RE: [humanmarkup-comment] Thoughts on Cultural Blinders and 9/11

["Bullard, Claude L (Len)" <clbullar@ingr.com>]

My guess is that by the time they embrace terrorism, 
it is a little late to modify their behaviors.  At 
that point, they live is a self-organizing and 
possibly closed world.  That is one reason they 
are deuce difficult to penetrate.  Yet I believe 
it necessary to distinguish the urban terrorist 
from the jungle guerilla, and to distinguish between 
the religious activists such as the Saudis who 
formed Al Quaeda from the Palestinian suicide 
bomber and both from the Viet Cong.  I do believe 
that different personal and cultural forces are 
at work even if there are overlapping and similar 
behaviors expressed.

The problems of the Vietnamese and the US were 
on our side of the equation; our fears of communism, 
our arrogance about the rightness of our own systems, 
etc.  The VC were fighting for their own homes.  We 
lost there because we had nothing to win and they 
had everything to lose.  30 years later, we are 
trading partnets.  It can get better.

The Palestinians and Israelis are in a classic 
monkey trap where until each side lets go of the prize, 
they are held fast by what the prize in their hands. 
They will eventually find a way out.  Last weekend 
at the concert we held here in Alabama, in the final 
jam, a dreadlocked black, a jewish princess, a rock 
longhair, three bluegrass rednecks, and so on were 
all playing together under an American flag.  It 
may not seem like much and it doesn't happen as 
often as it should, but my friend, it was proof that 
this is 2002 and not 1950 in Alabama.  Take that from 
one who lived through the civil rights movement up 
front and personal.  It can get better but because 
people work on it and have time.  No, this is not as 
severe as the Middle East, but ask why it didn't get 
that way.  One reason is that when the firehoses and 
the dogs came out, the blacks stood there and took it 
while the world watched.  On their side was a shared 
set of beliefs, a common religion, and frankly, the 
white women of the American South would not put up 
with what they saw on those screens and in the streets 
of our neighborhoods.  Eventually,we took the hands 
of our neighbors and walked together away from the precipice 
of hell, for the sake of their beliefs and the future 
of their children.   It can get better.

The al Quaeda are a different problem.  They have 
jihad fever.   That has to be changed from within their 
own culture; that is, the adherents to Islamic tenets 
have to modify this because this is the dark side 
of religion: a belief in absolutes.   The only recourse 
the west has to deal with them is to identify them, 
hunt them, and kill them.  I wish it were otherwise 
but unless the Islamic community comes to grips with 
its culpability and modifies its support behaviors, 
that is, raising and providing funds, shelter, arms, 
etc, that is how it is.   What we can do 
is work out how our relationships with these cultures 
are enabling them to perceive us as enemies, and that 
I am afraid, will force us to confront what in our 
own systems produces behaviors which they perceive 
as antithetical to their interests.   They say very 
loudly what they think these are.  We don't like 
what we hear and because we have our own share 
of religious fundamentalism, we don't hear it. 
We also have let our economic interests collude 
with these religious interests to justify who and 
what we support.  For example, do you think we 
could modify our unilateral support for Israel and 
pull our forces off the Saudi peninsula?

Again, a monkey trap.  What is the prize in our 
hand that we hold so tightly that keeps us in the trap?

Question:  do you believe that a confrontation of these 
forces is the beginning of Armageddon, the end of the 
world?  If so, then a myth has you by the mental tail. 

BTW:  your sculpting is probably your sign competency 
to express some of what you are feeling just as music 
is for me.   As Gudwin posits, competence over multiple 
sign sets is a measure of intelligence.  You are doing 
the right thing.  To feel more positively, you can find 
or create more contexts for that expression.  Everyone 
has a job to discover, a way to express their feelings 
about these events.  Some only raise flags; others 
do their art and work on HumanML.  Lots of simple signs 
can amount to something much larger, but to go there, we
have to start.  It can get better.

len

-----Original Message-----
From: Rex Brooks [mailto:rexb@starbourne.com]
[humanmarkup-comment] Thoughts on Cultural Blinders and 9/11


I am glad you were able to endure long enough to see these larger 
issues. They didn't get there quickly enough for my own personal 
human limits. I appreciate you taking the time to respond this 
thoroughly. My own sense of despair and anger in the face of seeing 
faith portrayed even briefly (and through my own lack of patience) as 
one-dimensional is lessened. I'm less concerned with the terrorists 
as much as I am with our own ability to understand their expressions, 
their signs, and respond to them appropriately. I don't have much 
clue what that response ought to be to successfully reach into their 
cultural context and persuade them to a different course.