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Google Earth Raises Discrimination Issue In Japan
Hugh Pickens writes "The Times (UK) reports that by allowing old maps to be overlaid on satellite images of Tokyo, Osaka, and Kyoto, Google has unwittingly created a visual tool that has prolonged an ancient discrimination, says a lobbying group established to protect the human rights of three million burakumin, members of the sub-class condemned by the old feudal system in Japan to unclean jobs associated with death and dirt. 'We tend to think of maps as factual, like a satellite picture, but maps are never neutral, they always have a certain point of view,' says David Rumsey, a US map collector. Some Japanese companies actively screen out burakumin-linked job seekers, and some families hire private investigators to dig into the ancestry of fiances to make sure there is no burakumin taint. Because there is nothing physical to differentiate burakumin from other Japanese and because there are no clues in their names or accent, the only way of establishing whether or not they are burakumin is by tracing their family. By publishing the locations of burakumin ghettos with the modern street maps, the quest to trace ancestry is made easier, says Toru Matsuoka, an opposition MP and member of the Buraku Liberation League. Under pressure to diffuse criticism, Google has asked the owners of the woodblock print maps to remove the legend that identifies the ghetto with an old term, extremely offensive in modern usage, that translates loosely as 'scum town.' 'We had not acknowledged the seriousness of the map, but we do take this matter seriously,' says Yoshito Funabashi, a Google spokesman." The ancient Japanese caste system was made illegal 150 years ago, but silent discrimination remains. The issue is complicated by allegations of mob connections in the burakumin anti-discrimination organizations.
Most tools can be used for discrimatory purposes. Just because I buy a Ford at a used car dealership over an indistinguishable GM (because I like then better) doesn't mean the dealership should get blamed.
wasn't this covered weeks ago by wired/yahoo/msnbc?
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090502/ap_on_hi_te/as_japan_google_dark_secrets_2
Surely the problem is with the discrimination within the Japanese people and has nothing to do with Google.
There is no difference between a person from one linage to another other than maybe their name and genetic make up.
Just because their great great great grandfather might have killed people for a living doesn't mean that the person applying for a job now is strange in some way.
It is obviously an old custom which is not equal and fair into days society thus the problem is not with Google.
What Japan needs is some enlightment that can only come with a few episodes of Discovery Channel's Dirty Jobs. Watching Mike Rowe trying to shovel disgusting refuse from a leatherworking facility is not only entertaining, it teaches that those jobs are A) pretty difficult to learn and B) fundamentally necessary for civilization to continue!
If your solution to a problem is, "We need less truth" then you are probably trying to solve the wrong problem.
Every society has its pariahs. Japan has few immigrants, so they can't just look down to Mexicans, Turks or whatever pariah-immigrant group you might have in your country.
It seems to be part of human nature that we need someone to look down at, to make us feel better about ourselves. Akin to "well, I'm not that good, but HE is WAY worse off". I'm not saying that it should be that way, mind you, I hope we can eventually overcome this flaw and compare ourselves against those that achived more, not less, but I find it time and again in people.
We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
History is ugly. It's full of all the crappy things we did, and exists in part as a document to study so we can try and improve. "Those who don't study history are doomed to repeat it", but if the ugly parts are expunged, then we are erasing exactly what's needed to avoid recurrence.
Also, all oppression begins with "We must do this to protect the innocent". Whether the darkest part of the oppression comes a month later at the hands of the current controlling authority or a century later as a result of ignorance, it still exists and is the inevitable result of censorship.
So for 150 years, some families pass down their apartment in the ghetto generation after generation?
I am surprised that the "employee at a large, well-known Japanese company" was not asked *why* are they doing that. They consider it normal, alright. I know that, since I knew the problem existed even in 1980's. But I am much more interested why are Eta/Burakumin/Shinheimin/whoever treated this way by people who cannot possibly remember the Edo period.
Ezekiel 23:20
What the flying fuck does Google have to do with any of this? The problem is cultural, not technological. Get a fucking grip.
Is there anything physical to differentiate any Japanese from any other Japanese?
So, if a hammer is used to build a cross that the KKK burn on someone's front yard, the hammer is "enabling" racist pigs? I guess white sheets and fire enable racism too?
Please.
Google Maps is a map. If some racist/classist/hidebound Japanese use it for perpetuating reactionary stupid stereotypes, how is Google at fault?
SLOW NEWS DAY, +1
-Styopa
One of the main things a map communicates is the relationship that the landscape of our world has with human beings, as such it will always be, on some level, an observation or a statement about people almost more than landscape. When you think about it, the first human imposed addition to any map, borders and walls, are just demarcations of division. Once you have these on a map it doesnt take long for the mere annotation or position of these to be the catalyst for violent conflict (look at the India / Pakistan border commission in the 40s, a line on a map drawn by a man who had never been there resulting in the deaths of millions, or the status of israel in western maps versus palestine in middle eastern maps)
It really shouldnt be surprising that google earth has caused some controversy, they already label Taiwan as a province of the People's Republic of China, so they have already made political statements with the program
Yup...
At least now the bone-headed practice of this discrimination is known by the outside world, and the appropriate amount of scorn, ridicule, and disapproval can be heaped on the superstitious throw-back practitioners of the discrimination.
Companies and governments from elsewhere could check whether this practice is occurring, and blacklist Japanese companies that are shown to practice this human-rights violation.
Where are we going and why are we in a handbasket?
"Companies and governments from elsewhere could check whether this practice is occurring, and blacklist Japanese companies that are shown to practice this human-rights violation."
It would be much easier to do this if there was a Google map to show us who we should discriminate against.
discrimination: secernment (the cognitive process whereby two or more stimuli are distinguished)
Set your phasers on "funky"!
"[...]Google and Rumsey decided to white-out the areas while Berkeley decided not to alter any of our online maps. Google is a business enterprise and wants to avoid any trouble, I understand their position. We have not altered the original maps in either the main online collection or in the Google Maps collection - both of which are not hosted by Google but rather by David Rumsey. [...]" From http://www.maphistory.info/newslatest.html The google map version is not modified : http://rumsey.geogarage.com/index.html?lat=37.71859032558813&lon=138.2958984375&zoom=6
Are these maps not simply using KML? Anyone can put anything on any Google Earth / Google Maps map. It's one of the really cool aspects of it. What they do with the applications is as much Google's fault as it is Adobe's fault when someone photoshops their photo for a dating website.
Nobody want's to remember atrocities committed by our ancestors, but we must keep history in tact to remind us never to make the same mistakes. That old map is a part of history, and we must keep it available to anyone who wants to see it. No doubt, it will bring up old tensions between people, and people will be forced to talk openly about their feelings - but talking is good, and you can't undo decades of discrimination by pretending it never happened. Bring these issues out and the open, and talk about them. I hope Google keeps this map feature, and is able to provide historical context and sensitivity along with it.
it's the prejudices of these japanese people
It really shouldnt be surprising that google earth has caused some controversy, they already label Taiwan as a province of the People's Republic of China, so they have already made political statements with the program
From what I can tell as a nonuser, they removed the label back in Oct 2005, the same month that the complaints made the news. Unless they reinstated it later, but I don't see any news about that.
Knowledge is knowledge. How a bunch of inbred tribals use that knowledge isn't the responsibility of the people who discover and/or make it available.
The Japanese have a problem with discrimination, not Google, not the web, and not the United States. Let Japan solve the problem, don't make it a Google problem, a web problem, or a United States problem.
"Windows is like the faint smell of piss in a subway: it's there, and there's nothing you can do about it." - Charlie Br
What with all the white trash that inhabits them. I'm all for integration, but I stop short on trailer/white trash. Call me an anti-trailer trash bigot, but that's how I was learned, and I growed up on this way of thinking. They be in the trailer parks, and that's where they should stay, them and their children's children's children.
http://www.ogleearth.com/2005/10/taiwan_it_is_th.html
They changed it days later. Also, that Register writer clearly didn't know jack about Taiwan, given his tone.
In ancient Japan, anything to do with death, or other unclean jobs like leatherworkers, was taboo. People who did those things had to live in separate villages. Nowadays, people don't know where most of those ghettos were. Google published a series of scholarly maps that show where they are, now people can easily trace families back to these areas because Japanese family registration was fixed to ancestral address until recently.
It's like these areas are cursed to the Japanese, even if everyone's forgotten where they were, and any family originally from the area is tainted by that curse, no matter what that family has done since.
- None can love freedom heartily, but good men; the rest love not freedom, but license. -- John Milton
calls it sin. See Gospel of Luke, New Testament, chapter 18:9-4. One of the ways we avoid looking at our own sin is to focus on other people's sin.
You might note how just about every religion, most known the Hindu faith, but also islam, prescribe a caste based society. Judaism, Buddhism (search "despite this" to skip the excuses section, this is the bbc, after all), and the Japanese faiths by large also include slavery. But no religion is quite as pro-slavery as islam, especially contemporary islam.
Christianity started out as a religion amongst Roman slaves and was very opposed to the slave system from day one.
The Hindu caste system. This system exists and is operational in many parts of india.
The classes of non-muslims in islamic countries. In addition to that, there is the muslim slave trading system. Note that while the wikipedia page tries to minimize the muslims that accept slavery, however they include all sunni schools, representing over 90% of all muslims worldwide. Also, slavery is practiced today in Mecca, the center of the islamic world. Officially called slavery until 1970, today the name translates to something like involuntary contractees. Fortunately there is "some" (make of it what you want) popular opposition brewing in the muslim world to the exploitation of "involuntary workers", especially against exploitation of the sexual kind. It is, however, not outlawed, and it won't get outlawed any time soon (the gulf's economies depend on it. Especially Dubai's, but in reality all do, including Kuwait's)
There are lots of countries where muslims openly practice slavery (and call it slavery), including but not limited to : Chad, Mauritania, Niger, Mali and Sudan.
Involuntary service contracts, however exist everywhere in the gulf, Kuwait, Jordan and Syria.
Iran, despite it's horrible name and extremely objectionable nuke policy, is actually the most progressive (and tolerant) muslim country in existence, with the possible exception of the secular Turkey.
Given that Iran is just about the most open islamic country, their anti-Jews retoric must be interpreted not especially as a sign of the antisemitic nature of Iran itself, but rather how antisemitic and intolerant even a very progressive muslim country is.
Note that EVERY major religion EXCEPT Christianity actively encourages the subjugation or extermination of non-believers in one form or another. There generally are rules relating to master vs slaves relations, treatment of the captured (though they often include the right of the master to kill the servant), but all religions regulate slavery, and explicitly do not outlaw it, with the exception of Christianity. Christians are to convince non-Christians peacefully, through love and reasoning, yadda yadda you probably know the lines.
Note that, even with the exceptional theoretical difference in Christianity, all cultures, including Christianity (though modestly compared to other religions), engaged in slavery. The culture that outlawed slavery and castes, and eradicated it everywhere in the world, with the exception of a few muslim countries, as any American should know, the Christians that won the American civil war (against other Christians, who did support slavery ... nevertheless no other culture ever went to war over slaves).
Note that one of the consequences of the American civil war was the start of constant terrorist attacks on American ships by the muslims ("barbary pirates" is a name for ottoman muslims) that supplied the southerners' slaves. They lost their income, which basically ended the caliphate's access to the products of the American industrial machine. As a reaction to the attacks Thomas Jefferson bought himself a quran, read it, and proceeded to create the American Marine and bomb the shit out of Northern Africa, writing these words (th
If ever there were a case of treating a symptom, this is it. The problem is either in being burakumin or (more realistically) being discriminated against by being burakumin (I still don't quite get the issue). The problem is not the deterioration of the ability to hide thanks to developing technology. If that's the problem, the advancement of the human race is the problem and stagnation is about the only solution.
do you even know who she is? no? well, maybe you should stop trying to 'drop it' and learn something about history, you ignoramus.
your 'performance' , as far as analyzing the situation goes, is crappy.
Every society has its pariahs. Japan has few immigrants, so they can't just look down to Mexicans, Turks or whatever pariah-immigrant group you might have in your country.
The fact that it has so few immigrants should tell you something in itself.
In the US, the Mexicans are simply the latest in a long and noble line of foreigners that were/are looked down upon. It will be someone else's turn in a decade or two.
Europe is only now learning about immigration--unlike the US and Canada which were built on it--so they're new to the whole game of 'dirty foreigner' contaminating the pure bloods.
In the long term though, just given the relative populations, a person two hundred will probably end up being part-Chinese or part-Indian.
Lilly's case is concerning gender discrimination, not racial. And that discrimination is no better, I may add. The fact that such a gap in pay existed is another case of exactly what I'm saying is a bad idea, ie, taking something like that (race, gender, etc) into consideration and treating someone differently based on it. Lilly is not the one at fault here, the company is. Why exactly are you making an insulting post towards me about it?
Your entire post, and the fact you posted as an AC, makes you seem more like the "ignoramus" here.
10 FILL MUG WITH COFFEE
20 DRINK COFFEE
30 GOTO 10
As much as I don't agree with Iran's policy towards Israel, I must object to Iran being explicitly anti-Jewish.
Their gripe is with the state of Israel and not Jews. Calling a country that is home to the second-largest Jewish population in the Middle East (largest of course being Israel), and where Jews are explicitly protected by the consitution, as being anti-Jewish is prejudice at best.
Sorry, but no. The map can be neutral. It's the people with a point of view.
Thomas Jefferson was not alive during civil war; or after, though that may change someday.
It is probably another instance of the "guns don't kill people, people do" problem. In these terms, it is indeed Google's fault.
This is an example of a "technical fix" - trying to solve a problem technologically, when the essence of the problem is in humans (and it can only be fixed by influencing humans themselves).
The saddest poem
Humanitarian Aid to all countries. We are reducing the number
of extra vowels used by many English speaking countries in
their spelling, and are saving them up for an air drop over
Poland, a country which is in desperate need of vowels.
Who says America does not care?
Their racism and other -isms are "legal" and therefore are still practiced. A white man can never know what it is like to be black (though I have some idea because I am a white man and am ALWAYS presumed to be evil while women are always presumed to be good. Yes, I *am* making that comparison and I stand behind it). And Americans, who find it easy to just say "hey, they are stupid for being discriminatory" can't begin to appreciate how deep this culture runs. In "polite US society" we don't talk about how fat or ugly someone is. But in Japan, it is not uncommon for someone to make comments in the presence of the person about it. "What other people think or say about you" is always on the forefront of their minds, so much so that even in traffic people feel great shame for being in someone else's way for driving too slow or being in the wrong lane. The way the Japanese deal with one another is very, very different from the way we deal with one another in the U.S. Japan is a curiously and extremely cruel and judgemental. The results of being so cruel and judgemental is that most people work very hard to not be judged and I have got to say it works... people are less fat and a LOT less annoying. (In contrast, in the U.S. we are less cruel and judgemental and we have the opposite result... fat, messy, disgusting, smelly people... people who drive slow in the fast lane, people who don't go when the light turns green because they are still on their phones, people who stand side-by-side on escalators while other people would like to get by and just generally rude people.) There *IS* a social punishment for being rude in Japan. There is no punishment for being rude in the U.S.
I can see why the problem of discrimination of descendants of the ancient caste system in Japan would still matter. As an American, I can see why people (including myself) would feel it is pretty stupid. But it is definitely not resolved by say "get over yourselves!" Discrimination is quite literally a "cultural value" in Japan.
This is clearly impossible. Everyone knows that racism has been isolated to the ruling white class in the West.
$deity forbid someone with brown, yellow, or black skin could do such a thing. There's no historical precedent, I tell you! Surely this is the fault of Western society distorting their pure cultural values.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
I'm afraid I must disagree with what is a highly selective reading of history and theology.
Christianity was not "anti-slavery" from day one. In fact Paul explicitly condones the practice of slavery, telling a run-away slave (Onesimus) to go back to his master (Philemon). Now he does tell the master not to mistreat or abuse his slaves, but Paul is handed an opportunity on a platter to condemn slavery and he quite explicitly refuses to do so.
When abolition was being debated, it was generally the pro-slavery people who were seen as have the strict biblical view, and the anti-slavery people who were seen as representing a more liberal, progressive, interpretative version of Christianity. (Similar to gay marriage today?)
Historically it was Islam that was known for tolerance of non-believers, to the extent that many regions of the Byzantine Empire preferred to surrender to Muslim invaders who would largely tolerate whatever brand of Christianity they practiced rather than their Christian overloads who were endlessly persecuting minority sects because of differences over the interpretation of the Holy Trinity, and Arianism etc.
From the persecutors' perspective, is it not better to cut off one's hand than to allow it to sin? Why allow a heretical sect to potentially lead orthodox Christians into false beliefs and so condemn them to hell? On the Muslim side, the Quoran says "Let there be no compulsion in religion". They saw all Christian sects as being equally misguided but protected by Islamic law as people trying to worship the right god at least.
On the other hand there are many stories of Saladin in particular as being the model for the later medieval concept of knightly chivalry. And as far as antisemitism goes, the history of the Crusades does not particularly bolster your theory that Christianity is all about peaceful coexistence and respect for those with different religious views whereas Islam is all about killing people. Both sides committed what we would see as atrocities, but instances of mercy and kindness to the conquered are more plentiful on the Muslim side than the Christian.
I am neither Christian nor Muslim. From what I've seen and from what I've read no religion (or atheism, or metaphysical quasi-religions such as the Marxist dieletic) has a monopoly on good or evil. Certainly your view of Islam as being intrinsically evil and backwards might be tenable if you look at the last 300 years (when most of the Muslim world hasn't done much) but when you take a longer view the result is very different.
When 'Departures' won an Oscars this year.
Is a person less discriminated today if he does the same job vs. if his ancestors did?
Seriously, Japan needs a Title VII badly. The way they treat women and Burakkumin, and the way they discriminate on age, nationality, disability, and other characteristics, show that they haven't put the kind of thought into discrimination that America had been forced to over hundreds of years.
After quickly checking Wikipedia:
* First off its apparently 251,388,301 English speakers in the US not 300 million.
* Secondly, the rest of the English language speakers that Wikipedia lists, total over 321 million, and that of course doesn't include those people who have it as a second language outside of those countries that are listed, although it is including those who have English as a Second and Third language.
* I don't think its safe to assume that the majority of Engish speakers live in the US and thus use the malformed US spelling for words such as "colour". Its just a spelling reform pushed on US English speakers thats been adopted by some portion of the world's speakers. It is not superior or in any way more logical really.
That said I do expect that the web will be the tool that ends up encouraging the rest of the world to spell using the US spellings, simply because the US dominates the web and because it has such a forceful cultural presence world wide.
Up here in Canada we seem to use a mix of both systems of Spelling, although I bet most Canadians think they are using British Spelling and view that as correct. In fact at least with my own spelling I spell some things the British Way and others the American way. I consider the British spellings and the Oxford English Dictionary to be the final arbiters of all issues concerning spelling for me personally. I am aware of the inconsistencies for the most part, but spelling the word "airplane" as "aeroplane" just looks as wrong to me as spelling "colour" as "color" would, or "theatre" as "theater".
"The first time I got drunk, I got married. The second time I bought a chimpanzee, after that I stayed sober" Arian Seid
Note that EVERY major religion EXCEPT Christianity actively encourages the subjugation or extermination of non-believers in one form or another. There generally are rules relating to master vs slaves relations, treatment of the captured (though they often include the right of the master to kill the servant), but all religions regulate slavery, and explicitly do not outlaw it, with the exception of Christianity. Christians are to convince non-Christians peacefully, through love and reasoning, yadda yadda you probably know the lines.
A) Almost none of your post is on-topic w/regards to Japan
B) It's funny how you completely ignore when the Christians sent out marauding armies to take back Jeruselem and convert or kill (in that order) anyone who got in their way.
C) You also ignore that the Old Testament explicitly condones slavery and the New Testament never explicitly condemns the practice. Read older translations to see where "slave" has now been replaced with words like "servant"
In short: None of the major religious texts condemns slavery
If Japan wants to end the discrimination, they need to make it clearly illegal, and do the investigations to dig it up and expose it where it happens, with punishment for those doing it. Hiding it doesn't accomplish that as many other cultures that also have discrimination history have found out.
now we need to go OSS in diesel cars
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yakuza#Burakumin
Discrimination = Bad news. When honest people are forced out of honest jobs because of petty race or ancestry issues, they invariably turn either to immigration or the underworld.
Thing is, this might be creating an excuse for those carrying a prejudice against Burakumin; "Marry our daughter? Hell no. Er, no, of course it's not because you're Burakumin, we're progressive like that. It's just that your family might have Yakuza links! Yeah, that's it, honest."
I thought only white American men could do such things.
You are going so far off-topic it's not even funny. You're also spreading lies.
Let's take the examples of the crusades as "Christian agression". Let's see ... what were the crusades ?
The First Crusade was launched in 1095 by Pope Urban II with the primary goal of responding to the appeal from Byzantine Emperor Alexius I. The Emperor requested that western volunteers come to their aid and repel the Seljuk Turks from Anatolia, modern day Turkey. An additional goal soon became the principal objective - the Christian reconquest of the sacred city of Jerusalem and the Holy Land and the freeing of the Eastern Christians from Islamic rule. Both knights and peasants from many nations of Western Europe travelled over land and by sea t
So the crusades were a defensive action, by one brand of Christianity on behalf of another (which obviously is extremely contradictory with your claims about tolerance) ...
Labeling the crusades Christian agression is like labeling Poland's actions during the september campaign of 1939 as offensive.
Both the nazis, soviets and muslims, obviously label these acts as massively agressive, a position that has been gaining ground for some reason that defies logic.
I am neither Christian nor Muslim. From what I've seen and from what I've read no religion (or atheism, or metaphysical quasi-religions such as the Marxist dieletic) has a monopoly on good or evil. Certainly your view of Islam as being intrinsically evil and backwards might be tenable if you look at the last 300 years (when most of the Muslim world hasn't done much) but when you take a longer view the result is very different.
Religions are, first and foremost, DEFINITIONS of good (and evil). The disagreement is first and foremost about that.
Stoning of women, for example, is an obvious islamic good, and a christian evil. Slavery is an islamic good and a christian evil.
The fact that you invoke Paul's acquiescence to slavery as an American defending islamic slavery is beyond hypocritical. Paul was, in case you forgot, executed by a force that pushed slavery on the world, because he gave slaves the dangerous idea that they were the equals of their masters, even if any contract, even a slavery contract had to be respected.
You, on the other hand, do not have such a massive army pushing slavery breathing down your neck. And yet you do not even manage Paul's level of moral concern. Nowhere in your diatribe defending muslim slavery do we find the evident claim Paul was executed : that slaves are human beings, no more and no less than their masters. Even with an army abolishing slavery defending you, you cannot unequivocally state that slavery is a bad thing.
If further illustration of the anti-slavery nature of Christianity is necessary, just look at what happened immediately after the introduction of Christianity in just about every country : the abolishment of slavery. Ireland is perhaps the most well known example of this, because the introduction of Christianity in many countries is not well described. But one might state simply : the entirety of western europe was a slave society in the year 100, when Christianity started spreading. By 700 slavery was abolished everywhere, save for ireland and the northlands, who were not christianized.
Perhaps an even better example would be Northern africa. Slavery was thoroughly embedded in that country in the year 100. Christianity spread, and it was abolished completely before 200 years passed. 300 years northern africa would remain peaceful under christian rule.
But, as we already have established, today northern africa is moslem, and is a slave society. Even for the non-slaves it is a horribly segregated society (much like the islamic enclaves in Europe btw).
But back to Paul, whom you so forgetfully attack : Even worse than the aforementioned difference, with the world's most powerful and anti-slavery army protecting you, you
Isn't this a dupe or am I experiencing one of those weird flashy back moments. Shit, I'm in a WED-Fan-centric flash of LOST, bet the smoke monster gets me next. I never figured I was the red shirt. Bye, guys.
Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong fix.
You're ascribing a trait to a whole country.
And it's not racism, they are the same race. It is bigotry.
Deleted
Of course, why would anyone think he's against Jews ?
Can you also tell me where the minorities are within these "very tolerant" muslim countries ?
For tolerant nations, there sure a a lot of Christians and Jews disappearing in Iran, in addition to non-majority muslims, tons of Hindus disappearing in Pakistan, blacks disappearing in Sudan ? The berbers are all but vanished in Morocco, disappearing in Algeria ? Why are Copts getting persecuted in Egypt ? Why are so many Thais missing in northern malaysia ?
Not that this list of contemporary persecutions is VERY far from complete.
I thought these were tolerant nations and peoples ? Maybe it's just me, but I thought that persecution, and especially the obvious extermination programs these muslims are running, would exclude them from the label "tolerant" ...
Of course, don't let the obviousness on the truth stand between you and your political ideology.
Saying someone is different because they are white or black or red or yellow ... makes no sense.
You are correct, and it probably happens less than you think. Personally, I suspect a lot of what is labeled "racism" is, in fact, nothing of the sort. It is more likely "culturalism".
Even from the summary; Because there is nothing physical to differentiate burakumin from other Japanese and because there are no clues in their names or accent, the only way of establishing whether or not they are burakumin is by tracing their family. You don't have to have a difference in races to have people hate you. Look at high school cliques. Look at "grown-up" politics? Hate Obama because he is black? Hate Rush Limbaugh because he is White? No, you probably don't like the politics of one or the other.
There are plenty of people, of any race, that have cultural differences enough to make others uncomfortable with them, race being only coincidental.
Discrimination based on race? That's stupid. Discrimination based on culture? Damn right, some cultures suck!
This issue is a bit more complicated than you think.
* First off its apparently 251,388,301 English speakers in the US not 300 million.
Ok, +1 pedant, but the number you've quoted has changed since you posted it, so you're wrong as well.
And consider this: if even two people agree to use a specific spelling amongst themselves, it's correct amongst themselves by definition.
I find it disturbing how you managed to change the subject to shameless muslim-bashing (but hey, muslim is the new black...)
Furthermore, your incomplete and biased knowledge of the subject shows that you are actively pursuing knowledge in this field, yet you neglect important pieces of data.
fwiw, I attended a seminar on Ottoman slavery at Cambridge University where it was clearly explained that "slavery" among muslims is not at all the same as it is in the west. think more like "contract labour" or classic hellenistic slavery where the slave is a part of the household and can even inherit the wealth of his master or choose to stay in their service even once he is freed.
furthermore, christianity preaching "peaceful conversion" and being anti-slavery did not translate very well into practice. ask the native-Americans, the Australians and the Africans, plus let us not forget about the forceful conversion of Jews (including forcing them to eat pork). So even with islamic doctrine preaching the release of slaves and their equal treatment at least, why would you ascribe what is happening in these particular countries to islam in general? this is what we call a "generalization" in the true sense of the word, and a dangerous one at that. How many of the muslims you know personally own slaves or approve of it?
Also, linking the barbary-pirates (they are called pirates, not terrorists, but I see where you make the FOX-link) to Ataturk is just about the silliest thing I have heard. Ataturk's actions are founded in the westernization process of the Ottoman empire (the Tanzimat) which started out with the military first. The very long term result of THIS was the sudden pouring in of western literature, translated first by the young Ottoman army officers who had been sent to Europe for higher education. The imported literature obviously contained modern ideas like constitutions, elections, education etc. and nationalism.
Sultan Abdulhamid II's attempt, after his ascension, to stop this process shows that he reacted in panic out of fear of losing all of the throne's power to the parliament. That is why he immediately had the constitution abolished and the parliament shut down. Then follows a period of tyrannic rule under Abdulhamid II which stifles,but can not stop, intellectuals from writing novels, plays, poetry and plain column-style articles in newspapers both in the Ottoman empire as abroad, criticizing the Sultan and demanding the return of the constitution.
Again, as with the first wave of modernization, the military figures play a great role in forcing the Sultan to reinstate the constitution in 1908, called "the second constitutional period". Finally the people get what they want a bicameral democratic system (although one could argue about the efficiency of it all)
It were these things that had a profound impact on Ataturk, i.e. the resentment of a tyrannical sultan and a strong wish for democracy. If you are going to put forward jefferson's bombing of the "muslim" harbors as the reason why the Ottoman government decided to modernize, I think you would be very wrong. I do not wish to downplay the Ottoman-US relations but the defeats at the hands of the Russians were a much larger impetus to reform the military than the sidenote events which you mention.
Furthermore, Ataturk did only away with TWO calpihs, namely Abdulmecid (the last caliph for he was never crowned Sultan) and Sultan Vahdeddin. If by the third caliph you mean Abdulhamid II, Mustafa Kemal's role in this event is quite marginal as he was an almost completely anonymous officer with no popularity outside the military. In a way he did participate in this event but this does not mean that he lead it.
You clearly do not know enough about the subject, the shreds of information which you pieced together serve merely to justify your view on muslims as a barbaric people who thrive on slavery. as I explained above, the fact that the koran regards releasing of slaves as very noble and encourages it, clearly underm
Very good point. I'd also say that this caste type system is also present in India and other areas.
Get a true caste believer and they'd have no problems telling you that the job may be essential and difficult; but it's still unclean, and the caste to do those jobs are a necessary evil, and they should keep doing it so the clean types don't have to.
I don't read AC A human right
You might note how just about every religion[...]
I wish I had mod points, as this long and bizarre invention of history has to be one of the funniest posts I've read on Slashdot in ages. Whether it's a skilled troll or a "selectively informed" and passionate individual, the gaping omissions, obvious contradictions, and glaring historical inaccuracies contrast the serious and informative tone quite well.
For the tl;dr crowd, some highlights:
- Christianity is the ONLY religion to oppose slavery from the start, however citations about religion and slavery conveniently omit those in the New Testament.
- American Civil War lead to the Barbary Wars through some sort of time vortex, and 19th Century piracy is now referred to as "terrorism"
- Through a super time vortex, Thomas Jefferson was around in this Civil War period, and "created" the American Marines after having purchased and read a Koran
- Iran is "just about the most open Muslim nation"
- There is only one existing secular Muslim country
- Christianity is known for it's non-violent approach to non-believers (from it's inception to present day, I assume)
The Japanease RACIST ?!?! who da thunk it....
Iran, despite it's horrible name and extremely objectionable nuke policy, is actually the most progressive (and tolerant) muslim country in existence, with the possible exception of the secular Turkey.
What about Malaysia?
http://michaelsmith.id.au
Amm ... fair enough and Gengis han let you live and go about your relegion but slaughtered you if you opposed him. Standard tactic applied by the Spartans. If you oppose, we will not stop unless your are all dead. If you run away, we will not chase you. Works very well in wars ...
...
As for the Christians living in Muslim societies
1. The Muslims regularily taxed Christians for their faith
2. Converting to the Christian faith (from a Mulsim) is punishable by death
3. Mulsim man marying a Christian Woman is OK so long as kids are Mulsim
4. Mulsim woman marying a Christian man is punishable by death
Think of it like game theory. These rules made sure you win battles and you spread Islam most effectively.
You are going so far off-topic it's not even funny. You're also spreading lies.
Sucks to have your BS pointed out by an anonymous coward, doesn't it?
The Japanese faiths do not include slavery. The only Japanese faith is Shintoism and has no prescription whatsoever on slaves and food or on anything else for that matter.
It is the mainland based philosophies of Buddhism and Confucianism that introduced the ideas of forbidden jobs and inferior from birth ideas that generated burakumin discrimination.
Buddhism, as can be seen in Japan and World history, is yet another religion of hate and destruction like the Middle eastern religions.
Come on now. Saying Muslims are connected to slavery is like saying Christians are connected to pedophillia because of weird Mormon splinter groups that advocate multiple child brides. It isn't actually connected to the religeon, which is just as well because bits of their book that you could say advocate slavery are also in the Christian Bible and the Torah.
They don't WANT to get rid of it. It is a cultural value to them. The was the biggest point of my comment. They understand it is also something "shameful" but at the same time it is a big part of who they are. But there are ways in which Americans are not so different. After all, with our high ideals than anyone can do anything or be anything they want and yet at the same time, if you weren't born into one of those Harvard families, your chances of going and being accepted are pretty slim and especially so if you come from middle class-nobody-suburbia. And when you see those "dirty homeless people" do you see people with potential or people you're just rather avoid seeing?
We've got a bit of it ourselves... it's just not a cultural value, but rather just a part of human nature we try to suppress and/or look the other way when faced with it.
Funny you should pick that example. When film was being developed in the 19th and 20th centuries, there was a problem: it was difficult to make photographs that showed both light- and dark-colored faces effectively.
The white face was taken as the essential image that film had to capture effectively, and a lot of technical effort went into developing film stock that showed the white face well. "Exact reproduction" produced a "beefy" look, so the film was modified accordingly[2].
In other words, if black people had developed film, film would look different and have have different chemical characteristics from what we have today. You cannot just point to the technology and say it is "neutral", to be used for good or bad purposes. During its development, the creators of every technology encounter choices that cannot be made solely on technical grounds. Those decisions always end up embedding human values - as does the technology that results.
Here's another story I read somewhere. Early computers could only represent uppercase or lowercase letters. The first choice of the technicians was to go with lowercase, because that is much easier to read. But this was overruled: because then God would not start with an uppercase letter. Now whether this particular story is true or false (it sounds too neat to me), it is certainly representative of how many technical choices are made.
As for the burakumin, I once spoke to a Japanese woman about them. She had married an American and was living in the U.S., but she said that she would certainly never have considered a relationship with one. Not because she herself was prejudiced, but because doing so would place her outside mainstream Japanese society. We have heard this before. If you haven't, I recommend watching the film Gentleman's Agreement. I won't claim I know the best solution for Google in this particular case, but a knee-jerk response of "technology has no values" brings us no closer to any kind of truth, and represents a failure to understand our relationship to technology.
[1, 2] The quotes above are by Frederick Mills and Dvaid L. MacAdam respectively, quoted in the article "Making 'white' people white" by Richard Dyer, 1997.
How much of Iran's policy toward Israel is driven by the popular views about Jews in Iran?
You don't want to be a Gaikokujin in Old or New Nippon, these days for sure, especially if your parents are ethnic Korean (Korean people, and people from northeastern China were kidnapped by the thousands and brought to Nippon to do the "dirty work" at minimal wages, no health care, and no rights -- not even the rights of an Inu).
I remember listening to a discussion on the radio just recently about the "untouchable" class in Indian society, which seems to be much the same thing. The members were relegated to the lowest possible jobs (cleaning toilets, etc) without hoping of themselves or their children escaping the caste, and were literally considered unclean/untouchable. This system was also eliminated in India, but - as the author/narrator in the radio interview mentioned from personal experience - is still often practiced. It wasn't until she moved to the US and Canada that she realized how despicable it was to treat people this way, and mainly because she found herself being treated as an outcast/undesirable due to her obvious Indian heritage in the western post 9-1-1 society. It made me wonder if - for all the terrible effects of 9-1-1 on those with "brown" skin - perhaps sometimes things like this help societies reflect on themselves.
That's not to say I condone such behavior from either end, but it was a very interesting discussion and viewpoint.
I can't agree more.Most tools can be used for discrimatory purposes.Google should be able to show any mark and symbol in any country.
Oh,wait...
"they always have a certain point of view"
What the fuck sort of postmodern bullshit is this? Let me guess! Maps are a social construct and are a tool that the patriarchy uses to oppress womyn/minorities/gay whales?
Not one word of your entire long-winded diatribe is even vaguely relevant to the post to which you were responding.
The previous poster did not, in any way, defend slavery. His entire point was to refute your point that Christianity has always been anti-slavery. You, however, completely missed all that, and accused him of defending slavery.
It's possible you actually addressed some of what he had to say near the end of your post. I don't know. I lost interest after reading the first 2/3 of your rambling straw man argument.
You've raised some exceptionally well read points about various religions opinions on slavery. I'd add that blanket claims that Buddhism supported slavery or even other things we consider backward (i.e. a caste system) don't really encompass branches such as Tibetian Buddhism and certainly not Zen. Muslim religion deserves to be judged in part by the Sufis as well as the Wahabi-ists (that's probably not a word, as spelled, but I hope it's close enough to convey the idea). The Muslim faith also can take some real pride in the way civilization developed under it during its first 300 years or so, to somewhat offset any dragging its feet during the last few.
I think you could broaden the term "metaphysical quasi religions" to include philosophies in general, and in a sense, religions are just a subset of philosophies. When it comes to opinions, there's always somebody willing to stifle everyone else's. Even a solidly materialist philosophy such as Capitalism has people who act like they literally believe in a giant invisible hand, and make sacrifices to it.
I don't really agree with "generally the pro-slavery people who were seen as have the strict biblical view, and the anti-slavery people who were seen as representing a more liberal, progressive, interpretative version of Christianity." though (although the liberal and progressive terms are probably fair enough). I certainly think the pro-slavery factions saw themselves as being, overall, more literalist, but the writings of abolitionists such as Garrison, and even generalist authors such as Twain were often critical of that claim. While the pro-slavery people may have claimed in general to be strictly non-interpretive, just as most evangelical Christians do today, to the admittedly limited extent it's objectifiable, I don't think it's a legitimate claim.
People outside those branches of the faith at the time, by and large, didn't see the pro-slavery side as doing less interpreting either. It's a matter of serious interpretation just to claim that the OT book Leviticus applies to anyone besides the tribe of Levi, as even the title shows. It takes a great deal of interpretation to claim the KJV translation is superior to all others, and even more to claim it is somehow superior to the original Hebrew and Greek in a culture where a lot of the educated class spoke both languages. Reading the incredible distortions of logic needed to make "Render unto Caesar what is Caesar's" justify a rebellion against the local 'Caesar' of the U.S. Government shows just how interpretive things got on the part of the supposedly strict no interpretation needed factions.
Who is John Cabal?
Comment removed based on user account deletion
I am confused now... Who is right and who is wrong?
* Secondly, the rest of the English language speakers that Wikipedia lists, total over 321 million, and that of course doesn't include those people who have it as a second language outside of those countries that are listed, although it is including those who have English as a Second and Third language.
The 321 million is the total of native speakers,of which 215 million are in the US. Counting second and third language speakers =, the US has 251 million out of 1.186 billion.
I consider the British spellings and the Oxford English Dictionary to be the final arbiters of all issues concerning spelling for me personally.
I consider Yorktown to be the final arbiter of spelling. Perhaps the OED should have given Cornwallis more support.
[quote]
The Hindu caste system [wikipedia.org]. This system exists and is operational in many parts of india.
[/quote]
The article lead states:
Although generally identified with Hinduism, the caste system was also observed among followers of other religions in the Indian subcontinent, including some groups of Muslims and Christians
There is also another article:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caste_system_among_Indian_Christians/
SO nice bit of selective obscurantism there. Also see "Curse of Ham"
l'Homme n'est Rien l'Oeuvre Tout: Gustave Flaubert to George Sand
And Anonymous Coward was questioning OeLeWaPpErKe's claim that Christianity was anti-slavery. I would point out that Christianity began in Judea, not Rome.
Really dude, this is a geek forum, not a political one. Take a clue from the number of freaks you have and take your meds.
Posted anon but I'm a 4 digit UID.
Except that what the Burakumin do is productive and necessary, whereas rapists simply hurt their victims. Or would like to have corpses pile up in the streets?
Why does it just have to include be native speakers?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/england/manchester/3079138.stm
Respelling a word is hardly a crime. The UK changed from "gaol" to "jail" in the early 20th century. Were there people like you calling everyone who used the word "jail" stupid?
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
In the clearest of terms, the Slashdotter "OeLeWaPpErKe" is wrong, very wrong.
As for what's right, read some history, and make your own judgements. As a head start, I can definitely assure you that that Thomas Jefferson was dead decades before the American Civil War, and that the Barbary Wars were in his time, and about sea passage rights in the Mediterranean Sea (not slavery).
I can also direct you to look for more than 10 Muslim nations that are considered secular (a large percentage of them former Soviet states).
As for non-violent approach to non-believers, draw your own conclusion, but include search terms such as "the inquition" and "Spanish conquistadors".
It is really very deeply in the mindset of Japanese people the relationship between "dirty" jobs with everything horrible. That is why, IMHO, that Japanese Society is really too hysteric about the current "pork influenza" because they relate, in the deep of their minds, the concept "pork" PLUS "virus" with something too too too bad and able to produce too too too much damage (beyond their own conscience). The minds of japanese people have to overcome this ancient stigma to these concepts, by not doing so they are just continue showing us that they are not a very advanced society at all.
Good points, good post.
I'd friend you but I'd have to kick someone out :) (the problem of being here over a decade.) But I'll keep an eye out for your posts.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I merely pointed out that the OP's figure of 321 million was in the native speaker column. I also included some data for non-native speakers.
Off Fsckin' Topic? Let's try +100 informative. Off topic is the best part of /. considering the choice of topics. I learned more from this post than spending an hour on Wikipedia. Mr. A/C hit the nail on the head with this one.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
I never caught that about Tibetan Buddhism and back in my hippie days I read quite a bit of Govinda and Wentz.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
fair enough and Gengis han let you live and go about your relegion but slaughtered you if you opposed him.
Luckily for us, the Muslims were much more civilized that the Mongols. Citizens in cities taken over by Muslims were given three choices: leave, stay and become citizens and pay the tax (which I discuss below), or continue to fight. This as compared to your Mongols who gave no quarter regardless of the situation, or even as compared to what Christians did during the Spanish Inquisition and the Crusades.
1. The Muslims regularily taxed Christians for their faith
Yes. However, people fail to realize that Muslims were "taxed" in the same fashion and at the same amount: 2.5% of one's earnings per year, except it's called Zakat for Muslims and Jizya for non-Muslims. This "tax" as you put it was obligatory on most people -- Christian, Muslim, Jew, etc. -- living in the Muslim State, save for a few exceptions (e.g., orphans, widows, the aged, etc. Anyone considered to be a ward of the State did not have to pay and instead received money). The tax went to help care and feed said wards of the State, including non-Muslims. Yes, that's right: if you were a non-Muslim in Muslim Spain, you could count on the State to support you if you were unable to work. There's even a famous Hadith about this.
2. Converting to the Christian faith (from a Mulsim) is punishable by death
The only basis for that ruling that I've found was a judicial ruling dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries, during the Crusades, you'll note. The premise was that yes, if a Muslim converted and was still on Muslim soil, he was guilty of treason to the state. Seeing as how Muslims and Christians were in the Until recently, no one has challenged that ruling. However, in the past few years, as Islam comes out of its religious lethargy, several graduates of Al-Azhar Mosque in Cairo have insisted that, since there is no compulsion in religion, Muslims may freely convert.
3. Mulsim man marying a Christian Woman is OK so long as kids are Mulsim
4. Mulsim woman marying a Christian man is punishable by death ...
I will not argue that what you point out in point 4 does not occur. However, you should realize it is not part of Islam at all. It's a tragic consequence of fundamentalism and a gross misinterpretation of the religion.
Throughout the life of the Prophet, Muslim women found themselves married to people who had yet to convert. This did not incur and immediate divorce or an immediate death sentence. Instead, the Prophet advised these women to have patience and to encourage their husbands to accept Islam for as long as they were able.
Any Muslim is free to marry whomever he or she wants. Muslims are heavily encouraged to marry other Muslims because it makes family life much easier to handle, but they are free to choose as they see fit. Indeed, there are two Muslim men in my mosque who have married non-Muslims, and there is one Muslim woman who married a non-Muslim man, though admittedly the man later converted.
Ne Cede Malis.
Nah, I actually tend to think that it's probably the same as my attitude to Isreal. Isreal is an abomination, a horrendous crime in progress that must be stopped. Jews, on the other hand, are absolutely fine.
Calling something or someone anti semitic because they don't like Isreal is getting a bit old.
Thomas Jefferson was not alive during civil war; or after, though that may change someday.
Do you plan to kidnap him and drop him off in the middle of the civil war once you finish your time machine?
There are a couple of ways to fix "the problem" then. We could bury the maps and data and pray no one stockpiles the information offering it up to the highest, black market bidders. Or we could embrace it and show that people who have 8 generations removed from Scumtown are fine upstanding citizens. I'm not sure where hiding the truth gets people.
"Note that EVERY major religion EXCEPT Christianity actively encourages the subjugation or extermination of non-believers in one form or another"
This is incorrect, christianity merely delays the subjugation and annihilation of unbelievers until judgment day, and even then the old testament was used to subjugate and annihilate peoples, you really need to brush up on your christian history and read what christian historians wrote, they were some really nasty mofo's by today's standards.
Hence, TRUE Muslims must remove Jewish and Christian references from Quran.
I'd like to buy homeland for our 10 million people. http://twitter.com/mahadiga
We Aussies are doing our bit in return for America's generosity Carb Relief
# cat
Damn, my RAM is full of cats. MEOW!!
Hence, TRUE Muslims must remove Jewish and Christian references from Quran.
If you're responding to Iran being "the most Islam nation", are you considering all the secular Islam-majority nations that came out of the former Soviet Union (that are much more secular), or are you making a separate point?
Having just one opinion and stating it straight gets you a lot of freaks in every environment.
If that opinion touches multiculturalism either pro or contra, you're going to have a field day with mods, angry replies and straight out foe listing / banning in other forums.
No other topic is as heated as this one and when all opinions draw heavy criticism, you may as well simply state your own true one.
Note that EVERY major religion EXCEPT Christianity actively encourages the subjugation or extermination of non-believers in one form or another.
Hmmm... and yet, catholics strived to eliminate all competition from the countries they controlled (only the Jewish religion managed to survive, all others were wiped out of middle-age Europe). Contrast that with moslem countries where you have jews, christians, Zoroastrians... Or even better India where hinduism, jainism, buddhism, sikhism and ayyavazhi sometimes share the same temples.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
Are you a troll, or a sincere idiot?
In either case, I feel compelled to say something nice about /., since the rating system left you invisible to me. I only stumbled across your post by the replies. If you're a troll, you're evidently a mighty troll.
Unfortunately, I don't care. In either case, my only request is that you designate me as a foe so I'll have an even lower chance of seeing you in the future.
My qualifications to be your foe? Well, first of all, I'm highly educated, including a degree in history. Second, I'm a highly devout agnostic, and I have nothing but contempt for people whose own religious beliefs are as weak and indefensible as yours. I could come up with more reasons, but you obviously have no interest in reason, and I've already wasted far more time than you're worth.
Freedom = (Meaningful - Coerced) Choice != (Speech | Beer^2), and sad sock puppets' bad mods avail them naught.
There are 25,000 Jews living in Iran, they are not "exterminated", they are not even discriminated against (apart from the fact that they cannot get into the Army) , they are represented in Parliament, and they have resisted Israel's repeated calls & economic incentives to emigrate to the Jewish state.
So please cut the Islamophobic rant & (Hate) propaganda for simpletons. It might work on the FOX channel "fair & balanced" News, just not around here.
As a British English Speaker, "airplane" looks wrong since we pronounce "aeroplane" like it is spelled. Like Aero-space. Aeroplane is actually the correct usage. But I guess people will never agree. My spell checker accepts both though.. :)
I have determined that my sig is indeterminate.
That speech pattern may be caused by a nationwide diet deficiency!
Tooheys Beer has decided to donate excess carbs left from the production of low-carb beer in Australia, to Americans!
http://www.youtube.com/tooheys?gl=AU&hl=en-GB
(David Bowman, EVA near HUGE Monolithic Win-PC in orbit around Jupiter) "My God - its full of Malware!"
Judea, at the time, was part of the Roman Empire, and governed by a Roman governor you may have heard of, Herodes.
Slavery existed everywhere in the Roman Empire, including in Judea. Jews, at the time (and up until the 10th century), engaged in slave trade, with full agreement from the Torah. That agreement from the Torah is still there, it's just Jews don't actually do that part of Judaism anymore, just like many parts of Judaism are dropped.
The most well known example of Judaism that's been "cancelled" (whatever you'd call this), is the stoning of women. This Jewish rule was cancelled by Jesus Christ, and is not practiced in Christianity, but in sharia law, the hadith that muslims use as a reason for stoning women clearly indicates the origin of the rule : the Torah.
There is even the contemporary question about the resumption of the punishment of stoning in Judaism, when the temple is rebuilt by the Jewish messiah, which, in Jewish theology, could occur at any time.
Just because the longest existing muslim theocracy practiced slavery, including the capturing of black slaves in African villages, abusing them sexually, even children, for over a millenium, means ...
nothing at all.
The fact that the central figure of islam, the paedophile prophet did the same, including raping female slaves, means nothing.
After all, that would be like saying Jesus Christ not stoning a woman has anything to do with Christianity's opinion of stoning women. Pure bullshit.
and don't forget the jews exterminating that pesky palestinesesinian (or whatever they're called)
Any Muslim is free to marry whomever he or she wants.
Say, what's this "honor killing" thing ? Note I mean the honor killing thing that ALL islamic schools agree is permissible, after all it constitutes executing someone who stops being muslim (by knowingly violating sharia as a muslim, which carries a death sentence).
People sure have a huge need to deny the truth about any religion. I don't understand why Christianity (and often Judaism) have to be described as malevolent, even in cases where they weren't (like the crusades), and other religions, like islam, buddhism, hinduism and others have to be described as much better than they are, ignoring even recent history.
Noting that attacks like 9/11 on America have a long history, and to be exact, a long islamic history is utterly forbidden. Stating that the first islamic attack on America, executed with the purpose of kidnapping american citizens and selling them as slaves, was nearly 300 years ago is sooo incorrect. Stating that there have been constant, religiously sanctioned by mohammedans, if not outright religiously motivated, assaults on America for over 300 years is considered such bad form. It's also the truth.
I've learned to just skip over any of oelewapperke's posts unless i'm looking for a good laugh. His handle suggests he's from belgium, but his rhetoric more resembles that of some of the "off the scale towards the right" americans we see around /.
Then again we've got our own brand of far-right nutcases in europe, so who knows.
People replying to my sig annoy me. That's why I change it all the time.
The only basis for that ruling that I've found was a judicial ruling dating back to the 11th and 12th centuries, during the Crusades, you'll note.
Christian convert faces death penalty in Afghanistan http://www.rawa.org/convert.htm The Guardian, Mar.20, 2006
So you oppose anonymity in all its forms? Tor, TrueCrypt, Freenet are all solving the wrong problem?
And while we're at it, could I please have your true name and bank account details, please?
An AC called Atomic Rabbit ?
Looks to me as though the only troll in this part of the discussion is you.
Feel free to challenge the GP's statements you feel are in error. Help the rest of us see how we're being misled. Can't? Simply say it's BS then and leave it at that.
Requiem for the American Dream
> Ok, for the moment, let's say we leave God out. If sin is a "void concept" to you, how do you explain the universal phenomenon of people acting in ways destructive to themselves and others?
People act in ways destructive to themselves and others because they either a) don't stop to consider the consequences of their actions, or b) are aware of those consequences and just don't care at that particular moment, or at all.
Now what does any of this have to do with the concept of 'sin'? In all religions I'm aware of, the list of 'sins' is a wild mixture of genuinely damaging behaviours and completely arbitrary taboos.
So, what would be worse for your job prospects in Japan, being burakumin or gaijin?
They're all wrong. Contrary to popular belief, history is nonsense. We can't use it to learn to avoid future mistakes because noone can agree what actually happened; either through lack of information or deliberate re-writing of history.
In my opinion, we should avoid constantly re-hashing the disputes about who's most correct on the subject of what happened n years ago and concentrate on trying to come to a collective agreement on what kind of world we want to live in.
Requiem for the American Dream
The lowly chicken, in a diverse population, displays a preference to associate with chickens with similar physical traits. If our behavior is genetic, education can curb the behavior, but the behavior will still exist. No one enjoys receiving discrimination, but it may be part of the mystery of life. When humans make law and policy there will always be a method to distort and subvert the intent of the law. It may be hardwired for survival. Collect some data; Get a date dorks!
Interesting observations.
I find I go through periods where I feel rather closed in, looking at severely limiting systems and wonder, "How can one survive in this war-zone?"
While I found elements of their culture and arts interesting, (what would be considered a typical anime-fan in Jr. High, but in a time when nobody had ever heard the word, "manga"), actually living or growing up in Japan would drive me absolutely nuts. I've hung out with some ex-pat Japanese kids, and more often than not, (meaning in every single one of the half dozen cases I encountered), the leading reason for their traveling abroad was to get the hell out of Japan and its crushing round-pegs-into-square-holes, the-nail-which-stands-up-will-be-hammered-down culture.
While they didn't feel at home in the West, (wandering around in a bit of a daze), they all spent time going on at length about how lousy it had been at home. The Chinese people I ask about this seem to think a similar thing, except they don't want to talk about it because, apparently, they still feel the hot eyes of the "One China" government thought-police burning between their shoulder blades.
I quite like the ability to be rude. --That which is considered "Rude" is often not thoughtless mean-spirited behavior, (I know how to stand to one side on an escalator and shut up in a movie theater), but rather it is simply allowing oneself to not spend every minute of every day scanning others for signs of not fitting in. I've been at parties where the Asian kids in the room spend all their time playing at "chicken pecking order", mercilessly picking on one another while trying to avoid being picked on. It seems to make up the bulk of their activities at any given social gathering. The funny/sad part is that when you jump into the middle of it and show that you are not scared of ridicule and that you have an expressive, light-hearted and self-confident personality, they scatter like. . , well chickens, and hates you precious from the corners of the room, planning your eventual demise and not-so-secretly wishing (because one on one they'll tell you as much), they could have grown up in a less socially oppressive culture like you did.
As for real rudeness, I find it's not actually that big a problem in the West if you know how it works. It seems to be regional. Some cities simply seem to be more filled with mentally immature and inconsiderate people than others. I currently live in a small town where people are incredibly gracious and caring. I've lived in others where the opposite is true. The smaller the population center, the nicer people seem to be.
Not having lived in Japan, I can't say if the same might be true there, but one would hope that water finds its own level in other countries as well. But on the whole, not to be entirely racist, (because I think it's as much about cultural programming as it is about genetics), Mongoloid Asia scares the willies out of me. There seems to be a whole lot of robotic thinking going on in a way which cleaves to obedient, self-policing slave-type thinking. --Though, that's not to say that Caucasian culture isn't just as boxed in. There's a lot of conservative Walmart shoppers out there. Hm. --Buying up all that Chinese product. I wonder if there's a metaphor to be found in there somewhere. . ?
-FL
In Japan (and most Asian countries), lineage is considered much more important than it is in the U.S. If your daughter is marrying someone, it's common to check their lineage, and expected of you to offer it up under the right circumstances.
The complaint against Google is that they've made it easy to identify someone whose lineage goes back to these "scum towns" where only members of this untouchable caste could live. It doesn't matter that you're the youngest vice president at Toyota, your great-great-great-great-great-great grandfather comes from a scumtown, so you're scum too to your fiance's father.
Yes but I only consider them scum compared to Krusty. Yeah, they see how they scum.
"Note that EVERY major religion EXCEPT Christianity actively encourages the subjugation or extermination of non-believers in one form or another"
This is incorrect, christianity merely delays the subjugation and annihilation of unbelievers until judgment day,
Are you saying that's not a huge difference? People killing/enslaving other people versus people leaving other people alone leaving it to God to sort them out?
The early teletype code was BAUDOT, which had only 5-bits, limiting it to u/c. A case/shift character was added. Next came ASCII, which was 7 or 8 bits, and allowed u/c and l/c. Note: I left EBCDIC out of this summary because I don't like it.
Too many people are conflating race into this.
Discriminating against Buraku may be wrong, but it is not racist.
Burakumin are japanese as well.
As long as they are the opposing sex I assume? Any progress on this issue?
- Raynet --> .
That's what I've always thought Indian 'untouchables' who have much the same job and the same position in society, should do:
'You don't want to let me have a place in society? Fine. I'm moving to another country, have fun with your piles of rotting corpses.'
If corporations are people, aren't stockholders guilty of slavery?
Judea, at the time, was part of the Roman Empire, and governed by a Roman governor you may have heard of, Herodes.
Then you should have said that the slaves werein the Roman Empire.Also, were the early followers of Christianity mainly slaves?
The most well known example of Judaism that's been "cancelled" (whatever you'd call this), is the stoning of women. This Jewish rule was cancelled by Jesus Christ, and is not practiced in Christianity, but in sharia law, the hadith that muslims use as a reason for stoning women clearly indicates the origin of the rule : the Torah.
Because burning people at the stake is so much more humane than stoning them.
That was a bit of a misleading rant. You were all over the place as well so I'll just address a few things.
First Islam - its not a caste based system, don't mix up slavery with caste. Islam doesn't ban slavery but freeing slaves is heavily encouraged in the Qu'ran - which I suppose was the pragmatic policy given the feudal realities of 7th centure Arabia. Modern slavery problems in Muslim countries (Africa & Persian Gulf countries to be specific) are more a matter of their spluttering human rights movements and oppressive political systems.
Second Christianity - always been anti-slavery? Give me a break. When the practice of Europeans enslaving Africans was first started by the Portugese, they were give *official* permission by the Pope who said the injustice of slavery was discounted by the fact the slaves forcibly converted to Christianity now had chance of getting into heaven. Perhaps the first case of Western self-interest covered with a fig leaf of moral justification??
And Americans dying to free blacks in the civil war was commendable but if you think it wipes the stain of slavery from U.S history you really are delusional.
So please spare us the self-congratulation.
"Are you saying that's not a huge difference? People killing/enslaving other people versus people leaving other people alone leaving it to God to sort them out?"
There has never been a truly non violent religion historically, and I am certain that you are ignorant of much of christian history, and the evolution of christianity itself.
Christianity only seems "cleaner" because you live in an age where modern christians aren't as barbaric as their ancestors, take off the rose colored glasses and read some writings christians wrote about american natives and or blacks and you will soon start to see how ugly these people were.
It's a very big world out there. What happens in the middle of Africa doesn't hold in Indonesia etc. Let's try another one - not all Christians are going to drink poisoned Kool-Aid just becuase Jim Jones's cult did. The same thing holds in this situation - I've met a few Muslims but never met a single slaveowner because the two things really do not go together.
Yep, it's aeroplane in Australia/NZ too. Spoken just as it's spelt (like aerospace, as you say).
American 'airplane' always hits my 'language pedantry trigger' whenever I hear it for some reason. Some other US variations I don't mind, but 'airplane' just sounds lazy to me.
Nowhere in the Qur'an will you find such a thing commanded. Tragically, it still does happen, but I assure you, it most certainly is not Islam.
Ne Cede Malis.
Is a mirror we hold up to our perceptions.
If we don't like what we see, what is to blame? The mirror, or us?
There has never been a truly non violent religion historically, and I am certain that you are ignorant of much of christian history, and the evolution of christianity itself.
Then you are wrong and jumping to unfounded conclusions.
I'm only asking if you think that not killing people is as bad as killing people, since that's basically what you seemed to be claiming.
Gaikokujin in japan are either holidaymakers, students or university graduates, most of the time.
Indeed, they don't tend to be professionals permanently residing in Japan. That's rare enough to be remarkable. Odd that, no? Most prosperous countries seem to have a fairly substantial admixture of foreign-born nationals, and their descendants.
http://books.google.com/books?id=axfXe8lSv38C&printsec=frontcover
If you are interested in the discrimination of Japan.