Date: Tue, 17 Mar 2009 03:19:05 -0700 (PDT) From: Carvalho <[email protected]>
First of all Goveia, you can't speak of Arabs as if they were some MacDonald's homogenised hamburgers. There are the Levantine Arabs whose history and culture is very different from the Peninsular Arabs. Then there is what used to be Mesopotamia. If you call an Iranian, an Arab, he is likely to take you gently to a corner and show you at least one of his several fingers. Mario responds: We really need someone to provide a better defense of the Arab culture. Arabs are quite nice, decent, respectable, intelligent, educated and hardworking people - but only those who leave their Arab countries. To begin with, I think Arabs are more like McDonald's homogenized goatburgers than you think:-)) For example, most of them think dictatorships are a good thing, Allah owes them a living, women are second-class citizens and Israel has no right to exist. BTW, even Republicans know that Iranians are not Arab. I do, too. Selma continues: What these states have achieved within 60 years is unparalleled in history, at least not without colonizing entire continents or having an army of slave-labour pick cotton for them. (For the sake of historical accuracy, let me state that the Arabs were notorious slave-traders, and made regular incursions into Zanzibar, Mozambique and Uganda for this purpose, but they didn't build their 20th century wealth on the slave-trade). Mario responds: Oh, I get it! It was not OK to use slaves but it was OK to be a slave trader without whom there would be no slaves. These enterprising Arabs didn't build their 20th Century wealth on the slave trade, but they built their 19th Century wealth on the slave trade. I guess that's OK then. That also makes me feel a lot better, because the American Republicans - which is Selma's euphemism for bad Americans - fought a deadly civil war to abolish slavery in the 19th Century as well - while the American Democrats - Selma's euphemism for good Americans - were fighting on the other side, to preserve it. I guess all those Indians working in menial jobs in all the Arab countries under trying circumstances are not contributing to the wealth of these benign Arabs sitting around tables and sipping minuscule cups of bad coffee. Regarding the "unparalleled" achievements of the Arabs in the last 60 years, Selma is absolutely correct. Unparalleled as to how pathetic these achievements have been. Here is a head-to-head comparison with the country they seek to eliminate, Israel, gathered from various sources: Israel spends $110 on scientific research per year per person while the same figure for the Arab world is $2. Knowledge makes Israel grow by 5.2 per cent a year while "rates of productivity (the average production of one worker) in Arab countries were negative to a large and increasing extent in oil-producing countries during the 1980s and 90s (World Bank; Arab Development Report)." The state of Israel now has six universities ranked as among the best on the face of the planet. Hebrew University Jerusalem is in the top-100. Technion Israel Institute of Technology, Tel Aviv University and Weizmann Institute of Science are in the top-200. Bar Ilan University and Ben Gurion University are in the top-300. The Arab League does not have a single university in the top-400 (http://ed.sjtu.edu.cn/ranking.htm). Between 1998 and 2000 more than 15,000 Arab physicians migrated. According to the World Bank, "roughly 25 per cent of 300,000 first degree graduates from Arab universities emigrated. Roughly 23 per cent of Arab engineers, 50 per cent of Arab doctors and 15 per cent of Arab BSc holders had emigrated." Israel has more engineers and scientists per capita than any other country (for every 10,000 Israelis there are 145 engineers or scientists). Israel ranks among the top-7 countries worldwide for patents per capita. The Arabs are too busy trying to eliminate Israel to work on developing patents. Six million Israelis buy 12 million books every year making them one of the highest consumers of books in the world. Israel has the highest number of university degrees per capita in the world; the Arab world has the lowest. Israel produces more scientific papers per capita than any other country (109 per 10,000 Israelis); the Arab world -- next to nothing. Selma wrote: The reason these countries are so successful is not only because of oil but because that wily horse-trader who used to ply to India to exchange horses for rice, knew a thing or two about deals. Mario observes: I have just shown above how successful the Arabs are in comparison with their nemesis, Israel. Selma wrote: Secondly, is this idea that women lead reprehensible lives in the Muslim world. On any given day, you are likely to find a fair, Arab maiden spending her time, shopping at the mall, having her hands painted in henna, buying the latest clothes at Marks&Spencers and generally wondering why women around the world are clamouring for liberation. Mario responds: Wow! Are there "fair" and liberated Arab maidens with manicured and henna tattooed hands, dressed in Marks & Spencer togs under all those burqas? Who would have known that women who are intimidated into hiding all but their eyes were so liberated! Unfortunately, here are the sad facts: One in two Arab women can neither read nor write. Imam Ali Ibn Abi Taleb said, "If God were to humiliate a human being He would deny him knowledge" Most members of the Arab League grant Muslim women fewer rights -- with regards to marriage, divorce, dress code, civil rights, legal status and education. Israel does not. Spain translates more books in a year than has the Arab world in the past thousand years (since the reign of Caliph Mamoun; Abbasid, caliph 813-833). Who has time to read books when there is a country to be eliminated next door? Selma wrote: One thing I've always felt strongly about is the undue censorship of books and the media, which in the end will create an intellectually numbed society. But on the flip-side I can also argue that a free-press and unbridled freedom of speech does not always manage to create a fully-informed society. Mario responds: If unbridled freedom of speech and a free press does not create a fully informed society - to the extent that the society chooses to be informed - and censorship doesn't either, I guess we will all have to muddle along uninformed. Selma is right. A free press and unbridled freedom of speech did not prevent the election of Barack Obama even though no one can explain how they decide when to believe a word his teleprompter says, and when not to:-)) Or the election of Gordon Brown who wants the whole world to bail out the Brits:-)) Selma wrote: Let me also state that there is anger within the Muslim world, and a lot of it stems from the unresolved Palestinian-Israeli conflict; a mess created by the British Empire and perpetuated by the Americans. How it will resolve itself is anyone's guess. Mario responds: The "mess" created by the Brits - there were no Americans involved back in 1947 - was a two state solution that gave the Palestinians far more territory than they are willing to settle for now. The perpetuation of the "mess" by the Americans is Selma's euphemism for the non-negotiable guarantee of the survival of Israel. This two-state solution by the Brits, which was ratified by the UN, was no more "fair" or "unfair" depending on who's goat was being gored than the two state solution on the Indian sub-continent. Yet, after some initial mayhem, most Indians and Pakistanis moved on with their lives, and no sane Indian or Pakistani thinks they have a right of return to their ancestral homes or reparations from "someone". No, I'm afraid Selma's account is whimsical revisionist poppycock. The mess was created by the Palestinians themselves, aided and abetted by all the Arabs in the countries surrounding Israel, which, much like in Kashmir, decided not to accept the two-state solution, not to accept Israel, not to negotiate their grievances peacefully through the UN, but to take the law into their own hands and force the issue in their favor. Unfortunately, for the five Arab armies that invaded Israel with the publicly stated objective of "pushing the Jews into the sea", the Jews were in no mood to cooperate in their own demise. The rest, as they say, is history. The Arabs, except Jordan and Egypt, who got tired of having their lunch handed to them by Israel, still do not accept Israel's right to exist, and the Israeli's still will not cooperate in their own demise. Selma wrote: Lastly, let me say, it is reassuring that Gulf Goans feel compelled to defend the Gulf, just as UK Goans defend Britain, Canadian GOans, Canada and so on. Mario responds: I don't see any defense of the Gulf, only some unconvincing excuses for the lack of freedoms there. Besides, isn't the bottom line that no sane Goan intends to live in the Gulf after they retire, unlike most Goans in the UK, Canada, Australia and [Gasp!] the USA - where all those nasty Republicans keep everyone honest? Most Goans in these countries are citizens committed to their new countries. Selma wrote: If you ask a third-generation US-German to find Germany on the map, they'll be hard-pressed to do so. But for Goans, there is something in our spirit that remains essentially in celebration of our ethnicity. Mario responds: How many third generation Goan-Americans do you know who can find Germany on a map? Selma wrote: Whether that has something to do with leading our lives in a cultural vacuum or because we have a distinct sense of our own identity (something FN might deny), is something to ponder on. Mario responds: Your post was certainly written in some kind of vacuum:-)) I'm pretty sure it was Santosh - Goanet's sage of peer-reviewed scientific objectivity - who made the best case that there was no such monolith as a "Goan identity". It is in the eye of each beholder, or, more correctly, each group of like minded beholders. For example, Selma's Goan identity involves defending the indefensible Arab culture and bashing Republicans:-))
