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SLOVENC
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east-west
January 9, 2004 - 02:18 AM
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there is just 1 question i'd like to ask and please anwser it! WHY DO YOU ALWAYS TALK ABOUT THE CONFLICTS IN THE NEAR AND MID EAST??????????? i mean that's so not "fair" you make this region look like hell on earth!!! i do think that if there weren't been the american foreign policy there were sure not that many conflicts! let's call it the arab region (please don't understand me wrong) would be a peacefull world which i do belive it is! and yeah! what's with the nuclear crap! if other countries(north korea,libya,iran,iraq,....)(well i don't know if they really have it) are not allowed to have nuclear weapons why do the States have them! i think that the US foreign policy is and was the worst during both Bush father and son reign! why don't you talk about conflicts in the western countries? i live in a west european country and i know that there are conflicts beetwen austria and the czech republic, slovenia & croatia, croatia & serbia and montenegro,bosnia and herzegovina, northern ireland, spain and the basque autonomus region, norway and russia......... and that's only in europe! so why do you choose the "arab region"? i really don't think it's fair to the Arabs! and it makes people think that that's the place where terorists are and all the ppl there are terorists so they check all the Arabs on the airports as they may be terorists and then Bush want's to destroy the terorists to free the nations and be the hero! give me a break!
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Yara Kassem
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Re: east-west
January 10, 2004 - 04:58 AM
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Thank you Matija for that post..
Well,you're right there's other conflicts in a lot of places in the world that really needs to be stressed out..
We don't hear anything in the Global news except about conflicts in the middle east,terrorism and violence in that part that seems like a hell now..
And whenever you hear the word terrorism you just think first about Arabs ,those monsters giving everyone on that earth hard times...
When you hear the word clash of civilizations ,the first question you think about is why do arabs hate the west...I don't think it's fair too Matija..
There's a lot of violence everywhere:Africa,Eastern Europe,the US ( itself)
There's also other countries REALLY owning WMD and no one invaded them...
Terrorism is just everywhere:In Europe,In Africa,In India,Pakistan,everywhere..But,why is it only stressed in the Middle East???
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Injy
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That is to the point
January 10, 2004 - 05:12 AM
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Hey, that is really a very true thing you said Matic. You has spoken the mind of millions of Arabs and I do believe the minds of millions of people all around the Globe. Why the Bush Family propagana gives so much fuss over the Arab Countries in particular? Why the Arab countries are the ONLY oppressed nations, from Bush Family perspective, which needs their MAGICAL Solutions, wars, to help us, the ARABS? Why so much concerned about the danger and the threat which the Arab Countries pose towards the whole world with their Always-Not Found nuclear weapons, and forgettting all about Israel`s very very advanced nuclear weapons?
But still, why are there so much conflicts all over the world? why people cannot just live together and learn to accept the othes`s differences without sheding blood, killing and destroying?
Cannot we learn to live together in a peaceful world??
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Yara Kassem
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Re: east-west
January 10, 2004 - 05:20 AM
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That's what I was exaclt just saying in that other discussion"why do arabs hate the west",Just tell me Injy what do you think about the title..see how painfull it is???
I was just saying why does it have to be that painfull cutlural clash..Now apart from the bush familly propaganda we all know what is it about..
We knew ofcourse that invading Iraq wasn't for the good of the Iraqis,ofcourse they didn't come all the way to Iraq to offer them by the magic stick democracy and freedom,Saddam is gone but there's another thing much worse then Saddam,it's a darker period..we all know that
They're talking about our violence and agression,our terrorism and atrocities we commit everyday and what about Israel???Ok,let's pretend we beleived the big lie.Iraq owns WMD and Israel doesn't???????????I won't talk about North Korea now,but Israel is actually in the Middle East,what do you think about that????
So Apart from that,OK..we are different!!!Isn't it time yet for both sides to accept the other as they are,we have our different beleifs but don't we deserve a bit of respect????
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Endless Quest
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Re: east-west
January 10, 2004 - 07:37 AM
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yes matic i also wonder y america have those nuclear weapons if it opposes them and dont want other countries have them why do it force other countries destroy them why dont they destry their's ..why were such destructive weapons used on poor innocent people of iraq and afganistan.
Okay if they have threats from others ..others also have threat from him.....
And let me clearify that Arabs dont hate west THEY hate Westren policies towards Arabs ..change the policies be just and no one in this world will ever hate any other
I think its only the young generation who can do this ..who can spread this message
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SLOVENC
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Re: east-west
January 10, 2004 - 08:26 AM
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you see if the people in the western countries would have their own minds they would put their president down!and there would be peace! but they ain't, they belive everything that they hear from their leading politicians well i think that slovenia's youth is the most "anti american policy" youth in the western world! the only problem is that nobody listens to us! i was very pleased to hear the news that it will probably be allowed to vote at the age of 16 (now it's 18) which will change the election results tremendusly! i think that if the eastern countries would unite they would be abled to "beat"the States and live a free life! and there's one thing left the list of the countries that can help Iraq!that's so stupid, i mean if there's any country that can make this list that's sure Iraq and not the US. so countries like canada or slovenia can't help! i'm sure slovenia's pharmaceutical giants would sure open their "factories" there which woul help the Iraqi people, but no mr. bush want's just the oil so other countries that would help in a different way are not allowed to help!
well i don't know why but i think that my country that's a western country has got the best and most peacefull relations with the Arab countries. there were never even under yugoslavia no problems , the sad thing is that most arabs have never heard about our country as we're a small country!so they would know that they have a western friend . and yes Injy it would be great if there would be a peacefull world, but as long as some have such big power it's just not posible. and i really don't know why tv chanels like Skynews,CNN,... don't report other things , if you want to watch news that don't talk just about the mideast conflicts watch RTV Slovenija or TV Pika or TV5!
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Saladin
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Re: east-west
January 10, 2004 - 08:33 AM
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Dear Members,
may God bless you all,
Matic pointed at a very crucial fact; that the international media is concentrating just on the mid-East affairs and problems, although problems exist allover the planet Earth.
The answer to this riddle could be understood if we take a look to the geopolitical and the demographic compostions of that particular region:
On one hand side, the region controls the Suez Canal, wich is the most strategic waterway between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean, it is a matter of a land possessing an international, and not regional, strategic position.
The conflict is neither a west-west conflict nor an east-east conflict, but it is a west-east conflict, in an area of international value, and huge petroleum resources.
One the other hand, both sides of the conflict: the US and Isreal on one side, and the Arabs on the ohter one, are not equal in terms of advanced economy, scientific research, military and producing power. Moreover, the unique country that possesses a nuke arsenal in the region is Isreal, not Iraq, not Syria, and not Libya; Yitzhak Murdekhay, the former Israeli minister of defense declared in 1997, that Israel possesses 200 nuke warheads.
The Midlle East is one of the extremely valuable regions of the world in terms of self-interests.
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majeedullah qarar
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the conflicts of arabs are strengthed from outside,
January 10, 2004 - 09:04 AM
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the people here think that
Bush and his other western partners want this conflects, and they tray to prolong this problems because if there aren’t conflicts then what remains for the US to do there, it’s rule will also finish, and there won’t be any reason for them to stay in the rigion with that big militry presence, but if there are conflects, the countries will spend big budjets on weapons and milliteries, and they will stay in need for the big countries and that is what the big countries want it.
And if we look in backgrounds of this conflects and problems, most of the problems are created by the westerns, and people from outside of the region, For exampl, the war of iran and iraq was cause by saddam and saddam was fully supported by the western big countries against the khumaini's government, also the war of Palestine, none ask about, who brough these jews from the far parts of the world and made a country for them?, were they there before the british came to the region? Definatly, no.
not only this, but also they allowed them have atomic weapons while other nigbouring countries are threated for even having the factries that uses the uranium for industrail perposes, who can guarantee that the isreal will not attack any other contry, as it did many times before?
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SLOVENC
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Re: east-west
January 11, 2004 - 04:06 AM
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yes , this sure is true that this region is very valuble! that's why i think that the countries should protect this , and not allow western countries to take some! yes it is true conflicts are caused because of powerfull western countries! i totaly agree with you!i think that the arab countries should take care of the middeast and not the US or UK or any other western countries, as it is none of their bussines!
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Luke Lieberman
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Re: east-west
January 11, 2004 - 06:04 AM
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I would like you to listen to yourselves.
You seem proud to hold sectarian views - "Anti" this and that. Where do you think such thoughts will ultimately take you - to peace?
you think you are going to "beat" the US - Militarily - Eastern Europe - no this will not happen. For one because the US were successful in halting genocide in the Balkans. 2 because many Eastern European countries which langished in communism need American investment and trade. And three because many Eastern European countries are accordingly alligning themsevles politically with the States.
The road to peace lies in understanding. Right now many of you are clouded by anger - you do not understand America. What is disappointing is that you seem to make no effort to do so.
You are right - the media casts this as a middle-east problem. In part it is because the most advanced media providers in the world are in the Western world.
Also though - I think theocracy is outdated. I think the people of Saudi Arabia and Syria have many legitimate domestic greivences with their governments but the people have no direct voice or role in government - they have no way to impliment reform and change.
Iran is also struggling to bring democratic reform to an otherwise theocratic state.
The theocracies guide the domestic discontent away from the regiemes and toward the west.
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SLOVENC
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it's not like it seems
January 12, 2004 - 03:38 AM
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yes luke, i totaly understand you!please don't get me wrong but you have no idea what your country's army is doing, inspite of that what you see on tv! well there is just one thing not only the US "prevented" genocide in the Balkans!there are also a lot of other countries including my little home country! 2nd Slovenia was a former yugoslav country and we suffered under the yugoslav kingdom and later on republic, it is true we were the richest and most wealthy country in Yugoslavia , but slovenes had to work also every saturday and didn't get paid for the extra working day, all the money went to Belgrade and from there to other yugo-countries! where were the americans then? when we proclaimed independence, the yugoslav army attacked us and the States were the last country to recognise us! and the US didn't even helped us! but anyway we won the independence war! why didn't Bush's army helped us back then? because there was nothing they could get from us! or is it because we're a western country and they "help" just the eastern ones? the reason why the countries are on the american side is coz they have no option left! my country also signed the Vilnus declaration , but we were later also the onlyones that took a step back and annuled it, so we were the only country that will join NATO this year that didn't help in Iraq. you see my country is in big doubts weather we shold be on euro side or on the side of the Us , so we often stay neutral! well you may think how much the states are helping the eastern european countries, i would say that even russia and slovenia are helping them more!
you see in the news the mostley mention just america, but there are also a lot of other countries that are helping!
don't understand me wrong, i ain't antiamerican! i really like the states, the only thing that bothers me is the american foreign policy and it's selfishness!
i have watched the news today on a music chanel, where they said that Madonna claimed that Bush's policy is even worse than the work of the terorists. or something like that.
i just want that other countries would leave the countries with problems alone, only if the hit countries would please them for help! and belive me the world would be more peacefull if that would be so!
i also think that the media should pay more atention to other things in the world, not just the wars in the midlle east!
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Luke Lieberman
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Re: east-west
January 12, 2004 - 07:03 AM
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ok - this is better - and yes I am aware of what my country is doing.
Yes there were many countries which were involved in the Balkans - but the US took the lead. In terms of our invovlement in your country specifically - I don't know much about it so I'm not going to pretend I do - but did any other countries help you with your independance? Did you have to win it all on your own? Did France or Germany commit troops to your defense?
If not perhapes your anger should not be at America alone.
Finally I will leave you with this - every countries foreign policy is self interested. The US donates more to poor nations than anyone else - and still even this donation is ultimately self-interested, at some level.
But your new government will act is its own interests with foreign affairs too. So does every government in the world. You don't think the Chinese and Russians are self interested in their foreign policy?
Basically right now the US is being more aggressive - definately - also this is because the US is among the only coutries with the power to be aggressive - the Chinese are where they can be with Tiawan and Tibet, The Russians have certainly been aggressive in the past in the former Soviet Union and even now with some of those satallite countries.
France is aggressive diplomatically because they lack the military.
Certainly this situation must not get out of control.
Lastly - I don't agree with going into Iraq, I think it was a poor use of Americas rescources and ultimately we took our eye off the ball with Al Qada - that and we did not have sufficeint cause to go in.
But there is no denying that many many Iraqis were happy to see Saddam go, and that they will be happier with a democratic government under their own control than they were under dictatorship.
It remains to be seen if this transition to democracy will work - I am withholding judgement.
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Saladin
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Re: east-west
January 12, 2004 - 09:32 AM
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Although I agree with you Luke that most of Arab states need an overall government reform, but there are also good examples of democratic Arab states such as Lebanon for example.
Second, if we don't get angry now, while we are being invaded in our countries, entitled terrorrists, and hit with sanctions and emabargoes, when are we supposed to be angry?
Third, the reform is needed from within, because by experiment, what's happenning today in Iraq proves that "exported" democracy, and particularly in the form of tank, airbombers, and armies, will end to complete chaos.
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Hoda
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Stereotyping Arabs !!
January 12, 2004 - 10:10 AM
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Another rule for the Arabs
Robert Kilroy-Silk's outburst shows that there is one ethnic group about whom it is apparently still OK to be flagrantly racist, writes Brian Whitaker
Monday January 12, 2004
While sifting through my father's belongings after his death a few years ago, I came across a book of autographs that he had collected as a child. Some of the signatories had added short verses or quotations, and on one page I found this:
God made the little nigger boys
He made them in the night
He made them in a hurry
And forgot to paint them white
In Britain during the 1930s, it was considered perfectly acceptable (at least among white people) to write that sort of thing, and some may even have found it amusing. In those days, of course, there were not enough black people in Britain to challenge such attitudes, but we have moved on and now have a multicultural society.
Today, anyone who suggested that blacks were created as a result of divine amnesia or a malfunction on God's production line would justifiably be accused of inciting racial hatred - as would anyone who suggested that Jews, for example, had made no worthwhile contribution to civilisation. Even now, though, there is still one notable exception: the Arabs. People happily write and say racist things about Arabs that they would not dream of saying about blacks or Jews - and usually they get away with it.
The explanation lies partly in international politics but also in the negative stereotypes of Arabs that have become deeply imbued in western popular culture. This is nowhere more apparent than in Hollywood films where Arabs, unlike other racial groups, continue to be demonised on screen.
A couple of years ago Jack Shaheen, a Lebanese-American professor, published Reel Bad Arabs, a massive study of some 900 films featuring Arab characters. With very few exceptions, he found that Arabs are portrayed as hate-figures in films to a degree that the studios would no longer dare with any other ethnic group.
He accused the film-makers of "systematic, pervasive and unapologetic degradation and dehumanisation of a people". In the early days of Hollywood, Arabs were portrayed as over-sexed, exotic creatures living in the desert, riding camels, fighting among themselves and buying women at slave markets.
By the 1970s - probably as a result of the 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the oil embargo - Hollywood Arabs turned into oil sheikhs: rich, vengeful, corrupt, sneaky and invariably fat. From the 1980s onwards, they have usually been portrayed as crazed terrorists - evolving more recently into crazed terrorist Islamic fundamentalists.
Which came first - the politics or the stereotypes - is a moot point, but Shaheen and others argue that both are interlinked. The stereotypes help to justify the foreign policies of western governments, particularly the US, while at the same time government policies help to legitimise the stereotypes.
It is only recently that such attitudes have been seriously questioned. The events of September 11, and the ensuing "war on terror", caused alarm among Arab and Muslim communities living in the west, sparking fears of a racist or religious backlash. As a result, they have become much more media-conscious, actively monitoring what is said about them and complaining when they feel they have been treated unfairly.
Last Tuesday, the Guardian (and presumably other newspapers too) received two emails complaining about a column which had appeared in the Sunday Express on January 4. One came from the Muslim Council of Britain, the other from the Islamic Affairs Central Network in Nottingham. Next day there were more, from the Forum Against Islamophobia and Racism (Fair), Arab Media Watch and the Council for the Advancement of Arab-British Understanding.
The offending column was headed "We owe Arabs nothing" and it said: "Apart from oil - which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the west - what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I."
"What do they think we feel about them?" it continued. "That we adore them for the way they murdered more than 3,000 civilians on September 11 and then danced in the hot, dusty streets to celebrate the murders?" By any standards it was an appalling article, a sweeping denunciation of Arabs in general, without any qualification or exception, implying that all 200 million of them were "suicide bombers, limb-amputators, women repressors".
The author of this trash, Robert Kilroy-Silk (who is known in the popular tabloids simply as "Kilroy" was once a Labour member of parliament, admired for his dashing good looks and occasionally tipped as a future prime minister.
Instead, he ended up as presenter of a TV chat show which goes out at nine-o'clock in the morning and is sometimes described as the BBC's answer to Oprah Winfrey.
He also airs his prejudices in a weekly column for the Sunday Express, a tired right-leaning tabloid which has suffered years of decline and cost-cutting under various proprietors.
The row over his latest anti-Arab outburst was reported by the Guardian and the Independent last Thursday. Other papers, which had shown little interest initially, took it up later when the Commission for Racial Equality - a government-funded body - said it had taken legal advice and was reporting Mr Kilroy-Silk to the police with a view to prosecuting him for incitement under the Public Order Act.
In the meantime, the Muslim Council of Britain received a large volume of hate-mail, apparently prompted by its complaints about the article. One message said: "Why don't you go back to the desert and get busy oppressing the opposite sex and everyone else who doesn't agree with your weird, backwards religion?"
On Friday afternoon, the BBC announced that it was suspending Mr Kilroy-Silk's show with immediate effect, pending further investigation. By Saturday, the story was all over the front pages.
On Sunday, the Express returned to the fray, defending the article on the grounds of free speech and attacking the BBC's decision, though it also published a reply from the Muslim Council of Britain, as well as several critical letters from readers.
The BBC's suspension of the Kilroy show has been criticised by some as an over-reaction, but the BBC - along with other broadcasters in Britain - has a legal obligation to be impartial. Newspapers, on the other hand, can be as partisan as they like. The BBC has also been trying to clamp down on freelance writing by its journalists and presenters (such as Mr Kilroy-Silk's column for the Sunday Express) because of possible conflicts between the two activities.
The problem of freelance writing came to light during the recent Hutton inquiry into the death of the weapons scientist David Kelly, over remarks made by the BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan. In addition to his work for the BBC, Mr Gilligan wrote an article for the Mail on Sunday in which he said the prime minister's press secretary had been responsible for "sexing up" the British government's dossier on Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
BBC guidelines state that freelance writing by staff "should not bring the BBC into disrepute or undermine the integrity or impartiality of BBC programmes or presenters", and there can be little doubt that Mr Kilroy-Silk's latest rant has done just that.
In future, as the Muslim Council of Britain points out, Arabs and Muslims are going to be reluctant to appear on his show, knowing the views that he expressed in his newspaper column.
A broader point, made by the Arab League's ambassador in London, is that the BBC has its worldwide reputation to consider. The BBC's Arabic service has a large audience in the Middle East and is highly respected there, but the views expressed in Mr Kilroy-Silk's column, which were reported in the Arab press, have damaged that reputation.
One complicating twist in the tale is that the offending article has appeared twice in the Sunday Express - on January 4 this year and on April 6 last year - under a different headline and with some differences in editing.
The explanation given by Mr Kilroy-Silk is that his secretary accidentally plucked an old column out of the computer and emailed it to the newspaper instead of the column intended for January 4.
Nobody at the Express seems to have noticed, though there were several clues in the text that ought to have rung alarm bells. The first sentence began: "We are told by some of the more hysterical critics of the war that 'It is destroying the Arab world' ..."
Writing last April, Mr Kilroy-Silk was referring to the war in Iraq. Receiving the article again this month, a subeditor - apparently baffled as to which war the columnist was talking about - blithely changed "the war" to "the war on terror".
Thanks to this mistake, Mr Kilroy-Silk and the Sunday Express are able to point out that there was no great outcry the first time his anti-Arab column was published.
It seems that in the midst of the invasion of Iraq the monitoring groups simply failed to notice what Mr Kilroy-Silk was writing. That is scarcely surprising, because the headline on the April version of the column was barely comprehensible and cannot have enticed many people to read on. It said: "Us, loathsome? Shame on them." The headline on the second version - "We owe Arabs nothing" - was far more likely to grab readers' attention.
Part of Mr Kilroy-Silk's defence is that in its original context of the Iraq war his article was unobjectionable - as demonstrated by the lack of objections at the time. That has subtly muddied the waters, but it is really no excuse: racism is still racism, whether or not anyone happens to complain.
Throughout the "war on terror" and the war in Iraq, Tony Blair, and even George Bush at his most rabid, made clear in their speeches that they had no quarrel with Arabs or Muslims in general - unlike Mr Kilroy-Silk, apparently, since he included no such caveats in his column. Writing in the Sunday Express again yesterday, Mr Kilroy-Silk said: "The article was always intended to be a criticism of certain Arab regimes - never of Arab people in general."
If that was really the intention, it does not explain why he wrote instead about ordinary Arabs dancing in the streets to celebrate September 11, chanting support for Saddam Hussein or "living happily in this country on social security".
Mr Kilroy-Silk also "spoke movingly of how fiercely he guards the right to free speech for which his father died fighting during the second world war", according to an "exclusive interview" with the Sunday Express (who else?).
"He died so that I could grow up in a free society, with the right to free speech to say what I like, when I like," Mr Kilroy-Silk told the paper. That is all very well, but we also carry a responsibility for what we say. Racist articles by high-profile figures not only reinforce popular prejudices but lend credibility to the unsavoury views of neo-Nazi groups. If the freedom-of-speech argument is taken to its logical conclusion, then all kinds of racial abuse become permissible - blacks, Jews, the Irish, everyone. That becomes a recipe for communal disaster of a kind that even Mr Kilroy-Silk would probably not wish to see.
Where racism is concerned, therefore, freedom of speech has to be tempered by restraint. But whatever applies to one racial group has to apply to them all. It is no good having one rule for blacks, Jews and the Irish, and another rule - or none at all - for the Arabs.
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SLOVENC
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Re: east-west
January 13, 2004 - 02:05 AM
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so to anwser your question! we have won the war without help from any country, you can imagine we had to fight against a 5 nation army! france and germany helped us in that way that they recognised us in the 1st 3 days and they are now our biggest trade partners, the 1st were vatican,croatia,estonia,china and russia also i think. but the 1st 3 for sure there were also 2 other countries that recognised us imidiatly the same day as we proclaimed independence. so this countries helped us in that way that they put presure on yugoslavia, we won in a 10 day war, and i still remember it!
about china and russia you said, well the situation there is a bit different! they "terorize" their own country, which is quite different from the US who do this to other countries, i mean if they would "terorize" texas, new york, north dakota... it would be totaly different from the things they do!
well in the case of china's tibet and taiwan my country supports the one big china. because we have traditionaly good relations with china and russia so we don't want to make them problems! i actually think that the world should recognize both tibet and taiwan but only 6 countries do recognise taiwan and that's all, i know that FYR macedonia 1st recognised taiwan but then anulled it i forgot why!
but when it comes to the balkans , you really don't know what the US has done, though i dont live on the balkan peninsula, slovenia has got a lot of important trade partners. and we wer once a part of a balkan country so i know the situaton there! and it's different from what you here on tv! belive me!
oh and i forgot, even if this happened a long time ago and has not a lot connection to this theme, when slovenia was under france, they were the only country in 1200 years of foreign rulers that alloved slovene to be the 1st official language in slovenia and not the 2nd as under austria,germany and yugoslavia,so i do kinda love france for that!  merci bien
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