Re: <nettime> publication of "Jyllands-Posten" cartoons is not... [3x]

[Jamil Brownson <jambro@mac.com>]

weighing in again, thanks to siraj ... look! 90+% of people world over 
are ignorant, irrespective of how intelligent or educated... most 
humans are so absorbed in their own micro worlds of social struggle, 
family problems, pleasure & escape that they hardly know anything about 
the objective world around them, much less about others except for 
stereotypes that make easy pigeon holing of "the other" whichever other 
happens to be the "other of the minute" flavour of the month target to 
put down .. of course this situation suits the real rulers of all 
societies, who continue to control  by soft or hard means, keeping a 
reserve army of labour  unemployed as a threat to employed workers ... 
geopolitics of diminishing natural resources, plays a key role ..

on this side (arabia --dubai -- where i live & work in an environment 
of global village 130 nationalities) the government controlled any 
demonstrations, allowing a token street march, but no banners, flag 
burning, etc., leaders urging moderation & making sure that local media 
carried that message ..  but in general there is a difference between 
successful middle class professionals whether indian or brits, & the 
ignorant labouring masses who only know what they hear through their 
ethnic grapevines .. we are talking about people who have never been 
empowered, much like new orleans' black underclass ..

for the past week i have been having discussions with my students, all 
girls in black cloaks & scarves, but dior - polo - levis & T's 
underneath ... we have come to an understanding that they know very 
little about their own country, ironically i know more general 
information than the lot put together .... even thought they have a 
depth of local knowledge invisible to me .. we then contrast this to 
what they know about other cultures ... zilch!  so the analogy is what 
do they know about you? zilch as well. so if no one knows much about 
either self or other how can we blame lego & butter or government .. 
especially when teh press is all commercial enterprises trying to 
maximize profit & whatever sells ads or copies, is good, scandal being 
great for business ... we also looked at salman rushdie, an indian 
muslim with uk citizenship, living in new york, no fatwa was issued 
against india, uk or us, or even his publishers .. he alone was held 
responsible and because he was a muslim should have known better, but 
for some danish cartoonist with no knowledge of islam or responsibility 
toward it, how or why would we blame countries, peoples or dairy cows 
... these 18 - 22 year olds from small cities & villages,  understood & 
generally agreed that this was blown up out of proportion & that 
governments had no real control over commerce (media) & that the 
individual cartoonist was the person responsible & that he probably did 
not know that he was engaging in such a controversial act, but  will 
profit from it with fame & maybe fortune ...

jamil brownson
uaeu - al ain, uae3



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