Date: Sat, 29 Sep 2001 11:47:42 -0700 From: Terry Lambert <tlambert2@mindspring.com> To: Rahul Siddharthan <rsidd@online.fr> Cc: Salvo Bartolotta <bartequi@neomedia.it>, Konstantinos Konstantinidis <kkonstan@duth.gr>, chat@FreeBSD.ORG Subject: Re: helping victims of terror Message-ID: <3BB6174E.BCDCCAA6@mindspring.com> References: <1001447850.3bb0e1aa11dfc@webmail.neomedia.it> <20010925222900.A71817@lpt.ens.fr> <3BB216E8.89F3419@mindspring.com> <20010926202630.C10954@lpt.ens.fr> <3BB427FD.61AE3E6A@mindspring.com> <20010928144755.C7471@lpt.ens.fr>
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Rahul Siddharthan wrote: > I'm frankly at a loss of words at your caricature of the Israel > situation throughout your emails, so I'll keep quiet; maybe someone > else will take the bait. I've been to Israel, and met many Israelis, > some as recently as last month, and while I wouldn't call them > unbiased they knew much more of the history of the situation than you > seem to and seemed to understand the Palestinian point of view much > better. We can continue this in private email if you like. To take the gloves off, the only reason the Middle East has not acted en masse against Israel is "U.S. Meddling". The U.S. gives a lot of money to Israel, and as a result, reins it in, as well as stalling its foes. Were the U.S. to take a laissez faire attitude, and let things proceed naturally in the region, Israels enemies would attack it, and they would be practically destroyed by Israel in the resulting conflict. In other words, the "U.S. meddling" is to ensure stability in the region, rather than "protecting Israel" -- it is, in fact, protecting other countries in the region _from_ Israel. > > India wanted to trade above the level needed to alleviate > > any unnecessary suffering of the civilian population in Iraq, > > What would you call "necessary suffering"? The deaths of 150000 > people through disease and starvation? Does it become "unnecessary" > only if it exceeds some threshold? Suffering as a result of the lack of aid. Suffering that results from Saddam gassing his own citizens will happen no matter what happens with the aid. > > Realize that the U.S. is currently free from outside rule > > because of a revolutionary war, in which "ordinary Americans" > > gave their lives in order to throw off the yoke of a nation > > which, at the time, was opressing them. > > > > I think that the basic issue that you are not understanding is > > that, given its origins, it is almost unimaginable for average > > U.S. citizens that someone starving to death because corrupt > > government officials are selling off relief supplies would not > > rise up, and similarly, give their lives to throw off the yoke > > those corrupt government officials. > > That's right; all over the world where corrupt dictatorial regimes > rule, be it Myanmar, or much of Africa, or China, or sundry other > places, it is the people who are at fault for not throwing out their > dictators. I wonder whether you realise what you sound like. Patrick Henry? > > > > I think that India's > > > > long standing conflict with Pakistan must color these views. > > > > > > Whose views? The puppet view, or the condom view, or my views in > > > these emails? > > > > Your statements regarding Pakistan, in these emails. > > This is getting interesting. Which statements? Most of my statements > have been quotes from the Pakistani press (admittedly, the liberal > sections of it). You statements -- whether your own, or as a result of the editorial choices you've made in selecting which source to quote -- paint Pakistan as the source of problems in the region, and completely ignore any blame which India itself shares for the situation. It takes two to Tango. > > > [ ... ] As a matter > > > of fact, India has more muslims than Pakistan does, > > > > What about as a percentage of the population, rather than as > > a raw count? Here's the answer: > > > > India Hindu 81.3% > > Muslim 12% > > Christian 2.3% > > Sikh 1.9% > > other groups including Buddhist, Jain, Parsi 2.5% > > > > Pakistan Muslim 97% (Sunni 77%, Shi'a 20%) > > Christian, Hindu, and other 3% > > > > And FWIW: > > > > Afghanistan Muslim 99% (Sunni 84%, Shi'a 15%), > > other 1% > > I know all that perfectly well. You are only proving that if > partition hadn't happened, the percentage of Muslims in India would > have been some 25% rather than 12%. Big difference, indeed. You > also said this self-segregation "has continued", which is absolutely > not true, at least not in India. It is a big difference: it means that the populations in both Pakistan and India would have been more heterogenous. It is in heterogeneous populations where tolerance is bred; political or religious fanatacism arises as a result of homogeneity, where extreme view find reinforcement instead of opposition. Consider a society in which fanatics exist as a damped, driven harmonic oscillator. When you remove the damping forces to the point that the magnitude of the driving forces exceeds them, then you get full blown fanaticism in the larger society. So long as the damping force is larger -- perhaps because the neighbor, a Muslim, who takes care of your children as you, a Hindu, run errands, is not some abstract, which can be painted as evil without possibility of refutation -- the society at large remains metastable. > As for your numbers: 12% of a billion people is a very large number. Yes. That's rather irrelevant, however. > And this number is not homogeneously mixed through the country; some > areas (parts of Uttar Pradesh in the north, or Hyderabad in the south, > for example) have large Muslim populations, perhaps 50% or more; other > parts have very few. This was rather my point, in quoting the C.I.A. statistics. The society in India is largely self selecting for ethnic density, and tends to create clusters within itself -- in the limit, sorting itself by ethnicity. I can't help but believe that this is an artifact of the not so historical caste system within the country (many Indian women even in the U.S. tend to wear caste marks, still; I know many who do... I saw three at work yesterday). > The proportion of muslims in mainstream > professions is comparable with, often better than, their proportion in > the population. Indeed, a quite disproportionately large fraction of > the more popular musicians and actors, for example, are muslim. > (Ironically, both these professions are banned by the Taliban.) The U.S. has the same situation with regard to ethnic density vs. profession for almost any ethnicity you could name. And yes, it causes friction. -- Terry To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
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