An immodest proposal from Dag:
- Israel is booming in the desert and the rest of the area is a wasteland of a garbage dump for one significant reason: All the oil on earth, all the natural resources on earth make no difference without social capital. Israel has it; the Muslim world doesn't. It means, simply, that Jews are smarter and better in all ways than Muslims. Being a Muslim is to be broken from birth, turned into a simple human animal. Rather than attempt to change themselves to prosper in the world, to even get along, to even live as beggars, Muslims often turn to murdering their own children to show the world that Muslims are worthy of attention. My point: That Muslims are determined to maintain their superior social positions in Dar al Islam at any and every price. They will kill every Christian they can if it means Muslims will maintain their cultural supremacy. And what is there good in that for Christians? OK, there is much. People grow to love their slavery. But, My Point: South Sudan, if it's anything like the north, is a wasteland. It's about as wasted a place as Israel. But S. Sudan has oil, which Israel, for the most part, doesn't. S. Sudan doesn't have the social capital Israel has. My Point: Christians persecuted in Dar al Islam might consider removing themselves to S. Sudan as a needed and welcome social capital. S. Sudan could become a new Israel, if Christian, in Africa. My point is that smart people with the right attitude can do seemingly impossible things, e.g. turn Israel into a paradise (of sorts) while Muslims can take the oil wealth of the world to make the rest of the world into a shit-hole. South Sudan could be a place of Christians for Christians fleeing Islam. South Sudan, a New Israel.
- Feel free to let me know if you all would like to contribute to such an idea, maybe by setting up a fund to finance such a move to Sudan for refugees. I would, perhaps, claim the first ticket there.
19 comments:
Pastorius,
Its a positive vision, I'll give him that. Lets hope it can be achieved.
It's as brilliant an idea as were the USA and Israel.
The only thing that makes this not the greatest idea in the world is laziness on our part.
Being an ex-Muslim in a Muslim country, I would always welcome such a move.
Here's the problem though. Israel, the way it is today, was made by Jews. They came from all corners of the world and made that dump into the 21st century paradise that it is today. And on top of that, it was the Jews that created Israel as a haven for any Jew that wanted to move there. Has anyone asked the South Sudanese Christians and Anamists whether they want that country to be a haven for fleeing Christians from the Muslim world?
I say we help the South Sudanese build a country whatever way we can. But I think it is a little far fetched for us to think they'd be willing to share their country with others. We may not realize this but race plays an important role in that part of Africa. Not only are the blacks Christians and Animists happy to be separating from the Muslim north but also from the ARAB north.
I guess what I am getting at is that if South Sudan is to be a haven for persecuted Christians, it is going to be a decision made by the South Sudanese and not by us.
For my part, I would wait and see which direction South Sudan goes. It is too soon to be thinking of it as the "New Israel". For me, Israel is the "New Israel". ;-) Just my two cents.
There's another country in this world which was started by Christians, and served as a place of asylum for fleeing Christians from all over the world, and that place is called the United States of America, of course.
I have a hard time believing the South Sudanese would reject the influx of money, creativity, and good people that would come with such an endeavor.
But, I could be wrong.
By the way, I hate the concept of indigenous rights. It is racist at it's base. And, I think we need more countries like Israel and the USA, which are based on ideas, rather than race.
Christianity itself is based on ideas, and not race.
I hate the concept of indigenous rights too. I am against anything race based. My point was that South Sudanese are basing a lot on race.
As for the United States, yes I agree it was created on the ideas of freedom and providing others with that kind of freedom. That is one of the biggest reasons I support the US even though I have never been there. But it was the people of the United States that wanted it that way not any outside force.
I don't know if I am being clear enough about this. I am all for the idea, what I don't know is whether South Sudanese are and until they are for such an idea, I don't see it as a possibility.
Race is, again, a huge factor in that part of the world. I know it shouldn't be, but it is.
AA said: My point was that South Sudanese are basing a lot on race.
I say: Yeah, I understood your point. It is a very good point. And, if the South Sudanese do not want anyone to move in, then that is their right, as it is their country and they get to determine how they want to run it.
That doesn't mean I have to approve of it, however.
I have a hard time believing the South Sudanese would reject the influx of money, creativity, and good people that would come with such an endeavor.
I think you are right. I agree but I think that they need to look beyond race differences. Just because someone is Arab, for example, doesn't mean they are bad. I know many Arab Christians and they're good, peaceloving people.
The blacks in Sudan have been persecuted by non-blacks (mainly Arab Muslims) for a long time. It is going to take a while before those wounds are healed. I am just afraid that South Sudan will become another South Africa where tables have been turned and there is open, government backed racism against the white community. Of course the international community looks at South Africa and think "WOW!" but that country has turned from White racism against blacks to Black racism against whites.
I hope SOuth Sudan doesn't turn out that way.
AA said: I don't know if I am being clear enough about this. I am all for the idea, what I don't know is whether South Sudanese are and until they are for such an idea, I don't see it as a possibility.
I respond: Yes, I agree. I am sorry if I made it sound like I was opposing what you said.
I was not.
Instead, I was merely reacting to the idea that they might make decisions based on race rather than their religious ideology.
That doesn't mean I have to approve of it, however.
I agree.
AA wrote: Just because someone is Arab, for example, doesn't mean they are bad. I know many Arab Christians and they're good, peaceloving people.
I respond: Yep, you're absolutely right. I got to meet some Iraqi Christians, the other evening, who had just moved here to the US a few months ago. They were some of the nicest and most generous, people I have ever met.
You wrote: The blacks in Sudan have been persecuted by non-blacks (mainly Arab Muslims) for a long time. It is going to take a while before those wounds are healed.
I respond: Yes, that is a very good point. AND, they were oppressed specifically because of the fact that they were black, as well as Christian, so I would imagine that has magnified race-based thinking for them, as it has for American blacks.
For better or worse, that's the way it is, and it makes sense that it is the way it is.
From the Sudanese I knew in Africa, exiles and living in fear all the time, I saw them as more cosmopolitan than those around them, racists and xenophobes and sadists who delighted in tormenting and exploiting the Sudanese. That's the nature of things, which our Enlightenment ethos doesn't allow for. This is not to say that Sudanese exiles were a collection of Voltaires. They are still mostly tribal people, and the idea of a world of outsiders coming in to create a Christian nation in their area isn't going to go over well on the face of it. I'm sure that like most people the Sudanese Christians want little more than to live their lives the way they choose to, which is to say in a primitive economy of family-based and tribal based relations, sans multi-plex and Walmart. Even Christianity is not what we might think it to be. African Christianity is mostly socialist, not a matter of American capitalism and democracy. Sudanese are of themselves, not part of a world-wide brotherhood of Man or a communion of souls united in Christianity. They are just folks who live their lives and wish to continue to do so, I believe at this time, based on past knowledge and experience. I'm supportive of that. There's no reason to think they will suddenly throw out generations of culture just for the sake of being Modern. It doesn't work that way with people.
But, that's not to say this is a non-starter. So far as I know, and my reading is severely limited here, to say the least, I am the only one to argue for the foundation of a Christian Zionist-style state in Africa for Christian refugees from Islam. To those of us not tied to the culture of Sudan, not knowing or much caring about the tribal tensions and actual culture and ways of the indigenous there, I can say that they should welcome such an influx of talented people; but we're talking about people who live as hunter-gatherers and nomads. Animists, who are a legitimate population of Sudan, have no such concept of the universe as we Moderns have, nor anything remotely like it. To me, the animist is totally incomprehensible. Will they agree to sharing their physical horizon with strangers? I have a need for my own horizon open to me and mine, the mountains and the valleys and the rivers and so on, owned, as it were, by those I grew up with and who are "native" to my land. I can say without blushing that Californians are outsiders who really should clear the fuck out. It's not the money and the skills they bring that makes them good neighbours, it's the communion they don't bring that makes them bad neighbours. Just seeing a hippie from San Francisco standing in Elmo's radiator repair shop is an affront. I can sort of get over it, but can Sudanese Christians get over an influx of millions, one might assume, coming from around the world and changing all of life, and then demanding accordance? It depends on the commitment to religion, the very word itself meaning, "Binding." But we all know the sectarian problems that arise when one meets a Presbyterian.
I think this is a feasible idea, especially if the Sudanese non-Muslims are under attack from the Muslims. Nothing makes a disparate group cohere better than an outside force. One of my happiest days was spent under fire from Muslims in a "settlement" in Israel, huddled in a partially build house with Israelis. The Muslims were shooting at random, I think, into the compound, and every man, woman, and child was at equal risk, and therefore equal before the threat of death. What a joyous time for me, if not for anyone else there. But, having survived it, all were elated and-- how to put it? Beautiful. Such could be the forging of a nation of Christians in Africa. Maybe.
I'm thinking of trying it out, passing on my proposed years-long trip to Laos. But I am pretty much the wrong guy to have such a plan. Still, if not me, then who among us would do such a thing? Maybe some other man, better qualified and a better person will step up. I'd support that man. But he will have to step up. Otherwise, it just might be me, and one could easily hope for better in this case.
Dag wrote: African Christianity is mostly socialist, not a matter of American capitalism and democracy. Sudanese are of themselves, not part of a world-wide brotherhood of Man or a communion of souls united in Christianity. They are just folks who live their lives and wish to continue to do so, I believe at this time, based on past knowledge and experience.
I query: From what I have read, Evangelical Christianity is a very big movement in Africa.
Are you sure about what you are writing here, Dag?
Pastorius,
Interesting fact, is I remember reading somewhere that Africans are converting from Islam to Christianity in droves. This has also apparently been confirmed by Al Jazeerah of all media outlets.
6 Million Muslims convert to Christianity - Al-Jazeerah !
And of course as you would imagine, they are not happy.
Yes, I have read stuff like that too, Damien.
I think Dag may have his facts wrong, but what do I know?
I think there might be some confusion here about what socialism means in this context. Nigerian ex-Archbishop Akinola is a conservative in many ways, and some ways that I like; but he is not an economic conservative in ways we would therefore assume.
Shop-keeping and merchant trading do not add up to capitalism, and do not negate socialism. Capitalism, briefly, is about how one organises production and how it is distributed, owned, and discarded (sold off or thrown away or et c.) Commerce is not capitalism, nor is corporatism or mercantilism or any variations thereon. If it isn't capitalism, it still isn't necessarily socialism, but the chances are good that it's something very close in practice. Co-operativism, one might argue, is not socialism; communitarian economies bound within family and village and clan and tribal relations not socialism; familism not socialism; and so on. But, if not socialism, then what? If one is not a truly free agent in a marketplace of free exchange, in which one pays the same price regardless of ones relationship with the seller, then one is not in a free market. This is fine if one is dealing with a friend quid pro quo, but it is not legitimate commerce in our sense when there is a familial price and a xeno-price. Price-fixing, even within a family, is not free enterprise. It is eventually corrupt. But it depends on how one divides the _oikos_, meaning the "household" of home, economy, and world. Mom and Dad do not present Buddy and Sissy with a bill after dinner. They are within the oikos of family; but one does present them with a bill at the shop, the same price Joe would pay, and this because the shop account is corporate beyond the family, a being-in-itself that has a legitimate existence beyond family. One pays ones own company with a legitimate price out of ones own earnings, as business people will know but others might not. It is non-social but not anti-social. It is, without being capitalist, bourgeois, a value that one comes to in a capitalist system not based on family and other household relations.
[Excuse the delay, I'm making dinner here.]
If one is not free from familism and clan or tribe or other xemophobias, one cannot be a non-socialist in this day, outside of genuine primitives such as hunter-gatherers or nomads and such. The rest are in a state of socialism ranging from State Socialism such as the soviet system, or some Fabian nightmare such as we see in Britain, and so on. alternately we can find ourselves confronted with Social Gospel, such as we have in Obama and the Democratic Party, or we can have localist socialism, village socialism such as is prevalent in Africa. It is not the Tanzanian ersatz-Euro-socialism or Chinese pseudo-peasant socialism, it is merely village socialism.If there isn't an objective market price, buying, selling, creating, losing and profiting, then there is some variation of socialism involved. Social conservativism and evangelical Christianity do not make one a non-socialist, though it's likely one will not be a Liberation Theologist. But it doesn't make one a capitalist, a true non-socialist.
[Dinner time.]
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