Soryy? Can you go
Pushed wrong button…
Repeat:
Sorry? Can you go a bit further in your clarification and add a clarification on your last post, since you are wrapped in mystery on this side of the world.
Salaam. A
Oh Forgot:
You really have no idea what you talk about… You seem to be trapped in the well sold and selling idea that the whole MENA region is to be lumped together in order to fit into you narrow perception fed by your narrow minded media, namely:
ME = suicidal lunatics.
ME cultures = suicidal lunatics
Me population = suicidal lunatics
Sorry, but that isn’t exactly reflecting reality and doesn’t show any interest from your part on becoming informed about things that may shatter this pre-molded and prejudiced incorrect perception of yours.
Salaam. A
**Aldebaran **,
What is the meaning of “Islam”, again?
Would you please stop using the whole “I know my posting are confusing”. It seems only when you obliquely insult people that you tend to use this tactic. It’s getting very old.
You hardly need my help in twisting up your words. Cleaning off the spittle perhaps but not twisting them.
You have converted in one easy move, my statement “strong support for the idea …” of suicide bombing to the straw man of “… the whole MENA region is to be lumped together …” into suicidal maniacs.
Your posts have turned into a tired repetion of the same old refrain; “You don’t understand, whine, whine.”
You’re right, I don’t understand the support for suicide bombing and you aren’t doing much to clear up that mystery. But that isn’t your purpose, I would guess.
This has become a mere wrangle which goes 'round and 'round on the theme that the culture is misunderstood.
And one last word.
It is my contention that all religion is inimical to open and unrestricted inquiry into all subjects. Islam seems to be especially so at its present state of development.
And that, I think, is a major cause of the decline of MENA into a rich region where most of the people are impoverished.
Islam basically means submission/surrender to God. However, given Islam’s intellectual past I’m not sure that religion can be exclusively blamed for the current malaise in the Arab world.
Christianity itself was both a tool of knowledge and an obstacle to enlightenment within Europe.
And I’m done.
Yes I did. Like you have twisted my posts in
Which comes across as complete unwillingness to even understand that this culture is different then what you think it is. And extremely different to what you experience as your culture.
So yes, I repeat: you have no idea. And I repeat what I said before: I know people have no idea and it is difficult for them to get an idea.
But while I stated with very good reason that people in the West have difficulties in understanding what I try to explain, you are the one who finds it needed to make of it that by this I mean to say that
This sentence is yours, not mine.
So it is your responsibility, not mine.
Please be so kind to inform underscribed about what you then supposedly know about “my purpose”? Thank you.
Who actually makes such a point of something I merely said here while giving it a try to explain some aspects of that culture and its attitudes?
Do you think you are the expert on my culture and those of the nations that surround mine and that share these aspects of my culture? Or do you claim that others are the experts or do you think that I need to be banned as a member here because I don’t say to you and these others:
“Yes, you are completely right, I don’t know what I’m talking about, I am merely am born there, was raised and educated there and live there. And in addition I made it my studyfield. But let us wipe out that whole crap and replace it by your Superior Ideas and your Great Culture.”
May I ask you something: If you can’t stand it that your perceptions of a culture that isn’t yours are criticized or refuted by someone who is born, raised and educated there and who is part of it and lives it, then why are you reading my posts?
Salaam. A
Can you give specific examples of this “state of development” restricting inquiry into all subject?
It is not “the region” that is rich. Some countries have a lot of income from oil/gaz export. This income is not in the least being spend on the benefit of the population.
Other countries in the region have absolutely no oil revenues and no export that can even come close to the revenues made by oil exporting nations.
Poverty is one of the effects of a lot of intertwined factors and causes.
We have touched some of them already, yet I’m not willing to write a thesis in English about the whole issue in order to post it on this message board.
Sorry, but English is not one of my languages and thus neither my vocabulary nor my grammar knowledge is sufficient to make that an easy, quickly done job for me.
Thus I gave here the title of a very good study written in English. Once you have read that study, you shall be able to have more understanding about these causes and about the region and its problems in general.
If you then like to discuss the study or some of its analysed issues, I’m most ready to do that.
Salaam. A
Grey,
Do you mean now to say that I have the power to spit through cyberspace?
Who do you think I am? The Gost in the Bottle of the Hollywood version of Aladin? Or do you see me more as Merlyn.
Salaam. A
You’re hear to express outrage and push buttons of other posters. But as you yourself said: “Pushed wrong button…”
There’s been more thoughtful posting from you in this thread than in any other I’ve seen, not that that’s saying very much.
Regarding your sarcastic remark about throwing off your chains, we can always hope you’ll discard some of your preconceptions and predjudices about non-Arab cultures. But you seem to enjoy rattling those chains all too well.
Jackm…
I think I need to inform you that I’m both Arab and European since the first fraction of a second of my life.
That I am thus since birth a child of both cultures and that I am still traveling between both and dividing my lifetime between both.
So my question is: Which non-Arab cultures are you referring to?
Salaam. A
Uh guys? Can we come back to the subject a little? Please feel free to Pit each other and to post a link (it might be fun), but, I’d really like to hear each of your thoughts on the where to go from here side of the question.
Aldebaren,
As the UN Arab Human Development Report illustrates, other Arab insiders recognize a problem and agree with much of the analysis made by posters here. Hard to say that they just don’t understand the culture. Dismissing a POV because it is from someone outside the Arab culture is silly anyway. If we do not understand then try to help us gain better understanding of what these issues mean to you. I may still disagree but at least my disagreement might become one that is more well grounded. Sarcastic rants do not make your case and are out of place in this discussion. And while I’m no mod, please try to refrain from the personal insults.
There is no such nationality as “European”.
US-er, to quote any one of a number of your ridiculous posts.
Aldebaran, I cannot tell if you are doing a very good job of explaining your culture, or a very bad one.
If Arabian Islam is really the rich, literate, and cosmopolitan mix of cultures I was led to believe, you are doing a very poor job. If it is composed of a mixture of whining and an arrogantly obtuse brand of anti-American nonsense, you are doing a very good job.
It is becoming easier and easier to answer the question in the OP’s title by simply pointing to your posts, and saying, “That’s what”.
If it is not possible to criticize a culture from the outside, then you cannot criticize the US culture, since you are not American. If it is possible, you will have to address the shortcomings of your culture without whining about having your words twisted.
So make up your mind. Either cultural chauvinism is a bad thing, or it isn’t. It can’t be a bad thing for everyone except Arabs, Muslims, Belgians, or people with an axe to grind.
Regards,
Shodan
DSeid,
I’m sorry, I can’t quite follow what you are aiming at.
But to go back to the issue:
I asked you which points of the report you referrred to you wish to have comments on.
I also gave you the title of that study, that can give you insight in the problems of the region.
And what do you want to understand about my posts.
It is much easier for me to reply on specific single questions that give me a point of reference to start with.
I write here in a language I don’t master.
I think it isn’t that much asked that I should be able to count on the courtesy of the audience to have a bit of understanding of this problem.
Salaam. A
Salaam. A
DSeid,
I’m sorry, I can’t quite follow what you are aiming at.
But to go back to the issue:
I asked you which points of the report you referrred to you wish to have comments on.
I also gave you the title of that study, that can give you insight in the problems of the region.
And what do you want to understand about my posts.
It is much easier for me to reply on specific single questions that give me a point of reference to start with.
I write here in a language I don’t master.
I think it isn’t that much asked that I should be able to count on the courtesy of the audience to have a bit of understanding of this problem.
Salaam. A
Shit, I was thinking the same thing - I post here, on topic, but evidently my posts are not sufficiently interesting or annoying to get responses. 
I would much rather actually debate the very interesting issues involved, then participate in a round of flaming … but evidently I am in the minority around here.
It is too bad, because this is clearly one of the most significant issues of our times, one well worthy of some thought.
So, in the hopes of sparking some actual debate on topic … what did you think of my one-line summary of the two issues, DSeid? For convenience, I replicate them here:
"There are two seperate issues. To summarize:
-
Q. What went wrong with Arab culture? A.(extreme summary): invincible steppe nomads.
-
Q. Why don’t Arabs now adopt the ways that have been demonstrated to succeed elsewhere? A.(extreme summary): suspicion that adopting these ways will transform them into foreigners."
Not really, unless we reach back to the archetypal example in the distant past of the later Roman Empire ( and even then it was an incomplete dominance that only popped up in a couple of stretches ). Real military castes, or for that matter the idea of slave-soldiers, remote and to some extent foreign to the native population, have little parallel in Europe and certainly not the multi-century rule we see in places like Egypt and the Ottoman state ( which, again, were the dominant powers of their times and hence respectively the most stable centers of Islamic culture ). You’ll certainly see in European history examples of rulers weaker than their vassals ( say early Capetian France ) and the rare occasion where outside mercenaries seized control of the state apparatus ( but generally with some internal support, as with the Sforzas in Milan ), but in no cases were these really long-term institutional systems and we see no continuity of multiple, successive figure-head rulers dominated by a purely extractive and parasitic group as with Mamluk Egypt ( which admittedly is about as an extreme example as you’ll find anywhere ).
That’s an oft-suggested explanation and I like it to some extent ( compeitition spurring development ). But only to some extent. It isn’t the whole answer IMO, because it implies an inevitability to European dominance which I would suggest is unrealistic. It’s a piece in the puzzle at best and it doesn’t really explain Japan, for instance ( the old-comparison of feudal Japan to feudal Europe as a cultural parallel holds up less well when you consider the long, stagnant period of the Tokugawa Bakufu ).
Right. Luck is a big part of it, IMHO. And remember - the stagnation was in the later period of these states. Yuan China was quite cosmopolitan and internationalist, as destructive as it otherwise was. Ming China reacted against that with isolationism, but aggressively expansionist Qing China, another example of an outside conquest dynasty, need not have followed that path - they certainly had other potential role models.
Okay, but again IMO it would be excessively reductionist to blame one factor :). The above is a factor.
Without defending Aldebaran, whom after a fine start has begun to respond with an unfortunate degree of defensiveness and to act supercilious, I will say that outside of perhaps the fevered mess that is the occupied territories, saying there is “strong support” for suicide terrorist tactics in the Arab world is almost certainly an unfair exaggeration. It is the tactic and approach of a smallish minority, no matter how much visceral appeal the idea of “standing up to the Man” in general may have.
- Tamerlane
-
“steppe nomads” ?
-
There you have made some point.
But it is not even restricted to “suspicion”. It is “being convinced of it” by people who are able to transfer this conviction to others, which is one of the issues fundamentalist organisations and groups trive on.
But to stay on that point:
It is in fact one of the the goals of the interested Western nations to do exactly that.
The fact that they fail to understand that this isn’t possible is one of the causes of ongoing friction between both cultures, and that isn’t something new.
Best current example: The extreme naivity leading to the extreme arrogance of the US government to think that they can impose “Western style democracy” (hm) USA-style on the people of Iraq, of course to serve their interests and goals.
They have no clue about the country and people they are dealing with, yet they think some miracle shall make them think, reason, live, act, like they do.
Salaam. A