SACW | February 10-13 , 2009 / S. Lanka: internment camps / Pak India: fishermen / Kashmir / India: Religion vs Freedom of Expression
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Fri Feb 13 00:01:23 CST 2009
South Asia Citizens Wire | February 10-13, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2605 -
Year 11 running
From: www.sacw.net
[1] SRI LANKA:
- The barbed wire returns (The Times)
- Backgrounders on the Sri Lankan Conflict (S. P. Udayakumar)
- New configurations and constraints (Jayadeva Uyangoda)
- Sri Lanka's war: To the bitter end (The Economist)
- Thousands Caught in Sri Lanka's conflict - 12 Feb 09
- Sri Lanka plans to house war refugees for 3 years (Ravi Nessman)
- 'Govt Targets Media Under Civil War Cover' (Paranjoy Guha Thakurta)
- Govt Ignores Supreme Court (IPS)
[2] PAKISTAN - INDIA: Civil society must assert for renewal of
dialogue process (Kashmir Times)
- Pakistan, India urged to release fishermen
- Time for India to think of carrots too, not just sticks
(Siddharth Varadarajan)
[3] INDIA ADMINISTERED KASHMIR: Human Rights Watch Letter to Chief
Minister Omar Abdullah
[4] INDIA - KARNATAKA: Hindutva Fire and Secular Response
- Understanding and Responding to the Mangalore Assaults (Sumi
Krishna)
- Minister targets academic (S R Ramakrishna)
- The Rediff Interview - "Apply anti-terror laws against
Mangalore attackers" U R Ananthamurthy
- Movements that protest attacks by Sri Ram Sene, but with love
(Priyanka P. Narain)
[5] INDIA: Freedom of religion vs Freedom of Expression
- Report of the UN Special Rapporteur Asma Jahangir's Mission to
India
- The Statesman Editor, Publisher arrested (The Hindu)
- Johann Hari: Why should I respect these oppressive religions?
[6] INDIA: Secular Stage - Twenty years of Sahmat
[7] Elections in India are cause for pride, governance is yet to be
so (Ramachandra Guha)
[8] INTERNATIONAL: Behind the violence in Gujarat, Gaza and Iraq is
the banality of democracy (Pankaj Mishra)
[9 MISCELLENA:
- Obama's Faith Based Office an Insult to Women (Martha Burk)
- Lieberman's anti-Arab ideology wins over Israel's teens (Yotam
Feldman)
- Religulous: Believers, Skeptics and a Pool of Sitting Ducks
(Stephen Holden)
[10] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i) Say No to the 'Morality Police'! : AISA and AIPWA protest on
Valentine's day (New Delhi, 13-14 February 2009)
(ii) 8th Professor AR Desai Memorial Lecture (Bombay, 20 February
2009)
(iii) Join March 7 events against Sharia and Religious-based
Tribunals in UK (London, 7 March 2009)
(iv) Call for Media - In a Planet of Our Own (Bombay, 15-22
March 2009)
_____
[1] Sri Lanka:
THE BARBED WIRE RETURNS
The Sri Lankan Army's plans for camps to intern Tamil civilians is
brutal and illegal. It will help neither peace nor reconciliation on
the island
It was one of the 20th century's most bestial images, and one that
was invented by the British. The concentration camps set up by Lord
Kitchener to intern Boer women and children were officially intended
to shelter civilians while the British Forces conducted a scorched-
earth policy to deprive Boer combatants of food and shelter. In fact,
they were places of brutality, hardship and death. More than 26,000
people died in some 50 makeshift camps across South Africa.
Forty years later, millions more died in Nazi camps that borrowed the
name and copied the brutal regime of starvation and death. Humanity
vowed that never again would such atrocities be tolerated. Yet they
have persisted: from the Soviet gulags to the killing fields of
Cambodia and the Serb-run camps housing half-starved Bosnians. And
now the barbed wire is going up again, as Tamil civilians are herded
into makeshift compounds. The victorious Sri Lankan Army, sweeping
across the last holdouts of the separatist Tamil Tigers, is proposing
to imprison tens of thousands of non-combatants in a “safe zone” for
up to three years as the area is “cleansed” of rebel supporters.
Starvation, despair and death are all too easy to predict.
Some 250,000 civilians have been trapped by the fighting in the north
east of the island. Hundreds have already been killed, either by
Tiger fighters firing on them as they tried to escape or by
government troops shelling the rebel enclave, now only some 70 square
miles. Many of those fleeing the crossfire have been killed by mines.
The International Committee of the Red Cross has done its best, but
was forced yesterday to evacuate 160 patients from a makeshift
hospital where artillery shelling killed 16 people earlier in the
week. The United Nations is planning for an exodus of 150,000 people.
But the troops appear intent on holding them, ostensibly for their
safety but in fact to root out any supporters or relatives of the
Tiger fighters.
[. . .]
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/leading_article/
article5720434.ece
See Also:
Backgrounders on the Sri Lankan Conflict
TASA Occasional Papers 1 and 2 (February 2009)
by S. P. Udayakumar
http://www.sacw.net/article645.html
New configurations and constraints
by Jayadeva Uyangoda
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20090227260402200.htm
Sri Lanka's war: To the bitter end (The Economist)
http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13109866
Thousands Caught in Sri Lanka's conflict - 12 Feb 09
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chXjUU2Fk2I
Sri Lanka plans to house war refugees for 3 years
by Ravi Nessman
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/
ALeqM5gmtyIc3i3bbHFVccfl_J7YYG-7wQD969GUDO1 )
Sri Lanka: 'Govt Targets Media Under Civil War Cover'
by Paranjoy Guha Thakurta*
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45711
Sri Lanka: Govt Ignores Supreme Court
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=45594
____
[2] Pakistan / India:
Kashmir Times
February 9, 2009
PEACE PROCESS IS IMPERATIVE
Civil society in India and Pakistan must assert for renewal of
dialogue process
Both India and Pakistan have yet to learn to live in peace, dignity
and honour on the basis of equality as responsible sovereign
democratic countries and enter into a fruitful era of mutual goodwill
and cooperation, overcoming the prolonged confrontation that has only
brought in its wake avoidable death and destruction.It took years for
the civil society in the two countries to build bridges of
understanding for beginning a process of dialogue and conciliation in
place of mutual acrimony and confrontation. The peace process between
the two neighbouring countries was the result of the efforts of the
men and women of goodwill and peace who worked tirelessly since 1993
for forging people-to-people contacts to pressurize their respective
governments to initiate the much needed process for peace and
reconciliation. While the peace activists were striving for peace the
powerfully entrenched vested interests, the rabble rousers and
fundamentalists of various hues in the two countries were making
every effort to subvert the peace process. Unfortunately the peace
process between India and Pakistan had not moved as fast as it should
have been. The hopes that with the return of democracy in Pakistan
the peace process will be accelerated have been dashed to the ground
with the Mumbai terror attack. The shock and anger over this most
condemnable act was not misplaced. The concern for security of the
citizens too is understandable. But the war cries and finger-pointing
leading to the reversal of peace process defy any logic. The
objective of the terrorists responsible for the attack was to subvert
the peace process and renew hostilities between the two countries.
Instead of playing into their hands it was imperative for the
leadership of the two countries to push forward the peace process. It
is indeed unfortunate that instead of meeting the challenge of
terrorism with determination and mutual cooperation the ruling elites
in the two countries are engaging themselves in a blame game and war
of nerves.
The peace in the region is not only possible but is also necessary
for the very welfare of the people of the two countries.Since the
peace process, derailed in the wake of Mumbai terror attack, was the
result of the efforts of the peace activists and members of the civil
society in the two countries to create the conducive climate in this
regard it is for them to rise, unite and assert to silence the war
cries again being heard in the two countries. Let the saner elements
in both India and Pakistan say no to war and confrontation and
pressurize their respective governments to pick up the broken threads
for reviving the much needed peace process. Instead of talking at
each other the two governments must be made to talk to each other
both for eliminating terrorism in the region and ushering into an era
of peace and mutual cooperation. The people-to-people contacts
established in the recent past have been the catalyst for the
beginning of the dialogue process between the two estranged
neighbouring countries. These contacts need to be further
strengthened for pressurizing the establishments in Islamabad and New
Delhi to renew the dialogue process for overcoming trust deficit and
evolving a joint strategy and mechanism to deal with the menace of
terrorism that poses threat to the security of the people as well as
peace in the region. The two governments should allow such visits of
the well-meaning civil society activists in increasing number for
resurrection of the peace process.Dialogue is the only way to resolve
all the outstanding disputes and overcome differences on various
issues between the two countries. If the terrorists and hawks have
the vested interests to subvert the peace process the interests of
the common people in the two countries can best be served by carrying
the peace process to its logical end. One can very well imagine the
disastrous consequences of any war between the two nuclear powers.
Let the people in the two countries assert to put halt to the foolish
cries of war, hot pursuits, surgical strikes or retaliatory action
and force the two governments to revive the abandoned peace process.
All the contentious issues can be settled only through a purposeful
process of dialogue with utmost sincerity.
o o o
(Thanks to Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum for sending this Information:
http://www.dawn.com/2009/02/11/local10.htm
PAKISTAN, INDIA URGED TO RELEASE FISHERMEN
KARACHI, Feb 10: Members of the fishermen’s community including women
and children took out a rally on Tuesday to protest against the
arrest of their fishermen by the Indian authorities.
Participants of the rally, organised by Pakistan Fisherfolk Forum,
gathered outside the Sindh Assembly in the afternoon and marched
towards the Karachi Press Club where they staged a sit-in to press
the government for the early release of the fishermen kept in Indian
jails.
The rally, led by PFF chairman Mohammad Ali Shah, General Secretary
Saeed Baloch, Karachi Committee President Majeed Motani and Tahira
Ali, was attended by the relatives of arrested fishermen including
women and children hailing from coastal villages of Karachi, Keti
Bandar, Kharo Chhan, Shah Bandar, Jati and Thatta.
Most of the protesters had travelled from the small villages along
the coastal belt of Thatta and Karachi to attend the protest rally.
Carrying banners and placards, the children and women chanted slogans
for the release of their relatives, who had been arrested by India
coastal authorities in Korangi Creek and Kajar Creek, and demanded
that President Asif Ali Zardari ensure the release of the fishermen
from Indian captivity.
Women participants of the rally told reporters that as the heads of
their families were in Indian jails, they had no breadwinners left.
They urged Pakistan and Indian governments to release fishermen who
were jailed in Indian and Pakistani prisons.
PFF chairman Muhammad Ali Shah spoke at the protest rally and termed
the arrest of Pakistani fishermen a violation of their human rights.
He asked both the governments to follow international law and stop
arresting fishermen.
He demanded that both countries release the arrested fishermen from
their jails on humanitarian grounds.
He expressed concern over the constant arrest of the fishermen and
said that it had forced their families to face starvation besides
seriously affecting the education of the fishermen’s children.
The PFF leader urged the government to resolve the lingering issue of
Sir Creek besides releasing the arrested fishermen.
Other PFF leaders also demanded of the Pakistani government to ensure
the presence of security forces in Pakistani waters so that fishermen
could be stopped from straying into Indian waters.—Agencies
o o o
FISHERWOMEN PROTEST ILLEGAL DETAINMENT OF FISHERMEN
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=161995
o o o
TIME FOR INDIA TO THINK OF CARROTS TOO, NOT JUST STICKS
by Siddharth Varadarajan
Now that the Mumbai terror probe has crossed the hurdle of Pakistani
denial, India must shed its distrust
http://www.hindu.com/2009/02/13/stories/2009021354571000.htm
_____
[3] India Administered Kashmir:
HUMAN RIGHTS WATCH LETTER TO CHIEF MINISTER OMAR ABDULLAH
February 9, 2009
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah
Civil Secretariat
Government of Jammu and Kashmir
Jammu-Tavi
Jammu and Kashmir
Dear Chief Minister,
Congratulations on your recently taking office as Chief Minister. You
face an enormous set of economic, political, and human rights
challenges.
In 2006, when your party was in opposition, Human Rights Watch shared
with you our report on the human rights situation in Jammu and
Kashmir. We found that both government forces and militants were
responsible for numerous and serious abuses. We would like to remind
you of some of our recommendations, updated to reflect the current
situation, in the hope that you will act swiftly to address the human
rights concerns of Kashmiris.
While we understand that many of the human rights violations in Jammu
and Kashmir are committed by security forces that operate under the
jurisdiction of the central government, it is important that your
state government ensures better protections for the Kashmiri people
and demands that those who commit abuses are investigated and, where
appropriate, prosecuted for their crimes. This is a crucial
confidence building measure.
Thousands of people remain victims of enforced disappearances in
Jammu and Kashmir. The practices of "disappearances" and
extrajudicial executions violate basic human rights, including the
right to life, the right to liberty and security of the person, the
right to a fair and public trial, as well as the prohibition on
torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment or punishment.
Under international law, an enforced disappearance is a continuing
crime until the "disappearance" is resolved.
While previous governments have admitted that many persons are
missing, it was claimed that they had crossed the border into
Pakistan to become militants. Yet, as you are aware, unmarked graves
of those deemed to have been unidentified foreign militants are
scattered all over Jammu and Kashmir. Many believe that these graves
contain the remains of their loved ones who were picked up by
security forces, killed in custody, and then falsely identified in
police reports to be foreign militants, usually Pakistani citizens.
In many cases, when relatives have succeeded in their demand to have
graves exhumed, their claims have been found to be correct.
We urge you to set up an independent, transparent, and time-bound
commission where relatives and others can provide information about
cases of enforced disappearance. This commission should be empowered
to summon members of the security forces who might have been
responsible, even if they are no longer posted in Jammu and Kashmir
or have retired from service.
Laws such as the Jammu and Kashmir Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed
Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, which prohibit the
arrest of members of the armed forces without permission of the
central government, should be repealed. These laws have allowed
security forces to torture, arbitrarily arrest, and extrajudicially
execute people with effective immunity. As you are aware, the
extraordinary power to shoot-to-kill conferred by the Armed Forces
(Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, has led to what the army
itself describes as "errors of judgment." Many people have been
killed without regard to international legal restrictions on the use
of lethal force, including many completely innocent of any
involvement in the conflict. The law has led to the proliferation of
bogus "encounter killings" where people are taken into custody,
tortured, and then executed by security forces. In the vast majority
of such cases-including the extrajudicial killings in Pathribal in
2000 where your National Conference party, then in power, requested
an inquiry by the Central Bureau of Investigation-there has been a
failure to prosecute and punish the perpetrators who hid behind
immunity provisions in the law.
During the October 2008 hearings in Ghulam Nabi Magrey vs Union of
India, the state government told the court that from 1990 to 2007 it
had requested permission from New Delhi to prosecute members of the
army or paramilitary for killings and other human rights violations
in at least 458 cases. The Principal Secretary of the Home Ministry
told the court that in 270 cases the state government had received
sanction (authorized permission) to prosecute. If this is accurate,
your government should act immediately to initiate proceedings in
these cases. If the army fails to cooperate by producing those
accused, citing as it routinely does the protections offered under
the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special Powers Act, your
government will be able even more strongly to justify the need for
the central government to repeal of the law. The failure to deliver
justice where the police have found that criminal acts have occurred
is an obvious indictment of the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir)
Special Powers Act.
While a new law may be required if your government believes that the
security situation merits the continued deployment of the army for
operations against militants, this law should not provide the wide
range of powers under the existing Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir)
Special Powers Act. Specific clauses such as section 6 of the act,
which provides effective immunity to soldiers and protects them from
prosecution when they commit human rights violations, should not be
included in future legislation. The United Nations Principles on the
Effective Prevention and Investigation of Extra-legal, Arbitrary and
Summary Executions specify that under no circumstances, including a
state of war or public emergency, shall immunity from prosecution be
granted to alleged perpetrators of extrajudicial executions.
We also urge you to repeal the Public Safety Act, which allows
preventive detention for two-year renewable periods for offenses
defined by vague and overbroad terms, and violates international due
process standards. This law has been used to keep people in custody
without trial for decades, with fresh detention orders issued when
the two-year period lapses. If people are responsible for crimes,
they should be prosecuted in accordance with international fair trial
standards, but cannot be held indefinitely based on a presumption of
guilt.
It is through the efforts of some courageous human rights defenders
that the plight of civilians caught in the middle of the conflict has
been exposed. Attempting to silence dissent or critics is the sign of
an abusive regime. Numerous human rights activists have been killed
in the two decades of conflict in Jammu and Kashmir. Human rights
lawyer Pervez Imroz, in June 2008, survived a grenade attack outside
his home allegedly by members of the police. We urge you to ensure
all such cases are immediately investigated, appropriate criminal
cases are filed, and that human rights defenders receive necessary
protection from the state.
Human Rights Watch urges you and your government to take the
following steps:
* Immediately establish an independent, impartial and
transparent commission of inquiry into serious violations of
international human rights and humanitarian law by security forces in
the state since the beginning of the conflict. In particular, an
immediate investigation should be started on all allegations of
enforced disappearance.
* Repeal all legislation, including the Jammu and Kashmir
Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special
Powers Act, that prohibits the arrest of members of the armed forces
without permission of the central government.
* Repeal all legislation, including the Jammu and Kashmir
Disturbed Areas Act and the Armed Forces (Jammu and Kashmir) Special
Powers Act, that authorizes the excessive use of force, including
deadly force, beyond that allowed by the United Nations Basic
Principles on the Use of Force and Firearms by Law Enforcement
Officials.
* Repeal the Public Safety Act, which allows preventive
detention for two-year renewable periods for offenses defined by
vague and overbroad terms, and violates international due process
standards.
* Given the continuing failure of the military justice system
to fully prosecute members of the armed forces for human rights
abuses, prosecute fairly in civilian courts members of the army and
other security forces of all ranks implicated in serious rights
abuses. Prosecutions should not be limited to those directly
responsible for abuses, but should include persons implicated as a
matter of command responsibility, when superiors knew or should have
known of ongoing crimes and failed to take action.
* Strengthen the State Human Rights Commission by empowering it
to independently investigate allegations of abuse by the security
forces and militants. The commission should be empowered to
investigate even those cases under review by a court so that in
"disappearances" cases a family is not forced to choose between
trying to find their relatives, or settling for the compensation that
the human rights commission would recommend. The state and national
governments should take appropriate action based on the commission's
recommendations.
* Strengthen and enforce laws and policies that protect
detainees from torture and other mistreatment, including strict
implementation of requirements that all detainees be brought before a
magistrate or other judicial authority empowered to review the
legality of an arrest within 24 hours. A centralized register of
detainees, accessible to lawyers and family members, should be
established.
* Immediately respond to requests for necessary measures to
ensure the protection of human rights defenders and civil society
activists.
We hope that you will act soon on these recommendations. Human rights
abuses and the failure to deliver justice serve as a recruiting
agency for militancy and perpetuate the cycle of violence. It is
crucial that your government shows its determination to deliver
justice and ensure that all Kashmiris can once again dream of a
prosperous, secure, and peaceful future.
Yours sincerely,
Brad Adams
Executive Director
Asia Division
_____
[4] India: Hindutva gone amuck in Karnataka : Secular response
sacw.net - 11 February 2009
http://www.sacw.net/article642.html
UNDERSTANDING AND RESPONDING TO THE MANGALORE ASSAULTS
by Sumi Krishna, Bangalore: 11 Feb. 2009
How should we in the women’s movement understand and respond to the
cluster of assaults by the Rama Sene, Bajrang Dal and other
fundamentalists; the targeting of minorities and their places of
worship; the harassment and molestation of women of all classes in
the name of nation, culture and religion; the fear and anger
spreading through villages and towns in southern-coastal Karnataka?
As Sandhya Gokhale of the Forum Against Oppression of Women, Mumbai,
says in The Hindu, on one level the horrific abuse of young women in
a pub is ‘a morality issue’, but it is also about the space and
decision making power for which women have fought for years. Arvind
Narrain of the Alternative Law Forum, Bangalore, writing in the
Indian Express, sees the abuse of religious and sexual minorities as
the ‘saffron’ challenge to ‘the legacy of the women’s movement in
India’ and ‘the thin end of the wedge’ in re-establishing male
dominance.
Indeed, enhancing the freedom and autonomy of individual women has
been one of the cornerstones of the women’s movement. In a gender-
equitable democratic polity, matters of dress, behaviour, mobility
and personal life choices are not less important than people’s rights
to livelihood, dignity and an empowered citizenship. Not
surprisingly, in protests all over the country, whether by students
and teachers in Mangalore or at the Tata Institute of Social
Sciences, Mumbai, by Vimochana, Hengasara Hakkina Sangha and other
women’s groups in Karnataka, by activists like Nirantar, Saheli,
Jagori and INSAF in Delhi, by organisations of dalits and slum-
dwellers, or of young designers, IT professionals and academics in
Bangalore, there is a common refrain: ‘What happened to our
freedom?’, ‘Where is democracy?’
For the Rama Sene the issue of ‘morality’ is subsumed into an attack
on westernisation and so-called ‘pub culture’. This has been helped
along in no small measure by National Commission for Women member
Nirmala Venkatesh (formerly a Congress MLA in Karnataka, elected
unopposed in a bye-election) who deviously attempted to shift the
debate from the criminality of the assault to the legality and
functioning of the pub. Commenting in the Deccan Herald on a counter-
protest in Mangalore by college girls shouting, ‘Pub culture: Down!
Down!’, TV journalist Vasanthi Hariprakash says she asked their
leader what was meant by pub culture. ‘Adhu American
samskriti’ (that’s American culture), the girl said. When she
persisted with the query, the girl replied ‘I don’t know what it is…
but I have been told it is bad’. Vasanthi writes, ‘I realised that
anguished Indians some of who happen to be proud Hindus like me, have
a long battle to fight — against mindsets, not just a fringe group of
maniac men.’
Is this then all about deeply embedded sexual politics, about using
women’s bodies as the repositories of an imagined homogenous Indian
culture? Journalist Ammu Joseph urges a debate on what Indian culture
is and who has the right to enforce it. Our cultures are after all
dynamic, not set in stone and, as some litterateurs at the Kannada
Sahitya Sammelan at Chitradurga asked, ‘Why should women alone be
targeted as guardians of culture?’. In a ‘Joint Statement on the
Brutal Assault in Mangalore’, a cross-section of over 600 citizens
from India and beyond, have pointed out that there ‘can and should be
dialogues on what constitutes “Indian-ness”, but regardless of the
interpretations of Indian culture and traditions, beating and
molesting women cannot be condoned’.
Indeed, the bustling port town of Mangalore and the adjoining rural
areas along the Konkan coast were formerly known for the remarkably
peaceful admixture of cultures and languages (Tulu, Konkani, Kannada
and Beary), with diverse communities including the Hindu Billavas,
Mogaveeras, Bunts and Saraswats, the Muslim Bearys, the Catholics,
Jains and several others. A century ago, Christian missions brought
education and health care to Christians and non-Christians alike. In
the decades since, banking and commerce flourished, as did a distinct
melded Mangalorean cuisine. Despite differences of religion, caste
and class, everyday life was not marked by deep social discrimination
or religious prejudice.
Some of the Tulu-speaking communities like the Bunts and the Jains
are matrilineal and matrilocal. In the past, Mangalorean women have
had a relatively better social position; leaders such as Rani
Abbakka, a Jain who fought the Portuguese in the 16th century, and
the Gandhian social reformer Kamaladevi (nee Dhareshwar)
Chhatopadhyay, a Saraswat Brahmin, are much acclaimed. In keeping
with the region’s pioneering and egalitarian heritage, in 2006,
Mangalore University became the first in South India to introduce
‘Gender Equity’ as part of the foundation course for every
undergraduate student in some 125 affiliated colleges in Dakshin
Kannada, Udipi and Coorg districts.
As in other regions on the West Coast, however, emigration and large
cash remittances from the Middle East have transformed the social
fabric, creating pockets of great wealth, growing consumerism, new
aspirations and social fizzures. During the 1990s, the sandy shores,
the groves of betel and coconut, the old tiled houses on meandering
streets, and the tolerant attitudes changed rapidly with a boom in
construction, multiplexes, malls, even hospitals for ‘health
tourism’. Disputes between merchants of different communities,
between fisher people and traders, incidents involving young Hindu
and Muslim girls and boys, all this was exploited by the Bajrang Dal
and the Hindu Jagran Vedike to incite violence against the Muslims,
as in Suratkal in 1998-99. Most Hindus and Christians remained silent
observers at that time.
A decade later, the Hindutva elements had grown powerful enough to
control a subterranean economy of extortion from newly rich hoteliers
and pub owners, even as different groups on the saffron fringe began
to fight for the same terrain. In 2008, churches across Mangalore
were attacked and ransacked with impunity, ostensibly on the issue of
religious ‘conversion’, while the BJP government in Karnataka took
its own time to restore law and order. But the Mangalore Catholics,
an organised and educated community, did draw support from the rest
of India.
In recent years, taking a leaf out of the Shiv Sena’s book, the
leaders of the Rama Sene are reported to have begun recruiting poor
young men from villages in the vicinity, luring them with petty jobs
in Mangalore. It is this cadre of youth, bound by ties of gratitude
if not ideology, that is said to make up the Sene’s strike forces. It
is easy for Hindutva propagandists, or for any pseudo-religious
political grouping, to prey on the anxieties and aspirations of
people pushed to the edge by poverty and unemployment. These young
men must bear the consequences of their brutal televised assault, yet
we need to recognise that to some extent they are also victims of a
mafia.
The ‘pub attack’ has aroused widespread anger and debate, across
class, age and social groups. Karnataka has earlier seen unspeakable
atrocities against dalit women, horrendous ‘acid attacks’ and other
kinds of violence against women of all communities, but never before
have the media and the middle class empathised with such spontaneity
and vehemence.
The women’s movement needs to take advantage of the unprecedented
coalition of civic groups to counter the attitudes and mind-sets that
tacitly or directly accept gender-based violence in the family, the
community and society. This is not just about ‘pub drinking’ by
urban, elite upper caste women but about communalism and gendered
violence at all levels. We need to foster rational dialogue between
cultures and affirm our commitment to the human rights and civil
liberties of all classes of women threatened by religious
fundamentalists, be they Hindu, Muslim or Christian, in Karnataka,
Tamil Nadu, Maharashtra or elsewhere. For these are rights that have
been so hard won by so many women across religion, caste and class
through decades of struggle for gender justice.
o o o
Minister targets academic
by S R Ramakrishna Date: 2009-02-09, MID-DAY
http://www.mid-day.com/news/2009/feb/090209-Pattabhirama-Somayaji-
College-of-Mangalore-University-English-Professor-Amnesia-mob-
violence.htm
The Rediff Interview/U R Ananthamurthy
Apply anti-terror laws against Mangalore attackers: Ananthamurthy
http://www.rediff.com/news/2009/jan/29-apply-anti-terror-laws-for-
mangalore-attackers.htm
Movements that protest attacks by Sri Ram Sene, but with love
by Priyanka P. Narain
http://www.livemint.com/2009/02/12224436/Movements-that-protest-
attacks.html
_____
[5] India: Freedom of religion vs Freedom of Expression
Report of the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief,
Asma Jahangir - Mission to India
26/01/2009 A/HRC/10/8/Add.3
http://www.sacw.net/article641.html
o o o
(The Hindu, 11 February 2009)
THE STATESMAN EDITOR, PUBLISHER ARRESTED
Staff Reporter
Kolkata: The Editor and Publisher of the city-based newspaper, The
Statesman, were arrested here on Wednesday on the charge of insulting
the religious sentiment of a minority community.
An article published by the newspaper last Friday led to mass
protests and acts of violence in different parts of the city in the
past few days.
“We arrested Ravindra Kumar, Editor , and Anand Sinha, Publisher,
from their residences acting on a complaint,” Pradip Kumar
Chattopadhyay, city police’s Joint Commissioner (Administration),
said here on Wednesday. The complaint was made under Section 295A
(maliciously insulting the religions or the religious belief of any
class) of the Indian Penal Code.
Both Mr. Kumar and Mr. Sinha were produced before a metropolitan
magistrate and were granted interim bail.
[Posted below is this excellent article by Johann Hari whose
publication became the cause of the arrest of the editors /
publishers of The Statesmen]
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/johann-hari/johann-
hari-why-should-i-respect-these-oppressive-religions-1517789.html
The Independent
Johann Hari: Why should I respect these oppressive religions?
Whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents say they're
victims of 'prejudice'
Wednesday, 28 January 2009
The right to criticise religion is being slowly doused in acid.
Across the world, the small, incremental gains made by secularism –
giving us the space to doubt and question and make up our own minds –
are being beaten back by belligerent demands that we "respect"
religion. A historic marker has just been passed, showing how far we
have been shoved. The UN rapporteur who is supposed to be the global
guardian of free speech has had his job rewritten – to put him on the
side of the religious censors.
The Universal Declaration of Human Rights stated 60 years ago that "a
world in which human beings shall enjoy freedom of speech and belief
is the highest aspiration of the common people". It was a Magna Carta
for mankind – and loathed by every human rights abuser on earth.
Today, the Chinese dictatorship calls it "Western", Robert Mugabe
calls it "colonialist", and Dick Cheney calls it "outdated". The
countries of the world have chronically failed to meet it – but the
document has been held up by the United Nations as the ultimate
standard against which to check ourselves. Until now.
Starting in 1999, a coalition of Islamist tyrants, led by Saudi
Arabia, demanded the rules be rewritten. The demand for everyone to
be able to think and speak freely failed to "respect" the "unique
sensitivities" of the religious, they decided – so they issued an
alternative Islamic Declaration of Human Rights. It insisted that you
can only speak within "the limits set by the shariah [law]. It is not
permitted to spread falsehood or disseminate that which involves
encouraging abomination or forsaking the Islamic community".
In other words, you can say anything you like, as long as it
precisely what the reactionary mullahs tell you to say. The
declaration makes it clear there is no equality for women, gays, non-
Muslims, or apostates. It has been backed by the Vatican and a bevy
of Christian fundamentalists.
Incredibly, they are succeeding. The UN's Rapporteur on Human Rights
has always been tasked with exposing and shaming those who prevent
free speech – including the religious. But the Pakistani delegate
recently demanded that his job description be changed so he can seek
out and condemn "abuses of free expression" including "defamation of
religions and prophets". The council agreed – so the job has been
turned on its head. Instead of condemning the people who wanted to
murder Salman Rushdie, they will be condemning Salman Rushdie himself.
Anything which can be deemed "religious" is no longer allowed to be a
subject of discussion at the UN – and almost everything is deemed
religious. Roy Brown of the International Humanist and Ethical Union
has tried to raise topics like the stoning of women accused of
adultery or child marriage. The Egyptian delegate stood up to
announce discussion of shariah "will not happen" and "Islam will not
be crucified in this council" – and Brown was ordered to be silent.
Of course, the first victims of locking down free speech about Islam
with the imprimatur of the UN are ordinary Muslims.
Here is a random smattering of events that have taken place in the
past week in countries that demanded this change. In Nigeria,
divorced women are routinely thrown out of their homes and left
destitute, unable to see their children, so a large group of them
wanted to stage a protest – but the Shariah police declared it was
"un-Islamic" and the marchers would be beaten and whipped. In Saudi
Arabia, the country's most senior government-approved cleric said it
was perfectly acceptable for old men to marry 10-year-old girls, and
those who disagree should be silenced. In Egypt, a 27-year-old Muslim
blogger Abdel Rahman was seized, jailed and tortured for arguing for
a reformed Islam that does not enforce shariah.
To the people who demand respect for Muslim culture, I ask: which
Muslim culture? Those women's, those children's, this blogger's – or
their oppressors'?
As the secular campaigner Austin Darcy puts it: "The ultimate aim of
this effort is not to protect the feelings of Muslims, but to protect
illiberal Islamic states from charges of human rights abuse, and to
silence the voices of internal dissidents calling for more secular
government and freedom."
Those of us who passionately support the UN should be the most
outraged by this.
Underpinning these "reforms" is a notion seeping even into democratic
societies – that atheism and doubt are akin to racism. Today,
whenever a religious belief is criticised, its adherents immediately
claim they are the victims of "prejudice" – and their outrage is
increasingly being backed by laws.
All people deserve respect, but not all ideas do. I don't respect the
idea that a man was born of a virgin, walked on water and rose from
the dead. I don't respect the idea that we should follow a "Prophet"
who at the age of 53 had sex with a nine-year old girl, and ordered
the murder of whole villages of Jews because they wouldn't follow him.
I don't respect the idea that the West Bank was handed to Jews by God
and the Palestinians should be bombed or bullied into surrendering
it. I don't respect the idea that we may have lived before as goats,
and could live again as woodlice. This is not because of "prejudice"
or "ignorance", but because there is no evidence for these claims.
They belong to the childhood of our species, and will in time look as
preposterous as believing in Zeus or Thor or Baal.
When you demand "respect", you are demanding we lie to you. I have
too much real respect for you as a human being to engage in that
charade.
But why are religious sensitivities so much more likely to provoke
demands for censorship than, say, political sensitivities? The answer
lies in the nature of faith. If my views are challenged I can, in the
end, check them against reality. If you deregulate markets, will they
collapse? If you increase carbon dioxide emissions, does the climate
become destabilised? If my views are wrong, I can correct them; if
they are right, I am soothed.
But when the religious are challenged, there is no evidence for them
to consult. By definition, if you have faith, you are choosing to
believe in the absence of evidence. Nobody has "faith" that fire
hurts, or Australia exists; they know it, based on proof. But it is
psychologically painful to be confronted with the fact that your core
beliefs are based on thin air, or on the empty shells of revelation
or contorted parodies of reason. It's easier to demand the source of
the pesky doubt be silenced.
But a free society cannot be structured to soothe the hardcore
faithful. It is based on a deal. You have an absolute right to voice
your beliefs – but the price is that I too have a right to respond as
I wish. Neither of us can set aside the rules and demand to be
protected from offence.
Yet this idea – at the heart of the Universal Declaration – is being
lost. To the right, it thwacks into apologists for religious
censorship; to the left, it dissolves in multiculturalism. The
hijacking of the UN Special Rapporteur by religious fanatics should
jolt us into rescuing the simple, battered idea disintegrating in the
middle: the equal, indivisible human right to speak freely.
An excellent blog that keeps you up to dates on secularist issues is
Butterflies and Wheels, which you can read here.
If you want to get involved in fighting for secularism, join the
National Secular Society here.
j.hari at independent.co.uk
____
[6] INDIA: SECULAR STAGE - TWENTY YEARS OF SAHMAT
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20090213260304900.htm
_____
[7]
The Telegraph
January 31 , 2009
TOWARDS POSITIVE CHANGE - Elections in India are cause for pride,
governance is yet to be so
by Ramachandra Guha
In India, astrologers are paid much better and respected far more
than historians. But their profession is altogether more risky. Who,
when the people of India went to the polls in the winter of 1951-2,
could ever have predicted that this general election would be the
first of very many? Not a respected Madras editor, who dismissed
India’s tryst with electoral democracy as the “biggest gamble in
history”. Not an Oxford-educated civil servant, who, when asked to
supervise the polls in Manipur, wrote to his father that “a future
and more enlightened age will view with astonishment the absurd farce
of recording the votes of millions of illiterate people”. Not the
Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh, whose journal, the Organiser, was
certain that Jawaharlal Nehru “would live to confess the failure of
universal adult franchise in India”. Sceptical about this “leap in
the dark”, this “precipitate dose of democracy”, the Organiser
complained that Nehru, “who has all along lived by slogans and
stunts, would not listen”.
As it happens, Nehru’s faith was shared by millions of ordinary
Indians. They chose to disregard the warnings of Hindu reactionaries,
Oxford scholars, and English-speaking editors. A staggering 107
million Indians cast their franchise in the 1952 elections, this by
far the greatest exercise of democratic will in human history. The
record set then has been beaten 13 times — each time by Indians. And
in the summer of 2009 the record will be superseded once more.
Before India, no society steeped in poverty and illiteracy had ever
experimented with electoral democracy. Before India, no polity, large
or small, had granted adults of both genders the vote at one fell
swoop. In older democracies such as France, the United Kingdom, and
the United States of America, the privilege was first extended to
rich men, later to educated men, then to all men, and finally, after
a very long struggle, to women as well. Even a supposedly ‘advanced’
country such as Switzerland permitted its women citizens to vote only
as late as 1971. On the other hand, in independent India the
franchise was immediately granted to all adults, regardless of
education, wealth, gender or caste. The American constitution was
adopted in 1787, but people of colour have effectively had the right
to vote only since the 1960s. However, Dalits in India voted, and
Dalit candidates were elected to Parliament, within two years of the
writing of our own Constitution.
Electoral democracy in India was an act of faith, a challenge to
logic and the received wisdom, perhaps even the biggest gamble in
history. That it has now gone through so many iterations should be a
matter of pride for Indians. Not least because our elections are free
and fair. The Election Commission of India enjoys an enviable
reputation for efficiency and neutrality. As recently as 2000, an
American presidential election was decided by faulty balloting and
biased judges. But we can be certain that the 2009 general election
in India will more reliably reflect the will of the people.
Who will this verdict favour? Even the most trained psephologist (or
astrologer) will not, I think, go so far as to offer an unambiguous
answer to this question, to thus make himself hostage to a prediction
that may go horribly wrong. For all one can safely say about the next
general elections is that, like the six that immediately preceded it,
no single party will get a majority in Parliament. Three options
present themselves — first, that the Congress and its allies will
somehow cobble together a majority; second, that the Bharatiya Janata
Party and its allies shall beat them to the magic figure of 272;
third, that neither alliance will achieve its aim, thus making room
for a minority ‘third front’ government propped up by either the BJP
or the Congress.
The rise of coalition governments is a product of the deepening of
Indian democracy. Our country is too large and too diverse to be
adequately represented by a single party, or to be ruled in turn by
two rival ‘national’ parties either. Thus communities that claim
disadvantage on the basis of region, language or caste have
articulated their grievances through political parties set up to
represent their interests. At the local level, these identity-based
parties have sometimes promoted a more inclusive politics, by giving
space to groups previously left out of governance and administration.
However, when aggregated at the level of the nation, these regional
diversities lead to irrational and excessively short-term outcomes.
Despite their grand-sounding names, neither the United Progressive
Alliance nor the National Democratic Alliance has a coherent ideology
that serves to bind the alliance’s partners. Smaller parties join the
BJP or the Congress on a purely opportunistic basis, seeking to
extract profitable ministerships or subsidies to vote banks in
exchange for political support.
This historian is hesitant to assume the role of an astrologer, but
less hesitant to stake his claim to be a citizen. As I said, we
should all take pride in the fact that after 60 testing years of
freedom we are still somewhat united and somewhat democratic. But we
might take less pride in the conduct of our political parties and
politicians. The ‘hardware’ of Indian democracy, by which I mean the
machinery and conduct of elections, is robust and intact. The
‘software’ of democracy, by which I mean the processes by which we
are governed in-between elections, is corrupt and corroded.
What might be done to redeem this? How might the political process be
made more efficient and more sensitive to the needs of the citizens?
Here are a few concrete suggestions for how we may improve Indian
politics in the year 2009 and beyond:
First, promote bipartisanship on issues of national security and
foreign policy. The Congress and the BJP are equally guilty here.
When Atal Bihari Vajpayee visited Srinagar, as the first prime
minister to do so in more than a decade, Sonia Gandhi asked the
Congress ministers in the state government to boycott his speech.
More recently, when several years of peace were threatened by the
Amarnath controversy, L.K. Advani worked to intensify the conflicts
between Jammu and the Kashmir valley, when he could have instead
chosen to collaborate with the government to resolve them. On the
question of terrorism, too, the BJP and the Congress seek to wound
the other party rather than to make common cause in the national
interest. When the idea of India is itself in peril, there must be no
place for the politics of vindictive opposition.
Second, promote lateral entry into government. One reason Western
states are better run than ours is that top jobs are not a monopoly
of party apparatchiks and civil servants. Rather, qualified
technologists, lawyers, entrepreneurs and journalists are encouraged
to enter government in posts suited to their skills. Why should a
successful businessman not be eligible to be made commerce secretary,
or a brilliant scientist education secretary?
Third, restore Parliament as a theatre for reasoned debate, which it
indeed was for the first quarter-century of its existence. The first
few Lok Sabhas met for some 150 times a year; now, we are lucky if
Parliament convenes for 80 days a year. And when they are not on
holiday, the members of parliament seek not to speak themselves but
to stop others from speaking.
Fourth, put pressure on political parties to voluntarily adopt a
retirement age. No one more than 70 years of age should be permitted
by their party to contest elections or hold office. In a young
country and fast-moving world, to have octogenerians running state
governments or seeking to be prime minister simply won’t do.
Fifth, act on the EC’s suggestion and include, on the ballot paper,
the category “None of the above”, to be inserted after the list of
candidates for each constituency. The right not to vote, and to make
it known that an individual will not vote , is a natural extension of
the democratic right to choose a particular candidate or party to
represent oneself.
As the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks has underlined, the
disenchantment with politicians runs deep in India. However, the
slogans that currently express this disgust — “Jail all corrupt
politicians”, “Do not pay your taxes”, and so on — are either wholly
negative, or wholly impractical, or both.
On the other hand, the proposals outlined above are both positive as
well as realistic. They are intended to make Indian democracy
something more than the periodic exercise of the popular right to
vote. That right is, of course, indispensable — and we should be
thankful that, unlike some other countries in our neighbourhood, we
can exercise it yet again in 2009. But we cannot be content with
this. And so, in the interval between the 15th and the 16th general
elections, let us promote bipartisanship in foreign policy, encourage
talented professionals to enter government, restore the integrity of
Parliament, send old politicians into a dignified retirement, and
add, to the right to vote, the right not to vote as well.
_____
[8]
The Guardian
11 February 2009
Behind the violence in Gujarat, Gaza and Iraq is the banality of
democracy
The moral deviancy of our elite no longer shocks. What is dispiriting
is its tacit endorsement by electoral majorities
by Pankaj Mishra
In his memoir, Secrets, Daniel Ellsberg describes how he decided to
risk years in prison by leaking the Pentagon Papers, the top-secret
record of American decision-making on Vietnam, to the New York Times.
Hoping that his wife, Patricia, would help him make up his mind,
Ellsberg showed her a few memos on bombing strategies crafted by his
former superiors at the Pentagon. She was horrified by some of the
phrases in the documents: "a need to reach the threshold of pain";
"salami-slice bombing campaign"; "the objective of persuading the
enemy"; "ratchet"; "one more turn of the screw". "This is the
language of torturers," she told Ellsberg. "These have to be exposed."
I recalled this scene while reading about Israel's objectives in its
assault on Gaza, as defined by the country's political and military
leaders and its western supporters. Speaking to a delegation from the
Israeli lobby Aipac, President Shimon Peres confirmed that "Israel's
aim was to provide a strong blow to the people of Gaza so that they
would lose their appetite for shooting at Israel". Writing in the New
York Times, Thomas Friedman, who had previously explained that the US
invasion of Iraq was meant to say "suck on this" to the Muslim world,
agreed that "the only long-term source of deterrence is to exact
enough pain on the civilians".
Perhaps it is no longer shocking that elected leaders and mainstream
journalists in democracies seem to borrow their tone and vocabulary
from Ayman al-Zawahiri and Hassan Nasrallah - after all, the war on
terror, now officially declared a "mistake", unhinged some of our
best writers and thinkers. What is more bewildering and dispiriting
than the moral deviancy of our political elites is its tacit
endorsement by large democratic majorities.
Democracy, loudly upheld as a cure for much of the ailing world, has
proved no guarantor of political wisdom, even if it remains the least
bad form of government. In 2006 the Palestinians voted for Hamas,
whose doctrinal commitment to the destruction of Israel makes peace
in the Middle East even less likely. Given the chance, majorities in
many Muslim countries would elect similarly intransigent Islamist
parties to high office.
But majority opinion in older and presumably more mature democracies
often doesn't seem much more sensible: the violence approved by it
makes much of the devastation caused by terrorists and dictators seem
minor by comparison. Initially, at least, Americans overwhelmingly
supported George Bush's catastrophic forays in the Middle East.
Operation Cast Lead was blessed by a remarkably high proportion of
Israelis, who since 1977 have freely elected a series of leaders -
Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamir, Ariel Sharon - tainted by involvement
in terrorist groups and war crimes, and appear ready to extend their
imprimatur to the obstreperously racist Avigdor Lieberman.
When last week in Ha'aretz the Israeli historian Tom Segev judged
Israeli "apathy" towards the massacre in Gaza as "chilling and
shameful", he brought on deja vu among Indians. In 2002 the Hindu
nationalist government of Gujarat supervised the killing of more than
two thousand Muslims. The state's chief minister, Narendra Modi, who
green-lighted the mass murder, seemed a monstrous figure to many
Indians; they then watched aghast as the citizens of Gujarat - better-
educated and more prosperous than most Indians - re-elected Modi by a
landslide after the pogrom. In 2007, a few months after the magazine
Tehelka taped Hindu nationalists in Gujarat boasting how they raped
and dismembered Muslims, Modi again won elections with contemptuous
ease. Though prohibited from entering the US, Modi is now courted by
corporate groups, including Tata, and frequently hailed as India's
next prime minister.
As the Israeli right looks likely to be the latest electoral
beneficiary of state terror, it is time to ask: can the institutions
of electoral democracy, liberal capitalism and the nation-state be
relied upon to do our moral thinking for us? "Trust in the majority,"
they seem to say, but more often than not the majority proves itself
incapable of even common sense.
It is true that thoughtlessness and apathy rather than malicious
intent on the part of majorities helps their representatives to
perpetrate or cover up such atrocities as Gujarat, the blockade of
Gaza, or the occupation of Kashmir - forms of violence less obvious
or written about than 9/11, Saddam Hussein's regime, and the recent
terrorist attacks on Mumbai. But this doesn't make thoughtlessness
and apathy less destructive in actuality than the malevolence of
despots and terrorists.
Hannah Arendt's phrase "banality of evil" refers precisely to how a
generalised moral numbness among educated, even cultured, people
makes them commit or passively condone acts of extreme violence.
Arendt marvelled at "the phenomenon of evil deeds, committed on a
gigantic scale, which could not be traced to any particularity of
wickedness, pathology or ideological conviction in the doer, whose
only personal distinction was a perhaps extraordinary shallowness".
Shallowness and ignorance have been our lot in the mass consumer
societies we inhabit, where we were too distracted to act
politically, apart from periodically deputing political elites to
take life-and-death decisions on our behalf. We were shielded from
many of the deleterious consequences, which worked themselves out on
obscure people in remote lands. The free world's economic implosion
is bringing home the intolerable cost of this collective deference to
apparently efficient elites and anonymous, overcomplex institutions.
It is too easy to blame Bush, who told Americans to go spend and
consume while he ratcheted up pain levels in Iraq and Afghanistan, or
the grotesquely overrated technocrats running banks and businesses.
As the New York Times columnist Frank Rich reminded Americans last
week: "We spent a decade feasting on easy money, don't-pay-as-you-go
consumerism and a metastasizing celebrity culture. We did so while a
supposedly cost-free, off-the-books war, usually out of sight and out
of mind, helped break the bank along with our nation's spirit and
reputation."
The prosperity many democracies enjoyed lulled citizens into
political torpor. The prospect of economic collapse has persuaded a
majority of Americans to exercise more individual judgment than they
showed while re-electing Bush in 2004. But collective failures of the
kind Barack Obama spoke of in his stern inaugural speech will
continue to occur among citizens of other democracies - and they will
have no Obama to exhort them to personal responsibility.
In any case, economic disasters or foolish wars are hardly guaranteed
to bring about large-scale individual self-examination or renew the
appeal of truly participatory democracy. They are more likely to make
authoritarianism attractive, as European democracies in the 1930s and
Russia in recent times demonstrated. Many Indians and Israelis seem
set to elect, with untroubled consciences, those who speak the
language of torturers and terrorists. More disturbingly, these
corrupted democracies may increasingly prove the norm rather than the
exception.
• Pankaj Mishra is author of Temptations of the West: How to Be
Modern in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Tibet
_____
[9] MISCELLANEA:
OBAMA'S FAITH BASED OFFICE AN INSULT TO WOMEN
by Martha Burk
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/martha-burk/obamas-faith-based-
office_b_164567.html
o o o
Haaretz 07/02/2009
LIEBERMAN'S ANTI-ARAB IDEOLOGY WINS OVER ISRAEL'S TEENS
by Yotam Feldman
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1061910.html
o o o
The New York Times, October 1, 2008
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/01/movies/01reli.html
MOVIE REVIEW | 'RELIGULOUS': Believers, Skeptics and a Pool of
Sitting Ducks
by Stephen Holden
There is no arguing with faith. As the comedian and outspoken
nonbeliever Bill Maher travels the world, interviewing Christians,
Jews and Muslims in the facetiously funny documentary “Religulous,”
you begin to wonder if there might be two subspecies of humans.
The skeptical minority to which Mr. Maher belongs constitutes 16
percent of the American population, he says, citing a survey. For
many of them, including Mr. Maher, the tenets of Christianity,
Judaism and Islam (Eastern and African religions are ignored) are
dangerous fairy tales and myths that have incited barbarous purges
and holy wars that are still being fought. A talking snake? A man who
lived inside a fish? These are two of Mr. Maher’s favorite biblical
images offered up for ridicule.
The majority of Americans, however, embrace some form of blind faith.
But because that faith by its very nature requires a leap into
irrationality, it is almost impossible to explain or to defend in
rational terms.
Mr. Maher has already established his position as an agnostic in his
HBO comedy series, “Real Time With Bill Maher.” A recent clash on the
program with his frequent guest the blogger and author Andrew
Sullivan, who is a Roman Catholic, illustrated how believers and
those who doubt might as well be from different planets. They can
argue with each other in fairly reasonable voices about politics, but
not about faith.
“Religulous” is directed by Larry Charles, whose credits include
“Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious
Nation of Kazakhstan” and many episodes of HBO’s “Curb Your
Enthusiasm.” And the movie has the same loose, on-the-road structure
as “Borat.” Much of Mr. Maher’s film is extremely funny in a
similarly irreverent, offhanded way. Some true believers — at least
those who have a sense of humor about their faith — may even be
amused. But most will not.
In a small journalistic coup Mr. Maher interviews a Roman Catholic
priest in front of the Vatican, who laughingly agrees with him that
the fundamental teachings of the Catholic Church are nonsense that
are not to be taken literally. Mr. Maher, unfortunately, doesn’t
press him on why he wears priestly vestments and presumes to exert
religious authority.
Although theologians and scientists are interviewed in the film, they
are fleeting presences in a documentary that doesn’t pretend to be a
serious cultural or scientific exploration of the roots of faith.
Because Mr. Maher adopts the attitude of an inquiring reporter
instead of a pundit, his contempt for organized religion isn’t as
pointed in the movie as it is in his television monologues.
His strategy is to coax most of those subjects who are true believers
to appear foolish as they offer stumbling, inarticulate responses to
his friendly interrogations. The majority of his subjects are easy
targets. One such sitting duck is José Luis de Jesús Miranda, a
nattily dressed Miami preacher who declares that he is the second
coming of Christ and claims that his Growing in Grace ministry has
100,000 followers. Like the fulminating televangelists whose
ministries the film glosses over, he comes across as a greedy, self-
satisfied charlatan with a fondness for gold.
When Mr. Maher asks Senator Mark Pryor, an Arkansas Democrat and
fervent evangelical Christian, why faith is good, he stumbles for an
answer. Returning later to Senator Pryor, Mr. Maher suggests that
many evangelicals look forward to the end of the world, when it is
prophesied that Jesus will return. The senator doesn’t dispute him.
John Westcott, a former homosexual who is now married and the
director of Exchange Ministries in Winter Park, Fla., an organization
whose mission is to reorient sexuality, can only smile when Mr. Maher
reminds him that Jesus never addressed the subject of homosexuality.
At a Christian theme park where the passion of Christ is re-enacted
in a tacky musical pageant, the actor playing Jesus compares the Holy
Trinity to the three states of water: liquid, ice and vapor.
When “Religulous” turns from evangelical Christianity to Judaism and
Islam, its tone becomes uncertain and its rhythm choppy. An attitude
of glib condescension is inadequate to address clashing religions
that have turned the Middle East into an ideological cauldron.
Jihadism and Orthodox Judaism are red-hot topics that Mr. Maher
addresses too sketchily to convey the same authority he brings to
Christianity.
Ultimately, “Religulous” turns into a thunderous warning about the
future, complete with apocalyptic images of stampeding armies and
mushroom clouds issued by Mr. Maher, standing in the ruins of
Megiddo, the Israeli site from which the Book of Revelation says
Armageddon will originate. Secular humanists, agnostics and atheists
should rise up and make themselves heard, he declares. Instead of
faith, he emphasizes, we should consider doubt.
“Religulous” is rated R (Under 17 requires accompanying parent or
adult guardian). It includes humor that many will consider blasphemous.
RELIGULOUS
Directed by Larry Charles; director of photography, Anthony Hardwick;
edited by Jeff Groth, Christian Kinnard and Jeffrey M. Werner;
produced by Jonah Smith, Palmer West and Bill Maher; released by
Lionsgate. Running time: 1 hour 41 minutes.
[see also: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhN5dTTiIXU&feature=related]
_____
[10] ANNOUNCEMENTS:
(i) AISA and AIPWA protest on Valentine's day in Delhi.
SAY NO TO THE 'MORALITY POLICE'!
On February 13, on the eve of VALENTINE'S DAY
Join Rajendra Yadav, Arundhati Roy, teachers and students of DU,
Jamia Millia, JNU, activists of cultural and women's groups
to Celebrate 'Love in Our Times'
with poetry, music, readings
Vivekananda Statue, Arts Faculty, Delhi University, 12 noon
and
On February 14,
Gather to Celebrate Our Right to Live and Love in Freedom!
Come with Banners, Placards, Songs, Skits
to march at public spaces in and around the North Campus and Kamla
Nagar market
Assemble at Vivekananda Statue, Arts Faculty, Delhi University, 11 am
Dear friends,
The Sangh's moral police brigade has been intensifying its assault on
individual liberties and particularly on women's freedoms. The
assault in the Mangalore pub was the latest in the series of attacks
by the Sanghi Taliban – many of them on friendships and relationships
(especially inter-religious ones) between women and men, on women's
freedom to interact with men in public spaces (not just pubs, but
even schools, colleges, buses, streets, restaurants etc...). More
sinister is the fact that even leaders of the Congress, Chief
Ministers of several states and worst of all, a member of the NCW,
also lent their voice to the Sangh-inspired smokescreen of the
imagined dangers of 'pub culture,' 'women wearing semi-nude clothing'
and 'boys and girls walking hand in hand.'
These assaults in the name of 'morality,' of course, resonate with
many other attacks in our society – the killings of inter-caste
couples in the name of 'honour', the tragedies of same-sex couples
committing suicide, the draconian Article 377 in our law books, the
many voices that, when a woman is raped, declare that she herself –
thanks to her clothes, her lifestyle, her being at the 'wrong place,
wrong time' – is guilty...
This Valentine's Day, as the saffron brigade openly declares its
agenda of vandalism and violence, we hope you'll join us for some
defiant celebration – of our right to live and love freely, of
freedom of expression and women's hard-won rights, of all our ongoing
struggles for a better, freer world.
All India Students' Association (AISA)
All India Progressive Women's Association (AIPWA)
Contact: Pooja, AISA DU, (9968321240),
Kavita, AIPWA, (9868112252)
- - -
(ii) 8TH PROFESSOR AR DESAI MEMORIAL LECTURE
For those interested, the Dept. of Sociology, University of Mumbai,
is organizing the 8th Professor A. R. Desai Memorial Lecture to be
held on February 20, 2009 at 3.00 p.m. at the Pherozeshah Mehta
Auditorium in Kalina Campus. The lecture will be delivered by Dr.
Pratap Bhanu Mehta, President of the Centre for Policy Research and
one of India's legal political and constitutional experts. Dr. Mehta
will speak on 'The Social Basis of Indian Citizenship'. Justice B.N.
Srikrishna, former Judge of the Indian Supreme Court, will chair.
- - -
(iii) JOIN MARCH 7 EVENTS AGAINST SHARIA AND RELIGIOUS-BASED
TRIBUNALS IN UK
In commemoration of International Women’s Day join the One Law for
All organised rally, public meeting and art competition award
ceremony on Saturday, March 7, 2009 in London.
This is your chance to voice your opposition to Sharia law and all
religious-based tribunals in Britain and elsewhere, demand one
secular law and full citizenship rights, demand an end to cultural
relativism and racism, and defend universal rights.
On the 7th, meet at North Terrace, Trafalgar Square, 3:30-4:30pm for
a symbolic demonstration followed by a march towards Conway Hall from
4:30-5:30pm.
Then join a public meeting entitled Sharia Law, Sexual Apartheid and
Women's Rights from 6:00-8:00pm at Conway Hall, 25 Red Lion Square,
London WC1R 4RL. Speakers include: Yasmin Alibhai-Brown (Journalist
and British Muslims for Secular Democracy Chair), Naser Khader
(Democratic Muslims Founder), Gina Khan (One Law for All
Spokesperson), Kenan Malik (Writer and Broadcaster), Maryam Namazie
(One Law for All Spokesperson), Fariborz Pooya (Iranian Secular
Society and Council of Ex-Muslims of Britain Chair), and Carla Revere
(Lawyers’ Secular Society Chair).
Prizes for our Art Competition will be awarded at the March 7 public
meeting. You can participate in the competition by submitting a
painting, drawing, photograph, animation or short video in digital
format no later than February 27, 2009. The goal of the art
competition is to expose the discriminatory nature of Sharia and
religious-based tribunals and/or promote equal rights for all
citizens, as embodied by the campaign's emblematic phrase: One Law
for All. All submissions will be reviewed by a panel of prominent
judges, namely, AC Grayling (Philosopher), Deeyah (Singer), Johann
Hari (Journalist and Playwright) and Polly Toynbee (Writer and
Columnist).
Also, don’t forget to donate to our organisation if you can. Any
amount will help. The March 7 event, and our future plans for a legal
and informational campaign, a speaking tour across the country, a
mass rally in November and more all cost money. If everyone who
supports our work and/or who has signed our petition (7500 so far
since December 10) gave even a £1, we would have the money needed to
move this campaign forward.
We know we have a huge fight ahead and can only win if we do this
together. We have no choice but to mobilise a mass anti-racist
movement that defends people's rights and lives and gives them
precedence over culture and religion.
To donate, for more information, to download a leaflet or a booking
form, or to sign the petition, visit our website:
www.onelawforall.org.uk. You can
also contact us via:
BM Box 2387
London WC1N 3XX, UK
Tel: +44 (0) 7719166731
onelawforall at gmail.com
- - -
(iv) CALL FOR DIGITAL MEDIA
In a Planet of Our Own- A vision of sustainability from across six
continents
15-22 March 2009
AEC World Expo 2009, Bombay Exhibition Centre, NSE Complex, Mumbai,
India
IIT, Mumbai, India and other venues.
This international event is aimed at creating awareness on
sustainability and simultaneously offers a platform for interaction
for professionals and activists from various fields and the general
public. The events are centered around the interests of students,
educationists and practicing professional designers, engaged in any
manner with a broad vision of sustainability and aims to address the
need to reach a wider audience and create greater awareness. The
event has been designed to be lively, interactive and thought
provoking and will provide great opportunity to interact with
stalwarts in the field of sustainable development and related
practices, connect with thought leaders and listen to visions by
outstanding speakers.
The event comprises many exhibition opportunities and provides a wide
platform for sustainability-related work done by individuals and
institutions over the years. We are organizing public installations
along with film/video screenings for the same. The films will be used
for screenings within the exhibition and as part of a larger
compilation to be exhibited in public spaces across Mumbai. We expect
to exhibit work that deals with a wide variety of themes within a
broad ambit of sustainability, especially culturally specific
endeavours, and will appreciate work that is visually stimulating and
engaging in its depiction.
If you have relevant work in this area, we would like to include it
after a preliminary viewing. There is no restriction and the work
could span any visual representation from prints to photographs, film/
video/animation or work in any other digital media.
PLEASE FORWARD US YOUR WORK AS A CD/DVD IN ANY VIEWABLE FORMAT
KEEPING IN MIND THE FACT THAT IT MUST BE SUITABLE FOR PROJECTION/
PUBLICATION, HENCE NEEDS TO BE A GOOD QUALITY PRINT (AVI/MPEG/DVD FOR
VIDEO AND IMAGES IN 300 DPI JPEG OR TIFF).
For film/video submission, please include –
- 5(or more) high-resolution images from your film
- Brief write-up of less than 150 words about your work/ideas
- Short biography and photograph of yourself
This information will be used for inclusion in the exhibition and
related publicity material with your permission.
PLEASE SEND US YOUR WORK BEFORE 28TH FEBRUARY 2009.
You could send us your work at the following address:
Exhibition - In a Planet of Our Own
c/o Vaibhav Singh
Industrial Design Centre (IDC)
Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)
Powai, Mumbai 400076
For an overview of the event please visit http://
www.inaplanetofourown.net
For all queries please email us at sustainability.iit at gmail.com
Regards,
Monica Bhasin
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
S o u t h A s i a C i t i z e n s W i r e
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. An offshoot of South Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.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