SACW - 11 Oct 2012 | Bangladesh: Fundamentalist militias in 1971 / Sri Lanka: Assault on Judiciary / India: Fear of the foreigner / Russia to criminalise religious insults / South Africa: Wildcat strike wave

[Harsh Kapoor]

    South Asia Citizens Wire - 11 Oct 2012 - No. 2756
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Contents:

1. Afghanistan: Violence stalks women workers in Afghanistan (Amie Ferris-Rotman)
2. Afghanistan: The Long, Hard Road to the 2014 Transition (International Crisis Group)
3. Bangladesh: the forgotten template of 20th century war (Gita Sahgal)
4. Bangladesh: Weapon Producer Concerned About Food Insecurity In Bangladesh?
by Farida Akhter
5. Myanmar’s Rohingya Face “Permanent Segregation”, Activists Warn (Carey L. Biron)
6. Sri Lanka: Assault on Judiciary - statements by Friday Forum and by ICJ
7. India: Appratchiks of National Commission of Women Forced to Reopen the Soni Sori Case
8. India: Future Perspectives for the Mainstream Indian Left (Achin Vanaik)
9. India: Our Linus Blanket - Fear of the foreigner is what helps the nation-state survive (Shiv Visvanathan)
10. 10. Tribute: Between Clio And Party - Eric Hobsbawm (1917-2012) (Rudrangshu Mukherjee)
11. Recent content on Communalism Watch:
 - When is forgiveness right? by Martha Nussbaum
 - Maharashtra: Ekal Eklavya Schools run by Hindu Right Vishwa Hindu Parishad are mushrooming 
 - Bihar Police: United in khaki, divided by caste barracks
 - Jain temple builders Vs Archaeological Survey of India
International:
12. Honour The Dissenters (Marieme Helie Lucas)
13. After Pussy riot trial, Russia moves to criminalise religious insults (Grigorii Tumanov, Alexander Chernikh, Pavel Korobov)
14. Egypt women face uncertain future as constitution draws near (Manar Ammar with Joseph Mayton)
15. South Africa: Wildcat strike wave (sept-oct 2012) despite gate keepers of the labour movement - analysis and reports (LNSA mailing list)

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1. AFGHANISTAN: VIOLENCE STALKS WOMEN WORKERS IN AFGHANISTAN
by Amie Ferris-Rotman
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http://in.reuters.com/article/2012/09/29/afghanistan-women-security-idINDEE88S03\
F20120929
KABUL | Sat Sep 29, 2012 11:22pm IST
(Reuters) - Muzhgan Masoomi's attacker stabbed her 14 times with a thick blade used to slaughter animals, tearing wide gashes in her flesh before leaving the government worker for dead on the outskirts of the Afghan capital.

With a severe limp and no control over her bladder - caused by the blade scraping her spinal cord - the 22-year-old can no longer work at the Ministry of Public Works, where she was a financial assistant before the assault.

Women who pursue careers in ultra-conservative Afghanistan often face opposition in a society where often they are ostracised - or worse, brutalised - for mixing with men other than husbands or relatives.

Despite commitments to better the rights of women 11 years into the NATO-led war, some say the authorities need to do more to prevent violence against women who work, particularly in government roles.

There are now fears that as the 2014 deadline looms for most foreign troops to leave, opportunities for women in the public sphere could shrink as confidence weakens in the face of continuing violence.

"I have no enemies, no links to gangs, and look what has happened to me. The situation for women in this country is getting worse day by day," Masoomi told Reuters in her brightly lit home, a few minutes' walk from where she was stabbed.

Shaking her long black ponytail, Masoomi said of her assailant: "He didn't like women working out of the house". He threatened her with menacing phone calls and text messages in the months leading up to the attack.

Her parents said the attacker, a relative who worked as a policeman, was now behind bars over the stabbing.

The security concerns of male government workers are taken more seriously than those of women, said Colonel Sayed Omar Saboor, deputy director for gender and human rights at the Interior Ministry.

"Women who work are much bigger targets than men and the government needs to acknowledge this," Saboor said.

How well female government workers are protected was called into question in July when a suicide bomber targeted and killed Hanifa Safi, regional head of women's affairs in eastern Laghman province.

Authorities ignored repeated requests for protection, her family said afterwards. Laghman officials declined to comment.

"She was so worried about her future. The only time someone in the police even addressed the issue of her security was once the Taliban had killed her," said her son, Mohammad Tabriz Safi, 30.

NO SUPPORT

Officially the government must provide security - usually two bodyguards - for ministers, members of parliament and tribal elders, said Interior Ministry spokesman Sediq Sediqqi.

But women not in those senior roles, such as Safi or Masoomi, are in dire need of protection simply because of their gender, Saboor said.

But Sediqqi said it would be "very difficult" for the police to provide security and guards for everyone who works in government. There area about 74,000 women out of 363,000 state employees.

Muzhgan has only recently gathered enough strength to talk about her ordeal, which happened in late March.

With a degree in accounting and some English, Masoomi was a valuable asset to her ministry, where she worked on a UN-funded Afghanistan Peace and Reintegration Programme, bringing former Taliban fighters from the battlefield back into jobs.

But she said not a single person from her ministry came to help her, or gave encouragement after the attack.

"They didn't even come to see me. Financially, morally, I got nothing," she said, adding that members of NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) took her to the hospital.

If she does not soon go abroad for surgery, she may never be able to work again. The ministry's deputy, Ahmad Farhad Waheed, said it had asked ISAF to look after her treatment, but the force said it was not down to them.

Afghan women have won back basic rights in education, voting and employment since the Taliban were ousted from power in 2001, but there is concern such freedoms will not be protected and may even be traded away as Kabul seeks a peace deal with the group.

"If a political solution between the Taliban and the government is reached, there is no doubt that women will need to be better protected," said Maria Bashir, the chief prosecutor for Herat province bordering Iran.

The only female prosecutor general in the country, Bashir has been threatened repeatedly and come under attack twice, when her house was set alight and another one firebombed.

Eight bodyguards escort Bashir to work each day, and six live in her house. All are paid for by the international community, she said.

(Reporting by Amie Ferris-Rotman, additional reporting by Mirwais Harooni and Hamid Shalizi; Editing by Rob Taylor and Robert Birsel)

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2. AFGHANISTAN: THE LONG, HARD ROAD TO THE 2014 TRANSITION
by International Crisis Group 
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Asia Report N°236 8 Oct 2012

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY AND RECOMMENDATIONS

Plagued by factionalism and corruption, Afghanistan is far from ready to assume responsibility for security when U.S. and NATO forces withdraw in 2014. That makes the political challenge of organising a credible presidential election and transfer of power from President Karzai to a successor that year all the more daunting. A repeat of previous elections’ chaos and chicanery would trigger a constitutional crisis, lessening chances the present political dispensation can survive the transition. In the current environment, prospects for clean elections and a smooth transition are slim. The electoral process is mired in bureaucratic confusion, institutional duplication and political machinations. Electoral officials indicate that security and financial concerns will force the 2013 provincial council polls to 2014. There are alarming signs Karzai hopes to stack the deck for a favoured proxy. Demonstrating at least will to ensure clean elections could forge a degree of national consensus and boost popular confidence, but steps toward a stable transition must begin now to prevent a precipitous slide toward state collapse. Time is running out.

http://www.crisisgroup.org/en/regions/asia/south-asia/afghanistan/236-afghanistan-the-long-hard-road-to-the-2014-transition.aspx

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3. BANGLADESH: THE FORGOTTEN TEMPLATE OF 20TH CENTURY WAR
by Gita Sahgal
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In 1971 the Jamaat e Islami supported the Pakistani army against the nationalist Awami League: now their leaders are being indicted by an international crimes tribunal and secularism is back on the agenda. It’s time to discuss the forgotten role of the fundamentalist militias in the war of liberation of Bangladesh
http://sacw.net/article2912.html

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4. BANGLADESH: WEAPON PRODUCER CONCERNED ABOUT FOOD INSECURITY IN BANGLADESH?
by Farida Akhter
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(New Age, 3 October 2012)

It is also interesting to see that the concern of food ‘insecurity’ is not based on right to food, or more ecologically and politically grounded notion such as food sovereignty. The major ground of concern the EIU report expressed is ‘political’ insecurity, writes Farida Akhter

On August 10, 2012, a news item appeared on various news media which was quite disturbing. It said that Bangladesh has the lowest ranking in food security among the six South Asian countries, according to Global Food Security Index 2012, released by The Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU). 
Now the question is, since raising such concerns should rather be appreciated, why should such information be disturbing? Isn’t it true that Bangladesh needs to address the issue of food security? The disturbing element is not in addressing the issue, but in how such general concern is used by transnational companies for inducing food production policy to their favour, such as through industrialization of food production. From chemical and poison based system, companies are now obtaining bio-industrial character to ensure the dominance of biotechnology and genetic engineering. 
The report is an assessment of food affordability, availability and quality of 105 countries around the world. Bangladesh scored only 34.6 on a scale of 100 and was placed 81st among 105 countries. Amongst South Asian countries, Sri Lanka is the most food secure (ranking 62nd), followed by India (66th), Pakistan (75th) and Nepal (79th); the position of Bangladesh is definitely very disappointing. However, the report said Bangladesh was doing well in three fields –- ensuring standards of nutrition, agricultural productivity and loans to farmers — in its steps towards improving food security.
Because of the political sensitivity of this assessment, Bangladesh government rejected the report on August 13. The Food Minister Dr. Muhammad Abdur Razzaque said, ‘The Economist Intelligence Unit report used old data. Bangladesh has improved a lot in food security since 2009.’ The government did not contend the report on any other grounds, lacking prudence to even raise question why the EIU would make such a report on ‘old date.’ Any  assumption by any government  that  such assessment is innocent, would at best be considered too naïve.   The government’s insensitivity to issues such as food security is equally disturbing. The issue is not merely of whether data is old or new but, among others, why has food security suddenly become an issue for EIU?
According to the news, the index was made based on researches on food security, including the Food and Agricultural Organization of United Nation (FAO)’s annual State of Food Insecurity in the World report, the Global Hunger Index of the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), and the Maplecroft Food Security Risk Index.
It is also interesting to see that the concern of food ‘insecurity’ is not based on right to food, or more ecologically and politically grounded notion such as food sovereignty. The major ground of concern the EIU report expressed is ‘political’ insecurity. It says ‘food insecurity also threatens political stability and lack of food is correlated with a substantial deterioration of democratic institutions in low-income countries, as well as a rise in communal violence, riots, human rights abuses and civil conflict.’
The Executive Summary of the report states ‘The world, on balance, is richer and better fed than it was 50 years ago, but those gains are under threat. The global population is growing, and is expected to reach 9bn by 2050. Consumers in emerging markets are wealthier, and are spending more of their income on meats and processed foods—driving up demand and straining supplies. High prices for oil and other agricultural inputs are making production more expensive.’
The report also claims that ‘extreme weather increasingly threatens harvests, and agricultural productivity gains are waning as investment falters. Competing demands for crops add to the pressure. All of this suggests that high prices—and price volatility—will threaten global food security for at least the next decade.’
As citizens, we should not take such reports as innocent gestures to raise concerns on food security. We therefore should find who are sponsoring such studies and why? According to the report, it is sponsored by E. I. DuPont de Nemours and Company (DuPont), a multinational corporation which is interested in three aspects: affordability, availability and utilization. For DuPont, common food security metrics are key to increasing global food security. As Chair and CEO Ellen Kullman of DuPont puts it, ‘We’ve always known that what gets measured, gets done.’ DuPont commissioned the Global Food Security Index that was launched by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).  The question here is, why DuPont? According to the DuPont Global website, the DuPont CEO says, ‘As we talked to governments, NGOs and farmer organizations around the world, we’ve come to realize that while we share a common goal of food security, we do not share a common language. To truly address the root cause of hunger, we must have a common path forward to tackle such pressing issues as food affordability, availability, nutritional quality and safety.’ According to her, ‘literally billions are being invested to address food security, but until today, we had no comprehensive, global way to measure food security and the impact of investments and collaborations at the local level.’
DuPont is at present more concerned about malnutrition in Africa and therefore the DuPont website (www.foodsecurity.DuPont.com) talks about malnutrition but it has the title ‘DuPont’s commitment to Food Security in Africa.’  It refers to a report by UNICEF claiming that almost 20 million children under the age of five suffer from severe acute malnutrition, which is the cause of over one million deaths in children each year.  To address this major global crisis, DuPont is working with UNICEF to feed malnourished children in countries like Sudan with ‘Ready-to-Eat Therapeutic Food.’  This high-protein peanut-based paste does not require water and is delivered in a ready-to-use packet.  Made with DuPont emulsifier technology that prevents oiling to provide a longer product shelf life, UNICEF has delivered ready-to-use food to hundreds of thousands of children in Sudan and other countries around the world. One can easily see that upon identifying a country as food insecure, DuPont grabs the opportunity to reach a market for their product. It is just a marketing exercise.
Dupont claims that emulsifiers ensure healthy, tasty and convenient food products with an attractive appearance. Produced from natural raw materials such as vegetable oils and fats, emulsifiers reduce the surface tension between oil/water/air interfaces. This is of benefit in dressings to increase emulsion stability and in margarine to reduce spattering during frying. Emulsifiers can also act as crystal modifiers in liquid oil, destabilizing agents in aerated emulsions, or as starch complexing lipids that counter staling in cereal-based foods. Dupont-Danisco emulsifiers are often tailor-made to satisfy specific customer needs, and most are available with a kosher or halal certificate. New emulsifiers are continuously developed to help customers differentiate their products and improve their production efficiency (see Du Pont Food Innovation).  
Let’s now look at the background of DuPont. As a company which works on biotechnology and is also monitoring the global seed market, DuPont is among the first three top Seed Companies who control over 47% GM seed market. Having acquisitions with Pioneer Hi-Bred Intl. USA, Australia and a number of other countries, the annual sale of seeds was 3,300 million dollars in 2007, ranking second among the 10 top seed companies in the world (see Du Pont) 2 (see gmwatch).3
Although DuPont is now known as a global science and technology company and is the largest seeds company, it is the second largest chemical manufacturer in the US. Chemicals provide the main focus of DuPont’s operations. According to the company’s annual report, it is the global leader in the sale and manufacturing of nylon and is the world’s largest manufacturer of titanium dioxide, elastane and fluropolymers. Since acquiring Pioneeer Hi-Bred in 1999, DuPont has become the world’s largest seed company, with sales of more than $1.9 billion in 2000 (see RAFI).4  Dupont sells hybrid seeds principally for the global production of corn and soybeans, and thus directly competes with other hybrid seed suppliers. DuPont’s Agriculture & Nutrition segment also provides crop protection chemicals. In addition, the segment provides soya based food ingredients and food safety equipment in competition with other major grain and food processors (see Du Pont E I Nemours& Company). 5
The history of DuPont reveals that it is one of the war and weapon companies. E.I. Dupont founded the company as an explosives manufacturer by opening his first gun powder mill on the Brandywine River on July 19, 1802. DuPont powder had earned a good reputation among sportsmen and the company had become the leading powder supplier to the US government. The company became the world’s largest supplier of gunpowder during World War I. According to Corporate Watch, World War II brought even more profits for DuPont (see Corporate Watch).6 Over the course of the war, the company produced 4.5 billion pounds of military explosives. The company was also heavily involved in weapons research, making major contributions to the development of plastic and other forms of explosives, gun and rocket propellants, and chemical warfare. From 1941 -1945 DuPont contributed to the top secret Manhattan Project that was to produce the bombs that devastated Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The company was also the principal mass producer of plutonium in the US, having designed, built and operated the world’s first plutonium production plant, the Hanford plant in Washington, at the request of the federal government. During the war, DuPont managed a total of 25 US government plants, manufacturing mainly explosives, methanol, ammonia and neoprene rubber. DuPont profited immensely from the war, emerging from the fighting with a cash fund exceeding $196 million (see Industry and Ideology).7
DuPont is now a leading global company with reported revenues of $38 billion, up from 20% from a year ago, and net income of $3.5 billion in 2011. The company’s history starting from gun powder for wars, and coming to food and nutrition for political security and for profit is certainly not good news for the farmers and people in the third world. ‘We delivered exceptional full-year results in 2011 despite significant market headwinds late in the year,’ said DuPont Chair & CEO Ellen Kullman. ‘Our market-driven science continues to meet customer needs in food, energy and protection. Acquisitions in Nutrition & Health and Industrial Biosciences, coupled with robust and disciplined productivity efforts across our businesses, contributed to our successful performance. We remain well-positioned to serve customers and innovate as key markets rebound and global population growth drives new opportunities.’
But, my question is, do we really need a weapon producer solving our food security problem? Is it not synonymous to killing by gun powder and killing by biotechnology?
Notes:
1.    http://www2.dupont.com/Food__Innovations/en_GB/food-ingredients/emulsifiers.html
2.    http://nyjobsource.com/dupont.html
3.    http://www.gmwatch.org/gm-firms/10558-the-worlds-top-ten-seed-companies-who-owns-nature
4.    Institute for Applied Ecology (1999) DuPont acquires Pioneer, Genetic Engineering Newsletter 1 & 2:August, September 1999, ETC Group (2002) DuPont and Monsanto - ‘Living in Sinergy’? 9/5/02, http://www.rafi.org/documents/nr2002apr9.pdf.
5.    [DuPont (2002) US SEC form 10-K, for the year ending 31st December 2001,
http://ccbn.tenkwizard.com/filing.php]
6.    http://www.corporatewatch.org.uk/?lid=170
7.    Hayes, P. (1987). Industry and Ideology: JG Farben in the Nazi Era, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

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5. MYANMAR’S ROHINGYA FACE “PERMANENT SEGREGATION”, ACTIVISTS WARN
by Carey L. Biron
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WASHINGTON, Oct 9 2012 (IPS) - Following sectarian violence in the western Myanmar state of Rakhine in June, human rights researchers are now warning that the government appears to be attempting to permanently house parts of the stateless Muslim-minority Rohingya in “temporary” refugee camps, segregating them from the rest of the population.
http://bit.ly/Rd6dpf

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6. SRI LANKA: ASSAULT ON JUDICIARY - STATEMENTS BY FRIDAY FORUM AND BY ICJ
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SRI LANKA: ATTACKS ON JUDICIARY ARE ATTACKS ON PEOPLE - FRIDAY FORUM STATEMENT
10 October

The Friday Forum unequivocally condemns any attempt at violating the independence and authority of the judiciary. We urge all sections of Sri Lankan society to respond to this threat by reaffirming our commitment to preserve our democratic rights. It is only an alert and active citizenry that can prevent this type of abuse of power.

http://www.sacw.net/article2913.html

o o o

PRESS RELEASE
ICJ CONDEMNS ATTACK ON THE JUDICIAL SERVICES COMMISSION IN SRI LANKA
10 October

The Sri Lankan government must immediately provide justice for the physical assault on Manjula Tillekaratne, Secretary of the Judicial Services Commission in Sri Lanka, and cease public efforts to undermine the independence of the country’s judiciary, the International Commission of Jurists said today.

http://www.sacw.net/article2906.html


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7. INDIA: APPRATCHIKS OF NATIONAL COMMISSION OF WOMEN FORCED TO REOPEN THE SONI SORI CASE
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sacw.net - 10 October 2012: Today afternoon, activists from women’s groups and several peoples’ organisations stormed the National Commission for Women (NCW), protesting against the continued inaction for an year in the Soni Sori case. It has been one year since the arrest of 36-year old Soni Sori, an adivasi school warden from Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, and her custodial torture at the behest of the then SP of Dantewada, Ankit Garg. Soni Sori’s right to life and dignity have been violated by various jail and police authorities several times over – from foisting false cases against her, sexually torturing and humiliating her in the police station, denying her medical attention, and most recently, humiliating her by publicly stripping her in prison in the name of conducting physical search. It is also one year since women’s groups first met the NCW to seek their intervention.
http://sacw.net/article2914.html

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8. INDIA: FUTURE PERSPECTIVES FOR THE MAINSTREAM INDIAN LEFT
by Achin Vanaik
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(EPW, October 13, 2012)
The keys for a rejuvenated and radical left in India must be its promotion of alternatives to neo-liberal capitalism, formation of a united anti-capitalist front, weaks in its organisational principles of "democratic centralism" to allow for the fl owering of genuine democratic discussion and debate within itself and constant involvement in struggles of and for the people.
This article is based on a presentation in a seminar on “The Indian Left: Social Development Visions and Political Challenges” organised by the Council for Social Development in New Delhi on 8 August 2012.
http://www.epw.in/commentary/future-perspectives-mainstream-indian-left.html


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9. INDIA: OUR LINUS BLANKET - FEAR OF THE FOREIGNER IS WHAT HELPS THE NATION-STATE SURVIVE
by Shiv Visvanathan
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(Outlook Magazine | Oct 08, 2012)
Societies in moments of anxiety need a sense of order. They need to focus on an enemy outside or a scapegoat within. Such objects of hate make a society focused, give it a sense of solidarity. The danger begins when the object of fear is a more anomalous creature, a person who resists classification or violates categories.

The Polish emigre sociologist Zygmunt Bauman claimed that modernity always had problems with the stranger. The stranger is one who is here today and gone tomorrow. But what happens to strangers who are here today and stay tomorrow? The exile, the migrant and the refugee become problematic categories. They violate boundaries because they belong to both inside and outside. We treat them as foreigners, aliens haunting our everydayness. What makes such a relationship lethal and even genocidal is the nation-state.

India as a civilisation was naturally syncretic. It welcomed the outsider. Even the British coloniser was invited to become another caste and the English would have if the missionaries had not ruined the part. Even our national movement was hospitable, allowing the likes of A.O. Hume, Annie Besant, C.F. Andrews and Madeleine Slade to participate in it. Even Partition, which went on between 1947 and 1955, maintained a sense of openness, a condition which allowed Jinnah to think he could settle in Bombay. It is only when our imagination froze along the boundaries of the nation-state that the foreigner became an object of fear and suspicion.

Once a nation-state crystallises, suspicion becomes a ritual against those who are not citizens. They become threats to security, the visible hand that threatens the integrity of our boundaries. Foreigners are necessary; the nation-state could not exist without them. In a world of anxieties, they provide an object of hate, a trigger for solidarity. Where would the US be without the Communist or the Islamic terrorist? It is they who sustain the nation-state as phenomena.   

Indians too are susceptible to the ‘foreigner as virus’ metaphor. Interestingly, our suspicions and our labelling of the outsider provide new cartographies of time and space. When the Gujarat riots took place, riot-torn areas in Gujarat were labelled India and Pakistan. Many a middle-class person was found claiming that the Mughals had at last been defeated. But the suspicion of the foreigner is not a communalist disease alone. Ideologies often survive on it. Where would India be without the ISI or CIA? The foreign hand seems to be even more powerful than the invisible hand. The invisible hand of the market is an abstraction, but the foreign hand needs to be labelled and allowed to become concrete as an object of violence. He is the necessary sacrifice nationalist suspicion demands.

The theory of the foreign hand has a nuanced amplitude. The nation-state believes that our local people can never reason for themselves. If they revolt as a social movement, it is because of the foreigner, an alien who arrives through an NGO. The fisherman of Koodankulam can fight for a decade but it is only some helpless foreigner who is seen as a driving force. In a global world, we seem to need the foreigner because without him our anxieties would be nameless. We carry out wars against McDonald’s, KFC because they emphasise our impotence. Their chicken seems more welcome than our local breed. We see Walmart and Rupert Murdoch as threats to our civilisation, our way of life.

Suddenly, nationalism is not about loving your neighbour as fellow citizen but of hating the foreigner as a continuous threat. The fact that the Indian diaspora is spread across the world is seen in a separate register. We want the world to be open to us but we in turn want to be selective about our openness to the world. As our anxieties increase, the foreigner as a category becomes a Linus blanket our sense of security needs and survives on.

The foreigner is not only the man from another country. He could be the man across the street, the Bodo in the next village, the merchant in the market, the domestic in search of a job. All it needs is the ritual of inside and outside. Classifications kill and the availability of the outside becomes a permanent invitation to violence and genocide. From Manmohan Singh to Indira Gandhi, from Modi to Advani, the foreigner is that indispensable piece of sociology that no leader can do without. No nation-state can survive without him. No security state can allow him to live harmlessly. He is the secret of the social contract that sustains order, the sacrifice that keeps the nation-state oiled. Without the CIA, Americans, German NGOs, French multinationals etc, India as a nation-state could not survive. The nation-state owes a toast to the foreigner.

(Shiv Visvanathan is professor at the Jindal School of Public Policy.)


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10. TRIBUTE: BETWEEN CLIO AND PARTY - ERIC HOBSBAWM (1917-2012) 
by Rudrangshu Mukherjee
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The Telegraph, October 9 , 2012	

Christopher Hill’s The English Revolution 1640 and Eric Hobsbawm’s The Age of Revolution were the first two books by Marxist historians that I ever read. I think that this is true of a large number of history students of my generation and of those who were a little older than us. It is difficult to describe the deep influence this kind of history-writing had on me in my formative years. In this sense, the death of Eric Hobsbawm last week closes a significant aspect of the past — the past as it influenced some of us and also the way we learnt to interpret the past.

Hobsbawm was the last of that remarkable group of historians who were part of the Historians Group of the Communist Party of Great Britain before 1956 — Rodney Hilton, E.P. Thompson, Christopher Hill, John Saville, Victor Kiernan and Dorothy Thompson. He was the only one of the group to retain his party membership after the Soviet invasion of Hungary. This fact is of some consequence.

I read the two books that I mentioned at around the same time. This was of course a chronological coincidence. But in retrospect, it seems to me that the books represented two very different trends in history writing. One was the analysis focused on a single event or episode; the other, the grand sweep across a whole continent, based on a synthesis of the works of other scholars.

Hobsbawm’s fame rests on the quartet of books in which he surveyed, with enviable lucidity, European history from 1789 to 2000. He divided his survey into four ages — those of Revolution, Capital, Empire and Extremes. This limelight has somewhat obscured the pieces of solid historical research that Hobsbawm did before he embarked on his great surveys. I believe that Hobsbawm’s reputation as a historian — as distinct from a writer who made history popular — rests upon these essays that brought together archival research and analytical insight. Those surveys were possible because Hobsbawm had learnt the historian’s craft through reading and interpreting documents.

There are many such essays, some of them available in the collection entitled Labouring Men: Studies in the History of Labour (1964). I have in mind an essay like “The Tramping Artisan” (1951), a pioneering attempt based on the available material on various trades and their unions to recreate and analyse the world of the migrant workman in the 19th century. It was a world in which craftsmen tramped across a network of “stations” stretching from Exeter to York. The tramping artisan’s work and movement were governed by a set of customs and rituals. But for Hobsbawm’s essay this unique set of labouring men would have been lost to history.

The same volume also includes Hobsbawm’s essays on “The Standard of Living” debate which engaged many historians studying the Industrial Revolution and its impact in England. In these essays, Hobsbawm marshalled qualitative and quantitative evidence to make his argument that the standard of living of vast sections of the population in the first half of the 19th century had, in fact, declined. The articles were written in the late 1950s and Hobsbawm left the argument open with the words, “It may be that further evidence will discredit it [this argument].” The blending of qualitative and quantitative evidence was also the hallmark of Hobsbawm’s Industry and Empire, which remains even today the best short introduction to the Industrial Revolution in England.

Perhaps a nodal point in Hobsbawm’s career as a historian was an essay he wrote in 1954 on “The General Crisis of the Seventeenth Century”. In this essay, Hobsbawm drew on the histories of different parts of Europe and on books and documents in various European languages. It sparked off one of the most fertile debates in the historiography of early modern Europe in which many eminent historians participated, including, Hugh Trevor-Roper. The essay was important because it was one of the earliest instances of Hobsbawm venturing out into comparative history. In this sense, it foreshadowed the surveys that made him famous. But none of those four volumes had the sheer brilliance and analytical fecundity of the “general crisis” hypothesis.

The three books that made Hobsbawm famous even before he wrote the four-volume survey were Primitive Rebels, Bandits and Captain Swing (co-authored with George Rude). In these books Hobsbawm, in a pioneering manner, looked at protests of the poor and the marginalized against the emergence of capitalist forms of production in agriculture and manufacturing. These began the trend of looking at history from below which influenced many historians across the globe and generated some very fine pieces of history writing.

I have kept the four volumes till the end because they lack the analytical rigour and the depth of research that informed Hobsbawm’s earlier essays and the work of his ideological peers like Hill, Hilton and the Thompsons. The Age of Capital contained egregious errors about India which Hobsbawm failed to correct in reprints even after they were pointed out to him. It is entirely possible that historians of Latin America also noticed similar lacunae when he referred to the histories of Latin American countries. Paradoxically, the quartet made Hobsbawm a celebrity among Left historians; yet, perhaps, it did irreparable damage to his reputation as a historian within his peer group.

But more severe harm to his integrity as an intellectual and scholar was inflicted ironically by Hobsbawm himself. This was done by the political positions he adopted and by the publication of his memoirs, Interesting Times. Hobsbawm became a communist when, as a teenager, he witnessed the rise of Nazism in Berlin. These convictions were strengthened in Cambridge where he took a starred first in History from King’s College. He remained loyal to the party he joined, to the cause of communism and to Stalin and the Soviet Union. A large part of his memoirs is no more than an elaborate justification of these loyalties. As a historian, he refused to face the reality of the brutality and oppression of the Stalinist regime. Once, when Michael Ignatieff asked him if the killing of 20 million people in Russia under Stalin would be justified if communism had succeeded, Hobsbawm answered in the affirmative. There was more than a hint of arrogance and smugness in Hobsbawm’s defence of the Soviet Union and the violence it perpetrated. The party line and loyalty to Soviet Russia could be more important to Hobsbawm than history. The historian in him surfaced on issues regarding which the party had no position.

A similar turning away from history was manifest in Hobsbawm’s attitude to the British Empire. He wrote in his memoirs that the saving grace of the British Empire was that it was free from megalomania. This, about an empire whose paladins believed in the permanence of Pax Britannica, and among whom many had nothing more than contempt for the culture and civilization of India.

Hobsbawm’s death sees the passing of a certain type of intellectual: a man with enviable gifts of language, intelligence and analysis who failed to overcome his own blindness about the violence that his chosen faith had perpetrated. Doubt everything — so Karl Marx said was his motto. In the exercise of his intellect, Hobsbawm failed to live up to this high standard.


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11. RECENT CONTENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH
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When is forgiveness right? by Martha Nussbaum
He is trampling out the vintage where the grapes of wrath are stored. His truth is marching on.” Reading the verdicts in the Naroda Patiya case, I found these words of the US Civil War anti-slavery anthem coming to mind. Truth is indeed marching on, even in Gujarat, thanks to the timely intervention of the Supreme Court and the fine work of its Special Investigation Team. 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/when-is-forgiveness-right-martha.html

Maharashtra: Ekal Eklavya Schools run by Hindu Right Vishwa Hindu Parishad are mushrooming 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/maharashtra-ekal-eklavya-schools-run-by.html

Bihar Police: United in khaki, divided by caste barracks
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/bihar-police-united-in-khaki-divided-by.html

Jain temple builders Vs Archaeological Survey of India
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/jain-temple-builders-vs-archaeological.html


INTERNATIONAL

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12. HONOUR THE DISSENTERS
by Marieme Helie Lucas
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Source: http://freethoughtblogs.com/maryamnamazie/2012/10/10/honour-the-dissenters/

In the past few weeks, in several countries, groups of citizens have openly taken a stand against Muslim fundamentalists, including armed ones.

In Mali, on a number of occasions, citizens attempted to stop public amputations, stonings and floggings; Malian women also attacked AQMI (Al-Qaida au Maghreb islamique) in an attempt to stand up against the imposition of a so-called ‘Islamic dress code’ that is totally alien to their culture ( but have you heard anyone in Europe stand up in defence of their right to preserve their culture, their traditional way of dressing which is NOT the freshly imported so-called ‘Islamic veil’ Saudi style?). In response, fundamentalist armed groups fired at them with sub-machine guns.

In India, in the city of Ahmadabad, two citizens stood their ground facing crowds demonstrating against the anti-Muslim video: The Innocence of Muslims. They held posters saying ‘just don’t watch it!’. They were seriously hurt.

In Iran, a woman beat up a cleric who made comments about her supposedly anti-Islamic outfit. She told him to look the other way, and when he persisted, she beat him up. We can be sure she will pay a dire price for it.

In Libya, on the site of the attack in Benghazi, demonstrators held signs apologising for the murder of the US Ambassador and expressing in various ways a ‘not in our name’ stance that distanced themselves from the killers. It was also citizens who initiated the expulsion of the armed militia from the cities, whilst government troops only came in later.

In Afghanistan, demonstrators physically confronted the authorities when they renamed a university with the name of a religious-Right leader.

In Tunisia, women regularly take to the streets to defend their constitutional rights and to oppose any setbacks on equality under the law between citizens –men and women.

In Pakistan, women’s organisations have been demonstrating for a secular state, with a clear separation of politics from religion, for several years now.

One could give many more examples from other countries.

These citizens are the future of their countries and of humanity. But when have European media properly reported on these events? Where has such news been given front-page attention?

How long will it take for the European Left and human rights organisations to defend the courageous people who stand up to fundamentalists at risk to their lives, rather than their oppressors and killers?

Why is it assumed that fundamentalists, i.e. neo-fascist religious extreme-Right, represent and defend the ‘real Islam’?

Why is it assumed that all those who oppose fundamentalists are anti-Islam renegades – and that therefore, if they get killed, well… they deserve to die?

Why are secularists considered ‘Islamophobic’ when they are anti-fundamentalist?

And why does the Left persistently use the terminology that has been coined by the fundamentalists: ‘sharia law’, ‘Islamophobia’, ‘fatwa’, etc… a terminology that secularists have persistently denounced and deconstructed.

The ten year long resistance to armed fundamentalism in Algeria and its 200,000 victims did not manage to change the views of the Left and human rights organisations vis-a-vis fundamentalism. Nor, it seems, the internal resistance that today, in many countries, is making itself visible.

But something may change their minds: the attempted assassination on a child in Pakistan – Malala Yousafzai, the 14 year old supporter of education for girls. They shot at her and took responsibility for the attack. They declared that they would attack her again if she survives, and that anyone against the Taliban will be executed. Must it not be clear at long last that a child demanding her right to education is considered a supporter of ‘the West’, an enemy of Islam (since the Taliban claims that they are the only legitimate representatives of Islam), an ‘apostate’, and one that deserves to be physically eliminated? As all us ‘kafirs’ deserve to…

We are today’s Chevalier Jean-François Lefevre de la Barre (September 12, 1745 – July 1, 1766) – the young French man who was atrociously tortured and murdered before his body was burnt on a pyre along with Voltaire’s “Philosophical Dictionary” for refusing to remove his hat while a religious procession passed by.

No one in Europe would dream of justifying such ‘Christian’ atrocities in the name of religion today. But it seems presumed ‘Muslims’ do not deserve an equal access to universal human rights, freedom of thought and freedom of conscience. Presumed ‘Muslims’ are ‘under cultural arrest’; they are bound by customs and religion and should remain so, while the rest of humanity enjoys universal rights.

We are today’s Chevalier de la Barre, demanding our right not to believe in any religion without being tortured and killed.

We are today’s Chevalier de la Barre, demanding our right not to veil, to be educated, to work for wages, to move freely and to enjoy all citizens’ rights.

Jean François de la Barre was 19; Malala is only 14. His legal assassination prompted political changes in France towards secularism. Will hers be the price to pay for our emancipation from state-sanctioned religion and its legal implications on our lives?

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13. AFTER PUSSY RIOT TRIAL, RUSSIA MOVES TO CRIMINALISE RELIGIOUS INSULTS
By Grigorii Tumanov, Alexander Chernikh, Pavel Korobov [KOMMERSANT]
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Source: World Crunch - 2 Oct 2012  

The Duma, Russia's parliament has proposed a new law that would punish anyone who insults the feelings of religious believers with up to three years in jail. Insulting a holy site would carry a penalty of up to five years.

MOSCOW - The Duma, Russia's parliament, announced a campaign last week to “protect the rights of religious people.” Adding teeth to the initiative, the parliament has also now proposed a new law that would punish anyone who insults the feelings of religious believers with up to three years in jail. Insulting a holy site would carry a penalty of up to five years. 

Both the campaign to protect the rights of believers and the proposed changes to the criminal code -- touted as sending a strong message to anti-religious extremists -- have gotten support from representatives from all of the traditional religions in Russia. In expressing their support, the country’s religious leaders have mentioned the Pussy Riot scandal, the vandalism of crosses around the country and the riots across the Muslim world in reaction to the film “Innocence of Muslims.”

“To counteract insults to citizens’ religions beliefs and feelings, as well as to protect holy objects, sites and ceremonies from insult,” the deputies in the Duma want to put a new entry in the Criminal Code to make insulting religious beliefs a criminal act. 

Insulting the feelings of religious believers could be punishable by a fine of some $10,000 and three years in prison; insulting churches, mosques or synagogues would carry a higher fine and a five-year prison sentence. 

According to the head of the human rights organization Aurora, Pavel Chikov, the Pussy Riot affair is one of the most important motivations for this new law project. The three young activists were sentenced to two years in prison for "hooliganism" after holding a punk prayer in a Moscow cathedral.

Many lawyers who followed the trial said the conviction under the hooliganism charge was tenuous, and that really all the women could be sentenced to was a small administrative fine for disrupting the public order, given that they did not cause any damage to the Cathedral. “If they had done something similar after the adoption of this law, they would certainly have been tried for insulting the feelings of religious believers,” Chikov explained.

Boomerang for Orthodox?

Russian Orthodox activists of varying degrees of radicalism have regularly acted against those who they feel insult religious belief, and often those on their black list are modern artists. Orthodox activists’ preferred method of protest has been to disrupt their expositions, and they often file complaints against artists and galleries under statutes that forbid religious hatred.

“It is very likely that the prosecutor, the Russian Orthodox Church and the various nationalist-orthodox organizations will gain a major weapon against modern art, and that will seriously increase the amount of self-censorship,” said art curator Yuri Samodurov, who was tried under the religious hatred law for an exposition in 2005. 

The head of the association of Orthodox experts confirmed for Kommersant that the church was getting just the kind of law that it wanted. “Those who slander the church and the Patriarch will think twice now before they commit blasphemy,” he said.

In fact, Orthodox leaders have decided not to wait until the law has actually been adopted - having already filed a suit for "moral damages" against the designer Artemi Lebedev for a post on his blog that they found insulting. In part, the plaintiffs are disturbed that he wrote the word “god” in all lowercase letters. 

The Russian Orthodox Church welcomed the deputies' initiative, saying that the current laws are insufficient to protect the feelings of religious believers. The representative of the Council of Muftis in Russia agreed, saying, “We need to have laws so that a person who is thinking about insulting believers will think about the consequences.”

At the same time, if adopted, the new law could very well be used against the Orthodox Church. “I have seen several videos where Orthodox believers destroy the small bookshops of Seventh-Day Adventists or chase Hare Krishna followers. I am sure that the first suits will come from the ‘small religions’ and will be against the Hierarchy of the Russian Orthodox Church,” said the gallery owner Marat Gelman, who has been a defendant in several suites brought by the Church against art expositions.

Seventh-Day Adventists are already ready to take advantage of the new law. “Of course we will use the new law every time that Protestants in Russia are insulted,” said the head of the Russian Evangelical Council Sergei Ryakhovski. 

Human rights activists fear that in the future believers will be made the arbiters of what they deem is appropriate under the criminal code. “I am convinced that it will be abused on a massive scale," said Alexander Verkhovskii, head of the anti-extremism monitoring organization Sova. "There were already more than enough laws to protect the feeling of believers. This law is obviously just to stop all criticism towards the Russian Orthodox Church.”  

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14. EGYPT WOMEN FACE UNCERTAIN FUTURE AS CONSTITUTION DRAWS NEAR
by Manar Ammar with Joseph Mayton
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http://womennewsnetwork.net/2012/10/05/egypt-women-constitution/
 – WNN Breaking
Woman speaks out in Tahrir Square, Cairo January 23, 2012

A woman speaks out with anger and conviction about those demonstrators who have died in Egypt’s democracy movement as she is surrounded by security officers in Tahrir Square, Cairo on January 23, 2012. Many progressive women in Egypt today feel the post-uprising era in Egypt has now turned their backs on women who are seeking equality and decision making power in the newly formed government. Image: Sarah Carr

(WNN) Cairo, EGYPT: Many have called women’s status in the currently drafted Egyptian constitution to be “disappointing and shocking” while others have dubbed it a “male-only” constitution. It is a work in progress, but for women here, it is all in the wrong direction to where women need to be in the post-uprising Egypt.

The article causing a fury is Article 36 of the new Egyptian constitution (under the duties and freedom section) that states that both genders are equal, but there is a caveat, as long as Sharia law is not affected.

It reads, “The state is obliged to take all legislative and executive measures to entrench the principle of women’s equality with men in the fields of political, cultural life, economic, social and other areas without violating Islamic law (Sharia).”

Feminists have come out in anger, saying no two people can have an agreement on Sharia, making such a statement worrisome and threatening to gender equality. Pessimists in Egypt argue it is the natural product of a religious state in the making.

“The seriousness of the matter is the reference in this article to the Islamic Sharia,” writes Nehad Abu Komsan, director of the Egyptian Center for Women’s Rights (ECWR) in a recent article on the topic.

“Article 36 mentioning Sharia laws as the reference opens the door to the imprisonment of women between conservative and liberal interpretations,” she added.

On one hand, the second article of the constitution states “principles” of Sharia as the reference to governing and on the other Sharia laws are inserted, like in the case of article 36, as a roof for women’s freedoms and potentials.

Qomsan says having two conflicting references of Sharia is “constitutionally flawed.”

Advocates argue there are many anti-women interpretations that have found their way into Sharia, such as battering women as a tool to “correct their behavior.” The ambiguity of the Sharia articles will allow, activists and women’s leaders argue, “wrongful practices to find its way into the law,” while contradicting other articles that protects the safety and dignity of all citizens.

Many women are expressing their worries over the preliminary drafting of the constitution, to be publicly put forward sometime in October. They find these articles a desired loop hole in the constitution to keep the status quo of oppressing women and imprisoning them in outdated social roles.

Amr Darrag, the Giza head of the Muslim Brotherhood’s Freedom and Justice Party (FJP) highlighted this fact last year when discussing the constitution and the FJP’s role in the new Egypt as a major political player. He said that women should be a center for society and they should have access to jobs.

“But when they get married and begin having children, their role as mother should be most important and they should not be working,” he said at his home in Giza. For him, like many conservatives – the majority of whom make up the drafting committee of the constitution – women are equal, as long as they don’t disrupt the family.

“The family is the most important and women must be at home to raise their children,” he argued.

In mid-September, groups of political organizations and NGOs put forward their fears over article 36. The Egyptian Social Democratic Party, the Popular Socialist Coalition, the Free Egyptians party, the Popular Current, the New Woman Organization, the Woman and Memory Organization, the Al-Nadeem Center and others issued a statement that condemned the use of Sharia to curtail women’s freedoms in the country.

The statement said that such unclear wording “endangers the democracy that everyone aspired for and sacrificed for,” adding that the struggle of Egyptian women throughout history, notably in recent years, “should guarantee them the rights they had already gained historically on the basis of equal citizenship. Such rights should not be reduced, [and] such a reduction would contradict Egypt’s commitments to international charters and agreements.”

As a result of drafting these articles, the Muslim male-dominated constitutional committee has come under fire. Not only does it have a small percentage of women involved in the actual writing process, it is also the embodiment of the lack of diversity and representation, reminding many of how women and Coptic Christians have been used as a front to beautify the last regime, but now some in the country say the new regime has a religious façade.

On September 24, activist Manal al-Tayibi resigned from the constitution committee in objection to what she called “a set will to produce a constitution that would be the cornerstone of a religious state, which will  preserve the principles of the fallen regime and ignore the pillars of the Egyptian uprising of freedom, dignity and social justice.”

Other committee members had resigned prior to al-Tayibi, only making the entire process worse and giving more freedom to the conservative elements to push their will, activists argue.

As the members of the committee left, the drafting of the new constitution has fallen to conservative powers that will have a greater power over passing their convictions without any real protest.

Advocates, rights groups and secular powers in Egypt came out and condemned the article, but without any real representation inside the committee, it is business as usual, leaving the country on what women believe is a highway to a feared state of being for those who suffer the most socially and economically: women.

Al-Tayibi said that Egypt is drafting the “worst Egyptian constitution ever,” but it seems that the opposition’s efforts to mend it have done little to succeed.

In order to get women rights back on track many steps are needed, Abu Komsan and others say, starting with a different drafting committee that is not dominated with Muslim men drafting what they “think is best for women.”

In many ways the committee, which to many activists has no legitimacy, is a microcosm of` what Egypt is becoming. Muslim men on top, while the rest of society battles to get heard or represented.

©2012 WNN – Women News Network

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15. SOUTH AFRICA: WILDCAT STRIKE WAVE (SEPT-OCT 2012) DESPITE GATE KEEPERS OF THE LABOUR MOVEMENT - ANALYSIS AND REPORTS
A compilation for the LNSA mailing list
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sacw.net - 10 October 2012

Contents:

1. Wildcat strike movement may birth new political party (Mandy de Waal)
2. South Africa wildcat strikes spread to more mines (Ed Stoddard and Agnieszka Flak)
3. 12,000 miners fired as South African strike wave grows (Bill Van Auken)
4. Some truckers suspend strike, bulk press on
5. It is time to pay miners a fair wage (Samuel Choritz)
6. The radical new face of labour relations in SA (Carol Paton)
7. COSATU and NUM statement on the current wildcat strikes in the mining industry with the full support of the SACP
8. State’s credibility in tatters after Marikana - CASAC (Lawson Naidoo)
9. Marikana: Shaky start for the Farlam Commission (Khadija Patel)
10. Wildcat miners’ strikes in South Africa spread to iron ore firm (The Guardian)
11. What’s mined is yours: the fall of capitalism in SA’s platinum belt (Mandy de Waal)
12. Video: Toyota strike complicates South Africa’s crisis
13. Cosatu blames mine bosses for giving in to workers’ demands (Natasha Marrian)
14. Mine workers march to NUM to cancel membership
15. Jay Naidoo’s An open letter to Congress of South African Trade Unions

http://www.sacw.net/article2915.html

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South Asia Citizens Wire
Buzz for secularism, on the dangers of fundamentalism(s), on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. Newsletter 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.
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