>>and i'll also point out that today, you and i *and the local
>>peoples* know about angkor wat, khajuraho or the cave
>>paintings in north africa bc of western inquiry/research.
>
>Seriously tho'....you are an exception to the rule. How many
>white Americans/Blacks/Europeans/Asians/etc know/have
>access/have interest in those things? Very few. The general
>population is what concerns me.

why you keep talking about europe without having been there?
The general population of USA have extremly little knowledge about distant cultures. You'd be surprised of how most europeans know much about distant cultures.. we learn more about it than they do in USA, in school, from parents, it is more a part of the life: knowing at least the basic facts from history worldwide (ancient to present).. of course not free from european point of view, but compared to america's school system, it's supposed to be much more open.

heh now i'm only jumping in as soon as i find something i know is wrong, i don't mean to do that.. i'll try to get into this discussion in a better way

>I still stand on my belief that mutual respect is lacking.

You are right there, at least to a big degree.. like the quote in guerilla_love's sig says: it says something like "when western methodes and thinking is seen as the only thing that is valid, something is very wrong". The methodes of the western world is often (definitely not always, specially not now in these days! but still often) seen as the best thing - and when it is like that, there's no mutual respect.

>>say "Y'all don't want any immigrants because y'all scared
>>that they're gonna dilute the white population."

no, it isn't exactly about that. It may be like that in the most extreme le pen-like cases, but I know from my country and other european countries of the same nature (mountain people - isolated, remote), that the argument is that they don't want anything foreign in their area. They see it as a threat. Because of that, in norway there are two expressions (who sometimes go hand in hand, but not always): racism and "fear of things foreign" (it has it's own word). To explain the difference, the first is pure hate, the second is more about fear (and an attempt to solve it by removing/stopping the "threat")

I don't know _HOW_ honest they are when they say "I don't mind a pakistani, as long as he lives a norwegian life style and lives a honest life just like the next norwegian" - but that is what many/most of those who have "fear of things foreign" say.

i'd guess that in my country about 50%+ have that "fear of things foreign" (to varying degrees from person to person) within them.


>Well...If eastern european immigrants are treated poorly,
>ethnic groups (with coloured complexions and from greater
>distances) are screwed even that much more.

Eastern europeans are treated similarly to for example asians (but africans remains the most negative - they are as different as you can get). The eastern europeans arrive as illegal immigrants, and when they wait for their papers to be dealt with by authorities, there have been cases of romanians and bulgarians (often Rom people) stealing - and that has become the stereotype placed on them.

See, what many say about the "fear of things foreign" is: As long as it's bellow the Alps, it is bad. It is negative. They are theifs and if not, they are at least a threat. (in france, i guess they'd say "As long as it's outside the borders of europe, it's bad")

>>but i would also point out that in fact there has been a
>>tremendous amount of western study of the non-western world.
>> think about napoleon in egypt or richard burton or the
>>asiatic society or max muller. i know, i know, you're going
>>to quote edward said at me, but the point is that the
>>respect, admiration and interest existed.

but in most cases (specially the more "government-funded" ones) i doubt it was a honest respect, and i doubt the respect lasted for long or was accepted by the leaders of the european cultures themselves. you know how the people, and even more the elite, used to look at different cultures back in the day (paintings of how africa was, britain's half-hearted respect for indian cultures (i think))

in our lifetime (and since the beginning of the last century, i think) it is very different, more respect - i think it came with the fall of the european empires/powers (specially UK).