Tag Archives: humanity

FTAC – Solving the Problems of the World at the Dinner Table

27 Monday Jan 2014

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy, Islamic Small Wars, Politics, Psychology, Religion

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For a global standard in values, I’ve been promoting just four virtues: compassion, humility, inclusion, integrity. With those four embraced, a lot of problems start to go away and more things can be done to get improvements in “qualities of living” for the living everywhere.

As regards Islamic Reformation, I sometimes want an Obi Wan moment to say to one proponent of one thing or another, “The goodness, K, is in you, not the Qur’an, the Torah, the Second Testament. God cannot be taken from the good, for such may be emergent within the humanity of humanity.

Referencing psychology, the keys on which I harp: bipolar and narcissistic personality disorders / “Facsimile Bipolar Political Sociopathy (the psychology of dictators) / “civilizational narcissism” Mobarak Haider’s term; in cognitive psychology and language behavior, one may note that while we don’t always see things the same way (the truth is we seldom do), we can look into that together and together diminish an entire class or dimension in contemporary armed conflict.

Oh how we used to fight, my father and me.

Today, he’s gone, and I get to win some.

At least in my own head.

And the “dinner table” — the forum for “lively” (brutal) political discussion:  Facebook.

If any readers should be with me on all of this: let’s keep it simple.

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FTAC – A Note on the Global Human Language Library

08 Thursday Aug 2013

Posted by in Books, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Politics

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http://daneverettbooks.com/dans-books/general-public-books/language-the-cultural-tool/ Each language is its own library with its own architecture organizing individual and cultural self-concept and determining and defining the dreams and values of place.

As a species, we may not know what we’re going to need by way of new concepts and insights drawing on our inventory in languages across distance and tunneling back through time, so we may wish to be careful about what we would dispose of or, for various reasons, may be losing.

The overarching, broad, and recurrent themes may be — should be — assurance or restoration as regards supporting an inherent dignity and integrity for mankind worldwide, a common enemy being discovered in those who have set out to humiliate others and rise to power or steal it on seas of lies.

I’ve produced a page referring to Dan Everett for this site: “Daniel L. Everett – Reading Highly Recommended”.

Here I have been idealistic, perhaps Jewish with that “inherent dignity and integrity” business, but what other path in human affairs — and international affairs — would serve all across the great arc of Homo sapiens sapiens time yet to come on this planet?

This “assurance and restoration” for ourselves and others is what we need to do, and the key to doing it may lay in the development of a new cross-cultural and integrating poetry.

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ISW – Comment on Saudi Arabia’s Heightened Profile in the Syrian Theater

17 Monday Jun 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Eurasia, Iran, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Qatar, Regions, Religion, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey

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(Reuters) – Saudi Arabia, a staunch opponent of President Bashar al-Assad since early in Syria’s conflict, began supplying anti-aircraft missiles to rebels “on a small scale” about two months ago, a Gulf source said on Monday.

Bakr, Amena.  “Saudi supplying missiles to Syria rebels: Gulf source.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

For those who value stability in the middle east, the least honest and most ruthless appear to be winning.

As the above quote suggests, Big Sunni Money plus the cultivation across many years of strategic and trade relationships in Great Britain, Europe, and the United States have put King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia not only into the fight in Syria but remarkably behind the NATO wheel.

Of course, this recent news (surfacing in the news) isn’t news at all to the businesses and states involved in Syria’s civil war, and it should be apparent to all onlookers that this double-track, double-story business of telling the public one story while facilitating another in private has brought us to the brink of a NATO vs. Russia confrontation in which Russia may now present a devilish gambit: better Assad and the continuing misery to be imposed by the dictatorship than the expansion of either Al Qaeda or Wahhabi Islam and the certain diminishing of nascent democracy, human dignity, and secular values in Syria accompanied by the heightening of tensions in Lebanon and,somewhere in the future, with Israel and the Jewish People.

To offset that impression, King Abdullah may have to back up the money with some combination of reassuring mouth and evidence of cultural and social evolution toward the contemporary in the Kingdom, certain injunctions of the Quran either notwithstanding or interpreted or aligned with a more free and liberal and greater western world.

Outlook

For the moment, if Iran’s nuclear program and global ambitions are the true target of the conflict in Syria, then the conflict and the human suffering plus political confusion driven by it, have yet some months to years to go.

In fact, the focusing of issues in the Syrian theater of a great portion of the drivers of the Islamic Small Wars  — i.e., rivalries of various sort: Al Qaeda and Wahhabi Islam; Sunni and Shiite Islam; democracy, secular dictatorship and theocracy; Iranian and Saudi Arabian competition for greater spheres of influence; even Putin’s possible issues with aggrandizement, control, and wealth on one hand and his own humanity, moderation, and strength in restraint on the other– bodes ill for constituents — worldwide — whose concerns may be more with family, security, and employment scaled down to a common denominator in the common humanity than with the triumph of a king or an ayatollah.  

It has been said that with the onset of war, nobody wins, and nowhere else across the killing fields of the Islamic Small Wars does that cynical sentiment seem more likely to be proven true than in Syria this day.

Reference

Al Arabiya.  “Saudi King Abdullah cuts holiday short due to ‘events in the region’.”  June 15, 2013.

Chulov, Martin.  “Threat of sectarian war grows in Syria as jihadists get anti-aircraft missiles.”  The Guardian, June 15, 2013.

Deasy, Kristin.  “Al Qaeda in Iraq defies global leader over relationship with Syria’s Al Nusra: Reports.” Global Post, June 15, 2013.

Henderson, Simon.  “Bahrain Rounds Up Organizers of Antigovernment Violence.”  Policy Alert, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy, June 14, 2013:

Initially emulating uprisings elsewhere in the Arab world, the protests quickly divided along sectarian lines, pitting members of the majority Shiite population against the Sunni ruling family’s security forces. Since then, February 14 members have apparently engaged in near-nightly clashes with police, resulting in more than 100 dead and 2,000 injured among civilians and security personnel.

Osborn, Andrew and Amena Bakr.  “Putin, Obama face off over Syria; rebels get Saudi missiles.”  Reuters, June 17, 2013.

Reuters.  “Russia says it will not allow Syria no-fly zones.”  June 17, 2013.

Starr, Barbara, Holly Yan, Chelsea J. Carter.  “Analyst: Al Qaeda affiliate in Syria now best-equipped of the group.”  CNN, June 17, 2013.

Wintour, Patrick.  “Syria: Putin backs Assad and berates west over proposal to arm rebels.”  The Guardian, June 16, 2013.

FTAC – Fast Note on Syria Dark Star

14 Tuesday May 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Israel, Middle East, Regions, Syria

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One alternative hypothesis: NATO has been trying to goad Putin into taking ownership of what is a long-neglected Russian client, i.e., update the relationship in the post-Soviet era. That didn’t happen. Instead, with the gates to an unbridled capitalism open, the family picked up all the chips it could get and Russian business and military plus oligarchs got something out of the new deal too — just the people got screwed.

Cultural attitudes and beliefs have independent political effects. Whether with the Baloch or Syria, altruistic intervention and sacrifice demand a goodness within and an outcome in goodness achieved as perceived by those who would help. For both Russian and NATO interests, outcomes leading to continuing dictatorship or religious fascism, the prospect of either, keep the superpowers both at bay and apart. Where are the people other people would want to put into power?

That’s where the hesitation is.

The world would rather put $1 billion in the pot for UNHCR than produce a unified response in Syria. However, the conflict is so awful and wrong in so many ways, it’s sucking energy into it — first the wave of democratic revolutionaries, then the sectarian fighters and extremists, then the more powerful states of the world who can’t figure out how to approach it or organize it or help it organize itself in a way that has more positive effects for Israel, frankly, and the region in its totality.

In its most dismal aspect, Syria is reflective of a war in the head, essentially, and of its integration in regional and international states of affairs. A disaster, a dark star, a sucking black hole that holds and pulls in killers while displacing its population (82,000 casualties to date; 3.4 million IDPs and refugees to date).

I don’t know if any of this expressing make any difference at all.

Six million dead in the Holocaust (please, don’t deny it).

Three-point-four million homeless today in relation to Syria’s civil war.

Those are big numbers around which to wrap our heads.

I can barely imagine what it must feel like to wake up as, say, UNHCR staff responsible for drawing up plans and a budget for some portion of the millions of souls for whom Syria has failed to provide basic security.

The Jews know every life has its legend and know this no less so for Syrians, but heroic altruism necessarily stalls at the wall of hate and cannot do much beyond attending to the closest injured.

http://unitedwithisrael.org/seven-syrian-refugees-treated-in-hospital-in-northern-israel/

Humanity has fled Syria.

One hopes it will rediscover its better aspects soon, but then I type naturally with rose-colored glasses.

FTAC – On Fated Language

22 Monday Apr 2013

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Philology, Psychology

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Just another two cents:

“If language is an accident, it is a very bad one overall though in individual (actually guild) terms it may be a miraculous possession.”

Hi, A.,  — given Everett’s experience, language (in invention) may address perceived concerns of “local” interest within the operating milieu of the culture. At the tribal level, that’s relatively easily defined by geophysical reality and the proclivities of the people resident within them. For a modern engineer in a cubicle working with a head full of professional concepts and jargon, I would think the boundaries social, defined partially by who and what inform the humanity in the office.

The “bad accident” may be the bad poet who masks a level of personal harm — degradation, humiliation, shame — by producing some brand of verbal armor, a facet of narcissistic display.

Those in this category, not necessarily “bad poets”, have some intuitive choices to make about “repairing the world” (in the Jewish influence, the term in use is “Tikkun Olam”) while repairing themselves or — here come the bad boys (and girls) — aggrandizing themselves, becoming untouchable, beyond the harm of human thoughts.

Those, indeed, may play some tricks with language.

Those are just my thoughts, but I feel we see them reflected in the news and, more dangerously, encouraging of a harmed mentality internally programmed for revenge against all.

Reference

Daniel L. Everett — There are several sites, including the author’s own, that may be searched up on the web today, and I expect more will appear as the linguist’s star  rises.  The link given here features today a video of about twelve minutes on “Recursion and Human Thought”.

Tikkun Olam — The link is to Jill Jacob’s 2007 “The History of ‘Tikkun Olam'”.

As Pakistan’s Election Season Approaches, Mobarak Haider Asks a Critical Question or Two

15 Tuesday Jan 2013

Posted by in Asia, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Pakistan

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Call it political poetry as it calls for considerate and patient reading.

Today, Pakistan approaches a general election for setting the National Assembly of the Parliament of Pakistan.  The run up to the event, which is to be held on or before March 18, 2013, is fraught with ambivalence over the direction of the country, overshadowed by the presence of Islamists, especially groups within the Pakistani Taliban, continuing to bring their intimidating and violent acts to the innocent of Pakistan, and haunted by memories of military dictatorship and fear of recurrence.

Mobarak Haider, who has long produced work in the area of political psychology, published the following with the Rationalist Society of Pakistan and on his Facebook page, and I’m please to post it here with the author’s permission.

Where is the End?

How many more do you wish to kill?

All Hazaras and Northern Shiites first?

Yes, they are comparatively easier to kill because they can be found in a herd, are peaceful and have no horns to hit back with.

Then all Shiite in smaller towns, followed by stronger ones in the cities? Then Christians en masse, if need be?

Good strategy by our strategic assets!

We must salute you Brave Lions of the Desert, before we salute the Men at their best who follow you to restore peace! Then will be a period of calm; vacation for you to eat in your cages your well-deserved meat and pats from the boss. Our great warriors in khaki will be admired for their immense courage and nobility in sparing their helpless brothers from carnage.

Our hearts ache in helpless frustration when we see you perform massacre after massacre with holy impunity.

We bite our lips in impotent rage when again and again our army manipulates our constitution against our constitution and brilliantly arouses civilians against civilians: “Well if law and order is to be restored by us , then what use are you?” asks the innocently bored general, “Now then, sit aside and face the cases of corruption which brought the nation to the brink of disaster”!

The politicians who have saved their skins by obediently playing second fiddle for five years will now save their skins by submitting confessions for pardon.

Great work!

As first step defeat the police and civil rule through your strategic assets, then get invited by an immense national clamor, to take over as interim or hopefully permanent government.

We are more aware than ever before that as a people crowd, we do not have the democratic option to have representatives.

We have to salute a savior.

Two of them, are available: Army Generals or Taliban Generals.

In fact it is not a choice but a possibility.

They will settle affairs among themselves; such is our destiny. In fact Allah seems to have chosen kings and soldiers as destiny of all Muslims for all times. In past centuries we had king like others had. Generals and Jihadists have appeared to combat the heretical trends of democracy and human rights. Perhaps that is why Muslim immigrants are struggling against representational democracies of the West, to attain their destiny of life-time rulers.

It is not true that generals and jihadists overthrow every rule they serve.

They are loyal to kings and sheikhs and Imams. They hate only modern Muslim rulers who choose heretical path of power: democracy.

Let us see some close cases.

Muslim kings ruled for centuries the Indian population which was deeply hostile most of the time. Throughout these centuries there were tiring wars, mass armed revolts and deep unrest which army alone handled, because no ‘darogha’ or ‘Kotwal’ could handle them.

But no general ever took over.

The British, foreign rulers with a foreign religion ruled us with a few thousand English soldiers and a large army of Muslims and other locals. Muslims soldiers faithfully fought to defend the British rule against Muslim jihadists led by Syed Ahmad Shaheed and others for half a century.

They finally fought for them in WW2.

The British hanged Muslim Ulama, they massacred in Jallianwala, they hanged freedom fighters, they hanged Ilm Din, a far greater hero of All India Muslims than is Mumtaz Qadri; he had acted over a book that strongly and directly insulted the Prophet of Islam, he had been defended by Iqbal and Jinnah, but he was hanged without the need of a Martial Law.

Musaddiq of Iran was easy to overthrow because of his democracy.

Ayatullahs rule till their death with an authority of Allah. They hanged hundred thousands, they plunged their people in a meaningless war of a decade. No protest from a general, not even grumbling.

Unlimited rule of kings, holy men and foreign rulers has been a norm because no general interfered with political power and no agency created independent civil brigades of assassins to create anarchy as a pretext for takeovers.

Isn’t it grotesque that an intelligence network which wrestles with CIA and KGB, locates and sends out their highly covered agents, fails in this godforsaken land to get hold of its own leashed Lions of the Desert?

As helpless observers of our disaster, we can just observe: “It is not wise to destroy your people, any people, for prosperity and power which already overflows from your coffers. Pain and disgrace will be the final reward of misdeeds”.

It would seem to take a general with a well comprised army to empower a president with a fairly elected government, and nowhere may this be more so than for Pakistan, a state naturally inclined to drift west toward peace and prosperity only to find itself several times yanked back toward medieval oligarchy embalmed by the honeyed venom of Islamic dogma working through the veins of some impassioned young and many venal and well positioned elders, all glorious in their mission, frequently bloody in fact.

Such an impression, however, may overlook assaults against Pakistan’s defense and other security elements on the ground as well as the effects of a sustained and still within-bounds presidency and perhaps an equally persistent drone-and-missile program targeting Taliban leaders and clarifying both a human message and a form of conversation and its influence.

Out of habit, we may perceive strings and puppets and some, say, Qatar-to-Pakistan connections — or, say, a Pakistan military and ISI mainline to Taliban — but autonomy and autonomy-seeking behavior and politics may play a stronger role in Pakistan’s restive frontiers than so many other invasive forces.  One might read — and I have read — a devout Pashtun’s equivalent of “they went that-a-way” in reference to the hotter heads in the area.

However Pakistan may wish to walk, one hopes it will be upright and down the middle of the street as opposed to slouching menacingly at one hour and  obsequiously the next down both sides of it for decades to come.

Related Reference

Ahmad, Riaz.  “Execution: Taliban slay 21 tribal policemen in FR Peshawar.”  The Express Tribune, December 30, 2012.

Ahmad, Riaz.  “Late-Night Offensive: Six policemen killed in attack.  The Express Tribune, October 16, 2012.

Ali, Zulfiqar.  “Car bomb kills 17 in crowded market in Pakistan.”  Los Angeles Times, December 17, 2012.

Bangkok Post.  “Militants kidnap 22 Pakistani soldiers: officials.”  December 28, 2012.

Imtiaz, Shah.  “Pakistan gunmen shoot 5 workers from anti-polio campaign.”  AlertNet, December 18, 2012.

Kouri, Jim.  “Terrorists kidnap and execute 21 police officers in Pakistan.”  Examiner, December 30, 2012.

Reuters.  “Bomb Kills 14 Pakistani Soldiers in North Waziristan.”  Updated News, January 13, 2013: “The court order came as an enigmatic preacher turned politician, Muhammad Tahir-ul Qadri, addressed thousands of supporters outside parliament and repeated calls for the government’s ouster. In earlier speeches, he said that a caretaker administration led by technocrats should take its place.”

Rosenberg, Matthew.  “Taliban Opening Qatar Office, and Maybe Door to Talks.”  The New York Times, January 3, 2012. Note: the article seems to deal with the Afghanistan side of Taliban political interest.

Walsh, Declan.  “Pakistan Supreme Court Orders Arrest of Prime Minister.”  The New York Times, January 15, 2013.

Zahra-Malik, Mehreen.  “Gunmen kidnap seven Pakistani soldiers.”  Reuters, January 2, 2013.

A Little Wisdom — If You Have God . . . .

16 Thursday Aug 2012

Posted by in A Little Wisdom

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If you have God, you have hope; if you have your humanity, you have a good way with other humans.

That our humanity may be erased or twisted by malignant souls indicates the persistence of a vulnerability species-wide. If we were talking about bacteria, toxic chemicals, or viruses, we’d have fewer problems with the conversation, but we’re talking about mind and mentality, and with them relationships between the earth, our biology, our cultures, our languages, and, ultimately, a part of our own extraordinary individual and communal programming.

In that light, the least the good can do — the labels don’t matter — is not kill the good, and, in fact, spare the good in others and encourage its greater development and presence everywhere.