From: outlawpoet - (outlawpoet@stealth.hell.com)
Date: Wed Jun 05 2002 - 14:51:53 MDT
--- Dossy <dossy@panoptic.com> wrote:
>On 2002.06.05, Anava000@aol.com <Anava000@aol.com> wrote:
>> Is there a nation or country that the white people have not come to, taken
>> the best land and resources and abused the indigeneous peoples? [...]
>> What is wrong with these people?
>
>To the victor go the spoils. There's nothing wrong with "these people"
I would also like to point out that it's not always white people who win these cultural battles. In Africa much of the slavery and unpleasant inter-tribal warfare was instigated by other African peoples. They shipped and sold the less successful tribes to Cargo vessels bound for the Carribbean.
Going further back, the romans weren't precisely very white, they were kind of a dark mediteranean, or rather sun-darkened greek. The "white people" were the visigoths who got pushed around.
The Persians certainly were a darkish, well, persian, I guess. Their empire had a tendency to overshadow indigenous cultures as well.
The Khans probably would laugh at your presumption. The 'white' folks were their underlings and near-slaves in russia.
This is all off the top of my head, so people please feel free to correct or smack me.
But further in antiquity, we have mentions in Egyption manuscripts of a "People of the Sea", who swept in from the Atlantic, conquering everything they touched, even overrunning great Cairo. And then, suddenly, they dissapear from the records. This record gap may indicate a change in government a cultural disaster, or a plague, or a real live dissapearance of an entire race. But I bet these mysterious conquerors weren't Anglo-Saxon. Or even Spanish!
(note: if anyone knows any interesting books about the "People of the Sea" thing in Egyptology, I would love better references, I'm working off of recollection of a Ancient History course)
Oh, and the Egyptians. Yeah, them too. They were non-white conquerers. of other non-white peoples, even. Gah, I find it difficult to think in racial profiles. White people are germanic, english isles and french. Would spanish or porteguese count as white? they had an empire as well. um. Eastern European peoples are white... are japanese, they aren't white they had China for a while, ah, that's enough.
In any case, Dossy has something of a point, tribal warfare is kind of unpleasant, but there's nothing intrinsically wrong with the people who win, they just won. Would you say that there was something "wrong" with the Cherokee if they managed drive away american settlers from their land? Or that there's something wrong with Argentina, since they've pushed almost all british ownership out of their country when they were owned almost completely at the turn of the century? There's nothing very special, in my eyes, about the struggling of tribes of power. I don't consider myself opressed despite my nawatl heritage of losing cultural struggles to the spainards. I'm just a person, in a good an interesting time. I think you have to judge these things in context.
Technology, in this recent history, seems to have aided the Europeans in their ascendancy. I am not a fan of violence, but I fail to see how this trollish comment really begs any interesting discussion.
Although, now that I think of it, it did get me thinking about the history of conquest. Which is an interesting if morally ambigious batch of cookies.
Hmph. I've spent entirely too long responding to this comment.
Back to work!
Justin Corwin
"And he baked this delicious yet morally ambigious batch of cookies!"
~www.goats.com
>-- there's something wrong with everyone else.
>
>In American gridiron, when the ball-carrier is tackled, the fans don't
>say "what injustice! why must these big men chase the poor guy with the
>ball and knock him down and take his ball?"
>
>That is merely how the game is played. Those who don't play the game as
>well, inevitably lose.
>
>This is why it is so critically important to be continuously
>self-evaluating, self-improving and progressing forward.
>
>-- Dossy
>
>--
>Dossy Shiobara mail: dossy@panoptic.com
>Panoptic Computer Network web: http://www.panoptic.com/
> "He realized the fastest way to change is to laugh at your own
> folly -- then you can let go and quickly move on." (p. 70)
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