Please understand that I meant no disrespect to Gandhi by my statements. I believe he was a very noble and well-intentioned person and there's no doubt that his actions hastened the British departure from India.
My point was that the Brits would have left anyway, perhaps later rather than sooner. They left their other colonies, as did the French, Spaniards and the Dutch. The age of colonialism was over and almost everybody got their freedom without a Gandhi. In fact, some countries like Algeria paid a heavy price.
Perhaps it was the example that Gandhi made that eased the transition away from colonialism elsewhere too?
As to Algeria;
source :
Algerian War - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Algerian_War said:
An important decolonization war, it was a complex conflict characterized by guerrilla warfare, maquis fighting, terrorism against civilians, the use of torture on both sides, and counter-terrorism operations by the French Army.
So not really a surprise that western media was not able to help free the Algerians. Good for them that they did it by themselves. An example of winning in the end. Please don't say "that's how we Palestinians will win too". I remain of the opinion you will not be allowed to create the weapons tech you need for that.
Again, my point is that, if the Western media had focused on the violent aspects of the black resistance -- and there were violent members -- and portrayed them as a bunch of savages then the sympathy card would have played out differently. If, for whatever reason, the European whites had decided that they wanted to maintain a white power structure in South Africa, the media narrative would have been different and global pressure would not have been applied.
Now you're saying western media is corrupt to the point of picking on orders from some hidden transnational leadership, which side in any conflict must be portrayed as having the moral highground (and with that the moral right to be victorious in a conflict). That is not the case, certainly not in the case of AlJazeera (which is allowed to operate a 24/7 English channel), CNN-US or CNN-International (which are quite evenhanded in their recent-days reporting of the current Gaza conflict I'd say), or many of the other international TV stations.
The calls for a cease-fire are manyfold on western media right now. Israelis are quoted as giving only 30% support for a ground invasion of Gaza by Israeli forces btw. The Israelis are really and publicly catching on to the fact that they can not create too many civilian causalties. The 2008 Gaza war taught them that in the end after all it seems.
Let's hope the Israelis (can) stay on that track, that Hamas or some other Jihadist group doesn't add fuel of violence to this fire that is Gaza these days, based on "encouragement" from Muslim leaders elsewhere who still claim that futile violence is useful and can get the job done.
But to get back to your argument of the western mass media now being jew-controlled, that is only true to a certain extent. On Fox News USA you might (I don't watch that channel) get Israeli supporters who are truely unreasonable and too hawkish. But most of the western mass media is AGAINST innocent Palestinian lives lost, and are putting considerable pressure RIGHT NOW on the Israeli leadership and people NOT to use state-terror on the Palestinians like they did previously.
And then there's my added argument, that the democratically-built laptops, cameras, phones, twitter, facebook, youtube, forums like this, and demonstrations where organisations like Hamas keep a lid on rioters instead of being the rioters, can be used BY MUSLIMS (preferably in English; learn English, muslim kids, not how to make bombs) to further release the western media from "the grip" of those "evil" jews in the media industry, banking industry, and government bureaucracies.
You have been given all this tech (and a lot of medicine-tech as well) as good as for free by the western nations you so distrust and hate. Yet you use it to cling to terrorism as the way to free yourselves from oppression. The problem is, we westerners seriously fear Muslims would be dominating western cultures (as revenge and to do to westerners what they had done to you for, what, a little over a hundred years), if we allow you to win by terrorism.
Play smart. Don't strike back. Take that line from our Bible, "turn the other cheek". Become the meek.
MLK was not the first. Doesn't the Bible say to turn the other cheek and the meek shall inherit the Earth?
The meek need the assertive
I'd love this to be a world in which I CAN be meek
Once again, the reason MLK achieved anything is because the white media projected the narrative that it was time for America to move forward. It was a tumultuous time for American society: summer of love, MLK, Vietnam war. All sorts of social issues were in the forefront and the timing was right to address social ills.
And it was western students and citizens who forced their own mass media to put pressure on the official western diplomats and government bureacracies to get more justice and real freedom injected into the world.
But as Obama recently said in Myanmar; (paraphrasing: ) large change in a nation's social fabric doesn't happen over night. It takes many years.
If the white media had decided to ignore MLK, he would have sunk into oblivion and nothing would have changed for African-Americans as it hadn't changed for decades previously.
Western media won't ignore anyone with a just cause. We westerners love not only our own freedom, we love yours too.
The taliban were created to get the Russians out of Afghanistan. At the time, the proxified "cold" war, it served our purpose. But we westerners did help get rid of the oppression by asymmetrical warfare that the russians were waging on the Afghan people. Then the taliban decide that America must die too, for what reasons I still don't fully understand (maybe a Muslim here can enlighten me on that point), and they do 9/11.
But I'd say the Americans have been a lot less harsh against the Afghan people than the Russians ever were. Obama decides to leave, and the Taliban are kicking him in their media statements as he leaves their home land.
Muslim Jihadists can learn a thing or two from Hollywood's movie about honor in warfare.
At least, I like western honor values a LOT better than Jihadists honor values.
It's far more insidious than that. For domestic matters where there the media is mostly neutral, your statement applies. However, when the media is dominated by people with a bias towards one side, then the reporting is very skewed.
That's usually when those people deserve scrutiny because of their moral choices. To win the support of western media, then western ordinary citizens, then the support of our governments and diplomats... your moral choices, what weapons and tools you pick for your struggle for freedom, determines how much support you get.
We westerners are bound by a strict honor code, which is advertised in all Hollywood movies that portray Americans in tough military times, and can these days be gotten for free on the internet (********.eu, ********.com).
Once again, you Musims would be so much better off if you'd study our culture better and learn the ways of western political and media dominance. And by political dominance I mean having something wiser, more efficient or nicer to say back, not "threaten effectively".
If you have been in a protest rally, then you know that every rally contains all sorts of people. You have mostly genuine protesters, but you also have random homeless, jobless people who tag along, you have college boys who are there just to show off to their date, and you have troublemakers who figure they can use the anonymity to 'indulge' themselves.
Have your Jihadists provide anti-rioter security at all mass demonstrations. Then have one mass demonstration every week, for at least 100 years. Your children will grow up without mutilations then.
Depending on the media's agenda, they can focus on the genuine protesters, or they can zero in on the troublemakers and make them the story instead.
Greek troublemakers earlier in the year were not demonized by western media, were they?
The austerity measures were pushed through yes, but the thing is; these protesters had a good relatively friendly brawl with the police anti-rioters, throwing a few small stones while running through teargas fields.. And then they DID NOT TRY TO KILL Merkel as she visited Greece to finalize demands from the EU countries who still had their finances reasonably well in order.
And you gotta admit, Greece and Spain and all the EU nations were warned to curtail spending for years and years and years before austerity measures were imposed by the rest of the EU and the IMF.
To put it bluntly, I do not share your optimism in the neutrality of Western media. As I stated, much of Western media has a very strong pro-Israeli bias.
I'll bite; which channels are so biased? I'll check 'm out and twitter 'm to frustration for you
I also gave you an example of what happens when Arabs follow non-violence. In East Jerusalem and the West Bank, Jewish encroachment continues unabated.
Westerners like me can not really start to help you Muslims until you stay away from terrorism completely and forever. After that, we can start putting the thumb screws on the Israelis if they don't give you considerable concessions in negotiations. Some of these settlements can have the jews in 'm evicted, and the homes GIVEN to the Palestinian people. Re-decorate as you please
But that is going to take years and years of patience, taking a bloody nose or a single loss of innocent lives (wrong people at the wrong place at the wrong time) regularly during those initial years when the new and better fruits grow to ripeness.
Cart before the horse.
Israel was created to assuage Western guilt over the Holocaust and past wrongs to Jews. While the motivation was noble, the execution left something to be desired, since the Europeans decided that the Palestinians, not they, should pay the price for this atonement for European sins.
Actually, they had their own Holy book that said it had to be that very specific piece of land.
If you want your Holy Book to be respected, you gotta respect the other Holy Books on this planet.
Yes, Muslim societies have a lot of ills that need to be corrected. No one is denying that, but I don't see how all that relates to this particular topic.
You used the same phrasing to call the Israeli religion a bunch of religious fanatics.
But the world has plenty of religious fanatics, none of whom I want to harm. That said, as sane secular or spiritual people, you're best off giving them some of what they want, but definately not all of what they want. That goes for the Taliban, but certainly also for the Jews and Christians.
Once again, Muslims, I'd like to extend an offer to help mobilize enough western idealogical support in getting your wishes granted by the Israelis and other western powers, if YOU Jihadists are willing to consider switching to, and enforcing amongst yourselves, non-violent resistance.
Please translate this entire thread onto Arabic and Persian and other Jihadist forums. I cannot do that myself, I've tried learning Persian but I have very little talent for other character sets besides the Latin character set
