From: Taneem Talukdar
I watched a documentary on the Chechen life under Russian occupation.
I dunno ... I am overly sensitive to these things sometimes ... but I was just shaken to the core by watching the brutality with which the russians conduct business.
They make random raids into civilian homes, capture mothers in front of their children. Then, they are tortured (and assuredly raped) and then killed and beheaded.
And it gets better. Families have to bribe the Russian soldiers upto $4000 dollars just to get the body back for a decent burial.
This has gone on for ten years.
Ten years! This is not the heat of war. These are soldiers, who have time to premeditate their actions. Who then go back home, to families of their own. Don't they dream? Don't they have nightmares? Don't they remember what they have done?
16 year olds arrested and tortured with electricity. Innocent shopkeepers arrested, stripped naked, blindfolded and kept in a well in total darkness and subzero temperatures for a month, with occasionaly breaks to be strung up and beaten and punched with barbed wire.
"Why don't they kill us all with an atomic bomb?" a woman wails "Why do they make us suffer so"
What is the depth of humanity's pitch black darkness? No animal would ever intentionally make another suffer. Why is it that in human beings we find this tendency to against everything that we symbolize - are we damned by our very nature?
Torture - a concept that makes me cold. Did you know that during the
spanish inquisition, one method of killing a person was to cut a small hole in their abdomen, and then slowly string out the guts of the person, prolonging the death for hours keeping the victim alive? How blind, how twisted, how base do you have to be to not be affected by the raw human suffering of such an act?
And yet even in this, what amazes me is that the Chechens are defiant. Their birth rate is exploding. The sheer determination, to work against conditions that are just brutal - the soldiers, the cold, no electricity, no real shops, losing your family members everyday, no real hospital, ambulances that are shot at by the army... it makes me wonder, that if I had that raw courage and fever for living, I could change the world with the resources I am lucky to have!
Bah just rambling. I hate how easily I get affected by these things.
-taneem
Yea, its quite shocking to realize we share 99.99999% of our DNA with such groups of individuals. Well, we also share a good deal with pigs..maybe there's a connection. Ofcourse, the ppl they commit crimes against are simply 'terrorists' so its ok to do anything to there people.
pfff..whatever. There's a quote in the Qu'ran when paraphrased says "Oppression is worse than slaughter" .. which echoes that woman's mentality.
I dont know what kind of ppl these soldiers have been brainwashes into becoming. I've told u about how in Africa, one of those places with civil unrest and gang-lords, they breeded young children to become heartless warriors by making them kill their parents and at times there entire tribe. After that, nothing would affect the heart. But these russians aren't living in a tribal war zone with poverty..but a developed country. and as u said..with families and homes and prolly 1.5 cars...going to watch the game on t.v. on sunday nites..having dinner in a restaurant.
yea..i dont understand it. i think what happens is...that the 'body' takes over from the mind and the emotional side. ofcourse..everything occurs in the brain..but i'm trying to distinguish between different concepts. there are different facets of the brain: emotional (the heart)...rational/logic..instinctual...and then a fourth...is i would coin 'artifical'. everybody has soem degree of artificially created biases (i.e. biases filter decision making results). i would say this artificial aspect is a mixture of social emotions and logic that become implanted in the mind.
The original emotion and logic are the natural disposition of a person..which religion would recognize as initially "good" or in a pure state. So those are always there. Now if our artificial mind is in harmony with our original mind..then there is peace (with the assertion that "idea
of peace" comes as a result of society's common leaning towards an inner disposition which is shared by every human in face of the conflicting artificial dispositions across societies).
If not peace, then there is conflict..inside and outside. In those russian soliders (and other similar ppl)..the artificial mind has displaced the original mind to a great degree...i.e. like a software update that leaves the core intact but adds new defintions and rules. but if the rules become vastly different..the function of the software changes from a word processor to photoshop
to top all of this..another thing that happens is that humans have an ability to interchange different personalities, often consciously . For example, your never the same person, you become different depending on WHO u are interacting with. You can be shy with one person but charismatic infront of another person. Take this to another level..u can be compassionate to
someone (or some category of ppl)..yet commit an injustice towards another. It is normal to a degree but the more disjointed and unconsistent u become ... one aspect of u will take a life of their own..and its actions would not be held responsible the moral rules of the other aspect. Basically..work Joe and home Joe are the same person..yet if they become completely
disjointed..then at work..Joe is functioning on one set of morality (let's
say the original mind)..while home Joe is on another (the artificial mind).
Its an inconsistent person: home Joe's possibly compassionate, friendly, philanthropist nature would not be transferrable to the ruthless, backstabbing and selfish work Joe. And Joe would take these roles as routine and habit..and there would be no guiding line left..but just a morality that is based on the variables of place or social interactions. Most ppl would be conscious about this change in character...and i suspect..would have an inner cringe that something is wrong, yet they or society would be too steeped into a mindset that it would be difficult to change. Let's call this concept the "Inertia of Society". However, if it is like inertia...then we can assume that with increasing 'steepness' into a conflicting idealogy would eventually reach a moving point..where inertia changes into velocity..and society would be changed. The pressure of the conflicting
force, altho sustained for a while, will eventually cause an opposite reaction.
Recognize that its not wrong to have different personal interactions as thats impossible to make urself act with one personality..the inconsistency of morality is what creates a problem as one side does not hold any upperhand over another..i.e. guilt may not arise (Keep in mind im alluding to ur reference of home russian soldier and at work russian soldier)
Ofcourse..i dont mean to imply that it is good to be consistently ruthless on all levels/personalities either
yea..i never thuoght about this ...but guess i have a lot to say .lol..
fahd
