Saswat Blog
All that's Left!
Nov 2005
Fascism then. Fascism now?
Thanks to Dr Todd S Burroughs, who sent this article
link. A very insightful writing. Indicative not just
of the veteran US and major Europe, but also new free
market economies like India. Indeed the Indian
administrations since early 1990s have been often
depicted as Fascist in orientation for their shifts
in focus from eradication of poverty to appeasement
of the homegrown capitalists and foreign investors,
all the while, preaching "nationalistic" sentiments!
Read More...
|
Video Watch: Secrets of the CIA
29/11/05 15:30 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
Did CIA create Osama bin Laden & fostered
fanaticism? For those who never knew it already,
Chomsky says, yes.
Source: Interview on Radio B92, Belgrade Sep 18, 2001
Well, of course there are huge amount of apparent human beings just so opposed to everything Chomsky says! And equally sad, the way the secret operatives have been normalized, instead of being questioned.
So, I thought in the age of Fox TV and all accompanying television shortcuts, let's watch this short video of the secretive CIA.
"A sensible person would try to ascertain Bin Laden’s views, and the sentiments of the large reservoir of supporters he has throughout the region. Bin Laden became a militant Islamic leader in the war to drive the Russians out of Afghanistan. He was one of the many religious fundamentalist extremists recruited, armed, and financed by the CIA and their allies in Pakistani intelligence to cause maximal harm to the Russians-quite possibly delaying their withdrawal-though whether he personally happened to have direct contact with the CIA is unclear, and not particularly important. Not surprisingly, the CIA preferred the most fanatic and cruel fighters they could mobilize. The end result was to “destroy a moderate regime and create a fanatical one, from groups recklessly financed by the Americans” (according to London Times correspondent Simon Jenkins).
Source: Interview on Radio B92, Belgrade Sep 18, 2001
Well, of course there are huge amount of apparent human beings just so opposed to everything Chomsky says! And equally sad, the way the secret operatives have been normalized, instead of being questioned.
So, I thought in the age of Fox TV and all accompanying television shortcuts, let's watch this short video of the secretive CIA.
Matt Taibbi delights journalism
Rolling
Stone remains the
leading magazine
worth quoting. This is one that
never ceases to provide food for
critical thought. One of finest pieces of
journalism that is there today. Or there was ever.
This week, Matt Taibbi writes about Kashmiri earthquake and says:
A very humanist, and a very critical examination of the disaster, not stopping at the 80,000 toll, but actually predicating the aftermath of it as the bigger cataclysm yet to appear. This winter, he knows Pakistan will bleed. And the world, like in the past, may remain largely indifferent. An ally of the United States not since Bin Laden, but since well before the Bangaldesh War, Pakistan stands to count on the world leaders’ contributions to rehabilitate its people. Pakistan government and its people have done all that they could in times of adversity. Now is the time for the world to respond. Albeit lately. Taibbi says:
Matt Taibbi, often compared with the Gonzo, is a phenomenon all by himself. Hunter S. Thompson indeed had a different style of writing than Matt. But where they intersect well are the level of honesty, the uncanny sense of dark humor and vivid critical imagination. Just as an example of his well meaning cultural locations, Taibbi in an interview said recently why he would not be called a journalist anymore (he said this referring to his editorial position in a paper in Russia). Why the demise had to be there, and why mainstream media is so fucked up:
This week, Matt Taibbi writes about Kashmiri earthquake and says:
Even the most godless among us has to tremble before the biblical scale of the past twelve months' headlines: the tsunami that swallowed south Asia, the deadly lady named Katrina (also known as America Not Immune) and now this. We do not seem to be going forward very much, but every few months we lose, somewhere, a big piece of the world map, a mysterious and enervating process that is becoming like an ominously steady drip that can be heard all over the planet.
And this, the massive earthquake that rocked Kashmir on October 8th, is the worst by far of the troika. It is a calamity the dimensions of which the world so far has completely failed to appreciate or understand. Coupled with the geopolitical nature of the misfortune -- testing the nerve of two antsy nuclear antagonists and the political health of a somewhat notorious but also critically important American ally regime -- the continuing disaster known as the Kashmiri earthquake threatens to be a world-shaping event as important as the Iraq War itself.”
A very humanist, and a very critical examination of the disaster, not stopping at the 80,000 toll, but actually predicating the aftermath of it as the bigger cataclysm yet to appear. This winter, he knows Pakistan will bleed. And the world, like in the past, may remain largely indifferent. An ally of the United States not since Bin Laden, but since well before the Bangaldesh War, Pakistan stands to count on the world leaders’ contributions to rehabilitate its people. Pakistan government and its people have done all that they could in times of adversity. Now is the time for the world to respond. Albeit lately. Taibbi says:
It just so happens that this process is taking place at a time when, in the wake of the tsunami and Katrina, giving from the West is unusually phlegmatic; to date, only about $131 million of a U.N. target $550 million has been raised, an embarrassment that has prompted U.N. officials to issue statements actually chiding tight-fisted Western donors.
The U.S. Army was active in Muzaffarabad and other places, making nearly thirty helicopters available. But while it gives aid with a grunt at the end of a stick, or out the bay door of a chopper, fundamentalist Muslim organizations and Pakistani political parties are traveling high in the mountains by foot to give it by hand, with a kind word and a few more in the mother tongue.”
Matt Taibbi, often compared with the Gonzo, is a phenomenon all by himself. Hunter S. Thompson indeed had a different style of writing than Matt. But where they intersect well are the level of honesty, the uncanny sense of dark humor and vivid critical imagination. Just as an example of his well meaning cultural locations, Taibbi in an interview said recently why he would not be called a journalist anymore (he said this referring to his editorial position in a paper in Russia). Why the demise had to be there, and why mainstream media is so fucked up:
I really loved Russia and I thought it was a great place. Unspoiled and different from America in such a great way, it’s so different. Everything in America is so uniform. In Russia everywhere you go is completely insane. In Russia, if you wake up in the morning to go do something you’re supposed to do for your job and end up 100 miles away stone drunk with a bunch of strangers it’s totally OK. In America we’re so efficient. When the Americans came into Russia en masse in the mid 90’s they all had this crusading missionary attitude – like we have to change this place and turn it more into America. We have to take all these dingy old buildings and replace them with our gleaming corporate storefronts. We have to replace all these interesting idiosyncratic people and replace them with middle class managers who all want to buy IKEA furniture and go on vacations in Ibiza. They had a real missionary zeal about it.
And the reporters were worse than everybody. A lot of them didn’t speak Russian too, and that infuriated me. They would hang out with each other. They would go only to Western-style bars, live in their compounds and write all these stories. That the plot of the story was always the same: If this politician spoke English and was pro-American than he was the good guy and whoever the Russian guy was the bad guy. And they were really ruthless about it. I got really upset about it.”
Kashmir: Fresh looks at "The unfinished business"
"I can't understand why anyone said that the thing was signed in Jammu, because we never went to Jammu."[thing: (instrument of accession proclaming Kashmir's conditional status)]
And what else? Sam Manekshaw, the first field marshal in the Indian army, recalls:
As usual Nehru talked about the United Nations, Russia, Africa, God almighty, everybody, until Sardar Patel lost his temper. He said, 'Jawaharlal, do you want Kashmir, or do you want to give it away'. He (Nehru) said,' Of course, I want Kashmir (emphasis in original). Then he (Patel) said 'Please give your orders'. And before he could say anything Sardar Patel turned to me and said, 'You have got your orders'.
This is how Indian leadership (read, the nationalist Patel) operated. And the hapless playboy king Hari Singh who had lost all legitimacy to govern the state that forced him to flee, decided on the fate of the state! As a careless albeit colorful international celebrity associated with the blackmail scandal in London, the pearls, diamonds and emeralds, Singh gave in to pressures amidst the New Delhi leaders. But the condition of a referendum has remained still unfulfiled--despite declarations by both the UN and Nehru (seems like they died together)!
{My friend Diptiman Tripathy from Moscow sent this link. }
Arundhati Roy: Do turkeys enjoy thanksgiving?
24/11/05 10:08 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
That time of the year again! Let's revisit (and
re-read) the inimitable Arundhati Roy:
(text of her speech at the opening Plenary of the World Social Forum in Mumbai on January 16, 2004):
(text of her speech at the opening Plenary of the World Social Forum in Mumbai on January 16, 2004):
Do turkeys enjoy thanksgiving? Read More...
Winter here again...
24/11/05 05:36 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
First snow this winter in Maryland;
and the first snow shower.
Why have I not gone beyond the cars? Well, the snow's gone now from the greenery.
Plus they recently killed the neighborhood forests and erected shopping complexes.
And also because December is just not here yet.
Still, here is an old pic! So, keep warm!
Majority believes Prez talked about bombing
Do you believe President Bush talked about
bombing the HQ of Arabic-language TV network
al-Jazeera?
CNN asks this question in its Quickvote online survey.
Total of 127645 online readers vote. Overwhelming majority of 70% of all voters (88372 votes) say yes they believe that President Bush talked about bombing the al-Jazeera network.
Wanted to find out what did Fox readers have to say. Unfortunately, Fox is asking questions to its readers if they would buy a product if a celebrity endorses it (some journalists will never change..they will always remain public relations professionals!)
The surveys are some of the most unscientific tools ever devised. But how scientific are the claims of White House that the bomb story is 'outlandish'? At least such a huge majority of centrist people don't think much of White House assertions. Add to that the working class population of America who don't come online because they can't afford to (who darn well have an opinion nevertheless), and you got the country's verdict on this matter. At times, one has to use the master's tools to break the master's house. I mean, use mainstream media to understand popular conscience!
CNN asks this question in its Quickvote online survey.
Total of 127645 online readers vote. Overwhelming majority of 70% of all voters (88372 votes) say yes they believe that President Bush talked about bombing the al-Jazeera network.
Wanted to find out what did Fox readers have to say. Unfortunately, Fox is asking questions to its readers if they would buy a product if a celebrity endorses it (some journalists will never change..they will always remain public relations professionals!)
The surveys are some of the most unscientific tools ever devised. But how scientific are the claims of White House that the bomb story is 'outlandish'? At least such a huge majority of centrist people don't think much of White House assertions. Add to that the working class population of America who don't come online because they can't afford to (who darn well have an opinion nevertheless), and you got the country's verdict on this matter. At times, one has to use the master's tools to break the master's house. I mean, use mainstream media to understand popular conscience!
Race Policing on Campus
And just to follow up on the previous post:
Organized students of the University of Maryland did not protest against any police department.
Students instead protested against systematic institutions of prejudices, bias and excessive violence. The three-points approach involved students to bring awareness about racial injustice within power structure of the school; to expose underlying racial tensions existing among community, student bodies and the country; to prevent future incidents of police brutality and further abuse of power and authority.
Listen to student protests live— and to the funkinest journalist Jared Ball sensitizing minds about what people should do when they are approached by the police. What are your rights? What are your stakes?
From the streets of College Park, the FreeMix Radio – out there to cover the systematic racism and violence at nation’s one of the top research institutions. Listen to it here, for the CNN will never bother.
Organized students of the University of Maryland did not protest against any police department.
Students instead protested against systematic institutions of prejudices, bias and excessive violence. The three-points approach involved students to bring awareness about racial injustice within power structure of the school; to expose underlying racial tensions existing among community, student bodies and the country; to prevent future incidents of police brutality and further abuse of power and authority.
Listen to student protests live— and to the funkinest journalist Jared Ball sensitizing minds about what people should do when they are approached by the police. What are your rights? What are your stakes?
From the streets of College Park, the FreeMix Radio – out there to cover the systematic racism and violence at nation’s one of the top research institutions. Listen to it here, for the CNN will never bother.
Who gets to study at the University "System" of Maryland?
By Saswat Pattanayak
The history of my campus is replete with racism. Most of the presidents of the university were decisively racists. Segregation of students based on whiteness/color had been a constant. In a timeline I helped prepare for my office, we discovered even more startling facts, some too gory to carry online.
Well, what’s new, one would say, when ‘everyone was doing it basically the same’ way up until 70’s. You know, folks actually get away with that loose canon. Of course it absolves the guilt of the guilt. The blacks, the asians, the hispanics had no place in white colleges back then, after all.
Back then sounds like a clichéd history. Except that we oftentimes fail to recognize how hysterically historical our contemporary society even is. The majority of population surrounding my campus are Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, there are scores of communities of Latino population just outside the campus area (less than 100 meters away). Miles of stretches of apartments are inhabited by Latinos and Blacks. It’s like the invisible America of the national Capital.
After all, the visible are the big cities, not their population. The buildings, not the workers. Powerful sites like Washington DC, New York City or Las Vegas. Invisible are their makers: the cheap labor force. Behind all the glory of the Capitol streets, all glitz of the Times Square and glamour of Nevada casinos are the footmarks of the Blacks and Latinos. ‘They’ construct the roads and buildings and yes keep them darn clean.
Same goes with the giant ivory tower of the University of Maryland. The College Park campus alone is located on 1,250 acres of rolling land. The communities surrounding the campus are predominantly Latino. At least 80 percent of them are! Eighty freakin percent! The PG County which houses the College Park university is predominantly black. About 63% of population in PG County are Black (whereas only 27% are White). Likewise, the adjoining Washington DC –the state that houses the most powerful maniacs in political history—has a population of 60% blacks and only 30% whites.
Now let’s look at the largest campus of the area, the flagship public university and how diverse it is—which basically means how much does the university attempt at recruiting from the population that is represented in the area. How reflective is it of the reality and how contrasting are the statistics when we compare between the people who make up the area and the ones who get the elite tickets to higher education. We are not even talking of the rates of retention which is pathetically lower when it comes to students of color. For the purpose, we are to talk only of the recruitment (colored students who at least showed up—no matter if they left the place owing to the great mismatch between lived reality in their living neighborhood and the classroom incongruence).
Here it is, among the undergraduates: White students: 68%! Asians: 14%. Blacks: 12%. Latino: 5.7%.
And among the graduate students: White students: 83%! Blacks: 7%. Rest: 10%
So what we have here is a complete contradictory picture of what is real outside and what’s reflected inside. This is true of all major universities of the US. All big cities are predominantly inhabited by people of color. Just look at the statistics, from the US census: Latinos comprise 27% of New York City, 46% of Los Angeles, 26% of Chicago, 37% of Houston, 36% of Dallas, 30% of San Jose, 59% of San Antonio, 77% of El Paso, 25% of San Diego, and 34% of Phoenix.
Likewise, Blacks comprise, 28% of New York, 44% of Philadelphia, 37% of Chicago, 26% of Houston, 27% of Dallas, 82% of Detroit, 65% of Baltimore, 62% of Memphis, 61% of Washington DC, and 68% of New Orleans.
Now add these figures for all the major cities of the America. Even if we don’t count the Asians, these numbers alone are staggeringly so high that the reality is, the great big cities of the world are actually great because of the contributions of the hard-working people of color who comprise the majority here.
So where are the 77% of Whites of American population?
Well, a small minority of them are in the big cities, alright. And they clout the elite institutions –courts, universities, business empires in major proportions. They don’t deal with the slum problems since they have got people to build huge buildings for them already. They don’t have communities or neighborhoods. Only towers shrouded by private forests where paparazzi have to make a living of. The majority among the rest of them also take a break and don’t have to deal with the problems of the colored people—leading eventually to real segregation of the great contemporary America—one of the lesser pondered truths of modern times.
Huge majority of whites do not reside in the working class population that constructs the modern monuments. The one that is the invisible America in the Hollywood movies (again an example of mismatch—between who appear on screen and who live in Los Angeles), and the invisible America amidst the homeless millions of New York and DC.
In the cities that control the rest of the country, the ones who control the cities are a small minority White population. And that is the grim reality even to this date. And control they do, remotely. Living luxuriously in posh bungalows in richest counties which either exist side by side the largest slums (consider the fact that the country’s 10 richest communities are in the Washington metropolitan area only—where even as less than one-third are White!) or completely are way off in less dense states, demarcating the lines of segregation.
This is called the classic contradiction of capitalism in the political economy. The majority work hard to make the civilizations, for the minority to rule. The class society reinforces a social divide, uses overpowering instruments—dominant religions, mainstream education, standard work ethics, negotiable law and order—to normalize the illusions. It feels good to assume its one country, one America blessed by a Christian God, one culture where we have reduced the indigenous to less than 2 percent, one power fighting one war of terror outside the country and one superpower solving the world’s problems since we are not supposed to have any.
And it certainly makes most of us also forget –to choose sides in the exceedingly polarized two worlds of modern America—the Haves America, and the Have-nots America.
The history of my campus is replete with racism. Most of the presidents of the university were decisively racists. Segregation of students based on whiteness/color had been a constant. In a timeline I helped prepare for my office, we discovered even more startling facts, some too gory to carry online.
Well, what’s new, one would say, when ‘everyone was doing it basically the same’ way up until 70’s. You know, folks actually get away with that loose canon. Of course it absolves the guilt of the guilt. The blacks, the asians, the hispanics had no place in white colleges back then, after all.
Back then sounds like a clichéd history. Except that we oftentimes fail to recognize how hysterically historical our contemporary society even is. The majority of population surrounding my campus are Blacks and Hispanics. Indeed, there are scores of communities of Latino population just outside the campus area (less than 100 meters away). Miles of stretches of apartments are inhabited by Latinos and Blacks. It’s like the invisible America of the national Capital.
After all, the visible are the big cities, not their population. The buildings, not the workers. Powerful sites like Washington DC, New York City or Las Vegas. Invisible are their makers: the cheap labor force. Behind all the glory of the Capitol streets, all glitz of the Times Square and glamour of Nevada casinos are the footmarks of the Blacks and Latinos. ‘They’ construct the roads and buildings and yes keep them darn clean.
Same goes with the giant ivory tower of the University of Maryland. The College Park campus alone is located on 1,250 acres of rolling land. The communities surrounding the campus are predominantly Latino. At least 80 percent of them are! Eighty freakin percent! The PG County which houses the College Park university is predominantly black. About 63% of population in PG County are Black (whereas only 27% are White). Likewise, the adjoining Washington DC –the state that houses the most powerful maniacs in political history—has a population of 60% blacks and only 30% whites.
Now let’s look at the largest campus of the area, the flagship public university and how diverse it is—which basically means how much does the university attempt at recruiting from the population that is represented in the area. How reflective is it of the reality and how contrasting are the statistics when we compare between the people who make up the area and the ones who get the elite tickets to higher education. We are not even talking of the rates of retention which is pathetically lower when it comes to students of color. For the purpose, we are to talk only of the recruitment (colored students who at least showed up—no matter if they left the place owing to the great mismatch between lived reality in their living neighborhood and the classroom incongruence).
Here it is, among the undergraduates: White students: 68%! Asians: 14%. Blacks: 12%. Latino: 5.7%.
And among the graduate students: White students: 83%! Blacks: 7%. Rest: 10%
So what we have here is a complete contradictory picture of what is real outside and what’s reflected inside. This is true of all major universities of the US. All big cities are predominantly inhabited by people of color. Just look at the statistics, from the US census: Latinos comprise 27% of New York City, 46% of Los Angeles, 26% of Chicago, 37% of Houston, 36% of Dallas, 30% of San Jose, 59% of San Antonio, 77% of El Paso, 25% of San Diego, and 34% of Phoenix.
Likewise, Blacks comprise, 28% of New York, 44% of Philadelphia, 37% of Chicago, 26% of Houston, 27% of Dallas, 82% of Detroit, 65% of Baltimore, 62% of Memphis, 61% of Washington DC, and 68% of New Orleans.
Now add these figures for all the major cities of the America. Even if we don’t count the Asians, these numbers alone are staggeringly so high that the reality is, the great big cities of the world are actually great because of the contributions of the hard-working people of color who comprise the majority here.
So where are the 77% of Whites of American population?
Well, a small minority of them are in the big cities, alright. And they clout the elite institutions –courts, universities, business empires in major proportions. They don’t deal with the slum problems since they have got people to build huge buildings for them already. They don’t have communities or neighborhoods. Only towers shrouded by private forests where paparazzi have to make a living of. The majority among the rest of them also take a break and don’t have to deal with the problems of the colored people—leading eventually to real segregation of the great contemporary America—one of the lesser pondered truths of modern times.
Huge majority of whites do not reside in the working class population that constructs the modern monuments. The one that is the invisible America in the Hollywood movies (again an example of mismatch—between who appear on screen and who live in Los Angeles), and the invisible America amidst the homeless millions of New York and DC.
In the cities that control the rest of the country, the ones who control the cities are a small minority White population. And that is the grim reality even to this date. And control they do, remotely. Living luxuriously in posh bungalows in richest counties which either exist side by side the largest slums (consider the fact that the country’s 10 richest communities are in the Washington metropolitan area only—where even as less than one-third are White!) or completely are way off in less dense states, demarcating the lines of segregation.
This is called the classic contradiction of capitalism in the political economy. The majority work hard to make the civilizations, for the minority to rule. The class society reinforces a social divide, uses overpowering instruments—dominant religions, mainstream education, standard work ethics, negotiable law and order—to normalize the illusions. It feels good to assume its one country, one America blessed by a Christian God, one culture where we have reduced the indigenous to less than 2 percent, one power fighting one war of terror outside the country and one superpower solving the world’s problems since we are not supposed to have any.
And it certainly makes most of us also forget –to choose sides in the exceedingly polarized two worlds of modern America—the Haves America, and the Have-nots America.
The E-Mail Time Capsule
21/11/05 17:01 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
One can
use a page on Forbes Online to email oneself to the
future.
I found it interesting. And so I mailed myself just to see if the world will still be a safe place 20 Years After! Check it out!
I found it interesting. And so I mailed myself just to see if the world will still be a safe place 20 Years After! Check it out!
Get Out of the Door, Domino's
21/11/05 08:00 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
Discrimination may after all, not be the news,
considering it could well be the norm of the day.
Even when it involves business concerns in corporate America of contemporary times.
If the irony hits, read this article by Doris Lester:
(also used here, with permission)
Read More...
Even when it involves business concerns in corporate America of contemporary times.
If the irony hits, read this article by Doris Lester:
(also used here, with permission)
Read More...
Indian Left lend support to Khushboo, Sania
20/11/05 08:29 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
Finally, the Communists in India (both CPI and CPI-M)
have come out in open support of Khushboo as the only
parties to have done so! And the Madras High Court
has stayed defamation proceedings against Khushboo
(so far 14 cases have been stayed. Five more charges
are still against her).
CPI state secretary D. Pandian said the agitations were conducted with political motives (indirectly referring to Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and Dalit Panthers of India (DPI)) and had been led in ‘‘undesirable dimensions’’ and thus had degenerated to the ‘‘low level’’ of dictating what kind of dress tennis star Sania Mirza should wear on court.
Now its the turn of the prime minister to stop appeasing the reactionaries.
CPI state secretary D. Pandian said the agitations were conducted with political motives (indirectly referring to Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) and Dalit Panthers of India (DPI)) and had been led in ‘‘undesirable dimensions’’ and thus had degenerated to the ‘‘low level’’ of dictating what kind of dress tennis star Sania Mirza should wear on court.
Now its the turn of the prime minister to stop appeasing the reactionaries.
Kudos, Khushboo! Shine, Sania!!
By Saswat Pattanayak
Take heart.
Opinions of two Indian Muslim Women have actually rocked the mainland India. First, it was Tamil actress Khushboo who told the Tamil edition of India Today that pre-marital sex is okay “provided safety measures are followed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases”. And now, it is the Tennis star Sania Mirza who said the size of the dress she wants to wear is her prerogative.
And what’s so criminal in holding these views? Views regarding women sexuality and men sexuality in the first case. And the dress code for teenage girls in the second case. I guess, it is the politics that’s criminal. The crude politics of conservatism and the media.
Conservatism:
The politicians and volunteers of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) who are working under the banner of a Tamil Protection Movement in their crusade against Khushboo are brothers-in-arms of the Mumbai-based staunch Hindu outfit Shiv Sena. They have a natural ally in Sunni Ulema Board, a self-proclaimed Muslim moral group. Four of them together have found some more interesting bedfellows: the mainstream media.
The interesting thing about these moral police forces in India is none of the above actually represent any Indian population of worth. Far from that, they do not even represent the groups they claim to be leading.
DPI at work!
DPI is interested only in publicity, like its political counterpart Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is greedy for power. The BSP showing its true colors has partnered even with the right-wing BJP (which is predominantly Brahmin party) in political seat-sharing. Naturally enough, since their formation the so-called representatives of the Dalits have no support among the “backward” peoples of India, despite their national party status, BSP has hardly have any success except in just one state. A national party claiming to have base all over the country has won 0 seats in 24 out of 25 states where it fielded its candidates. Out of 435 of its contestants, only 19 won in the 14th Lok Sabha Election. All of them only in Utter Pradesh, where it lost 61 seats!
PMK, another new nationalist wing like DPI, is also a case in point. Since it has condemned both Dravidian parties of the South, DMK and AIADMK, one would assume it would not join hands with either of them. Or at least, never with the right-winger Hindu nationalists like BJP. Well, not exactly. It was part of the BJP combine when Vajpayee was in power. And now, it lends support to the Congress combine at the center with DMK as a partner. And it has 0.55% voteshare in India in 2004 down from 0.65% voteshare in 1999. So one can imagine its support base even in the South where it has won in total 6 seats (and zero in rest of India).
The lesser said about Shiv Sena, the better. Even with more than 80% of Indian population in India professing a Hindu way of life, this self-proclaimed protector of Hindu interest has hardly ever made its presence felt outside only one state: Maharashtra (that too, more in the name of Marathi nationalism). It rose to power after murdering Krishna Desai, the immensely popular communist leader of Maharashtra who was an invincible symbol among textile workers. Ever since, Shiv Sena has espoused right-wing views and led to communal riots one after another.
Sunni Ulema Board: I am sorry, but I had never heard of this name before. Neither have many of my Muslim friends. Not even those who stay in Hyderabad. Wonder where they came from? They certainly are not the Muslim clerics nor are the national arbitrators of religion-related issues for the country’s more than 160 million Muslims.
If Dalit Panthers, the Shiv Sena, the Sunni Ulema Board, the BSP and the PMK are not worth anything in India, since they all combined together do not gain support of even one percent of Indian population, how come they (just three of them this time—DPI, PMK and Sunni Ulema) are the forces that led to the crisis of Khushboo and Sania.
All of us know that Khushboo is such a heartthrob of South India cinema that people have even worshipped her (literally, yes!). Only a decade ago a temple was built in Tiruchirapalli town for Khushboo despite the fact that she is a Muslim. She is a national award winning actress of India (that’s the highest accolade an actor receives, by the way).
And for the still uninitiated (is anyone there?), Sania Mirza is one of the current leaders of India in every sense. She has very rightly overpowered the national obsession with Cricket and has rose to prominence first as a woman, then as a Muslim, and then as a tennis champion to have entered Grand Slam events. The 18-year-old is the first Indian woman to break into the top 50 WTA rankings too.
In other words, as contrasted with the political outfits who are not known outside the boundaries of their own sycophancy (how many had even honestly heard of DPI or PMK or SUB), these two women are nationally (and even internationally) renowned and respected.
And yet, both of them have tendered public apologies recently. Khushboo for saying the right things, and Sania for not even having said anything as reported.
...and the Media:
All thanks to the mainstream media. The corporate, controversy-hungry media. Nothing happened to India Today magazine for having run the surveys and the stories and for inviting Khushboo to write about gender issues. Nothing happened to Hindustan Times for having asked Sania questions to respond regarding dress code.
Vir Sanghvi today has written an excellent piece in support of Sania. Sanghvi wrote:
Thus Mr Sanghvi has managed to steer clear of the controversy. After all, she did not say that at his Summit. What he conveniently does not mention is the intent of HT coverage of Sania. Was it to showcase just a success? Well, we had a miss universe and a formula one champion on the same panel. Then how come, Sania got all the coverage on the reported story of the day?
The story headline: Sania breaks silence on dress fatwa against her.
Wow! Was that not sensational enough a headline? Was Sania at the summit for that purpose? To provide that headline? So that her life threat will be revisited? It was meant to be a leadership summit and Sania was to be presented as a role model for Indian youths, along with two other achievers. This story by HT correspondent Namita Bhandare has hardly any mention of other two panelists and 90% of the story covers Sania only (and only about her skirt issues about which she had voluntarily chosen not to comment earlier). The savvy editor got the question right. The event was powerful enough (what with all the celebrities –from Sonia Gandhi to Manmohan Singh). And Sania gave in to the hungry journalists.
So, that does not take away the grim reality which still is to be posed as a question. India Today got its sales. Hindustan Times got a breaking story that it got the words off the mouth of Sania for the first time etc. And other media publications linked both of them together and came up with a theory that suggested Sania supporting Khusboo. Natural, ain’t it? I have worked as a journalist of small repute too. I should be knowing.
For a ‘crime’ that led Khushboo to surrender at court, any misrepresentation of Sania’s statements with Khusboo’s attitudes was going to be dangerous. No, not from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is the arbitrator of religion based cases in India. In fact, Khalid Rashid of the Law Board had said way back in September, “What Sania wears in (the) tennis court is the demand of the game. Perhaps, the fatwa (edict) was issued to gain cheap publicity.” Dangerous it was to prove, through the mainstream press. After the Muslim Board and Sania had both dismissed the so-called fatwa two months back, what led a responsible editor to pose the question that he did (regarding the dress code), if not to expect a headline worthy controversial story (which he eventually got!).
Khushboo should not have apologized. After all, they are her opinions. She never mentioned them under any pressure. Yet she broke down, because of the way the media blew up the entire issue and gleed at the prospect of photographing a dozen of angry Dalit Senas. She is in trouble now. Real judicial trouble with half a dozen cases piling against her! So much for the freedom of speech that the media enjoy, but not the people. Or the women.
Sania must not have apologized either. After all, she never even said that she supported Khushboo. For statements she never made, her effigies are now being burnt down by the same southern conservatives who are taking turns to protest against her and Khushboo. Sania, well aware of the mud, wants to now get out of it. And like all of us, she does not wish to go to jail. And so she even had to go to the extent of condemning pre-marital sex, a topic she had nothing to do about. Why should a celebrated tennis star need to condemn pre-marital sex for whatever reason? But she is forced to do all these, thanks to the impoverished mainstream media. She knows, her silence will be taken as a support. And this implicit support will lead to explicit media coverage.
What a shame! What hypocrisy! Do we not talk about sex and wear short clothes? When the majority Indians have other real issues to worry about, why even give one inch space to these publicity hungry organizations that are after the blood of two immensely praiseworthy Indian women?
There is certain correctness in speaking out what is apt. Basically, why should men expect virgin wives to begin with? And why should someone play tennis with trousers? Considering also the contrary stock: do men take a virginity test? Or are soccer players banned or even male tennis players wear trousers? Only the real sick minds could think the way these dangerous outfits are preaching or viewing players on field.
As Rasheeda Bhagat says, “The Khushboo episode will blow over sooner than later, but what about the double standards practiced in our society?”
Throwing tomatoes, rotten eggs and slippers or calling actresses prostitutes (as a Dalit actor-director Thangar Bachan did in August this year, leading to his outrage with Khushboo) are signs of degraded mentality. And the vast majority of us have actually failed to get rid of those conservative mindsets despite their scant presence among the outfits. We did not send Bachan to court for something that outrageous. Because the news is when the man bites the dog, remember? If the woman says something contrary to male norms, then its news!
But hey, this is a wake-up call. Now is the time not to support the sensational media into forcing these two very courageous Indian Muslim Women to come forth with statements of apology for anything they said and done. We must show our pride over what they have said, and what they have done. What we need is more of them: More Khushboos. More Sanias.
Take heart.
Opinions of two Indian Muslim Women have actually rocked the mainland India. First, it was Tamil actress Khushboo who told the Tamil edition of India Today that pre-marital sex is okay “provided safety measures are followed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases”. And now, it is the Tennis star Sania Mirza who said the size of the dress she wants to wear is her prerogative.
And what’s so criminal in holding these views? Views regarding women sexuality and men sexuality in the first case. And the dress code for teenage girls in the second case. I guess, it is the politics that’s criminal. The crude politics of conservatism and the media.
Conservatism:
The politicians and volunteers of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) who are working under the banner of a Tamil Protection Movement in their crusade against Khushboo are brothers-in-arms of the Mumbai-based staunch Hindu outfit Shiv Sena. They have a natural ally in Sunni Ulema Board, a self-proclaimed Muslim moral group. Four of them together have found some more interesting bedfellows: the mainstream media.
The interesting thing about these moral police forces in India is none of the above actually represent any Indian population of worth. Far from that, they do not even represent the groups they claim to be leading.
DPI at work!
DPI is interested only in publicity, like its political counterpart Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is greedy for power. The BSP showing its true colors has partnered even with the right-wing BJP (which is predominantly Brahmin party) in political seat-sharing. Naturally enough, since their formation the so-called representatives of the Dalits have no support among the “backward” peoples of India, despite their national party status, BSP has hardly have any success except in just one state. A national party claiming to have base all over the country has won 0 seats in 24 out of 25 states where it fielded its candidates. Out of 435 of its contestants, only 19 won in the 14th Lok Sabha Election. All of them only in Utter Pradesh, where it lost 61 seats!
PMK, another new nationalist wing like DPI, is also a case in point. Since it has condemned both Dravidian parties of the South, DMK and AIADMK, one would assume it would not join hands with either of them. Or at least, never with the right-winger Hindu nationalists like BJP. Well, not exactly. It was part of the BJP combine when Vajpayee was in power. And now, it lends support to the Congress combine at the center with DMK as a partner. And it has 0.55% voteshare in India in 2004 down from 0.65% voteshare in 1999. So one can imagine its support base even in the South where it has won in total 6 seats (and zero in rest of India).
The lesser said about Shiv Sena, the better. Even with more than 80% of Indian population in India professing a Hindu way of life, this self-proclaimed protector of Hindu interest has hardly ever made its presence felt outside only one state: Maharashtra (that too, more in the name of Marathi nationalism). It rose to power after murdering Krishna Desai, the immensely popular communist leader of Maharashtra who was an invincible symbol among textile workers. Ever since, Shiv Sena has espoused right-wing views and led to communal riots one after another.
Sunni Ulema Board: I am sorry, but I had never heard of this name before. Neither have many of my Muslim friends. Not even those who stay in Hyderabad. Wonder where they came from? They certainly are not the Muslim clerics nor are the national arbitrators of religion-related issues for the country’s more than 160 million Muslims.
If Dalit Panthers, the Shiv Sena, the Sunni Ulema Board, the BSP and the PMK are not worth anything in India, since they all combined together do not gain support of even one percent of Indian population, how come they (just three of them this time—DPI, PMK and Sunni Ulema) are the forces that led to the crisis of Khushboo and Sania.
All of us know that Khushboo is such a heartthrob of South India cinema that people have even worshipped her (literally, yes!). Only a decade ago a temple was built in Tiruchirapalli town for Khushboo despite the fact that she is a Muslim. She is a national award winning actress of India (that’s the highest accolade an actor receives, by the way).
And for the still uninitiated (is anyone there?), Sania Mirza is one of the current leaders of India in every sense. She has very rightly overpowered the national obsession with Cricket and has rose to prominence first as a woman, then as a Muslim, and then as a tennis champion to have entered Grand Slam events. The 18-year-old is the first Indian woman to break into the top 50 WTA rankings too.
In other words, as contrasted with the political outfits who are not known outside the boundaries of their own sycophancy (how many had even honestly heard of DPI or PMK or SUB), these two women are nationally (and even internationally) renowned and respected.
And yet, both of them have tendered public apologies recently. Khushboo for saying the right things, and Sania for not even having said anything as reported.
...and the Media:
All thanks to the mainstream media. The corporate, controversy-hungry media. Nothing happened to India Today magazine for having run the surveys and the stories and for inviting Khushboo to write about gender issues. Nothing happened to Hindustan Times for having asked Sania questions to respond regarding dress code.
Vir Sanghvi today has written an excellent piece in support of Sania. Sanghvi wrote:
“On Friday evening, my jaw dropped as TV channel after TV channel reported that Sania’s remarks about the Khushboo controversy at the HT Summit had angered clerics. On Saturday, the newspapers reported this story. The problem was: Sania had said nothing about Khushboo or about pre-marital sex during our session. I should know. I was the moderator. Could it be, I wondered, that some enterprising reporter had grabbed Sania (and Narain and Natalie, who were quoted as agreeing with her) as the session ended, and asked a few leading questions?
Possibly. But the reports were quite specific. Sania was supposed to have made these remarks during our session at the HT Summit. Which, I knew, she had not.”
Thus Mr Sanghvi has managed to steer clear of the controversy. After all, she did not say that at his Summit. What he conveniently does not mention is the intent of HT coverage of Sania. Was it to showcase just a success? Well, we had a miss universe and a formula one champion on the same panel. Then how come, Sania got all the coverage on the reported story of the day?
The story headline: Sania breaks silence on dress fatwa against her.
Wow! Was that not sensational enough a headline? Was Sania at the summit for that purpose? To provide that headline? So that her life threat will be revisited? It was meant to be a leadership summit and Sania was to be presented as a role model for Indian youths, along with two other achievers. This story by HT correspondent Namita Bhandare has hardly any mention of other two panelists and 90% of the story covers Sania only (and only about her skirt issues about which she had voluntarily chosen not to comment earlier). The savvy editor got the question right. The event was powerful enough (what with all the celebrities –from Sonia Gandhi to Manmohan Singh). And Sania gave in to the hungry journalists.
So, that does not take away the grim reality which still is to be posed as a question. India Today got its sales. Hindustan Times got a breaking story that it got the words off the mouth of Sania for the first time etc. And other media publications linked both of them together and came up with a theory that suggested Sania supporting Khusboo. Natural, ain’t it? I have worked as a journalist of small repute too. I should be knowing.
For a ‘crime’ that led Khushboo to surrender at court, any misrepresentation of Sania’s statements with Khusboo’s attitudes was going to be dangerous. No, not from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is the arbitrator of religion based cases in India. In fact, Khalid Rashid of the Law Board had said way back in September, “What Sania wears in (the) tennis court is the demand of the game. Perhaps, the fatwa (edict) was issued to gain cheap publicity.” Dangerous it was to prove, through the mainstream press. After the Muslim Board and Sania had both dismissed the so-called fatwa two months back, what led a responsible editor to pose the question that he did (regarding the dress code), if not to expect a headline worthy controversial story (which he eventually got!).
Khushboo should not have apologized. After all, they are her opinions. She never mentioned them under any pressure. Yet she broke down, because of the way the media blew up the entire issue and gleed at the prospect of photographing a dozen of angry Dalit Senas. She is in trouble now. Real judicial trouble with half a dozen cases piling against her! So much for the freedom of speech that the media enjoy, but not the people. Or the women.
Sania must not have apologized either. After all, she never even said that she supported Khushboo. For statements she never made, her effigies are now being burnt down by the same southern conservatives who are taking turns to protest against her and Khushboo. Sania, well aware of the mud, wants to now get out of it. And like all of us, she does not wish to go to jail. And so she even had to go to the extent of condemning pre-marital sex, a topic she had nothing to do about. Why should a celebrated tennis star need to condemn pre-marital sex for whatever reason? But she is forced to do all these, thanks to the impoverished mainstream media. She knows, her silence will be taken as a support. And this implicit support will lead to explicit media coverage.
What a shame! What hypocrisy! Do we not talk about sex and wear short clothes? When the majority Indians have other real issues to worry about, why even give one inch space to these publicity hungry organizations that are after the blood of two immensely praiseworthy Indian women?
There is certain correctness in speaking out what is apt. Basically, why should men expect virgin wives to begin with? And why should someone play tennis with trousers? Considering also the contrary stock: do men take a virginity test? Or are soccer players banned or even male tennis players wear trousers? Only the real sick minds could think the way these dangerous outfits are preaching or viewing players on field.
As Rasheeda Bhagat says, “The Khushboo episode will blow over sooner than later, but what about the double standards practiced in our society?”
Throwing tomatoes, rotten eggs and slippers or calling actresses prostitutes (as a Dalit actor-director Thangar Bachan did in August this year, leading to his outrage with Khushboo) are signs of degraded mentality. And the vast majority of us have actually failed to get rid of those conservative mindsets despite their scant presence among the outfits. We did not send Bachan to court for something that outrageous. Because the news is when the man bites the dog, remember? If the woman says something contrary to male norms, then its news!
But hey, this is a wake-up call. Now is the time not to support the sensational media into forcing these two very courageous Indian Muslim Women to come forth with statements of apology for anything they said and done. We must show our pride over what they have said, and what they have done. What we need is more of them: More Khushboos. More Sanias.
Radical is Ideal: The forgotten contexts of Rosa Parks
By Saswat Pattanayak
It was only natural that Rosa Parks received the unprecedented recognition, as the first woman in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.
After all, as the conservatives would have liked to put it: She was the perfect American woman. Securely married, well settled, employed and was a quiet, patient, spiritual woman. The American dreamer. One whose dream could be retold by Martin Luther King Jr. years later.
In the revisionist histories, there have been at least two versions of the same story. One that portrayed her as a humble woman, a seamstress, who got tired of segregation one day in December, 1955 and refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her individual action then led to a whole nationwide movement like magic. This led to the non-violent leader Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the people down the long road to freedom, which was established with the end of segregation. And the world became free of discrimination in the United States.
Following this story, people wonder what would have happened to MLK if Parks would not have boarded that bus that day. And what would have happened of all of us. Yes, by all of us, I mean ALL OF US. Asians in America as well (We owe it all to the mutual freedom struggles, dammit. Else, today the Indian and Chinese software engineers would not be negotiating salaries in the States. I wonder if most of the American born kids of Asian heritage have any idea of the connections. Or if all the temporary workers realize the saga of exploitation amidst the glory of dollarizations.)
This version also relates to the idea that the trip was not planned. Indeed, Rosa Parks has said on various occasions that she had not planned to be arrested. She had boarded the bus to reach home.
The second version takes a stab at the first and claims, well, you see, Rosa Parks was not tired (indeed Park has said this too). And that she was not the first one to do it anyway. She was required to be there. That she was the perfect case for the NAACP and all plans were underway. Time magazine wrote of her: “Parks was not the first to be detained for this offense. Eight months earlier, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Black activists met with this girl to determine if she would make a good test case — as secretary of the local N.A.A.C.P., Parks attended the meeting — but it was decided that a more “upstanding” candidate was necessary to withstand the scrutiny of the courts and the press. And then in October, a young woman named Mary Louise Smith was arrested; N.A.A.C.P. leaders rejected her too as their vehicle, looking for someone more able to withstand media scrutiny. Smith paid the fine and was released.”
Hence this version demystifies the previous version and basically says, the trip was well planned. And that MLK was anyway going to lead the movement since he knew it was coming. And that the legendary trade union leader E. D. Nixon apparently said, “My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!” Parks was the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws.
Both versions do not tell the story. Because they claim to be the stories themselves. Rosa Parks was an event, not a process. And the event is being confused as being the process. After all its easy to recall an event, celebrate and normalize it. MLK has become a national event today. Malcolm X and Paul Robeson are today featuring on the postage stamps. And Rosa Parks is an icon today—of righteousness, humbleness and generosity.
Let’s reset the contexts. The prepositions:
a. Rosa Parks was married to Raymond Parks. Actually after her husband’s death in 1977, she even co-founded an organization named after both of them. And yes, Raymond Parks was the force behind her. We shall soon need to discuss who Raymond Parks was since no one pretty much discusses him.
b. Rosa Parks was a social activist long before the bus event. She was involved in a process that culminated in the event. We shall need to understand the processes that led to her actions.
What do we know about Raymond Parks? Well, the official foundation named after both “The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute” says the following about Raymond:
"Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee in Randolph County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge and a no nonsense approach to life. He supported his wife's "Quiet Strength" and encouraged youth to get a good education to sup-port themselves, their families and to eliminate discrimination in this country.”
If you notice the page, there are just two pictures of Rosa. Nothing about Raymond.
Wow!
Part I:
Well, to begin with, Raymond was a barber alright. But he was an activist way before Rosa had stepped in. So much so that he was raising funds for the National Committee to Save the Scottsboro Boys! Does that sound a bell? So the story begins from here. What has been conveniently forgotten in the recent recalling of history is that the case of Scottsboro Boys was the first event that actually put the process of struggle in place.
It involved the alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931. And yes, this was a case that the NAACP then during the 30's refused to take up.
Scottsboro Boys thus rejected NAACP’s offer and sought the help from the more radical leftist activists. And Raymond Parks was working in support of the Boys and promote radicalism within the NAACP. (For a short time much later, under Nixon, the radicalized NAACP worked together with the ILD to call for anti-lynching laws.) Rosa Parks got involved with the case of the Boys by marrying Raymond in 1932. Raymond was at that time collecting money to support the Scottsboro Boys. After marrying, Rosa took a number of jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her husband’s urging, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time when less than seven percent of African Americans had a high school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political participation by blacks difficult, she persevered in registering to vote, succeeding on her third try. This was made possible because both of them were members of the Voters’ League.
Part II:
In December 1943, after 11 years of marriage with Raymond who was a radical leftist activist, Parks became active in the American Civil Rights Movement, joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer secretary to its president, Edgar Nixon. Lest we forget, Nixon was a renowned trade unionist of the time. He became president of the Alabama NAACP only in 1947 and radicalized it. He was a close associate of Philip Randolph, the renowned labor leader (again whose stories are hardly discussed). Nixon naturally came in problems with the moderates. He resigned qith disgust from the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) which was being headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., as its president.
Nixon died unsung, although he was the one without whom the bus boycott could never have taken place as a process. Remember that Nixon put up his home as security to post the bond for Parks!
Not only Nixon, who was on the political left of the things and was conveniently shoved to the history’s closed pages, but we need to remember Clifford Durr (1899 – 1975) who was an Alabama lawyer who defended activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He was the one who represented Rosa Parks in her challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance requiring the segregation of passengers on buses in Montgomery that launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Who was Durr? He was branded as a communist and was put under FBI surveillance in 1942, because he had defended a colleague accused of left-wing political associations. His wife’s vigorous support for racial equality and voting rights for blacks and their friendship with Jessica Mitford, a member of the Communist Party, made both of them even more suspect. The FBI stepped up its interest in Durr in 1949, when he joined the National Lawyers Guild. He subsequently became the President of the Guild! And yes, hold on, Durr's wife had employed Rosa Parks as the seamstress.
Durr called the jail when authorities refused to tell Nixon what the charges against Parks were and he and his wife accompanied Nixon to the jail when Nixon bailed her out. Nixon and Durr then went to the Parks’ home to discuss whether she was prepared to fight the charges against her. Parks was then as aforesaid, working as voluntary secretary to Nixon.
They had together waited for a politicized Parks to come to the scene. For 23 years now, Rosa Parks had support of her husband who was involved in several progressive struggles including Scottsboro defense, the campaign against lynching, and the struggle for voter and citizenship rights. When she did not give up her seat on that bus, it was culmination of the long process of revolution by resistance.
It's another matter, this third version of progressive saga-- of active involvement of left wing leaders and activists, always disgraced by both the mainstream white liberals and the cautious black leadership in the US-- has been hijacked and replaced as an odd event for national celebration--by moderate activists and revisionist historians.
It must have pained her, but in her book “Quiet Strength”, Rosa Parks is categorical about one thing, that she did not change anything alone: “Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like [people] to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom.”
And yet this one of many has been canonized. For it helps to canonize than to contextualize. The dangers, as the establishments notice are not the heroes themselves. It is their heroic acts as part of a larger process that inspire generations. It is not individual acts of pacifying moderate church leaders, but radicalized moves by barbers like Raymond and lawyers like Durr and angry seamstresses like Rosa Parks who had taken to the streets to join worldwide radical movements addressing cases like Scottboro Boys or Labor Unions.
But if we go back to those pages, we will be flooded with gory images, not legendary icons. History of struggles have been fought with political aims and those aims of yesteryears conflict with the political agendas of today's. Hence the attempts to iconize the angry freedom fighters.
After all, all icons look good on statues—they always put a smile on their lips.
It was only natural that Rosa Parks received the unprecedented recognition, as the first woman in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.
After all, as the conservatives would have liked to put it: She was the perfect American woman. Securely married, well settled, employed and was a quiet, patient, spiritual woman. The American dreamer. One whose dream could be retold by Martin Luther King Jr. years later.
In the revisionist histories, there have been at least two versions of the same story. One that portrayed her as a humble woman, a seamstress, who got tired of segregation one day in December, 1955 and refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her individual action then led to a whole nationwide movement like magic. This led to the non-violent leader Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the people down the long road to freedom, which was established with the end of segregation. And the world became free of discrimination in the United States.
Following this story, people wonder what would have happened to MLK if Parks would not have boarded that bus that day. And what would have happened of all of us. Yes, by all of us, I mean ALL OF US. Asians in America as well (We owe it all to the mutual freedom struggles, dammit. Else, today the Indian and Chinese software engineers would not be negotiating salaries in the States. I wonder if most of the American born kids of Asian heritage have any idea of the connections. Or if all the temporary workers realize the saga of exploitation amidst the glory of dollarizations.)
This version also relates to the idea that the trip was not planned. Indeed, Rosa Parks has said on various occasions that she had not planned to be arrested. She had boarded the bus to reach home.
The second version takes a stab at the first and claims, well, you see, Rosa Parks was not tired (indeed Park has said this too). And that she was not the first one to do it anyway. She was required to be there. That she was the perfect case for the NAACP and all plans were underway. Time magazine wrote of her: “Parks was not the first to be detained for this offense. Eight months earlier, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Black activists met with this girl to determine if she would make a good test case — as secretary of the local N.A.A.C.P., Parks attended the meeting — but it was decided that a more “upstanding” candidate was necessary to withstand the scrutiny of the courts and the press. And then in October, a young woman named Mary Louise Smith was arrested; N.A.A.C.P. leaders rejected her too as their vehicle, looking for someone more able to withstand media scrutiny. Smith paid the fine and was released.”
Hence this version demystifies the previous version and basically says, the trip was well planned. And that MLK was anyway going to lead the movement since he knew it was coming. And that the legendary trade union leader E. D. Nixon apparently said, “My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!” Parks was the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws.
Both versions do not tell the story. Because they claim to be the stories themselves. Rosa Parks was an event, not a process. And the event is being confused as being the process. After all its easy to recall an event, celebrate and normalize it. MLK has become a national event today. Malcolm X and Paul Robeson are today featuring on the postage stamps. And Rosa Parks is an icon today—of righteousness, humbleness and generosity.
Let’s reset the contexts. The prepositions:
a. Rosa Parks was married to Raymond Parks. Actually after her husband’s death in 1977, she even co-founded an organization named after both of them. And yes, Raymond Parks was the force behind her. We shall soon need to discuss who Raymond Parks was since no one pretty much discusses him.
b. Rosa Parks was a social activist long before the bus event. She was involved in a process that culminated in the event. We shall need to understand the processes that led to her actions.
What do we know about Raymond Parks? Well, the official foundation named after both “The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute” says the following about Raymond:
"Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee in Randolph County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge and a no nonsense approach to life. He supported his wife's "Quiet Strength" and encouraged youth to get a good education to sup-port themselves, their families and to eliminate discrimination in this country.”
If you notice the page, there are just two pictures of Rosa. Nothing about Raymond.
Wow!
Part I:
Well, to begin with, Raymond was a barber alright. But he was an activist way before Rosa had stepped in. So much so that he was raising funds for the National Committee to Save the Scottsboro Boys! Does that sound a bell? So the story begins from here. What has been conveniently forgotten in the recent recalling of history is that the case of Scottsboro Boys was the first event that actually put the process of struggle in place.
It involved the alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931. And yes, this was a case that the NAACP then during the 30's refused to take up.
“The NAACP, which might have been expected to rush to the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, did not. Rape was a politically explosive charge in the South, and the NAACP was concerned about damage to its effectiveness that might result if it turned out some or all of the Boys were guilty. Instead, it was the Communist Party that moved aggressively to make the Scottsboro case their own…. The Communist Party, through its legal arm, the International Labor Defense (ILD), pronounced the case against the Boys a “murderous frame-up” and began efforts, ultimately successful, to be named as their attorneys. The NAACP, a slow-moving bureaucracy, finally came to the realization that the Scottsboro Boys were most likely innocent and that leadership in the case would have large public relations benefits. As a last-ditch effort to beat back the ILD in the battle over representation, NAACP officials persuaded renowned defense attorney Clarence Darrow to take their case to Alabama. But it was by then too late. The Scottsboro Boys, for better or worse, cast their lots with the Communists who, in the South, were “treated with only slightly more courtesy than a gang of rapists.”
Scottsboro Boys thus rejected NAACP’s offer and sought the help from the more radical leftist activists. And Raymond Parks was working in support of the Boys and promote radicalism within the NAACP. (For a short time much later, under Nixon, the radicalized NAACP worked together with the ILD to call for anti-lynching laws.) Rosa Parks got involved with the case of the Boys by marrying Raymond in 1932. Raymond was at that time collecting money to support the Scottsboro Boys. After marrying, Rosa took a number of jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her husband’s urging, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time when less than seven percent of African Americans had a high school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political participation by blacks difficult, she persevered in registering to vote, succeeding on her third try. This was made possible because both of them were members of the Voters’ League.
Part II:
In December 1943, after 11 years of marriage with Raymond who was a radical leftist activist, Parks became active in the American Civil Rights Movement, joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer secretary to its president, Edgar Nixon. Lest we forget, Nixon was a renowned trade unionist of the time. He became president of the Alabama NAACP only in 1947 and radicalized it. He was a close associate of Philip Randolph, the renowned labor leader (again whose stories are hardly discussed). Nixon naturally came in problems with the moderates. He resigned qith disgust from the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) which was being headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., as its president.
Nixon died unsung, although he was the one without whom the bus boycott could never have taken place as a process. Remember that Nixon put up his home as security to post the bond for Parks!
Not only Nixon, who was on the political left of the things and was conveniently shoved to the history’s closed pages, but we need to remember Clifford Durr (1899 – 1975) who was an Alabama lawyer who defended activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He was the one who represented Rosa Parks in her challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance requiring the segregation of passengers on buses in Montgomery that launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Who was Durr? He was branded as a communist and was put under FBI surveillance in 1942, because he had defended a colleague accused of left-wing political associations. His wife’s vigorous support for racial equality and voting rights for blacks and their friendship with Jessica Mitford, a member of the Communist Party, made both of them even more suspect. The FBI stepped up its interest in Durr in 1949, when he joined the National Lawyers Guild. He subsequently became the President of the Guild! And yes, hold on, Durr's wife had employed Rosa Parks as the seamstress.
Durr called the jail when authorities refused to tell Nixon what the charges against Parks were and he and his wife accompanied Nixon to the jail when Nixon bailed her out. Nixon and Durr then went to the Parks’ home to discuss whether she was prepared to fight the charges against her. Parks was then as aforesaid, working as voluntary secretary to Nixon.
They had together waited for a politicized Parks to come to the scene. For 23 years now, Rosa Parks had support of her husband who was involved in several progressive struggles including Scottsboro defense, the campaign against lynching, and the struggle for voter and citizenship rights. When she did not give up her seat on that bus, it was culmination of the long process of revolution by resistance.
It's another matter, this third version of progressive saga-- of active involvement of left wing leaders and activists, always disgraced by both the mainstream white liberals and the cautious black leadership in the US-- has been hijacked and replaced as an odd event for national celebration--by moderate activists and revisionist historians.
It must have pained her, but in her book “Quiet Strength”, Rosa Parks is categorical about one thing, that she did not change anything alone: “Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like [people] to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom.”
And yet this one of many has been canonized. For it helps to canonize than to contextualize. The dangers, as the establishments notice are not the heroes themselves. It is their heroic acts as part of a larger process that inspire generations. It is not individual acts of pacifying moderate church leaders, but radicalized moves by barbers like Raymond and lawyers like Durr and angry seamstresses like Rosa Parks who had taken to the streets to join worldwide radical movements addressing cases like Scottboro Boys or Labor Unions.
But if we go back to those pages, we will be flooded with gory images, not legendary icons. History of struggles have been fought with political aims and those aims of yesteryears conflict with the political agendas of today's. Hence the attempts to iconize the angry freedom fighters.
After all, all icons look good on statues—they always put a smile on their lips.
Awakening Aryan Man
Looks all cute! 13-year old twins. Some popular music band too.
…fast forward:
“When the man who plows the fields is driven from his lands.
When the carpenter must give away what he's built with his own hands.
When a mother's only children belong to her no more.
And black masked men with guns come bashing down the doors.
Where freedom exists for only those with darker skin.
Where lies and propaganda will never let you win.
Where symbols of your heritage are held with such contempt,
and benefits of country 'cept tax are you exempt .
Aryan man awake,
How much more will you take,
Turn that fear to hate,
Aryan man awake!” ( Words by Lamb and April)
….And then.
“I see you all around me.
I see the apathy in your eyes,
knowing not what it means to be free,
watching as the White flame dies.
It means nothing to you,
Pride is an unknown trait.
Tell me what are you gonna do run
and hide or face the hate?
Hang your head in shame.
Have you no pride in your heritage,
and no pride in your name?
I'm glad that I'm not like you.
I know my children are proud of me.
While yours still suffer too,
mine I know will always stay free.” (words: McLellan)
Well these are songs by a band called “Prussian Blue” who describe themselves as “Lynx and Lamb, twin girls from California, with great musical talents, who are not just talented girls—they are also charming and loving sisters.”
Whats the most pressing concern for the duo?
“Not having enough white babies born to replace ourselves and generally not having good-quality white people being born. It seems like smart white girls who have good eugenics are more interested in making money in a career or partying than getting married and having a family. And yes, we are working on some new songs about this issue.”
Media have discovered them full blast. White supremacist, former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke uses them to gain support. The girls sing in praise of late white separatist leader Robert Mathews, proclaiming him as someone whose flag will forever fly and in whose memory the land will stand up one day.
And their music is mayhem. Or great promise for the future. Depending on where you come from.
Sarkozy must go. Chirac must apologize. Mainland France must evolve.
By Saswat Pattanayak
Now that the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has toned down his rhetoric after a crisis meeting, what should be the alternatives?
Paris riots are the most significant popular revolution taken place in recent times. It is noteworthy because they are violent, yet they are not taking lives of innocent people. In this manner they are indicative that this is symbolic of the oppressed. As for the oppressors we have seen more than 300 arrests already. More will follow. Once the so-called peace is restored by the authorities, the official riots will take place inside the prisons. And the difference between the riots that are caused by the oppressed and those that are caused by oppressors are vast. One is in defense, the other is in authoritarian suppression. However both types of riots have the similar consequences for the oppressed group. Either way, they are arrested and attacked at the slightest or no provocation.
Amnesty International only 7 months ago had declared that the “The French government ministers, judges and senior police officers are allowing members of the police force to use excessive and sometimes lethal force against suspects of Arab and African origin without fear of serious repercussions.”
So much so that, in the case of Ahmed Selmouni, (July 1999), the European Court of Human Rights had to intervene since France had violated the prohibition against torture as well as the right to fair trial within a reasonable time. Despite its intervention, the case only reached the French courts several years after the violations had been committed, and under pressure of the European Court investigation.
And when one French court decided to sentence one police officer to an “exemplary” prison term, owing to the demands of the public, that too failed, when police unions expressed their anger in the streets. Of course in a police state, it is a known fact as to who controls the rule of the jungle. The police officers who were the perpetrators in this case continued merrily in their police careers as their “honor” needed to defended, than their criminal conduct. Institutional racism of France has been well recorded and so are increasing cases of police violence.
Human Rights Watch too has monitored racist and xenophobic violence in Western Europe, including against Arabs and Muslims in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the United States. It has condemned these attacks, which have included verbal abuse, physical assaults and attacks on mosques-and express alarm that they continue.
In wake of these racist process (not some aberrant incidents) the media need to focus on Western Europe’s continuing saga of racism and state-sponsored violence. The next G-8 (including Chechnya-ravaged Russia) meeting should focus on generating a mass apology for the callousness and indifference that the top capitalist countries have so far displayed to a carefully orchestrated exclusionary approach they have chosen when it has come to the so-called immigrants. In addition, France should immediately do the following:
1. Investigate what led to the deaths of two teenagers on Oct 27, that led to riots. They ran for at least one kilometer before taking shelter in a place that got them killed. It obviously was not some english channel race they were upto. They were trying desperately to save their lives. From the police. This time at least, unlike ever before, the government must book the police officers responsible for these two deaths and punish them exemplarily. No matter if the police fraternity gets to streets. They are on the streets everyday anyway. Remember when the lawmakers break laws, common people have no one to turn to than the electrocuted cells.
2. Sack Sarkozy immediately. He has admittedly changed his rhetoric. Highly irresponsible right-wingers like him should be immediately not tolerated by any civic society. Instead of trying to deconstruct his government’s collective apathy, he was fast in his approach to apprehend “hooligans”. Indeed he is the master enactor of the drama just to appease a racist society to elect his likes in coming 2007 elections.
3. Release the rioters: Just the way democracy allows for people to vote, it allows them rights to protest. This protest was long overdue. Yes some vehicles have been burnt. But the rich folks can get it back from the insurance company. Yet they are unaware of the real root cause of violence in a class society where they are instrumental in hundreds of official deaths of the poor and secluded. A dialogue, than arrests, is the need of the hour.
4. Stop official tortures: Police atrocities and flagrant violation in Paris is well recorded. Every step must be taken to stop that. The attacks are done on Arabs and Africans and since they don’t own the media outlets, the news reach very late if some “liberal” La Monde ever publishes such stories. But the statistics even by INSEE demonstrates the racial biases in these tortures.
5. Facilitate immigration and grant due rights in a multicultural society. Just because the demographic profiling are not done properly does not mean France is not a multicultural society. Indeed the growing resentments of the racist society is owing to increasing number of immigrants. Hence the factor of diversity must be acknowledged and different cultural ethos must be respected at any cost. No form of any assimilation or any attempt to do so should be allowed ever. Forced or voluntary propaganda assimilation. People often assimilate to the extent of forgetting their own languages because that is cited as a condition for employment and decent living. The authorities must acknowledge their roles and reverse them for chrissake.
6. Equality, Liberty, Fraternity: Or whatever the statue of liberty ever meant to imply. Whereas there is 5% overall unemployment for university graduates in France, there is 26.5% unemployment for “North African” university graduates. This is indicative of biases in the field of employment for the Muslims and Blacks. This is 21st century slave-owners mindset afflicting the racist France. Everything must be done to ensure affirmative actions to reserve quotas in employment for minorities so that they are at least represented well and compensated well in lieu of all tortures that mainland France has caused and benefited from the Muslims and Blacks so far.
The riddles ghettos are the contradictions of capitalist France and it must do whatever to amend ways or await revolution by the oppressed masses.
Now that the Interior Minister Nicolas Sarkozy has toned down his rhetoric after a crisis meeting, what should be the alternatives?
Paris riots are the most significant popular revolution taken place in recent times. It is noteworthy because they are violent, yet they are not taking lives of innocent people. In this manner they are indicative that this is symbolic of the oppressed. As for the oppressors we have seen more than 300 arrests already. More will follow. Once the so-called peace is restored by the authorities, the official riots will take place inside the prisons. And the difference between the riots that are caused by the oppressed and those that are caused by oppressors are vast. One is in defense, the other is in authoritarian suppression. However both types of riots have the similar consequences for the oppressed group. Either way, they are arrested and attacked at the slightest or no provocation.
Amnesty International only 7 months ago had declared that the “The French government ministers, judges and senior police officers are allowing members of the police force to use excessive and sometimes lethal force against suspects of Arab and African origin without fear of serious repercussions.”
So much so that, in the case of Ahmed Selmouni, (July 1999), the European Court of Human Rights had to intervene since France had violated the prohibition against torture as well as the right to fair trial within a reasonable time. Despite its intervention, the case only reached the French courts several years after the violations had been committed, and under pressure of the European Court investigation.
And when one French court decided to sentence one police officer to an “exemplary” prison term, owing to the demands of the public, that too failed, when police unions expressed their anger in the streets. Of course in a police state, it is a known fact as to who controls the rule of the jungle. The police officers who were the perpetrators in this case continued merrily in their police careers as their “honor” needed to defended, than their criminal conduct. Institutional racism of France has been well recorded and so are increasing cases of police violence.
Human Rights Watch too has monitored racist and xenophobic violence in Western Europe, including against Arabs and Muslims in the wake of the 11 September attacks in the United States. It has condemned these attacks, which have included verbal abuse, physical assaults and attacks on mosques-and express alarm that they continue.
In wake of these racist process (not some aberrant incidents) the media need to focus on Western Europe’s continuing saga of racism and state-sponsored violence. The next G-8 (including Chechnya-ravaged Russia) meeting should focus on generating a mass apology for the callousness and indifference that the top capitalist countries have so far displayed to a carefully orchestrated exclusionary approach they have chosen when it has come to the so-called immigrants. In addition, France should immediately do the following:
1. Investigate what led to the deaths of two teenagers on Oct 27, that led to riots. They ran for at least one kilometer before taking shelter in a place that got them killed. It obviously was not some english channel race they were upto. They were trying desperately to save their lives. From the police. This time at least, unlike ever before, the government must book the police officers responsible for these two deaths and punish them exemplarily. No matter if the police fraternity gets to streets. They are on the streets everyday anyway. Remember when the lawmakers break laws, common people have no one to turn to than the electrocuted cells.
2. Sack Sarkozy immediately. He has admittedly changed his rhetoric. Highly irresponsible right-wingers like him should be immediately not tolerated by any civic society. Instead of trying to deconstruct his government’s collective apathy, he was fast in his approach to apprehend “hooligans”. Indeed he is the master enactor of the drama just to appease a racist society to elect his likes in coming 2007 elections.
3. Release the rioters: Just the way democracy allows for people to vote, it allows them rights to protest. This protest was long overdue. Yes some vehicles have been burnt. But the rich folks can get it back from the insurance company. Yet they are unaware of the real root cause of violence in a class society where they are instrumental in hundreds of official deaths of the poor and secluded. A dialogue, than arrests, is the need of the hour.
4. Stop official tortures: Police atrocities and flagrant violation in Paris is well recorded. Every step must be taken to stop that. The attacks are done on Arabs and Africans and since they don’t own the media outlets, the news reach very late if some “liberal” La Monde ever publishes such stories. But the statistics even by INSEE demonstrates the racial biases in these tortures.
5. Facilitate immigration and grant due rights in a multicultural society. Just because the demographic profiling are not done properly does not mean France is not a multicultural society. Indeed the growing resentments of the racist society is owing to increasing number of immigrants. Hence the factor of diversity must be acknowledged and different cultural ethos must be respected at any cost. No form of any assimilation or any attempt to do so should be allowed ever. Forced or voluntary propaganda assimilation. People often assimilate to the extent of forgetting their own languages because that is cited as a condition for employment and decent living. The authorities must acknowledge their roles and reverse them for chrissake.
6. Equality, Liberty, Fraternity: Or whatever the statue of liberty ever meant to imply. Whereas there is 5% overall unemployment for university graduates in France, there is 26.5% unemployment for “North African” university graduates. This is indicative of biases in the field of employment for the Muslims and Blacks. This is 21st century slave-owners mindset afflicting the racist France. Everything must be done to ensure affirmative actions to reserve quotas in employment for minorities so that they are at least represented well and compensated well in lieu of all tortures that mainland France has caused and benefited from the Muslims and Blacks so far.
The riddles ghettos are the contradictions of capitalist France and it must do whatever to amend ways or await revolution by the oppressed masses.
Burn! Paris! Burn! The racist French must amend ways
By Saswat Pattanayak
The French with the burden of ‘civilizing the savages’ have displayed their mammoth colonialist, racist and classist traits once again, yet again.
The recent Paris urban riots just indicate the systematic exploitative regimes called Western Democracies. The illusions that go with such democracies overwhelm the vast reality of gross injustices to the extent that folks talk about such regimes only after popular outbreak of resentments (that is, the culmination brings attention than the process itself). It’s such a matter of shame that the gory history of French colonialism is never the point of international condemnation and the phony democracies thrive with such examples. These myopists defenders of liberal democracy claim that France is the most diverse country in the whole of Europe. What they forget to mention is that it is the most racist nation as well.
What is again lost on the pundits is that the immigrants are not the ‘problem’. Far from it, France occupied territories and was in dire need of immigrants so that it could catch up with other industrialized nations after World War II. When the immigrant workforce of Italy and Spain could not achieve its goals, it thrived on the immigrant workers from Africa and Asia. While the European immigrants easily were incorporated into the upper class, the non-European immigrants from Africa and Asia were forced to work at the lowest wages (which continues to this day of 2005). Not only is the systematic exploitation so prevalent, but the minority cultures are forced to give up their ethos and assimilate to the France mainland on conditions of sustenance. Practice of different religions and use of languages are not permitted.
Race statistics are not kept in France so that forced assimilation of Muslim population can be made possible. Law forbids Muslim women from wearing headscarfs! Laws are in place to forbid Muslim practices, whereas Christian norms are forced upon immigrants.
When the government and its pseudo-socialist (capitalist reformers) opposition itself resorts to such human rights violations forcing people to give up their cultural identities just so they will be entirely French (and become what—colonialist of the 21st century?), what to speak of “the failure of the politics of Nicolas Sarkozy”?
The recent riots in France are result of a sustained cultural domination of the Whites over the immigrant population who were exploited systematically since occupation of Algeria in 1830’s to reconstruct France from time to time. And yet the African, Arab and Asian workers who lent their lot to make France such a shining fashion nation of the globalized age, are the least benefited lot. They are concentrated in slums, impoverished, segregated, policed and brutally attacked by the government with racist slurs.
When the lawmakers of France are so slanted by their bias against the black and Muslim population, it will be wishful thinking to assume that law will grant any equal rights to anyone. The reality is France is at least 40 years behind United States in realizing that salad bowl and not melting pot is the need of the hour. No matter of coercion will allow people to sit quiet and take orders of repressive phony democracies. The current riots are manifestation of century old frustrations, at times expressed by the oppressed.
At least Belgium and Netherlands have displayed a better sense of respect for their immigration population, from which France needs to learn. And even in those countries, riots have become common phenomenon owing to systematic apathy.
Indeed the savage France must learn civilization codes from the Arab European League which states as its mission : “We believe in a multicultural society as a social and political model where different cultures coexist with equal rights under the law. We do not want to assimilate and we do not want to be stuck somewhere in the middle. We want to foster our own identity and culture while being law abiding and worthy citizens of the countries where we live. In order to achieve that it is imperative for us to teach our children the Arabic language and history and the Islamic faith. We will resist any attempt to strip us of our right to our own cultural and religious identity, as we believe it is one of the most fundamental human rights.”
Its founder Dyab Abou Jahjah, who was himself arrested in November 2002 and charged with inciting Muslims in Antwerp to riot (Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said that the AEL was “trying to terrorize the city&rdquo
, has declared: “Assimilation is
cultural rape. It means renouncing your
identity, becoming like the others.” He
complains that in Europe “I could still eat
certain dishes from the Middle East, but I
cannot have certain thoughts that are based on
ideologies and ideas from the Middle East.”
Even the careful mainstream media have come down heavily against inequalities prevailing in France today.
“The unrest has highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor suburbs, with frustration simmering in the housing projects in areas marked by high unemployment, crime and poverty.” (AP) Reuters agree with AP’s attribution of all the unrest to economic injustice, and adds a suggestion of racism: “The unrest in the northern and eastern suburbs, heavily populated by North African and black African minorities, have been fuelled by frustration among youths in the area over their failure to get jobs and recognition in French society.” Deutsche Presse Agentur called the high-rise public housing in the Paris suburbs “a long-time flashpoint of unemployment, crime and other social problems.”
“The areas hardest hit by the riots are home to North African and black African minorities that feel excluded from French society” (Reuters). “The violence also cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community -- its Muslim population, at an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest -- by playing down differences between ethnic groups. Rather than feeling embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities” (AP).
Le Monde suggests in an editorial that the Interior Minister was deliberately stirring up tensions to divide France. “The minister believes in the existence of a clear separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’,” the newspaper said.
This is simply gross in an era of multi-culture co-existences. But the French elites are hell bent upon against any protests of any sort in that country. Labor unions (even championed by the white workers) are suppressed, workers are laid off whenever they go on strike. Paris has become the citadel of capitalistic contradictions. With high society of mannerisms, the French elites have continuously exhibited disdain for the working class. History is replete with examples every passing week as France evolves to supersede its competitive rogue nations that practice dangerous democracies. Sartre, the philosopher of our age, had drawn a similar parallel when he wrote the following:
Even as most of the world is learning to grow, the French are trying to go back to cave ages created by them as though colonialism were their core identity by forcefully trying to assimilate cultures into one whole European sad saga. If the world bodies such as the UN have any shame, its time to “teach the French a lesson”. How can I not end with the Clash’s London Burning? This time, Paris is burning again!
London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing
The funny thing is the French elites do not feel any difference. No riots ever affect them. Their children do not get electrocuted while escaping police brutalities. Their socio-economic class does not get adversely affected by misery of urban slum-dwellers who have been systematically segregated (a popular solution approach in whole of Europe today). French governments show concern over increasing poverty and crime rate, but they don’t necessarily relate those two, do not speak of the origin and growth of them and the government’s roles to perp
The French with the burden of ‘civilizing the savages’ have displayed their mammoth colonialist, racist and classist traits once again, yet again.
The recent Paris urban riots just indicate the systematic exploitative regimes called Western Democracies. The illusions that go with such democracies overwhelm the vast reality of gross injustices to the extent that folks talk about such regimes only after popular outbreak of resentments (that is, the culmination brings attention than the process itself). It’s such a matter of shame that the gory history of French colonialism is never the point of international condemnation and the phony democracies thrive with such examples. These myopists defenders of liberal democracy claim that France is the most diverse country in the whole of Europe. What they forget to mention is that it is the most racist nation as well.
What is again lost on the pundits is that the immigrants are not the ‘problem’. Far from it, France occupied territories and was in dire need of immigrants so that it could catch up with other industrialized nations after World War II. When the immigrant workforce of Italy and Spain could not achieve its goals, it thrived on the immigrant workers from Africa and Asia. While the European immigrants easily were incorporated into the upper class, the non-European immigrants from Africa and Asia were forced to work at the lowest wages (which continues to this day of 2005). Not only is the systematic exploitation so prevalent, but the minority cultures are forced to give up their ethos and assimilate to the France mainland on conditions of sustenance. Practice of different religions and use of languages are not permitted.
Race statistics are not kept in France so that forced assimilation of Muslim population can be made possible. Law forbids Muslim women from wearing headscarfs! Laws are in place to forbid Muslim practices, whereas Christian norms are forced upon immigrants.
When the government and its pseudo-socialist (capitalist reformers) opposition itself resorts to such human rights violations forcing people to give up their cultural identities just so they will be entirely French (and become what—colonialist of the 21st century?), what to speak of “the failure of the politics of Nicolas Sarkozy”?
The recent riots in France are result of a sustained cultural domination of the Whites over the immigrant population who were exploited systematically since occupation of Algeria in 1830’s to reconstruct France from time to time. And yet the African, Arab and Asian workers who lent their lot to make France such a shining fashion nation of the globalized age, are the least benefited lot. They are concentrated in slums, impoverished, segregated, policed and brutally attacked by the government with racist slurs.
When the lawmakers of France are so slanted by their bias against the black and Muslim population, it will be wishful thinking to assume that law will grant any equal rights to anyone. The reality is France is at least 40 years behind United States in realizing that salad bowl and not melting pot is the need of the hour. No matter of coercion will allow people to sit quiet and take orders of repressive phony democracies. The current riots are manifestation of century old frustrations, at times expressed by the oppressed.
At least Belgium and Netherlands have displayed a better sense of respect for their immigration population, from which France needs to learn. And even in those countries, riots have become common phenomenon owing to systematic apathy.
Indeed the savage France must learn civilization codes from the Arab European League which states as its mission : “We believe in a multicultural society as a social and political model where different cultures coexist with equal rights under the law. We do not want to assimilate and we do not want to be stuck somewhere in the middle. We want to foster our own identity and culture while being law abiding and worthy citizens of the countries where we live. In order to achieve that it is imperative for us to teach our children the Arabic language and history and the Islamic faith. We will resist any attempt to strip us of our right to our own cultural and religious identity, as we believe it is one of the most fundamental human rights.”
Its founder Dyab Abou Jahjah, who was himself arrested in November 2002 and charged with inciting Muslims in Antwerp to riot (Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt said that the AEL was “trying to terrorize the city&rdquo
, has declared: “Assimilation is
cultural rape. It means renouncing your
identity, becoming like the others.” He
complains that in Europe “I could still eat
certain dishes from the Middle East, but I
cannot have certain thoughts that are based on
ideologies and ideas from the Middle East.”
Even the careful mainstream media have come down heavily against inequalities prevailing in France today.
“The unrest has highlighted the division between France's big cities and their poor suburbs, with frustration simmering in the housing projects in areas marked by high unemployment, crime and poverty.” (AP) Reuters agree with AP’s attribution of all the unrest to economic injustice, and adds a suggestion of racism: “The unrest in the northern and eastern suburbs, heavily populated by North African and black African minorities, have been fuelled by frustration among youths in the area over their failure to get jobs and recognition in French society.” Deutsche Presse Agentur called the high-rise public housing in the Paris suburbs “a long-time flashpoint of unemployment, crime and other social problems.”
“The areas hardest hit by the riots are home to North African and black African minorities that feel excluded from French society” (Reuters). “The violence also cast doubt on the success of France's model of seeking to integrate its large immigrant community -- its Muslim population, at an estimated 5 million, is Western Europe's largest -- by playing down differences between ethnic groups. Rather than feeling embraced as full and equal citizens, immigrants and their French-born children complain of police harassment and of being refused jobs, housing and opportunities” (AP).
Le Monde suggests in an editorial that the Interior Minister was deliberately stirring up tensions to divide France. “The minister believes in the existence of a clear separation between ‘them’ and ‘us’,” the newspaper said.
This is simply gross in an era of multi-culture co-existences. But the French elites are hell bent upon against any protests of any sort in that country. Labor unions (even championed by the white workers) are suppressed, workers are laid off whenever they go on strike. Paris has become the citadel of capitalistic contradictions. With high society of mannerisms, the French elites have continuously exhibited disdain for the working class. History is replete with examples every passing week as France evolves to supersede its competitive rogue nations that practice dangerous democracies. Sartre, the philosopher of our age, had drawn a similar parallel when he wrote the following:
“I will not go so far as to say that we were as cynical as in that southern state of the USA where a law, maintained until the beginning of the nineteenth century, prohibited people from teaching black slaves to read—offenders would be fined. But we did want to make our ‘Muslim brothers’ a population of illiterates. Still today 80 per cent of Algerians are illiterate. It would not be so bad if we had just forbidden them the use of our own language. But a necessary aspect of the colonial system is that it attempts to bar the colonized people from the road of history; as nationalist claims, in Europe, have always been founded on linguistic unity, the Muslims were denied the use of their own language. Since 1830, the Arabic language has been considered as a foreign language in Algeria; it is still spoken, but it hardly survives as a written language. And that is not all: to keep the Arabs fragmented, the French administration confiscated their religion; it recruited leaders of the Islamic religion among creatures in its pay. It has maintained the most base superstitions, because they disunite.
The French republic maintains the cultural ignorance and the beliefs of the feudal system, but suppresses the structures and customs which permit a living feudal system to be, despite everything, a human society; it imposes an individualistic and liberal legal code in order to ruin the frameworks and development of the Algerian community, but it maintains kinglets who derive their power solely from it and who govern on its behalf.
In a word, it fabricates ‘natives’ by a double movement which separates them from their archaic community by giving them or maintaining in them, in the solitude of liberal individualism, a mentality whose archaism can only be perpetuated in relation to the archaism of the society. It creates masses but prevent them from becoming a conscious proletariat by mystifying them with the caricature of their own ideology.” (p 41, Colonialism and Neocolonialism. Jean-Paul Sartre)
Even as most of the world is learning to grow, the French are trying to go back to cave ages created by them as though colonialism were their core identity by forcefully trying to assimilate cultures into one whole European sad saga. If the world bodies such as the UN have any shame, its time to “teach the French a lesson”. How can I not end with the Clash’s London Burning? This time, Paris is burning again!
London calling to the faraway towns
Now that war is declared-and battle come down
London calling to the underworld
Come out of the cupboard, all you boys and girls
London calling, now don't look at us
All that phoney Beatlemania has bitten the dust
London calling, see we ain't got no swing
'Cept for the ring of that truncheon thing
The funny thing is the French elites do not feel any difference. No riots ever affect them. Their children do not get electrocuted while escaping police brutalities. Their socio-economic class does not get adversely affected by misery of urban slum-dwellers who have been systematically segregated (a popular solution approach in whole of Europe today). French governments show concern over increasing poverty and crime rate, but they don’t necessarily relate those two, do not speak of the origin and growth of them and the government’s roles to perp