In a famous interview, Zhou-En Lai was asked ” What do you think were the consequences of the French Revolution?”.Zhou’s response,in classic Chinese, was “it is too early to tell”.
I bring this up to illustrate the way Asians and most Eastern people measure time and how it differs from Western concepts of time.If anything lacks immediacy and urgency, Western people think of it as inconsequential.The glacial pace at which history moves is more suited to interpretation on the time scale in Eastern terms.
In this context, whatever Mr.Bush and his minions may think,historic forces have been unleashed by their Iraq misadventure that, like a tsunami,will gather force over the next half a century or more.The results,it goes without saying, are not going to be to our liking.
While the revolution in Latin America has been achieved largely without bloodshed and US hegemony ,for all practical purposes, is dead, I would not be so sanguine about the Middle East or Asia at large.
what revolution is dead?
Sorry, I did not mean the revolution in Latin America is dead.I meant US hegemony in Latin America is dead.
Good idea. Rare instance for me of wishing a diary were a little longer.
Sorry, I wanted to expand on my thoughts but, my grandson and granddaughter in their spring break,have other plans for my time.Will get back to this when they let me.
Let me echo what Arminius said. Lots of food for thought in this diary’s ideas… 🙂
I came to post this after asking myself the question why a country like Vietnam fought a powerful colonial master, France, for many years with primitive weapons, and after Dien Bien Phu, took on an even more powerful Western adversary like the United States,prevailing over the US at the end of another protracted guerilla war? The explanations offered by the mainstream US press were so woefully inadequate,falling into the usual mindset of Communist support, subversion etc., I needed to look into the character of the Vietnamese people themselves and why it is that they felt compelled to carry on fighting against a formidale adversary.The answer for me was very straightforward.The Vietnamese people were never going to give up their fight, which, in the end, was for national liberation.When it is couchde in those simple terms,it is possible to see plainly that the odds were stacked against the US in the long run.In all such cases, the US falls back on its age old ruse of denying nationalist aspirations for other peoples of the world,arrogating to itself the sole ownership of such aspirations under the rubric of “vital interests”.
In all the writings I have encountered on the Vietnam War, it is hard to find one reference that states plainly that the US committed aggression against the people of Vietnam. That tells the whole story to me.
As to why the people of Vietnam would endure such enormous suffering and losses,the perspective that I posted, that Asians such as the Vietnamese, have a long term persepective that is lacking in our own mental makeup.This long term perspective is shaped, as one responder said, by family ties that views societal expectations ahead of personal aspirations.Continuity of family ties, societal traditions and national pride takes precedence over individual aspirations.While this would be condemned as communism in our own society, the Buddhist tradition sees the elimination of one’s own ego as a result to be sought and worked for.
This clash of viewpoints and the blindness of US policymakers who cannot see anything except in an us versus them prism, with the “them” always relegated to the backseat,one can see why every policy decision of the US with regard to Asia has hit the proverbial reef and run aground.In the economic sphere,that mindset has resulted in the desperate straits in which American carmakers find themselves today.It will continue in Latin America, Middle East and elsewhere.
I know that there are many people,especially among Liberal Democrats,who share my views, but we are, unfortunately people lacking any power or voice today.Only a complete dissolution of the arrogance a la Bush,Cheney,Rumsfeld, will set the matter right.
The arrogance, reinforced by their ignorance,both historical and situational,has done them in time and again.Expect more of the same.
had puzzled over all this, read all the treatises and theories and analyses, and asked a VietNamese official why they were so willing to make such sacrifices, and withstand so much suffering at the hands of such a powerful military force as the US, and not give up, and the official replied, “Because it is our country.”
That one sentence “Because this is our country” says it all. This is exactly what our policymakers want to deny other people. That no one’s nationalistic pride has any validity.This arrogant dismissal of other people’s sense of self and historic beliefs is now in full bloom in Iraq and all the writings in the NYT and WaPo that ignore Iraqis sense of nationalism and cater to the preset beliefs of the Bush administration will also founder in due time.
Like they say, time wounds all heels.
Another aspect of our arrogance toward the “less fortunate” peoples of the world occurred to me.When people like Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld unleash their lethal forces on others, their “shock and awe” strategy gives them an imediate rush,making them believe that soemhow they have attained the power to make time stand still and the future will be more of the same.People like the Vietnamese know that time and entropy have a way of casting aside the best laid plans of men and mice.Therein may lie the difference.
amusement is that wide disconnect on this subject, between the established world and a “nation” that declares a building that is 100 years old to be an antiquity, and puts a plaque upon it. 😉
What is not so amusing are the consequences you refer to, events set in motion almost a century ago, and continuing to the present day, a small snippet of time in the making, those consequences will be around much longer.
It is, of course, not realistic to suppose that this will be of concern to people who do not expect to live more than a few more decades, in a culture where family, the continuity of generations is not viewed as a priority, especially when compared to the hefty profits to be made in the next few years.