As we go through the war imposed on Ukraine from Russia’s authoritarian regime, we see more and more idiotic hatred against people of Russia.

Everyday I see more news about sanctions on Russian people and sports teams. Paralympics, football, tennis, motor sports, and lot other fields are now closed on Russian sport people.

I also heard news about an Italian university teaching of Fyodor Dostoevsky because he’s Russian. What is happening is just dumb.

Russian people are not responsible for what their government does and I feel that in my bones as I too experience sanctions because of actions of my government. People of Ukraine don’t need Russian people out of tennis courts or football pitch. Ukrainian people also like to read Dostoevsky.

I’m pretty sure nobody in Ukraine will be pleased to hear some innocent Russian person who tried hard to be able to participate in a competition was banned from it because of what that person had no influence on. What Vladimir Putin does is what exactly a dictator does and people are not to blame for. Some are converting their support for Ukraine to hate towards Russia.

I hope the war ends very soon and we see peace everywhere in Europe, Middle East, and all around the world. And I hope we get rid of this stupid hatred we see today and do something else, like actually supporting victims of war with aids and goods.

Living in Middle East, you can’t stop thinking of politics. Everything happening here impacts the whole world and everything happening in world impacts the region. Simplest aspects of life in MENA (Middle East and North Africa) are highly influenced by politics. Well, it’s the same all around the world but I can’t think of any other region that has this kind of heavy impact on world. Well of course White House or Kremlin Palace can change the world but those are places built for such thing.

When United States adds to its sanctions against Iran, the whole region and the whole world changes. When Russia sold weapons to Saudi, when Emirates started normalizing their relations with Israel, everything in world was impacted. When OPEC decides about its oil price or production rate, everything in world is influenced.

Naturally, people here and all around the world feel the impact as well. Prices change, regimes make new decisions, new wars get started, old wars come to an end, etc. But here in Middle East, the impact is much more influential. Almost all of us in MENA are living under a dictatorship and under the shadow of a new war.

The point is that you can’t stop being involved in politics, you can’t even stop thinking about it here. An American, a French, an Italian, or a German can claim that perse is not political because they’re much more stable than Middle Easterners but here we’re all political, we may die tomorrow because of a new war in the region.

I run a business here. During the Iran Talks, currency price fluctuations are at the highest level and my business which relies on products produced in China and Viet Nam suffers. A simple smile from any part of the talks can change everything for small businesses like mine.

However, human mind and body has a capacity for stress and processing the events happening here. I’m trying to think less about politics knowing how impossible it is and have more conversation. I try to avoid political news, get away from people talking about politics, and comment less about stuff happening.

Of course to completely remove politics from my life I have to get out of earth with next spacecraft but even that doesn’t remove politics completely (what if politicians on earth decide I no longer have right to exist?).

I try to have more conversation, seeking for reason, solution, and answer rather than just listening and reading news and repeat the pointless cycle. I try to reduce the heaviness of everything happening by keeping my mind solid and with focus. Instead of repeating news to each other, I try to have conversation with people and know what they think of their future and know what is their desired system of thought and ruling.

There’s no doubt for me that I continue my political fight and I’ll continue walking towards my political goals but maybe in a different way but this time I try to do it focusing on people and conversation.

Well, isn’t that even more political?

This is a genuine photograph that was taken in the early 1900s by Dr. Allan Warner of the Isolation Hospital at Leicester in the UK. Warner photographed a number of smallpox patients in order to study the disease.

The two photographed boys were the same age and both had smallpox. The only difference is that one of them was vaccinated and the other was not. The smallpox vaccine was one of the oldest man-made vaccines that many people refused to inject due to fear and superstition, and as a result the disease was not completely eradicated.

Dr. Warner believed that the best way to challenge fear and misinformation about vaccination was to show the horror of the disease and the clear evidence of vaccination in the workplace through photography. Smallpox was eradicated worldwide after widespread vaccination in the 1960s and 1970s in the early 1980s.

The Internet Archive has digitized the atlas of clinical medicine, surgery, and pathology. From page 426, you can see various pictures that anti-vaxxers probably don’t want you to see.

Vaccination has helped us to survive, and it’ll do the same in future.

Who you see in the video is Antony John Blinken‎, United States’ secretary of state, who apparently doesn’t know who is the former president of Afghanistan.

In the video, he says he’s been talking to President Karzai, instead of Ghani. Hamed Karzai was one of the former presidents of Afghanistan, long ago.

These are the people who are deciding for us. Iran, Afghanistan, Iraq, Pakistan, etc. are all highly influential of USA’s politics and these people. These are the people sitting in front of negotiation boards, war councils, so-called democracy committees, human rights watches, and everything else.

They have no clue of what is happening to people, they don’t feel the pain, they don’t face any consequences, and they have no understanding of the destruction they cause, yet they are deciding for us.

Check this video:

This is an Afghan/Australian citizen, captured and beaten by Taliban in Kabul airport, recorded this video few moments before his death. He talks to the Talibs saying “if I was fully Australian, you would’ve respected me but now, because I talk Persian, you beat me…”

In his last sentences, he says he’s Australian and then… death.

These were only two of the thousands of videos of crimes against humanity, happening daily in our region here. Just two videos, less than 1 minute.

There’s news that the Germans in Afghanistan evacuated beer cans but failed to bring Afghan people and employees. When you check the priorities of governments and those in power, you understand more about how the world is being controlled and how those in power feel about people.

There are pictures of a C-17 airplane full of people running for their lives. Many got into the plane and many were left behind but the more saddening part is that there were seats for dogs but no place for more people who were in danger of death.

Taliban finally occupied the whole Afghanistan, well except for Panjshir where Ahmad Masoud, son of Ahmad Shah Masoud the popular guerilla, is holding resistance. Taliban is promising a different picture but we all know that’s a lie. They keep killing everybody, discriminating against women, enslaving children, and forcing their ideologies on people.

Taliban is no different than any other terrorist group. They are currently seeking for global acceptance, so they lie about their goals and behavior. They use newly available resources to them, such as country-wide television, for propaganda and facade.

Now, in this situation, other countries are listing their priorities and in those priorities there seems to be no place for people. They are thinking about natural resources in Afghanistan, drugs, guns, businesses, military industry, etc. The question is, where is the people in those lists?

Whenever we hear politicians talking about the situation in the region, we hear them talking about the good for people and how they’re fighting for human rights, but when we check their actions, there’s only good for themselves and their businesses. Why is that?

We people get manipulated a lot, and maybe we do something about it. The result of us being manipulated sometimes is to pay more taxes or be restricted in some ways, but the result of Afghan people being manipulated is them being killed.

Priorities. We need to check and sort our priorities RIGHT.

I’ve seen the above photo (post) and wondered is that really justice? I’ve posted a similar post before but in that post, the situation imposed on people was natural, not human-made. I understand the good intention creator of the photo has but it occurred to me that this is enough for many people.

Just like how most slavery abolitionists stopped after the slavery became illegal, many stop their action when some part of injustice is addressed. In the above photo, the situation is not natural, it’s human-made. The fence is built by humans and it is probably not only for animals, it’s also too keep some people out.

I believe the true justice (in the situation described in the photo) is that they get equal chance, equal opportunity, and equal respect to watch the game from stand among others and get enough/equal chance to contribute to the society they’re in, not to be kept out among animals.

Many people think of Israel and Palestine as two countries at war; with Israel, a state for Jewish people, occupying Palestine, where Palestinians live.

The truth is both Israeli Jews and Palestinians live all over the territory, ruled by one government and one army based on the idea of advancing the supremacy and domination of one group of people of Jews and that is what guides its policies and its practices towards Palestinians. In other words: Apartheid.

There were a group of scientists who were doing some experiments on some monkeys. The put five monkeys in a cage and made them live there. In the cage, they put a ladder and above the ladder, they put some bananas.

Every time a monkey tried to climb the ladder and get some bananas, the scientists poured very cold water on other monkeys that were under the ladder, they shocked those who were under the ladder.

After a while, whenever a monkey tried to climb the ladder to get some bananas, other monkeys would pull the climbing monkey down and beat that poor one. A while passed and none of the monkeys, despite the inherent desire to the bananas, would climb the ladder because they were afraid of getting beaten by others.

The scientists decide to replace one of the monkeys, monkey number one, with another monkey that has no idea about the situation in the cage. When they replace monkey number one, the new monkey tries to climb the ladder and others pulled it down and beat it.

After a few times of getting beaten, the new monkey also decided to not climb the ladder for bananas, even though it has no idea why climbing the ladder is forbidden. When this happened, scientists replaced monkey number two with a new monkey.

Monkey number two was replaced and the same situation went on. New monkey tried to climb the ladder and got beaten and after a few times it decided to not climb the ladder even though it didn’t know why it is forbidden to climb the ladder or eat the bananas on top.

This went on until all the monkeys were replaced by new ones. Now none of the first monkeys are in the cage and all are replaced by new ones, and none of the new ones ever experienced the cold water but every time a monkey wants to climb the ladder, it gets beaten.

If we could continue the experiment and ask the monkeys why they beat the climbing monkey, their possible answers would be 1: I don’t know, it’s tradition, everybody does it; and 2: I don’t know, this is what is popular among other monkeys, you should obey the public.

Traditions and belief in the societies may have a very interesting or convincing root but they may be obsolete nowadays. I’m not trying to argue about the root of the problems, but how or whether they are affecting us today.

What I wrote was simply imposing a modern slavery of thought on monkeys. A similar story happened to humans, I believe. I truly believe we humans are experiencing a form of slavery, a modern new slavery, in which we have no idea why we do certain things or obey certain systems, but we’re too afraid of getting hurt to disobey it or act against the mainstream.

We are too afraid of swimming against the river, and even if we try to do, other fishes will stop us, and if you ask why they do it, they have no answer, they simply believe our actions are not right.

I try to change this, and I hope you join me.

Do you know what is the Boxer syndrome? In the book Animal Farm, Animals helped each other to kick out the master and his family and take control over the farm. The first thing they do after is to set Seven Commandments that said all animals are equal and nobody should claim itself master of others.

But it won’t take long that a pig who became the dictatorial president changes the commandments slowly to put advantages and privileges for itself and those around it.

Ultimately, Napoleon, the president pig, becomes an oppressive dictator and begins to adopt many aspects of human behavior. The pigs start walking on their hind legs, drinking alcohol, wearing clothes, and carrying whips near the end of the book. The commandments are changed to say, famously, “All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others.”

Meanwhile, there’s a working horse named Boxer which is very kind and is morally and behaviorally approved by all farm animals. The animals ask Boxer to help them change the situation (or decide what to do) but Boxer doesn’t pay any attention to its surroundings and is only busy with its hard work.

Boxer’s slogans are “Comrade Napoleon is always right” and “I will work harder!” Boxer feels it should work very hard and should not have anything to do with others.

Although Boxer could prevent the terrible events that fall on the animal farm, he worked hard and had nothing to do with others. He was busy with its own work and only found out about the incidents around itself when Napoleon, the dictator pig, sold it to a butcher.

In our lives, we meet so many people who are busy with their honest hard work and have no idea how the system, state, country, or people are moving or where we’re heading.

In a scene in the Titanic movie, while the ship hit the iceberg and was sinking, while people where screaming and running for their lives, while everybody were trying to be saved, there were a group of musicians/players who were performing classic music masterpieces.

They were doing their best, they were true hard-working people who tried to avoid their work be influenced by the environment/situation they were in. But in a sinking ship, while everybody is busy saving themselves or other people, when nobody is even paying attention or cares about your work, when your work has no good effect on the situation, why and how does it matter?

Many people we know are effected with the Boxer syndrome and forget when is the correct time to take a position or change the situation, or even do anything that matters, sadly.

Often when I talk about politics, specially sensitive stuff, some people claim they are neutral. I tell them you can’t be neutral, you’re either on the good side, or the bad side. I’ve written a post about this before, but I felt I should mention this again.

Being neutral is impossible because by being neutral you’re basically helping the bad side to win. Imagine you’re in situation where fire is burning wood, how can you be neutral in that situation? Arguing that you’re not fueling the fire nor turn it off doesn’t make you neutral. By doing nothing, you’re just helping fire to burn the wood without any disturbance.

Doing nothing in politics is meaningless. You’re either siding with one side or their opposer. Often when I talk with people about politics, some claim they’re neutral and I tell them it’s impossible. You’re not neutral in politics, you’re in denial. It’s very simple to me. I can’t believe someone is neutral when one side is a fascist and the other side is fighting for democracy.