Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Humanities/2021 January 5

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January 5

Ideologies or concepts comparable to Lebensraum?

Which ideologies or concepts were comparable to Lebensraum? I could think of Spazio vitale, the Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere, Manifest Destiny, Nam tien, Chuang Guandong, the Russian colonization of Siberia, and the Ostsiedlung, but what else was there? Futurist110 (talk) 07:59, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Among less well-known examples, I could also think of the Great Migrations of the Serbs, Bantu expansion, Oromo migrations, Pashtun colonization of northern Afghanistan, and Out-of-Africa. Futurist110 (talk) 08:03, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Our article Irredentism describes some related nationalistic movements, with the added element of "we've got to take back what we lost unfairly!" Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 08:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Thinking much more settler colonialism as opposed to irredentism here. Futurist110 (talk) 08:53, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Does American westward expansion qualify? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

As Jayron32 said, I already mentioned it in the form of Manifest Destiny. Futurist110 (talk) 20:09, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The OP does mention it in their list (Manifest Destiny). Controversially, some may consider Israeli settlements in the occupied territories to be similar. There's an argument to be made that the concept of a nation as a distinct and inviolate people group with an inviolate right to a specific area of land which has existed since time immemorial to be a peculiar (and yet common) trope of the modern age, but is also not one with much basis in reality. Governments certainly behave and act as though such a thing were so, however people groups, like any sociological concepts, have always been in a constant state of flux and evolution, and they lands they have occupied have always been changing and flowing and intermingling in terms of geography (and culture and biology) with other people groups. Any time spent in the social sciences, especially human geography, sociology, or anthropology would lead one away from the static world of inviolate borders where static cultures have eternal rights to areas of the earth's surface and into a more nuanced and dynamic understanding of human culture and society. --Jayron32 13:53, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Yep, Israeli settlements in the West Bank could definitely be viewed as being comparable to Lebensraum. This is especially true if they are meant to relieve overpopulation pressure on (parts of) Israel proper. Futurist110 (talk) 19:34, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I wonder if it would've been better if the actual lebensraum sufferers had a strict enforced ban on any settling whatsoever to make the terrorist orgs prove they're going to murder too many civilians whether Israel settles 1 square inch or not. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:41, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Oh, I agree--even with a complete and total settlement freeze, groups such as Hamas and Islamic Jihad might still decide to murder Israelis just like they did before. It's worth noting, though, that having Israel build settlements near its borders isn't always a bad thing--not for itself, at least. For instance, this allowed Israel to have a much larger Jewish Jerusalem metropolitan area as a result of mass settlement construction in that region. Futurist110 (talk) 20:08, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

FWIW, I actually personally lived in a East Jerusalem Israeli Jewish settlement during my own childhood--specifically in Pisgat Ze'ev--from around 1998 to March 2001, which is when we moved to the United States. It was a nice place--very large for a settlement--and of course life there would have been nice if it wasn't for the terrorism at the end of this time period, at the start of the Second Intifada. Futurist110 (talk) 21:51, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't know if crossing the line was better for Israel, Palestinians seem so obsessed with it that it may or may not have been better to just defeat the armies and say stop invading us we'll stay on our side if you stop killing us then wait however long it takes for "enough" to be killed that there's enough world sympathy to get some benefit like a security buffer of x distance past the line. That might've happened long before 2021. Intentionally (statistically) sacrificing your citizens is pretty Machiavellian though. Might even cause an alternate history that averages out to be less deaths than the real 1967-x for high x (who knows) but still. And you would have to be psychic to know in 1967 what the timeline would be if you did that and if you did what really happened. No one even knows the what really happened version of the Bank and Strip even in 2021, today's status quo could not be the final one. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:06, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

PS, of course you think there's too many excessively nationalistic Israelis. People who willingly volunteer to take the extra risk are likely to be nationalistic (though smaller more isolated settlements further from the border might have even more nationalists and fewer money savers) Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

IMHO, the best thing for Israel to do might have been to conquer all of the West Bank or at least the southern half of the West Bank back in 1948-1949 as opposed to waiting until 1967 to do this. Futurist110 (talk) 22:20, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Gaza and Golan too? Were there international laws against taking land from people who want an armistice cause they're losing? What if you keep walking to the Jordanian and Egyptian border and only shoot when being shot at but don't accept armistice or surrender offers? Was a snatching defeat from the jaws of victory ala northernmost Korean War possible? I don't know the answers. I'm now imagining a funny cartoon where a line of thousands of soldiers carries a 100 mile long rope by the belt loops and tries to take territory by pushing another line and both sides have their weapons pointed down. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:33, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

If Israel could have also conquered Gaza and Golan in that war, then why the Hell not? But I do think that the West Bank has more value due to its larger area. Plus, conquering the Golan Heights in 1967 wasn't too bad since it actually had few remaining Arabs during this time. It was the West Bank and Gaza Strip that had a lot of Arabs in 1967 after Israel conquered these territories. Futurist110 (talk) 22:59, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

So I assume there's no geopolitical or international law block to taking West Bank and Gaza and Golan in that war instead of what really happened? Weren't wars of aggression banned by that time? How far do you have to repel a war of aggression before it becomes a war of aggression when you're an official UN country with borders and they aren't and they think you're an illegal country and want to push you from the river to the sea? Only a real nationalist could complain they took too much in real life but I don't know the international law minutiae. Or if Israel would be more respected in the international community today if they had done that. It seems realistic but I don't have a crystal ball. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:55, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Israel already engaged in conquest in 1948-1949. Its borders in 1949 were significantly larger than those that the 1947 UN Palestine Partition Plan allocated for it. So, I don't think that conquering even more land would have been a particular deal-breaker for the international community back then. If there would have been mass flight of Arabs, then the entire West Bank could have been annexed; if not, then only the southern half of the West Bank, along with East Jerusalem, could have been annexed. Futurist110 (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Only a little, that amount seems very fair when they tried to push Israel to the sea the very first minute with no provocation besides being there. And maybe you're right that no one not already fighting would care enough to fight the Holocaust survivors and stuff for fractions of the Mandate if they took all parts of it they could. Without a crystal ball one can only speculate if that would've brought less turmoil in the long run. I say maybe. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:17, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Only those who support race-based colonialism and ethnic cleansing consider that view to be controversial. Of 19 (talk) 18:55, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Nobody (besides a few extremists and maybe that racist banned Kach Party) is saying that Israeli citizens who happen to be Palestinian can't stay, some people just think that the Holocaust PTSD victims and their families should get their own antisemitic-murder free zone cause the de jure sovereign gave them half (or half of half?, some say the British Mandate was originally supposed to be 1 entity to divide at the river not 2) and Jews are one of the most racially persecuted people in history, hated even by the white far-right. There are Israeli citizens who are Palestinians (people) who don't want to become Palestinian (country), there are Israeli citizens who are Palestinian who are socially liberal and wear miniskirts and have the same college scholarships they could've gotten if they were Jewish who don't want to live in the Palestinian country(ies). Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 19:35, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Just curious--do you believe that Israel has the right to criminalize apostasy if (purely hypothetically) doing this ever actually became necessary in order to preserve Israel's Jewish character? Futurist110 (talk) 20:13, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

What do you mean by criminalizing apostasy might one day be needed to preserve Jewish character? If I were Jewish I would be interested in keeping cultural traditions and learning about the religion and believe a few things i.e. "monotheism" and "blooddrinking bad" but treat the religion as merely one of my many hobbies and a fun fiction. Like how people watch movies. I would not want to pay attention to the religious rules, though I wouldn't mind following them a few holidays a year especially if family does or donning the garb and giving moderate effort to not act super-secular without being too fake to touristicate holy places to keep the Orthodox happy or things like that. If I were Arab in an Arab place I would eat so no one can tell A LOT, lol. I do not want to follow Ramadan. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:16, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Life is so long I might even read the whole Talmud before I die and I'm not Jewish, from what little I've read the combining of religion and legalism is probably more interesting than either separately. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 21:25, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I mean a hypothetical scenario where criminalizing apostasy is necessary to maintain Israel's Jewish character because a lot of Israeli Jews (purely hypothetically, in my scenario here) want to leave Judaism and join and follow other religions. Futurist110 (talk) 21:45, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

I don't think that's going to happen. If it will it'd have to be too far in the future to care about now. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 22:22, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Hypothetical scenarios don't have to be realistic. For instance, Judith Jarvis Thomson's Violinist scenario is certainly EXTREMELY unrealistic! Futurist110 (talk) 23:00, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

What religious distributions do you have in mind and why would those ones be bad for Israel? Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 23:57, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Have 15-20% of Israeli Jews convert to Christianity, another 15-20% of Israeli Jews convert to Hinduism, and another 15-20% of Israeli Jews convert to Buddhism. Futurist110 (talk) 00:54, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

That seems benign enough, just ensure the law respects minority rights as much as possible (like a right for Kosher food in school etc) Now Aztec religion, that would be a problem. Sagittarian Milky Way (talk) 01:22, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Not necessarily. Although our human nature tends to focus on the human sacrificial aspects of the complex Aztec religion when it was practiced half a millennium ago, many other religions, including the precursors to Judaism, Roman rites (though they downplayed it), and (allegedly) Druidism (latterly revived) did, or were alleged by others to, have similar practices of human and/or animal sacrifice which were subsequently modified and transformed to more benign forms.

The Aztec religion was part of a wider spectrum of Mesoamerican religion, which also included the Maya religion that is still widely followed in modernised form: I see no reason why a religion based on Aztec mythology and philosophy, modified and substituting other forms of sacrifice (personal service, donation of wealth, etc.) could not be tolerable today, and I wouldn't be at all surprised if it actually exixts on a small scale. {The poster formerly known as 87.81.230.195} 2.122.56.237 (talk) 14:38, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Nur Sultan/Nur Soltan

Is Nur Soltan wife of Meñli I Giray and Nur Sultan wife of Xälil and Ibrahim Khans the same? If so, both have different fathers mentioned. Check pages: Ghabdellatif and Meñli I Giray.

On the Kazan pages, she is of Nogai ancestry (daughter of Nogai Timur). On Crimean pages, she is (daughter of Prince Timur ibn Mansur, bey of the Manghits). Al-khataei (talk) 11:14, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The name Nursultan, and variations, appears to be common in a number of Central Asian languages and dialects. It is very likely those are two different women; indeed if they have different parentage listed on the Wikipedia pages, I would take that as evidence they are not the same woman. --Jayron32 13:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

However, the page Ghabdellatif mentions her of marrying Meñli I GirayAl-khataei (talk) 15:43, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

Al-khataei, if I'm understanding the question: Per the Xälil of Kazan article: “The young Khan [i.e., Xalil] was married to the daughter of Nogai Timur, Nur-Sultan who was from the Nogais. The marriage ended without an heir because Xälil died the following year. After his death in 1467, Nur-Sultan married Xälil's younger brother and heir Ibrahim. She gave birth to Ibrahim's sons and future Khans: Möxämmädämin and Ghabdellatif. After Ibrahim died in 1479, Nur-Sultan married the Crimean Khan Meñli I Giray, her third husband.” (no citation given).

Per the Meñli I Giray article: “Meñli's wives were: (1) Nur Sultan, daughter of Prince Timur ibn Mansur, bey of the Manghits” (cited to Ilya V. Zaytsev, The Structure of the Giray Dynasty (15th-16th centuries): Matrimonial and Kinship Relations of the Crimean Khans in Elena Vladimirovna Boĭkova, R. B. Rybakov (ed.), Kinship in the Altaic World: Proceedings of the 48th Permanent International Altaistic Conference, Moscow 10–15 July 2005, p.341-2).

Therefore we're comparing an uncited assertion that Nur Sultan’s father was Nogai Timur, versus a cited assertion that her father was Timur Ibn Mansur, bey of the Manghits. Per the Manghud article, Nogai and Manghit refer to the same nation, so one possibility is that we are just looking at two different ways of expressing the name of Nur Sultan's father Timur. But in conclusion, more references are what you need to decide? 70.67.193.176 (talk) 16:46, 5 January 2021 (UTC)

The article Meñli I Giray gives the name of his wife as "Nur Sultan"; the article Xälil of Kazan mentions that his spouse Nur Sultan, after his and his brother Ibrahim of Kazan's deaths, married Meñli I Giray. Thus, there can be little doubt that this is the same person. In the appellation "Nogai Timur" used on page Xälil of Kazan, I think that "Nogai" is not part of the name, but merely an ethnic indication: Timur, the Nogai khan. I have no reason to think that this is meant to refer to another individual than Timur, son of Mansur, the Mangıt bey, but I can find no clear information on any Nogai or Mangıt rulers named Timur or Mansur in the relevant time period.  --Lambiam 08:13, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Manghud mentions Timur Malik, but he's 200 years older than the time period we're talking about. Nogai Horde mentions a Timur Khan Nogay, though there's no article about him, he is of the right age. He's not mentioned at Taimur (disambiguation) which seems to have articles on several other people with the name, though none of the correct time period. The one at Nogai Horde is possibly the right person, but I can't find much more. --Jayron32 17:50, 6 January 2021 (UTC)

Yeah, me neither :( All I got was an online source that discusses the offline Zaytsev source mentioned above: “Nur Sultan was the daughter of the bey of the Manghits affiliated with the Great Horde” [1], and a second source confirming Nur Sultan who married Mengli was the widow of Ibrahim [2]. 70.67.193.176 (talk) 18:07, 7 January 2021 (UTC)