Random Thoughts
The Submissive Trait Nature
or Nurture-Insoluble Problem
In the eighteenth century before the full development of the industrial revolution, China and India accounted for twenty-five percent each, of the GNP of the world. The standard excuse is that the large mass of humanity was probably responsible for this dominant state. It is probably true, but raises an important question, why the industrial revolution did not occur in those countries. China even more than India's earlier progress in developing the decimal system had a lead in some technologies like printing, metallurgy and fireworks. A Pulitzer Prize winning book- Guns, Germs and Steel, as much for content, as for being politically correct ascribes the lack of development in Africa to geography and lack of animals docile enough for domestication and navigable rivers. This feel good thesis wins applause, while whitewashing the truth and thus meets applause from the new left and pseudo-egalitarian apologists. It obfuscates facts and hides the truth to brainwash the oppressed from their fundamental weakness of not having understood the reality, that every civilization must not only be fair to its own followers, but must also set up mechanisms to protect itself from alien thinkers with a differing or colonizing agenda.
India has the unique burden of shame, in that its native inhabitants for pecuniary reasons, without any clear sense of identity or nationalism, partly through the differing linguistic groups, allowed a colonizing power to recruit native soldiers to perpetuate oppression and conquest by a foreign colonizing power, which used the locals to conquer, colonize and oppress its fellow citizens, even though in some cases those subjugated were neither ethnically, linguistically or culturally different from the ignorant mercenaries, who helped to perpetuate this dastardly colonization. This abominable shameful betrayal has even led to a current colloquialism in modern parlance about the use of Gurkha troops. Incidentally, recently the Gurkhas filed a lawsuit against the British government for discrimination because of paying lesser salaries and benefits to such troops. At least China does not have the same legacy of shame as the Boxer rebellion demonstrates. Nevertheless there is a long and shameful policy of indifference at best, to collaboration at worst on the part of China, India and much of Africa for their colonization and slavery. This stands in stark contrast to France seeking its independence from the English Henry after subjugation by marriage or of the Netherlands throwing off the yoke of the Spanish rule from a distant suzerainty separated geographically by alien territory.
Do the Africans, Chinese and Indians and I will throw in the Middle Eastern Moslems, have a submissive trait genetically based or is this a question of nurture and social taming, because of their culture and religion? Confucianism glorifies subjugation to authority, whether royal or paternal, Hinduism devalues current life, while emphasizing duty and the hereafter and Islam is the tyranny of submission ideas by an illiterate manipulator, with a claim of being a prophet, so it is not inconceivable that the constraints of history or genetic bottlenecks could be the basis of the proclivity for enslavement for much of Africa and Asia.
Fortunately the Jews may be the partial rescue for this conundrum. They have a long history of conquest, subjugation and exploitation. Yet for the first time in recorded history they have stood up against the world to find a dominant position, partly with the support of America. If one concedes this point then it should clearly establish that the submissive trait is not genetic, because for the first time in history the Jews have become chordates, meaning those with backbones. On the other hand the creation of Israel and its subsequent hard line attitudes can only be initially ascribed to the Ashkenazis, even though the more recent militancy is equally due to the Sephardim. Thus is this new confrontational attitude due to nurture because of the historical Holocaust, or the effect of environment, because of their long exile in Europe?
03-Aug-2003
More by :
Gaurang Bhatt, MD
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