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Politics : Idea Of The Day -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: IQBAL LATIF who wrote (45650)	3/4/2004 3:31:02 AM
From: IQBAL LATIF	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 50167

Emotion taken to new heights. <<CHICAGO, Illinois (Reuters) -- A woman died of an apparent heart attack Wednesday while watching the climactic crucifixion scene in "The Passion of the Christ" at a morning showing in Wichita, Kansas, a television station reported. >> I haven't seen the Passion, I haven't even made time for LOTR 3, but I'm heartened by the fact that it has generated so much interest and passion, though it msut be extremely intense to induce heart attacks . When one is rootless, whether spiritually or physically, the identity matrix is considerably weakened and traditional loyalties and symbols of continuity such as religion, nation and family will correspondingly weaken making way for a stress on extreme individuality and a focus on the immediate present rather the deep past or the uncertain future. I can see why America is a great power in that it's people still maintain the third world values that is lost in Europe. Americans are a passionate people, intense if not devout and have an optimism about their place in the world that no other nation has. The Passion of the Christ resonates most deeply in young America, with it's numerous evangelical denomination, as opposed to decadent Europe, where established churches cater to the spiritual whims of declining and greying congregations. What I'm surprised to find in other spheres of Western civilisation, particularly in Europe, is the dramatic decline in the old world values of church, history and family. The continuity of culture is in doubt because of the present mould in which the immediate now only matters. Perhaps the pendulum swings too far in the East where religion is given too much primacy in daily life but regardless Europe's decline is in no small part because of general apathy. It is as though the spirit of the European people, which had animated them so for millennia inspiring their magnificent conquests and expansion, had died. The virility of the continent must be stirred and it is critical it is done now before it is too late. I was reading Modern History, I can't remember it's author otherwise I would have heartily recommended it, but it describes how the German nationalistic movement took it's inspiration from the Volk. They elucidated a concept whereby organic nationalism could only be cultivated thorugh a innate relationship between the land and the people. Consequently an intense idealisation of the rural way of life (the people, Volk) was followed with a disarming hatred of urbanisation and as the German philosophers saw it "proletisation". This fed and cross-fertilised anti-Semitism, in that the urban Jew was protrayed as the alien curse of the Germanic people. Now I vehemently disagree with the attacks on the urban mode of life and the virulent anti-Semitism. Cities have been a boon to civilisation in that it harnesses the productive potential of dense populations to aggregate and distribute wealth on a relatively uniform scale whereas minority scapegoating is an inhumane practise. However what I do decry is the disarmingly lack of attention and government focus to the decline of rural regions as sustainable entities, because I am in concordance with the 19th century German philosophers that the spirit of an Old World nation can only be derived and stimulated from its rural customs and mannerisms. When the entire population is aggregated into city hives and then to simulate rural life begins to build flat artifical suburbs I find it an instance where the invisible hand truly does need guiding. Urban complexes are young, exciting, fast paced and multi-cultural whereas the rural habitats will be mult-generational, stable, continuous and homogeneous therefore in a nation it is always critical to juggle these two differing elements in society. However Europeans, after centuries of imperialism, need to be once again enervated with the aggression that characterises other civilisations. I don't mean it in the sense that the nations must once again go to war but there must be the willingness on the part of the European states to have the virility, like America, to preserve it's moral compass and act on it. It is arguable that a nation's actions, even if it believes to be acting in the best interest of the family of nations, are borne out of its own parochial culture and idiosyncratic beliefs. However it is vital to have the national mythos that acting on moral sentiments and self-belief in the conduct of the nation will benefit humanity. Arguably we'd have a much more chaotic world, but perhaps a more moral and healthier one, for it would radically redefine acceptable state actions and prevent catastrophes like the Holocaust or the Rwandan genocide. To my konwledge, which I must shamefully admist is quite limited in the matter, the Rwandan genocide continued unimpeded and uninterrupted because of the issue of national sovereignty (after all it an intra-national dispute). Nevertheless would the world not have been a better place if the Americans or even neighbouring African nations intervened from the beginning to prevent the wholesale slaughter of the Tutsi community? This is why I continue to support Bush, America's actions in Iraq and I consider the entire issue of WMD possession to be quite irrelevant. America is willing to standup for what it believes in and that constitutes as a dynamic nation. Sometimes it is better to fight injustice rather than let it prevail and aid it through apathy. Case in point is Sub-saharan Africa, where I remain convinced that the best solution would be for the EU and the European states to be awarded a mandate to administer the continent. It would energise Europe and rebuild Africa, which is two of the greatest crises afflicting our global order. Zachary Latif 19:03