Silicon Investor (SI) -- The First Internet Community

STOCKTALK

We've detected that you're using an ad content blocking browser plug-in or feature. Ads provide a critical source of revenue to the continued operation of Silicon Investor. We ask that you disable ad blocking while on Silicon Investor in the best interests of our community. If you are not using an ad blocker but are still receiving this message, make sure your browser's tracking protection is set to the 'standard' level.

Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: HG who wrote (5317)	10/15/2001 6:17:07 PM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<Thats a ridiculous thing to say,...but it was a very rich and progressive society before the British came in. > I will beg to disagree, as culture it was rich and is very rich still, but Afghan's, Sudan's Somalia's, Chad's all have rich culture but one thing missing i.e. proper infra structure based on which a state can pick and move on. You don't find many from these nations working on grounds of their rich culture in Microsoft as chief programmers, also neither these rich cultured countries have inundated the medical profession in UK and US with its doctors like we people have done. When I see this huge migration of talent from countries that were colonialised and imparted proper education I can see a connection. This leap forward some may consider their birth right but one cannot justifiably deny the connection between good deeds of the colonialists. Our rich culture did create schisms and rules that were draconian, the rule of minority Moguls over majority Hindus, the basic ingredient of freedom and will to seek freedom was curtailed under that rule, Shah Jehan was no less a 'wahabi' who gouged his brothers eyes out of his sockets, for 900 years majority of that sub-continent was raped, pillaged and shattered by invaders who had nothing to do with that country. That ‘rich culture’ taught us to be quiet in face of extreme persecution, our ability to raise our majority rights was dead. In northern India for centuries and we could not fight the Moguls rather we remained as a majority a subject where they dealt with us like Gods. Comes British and within 180 years walks in M.K.Ghandi a barrister from London Inn, walks another aristocrat Jinnah who talked about rights of sub-continent, magna carte, constitution and comes alive Congress party or within 100 years of the British rule we see a Mutiny, why a region that remained dormant for 800 years and elected to live as a silent spectator against the exploitation of northern warlords saw in succession people like Jawaharlal Nehru, Vallu Bhai Patel and Maulana Abu Kalam Azad within very short span of that British colonialism. Why this rich culture under the Moguls or northern invaders could not produce in 100’s of years of slavery a single element of ‘Congress type party’ that may have decided or worked to throw the yoke of slavery? Was Beerbal or Mulla doPiazza the courtiers of Akbar physical equivalent of Congress wizards? That rich system under past slavery only produced yes man, nothing more nothing less or great literary minds but when it came to flame of freedom that education that sons of the soils got in UK imparted them the will to free Indian sub-continent, imagine without this short colonial rule how much more we all would have to suffer. That Indian that could not stand in face of warlords from Farghaneh valley won their freedom in a tiny duration of time and luckily for India became the largest democracy on the face of this earth. Now this cannot be just plain co-incidence. Yes, British were masters but when was the last time that Indians ruled North India for themselves, we were slaves of northern invaders, British gave us in sub-continent, country wide irrigation systems, Moguls gave us a Taj Mahal and Red Fort, British gave us railways and co-education, Moguls gave us courts and courtiers, British tried to break that perpetual poverty that Indian sub-continent was tied too, by allowing land reforms, by allowing untouchables to stand up and speak for their rights, had it not been for the rich contribution of the British, our sub-continent would not be a better place. Noble laureate Naipul and his Pakistani wife Nadira would not speak that great English, Salman Rushdie would not be able to write Shame and Satanic verses, Vikram Seth would not be around with that classic 'suitable boy' now if this all was due to our rich past can I ask you to quote someone from Afghanistan who got a bookers prize or from Iran or even Sudan, the ability to see and ability to be a part of the globe is the greatest contribution of 200 years of our slavery, some slaves keep cribbing and are bitter I am a different slave I remember people who made me what I am today, when I see Omar or Taleban or one of those downtrodden aid stricken poor man from Africa or someone who did not get a chance to go for education like I did, I say thank God for al the missionaries and al those who cared to make us big, my rich culture has given me 350 m people who are still considered as below human, a caste systems that is insult to mankind and so reprehensible that poor lose its very dignity and motive to live, the sub-continent would have been a dreadful place without this 200 years that brought us our window to constitutional governance, if we could have had those capabilities our renaissance should have coincided with that of Europe’s age of enlightenment, we were at that time being governed by people for whom Maulana Azad said that ‘ Muslamanu nay Hindustan per badshahi nehi khudai keke hai.’ bi

To: HG who wrote (5317)	10/15/2001 6:33:56 PM
From: Maurice Winn	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

<Thats a ridiculous thing to say.> That's an absurd thing to say. Indian civilization goes far back. But living in the past isn't a very successful way of life. In a globalized world, a lingua franca is essential to participation [in the more profitable parts of it]. English colonisation gave a huge advantage to those countries with English as their foundation. Not to mention the concept of property rights, laws and so on. Unfortunately for India, they got rid of the British and kept the Karl Marx. Recently, they have made moves to get rid of the English language too, which would not be a smart move. A language is simply a means of communication. Some people use it to form an exclusive club, but that's a short-sighted approach [though probably useful for avoiding NSA interception]. Forget the great civilization of India from eons past. It's today and next year that people live and the ways of times gone by are irrelevant. A Maharajah in Mysore might have got a great palace, but it's nothing but a museum piece now. The monuments around Washington are corroding with time. Eventually they'll be artifacts from a time of glory gone by. Our aim, as the living descendants of all those great, glorious empires, is not to reconstruct an often mythical past, which is useless to us now, but to build our own great civilization here today. We are doing it right now, right here in cyberspace. Bit by bit, photon by photon, fibre by fibre, chip by chip, pixel by pixel. The neural net is spreading It's tendrils to every corner of the globe. There is no stopping it. Ted Kaczynski, Osama, Mobs in Seattle and Genoa, Tribal Leaders, National Leaders, Military Might, are all doomed to fail. It's a law of nature unfolding. It's a tide. It's the river of consciousness. Unstoppable [because the vast majority of people like their own river of consciousness and act to enhance it]. Mq PS: Colinisation of Afghanistan will be good for Afghanistan. Colin is going to be the harbinger of civilization where barbarism has reigned supreme.