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Calling India a Muslim country is an extremely, extremely, misguided post. Unbelievable actually as India's population is over one billion people. This post is highly mistaken.
Missed that one by a few points.
Quote:
Originally Posted by TamaraSavannah
Would you care to explain that statement for a country that is reported to be 80% Hindu?
No, it is true. But there are two very different Indias.
One is still stuck in a never ending cycle of the worst case of poverty and malnutrition that you can imagine. You're talking about a hopeless desperate kind of poverty. Many of them live on one meal a day that is probably 500 odd calories anyway - so are chronically malnourished. About 60% of the kids in rural India are severely and chronically malnourished. For many, it is literally a fight for survival on a day to day basis - their only focus is on getting enough food to survive the next day.
This is a difficult subject, and I too don't really *understand* the situation or the poverty and hopelessness.
For what it is worth, I almost feel like I lived in another country even though it too is India. But that is what it is. Many of my problems and the problems of our families and friends were largely "first world problems". And we weren't even especially rich or anything. You know, dad and mom have a job (or mom is a homemaker), we go to a public school - in some cases private schools. And we were as far disconnected from stuff like female child killings as much as anyone else in the world is. We read about it, hear about it, but that is it. It is every bit as shameful and horrific to us. You know, we're human beings too.
Life in big and medium sized cities in India, where most of the middle class is, is a world apart from life in the small remote villages where they don't have electricity, many are tribals (like the native tribes in Amanzon rainforests), and they live and die in their villages with hardly any contact or interaction even with the big cities in India.
I'm not trying to paint India in a positive light or hype it up or anything. But if you only look at the extreme poverty examples of rural India and extrapolate it to mean all of India, that too is incorrect. Like I said, the city population and middle class population itself is as big as the entire USA's population.
Actually, if you want to know the truth, the underbelly or ugly side of America is not pink slime - it is slavery. I am rolling on the floor laughing at how ridiculously ignorant you are of trashing another country when your own treated its people like dirt (actually worse than dirt), systematically brutalized them, raped their women, enslaved their children.
So please.. before you trash another country, take a long hard look and try to understand what the "dark side" really means. Pink slime was just a frivolous example. Doesn't mean that is the only example.
Treating humans as cattle, as sub-human, and raping their women for decades, chaining their children, killing them, forcing them to work and die, so a few elite could sip on tea and crumpets - I am not sure how to deal with those kind of horrors.
So please - don't get all peachy and cocky - at least not just yet. Wait for a few centuries like all decent civilizations do - before time buries all these dark pasts. And in the meantime, do try and acknowledge that if others can be massively screwed up, so can you. We're all in the same boat.
HAHAHA.....Really???......You're bringing up something from 150 years ago (slavery) now extinct and comparing it with the current day, ongoing filth and disgusting ritual of leaving dead, bloated, rotting, melting, stinking, animal chewing, bird pecked corpses floating on and in a river where the locals are carefree enough to swim, drink, bathe, brush teeth with said horrors only yards away????
HERE'S THE DIFFERENCE.......we've moved on as a country....obviously India (or a certain group therein) refuses to do so and you either approve of it try to excuse or justify why it is ok by bringing up issues from the long ago past ( ever hear the saying "two wrongs don't make a right"??). By the way, many Americans were/are descended from immigrants who didn't come here until after 1900 and neither they or their ancestors had ANYTHING to do with slavery....but, way to use a broad brush.
And regarding trashing a country.....not trashing the country as a whole (although I have no desire to ever go there) but trashing said country for allowing unfathomanable, disgusting and outdated "customs" to continue without due regard to the health & welfare, hygiene, etc. of their people & world travelers.
BTW...since you use custom, history, whatever to try to justify the unjustifiable habit mentioned above does that mean we should still allow slavery???....should the Aztecs, etc. still have human sacrifices??....should virgin girls continue to be thrown into volcanoes to appease the Gods, etc., etc.???
See.....the major difference is these societies moved on and became more civilized over time......apparently that is something that India either cannot or will not bring itself to do and is why it will continue to be seen as a third world country along the lines of Afghanistan, Iran , Liberia, etc.
But then again, it's not like NYC is a model of cleanliness.
When was the last time you visited the city?
It's really much cleaner than years ago, and does not smell like a sewer except when a stray garbage bag from a restaurant has been left in the gutter for too long.
I think the city's quality of life took a real turn for the better after Giuliani's mayoralty.
It's really much cleaner than years ago, and does not smell like a sewer except when a stray garbage bag from a restaurant has been left in the gutter for too long.
I think the city's quality of life took a real turn for the better after Giuliani's mayoralty.
I used to live close to NYC and am familiar with the city. While it is not as bad as the pictures of India it is not exactly clean. But yes, compared to late 80's it has seen major improvement, both in cleanliness and safety.
I used to live close to NYC and am familiar with the city. While it is not as bad as the pictures of India it is not exactly clean. But yes, compared to late 80's it has seen major improvement, both in cleanliness and safety.
Comparing NYC to India in ANY way, shape or form is absolutely ludicrous. ESPECIALLY in terms of "cleanliness". IN ANY decade.
There must be some contest here for the biggest hyperbole.
HAHAHA.....Really???......You're bringing up something from 150 years ago (slavery) now extinct and comparing it with the current day, ongoing filth and disgusting ritual of leaving dead, bloated, rotting, melting, stinking, animal chewing, bird pecked corpses floating on and in a river where the locals are carefree enough to swim, drink, bathe, brush teeth with said horrors only yards away????
HERE'S THE DIFFERENCE.......we've moved on as a country....obviously India (or a certain group therein) refuses to do so and you either approve of it try to excuse or justify why it is ok by bringing up issues from the long ago past ( ever hear the saying "two wrongs don't make a right"??). By the way, many Americans were/are descended from immigrants who didn't come here until after 1900 and neither they or their ancestors had ANYTHING to do with slavery....but, way to use a broad brush.
And regarding trashing a country.....not trashing the country as a whole (although I have no desire to ever go there) but trashing said country for allowing unfathomanable, disgusting and outdated "customs" to continue without due regard to the health & welfare, hygiene, etc. of their people & world travelers.
BTW...since you use custom, history, whatever to try to justify the unjustifiable habit mentioned above does that mean we should still allow slavery???....should the Aztecs, etc. still have human sacrifices??....should virgin girls continue to be thrown into volcanoes to appease the Gods, etc., etc.???
See.....the major difference is these societies moved on and became more civilized over time......apparently that is something that India either cannot or will not bring itself to do and is why it will continue to be seen as a third world country along the lines of Afghanistan, Iran , Liberia, etc.
The biggest irony in your post is that you complain about my one statement about slavery as "painting with a broad brush". But this entire thread, including your previous ones, has been one giant broad brush. People have taken one article about a country they have never visited, made conclusions in under 5 minutes based on selective reporting of 1 or 2 articles.
The only reason I brought up slavery was an example that every country and society has things in their past and present that they need to fix. So when passing summary judgment on others, it might be worthwhile at least acknowledging this fact. Oh, an no need to go to the Aztecs for women being sacrificed. You could have looked closer at home and used the example of burning witches and black people on the stake.
And when you talk about "having moved on" - okay, I will concede that slavery was abolished after a big giant civil war. And fact of the matter is, that is also what makes America great - its ability to heal itself. But that is not truly "moving on". There is still plenty of racism - especially at the institutional level (cops etc.). Heck, the city where I live, many public places has segregation until as late as 1960s. My neighboring localities has city laws that prevented jews and colored people from moving in and buying property - again as early as the 1960s. This is not "ages ago" - it is actually in one's lifetime or the lifetime of one's parents.
Now does all this change that particular disgusting practice in India? No - it is disgusting by any standards. Is this the only disgusting thing that happens? No, there are other things too. But all this happens because there is lack of regulation.
BUT - and this is the biggest but - this also doesn't happen everywhere. It most certainly doesn't happen in the bigger cities where people have better educated and have increased awareness.
And yes, if you look at the number of poor in India, India is very much a third world country. Actually, if you look at the really poor in India, they are even one level below that. Like I said, there are two Indias.
Anyway, I think I have typed enough. Look - I wasn't trying to artifically inflate India's image or anything. And people will believe what they want to believe and what the media chooses to report (or what article or blog post they choose to read). I only felt that it was important to throw in enough info from the other side of the coin, so people can make a more informed conclusion. Especially since the original article was a pure propoganda piece.
I'm not saying that it's not a serious problem, I'm just saying that India is a huge country with more than 1 billion inhabitants, of course there are crime capitals, but there are also safe places. America has tons of ****ty run-down ghettos where tourists or residents got shot at or beaten up, but obviously that has never stopped people from flooding into it even though applying for visas is such a nightmare for those who are not included in the VWP(which we are, yay!).
Anyway, my point is "Why would anyone want to visit India" is a laughable statement.
For the record, I have female friends who have been to India for several times and I'm pretty sure that they have never been raped.
China has more people than India, yet I pretty sure most solo female tourists feel safer in China than in India.
If you have 100 female friends in India, the chances of some of them getting raped are higher than had they been in the US, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, etc.
How awful and it was the tour guide himself who lured her there and raped her.
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Calling India a Muslim country is an extremely, extremely, misguided post. Unbelievable actually as India's population is over one billion people. This post is highly mistaken.
