Comment by teleforce | Hacker News Reader

Comment by teleforce | Hacker News Reader

Apparently, there are many other major religious persecutions that are not well-known today.

These include the Nguyen Lords persecutions and ethnic cleansing of Chams people that used to live and control more than half of modern Vietnam, for more than a thousand years [1],[2].

Interestingly, both of the Catholic Church of Spain and Nguyens Lords of Vietnam regimes employed Pig or Pork Policy as a control measures to forcefully integrate the remaining Muslims community that were not migrated away but chosen to stay behind [3],[4].

[1] Nguyễn lords:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nguy%E1%BB%85n_lords

[2] History of the Cham–Vietnamese wars:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Cham%E2%80%93Vi...

[3] Pork politics and the Spanish Inquisition:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/06/pork-politics-...

[4] Spain decides to make up for its persecution of Jews — but won't do the same for Muslims:

https://theweek.com/articles/445777/spain-decides-make-perse...

Funny, but the first thing that came to my mind reading the study abstract was ham in Spain - particularly its ubiquity in Andalusia, where I lived for a few years. There are only two kinds of restaurants in Granada - those that serve ham, and those that are Halal. I developed a theory that it had to do with forcing pork onto Muslim and Jewish populations during the Reconquista. It still serves as a form of self-segregation today (although you could argue that the actual self-segregation is by practitioners of Halal and Kashrut diets - and I say this as a Jamon-loving Jew who feels sorry for my people who can't enjoy a bit of pig). Interesting to learn there's some truth behind my suspicion.

Oh yes, it was used as test and for persecution. To circumvent that, Andalusian cuisine even had fake pork meals, to keep suspicion low. (Can't find the source now, but it IIRC it was an article about a book on Andalusian cuisine in general, and it was mentioned in passing).

In Portugal, Jews invented an ingenious decoy sausage to evade pork surveillance:

https://www.bbc.com/travel/article/20170929-the-unlikely-sau...

> [4] Spain decides to make up for its persecution of Jews — but won't do the same for Muslims:

Because they rebelled against the Spanish Crown, lost the war and left of were expelled [1].

Through the history of Spain there has been waves of conquerors that have forced their culture to the natives (with different level of success): Carthage [2], Rome [3], Goths [4] and Arabs [5]. Most of the time, the natives converted to their masters' language, culture and religion. Of course, most of the time, those who refused to assimilate, were then battled, exterminated and those that were alive left or were expelled (Numantians in the case of the Roman conquest [6], Christians in the case of the Arab/Muslim conquest, Muslims in the case of the Christian re-conquest). It's not pretty but it's the history of the Iberian Peninsula.

  - [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rebellion_of_the_Alpujarras_(1568%E2%80%931571)
  - [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carthage
  - [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_conquest_of_the_Iberian_Peninsula
  - [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visigothic_Kingdom
  - [5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Umayyad_conquest_of_Hispania
  - [6] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Numantia

> Apparently, there are many other major religious persecutions that are not well-known today.

Yup, like the Coptic Christians of Egypt. Or Christians in the Middle East/Near East more generally.

And we have today the "New Puritans of the Left" aka SJW/Woke. Very much a religious movement in that facts don't matter, only ideology/catechism do, and followers are highly prone to violent enforcement and persecution.

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