[QUOTE="... Don't disagree that the Middle East is in general very racist and culturally backwards.[/QUOTE]
So what do you say about OK, AL, MS, KS, ND...?
So what do you say about OK, AL, MS, KS, ND...?
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Apple's First Retail Stores in Middle East Open October 29
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You just miss his point... That's it... Trying to put some reasoning to your prejudice or your lack of rational thinking, if any, does not help one bit (pun intended...)
Actually the article didn't have the warning at first. It was just a regular article in the side news. Then it unfortunately turned quickly into something very different, and they added the warning after that...
My family being from the ME, I can't appreciate statements like this enough. It's ironic how most US citizens (which is where I was born and raised) are extremely hypocritical. They'll rip the ME about it's treatment of women and gays and yet this country was as bad just 50 years ago. It's like segregation never happened, and gay marriage has been a staple of this country forever. Hindsight is great when we see the benefits of equal rights for all, but it takes time for some of these countries to be modernized and informed. And just like in the US there are parts of any country that will be more conservative and others that will be more progressive (admittedly the progressive/liberal population is significantly smaller then the conservative).
I'm not sure what you think the USA was like 50 years ago but it was by no means as bad as the Middle East in some parts is today. Not allowing gay marriage is a far cry from murdering gay people.
How am I being prejudice? That's what their laws are. Lack of rational thinking?
Tell me what's rational about being in favor of gay rights while condoning Sharia law at the same time.
Tell me where my irrational thinking is, because most of what I said is simply factual.
BEING GAY IN THE UNITED ARAB EMIRATES IS A CRIME THAT IS PUNISHABLE BY DEATH.
TELL ME WHERE MY PREJUDICE IS, BECAUSE THAT IS AN IRREFUTABLE FACT.
That's not a lack of rational thinking on my part. A lack of rational thinking would be to defend Islamic laws like this just because they're Islamic laws. A lack of rational thinking would be to say being gay is not a choice, but you can choose not to be gay if you're in Dubai so you don't break their anti-gay law. A lack of rational thinking would be to say that U.S. states than banned gay marriage (but didn't make it legal to execute them) are equal to Sharia-following countries (AKA places where gays are killed for no reason but for being gay).
Do you understand?
I don't compare those states to the Middle East at all because in these states, no gay people have ever had their heads cut off at the hands of their own governments.
Yeah, it's terrible, stupid, and backwards. But at the same time, Apple opening a shop in the area doesn't mean they're silently condoning it.
You're looking at this as a black and white issue. They're bad. We ignore them, and leave them to their terrible ways. But that's not the way you affect change. You don't shun a whole culture or group of just because they do awful things. Doing so would only assure they continue doing these awful things. With Apple being there, even in this loosest of capacities, they're exerting just a tiny bit of their influence. The more western based companies that join in alongside them, the more likely it is that you get a mixing and matching of cultural ideals. Eventually, they might see the error of their ways.
There is still plenty of discrimination left in the US, even aside from that against gay people. There's still plenty of that in the US, too - you can still be denied service in shops, be evicted from your house, and lose your job just because you're gay. Even in places where you're legally allowed to get married.
There's discrimination against ethnic minorities, for instance. In the US we don't just kill them (even if it is a policeman gunning down another unarmed black teenager), we also deny them opportunities and send them to jail for minor offences.
There's discrimination against people from acquired territories (Puerto Rico, Guam, etc), whose people are literally second-class citizens. There's discrimination against people from Washington D.C, who only have a puppet government. There's discrimination against fat people, the poor, and basically every group of people.
I'm not saying it's as stark as what happens in the Middle East, but those countries don't claim to be the "land of the free" or "home of the brave". They don't fit with American ideas about liberty, but they never claimed to - the USA does claim to, and even it falls far, far short of those goals!
The way change will happen in those countries is if their people decide they want something different from their countries. Right now they consider Islam to be the model by which they run the entire country. In time, they may decide to run their country similarly to the Turkish model (which itself is still developing). That's a decision they have to make on their own. In the mean time, don't hold them up to your country's manifesto and chastise them for falling short, when your country itself can't even overcome this kind of discrimination and flagrantly ignores the other moral imperatives set by those documents (remember Guantanamo?)
I haven't argued that Apple should stay out of there at all. I'm just calling out false equivalences that are being made about the bigotry in these countries versus America. I already know what Tim Cook thinks of terrorism, which he said needs to be eradicated. I would hope than Apple stores in that part of the world would help them see some of these issues the way I do.
We still have our problems. I don't disagree with you on that. But we were no way close to being just as bad. That's all.
Yes, the murder of some people by racist citizens is the same thing as being beheaded by the government.
Not the same, but still something that was happening and something that is quite a ways beyond simply denying some rights that was being referenced. Mostly condoned by the government, at least in the sense that a blind eye was turned toward it much of the time, if not adopting actual policies that in one way or another supported that kind of thing.
The South is pretty bad but not as bad as the Middle East. People in the South don't still keep people as slaves for example.
The Middle East today treats blacks like America did 100 years ago. The Indian workers working on World Cup venues are basically treated like slaves.
In the time of Muhammad the Middle East was at the forefront of progress (and certainly the forefront outside of China). Now it is one of the world's most backward regions, and certainly the most backward region with reasonable amounts of money.
If this happens, just disable the comment section and delete the comments. Problem solved.
Seriously, if you had to post a warning like that on a Mac News website, just don't allow commenting on topics that might be controversial at all. Problem Solved.
And if people complain that it's censorship, just put a reason blaming them for forcing to adopt this policy, something like "you started a comment fight, I had no choice but to disable the comment section permanently for the article. DEAL WITH IT"
Move up your timeline by about 900 years. It was around the time of Saladin that the Middle East was the cultural and scientific center of the world. In 200, it was all about Rome.
/history nerd
And the sad part is, certain conservative elected representatives were pushing certain agenda to ban abortion even it was a result of rape...and to top it off, one of them is a doctor and claims that the female body is capable of preventing pregnancy if it was resulted from rape...
I am speechless...
It's certainly interesting that Apple is encouraging gender segregation in their Middle Eastern Apple Stores.
Can other forms of segregation be on their way, too, I wonder?
Can other forms of segregation be on their way, too, I wonder?
Sure, but it's not institutionalised. The U.S government won't prosecute people for being gay -- that's private individuals using their freedom of association to discriminate against other groups in their lives. Nowhere near the same as punishment by the law.
So where in the U.S do you go to prison for the crime of being a certain race?
Gender segregation is common everywhere in the world.
Boy/girl schools, restrooms, sports, ...