ELL: New SIL Alias
Diego Quesada
dquesada at chass.utoronto.ca
Thu Sep 23 00:59:31 UTC 1999
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Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 20:59:31 -0400 (EDT)
From: Diego Quesada <dquesada at chass.utoronto.ca>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
cc: ling-amerindia at unicamp.br
Subject: Re: ELL: New SIL Alias
In-Reply-To: <37E87755.1FDB6FC at bc.sympatico.ca>
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On Tue, 21 Sep 1999, Bill Poser wrote:
> I am stunned at the idea that asking for evidence is excessively
> "technical", as J. Diego Quesada suggests. Surely one does not make
> accusations, much less take action, on the basis of pure speculation.
Accusations? Dear Bill, this is not a courtroom. It's a forum
where people talk about real problems in the context of language
endangerment. That alienation is going on due to religious infiltration is
no speculation (after all 'taking action', as you mention above, means
acting against the effects, regardless of how the come about). If one
follows your argument, you are basically saying "if you have no evidence,
it's speculation; so, you can't take any action". Meanwhile, the [real]
effects of the pressumed speculation take their toll, ironically enough,
because there is no evidence to prove that such effects come from God
knows where. In other words, there are effects but these are secondary
because you can't trace details of their source. Hmm., that is hard
to swallow. Instead, there seems to be an interest in delaying action
hidden under technicalities.
> Now, if the New Tribes Mission is engaged in nefarious activity, which
> would certainly be consistent with reports I have heard, it should be
> condemned and if possible countered.
Your reports may be sources like the ones I have for asking about
possible connections between such organizations; if they do not count as
evidence for me, they should not count as evidence for you. Thus you have
no evidence to state that on the basis of reports you have, NT is engaged
in "nefarious activity". If you want to be consistent, what you are doing
above is making "accusations" for which you have no "evidence". In other
words, you are using hearsay evidence to state something about X, but you
find it speculative of me to use hearsay evidence to ask a question about
Y. That's not fair play. Anyway, the info that Marcus Maia shared with us
goes beyond being 'hearsay'. In that sense I/we/he have/s provided more
evidence than you have.
> But in the absence of any reason to
> believe the NTM and the SIL to be the same organization there can be no
> basis for the accusation that the SIL is using an alias.
What would be a reason for you, Bill? A document signed before a
notary public?
> The example of the fascist coup in Chile in 1973 is irrelevant. There
> was clear evidence that it was an anti-democratic coup, and that, and
> the subsequent behaviour of the Pinochet regime, provided an ample
> basis
> for opposition to the regime. There was plenty of evidence.
You mistook me. I said "evidence" that the CIA plotted the coup.
Those who had it, sadly, could not make it to our day. Indeed, as
> early as
Sept. 15, 1973 they were not 'physically available', to put it in
euphemistic terms. Again, you are using rhetorical strategies that you
criticize me for, only you make a rather awkward use of them. Let's see:
I ask if A and B are connected and use hearsay (at first) to
justify the question; you reply that there must be 'evidence' [however
> you
may conceive it, you have not said what qualifies as evidence for you]
> to
show the connection. (First error, for I only asked). I then say that
> the
effects are more relevant than 'evidence' (again, whatever you mean by
that); you feel 'stunned' but argue that the effects of the coup prove
that the fascist regime was anti-democratic. There is no logic in this.
First, I was talking about lack of evidence of who plotted the coup, not
of whether the regime was good or bad. Second, you say the behavior of
> the
regime (and its effects) justifies action against it, but reject my
claiming that the effects of religious intrusion in aboriginal
> communities
justify any action because (once more!) I fail to provide 'evidence' of
the connection between A and B. Again, that isn't fair play. But anyway,
the point is that the example of the coup IS relevant because it shares
the following characteristics with our issue here:
There is a situation S with negative effects E and someone, C,
suspects that this might be due in part because of A and B being
> A-B. C,
says, 'what may be the cause for S? Could it be A-B?' And somebody else,
D, says, 'You have to prove it in order to take action'. C then says,
> the
effects are by far more important than proving the A-B connection', but
> D
rejects that reply and feels stunned at it. Then D says that in another
situation, S1 with negative effects E1, the evidence per se is E1 not
whether there was a connection A1-B1. So, while D rejects using E as
evidence for S, he uses E1 as evidence for S1!; and fails to see the
similarity between S and S1: In both cases, at a certain point, there
> was
no "evidence", but the effects call for action. In the case of S1,
"evidence" was made available 25 years later. In the case of S, we don't
know. But D insists that before countering E we need "evidence" that its
causes are A-B, because E per se is no evidence, while saying that in
> the
case of S1 E1 suffices to counter A1-B1. This sounds to me like the
international division of labor: 'you stick to exporting raw material,
> and
we do the processing (to send you your raw material processed at a much
higher price)'. In clear text, Bill was using the 'funnel strategy': he
takes the wider side, while I should take the narrow side. That's no
> fair
play, I'd say.
J. Diego Quesada
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Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 21:07:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Diego Quesada <dquesada at chass.utoronto.ca>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
cc: ling-amerindia at unicamp.br
Subject: Re: ELL: New SIL Alias
In-Reply-To: <4.1.19990922093437.0092eb70 at utxvms.cc.utexas.edu>
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Date: Wed, 22 Sep 1999 21:07:01 -0400 (EDT)
From: Diego Quesada <dquesada at chass.utoronto.ca>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
cc: ling-amerindia at unicamp.br
Subject: Re: ELL: New SIL Alias
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On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Gail Coelho wrote:
> At 11:29 PM 9/21/99 -0700, you wrote:
> >I am stunned at the idea that asking for evidence is excessively
> >"technical", as J. Diego Quesada suggests. Surely one does not make
>
> Hi Bill,
>
> ...-- but in a Hamlet-like dilemma of whether to act or not, would
> you sit around waiting for elusive evidence or use a quick and drastic
> method to simply get rid of the whole problem? I guess, in some areas
> people wait for evidence and in others they just place heavy restrictions
> on all foreign researchers.
Apparently in the case of a possible SIL-NT connection Bill would
sit and wait 100% convinced that simply posing the question is prejudice,
but in a case scenario in which NT are the bad guys, and SIL the good guys
he'd just go and smash the bad guys, simply because of "reports" (that
is, hearsay, which in one case would be prejudice, but in the other,
'evidence').
Diego
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Date: Thu, 23 Sep 1999 09:49:27 +0800 (WST)
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From: Diego Quesada <dquesada at origin.chass.utoronto.ca>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: Re: ELL: NEW SIL ALIAS
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From: Diego Quesada <dquesada at origin.chass.utoronto.ca>
To: endangered-languages-l at carmen.murdoch.edu.au
Subject: Re: ELL: NEW SIL ALIAS
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Talking about "evidence":
On Wed, 22 Sep 1999, Marcus Antonio Rezende Maia wrote:
> Dear D. Quesada, SIL, ALEM, NTM, ILV, JAARS, and other initials may
> stand for different organizations from a strictly legal point of view,
> but it is a truism that they represent the same ethnocentric and
> imperialistic interests.
So far, "technically" there is no evidence.
> They have often exchanged and supported
> missionaries (who happen to be good linguists in some cases) in
> different parts of the world.
Here, it becomes more interesting:
> One of the oldest programs of SIL in
> Brazil is the Karaja Program in the Bananal Island in
> Central Brazil.
> SIL started their actions in the Karaja area in 1958,
> already aided by
> New Tribes missionaries who "attracted"several nomadic
> Karaja groups to
> form the villages of Macauba. SIL missionaries then took
> over did their
> educational training programs, bible translation,
> etc. Then they levt
> and NT missionaries took over.
Bill: would that qualify technically as "evidence"? Or would you say that
is only bla bla bla and that you need a piece of paper (a notary's book
where it is stated that Hereby We.....")? As far as I know Marcus
is a well respected, serious Brazilian scholar at the Federal University
of Rio de Janeiro, who would not just throw up words just like that.
Sure, two organizations working together; that does not prove that
they are the same; but their EFFECTS are the same. Do the vanishing
cultures need to care if two organizations working together are
technically the same? At this point the answer is 'who cares!' In
practice
EVIDENCE shows there is little difference.
> As a Karaja leader once told me: They are
> all "crente mahadu" , as we say in Portuguese," farinha do mesmo
> saco",
> perfectly interchangeable, hybrid beings, who take the shape which
> is
> best suited to fulfill their same o! ld purpose and who even use
> the
> same kind of money.
There you go.
> There is extensive documentation about the action of
> these groups in the Amazon area which I can refer to you if
> necessary.
Marcus, please do. Perhaps that will qualify as "evidence" for
some.
Diego
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