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Politics : Formerly About Applied Materials -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: michael97123 who wrote (52225)	9/15/2001 4:57:15 PM
From: Sam Citron	Respond to of 70976

Mike, Yes the Chinese are among the hardest working scholars that I have ever observed. They work night and day. They have made a difference and their country is rapidly becoming the dominant superpower in Asia. Most would probably like to become US citizens No surprise there. China is a huge country with a vast internal market. It can get economies of scale simply producing for local consumption and exports are gravy since they now can feed themselves. This is not true of any Islamic country that I am aware of. They never got into the export promotion model of development that propelled the Asian Tigers with similar Confucian backgrounds. Rather it was oil that brought Islam to the attention of the modern world. Resource extraction is a very different path to "development". Most would say it is not by itself much of a sustainable path at all because in not having to constantly change the product to fit the tastes of an evolving world, it allows some degree of insularity. Of course not all Islamic states have significant reserves of domestic crude. Afghanistan is one of them. Most of the country is mountainous, pastoral. They raise sheep and goats and aim to be as self-sufficient as possible. Bin Laden is a Saudi national and had his frustrations with the Saudi Royal Family and what he felt was its selling out to the west. I am ignorant of the details. There are no simplistic answers here. Only a gaping need for more understanding of our very different cultures and system of values, where the commonalities lie, where the differences, and hopefully a "live and let live" and experimental approach where we honor diversity of cultural paths and definitions of the "good life" and condemn violence in all forms as a means of coercion or dispute resolution. Sam