JUAN COLE "What does the World look like from Somalia? ...."

[bloom]

"What does the World look like from Somalia? Explaining why Ilhan Omar Scares the Horses in DC"


"...In neither case has the US Congress been used to hearing from the colonized.

The voice of former and present colonies has been heard, however, since last November, in the persons of Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar. They are all Americans, but of Puerto Rican, Palestinian and Somali heritage, respectively.

...European “civilization” doesn’t look like something to be celebrated so effusively from the vantage point of Mogadishu, an ancient site of East African civilization likely founded by Iranian merchants, and a key node in medieval world maritime trade. Racist hierarchies and segregation, crushing wars of conquest, the disruption and displacement of entire regions, and then the debilitating intrigues of the Cold War and the “War on Terror,” along with the naked exploitation of Somali fisheries and the creeping deserts of global heating– these are the legacies of “civilization.”

When the victims of this European Fascism and its less explicit successors speak from Congress, they do not forget. They do not forget the refugees and the displaced, whether Somali or Palestinian. They do not forget the powerless and subjected and forgotten, whether Somali or Palestinian or Puerto Rican. They do not forget the civilian victims of the “war on terror,” or the US coddling of the Saudis, who have sometimes inspired hard line movements to attack tolerant Muslim traditionalism...."


https://www.juancole.com/2019/03/somalia-explaining-scares.html

[2naSalit]

1. K&R X100000000000000000000000!!

[Wellstone ruled]

2. So true,

we Americans have zero clue as to how other Countries view the world or for that part,give a crap less.

Everyone should talk to someone who carried their Children across a Frontier fleeing invasion from a hostile power.

Our Media has made us immune to what others endure just to make it form one day to the next.

[JI7]

3. did jews attack Somalia ? there was a somali that tried to run down innocent jewish

people in los angeles. does he blame jewish people for the problems in somalia ?

[Xolodno]

5. He might.

Remember, its only in the last couple 100 years that Christianity has denounced anti-antisemitism. And likewise, Islam adopted it.

[wellst0nev0ter]

7. Would this post be Islamophobic

Or just a double standard?

[Xolodno]

8. Allow me to restate.

Wahhabism Sect has adopted antisemitic position as well as the government of Iran.

[Crunchy Frog]

4. K&R

[Xolodno]

6. Historical perspective is important, as it shapes the populaces opinion, wrongly or rightly.

I make Evangelicals go red in the face, when I tell them that Adultery in the Bible could only be committed by a Woman. And it had nothing to do with about "staying faithful" to your partner and everything to do about property rights. But over time, new meaning and implementation was given to it. It's why the "sex laws" of the Bible never line up or are definitive for our era.

I also get a lot of flack for showing the historical perspective. Just about everyone on DU thinks Putin's quote about the Soviet Union being a geo-political disaster as his desire to recreate the Soviet Union. When I point out its wrong, because economically, it puts Russia back into a bad position and politically, in a nightmare that resembles the time of the Tsar's, I get blasted. Oh well.

[DFW]

9. It happens, even when oni xolodny, i ty zharko

Damn, it's not easy transliterating! Боже мой !

[Xolodno]

10. I'm still trying to figure out why I didn't go into History in college, and took up Economics.

History always fascinated me...I was the head of the class on that subject all the way up to High School. One teacher even went so far to tell me "please don't sell out the answers to the other students"....I had been approached a number of times to for answers on the homework with "gratitude".

But Economics appealed to me, it affects everything. So now I even look at historical events in terms of economics.

Been thinking about a career change after 20 years...maybe its time? My wife has been advocating me to leave the corporate world for becoming a teacher. But I also know what teacher pay is....think I want three more European and Asia trips under my belt.

[Ani Yun Wiya]

11. K&R

And in America there is little recognition or remembrance of what the original population here,suffered at the hands of Europeans and their descendants.

[Blue_Tires]

12. Puerto Rico is a "colony" now?

??