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One Mans hero another Mans Villain

• Message 1.Β 

  Posted by justalexander (U13884823) on Monday, 27th April 2009

  I thought I would just raise a brief issue not direectly to do with the thread about Roman Brutality.
  
  As is said it has to be looked at in context of time era and social Concience. Brutality is relative to the perspective of view point or bias of an individual.
  
  As some moveies ive hear lines like. To kill a million makes a person a conqueror yet to kill a few people in park or kill a couple of prostitutes makes you a monstrous killer.
  
  War is basically legalised murder no matter which way you dress it up. Its not civilised nor is it glorious. Yet I admire Alexander The Great Why? I dont know!
  
  The idea of invading a country is no different to breaking into your neighbours house cutting his throat and stealing his gold watch.
  
  Loot at the news briefly look in internet chat rooms see every day life road rage muggings theft etc etc. People the human race fundamentaly has never changed.
  
  Its all brutal in variable degrees the day wer stop trying to measure degrees of brutality learn from it all and stop it then we can say we have moved on.
  

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• Message 2

  , in reply to message 1.

  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 28th April 2009

  Overthehill, brutality is not only a commander that drives his army into your country killing your people. What about a bunch of merchants and bankers that decide to buy up all your country's reserves of food to sell them at higher prices elsewhere? You will hardly see any army around but you and your family will die of hunger.
  
  What about all that violence that modern workers (the modern slaveforce) receive? The ancient commander would invade your country and condamn your life to misery, well it is the same today, what is so different - it is just the standards back then and today that changed, no direct comparisons are usefull but the degree of misery remains the same. Just go to the Delta of river Niger to see how much "free citizens" (i.e. non-invaded by any commander) locals received from all that oil exchange: they got nothing, its alright, no big deal but then they lost also the environment they lived upon (no fishing, no hunting, no easy cultivation).
  
  The type of violence varies, but the level of violence remains the same, greed is even bigger since the means provide far greater possibilities.

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• Message 3

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  Posted by Nik (U1777139) on Tuesday, 28th April 2009

  People talk about "slaves" in antiquity. Slaves in Greek cities serving masters they would eat on the same table with their master, they were mostly their "right hands". There were slaves revered for their technical skills and educated slaves were very respected. No chains and no wipping. In a world that was land-based the worst thing you could do to a slave (apart those unlucky ones working in mines and such) was to free him: he would most possibly become a landless, jobless man able only to become a thief (get arrested and killed) or a beggar getting kicked out of every place, do not imagine that he would be able to do much more than that.
  
  Have you ever been to Kuweit? To Abudabi? To Bahrein? Nice cities eh? And what modern buildings eh? Do you know how they are built? All those 100,000s of Indians and Pakistanis brought to work 8hrs/day for 800euros/month being sent by job agencies there, themselves hoping to work hard but receive 5-6 times their salary in India, arriving and being told that 1) its not 8/day but "from 06.00 till.. we finish". 2) its not 5/week but 7/week - "we work in a project here, not civil service" 3) its not 800 but 500, the 300 are "security", but anyway they are not covered 4)they have to pay their accodomation (a slum worse than in India) another 200 euros per month 5) and of course the first month they will not receive any payment since they have to ... pay their airplane ticket!!!!
  
  When they will get back to their country they will have earned actually less than what they would had earned if they stayed home (given the higher food prices in Dubai!!!) but anyway that will be after the completion of the project, that is 4 years since their passports are kept by the company that will not let them leave, apart if they get injured, thus becoming useless.
  
  Andrew sorry, I underline this is no current affairs, this is history, it is just to show that words like "slave" are very relative. Back in the ancient world, if your country lost in war, you just lost your land and you expected to become possibly a slave, still you could end up in a rich house and live in fairly good conditions working the normal, in jobs not different than what you did earlier, perhaps even easier. Today you live in a free independent country and you wish to make your life easier and you end up locked in a very black situation. Oh... and you are lucky that I only talked of men and spared you the details of what happend to women...

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• Message 4

  , in reply to message 3.

  Posted by justalexander (U13884823) on Tuesday, 28th April 2009

  Nik
  
  I agree with everything you say about modern terror of peoples. As I said in my original message its always relative.
  
  I could go on and make your list very much longer, However I tried to keep my point to the labels given to the Romans and or any other labeled by their military happenings.
  
  As I have said befor I admire Alexander The Great as both a leader and what he did achieve and inspire in those who followed him. It really gets on my nerves when moderates lambast Alexander and the Romans all in the prefix of comparisons to our society who its claimed has moved on?
  
  As you said where it took blood and guts to cripple a country now greedy bankers have broken the world with greedy deals and capitalistic monstrosity.
  
  The real victims are always those who never wanted to be involved. Slavery has never gone away eastern Europeans work for peanuts in Western Countries.China thrives on Human Rights Abuses.
  
  Powerful Western Armies invade Oil rich Arab countries who have not the technology or the brains to fight back properly.All under the pretence of freedom and Democracy.
  
  Nik we do agree with the ways of the world but as i said tried to be relative with people judgements of so called Ancient Brutal Societies. No more brutal or less than today only it wears a different T Shirt.
  
  

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