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.

Cresentmoon, I read it a long time ago too. I am aware some 'facts' are disputed but the overall gist is what I am getting to. That the Chinese had a far superior culture/technology/complex social/economic society. They did not try to colonise even India if you think about it. Right next door, lots of wealth and just as advanced. Why?

If you recall in the book, the Indian sailors were also involved in the Chinese 'fleets' that went 'around the world'. As someone else has said on this thread, colour, caste, creed did not matter as much as when the Europeans started to come into this. If you look at cultures of small ports etc (Say the strait of Melaka in Malaysia, there is still a whole mixture of cultures that live there. From Hindu sailors from Gujarat to African sailors from Zanzibar. Each co-existing. To this day.

It is the European divide and rule policy around the world that has screwed up a lot of the world.

How did Cambodia for example get to have a very advanced Hindu civilisation a 1500 years ago? What about Bali which is predominately Hindu too? It is not just the Europeans who had boats and power. But it is only the Europeans who killed the natives or enslaved them.

Right, I will now move on to my views on the male/female debate... bare with me.

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

Christianity yes of course, but another Gospel, that of Thomas ( also not in the bible ) gives a very different impression of what Christ was teaching and has been likened to Buddhism by some.

It talks about ( or rather Jesus does as it's all 'sayings' rather than narrative ) about enlightenment and the light within being the route to salvation. The Thomas gospel portrays Jesus not as a God, but as more the ubiquitous vehicle of spiritual inspiration and enlightenment.

Anyway. I'll shut up about Jesus now. :-)

Now that you are all naked...

A lot of people have quoted numbers from the sub-continent here. Agree it is an aweful situation when girl babies are discarded or worse...(not sure what is worse in these circumstances actually). However, if you look at WHERE in India this is rife, it is again where literacy is not as high or possibly in big cities where these 'illiterates' may come to seak employment. If you look at the well of all knowledge, Wikipedia, the ratio of girl to boy are comparable to the West for Kerala for example (also note that Kerala was inherently communist for a while).
Why did this happen?

1. The dowary system is abused by greedy parents of boys.
2. The girls family want to give more dowery thinking that the in-laws will treat their girl better if they give a lot more money, which dominos in the rest of the community (x's parents gave a car so we must also keep up with the Jones and give 2 cars!)
3. The system is DIFFERENT to where men give money/goats etc to marry girls as this is looked upon or compared to a man giving money to a prostitute...

Now China,

Chinas ones child policy has not helped its ratios. Chinas being SIGNIFICANTLY worse than any other country. This stems not from the Dowery system but predominately that it is the boys who will carry the 'line' forward. Not the girls.

Atleast in countries like India, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the press is very free. There are also human rights organisations who are allowed to freely work. With education and cultural shift this phenomena should get routed out.

China however, there seems no recourse unless there is free-press and its concept of human rights changes.

Here is why I think things should drastically begin changing and already is in India/Nepal etc.

1. India has the fastest growing middle-class. People are not remaining in the same cities they were born in and generally not living in the same houses their great great grandfathers lived in. To enable a good standard of living, more and more families are becoming 2 income families. This means, the Dowary system, which in effect was the 'security' that belonged to the women if things did not work out is needed less and less.
2. There are many open discussions such as we are having happening all over India.
3. Inheritance laws already are the same as the west. Remember India inheritate along with the Railways, the British Justice system.

What about Albania? Why is this happening there?

Albania is very "tribal." They have bride prices and honour stuff and Greeks (amaong others) pop over to Albania to buy wives...They have a syustem called (damn will have to look it up)

Honour killings (hate the name obvs) and blood feuds and have yet to find the name...

Whatmeworry "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."

The function of the Bride-price for Islamic cultures was to give the Bride her own money separate from her husbands should she need it. Also note that in Islam, the laws are very specific and generally fair (as long as man does not interprete them in his favour) re. divorce and inheritance.

In Hinduism, religion is kept very separate from politiccs. Therefore it was very easy for India to adapt to the Britsh justice system. Infact, Hindu culture accepted Gays and Lesbians in the community, as part of the cultural fabric. It was the British who outlawed it and now there are calls to take away that 'law' that bans it.

Therefore it is only for financial reasons that Girls are not values in SOME families in India (To say this is all cultural and all Indians are misogynistic is like saying all western women are prostitues).

Sorry for spelling. Should not have pressed 'post' without checking!!

The problem I have with 'feminists' is that women are the only cause. There are many more 'divisions' before we even get there. I believe cresentmoon noted that earlier.

How about worrying for countries such as Africa where the female/male ratio is the other way. The men are all dead in war and therefore the nation as awhole suffers?

I think you mean countries in Africa...

( unless you're George Bush ) ;)

MrGin yes.

MrGin, now that would be insulting. To be called George Bush. A democratically elected idiot. I'd rather be an intelligent despot!!

I think we can probably all agree with...

George Bush... the bastard

messy I really like your post. See, the laws are there in these countries. It's the culture that needs to change and abide by these laws.
Culturally, Girls are given their dowry when they marry. In those days, the gold they were given cost almost as much as a house so it worked out that the boys will then inherit the house/property. Of course, the husband of the girl would also then inherit his parents home. This worked out very well until house prices started going crazy or one married above or below their 'status'. The fairest system of course is to abolish dowry and use the inheritance laws. Dowry btw is called a wedding gift now as i believe it is illegal to give a 'dowry' or ask for one.

SiliBiliMili.

I have to say I'm learning loads from this threadand your thorough posts.

It's an eye opener.

( Says white blond haired middle class British male )

OMG! Mrgin You are a man on mumsnet on the feminism/womens rights thread?! Quick hide before you get beaten up!!

:)

I've learned to be thick skinned.

In societies with too many women, the theory holds, fewer people marry, and those who do marry do so later in life. Because men take advantage of the variety of potential partners available to them, women?s traditional roles are not valued, and because these women can?t rely on their partners to stick around, more turn to extrafamilial ambitions like education and career.

...and there you have The Roaring Twenties in a nutshell.

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

Au contraire, the Chinese had the rich Persians and Indians on their borders, well worth plundering if they could - but with even such humongous naval power they hardly impacted the strategic map.

50 years later, tiny numbers of tiny Portuguese ships came all the way around the world and blew all these countries' ships out the water, set up colonies and extracted trading concessions throughout the East.

That is the difference....