars it's just the beautiful tragedy of human nature or something

It's a very uphill battle. Chauvinism is completely pervasive and consumes the mind of the vast majority of Westerners, who still consider themselves to be in the vanguard of antiracism when, in actuality, they're very ignorant. I'd at least show them this statement from Hamas after the death of Pope Francis, I found it very empathetic and comforting.
The Islamic Resistance Movement extends its deepest condolences and sincere sympathy to the Catholic Church worldwide and to all Christians on the passing of His Holiness Pope Francis, Pope of the Vatican, who passed away after a distinguished career in the service of human and religious values.
The late Pope Francis was a noted advocate of interfaith dialogue, calling for understanding and peace among peoples, and rejecting hatred and racism. On more than one occasion, he expressed his rejection of aggression and wars in the world, and was one of the prominent religious voices to condemn the war crimes and genocide being perpetrated against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.
While we, in the Islamic Resistance Movement movement, value his moral and humanitarian stances, we emphasize the importance of continuing the joint efforts between the bearers of divine messages and people of living consciences to confront injustice and colonialism, and to support the causes of justice, freedom, and the rights of oppressed peoples.
- Pope Francis did nearly nothing to clean his own house of the kiddie diddlers.
  
  Yeah, that's largely true. Don't see how that's relevant, though, and as far as cleaning house of child molesters go you'd hardly find a guiltier institution than the state of Israel.

doesn`t matter really, because when all the groups mentioned such as Islamic State getting liquidated by Hamas in the stripe some years ago, they'll go back to ''Arabs are too barbaric and they like to fight each other, hence why we need to put a leash on them''

It's like comparing the CDU to the KKK or even the Spanish Falange because they're all Christian, in some way or another.
No, don't, we just had this struggle session

This is a losing game because like "freedom" in the West for normal people "feminism" is in practice a treat-based ideology. Now you can heap Islamophobia on top of that.
Hezbollah is the best out of all these groups to women. They allow women to participate in all parts of society. They have women-led politcal steering committees setting political positions based on Islamic feminism. Hezbollah has a unique risk because their primary benefactor Iran has a much more conservative political position on the issue.
However Islamic feminism is a tenuous balancing act. Like any other religion it Islam is not coherent or consistent in its texts and oral traditions. Coherence and consistency is made based on social views on choosing what passages to elevate and what passages to deprecate. As such Islamic feminism often has very rough edges and looks different based on different political contexts.
Hamas is lower than Hezbollah here but still not comparable to the Taliban or ISIS. The status of women in Hamas and by its governing principles are not equivalent to Hezbollah or the PLO. Hamas has been changing slowly by allowing more women into leadership and changing some of its views since 2021.
You are absolutely wrong about Ansar'Allah. Ansar'Allah is not as organized as the Taliban but ultimately has the similar views and worse practices. Ansar'Allah does gendered child soldiers. Boys as young as 7 become soldiers. Girls as young as 13 become liaisons in the gendered traditional militaristic sense they do "women's work". They do intelligence, logistics, support, and involuntary sex work. Like female military liaisons in other traditionalist armies including in the West they are extremely vulnerable to abuse and are effectively prizes and play things for the officer class. Ansar'Allah has some women's units but there is actually disagreement about militarization of women both official (as soldiers) and unofficial (as liaisons) within Ansar'Allah on "social cohesion" grounds. The Zainabiyyat batallion (women's battalion) also sources the must vulnerable women in Yemeni society so the poor or groups like the Muhamasheen. The Zainabiyyat batallion's general is a man and it's not really a fighting force, it's a policing / occupation / intelligence force. Zainabinyyat has been accused of being given the duty to create the intelligence networks as a compromise and preventative measure but I haven't seen strong confirmation of that, nor have I seen any strong evidence that if it's happening that outcomes are changing for women and girls forced into these networks.
- "feminism" is in practice a treat-based ideology.
  What does this mean, exactly?
  
  It's this.
  The most hollowed out form of liberal feminism. Not even corpo feminism. Not even white corpo feminism. A feminism that is itself as a vehicle for marketing and driving consumption.
  
  i read that as bourgeois white feminism
  
  Girlboss feminism, Raytheon at the pride parade, etc. Obviously it's wrong to generalize all feminism as being treat based, but it's true of bourgeois feminism and we know that the ideas of the ruling class are, in all epochs, the ideas of the working class.

aggressively misgender their christianity

So, different flavors of religious nonsense, with variant relative degrees of fundamentalism and wingnuttery.
I know that Hezbollah is not the same thing as ISIS; but religion and politics is never a good combo, and it never has been (it’s a tool wielded by politicians to influence people, and we’d all be better off without it).
For example, the Palestinian / Israeli conflict is one that needs to be resolved, and Palestinians have a right to exist in prosperity and peace with their neighbors, as do Jews.
The conversation about how Israel and Palestine can coexist peacefully, and what to do about land, and all that, is not served by debates about whether or not The Prophet ascended to Heaven on a winged horse at the site of Al Aqsa / The Temple Mount, and whether or not rebuilding the Temple Mount will bring about the Eschaton / the Return of Christ / Armageddon, and whether or not The Madhi will be there too, and so on. That hocus pocus bullshit just severely muddies the waters for everybody.
- As a life long atheist, trying to reduce the genocide of Palestinians to just "different sky daddies" is Reddit cringe.
- The conversation about how Israel and Palestine can coexist peacefully, and what to do about land, and all that, is not served by debates about whether or not The Prophet ascended to Heaven on a winged horse at the site of Al Aqsa / The Temple Mount, and whether or not rebuilding the Temple Mount will bring about the Eschaton / the Return of Christ / Armageddon, and whether or not The Madhi will be there too, and so on. That hocus pocus bullshit just severely muddies the waters for everybody.
  Newsflash buddy, you agree with Hamas.
  Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.
  From the 2017 Hamas Charter
- If you were in Gaza right now, would you feel that the Al-Qassam brigades who were actively fighting off the IDF invasion, literally the only people between your family and obliteration, are "fundamentalism and wingnuttery"? If you were in southern Lebanon, after each generation of your family being devastated by losing siblings and children to Israel "mowing the lawn" every couple of years, would you think that Hezbollah is only there to control you even as they successfully fend off the 2024 invasion?
- The Jews should go back to Germany. That's the solution, it's not about religion, it's about a bunch of Germans invading another country.

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