LadyEllen
Posts: 10931
Joined: 6/30/2006
From: Stourport-England
Status: offline
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Hi All
Wow - this thread has been all over the place since I last posted yesterday! Mind you, its no bad thing as a lot of interesting stuff has come up.
European Colonialism - as a Brit, yes I will admit that much of the problems of the world in the last century and until now are the result of our colonialism as Europeans. Nearly every European nation that could, did it, but the problems we have had since and still have now are not necessarily the result of the colonialism, but rather of the arbitrary lines we drew on maps to create new nations when we left. The ongoing wars in Africa, the partitioning of the Indian subcontinent, the division of the Ottoman Empre in the Middle East, the Yugoslavian episode etc etc. All of these lines were drawn without reference to the local people, in an age where the paternalistic white man did what he thought best for the "poor ignorant natives".
European colonialism was also the root cause of the holocaust. Germany formed as a cohesive nation in the nineteenth century, by which time all the best colonies had been taken by the rest of us. After talks, Germany was allowed to have what is now Tanzania and Namibia - but of course the German nation probably rightfully thinking this an insult to its growing status, grew resentful of the rest of us having so much and embarked on armament such that it might be able to grow its territory in the world. Then the assassination of Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the alliances they had, propelled them into WWI, at the end of which the paternalistic white men of France and Britain drew some more lines on the map of Europe and humiliated Germany to the point where its resentment and sense of injustice required only the coming of a man like Hitler and the identification of scapegoats in the Jews for the parlous state of the country, to produce a massive backlash that cost millions of lives in a second world war, and led on to the formation of Israel in just about the worst place possible - again by the all wise paternalistic white men drawing lines on a map.
As for colonialism, OK it was us Europeans that did it best perhaps from the 16th to 19th centuries - but its nothing new, its happened throughout history. Britain itself was colonised forcibly by Celts, Romans, Anglo-Saxons and Vikings and their descendants then colonised the world - including the US, which then went on its own colonial binge westwards on the continent. Colonialism continues today, although today its not ships and troops that do it, but trade, and in this colonial activity the US is the world leader.
Slavery - interesting topic on this site! Slavery has also happened throughout the centuries and in all cultures, and it is likely that every one of us here has an ancestor who was enslaved - it is therefore unfair to place the blame on any particular nation or nations. There is nothing racist about it - as long as the slave is healthy and strong, he/she is valuable, regardless of skin colour. Whilst the suffering of Africans brought as slaves to America must be respected, their plight was no different to any slave, anywhere else in time or space. I must say it annoyed me no end when I heard, (perhaps incorrectly) that some African Americans were demanding recompense for the enslavement of their ancestors - if such an action succeeded, then on the grounds that at some time my ancestors were likely also slaves, I would like to know where I can be compensated too!
Slavery was outlawed in the British Empire in the early nineteenth century, though it took some time for others to follow suit. Slavery is not about one person or nation being superior to another and exploiting their supposed inferiors. Slavery is a commercial activity, practiced not only between peoples but within nations too, with people of the same ethnic origin as their owners being bought and sold. Sometimes a child is born a slave, sometimes a person is stolen and enslaved, sometimes a person is sold or sells themselves into slavery for the benefit of their impoverished family. That the slave has no rights is true, but that the slave always has no power is not - slaves in Rome and many ancient cultures were valued household members, not continually abused. There was even one Empire (dont recall which, but somewhere in Mespotamia/Persia area I think) which was effectively ruled by slaves.
Slaves are only useful as long as they are commercially viable, healthy and strong. It is not in the owner's interest to harm the slave, and a slave well treated is more likely to be cooperative and profitable than one which is beaten and starved. Discipline of course is required to establish and maintain the owner's authority - this is where the whip comes in, as a means of imparting pain without necessarily causing lasting harm which would render the slave useless. Neither was the whip reserved of course in former days only for slaves - servants, mariners, soldiers and anyone from the lower orders could be whipped, even if they were free.
Slavery as we understand it died out in most of the world because as a form of labour it became unviable. Slavery persists in some places in the world (Saharan Africa notably) because it is still commercially viable. However, slavery in other forms continues to this day across much of the world - there are no public auctions with chained people being bought and sold its true, but to our shame in the west much of our clothing and footwear is produced by children and adults contracted permanently to sweatshops for a pittance because of the dire situation of their families. Major and minor corporations are the masters in this modern slave trade, however much distance they put between them and the gangmasters - and its not difficult to make the link between the prominence of the US in international trade colonialism and the existence of such sweatshops in various parts of the world. But again, everyone who can is at the same thing, so I'm not laying the blame for it at the door of the US in particular - the whole thing is just a market mechanism on the same basis as slavery proper.
So, what links all these threads is one thing - whether there is or should be any morality in the world, or whether we should abandon such a notion and simply engage ourselves in a fight for supremacy regardless of the harm we do? The latter position would suggest that it is perfectly acceptable for us to conquer and colonise anywhere that we can, take slaves and treat them as we would, exploit others to the fullest extent we can, even unto death. However, I believe as westerners we are probably more likely to concur with the former - that the likes of justice, morality and values are what should guide us. Sure, this viewpoint is more difficult than "them and us" and is a pain in the neck when we are the stronger of them and us and could take all we wanted - but history shows us that times change, and sometime it will be us relying on the good graces of them in respect of us and our children. History also shows us however that when the wheel turns, it is usually because the Empire in power (the west at the moment) becomes decadent and "soft", and is left vulnerable to the resentful ambition of others - therefore we find ourselves in a difficult position of trying to uphold our values by the sword. Ignoring current events, we can use WWII to show how difficult this is - we could not have prevented nazi conquest by appealing to whatever remained of their humanity. Only total war and their total defeat and destruction achieved this.
Returning to current events though, we are faced with the same situation in the Middle East, albeit not as clearly cut, in that both sides claim to occupy the moral high ground, and both do in their respective ways. Israel has a right to exist - but equally the Palestinians have a right to not be abused and to be permitted to live in their ancestral lands. If we are instead to follow an immoral path, then the only solution is extermination of the weaker by the stronger, which is simply not acceptable to anyone, so only a moral solution is possible. The problem at the moment is, that the immoral solution is being pursued and since neither side will ever achieve total victory in the way mentioned, such a solution will never be achieved thank goodness.
However, this leaves us with a festering conflict that has gone on now for sixty years, and which seems to have no end in sight but rather at the moment is being escalated. Again, Israel has the right to defend and uphold its values by military force, the same as the Allies did in WWII, but equally the Palestinians and their allies have the right to defend and uphold their values in the same way. The Hezbollah involvement is not helpful to solving the situation, but they have the right to support their allies in the same way that the US supported its allies against the nazis despite the fact that the US was not exactly in the path of the nazi onslaught.
The main difference between the current situation and WWII though, is that in WWII the nazis represented a form of philosophy so immoral that no clear thinking person could support it. As I have said before, the religious aspects of this current conflict are not helpful as this is primarily a territorial and human rights dispute. However, neither Judaism nor Islam is an immoral philosophy, (in fact they share common origins, similar values and the same God), except where the hotheaded extremists on each side get involved and pervert a spiritual path into political extremism. Neither is this something isolated to these two religions - every religion has its share of extremists who pursue a them and us mentality - something which found ultimate expression in the holocaust as the culmination of centuries of Christian extremism against Judaism. Someone mentioned the lack of Tibetan terrorists - Buddhism is maybe the only religion which has not so far produced such violent extremists to my knowledge at least. The religious aspect of this conflict is bogus in any case - Christians, Muslims and Jews have lived peaceably with one another for centuries throughout the Middle East - it was only the formation of Israel and what followed on from that which precipitated all the trouble - thus it is a territorial dispute to which yes, religion has been linked by the extremists on both sides, but to which religion has no part in assisting or resolving, unless the extremists are removed and true religious values are practiced by both sides.
Given then that both sides are morally right and that a moral solution must be found, the current, former and future violence from both sides is not only indefensible morally, but also pointless. It solves nothing and will not return the kidnapped soldiers just as the kidnappings themselves did not help the situation. To produce terrorism is easy, as someone already pointed out - to stop it is equally simple - remove the cause of it. Most of these Hezbollah people are I would suspect, fairly normal people with families just like us, who see their actions as defence rather than attack, just as we would see it as defence were we felt threatened or actually attacked or abused by another. Of course, their leaders and some amongst them are likely religious or nationalist extremists, but as we have seen in the UK with the 7/7 bombers, even normal people can take arms against others for the cause of perceived injustice. Remove the cause of the terrorism and the majority of the Hezbollah ranks will disappear, leaving them largely incapable of attack. Maintain or develop on the status quo and more will join and their capability increase.
On the subject of suicide bombings, yes this is the most disgusting act, aimed mainly at the civilian population - we had one successful and one failed set of such attacks in London last year. No clear thinking person can support the idea of killing and maiming innocents like this, even though it was us that developed the concept of total war. However, we must understand that however disgusting it is, this is one of the few ways that the west, (including Israel), can be attacked by these very angry people who perceive all of us as part of the machine that oppresses them. They have little or no access to so called precision weapons as we do, and our security services are so strong that they have little opportunity for open warfare. In any case, whatever precision weapons we have, and however hard we try, we will always kill and maim innocents when we go to war, just as those less well equipped will do the same - this is the awful nature of war and something which our leaders should think over very carefully when deciding on it or making glorifying speeches afterwards. There is nothing glorious or good about war, however it is fought and for whatever cause it is fought - look into the eyes of a disfigured five year old girl left with no arms and legs and with her family dead and tell me how great it is to ride a tank or fly a warplane or explode a bomb remotely or by suicide or launch a missile.
Right, thats done to death! The powers of this world have more than adequate power and capacity to solve the current situation - and yet it is allowed to continue. We can argue all of our lives over the rights and wrongs of it all, but why is nothing done to solve it given that we all want it solved? And I'm not inferring anything about the supposed power of the Jews over the world - a myth which should long since have been done away with anyway - my friend is Jewish, and he's about as powerful a player on the world stage as me! Why is it that we can intervene anywhere else on the globe, but not in this case? And we should and have to intervene by the way, as otherwise this will continue forever since the players have put themselves in positions from which they cannot back down unless they are totally defeated militarily by the other. We should be able to stop this and restore morality to the situation and between the peoples, solving their territorial disputes and bringing justice to both sides, reminding them of the religious values that connect them as human beings and so bringing lasting peace - if we must impose such a morality by the sword, or better the threat of the sword, then so be it. The threat of one final and total conflict on both to resolve this festering war might be the way, though I hope it is not, to make both sides realise that only talk will produce a solution. In any case this would be a far better way to employ our armed services than the mire in Iraq and Afghanistan and would also go to the root cause of worldwide "Islamic" terrorism - solving the whole thing in one go by solving their anger at Israel and showing that we in the west stand for morality, not against Islam.
E
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RE: Israel doesn't believe in terrorism - 
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