Saswat Blog
All that's Left!
Jun 2005
Long Live Amiri Baraka!
By Saswat Pattanayak
Why is only a penny brown and got Lincoln on it?
Is that why they leave it on the ground.
-Amiri Baraka
The update about Baraka, the poet of the oppressed, is that he is not much talked about anymore. The sudden silence around him is a tragedy of our times. But it should come as no surprise. Going by a trend of how the system engulfs the same talents who once adorn its progressive horizons as cultural icons (albeit, countercultural icons, but icons nevertheless) it should come as no surprise that Baraka, the once emulated and idolized hero of the revolutionary times is not even reduced to a legend any longer.
LeRoi Jones, as he was known during the Beat period of early 1960’s, Baraka was companion to Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and Gilbert Sorrentino. After the death of Malcolm X, Baraka became the Black cultural nationalist founding the Black Arts Repertory Theater School in Harlem. Till 1975, Baraka was well adored as the forerunner of black nationalism and culture.
Pause.
Lets get back to Paul Robeson. Or farther down the times to WEB Du Bois. As these brilliant minds served the interest of the groups that believed in the binaries of race stratification, they were hero-worshipped. Du Bois was looked at as the epitome of black intellect. Robeson was perceived as the epitome of black vigor. Towards the end of their lives, both of them had famously joined the world revolutionary struggles to condemn any form of global imperialistic designs. They reported that peoples of the world, if worked in unison, would change the face of the world, given the shared oppressed history of the colonized and the enslaved. That peoples of the world wanted peace at any cost and that was to come only by combating the world capitalism. As the world was becoming more visibly devoid of territorially encroached and was emerging as economically subjugated by interest groups, no narrow agenda of nationalistic fervor was going to do the trick. On the contrary, narrow racial agendas were going to be played up well by the ruling class to fight one against another by showering favoritism and encouraging suspicions among the oppressed groups.
As Du Bois, the greatest of all Black scholars ever, formally joined the Communist Party and Robeson, the greatest of all Black athletes ever, supported the cause of international communism, all hell broke loose. The avowed religious Blacks, the comfortable leaders of the civil rights movement who wanted to work with the system (and not against it) and the politically correct ones belonging to the minorities whose families started reaping benefits (however silly that might be the case) started distancing themselves from these erstwhile heroes, even as they were still alive. Du Bois died tragically in Ghana, his revolutionary writings hardly honored and remained a literary icon in library corners of diversity loving campuses. Robeson died unwept, unknown and unsung.
Amiri Baraka after 1975 shunned the nationalistic struggles, called it fascist in nature, called for world unity of oppressed people in identifying and combating the class enemies. He became a pronounced Third World exponent, cried freedom for the majority of the world who suffered under tyrannical rules disguising as democracies. Once the focus shifted, like it happened with both Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X during their last few years of life, there was concern from three different quarters: the black nationalists who were not willing to budge from their agenda, the white racists who oh-so-hated Communism and the politically correct mix of different races who felt offended by such shifts that did not further their interests in their stronghold of media, military and state machinery. Baraka said, "I see art as a weapon of revolution. I define revolution in Marxist terms. Once I defined revolution in Nationalist terms. But I came to my Marxist view as a result of having struggled as a Nationalist and found certain dead ends theoretically and ideologically, as far as Nationalism was concerned and had to reach out for the communist ideology."
As the poet laureate of New Jersey, when Baraka recited his poetry “Somebody Blew Up America” (reproduced here), he was accused of anti-Semitism. Of course he was asked to relinquish his position. Not just the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), but even many black so-called leaders came forward to ridicule him. Such is the irony of the times that the beat poet, the radical free voice who lent his creative voice to all peoples of color of the world had to come down with an explanation to prove his authenticity. http://www.amiribaraka.com/speech100202.html After that period of gloom, I saw him on an interview at a Sundance documentary called “The First Amendment Project” and noticed that his works are being sold on his own site for $5 onwards!
The entire poem written by the revolutionary poet Amiri Baraka is reproduced below. If allowed to add, I would only suggest an additional line: “Who are these ungrateful peoples of a contented era? Who forgot their own poet, the fearless poet who called a spade a spade, a violence a violence, a revolution a revolution?” Read More...
Why is only a penny brown and got Lincoln on it?
Is that why they leave it on the ground.
-Amiri Baraka
The update about Baraka, the poet of the oppressed, is that he is not much talked about anymore. The sudden silence around him is a tragedy of our times. But it should come as no surprise. Going by a trend of how the system engulfs the same talents who once adorn its progressive horizons as cultural icons (albeit, countercultural icons, but icons nevertheless) it should come as no surprise that Baraka, the once emulated and idolized hero of the revolutionary times is not even reduced to a legend any longer.
LeRoi Jones, as he was known during the Beat period of early 1960’s, Baraka was companion to Allen Ginsberg, Frank O’Hara, and Gilbert Sorrentino. After the death of Malcolm X, Baraka became the Black cultural nationalist founding the Black Arts Repertory Theater School in Harlem. Till 1975, Baraka was well adored as the forerunner of black nationalism and culture.
Pause.
Lets get back to Paul Robeson. Or farther down the times to WEB Du Bois. As these brilliant minds served the interest of the groups that believed in the binaries of race stratification, they were hero-worshipped. Du Bois was looked at as the epitome of black intellect. Robeson was perceived as the epitome of black vigor. Towards the end of their lives, both of them had famously joined the world revolutionary struggles to condemn any form of global imperialistic designs. They reported that peoples of the world, if worked in unison, would change the face of the world, given the shared oppressed history of the colonized and the enslaved. That peoples of the world wanted peace at any cost and that was to come only by combating the world capitalism. As the world was becoming more visibly devoid of territorially encroached and was emerging as economically subjugated by interest groups, no narrow agenda of nationalistic fervor was going to do the trick. On the contrary, narrow racial agendas were going to be played up well by the ruling class to fight one against another by showering favoritism and encouraging suspicions among the oppressed groups.
As Du Bois, the greatest of all Black scholars ever, formally joined the Communist Party and Robeson, the greatest of all Black athletes ever, supported the cause of international communism, all hell broke loose. The avowed religious Blacks, the comfortable leaders of the civil rights movement who wanted to work with the system (and not against it) and the politically correct ones belonging to the minorities whose families started reaping benefits (however silly that might be the case) started distancing themselves from these erstwhile heroes, even as they were still alive. Du Bois died tragically in Ghana, his revolutionary writings hardly honored and remained a literary icon in library corners of diversity loving campuses. Robeson died unwept, unknown and unsung.
Amiri Baraka after 1975 shunned the nationalistic struggles, called it fascist in nature, called for world unity of oppressed people in identifying and combating the class enemies. He became a pronounced Third World exponent, cried freedom for the majority of the world who suffered under tyrannical rules disguising as democracies. Once the focus shifted, like it happened with both Martin Luther King Jr., and Malcolm X during their last few years of life, there was concern from three different quarters: the black nationalists who were not willing to budge from their agenda, the white racists who oh-so-hated Communism and the politically correct mix of different races who felt offended by such shifts that did not further their interests in their stronghold of media, military and state machinery. Baraka said, "I see art as a weapon of revolution. I define revolution in Marxist terms. Once I defined revolution in Nationalist terms. But I came to my Marxist view as a result of having struggled as a Nationalist and found certain dead ends theoretically and ideologically, as far as Nationalism was concerned and had to reach out for the communist ideology."
As the poet laureate of New Jersey, when Baraka recited his poetry “Somebody Blew Up America” (reproduced here), he was accused of anti-Semitism. Of course he was asked to relinquish his position. Not just the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), but even many black so-called leaders came forward to ridicule him. Such is the irony of the times that the beat poet, the radical free voice who lent his creative voice to all peoples of color of the world had to come down with an explanation to prove his authenticity. http://www.amiribaraka.com/speech100202.html After that period of gloom, I saw him on an interview at a Sundance documentary called “The First Amendment Project” and noticed that his works are being sold on his own site for $5 onwards!
The entire poem written by the revolutionary poet Amiri Baraka is reproduced below. If allowed to add, I would only suggest an additional line: “Who are these ungrateful peoples of a contented era? Who forgot their own poet, the fearless poet who called a spade a spade, a violence a violence, a revolution a revolution?” Read More...
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Wealth is Health
By Saswat Pattanayak
Let’s talk about healthcare today. Logically, the most neglected sector in an individualistic society.
Needless to say, healthcare is not a state responsibility anywhere in the world. Even as the unwell are left to fend for themselves, they always have been needed to take care of financial needs of the medical professionals. As is with the doctors, representing a class of elites, they most certainly tend to their class interests. Hence the rich in the society get the best treatment and the poor are left in the lurch.
The irony however is that the poor, owing to health habits and sanitation practices are more likely to get affected and owing to their economic conditions, they are less likely to get treated. Statistics convene the direct correlation between wealth and health.
This is nothing surprising here, since it’s merely logical. What however is shocking, are the ways in which the ruling powers boast of their healthcare sectors to normalize the contrary claims to be unfounded. It works when one asks if there is a class system in society, and gets a prompt reply “Class? What class?”
Within the healthcare sector in the United States, for example, there are approximately 45 million people officially, who are without health insurance coverage. The number of uninsured rose 1.4 million annually (according to a study published by U.S. Census Bureau., August 2004 and prepared officially by DeNavas-Walt, C., B. Proctor, and R. J. Mills, titled “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States&rdquo
. Nearly 82 million -- about
one-third of the population below the age of 65
spent a portion of a year without health
coverage.
Millions of workers don't have the opportunity to get coverage. A third of firms in the U.S. do not offer coverage. According to The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Employee Health Benefits: 2004 Annual Survey published in September 2004, rapidly rising health insurance premiums is the main reason cited by firms for not offering coverage. Health insurance premiums are rising at extraordinary rates. Over the past five years the average annual increase in inflation has been 2.5 percent while health insurance premiums have escalated an average of 11.4 percent annually.
Of course, I am sure people are quite familiar with the figures. What however is often missed from the central discussion is the way a systematic class division thrives in healthcare sector, leading to even further (more than 80% of) disguised healthcare benefit losses. For example, a HMO deals with a provider/Individual Practitioner Association that maintains its own centralized medical facilities. In order to receive treatment, an individual must go to one of the HMO's facilities only. This is the least expensive and most enrolled division and naturally enough, it’s most limited by choices.
The Point-of-Service (POS) plans, a relatively new concept in the health insurance industry combine the a limited freedom of choice with the medical management of a primary care physician typically found in HMOs. This costs way more than the HMOs. The third, which is the Preferred Provider Networks (PPO), is a group of doctors that has agreed to discount their fees for services in exchange for access to a group of subscribers. PPOs also provide one with the choice of using either a network doctor or a doctor of one’s own choosing. This type of plan gives the real freedom of choice because one can go to a specialist without a referral from any primary care physician.
With such clear class divisions—ranging from the patients limited by a few doctors to the doctors limited to a few patients—among healthcare, the elitist bias pervades beyond the obvious.
The latest issue of Rolling Stone has Robert Kennedy Jr. describing how the US government, after causing 15 fold increase in autism within its own population has decided to spread the same to China (after a couple of years I am sure autism will be alleged to be of Chinese origin).
Since 1991, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children. Kennedy says:
More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. ……The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.
The article reveals the nature of medical profession as evolved today. From the elitist enrolments in rated schools in order to hike the rate of the doctors in the market to their heightened professional roles they play in staying detached from the patient welfare, to their collusion with the pharmaceutical companies which sponsor anything for them –free world tour to wine bottles—in lieu of their assured prescriptions of certain drugs over certain others, to finally allowing the profession be ruined by political will to shove corporate agenda down the throats of the unwell-financially and emotionally.
Not unusually then, the doctors have no connection with the Hippocrates Oath whatsoever. I am not even sure if today’s medical professionals go through the Oath made around 400 BC (some portions of it of course, like all classical texts, need radical corrections), where some thoughts about social commitments of doctors, stand as a wishful thought for the day in a competitively engaged inhuman society as ours is reduced today to:
Let’s talk about healthcare today. Logically, the most neglected sector in an individualistic society.
Needless to say, healthcare is not a state responsibility anywhere in the world. Even as the unwell are left to fend for themselves, they always have been needed to take care of financial needs of the medical professionals. As is with the doctors, representing a class of elites, they most certainly tend to their class interests. Hence the rich in the society get the best treatment and the poor are left in the lurch.
The irony however is that the poor, owing to health habits and sanitation practices are more likely to get affected and owing to their economic conditions, they are less likely to get treated. Statistics convene the direct correlation between wealth and health.
This is nothing surprising here, since it’s merely logical. What however is shocking, are the ways in which the ruling powers boast of their healthcare sectors to normalize the contrary claims to be unfounded. It works when one asks if there is a class system in society, and gets a prompt reply “Class? What class?”
Within the healthcare sector in the United States, for example, there are approximately 45 million people officially, who are without health insurance coverage. The number of uninsured rose 1.4 million annually (according to a study published by U.S. Census Bureau., August 2004 and prepared officially by DeNavas-Walt, C., B. Proctor, and R. J. Mills, titled “Income, Poverty, and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States&rdquo
. Nearly 82 million -- about
one-third of the population below the age of 65
spent a portion of a year without health
coverage.
Millions of workers don't have the opportunity to get coverage. A third of firms in the U.S. do not offer coverage. According to The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation’s Employee Health Benefits: 2004 Annual Survey published in September 2004, rapidly rising health insurance premiums is the main reason cited by firms for not offering coverage. Health insurance premiums are rising at extraordinary rates. Over the past five years the average annual increase in inflation has been 2.5 percent while health insurance premiums have escalated an average of 11.4 percent annually.
Of course, I am sure people are quite familiar with the figures. What however is often missed from the central discussion is the way a systematic class division thrives in healthcare sector, leading to even further (more than 80% of) disguised healthcare benefit losses. For example, a HMO deals with a provider/Individual Practitioner Association that maintains its own centralized medical facilities. In order to receive treatment, an individual must go to one of the HMO's facilities only. This is the least expensive and most enrolled division and naturally enough, it’s most limited by choices.
The Point-of-Service (POS) plans, a relatively new concept in the health insurance industry combine the a limited freedom of choice with the medical management of a primary care physician typically found in HMOs. This costs way more than the HMOs. The third, which is the Preferred Provider Networks (PPO), is a group of doctors that has agreed to discount their fees for services in exchange for access to a group of subscribers. PPOs also provide one with the choice of using either a network doctor or a doctor of one’s own choosing. This type of plan gives the real freedom of choice because one can go to a specialist without a referral from any primary care physician.
With such clear class divisions—ranging from the patients limited by a few doctors to the doctors limited to a few patients—among healthcare, the elitist bias pervades beyond the obvious.
The latest issue of Rolling Stone has Robert Kennedy Jr. describing how the US government, after causing 15 fold increase in autism within its own population has decided to spread the same to China (after a couple of years I am sure autism will be alleged to be of Chinese origin).
Since 1991, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the Food and Drug Administration had recommended that three additional vaccines laced with the preservative be given to extremely young infants -- in one case, within hours of birth -- the estimated number of cases of autism had increased fifteenfold, from one in every 2,500 children to one in 166 children. Kennedy says:
More than 500,000 kids currently suffer from autism, and pediatricians diagnose more than 40,000 new cases every year. ……The story of how government health agencies colluded with Big Pharma to hide the risks of thimerosal from the public is a chilling case study of institutional arrogance, power and greed. I was drawn into the controversy only reluctantly. As an attorney and environmentalist who has spent years working on issues of mercury toxicity, I frequently met mothers of autistic children who were absolutely convinced that their kids had been injured by vaccines. Privately, I was skeptical.
The article reveals the nature of medical profession as evolved today. From the elitist enrolments in rated schools in order to hike the rate of the doctors in the market to their heightened professional roles they play in staying detached from the patient welfare, to their collusion with the pharmaceutical companies which sponsor anything for them –free world tour to wine bottles—in lieu of their assured prescriptions of certain drugs over certain others, to finally allowing the profession be ruined by political will to shove corporate agenda down the throats of the unwell-financially and emotionally.
Not unusually then, the doctors have no connection with the Hippocrates Oath whatsoever. I am not even sure if today’s medical professionals go through the Oath made around 400 BC (some portions of it of course, like all classical texts, need radical corrections), where some thoughts about social commitments of doctors, stand as a wishful thought for the day in a competitively engaged inhuman society as ours is reduced today to:
I SWEAR by Apollo the physician, and Aesculapius, and Health, and All-heal, and all the gods and goddesses, that, according to my ability and judgment, I will keep this Oath and this stipulation- to reckon him who taught me this Art equally dear to me as my parents, to share my substance with him, and relieve his necessities if required; to look upon his offspring in the same footing as my own brothers, and to teach them this art, if they shall wish to learn it, without fee or stipulation; and that by precept, lecture, and every other mode of instruction, I will impart a knowledge of the Art to my own sons, and those of my teachers, and to disciples bound by a stipulation and oath according to the law of medicine, but to none others. I will follow that system of regimen which, according to my ability and judgment, I consider for the benefit of my patients, and abstain from whatever is deleterious and mischievous. I will give no deadly medicine to any one if asked, nor suggest any such counsel; and in like manner I will not give to a woman a pessary to produce abortion. With purity and with holiness I will pass my life and practice my Art. I will not cut persons laboring under the stone, but will leave this to be done by men who are practitioners of this work. Into whatever houses I enter, I will go into them for the benefit of the sick, and will abstain from every voluntary act of mischief and corruption; and, further from the seduction of females or males, of freemen and slaves. Whatever, in connection with my professional practice or not, in connection with it, I see or hear, in the life of men, which ought not to be spoken of abroad, I will not divulge, as reckoning that all such should be kept secret. While I continue to keep this Oath unviolated, may it be granted to me to enjoy life and the practice of the art, respected by all men, in all times! But should I trespass and violate this Oath, may the reverse be my lot!
(THE OATH by Hippocrates: Translated by Francis Adams)
We suspect, therefore we are - Part II
By Saswat Pattanayak
Well, do minorities in the US think they have a shared history?
Logically no, if they intend to continue remaining minorities. Else they would be the majority of people (just by the sheer volume of their class structure and solidarity with their White working class counterparts). But the amazing thing is there is a dearth of education regarding a subconscious that there could be anything shared among them.
It grows out of a feeling of selfish endeavor of human being to stay inhumanely competitive. A society such as American (by which I mean an individualistic society where education, healthcare, social security—are all based on individualistic formulae of secret numbers that the State asks folks not to share, than social commitments to welfare where people could organize themselves on basis of their shared knowledge of mutual discontents) teaches people to first take care of their own selves, than anyone else. In some crude form of defining family, the roles are assigned individually among spouses, the children are encouraged to stay separate as different units, and when the parents turn old, they have no constant family support since independent children have not been taking care of much of anyone else anyway (remember they are busy letting their own family become nuclearer).
In such a fragmented society, its ridiculous on my part to assume that people will think beyond their four walls (of course when it gets boring, you have got Oprah and Jerry Springer on the television within the four walls), let alone think of the different races, cultures, nations, languages and you name it, and you don’t have it.
Well, during times when individuals have suffered depending on their race status, they have got united, so that the struggle benefits them individually. And once economically few have benefited for having played the rules of the ruling game, the same members of the oppressed race, show their backs to the other members of the race and hence the wide disparity then becomes apparent between them and the majority members of their race which overwhelmingly remain dispossessed. So the “house slaves” as Malcolm X called these people, who loved playing the rules of the masters and who wept when their master wept saying “oh master, we are sick” when the master alone was sick, then become the torchbearers of the fruits of freedom. A freedom largely unknown to the 35 million homeless and hungry of this country.
In such a self-centered society which does not encourage people to look beyond their own self, in a classically disgusting Ayn Rand fashion, its stupid for me to assume that marginal classes of people will ever think themselves to be belonging to the same rank.
Its not fault of any individual as I see it, but it’s the mistake of the individuality that people flout today. This individuality shows itself on marches, and parades only when it concerns with a result which will eventually benefit the individuals, else not. Hence the anti-imperialist fight is not being fought today. What we have at most is the fights between the Hispanics with the Asians, the Blacks with the Jews. The shared history is denied at every juncture so that we can have many more divisions. At the university level, we can have Latin Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies. At the community level, we can have Latin communities, Black communities, Asian community housings.
People have clearly forgotten the systematic murders of the Native Americans, the Japanese, the Africans, the Philipinos, the Chinese, the Latinos, the homosexuals, the Muslims, the Jews, the atheists, the communists, the Black and White panthers. By degree they have all varied. The worst sufferers have been the Native Americans, and the least could be the homosexuals. But that’s just a numeric difference. In other words the numbers are so fluid that no one knows in near future whose turns will it be to be counted as the most unfortunate. Between the extremes, one remembers the most tragic and systematically orchestrated lynchings of the Blacks in the South.
What is important to remember in this context is the not just degree and the fact that the degree will vary in future times to include most of us, but also the type of exploitation. This has consistently been the case, not just in America whose natives were attacked most brutally, but also in other countries which were invaded by the European colonialists. The difference being, in the other countries like India and South Africa, the numbers of oppressed people far outweighed the number of the Europeans colonialists (ruling business and royal classes of Spain, France, Britain).
Going by the shared history of enslavement and tortures, I do not see for a moment, why any minority group must feel more privileged or less privileged than another. But the irony is, that this is how it works.
In a recent discussion, my African American friends commented that whereas Tsunami song evoked protests, where were the Asians when blacks were being called Niggers. My Asian American friends wonder why the racism should only address issues of the Blacks on prime time television resulting in a change to “their” favor whereas there is no black protest against discrimination of Asian who are missing from popular culture. The Ghettopoly protest vis-à-vis the naming of the “chinks” on hip hop are all opening the door to further divide the “their” and “our” issues.
The conflicts between the Blacks and the Jews is well recorded. The media, proverbially owned by the Jewish capitalists, tilting against the church going Black nationalists has been a debate historically waged. The conflicts between the Arabs and the Jews, even as one watched Fahrenheit 911 with wonder would vouch for. “Those Arabs.”
In a classic post colonial discourse, it would be miserably aping the behaviors called for by the colonialists so that one group will be more favorably looked upon than the others. These “others”, though logically would be belonging to the one and the same force, would need to fight against one another for them to be easily overwhelmed and left without a choice in the matters of their lives.
The stock of history always have been produced in manners that are in consonance with state interests. When the right-wing party in India decided to take off the chapter on Gandhi’s assassination (since the dastardly act was committed by a right-wing fanatic) it was no surprise. Or when the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC took off the main chapter of Niemöller’s warning on “First They Came” since it talked about 6 million Communist victims, it came as no surprise. Talking of Niemöller, its very apt to mention his original work here:
The legendary stanza has been largely rewritten by people who influence history, for obvious reasons. Time magazine, that primary source for historical researches used the quotation, moved the Jews to the first place and dropped both the communists and the social democrats!
American Vice-President Al Gore who claimed to have coined words even for the cyberspace, quotes the lines, but drops the trade unionists!
Gore and Time also have added Roman Catholics, who were never on the list of Niemöller's at all. In fact on the Holocaust memorial at the Catholic city of Boston, Catholics were added to the quotation inscribed.
The US Holocaust Museum at the Washington DC, another place for historians have dropped the Communists but retained the Social Democrats!
As far as I can see the mutual resentment to delete certain sections could have to do more with the issues of class-based differences that were sought for to be resolved by this group of fabled people. Because its easy to attack someone as a Communist, as Stallman says, for having said the most uninteresting things. Things which interest people in individualistic societies have to do with individual progress/competitive clashes/power plays/merit games even in terms of narrating and positioning their “own” histories and not look at the shared history of exploitations in fear of not having a separate studies/housing/museum (which anyway gets founded on manipulated ideas).
If only we knew we stand to lose nothing if we got to tell our stories of common histories than of our discreet glories?
Well, do minorities in the US think they have a shared history?
Logically no, if they intend to continue remaining minorities. Else they would be the majority of people (just by the sheer volume of their class structure and solidarity with their White working class counterparts). But the amazing thing is there is a dearth of education regarding a subconscious that there could be anything shared among them.
It grows out of a feeling of selfish endeavor of human being to stay inhumanely competitive. A society such as American (by which I mean an individualistic society where education, healthcare, social security—are all based on individualistic formulae of secret numbers that the State asks folks not to share, than social commitments to welfare where people could organize themselves on basis of their shared knowledge of mutual discontents) teaches people to first take care of their own selves, than anyone else. In some crude form of defining family, the roles are assigned individually among spouses, the children are encouraged to stay separate as different units, and when the parents turn old, they have no constant family support since independent children have not been taking care of much of anyone else anyway (remember they are busy letting their own family become nuclearer).
In such a fragmented society, its ridiculous on my part to assume that people will think beyond their four walls (of course when it gets boring, you have got Oprah and Jerry Springer on the television within the four walls), let alone think of the different races, cultures, nations, languages and you name it, and you don’t have it.
Well, during times when individuals have suffered depending on their race status, they have got united, so that the struggle benefits them individually. And once economically few have benefited for having played the rules of the ruling game, the same members of the oppressed race, show their backs to the other members of the race and hence the wide disparity then becomes apparent between them and the majority members of their race which overwhelmingly remain dispossessed. So the “house slaves” as Malcolm X called these people, who loved playing the rules of the masters and who wept when their master wept saying “oh master, we are sick” when the master alone was sick, then become the torchbearers of the fruits of freedom. A freedom largely unknown to the 35 million homeless and hungry of this country.
In such a self-centered society which does not encourage people to look beyond their own self, in a classically disgusting Ayn Rand fashion, its stupid for me to assume that marginal classes of people will ever think themselves to be belonging to the same rank.
Its not fault of any individual as I see it, but it’s the mistake of the individuality that people flout today. This individuality shows itself on marches, and parades only when it concerns with a result which will eventually benefit the individuals, else not. Hence the anti-imperialist fight is not being fought today. What we have at most is the fights between the Hispanics with the Asians, the Blacks with the Jews. The shared history is denied at every juncture so that we can have many more divisions. At the university level, we can have Latin Studies, African American Studies, Asian American Studies. At the community level, we can have Latin communities, Black communities, Asian community housings.
People have clearly forgotten the systematic murders of the Native Americans, the Japanese, the Africans, the Philipinos, the Chinese, the Latinos, the homosexuals, the Muslims, the Jews, the atheists, the communists, the Black and White panthers. By degree they have all varied. The worst sufferers have been the Native Americans, and the least could be the homosexuals. But that’s just a numeric difference. In other words the numbers are so fluid that no one knows in near future whose turns will it be to be counted as the most unfortunate. Between the extremes, one remembers the most tragic and systematically orchestrated lynchings of the Blacks in the South.
What is important to remember in this context is the not just degree and the fact that the degree will vary in future times to include most of us, but also the type of exploitation. This has consistently been the case, not just in America whose natives were attacked most brutally, but also in other countries which were invaded by the European colonialists. The difference being, in the other countries like India and South Africa, the numbers of oppressed people far outweighed the number of the Europeans colonialists (ruling business and royal classes of Spain, France, Britain).
Going by the shared history of enslavement and tortures, I do not see for a moment, why any minority group must feel more privileged or less privileged than another. But the irony is, that this is how it works.
In a recent discussion, my African American friends commented that whereas Tsunami song evoked protests, where were the Asians when blacks were being called Niggers. My Asian American friends wonder why the racism should only address issues of the Blacks on prime time television resulting in a change to “their” favor whereas there is no black protest against discrimination of Asian who are missing from popular culture. The Ghettopoly protest vis-à-vis the naming of the “chinks” on hip hop are all opening the door to further divide the “their” and “our” issues.
The conflicts between the Blacks and the Jews is well recorded. The media, proverbially owned by the Jewish capitalists, tilting against the church going Black nationalists has been a debate historically waged. The conflicts between the Arabs and the Jews, even as one watched Fahrenheit 911 with wonder would vouch for. “Those Arabs.”
In a classic post colonial discourse, it would be miserably aping the behaviors called for by the colonialists so that one group will be more favorably looked upon than the others. These “others”, though logically would be belonging to the one and the same force, would need to fight against one another for them to be easily overwhelmed and left without a choice in the matters of their lives.
The stock of history always have been produced in manners that are in consonance with state interests. When the right-wing party in India decided to take off the chapter on Gandhi’s assassination (since the dastardly act was committed by a right-wing fanatic) it was no surprise. Or when the Holocaust Museum in Washington DC took off the main chapter of Niemöller’s warning on “First They Came” since it talked about 6 million Communist victims, it came as no surprise. Talking of Niemöller, its very apt to mention his original work here:
"First they came for the Communists
but I was not a Communist - so I said nothing.
Then they came for the Social Democrats,
but I was not a Social Democrat - so I did nothing.
Then came the trade unionists,
but I was not a trade unionist.
And then they came for the Jews,
but I was not a Jew - so I did little.
Then when they came for me,
there was no one left who could stand up for me."
The legendary stanza has been largely rewritten by people who influence history, for obvious reasons. Time magazine, that primary source for historical researches used the quotation, moved the Jews to the first place and dropped both the communists and the social democrats!
American Vice-President Al Gore who claimed to have coined words even for the cyberspace, quotes the lines, but drops the trade unionists!
Gore and Time also have added Roman Catholics, who were never on the list of Niemöller's at all. In fact on the Holocaust memorial at the Catholic city of Boston, Catholics were added to the quotation inscribed.
The US Holocaust Museum at the Washington DC, another place for historians have dropped the Communists but retained the Social Democrats!
As far as I can see the mutual resentment to delete certain sections could have to do more with the issues of class-based differences that were sought for to be resolved by this group of fabled people. Because its easy to attack someone as a Communist, as Stallman says, for having said the most uninteresting things. Things which interest people in individualistic societies have to do with individual progress/competitive clashes/power plays/merit games even in terms of narrating and positioning their “own” histories and not look at the shared history of exploitations in fear of not having a separate studies/housing/museum (which anyway gets founded on manipulated ideas).
If only we knew we stand to lose nothing if we got to tell our stories of common histories than of our discreet glories?
We suspect, therefore we are - Part I
By Saswat Pattanayak
The long history of conflicts between the marginal groups to vie for each others’ blood is a well known one.
One of the major reasons behind the conquerors’ successes in sustained oppression has been not just to divide and rule, but also to create a sense of suspicion among the ruled groups.
Let’s go one step at a time. When Amrita and I came to live by the Kreeger Drive in Adelphi, Maryland since two years now, I was advised by my fellow Indian relatives and friends that it was not a good place to go to. And if we had no other choice, at least we had to be very careful so as not to venture out in evenings. Not to walk around in the market, rather to drive only (and even while driving, looking out for those people who cross the roads insanely).
Without paying any heed of course, we never drove here. Always walked, even in the evenings, asked the people drinking in front of our apartment to at least reduce the noise so that we could study. We knew that they were working class wage earners toiling hard in the days (even standing by the 7/11s in line to be picked up for work by any generous White man for the day) and relaxing a bit on Friday evenings with one of two best offering of capitalistic societies—Miller’s booze (the other, Church remains closed in the evenings). After few weeks they not only stopped the noises, they also changed the venue.
We even knocked the door of my immediate neighbor in the first week, just to know them, you know. The man in the family did not open the door, instead looked out of the window and asked “hmm?” I said, “Hi there, we are your new neighbors. Just wanted to get to know you.” The neighbor, an African-American man in his 40’s, immediately closed the window itself. After a couple of months he was gone. A Latino family now is our adjacent neighbor. They of course don’t converse in English.
The neighbor on the second floor, another Black man in this case, happened to be a taxi driver. He exchanged his number and asked me to contact him directly instead of the cab service since most of the time he is looking for people to give rides to. After few months, he told me when I called, that his cab was stolen. He said, “These Mexicans, they steal man. Brother you have to be careful. Don’t go out on the street in the evening.”
After a month, he knocked my door. I was about to open it, when he shouted, “I am your neighbor, the cab guy. I came here to….” I opened the door quick enough to listen to him directly rather than encouraging that suspicion trip. “Hello, how u doin? Hey man I have a favor to ask. Can you please keep my TV for a week at your place for me to pick it up later? I am moving from here since my room mate is leaving for Nigeria. If that’s not a lot of problem, I know I can trust you with it.” For sure, no problem in that, I said. I even went up to lend a hand in lifting that huge machine. Both of us could not manage it. “Don’t worry. I will get some of those Mexicans to do it. Thanks man, for agreeing to keep it at your place.” Next morning, he got four of “those Mexicans” to do the needful, probably paying a couple of dollars to them. Instead of 7 days, he came back after three weeks to take the TV back.
While he was taking it back, he was noticeably grateful that I had taken care of his 30 inch tv in my one bedroom apartment for so many days. “What do you do in the university?” Looking at my little library, he was in doubts. “I am a graduate student,” I said. He had obviously thought I was a part time worker at the university (which I was by the way, apart from being a student). But being a graduate student at an elite university like that, “Wow! I never knew that.” He said, before showering me with some compliments.
And after three months I suddenly noticed an Indian man in our community. He would park his car in front of the nearby building and open the doors and play Hindi music at full blast. Maybe to say, “hey you people out there. The Indian civilized smartass has arrived now! Listen to my music” Not just Jay-Z and Shakira, but also a punch of Bhangra. Well, not much to add about it except that he once stopped Amrita on her way back, to self-introduce as, “Hey I am from Indian.” (Read: since we are Indians and neighbors, we should logically trust each other, than trust those blacks and latinos there, you know)
Our Cab guy’s advice was in essence: “Be aware of the Mexicans, my man.” My Indian relatives advice: “Be aware of the Blacks.” So its time for some to say beware of both the Mexicans and the Blacks. Half the time I take cabs to the campus and every time I end up discussing race related issues with the drivers, all of them invariably Africans (not African-Americans) in this area and almost all of them Indians (recent Punjabi immigrants, not Asian Americans) little ahead in Greenbelt area.
If you are wondering if anyone (Blacks, Latinos, Indians) in these working class neighborhoods have ever asked me to be aware of the Whites, you bet, no one has. Not that I need to be cautioned about them. But what’s so very predictive in a shocking manner is the way the minorities are very eager to call each other names and create a sense of insecurity and/or fear among themselves basing on assumptions about each of the other groups.
Well, where does this lack of faith among them stem from?
I see it as a drastic failure emanating from an inability to unify. This is what my observation is towards the whole issue of Crash in the American multicultural salad bowl.
And the second precept is that they are intentionally being kept away from being unified so that they shall continue to nurture inter-group suspicions. Once they be united owing to their larger shared history….
The long history of conflicts between the marginal groups to vie for each others’ blood is a well known one.
One of the major reasons behind the conquerors’ successes in sustained oppression has been not just to divide and rule, but also to create a sense of suspicion among the ruled groups.
Let’s go one step at a time. When Amrita and I came to live by the Kreeger Drive in Adelphi, Maryland since two years now, I was advised by my fellow Indian relatives and friends that it was not a good place to go to. And if we had no other choice, at least we had to be very careful so as not to venture out in evenings. Not to walk around in the market, rather to drive only (and even while driving, looking out for those people who cross the roads insanely).
Without paying any heed of course, we never drove here. Always walked, even in the evenings, asked the people drinking in front of our apartment to at least reduce the noise so that we could study. We knew that they were working class wage earners toiling hard in the days (even standing by the 7/11s in line to be picked up for work by any generous White man for the day) and relaxing a bit on Friday evenings with one of two best offering of capitalistic societies—Miller’s booze (the other, Church remains closed in the evenings). After few weeks they not only stopped the noises, they also changed the venue.
We even knocked the door of my immediate neighbor in the first week, just to know them, you know. The man in the family did not open the door, instead looked out of the window and asked “hmm?” I said, “Hi there, we are your new neighbors. Just wanted to get to know you.” The neighbor, an African-American man in his 40’s, immediately closed the window itself. After a couple of months he was gone. A Latino family now is our adjacent neighbor. They of course don’t converse in English.
The neighbor on the second floor, another Black man in this case, happened to be a taxi driver. He exchanged his number and asked me to contact him directly instead of the cab service since most of the time he is looking for people to give rides to. After few months, he told me when I called, that his cab was stolen. He said, “These Mexicans, they steal man. Brother you have to be careful. Don’t go out on the street in the evening.”
After a month, he knocked my door. I was about to open it, when he shouted, “I am your neighbor, the cab guy. I came here to….” I opened the door quick enough to listen to him directly rather than encouraging that suspicion trip. “Hello, how u doin? Hey man I have a favor to ask. Can you please keep my TV for a week at your place for me to pick it up later? I am moving from here since my room mate is leaving for Nigeria. If that’s not a lot of problem, I know I can trust you with it.” For sure, no problem in that, I said. I even went up to lend a hand in lifting that huge machine. Both of us could not manage it. “Don’t worry. I will get some of those Mexicans to do it. Thanks man, for agreeing to keep it at your place.” Next morning, he got four of “those Mexicans” to do the needful, probably paying a couple of dollars to them. Instead of 7 days, he came back after three weeks to take the TV back.
While he was taking it back, he was noticeably grateful that I had taken care of his 30 inch tv in my one bedroom apartment for so many days. “What do you do in the university?” Looking at my little library, he was in doubts. “I am a graduate student,” I said. He had obviously thought I was a part time worker at the university (which I was by the way, apart from being a student). But being a graduate student at an elite university like that, “Wow! I never knew that.” He said, before showering me with some compliments.
And after three months I suddenly noticed an Indian man in our community. He would park his car in front of the nearby building and open the doors and play Hindi music at full blast. Maybe to say, “hey you people out there. The Indian civilized smartass has arrived now! Listen to my music” Not just Jay-Z and Shakira, but also a punch of Bhangra. Well, not much to add about it except that he once stopped Amrita on her way back, to self-introduce as, “Hey I am from Indian.” (Read: since we are Indians and neighbors, we should logically trust each other, than trust those blacks and latinos there, you know)
Our Cab guy’s advice was in essence: “Be aware of the Mexicans, my man.” My Indian relatives advice: “Be aware of the Blacks.” So its time for some to say beware of both the Mexicans and the Blacks. Half the time I take cabs to the campus and every time I end up discussing race related issues with the drivers, all of them invariably Africans (not African-Americans) in this area and almost all of them Indians (recent Punjabi immigrants, not Asian Americans) little ahead in Greenbelt area.
If you are wondering if anyone (Blacks, Latinos, Indians) in these working class neighborhoods have ever asked me to be aware of the Whites, you bet, no one has. Not that I need to be cautioned about them. But what’s so very predictive in a shocking manner is the way the minorities are very eager to call each other names and create a sense of insecurity and/or fear among themselves basing on assumptions about each of the other groups.
Well, where does this lack of faith among them stem from?
I see it as a drastic failure emanating from an inability to unify. This is what my observation is towards the whole issue of Crash in the American multicultural salad bowl.
And the second precept is that they are intentionally being kept away from being unified so that they shall continue to nurture inter-group suspicions. Once they be united owing to their larger shared history….
Sunday clash of ideas
26/06/05 19:50 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Memories
Malik, Jared, Todd and I, the four usual suspects held our Sunday meeting. It went well, except that it turned out to be even more gleefully unmethodical than we had thought it would.
Crash had a sequel coming, called Trash. It was not Jackson who was being vied for, rather the magnitude of black innocent brothers who were being irresponsibly imprisoned that the issue found a channel through the MJ trial. Was Adorno alright about culture industry? And McLuhan more than the messages?
It was quite a journey. There are obviously gaps we need to bridge, journeys we have to pave a common path for, and ideas we have to look at their merits. But the struggle at understanding and getting educated over is one far from over.
Cultural Essentialism- Whose History?
By Saswat Pattanayak
Whose purpose does it serve to reduce individuals to essential cultures? As cultural essentialism plays well into the hands of the economists and political strategists while creating the future of the underdeveloped and developing countries, the question holds promise and helps clarify few doubts.
Any quintessential viewer of Indian Diaspora movies will vouch, the films are 1) an essentialist picture of certain section of Indian population (Gujarati, Punjabi, Marwari, or on the parallel front, the Bengali), 2) an unequivocal depiction of socio-economic homogeneity (rich, business families who are highly “successful” overseas), 3) the major theme revolves around a heterosexual marriage search of arranged nature which culminates pronouncedly into a “love” relationship to prove the “progress”, 4) unrelenting traditional father then gives ways to obedient modern children’s wishes, initially ignoring the mother and afterward letting the mother be a redundant character anyway, 5) the distinction of Indian culture is made from the American/British culture, where Indian culture is always proved to be superior in spirit, despite the proponents swim in the foreign wealth and subjugation, and 6) marrying a foreigner is a sin, and marrying a black Muslim is unforgivable, hence impossible (but remember the marriage, still is the overriding issue).
Unfortunately, such an essentialist depiction is never limited only to Diaspora movies. It has its place in the great Indian modern novels as well as great Indian classics. No wonder more Bollywood Masala movies too turn to the classics by Sarat Chandra, a Bengali writer whose works thrived on essentialism.
The danger which lies is this: the story often told and retold and made believable then are not questioned anymore. In Bend it Like Beckham, that big hit of recent years, the courage of the Indian girl and her family’s eventual support were depicted as an Indian tradition which was changing. Or after watching Bride and Prejudice, my fellow viewers were thrilled to see the ending, a perfect union. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge or Pardes were the Masala Hits which also ended happily with the “traditional father” giving in to the wishes after resentments. Go back to Devdas or Parineeta and one finds other shades of historical essentialism that plays the right cards.
Whose cards are these? The question which emerges is, are these cultural characteristics at all generic? If so viewed, is there something more to it (genealogy of the tradition) which needs to be explained in context in order that people don’t get misled into interpreting something as “Indian”/Oriental?
Sati (immolation of wife on the husband’s pyre) has been much debated and only recently it’s essentialist features finding resonance with the “Indians” was challenged by Lata Mani in her “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on SATI in Colonial India” (1987). Mani argued that Sati was not just perpetrated/continued by an elite class of people, but with the help of the British, it was created as a tradition for administrative records. Hence the follow-ups were quite clear, so as to save the brown woman from the brown men by the whites.
The female protagonist of “Bride and Prejudice” who is currently the most acclaimed actress of India and a Time magazine’s most influential people of the world, refreshingly reprimands to a white businessman that Indian women need not be looked at as reduced icons of western gratifications. Towards the end of the film, she realizes she was in the wrong about her perception of this man, because he happened to have saved her from another lusty man. Of course she realizes her prejudices and very proudly weds the businessman atop an elephant and thousands of poor people cheering them and celebrating their wedding. In essence, she reinforces the essentialist part (that Indian marriages, even with such a radical working class woman, takes place in such majestic manner!).
In Bend it like Beckham, one shudders to think what would have happened if the coach would have been a black man, and god forbid, an Allah preacher. Would the ending have been this happy? Or then, why does it have to be a happy ending when Indian young women, in these movies, are always educated by the white men about what is culturally progressive. And even as the condition of getting permission of the elderly for the marriage is invariably fulfilled in these cinemas. A judicious blend of Indian-ness (respect for old tradition) with western-ness (that thing they call Love) and one gets a movie done to satisfy the culture-hungry.
Where does that leave the rest of us? Well, with amazement about a country that its 80% population and more are completely unaware of. The middle class economic crisis, the agricultural production upheavals, the lack of sound healthcare, essential lapse of education as a motivated sector, a dearth of a visionary leader. Problems are many. I would not say that certain Indians from Gujarat don’t have their own Ram Navami Dandia funs. But with abound poverty in a country of over a billion population, the responsibilities of the creative performers who represent entertainment and of the political leaders who represent social well being are falling flat.
I don’t expect much of the scientists who await generous grants to build nuclear arsenals and the businesspersons who await profits for continuance of monopolies to do much. But owing to their most visible and conspicuously powerful state, the entertainment/media sector who export “Indian culture” and the political/bureaucratic sector who create them, are just negatively contributing by reinforcing the hegemonic norms.
“Wow! Is India like that!” is to ask “Wow, is US like this”. The dominant cultural depictions of course tell the tales of the times. And the times are essentially told by the rulers who own the times. Unfortunately it is still the old guard, whose hypocrisies are told by the age old Indian classics, who are still ruling. The only problem is, we the masses, are tired by their shits. We don’t need the story of a one percent elite population to dominate over the conscience of the social majority who are portrayed vis-à-vis them.
For what happens then, is well known. To sound politically correct, to be judged according to the yardsticks of the proclaimers, the rest blindly emulate, out of compulsion, which later seems like a matter of choice exercise. The evil traditions of the Indian society were never manufactured by the large majority of people. They were thrust down upon them by a selected caste/class of people who were hand in gloves for their own interests of ruling the masses using coercive methods of tyrannical rule and subtle methods of religious preaching to justify the subjugation (subjugation to god also implied subjugation to the messengers of god---the king being the manifestation).
It worked to the interest of the classes then to depict an Indian picture of backwardness so that the burden lied on the shoulders of the White man. The trend was so normalized subsequently that so far the truth is not far from this depiction. Hence the genealogy of such normalized state of subjugation, which arises out of essentialist pictures of Indian culture and society (or for that matter any oriental societies) need to be revisited and exposed.
Only with the self-awareness of how peoples have been divided and ruled by certain sections of rulers and preachers with active support of other sections of rulers and preachers to define the lives of the ruled and the damned, will help formulate the radical steps to replace, not change their tradition, not ours.
Whose purpose does it serve to reduce individuals to essential cultures? As cultural essentialism plays well into the hands of the economists and political strategists while creating the future of the underdeveloped and developing countries, the question holds promise and helps clarify few doubts.
Any quintessential viewer of Indian Diaspora movies will vouch, the films are 1) an essentialist picture of certain section of Indian population (Gujarati, Punjabi, Marwari, or on the parallel front, the Bengali), 2) an unequivocal depiction of socio-economic homogeneity (rich, business families who are highly “successful” overseas), 3) the major theme revolves around a heterosexual marriage search of arranged nature which culminates pronouncedly into a “love” relationship to prove the “progress”, 4) unrelenting traditional father then gives ways to obedient modern children’s wishes, initially ignoring the mother and afterward letting the mother be a redundant character anyway, 5) the distinction of Indian culture is made from the American/British culture, where Indian culture is always proved to be superior in spirit, despite the proponents swim in the foreign wealth and subjugation, and 6) marrying a foreigner is a sin, and marrying a black Muslim is unforgivable, hence impossible (but remember the marriage, still is the overriding issue).
Unfortunately, such an essentialist depiction is never limited only to Diaspora movies. It has its place in the great Indian modern novels as well as great Indian classics. No wonder more Bollywood Masala movies too turn to the classics by Sarat Chandra, a Bengali writer whose works thrived on essentialism.
The danger which lies is this: the story often told and retold and made believable then are not questioned anymore. In Bend it Like Beckham, that big hit of recent years, the courage of the Indian girl and her family’s eventual support were depicted as an Indian tradition which was changing. Or after watching Bride and Prejudice, my fellow viewers were thrilled to see the ending, a perfect union. Dilwale Dulhania Le Jayenge or Pardes were the Masala Hits which also ended happily with the “traditional father” giving in to the wishes after resentments. Go back to Devdas or Parineeta and one finds other shades of historical essentialism that plays the right cards.
Whose cards are these? The question which emerges is, are these cultural characteristics at all generic? If so viewed, is there something more to it (genealogy of the tradition) which needs to be explained in context in order that people don’t get misled into interpreting something as “Indian”/Oriental?
Sati (immolation of wife on the husband’s pyre) has been much debated and only recently it’s essentialist features finding resonance with the “Indians” was challenged by Lata Mani in her “Contentious Traditions: The Debate on SATI in Colonial India” (1987). Mani argued that Sati was not just perpetrated/continued by an elite class of people, but with the help of the British, it was created as a tradition for administrative records. Hence the follow-ups were quite clear, so as to save the brown woman from the brown men by the whites.
The female protagonist of “Bride and Prejudice” who is currently the most acclaimed actress of India and a Time magazine’s most influential people of the world, refreshingly reprimands to a white businessman that Indian women need not be looked at as reduced icons of western gratifications. Towards the end of the film, she realizes she was in the wrong about her perception of this man, because he happened to have saved her from another lusty man. Of course she realizes her prejudices and very proudly weds the businessman atop an elephant and thousands of poor people cheering them and celebrating their wedding. In essence, she reinforces the essentialist part (that Indian marriages, even with such a radical working class woman, takes place in such majestic manner!).
In Bend it like Beckham, one shudders to think what would have happened if the coach would have been a black man, and god forbid, an Allah preacher. Would the ending have been this happy? Or then, why does it have to be a happy ending when Indian young women, in these movies, are always educated by the white men about what is culturally progressive. And even as the condition of getting permission of the elderly for the marriage is invariably fulfilled in these cinemas. A judicious blend of Indian-ness (respect for old tradition) with western-ness (that thing they call Love) and one gets a movie done to satisfy the culture-hungry.
Where does that leave the rest of us? Well, with amazement about a country that its 80% population and more are completely unaware of. The middle class economic crisis, the agricultural production upheavals, the lack of sound healthcare, essential lapse of education as a motivated sector, a dearth of a visionary leader. Problems are many. I would not say that certain Indians from Gujarat don’t have their own Ram Navami Dandia funs. But with abound poverty in a country of over a billion population, the responsibilities of the creative performers who represent entertainment and of the political leaders who represent social well being are falling flat.
I don’t expect much of the scientists who await generous grants to build nuclear arsenals and the businesspersons who await profits for continuance of monopolies to do much. But owing to their most visible and conspicuously powerful state, the entertainment/media sector who export “Indian culture” and the political/bureaucratic sector who create them, are just negatively contributing by reinforcing the hegemonic norms.
“Wow! Is India like that!” is to ask “Wow, is US like this”. The dominant cultural depictions of course tell the tales of the times. And the times are essentially told by the rulers who own the times. Unfortunately it is still the old guard, whose hypocrisies are told by the age old Indian classics, who are still ruling. The only problem is, we the masses, are tired by their shits. We don’t need the story of a one percent elite population to dominate over the conscience of the social majority who are portrayed vis-à-vis them.
For what happens then, is well known. To sound politically correct, to be judged according to the yardsticks of the proclaimers, the rest blindly emulate, out of compulsion, which later seems like a matter of choice exercise. The evil traditions of the Indian society were never manufactured by the large majority of people. They were thrust down upon them by a selected caste/class of people who were hand in gloves for their own interests of ruling the masses using coercive methods of tyrannical rule and subtle methods of religious preaching to justify the subjugation (subjugation to god also implied subjugation to the messengers of god---the king being the manifestation).
It worked to the interest of the classes then to depict an Indian picture of backwardness so that the burden lied on the shoulders of the White man. The trend was so normalized subsequently that so far the truth is not far from this depiction. Hence the genealogy of such normalized state of subjugation, which arises out of essentialist pictures of Indian culture and society (or for that matter any oriental societies) need to be revisited and exposed.
Only with the self-awareness of how peoples have been divided and ruled by certain sections of rulers and preachers with active support of other sections of rulers and preachers to define the lives of the ruled and the damned, will help formulate the radical steps to replace, not change their tradition, not ours.
Apology from the unapologetic
By Saswat Pattanayak
Upon request from a few friends, I took off the post about the “Jersey Guys”. Since they had already apologized, what use was the post anyway, any more, the winning argument went.
To refresh memory, these were the same radio personalities who called the “Orientals and Indians” un-Americans. In fact in a "ching chong" mocking Asian dialect, Carton and Rossi had declared that Asian Americans were outsiders.
"No specific minority group or foreign group should ever, ever dictate the outcome of an American election," Carton said. "I don't care if the Chinese population in Edison has quadrupled in the last year, Chinese should never dictate the outcome of an election. Americans should. In Edison, this is just another example of us losing our own country. Ray and I represent the average guy in New Jersey, blue-collar white people."
To counter it, West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh joined in with protest: “We are all immigrants or children of immigrants, whether we came here 300 years ago or yesterday. We all have to stand up and say this is un-American. Freedom of speech must have a sense of responsibility."
In fact, especially when freedom of speech is enjoyed by the ruling class, it does not amount to intrinsic freedom any longer. Click here to find the Tsunami Song and the Friends racism as found in the local paper.
What is missed in the entire context is the institutionalized racism that exists in the United States. The radio host commentators of course knew well that only a citizen of this country is allowed to vote, and everyone else is barred from electoral process (even if a permanent resident works for the country for more than four decades). Despite that, to assume that “Chinese should never dictate the outcome of election—Americans should” shows grossly misplaced knowledge.
My objection was not so much to discover how come the racist duo had not apologized yet, but how come these people have not yet been persecuted for such racist comments on public airtime. Not that I am surprised, considering the old boys clouts: following show the Jersey Guys flanked by two eminent ones: the Governor, the US Attorney General.
Apparently the Asian-American NJ Mayor candidate Jun Choi was allowed to the studio of the hosts and was granted a chance to talk about his political platform. He brought with him a six-pack of beer and some Korean soju, a liquor similar to vodka.
Carton said that “the few politicians that had a legitimate gripe with us always come in with booze.” After the beer talk, Carton started in with the apology.
“All right, a lot of what we do — the majority of what we do — is satire,” Carton said. “We poke fun at ourselves. We poke fun at a lot of people, and the intent of that is to never hurt any one specific person or a specific group. So I will tell you man to man, if you were personally offended by the comments we made a month ago today, man to man I’m sorry, and you have my apology for that, because the intent was to never to specifically hurt you personally, or hurt your political campaign in the upcoming mayoral election.”
According to Sentinel at Edison, Choi accepted the apology and gave advice that the Korean soju liquor goes really well with Korean barbecued beef.
Few questions emerge: Was such an apology a mockery? What did the hosts mean by "man-to-man" apology? The comments were originally made towards all Orientals/Indians/Chinese (and not to specifically a Korean-American like Choi) anyway. When it was not a man-to-man slur, why a man-to-man apology? Moreover, Choi’s liquor trip just trivialized the issue in an insulting fashion. Instead of directing the misguided missiles like the Jersey Guys to where they should belong, Choi, in order not to segregate the votes of the fellow racists who so religiously follow the radio show and come out in public to show solidarity with the sentiments of the hosts, just was so pathetic in demeanor. In contrast, the Asian Media Watchdog’s appeal seems ridiculously philosophical following such unquestioning submission by Choi.
The problem, though, is that apology is no answer. Only the ones who don’t care as much to act upon the issue, try to get rid of the issue by apologizing. Look at Ronald Reagan apologizing to Japanese Americans for the American torture, Clinton visiting Africa and apologizing for American slavery, and recently, senators apologizing for American lynching.
Did any of them mean anything other than to skirt future questions on the same embarrassing issues (and not criminal issues, for if they were criminal issues, why not a fair trial?).
Seems like apologizing has become a prerogative for some, and forgiving an accommodation for others. And history, very cruelly, is allowed to repeat itself.
Upon request from a few friends, I took off the post about the “Jersey Guys”. Since they had already apologized, what use was the post anyway, any more, the winning argument went.
To refresh memory, these were the same radio personalities who called the “Orientals and Indians” un-Americans. In fact in a "ching chong" mocking Asian dialect, Carton and Rossi had declared that Asian Americans were outsiders.
"No specific minority group or foreign group should ever, ever dictate the outcome of an American election," Carton said. "I don't care if the Chinese population in Edison has quadrupled in the last year, Chinese should never dictate the outcome of an election. Americans should. In Edison, this is just another example of us losing our own country. Ray and I represent the average guy in New Jersey, blue-collar white people."
To counter it, West Windsor Mayor Shing-Fu Hsueh joined in with protest: “We are all immigrants or children of immigrants, whether we came here 300 years ago or yesterday. We all have to stand up and say this is un-American. Freedom of speech must have a sense of responsibility."
In fact, especially when freedom of speech is enjoyed by the ruling class, it does not amount to intrinsic freedom any longer. Click here to find the Tsunami Song and the Friends racism as found in the local paper.
What is missed in the entire context is the institutionalized racism that exists in the United States. The radio host commentators of course knew well that only a citizen of this country is allowed to vote, and everyone else is barred from electoral process (even if a permanent resident works for the country for more than four decades). Despite that, to assume that “Chinese should never dictate the outcome of election—Americans should” shows grossly misplaced knowledge.
My objection was not so much to discover how come the racist duo had not apologized yet, but how come these people have not yet been persecuted for such racist comments on public airtime. Not that I am surprised, considering the old boys clouts: following show the Jersey Guys flanked by two eminent ones: the Governor, the US Attorney General.
Apparently the Asian-American NJ Mayor candidate Jun Choi was allowed to the studio of the hosts and was granted a chance to talk about his political platform. He brought with him a six-pack of beer and some Korean soju, a liquor similar to vodka.
Carton said that “the few politicians that had a legitimate gripe with us always come in with booze.” After the beer talk, Carton started in with the apology.
“All right, a lot of what we do — the majority of what we do — is satire,” Carton said. “We poke fun at ourselves. We poke fun at a lot of people, and the intent of that is to never hurt any one specific person or a specific group. So I will tell you man to man, if you were personally offended by the comments we made a month ago today, man to man I’m sorry, and you have my apology for that, because the intent was to never to specifically hurt you personally, or hurt your political campaign in the upcoming mayoral election.”
According to Sentinel at Edison, Choi accepted the apology and gave advice that the Korean soju liquor goes really well with Korean barbecued beef.
Few questions emerge: Was such an apology a mockery? What did the hosts mean by "man-to-man" apology? The comments were originally made towards all Orientals/Indians/Chinese (and not to specifically a Korean-American like Choi) anyway. When it was not a man-to-man slur, why a man-to-man apology? Moreover, Choi’s liquor trip just trivialized the issue in an insulting fashion. Instead of directing the misguided missiles like the Jersey Guys to where they should belong, Choi, in order not to segregate the votes of the fellow racists who so religiously follow the radio show and come out in public to show solidarity with the sentiments of the hosts, just was so pathetic in demeanor. In contrast, the Asian Media Watchdog’s appeal seems ridiculously philosophical following such unquestioning submission by Choi.
The problem, though, is that apology is no answer. Only the ones who don’t care as much to act upon the issue, try to get rid of the issue by apologizing. Look at Ronald Reagan apologizing to Japanese Americans for the American torture, Clinton visiting Africa and apologizing for American slavery, and recently, senators apologizing for American lynching.
Did any of them mean anything other than to skirt future questions on the same embarrassing issues (and not criminal issues, for if they were criminal issues, why not a fair trial?).
Seems like apologizing has become a prerogative for some, and forgiving an accommodation for others. And history, very cruelly, is allowed to repeat itself.
Democratic War on Freedom
By Saswat Pattanayak
Is not the war on terror actually a war on freedom?
As more and more countries join the camp, and try to outdo each other to bring American attention to their solidarity against this so-called war on terror, the obvious question is one of agenda. What, and who is served in the pursuit?
Primarily, the anti-people lobbies. With the dawn of the end of territorial imperialism, there was widespread significance attached to sovereignty of states, and in effect, its people. Sovereignty entailed that there was going to be no more subjugation and in fact, the freedom granted to people could act as the greatest proof of that.
After 9/11, we have seen an institutionalization of sovereignty erosion. Blatantly acting against the interest of the intrinsic sovereign freedom, states have passed different laws to contain any prospects of popular resentments.
In phony politically democratic societies (wide majority of the world) where the state either acts as instrument of terror and/or indifference by the corporate and administrative elites, there have been vehement oppositions to the system of misgovernance. From time to time, people have resorted to different methods of airing frustrations. To gross apathy towards social welfare, there have been ineffective mass demonstrations. To individual harassments by the police states, there have been reciprocal community reactions. But within a political framework, which thrives on sustaining necessary and illusory world of vague/abstract and abused freedom (such as speech, opportunity, dignity, security etc), its only natural that large majority remains discontent.
But another illusory method to combat discontentment since the last century has been not one of suppression (that was left to state communisms so that they could be attacked logically), but one of sustainable law and order systems. The mass media was used to make heroes out of the police and the detectives and the judiciary, to reinforce popular faiths in these systems, without letting the public know that these were indeed the very instruments that the ruling elites utilize to maintain a stronghold.
Hence, whenever the system of callous administration produced petty thieves, the individuals were required to be punished by the society which reveled in the glory of smart detectives who caught the criminal! Gradually the people were made to believe that the systems of oppressions were working for their own interests, whereas the abominably low proportion of people who rose up against the ways of the unjust world, were the traitors. This false and dangerous distinction between people who were actually working against the interest of society and who were serving their interests were still furthered with reinforcement of another wing of normalization: religion.
Religions and Law, mostly guided the norms that the society was compelled to live by or else! The people acting against the norms, because they most rationally thought of doing so to combat sustained injustice in the society, were naturally enough proved to be abnormal, and hence relegated to the prisons, that most systematically neglected byproduct of oppressive political system.
Instead of focusing on the system that thrives on numbing the anger in a meritocracy (by definition, a flawed anti-people term), the people were given occasional (once in five years?) reminders that they were able to decide their futures, with political freedom to “choose”!
Now that the small minority of people who chose to oppose the conventions has grown to a larger number with the apparent contradictions of so-called democracies, and their resentments have been expressed more vehemently, leading ways to formation of several hundreds of Independent media to expose the agents of draconic democracies, the rulers have now gone back to religions and legal experts to effect changes. If they don’t listen to “love-thy-class-enemy” sermons of religions, then pass some laws (like POTA or Patriot ) to restrict their freedoms.
Even while doing this, the democratic leaders, as expected, resort to sly methods of calling the spade. They call it now a war on terror, instead of war on freedom. After all, what are they so terrified of? If they can shred the 9/11 papers to disprove their involvement in traditional assault on innocent civilians…
Is not the war on terror actually a war on freedom?
As more and more countries join the camp, and try to outdo each other to bring American attention to their solidarity against this so-called war on terror, the obvious question is one of agenda. What, and who is served in the pursuit?
Primarily, the anti-people lobbies. With the dawn of the end of territorial imperialism, there was widespread significance attached to sovereignty of states, and in effect, its people. Sovereignty entailed that there was going to be no more subjugation and in fact, the freedom granted to people could act as the greatest proof of that.
After 9/11, we have seen an institutionalization of sovereignty erosion. Blatantly acting against the interest of the intrinsic sovereign freedom, states have passed different laws to contain any prospects of popular resentments.
In phony politically democratic societies (wide majority of the world) where the state either acts as instrument of terror and/or indifference by the corporate and administrative elites, there have been vehement oppositions to the system of misgovernance. From time to time, people have resorted to different methods of airing frustrations. To gross apathy towards social welfare, there have been ineffective mass demonstrations. To individual harassments by the police states, there have been reciprocal community reactions. But within a political framework, which thrives on sustaining necessary and illusory world of vague/abstract and abused freedom (such as speech, opportunity, dignity, security etc), its only natural that large majority remains discontent.
But another illusory method to combat discontentment since the last century has been not one of suppression (that was left to state communisms so that they could be attacked logically), but one of sustainable law and order systems. The mass media was used to make heroes out of the police and the detectives and the judiciary, to reinforce popular faiths in these systems, without letting the public know that these were indeed the very instruments that the ruling elites utilize to maintain a stronghold.
Hence, whenever the system of callous administration produced petty thieves, the individuals were required to be punished by the society which reveled in the glory of smart detectives who caught the criminal! Gradually the people were made to believe that the systems of oppressions were working for their own interests, whereas the abominably low proportion of people who rose up against the ways of the unjust world, were the traitors. This false and dangerous distinction between people who were actually working against the interest of society and who were serving their interests were still furthered with reinforcement of another wing of normalization: religion.
Religions and Law, mostly guided the norms that the society was compelled to live by or else! The people acting against the norms, because they most rationally thought of doing so to combat sustained injustice in the society, were naturally enough proved to be abnormal, and hence relegated to the prisons, that most systematically neglected byproduct of oppressive political system.
Instead of focusing on the system that thrives on numbing the anger in a meritocracy (by definition, a flawed anti-people term), the people were given occasional (once in five years?) reminders that they were able to decide their futures, with political freedom to “choose”!
Now that the small minority of people who chose to oppose the conventions has grown to a larger number with the apparent contradictions of so-called democracies, and their resentments have been expressed more vehemently, leading ways to formation of several hundreds of Independent media to expose the agents of draconic democracies, the rulers have now gone back to religions and legal experts to effect changes. If they don’t listen to “love-thy-class-enemy” sermons of religions, then pass some laws (like POTA or Patriot ) to restrict their freedoms.
Even while doing this, the democratic leaders, as expected, resort to sly methods of calling the spade. They call it now a war on terror, instead of war on freedom. After all, what are they so terrified of? If they can shred the 9/11 papers to disprove their involvement in traditional assault on innocent civilians…
Education-Military-Industrial Complex
By Saswat Pattanayak
A cursory look at the higher educational institutes (more prestigious, the more trenchant in their case) shows the future. And even the past.
A university is usually always isolated from the community. In physical space, it is beyond the areas where people live. The excuse: people in academic scene need more tranquility than traffic. So always in the outskirts of the hustle and bustle of the “madding crowd”, the universities help form their own quite cheap but alienated townships.
Students are encouraged to use their own school buses, buy books from their school bookstores, shop from their co-op stores and sport their school uniforms (well, to some extent with the school logo jerseys with pride). In essence, form a distinctly different culture from the masses and stay away from their vicinities.
The classrooms are always figuratively well maintained. The corridors are high and vertically rising. The stairs leading to the college buildings are intimidating. The campus celebrates its own occasions for celebration. Awards salutations and distinguishes the achievers. Recognizes the students who have excelled and faculty who have bagged grants. All without any knowledge of the people outside. Even the campus newspaper caters to the campus.
Universities host their own games, students chant their own war cries, in order to show their allegiance and support, they shout “down down” to the guest school participants. There are almost always a tension between the faculty, the graduate students and the undergraduate students. Among the teaching assistants and the ones who are not. Among the interns and those ones who are not. Among the C graders and the A graders. Between the assistant professors and the associate professors. Between the associate professors and the full professors.
In the competitive yardsticks that it has institutionalized, the ideal university values funds more than anything else. Because the competition is then between universities themselves as structures. Universities compete to become news in elitist magazines as top schools. They actually are now functioning as followers of magazine protocols than guarding interests of disadvantaged students.
However, in the larger gamut of the killer games, the education in its pristine form never is neglected. Education is always the priority. Only issue with education being the gradual augmentation of thought-controls.
If conforming to the norms of university regulations and peer reviews which lead to faculty promotions, they in turn expect students to conform to their respective schools of thoughts as invisible grounds of favoritisms. Researches begets researches and the tools used in it become crucial. Apart from students being used in furthering the researches, it is also institutional resources which are called to task. The university on its part, promotes one unit over another for fund allocation. More often than not, few technical and management schools bag the prizes, and among them some faculty members who conform to the ideology of the project become awardees.
In effect, not only do the universities become ivory towers, but within them, certain units/schools are more ivory than the others. This naturally enough, promotes feelings of inadequacies among the neglected units. Most of them try to declare themselves to be either professional or scientific, in order to claim some authority for future grants.
As the race continues, far from the “madding crowd”, the university does not seem sane enough. By the time students graduate they face a life outside campus to be one for which they were never prepared for. If the distinctions between the world outside the university and the world within be revisited, the faults then squarely lie not on the community, but the classrooms that teach alienation from the community. The desirable and acceptable languages used (research terminologies), the methods of inquiry (fast surveys), the project goals (to produce peer-reviewed –who are themselves academic elites--brilliant works than relevant works with an agenda for people’s actions), the classroom teaching techniques (top-down vertical instructions or diplomatically speaking suggestions about what is acceptable if one needs an A) are all instruments in the hands of the university to clearly delineate the alumni from everyone else (the “they” ones).
Education, unlike any other pursuit, is idealism in another word. But with buildings named after rich donors and professors subservient to funding agencies, students have to be more than willing to sacrifice idealism.
More easily than I state this, university, then emerges as breeding grounds for future miscreants. Only it makes them smart enough and rich enough to know how to evade charges. And someday when one looks back at the world leaders of the developed world, one wonders why all of them studied at the top schools and yet desired wars with civilians more than peace with the oppressed. Their education not only encourages them from calling mass scale war shots owing to their superiority complex (ingrained from the university days), but it also enables them to become comfortably numb at the consequences (owing to educational indifferences) and work against the interest of the people at large (who they were prevented from mingling with, by the university towers).
A cursory look at the higher educational institutes (more prestigious, the more trenchant in their case) shows the future. And even the past.
A university is usually always isolated from the community. In physical space, it is beyond the areas where people live. The excuse: people in academic scene need more tranquility than traffic. So always in the outskirts of the hustle and bustle of the “madding crowd”, the universities help form their own quite cheap but alienated townships.
Students are encouraged to use their own school buses, buy books from their school bookstores, shop from their co-op stores and sport their school uniforms (well, to some extent with the school logo jerseys with pride). In essence, form a distinctly different culture from the masses and stay away from their vicinities.
The classrooms are always figuratively well maintained. The corridors are high and vertically rising. The stairs leading to the college buildings are intimidating. The campus celebrates its own occasions for celebration. Awards salutations and distinguishes the achievers. Recognizes the students who have excelled and faculty who have bagged grants. All without any knowledge of the people outside. Even the campus newspaper caters to the campus.
Universities host their own games, students chant their own war cries, in order to show their allegiance and support, they shout “down down” to the guest school participants. There are almost always a tension between the faculty, the graduate students and the undergraduate students. Among the teaching assistants and the ones who are not. Among the interns and those ones who are not. Among the C graders and the A graders. Between the assistant professors and the associate professors. Between the associate professors and the full professors.
In the competitive yardsticks that it has institutionalized, the ideal university values funds more than anything else. Because the competition is then between universities themselves as structures. Universities compete to become news in elitist magazines as top schools. They actually are now functioning as followers of magazine protocols than guarding interests of disadvantaged students.
However, in the larger gamut of the killer games, the education in its pristine form never is neglected. Education is always the priority. Only issue with education being the gradual augmentation of thought-controls.
If conforming to the norms of university regulations and peer reviews which lead to faculty promotions, they in turn expect students to conform to their respective schools of thoughts as invisible grounds of favoritisms. Researches begets researches and the tools used in it become crucial. Apart from students being used in furthering the researches, it is also institutional resources which are called to task. The university on its part, promotes one unit over another for fund allocation. More often than not, few technical and management schools bag the prizes, and among them some faculty members who conform to the ideology of the project become awardees.
In effect, not only do the universities become ivory towers, but within them, certain units/schools are more ivory than the others. This naturally enough, promotes feelings of inadequacies among the neglected units. Most of them try to declare themselves to be either professional or scientific, in order to claim some authority for future grants.
As the race continues, far from the “madding crowd”, the university does not seem sane enough. By the time students graduate they face a life outside campus to be one for which they were never prepared for. If the distinctions between the world outside the university and the world within be revisited, the faults then squarely lie not on the community, but the classrooms that teach alienation from the community. The desirable and acceptable languages used (research terminologies), the methods of inquiry (fast surveys), the project goals (to produce peer-reviewed –who are themselves academic elites--brilliant works than relevant works with an agenda for people’s actions), the classroom teaching techniques (top-down vertical instructions or diplomatically speaking suggestions about what is acceptable if one needs an A) are all instruments in the hands of the university to clearly delineate the alumni from everyone else (the “they” ones).
Education, unlike any other pursuit, is idealism in another word. But with buildings named after rich donors and professors subservient to funding agencies, students have to be more than willing to sacrifice idealism.
More easily than I state this, university, then emerges as breeding grounds for future miscreants. Only it makes them smart enough and rich enough to know how to evade charges. And someday when one looks back at the world leaders of the developed world, one wonders why all of them studied at the top schools and yet desired wars with civilians more than peace with the oppressed. Their education not only encourages them from calling mass scale war shots owing to their superiority complex (ingrained from the university days), but it also enables them to become comfortably numb at the consequences (owing to educational indifferences) and work against the interest of the people at large (who they were prevented from mingling with, by the university towers).
Why is Sex such a Threat?
By Saswat Pattanayak
Lets talk about porn. The thing everyone loves to watch, but not talk. The publicly condemned thing that Russell’s Good Men don’t do.
Yet the Internet revolution’s most visible byproduct. The business which alone prevents www boom from going bust.
However starting June 23, there will be
a lot of rethinking around the issue. As the
recordkeeping and labeling law, 18 U.S.C. §2257
is being worked on by the current
administration, certainty is that it will
interfere with quite a few issues.
Well so far, the law stated that websites dealing with adult materials (or whatever is that) must explicitly state that the performers are above 18 years of age, and the custodians needed to have that record. No one had any problem with that. For years, this never interfered with either the audience or the industry.
The upcoming stipulation, against which the Free Speech Coalition has moved, will more likely to be another act. Akin to the draconic act of Patriotism, this one will be one of Moralism.
Lets’ see (or at least I see it this way) what does the new act have in store for all of us (hey, porn stars are one of us, and we are the gleeful audience of course, and wait, wait, wait, the law will affect even the puritans too!):
1. No Sharing: All the thieves will be punished. That is, if one stole a picture from a website, then one had it. So no steal-what-you-want freedom. It may well be a matter of questioning the right to “share”. Music, files and now images. In addition, who decides what is porn? What’s important to remember here is that people who believe in sharing things, even extremely harmless and often aesthetic pieces of nudity, will be under scrutiny.
2. Technology control: Web designers beware. Not just producers, actors, viewers, but the web designers too come under this now on. This old tactic is always helpful when one wants to scare the shit of anyone depending on the tech-geeks. Visit any adult site and one can guess why web designers are so crucial. Streaming video, interactive menus and even posting of the legal clauses, are all done by these simply adorable creative professionals.
3. Ignorant victims: How many of us really want to read the porn laws? The AVN award stories? So naturally enough, not many of us would want to know what happens to “those” people. If the State does something about porn industry, it must be for good. Well, not quite. Remember Michael Jackson was charged with abnormal behavior because he kept adult materials in his room. For all of us who are not connected with the AVN, but still go through the adult (what the hell else are we?) materials, will come under purview. Reading between the lines is crucial. Previously we respected a law forbidding children. Now we shall respect a law forbidding adults. From doing what? Watching dicks and tits. Next, they will take the biology texts out of school and teach that God created children and adults with sex organs, but not a platform to express the feelings unless they adhere to God’s way of heterosexual adult monogamous unions where the man will dominate and rename the woman’s surname and end up in a selfish unit called normal family.
4. No ‘Adult’ Community: Sharing is bad, according to our administration. Is caring too? Well, lets look at Yahoo public chatrooms. There used to be more than thousands of “user-created chatrooms” where chatters themselves created the room names and invite people to join in conversation. It could range from “Atheists at Atlanta” to “Feet-fetish Couples Cam to Cam”. The groups used to have their self-regulations and of course, yahoo groups used to be some of the most democratic forums ever managed in the world history. You don’t belong there if you don’t prove that you had the eligibility to adhere to the group norm. So, no wonder people crowded user-created rooms in much larger numbers than the yahoo’s default rooms. Because unlike Yahoo’s assigned mechanical group names, people preferred chatrooms which cared about their interests and organized similar others. Well, I hate to break the news, if you have not been a visitor much. Last week, Yahoo considered closing all the user-created rooms. Excuse: they violated the terms of service. (All of them?)
5. Atomized behaved humans: What else is gonna happen two days from now? Most of it is already happening. Thousands of bloggers who shared their stories, pictures (and yes even the new sexual positions they tried and wanted to let the world know from them first-hand than from excavating temples in northern India) and experiences, have started closing their sites. The new clauses want people to behave, you see. How else do you control people until you teach them how to behave in the classicist manner?
6. Who wants porn: The bigger concern however, is psychological. Whereas Michael Moore went ahead and read out the Patriot Act and made millions on a movie, how many of us will go out on the street and yell, hey folks, this law sucks because it does not allow us to see porn materials and we as adult have inalienable rights to witness erotic materials, without being probed into! Of course we are good people and we wont do such a thing. Let the law be passed, even the government be changed. With a Democratic Party coming back, despite Kennedy’s legacy, how many will go to repeal the bill proclaiming that Americans love adult materials? Just look at the issue surrounding Janet’s breasts. You know what I mean. The politically incorrect stands are often more difficult to take. In this situation of holy cow, almost impossible.
7. The bleak future: The most damaging evidence is not what surfaces. It is what will follow. Only fools go by the precise language of the laws. What we need to look for is the jurisprudence of the law. What are the scope of it? How come suddenly we are asked to prove patriotism by conforming to racial norms? How come suddenly the media owners are given freedom to buy and sell democratically so that the independent ones are swallowed away? How come some conservatives keep ranting about their moral views and condemn everyone else to hell in mainstream television channels? How come our Privacy is a matter subjected to forcible administrative intrusions, but when one voluntarily decides to share with the world as not an individual but a community member, it becomes an issue?
8. Irrational proposition: The administration wants every personal detail (including identification details) of everyone involved in online adult community (remember so long it was a movie industry, there was no problem. Only when people voluntarily without having to pay tax for showing their bodies came together online, did it become such an issue). The truth of the matter is that majority of people want to remain anonymous anyway. Plus, how does it feel when for every book you want to buy you furnish your details at the bookstore (not that it does not happen these days at the public libraries)? What if people just want to be there, but not be identified? What the heck? Why is the administration so bothered? Why is this so fucking an issue?
9. Why is sex such a threat?
You may add, why is bombing civilians not? Because consensual sex is the most peaceful activity that anyone can indulge in. When it is not used for sole purpose of procreation (the conservatives argue that it is… as an act for reproduction), sex is a political activity of subversion. It is one which vehemently sings the song of union, in unison, with love, with caring, with giving, with compassion and understanding.
That is why sex is so powerfully threatening to reactionaries. Hence it must be indoors, in private and no one wants a conversation on .
Talking about the porn, it is two fold: One, in its grotesque form of capitalistic exploitation of body images for furthering commercial gains, it is as normal as cigarettes. The administration has no problem with it as long as it earns some additional taxes. After all how many have bought a porn video at the price of a Hollywood flick? Its always priced higher. Without questions, the audience pay up. To fill up the administration pockets.
In its second avatar, it is threatening. When porn starts started blogging and joined ranks with millions of housewives, teenage girls and boys, and gays and lesbians and some of those heterosexual non conformists, the government felt alarmed. First, pro-choice in case of abortion, and now these people want to discuss sex in public!
How can we forget we live under the rule of the good people: Who don’t apologize for having lynched thousands, bombed millions and kept billions under forced debt and poverty. But they have a god to answer to, only when it comes to sexless moralities.
Lets talk about porn. The thing everyone loves to watch, but not talk. The publicly condemned thing that Russell’s Good Men don’t do.
Yet the Internet revolution’s most visible byproduct. The business which alone prevents www boom from going bust.
However starting June 23, there will be
a lot of rethinking around the issue. As the
recordkeeping and labeling law, 18 U.S.C. §2257
is being worked on by the current
administration, certainty is that it will
interfere with quite a few issues.
Well so far, the law stated that websites dealing with adult materials (or whatever is that) must explicitly state that the performers are above 18 years of age, and the custodians needed to have that record. No one had any problem with that. For years, this never interfered with either the audience or the industry.
The upcoming stipulation, against which the Free Speech Coalition has moved, will more likely to be another act. Akin to the draconic act of Patriotism, this one will be one of Moralism.
Lets’ see (or at least I see it this way) what does the new act have in store for all of us (hey, porn stars are one of us, and we are the gleeful audience of course, and wait, wait, wait, the law will affect even the puritans too!):
1. No Sharing: All the thieves will be punished. That is, if one stole a picture from a website, then one had it. So no steal-what-you-want freedom. It may well be a matter of questioning the right to “share”. Music, files and now images. In addition, who decides what is porn? What’s important to remember here is that people who believe in sharing things, even extremely harmless and often aesthetic pieces of nudity, will be under scrutiny.
2. Technology control: Web designers beware. Not just producers, actors, viewers, but the web designers too come under this now on. This old tactic is always helpful when one wants to scare the shit of anyone depending on the tech-geeks. Visit any adult site and one can guess why web designers are so crucial. Streaming video, interactive menus and even posting of the legal clauses, are all done by these simply adorable creative professionals.
3. Ignorant victims: How many of us really want to read the porn laws? The AVN award stories? So naturally enough, not many of us would want to know what happens to “those” people. If the State does something about porn industry, it must be for good. Well, not quite. Remember Michael Jackson was charged with abnormal behavior because he kept adult materials in his room. For all of us who are not connected with the AVN, but still go through the adult (what the hell else are we?) materials, will come under purview. Reading between the lines is crucial. Previously we respected a law forbidding children. Now we shall respect a law forbidding adults. From doing what? Watching dicks and tits. Next, they will take the biology texts out of school and teach that God created children and adults with sex organs, but not a platform to express the feelings unless they adhere to God’s way of heterosexual adult monogamous unions where the man will dominate and rename the woman’s surname and end up in a selfish unit called normal family.
4. No ‘Adult’ Community: Sharing is bad, according to our administration. Is caring too? Well, lets look at Yahoo public chatrooms. There used to be more than thousands of “user-created chatrooms” where chatters themselves created the room names and invite people to join in conversation. It could range from “Atheists at Atlanta” to “Feet-fetish Couples Cam to Cam”. The groups used to have their self-regulations and of course, yahoo groups used to be some of the most democratic forums ever managed in the world history. You don’t belong there if you don’t prove that you had the eligibility to adhere to the group norm. So, no wonder people crowded user-created rooms in much larger numbers than the yahoo’s default rooms. Because unlike Yahoo’s assigned mechanical group names, people preferred chatrooms which cared about their interests and organized similar others. Well, I hate to break the news, if you have not been a visitor much. Last week, Yahoo considered closing all the user-created rooms. Excuse: they violated the terms of service. (All of them?)
5. Atomized behaved humans: What else is gonna happen two days from now? Most of it is already happening. Thousands of bloggers who shared their stories, pictures (and yes even the new sexual positions they tried and wanted to let the world know from them first-hand than from excavating temples in northern India) and experiences, have started closing their sites. The new clauses want people to behave, you see. How else do you control people until you teach them how to behave in the classicist manner?
6. Who wants porn: The bigger concern however, is psychological. Whereas Michael Moore went ahead and read out the Patriot Act and made millions on a movie, how many of us will go out on the street and yell, hey folks, this law sucks because it does not allow us to see porn materials and we as adult have inalienable rights to witness erotic materials, without being probed into! Of course we are good people and we wont do such a thing. Let the law be passed, even the government be changed. With a Democratic Party coming back, despite Kennedy’s legacy, how many will go to repeal the bill proclaiming that Americans love adult materials? Just look at the issue surrounding Janet’s breasts. You know what I mean. The politically incorrect stands are often more difficult to take. In this situation of holy cow, almost impossible.
7. The bleak future: The most damaging evidence is not what surfaces. It is what will follow. Only fools go by the precise language of the laws. What we need to look for is the jurisprudence of the law. What are the scope of it? How come suddenly we are asked to prove patriotism by conforming to racial norms? How come suddenly the media owners are given freedom to buy and sell democratically so that the independent ones are swallowed away? How come some conservatives keep ranting about their moral views and condemn everyone else to hell in mainstream television channels? How come our Privacy is a matter subjected to forcible administrative intrusions, but when one voluntarily decides to share with the world as not an individual but a community member, it becomes an issue?
8. Irrational proposition: The administration wants every personal detail (including identification details) of everyone involved in online adult community (remember so long it was a movie industry, there was no problem. Only when people voluntarily without having to pay tax for showing their bodies came together online, did it become such an issue). The truth of the matter is that majority of people want to remain anonymous anyway. Plus, how does it feel when for every book you want to buy you furnish your details at the bookstore (not that it does not happen these days at the public libraries)? What if people just want to be there, but not be identified? What the heck? Why is the administration so bothered? Why is this so fucking an issue?
9. Why is sex such a threat?
You may add, why is bombing civilians not? Because consensual sex is the most peaceful activity that anyone can indulge in. When it is not used for sole purpose of procreation (the conservatives argue that it is… as an act for reproduction), sex is a political activity of subversion. It is one which vehemently sings the song of union, in unison, with love, with caring, with giving, with compassion and understanding.
That is why sex is so powerfully threatening to reactionaries. Hence it must be indoors, in private and no one wants a conversation on .
Talking about the porn, it is two fold: One, in its grotesque form of capitalistic exploitation of body images for furthering commercial gains, it is as normal as cigarettes. The administration has no problem with it as long as it earns some additional taxes. After all how many have bought a porn video at the price of a Hollywood flick? Its always priced higher. Without questions, the audience pay up. To fill up the administration pockets.
In its second avatar, it is threatening. When porn starts started blogging and joined ranks with millions of housewives, teenage girls and boys, and gays and lesbians and some of those heterosexual non conformists, the government felt alarmed. First, pro-choice in case of abortion, and now these people want to discuss sex in public!
How can we forget we live under the rule of the good people: Who don’t apologize for having lynched thousands, bombed millions and kept billions under forced debt and poverty. But they have a god to answer to, only when it comes to sexless moralities.
Iran War: Not Another Life
People who want peace at any cost are increasingly
becoming rare. This, notwithstanding an inherent
human necessity for survival. Possibly because of the
way, “war” as a word has been normalized by the media
as not one aberration, but one natural everyday
process, that folks don’t pay much attention to
necessity for survival.
Well, yet another war story, depending on where one comes from. For those of us who can’t stand war, its not just inhuman, but grossly unacceptable. Let not the protests begin after a thousand American working class youths are murdered on the front. The protest has to begin now. Not to “bring the boys back home”. But not to send them at the first place to the frontiers of war. We have seen enough of the sadistic pleasures of cowardice heads of the states. And now we got to show them (the global allies of imperialistic defense manufacturers) the might of resistant and organized peaceniks. Read More...
Well, yet another war story, depending on where one comes from. For those of us who can’t stand war, its not just inhuman, but grossly unacceptable. Let not the protests begin after a thousand American working class youths are murdered on the front. The protest has to begin now. Not to “bring the boys back home”. But not to send them at the first place to the frontiers of war. We have seen enough of the sadistic pleasures of cowardice heads of the states. And now we got to show them (the global allies of imperialistic defense manufacturers) the might of resistant and organized peaceniks. Read More...
Divided States of Europe
By Saswat Pattanayak
The European Union will stay a wishful nightmare. After the French, the Dutch have now stomped down the proposed bill to create the second elite world of “United States of Europe,” throwing the Britain on the spot.
This clearly is a major victory against the capitalist propagandists who intended to use the Union as a commercial and defense weapon. Three cheers to the grassroots activism shown by the working class population of French and the Dutch who have time and again defeated the interests of classicist, elitist and colonialist ruling classes of their countries.
History bears witness to the recent past misadventures of the European colonialists in the Third World countries. The French occupation of Indo-China and Algeria are gross reminders of how blissfully draconic have stayed a certain section of imperialists even towards the 1970s. South Africa was more recent an example of ravaged peoples who were allowed seats of power only in the 1990s. Of course, not with a condition that the brute rulers would leave the land and compensate the exploited people with their dues. Rather, in an unenviable situation where the former rulers continued to dominate all economic sectors and refused to let go of any privileges.
Lest history also be forgotten for convenience, some progressive people have come up against any coalition of the hegemonists in the Europe any more. No more allies and axis this time, they triumphantly have declared.
But I do not think all people voted against such proposed legislation out of an altruistic intention of not going the American way. On the contrary, learning from history, it could be well argued that self-interests inherent in nationalistic prides (therefore, racial and fascistic) have led to such decision on most parts. Because as it appears, the solution does not lie in not believing in a union of colonialist states, the solution instead lies in building up the coalition of a world body that would address global concern from local standpoints. And of course a world body which would punish unapologetic apostles of lynching, for example, and punish the oppressive war-wagers.
Unless the Dutch and the French fellow citizens not demand for a referendum to disband the NATO and join a global coalition of working class people to form a World Body without an elitist security council, its not believable that the intentions of our awakened peoples are in the desirable direction, and not in yet another dangerously nationalist, segregationist path.
And no one is even asking for a referendum to see how many come forward to apologize for the bloody history of interventionist policies historically taken up in the name of NATO, and before that, White Pride.
The European Union will stay a wishful nightmare. After the French, the Dutch have now stomped down the proposed bill to create the second elite world of “United States of Europe,” throwing the Britain on the spot.
This clearly is a major victory against the capitalist propagandists who intended to use the Union as a commercial and defense weapon. Three cheers to the grassroots activism shown by the working class population of French and the Dutch who have time and again defeated the interests of classicist, elitist and colonialist ruling classes of their countries.
History bears witness to the recent past misadventures of the European colonialists in the Third World countries. The French occupation of Indo-China and Algeria are gross reminders of how blissfully draconic have stayed a certain section of imperialists even towards the 1970s. South Africa was more recent an example of ravaged peoples who were allowed seats of power only in the 1990s. Of course, not with a condition that the brute rulers would leave the land and compensate the exploited people with their dues. Rather, in an unenviable situation where the former rulers continued to dominate all economic sectors and refused to let go of any privileges.
Lest history also be forgotten for convenience, some progressive people have come up against any coalition of the hegemonists in the Europe any more. No more allies and axis this time, they triumphantly have declared.
But I do not think all people voted against such proposed legislation out of an altruistic intention of not going the American way. On the contrary, learning from history, it could be well argued that self-interests inherent in nationalistic prides (therefore, racial and fascistic) have led to such decision on most parts. Because as it appears, the solution does not lie in not believing in a union of colonialist states, the solution instead lies in building up the coalition of a world body that would address global concern from local standpoints. And of course a world body which would punish unapologetic apostles of lynching, for example, and punish the oppressive war-wagers.
Unless the Dutch and the French fellow citizens not demand for a referendum to disband the NATO and join a global coalition of working class people to form a World Body without an elitist security council, its not believable that the intentions of our awakened peoples are in the desirable direction, and not in yet another dangerously nationalist, segregationist path.
And no one is even asking for a referendum to see how many come forward to apologize for the bloody history of interventionist policies historically taken up in the name of NATO, and before that, White Pride.
Smart Mobs?
By Saswat Pattanayak
Smart Mobs, is how Howard Rheingold calls the present and future users of hi-tech world. Whereas I totally agree with his theory that, “real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself, but from how people use it”, for me, the question is not so much of how people use the technology as it is about how much autonomy are they seeking and in control of while using it.
In other words, its not really crucial to know how to use a technology (which can directly come with the user-friendly manuals), but to know how to know of the various ways technology can be used and not used, and to exercise an informed decision.
Technology itself comes with the how-tos. The how-tos are intended to limit the uses and suppress the alternative options of misuses. And this is where the danger lies. The technological medium makes the platform so “user-friendly” to navigate and utilize that the “users” technically never go beyond the child-like exploratory stage. In the second level of interaction of course, it is the one-way horizontal communication with the users at the receiving end. Call them couch potatoes or just smart mobs.
Using a technology is actually the dumbest thing. Not the smartest. It definitely puts an end to the process of questioning the deliberate limitations of technology, the political economy of technology (who owns it, why do we pay for it), and whose ends does the technology serve.
A content gang of technology-happy crowd is for sure a mob. But to assume they are smart has an agenda. The users in the technology world are akin to the have-nots of the class-based society. A smart mob theory assumes that a Consumer is indeed a King (like Walmart would like us to believe). This theory would suppose that its not shopping experience which has the impact, what is important is how a consumer shops at our stores to dress up smart.
But then of course we know the pitfalls of a consumerist economy and its so-called smart mobs who use it by merely contributing to the monopolists’ wealth. The consumer as a king would never allow the Waltons to rule over them, as much as the smart mobs would never allow the five telecom cos to control their devices. And we know, these are mere wishful thinkings presently.
On top of these economic divides, talk about the implications of mere “use” and there comes flying raised eyebrows and political trials. Smart mobs will need more to apply their own minds to challenge technological slavery and liberate it from the monopolists than to revel in the abilities to use the devices in various different ways within the existing framework.
I believe examples are instruments of the weak to supplement the voids in arguments. But for the humor of it, let's assume we can at any point sitting at the coffee shop, move our digital cameras in a way that it can show us what deals are being made on our behalf between the ruling politicians and ruling businessmen in their corporate boardrooms (through wi-fi digital image transfers?) And we can accomplish such amazing things with their knowledge that we master such technology. And at the site of the coffee shop, with so many people discussing the barbaric and corrupt officials we have trusted so far in business and politics (although they go synonymous these days), we then decide basing on what we discover (and not via on CNN or Fox cameramen recording boorish default press conferences) that we must question the authorities and can provide supportive evidences.
Now that is smart. But the point is its not some covert Watergate or Tehelka operation. The government must know that the citizenry has the right to use the technology to witness any deals being discussed even at the penthouse of Hefner (that’s an interesting deviation too, to watch the bunnies apart from the frustrated powered men) at any moment. It need not result in hero-worshipping (like Watergate) or interrogating (like Tehelka) people who do this tech takes. Because the mob, the mass, gets involved entirely, to use the technology to their advantage, not to be awed by its superlatives and reserve it for some goddamn award winning front page stories, we know that are catering to one interest or the other (logically anyway, since they are done without involving the people, they are not mass acts anyway).
Remember Gandhi did not make the deals at the round table conferences; he struck them at the salt marches. The use of the technology has to go alongside the use of the masses. And the use of technology must be FULLY harnessed (come on, I know we could have seen that Monica-Bill flicks live). Then it's smart mob using the technology smart way, so that the mob needs no longer be ruled by a tiny group of profiteers, war-mongers and hypocrites.
Smart Mobs, is how Howard Rheingold calls the present and future users of hi-tech world. Whereas I totally agree with his theory that, “real impact of mobile communications will come not from the technology itself, but from how people use it”, for me, the question is not so much of how people use the technology as it is about how much autonomy are they seeking and in control of while using it.
In other words, its not really crucial to know how to use a technology (which can directly come with the user-friendly manuals), but to know how to know of the various ways technology can be used and not used, and to exercise an informed decision.
Technology itself comes with the how-tos. The how-tos are intended to limit the uses and suppress the alternative options of misuses. And this is where the danger lies. The technological medium makes the platform so “user-friendly” to navigate and utilize that the “users” technically never go beyond the child-like exploratory stage. In the second level of interaction of course, it is the one-way horizontal communication with the users at the receiving end. Call them couch potatoes or just smart mobs.
Using a technology is actually the dumbest thing. Not the smartest. It definitely puts an end to the process of questioning the deliberate limitations of technology, the political economy of technology (who owns it, why do we pay for it), and whose ends does the technology serve.
A content gang of technology-happy crowd is for sure a mob. But to assume they are smart has an agenda. The users in the technology world are akin to the have-nots of the class-based society. A smart mob theory assumes that a Consumer is indeed a King (like Walmart would like us to believe). This theory would suppose that its not shopping experience which has the impact, what is important is how a consumer shops at our stores to dress up smart.
But then of course we know the pitfalls of a consumerist economy and its so-called smart mobs who use it by merely contributing to the monopolists’ wealth. The consumer as a king would never allow the Waltons to rule over them, as much as the smart mobs would never allow the five telecom cos to control their devices. And we know, these are mere wishful thinkings presently.
On top of these economic divides, talk about the implications of mere “use” and there comes flying raised eyebrows and political trials. Smart mobs will need more to apply their own minds to challenge technological slavery and liberate it from the monopolists than to revel in the abilities to use the devices in various different ways within the existing framework.
I believe examples are instruments of the weak to supplement the voids in arguments. But for the humor of it, let's assume we can at any point sitting at the coffee shop, move our digital cameras in a way that it can show us what deals are being made on our behalf between the ruling politicians and ruling businessmen in their corporate boardrooms (through wi-fi digital image transfers?) And we can accomplish such amazing things with their knowledge that we master such technology. And at the site of the coffee shop, with so many people discussing the barbaric and corrupt officials we have trusted so far in business and politics (although they go synonymous these days), we then decide basing on what we discover (and not via on CNN or Fox cameramen recording boorish default press conferences) that we must question the authorities and can provide supportive evidences.
Now that is smart. But the point is its not some covert Watergate or Tehelka operation. The government must know that the citizenry has the right to use the technology to witness any deals being discussed even at the penthouse of Hefner (that’s an interesting deviation too, to watch the bunnies apart from the frustrated powered men) at any moment. It need not result in hero-worshipping (like Watergate) or interrogating (like Tehelka) people who do this tech takes. Because the mob, the mass, gets involved entirely, to use the technology to their advantage, not to be awed by its superlatives and reserve it for some goddamn award winning front page stories, we know that are catering to one interest or the other (logically anyway, since they are done without involving the people, they are not mass acts anyway).
Remember Gandhi did not make the deals at the round table conferences; he struck them at the salt marches. The use of the technology has to go alongside the use of the masses. And the use of technology must be FULLY harnessed (come on, I know we could have seen that Monica-Bill flicks live). Then it's smart mob using the technology smart way, so that the mob needs no longer be ruled by a tiny group of profiteers, war-mongers and hypocrites.
Orissa deaths a tragedy and more
By Saswat Pattanayak
“Why does the weather have to be like this?”, my friend Naveen asks me. Always full of high spirits and enthusiasm, he is unusually depressed over the state of nature over which he can exert no control. Far from critical thinking and anger, its despair and sadness that loom large on him.
In Orissa, India, the heat strokes are claiming lives every day. On top of it, power cuts are so frequent, that no wonder we have more than 300 deaths already.
There are at least two ironies here. One, the most economically “backward” state of India is the worst hit. Two, the most mineral-rich state happens to be the most economically hit.
I am not sure where the economists and meteorologists intersect with the administrative planners. But the dark humor is glaring. Orissa populace has huge underemployment (helpers of small businesses), seasonal employment (farmers/cultivators) and disguised employment (housewives). In addition, temporary workers, road-side vendors who work without infrastructure, and daily wage laborers constitute most of the workforce. The livelihood depends virtually on everyday prospect of selling commodities and various services. Even the academic intellectuals rely on other petty bourgeois for regular sustenance. Clearly a system in place to become bedrock of support for people in time of crisis such as natural calamities (which are predictably regular) lacks because of the overall economic situation of the state.
So if one envisions a change of time in working hours (to avoid the sun), one falls into a trap of electric supply irregularities. If one continues to work in the daytime, the various complications cannot be avoided. Even if some buildings and houses have ACs (extremely privileged small percentage of people in this case), the irregular electric supply makes the matters worse. And for working professionals like Naveen, going out on the roads is highly risky. Wet towels, lots of salt water and umbrella are a must. But pets and street animals of course do not even understand that its weather which will eventually wear itself out. Hence they suffer the most.
In such a disarray that declares calamities on the most economically hit state, one wonders if there are any effective ways to combat. The state bureaucracy of course hastens to not act. Even an editorial in Pragativadi (a local daily) blames the government for acting its usual.
The second irony of course is that Orissa is one of the most mineral-rich state of the country (indeed of the world). In terms of forest wealth, biosphere reserves and mineral resources, Orissa stands unparalleled. Yet commercial exploitation of Orissa’s ecology has threatened its environmental balance.
Merely 10 years back, the situation was quite different. The rainfall rates were better. The summers were more pleasant, and winter quite enjoyable. Just 20 years ago, even wild animals roamed the streets with a pride and health. I am wondering what future holds for this state, aptly called “Soul of India”, in the future decades.
If human interventions (from using Orissa for extensive mining works for commercial gains to making grounds for missile launching pads) have led to
“Why does the weather have to be like this?”, my friend Naveen asks me. Always full of high spirits and enthusiasm, he is unusually depressed over the state of nature over which he can exert no control. Far from critical thinking and anger, its despair and sadness that loom large on him.
In Orissa, India, the heat strokes are claiming lives every day. On top of it, power cuts are so frequent, that no wonder we have more than 300 deaths already.
There are at least two ironies here. One, the most economically “backward” state of India is the worst hit. Two, the most mineral-rich state happens to be the most economically hit.
I am not sure where the economists and meteorologists intersect with the administrative planners. But the dark humor is glaring. Orissa populace has huge underemployment (helpers of small businesses), seasonal employment (farmers/cultivators) and disguised employment (housewives). In addition, temporary workers, road-side vendors who work without infrastructure, and daily wage laborers constitute most of the workforce. The livelihood depends virtually on everyday prospect of selling commodities and various services. Even the academic intellectuals rely on other petty bourgeois for regular sustenance. Clearly a system in place to become bedrock of support for people in time of crisis such as natural calamities (which are predictably regular) lacks because of the overall economic situation of the state.
So if one envisions a change of time in working hours (to avoid the sun), one falls into a trap of electric supply irregularities. If one continues to work in the daytime, the various complications cannot be avoided. Even if some buildings and houses have ACs (extremely privileged small percentage of people in this case), the irregular electric supply makes the matters worse. And for working professionals like Naveen, going out on the roads is highly risky. Wet towels, lots of salt water and umbrella are a must. But pets and street animals of course do not even understand that its weather which will eventually wear itself out. Hence they suffer the most.
In such a disarray that declares calamities on the most economically hit state, one wonders if there are any effective ways to combat. The state bureaucracy of course hastens to not act. Even an editorial in Pragativadi (a local daily) blames the government for acting its usual.
The second irony of course is that Orissa is one of the most mineral-rich state of the country (indeed of the world). In terms of forest wealth, biosphere reserves and mineral resources, Orissa stands unparalleled. Yet commercial exploitation of Orissa’s ecology has threatened its environmental balance.
Merely 10 years back, the situation was quite different. The rainfall rates were better. The summers were more pleasant, and winter quite enjoyable. Just 20 years ago, even wild animals roamed the streets with a pride and health. I am wondering what future holds for this state, aptly called “Soul of India”, in the future decades.
If human interventions (from using Orissa for extensive mining works for commercial gains to making grounds for missile launching pads) have led to