Theos-Talk Archives (August 1999 Message tt00050)

MKR seems to have a highly selective view of history.

As I said in my reply to Art, I do not believe that the US conducted the
Vietnam war correctly.  That is self-evident now.  Yes, it is true that the
South Vietnamese government was corrupt and unrepresentative.  But even at
ist worst it was preferable to Communism.  MKR doesn't seem to remember the
Vietnamese boat people, the killing fields of Cambodia (the ultimate
ooutrage in the name of 'equlaity') or the mass exodus of hill tribesmen
from Laos because their traditional way of life was under threat.  He also
seems to forget that the Communist regime persecuted Buddhists and sent
Buddhsit monks to 're-education camps'.  Even now Buddhism is only tolerated
by the authorities on sufferance.  The outcome of the Vietnam War was
catastrophic for the USA (and hence the West in general) and catastrophic
too for Vietnam.  Far from breaking free of Western colonialism, it was left
dominated by a poisonous Marxist ideology conconcted in the West, and from
which no good but much evil has come.

MKR seems to have a third world supremacist view that approves of
'nationalism' amongst Asians or Africans, but denigrates patriotism in
Western countries.  In another posting, he makes facile and slanderous
comments about British 'colonialism'.  This did of course involve abuses of
power, but it was also preferable to any of the other European Empires and
it brought good government to many areas of the world, as well as fostering
friendship between peoples.  This included proetction for many ethnic,
tribal or religious minorities.  The Buddhist Jumma tribesmen of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts are a case in point.  I have worked with them, and
they have told me that they preferred British rule to 'independence', which
led to racial and religious persecution by Muslim Bengalis. Many British
colonial administrators, military officers and even misisonaries were men of
integrity, who took an interest in ethnology and made friends with the
people amongst who they lived and worked - a superior breed to the
'politically correct' aid workers of today.  Similarly, the British
abolished the salve trade and slavery itself before other colonial powers
and the Royal Navy maintained anti-slave trade patrols for nigh on a hundred
years - an early example, surely, of an 'ethical foreign policy'.

 I favour building upon Britain's links with the Commonwelath nations,
rather than entering a federal Europe.  However I do not share the crippling
and absurd racial guilt that has emasculated so many of our 'intellectuals'.
On the contrary, I am proud of our past and believe that it compares
favourably with the present 'New Britain', which is governed by noisy lobby
groups and in danger of losing its identity altogether to 'Europe'.

May I take the opoportunity to contribute to the debate about 'age'?  As a
younger chap, I value the contribution of those older than myself and cannot
accept that the preponderance of 'grey hair' is a sign of failure.  We are,
after all, an ageing population, and many younger people enjoy the company
of those older than themselves.  The Master/Disciple relationship, which is
important to Theosophists throughout the ages, is in almost all cases the
realationship between an older man and a younger man.

Finally, to return to my diagreement with MKR.  It is a sign of Theosophy's
strength and breadth that it attracts two arcticulate men of such diverging
views as ourselves.  However it also shows that Theosophy is incompatible
with politics and should transcend such issues.  Dare I suggest that the
founders of the Theosophical Society were wrong to be so associated with
political campaigns?

Best Wishes and greetings from Yorkshire.

Aidan






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