Archive for September 2011
One of the most interesting features of the European involvement in the Middle – East conflict, is the completely awareness, emphatic treatment and high identification with the Palestinian side (as well as with all Arabs). This is in contrast to the hostility against Israel, complete ignorance and indifference to the suffering of our people and the total support of the European public and media to the Arab side, in any violent explosion, no matter who is responsible for it. The struggle in Gaza is a clear example to show it: More than 7 years are our man, women, children and babies, in the south, living in an endless misery of rockets, alarms, destroyed houses, closed school and businesses, but the European media and public, are completely indifferent. The media channels are not interested and when there is an event of especially heavy shelling on a town, the European reporters are not coming to the area because “they have no transport”… Never was used in Europe the concept ‘war crimes’ to describe the systematic shelling of civilians, even not the suicide murderers which killed so many civilians. However, when Israel is trying to stop those criminal activities, than the Europeans are awake, demonstrating in the streets and screaming about ‘civilian victims’, ‘war crimes’, ‘disproportion’ etc.
All those facts are known quiet well, but why? What is the rational behind all this? What is the ‘history’ of that behavior, is it only implemented to the Middle East conflict, or is it just the mentality and a natural feature of the Europeans along their history? It is quiet clear that the treatment which Europeans gave to other nations, such as Africans, Indians and others, was terrible enough. Terrible was also the treatment which they gave each other, but the most terrible treatment was exclusively given to the Jewish people. All this existed parallel to the enormous achievements of European civilization in every possible subject: culture, technology, human rights, juridical system, democracy, and actually we are part of the European culture and democratic system. So what is the reason for that duality, for that deep gap between the negative and the positive behavior of the Europeans? why do they prefer ‘real-politic’ over ‘moral politic’? It is important to discus those questions in details.
It would be trivial to say, that the mentioned duality started long time ago, in the Greek and Roman times. Everybody know that beside their achievements in so many fields, there were in both system features like corruption, brutality – especially against slaves and nations in their provinces, arrogance and double standards – a good starting point for the European dualism. But the real push to that duality, was given by the introduction of Christianity. The Christian ideology is based on compassion, non-violence, forgiveness, and the right for existence of every human being. But how such a beautiful ideology could co-exist with violence of the Crusaders, the violence against non-European nations, the violence between the different churches, the world wars and many other examples? The violence against Jewish people along the last 2000 years, is the ultimate and the most terrible example, starting with the concept of ‘God Murderers’, going to stories about ‘religious rituals’ in which blood of Christian children is used, or poisoning wells, going to just killings, and than to the ‘Protocols of Old Zion Leaders’, to the ‘Scientific’ Anti-Semitism down to the holocaust. So, such a gap, such a tension between ideology and practice, is the best formula for the development of human-type which is basically a hypocrite. But the hypocrisy has a twin brother: cowardice. Both features are resulted in clinging to comfort life on the account of basic human principles, selfishness, denial of truth (when the truth is not comfortable…), self deception, surrender to brutal forces and many other results. All those features played an important roll in the European history and the famous Swiss writer, Direnmat, summarized brilliantly those features in his play “The Visit of the Old lady”. Therefore it is important to review some events in the European history, in light of the mentioned features, especially the events around the world war 2, and Israeli-Arab conflict.
Having lived in Thailand for the last two years I have experienced their military coup of 2006 as well and their path back to democracy. The coup was bloodless and the only person I am aware of getting hurt was a taxi driver who rammed a tank park in the street because he was frustrated with it being in his way. The Thai people’s path back to democracy was well planned and quite structured by the military who was governing Thailand after the coup. Initially a new constitution was written that afforded more protection against governmental abuses. This constitution was accepted by the Thai people through a referendum vote. After accepting this constitution, the people then had a general election where the same ruling party (renamed as the PPP Party) that was ousted by the coups was voted back in. This party was voted back in for several reasons; one being the people living outside of Bangkok was enamored with the promises of money through governmental programs and tax cuts. The second reason was, as it turns out, there was vote buying, which we found this out in a recent conviction of the leading party’s leader of voting fraud.
The current Prime Minister Samak Sundaravej has made some huge political blunders both internally and internationally such as bringing Thailand close to fighting with Cambodia over the border line surrounding the Preah Vihear temple which was settled in 1962 by the World Court. The Thai People always felt cheated about this and PM Samak had “solved” the problem in a one day meeting with the Cambodian leader about six months ago. There has been a military build up on the border near this temple in the last few months…
So … between the conviction and some actions and decisions that are not particularly cared for by the general population many Thai People are not happy with the current Prime Minister. The opposition party is staging protests and has been for the past 3 or more months (as of early September 2008). Peaceful protesting is a healthy expression of democracy, when the government allows people to express themselves in the open. The protests became unhealthy last week. The protesters were met with a rival group of “anti”-protesters supporting the current government. The two groups clashed and resulted in a death and over 40 injured people. The clash led to a “state of emergency” declaration by the government causing concern for the situation throughout the world.
But to put things into perspective, Thailand is still a very peaceful place to live, for everyone. The clash of political groups was an isolated event and seems to be remaining just that. Thai people should be commended for not allowing the situation to get out of control and allowing the violence to escalate. The emergency declaration, however, is worrying people wishing to visit and therefore hurting the economic situation here by impacting tourism. So we are all waiting to the politicians to solve their conflicts so Thailand can return to “the Land of Smiles”.
Okay we all know that plagiarism, the utterly reprehensible act of using the thoughts of another, reaping the rewards of that use, and then, not even providing the source of the info, is an official bad thing. But, let us look at it from the point of view of the plagiarist.
Here are some of the advantages of a career as a plagiarist:
Energy savings – ‘copy and paste’ uses far fewer resources than does thinking your own way around any subject. Any fool can see that.
Time savings – quite obviously, time not spent doing your own research and your own thinking, can be spent in other, more worthwhile pursuits. Finding other people to steal from, for instance. Esteem of colleagues – what writer could help but admire a person who can meet the assignment deadlines with efficiency and dispatch while being abreast with the latest Page 3 doings. What could be hipper? Professional friends – the long-term plagiarist is guaranteed, (thanks to CopyScape), to make close acquaintanceship with any number of lawyers and other such bottom feeders. Perhaps even get to hang out with them at their clubs and stuff. Evolution – the plagiarist will, after all, be teaching his/her children that it is perfectly acceptable to misuse the property of another, especially if you can do it without having to go through pesky details such as permission. Surely the advantages to the body politic of that child’s adulthood, is self-evident. There are, of course, many other advantages, but mention of them would simply be an unnecessary exercise in dealing with the bright shining justifications of the plagiarist.
However, we feel our charity slipping when we consider the concept of honor and honorable behavior. We hold this truth that honor is the lubricant that allows for a civil society. We further hold that plagiarism is a dishonorable act.
Profiting yourself at the expense of others is, and has been, an anti-social act and is, in its essence, viewed as stealing. The fact that it is a thought that is being stolen (as opposed to an object) cannot be offered as an excuse. An object, after all, is no more, nor less, than an original thought. The same can be said for the recorded thought, whatever the form of the recording. It doesn’t matter if that recorded thought may have been lying around for years unread until the plagiarists came along. The fact of an original author must be acknowledged. Most certainly, if that recorded thought is used, recompense must be made.
Having heard the justifications of the plagiarist and weighed against our concepts of civil society, it is our judgment that all convicted plagiarists should be made to listen to the troubles of the original author.