Mario As in this instance, I have no option but to reply to you, most reluctantly, do note that I had misunderstood nothing in your post. Nor am I persuaded, in the least, by your further explanatory comments!
I had confined my reply to your snide comment that, two Russian writers on political issues (Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky), would know more than someone, like me (re reconciliation of communism and religion), who spent three weeks in Russia. I had of course, not made such an absurd claim, as stated by you, and therefore what you said did not sound terribly clever to me, as so often before! Unfortunately, in your snide comment, you chose to ignore that I was merely reporting what I observed and noted at the height of the Cold War (with others from the UK in 1969). The comments were from several university students with good English, and other proletariat in Moscow, Leningrad and Kiev in open discussion about how they had reconciled their communist and religious beliefs and attended church regularly. Indeed, to considerable surprise, I observed full church attendances and young and old people fervently at prayer. I can't recall in my earlier careful reading of Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky that, they dealt with the issue of a reconciliation of communist and religious beliefs. The former dealt primarily with prison life in very harsh conditions and the latter, about the lack of political freedom. Sharansky could hardly talk negatively about religious freedom in the environment I described, as the Jewish synagogues were definitely open to the faithful, including him. I also indicated that I had general reservations about the credibility in Sharansky's writings. Indeed, I can tell you further that, when Sharansky eventually exited Russia and settled in Israel, far from talking about freedom any more, his stance towards the Palestinians in the occupied West Bank was pretty reactionary. He was now definitely unreconciled to any notions of freedom for them from Israeli hegemony following Israeli expropriation of Palestinian land to which they had absolutely no right. This also applied to the forfeited rights of the Palestinians to homes and property they had previously held for centuries and now passed on to immigrants from Russia like Sharansky. Do call this a case of Sharansky's double standards if you like but I do not intend to continue with this time-wasting discussion with you. Cornel ----- Original Message ----- From: "Mario Goveia" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> To: <[email protected]> Sent: Tuesday, October 10, 2006 7:08 PM Subject: Re: [Goanet] China and Russia (2) > --- cornel <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: >> Clearly, any difficulty over my factual reporting, could only be in >> someone seemingly incapable of understanding that there would inevitably >> be differences in different scenarios. A prison camp in Siberia would >> hardly be similar to the hive of activity in metropolitan Moscow, >> Leningrad and Kiev. >> > Mario observes: > Cornel, > I think you have overlooked my point, which was the > reasons why Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky were put in > prison camps in the first place... _______________________________________________ Goanet mailing list [email protected] http://lists.goanet.org/listinfo.cgi/goanet-goanet.org
