Ghandi, Aung San Su Kiy and other arseholes

[solidgoldbrass]

Isn't it just the case that it's nearly impossible to achieve huge memorable changes in the world without being a bit of an arsehole? You've got to have a massive ego to think you can take on such a challenge, and so it's really not that surprising that pretty much everyone who achieved massive changes for the good turns out to have been a bit of a sod round the house and have various other unattractive traits.

i don't think the indians were naturally to be expansionist, nor the chinese, the rapacious greed of european colonialism was unique

They Europeans got ships and guns first is all. Before that they were all as bad as each other with the far more limited weapons at their disposal IMO.

islam is often said to be spread by the sword but actually, looking at historical facts, huge swathes of the islamic world became muslim without arab or turkish armies - spread instead by sailors, traders, sufi saints etc. and those countries were actually ruled by their own people. some sent tributes to the caliph, some didn't

The Arabs offered a better tax deal than the Byzantines and Persians :) But don't kid yourself, it was backed up by serious military might.

Ah SiliBiliMili, why must you keep disagreeing with me?

"Cultures change with education and financial security too."

"The sort of thing you get with a westernized society."

TT There is no basis for your comment. Its just an assumption. There are lots of non-western societies that are educated and financially secure. Look at China and Japan.

Japan isn't an entirely happy society, nor are women in a very good position there, but you've demolished any argument you've tried to make on these lines. Japan is wealthy and free, totally on a western model (initially demanded by American force of arms, then imposed by American occupation). But although Japan was remade, the people retained their own individual character, for better or worse.

As for China, they're increasingly becoming a consumer society, but they're keeping their own tradition of political despotism. We hear of intellectuals there and (nowadays!) computer-literate people chafing under the Chinese traditions and longing for western-style freedom, but so far the lid has been kept tightly pressed down. No doubt you approve.

How many ancient goddesses does it take to outweigh a single female baby not born because of selective abortion, which is rife in both India and China? Westerners find that pretty horrific, but I suppose we're a bunch of imperialists who should shut up about it.

when Jesus' life wasn't written about.... It's a mystery

Given the huge amount that was "dissappeared" from the Christian canon over the first few centuries, I'd bet real money those years were "sowing ones oats years" that don't fit in with the later narrative.

Cresentmoon
"could civil disobedience have been replicated in other countries to win freedom? like algeria, like ireland, that did turn to war? if the indians who took part in the Indian rebellion of 1857 had taken to mass disobedience rather than uprising, would it have won their freedom?"

Why not? It worked in America for the African Americans lead by Martin Luther King.

"islam is often said to be spread by the sword but actually, looking at historical facts, huge swathes of the islamic world became muslim without arab or turkish armies - spread instead by sailors, traders, sufi saints etc. and those countries were actually ruled by their own people."

Here is what Gandhi said about Islam.

?I wanted to know the best of the life of one who holds today an undisputed sway over the hearts of millions of mankind? I became more than ever convinced that it was not the sword that won a place for Islam in those days in the scheme of life. It was the rigid simplicity, the utter self-effacement of the Prophet the scrupulous regard for pledges, his intense devotion to his friends and followers, his intrepidity, his fearlessness, his absolute trust in God and in his own mission. These and not the sword carried everything before them and surmounted every obstacle. When I closed the second volume (of the Prophet?s biography), I was sorry there was not more for me to read of that great life.?

Mr Gin That is fascinating. However, Christianity has more in common with Judaism and Islam than the 'Hinduism' based religions (Jainism, Buddhism etc)

Whatmeworry "They Europeans got ships and guns first is all. Before that they were all as bad as each other with the far more limited weapons at their disposal IMO"

I believe the Chinese had a better Ship (bigger than even the Portugese) at one stage. They had better maps. They had a bigger army.

www.basicrps.com/chine/histoire/china.htm

Why didnt they colonise and attack other countries?

Oh TT, "why must you keep disagreeing with me?"

I dont know. Maybe because I do not agree with what you say?!

"How many ancient goddesses does it take to outweigh a single female baby not born because of selective abortion, which is rife in both India and China? Westerners find that pretty horrific, but I suppose we're a bunch of imperialists who should shut up about it."

How is selective Abortion worse than Abortion itself (in principle). Is a females life more precious than a fetus which is not sexed? How can a society that allows abortion judge on the degrees of abortion of another country.

Whatever the means, I disagree with abortion. However to imply that ALL or even MAJORITY of Chinese and Indians kill their girl babies is ridiculous.

The ancient goddess make the cultures accept the female fetus/baby as a gift from god. It is the Western ideology that only material wealth is considered to be the wealth worth having causes a very minor minority to favour the boy babies.

In nature, 105 boys are born for every 100 girls... Yet today in India there are 112 boys born for every 100 girls. In China, the number is 121-though plenty of Chinese towns are over the 150 mark. China's and India's populations are mammoth enough that their outlying sex ratios have skewed the global average to a biologically impossible 107. But the imbalance is not only in Asia. Azerbaijan stands at 115, Georgia at 118 and Armenia at 120.

What is causing the skewed ratio: abortion.

Mara Hvistendahl, The War Against Girls

I believe the Chinese had a better Ship (bigger than even the Portugese) at one stage. They had better maps. They had a bigger army. Why didnt they colonise and attack other countries

Too early, they didn't have the guns so had no disproportionate advantage. The Spanish and Portuguese were able to beat 100x their numbers with guns.

Re the skewed births and abortion, I wouldn't like to see this turning into an argument to deny women abortion.

Nobody is implying that all or the majority of Chinese or Indian parents abort or kill female children.

Facts are though, that enough do for the phenomenon to be highly noticeable at population level.

Most people find that horrifying.

And the problem isn't reproductive rights - it is culturally ingrained misogyny.

They kill them because boys work and can support their own families and girls go to live with the inlaws and work for them.

Economics and cultural tradition.

So girls are worth less. If you are a very very poor person who is only allowed one child, you can't afford to have a girl. Who will keep you in old age?

Need to overthrow the entire system.

So girls are worth less. If you are a very very poor person who is only allowed one child, you can't afford to have a girl. Who will keep you in old age?

Thats about it, and I suspect these reproductive skews have gone on for millenia.

Its always interesting to see how the dowry works in the culture, as that is probably a good predictor. For eg in much of Africa, the dowry is paid to the family losing a daughter, so there is not quite so much economic incentive to have sons.

What does interest me is there is currently a lot of frothing (among western people of course) about how demeaning this sort of dowry - "bride price" is, but without understanding its function.

It isn't just about poverty - it is cultural misogyny.

www.economist.com/node/15636231

In Punjab Monica Das Gupta of the World Bank discovered that second and third daughters of well-educated mothers were more than twice as likely to die before their fifth birthday as their brothers, regardless of their birth order. The discrepancy was far lower in poorer households. Ms Das Gupta argues that women do not necessarily use improvements in education and income to help daughters. Richer, well-educated families share their poorer neighbours? preference for sons and, because they tend to have smaller families, come under greater pressure to produce a son and heir if their first child is an unlooked-for daughter.

So modernisation and rising incomes make it easier and more desirable to select the sex of your children. And on top of that smaller families combine with greater wealth to reinforce the imperative to produce a son. When families are large, at least one male child will doubtless come along to maintain the family line. But if you have only one or two children, the birth of a daughter may be at a son?s expense. So, with rising incomes and falling fertility, more and more people live in the smaller, richer families that are under the most pressure to produce a son.

"For eg in much of Africa, the dowry is paid to the family losing a daughter, so there is not quite so much economic incentive to have sons."

After reading HalfTheSky though that doesnt seem to have translated into African families (at least the ones studied in HTS) preferring girls over boys. Why is that?

yy beach, the whole culture is rooted in girls being worth less. If you are a rich family, you have to provide an enormous dowry to marry off the girls and dump their expense on the inlaws.

This is slowly slowly slowly changing among professional families where women work outside the home. Funny that.

It seems that the practice of girls going to live with their husband's family is at the core of this devaluing of girls; it makes your sons into a long-term investment and your daughters into a short-term one.

It must be really unsettling for the daughters. How is it different from the slave children of the US who knew that they could one day be sold off and sent away from their families? It also puts the new bride at the bottom of the hierarchy in her new family, where the existing women are trying to protect their own status in a system that none of them chose. Some horrendous things are done by the MILS to their new DILS.

Surely the practice is classic patriarchy, treating women and girls as objects that pass from one family to another, much like cattle?

It seems that the practice of girls going to live with their husband's family is at the core of this devaluing of girls; it makes your sons into a long-term investment and your daughters into a short-term one

In agricultural societies the sons stay on the family land to work it (inheritance rights), so their wives live with them. Its not a major issue if the settlements are small villages so the rest of the family is nearby (which is the case in most of the world), its more if there is wide dispersal.)

The issue is the inheritance, ie going down the male line. I'd bet it started due to something fairly simple, ie in thsoe pre law court/justice/police days, if you didn't have a male in the household to fight for it, you didn't keep it.

Personally I think the biggest thing one can do for women is allow them property ownership. I reckon that is more revolutionary than nearly anything else one can do in many developing countries..

i think the same pandoras box effect is around legalising euthanasia - in a culture which glorifies youth and considers old age an inconvenience or a burden, how do you know the extent of cultural or social pressures in a person's decision to seek it?

Its no coincidence that the whole right to die thing is exploding in the media just as we march up to a major problem in paying for old people.

Whatmeworry - ISWYM - giving women prooperty rights seems to be one of the first steps on the path to women's equality. Hopefully allowing women to inherit will raise their status within their own families.

designed to conceal a deeply damaging withdrawal of the state from its responsibilities to the most vulnerable

IMO its just good old Tory minimal state policy dressed up in fluffy woo.

Its usually the most vulnerable who get hit first, though actually with the bailout I think this time round its those in the middle - that do have something but not a lot in reserve - that have been hit hardest (ie have lost the most, and will continue to do so)

whatmeworryToo early, they didn't have the guns so had no disproportionate advantage. The Spanish and Portuguese were able to beat 100x their numbers with guns.

No, they did have weapons good enough to colonise. Remember that the Europeans/the west was still an un organised and un-civilised society when the Chinese were building large pagodas to rival the Gherkin in London 1000/2000 years ago. Remember the Egyptians had boats, men, supirior 'technology'. The fact is that there was nothing to be gained by invading the cave dwelling backward Europe!!!

Recommended read: 1421: The Year China Discovered the World, Gavin Menzies