Well, although in Medewar’s case, he was Arab, and British. As I said, I don’t know if his background was Muslim, though.
That…made me laugh. That the absurdity of the statement did not strike me while reading the OP is yet funnier. That it happens to be my birthday today puts me in debt towards you for making the point…
Thank you Truth
I am as of now in a perpetual state of humbe admiration
Seven in “Science”.
http://www.eda.admin.ch/tokyo_emb/e/home/scite/japin/janob.html
Two in Literature.
http://www.literature-awards.com/nobel_prize_literature.html
One-half of a Peace Prize.
http://almaz.com/nobel/peace/peace.html
Making a grand total of 9-1/2 Nobel Prizes for the Land of the Rising Sun.
“Lots of Japanese”? Um…
The last time I saw anything with a hole in it as big as this OP, Kate Winslett and Leo Di Caprio were jumping off the bloody thing.
[devil’s advocate]
And I suppose that you think that those countries had no responsibility for that?
The Market is strong, and not concerned with such irrelevancies as racism or nationalism. When it speaks, we should listen.
America didn’t. Canada didn’t.
That’s the point. The plight of Muslim countries is not due to any special antipathy from the West.
[/devil’s advocate]
Collounsbury
responsible for their own fate != poverty, misery and violence
Once again, December sees one thing, and jumps to his own preset conclusions.
You are beyond reason december.
Mahathir’s statement illustrated the importance of culture. As we all know, some countries that were poor in the late 1940’s have succeeded in becoming wealthy and well-educated. E.g., Taiwan, South Korea, Israel, Japan.
Duck Duck Goose – I am surprised that there were only 9.5 Japaneses Nobelists. It looks like tomndebb was correct that the prize committees are Eurocentric.
december: “Unfortunately, if Muslim states become more technologically advanced, their ability to wreak harm on Israel will be that much greater.”
:rolleyes:
To which “Muslim states,” exactly, do you refer? And couldn’t it be argued that “technologically advanced” nations would be less likely to “wreak harm” on another nation? (When’s the last time Japan started a fight?) Why do you assume that if a “Muslim state” became more “technologically advanced,” its foreign policy would focus on harming Israel?
Sorry if this gets posted twice; server problems.
Unfortunately, almost all the Muslim states seem to hate Israel.
That’s why I carefully said “ability to wreak harm.”
This is the $64 question. Sooner or later, Israel’s enemies will become more technologically advanced, particularly in terms of their weapons. I hope they follow the example of Japan 2002, rather than Japan 1941.
Mahathir has said plenty of outrageous things in the past. Anti-semetic if you care to look that up. Highly suspicious charges of sodomy against his former number 2 Anwar. The guy is about 20 years past his usefulness and is about as pompous as they come in a region not known for the modesty of leaders.
I am guessing, but I’m sure the snipped quotes are taken out of context or at least out of a 60-120 minute speech. Look up any international speech by Mahatir in the past decade and you’ll find some real good quotes in there.
Maybe he has some real jems above, but Mahathir is a crank. To trot him out as one of your sources, December, is getting beyond tiring.
Question: To which “Muslim states,” exactly, do you refer?
Answer:
**Unfortunately, almost all the Muslim states seem to hate Israel. **
Way to fudge, december. I guess you can’t name all of these “Muslim states that hate Israel” because you don’t know what they are.
Way to generalize, december. Please name for me these “Muslim states” and “Israel’s enemies.” Educate me.
OK, I’ll try.
E.g, from the cite in the OP, Israel was recently slandered by a speaker at a worldwide Islamic conference.
This false and defamatory statement is evidence of widespread anti-Israel feeling among Muslim nations.
Oh bloody wonderful, The Ryan brings his … wit to bear.
Colonialism
REsponsibility for being colonized? Oh, as much as any victim has responsibility for not being strong enough to fight off an attacker.
The market is an abstraction, my dear, dear Ryan. Like law. It doesn’t ‘speak’ for it is not an entity in and of itself.
Markets, plural, may or may not be strong depending on a number of factors, including institutional, and are indeed concerned with such relevancies as nationalism (even in modern financial markets there is clear econometric evidence of home market bias to a degree which portfolio theory would dismiss as irrational) and racism, for racism feeds into people’s perceptions of any given market, its workers, possibilities. As those perceptions make up what market estimation and valuation is, given a strong enough set of beliefs, as in re racist dismissal of a region, one can indeed expect systematic market failures.
In the future, try to restrict your unlearned comments to your semantical gaming, which although uninteresting and tedious, at least doesn’t annoy me as much as your uninformed ignorance on economic matters. (As, e.g., your unlearned comments on corporations a few weeks back)
Missing the Industrial Revolution
Yes, they had access to capital, human and otherwise. They were independent or at least in the case of Canada, quasi-independent. Moreover, they had access to the same institutional frameworks that generated the capitalist revolution. Most of the rest of the world, outside of Western Europe, did not.
I don’t believe a ‘special antipathy’ from the West ever entered into the equation before your useless intervention.
The Camus response, however, was poorly phrased, although for the time period which Camus lived in, effectively Muslim =/ French, legal issues and all that.
I should have phrased it differently, as Camus was of Euro French origin and never a Muslim, however I rather thought that Camus’ history should have been well enough known as to not make that necessary.
BTW in re Muslim state hostility to Israel, I would say that is indeed a problem. However to juxtapose an often theoretical hostility (largely parroted to win Arab oil money, favors, with some popular support in a vague bandwagon way as few if any countries outside the MENA region have any history with Jews or Israel at all) with a concern for Israel if Muslim countries advance… I can’t find a worthy comment for what that juxtaposition says.
So do the UN, Amnesty, Human Rights Watch etc. all hate Israel?
Must be very frustrating knowing that you’re sooo right and everybody else is sooo wrong.
December, a quote from MM is not evidence of widespread anti-Israel feeling among Muslim nations, it’s evidence of leadership posturing at an Arab sponsored summit. It tells us little per say about the depth etc. of such feeling.
This is not necessarily to disagree that there is widespread anti-Israel sentiment, although I would characterize it as quite superficial outside of the Arab world, but you really need to learn something about evidence and argumentation.
BTW, why are the quote functions malfunctioning again, it’s bloody irritating.
December needs to do his research. At least 9 predominantly Muslim states–Egypt, Jordan, Nigeria, Mauritania, Kazakstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan, and Turkey–have full diplomatic relations with Israel. Now one could ask if the citizens of those nations hate Israel, and if so, what percentage.
As for the OP, not only is it clumsily and offensively phrased, but it begs the question it seeks to have answered. It is also inexact. There are Muslim nations in Africa, Central Asia, Europe (Albania), and Southeast Asia, as well as in the Middle East. Do they all have the same problems? Are they all full of “poverty, misery, and violence”? If so, would the same remedies help each country, or do they have unique cultural and societal problems that require different solutions? Is being Muslim a necessary cause of societal problems, or are there other causes?
If Islamic culture causes “poverty, misery, and violence,” then how does one explain the cultural flowering of Dar al-Islam in the Middle Ages? How does one explain the literary and scientific achievements of Muslim poets and scholars like Rumi? Averroes? Hafiz? Avicenna? Al-Kwharizmi? Rhazes? Omar al-Khayyam?
Mind you, the insensate Jew hatred in the Arabic press is disgusting, and there is a strong anti-Israel sentiment in many Muslim nations, but the same can be said of many non-Muslim nations, France, for example.
Thank you, gobear, for the clarification on the “Muslim states.”
december’s generalizing is evidence enough of the extent of his knowledge base, but his inability to answer a simple question is proof.
I was going to ask him to name just ONE “Muslim state” but then on preview saw your post. Do you think if I still asked, he could name one now?
Unfortunately, this is essentially correct IMHO. (Except I wouldn’t say that etc. hates Israel. :))
The political factions that currently control the UN have made that organization very anti-Israel. E.g., the General Assembly just voted 74-4 to chastise Israel, but they refused to say anything against the perpetrators of yesterday’s suicide-bomber massacre.
This lack of balance has unfortunately been routine at the UN for a long time.
Amnesty International has very high standards. Few countries could meet their standards, particularly countries engaged in a war. They look more closely at Israel, so Israel receives a disproprotionate amount of their criticism. I believe a similar comment could be made about Ruman Rights Watch.
As a Jew, I feel threatened by this situation. I don’t know where anti-Israel ends and anti-Semitism begins. The unfair opposition to Israel from many sources makes me quite uncomfortable.
Sure, it’s posturing. That’s why it’s telling. The anti-Israel nature of the posturing tells us where this organization stands.
As an analogy, suppose speakers at the World Jewish routinely made racist comments. We’d generalize that Jews hated minorities.
That’s a good question. I suspect Mahathir Mohamad made the comment to raise that sort of question. It’s unfortunately true that many Muslim countries do suffer from poverty, misery, and violence. But, why?
My own uneducated answer is that cultures change over time. In the middle ages, Islamic culture was ahead of Christian culture in many respects, including scientific areas. E.g., as a mathematician, I’m aware that the important concept of zero was developed by Muslims.
However, as MM dramatically pointed out, Muslim culture, by and large, is has now fallen behind in the technical areas. How it came to lag behind, and what can be done to catch up are worth discussing.
decmber, you seem to have a knack for “Troll Brinkmanship” (I can’t think of a proper term). Be that as it may, it does seem like the UN has a bias against Israel. It is, after all, a political body, prone to making decisions as much on politics as logic and or morality.
I don’t have as much experience as some of you spending time in Muslim countries, but the majority of the people I have discussed the issue with in Saudi Arabia seem to have a rabid hatred of the Israelis. Anecdotal evidence at best to be sure, but it is a reflection of my experiences.
As for the OP, I think you showed your personal bias with the choice of the Title of your thread.