Indo-European languages & Europe

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Popularity: 32% [?]

The progress of the ’star wars’ (AKA missile shield) affair, which Russia seemed willing to aggravate by talking about plans to station missiles in Kaliningrad, without any concerns whatsoever for the welfare of Kaliningraders and Europeans, should make the European Union reexamine its current policy under the Kaliningrad Strategy, of collaborating with Russia by facilitating the transit of goods and persons and helping its socio-economic development.

Instead of just hearing what Russians have to claim before the international community, the EU should ask the international community by which right keeps the Russian Federation hold on Königsberg territory, and should demand from Russia a date for devolution, no matter how hard Russian media propaganda tries to avoid the question:

Although disputes over the status of Russia’s westernmost exclave of Kaliningrad have practically ceased, this should be regarded as a signal that all the parties concerned are aware of the serious repercussions that instability in that region could cause.

Geopolitical Stability has been by far the most repeated pro-Russian argument since the 90’s, also in official European Union forums (see Freedom to Kaliningrad thread); it is easily summed up into a “let’s maintain the statu quo to avoid destabilizing the region”. The murmuring of those plans to use Kaliningrad as missile base made by Russian military officials to the press, to escalate tensions in the missile shield affair, has shown how the Russian Federation respects the will of Europeans for stability in the region. Not to talk about Russia’s lack of respect for the lives of thousands of European citizens in this winter’s gas disputes, or its lack of respect for Estonian democratic decisions, or its support for the authoritarian Belarusian regime of Lukashenko…

Other great arguments made by pro-Russians include “Nazi Germany”, “World War II” and “Mother Russia”, and are easily read elsewhere in Russian media and blogs when the Kaliningrad question is mentioned. Nevertheless, most Kaliningraders – whether ethnic Russians or not – show often an open mind about the return options. And even official Russian media like Russia Today recognize still in 2009 (only in English texts for outsiders) the Lithuanian claims to the territory and its return; East German rights are still taboo in Russian ‘free’ media, while Polish claims are probably too weak to be worth mentioning:

The region became an administrative unit of Russia [sic] in 1946 after the Potsdam conference and the partition of Germany. Although it solidified as an administrative entity, with the collapse of the Soviet Union, the issue of reassimilating the Kaliningrad region into its historic entity of Lithuania arose.

According to a thorough study on the question (The Kaliningrad Challenge, 2003) Russia has been always concerned about the risk of separatism in Kaliningrad, which might be greater than expected if the European Report The EU and Kaliningrad (2002) is correct in assessing that Kaliningrad’s level of development is closer to Lithuania and Latvia than previously thought. In that sense, ethnic Russian Kaliningraders see Kaliningrad in the future as another Baltic Republic, either still somehow federated to Russia with great autonomy or fully independent. Moreover,

There are opinion polls – now more frequently held within blogs and forums – which show that Kaliningraders occasionally imagine their future not so much as a fourth Baltic Republic, but as part of a return to Germany

As it has been already argued on the situation of Königsberg/Kaliningrad region and the Northern Territories/Southern Kuril Islands under international law:

In a similar way, the Soviets also refused to discuss the final peace settlement in Europe after the Second World War. It is important to emphasize that neither the United States nor Britain agreed at Potsdam or anywhere else to the transfer of East Prussia or part of the Königsberg Region to the Soviet Union. Thus, although the Kaliningrad Region is currently administered by Russia, it is not a legal part of Russia.

Stalin was seeking a deal on East Prussia at the Tehran conference in 1943, drawing a line in red pencil on the map “to illustrate the fact that, if part of eastern Prussia, including the ports of Könisberg and Tilsit, were given to the Soviet Union, he would be prepared to accept the Curzon line [...] as the frontier between the Soviet Union and Poland.”

This line goes roughly along the current border between the Kaliningrad Region and Poland, but Stalin’s red line on the map went virtually through the cities of Königsberg and Insterburg (see the Map). Charles E. Bolen, the interpreter for the American delegation, says in his memoirs that during their discussion, Stalin and Churchill virtually agreed on the future borders of Poland, but the official American record of the conversation says that “although nothing was stated, it was apparent that the British were going to take this suggestion back to London to the Poles.”

On February 11, 1945, at the Crimea (Yalta) Conference, the Big Three agreed on the Curzon Line as the boundary between Poland and the USSR. However, the archival material clearly shows that there had not been any legally binding agreement made between the allies about the transfer of the Königsberg Region to the Soviet Union at any of the Second World War conferences. This is why Stalin attempted to secure his gains at the Potsdam conference in Berlin, which took place from July 17 to August 2, 1945.

After the end of the Second World War, the Kaliningrad question began by Stalin’s personal will of revenge against Germany:

Königsberg was neither appended outright to the Soviet Union nor was it to be considered part of the Soviet zone of occupation, which had been outlined earlier in the agreement.

[The Soviet Union] acted decisively to completely eradicate the German presence in Königsberg and replace it with Soviet presence. This began even before the end of hostilities with the Reich:

Königsberg was destroyed in the last weeks of the war when there was no real reason to assault it. When the soldiers of the Byelorussian front were dying in its streets in the first week of April, 1945, the rest of the Red Army was already besieging Berlin. Seven centuries of history went up in smoke in one week of shelling and bombing. By then, the decision to annihilate East Prussia and grant Königsberg to the Soviet Union had already been taken, so the reason for its destruction remains a mystery. Did Stalin take the decision in a fit of war revenge? Did he think that the setting of an ancient bourgeois city would hamper the development of the new Soviet city he wanted to build in its place? Or did he fear that, unless turned into a pile of ruins, Königsberg might not be conceded to him by the Allies after all? Pictures and models in the bunker-cum-museum where the capitulation of the city was signed are revealing. Most of the destruction was done after-wards, when the victors took to the task of building a new city on the ruins of the old…

While the destruction of the city’s infrastructure was underway, an equally brutal purge of its population through gang rapes and indiscriminate crimes was carried out:

The demography of that part of Lithuania Minor which is under direct Soviet administration, the “Oblast,” has changed in the most radical way in all its history. The original population of the area — German as well as Lithuanian — has disappeared completely. Many had fled before the Soviet armed forces invaded the area in 1945; those who remained — several hundred thousand — either perished from hunger or disease or were deported to Siberia; the others were expelled to Germany in 1949. They all — about 1,200,000 before World War II — were replaced by about 600,000 settlers from the northern and central parts of Russia. The administration and economy of the “Oblast” has been reorganized to conform with Soviet models and practices. It has been fortified to serve the strategic aims of the Soviet Union.

Modern Claims in Europe

After the fall of the Soviet Union, there were 4 main alternatives for the future of Kaliningrad, following Raymond A. Smith’s article The Status of The Kaliningrad Oblast Under International Law (1992), which argues in favour of the Lithuanian claim, but which also addresses some historical and political questions:

From the historical [point of view] sovereignty over the territory of the Kaliningrad Oblast passed over the course of centuries from the the indigenous Old Prussian population, to the Teutonic Order, to the Kingdom of Poland, to the Kingdom of Prussia (later the German Empire) and finally, perhaps, to the USSR/RSFSR. It is not surprising, then, to find that each of these entities (with the exception, of course, of the Teutonic Order) has a conceivable claim to this territory. This section examines the legal basis, or lack thereof, of the actual or potential claim of each entity, as well as the potential claim of the indigenous population.

• The German Claim: Some Germans challenge the validity of both the Final Settlement and the original “dismemberment” of the German Reich.
  Their arguments are complex but can be reduced in essence to two claims:
  1. the Allies had no power to allow German territory to be annexed by other countries
  2. the West Germany and even the modern Federal Republic of Germany are not coextensive with the German Reich and are therefore not competent to speak for it in its entirety

  The first proposition is supported by numerous charges: that the guarantees of self-determination in the Atlantic Charter, the UN Charter, and the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties were ignored; that the Ancient Roman principle of ex injuria non oritur jus prohibits punishing Germany by unilateral confiscation of its territory; that the powers of the Allies as occupiers were strictly curtailed by the Hague Laws of War of 1907; that use of German lands as “compensation” to Poland for lands lost to the Soviet Union has no basis in international law; and many others.

• The Russian Claim: As the historical overview recounted, the working premise of the Potsdam Conference was that the Soviets would receive the Oblast at the final peace conference. The Allies specifically committed themselves to supporting the Soviet claim in the Final Settlement, but when that settlement was finally signed in 1990, specific title was not transferred. Why the Final Settlement did not include a specific statement of transfer is unclear. The seemingly most probable reason is that the transfer of Kaliningrad to the Soviet Union is considered a fait accompli and that the legal niceties of including a specific mention of transfer were outweighed by potential political embarassment such a mention might have caused the Kohl government. Such a position assumes that the tranfer has already taken place, an assertion which rests on shaky ground.

  Similarly, the Act of Military Surrender specifically indicates that the occupation itself did not effect the annexation of Germany. Thus, although Germany surrendered unconditionally, none of its territories were automatically annexed to any other state. Such annexation would have to be made explicit in a legally binding document. Only “administration” was established by the Potsdam Agreement, however, and “administration” is definitely not the same as “annexation” under international law.

  Rather than present arguments based on international law, Stalin advanced the law of revenge. ‘The Russians had suffered so much and lost so much blood, they were anxious to have some small satisfaction to [sic] tens of millions of their inhabitants who had suffered in the war,” Stalin said at Potsdam.

  In the absence of ethnic and historical claims to shore up their questionable legal claim, then, the only argument which the Soviet Union can depend upon is the principle of prescriptive claim. This principle transfers title to land when a country has held it for a long period of time without protest by the land’s original owners or by the international community at large. No specific time frame is suggested for the acquisition of prescriptive claim. Grotius suggested 100 years, a figure which the Permanent Court of International Justice endorsed in 1933. The International Court of Justice, on the other hand, said that fifty years had been long enough for a boundary between Venezuela and British Guiana to have legal effect.

• The Polish Claim: Poland has no ethnic claim to the Oblast. Although the southern half of East Prussia was occupied mainly by Polish Masurians, they had almost no presence in the northern part.

  Poland’s historic claim is only marginally stronger. For some two centuries, Prussia was a fief of the Polish King, but during that period the area remained firmly under German control. In any case, title was decisively transferred by the Treaty of Wehlau in 1657. During World War II many Poles operated under the belief that all of East Prussia would become theirs, but they were never legally promised the territory in its entirety.

• Lithuanian Claim: The claim of the Lithuanian state could rely upon both ethnic and historical grounds.
  1. The Lithuanians may argue that
     the first peoples to hold sovereignty over the region were ethnic Lithuanians and closely related Old Prussians, and
  2. the pre-1945 population outside the cities of the Oblast was largely of Lithuanian origin. If the status of the Oblast were to be altered in the future, then, the Lithuanian state could have a strong argument for assimilating this remainder of Lithuania Minor.

  The idea of unifying the Oblast with the rest of Lithuania has strong historical precedents. Lithuanian assemblies met in Chicago and New York in 1914, The Hague in 1916 and Berne in 1917 to demand an independent Lithuania including all of Lithuania Minor. An assembly in Vilnius in 1917 restated the problem to define the new Lithuania within its “ethnographic borders,” a concept endorsed by a later assembly in Voronezh the same year.
  Finally, on November 30, 1918, the National Council of Prussian Lithuania issued the Declaration of Tilsit:

  Taking into account that everything that exists has a right to continue existing and that we, Lithuanians who live here in Prussian Lithuania, are the majority of the population of this land, we demand, on the basis of Wilson’s right of national self-determination, that Lithuania Minor be joined to Lithuania Major

  The clearest catch here is that any annexation of the Oblast by Lithuania might hinge upon the democratic decision of an indigenous Lithuanian majority to authorize such an annexation. And, as we have seen, virtually none of the indigenous Lithuanian population remains in the Oblast, having fled or been killed or exiled after World War II. This raises the final claim to be discussed — that of the indigenous population.

• The Claim of the Native Population: The right to national self-determination is one of the main cornerstones of the contemporary international legal order. Eight of Wilson’s Fourteen Points refer to such concerns. The Atlantic Charter’s third and fourth principles call for self-determination in matters of both boundaries and choice of government. The Charter of the United Nations calls for colonial powers to foster self-determination in “non-self governing territories”. That right might be interpreted as concerning:
  1. The Oblast’s postwar ethnic Russian settlers – as opposed to central Soviet or Russian authorities.
  2. the traditional population which was decimated or expelled en masse after World War II, which is defended on the grounds that forcible deportations of native populations is clearly in violation of international law – native Königsbergers expelled after World War II, then, have a right under international law to choose to return to their native land.

  On that question, there is the precedent of United Nations action regarding the settlement of Gibraltar:

  As in the case of the Oblast, the key issue was whether the rightful native population of the Rock should be considered to be the contemporary residents or an earlier population who had been compelled to depart in 1704. The British argued that over the centuries since 1704 a permanent and authentic population had been developed on the Rock, which now had the right to determine their own fate. The Spanish countered that the post-1704 population were “pseudo-Gibraltarians” and that the rightful rulers of Gibraltar Rock were the descendants of Spaniards who had resettled, for the most part, in the nearby city of San Roque.

  Under pressure from the United Nations to end its colonial occupation of Gibraltar and in an attempt to settle the status of the Rock once and for all, the British government conducted a plebiscite in 1967. The choices were stark — full political affiliation with either Great Britain or with Spain — and the result was unequivocal: 12,138 to 44 in favor of Great Britain. Nonetheless, the U.N. General Assembly once again condemned British occupation of Gibraltar, this time in the strongest language yet. It, in essence, declared the plebiscite null, accused the British of resisting decolonization, and called once again for immediate negotiations between Great Britain and Spain for a transfer of sovereignty.

  Whatever the merits of the Gibraltar case, the precedent for the Oblast is clear. If the rights of native populations can stretch back to 1704, then surely the postwar expellees from the Oblast would have an unambiguous right to return to their homeland and choose its political fate — be that choice in-dependence or association with another state. The current population of the Oblast would presumably have no say in the territory’s political future.

  The key difference between Gibraltar and the Oblast is that in the former case, there actually is a population in San Roque able and willing to resettle the Rock. No analagous “population-in-exile” exists in the case of the Oblast. Rather, much of the population of Königsberg was killed or died in exile. Those who were deported to Germany (and their descendants) in all likelihood now enjoy a standard of living which is, at least quantitatively, many times better than any which would be possible in the backward conditions of the Oblast. Further, most — although far from all — Germans seem to have accepted the loss of the prewar lands; the idea of reclaiming part of East Prussia would not necessarily resonate with much of the population. It seems extremely unlikely, then, that more than a handful of such native German Königsbergers would wish to uproot and resettle in the Oblast.

Even with German and Lithuanian strong claims about the Soviet colony of Königsberg opposing the legality of Stalin’s annexation, Russia did in the 90’s what it was used to in such cases when the Soviet Union was still a Great Power: they took the easy way, and annexed the territory to Russia, expecting the international community to accept it. Which is nice, because the EU as a Great Power will therefore be entitled to follow the same principle in the future…

In my personal opinion, the European Union faces today 3 alternatives, given Russia’s will to retain Stalin’s European exclave no matter how illegal or illegitimate it is from an international point of view:

1. Support modern Kaliningraders in their demands of greater autonomy within the Russian Federation – and maybe a future separation from it -, which is the fairest position under modern international law, which demands non-belligerant positions (against Russia in this case) and respect for human rights – Russian settlers and their families. This is certainly the option of most Kaliningraders of Russian ethnicity, as well as most EU-politicians.
2. Support Germany’s or Lithuania’s claims (or both), seeking to integrate Kaliningrad within the European Union, maybe as a sort of a Baltic territory co-administered by both Germany and Lithuania, financing the return of (families of) expellees to Königsberg, and the return of (willing) families of Russian settlers to Russia. This is the option preferred by many Germans and (I guess) most Lithuanians.
3. Support the creation of a modern Baltic Prussian State (Prusa), which could help unite the Pro-Baltic (and Pro-European) attitude of Russian Kaliningraders, the will of native peoples and their families to return to East Prussia, as well as claims of EU member states to integrate Königsberg in Europe, by embracing Old Prussian history of the territory and its peoples. Modern organizations supporting the revival of the Old Prussian language would probably support its revitalization in Königsberg include the future Research Institute of Prussology and the Prussian language organization in Poland.

The third is my preferred option, not because I am some kind of language revival freak (what I possibly am, given that I also support Old Prussian language revival), but because what many (want to) regard simply as ethnic German and ethnic Lithuanian inhabitants of East Prussia in 1945 were in fact descendants of Old Prussians who had lost their language in favour of either German or Lithuanian languages, depending on the territories they dwelled when they ceased to speak Prussian. Given that historical, cultural and linguistic background of the Königsberg (or East Prussian) territory, the European Union should take action supporting the return of those expelled peoples and their families to their ancient territory, which they were forced to leave half a century ago.

There is therefore no need to support the adscription of East Prussia to modern countries or peoples, be it Russia, Germany, Poland or Lithuania. And the only alternative to modern peoples, cultures and states is to support a linguistic and cultural revival of a Prussian people and language that should have never disappeared.

Popularity: 50% [?]

Spanish President (i.e. Prime Minister) José Luís Rodríguez Zapatero promised he will personally support Turkey’s accesion to the European Union for 2010, because – he says – “that great country has been waiting for too long at the doors of Europe”. That is probably a follow-up of his concept of the Alliance of Civilizations, which was created within the UN thanks to his personal promotion, mainly with the support from Turkey’s Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Common criticism to Turkey’s membership by Europeans include:

1. Turkey is not in Europe, and the European Union should only accept European countries.

• It depends on the concept of the European continent. But Europe is a geopolitical concept, just like North America – it began as a regional concept (modern Greece) different from Asia (modern Anatolia), and has been extended to include from Portugal to the Ural Mountains and the Caucasus. Today it is clear that the geographical continent is Eurasia (Europe+Asia), or even Afro-Eurasia, like North and South America are in fact part of a common America.
• It also depends on what you define as “being in”. A part of Turkey (region of Marmara, including Istambul) is in Europe, although its largest territory lies in Asia. Russia is in a similar situation, but few people would doubt its classification as a European country. Spain has territory outside Europe (like Ceuta and Melilla and the Canary Islands, all in Africa), and so do the UK and France.
• The whole territory of another member state, Cyprus, is in Asia. Also, the western islands (like Great Britain, Ireland, Azores and Iceland) are separated from continental Europe, but still included in the political concept of Europe.

2. Turkey is a Muslim country, and the European Union should only accept Christian countries

• Turkey is defined as a secular, constitutional republic. Unlike most Europen countries, which lay the foundations of their modern laicism on liberal efforts, in Turkey it’s conservatives who defend a laicist country since Atatürk.
• Turkey is a Muslim-majority country. Just like Bosnia or Albania. But, unlike Turkey, they do not define their countries as secular. And, unlike Turkey, they could probably enter the EU without problems, if their economy and politics where equivalent to Turkey’s.

3. Turkey has a Turkic (for some “Arab”) culture and population, and the European Union should only accept European peoples (AKA Indo-Uralic and Basque)

• Hispania (Portugal and Spain) had a history of successful invasions by Celtic tribes, Romans, Visigothes and then Muslim Berbers and Arabs. Only after 1500 could the Iberian Peninsula be called a mainly Indo-European, Christian territory. Did those wars and invasions fully change the real population that dwelled the land? Modern culture and social beliefs might answer yes. History and archaeogenetics say no. The same happens with Turkey. In other words: are Turks mostly descendants from Turkic peoples? Probably not more than modern Spaniards are mostly descendants from Arabs…
• Also, Malta, a member state of the European Union since 2004, was invaded by Arabs and its modern language is an Arab dialect.

4. Most Turks are Eurosceptics, they don’t really want to be in the European Union. Turkey will be another UK, hindering our common development as a stronger European Federation.

• Turkey has made a great effort since 1959 to enter the EU. The majority of Turks have demonstrated more than once their will to become members of the EU.
• Even if Turkey was a future Eurosceptic country that could try to stop the development of the EU into a stronger Federation, the EU has already developed a concept called multi-speed Europe, so that a core European Union can develop its own economic and international policies as a common State (Euro, security, etc.) while others – like the UK – can stay aside in a simple European customs union. Also, the Czech Republic entered the EU to be one of the strongest Eurosceptics, and there wasn’t a strong opposition against its membership then.

5. Turkey is too big in terms of population and could destabilize the whole European Union political, social, economic systems, as well as its international relations.

• Turkey has 71 million inhabitants. With the preference that the European Union democracy gives to small states over populated ones (and the EU Constitution as the Treaty of Lisbon will reinforce that if approved), the 2004 enlargement of ten countries bringing 75 million people plus the 29 million people from Romania and Bulgaria in 2007 wouldn’t have been made. Also, since the accession of those countries, the EU has a population of 500 million people, and 70 million more are 14% more, while the accession of the 12 member states in 2004 and 2007 meant an increase in the EU population of 26%. That means that the possible destabilization of the EU by the accession of Turkey is now (and probably then) less risky than the accession of the Eastern Bloc.
• Turkey’s geostrategical situation and strong Armed Forces could help the European Union become an international actor in world conflicts, including the Middle East and South Asia. Nowadays, like the invasion of Iraq demonstrated, Europe is just a handful of countries either with or against the US, without a real independent policy of its own.

6. Turkey doesn’t respect Kurdish rights, like language, politics, etc. Greek and Armenian minorities were expelled and their rights should be restored before entering the EU.

• Linguistic rights of minorities aren’t recognized in almost any European Union member state. Apart from linguistically divided countries like Belgium, only Sweden and to some extent Spain, Portugal and Great Britain have given a legal framework for minority languages. Italy and France are obviously not far better off than Turkey in that respect, especially after the introduction of a greater degree of official tolerance for Kurdish cultural activities in 1999, encouraged by the European Union.
• Political rights for Kurdish political parties might be compared to Spain’s declaration of illegality of Batasuna, the political arm of Basque terrorist organization ETA. The violation of human rights in Turkey are comparable to the situation in Northern Ireland in the 60’s and 70’s, to Spain’s violation of human rights during and after the transición (1973-1981), of the German Democratic Republic in the 80’s, etc.
• Greek and Armenian populations have been displaced and genocides have been committed in Turkey. But still more recent are other European displaced peoples (Jews, Gipsies, Poles, Germans) and wars (2nd World War, Spanish Civil War, Soviet repression in Eastern Europe) in EU member states.

7. Turkey has a long-lasting conflict with Greece, a member state, and therefore it is illogical to let two traditionally enemy nations enter the Union.

• The European Union was created by states who had fought against each other in the Second World War. One of the aims of the European Communities was to promote cooperation and peace in Europe.
• Many European countries have historical and territorial disputes unsolved, and are still part of the EU. So for example Spain with Great Britain over Gibraltar; Portugal with Spain over Olivenza; Germany, Austria and Hungary with the Czech Republic over the Benes decrees, still in force; etc.

I promised arguments against, and I’ve already written them down:

Turkey is geopolitically, culturally and historically Asian; the majority of its population is Muslim; it has a Turkic and Arab tradition; a lot of Turks are eurosceptics; it is too big in terms of population and could destabilize the rest of the EU economically, politically and socially; it doesn’t respect human rights as the rest of European countries; and it has a long-lasting conflict with Greece and Cyprus.

Separated, all those reasons against accession could be accepted. But with such a combination of them, it will be difficult to obtain the necessary support from member states, because opponents will always have strong reasons to reject it…

Popularity: 45% [?]

Apparently Darwin’s anniversary is giving more fuel to the Brights & co. to ignite still more flames, like the latest digged (and meneado) “Atheism Is Not Arrogant“. Here is a quick criticism of that concept of “Atheism” from a non-atheist and non-religious point of view:

• As a statement of non-belief, ‘atheism’ is not inherently arrogant

  That is true for Atheism “as a statement of non-belief”. However, Atheism – even if defined differently in all languages -, conveys a general meaning (see Wikipedia) of either:

  1. The affirmation of the nonexistence of a god or gods;
  2. or the rejection of theism.

  It is also defined more broadly by some as an absence of belief in deities, which is actually “weak atheism“, or nontheism. Hence the atheist often asserts (i.e. believes in) the nonexistence of god and rejects theism, which is different from disbelieving, and probably an “inherently arrogant” position, like asserting any other unproven belief. The answer of believers (atheists and theists alike) that “they (not us) have to prove [X] beyond doubt, and they can’t” is untenable in questions that can be neither proven nor refuted.
  X being e.g. the (non)existence of god, afterlife, or the divine origin of universe, regarding the different concepts of ‘god’, ‘afterlife’ or ‘divine’.

• Where atheism becomes misconstrued lies in what believers feel it asserts. Many individuals, who do not understand the terminology, (while working within the parameters of absolutism from their own worldview) inappropriately interpret the word to make an absolute claim on the existence of god.This understanding is a misnomer; merely the term states, “I do not believe”

  As we have already seen, the misconstruction of atheism as a concept is actually made by strong atheists, who try to disguise their antireligion or antitheist positions as a more neutral “nontheism”. In its origin, “a-theos” (Gk. non-god) might have meant just “non-theism”, i.e. modern weak atheism. Today, however, the anticlerical, antireligious or antitheist trend of most atheists have driven the meaning of Atheism and Atheist to its current general meaning in English and most languages.

• Often when a disbelief in deities is attested, the faithful believer will assert that it is arrogant for anyone to claim an absence of god

  That’s true. Often, also, when a belief in deities is attested, the faithful atheist will assert that it is arrogant for anyone to claim the existence of god. See an example in the same post of that Atheist who describes Atheism as nontheism and shows a clear antitheism:

  Many times it is the faithful who are arrogant in this manner, insisting their holy book is ‘Truth’, sometimes to the extent of attempting to silence opposing views. Is it not infinitely more arrogant to declare heresy, blasphemy and apostasy on those who use evidence to shape their understanding of reality? A reaction such as this displays an uncomfortableness with having one’s beliefs challenged and thereby inferring a feeling of infallibility on part of the believer.

  About that quote, I think some people don’t really look around in their social networks (Digg, Menéame and the like) and don’t read others’ posts and comments. I live in a “normal” community (whatever that means abroad) and people around me are atheists, agnostics or religious alike, and most are scientific people (medical doctors, biologists, engineers, etc.) without professional differences between them related to personal beliefs. However, anyone of them who dares to show his faith publicly is quickly the objective (in the Net) of the Flying Spaghetti Monster joke, and his belief is enough for many to think (and assert as true) that he cannot be a man of science. That is the real contemporary feeling of “infallibility on part of the believer”; of the believer in the nonexistence of god, of course, atheists who believe that just because they reject religious beliefs they are better scientists, or that they are able to classify scientists (or their intelligence!) according to their beliefs. The modern Inquisición is a mob rule disguised as rational, heroic ’science’ fighters.

• Where atheism becomes misconstrued lies in what believers feel it asserts. Many individuals, who do not understand the terminology, (while working within the parameters of absolutism from their own worldview) inappropriately interpret the word to make an absolute claim on the existence of god.This understanding is a misnomer; merely the term states, “I do not believe”

  False again. Those many individuals who don’t understand the terminology are many modern atheists as the author, who disguise their faith in the evil nature of religion and theism as nontheism, and construe personal meanings different from the generally accepted ones (ahteist as nontheist, religious as fundamentalist), spreading it through the social networks in an attempt to prove their personal beliefs in the nonexistence of god and the evil nature of theism.

• The one who says “I disbelieve” is not arrogant, it is those who postulate ownership of absolute “Truth”.

  I agree. The one who says “I disbelieve” (nontheist) or even “I can’t believe nor disbelieve” (agnostic) is not an arrogant. Only the one who asserts (and promotes) the nonexistence of god and the evil nature of theism, just like the one who asserts the existence of god and the evil nature of atheism, is an arrogant.

Popularity: 38% [?]

Mark Mardell asks in his post Learn EU-speak:

Does the EU shroud itself in obscure language on purpose or does any work of detail produce its own arcane language? Of course it is not just the lingo: the EU does seem difficult for people to understand. What’s at the heart of the problem?

His answer on the radio (as those comments that can be read in his blog) will probably look for complex reasoning on the nature of the European Union as an elitist institution, distant from real people, on the “obscure language” (intentionally?) used by MEPs, on the need of that language to be obscured by legal terms, etc.

All that is great. You can talk a lot about the possible reasons why people would find too boring those Europarliament discussions where everyone speaks his own national language; possible reasons why important media (like the BBC) would never show debates on important issues, unless the MEP uses their national language; possible reasons why that doesn’t happen with national parliaments where everyone speaks a common language…

But the most probable answer is so obvious it doesn’t really make sense to ask. The initeresting question is do people actually want to pay the price for having a common Europe?

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No, I didn’t have a revelation today. I am just offering a little support exactly to what Dawkins and his Brights dislike, to show them extreme action causes extreme (re)actions. I’d like to play their radical game, too, offering some help in linguistics to those who have only naïve theories on the language of Eden.

These are the statements about the Adamic language and the Tower of Babel as Abrahamic texts, beliefs and traditions show:

• Adamic was the language spoken by Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden. Adamic is typically identified with either the language used by God to address Adam, or the language invented by Adam (Book of Genesis 2:19).
• The Genesis is ambiguous on whether the language of Adam was preserved by Adam’s descendants until the confusion of tongues (Genesis 11:1-9), or if it began to evolve naturally even before Babel (Genesis 10:5), into what is usually called Chaldaic:
  1. Dante in his De Vulgari Eloquentia argues that the Adamic language is of divine origin and therefore unchangeable.
  2. In his Divina Commedia, however, Dante changes his view to the effect that the Adamic language was the product of Adam. This had the consequence that it could not any longer be regarded immutable, and hence Hebrew could not be regarded as identical with the language of Paradise..
• Also, the nature of that original language remains controversial, interpretations showing many nationalist flavours:
  • Traditional Jewish exegesis such as Midrash (Genesis Rabbah 38) says that Adam spoke Old Hebrew or rather its linguistic ancestor Proto-Canaanite, because the names he gives Eve – “Isha” (Book of Genesis 2:23) and “Chava” (Genesis 3:20) – only make sense in Hebrew.
  • Traditional Christians based on Genesis 10:5 have assumed that the Japhetite, or Indo-European, languages are rather the direct descendants of the Adamic language, having separated before the confusion of tongues, by which also Hebrew was affected.
    1. Early Christian fathers claimed that Adam spoke Latin to explain why God would make it the liturgical language of his Church, although “Latin” here would be a loose way of referring to its ancestor, Proto-Italic or older Europe’s Indo-European.
    2. Modern traditional Catholics follow Anne Catherine Emmerick’s revelations (1790), which stated that the most direct descendants of the Adamic language were Bactrian, Zend and Indian languages (i.e., the Indo-Iranian languages), associating the Adamic language with the then-recent concept of the “common source” of these tongues, now known as Proto-Indo-European:
       

       This language was the pure Hebrew, or Chaldaic. The first tongue, the mother tongue, spoken by Adam, Shem, and Noah, was different, and it is now extant only in isolated dialects. Its first pure offshoots are the Zend, the sacred tongue of India, and the language of the Bactrians. In those languages, words may be found exactly similar to the Low German of my native place.

  • Many Muslim scholars, following the traditional Jewish identification of Pre-Hebrew as the Adamic language, hence classified within the Semitic language family (which includes the Ge’ez language used in the Book of Enoch), claim that Pre-Arabic – hence Proto-(West-)Semitic – is the original Adamic language. Most of them do not believe the Semitic languages were the direct descendants of the Adamic language, but rather trace them back to Abraham, instead of Noah and Adam.
• The confusion of tongues is the initial fragmentation of human languages described in the Book of Genesis 11:1–9, as a result of the construction of the Tower of Babel.
  

  And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained from them, which they have imagined to do.

  Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may not understand one another’s speech.

  So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the earth: and they left off to build the city.

  The language spoken by Noah and his descendants – whether the original Adamic language (either of divine origin or not) or the derived Chaldaic – split into seventy or seventy-two languages, according to the different traditions. The existence of only one language before Babel in Genesis 11:1

  And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech

  has sometimes been interpreted as being in contradiction to Genesis 10:5

  Of these were the isles of the nations divided in their lands, every one after his tongue, after their families, in their nations.

  1. This issue only arises, however, if Genesis 10:5 is interpreted as taking place before and separate from the Tower of Babel story, instead of as an overview of events later described in detail in Genesis 11.
  2. It also necessitates that the reference to the earth being “divided” (Genesis 10:25) is taken to mean the division of languages, rather than a physical division of the earth (such as in the formation of continents).

So, to sum up, these are the facts known to us from comparative linguistics, related to those Abrahamic beliefs and interpretations and the biblical chronology:

• Mainstream linguists – without any links to religion, just based on comparative grammar – have accepted some form or other of language superfamilies, from Eurasiatic and Afro-Asiatic < Nostratic < Borean < Proto-World language, which would correspond loosely to that common language of the Genesis that was spoken before it was (instantly?) “confounded” into different languages, hence the similar (or even worse) results obtained in reconstructing subgroupings (say Indo-Uralic, Ural-Altaic) than with a more global Nostratic or even Proto-World language.
• Most of the earliest attested, reconstructed or (generally accepted) hypothetic languages, like Old Egyptian; (Semitic) Akkadian, Pre-Proto-Canaanite; (Indo-European) Europe’s Indo-European, Proto-Indo-Iranian, Proto-Greek, Common Anatolian; (Uralic) Proto-Finno-Ugric; (Sino-Tibetan) Proto-Sinitic; (Pre-)Proto-Dravidic; etc. can be traced back – depending on the archeological findings and linguistic theories, inherently inexact – to ca. 2500 BC.
• It is therefore odd that before that date everything is ‘more blurred’ (so to speak) in linguistic findings and reconstructions of older linguistic ancestors – as e.g. the hypothesized laryngeals (or their phonetic output) in Late Proto-Indo-European, or the difficult reconstruction of Proto-Semitic, not to talk about Proto-Uralic or Proto-Sino-Tibetan. This is the strongest argument to support a theoretical instant split of a common (Chaldaic or Adamic) language into 70 or 72 derived languages, which we know from attested inscriptions, reconstructions or hypothesis, or which disappeared without a trace.
• About their classification into language “families”, they might be related to the families based on consanguinity as described in the Bible, but identifications of those families by modern scholars have blurred the possible links (if any) between older language superfamilies and Noah’s sons; cf. Japhetic’s simplistic identification with Indo-European, or Semitic’s with “Semitic” languages. However, the more traditional identification of Japheth’s sons with “European” peoples (and therefore Eurasiatic languages), and Shem’s sons with (the old concept of) “Asian” peoples (hence with Afro-Asiatic languages) is more reasonable, leaving Ham’s sons with (at least) Austric and Dené-Caucasian languages (see Borean language tree).
• Many biblical interpretations of the Adamic language share therefore mistakes inherent to the culturally-biased and simplistic views of many scholars, hence the identification of the original tongue as Proto-Semitic by Jews and Muslims, Proto-Indo-European by many Christians (since Rasmus Rask’s first description of it as “Japetisk”), Sanskrit or Indo-Iranian (Aryan) by Hinduism, etc. That has hindered a more rational interpretation of the Bible and other sacred texts in light of the newest academic findings.

To sum up, we cannot know if the Adamic language existed, or its nature; we don’t know if Chaldaic (the common language before Babel) was the same as Adamic, or if not, if it was global (Proto-World language) or local to the Middle East (Nostratic?) according to Genesis 10:5. We can, however, defend mainstream Abrahamic beliefs on the confusion of tongues and the Tower of Babel as possible (“probability” based on extrapolation has little to do with religion and even with social events happened more than 4000 years ago) and that the descendants of Noah might have spoken a common language until the centuries on either side of 2500 BC:

• 1928 BC or 1996 AM according to the common Jewish chronology;
• 2240 BC after modern Christian scholars, as Sir Isaac Newton, Johannes Kepler or James Ussher;
• near 3000 BC according to Bible reverse chronology – taking some early recorded date as sure and going back in history with biblical accounts.
• not before 3000 BC according to historical data (archeological and architectural findings on Ziggurats – PDF);

All that nonwithstanding any possible interpretations of Adamic or Chaldaic from Old Earth Creationists, who usually take the historical accounts of the Genesis (its literal interpretation) as real facts just from the Tower of Babel on, dismissing the rest of the biblical data from the Flood backwards, and indeed any timeline calculated with genealogies by Young Earth Creationists.

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The Universal Declaration of Human Rights (UDHR) is a declaration adopted by the United Nations General Assembly in December 1948, arising directly from the experience of the Second World War. It represents the first global expression of rights to which all human beings are inherently entitled.

Article 1
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another in a spirit of brotherhood.

Article 2
Everyone is entitled to all the rights and freedoms set forth in this Declaration, without distinction of any kind, such as race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion, national or social origin, property, birth or other status.

Furthermore, no distinction shall be made on the basis of the political, jurisdictional or international status of the country or territory to which a person belongs, whether it be independent, trust, non-self-governing or under any other limitation of sovereignty.

First of all, I cannot be considered a religious person. I shouldn’t need to say that, but since the following text is an anti-antireligion one, I guess most religious and antireligious people would like me to clarify this point. I cannot be classified as an atheist either, but rather as an agnostic — I think that the truth value of certain claims (particularly metaphysical claims regarding theology, afterlife or the existence of deities, or even ultimate reality) is unknown and inherently impossible to prove or disprove.

To sum up my ‘philosophy’, I just don’t care for my real life – if there’s something or ’somebody’ thereafter, great; if there isn’t, great, too. I am interested in the Bible or any other religious text, just as I am interested in Marxist philosophy, in the Hinduist Śruti as in modern Social-Democratic statements. Just to “cultivate” myself in the so-called culture studies, to know what others think and believe.

In fact, when confronted with dogmatic religious or antitheist people, I often see just daring (and arrogant) ignorance. Like the slogan of the so-called ‘Atheist’ Bus, “there’s probably no god”, as if that probability could be measured… Or like the Flying-Spaghetti-Monster-joke, now frequently used in social networks against anyone who dares to say he believes in something. As Astrophysicist Martin Rees has said about Dawkins’ attack on mainstream religion, that criticism is unhelpful, because “such questions lie beyond science”. I would have said such questions simply lie outside science.

My girlfriend’s sister bought me the book God Delusion (in Spanish) for my birthday, so that I could read some intelligent criticism of religion, because she knows how I usually criticise catholic “scientific theses” on life’s beginning and end (abortion, euthanasia, etc.) and the like. After reading some interesting pages, I looked for Dawkins in the net, and I found that preposterous attitude of him and his “Brights”, who have substituted religious dogma with a new (old) antitheist dogma – history repeating itself, a football match involving people’s opinions. How nice.

I agree with Dawkins that atheists should be proud, not apologetic, because social atheism is evidence of a healthy, independent mind, and that education and consciousness-raising are the primary tools in opposing religious dogma and indoctrination. And I could even personally agree with his disrespectful sentence “many of us [see] religion as harmless nonsense. Beliefs might lack all supporting evidence but, we [think], if people [need] a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm?“. But the following assertion is logical nonsense and clearly supports antireligious hatred:

September 11th changed all that. Revealed faith is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of inherited tradition. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects religion from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!

Please note that thorough argument involving “9/11″ and insecurity to justify everything else. Dawkins was maybe inspired by this Family Guy scene?

It is logical that righteous and intelligent people – like Dawkins and many well-minded atheists – tend to be aggressive and irrational dogmatics when confronted with aggression and irrationality from dogmatic religious people. It happens often in dialectics, and it’s hardly avoidable. But that’s not a valid reason to maintain and even lead that confrontation into an open war (first verbal, then who knows), supporting an anticlerical, antireligious and antitheist atheism. It should always be human rights and tolerance against tiranny and injustices, not opinions against opinions.

In this new open war of Dawkins and his “Brights” (akin to the state atheism of some dictatorships), antitheism is carefully disguised as the universalism opposed to cultural relativism, which is an argument frequently used by those who wield power in cultures (not religions) which commit human rights abuses. The 2005 World Summit, a follow-up summit meeting to the United Nations’ 2000 Millennium Summit, reaffirmed the international community’s adherence to this principle:

The universal nature of human rights and freedoms is beyond question

It is a principle valid against any kind of human rights abuses, whether justifed by religion or antireligion.

I could write a book myselft trying to discuss Richard Dawkins’ arguments about religion being socially dangerous, but he convinced me it is completely unnecessary. As Mr. Dawkins put it (when confronted by Alister McGrath with the fact that he is “ignorant” of Christian theology), “do you have to read up on leprechology before disbelieving in leprechauns?“. Of course not. And you certainly don’t have to read up on antitheist hate propaganda before disbelieving in antitheist hatred.

I don’t think this post (or any possible writing) will change the mind of those who have already taken sides – as encouraged by Mr. Dawkins – to make of opinion an easier black-or-white, right-or-wrong aspect, but I’ll finnish it with some similar examples. Let’s suppose that I don’t feel nor believe in “love“. For me what others describe as “love” is just another voluntary exchange, as voluntary as buying bread to eat, or reading a book to learn. However, a lot of people ‘believe’ in it (whatever that means); and in their opinion, it is probably one of the most important aspects of their lifes.

So even if I am “agnostic” in that respect – of the meaning and existence of such thing as “love” -, as I am agnostic regarding the meaning and existence of the afterlife and god in which a lot of people (need to?) believe, I’m respectful and consider them personal opinions – just like the need of atheists in believing there is no god. But I could just as well begin my own “school of Brights”, by igniting flames about “love-believers” being dangerous ignorants, asserting that love is incompatible with (and harms) science, writing books dismissing love and lovers, creating a “Foundation for a Rational Life”, supporting the “flying-spaghetti-feeling-joke”, etc., and making disrespectful statements like:

Many of us saw love as harmless nonsense. Belief in love might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? Domestic violence and especially violence against women changed all that. Love is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of feelings. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects love from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!

Or, let’s talk about political ideas and democracy:

Many of us saw politics as harmless nonsense. Political ideas might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? Modern wars have changed all that. Politics is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of ideas. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects freedom of opinion from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!

Or, we could also try to ban literature using Dawkins’ thorough reflexion, equally valid either to prohibit communist writings, or to support the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia:

Many of us saw literature as harmless nonsense. The art of written works might lack all supporting evidence but, we thought, if people needed a crutch for consolation, where’s the harm? Capitalism / Communism changed all that. Literature is not harmless nonsense, it can be lethally dangerous nonsense. Dangerous because it gives people unshakeable confidence in their own righteousness. Dangerous because it gives them false courage to kill themselves, which automatically removes normal barriers to killing others. Dangerous because it teaches enmity to others labelled only by a difference of ideas. And dangerous because we have all bought into a weird respect, which uniquely protects literature from normal criticism. Let’s now stop being so damned respectful!

Mr. Dawkins and well-minded friends: life should be a “damned respectful” football match, it is a complex game and it cannot be made easier with an either-with-me-or-against-me-type of philosophy. If you fight hooliganism with hooliganism, entering the dogmatic game, you can turn life into an open (and unnecessary) battlefield. It is really sad to see how modern religious people struggle to get involved with each other and respect universal rights, while many modern atheists are turning into arrogant, intolerant dogmatic believers in the non-existence of god and the evil nature of religion…

Addition – 12 Feb 2009: With Darwin’s anniversary, Spanish American biologist and pihilosopher Francisco J. Ayala is participating in a conference about evolution and creationism, and he has been interviewed, making some interesting remarks about his (in his own words) good friend Dawkins:

The hypothesis of God
Luis Alfonso Gámez – “After Darwin, the hypothesis that a superior being designed the world is untenable. If one believes in God, he has to do it because of other reasons, but not because he needs it to explain the world”, says Richard Dawkins.

Francisco J. Ayala – I agree with him. You don’t need the hypothesis of God to explain the world. There are people who need the hypothesis of God to have a religious vision [of life], to give sense to their lives. A year ago, Richard Dawkins and I discussed this in the Salk Institute. I told him: “Why do you want to take the hope away from 80% or 90% of humans who have a miserable life and see in religion their only support?”. He answered that we must begin to teach Humanity so that people gradually find the justification of their existence and their values in science, and he expects that in 50 years humans can live governed by the rational principles of science. I answered him: “If you believe that the 8.000 or 10.000 million people that will be then are going to accept the rational principles of science to explain their existence, you probably also believe in the Fairy Godmother and the Magi“. I don’t know why anyone should struggle to make people who need to believe stop believing. There are a lot of Christian, Jew and Muslim theologues who accept evolution and also believe that their theology is better explained with it. It is a school called process theology.

Answering Ayala’s question about why anyone would care about making others stop believing, I guess the answer lies in the public attention, prizes, interviews, book copies sold, donations, etc. he receives by igniting such flames against beliefs (different than his there-is-no-god belief, of course). Just like prominent creationists (as Michael Behe or William A. Dembski) receive support from a lot of believers, he enjoys having his piece of cake from atheists in this global pie of intolerance.

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