Western Humanitarianism and Values, A Savage Hypocrisy
If you did not condemn Israel's killing of unarmed men, women, children, elderly, disabled, journalists, doctors, teachers, students and aid workers, you lost the right to condemn other atrocities
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In a discussion here on Substack about the Israel-Palestine Problem, and the ongoing Israeli genocide against the Palestinians, somebody very eager to share their own prejudiced reservations against Muslims chimed in:
“Muslims should not be given the same freedom to practise their religion like other religions in the West because of the destruction that has come from it,”
Although this was detached from the widely known tenet that Islam actually explicitly commands we respect each other's beliefs and avoid converting or forcing others to Islam, while also promoting religious freedom and tolerance, emphasising that there is no compulsion in religion, even underscoring the principle of individual choice in faith.… lessons on tolerance and avoiding prejudice for our dear friend here.
"There is no compulsion in religion" - Kuran 2:256
"To you be your religion, and to me my religion" - Kuran 109:6
And especially on tolerance, being righteous and acting justly towards others:
“O you who have believed (Christians and Jews included), be persistently standing firm for Allah (God), witnesses in justice, and do not let the hatred of a people prevent you from being just.” - Kuran 5:8
“Allah does not forbid you from those who do not fight you because of religion and do not expel you from your homes - from being righteous toward them and acting justly toward them. Indeed, Allah loves those who act justly.” - Kuran 60:8
Now I get it, the book of the religion saying something is one thing, its followers interpreting or doing something else is completely different.
And though there are surely concerns about equal rights of non-Muslims in certain Muslim majority states today, though that does not apply with Türkiye, to give but one example, or the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC), and there are surely cases where religious persecution and destruction did come about as a result of the actions of certain Muslims, if we can really call them that, but need we really provide a list here of all the cases where the zealous followers of Christianity or Judaism denied people of other religions the freedom to practise their own faith, persecuted them, forced religious conversions and dispensed great misery, death and destruction upon them?
The Nazi persecution of the Jews ringing a bell?1
Isn’t our friend already advocating for one of these directly? The others indirectly? All because the Palestinians reject Zionism and Israel? And their existence is an ongoing affront that our friend’s beloved radical Judaism and Christianity just cannot tolerate?
Regardless, as irrelevant as that was, our friend also followed it with this:
“Israel is doing absolutely a good job in the MiddleEast and I have faith it will get better there but we need to give it time.”
Now, I won’t go over the entirety of my response, but I did ask and think it’s worth repeating, and everyone here should be familiar with that old propagandistic tale of the so-called “terrible Turk,” that oriental middle eastern central-Asian-origin “tyrant,” that “evil” existential “threat to peace and stability in Europe,” the ominous “enemy of Christendom,” the unequivocal “master of criminality… theft… rape… genocides,” and so on and so forth…
And I won’t go into any of that supine asininity either.
But do you think that when news of these “Ottoman atrocities” in the various British, Russian and European orchestrated uprisings and insurrections reached the likes of Great Britain and the European powers, did everyone simply say: "have faith it will get better there but we need to give it time"?
And would you have accepted that as a reasonable stance?
Or do you think they said, as in WWII: “PEOPLE OF BRITAIN! WILL YOU STAND THIS?”, when images circulated of human remains - hundreds of stacked skulls and draped skeletons - from horrifying “massacres,” all the looted churches, the stories of indiscriminate slaughter, just like where images circulated of No. 2 Wykeham Street, Scarborough, after the German bombardment on 16 December, when the home of a working man was bombed, leaving four people dead in the house including the wife, aged 58, and two children, the youngest aged 5, all of them joining 78 women and children killed and 228 women and children rounded up by the German raiders…
If you see something like this happening today, will you simply just STAND THIS? Will you say you "have faith it will get better there but we need to give it time", and not do anything to understand, measure and weigh the situation? To verify exactly what is going on? To try and understand the validity and the gravity of the threat, as its being articulated to you, and then give a logically and morally informed response?
And if it comes down to it, if it’s just as bad as is being described, will you ENLIST, as it were, to do something about it?
Will you allow yourself to become a continuation of that brave British tradition of upholding this proud belief in humanitarianism and the idea of a strong commitment to upholding the rights of oppressed populations the world over, to protect your family and your country at home in Britain, and to strive to get along and work with everyone the world over, so as to allow the spread of freedom and prosperity to all?
Should anything remotely like the Blitz, occurring somewhere in this world today, not compel you to ENLIST and FIGHT for the very freedom and prosperity you hold so dear, when it compelled your ancestors to do exactly that, and were you to, lets say, support the aggressors, what do you think that says about you and your humanity?
I’d like to present to you a quick case study.
During the 1876 Bulgarian April Uprising, a trip to 3 cities and 11 villages by one Eugene Schuyler led to his compiling a report detailing the burning of 65 villages, the demolition of 5 monasteries and the slaughter of at least 12,000-15,000 people, rebels and non-combatants alike, with Muslim casualties numbering 115, of whom 12 were women and children, even though these claims were unsubstantiated, and among the cities and villages mentioned not all had been visited, by Schuyler's own concession.
Parallel to this there later surfaced that horrific imagery, such as those depicting human remains from the infamous Batak massacre, and the interior of a church in Batak two years after the bloody suppression of the April Uprising and the casualties inflicted on the inhabitants of the village.
Subsequent investigations by the French and Russian Consuls estimated the number of Bulgarian casualties at 25,000–40,000, while official Turkish sources said there were some 18,000 Christian casualties, and roughly 500 Muslim casualties, with Bulgarian sources citing 30,000 casualties on their side and none on the Muslim side… all of these obvious sources for possible contradiction, and discrepancies we’ll go into later.
But irrespective of the exact number, isn’t just one death already enough to condemn?
Because as you’re reading this and Israel continues its genocidal massacres of the Palestinians, and the official Gaza death toll tops 57,200, with an estimated 100,000-200,000 cited as the likely real figure after the dust settles, with that likely to have already increased, but people still won't condemn that? You won’t condemn that?
And to go back to the Ottoman-Bulgaria case again for just a moment, because it really helps us understand this "othering" as it pertains to what's going on today in the occupied Palestinian territories.
Because when hearing about the events in Bulgaria from faculty members at Robert College, who feared that the coming investigation of Englishman Walter Baring would turn into a pro-Ottoman stance because of the British Empire's feigned pro-Ottoman stance and his own reputation as a Turkophile, that is what Eugene Schuyler cited as his reason for going. And there’s merit to that position. Without external, third-party, non-biased verification, how could one know exactly what happened?
But Walter Baring, Januarius MacGahan, Eugene Schuyler and William Ewart Gladstone's claims and reactions were accepted, regarded as authoritative, despite their acting on a colonial mindset, an ingrained anti-Turkish bias, their "othering", their offering a vehemently Turkophobic interpretation, as part of their preconceived ideas of Turkish barbarism and guilt or, at best, on pro-Russian leaning.
Meanwhile back in Palestine, Israel’s word is law, despite it being the aggressor, and despite its history of killing, lying and being consciously supported regardless, while it’s block on international journalists in Gaza is not only preventing proper scrutiny and accountability, it is also being allowed to stand, and Israel’s justification that this is because it would be a “dangerous” and “deadly assignment”, is just being accepted, just like that, no scrutiny allowed, nothing.
This is to the backdrop of the Palestinians being treated as unreliable tellers of their own story, while Israel continues to receive significant protection and support from several foreign governments and their mainstream media, primarily the United States, the United Kingdom and the European powers, and that includes substantial military and financial aid, as well as diplomatic backing, particularly at the United Nations.
Then there’s the whole genocide economy in Palestine where we see the same issue of global corporations “profiting from genocide” in Gaza like those who profited from the unabated persecution of the Jews in Nazi Germany, their antisemitic laws, World War II and the holocaust.
So during the Bulgarian Uprising, for all the rhetoric and imagery that warranted international condemnation of the Ottoman Empire, the fact that there was this freedom and diversity of access to information and the places in question, both during and after the events, and this was more than 150 years ago, and where the Ottomans were facing incessant and unabated hatred, yet through it all, this still allows us now to draw reliable and evidenced conclusions based on the historical record.
But when it comes to what is happening in Palestine today? When it comes to what led up to it, and how it has been aided and abetted by the very brutal machinations of that Ottoman-hating west, dating as far back as the first quarter of the 20th century? The fact it is all being well documented, this remains the same, though not because the perpetrator is allowing it, the victims are the chroniclers of their own demise, and one day Israel will have to face the music. It is inevitable. That much is clear.
Yet the term double standards doesn’t even begin to do justice to what is happening.
Atleast for Bulgaria we now know, based on multiple strong, reliable, and cross-verifiable sources, that frankly speaking are authoritative on the subject, including the works of the American historians Richard Millman, Justin McCarthy and Stanford Shaw, who through their thorough examinations of the documented record and all related evidence can conclusively say that the accepted reality of the massacres is largely a myth. And they are willing to say that. Despite this going against the official figures of the British, Russian and French imperial establishments, and the fever dreams of the ardent, rabidly ideological defenders of the west’s inexcusable actions, consumed by radical zealotry which their efforts not infrequently manifest as… we know from everything, that the hypocrisy of the west… they’re just so far gone. Getting them to come back? It’s possible. But it’s going to be a real uphill struggle.
And as I just mentioned the work of the American historians, although many in the anti-Turkish circles, such as the diaspora Greek and Armenian communities have, in their savage narcissism and hubris, for example, attacked and accused - in particular Millman - of being "… an apologist for the Turkish state” and having “exaggerated the number of Muslim victims in the Balkans” as part of some ambiguous attempt “to underplay the number of Armenian victims in Anatolia", not that this is even relevant, but these criticisms in and of themselves simply just do not stand up to scrutiny when countered with the historically documented, evidenced and verified facts.
The same is happening right now in Gaza.
Now in that particular case I just gave, this could also have had something to do with Millman putting Bulgarian casualties at 3,000–12,000, while also noting that Russian atrocities against Muslims during the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878 were far worse than those against insurgent Bulgarians, something that those who salivate at the opportunity of condemning and de-humanising the Turks could never accept, because after all, their entire narrative depends on the parallel argument that the Turks, as the aggressors, can therefore never be victims.
Again, the same is the case for Gaza, where anyone who condemns the Israeli state, which is the aggressor, or supports the downtrodden Palestinians, who are defending themselves, whether in the right way or not, anyone who supports them or their cause and in particular makes that against Israel is labelled “anti-semitic” and accused of “blood libels” and any other disingenuous soundbite they can conjure.
But in the case of Millman’s analysis, he was correct. Russian atrocities against Muslims were not only very real, they were abhorrently atrocious, and they were far worse than what the Ottomans did to the Bulgarians, or anyone else for that matter.
And they weren't condemned.
And once more, as the official Gaza statistics continue to reflect the truth, or rather, the small portion of it they are able to confirm, and Israeli atrocities continue to not only be abhorrently atrocious, but far worse than that which they used to justify their genocidal massacres.
And they too aren’t condemned.
The other American historian I mentioned, Stanford Shaw, in his book History of the Ottoman Empire and Modern Turkey, he observes that the historically documented record and collected evidence indicates far more Muslims than Christians were killed in the uprising, with Bulgarian casualties estimated by him to be fewer than 4,000.
Others admit that the beginning of the April Uprising was accompanied by a massacre of Muslim civilians, while upholding estimates of 12,000 Bulgarian casualties, as others claim the insurgents killed less than 200 Muslims, very few of whom were non-combatants.
Needless to say, the deliberate obfuscation of information, from the one side, as well as attempts to dismiss and undermine what is otherwise historically documented and evidenced, this is all too clear.
The same goes for the proud heroisation of the modern Greeks despite their atrocities in the Morea, Thessaly, Epirus, Western Thrace, Macedonia, the Ionian Islands, the Aegean Islands, the Dodecanese, Crete, Eastern Thrace, Anatolia, Cyprus…
Just like the Russians then, and Israel today, they weren’t condemned either.
There are clear parallels and patterns here and people need to realise this.
The asymmetric responses in all of these situations, in the case of Russia, in the case of Greece, and now in the case of Israel, it highlights the repeat contradictions of a western dominated bloc of international society that remains enthralled by the logic of “the garden and the jungle”, the markedly racist concept of a world order based on cooperation and shared principles with one dominated by the self-interest and power of the strongest, ergo, the "garden", a world where international relations between states are governed by agreed-upon norms and rules, and the "jungle", a state of nature where power and competition dictate outcomes.
Western humanitarianism and values indeed.
And finishing up by going back to these “dangers” of a radical Islam that is “naturally” wedded to be the enemy of the west, wishing upon it and everyone there nothing but total death and destruction, in some ambiguous extremist worldwide jihadist crusade.
Approximately 2 billion Muslims worldwide, constituting about 25.6% of the global population, apparently all warlike people worshiping some god of wrath, all ready to blow themselves up “for the cause” of some selectively wrongly interpreted Islam.
Just like the “global war on terror” (GWOT), which ignores decades of domestic as well as transnational and international terrorist incidents, of which politics, not religion, is the overwhelming majority reason… all the while, these states and their allies, such as Israel, are literally engaging in state-sponsored terrorism, and committing industrial scale acts of state terrorism on a daily basis.
It’s nothing but a savage hypocrisy.
Although the Nazi Party were not completely unified in their religious views, as they were diverse in that regard, many promoted a form of state-sponsored Christianity, while others rejected it in favour of paganism or atheism. Many Nazis were either Catholic or Protestant, and some were devout, while others used their religious background for political purposes. Simultaneously, the party officially promoted a form of "positive Christianity" that rejected traditional Christian doctrines and emphasized a racially-based interpretation of Christianity, which included viewing Jesus as an Aryan figure and downplaying or rejecting the Old Testament. Some Nazis, including Heinrich Himmler, were drawn to neo-pagan and occult beliefs, seeking to revive pre-Christian, Germanic paganism and integrate it with Nazi ideology, while maintaining their Christian values. A few Nazis were either agnostic or atheist, rejecting organised religion altogether, and there were those who left Christian churches but still believed in a higher power, often without any institutional affiliation, and they used the term "Gottgläubig" which means "believing in God". But at the end of the day, it was at its foundations a very Christian movement. Its inheritance of Europe’s prejudice against the Jews comes from this European Christian background.