Saswat Blog
All that's Left!
International Women’s Day!
By Saswat Pattanayak
Before we reach another consensus on violence against women, let us examine the existing differences. For, whereas it is far easier (because it is pacifying) to share the knowledge that violence against women continues to exist, it is rather discomforting (because it is agitating) to throw lights on why it is so.
Like every year, academic and administrative reports of all kinds will be generated to commemorate March 8. After all, since we have a non-profit United Nations and we have corporate profiteers, we will eventually need to reach a consensus on issues such as violence against women. And amidst the thousands of articles and hundreds of televised tear-jerkers we will encounter in the coming month, the information overload would have done the damage, if we do not stay alert about few conditions that need addressing:
1. Suspect the Messengers: The kinds of messages about women may be misgivings. Indeed, most channels that provide news about women’s progress and violence are owned and controlled by men. Whereas it is undoubtedly true that many men are truly understanding of their gender positions and many women are too willing to play the assigned roles, it is still wise to suspect the men in the month of IWD message boards.
2. Women’s Rights are Universal Rights: Some will talk about women’s rights as a domain that applies to women only. Indeed, women’s rights are women’s prerogative only as a practice, but everyone’s concern as a scope. Just like they fool us by writing different history books for African-Americans, and the Americans as though American history does not include the minorities, it is highly suspect that women’s rights are not matter of concern for men.
3. Workplace for women vs Women for workplace: Most arguments about women’s rights focus on necessities to prepare the women for the workplace. Its like Amartya Sen saying that the question should not be if democracy is good for a country, but it should be directed towards making the country good for a democracy. Well, frankly speaking, he could be wrong. Just as JFK was while demanding that people give to the country without asking what the country can do for them. That’s the populist tone. The reality is women don’t need to be prepared for workplace. Workplaces need to be geared to serve women.
4. International Woman has a meaning: It means, women identify with each other across different boundaries. This identification has an undertone: that is, they accept the differences across cultures. To be truly international means understanding that there are differences across nations, and hence across women from different nations. There is no place for homogenization of women as one entity. So yes, White women are different from Black women are different from Asian women are different from Latina women are different from Muslim women are different from Hindu women are different from Swahili-speaking women who are different from Greek women. Women have different social locations among themselves, and hence understanding them holds the key. Let no one lead us into an essentialist notion of women’s problem. Different women face oppressions of different nature. The similarity is the most striking: that women are oppressed simply because they are women.
5. Are women human?: MacKinnon’s question is still valid. No amount of cultural excuses (from first world pornography to third world dowry) makes all women full human today. Ruling classes of the world still consider women as accessories to either their power ladder, or to their social justice tokenism. Their domestic adornment or cheap working class market value. Their television anchoring revenue system or their make-up kit industry. Just as Aishwarya Rai cannot be allowed to cry in public because Revlon will probably run into losses, Tamara MaidenName cannot challenge her greedy boss for uneven wages because he will merely retaliate.
International Women’s Day must not be allowed to promote card and gifts companies to indulge in exhibitionism of annual love to the mothers and sisters and wives and friends. It is rather a day to remind all of us in the world that a separate battle is on. This one is a battle of all. A battle that is waged by the true majority of the world, the women. A battle, that addresses the core inconsistencies of capitalism.
Originally written for Womens Rights Blog.
"Violence against women has yet to receive the priority attention and resources needed at all levels to tackle it with the seriousness and visibility necessary."
UN Secretary-General’s in-depth study on violence against women (2006) (A/61/122/Add.1)
Before we reach another consensus on violence against women, let us examine the existing differences. For, whereas it is far easier (because it is pacifying) to share the knowledge that violence against women continues to exist, it is rather discomforting (because it is agitating) to throw lights on why it is so.
Like every year, academic and administrative reports of all kinds will be generated to commemorate March 8. After all, since we have a non-profit United Nations and we have corporate profiteers, we will eventually need to reach a consensus on issues such as violence against women. And amidst the thousands of articles and hundreds of televised tear-jerkers we will encounter in the coming month, the information overload would have done the damage, if we do not stay alert about few conditions that need addressing:
1. Suspect the Messengers: The kinds of messages about women may be misgivings. Indeed, most channels that provide news about women’s progress and violence are owned and controlled by men. Whereas it is undoubtedly true that many men are truly understanding of their gender positions and many women are too willing to play the assigned roles, it is still wise to suspect the men in the month of IWD message boards.
2. Women’s Rights are Universal Rights: Some will talk about women’s rights as a domain that applies to women only. Indeed, women’s rights are women’s prerogative only as a practice, but everyone’s concern as a scope. Just like they fool us by writing different history books for African-Americans, and the Americans as though American history does not include the minorities, it is highly suspect that women’s rights are not matter of concern for men.
3. Workplace for women vs Women for workplace: Most arguments about women’s rights focus on necessities to prepare the women for the workplace. Its like Amartya Sen saying that the question should not be if democracy is good for a country, but it should be directed towards making the country good for a democracy. Well, frankly speaking, he could be wrong. Just as JFK was while demanding that people give to the country without asking what the country can do for them. That’s the populist tone. The reality is women don’t need to be prepared for workplace. Workplaces need to be geared to serve women.
4. International Woman has a meaning: It means, women identify with each other across different boundaries. This identification has an undertone: that is, they accept the differences across cultures. To be truly international means understanding that there are differences across nations, and hence across women from different nations. There is no place for homogenization of women as one entity. So yes, White women are different from Black women are different from Asian women are different from Latina women are different from Muslim women are different from Hindu women are different from Swahili-speaking women who are different from Greek women. Women have different social locations among themselves, and hence understanding them holds the key. Let no one lead us into an essentialist notion of women’s problem. Different women face oppressions of different nature. The similarity is the most striking: that women are oppressed simply because they are women.
5. Are women human?: MacKinnon’s question is still valid. No amount of cultural excuses (from first world pornography to third world dowry) makes all women full human today. Ruling classes of the world still consider women as accessories to either their power ladder, or to their social justice tokenism. Their domestic adornment or cheap working class market value. Their television anchoring revenue system or their make-up kit industry. Just as Aishwarya Rai cannot be allowed to cry in public because Revlon will probably run into losses, Tamara MaidenName cannot challenge her greedy boss for uneven wages because he will merely retaliate.
International Women’s Day must not be allowed to promote card and gifts companies to indulge in exhibitionism of annual love to the mothers and sisters and wives and friends. It is rather a day to remind all of us in the world that a separate battle is on. This one is a battle of all. A battle that is waged by the true majority of the world, the women. A battle, that addresses the core inconsistencies of capitalism.
Originally written for Womens Rights Blog.
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Rang De Basanti: The Neo-Colonial Success Story
By Saswat Pattanayak
Rang De Basanti, the biggest movie to come out of Bollywood in years is a landmark in Indian cinema history. It created records on its revenue collections in the opening week at least in 10 cities. On the opening weekend it made a phenomenal $4.79 million. In the UK alone, after its fourth weekend it raked in GBP 700,000. In India, some theatres had to start a 6am show just for this instant blockbuster!
A commercial success of a cinema does not reflect its artistic values. Indeed money-spinners are not known for their social-realism value either. But going by the critics and their almost undisputed claims about the stature of this movie as both an eye-candy and an old warrior, I am unflinchingly affected. My close friends and associates back in India have been urging me to watch the film, few have narrated how much they are shaken out of their shell from watching this film, some have even told me in jest that it was as good as what Nirvana was supposed to be.
The more thoughtful ones might contemplate over the subtle genius that is at work in a movie that’s both here and there, both happy and sad, both anti Gandhi, and anti-rightists. They will even, as a reviewer above states, gloat over the fact that here is finally a movie not meant for the “aam-junta”!
My Take:
True, this movie was not produced for the “aam-junta”. Its elitist bias is evident reel after reel, and this is something that could have made the audience throw up. But it turns out that the ‘educated’ class of India is far more eager to dissociate itself from the aam-junta (the masses) and this movie provides just the outlet.
I full agree with the reviewer’s comments that this is a movie that’s about Bhagat Singh and his comrades and yet it actually produces an effect that creates a class society of the elites and the masses! I also agree that here is a film that reminds people of their forgotten patriotism, that makes them call Gandhi names, and lets them think they don’t have to be the part of the silent majority!
Ironic, but if we read between the lines, we can get the essence of such a film that clearly creates an intellectual division, it rouses people to abandon the silent majority, it definitely takes a stand in favor of the “thinking elites”. And in doing so, the movie does an irreparable damage to the young generation’s worldview.
Postcolonial Ignorance:
Rang De Basanti, in my humble opinion, is one of the most uncritical movies ever made on postcolonial India. It not only centers around a bunch of disoriented well-to-do youths, it even normalizes them as representative of the Indian youths in general. In doing so, the focus is again exactly in line of the commercial Bollywood ideology: the privileged class as the representative voice. In doing so, it silences the majority effectively ( hence, there is nothing called a ‘silent majority’ by default, films like this which focuses on the ‘model minority’ class actually creates and perpetuates the concept of a silent majority). So its not that after the movie, people do not want to be part of the silent majority, its just that the movie has made them the vocal minority now. As vocal minority they do not want to carry on an agenda with the silent majority. What a smudge.
In the post-1947 period India has treaded more on the colonial roadmap than on the sweet will of a majority population. The colonial roadmap is one that’s founded on the British-gifted bureaucratic structure that continues to hunt to this date, but yet it forms the minority elite class in India. The majority of people of India are largely disgruntled, frustrated, angry and never silent. It’s just that their voices are never heard on the media, press and film industry owned by greedy industrialists and producers. These myth makers then go on to form the core of Bollywood thought control industry. As a result RDB focuses on an elite minority in few cities who actually bike around and booze late into nights at campfired elite colleges, and supposes these are worth the screenings. That there is nothing wrong with being rich and spoilt (I still don’t understand why rich kids are called ‘spoilt’ with a wink, instead of being called as ‘horrible greedy money launderers’, with scorn), indeed when the aam-junta could not pass the screening test, the rich kids end up giving best of their lives.
A clear case of ignorance of the director lets the film center around only the ‘educated’ youths who despise education. The truth is a huge majority of students in India still are poor strugglers for a decent education through sheer willpower. The problem is we are so enamored by the exceptions (as they appear newsworthy) that we forget the rules. And our commercial film directors have invariably always focused on the exceptions as the desirable rules so that it draws attention (the shock factor and sensation sells).
To sum it, Rang De Basanti, is not reflective of the Indian youth. It may be valid only in case of some educated drunkards in big cities who in fast career fascination or in idolization of pep culture might have preferred to say ‘Who Bhagat Singh’? And the media by playing on this cliché has almost turned it into an irrefutable truth that people now find easy to identify with. As a pointer, just look at any annual Independence Day issue of India Today and Outlook magazines, where the lousy reporters go interview some students of Hindu College or Lady Sri Ram and then conclude that Indian youths do not know what happened in 1942 or what was the real name of Mahatma Gandhi. And mind you, these magazines sell for this enlightenment piece—to resonate/reassure either an ‘oh at least I know’ or ‘see, I told you, I am not alone’ feeling. Rang De Basanti follows this extremely conventional model. And the students then think “its hip not to know about Gandhi—after all he was such a failure, omigosh!” Needless to say, to fight Gandhi, the media have now got Bhagat Singh, not as a anti-religious, communist hero, but quite the contrary, a business brand for the coke generation that wants an “instant young handsome trigger-happy Gandhi-basher”. Most of the things being projected about Bhagat Singh in the media is factually inaccurate and painful, yet Bollywood goes on cashing his name as it is cashing Emraan Hashmi’s serial kisses.
Colonial Amnesia:
Let’s presuppose that no Indian youth actually thought twice about the martyrs. Now, after our British lady explains their sacrifices, what do the young converts have to say? “My dear Sue, what the f**k was your grandfather doing on our land?” Hell, no. Not even a sentiment remotely connected to anti-British feeling has been expressed, which they should have logically said. To much cheer, they plan, the murder of a corrupt defense minister…
Naturally, they did not air the anti-imperial, anti-colonial speeches of Bhagat Singh. Else the well-meaning Mehra could not have made a ‘universally appealing’ movie that could rake in million pounds in the United Kingdom! In the face of a lip-treated critic of British rule, this constant fascination with Britain is one of the most shameful produce to have come out of the Bollywood garbage can. Exactly in line with all those Hindi movies where the actresses proudly flaunt Union Jack on their tops and denims to dance around the trees and clubs, this movie ends up almost glorifying a British filmmaker. The white woman in the movie is the only character without a fault. She is the only one who apparently knows everything about Indian history. She is the one who informs the Indian youths about what their history was. In the face of indifference of the youths, she is the one to remind them of Indian freedom struggle. And nowhere does she draw a critic of the British Empire as the most ghastly episode in India’s history that has left behind a culturally rich society of India as a today’s English speaking paupers’ call center den.
Nowhere has she felt that she is the opportunistic researcher taking her participants into a ride she has no control over, by creating inspired terrorists out of them. If Mehra would have studied how the classical anthropologists from the West have historically traveled to India to study and civilize their hostile “tribes” who were of course systematically oppressed by the former’s ruling classes, then he would have thought twice before hiring a British actress to educate the Indian youths.
The grander narrative of the white rescuing the brown from the brown has been such an overplayed theme since the days of the Raj, that to see a similar theme after all these years is at its best a despised déjà vu.
The Essentialism Fallacy:
Not only the Indian youths never question the postcolonial roadmap, they are depicted to be wise when they plan to attack the elected representatives in power, and when they die, they are shown as parallel to the freedom martyrs. Nothing could be more absurd than this. It’s not the violence which is a problem here. Indeed no revolution in the world has been non-violent in nature. But no revolution is based on murdering of few oppressors either. The sacrifices Bhagat Singh had made was part of a constant struggle against the imperialists. Historically at that point it was required that he had his revolutionary thoughts recorded well in the court of law so that more organized efforts could take place. He formed left wing political platform to recruit people, to train them, to disseminate Lenin’s speeches among them. He drafted future constitution for an independent India of his dreams, with lots of careful planning. To sensitize people about the need of revolution and to sow the seeds methodically is the mantra of the martyrs everywhere, so that the fruits of their labor won’t go waste. This is what Che Guevara did, or nearer home, this is what Safdar Hashmi did. They educated the people wherever they went. They organized and they agitated them. That is cardinal to revolution.
But to call a popcorn film that waits for suspense at the end where solution comes in form of murders, as a revolutionary cinema, is an insult to the concept of revolution. It’s an insult to the concept of social realism or socialist realism cinemas. If it had to glorify Bhagat Singh et al, the intention was noble. But at the same breadth to glorify a British filmmaker, and some inspired terrorists, is a shame in the name of politically sensible cinema. For the records, Bhagat Singh had flatly refused to accommodate any person who was describing his/her self as belonging to any religion, be it Hinduism or Islam, or Sikhism etc. He had flatly refused entry of any British into his party (just like Malcolm X had refused the Whites, not because he suspected them all the time, but because he did not want to waste time after exceptions, when he had the rules with him). Bhagat Singh had categorically differentiated his philosophy from the philosophy of terrorism and acts of violence. He had always denounced the terrorists as counter-revolutionary. A revolutionary does not kill to eliminate. Revolutionaries kill to replace structures. They plan well ahead like Castro did, they organize mass scale taking the “aam-junta” into account like Mao did, they help the needy people through social activism like Black Panthers did. The heroes of Rang De Basanti were neither of these. And that’s why they are a shame. And hence, at the least, Bhagat Singh would be deeply shocked to see a British woman filming his legacy using these useless parasites as substitutes, if he were to visit today.
The Gunga Din Factor:
Remember Gunga Din story by the racist Kipling. In the movie produced in 1939, the British colonialists face tribal uprising in India. Of course tribal are the savages who were being “civilized” by the British. The British soldiers were well meaning, humorous, and full of life (just like our Sue in RDB). And the tribal are the ignorant and arrogant. So on every occasion the British used their fists to knock some brains into the tribal, the audience had a good time. (Just like the audition session in the RDB where none of the Indians could follow Sue, and everyone failed to speak out “Inquilab Zindabad” correctly and it led the audience on a roar.) And when one of the Indians then betrayed his fellow people and sacrificed his life so that his people could be defeated, the audience was all moved! Bertolt Brecht, the soul of the great peoples’ theatres said: “Throughout, Indians were considered as primitive creatures, either comic or wicked: comic when loyal to the British, and wicked when hostile.”
Such was the power of colonial, propagandist cinema that moved people back those days. Such continues to be its power that we feel enlightened by British education still, and ashamed of identifying with our “aam junta.” Instead of finding out the root cause (that’s called radicalism—going to the roots) of the corruption and poverty in Indian society—which is largely due to the irreversed British power structure, we hopelessly cheer a group of idiots who go and kill an element of the society (that’s called fanaticism—kill the personal enemy at all costs). RDB is disturbing, to say the least, for it proposes a solution to the audience—a so-called solution that’s dangerously counterproductive.
People need to know that it’s not the nature of George Fernandez that leads him to do business with the coffins of the air force officers, or the inseparable trait of the BJP to buy cracked weapons from Russia. And it’s not going to change if we just go kill the defense minister or murder a couple of rightists. That’s reactionary action—an action the ruling class is quite adept at exercising to rule over us (think awhile, the defense minister in the movie would have just killed these people—like the government of India eventually did)..These solitary murders at such arbitrary phases of anger do not maketh a revolution of any nature. A systematic, methodical overthrow of the current bureaucratic structure and a replacement of the same with peoples’ cooperatives is the first need of the day. And to even understand this, one needs to study the unique history of India, which has not been based ever on mindless violence, but rather on very strategic, organized mass efforts by people to force the colonialists out of our lands. People did not emerge as freedom fighters because of personality clashes with their parents. Certainly not because someone’s father was guilty of corruption as the film showed. But because they were supremely rooted with the social problems of the age and wanted to eradicate them through freedom struggles. Likewise, our minds need to come out of gross ignorance of the factors leading to corruption. For that to happen, we shall need a complete dissociation with the global capitalists, as well as a staunch refusal to accommodate their domestic partners in crime—both of which bribe our ministers and bureaucrats well enough to take all of us for a ride. The business barons, the staunch capitalists, are ruling the orders of the day today by maintaining the anti-people democratic regimes in power, which in turn benefit their own similar class interests.
The businesses pour in millions in election campaigns of their favored politicians who win the polls even without visiting the constituencies. This is the biggest sham in the world today in the name of democracy. By killing a couple of political stooges, nothing will ever be replaced. Maybe, some leaders will change the seats. Like they say in Britain: The King is dead. Long live the King. We need to replace the power structure, not change hands of power from one Morarji Desai to one Charan Singh.
Indeed, the very film producers who dine with the corrupt politicians of Maharashtra will continue to spin millions of dollars by making so-called ‘different’ movies to intoxicate the masses into thinking that the solution lies in the surprising twist at the end of the movie, not at beginning of their organized resistance against the unequal society funded by capitalistic economy. We need predictable revolutions, not unpredictable acts of terrorisms.
Rang De Basanti, the biggest movie to come out of Bollywood in years is a landmark in Indian cinema history. It created records on its revenue collections in the opening week at least in 10 cities. On the opening weekend it made a phenomenal $4.79 million. In the UK alone, after its fourth weekend it raked in GBP 700,000. In India, some theatres had to start a 6am show just for this instant blockbuster!
A commercial success of a cinema does not reflect its artistic values. Indeed money-spinners are not known for their social-realism value either. But going by the critics and their almost undisputed claims about the stature of this movie as both an eye-candy and an old warrior, I am unflinchingly affected. My close friends and associates back in India have been urging me to watch the film, few have narrated how much they are shaken out of their shell from watching this film, some have even told me in jest that it was as good as what Nirvana was supposed to be.
They are not alone. The various reviewers have been unequivocal. Just watch this: “A phenomenon of sorts... would be an apt way to describe this movie. One of the most unique, touching and awe-inspiring movies.....More a tale of humanity, morality, and taking a stand rather than being part of the silent majority. Its audacious spirit becomes its beauty. 'A Generation Awakens' - It surely does.”
Then: “It is rare that such a well-crafted and beautifully told story is seen in Hindi cinema.” And : “A well-made film, it caters more to the elite and the thinking viewer than the aam junta or the masses.”
Again: “I don't remember when I last saw a movie that had a story to tell and a message to give -- and did so in a real, gritty manner without being either preachy or dreary.” and : “One of best movies of recent times. Makes you sit up and think about what you can do to help the country better !” More: “A thought-provoking, soul-stirring wake up call to the youth of India...Engrossing entertainment meets taut social comment with perfect timing in Rang De Basanti. Wake up India, Rang De Basanti is here! A pure delight, Rang De Basanti is a cult film - the sort that comes along in a long time, and will raise the bar for everyone.”
Viewers say: “We would have got freedom faster, if Gandhi wasn't standing in the way” and the BBC: “An entertaining mix of romance, history and social commentary, this quality production takes Hindi cinema in a fresh direction... Accomplished and universally appealing, this is the way Bollywood films should be made.”
There is a flip review theme too which invariably rejects the movie’s approach to solutions of modern Indian crises: “the bloody violence”. These could be purely Gandhians, or Gandhi-bashers depending on what side of the political fence they come from, since the movie does quite a bit to expose the right-winger communal and corrupt agendas, even as denouncing Gandhian tactics as counterproductive.
The more thoughtful ones might contemplate over the subtle genius that is at work in a movie that’s both here and there, both happy and sad, both anti Gandhi, and anti-rightists. They will even, as a reviewer above states, gloat over the fact that here is finally a movie not meant for the “aam-junta”!
My Take:
True, this movie was not produced for the “aam-junta”. Its elitist bias is evident reel after reel, and this is something that could have made the audience throw up. But it turns out that the ‘educated’ class of India is far more eager to dissociate itself from the aam-junta (the masses) and this movie provides just the outlet.
I full agree with the reviewer’s comments that this is a movie that’s about Bhagat Singh and his comrades and yet it actually produces an effect that creates a class society of the elites and the masses! I also agree that here is a film that reminds people of their forgotten patriotism, that makes them call Gandhi names, and lets them think they don’t have to be the part of the silent majority!
Ironic, but if we read between the lines, we can get the essence of such a film that clearly creates an intellectual division, it rouses people to abandon the silent majority, it definitely takes a stand in favor of the “thinking elites”. And in doing so, the movie does an irreparable damage to the young generation’s worldview.
Postcolonial Ignorance:
Rang De Basanti, in my humble opinion, is one of the most uncritical movies ever made on postcolonial India. It not only centers around a bunch of disoriented well-to-do youths, it even normalizes them as representative of the Indian youths in general. In doing so, the focus is again exactly in line of the commercial Bollywood ideology: the privileged class as the representative voice. In doing so, it silences the majority effectively ( hence, there is nothing called a ‘silent majority’ by default, films like this which focuses on the ‘model minority’ class actually creates and perpetuates the concept of a silent majority). So its not that after the movie, people do not want to be part of the silent majority, its just that the movie has made them the vocal minority now. As vocal minority they do not want to carry on an agenda with the silent majority. What a smudge.
In the post-1947 period India has treaded more on the colonial roadmap than on the sweet will of a majority population. The colonial roadmap is one that’s founded on the British-gifted bureaucratic structure that continues to hunt to this date, but yet it forms the minority elite class in India. The majority of people of India are largely disgruntled, frustrated, angry and never silent. It’s just that their voices are never heard on the media, press and film industry owned by greedy industrialists and producers. These myth makers then go on to form the core of Bollywood thought control industry. As a result RDB focuses on an elite minority in few cities who actually bike around and booze late into nights at campfired elite colleges, and supposes these are worth the screenings. That there is nothing wrong with being rich and spoilt (I still don’t understand why rich kids are called ‘spoilt’ with a wink, instead of being called as ‘horrible greedy money launderers’, with scorn), indeed when the aam-junta could not pass the screening test, the rich kids end up giving best of their lives.
A clear case of ignorance of the director lets the film center around only the ‘educated’ youths who despise education. The truth is a huge majority of students in India still are poor strugglers for a decent education through sheer willpower. The problem is we are so enamored by the exceptions (as they appear newsworthy) that we forget the rules. And our commercial film directors have invariably always focused on the exceptions as the desirable rules so that it draws attention (the shock factor and sensation sells).
To sum it, Rang De Basanti, is not reflective of the Indian youth. It may be valid only in case of some educated drunkards in big cities who in fast career fascination or in idolization of pep culture might have preferred to say ‘Who Bhagat Singh’? And the media by playing on this cliché has almost turned it into an irrefutable truth that people now find easy to identify with. As a pointer, just look at any annual Independence Day issue of India Today and Outlook magazines, where the lousy reporters go interview some students of Hindu College or Lady Sri Ram and then conclude that Indian youths do not know what happened in 1942 or what was the real name of Mahatma Gandhi. And mind you, these magazines sell for this enlightenment piece—to resonate/reassure either an ‘oh at least I know’ or ‘see, I told you, I am not alone’ feeling. Rang De Basanti follows this extremely conventional model. And the students then think “its hip not to know about Gandhi—after all he was such a failure, omigosh!” Needless to say, to fight Gandhi, the media have now got Bhagat Singh, not as a anti-religious, communist hero, but quite the contrary, a business brand for the coke generation that wants an “instant young handsome trigger-happy Gandhi-basher”. Most of the things being projected about Bhagat Singh in the media is factually inaccurate and painful, yet Bollywood goes on cashing his name as it is cashing Emraan Hashmi’s serial kisses.
Colonial Amnesia:
Let’s presuppose that no Indian youth actually thought twice about the martyrs. Now, after our British lady explains their sacrifices, what do the young converts have to say? “My dear Sue, what the f**k was your grandfather doing on our land?” Hell, no. Not even a sentiment remotely connected to anti-British feeling has been expressed, which they should have logically said. To much cheer, they plan, the murder of a corrupt defense minister…
Naturally, they did not air the anti-imperial, anti-colonial speeches of Bhagat Singh. Else the well-meaning Mehra could not have made a ‘universally appealing’ movie that could rake in million pounds in the United Kingdom! In the face of a lip-treated critic of British rule, this constant fascination with Britain is one of the most shameful produce to have come out of the Bollywood garbage can. Exactly in line with all those Hindi movies where the actresses proudly flaunt Union Jack on their tops and denims to dance around the trees and clubs, this movie ends up almost glorifying a British filmmaker. The white woman in the movie is the only character without a fault. She is the only one who apparently knows everything about Indian history. She is the one who informs the Indian youths about what their history was. In the face of indifference of the youths, she is the one to remind them of Indian freedom struggle. And nowhere does she draw a critic of the British Empire as the most ghastly episode in India’s history that has left behind a culturally rich society of India as a today’s English speaking paupers’ call center den.
Nowhere has she felt that she is the opportunistic researcher taking her participants into a ride she has no control over, by creating inspired terrorists out of them. If Mehra would have studied how the classical anthropologists from the West have historically traveled to India to study and civilize their hostile “tribes” who were of course systematically oppressed by the former’s ruling classes, then he would have thought twice before hiring a British actress to educate the Indian youths.
The grander narrative of the white rescuing the brown from the brown has been such an overplayed theme since the days of the Raj, that to see a similar theme after all these years is at its best a despised déjà vu.
The Essentialism Fallacy:
Not only the Indian youths never question the postcolonial roadmap, they are depicted to be wise when they plan to attack the elected representatives in power, and when they die, they are shown as parallel to the freedom martyrs. Nothing could be more absurd than this. It’s not the violence which is a problem here. Indeed no revolution in the world has been non-violent in nature. But no revolution is based on murdering of few oppressors either. The sacrifices Bhagat Singh had made was part of a constant struggle against the imperialists. Historically at that point it was required that he had his revolutionary thoughts recorded well in the court of law so that more organized efforts could take place. He formed left wing political platform to recruit people, to train them, to disseminate Lenin’s speeches among them. He drafted future constitution for an independent India of his dreams, with lots of careful planning. To sensitize people about the need of revolution and to sow the seeds methodically is the mantra of the martyrs everywhere, so that the fruits of their labor won’t go waste. This is what Che Guevara did, or nearer home, this is what Safdar Hashmi did. They educated the people wherever they went. They organized and they agitated them. That is cardinal to revolution.
But to call a popcorn film that waits for suspense at the end where solution comes in form of murders, as a revolutionary cinema, is an insult to the concept of revolution. It’s an insult to the concept of social realism or socialist realism cinemas. If it had to glorify Bhagat Singh et al, the intention was noble. But at the same breadth to glorify a British filmmaker, and some inspired terrorists, is a shame in the name of politically sensible cinema. For the records, Bhagat Singh had flatly refused to accommodate any person who was describing his/her self as belonging to any religion, be it Hinduism or Islam, or Sikhism etc. He had flatly refused entry of any British into his party (just like Malcolm X had refused the Whites, not because he suspected them all the time, but because he did not want to waste time after exceptions, when he had the rules with him). Bhagat Singh had categorically differentiated his philosophy from the philosophy of terrorism and acts of violence. He had always denounced the terrorists as counter-revolutionary. A revolutionary does not kill to eliminate. Revolutionaries kill to replace structures. They plan well ahead like Castro did, they organize mass scale taking the “aam-junta” into account like Mao did, they help the needy people through social activism like Black Panthers did. The heroes of Rang De Basanti were neither of these. And that’s why they are a shame. And hence, at the least, Bhagat Singh would be deeply shocked to see a British woman filming his legacy using these useless parasites as substitutes, if he were to visit today.
The Gunga Din Factor:
Remember Gunga Din story by the racist Kipling. In the movie produced in 1939, the British colonialists face tribal uprising in India. Of course tribal are the savages who were being “civilized” by the British. The British soldiers were well meaning, humorous, and full of life (just like our Sue in RDB). And the tribal are the ignorant and arrogant. So on every occasion the British used their fists to knock some brains into the tribal, the audience had a good time. (Just like the audition session in the RDB where none of the Indians could follow Sue, and everyone failed to speak out “Inquilab Zindabad” correctly and it led the audience on a roar.) And when one of the Indians then betrayed his fellow people and sacrificed his life so that his people could be defeated, the audience was all moved! Bertolt Brecht, the soul of the great peoples’ theatres said: “Throughout, Indians were considered as primitive creatures, either comic or wicked: comic when loyal to the British, and wicked when hostile.”
Such was the power of colonial, propagandist cinema that moved people back those days. Such continues to be its power that we feel enlightened by British education still, and ashamed of identifying with our “aam junta.” Instead of finding out the root cause (that’s called radicalism—going to the roots) of the corruption and poverty in Indian society—which is largely due to the irreversed British power structure, we hopelessly cheer a group of idiots who go and kill an element of the society (that’s called fanaticism—kill the personal enemy at all costs). RDB is disturbing, to say the least, for it proposes a solution to the audience—a so-called solution that’s dangerously counterproductive.
People need to know that it’s not the nature of George Fernandez that leads him to do business with the coffins of the air force officers, or the inseparable trait of the BJP to buy cracked weapons from Russia. And it’s not going to change if we just go kill the defense minister or murder a couple of rightists. That’s reactionary action—an action the ruling class is quite adept at exercising to rule over us (think awhile, the defense minister in the movie would have just killed these people—like the government of India eventually did)..These solitary murders at such arbitrary phases of anger do not maketh a revolution of any nature. A systematic, methodical overthrow of the current bureaucratic structure and a replacement of the same with peoples’ cooperatives is the first need of the day. And to even understand this, one needs to study the unique history of India, which has not been based ever on mindless violence, but rather on very strategic, organized mass efforts by people to force the colonialists out of our lands. People did not emerge as freedom fighters because of personality clashes with their parents. Certainly not because someone’s father was guilty of corruption as the film showed. But because they were supremely rooted with the social problems of the age and wanted to eradicate them through freedom struggles. Likewise, our minds need to come out of gross ignorance of the factors leading to corruption. For that to happen, we shall need a complete dissociation with the global capitalists, as well as a staunch refusal to accommodate their domestic partners in crime—both of which bribe our ministers and bureaucrats well enough to take all of us for a ride. The business barons, the staunch capitalists, are ruling the orders of the day today by maintaining the anti-people democratic regimes in power, which in turn benefit their own similar class interests.
The businesses pour in millions in election campaigns of their favored politicians who win the polls even without visiting the constituencies. This is the biggest sham in the world today in the name of democracy. By killing a couple of political stooges, nothing will ever be replaced. Maybe, some leaders will change the seats. Like they say in Britain: The King is dead. Long live the King. We need to replace the power structure, not change hands of power from one Morarji Desai to one Charan Singh.
Indeed, the very film producers who dine with the corrupt politicians of Maharashtra will continue to spin millions of dollars by making so-called ‘different’ movies to intoxicate the masses into thinking that the solution lies in the surprising twist at the end of the movie, not at beginning of their organized resistance against the unequal society funded by capitalistic economy. We need predictable revolutions, not unpredictable acts of terrorisms.
Kudos, Khushboo! Shine, Sania!!
By Saswat Pattanayak
Take heart.
Opinions of two Indian Muslim Women have actually rocked the mainland India. First, it was Tamil actress Khushboo who told the Tamil edition of India Today that pre-marital sex is okay “provided safety measures are followed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases”. And now, it is the Tennis star Sania Mirza who said the size of the dress she wants to wear is her prerogative.
And what’s so criminal in holding these views? Views regarding women sexuality and men sexuality in the first case. And the dress code for teenage girls in the second case. I guess, it is the politics that’s criminal. The crude politics of conservatism and the media.
Conservatism:
The politicians and volunteers of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) who are working under the banner of a Tamil Protection Movement in their crusade against Khushboo are brothers-in-arms of the Mumbai-based staunch Hindu outfit Shiv Sena. They have a natural ally in Sunni Ulema Board, a self-proclaimed Muslim moral group. Four of them together have found some more interesting bedfellows: the mainstream media.
The interesting thing about these moral police forces in India is none of the above actually represent any Indian population of worth. Far from that, they do not even represent the groups they claim to be leading.
DPI at work!
DPI is interested only in publicity, like its political counterpart Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is greedy for power. The BSP showing its true colors has partnered even with the right-wing BJP (which is predominantly Brahmin party) in political seat-sharing. Naturally enough, since their formation the so-called representatives of the Dalits have no support among the “backward” peoples of India, despite their national party status, BSP has hardly have any success except in just one state. A national party claiming to have base all over the country has won 0 seats in 24 out of 25 states where it fielded its candidates. Out of 435 of its contestants, only 19 won in the 14th Lok Sabha Election. All of them only in Utter Pradesh, where it lost 61 seats!
PMK, another new nationalist wing like DPI, is also a case in point. Since it has condemned both Dravidian parties of the South, DMK and AIADMK, one would assume it would not join hands with either of them. Or at least, never with the right-winger Hindu nationalists like BJP. Well, not exactly. It was part of the BJP combine when Vajpayee was in power. And now, it lends support to the Congress combine at the center with DMK as a partner. And it has 0.55% voteshare in India in 2004 down from 0.65% voteshare in 1999. So one can imagine its support base even in the South where it has won in total 6 seats (and zero in rest of India).
The lesser said about Shiv Sena, the better. Even with more than 80% of Indian population in India professing a Hindu way of life, this self-proclaimed protector of Hindu interest has hardly ever made its presence felt outside only one state: Maharashtra (that too, more in the name of Marathi nationalism). It rose to power after murdering Krishna Desai, the immensely popular communist leader of Maharashtra who was an invincible symbol among textile workers. Ever since, Shiv Sena has espoused right-wing views and led to communal riots one after another.
Sunni Ulema Board: I am sorry, but I had never heard of this name before. Neither have many of my Muslim friends. Not even those who stay in Hyderabad. Wonder where they came from? They certainly are not the Muslim clerics nor are the national arbitrators of religion-related issues for the country’s more than 160 million Muslims.
If Dalit Panthers, the Shiv Sena, the Sunni Ulema Board, the BSP and the PMK are not worth anything in India, since they all combined together do not gain support of even one percent of Indian population, how come they (just three of them this time—DPI, PMK and Sunni Ulema) are the forces that led to the crisis of Khushboo and Sania.
All of us know that Khushboo is such a heartthrob of South India cinema that people have even worshipped her (literally, yes!). Only a decade ago a temple was built in Tiruchirapalli town for Khushboo despite the fact that she is a Muslim. She is a national award winning actress of India (that’s the highest accolade an actor receives, by the way).
And for the still uninitiated (is anyone there?), Sania Mirza is one of the current leaders of India in every sense. She has very rightly overpowered the national obsession with Cricket and has rose to prominence first as a woman, then as a Muslim, and then as a tennis champion to have entered Grand Slam events. The 18-year-old is the first Indian woman to break into the top 50 WTA rankings too.
In other words, as contrasted with the political outfits who are not known outside the boundaries of their own sycophancy (how many had even honestly heard of DPI or PMK or SUB), these two women are nationally (and even internationally) renowned and respected.
And yet, both of them have tendered public apologies recently. Khushboo for saying the right things, and Sania for not even having said anything as reported.
...and the Media:
All thanks to the mainstream media. The corporate, controversy-hungry media. Nothing happened to India Today magazine for having run the surveys and the stories and for inviting Khushboo to write about gender issues. Nothing happened to Hindustan Times for having asked Sania questions to respond regarding dress code.
Vir Sanghvi today has written an excellent piece in support of Sania. Sanghvi wrote:
Thus Mr Sanghvi has managed to steer clear of the controversy. After all, she did not say that at his Summit. What he conveniently does not mention is the intent of HT coverage of Sania. Was it to showcase just a success? Well, we had a miss universe and a formula one champion on the same panel. Then how come, Sania got all the coverage on the reported story of the day?
The story headline: Sania breaks silence on dress fatwa against her.
Wow! Was that not sensational enough a headline? Was Sania at the summit for that purpose? To provide that headline? So that her life threat will be revisited? It was meant to be a leadership summit and Sania was to be presented as a role model for Indian youths, along with two other achievers. This story by HT correspondent Namita Bhandare has hardly any mention of other two panelists and 90% of the story covers Sania only (and only about her skirt issues about which she had voluntarily chosen not to comment earlier). The savvy editor got the question right. The event was powerful enough (what with all the celebrities –from Sonia Gandhi to Manmohan Singh). And Sania gave in to the hungry journalists.
So, that does not take away the grim reality which still is to be posed as a question. India Today got its sales. Hindustan Times got a breaking story that it got the words off the mouth of Sania for the first time etc. And other media publications linked both of them together and came up with a theory that suggested Sania supporting Khusboo. Natural, ain’t it? I have worked as a journalist of small repute too. I should be knowing.
For a ‘crime’ that led Khushboo to surrender at court, any misrepresentation of Sania’s statements with Khusboo’s attitudes was going to be dangerous. No, not from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is the arbitrator of religion based cases in India. In fact, Khalid Rashid of the Law Board had said way back in September, “What Sania wears in (the) tennis court is the demand of the game. Perhaps, the fatwa (edict) was issued to gain cheap publicity.” Dangerous it was to prove, through the mainstream press. After the Muslim Board and Sania had both dismissed the so-called fatwa two months back, what led a responsible editor to pose the question that he did (regarding the dress code), if not to expect a headline worthy controversial story (which he eventually got!).
Khushboo should not have apologized. After all, they are her opinions. She never mentioned them under any pressure. Yet she broke down, because of the way the media blew up the entire issue and gleed at the prospect of photographing a dozen of angry Dalit Senas. She is in trouble now. Real judicial trouble with half a dozen cases piling against her! So much for the freedom of speech that the media enjoy, but not the people. Or the women.
Sania must not have apologized either. After all, she never even said that she supported Khushboo. For statements she never made, her effigies are now being burnt down by the same southern conservatives who are taking turns to protest against her and Khushboo. Sania, well aware of the mud, wants to now get out of it. And like all of us, she does not wish to go to jail. And so she even had to go to the extent of condemning pre-marital sex, a topic she had nothing to do about. Why should a celebrated tennis star need to condemn pre-marital sex for whatever reason? But she is forced to do all these, thanks to the impoverished mainstream media. She knows, her silence will be taken as a support. And this implicit support will lead to explicit media coverage.
What a shame! What hypocrisy! Do we not talk about sex and wear short clothes? When the majority Indians have other real issues to worry about, why even give one inch space to these publicity hungry organizations that are after the blood of two immensely praiseworthy Indian women?
There is certain correctness in speaking out what is apt. Basically, why should men expect virgin wives to begin with? And why should someone play tennis with trousers? Considering also the contrary stock: do men take a virginity test? Or are soccer players banned or even male tennis players wear trousers? Only the real sick minds could think the way these dangerous outfits are preaching or viewing players on field.
As Rasheeda Bhagat says, “The Khushboo episode will blow over sooner than later, but what about the double standards practiced in our society?”
Throwing tomatoes, rotten eggs and slippers or calling actresses prostitutes (as a Dalit actor-director Thangar Bachan did in August this year, leading to his outrage with Khushboo) are signs of degraded mentality. And the vast majority of us have actually failed to get rid of those conservative mindsets despite their scant presence among the outfits. We did not send Bachan to court for something that outrageous. Because the news is when the man bites the dog, remember? If the woman says something contrary to male norms, then its news!
But hey, this is a wake-up call. Now is the time not to support the sensational media into forcing these two very courageous Indian Muslim Women to come forth with statements of apology for anything they said and done. We must show our pride over what they have said, and what they have done. What we need is more of them: More Khushboos. More Sanias.
Take heart.
Opinions of two Indian Muslim Women have actually rocked the mainland India. First, it was Tamil actress Khushboo who told the Tamil edition of India Today that pre-marital sex is okay “provided safety measures are followed to prevent pregnancy and sexually transmitted diseases”. And now, it is the Tennis star Sania Mirza who said the size of the dress she wants to wear is her prerogative.
And what’s so criminal in holding these views? Views regarding women sexuality and men sexuality in the first case. And the dress code for teenage girls in the second case. I guess, it is the politics that’s criminal. The crude politics of conservatism and the media.
Conservatism:
The politicians and volunteers of the Dalit Panthers of India (DPI) and the Pattali Makkal Katchi (PMK) who are working under the banner of a Tamil Protection Movement in their crusade against Khushboo are brothers-in-arms of the Mumbai-based staunch Hindu outfit Shiv Sena. They have a natural ally in Sunni Ulema Board, a self-proclaimed Muslim moral group. Four of them together have found some more interesting bedfellows: the mainstream media.
The interesting thing about these moral police forces in India is none of the above actually represent any Indian population of worth. Far from that, they do not even represent the groups they claim to be leading.
DPI at work!
DPI is interested only in publicity, like its political counterpart Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) is greedy for power. The BSP showing its true colors has partnered even with the right-wing BJP (which is predominantly Brahmin party) in political seat-sharing. Naturally enough, since their formation the so-called representatives of the Dalits have no support among the “backward” peoples of India, despite their national party status, BSP has hardly have any success except in just one state. A national party claiming to have base all over the country has won 0 seats in 24 out of 25 states where it fielded its candidates. Out of 435 of its contestants, only 19 won in the 14th Lok Sabha Election. All of them only in Utter Pradesh, where it lost 61 seats!
PMK, another new nationalist wing like DPI, is also a case in point. Since it has condemned both Dravidian parties of the South, DMK and AIADMK, one would assume it would not join hands with either of them. Or at least, never with the right-winger Hindu nationalists like BJP. Well, not exactly. It was part of the BJP combine when Vajpayee was in power. And now, it lends support to the Congress combine at the center with DMK as a partner. And it has 0.55% voteshare in India in 2004 down from 0.65% voteshare in 1999. So one can imagine its support base even in the South where it has won in total 6 seats (and zero in rest of India).
The lesser said about Shiv Sena, the better. Even with more than 80% of Indian population in India professing a Hindu way of life, this self-proclaimed protector of Hindu interest has hardly ever made its presence felt outside only one state: Maharashtra (that too, more in the name of Marathi nationalism). It rose to power after murdering Krishna Desai, the immensely popular communist leader of Maharashtra who was an invincible symbol among textile workers. Ever since, Shiv Sena has espoused right-wing views and led to communal riots one after another.
Sunni Ulema Board: I am sorry, but I had never heard of this name before. Neither have many of my Muslim friends. Not even those who stay in Hyderabad. Wonder where they came from? They certainly are not the Muslim clerics nor are the national arbitrators of religion-related issues for the country’s more than 160 million Muslims.
If Dalit Panthers, the Shiv Sena, the Sunni Ulema Board, the BSP and the PMK are not worth anything in India, since they all combined together do not gain support of even one percent of Indian population, how come they (just three of them this time—DPI, PMK and Sunni Ulema) are the forces that led to the crisis of Khushboo and Sania.
All of us know that Khushboo is such a heartthrob of South India cinema that people have even worshipped her (literally, yes!). Only a decade ago a temple was built in Tiruchirapalli town for Khushboo despite the fact that she is a Muslim. She is a national award winning actress of India (that’s the highest accolade an actor receives, by the way).
And for the still uninitiated (is anyone there?), Sania Mirza is one of the current leaders of India in every sense. She has very rightly overpowered the national obsession with Cricket and has rose to prominence first as a woman, then as a Muslim, and then as a tennis champion to have entered Grand Slam events. The 18-year-old is the first Indian woman to break into the top 50 WTA rankings too.
In other words, as contrasted with the political outfits who are not known outside the boundaries of their own sycophancy (how many had even honestly heard of DPI or PMK or SUB), these two women are nationally (and even internationally) renowned and respected.
And yet, both of them have tendered public apologies recently. Khushboo for saying the right things, and Sania for not even having said anything as reported.
...and the Media:
All thanks to the mainstream media. The corporate, controversy-hungry media. Nothing happened to India Today magazine for having run the surveys and the stories and for inviting Khushboo to write about gender issues. Nothing happened to Hindustan Times for having asked Sania questions to respond regarding dress code.
Vir Sanghvi today has written an excellent piece in support of Sania. Sanghvi wrote:
“On Friday evening, my jaw dropped as TV channel after TV channel reported that Sania’s remarks about the Khushboo controversy at the HT Summit had angered clerics. On Saturday, the newspapers reported this story. The problem was: Sania had said nothing about Khushboo or about pre-marital sex during our session. I should know. I was the moderator. Could it be, I wondered, that some enterprising reporter had grabbed Sania (and Narain and Natalie, who were quoted as agreeing with her) as the session ended, and asked a few leading questions?
Possibly. But the reports were quite specific. Sania was supposed to have made these remarks during our session at the HT Summit. Which, I knew, she had not.”
Thus Mr Sanghvi has managed to steer clear of the controversy. After all, she did not say that at his Summit. What he conveniently does not mention is the intent of HT coverage of Sania. Was it to showcase just a success? Well, we had a miss universe and a formula one champion on the same panel. Then how come, Sania got all the coverage on the reported story of the day?
The story headline: Sania breaks silence on dress fatwa against her.
Wow! Was that not sensational enough a headline? Was Sania at the summit for that purpose? To provide that headline? So that her life threat will be revisited? It was meant to be a leadership summit and Sania was to be presented as a role model for Indian youths, along with two other achievers. This story by HT correspondent Namita Bhandare has hardly any mention of other two panelists and 90% of the story covers Sania only (and only about her skirt issues about which she had voluntarily chosen not to comment earlier). The savvy editor got the question right. The event was powerful enough (what with all the celebrities –from Sonia Gandhi to Manmohan Singh). And Sania gave in to the hungry journalists.
So, that does not take away the grim reality which still is to be posed as a question. India Today got its sales. Hindustan Times got a breaking story that it got the words off the mouth of Sania for the first time etc. And other media publications linked both of them together and came up with a theory that suggested Sania supporting Khusboo. Natural, ain’t it? I have worked as a journalist of small repute too. I should be knowing.
For a ‘crime’ that led Khushboo to surrender at court, any misrepresentation of Sania’s statements with Khusboo’s attitudes was going to be dangerous. No, not from the All India Muslim Personal Law Board, which is the arbitrator of religion based cases in India. In fact, Khalid Rashid of the Law Board had said way back in September, “What Sania wears in (the) tennis court is the demand of the game. Perhaps, the fatwa (edict) was issued to gain cheap publicity.” Dangerous it was to prove, through the mainstream press. After the Muslim Board and Sania had both dismissed the so-called fatwa two months back, what led a responsible editor to pose the question that he did (regarding the dress code), if not to expect a headline worthy controversial story (which he eventually got!).
Khushboo should not have apologized. After all, they are her opinions. She never mentioned them under any pressure. Yet she broke down, because of the way the media blew up the entire issue and gleed at the prospect of photographing a dozen of angry Dalit Senas. She is in trouble now. Real judicial trouble with half a dozen cases piling against her! So much for the freedom of speech that the media enjoy, but not the people. Or the women.
Sania must not have apologized either. After all, she never even said that she supported Khushboo. For statements she never made, her effigies are now being burnt down by the same southern conservatives who are taking turns to protest against her and Khushboo. Sania, well aware of the mud, wants to now get out of it. And like all of us, she does not wish to go to jail. And so she even had to go to the extent of condemning pre-marital sex, a topic she had nothing to do about. Why should a celebrated tennis star need to condemn pre-marital sex for whatever reason? But she is forced to do all these, thanks to the impoverished mainstream media. She knows, her silence will be taken as a support. And this implicit support will lead to explicit media coverage.
What a shame! What hypocrisy! Do we not talk about sex and wear short clothes? When the majority Indians have other real issues to worry about, why even give one inch space to these publicity hungry organizations that are after the blood of two immensely praiseworthy Indian women?
There is certain correctness in speaking out what is apt. Basically, why should men expect virgin wives to begin with? And why should someone play tennis with trousers? Considering also the contrary stock: do men take a virginity test? Or are soccer players banned or even male tennis players wear trousers? Only the real sick minds could think the way these dangerous outfits are preaching or viewing players on field.
As Rasheeda Bhagat says, “The Khushboo episode will blow over sooner than later, but what about the double standards practiced in our society?”
Throwing tomatoes, rotten eggs and slippers or calling actresses prostitutes (as a Dalit actor-director Thangar Bachan did in August this year, leading to his outrage with Khushboo) are signs of degraded mentality. And the vast majority of us have actually failed to get rid of those conservative mindsets despite their scant presence among the outfits. We did not send Bachan to court for something that outrageous. Because the news is when the man bites the dog, remember? If the woman says something contrary to male norms, then its news!
But hey, this is a wake-up call. Now is the time not to support the sensational media into forcing these two very courageous Indian Muslim Women to come forth with statements of apology for anything they said and done. We must show our pride over what they have said, and what they have done. What we need is more of them: More Khushboos. More Sanias.
Radical is Ideal: The forgotten contexts of Rosa Parks
By Saswat Pattanayak
It was only natural that Rosa Parks received the unprecedented recognition, as the first woman in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.
After all, as the conservatives would have liked to put it: She was the perfect American woman. Securely married, well settled, employed and was a quiet, patient, spiritual woman. The American dreamer. One whose dream could be retold by Martin Luther King Jr. years later.
In the revisionist histories, there have been at least two versions of the same story. One that portrayed her as a humble woman, a seamstress, who got tired of segregation one day in December, 1955 and refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her individual action then led to a whole nationwide movement like magic. This led to the non-violent leader Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the people down the long road to freedom, which was established with the end of segregation. And the world became free of discrimination in the United States.
Following this story, people wonder what would have happened to MLK if Parks would not have boarded that bus that day. And what would have happened of all of us. Yes, by all of us, I mean ALL OF US. Asians in America as well (We owe it all to the mutual freedom struggles, dammit. Else, today the Indian and Chinese software engineers would not be negotiating salaries in the States. I wonder if most of the American born kids of Asian heritage have any idea of the connections. Or if all the temporary workers realize the saga of exploitation amidst the glory of dollarizations.)
This version also relates to the idea that the trip was not planned. Indeed, Rosa Parks has said on various occasions that she had not planned to be arrested. She had boarded the bus to reach home.
The second version takes a stab at the first and claims, well, you see, Rosa Parks was not tired (indeed Park has said this too). And that she was not the first one to do it anyway. She was required to be there. That she was the perfect case for the NAACP and all plans were underway. Time magazine wrote of her: “Parks was not the first to be detained for this offense. Eight months earlier, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Black activists met with this girl to determine if she would make a good test case — as secretary of the local N.A.A.C.P., Parks attended the meeting — but it was decided that a more “upstanding” candidate was necessary to withstand the scrutiny of the courts and the press. And then in October, a young woman named Mary Louise Smith was arrested; N.A.A.C.P. leaders rejected her too as their vehicle, looking for someone more able to withstand media scrutiny. Smith paid the fine and was released.”
Hence this version demystifies the previous version and basically says, the trip was well planned. And that MLK was anyway going to lead the movement since he knew it was coming. And that the legendary trade union leader E. D. Nixon apparently said, “My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!” Parks was the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws.
Both versions do not tell the story. Because they claim to be the stories themselves. Rosa Parks was an event, not a process. And the event is being confused as being the process. After all its easy to recall an event, celebrate and normalize it. MLK has become a national event today. Malcolm X and Paul Robeson are today featuring on the postage stamps. And Rosa Parks is an icon today—of righteousness, humbleness and generosity.
Let’s reset the contexts. The prepositions:
a. Rosa Parks was married to Raymond Parks. Actually after her husband’s death in 1977, she even co-founded an organization named after both of them. And yes, Raymond Parks was the force behind her. We shall soon need to discuss who Raymond Parks was since no one pretty much discusses him.
b. Rosa Parks was a social activist long before the bus event. She was involved in a process that culminated in the event. We shall need to understand the processes that led to her actions.
What do we know about Raymond Parks? Well, the official foundation named after both “The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute” says the following about Raymond:
"Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee in Randolph County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge and a no nonsense approach to life. He supported his wife's "Quiet Strength" and encouraged youth to get a good education to sup-port themselves, their families and to eliminate discrimination in this country.”
If you notice the page, there are just two pictures of Rosa. Nothing about Raymond.
Wow!
Part I:
Well, to begin with, Raymond was a barber alright. But he was an activist way before Rosa had stepped in. So much so that he was raising funds for the National Committee to Save the Scottsboro Boys! Does that sound a bell? So the story begins from here. What has been conveniently forgotten in the recent recalling of history is that the case of Scottsboro Boys was the first event that actually put the process of struggle in place.
It involved the alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931. And yes, this was a case that the NAACP then during the 30's refused to take up.
Scottsboro Boys thus rejected NAACP’s offer and sought the help from the more radical leftist activists. And Raymond Parks was working in support of the Boys and promote radicalism within the NAACP. (For a short time much later, under Nixon, the radicalized NAACP worked together with the ILD to call for anti-lynching laws.) Rosa Parks got involved with the case of the Boys by marrying Raymond in 1932. Raymond was at that time collecting money to support the Scottsboro Boys. After marrying, Rosa took a number of jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her husband’s urging, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time when less than seven percent of African Americans had a high school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political participation by blacks difficult, she persevered in registering to vote, succeeding on her third try. This was made possible because both of them were members of the Voters’ League.
Part II:
In December 1943, after 11 years of marriage with Raymond who was a radical leftist activist, Parks became active in the American Civil Rights Movement, joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer secretary to its president, Edgar Nixon. Lest we forget, Nixon was a renowned trade unionist of the time. He became president of the Alabama NAACP only in 1947 and radicalized it. He was a close associate of Philip Randolph, the renowned labor leader (again whose stories are hardly discussed). Nixon naturally came in problems with the moderates. He resigned qith disgust from the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) which was being headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., as its president.
Nixon died unsung, although he was the one without whom the bus boycott could never have taken place as a process. Remember that Nixon put up his home as security to post the bond for Parks!
Not only Nixon, who was on the political left of the things and was conveniently shoved to the history’s closed pages, but we need to remember Clifford Durr (1899 – 1975) who was an Alabama lawyer who defended activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He was the one who represented Rosa Parks in her challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance requiring the segregation of passengers on buses in Montgomery that launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Who was Durr? He was branded as a communist and was put under FBI surveillance in 1942, because he had defended a colleague accused of left-wing political associations. His wife’s vigorous support for racial equality and voting rights for blacks and their friendship with Jessica Mitford, a member of the Communist Party, made both of them even more suspect. The FBI stepped up its interest in Durr in 1949, when he joined the National Lawyers Guild. He subsequently became the President of the Guild! And yes, hold on, Durr's wife had employed Rosa Parks as the seamstress.
Durr called the jail when authorities refused to tell Nixon what the charges against Parks were and he and his wife accompanied Nixon to the jail when Nixon bailed her out. Nixon and Durr then went to the Parks’ home to discuss whether she was prepared to fight the charges against her. Parks was then as aforesaid, working as voluntary secretary to Nixon.
They had together waited for a politicized Parks to come to the scene. For 23 years now, Rosa Parks had support of her husband who was involved in several progressive struggles including Scottsboro defense, the campaign against lynching, and the struggle for voter and citizenship rights. When she did not give up her seat on that bus, it was culmination of the long process of revolution by resistance.
It's another matter, this third version of progressive saga-- of active involvement of left wing leaders and activists, always disgraced by both the mainstream white liberals and the cautious black leadership in the US-- has been hijacked and replaced as an odd event for national celebration--by moderate activists and revisionist historians.
It must have pained her, but in her book “Quiet Strength”, Rosa Parks is categorical about one thing, that she did not change anything alone: “Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like [people] to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom.”
And yet this one of many has been canonized. For it helps to canonize than to contextualize. The dangers, as the establishments notice are not the heroes themselves. It is their heroic acts as part of a larger process that inspire generations. It is not individual acts of pacifying moderate church leaders, but radicalized moves by barbers like Raymond and lawyers like Durr and angry seamstresses like Rosa Parks who had taken to the streets to join worldwide radical movements addressing cases like Scottboro Boys or Labor Unions.
But if we go back to those pages, we will be flooded with gory images, not legendary icons. History of struggles have been fought with political aims and those aims of yesteryears conflict with the political agendas of today's. Hence the attempts to iconize the angry freedom fighters.
After all, all icons look good on statues—they always put a smile on their lips.
It was only natural that Rosa Parks received the unprecedented recognition, as the first woman in American history to lie in state at the Capitol, an honor usually reserved for Presidents of the United States.
After all, as the conservatives would have liked to put it: She was the perfect American woman. Securely married, well settled, employed and was a quiet, patient, spiritual woman. The American dreamer. One whose dream could be retold by Martin Luther King Jr. years later.
In the revisionist histories, there have been at least two versions of the same story. One that portrayed her as a humble woman, a seamstress, who got tired of segregation one day in December, 1955 and refused to give up her seat on a Montgomery, Alabama bus. Her individual action then led to a whole nationwide movement like magic. This led to the non-violent leader Martin Luther King, Jr., to lead the people down the long road to freedom, which was established with the end of segregation. And the world became free of discrimination in the United States.
Following this story, people wonder what would have happened to MLK if Parks would not have boarded that bus that day. And what would have happened of all of us. Yes, by all of us, I mean ALL OF US. Asians in America as well (We owe it all to the mutual freedom struggles, dammit. Else, today the Indian and Chinese software engineers would not be negotiating salaries in the States. I wonder if most of the American born kids of Asian heritage have any idea of the connections. Or if all the temporary workers realize the saga of exploitation amidst the glory of dollarizations.)
This version also relates to the idea that the trip was not planned. Indeed, Rosa Parks has said on various occasions that she had not planned to be arrested. She had boarded the bus to reach home.
The second version takes a stab at the first and claims, well, you see, Rosa Parks was not tired (indeed Park has said this too). And that she was not the first one to do it anyway. She was required to be there. That she was the perfect case for the NAACP and all plans were underway. Time magazine wrote of her: “Parks was not the first to be detained for this offense. Eight months earlier, Claudette Colvin, 15, refused to give up her seat and was arrested. Black activists met with this girl to determine if she would make a good test case — as secretary of the local N.A.A.C.P., Parks attended the meeting — but it was decided that a more “upstanding” candidate was necessary to withstand the scrutiny of the courts and the press. And then in October, a young woman named Mary Louise Smith was arrested; N.A.A.C.P. leaders rejected her too as their vehicle, looking for someone more able to withstand media scrutiny. Smith paid the fine and was released.”
Hence this version demystifies the previous version and basically says, the trip was well planned. And that MLK was anyway going to lead the movement since he knew it was coming. And that the legendary trade union leader E. D. Nixon apparently said, “My God, look what segregation has put in my hands!” Parks was the ideal plaintiff for a test case against city and state segregation laws.
Both versions do not tell the story. Because they claim to be the stories themselves. Rosa Parks was an event, not a process. And the event is being confused as being the process. After all its easy to recall an event, celebrate and normalize it. MLK has become a national event today. Malcolm X and Paul Robeson are today featuring on the postage stamps. And Rosa Parks is an icon today—of righteousness, humbleness and generosity.
Let’s reset the contexts. The prepositions:
a. Rosa Parks was married to Raymond Parks. Actually after her husband’s death in 1977, she even co-founded an organization named after both of them. And yes, Raymond Parks was the force behind her. We shall soon need to discuss who Raymond Parks was since no one pretty much discusses him.
b. Rosa Parks was a social activist long before the bus event. She was involved in a process that culminated in the event. We shall need to understand the processes that led to her actions.
What do we know about Raymond Parks? Well, the official foundation named after both “The Rosa and Raymond Parks Institute” says the following about Raymond:
"Raymond Parks married Rosa McCauley December 18, 1932. He was a barber from Wedowee in Randolph County, Alabama. He had little formal education but a thirst for knowledge and a no nonsense approach to life. He supported his wife's "Quiet Strength" and encouraged youth to get a good education to sup-port themselves, their families and to eliminate discrimination in this country.”
If you notice the page, there are just two pictures of Rosa. Nothing about Raymond.
Wow!
Part I:
Well, to begin with, Raymond was a barber alright. But he was an activist way before Rosa had stepped in. So much so that he was raising funds for the National Committee to Save the Scottsboro Boys! Does that sound a bell? So the story begins from here. What has been conveniently forgotten in the recent recalling of history is that the case of Scottsboro Boys was the first event that actually put the process of struggle in place.
It involved the alleged gang rape of two white girls by nine black teenagers on the Southern Railroad freight run from Chattanooga to Memphis on March 25, 1931. And yes, this was a case that the NAACP then during the 30's refused to take up.
“The NAACP, which might have been expected to rush to the defense of the Scottsboro Boys, did not. Rape was a politically explosive charge in the South, and the NAACP was concerned about damage to its effectiveness that might result if it turned out some or all of the Boys were guilty. Instead, it was the Communist Party that moved aggressively to make the Scottsboro case their own…. The Communist Party, through its legal arm, the International Labor Defense (ILD), pronounced the case against the Boys a “murderous frame-up” and began efforts, ultimately successful, to be named as their attorneys. The NAACP, a slow-moving bureaucracy, finally came to the realization that the Scottsboro Boys were most likely innocent and that leadership in the case would have large public relations benefits. As a last-ditch effort to beat back the ILD in the battle over representation, NAACP officials persuaded renowned defense attorney Clarence Darrow to take their case to Alabama. But it was by then too late. The Scottsboro Boys, for better or worse, cast their lots with the Communists who, in the South, were “treated with only slightly more courtesy than a gang of rapists.”
Scottsboro Boys thus rejected NAACP’s offer and sought the help from the more radical leftist activists. And Raymond Parks was working in support of the Boys and promote radicalism within the NAACP. (For a short time much later, under Nixon, the radicalized NAACP worked together with the ILD to call for anti-lynching laws.) Rosa Parks got involved with the case of the Boys by marrying Raymond in 1932. Raymond was at that time collecting money to support the Scottsboro Boys. After marrying, Rosa took a number of jobs, ranging from domestic worker to hospital aide. At her husband’s urging, she finished her high school studies in 1933, at a time when less than seven percent of African Americans had a high school diploma. Despite the Jim Crow laws that made political participation by blacks difficult, she persevered in registering to vote, succeeding on her third try. This was made possible because both of them were members of the Voters’ League.
Part II:
In December 1943, after 11 years of marriage with Raymond who was a radical leftist activist, Parks became active in the American Civil Rights Movement, joined the Montgomery chapter of the NAACP, and was elected volunteer secretary to its president, Edgar Nixon. Lest we forget, Nixon was a renowned trade unionist of the time. He became president of the Alabama NAACP only in 1947 and radicalized it. He was a close associate of Philip Randolph, the renowned labor leader (again whose stories are hardly discussed). Nixon naturally came in problems with the moderates. He resigned qith disgust from the Montgomery Improvement Association (MIA) which was being headed by Martin Luther King, Jr., as its president.
Nixon died unsung, although he was the one without whom the bus boycott could never have taken place as a process. Remember that Nixon put up his home as security to post the bond for Parks!
Not only Nixon, who was on the political left of the things and was conveniently shoved to the history’s closed pages, but we need to remember Clifford Durr (1899 – 1975) who was an Alabama lawyer who defended activists and others accused of disloyalty during the New Deal and McCarthy eras. He was the one who represented Rosa Parks in her challenge to the constitutionality of the ordinance requiring the segregation of passengers on buses in Montgomery that launched the Montgomery Bus Boycott.
Who was Durr? He was branded as a communist and was put under FBI surveillance in 1942, because he had defended a colleague accused of left-wing political associations. His wife’s vigorous support for racial equality and voting rights for blacks and their friendship with Jessica Mitford, a member of the Communist Party, made both of them even more suspect. The FBI stepped up its interest in Durr in 1949, when he joined the National Lawyers Guild. He subsequently became the President of the Guild! And yes, hold on, Durr's wife had employed Rosa Parks as the seamstress.
Durr called the jail when authorities refused to tell Nixon what the charges against Parks were and he and his wife accompanied Nixon to the jail when Nixon bailed her out. Nixon and Durr then went to the Parks’ home to discuss whether she was prepared to fight the charges against her. Parks was then as aforesaid, working as voluntary secretary to Nixon.
They had together waited for a politicized Parks to come to the scene. For 23 years now, Rosa Parks had support of her husband who was involved in several progressive struggles including Scottsboro defense, the campaign against lynching, and the struggle for voter and citizenship rights. When she did not give up her seat on that bus, it was culmination of the long process of revolution by resistance.
It's another matter, this third version of progressive saga-- of active involvement of left wing leaders and activists, always disgraced by both the mainstream white liberals and the cautious black leadership in the US-- has been hijacked and replaced as an odd event for national celebration--by moderate activists and revisionist historians.
It must have pained her, but in her book “Quiet Strength”, Rosa Parks is categorical about one thing, that she did not change anything alone: “Four decades later I am still uncomfortable with the credit given to me for starting the bus boycott. I would like [people] to know I was not the only person involved. I was just one of many who fought for freedom.”
And yet this one of many has been canonized. For it helps to canonize than to contextualize. The dangers, as the establishments notice are not the heroes themselves. It is their heroic acts as part of a larger process that inspire generations. It is not individual acts of pacifying moderate church leaders, but radicalized moves by barbers like Raymond and lawyers like Durr and angry seamstresses like Rosa Parks who had taken to the streets to join worldwide radical movements addressing cases like Scottboro Boys or Labor Unions.
But if we go back to those pages, we will be flooded with gory images, not legendary icons. History of struggles have been fought with political aims and those aims of yesteryears conflict with the political agendas of today's. Hence the attempts to iconize the angry freedom fighters.
After all, all icons look good on statues—they always put a smile on their lips.
Lesser Gifts of the Western Gods
By Saswat Pattanayak
The other side to child labor. Does it provide for a hope?
This postcolonial report won the “One World Broadcasting Trust / Unicef 1998 Advancement of Children’s Rights award”. And now available for direct viewing online. Click here to watch.
Also important to remember that Titu makes a living, nurtures a dream and does not give up. The reality is indeed more interesting than any fiction. And more painful.
Recent Oscar fancies include child prostitution in south Asia. Indeed, the movie Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids got India the Oscar she needed as much as late Mother Teresa got the Nobel Prize that India deserved! Apparently the story of Sonagachi was not meant to be shown to Indians, because the film makers think it would violate the identity issues of children (as though Calcuttans don’t have cyber cafes on the streets).
Makes one wonder about the socio-economic parameters and where the line is drawn between 'subject to exploitation' and 'right to make a living'. More importantly, one needs ponder the grueling reasons behind any further justification. And the other pressing question is regarding the exoticism of third world poverty.
At the one hand, child labor (commercial sex or injurious workplace) is a reality. Not everyone has the privilege to escape this reality. Nor the audacity. Nor the worldview. Nor the comfort or time to devise a luxurious worldview.
On the other hand, it’s a perpetuation of an oppression cycle. Its not simply another work. It never is. It's a systematic byproduct of an evil world system we abide by, that has such intrinsic elements well woven. One can argue the case for the Netherlands and the red lights there may not blind the eyes with as much discomfort as streets of Kolkata. Or the thousands of software sweatshops sponsored by the first world for the 'call centers' to take orders 24/7, which are indeed glorified tech-slavery of our age!
The well meaning audience may put the blame squarely upon the individuals who are voluntary participants in the process of unjust labor. But the point many miss is that Bangladesh, as in this movie, is a residue of a bigger world whose rules are largely written by systems of such oppression that we have all contributed in nurturing, especially people in the first world. Geographical disadvantages, political readiness, economic standing and class divides are just few of them. Titu is just one protagonist, who like millions of other child laborers and commercial sex workers, deserves all the praises of the world to be able to persist to live despite the inflicted hardships.
And yes, Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski need not fear about identities of children born to third world prostitutes. The children do not feel ashamed of their parents. If they were, they would not pose for the camera. It’s the detached film-makers who need feel ashamed for telling the story that’s been narrated almost all the time (that children get exploited in Dhaka or Kolkata), but for not telling the story of how it came to such a pass (that Dhaka nearly got driven to a stage of no-return thanks to American interventions using Saudis to uproot Mujibur Rehman because of his stress on secularism and pro-Soviet stances; or the implantation of Missionaries of Charity, which in the name of so-called God’s grace, aggravates poverty by declaring not a war, but preaching that “poverty is gift of God” so that generations of slum children grow up to earn it dividends and also become starry-eyed participants in such stereotypical movies).
In any case, I think there is some hope. It’s surely a triumph of the laborers. And a disaster for the capital evangelists who presume that liberalized economy, after all, is where the buck stops. And the mind.
The other side to child labor. Does it provide for a hope?
This postcolonial report won the “One World Broadcasting Trust / Unicef 1998 Advancement of Children’s Rights award”. And now available for direct viewing online. Click here to watch.
Also important to remember that Titu makes a living, nurtures a dream and does not give up. The reality is indeed more interesting than any fiction. And more painful.
Recent Oscar fancies include child prostitution in south Asia. Indeed, the movie Born Into Brothels: Calcutta's Red Light Kids got India the Oscar she needed as much as late Mother Teresa got the Nobel Prize that India deserved! Apparently the story of Sonagachi was not meant to be shown to Indians, because the film makers think it would violate the identity issues of children (as though Calcuttans don’t have cyber cafes on the streets).
Makes one wonder about the socio-economic parameters and where the line is drawn between 'subject to exploitation' and 'right to make a living'. More importantly, one needs ponder the grueling reasons behind any further justification. And the other pressing question is regarding the exoticism of third world poverty.
At the one hand, child labor (commercial sex or injurious workplace) is a reality. Not everyone has the privilege to escape this reality. Nor the audacity. Nor the worldview. Nor the comfort or time to devise a luxurious worldview.
On the other hand, it’s a perpetuation of an oppression cycle. Its not simply another work. It never is. It's a systematic byproduct of an evil world system we abide by, that has such intrinsic elements well woven. One can argue the case for the Netherlands and the red lights there may not blind the eyes with as much discomfort as streets of Kolkata. Or the thousands of software sweatshops sponsored by the first world for the 'call centers' to take orders 24/7, which are indeed glorified tech-slavery of our age!
The well meaning audience may put the blame squarely upon the individuals who are voluntary participants in the process of unjust labor. But the point many miss is that Bangladesh, as in this movie, is a residue of a bigger world whose rules are largely written by systems of such oppression that we have all contributed in nurturing, especially people in the first world. Geographical disadvantages, political readiness, economic standing and class divides are just few of them. Titu is just one protagonist, who like millions of other child laborers and commercial sex workers, deserves all the praises of the world to be able to persist to live despite the inflicted hardships.
And yes, Ross Kauffman and Zana Briski need not fear about identities of children born to third world prostitutes. The children do not feel ashamed of their parents. If they were, they would not pose for the camera. It’s the detached film-makers who need feel ashamed for telling the story that’s been narrated almost all the time (that children get exploited in Dhaka or Kolkata), but for not telling the story of how it came to such a pass (that Dhaka nearly got driven to a stage of no-return thanks to American interventions using Saudis to uproot Mujibur Rehman because of his stress on secularism and pro-Soviet stances; or the implantation of Missionaries of Charity, which in the name of so-called God’s grace, aggravates poverty by declaring not a war, but preaching that “poverty is gift of God” so that generations of slum children grow up to earn it dividends and also become starry-eyed participants in such stereotypical movies).
In any case, I think there is some hope. It’s surely a triumph of the laborers. And a disaster for the capital evangelists who presume that liberalized economy, after all, is where the buck stops. And the mind.
Media Girl Blog Community
05/08/05 07:10 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
The only events open to women at this year's annual summer X Games held in Los Angeles were: Wakeboarding and skateboarding,
The organizers of the X Games claim that "female athletes in many extreme-sports categories have not reached a high-enough level to add arenas for women."
And the necessary ranting from the blog community MediaGirl can be found here.
One Angry Girl
04/08/05 08:29 Filed by Saswat Pattanayak in:
Reference
How does “Fuck your Fascist beauty standards” sound
like?
You must wear it on your tee and support http://www.oneangrygirl.net/ for it!
You must wear it on your tee and support http://www.oneangrygirl.net/ for it!
Pretty faces of the Free market
By Saswat Pattanayak
Women are the face of the business today. If that’s some claim the West is making to advance capitalism ethos, folks better watch out. The internal contradiction is here to stay: women stay as the face, whereas the men rule as the rest (muscle and the money).
One of the popular and reformatory feminist arguments made against the Third World nations and the former socialist block was that women are relegated to non-existence in matters of decision-making, unlike in the West where women have known to have posed for Playboy and have decided whom to go out with on an evening date.
The cultural contrasts have always been made whenever any other justification has failed. For example, if the religious fanaticism has matched (Islam Afghan, Christian Europe, Hindu India), then the proverbial burden on the white man has shifted towards cultural differences and the normative contrasts in terms of “women development”. Despite being religious, and at times because of the difference in their religions, the women have suffered so much (look at all stories on Iranian women suffering), the mainstream argument has run.
I though of looking at women in capitalism and the myth of women progress, just to see if the world at another hemisphere was indeed such fair to the fifty percent of population in terms of gender. Although there can be no comparison among the countries on basis of economic parity (remember the world is divided in two parts economically: self-proclaimed wealth accumulator group of 8 versus destined to doom group of rest 185), we need to see the attitudes of wealthy societies just to measure the yardstick. US as the citadel of capitalism tops the list, of course.
Only in August last year an assistant warehouse manager filed a class-action (yes classes do exist!!!) suit against Costco Wholesale Corp (that chain of warehouses from which Americans take pride in purchasing bulk after becoming elite members). Costco operates approximately 324 warehouses in the United States employing over less than 1 in 6 women as its senior store managers)! Yet all those faces at the counters in Costco who make us celebrate diversity at workplace are incidentally women, because the corporation employs more than 50% women! Women are 50% cheap labor and only 16% of them work at managerial positions!
Just for information, if that’s the case with United States, how does Costco employ women in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico, where it has businesses?
The worse news is Costco claims proudly that it metes better treatment than its rivals Wal-mart (yes that company whose owners are four of the ten richest billionaires of the planet), Sam’s or BJ’s. So where does the largest retail store in the world, the Wal-Mart, stand? Wal-Mart representing 1.6 million women, is facing the largest class-action sexual discrimination suit in history. The faces of Wal-Mart, its beautiful women, some of whom were picked by Playboy to pose nude recently, comprise more than 70% of its total workforce! That’s the parameter of feminist success, some claim, because what is overlooked is that Wal-Mart hires them for hourly jobs, only less than a third of them being in any store management position! Wal-Mart has more than 3,500 stores in US alone, having sales of more than $250 billion dollars annually!
Sex discrimination cases are also filed against most other giant companies, including Merrill Lynch and Home Depot. Among few cases that have been settled yet, aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. paid off $72.5 million to settle its case. Major investment bank Morgan Stanley paid off $54 million to settle claims that it underpaid and did not promote women.
Of course majority cases never get to see the trial and the systematic patterns of discriminations are never discussed in favor of individual cases.
The issue at hand is the problem. The continuing saga of discrimination that goes on even to the year 2005. If the cracks are evident with the biggest firms that hold the torch of capitalism, then one can only imagine the plights at the numerous sweatshops that have been opened at the behest of free market expansions. The myth has to be revisited, only if it will mean that we will eventually end up condemning the system that perpetuates the gaps and calls for class-actions. The least folks can do is not to get solely fascinated by the neon lights and pretend not to live the heat of oppression that the workers experience while building the lights and the buildings, the roads, the locomotives. It’s not enough to see the pretty women anchors on the television channels in order to assume advancements, its needed for us to see if they call the shots of their visual representations and decision making abilities as news editors.
Capitalism thrives on the show business. Massive consumptions, huge productions, giant media houses, lavish use of glamour, red carpets and the women, profit indexes and billionaires lists, the supermalls and blockbuster movies.
What it leaves out systematically is a narrative about the countless workers who make these take shape, and the systematic oppression they inflict on the working class in terms of wages, treatments and attitudes.
Women are the face of the business today. If that’s some claim the West is making to advance capitalism ethos, folks better watch out. The internal contradiction is here to stay: women stay as the face, whereas the men rule as the rest (muscle and the money).
One of the popular and reformatory feminist arguments made against the Third World nations and the former socialist block was that women are relegated to non-existence in matters of decision-making, unlike in the West where women have known to have posed for Playboy and have decided whom to go out with on an evening date.
The cultural contrasts have always been made whenever any other justification has failed. For example, if the religious fanaticism has matched (Islam Afghan, Christian Europe, Hindu India), then the proverbial burden on the white man has shifted towards cultural differences and the normative contrasts in terms of “women development”. Despite being religious, and at times because of the difference in their religions, the women have suffered so much (look at all stories on Iranian women suffering), the mainstream argument has run.
I though of looking at women in capitalism and the myth of women progress, just to see if the world at another hemisphere was indeed such fair to the fifty percent of population in terms of gender. Although there can be no comparison among the countries on basis of economic parity (remember the world is divided in two parts economically: self-proclaimed wealth accumulator group of 8 versus destined to doom group of rest 185), we need to see the attitudes of wealthy societies just to measure the yardstick. US as the citadel of capitalism tops the list, of course.
Only in August last year an assistant warehouse manager filed a class-action (yes classes do exist!!!) suit against Costco Wholesale Corp (that chain of warehouses from which Americans take pride in purchasing bulk after becoming elite members). Costco operates approximately 324 warehouses in the United States employing over less than 1 in 6 women as its senior store managers)! Yet all those faces at the counters in Costco who make us celebrate diversity at workplace are incidentally women, because the corporation employs more than 50% women! Women are 50% cheap labor and only 16% of them work at managerial positions!
Just for information, if that’s the case with United States, how does Costco employ women in the UK, Canada, Mexico, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, and Puerto Rico, where it has businesses?
The worse news is Costco claims proudly that it metes better treatment than its rivals Wal-mart (yes that company whose owners are four of the ten richest billionaires of the planet), Sam’s or BJ’s. So where does the largest retail store in the world, the Wal-Mart, stand? Wal-Mart representing 1.6 million women, is facing the largest class-action sexual discrimination suit in history. The faces of Wal-Mart, its beautiful women, some of whom were picked by Playboy to pose nude recently, comprise more than 70% of its total workforce! That’s the parameter of feminist success, some claim, because what is overlooked is that Wal-Mart hires them for hourly jobs, only less than a third of them being in any store management position! Wal-Mart has more than 3,500 stores in US alone, having sales of more than $250 billion dollars annually!
Sex discrimination cases are also filed against most other giant companies, including Merrill Lynch and Home Depot. Among few cases that have been settled yet, aircraft manufacturer Boeing Co. paid off $72.5 million to settle its case. Major investment bank Morgan Stanley paid off $54 million to settle claims that it underpaid and did not promote women.
Of course majority cases never get to see the trial and the systematic patterns of discriminations are never discussed in favor of individual cases.
The issue at hand is the problem. The continuing saga of discrimination that goes on even to the year 2005. If the cracks are evident with the biggest firms that hold the torch of capitalism, then one can only imagine the plights at the numerous sweatshops that have been opened at the behest of free market expansions. The myth has to be revisited, only if it will mean that we will eventually end up condemning the system that perpetuates the gaps and calls for class-actions. The least folks can do is not to get solely fascinated by the neon lights and pretend not to live the heat of oppression that the workers experience while building the lights and the buildings, the roads, the locomotives. It’s not enough to see the pretty women anchors on the television channels in order to assume advancements, its needed for us to see if they call the shots of their visual representations and decision making abilities as news editors.
Capitalism thrives on the show business. Massive consumptions, huge productions, giant media houses, lavish use of glamour, red carpets and the women, profit indexes and billionaires lists, the supermalls and blockbuster movies.
What it leaves out systematically is a narrative about the countless workers who make these take shape, and the systematic oppression they inflict on the working class in terms of wages, treatments and attitudes.
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.
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.