I am persisting on this one because I believe that the principle is
important, not the actual case: the principle being that arguments should
be about what people have actually said, not what it is convenient to
present them as having said.
It was not I who said that the Portuguese were the least racist of the
conquerors of the then Ceylon; it was my Sri Lankan friend who said it, and
she presented it as part of the typical Sri Lankan account of the three
'oppressors'. She did not say that the Portuguese were therefore the
'best', or 'least bad' of the group: it is Nicole who assumes that least
racist = least bad. In fact my friend disliked the Portuguese record most of
all: her stories of how they were given to tossing babies of people who
refused to convert to Roman Catholicism in the air and catching them on
their bayonets was just one aspect of what she disliked. She just didn't
ascribe this to racism. If Nicole differs, she needs to take it up with my
friend, not me. Nor has anyone suggested that being least racist means
being not racist--although Nicole once or twice writes as though either my
friend or I had said this.
One of the things I *was* trying to say was that race is not the only
explanation of evil doing: neither is gender, nor class, nor religion, nor
whatever. I do not know enough Sri Lankan history to judge whether my
friend's account is accurate (although I do believe that it is what many
people there believe to be the case): that was not my point either. I was
speaking of complexity and, as before, about the problems one can have with
witness. I am not denying respect to anyone's experience: but I do still
ask--what do you do with it? These are not idle questions. One can't say
that everything is relative *and* that everyone's opinion should be valued:
if everything is relative, then what is there to value above anything else?
Or do we say that the witness of those who have suffered is more valuable?
If we say this, then everything is no longer relative: suffering is
special. I have lots of problems here: one is its drift to
masochism--what will we do for value when suffering decreases (assuming it
can)? Is there less value in the world when that happens? And surely one
of the huge objections to suffering is that it diminishes people's choice
and experience; and perhaps warps much of the experience they do have? I
am no Christian, but I suspect that there is some Christian theology (and
Islamic, Buddhist, Jewish...) which has dealt with these matters, but then
they will have tended to dismiss the easy relativism of the modern secular
West--a relativism which has served me as well as the next Western
secularist...
Yes I have studied philosophy and yes it is useful. Not that it *answers*
anything!
Susan
