Posted by Jeff from bgp01107368bgs.wbrmfd01.mi.comcast.net (68.42.59.180) on Friday, July 05, 2002 at 2:53PM :
...thought you had me there, Shawn?
I'm referring to the "email" archives that my email client saves.
This one was originally posted on AINA:
Posted by Parhad on Saturday, 23
June 2001, at 5:51 p.m.
http://aina.org/bbs/index.cgi?read=27660
We need a drastic change in our approach to the world. We are not now a
great nation, we are not now a great anything. Saying it, keeping up
apearances, putting
on a display will no longer do. We are losing the respect and interest
of our young people in a doomed effort to maintain what we settle for as
a leadership which
lacks the power to inspire us and yet demands we support it
uncritically. Though we are asked to join any number of organizations
and political clubs, the very fact
that there are so many of them boasting at most a handfull of members
each, is an indication of the lack of a common vision any significant
portion of our community
can agree upon. Dissatisfied with existing organizations, each one
splinters off to form yet other groups reflecting the narrow and
peculiar views of yet another
"leader". The organizations which do exist such as the AUA seek to sell
us a brand of leadership and a vision which has been rejected any number
of times, yet these
same people speak in our name, saying we had our chance to approve of
them and view our refusal to do so as an invitation to them to lead us
anyway.
The distinctions we draw between linguistic variants, regional
jealousies, religious sects, definitions of "homeland", and a host of
minor points we've magnified into
stumbling blocks which will shortly lead to our absolute dissolution as
a result of assimilation and the violence we suffer on all sides in the
NearEast, are lost on our
younger generations. They quite rightly see this all as useless and
futile since we will soon disappear, whatever we are or were. They are
much more able to see the
larger picture while we focus on minor portions here and there. The
future belongs to them. half of us have one foot in the grave and the
rest should be slipping in any
day now. The only legitimate purpose we can serve is to smooth their
path as much as possible by removing ourselves even before then.
Removing the useless
debates, the pointless discussions, the inward focus on trivialities
which blinds us to what is coming.
We must live in the world and be a part of it. We cannot hope to exist
locked away in communities far removed from the forces which impact our
heritage. Our
people in BetNahrain have been under seige for 11 years now. many have
died, many have left. Our numbers in that region are dwindling rapidly.
If we fall below a
certain level we will be gone entirely, probably never to return. There
should be something hopeless and disheartening in giving up on the lands
which first gave birth
to our heritage and which our people have occupied since almost the
beginning of recorded time.
Our people are scattered throughout the West... we could learn to tap
into the resources of each of the countries we now call home, utilizing
the systems and
institutions in each, which we are as yet unfamiliar with.
-----------------------------
-- Jeff
-- signature .