The spotted hyena and African wild dogs

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My son had to do a report on hyenas and this quote has been troubling me for days.

I can't help but think that it is an analogy to Western culture and Middle eastern culture. I started the thread on how America should respond, but I kept out of the discussion. I may have been reading some of the responses incorrectly, but I couldn't help but feel that the tone was "It was Bush/America's fault."

Now I'm starting to wonder if their is such a fundamental difference between the two cultures that "Peace", for lack of a better term, is not an option. I keep thinking back to the hyenas and dogs. They will fight forever, the difference is that neither truly has the ability to wipe the other out. However, mankind does and this is troubling me.

To oversimplify things, Middle Eastern culture seems to be dominiated by the extreme elements. Now the average man on the street might just want to live his life in peace, yet somehow the Taliban and the Ayatollahs have managed to take over nations. The extremists are not belittled and marginalized in their society. They may not be worshipped, but they are at least tolerated.

To be fair Western Culture has its share of extremists also. Speaking as an American we have to suffer through the embarrassment of the KKK, Aryan Groups, PETA, Greenpeace, and the far left/right of each political party. However, I believe our society is still mainly controlled by the vast middle and we try to keep an eye on the extremists to keep them under control.

I guess what I'm trying to put into words is the feeling that we are/may be in a war of two mutually exclusive cultures. We have seen the Israeli conflict go on for 40+ years. We are seeing Europe grapple with an influx of people who do not want to assimilate to the European culture. We have also seen 9/11 which will taint the American viewpoint for possibly a generation.

There are many people (especially non-Americans) that are calling for the U.S. to withdraw from Iraq. That may solve some problems over the short-term, but I fear that long-term there may not be any solutions (even if Iraq had never happened).

The Mrs. and I teach our son that he doesn't have to like everyone, but he has to be nice. That philosophy seems to work well when everyone is a hyena, but what happens when the dogs show up (feel free to swap the animals around)?

 

Humans are predators too, probably the worst kind. We don't kill to sustain, we kill because we feel like it. And we have been doing so since the very beginning, so there's no reason to believe that will ever change.

Does that answer your question a bit ?

 

You may be onto something here. But I think it's even deeper rooted than you feel. For example, you said:

True from the standpoint of Israel, but if you take that a step further and say Islam and Judaism, then the conflict stretches over millenia.

 

Yes, well, I'm not so pessimistic about the middle east. I think one simply needs to remember one's twentieth century history, particularly in "enlightened Europe." If any part of the world has come close to bringing about global self-annihilation, it's the West. Also, while democratic liberalism has now taken hold in Europe and the West, one should remember how precarious it was in the 1930s, etc.

One can go back further to the 19th century to look at all the damage done by Nationalism in the West, and then recall that Nationalism was really a post-WW2 phenomenon for much of the Middle East, Africa, South Asia, etc., as these regions only then began to throw off their colonization at the hands of Europe. Nationalism was useful in uniting against colonialism, to be sure, but it is otherwise a scary, dangerous, and toxic thing, as European history bears out.

I think in the West we have forgotten how traumatic these events were for us, and so are "shocked shocked" when we see a similar process at work in less developed countries.

I certainly wouldn't go the direction of seeing these different cultures as different species, which is I think a dangerous way to start thinking about world events.

The antagonistic relationship between Hyenas and Lions and Wild Dogs, is, however, very very interesting. Hyenas are atypical creatures; one could describe them as evolutionary throwbacks in that they carry on a much older evolutionary thread than Lions and Wild Dogs, and so have physical and social characteristics that one generally does not find in other mammals.

 

I don't buy that culture thing. All I know is that the culture I know and the culture they have are pretty similar. Turkey has taken over our whacky ultra-protestant old legal code, as it suits a muslim tradition so well. So, yes, they are so protestant to me, it's scary. Just a little older version. The culture can't help to understand, as wars are never fought for god, but the right to things and god is just a cheap legitimation. Indeed, I think that presbytarinism is an import from the middle east. I have to do some reading on that, when I ever find the time.

I just think that the west should respect basic rights like property some more. Their land, their government, their problem.

Hm, I thought that's christianity versus judaism. But I may be mistaken here. That Ghetto and pogrom stuff.

 

Well, I am sure some people would think that Europe would never get along. Seeing as we have been at each other throats since, well, since forever.
In the big picture all we really have now is a 50 year old cease fire if we look at the bigger picture. That aint all that much compared to 3000+ years of constant warfare. So by your animal logic peace is never possible, I however am an optimist in this instance. I think we are capable to live peacefully together if we manage to eliminate the worst threats to peaceful co-existance: extreme poverty, ignorance (in here I count things like racism, nationalism and patriotism) and religion. Not an easy task but I think and hope we are a bit on the way here in Europe and some other parts of the world.

Oh, and judaism and islam leaved jolly nice side by side until the western christian powers created Israel as a payback for 1500 years of christian religious persecution of jews culminating in Hitler's ultimate solution. Heck, they were even more or less united against the British in Palestine before Israel was created.

 

The claim was made that middle eastern culture is dominated by extremists, such as Ayatollah and the Taliban.

First of all, it needs to be said that the United States of America was founded by Puritains (read: Extremists). American culture is dominated by Christianity in that many of the laws of the land are founded in Christianity. Sodomy is illegal in many states for example. The war on drugs also comes to mind.

Iraq, on the other hand, was perhaps the Middle East's most successfull attempt at secular government. Religion was not banned or outlawed, but Sadaam made it clear that religion had no place ithe governance of Iraq.

So this was clearly much less a culture war than a conflict about power and oil.

Then there was the dubious claim about a two thousand year conflict between Islam and Judaism? The only two thousand year conflict in that region would be between the Christians and The Muslims (The CRUSADES come to mind?!?)

Jews and Arabs lived in the region for thousands of years as neighbours, trading spices, silks, and culture with one another. Only the Christians had the arrogance to enter the region and make the attempt to commit genocide on the muslims. They also tried it against the jews. They all but committed successful genocide against the native Americans, both North and South.

And now that our culture has evolved past senseless killings (?) we are attempting to commit cultural genocide against the entire world.

Only a culture as arrogant as this one could be responsible for as much death and destruction as this and STILL have the gall to look down their noses at the rest of the world, and worse yet, try to force everyone else to join in the culture. The culture of dominance through genocide

 

I simply agree with Snook. I don't see this conflict ending till one side is wiped out (the extremist Middle-East or the middle [idealed] West). Problem is that the middle West will never die out simply because its so powerful compared to anywhere else and the extremist Middle-East will never die out because for every one the middle West kills, two more will be recruited.

The non-extremists in the Middle-East will have to turn on their extremist cousins before this conflict will finish.