What is the matter with everyone (You and me included) in this World? I am a so called white guy (though tbh I don't see any White or Black people anywhere as they are different shades of beige/brown from what I can see) and I grew up in an ethnically diverse neighbourhood where everyone got along fine irrelevant of race colour or creed. A lot of my friends at school we're from so called "Black" Dominican extraction and my best freind at school from 12 years old was a mixed race son of a Dominican Dad and an English Mom who was a Roman Catholic and yet I was baptised as a Presbyterian. We also had friends and classmates from India. In fact the Indians seemed to excel above everyone when it came to our education so that blows any superior theories out of the window any might have or have had straight away. Now admittedly this was years ago I am talking 70's and 80's but really what has happened to this World? We have disasters all over the place like the Asian Tsunami and The Haiti earthquake The New Orleans Hurricane etc etc yet for some reason people still fight each other and hate each other constantly. Examples are the Hutsies and Totoos in Africa The Sinhaleese and Tamils in Sri Lanka and you name it - the list is exhaustive. Why oh Why is the world like this do you think? Why can't people of different religions, ehtnicity or cultures learn to live side by side and support one an other in order to make this world a better place. All Nations as one like in the Book of Revelation. What would your answers be?
I can't answer all your questions, however I am VAGUELY familiar with the situation in Sri Lanka due to the fact that one of my best friends is a Tamil. Basically before the British occupation there were two DIFFERENT countries in Sri-Lanka = one for the Sinhala majority, and one for the Tamil minority, with two different governments, etc. Everything worked well until the British came - first they conquered the ENTIRE island, then instated the same colonial government over the WHOLE island. And when they left.... they left one country with one CENTRAL government (run by Sinhala) - UNLIKE the separation they did between India and Pakistan, for example. So now both sides fight, but to be honest the only ones to thank for this are the British - they've created a REAL conflict situation and left without resolving it. And to be honest, it's the same situation in Israel/Palestine and many, many other conflict parts of the area. Colonial powers took all the resources they could from every single place while toying with local politics, before ABRUPTLY withdrawing, leaving the artificially created countries they've made FOR THEMSELVES --despite hundreds of years of local conditions-- to fend for their own well-being. And well, it's not a surprise that artificially created countries have no way to survive as a common entity. As long as someone is of a higher cast and someone is of the lower cast the Marx-described "struggle of classes" will come into play -- sooner or later.
Hey Dennis I don't have an aswer either. I know a bit about the Tamil & Sinaleese problem and how the British left them with the problem. One of our local shopkeepers and all his staff are Tamil and he asked me to sign a petotion online to stop the genocide soothers might step in but to no avail. I even wen as far as putting www.tamil-van.com online to try and hekp him but e was unable to take over the site. If your tamil friend would like it I will give it over for free as I don't really know what to do with it and don't have the time either as have too many other things on.
Heh, the Indian observation is interesting. I went to a multicultural high school because they had a good gifted program - it seems to me that students from poorer countries do better (generally speaking) in school, largely because their parents push them a lot; they want them to have good lives in the West, with money, with a good job, etc. There has always been a lot of hate between groups, and while there is more now I'm still glad that it isn't like it was 70 odd years ago where blacks were treated as second class citizens, or worse. (I'm inclined to say worse.) I'm out tonight, my de facto mother in law's birthday - but I'll try to email you in the coming days, still recovering from V day, lol. Good post - I've also often wondered about the "black and white" thing. No one is white (not even quite albinos) and no one is black.
It's definately a crazy World at time alexispetrov Look forward to the email And due to some SEO work I have to get complted the thing I mentioned RE the writing thing and page 1 Google's has had to take a slight delay - will update you when it is completed Anyone else any thoughts on this World's present madeness? Though as Alexis poined out the past has also been somewhat worse at times.
Thanks mate, PM coming up. And yeah, I actually personally attended a peaceful anti-war demonstration here in Montreal while the whole Sri Lanka affair was going on. And to add another answer to your original question(s) -- I think OUR governments are responsible and probably some of us, that simply do not care about what happens to other ppl (just putting it politely -- although my sentiments about this group of people is much stronger), are responsible too. I'll bring that Sri Lanka thing as an example, since I attended a rally. I know there were numerous rallies all over the country, with the biggest one being in Toronto, having around 50,000 people or so, with the point of telling our Canadian government (and its NATO/UN allies) to intervene in the situation. I know that these events went all over the world, with the one in London, UK having around 100,000 people in attendance. BUT! Sadly, not even one of the governments budged, not one government listened to hundreds of thousands of people (their own citizens!) asking to help other people elsewhere. Canadian government ended up giving a statement to the effect of "we hope the Lankese military takes care of not hurting the civilians", while the Tamil radio station kept reporting of new air and missile strikes on peaceful Tamil residents. Thousands were dying every day, for a total of 25,000 peaceful Tamils (counted separately from TTOE cadres) at the end of the offensive. And NATO and all those other countries that are so swift with military or UN action when it comes to their interests did nothing. And the butt of this joke is that at the moment there are 200,000 Tamils in so called "filtration camps" (that's what the official media calls them, so you don't what to know what goes on in there), living in squalid conditions. ...and meantime the EU recently gave a grant of some 310 million Euro to the Sri Lankese government)))))) ######## What I am trying to say with this example, I guess, is that now we simply see what our governments really represent - obviously NOT the will of the people. Back when Hutus and Tutsis were slaughtering each other there was no Internet or no modern mass media, so we could've said that "hey, our governments simply heard about this too late". Now though, we see their true face. And it scares me.
well, this is a good topic and thanks for bringing it up, I am an Indian and I think I can answer some of the major issues raised here, but not all for sure 1. Indians better educated : One of the main reason for this, after the British regime in India, India was very badly hit, remember India was once one the richest countries in the world and only diamond producer in the world. India has lost most of the wealth due to the foreign invasions, though I gotta admit the local rulers who were greed for power, were the ones responsible to a larger extent. After, independence, many were home less, shattered, they had to regroup but they were welcomed by un-employment and most of the Indians boycotted British education as part of policy applied by Mahatma Gandhi - the Boycott movement, where Indians were called to ban all english products and education. This led to severe il-literate ratio after the independence. The older ones are not going to bend their backs to educate themselves that's for sure, but because of their ignorance towards education, they had lived below average lives. Which motivated the children of next generation to educate and make path for a better life to the family, some were motivated by their parents and some by nature. You gotta remember education system wasn't a easy passage for especially the rural India, where they had to travel even 10 - 50km to get basic education. So, in general Indians grew more dedicated and motivational in educating themselves. I am talking only one section of the people, so now don't start a debate on the other side of the coin I read in one of the above posts, Indians are more interested in moving to west, the only reason for this better payment, technology and facilities. Most of the Indians living away from India still feel a desire to return to their homeland. We grew more intense and determined towards education because of our family backgrounds and motivation to prove the world we are not here to just live but prove ourselves. And not the rich and poor nation theory. about Tamils, I have lived in Tamil Nadu for over 4yrs and I have good experience with especially the rurals who have more information about the tamils. Tamils feel sinhalese are over powering them and trying to suppress their people, ,one of the major reason for this is, the Tamils are in general Indians, who had left India way back in search of jobs to Sri Lanka. Some of the old (old people above 60) aren't a happy bunch to live with the Tamils, as they were inferiors and worked under their systems before the british rule. While, Tamils who have had bad experiences with Sinhalese after the independence, want a separate country where there could be no racist attacks. All this turned to worse since the LTTE intervene, who decided a violent war instead of a non-violent movement to gain equal rights and freedom. In general India supported LTTE, because of the Tamilans in India but had voiced against it since the bombing of ex.Indian prime Minister - Rajiv Gandhi by the LTTE The only reason I find these sort of attacks and racism is a quest to prove oneself to be superior and the best way chosen by these mobs is violence, to tear down a caste as there would be no more species to oppose them.
I was deeply shocked about what I learned about the Tamils in Sri Lanka's plight. The local shopkeeper gave me a URL to go and see the stories about what was going on. My 3 year old daughter was in the room at the time (luckily over the overside of the rooom and didn't) see what I saw. I had to shut down the page and wait until my little girl was in bed and then went back to read the story. This was at the time when the Tamil people we're being bombed in so called safe zones. The reason I had had to shut the page down when my daughter was in the room was because of all the photos. These included many of bodies of children scattered around on the ground with half their bodies blown off, legs and arms blown off and some of the most horrific scenes I have ever seen. I actually sat there and cried as I took in what was going on and read the reports and viewed the very sad photos. I ask myself how people can do this sort of thing to other people especially inocent children I also concluded after the war was declared over if the Sinhaleese realised the misery and long term hate they had bred into others still alive and affected by their action. The LTE and the Sinhaleese Government would have been much better off coming to some agreement that didn't breed years of future hatred that has solved nothing for anyone and imho will just make the Sri Lankan Tamil people end up having harder line due to all the bitterness caused by the actions taken against. I don't think when it comes to War that anyone truly wins. Any race of people trying to wipe out another also never win as history has proved time after time.
I'd have to agree with that. Being an immigrant from a poorer country certainly gives you more determination to simply do as best as you can (since that's what you're used to back home). Speaking from experience here
I think the problem here is that ever since Sri Lanka's independence from British not only things did not improve, but actually got worse for the Tamils, so after following all peaceful measures they had to take arms. It's not that I support some of the radical LTTE methods - Mr. Ghandi's unfortunate killing for example, or Black Tiger suicide missions, but I think they have a point of simply trying to defend their territory from armed Sinhalese soldiers. For example, before last year's unfortunate offensive, Tigers controlled around 1/4 of Sri Lanka's territory (in the North), did not launch anymore attacks, and there was a Norwegian/UN-mediated peace agreement in place. Instead the government broke it and started bombing civilians and now they're sitting in "filtration camps" and waiting to get out You know, 60 year old grandmas having to prove they're not LTTE... :/
A peace agreement was in place, it was mediated by Norwegian negotiators through the UN. It was upheld by LTTE, but the government broke it off. Overall this whole story makes me sick.
They might have had peace camps for the UN bodies to believe they were not violent lovers, gvt. bombing civilians is a real un-fortunate one, just like these army people killed surrendered LTTE personal making them naked, you can't really support either of them in reality Proving an extremist org member or not is a head ache not just in SL but in most of the terror affected nations, the main culprits for this are the extremists, they would never learn what they do is wrong and they would never allow others to educate - barbarism in nature its not just SL or Ind or africa having these problems, look at Nepal, Myanmar, the list is never going to end so soon, but one thing for sure is, these problems mostly lie in the Developing and under-developed countries, developed nations use their strength to suppress these movements such as China occupied Tibet...
Ah yes now you mention it I recall some of the finer details, which just made taking in the true gravity of the situation and how it devloped all the more harder to stomach I have always thought that in some cases (maybe most) when a people have been driven to take up arms and get recognised as a terrorist organisation that there must be good reasons for taking this route. Take the Irish and the English (British) and their 800 year old problems. Irelnd was patitioned in the nineteen twenties and then the two parties that subsequently became the modern Fianna Fáil & Fine Gael fought a civil war. Susequently IRA break off groups formed and I am sure many can remember the troubles over the years especially during the seventies and eighties. But what struck me about is is the cruelty. Take the guy Bobby Sands and the hunger stirkers that died. They tried to take a different stand by starving themselves just to get the British to agree to talks and yet no talks at the time came and violence continued as did the bitterness. Finally in the late nineties a peace accord got brokered but rather than refusing talks all sides actually began to communicate in a more humane way, those people that had died in the hunger strikes died for something that eventually happened anyway. It could have happened then instead of all the deaths and injuries that occured for years afterwards. The same applies to what happened with the Sinhaleese and the Tamils. One day the only answer will be to talk and agree terms that keep both sides happy.
yep u r rite, non-violence should be the movement, violence will not bring any results look at our very own Indian struggle, actually non-Indians are quite surprised r feel Indians lacked spirit in fighting for freedom, but the issues down in India are very different and not many know about each state has its own customs, never to mention the language problem, almost each state has a min.1 official language and most of the times it ain't the national language hindi, just look at now, I think there are 28 states (with dumb partition now and then, makes it hard to keep the actual count ) each has its own language some examples are maharashtra has marathi, andhra has telugu, tamilnadu has tamil, and so on.. so the medium of contact was tougher in those days and not many understood either hindi nor english in easter and southern part of India, so unity was out of question, when you can't even communicate, its the same reason the freedom struggle took more no.of yrs, than it should have it was Mahatma Gandhi who was the father of non-violent movements, he was fed up of violent struggles and decided non-violent movements are the best way u could deal with your enemy, one fine eg for that would be, if a govt. official asks for bribe, he asked the people to give the person a "rose" and wish him for a faster recovery (health), these sortta actions would pinch u hard and u can't possibly react in haste so back on to the topic, even Nelson Mandela chose non-violence as the mode of struggle having Mahatma Gandhi as the role-model, he was successful too, violence might give you short victories but non-violence might take more time but you win the people's heart and not much of blood is shed, if its shed its only b'coz of your rival and as u r non-violent, there is not a little chance for the rival to play the blame game I wouldn't support for any violent action for freedom struggle, violence will not win u people's heart but also it creates haste with in your own neighborhood
It's true a non violent approach usually ends as the answer. But what are people supposed to when faced with an armed agressor? That's where the problem is. It's either run and hope to get away or fight back in cases like that, but still nothing ever gets truly sorted from these actions until all parties sit down and talk and agree terms.
well, if armed agressor enters our territory and makes havoc, then we have to respond to it,by waiting for the world to realize would make the things worse in the area look at Tibet for that instance, when they were occupied by China, some fought bravely and laid down their lives, some fled such as Dalai Lama and some suffer in the hands of China till date, there have been many non-violent movements by the Tibetians across the world demanding freedom but they have not got what they wanted, still they won the people's heart by staying non-violent in their protests patience is the key to all, we don't need minds who jump into conclusions, we need people who can solve the issues by talks and using brains