MORE DAVOS: “Thinking is better than remembering”
That was said by Shimon Peres at Davos.
Peres also said, People would rather remember than think.”
This one caught my eye:
Time and again, this has happened at Davos:A journalist (usually British or American) will ask a question loaded with anti-American bias. And the leader being questioned will say something defensive about America.
I will briefly recapitulate a most memorable instance: Americans had just conducted a strike on a target in Pakistan; the Pakistani leadership had not been told in advance about this strike. Someone asked Pervez Musharraf, “How can you tolerate such arrogance and cowboyism from the Americans?” (Again, I am paraphrasing.) “They did not inform you; they violated your precious Pakistani sovereignty. And you are quite rightly a proud people. How can you stand these Americans?”
Then there’s this:
A journalist asks why in the world Western countries are bombing innocent people. [President of Afghanistan] Karzai answers with perfect composure: Such bombings are happening much less often now; the coalition is making a big effort to be careful. One reason they have bombed from the air is that ground forces have been too few. And mistakes are made all the time, in war. Just last night — as recently as last night — the coalition killed nine members of the Afghan armed forces. (By accident, of course.)But you know? The coalition has suffered too: Americans, Canadians, others. Men and women from many countries have died in accidents. It’s not just Afghans who are paying a price.
I have seldom seen a leader so cool, so unhistrionic, so un-demagogic — so mature.
Musharraf answered essentially as follows: “Yes, it is true that we would have liked to know about the strike. And it is true that we are a proud people, jealous of our sovereignty. But what about al-Qaeda? They are all foreigners — from Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Chechnya, and all over. They have no right to be on our territory. They are violating our sovereignty. How come no one ever mentions that? And the Americans are helping us get rid of these foreigners.”
Here’s a slogan: America - it ain’t that bad!
posted Jan 31, 2008, 6:16pm by Rodolpho Carrasco
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yeah. but thinking without remembering (or thinking while remembering badly) is just as perilous. Remembering without thinking is usually based on a “nostalgia of fear,” and fuels a lot of contemporary conflicts. Thinking without remembering, however, was the hallmark of the previous couple of centuries, and that was not entirely helpful either…Indeed, the present snafu in Western Asia is a direct result of this.