Re: Current Issues in Religious Tolerance

Pat Kohli <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote in message news:<[EMAIL PROTECTED]>...
> Robert Arvay wrote:


> 
> >
> > >
> > > -------------------------------------
> > > "During the Cold War ....the subjects of the Soviet empire ....were
> > > pretty much like us - folks who wanted life, liberty and the pursuit
> > > of happiness.
> > >
> > > But this is not true of the Middle East.".
> >
> > If I recall, this was a quote from a columnist who was pointing out
> > that while in the USSR there were pro-democracy forces, the Middle
> > East, having no history or experience with democracy, relies on
> > autocratic and theocratic solutions.
> 
> I'm not buying the excuse.  1) The USSR was not a democracy before the
> Bolsheviks - there was no democratic tradition, a) though there may have
> been those with democratic aspirations, there were no "Pro-democracy
> forces" in the USSR.  I'm not sure if you are referring to the western
> interventionist forces in the 1920s, or some utter fantasy.

On this note, there certainly have been "pro-democracy forces in
the middle east" - at least, to the extent that there were such
in Autocratic Tsarist Russia before Lenin took control - certainly,
and at about the same time, there were "pro-democracy" forces in,
for example, Iran - to use the country whose history I am
somewhat familiar with.  There was even a parliament set up,
which has functioned in some attenuated form or another
right through the period of the Pahlevi government and the
Islamic revolution through to the present day.

Turkey is an unusual example, but after the first world war,
Kemal Ataturk and his modernisers brought a form of democracy
into being on the ruins of the old Ottoman Empire to form
the modern Turkish state, which certainly has elections that
are *not* mere confirmations of the latest dictator, like
those held in the USSR and Iraq.

Pakistan has had periods of democratic government interspersed
with its periods of military rule.

Iraq, of course, was a country created by British mandarins
out of the mandate, so one could see how it might be
difficult for home grown "democracy movements" to have a
chance to flourish there.  It is now undergoing a new
period of imperialist rule, so we shall wait to see what
ultimately happens there.

But, as you say, there is no real excuse for Robert's
repeated postings to the effect that Arabs are
not *really* humans like the rest of us.  And, I'm
not going to take lectures on my lack of sensitivity
to the cultural experiences of Coptic Christians
enjoying their first experience of throwing their
weight around in America from a repeat offender
against the sensitivities of potential *Arab*
readers of this newsgroup from someone like him.

Robert is the only person that can affect his own
thought processes - but I'm not letting him away
with hypocritical statements like the one he tried
to lay on me about these Coptic anti-Islamic
protestors.

Paul

  2) If you
> consider the original text, it reflected common values of life, librty
> and happiness, and to suggest that these values are completely absent,
> or even rare in Arabs, is simply the naked anti-Semitic bigotry that it
> appears to be, and your attempt to dress it up as something else, is
> your own cynicism about the gullibilty of your audience here.
>