English as a universal language

[Lairiodd]

I don't necessarily agree with the examples you've given, since few cultures have really tried non-violence as a response to attack.

Gandhi tried it and it sorta worked. However, the British didn't actually want to kill all the Indians.

Against a power that wants to wipe you out, peaceful resistance is just going to get you killed faster. Apparently, Gandhi said that if he was a Jew in Nazi Germany, he would given the Nazis an ultimatum to either shoot him or let him go. Now, what would a Nazi officer's response to that have been ?

Who knows, letting someone enslave you without opposition might be the quickest way to everlasting peace and freedom. We appear to have proved that defending ourselves against every attack (and using force to spread our values, such as democracy) is not a quick route to peace, if a route at all.

Freedom is more important than peace. In any case, freedom will lead to peace as free people will use their power to make it harder for the counrty to go to war.

Democracy requires a population that is reasonably stable already. There needs to be bonds of trust, otherwise, one faction isn't going to allow another faction run the country. (who knows what will happen before the next election comes around).

If a democracy is structured so that it encourages compromise, it can help to build the trust necessary to sustain the democracy.

OTOH, if political parties are faction based it could end up formalising the divisions in the society.

I would like to point out that the statement I've emboldened is slightly incorrect, in my opinion. I said that pushing values is a risky proposition, not a bad thing.

Fair enough, I didn't read it carefully enough .

[Cryn]

But Blair and Bush are preserving our Western lifestyles, which I think I personally prefer to the alternative offered by certain extremist middle-eastern regimes.

EDIT: I KNOW I prefer my Western lifestyle to that of any extremist middle-eastern regime.

Exactly when were our Western lifestyles in danger?

As far as I can tell an extremist organisation committed the worst atrocity of our time (which in no way threatened to prevent our lifestyles) and Blair and Bush tried (and failed) to put an end to that organisation. They followed this with an attack on a country that in no way threatened or even suggested to threaten our lifestyles, unless they intended to do it with imaginary weapons and carried on fictional missiles.

Seems to me the only aspects of Western lifestyle they are preserving is our grand tradition of fucking up other countries and our beloved passtime of making fat old men rich through selling weapons. Oh yes, and they are ensuring that we don't lose that good old favourite part of British life that we call "wondering whether the tube I'm on is going to be bombed".

[Xest]

Are they though? Exactly how much safer and better preserved are our lifestyles thanks to their actions?

Agree, frankly I think Blairs policies have only made the UK more of a target of attack for terrorists so if anything it's done the opposite, and what about preserving Iraqi's or Afghan's lifestyles?

I'm certainly not anti-war but I think Afghanistan and Iraq were the wrong targets, Iran seems to be the only real credible instigator of instability in the middle east, well that an Pakistan on a more indirect way in that they refuse to address the massive amounts of extremism that's brewn in their country and exported elsewhere.

[Xest]

As far as I can tell an extremist organisation committed the worst atrocity of our time (which in no way threatened to prevent our lifestyles) and Blair and Bush tried (and failed) to put an end to that organisation. They followed this with an attack on a country that in no way threatened or even suggested to threaten our lifestyles, unless they intended to do it with imaginary weapons and carried on fictional missiles.

To be fair, whilst as mentioned above I don't feel Iraq/Afghanistan were the real targets to attack I'd argue that Bush and Blair haven't really failed totally in the goal of keeping terrorism away from home. After 9/11 Bush many a time stated the whole point in invading Afghanistan (and later Iraq) was to take the fight off the west's doorstep and take the fight to them. Earlier this year Osama Bin Laden released one of his videos and stated that the reason we'd seen no more attacks in the US is because Al Qaeda was busy in Iraq/Afghanistan, now, I don't know about you but that sounds distinctily to me like a complete trip up on Osama's behalf in admitting that Bush had actually succeded in at least one of his quoted goals.

It's the same tactic Israel is trying, push Hezbollah so far back into Lebanon (30km+) that the only thing the majority of their missiles can hit is in their own country - take the fight to them to keep the civilians in their homeland safe (at least from the Katyusha which is what the majority of Hezbollah's stocks are). Might never beat Hezbollah but at least the military are making life much safer for Israeli civilians which is their job.

[Cryn]

Before our attempt to take this off our doorstep, Britain had had no major Islamic terrorist incidents. Since then we've had one major incident, one narrowly failed incident and today we've had 20 arrests and our airports in chaos because of a foiled incident. This is a major increase in terrorist events in the UK during the past few years.

Yes, Blair may (or may not, it's all speculation) have lowered potential terrorist action coming here from the middle east, but in doing so it's alienated people in the UK and given a spur to home-grown terrorists claiming to fight under the same banner.

[Gandelf]

Are they though? Exactly how much safer and better preserved are our lifestyles thanks to their actions?

Probably a lot safer than if they did nothing. Yes, at present, we may be suffering a terrorist onslaught as a direct result of the actions of the "West", but if nothing was done, in the long term things I FEEL would be worse. The extremism of some of the middle-eastern regimes is an evil which must be "nipped in the bud", before it has a chance to spread and become a plague. Don't get me wrong, I'm not against the ordinary, everyday folk in those countries who want to get on with their lives like the rest of us do, but it's the regimes I'm opposed to.

One such regime I saw on the TV some months ago, where because a woman was accused of adultery, her extremist husband disfigured her horribly by slicing off her nose, eye-lids, ears and lips. That sort of thing must not be allowed to spread throughout the world!

Yes, Blair may (or may not, it's all speculation) have lowered potential terrorist action coming here from the middle east, but in doing so it's alienated people in the UK and given a spur to home-grown terrorists claiming to fight under the same banner.

Which is why the West cannot sit back and do nothing. It won't go away if we ignore it... it will get worse. It needs a smack down so that those who would harm us realise it's futile to attempt it. Then it will stop. We need hawks, not doves.

[Xest]

Before our attempt to take this off our doorstep, Britain had had no major Islamic terrorist incidents. Since then we've had one major incident, one narrowly failed incident and today we've had 20 arrests and our airports in chaos because of a foiled incident. This is a major increase in terrorist events in the UK during the past few years.

Yes, Blair may (or may not, it's all speculation) have lowered potential terrorist action coming here from the middle east, but in doing so it's alienated people in the UK and given a spur to home-grown terrorists claiming to fight under the same banner.

Which is largely why I said originally I don't agree with us joining in at least - I think it could possibly (albeit not definetely) have made things worse.

Put simply the war on terror is not our war. It's a war America brought upon itself after years of failed international policy. It's not even totally Bush's fault, the whole Al Qaeda thing has it's roots firmly set in the Clinton era, Bush is just unfortunate that it really started to brew when he got into office and that he's too stupid to defuse it and only serves to stir it more. Again though, it's not just the US' fault either, without instigators like Iran and the unchecked elements in Pakistan it wouldn't have picked up the momentum it has either.

One more note to make though, whilst I think it'd be more likely, I'm no longer completely convinced we'd have got off free if we didn't side with the US in the war on terror - look at Canada and the recently foiled plot there to raid Canadian parliament and CBC (Canada's national news channel) to film the beheading of Canada's parliament - a country that has often defied US war on terror policy and is only involved in Afghanistan in a peacekeeping role. Attempting an attack on Canada, one of the most neutral countries in the world gives weight to the idea these peoople are out to destroy the west regardless of their policies and are completely ignorant to the fact the west isn't just one big country, they just assume that everyone in the west is evil and has no sympathy for their cause which is ironic seeing as it's often the west that's accused of taking those short sighted kind of views of groups of people.

[Cryn]

No argument from me on the roots of the problem, though some of the original roots of attitudes and hostilities may be hundreds of years further back.

We should never have joined the war on terror. Not because we should be on a different side, but because you can't fight terrorism with armies. Conflict breeds terrorists. Every killed, maimed or imprisoned terrorist is a martyr and everyone else hurt in the course of the war, and their friends and relatives, is moved that much closer to becoming sympathetic to the terrorists.

I believe terrorism should be addressed with friendship, breaking down boundaries and good policing (of the civilian kind). It's very hard to hate someone who is making every effort to be your friend in word and deed.

[Luz]

My question is, if all of the "West" would have butted out of the mid-east and gone home, I dont mean just millitary but also companies exploiting the countries...

is it very likely that one random day some country in min-east would come up with the idea to send a nuclear missile at US who had no companies or millitary present in their country at all? No.

Its a fact that the hate towards US in the mid-east must come from some wrongdoings, its not something they suddenly came up with (oh I know lets start hating US today). So its their own fault for butting in all the time instead of concentrating on their own country. Why in the world UK felt the urge to but in as well is beyond me.

About the attack on Canada, I think its fair to assume that some low to non-educated person in mid-east looking at a map can take it for the US aswell, just a tought I dont know. Could also be lot more sofisticated, by attacking neutral countries as a response to the attacks from US they hope to turn more people against the US. Like "stop attacking mid-east because they retaliate on neutrals!!", also just a guess.

[Sharkith]

Cryn,

I agree with what your saying that a sense of shame is ridiculus, it can even be unhelpful (in relation to the empire). However remember that I am not talking simply about personal shame but a culture of shame around certain things. People here might think I am off the mark suggesting that a culture of shame is associated with the legacy of the British empire. However, I never once said that you or anyone else should feel personally ashamed of the past. What I said was the language is not suitable as a world language because it owes its dominance to a past that is shameful.

Anyway perhaps we have forgotten the legacy of the empire? We effectively wrote whole chapters of our history off in the Middle East when we supported the war in Iraq. We effectively decided that our diplomatic position is not worth much when we started to bomb that country in the interests of the fiction that they were a threat to the world. So I might be wrong that there is a culture of shame for the past. One thing though I personally think if we could remember the empire more with a culture of shame that we would be less inclined to go off dropping bombs on people in the interests of a fiction about big guns and bombs.

The fact that our ancesters were different to us is a moot point especially since we are still informed by the same rationality that they were. On the one hand that they went of colonising a new world. We however are still continuing that project. The only difference is that today we are colonising it with our ideas about how things ought to be. We are busy promoting our hegemony when we should learn to shut the fuck up and perhaps listen?

I listened to Anthony Giddens talk around a year ago about gobalisation and as one of Blairs sociological gurus he frightened me. His view was that this new terror was a global thing and that our whole life was under threat and that we had no option but to go and enforce our will one 'them'. Most of the audience was very shocked that someone would be talking so aggressively about enforcing our will on 'them'.

God made man in his own image one day we killed him (Nietzsche) and now we are busy trying to make the world in our image.

Sharkith