Fw: Boris Kagarlitsky, Moscow Times

[Artur F. Silva]

At 03:35 30-09-2001, J. Paul Everett wrote:
>Artur;
>
>My comment is that Boris writes trash that isn't worth much time.

It seems you are right, Paul. Received imediatly after the USA Sec. of
Defense refused to present any proofs, it looked as a possibility to consider.
Also, as some islamist speciallists said that some wordings in the first
"letter"
discovered in the possession of the terrorists didn't seem to have been written
by islamists ("Pray for you, for me, and for my familly" is a Christian way of
thinking about prayer). But now there are more such "letters" with more
islamist-like thinking.

Anyhow, I have never considered Boris' position to be "right", but only to be
"plausible" - something worth thinking about. I gave it the probability of,
say,
1%. Now I gave it the probability of 0.01%, which is much less. BUT it is not
0.00%! This means, I prefer to maintain many possibilities open, even if not
probable. This allows me to have a more "Open Space", and not close it
when the propaganda wants me to. This way has proved useful in some
past situations, in Portugal and in Angola namely.

The other point I think interesting in maintaining the Space Open is to
have information and positions from many different source and cultures.
If this was written by someone in Russia, with access to the media
(and that writes for Moscow Times and not for Pravda) what
can people in Afghanistan, or Pakistan or Iran be thinking now?

We have been talking for a while that we live in a "global world", but we did
very little to understand it globally. I think it is time to try to understand
it globally -- to try to understand positions that come from cultures VERY
different from our owns... And even occidental cultures are different from
each other...

Everything we though that we knew about inter-cultural studies and contacts
will probably have to be reviewed, from now on... We have to learn to keep the
space open in a much more profoundly way than we did before, I think.

Best regards

Artur

*
*
==========================================================
OSLIST at LISTSERV.BOISESTATE.EDU
------------------------------
To subscribe, unsubscribe, change your options,
view the archives of oslist at listserv.boisestate.edu,
Visit:

http://listserv.boisestate.edu/archives/oslist.html