Why is it that India...

[Cheyenne]

It just happens..
Can I follow you around the board for awhile?

Sure! I followed *bratcat* for awhile this morning so turnabout is fair play.

I really do wonder about ppman though.

 

[Never]

Oh, boy..
Well post someplace already so I can post after you.

 

[Problem Child]

Re: How can India remind you of Cuba?

On the one hand you're talking about a tiny Caribbean Island, where the might of America, during one of its periodic ant-Communist hysterial outbursts, decided to try and force an accepted regime out by imposing sanctions, to a massive country which had everything in place to start it on a path of prosperity.

One has survived, despite the odds, and has given its people a sound educational system and free health care, whilst the other always appears to be on the point of collapse, not able to survive without annual global collections.

Cuba has had 40 years of struggle, India has had 60 years of handouts.

I'm beginning to think that the Indian psyche consists of a very large helping of laziness...

I used to think you just arrogant, and well...British.

Now I know you are racist as well as being just plain stupid.

 

[p_p_man]

I too used to think that Kenya...

...was one of the solid ones, but that country is also having trouble with internal corruption creating a slow smouldering power vaccuum.

I used to think that Kenyatta was one of the good guys but...

Like yourself crystalhunting, I've travelled and lived in third world countries extensively during my life, mostly in the middle east, Africa, Sri Lanka and (would you believe Cuba!).

Many of my observations and thoughts are built up from what I've read, what I've observed and my own first hand experience.

 

[p_p_man]

Re: Re: How can India remind you of Cuba?

Gee, thanks, now I can rag on you. You're just being provocative and truculent.

I thought I'd give you a chance.

Truculent? Provocative? No, just the observations of a man who has spent time travelling around.

And Problem Child I've been called racist many times, but I cannot see how writing about how I think the mismangement of countries can in any way be called racist.

Unless you mean that not to upset people in foreign lands I shouldn't express any opinion at all. Do I call those who criticise the UK a racist...it wouldn't occur to me.

Do tou call someone who criticises the United States a racist...I doubt it.

But any criticism of a country whose indigenous population has a different skin colour to my own then suddenly I'm a racist.

Just for the record, and it goes against my character to bring my personal life into these sort of debates, my second wife was from Euatorial Guinea (formerly Fernando Po) an island off the West Coast of Africa, and is as black as the ace of spades...

And just for good measure after we divorced I married a woman from Hong Kong.

Why do people always point the finger of racism when they read things along the lines that I write. Is it ignorance of the world, an inability to debate the issue or just another way of saying NANA NANANAAA!

 

[Cheyenne]

Are you kidding? Read the comments you got after saying Indians are lazy. Isn't that plain enough for you?

Never is right, you don't try. It just happens.

 

[crystalhunting]

PPman....


I have travelled exstensivley through Africa,the Middle East,and the Indian sub-continent...but.......I would never say that any ethnicity is lazy....


Keep in mind that virtually ALL of the Colonial powers did their damnest to bleed their colonies dry of everything,The British are NOT THE EXCEPTION.


Repression of native languages,takeing of natural resourses,Takeing the best land and giving it to the ethnicticity of the power,The women were considered fodder for the powers as well.

Consider Eygpt for example....They don't look like arabs anymore...because...too many randy Brits had much fun with the women of the populace.They are tall and have obvious caucasian features.Algeria...where my ethnicity originates...is the same situation,except its obvious French in the features.


PPman...When I was in India,I was in the south,The Tamil area,Laziness wouldnt be the word I would use to describe the people there,and I was in one of the poorest regions.Pretty much the untouchable caste is predominate there.

I found them to be polite,nice,and they have some of the best hagglers on this earth,It was a joy to haggle with them over sapphires I wanted to aquire.


If you want to see one of the most messed up countries...Try Syria or Chad......those are the shitholes of the world.


Chill with the racism PPman.


CH

 

[Problem Child]

If you don't think your comments are racist, try coming over here and taking out the word Indian and inserting the words African-American and see whether or not folks think you are racist.

When you characterize an entire nation, over a billion people as lazy, yes, that's fucking racist.

But then again I've always thought the British were a pasty-skinned people that were bad in bed, built lousy sports cars and had poor dental hygiene...so what do I know, right?

 

[p_p_man]

Are you kidding? Read the comments you got after saying Indians are lazy. Isn't that plain enough for you?

Never is right, you don't try. It just happens.

I'm sorry if I have put a few noses out of joint. But racism is not in my vocabulary.

This is what I wrote:

"I'm beginning to think that the Indian psyche consists of a very large helping of laziness...

To me I'm not making a categorical statement that Indians are lazy I'm making a comment to enable people to tell me why they think I'm wrong.

Don't forget this is a thread about the Government of India not the people...it's the people whose voice I'm trying to be.

The poor buggers can't do it for thrmselves.

 

[p_p_man]

OK...Against my better judgement...

...and to help kill this slur of racism. This is my ex-wife and our son...

 

[Mensa]

Vile canard

I, for one, don't believe for a second that p.p. man is racist. I do, however, believe that he chose his terms without due consideration. He's guilty only of overstating his case and doing it solely to get a reaction. In which endeavour he's succeeded undoubtedly.

 

[Azwed]

Well my thoughts

I would not say the people of India are lazy. They seem to fine once they get out of India to the US or some other country. My roomate freshman year was indian. He graduated in 2.5 years with a Computer Science major and Econ minor and a 3.5 + average. He took 22 or more credits a semester i would not call him lazy. Most of the people I work with at school are either Indian or Pakistani and they are not lazy at all. Most of them have better grades then me even taking into account my 4 semester of engineering that beat up my GPA. I think the real problem in India is the government. It is too restrictive in everyway. Applying for even the most simple bussiness licences is impossible. The corruption is through the roof, a friend of mine told me how he regulary bribed a Cop to ignore the Pot growing in the field near his house, you can't get anything done with out huge amounts of money to free things up.

 

[p_p_man]

Re: Well my thoughts

I think the real problem in India is the government. It is too restrictive in everyway

Thanks Azwed for bringing this thread back to the discussion it was intended...

 

[CookieMonster]

Re: And the UK...

...witness the riots we've been experiencing lately.
...
And when a few hundred extreme right wing groups go into a town during our recent general election. It's the Asians who take to the streets in their thousands, burning, looting attacking the private property of innocent bystanders and generally behving like spoiled children who are suddenly confronted with the "No" word.

p_p_man, please accept my sincere apologies for intruding on your diatribe with facts. Here's an article on your recent race riots from The Observer, dated June 3, 2001:

"Far-right extremists are plotting to trigger massive race riots in Oldham and Bradford this summer.

The National Front and the violent extremist group Combat 18 are planning to hold rallies in the towns in the aftermath of Thursday's general election. The first are expected to be held by 15 June, and are aimed at provoking the large Asian communities in both cities.
...
The NF and Combat 18 are tiny groups with little popular support, but last weekend a tactic that they have developed provoked Britain's worst race riot since the Eighties. A main body of activists ties up police with a rally while smaller groups launch raids on shops and people in the Asian community. They aim to provoke as much Asian violence as possible.

'It is like lighting a fuse and then running away to watch the bomb go off,' said one police source.
...
The violence in Oldham is seen by the far Right as its best opportunity in years to put its anti-immigration views on to the political agenda. Far Right activists have declared the town an 'open city' for racist groups. 'We have been waiting for a race war. It has begun in Oldham,' one Combat 18 supporter told The Observer.

Asian youths are preparing to fight back. Stores of petrol bombs have been collected and gangs formed to meet any threat. One such group, known as Combat 786, is believed to have several hundred young supporters in Asian communities in both Bradford and Oldham.

Elders and youth leaders have appealed for calm, but several admit that they are struggling to keep a grip on hothead elements among young Asians. 'We have kept our people out of the centre of Oldham for five weekends in a row now. But we can't do it much longer,' said Ashid Ali, who is the president of the Oldham Bangladeshi Youth Association.

Anger, already running high, was fuelled on Friday when a petrol bomb was thrown through the window of the deputy mayor of Oldham. Many Asian youths feel the police have failed to protect them from racist attacks and have allowed the right-wingers to invade their town.
...
Officially, the BNP condemns violence, but police sources believe it is exploiting the race riots triggered by the NF and Combat 18. 'It is a twin track strategy on the far Right. You have those who cause the violence and then those who come in and benefit from it,' said one senior police officer."

The complete article is at URL http://www.observer.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,6903,500606,00.html.

In situations like those described, it's very unusual for one side to be entirely at fault, and the other side lily-white-pure. This makes attempts to dump the blame entirely on one side seem disingenuous. You may have something to say, p_p_man, but it does little for your credibility to say it in a way that is obviously biased and distorts the facts.

CookieMonster

 

[Myrrdin]

That was a report about what could happen if the the proposed rallies went ahead.
Those marches by the far right were banned by the Gov't under public order laws.

 

[lavender]

 

[Closet Desire]

I can!

...speak for the women that is! I gave up my job, a house, two cars, a boat and--hmmmm--a wife to move over here with my yummy English love. Everything I had left came over with me in four footlockers. That was years ago...I'm stayin'!

 

[Mensa]

I'll take a dozen , please

English girls Yummmmmmmmmm!!!!

 

[p_p_man]

Damn! Now I know why a certain someone mentioned this thread to me. I hadn't even opened it until this morning.

Yes, you were being a bit prejudiced.

Yes you were promoting an inaccurate stereotype based on someone's ethnic background.

Each nation has it's own form of racism.

PPMan take your hands off the keyboard and step back from the screen and think about it for awhile.

There's nothing here I can prove unless you actually meet the people in question. As that's unlikely to happen then I'm afraid you'll just have to take my word for the following.

Three months ago I moved into an apartment near Kew Gardens in London. Prior to that I was living with a family in Hounslow, near Heathrow Airport. Hounslow and the surrounding district is predominantly an Asian area. The majority of businesses and the local Social Service offices and other Government Departments are staffed by Asians. The local libraries have extremely large sections entirely devoted to literature from India. About half the local schools have a majority of Asian students and there are more mosques and temples in the area than churches.

I'm mentioning all this to try and give you a feel of the place.

It is impossible not to become involved with the Asian way of life, the Festivals and the traditions. There is no trouble between members of the Asian community and members of other communities (we, along with other local areas in Britain, are now seeing the influx of Asylum Seekers from Kosovo, Serbia and other countries involved in that recent conflict) but there is big trouble between gangs of Moslems and gangs of Sikhs. These gangs consist of teenagers and young adults and number in their hundreds. The favoured weapons are machetes and knives. People of all races condemn them and people of all races complain bitterly about the lack of police presence in the area to control them.

Now back to the family I was living with. He is an Indian from East Africa, his mother and father, who live around the corner from him, are from India itself. His wife is English and he has two sons and one daughter. He also has two brothers who are all married to Indian women, one with two teenage daughters and the other with no children as yet. His mother cooks me currys despite my protests that I want fish and chips and I take them home in laden carrier bags. I go to Wembley with his father on a regular basis as he likes to see his friends and his sons won't go with him so he always invites me, (actually I think he just likes to escape from the house for a bit to have a pint and a relaxing chat!).

I'm telling you this to show that I have been steeped in the Indian way of life for over three years whilst I was a guest in his house. And I still am. His children's friends and other people in the area think I'm the children's grandfather and some weeks I'm more in their father's house than my own. Likewise the family or parts of it pop into see me.

Because of the familiarity which grew between us over those years we became very relaxed in each others presence. And he likes nothing more than a good argument/debate, exactly the same as I do. We spend many long nights just talking (his wife usually gets fed up and goes to bed). And if one or both of his brothers are there the discussion can be quite heated.

Now you've got the general background I'll come to my main point. As I've said in a post above I don't see colour, at least not in the sense that some people on this thread have indicated, I see nothing but the person. I agree I probably shouldn't have posted the picture of my ex-wife and I regretted it as soon as I pressed the submit button. I never usually bring my personal life into debate. My arguments stand and fall on what I say not what I am.

Because my friend and his family (and their friends), I know them all, discuss a great many things we say what we think, as you would in any group of people who are close. Remarks I have made to them, regarding the Indian Government which I posted here, have been either supported or not, depending on their point of view. Not once have I been called a racist by them. When things get heated, as sometimes they do, and they are heavily critical of the British Empire and how it ruined India. It never crosses my mind they're making racist remarks.

We are having an enjoyable ding-dong, knockabout argument.

As I also said above I have been called racist a number of times during my life but the slur always seems to come from people who are heavily involved in some kind of softly-softly approach to problems that exist and who have always seemed to me to be afraid to talk about the issues at hand.

And if you think living with my friend and his family is an isolated case in 1985-1987 I lived with a pure Indian family. In case there's a misunderstanding here "pure" in this sense means they were highly religous and followed their traditions to the letter. But you know what, and call this a coincidence if you will, the mother's eldest son who was my age and who had returned home after a disterous marriage, was just as argumentative as my friends in Hounslow.

So Lavender I don't really have to think about anything. I sometimes repeat what I hear, sometimes what I've read, and sometimes what I've expreienced.

There is one thing I do not want to do however and that is restrict myself on a comment because it might offend certain people. If they disagree then let them disagree in keeping with the subject in hand.

 

[delite]

The riots in Bradford correct me if I'm wrong but didn't they all stem from a 'racial' attack on an elderly white man?
The news coverage I saw kept saying that the riots were being started by right wing white youths, however unfortunately the only people seen rioting were Asian youths.

I orginally come from Leicester which is in the Midlands and used to have a lot of manufacturing thus imigarents were encouraged to come to the city and settle to fill the jobs. In 1992 when I left the city did a censors it was printed in the local paper that Leicestershire population comprised of 53% minority groups,
This in its self is not disturbing but together with the fact that to get a job with the local social services or with the city or county council you need to speak an Asian language, The last 4 mayors have been Asian, the member of parliment for Leicester east is Asian, This starts to become a problem as the orginal white population begins to believe that it is they that are being discriminated against , this is reonforced when one of the main roads into the city is closed for 2 days for Dwali but the local council refuses to allow road closure for a memoriale march for old soldiers.
Most inner city primary schools have a teacher to teach Asian children english as it is thier second language many of these children are 4th or 5th generation.
does my dislike of this situation make me a racist? yes possibly
it does in many peoples eyes I make no appologies.

As for The people of Pakistan or India being lazy your having a laugh,
Those at the top might be I don't know but the poor aint they can't be they don't have unemployment benifit if they don't work they don't eat.
As for the infastructure, sure The british left railways exctra just forgot to train anyone in how to run them, the indians were ok for the lower jobs but all the higher jobs were done by white men.

So they have had 60 years thats not even a life time, give em another 60 and then start bitching.

As for countries that have been colonies and aren't fucked up the US and Canada seem to be doing ok