Received: by alpheratz.cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk id CAA07908 (8.6.9/5.3[ref pg@gmsl.co.uk] for cpm.aca.mmu.ac.uk from fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk); Mon, 11 Feb 2002 02:21:13 GMT To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 18:15:13 -0800 From: "Ronan Dodds" <ronan_meme@lycos.com> Message-ID: <HKINBPPPENGHABAA@mailcity.com> X-Sent-Mail: off X-Expiredinmiddle: true X-Mailer: MailCity Service X-Priority: 3 Subject: Re: Why memeoids? X-Sender-Ip: 62.7.150.180 Organization: Lycos Mail (http://mail.lycos.com:80) Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Language: en Content-Length: 5710 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Sender: fmb-majordomo@mmu.ac.uk Precedence: bulk Reply-To: memetics@mmu.ac.uk
On Sun, 10 Feb 2002 21:06:21
Kenneth Van Oost wrote:
>
>----- Original Message -----
>From: Ronan Dodds <ronan_meme@lycos.com>
>> >Hi Scott, Keith,
>> >Yes, that sounds strange to me too, though !
>> >Especially now that Turkey is trying to solve many interior problems in
>> >order to get a membership of the Euopean Economical Union.
>> >Their warts about religion, torture, imprisonment, Kurds, etc must be
>> >dealed with.
>> >One step in that direction is that Turkey allowed NATO warplanes use
>> >their fields to fight Irak. In the war on terrorism too, I think.
>
>> Hold on a minute - allowing NATO to use their country is a HUGE wart! The
>West has a history of covering up and colluding in Turkey's human rights
>abuses. NATO have a history of totally disregarding human right altogether!
>
>Hello Ronan, let me be the first to say you are quite welcome!
Hi, cheers for the welcome.
>Oh wee! I see you point, though !
>>From the Western ( Nato) perspective a logic assumption to make I
>suppose. Turkey, by allowing the planes to use their ground showed it-
>self ' worthty ' to join, lets say a few international institutions.
>
>>From the outside looking in, yes, allowing the planes in is a huge wart,
>and some more islamitic countries condenmded the whole thing.
>But you have to remerber that Turkey lies upon a political/ religious/
>ideological/ cultural/... fracture.
>Squeezed between Europe and Asia, IMO the government has chosen
>for the less painful solution.
I'm unsure of what you mean by this (I've not read the whole thread, and I'm not up-to-date on Turkey). What 'solutions' are there to choose between? If you mean helping NATO was less painful, I'm sure you're right in some regards (as NATO would quite happily create unrest, stage a coup or ultimately bomb any country which doesn't fall into line with it's own values). Which 'solution' are we talking about?
>Turkey needs in a way the European Economical Unity to stay out of
>the control hemisphere of the East.
I'm not sure what this means either. Do you mean the control of the Islamic world? Or the East economically?
>The West did indeed cover up the human rights abuses in order to get
>the support they wanted. But now that out of the way, voices are heard
>throughout the community that if Turkey wants to join in on the benefits
>of one European Market the problem of the abuse must be settled.
'Out of the way' in what sense? The media over here still covers up these abuses. Very little is ever reported about the plight of the Kurds and about the regular invasions of Iraqi Kurdistan by Turkey in order to commit genocide upon Kurdish people. Turkey is still a good customer for Western arms companies, which at the end of the day are turned upon the Kurdish people. I would be very suspicious if the EU decided that Turkey was 'clean' with regards to human rights, especially considering the way in which Western bodies such as the EU consider themselves to be defenders of human rights. I'm not sure where you're from, but in my country at least (UK), Kurds fleeing places like Turkey are treated like criminals and deported. There are people being deported to Iraq regularly, because it is a 'safe country', despite the fact that they're our official enemy, supposedly for their human rights abuses. I suppose that, should turkey get EU membership, there would be the advant
age for Turkish Kurds that they could move to other European countries freely (or would this not be part of the bargain?). Anyway i suppose the point I'm making is that, at the end of the day, the EU themselves could do more to solve HR abuse by taking action themselves, rather than using cash as an incentive for a bunch of genocidal lunatics to change their ways. However, it wouldn't be profitable for them, so they don't take action.
>It is however to my understanding, that such solutions are hard to come
>by, because the ' why's ' of the Turkey 's behaviors are related to their
>being, history and culture. In a way, to resolve some, they must change
>their constitution all together. And to that fact, some fractions
> military,
>religious leaders,...) are not eager to lay down their weapons.
A simple course of action which would go some way towards solving the problem would be place an arms embargo on Turkey, and to allow free flow of refugees from Turkey to enter our countries. It is telling that we allow goods from all over the world to pass through our borders freely, yet we won't extend this privelige (right?) to human beings. Just to get back onto memetics, a theme I've been developing recently is how private property defends itself and extends its influence. Certain ideas (or memes) reinforce property rights, while private property (wealth) determines to a large extent which memes people are exposed to. I'd be interested in any comments on this idea (this is putting it very simply, so i may start another thread on this idea, although I think Marx got there first).
>
>And in regard to Nato, I agree totally. Nato just defends what is their
>' right ' ( so it thinks) and interests, whatever they may be.
>And when it should have moved where it was really necessary, they
>went in, unarmed ! Jeeezes !
Again, I think this could relate to the point I'm developing about property supporting memes supporting property and so on.
>Enjoy the list,
Thanks very much, I'm enjoying it already. Sorry If the post is a bit long, human rights abuse is one of my pet hates, so its got me going :)
Take care
Ronan
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