Greetings,
Sorry Maggie. I over-reacted and Lithien and Bo were right to admonish me. My vehemence comes from
personal experience of having friends displaced from their home towns and one in particular having
her brother killed with no word from her father for a considerable time. A more free spirited,
independent girl it is hard to imagine and my blood boils when I see her people 'pigeon holed' by
those in the west, as happens all to often. My apology is necessary and what I say from here does
not detract from it, but Pirsig is wrong in what he says and he is wrong in a way which could easily
reinforce inaccurate and harmful stereotypes.
Muslims, on the whole, live in countries which have been ruled by puppets of the West who have
accumulated vast fortunes for themselves and who have likewise diverted huge amounts of money from
the people to the West. The countries themselves were almost all foisted upon indigenous populations
by colonial powers and freedom and democracy (so "prized" by the hypocritical West) have had no
place in many of these societies. Even today Muslims are treated as "less intellectual," unworthy of
serious consideration in foreign affairs and culturally backward. To top it all off the West takes
it upon itself to bomb the shit out of them whenever they feel like it, while at the same time
allowing them to be slaughtered in Kosovo and Bosnia. Furthermore the west ignores security council
resolutions which are seen to favour Muslims and continues to arm despotic governments against their
own people and neighbours. The list of atrocities against Muslim people is almost endless.
And Pirsig is trying to tell us that one of the reasons (and it is in his defence that he doesn't
even claim it to be the main reason) some Islamic groups see America as the 'Great Satan' is because
they see more drugs and hookers around in that country!!! This is fairy tale stuff and bears
absolutely no relation to the truth. I wonder how many people who think like this have ever been to
a country with a predominantly Muslim population and actually asked them what they think. I have
done so (Bosnia, Morocco, Algeria, Turkey, Albania, Kosovo) and I can assure you that any such
suggestion would meet with utter bemusement. I'm not suggesting that what Iranians term,
'West-toxification,' is not an issue at all, but it isn't a reason for their dislike of America. If
America conducted itself in a humane and reasonable fashion then Muslims would care very little what
it did within its own borders. It is only because they don't that those same Muslims try to find any
chink in their armour. The hate came way before that.
The simple truth is that the 'intellectual' 'free-minded' west has ruthlessly exploited Muslim
dominated countries and a number of Muslims resent what has happened deeply. I could put up a very
good argument that America is one of the least free, most heavily censored societies on earth, an
argument which would revolve around the distinction between freedom and autonomy and bring in the
legal system together with the PC brigade, whilst simultaneously touching upon the religio/political
problem, but this would seem to be getting off the point somewhat so I shall refrain for now. I can
see it resurfacing if someone tries to back up Pirsig's reinvention of history where he falsely
claims all sorts of European inventions as American and thus points to dynamic quality in action,
but that is another argument and I can't believe that anyone will try seriously to back it up
anyway.
Struan
------------------------------------------
Struan Hellier
< mailto:struan@shellier.freeserve.co.uk>
"All our best activities involve desires which are disciplined and
purified in the process."
(Iris Murdoch)
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