Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Big_Bird]

Every now and again, we get some poor little bunnies, wringing their hands and crying "Why isn't anyone making threads about X's oppression of Y? Boo hoo hoo! "

The basic problem is that these threads wither very quickly. China and Tibet. Turkey and the Kurds. You name it. They just don't cut the mustard.

Why? The answer is obvious. You can't have a good debate when everyone is of the same opinion. With few exceptions, Westerners tend to sympathise with the Tibetans, rather than the Chinese. They tend to sympathise with the oppressed and the dispossessed rather than the opressor and the conqueror. Usually, that is.

But there is a notable exception - the case of Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory. That's different. Start a thread on that, and squillions of Israeli apologists come racing out, like Muller smelling a potential goal, to defend their favourite occupier and human rights abuser. "How can you say that's white phosporus being poured on that UN school? Don't be crazy! It's obvious that that is the IDF distribuing icing sugar to the grateful children!!"

And so the desperate apologists for Israeli oppression and land theft trip over themselves to supply the oxygen for the I/P conflict threads.

So, the solution to making threads about other conflicts more popular is simple. We need more apologists for land grabs and human rights abuses.

Some of you should go away and brush up on your apologism for China's theft of Tibetan land. Then we can have much more fun discussing that topic.

And those crying about the dearth of threads on Turkey and the Kurds need to spend some time thinking over Turkey's excuses for their actions. That way Turkey vs the PKK threads will be much more exciting.

So, what do you say?

[stilicho25]

I would be more sympathetic if I wasn't sure every Jew in Israel wouldn't be dead or fled in the case of an Palestinian victory. Other then that I don't really care either way.

[Sergio Stefanuto]

Yes, Israel seems to divide opinion. It's a controversial state. An analogy can be made with Islam. Islam is a controversial religion. When you posted the thread about honor killings (done by Hindus), it very predictably got 0 replies. If it was about Muslim violence, though, it would have gone on for pages. Some people, for some reason, intensely dislike Islam, so 'it's worse when Muslims do it'. Similarly, when the Israelis get into a scuffle with a peace flotilla, the whole world goes mad, yet the Turks' indiscriminate bombing of the Kurds in revenge for a terrorist attack receives very little media attention, neither absolutely nor relative to the focus on Israel. Israel receives round-the-clock scrutiny by the media and many people find that disproportionate, unfair, tiresome and hysterical. The fact that Israel divides opinion in a way that other conflicts don't might suggest that the case made against Israel has failed to convince many people. And that, in turn, could suggest that the arguments for such a case range from dubious to poor.

[NovaKart]

Turkey isn't surrounded by hostile Kurdish nations. Also I don't think many people sympathize with the PKK.

[Leon]

I would say that most people don't know about the Kurds. Any nation with a separatist group of there own wants it to stay that way. They have a really tough position in that they are in several countries, so if one country gave them independence the others would be even more pressured. Not to mention the oil on Kurdish land. I would say that the majority of people who do know about it probably side with the Kurds.

[Big_Bird]

[Sergio Stefanuto]

[JMO]

I'm not an apologist really for China in Tibet, but I do think that issue is more complicated than is generally thought.

The original Lama ruling class were astonishingly cruel and most of the population were serfs(in every sense of the word). I find it hard to stomach the platitudes coming from the current boss man as he swans around the world in luxury.

[The Happy Warrior]

[caniff]

[mises]

The Turks are brutal towards the PKK. They should act right. Anybody want to argue against that? Any Turkish nationalists here? No. We will all agree on that.

[NovaKart]

[TheUrbanMyth]

[ThingsComeAround]

How can westerners not compel themselves to obey Israel?
Israel constantly repeats "We were oppressed by the Nazis and we only need blah blah blah"- this has worked to such an extent that they themselves demand appeasement, and get it, in the form of power and influence without giving anything in return.

So long as there are more Jewish people in America, America will remain a puppet of Israel.

[Fox]