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

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (12157)	11/30/2001 5:42:29 PM
From: Hawkmoon	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

The idea that primitive Afghans are unsuitable for democracy is racist nonsense. Well, it would depend. I was chatting with an Afghani friend of mine yesterday, who's mother is Tajik, and Father is Pashtun. He himself believes that after 30 years of warfare, the current generation of Afghans bear little resemblance to those who once lived there in the '60s and early '70s. He and his family left in 1979, when he was 17. He considers current Afghanis little more than human "animals" who have known nothing but barbarity during their lives, and who have very little concept of how to participate in a democratic society. Thus, he doesn't hold out much hope that they are ready for a democratic government, but maybe in a couple of generations when the hatreds have been suppressed, and society returns to its former multi-ethnic and tolerant former self. So when I have my Afghani friend, who's family heritage puts him squarely in the middle, tell me that they aren't ready, I can hardly call him a racist. Hawk

To: Maurice Winn who wrote (12157)	11/30/2001 6:08:53 PM
From: carranza2	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 281500

Mq, the notion that a culture or a country is not ready for democracy is not racist nonsense. It is simply a recognition that a certain level of development and freedom is necessary before democracy can succeed. Some of the examples you cite are hardly paragons of democratic virtues. Singapore and many countries in South America can hardly be held up as shining democratic examples--I certainly don't want to be caned in Singapore for spitting on the street no matter how democratic its government. My point is that freedom does not necessarily require Western-style democracy in order to thrive. Franco's Spain at the end of the '60s and '70s was a free society for all intents and purposes, but no one would call it a true representative democracy. There are lots of other examples. No racism here.