Re: Phylogony, culture, nationalism

Ania Lian (Ania.Lian who-is-at jcu.edu.au)
Fri, 11 Jul 1997 11:40:18 +1000 (EST)

In my mail I attempted to warn against moves which in fact may well be
looking through the Amrican/anglosaxon glasses and so in fact suugest
universality of functions, intentions and interpretations that we can be
applied anywhere. Btw I find that few people in my country now Australia
are aware that even books of scientific inventions which should be seeen
as most neutral are most culturally effected. If you read the eastern
(central european) stuff on who developed what all over sudden all teh
western names disappear. My husband still remembers that in his British
textbooks Guttenberg was unheard of. It was some other guy who invented
print.

Being inexperienced in the fields discussed and yet aware that what one
calls terrorism another one calls heroism I am sure that everyone on this
list is conscious that atempting to make specific references to both the
framework of interpretation selected as well as teh local context as
viewed through this framework will effect rendering of the context as seen
by the participator (which is what we all are).

American examples thus may be totally inappropriate for undertsanding the
other worlds. Particularly in teh Georgian context what Shevardnadze must
worry about is that in legal elections the white children of teh Christian
Russians do not vote out the Georgian population out of its secession from
the Russians. Things are actualy very tender there, Russian culture (the
world-view) very influential by now, political awareness very low and
information distribution on both public and teritiary levels very limited.
Criticism for which we are praised at universities, say in an australian
context, is totally ununderstood in our postcommunist context. It took me
10 years to get the point since I am a baby of a communist Poland.

As far as secession is concerned, why is it that in the American context
the textbooks always suggest that it was not such a good idea. If we
believe that social groups should have a right to self-identification, any
secession should be considered as totally appropriate and any attempt to
crush it as a fascist-repression, I would think...:-) The Russians, like
the Americans in teh 19th century share the view of the federalists....

ania