Re: The Bigger, Badder, Even More Serious Thread [4]

[Pettytyrant101]

Id entirely agree with you there Dave.

When the Suffragettes were on the go there were plenty of women who opposed them and argued against them because of the culture they had grown up in.
The same is true in the countries we are talking about, the change that needs to happen has to be internal- we should do all we can to support that, but threatening them to just change will never work for the reasons Dave just gave.

[Mrs Figg]

demanding? and just how are they supposed to do that imprisoned in their homes, whipped and beaten if they put one foot wrong, subjected to brainwashing from Birth, weakened by hunger illness and constant pregnancy after they have been forced into marriage at the age of 12? no education, illiterate, cowed. How can anyone in that position demand anything.

[David H]

It takes brave people, and often martyrs, to bring true social change sometimes. But if it's not from inside the culture, it's not likely to last.

[Pettytyrant101]

As it did in Britain. We once married our women (well girls) at 12, and younger. Women being property, used mainly for breeding, often beating, forced into prostitution ect
All current countries with womens rights protected in law started from a position like that.
None of them changed their ways because another country forced them too at gunpoint.

[David H]

It's people like Malala Yousafzai who will lead. What an amazing young woman! I bet all the young people in Pakistan, both boys and girls, and half the people in Afghanistan know her story.

[Pettytyrant101]

Yes a true heroine of our times who will go down in history just as sure as Pankhurst and her Suffragettes have.

[David H]

I just looked her up on Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Malala_Yousafzai

The part on her reception at home is particularly illuminating to this discussion, I think.

Reception in Pakistan

Reception at home has been somewhat more mixed. Dawn columnist Huma Yusuf summarized three main complaints of Yousafzai's critics: "Her fame highlights Pakistan’s most negative aspect (rampant militancy); her education campaign echoes Western agendas; and the West's admiration of her is hypocritical because it overlooks the plight of other innocent victims, like the casualties of U.S. drone strikes."[95] Another Dawn journalist, Cyril Almeida, addressed the public's lack of rage against the TTP, blaming the failing state government.[100] Journalist Assed Baig described her as being used to justify Western imperialism as "the perfect candidate for the white man to relieve his burden and save the native".[94] Yousafzai was also accused on social media of being a CIA spy.

[Pettytyrant101]

It does sadly show how stupid going in with force to get them to change really is, if they see a victim of severe violence at the hands of militants as a tool of the West they are unlikely to see the same message on the end of a bomb more favourably.

One positive I took from that however is that the people, probably the ordinary majority, are concerned with the failing state who they blame the most- that could be a good thing, as one thing the state should do is provide safety through the rule of law for its citizens. A well run state would not have militants roaming the streets dishing out their own justice.
And attacking or opposing the militants would not work, but demanding a better state, building a better state might.

[Mrs Figg]

As it did in Britain. We once married our women (well girls) at 12, and younger. Women being property, used mainly for breeding, often beating, forced into prostitution ect
All current countries with womens rights protected in law started from a position like that.
None of them changed their ways because another country forced them too at gunpoint.

this is the 21st century, are we supposed to just wait twiddling our fingers while the benighted hack their womens heads off for laughing. Also 'our' women as you call them were not slaves imprisoned intheir homes cut off from other members of society or help. Women were married young but so were the men because life was short. Women had a place in the rural workforce and were as much serfs as men were, under the feudal system men were not free either but worked as bonded servants on the land. Also women owned land and had buisnesses and ran shops and went into trade. Medieval England could be pleasant for a woman of means. There is no comparison to the sexual aparteid in Afghanistan. Womens rights in England began with an educated middle class, they had sponsorship and help from enlightened intellectuals in particular after the French and American Revolutions where ideas of universal suffrage took flight. It was a gradual process but it began in revolution and war.

[Pettytyrant101]

I am not saying war cannot have a profound influence- just as it did in the first world war when thousands of women helped the war effort by working the fields and in munitions factories and hospitals and a million other useful tasks.
But those were by-products of war, hugely influential as they were on women's rights, but they were not wars fought with the aim of changing anothers culture to make women freer.
I dont think you can change culture by force, I think you only make it worse and entrench the culture and harden it and make it more resistant to change.
No matter how carefully you try to fight a war innocents will die, and for every one you kill you make potential friends into enemies in their grief.

[Mrs Figg]

In most cases I would totaly agree, in most cases forcing cultural change is counter productive and fundamentally a bad thing, history proves that. But when the culture is evil it has to be changed by force, like fascism, their culture at that time led to the Holocaust, to genocide, do you sit back and say we cant interfere? where do you get to the point of saying Pol Pot? canibalism? let them get on with it, its their culture.

[halfwise]

If there were easy answers all the world's problems would be solved. This is why I think ridding the world of religion would not necessarily be a good thing. Even if no more than collective insanity it can cause social change where other institutions can not. It can make the impossible happen. Of course, it can be both good and bad. I think there's plenty of examples of both.

[Mrs Figg]

religion is ok if it isnt fundamentalist.

[azriel]

I sometimes wonder if its not natures way of keeping the population down to a manageable level ? An inbuilt, inbred, natural selection thingy that kicks in more so when surrounded by large numbers especially ? Look at violence at say, the Miners strikes all those years ago, when the pits were threatened with closure. The men there went ballistic. I sometimes think large numbers fuel violence more than would have been. Instead of 100s of men at the picket line, what if there was just a skeleton force ? Would the men have the guts to vent their anger so readily ? or would they be more subservient ? Are humans more explosive when confined within large numbers ? is the need more amplified ?

[Pettytyrant101]

"like fascism, their culture at that time led to the Holocaust, to genocide, do you sit back and say we cant interfere? where do you get to the point of saying Pol Pot? canibalism? let them get on with it, its their culture." - Mrs Figg

Fascism we probably would have left alone, it was fascism crossing borders and enforcing it on others that meant it had to be fought. There are close equals to Pol Pot right now, still countries where political opponents are skinned and then their skin delivered to their families door. We dont have to look to history, but what do we do? Go to war with them all? Its just not possible or sustainable or desirable.
The levers the world tries to use therefore are sanctions, but sanctions punish the people usually more than the tyrant but dont help them overthrow him.
So we also infiltrate, make secret funding of various groups inside those countries to stir up the people to overthrow their leader.
And at the same time powerful money making industries who always benefit from a war, like arms manufactures apply pressure on the Hawks in whatever government they have some pressure with which to apply.
So then we start covertly arming our side and so do the other side.
And of course the people who have the least say in the whole thing are the people it will effect the most.

Its obviously completely lunatic (its that sort of thing is keeping all the aliens away, we're the bonkers planet) but thats how it works.  

[Pettytyrant101]

Instead of 100s of men at the picket line, what if there was just a skeleton force ? Would the men have the guts to vent their anger so readily ?- Azriel

No, I dont think they would. Look at football matches, or gangs- numbers count. You win fights and battles with superior numbers when its one on one fighting.
And having been in one violent crowd and football crowds (as a Rangers fan you could argue therefore all the crowds Ive been in are violent!) I can say that there is an almost instant, when trouble kicks in, bonding with the people on your side. You watch out for them and expect them to be doing the same for you. There is a group mentality comes with it that sweeps you along, the testosterone kicks in and the adrenalin.
And the reason people do it for kicks is it feels good. You feel totally alive, heightened, pumped and you are with people who are just the same, in just the same frame of mind and mood.

[azriel]

I heartily concur with all you say !  

[Mrs Figg]

I must admit I was very relieved when Obama backed off after the chemical weapon attack thing in Syria, it could have got dangerous, but thats a selfish reaction. they say there are worse war crimes going on over there than in Bosnia, and Bosnia was pretty awful. Those poor people are alone with the brutality and all because of political expedience, the West washing their hands because of Afghanistan and Iraq. Part of me says its our duty to interfere and the other says leave well alone its their problem, but thats what the town residents near Auschwitz said.

[Pettytyrant101]

And there are all the places none of us have ever heard of where terrible things will be happening, but the eye of Western journalism hasn't turned there because it doesn't effect us directly.
The worlds full of terrible things happening to people every second of every day.
You could cure a good bit of it by removing poverty, hunger, and providing clean water, education, healthcare, freedom of communications globally, infra structure, homes, technology.

[halfwise]

Iraq certainly bollixed a lot of things.

[Pettytyrant101]

Trouble with Iraq was it wasn't alone- we breached UN regulations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and we made a fair mess of both Libya and then Syria- where we bizarrely spent time arming groups associated with people who we also had on our list of terrorist groups we were fighting and then we decided it was all a bad idea and just stood back.

Whatever moral ground the West could once claim in regard to international law or intervention is long now spent.
Putin can get away with taking Crimea without a bullet fired probably because we cant call him out on breaching international law with a shred of creditability.

[David H]

Putin, and all Russians, are no more going to let Crimea enter the EU with Ukraine  than they were going to allow Kaliningrad Oblast to enter the EU with Lithuania.  Any diplomat can see they need to retain control of their naval base at almost any cost.  I'm sure there are negotiations on this exact point going on at this very moment.  

{{Note well, Scotland.}}

[Pettytyrant101]

Trident and the naval base is indeed in my view the biggest issue in the referendum.
The SNP are not advocating just closing the base and chucking it all out as soon as there is a YES however- they are too canny for that, its one of, if not the biggest negotiating chip we have, well worth a currency union for for example.
I find it hard to envision it coming to a military stand off over it, for whilst the backbone of the Russian army are Russians, the backbone of the UK army are Scots- so it would be a complicated scenario indeed.

[Ringdrotten]

I knew there were a few scottish regiments and units in the UK army, but I had to google it after reading your post. Seems like you're right!

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scottish_regiment#Current_Regiments



  

[David H]

I can't believe they dissolved the Black Watch after all those years. 
Those guys were bad-ass!
I met some of them on maneuvers while hitchhiking through the Highlands.
Good guys, and definitely the guys you wanted on your side!