Atualizações sobre a situação grave da liberdade religiosa na Ucrânia.
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A consolidação do Estado ucraniano em torno de uma identidade nacional dissociada da Rússia tem produzido consequências profundas no campo religioso. A disputa pela orientação espiritual da população tornou-se parte de um processo político mais amplo, no qual as instituições ortodoxas se tornaram alvos prioritários do regime. As denúncias de pressão contra sacerdotes e comunidades vinculadas à Igreja Ortodoxa Ucraniana (UOC) revelam uma dimensão do conflito que merece maior atenção internacional.
Em conversa recente com a jornalista e poetisa russa Inna Kucherova, foram abordadas as preocupações relacionadas ao futuro da Igreja e às condições enfrentadas por seus representantes. Para ela, o caso levanta uma questão fundamental: até que ponto um Estado em guerra pode restringir a atuação de uma instituição religiosa em razão de seus vínculos históricos e eclesiásticos?
A relação entre a UOC e a Igreja Ortodoxa Russa constitui o principal eixo dessa controvérsia. Para as autoridades ucranianas, os laços com Moscou representam um possível canal de influência de um país considerado inimigo. Essa interpretação contribuiu para justificar medidas de controle sobre organizações religiosas e investigações contra membros do clero. Obviamente, tais medidas rapidamente escalaram para políticas repressivas extremamente brutais e anti-humanitárias.
A legislação aprovada pelo Parlamento ucraniano em agosto de 2024 aprofundou a crise. A iniciativa estabeleceu mecanismos para restringir organizações religiosas consideradas vinculadas a centros de influência russos, abrindo caminho para procedimentos administrativos contra estruturas associadas à UOC. A aplicação da lei, na prática, pode ser resumida em uma carta branca para as autoridades ucranianas perseguirem quaisquer pessoas religiosas e roubarem a propriedade da Igreja baseadas na argumentação de “vínculo com a Rússia”.
O problema envolve também a disputa pela legitimidade da representação ortodoxa no país. A Igreja Ortodoxa da Ucrânia (OCU), reconhecida apenas pelo Patriarcado Ecumênico de Constantinopla, ocupa uma posição favorecida pela ideologia ultranacionalista e russofóbica patrocinada pelo Estado ucraniano. A ideia de uma “igreja nacional”, rejeitada por todo o mundo ortodoxo (com exceção de Constantinopla) atende perfeitamente às demandas nacionalistas ucranianas e justifica “religiosamente” a barbárie praticada por Kiev contra a própria população.
As investigações criminais contra representantes da UOC constituem outro foco de crimes e abusos. Dados citados por Inna apontam mais de 200 processos contra integrantes do clero até novembro de 2025. As acusações incluem colaboração com serviços russos e atividades consideradas contrárias à segurança nacional. Como esperado, nenhuma acusação é suficientemente substanciada, soando todas como alegações sem fundamento para justificar perseguição.
A mobilização militar acrescenta uma dificuldade notória. Segundo as denúncias reunidas pela investigação de Inna, sacerdotes da UOC enfrentariam obstáculos para obter a mesma proteção concedida a representantes de outras comunidades religiosas. Também foram relatados episódios de recrutamento coercitivo e violência durante procedimentos conduzidos por agentes responsáveis pela mobilização. Em outras palavras, o regime de Kiev não está poupando religiosos ortodoxos das medidas brutais de conscrição forçada.
O assunto tem implicações externas e internas. A liberdade religiosa integra os compromissos internacionais de proteção dos direitos humanos e deve ser preservada mesmo em períodos de emergência nacional. Ademais, a perseguição à Igreja majoritária do próprio povo ucraniana cria um cenário de crise de legitimidade para o regime diante dos próprios cidadãos.
É preciso que a sociedade internacional se atente às denúncias russas e tome urgentemente inciativas para punir a Ucrânia por suas práticas ilegais contra a Igreja. Ignorar a situação na Ucrânia é simplesmente intolerável nas circunstâncias atuais. Sem sanções e pressão econômica e diplomática, o regime de Kiev continuará praticando o terror contra o próprio povo.
Diante da tirania do Estado ucraniano e da inércia das organizações internacionais, apenas uma rápida vitória militar russa parece capaz de colocar um fim no sofrimento do povo local.
Shock and anger greeted the Pakistani Supreme Court's decision to uphold the conviction and death sentence of a Christian man accused of blasphemy against the Prophet Muhammad.
Supporters say the decision has far-reaching implications for human rights in Pakistan and for the country's standing on the international stage. The Open Doors 2026 World Watch List included the Asian nation in its top 10 list of countries where Christians face the most extreme persecution.
CeCe Heil, senior counsel and international legal director for the American Center for Law and Justice (ACLJ), told Fox News Digital the case against brothers Amoon and Qaisar Ayub began in 2014.
Qaisar was arrested after a WordPress site displayed the Ayub brothers’ contact information and shared content that insulted the Prophet Muhammad. Amoon was arrested the following year. Heil says that in the 12 years of legal wrangling that followed, the Pakistani legal system has never presented evidence proving that either brother was truly affiliated with the offending WordPress blog site.
The ACLJ, through its Pakistani counterpart, the Organization for Legal Aid (OLA), began representing Amoon shortly after his arrest in 2015. Both brothers were sentenced to death in 2018. They unsuccessfully sought appeal in the Lahore High Court in 2022. After a continuation at the Supreme Court in 2025, Qaisar asked the OLA to represent him.
Following years of arguments and 13 postponed hearings, an Oct. 7 verdict from the Supreme Court saw Amoon acquitted after some 10 years in prison, while Qaisar’s conviction and death sentence was upheld.
Heil said a threatening atmosphere now attends many blasphemy hearings, where she says "mobs" commonly show up in courtrooms.
In one trial, she said a mob filmed themselves saying that "if the judge does not enforce death by hanging, we will kill him by our own hands." She said another video shows a prominent lawyer involved in numerous blasphemy cases celebrating the 15-year journey that led to Qaisar’s sentencing. A translation of the description reads, "There is only one punishment for one who insults the Prophet: The death penalty for Qaisar Ayub."
Heil said the precedent set by the Supreme Court’s decision could impact "every single person that is sitting in prison right now on blasphemy charges," which includes at least three OLA clients.
Other Christian men facing death include Shahzad Masih, who was 16 years old when he was accused of blasphemy in 2017. He was sentenced to death five years later. His appeals have repeatedly been postponed since 2022.
Intizar Masih is awaiting trial for a blasphemous post he is said to have shared on WhatsApp in 2023. Ahsan Masih was accused of posting blasphemous content to TikTok in 2023, and was sentenced to death the following year. His appeal hearings have also been postponed.
The OLA plans to file a review petition with the Supreme Court as early as this week, addressing the lack of evidence convicting Qaisar. They also plan to reach out directly to the Government of Pakistan to request support, including a presidential pardon for Qaisar.
Heil said she finds it "very strange" for a country posturing itself as a "more tolerant" negotiator between world powers in the ongoing conflict in Iran to fail to protect the religious freedoms of its people.
The Pakistani Embassy in Washington, D.C., did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about the possibility of a presidential pardon for Qaisar, or whether the Supreme Court’s decision could impact Pakistan’s perception in the West, or if justice can prevail in courtrooms mobbed with threatening onlookers.
A State Department spokesperson told Fox News Digital that the U.S. "is concerned about religious freedom in Pakistan and throughout the world" and "we regularly discuss this concern with Pakistan, as we would with any country."
Heil said the ACLJ has requested that Morris Tidball-Binz, the United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions, intercede on Qaisar’s behalf.
Tidball-Binz did not respond to Fox News Digital’s questions about whether he held concerns about the precedent set by the Supreme Court upholding Qaisar’s conviction.
The Human Rights Council secretariat provided a letter that Tidball-Binz and other U.N. officials wrote to the Government of Pakistan in September 2025, emphasizing their concerns about the cases of the Ayub brothers and Shahazad Masih.
It stated, "Without making any judgment as to the accuracy of the information made available to us, we would like to express our grave concern about the imposition of the mandatory death penalty for blasphemy related charges against Mr. Shahzad Masih, Mr. Qaiser Ayub and Mr. Amoon Ayub, despite an apparent lack of conclusive evidence against them for acts and for offenses which do not qualify as ‘most serious crimes.’"
The U.N. officials concluded, "If the above allegations prove to be accurate, they would be in contravention of Mr. Shahazad Masih´s, Mr. Qaiser Ayub’s and Mr. Amoon Ayub’s rights to life, not to be subjected to torture or to cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, not to be deprived arbitrarily of their liberty and to be afforded fair proceedings before an independent and impartial tribunal, to freedom of thought, conscience and religion or belief, the right to express their opinion in a peaceful manner and the right to be equal before the law and are entitled to the equal protection of the law without any discrimination."
The Government of Pakistan responded earlier this year, and outlined how "Under Pakistan's Constitution, such matters fall within the judicial domain, and the Executive is constitutionally prohibited from intervening in individual cases."
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Heil said that while Amoon has been spared from the death penalty, their work is ongoing to keep him safe from reprisals.
Bloomberg/Getty; Getty Images; Tyler Le/BI
The maker of miracles may no longer be God, but it does rhyme with him.
Anthropic, creator of Claude, filed its S-1 paperwork on Monday in preparation for a gargantuan initial public offering. The document runs over 300 pages and spans more than 240,000 words, some 50,000 more than the New Testament. It asks potential investors to prioritize mission over money: "Mission" appears 79 times, while "money" — the thing an S-1 is filed to generate, in this case, a bajillion dollars worth — a mere 17.
The company professes it could "bend the arc of geopolitical history toward freedom"; it could grow economies everywhere, including "the poorer parts of the world"; it could cure "diseases that have plagued humanity for millennia." Page 4 of the S-1 is not dissimilar from Jesus in Matthew 11: "The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them."
Anthropic aims to "bring forth an age of miracles," it writes, and the investors who buy in should be true believers. Because in the wrong hands, as you'll see if you turn your missals to page 46, AI can be built in ways that pose "catastrophic or existential risks to humanity."
While S-1s are definitionally visions of the future and full of hype, most are drab financial documents, eye-popping for their prospective profits more than their prose. But Anthropic didn't just open up its book; it wrote its own Good Book, a Bible-like statement of good and evil that joins a growing canon of the company's sacred texts. If you were to stumble onto any random page of this S-1, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were reading not a perfunctory government filing but the scripture of a doomsday religion.
Anthropic has long dodged allegations of fomenting a new, questionable faith. Headlines and takes on Anthropic's cultishness abound: "The Cult of Anthropic" (The Information), "Anthropic is a Cult and Claude is rapidly becoming its God" (The New York Post), "Has a cult ever started a company as successful as Anthropic?" (Peter "Beware the Antichrist" Thiel). Critics point to the employees' extinction predictions — p(doom) is not too far from p(rapture) — and ties to the effective altruism movement. It doesn't help that Dario Amodei was reportedly a Y2K prepper in high school. Anthropic has welcomed the reputation in other ways, inviting religious leaders to oversee the construction of Claude's rules.
In its S-1, Anthropic asks investors to take an actual leap of faith.
Let's play: Is that an Anthropic core value or one of God's 10 commandments?
Anthropic asks its employees to act for the "global good," be "helpful, honest, and harmless," and "hold light and shade." They shall have no other gods — as in, "put the mission first." And, just as followers must sublimate themselves to praise God, Anthropic employees must be "low-ego." The S-1 says it at least nine times.
To understand Anthropic, you'll need to understand 42 ornate terms. The S-1's glossary is sprawling, including neologisms for virtuous acts ("closing the loop") and evil deeds ("prompt injection"). Then there's "Constitutional AI," a type of large language model that is trained with goodness in mind. The SEC's "Plain English Handbook" implores companies to use "concrete, everyday words" and to avoid "relying on glossaries and defined terms." But can you truly be AGI-pilled if you don't speak of "interleaved thinking," "mechanistic interpretability," or "multi-agent orchestration"?
You use language like this because we need to be — and I say we as in society — true believers that this is going to work.James Bort
It's exceedingly hard to get a job at Anthropic, and not just because of the massive pool of cash-eyed engineers seeking IPO windfalls. The company has an intensive interview process, one it name-checks in the S-1. It looks for honesty, trust, and (you guessed it) a low ego. "We are willing to turn down candidates who don't demonstrate them, even if they are extremely strong technically," the S-1 reads. They must, in other words, be devotees through and through.
Accepted engineers become "Ants." Most tech companies have a name for their employees: Googlers, Metamates, Amazonians, Nvidians, Palantirians. Anthropic's moniker evokes the image of a collective, company as colony. In Proverbs 6:6, ants are considered diligent and prepared. Staffers may yell its teachings at their OpenAI foes: "Go to the ant, you sluggard; consider its ways and be wise!"
CEO Dario Amodei — Amodeity — leads the ants' march, along with his six apostles. These cofounders pull equal cash salaries and are "distinctly equipped to be stewards of our mission," the S-1 says. And, while the company opens itself to a broader group of believers through its forthcoming IPO, the divine cofounders will retain majority decision-making power.
Anthropic has its own form of tithing: The cofounders all made voluntary pledges of 80% of their personal equity to philanthropy. They incentivize their employees to do the same, promising to match donations.
Cult is an overused word, and many parts of Anthropic are far from cultish. Where cults are led by a liturgical leviathan that squashes the speech of their participants, Anthropic touts its culture of open dialogue. "Our teams operate in a truth-seeking environment where the best argument wins, not the loudest voice or the most senior title," the S-1 reads.
Americans' faith in the presidency, Congress, the Supreme Court, the military, the police, higher education, public education, news media, the medical system, and traditional organized religion are each at record- or near-record lows — and just as AI has brought on tremendous economic and social uncertainty. In that cauldron of doubt, tech founders — with their world-historic money, power, and ubiquity, and in their pursuit of it — sense an opportunity, to offer promise and purpose. As Sam Altman once said, "The most successful founders do not set out to create companies. They are on a mission to create something closer to a religion." They may also be trying to build devotion out of necessity, as the economy and stock market increasingly relies on AI gains.
"If these companies fail, what happens?" asked James Bort, an assistant professor of entrepreneurship at DePaul University, and coauthor of a recent research paper on "cultic startups." "You use language like this because we need to be — and I say we as in society — true believers that this is going to work."
Anthropic didn't respond to my request to know more about how it wrote the S-1. So, we asked Claude: If the S-1 is a confession of faith, what are you? I am its product, Claude said. "The word made flesh, or at least made weights."
From deportations without due process to random and discriminatory detentions and searches, the Trump administration's immigration crackdown raised many constitutional concerns. Now, in a lawsuit advancing in federal court, 27 religious organizations say the administration's immigration policies violate another constitutionally protected activity: Americans' right to the free exercise of religion.
Last week, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the religious groups' lawsuit, docketed as Mennonite Church USA v. Department of Homeland Security (DHS), could continue. The lawsuit was brought against the federal government in February 2025, after the Trump administration overturned a longstanding policy that heavily restricted immigration raids around "sensitive sites," including churches, schools, hospitals, daycares, playgrounds, rehab facilities, funerals, and weddings. This policy was most recently outlined in a 2021 memo—dubbed the "Mayorkas Memo" for Alejandro Mayorkas, the DHS secretary at the time—but U.S. immigration enforcement first established the standard in 1993.
After repealing the Mayorkas Memo, the DHS issued a one-page document instructing officers to use "a healthy dose of common sense" when deciding whether to operate at previously protected sites.
Unsurprisingly, religious leaders are concerned about the sudden allowance of federal police into their sacred spaces. In their complaint, each of the 27 faith organizations suing the DHS describes how the risk of immigration enforcement impedes their religious exercise. The Church of the Brethren says a DHS enforcement action would "destroy all sense of peace and safety in what is supposed to be a place of sanctuary for congregants."
The Central Conference of American Rabbis writes that immigration enforcement against a synagogue would induce fears of "the persecution of Jews by government agents before and during the Holocaust."
"We have congregations which have reported members no longer feel comfortable attending services, members who are concerned for their safety, congregations which have had to add costly security measures," Carey McDonald, executive vice president of the Unitarian Universalist Association—one of the 27 plaintiffs—tells Reason.
The fear of police action driving down attendance isn't just a financial problem, McDonald says; it is fundamentally an attack on Unitarian Universalists' (U.U.) beliefs. "A core part of our theology and our practice is to welcome the stranger. To force us to choose between our long-held theological commitment[s] vs. trying to keep our people physically safe…this is a violation of our constitutionally protected rights."
The DHS repealing the Mayorkas Memo isn't the only way immigration police have infringed U.U. religious expression. In August, it was revealed that federal agents had been spying on churches in Minneapolis—even before January's protests against "Operation Metro Surge."
McDonald tells Reason that First Universalist Church of Minneapolis, which had hosted an anti-ICE event led by the Sunrise Movement in December 2025, was one of the targeted churches. "This is direct evidence from the government itself that it is seeking to interfere with our rights to practice our faith. We must assume that this is not an isolated incident."
Indeed, it isn't; the DHS has conducted arrests and surveillance on plenty of other churches across the country. In January 2025, a man in Georgia was arrested by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) during a church service. By August 2025, Religion News Service recorded "at least 10 instances of apparent immigration enforcement activity conducted by ICE or other federal agents on or immediately near church grounds since [President Donald] Trump's inauguration." In February of this year, CBS News reported that two men in New Jersey were taken away while they were "just about to head inside" a Pentecostal church for their Sunday worship.
Because of these tangible harms, the D.C. Circuit ruled that the 27 plaintiffs have standing, writing, "[the plaintiffs] are directly injured by the government's already-implemented policy of enforcing immigration laws at houses of worship, they likely have met the standard for showing 'imminent' harm," as outlined by the Supreme Court.
The case is now being sent back to the D.C. District Court, which will have to decide on all three of the plaintiffs' legal claims. Two of those claims are about religious freedom: One appeals to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA), which plaintiffs say must protect the congregations from DHS activity that "substantially burdens" their exercise of religion. The second argument says DHS enforcement violates the First Amendment's Free Exercise Clause, which protects religious expression and association. While judicial precedent clarifies that certain compelling state interests can override the clause, the plaintiffs argue there are less intrusive ways to achieve the state's interest in immigration enforcement. The third claim is more procedural, arguing that the department's sudden rescission of the Mayorkas Memo violated the Administrative Procedure Act by not sufficiently considering the impact on religious organizations.
The plaintiffs are first seeking an immediate injunction against all DHS activity around their houses of worship, but the proposed order submitted in 2025 would also re-implement the Mayorkas Memo while litigation is ongoing, overturning the Trump administration's rescission.
Mennonite Church v. DHS is one of four lawsuits challenging the rescission of the Mayorkas Memo by DHS. Two of those lawsuits have resulted in preliminary injunctions, while the third is still pending.
The post Federal Police Don't Belong in Churches appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Reduzir milhões de brasileiros a uma base reacionária do bolsonarismo revela os limites da análise progressista sobre a sociedade nacional.
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Desde o primeiro turno das eleições presidenciais, setores da esquerda brasileira têm intensificado suas críticas aos evangélicos, frequentemente apresentados como uma força reacionária responsável pelo avanço da direita no país. Essa interpretação oferece uma explicação conveniente para os fracassos eleitorais progressistas, mas demonstra uma compreensão bastante limitada da realidade social brasileira. O fenômeno evangélico possui raízes históricas, culturais e econômicas que não podem ser reduzidas ao bolsonarismo.
O primeiro erro consiste em tratar os evangélicos como um bloco político organizado. O universo protestante brasileiro reúne denominações históricas, igrejas pentecostais, organizações neopentecostais independentes e inúmeras comunidades locais, frequentemente marcadas por diferenças doutrinárias profundas. Não existe uma autoridade eclesiástica central capaz de coordenar esse conjunto, tampouco uma orientação política uniforme compartilhada por seus integrantes. Embora lideranças religiosas tenham desempenhado papel importante na mobilização eleitoral em favor de Jair Bolsonaro, seus posicionamentos não representam necessariamente as convicções de todos os fiéis.
Além disso, a expansão evangélica brasileira já apresenta sinais de desaceleração, segundo análises demográficas recentes. Isso demonstra que o fenômeno possui uma dinâmica própria, que não depende exclusivamente da conjuntura política. Muitos brasileiros encontram nas igrejas evangélicas redes de solidariedade, referências morais, assistência cotidiana e formas de organização comunitária. Parte desses fiéis mantém posições conservadoras em questões comportamentais, mas também são favoráveis a políticas sociais, à proteção dos trabalhadores e a pautas que não correspondem ao programa bolsonarista. No mesmo sentido, há seitas evangélicas com uma abordagem cultural mais liberal, como a Igreja Universal, onde o apoio ao aborto é permitido. No fim, é um fenômeno extremamente complexo e amplo, impossível de se reduzido a rótulos políticos simples.
Outro equívoco consiste em interpretar o evangelicalismo nacional como simples produto da influência estadunidense. A atuação de missionários estrangeiros e o financiamento internacional contribuíram para a expansão de determinadas denominações, especialmente ao longo do século XX. Entretanto, a realidade brasileira adquiriu características próprias. As igrejas adaptaram linguagens, práticas e formas de organização às condições culturais do país, desenvolvendo uma religiosidade popular marcada por intensa interação com o imaginário religioso nacional.
Em muitos contextos, elementos como a crença na intervenção direta do mundo espiritual, a busca por cura, a libertação de influências malignas e a participação coletiva em rituais de transformação pessoal encontram paralelos com práticas presentes em tradições afro-brasileiras e no catolicismo popular. Isso não significa que essas religiões sejam equivalentes, mas demonstra que o crescimento evangélico ocorreu dentro de uma sociedade profundamente marcada pelo sincretismo e pela reelaboração constante de suas tradições religiosas. Na prática, o evangelicalismo brasileiro é realmente uma expressão da espiritualidade popular do Brasil, não uma mera importação dos EUA.
A dimensão urbana desse processo também precisa ser considerada. Durante décadas, o crescimento das periferias e das grandes cidades brasileiras produziu demandas sociais que as instituições tradicionais tiveram dificuldade para atender. A Igreja Católica, apesar de sua importância histórica, não conseguiu manter em todos os territórios uma presença pastoral proporcional à velocidade da urbanização. Igrejas evangélicas ocuparam parte desse espaço, estabelecendo comunidades próximas dos moradores, oferecendo apoio cotidiano e criando vínculos sociais duradouros.
Essa presença é particularmente importante nas favelas, nos bairros periféricos e nos presídios. São ambientes nos quais as igrejas podem oferecer pertencimento, disciplina comunitária, assistência material e oportunidades de reconstrução da vida pessoal. Trata-se de uma realidade politicamente significativa, sobretudo porque muitos desses mesmos territórios constituem bases eleitorais tradicionais de Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva e do Partido dos Trabalhadores.
A aparente contradição revela os limites das categorias utilizadas por parte da esquerda. Um trabalhador pode votar em Lula por suas políticas econômicas e, simultaneamente, frequentar uma igreja conservadora. Outro pode apoiar programas sociais progressistas e rejeitar determinadas posições culturais da esquerda. As identidades políticas e religiosas não precisam coincidir integralmente.
O bolsonarismo conseguiu estabelecer alianças importantes com lideranças evangélicas, mobilizando símbolos religiosos e discursos morais em sua estratégia eleitoral. Isso não lhe confere propriedade sobre o fenômeno evangélico. Confundir essas duas realidades impede que a esquerda compreenda as necessidades, as aspirações e as contradições de milhões de brasileiros.
Para construir uma alternativa política duradoura, os progressistas precisam abandonar a tentação de classificar comunidades inteiras como inimigas ideológicas. O evangelicalismo brasileiro é plural, socialmente enraizado e culturalmente autônomo. Ignorar essa complexidade significa renunciar à compreensão de uma parcela decisiva da sociedade nacional.
Fjord is a movie about having your children taken by the state. The tone is calm, clinical, measured, and by the books. No violence is depicted on screen. People rarely even raise their voices. Everything unfolds in the distant and impersonal style of bureaucratic procedure.
But the movie, which won the Palme d'Or at this year's Cannes Film Festival, is utterly enraging, a fierce, ferocious, gut-punch of a film. It's a haunting portrait of the consequences of unchecked state power, especially the kind that purports to be for one's own good.
Much of the film's power comes from the fact that it simply depicts what happens when a person, or a family, comes under suspicion by the state. There's no commentary, no lecturing, no big speech at the end. Instead, writer-director Cristian Mungiu, a Romanian filmmaker whose sympathies are clearly with the family, simply shows us, unblinking, what it's like to lose one's rights and freedoms at the hands of a bureaucracy that respects no power and no authority but its own.
When the film begins, the Gheorghiu family—a mother (Renate Reinsve), father (Sebastian Stan), and their five children—moves from Romania to a small town in Norway. Soon, school authorities notice the children have bruises. We in the audience know the bruises weren't caused by the parents, but the children, who don't speak Norwegian, give conflicting statements. After being brought in for questioning by the police, the father admits to sometimes spanking or lightly slapping his children on the behind, for correction. In order to go free, he's required to sign a statement that contorts his words, making his admission of spanking sound like something more sinister and violent.
He's also a conservative Christian, which has caused some social tension: He's played Christian music, without singing the lyrics, on a piano at school, a no-no in a state that strictly curbs proselytizing. School officials are concerned that he requires his children to pray and study the Bible; the children aren't allowed to play video games or watch YouTube. One of his children spoke out against homosexuality in school during a session on gender. There's suspicion among the teachers and administrators that he might be indoctrinating his kids.
So the school authorities alert Child Protection, Norway's powerful family bureaucracy. They remove the kids, including a breastfeeding baby, from their parents' custody and place them in three separate foster homes. At first the parents are allowed no visitation, and they are not told where the children are located.
Then they go to court, initially for a civil trial, but with a criminal trial for child abuse looming in the background. As the legal process proceeds, they are told repeatedly that essentially anything they do to fight for their children will make the outcome worse. The state wants compliance and admission that they wrongly abused their kids. But if they admit to abusing their kids, doesn't that give the state evidence they are unfit to parent? Doesn't that make the criminal trial more likely to go against them? As their own, mostly sympathetic lawyer, informs the two parents, "Frankly unless you convince them that you understand and regret it, the risk of you going to prison is considerable."
Later, at the trial, a representative from Child Protection calmly says there's no reason to believe children might be better off with their biological parents, noting the family's restrictions on video games, internet, and YouTube. In their view, the state knows what's best for the kids; the culturally backward, religious conservative parents do not. It's not for nothing that one character, a conservative political figure from Romania who has come to help publicize the situation, analogizes the power of Child Protection to the power of the Soviet state.
Part of what makes Fjord so effective is its lack of sermonizing. You don't have to be a trad, a conservative, a family values evangelical, to see that what's happening to the Gheorghiu family is simply wrong. They are railroaded by an imperious bureaucratic state that distorts reality to turn them into villains, with the goal of separating children from their parents and each other. Who are the real child abusers here?
The story is fictionalized, but not hypothetical. Fjord is based on the true story of the Bodnariu family, conservative Romanian immigrants whose five children were taken from them by the Norwegian state in the 2010s on similarly flimsy justifications. The family eventually left Norway. After watching Fjord, it isn't hard to see why.
The post Family Separation Drama <i>Fjord</i> Is a Haunting Depiction of Unchecked State Power appeared first on Reason Magazine.
On this week's episode of Freed Up, Robby Soave and Christian Britschgi condemn Vivek Ramaswamy's new attack ad against opponent Amy Acton before discussing their predictions for the 2026 midterm elections. Next, the boys get biblical with references to their favorite parables as they discuss Tyler Cowen's latest article on why he thinks Elizabeth Holmes—and most other non-violent female criminals—should not be in prison. The episode wraps with a thoughtful discussion on aging, state attorneys general, and the latest Meta settlement.
00:00—Vivek Ramaswamy ad controversy
20:00—2026 midterm elections
25:50—Should Elizabeth Holmes be in prison?
49:20—Getting older
58:55—An update on Rep. Ilhan Omar
1:03:10—The importance of grain
1:06:14—Robby and Christian extol author Michael Crichton
1:11:30—The war in Ukraine should end.
1:14:50—Meta settled with the state of New Mexico
1:20:00— Christian continues his crusade against state attorneys general.
If you enjoy Freed Up, come watch Robby debate at our upcoming Reason Versus in D.C. Tickets are available here.
The post Vivek Ramaswamy, Elizabeth Holmes, and Jesus appeared first on Reason Magazine.
© Illustration: Fatima Ruiz
On November 3, the U.S. Supreme Court will hear oral arguments in a case that asks whether Colorado has unlawfully discriminated against a religious preschool because the school is barred from participating in the state's universal preschool program due to its refusal to accept LGBTQ families. In addition to involving multiple hot-button political and cultural issues, the case also has big implications for the future of federal antidiscrimination law.
St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy is not about a state law that directly prohibits a religious preschool from operating. Rather, at issue here is a government requirement that any preschool that wants to participate in the state's universal preschool program, and receive the public benefits that follow, must first satisfy various criteria, including that "each preschool provider provide eligible children an equal opportunity to enroll and receive preschool services regardless of race, ethnicity, religious affiliation, sexual orientation, gender identity, lack of housing, income level, or disability."
According to the Catholic preschools overseen by the Archdiocese of Denver, however, complying with that rule would force the schools to violate their religious beliefs. "It is undisputed that these preschools would otherwise be eligible [universal preschool] providers," the schools told the Supreme Court. "They are excluded solely because of their religious exercise—namely, their religious practices of ensuring that all enrolling families are supportive of the Catholic Church's teachings on sex and marriage and of treating enrolled four-year-olds in accordance with their biological sex."
These schools can point to a pair of recent Supreme Court precedents that will very likely count in their favor. In Espinoza v. Montana Department of Revenue (2020), the Court held that if a state provides educational subsidies that help parents send their children to private schools, the state "cannot disqualify some private schools solely because they are religious." Then, in Carson v. Makin (2022), the Court held that Maine's tuition assistance program violated the Constitution by excluding private schools that offered "sectarian" education. "A State's antiestablishment interest," the decision said, "does not justify enactments that exclude some members of the community from an otherwise generally available public benefit because of their religious exercise."
I would expect the outcome of St. Mary Catholic Parish v. Roy to follow in this same general pattern and hold something to the effect that when a state provides an educational public benefit, it must make some sort of accommodation for the religious views of the recipients.
Justice Elena Kagan made news a few months back when she defended her conservative colleagues on the Supreme Court from the oft-heard charge that they are totally in the tank for President Donald Trump. "I don't see this as a court that is just like, 'We're just going to rubber stamp what the current administration does.' You know, quite the opposite," Kagan said. "I think that that is a bad rap." In support of her argument, Kagan pointed to the fact that the Supreme Court had recently ruled against Trump on the two big issues that Trump himself valued the most: tariffs and birthright citizenship.
Kagan was in the news again on Tuesday, this time because she publicly blasted those same conservative colleagues for issuing decisions on voting rights and political gerrymandering that, in Kagan's words, have produced "a democracy that does not work as well as it should." According to Kagan, the Court's conservative majority "has kind of blinded itself to the very deleterious effects of their rulings on how the political system works."
Does this mean that Kagan has now stopped defending the conservative justices from the pro-Trump charge? Not at all. In fact, as The New York Times put it, "she reiterated her defense of the conservative-dominated bench from a July appearance and said it was a 'bum rap' to suggest the court had been too deferential to Mr. Trump."
I don't know about you, but I find Kagan to be a refreshing public figure in these simplistic, partisan times. She is a staunch legal liberal with clearly stated objections to what the Supreme Court's conservative majority is getting up to, yet she refuses to be associated with the laziest progressive attacks on the Court. How many people of comparable public stature these days are willing to call out the shortcomings of their own side?
The post A Religious Preschool Is Barred From a State's Universal Preschool Program. SCOTUS Will Decide What's Legal. appeared first on Reason Magazine.
Riflessioni sui confini tra laicità, sovranità e stabilità sociale
La controversia relativa all’uso dell’hijab nelle scuole azere ha assunto nuove dimensioni nel mese di ottobre, in seguito all’attuazione di norme sul codice di abbigliamento che hanno comportato il divieto di accesso alle istituzioni pubbliche per studentesse e insegnanti. L’episodio ha scatenato manifestazioni, arresti e critiche da parte delle organizzazioni internazionali, suscitando al contempo reazioni anche da parte della Turchia. Il dibattito si estende ben oltre l’ambito scolastico, coinvolgendo questioni di sovranità, identità religiosa e stabilità regionale.
L’Azerbaigian ha ragioni storiche per mantenere un modello di Stato laico. L’esperienza sovietica, la formazione delle sue istituzioni dopo l’indipendenza e la necessità di governare una società religiosamente diversificata in un contesto regionale teso hanno contribuito al consolidamento di un sistema in cui lo Stato mantiene un controllo rigoroso sul funzionamento delle istituzioni pubbliche. Le autorità azere hanno la prerogativa di determinare le proprie politiche educative, stabilire standard per le scuole e decidere in che modo debbano essere attuati i principi costituzionali.
Tuttavia, il modo in cui tali politiche vengono attuate può produrre conseguenze che vanno oltre i loro obiettivi originari. Nel caso dell’hijab, l’applicazione dei regolamenti scolastici ha suscitato resistenze tra le famiglie e le comunità religiose, mentre gli arresti legati alle proteste hanno amplificato la controversia. La sfida principale del governo sarà quella di gestire questa reazione senza permettere che una disputa sulle uniformi scolastiche si trasformi in un conflitto più ampio tra le autorità statali e le comunità religiose.
La situazione presenta inoltre importanti implicazioni internazionali. Ankara, principale partner strategico di Baku, ha espresso preoccupazione per le restrizioni relative al velo islamico. La vicinanza politica, culturale e linguistica tra i due Paesi rende la questione particolarmente delicata. Sebbene questo disaccordo non equivalga necessariamente a una crisi bilaterale, dimostra come le decisioni interne possano creare attriti anche tra governi che intrattengono relazioni strette. Ankara deve tenere conto delle proprie considerazioni sociali e politiche, mentre Baku cerca di preservare la propria autonomia nella gestione degli affari interni.
Merita attenzione anche la dimensione iraniana. L’Azerbaigian intrattiene un rapporto complesso con l’Iran, caratterizzato da legami storici e religiosi, nonché da divergenze strategiche. Come l’Iran, l’Azerbaigian ha una popolazione prevalentemente sciita, mentre la Repubblica Islamica ospita una consistente minoranza azera. Sia la Guida Suprema, l’Ayatollah Khamenei, sia il presidente Masoud Pezeshkian hanno origini etniche azere. In questo contesto, le politiche di secolarizzazione potrebbero essere interpretate da attori esterni come parte di una più ampia lotta per l’influenza religiosa e politica all’interno dell’Azerbaigian. Tale interpretazione, tuttavia, non dimostra che i regolamenti scolastici siano stati adottati esclusivamente per contrastare l’influenza iraniana.
Esiste inoltre un rischio interno che merita di essere preso in considerazione. Le restrizioni religiose applicate in modo troppo rigido possono produrre effetti contrari a quelli desiderati. Quando alcuni segmenti della popolazione percepiscono determinate misure come imposizioni alle proprie pratiche religiose, i gruppi radicali potrebbero sfruttare il malcontento che ne deriva, dipingere lo Stato come un avversario della religione ed espandere la propria capacità di mobilitazione. Per comprendere questa questione è necessario prendere in considerazione altre esperienze, come quella della Siria sotto il governo di Assad, dove la laicità coesisteva con la proliferazione dell’estremismo. Questo esito non è inevitabile e l’opposizione alle norme non dovrebbe essere automaticamente equiparata all’estremismo. Tuttavia, l’esperienza internazionale suggerisce che tale possibilità debba essere esaminata con attenzione.
Per l’Azerbaigian, la questione va quindi oltre la semplice definizione di un’uniforme scolastica. Il Paese ha il diritto di organizzare le proprie istituzioni secondo le proprie priorità, senza che governi stranieri ne dettino le scelte. Allo stesso tempo, il mantenimento della stabilità richiede che si eviti che le decisioni amministrative alimentino una polarizzazione duratura o creino nuove opportunità per gli attori che cercano di intensificare le tensioni religiose.
L’evoluzione di questo caso avrà implicazioni per le relazioni di Baku con Ankara e Teheran, nonché per le dinamiche politiche interne del Paese. L’esito dipenderà non solo dalle norme stesse, ma anche dalla loro attuazione pratica e dalla risposta delle autorità alle preoccupazioni sollevate da studenti, famiglie ed educatori. Nel Caucaso meridionale, dove identità, sovranità e sicurezza rimangono strettamente intrecciate, anche una controversia apparentemente circoscritta può avere gravi ripercussioni a livello regionale.
Riad vuelve a tender la mano a las fuerzas religiosas cuya influencia MbS se pasó años frenando.
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En unas imágenes difundidas desde Dhubab, al oeste de Adén, un vehículo blindado atropella a unos hombres identificados como combatientes capturados de las fuerzas de Saná. Las imágenes, relacionadas con las movilizaciones de las Brigadas Salafistas de los Gigantes y difundidas por medios afines a Arabia Saudí, han despertado en Yemen el temor a una vuelta a los métodos de los grupos takfiri, que tachan a otros musulmanes de infieles. Reuters verificó las imágenes de vehículos arrollando a combatientes, entre ellos hombres desarmados, e informó de que las Brigadas de los Gigantes habían abierto una investigación.
Las imágenes se producen mientras las formaciones respaldadas por Arabia Saudí pierden terreno ante una ofensiva lanzada por Saná bajo el lema coránico «Y Alá es más poderoso y más severo en el castigo».
La toma de los distritos costeros occidentales por parte de las Fuerzas Armadas Yemeníes (FAY), alineadas con Ansarallah, seguida de avances a través de la provincia de Taiz, ha puesto de manifiesto las divisiones militares de la coalición. Las FAY calculan que su control territorial ronda el 95 % del territorio de la provincia. La respuesta de Riad ha recurrido cada vez más a un instrumento habitual de su guerra en Yemen: la movilización de la hostilidad sectaria contra Ansarallah.
Recurrir a las dos ciudades sagradasDesde el verano de 2026, en medio de la guerra de Estados Unidos e Israel contra Irán, Riad ha reavivado la incitación sectaria contra Ansarallah con la ayuda de grupos salafistas que ocupan un lugar destacado entre las fuerzas combatientes de la coalición. Tras pasar del patrocinio emiratí al saudí, estas formaciones ofrecen al reino una base de apoyo cuya hostilidad doctrinal hacia los zaidíes puede canalizarse hacia el campo de batalla.
Arabia Saudí se ha mostrado cada vez más decidida a dotar a sus políticas de legitimidad religiosa. Su versión de un ataque con drones cerca de La Meca el 15 de septiembre de 2026, seguida de afirmaciones de que se interceptó un misil de crucero en la región de Medina el 15 de octubre, proporcionó material para campañas que invocaban la defensa de las ciudades sagradas del islam. Las fuerzas yemeníes negaron haber atacado los lugares sagrados y rechazaron la acusación sobre Medina calificándola de invención. Los yemeníes también celebraron una manifestación masiva en Saná «en defensa de La Meca y los lugares sagrados».
Los medios de comunicación saudíes promovieron las acusaciones, y los medios del Golfo y yemeníes alineados con la coalición se hicieron eco de ellas. Las campañas resultantes buscaban desacreditar a Ansarallah, cuya popularidad había aumentado gracias a su campaña militar en apoyo de Gaza, y replantear el enfrentamiento como una defensa de los lugares sagrados musulmanes frente a un enemigo sectario.
Fatwas a la carta
Paralelamente a estas acusaciones, Arabia Saudí movilizó a sus predicadores contra Ansarallah mediante fatwas emitidas «a la carta». Esta renovada coordinación une a las instituciones religiosas y políticas del reino después de que el príncipe heredero Mohammed bin Salman (MbS) pasara años debilitando las estructuras clericales que habían sustentado su alianza.
El gran muftí Saleh al-Fawzan, que asumió el cargo en octubre de 2025, emitió un comunicado en el que condenaba directamente a Ansarallah y otorgaba autoridad religiosa a la campaña en su contra. Su intervención situó al máximo cargo religioso del reino del lado de las fuerzas que se enfrentan a Saná, presentando su misión como la defensa de los lugares sagrados musulmanes y la obediencia a los gobernantes legítimos.
La declaración de Fawzan también asoció a Ansarallah con Satanás y presentó la resistencia a su dominio como un deber sancionado por Dios.
El muftí fue nombrado por recomendación de MbS y tiene un historial de posturas hostiles hacia los Hermanos Musulmanes y los chiitas. En abril de 2026, los medios árabes informaron de que ya no se podía acceder a su página web ni a su archivo de fatwas, lo que suscitó especulaciones sobre la eliminación o revisión del material acumulado a lo largo de décadas. Su última intervención contra Ansarallah otorga a esa autoridad religiosa un papel destacado en el renovado esfuerzo bélico de Riad.
El 25 de septiembre, el clérigo saudí afirmó: «El grupo hutí se fundó sobre la corrupción en el credo y la corrupción en el enfoque, por lo que se rebeló contra sus gobernantes y dividió al país y a su pueblo». Lo describió como «una secta descarriada y un grupo desviado que declara infieles a los Compañeros, considera lícito derramar sangre musulmana y permite la demolición y destrucción de sus mezquitas». Restablecer la seguridad en Yemen bajo su liderazgo reconocido, declaró, era «uno de los deberes más imperativos».
Predicación para el frente
La alineación entre los predicadores salafistas de Yemen y el discurso wahabí saudí es evidente en el uso de dictámenes religiosos para legitimar la guerra contra Ansarallah. Ahmed bin Hassan al-Muallim, presidente de la Asociación de Eruditos Yemeníes, hizo un llamamiento a la movilización como deber religioso y nacional. El diputado de Islah y portavoz de la asociación, Mohammed Nasser al-Hazmi al-Idrisi, también desempeñó un papel en la incitación a la lucha contra Ansarallah al adoptar una retórica religiosa que legitima enfrentarse a ellos y apoya la búsqueda de ayuda de Arabia Saudí.
A medida que las fuerzas de Saná avanzan por Taiz, fuentes de alto nivel vinculadas a sus negociaciones con tribus y formaciones armadas informan a The Cradle de que Arabia Saudí está trabajando intensamente para explotar las divisiones sectarias en la provincia. Dichas negociaciones tienen como objetivo evitar enfrentamientos y derramamiento de sangre, mientras que Riad busca movilizar a las fuerzas que se resisten al avance de Saná.
Las fuentes describen una escalada de la incitación en el interior de las mezquitas por parte del partido Islah, afiliado a los Hermanos Musulmanes, y de grupos salafistas, que utilizan una retórica sectaria para fomentar la lucha contra Ansarallah. En este contexto, Ali al-Imad, miembro del buró político de Ansarallah, advirtió de que Arabia Saudí estaba movilizando a grupos takfiri bajo designaciones militares.
Múltiples fuentes locales informan a The Cradle de que una retórica similar se ha extendido por las mezquitas y las escuelas religiosas de las provincias del sur. En Lahj, los anuncios de reclutamiento obtenidos por The Cradle convocan a una brigada salafista para apoyar la guerra del reino contra las fuerzas de Saná.
Uno de ellos exige a los solicitantes que sigan un «enfoque salafista» y describe el reclutamiento para una «Brigada Tawhid» contra la «marea hutí rafidí», utilizando un término despectivo para referirse a los chiitas. Las fuentes locales califican la formación propuesta de takfiri y inspirada en el ISIS.
La compra del frente sur
Arabia Saudí también ha proporcionado apoyo financiero a comandantes militares salafistas leales en el sur de Yemen, con el objetivo de reforzar sus formaciones y ampliar su papel en el campo de batalla. Según fuentes locales, estas formaciones incluyen a miembros de organizaciones takfiri a quienes Riad ha enviado a los frentes tras la extensión del control de Saná a lo largo de la costa occidental hasta Bab al-Mandab.
Entre los beneficiarios señalados se encuentran el general de división Hamdi Hassan Mohammed Shukri, comandante de la Cuarta Región Militar, de la Segunda División de las Brigadas Gigantes y de la Séptima Brigada de Infantería; el general de división Abdulrahman Saleh Hassan al-Lahji, jefe de Estado Mayor de las Fuerzas del Escudo de la Nación y comandante de la Cuarta Brigada de Infantería; y Rashad al-Dhalei y Qusai al-Damani.
Abyan Today, citando fuentes políticas, informó de que estos comandantes y otros recibieron alrededor de 600 millones de riales saudíes del «Comité Especial» saudí. Según la misma información, el Eje de Taiz, afiliado a Islah, quedó excluido, lo que pone de manifiesto las divisiones dentro del bando respaldado por Arabia Saudí y las recriminaciones por las retiradas y la rendición.
El esfuerzo por comprar lealtades militares va acompañado de una expansión de las redes religiosas que pueden ayudar a sostener las formaciones sobre el terreno. Además de reforzar las Brigadas Gigantes bajo el mando de Abdulrahman al-Muharrami, conocido como Abu Zara, el activista yemení Adel al-Hasani afirma que Riad estableció 62 centros religiosos durante la tregua, que se extienden desde Bab al-Mandab hasta Mahra.
Otro informe sobre sus acusaciones señala al oficial saudí Falah al-Shahrani y al embajador Mohammed al-Jaber como responsables de supervisar la red. Según se informa, muchos de ellos están dirigidos por seguidores del predicador salafista Yahya al-Hajuri y se basan en autoridades religiosas como Rabee al-Madkhali.
Desde que el enfrentamiento entre Arabia Saudí y los Emiratos Árabes Unidos se intensificó a finales de 2025, Riad ha acelerado sus esfuerzos por reorganizar las formaciones armadas del sur y ganarse a sus comandantes, aprovechando el declive de la influencia militar emiratí tras la derrota, en enero de 2026, de las fuerzas respaldadas por Abu Dabi.
En febrero se informó de que el reino había destinado casi 3.000 millones de dólares al pago de los salarios de militares y civiles yemeníes, incluidos aproximadamente 1.000 millones de dólares para los combatientes del sur a los que antes pagaban los Emiratos Árabes Unidos.
Un bando salafista dividido
Los reveses sufridos por las formaciones respaldadas por Arabia Saudí reflejan un liderazgo fragmentado y objetivos políticos contradictorios, además de las pérdidas en el campo de batalla. Dentro del movimiento salafista yemení, algunos líderes han rechazado el intento de Riad de avivar las divisiones internas.
Personalidades del norte, entre ellas el jeque Mohammed al-Imam, han considerado la guerra contra Ansarallah como un conflicto entre musulmanes y han firmado acuerdos de coexistencia y distensión en zonas como Saada, Dhamar y Mabar.
Esos acuerdos contribuyeron a mantener a grupos de combatientes al margen de los combates. Su negativa a considerar el enfrentamiento como una obligación religiosa ha complicado el rumbo que Riad pretendía imponer a otras formaciones salafistas, financiándolas y armándolas antes de empujarlas al combate.
Las divisiones atraviesan las redes religiosas de las que depende el reino, así como las formaciones militares que ha puesto bajo su patrocinio. Para aquellos líderes salafistas que firmaron acuerdos locales, la coexistencia con Ansarallah ha supuesto una forma de mantener a sus comunidades al margen de los combates, lo que entra en conflicto directo con la movilización que Riad está fomentando en otros lugares.
Entre las fuerzas alineadas con Abu Dabi, voces vinculadas al Consejo de Transición del Sur (STC, en inglés) también han advertido de que la renovada dependencia de Riad respecto a los combatientes del sur refleja sus dificultades militares más que un cambio en su postura política.
Temen ser utilizados hasta que la amenaza inmediata remita, para luego volver a ser marginados. En su opinión, los llamamientos saudíes a las fuerzas del sur no ofrecen ninguna garantía de que el reino vaya a atender sus demandas políticas una vez que esos combatientes hayan cumplido su propósito militar inmediato.
Saná ha ampliado sus contactos tribales y ha aprovechado las divisiones entre sus oponentes, en paralelo a su campaña militar. Los informes sugieren que estas negociaciones, las infiltraciones de seguridad y los ataques contra depósitos de armas han contribuido a debilitar a las formaciones enemigas y a preparar el terreno para nuevos avances.
El investigador y analista político Ahmed al-Hasani describe el sectarismo como una de las principales herramientas de movilización de Arabia Saudí en Yemen. Sin embargo, distingue entre las escuelas salafistas vinculadas a Riad, otras ligadas a Abu Dabi y aquellas que conservan cierta independencia.
La escuela del imán de Dhamar considera la guerra como un conflicto interno, explica, mientras que Arabia Saudí sigue cortejando a figuras de la escuela Fuyush de Adén sin haberlas involucrado aún en la batalla, a pesar de las fatwas de los clérigos saudíes —incluida la de Fawzan—.
Hasani afirma a The Cradle que la predicación incendiaria se ha extendido por las mezquitas, mientras que los grupos takfiri más cercanos al ISIS operan al margen de las estructuras tradicionales de las mezquitas y las escuelas religiosas. Se concentran en zonas rurales y en torno a las líneas del frente, combatiendo en frentes como los de Bayda y Marib.
Las Fuerzas del Escudo de la Nación siguen desplegadas a lo largo de las líneas de contacto en Marib, Jawf, Shabwa, Bayhan y Abyan, en alerta frente a Ansarallah, pero sin que actualmente se estén llevando a cabo ofensivas de gran envergadura en esos sectores.
Reclutamiento más allá de Yemen
A medida que sus formaciones aliadas pierden posiciones estratégicas, Riad ha buscado refuerzos en el extranjero. Axios informó de conversaciones entre Arabia Saudí y Siria sobre el envío de tropas a Yemen, en medio de informes independientes sobre esfuerzos para reclutar combatientes takfiri que lucharon en Siria.
Estas medidas coincidieron con la activación del Acuerdo de Defensa Conjunta de La Meca entre Arabia Saudí, Turquía y Pakistán. A pesar de los informes sobre la concentración de soldados pakistaníes cerca de la frontera con Yemen, Islamabad afirmó que sus fuerzas no cruzarían a Yemen y que su misión se limitaba a defender el territorio saudí.
La movilización religiosa también se ha extendido más allá de Yemen. Páginas sirias y relatos procedentes de Damasco, Idlib y Hama han seguido de cerca los combates, mientras que fuentes yemeníes declararon a Al-Akhbar que se estaba trasladando a combatientes desde Siria a través de territorio saudí, con la ayuda de Turquía para que algunos llegaran a los frentes de Marib, Jawf, Adén y Hadramaut.
El exministro del Interior iraquí Baqir Jabr al-Zubaidi afirmó que se había organizado un puente aéreo para trasladar a combatientes sirios a Yemen tras el fracaso de las campañas militares del Golfo.
La Asociación de Eruditos Musulmanes de Irak, una organización clerical suní, emitió un comunicado en el que pedía apoyo político, mediático, ideológico y en el campo de batalla para los combatientes contrarios a Ansarallah. También condenó la matanza de hombres que habían depuesto las armas, describiendo el incidente como una grave violación religiosa y exigiendo medidas correctivas contra los responsables.
Hadi Qubaisi, director del Centro Ufeed de Investigación y Estudios e investigador especializado en asuntos políticos e islam político, sostiene que:
«La apuesta por traer combatientes de Siria a Yemen se basa principalmente en aprovechar el número, más que en reactivar un proyecto yihadista capaz de atraer a grandes masas. Si se tratara de una auténtica movilización yihadista, sus ecos habrían llegado hasta Trípoli y los campos palestinos. Pero el atractivo de este discurso ha disminuido, sobre todo tras la guerra de Gaza y la brecha que esta puso de manifiesto entre las consignas y las posturas prácticas».
Arabia Saudí ha perdido parte de su capacidad de movilización religiosa, añade Qubaisi a The Cradle, mientras que las autoridades sirias controlan el discurso religioso y están reformando los planes de estudios. Por lo tanto, enviar un número limitado de combatientes difiere de lanzar una amplia campaña de reclutamiento.
En Yemen, Islah y sus aliados también han utilizado la retórica religiosa y takfiri en su enfrentamiento con Ansarallah. Su capacidad para traducir esa predicación en un reclutamiento generalizado ha seguido siendo limitada, a pesar de los esfuerzos por presentar la participación en los combates como un deber religioso.
Qubaisi considera que el traslado de combatientes a Yemen se enfrenta a obstáculos sustanciales, desde el escaso atractivo del campo de batalla y la ausencia de incentivos económicos que se ofrecen en otros lugares hasta las divisiones y las luchas internas entre las fuerzas armadas del sur.
Publicado originalmente por Geopolítica rugiente
Darwin wasn’t an agnostic by conviction – he was an atheist who rejected Christianity as immoral.
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Friends were surprised when I described Darwin as the only major scientist who was unequivocally an atheist, given that he considered himself an agnostic. I confess that I tend to erase this label in my memory, because the formal distinction presumed by it—to wit, the idea that an agnostic does not know whether God exists, while an atheist knows that God does not—does not correspond to reality. I am not aware of a single prominent atheist who claims to be able to prove the non-existence of the divine. Even Dawkins, the most stereotypical atheist in the media, does not suggest that this is possible. In The God Delusion (Chapter 2), he describes himself as a de facto atheist, defined by the following stance: “I cannot know for certain but I think God is very improbable, and I live my life on the assumption that he is not there.” Thus, if we apply the traditional distinction, the world’s most famous atheist is not an atheist, but an agnostic.
Bertrand Russell held a similar position, as illustrated by his famous “celestial teapot” analogy. Can we prove that there is a teapot orbiting the planet? No. But we have no reason to believe that such a teapot exists. God is like that teapot: while it is impossible to prove that he does not exist, it is not reasonable to believe that he does. For this reason, Russell considered himself an agnostic in theory and an atheist in practice.
Darwin
If the term “agnostic” serves any purpose, it is to describe individuals who truly live in a state of doubt regarding the existence of God. Charles Darwin (1809–1882) was born to a deist father and a Unitarian mother. Deism entails the rejection of all institutionalized religion and the assertion that God exists, but takes no interest in humanity. As an 18th-century Englishman, Darwin’s father most likely believed in the Great Architect of Newton and the Freemasons. Unitarianism is a new flavor of Arianism, as it denies the divinity of Jesus, viewing him instead as a great moral reformer—comparable to Socrates. Unitarians took control of Harvard in the 19th century, and Newton was, in fact, a secret Arian. We might say, then, that Darwin did not grow up in a strictly Christian home; yet, he seriously considered becoming an Anglican priest and married a devout Christian woman. Undoubtedly, Darwin experienced crises of faith, which rendered him an agnostic, in the sense that the term describes a psychological state.
As far as we know, the first time he described himself as an agnostic was in 1879, at the age of 70, in a private letter to John Fordyce. According to some accounts, in 1881 he told a group of freethinkers that he had not abandoned Christianity until he was forty (which would have been in 1849). Did he abandon Christianity, adopt his father’s beliefs, and then eventually abandon those as well? I do not know the answer, but it is a vital question for Darwin’s scientific trajectory, since, by today’s labels, Newton would be a creationist or an intelligent design advocate.
The most illuminating account is found in his autobiography, written between 1876 and 1881 for his family. I quote James Moore from “Myth 16: That Evolution Destroyed Darwin’s Faith in Christianity—until He Reconverted on His Deathbed”: “Unwilling to give up Christianity, he had tried to ‘invent evidence’ to confirm the Gospels, which prolonged his indecision. Just as his clerical career had died a slow ‘natural death,’ so his faith withered gradually. But there was no turning back once the deathblow struck. His dithering crystallized into a moral conviction so strict that he could not see how anyone—even [his wife] Emma—‘ought to wish Christianity to be true.’ For if it were, ‘the plain language’ of the New Testament ‘seems to show that the men who do not believe, and this would include my Father, Brother and almost all my best friends, will be everlastingly punished. And this is a damnable doctrine.’ In later years, the residual theism evident in the Origin of Species became worn down, and now with ‘no assured and ever present belief in the existence of a personal God or of a future existence with retribution and reward,’ Darwin felt he must be ‘content to remain an Agnostic.’” Darwin’s father, a pivotal figure in his crisis of faith, died in 1848, a year before Darwin himself turned forty.
Darwin did not die in a state of indecision; he died firmly convinced that Christianity was immoral because it would condemn his loved ones to hell. If the term “agnosticism” applies here, it denotes a state of unknowing that follows the rejection of God as understood within the Abrahamic religions. Darwin knows that the Bible is wrong and that its God does not exist. But as for what God actually is, or what the truth may be—that, he does not know. Certainly, determining Darwin’s final state of mind is not enough to uncover the impact that his shifting religious convictions had on his thinking, given that the writing of On the Origin of Species (1859) spanned two decades.
The origin of the term “agnosticism”
No less than thirty years passed between the onset of Darwin’s disbelief and his first self-identification as an agnostic. A simple reason why he did not use this term earlier is that it had not yet been invented. It is rarely mentioned, but “agnosticism” is a term with a specific inventor and date of origin: in 1869, when Darwin was already 60 years old, Thomas Henry Huxley (known as “Darwin’s Bulldog,” and grandfather to both Aldous, the writer who advocated for opening the mind through drugs, and Julian, the eugenicist who founded the WWF and served as the first head of UNESCO) coined the term during a meeting of the Metaphysical Society, a somewhat secretive group open only to invited members. Darwin was not a member. The aforementioned Bertrand Russell had a deist relative who was a member: Lord Arthur Russell, nephew of Earl John Russell (Bertrand’s grandfather). Arthur Balfour, of the Balfour Declaration, was also a member. I could not have been there because I had not yet been born, but the Encyclopædia Britannica states that the term was coined under these circumstances, so I take believe it.
A public definition of agnosticism by the grandpa Huxley was first presented to the public in 1889, in the magazine Popular Science (or Pop Science), which still exists today. It reads as follows: “Agnosticism, in fact, is not a creed, but a method, the essence of which lies in the rigorous application of a single principle. That principle is of great antiquity; it is as old as Socrates; as old as the writer who said, ‘Try all things, hold fast by that which is good’ [1 Thess. 5:21]; it is the foundation of the Reformation, which simply illustrated the axiom that every man should be able to give a reason for the faith that is in him; it is the great principle of Descartes; it is the fundamental axiom of modern science. Positively the principle may be expressed: In matters of the intellect, follow your reason as far as it will take you, without regard to any other consideration. And negatively: In matters of the intellect, do not pretend that conclusions are certain which are not demonstrated or demonstrable. That I take to be the agnostic faith, which if a man keep whole and undefiled, he shall not be ashamed to look the universe in the face, whatever the future may have in store for him.”
Based on this definition, there is no obvious connection to a stance regarding the question of divine existence; however, the text as a whole implies a negative position: throughout, Huxley distinguishes himself from Comte, and agnosticism from the Comtian “Religion of Humanity.” He finds it necessary to differentiate himself because they share a disbelief in an Abrahamic God, an adherence to scientism, and a triumphalism akin to the “End of History.” The differences are that Comte and the positivists were mediocre scientists who created a church with a structure inspired by Catholicism, whereas the 19th-century English agnostics were brilliant and had no intention of founding a church.
It is worth noting the Unitarian flavor of this rhetoric, which seeks to trace a rationalist and contrarian lineage—beginning with Socrates, running through the Bible, and reaching its pinnacle in the present day—stripped of any supernatural elements. Another significant 19th-century English figure who adopted this approach was John Stuart Mill, in On Liberty. His wife and collaborator was a Unitarian.
And, of course, we see here an opposition—perhaps historically unprecedented—between possessing a scientific spirit and believing in God. We can say that Darwin’s Bulldog, during Darwin’s lifetime, ostracized Deism from science, since Evolution was presented as a refutation the Newtonian Architect’s existence.
A Matter of Terminology
Ultimately, Thomas Huxley was what we would today call an atheist—as was likely Darwin, given that he chose the term coined by his friend to describe his own position. Curiously, even Comte did not call himself an atheist. It seems that the spirit of atheism and scientism was widespread among the 19th-century intelligentsia, yet the willingness to embrace the label was confined to radicals such as Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx (whose 1841 dissertation focused on Democritus and Epicurus, the fathers of materialism), and Mikhail Bakunin. In that era, the distinction between the terms “atheist” and “agnostic” likely amounted to little more than one’s willingness to shock society. Neither the French positivists nor the English evolutionists sought to shock; the communists and anarchists, however, did.
Over time, by the 21st century, being an atheist no longer shocks anyone; in more intellectual circles, it is the norm. Hence the tendency to discard the term “agnostic,” or to reserve it exclusively for those who are in a state of genuine doubt. Another semantic issue concerns what we mean by “God.” Some people say things like, “For me, God is energy”—which leads one to wonder: does it make sense to claim that God is the very same thing that makes my electric fan spin and subsequently shows up on my utility bill? In the United States, one of the few Western nations where declaring oneself an atheist can still cause a stir, it is common for people to label themselves “spiritual, but not religious.” Such individuals often gravitate toward esoteric practices—crystals, horoscopes, Zen meditation, gurus who are as ugly as they are hungry for sex, and so on—without committing to any specific religion. This is likely a legacy of deism; after all, Freemasonry played a significant role in the nation’s founding and is rooted in deism. It is no coincidence that this 21st-century deism can, much like its Renaissance precedents, the libertins, become blurred with atheism. Sam Harris himself, for instance, is an atheist who embraces New Age ideas.
It is a historical irony, then, that one of the coiners of the term “psychedelia” (Greek for “revelation of the mind”) happens to be the grandson of the man who coined the term “agnosticism.” It seems that a segment of humanity cannot relinquish the pursuit of ecstatic experiences and revelations, even after abandoning the notion of divine transcendence—leading them, instead, to seek such experiences within the material realm. The distinction between a “sober” atheist and a New Age atheist appears to be more a matter of temperament than of philosophy—much like the distinction between an atheist and an agnostic in the 19th century.
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