My teacher is no more. Professor Michael Gurevitch passed away this morning.

As I fight my tears in disbelief, I am also smiling at my various imaginings. In my little world of unbridled imaginations, Prof Gurevitch was Woody Allen’s Side Effects and head of McLuhan’s Global Village. He was the moderator of the noise in my world of blogs. He was the caricaturist of the planet myspace. Prof Gurevitch was the professor without the difficult words. He was the guide with the greatest wits. He was a scholar who knew his roots. A teacher ever willing to learn. He was the one who I always wanted to emulate. And I shall always do.

So what if he is no more in this world? Certainly, he will be missed terribly by his most loving family; he is going to be missed on the corridors of the College in Maryland by his colleagues. He is also going to be missed at the committee meetings and classrooms by the graduate students, no doubt.

But more importantly, it is his presence that will be felt forever as media studies will continue to be researched upon. It is his contributions to global comparative analysis that will help shape future perceptions as the world shrinks even further. It is Professor Gurevitch’s staunch refusal to limit to the dichotomies that will pave the way for eliminations of schools of thoughts in a deeply divided world of media theories.

And personally for me, he shall reside in my mind and heart, in my pen and keyboard, in my thoughts and actions, than he will ever likely to be missed.

Before I attended the very first class with him, it was my beloved professor, Dr John W Cordes who offered me an introduction. So deeply in love with Prof Cordes’ class that I was, I was slightly apprehensive of leaving the room for the next. Prof Cordes asked me, “Whose class is next?” I said, “Dr Gurevitch’s”. I remember very vividly the reply given by Prof Cordes: “Oh is it? I am so jealous and you are all so fortunate that you shall now be attending to a lecture by Michael!”.

Prof Cordes is always a man of very few words. Although intensely philosophical at heart, he is always concise, and although deeply theoretical, he spoke s a little. And yet, when he offered such a rich tribute to a living professor that one usually reserves for the legends and myths, I could not wait any longer to meet with Prof Gurevitch.

The professor at the Media Theory class was not visibly impressive. He was not dressed in a suit. He was not articulate in his words. He was not polite enough to be the quintessential gentleman. He was not elite enough to be a full professor of a research university. On the contrary, he was the most casual presence in the classroom. He was extremely sarcastic when it came to most thoughts. He was the one who would turn the student’s question upside down and then ask the student what is meant by turning a question upside down.

For Prof Gurevitch, asking the question was not enough. Asking the right questions was crucial. Watching the TV was not inducing violence. Getting afraid of the televised cops was. Presidential elections were not important enough to be in the media. Media were more important for the presidential candidates to continue the fanfare. Would violence stop if there were no video games? Would everyone be so obsessed with their presidents if the television attended to more important issues?

Is it the driver or the bus that’s saying hello to you when you step inside? Why are people so polite in their interactions? Is it because the society is so highly segmented so as to lead to instrumental relationships? Are we gossiping more about the celebrities than our neighbors? No, gossiping is not bad. We have just been overlooking the scene outside the windows, if at all we open it once in a while.

Prof Gurevitch was equally sarcastic of the ideologies. And no, the ideologies were not in the communist countries. When media focus on President Bush, they are doing the duty of presidential coverage. Why are media considered unfree when they focus on the presidents in a totalitarian regime in those countries?

If media are supposed to make us informed citizens, we can ask how well do they perform their role. Perhaps we can test the people if they are well informed, and the professor would chuckle to himself. Then he would be generous to the ambitious freethinking scholars and say that the level of information and level of informed people perhaps do not provide the required comparative scale, but they merely show there is a disconnect somewhere.

Does the disconnect start at the dining room? Why is it that in the American society, sanctity of privacy is so highly regarded that the public sphere almost goes amiss? Why should people discuss politics over food when they can rather watch television? How different is it in a country like Cuba where people watch televisions in communities? Is it a good thing that people cannot afford individual TV sets? What have we done to community radio? How do we know what the housewives feel as a collective experience? Is there a distinction between citizens and consumers? If the democracy needs citizens, do we have a democracy existing today? Have the media not turned us all into consumers? Why do students remain silent inside the libraries? Why is there a “Do not Talk” signboard at a place where debates must naturally should take place?

Prof Gurevitch was never short of questions. When he asked me what was my blog all about, I asked him to go through it. He stressed that he does not even have any interest to write emails to people. He does not believe cell phones are tools of liberation. And yet, the next time I saw him after that was at an informal gathering of bloggers. I walked upto him to pay him respect and give some company as he was the only old man conspicuous by his presence sitting by the corner leaving few empty benches ahead of him. He said he was there to feel the pulse of the blogs. “Can you lend me the video you took of the blog conference you said you had attended in Washington DC last month?”

Prof Gurevitch decided to remain in my committee. Yes the dissertation is about the blogs, but I shall address the issues of noise, he said. I was absolutely thrilled and remained grateful. I am yet to know if the blogs are the vehicles of some sort of liberation, or some sort of noise, but among many words of wisdom that I have learned from Prof Gurevitch, I ever so closely remember the most is his note of caution to me: “Do everything that you must, but take a pause once in a while in life’s journey and look back. Who knows, you might discover you were wrong in some ways. Then move forward again.”

Prof Gurevitch’s own life was a saga of pause and play. In an academic world of strict schools of thoughts, he had to choose his sides only to later disown them gracefully. Earning a doctoral degree through quantitative empirical analysis only to show merits of theoretical qualitative scholarship later. A Marxist scholar who would on more occasion than one publicly deny the allegation. As the Howard Zinn of the media studies in my view, Prof Gurevitch was deeply saddened by the orthodoxy and elitism pervading the Marxist scholarship today. To the classroom he would often digress from Marx and go beyond to Hegel, and as my good fortune, he would then think for a while and say, “hmm..Saswat would have a clue about Hegel, I am sure”.

He knew throughout of my spiritual and emotional love for Karl Marx and Marxist-Leninist philosophies. He was never the one to dismiss the merits of a system that many in American academia swear has failed. He was more concerned about the collective amnesia regarding the constant failure of the democracy that is being heralded as a success. Democracy was a failure in the US as glaringly as it was in India. Who are the ones researching about it? I brought to him texts that were apolitical in many ways to walk the safe lanes. He instead brought his notepad and wrote down the names of the scholars I had proposed. Gayatri Spivak was one of the many he would subsequently go to read about. Feminism was not the solution, and film studies he would stay clear of, but like the blogs, his initial resistance was not so much a denial of his want, as to test how well committed were the arguments in favor of various schools. Once convinced of the arguments, he would go one step further to provide support. I remember clearly how on the day of defense of my Comprehensive examination he asked me in the end, “I am going to ask you a question that I have not asked anyone before.” I was naturally most curious and very apprehensive. He then went on to say, “Frame a question yourself that you would like to answer because you think the question is important, and then answer it yourself.” I was stunned, and delighted at the same time. Was it not just the greatest compliment I had ever received in my life? Or was it perhaps the most difficult question I had ever faced? Either way, it was a lesson I shall always cherish in life, and a wisdom I shall pass along as I keep growing up.

Prof Gurevitch had a sarcasm towards the so-called free society that never really left him. He knew well that the free society was free depending on how much means of freedom one owns. Closer home, he knew how free he was in the classroom depended on how much was he going to be allowed to be. Even with his public shyness from academic radicalism, he often was branded in political terms. In the entire University of Maryland Systems, he was the most qualified of the professors to be offered the least compensation for his contributions. A couple of years back when I had checked into the public disclosure of annual salaries of the university community, most faculty members who were not even full Professors were being paid three times more the amount than Prof Gurevitch himself. Not that he ever discussed why it was so, but he certainly alluded to the fact that even the professors in the free society needed to buy themselves some grants as well. These are the times when there are way less grants for critical studies research, and lot more funding for administrative researches. In this world of unnecessarily positive fancies, where undergrad students would much rather hear of a beautiful career of television anchoring than learn about media monopolies and exploitations, it was only natural that critical media scholarship was about to slowly go defunct.

A former colleague of the legendary Stuart Hall, Prof Gurevitch relentlessly continued his scathing yet constructive attack on the corporate media and conclusively proved that “Media Studies” was not about studying media alone, it was about ripping apart the media as well. Media have always been active agents of the ruling classes everywhere in the world. It is time to honestly critique their roles and needs. Prof Gurevitch in his inimitable wit suggested a website in the classroom during the time none of us had an idea it existed. Nakednews.com is also a media, in fact it offers the very latest news, except that it is more candid about the fetishism surrounding television news. We laughed, but learned it to be true as well.

Amidst the laughter and learning processes, there are millions of words he spoke, and spoke well. Thousands of examples he offered that brought life to a field yet to be systematized. Evidences he suggested which brought to surface the reality that human beings are not scientific, how can the media be?

And beneath all his teachings, and erudite research, he was forever a simple man who had good words to say about different cultures, a winning way to speak with the students, a collegial comrade to his beloved college. And as I recollect the person who perhaps was closest to him in academia in his later years, Prof Kathy McAdams, saying to me, “Did you just take a class with Michael? Did you not simply love him?” I realize that not only have I been so fortunate as having attended his class, I have always and shall continue to love him as a human being I have been proud to have known in this life.

Tags: Saswat, Media, Academic, Activism

By Saswat Pattanayak

The recent news that the American government reports regarding Iran’s nuclear activities were motivated and based on systematic lies is no news.

Back in September 2006, the UN had condemned the US reports as false, erroneous and misleading. Vilmos Cserveny, a director of International Atomic Energy Agency had written a letter addressed to Chairman, US House of Representatives, in clear terms saying that the US report “Recognizing Iran as a Strategic Threat: An Intelligence Challenge for the United States” (dated 23rd Aug 2006) contained “erroneous, misleading and unsubstantiated information”.

The UN’s responses to US report as blatantly motivated were subsequently ignored by the corporate media at that point. The biggest news monopolies chose not to highlight this factor even as they went on raising apprehensions of Iran as the threat to world security. And the people of the western “democracies” naturally went ahead to parrot their oppressive ruling class stances. During the war against Afghan people, they had not raised voice because most of their media told them it was just and appropriate. During the war against Iraqi people, the first world citizens indeed voted their war mongering leaders back to power because they again believed in their militarist war reports. And now, when the tirade turned against Iran, they blindly allowed their corporate media to project Iran as the threat to the world security by consuming overwhelming proportions of anti-Iran coverage.

Following UN objections, not taking chances, the western media imperialists combined their joint efforts. AP, Reuters and AFP (the American, British and French media monopolists) circulated a story that was generated by some French racists. Agence France-Presse, whose single point agenda has been to defame the Islamic world reported in March 2007 by reinventing the myths and published a concocted story that a UN inspector had been denied access to Iran. This story found such coinage and credibility that even in his August tour of Columbia University, Iranian president faced questions from the University President, a learned professor, to this regard.

The fact that the Columbia University President not only believed in the news reports published by AFP and circulated through news channels in the US, but also without feeling the need to investigate into the UN responses, decided to harshly question the morality of President of a sovereign country is evidence enough as to what extent the ordinary working class American people are gullible to the so-called news reports distributed by their trusted media. From Fox to CNN channels, from conservative to liberal publications, American media have historically heeded to false reports, at times deliberately to protect their own grounds, and at times incidentally as a matter of “professional” routine.



Before accusing an individual of committing a crime, the law, order, judiciary and media claim to leave no stones unturned. And yet, in cases such as this where a head of a sovereign state was being accused of preventing UN inspection team, no one thought twice before republishing AFP lies.

The very fact that elected representatives of many western demoncracies thrived through the cold war period by implanting devious designs into independent territories, installed atrocious dictators to suppress peoples movements, forcibly colonized half of the world through territorial and economic invasions is enough to raise collective suspicion that the fourth pillar of such malicious structures, the press, must be largely responsible for continuing the legacy of oppression. And yet, the fact that the enlightened western audience, the successors of the renaissance heritage, the alumni of the ivy leagues allow themselves to be vulnerable to their corporate media productions and they become active participants in reproducing the elites of their countries must raise some basic questions:

1. Media Myths: Even after the UN itself denied the US reports alleging violations of UN norms by Iran, hundreds of thousands of American people continued to believe their media editorials as more accurate than the source they were referring to. It is because the myth that media are independent entities (from administrative interference) looms large in western hemisphere. Media outlets be in Communistic countries, or in Capitalistic countries are active agencies of the political system they work within. If under Communism, they propagate the action plans of the Party and raise awareness among people about socialistic policies, under Capitalism, the media propagate the conflicting situation faced by the ruling party in a multiparty competition and raise awareness about the merits of individualistic market economy. The question then is, how long do people have to wait till they can force the hypocritical media agencies to declare their affiliations (financial, political and ideological)?

2. False News: What happens when a world news is distorted entirely and presented in a form that suits the interests of the ruling class, solely to the detriment of the ruled people? It has always happened, but to take instance of the present case, people are well aware that the ordinary lower economic youths were sent to Iraq to be killed in order to serve the financial interests of the ruling elites in Washington. Even as the 9-11 reports manufactured by the US government were proven to be inconsistent with the reality and even as the government itself is accused of having role in the terrorist act, the even used as an excuse to bomb Iraq was propagated as the only recourse by the media outlets. The president was elected twice based on false news reports circulated nationwide under the preposition of Patriotism. In the recent sleight of hand against Iran, the US media designs were once again defeated when the UN also denied the allegations that its inspectors were forbidden by Iran. In such cases, how long do people have to wait till they can demand the ouster of editors from the news outlets they have been subscribing to, which parrot the official lines while claiming to be independent?

3. People Power: The primary goal of having media or bestowing certain privileges upon journalists is to ensure that people have a platform as wide, or wider than the political parties they allow to administer their affairs over. As years pass by, we notice that the contrary appears to be true. People have been losing their right to know the truth, to seek clarifications and to demand actions using the media platforms. Instead, people are meted out with corporate advertisements to allure and seduce them into remaining permanent features of an exploiting market economy that thrives through sweatshop practices, domestic slavery and private monopolies. Media (TV, Radio, Print, and now Internet) in the capitalistic societies have emerged as extremely necessary vehicles for consumeristic voyeurism. Beyond that, the remaining spaces are filled with outright lies, motivated news items and editorial columns that lack historical insights. Peoples’ participation has possibly increased as is evident through emergence of blogs and independent websites, but most of them anyway rely on the available news items to generate a comment. Hence, the conversation largely then remains within those groups of people that create and recreate the myths in various permutations. The question then is, how long will people have to wait till they can force their governments to restrict corporate advertisements and instead promote popular participation through activism journalism—the only way people power can be transmitted and translated?

Some of my concerns are philosophical in nature. Indeed, probably all are. But if we continue to ignore the roots of our collective human thoughts that’s getting increasingly conformist over the years by remaining content within the parameters of what is provided, than questions over what is required, then possibly we shall be leaving a deeply uncritical and acquiescing world for the future.

Tags: Saswat, Iran, UN, Media, News, Activism

By Saswat Pattanayak

As India (and the world) goes to vote for Taj Mahal tomorrow, an ugly form of patriotism and appreciation has surfaced utilizing a monument declared to be most beautiful by some.

The claim for “seven wonders” (and one wonders why they need to have it to be only seven, and not thirteen, or a hundred) has been reduced to a competitive exercise where people representing their countries exhibit some version of solidarity to showcase monuments that have absolutely nothing in relevance to either the present, or the future.

Moreover, the past--related to sites like the Taj Mahal--also needs to be investigated further before the glorifications continue in a world where human beings have less worth than marble stones.



In our world where visual appeal and exhibitionism is so rampant as to have become a required criterion for assessment of objects, events and people, it is no wonder that huge architectures are recalled with how they merely have been standardized to generate individualist awe, and not with any form of collective remorse.

To mark this day with regret, therefore, I have translated one song which was written more than four decades ago by the great progressive Urdu poet Sahir Ludhianvi. The original poem follows the translated version:

Taj Mahal

For you, Taj Mahal is no less a splendor of love
Amidst the eldritch, obsessed are you with its trove

My beloved! Discover for me yet another place where we can meet!

Grandeur of royal palace is deliberately contrasted
For the commoners; it’s a sordid message so crafted
We mortals have no permit to tread the paths so strewn
With baits to allure us into that maze, to dream to its tune!

Before being inveigled into the royal sparks, my beloved!
You should have descried the mammoth trickery and fraud!
You could have felt the roars of your insignificant abode!

Countless peoples in our world have showered love in abundance
Who can claim their heartfelt love ever lacked sincere affections
But they lacked the means of advertisement, of crude exhibitions
After all, they were like you and I: submitted by birth to cruel situations

This monument, this mausoleum, this unmitigated embankment
These are apparition of regal wealth and unmerited enchantment
For the records of the wretched, these disdainfully antique afflictions
Were erected upon the toil, labor and sweat of many a poor generations

O my beloved! They must indeed have been in love forever
Those that could shape such magnificence by their love’s labor
Yet not a candle is lighted in memory of those that were enslaved
Nor a lamp they could plant to cherish the love of their beloved
This opulent yard, this palatial lap of luxury that marks the ruler
Bedizened with gaudy presence of stately, colossal architecture
It’s merely an act of mockery on part of an autocratic monarch
Who usurping wealth, has smudged the poor, with this indelible mark!

My beloved! Discover for me yet another place where we can meet!

(Trans. by: Saswat Pattanayak, The Peoples' Poet)
----


The original poetry by Sahir Ludhianvi follows:

Taja tere lie eka mazahara-e-ulafata hi sahi
tujha ko isa vadi-e-rangina se aqidata hi sahi
mere mehabuba kahim aura mila kara mujha se

bazama-e-sahi mein gharibom ka guzara kiya maini
sabta jisa raha mein hom satuta sahi ke nisana
usa pe ulafata bhari rahazana ka safara kiya maini
meri mehabuba pase parde tasahira vafa

tune satuta ke nisanom ko to dekha hota
murda sahom ke maqabira se behalane vali
apane tarika makanom ko to dekha hota
anaginata laugom ne duniya mem mauhabbata ki hai
kauna kahata hai ke sadiqa na tha una ke jazabe
lekina una ke liye tasahira ka samana nahim
kyonke vaha lauga bhi apani hi tarah mufalisa the

yaha imarata-va-maqabira ye fasilem ye hisara
matalaqa-ula-hukma sahanasahom ki azamata ke sutum
sina-e-dahara ke nasura haim kahate nasura
jajbe hem una mem tere mere ijadada ka khuna

meri mehabuba, inhem bhi to mauhabbata hogi
jina ki sanai ne bakhasi hai use sakla-e-jamila
una ke piyarom ke maqabira rahe be nama namuda
aja taka ina para jalai na kisi ne qandila
ye chamana zara ye jamana ka kinara, ye mahala
ye munakqasa dara-o-divara ye maharaba ye taqa
ika sahanasaha ne daulata ka sahara le kara
hama gharibom ki mauhabbata ka udaya hai mazaqa

mere mehabuba kahim aura mila kara mujha se

Tags: Saswat, Poem, Media, India, Urdu, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak

In what could be the most visibly grotesque appraisal of monopolistic trends of capitalism, Jeffrey Nelson for Verizon Wireless says, the telecom industry of America is highly competitive. Washington Post quotes him as saying that consumers can choose among numerous handset models and four major providers of cellular services: Verizon, AT&T, Sprint Nextel and T-Mobile. “If you don't like what one company enables,” he said, “find somebody else.”

Perhaps what’s lost on the corporate communicators is the fact that “four major providers” are signs of monopoly, and not of competition. American capitalism is on its path to perfection in the sense of its graduations. In the film production industry, six studios control over 90 percent of theater revenues. The newspaper industry is owned by only six major chains now. Book publishing industry is handled by seven firms and five largest groups account for all major music production in the country.

One may feel nostalgic about the good old days when the situation was not this drastic, and private families were free to own as much as they wanted to since there were communication regulations in place. One may even argue that after the deregulations bills were passed in 1996, things have started looking murkier with consolidations and clustering of firms at the forefront. But I will not debate at that forum.

The fact of the matter is then, and now, we have failed to understand the nature of capitalism to predict its inevitable trends. What the Washington Post article perhaps says could be a tribute to success of cell phone industries elsewhere in the world where more features are available for the users. But again, that’s a matter of relativity in discussion. What is crucial to understand here is neither the features and plans, nor the brand availabilities (although both these factors are attractive on the surface); but the true accessibility of the technology to all concerned.

In the race to have the best of the services limited to the few of us, is there a ceiling on the accessibility of technology? One would perhaps muse that contrary to my apprehensions, technology has become more accessible today than it was few decades back. But that would be to challenge the very nature of the collective course of human actions. Nothing will remain constant and progress is inevitable with collective endeavors at the research, training and development levels. A progress by default is merely a movement in propelled direction. Only a progress that inculcates struggles to uplift common aspirations is of any intrinsic value.

The gifts of technology, by and large have not been shared by the world populace. And in an era of abundant resources at our disposal and accompanying funds to realize many potentials, it should not come as a surprise as to why the distribution of technological assets has failed to earn commendable results.

The answer lies in the pattern of controlled and monopolized territories of technological know-hows and their ownerships. Even where there is an apparent distribution of access, it is owing to the “market demands”, not for human needs. Of course the phrase “market demands” is as elusive as one can get, considering that the market is as real as its proponents make it to be. The demands are “created” out of profit needs riding the waves of accompanying hypes (what they call in more civilized sense as ‘advertising&rsquo.

In this backdrop then it should come as no surprise to us when we see the entire media industry of America are dominated by three understanding, friendly (as long as they don’t consolidate further) mini empires called Time Warner, Disney and NewsCorp. There are scores of other rulers who are defined as new media monopolists by several research scholars and to avoid the academic traps I will not dwell on them. But just as a pointer to the issue than covering it comprehensively, I am deliberating here on the obvious questions we may need to scratch the surface for:

Cooperative economies have produced immense technological benefits. For instance, the erstwhile soviet system did produce the ultimate scientific progresses we have attained thus far: our exploration of the space. And yet we are ever so ready to dismiss the method while reaping the benefits claiming our consumerist society (where getting enslaved to market lures holds the key) as more conducive an environment for technological progress than the socialist society (where minimum standards defined lives of scientists and farmers alike—a notion entirely lost to the imagination of class society pundits).

However, without questioning the merits of competition and fairness --they are different concepts unfortunately, and no matter how soothing it may sound to some liberal economists, there is no such thing as ‘fair competition’ except in their utopian lexicon—one can safely preclude any form of competition from the capitalistic society.

Coming back to the Verizon staff, the four major telecom giants have a history of throttling competitions on their necks and emerging as “giants” than mere fellow traveling companies. The accompanying limitations of power-sharing are also mutually understood notions. The fact that they are monopolists fooling an entire country in a way Lincoln clearly knew-- although he once said briefly you could not fool everyone all the time—is best paraphrased by Verizon’s best friend (in the press of course they are rivals and what-not) AT&T:

“This whole issue is a giant red herring. This is a fiercely competitive industry which has grown almost entirely through the force of competition in the marketplace, more innovative devices and services, and continually lower prices.” (AT&T spokesman Mark Siegel.)

If Verizon and AT&T are right, then the rest of us must be fools for sure. The question is for how long this grand Ayn Randian narrative of capitalism-as-citadel-of-competition will be believed? And for how long our media will report these as problems with “four major providers”, and not as inevitable consequence of capitalism?

Perhaps when our media wont be corporate themselves anymore. Well, that’s the point!

Tags: Saswat, Capitalism, USA, Economics, Media, Technology

By Saswat Pattanayak

New York Times is as liberal as one can get. Dutifully criticizing the intelligence of Bush administration, it venerates the need of White House warnings. Elitism be dead. Long live the elites!

Regarding the much touted North Korean nuclear programs, the most trusted Daily editorializes:

“The North Koreans had and have an illicit nuclear arms program..... If that’s not bad enough, consider some frightening truths. There is no doubt that Iran is moving ever closer to mastering the skills it will need to produce the fuel for a nuclear weapon — and blithely defying the Security Council’s demand that it stop. But even America’s closest European allies have little stomach for a showdown with Tehran, while Russia and China have strong economic incentives to look the other way. Which means that Washington is the only one left out there to warn the world about the dangers of a nuclear-capable Iran. Make no mistake: there are real and present dangers out there. But who still believes warnings from this White House?”

Ooops...did we read that right? Of the liberal press claims about the need for warning from Washington. Yes, there are “real and present dangers” as NYT suggests, but a cursory look at current international relations would suffice to hand over the warrants to “in here” before warning us of dangers “out there”.

Iraq, Iran, North Korea are apparently the insane, mad, barbaric, and dangerous countries because they have a nuclear agenda where they do not seek blessings of the western powers, rendering their programs to be of some unproven sort. So unproven that, when CIA’s lies gets caught. the national media then treat it as a side story of no consequence, performing its role as fourth estate accomplice. And yet, America and the big powers of Europe are clearly the divine lots in the nuclear club since they are the pronounced pundits of nuclearism!

Along with the McDonaldization of hegemonic ideas, other normalizing factors numbing one’s intelligence at this juncture relates to this all-illusive nuclear club. What exactly is this holy alliance all about? What would lead a smart, informed team of editors at newspapers like NYT not to mention for once that, whereas it is highly deplorable that we underestimate the nuclear agenda of potential N-club members, it is equally imperative that the founding members and board members of this club first be warned about their aggrandizing status as unchecked war-mongers. That, there is no such thing as “illicit” nuclear program, and “legal” nuclear program, and the press has a certain sense of responsibility to uphold fairness before reinforcing such stereotypes that apply the western countries in one manner and the uncouth ones in another (illicit) way. Had United Nations given permission to the existing club members to build nuclear weapons, let alone go to war against sovereign countries?

That, the “real and present dangers” are not so much in suspected quarters of ravished Iraq, enraged Iran or taunted North Korea, as they are in evident military business operations of the very country houses New York Times, and that unashamedly continues to harass occupied territories, whose officers are charged with countless rapes on hapless and innocent citizens, and which refuses to even lower its defense budget in view of its utter failure to prove its legality, claims and whose intents to warn countries before invading them is by itself malapropos.

Its not a “Suddenly Convenient Truth” regarding North Korea that rattles NYT. Indeed, quite the contrary. Such criticism of Bush administrations are suddenly convenient perspectives taken for sake of partisan comforts in an opportunistic parliamentary democracy. The inconvenient truth perhaps was uttered by Albert Camus decades back: “I would like to love my country and still love justice”.

Tags: Saswat, Korea, USA, Media, Capitalism

By Saswat Pattanayak




Click on the video above to watch Michael “Kramer” Richards speak on last Friday, as the audience enjoys a hearty laugh. In fact they were so enjoying that Richards was not stoned or kicked out. He went on to get exclusive interviews on television channels, entirely unharmed. No, the interviews were not conducted in some dingy prison cells, but atop celebrity couches for CNN consumption. The great mainstream media melting pot even aired him as he went on continuing with his racist unapologetic mode: “I'm not a racist. That's what's so insane about this.”

What had he said at the first place that he found those objecting to him were actually the insane people?

"Shut up! "Fifty years ago we'd have you upside down with a fucking fork up your ass."

"You can talk, you can talk, you're brave now motherfucker. Throw his ass out. He's a nigger! He's a nigger! He's a nigger! A nigger, look, there's a nigger!"

Politics of apology is a prerogative of the privileged. After all, the essentially underlying presumption is normalization of situation. In fact, apologies are the soothing weapons of the smooth criminals.

Michael Richards aka Kramer of the “Seinfeld” is another one in the line, following the horrible footsteps of Mel Gibson. No, I am not outraged that these celebrities became honest about how utterly inhumanely and disgustingly racists they were. But certainly outraged that these bigots are still at large in the society hogging the fancy of thousands of their young fans clearly as misguided missiles as are the Aryan sisters called “Prussian Blue”, about whom I wrote last year.

I am clearly outraged that the white supremacist society has yet not found a solution to teach itself some decent lesson in human dignity even after its long evolution as it claims, other than letting some liberal middlemen hosting quick subsequent apology shows to forgive evil intentions as some form of accidental lip-slips.

Was I hoping any better than this? Are we all hoping that the Congressmen will suddenly behave better than corrupt jerks preaching moralist pronouncements of the sexist church order? Are we hoping that the Hollywood will eventually make better movies than pathetically dumb discourse called Crash and the television stars will become any better than this sick, deafeningly sick, Michael Richards? Or that our educational institutes will finally stop bullshitting us about how World War II ended with bombing of Japan and that Ronald Reagan “apologized” a bit too late. Or that we shall be treated to some charming Oprah any better than announcing that “Dreamgirls” is the movie she loves because its made for all people irrespective of their economic class! Aha!

No, I am not expecting miracles here. For the most, the way the television culture has depraved us, a movie or a performer only remains to be graded in terms of recognition and awards. Will she win Oscars? An entirely uncritical society resting on laurels of backdoor promotional competitions to shape its yardsticks of appreciation will only be able to reflect in its churned out “talents”, its own true self.

Michael Richards is not some self-made TV star. He is not some celebrity on his own merit. He is just one of us. He is there at that stage, because we put him there to entertain us. Because most of us actually laughed like sick saddists without applying our critical minds to the television culture. Every evening, this country (and following it, most in the rest of the world) telecasts stupid comedy shows that runs late into the late night with special comedy shows, apparently by liberal by names of Stewarts and Lopezs too. There are dedicated channels and prominent companies producing “stand-up comedies” 24/7. The culture of humor in capitalistic marketplace is the most potent ingredient to normalize the otherwise actual tension that prevails in the society.

Humor as capitalistic agent of illusive consensus:

Racial tensions are not some exaggerated fictionalized accounts of hyped media reports. They are for real. In fact, in every racist country from Britain to France, they are the only things that’re real. Denial of privilege and race-blindness is the prerogative of the few elites representing the historically oppressing racial category that manufactures the divisions to distinguish humans on basis of color skin. One would have wished the Apartheid ended. One would have perhaps also imagined that the black issues were resolved following desegregation. But wishes and hopes do not make a society run.

The reality is that the racial tensions are necessary consequence of free trade capitalism. It is capitalism that’s the creator of racism through its patriarchal control of private property by means of subjugating human beings as slaves to further the profit consolidation of the masters class. In fact, for capitalism to grow and further its own interests, racism needs to be furthered too. New forms of racism will take place of old forms of racism, just as credit cards are replacing old cash circulation. But the essential implementation of divide and rule will forever remain the cornerstone for the wealth-grabbers to stay in power over those that earlier used to remain as slaves, and now as freemarket consumers. Earlier they were house slaves, today they are software slaves. Difference is in the degrees.

Likewise, earlier the subjugation of society used to take place through sheer brutal force. As the levels of sophistication increased, the territorial conquests were replaced by imperialistic expansions. And these days, via more implicitly sophisticated means such as words defined by the masters’ dictionaries as soothing: words such as liberty, democracy, family, happiness, elections, television, comedies and organic food.

So what we have is the culture of comedies in the most obnoxious of places. In the most inappropriate settings. During the most pathetic times. Never in the history of humanity, so many people of the world felt so very helpless at their inability to prevent wars of mass destructions launched by the most unqualified of people to assume leaderships. And yet during days like these, the television shows and comedy films are making the biggest of business. During a time when the entertainment industry should have been focusing on agitating the people through critical education about their role in reversing world order, we have all the world television channels owned by five old men and the film industries run by people like Tarantinos (another N-word hyperactivist). And all of them have readymade shows to make people stay relaxed. How will we know if we need to be relaxed? The celebrities tell us when is the time to relax and how to feel relaxed after undergoing body jobs. How we shall know this is the time to laugh? The background clap sequences on comedies will ask us to laugh along the scenes. Such perversity of underestimation of collective human intelligence is a compelling tale of how far have we regressed in our movements.

What to do with Michael Richards?

Nothing. Ideally he should be jailed for "fifty years with a fork up on his ass". That’s the minimum verdict that he deserves. But that’s not even a portion of what we must all undergo if we envisage our future as active agents of humanity, and not some remote controlled passive recipients of messages and bullets.

All of us must daily observe a couple of hours introspecting about our own inactions, apathy, indifference, involvement and withdrawal from the largely racist world that has been a direct creation as a result of our collective indecisiveness. While at it, we must realize that we need to be as honest with ourselves as Richards and Gibson were with themselves, not just when we are angry, but throughout the 24 hours everyday. If overcoming the deep love for our own dominant supremacist race at the cost of degrading those we oppressed becomes too difficult, we must be prepared to die the way that abominable creature and our racist epitome called Hitler ended his life. We don’t need another television show which the neo-nazis like Michael Richards pay to apologize. We need Richards and his likes to be forced to introspect and change. And if they do not “amend”…..Well, they better amend.

I wish I could say all that I wanted to. But unlike some elite white folks in this country and their counterparts in much of Europe, I certainly do not enjoy "Hate Speech" privilege anyway. And neither do I want to enjoy any of this. Good for them.

Tags: Saswat, Media, Racism, USA, Technology, Capitalism

Got this from Dr TSB of the media blog Drums in the Global Village.


Hey, Folks -

Yup, the first 6 hours of EYES ON THE PRIZE will, finally, be re-broadcast nationally on PBS’ “The American Experience” on the first three Mondays in October (Oct. 2, 9, 16) at 9:00 pm (check local listings). They’ll air 2 hours each Monday.

Hour 1 - “Awakenings” (1954-1965) — Emmett Till and Montgomery Bus Boycott

Hour 2 - “Fighting Back” (1957-62) — School Desegregation, including Little Rock and ‘Ol Miss.

Hour 3 - “Ain’t Scared of Your Jails” (1960-61) — Sit-ins and Freedom Rides

Hour 4 - “No Easy Walk” (1961-63) — Albany, Ga; March on Wash.; Birmingham

Hour 5 - “Mississippi: Is This America? (1962-64) — Medgar Evers and Miss. Freed. Summer

Hour 6 - “Bridge to Freedom” ( 1965) - Selma March

**Important - PBS is waiting to see the audience response to the first series before it commits to air the 2nd EYES series(8 hours). Though the first series is really inspirational, it is the 2nd series that is most relevant to the issues we’re dealing with today: the war; growing gap between rich and poor, etc. (It’s in the 2nd series that you see footage of the Dr. King speech in which he calls for “a radical redistribution of economic power.&rdquo It’s also in the 2nd series that you get the murder of Black Panthers Fred Hampton and Mark Clark in Chicago, the establishment of COINTELPRO, and the Attica Rebellion.

So, it would be great if folks would call their PBS station and let them know you: a) appreciate seeing the first series again and b) hope they’ll also air the second series.

Both the first AND second series will be available on VHS and DVD through PBS Video — but ONLY as institutional sales — no home video.

Thanks!
- judy
(Judy Richardson)

Tags: Saswat, History, Black Power, Racism, USA, Media

By Saswat Pattanayak

I am unsure if Shakespeare had such premonitions engulfing his worst tragedies, but the Hindu superpower India with its proud “economic growth rates” has been forcing me to wonder if we are missing the coming signs of the times. The tell-tales are here, the hints of misfortune are looming large, the sustained oppression by the Indian state on its peoples with “foreign aids” is rampant. And yet somewhere since last couple of years a major chunk of world’s geographical region is dancing away at a maddening pace, drinking the drink of its blood and dancing the dance of its death.

The world’s largest democracy is also the biggest booming free market economy. With exception to no other land today, the enthusiasm of the urban youths of India has emerged pure, and unbridled. The mass popular culture of subservient bollywood films, inferior diaspora literatures and profit hungry mainstream media have a projection of jubilance, of multifarious vibrancy in social lives that’s almost instantaneously appealing. In no contrast, the elite high class societal circles are doing their Manhunts, race courses and business parties, relatively different in degrees since they were upto the social mischiefs even decades before the educated mass had its date with ‘freedom’.

Far too often this comfortable dichotomy of mass/class paradigm finds entry into the social consciousness. Whether the cart drives the horse or the horse does it becomes a redundant issue so long as the movements occur for both. In economics, its called a trickling down effect of the riches of the rich which the rest have a privilege to enjoy depending on which ladder of the hierarchy are they located at the time of the rain.

What’s super ironic at such junctures of “progress” in any society based on the premise of those who define the progress is that the ladder is usually placed upon a pedestal to begin with. That is, the hierarchy of profiteers does not begin with the ground, but with the elevated first step that misses the dirt and the wretched entirely before the stepping up can take place.

These dirt of India, entirely absent from global long-term memory are the peasants of the country who hold the ground, but who do not feel the trickles falling on them. Remember how during the natural disasters, helicopters throw relief goods targeted at some places which are usually devoid of women and children. And even when the women and children are present, somehow they don’t succeed at running for the food packets because they are busy holding the grounds under thatched roof, doubly oppressed by the central governments and their oppressive patriarchal custodians. Case against the peasants is almost similar. In a predominantly agrarian economy like India, ever since its “independence”, the ruling class has acted like patriarchs while overstepping and conveniently ignoring them on its way to new heights of power.

Not that, anything else was expected of the ruling elites class characters. Systematically suppressing every peasant rebellion in India during the British rule, the rulers (kings, british, and Indian elites) promised non-violent glories in place of revolutionary emancipation. Although the different strands of national struggle for liberation against the colonialists needed to find support among the larger revolutionary masses, the people were half sensitized about the nature of the national struggles engaged in by a faction of elites who surely fought the foreign power, but also because they wanted to hold onto their own.

Five year plans in India were formerly known to be based on a socialistic desire to industrialize the country soon after the British were shown the door. But instead, the plans with every phase systematically were fine-tuned to improve the lot of the secondary and tertiary sectors at the cost of the primary. This suited the class characters of the ruling elites of course, but what’s more distressing is that it was accepted almost unequivocally as a “progress” for the country which housed more than 80% peasants, that constituted as much percentage of below poverty line populace for the whole country.

Agrarian Crisis Continues:

Agrarian crisis in India are nothing new. Indeed, without any effort to bring the peasantry back to cultural fold, the homegrown capitalists of India have only heightened the crisis with every passing phase. As a result, what we have today is indiscriminate murders of peasants of India. Forcing them to lead lives without a sense of human dignity or basic standards of life, they have been forced to take extreme steps. While some have invariably joined the naxal movements to raise up arms against the Indian state, many are killed by the state power structure.

The media, the maneuvered toy of the Indian capitalists plays the corporate tune at such mass genocide committed by Indian state. More than 800 peasants have been killed in this kharif season alone. The Indian media not only portray these heroic submission to state atrocities as “suicides”, it also pities the deaths. The world must remember that the peasants who are dying every day in India are not committing “suicides”. Indeed, suicides are reactionary steps taken voluntarily by people weak by their willpower. Indian peasants have been among the most brave lot of all peoples of the world when one considers the British oppressions and Indian government atrocities upon them. Despite that, the peasants have carried on with unmatched courage to face the “man-made” disasters perpetrated upon them by the ruling class. If now there have been deaths subsequent to this, just as there are everytime following artificial famines, its not because of their inability to pay off debts, its because of the state power machine inflicting deadly repressive measures against them in particular.

Suicide Pathology of the Elites:

Indian intelligentsia, pathetically devoid of critical reflections have been allowing the corporate media to thrive on assumptions about the citizens. Firstly, there have been no suicides in Vidarbha. Suicides are caused by people themselves. These deaths of peasants are state-aided murders.

Ramu Bhagwat’s report in an unforgivable mistake of Indian fourth estate called, The Times of India, is headlined “3 farmers kill selves; toll 200 in 2 months”. Even after an effete shame of a prime minister by the name of Manmohan Singh visited Dhamangaon village with empty rhetoric which made him famous at Oxford last year, these farmers died because they were unable to repay Rs 13,000 to State Bank of India. That’s how much for two farmers lives? Remember its less than $300. Or in Indian urban class value today, less than half of what a first IT job gets a teenager in a month.

The government of India gleefully enjoying its power trip has not resigned following hundreds of murders it commits on its poor by forcing them to death, because it clearly has no morality. Its opposition, the absolutely brazen right wing coalitions, who at the first place assisted their private business funders to cause price hikes is also unabashed in its hypocrisy. But the worse, the Indian media and the watchdogs of so-called democracy are continually harping on their masters’ tunes by calling deaths as suicides, as though it were the fault of the farmers, and lulling the rest of India into web of ignorance.

That, people have expressed disgust at Manmohan Singh’s promises which has not even helped them to gather little money to sow seeds after saplings were washed away by rain, has been completely lost on the mainstream perception. That if one contextualizes the background of peasant crisis in India, one will realize that this is no sudden aberration on part of teeming millions of peasants but a continuation of systematic exploitation unleashed upon them specifically during the days of the British and during anti-people regimes of Indian state which decidedly started favoring private industries at cost of public cooperatives. And most importantly, that the Indian journalists and researchers are not entirely ignorant of the agrarian crisis and the stoic silence around the issue which is a great socio-political crisis of neo-liberal India.

Despite the social significance of the struggle of the peasants against the Indian state, the self-professed enlightened young and old analysts have decided to treat the deaths as some personal deviance. Indeed, since suicide is a cognizable offence under the law, perhaps the peasants have been declared as criminals by the media experts.

Pathetic pity of indifferent experts:

Take a look at NDTV. Just like Times of India, this mainstream grapevine has a report by Supriya Sharma who proposes that the “suicide epidemic of this scale should be seen and treated as a crisis of mental health”. Indeed she goes on to interview a psychiatrist to trace the etiology. Whereas psychiatry is not such a despicable path to solutions, after all, that the media have a habit of finding problems elsewhere than where it is most obvious is something worth reflecting over. Dr Patil, the subject of Sharma’s study says of a farmer “patient”: “He lost his crop due to the rains. Last year he lost his crop because there were no rains. So for the last 2-3 years he consecutively lost money. So he got depressed.”

She goes on to report:

"When a farmer is in distress, if we could call doctors from Akola or a government official, he feels someone is there to listen to him. And if no one listens, he may feel ignored and contemplate suicide," said a local.

All the cases are a grim encounter that reinforces the fact that the sprt in suicide cases in the region should be seen and treated as a crisis of mental health.

Journalists like Sharma are no simplicists, indeed no reductionists either. They are even literate to the point that they find a need to complicate the situation further to understand it better, in a perfectly academic fashion. But what happens in the process is that their limitations guide their intuition than their grounding in social history of the people they survey. As a result, the superficial flourishes, the blame-game continues at the most trivial manner and the headlines surge them to promotions since they systematically let the system go do its own brutalization even as people are “treated” for mental illnesses.

Oppressors’ aids for the brutalized people:

I will not delve into the other pathetic media stances where the need for peasant revolution for today’s India has been dismissed abjectly to the extent that there is no such mention to begin with. The kinds of questions that are being raised are only sufficiently complimenting the kinds of answers the corporate nation of India today seeks. For example, the conscientious journalists like Rajdeep Sardesai through their media request donations to help farmers by using heart-rending pictures. Tax-exemptions for the rich are obviously on the offing. Sardesai and his likes receive huge accolades for their so-called social concern, to “help the needy”. And the guilt-free doners go back to business of furthering their oppressions.

The cyclic amnesia of the Indian elites while it comes to dealing with their own crimes, (which they translate as peasant suicides) is beyond mere reproach. These are punishable offences that the elites must be taken to task for. Equitable distribution of wealth is not a role of some politicians sitting high on an elected platform. This takes place only through organized revolution by the oppressed classes against the feudal lords of India (who by mistake presume they are some advanced capitalist class, even as they continue to practice the most extreme form of casteism,—Karan Thapar was pronouncedly against the Dalits when it came to reservation issue, for example—sexism,--corporate houses washed their hands off for the murder of HP female employee at the dead of the night, and class society—the division between the rich and the poor has never been so widely marked ever before in the history of India—some people talking of donation of crores of rupees, and most other sell their children for paltry sums on astonishingly regular rate as in states like Orissa.

What we need at the moment is to organize the farmers to demand not aid, but reparation. The peasants of India in the past have upstaged the royal families, they have forced the colonialists out through mass uprisings, and now they need to get rid of the new feudal class of India, the class of oppressors who have been systematically making way for capitalism in India, to make gains for their own class interests, and detrimentally working against the farmers who have been rendered without food, housing and education, far too much, far too long. The feudal ruling elites of India did not demand reparations from the British and facilitated their comfortable exits so that they would continue from where their masters had left. But the peasants and farmers and working class of India must gather up all their might to ensure reparation for the exploitation they have been unleashed upon. And nothing less than an organized revolution by the most oppressed will replace the course of history.

Do not call their sacrifices suicides as yet. They are the martyrs of a feudal India in protest against the elitist rule in their name carried on by confessed agents of imperialism. And these ruling class of liberal politicians, conservative religious cults, their police, military, nuclear regime, and media stooges will be forced to tremble.

Watch out for the wrath of the wretched!

Tags: Saswat, Economics, India, Capitalism, Communism, Media

By Saswat Pattanayak

In a large-scale human tragedy today, a series of bomb blasts in Mumbai has taken lives of more than 150 people. However, these blasts are no aberrations for the financial capital of India. Mumbai—a city governed by Hindu right-wing fanatics of India—has faced such calamities several times in the recent past.

What’s unique about the blasts in the western India –Gujarat and Maharashtra—is their etiology. Invariably all the blasts have been religious in nature, targeted to create heightened communal tension in the region. And today was no different.

So, if communal violences have such a pattern of occurrence and regularity in frequency, how is it that the administrations turn conveniently indifferent towards their recurrence? Who are benefited in the process?

The usual suspects:
“Terrorists” is one-word explanation given as being the perpetrators for every systematic violence these days. Of course, this word has gained coinage and credibility through the usage by the ruling class. What is important to note here is that the more one uses this word, the more one tends to align with the interests of the ruling class.

A violation to the law and order necessarily is handiwork of the people who desire instability. Without going into the logistics regarding needs of instability (which could be desirable for various reasons too), one can assume that the ruling power draws sympathy wave from people by projecting an ‘external’ element to be cause of innocent peoples’ deaths. Interestingly, the structural instability actually happens only with killing of the politicians, whereas their structural “stability” takes place when innocent lives are lost!

Of course, it usually happens during the days when the ruling powers are apparently most unstable themselves. By every account, any war in the world is also caused at times of uncertainty for the ruling powers. Think of any cold war interventions by the US (spread of communism was the factor), or later on Clinton in Yugoslovia (Monica Lewinsky) or Bush in Iraq (September 11 orchestration). Or take for account, India’s own trysts with regional instability resulting in massive operations in Assam, Punjab, and Kashmir.

More often than not, these take shape of communal violence (just as every war has been fought by religious fanatics). In India, bomb blasts in Maharashtra or genocide in Gujarat are cases of Hindu fanatics attacking Muslim minorities in the name of their own misplaced insecurities.

Misplaced Insecurities:
In the past, the allegations by Hindu Mafia of India against the Muslims were based on myths such as: “Muslim population is increasing in rapid pace to overtake Hindu majority”, “Muslims of India are Pakistani loyalists, and since Pakistan is an enemy state, Muslims must be declared so too” etc. Practicing neo-nazi tactics of training Hindu youths to take up violent means to eliminate Muslims from India, the Hindu militant groups have traditionally enjoyed quite a presence. From propagandizing religions in school education (Saraswati Vidya Mandir) to promote Hindu businesses (Swadeshi Jagran Manch), the right-wingers of India have stopped at nothing in overcoming their insecurities.

Clearly all these insecurities of Hindus fundamentalists have led to loss in lives and property of Muslims (Gujarati Muslims are usually attacked more, because of their prosperous business) and fellow Hindus (who clearly in majority reject these fanatics except for once when they elected BJP to a considerable tenure). But of course, these tactics are carried out most surreptitiously, and at times with blatant disregard to actual circumstances.

Why Mumbai? Why now?
In continuance with this power ploy, the recent tragedies in Mumbai started since last three days.

First, someone defaced the statue of one woman in Mumbai. But this woman was not BR Ambedkar or for that matter, Mahatma Gandhi. Because in Mumbai, and elsewhere in India, on a regular basis, statues of these two giants of Indian freedom struggle are subjected to desecration.

Ironically, this woman was way more powerful. As the late wife of the Hindu supremacist Bal Thackeray, the figure in statue commanded respect. Hence all political parties instead of looking into maintaining law and order of the state so that no publicly installed statues are defaced, and the ‘actual’ culprits are caught, they came forward to apologize for the shameful incident.

The sainiks, allegedly representing the majority religion of India, decided to react in their traditional manner: in a purely Hindu supremacist way. So none less that the executive president of the party (whose mother’s statue this was) decided to take law into his own hands. He declared proudly: “If derogatory cartoons appearing in a newspaper in far-off Denmark can have repercussions in India, this incident is bound to provoke reactions from Shiv Sainiks.”

What a shame!

First off, no one knows who defaced the statue. In all possibility, it might have been a handiwork by the right wing plotters themselves. The desecration took place in wee hours of early morning. The police in Mumbai say the incident took place when there was no activity on the street. In other words, it was not an organized effort by motivated party. To further incite tensions, an empty tourist bus from Gujarat was burnt down in front of the Hindu bosses’ office. It was also found out that this could have been a result of short-circuit, and not done by any motivated party.

Mumbai Joint Commissioner (Police) Arup Patnaik said, “Video footage suggests that the flames started inside, so we are also probing whether it could have been caused by a short circuit. Our priority is to quell the disturbances and maintain order.” The police said they had no leads on the incident that sparked off the day’s disturbances.

So basically, there was no reason to suspect that any Muslim groups or “terrorists” or Pakistan might have been behind such incidents. On the contrary, going by the way, the statue was chosen (to rouse sentiments), the bus came from Gujarat (Hindu violent prone state) and the location (Shiv Sena office), one could investigate the hands of the Sainiks in these events.

But, even as the state police clearly said they had absolutely “no lead”, the leader of the fanatic party declared a war. Throughout the state, widespread violence was let loose. Thackeray, after visiting the spot, told reporters that there was likely to be “ramifications”.
The dark humor
When the majority religions take stock of the situation, the communal racism just takes over. Because of the sheer majority of people that lead the war, they confidently go on attacking like mad dogs. Such rampage has been going in India since decades now.

Just three days back when on July 9, Thackeray warned the country that severe reactions from Shiv Sainks was inevitable, one was apprehending the attacks. Unfortunately it turned out to be even more serious. Closely on the heels of the attacks in Kashmir, where American interests lie, the attack in Mumbai has been planned in premeditated fashion so as to draw international condemnation: against Islam.

To appease American obsession with anti-Islam movements throughout the world, the Indian group of loyal foot soldiers have indeed given fuel to the fire. There was no international coverage of the violence let loose by Shiv Sainiks which had paralyzed the city of Mumbai since last three days. And to draw further attention, innocent lives had to be sacrificed.

This is an old political trick that has always helped Indian communal leaders. When the government at center has been doing absolutely nothing to agitate Pakistan into a war, the war mongering Hindu fundamentalists had no better excuse than looking towards Kashmir and Mumbai.

What needs to be done?
First and foremost, none of the persons on that local train deserved to die this way. Enemies could be well within the same people who are staging a drama of violent protests. There must be through investigations to that effect. Not biased investigations. The Indian intelligence sources need to be smarter than they are now.

Corporate leaflets pretending to be newspapers, like Times of India have already created headlines regarding the perpetrators even before the investigations have begun! One report already says, “LeT, SIMI hand in Mumbai blasts”. Highest form of irresponsible journalism can only result in such news stories. The report without naming any sources, says in the first paragraph itself that the “terror attack on Mumbai trains was carried out by Lashkar-e-Toiba and local Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) activists and was designed to trigger communal conflagration in the country’s financial capital.”

And in the body, it says, “While still waiting for clues to emerge, top intelligence sources in New Delhi seem pretty sure the blasts on the trains were plotted by Lashkar modules which are increasingly collaborating with activists of SIMI, which boasts of strong pockets of influence across Maharashtra.”

For such serious violence that causes hundreds of valuable lives, the press, the government and the so-called intelligence sources are highly irresponsible, and criminal in their misconducts. Times of India owes a public apology for displaying such highest form of carelessness. It’s entirely lost on me as to how someone can be “pretty sure” of the blasts while “waiting for clues to emerge”! As in the past, this time also, the official propaganda machine of India might prove successful and they may even go and nab some people with Muslim surnames (a recent popular Bollywood cinema "Khakee" (2004) dealt with this tragic issue).

History revisited?
In the past, everytime there have been communal violences in India, the administrations have found easy scapegoats in a) Pakistan, b) Pakistani-funded terrorists. Alas, they have never provided any evidence to support these claims. (while on the contrary, independent findings by filmmakers and judicial bodies have always found the homegrown communal parties to be the root causes). These blame-games are perfectly orchestrated tricks by the Government of India to maintain its supremacy in the subcontinent. And in the process the communal politicians have never cared to think of the lives lost.

At times, facts of life are too obvious to be missed. One of them tells me about the complete absence of deaths of lives of the politicians who are ‘protesting’ the most. It’s always usually the innocent commoners who lay down their lives. The people who are responsible for maintaining law and order (the politicians themselves) fail to own up to their responsibilities (barring perhaps Lal Bahadur Shastri in case of a rail accident). They never seem to resign from their powerful positions for not having been able to provide their people any sense of security. On the contrary, while adamantly glued to their seats of power (or of opposition power in the parliaments), they keep blaming some or the other external factors, so that in times like this, they can scare enough people to get united for their own sake.

This time, it should be enough.
Well, this time….
No more reasons to call mayhem
Not one more life in your name
Not another death to uphold your religion
No more such violent catch 22 situation
Not to secure your mother’s dormant statues
Nor to pay back for your father’s power abuse
No more thought controls by government bureaucrats
Not once more will we believe in your tactics of attacks
No time to agitate, its time to step down from power
No press conferences, no indomitable statues or tower
In such times, politicians of the world must unite
You have everything to lose, including your might
For once, walk with the people, feel their agonies
Set examples of selves, write accords for peace
Stop the blame-games with Pakistan and Muslims
Or against one’s poor, the backward, and their miseries
Now is the time to act, to promise just one thing:
Stop playing communal, ‘tis just one life for rejoicing.
(Saswat Pattanayak, Peoples’ Poet, 2006)

Tags: Saswat, Islam, Hinduism, India, Pakistan, Media

The following article is authored by two of my dearest comrades.

In the quest for What Needs to be Done!

Read More...

Tags: Saswat, Media, Capitalism, Racism, USA

By Saswat Pattanayak

Vikram Buddhi could be anyone. He could be the mindful mathematician, eloquently solving world riddles. He could be the calculative genius on behalf of pacifist Einstein. He could have been framed as his family is pleading . He could have himself posted the messages as he is admitting.

I see two dimensions to it: one, the action itself (online participation) and two, the ideology, if any (the politics of it).

The question is what are the circumstances that might have led to his erratic and clearly unjustified postings? As an example, in a chatroom, any frequent visitor will notice the oh-so-frequent postings of hate lines all the time. Clueless people on both sides of political spectrum spit venoms at each other, initially beginning with racist comments like “you Indians always smell curry” or nationalist comments like “why do you all land up in my country” to personal assaults like “get the hell out of here, else we’ll bomb you like we do”.

None of the lines above are manufactured. As a researcher in digital media interactions, I frequent public chatrooms to sense the happenings and all the time