Quote:
Originally Posted by Ronald Pagan
Calling people savages is offensive based on the historical connotations of the term and the attrocities carried out against people because it was justified under the idea that they were savages. Sorry, this is 2009, you don't call people savages anymore.
And I've travelled and worked extensively in developing countries, most recently one of the poorest countries in the world, Bangladesh. I wouldn't call anyone that I met there a 'savage.' Even the poorest rural people that I worked in the field with had similar aspirations and worldviews as you or I. They were all fully functioning human beings operating within the bounds that they are subject to.
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I have made the point often in these types of debates that people, at their core, are the same the world over, with base concerns of food, shelter, family, security and, to differing degrees, religion.
In that regard, I've said often, the guy in Des Moines is no different than the guy in Somalia.
I was in Tanzania recently and have warm memories of all I encountered . . . . and picked up a few e-mail contacts I'm still in touch with, following how they are doing with their own goals and aspirations. As individuals, they are rarely different than anyone in Canada.
Yet, in Somalia, a land where 81% of people are illiterate, where 87% of children do not go to school, where there is virtually no running water or electricity and where a 13 year-old rape victim was stoned to death for her crime, with popular support, I would have no problem defining the populace within the phrase "primitive savages" as it relates to the 21st Century context.
I would agree Somalis would find the term insensitive and offensive.
As before, the issue of piracy and Somalia itself are really different topics, now that piracy is so far offshore.
Bringing Somalia closer to the 21st Century is generational, likely more than 20 years, assuming we were beginning to "interfere" right now and assuming that "interference" would be welcome.
Cowperson
