Of films, riots and hatred II: when islands are the issue
— there are also oil and gas fields nearby.
What drives a crowd to riot and what interests the powers that be may be two very different sides to the same affair.
**
Curious Goat Fact accompaning the above map:
In the 1970s Japanese ultra-rightists took two goats on a 2,000km (1,250-mile) trip southwest from Tokyo to a group of uninhabited rocks near Taiwan called the Senkaku Islands. In the absence of humans willing to live in such a remote outpost, the hardy creatures would be the vanguard of a new push to solidify Japan’s hold over the islets, which are also claimed by China and Taiwan.
Supplementary Mole Fact:
The Senkaku mole is an endangered species.
**
Does comparing Beijing 2012 with Cairo 2012 change the emphasis with which you view recent events in Cairo and elsewhere?
Do you find the analogy between Cairo 2012 (upper panel above) and Tehran 1979 (lower panel) more convincing?
Look, I think the making of analogies is one of the chief ways — if not the chief way — in which we make “instinctive” judgments, which we then back up with appropriately selected data and reasoning. If you like, it’s subject to our own mental version of undertow in terms of what analogies we chose and how strongly we then weigh them — unless we take responsibility for the process, and begin to explore how it actually works in our own minds, and in the public mind…
Analogy is an extremely powerful instrument of thought — and it’s about time we understood it as well as we understand linear logic.
Page 2 of 2 | Previous page
zen:
September 17th, 2012 at 4:07 am
Great tie-in, Charles!
.
There is a part of the world that sees diplomatic missions as symbols to be used as foils or enemy outposts/hostages of “the Other” to be attacked vs. the part that holds to the 2500 year old+ international norm that they are to be regarded as inviolate.
.
The Spartans, having impiously killed the heralds of the Great King Xerxes, later sent some of their own young men to Xerxes as human sacrifices and recompense to appease the Persians. The bewildered and disgusted Xerxes sent them away and set out to properly chastise the unruly Greeks.
.
I fear we are now in the same position as was Xerxes
Pundita:
September 17th, 2012 at 7:35 pm
Zen — Just so long as we’re not in the same position as General Gordon. From Wikiepdia’s article on him: “On his way to Khartoum with his assistant, Colonel Stewart, Gordon stopped in Berber to address an assembly of tribal chiefs. Here he committed a cardinal mistake by revealing that the Egyptian government wished to withdraw from Sudan. The tribesmen became worried by this news, and their loyalty wavered.”
zen:
September 18th, 2012 at 1:47 am
Hi Miss P.
.
Ah, Charles “Chinese” Gordon. The difference is, back then, by killing Gordon, the Mahdists brought down on themselves the wrath of the British Empire in the form of Lord Kitchener and his maxim guns, into which the Mahdists rode straight on, swords in one hand, Qurans in the other, to their deaths. Our leaders by contrast fear killing an enemy far more than having their own people die at their hands [exception: If the enemy is also a political embarrassment for a VIP, then he can be killed without ceremony, but only then]
Pundita:
September 18th, 2012 at 3:22 am
Zen — Yuppers. Yes indeed. Yup. My first thought when I heard of the Benghazi raid was, “What would Lord Kitchener do?” But that quote I pulled from Wikipedia gave me the shivers, Gordon’s key mistake is essentially what we did in Afghanistan; by telegraphing so much about our intentions the tribal chiefs wavered in their loyalty and often cast their lot with the Taliban — not because they liked them but because they thought that’s who would rule when the Americans lumbered home.
.
As to the rest of your comment, it’s so on target I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry so I did both.
Gilles Poitras:
September 18th, 2012 at 6:44 pm
The Japan Times has a page to follow the island controversy.
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/senkaku.html
One thing to add, some Chinese have argued that all of Okinawa actually belongs to China as the Ryukyu kingdom there had a tributary relationship with China at one time. The descendants of the king are now members of the Japanese nobility.
Charles Cameron:
September 18th, 2012 at 8:36 pm
Thanks, Gilles.
.
Nice to see you here, and your pointer is much appreciated.