From: Van oost Kenneth (kennethvanoost@belgacom.net)
Date: Sat 08 Feb 2003 - 20:29:27 GMT
----- Original Message -----
From: "Keith Henson" <hkhenson@rogers.com>
In addition to the original post of Keith,
" Students protest against insults towards the prophet Mohammed "
A hundred youngsters of the SIHA ( Institute for Trade and Commerce)
hit the streets of Antwerp yesterday. [ 5/2/2003]
Half were of the school itself. The youngsters, especially of foreign
origin, marched against a statement made by a teacher.
He had said, so tell the pupils, things that were insulting for the prophet
Mohammed. So would the teacher have told that the prophet was a
pedophile.
The pupils refused this morning [ 6/2/ 2003] to enter the school. The
major part of the other pupils ( about 600) entented their classes as
usual.
The head of the Municipal education Board has demended an
inquiry into the matter ( LVBa)
Translated out of Dutch by Kenneth Van Oost February 2003
Initial article Gentenaar 6/ 2/ 2003
Personal notes,
What strikes as irrational is the fact that the behavior of these
youngsters is getting explained in ways close to what memetics
stands for. The pupils chauvinistic point of view is often coupled
to ( alledged) religious values. We, the observers of this behavior
explain this in ways by which we implicate the fact that those
pupils can 't do it otherwise.
Their behavior refers to the ( religious) acknowledgement of
traditional values_ things that are inscribed, are inbedded in
the very soul of the kid...they are ' cultural ' !
The teachers words are getting, in most cases, entitled as
racistic, as humiliations, mortified, and right so, but you never
encounter arguments that explain this in equal memetic terms.
Being racistic is in equal terms a cultural behavior.
The very fact that we hold the exclusive right to ourselves_
that is we hold the view that those kids are fundamentalistic and
intolerant_ is connected to the view we have of the culture we
live in...tolerant/ open and solidair.
We hold this cultural chauvinistic view so high that we can 't
comprehend that others can be intolerant towards the ways we
live/ our culture and in the end towards ourselves.
But, a side effect of such an attitude, the one we have, towards
immigrants and others who look strange to us, is the same we
reproach the kids.
In our society it is misplaced to be racist in the first place_ all
kinds of laws, little rules and orders provide an legal bias to
punish those who are.
But such a point of view, is in equal tems dogmatic, intolerant,
fundamentalistic and totalitair.
Odorno said once, " we must be allowed to write poetry after
Auschwitz " . In the same token we must be allowed to be
racistic.
However, if this is so, than a scientific bias is needed to explain
why and how. Memetics can help !
The fact of the matter is that once we accept the culture of a
people, we end up to be accessories to whatever the extremes
are of that culture. In such a way tolerance falls short.
But not, if both sides of the argument fight their wars with the
' cultural weapons ' made avaible to them.....
Kenneth
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