South Asia Citizens Wire - 24 Sept 2016 - No. 2910 [via South Asia Citizens Web - sacw.net since 1996]
Contents: 1. The price of free speech in Bangladesh | Ahsan Akbar 2. India: Statement by Writers and Creative Artists on Kashmir 3. India - Pakistan Tensions: Joint Statement by Pakistan - India Peoples’ Forum for Peace and Democracy (23 Sept 2016) 4. War of Words Over Kashmir Between India and Pakistan at the United Nations | Nyla Ali Khan 5. India Stifling Dissent - report by International Human Rights Program (IHRP) at the University of Toronto and PEN Canada 6. India: Erasing a point of view | Kuldeep Kumar 7. India: Statement by ASEAK on the Delhi University copyright judgement by Delhi High Court (16 Sept 2016) 8. Recent On Communalism Watch: - Release of ‘South Asia State of Minorities Report 2016' (New Delhi 30 September 2016) - India: Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against ‘kangaroo courts’ in mosques - India: Why the Science Students of JNU Voted For ABVP - India - Urdu is homeless - The dangers of associating a language with one community only (M Hamid Ansari / Book excerp) - India: Religions with most educated women have the most non-working women in India - If India Wants to Remain Secular, the New Citizenship Bill Isn’t the Way to Go (Lovish Garg in The Wire) - India - The social service wings of RSS played a big role in BJP's rise to power: Yale professor - India: Hindutva forces seem to be having a field day in Haryana - India: curb cow vigilantes before things get out of control (Editorial, The Times of India, 19 sept 2016) - India: Meet The People Who Turned Bengaluru Into A City Of Fear And Despair (T.S. Sudhir) - The Ghostly Power of the RSS is Haunting the Indian State (Hiren Gohain in The Wire) - To Shake Hands or Not? CPI(M)’s Congress Dilemma (Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta) ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: 9. Travails of a war-torn people | Ahilan Kadirgamar 10. India - Pakistan Tensions: Our present and terrifying danger | Darryl D’Monte 11. Why Indian public is delusional on Pakistan | M.K. Bhadakumar 12. When media peddles jingoism as truth | Garga Chatterjee 13. India - J&K impasse: Concerned Indians should reach out to Kashmiris | Rajmohan Gandhi 14. The blinding spiral in Kashmir | Jawed Naqvi 15. India: A poor job with sums - A case for doubling the official poverty line | Prabhat Patnaik 16. Book Review: Maoism in India and Nepal by Ranjit Bhushan 17. Book Review: Why Did Foucault Disregard Iranian Feminists in His Support for Khomeini? | Javier Sethness 18. Dudley Shotwell on Kelly, 'Abstinence Cinema: Virginity and the Rhetoric of Sexual Purity in Contemporary Film' 19. This is how fascism comes to America: Trump captures the nation’s attention on the campaign trail | Robert Kagan 20. After Months of Protest, Russian Coal Miners Finally Get Paychecks | Sean Guillory ======================================== 1. THE PRICE OF FREE SPEECH IN BANGLADESH | Ahsan Akbar ======================================== In February this year the authorities in Bangladesh took Shamsuzzoha Manik, a 73-year-old publisher, into custody for publishing a book titled “Islam Bitorko” (“Debate on Islam”). His arrest and the shutting down of his stall marked a sour moment in the nation’s largest book fair, Ekushey Boi Mela, held annually at Bangla Academy in honor of the International Mother Language Day. While the book, deemed to be offensive to Islam, has been taken out of circulation, seven months later the publisher remains behind bars. http://www.sacw.net/article12955.html ======================================== 2. INDIA: STATEMENT BY WRITERS AND CREATIVE ARTISTS ON KASHMIR ======================================== We, the members of the creative community of India, belonging to various languages, regions and religions, feel deeply moved and anguished by the suffering our Kashmiri brothers, sisters, children are undergoing. It is most unfortunate, undeserved and uncalled for. We are confident that if Kashmir bleeds, it amounts to the whole of India bleeding; the Kashmiri suffering and pain, hurt and indignity are all that of India in equal measure. We wish to emphasise that India is much larger than its governments, both of State and the Centre, its security forces and its political outfits. The Kashmiri people are Indian people and we are all struggling together for making freedom, equality and justice real for everyone. http://www.sacw.net/article12954.html ======================================== 3. INDIA - PAKISTAN TENSIONS: JOINT STATEMENT BY PAKISTAN - INDIA PEOPLES’ FORUM FOR PEACE AND DEMOCRACY (23 SEPT 2016) ======================================== PIPFPD expresses its concern over the growing tensions between India and Pakistan following militants’ attack on strategically important army base in Uri, Jammu & Kashmir. http://www.sacw.net/article12953.html ======================================== 4. WAR OF WORDS OVER KASHMIR BETWEEN INDIA AND PAKISTAN AT THE UNITED NATIONS | Nyla Ali Khan ======================================== After hearing the reference to UN resolutions vis-a-vis Kashmir and demilitarization in Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s speech in the United Nations General Assembly earlier today, I thought I’d write a little something about the resolution adopted by the United Nations Commission for India and Pakistan (UNCIP), which underscores that demilitarization is a prerequisite for Pakistan as well before an impartial plebiscite could even be considered. http://www.sacw.net/article12952.html ======================================== 5. INDIA STIFLING DISSENT - REPORT BY INTERNATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS PROGRAM (IHRP) AT THE UNIVERSITY OF TORONTO AND PEN CANADA ======================================== The space for free speech in India’s public sphere is shrinking. A climate of online harassment threatens to silence critical voices, particularly those of minorities and women. Proposed changes to the Information Technology Act, incorporating overbroad provisions of the penal code, threaten online speech. A culture of self-censorship born out of the fear of reprisals is growing, and vexatious and groundless trials against authors, journalists, and artists are eroding the principle of free speech. The report concludes with a set of recommendations for urgent reform to prevent further abuses and a call for the protection of free expression in the world’s largest democracy. http://www.sacw.net/article12951.html ======================================== 6. INDIA: ERASING A POINT OF VIEW | Kuldeep Kumar ======================================== Remembering historian Bipan Chandra, whose definition of communalism has recently come under attack http://www.sacw.net/article12950.html ======================================== 7. INDIA: STATEMENT BY ASEAK ON THE DELHI UNIVERSITY COPYRIGHT JUDGEMENT BY DELHI HIGH COURT (16 SEPT 2016) ======================================== In a rare and incredible order today, the Delhi High Court has dismissed the copyright infringement case filed by Oxford University Press, Cambridge University Press and Taylor and Francis (Routledge) against Rameshwari Photocopy Shop in Delhi School of Economics and Delhi University. Justice R.S Endlaw in a 94 pages long judgment interpreted educational exception under section 52(1)(i) of the copyright act in broad enough manner to cover the acts of photocopying. http://www.sacw.net/article12949.html ======================================== 8. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH: ======================================== - Release of ‘South Asia State of Minorities Report 2016' (New Delhi 30 September 2016) - India: Public Interest Litigation (PIL) against ‘kangaroo courts’ in mosques - India: Why the Science Students of JNU Voted For ABVP - India - Urdu is homeless - The dangers of associating a language with one community only (M Hamid Ansari / Book excerp) - India: Protest Call and Statement against the Kaziranga Police Killings, Assam - India: Religions with most educated women have the most non-working women in India - If India Wants to Remain Secular, the New Citizenship Bill Isn’t the Way to Go (Lovish Garg in The Wire) - India - The social service wings of RSS played a big role in BJP's rise to power: Yale professor - India: Hindutva forces seem to be having a field day in Haryana - India: Woman arsonist set afire 42 buses for biryani & Rs 100 [or is she a scapegoat?] - India: SIT grills sadhvis for Sanatan Sanstha drug leads - India: curb cow vigilantes before things get out of control (Editorial, The Times of India, 19 sept 2016) - India: Meet The People Who Turned Bengaluru Into A City Of Fear And Despair (T.S. Sudhir) - The Ghostly Power of the RSS is Haunting the Indian State (Hiren Gohain in The Wire) - India: Why did Bengaluru burn? - To Shake Hands or Not? CPI(M)’s Congress Dilemma (Ajoy Ashirwad Mahaprashasta) -> available via: http://communalism.blogspot.com/ ::: URLs & FULL TEXT ::: ======================================== 9. TRAVAILS OF A WAR-TORN PEOPLE by Ahilan Kadirgamar ======================================== (he Hindu - September 22, 2016) The Northern Provincial Council, which came to power three years ago, has been an abysmal failure. And Colombo has descended to business as usual On September 21, 2013, tens of thousands of Tamils living in Sri Lanka’s heavily-militarised North decisively voted in the long-delayed provincial elections. They had waited for two and a half decades to make their voices heard and elect their own government. Despite the promise of development and election handouts from then President Mahinda Rajapaksa, they gave the Tamil National Alliance (TNA) a massive mandate, with C.V. Wigneswaran becoming the Chief Minister. Expectations and disappointments It is three years since the Northern Provincial Council (NPC) came to power and it has been an abysmal failure. The NPC is yet to put forward a vision for economic development and has hardly legislated the statutes needed to move the wheels of its administration. It has merely been a talk shop with resolutions and statements. Its notorious genocide resolution a month after regime change in Colombo last year, apparently passed to mobilise international actors, in effect polarised the country and undermined the new political space for reconciliation. The sad reality is that the NPC has lost its credibility with the local population. The defeat of the Rajapaksa regime opened the space for public discussions and even widespread protests in the militarised North, but democratisation with progressive social engagement and meaningful political representation are not in sight. Even as polarising Tamil nationalist mobilisations dominate regional politics, the economic travails of the dispossessed people continue. In Colombo, the TNA voted with the Sirisena-Wickremesinghe government on the 2016 Budget. However, very little has been delivered to the war-torn regions, other than the meagre allocation of SLR14 billion (Rs.6.5 billion) to the Resettlement Ministry, a mere 0.5 per cent of total budget expenditure. A donor conference to be held in Tokyo in June this year for reconstruction of the North and East was quietly cancelled without comment. A Cabinet decision a year ago to build 65,000 houses in the North and East was manoeuvred by the government to purchase prefabricated steel houses worth $1 billion from ArcelorMittal, a multinational company. The project is on hold following concerns about the motives of the decision-makers when locally preferred cement houses would have cost half as much while boosting northern industries and local labour. The North presents a veneer of development, with shiny-black roads, supermarkets and financial institutions stacked in every town. But the reality is that if one travels a few hundred metres into the by-lanes, deprivation and poverty are all too visible. There are increasing reports of suicide linked to heavy indebtedness, and of women caught in a web of exploitative microfinance schemes. These desperate conditions are linked to falling incomes and crippling livelihoods, particularly in the predominantly agriculture and fisheries sectors. In the war-torn regions, household incomes are by far the lowest in the country. In Mullaitivu district, which was razed to the ground in the last phase of the war, median per capita income is SLR4,683 (Rs.2,157) per month with half the district’s population living on less than $1 per day, according to the Household Income and Expenditure Survey 2012/2013. District-level data indicate 15 per cent unemployment in Jaffna, with close to 90 per cent of them comprising youth between the age of 16 and 36. The political and societal malaise The economic crisis in the North is linked to the political malaise in the country; the political vision for substantive reconstruction is missing. Extreme Tamil nationalism and Sinhala Buddhist nationalism have the common goal of rejecting a political solution; one for its separatist goal and the other for its majoritarian agenda. After decades of engaging a polarised polity, neither Prime Minister Ranil Wickremesinghe’s United National Party nor the faction of President Maithripala Sirisena’s Sri Lanka Freedom Party seem to have the courage and imagination to provide the direction to substantively address the national question. “The politics of the Federal Party led by R. Sampanthan and, for that matter, the more extremist Tamil nationalism promoted recently by Chief Minister Wigneswaran, along with his coterie of losers from the last parliamentary elections,are unable to address the fascist legacy of the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam (LTTE). Lack of critical reflection about the armed struggle and the LTTE’s suicidal politics is perhaps the single biggest impediment to rejuvenating Tamil politics. Indeed, rebuilding relations with the Muslim minority would require addressing the brutal attacks against them and their eviction from the North by the LTTE in the 1990s. TNA parliamentarian M. A. Sumanthiran has been a notable exception in critiquing the LTTE and recognising Muslims’ grievances, only to be unfairly attacked by the Tamil media and nationalist diaspora groups. Contributing to the malaise is the taboo of discussing caste relations that are reconsolidating in the North after the war. In Jaffna district, for example, about 10 per cent of households do not even own the small plots of land necessary to qualify for post-war housing grants, and the bulk of them belong to oppressed caste communities. The government-initiated Public Representations Committee on Constitutional Reform created a glimmer of hope with submissions from broad sections of society. However, its report in May 2016 seems to be all but forgotten with the ongoing constitution-making process limited to a few parliamentarians and “experts” in Colombo. It has also become an exercise in political management in response to the Rajapaksa camp’s chauvinist majoritarian push. A constitution drafted under such a shroud of fear is bound to fail as it does not challenge the very forces that have resulted in the need for a new constitution. And the liberals in Colombo are twisting their tongues to justify a unitary structure of the state, which inevitably centralises power in Colombo to the detriment of meaningful devolution of power. Given the devastation and a generation lost to the war,another insurrection in the north is highly improbable. However, the failure to address local grievances coupled with the manipulation of centralised state structures, may lead to violence and riots in pockets, and aggravate the continuing ethnic polarisation. Almost two years after the inspiring democratic change of regime, Sri Lanka has descended to politics as usual. The need of the hour is a movement for social justice combining calls to address the grievances of minorities with demands for decent economic life for the citizenry at large. It is such inter-ethnic movements that can also address the social and economic travails of the war-torn people. Ahilan Kadirgamar is a political economist based in Jaffna and a member of the Collective for Economic Democratisation. ======================================== 10. INDIA - PAKISTAN TENSIONS: OUR PRESENT AND TERRIFYING DANGER by Darryl D’Monte ======================================== (India Together - 21 September 2016) With the tension between India-Pakistan rising, Darryl D’Monte reports a recent discussion about the confrontation between these two nuclear states. Dr M.V. Ramana is a physicist and lecturer at the Nuclear Futures Laboratory and Programme on Science & Global Security at Princeton University. Without exaggeration, he could be described as the foremost researcher of Indian origin on the hazards of nuclear power – for uses both peaceful and otherwise. His last book The Power of Promise: Examining Nuclear Energy in India (Penguin, 2012) examines the actual performance of this much-vaunted source of energy, the holy grail sought by each and every government in this country since independence and almost as eagerly pursued by the elite. He has shared an award from the American Physical Society, which recognised his “outstanding contributions to promote global security issues through critical analyses of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy programmes in India…[and his] efforts to promote peace and nuclear security in South Asia through extensive engagements and writings”. He addressed a meeting called by the Dr Asghar Ali Engineer Memorial Committee (named after the late indefatigable campaigner for secularism and peace) in Mumbai on August 27. He began with a short tribute to the late journalist Praful Bidwai who, it might be said, was Ramana’s counterpart as an anti-nuclear activist and journalist. He traced the beginnings of India’s programme to an Atomic Energy Bill introduced by Pandit Nehru in the Constituent Assembly as long ago as in 1948. Nehru advocated that this domain be the exclusive responsibility of the state because India, he stated, had become “a slave country” because it didn’t develop steam power. (For several reasons, as Amitav Ghosh notes in his new book on climate change, The Great Derangement: Climate Change & the Unthinkable. An ancestor of Rabindranath Tagore had been plying a steam-powered boat on the Hoogly river in the late 19th century, but the British throttled this infant enterprise at birth.) India’s programme, spearheaded by Dr Homi Bhabha, included mining uranium, fabricating fuel, manufacturing heavy water and reprocessing spent fuel to extract plutonium. The CIRUS reactor was established at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre in Mumbai in 1960 with Canadian and US assistance. Five years later, a reprocessing plant came up there. Nehru, who was clear-sighted a leader as any in the world, was always aware that the so-called peaceful uses of this energy could be turned into a bellicose form. “I do not know how to distinguish between the two,” he admitted. The first Chinese nuclear test in the 1960s sparked off a global debate about nuclear weapons, including security, morality, cost and prestige. Mrs Indira Gandhi presided over India’s first nuclear test at Pokhran in Rajasthan in 1974. While safety may have been an underlying reason for the desert location, the fact that it wasn’t far from the Pakistan border would certainly have unnerved our neighbour. The victory over Pakistan in the 1971 Bangladesh war was a contributory factor but, as Ramana observes, the demonstration of India’s superior strength in conventional warfare should have negated the need for nuclear weapons. India didn’t follow the trajectory of the UN Security Council’s permanent members (P5+1) in the 1980s in developing its nuclear power. But it refined its weapons programme, lobbied for more tests and set up a missile programme where the late A.P.J.Kalam played a pioneering role in developing delivery systems. He spent four decades in the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) and Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), which is why he came to be known as “India’s Missile Man”. The 1990s saw increased activity by the global bomb lobby, which succeeded in getting India to vote against the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India’s justification was that it was a non-proliferation -- as distinct from a disarmament -- measure. Ramana records how this also saw the rise of the Hindutva party and the BJP coming to power. Under Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, there were nuclear tests on May 11 and 13, 1998. According to Ramana, nuclear scientists had been pressing for such tests, but these were resisted till the BJP formed the government. The US halted its nuclear cooperation as a consequence. The development of the nuclear power programme in Pakistan followed a somewhat similar route. In the 1950s, the US had a strategic partnership with it as its Cold War ally. Pakistani scientists were trained in the US under the “Atoms for Peace” programme. The elite saw the “atomic age” as the future. After the 1965 war, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, then only a politician, in an interview with the Manchester Guardian, said memorably that if India built the bomb, "we will eat grass, even go hungry, but we will get one of our own". In 1968, Pakistan refused to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), citing India’s refusal to do. This is crystal-clear proof of how the possession of nuclear weapons triggers off escalation, which snowballs into the most serious security risks imaginable. In 1972, Bhutto, just a month after becoming President, launched the nuclear weapons programme. It took till “Pokhran-2” for Pakistan to detonate its own bombs, literally days afterwards, on May 28 and 30, 1998. The US imposed additional sanctions on Pakistan. As Ramana records, there was a period of “consolidation” in both countries after 1998. Both countries developed doctrines and command structures. The military gained greater control over nuclear weapons in India, a departure from Nehru’s policies. Now both countries are the world’s nuclear pariahs for being the biggest flashpoint in the world as hostile neighbours brandishing this deadly power. In 1999, India’s National Security Advisory Board put out a draft nuclear doctrine which had no official status but has guided policy ever since. It has talked of “credible minimum deterrence”, underlining no first use, as distinct from mutually assured destruction. The architect of this policy was K. Subrahmanyam from the government-sponsored Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses. By the end of 2014, India was estimated to have a stockpile of weapons-grade plutonium of 590 kg ± 200 kg. Just 4-8 kg is sufficient for one nuclear weapon. By contrast, at the same date, Pakistan was estimated to have a stockpile of 3.1 tonnes ± 0.4 tonnes of highly enriched uranium, 25kg of which is more than sufficient to produce one nuclear weapon, all part of a secret programme. Worryingly, Pakistan has missiles with a delivery system ranging from 300 km to 2500 km, which puts all of India at extreme risk. It also has land-based Nasr nuclear missiles with a range of 60 km to use against Indian troops in battle. But India is one up in its nuclear capability. It has aircraft, mobile land-based missiles and sea-based assets. The aircraft comprise Jaguars and Mirages; the Agni 5 missile has a range of 5000 km and there is the Arihant submarine. There are reports of two missile-tracking radars installed near New Delhi. The most terrifying danger of any country’s nuclear armaments is the possibility that some leader will press the trigger first. As Ramana asserts, the very possession of a nuclear arsenal exposes a country to retaliatory attacks. India has also prepared for “effective intelligence and early warning capabilities”. Just imagine if Donald Trump comes to office or, nearer home, the military takes charge in Pakistan once again. Ramana cites how several years ago, the US defence system mistook a formation of geese flying in the air for aircraft and scrambled to put its nuclear counter-attack in place. As Ramana and his colleagues Zia Mian and R. Rajaraman have pointed out, Sargodha airbase in Pakistan is only 581 km from Delhi and the total flight time, after allowing one minute each for boost and re-entry phases, is eight minutes. Correspondingly, the Agra airbase is just 608 km from Lahore and the time is also eight minutes. From Agra to Karachi will take only ten minutes, while Mumbai is 1470 km from Sargodha with a delivery time of 11 minutes. From an airbase near Karachi, a missile can reach Thiruvananthapuram, as much as 2000 km away, in 13 minutes flat. In other words, no one in either country – the most explosive nuclear confrontation in the entire world – is safe from a devastating attack, several times more powerful than Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The Kargil conflict in 1999, we must all remember, was the first large-scale military engagement in the world between two nuclear states. The so-called justification for nuclear weapons – their presence being a deterrence -- completely failed. There were a dozen plus threats to use such weapons by senior officials on both sides. In fact, there were reports that nuclear weapons were actually prepared for use. Ramana concludes by tracing how India is increasingly turning to the US after the Indo-US nuclear deal, while Pakistan is getting to rely on China. As Condoleezza Rice stated in 2000, “India is an element in China’s calculation and it should be America’s too. India is not yet a great power, but it has the ability to emerge as one.” In 2005, former US Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill said: “It is now anachronistic or worse for Washington to limit its interaction with India’s civil space efforts because of concern that US technology and know-how will seep into India’s military missile programme. Why should the US want to check India’s missile capability in ways that could lead to China’s permanent nuclear dominance over democratic India?” During his visit to India in January 2015, President Obama cited the “Joint Strategic Vision for the Asia-Pacific and Indian ocean region…especially in the South China sea”. India now has the US support in joining the elite club known as the Nuclear Supply Group or NSG. Ramana concludes: “A four-way military and nuclear race is playing out. India and Pakistan continue to build nuclear arsenals.” The stage is set for a growing confrontation with countries both west and east of our borders. This only renders India even more vulnerable to virtual annihilation if either neighbour uses its nuclear weapons against us or we press the trigger first. If Amitav Ghosh points to the imminent catastrophe from climate change, this may well be preceded by nuclear holocaust in the region. This is a derangement on another front. Darryl D'Monte 21 September 2016 Darryl D'Monte, former Resident Editor of The Times of India in Mumbai, is Chairperson of the Forum of Environmental Journalists of India and founder President of the International Federation of Environmental Journalists. ======================================== 11. WHY INDIAN PUBLIC IS DELUSIONAL ON PAKISTAN by M.K. Bhadakumar ======================================== (Rediff.com - 21 September 2016) While watching various Delhi TV channels tonight on issues surrounding Sunday’s attack on Uri base, one gets the depressing feeling that we are being delusional. What is entirely lacking is the ethical standard that the media should not incite public opinion by feeding it with such patent falsehoods. We are living in a fool’s paradise, being led up the garden path by a bombastic leadership and led to believe falsely that the international community is rooting for India, that the country’s prestige is soaring sky-high, etc. and, therefore, Pakistan stands ‘isolated’. In reality, though, the readout of the US State Department on the meeting between Secretary of State John Kerry and Pakistan Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif in New York on September 20 should come as an eye-opener. The readout is reproduced below: Secretary Kerry met Monday with Pakistani Prime Minister Sharif to discuss our strong, long-term bilateral partnership and to build upon the U.S.-Pakistan Strategic Dialogue. The Secretary commended the Prime Minister for restoring macroeconomic stability to Pakistan over the last three years and expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s cooperation on climate change priorities. The Secretary reiterated the need for Pakistan to prevent all terrorists from using Pakistani territory as safe havens, while commending recent efforts by Pakistani security forces to counter extremist violence. They also spoke about regional issues, including recent developments with regard to Afghanistan. The Prime Minister and Secretary Kerry expressed strong concern with recent violence in Kashmir — particularly the army base attack — and the need for all sides to reduce tensions. Secretary Kerry also stressed the need for restraint in nuclear weapons programs. The Secretary praised Pakistan for hosting Afghan refugees for over 40 years and highlighted the importance of continued respect for humanitarian principles. This is a carefully worded document, drafted by career diplomats with the full knowledge of the intelligence inputs available with the US State Department regarding the attack that took place on Uri base over 36 hours previously on Sunday. Nonetheless, such manifestly effusive sentiments and fulsome praise for Pakistan have been attributed to Kerry. See the expressions that have been used in the document with great deliberation – “strong, long-term bilateral partnership”; “commended the Prime Minister”; “expressed appreciation for Pakistan’s cooperation”; “commending recent efforts by Pakistani security forces to counter extremist violence”; “praised Pakistan for hosting Afghan refugees for over 40 years”, et al. Most significantly, the reference to J&K and Uri attack is framed as the shared opinion of Sharif and Kerry – “The Prime Minister and Secretary Kerry expressed strong concern with recent violence in Kashmir — particularly the army base attack — and the need for all sides to reduce tensions.” What does this single stunning sentence imply in plain language, shorn of diplomatic idiom? One, US is not willing to censure Pakistan; Two, US shares Pakistan’s “strong concern over recent violence in Kashmir”; Three, the Uri base attack is to be seen squarely in the context of the 2-month old upheaval in Kashmir Valley; and, Four, US agrees with Pakistan on the need to reduce tensions (read on the imperative need of India-Pakistan talks). The point that really makes one shudder is that Kerry does not think this is an act of cross-border terrorism. The Americans seem to have arrived at some conclusions of their own regarding what happened in Uri, which do not tally with our account. Now, unless we shake ourselves free of the myopic vision regarding ourselves that has been systematically created by our ruling elites through the past 2-year period, ably assisted by the unscrupulous TV channels in Delhi day in and day out, we will come to grief. This is all nothing but Goebbelsian lies that we are being fed with by our TV channels. The unfortunate part is that almost two-thirds Indians are today clamoring for military action against Pakistan. The ruling elites would know they are riding a tiger and if they dismount at this juncture, the public opinion will devour them for not living up to the myths the people have been led to believe all this while. The Indian public does not know that the realities of the security environment surrounding India today are pretty grim and we desperately need an exit strategy. Equally, our strategic choices are virtually nil today, thanks to the nuclear stalemate and Pakistan’s stockpile of tactical weapons that can neutralize our forces (while on their territory) without even giving cause to provoke (or justify) a nuclear counter-strike by us. These are theatre weapons which have focused usage in a specific limited area, but will annihilate the enemy in real time. Our public should realize that any provocation by us could draw forth a Pakistani retaliation the scale of which will be simply prohibitive in cost in human lives and destruction. Read an insightful perspective on Uri attack by the well-known US pundit George Perkovich on the strategic dilemma India faces today vis-à-vis Pakistan – Perkovich candidly says India has run out of options and is left with no sensible way of addressing the challenge posed by terrorism on an enduring basis except by engaging the people of the Kashmir Valley in political dialogue, and the alternative will be a seamless asymmetric war. (here: https://tinyurl.com/j7eumgv) ======================================== 12. WHEN MEDIA PEDDLES JINGOISM AS TRUTH by Garga Chatterjee ======================================== (Daily News and Analysis - 21 September 2016) On the whole, English, Hindi and Urdu media in Pakistan and India are playing a very negative role. September 2016 is witness to an apocalyptic dress-rehearsal where mainstream media is egging on two nuclear-armed governments for “action” and “reaction”. Humans all over, especially those in the subcontinent, need to sit up and take note of whatever it is that masquerades as media. After the Uri attacks, there is talk of action and retaliation in the air and even more so in the airwaves. Did the Indian Army jawans die for nothing, some ask? There’s something deeply unethical in the voluntariness that’s always injected in case of Army deaths. It’s not a sin to die of circumstances like tent burning. There is no indignity in it. By calling that sacrifice and martyrdom, hence implying a more “active” death, one disrespects the dead. Whatever they died for (and all deaths need not be for or against something), I believe they didn’t die so that their death could bring the subcontinent closer to a nuclear war. Many people in the subcontinent love their lives more than they love their government. I’m one of them. On the whole, English, Hindi and Urdu media in Pakistan and India are playing a very negative role. They are war-mongering for their respective governments, in the name of “nation”. The Pakistani media is in denial mode while Indian media is in finger-pointing mode, none presenting publicly verifiable evidence to back up their claims or refutations. Both run defence ministry and government claims without fact-checking, as if fact-checking was blasphemous and questioning was treasonous. Both refer to armies and governments as “our”, seriously undermining the status of the media as an independent pillar in a democratic republican setting. A small part of media in both India and Pakistan, especially non-English-Hindi-Urdu media is playing a saner role, but they are marginal in setting the so-called “national” narrative. In the Indian Union, Hindi-English television media is playing an especially irresponsible role. The other day, ex Chief of Indian Army, Shankar Ray Chowdhury openly suggested raising suicide squads. Is this not incitement to violence? If not, then what is? Is there a legal exception for ex-Army folks? Does he suggest this strategy to his close relatives? Non-Hindi-English media in both countries seem to have less interest in this long drawn conflict between Delhi and Islamabad. The role of mainstream media or any non-propaganda media should be based on facts. They should also be cognisant of the fact that the Indian Union and the Pakistani administration are armed with nuclear weapons with powers to destroy each other. The media should also educate their audience about the hugely destructive effects of a nuclear conflict and that nuclear fall outs do not respect international borders. It should also critically examine claims made by their respective armies and governments. Truth and realism — not jingoism — should drive public opinion. Media’s job isn’t to act as unquestioning amplifiers of Ministry of Defence press briefings and Government of India/Pakistan press releases. If that were so, there would be no need for an independent media. What hopefully separates Indian Union and Pakistan from North Korea on this count is probably this. But that separation is only half the story — Pakistan and Indian Union are barely separated from each other, globally ranking 133 and 147 out of 180 administrations in the Press Freedom Index of 2016. Recently, Kashmiri human rights activist Khurram Parvez was arrested after being disallowed from attending a United Nations Human Rights Council meeting abroad. After the Uri attack, a Kashmiri student was expelled from Aligarh Muslim University for an ‘objectionable’ Facebook post. Whoever thinks that muzzling dissent and fanning jingoism is great strategy has clearly forgotten Benjamin Franklin’s words — “Those who give up their liberty for more security neither deserve liberty nor security”. The author comments on politics and culture @gargac ======================================== 13. INDIA - J&K IMPASSE: CONCERNED INDIANS SHOULD REACH OUT TO KASHMIRIS | Rajmohan Gandhi ======================================== (The Economic Times - Sep 18, 2016) In some ways the game is over in Kashmir Valley. When someone like Tariq Ahmed Karra, one of the PDP founders, resigns from Parliament and party, citing "administratively inhuman and politically unethical blunders", and likens the government's repressive methods to those of the Nazis, it is time to realise that rejection of India seems complete in Kashmir. A de facto plebiscite already seems to have taken place there. Kashmiris appear to have voted with untiring throats, with eyes destroyed or deformed by pellets, and with bodies willing to fall to the ground for what the heart desires. And the vote seems to be for azadi. At the very least, alienation in Kashmir has reached a new depth. But a de facto plebiscite has also taken place in India, and the vote seems to be against yielding on India's sovereignty over Kashmir. When leaders of left parties join the rest in insisting that "there can be no compromise" over sovereignty, the door to ambiguity appears closed. As far as Indians are concerned, it would seem that the Tricolour must always fly over Kashmir. The stalemate will probably continue. Some possibilities can be imagined. Kashmiris may tire. Weeks of closed schools and lost incomes may take their toll. The continuing incarceration of breadwinners may become harder each day to endure. Street demonstrations could peter out. And a new "hero" may emerge who is ready to impose Delhi's will under a Kashmiri name and declare the return of "normalcy". But there is no sign that any return of "normalcy" will last. The probability is that alienation will be nursed quietly until circumstances allow for another round of open defiance. Is it possible that Kashmiris recognise the moral azadi they have won, declare victory and a pause, preserve their livelihoods as also their children's education, and prepare fresh strategies? In such a case, they might add considerably to their gains. And if, to the extent possible, Kashmiris conscious of their mental azadi take charge of their villages, localities and institutions — if in running their local institutions, and in protecting their land's God-given yet greatly endangered environment, they display the solidarity they have shown in defying New Delhi — they would chip away at Indian resistance to their azadi. Is this asking too much of Kashmiris? Across the Divide Everyone knows that the number of Indians willing to admit openly that Kashmiris have not themselves chosen to belong to India has been small. But it is growing. Indian voices are finally recognising, perhaps to their shock, that to many Kashmiris, their compatriots ready to be killed for deeds of azadi are heroes in the same way in which Bhagat Singh, Chandra Shekhar Azad and Subhas Chandra Bose are heroes in India. Very much smaller is the number of Indians willing to say that Kashmiris are entitled, if they so wish, to de jure azadi and a seat at the UN. And the number of Indians who sincerely think that Kashmiris would lose out under formal azadi is quite large. But there are other ways in which concerned Indians can help the people of Kashmir. And if at least 80 deaths at the hands of security forces, including of women and children, numerous blindings, a great many serious injuries, and more than 70 continuous shutdown days in the Valley are not enough to stir the Indian conscience, what will? Concerned Indians can demand an immediate end of pellets as a means of crowd control. They can ask for a detailed, day-to-day updating of civilians and security personnel killed or injured in Kashmir. They can demand the oftpromised but seldom if ever implemented prosecution of military and para-military personnel involved in unwarranted use of lethal arms. They can ask for at least a beginning of the oft-promoted exercise of demilitarising Kashmir valley. They can circulate as widely as possible reliable reports of nonviolent protests in Kashmir and of excesses in Kashmir by security forces. And they can underline the folly and unconstitutionality of suppressing freedom of expression and communication, even when the words expressed go against popular or official opinion. As long as they do not commit violence, Kashmiris surely have the freedom, under Indian and international law, to criticise policies, and even to ask for azadi, and to talk to one another about it. When it disables a population's phone and internet communications, an administration not only broadcasts its unpopularity; it prevents the flow of discussion and debate that may ultimately lead to solutions. Such blocking measures moreover suggest that a people as a whole, and not merely law-breakers, are the targets of official distrust, a posture that once defined imperial rule. What must never be allowed is the blocking of communication between concerned Kashmiris and concerned Indians. Our economy is single, our lives are interdependent. Kashmiris study, trade and live in different corners of India. Provided it remains honest and mutually respectful, interaction between common people across the divide can only help. By Rajmohan Gandhi (The writer is a historian) ======================================== 14. THE BLINDING SPIRAL IN KASHMIR by Jawed Naqvi ======================================== (Dawn - September 20, 2016) THE murderous attack on Indian soldiers in Uri offers one more sample of the bloodthirst infusing India-Pakistan rivalry over Kashmir. No one seems to want the simpler, obvious ways to tackle the tendency. There were resolutions between the two sides, at the highest level, no less, that aimed to undermine terrorism completely. Was it Manmohan Singh and Musharraf, or was it Vajpayee, who signed the pact to not let terrorism stall the dialogue between the two countries? Both sides opted out of that resolve and now the terrorists who are setting the agenda are leading both. And terrorists traditionally pander to an old structural malaise stalking us from the beginning of society. Far from being nonviolent, our early ancestors, in all probability were cannibals. Our language too, as Prof Kailash Nath Kaul would say, reflects the fact. The Old Testament decreed an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth. Jesus subsequently softened God’s command. He advised offering the other cheek. Gandhi favoured the dictum as much as he could, but the extremist Hindus for all their loathing of the Christian faith settled for the Old Testament. Thus it was not a surprising reaction to the terror attack that came from Ram Madhav, an RSS-loaned trouble-shooter for the Hindutva establishment in Delhi. He promptly called for a jaw for each tooth, whatever that means in a region crawling with nuclear weapons. The formulation sounds bewildering though familiar. A previous advocate of Hindutva had used a similar phrase apropos of an attack that actually took place a day after he published the maximum ratio of revenge in the Indian Express. Read Arun Shourie’s prescient piece on how to deal with Muslim terror. His demand was more ambitious than Madhav’s: two eyes for an eye, and a whole jaw for a tooth. The parliament attack came a day after the thesis was published. Intriguing. For all the flaunting of Mahatma Gandhi’s name, India has revealed a gargantuan appetite for inflicting violence. In Urdu-Hindi idioms, Professor Kaul’s argument is clear. I shall drink your blood and eat your flesh if you annoy me. Tera khoon pi jaaonga. Tujhe kachcha chaba jaaoonga. If you want to thwart someone’s irritating persistence, you have a cannibalistic reprimand. Mera bheja mat khao, or don’t chew my brains. Prof Kaul was a man of science and had set up India’s premier botanical gardens in Lucknow. With Jawaharlal Nehru for a brother-in-law, he had engaging political insights. Yet he was essentially a masterly raconteur. Languages evolve from our social experiences, he would say. They are thus one more proof of our gory past, and in clear ways the present too. People have cited religious texts to inflict barbarism be it as the Crusaders or the Jewish Haganah or Muslim conquerors. As luck would have it, people have used the same method to critique the barbarians too. The Taliban and the so-called militant Islamic State group have revelled in beheading their rivals in recent days. There were gory images of militants eating the bleeding heart of a Syrian soldier they had just killed. In Kashmir, a shadowy group called Al Faran decapitated a Norwegian hostage in the mid-1990s at the start of a violent upsurge against India. It has been suggested that Al Faran’s brutality came handy for India, which went to town against the entire Kashmiri resistance as a reckless enterprise. The event may have signalled the shift from early Western support to the resistance. Pakistani and Indian soldiers have been accused of cutting off each other’s heads as trophies. British soldiers did much the same with Malayan communists. For all the flaunting of Mahatma Gandhi’s name to appear in public view as a nonviolent polity, independent India has revealed a gargantuan appetite for inflicting violence, most of all on its own people. Doodh mangogey to kheer denge. Kashmir mangogey to cheer dengey. (You ask for milk, I’ll give you pudding. You ask for Kashmir I’ll rip you apart.) The aphorism, carried often enough on the back of auto rickshaws and private cars could not have been addressed to the chief sponsor of Kashmir’s independence quest, the nuclear-armed Pakistan. There have been severe reprisals, on the other hand, on the common Kashmiris, the assaults not far removed from the scriptural dictums. Many have been blinded for throwing stones at Indian troopers, a new way to look at the eye for an eye bloodthirst. Far more have been killed, however, on both sides, mostly the civilians, in a spiral laced with mistrust and accusations in recent decades. While Indian leftists have condemned the murderous attack in which at least 17 soldiers perished, they have urged the government to not submit to those seeking to subvert prospects of dialogue between the “stakeholders” in Kashmir. Most others have indented for unspecified action, not always in a veiled way, against Pakistan. Prime Minister Modi has declared that the culprits will be hunted down. His advisers seem to favour a cross-border raid. That’s what Israel does with neighbours it doesn’t like. But they have no nuclear weapons. Those sceptical of the Modi government believe the tragedy that befell the hapless soldiers in Kashmir serves Delhi’s agenda and that of the militant groups it accuses of staging such attacks. Will voters in Punjab swing BJP’s way with the militarist rhetoric? Significantly, The Telegraph of Kolkata reported how the US feared something like Uri happening with both sides jostling for attention at the UN and Non-Aligned meetings. Now they are accusing each other of being the villain of the piece. History wears tragic and farcical garbs. What could be more ironical in this tragedy of the tooth and the jaw than the story of the man who authored the current spiral in Kashmir? His denouement was imprinted in the DNA of the jaw after his plane exploded with a crateful of mangoes. ======================================== 15. INDIA: A POOR JOB WITH SUMS - A CASE FOR DOUBLING THE OFFICIAL POVERTY LINE by Prabhat Patnaik ======================================== (The Telegraph - 20 September 2016) An important demand of the trade unions which had called for an all-India general strike on September 2 was that the minimum wage of unskilled workers should be raised to Rs 692 per day. This was not just a figure pulled out of thin air. On the contrary, it was in conformity with the criteria for fixing the minimum wage which have been arrived at after careful deliberations at the Indian Labour Conference, the apex-level tripartite body consisting of representatives of workers, employers and the government (including both Central and state governments), which takes major decisions in matters relating to labour. The ILC in 1957 had laid down the following criteria for fixing the minimum wage. The wage-earner should be able to support a family of four, consisting of husband, wife and two children; since these two children were assumed to constitute one "consumption unit", this meant that the earner should be able to support three consumption units. This support should mean 2,700 calories per adult per day and 72 yards of cloth for the family as a whole per year. In addition, 10 per cent of the amount that would cover food and clothing should be added for house rent and 20 per cent for fuel, lighting and other miscellaneous expenditures. In 1992, the Supreme Court in an important judgment added a further 25 per cent to the basic food and clothing expenditure, for children's education, medical expenditure and minimum recreational and social expenditure. The minimum wage criteria as they stand today therefore are as follows: if Rs X are required per year to cover food expenditure that would assure 2,700 calories per adult per day and 72 yards cloth per annum for the family of four, then the annual minimum wage should be Rs X plus 55 per cent of Rs X. The exact amount this translates into would depend, of course, on the prices prevailing in a particular year; but the criteria themselves are clear and approved by all. Some may wonder why the ILC assumed only one earning member per family. The reason is obvious. If one adult in the family takes up wage-work, then the other will have to do the cooking, cleaning, taking care of the children, and other household chores, which do not fetch any money-earnings. The entire family's need for food, clothing and the other items mentioned above has to be met out of the wage-income of only one member which, therefore, has to be sufficient for the purpose. If both the adults are assumed to work for money, then they have to employ somebody else to do the household chores that one of them would otherwise have done, which would accordingly raise the minimum wage (since the payment to such an employee would then have to be included as additional expenditure for the family). The criteria therefore are perfectly defensible; the only issue is the amount of the minimum wage into which they translate. And here we have access to some new information now. The Central pay commission has just recommended that Rs 18,000 per month should be the minimum wage for Central government employees whose work requires no special skills; and the Central government has accepted this recommendation. Using the perfectly legitimate principle of "equal pay for equal work" the trade unions demanded that the same amount should be the minimum wage of unskilled workers in other occupations as well, which, assuming a 26-day working month, comes to Rs 692 per working day. The Central government, however, rejected this demand, which was one of the factors precipitating the strike. This entire minimum wage discussion, however, has an important bearing on the question of the poverty line for the country. The poverty line in India is defined as that level of actual expenditure (on all items) at which a person just accesses 2,200 calories per day in rural areas and 2,100 calories per day in urban areas. These levels were calculated for the base year 1973-74 from the National Sample Survey data; and even though such data are available for large samples once every five years, and similar calculations could have been made at five-year intervals for the entire subsequent period, the government chose instead to follow a curious alternative method. It simply brought forward the 1973-74 poverty lines for all subsequent years by using consumer price indices. This has had an unfortunate effect. The infirmities of the price-indices have meant that the official poverty lines have been much lower in the subsequent period than those employing the correct method, adopted in the base year, would have warranted, thus underestimating poverty. And what is more, the excess of the poverty lines given by the correct method over those given by the questionable method (which uses the price-indices), has kept increasing over time, because of which an entirely erroneous impression has been given that the headcount ratios of poverty in the country have been declining. Since the poverty figure is not just a matter of academic interest but determines people's ability to access the many government schemes meant for the poor, the Planning Commission's ludicrously low poverty lines became the target of attack from several quarters some years ago, forcing the government to set up a number of committees to "revise" the poverty lines. The reports of these committees, doing arbitrary patchwork jobs, however, are dictated more by the need to find some "acceptable" way out rather than by any objective considerations. The Rangarajan committee has lowered the rural and urban daily calorie norms by 10 and 45 respectively. This is in sharp contrast to the manner in which the minimum wage figure is arrived at. And what is more, even what I have called the "correct" method above, which was used only in the base year 1973-74, estimates the poverty line by looking at the household's own expenditure pattern, and not by objectively specifying the various amounts of goods and services that should be covered. Since the daily calorie norms 2,200 and 2,100 are objectively specified, there is no reason why such objective specification should not be extended to other expenditure items as well. If we do so, however, then a curious situation confronts us. The expenditure basket covered by the minimum wage is supposed to provide 2,700 calories per adult per day, which, for three consumption units, comes to 8,100 calories. The new poverty line, in contrast, is supposed to provide 2,155 calories in rural India and 2,090 calories in urban India per day per capita (and not per consumption unit); these therefore amount to 8,620 calories in rural areas and 8,360 calories in urban areas for a family of four, and are higher than what the minimum wage provides. If other expenditures are added in the same proportion then it follows that the poverty lines must exceed the minimum wage. In other words, an objectively-postulated poverty line using the same logic that underlies the minimum wage calculation must place it above Rs 18,000 per month. Let us, however, err on the conservative side and take Rs 18,000 per month as a uniform poverty line, ignoring differences between rural and urban areas. This would amount to Rs 600 per family per day and Rs 150 per capita per day, which is almost three times the figure that emerges if the suggestion of the Rangarajan committee (the last of the government committees asked to revise the poverty line) is brought forward to the current year by using a consumer price index. The Chinese government almost doubled the daily poverty line for rural China in December 2011, from 3.5 yuan to 6.3 yuan. It did not provide any statistical reasons for doing so, but clearly the earlier poverty line was far too low and the idea was to include many more people among the beneficiaries of government schemes meant for the poor. In India, as I have just shown, a very clear case exists, based on the report of the government's own Central pay commission, for at least doubling the poverty line. Since being below the official poverty line provides access to several benefits, even a simple doubling of the poverty line will go a long way in ameliorating the conditions of vast numbers of destitute working people in the country. All those who take pride in the fact that India's current gross domestic product growth apparently exceeds that of China, should surely support such a doubling for it would show that India's concern for the poor too is no less than that of China. The trade unions of late have also been including the demands of the peasantry in their charter of demands, as evidence of their desire to rise above a narrow, self-centred economism. This is laudable. But in the same spirit they should take an extra step and demand that the official poverty line should at least be doubled. The author is Professor Emeritus, Centre for Economic Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi ======================================== 16. BOOK REVIEW: MAOISM IN INDIA AND NEPAL BY RANJIT BHUSHAN ======================================== (Hindustan Times - Sep 17, 2016) [review] by Sankar Ray, Hindustan Times Maoists at a training camp in Bijapur in Chhattisgarh on July 8, 2012 security threat. (Noah Seelam/AFP Photo) Maoism and Naxalism are synonymous. Mao Zedong Thought and the authority of Charu Mazumdar is the basis of both. Ranjit Bhushan, who specializes in Maoist politics and practice, has set a new pace by looking at Maoism through interviews with CPI(Maoist) fellow traveler Varavara Rao, Kameswar Baitha (the first and so far, the last Maoist elected to the Lok Sabha), CPI(ML) Liberation general secretary Dipankar Bhattacharya, Nepali Maoist biggies like Pushpa Kamal Dahal aka Prachanda, Dr Baburam Bhattarai, and Dr Binayak Sen, who worked as a people’s doctor and a civil rights functionary in Bastar and the adjoining regions of Chhattisgarh. The author has also interviewed well-known academic Prof Manoranjan Mohanty, a quasi- sympathizer of the Naxalite movement, Dr Avijit Mazumdar, Charu Mazumdar’s son, and a central committee member of CPI (ML) Liberation, and veteran journalist Anand Verma, who has been covering the Maoist movement in India and Nepal. This reviewer wishes the author had also interviewed CPI(Maoist) general secretary Ganapathi or a top underground Maoist leader. The interviews reveal the pluralistic feature of Maoism in both theory and practice. This may be why the Maoist movement in India split into many groups or factions, a syndrome that also manifested itself in Nepal despite the strong political presence of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist Center) and CP of Nepal (United Marxist-Leninist) in the Himalayan nation. Central to the interviews is the question of violence. Varavara Rao, citing the Bolshevik Revolution, the Chinese Revolution and the Paris Commune, fiercely justifies the armed struggle, the official programme of the CPI (Maoist), as the only path to capturing state power. For him, Marx’s ‘force’ as ‘the mid-wife of revolution’ means the universality of the armed path. Bhattarai differs and defines transformation as a “move towards a higher stage of development of society”. “That is the revolution,” he says. “It is not always violence; it is peaceful violence. You always try to use peaceful violence but once that is obstructed, you have to resort to arms”. The once second in-command of United CPN(Maoist) hastens to add, “Our party always likes to pursue peaceful means”(pp 187-88). He goes on: “Marx in his La Liberté Speech in Amsterdam at the International Workingmen’s Association (8 September 1872), said in countries such as America… Holland -- workers can attain their goal (of seizure of power by peaceful means).” Rao’s perception conflicts with the historical reality of the Bolshevik seizure of state power, which witnessed almost no bloodshed. So neither the armed nor the peaceful path is absolute. Engels nailed the concept of “the absolute” in his Ludwig Feuerbach and the End of Classical German Philosophy. Read more: Left divided over Maoists’ call for united front against Hindutva issue Prachanda endorses Bhattarai more: “...without the support of and agreement with Maoists, without supporting the Maoist proposal, it was not possible to regain power from the monarchy”. He is more assertive while stating: “We will move forward in a very unique way, not mechanically but very pragmatically”. Incidentally, pragmatism is ant-Marxian. The author should have asked him what happened to ‘Prachanda path’. Baitha, who was inspired by Charu Mazumdar and spent years underground in Jharkhand as a Maoist, states bluntly: “I saw the parliamentary system and how it works… Development was only possible under the parliamentary system.” This is in total opposition to the ideology of the CPI (Maoist). Binayak Sen, who is not a Maoist, defines development as “a political process’’. He rejects violence. “As a human rights worker, I cannot approve or condone violence,” he says. Supporters of the Communist Party of Nepal (Maoist) marching in Kathmandu, Nepal, on March 27, 2010 (www.shutterstock.com) Prof Mohanty, a Maoist ideologue, considers the Maoist experiment in Nepal “a most creative revolutionary movement in history”, implying that it surpassed the Bolshevik, Chinese and Cuban revolutions. However, he accuses the CPI(Maoist) of ignoring the principle of ‘practising violence as the last resort” and wrongly categorises a prominent business house as “global monopoly bourgeoisie” when they are actually crony capitalists. Dipankar Bhattacharya admits Charu Mazumdar’s line of annihilation had “a lot of indiscriminate and unnecessary killing” causing isolation from “peasants’ class struggle” but denies the charge that “there is no Marxism”. He also mislabels the Indo-Soviet non-aggression treaty as the ‘Indo-Soviet military pact’, which sounds a jarring note given his stature. Anand Verma’s exposes the ‘transparent’ poll in Nepal and refers to rebel Maoist leader Mohan Vaidya’s prophetic comment that the ‘party was headed towards self-destruction’. A Cultural Revolution poster from 1970s China (www.shutterstock.com) Copying Lenin, Mao and Stalin, everyone whom the author interviewed has emphasized the role of ideology. For instance, Mazumdar says history doesn’t repeat itself but ‘ideology does’. All this is quibbling as Marx nailed both ideology and ideologues: “…in all ideology men and their circumstances appear upside-down as in a camera obscura” (German Ideology). The introduction is a good read but wrongly states that at the 20th Congress of the CPSU, Nikita Khrushchev spoke of the parliamentary path. Even if he said so, the demolisher of Stalin has Marx on his side. In The Charterists (9 October 1852), Marx equated universal suffrage with “political power for the working class of England, where the proletariat forms the large majority of the population”. Lastly, the claim that this is a work of oral historiography is questionable as the author has made leaders speak while leaving subalterns in the lurch. ======================================== 17. BOOK REVIEW: WHY DID FOUCAULT DISREGARD IRANIAN FEMINISTS IN HIS SUPPORT FOR KHOMEINI? by Javier Sethness ======================================== (truthout.org - 13 September 2016 (Image: University of Chicago Press) Foucault and the Iranian Revolution: Gender and the Seductions of Islamism, Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson, University of Chicago Press, 2005 Janet Afary and Kevin B. Anderson's Foucault and the Iranian Revolution presents a fascinating historical account of the process whereby the despotic Mohammad Reza Shah Pahlavi was overthrown by the Iranian masses in 1978-79, only to yield a dictatorial Islamist regime led by reactionary clerics. The transition to the Islamic Republic, ruled over by Grand Ayatollah Sayyid Ruhollah Mūsavi Khomeini, found the unlikely support of Michel Foucault, the French philosopher well-known for his anti-authoritarian critique of Western modernity, who expressed great enthusiasm for the Shi'ite Islamist elements of the Revolution in a number of public articles he wrote about the fall of the Shah, as based on the two visits he made to Iran in 1978. Afary and Anderson observe that, while many progressives and leftists -- both in Iran and elsewhere -- favored the Revolution against the Shah but could not countenance the notion of an Islamic Republic replacing such despotism, Foucault was less critical toward Khomeini and the possibility of clerical rule. The authors argue that Foucault's attitude in this sense -- rather than signify some aberration or lapse in judgment -- indeed follows from his post-structuralist political theorizing, which rejects the Enlightenment and despairs at the historical possibility of emancipation. As such, Foucault and the Iranian Revolution serves as an important warning for Western radicals and intellectuals vis-à-vis revolutionary movements, anti-imperialism and political authoritarianism in the rest of the world. Moreover, it raises questions about the liberatory potential of post-structuralism, detailing how that tendency's preeminent spokesperson so clearly betrayed Iran's workers, women, LGBTQ citizens, dissidents and religious and ethnic minorities by romanticizing what French leftist Maxime Rodinson refers to as "a type of archaic fascism." In their investigation of Foucault's relationship with the Iranian Revolution, Afary and Anderson situate the philosopher's writings within the context of the rejection of modernity he advances in works like Madness and Civilization (1961) and Discipline and Punish (1975). In this way, the authors hold that Foucault privileges pre-modernism, irrationalism and traditionalism -- and therefore patriarchal domination. In fact, Foucault was not very attuned to feminist concerns, as is clearly seen in the October 1978 essay, "What Are the Iranians Dreaming About?" Here, the writer uncritically cites the vision of a future Iranian Islamic state in which there would supposedly not be any "inequality with respect to rights" between men and women, but "difference, since there is a natural difference." Beyond this, in certain ways, the Grand Ayatollah Khomeini can be said to typify the "will to power" developed by Friedrich Nietzsche, the authoritarian irrationalist whose thought was central to Foucault's worldview, as was that of Martin Heidegger, the Nazi-friendly phenomenologist whose concept of "being toward death" resonated with Foucault. The authors have a point, then, in observing that "Foucault's affinity with the Iranian Islamists [...] may also reveal some of the larger ramifications of his Nietzschean-Heideggerian discourse." Psychologically and philosophically, Foucault found the 1978 mass-demonstrations against the Shah that re-enacted the historical drama of the battle of Karbala (680 CE) and the martyrdom there of Hussein ibn Ali, the grandson of the Prophet Muhammad revered by Shi'ites, highly compelling. For Afary and Anderson, Foucault's attraction to the Iranian Revolution can be explained by the common interests the philosopher shared with many of the insurgents in terms of traditionalism, anti-imperialism and death. During the Revolution, the mourning celebrations of Muharram and Ashura, which commemorate the death of Hussein ibn Ali, his family and followers at the hands of the Sunni Umayyad dynasty, saw Shi'ite Islam being interpreted to emphasize the righteousness of masses of people electing to give their lives for the cause of overthrowing the Shah. Indeed, the principal intellectual forerunner of the Iranian Revolution, Ali Shariati, stressed martyrdom as the defining element of Shi'ism: Alavid or "red Shi'ism" (that of Hussein ibn Ali) against Safavid (institutionalized) or "black Shi'ism." Shariati's view is that all generations are invited to give up their lives in the struggle if they cannot kill their oppressors. While Shariati did not live to see the Revolution he inspired, the major uprisings of September 1978 followed his predictions, as scores of protesters were killed in the streets by the Shah's security forces on "Black Friday" (September 8). Thereafter, general strikes were launched in various industries and the Shah's end drew precipitously closer. Foucault was deeply struck by these mobilizations involving hundreds of thousands of people, seeing in them the total "other" of established Western society. Indeed, his enthusiasm for the advance of the Revolution through Islamist "political spirituality" led him to disregard the secularist and left-wing elements participating in the movement as less authentic than the expressly Shi'ite protestors, and in fact to declare that the collective political will of the Iranian people was entirely unified by political Islam and a generalized love for the exiled Ayatollah Khomeini. In the aforementioned article regarding Iranian dreams, Foucault also embarrassingly reproduces a line from a cleric stipulating that Iran's ethnic and religious minorities -- Kurds, Jews, Baha'is, Zoroastrians -- would be respected insofar as their lives did not "injure the majority." This lapse, together with the anti-feminist sentiment Foucault reproduced in the same essay, led an Iranian woman named "Atoussa H." to call him out publicly. In a letter to Le Nouvel Observateur published in November 1978, Foucault's critic issued a warning about the philosopher's romanticization of Islamism and the prospect of an Islamic State in Iran, noting that, "everywhere outside Iran, Islam serves as a cover for feudal or pseudo-revolutionary oppression." Atoussa H. despaired at the prospect of having the reign of the bloody Shah merely yield to religious fanaticism. Foucault's public reply to Atoussa H. was condescending and evasive -- rather than respond to the woman's concerns, Foucault accused her feminism of being Orientalist. In his writings from late 1978, moreover, the intellectual provided significant ideological cover to Khomeinism, claiming the Shi'ite clergy to be non-hierarchical and reassuring his readers that "there will not be a Khomeini party" or a "Khomeini government." Some months later, after the Shah's abdication and the "victory" of the Revolution, Foucault announced that "religion's role was [merely] to open the curtain," and that now, "the mullahs will disperse." Meanwhile, Rodinson publicly challenged Foucault's delusions on Iran in Le Monde, arguing that the domination of the Revolution by clerical elements threatened to merely have one form of despotism be succeeded by another. In parallel, Iranian Marxists and the Fedayeen guerrillas made known their unease at the prospect of the same. The oppressive nature of the clerical regime that Foucault had helped to legitimize became readily evident after February 1979. Upon his return from exile, Khomeini moved swiftly to overturn established laws protecting women's rights, and on International Women's Day, March 8, 1979, he announced that all Iranian women were obligated to wear the chador. Such actions led masses of women to mobilize on the very same day to denounce the incipient dictatorship, declaring ironically that, "In the Dawn of Freedom, We Have No Freedom." Their courage as women rebelling against a new "revolutionary" order was hailed from afar by Simone de Beauvoir and Raya Dunayevskaya -- but not by Foucault. Neither did the philosopher in question speak out after the new regime's summary executions of political opponents and men accused of homosexuality became evident, to say nothing of the state's attacks on the Kurds and Baha'is. Such silence led yet another critique of Foucault on Iran to be written, this time by Claudie and Jacques Broyelle. As they argue: "When one is an intellectual, when one works both on and with 'ideas,' when one has the freedom [...] not to be a sycophantic writer, then one also has some obligations. The first one is to take responsibility for the ideas that one has defended when they are finally realized." Foucault's public response to the Broyelles was as unsatisfying as his response to Atoussa H.: dismissive and opportunistic. While it is true that Foucault came in passing to acknowledge the chauvinistic and nationalistic aspects of the Iranian Revolution -- and even questioned in the end whether it could be considered a Revolution, as it had installed a "bloody government of a fundamentalist clergy" -- his stance toward Khomeini and the Islamic Republic was "fundamentally a stance of support," as Afary and Anderson conclude. From June 1979, by which time the regressive nature of theocratic rule had become undeniable, to the time of his death in 1984, Foucault guarded silence on the question of Iran and the Revolution. Never did he recant his previous excitement about Shi'ite Islamism or plead forgiveness, much less express support for the Iranians who suffered so terribly under the very Islamic Republic for which he had served as an unwitting propagandist. On the contrary, Foucault in his writings on Iran advanced reactionary criticisms of human rights, democracy and feminism. Post-Structuralism and Counterrevolution The case of a renowned anti-authoritarian Western philosopher legitimizing the coming-to-power of a brutal theocratic ruling class in Iran raises a number of pressing questions. How could this have come to pass? In the first place, Afary and Anderson are right to observe that Foucault failed to grasp that "an anti-Western, religiously based system of power" could be as oppressive as fascism or Stalinism. His lapse in this sense owed in part to his ignorance and romanticization of political Islam in general and the thought of Ayatollah Khomeini in particular -- for Khomeini in 1970 had already anticipated the despotism of the Islamic Republic with his text Velayat-e Faqih, which calls for clerical domination of the state. As has been mentioned above, as well, his attitude toward Iran was surely influenced by his affinities with traditionalist, non-Western elements. In addition, nevertheless, Foucault's unique philosophical proclivities likely played an important role. Post-structuralism rejects the "grand narratives" of socialism and historical progress, basing itself instead in the nihilist-irrationalist approach of Nietzsche, a thinker who argues in On the Genealogy of Morals that the French Revolution represented the victory of slave morality, ressentiment and the supposed power of "Judea" over Roman virility, centralism and imperialism. It is arguably Foucault's pseudo-radical innovation of post-structuralism that set him apart from the rest of the global progressive movement on Iran; earlier that decade, in his debate with Noam Chomsky, the philosopher had already rejected anarcho-syndicalism. Moreover, according to Edward Said, he sided with Israel over the Palestinians, losing his close friend Gilles Deleuze in the process. In truth, one need only review Foucault's shameful attitude toward a clerical-fascist regime that executed more than 20,000 citizens -- many of them gay people and guerrillas -- during the remainder of Khomeini's lifetime to see the regressive qualities of his post-structuralism manifesting themselves clearly. Beyond this, Afary and Anderson do recognize and commend Foucault's activism and organizing in favor of prisoners, the Polish Solidarity Movement and the Vietnamese "boat people" fleeing Stalinist victory in Southeast Asia, but they argue that the Iranian Revolution formed a much more central commitment in the life of the philosopher. Foucault's delusions regarding Iran mirror the serious errors expressed by several left-wing intellectuals in history -- Albert Camus, for example, who rejected Algerian independence from the French Empire, or the numerous thinkers who lent their support to the Soviet Union and Maoist China -- and they are well-critiqued by Dunayevskaya's denunciation of observers of the Iranian Revolution who prioritized anti-imperialism over internal oppression. Such considerations remain very much germane today, particularly with regard to the catastrophe in Syria, where the Islamic Republic has played a most oppressive role together with Russia in propping up the fascistic Assad regime. ======================================== 18. DUDLEY SHOTWELL ON KELLY, 'ABSTINENCE CINEMA: VIRGINITY AND THE RHETORIC OF SEXUAL PURITY IN CONTEMPORARY FILM' ======================================== Casey Ryan Kelly. Abstinence Cinema: Virginity and the Rhetoric of Sexual Purity in Contemporary Film. New Brunswick: Rutgers University Press, 2016. Illustrations. 210 pp. $26.95 (paper), ISBN 978-0-8135-7510-0; $90.00 (cloth), ISBN 978-0-8135-7511-7. Reviewed by Hannah Dudley Shotwell (University of North Carolina, Greensboro) Published on H-SAWH (September, 2016) Commissioned by Lisa A. Francavilla Abstinence Cinema: Virginity and the Rhetoric of Sexual Purity in Contemporary Film In Abstinence Cinema, Casey Ryan Kelly examines a group of Hollywood films that have emerged since 2000, arguing that they mirror a national panic over teenage sexuality that has arisen in recent decades. Kelly uses the term “abstinence cinema” to characterize these films, all of which celebrate virginity until marriage (p. 5). He believes that this group of films reflects the sex-negative messages of the evangelical abstinence-only movement and that, in recent decades, Hollywood has moved away from depicting sexual liberation. The book surveys films in a variety of genres in five chapters, and each chapter explores a different message from the abstinence movement and considers how that message plays out on the big screen. Kelly’s introduction includes a brief but helpful historical overview of the rise of the “abstinence until marriage movement” (p. 5). In the 1980s, members of the New Right made condemnation of comprehensive sex education a key element of their “family values” agenda. This agenda was part and parcel of a backlash against the sexual revolution promulgated in particular by the feminist and gay and lesbian movements of recent decades. Though abstinence until marriage had long been a key tenet of Christianity, with the passage of the Adolescent Family Life Act (AFLA) in 1981, conservative Christians introduced this idea into public policy. Since the passage of the AFLA, the federal government has spent “$1.5 billion” in “abstinence-only education” (p. 9). Kelly makes it quite clear which side of the abstinence-only versus comprehensive sex-ed debate he falls on and cites numerous studies demonstrating that abstinence-only programs are not effective. He argues persuasively that the rise of the abstinence until marriage movement has created a “welcoming environment” for films that applaud virginity and purity, as well as masculine violence against threats to these wholesome, “American” virtues (p. 13). In the first chapter, Kelly examines the films in the Twilight (2008-12) franchise, exploring how sexual purity is sold as feminist empowerment in a new twist on an old favorite, the vampire flick. This chapter, like the four that follow, includes a fairly comprehensive summary of the films that are its subject. Perhaps because the Twilight franchise includes five full-length films, Kelly’s summary for this chapter is somewhat difficult to follow. Nonetheless, his argument here is one of the most compelling in the book. In Twilight, Bella, a human girl, falls in love with Edward, a “good” vampire (“good” because his diet consists entirely of animal blood instead of human blood). Chaos ensues as Edward struggles with his “thirst” for Bella’s “intoxicating” blood (p. 27). The film draws parallels between giving in to the vampiric “thirst” for human blood and giving in to the desire for sex before marriage, ultimately concluding that the only safe option is waiting until marriage and implying that all male sexual desire is predatory and vampiric. Kelly argues quite convincingly that Hollywood films, such as Twilight and its sequels, manage to sell abstinence “as an enactment of personal empowerment” (p. 13). In essence, these films appropriate the feminist belief in “choice,” presenting virginity is one of many fulfilling, empowering choices that a young woman can make. The problem, as Kelly sees it, is that the films make it clear that of all of the available options, virginity until marriage is the right choice and each gives the message that there is “something edgy and emboldening about virginity” (p. 14). Kelly analyzes “man-boys and born-again virgins” in the second chapter by reviewing the 2005 film The 40-Year-Old Virgin and considering how abstinence discourse attributes “the collapse of family values” in recent decades to the rise of sexual liberation (p. 22). The protagonist of this film, forty-year-old Andy, is uncomfortable with casual dating and hookup culture and has thus remained a virgin. Kelly identifies two types of “man-boys,” adult men who act in childish ways, in the film. “Man-boy” Andy exercises childlike behaviors, such as collecting action figures, comic books, and video games. Audiences sympathize with him because he is sexually and socially innocent, while simultaneously being handsome, kind, and successful. Meanwhile, his three coworkers, stereotypically goofy, prankster “bros” on a quest to get Andy “laid” after he reveals his virginity, represent another, less acceptable type of “man-boy.” According to Kelly, the film suggests that “man-boys” do not know how to behave in the post-sexual revolution culture in which women’s empowered sexuality threatens traditional courtship, chivalry, and masculinity. The “born-again virgin” in the film is Andy’s new girlfriend, Trish, the divorced mother of a teenaged daughter. Kelly explains that, in recent years, the abstinence movement has begun advocating for the concept of “secondary virginity,” the idea that after having sex, an unmarried person can recommit to purity until marriage. This is a reminder to adults that “purity is a lifelong pursuit” (p. 55). Andy and Trish abstain, largely because they want to set a good example for her teenage daughter and get to know each other better. The forty-year-old virgin helps Trish rediscover moral purity and reconnect with her daughter, thus imparting to viewers the lesson that abstinence via secondary virginity can return us to family values. In the end, because Andy and Trish waited for sex until marriage, they achieve “sexual bliss,” and Kelly argues that here, “great sex is the reward for marriage and monogamy, the remedy for the meaningless and hollow pleasures of sexual liberation” (pp. 74-75). The other man-boys, seeing his happiness and success, begin to think that Andy’s way is the right way. Kelly’s analysis of the ensemble performance of the 1960s “The Age of Aquarius,” at the end of the film, allows him to circle back to the argument he made about Twilight, that “the very anthem of the counterculture is deployed in defense of what it once challenged ... rebranding abstinence until marriage and monogamy as the pathways to sexual liberation” (p. 73). Kelly next examines The Possession, a 2012 film in which a young girl, Em, is inhabited by a demon that makes her behave in ways she ordinarily would not, including violently attacking others. Clyde, Em’s divorced and generally inattentive father, lets her buy an antique box at a yardsale. Inside is a “dybbuk, a creature in Jewish folklore that seeks to inhabit the bodies of the living” (p. 83). Because he does not closely monitor Em’s rapidly growing obsession with the box, Clyde is at fault when the demon literally penetrates her body, and she becomes possessed. Kelly argues that The Possession demonstrates how abstinence culture breeds fear that young girls who do not have paternal protection are in crisis, and the abstinence movement advocates that the cure for this crisis is a return to traditional roles for fathers and their daughters. Once the demon is inside her, it gains control of Em’s mind by filling the void in her life left by her absent father, expressing love and affection for her. The implication here is that “one misguided moment of curiosity opens up female bodies to complete exploitation by their father substitutes” (p. 87). Whereas in many of the films considered in Kelly’s book there is a literal threat to a young girl’s abstinence and thus, implicitly, her soul, in The Possession the threat is directly against the latter. Kelly argues that “the similarity between the rhetoric of demonic possession and the ritualistic imperatives of abstinence discourses demonstrate how horror films resonate with neoconservative anxieties about young women’s sexuality” (p. 22). Films like The Possession reinforce the idea that without patriarchal protection, young women’s bodies are a threat to the family. The demon makes her attack the men in her life (she rips out all of her stepfather’s teeth!) in hopes of removing all of the male figures who could save her. Clyde finally saves Em by finding a rabbi to perform an exorcism on her. The film ends with the image of Clyde, Em, her sister, and her mother reunited and eating breakfast together, symbolizing a return to the traditional family values that serve as the solution to the evils that plague a teenage girl’s body and soul. Analyzing the 2008 film Taken in the fourth chapter, Kelly explores the myth of the “great white protector,” who uses masculine violence to defend women’s purity from “dark and sexually marauding” men (pp. 92, 93). Kelly briefly analyzes this trope in American culture, finding parallels in historic rationalizations for white violence against “savages” who abducted Puritan women in the colonial era and black men who allegedly raped white women in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. In Taken, Bryan, the CIA-trained father of teenaged Kim, rescues his daughter from a French-Albanian crime syndicate after she is forced into prostitution, along the way killing thirty-five people connected to her abduction. The rescue and the revenge he enacts upon her captors make up for the fact that he was absent during much of her childhood. Kelly is interested in the ways that “some Christian and conservative news outlets have treated the film as if it were an accurate representation of the global sex industry and a portrait of the negative consequences of the liberalization of sexual attitudes.” One such media outlet, treating the film as an exposé of real life events, wrote that “sexual predators are the natural pedigree of sexually libertine societies.” Some others saw it as a “wake-up call” (p. 94). Kelly argues that it resonated with people who believe we need to “protect our nation’s daughters” by buckling down on “lackadaisical parenting of teenage girls” (p. 95). The film implies that all of Bryan’s excess violence and even his use of torture are justified because he does so in the name of protecting his daughter’s purity from dark-skinned predators. Kelly fears that this film was particularly damaging because it demonstrated how a mania about women’s purity could be used to justify unrestrained violence against “others,” a fear that seems all the more legitimate given the historical precedents he outlines and the national response to the film. Kelly’s historical contextualization and his cogent analysis of the public response to this film make this chapter particularly persuasive. Kelly’s final chapter, “Sexploitation in Abstinence Satires,” argues that Hollywood films are struggling to maintain a balance between the interest in “accepting and titillating portrayals of teenage libidinal energy and anxious representations of youth in sexual crisis,” which the industry is attempting to resolve by “exploiting both sex and abstinence within the same text” (pp. 108-109). By examining both high- and low-budget teen abstinence satires (films that mock abstinence on some level), he concludes that even this genre is failing to truly challenge the discourse that insists on purity until marriage. These films manage to attract and excite audiences by including raunchy and explicit content, but in the end, the characters almost invariably find that sexual experimentation outside of heterosexual marriage is dissatisfying and even socially embarrassing. Because Kelly chose a variety of films in this genre to analyze instead of a single representative example, he had to include a brief plot summary for each one and as a result this chapter is a bit unwieldy. Still, his selection of abstinence satires convincingly shows that though the films in this genre poke fun at abstinence, ultimately, they reaffirm its value and conclude that teenage culture in America is too permissive. Kelly concludes briefly with an exploration of “counternarrative” films that offer feminist or otherwise counter-hegemonic responses. He argues that though these films are few and far between, they do provide alternatives to the pro-abstinence discourse that otherwise pervades Hollywood films. One hopes that in this conclusion lie the seeds of Kelly’s next book! Kelly has written a fascinating exposé of recent “abstinence cinema.” The films he examines reflect the neoconservative desire for feminine purity, hegemonic masculinity, and “traditional” heterosexual marriage. Perhaps most persuasively, he argues that such films even present the choice to remain abstinent until marriage, as a progressive, feminist ideal. Abstinence Cinema does not claim to present a historical analysis, though Kelly does offer some historical context for his arguments. Rather, his focused critiques and analyses of these recently produced films present numerous points for further discussion and exploration. Students and scholars of film, gender, sexuality, and cultural studies will learn much from Kelly’s well-argued text. ======================================== 19. THIS IS HOW FASCISM COMES TO AMERICA: TRUMP CAPTURES THE NATION’S ATTENTION ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL By Robert Kagan ======================================== (The Washington Post - May 18, 2016) The Republican candidate continues to dominate the presidential contest. [Robert Kagan is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and a contributing columnist for The Post.] The Republican Party’s attempt to treat Donald Trump as a normal political candidate would be laughable were it not so perilous to the republic. If only he would mouth the party’s “conservative” principles, all would be well. But of course the entire Trump phenomenon has nothing to do with policy or ideology. It has nothing to do with the Republican Party, either, except in its historic role as incubator of this singular threat to our democracy. Trump has transcended the party that produced him. His growing army of supporters no longer cares about the party. Because it did not immediately and fully embrace Trump, because a dwindling number of its political and intellectual leaders still resist him, the party is regarded with suspicion and even hostility by his followers. Their allegiance is to him and him alone. And the source of allegiance? We’re supposed to believe that Trump’s support stems from economic stagnation or dislocation. Maybe some of it does. But what Trump offers his followers are not economic remedies — his proposals change daily. What he offers is an attitude, an aura of crude strength and machismo, a boasting disrespect for the niceties of the democratic culture that he claims, and his followers believe, has produced national weakness and incompetence. His incoherent and contradictory utterances have one thing in common: They provoke and play on feelings of resentment and disdain, intermingled with bits of fear, hatred and anger. His public discourse consists of attacking or ridiculing a wide range of “others” — Muslims, Hispanics, women, Chinese, Mexicans, Europeans, Arabs, immigrants, refugees — whom he depicts either as threats or as objects of derision. His program, such as it is, consists chiefly of promises to get tough with foreigners and people of nonwhite complexion. He will deport them, bar them, get them to knuckle under, make them pay up or make them shut up. That this tough-guy, get-mad-and-get-even approach has gained him an increasingly large and enthusiastic following has probably surprised Trump as much as anyone else. Trump himself is simply and quite literally an egomaniac. But the phenomenon he has created and now leads has become something larger than him, and something far more dangerous. Republican politicians marvel at how he has “tapped into” a hitherto unknown swath of the voting public. But what he has tapped into is what the founders most feared when they established the democratic republic: the popular passions unleashed, the “mobocracy.” Conservatives have been warning for decades about government suffocating liberty. But here is the other threat to liberty that Alexis de Tocqueville and the ancient philosophers warned about: that the people in a democracy, excited, angry and unconstrained, might run roughshod over even the institutions created to preserve their freedoms. As Alexander Hamilton watched the French Revolution unfold, he feared in America what he saw play out in France — that the unleashing of popular passions would lead not to greater democracy but to the arrival of a tyrant, riding to power on the shoulders of the people. This phenomenon has arisen in other democratic and quasi-democratic countries over the past century, and it has generally been called “fascism.” Fascist movements, too, had no coherent ideology, no clear set of prescriptions for what ailed society. “National socialism” was a bundle of contradictions, united chiefly by what, and who, it opposed; fascism in Italy was anti-liberal, anti-democratic, anti-Marxist, anti-capitalist and anti-clerical. Successful fascism was not about policies but about the strongman, the leader (Il Duce, Der Führer), in whom could be entrusted the fate of the nation. Whatever the problem, he could fix it. Whatever the threat, internal or external, he could vanquish it, and it was unnecessary for him to explain how. Today, there is Putinism, which also has nothing to do with belief or policy but is about the tough man who single-handedly defends his people against all threats, foreign and domestic. To understand how such movements take over a democracy, one only has to watch the Republican Party today. These movements play on all the fears, vanities, ambitions and insecurities that make up the human psyche. In democracies, at least for politicians, the only thing that matters is what the voters say they want — vox populi vox Dei. A mass political movement is thus a powerful and, to those who would oppose it, frightening weapon. When controlled and directed by a single leader, it can be aimed at whomever the leader chooses. If someone criticizes or opposes the leader, it doesn’t matter how popular or admired that person has been. He might be a famous war hero, but if the leader derides and ridicules his heroism, the followers laugh and jeer. He might be the highest-ranking elected guardian of the party’s most cherished principles. But if he hesitates to support the leader, he faces political death. In such an environment, every political figure confronts a stark choice: Get right with the leader and his mass following or get run over. The human race in such circumstances breaks down into predictable categories — and democratic politicians are the most predictable. There are those whose ambition leads them to jump on the bandwagon. They praise the leader’s incoherent speeches as the beginning of wisdom, hoping he will reward them with a plum post in the new order. There are those who merely hope to survive. Their consciences won’t let them curry favor so shamelessly, so they mumble their pledges of support, like the victims in Stalin’s show trials, perhaps not realizing that the leader and his followers will get them in the end anyway. A great number will simply kid themselves, refusing to admit that something very different from the usual politics is afoot. Let the storm pass, they insist, and then we can pick up the pieces, rebuild and get back to normal. Meanwhile, don’t alienate the leader’s mass following. After all, they are voters and will need to be brought back into the fold. As for Trump himself, let’s shape him, advise him, steer him in the right direction and, not incidentally, save our political skins. What these people do not or will not see is that, once in power, Trump will owe them and their party nothing. He will have ridden to power despite the party, catapulted into the White House by a mass following devoted only to him. By then that following will have grown dramatically. Today, less than 5 percent of eligible voters have voted for Trump. But if he wins the election, his legions will likely comprise a majority of the nation. Imagine the power he would wield then. In addition to all that comes from being the leader of a mass following, he would also have the immense powers of the American presidency at his command: the Justice Department, the FBI, the intelligence services, the military. Who would dare to oppose him then? Certainly not a Republican Party that lay down before him even when he was comparatively weak. And is a man like Trump, with infinitely greater power in his hands, likely to become more humble, more judicious, more generous, less vengeful than he is today, than he has been his whole life? Does vast power un-corrupt? This is how fascism comes to America, not with jackboots and salutes (although there have been salutes, and a whiff of violence) but with a television huckster, a phony billionaire, a textbook egomaniac “tapping into” popular resentments and insecurities, and with an entire national political party — out of ambition or blind party loyalty, or simply out of fear — falling into line behind him. Robert Kagan writes a monthly foreign affairs column for The Post, and is a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. Kagan served in the State Department from 1984 to 1988. ======================================== 20. AFTER MONTHS OF PROTEST, RUSSIAN COAL MINERS FINALLY GET PAYCHECKS | Sean Guillory ======================================== (Global Voices - 15 September 2016) On May 25, twenty miners from Gukovo, a small town in southwestern Russia, held a protest in Rostov-on-Don demanding that their employer, King Coal, pay their salaries—some of which were almost a year overdue. “Give us our money” and “Mr. President, defend the working man!” their signs read. The miners released a statement outlining their demands: Translation Original Quote We, the rally’s participants, demand urgent action to repay miners millions in unpaid wages. The government and the law must not show Russian citizens its weakness in front of the coal mine owners. It’s corruption. The miners’ statement jabbed at the underpinnings of the Putin regime's professed “stability”: effective governance, rule of law, order, and assurances that the“people” will be protected from predatory moguls. The miners were just getting started. Over the next several months, their demands grew louder, eventually culminating in a hunger strike that attracted national media coverage and forced some action on the part of local officials. While their struggle is far from over, the Gukovo miners’ persistence in defending their rights is yet another example of how Russia’s organized “simple people” have been able to force indifferent officials into taking some modicum of action. The problem of wage arrears is a familiar one in Russia. According to the latest Rosstat figures, total wage arrears for the Russian Federation amount to roughly 3.7 billion rubles ($57 million), effecting around 73,000 people. Manufacturing and construction workers have been the hardest hit, and bankruptcies account for 25 percent of Russia’s unpaid wages. Wage arrears are also a main source of labor conflict. According to a recent report by the Center for Economic and Political Reform, which monitors social and economic conflict in Russia, there were 171 recorded conflicts related to wage arrears between April and June of this year. The Rostov region is one of many flashpoints for these conflicts. King Coal owes around 300 million rubles ($4.6 million) to 2,000 employees. The Gukovo miners alone are owed 130 million rubles. Miners say the back pay began piling up gradually in 2013. First it was a week, then a month or two, and by 2015, a half year. By then King Coal had gone belly up, leaving its employees empty handed. After the company filed for bankruptcy in 2015, its director, Vladimir Pozhidaev, was criminally charged with abuse of authority, failing to pay his workers, and embezzling company money—eventually leaving King Coal 1 billion rubles in debt. King Coal’s creditors and venders filed lawsuits—3,500 in all—in bankruptcy court. Standing at the end of this long line of spurned suiters were the miners. Wage arrears are a symptom of the widespread deindustrialization of the region. In Soviet times, Rostov boasted 90 mines. Now, only four are in operation. A good monthly salary in Gukovo is 15,000 rubles ($230) for men and 7,000 ($107) for women. Real income has decreased by almost 7 percent. Most residents supplement these meager earnings with credit, which is why Rostov has the 10th most borrowers of any city in Russia. Zhenya Nesrelyaev, 40, a miner for 22 years, used to earn a decent salary—20,000 rubles ($306) a month. Now, he and his family live off credit from three banks. “I haven’t made a payment in two months. The collectors call five times a day…They say: hock your things. That is, leave my children with nothing.” In total, King Coal owes Zhenya 305,000 rubles in back wages. Valerii Dyakonov, a retired miner turned protest organizer, told Nezavisimaya gazeta: Translation Original Quote I think the situation is now considerably worse [than the 1990s]. And nobody cares when miners in search of bread are evicted from their homes because almost everyone is in debt. And who thinks about how many families have been broken in the last few years and how many children have become drug addicts? This is the context that spurred the miners to action. The small picket in May became a daily protest in April They held signs saying “We are not slaves! Give us our money!” and “Russian Donbas Against Thieves and Liars!” Their calls for action from Putin, Rostov’s governor, and Gukovo’s mayor quickly intensified: miners threatened to block the M-4, Rostov’s main highway. A meeting with the mayor ended with empty promises. They formed a group to coordinate their protest efforts, with Valerii Dyakonov taking the lead. Then, in mid-August, the police made a timely visit to Dyakonov’s house, strapped an electronic bracelet on his ankle, and placed him under house arrest for allegedly threatening a local official with an pneumatic gun back in November 2015. A week later, the 200 miners and their families staged a protest. “We are not slaves!” again was their main slogan. One miner told Novaya gazeta: Translation Original Quote I don’t trust Putin. I don’t think I’ll send my son to the army. I was raised here but this government is worthless… Several days later, on August 23, the miners called a hunger strike. At first there were 60 participants. Then 100. Then 175. More media attention soon followed, with several state newspapers fixing their gaze on Gukovo. Only then did a few hundred miners start to get paid. As of now, media are reporting that 1,500 miners have received portions of their pay. But the victory is bittersweet. According to Dmitry Kovalenko, a member of the miners’ initiative group, Translation Original Quote Everything is frozen in place. They gave pennies for May and now they’re saying there’s no more money. We do not see a ray of light and we also don’t have hope. People are very dissatisfied. Written by Sean Guillory _/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/ 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/ ##### #### _\_ ________ ##=-[.].]| \ \ #( _\ | |------| # __| | |||||||| \ _/ | |||||||| .--'--'-. | | ____ | / __ `|__|[o__o]| _(____nm_______ /____\____ DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers. ===================================== _______________________________________________ SACW mailing list SACW@insaf.net http://insaf.net/mailman/listinfo/sacw_insaf.net
