Yet another Hacker News

59 points mooreds 2 hours ago 30 comments

freeafrica4 35 minutes ago | parent

Funny thing is that Muslims and Christians in Africa fight each other not realizing its something forced on upon them by colonizers. Hope Africans wake up and live peacefully

esseph 29 minutes ago | parent

So why were they fighting before Islam and Christianity?

pfannkuchen 15 minutes ago | parent

Fights were probably smaller and between tribes and not two monolithic groups? Also not quite sure about Ethiopia but the weapons were probably less bangy and more stabby pre colonization?

yohannesk 29 minutes ago | parent

That’s a reductive take. It assumes African Christians only hold their faith because of colonizers and denies us our own agency. Ethiopia, for example, adopted Christianity as a state religion in the 4th century, long before European colonization. Millions of Africans choose their faith consciously

password54321 13 minutes ago | parent

>It assumes African Christians only hold their faith because of colonizers and denies us our own agency.

And they would be correct. Most people never "chose" their beliefs. It was systematically embedded by people who have had power over them.

lovich 9 minutes ago | parent

You choose your religion on a daily basis or we wouldn’t see anyone ever convert from one to the other.

People have agency.

password54321 5 minutes ago | parent

Where you are born and your ethnicity largely determines your beliefs, conversion is rare. But agency over ones beliefs is becoming more prevalent as religion holds less influence as it once did (at least in some parts of the world).

roryirvine 4 minutes ago | parent

Slightly nonsensical to apply modern discourse about European colonisation to events of 1,700 years ago, though.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kingdom_of_Aksum#Religion

nephihaha 7 minutes ago | parent

Ethiopia was Christian before a lot of northern Europe was...

AlotOfReading 24 minutes ago | parent

There are multiple major factors driving the tigray conflict. Politics, ideology, ethnonationalism, etc. Religion isn't one of them.

nick_ 15 minutes ago | parent

Ethiopia was never colonized.

nephihaha 10 minutes ago | parent

Ethiopia has a brief Italian intervention but did not form part of a European empire. In fact, before the Communists got in under Mengistu, it was ruled by an Emperor

pseudony 2 minutes ago | parent

Hmm. You are right, first thing my white colonial mind is put to is a nice cuppa, followed by manipulating the natives to war amongst themselves.

Come on.

jakozaur 22 minutes ago | parent

So many comments sound apocalyptic when they face inconveniences like inflation. See this recent post by a Polish guy:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49905487

Meanwhile, the Tigray war in Ethiopia may have killed as many as 600k, yet it barely registered in our public conversation. The same goes for Sudan.

Attention is a weird beast.

yohannesk 20 minutes ago | parent

Seeing my home country at the top of Hacker News is surreal. While I'm glad it’s finally getting some coverage, watching this unfold feels almost hopeless. The previous war in Tigray cost an estimated 600,000 lives, and this new escalation threatens to be even bloodier. It’s heading toward a complete catastrophe