SACW | Sept 26-29, 2009 / Secularism or Compromise / Give up the Bomb
Harsh Kapoor
aiindex at gmail.com
Mon Sep 28 23:13:34 CDT 2009
South Asia Citizens Wire | September 26-29, 2009 | Dispatch No. 2655
- Year 12 running
From: www.sacw.net
[ SACW Dispatches for 2009-2010 are dedicated to the memory of Dr.
Sudarshan Punhani (1933-2009), husband of Professor Tamara Zakon and
a comrade and friend of Daya Varma ]
____
[1] Sri Lanka: Rajani Thiranagama: Making of a new revolutionary
(Dayapala Thiranagama)
[2] Bangladesh: No scope for complacency in fight against religious
extremism (Editorial, New Age)
[3] Women fighters in Nepal (James Fontanella-Khan)
[4] Pakistan: Mingora Journal - New Wardrobe Brings Freedom to Women
in Swat (Sabrina Tavernise)
- Private wars (Editorial, The News International)
[5] India / France: Compromise and surrender of principle: Response
to an article by Ramachandra Guha (Marieme Helie Lucas)
[6] India, Pakistan and Their Defiance of Nuclear Disarmament:
- Forget a war, nuclear bombs can’t win a fair election (Jawed
Naqvi)
[7] India: Resources For Secular Activists
- Press Release of Petition to Oman Government to Rescind
Invitation to CM Modi
- Communal Recipe (K.N. Panikkar)
- Book Review: Aditya Mukherjee on D.N. Jha's Book
'Rethinking Hindu Identity'
- National Meet on The Status of Muslims In Contemporary
India (New Delhi, October 3-5, 2009)
[8] Miscellanea:
- Declaration Of The World Resources Forum - Sept. 16, 2009
- Leaders' Statement: The Pittsburgh Summit, September 24 - 25,
2009
_____
[1] Sri Lanka:
RAJANI THIRANAGAMA: MAKING OF A NEW REVOLUTIONARY
by Dayapala Thiranagama
Speech delivered yesterday on the twentieth death anniversary of
Rajani Thiranagama
http://www.sacw.net/article1147.html
_____
[2] Bangladesh:
New Age
29 September 2009
Editorial: NO SCOPE FOR COMPLACENCY IN FIGHT AGAINST RELIGIOUS EXTREMISM
THE raid by the Rapid Action Battalion on what it said a training
camp of Jamaatul Mujahideen Bangladesh at Shantipur, a remote village
in Khagrachari, and the arrest of five suspected operatives of the
banned Islamist organisation, including its ‘second-in-command’ for
the Chittagong Division, there and elsewhere in the country during an
intensive operation from Saturday night through Sunday morning are
assuring and alarming at the same time. It is assuring because the
raid and the arrests indicate that the government has seemingly
sustained its clampdown against the Islamist radicals. It is alarming
because the incidents suggest that the banned Islamist organisation
may have been debilitated by the execution of its six frontline
leaders, including its supreme leader Shaikh Abdur Rahman and his
second-in-command Siddiqul Islam Bangla Bhai, in 2007 but is far from
being dismantled. In fact, put together with several recent arrests
of JMB operatives at different parts of the country, the latest
incidents bear testimony to the slow but sure regrouping of the
radical elements. While there have been significant successes in the
past several years the fight against religious extremism is yet to be
won. And, as we have written in these columns time and again, a
decisive victory in this fight cannot be secured if the government
continues to regard religious extremism as merely a law and order
problem, which, needless to say, it is not.
While law enforcement and security operations constitute a major
component, the fight against religious extremism needs to be fought
simultaneously on several fronts – social, cultural, political and
economic. The emergence of religious extremism in Bangladesh or, for
that matter, anywhere in the world, it has been argued by many, and
rightly so, may very well have been in reaction to, and an expression
of, a pervasive sense of political, social, economic and cultural
deprivation in the marginalised sections of society. When there is
simmering discontent over disparity in the lower rungs of society, it
provides the proponents of religious extremism with the handle to
lure hordes of unsuspecting minds to their deadly design. Therefore,
the policymakers of the government need to dedicate their time,
thought and energy to evolving an inclusive development paradigm that
strives to eradicate disparity in society and thus douse the flames
of such simmering discontent.
It has also been suggested, again quite justifiably, that there
may be a strong link between Islamist radicalism and the education
that many madrassahs across the country, especially in the remote
areas, impart. While most of these madrassahs are reported to be
culturally disorienting students with perverse teaching and
indoctrination, a number of these are actually used by Islamist
radicals as recruitment and training centres. Hence, the authorities
have not only to keep the madrassahs, especially in the remote areas,
under surveillance so that the Islamist radicals cannot use these as
training and recruitment centres but also monitor what kind of
education these are imparting to the students.
As far as law enforcement and security operations are concerned,
the government needs to realise its actions thus far have not been
adequately efficient or effective. Its actions need to go beyond raid
on one hideout or the other, or arrest of one operative or the other,
into identifying and arresting the political and financial patrons of
religious extremism, an area where the successive governments have
not had much success.
In the final analysis, there is hardly any room for complacency,
as there is no scope for any piecemeal redress for religious
extremism. The fight needs to be comprehensive and sustained.
Otherwise, no matter how many hideouts that the law enforcers bust
and how many operatives of banned Islamist organisations that they
arrest, religious extremism will simmer on only to raise their ugly
head at an opportune moment.
_____
[3] Nepal:
Financial Times
September 26 2009
WOMEN FIGHTERS IN NEPAL
by James Fontanella-Khan
Binda, 21 and Sandiu (below) on guard duty at the perimeter and
entrance of a People’s Liberation Army (PLA) camp
In some ways, the problem is pure maths. During the 11-year Nepalese
civil war, which ended three years ago with the overthrow by Maoist
guerrillas of the country’s monarchy, about 40 per cent of the 19,000
Maoist cadres were women. The peace agreement stipulated that the
fighters would be integrated into the 100,000-strong national army –
only 2 per cent of which is female, with most of the women in
clerical and nursing posts. In other words, integration hasn’t been
easy.
Kusum, a radio operator with the PLA 3rd Division
Veterans of the PLA 3rd Division
PLA members keep smiling. But their combat experience is massively
undervalued
Instead, the former female rebels, accustomed to dodging bullets in
the dense Nepalese forest, have spent years in limbo, waiting for new
lives to begin. They are eager to play a role in reshaping Nepal, but
for now are confined to 28 United Nations-monitored cantonments
spread across the country.
Kamala Roka, a Maoist who joined the struggle when she was 13, worked
her way up the ranks and later decided to run for parliament in last
year’s elections, told photographer Kois Miah that “although the
military fight is over, the fight for equality and particularly
women’s equality still continues”. Miah, based in London, took these
photographs last autumn.
The women live surrounded by comrades and family. But while many are
happy to spend time with their children and learn new skills, such as
how to use computers and sewing machines, they also yearn for a life
outside the camps. At the moment, they are only partially free: no
more than 12 per cent of the total of the retained forces are
authorised to leave at any time, according to the UN.
Young PLA fighters go shopping on payday
The country’s newly elected parliament has been struggling to
integrate the Maoists; their soldiers and those in the national army
were bitter adversaries during the war and remain suspicious of one
another. Pushpa Kamal Dahal, Nepal’s former prime minister and a
Maoist leader, resigned this spring over the failure to reintegrate
3,000 former rebels into the army.
One PLA soldier takes a rest: despite their proven courage and
military skills, the future of these women is deeply uncertain
“The women in the camps were concerned whether the Nepalese army
would ever accept them,” says Miah. “Although many of the female
fighters are young, they have very high ranks and would not accept
being a step below men.” During the civil war, female members of the
Maoist People’s Liberation Army (PLA) shared the same rights as their
male counterparts, rights they are not prepared to give up in the
“new” Nepal. Several women told Miah that if they were not integrated
fairly, they would have no choice but to pick up their rifles once
again.
“They can’t go back to their former lives, they’ve given everything
up, much more than male fighters,” Miah says. “Nepal is steeped in
centuries of gender inequality and caste system, and they run too
much risk to be going back to the villages, fearing repercussions for
their involvement with the Maoists.”
Kamala Roka, Constituent Assembly member, formerly Brigade Commissioner
Civilians go about their morning chores
Non-combatant comrades and extended families live separately from PLA
quarters
Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009.
_____
[4] Pakistan:
The New York Times
September 22, 2009
MINGORA JOURNAL: NEW WARDROBE BRINGS FREEDOM TO WOMEN IN SWAT
by Sabrina Tavernise
Mingora, Pakistan — When the Taliban took control here in February
and forced women into burqas, an epidemic of clumsiness swept this
city. Women began banging into lamp posts. Nurses fumbled needles.
Many simply stopped going out altogether.
Jason Tanner for The New York Times
After nearly two years of wearing burqas under the rigid rule of the
Taliban, Shahi Begum, right, a school teacher, is shedding her clumsy
garb and life of confinement.
A woman walked through the United Nations High Commission for
Refugees Jalozai camp, northwest of Islamabad, Pakistan, in her burqa
in June. A summer military operation drove the Taliban out of Swat.
A summer military operation drove the Taliban out of Swat.
Now the Taliban are mostly gone, driven out by a military operation
this summer, and the women of this northern Pakistani city, the
largest in the Swat Valley, are returning to public life. Teachers
are back at work, maids are commuting to jobs across town and nurses
are giving injections without having to squint through a coarse layer
of netting.
People here still worry that the war could return anytime. Last
month, a suicide bomber killed 15 police officers at the central
police station here. But for now, at least, women are feeling steady
on their feet, a cautious vote of confidence in security here by
society’s most vulnerable.
“When the Taliban fled, our burqas went with them,” said Shahin
Begum, 40, an elementary school teacher, who returned to work on Aug. 1.
Women were the main targets of the Taliban’s morals police, and once
that rigid rule was imposed their lives froze. They were barred from
going to traditional women’s shopping areas, and anyone who worked in
a public place, including hospitals, was required to wear a burqa, a
sacklike, head-to-toe garment with netting over the eyes.
The burqa is traditional for many women in tribal, conservative
western Pakistan. But here in the Swat Valley and its ethnically
mixed hill towns north of the capital, Islamabad, women are
relatively more open, and for many the outfit felt clumsy and confining.
“I felt like I was out of air,” said Zaida Bibi, a maid in a green
shawl with flowers.
Now, she said, it still feels like a delicious act of revenge to walk
into Cheena Market, a maze of glittering glass stalls full of
cosmetics, dresses and shoes that was forbidden under the Taliban,
where she was shopping Sunday.
“It’s a free, light feeling,” she said as she chose gifts for Id al-
Fitr, a major Muslim holiday, which was celebrated this week.
For many women here, after nearly two years of twisting themselves
into strange shapes to survive, returning to work is its own form of
protest. Asia Habib, 28, left a job in Peshawar, the regional
capital, to return to her nursing position in a private hospital in
Mingora in July. She remembers arguing with a Taliban fighter who
threatened her when she refused to buy him medicine. What was worse,
she had to wear a burqa to treat him.
“I had two jobs — managing the burqa and treating the patient,” said
Ms. Habib, wearing a white shawl. “You wanted to weep but you
couldn’t even do that in front of them.”
The burqa was not the worst of women’s troubles, but it was one of
the most public displays of what the Taliban wanted of women — that
they disappear. At first many women changed to a Persian Gulf niqab,
with a slit for the eyes. But that was not enough for the Taliban, so
the Afghanistan ghost style became mandatory.
“That’s when we started falling down,” said Shahi Begum, a 45-year-
old primary school teacher. Like horses with blinders on, women lost
their peripheral vision. Climbing into rickshaws became treacherous,
as women gathered billowing material to sit in a small space. “Legs
in one direction, hands in another,” Ms. Begum said.
Sharisa Rehman, a teacher who returned to her job at the Sangota
Girls School on Aug. 3, said she still had difficulty thinking about
the time she spent under Taliban rule. “I was bound like a prisoner,”
she said.
Her postcommute changing routine out of her burqa reminded her of a
superhero. “Like Spider-Man,” she said.
Nearly all her students have returned, she said, despite coming from
affluent families who had migrated to larger, safer Pakistani cities.
That ratio is much lower in rural areas of Swat.
Taliban rule left people here poorer. As girls schools began to
close, Ms. Bibi’s work cleaning them dried up, and she could no
longer risk traveling to work in private homes. Her children’s shoes
grew tight. Her daughter was separated from her baby long enough that
she stopped lactating, and finding the money to buy milk became a
daily struggle.
“Life was strangled,” she said, adding, “we hated them.”
That life seems far away now. People take pleasure in once mundane
things that disappeared under the Taliban, like traffic and TV. The
Swat Cinema held its second screening in two years on Monday; so many
people were clamoring to see the Pashtun shoot ’em-up that three more
shows were added.
Mingora may seem normal now, but the social ills that fueled
militancy are unchanged. Young men in the rural parts of the valley,
where the insurgency began, are still unemployed. The Taliban remains
a formidable force in other areas of western Pakistan, and the
government has yet to fill the vacuum they left in Swat.
“Just because there’s no Taliban, doesn’t mean the problem is gone,”
said Sher Yar, a businessman waiting in line for a haircut. “No
practical steps have been taken for people to have faith in the
government.”
Ms. Begum, the elementary school teacher, said she believed that the
Taliban gave false messages to young people, including that Islam
required women’s faces to be covered. But in a measure of how wary
she still is, Ms. Begum said she would not speak of this in her
classroom, for fear that her remarks might bring trouble.
Ms. Rehman, the private school teacher, used her burqa to express her
doubts. “It’s still hanging in my room, ready to wear,” she said.
Irfan Ashraf and Jason Tanner contributed reporting from Mingora.
o o o
The News International
26 September 2009
EDITORIAL: PRIVATE WARS
Private wars are breaking out across our country. Seven members of an
anti-Taliban 'lashkar' in Bannu, close to Waziristan, were killed in
an ambush by the Taliban. In retaliation, nine Taliban militants were
killed by 'lashkar' members. The Taliban action appeared to be
designed to prevent a local tribal chief, who also died during the
attack, from raising a militia against the extremists. More and more
such incidents have been reported from across the northern areas. A
fierce gun battle in Swat just weeks ago, pitching 'lashkar' members
against the Taliban, led to several deaths.
The 'lashkar' strategy was devised with good intention. It acted also
to demonstrate that the Taliban did not have the uniform support of
local people. But perhaps the time has come to reconsider its merits.
Using irregular armies against the Taliban poses its own dangers.
These private militias are heavily armed but in most cases lack
discipline or training. Retaliatory killings and acts of vengeance
could create yet more violence. What we need most at this time is the
ushering in of an era of peace. The government must also ask itself
if it is fair to pitch ordinary citizens against the Taliban. This is
a job that should be taken on by the army. Our military, it is true,
has limited ability in a guerrilla war situation. This was one of the
reasons why the 'lashkars' were raised. But perhaps this shortcoming
needs to be overcome given that our army is likely, in the future, to
be battling outfits such as the Taliban rather than engaging in
conventional war against a regular rival force. Putting the lives of
civilians at risk is unjust. There is no knowing either how the
'lashkars' may act in the future or in which direction they may turn
their weapons. The help sought from anti-Taliban tribesmen in the
northern areas has served its purpose. The militants are on the run.
The wisdom of creating private militias now needs to be rethought.
_____
[5] India / France: The Politics of Secularism and why good
intentioned liberals fall into the trap of supporting fundamentalists
sacw.net
28 September 2009
http://www.sacw.net/article1150.html
COMPROMISE AND SURRENDER OF PRINCIPLE:
A response to the article by Ramachandra Guha, ’The Beauty of
Compromise’
by Marieme Helie Lucas
A response to the article by Ramachandra Guha, ’The Beauty of
Compromise: an excess of secularism may be as problematic as
bigotry’ (in The Telegraph, 26 September 2009)
The information about French secularism, past and present, that one
can draw from English speaking media leads to much misunderstanding
and biased opinions. On the one hand one cannot blame writers who
have no direct access to primary sources and have to rely on
secondary ones. On the other hand, the propagation of biased
information and thus of erroneous conclusions in the English language
serve the interests of Muslim fundamentalists in France, and for that
reason alone, it needs to be addressed.
The article by Ramachandra Guha shows bias at several levels: it
overlooks the different definitions of secularism, it presents
erroneous interpretations as facts, it under-evaluates the rise of
Muslim fundamentalism as a political -not a religious- phenomenon and
it accepts a cultural definition of women’s rights.
All of these tend to give credibility to the assertions of Muslim
fundamentalists that combat French secularism.
1.
’Secularism’ is defined by virtually all countries in the world,
apart from France and Turkey, according to the anglo-saxon model,
i.e. as equal tolerance - by the State - of all religions. This
includes India.
The Queen in Britain is also the Head of the Anglican Church, Landers
in Germany collect taxes for the Churches, The Orthodox Church in
Serbia has a now special political status, etc…
Citizens are organized according to faith based communities; it is
these ’communities’ (a concept unknown to the French political
lexicon) that are supposed to be at par, not the individuals, under
this definition of secularism. Individuals, willingly or unwillingly,
are ascribed to a community, named after a faith (the ’Hindus’, the
’Muslims’. . .) that they may or may not adopt, regardless of their
individual beliefs, by virtue of being born into a country, a
family. . .
One could easily argue that this is a denial of individual’s basic
human rights, as defined and guaranteed in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. This is exemplified in the existence of parallel
legal systems in family matters, i.e. separate family codes for
different communities, which in the name of the right to difference,
organize the difference in rights among citizens.
This definition of secularism is a far cry from the French
definition: at no point does it assign the state to tolerate or not
tolerate religions, or keep them at par.
After a fierce and long political battle against both the intricately
linked monarchy and Catholic Church, the French revolution initiated,
with the Acts of 1881 and 1886, a total break between the political
power and religions.
’the Res Publica addresses everybody, believers, atheists and
agnostics alike and cannot therefore favor anybody’…/… Hence, the
republic is neither atheistic nor religious: it no longer arbitrates
between beliefs but arbitrates between actions and is devoted only to
the general interest…/… This evolution puts an end to the confusion
between the temporal and the spiritual’ (1)
This was further formalized in the laws on secularism in 1905 and
1906. Ironically, these, together with their milder updated version
of 2004, are now known the world over as ’the law against the veil’, -
regardless of history, regardless of the fact that, at the time,
Muslims were simply absent of the immigration scene in France, and
thanks to the active propaganda of Muslim fundamentalists.
At the beginning of the last century, the December 9,1905 Act of
Separation of Church and State declares the following: the French
state has nothing to do with religions, it declares itself
incompetent in matters of religions. It guarantees freedom of belief
and of practice to all its citizens.
’The 9 December 1905 act opens on two indivisible articles, grouped
under the heading, "Title 1. Principles"."Section 1: the Republic
shall ensure freedom of conscience. It shall guarantee free
participation in religious worship, subject only to the restrictions
laid down hereinafter in the interest of public order. Section 2: the
Republic may not recognise, pay stipends to or subsidise any
religious denomination.’(1)
Indeed the law makes it clear that under French secularism, the state
has no mandate to recognizing - equally or not - any religion:
’This strictly means that it has passed from recognising certain
denominations (before 1905, Catholicism, Lutheran and Reformed
Protestantism and Judaism) to renouncing all recognition. It is not
passing from recognition of some to recognition of all, as a
multireligious or communitarist interpretation would have it, but
from a selective recognition to a strict non-recognition’.(1)
’The official recognition of certain worships involves a double
exclusion: that of other worships and that of non- religious figures
of spirituality. It encroaches on the public sphere, alienating it to
the domination of religions. It makes no difference to recognize
several religions: the alienation of the public field to religious
persuasions is none the less patently obvious. It is therefore in no
way secular.’(1)
French secularism assigns religions to the private sphere, within
which they enjoy legitimacy and protection.
’Assigning religions to the private sphere entails a radical
secularization of the State. It henceforth declares itself
incompetent in matters of spiritual options, and has not therefore to
arbitrate between beliefs nor to let them encroach on the public
sphere to shape common norms.(1)
As one of the corollaries of its founding principle, the law forbids
any sign of political or religious affiliations in relation to the
secular Republic:
’As to the essential principle of the respect of religious
neutrality, section 28 of the 1905 Act stipulates :"It is henceforth
forbidden to build or affix any religious sign or emblem on public
monuments or on any place whatever, with the exception of religious
buildings, burial places in cemeteries, funeral monuments as well as
museums or exhibitions."(1)
It has implications for individuals in two occasions: for civil
servants when they represent the French secular Republic in their
functions, for children in secular state schools where they are not
supposed to represent their group/community but to interact as equal
citizens.
This is the logic by which, since 1906, neither children in state
schools, nor their teachers, can wear any sign of their political or
religious affiliation.
One can easily see that it has nothing to do with the fairly recent
’Muslim’ immigration into France.
It follows suits that when the anglo-saxon definition is loosely
applied to the understanding of French secularism on the ground, it
can only lead to further misunderstandings.
Mr Guha accepts without blinking the definition proposed by this
history (?) professor who states that ’French secularism is not anti-
religion per se, it is supposed to be about respecting all religions’
*. I am sorry to say that this professor is pandering here to the
anglosaxon conception of secularism, not the French one.
Indeed, France is under heavy pressure by the European Union to adopt
the dominant anglo-saxon definition of secularism. History professors
making this kind of erroneous statements as if they ignored both
French laws, French history and the definition of secularism in
France are part of the political pressure.
Ignoring the historically diverging conceptions of secularism can
lead to conceptual confusions that could be hilarious if they did not
serve specific political interests that we will discuss later in
section 3: stemming from the concept of tolerance, here irrelevant as
per the French definition of secularism, Mr Guha concludes his
article by equating French secularism* with the extreme right Hindutva*…
1.
’Secularism’ is defined by virtually all countries in the world,
apart from France and Turkey, according to the anglo-saxon model,
i.e. as equal tolerance - by the State - of all religions. This
includes India.
The Queen in Britain is also the Head of the Anglican Church, Landers
in Germany collect taxes for the Churches, The Orthodox Church in
Serbia has a now special political status, etc…
Citizens are organized according to faith based communities; it is
these ’communities’ (a concept unknown to the French political
lexicon) that are supposed to be at par, not the individuals, under
this definition of secularism. Individuals, willingly or unwillingly,
are ascribed to a community, named after a faith (the ’Hindus’, the
’Muslims’. . .) that they may or may not adopt, regardless of their
individual beliefs, by virtue of being born into a country, a
family. . .
One could easily argue that this is a denial of individual’s basic
human rights, as defined and guaranteed in the Universal Declaration
of Human Rights. This is exemplified in the existence of parallel
legal systems in family matters, i.e. separate family codes for
different communities, which in the name of the right to difference,
organize the difference in rights among citizens.
This definition of secularism is a far cry from the French
definition: at no point does it assign the state to tolerate or not
tolerate religions, or keep them at par.
After a fierce and long political battle against both the intricately
linked monarchy and Catholic Church, the French revolution initiated,
with the Acts of 1881 and 1886, a total break between the political
power and religions.
’the Res Publica addresses everybody, believers, atheists and
agnostics alike and cannot therefore favor anybody’…/… Hence, the
republic is neither atheistic nor religious: it no longer arbitrates
between beliefs but arbitrates between actions and is devoted only to
the general interest…/… This evolution puts an end to the confusion
between the temporal and the spiritual’ (1)
This was further formalized in the laws on secularism in 1905 and
1906. Ironically, these, together with their milder updated version
of 2004, are now known the world over as ’the law against the veil’, -
regardless of history, regardless of the fact that, at the time,
Muslims were simply absent of the immigration scene in France, and
thanks to the active propaganda of Muslim fundamentalists.
At the beginning of the last century, the December 9,1905 Act of
Separation of Church and State declares the following: the French
state has nothing to do with religions, it declares itself
incompetent in matters of religions. It guarantees freedom of belief
and of practice to all its citizens.
’The 9 December 1905 act opens on two indivisible articles, grouped
under the heading, "Title 1. Principles"."Section 1: the Republic
shall ensure freedom of conscience. It shall guarantee free
participation in religious worship, subject only to the restrictions
laid down hereinafter in the interest of public order. Section 2: the
Republic may not recognise, pay stipends to or subsidise any
religious denomination.’(1)
Indeed the law makes it clear that under French secularism, the state
has no mandate to recognizing - equally or not - any religion:
’This strictly means that it has passed from recognising certain
denominations (before 1905, Catholicism, Lutheran and Reformed
Protestantism and Judaism) to renouncing all recognition. It is not
passing from recognition of some to recognition of all, as a
multireligious or communitarist interpretation would have it, but
from a selective recognition to a strict non-recognition’.(1)
’The official recognition of certain worships involves a double
exclusion: that of other worships and that of non- religious figures
of spirituality. It encroaches on the public sphere, alienating it to
the domination of religions. It makes no difference to recognize
several religions: the alienation of the public field to religious
persuasions is none the less patently obvious. It is therefore in no
way secular.’(1)
French secularism assigns religions to the private sphere, within
which they enjoy legitimacy and protection.
’Assigning religions to the private sphere entails a radical
secularization of the State. It henceforth declares itself
incompetent in matters of spiritual options, and has not therefore to
arbitrate between beliefs nor to let them encroach on the public
sphere to shape common norms.(1)
As one of the corollaries of its founding principle, the law forbids
any sign of political or religious affiliations in relation to the
secular Republic:
’As to the essential principle of the respect of religious
neutrality, section 28 of the 1905 Act stipulates :"It is henceforth
forbidden to build or affix any religious sign or emblem on public
monuments or on any place whatever, with the exception of religious
buildings, burial places in cemeteries, funeral monuments as well as
museums or exhibitions."(1)
It has implications for individuals in two occasions: for civil
servants when they represent the French secular Republic in their
functions, for children in secular state schools where they are not
supposed to represent their group/community but to interact as equal
citizens.
This is the logic by which, since 1906, neither children in state
schools, nor their teachers, can wear any sign of their political or
religious affiliation.
One can easily see that it has nothing to do with the fairly recent
’Muslim’ immigration into France.
It follows suits that when the anglo-saxon definition is loosely
applied to the understanding of French secularism on the ground, it
can only lead to further misunderstandings.
Mr Guha accepts without blinking the definition proposed by this
history (?) professor who states that ’French secularism is not anti-
religion per se, it is supposed to be about respecting all religions’
*. I am sorry to say that this professor is pandering here to the
anglosaxon conception of secularism, not the French one.
Indeed, France is under heavy pressure by the European Union to adopt
the dominant anglo-saxon definition of secularism. History professors
making this kind of erroneous statements as if they ignored both
French laws, French history and the definition of secularism in
France are part of the political pressure.
Ignoring the historically diverging conceptions of secularism can
lead to conceptual confusions that could be hilarious if they did not
serve specific political interests that we will discuss later in
section 3: stemming from the concept of tolerance, here irrelevant as
per the French definition of secularism, Mr Guha concludes his
article by equating French secularism* with the extreme right Hindutva*…
What he sees as an excess of secularism* is a different conception,
philosophically founded, of secularism.
2.
The article contains a number of conceptual and factual errors.
The opening sentence states that: In September 2004, the French
government formally banned the wearing of head scarves by Muslim
girls in schools and colleges run by the State*. We have already seen
that this is not the case, as the laws on secularism predate by a
century the rise of headscarves in Europe as well as migration from
Muslim countries; moreover, we have also explained the logic of
secular republican schools where children are trained to consider
themselves as equal citizens. In fact, the 2004 law that updates that
of 1905 actually mellows it.
But indeed this is the claim that Muslim fundamentalists’
organisations are making. A bit of history should discourage from
propagating their views.
This is further confirmed when Mr Guha claims that the headscarf is
banned because it is something foreign and alien to the culture of
the French nation*. It is neither to the culture, nor to the nation
that it is alien to, it is to the principle of secularism when a
religious symbol is worn in the two specific circumstances listed
above. Outside schools, France is full of headscarves, ethnic
outfits, etc…
If Mr Guha can accept that schools have uniforms in the U.K and in
India (which is not the case in France, but Mr Guha seems to assume
that French children in state schools also wear uniforms) and that
children going to such schools have to abide by the rules, why can’t
he accept that secular schools have their own rules and that families
choosing to enrol their children in these schools should also abide
by the rules?
Quoting an article by The Guardian, Mr Guha reports that women
wearing headscarves in France have been forbidden to vote, not
allowed to open bank accounts, and in some cases, even barred from
their own wedding ceremonies*.
This is factually wrong. Women have been barred from doing all these
things when they were wearing a burqa or any other total veiling
outfit - not headscarves - that prevented from identification in
circumstances when identification is needed - such as voting,
marrying, opening a bank account, sitting for exams, etc… .
He further quotes the well known and quite telling example of a
veiled woman who made a booking in a B&B by telephone for her family
holidays and was turned out by the owner of the place when she came
with a headscarf. This is factually true. But Mr Guha fails to inform
his readers that the owner was heavily sentenced by the Court, a
judgment that was confirmed on appeal: a private B&B is not a place
that represents the secular Republic. This shows indeed that courts
have a clear understanding of the limits of secularism and do not
allow secular laws to be used for discriminatory purposes.
This example raises an additional point: France is not exempt from
’ordinary racism’, far from that.
But it is unethical to lump together legal secular measures that aim
at ensuring the independence of thought of citizens from the
appropriation of organized religions, and ’ordinary racism’ that is
punishable and punished by the law.
Numerous civil society organizations take up cases and help bring
them to court. Migrants and citizens of migrant descent, be they
Muslims or not, suffer from discrimination in housing, jobs, etc… and
there is much to be done in these areas. But those are political and
social problems that need to be treated as such, not as religious
ones. (2)
However, while all other European countries show a rate of
intermarriages with migrants or their descent of around 3%, France
show a rate approaching 30% of ’mixed’ marriages. Could it be that
the education in secular schools that trains all children to consider
each other as equal individuals with the same rights and duties,
rather than as representatives of their ’communities’ is bearing some
fruits?
Mr Guha states that secular laws, and namely their 2004 update, was
opposed by most French Muslims*. This is factually wrong. But I
cannot blame him for this mistake as this is what got reported in
English speaking media.
The archives of the Stasi Commission, a parliamentary commission
created to organise hearings to audit public opinion on secular laws
in schools, are full of testimonies of French citizens of migrant
Muslim descent that defend the secular law (with nuances on whether
the 1905 law needed an update or not).
Imams went public in defence of secularism; among others, the then
Great Mufti of Marseilles was seen on TV, spoke for secularism in
different fora and published a book on the issue.(3), (4) The weakly
TV broadcasting on Islam on Channel 2 has been persistantly inviting
religious Muslim scholars over the years, and still does it: they
educate their audiences not to feel threatened but rather empowered
by the separation of state and religions.
Numerous secularists of migrant Muslim descent took sides publicly in
favour of secularism. They wrote articles that were published in the
national press, they made public statements, they went on TV and radio.
Women’s organizations, including all the major ones that were set up
by women of migrant Muslim descent (often to defend themselves
against discrimination) massively mobilized: they organized public
hearings, conferences and various events in defence of secular laws.
Individual women from migrant Muslim descent demonstrated in the
streets in different cities of France, not just in Paris, and went
public in all French media available to them, in defence of
secularism. (5), (6). They spoke on the radio, on TV, in women’s
magazines and were interviewed in the national press.
Most of the written and audio material mentioned above is still
available on the net or in public archives, and researchers can check
on the facts, provided they know French. It does seem most unlikely
that these thousands of known or unknown individuals, men and women,
scholars or working people, were all coopted, bought, or forced to
make public statements, by the wicked French secular state to support
its secular policies.
And when the 2004 law finally confirmed the principles of the 1905
law, I heard on a public radio a twenty years old girl of Muslim
descent interviewed in the street who commented with satisfaction :
‘for once women’s rights come first’…
At no point was any of this reported in the international English
speaking media. But the only two small Paris-based demonstrations of
veiled women – cordoned by bearded men - against secular laws were
reported the world over. The fundamentalist lobbying of the media is
a lot more organized and efficient than secular organisations. And
the media taste for exoticism takes precedent over deontology.
3.
For if Mr Guha sees the headscarf as a personal choice of fashion (I
thought it was an odd form of nationalism (or secularism) which
insisted that all citizens must…/… dress alike*), most of the women
who fought for the law either lived or had parents or relatives who
lived or still live under the boot of Muslim fundamentalism in North
Africa and especially in Algeria. They definitely do not think it is
a matter of fashion. They see it as a political issue.
They had immediate experience of the fact that in our own countries
of origin one of the first steps taken by fundamentalist
organizations was to introduce, then to impose, head covering,
including in areas where it never existed before.
The head covering in our countries on different continents is not a
choice of outfit as would be to wear minis, maxis or trousers, it is
the political flag by which Muslim fundamentalism makes its influence
visible.
Women from migrant Muslim descent are the best experts on these
issues (7), they know, either directly or through their families, the
political significance of head covering: many of them, or their
families, fled from their countries of origin due to the violence of
fundamentalist groups.
It is surprising to me to note that Mr Guha, speaking at the
University of Calicut, does not notice that the black headscarf* the
women wore while attending his conference was not always there in the
past.
Is this black headscarf traditional? Or new? Is it worn by women in
Muslim areas throughout India? Or were there regional differences?
Was it always so?
Not all Muslim women traditionally covered their heads the world
over, it largely depends on the cultures they were born in. In the
areas where they traditionally did, it used not to look like this
uniform they are presently wearing. A vast variety of coverings
existed, even within one country, let alone from one continent to the
other. These cultural differences are now in the process of
eradication, to the benefit of THE (singular) Islamic dress –
something Iranian style most alien to most of our cultures throughout
Asia and Africa. (8)
Can one remember the time when Muslim women (by which I mean Muslim
believers themselves, not just women from the community) in the
subcontinent were generally wearing saris or other locally prevalent
dress? It was only one generation ago…
Witnessing the rapid spread of this brand new, a-cultural uniform the
world over should be a clear indicator of its political nature.
Head covering is only the tip of the iceberg; it is one of the many
demands of Muslim fundamentalists in Europe; these demands also
include sexual apartheid in public places, banalization of more and
more religious specificities, including separate ‘divine’ laws for
each community, and finally a political representation of religions.
It is short sighted to isolate the demand for head scarf - not just
in the public space, where it is legal, but in secular schools in
France, - from all their other demands which all target secularism
and aim at imposing a political return of religions into state
affairs. The new headscarf should be taken for what it is today: a
political flag that has little to do with religion.
Muslim fundamentalism is not a religious movement, it is a political
one that gravely affects ’the West’, just as it affected our own
countries. It is not politically different from Hindu fundamentalism
and its various extreme right branches.
I do appreciate the fact that the murderous behaviour of Hindu
fundamentalists vis a vis Muslims in India certainly pushes one to
support the rights of ’Muslims’ blindly, if in good faith. It is hard
to open one’s eyes on the fact that victims can also be perpetrators,
and to juggle one’s political stand with their dual identity. But it
is necessary to learn to defend victims without cautioning
perpetrators among them. However, victimhood should not blur
political problems: the rise of Muslim extreme right fundamentalists
should not be not acceptable to progressive people. It should be
treated like any other fundamentalism: as a political extreme right
movement, working under the cover of religion, that needs to be
combatted.
There are enough non fundamentalist, progressive answers to the
political problems they pretend to address, and there are enough
alternatives within all our countries - including in the diaspora. We
exist, despite the fact that we are made invisible and silenced by
the international media.
In France itself, on top of discrimination, one witnesses the rise of
a traditional extreme right that promotes clear racism against so-
called Muslims (and Jews, and Blacks); this is concomitant to the
demands of Muslim fundamentalists. I am not saying that one is the
product of the other, but I am saying that they mutually feed into
each other. It is a frightening prospect, however allowing for the
destruction of French secularism will not solve the problem.
4.
It is equally surprising to me that Mr Guha is adopting the claims
made by Muslim fundamentalists that: the headscarf marks the wearer
out as Muslim *. First of all, numerous Muslim theologians, men and
women, throughout Asia, Africa, the Middle East and the diaspora,
including some Indians ones, challenge this interpretation of the
text. Many of them argue that veiling is neither specifically Muslim,
nor is it needed in todays’ life of women believers. Why chose to
listen to fundamentalist interpreters, rather than to progressive ones?
Moreover, if women are made ’Muslims’ by virtue of being forced and
trapped into a communal identity, as per Mr Guha’s implicit
definition of secularism, their individual rights are subsumed to the
rights of the community, and they have no individual choice neither
regarding having a faith, nor in the manifestations of faith or non
faith.
His argument that the scarf was actually liberating *, for it
permitted girls to be allowed by their fathers to go to school, was
used in the early seventies in my own country, Algeria, when
fundamentalist groups introduced the hidjab for the first time. It
was called ’the student’s dress’. We know where it led us: to the
violent domination of Islamic Armed Groups that terrorized the
population for more than a decade (estimated number of victims upto
200 000), and, among many other things, enforced veiling on women.
But Algeria and France do have laws - which both countries apply and
enforce – that make the schooling of girls both free and compulsory.
They do not need a veil to enforce schooling of girls. Therefore,
this justification was and still is irrelevant, an argument that
probably came from countries where schooling of girls is neither
free, nor compulsory.
Mr Guha opposes the advantages of these girls who, thanks to the
headscarf - says he, are educated, to the disadvantages of their
mothers and grandmothers* who were denied* education. If
democratisation of education and large access to schooling is
certainly a recent conquest for lower classes and specifically girls
within those, this political gain has nothing to do with religions.
There were women from the upper classes who were educated and
empowered regardless of their religion at all times, including in
Muslim countries. (9)
Were these mothers and grand mothers in Kerala – of all places in
India ! –not educated before they were wearing a head covering? Had
the government of Kerala not adopted long ago a policy of literacy
for all citizens before the world wide spreading of the head scarf?
He also argues that in Kerala the scarf permitted these girls a
university education*.
But the ban on religious symbols in France does not affect
universities, it only applies to girls under age in primary and
secondary schools. What we are actually talking about here are girls
from age 3 or 4 when they enter nursery schools, to 16 or 17 when
they finish secondary schools.
Those are the ones that the secular Republic of France protects from
being submitted to a covering that symbolizes their alleged
responsibility in men’s sexual violence against women (10): if they
are not ’properly’ covered, they will legitimize, and allow, and be
responsible for, and ultimately deserve sexual assault.
When one observes the recent growing trend of veiling girls at a
younger and younger age, much before puberty, often by age 3 or 4,
one should thank the French secular Republic for relieving the girl
child from a psychological burden that should not be hers:
controlling men’s sexuality. The mental ravages that such a
responsibility entails at such an early age are immensely damageable.
He additionally states that - in his opinion - the scarf denoted a
certain propriety and modesty *. Again, I find it very interesting
that Mr Guha makes his own the very words of Muslim fundamentalists:
‘Muslim girls’ should be proper and modest, otherwise they are loose
and they deserve punishment. If they were not controlled via
religion, they may even socialize with members of the other sex *.
May I ask why Mr Guha thinks this is wrong for so-called ’Muslim’
girls, and for them only, in the XXIst century, to socialize with the
other sex? Should they live under sexual apartheid by virtue of
belonging to a community?
Throughout his article, Mr Guha legitimizes the demands by Muslim
fundamentalists to make us different, to separate us from the society
in which we chose to live, at the cost of denying our universal human
rights, for the sake of the ’community’. He subsumes our rights to
minority rights and religious rights, without ever asking who defines
these supposedly religious prescriptions, which political forces are
behind such a program.
It is high time to go back to political analysis, rather than try to
solve social problems through religious means.
French secularism has a lot to bring to women. In and of itself, it
is not a sufficient condition to ensure women’s rights, but it
certainly is a necessary condition.
Women are wise enough to understand it and defend secular laws.
However, we do not have access to the international media in English
which stigmatizes French secularism without having taken the pain to
understand what it is and what it could bring to the world. And not
enough of us have the use of the English language to dismantle the
bias that media propagate.
This is probably why good intentioned liberals fall into the trap of
supporting fundamentalists - in the name of ’Muslim women’s rights’!
What an irony. . . What a tragedy. . .
(Marieme Helie Lucas is an Algerian sociologist living in France)
* Words and sentences in italics are quotations from Mr Guha’s article
Footnotes:
(1) For a thorough expose on the founding principles of French
secularism, see one of the few articles in English: ‘the Secularity
and the Republic, a secular recasting of the state: principles and
foundations’ by Henri Pena Ruiz, a leading French philosopher and
expert on French secularism on http://www.siawi.org/article17.html
All the following quotes are from this article.
(2) For a discussion of political problems within suburbs/ghettos in
France, see Harsh Kapoor, ’Stray reflections on urban riots of late
2005 in France’, December 2005; An abridged version of this is
available at http://www.sabrang.com/cc/archive/2005/dec05/report.html
(3) Soheib Bencheikh, Marianne et le Prophète, l’Islam dans la France
Laïque, Paris, Grasset, 1998. Available in French only.
(4) Soheib Bencheikh, Wluml Dossier No. 28, December 2006 ’Separation
does not weaken religions’.
http://www.wluml.org/english/pubsfulltxt.shtml?cmd[87]=i-87-552906
(5) Karima Bennoune: The Law of the Republic Versus the "Law of the
Brothers": A Story of France’s Law Banning Religious Symbols in
Public Schools, appeared in HUMAN RIGHTS ADVOCACY STORIES (Deena
Hurwitz et al. eds., 2008) http://www.siawi.org/auteur39.html
(6) Isis International, Monograph Series on Gender, Governance and
Democracy, Vol. 2: Peace and Security : French Women of Migrant
Descent: Between the Religious Extreme Right and a Coward Left by
Marieme Helie Lucas (Women Living Under Muslim Laws)
(7) Marieme Helie Lucas, A South North transfer of political
competence: women of migrant Muslim descent in France, forthcoming in
Dossier 30, WLUML, 2009
(8) Marieme Helie Lucas, VeilS, 2006, http://www.wluml.org/english/
newsfulltxt.shtml?cmd%5B157%5D=x-157-539225
(9) Farida Shaheed and Aisha Shaeed, ‘Great Ancestors: Women
Asserting rights in Muslim contexts’, WLUML- Shirkat Gah, Lahore, 2004
(10) Chahdortt Djavan, Bas les Voiles, Paris, Gallimard, 2005. This
publication reproduces the audit of an Iranian woman at the Stasi
Commission.
_____
[6] India - Pakistan and their Defiance of Nuclear Disarmament:
Dawn, 28 Sep, 2009
FORGET A WAR, NUCLEAR BOMBS CAN’T WIN A FAIR ELECTION
by Jawed Naqvi
The first nuclear mistrust was sown on that fateful day in July 1945.
We continue to live the lie today. —FILE PHOTO
Indira Gandhi conducted India’s first nuclear test in 1974, which she
euphemistically called a peaceful nuclear device. If it won her
plaudits from fawning Indians it wasn’t evident. By 1975 she was
forced to suspend democracy and put her political opponents in
prison. When she ordered elections in 1977 she was routed.
In May 1998, the Bharatiya Janata Party-led government carried out
more nuclear tests. The party lost all three states – Madhya Pradesh,
Delhi and Rajasthan – where it had governments that year, to the
Congress – so much for the macho appeal of bombs.
Clearly atom bombs can’t win elections for their advocates nor can
they win a war against an atomic rival. Sadly the biggest Pakistani
champion of nuclear weapons was the iconic Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto. His
army hanged him and usurped his pointlessly bilious agenda. Bhutto
had said his countrymen would eat grass if required but they would
still make the bomb.
I acidly asked the late Benazir Bhutto during her trip to Delhi, when
she was visiting here to canvass support against Gen Musharraf’s
dictatorship, whether the cuisine in her country had improved after
the Chaghai tests. She cancelled the TV interview she was scheduled
that day to give to my journalist brother. Mao had said it didn’t
matter if half of China perished in a nuclear war. But he never had
to stand for elections.
President Obama’s initiative for global nuclear disarmament invoked a
defiant response from India, whose permanent representative rejected
its relevance for India. The fact that the Obama initiative was
upheld unanimously by the UN Security Council makes it legitimate to
see countries that stand in defiance to its resolve as rogue states.
The most outrageous untruth in India’s opposition to the Obama
initiative was the claim by the Indian envoy that the nuclear debate
in India falls within the ambit of the Indian parliament. The fact is
that both the tests – 1974 and 1998 – were carried out
surreptitiously without any mandate or sanction from the parliament.
I was interviewing then Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu
Naidu the day the first tests were conducted in 1998. He was sweating
profusely, clasping his head with disbelief. How could the coalition
government of which he was a make-and-break partner, do something so
suicidal, he had wondered loudly. Naidu’s dream of support from the
World Bank for his e-governance agenda lay in tatters. No coalition
partner of the BJP was informed of the tests, much less the parliament.
What else was the Indian envoy to the UN claiming last week? ‘India
cannot accept externally prescribed norms or standards on matters
within the jurisdiction of its parliament or which are not consistent
with India’s constitutional provisions and procedures, or are
contrary to India’s national interests or infringe on its
sovereignty. India cannot comply with non-proliferation obligations
to which it has not provided its sovereign consent.’
How one wishes the same zeal was applied to the parliament’s other
statutes, for example, the various fundamental rights to food,
education and so forth. The one occasion the nuclear issue was
discussed with any degree of sincerity in the Indian parliament,
opposition MPs claimed they were bribed to help win the vote for
Prime Minister Singh’s government. Bundles of currency notes were
displayed by MPs in the Lok Sabha.
Defending the government’s agreement with the United States for civil
nuclear cooperation (which is but a backdoor route to shore up the
country’s nuclear weapons capability) during that particular debate
the young Congress MP Rahul Gandhi highlighted the tragedy of a widow
whose farmer husband had committed suicide. Tens of thousands of
indebted farmers have killed themselves in India because of flawed
free market policies and there is no end to their tragedy in sight.
Should their families believe that the government is working overtime
to improve their lot by making India prosperous not the least by
defending it with prohibitively expensive weapons? No wonder the
headline in the Italian newspaper, reporting Arundhati Roy’s recent
address in Turin, screamed: ‘Superpoor superpower’.
Advocates of India’s deterrent, such as former foreign minister
Jaswant Singh, say that the country was opposed to nuclear apartheid
(which the NPT actually spawns) and that is what justified its
current doctrine. The Indian envoy at the UN adlibbed this view the
other day.
‘We cannot accept any obligations arising from treaties that India
has not signed or ratified,’ he declared. ‘This position is
consistent with the fundamental principles of international law and
the Law of Treaties. India cannot accept calls for universalisation
of the NPT.’
He quoted Prime Minister Singh as saying in parliament on July 29
that there was no question of India joining the NPT as a non-nuclear
weapon state. ‘Nuclear weapons are an integral part of India’s
national security and will remain so, pending non-discriminatory and
global nuclear disarmament,’ the envoy added.
Technically, after last week’s resolution, North Korea, Pakistan,
India, and Israel – the non-NPT nuclear gatecrashers – have become a
key obstruction to the promise of a nuclear-free world. However, the
international community is so used to playing favourites that it may
not notice this bitter reality. How can we justify the brouhaha over
Iran’s alleged nuclear weapons programme when we are not prepared to
bell the cat, starting with Israel?
Returning home from the G-20 summit in Pittsburgh, Dr Manmohan Singh
was asked to comment on the issue of Iran’s nuclear pursuit. He said:
‘As far as India is concerned our position has been in principle that
Iran is a signatory to the NPT and as a signatory to the NPT, it has
all the rights, which go with its membership that is peaceful use of
atomic energy. And it must also carry out all its obligations. I
think that is our position and that’s the principled position that we
have taken in the last five years.’
Nothing could be less convincing. India’s stand in 1983 was about
declaring the Indian Ocean a nuclear-free zone not to have nuclear
weapons of its own. This was the resolve expressed unanimously by the
Non-aligned summit in Delhi that year. Both Iran and Iraq were
present even though they were locked in a brutal war. Then India
broke ranks and changed its policy. But it maintains that Iran can’t
because it is a signatory to the NPT. Why should Iran not take this
as an invitation to walk out of the NPT? Would India then support its
nuclear weapons quest?
For countries like India and Pakistan there are better examples to
follow. South Africa is one such. It has the nuclear capability but
chose to dismantle its nuclear arsenal. Diplomatic subterfuge can be
dangerous.
At the Potsdam Conference on July 24, 1945, President Truman told
Stalin that the US now possessed ‘a new weapon of unusual destructive
force’. Churchill, who was present, says he saw hardly any reaction
from Stalin, except that he encouraged Truman to use whatever special
weapon the Americans claimed to have found against the Japanese.
They were all of course totally misled. Soviet Marshal Georgii
Zhukov, present at the meeting, later recorded: ‘Both Churchill and
many other Anglo-American authors subsequently assumed that Stalin
had really failed to fathom the significance of what he had heard. In
actual fact, on returning to his quarters after this meeting Stalin,
in my presence, told Molotov about his conversation with Truman. The
latter reacted almost immediately. ‘Let them. We’ll have to talk it
over with Kurchatov and get him to speed things up.’ I realised that
they were talking about research on the atomic bomb.’
The first nuclear mistrust was sown on that fateful day in July 1945.
We continue to live the lie today. The difference is that we have
started lying to our own people, including certain grief-stricken
widows of impoverished farmers who killed themselves for less
pretentious reasons than national sovereignty.
_____
[7] India: Resources Secular Activists :
(i) PRESS RELEASE OF PETITION TO OMAN GOVERNMENT TO RESCIND
INVITATION TO CM MODI
Press Release – September 28, 2009
Universal Respect for Human Rights without Borders
Petitions the Government of Oman
His Majesty the Sultan of Oman and Omani Citizens,
India and Oman have centuries-old cherished relationship of
friendship and trade. It has been strengthened under His Majesty
Sultan Qaboos, based on common ethos of progressive values and human
rights. Thousands of Indians of all religions live and work in Oman
with honor and respect, contributing to the benefit of both the
countries.
Unfortunately that common ethos and values of the Indian constitution
and Oman’s culture have been flagrantly violated by Mr. Narendra
Modi, the Chief Minister of the state of Gujarat. In February 2002,
as Chief Minister of Gujarat, Mr. Modi presided over and orchestrated
widespread riots in which about 2000 hapless Muslims were massacred
and more than 200,000 were rendered homeless. The execution of what
has been called the Gujarat Genocide has been widely reported and
documented by the media (http://www.tehelka.com/home/20071103/ ;
http://bit.ly/qR7fO ; http://bit.ly/qOdTB)
Tens of thousands of displaced Muslims are still unable to return to
their homes fearing further attacks. The process of justice has been
subverted to deny justice to the victims. There have been many
incidences of harassment of Christians and burning of Churches.
Mr. Modi and 61 others that include cabinet colleagues, policemen and
civil servants currently are under criminal investigation by the
Special Investigation Team (SIT) specially constituted by the Supreme
Court of India for their role into allegations of mass murder and
criminal conspiracy.
Earlier this year, fDi (Foreign Direct Investment) Magazine, of the
Financial Times Group, declared Narendra Modi “Asian Personality of
the Year 2009”. But after reviewing charges against Mr. Modi, the
magazine withdrew the award (http://bit.ly/2yt3Cr)
It has been reported in the press (http://bit.ly/MzAwP) that Mr. Modi
has managed to obtain an invitation to Oman to finance the
development of a port in Gujarat. The US and many European countries
have already denied entry visa to Mr. Modi in punishment for his role
in the Gujarat carnage. Mr. Modi is trying to rehabilitate himself in
the international-arena by his visit to Oman. In the process the
reputation of Oman would be besmirched.
People from all over the world have joined thousands of citizens of
India, and brave people of Gujarat, to petition the Government of
Oman, through its ambassador to India, to deny Mr. Modi the coveted
visa to Oman, based on his record of murder and mayhem.
(http://www.petitiononline.com/modi2009/petition.html)
We request the genteel, peace and justice loving people of Oman, and
the enlightened government of Sultan Qaboos to rescind visa to Mr.
Modi and make investments and collaborations with the Gujarat
government contingent on justice to the innocent victims of the
Gujarat Massacre. This will reaffirm the morality-based friendship of
Oman and India, without the stain of appearing to condone Mr. Modi’s
crimes against humanity.
Universal Respect For Human Rights Without Borders
<universalrespectforhumanrights at gmail.com>
Najid Hussain: najidhussain at yahoo.com
Mirza A. Beg: mirza.a.beg at gmail.com
Zafar Iqbal: raabta1 at hotmail.com
Tariq Farooqi: tfarooqi2000 at yahoo.com
Fazal R. Khan: fazalr_khan at hotmail.com
Endorsing Organizations:
Ahsan Jafri
Foundation
Dr. Najid Hussain
Aligarh Alumni Association Metropolitan Washington (AAA) Dr.
Rafat Husain
Aman
Biraderi
Mr. Harsh Mandar
Association for India’s Development
(AID) Dr. Mohan Bhagat
Centre for Human Rights, Justice and
Peace Fr. Cedrick Prakash
CERAS
Dr. Daya Varma
Coalition Against
Genocide Mr.
Khalid Azam
India
Unity
Dr. Satinath Chowdhary
NRIs for Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI)
Pluralism, Interfaith,
Peace Mr. Mike
Ghouse
Sabrang
Ms. Teesta Setalvad
Sadbhav
Mission
Dr. Vipin Tripathi
South Asia Citizens Web
(SACW) Mr. Harsh Kapoor
The Organization of Universal Communal Harmony (TOUCH) Ms.
Sushila Gidwani
Vaishnava Center for
Enlightenment Mr. Shrikumar
Poddar
o o o
(ii)
Frontline, Sep. 26-Oct. 09, 2009
COMMUNAL RECIPE
by K.N. Panikkar
http://www.flonnet.com/stories/20091009262008600.htm
o o o
(iii)
BOOK REVIEW: ADITYA MUKHERJEE ON D.N. JHA'S BOOK 'RETHINKING HINDU
IDENTITY'
http://communalism.blogspot.com/2009/09/book-review-aditya-mukherjee-
on-dn-jhas.html
o o o
(iv)
WHAT IT MEANS TO BE A MUSLIM IN INDIA TODAY
NATIONAL MEET ON THE STATUS OF MUSLIMS IN CONTEMPORARY INDIA:
OCTOBER 3-5, 2009
Speaker Hall, Constitution Club, Rafi Marg, New Delhi
9am to 10pm - October 3,4 2009 and 9am to
5pm - October 5, 2009
Anhad is organizing a National Meet on the Status of Muslims to
document the continuing ways of discrimination, exclusion,
persecution of Muslims in India today, to document overt as well as
low intensity violence and the insecurity that they live with, and to
prepare a charter of demands for the present government. We also plan
to develop a strategy paper for voluntary organisations who are
working for the minority rights.
During the three day meet senior activists, academicians, grass root
workers and victims would present and listen to testimonies and
reports, and reflect on these conditions.
Panel of distinguished jury members will come up with recommendations
on the last day.
Panelists:
Admiral Ramdas, Ahmad Saeed Malihabadi , Asghar Ali Engineer ,
Colin Gonsalves, Gagan Sethi, Ghanshyam Shah , Hanif Lakdawala,
Hasan Shuja , Harsh Mander, Justice Bhargava , Kavita Srivastava,
Mahesh Bhatt , Prashant Bhushan, Ram Puniyani, Rooprekha Verma,
Sandeep Pandey, Shahid Latif , Sukumar Muralidharan, Tarun Tejpal,
Uma Chakravarty , Zafar Agha, Zahid Ali Khan , Zoya Hasan
Note: In addition to the speakers victims will also be deposing.
Their names have not been included in the list below. The
presentations by speakers will vary from 10-15 minutes and victim
testimonies from 5-7 min.
Session 1 – October 3, 2009, 9.30- 4.00
Persecution in the Name of Terrorism
Manisha Sethi, Ajit Sahi, Shafeeq Mahajir , Naseem Ansari , Abu
Zafar, Azam Khan, Shahnawaz Alam, Rajiv Yadav, Danish Quraishi
Session 2- October 3, 2009, 5pm-10pm
Social, Economic, Educational, Political Discrimination, and limited
access to the impact of Govt schemes
Zakia Soman, Arshad Ajmal, Aamir Edresy-to be confirmed, Aziz
Mubariki, Baharul Islam, Nishat Hussain, Sarwar Raza, Nagma Nadaf,
Noorjahan, Mehmood bhai, Apoorvanand, Hozzefa Ujjaini, Zulekha Jabin,
Zakir
Session 3- October 4, 2009, 9am-4pm
Faces of Discrimination
· What it means to be a Muslim in today's India- Javed
Naqvi, Sohail Hashmi
· Hate campaigns- hate material- Dr Muzzafar Asadi, Deepak
Bhatt
· Appropriation of Muslim religious and cultural spaces-
Yogesh Diwan
· Negative Images Creative in Media- Shesh Narain Singh, Mohd
Shuaib
· Discrimination against Muslims by law enforcement agencies
both Police and judiciary- Iftikhar Gilani, Irfan Engineer, Rashida Khan
· Systematic Appropriation of the Waqf properties and
Qabristans – Vidyadhar Gadgil , Zaheer Ali Khan, Dr. Zafar Mahmood
· Failures to Control organizations spreading hatred,
Impunity and Failures to implement Enquiry reports and punish those
guilty of Communal Crimes - Harinder Baweja
· Rise and infiltration of Communal politics in Indian
Society- Poornima Joshi
· Ignoring the large scale terror links of the Sangh – Ashish
Khaitan
· Cow slaughter -an excuse to attack – cases
· Politics of symbols and words- Manoj Jha
· Discrimination during relief, rehabilitation, natural
calamities- Avinash Kumar
· Emergence and role of new age gurus- Amit Sengupta
· Attacking big businesses to break the economic backbone the
community
Session 4- 5pm-10pm
Communal Violence and State Impunity
Jyoti Punwani, Vineet Tiwari, Vrinda Grover , Farah Naqvi , Yusuf Shaikh
October 5, 2009
9 am-11am
Deputy Speaker Hall, Constitution Club
Jury members deliberate and prepare recommendations
11.30-2pm
Jury members Speak
3.30pm
Press Conference and releasing of recommendations by the Jury Members
_____
[8] MISCELLANEA:
DECLARATION OF THE WORLD RESOURCES FORUM - SEPT. 16, 2009
Resource Governance – Managing Growing Demands for Material on a
Finite Planet
http://www.worldresourcesforum.org/wrf_declaration
- - -
TEXT OF LEADERS' STATEMENT: THE PITTSBURGH SUMMIT, SEPTEMBER 24 - 25,
2009
http://www.pittsburghsummit.gov/mediacenter/129639.htm
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