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LadyEllen -> RE: Nancy Pelosi As A Muslim (4/4/2007 7:07:29 AM)
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Sanity - youre entitled to your opinions of course, but I detect in what little you have said that you think our western culture is in some way superior to all others and makes us superior to all other people, such that whilst they ought to accomodate and emulate us, it is somehow demeaning for us to reciprocate?
Absolutely I agree that many Muslim countries have systems in place that are distasteful and wrong - I'd be hanged in Iran for instance for nothing more than who I am, and that is wrong, pure and simple. But is it any more wrong than the judicial execution of minors and the mentally afflicted that I understand goes on in the US? The overall Muslim position seems to be that half the population are inferior by way of their sex, but meanwhile in the US we find that the same situation exists by way of race and/or wealth.
The point being, that neither side in this situation is superior or has some God given right to prescribe to the other, but rather that the two sides are different and each has a God given right to their own culture. It is by way of our foreign policy prescriptions for a region which whilst important geo-politically is none of our business, that we have produced so much antagonism against us in the first place, leaving us nowhere to go but their destruction in the light of the fact that they wont submit to our ways, or to make some move from our side that recognises them and their way of life as valid and thereby to try to calm the situation. It is therefore as unhelpful for us to breach their customs when we visit them, as it is unhelpful for them to insist on wearing the hijab here in the west - this latter tendency arising I feel from their impulse to protect their culture which they feel is under threat due to our attitudes.
Its time, more than overdue in fact, for us to stop this idea that we are somehow the rightful rulers of every heart and mind and that anyone who resists our rule is a terrorist. Equally that anyone who accomodates the cultural norms of the other is somehow a traitor. We must instead mutually recognise that there are differences between us, that we have each done bad things and apologise for them, and to move forward on the basis of honesty and honour, resolved to work with our differences and not struggle to impose them on one another. Not likely to happen though, unfortunately.
Syria has a problem with Israel. Syria apparently funds and supports terrorism/freedom fighting in the region, because it has a problem with Israel for which it sees no diplomatic solution since Israel ignores all diplomatic efforts to reach a solution. Meanwhile, we will continue to support Israel, even when it behaves in a less than noble fashion and even when it commits atrocities, in the misguided mindset that our friends can do no wrong, whilst our opponents do only wrong.
It is totally and utterly in the power of the west and particularly the US, to force Israel to acknowledge and implement UN directives. That we do not is down to this cultural war that says that Israel being westernised, it must be supported regardless of its conduct, and that it would show weakness in the cultural war to do otherwise, detracting from our supposed God given right to impose western culture on all as the supreme form of civilisation. On the other hand, were we to have the directives implemented and Syria then calmed itself over the issue, would we not be in a position of immense strength, having shown that we believe in all the values we claim to support, and have defused the situation? And if Syria then still played up, we would have a clear hand by which to react and not the most spurious and hypocritical grounds such as an axis of evil, on which to be judged.
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