SACW | Oct. 24, 2006 | Pakistan: 7 year itch and disappearances; India: Muslims at the bottom; death sentence; books as crime; Mirco loan myth; Secular UN; UK: No faith in faith schools
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at mnet.fr
Mon Oct 23 20:00:03 CDT 2006
South Asia Citizens Wire | October 24, 2006 | Dispatch No. 2310 - Year 8
[1] Pakistan: 'The Seven-Year Itch' (Irfan Husain)
[2] Pakistan: Challenging disappearances (Asma Jahangir)
[3] A Nobel Peace Prize for Neoliberalism?: The
Myth of Microloans (Alexander Cockburn)
[4] Secular India's Muslims: Trapped in a blind alley (Syeda Hameed)
[5] India: Books As Crime (Subhash Gatade)
[6] A death sentence in India (Shubh Mathur)
[7] [ Keep room for reason ! Keep The UN secular ! ]
- You gotta have faith at the UN (Azza Karam and Matthew Weiner)
[8] UK: Let us pray we have an end to faith schools (Minette Marrin)
[9] Indian women march to fight rampant attacks (Palash Kumar)
____
[1]
Dawn
21 October 2006 .
'THE SEVEN-YEAR ITCH'
by Irfan Husain
IN the mid-1950s, 'The Seven-Year Itch' was a
huge hit. Starring the unforgettably delectable
Marilyn Monroe, the film revolved around the
theme of marital infidelity. The title comes from
the idea that after seven years of marriage, the
eye wanders, and partners get bored of seeing the
same face on the pillow next to each other every
morning.
Perhaps we do not see Musharraf quite so
intimately, but for many Pakistanis, the TV
screen is close enough. The big mistake people in
power make is that they develop a taste for the
limelight, and soon this hunger for publicity
becomes an addiction that has to be fed by daily
newspaper headlines, TV interviews, and in
Musharraf's case, book launches. But while they
revel in this hype and hoopla, pity their poor
audiences: blitzed by this self-serving
propaganda, who can blame them for getting fed up
after a time? And the Lord knows seven years is
time enough for even Musharraf's most ardent fans
to feel bored.
Although I oppose military takeovers on
principle, I must admit that I cautiously
welcomed Musharraf's coup seven years ago. My
reason was simple: had he not overthrown Nawaz
Sharif, the ruling Muslim League would have
secured a majority in the Senate elections due
the following March. Once the upper house had
been won, Nawaz Sharif was determined to carry
out his avowed threat of making Shariah the law
of the land.
A number of Pakistanis, including this one, were
concerned that given the different schools of
Islamic thought active in the country, this
legislation would be divisive to the point of
civil war. Hence I considered a short military
intervention to be the lesser of the two evils.
But as I should have known, military
interventions in Pakistan are never short. The
pattern has been for coup-makers to convince
themselves that they are indispensable, and then
bend all their energies and resources to hang on
in power in the belief that their departure would
spell disaster for the country. But ultimately,
they all leave, one way or another, and the
nation staggers on, weaker for their extended
presence. Another thing we have learned is that
generals last longer in power than politicians.
Not because of their superior performance, but
because they have the army behind them. And
lending them a fig- leaf are the motley crew of
political hacks who could not get into power
through elections.
Beyond the obvious weakening of political
institutions, what else do Musharraf's seven
years in power teach us? For starters, even for a
military dictator, there are strict limits to
power. As we have seen time and again, Musharraf
has been forced to retreat where a politician
might well have succeeded. So although I have few
doubts about his good intentions on a number of
issues, his ability to follow through is
decidedly shaky.
Take his praiseworthy desire to dilute the more
vicious aspects of the Hudood Ordinance. Like any
decent person, he was motivated by the shocking
injustice of this Zia-inspired, anti- woman law.
Indeed, most of the civilised world is appalled
by this unique piece of legislation. Although he
was supported by the PPP and the MQM in his
effort to amend the law through a bill in
parliament, he was thwarted by both the MMA and
ultimately, by his own faction of the PML. While
the opposition from the clerics was expected, the
stab in the back from his own creation must have
penetrated even his Kevlar flak jacket. But he
has had to put up with this double-cross because
he has no alternatives, and the opportunistic
Muslim League members know it.
Or take his oft-repeated decision to build the
controversial Kalabagh dam. Here, after a major
campaign on every front, he simply could not
force the smaller provinces to go along with
Punjab on the issue. This is despite the fact
that Sindh is being run by a coalition that
reached power only thanks to Musharraf.
Nevertheless, they said 'no' when it came to this
highly divisive issue because it would have been
political suicide for them to have agreed. So
when push came to shove, Musharraf was unable to
convince the smaller provinces to drop their deep
mistrust of Punjab.
His loudly proclaimed concept of 'enlightened
moderation' lies in tatters, hacked to bits by
the mullahs of the MMA whose support he has
courted so assiduously. Part of this stillborn
policy was the registration of madressahs, and
the introduction of modern subjects there. One
growl from the mullahs was enough to lay this
ambition to rest. Then there was the debacle over
the decision to drop the religion column from the
new machine- readable passports. Even this
innocuous step to bring our travel documents in
line with international norms was blocked by our
religious parties, and Musharraf had to back down
yet again.
On the international front, Musharraf has had
limited success, despite his enhanced profile
after 9/11. Although he made a U-turn on
Pakistan's pro-Taliban policy, he continues to be
pressed to do more on the Afghan border. And more
than ever, he is under pressure to rein in the
ISI. In spite of his efforts to present a
progressive view of Pakistan to the rest of the
world, he is frequently frustrated by his own
party, courts and intelligence agencies.
The problem he faces is a common one for military
dictators around the world. Lacking legitimacy,
they make deals with groups and parties to
broaden their base beyond GHQ. But as they face
resistance from legitimate political forces, they
squander their time, energy and the little moral
authority they possess to hang on to power. In
Musharraf's case, he has had to curry favour with
fundamentalists to win their support. He cannot
then take on their militant wings with any
conviction or credibility. It is this politics of
expediency that neuters the most well-meaning
dictator.
One major aspect of the seven-year itch is the
intractable nature of problems faced by
developing countries like Pakistan. Leaders,
whether elected or not, simply cannot meet the
rising aspirations of a growing population. So
they are forced to repeat promises they cannot
keep, and the rest of us can only sit back and
yawn each time they appear on TV to offer us pie
in the sky tomorrow.
____
[2]
The Daily Times
October 24, 2006 .
CHALLENGING DISAPPEARANCES
by Asma Jahangir
In the coming months the HRCP will translate the
Convention text and post it on its website. Other
relevant information contained in the Convention
will also be disseminated to relevant
institutions and bodies
The United Nations Human Rights Council in its
first session in June this year adopted the
International Convention for the Protection of
All persons from Enforced Disappearances and
recommended that the General Assembly adopt it
too. It will subsequently be opened for
signature, ratification and accession at a
signing ceremony in Paris.
The story of the passage of this Convention has
many lessons for us. Foremost, that we must not
succumb to pressures and continue to recall that
repression cannot succeed for long. More
importantly, that the protection of human rights
is no longer a domestic issue. It concerns the
finer values of the global human community.
The human rights community has a tough challenge
to meet. It is their obligation to document all
cases of disappearances. They must reach out to
the families and acquaintances of those who have
disappeared. All facts must be verified and it is
crucial that all reports containing allegations
of disappearances must contain credible
information.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP)
hopes to fulfil this responsibility in Pakistan.
There are many routes, domestic and international
that we can follow in seeking relief and,
ultimately, justice. At the international level,
the Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary
Disappearances (WGEID) considers all cases that
are fairly well documented.
In order for a person to be considered
'disappeared', three conditions must be
fulfilled: the deprivation of liberty against the
will of the person concerned; involvement of
government officials, at least indirectly by
acquiescence; and the refusal to disclose the
fate and whereabouts of the person concerned.
The crime of disappearance is a continuous one
and therefore WGEID keeps cases under
consideration until the fate or whereabouts of
the disappeared person become known. The WGEID
does not establish criminal liability nor does it
declare state responsibility. Its primary goal is
to assist families in determining the fate and
whereabouts of their relatives who, having
disappeared, are placed outside the protection of
the law.
The WGEID endeavours to establish a channel of
communication between the complainants and the
governments concerned to ensure investigation
with the objective of clarifying the whereabouts
of disappeared persons.
While the WGEID is not a substitute for domestic
judicial remedy, nor does it declare criminal
responsibility, it can exert pressure on
governments to discontinue such heinous
practices. Eventually, national governments and
institutions, particularly the judiciary, bear
the responsibility of guaranteeing protection to
individuals.
Pakistan has been recently elected to the newly
formed Human Rights Council and should be obliged
to respond to allegations against it for having
violated human rights. The WGEID should make a
formal request to the government of Pakistan to
invite it to conduct a fact-finding mission.
The Declaration on the Protection of All Persons
from Enforced Disappearances obliges governments
to take "effective legislative, administrative,
judicial, or other measures to prevent and
terminate acts of enforced disappearance in any
territory under its jurisdiction." It stipulates
that all acts of enforced disappearances shall be
offences under criminal law and that there be no
impunity or amnesty for perpetrators of this
crime. It is important to note that the
Convention denies impunity for anyone engaged in
the crime of disappearances even if it is carried
out under official instructions.
Anyone involved in the crime of disappearances,
regardless of their position, bears an individual
responsibility. However, "mitigating
circumstances may be established for those who,
having participated in enforced disappearances,
are instrumental in bringing the victims forward
alive or in providing voluntary information which
would contribute to clarifying cases of enforced
disappearance". In addition, domestic legislation
should not place any limitation of time for
seeking redress in cases of disappearances.
In the coming months the HRCP will translate the
Convention text and post it on its website. Other
relevant information contained in the Convention
will also be disseminated to relevant
institutions and bodies. It will also be involved
in raising awareness on the issue. The media can
play a pivotal role in this campaign and they
ought to be commended for the positive
contribution they have made so far. Indeed a
number of working journalists have themselves
been victims of this abhorrent practice.
Incidents of involuntary disappearances have been
reported from all parts of the country -
Balochistan, Sindh, NWFP and Punjab. The HRCP has
received reports of over 600 incidents of
disappearances during the last three years. Our
sources include media reports, complaints from
victims' families, information received from
human rights defenders, lawyers, political
parties, trade unions and other individuals. The
HRCP has not been able to verify all the cases
brought to its notice, partly because of lack of
capacity but mostly because of the
inaccessibility of those close to the victims.
Witnesses, in a number of cases, do not come
forward or are threatened by offenders. An
important number of incidents have occurred in
places which remain inaccessible for activists in
carrying out their work satisfactorily. Verifying
cases of disappearances requires special skills.
The HRCP has so far been able to verify 170 cases
in the last two years but will continue to carry
out its obligation so that it can verify all
cases brought to its notice. It is our belief
that the figures represented here do not indicate
the full extent of the numbers of disappearances
taking place in the country.
There are several cases where victims have
requested confidentiality as they have been
released on assurances of maintaining their
silence. The actual number of disappearances
cannot therefore, be estimated but some patterns
do emerge from the available information.
Broadly speaking, there are five categories of
people who are picked up by plainclothes men in
Pakistan. A category of reports received by the
HRCP indicates that at least 50 journalists have
been picked up by members of intelligence
agencies during the last two years. They are
usually warned of dire consequences and released
after a few days. Their family members receive
phone calls threatening them and asking them to
remain silent. They are told that if they alert
the press, the victim will be dealt with harshly.
There is a constant turnover of journalists,
mostly from remoter areas of the country, who are
picked up, threatened and then released - a
revolving-door policy of involuntary
disappearances.
The second category is of a large number of
Baloch nationalists. A large number remains
missing but some have since been released. In the
third category are people from Sindh belonging to
groups opposing the government. Members of the
Jeay Sindh Mutahidda Mahaz party are among the
disappeared persons.
The fourth category is of people who are picked
up on suspicion of being terrorists. Among them
are people belonging to religious minorities and
women. Some returnees from Guantanamo Bay prison
disclosed that they were initially picked up by
Pakistan's intelligence agencies and kept in
illegal custody. They were interrogated in
Pakistan and later handed over to the US
authorities. They disclosed that money changed
hands at each transfer of illegal custody.
The last category comprises people who are picked
up by either the law enforcement or the
intelligence agencies for settling scores. They
act either on their own or at the behest of
well-placed individuals. In such situations, the
victim's family simply gives in to the demands
made on them.
The families of a number of victims of
disappearances have filed habeas corpus
petitions. Our courts dismiss many such petitions
following a statement by government agents that
the 'detainee' is not in their custody. This
practice is followed despite eyewitness accounts
of evidence indicating involvement of state
functionaries.
The issue of disappearances in Pakistan is
closely linked to the 'war on terror'. A number
of individuals who have vanished were ostensibly
picked up on suspicion of being affiliated with
militant groups. Moreover, the new methodology of
interrogation - by administrating injections -
has evolved during the war on terror.
Most shockingly, such grave human rights
violations are being carried out on a daily basis
while the international community looks away. The
HRCP's report on Balochistan, its annual report,
media reports, press releases and conferences on
this issue as well as protests by families of
victims have not received any response from the
government.
The law enforcement and more importantly the
intelligence agencies remain unaccountable. The
callous lack of concern by the government
strongly indicates that they tolerate, if not
approve, of this crime. A few recommendations put
forward by the HRCP include urging the judiciary
of Pakistan to act in an independent manner and
to effectively use its authority in recovering
all disappeared individuals. The HRCP also calls
upon WGEID to request for a mission to Pakistan
and demand that the government invites them.
Pakistan should sign and ratify the ICCPR and the
Convention for the Protection of All Persons from
Enforced Disappearance and parliamentarians to
urgently set up a Working Group to document cases
of disappearances and use their authority to
investigate these cases so that the perpetrators
are brought to justice. Finally, all human rights
organisations should work in partnership in
advancing the campaign against involuntary
disappearances.
This article is based on a lecture given by Asma
Jahangir, the chairperson of the Human Rights
Commission of Pakistan at a Workshop on Enforced
Disappearances held during September 30-October
1, 2006
____
[3]
counterpunch.org .
October 20 / 22, 2006
A NOBEL PEACE PRIZE FOR NEOLIBERALISM?: THE MYTH OF MICROLOANS
by Alexander Cockburn
The committee that gave Henry Kissinger the Nobel
peace prize has given it this year to Mohammed
Younus, the economist who put the word
"microloan" on the map with the Grameen Bank in
his native land of Bangladesh. That's progress of
a sort. But in terms of hot air, any sentences
linking "peace" with "Henry Kissinger" aren't
immeasurably more vacuous than the notion that
microloans can help--to use the language of the
Nobel Committee's citation "large population
groups find ways in which to break out of
poverty."
Throughout the late Eighties and Nineties, in the
verbal currency of first-world do-gooders,
"microloans" became one of those magically
fungible words, embedded in a thousand Foundation
and NGO annual reports, like "sustainable". What
could be more virtuous in terms of prudent
philanthropy than giving very small loans to very
poor women? Microloans breath healthful uplift,
as divorced from the sordid world of mega-loans
(though not, it turns out, mega interest rates),
as are micro-brews from Budweiser.
The trouble is that microloans don't make any
sort of a macro-difference. They have helped some
poor women, no doubt about it. But in their own
way they're a register of defeat. Back in the
early 1970s there were huge plans afoot to change
the entire relationship of the Third to the First
World, to speed Third World economies towards
decent living standards for the many, not just
the few. At the United Nations radical economists
were hard at work drafting plans for a New World
Economic Order. All that went out the window and
here are the caring classes thirty years later,
hailing microloans.
[. . .].
http://www.counterpunch.org/cockburn10202006.html
____
[4]
Indian Express
October 23, 2006
TRAPPED IN A BLIND ALLEY
by Syeda Hameed
Sachar Committee's findings on Muslims will soon
be made public. Don't be optimistic
I stood facing a crowd, mostly young boys. A
pair of bright eyes caught mine. "Your name?" I
asked, choking on the stench from the open drains
around the slum. "Saddam," the voice was
confident. He was wearing a dirt-streaked black
shirt bearing the words 'Lost Boys'. The scrawny,
malnourished, grimy bunch epitomised the epithet
on Saddam's shirt. Muslims of Malegaon, a
forgotten people of a forgotten town in
Maharashtra. A town of seven lakh people, 75 per
cent of them Muslim, which gained recognition in
September because of the bomb blasts.
For me, Malegaon captures the Indian Muslim
predicament. I have also walked in other Muslim
ghettos, the gallis, mohallas and chalis of
post-carnage Gujarat and resettlement slums such
as Bombay Hotel and Madani Colony in and around
Ahmedabad. While Malegaon is a snapshot of the
slow decline, Gujarat is the long shot of sudden
penury and sub-human existence of an erstwhile
prosperous people.
I recall the early post-Partition days in Delhi
where we relocated from our watan, Panipat. By
mutual agreement of the governments of India and
Pakistan, Panipat's Muslim majority was herded in
trucks and sent across the border, while Hindus
from Punjab were brought in. Thus I lost my
entire family. As a child, I had a nameless fear
that I was somehow responsible for the massacre
of Hindus and Sikhs. I had read Saadat Hasan
Manto's short stories. One such story was
'Mishtake' in which a Hindu was killed in
Amritsar and when his corpse was stripped, the
hoodlums realised their "mishtake".
I recall my early school days when slowly, in a
Gandhian setting, my fear was expunged. With my
peers I took bold strides into the future, proud
of being Indian, stirred by the ideas of
Panchsheel, Non-alignment, and Ganga-Jamni
tehzeeb. The optimism was best seen in the
mushaira at Delhi's Red Fort with the prime
minister as Mir-e-Mehfil. It was a euphoric era
for Muslims who were proud of wearing khadi and
celebrating Hindu festivals.
Today after five decades, even as a member of the
Planning Commission, I suddenly feel my Muslim
identity thrust into my face. Post-Babri,
post-9/11, the world seems to have split into two
camps: Muslim and non-Muslim. As I struggle with
my sudden painful consciousness of my Muslimness,
I think that my country, perhaps, is the only one
in the world which can turn the tide and negate
the theory of the clash of civilisations.
And then I look around me in Malegaon. In a town
of seven lakh, there is no health facility, 85
per cent of the population is crammed into slums.
There are open drains, flies and mosquitoes
abound, chikunguniya and dengue, detected and
undetected, take their toll. Children are
everywhere, but where are the schools? Most of
the older ones are dropouts who work on
powerlooms. A survey revealed that 33 per cent of
primary school students are hearing-impaired
because of the deafening din of the powerlooms.
In 1983 a high-powered panel for minorities was
appointed by Prime Minister Indira Gandhi and
headed by Dr Gopal Singh. Its report revealed a
gloomy picture of Muslim backwardness, especially
in education. In the same year, the prime
minister's 15-point programme was proclaimed. It
stated, "India of our dreams can survive only if
Muslims and other minorities can live in absolute
safety and confidence." The 15 points covered all
factors which resulted in backwardness, such as
communal riots, lack of representation in state
and Central services and nil access to the
20-point development programme. Under this
programme, 41 districts were identified for close
monitoring of economic development. Nothing
happened.
A committee of governors on the welfare of
minorities submitted its report in 1998,
lamenting the dismal implementation of the
15-point programme. It said: "The very purpose of
the 15-point programme seems to have been
defeated as a result of negligence on the part of
the authorities who have failed to implement the
programme."
In a few days, the Sachar Committee's findings
will be placed before the nation. It will be
interesting to see whether this induces a sense
of deja vu for those familiar with Gopal Singh's
findings more than 20 years ago. From early
reports, it seems that the meticulous work of Dr
Abusaleh Sherriff and Azra Razzak may actually
prove a slide.
Indian Muslims from being mishal-e-raah
(pathfinders) have, over the last 60 years,
become raah ke pathar (stones on the path). The
slide has been unrelenting, and neither the
community itself nor its leaders have made any
move to arrest this. Nor has the media. The
Gudiyas and Imranas have hogged headlines. Images
of veiled women appear with or without reason, to
titillate readers. An aggregate of the two
confirms stereotypes of "retrograde Islam". But
very few scribes and producers have bothered to
highlight the Malegaons. They are present in
every one of our 600 districts and yet they
remain invisible to all. How many people have
bothered to flag the conditions of the Muslim
artisans, the weavers of Benaras and Bhadohi, all
skilled workers, many of them women, who create
works of art in dark cottages, starved of
livelihoods?
But awareness is growing that the present state
of denial for 150 million is against the national
interest. This has resulted in the Approach Paper
to the 11th Five Year Plan containing specific
provisions for Muslims, the highest priority
being accorded to education, especially for the
Muslim girl child. We have a new programme: the
Prime Minister's 15-Point Programme 2006. The
Approach Paper demands its implementation.
The onus is equally on the Muslims. What are they
going to do to better their circumstances? Today
the only bright spot in a dismal picture is their
above-average female sex ratio. In pre-Islamic
Arabia, the girl child was buried at birth. One
of the first injunctions of Islam was respect for
the girl child's right to life. This lesson the
Muslims have learnt; but there are many other
lessons. The first word of the Quran is 'Igra'
which means 'read'. It seems that the time for
that has at last arrived.
The writer is a member of the Planning Commission
_____
[5]
BOOKS AS CRIME
by Subhash Gatade
'So you are the little woman who wrote the book
that made this great (American) civil war'
-Abraham Lincoln to Harriet Beecher Stowe,
author of Uncle Tom's Cabin
Bruno Fulgini, a non descript employee at the
French Parliament, would not have imagined in his
wildest dreams that his tedious and boring job at
the Parliament library, would lead him to
treasure hunt of another kind.
Today he finds himself metamorphosed into an
author and editor, thanks to the sudden discovery
of old files of the Paris police, which provided
details of its surveillance work done way back in
18 th century. In a report filed by AFP, Mr
Fulgini tells us that 'Beyond criminals and
political figures, there are files on writers and
artists. In some cases, they go far in their
indiscretions.'( The Statesman and The Hindustan
Times, New Delhi, 26 th September 2006).
An edited version of these old files, focussing
themselves on the writers of those times, has
recently come out and is making waves. The said
book 'Writers' Police' gives details of the way
in which greatest writers of late 18 th century
who were living in Paris at that time were kept
under surveillance.
Definitely even a layperson can understand that
the whole exercise was not part of wreaking of
vengeance by a frustrated writer who had joined
the police force as some senior officer. Neither
the police was keen to understand the impact of
the actual lifestyles of the writers on societal
mindset nor did it cared how a particular author
would help unleash a new hairstyle on the block.
In fact the Parisian police had a very specific agenda.
It was clear to these protectors of internal
security of a tottering regime that the renowned
literati then viz. Victor Hugo, Balzac or Charles
Dickens, might be writing fiction, but their
sharp focus on the hypocrisy of the aristocrats
or the livelihood issues of ordinary people is
adding to the growing turmoil in the country.
They knew very well that they might be writing
fiction for the masses but it is turning out to
be a sharp political edge that hit the right
target and is becoming a catalyst for change.
While the Parisian police was engaged in tracking
down the daily movements of the writers, its
present day counterparts in Maharashtra
especially from the Chandrapur-Nagpur region have
rather devised some 'easier' and 'shortcut
routes' to curb the flow of ideas.And for them it
is also immaterial whether the writer in question
was alive or dead.
The recent happenings at a book stall put in by a
well known publisher 'Daanish Books' at the
Deeksha Bhoomi of Dr Ambedkar in Nagpur are a
case in point.A random list of books which the
police perceived to be 'dangerous' and which it
duly confiscated from their book stall makes
intersting reading. According to a widely
circulated email :
"The books seized by the police for containing
dangerous , anti state material include books
like Marathi translation of the Thoughts of
Bhagat Singh, Ramdeen Ka Sapna by B.D. Sharma,
Jati Vyavastha- Bhartiya Kranti Ki Khasiyat by
Vaskar Nandy, Monarchy Vs Democracy by Baburam
Bhattarai, Nepali Samargaatha: Maowadi Janyuddha
ka Aankhon Dekha Vivaran (The Hindi edition of
eminent American Journalist Li Onestos
celebrated book Dispatches from the Peoples War
in Nepal, Translated by Anand Swarup Varma),
Daliton par Badhati Jyadatiya aur Unka Krantikari
Jawab, Chhapamar Yudhha by Che Guevara and books
on Marxism and Leninism and peoples struggles. "
One gathers that if by their sixth sense these
police personnel perceived that the writers
scribblings may lead or add to 'social anarchy',
they had no compunction in even confiscating such
books even though such books are freely available
in the market and have not been banned or
declared offensive by any state agencies.
The Chandrapur-Nagpur police did not remain
content with mere confiscation of legally
available books but saw to it that the owner of
the publication Ms Sunita was put to three days
of intense questioning by the Anti--Naxalite
Special Task Force. It is clear that if friends
around the world had not put in tireless efforts
and pressure would not have been exerted by
international community on the Maharashtra State
Government, Ms Sunita would been sent behind bars
under some draconian provisions of the 'Unlawful
Activities Prevention Act'.
As the email further adds, the whole incident
raises pertinent questions about .".. [o]ur
rights vis a vis the State, as an individual
citizen of a free country, as publishers and
finally as readers? "
Ofcourse as an aside it may be told that while
the Maharashtra Police considers selling of books
as 'crime' it has no qualms in protecting
perpetrators of communal elements or for that
matter quite a few 'dirty Harrys' in its midst.
It is the same Maharashtra police which preferred
to look the other way when RSS-Bajrang Dal
activists were killed in a bomb blast in Nanded
and a well knit conspiracy to instigate communal
riots was exposed.
Coming back to the 'Writers Police' , it is clear
to everyone how all those meticulous efforts put
in by the police to curtail the free flow of
ideas proved futile.And how French revolution of
those times emerged as a beacon of hope for
thinking people across the world. Rather it could
be said that all those efforts at surveillance
became a precursor to the storming of the
Bastille.
Can it then be said that India is on the verge of
similar transformatory changes and the
Maharashtra polices' efforts at 'criminalising
writing' are an indication that ruling elite of
our times is fast losing ground.
_____
[6]
www.opendemocracy.net
23 October 2006
A DEATH SENTENCE IN INDIA
by Shubh Mathur
The case of a Kashmiri Muslim convicted for
terrorism raises serious questions about the
operation of Indian democracy, says Shubh Mathur.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/conflict-india_pakistan/death_sentence_4020.jsp
_____
[7] KEEP THE UN SECULAR !
[The UN better keep safe distance from the
peddlers of faith. The 'Holy See' <aka Vatican or
catholic church> which has for decades enjoyed a
special state like status inside the UN has used
every occasion to oppose family panning,
contraception, women's rights to control their
own sexuality. What ever credibility remains of
the UN will go down the drain if religion speak
further enters its corridors in an
institutionalised manner; The UN institution
already faces huge pressures from the powers that
be from nation states and from the corporate
world, getting religion inside is the straight
path for trouble. The authors of the article
below represent this dangerous strand of
thinking, where the world seems incomplete till
you paint everyone with some religion or the
other. We hope that a future UN Secretary General
will have the courage to do official review of
the Holy See's status at the UN and give them a
boot. Treating religions as countries is a mad
idea, and can only add fuel to the already
charged atmosphere of these times. An unduly
large number of faith based NGO's enjoy observer
status at the UN, and are having a ball in the
booming inter-faith market. Keep the UN secular !
-- Harsh Kapoor for SACW.]
o o o
International Herald Tribune
October 23, 2006
YOU GOTTA HAVE FAITH AT THE UN
by Azza Karam and Matthew Weiner
NEW YORK The United Nations lacks a comprehensive
strategy for understanding and engaging religion.
[. . .].
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/10/23/opinion/edweiner.php
_____
[8] [ How about secular schooling ? ]
The Sunday Times
October 22, 2006
LET US PRAY WE HAVE AN END TO FAITH SCHOOLS
by Minette Marrin
An alarming image dominated the front pages of
Friday's newspapers. It was a photograph of a
slim British woman shrouded in black except for a
flash of her skilfully painted eyes, and naked
toes. She was Aishah Azmi, the young Muslim
teaching assistant in the now notorious veil
dispute, on the day she won £1,100 for her hurt
feelings. She might have been one of the
emblematic figures of a medieval morality play,
medieval as she looks. In contemporary Britain,
she represents cultural chaos.
I'm not only thinking of the disjunction between
the total veiling of extreme Islamic modesty, and
the provocation of her eyes and toes. And I'm not
questioning the woman's freedom in a free country
to wear what she chooses, any more than I
question other people's freedom to say how
offensive they find it or their freedom to
question her motives. What concerns me is her
role as a teacher, and with faith schools in
general.
Mrs Azmi was demanding the right as a Muslim to
be fully veiled while working as an assistant in
a Church of England junior school. One can hardly
blame her, given the way that for decades
multicultural orthodoxy has encouraged minorities
to emphasise their cultural differences. All the
same, it is quite absurd that a Muslim has been
confidently attempting to impose a controversial
Islamic convention in a Christian state school.
It's true that Mrs Azmi has just lost her
discrimination case - mainstream culture has not
yet entirely lost its nerve - but her lawyers are
ready to take it to the European Court of Justice.
What Mrs Azmi stands for, so to speak, is what
many people fear about Muslims, no matter how
tolerant they would like to feel. A woman
shrouded in veils represents deliberate cultural
separation, voluntary apartheid, a
pre-Enlightenment religion and a view of
relations between the sexes that the mainstream
culture in this country can no longer accept and
rejects in law. Such a woman is teaching and
setting an example to young children in a
Christian school. Her image points up with
extreme urgency the problem of faith schools.
State-funded faith schools never used to be much
of a problem, if only because people in this
country tend to wear their faith lightly. Even
the education department's definition of a
religious school is faith-lite; it is merely a
school with a religious character. Even those who
would much prefer a secular system, as I would,
still feel they owe a lot to the great ethical
and aesthetic traditions of faith schools. And
there's some evidence that religious state
schools are better than others, both academically
and pastorally.
But faith schools are a British anomaly. It can't
be right that in a state education system there
are some schools that are not open to everyone;
that is divisive. However, the real reason for
alarm now is the growth of Muslim schools.
There are more than 100 private Muslim schools
and eight state-funded Muslim schools. Yet as
David Bell, the then chief inspector of schools,
said in January last year, the growth of Muslim
faith schools runs the risk of undermining the
coherence of British society. He worried that
"many young people were being educated with
little appreciation of their wider
responsibilities and obligations to British
society". We "must not allow our recognition of
diversity to become apathy in the face of any
challenge to our coherence as a nation", he added.
That would strike most people as blindingly
obvious, although it must have taken considerable
courage to say it before the impact of the July
bombs changed everything. Now it seems ministers
are so aware of the dangers of sleepwalking to
apartheid, in Trevor Phillips's phrase, that they
can hardly stop talking about it. Yet what was
Tony Blair's response last year, after the July
bombings, to David Bell's cautious advice? It was
not to put an end to new faith schools of any
kind, as an anomaly which was no longer
tolerable: it was to expand the numbers hugely.
He decided the government would offer voluntary
aided status to 120-150 independent Muslim
schools, bringing them in line with the existing
6,850 Christian and Jewish schools - in other
words it will create masses of Muslim state
schools. The heart sinks. How, in the name of
integration, familiarity and trust, can it
possibly be a good idea to have lots of state
schools that are exclusively Muslim, with Muslim
teachers, Muslim traditions and intense Islamic
education?
Presumably realising that this might segregate
Muslims more than ever, Alan Johnson announced
that all new faith schools (for which read
Muslim) would have to make a quarter of their
places available to those outside their faith. At
least they will sort of have to, by agreement or
on demand. Then, almost immediately, Johnson
hinted that all faith schools would have to do
the same - to be fair to new Muslim schools.
Misguided tinkering leads to more misguided
tinkering, and to glaring new injustices. It is
plainly unjust to permit faith schools, and then
exclude some of the children of the faithful, so
as to shoehorn in some reluctant unbelievers.
Quota is a dirty word. Jews and Christians will
resent this just as much as Muslims. Do ministers
seriously think they could make this work? No,
clearly they don't, because in an amendment to
the education bill before parliament, they are
passing the buck for dealing with it to education
authorities, empowering them to impose the 25%
quota where necessary on new faith schools.
Nice one. Education authorities will also be
responsible for urging schools to get together,
arrange "twinning", exchange teachers and
"promote community cohesion" - in other words for
endless fuss, bother, travel and jobsworthy
bureaucracy rather than education proper.
There is an alternative to all this meddling. It
should be possible to agree that for various
reasons, many of which are politically
embarrassing, the time of state-funded faith
schools is past. Faith is no better a criterion
for attending or running a state school than
race. No new ones should be created; the old ones
should gradually lose their religious identity as
many have done already and as they probably will
do naturally. Religious indoctrination and
observance don't belong in state schools, in a
multifaith society, not any more.
____
[9]
Toronto Star
Oct. 14, 2006
INDIAN WOMEN MARCH TO FIGHT RAMPANT ATTACKS
Harassment and assaults prompt late-night protest
by Palash Kumar
Reuters News Agency
NEW DELHI-Late at night, a posse of young Indian
women walk down a dark city street wearing
spaghetti-strap tops and body-hugging outfits,
defying the stares of onlookers in a country
where a woman is raped every 29 minutes.
Around two dozen women are taking part in the
demonstration to highlight the dangers for women
walking on Indian streets by heeding organizers
instructions to wear "something they always
wanted to (wear) but could not" during their
late-night protest.
"If I was not in a group, God only knows what
would have happened," Amrita Nandy Joshi, a
31-year-old Oxford graduate says as the group
makes its way down a dimly-lit New Delhi road
after 10 p.m., a walk normally done only with a
male escort, if at all.
"We call this direct public intervention against
street sexual harassment," says Jasmeen Patheja,
a gutsy 26-year-old photographer working in the
southern IT hub of Bangalore who brought the
novel protest to the capital.
"I was fed up with being teased every day. One
day I reached a threshold and decided to take
action," she says.
Patheja formed Blank Noise, a movement that
rallies for safer streets for Indian women.
Since setting up Blank Noise about three years
ago, Patheja has organized "night actions" in
four other cities, inviting women through her
blog (http://www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com)
to meet at a designated place at night and then
set out on a walk.
Along the route, they spray messages on the road
that describe the abuse that many young Indian
women encounter daily in the hope that they will
be read the next morning by pedestrians and
create awareness.
"Mansi, 14, 4.45 p.m. - A stranger whispered
continuously into my ear, asking me to sleep with
him."
"Pinki, 11, 8 a.m. - A hand touch my behind. I was scared."
"Mohini, 19, 9 a.m. - A stranger rubbed his private parts against me."
Patheja says that while the names had been
changed, the incidents were real and reported by
people through her blog.
According to the latest official figures, a woman
is raped every half-hour in India. Last year,
there were more than 18,000 rapes in the country,
and these are only the reported cases.
Activists suspect the number is much higher but
women are afraid to report attacks.
The actual figure (for rapes last year) would be
around 30,000. The situation is even worse in the
rural and semi-urban areas where police refuse to
lodge cases, says Aparna Bhat, a lawyer running a
government Rape Crisis programme.
New Delhi is one of India's most dangerous cities
for women, according to the figures. Last year,
more than 30 per cent of the rape cases reported
in India's 35 major cities took place in New
Delhi.
Less violent forms of sexual harassment - verbal
taunts, groping at women in anonymous crowded
markets or on public transport - occur all the
time.
Most of the women taking part in the protest say
they had repeatedly been at the receiving end of
what the Indian media often refers to as
"Eve-teasing," a term the female protesters say
fails to describe the trauma suffered by the
female victims.
"One day I was walking with a friend near my
college in the evening when a man on a scooter
stopped near us," says Joshi.
"We turned into another street but he chased us.
He finally managed to grab us and groped us all
over before running away. He left us numb," she
says.
Saumya Agarwal, in her early 20s, says her experience traumatized her for days.
"I was walking back from college when this man
came next to me, unzipped his trousers and
started masturbating," she says. "He kept walking
with me and masturbating. I was scared and I
randomly kept calling all the numbers on my
mobile."
Patheja knows her short night walk is merely
symbolic because of poor policing in India's main
cities and chauvinistic attitudes that run deep
through conservative Indian society and which,
some say, are reinforced by popular culture.
But she is unfazed.
"Slowly things will change," she said. "I
remember when we started off in 2003, there was
this street railing which had become a sort of a
`lech point' where men would hang out and make
lewd comments at women passing by.
"One day we took over the railing. A bunch of us
girls just took over the railing and stood there
for hours, chatting and having fun," she says,
referring to one of the first Blank Noise
protests in Bangalore.
The southern city is home to thousands of young
women away from home for the first time to work
in its booming technology industries.
As part of her campaign, Patheja is collecting
clothes worn by women on occasions when they were
harassed.
"We are collecting 1,000 such clothes and we will
exhibit them at public places with the slogan: `I
didn't ask for it.'"
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
More information about the Sacw
mailing list