Originally posted by subudei:
As I had already clearly explained before, my position is NOT that
all, or even most, Oxford and / or Sandhurst graduates are third
world dictators. I'm just saying that those institutions count an
exceptional number of despots and tyrants among the ranks of their
alumni when compared with other similar institutions. Do NOT
attempt to misrepresent my position.
ok... interesting observation... that's fair...
... My sole contention here is that these institutions have an
inenviable track record of having had dictators and tyrants among
their students. There is also an entirely reasonable supposition
here that these people put the skills and knowledge they acquired
at Oxford / Sandhurst to deadly use when they returned to their
home countries and commenced their misrule. This line of argument
was readily apparent in my previous posts, and was indeed
reiterated in the very section of my previous post that you quoted
in your own post, so it baffles me as to how you could have missed
that point.
i didn't miss it... my bone of contention is that there are
world class educational institutions by any standards and as YOU
mentioned, the institutions themselves could never have known that
their students were going to end up as dictators but nevertheless,
u heap the blame on these institutions on something they could not
have known and could not have avoided.
In addition, you don't seem to realise the fact that 1) many
dictatorships are dynastic in nature; and 2) future dictators do
not become unsavoury characters overnight; they typically exhibit
dictator-like tendencies long before they attain power. And that
makes Oxford's and Sandhurst's acceptance of these people as
students even more damning: it should have been blindingly obvious
to these institutions that these people were well on their way to
becoming dictators in the future, and /or their parents were
dictators, and their kids were all lined up to succeed them, and
yet they let them in anyway, and equipped them with deadly skills
and knowledge (as noted above and previously).
how could they have known? look around oxford alumni list...
scions of prominent figures makes up a significant portion of
it.
it is not at all obvious from the personalities u pointed out that
they were going to be succeeded after they graduated from oxford or
sandhurst. as mentioned before, they probably went as young
undergraduates or cadets. HOW could anyone have known?
it is still not obvious to me from your questionable line of
argument that oxford happily and wilfully accepted students of a
questionable character and equipped them for nasty ends.
Furthermore, there is no such thing as monocausation in life,
and the same rule applies to politics. How can you possibly assume
that their education had no effect whatsoever in making them more
inclined towards dictatorship? How can you so readily conclude
that, for example, Benazir Bhutto's presidency of the Oxford Union
and her consequent interaction with English aristocracy (who, to
this day, still have ideas about how societies should only be ruled
by certain people with certain social / genealogical backgrounds)
did not strengthen or indeed provoke her development of her own
ideas about how she was entitled to rule and exploit Pakistan for
her own benefit?
if u believe there there is no such thing as mono-causation,
then u can't blame the institutions any more than u can blame the
individuals. everything came together to forge the
personality.
and look at the context: in the 70s which uni was going to deny the
daughter of zufikar ali bhutto, prime minister of pakistan? and i
hardly see her as a tin-pot dictator.
Sure, the climate in their own countries plays a significant
part too, but you can't rule out the effect of education. I thought
it would have been blindingly obvious to Singaporeans in particular
that education has a profound effect on how people behave towards
their fellow men and women long after they graduate (cf. the whole
Raffles - PAP connection).
in Sg, it is often recognised that raffles alumnis "have it up
there"... and we've been talking a lot about how it breeds
elitism... but in the same way, its hardly a case where u're
automatically "there" just cos u went to the right schools.
As for Sandhurst, you point out that many military academies
have "exchange programmes". All of us know this already. But do you
know how many of the world's tin pot third world dictators have
worn and / or continue to wear the Sandhurst badge? In contrast,
nowhere near as many dictators hold West Point or SAFTI MI
graduation certificates.
You may be unconvinced of the disproportionate numbers, but this is
an irrefutable fact. I've already given you the examples of Bashar
al-Assad and Benezir Bhutto. There are plenty more, especially from
Africa. Go run a check, the information is all out there.
we both agree that access to power and network in important...
so if these individuals came from closely knit, prominent families,
or from the armed forces, which provides a parallel structure of
such access, why should it surprise anyone that they were educated
in British institutions? if u were from a former british colony, u
would want to study in oxford or sandhurst, unless u happened to be
a communist and u would wanna go to russia.
its not particularly unusual if the entire level of a third world
country's elite were all classmates. wealthy, influential pple know
each other.
hope u won't think that i'm trying to nit-pick... i agree with
certain specific aspects u pointed out... just that i draw a
slightly different conclusion from them 
