Dear Professor Friedman,
I hope I did not sound condescending in pointing out the (what I thought
were) mistaken historical perspectives concerning "Islamic nations", Israel
& Christ. I just had to set that record straight in case James was
writing it, or others were reading it, as literal.
I agree with you that "their fights with each other and various
combinations of others have been going on for over three thousand
years". My response is: "What's new?" Can we point to ANY area of the
globe where neighbouring peoples have NOT been at war for some (usually
numerous & recurring) stages/periods of their history? The Middle East
seems different to me only in the fact that they have written records that
stretch back some thousands of years to prove this. I believe the notion
of the "noble savage" has *some* credence (as compared to the "ignoble
modern consumerist"). But I do not doubt for one minute that there
were/are serious and recurring scraps between tribal peoples, limited in
their scale only by a lack of organisation and/or technology.
And why do people fight (as opposed to negotiate/mediate)? They fight
when there is a breakdown of legitimacy. Anyone can be greedy, or cruel,
or negligent in their duty, or any other number of sins. If there is a
breakdown in legitimacy in being able to punish these sins however (or
ascertain whether it is, in fact, a sin) then it is the last man standing
who will write the history of the conflict. "Treason doth never
prosper. And the reason? If it doth proper, none dare call it treason."
My point about annual general elections is that elections ritualise
conflict so that it is no longer a case of "who has the biggest
....". Instead it is the will of The People. And I believe The People
are far less likely to go to war when they have elections to vent their
anger/concern/support. Campaign, rally, publicise, defame, protest, etc
etc against the "other side" .... yes most certainly. But war? No.
War is futile, and we all know that deep, deep down inside. It is simply
more self evidently so when you have free, fair & frequent elections.
The annual bit makes it more firmly culturally embedded.
Regards,
David Tehr
Perth, Western Australia
At 13:36 14/09/01, Ken Friedman wrote:
>Dear Prof. Tehr,
>
>You asked a question in your recent post regarding how this statement
>could be so:
>
>At 06:23 13/09/01, James Dobbins, Ph.D. wrote:
>>Why would anyone do this?
>>The Islamic nations have been at war with Israel since before the time of
>>Christ.
>
>Perhaps what Dr. Dobbins meant was that the nations that are now Islamic
>have been at war with the people who are held to be the ancestors of Israel.
>
>Much of the area of what has at some times been called Palestine was at
>other, earlier times known as Philistia. Some of the Philisitine cities
>were founded at the time of Abraham. Joshua launched campaigns again the
>Philisitines at some time between ca. 1,230 BC and ca. 1,400 BC, and the
>Philistines fought with Samson, Saul, and David.
>
>Then, there were great hydraulic empires of Assyria, Babylonia,
>Mesapotamia, and the rest, Egypt, and so on.
>
>Without getting into questions of who was right or wrong, excavations
>demonstrate that these nations and peoples did exist, and research
>suggests their fights with each other and various combinations of others
>have been going on for over three thousand years.
>
>The explicit relationship of any of these people to the modern day peoples
>who live in the same lands is less clear.
>
>Best regards,
>
>--
>
>
>Ken Friedman, Ph.D.
>Associate Professor of Leadership and Strategic Design
>Department of Technology and Knowledge Management
>Norwegian School of Management
>
>Visiting Professor
>Advanced Research Institute
>School of Art and Design
>Staffordshire University
>
>Home office
>
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