Date: Wed, 26 Sep 2001 02:21:32 +0200 (CEST) From: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in> Cc: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it>, Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: helping victims of terror Message-ID: <1001463692.3bb11f8ccca43@webmail.neomedia.it> In-Reply-To: <20010925222900.A71817@lpt.ens.fr> References: <1001447850.3bb0e1aa11dfc@webmail.neomedia.it> <20010925222900.A71817@lpt.ens.fr>
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Scrive Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@physics.iisc.ernet.in>:
>
>
> Salvo Bartolotta said on Sep 25, 2001 at 21:57:30:
>
> <snip>
>
> > The cavemen which^H^H^H^H^Hwho live in Afghanistan and other ahem
> "Islamic"
> > countries have NOTHING to do with Islam. They could be using **any**
>
> > **other** **pretext** for their troglodyte behavio(u)r. In other
> words,
> > religio instrumentum regni.
>
> <snip further>
>
> > I am afraid that the ahem troglodytes in question would perpetrate
> > horrible crimes on the western peoples all the same, sooner or
> > later; otherwise stated, such a disaster as the WTC one would just
> > be a question of time.
> >
> > It is their **ideology** that leads them to believe that the Western
> > World, its culture, its art, and its way of life have to be
> > destroyed.
>
> <snip some more; hope I retained the essence of what you're saying,
> anyway>
>
> > Sorry for the pessimism. Am I missing something?
>
> Yes, you're missing a *lot* by apparently characterising the general
> population of Afghanistan as "cavemen".
Ooops, my fault, sorry. I was thinking of the "Islamic" leaders (using
religion as a means of goverment, or "instrumentum regni"), and of [more or
less large] unlettered masses following them. Yep, a good number of people
are just victims, I agree.
This holds to a varying extent in a few countries, where populations are needy
and -- key factor -- illiterate, so a [more or less great] number of
"religious" leaders teach them fundamentalistic ideas -- for their own
**filthy** political/ideological/pseudoreligious purposes; which purposes
involve, inter alia, that the Western World is irremediably rotten, etc.
One characteristic example is Egypt, with both moderate and fundamentalist
religious leaders. In fact, I was referring to an important Egyptian moderate
religious authority in my previous letter. As far as I can see,
fundamentalists, who are not exactly a small number in this country, create
delicate problems for Mubarak himself, and can't be easily dismissed as
"negligible" fringes.
Pakistan is another example, with yet more aggressive fundamentalist masses.
I believe that
1) the distortion of Islam/any religion has nothing to do with Islam and
with religion at large;
2) these ideas can only be accepted by **ignorant** and [more or less
large] [more or less] poor masses;
3) most of these religious/political leaders, for a variety of reasons, wish
to keep these populations as ignorant [and poor] as they can.
My pessimism arises from the extreme difficulty in attacking the roots of the
problem, viz hunger & ignorance, which constitute ideal humus for [Islam]
fundamentalism and other BS.
> I've also seen your argument about "they'd have done this anyway" elsewhere.
Oops, I read my letter again, and it makes a different impression from the
intended one, sorry. I have a longer time scale and course of events in mind,
the destruction of the West being the "endlosung" (the final solution) for
Islam fundamentalists.
Quite a few such indoctrinated people actually came to Europe, and also to
Italy, with the precise aim I have described in the last part of my previuos
letter. There HAVE been women fighting to take their daughters away from such
"fathers" and "countries", where these daughters, as women, would have little
to no human rights (and are considered preys, or rather "Islamic conquests").
Yep, I have specific situations in mind, too.
Well, similar signals worry me, since I seem to see a subtle far-reaching
destructive design. Whence my statement, or fear, of the possibility (in the
long run) of crimes such as the WTC one.
I very much hope to be wrong. :-))
> It's bullshit. Every
> society has its share of fringe lunatics: America has its Jerry
> Falwell too.
Yes, I agree; however, American and European societies hardly know **that**
hunger and related illiteracy. Yes, in Italy, too, there was terrorism. But
it was quite different, with quite different aims.
Those societies, eg in Africa or in the Middle East, are indigent and
uneducated, what makes it easy to spread the word of eg a distorted Islam.
To solve the problem, economic welfare is a necessary condition; culture is
another. Both of them are **very** unlikely to spread in those countries in
the next few years/decades.
> But in a normal society these people stay in a fringe
^^^^^^
^^^^^^
Yes, this is the operative word. Those societies are NOT normal, by many
definitions of normal.
By the way, in those societies, a moderate religious leader is far less
fascinating than a fundamentalist one. A fundamentalist leader very often has
as his ultimate goal the final destruction of the West, ie Evil -- to be
achieved in many subtle ways, which may include, but are by no means limited
to, incidents such as the WTC, in the long run.
> where they belong. It's only at times of repression and difficulty,
> when a noticeable chunk of the population is feeling unjustly dealt
> with and getting desperate (these are mild words, read about these
> countries sometime) that the violent fringe can actually gather a
> following. Even now, Bin Laden has only a few thousand in his fold.
> The other 23 million or so in Afghanistan are victims;
I am not quite sure about this.
A large part, yes. And it's/they're fleeing. But many [have] followed the
Tal{i,e}ban word... even thought many (?) of them are now fleeing in fear.
Without any support, there would not have been any Tal{i,e}ban regime, though.
<history and other considerations snipped>
Thanks for trying to dissipate my pessimism. :-)
-- Salvo
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