South Asia Citizens Wire - 24 Oct 2016 - No. 2914
[via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996]
Contents:
1. Pakistan - India Tensions: Culture and Art the First Casualty - A select
compilation of commentary (October 2016)
2.. "No to war" campaign being launched by Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for
Peace and Democracy
3. An appeal by citizens of West Bengal against warlike situation between India
and Pakistan
4. A Letter to India: In Manto’s Spirit | Ayesha Jalal
5. Resurgent Sikh fundamentalism in the UK: time to act? | Sukhwant Dhaliwal
6. India: Letter by concerned academics to the Vice Chancellor, Central
University of Haryana, protesting the attacks on teachers for the production of
the play ’Draupadi’
7. India: Posters from Protest Against the Right Wing ABVP by Pinjra Tod the
Delhi University Student Feminist Collective
8. India: In Vrindavan, Communal Goons and ‘Secular’ Police Unite to Deny
Atheists Space | Apoorvanand
9. Hindu republic: India is being recreated into a majoritarian state | Samar
Halarnkar
10. Bangladesh: New law regulating NGOs is draconian - say Newspapers, NGOs and
international rights organisations
11. Recent On Communalism Watch:
- India: Three part investigation on Communal Rioting (Hindustan times)
- India: Bengal stares at a new, divisive communal equation (Suvojit Bagchi)
- India - Kerala: Salafi preachers stoke Sangh Parivar growth in Kerala with
controversial statements (TA Ameerudheen)
- India: Religion Should Be Separated From the Political Process, Says Supreme
Court (V. Shivshankar, The Wire)
- India: Tribal rights group moves Supreme Court against Uniform Civil Code
- India: Illustrator Gopal Shoonya’s cartoons in Hindi on the 'Hyper
Nationalist' Media on Communalism etc
- India: Art under control (Edit, Kashmir Times)
- India: Inviting trouble - Parties mix religion and politics in UP
(Editorial, The Triibune, 19 Oct 2016)
- India: Personal laws and the Constitution (Editorial, The Hindu - Oct 19,
2016)
- India: Whither Justice for Religious Minorities (Ram Puniyani)
- India: Right Wing chauvinists protest in Bombay against film 'Ae Dil Hai
Mushkil' which has an actor of Pakistani origins
- Soup Kitchens and Street Fighting: The Brownshirts in Hamburg
- India: Times of India Editorial on Ramayana Museum in Ayodhya
::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::
12. India: Mumbai film festival drops Pakistani classic after protesters'
threat | Alan Evans
13. Warmongers Are Anti-National | Sandeep Pandey
14. India - Pakistan: History’s bitter divide | Alizay Jaffer
15. Closing of the Indian mind: Debates today are high on decibels but low on
reason, facts and linguistic restraint | Pavan K Varma
16. Far from being anti-national, it is a patriotic duty to question the
military | Saikat Datta
17. Hardly a stranger in Moscow | Prabhat Singh
18. Cleall on Pinto, 'Daughters of Parvati: Women and Madness in Contemporary
India'
19. Racial identity is a biological nonsense, says Reith lecturer | Hannah
Ellis-Petersen
20. Thousands Finish Women's Peace March With Plea for Action at Netanyahu's
Door | Yair Ettinger
21. Ivan not so terrible? Cult of strongman leader sees tsar's popularity rise
in Russia | Shaun Walker
22. USA: Election 2016 - Trump’s Rhetoric Excites ‘Christian Soldier’ for
Civil War: ‘Your Skin Color Will Be Your Uniform’ | ravis Gettys
23. Why Is Assange Helping Trump? | Jonathan Freedland
========================================
1. PAKISTAN - INDIA TENSIONS: CULTURE AND ART THE FIRST CASUALTY - A SELECT
COMPILATION OF COMMENTARY (OCTOBER 2016)
========================================
1. Don’t stop the music - Sharing culture humanises India and Pakistan —
banning this pushes both from peace towards war. | Salman Ahmad
2. Indo-Pak culture wars: a twisted story | Sunil Sethi
3. India: Patriotism for Dummies | Vivek Menezes
4. A neo-patriotic mob in India | Salil Tripathi
5. India: Crude jingoism - UGC prescribes students a pledge of nationalism
| (Editorial, The Tribune)
6. Pak - India cultural ties | Editorial, DAWN
7. Ten commandments of patriotism, hatred and stupidity | Anuradha Bhasin
Jamwal
8. Surgical strikes: Are brands cashing in on nationalism in ad campaigns?
| Saumya Tewari
http://sacw.net/article12985.html
========================================
2. "NO TO WAR" CAMPAIGN BEING LAUNCHED BY PAKISTAN-INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR
PEACE AND DEMOCRACY
========================================
Pakistan-India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (PIPFPD), in its national
committee meeting held in Jammu on October 22nd 2016 has decided to launch a
“No to war” campaign.
http://sacw.net/article12983.html
========================================
3. AN APPEAL BY CITIZENS OF WEST BENGAL AGAINST WARLIKE SITUATION BETWEEN INDIA
AND PAKISTAN
========================================
We the following signatories from West Bengal are deeply concerned about the
escalating tension between the two neighbouring countries, India and Pakistan
http://sacw.net/article12975.html
========================================
4. A LETTER TO INDIA: IN MANTO’S SPIRIT
by Ayesha Jalal
========================================
On the lines of Sadat Hasan Manto’s facetious letters to Uncle Sam written at
the height of the cold war when Pakistan was being wooed by the US as an ally
to fight communism, a letter to prime minister Vajpayee, This letter is a
spirited assessment of the most recent standoff between India and Pakistan,
peppered with rare insights that have always been Manto’ s hallmark.
http://sacw.net/article12978.html
========================================
5. RESURGENT SIKH FUNDAMENTALISM IN THE UK: TIME TO ACT? | Sukhwant Dhaliwal
========================================
Growing confidence among resurgent Sikh fundamentalist networks in the UK was
evident in recent protests against inter-faith marriage. A desire to control
Sikh women’s relationship choices is a key focal point for their mobilization.
http://sacw.net/article12977.html
========================================
6. INDIA: LETTER BY CONCERNED ACADEMICS TO THE VICE CHANCELLOR, CENTRAL
UNIVERSITY OF HARYANA, PROTESTING THE ATTACKS ON TEACHERS FOR THE PRODUCTION OF
THE PLAY ’DRAUPADI’
========================================
We write in support of Dr. Snehsata Manav and Dr. Manoj Kumar of the Department
of English and Foreign Languages who have recently come under attack for their
sponsorship of a student production on your campus of the play “Draupadi” based
on a story by Mahasweta Devi who, as you know, is universally recognized as a
towering figure in contemporary Indian literature.
http://sacw.net/article12984.html
========================================
7. INDIA: POSTERS FROM PROTEST AGAINST THE RIGHT WING ABVP BY PINJRA TOD THE
DELHI UNIVERSITY STUDENT FEMINIST COLLECTIVE
========================================
’Pinjra Tod’ feminist collectiive had called for a protest called ’ABVP
Khabardar’ on 20 October 2016 at Delhi University. Here are photos of posters
from that protest and a news report also link to the original protest call
http://sacw.net/article12980.html
========================================
8. INDIA: IN VRINDAVAN, COMMUNAL GOONS AND ‘SECULAR’ POLICE UNITE TO DENY
ATHEISTS SPACE
by Apoorvanand
========================================
When the supposedly secular police and media start colluding with the Sangh
parivar, we need to sit up and take notice – it’s not roses we’re smelling.
http://sacw.net/article12971.html
========================================
9. HINDU REPUBLIC: INDIA IS BEING RECREATED INTO A MAJORITARIAN STATE | Samar
Halarnkar
========================================
The fundamental characteristic of the emerging republic is a majoritarian tone
and tenor. The justice system is learning to gloss over hate speech and violent
assertions of Hinduism. That is evident nationwide, as police side with
attackers, especially with self-proclaimed gau rakshaks (cow defenders) and
victimise victims, almost all Muslim.
http://sacw.net/article12981.html
========================================
10. BANGLADESH: NEW LAW REGULATING NGOS IS DRACONIAN - SAY NEWSPAPERS, NGOS AND
INTERNATIONAL RIGHTS ORGANISATIONS
========================================
The law, known as the Foreign Donations (Voluntary Activities) Regulation Bill
2016 (FDRB), came into effect on October 13, 2016. The law requires all
foreign-funded NGOs, a category that describes development, human rights, and
many other organizations, to submit virtually all activities for approval to a
bureau under the prime minister’s office, without clear criteria for grounds
for rejection or a timeframe in which decisions should be rendered.
Registration is similarly at the discretion of the bureau, and a last-minute
addition to the law makes it an offense for NGOs to criticize the government.
http://sacw.net/article12979.html
========================================
11. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
========================================
India: Three part investigation on Communal Rioting (Hindustan times)
India: Bengal stares at a new, divisive communal equation (Suvojit Bagchi)
India - Kerala: Salafi preachers stoke Sangh Parivar growth in Kerala with
controversial statements (TA Ameerudheen)
India: Religion Should Be Separated From the Political Process, Says Supreme
Court (V. Shivshankar, The Wire)
India: Tribal rights group moves Supreme Court against Uniform Civil Code
India: Illustrator Gopal Shoonya’s cartoons in Hindi on the 'Hyper Nationalist'
Media on Communalism etc
India: Art under control (Edit, Kashmir Times)
India: Inviting trouble - Parties mix religion and politics in UP (Editorial,
The Triibune, 19 Oct 2016)
India: Personal laws and the Constitution (Editorial, The Hindu - Oct 19, 2016)
India: Whither Justice for Religious Minorities (Ram Puniyani)
India: Right Wing chauvinists protest in Bombay against film 'Ae Dil Hai
Mushkil' which has an actor of Pakistani origins
Soup Kitchens and Street Fighting: The Brownshirts in Hamburg
India: Times of India Editorial on Ramayana Museum in Ayodhya
-> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/
::: URLs & FULL TEXT :::
========================================
12. INDIA: MUMBAI FILM FESTIVAL DROPS PAKISTANI CLASSIC AFTER PROTESTERS' THREAT
by Alan Evans
========================================
(The Guardian - 18 October 2016
The Day Shall Dawn removed from schedule following threat to disrupt screenings
amid tensions on the India-Pakistan border
Tripti Mitra in Jago Hua Savera (Day Shall Dawn)
https://tinyurl.com/hjv524d
Mumbai film festival has cancelled screenings of a classic Pakistani film after
protesters filed a police complaint and threatened to disrupt screenings.
Festival organisers cited only “the current situation” as the reason for the
cancellations.
Day Shall Dawn: rare chance to see Pakistan's lost avant-garde classic
Read more
The NGO Sangharsh filed a complaint to police against the festival, arguing
that any screening of the 1959 film The Day Shall Dawn (Jago Hua Savera) was
likely to provoke outrage and threatened to “stall the screening” of the film
if it was not cancelled.
Tensions have been high since 17 Indian soldiers were killed by militants in an
attack on an army camp near the disputed border with Pakistan in September.
India accused Pakistan of involvement and described its neighbour as “a
terrorist state”. India then said it had launched “surgical strikes” on
Pakistan-based terrorists in retaliation.
Following the attack, the Indian Motion Picture Producers Association (IMPPA)
banned Pakistani actors from working in Indian films “until normalcy returns”.
The president of the organisation, TP Aggarwal, went further and suggested the
ban would be permanent, saying, “No Pakistani will be hired by [the IMPPA’s]
producer members, for ever”.
Indian films banned, Pakistani actors ejected – how the Kashmir crisis is
hitting Bollywood
Read more
The far right political party Maharashtra Navnirman Chitrapat Karmachari Sena
said all Pakistani actors had now left India.
“Today not a single Pakistani artist is in the country,” party president Amey
Khopkar was reported as saying by the Indian Express. “Whether they have gone
back to Pakistan or Dubai, what matters is they are not in India. Our protests
are not yet over.
“The day Pakistan stops terrorist attacks, only then will we extend our hand of
friendship. After the attacks, none of these Pakistani actors condemned it. We
are not protesting against art and cinema, we are protesting against Pakistani
actors.”
The Day Shall Dawn depicts life in a fishing village in East Pakistan (now
Bangladesh), and is considered the country’s first example of a neorealist
film. It was restored in 2010 and screened at Cannes this year.
========================================
13. WARMONGERS ARE ANTI-NATIONAL
by Sandeep Pandey
========================================
(Sabrang India - October 17, 2016)
The Indian government, after the surgical strike on 29 September, 2016, details
of which have not been made very clear, in response to the Uri attack on 18
September, appears to be in a complacent mood as a result of something which it
deems to be an accomplishment. This is similar to the nuclear tests conducted
on 11 May, 1998. Even then some BJP leaders indulged in chest thumping, some
were issuing warnings and threats to Pakistan. But before the end of that
month, Pakistan too conducted its tests, taking India by surprise. Hence those
celebrating India’s success at the border must be cautious. India has not
carried out a strike which will deter Pakistan from attacking India directly or
through proxy in future. When nuclear tests were conducted we were told that
India now possessed a weapon, thanks to which, not just Pakistan, but even the
US would be wary of it. But before Atal Bihari Vajpayee could conclude his term
as Prime Minister, Pakistani forces infiltrated Kargil.
India Pakistan
Just like the arms race between Indian and Pakistan accelerated after the
nuclear tests, even though the social indices of the two neighbours are the
worst compared to other neighbours in South Asia, consuming invaluable
resources which should have been spent on making basic necessities of life
available to its citizens, competition in acquiring material for mutual
destruction would receive a similar fillip after the Indian surgical strike. It
would be underestimating Pakistan if we think that it would be discouraged from
carrying out its regular incursions in future because of our surgical strike.
The problem with the arms race is nobody knows when it’ll end. With
technological advancement more sophisticated and dangerous weapons become
available. If one country acquires a certain weapon then it becomes mandatory
for the other to acquire something which is of equal destructive potential.
We are told that weapons are acquired for one’s security. But they actually
increase the feeling of insecurity. First we worry only about our security,
then we have to worry about the security of our weapons too. For example,
countries possessing nuclear weapons have to worry about their security too. It
is a matter of grave concern for US that the Pakistani nuclear weapons should
not fall in the hands of Islamist extremists.
Currently India has created a situation which will trigger another round of
arms acquisition between the neighbours. Countries which will benefit are US,
Israel, Russia, Britain, France, China, etc., from whom India and Pakistan will
buy their arms. The money which should have been spent on education, health
care, food security, housing, sanitation, to ensure that no child is
malnourished and no women is anemic, will now be spent on purchasing weapons.
Hence, even building an atmosphere of war is a crime against the poor people of
both countries.
Rajnath Singh, India’s Home Minister has declared that the 3,323 km long
India-Pakistan border will be sealed. Boundaries are made by humans and they
have a history of being ever-changing. People and material will keep moving
across India-Pakistan border because people on both sides have relatives and
their religious places on the other side. People want to travel across the
border. The two countries have cultural affinity. Nowhere else in the world,
the language spoken in large part of north India, known as Hindi in India and
Urdu in Pakistan, is understood so well as in Pakistan. At a time when European
countries have made borders irrelevant we are talking about sealing our
borders. West and East Germany demolished the wall between them. We want to
build one between India and Pakistan. If there are governments in the two
countries in future who decide to make peace then the money spent on sealing
the borders will go waste. Hence, the effort should be to open the borders, not
seal them. An impregnable border is a sign of animosity, an open border is sign
of friendship. Enmity is short term, non-permanent, friendship is long term,
stable. Hence the decision of Indian government to seal borders lacks wisdom
and is anti-people. It is a waste of public resources. Is there a guarantee
that sealed borders will prevent terrorists from invading?
Aerial attacks and through sea, like the one in Mumbai, can still take place.
Worse, they can infiltrate borders both physically and mentally. How will the
sealed border prevent somebody inside India from being radicalized? We should
look for solutions so that terrorists stop coming and people stop becoming
radicals. It requires deeper introspection than a symbolic gesture of sealing
border.
People die in wars. It is not always the terrorists or combatants who die. As
we saw in over three months of protests in Kashmir, the bullets of security
forces killed children, women and old too. Even the family of soldier doesn’t
want him to die. They want to see him return alive. His job is to protect the
border. He sacrifices his life in very special circumstances. It is the
governments which create situations in which the soldier may have to sacrifice
his life or he may remain safe. If the governments are not able to solve their
problem with neighbouring countries then soldiers may have to sacrifice their
lives. If the governments show a real intent of solving the problem then our
soldiers may not be required to risk their lives. War is a sign of failure of
the government to solve the problem with neighbours and peace is a sign of
success. A government which is concerned about its citizens will never want to
go to war. On the contrary, a government insensitive towards its citizens will
put their lives in danger.
To create war hysteria in the country is not patriotism but anti-national, as
it will lead the country to disaster. It is not a sign of a responsible
government, a government which thrives on the politics of jingoism. The
government and the Bhartiya Janata Party may temporarily gain from the war or
building an atmosphere of war, but the citizens stand to lose in the long term.
(The author, a former Magsaysay awardee is also Vice President, Socialist Party
(India))
========================================
14. INDIA - PAKISTAN: HISTORY’S BITTER DIVIDE
by Alizay Jaffer
========================================
(The Indian Express - October 24, 2016)
British-sowed enmity still inflames Indians and Pakistanis, who, ironically,
are warm towards the coloniser.
india pakistan, british raj, indo pak, india pakistan history, indo pak
history, partition, india pakistan partiton It’s been almost 70 years. The
lines of these divisions run far too deep.
From where I stand, this looks like an unusual story. Not so long ago, in the
mid-18th century, Mir Jafar, commander-in-chief of the nawab of Bengal,
conspired with the British to overthrow the nawab. The British were far-sighted
thinkers. If there was one group that required their help to change the status
quo, there must be more. And there were.
She didn’t seem selfish, Great Britannia. If she took our raw materials and
labour, she gave us much in return. We learnt English, benefited from improved
communications and the mighty railways; ultimately, we had systems in place for
the elixir the world calls “democracy”. For all the exploitation, there was a
reward. After all, we were the star child, the feather in Britain’s colonial
cap.
The British weren’t the first empire to rule India. When the British arrived,
they were met by an ageing, flailing Mughal empire, crumbling under the weight
of its own extravagance. The Mughals had ruled India for almost four centuries.
The empire was cruel, as empires often are — but the empire was cruel to
Muslims and Hindus alike. The British were quick to notice though that an
empire set up by people of a particular faith, Islam, that happened to be in a
minority, ruled over a majority, Hindus, for centuries. They were equally quick
to point this out.
The seed was sown. Indians, instead of seeing the ruling power as a common
enemy, began seeing enemies in each other. Muslims and Hindus, who’d shared the
pain of being subjects of insensitive rulers, had never viewed each other with
as much disdain as they began doing under the British. We could never get rid
of the influence of “Divide and Rule”. Today, it’s been almost 70 years that
the British left us — but our hatred is as alive, if not more. Why?
On June 24, 2016, Britain voted to leave the European Union (EU), the political
and economic entity that about 28 European countries willingly agreed to be
part of. Britain had been part of this since 1973 — a mere 43 years between
joining and leaving. But Britain must give the EU two years notice, a suitable
amount of time to leave without creating havoc in its wake. Only 43 years in.
And two years to get out.
In pre-Partition India, power shifted violently from a four century-old empire
to the British, who then ruled for almost 200 years. After World War II, when
Indian soldiers were reminded of their capabilities to fight, when the schism
between Hindus and Muslims had carved itself into the Indian psyche, when
“Divide and Rule” had taken tangible shape in the two-nation theory, the
British decided it was time to leave. The star child was imploding, imperialism
was fast losing its value and the giant’s proverbial belly was, perhaps,
finally full.
When the time came for the British to leave India, we weren’t as fortunate as
the EU. Our motherland, a plethora of faiths, languages, landscapes, climates
and cuisines, bound together under one common identity — India — was given
short notice. Our motherland became so distinctly yours and mine.
In early 1947, the British announced they’d be out by 1948. Britain’s economy
had suffered major losses and India was becoming a force they couldn’t control.
The British didn’t just have to leave though. They had to carve out a separate
country first. Sir Cyril Radcliffe, who’d never travelled east of Paris, was
assigned the mammoth task. News of Hindu-majority states going to India and
Muslim-majority states going to Pakistan began creating so much unrest, the
handover was pushed to August, 1947. To exacerbate the situation, British
troops started returning home. With fewer troops to manage unrest, the ensuing
turmoil only echoed the sentiments of all those devastated at being divided.
Pakistan was born. Neighbours who’d once laughed together over tea, friends who
broke common bread, colleagues who shared ideas, children who played together,
relationships, love, anger, hope, stories of joy and sorrow, all silenced at
the stroke of midnight. The great division wasn’t restricted to provinces and
villages. It extended itself to people’s homes, their minds — their hearts.
It’s been almost 70 years. The lines of these divisions run far too deep.
The generations before us who left homes or witnessed the blood of innocents
spilled could justify their bitterness. However, the bitterness that’s been
passed on from generation to generation translates to blind hate. That kind of
hate removes the possibility of analysis, promotes rigid biases, gives birth to
radical elements in any society.
Don’t get me wrong. I’m as much a victim of this Stockholm Syndrome towards the
British as the next person. But I do wonder why we are capable of loving, or
tolerating, our former colonisers, while we have no patience for one another.
Our lack of patience only allows the establishment to skew our thinking further
and shift the focus from issues that genuinely demand attention — clean water,
sanitation, security, housing.
There is a plea here, from me and many like me, who are baffled by the disdain
that flows so freely in people’s hearts on either side. The plea is not to
shift your hate. The plea is simply to question it.
The writer is a Pakistani development professional and blogger.
========================================
15. CLOSING OF THE INDIAN MIND: DEBATES TODAY ARE HIGH ON DECIBELS BUT LOW ON
REASON, FACTS AND LINGUISTIC RESTRAINT
by Pavan K Varma
========================================
(The Times of India - October 22, 2016, Edit Page)
Sometimes jokes become unintended metaphors for much wider concerns. There is
this one about a gentleman driving a car who abruptly turns without giving a
signal. Not unexpectedly, there was an accident. ‘Why did you turn without
giving a signal?’ asked the furious driver of the car behind. ‘You could not
see such a big car turning, how would you see a small indicator?’ was the
prompt reply.
The aggrieved person was stumped. Absurdity had overwhelmed reasoned argument.
There was a ‘dialogue’ but it was bereft of meaning. It had, in fact, reduced
itself to farce.
Is this form of ‘dialogue’ becoming endemic in India? If so, the primary
responsibility lies with our voluble political class. It monopolises most of
the visible public space for debate, but rarely do we find interaction that
enlightens and informs. Instead, we have people shouting at each other, high on
decibel points, but low on reason, facts and linguistic restraint.
Parliamentary debates, where leaders spoke with eloquence and substance have
almost become a thing of the past.
In such a milieu the real loser is the ordinary citizen for she has almost no
chance to hear political leaders calmly debate issues, or to evaluate, through
exposure to reasoned discussion, what political parties have to offer in
response to larger national issues and constituency-specific needs. In many
other democratic systems, opposing candidates meet to debate issues in
institutionally organised public forums, such as the Donald Trump versus
Hillary Clinton face-offs we just witnessed.
Some democracies have the system of primaries that enables voters to actively
participate in a pre-election exercise so that they come to know through the
process of debate not only the calibre of the candidates but also the issues of
the day. None of this happens in our democratic system.
What we mostly hear is leaders holding forth without waiting to hear a
response. For instance Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who is an eloquent
speaker, has perfected the art of the one-way monologue. He addresses people on
radio, TV or from elevated, inaccessible podiums. It is difficult to remember
the last time he met ordinary people, including journalists, in a forum where
they could interact with him in a non-prearranged format.
The dialogic remoteness of some of our leaders has a lot to do with the lack of
inner party democracy. India, the world’s largest democracy, must face up to
the fact that it is replete with absolute leaders who are completely
undemocratic in the way they run their political parties.
We are increasingly living in an era of absolute leaders, absolute dynasties,
absolute subjects and absolute followers. The freedom of conscience given to
politicians in the UK for the vote on Brexit would be unthinkable in India.
Anyone who would have dared to vote against his party leader’s choice would be
automatically labelled as disloyal, and be dealt with accordingly. This frozen
intellectual conformity, and the mind-numbing sycophancy it breeds, seriously
jeopardises our democratic credentials.
The educated are also increasingly culpable of cerebral laziness. The explosion
of 24×7 news has reduced information to a few quick sound bytes, or the
reiteration of selective facts, or panel discussions that rarely offer in-depth
insights. But, paradoxically, this very exposure, in this superficial ‘breaking
news’ fashion, gives the average middle class person the sense that he knows it
all, even if he actually knows very little about almost everything.
Moreover, the informational blitzkrieg hardly devotes required space to
pivotally important but less ‘glamorous’ issues like the appalling state of
health or education, or the plight of farmers, thereby further constricting the
canvas of debate to only the frenetic pace of transitory political developments.
In the past, all our seminal works emphasised the importance of democratic
dialogue. Vatsyayana begins his Kama Sutra by allowing an imaginary
interlocutor to question him on the need for a book on erotica. The Upanishads
are not a fiat; they nudge you to think and question.
Badarayana’s Vedanta Sutra, ranked along with the Upanishads and the Bhagwad
Gita as one of the three foundational texts of Hindu philosophy, has an entire
section authored by him on the objections to his thesis. Shankaracharya’s
Bhashya (commentary) on the Vedanta Sutra has lengthy tracts where he invites
objections and is willing to debate the validity of his point of view.
The tragedy is that this deliberative pillar of our civilisation is being
gradually asphyxiated after India has become a democracy. Perhaps, it was not
so evident in the years immediately after 1947, where differences in opinion
were taken on board with an open mind and without questioning bonafides.
But today every point of view is articulated as a simplistic dictatorial
assertion, as is amply illustrated, for instance, in the ongoing debate on
nationalism. There are no nuances, only the projection of brittle black or
white certainties. Rhetoric has overtaken substance thereby reducing public
debate to the lowest common denominator of ‘I am right, and you are wrong’. In
such a milieu, the shallow repartee in the joke we began this column with, will
always prevail.
========================================
16. FAR FROM BEING ANTI-NATIONAL, IT IS A PATRIOTIC DUTY TO QUESTION THE
MILITARY
by Saikat Datta
========================================
(scroll.in - 22 Oct 2016)
On March 16, 1968, US Army soldiers from the Company C of the 1st Battalion,
20th Infantry Regiment, 11th Brigade of the 23rd (Americal) Infantry Division
dropped in on two villages in South Vietnam, known as My Lai and My Khe. In the
subsequent few hours, these soldiers of Charlie Company would go on to kill
over 500 villagers – men, women, children and infants. Some of the women were
gang-raped and their bodies mutilated. The massacre, which later came to be
called “the most shocking episode of the Vietnam War” would have been quietly
buried but for an investigative reporter, Seymour Hersh, who got a tip-off
about the story more than 19 months later and pursued the case until he found
the testimony of Lieutenant William Calley Jr. a platoon leader in Charlie
Company.
http://scroll.in/article/819663/far-from-being-anti-national-it-is-a-patriotic-duty-to-question-the-military
========================================
17. HARDLY A STRANGER IN MOSCOW
by Prabhat Singh
========================================
(thREAD - October 18, 2016)
Despite all the material 'civilised nations' have to deter a potential
first-time traveller to Russia, the country busts most myths and hangovers
people have of it
http://www.thehindu.com/thread/arts-culture-society/article9235594.ece
========================================
18. CLEALL ON PINTO, 'DAUGHTERS OF PARVATI: WOMEN AND MADNESS IN CONTEMPORARY
INDIA'
========================================
Sarah Pinto. Daughters of Parvati: Women and Madness in Contemporary India.
Contemporary Ethnography Series. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania
Press, 2014. 296 pp. $59.95 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8122-4583-7.
Reviewed by Esme Cleall (University of Sheffield)
Published on H-Disability (October, 2016)
Commissioned by Iain C. Hutchison
This is a powerful and engaging ethnography of women and mental health in
contemporary India. In pursuing a gendered reading of psychiatry, Pinto deftly
explores what effect “particular considerations,” taking the perspective of
women, have on our understandings of medical practice (p. 4). It is both a
study of the social life of medicine, exploring the effects of psychiatry on
the lives it touches, and an exploration of love, marriage, and the family, as
well as of the dissolution of these relationships. In calling her book
Daughters of Parvati Pinto evokes the goddess for her “capacity to fall to
pieces,” her ability to “become—wildly—one thing and then another” while
wreaking “havoc with cosmos-rattling love” (p. 37). That she does these things
in her capacity as a wife, lover, or mother further makes Parvati a
“touchstone” for Pinto, as she explores the messiness of intimacy and its
powerful effects on the psyche and the social (p. 37).
Daughters of Parvati is a book rich in stories. The opening chapter tells the
life history of Ammi, who, having been in, the Agra Mental Hospital for
twenty-seven years, is now being “rehabilitated” with her son and
daughter-in-law. Lata, another example, is a young woman detained in the Nerhu
Government Hospital under court order to ascertain her state of mind given that
she had married a man twenty years her senior, a servant in her parents’ house.
The battle as to whether or not her sexuality should be pathologized and her
“illness,” which defies diagnosis and definition, are not only used to show the
intangibility of medical diagnosis but also to illustrate her powerful
personality. As Lata insists on the validity of her sexual relationships with
her husband and with his “friend,” and her desire to marry both, Pinto points
to the politics of medical diagnosis, asking, “what would be a feminist
approach here?” (p. 219). Sanjana, who lives in a smaller institution, is
another striking character. Pinto preserves this private establishment’s
identity by giving it the pseudonym of “Moksha,” the name of a deity that
represents liberation but also death (and rebirth). Sanjana is desperate to
“get out” of Moksha, but the dates she is given for her release are constantly
being deferred. Pinto’s own life is woven throughout such narratives in the
book. The presence of her daughter Eve and Pinto’s separation from Eve’s father
are movingly interlinked with the narratives of her characters, speaking to
Pinto’s positionality and her entanglement with the ideas of separation,
longing, and dissolution that color her work.
Although some of Pinto’s case studies, notably Ammi, now live outside a
psychiatric setting, the book is mainly focused on institutional care. The
institution that Pinto names Moksha is a bleak, lonely place where patients are
often “dumped women” abandoned by families, lost in the throes of divorce and
separation, and where the resemblance between the institution and the asylums,
supposedly of old, is palpable. The Nehru Government Hospital meanwhile is a
busy, bustling, and bureaucratic environment where most patients are
outpatients, while those who reside within the hospital are cared for by
family, friends, and relatives. The ethics of institutional care, particularly
a form of care where patients might be hit, forcibly restrained, unwittingly
medicated, or lied to about their treatment and release dates, haunt the
narratives.
Pinto sensitively explores the complexities of the ethical questions
surrounding her own research as well as the treatment that the patients
receive. The notion of “consent” is a particularly difficult one in the
contexts in which Pinto works. What does it mean to secure the consent of a
person deep in psychosis? Is limiting the reproduction of such a patient’s
words patronizing, cordoning off forms of self-knowledge, expression, and
agency? Or is it vital to ensuring that consent is fully respected? What about
“truths” that fold, unravel, and refold? What about patients who, by their very
presence in the psychiatric institution, had formally agreed to any research,
which the institution might see fit to undertake?
While this is an ethnography and work of anthropology rather than a history,
there are elements of historical context to Pinto’s contemporary research from
the discussion of Agra’s grim past (during one period, twenty-five of its
thirty-nine inmates died), to the more recent moves toward
deinstitutionalization. The discussion of the changing nature of “hysterical”
and “dissociative” conditions and diagnoses will be particularly interesting
and useful to historians of medicine and disability as well as to
anthropologists. Pinto explores the way in which the ongoing use of the label
“hysteria” is not, as might at first glance appear, a marker of India’s
“backward” psychiatry practice. In using a label no longer current in the West,
but which is highly complex, and whose history was made in India as well as in
Europe, Pinto demonstrates how it continues to have a powerful if uneasy
utility to doctors and to patients.
This beautifully written book is a pleasure to read, the characters stay with
the reader long after the book has been put down, and it exemplifies good
research practice and self-reflexive authorship. It provides a critical study
on gender and mental health in South Asia today.
========================================
19. RACIAL IDENTITY IS A BIOLOGICAL NONSENSE, SAYS REITH LECTURER
by Hannah Ellis-Petersen
========================================
(The Guardian - 18 October 2016)
Philosopher Kwame Anthony Appiah says race and nationality are social
inventions being used to cause deadly divisions
Kwame Anthony Appiah
Two weeks ago Theresa May made a statement that, for many, trampled on 200
years of enlightenment and cosmopolitan thinking: “If you are a citizen of the
world, you are a citizen of nowhere”.
It was a proclamation blasted by figures from all sides, but for Kwame Anthony
Appiah, the philosopher who on Tuesday gave the first of this year’s
prestigious BBC Reith lectures, the sentiment stung. His life – he is the son a
British aristocratic mother and Ghanian anti-colonial activist father, raised
as a strict Christian in Kumasi, then sent to British boarding school, followed
by a move to the US in the 1970s; he is gay, married to a Jewish man and
explores identity for a living – meant May’s comments were both “insulting and
nonsense in every conceivable way”.
“It’s just an error of history to say, if you’re a nationalist, you can’t be a
citizen of the world,” says Appiah bluntly.
Yet, the prime minister’s words were timely. They were an example of what
Appiah considers to be grave misunderstandings around identity; in particular
how we see race, nationality and religion as being central to who we are.
The Honor Code: How Moral Revolutions Happen by Kwame Anthony Appiah - review
Read more
Regarded as one of the world’s greatest thinkers on African and African
American cultural studies, Appiah has taught at Yale, Harvard, Princeton and
now NYU. He follows in the notable footsteps of previous Reith lecturers
Stephen Hawking, Aung San Su Kyi, Richard Rodgers, Grayson Perry and Robert
Oppenheimer.
The “Mistaken Identities” lectures cover ground already well trodden by the
philosopher. His mixed race background, lapsed religious beliefs and even
sexual orientation have, in his own words, put him on the “periphery of every
accepted identity”.
But in the face of religious fundamentalism, Brexit and the need to reiterate
in parts of the US that black lives matter, Appiah argues it is time we stopped
making dangerous assumptions about how we define ourselves and each other.
Appiah’s lecture on nationality draws heavily on the “nonsense misconceptions”
he saw emerge prominently in the Brexit and Donald Trump campaigns – that to
preserve our national identity we have to oppose globalisation.
“My father went to prison three times as a political prisoner, was nearly shot
once, served in parliament, represented his country at the United Nations and
believed that he should die for his country,” Appiah says. “There wasn’t a more
patriotic man than my father, and this Ghanaian patriot was the person who
explicitly taught me that I was a citizen of the world. In fact, it mattered so
much to him that he wrote it in a letter for us when he died.
“So I know from deep experience that nationalism and globalisation go hand in
hand and are not, as Theresa May has said, opposing projects. It just doesn’t
make sense.”
The inconsistency towards national sovereignty irritates Appiah. He points out
how the importance of a person’s right in the UK to “settle their own destiny”,
as Boris Johnson put it, took centre stage during the Brexit campaign, but a
year earlier “that same right had been denied to the Scottish people”.
“Whether it’s these current stories of essential Britishness, stories of times
of essential Hinduness in India, or tales of a pure Islamic state, they are all
profoundly unfaithful to historic fact,” he says. “Nationality, religion, both
have always been fluid and evolving, that’s how they have survived.”
And when it comes to self identity, Appiah argues, race is just as
misunderstood as nationality – with disastrous consequences.
Society still largely operates under the misapprehension that race (largely
defined by skin colour) has some basis in biology. There is a perpetuating idea
that black-skinned or white-skinned people across the world share a similar set
of genes that set the two races apart, even across continents. In short, it’s
what Appiah calls “total twaddle”.
“The way that we talk about race today is just incoherent,” he says. “The thing
about race is that it is a form of identity that is meant to apply across the
world, everybody is supposed to have one – you’re black or you’re white or
you’re Asian – and it’s supposed to be significant for you, whoever and
wherever you are. But biologically that’s nonsense.”
It’s not new information, but for Appiah it is essential to voice it. Despite
growing up mixed-race and gay in Ghana, then moving to the UK aged 11, Appiah
says these supposedly conflicting aspects of his identity were never a problem
for him until he moved to the US. As a student at Yale in his early 20s, others
began to define him entirely by his race, and even questioned whether having a
white mother made him “really black”.
“If you try to say what the whiteness of a white person or the blackness of a
black person actually means in scientific terms, there’s almost nothing you can
say that is true or even remotely plausible. Yet socially, we use these things
all the time as if there’s a solidity to them.”
Appiah is at pains to point out that, while society has made race and colour a
significant part of how we identify ourselves, particularly in places such as
the UK and US, it is an invented idea to which we cling irrationally.
Appiah’s lecture explores the notion that two black-skinned people may share
similar genes for skin colour, but a white-skinned person and a black-skinned
person may share a similar gene that makes them brilliant at playing the piano.
So why, he asks, have we decided that one is the core of our identity and the
other is a lesser trait?
“How race works is actually pretty local and specific; what it means to be
black in New York is completely different from what it means to be black in
Accra, or even in London,” he explains. “And yet people believe it means
roughly the same thing everywhere. Race does nothing for us.
“I do think that in the long run if everybody grasped the facts about the
relevant biology and the social facts, they’d have to treat race in a different
way and stop using it to define each,” he says.
At a time when the world continues to divide itself along racial lines and
where, in the US, “being put in that black box means you tend to get treated
worse and are more likely to get shot by a police officer”, getting people to
understand race as a social invention could, in Appiah’s view, save lives.
He is adamant that identity is not “just a philosopher’s fuss” and that the
world bears the scars of endless crusades fought to protect it.
“Mistakes about race were at the heart of the Rwandan genocide; the invasion of
Iraq in 2001 was shaped by American nationalism and chauvinism about Muslims;
nationality is clearly stopping us doing our part in dealing with things such
as the refugee crisis, because we feel like it will threaten our own identity,”
says Appiah. “This crisis that we are facing now is rooted in these moral and
intellectual confusions about identity. And it is very costly to keep making
these mistakes.”
Kwame Anthony Appiah’s Reith lectures, Mistaken Identities, are broadcast
on BBC Radio 4 at 9am on Tuesdays.
========================================
20. THOUSANDS FINISH WOMEN'S PEACE MARCH WITH PLEA FOR ACTION AT NETANYAHU'S
DOOR
by Yair Ettinger
========================================
(http://www.haaretz.com/ - Oct 20, 2016)
'They told me there was nobody to make peace with. Today, we proved that
wrong,' Israeli singer Yael Deckelbaum says of the two-week 'Women Wage Peace'
event.
A march that began two weeks ago as a minor event in Rosh Hanikra ended in
Jerusalem on Wednesday night as a mass rally, when thousands of Jewish and Arab
women from all over the country gathered outside the Prime Minister’s Residence
to urge his government to make peace with the Palestinians.
The prime minister’s security was so heavily deployed it was impossible to see
what was happening outside his house on Balfour Street. But the presence of
thousands of women in downtown Jerusalem was evident.
The so-called March of Hope was organized by Women Wage Peace, a group founded
after the end of the 2014 war in Gaza. At a time when the peace process has
been relegated to the bottom of the public agenda, it was surprising to see the
march sweep up thousands, most of the participants dressed in white.
In addition to marching through Israel, they marchers entered the West Bank
near Jericho Wednesday morning. Tens of thousands of people participated in the
two-week event, organizers said.
The guest of honor at the march and Wednesday's rally was Leymah Gbowee, one of
three Liberian women to win the Nobel Peace Prize in 2011 for heading a women’s
group that helped end their country’s civil war and oust its dictator, Charles
Taylor.
Female activists from the "Women for Peace" organization, take part in a march
at the Qasr al-Yahud baptismal, site near the West Bank city of Jericho on
October 19, 2016. Abbas Momani, AFP
Gbowee said the two days she spent marching with Israeli and Palestinian women
were days of hope and of looking toward the future, and they had convinced her
that peace was possible. She also discussed the establishment of the women’s
movement in Liberia, comprised primarily of women who had been raped or wounded
at war.
Hadassah Froman, widow of the late Rabbi Menachem Froman of the settlement of
Tekoa, also won a lengthy applause when she addressed the crowd, as did her
daughter-in-law, Michal Froman, who was wounded in a stabbing attack at her
home in Tekoa in January.
The younger Froman, who ascended the dais along with a four-month-old baby she
had been pregnant with when the attack occurred, told the crowd that while she
was en route to the hospital that day, she decided that God had been
“addressing me and trying to wake me up.”
“To choose life is to choose to see the complexity of the situation here,” she
said. “To learn, of necessity, to defend one’s life, but also to see the
distress and extend a helping hand. Someone who is dead no longer feels. I
chose to feel and to give space to the full range of feelings inside me – to
the pain and the anger, but also to mercy and love.
“Death is separation,” she continued. “Life is an encounter, life is peace.
Life here will be possible only if we stop blaming each other and stop being
victims. We all need to overcome and to take responsibility and start working
hard for the sake of life here.”
Women take part in a rally, outside Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's
office in Jerusalem October 19, 2016.Baz Ratner, Reuters
Huda Abu Arqoub, a political activist from Hebron, won rousing applause when
she said, in English, that she was there as a free woman, and that the time had
come for women to speak their piece and to work for peace, security for
everyone and mutual recognition. She ended her speech by declaring that there
is a partner for peace.
Singer Yael Deckelbaum, who performed at the rally, spoke about the women’s
prayer service she had attended Wednesday morning at Qasr al-Yahud, near
Jericho.
“We were 4,000 women, half of them Palestinians,” she said. “They told me there
was nobody to make peace with. Today, we proved that wrong.”
Yair Ettinger
Haaretz Correspondent
========================================
21. IVAN NOT SO TERRIBLE? CULT OF STRONGMAN LEADER SEES TSAR'S POPULARITY RISE
IN RUSSIA
by Shaun Walker
========================================
(The Guardian - 21 October 2016)
First monument to ruler prompts debate that is as much about Russian politics
today as it is setting historical record straight
Oryol residents at the unveiling of the monument to Ivan the Terrible.
Photograph: Alexander Ryumin/Tass
Ivan the Terrible is regarded as one of the cruellest rulers in Russia’s long
history: a bloodthirsty and paranoid tyrant who killed his own son. Even during
tsarist times no monuments were built to him.
Now, however, the figure of the 16th-century tsar is having something of a
renaissance, prompting a debate that is as much about contemporary Russian
politics as it is setting the historical record straight.
Last week, the first ever monument to Ivan was unveiled in Oryol, about 200
miles south-west of Moscow, ostensibly to mark 450 years since he founded the
town in 1566. Next month, a second monument is due in the town of Alexandrov.
The legacy of one of Russia’s most controversial rulers has suddenly become a
hot topic in newspaper opinion pages and on prime-time chatshows.
The Oryol monument is eight metres high and features the tsar on horseback,
holding a cross aloft in his right hand, sword in his left.
Oryol’s governor, Vadim Potomsky, the project’s main cheerleader, said Ivan’s
bad reputation was partly down to a foreign plot to smear his name. “He was a
great Russian tsar, the first real tsar. People present him as a tyrant and
psychological deviant. But if you take European leaders of his period, they
were many times more bloodthirsty, but in Europe they have monuments, and
nobody minds.”
The monument was unveiled despite local protests and court battles. Photograph:
Alexei Borodin/Tass
Ivan had seven wives and a fiery temperament; many have suggested he was
mentally unstable. He is believed to have killed his own son; the event was
immortalised in Ilya Repin’s well-known 19th-century painting of a wild-eyed
Ivan cradling his bloodied son in his arms.
His domestic rule saw Russia almost double its territory and population, and
was marked by the founding of the oprichnina, a 1,000-strong private army
personally loyal to the tsar. Its members wore all-black uniforms, and rode
horses adorned with a severed dog’s head and a broom, signifying that they
would first bite Ivan’s enemies and then sweep them away.
'Monumental irritation': Russians decry tribute to Ivan the Terrible
Read more
However, there are few original documents remaining from the period, so while
it is clear there was much bloodshed, different people have painted their own
interpretations on to the faint sketch provided by the historical record. For
some, he was a violent and unstable lunatic, while for others he was a tough
leader responding to the difficult challenges of statehood in a ruthless yet
effective way.
The last time Ivan was in vogue was during Joseph Stalin’s rule. The Soviet
leader saw Ivan as something of an idol; during his reign the oprichnina was
rebranded as a progressive form of struggle with the aristocracy, and a key
element in the construction of a strong Russian state. Stalin personally edited
Soviet history books to ensure Ivan’s reign was portrayed positively, and
discussed the image of the tsar with film director Sergei Eisenstein, who shot
a two-part biopic. When Stalin died, positive interpretations of Ivan again
went out of fashion, until now.
A worker adds the finishing touches to Russia’s first ever monument to Ivan the
Terrible. Photograph: Tass/Barcroft Images
“Everything people think they know is not really true; if you look at the facts
you get a very different picture,” Potomsky said, during an interview in his
office in Oryol. His lament has been somewhat undermined by his public claim
earlier this year that Ivan’s son had in fact died not at his father’s hand,
but during a journey between Moscow and St Petersburg. The latter city was not
founded until more than a century after Ivan’s death.
If one thing is clear in the vigorous nationwide discussion sparked by the
Oryol monument, it is that the figure of the 16th-century tsar is merely a
cipher for various contemporary concerns. A chatshow on prime-time state
television devoted to the monument descended into shouty arguments about what
kind of ruler Russia needs today.
“This is a monument to the aspirations of how our current leadership wants to
be able to rule the country, without any checks or balances,” said liberal
politician Leonid Gozman.
Alexander Prokhanov, a nationalist writer and one of the main backers of the
monument, shouted back that strong leaders have coincided with a strong state
in Russian history: “Weak leaders have ruined our country. Alexander II freed
the serfs and they came to the city and caused a revolution. Nicholas II was a
weak tsar and look what happened. Gorbachev was weak and as a result a great
state collapsed.”
Oryol’s Ivan is not the only monument causing controversy in Russia at the
moment. A 17-metre monument to Vladimir the Great, the 10th-century prince of
Kiev who adopted Orthodox Christianity, is due to be unveiled outside the
Kremlin in the coming weeks. Given the Kremlin’s current occupant is also named
Vladimir, there is a clear contemporary resonance to that monument as well.
Oryol governor Vadim Potomsky (centre): ‘We need a strong leader. And people
here respect strong authority.’ Photograph: Tass/Barcroft Images
In Oryol, a small band of activists has been vocally opposed to the Ivan
monument. “It’s idiocy and madness,” said Anna Dulevskaya, who works at the
local theatre and has taken part in protests for several months. Yuri Malyutin,
an 80-year-old former physics teacher and local MP, is taking the city
authorities to court over the monument, which he said is “a disgrace and a
mockery of the town’s historical heritage”.
For the local governor, Ivan is merely one in a long line of strong Russian
leaders to admire. Potomsky’s wood-panelled office is decorated with an oil
painting of Vladimir Putin and a gilded bust of Felix Dzerzhinsky, founder of
the Cheka, which went on to become the KGB. Potomsky said each era needed its
own strong leader, whether it be Ivan the Terrible, Stalin or Putin, and that
Russia was only strong when it had a strong leader.
“Look at the size of that country,” he said, gesticulating towards a map of
Russia on his office wall. “How else would you rule it? Trying to do it calmly
and tolerantly is never going to work. We need a strong leader. And people here
respect strong authority. They don’t fear it, they respect it. Remember how
Russia was treated 15 years ago? Nobody asked us anything. And now thanks to
Putin we have recovered our position in the world.”
========================================
22. USA: ELECTION 2016 - TRUMP’S RHETORIC EXCITES ‘CHRISTIAN SOLDIER’ FOR
CIVIL WAR: ‘YOUR SKIN COLOR WILL BE YOUR UNIFORM’
by Travis Gettys
========================================
Right-wing militias are using he prospect of a Clinton election win to recruit
new members.
http://www.alternet.org/election-2016/trumps-rhetoric-excites-christian-soldier-civil-war-your-skin-color-will-be-your
========================================
23. WHY IS ASSANGE HELPING TRUMP? | Jonathan Freedland
========================================
(NYR Daily - The New York Review of Books)
After weeks of near-daily WikiLeaks releases of embarrassing emails plundered
from the inbox of Hillary Clinton’s aides, her campaign team, and the wider
Democratic Party, Julian Assange’s hosts at the Ecuadorian embassy in London
have taken the ultimate step: like parents of a teenage child, driven so mad by
their kid’s late night Snapchat habit that they finally turn off the wifi, the
Ecuadorians have shut off the Internet to prevent their incorrigible long-term
guest from doing any more leaking.
Were Julian Assange not confined to the embassy—he’s been living there since
2012, rather than succumb to a request from the Swedish authorities to
interview him over an allegation of rape—you could imagine him suing his hosts
for violating his human rights. He might even have a decent case that, in
today’s world, access to the Internet amounts to a core component of free
speech, that it is impossible to enjoy true free expression if you can’t get
online.
But Assange is unlikely to press that claim. Besides his other legal headaches,
it’s probably awkward for him to hit out too hard at the nation that has
sheltered him all this time. It might look a little ungrateful. More to the
point, there will be plenty who sympathize with the Ecuadorian foreign
ministry’s decision. And of course the move may turn out to be mostly symbolic
(WikiLeaks has released material since the Ecuadorian embassy’s announcement).
First, consider the realpolitik. Quito will have seen the US opinion polls and
have concluded that Hillary Clinton is on her way to winning the White House.
Why not try to earn some credit with the presumed incoming president by taking
action against the man who is causing her such trouble? By turning off his
Internet, Ecuador hopes to stop Assange causing any more damage to the
Democratic candidate. Doubtless they hope their good turn will be remembered
when Ecuador needs the help of the second President Clinton.
Which is not to say that the foreign ministry can justify its action only in
terms of pragmatic self-interest. It believes a principle is at stake too. As
it declared in its statement on Tuesday, Ecuador “respects the principle of
non-intervention in the internal affairs of other states.” In its mind,
WikiLeaks’s publication in recent weeks of “a wealth of documents, impacting on
the US election campaign,” has represented a violation of that no-meddling rule.
And Ecuador has a point. The traffic in leaked texts has been entirely one-way:
it’s been all Clinton, all the time. In July, Assange signaled a glum
even-handedness when asked whether he backed Trump or Clinton: “You’re asking
me, do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea.” But that’s not how it’s played out.
WikiLeaks has not released, say, the elusive tax returns of Donald Trump—which
might have confirmed his all-but-admitted non-payment of federal income tax
over the last two decade—or those much sought-after outtakes from The
Apprentice, which are rumored to supply yet more proof of his boorish, if not
predatory, attitude to women. Or indeed anything which would discomfort both
candidates rather than just one.
Instead, WikiLeaks has devoted itself exclusively to the release of documents
that might damage Hillary Clinton, documents that independent analysts as well
as the US government say were most likely hacked by, or on behalf of, Vladimir
Putin’s Russia.(The exact nature of the relationship between WikiLeaks and
Moscow is hotly contested.)
It would be a mistake to view this merely as an anti-Clinton intervention in
the US election. It is positively pro-Trump. That’s borne out not only by the
one-sided nature of the disclosures but also by Trump’s curious comments about
them. In July, he seemed to applaud the Russian hack of the DNC, calling on
Russia to go further and find Clinton’s missing emails. (Admittedly, he had
changed tack by the second presidential debate, insisting that, “I know nothing
about Russia.”)
Full Text at: https://tinyurl.com/hpfdbfr
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter of South Asia Citizens Web:
www.sacw.net/
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