Re: Happy Indigenous Peoples Day

From: Schlau (schlaf_at_my-deja.com)
Date: 10/17/04 

Date: 17 Oct 2004 00:03:01 -0700

Madhusudan Singh <spammers-go-here@spam.invalid> wrote in message news:<2tc0bhF1tf2fkU3@uni-berlin.de>...
> Schlau wrote:
>
> >
> > There was little difference between the Europe of 1492 and the
> > Americas of 1492, little difference in the uses of power, in prescriptive
> > inequalities, in coercion and torture, in imperialism and violence and
> > destruction, in suppression of individual freedom and human rights.
> >
> > The record illustrates less the pitiless annihilation of an idyllic
> > culture
> > by a wrecking crew of aliens than it does the criminality of all cultures
> > and the universality of original sin. Cruelty and destruction are not the
> > monopoly of any single continent or race or culture.
> >
> > Two wrongs of course don't make a right but awareness of both wrongs may
> > help to guard against the feelings of moral superiority in judging others
> > of the past....
> >
> > --Oscar Schlaf--
>
> Well put, but these excesses (that finally stole almost all their land)
> against the Plains Native Americans occured in late 19th century, not 1492.

  It applies as much in the 19th cen as it does to 1492. The Native
Americans of the Plains were as violent and brutal as the Europeans,
they faced. They were nomads who often raided thier more settled
neighbours, as well as each other.
  Overall conflict on the American plains had to do with a settled
civilization vs a nomadic one. Which is a conflict that dates back from
the begining of civilization, the nomadic peoples just usually had the
upper hand. (Huns, Turks, Mongols, and so on).

                               --Oscar Schlaf--

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