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Author
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Topic: The Racism Conference and Fun With Orwellian News Reporting
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DominusGladiorum
Self-Made User
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posted September 06, 2001 05:31 PM
  
Unless you've been in a cave the past week, you've heard about the racsim conference in Durban and the whole controversy over the attempt by some Arabic countries to include a clause comdemning Israel. What I think is odd about the reporting of the issue in the papers is that the subject of whether Israel's government actaully is racist is never discussed. Why? Because, by any reasonable standard, the Israeli government is racist. Israel governs a huge number of PLaestinians, who have no say in the governmet of Israel. Israelis settle in the West Bank, where they are the priveleged class with voting rights. The Arabs in the West Bank have no voice in the government of the nation that governs them, and this is the case precisely becaus they are Arabs. This is racist, and it is racist in the same sense that apartheid was. And why is attention not brought to this? Becasue anybody who criticizes Israel gets called an anti-Semite. This is bizarre. Criticism of a antion's government is not criticism of said nation's predominant ethnic group. If somebody says they think Jiang Zemin is a despot, you don't immediately assume they hate Chinese people, right?IP: Logged |
Jesse Dangerously
Self-Made User
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posted September 07, 2001 07:23 AM
Hear, hear. I'm somewhat proud of the Canadian representatives not following in the USA's unhelpful footsteps and bailing as soon as they heard something their friend didn't like. That's childish.IP: Logged |
RedTwo
Self-Made User
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posted September 07, 2001 09:52 AM
My concern with this conference is more with the coalition of African nations calling for the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to be declared a crime against humanity, for western nations to apologize for it, and for financial reparations.Even without getting into the case of cans of worms the reparations opens, (Who pays? Who gets paid? How much?) my question is, why now? Wasn't the last nation to get rid of legal slavery the United States, with 1863's Emancipation Proclamation? (Or you could measure from the defeat of the Confederate States in 1865, I suppose.) That's more than 130 years ago. Apologies, I could see. No trouble there. "Crime Against Humanity" leans toward tribunals and the Hauge. How far is this going to go? Will Italy be paying for the expansion of Rome? What about Egypt and the sons of Israel? I realize I'm getting into Troll territory with some of these conclusions I'm drawing, but that's the level upon which I see this idea of reparations. ------------------
Lore> I want to go to the Jehovah's Witness paradise, 'cause you get to pet baby pandas. babybabble
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Morat
Self-Made User
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posted September 07, 2001 11:44 AM
Since I've never owned a slave, none of my ancestors going back several hundred years owned a slave, and I didn't even have anscestors *here* when slavery was legal, why exactly should I give money to people who have never been enslaved? The time for reparations was when you still had former slaves running around. I support civil rights fully. I'm 100% behind a totally color and gender blind society. But I'm not shelling out cash to pay for the crimes of one set of dead people against another well before my family even stepped foot here. If we're going to do that crap, let's start with the Indians. Or in Europe, as RedTwo pointed out. Wouldn't that be fun. The British and the French can sue each other over how often the other side raped and murdered their way around the country. Everyone can sue Italy over the Romans and Italy can track down the descendants of Atilla the Hun. ------------------
Lisa! In this house we obey the Laws of Thermodynamics! --Homer Simpson IP: Logged |
the silent speaker
Self-Made User
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posted September 07, 2001 11:52 AM
Wait a minute, wait one cotton-pickin' minute. The Palestinians have no say in the government of Israel because they insist that they DO NOT WANT TO BE PART of Israel. (They actually don't want Israel or the Jews to exist, but that's a separate argument.) You can't have it both ways. And in fact, those Arabs who did accept Israeli sovereignty do vote -- in fact, Israel is the only country in the Middle East which allows Arab women to vote -- and have acout ten members of Knesset. That is a very considerable say. And equation of the Star of David with the swastika is anti-Semitic, and is anti-Semitic whatever people say.------------------
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
"Once again, a knife-wielding maniac has shown us the way." -- Bart Simpson
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Toon
Shuttlecock
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posted September 07, 2001 12:52 PM
It might also be worth pointing out that Arabs and Israelis are actually the same race: Semitic.
The conflict in the Middle East is political and religious in nature, not racist. Ghod knows, groups don't need to be different races in order to hate each other.Now, about reparations to descendants of slaves ...
*sigh* It's not just that it's too late. It's not just that the wrong people will be paying for "the crimes of one set of dead people against another" (well put, Morat), and it's not just that it will be too difficult to find the actual descendants of the actual perpetrators and/or victims. Even with all that aside ... the suggested reparations would essentially consist of "Hi, my ancestors enslaved yours. Have a couple thousand dollars. All better now!" It seems to me that if there is still guilt, after this long, money isn't going to be able to buy it off. All in all, I have a bad feeling about this conference. ------------------
-=> Toon "Toon, it's okay -- just think of the config.sys file as bizarre post-modern poetry."
-Rob Wynne on #filkhaven IP: Logged |
DramaShrink
Self-Made User
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posted September 07, 2001 01:36 PM
When it comes to Israel, some facts were conveniently omitted.Those Arabs who live in peace and do not attack Israelis enjoy full rights under the law. They have the right to vote and are represented in the Knesset. Even women vote. Therefore, one must wonder which Arabs actually consider Israel to be racist. It's certainly not the ones who live there in peace. It's the ones who don't want to live in peace with Israel that consider her to be racist. Even they have been brainwashed by people who would rather see the Jews thrown into the sea. I think that the main purpose of this conference was to condemn Israel. The slave issue was a sidepoint put forward to legitimize the whole thing. After all, there's little that can be done to "make up for it" now, and I think they knew that. quote:
...anybody who criticizes Israel gets called an Anti-Semite.
Is it just me, or does that sound like something that appeared in newspapers in the 1930's? Besides, these days, many people are criticizing the Israeli government, including the Israelis. Does that make them Anti-Semites also?
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Toon
Shuttlecock
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posted September 07, 2001 01:42 PM
Okay, it's hardly fair to say that condemning Israel was the main point of the conference. If it had been, there wouldn't be all this controversy over whether or not to involve the Zionism-Is-Racism clause in the first place, and any number of countries with legitimate concerns about racism would never have shown up.
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-=> Toon "Toon, it's okay -- just think of the config.sys file as bizarre post-modern poetry."
-Rob Wynne on #filkhaven IP: Logged |
IXOHOXI
Self-Made User
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posted September 07, 2001 05:13 PM
*pokes his head out of his cave**looks around, disappears back into cave* ------------------
Once a kitten acquires an Uzi, it is no longer "cute."
- Kyree IP: Logged |
DramaShrink
Self-Made User
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posted September 08, 2001 07:56 PM
I still think that the main reason for this conference was to condemn Israel in a seemingly legitimate forum. I think that many countries participated because they thought that it would deal with real racism, and that's why the slavery issue was brought up. But why did they bring up reparations for past slavery? Also, I may be living in a cave due to my grad school readings, but did they even bring up the slave trade that still exists? At least that would have been a more productive thing than reparations for slavery that is long over. IP: Logged |
Dice Bowl
Self-Made User
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posted September 08, 2001 09:19 PM
Arabs/Jews:
Would anyone be with me on forcing everyone out of the entire Israel/Palestine/Holy Land area, and turning it into a wildlife preserve? I know there isn't much in the way of wildlife there now, but I'll bet it would certainly stop people from being able to fight over it.
I have, on more than one occasion, watched a hard-line Palestinian and a hard-line Israeli duke it out in a battle of words, always coming to a single conclusion (the same for both sides): "I hate your people, and you hate my people. My people will not rest until your people are dead. We want nothing less than the extermination of your entire race."
Mind you that's an over-generalization, and the results of those conversations are quite possibly the results of the particular people participating. I know people who are rather friendly to one another, despite being on opposing sides of the conflict. I think, however, that we could safely say that the Palestinians, were they in control, would be equally "racist" as a government.African Americans/Reparations:
This is just bad. I attend the University of Oregon, in Eugene, OR, which is a huge area for old hippies. Not to mention, new hippies. It's an incredibly liberal town, surrounded by very conservative, rural people. But you'd never know they were there, living in the middle of the campus.
There was a fiasco recently when someone printed an advertisement stating why reparations were a bad idea. The same thing happened, I am told, on the Berkely campus in California, only to a greater degree. People jumped upon it and began calling the author a racist (forgive me, I forget the author's name, perhaps someone knows better than I), and attacking this pretty liberal campus newspaper for printing it.
They apologized (Though friends of mine in the newsroom tell me it was a forced apology), and it blew over pretty quickly, but it surprised me to no end how many people were willing to give up their tax money for sins that people who died over one hundred years ago committed. I'm certain that many of the protesting individuals weren't at all related to slave owners, and yet they want money to go to the black community.
It's a very good point that RedTwo makes in regard to WHO will get this money. I, however, will do everything in my power to be sure that none of my money ever goes toward something that affected my ancestors in a negative way as well.
((Some of my family was forced to move north into large cities, because jobs in labor were horrendously difficult to find in the south, and we know how bad factories were in the north. Not to mention living conditions around the 1840s.))
Wow... I wrote a lot there.
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Jesus Saves.
You, however, take full damage. IP: Logged |
McDuff
Self-Made User
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posted September 10, 2001 06:39 AM
I think that the biggest problem with the reparations is quite simply, who gets paid?The money will invariably go to the governments of countries in Africa - who will spend it on weapons, not worry about the slave trade in their own countries, and siphon it off the top. Appreciating that slavery is bad is one thing. Expecting "financial reparations" to make the booboo all better is downright silly and shortsighted. ------------------
We talked for a really long time without vowels...I went to the store, made dinner, and played with the kitten and it was still going on. - Cheatara, via IRC Barbies are melting TODAY. - Jesse Dangerously
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RedTwo
Self-Made User
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posted September 10, 2001 10:33 AM
Okay, so the EU expressed "regret" over the Trans-Atlantic slave trade. Also, the idea of reparations went over about as well in the UN as it has here. I doubt, however, that this is the end of it.One of the things that got me about this was the dismissal of the Trans-Indian slave trade by the African nations involved. They said it was too minor to include in their proposal. Toon, on the Zionism-is-racism thing, I am reminded of a bit from an ancient SNL Weekend Update. Someone is quoted as having stated such, with the reaction from Sammy Davis Jr. being, "What a breakthrough! Now, I can hate myself!" ------------------
Lore> I want to go to the Jehovah's Witness paradise, 'cause you get to pet baby pandas. babybabble
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