THIS IS NOT what I like. I hate sounding crabby or even know-it-all but...
I do my homework. Listen to a lot of different voices and opinions and some things are just true at least to a concensus.
What I am saying is in no way directed at any one person or even group.
But it just seems to be FACT. Violence and internecine warfare has been going on for hundreds of years. LONG before the Taliban and Al Qaeda...and STILL it goes on. WITHOUT END, in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. In truth the entire Middle East has been engaged in holy wars for so long I wonder if ANY of them even remember why?
As long as civil society remains uncivil and committed to some moronic mission nobody long since cares about, the unscrupulous and the greedy and the bestial control freaks WILL come in and take advantage and control.
Human nature at its worst.
I do my homework. Listen to a lot of different voices and opinions and some things are just true at least to a concensus.
What I am saying is in no way directed at any one person or even group.
But it just seems to be FACT. Violence and internecine warfare has been going on for hundreds of years. LONG before the Taliban and Al Qaeda...and STILL it goes on. WITHOUT END, in Pakistan and in Afghanistan. In truth the entire Middle East has been engaged in holy wars for so long I wonder if ANY of them even remember why?
As long as civil society remains uncivil and committed to some moronic mission nobody long since cares about, the unscrupulous and the greedy and the bestial control freaks WILL come in and take advantage and control.
Human nature at its worst.
But I DO see as do others, a GLIMMER OF HOPE. Namely a new generation of young ambitious more secular Pakistanis and Afghans less tied to the old ways and seeking peace and freedom and SLOWLY and much too slowly for most, change is coming. I remember Mus telling me this 3 years ago, and he saw it as hopeful and I saw HIM as one of those bright young forward-thinking non-fearful towards the outside world new breed. In the article I posted by acto and activist Assad Khan, it talks about the strictures EVEN ON YOUNG MEN AND WOMEN congregating and talking, verboten by the Muslim Clerics.
I couldn't believe what I was reading. ALL this, ALL this 6th Century LUDICROUS repressive BULLSHIT foisted upon on societies who never asked for it but now seem to remain content to live under this crap, But, not so fast for the emerging generations. Mus also saw the best great hope for Afghanistan is to reach out and become part of the rest of the world, INSTEAD OF LURKING IN THE SHADOWS LIVING IN FEAR.
The Internet and Social Media is helping. Young Afghans and Pakistanis living and studying abroad and living in the West is also helping. As in China, it is becoming more and more difficult to maintain REPRESSION and OPPRESSION on an entire population of people who now have ready access to the outside world and no longer fear it.
The West is hardly perfect, but hardly the boogie men/women the Clerics want the people of the Middle East to believe...moreover, more are seeing many of these men for what they are, DEEPLY FLAWED MEN, just as we all are. Not Gods, and maybe most not even particularly holy. Religious yes, Men of faith NO. This is true in most religions. This does not mean people can't nor shouldn't have a relationship with their God. But it should be one based on TRUTH, and NOT some gamester control freak who gets his jollies out of manipulating people.
When you get down the basic tenet that GOD IS LOVE, it makes a lot of the other bullshit viewable for what it is. Man-made and frequently destructive.
SO maybe all is NOT lost, at least not yet. If these new young Afghans and Pakistanis can become motivated and organized, then MAYBE. THAT is just about the last best hope I see for an entire region of the world which has been self-destructing for way too long.
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