--- On Sat, 10/10/09, Usman Sadozai <usman.sado...@googlemail.com> wrote:
> From: Usman Sadozai <usman.sado...@googlemail.com> > Subject: Re: [silk] Ombaba gets Nobel peace > To: silklist@lists.hserus.net > Date: Saturday, 10 October, 2009, 8:39 PM > > > > > The one single thing that (for me) pushes > her beyond > > > the pale is this: > > > her virulent opposition, in both word and > deed, to > > > birth control - to > > > some of the most desperately poor people in > the world. > > > Uncounted > > > > hundreds (or thousands) of people exist in > utter > > > misery today who owe > > > > their being and state directly to her words > and deeds. > > > I consider this > > > > truly *evil*, and believe that her net > contribution to > > > the world is a > > > > significant increase in the sum of misery in > it. > > > > > > > > > > > > > i must admit i don't know much about mother theresa. but > it's interesting to > compare views expressed about her and gandhiji here, in > relation to the > peace prize. i'm not comparing the personalities. they > cannot be compared. > nor the achievements. just the approach taken towards > making an argument for > and against. we know, being a great 'personality' is not > about being so in > every detail of your entire life (which is more the subject > of biographies > rather than conclusive evaluations). but we know gandhiji's > views on western > medicine. i have not made the effort to check the veracity > of the > oft-repeated claim that he refused his wife penicillin. the > following, > however, is a very peculiar view in his own words: > > "I have heard that many women who did not want to lose > their honour chose to > die. Many men killed their own wives. I think that is > really great, because > I know that such things make India brave. After all, life > and death is a > transitory game.... [The women] have gone with courage. > They have not sold > away their honour. Not that their lives were not dear to > them, but they felt > it was better to die with courage rather than be forcibly > converted to Islam > by the Muslims and allow them to assault their bodies. And > so those women > died. They were not just a handful, but quite a few. When I > hear all these > things I dance with joy that there are such brave women in > India." (CWMG > vol. 96: 388.89) > usman > > p.s. f.w. deklerk and the sectrian duo in northern ireland > were also given > peace prizes as were rabin and peres (alongside arafat) for > a major change > of stance rather than actually achieving anything at the > time the prizes > were awarded. the latter was true of mandela too... but, > yes, he had > suffered - a lot - already. so the peace prize has been > used as > 'encouragement'... in mandela's case he earned the > 'achievement' part > afterwards. the question is: does the president of the most > powerful nation > of the world, claiming to be the leader of the free world, > need > encouragement of this kind... denying the same to, say, > tsvangirai.. for > that year at least? Let's face it, Gandhi had some strange views. It is for each of us individually to deal with each of the major aspects that we know about: extraordinary mobiliser of the Indian masses; crafty and intriguing politician, up to using every strategy and every emotional weapon to achieve his ends; the human being who strove for perfection and to bury himself in the search for truth; and the human being who was stuck in the religious ground that he sought so desperately to spring from. Each persona was different. Each influenced the action at the moment in different degrees. It cannot be said with any degree of certainty what would be the outcome of a particular eruption, just that it would be transparently clear to Gandhi at the time of taking the decision that there was no other way that was defensible. >
