The Church of the Nativity Gang - One Year On

[Ned]

"Yesterday, he explained he had been housed in Finglas with Rami Kamel, the 23-year-old Palestinian who arrived with him last May. But he said that after Mr Ramel married an Irish woman he could not, as a Muslim, remain in the house with a woman who was not a member of his family. He said he had been promised alternative accommodation, but this had never materialised."

This doesn't seem right. What this implies is that Muslims cannot have guests.

[our_man]

~~~

[Felch]

Re: Re: Re: The Church of the Nativity Gang - One Year On

Originally posted by Ned
Felch, what are the two views on the cause of the war in Texas?

There's the traditional American perspective, which is what you're taught in school. Mexico was religiously intolerant, and a dictatorship, and the Texans fought heroically against vastly superior numbers to defend their values of freedom and democracy.

It has grains of truth, but it's not nearly complete.

The fact is that Mexico gave free land to Americans who promised to fulfill a pretty basic requirement: swear allegience to Mexico, obey Mexican law, and convert to Catholicism. There was an attempt to limit the number of immigrants, since the policy was intended to shore up Mexican authority not diminish it.

Enforcing these requirements were very difficult for Mexico, since Texas was far out of reach from central authorities in Mexico City, and also very big, as we all know.

Therefore, many Americans essentially squatted on Mexican territory. This in and of itself isn't so bad, since the land wasn't being used by anybody except the Natives, and nobody gives a rat's ass about them in any event. The problem was that they refused to swear allegience, refused to convert, and broke Mexican laws, especially those which prohibited slavery.

Now say what you will about being forced to change your religion for a free gift from a foreign country, but if Paris is worth a Mass, people getting free real estate in Texas shouldn't complain either.

The real indefensible problem that I have with the Texans is that their perception of freedom and liberty was racist. They rejected the idea that blacks should not be enslaved and forced to work on cotton plantations, and they denied basic civil rights to hispanics who could not prove that they aided in the Texan Revolution.

The truth quite simply, is that Mexico was invaded by illegal immigrants who brought an evil institution in the form of slavery, and who then rebelled and denied basic civil rights to former residents who didn't actively support the insurrection. Of course that's not the whole story, but it's the other side, and one you're not going to hear in an American classroom.

[Ned]

Felch, Here is a contemporaneous speach by Frederick Douglass. It does seem to confirm your rendition of the facts. In particular, it appears that Mexico declared all slaves free in 1828. This led to a protracted series of negotiations with the American slaveowners in Texas. Initially the Mexican government apparently allowed the Americans to emancipate their slaves over time, but even this turned out to be unacceptable to the Americans. So the Americans revolted and called for assistance from their brethern in the United States on the basis that they were being forced to convert to Catholicism against their will!

http://www.yale.edu/glc/archive/1063.htm

Also, Santa Ana was a dictator.

[Straybow]

Poor baby, on the run and all that.

[Ned]

Felch, The Texan point of view:

http://www.pbs.org/weta/thewest/resources/archives/two/txaustin.htm

The proximate cause of the revolt was the overthrow of the federal form of government (constitution copied from the US constitution) in favor of a central form. States were declared departments. Two states revolted. Texas was one of them.