by Cocacolajojo1 » Fri Aug 02, 2013 1:49 pm
I went to Myanmar in 2003 and that country looked in much better shape than it was reported. In fact, you had to look hard to see any of the atrocities reported in the media. The government had moved all the labour camps to areas that you couldn't visit and had also shut down all the areas where there was open dissent against the government. I wouldn't say that my visit showed me much about the political situation in the country. All the myanmar people I met were extremely nice and curious but they still lived under a crap regime, that took around 8-9 years more of internal combustion before it had to lay of with some of its worst oppression in ordet to get some cash from the west.
So I would say that just visiting a country leaves little insight.
I also spent about three months in Thailand, visiting the remotest north and south, during the horrible crack-down on drug-dealers by Thakshin, when people seemed to be killed on quotas rather than if they were actually slinging drugs. Saw nothing about it but read about it when I logged in on foregin newspaper sites. All the local newspapers claimed that everyone shot or arrested had been selling drugs. I know which I trusted, especially in a country where you had to rise for the royal national anthem before each show in the cinemas and the military sort of decided who could remain in power and not (this happened in 2005 when I visited again). I'm sure Socrates has some other info or nuances to this information as my English is a bit crude by in this particular situation I wouldn't have advised anyone to believe what the newspapers wrote on the war on drugs. Thailand is a great country btw.
Now, this was also when Thailand had its first and about only case of Sars, and the same foreign newspapers were writing about the epidemic in south-east Asia. In this case, I also knew what to trust. I.E. my own testimony and not the media hysteria. Everything was pretty chill, it was pretty hard to get the disease and life was going on like always. The only hysterical people were from the west running around with white face-masks.
So, after digressing a bit, I'm just saying that it's pretty arbitrary to say that newspapers always do that and this, and that eye-witness reports from people who live and visit there are always like that or so. As for the newspapers, some of its just hysteria and some of it is pretty much spot on. As for visiting and living in a country, it's a mixed blessing. I lived a year in Vienna until recently and I would say that it's a fascist-infested, corrupt thirld world country when it comes things as politics, racism and general interaction on the streets, although their social healthcare- and education-systems are top notch internationally speaking. Ask most of the Austrians and they would say I'm typical for a politically correct, overly sensitive neurotic. Look at the last two decades' growth of right-wing populist parties in national and regional elections (Carinthia is a good region to look at), racism against immigrants and corruption scandals and you'll get a third picture.
Consider a debate on England on a chinese forum and consider the turn that debate would take if Carl respectively Arjan logged in and gave their two pennies worth about Britain. You can't just say something like "well he or she is from there, I'm going value that opinion as the most truthful". This is essentially what many of you are doing here with these two guys, one of them who showed a pretty un-liberal stance towards civil rights for females in a thread that's now buried in the off-topic section. Not that they shouldn't be trusted either, but you can't attribute them credence on blind faith.
As for the emirates, visit amnesty and such organizations, ask them in this case. See sites for expats. It's not hard to see what's going on in Abu Dhabi.
As for the youth of this particular nation, compare that with the Balkan countries, the former soviet republics (hi Ant!) or newly founded nations in Asia, like East Timor. There are very divergent paths to take, depending on the inherited historical and political baggage.
It's extremely simplified to say that democracy automatically evolves from regimes that, which seems to be the case here (sorry if I've misunderstood anyone), is at least more liberal than its neighbour (which country isn't more liberal that Saudi-Arabia?) or that democracy evolves over time, just wait and see. The democracy in England is a pretty good example a democracy that cost a lot of blood and a lot of uncomfortable discussions (posing according to BBS) before the arrengements that protected the nobility against the king evolved into general civil rights and elections. Democracy just doesn't happen randomly. We've been told that China will eventually be a democracy for the last 40 years but the party seems to be doing a good job of holding on to that power and getting a large proportion of the population to accept it thanks to draconian censorship and internet-supervision.
There has to be action.
So my question to Soccs and other informed people here, an honest question as usual, what are the reforms that are taking place in Abu Dhabi at the mo? And we're talking liberal reforms here.
"I used to be 6 foot 2 with curly hair, look what it's done to me"
"In my career so far it's the most important goal. You score the goal in the last minute to win the title. You're not sure if that's ever going to happen in your career again. I wish I could tell you how I did it but I can't. I thought for all the world that Mario was going to have a go himself but he just moved it on one more and it fell at my feet and I just thought: 'Hit the target, hit it as hard as you can and hit the target.' And it went in."
