I will translate a very famous Asian folk song. Just for you to read. It cant rhyme because translating means you have to shift word orders.
If we keep watching the times we can have our home grown rice will come to an end
The English bull has to be chased away from the central area, get ready for that my fellow
Why should my puppy dog, the love of my village home be taxed
I wonder if tomorrow even the milk in a mothers breasts will be taxed
Oh when my babies are crying what do I give you to eat?
If those Gods in our sermons are alive, they will cut the white man into four pieces
With what mind are they even taxing the jack tree in the garden?
Sharpen those swords you kept for cutting Jackfruit, to cut the white man
From the month of may, flowers of freedom fighting will bloom
When do we cut those dirty white men on the soil of our mother land?
And so on.
Thats a milder translation. The issue with the modern world with all of this superficial talk is that they have forgotten the history of the world. This song was written in the form of poems in the 1940's when they were fighting for their freedom against the British invaders. The thing to note is that the particular person they are addressing this song lived in the early 19th century, that's around 125 years before this song was written. It shows that this particular people lived with that level of anger and frustration for hundreds of years under the British oppression. But the most important thing is to note the level of oppression and the level of anger they are talking about.
It is very easy for every tom, dick and harry to blame something on religion, or atheism, or something else with childish levels of study on these issues. But the depth of history's effect on the modern society can never be so easily dismissed or analysed. This is like a child playing with a toy just randomly making statements for the personal pleasure, nothing more, nothing less.
Just read through this thread and try and understand how shallow people are. Statements are made as if they have studied what should be done, whats the reason for all of this, and what is the meta information behind everything for years. People speak as if they have done immense research and come to conclusions based on those, but they are actually speaking with utter, mind numbing levels of ignorance the empty vessel filled arrogance, not information.
Recently I was telling one guy in this forum about women in a Buddhist society where they dont use sanitary napkins because they cant afford them, and that they dont use condoms, and that they dont have sex out of marriage, and that they cant stop having children because there is no family planning, neither can they afford any pills, but this guy who is a staunch atheist immediately guessed that they were Muslims and that they should have known better than to have a child. Thats it, shop closed. Solution given. He didnt know I was speaking about a Buddhist society but he immediately guessed its a Muslim society, and he just cannot fathom that people are having sex with no child planning, and that too we were discussing the "first baby", not the 10th or the 15th. One child. Women in some areas of the world cant walk to get a bus because the bus stop might be miles away. She cant leave the child with someone else because everyone in the village is in the fields working or no food for tonight. The man has to go to the field to get his share of rice and vegetables. But you know what this so called educated, American gentleman's idea was? His idea was that "the man should not be going to work leaving the wife at home. The woman also should go to work and maybe hire a maid to look after the child". People like this think they are highly educated, but in fact they have gone raving mad. No empathy. Zilch.
In this particular topic, Afghanistan is probably the worst type of society in the world. Or at least one of the worst. Women are oppressed. No doubt. But has anyone considered who is oppressing these women? Is it the men?
Yes. It is indeed the men. Lol. But its also the women themselves. Lets say one young man wants to marry a young lady from another tribe, it will be the mother who will put an end to it. I dont want to go on a rant in this matter, but the women share the same guilt of this oppressive society. Blame it on the rain. This is an oppressive, regressive society and there is no doubt in that, but one must study the history to at least have an idea of whats going on. Afghanistan was invaded repeatedly by all the holy super powers in the world. Repeatedly. They were always warring, since at least Napoleon which is the modern era. Afghanistan was a very progressive society with girls wearing short skirts maybe 4-6 decades ago. Russia, France, U.S, all of them ploughed the land like the tilth of gold they were looking for, and the country was left with tribes and tribes fighting each other. Rwanda had their tribal massacres because the French left them after their divide and conquer strategy, the same thing the british did in India and every single surrounding country. The divisions the british created in these countries led to wars and murder until today. I say that again, "EVEN TODAY". One division they created ended with a masochist war that lasted 30 years as a full fledged war, and was done and dusted in 2009. The strategy is to take a minority, make them kings, make them the educated, and oppress the majority which makes it easier to rule. This is called divide and conquer. This is what they did. Then, when times were rough, the invader, be it France, U.S, England, Russia or any moronic institution will leave them abruptly telling them "here you go, this is your freedom". But the silly divisions they created will linger, and will linger for another 100 years. One tribal leader in Afghanistan who were favoured by the United States kidnapped a child and word spread that they were raping that child. This was common place there. So one dude in a university decided he wants to rescue this child. So he gathered his students and who ever was willing to help him and overran the tribes forces to rescue this child. So this gave him recognition and power. He is the leader of the Taliban. He is Mullah Umar. This is their history.
One day I was talking about rape which is one area I know and work in because I have three sisters and a mother. So I was giving reasons for rape and I was quoting clinical psychologist Groth, and one guy who was an atheist accuses "you are victim blaming"? So I dont expect much better for this post. There is no difference between atheists, muslims, christians, and/or anyone else. They are all the same. I mentioned atheists here because it is the atheists who love to blame everything on religion for everything without even knowing anything in the business. Lol. Just that the atheists dont know that theists all over the world were blaming atheists for the millions murdered since the dawn of the 20th century. So this is a Childs game of "mama, he did it". So honestly, I dont expect anything better but since this came up, I just thought I should leave some thoughts to ponder over.
Bottomline is, there is a lot to think of. We must think, not just speak with nothing but emptiness. I was reading about a mother who irons the girls chest just to make the breasts smaller so that she won't be noticed by their men and raped. Haha. No no. This is not a Muslim society, its an African society. I say that before anyone jumps to their normal conclusions. There are cultures where having sex and proving a woman has the ability to birth a child is a criteria for marriage. If not, the men won't marry this girl. So she goes around having sex with any suiter who comes across. Yep, this spread HIV like wild fire, and their society has probably the highest number of HIV positive cases in the world. Say a country like Botswana. But see, its not interesting for most. No juicy feeling you know, there is no adrenalin rush talking about these things.
I shall stop now. Lets just think a bit better.
This is why I tried to couch my terms: "I'm not educated enough..." and "...but I have wondered."
I'm also in agreement that just blaming religion is a problem. I don't engage in that. There are so many factors at work, the majority of which I can't even fathom and that I'm aware I know almost nothing about living my sheltered and privileged life in a superpower country that's probably responsible for some or even most of the problems.
Thanks for the informative post.
