Olympics: Random Thoughts
Yesterday, as I watched the Canada versus Germany men's curling match, it occurred to me that, when they were young, the grandfathers of the very men on each of those teams could quite possibly have been shooting bullets at each other over in Europe, not shoving rocks down a sheet of ice. You see, people can get over past conflicts, and fairly quickly, too.
Then there's the Arabs, who are still going on about the crusades more than seven centuries after the last of them, and not once have I heard an acknowledgment on their part that they themselves had, in an era previous to that, conquered the territories considered collectively as "Christendom" which the Christian crusaders were simply intent on reclaiming. Mind you, the education received by Arab children has probably neglected to include that little factoid.
If the grandsons of German and Canadian soldiers can face off in a curling rink and shake hands while exchanging friendly post-game congratulatory banter after the game is over, why is it the Palestinians are so entrenched in their hatred about something that also happened in the 1940's? Who benefits from this? Certainly not the Palestinians.
Germany was completely crushed during WWII. East Germany, of course, lagged far behind its Western brethren for pretty much the remainder of the twentieth century, but upon reunification, has made great strides in lifting itself up. Yet, the Arabs were offered a reasonable compromise in 1948/9. They hadn't been crushed, so they rejected it and are still rejecting reasonable offers, despite the fact that each rejection seems to eat a little more of their chances for a successful outcome.
Is it culture? Is it indoctrination? Manipulation by those with a vested interest? (That means you, you Arab and Muslim neighbours, you who want to maintain your dictatorial grasp on the reins of power.) And is there really a difference between any of these? Do you think some day we might see some Winter Olympic competitors from Dubai? Heck, if hot countries like Brazil and Jamaica can field bobsledding teams, why not?
Then there's the Arabs, who are still going on about the crusades more than seven centuries after the last of them, and not once have I heard an acknowledgment on their part that they themselves had, in an era previous to that, conquered the territories considered collectively as "Christendom" which the Christian crusaders were simply intent on reclaiming. Mind you, the education received by Arab children has probably neglected to include that little factoid.
If the grandsons of German and Canadian soldiers can face off in a curling rink and shake hands while exchanging friendly post-game congratulatory banter after the game is over, why is it the Palestinians are so entrenched in their hatred about something that also happened in the 1940's? Who benefits from this? Certainly not the Palestinians.
Germany was completely crushed during WWII. East Germany, of course, lagged far behind its Western brethren for pretty much the remainder of the twentieth century, but upon reunification, has made great strides in lifting itself up. Yet, the Arabs were offered a reasonable compromise in 1948/9. They hadn't been crushed, so they rejected it and are still rejecting reasonable offers, despite the fact that each rejection seems to eat a little more of their chances for a successful outcome.
Is it culture? Is it indoctrination? Manipulation by those with a vested interest? (That means you, you Arab and Muslim neighbours, you who want to maintain your dictatorial grasp on the reins of power.) And is there really a difference between any of these? Do you think some day we might see some Winter Olympic competitors from Dubai? Heck, if hot countries like Brazil and Jamaica can field bobsledding teams, why not?
posted by Louise at 9:59 am
4 Comments:
I went to hear George W Bush speak in his first engagement after his presidency - here in Calgary.
He was very thoughtful and interesting, much different than the SNL caricature version one has been led to expect.
He talked about meeting with the Japanese, and having very fruitful trade meetings with extremely cordial discussions. He then reminisced that 50 years previously, his father tried to kill Japanese and vice versa (although put more elegantly than that).
He extended the thought to Iraq - and hoped that one day there would be similar rapprochement, and that sometimes it's very hard now to see what can eventually be.
Very neat.
Do you sometimes wish you could reincarnate so you can see where the big events of our lifetimes have landed our descendants? It's so true. Each generation inherits the previous generations' (plural) screw-ups and as often as not, the "fix" ends up being a screw-up for the next generation.
Being a sixties generation brat, I, personally, get a little tired of hearing the younger types blame everything on my generation of old smelly hippies. For one thing, we did bathe quite regularly.
But, I seem to recall that being an anthem of my generation during the sixties as well. Remember the sage advice from Abby Hoffman: "Don't trust anyone over thirty." I think I could recycle that, but I'd have to exchange the word "over" with the word "under". I mean, recycling is good, isn't it?
And while I'm at it, can anyone guess why the NDP would like to lower the voting age?
I contemplated making the trip into S'toon to attend Dubya's speech, but never did make a decision. The price was a bit much and just getting past the rent-a-rioters in order to get into the venue might have been too great a risk to life and limb. Oh well.
Don't get me started on the rent-a-rioters @Bush. One guy kept repeatedly shouting in my direction "nuke the suburbs". One, isn't nuking supposed to be bad for you guys, and, two, the guys in the suburbs are subsiziding your life.
I agree with your time delay thing. In essence, each administration ends up running according to five year old decisions. Truman ran a war that he didn't start, GW Bush ran an economy that Clinton and Greenspan heated up, and Obama is dealing wars and with an economy that imploded towards the end of Bush's tenure. The difference is Obama spends a lot of time belly-aching about "how hard it is".
I grew up at the tail end of the hippy thing, sadly came of age during disco, blech. But I remember that our generation was going to be the most pure and good, even possibly purer than the idealistic smelly hippies.
"sadly came of age during disco"
My condolences. LOL.
"our generation was going to be the most pure and good, even possibly purer than the idealistic smelly hippies"
More LOL!! That's what my generation thought of yours, too. God, even the clothes were sickening in a saccharine sort of way.
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