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Joined 6 years ago
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Cake day: April 18th, 2019

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  • Sounds like a bug. When you turn on debug logging do you see anything specific? (i don’t even know if debug logging is a thing in Lemmy ansible setup). Can you maybe also try with another SMTP client like msmtp to see if you can reach your mail server from it? It’s possible that some network misconfiguration prevents it, or that your mail provider has blocked your IP/range for some reason.


















  • this “laicité” concept, which is often mistranslated as secularism

    Hey that’s a very good point but you miss some French cultural/political context! Laïcité does exactly mean secularism, and its legal basis means freedom of thought/beliefs for everyone: laïcité was formally established in 1905 when the State was separated from the Church (again and almost finally, except in Alsace/Lorraine where the Catholic Church is still part of the State apparatus for other reasons).

    The 1905 law clearly states that the State has no business telling people what to believe or not, that this is a private matter between people. This is the legal basis for laïcité.

    But since the 80s, some segments on the far-left and far-right have been involved in transforming the concept in public discourse to target it against muslims. It started with unionized teachers from marxist-leninist organizations (was it FO? not sure anymore) refusing to do classes to veiled schoolgirls, and bringing TV crews to the classroom to embarrass those poor kids. I don’t believe at the time it was presented to be in the name of “laïcité”.

    Then this discourse grew in both New Atheist circles (a subset of the wider anticlerical movement) on the left, as well as in Judeo-Christian conservative groups on the right. Especially after September 11th, this discourse was instrumentalized against muslims by building a narrative that veiled girls are supporters of terrorism or that they advocate for Shariah, or that they’re submitted to Male authority. Many outlets even made parallels to Afghanistan or Algeria, but we’re talking about kids who grew up here (for the vast majority), only speak French, and have no ties or clue to what’s happening around there. As for male domination, there’s a few blind spots in this argument:

    • it’s just a piece of cloth?! you can be abused/dominated by men with or without any external sign for it
    • if you truly believe the girls are being abused and they need to get help, how does it help to ban them from public schools so they remain in their bubbles?
    • in many parts of the world France has colonized, women either held power or had a history of it (for example, Kahina in amazigh regions of North Africa is becoming a symbol again in the new struggles for Kabyl independence)
    • women to this day in France are struggling to have their basic rights preserved (against police abuse and power/sexual abuse in the workplace and in education), no matter their religion (see also Me Too movement)
    • men telling women what to do (or not to do) framed as a feminist argument, really? how is French police officers (male) asking a woman to undress any different from Iranian police officers (male) asking a woman to dress up?
    • in particular in the western world, the “sexual liberation” movement of the 60s has given birth to a new norm/dogma where women must be sexually available for men to enjoy in the name of sexual freedom (where the veil is seen as an obstacle to sexual availability): this has been greatly described in Ovidie’s documentary À quoi rêvent les jeunes filles?

    Starting with Sarkozy, this new formalized islamophobia was given a legal basis, which reused some discourse about laïcité but amended it so much that it completely lost the spirit. The new texts, instead of saying that the State must be neutral in faith/religious matters, says that agents of the State and public services must not promote religion in any way: this led to the ban of religious signs from public servants (which may or may not have been illegal before, but was certainly not enforced), which was then extended more broadly, for example for parents accompanying children on school trips. And more recently, it’s given birth to the complete hysteria about “burkini” and other non-sensical racist “controversies”.

    All along, this was anti-muslim racism. It actually predates the situation i just described: colonization in much of the world (including french colonies) was often framed as a humanitarian intervention against uncivilized (male) barbarians hurting their poor women (which some political commenters have dubbed “white men saving brown women from brown men”). For example at the height of the colonial war in Algeria (1950s-1960s), the French government was organizing mass unveiling campaign (see this poster with the message: “aren’t you pretty? unveil yourself”).

    Frantz Fanon has explained in great lengths how the colonial enterprise must destroy any sense of belonging or cultural identity in the colonized in order to succeed. I strongly recommend (all of) his books. If you speak french, Un racisme à peine voilé (“A thinly-veiled racism”) is a documentary from 2004 which goes to great lengths to explain the rise of the anti-veil sentiment in schools since the 80s. It’s a bit dated and does not account for the most recent racist developments but is still very much on-point.

    One last point to conclude: newer, restrictive laws on “laïcité” (against religious signs) do not apply in practice to christians and jews, and even less so to minority religions whose religious signs bigots are unable to recognize. It’s not uncommon to see public servants (including teachers) wearing christian crosses, despite the law saying otherwise.




  • I am not sure how true that is because I don’t know much about Russia.

    Thanks for acknowledging this, the discussion on Lemmy would be easier if we started from this (honest) point rather than spewing propaganda from every side. Please note i also know relatively little about Russia: what i know i know from ex-USSR political refugees i’ve met throughout my life so i’ve got close to zero academic knowledge but plenty of anecdotes and homebrew political analysis (from an anarchist perspective).

    You could say that Russia being a capitalist country is maybe not idealogically opposed to fascism but use the history of the Great Patriotic War for nationalistic purposes.

    That’s precisely what i’m saying. If you follow the links in my original post (two of which are written by russian collectives) they’ll even argue that Putin’s is a direct fuel of both neo-nazism (there were, i don’t know if it’s still the case today with this new State narrative, government support toward neo-nazi groups) and a revival of Russian fascism (Putin has given a lot of power to the orthodox church).

    If you’d like to read more from both russian/ukranian perspective on the topics of neo-nazism and fascism on both sides (Ukraine/Russia government), i strongly recommend the articles published on crimethinc.com since mid-february.

    But equating Ukraine which glorifies Nazis and had neo-Nazis brought to power in the 2014 coup seems like a false equivalence to me.

    There is a symbolic difference: Neo-nazism is a reverence to Hitler and his specific ideology, but fascism is an evolving beast and can take many forms. You don’t need swastikas or antisemitism to obtain fascism. In this sense, fascism is very much alive and well on both sides of the border.

    Let’s take another example: France has strong laws against nazism and racial discrimination, but they are never applied. France is a deeply racist country with structural racism at play on many levels. That leads to contradictions like Eric Zemmour: the guy was paid to be every day on public television spewing hatred (against women, against muslims, etc). It only stopped a few years back when he was condemned for encouraging we deport all muslims from France (suggesting “it’s been done before” in reference to Hitler and the jews), yet the next week he found a very comfortable spot appearing every day on a private channel. The guy is now a candidate for presidency who like Trump back in the day all media advertise for. This guy is a pure product of French society, which on paper is supposed to stand for the opposite.

    France is supposed to be anti-racist, but glorifies racist police abuse, or figures like Christopher Columbus or Jules Ferry. The law tells us little about actual political context somewhere. The situation is rude for antifascists both in Ukraine and in Russia, and i personally stand in support of them both against their respective government.


  • I feel like a lot of these people are just marxism gone wrong. Add a pinch of stalinism, and a bit of leninist/trotskyist discourse, and what you have is uncritical support on any tyrannical power that’s not the USA/UK. In the real world, in the unions and in the squats, we call these people fascists (of the red-brown kind because they use red words to promote fascism).

    I mean, just imagine going to your union comrades and saying invading a sovereign country is justifiable in the name of socialism. You’ll get weird looks and nervous laughter. If you add the bit about the persons leading the invasion are siding with oligarchs and having privatized the entire country since the USSR collapsed, you’ll get called a scab and may come home with a few bruises.


  • Criticism must happen not against the oppressed (pro-Russian) narrative, but the dominant (pro-NATO, pro-Ukraine) narrative

    In what world do you live that there is an oppressed and dominant narrative? Both sides are trying to impose their own narrative for their own fucked up interests. Neither of those sides will be what local militants will tell you, as those have a common understanding (anti-war, anti-imperialist) of the situation from every side of the border/conflict.

    Russia needs to do a lot of catchup on whatever Anglo countries have done, for Russia to be equally called an empire.

    I’m not saying Russia is as evil as UK/France/USA. I’m not interested in playing a game of who’s less worse. This is not a game. This is real life and our comrades are suffering on both sides of the border.

    most of whatever is shown to paint Russia bad in the media is debunked as fake news

    Of course there’s disinformation on both sides, like during any political conflict. Where can you see me spreading fake news?

    Playing both sides trope when the media is suspiciously imbalanced against Russia is purely meant for grift purposes.

    I’m not doing “both sides”. I’m doing “neither side”. I chose my side, and i side with the people who struggle across this planet. I’m taking time to counter propaganda on both sides on these forums because i have higher expectations in terms of information/debate when it comes to Lemmy, and because some people need to take the side of the common people and militant antifascists and spread their analysis on the situation, when everyone else is spewing Washington/Kremlin propaganda.



  • If you can point to one instance where i advocated for NATO, i’d be happy to provide an apology. Unfortunately this does not exist except in your mind where being against the Russian empire means siding with the western empire. I strongly recommend you do some reading on third-worldism and the importance of non-alignment (in regards to colonial empires) for the socialist/communist/anarchist movement worldwide.

    Do you seek interest in publishing photos on Lemmy like this, since you call critics of current narrative “puppets of Russian Empire”?

    Challenge accepted. I’m all up for denouncing nazism/fascism where it is. I just criticize when denouncing a specific brand of fascism is done in a way to reinforce another (whether it’s USA or Russian fascism/imperialism).







  • Ukronazi

    What’s this neologism? Are you not aware nazis are very well integrated in the State apparatus in many nations? It’s not just Ukraine: it’s also Russia, France, Germany… So why paint a single nation as nazis when more or less of all the parties involved in the conflict are varying brand of imperialism and racial/cultural supremacy?

    supporting a planned Ukronazi attack on Donbass republics

    What’s the evidence that there was a wide-scale attack planned? If that was true, it could justify bringing military support to Donbass as an incentive for the central government not to attack, but how could it ever justify invading the rest of Ukraine?!

    Russia also offered diplomatic solutions many times (since December, and in fact since 2014).

    From this article, the demands formulated by Russia amount to saying eastern european countries can’t have military alliances except with them (neocolonialism, much?). Interviewed russian foreign ministry says:

    This is not about us giving some kind of ultimatum, there is none. The thing is that the seriousness of our warning should not be underestimated

    That’s not a diplomatic solution, that’s extortion/bullying. “Do what i say, or else…” has nothing to do with diplomacy and nothing to do with the political autonomy of specific regions.

    just a few days ago Ukraine threatened to develop nuclear weapons. That was obviously a red line for Russia

    Iran did pursue to develop nuclear weapon for decades. Has that ever justified a full-scale military invasion from the USA? Oh yes, the USA fascists and hard-liners from the republicans would have loved that. Just like the various fascists, traditionalists and neo-nazis of Russia who love the flag and the military really love the idea of conquering Ukraine and reforming a Great Russia (like historical nazis liked their Great Germany). I did not think i would ever say this in my entire life, but do you realize you’re spitting propaganda from actual fascists in the name of fighting against nazism?



  • Where has the US been which provoked the war and said it “stands with Ukraine?”

    I have yet to see any evidence that western powers are in any way responsible for the war. If you consider the war is caused by the ukrainian government not respecting the Minsk agreements, then it’s an internal policy matter and i fail to understand how that implicates the USA. Moreover, from all i could see western powers (at least in open/official channels) have been preaching for de-escalation whereas Putin was openly calling/threatening for escalation.

    I hate the US and French colonial empires, but come on it’s hard to blame them when another major colonial empire invades a country (which just so happens to be its former colony). In true internationalist spirit, we should be supportive of people struggling for freedom & equality on both sides across continents and borders. Fuck nation states and military organizations, vive la commune!