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July 12th, 2003, 12:11 PM
#1
HB Forum Owner
For those of you curious about why we are having so many problems in the mideast, I would like to present this article. In understanding the Middle East, it is important to understand their history, and this article, long as it is, does a good job of summarizing some of the most significant historical developments in that region.
One point was made in the article, that I found extremely interesting:
<BLOCKQUOTE><font size=2 face="Comic sans ms, Helvetica, sans-serif">quote:</font><table border="0" width="90%" bgcolor="#333333" cellspacing="1" cellpadding="0"><tr><td width="100%"><table border="0" width="100%" cellspacing="0" cellpadding="2" bgcolor="#FF9900"><tr><td width="100%" bgcolor="#DDDDDD"><font size=2 face="Comic sans ms, Helvetica, sans-serif">Historical allusions such as bin Laden's, which may seem abstruse to many Americans, are common among Muslims, and can be properly understood only within the context of Middle Eastern perceptions of identity and against the background of Middle Eastern history. Even the concepts of history and identity require redefinition for the Westerner trying to understand the contemporary Middle East. In current American usage, the phrase "that's history" is commonly used to dismiss something as unimportant, of no relevance to current concerns, and, despite an immense investment in the teaching and writing of history, the general level of historical knowledge in our society is abysmally low. The Muslim peoples, like everyone else in the world, are shaped by their history, but, unlike some others, they are keenly aware of it.</font></td></tr></table></td></tr></table></BLOCKQUOTE>
On a philosophical level, I wonder if this is due to the fact that, in America, we've all pretty much pulled ourselves up from out of the muck and now rule the world, while the Muslims, who used to rule the world, are now, well, in the muck. Their glories are in the past, ours are in the present... and so the present interests us, while the past obsesses them.
And please, great whoever, let this be the last post where I use the words "us" and "them" that many times in a row for a long while.
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July 12th, 2003, 02:21 PM
#2
HB Forum Owner
Thank you for posting. The article is a wonderful reminder of differently people in the Middle East think. Perhaps our foriegn policy would be different if we chose to understand those Middle Eastern culture.
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July 13th, 2003, 03:25 AM
#3
HB Forum Owner
It's not just the Middle East. Compared to just about any other country the United State's "culture" is still relatively new. The country's only a couple hundred years old.
Pretty insightful article. It was written shortly after the events of 9/11. I wonder what the author has to say about current events in Iraq.
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 12, 2003 02:34 PM: Message edited by: JaceSan ]</font>
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July 13th, 2003, 04:35 AM
#4
Inactive Member
i was watching a comedian on Just For Laughs a few weeks ago, an American comedian, and he was talking about Americans and culture. he said that Americans "should travel outside of the country at least once every two years or so, otherwise [they] begin to think that [they] actually have a culture. the closest thing [they] have to a culture is when [they] leave yogurt in the fridge too long."
i said back at the beginning of this that if Bush and his horde of morons would at least TRY to understand what instigated these Muslims to do what they did, they might be able to deal with it rationally instead of bombing the fuck out of them. you know, being adults and all. but the first thing out of his mouth was "we're going to get these guys and make them pay." true, probably would have said the same thing, but i'm not the president of a leading country. they should have focused a lot more on the "why" instead of the "who" and maybe some kind of negotiations could have taken place. i don't know. it wasn't my country under attack, so i don't know how i would react if the roles were reversed.
[although it is my opinion that if any nation attacked canada, being all peace-loving as we are, the rest of the world would have kicked their ass to kingom come without our needing to ask for help. but that's just me. i'm not being cocky or anything, but look at canada on a global, political level - we're not a threat.]
oh, and the comments on Christianity and its desire for world domination - i couldn't agree more. the world was unstable when they showed up, true, but when is the world ever totally stable?? but you bring the Christians in, and BOOM, the world went to hell. especially rome. and then you get constantine in on the whole thing ... frig. and we're still completely unstable. now there are different factions of christianity - protestant, church of england, catholic, episcopalean, anglican, baptist, etc etc - and even THEY can't get along as a group. Ireland's problems, for example, started mostly because of religion and culture differences and not wanting to cede to british religion. (not the case now ... now it's gang wars/drug wars that just happen to coincide with their religion. but it's all about the drugs. trust me on this.) no offense to all christians here, but good gravy, what a lot of shit they brought to the world.
and i'm so tired of western/european civilizations meddling with other nations. just because it doesn't work in your little world doesn't mean it will in others. stop imposing your ideas and let us just live the way we want to live. it's mostly the fault of europe that africa is still fucked up to this day, because they divided up the land into individual countries and separated tribes/merged tribes with rivals. and just expected to go in there and take over. haven't we learned from history at all? wars are a bad idea and cause more problems than necessary. but here we are, at war. again. apparently you can't start off a new century/millenium without a war of some sort.
i'll say more later, perhaps. depending on how the comments go. and when i finish reading this article; i'm about halfway through, but i cant read anymore right now cuz i'm really tired.
but i have one thing else to say, somewhat unrelated - is it just me, or is Bush seriously the incarnation of Hitler? i'm not being sarcastic or anything, i'm quite serious. i mean, look at it, historically. while hitler's men were off on a genocide (jewicide?) spree, hitler himself was acting the perfect chancellor, donating money and helping with the peace in europe and everything. here we have bush's armies bombing the fuck out of Iraq (which, like the Jews, had NO LOGICAL REASON to be attacked), meanwhile bush himself is now on some cracked Aids crusade in Africa? like, what the fuck is going on here? really? the american economy is shot to hell, what with all the military spending, and now the stupid schmuck wants to spend something like $15 billion towards fighting Aids in Africa???
is it just me, or is this looking a little odd to you? and hitler-esque?
<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ July 13, 2003 01:48 AM: Message edited by: Jelymo ]</font>
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July 15th, 2003, 11:05 PM
#5
Inactive Member
[sarcasm]are we allowed to respond to that post?
its unpatriotic. we could lose our jobs or get arrested as terrorists.... [/sarcasm]
Ahhh, the Patriot Act, an American's "best" friend
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