Monday, October 04, 2004
Definition distress.
Faramin, Thank you for your comments and kind words. Coming from someone who writes as well as you do, they are really flattering. I hope I can emulate your coherent and articulate writing... soon. Thank you for the link to your blog too. I look forward to reading more of your views and opinion.
Laura, I am often surprised to see the effectiveness of rhetoric as an opinion shaping tool, especially so in the United States. Freedom is when people are free as God meant them to be. When they are enslaved by corrupt (and rather dumb) leadership and conniving, deceptive, and lying media I think songs of freedom are but ironic.
The point, I was also trying to make earlier, is that definitions of freedom, harmony and happiness vary from culture to culture and region to region. It is this variance that lends the world its colors. However, this variance cannot be used by one society as a premise to attack another. No one definition of an ideal society can be applied to all and any societies, and certainly no one model of a perfect civilization will fit all sizes.
A civilization cannot be imposed, it evolves over time. The Bush brigade needs to understand that perhaps we in the third world think ourselves better off under our dictators or monarchs, when given a choice between a system of government and systematic bombing. Moreover, perhaps our democratically elected leaders do more harm to our National interests than good. Pakistan, my country is a case in point. This is no argument in favour of dictatorships or monarchies, or one against democracy. That is precisely the point though. As long as we think we are better off, we will be content, and contentment leads to happiness. Isn't that the whole point? Or are we to be told by others when we are happy or not? Must we be bombed for being happy under the "wrong" circumstances?
The long and short of it is that the US has no right to come invading into our countries because she thinks we are not complying with her set of moral and social standards, just as we in third world do not have any right to label the US evil, decadent, or infidel because of the different way the Americans (in the movies) live their lives. We are not as strong as the US militarily, but even if we were, I doubt we would go about carpet bombing the US because they had WMDs, and might use them against us someday, or because they do not practise our kind of democracy, or do not begin their mornings with our brand of cereal.
Taking what you said a bit further, I would say Americans need to realize that just about everybody out there hates getting bombed as much as the Americans do. To Iraq's bombed, it is of little consequence if their country is run by a dictator or a stooge. They need the medicines, which by the way they used to have under a bloody and corrupt dictator; the food, they never had to worry about before the Bushes jumped into the picture; the shelter, destroyed by Bush Brigade not Saddam/Sadr, and a semblance of the life they had before some one decided to liberate them.
¶ 10/04/2004 01:13:00 AM
Laura, I am often surprised to see the effectiveness of rhetoric as an opinion shaping tool, especially so in the United States. Freedom is when people are free as God meant them to be. When they are enslaved by corrupt (and rather dumb) leadership and conniving, deceptive, and lying media I think songs of freedom are but ironic.
The point, I was also trying to make earlier, is that definitions of freedom, harmony and happiness vary from culture to culture and region to region. It is this variance that lends the world its colors. However, this variance cannot be used by one society as a premise to attack another. No one definition of an ideal society can be applied to all and any societies, and certainly no one model of a perfect civilization will fit all sizes.
A civilization cannot be imposed, it evolves over time. The Bush brigade needs to understand that perhaps we in the third world think ourselves better off under our dictators or monarchs, when given a choice between a system of government and systematic bombing. Moreover, perhaps our democratically elected leaders do more harm to our National interests than good. Pakistan, my country is a case in point. This is no argument in favour of dictatorships or monarchies, or one against democracy. That is precisely the point though. As long as we think we are better off, we will be content, and contentment leads to happiness. Isn't that the whole point? Or are we to be told by others when we are happy or not? Must we be bombed for being happy under the "wrong" circumstances?
The long and short of it is that the US has no right to come invading into our countries because she thinks we are not complying with her set of moral and social standards, just as we in third world do not have any right to label the US evil, decadent, or infidel because of the different way the Americans (in the movies) live their lives. We are not as strong as the US militarily, but even if we were, I doubt we would go about carpet bombing the US because they had WMDs, and might use them against us someday, or because they do not practise our kind of democracy, or do not begin their mornings with our brand of cereal.
Taking what you said a bit further, I would say Americans need to realize that just about everybody out there hates getting bombed as much as the Americans do. To Iraq's bombed, it is of little consequence if their country is run by a dictator or a stooge. They need the medicines, which by the way they used to have under a bloody and corrupt dictator; the food, they never had to worry about before the Bushes jumped into the picture; the shelter, destroyed by Bush Brigade not Saddam/Sadr, and a semblance of the life they had before some one decided to liberate them.
¶ 10/04/2004 01:13:00 AM
