Saswat Blog
All that's Left!
Dec 2004
Chinmaya's Wish
31/12/04 13:17 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Memories
From my new comrade at the OrissaGroup.
Dear Saswat,
This shiny bright new year I wish you Faith ~
Faith that this world cannot dampen or cool,
Faith in your dreams when the facts overrule,
This shiny bright new year I wish you Joy ~
Joy that is untouched by earth's trials and fears,
Joy that is constant when sorrow appears,
Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.
Its a special occasion to remember special people.
Love, and Regards !
Chinmaya ..
Dear Saswat,
This shiny bright new year I wish you Faith ~
Faith that this world cannot dampen or cool,
Faith in your dreams when the facts overrule,
This shiny bright new year I wish you Joy ~
Joy that is untouched by earth's trials and fears,
Joy that is constant when sorrow appears,
Wish you a very happy and prosperous new year.
Its a special occasion to remember special people.
Love, and Regards !
Chinmaya ..
|
The Other War Photography
Four years back I ran into a public debate
(click here to read the first scenario) with a
Border Security Force officer who was the guest
speaker at a university in India. Amidst other views,
one of his arguments was that we needed to see the
war photographs. The students went ahead and did some
paintings on the black and white boards depicting the
huge tanks and the brave fighters.
Such portrayals of course did not include the human costs of war. Nor did it arouse any sentiment for sanity. More the tanks, more the aggression. Psychological Warfare by other names.
The argument was in favor of an abstract patriotism and a holistic battlefield resulting in a war even though founded on fake grounds. And over the years, thanks to the journalists or the embeded ones, we were refused to see what all horrible things used to happen to people after the war, no matter their sides.
The apprehension that graphics of post-war blues would send wrong signals was right in its place. What if people rebel and refuse to join the war. After all who wants such damage to the body and mind in a no-return investment of time and resources.
Well, if a picture paints a thousand words, these ones speak millions. Click here for the updated pictures.
The words are Millions which decry the wars and indeed encourage us all to realize that we do not need to let the future generations go through this torture in the name of our f**ed up convictions aka historical blunders.
Such portrayals of course did not include the human costs of war. Nor did it arouse any sentiment for sanity. More the tanks, more the aggression. Psychological Warfare by other names.
The argument was in favor of an abstract patriotism and a holistic battlefield resulting in a war even though founded on fake grounds. And over the years, thanks to the journalists or the embeded ones, we were refused to see what all horrible things used to happen to people after the war, no matter their sides.
The apprehension that graphics of post-war blues would send wrong signals was right in its place. What if people rebel and refuse to join the war. After all who wants such damage to the body and mind in a no-return investment of time and resources.
Well, if a picture paints a thousand words, these ones speak millions. Click here for the updated pictures.
The words are Millions which decry the wars and indeed encourage us all to realize that we do not need to let the future generations go through this torture in the name of our f**ed up convictions aka historical blunders.
Case of Bajaj and his friends at the Times of India
By Saswat Pattanayak
The arrest of Avnish Bajaj, CEO of US-based auction portal eBay’s Indian subsidiary has caused concerns among high level government officials on India and the US including from US state department spokesman Richard Boucher. I am sure he should be sure of how to treat offenders who could be accused of child pornography in the US. But what I hear is that quite the contrary, he is ‘concerned’ too!
What however, surprises is that it has also caused concern among the largest media operation in India, Times of India network.
In an article –, Rohit Wadhwaney says how “Bajaj gets just about enough space in his cell to curl up and sleep, if at all he manages to get some xxxxx He has to wake up every morning as early as 5.30 am and walk out of the cell, which is more like a dormitory (though extremely unclean and stinky), for head-count of prisoners. xxxxx For lunch, he gets four rotis , one subzi and a little bit of dal. Even if he is still hungry, he can’t get another helping xxxxx At 6.30 pm he is served dinner, as mercilessly as the previous meal. And at 8 pm the lights are switched off. But whether Bajaj manages to get some sleep or not only he knows. xxxxx”
Such use of language clearly denotes an irresponsible form of journalistic tradition that Times of India may now on be identified with. But I am sure that will not be the case. Since, had it been someone else than Bajaj, a US citizen and high profile Harvard graduate with power and influence in high circles, Times' stance would have been very different.
And whose battle is TOI fighting? Someone who was making money out of auctioning MMS clips of 17 yr old kids having oral sex? I would not even venture into the legal age controversy which anyway needs to be challenged. It really does not make sense at least to me how being 18 makes one qualified to do something which being 17 does not. And no saying why child pornography question can be brought up here, because it is clearly not one of that kind. The same issue persists among teens in campus all over in US who wants relaxation on legal age. Not 18, but 17, they say. Now instead of drinking and pornography being the questions, its a matter of numbers now. 17 or 18. Very stupid indulgences..
But what matters here is the blatant absence of any attempts to dig background investigation before auctioning an item. As an online marketplace Bazee dot com has the responsibility to verify the claims of ownership and background of such ownership indeed before flashing anything for auction. In the present case, clearly the sale of the clip was against the wishes of the girl in video.
This may herald a new beginning of the need to investigate the products being auctioned, especially with rise in fraudulence within eBay.com recently.
As for Bajaj, he needs to be treated with equal dignity as being conferred to any other inmates. I do not see why the Press has to suddenly wake up to see the prison conditions just because bajaj is served dinner “mercilessly”.
The arrest of Avnish Bajaj, CEO of US-based auction portal eBay’s Indian subsidiary has caused concerns among high level government officials on India and the US including from US state department spokesman Richard Boucher. I am sure he should be sure of how to treat offenders who could be accused of child pornography in the US. But what I hear is that quite the contrary, he is ‘concerned’ too!
What however, surprises is that it has also caused concern among the largest media operation in India, Times of India network.
In an article –, Rohit Wadhwaney says how “Bajaj gets just about enough space in his cell to curl up and sleep, if at all he manages to get some xxxxx He has to wake up every morning as early as 5.30 am and walk out of the cell, which is more like a dormitory (though extremely unclean and stinky), for head-count of prisoners. xxxxx For lunch, he gets four rotis , one subzi and a little bit of dal. Even if he is still hungry, he can’t get another helping xxxxx At 6.30 pm he is served dinner, as mercilessly as the previous meal. And at 8 pm the lights are switched off. But whether Bajaj manages to get some sleep or not only he knows. xxxxx”
Such use of language clearly denotes an irresponsible form of journalistic tradition that Times of India may now on be identified with. But I am sure that will not be the case. Since, had it been someone else than Bajaj, a US citizen and high profile Harvard graduate with power and influence in high circles, Times' stance would have been very different.
And whose battle is TOI fighting? Someone who was making money out of auctioning MMS clips of 17 yr old kids having oral sex? I would not even venture into the legal age controversy which anyway needs to be challenged. It really does not make sense at least to me how being 18 makes one qualified to do something which being 17 does not. And no saying why child pornography question can be brought up here, because it is clearly not one of that kind. The same issue persists among teens in campus all over in US who wants relaxation on legal age. Not 18, but 17, they say. Now instead of drinking and pornography being the questions, its a matter of numbers now. 17 or 18. Very stupid indulgences..
But what matters here is the blatant absence of any attempts to dig background investigation before auctioning an item. As an online marketplace Bazee dot com has the responsibility to verify the claims of ownership and background of such ownership indeed before flashing anything for auction. In the present case, clearly the sale of the clip was against the wishes of the girl in video.
This may herald a new beginning of the need to investigate the products being auctioned, especially with rise in fraudulence within eBay.com recently.
As for Bajaj, he needs to be treated with equal dignity as being conferred to any other inmates. I do not see why the Press has to suddenly wake up to see the prison conditions just because bajaj is served dinner “mercilessly”.
Almost Half of Americans Favor Restrictions on Muslims' Rights
19/12/04 06:54 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
We live in not only uncertain times but also
dangerous ones. And the democracy is full of, as
Chomsky would say, “necessary illusions”.
Reinforcing one sustained illusion, almost half of all Americans think the federal government should limit the civil rights of Muslims as part of the nation’s fight against terrorism, according to a survey released by Cornell University today.
Shocking? read more by clicking here
Reinforcing one sustained illusion, almost half of all Americans think the federal government should limit the civil rights of Muslims as part of the nation’s fight against terrorism, according to a survey released by Cornell University today.
Shocking? read more by clicking here
The Question on People of Color
Following yesterday's mail, here is the response of
the student. I am sure the discussion on the topic
will not cease, although I do not think it is a
debate, considering that I am not myself so fond of
the term. Alright, here is the reply:
My take on the issue is simple: If the word "color" or "negro" is used to connect with the minds of the oppressed people, the historical differences with the Whites, the words are most welcome. At the same time, any attempt at celebrating the color in the umbrella of multicultural ethos aimed at nullifying confrontational differences through normalization, is dangerous. Its in the same vein as the political component which reminds the colonial people that they are colonial (which I think is needed), as opposed to the social attempt at building a commonwealth of colonies which would cherish their colors (thats awwwww...).
I obviously understand that the term is politically correct, but that doesn't make it right necessarily. Clearly, you didn't do anything wrong except go against your own personal beliefs/values because you said yourself in your e-mail back to me that you were not exactly a fan of the term because it is referring to you as well. Well I guess I just don't understand why you would promote that term, by using it in that survey, if you yourself don't agree with it.
My take on the issue is simple: If the word "color" or "negro" is used to connect with the minds of the oppressed people, the historical differences with the Whites, the words are most welcome. At the same time, any attempt at celebrating the color in the umbrella of multicultural ethos aimed at nullifying confrontational differences through normalization, is dangerous. Its in the same vein as the political component which reminds the colonial people that they are colonial (which I think is needed), as opposed to the social attempt at building a commonwealth of colonies which would cherish their colors (thats awwwww...).
Who are the "People of Color"
By Saswat Pattanayak
One undergraduate student writes to me that the term ”people of color is very offensive and I am surprised that it was used in the survey," referring to the post-test survey conducted after the dialogue program. Incidentally, she was a participant in a video I had created to record dialogue reactions.
I do not disagree with her statement, and in a way completely at a loss to give an authoritative answer (considering that there are none). But this is what I had to say:
One undergraduate student writes to me that the term ”people of color is very offensive and I am surprised that it was used in the survey," referring to the post-test survey conducted after the dialogue program. Incidentally, she was a participant in a video I had created to record dialogue reactions.
I do not disagree with her statement, and in a way completely at a loss to give an authoritative answer (considering that there are none). But this is what I had to say:
As for the "People of Color", the phrase has been approved by the UN to address non-white populace in the world. Since usages of Negro, or other terms to address Asians (some call mongolian and some even chinks) were considered to be gross, the politically correct usage today is People of Color.
People of Color is used to identify the colonized people throughout the world who were oppressed by the Whites over the ages and I guess in want of a better term to describe them, we are today using this. "Color" is of course better than "Nigger" if you realize and hence there is no issue around it yet.
At the same time, I recognize that you do not wish such a term to exist. And I have highest respect for that sentiment. Maybe we could phrase a better term this time around. I personally also would like to be called differently.
To some extent I have reservations against "African-American" or "Asian-American" phrases too. I feel they just reinforce a racial hegemony of defining others in terms of the dominant class.
Your resentment to a conventional term indicates your forthrightness and honesty. Keep it up and do let me know if you come across a better phrase. I will join you in requesting for a better phrase.
Time's new science of Sleep (and whats wrong with it?)
By Saswat Pattanayak
Bob Dylan in the Spring 1965 documentary “Don’t Look Back” (made by D.A. Pennebaker) is seen to be refusing to give an interview to the Time magazine reporter. After the reporter persists, Dylan finally says that he would not talk to that magazine because its read by the elites, who else?
Exactly 40 years have passed since. On its December 20, 2004 issue, which by no means an unimportant issue-this being one of the year end and ‘best-photos-of-the-year’ issue-Time has come up with the cover story: “The new science of Sleep”.
In its 10-page spread of why sleep is needed, Christine Gorman reveals citing some research (and believe me, I am still looking for that research in her texts) that sleep indeed is needed for the brain, not for body.
Well, lets say that’s alright, but what’s the news? If not news, what’s new? If not new, what’s profound?
Here it is. The larger picture today is that of social unrest following a political system that took charge once again. The larger picture is that of youth apprehensions about the war that’s caused so that it will perpetuate the fear psychoses. The larger picture is that more critical questions are surfacing today than they ever did before in terms of social justice, but fewer are actually being asked due to the fear factor of being termed unpatriotic or even a terrorist.
When the mind is working more than the body (lets say in the process of my blogging at midnight on a computer communicating this to you, my body works less than my mind) there is a problem to the people who wants to replace the larger picture with a myopic vision full of non-issues. Hence, the researchers (whoever they are and again let me state I could not find which researches provided the ‘fresh clues’-as said on the cover) working at such a theory of sleep that says the more we sleep the smarter we become is little exaggerated. Why else would I have the knowledge of Gandhi having maintained a four-hour-sleep-a-night routine? Or all the prolific scholars I have seen in my short life actually being smart, staying smart and staying awake most of the day and the night?
Why Time magazine would want such a cover story is not surprising. It has countless frivolous cover stories in the past in most regular intervals that will surprise just about anyone. But precisely because of that, the regularity of such cover events, it has succeeded in letting such them get past to its readers, some of whom must have more or less got normalized into believing that this is the big issue.
Health is definitely a much bigger concern than what the president has to say over the thanksgivings dinner. Its because health issue affects all, republican or democrat or the rest of us. Its also true that we have really got bored of the political coverages, maybe because they are of a very similar ‘he-said-this-then-he-refuted-that’ types. The second most popular theme, entertainment is another horrible domain. At times political stories are as entertaining as entertainment stories can be political. But entertainment stories in mainstream press are considered for the so-called entertainment value only reducing them to irrelevance.
Look at the Johnny Cash cover on Time recently. No political mention at all. Or even look at Dylan becoming a top 100 entertainer in Time. One can only gauge the extent to which entertainers are forcibly separated from their social stands so that the audience only applauds, not join.
After utterly monotonous political stories and extremely redundant entertainment rumors, one would only look at the health section with some hope. And this is precisely what Time understands well. Since the stakes are high, the health stories are manufactured in a subtle manner to send out a clear message. Subtle insofar as political mentions go amiss, clear insofar as the cover stories proclaim of some researches providing some clues.
Funny but true. A sleeping nation doth not stay awake and liberty can be attained only by a vigilant citizenry. At the juncture of history when we see partisan politics jeopardizing personal decisions based on sexual preferences, and the most number of youths are being sent to fight a war that has absolutely no basis other than false rhetorics and when we face the biggest challenges of unemployment and healthcare in recent times, to lull the country to sleep is the best available method to prevent any form of agitation.
One of the six advices Time offers: “no computers, no TV or arguments before sleep. Soothing music and mysteries are OK.”
Soothing and mysteries. You bet, the world is one peaceful thing for fantasizing in soothing music.
Illusion, like sleep, is a state of mind.
Bob Dylan in the Spring 1965 documentary “Don’t Look Back” (made by D.A. Pennebaker) is seen to be refusing to give an interview to the Time magazine reporter. After the reporter persists, Dylan finally says that he would not talk to that magazine because its read by the elites, who else?
Exactly 40 years have passed since. On its December 20, 2004 issue, which by no means an unimportant issue-this being one of the year end and ‘best-photos-of-the-year’ issue-Time has come up with the cover story: “The new science of Sleep”.
In its 10-page spread of why sleep is needed, Christine Gorman reveals citing some research (and believe me, I am still looking for that research in her texts) that sleep indeed is needed for the brain, not for body.
Well, lets say that’s alright, but what’s the news? If not news, what’s new? If not new, what’s profound?
Here it is. The larger picture today is that of social unrest following a political system that took charge once again. The larger picture is that of youth apprehensions about the war that’s caused so that it will perpetuate the fear psychoses. The larger picture is that more critical questions are surfacing today than they ever did before in terms of social justice, but fewer are actually being asked due to the fear factor of being termed unpatriotic or even a terrorist.
When the mind is working more than the body (lets say in the process of my blogging at midnight on a computer communicating this to you, my body works less than my mind) there is a problem to the people who wants to replace the larger picture with a myopic vision full of non-issues. Hence, the researchers (whoever they are and again let me state I could not find which researches provided the ‘fresh clues’-as said on the cover) working at such a theory of sleep that says the more we sleep the smarter we become is little exaggerated. Why else would I have the knowledge of Gandhi having maintained a four-hour-sleep-a-night routine? Or all the prolific scholars I have seen in my short life actually being smart, staying smart and staying awake most of the day and the night?
Why Time magazine would want such a cover story is not surprising. It has countless frivolous cover stories in the past in most regular intervals that will surprise just about anyone. But precisely because of that, the regularity of such cover events, it has succeeded in letting such them get past to its readers, some of whom must have more or less got normalized into believing that this is the big issue.
Health is definitely a much bigger concern than what the president has to say over the thanksgivings dinner. Its because health issue affects all, republican or democrat or the rest of us. Its also true that we have really got bored of the political coverages, maybe because they are of a very similar ‘he-said-this-then-he-refuted-that’ types. The second most popular theme, entertainment is another horrible domain. At times political stories are as entertaining as entertainment stories can be political. But entertainment stories in mainstream press are considered for the so-called entertainment value only reducing them to irrelevance.
Look at the Johnny Cash cover on Time recently. No political mention at all. Or even look at Dylan becoming a top 100 entertainer in Time. One can only gauge the extent to which entertainers are forcibly separated from their social stands so that the audience only applauds, not join.
After utterly monotonous political stories and extremely redundant entertainment rumors, one would only look at the health section with some hope. And this is precisely what Time understands well. Since the stakes are high, the health stories are manufactured in a subtle manner to send out a clear message. Subtle insofar as political mentions go amiss, clear insofar as the cover stories proclaim of some researches providing some clues.
Funny but true. A sleeping nation doth not stay awake and liberty can be attained only by a vigilant citizenry. At the juncture of history when we see partisan politics jeopardizing personal decisions based on sexual preferences, and the most number of youths are being sent to fight a war that has absolutely no basis other than false rhetorics and when we face the biggest challenges of unemployment and healthcare in recent times, to lull the country to sleep is the best available method to prevent any form of agitation.
One of the six advices Time offers: “no computers, no TV or arguments before sleep. Soothing music and mysteries are OK.”
Soothing and mysteries. You bet, the world is one peaceful thing for fantasizing in soothing music.
Illusion, like sleep, is a state of mind.
Threat Perception and Indifference
By Saswat Pattanayak
"...We only wish we had more cameras to show the world their true defeat...." The Iraqi Resistance speech videotaped on December 13 2004 has been released, titled Title: Communiqué Number 6. I do not know how many of you saw the video or read the transcript, but I am certain that the knowledge of it will help.
The dangers of not acknowledging that things as terrible as inflicted by American administration on Iraq can also happen to American people, is one of no less magnitude. Comfortable psychological numbness has its temporary relief. But not to pay heed to the Resistance Speech may result only in the great disbelief. I wonder why the mainstream press would not publish the transcript in detail. And when the press here talk about the resistance movement in Iraq, why the interpretation is to the effect that ‘we’ are now under a threat of terrorism and hence we need to deploy more forces.
Elsewhere I had brought up the news of sending more troops. I will talk about the perils in another piece. But for now, every American and the world citizen has a right to know what the resistance speech contains.
The perception that certain speech can cause problems for the American people is like claiming that certain television shows are the cause behind all the crimes. Quite the contrary I believe the average American has to be sensitized enough by the knowledge that the plot is thickening now and hence will be either more prepared to send the children to warfront or resist the war itself.
In doing the resistance, the speech here may not inspire, but for sure inform that there is a need here to stop the ongoing war for good.
We need to panic more. The proud administrators who claim that there has not been an attack on America after 9/11, obviously do not believe that the thousands of deaths of young Americans on Iraqi soil is not the staging of the video games, but a reality that the attack on Americans is going on. Only this time, we know for sure who has ordered the attack. You are right, not Iraq.
Here is excerpts from the speech...(so that we all panic a bit more. and put a stop to this madness called war. And yes, war will not end war like it almost used to. Because unlike ever before in history this time, we-the United States at least, have the weapons of mass destruction—And mass weapon knows no nationalities. The illusion is that some children–not our children, or at least not us (sic!)–are dying to make us safe in our land. But the reality is the struggle going on in that far away land to declare otherwise. Excerpts from what Islamic Jihad Army claims:
"It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible; for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land.
We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of the lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans for the control of the energy resources of the world, in face of a growing China and a strong unified Europe . It is Ironic that the Iraqi’s are to bear the full face of this large and growing conflict on behalf of the rest of this sleeping world.
We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.
XXX
We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.
Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.
XXX
The enemy is on the run. They are in fear of a resistance movement they can not see nor predict.
We, now choose when, where, and how to strike. And as our ancestors drew the first sparks of civilization, we will redefine the word “conquest.“
This conflict is no longer considered a localized war. Nor can the world remain hostage to the never-ending and regenerated fear that the American people suffer from in general.
We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more
And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you.
XXX
Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq .
And to George W. Bush, we say, “You have asked us to ‘Bring it on’, and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
If this does not make people conscious of the perils of war in general, nothing ever will. Its time to take a stand. And the stand cannot be for indifference. We cannot be indifferent any more, as I have discussed,the numbness will not help.
"...We only wish we had more cameras to show the world their true defeat...." The Iraqi Resistance speech videotaped on December 13 2004 has been released, titled Title: Communiqué Number 6. I do not know how many of you saw the video or read the transcript, but I am certain that the knowledge of it will help.
The dangers of not acknowledging that things as terrible as inflicted by American administration on Iraq can also happen to American people, is one of no less magnitude. Comfortable psychological numbness has its temporary relief. But not to pay heed to the Resistance Speech may result only in the great disbelief. I wonder why the mainstream press would not publish the transcript in detail. And when the press here talk about the resistance movement in Iraq, why the interpretation is to the effect that ‘we’ are now under a threat of terrorism and hence we need to deploy more forces.
Elsewhere I had brought up the news of sending more troops. I will talk about the perils in another piece. But for now, every American and the world citizen has a right to know what the resistance speech contains.
The perception that certain speech can cause problems for the American people is like claiming that certain television shows are the cause behind all the crimes. Quite the contrary I believe the average American has to be sensitized enough by the knowledge that the plot is thickening now and hence will be either more prepared to send the children to warfront or resist the war itself.
In doing the resistance, the speech here may not inspire, but for sure inform that there is a need here to stop the ongoing war for good.
We need to panic more. The proud administrators who claim that there has not been an attack on America after 9/11, obviously do not believe that the thousands of deaths of young Americans on Iraqi soil is not the staging of the video games, but a reality that the attack on Americans is going on. Only this time, we know for sure who has ordered the attack. You are right, not Iraq.
Here is excerpts from the speech...(so that we all panic a bit more. and put a stop to this madness called war. And yes, war will not end war like it almost used to. Because unlike ever before in history this time, we-the United States at least, have the weapons of mass destruction—And mass weapon knows no nationalities. The illusion is that some children–not our children, or at least not us (sic!)–are dying to make us safe in our land. But the reality is the struggle going on in that far away land to declare otherwise. Excerpts from what Islamic Jihad Army claims:
"It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible; for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land.
We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of the lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans for the control of the energy resources of the world, in face of a growing China and a strong unified Europe . It is Ironic that the Iraqi’s are to bear the full face of this large and growing conflict on behalf of the rest of this sleeping world.
We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.
XXX
We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.
Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.
XXX
The enemy is on the run. They are in fear of a resistance movement they can not see nor predict.
We, now choose when, where, and how to strike. And as our ancestors drew the first sparks of civilization, we will redefine the word “conquest.“
This conflict is no longer considered a localized war. Nor can the world remain hostage to the never-ending and regenerated fear that the American people suffer from in general.
We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more
And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you.
XXX
Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq .
And to George W. Bush, we say, “You have asked us to ‘Bring it on’, and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?” XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
If this does not make people conscious of the perils of war in general, nothing ever will. Its time to take a stand. And the stand cannot be for indifference. We cannot be indifferent any more, as I have discussed,the numbness will not help.
Reality Check-Free Mumia
13/12/04 07:26 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
If you have already checked the Free Mumia series on
the site, here’s
the latest update on the book.
I guess we need a Free Speech and Expression series alongside.
I guess we need a Free Speech and Expression series alongside.
What do Americans use Internet for?
07/12/04 13:22 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
What struck me was the way Pew Charitable Trusts have
produced the 2004 fact sheet for The Internet and
Daily Life: Many Americans use the Internet in
everyday activities, but traditional offline habits
still dominate.
A thouroughly documented 34 pages document discusses why Americans use Internet and there are comprehensive tables to indicate findings. You can read it here...
For it to strike me, I went ahead and made a search for the ‘sex’ word on the document. Lo and behold! Zero result!
A thouroughly documented 34 pages document discusses why Americans use Internet and there are comprehensive tables to indicate findings. You can read it here...
For it to strike me, I went ahead and made a search for the ‘sex’ word on the document. Lo and behold! Zero result!
Merit Debate I
By Saswat Pattanayak
In the last fortnight, at least two eminent professors and two international administrators ran into arguments with me on a specific subject: Merit.
Does the issue of ‘merit’ merit a discussion?
I guess so. At least when we consider the range of issues it brings forth.
Lets start with Merit-iocracy
Like bureaucracy, Merit-iocracy deserves to be loathed, hence less talked about. Who desires to loath? Only those who wish to get dirty in the process. And most of us are of course clean people and want to wear stain-free clothes. Hence no loathes please.
Especially not loath the people who have ‘merits’. Lets vaguely describes the m-cracy-Not to question the existing system, assuming that the system makes for unequal existence because not all people have the merits to live with equal dignity...
What does the school of m-cracy profess: All human beings are born equal but they do not deserve equally dignified life, because it’s a world of equal opportunities and those who can make it should make it and those who fail to make it must perish.
Lets search for examples: the ones who excel in education (we mean the ones who secure the top ranks etc) are the people with merits. Now these people have other traits too-to finish the homeworks in time, with precision, with knack for meticulous details and ability to compete.
Lets search for anti-examples: the rest of 'em, which is of course, most of us.
At the face of it, it sounds like the obvious. But of course we know that its not true. I am of the opinion that we are not born equal, and hence, we must strive to make it possible to live with equal dignity as we start living...
I can recollect the uncle of mine raised and still staying in my village-with-half-time-electricity, who can web oral poetry like nobody’s business; that friend of my school days who did not graduate the final exams with any distinction but made an extremely good webmaster and teacher or those hundreds of faces that swarm in my mind’s eyes when I look for all the human beings who have made better differences in others' lives than their own.
You have your own pictures by now too. Yet we judge people by certain yardsticks of education or other categories (sports, entertainment, and all other forms of “cultural resonances” assuming that to be the final parameter of merit. Why?
The question is not yet fine-tuned, but I was already offered answers. One forceful one was, no matter what one does, one needs to do it well. Sounds rational, doesn’t it?
But during my life of twenty seven years, one thing which I have learnt of life is that life is not rational anyway. Before we fly philosophical terrains, lets zero down on the examples here. And I guess the time has come for fine-tuning the questions:
a. How does one do well in any field?
b. Why does one need to excel?
c. What makes one feel that one is better than the others?
d. Which is the life’s biggest truth and is it surveyed often?
e. When does one make the leap, if at all?
f. Where does one stop and look back?
All the above questions have been answered various ways. Again, I would say, not really answered as they have been interpreted. Locate the answers in any religious texts and you wont be disappointed or better still look for the new sacred texts: google.com
I will attempt at them strictly and solely from the angle of meritiocracy.
First question attempted: one can do well in any field. But not well enough. Its not a post-modern puzzlement I am hinting at. It’s the knowledge that one’s ignorance is the weapon to combat one’s claims. Its only through the awareness that one is vastly ignorant about the world that one will take the forward steps. Now, for hints that all of us have ignorance in vast measures, I can throw open a question: Do you know me?
In all possibility, no. Because I am sure no one in the world knows me. Each one of them who have known some facets of me are unaware of some others. Counterpose would arise and question the need to know the insignificant me. Lets throw open the other question: Do you know yourself?
It does not take Freud to tell us that most moments in each of us germinate from the unconscious/subconscious. For example do you know why you saw that dream which depicted you as dining with a man whom you never met and are unlikely to ever. We wont even go to the mystery of the flying saucers. Our ignorance is not a bliss or curse. It’s a reality.
Having said that, do we try to do well in any field. Sure. But one needs to name the fields. One needs to qualify which fields are better than the rest. And then only rank the competing people that we are. Here is the catch. The field often defined defy logic. For example, in India, the most “meritorious” are the ones who have become the administrative officers. The second most are those who are in foreign services, the third most could be in the revenue services and then some in the field of engineering and some in nuclear physics. In the US of A one would be the president of the country followed by the rocket scientist. In the world order one needs to win the Nobel Prize, nothing less and if one does not beat that contest, Forbes and Fortune magazines will decide it for them.
In other words, the fields which have been less defined are not the ones which define high merit. For example, fields like cultivating farms or cleaning the roads and the loos.
But hold on. Are we getting surprised? Why is it that the high merit level fields seem like no fields at all, whereas the low merit-level fields are actually the areas.
Let me clarify. Getting into administrative service or becoming president is not a field. Its one of ‘becoming’. That is, these are posts which are conferred. Not areas where one works ‘well’. For example you don’t do president. You don’t do bureaucrat. And certainly you don’t do nobel prize. Whereas, you do farming and you do cleaning.
So are we looking at people who are politicking and writing or who are becoming presidents and becoming prize winners? Are we looking at the “working-at-it fields” or are we looking at “winner-categories”? In more simplified terms, are we looking at only those people for whom there is a defined “winner category”? Which would imply that they are not the same thing as the fields, anyway. And doing well in any field has nothing to do with winning any rewards/awards. Any doubt and ask the one who regularly works at a lake everyday in a muddied Congo and does it damn well.
Second question attempted: Frankly the answer is no. No one needs to ‘excel’. Because excelling is not an intrinsic quality one is born with, rather is a recognition conferred by a particular society...
In the last fortnight, at least two eminent professors and two international administrators ran into arguments with me on a specific subject: Merit.
Does the issue of ‘merit’ merit a discussion?
I guess so. At least when we consider the range of issues it brings forth.
Lets start with Merit-iocracy
Like bureaucracy, Merit-iocracy deserves to be loathed, hence less talked about. Who desires to loath? Only those who wish to get dirty in the process. And most of us are of course clean people and want to wear stain-free clothes. Hence no loathes please.
Especially not loath the people who have ‘merits’. Lets vaguely describes the m-cracy-Not to question the existing system, assuming that the system makes for unequal existence because not all people have the merits to live with equal dignity...
What does the school of m-cracy profess: All human beings are born equal but they do not deserve equally dignified life, because it’s a world of equal opportunities and those who can make it should make it and those who fail to make it must perish.
Lets search for examples: the ones who excel in education (we mean the ones who secure the top ranks etc) are the people with merits. Now these people have other traits too-to finish the homeworks in time, with precision, with knack for meticulous details and ability to compete.
Lets search for anti-examples: the rest of 'em, which is of course, most of us.
At the face of it, it sounds like the obvious. But of course we know that its not true. I am of the opinion that we are not born equal, and hence, we must strive to make it possible to live with equal dignity as we start living...
I can recollect the uncle of mine raised and still staying in my village-with-half-time-electricity, who can web oral poetry like nobody’s business; that friend of my school days who did not graduate the final exams with any distinction but made an extremely good webmaster and teacher or those hundreds of faces that swarm in my mind’s eyes when I look for all the human beings who have made better differences in others' lives than their own.
You have your own pictures by now too. Yet we judge people by certain yardsticks of education or other categories (sports, entertainment, and all other forms of “cultural resonances” assuming that to be the final parameter of merit. Why?
The question is not yet fine-tuned, but I was already offered answers. One forceful one was, no matter what one does, one needs to do it well. Sounds rational, doesn’t it?
But during my life of twenty seven years, one thing which I have learnt of life is that life is not rational anyway. Before we fly philosophical terrains, lets zero down on the examples here. And I guess the time has come for fine-tuning the questions:
a. How does one do well in any field?
b. Why does one need to excel?
c. What makes one feel that one is better than the others?
d. Which is the life’s biggest truth and is it surveyed often?
e. When does one make the leap, if at all?
f. Where does one stop and look back?
All the above questions have been answered various ways. Again, I would say, not really answered as they have been interpreted. Locate the answers in any religious texts and you wont be disappointed or better still look for the new sacred texts: google.com
I will attempt at them strictly and solely from the angle of meritiocracy.
First question attempted: one can do well in any field. But not well enough. Its not a post-modern puzzlement I am hinting at. It’s the knowledge that one’s ignorance is the weapon to combat one’s claims. Its only through the awareness that one is vastly ignorant about the world that one will take the forward steps. Now, for hints that all of us have ignorance in vast measures, I can throw open a question: Do you know me?
In all possibility, no. Because I am sure no one in the world knows me. Each one of them who have known some facets of me are unaware of some others. Counterpose would arise and question the need to know the insignificant me. Lets throw open the other question: Do you know yourself?
It does not take Freud to tell us that most moments in each of us germinate from the unconscious/subconscious. For example do you know why you saw that dream which depicted you as dining with a man whom you never met and are unlikely to ever. We wont even go to the mystery of the flying saucers. Our ignorance is not a bliss or curse. It’s a reality.
Having said that, do we try to do well in any field. Sure. But one needs to name the fields. One needs to qualify which fields are better than the rest. And then only rank the competing people that we are. Here is the catch. The field often defined defy logic. For example, in India, the most “meritorious” are the ones who have become the administrative officers. The second most are those who are in foreign services, the third most could be in the revenue services and then some in the field of engineering and some in nuclear physics. In the US of A one would be the president of the country followed by the rocket scientist. In the world order one needs to win the Nobel Prize, nothing less and if one does not beat that contest, Forbes and Fortune magazines will decide it for them.
In other words, the fields which have been less defined are not the ones which define high merit. For example, fields like cultivating farms or cleaning the roads and the loos.
But hold on. Are we getting surprised? Why is it that the high merit level fields seem like no fields at all, whereas the low merit-level fields are actually the areas.
Let me clarify. Getting into administrative service or becoming president is not a field. Its one of ‘becoming’. That is, these are posts which are conferred. Not areas where one works ‘well’. For example you don’t do president. You don’t do bureaucrat. And certainly you don’t do nobel prize. Whereas, you do farming and you do cleaning.
So are we looking at people who are politicking and writing or who are becoming presidents and becoming prize winners? Are we looking at the “working-at-it fields” or are we looking at “winner-categories”? In more simplified terms, are we looking at only those people for whom there is a defined “winner category”? Which would imply that they are not the same thing as the fields, anyway. And doing well in any field has nothing to do with winning any rewards/awards. Any doubt and ask the one who regularly works at a lake everyday in a muddied Congo and does it damn well.
Second question attempted: Frankly the answer is no. No one needs to ‘excel’. Because excelling is not an intrinsic quality one is born with, rather is a recognition conferred by a particular society...
US troops all time high!
05/12/04 09:18 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Editorial
Fox 5 news commentary:
“After much criticism of the US Government for not sending enough troops to Iraq, the President has finally increased the troops number. From 138,000 now, the number will increase to 150,000 coming week.”
Now, who criticized the US for not sending troops?
Just a pointer home: to make sure that the protests around the country to “bring the troops back home” continues: the statistics shows that 150,000 is more than 148,000–number of soldiers who were sent to Iraq at the peak of invasion in May 2003.
“After much criticism of the US Government for not sending enough troops to Iraq, the President has finally increased the troops number. From 138,000 now, the number will increase to 150,000 coming week.”
Now, who criticized the US for not sending troops?
Just a pointer home: to make sure that the protests around the country to “bring the troops back home” continues: the statistics shows that 150,000 is more than 148,000–number of soldiers who were sent to Iraq at the peak of invasion in May 2003.
Social Justice 101
By Saswat Pattanayak
Today was the day for Social Justice from Classroom to Community. At least in my campus. Organized by the office I work with.
Click here for Complete Story
The event was meant to be the last of the sessions where a couple of hundred students went through what we call Intergroup Dialogue Programs. This was of course meant to demonstrate how to implement the learning in the community setting. Students had vindicated the findings in a short video film I had made to showcase the students interviews which was screened in the morning. So it was a good afternoon with good attendance with a good speaker and good three panelists.
What could have gone wrong?
The purpose itself. Was the name SJCC sounding too good to be true? Some were confident social justice was possible. But the dilemma remained: social justice for whom? For the marginalized is the obvious.
Now the next sword hanging: the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community is marginalized today and so also is the Jewish community. The Black people are still on the sideline and the women still face the wrath. The Muslims are a minority and the multiracials are the misunderstood. Immediately comes to mind well over a dozen marginalized groups. In the USA, that is. Elsewhere in the world the marginalized people have different characteristics. For example in India it takes a converted Christian to be marginalized. But the speaker of the day, a brilliant orator, a lawyer that he is, continued the trend of public debate in the country and ended with a thumping note: We must work together for social justice in the USA and make America the greatest country on earth. In spirit, the responsibilities of students did not entail them to think beyond the US of America. Isn’t it an irony that the people who can affect most to the world situation (mostly because the world situation has been aggravated by their country’s foreign policies) are always honed to be concerned about their country. That’s the beauty of both the democrats and republicans, of the speakers at the universities and the churches: God bless America. The rest of the world can go to hell.
In contrast I recollect lectures by so called Indian ‘nationalistic’ leaders ranging from Nehru to Vajpayee who have religiously left notes for how to make the ‘world a better place’. In all our morning lecture sessions at school we were praying for the world, for all religions in the world, for peace throughout the world. It seems a completely different set of narrations, as I clearly recall. Don’t know what India gained from it, except for the notion that the welfare of India was dependant on the peace for all people on the earth, not just one country or the other. The slogan ‘vasudeva kutumbakam’ has been used by many a corporate entities to imply that the entire world is one family. Of course in retrospect, one can assume that Indian companies also wanted to spread out to the world to do business (which they have failed to). But all in all, the third world population was more lectured on the social justice in the world whereas the American population (in EVERY single presidential debate, every state university addresses and every telecast speech by the political and business leaders) was lectured on how God should bless America.
The diversion in my line of comment was on purpose.
The important question of social justice has a radical component. Which is, to go back to the roots and understand what we have been. But that’s just a component. And unlike many view, this is not even the first component. There’s quite a bit of chaos needed in analyzing how to lead social justice movement. First component is not in recognizing what we are by our unique socio-cultural roots. This is an essential component in writing a history book, not in leading the future. Rather the first component in achieving social justice is to define social injustice itself.
Social injustice may be portrayed by definition, as a collective feeling that the movements/developments in the world are becoming counterproductive to the progress. Remember the word world in this context. The world as a big family in this case, of course. To take Thatcher out of context, it would translate thus: there is nothing called society. There are just families.
A highly individualistic conservative Thatcher factor can indeed be revisited if we want to understand the concept of ‘family’ vis-à-vis society. The Bush conservatism is no different from the Tina. And no matter how much we crave God to bless America and make America the best place, it will simply not happen. The reason being, the God in question is the Christian God here, not a Muslim or Hindu God. Because apparently elsewhere the Gods of other varieties are protesting through ‘their’ people’s violences.
No ma’am, no sir, the world is not composed of several different social justices. What of the lowest socio-economic status which indeed is representative of the majority of people in the world. They are not marginalized. They are just unheard. They just don’t own the media. No voluntary organizations. No non-profit sector. They don’t become members of the boards of directors of any organization meant for their welfare. There are no organizations for the poor. For, if there indeed will be, all other divisions will be obsolete.
For the real question here is economical existence, not a cultural identity. As I said going back to roots is not the first of the social justice components.
Defining the social injustice is the first.
The poor who will never get to read what I am writing here is still sans a home. For him/her the question of identity will come much later. Or it may never come. For teeming millions are starkly unaware of the identities and their intersectionalities. It sounds un-academic in spirit. It conveys an insincere tone in the politically incorrect sense. But the reality is millions more people suffer from social injustices from the fact that they are economically downtrodden. Their names dont have surnames and they event dont remember their dates of births, let alone any other identities.
Well said, but how about the other ‘complexities’. Is poverty a result by itself or is it induced by several other interactions? Such as race and gender and caste and sects and tribes and languages and nationalities and geographic locations?
Back to social justice.
Yes for sure, I agree that there are several intersections. There are layers of realities which constitute the poor. A minority poor lives harsher life than the majority poor.
But in an average of less than a hundred years that we all live on the planet (much less in many other locations of the world), we cannot do it all. We cannot study it all and act it all. We cannot let people grapple with their identities and wage a historical war with their other counterparts and still think of solving the life-death dilemma of countless others.
We have seen less than a hundred mass-scale revolution. Hundred is a good number to play with. Because it signifies, large but not large enough a number. Has every movement failed. Can’t say for sure. But has one succeeded in solving the misery? Can say for sure that none has.
There is a course for the future. Lets call it Future Course 101:
Let’s acknowledge that there is a divide. Call the divide by many names. But mostly lets call it economic. Why? Well, lets see. There are 48 more billionaires this year, according to the Forbes, which ironically quizzes its readers to see if they have got it what it takes to be billionaire (what it misses out on are traits like manipulation, muscle and motivation to be greedy!). Put the wealth of only the world billionaires together (only 467 people!!!) and their worth is $1.9 trillion, which is much more than the GDP of the entire United Kingdom. Of course the US alone has more than 60% of the billionaires of the world. And nay, the rest are not very well distributed over the world!
Interesting!
Well, the bottomline is what Forbes headlines its article in February 2004 issue as “The Rich Get Richer”. In its March issue, Tim Ferguson writes that “Here are 12 largest countries, by population, with no known private billionaires. We cheekily call them “deprived,” and in a sense they are: Any modern economy that does not produce at least one huge fortune is, almost by definition, not creating the kind of wealth that is the earmark of a prosperous society.”
Interestinger!
Prosperous “society”?
In Ferguson’s defamed list are countries like Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and of course Vietnam. He did not mention China, though. China is making private progress in collaboration, you see.
Another article titled “In praise of inequality”, says “a disparity of income and wealth is good for us, as long as people can move up the ladder”! Of course “us” must have been the “US” in the mind of Nigel Holloway, the author.
That’s the only family, remember. The American homogenous family. Some in the family are not Americans of course, they are either African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or the Hispanics and Latinos and, hold on, the Indian-American (who’s afraid of the natives anyway?). No one gets more correct politically than the sensitized American torchbearer of human identity. One that forgets to call its own race as European-American.
God bless America. Only the Americans.
Now before we diverge to another debate altogether one last proud quote from Holloway: “The income gap is greater in the US than in Japan, but its easier in America to amass a fortune.” I agree.
A country of celebrities, people who are respected because they have wealth! I remember in India we abhorred the landlords and moneylenders because they had wealth and respected our poor school teachers who came by bicycles because they had knowledge. Of course things are changing now, the American way. Now India has respect for criminals-industrialists just because they have ‘amassed wealth’ the American way. So that the rest of us can discuss why the late industrialists’ sons had a family squabble and how one bride owns an art gallery. Food for depraved thought.
Indians will soon have their People magazine (Hint! Hint! Time-Warner).
Now lets talk about the historical roots of the movements against social injustice. Of course we know of the Robin Hood. Lets focus on the last fifty years. Fifty is an interesting number. Not recent, but not much far away either.
Movements of social justice have its roots in peoples. Peoples of the world who have waged revolutions to overthrow existing forms of governments to bring in equitable distributions of wealth. The experiments have succeeded many a times. What perplexes me most is the usual debate over the failure of socialistic economies everywhere. I wonder when at least forty percent of the world embraced communism and let it run for at least ten years (most conservatively) to eliminate the private wealth and ensure equitable distributions of wealth, did we stand by the idea of social equality?
Did we ever try to locate solutions in the wealth distributions when such a process was in force? We sang in praise of ‘democracy’ and almost ‘installed’ democracy as though it were a licensed software even without recollecting to best of minds if there were ever a period of at least ‘ten years’ when democracy has been successful in any part of the world? With vote-scams, selective disenfranchisements, and snobbish ban on ‘immigrant’ (hello, who is this one?) rights to votes, we run a democracy. With a lack of political diversity, we talk of social diversity. To evade the real issue of economic inequality we are talking of a ballot democracy where people are so sensitized about their problems that all they think of is their own fatherland. Where folks have no idea that foreign relations are important enough because countries may be foreign, but issues of economics are not.
Social justice needs to meet a common ground in order to succeed. And that common ground today, as it was five hundred years back as well, is that of economic disparity. Once the economically backward people are organized to call an end to private amassment of wealth which rightfully belong to everyone in the planet on an equal level or none-at-all level, social justice will have well begun.
We have lost opportunities to stand by the people who have been in the struggles to put an end to inequality. Instead we gloat in favor of inequality. And to bring home the point, the social justice drumbeats in the US (which only focuses on the ‘national groups&rsquo
are played by the institutional
frameworks of private concerns. Ford Foundation
comes to mind. Well played. Well played.
Before we all have been played out and enacted our last acts of pretensions that we are progressing where all we have been doing is moving in a myopic direction, before we all in the line of similar thinking act radically differently owing to our own preoccupations of identity crises, before we drop dead thinking that our life was worth living since we fought the entire life for our human dignity of being respected because we have a unique background than others, before we realize the reason why diversity might replace unity, before all that, we need to curb all differential thoughts and ask to ourselves what Gandhi had said long back in his talisman to the “world”: "I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."
We got to watch our step. It has to be in direction of the world progress. Of international movement of the working class poor. The step which will proclaim that we can live happily only if we ALL can live happily. Lets call one denominator for the time being, my friend. That of economic equality. And stand by all the people who are trying at it. Lets stand by the striking workers of the world who demand higher wages. Stand by the rising teachers of the world who want permanent positions. Stand by the protesting students of the world who want no more tuition hikes. And stand by the resenting labor force in the third world who are tired of working in the sweat shops.
I am reminded of the wonderful speech made by the director of my office, where she quoted Marcos in the poem mentioned below-with context:
Some time ago, in an attempt to discredit one of the Zapatista leaders in southern Mexico, Sub-comandante Marcos, government officials there tried to put forth the idea that Marcos was gay. In a region where machismo still runs strong, it was hoped this would tarnish the leader’s credibility.
Marcos responded by writing a poem:
“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco Black in South Africa an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
“Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying `Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable – this is Marcos.”
[From Social Justice E-Zine #27.]
To stand by the social justice is to define it. To define it is to know that it has several layers. Almost as many as innumerable. An environment of family conservatism makes girls in India become victims to child sexual abuse which can be translated as social unjust stance. An environment of ‘sexual liberation’ makes the young in the US become victims of the largest pornography industry in the world. Yes Marcos, is right. Its marginalized all over.
But they are not in the minorities anymore. Add “every exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities resisting” together and we have the majority in the world. Because most of us cannot afford to be decent enough to be called civilized anymore. The most of us who are poor and cannot afford to buy clothes and those of us who are otherwise minorities but know how to dress the rich have to find the connection. To look at the mirror and ask as MJ asks: I’ve Been A Victim Of/ A Selfish Kind Of Love/It’s Time That I Realize/That There Are Some With No Home, Not A Nickel To Loan/Could It Be Really Me/ Pretending That They’re Not Alone?
All of us are marginalized in some way. But lets not forget the privileges of the marginalized. And that is, to turn against the tide. And today’s tide is that of the capitalistic notion of development. Within that tide, some of us may be co-opted, used and abused. We better be careful and organize. That’s what they are afraid of. We are no more the minorities. United we stand and we are the majority in the world. Just a helping hand to end the mindless competition, just an empathizing mindset to know how the Congo lives (instead of ridiculing it for having failed to produce a billionaire!) and a firm step forward, without remorse, without attachment, without recollections of the selfish loves, to end the saga which exploits.
It has to begin with the mirror..
Today was the day for Social Justice from Classroom to Community. At least in my campus. Organized by the office I work with.
Click here for Complete Story
The event was meant to be the last of the sessions where a couple of hundred students went through what we call Intergroup Dialogue Programs. This was of course meant to demonstrate how to implement the learning in the community setting. Students had vindicated the findings in a short video film I had made to showcase the students interviews which was screened in the morning. So it was a good afternoon with good attendance with a good speaker and good three panelists.
What could have gone wrong?
The purpose itself. Was the name SJCC sounding too good to be true? Some were confident social justice was possible. But the dilemma remained: social justice for whom? For the marginalized is the obvious.
Now the next sword hanging: the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgendered) community is marginalized today and so also is the Jewish community. The Black people are still on the sideline and the women still face the wrath. The Muslims are a minority and the multiracials are the misunderstood. Immediately comes to mind well over a dozen marginalized groups. In the USA, that is. Elsewhere in the world the marginalized people have different characteristics. For example in India it takes a converted Christian to be marginalized. But the speaker of the day, a brilliant orator, a lawyer that he is, continued the trend of public debate in the country and ended with a thumping note: We must work together for social justice in the USA and make America the greatest country on earth. In spirit, the responsibilities of students did not entail them to think beyond the US of America. Isn’t it an irony that the people who can affect most to the world situation (mostly because the world situation has been aggravated by their country’s foreign policies) are always honed to be concerned about their country. That’s the beauty of both the democrats and republicans, of the speakers at the universities and the churches: God bless America. The rest of the world can go to hell.
In contrast I recollect lectures by so called Indian ‘nationalistic’ leaders ranging from Nehru to Vajpayee who have religiously left notes for how to make the ‘world a better place’. In all our morning lecture sessions at school we were praying for the world, for all religions in the world, for peace throughout the world. It seems a completely different set of narrations, as I clearly recall. Don’t know what India gained from it, except for the notion that the welfare of India was dependant on the peace for all people on the earth, not just one country or the other. The slogan ‘vasudeva kutumbakam’ has been used by many a corporate entities to imply that the entire world is one family. Of course in retrospect, one can assume that Indian companies also wanted to spread out to the world to do business (which they have failed to). But all in all, the third world population was more lectured on the social justice in the world whereas the American population (in EVERY single presidential debate, every state university addresses and every telecast speech by the political and business leaders) was lectured on how God should bless America.
The diversion in my line of comment was on purpose.
The important question of social justice has a radical component. Which is, to go back to the roots and understand what we have been. But that’s just a component. And unlike many view, this is not even the first component. There’s quite a bit of chaos needed in analyzing how to lead social justice movement. First component is not in recognizing what we are by our unique socio-cultural roots. This is an essential component in writing a history book, not in leading the future. Rather the first component in achieving social justice is to define social injustice itself.
Social injustice may be portrayed by definition, as a collective feeling that the movements/developments in the world are becoming counterproductive to the progress. Remember the word world in this context. The world as a big family in this case, of course. To take Thatcher out of context, it would translate thus: there is nothing called society. There are just families.
A highly individualistic conservative Thatcher factor can indeed be revisited if we want to understand the concept of ‘family’ vis-à-vis society. The Bush conservatism is no different from the Tina. And no matter how much we crave God to bless America and make America the best place, it will simply not happen. The reason being, the God in question is the Christian God here, not a Muslim or Hindu God. Because apparently elsewhere the Gods of other varieties are protesting through ‘their’ people’s violences.
No ma’am, no sir, the world is not composed of several different social justices. What of the lowest socio-economic status which indeed is representative of the majority of people in the world. They are not marginalized. They are just unheard. They just don’t own the media. No voluntary organizations. No non-profit sector. They don’t become members of the boards of directors of any organization meant for their welfare. There are no organizations for the poor. For, if there indeed will be, all other divisions will be obsolete.
For the real question here is economical existence, not a cultural identity. As I said going back to roots is not the first of the social justice components.
Defining the social injustice is the first.
The poor who will never get to read what I am writing here is still sans a home. For him/her the question of identity will come much later. Or it may never come. For teeming millions are starkly unaware of the identities and their intersectionalities. It sounds un-academic in spirit. It conveys an insincere tone in the politically incorrect sense. But the reality is millions more people suffer from social injustices from the fact that they are economically downtrodden. Their names dont have surnames and they event dont remember their dates of births, let alone any other identities.
Well said, but how about the other ‘complexities’. Is poverty a result by itself or is it induced by several other interactions? Such as race and gender and caste and sects and tribes and languages and nationalities and geographic locations?
Back to social justice.
Yes for sure, I agree that there are several intersections. There are layers of realities which constitute the poor. A minority poor lives harsher life than the majority poor.
But in an average of less than a hundred years that we all live on the planet (much less in many other locations of the world), we cannot do it all. We cannot study it all and act it all. We cannot let people grapple with their identities and wage a historical war with their other counterparts and still think of solving the life-death dilemma of countless others.
We have seen less than a hundred mass-scale revolution. Hundred is a good number to play with. Because it signifies, large but not large enough a number. Has every movement failed. Can’t say for sure. But has one succeeded in solving the misery? Can say for sure that none has.
There is a course for the future. Lets call it Future Course 101:
Let’s acknowledge that there is a divide. Call the divide by many names. But mostly lets call it economic. Why? Well, lets see. There are 48 more billionaires this year, according to the Forbes, which ironically quizzes its readers to see if they have got it what it takes to be billionaire (what it misses out on are traits like manipulation, muscle and motivation to be greedy!). Put the wealth of only the world billionaires together (only 467 people!!!) and their worth is $1.9 trillion, which is much more than the GDP of the entire United Kingdom. Of course the US alone has more than 60% of the billionaires of the world. And nay, the rest are not very well distributed over the world!
Interesting!
Well, the bottomline is what Forbes headlines its article in February 2004 issue as “The Rich Get Richer”. In its March issue, Tim Ferguson writes that “Here are 12 largest countries, by population, with no known private billionaires. We cheekily call them “deprived,” and in a sense they are: Any modern economy that does not produce at least one huge fortune is, almost by definition, not creating the kind of wealth that is the earmark of a prosperous society.”
Interestinger!
Prosperous “society”?
In Ferguson’s defamed list are countries like Sudan, Congo, Ethiopia, Egypt, Nigeria and of course Vietnam. He did not mention China, though. China is making private progress in collaboration, you see.
Another article titled “In praise of inequality”, says “a disparity of income and wealth is good for us, as long as people can move up the ladder”! Of course “us” must have been the “US” in the mind of Nigel Holloway, the author.
That’s the only family, remember. The American homogenous family. Some in the family are not Americans of course, they are either African-Americans, Asian-Americans, or the Hispanics and Latinos and, hold on, the Indian-American (who’s afraid of the natives anyway?). No one gets more correct politically than the sensitized American torchbearer of human identity. One that forgets to call its own race as European-American.
God bless America. Only the Americans.
Now before we diverge to another debate altogether one last proud quote from Holloway: “The income gap is greater in the US than in Japan, but its easier in America to amass a fortune.” I agree.
A country of celebrities, people who are respected because they have wealth! I remember in India we abhorred the landlords and moneylenders because they had wealth and respected our poor school teachers who came by bicycles because they had knowledge. Of course things are changing now, the American way. Now India has respect for criminals-industrialists just because they have ‘amassed wealth’ the American way. So that the rest of us can discuss why the late industrialists’ sons had a family squabble and how one bride owns an art gallery. Food for depraved thought.
Indians will soon have their People magazine (Hint! Hint! Time-Warner).
Now lets talk about the historical roots of the movements against social injustice. Of course we know of the Robin Hood. Lets focus on the last fifty years. Fifty is an interesting number. Not recent, but not much far away either.
Movements of social justice have its roots in peoples. Peoples of the world who have waged revolutions to overthrow existing forms of governments to bring in equitable distributions of wealth. The experiments have succeeded many a times. What perplexes me most is the usual debate over the failure of socialistic economies everywhere. I wonder when at least forty percent of the world embraced communism and let it run for at least ten years (most conservatively) to eliminate the private wealth and ensure equitable distributions of wealth, did we stand by the idea of social equality?
Did we ever try to locate solutions in the wealth distributions when such a process was in force? We sang in praise of ‘democracy’ and almost ‘installed’ democracy as though it were a licensed software even without recollecting to best of minds if there were ever a period of at least ‘ten years’ when democracy has been successful in any part of the world? With vote-scams, selective disenfranchisements, and snobbish ban on ‘immigrant’ (hello, who is this one?) rights to votes, we run a democracy. With a lack of political diversity, we talk of social diversity. To evade the real issue of economic inequality we are talking of a ballot democracy where people are so sensitized about their problems that all they think of is their own fatherland. Where folks have no idea that foreign relations are important enough because countries may be foreign, but issues of economics are not.
Social justice needs to meet a common ground in order to succeed. And that common ground today, as it was five hundred years back as well, is that of economic disparity. Once the economically backward people are organized to call an end to private amassment of wealth which rightfully belong to everyone in the planet on an equal level or none-at-all level, social justice will have well begun.
We have lost opportunities to stand by the people who have been in the struggles to put an end to inequality. Instead we gloat in favor of inequality. And to bring home the point, the social justice drumbeats in the US (which only focuses on the ‘national groups&rsquo
are played by the institutional
frameworks of private concerns. Ford Foundation
comes to mind. Well played. Well played.
Before we all have been played out and enacted our last acts of pretensions that we are progressing where all we have been doing is moving in a myopic direction, before we all in the line of similar thinking act radically differently owing to our own preoccupations of identity crises, before we drop dead thinking that our life was worth living since we fought the entire life for our human dignity of being respected because we have a unique background than others, before we realize the reason why diversity might replace unity, before all that, we need to curb all differential thoughts and ask to ourselves what Gandhi had said long back in his talisman to the “world”: "I will give you a talisman. Whenever you are in doubt, or when the self becomes too much with you, apply the following test. Recall the face of the poorest and the weakest man [woman] whom you may have seen, and ask yourself, if the step you contemplate is going to be of any use to him [her]. Will he [she] gain anything by it? Will it restore him [her] to a control over his [her] own life and destiny? In other words, will it lead to swaraj [freedom] for the hungry and spiritually starving millions? Then you will find your doubts and your self melt away."
We got to watch our step. It has to be in direction of the world progress. Of international movement of the working class poor. The step which will proclaim that we can live happily only if we ALL can live happily. Lets call one denominator for the time being, my friend. That of economic equality. And stand by all the people who are trying at it. Lets stand by the striking workers of the world who demand higher wages. Stand by the rising teachers of the world who want permanent positions. Stand by the protesting students of the world who want no more tuition hikes. And stand by the resenting labor force in the third world who are tired of working in the sweat shops.
I am reminded of the wonderful speech made by the director of my office, where she quoted Marcos in the poem mentioned below-with context:
Some time ago, in an attempt to discredit one of the Zapatista leaders in southern Mexico, Sub-comandante Marcos, government officials there tried to put forth the idea that Marcos was gay. In a region where machismo still runs strong, it was hoped this would tarnish the leader’s credibility.
Marcos responded by writing a poem:
“Yes, Marcos is gay. Marcos is gay in San Francisco Black in South Africa an Asian in Europe, a Chicano in San Ysidro, an anarchist in Spain, a Palestinian in Israel, a Mayan Indian in the streets of San Cristobal, a Jew in Germany, a Gypsy in Poland, a Mohawk in Quebec, a pacifist in Bosnia, a single woman on the Metro at 10pm a peasant without land, a gang member in the slums, an unemployed worker, an unhappy student and, of course, a Zapatista in the mountains.
“Marcos is all the exploited, marginalised, oppressed minorities resisting and saying `Enough'. He is every minority who is now beginning to speak and every majority that must shut up and listen. He is every untolerated group searching for a way to speak. Everything that makes power and the good consciences of those in power uncomfortable – this is Marcos.”
[From Social Justice E-Zine #27.]
To stand by the social justice is to define it. To define it is to know that it has several layers. Almost as many as innumerable. An environment of family conservatism makes girls in India become victims to child sexual abuse which can be translated as social unjust stance. An environment of ‘sexual liberation’ makes the young in the US become victims of the largest pornography industry in the world. Yes Marcos, is right. Its marginalized all over.
But they are not in the minorities anymore. Add “every exploited, marginalized and oppressed minorities resisting” together and we have the majority in the world. Because most of us cannot afford to be decent enough to be called civilized anymore. The most of us who are poor and cannot afford to buy clothes and those of us who are otherwise minorities but know how to dress the rich have to find the connection. To look at the mirror and ask as MJ asks: I’ve Been A Victim Of/ A Selfish Kind Of Love/It’s Time That I Realize/That There Are Some With No Home, Not A Nickel To Loan/Could It Be Really Me/ Pretending That They’re Not Alone?
All of us are marginalized in some way. But lets not forget the privileges of the marginalized. And that is, to turn against the tide. And today’s tide is that of the capitalistic notion of development. Within that tide, some of us may be co-opted, used and abused. We better be careful and organize. That’s what they are afraid of. We are no more the minorities. United we stand and we are the majority in the world. Just a helping hand to end the mindless competition, just an empathizing mindset to know how the Congo lives (instead of ridiculing it for having failed to produce a billionaire!) and a firm step forward, without remorse, without attachment, without recollections of the selfish loves, to end the saga which exploits.
It has to begin with the mirror..
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