From: Steve Davies (steve365@btinternet.com)
Date: Thu Jun 19 2003 - 15:58:47 MDT
John Clark
> Lets see, if I were a Moslem man in Indonesia or Malaysia or The
Philippines
> and was dirt poor, uneducated and commanded by a venal corrupt government
> how would I feel about the oppression of a tiny group of people 10,000
miles
> away that I have never see by another group of people that I have also
never
> seen? Well, my primary reaction would be of boredom, yet you claim this is
> the reason they're in a suicidal murderous frenzy just as the Arabs are.
I don't think the Muslims in those parts of the world *are* really bothered
about the Middle East, from what I know and people tell me. Some of them
don't like the US but that's for other reasons and they are more hostile to
other groups (Chinese mainly). It's basically Arab Muslims, Iranians and (a
lot but not all) Pakistanis who are wound up about this issue
(Israel/Palestine). I think that (a) that's because they *are* more directly
affected and (b) because that entire issue has become a kind of collective
displacement anxiety which they obsess about in order to avoid confronting
the real dilemma/problem they have. That is the difficulty they have in
coming to terms with modernity. The root of that problem IMHO is the
familial system of that part of the world, above all the very high level of
consanguineous marriages which causes all sorts of difficulties. Their
problem is they want many of the benefits of modernity but violently reject
its social aspects because of the way these threaten things such as
traditional family values that they hold very dear. The result is a feeling
of suppressed rage and anguish and an overpowering desire to find some way
of having your cake and eating it. Nothing unusual in that, its just that
for various reasons the problem is particularly acute in that part of the
world. SD
This archive was generated by hypermail 2.1.5 : Thu Jun 19 2003 - 16:08:07 MDT