The following entry has been clogging the pipes for a week or so. It reads as a rambling diatribe and does not properly address a very interesting and complex topic, which I would like to do. Maybe I will give it another shot at some point, but in the meantime, please enjoy the entry, which unfortunately despite repeated editings, rates a 2.
I started this entry with a long diatribe about stupid Danish cartoons, angry Muslims, one small point that me and Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad agree on, etc. But as I wrote I became depressed. So much bumming in the world. Can't we love? Hmm? Apparently not. The point that Prez Ahmadinejad and I agree upon is that if WE (in this case, the Muslims™) drew mean cartoons about things important to YOU (The West™) you would feel sad. This is only a summation of his otherwise rambling, racist response. We might feel sad and hurt and angry. But we would get over it. Here is where the lines are drawn though. We would get over it, They have not gotten over it. Before you accuse me of using We and They as words of inflamatory oversimplification, let me continue. Why should they get over it? WE are the dominant power! WE would get over it because we aren't insecure about why our clearly superior culture has been subjagated by an inferior one. Things are a lot easier to stomach when at the end of the day when you are still in charge. And the West is in charge for the forseeable future.
Look at it this way (forgive me Choir, if I'm preaching to you) there is a bully on the block. This bully makes the rest of the kids listen to the same music he does. This bully wears cool clothes, because he decided what was cool. The other kids imitate the bully. The bully occasionally beats up your friends. But now, instead of fighting you, the bully and his friends start...what are they doing? They are drawing pictures of you...and your MOM! Well, that's too much. You complain. You draw a picture of the Bully's Mom too, but it seems like a very sad response to everyone, considering the position you are in. The Bully shrugs because at the end of the day, he is still going to beat your ass. Besides, it's not a very good likeness.
There are flaws in my analogy, but this is similar to the way the West is seen in Islamic countries I think. We (The West™) are perceived as the bully no matter how much 'splainin we do. We are bringing you freedom! Hold Still! We...struggle struggle...are going...thwap thonk...to give you Freedom!!!
Posted by ian at March 22, 2006 02:39 PMthe only potential flaw in the theory is that if we sat down, east and west, and began a drawing battle of what the other persons Moms may or may not be doing, what they think they would be doing, or certian "situations" the Moms may or may not be in, there would be healing through laughter, as we laugh at other's Moms...this is the only way we can fix the situation.
Posted by: moms at March 28, 2006 02:34 PM