2 posts tagged “democracy”

AkungLaksono

Indonesia Emphasizes Justice as Pre-requisite to Peace
Speaking at the 2nd General Assembly of the Asian Parliament Assembly (APA)
November 19th, 2007
Tehran

The Indonesian Parliament Speaker welcomed the Iranian President's emphasis on justice in international affairs during his inaugural speech today morning in Tehran at the 2nd General Assembly of the Asian Parliament Assembly (APA), as the cornerstone of maintaining peace in the world. Agung Laksono said that like Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad he believed that without justice peace is impossible.

He reiterated that in line with this viewpoint, Asian countries should comply with their commitments to maintain peace in the world, especially in the Middle East region by resolving the issues of Palestine, Lebanon, and Iraq.
The Indonesian parliament speaker said traces of poverty are evident in Asia, similar to the experiences of the African nations, which warrants Asian countries to come up with due investment projects to tackle the social problems gripping this resourceful continent.

The 2nd APA General Assembly began work in Tehran with speeches by President, Dr. Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Gholam-Ali Haddad-Adel.
MPs from 39 countries, including speakers, are attending the meeting to study ways of more convergence among Asian countries. [text source: irib]

Chavez_ahmadinejad_tehran

Also in Tehran, Venezuelan President Chavez headed a five minister delegation to Iran. The Venezuelan president is to review the latest regional and international developments as well as further expansion of economic and political relations between the two countries with Ahmadinejad. Both Chavez and Ahmadinejad had been attending the OPEC summit in Riyadh, where Chavez warned oil could hit $200 a barrel if the US was "mad enough to launch a military attack on Iran".

Iran has strongly been cultivating its ties with Non-Aligned allies like Belarus, Bolivia, Nicaragua, Syria and Venezuela. [text sources: irib & alalam]

The debate began Aug 23rd when a blogger posted an  interesting item entitled Score one, ... for who actually? The item dealt with illegal immigrants in the USA. My sentiments were that the statements were xenophobic. I have since been proven totally wrong in my initial argument, at least as far as the comments left on Scio's blog may be considered. The debate has somehow taken a turn since the mention of "criminal immigration" and my response thereto. I was making  the point that the term "criminal" should be used with caution.

The debate has now turned to the criminality or otherwise of the war in Iraq.

Scio is a catholic voxer of some note, a confessed conservative, and in my opinion, a lot of other potentially significant things. But, I guess people in glass houses like myself shouldn't throw stones.

Which brings me to another point, to repeat the now cliched term made famous by the British TV series, Monty Python's Flying Circus:

AND NOW FOR SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT!

I have been considering of late, how terribly BOXED in one starts to feel at VOX. Perhaps it's my location in the far east, where the word "vox" is pronounced as "box"? Or perhaps it's merely my psychotic tendency to form loose associations between essentially unrelated issues? On a serious note, i should be careful for in the event some intelligent life form out there is also in profound disagreement with me, with a tendency to act with aggression, i may be in serious trouble. For my associations may be a dead give away to those who would really give it some thought. But then again, perhaps the producers of those great American TV shows like CSI are nothing more than figments of some writer's imagination, bearing no resemblance at all to personages in reality, drawing profiles and following leads as they do.

Enough about CSI then, what am i on about here? Well, paranoid-driven, i have set about trying desperately to think outside the BOX. Feeling claustrophobed by the complimentary comments, the conservative one hand washing the other, the liberals scratching one back and getting a complimentary scratch in return. I have an issue with adding friends to one's VOX who agree with me. I tend to seek out those who disagree and invite them instead, as a way of ensuring I don't become stale in my blogging efforts. The groups so often have this sort of claustrophobic feel to them as well. "If you aren't gay, don't come in". The group managers are bouncers ready to bounce your head on out there as soon as you post something they define as "outside the VOX". "If you don't always make the sign of the cross, then don't dig or del.ico.us.irise Gregorian chants". Blogs and groups become i scratch your back, you scratch mine affairs.  In this respect, i somehow see the logic of Aput's blog mentality of "sitting on the fence". The danger in this of course is that one viewpoint becomes superimposed over another. One voice being silenced into submission. One voice howling the conservative view, the other seeking acceptance at all costs. If this is the end result, then damn that route. Either VOXers are too polite, or we vox in a time of self-imposed censorship? I maintain of someone voxes something, he is seeking comment. If they were private thoughts that were not seeking comment, then they would have been hidden, unblogged, not voxed. For me, voxed is the antithesis of boxed.

I am interested to find out other's views on this matter. Be that as it may be, i am blogging at several other sites, just to get out of the Vox-Box so to speak. Trying to employ the causes and groups at Facebook, though this seldom seems to work, as social networking tools in this ilk, are often merely glamourised and modernised popularity runs, to see who get's the most friends before the pyramid falls flat. My other reason for being so many different monkeys with AK (a keyboard), is once again my paranoia that this blog will be shut down. My constant hope is that I will be that famous one day. Truly, it would be an honor to be shut down for more than merely exposing my more private aspects.

To end off, i will give readers a definition of blogging that i read in a comment on an Azanian blog, made in reference to the Thought Leaders blogging forum (an initiative of the Mail & Guardian). The person referred to blogging as "wanking with an audience". My Catholic persona rejects wanking as a total waste of time and good DNA. My other personae (one of me does a daily roll call) rejects the notion that all blogs fall into that category, just as all of us are not wankers. Some of us seek to utilize our DNA for what it was intended.