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

[Rex Brooks <rexb@starbourne.com>]

Yes, it can get better. I agree on that and on working on HumanML as one means.

Neither am I in serious or deep despair, just a little on the gloomy 
side at the moment as I maneuver myself back to the work at hand. The 
short term manipulation of the Islamic world by al Quaeda and the 
jihad merchants, such as Sheik Mohammed was in the Taliban, is 
worrisome. But both the Islamic world and our world both need to 
start listening and hearing each other, rather than talking past each 
other or shouting "evil" at each other as we have been treated to 
from both sides.

We have the right and duty to defend ourselves and right now that 
means taking measured military and diplomatic actions. When we sink 
to "demonizing" our opponents, no matter how richly we FEEL they 
deserve it, we fall into that monkey trap right alongside the 
Israelis and the Palestinians and al Quaeda.

The problem is the appeal to raw, unthinking emotionalism. Yet when 
our communications fail to take the emotions into account, we also 
fall into a trap of a different kind, but that is another discussion.

One wishes the Islamic women were as powerful as the southern white 
women, and in time, I am reasonably sure they will be, though they 
have a much tougher male-dominated, testosterone-driven culture to 
contend with than women from our western culture. I wish them the 
best in overcoming that domination.

Ciao,
Rex

P.S. Thanks for the chance to continue relieving myself of these 
burdensome thoughts. Soon I will have no excuses left but to get back 
to work, eh?

At 3:20 PM -0500 9/5/02, Bullard, Claude L (Len) wrote:
>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.


-- 
Rex Brooks
Starbourne Communications Design
1361-A Addison, Berkeley, CA 94702 *510-849-2309
http://www.starbourne.com * rexb@starbourne.com