Right, now I'm not South African so I can't speak to that angle of what he's writing. I can speak to the angle of Jews in post-WW2 Europe. Mamdani's thesis here has the problem of rather dramatically, in fact insultingly, ignoring the most basic fact: almost nobody in the displaced-persons camps for Jews after the war wanted to go back into post-war European societies, and most of those who tried were murdered or faced state repression (eg: from the Soviet Union) for their trouble. After surviving the Holocaust and/or the war, everyone was much more interested in getting the hell away from people they perceived as their murderers than in a theoretical project of "denationalization" that wouldn't be invented for several decades more anyway.
> After the war, the Allies engaged in many atrocities similar to those the Germans had ... Germans were loaded onto the same cattle cars the Nazis used to transport Jews to concentration, labor, and death camps ... Some half a million Germans died amid the ethnic cleansing.
And this is, de facto, Nazi apologia on Mamdani's part, because he willfully refuses to see significant differences between alternative regimes within the paradigm of the nation-state, as against the post-national ideal he wants to realize in post-colonial Uganda (but which, of course, post-colonial Uganda has never actually implemented).
>It requires that we stop accepting that our differences should define who benefits from the state and who is marginalized by it.
I would also say Mamdani is an entire paradigm behind the times here. Whether you define it via educational credentials, income, or relation to the means of production, politics has been repolarizing around class, not identitarian belonging. "Who benefits from the state" is a deepity concealing Mamdani's social-democratic imaginary in which nation-states rule nations, rather than network-states administrating international markets in labor, capital, and goods.
I doubt you are given you put the interests of a hostile foreign nation actively committing a genocide, above American values. So sit down and shut up. We don't take lectures from foreign spies with iron clad loyalty to a foreign nation. We used to throw people like you in jail for committing treason. I guess with AIPAC around, Eli ad his con men get away with it, and instead of hiding, they tell you who they are.
Hey, it's not OK to comment like this on HN, not matter how upsetting the topic is to you. The guidelines [1] make it clear this is not acceptable.
These lines in particular are relevant:
Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.
Comments should get more thoughtful and substantive, not less, as a topic gets more divisive.
When disagreeing, please reply to the argument instead of calling names. "That is idiotic; 1 + 1 is 2, not 3" can be shortened to "1 + 1 is 2, not 3."
Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer, including at the rest of the community.
Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.
Please don't use Hacker News for political or ideological battle. It tramples curiosity.
Please don't post insinuations about astroturfing, shilling, brigading, foreign agents, and the like. It degrades discussion and is usually mistaken. If you're worried about abuse, email hn@ycombinator.com and we'll look at the data.
Further, Dan posted a message [2] at the very top of the thread asking everyone to avoid commenting in this style. This kind of comment was against the guidelines and against Dan's plea right from the very beginning. Now that the thread is seven days old, it's well past time to stop.
> After the war, the Allies engaged in many atrocities similar to those the Germans had ... Germans were loaded onto the same cattle cars the Nazis used to transport Jews to concentration, labor, and death camps ... Some half a million Germans died amid the ethnic cleansing.
And this is, de facto, Nazi apologia on Mamdani's part, because he willfully refuses to see significant differences between alternative regimes within the paradigm of the nation-state, as against the post-national ideal he wants to realize in post-colonial Uganda (but which, of course, post-colonial Uganda has never actually implemented).
>It requires that we stop accepting that our differences should define who benefits from the state and who is marginalized by it.
I would also say Mamdani is an entire paradigm behind the times here. Whether you define it via educational credentials, income, or relation to the means of production, politics has been repolarizing around class, not identitarian belonging. "Who benefits from the state" is a deepity concealing Mamdani's social-democratic imaginary in which nation-states rule nations, rather than network-states administrating international markets in labor, capital, and goods.