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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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 Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:34 pm Post subject: |
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| bigverne wrote: |
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| I met a wonderful Pakistani family in Beijing on a tour. They sat next to us (my mother, who came to visit China and me) at lunch and started conversation (well, mostly the older sister, the younger sister's English wasn't to good, and the father's was OK). After they asked, "You're from America, right? We said no, Canada". They assumed we were American throughout the entire conversation and nothing was brought up about politics or America in general. I am still in contact with the older sister whom I consider a friend. The second family I met was in Japan, tourists. |
Pakistani tourists in China and Japan. Hardly representative of the average Pakistani. |
The two I met in China though were not tourists, they were low payed workers at a factory. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 1:45 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
| laogaiguk wrote: |
| Collateral damage... And people wonder why the rest of the world has problems with America. |
We did not invent the term, nor the phenomenon it describes.
But when people like you single us out for it and say things like "no wonder the rest of the world has problems with America" it does not surprise me in the least.
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| I have met Pakistani families (well, only two from Karachi, and a few pakistani men) and they were no different that us (really, they wore the same clothing, talked in the same way, and other than not eating pork, I could have easily just assumed they were Canadian). |
Bigverne is right. And you keep saying this. You need to qualify this.
On a tour in Beijing? for a day or two?
Did you live in Pakistan, with a typical family, in the region we are discussing? like in a study abroad situation, for a semester or an academic year?
Or did you meet high-class, educated and English-fluent, world-travelling Pakistanis and now you are saying that they are representative of all Pakistanis.
Did you meet them at places like Disneyland, where, as tourists, they were probably on their best behavior? or did you meet them in their homeland, where they were speaking their own language and acting according to different rules?
Because if it is as I suspect, you are almost certainly way off base. And you are no more or less informed on this region than I am. When I meet Chileans in the U.S., for instance, they tend to be rather quiet and shy, friendly and polite. When I meet Chileans in Chile, they tend to be extremely critical, self-righteous, and quite stubborn, difficult to deal with. That is, except for the well-educated, well-travelled ones. These are the same from most countries, all over the world. That's why I have no problem believing you when you say the Pakistanis you met could easily have been from Canada -- education, foreign language fluency, and the financial ability to travel has that effect on people.
To cite another example: I knew a Korean woman, an English teacher, and a rather fanatical born-again Christian, who went off on a mission to P.I. several years ago. One of those she wanted to convert was a Pakistani worker who was living there. He raped her repeatedly. She did not report this, and she kept going back to him to try to convert him, because she had tremendous personal problems of her own, and he kept raping her. When she broke it off and threatened to tell her husband, this wonderful Pakistani man poured gasoline all over himself and said he was going to light himself on fire if she didn't stay. (And when he found out, her husband treated her worse, and that explains her life now as a U.S. soldier's live-in girlfriend.)
So, again:
(a) Is your experience in Beijing and Tokyo your only experience with "the Pakistani people"?
(b) Have you met any from or even been to the border region we are discussing? |
Oh, I'll give you every point you just made. The problem is you weren't discussing only these people on the border. In your last post before this one, you did atleast limit your comments to the border people and people in Sudan, Saudi Arabia, and some other place. I was much more angry because you were painting all Pakistanis at first with this brush, the same thing you always fight against when it comes to Americans.
(though the two I met in China were factory workers). Still, however limited my experience might be, it still seems stronger than Bigverne's or yours. And I still think India is probably much higher on their minds from what they were telling me. But that might be changing now.
As for that girl, I wouldn't put too much trust in that. This women (from what you wrote) needs help, fundimentalist Christian or not. Tons of crazys back home too  |
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Gopher
Joined: 04 Jun 2005
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 4:05 pm Post subject: |
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She was a woman you keep ten feet away from you at all times, and don't ever make her problems your problems, no doubt.
If you thought I was talking about "all Pakistanis" at any time, then there was a miscommunication, because I was referring to the pro-Taliban, pro-AQ Pakistanis on the Afghan-Pakistani border. And they may fear and hate India, and vice versa, but they are still rabidly antiAmerican. They are just as capable of "multi-tasking" their fears and hatreds as anyone else. (This was not news to me, by the way.)
I also think it's no big leap to lump in many, but by no means all, of those who inhabit Saudi, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and others into the rabid antiAmerican camp as well. I am absolutely certain that the Saudi and the Pakistani governments walk extremely dangerous tightropes with respect to the peoples and cultures they attempt to govern and hold together. And as for other parts of the world, I have seen large numbers of Chileans go apoplectic about the U.S.
Have you seen what happened in Iran in '79? the mass flag burnings? the "Great Satan" speeches and the public's approval, etc.? This was very real, and now, with the present govt there, it is coming back again with less vengeance than before, but there nonetheless. So let's not forget Iran as well.
So I stand by my claim and I'll even elaborate it here: many in the Middle East and other places like the Sudan tend to be deeply conservative and intolerant, they fear social change and modernity, they blame the U.S. for bringing these new trends and pressures about, they blame the U.S. for all of their other problems, which is not entirely unreasonable because capitalistic change and U.S. foreign policy (as well as British foreign policy in an earlier era) are certainly associated with these things. But it is the combination of these variables, and not any one variable, that brings about the antiAmericanism we see -- that is, they and their ignorance contribute to the problem, too.
It is not racist to point to this reality, a reality whose compexities and systematic nature I've not sufficiently explained above.
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Despite what many argue, Arab and Muslim rage at the United States has had very little to do with actual U.S. policies--policies that have been remarkably pro-Arab over the past 50 years. Promoting anti-Americanism is simply the best way Muslim leaders have found to distract their publics from the real problem: internal mismanagement. New U.S. policies or a PR campaign will not change matters.
DAMN YANKEES
Since last year's attacks on New York and Washington, the conventional wisdom about the motivation behind such deadly terrorism has gelled. The violence, we are often told, was a reaction to misguided U.S. policies. For years, certain American actions -- such as the country's support for Israel and for unpopular, oppressive Arab regimes -- had supposedly produced profound grievances throughout the Middle East. Those grievances came to a boil over time, and finally spilled over on September 11. The result was more than 3,000 American deaths.
Although anti-Americanism is genuinely widespread among Arab governments and peoples, however, there is something seriously misleading in this account. Arab and Muslim hatred of the United States is not just, or even mainly, a response to actual U.S. policies -- policies that, if anything, have been remarkably pro-Arab and pro-Muslim over the years. Rather, such animus is largely the product of self-interested manipulation by various groups within Arab society, groups that use anti-Americanism as a foil to distract public attention from other, far more serious problems within those societies.
This distinction should have a profound impact on American policymakers. If Arab anti-Americanism turns out to be grounded in domestic maneuvering rather than American misdeeds, neither launching a public relations campaign nor changing Washington's policies will affect it. In fact, if the United States tries to prove to the Arab world that its intentions are nonthreatening, it could end up making matters even worse. New American attempts at appeasement would only show radicals in the Middle East that their anti-American strategy has succeeded and is the best way to win concessions from the world's sole superpower.
THE BLAME GAME
For years now, anti-Americanism has served as a means of last resort by which failed political systems and movements in the Middle East try to improve their standing. The United States is blamed for much that is bad in the Arab world, and it is used as an excuse for political and social oppression and economic stagnation. By assigning responsibility for their own shortcomings to Washington, Arab leaders distract their subjects' attention from the internal weaknesses that are their real problems. And thus rather than pushing for greater privatization, equality for women, democracy, civil society, freedom of speech, due process of law, or other similar developments sorely needed in the Arab world, the public focuses instead on hating the United States.
What makes this strategy remarkable, however, is the reality of past U.S. policy toward the region. Obviously, the United States, like all countries, has tried to pursue a foreign policy that accords with its own interests. But the fact remains that these interests have generally coincided with those of Arab leaders and peoples. For example, the United States may have had its own reasons for saving Kuwait from annexation by Iraq's secular dictatorship in 1991 -- mainly to preserve cheap oil. But U.S. policy was still, in effect, pro-Kuwaiti, pro-Muslim, and pro-Arab. After all, Washington could have used the war as a pretext to seize Kuwait's oil fields for... |
Barry Rubin is Director of the Global Research in International Affairs Center and Editor of the Middle East Review of International Affairs. His latest books are The Tragedy of the Middle East and Anti-American Terrorism and the Middle East.
http://www.foreignaffairs.org/20021101faessay9993/barry-rubin/the-real-roots-of-arab-anti-americanism.html |
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fusionbarnone
Joined: 31 May 2004
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:22 pm Post subject: |
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With the size of the reward offered and technology around today you'd think finding the world's most wanted terorist would be easier to find. Wasn't this guy once a friend of the president?
All I ever see on the "latest" news on the guy is replays of old tape footage.
Is this a "real" man or a cut-out figure only as real as the collectables on a cereal box?
Could this truce be coming along at a time when almost all Americans now know someone in the military?
Just wondering. |
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bucheon bum
Joined: 16 Jan 2003
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 7:53 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
Have you seen what happened in Iran in '79? the mass flag burnings? the "Great Satan" speeches and the public's approval, etc.? This was very real, and now, with the present govt there, it is coming back again with less vengeance than before, but there nonetheless. So let's not forget Iran as well.
So I stand by my claim and I'll even elaborate it here: many in the Middle East and other places like the Sudan tend to be deeply conservative and intolerant, they fear social change and modernity, they blame the U.S. for bringing these new trends and pressures about, they blame the U.S. for all of their other problems, which is not entirely unreasonable because capitalistic change and U.S. foreign policy (as well as British foreign policy in an earlier era) are certainly associated with these things. But it is the combination of these variables, and not any one variable, that brings about the antiAmericanism we see -- that is, they and their ignorance contribute to the problem, too.
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1. Well given how closely tied we were to the Shah of Iran (he wouldn't have been shah if not for us and the brits), and given how nasty his SAVAK was towards Iranians, makes sense that they burned our flags and took over our embassy. The man was our puppet and all.
2. Fear social change, true. Modernity? Depends on your definition of modernity.
3. Capitalistic change? They don't mind that. What they mind is uneven distrubution of wealth. Arab gov'ts focus the blame on the US and West since well, why would the gov'ts want their people to focus on them? And given the reaction of the populace in Palestinian and Egyptian elections, they're not buying it these days.
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| But U.S. policy was still, in effect, pro-Kuwaiti, pro-Muslim, and pro-Arab. |
 Uh no. Pro-kuwaiti yes. Pro-muslim and pro-arab?? Give me a break. Just because Kuwaitis are muslims and arab doesn't mean our support for them make us pro-muslim and pro-arab. All it means is we don't make another country's religion or ethnicity interfere with our foreign policy. |
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laogaiguk
Joined: 06 Dec 2005
Location: somewhere in Korea
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| Posted: Mon Jan 23, 2006 8:13 pm Post subject: |
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| Gopher wrote: |
She was a woman you keep ten feet away from you at all times, and don't ever make her problems your problems, no doubt.
If you thought I was talking about "all Pakistanis" at any time, then there was a miscommunication, because I was referring to the pro-Taliban, pro-AQ Pakistanis on the Afghan-Pakistani border. And they may fear and hate India, and vice versa, but they are still rabidly antiAmerican. They are just as capable of "multi-tasking" their fears and hatreds as anyone else. (This was not news to me, by the way.)
I also think it's no big leap to lump in many, but by no means all, of those who inhabit Saudi, Afghanistan, the Sudan, and others into the rabid antiAmerican camp as well. I am absolutely certain that the Saudi and the Pakistani governments walk extremely dangerous tightropes with respect to the peoples and cultures they attempt to govern and hold together. And as for other parts of the world, I have seen large numbers of Chileans go apoplectic about the U.S.
Have you seen what happened in Iran in '79? the mass flag burnings? the "Great Satan" speeches and the public's approval, etc.? This was very real, and now, with the present govt there, it is coming back again with less vengeance than before, but there nonetheless. So let's not forget Iran as well.
So I stand by my claim and I'll even elaborate it here: many in the Middle East and other places like the Sudan tend to be deeply conservative and intolerant, they fear social change and modernity, they blame the U.S. for bringing these new trends and pressures about, they blame the U.S. for all of their other problems, which is not entirely unreasonable because capitalistic change and U.S. foreign policy (as well as British foreign policy in an earlier era) are certainly associated with these things. But it is the combination of these variables, and not any one variable, that brings about the antiAmericanism we see -- that is, they and their ignorance contribute to the problem, too.
It is not racist to point to this reality, a reality whose compexities and systematic nature I've not sufficiently explained above.
| Quote: |
Despite what many argue, Arab and Muslim rage at the United States has had very little to do with actual U.S. policies--policies that have been remarkably pro-Arab over the past 50 years. Promoting anti-Americanism is simply the best way Muslim leaders have found to distract their publics from the real problem: internal mismanagement. New U.S. policies or a PR campaign will not change matters.
DAMN YANKEES
Since last year's attacks on New York and Washington, the conventional wisdom about the motivation behind such deadly terrorism has gelled. The violence, we are often told, was a reaction to misguided U.S. policies. For years, certain American actions -- such as the country's support for Israel and for unpopular, oppressive Arab regimes -- had supposedly pro | | | | |
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