It is complex and yet it isn’t. There are understandable psychological and historical causes for the current state. It is not black and white. But nothing is. We just want to make things to fit nice boxes.

If you want to understand it, you need to understand radicalization and how it applies to MENA including Israel. Actions do not come from the vacuum and people are messy. Every person has an agenda.

At the same time, in this specific situation, there are what according to well-established parameters amount to war crimes and crimes against humanity. While there is terrorism committed by Palestinian groups, these crimes are largely committed by Israel. It might be that if the power imbalance were a little less we would see similar actions from the Palestinian state. But it is not.

Just in the last week, we have seen apartheid, ethnic cleansing, what could be genocide, collective punishment, embargo and cutting vital supplies to the area you are occupying. This list is not exhaustive. This is univocally wrong.

The most complex part is not understanding it. The most complex part is solving it.

While Israel is part of the cause of Islamic terrorism in Europe, I think we should not pat too much on our backs. Yes, our countries’ positions taking sides on Israel is problematic as hell and so is us being tied to the US in the minds of many people outside Europe. But so is our own Islamophobia. I get where it comes from, but othering and sidelining people will lead to further radicalization. Which for people whose Islamophobia is rooted in current oppression in many Islamic societies, is entirely opposite of what they want.

Which was influenced largely by the antisemitism of the West and the rise of Zionism for Jewish people which is partly radicalization as a response to thousands of years of oppression. But Brits were still in power with colonialism in full force.

There are two types of people you can donate to. Many instances have a way to donate to them to upkeep and upgrade costs. Then you can donate also for development of the project here https://join-lemmy.org/donate

And criminalization of civil society is in general thriving in many European countries including France.

I might have to print it and put it on a lanyard. Or it sometimes feels like that.

The good thing for him is that he was so young when he was diagnosed that he probably doesn’t know anything else. Saying this from personal experience as I was diagnosed at 14 months in mid 80s. Of course, something like this would be amazing as I can’t tolerate even small amounts of accidental gluten but as I don’t know anything else I can’t even imagine anything else.

I also have really complicated relationship with hope. Mainly, I try not to hope as my body seems to be insanely problematic. I am disabled with multiple autoimmune diseases and genetic syndrome. While objectively I find the advancement in treatment interesting and amazing, I personally try not to hope. It is absolutely exhausting to get your hopes up only for the other shoe to drop.

I am 86 baby and you are one of the only very few people born in 80s or earlier that had really early adoption to computers in addition to me. I could use MS-DOS before I could write anything else as I also had had computer available since pretty much birth also because of my dads job.

Living next to Russia has never been easy. Living between Russia and Western powers has been worse. I’m Finnish and while we have not really seen ourselves as Eastern Europeans for a long time, we are. Just got lucky past century.

I think the beauty of Fediverse is that the majority of people can find pretty amazing instances for themselves. I could say the same of mine.

History fits the majority of Eastern European countries but yes as said they are Estonian. Actually, now that I think about it can’t really think of any Eastern European countries that it doesn’t fit at all.

Just be warned Moomins are a gateway to communism (Weird internet theory). Or at least to more Moomins. We literally have Moomin everything here.

Thank you! This really does point me in the right direction.

And as an aside, I absolutely love how welcoming the open source community is.

My personal favourites from Finnish.

“Ei ole kaikki muumit Muumilaaksossa” “Not having all the Moomins in Moomin Valley” Used for people who are either stupid or lack sanity. There are other variants of this and Moomin one is not older than a couple of decades.

I find our version of Grammar Nazi pretty great. We call them comma fuckers.

“Ei voi kauhalla ottaa jos on lusikalla annettu” “You can’t take with a ladle if it was given with a spoon”. This refers also to a lack of something, usually a lack of intelligence or sense.

Hmm. I have been moving towards more and more open source. But my ability to code is very limited. Is there any kind of guide on how to get involved when you can’t code?

Islam as religious text basis doesn’t really differ in a bad way from the other two Abrahamic religions. It even gives some extra rights to women that Christianity and Judaism don’t. Forcing hijab on women is also expressively banned in Islamic theological texts. Doesn’t change how it works in practice as forced hijab is pretty common in fundamentalistic Islamic theocracies. But might explain why converting is a little bit less insane than at the surface level. If I had to choose one of the Abrahamic religions on a purely theological basis I might end up choosing Islam. Please note, I am not trying to give a pass to Islam, Islamic countries or especially fundamentalist Muslims. The issues are myriad. People outside Islamic countries just have a somewhat skewed image of the religion. Both in theory and practice.

Coming from the non-profit world, it is never that easy. Even when there is no one officially making any money, there are people who will see it as a way to make some bank. There is also a drawback in that not making money can and will affect the amount of time people can put in unless there is a fair way to get them compensation. Volunteering also brings a huge amount of interpersonal and inter-organizational drama. That is why grassroots organizations and movements have a habit of fracturing into smaller groups.

At the same time, there is power in goodwill and being non-profit. You just really need to be careful in vetting your instance and keep an eye on issues in a way people not used to this type of world are not familiar with.

But I wouldn’t be here if I didn’t have a belief that it could be successful enough as a community. I also wouldn’t have been working in the NGO world for the past decade if I didn’t believe in that. But let’s not have too rosy glasses on. Growing slowly will also give this community a chance to work out the kinks and not die in a blaze of fire.

I don’t think that is an old person trait. You are just secretly Nordic.