(no subject)
Oct. 1st, 2010 10:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
camrogersThis piece forwarded from Belegdel.
From Baghdad, where if you hear the bombs you know you’re safe [at Crikey]
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/30/letter-from-baghdad-where-if-you-hear-the-bombs-you-know-youre-safe/
“This is nothing,” he says. “Five years ago when I worked here last, we got death threats every day. Eventually my car got hit by a rocket through the engine.” Jesus, how did you cope? “Oh, a wee touch of the post-traumatic stress disorder.” Silence. “My wife left me.” Silence. “We’d been married 30 years.” “Still,” he brightens, “it’s all better here now. So what do you need?”
And yet Iraq is recovering better than anywhere else, apparently, because they can remember infrastructure. Afghanistan, however, from what I understand, is like building sandcastles at low tide.
From Baghdad, where if you hear the bombs you know you’re safe [at Crikey]
http://www.crikey.com.au/2010/09/30/letter-from-baghdad-where-if-you-hear-the-bombs-you-know-youre-safe/
“This is nothing,” he says. “Five years ago when I worked here last, we got death threats every day. Eventually my car got hit by a rocket through the engine.” Jesus, how did you cope? “Oh, a wee touch of the post-traumatic stress disorder.” Silence. “My wife left me.” Silence. “We’d been married 30 years.” “Still,” he brightens, “it’s all better here now. So what do you need?”
And yet Iraq is recovering better than anywhere else, apparently, because they can remember infrastructure. Afghanistan, however, from what I understand, is like building sandcastles at low tide.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 12:29 am (UTC)Afghanistan hasn't really had much in the way of a strong, central Government since the '70s has it? And it has all the ethinic/tribal divisions that have risen up in that time.
Iraq had good, working infrastructure and a strong (if bastardly) central Government until the Americans decided they didn't like it because of its role in 9/11, and a secular government which helped repress the tribal/ethnic tensions.
Kharzi was on the radio the other day giving a speech to some sort of jurga and he broke down in tears because he knew there was nothing he could do, no legacy he could leave, that would make his nation stable enough for the next generation.
It was quite moving, and quite possibly the only time I've been able to relate to him.
(Aslo, your HTML is broken. lj-user I think.)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 02:50 am (UTC)Assuming the constantly reported "tribal tensions" are not a media confection (my faith in media is at an all time low after the election), and given the apparent cultural propensity for direct and violent expressions of independence (which ironically the Americans fail to identify with) it's hard to see how anything other than generations under a stable militant government can change the situation.
Assuming it needs to be changed.
I often wonder if some "countries" wouldn't work better as a union of micro-states. Then I remember that my understanding of cultural obligations and social mores is faulty, at best.
Some days I really don't feel human.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 02:57 am (UTC)To the best of my knowledge, none at all.
But that doesn't matter.
I would assume they are real, or at least short-hand for a complex web of gun-backed interactions which have no direct parallel in western politics.
I've never read anything to suggest its a fabrication, and my understanding of the less reported Somali politics would suggest the same.
Yes, and no. Social engineering is easy. Hell, Brismark dragged together a lose confederation of states into a unified Germany in a few decades, and took it to war. Not too long after the same people who had been warring states for generations on and off marched across Europe under Hitler, were split, and for the past 20 years have been one Germany (mostly).
Most days I don't understand how we crawled out of the muck.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 04:01 am (UTC)That's kind of what I've begun to suspect is the real meaning of "tribal" in this sense.
But then there is a perceptible drift in the meaning of "tribal" to a more general term anyway.
Social engineering is easy.
It is? Stupid humans.
Hell, Brismark dragged together...
Well I learned something there - clearly time to brush up on my Germanic history. Also a terribly salient point that severly undermines my theory :)
we crawled out of the muck
I didn't ;)
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 09:54 am (UTC)Europe may be different, given the western power structures and the inter-marrying of the royal families, which did not stop them fighting wars.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 03:14 am (UTC)RE tribal tensions - according to the guy I'm having dinner with next week, the problem with Afghanistan is they can't remember infrastructure or national cohesion, which makes efforts to reintroduce it after x-many generations practically futile. So if that is an accurate summation of the state of the nation, to me it sounds like the perfect environment for the formation of a tribal mentality.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 04:09 am (UTC)Or remember NOT being run rough-shod over by somebody-or-other.
When the whole mess started I did a bit of reading up on the history. I don't remember the details but it seems to have been the world's chew-toy for some considerable time.
formation of a tribal mentality
I tend to think of it more as a devolution to tribal mentality.
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 01:24 am (UTC)And, since you were the one to let me know about it, in case you haven't heard:
http://www.xmarks.com/about/shutdown
no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 01:29 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-10-01 01:31 am (UTC)And there are alternatives. I'm going to give Firefox Synch a bash, which looks like it will be an integrated feature in the next major version.