Posted by Julia from dhcp100030.res-hall.nwu.edu (199.74.100.30) on Sunday, February 24, 2002 at 9:03AM :
In Reply to: Re: none? posted by Jeff from bgp01107368bgs.wbrmfd01.mi.comcast.net (68.42.59.180) on Sunday, February 24, 2002 at 0:04AM :
: : What I don't like at all about the Assyrian culture as we know it is the lack of tolerance for others. I will not say that all Assyrians hate Muslims, women, homosexuals or non-Assyrians. What I will say is that our culture lets us put those people in their place - oh, Muslims, they can't be trusted; oh, homosexuals, they'll bad people; women, they should not speak up to a man, etc. Again, it seems most assyrians don't harbor these feelings, but we let it become a fixture of our culture to make snide remarks about Jews, or Muslims, or whomever.
: -====- agreed!
: : I don't stand for this; I do stand for the simple fact that people should be loved and respected, all peoples; everyone.
: -====- agreed!
: Fred has problems with Christianity because according to him it led to the deaths of millions of non Christians. And according to me, Nationalism and falling in love with the Nation has lead to the deaths of millions of people not part of the loved Nation.
: : To me this all becomes a part of the identity thing. What is our identity, and how do we preserve it? how do we defend it? What happens when someone not of our identity threatens it? What do we do when people want to see us assimilated, our language and our culture gone? What steps do we take to defend ourselves?
: -====- Our identity can only be preserved through the arts and through tangible projects... toward a common goal. I know, very vague. When someone threatens our identity, we educate them... simple as pie. Most people don't want us assimilated, we choose to assimilate... "complete submission" comes to mind. The only steps we can take to defend against that submission is enticing those of our people who distanced themselves from the community... entice them to come back...
: : When people forget they are people, and assume the name Chistian, Muslim, Bosnian, Bulgarian, American, Japanese; we are drawing lines and dividing each other. History has shown us that people who use lines to divide humanity by race, class, gender, nationality; this has more or less not caused but accelerated oppression of peoples. Bourgeois against proletariat; Hutu and Tutsi; America and Great Britain, bolsheviks and mensheviks, Greeks and Cypriots; etc.
: : This is what I ask anyone to address: how will we be any different, as neo assyrians, from others? what will our distinction be? could it be tolerance, tolerance of other's religions, views, beliefs, disciplines and practices? could tolerance be one thing that distinguishes us from the rest of the world's binary units of friction?
: Julia,
: It seems to me that Fred has taken this approach in his writing as well. He always denounces these divisions that you speak of, with one exception: Christians. I believe that he is taking exception to Christians because our people have this strange belief that the Christians will give us back "Atra" and hand us everything on a silver platter. Also, our people seem to be VERY intolerant (on the whole) of Jews, Muslims, Homosexuals... all of whom Fred accepts and writes about and respects...
: And you can see how our people reacted when he wrote about Christians and Christianity... they called him an 'agent' and an 'arab' in need of a 'bathey'.
++++Right, but that still does not give him an excuse to hate on other Christians. Are you saying you 'understand' why he's so hostile to me? Because he's been hated on by Christian Assyrians? And why he's so hostile to other people? He's just as prejudiced as his assyrian bretheren who are prejudiced against muslims, etc. When fred talks the way he does about any group of people with the level of malice that he does, he is doing the same thing as his muslim bretheren. You see that much right?
: I think that there is a method to his madness. I'm not condoning or accepting it... just trying to understand myself.
++++ As you are trying to understand this method, so am I , but then I am getting blamed for categorizing him while you've already made your set of assumptions about him. We've done the same thing.
: If Fred were a Christian, criticizing his fellow Christians, would that make him any better or worse?
+++ If fred were a Goat, it wouldn't matter. WHat matters is that he is a man seemingly against prejudice but is prejudiced himself. He's a walking contradiction, when in fact he needs to see that any viable nation needs to stand on pillars of tolerance for all people, no matter what their characteristics may be.
: -
: Jeff
-- Julia
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