Quote from: tekla on July 11, 2009, 02:57:06 PM
daffodil? Gee, that a lot nicer name than the people I work with like to use. And they like me (so they say.) They used to call me Tinkerbell, but when I started to take off the climbing harness and hand it over to them, all of a sudden Tinkerbell wasn't meant 'in a bad way.' Funny how some very macho types get so ascared when they are asked to climb a 35 foot wire-rope ladder and hang upside down on a metal pipe 38 feet above the floor. Like I tell them, its mind over matter as anything over a ten foot fall is going to kill them anyway. They just splat more at 38 feet.
You mean...you don't know the meaning...of the term..."daffodil." Wow. Okay, find a synonym for "daffodil." I'm not going to help you more than that. I mean...wow.
You know, you are not the only person out there who isn't scared of heights. It's not "mind over matter," either. Some people just suffer from an instinctive sense of discomfort when there is a certain amount of distance between themselves and the ground. I don't suffer from that, but I don't have any contempt toward people who do. I have issues of my own. Part of the reason I'm so comfortable with heights is that people who suffer from bipolar disorder have a propensity for seeking out dangerous situations. I am not perfect. A tigress is just as flawed and human as a mouse.
QuoteThe last election was a total sham, which is what happens when you blow up the opposition leader. (to be sure, they didn't blow her up, they set off a bomb, the force of which threw her head into the car with such force that it killed her - it did kill 28 other people, and injured another 100, so not a minor explosion). So what they have is an extension of the military (the world sixth largest, BTW) and a continuation of the policies of the last guy in charge, who led a Coup de etat in 1999, in a country that's almost the modern model for a military coup. The 'election' of Asif Ali Zardari was not anything more than a replacing of a figurehead, while leaving the military in control.
Asif Ali Zardari is Bhutto's widower. Tekla, even Thailand, which is a relatively liberal and modern country for the most part, has been through periods of military rule and political strife. They are essentially a constitutional monarchy right now because those modern, forward-thinking Thais who live in the urban centers decided that they didn't want to be bossed around by someone who was elected by a bunch of backwards, undereducated country bumpkins and the rabble in their own cities. A lot of perfectly valid countries have been through periods of political instability. Pakistan needn't be any exception.
QuoteAnd ya know what, I went to grad school with a number of people from Pakistan, and they are not just like us.
My experiences differ. I am probably a lot younger than you are, though, and a great deal has probably changed since you were in grade school.
QuoteThat's just dumb old American thinking.
Tekla, 1) you are wrong. 2) your jingoistic butt, which I applaud you for training yourself to use for typing on a keyboard, is in no position to say this at all.
QuotePakistan is a theocratic state - official name, the Islamic Republic of Pakistan - and as such, is very, very different from anything we understand unless you've ever lived in one.
It's really not all that much different, Tekla. Even in Iran, most younger women who live in dense, urban centers outside of Tehran don't pay any heed to the country's dress code. If they do, they pay it the absolute minimum heed, just enough to keep from being harrassed, and they
don't generally run around in beekeeper suits. The reason that so many Pakistani women still opt for the traditional garb is that their country has not made as much progress yet in becoming industrialized. The country IS inching forward, though. Their urban centers have seen astronomical growth over the past few decades. Part of the federal government's plans for the Tribal Belt is to bring about industrialization and improved standards of education in these areas, which will hopefully result, over time, in propelling the Tribal Belt OUT of the stone age.
Post Merge: July 11, 2009, 06:36:36 AM
Quote from: Fae on July 11, 2009, 02:59:59 PM
Nowhere in my posts did I say tribal people should submit to thugs. I was pointing out that their other options are limited. Yes, you have a point in that they could stand together against the thugs, but there's a good chance that a lot of them would be killed in doing so. Many are, understandably, probably more interested in living, despite the hardships.
That is the point. It's a natural, human assumption. It's just wrong. Once people realize this, everything changes. Even passive resistance, which would not necessarily lead to anyone being killed, would help stretch out the Taliban's resources, and this would make the Taliban a lot more vulnerable to attack by the Americans and the relatively legitimate government of Pakistan. A few attitude shifts could change the world.
QuoteAs Tekla said earlier, those who have guns/weapons tend to hold power over those who don't. This has been proven throughout history.
100 tribespeople vs. 2 heavily armed thugs and a jeep is a pretty even match under normal circumstances. 10 well-trained tribespeople who are armed with bee-bee guns vs. 2 heavily armed thugs: I'm betting on the ones who are armed with the bee-bee guns. Tactics and training mean everything, numbers to a slightly lesser extent.
Warfare is also mostly psychological. If the people in these tribal communities were to show a higher level of organization than the Taliban, that in itself would deal a blow to the Taliban even IF these people superficially cooperated when confronted with superior firepower.
Besides, I may be an atheist, but I took the story of David and Goliath very much to heart. A little gumption and slingshot wins against pure, brute force every time, in my opinion.
QuoteEarlier, I believe you stated that people of Central Asia, like the Pashtun's, are "white" and closely related to white people of European descent. I felt at the time of my comment that this was not correct, which led to the racist comment. I believed you were somehow downplaying the lives of tribal people and lumping them in with white Europeans. I feel that they are two different people's. In any case, I was pretty harsh and I apologize for calling you a racist.
U-u-ut....um, whatever. I'm not going to nitpick over details. Accepted without reservation.
Post Merge: July 12, 2009, 07:09:38 AM
You fools would have prevented the French and the Scots, who were self-motivated themselves, from intervening to help the English nobility when the
Magna Carta was signed. If they hadn't intervened, though, the Parliamentarians would not have HAD that all-important symbol that represents their right to self-determination. We would still be ruled by an absolute monarch that works us like slaves until we drop, just to prove that he can.
Look, the Pashtun culture is not this pristine, indigeonous culture, untouched and untarnished by the modern West. They are a bunch of rednecks. There is nothing in their genetics that makes them this way. Our own ancestors had the same kind of lifestyle and
worse for thousands of years. Only a few hundred years ago, my own ancestors were beating each other with swords and worshipping the most disgusting and self-glorifying god that Mankind has ever come up with. There was nothing peaceful or pure or "bucolic" about THEIR existence, either. That's what this is really all about, isn't it? Look, go squeeze dirt between your own toes: it's not going to hurt the Pashtun people to be exposed to a few Western ideas. It didn't hurt MY ancestors to be exposed to them. At the time, they were Greek ideas. They took those GREEK ideas, and they bucked the authority of those jerks who were claiming, at the time, that it was their God-given right to take anything they wanted. Besides, the Pakistani government's policy, right now, is to ENFORCE industrialization on the Federally Administered Zone or whatever they call it. My way is a lot more respectful toward the people who actually LIVE in the Tribal Belt, thanks. And no, the Pakistani government wouldn't have to "give up" any power at all. They'd just be GAINING an important ally against the enemies within their own country.
The one thing that would MOST change them would be the same thing that helped the English and Western Europe so long ago: interaction and communication. Interaction and communication with each other. Interaction and communication with other cultures. This is what BUILDS a democracy, and I know this because this is how we created our own democratic institutions so long ago. An elected dictator is still a dictator, but a culture that shares among one another can never be held under the thumb of a tyrant. And it's not a sin to share with others the parts of our culture that
we take the most pride in; in this case, it would be a sin to withhold them.
My strategy is to give the Pashtun a gentle nudge, simply through dialogue and not through force, toward
unifying around a simple idea that changed
our lives a long time ago. That central idea is self-determination. The beauty of it is that, if you put a bunch of different leaders from different places in the same room for a while, they will come up with the idea without anybody ever having to mention it. Communication and the exchange of ideas makes all the difference. All my ancestors had to do was put their heads together, and I don't see why it should be any different for the Pashtun.
The people who are criticizing me seem to think it's "ethnocentric" to want the Pashtun to change. However, their so-called solution revolves around sending in US troops to Afghanistan to fight against the Taliban, doing nothing to alter the way things are for the Pashtun. Well, then the Pashtun will come under the rule of a group that is just as bad as the Taliban, and the US will have to go there again. If we only continue doing this, what are we really? We are nothing but a military junta from a foreign country, acting as "benevolent" dictators. When the Northern Alliance proves that it is really nothing but a different face for the same troubled society that
resulted in the Taliban, we will have to turn around and put
them down. And you know who will probably be helping us do it? Probably another group of people like the Northern Alliance and the Taliban. Maybe even the Taliban itself. This would be quite an irony.
On the other hand, creating a sense of community among all of the Pashtun and encouraging dialogue among them...well, without anyone having to tell them to, they could replicate all of the best parts of our own history.
I will tell you guys what offends you about all that: you are treating this culture like it's some kind of rainforest. You seem to think that the intrusion of Western ideas would upset some kind of cultural homeostasis or something stupid like that. Look, no culture is
ever an island, no matter how much, in your ideological fantasy world, you would like to think it is. The Pashtun people have been through periods of social change repeatedly, throughout their history. If they could be taught to stand together, though, it would be the first period of social change in which they were ultimately in charge of their own destinies. We needn't give them food or weapons or clothing. They need unity, and unity is the child of communication.
The Northern Alliance is going to become a problem child eventually. Let's not make the same mistakes with them that we made in dealing with the Taliban. Instead, let's try to apply the lessons of history, both the good and the bad. Let's go back to the roots of what made us what we are. We could change things for them just by suggesting, not pushing anything on them that all, that it would be a nifty idea for their children to start having penpals from other tribes in other parts of Afghanistan or Pakistan. If they can't write, they can just draw pictures to each other. I don't think they would reject that, either. All the grannies there would probably love the idea. I am a believer in the power of communication to create the best kind of social change. I think that what made America what it is was the freedom to peacefully assemble.
By the way, for you retards who live under the delusion that these third-world countries are all peaceful and bucolic-like, I will have you know that Pakistan's largest city is actually the most disgustingly polluted city in the entire world. On the other hand, us evil, air-polluting Westerners, us AMERICANS, have two of the CLEANEST areas in the entire world, which are, surprise-surprise, WORLD CENTERS of technological development!!!!! And our technology, by the way, is a lot more efficient and a lot cleaner than what the Pakistanis are using. I see the game you guys are playing. You see Western culture like it's some kind of cancer, even though it's us EVIL WESTERNERS, not a bunch of people in Sub-Saharan Africa where people are cutting down rainforests for wood to sell to the Chinese, who don't care at all about what they do to the environment YET because they don't HAVE that luxury, who are really making the push to make changes for the better in how we USE our resources.
You conservationist fanatics have EVERYTHING backwards. EVERYTHING you believe is wrong. I'm not angry at you over your views, though. Far from it. I'm just concerned over the fact that you clowns tend to perceive ANYONE who doesn't tow the line with YOUR views as part of this vast, right-wing conspiracy to destroy the planet. I've known plenty of conservationists who actually ARE open to new ideas, and I respect them even though I disagree with them on some points. But you guys are just as closed-minded and bigoted as Fred Phelps. You believe different things, but you have a lot more in common with him than you do me, I think.
By the way, Tekla, when you call someone a "daffodil," you are just telling them that they are really conceited and full of of themselves. How ironic, Tekla, that you answered to this by getting all pumped up about how courageous and macho you are. You played right into it because you assumed, just because I don't think the way you do, that I'm exactly like everyone else that you hate and despise. Besides, you may think you're macho and cool to risk your neck, but here is what everyone tells me when I tell them about that time I drove several miles with a rattlesnake curled up in the passenger seat after rescuing it using my bare hands from the middle of a four-lane: "you were an idiot." Yep. It was pretty stupid, but I thought at the time I was doing a good deed. My amygdala is MALFUNCTIONAL (maybe I can dig up those scans someday, but they're probably long-gone), and it behaves in really really weird ways. That doesn't necessarily make me superior or INFERIOR to anyone else. It just means that I am DIFFERENT.
On that note, I'm being treated like dirt here for EXACTLY that reason. You guys have all taken the mentality that, just because my views are DIFFERENT, I must be the most horrible, evil person in the whole, wide world, and you've been calling me every name you can to try to degrade me. Jerks.
