Mideast Youth » Gary (Guest author)

Are we winning the war?

Gary (Guest author) — Sat, 13 Oct 2007 06:01:45 +0000

The MEY bloggers clearly care passionately about human rights. Many of the postings focus on the various individual battles being fought throughout the world…from a wrongfully imprisoned Egyptian blogger, to peaceful monks standing up to a brutal dictatorship, to people being stoned to death in the name of religion. But those are just the battles in a much greater war – the war for human rights. And that’s my question to each of you: are we winning this war?

Since I posted the question, I’ll tell you how I see it. I see a world where technology is drastically changing the playing field. The internet allows communication and organization beyond what was ever possible in the past. But technology also gives us satellites that can watch our activities from space.

The weapons of war are ever more effective….night vision, smart missiles, and unmanned drone planes. But these appear helpless against simple IUDs, or commercial planes thrown into skyscrapers, and worst of all, the threat of nuclear terrorism. I worry every time I check the news. Maybe a nuclear bomb will go off in Boston harbor. Or someone will release the Anthrax virus on the London subway. Or a fighter pilot will have a mental breakdown and drop a bomb atop Mecca. Technology seems to have a leveling effect with regards to killing people…fewer people can kill in larger numbers.

There are more democracies today than 100 years ago, but the last superpower seems to have lost it’s way. And the nation with the fastest growing economy, the nation with the largest population, is a dictatorship with very concern for human rights. The end of the cold war was supposed to bring us the ‘peace dividend’, but it appears to have done exactly the opposite. Middle East peace appears as elusive as ever. Darfur is unresolved. More nations are joining the nuclear club than disarming. This doesn’t feel like peace to me.

So my answer is that I believe it’s still possible to win the war for human rights, but only if we find a way to make fundamental, drastic changes to our approach. People are creative, so it might happen. But it hasn’t yet. I would be interested in hearing the perspective of others…do you think we’re winning the war?

gary

Dinner with my parents

Gary (Guest author) — Fri, 31 Aug 2007 23:28:50 +0000

I live in San Jose California, just south of San Francisco. My parents are retired and living in northern California, in a town called Redding. Even though we’re in the same state, we’re hundreds of miles away, geographically and politically. They came down this weekend to visit and as usual, we talk politics. While I get my news of the world from PBS, BBC and other internet sources, their vision of the world is mostly from FOX News. I would attempt to explain their views of Iraq and the Middle East, but in doing so I would deeply offend many of you. There is a stereotype of the American who views most in the Middle East as fanatical terrorist who want nothing more than to find their way to the US to blow things up. And Iraq is still a place where we’re fighting the terrorists “there” so we don’t have to fight them “here”. I’m here to tell you that there are MANY Americans who sincerely believe this. I don’t claim to know the statistics, but don’t forget who won our last presidential election. I’m learning a lot about the Middle East from this forum, so you might as well learn a bit about the last remaining superpower in turn. And I’m telling you….the cultural gap is VAST.

This is a very serious problem. Dehumanizing entire peoples is one of the steps that make wars justifiable. There are literally people in my part of the world who see no ideological difference between Osama bin Laden and every non-Israeli in the Middle East. Somehow this needs to change. The reality is that we have FAR more in common that we are different. We want a place to call home and a chance to earn a fair living. We want a television and a computer. We want good schools for our children. And we want to live in peace, without fear of being waken in the middle of the night and hauled away because of our beliefs or because of something we said online. I feel very fortunate that I don’t personally need to worry about that last item, but nobody should have this worry.

Whether you like my country or not, you NEED to understand my country. The US still has VAST influence in the world, regardless of Iraq. And as you well know that influence clearly reaches all the way to the Middle East and beyond. And as a result, it’s my opinion that this cultural gap is a VERY serious problem. So how can we bridge this gap? Do we somehow use youtube to put a human face on each of us, show that not everyone is an ugly American or a terrorist? I don’t really have an answer. Do you?

gary

How to change the world?

Gary (Guest author) — Fri, 24 Aug 2007 17:35:37 +0000

I’m relatively new to this blog, but it’s clear to me that the contributors are passionate, elegant of speech, and frustrated with the world. So am I. The recurrent themes are ‘free speech’, ‘freedom’, and ‘democracy’. As an American I do not share your background or experiences, but I suspect I share your goals. Like you I’m trying to change the world through the internet. But it’s hard to stay optimistic. There are billions of people on this planet and the number reading these blogs is statistically zero. The concept of a blog was a creative breakthrough for the internet, but still limited in the ability to change the world. For every person reading political blogs, there are ten million people focused on sports or hollywood. I can tell you that in my country the apathy is deafening.

So what to do? Is there some new creative approach to changing the world we have yet to discover? YouTube documentaries to shed light on human rights abuse? What about at top ten list of democracy offenders…a “hall of shame”. Google would no doubt make the list for helping China censor the internet. Or what if we created a website with one YouTube video from each country that best represented human rights abuse? Or maybe we put all our resources into getting the entire world on the internet?

What are your ideas? I ask because I’m concerned that we might even be sliding backwards. The US has made a mess out of Iraq, turning the very term ‘democracy’ into a bad word for some. China is an unapologetic dictatorship, growing in influence day by day. Russia is sliding away from democracy. The UN is a cruel joke. Are we losing this battle?

Sorry for the pessimism. Back to my original question: How can we change the world?

gary