SACW | Aug 22-23, 2008 / Kashmir Freedom / Escalation in Sri Lanka / Women's Rights Freedom of Expression / Exclucivism
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Fri Aug 22 21:24:55 CDT 2008
South Asia Citizens Wire | August 22-23, 2008 | Dispatch No. 2555 -
Year 10 running
[1] Sri Lanka:
(i) Press Release - 22 August 2008, National Peace Council of Sri
Lanka
(ii) Tens of thousands at risk in Sri Lanka as fighting
escalates (Amnesty International)
[2] Land and freedom in India Administered Kashmir (Arundhati Roy)
[3] Pakistani Women Assert Rights - Searching for Freedom, Chained by
the Law (Mary Jordan)
[4] Afghan Women Painters On Show (Ursula Sautter)
[5] India - Freedom of Expression : M F Hussan Excluded from Indian
Art Summit (Letter from Sahmat)
[6] India: Lessons from Kalawati (MSS Pandian)
[7] Book review: Kannada Exclusivism - Latecomer to the Game (M S
Prabhakara)
[8] UK: Retrograde, Muslim Council of Britain drops support for a
women friendly marriage contract (Ed Husain)
[9] Tibet:
- Chinese Voices On Tibet - a letter to the Dalai Lama, and comments
from an outspoken critic in Beijing
- Tibetan Questions (Tsering Shakya)
______
[1] Sri Lanka:
(i)
www.peace-srilanka.org
National Peace Council of Sri Lanka
22.08.08
Media Release
POLITICAL AGENDA OF THE CENTRE OR THE DEMOCRATIC REQUIREMENT OF POWER
SHARING?
The provincial council elections for the Sabaragamuwa and North
Central provinces scheduled for August 23 have implications that go
beyond ordinary politics and the contest for political dominance. The
Provincial Council system was established in 1987 to provide the
basis of a solution to the ethnic conflict based on the devolution of
power. This has been reiterated by the present government which had
pledged to fully implement the system to include the Northern and
Eastern provinces. The National Peace Council regrets that the
conduct with regard to the two Provincial Councils for the
Sabaragamuwa and North Central provinces indicates that the political
agenda of the centre, and power politics, rather than the democratic
requirements of the provinces have been uppermost. Both of these
Provincial Councils were prematurely dissolved by the government, and
the election campaign was undermined by violence in which politicians
from the centre have been implicated.
There was a high level of violence and intimidation that took place
in the course of the election campaign, especially in the final days
of the campaign. As the criteria for a free and fair election
includes the pre-election period this means a flawed election is
about to take place on Saturday. Due to the upsurge in violence, and
inability on the part of the Police alone to address the situation,
the Election Commissioner has called on the army to be deployed the
two provinces to ensure that normalcy is restored during the elections.
We trust that the government and the security forces will act with
integrity to ensure that the basic foundation of our democracy, which
is the people's right to vote without fear and intimidation, is
protected.
We also appeal to the opposition parties not to take the law into
their own hands on the grounds that the government parties have been
engaging in violence with impunity, which would mean the law of the
jungle. We call upon the Elections Commissioner to do his statutory
duty and implement his promise to annul polling booths where there
has been violence, intimidation or spiriting away of ballot boxes or
stuffing them. As a longer term measure to ensure good governance in
the country, we demand the implementation of the 17th Amendment to
the Constitution by the government, which among others establish
independent Elections and Police Commissions.
o o o
(ii)
TENS OF THOUSANDS AT RISK IN SRI LANKA AS FIGHTING ESCALATES
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news-and-updates/news/tens-of-thousands-at-
risk-in-sri-lanka-as-fighting-escalates-20080819
______
[2]
The Guardian,
August 22 2008
LAND AND FREEDOM
Kashmir is in crisis: the region's Muslims are mounting huge non-
violent protests against the Indian government's rule. But, asks
Arundhati Roy, what would independence for the territory mean for its
people?
by Arundhati Roy
A Kashmiri Muslim shows a victory sign during a march in Srinagar,
India. Photograph: Dar Yasin/AP
For the past 60 days or so, since about the end of June, the people
of Kashmir have been free. Free in the most profound sense. They have
shrugged off the terror of living their lives in the gun-sights of
half a million heavily armed soldiers, in the most densely
militarised zone in the world.
After 18 years of administering a military occupation, the Indian
government's worst nightmare has come true. Having declared that the
militant movement has been crushed, it is now faced with a non-
violent mass protest, but not the kind it knows how to manage. This
one is nourished by people's memory of years of repression in which
tens of thousands have been killed, thousands have been
"disappeared", hundreds of thousands tortured, injured, and
humiliated. That kind of rage, once it finds utterance, cannot easily
be tamed, rebottled and sent back to where it came from.
A sudden twist of fate, an ill-conceived move over the transfer of
100 acres of state forest land to the Amarnath Shrine Board (which
manages the annual Hindu pilgrimage to a cave deep in the Kashmir
Himalayas) suddenly became the equivalent of tossing a lit match into
a barrel of petrol. Until 1989 the Amarnath pilgrimage used to
attract about 20,000 people who travelled to the Amarnath cave over a
period of about two weeks. In 1990, when the overtly Islamist
militant uprising in the valley coincided with the spread of virulent
Hindu nationalism (Hindutva) in the Indian plains, the number of
pilgrims began to increase exponentially. By 2008 more than 500,000
pilgrims visited the Amarnath cave, in large groups, their passage
often sponsored by Indian business houses. To many people in the
valley this dramatic increase in numbers was seen as an aggressive
political statement by an increasingly Hindu-fundamentalist Indian
state. Rightly or wrongly, the land transfer was viewed as the thin
edge of the wedge. It triggered an apprehension that it was the
beginning of an elaborate plan to build Israeli-style settlements,
and change the demography of the valley.
Days of massive protest forced the valley to shut down completely.
Within hours the protests spread from the cities to villages. Young
stone pelters took to the streets and faced armed police who fired
straight at them, killing several. For people as well as the
government, it resurrected memories of the uprising in the early 90s.
Throughout the weeks of protest, hartal (strikes) and police firing,
while the Hindutva publicity machine charged Kashmiris with
committing every kind of communal excess, the 500,000 Amarnath
pilgrims completed their pilgrimage, not just unhurt, but touched by
the hospitality they had been shown by local people.
Eventually, taken completely by surprise at the ferocity of the
response, the government revoked the land transfer. But by then the
land-transfer had become what Syed Ali Shah Geelani, the most senior
and also the most overtly Islamist separatist leader, called a "non-
issue".
Massive protests against the revocation erupted in Jammu. There, too,
the issue snowballed into something much bigger. Hindus began to
raise issues of neglect and discrimination by the Indian state. (For
some odd reason they blamed Kashmiris for that neglect.) The protests
led to the blockading of the Jammu-Srinagar highway, the only
functional road-link between Kashmir and India. Truckloads of
perishable fresh fruit and valley produce began to rot.
The blockade demonstrated in no uncertain terms to people in Kashmir
that they lived on sufferance, and that if they didn't behave
themselves they could be put under siege, starved, deprived of
essential commodities and medical supplies.
To expect matters to end there was of course absurd. Hadn't anybody
noticed that in Kashmir even minor protests about civic issues like
water and electricity inevitably turned into demands for azadi,
freedom? To threaten them with mass starvation amounted to committing
political suicide.
Not surprisingly, the voice that the government of India has tried so
hard to silence in Kashmir has massed into a deafening roar. Raised
in a playground of army camps, checkpoints, and bunkers, with screams
from torture chambers for a soundtrack, the young generation has
suddenly discovered the power of mass protest, and above all, the
dignity of being able to straighten their shoulders and speak for
themselves, represent themselves. For them it is nothing short of an
epiphany. Not even the fear of death seems to hold them back. And
once that fear has gone, of what use is the largest or second largest
army in the world?
There have been mass rallies in the past, but none in recent memory
that have been so sustained and widespread. The mainstream political
parties of Kashmir - National Conference and People's Democratic
party - appear dutifully for debates in New Delhi's TV studios, but
can't muster the courage to appear on the streets of Kashmir. The
armed militants who, through the worst years of repression were seen
as the only ones carrying the torch of azadi forward, if they are
around at all, seem content to take a back seat and let people do the
fighting for a change.
The separatist leaders who do appear and speak at the rallies are not
leaders so much as followers, being guided by the phenomenal
spontaneous energy of a caged, enraged people that has exploded on
Kashmir's streets. Day after day, hundreds of thousands of people
swarm around places that hold terrible memories for them. They
demolish bunkers, break through cordons of concertina wire and stare
straight down the barrels of soldiers' machine guns, saying what very
few in India want to hear. Hum Kya Chahtey? Azadi! (We want freedom.)
And, it has to be said, in equal numbers and with equal intensity:
Jeevey jeevey Pakistan. (Long live Pakistan.)
That sound reverberates through the valley like the drumbeat of
steady rain on a tin roof, like the roll of thunder during an
electric storm.
On August 15, India's independence day, Lal Chowk, the nerve centre
of Srinagar, was taken over by thousands of people who hoisted the
Pakistani flag and wished each other "happy belated independence
day" (Pakistan celebrates independence on August 14) and "happy
slavery day". Humour obviously, has survived India's many torture
centres and Abu Ghraibs in Kashmir.
On August 16 more than 300,000 people marched to Pampore, to the
village of the Hurriyat leader, Sheikh Abdul Aziz, who was shot down
in cold blood five days earlier.
On the night of August 17 the police sealed the city. Streets were
barricaded, thousands of armed police manned the barriers. The roads
leading into Srinagar were blocked. On the morning of August 18,
people began pouring into Srinagar from villages and towns across the
valley. In trucks, tempos, jeeps, buses and on foot. Once again,
barriers were broken and people reclaimed their city. The police were
faced with a choice of either stepping aside or executing a massacre.
They stepped aside. Not a single bullet was fired.
The city floated on a sea of smiles. There was ecstasy in the air.
Everyone had a banner; houseboat owners, traders, students, lawyers,
doctors. One said: "We are all prisoners, set us free." Another said:
"Democracy without freedom is demon-crazy." Demon-crazy. That was a
good one. Perhaps he was referring to the insanity that permits the
world's largest democracy to administer the world's largest military
occupation and continue to call itself a democracy.
There was a green flag on every lamp post, every roof, every bus stop
and on the top of chinar trees. A big one fluttered outside the All
India Radio building. Road signs were painted over. Rawalpindi they
said. Or simply Pakistan. It would be a mistake to assume that the
public expression of affection for Pakistan automatically translates
into a desire to accede to Pakistan. Some of it has to do with
gratitude for the support - cynical or otherwise - for what Kashmiris
see as their freedom struggle, and the Indian state sees as a
terrorist campaign. It also has to do with mischief. With saying and
doing what galls India most of all. (It's easy to scoff at the idea
of a "freedom struggle" that wishes to distance itself from a country
that is supposed to be a democracy and align itself with another that
has, for the most part been ruled by military dictators. A country
whose army has committed genocide in what is now Bangladesh. A
country that is even now being torn apart by its own ethnic war.
These are important questions, but right now perhaps it's more useful
to wonder what this so-called democracy did in Kashmir to make people
hate it so?)
Everywhere there were Pakistani flags, everywhere the cry Pakistan se
rishta kya? La illaha illallah. (What is our bond with Pakistan?
There is no god but Allah.) Azadi ka matlab kya? La illaha illallah.
(What does freedom mean? There is no god but Allah.)
For somebody like myself, who is not Muslim, that interpretation of
freedom is hard - if not impossible - to understand. I asked a young
woman whether freedom for Kashmir would not mean less freedom for
her, as a woman. She shrugged and said "What kind of freedom do we
have now? The freedom to be raped by Indian soldiers?" Her reply
silenced me.
Surrounded by a sea of green flags, it was impossible to doubt or
ignore the deeply Islamic fervour of the uprising taking place around
me. It was equally impossible to label it a vicious, terrorist jihad.
For Kashmiris it was a catharsis. A historical moment in a long and
complicated struggle for freedom with all the imperfections,
cruelties and confusions that freedom struggles have. This one cannot
by any means call itself pristine, and will always be stigmatised by,
and will some day, I hope, have to account for, among other things,
the brutal killings of Kashmiri Pandits in the early years of the
uprising, culminating in the exodus of almost the entire Hindu
community from the Kashmir valley.
As the crowd continued to swell I listened carefully to the slogans,
because rhetoric often holds the key to all kinds of understanding.
There were plenty of insults and humiliation for India: Ay jabiron ay
zalimon, Kashmir hamara chhod do (Oh oppressors, Oh wicked ones, Get
out of our Kashmir.) The slogan that cut through me like a knife and
clean broke my heart was this one: Nanga bhookha Hindustan, jaan se
pyaara Pakistan. (Naked, starving India, More precious than life
itself - Pakistan.)
Why was it so galling, so painful to listen to this? I tried to work
it out and settled on three reasons. First, because we all know that
the first part of the slogan is the embarrassing and unadorned truth
about India, the emerging superpower. Second, because all Indians who
are not nanga or bhooka are and have been complicit in complex and
historical ways with the elaborate cultural and economic systems that
make Indian society so cruel, so vulgarly unequal. And third, because
it was painful to listen to people who have suffered so much
themselves mock others who suffer, in different ways, but no less
intensely, under the same oppressor. In that slogan I saw the seeds
of how easily victims can become perpetrators.
Syed Ali Shah Geelani began his address with a recitation from the
Qur'an. He then said what he has said before, on hundreds of
occasions. The only way for the struggle to succeed, he said, was to
turn to the Qur'an for guidance. He said Islam would guide the
struggle and that it was a complete social and moral code that would
govern the people of a free Kashmir. He said Pakistan had been
created as the home of Islam, and that that goal should never be
subverted. He said just as Pakistan belonged to Kashmir, Kashmir
belonged to Pakistan. He said minority communities would have full
rights and their places of worship would be safe. Each point he made
was applauded.
I imagined myself standing in the heart of a Hindu nationalist rally
being addressed by the Bharatiya Janata party's (BJP) LK Advani.
Replace the word Islam with the word Hindutva, replace the word
Pakistan with Hindustan, replace the green flags with saffron ones
and we would have the BJP's nightmare vision of an ideal India.
Is that what we should accept as our future? Monolithic religious
states handing down a complete social and moral code, "a complete way
of life"? Millions of us in India reject the Hindutva project. Our
rejection springs from love, from passion, from a kind of idealism,
from having enormous emotional stakes in the society in which we
live. What our neighbours do, how they choose to handle their affairs
does not affect our argument, it only strengthens it.
Arguments that spring from love are also fraught with danger. It is
for the people of Kashmir to agree or disagree with the Islamist
project (which is as contested, in equally complex ways, all over the
world by Muslims, as Hindutva is contested by Hindus). Perhaps now
that the threat of violence has receded and there is some space in
which to debate views and air ideas, it is time for those who are
part of the struggle to outline a vision for what kind of society
they are fighting for. Perhaps it is time to offer people something
more than martyrs, slogans and vague generalisations. Those who wish
to turn to the Qur'an for guidance will no doubt find guidance there.
But what of those who do not wish to do that, or for whom the Qur'an
does not make place? Do the Hindus of Jammu and other minorities also
have the right to self-determination? Will the hundreds of thousands
of Kashmiri Pandits living in exile, many of them in terrible
poverty, have the right to return? Will they be paid reparations for
the terrible losses they have suffered? Or will a free Kashmir do to
its minorities what India has done to Kashmiris for 61 years? What
will happen to homosexuals and adulterers and blasphemers? What of
thieves and lafangas and writers who do not agree with the "complete
social and moral code"? Will we be put to death as we are in Saudi
Arabia? Will the cycle of death, repression and bloodshed continue?
History offers many models for Kashmir's thinkers and intellectuals
and politicians to study. What will the Kashmir of their dreams look
like? Algeria? Iran? South Africa? Switzerland? Pakistan?
At a crucial time like this, few things are more important than
dreams. A lazy utopia and a flawed sense of justice will have
consequences that do not bear thinking about. This is not the time
for intellectual sloth or a reluctance to assess a situation clearly
and honestly.
Already the spectre of partition has reared its head. Hindutva
networks are alive with rumours about Hindus in the valley being
attacked and forced to flee. In response, phone calls from Jammu
reported that an armed Hindu militia was threatening a massacre and
that Muslims from the two Hindu majority districts were preparing to
flee. Memories of the bloodbath that ensued and claimed the lives of
more than a million people when India and Pakistan were partitioned
have come flooding back. That nightmare will haunt all of us forever.
However, none of these fears of what the future holds can justify the
continued military occupation of a nation and a people. No more than
the old colonial argument about how the natives were not ready for
freedom justified the colonial project.
Of course there are many ways for the Indian state to continue to
hold on to Kashmir. It could do what it does best. Wait. And hope the
people's energy will dissipate in the absence of a concrete plan. It
could try and fracture the fragile coalition that is emerging. It
could extinguish this non-violent uprising and re-invite armed
militancy. It could increase the number of troops from half a million
to a whole million. A few strategic massacres, a couple of targeted
assassinations, some disappearances and a massive round of arrests
should do the trick for a few more years.
The unimaginable sums of public money that are needed to keep the
military occupation of Kashmir going is money that ought by right to
be spent on schools and hospitals and food for an impoverished,
malnutritioned population in India. What kind of government can
possibly believe that it has the right to spend it on more weapons,
more concertina wire and more prisons in Kashmir?
The Indian military occupation of Kashmir makes monsters of us all.
It allows Hindu chauvinists to target and victimise Muslims in India
by holding them hostage to the freedom struggle being waged by
Muslims in Kashmir.
India needs azadi from Kashmir just as much as - if not more than -
Kashmir needs azadi from India.
· Arundhati Roy, 2008. A longer version of this article will be
available tomorrow at outlookindia.com.
______
[3]
washingtonpost.com
SEARCHING FOR FREEDOM, CHAINED BY THE LAW
As Pakistani Women Assert Rights, Families Use Legal Means to Get
Revenge
by Mary Jordan
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, August 21, 2008; Page A01
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan -- Naheed Arshad, her bright green head scarf
framing dull, brown eyes, had just endured nine months in prison on a
charge of adultery.
"My husband accused me of having an affair," said Arshad, 35, her
hand covering her mouth as she spoke quietly of the serious criminal
charge that has disgraced her.
After a judge acquitted her in May, she joined thousands of other
women living in a growing network of government and private shelters.
She spends her days cooking, sewing and sad; despite the judge's
verdict, the shame of the charge has narrowed her already-limited
options in life.
It is rare for a Pakistani woman accused of having illicit sex to
talk publicly or allow herself to be photographed. But Arshad spoke
freely about once taboo subjects, saying repeatedly, "I have done
nothing wrong."
"Why do I suffer?" Arshad asked. "It is just not fair."
Increasing numbers of Pakistani women are becoming aware of gender
inequities, a trend emerging in many other parts of the developing
world as the communications revolution brings cellphones, satellite
television and the Internet to the poorest villages. In this South
Asian country of 167 million, a key issue is laws and customs
governing sexual conduct that sometimes date back centuries.
"More women are aware of their rights," said Naeem Mirza, program
director for the Aurat Foundation, a leading women's rights
organization. As more women join the workforce and assert their
independence, he said, there is growing conflict between men and women.
The friction is especially evident in the use of laws that
criminalize sex outside marriage. Husbands angry at wives who want a
divorce, and parents angry at daughters who reject their choice of a
husband, are yearly filing hundreds of criminal complaints of illegal
sexual behavior, according to legal aid lawyers.
"Husbands and brothers are using these laws to take revenge on women"
who are not behaving as they want, said Noor Alam Khan, a lawyer who
represents prisoners in Peshawar in northwest Pakistan. "Maybe one in
100 charges are true," he said.
A recent study by the Aurat Foundation found that about three times a
day somewhere in Pakistan, relatives file complaints with police
alleging that a daughter or wife has been "abducted with the intent
of illicit sexual relations," one of the various laws governing
sexual behavior. Mirza said that in many of these cases, the woman in
question has left the house on her own free will.
Men are also arrested on illicit sex charges, but human rights
lawyers say that the laws' impact is typically harder on women. The
stigma attached to having an affair is far greater for a woman, and
even an accusation of such behavior can mark her for life.
The aim of these charges is often not a successful prosecution, said
Hina Jilani, one of the nation's leading female lawyers and founder
of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. Rather, she said, "it's
to harass and intimidate women."
"Even if a woman is finally acquitted," Mirza said, "the price she
pays through social retribution and honor is heavy."
'I Should Have Choices'
Farazana Zahir, a 20-year-old woman from Lahore, said she was forced
to marry her cousin -- a common traditional practice -- and now wants
a divorce.
"I strongly believe I should have choices -- of whom I marry, how I
spend my time," she said in an interview.
After seeing a television ad placed by a local female legislator
offering help to women, she called the woman's office and was put in
touch with legal aid attorneys.
Zahir needed a lawyer because her family told police she was
"abducted" for sex by a man she met at a family party.
Zahir calls the charge a sham, retribution for her asking for a
divorce, something women are traditionally not supposed to demand.
Men are allowed four wives in Pakistan, but women can have only one
husband. Getting a divorce is harder for women. A wife must petition
the court while a husband can end his marriage by simply saying "I
divorce thee" three times.
"If I were a boy, this wouldn't be happening," Zahir said, an olive-
colored head scarf pulled over her young, determined face. "But I am
going to divorce."
As she sat in the busy Lahore law offices of Jilani and her sister,
Asma Jahangir, two dozen other women waited in the corridor. Many
were seeking divorces; others were fighting criminal cases they said
arose from conflicts with husbands or parents. Some were older and
wore black veils; most were young and wore head scarves in bright
oranges, reds or floral patterns.
Women interviewed there said men complain they are being influenced
by promiscuous Western ideas. But the women say they are hardly
looking for the lifestyle depicted in Hollywood movies. One young
woman mentioned "Sex and the City" -- available on the black market
here -- with obvious horror.
"Why can't I talk to a boy?" asked Rashida Khan, 17, a student
interviewed in Islamabad. "Why are my brothers allowed outside in the
evenings and I am not? All I want is more freedom."
Traditional Laws
The Muslim clerics and conservative politicians who most vocally
support Pakistan's laws governing sexual morality argue that they are
protecting traditions and guarding against what they call the "free
sex" culture of unwed mothers and widespread divorce in the United
States, Britain and other countries.
Maulana Rahat Hussain, a senator in the Pakistani Parliament from the
religious party Jamiat e Ulema e Islam, said in an interview that the
laws criminalizing extramarital sex also defend God's will: "Islam
has its special laws about adultery and extramarital sex, and nobody
has the authority to bring any sort of change in those laws."
When asked if the laws came down harder on women than men, the
senator said, "Many good laws can be misused."
He dismissed critics of the laws as "nonprofits and Westernized women
working for so-called women rights." These people, he said, were
motivated by "getting funds from international donors and invitations
for free foreign trips."
Nazir Afzal, a top British legal expert on "honor" crimes in which
men have killed daughters and sisters for flirting or dating, said it
is not only older people who believe that women must hold to a
different standard in sexual conduct. He said a young man had
explained his reasoning this way: "A man is like a piece of gold and
woman a piece of silk. If you drop gold into the mud you can polish
it clean, but if you drop silk into mud, it's stained forever."
In 1979, military dictator Gen. Mohammed Zia ul-Haq enacted the
Hudood Ordinance, a set of laws based on a strict interpretation of
the Koran that included laws on rape, adultery and sex before
marriage. By 2006, under pressure from human and women's rights
groups at home and abroad, Parliament amended the laws. The most
notable change was that women alleging rape were no longer required
to provide four male witnesses, a virtually impossible task.
But at the same time, conservative religious factions succeeded in
inserting into the penal code laws against "fornication," including
the "abductions for sex" charge.
"These laws opened up abuses against women that we were trying to
close," said Jilani, who has argued cases before Pakistan's Supreme
Court.
Confined
In a busy, noisy neighborhood of Rawalpindi, Arshad, the woman jailed
for adultery, now lives in a shelter with guards out front and bars
on the doors and windows.
Judges send women here after their court proceedings to make sure
they have a place to live that keeps them safe from enraged husbands
or brothers. But the women can be virtual prisoners, forbidden to go
out.
More than 1,000 women live in these provincial government-run
shelters, many of which have opened in the past two years.
Last year, more than 3,000 women sought help at a separate network of
facilities, the national government's Benazir Bhutto Women Centers,
recently renamed after the late female former prime minister who was
assassinated in this city in December. In 2005, there were 10 of
these centers for women fleeing abusive homes. Today, there are 25,
and the federal government said it plans to raise the number to 55 in
coming months.
Arshad is from a village outside Rawalpindi, a busy city of about 3
million people best known as headquarters of the Pakistani army.
Even if she could get out, she said, she could not visit her home
village because she feels threatened by her husband and brother. So
she spends her days sitting on the shelter floor learning embroidery,
peeling vegetables for dinner, watching TV and worrying about the
future.
She said her misery began at 14, when her mother insisted she marry
her first cousin, who was five years older. "My mother said he had no
one to make bread for him, no one to look after him," she said.
She said she protested that she was "too small" to be a wife but was
given no choice. They married. He complained that she was not working
enough and was going out of the house too much, and beat her, she said.
As the years passed, she said, she grew less tolerant of him. Then
one day, he accused her of having an affair with their children's
teacher, which she denies.
Her home village is located at the end of a narrow, zigzag path in
lush green fields. Her husband, Arshad Mehmood, 40, lives with their
three children in a small house made of mud and bricks.
In an interview, he insisted his wife did have an affair with the
prayer leader of the village mosque.
"She has committed a mistake, and she has been punished for that," he
said. Mehmood said he, his brothers and his wife's brother all
searched for her with the police, and when his wife and the teacher
were found together, they were jailed.
"I am even now ready to accept her and allow her to live along with
her children in this same house," he said. "But she is not willing to
return."
A tall, slender man with a mustache, he interrupted a game of netball
-- a sport similar to basketball -- to speak to a reporter. He said
he has treated her fairly and did not beat her. Men and women are
equal, he added, but women have a duty to manage their homes and
"stay within the four walls."
Back within the worn shelter's walls where she is now confined,
Arshad cried when shelter director Tallat Shabbier asked whether she
was considering returning to her husband for the sake of her
children. "I will never go back to him," she said, dabbing her eyes
with her green scarf. "Jail was better than being with him."
She has no way of seeing her young boys unless she returns to her
husband, no money and little opportunity to start over at 35. Most
people in Pakistan do not deem it socially acceptable for a woman to
live alone outside the home of their family or husband.
According to shelter rules, women can be released only if they return
to their husband, marry another man (often in ceremonies held inside
the shelter) or are turned over to a blood relative.
"But my family is so cruel, and I will not marry again," she said.
She has initiated divorce proceedings.
Sounding in turns defeated and defiant, Arshad said she would like to
find a job, perhaps living in a house where she could clean or sew.
But Shabbier shook her head. That was not option; women are to live
with husbands or family, she said, reminding her of "social
constraints."
As a fan whirled overhead in stifling summer heat, Arshad sat and
repeated the one thing that to her was certain: "I will not go back
to my husband."
Special correspondents Shaiq Hussain in Islamabad and Imtiaz Ali in
Peshawar contributed to this report.
______
[4]
http://www.time.com
Aug. 21, 2008
AFGHAN WOMEN PAINTERS ON SHOW
by Ursula Sautter / Bonn
afghan art
Hope, a painting by the young Afghan artist Fareeha Ghezal Yousufzai,
on display at the 'Make Art, Not War' exhibition.
Fareeha Ghezal Yousufzai, 2007
It's a tree so withered and broken that only a single scarred branch
is still struggling heavenwards. Yet all life has not gone: a tiny
leaf, green against the cerulean blue of the sky, stubbornly clings
to a twig. For the circle of burka-clad women huddling around the
forlorn trunk in the hot, dusty sunshine, it is a sign of hope.
The painting by Fareeha Ghezal Yousufzai that depicts this scene is
part of "Make Art, Not War," the first-ever independent exhibition of
works by female Afghan painters outside the strife-torn country. On
display in Bonn until September 9 — after which it will move on to
Austria, Italy, Spain, China, and the U.S. — this remarkable
exposition is itself a symbol of hope, and not only for the 21
students from the Center for Contemporary Arts-Afghanistan (CCAA) in
Kabul whose works it includes. In a place where Taliban rule had
forced art into hiding, it's also, says Rahraw Omarzad, the
institute's director, "the beginning of a new movement, an indicator
for deep-reaching change in a new era and a new step in the life of
the visual arts."
Although the 16-to-27-year-old women have grown up in an isolated
environment where the -isms of Western art were largely unknown or
unaccepted, their work bears traces of impressionism, abstract
geometry, abstract expressionism and even surrealism. Yet "the
paintings retain their uniqueness through the freedom of choice of
their creators, who learned different styles of painting and
developed them," says Hamid Naweed, an art professor at Kabul
University. "So the individual, original idea remains."
While the lives of the CCAA artists were shaped by the terrors of war
and oppression under the warlords, the Soviet and the Taliban, their
creations are unashamedly exuberant and political. Often full of
color and strong in contrasts, they speak of the desire for liberty,
peace, and social justice — especially for women. "Shining even
through that which is narrow and dark ... is the belief in the effect
of artistic expression," comments Claus-Peter Haase from the Museum
for Islamic Art in Berlin. "That is admirable."
Take Maliha Hashemi's Regrets with its four roughly outlined, grey
human shapes overarched by black. Like her other works, the 24-year-
old explains, the painting "depicts my sympathy towards the deprived
women of my country." Yet it does so with a positive spin: the top
third of the canvas is dominated by a horizon of cheerful stripes in
many colors. Hashemi hopes art will become a "means by which women
can advance themselves." At least it has been one for her and her
fellow-graduates: all of the women consider themselves full-time
artists, and some teach at the CCAA.
Far from luxuriating in l'art pour l'art, the women "understand their
responsibility as artists neutrally and farsightedly as a political
duty of enlightenment," says curator Eleonora De Saavedra. So the
sordid or brutal realities the painters pick as their themes are
never depicted too vividly or destructively: "The language of the
paintings is not one of violence or debate," explains Saavedra. "It's
color, light, a trace, a document of the hand [that made it], of the
soul, of the individual."
Today's Afghan women are still far from free self-expression, whether
artistic or otherwise. But perhaps the unstinting efforts of young
female artists like Fareeha Ghezal Yousufzai will help pave the way
to more of it.
______
[5]
Sahmat
8 Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg
21 August 2008
We are surprised and unhappy at the decision of the organisers of the
first India Art Summit to exclude the works of MF Husain from the
displays of all the participating galleries from across India. The
Art summit and three day fair, which opens at the Trade Fair venue in
Delhi on the 22nd, is also supported by the Ministry of Culture.
While the organisers may have made this decision out of a fear of
attacks or protests against the work of Husain, by giving in to such
threats by extremist political groups, they are playing into the
hands of these forces. It is the duty of the state and the police to
protect our institutions and citizens against threats of violence and
surely the Trade Fair authorities and the Delhi police are capable of
confronting any such threat. An earlier exhibit by Husain continued
at the India International Centre last December under just such
assurances by the Delhi police.
For the artists community, Husain is the reigning father-figure,
commanding enormous respect. In fact, Husain has been single-handedly
responsible for putting Indian art on the world map and equally
responsible for creating the world market boom in Indian art, without
which such a summit and fair would not be taking place in Delhi at
this moment. It is therefore deeply ironical that his work is being
excluded by dictat.
We are surprised and unhappy at the decision of the organisers of the
first India Art Summit to exclude the works of MF Husain from the
displays of all the participating galleries from across India. The
Art summit and three day fair, which opens at the Trade Fair venue in
Delhi on the 22nd, is also supported by the Ministry of Culture.
While the organisers may have made this decision out of a fear of
attacks or protests against the work of Husain, by giving in to such
threats by extremist political groups, they are playing into the
hands of these forces. It is the duty of the state and the police to
protect our institutions and citizens against threats of violence and
surely the Trade Fair authorities and the Delhi police are capable of
confronting any such threat. An earlier exhibit by Husain continued
at the India International Centre last December under just such
assurances by the Delhi police.
For the artists community, Husain is the reigning father-figure,
commanding enormous respect. In fact, Husain has been single-handedly
responsible for putting Indian art on the world map and equally
responsible for creating the world market boom in Indian art, without
which such a summit and fair would not be taking place in Delhi at
this moment. It is therefore deeply ironical that his work is being
excluded by dictat.
We request the organisers to rethink this decision. In solidarity
with Husain, Sahmat will show images of his work on all three days of
the summit outside its office at 8 Vithalbhai Patel House, Rafi Marg.
We invite all the citizens of Delhi and all artists to come view his
work at Sahmat.
Ram Rahman, MK Raina, Madan Gopal Singh, Sohail Hashmi, Parthiv Shah,
Vivan Sundaram, Indira Chandrasekhar, Geeta Kapur
______
[6]
The Times of India
19 August 2008
LESSONS FROM KALAWATI
by M S S Pandian
In his parliamentary speech defending the Indo-US nuclear deal, Rahul
Gandhi spoke repeatedly of Kalawati, a destitute Dalit woman from
Vidarbha, whose husband, a cotton farmer, had committed suicide
because of debts. What had impressed Rahul in Kalawati's life were
her efforts at diversifying economic activities — rearing a buffalo
and digging a pond — to save her family from hunger. Citing her
story, he claimed, "Like her, we need to diversify into coal, hydro
and nuclear energy so that we can survive."
For Rahul, Kalawati's story is primarily a metaphor for the need to
diversify energy sources so as to achieve energy security. But the
fact remains that Kalawati's struggle to survive by foraying into
diverse economic activities has not yielded her any security. Her
family has lived on a monthly budget of Rs 300 and survived on dal
and roti. She has often gone without food so as to feed the rest of
the family, and never had the money to buy vegetables. When the press
met her the day after Rahul's speech, she had not eaten in two days.
It is outside help that promised to change her life. In short, hers
were acts of desperation and not a well thought out strategy of
diversification.
The meaning that Rahul draws out of Kalawati's life might have been
done in all earnestness. It may even have some message in defence of
the Indo-US nuclear deal. Yet it misses the larger picture. It is a
story about agrarian crisis, lack of food and social security and the
miserable mate-rial condition of millions of Indians who subsist on a
daily budget of Rs 20 or less.
If Rahul fails to recognise this larger picture of economic misery in
Kalawati's story, it is not entirely his fault. It is partly because
of the changed economic discourse in India. In the post-
liberalisation phase, the health of the economy is being viewed
primarily in terms of growth and the performance of the markets.
While the prime minister and his colleagues repeatedly showcase 9 per
cent growth as the proof of the government's success, television
anchors bombard the viewers hour after hour with the performance of
the Sensex. Questions on whether the growth is equitable or capable
of generating employment — questions that are important for the poor
— are being relegated to background.
Relying excessively on abstractions such as the growth rate or the
performance of the markets has the effect of rendering the poor
invisible. Kalawati's poignant story has shown how such abstractions
are a meaningless mirage for most Indians and does not reflect their
condition in any way. It is the thick description of what she and her
family eat, how her children read without electricity, and the
pathetic condition of her dwelling that discloses the misery which
lies concealed behind abstract figures like growth rate.
What is more, such invisibility of the poor in the economic thinking
is increasingly desensitising the urban rich to the misery of the
other half. The claims of the poor for state intervention on their
behalf is increasingly held up to ridicule. If in the past welfare of
the poor was treated as a responsibility of the state, today it is
derided as pointless subsidies. Even the mid-day meal schemes for
schoolchildren and the subsidised PDS rice are no longer viewed as
providing food security to the poor.
At a time when market fundamentalism has become the common sense of
the political class, policy-makers and the urban rich, Kalawati
invites us to take a re-look. When Kalawati was approached by the
media, she pleaded that the government should help her. Is there any
message for us from her act of seeking out the state to intervene?
There indeed is. The market is faceless and heartless. It treats
those without resources like Kalawati as dispensable. The message of
the 1943 Bengal famine, which claimed more than 1.5 million lives, is
precisely this. Most of those who died in the famine lacked exchange
entitlements, i.e. resources that can be exchanged in the market.
Commitment to the poor is both an ethi-cal necessity and the
responsibility of the state and civil society. Treating Kalawati's
life either as exceptional or as a mere story of grit will not help
us realise this.
The writer is a Chennai-based social scientist.
______
[7]
Economic and Political Weekly
August 16, 2008
Book Review:
KANNADA EXCLUSIVISM: LATECOMER TO THE GAME
by M S Prabhakara
Keeping Faith with the Mother Tongue: The
Anxieties of a Local Culture by Sugata Srinivasaraju;
Navakarnataka, Bangalore, 2008; pp 287, Rs 200.
This is a collection of 46 articles written over a period of 12
years, "essentially to meet the deadlines", as the author says in his
first introductory article, which is also the title of the book.
These are grouped under five sections:
Introduction, comprising two articles, Language and Literature (11)
Land and Water (6), People (15), Extensions (11), somewhat of a
potpourri whose common theme is by and large the city of Bangalore
that once symbolised the honour, achievements and aspirations of the
Kannadiga and is now being "taken over" by the other, and a
concluding endnote entitled 'Recovering the Cosmopolitan Stream'.
The long introductory chapter is the most ambitiously conceived; it
presents the core of the author's argument about the correlation
between Kannada language and the society and politics of the state in
the con-temporary context of globalisation, a catch-all term that is
seldom precisely defined. In the author's words, the broad theme of
these articles "relates to the anxieties and responses of a regional
language and culture that was suddenly exposed to the speed and
dynamics of globalisation". The second article in the Introduction,
'Kannada Pride and Prejudice', elaborates on these anxieties and
arguments sup-porting or countering them as presented by three
contemporary Kannada writers and their polemical adversaries. What
are these "anxieties", presumably unique or else they would not merit
a book length treatment, that Kannadigas, those who view Kannada
language, history and culture, indeed the very land and its
resources, as their singular patrimony, as distinct from those merely
inhabiting the state, are beset with, or at any rate sup-posed to be
beset with? These are pre-figured in the titles of the second and
third sections: Kannada language and the liter-ature crafted in that
language over a millennium and half, give or take a century or two,
and yet denied the status of a "classical language" though such a
recognition has been bestowed on Tamil, a truly sordid and
meaningless anxiety driven by expectations of increased central
grants and not any regard or love or honour of the language, though
not the less passionately articulated on all sides; and the ownership
and control of their primary resources, the land and the waters, both
seen as being assailed by aliens from the neighbourhood and farther
away. There are other anxieties, too, though the author does not
directly refer to them. The most pressing of them is the loss of the
Kannada hegemony in the economy and politics of the state, though
historically, at least post the British conquest and rendition of the
princely state of Mysore, the Kannada people (at least of this part
of the state) never enjoyed such primacy.
Another concern is what is viewed as the unfinished process of the
unification of the Kannada-speaking areas in the neighbourhood like
Kasaragod in Kerala and Solapur in Maharashtra that are still outside
the ambit of the state even 50 years after the birth of Karnataka,
though intra-regional integration is also a problem. Of late, even
areas on the state's border with Tamil Nadu where the Kaveri forms
the border are being seen as part of this unfinished process, a still
incipient grievance related to Karnataka's opposition to the
Hogenakal project in Tamil Nadu and, in a broader sense, to the
dispute over the sharing of the Kaveri waters.
These tasks have remained unfinished, in the popular imagination as
articulated by militant Kannada nationalists like the Karnataka
Rakshana Vedike (KRV), because influential anti-Karnataka lobbies are
at work even within this state, not to speak of those outside the
state. The most popular of such villains was the Tamil, including
especially the Tamil working class, once limited to Bangalore and the
goldmines, mostly non-brahmin and indeed non-Hindu, that had
steadfastly refused to "become Kannadigas", like their brahmin
counterparts and descend-ants of Tamil migrants who came to the land
several centuries ago. The Veerappan-Rajkumar saga, an almost filmic
confron-tation between high virtue and low vice though the cast was
from real life, encap-sulated these complex antagonisms and
anxieties. Now, the antagonism is more evenly spread to all non-
Kannada speak-ing people, with the "north Indians" lead-ing all the
rest.
Challenging Narrow Anxieties
The achievement of this book is that while it acknowledges that such
anxieties exist, it challenges their legitimacy. This comes through
in the second essay of the Introduction where rational, sometimes
contrarily rational, voices questioning the nationalist orthodoxy are
heard. Interestingly, it is the older generation of writers,
supposedly conventional for the most part, who articulate a
progressive perspective, situating the Kannadiga cultural nationalism
within a broader nationalist, indeed internationalist framework,
though the author prefers to use the rather trendy term,
"cosmopolitan", to describe this approach. Indeed, the vaunted
"cosmopolitanism" has been its bane, vulgarising and alienating the
genuinely inter nationalist.
The book is rich and crisp in its details, in its evocation of
persons and personalities of the past, the deft connections it makes
between seemingly unrelated aspects of politics, economy and culture,
as for instance in the article, 'Seminaries of the Oppressed', which
provides inter-esting details about the new social and political
hierarchy of the mutts of the lower castes and the scheduled castes.
What is lacking, however, is an examination of the sense of
exceptionalism and entitlement that is central to such grievances,
the conviction that the Kannadigas should be uniquely exempt from the
sense of diminishment felt by every other people in the context of
country's political and economic policies. Speakers of several other
Indian languages, not to speak of those whose languages will not even
be recognised as Indian by most of the good people of Karnataka, are
far less advantageously placed than the Kannada-speaking people in
terms of every social and economic variable. Living through
traumatic and violent social upheavals, some of these also face grave
uncertain-ties and perils about their very being. And yet, these
smaller nationalities are far less noisy and far more equanimous
about their predicament than the Kannada people who seem to nurse a
sense of being specially chosen for victimisation that is getting
entrenched into the Kannada psyche.
Exclusivism Almost Everywhere
More than globalisation which is undoubtedly creating in India a
state of several nations, rather perfunctorily touched upon in the
essays on Bangalore and its IT culture that is loftily indifferent to
every-thing else except profits, the political and economic policies
pursued, albeit with several contradictions dictated by opportunism
rather than principled differences, and the grievances accumulated
thereof over several decades of misrule nationally, have been central
to the increasing insularity of almost of every language group.
Karnataka is a relative latecomer to such exclusivism. Only the
disdainfully viewed "north Indians", the "bhayyas", a truly pan-
Indian working class despised by the sophisticated everywhere, seem
to be free from such insularity. It is not accidental that while sub-
nationalist assertions are in one way or the other present in all non-
Hindi speaking states, and in many cases has been appropriated and
absorbed by the so-called mainstream political parties of the centre
and the right (Amra Bangali has miserably failed in West Bengal and
Tripura), such exclusivist assertions are singularly absent in the
Hindi-speaking states. To say that the Hindi-speaking states do not
need such mobilisations because they own the whole country may be a
good witticism, but utterly wrong politically.
Indeed, the disturbing aspect of Kan-nada exclusivism is that unlike
in other states where militant local nationalisms are to some extent
marginalised even while the ruling parties seek tactical
accommodation with them (the Shiv Sena in Maharashtra is a classic
example of such complicity and collaboration), in Karnataka, the KRV
has been very much part of the political establishment. Its colours
and standard are now accepted almost across the board as Karnataka's
"national" colours and "national" flag, and are flaunted
ceremoniously on public occasions. This symbolic practice could well
become a truly novel way of keeping faith with the mother tongue
(more appro-priately, home language) since it has already gained
legitimacy in the state.
______
[8]
www.siawi.org
UK: THE RETROGRESSIVE MUSLIM COUNCIL OF BRITAIN ABANDONS SUPPORT FOR
A WOMEN FRIENDLY MARRIAGE CONTRACT
by Ed Husain
Frustrated love and forced marriage
The story of my friend Amina highlights the need for a modern Islamic
marriage contract. But the Muslim Council of Britain has chickened out
by Ed Husain (Published in: guardian.co.uk, August 20 2008)
I used to work with a British-Asian woman from Cambridge. At first
sight, she was as free and as liberated as any of her contemporaries
at university but as time went by, she seemed increasingly depressed,
spending all of her lunch breaks in long telephone conversations,
often returning in tears.
Amina (not her real name) had fallen in love with an Asian Muslim
man. She was also Muslim and they both came from a similar ethnic
background in Pakistan. Like so many of their generation, they were
caught between Britain and Pakistan, between their parents and
themselves. Amina’s father refused to consent to her marriage and, as
a Muslim daughter, she needed him as a "wali" or guardian to oversee
her marriage. The local imam refused to conduct the ceremony without
her father’s consent and the presence of two male Muslim witnesses.
When I met Amina she was still in love with this man but her father
insisted she marry her cousin from Pakistan, who happened, rather
conveniently, to be visiting England. Her father also had a heart
condition and used his illness to emotionally blackmail her.
Eventually Amina gave way. She sacrificed love to south Asian culture
and married Mr Pakistan.
White, liberal eyes reading this article will be astounded to know
these things happen in Britain. I am sorry, but they do. And it gets
worse.
Amina was repeatedly raped by Mr Pakistan, but her mother told her
that a Muslim man has such rights over his wife, and in Islam there
is no such thing as marital rape.
I wanted to help Amina. I suggested she divorce her husband and marry
her true love but she told me her husband would kill her if she even
mentioned divorce. Eventually, she risked everything and escaped to a
women’s refuge. When she asked for a divorce her husband refused and
was supported in this by the Islamic Shariah Council, a powerful all-
male outfit controlling women’s lives.
In the light of Amina’s struggle, I was pleased to read Samia
Rahman’s article on Cif about a new Muslim marriage contract
pioneered by the Muslim Institute and endorsed, much to my surprise,
by the Muslim Council of Britain (MCB) and the men who supported
Amina’s husband: the Islamic Shariah Council.
Launching it at a meeting of the City Circle, Dr Ghayasuddin Siddiqui
highlighted other cases of marital abuse among Britain’s Muslims
Amina was not alone.
The new Muslim marriage contract sought to update and develop fiqh,
or Muslim personal jurisprudence, by shifting the power balance in a
marriage to empower women to trigger divorce, feel safe from rape or
abuse, prevent husbands from taking second wives, and set up
accommodation separated from a husband’s parents.
All common sense, one would have thought. It went further. Witnesses
at wedding ceremonies could be women and even non-Muslim, since the
Qur’an is gender and faith neutral on this issue. And a Muslim woman
does not need a wali, or male guardian (based on Hanafi school of
Islamic law, to which the majority of Britain’s Muslims adhere).
Had Amina and her husband signed this contract, she would have had
every right to escape her miserable marriage, or even marry her first
love. For those who need scriptural justification for every step of
their life, the Muslim scholars behind this contract provided
evidence and shariah-based arguments.
It was all too good to be true. Misogynist, Saudi-trained clerics
don’t simply stand by and watch their last grip over Muslim family
life slip away so easily. First, as expected, came an Arab male
cleric with extreme Wahhabi leanings, denouncing the contract as
kufr, or non-belief. His rant can be watched on YouTube.
Last Friday, after initially endorsing the new contract, the MCB back-
tracked and issued a statement to "clarify" is position. It spoke of
"misinterpretation of shariah by those who the MCB had trusted to
take the lead" and said: "The MCB rejects the misguided and incorrect
assertions made by and ascribed to the Muslim Institute."
This MCB policy is as retrogressive and insular as its previous
decision to boycott attending Holocaust Memorial Day. Then, it was
the City Circle that pioneered an alternative platform for Muslims to
remember the Holocaust, and again, the City Circle is ahead of the
MCB in advocating an alternative reading of scripture to facilitate
Muslim female power.
And in typical MCB male arrogance, they dismiss the contract and
promise to issue their own after "due consultation" with their
"affiliates and ulema [religious scholars]". Why? The shariah is a
diverse body of law, can’t the MCB accept another interpretation? How
dare they talk of "misinterpretation"? And why consult only clerics
and affiliates, and leave out women and human rights groups?
The MCB leadership should be ashamed of itself: ashamed for not
having the balls to stand up for Muslim women, and ashamed for bowing
to extremist, literalist pressure.
When young Muslim women like Amina and thousands of others cannot
trust MCB leaders to stand firm in support of the new Muslim marriage
contract, its leaders should take a long look in the mirror and ask
themselves: why do we always get it so terribly wrong?
______
[9]
CHINESE VOICES ON TIBET
a letter to the Dalai Lama, and comments from an outspoken critic in
Beijing
http://www.phayul.com/news/article.aspx?id=22567&t=1
o o o
TIBETAN QUESTIONS
by Tsering Shakya
http://www.newleftreview.org/?page=article&view=2720
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
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