[Vision2020] Racism
Sunil Ramalingam
sunilramalingam@hotmail.com
Wed, 02 Jul 2003 12:02:57 -0700
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<P>Doug,</P>
<P>I could not agree with either position you take. I think the notion of 'Benevolent Racism' is a myth that colonizing nations used to try to whitewash (good word for this discussion, don't you think?) their real goals, which were the domination and exploitation of others. It's so much easier to sell this stuff to your population if you're doing it for 'their' own good, because the poor, little darkies need help. In the end, the British Empire didn’t exist to provide social services to the world.</P>
<P>When I look at where our policy and occupation of Iraq seems to be headed, our government is going to be making the same arguments and selling the same myth to the American people. (We'll set aside the use of fear for now.) The administration has transitioned from getting rid of an imminent threat to our security - we couldn’t wait 30 more days to start this war because the threat was so urgent, and our president so impatient - to saving Iraq from a dictator and nation-building, doing for the Iraqis what they couldn’t do for themselves. There will be little discussion if they can help it about who is controlling Iraq’s oil or its allocation, or the fact that we can now move our troops out of Saudi Arabia and keep them in Iraq instead, or that we’ve actually colonized that country, or who is benefitting from the contracts to rebuild and run the country. The real reasons will be pushed in the shadows, and we’ll talk instead of our kindness and the love of humanity tha!
t inspires us to help the Iraqis, never mind that we seem to be loving more of them to death every day, having loved up to 10,000 to death during the war.</P>
<P>Either in India under the English or in Iraq today, it’s not kindness that keeps the colonizer in power, it’s military force. There’s no need to tell the occupied people stories about ‘kindness’ being the reason for the occupation; the dead bodies and political prisoners let them know what’s going on, and it’s not kindness. </P>
<P>With regard to your second point, I think an essential component of hatred of the 'other' is a belief that the other is less than fully human. That’s the rationale that allows one group to subjugate the other. So I can't agree with you here either.</P>
<P>Sunil Ramalingam</P>
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<DIV></DIV>>From: Douglas <DOUGWILS@MOSCOW.COM>
<DIV></DIV>>To: vision2020@moscow.com
<DIV></DIV>>Subject: RE: [Vision2020] Racism
<DIV></DIV>>Date: Wed, 02 Jul 2003 11:40:43 -0700
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Judy,
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Thanks for the interaction.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Wouldn't we all agree that some of the patronizing attitudes of the
<DIV></DIV>>past (of the "white man's burden" sort) could be motivated entirely
<DIV></DIV>>by kindness, but that the person extending that kindness had the
<DIV></DIV>>racist view that his own race was necessarily superior to the other?
<DIV></DIV>>Thus, benevolent racism.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>And couldn't we agree that two groups of people could hate one
<DIV></DIV>>another simply for being the "other" without believing that the
<DIV></DIV>>other group was inferior in any way? Malicious egalitarianism.
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Cordially,
<DIV></DIV>>
<DIV></DIV>>Douglas Wilson
<DIV></DIV></div><br clear=all><hr>MSN 8 helps <a href="http://g.msn.com/8HMNENUS/2743??PS=">ELIMINATE E-MAIL VIRUSES. </a> Get 2 months FREE*.</html>