Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Lillian Holt: Well this is the paradox of existence in some ways for me as an indigent Australian, as an average Australian, because I both love and defend my country. I love my country physically, mentally and spiritually. I belong there. My ancestors lived there for thousands and thousands of years, and yet --and I love it and I can defend it, but also I can be severely critical of it from time to time, because it is a rich and abundant nation but it's also a racist or racialized country in many ways. There's a [gang] of the soul called racism – the [gang] of the soul. We continue to be critical of it because that is about disconnectedness and it's about diminishment, because what diminishes me is that [inaudible] Australia also diminishes white people, but they actually don't understand the connectedness of it [audio glitch] and connect to the soul. As I said I will continue to be critical of my own country while loving it, loving it deeply because it's like family. I belong in Australia. But I will love and defend it and also be critical of it, just as I would my own family and community.

by Lillian Holt

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Livingstone Maluleke: Why a person in America being black and they continue to love and defend a country that treats him or her like and unwanted child. All this thing is all about color which is not very important, because in my understanding a country in which one is born is one’s original place and he belongs there irrespective of the negative treatment that may come from any other person. So, it is all about how one feels about the originality where he or she finds himself, and therefore one is a patriot to one’s country, I belong to where I come from. So, all this thing is all about where do I come from that made us the issue of color whether black or white or yellow is not an issue. Here it’s all about where do I come from? Where are my roots? If am an African, then it means I come from Africa. If I come from Asia, then I am an Asiatic and I have to be respected from my being an Asiatic. That’s all about it.

by Livingstone Maluleke

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Mae-Wan Ho:

by Mae-Wan Ho

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Mahsa Shekarloo: Well, first of all, as a black American, you're not loving and defending a country. You're loving and defending an empire. And you may want to ask yourself if you want to continue to love and defend an empire. -- And when you continue to love and defend that empire, whose interests are you defending? Is it yours? Is it the ruling structure? Is it the government? Those in power? Those who have one foot in the government and one foot in private corporations? What are you defending? Are you defending America's so-called dominance, precedence? Maybe instead of loving and defending a country, you should love and defend certain values, certain principles. Maybe you should find allies and likeminded peoples within the U.S., outside the U.S., other oppressed peoples. Because ruling structures, ruling governments, ruling corporations, they protect each other. They defend each other transnationally. And I think perhaps people should consider forming transnational movements so that their interests, financial, economic, political, cultural, social, so their interests can be met.

by Mahsa Shekarloo

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Mark Benecke: Why do people from oppressed groups, if oppression is the right word, why do they still defend their social group? Well, because they are part of that group. I mean, you can only be oppressed in a group if you accept that group as the people who can oppress you. So if you don't walk away, like in the United States, the person who is asking the question is from the United States, and feels unwanted, if that person doesn't walk away, it kind of accepts that this is the group of people in which he decides to live, in the end. Because you can walk away, out of the United States. You cannot walk away from some other countries, but from the United States, you can walk away. Now if you accept this group as your social group in which you live, then of course, you are going to defend it. Maybe on a lower level, with less energy than somebody who feels closer to the core of that society, but you will still do it. Because if your group biologically provides you with basic goods, especially let's say food, and you feel that this group is the group to provide you with that, then you are going to stick to the group and also defend the group a little bit. It's a biologic principle. If the suffering would be too big, you would walk away, but you don't. So why don't you? Maybe you don't feel that unwanted.

by Mark Benecke

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Martin Almada: The hurricane Catrina made obvious, that the social and racial discrimination is wide-spread in the United States. The hurricane devastated a poor and abandoned city of this great country, namely New Oerleans, the cradle of jazz, situated in the south of the United States. And instead of investing money to avoid climate catastrophes, the government invested it in arms to kill Iraqi and Afghan people. The majority of the affected by the hurricane Catrina were black people, so it is no wonder to me, that Afroamericans are treated like an unwanted child. In order to answer this question accurately, it is necessary to study the historical process of the United States of America critically. By doing so one will find many answers and will be able to judge their feelings and agressions and to understand how the education system of this country contributes to increase patriotism for a motherland that exploits its own citizens and sends them to die in a war. In my country Paraguay, the natives are unwanted children, too, due to this class-conscious society. The situation in other Latin American countries is similar.

by Martin Almada

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Masami Saionji: This is a problem of our own mind. Therefore, whatever the USA thinks about us, if we have our confidence for our life and for our existence, it doesn't become such a situation like this. We should recognize this situation or surrounding as one of our living process. That is, we can think owe to such a situation, why we exist, what our life is, how important we are, and how we live. Additionally, we should change slowly our negative idea that we are not important. Instead of that, we should think that we are necessity. We must also think what we can do to be needed, and how to express ourselves. When we can find the way of life which is loved, adored or respected by everyone, we can live peacefully without discrimination or conflict. It is not important whether who is white or black. There are black people who are happy and live on their own. On the other hand, many white people who are persecuted worse than the black people, and think that they aren't loved by their country. At the end, this is a matter of each one's consciousness.

by Masami Saionji

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Masuma Bibi Russel: Well, Jason, I have to ask you, why you are living in a country where they treat you unwanted child? Why? Because you could go back. There are places in the world. It’s very important that wherever you are, which part of the world, you should be a part of, you know, you should be wanted, not unwanted. Why? As a human being, if you love this country, if you are born in the America, you have every right to be feel wanted. If you don’t feel, can you imagine that if you feel unwanted of a place where you are living, but you love this place, what you will be? I mean you will have some problems. I think that’s so important you should go, you should find a place where you will be more unwanted -- more wanted. I think it’s very, very, very important. I mean, it’s very important. I mean, why? I mean, look at it America is developed country. Why should you feel unwanted? You should try and take this in your -- out of your head or you should try and go to a country where you feel wanted. It’s very, very, very important for your development, for you as a human being.

by Masuma Bibi Russel

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Mayank Mehta: I’m not sure I can answer the question. I think people do what [ideal] things in the world. Countries are already amorphous and poorly defined things. It’s very easy to give very brief answer to say, we do this things because we are taught to, because somebody has told us to, but at the end, we need to go beyond these things. And my guess, I guess it’s a hard question and my guess is, the answer to that lies in understanding, what does it mean to defend a country? Is the best way to defend a country by picking up a gun? The second question is what is a country? By definition, yes, it is a certain geo-political entity, but is that necessarily the kind of definition do you want to follow? Or should we take a much more liberal and perhaps more accurate feel to [hold] that a certain geo-political boundary, perhaps, drawn arbitrarily, especially -- definitely to the political boundary that has been drawn arbitrary, is not necessarily the best way to think of the well being of the people who inhabit them. So, my guess will be that it begins by thinking about the questions one at a time rather than thinking about an abstraction called defense, as defended by guns. And the country is defined by some politicians or history, and only rarely by geography. If you think of these things in these terms, the question becomes a little easier and harder too at the same time. We’ll have then to really start thinking about what is the best way to defend something? We really have to start thinking about, what is that boundary? What are they citizens of, citizens of one country? Or as it happens in Europe, a European union of states, or of humanity of this planet? And I think that once we start thinking in those terms and if we can really [audio ends]

by Mayank Mehta

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Michael E. Tigar: Oh my goodness, Mr. Robinson. You know, I think that about 30% of the people at this table are going to tell you about Socrates dialogue “The Crito”, in which Socrates ready to take the hemlock that he's been sentenced to drink and therefore to give his life is asked why he doesn't run away, why he remains a loyal Athenian even as the Athenians are seeking his death? And then some other people are going to mention Roland Barthes's wonderful essay about the picture in Paris Match. Well, I am not an African American, but I tell you I have represented people who have been oppressed in my own country and I have represented people who have been oppressed in other countries. I represented the family of Orlando Letelier killed, blown up in the streets of Washington by the Chilean junta, and yet Orlando to the end of his life and despite his exile and the so called stripping of his citizenship by Pinochet who claimed, I am a Chilean. Well, I am an American. I am an American because in my own country I know best how to struggle for social change. Were I to pick up and move someplace else, I might for time be more comfortable, but I would be disempowered from participating in the process by which you and I standing together have got to change the world. And therefore, for no other reason, we ought to remain even if we don't recognize as I do, having been the son of a working class person who managed to get an education in this society of ours, that it is a society that has given many people, including me, I don't know about you, enormous opportunities and it's precisely because I'd like to see those opportunities spread around and shared, that also I think it's important to stay and fight. So, I’ll see you in the struggle.

by Michael E. Tigar

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Michael P. Totten: Well, that’s an excellent question. There are many times. I mean, how can we not look at our own, in America, the challenge of laws over and over again, with the challenge to slavery in the 1800s, and the civil rights suffragettes getting the right for women to vote and to get laws changed for children labor being changed with Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King leading civil disobedience, or in India with Gandhi showing that civil disobedience is an absolute imperative. Today, in the United States, with the Bush administration leading what, many clearly argue and I have to agree, imperialistic, fascistic set of policies that definitely need to be challenged in a way that they have created such ill-will in this world, at a time when we really need to build bridges and seek to overcome differences and find ways of tolerance. So, there needs to be far more civil disobedience, and challenging the laws, and breaking the laws. Even in dictatorships, you know, the efforts to assassinate Hitler during World War Two was I think -- it took moral courage, and that’s the case with, I feel, many of the dictators today which sadly this country and other countries back, because of -- in the United States for oil or for timber or other resources, is a step back, and we provide military cover for dictators at a time when we should be really thinking about removing those dictators.

by Michael P. Totten

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Mohammed Arkoun: Yes. The African-American like the oppressed man in general, the man who lives in a humiliated minority, a marginalized minority generally knows the suffering of this marginalization. The suffering of this dismissal. And, that suffering becomes for the one who carries it a springboard to pass the suffering and to open eyes on what is positive in the majority denying him, in the state that despises him and don't grant him rights, in the people and the nation or in the culture, the culture itself that systematizes the dismissal and find legitimacies to this dismissal. It is therefore a deep tension that is a test of what we earlier called the man's dignity. The man develops his dignity, the man gets bigger and I think here about the experience of Nelson Mandela, I think about the experience of Gandhi, I think about the experience of all those who took the vow of poverty precisely to share the poverty of the other and the humiliation of the other. That is why the African-American likes and defends the country where he lives and that in addition treats him as inferior, treats him the way foreign black or white slaves were treated. There are also fundamental weaknesses of what we call our modern mind because the modern mind made us drift far from these extremely old problems and by rejecting values that are said to be archaic...

by Mohammed Arkoun

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Mohau Pheko: I think that in the world today, we are beginning to see a lot of false patriotism. The question of identity I think is also extremely complex. I regard what you would call black Americans as Africans living in the Diaspora, Africans who have been taken away from the African continent through the slave trade and have had to adapt actually to a society that was never meant to create -- to give them an equal space or help them function as equals and it was -- they were brought to the States as subjugated people, dominated people who were always -- who were supposed to function as powerless people. And so, through generations and through the valiant and noble fight of many who have fought to create new civil liberties for people in their societies, it has become quite evident that a lot has happened in terms of a [germ] that they come into the mainstream. But, without a true sense of identity, without a true sense of who you are as a person in the world, you will always find yourself in a space I think as a black American living in America, particularly in these days, in a situation I think of false patriotism. So, I think that there is a need to go back to the roots, go back to who you are as a person, go back to finding your roots and your sense of identity. And I think identity is very critical in the world today because that is what explains a lot about who we are and gives us a solid foundation.

by Mohau Pheko

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Monira Rahman: I don't know why you have to defend a country that treats you like an unwanted child. You have to oppose to that obviously because it is the country will treat everyone equally and there should not be any discrimination between race and ethnic group. With the country which is promoting this inequality among the gender, race and ethnic group. Obviously, you have to oppose that and the values that sanctions this discrimination. We have to oppose that wherever we live. No country should be defended in this way but it's important that the people in that country, how they perceive the people from different sections and obviously it is not only the people. Obviously it is the state, but it is important where we live; the people of that country, how do they perceive not only the state party, how do they perceive this ethnic minority group or regarding this racism? I feel like in other countries where this country is not treating people equally and with respect and dignity. Obviously that has to be opposed.

by Monira Rahman

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Nadja Halilbegovich: I thought about this question a lot because it makes me so sad that Jason, the gentleman who asked this question, feels like this, that he serves and loves his country, yet the country treats him unfairly like an unwanted child. I think it’s a very emotional question and it definitely resonates with me. I don’t know why it’s happening but all I can say is from my own experience I love my country, Bosnia. I choose not to live in my country much because of the terrible experiences and pain that I have gone through during my childhood, during the war in Bosnia, but that does not affect my love, my love and connection with our country and perhaps that is why Jason feels still that he has this deep love for his country and connection with his country even when it brings him so much pain. For me, it’s past pain. For him, it’s present pain. And all I can say is it’s quite normal obviously to love one’s country even when we associate it with some bad things like pain and suffering, because that’s where our roots were sprung, that’s where we have our family members and are some hopefully good experiences. So, all I can hope for is that someday this gentlemen will feel love for his country and his country will also have love for him and he will feel more connected and wanted because that is the only way that it should be.

by Nadja Halilbegovich

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Neela Marikkar: Because, I think that despite everything we want to belong somewhere. It’s the need of every individual, we want to be part of something. And, even in an abused -- even an abused child in a home, will stay within their families. They don’t leave, because still, there is a sense of belonging, there is a sense of wanting to be a part of some thing. So, I think that in this case, I think, the sense of belonging is greater, and the need for being part of something, part of your nation, part of the family, part of the community is something that we feel naturally drawn to, and we want to be part of. Even though you may feel unwanted, even though you might feel abused, I think the important thing is a sense of belonging, and that is what keeps us as a citizen of the country, or as a part of the family, or as a part of the community. It’s the sense of belonging that is important for us. I also think it’s because one other reason is because it’s the familiar, it’s what we know, it’s what we have grown up with, it’s where we have been, it’s what has been part of our life from the day we’ve been born. All those things create a very strong link despite the injustices, the feeling of un-wantedness. The familiarity in itself is a comfort and it’s a joy.

by Neela Marikkar

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Oliviero Toscani: I belong to a county that I actually I didn’t choose. The destiny decided I have to be born in the county I was born. So one shouldn’t be proud to belong to the county he was born, because probably country your born is not a great county, probably it’s a country where we haven’t got the big respect, probably it’s a country that is discriminating you. So don’t be proud of your country. You should be proud – we should be proud of the thing we choose. So if we choose we can also choose the county where we want to belong or we would like to belong to. So, I think there is enough places to choose from and to say, well I want to be French or I want to be German, or I want to be a Spanish, I want to be – I want to be American. Even if you are not like that, but you say I want to be because you think that probably that country is the one which is closest to you. So, we have to choose where we want to belong to. There are a lot of people that – they are not wanted by their country and there are a lot of people who don’t want to belong to their country. And I think it’s a question of choice, a question of belonging. I want to belong where I think is my most – what is the most interesting place to belong to and I will try to go there.

by Oliviero Toscani

Sep 9, 2006 11:50:00 AM cite

Oscar Olivera: Jason, what do you defend? Do you defend your government, do you defend your nation, do you defend your ancestors, what do you defend? Do you defend your values, do you defend your culture, do you defend your family, what do you defend? I think that among everything we should defend the most important thing is to defend life, this is what counts. That is what the communities and the nations of the world actually defend: life. I think that we should not evaluate the defence of a nation strictly considering its defence on an ideology, on a government or on an attitude because defending this means to defend death against life. I think that there should be an emergence of the nations defending life against death, that is what we should defend.

by Oscar Olivera