On Saturday 01 Mar 2008 6:57:48 am Charles Haynes wrote: > The claim that B is true is not refuted by saying that it's true for A > as well. Violence begets violence. But there is also danger to any > innocent party trying to intervene.
Absolutely, and I was aware of this when I wrote that. But let me say why I wrote it nevertheless. I have called the argument I have used as the "torn shirt vs open fly argument" If you point out that my shirt is torn, and I in turn point out that your fly is open, the fact of my shirt being torn is not in any way changed or nullified by your open fly and the fact of your open fly is in no way remedied by my shirt being torn. The fact that a priest and his son were murdered by a mob of Hindu extremists is not remedied in any way by the fact that nameless hundreds or thousands of Hindus were tortured and murdered in the Goa inquisition. But every reminder of the priest's murder is also an opportunity to remember those killed in the name of Christianity. There is an interesting political reason for this. Among the BJP's (and the RSS's) prime targets are Hindus themselves whom these parties believe are burdened by what is described as a "colonized Hindu mind" It is the "colonized Hindu mind" that is accused of denying history, of consistently denying and glossing over the killing of Hindus and destruction of temples by Islamic hordes and later the facts of events like the Goa inquisition while consistently and vehemently recalling every event in which a Hindu entity has similarly murdered or destroyed a non-Hindu person/entity. shiv
