Re: VN contra China (for Peter)

[Sonnet Nguyen <sonnet@theta1.ifpan.edu.pl>]

Dear Peter,

On Fri, 21 Mar 1997 Peter_Donahoe@notes.rbs.org wrote:

> 
> From: Peter Donahoe@RBS on 03/21/97 08:04 AM
> 
> 
>   Dear Sonnet:  I think maybe you are being a little too harsh in
>   this part of your 3/20/97 post regarding China:

You are absolutely right: I was too harsh for posting this criticism
adressing to the WEST.   I meaned here only a paradox of conflict between
an interes and morality and ethics.  On one side West has a good
codex of ethics and often say (and often teach other) about morality and
ethics, but on other side West praticed and practice completly different
things which are unaceptable.  

> 
>   1)  Few if any in the West expect a free or democratic China,
>   except perhaps in our dreams.  Most of the West is puzzled by,
>   afraid and uncertain of China.  Images of students shot and
>   crushed by tanks, and recent missile firings and naval maneuvers
>   near Taiwan are all very real to the West.

Free and democratic China is in WEST's interes.  Inpedently of
everything (exeption war), China'll become a wold's superpower.  
Obviously, Nobody need an evil superpower like China.   

> 
>   2)  Few in West are doing anything at all to help Tibet.  They
>   have no actual national or security interest for doing so.  They
>   also just don't know HOW to help Tibet.  Short of military
>   intervention, only massive, universal, international long-term
>   economic sanctions offer any hope of influencing Chinese policy
>   toward Tibet - that is still unlikely to succeed, and leaves the
>   West criticized by many nations for meddling in Chinese internal
>   affairs.

Relation WEST-China and relation WEST-Tibet create a good example 
of a war between interes and morality.   At this moment nobody
(except tibetians) expect that WEST uses powerful weapon "economic
sanctions" to help Tibet.  What is important here: morality or interes?   

> 
>   3)  I honestly don't know enough about Kurdistan to know what
>   you are referencing.  If you mean the conflicts between the
>   Kurds and both the Iraqi and Turkish governments then again, it
>   is easy to criticize the West's INaction - but offering a moral
>   and practical course of action is difficult.  The Kurds are a
>   nation with no country.  That CAN be blamed on Europeans who
>   died long ago.  But what can Europeans in 1997 do about a
>   multinational ethnic conflict in Asia?

Kurds like Tibetians have a right for their country.  But there are a
difference between a sytuation of both nations: WEST has no interes of
appearing a country "Kurdistan" and WEST has a little interes for
independence of Tibet. 
(At least China becomes smaller, weaker and less dangerous).  For this
reason, many people talk about independent Tibet and almost nobody want to
hear about independent Kurdistan.  What is more important: Morality or
interes?

> 
>   5)  Never dismiss the morality and ethics preached by the West.
>   That's harmful.  That makes it easy for the West to be fat,
>   lazy, and hypocritical.  Instead, challenge us at every turn to
>   LIVE UP TO and honor that morality and those ethics.
>   Challenging us on it sometimes stirs us to action, and change.
>   This worked for Gandhi, and it worked for Dr. Martin Luther
>   King, Jr.  It's worked for more people and in more places than I
>   can list.

At this moment, consumtion is dominating value in the WEST and WEST has a
lot "private" problems to solve.  Morality and ethics, we can hear it in
the churchs.  

> 
>   Wasn't it Gandhi who said Western morality and ethics were our
>   great vulnerability?  Probably he was speaking of the British.
>   But his point was that we value those so much that confronting
>   us and revealing our own hypocrisy truly could be a more
>   powerful weapon than a gun.
> 

Today, people are less ideological than in the past.  Method od Gandhi
probably doesn't work.

When I talk about Morality (and Ethics) of the WEST, I just mean  morality
of the WEST's goverments.  Of couse, many people in the WEST still respect
and live accordance with the principle of morality.  They (not their
goverments) did do a lot for Tibet, Kurdistan and Idians in South America.
I have a respect to them and not to their goverments.  

regard,
SN