Ken wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 2:18 pmRight now at this very moment, tens of thousands are being killed in Sudan and there are something like 6.5 million displaced refugees. Yet there is not one peep about that on this forum or frankly in Anabaptist circles. Why is that?
Once again, Ken, you view Anabaptism through a few anecdotes that you are aware of, and a narrow window from the outside.
You don't really understand Anabaptist life and thought.
And Mennonet is not a window into Anabaptist life and thought either.
If you want to understand Anabaptist life and thought, get out of your chair, go immerse yourself in the culture for a decade, and then come back and tell us what you learned.
Here is a sample of articles we published that have been read by thousands of Plain Anabaptists and many are endeavoring to help.
Christian Aid Ministries also publishes articles frequently about these sorts of places and their articles are read by tens of thousands of Plain Anabaptists and many of them endeavor to help, by contributing financially, hand packing food and aid, sending personnel to help, establishing clinics, etc.
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The old woodcutter spoke again. “It is impossible to talk with you. You always draw conclusions. Life is so vast, yet you judge all of life with one page or one word. You see only a fragment. Unless you know the whole story, how can you judge?"
Anabaptist World is not read by Plain Anabaptist, and is viewed as an organization that is ran by liberals.
In the Plain Mennonite world, affinity is found laterally, across denominations, but bounded by nonconformity and nonresistance and women’s head covering.
In the non-Plain Mennonite world, affinity seems to be vertical, bounded by the name Mennonite and relatives in the conservative direction, and I don’t know what in the more liberal direction.
For example, a conservative plain Mennonite might find fellowship with a Hutterite and a Charity person, but none at all with a liberal Mennonite.
While a liberal Mennonite (from what I can tell) views conservative Mennonites as their dense little fundamental legalistic siblings. But in the same family nonetheless.
And he has no affinity at all with a plain Hutterite.
Ken wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 2:18 pmRight now at this very moment, tens of thousands are being killed in Sudan and there are something like 6.5 million displaced refugees. Yet there is not one peep about that on this forum or frankly in Anabaptist circles. Why is that?
Once again, Ken, you view Anabaptism through a few anecdotes that you are aware of, and a narrow window from the outside.
You don't really understand Anabaptist life and thought.
And Mennonet is not a window into Anabaptist life and thought either.
If you want to understand Anabaptist life and thought, get out of your chair, go immerse yourself in the culture for a decade, and then come back and tell us what you learned.
Here is a sample of articles we published that have been read by thousands of Plain Anabaptists and many are endeavoring to help.
Christian Aid Ministries also publishes articles frequently about these sorts of places and their articles are read by tens of thousands of Plain Anabaptists and many of them endeavor to help, by contributing financially, hand packing food and aid, sending personnel to help, establishing clinics, etc.
I can't search on Plain News because the site it paywalled. But the two articles you cited on Sudan are from 2014 and 2017 so have nothing to do with the current crisis and war that started April 2023: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_Su ... 93present)
And the conflict in Myanmar is no longer really about the Rohingya. More recently the military Junta is waging war against the civilian population and tribes in northern Myanmar that are not Rohingya. Including things like the withholding of humanitarian aid and food in exactly the same manner as Israel is doing in Gaza: https://www.hrw.org/news/2021/12/13/mya ... saving-aid But I don't hear anyone here or anywhere else calling for US airlifts of food into northern Myanmar or sending in the US military to build harbors and such.
I'm willing to be proven wrong. But I expect across all segments of American society including plain Anabaptists there is more attention to Gaza than Sudan or Myanmar. And that is largely because we have more of a national connection to Israel than we do either Sudan or Myanmar. Israel is a US ally supported by US tax dollars. My point was simply that Americans do tend to recognize that they have a greater interest in conflicts in which their government and society are more inextricably linked than they do with conflicts in which the United State has little direct connection.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:13 pm
My point was simply that Americans do tend to recognize that they have a greater interest in conflicts in which their government and society are more inextricably linked than they do with conflicts in which the United State has little direct connection.
But this is a function of where we live -America- than the type of government we have, republic vs. dictatorship.
If we lived in a Sahelian dictatorship all our lives, we likely would be paying more attention to Sudan than Gaza. And that would not be because we are living under a dictatorship instead of a republic.
Ken wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:13 pm
My point was simply that Americans do tend to recognize that they have a greater interest in conflicts in which their government and society are more inextricably linked than they do with conflicts in which the United State has little direct connection.
But this is a function of where we live -America- than the type of government we have, republic vs. dictatorship.
If we lived in a Sahelian dictatorship all our lives, we likely would be paying more attention to Sudan than Gaza. And that would not be because we are living under a dictatorship instead of a republic.
You are missing my argument.
My argument is that Americans intuitively understand that we have greater interest, connection, and responsibility for international conflicts in which our nation is directly involved than those in which we have no national connection, investment or interest. That is why we have 318 posts here about Gaza in the past several months compared to none about Sudan.
I am simply saying that this discrepancy is evidence that Americans intuitively understand they have more collective responsibility for some conflicts over others. You might want to argue that as plain Anabaptists who don't vote, that you have ZERO collective or individual responsibility for anything that goes on anywhere in the world. I'm suggesting that the different degrees of attention that we pay to conflicts around the world belies that belief. We all pay more attention to conflicts and events to which we as a nation are more closely linked.
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
Ken wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:13 pm
My point was simply that Americans do tend to recognize that they have a greater interest in conflicts in which their government and society are more inextricably linked than they do with conflicts in which the United State has little direct connection.
But this is a function of where we live -America- than the type of government we have, republic vs. dictatorship.
If we lived in a Sahelian dictatorship all our lives, we likely would be paying more attention to Sudan than Gaza. And that would not be because we are living under a dictatorship instead of a republic.
You are missing my argument.
My argument is that Americans intuitively understand that we have greater interest, connection, and responsibility for international conflicts in which our nation is directly involved than those in which we have no national connection, investment or interest. That is why we have 318 posts here about Gaza in the past several months compared to none about Sudan.
I am simply saying that this discrepancy is evidence that Americans intuitively understand they have more collective responsibility for some conflicts over others. You might want to argue that as plain Anabaptists who don't vote, that you have ZERO collective or individual responsibility for anything that goes on anywhere in the world. I'm suggesting that the different degrees of attention that we pay to conflicts around the world belies that belief. We all pay more attention to conflicts and events to which we as a nation are more closely linked.
I don’t agree with that. I think the attention we pay, is not at all -for me- because of some intuition sense of what America’s role on the global stage should be.
I think the attention we pay is due to the media we consume is covering Gaza and not Sudan.
Sudsy wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 5:06 pm
I think the attention we pay has to do with our understanding of belonging to another Kingdom as ambassadors of that Kingdom.
Do you think that the attention paid to MN's political threads demonstrates an understanding as belonging to another Kingdom?
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“It’s easy to make everything a conspiracy when you don’t know how anything works.” — Brandon L. Bradford
RZehr wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:58 pmI think the attention we pay is due to the media we consume is covering Gaza and not Sudan.
And why is that? I would suggest it is for exactly the same reason. Namely that the US has more connection and ties to Israel than it does to Sudan. The media recognizes this as do the American people. Israel is an ally and what they do in Gaza to some extent reflects on us as well. The comments in the Gaza thread suggest this as well. There are lots of comments along the lines of "why doesn't the US do this or that thing in response to Gaza"
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A fool can throw out more questions than a wise man can answer. -RZehr
RZehr wrote: ↑Fri Mar 29, 2024 4:58 pmI think the attention we pay is due to the media we consume is covering Gaza and not Sudan.
And why is that? I would suggest it is for exactly the same reason. Namely that the US has more connection and ties to Israel than it does to Sudan. The media recognizes this as do the American people. Israel is an ally and what they do in Gaza to some extent reflects on us as well. The comments in the Gaza thread suggest this as well. There are lots of comments along the lines of "why doesn't the US do this or that thing in response to Gaza"
The media is for profit, has agendas and narratives, and what they choose to cover is hardly determined by how plain Mennonite view America’s role and responsibilities on the global stage. I’ve yet to have CNN ask me about these things.
Nevertheless, in spite of plain Mennonites not viewing America as you claim we do, the fact remains that some of us do read the news and that impact our discussions here.