Arab Country's

[Mr Magoo]

All this shíte going on abroad, It does make you wounder where it's all going to lead to.
I find it very worrying as we stick our noses in all the time, Surely there will be some repercussion at sometime.

[azreal88]

Well, there is a degree of encouragement to be taken from all this, I suppose.  These are popular and secular uprisings.  Given all we hear about how the muslim world is entirely radicalised and all the 'moderate' muslims live int he west, it's gratifying to see that drives for democracy can achieve in months what Islamic movements have been trying to do for 20 years or more.  I do think that intervening in these sorts of events are different-in-kind from the sort of intervention we saw in Iraq.  That is to say, these are cases of the indigenous people (admittedly they almost certainly have CIA backing in Libya) rising up and attempting to remove their shackles, as it were.

Defending a popular uprising must be seen as different from overthrowing a sovereign nation for our own reasons.  Equally, if you're worried about fundamentalist Islam using Libya et al as a selling point for war with the West, I wouldn't.  I think they'd have a hard time saying we did anything wrong when most Islamist movements hate Gaddafi anyway - in spite of the funding and arms he has supplied to a number of them.

I suppose the main worry would be radical theocracies seizing power whilst new secular authorities were weak, or over-throwing weakened tyrannies, and there we may have just cause for concern.  This is one of the reasons America backs Saudi Arabia, which is an horrifically brutal regime......it is at least stable and the oil keeps flowing.

[ReebokTrotter]

Strange how the West tends to leave Burma alone. The people of Burma have been oppressed for years but then again Burma is not an oil producing state.

[azreal88]

Burma is indeed an oil producing country, it's main export destination being China - which is one of the reasons we don't interfere.

[pfk]

azreal88, some reading you might appreciate:



Goes to show that we have no fcuking idea what we're talking about when it comes to these folk, honestly.

[ReebokTrotter]

pfk, I haven't got time to read the whole book so is it possible for you to give us a quick precis with the bullet points of what exactly it was that Edward said?

[pfk]

He basically argues that from colonial times right up to the present, we are fed a distorted and inaccurate image of Arab/Asian peoples, to the purposes and advantages of power.  We then develop a lot of opinions and assumptions about entire groups of people which are sweeping and largely false.  This is done through media, government, politicians, corporations, etc. to their benefit - to instill a permanent fear, to legitimize action against an other/enemy (or subjection of these peoples), to distort and make mysterious our real perceptions of them.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orientalism_%28book%29
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xwCOSkXR_Cw

[ReebokTrotter]

Interesting stuff. Eddie is clearly from Arabic descent. I wonder if he was originally christened Saeed and he changed his name by deed poll to Said to give it a more western flavour ?

Much of what he says is factually true. Most people are ignorant to events beyond their own parochial boundaries. I have always been an admirer of Sean Connolly, who once said, ' We fear most that which we do not understand.'

There are many intelligent Arabs out there, of that there is no doubt. According to the Bible the three wise men were of Arabic descent. Wearing teatowels on your head and snooping round stables in the wee small hours doesn't seem very wise to me. Nowadays, the old bill would detain them on suspicion of rustling. Perhaps it was the tack they were after ?

I found this western propaganda on Youtube. Notice how the  narrator clearly has an American accent. Smoke and mirrors to stir up unrest among the Europeans.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4wqHdR1tDD4

[DaveBWFC]

I have always been an admirer of Sean Connery, who once said, 'I don't think there is anything particularly wrong in hitting a woman'.

[azreal88]

There are many intelligent Arabs out there, of that there is no doubt.

Implying that the majority are not.  I love rhetoric.

PFK - Another interesting book is Hourani's "History of the Arab Peoples".

[Mr Magoo]

fcúk me do you own a library, Or are you a book saleman.

[azreal88]

fcúk me do you own a library, Or are you a book saleman.

Was that for me?

[DaveBWFC]

I think it was an open offer to librarians or book salesmen.

[ReebokTrotter]

Implying that the majority are not.  I love rhetoric.

I didn't imply anything. You did. Perhaps I should have said, 'There are a lot of thick Arabs out there, of that there is no doubt.'

Strapping two pounds of semtex inside your jockey shorts and then blowing yourself up so you can go to heaven and meet up with  forty vestal virgins doesn't strike me as a sensible thing to do. I mean, if you think about it logically your tackle would no longer exist.


Another book well worth reading is, ' Not tonight, Doctor Chattergee.'

[azreal88]

I didn't imply anything.

It's a rhetorical device sometimes called 'the positive exception'.  You sound lie you're saying something good, but the statement's natural implication is the the good thing applies to the minority.

[ReebokTrotter]

As I am somewhat of a cultural lightweight I can only refer you to the words of the famous master baker, Mr Kipling.

' If you can bear to hear the truth you have  spoken twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools.'

Now about this rhetorical device, do you know if they sell it in B & Q ?

[Mr Magoo]

ReebokTrotter are you a dirty little Arab

[ReebokTrotter]

Nope, I was just wondering if I could purchase one of the devices and try it out by making a 'positive exception' of Natasha.

[azreal88]

As I am somewhat of a cultural lightweight I can only refer you to the words of the famous master baker, Mr Kipling.

That genuinely made me laugh.  Very good.

[ReebokTrotter]

Many academics have put their own take on religion but I think the theologist, Cohen summed it up best. Father William Byrom has clearly had a very sheltered life.

Diddledee, take note.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9goLXFJzSik

[pfk]

more at http://www.quickmeme.com/Ordinary-Muslim-Man/

[ReebokTrotter]

The thick Arabs I was referring to are these types of individuals. Committed to their cause but  not able to put a decent plan together.

This documentary shows their plan to be seriously flawed.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAGO_l_YTbk


I would be interested to see what Eddie said about these individuals.

[Abdul-Salam Bilal]

There are many intelligent people out there, of that there is no doubt.

[ReebokTrotter]

There are a lot of thick cnuts out there as well. I saw some of them at Wembley yesterday.