weighing in again, thanks to siraj ... look! 90+% of people world over
are ignorant, irrespective of how intelligent or educated... most
humans are so absorbed in their own micro worlds of social struggle,
family problems, pleasure & escape that they hardly know anything about
the objective world around them, much less about others except for
stereotypes that make easy pigeon holing of "the other" whichever other
happens to be the "other of the minute" flavour of the month target to
put down .. of course this situation suits the real rulers of all
societies, who continue to control by soft or hard means, keeping a
reserve army of labour unemployed as a threat to employed workers ...
geopolitics of diminishing natural resources, plays a key role ..
on this side (arabia --dubai -- where i live & work in an environment
of global village 130 nationalities) the government controlled any
demonstrations, allowing a token street march, but no banners, flag
burning, etc., leaders urging moderation & making sure that local media
carried that message .. but in general there is a difference between
successful middle class professionals whether indian or brits, & the
ignorant labouring masses who only know what they hear through their
ethnic grapevines .. we are talking about people who have never been
empowered, much like new orleans' black underclass ..
for the past week i have been having discussions with my students, all
girls in black cloaks & scarves, but dior - polo - levis & T's
underneath ... we have come to an understanding that they know very
little about their own country, ironically i know more general
information than the lot put together even thought they have a
depth of local knowledge invisible to me .. we then contrast this to
what they know about other cultures ... zilch! so the analogy is what
do they know about you? zilch as well. so if no one knows much about
either self or other how can we blame lego & butter or government ..
especially when teh press is all commercial enterprises trying to
maximize profit & whatever sells ads or copies, is good, scandal being
great for business ... we also looked at salman rushdie, an indian
muslim with uk citizenship, living in new york, no fatwa was issued
against india, uk or us, or even his publishers .. he alone was held
responsible and because he was a muslim should have known better, but
for some danish cartoonist with no knowledge of islam or responsibility
toward it, how or why would we blame countries, peoples or dairy cows
... these 18 - 22 year olds from small cities & villages, understood &
generally agreed that this was blown up out of proportion & that
governments had no real control over commerce (media) & that the
individual cartoonist was the person responsible & that he probably did
not know that he was engaging in such a controversial act, but will
profit from it with fame & maybe fortune ...
jamil brownson
uaeu - al ain, uae3
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