[spectre] U.S. vs. Them

[Joseph Gray]

The problems between the middle-east and the west have been going on for
much longer than 40 years, and these conflicts are not just cultural, but
also economic, political and religious.  True that there was a period in
the mid-20th century where Iran, Iraq (whose borders were defined by
British colonialism in the first place) etc. had a certain amount of
"freedom", and tolerance within their own borders.  Even today there are
traces of that.

Obviously the western interest in the middle-east is strongly tied to oil,
a dependency that was carefully constructed by big business in both the US
and the Saudi spheres at the beginning of the 20th century, there are
strong ties between the Bush family and the House of Saud (amongst
others).  The current conflict in Iraq is also carefully constructed, war
is very profitable, esp. when the instigators of the war (Bush and
cronies) are making a mint in contractor budgets (V.P. Cheney's Haliburton
is only one of many).

Yes, there are cultural conflicts in other geographies (the US and EU
being easy for us to see, but East Asia is not without it's fair share).
However, perhaps what we are seeing is really a conflict of
fundamentalism.  The only ones really willing to kill over these ideals.
What's funny is that the US Christian right is almost identical in belief
systems to the Muslim right, the main difference being one believes
Mohammed was a prophet.

The leaders of both movements constantly feed their fearful followers with
untruths about the opposite side.  It just makes one wonder what would
happen if a bunch of "american devil infidels" kids and a bunch of
"jihadist camel-jockies" kids were sent to the same summer camp every year
what would happen?  (things of this sort have occured in the past between
Palestine and Israel, with the unfortunate result of those involved
becoming alienated from their own cultures due to their now broader
world-view).

  The movement must start with what us art-types have available,
Indy-Media *is* and excellent network to start with, but will be limited
in reach due to it's fairly punk nature.  The goal being to make it
obvious that if we all just decide to get along we will actually get
along.

What would be nice is if the governments themselves decided to start
creating these sorts of awareness campaigns.  Sadly, it's very difficult
to be a dictator without a common enemy to ones people.











The writer Heiko Recktenwald writ:
• http://stopthemadrassa.wordpress.com/
•
• is so extremly typical. The same sound in Cologne.
•
• We have to learn much more than the Arabs.
•
•>
•>
•> http://www.nytimes.com/2007/08/11/nyregion/11school.html?ref=nyregion ,
•>
•> http://nyc.indymedia.org/en/2007/08/89207.html
•>
•
• ______________________________________________
• SPECTRE list for media culture in Deep Europe
• Info, archive and help:
• http://coredump.buug.de/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/spectre
•
•