SACW - 1 Nov 2012 | Salaams to 'Chakar Khan' and Sitaram Shastry / Appeal to UN on Sri Lanka / India move now for peace with Pakistan / India: Savarkar advocated rape as revenge / Egypt: Revolution betrayed / European Left

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Wed Oct 31 15:21:39 EDT 2012


  South Asia Citizens Wire - 1 Nov 2012 - No. 2762
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Contents:
1. Bangladeshi sculptor spends eight years in Indian jail without trial (Editorial, The Daily Star)
2. Islamic extremism in the Maldives: alive and killing (Azra Naseem)
3. Pakistan: For and against Malala Yousafzai (Ishtiaq Ahmed)
4. India - Pakistan: A visit Manmohan must make (A. G. Noorani)
5. Sri Lanka: Appeal to the UN HRC regarding the Universal Periodic Review in Nov, 2012 on Sri Lanka
6. India: Public religious festivals are a ready resource for reactionary politics. Can they be secularised? (Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly) 
7. India: The Empire Begs Back - What does it mean when the UK High Commissioner visits Modi? (Badri Raina)
8. India: Open letter to Chief Minister Narendra Modi regarding deaths of migrant workers at Alang shipbreaking works (Gopal Krishna)
9. Pakistan: Tributes to Asad Rehman ’Chakar Khan’
10. India: Tribute to Comrade Sitaram Shastry  (T. Vijayendra)
11. India - Endless Communalism  
- Savarkar's advocacy of rape as revenge 
- Symbol of Communal Harmony In Faizabad Attacked by Sandeep Pandey
- Bajrang Dal activists display arms, take out rally
- Kerala: VHP to provide Hindu nurses, Hindu car drivers and cars owned by Hindus for the needy 
- UP: Communal Violence in the past seven months of 2012
- RSS functionaries linked with Nitin Gadkari's firm
- India: laws on hate speech ought to be toned up
- India: Sena, MNS oppose Pak cricket team's tour
- India: Billboard of “Hitler” men’s wear store in Ahmedabad taken down [possibly because Modi wants appear sensitive to international image]
- Travelling exhibit on anti-Sikh riots

International: 
11. Egypt: Fascism in our new constitution (Sherif Younis)
12. The European Left and Its Trouble With Jews (Ed Alcock)
13. Bosnia and Herzegovina: Time for Republika Srpska to make reparations for war-time rape, says Amnesty
14. Madonna and Milk Cartons Russia's War on Gays and Lesbians Intensifies
by Benjamin Bidder
15. How Christian fundamentalism feeds the toxic partisanship of US politics (Katherine Stewart)
  
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1. BANGLADESH SCULPTOR SPENDS EIGHT YEARS IN INDIAN JAIL WITHOUT TRIAL
- Editorial, The Daily Star
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(Editorial, The Daily Star, October 31, 2012)

Eight years in Indian jail
Plight of the sculptor and his family warrants explanation

We have no words to express our utter shock at the way sculptor Rashid Ahmed and his daughter-in-law Nurun Nahar suffered in an Indian jail without trial for some eight years. Had it not been for the exposé in the media and payment of the fines as part of the court sentence by some kind businessmen their release might well have been further delayed.

According to Rashid Ahmed, barring two visits from the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi during the eight years in question, no effective measures were taken in providing legal support to the two Bangladeshis. They needed special attention if only because they

were put through the legal system in a country they were visiting.

As the report goes, the tragedy befell them after they checked in a New Delhi hotel while on a pilgrimage to Ajmer in India in December 2004. Indian intelligence officials arrested them on charge of what they alleged carrying fake Indian currency.

One wonders how two Bangladeshi nationals were allowed to languish without trial for such a long time? Add to this the fact that having been involved in the case, they had no access to finance or legal aid.

It appears whereas the Indian authorities treated them with sterness, it was through the kindness of some private citizens that he and his daughter-in-law could taste freedom, even though belatedly.

Now who will compensate for the years lost from the lives of the aging sculptor and his eldest son's wife, whose family members also suffered hardships inordinately? Actually, the man and his family have been rendered pauper after they had to sell their house in Dhaka to meet the contingencies.

The government needs to seek clarification from the Bangladesh High Commission in New Delhi on the matter and take issue with the Indian authorities so that such incident does not recur in the future.

Meanwhile, some ways may be found to rehabilitate the sculptor and his family.

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2. ISLAMIC EXTREMISM IN THE MALDIVES: ALIVE AND KILLING
by Azra Naseem
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(sacw.net - 29 October 2012)
Islamic extremism is very real in the Maldives. It affects the daily lives of every Maldivian, and is gaining in scope, intensity and violence every day with the pseudo-democratic government that came to power on 7 February.

This is not to say that Islamic extremism did not exist during the three short years in which the Maldives was a democracy. On the contrary, it was during democratic rule that extremism gained its strongest foothold in Maldivian society. It is a myth that democracy is an antidote to extremism, as is widely proposed in much of the existing anti-radicalisation literature. Democracy, with its many freedoms, provides a much more conducive environment for radicalisation than does an authoritarian regime, as has been seen in the Maldives.

When Islamic extremism began to be imported into the Maldives in the late 1990s with the advent of the so-called international ‘religious terrorism’; and when the export of extremist ideologies intensified globally with the War on Terror, the Maldives was under the dictatorial regime of Maumoon Abdul Gayoom.
 
http://www.sacw.net/article3254.html

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3. PAKISTAN: FOR AND AGAINST MALALA YOUSAFZAI
by Ishtiaq Ahmed
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(Daily Times, Sunday, October 21, 2012)
The world at large and  particularly the majority of the people of Pakistan are holding their breath as the 14-year old Malala Yousafzai struggles for her life after suffering grievous injuries at the hands of Taliban gunmen, who on October 9, 2012, stopped her school bus, in Mingora, Swat and shot her in the head and neck. Two other girls in the bus were also injured. Malala received the best medical care that Pakistan could offer, and once her situation allowed, she has been sent to a specialist hospital in Birmingham, UK, where the reports suggest that she is slowly but steadily recovering. Other victims of Taliban terror have not received the same attention. Thus she is lucky because her activities in the international media, beginning with the blog at the BBC in early 2009 that exposed Talban atrocities, had made her famous. 

Government and the middle of the road political opposition have been quite vocal in condemning the assassination attempt. Army chief General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani went to the hospital to express his sympathy for Malala. Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf also visited her in the hospital and President Zardari has described her as a symbol of Pakistan’s resistance to ‘Talibanisation’. 

With regard to the Islamists of different varieties, the situation is, as always, full of circumlocutions. Thus for example, 50 clerics of the Barelvi-Sufi Sunni Ittehad Council have issued a fatwa (religious edict) against those who tried to kill her. They have opined that Islam does not prohibit females from acquiring education. In the same fatwa, however, they have declared the United States as an enemy of Islam and Pakistan. 

The logical connection between the two stands is difficult to figure out, but it seems to be a way of saying that all the troubles in Pakistan originate from its alliance with the Americans, who have been firing missiles from their drones, thus killing many innocent Pakistanis. The Jamaat-e-Islami’s Syed Munawwar Hassan and the head of the banned Lashkar-e-Tayyaba and many other Deobandi-Wahabi clerics have also spoken in similar terms.

However, the Taliban seem undeterred and unrepentant. They have found support for their vile crime from sacred sources. They have asserted that a female who plays a role in the ‘war against the mujahideen’ can be and should be killed. They invoke an example of the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH): 

“[W]e can see the incident of the killing of his wife by a blind companion of Prophet Muhammad (PBUH) because she used to say demeaning words for the Prophet (PBUH) and the Prophet (PBUH) praised that act.”

Moreover, they refer to a Quranic verse, which according to them justifies their decision to eliminate her: “If anyone argues about her young age, then the story of Hazrat Khizar in the Quran (states that) while travelling with Prophet Musa (AS), (he) killed a child. Arguing about the reason for his killing, he said that the parents of this child were pious and in the future he (the child) would cause a bad name for them.”

Now, if both sides can refer to the same sources to reach diametrically opposite conclusions then how on earth can such controversies now or in the future be resolved through discussion and consensus? For 1,400 years, this mode of argumentation has effectively killed self-criticism and independent thinking.

However, far more worrisome is the Pakistani ruling class’s ambivalence and indecisiveness. Pakistan has been shocking the world by recurring acts of terrorism carried out by the Taliban and their associates and the power elite remaining paralysed and apathetic. Who can forget that when Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was mercilessly gunned down by his own police bodyguard, Mumtaz Qadri, some of his own colleagues in the federal and provincial cabinets issued statements that seemed to condone the action of that culprit. The presiding judge, Pervaiz Ali Shah, who found Qadri guilty of murder, has since then been on a visit to the holy land, and as far as I know has not returned. The killers of the federal minister for minority affairs, the Catholic Shahbaz Bhatti, have similarly not been punished for their crime yet. Then, of course, gruesome attacks on religious and sectarian minorities have been going on for years. Much worse, the Taliban recently beheaded Pakistani military personnel and yet nothing decisive happened. One can see on YouTube the shocking execution of these men being carried out in a barbaric manner. 

So, how can one explain that a nuclear weapons state possessing one of the biggest and best trained militaries in the developing world is unable to strike and destroy the scourge that brutalises its citizens and has the temerity to kill its military personnel with such unmitigated savagery? I have no answers or explanation. To believe that these demented killers please God through their crimes against humanity and are somehow strategic assets that in a post-US-NATO Afghanistan will help restore our ascendance in that country is sheer lunacy. At some point, the whole system will explode. If there is a will not to let this happen, then the Taliban-al Qaeda enclaves in North Waziristan and elsewhere must be destroyed.

It may be noted that on facebook, fans of the Taliban are busy pedalling theories that the army has itself masterminded the assault on Malala Yousafzai in order to justify an invasion of North Waziristan! More ludicrous conspiracy theories cannot be imagined, but in Pakistan, perverted imagination has been having a field day since a long time.

The writer has a PhD from Stockholm University. He is a Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. His latest publication is The Punjab Bloodied, Partitioned and Cleansed: Unravelling the 1947 Tragedy through Secret British Reports and First-Person Accounts (Karachi: Oxford University Press, 2012; New Delhi: Rupa Books, 2011). He can be reached at billumian at gmail.com 

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4. INDIA - PAKISTAN: A VISIT MANMOHAN MUST MAKE
by A. G. Noorani
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(The Hindu, October 30, 2012)
Only a summit between India and Pakistan at the highest political level can lead to a forward movement on Sir Creek, a no-war pact, and the Kashmir formula

The pre-condition Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has been insisting on for a visit to Pakistan — that there must first be “something solid” to achieve — defies the sound rules of diplomacy and is one which the self-consciously powerful impose unwisely. History has vindicated Churchill and proved Truman wrong in rebuffing Stalin’s pleas for a summit. Doables are more clearly determined at the summit level itself and Dr. Singh knows what they are. It seems that he has all but abandoned the agenda on which he so bravely worked during his first stint as Prime Minister.

What message is he seeking now to convey to Pakistan and Kashmiris? Expect “nothing from me?”
Ideal atmosphere

Ironically, the atmosphere for a visit to Pakistan was never better and there is something which he alone, at the highest political level, can accomplish — finalise an agreement that settles the Sir Creek dispute. Though it is of limited dimensions, its removal from the agenda of disputes awaiting settlement will provide an impetus to the resolution of the others and improve the atmosphere. Dr. Singh briefed the on-board media while returning from the Non-Aligned summit in Tehran on August 31 that he had told Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari when they met there that “there must be a genuine feeling that Pakistan is doing all that it could do to deal with terrorism directed at India from Pakistan’s soil. The court trial on the Mumbai massacre is a crucial test of Pakistan’s sincerity.”

But he did not stop at that. He added, significantly, “I also said Sir Creek, which we had talked about during his visit to Ajmer [in April], was doable”. Nor is that all. Credible reports have it that when Pakistan’s Interior Minister Rehman Malik met India’s Home Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde “on the sidelines” of the SAARC Home Ministers’ Conference in the Maldives late last month, he gave a “verbal assurance” of access to Indian investigators to the accused in Pakistan’s prisons and the evidence already collected. This is an area which can be fully explored only in frank talks at a high level.

Sir Creek has been “doable” for at least the past five years. The joint statements issued on May 21, 2011 and June 19, 2012 speak of demarcation of “the land boundary in the Sir Creek area and the delimitation of [the] International Maritime Boundary between Pakistan and India.” A joint survey of Sir Creek was conducted in January and February 2007 which resulted in a joint map of the area. It was authenticated by both sides at the fourth round of talks when copies of the joint map were also exchanged.
Boundary-marking and making

As Dr. B.R. Ambedkar once remarked, boundary-marking is the task of a surveyor; boundary-making is the task of a statesman. Both countries, parties to the Convention on the Law of the Sea, submitted their claims to the extended Continental Shelf with the U.N. Commission on the Limits of the Continental Shelf. Their claims remain “on hold,” pending a settlement. If they continue to disagree on the limits of the EEZ or the Continental Shelf, the matter will have to be decided by arbitration (Articles 279-299 of the Convention). Is that what we want? Why not do the “doable”?

There are two other matters on which India can take the initiative. One is a no-war pact. Both sides came very close to an agreed draft in May 1984. India had sent an aide-memoire to Pakistan on December 24, 1981 setting out the principles. Pakistan sent its draft on January 12, 1982. In Islamabad, formal talks began in May 1982 when Pakistan presented a complete draft of a no-war pact. India followed up by presenting a draft Treaty of Peace, Friendship and Cooperation in August 1982. Indira Gandhi wantonly injected new elements on bases and alliances. Meanwhile, an agreement on a Joint Commission was signed on March 10, 1983.

Talks resumed at Udaipur and Delhi on March 1 and 2, 1984. There was a breakthrough in May 1984 on the two sticking points. The Shimla formulation on bilateralism and the criteria for NAM membership, adopted at Cairo on June 5, 1961, was acceptable to India on bases and alliances. Pakistan did not send its draft on them as it had promised. The Rajiv Gandhi-Zia-ul-Haq summit in Delhi on December 17, 1985 imparted momentum to the dialogue. Talks were held in 1986 but they petered out.

In 2012, bases and alliances have lost their relevance; but Article 8 of the India-Bangladesh Treaty can be adopted. It used a standard formulation for reciprocal pledges not to “enter into or participate in any military alliance directed against the other party” nor “allow the use of its territory for committing any act that may cause military damage to or constitute a threat to the security of the other.”

The no-war pact proposal was formally revived by Nawaz Sharif when he was Prime Minister, in a speech to the U.N. General Assembly on September 22, 1997: “I offer today from this rostrum to open negotiations on a treaty of non-aggression between India and Pakistan”. He renewed it in a television interview on December 11, 2008 after the Mumbai blasts: “We should sign a no-war pact for peace.”
Almost there

Existing drafts can be meshed together. Not much work is involved. When this writer asked M.K. Rasgotra, India’s Foreign Secretary during the May 1984 talks, how much time it would have required, he raised his index finger and said, “one hour.”

There is another matter on which the summit will help. For some time, the Pakistan People’s Party government treated the Musharraf-Manmohan consensus on the four-point formula on Kashmir as something the cat had brought in. That is no longer the case. Pakistan is prepared to adopt a constructive line on the formula. Last month, Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar clearly indicated to Iftikhar Gilani of DNA that, “we need a relook [on Kashmir], we need to do some homework for that.” In an interview to Barkha Dutt of NDTV around the same time, former PPP Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani specified the subject of the homework: “There had been some formula earlier which was decided between General Musharraf and the Indian government. But there had been some loopholes which we wanted to tighten, aur uspe hum kaam kar rahe the [and we were working on it] when there was a change of government here in Pakistan.”

Tightening the loose ends would be a more accurate description for the exercise. Only a summit can accomplish that. And, that is where the havoc wrought since 2008 must be repaired. As Churchill said in a historic speech to the House of Commons on May 11, 1953, soon after Stalin’s death, “If there is not at the summit of the nations the will to win the greatest prize and the greatest honour ever offered to mankind, doom-laden responsibility will fall upon those who now possess the power to decide. At the worst the participants … would have established more intimate contacts. At the best we might have a generation of peace.”

(A.G. Noorani is an advocate, Supreme Court of India, and a leading constitutional expert. His latest book, Article 370: A Constitutional History of Jammu and Kashmir, was published by Oxford University Press in 2011.)

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5. SRI LANKA: APPEAL TO THE UN HRC REGARDING THE UNIVERSAL PERIODIC REVIEW IN NOVEMBER, 2012 ON SRI LANKA
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An open appeal to the UN HRC in connection with the Universal Periodic Review in November, 2012 on Sri Lanka urging it to prevail upon Sri Lanka to stop the dismantling the devolution of powers that have been conferred on the Provincial Councils by the provisions of the 13th Amendment to the Constitution.
NfR Sri Lanka, a net work of journalists and human rights defenders, makes this urgent and open appeal to the members of UN Human Rights Council in the context of the up coming second session of the Universal Periodic Review. The human rights situation of Sri Lanka is to be reviewed during this session commencing on 1st November 2012.

One of the major human rights issues if not the major one in Sri Lanka, relates to the rights of the Tamil and Muslim communities who constitute the principal minorities in the country to exercise devolution of powers. Post independence as well as post war, the Sri Lankan State has time and again failed to keep its promises of a political solution to the just grievances of the Tamil people and has unilaterally abrogated all agreements reached with the democratically elected representatives of the Tamil people of Sri Lanka.
http://www.sacw.net/article3252.html

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6. INDIA: PUBLIC RELIGIOUS FESTIVALS ARE A READY RESOURCE FOR REACTIONARY POLITICS. CAN THEY BE SECULARISED?
- Editorial, Economic and Political Weekly
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(Economic and Political Weekly, Vol - XLVII No. 44, November 03, 2012)

Building New Solidarities
Public religious festivals are a ready resource for reactionary politics. Can they be secularised?

Religious festivals are no more merely about religion or spirituality. They are as much, if not much more, about politics, about national and other identities, and about the market. They are also, lest we forget, about celebrating and fraternising. Increasingly though, many festivals are coming under pressure from caste, gender and civic groups for their symbolisms and ideological content. As the country gets into the period of public festivals it may be a good time to take a step back and reflect on these events.

It was only in the late 19th century that religious festivals started coming out of the seclusion of the home and the religious gathering to become public spectacles, involving and inviting a larger public to participate. This tradition of public or, in that particular sense, communal (sarvajanik) religious festivals was a conscious effort by some nationalists to unite the community for the nation. The deliberate effort of Bal Gangadhar Tilak in starting the public Ganesh Pujas in Bombay or of the young Bengali nationalists in starting similar public Durga Pujas in Calcutta was to harness the potential of religious symbols and icons to unite large numbers of people in the new cities of colonial India by unshackling these ceremonies from their traditional family, caste and locality moorings. That this was a successful political intervention is attested to by the history of the 20th century where all mass religious denominations have changed their religious practices to make public religious celebration the centrepiece of their religious imagination and community identity. Thus Ganesh Chaturthi has become a cultural symbol of Maharashtra, like Onam has for Kerala or Durga Puja for Bengal.

Many of them are overflowing their regional and linguistic boundaries, carried over to new geographies on the backs of migrants and new technologies of communication. Such public religious festivals allow the recreation of migrants’ original communities in the new cities of residence. Other festivals like Diwali and Dussehra already have a pan-India presence and many others, like Holi, Raksha Bandhan and Karwa Chauth, are joining their ranks.

The public religious festival has not only served to build a certain form of national (or sub-national) identity, it has also been a convenient vehicle for creating communal divisions as well as, very often, reasserting caste and gender lines. Right from the moment when religious festivals were transformed into public celebrations, they have also sharpened religious divisions and often led to communal violence. In recent times, Onam’s myth of Mahabali, who was pushed into the netherworlds by Vishnu’s Vamanavatar, and Durga’s mythical killing of Mahishasur, have invited sharp dalit critiques of how this symbolism reasserts the subjugation of the lower castes and tribals by the upper castes. There is the much older, and similar, “debate” over the depiction of Ravana and his killing by the god Rama.

Today, the public religious festival has entrenched itself in the social fabric of the country. These religious festivals are occasions for celebrations, for sharing and exchanging gifts, visiting family and friends and participating in social gatherings which build local level fraternal bonds. To attack and critique such religious festivals is almost akin to assailing the celebrations and festivities of the people at large. Given how dominant these events have become, they have also been co-opted by political parties and organisations as well as by the market. It is a symbiotic relation where these festivals provide politicians and marketers with captive collectives of people with similar tastes, languages and perspectives; it also provides political and financial muscle to these festivals to expand and encroach more of the public space. The roads and parks are taken over, loudspeakers drown out any other talk, social pressure increases to conform to food and sartorial codes, while work and school schedules are increasingly dictated by these occasions. This has been the result of conscious and deliberate effort, almost all of it of right-wing and reactionary political forces.

Perhaps precisely because of this, it is necessary to develop a critique – both intellectual as well as political/practical – of the public religious festival. Some earlier attempts, like those of Tagore in Bengal, Gora in Andhra Pradesh and Periyar in Tamil Nadu, to critique them and move away to other, non-religious public festivities, have been unsuccessful, despite their initial promise. More recent attempts, those from the women’s movement or the anti-caste movement, or even from the peoples’ science movements, have been insufficient. Much of the left and radical politics has in fact surrendered to these and do not even make a formal attempt to provide critiques or alternatives.

In the social and cultural transformations of the last century and more, a process which has only intensified in recent decades, public religious festivals have become important mechanisms for building solidarities as well as creating divisions; of celebrating and sharing with friends and family as well as excluding those identified as “others”; of protest as well as conformity. Is it possible for radical and progressive forces to find forms of public festivities which can rival the public religious festival? Is it possible to build a popular culture which does not rely on religion and communal identities? We will not know the answer till the battle is truly joined.

[Also available at: http://www.sacw.net/article3255.html ]

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7. INDIA: THE EMPIRE BEGS BACK - WHAT DOES IT MEAN WHEN THE UK HIGH COMMISSIONER VISITS MODI?
by Badri Raina
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Rightwing Hindutva social forces may well have collaborated with the colonising Britishers during the highnoon of India’s Congress-led freedom movement, their standard polemic after Independence has been that what ought to have remained an indigenised Bharat has been systematically degraded into an internationalised India by generations of secular-liberal Indians whom they habitually characterise as “Macaulay ki Aulad” (Macaulay’s children, because the induction of English into Indian administration and education is seen to have been the one decisive act of such subversive cultural transformation).

In that polemic, Nehru has often been their chief bete noir, regarded as an “un-Indian” anglophile, a denigrator of long-held Hindu customs and traditions, a shallowly westernised moderniser, and, worst of all, a leveling and godless socialist at heart.

Well now, how times do change.
There is jubilee among current-day Hindutva sartraps as we write: for lo and behold, no less than the British High Commissioner in India has gone and met the globally ostracised Narendra Modi!

Only one conclusion is permitted—that Modi’s international isolation has ended, the high-falutin world that espouses all that nonsense about “human rights” has come to its senses, and that Britain has put the imperial seal on Modi’s progress report as a great “developer.”

Pathetic you might say, and you would be right.
Yet why, despite the disclaimer made by the High Commissioner that the meeting should not be construed as any sort of endorsement of Modi, the meeting at all?
The fact is that many of the “developed” world’s erstwhile givers are today reduced to being willing takers from the very worlds which they once ravaged for their development. The so-persistent economic collapse of western Capitalism now underway leaves them little choice but to seek afresh among the brown and the pale races for some piece of their burgeoning cake.

Put simply, the Empire is begging back.

And the poor British High Commissioner is not alone. Do recall that not too many months ago, no less than the American Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, went to meet another Indian Chief Minister, namely, Mamta Bannerjee in West Bengal to plead with her for suspending her opposition to the induction of FDI in Indian retail.
Desperate times, desperate visits.

Yet why does Gujarat seem a preferred destination? The reasons here are not far to seek.

The last thing that has ever interested the Western ruling classes, strident protestations notwithstanding, has been the state of democracy or human rights in other parts of the world, except when it suits them tactically to foreground such “values.”

Their economic interests are always seen to be best served by regimes that ensure minimal democratic opposition in their domains, next –to- no labour issues, and a state apparatus always at beck and call to curb tendencies that may thwart the brutal procedures of profit maximisation.

Which is the reason why ever since the reorganisation of the geo-politics of the globe after the second world war, the concerted efforts of Western ruling classes were to consolidate totalitarian regimes, military juntas and dictatorships, even theocratic barbarisms that would be friendly to infusions of western Capital and to its free runs among the resources of the world’s “hinterlands.” And if, for instance, in West Asian regions, selectively, western Capitalism has recently felt the imperative to destabilise some regimes ostensibly to promote democracy, the simple logic has been that these were cows that were no longer yielding milk and butter in desired proportions.

Reason why a Bahrain or a Yemen, or, most of all, the world’s most oppressive negator of human rights, Saudi Arabia, remain in good books; they continue to yield dividends that the Western “military-industrial complex” (Eisenhauer’s coinage) cannot afford to jettison in favour of either democracy or human rights. Nor is it an issue that the Ben Walid region in Libya has this past week seen a genocide at the hands of the new Libyan regime far worse than anything Gaddafi could have been accused of, or Assad has done in Syria. You see the new “liberated” Libya has now placed its oil fields with glad alacrity at the service of American oil corporations. Ergo, both democracy and human rights have returned to Libya, haven’t they? Both guarded by the Al Queda in the Maghreb. Could there be more sanguine confluence?

In our part of the world, China remains the primary preferred destination for western Capital for reasons aforesaid—no oppositional political formations, no out-of-control unions, all backed by unusual social cohesiveness. Everything pretty much amenable to unhassled single-window clearances.

After China, India’s own Gujarat as led by Modi. A leadership that has so nicely rendered his own party null in all decision-making matters, complete absence of the least forms of Left-of-Centre politics, a Congress party that until now has been at a complete loss to demarcate itself from Modi’s polemic about “development,” and heinously shy of taking on the local Caligula on the subject of the massacres of 2002, fearing loss of vote.

Thus having proved that he can parcel off rich farmlands, forest reserves, coastal fishing areas, mineral and water resources, to foreign and Indian developers at will, without fear of political or social upheaval, who better to meet in an India where in most other places oppositional political forces and non-governmental organisations often make the job of milking the realms painfully cumbersome. Modi can deliver, as dictators do elsewhere. At least so long as they behave like “our sons of bitches” rather than somebody else’s.

Thus, what does it matter to the High Commissioner in question that the Modi phenomenon in Gujarat has wilfully, and seemingly irretrievably, ghettoised her fear-ridden Muslims, disenfranchised her adivasis, fisher folk, farmers (five thousand suicides in less than a year)? Or that malnutrition among Gujarati adivasis,dalits, women, children should be among the highest of any Indian state? Or that the sex-ratio of women to men among Gujaratis should be among the lowest as well? Not to speak of an administration that is shown day after day in court and other legal-investigative proceedings to have been hand-in-glove with both the genocide of 2002, with cussed attempts to subvert all subsequent attempts to unravel the truths, and with the “encounter” murders of scores of innocent or inconvenient citizens.

All that the High Commissioner is asked to see by the Tory regime in Britain, abetted with all its resourcefulness by the mercantilist Gujarati diaspora, is what goodies Modi is prepared to offer in return for the so-publicised stamp of approval, and timed with great finesse to precede the coming elections in December wherein, from all accounts, Modi is no longer sitting as pretty as before, thanks to the defection of a powerful Patel falange working now as a separate political party, and a resurgent Congress rather more effective in showing up the truth of Modi’s claims about “development.” Notwithstanding the fact that some electronic channels friendly to Hindutva, and to Modi especially, are busy prognosticating an improvement in Modi’s seats in the Assembly even as they tell us that his vote share is slated to go down some 4%.

Inwardly among many Gujaratis, a sense of shame attaches to the efforts afloat to sell the Modi-High Commissioner meeting as a vindication of the Hindu samrat (czar) by Macaulay after all.

It will remain to be seen how the elections in Gujarat turn out. With all the hulaballoo, if Modi loses seats, Brittania might not feel so good about her grand gesture. If Modi crushes the secular “pretenders” well then, other ambassadors may follow the High Commissioner to make hay in the Modi sunshine, wherein foreign investments and Hindutva fascism may, after all, coexist happily to salvage, in whatever measly proportion, Western Capitalisms’ sinking flotilla. 

[Also available at: http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/the-empire-begs-back-what-does-it-mean.html ]

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8. INDIA: OPEN LETTER TO CHIEF MINISTER NARENDRA MODI REGARDING DEATHS OF MIGRANT WORKERS AT ALANG SHIPBREAKING WORKS
by Gopal Krishna
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I submit that the ongoing deaths of migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Jharkhand and Odisha on Alang beach, Bhavnagar, Gujarat came to light once again when officially six (now seven) workers were burnt to death on October 6, 2012. Sources have informed that the death toll is higher. These occupational deaths routinely happen. There has nothing been done to arrest these preventable deaths. I submit that in the year 2011, 27 workers died in the shipbreaking activities at Alang beach. These migrant casual workers live and work in a slave like condition.

http://www.sacw.net/article3258.html

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9. PAKISTAN: TRIBUTES TO ASAD REHMAN ’CHAKAR KHAN’
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Asad Rehman, the youngest of a group of Marxists, joined the Baloch guerilla struggle in the 1970s. He was given the name ‘Chakkar Khan,’ a legendary 15th century Baloch statesman, during his stay in Balochistan.

http://www.sacw.net/article3259.html


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10. INDIA: TRIBUTE TO COMRADE SITARAM SHASTRY 
by T. Vijayendra
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(Labour Notes South Asia Mailing List)

Sitaram Shastry died on 24.10.2012 [. . .] From 1968 onwards, till his death, Sitaram had been a full time revolutionary/social activist. Till then he had worked for LIC in Jamshedpur and was a union leader. That year, like many other places in India, a lot of young people turned towards revolution. In Jamshedpur quite a few TELCO workers resigned, collected their PF and joined the revolutionary movement. Those were heady times.

http://www.sacw.net/article3239.html

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10. India - Communalism vs Secular Democracy : Selected posts from Communalism Watch
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SAVARKAR'S ADVOCACY OF RAPE AS REVENGE
[Thanks to Dilip Simeon for sending the comment and the below reference from V.D. Savarkar]

Here's the man whom [Perry] Anderson considers a 'revolutionary' (true enough, if The Fuhrer is also considered as such). But then, fascism is a 'category mistake' when applied to India...

Women and the Hindu Right article on Surat, Savarkar and Draupadi by Purushottam Agrawal; citing V.D. Savarkar in Six Glorious epochs of Indian History, Rajdhani Granthagar, 1963, translated 1971.

    The Muslim women never feared retaliation or punishment at the hands of any Hindu for their heinous crime (of playing a devilish part in the mutilation and harassment of Hindu women). Suppose if from the earliest Muslim invasions , the Hindus also, whenever they were victors in the battlefield decided to pay the Muslim fair sex in the same coin or punish them in some other ways that is, by conversion even by force, then with this horrible apprehension in their heart, they would have desisted from their evil design against Hindu ladies.. Even now we proudly refer to the noble acts of Chatrapati Shivaji and Chinaji Appa when they honourably sent back the daughter-in-law of the Muslim governor of Kalyan or the wife of the Portuguese governor of Bassein respectively. Did not the plaintive screams and pitiful lamentations of the millions of molested Hindu women which reverberated throughout the length and breadth of the country reach the ears of Shivaji Maharaj and Chinaji Appa? Once they (Muslims) are haunted with the dreadful apprehension that the Muslim women to stand in the same predicament as is the case with Hindu women, the future Muslim conquerors will never dare to think of such molestation of Hindu women. ... But because of the then prevalent perverted religious ideas (sadguna vikriti), about chivalry to women which ultimately proved highly detrimental to the Hindu community, neither Shivaji Maharaj nor Chinaji Appa could do such wrongs to the Muslim women .. It was the Hindu idea of chivalry which saved the Muslim women simply because they were women from heavy punishment for committing heinous crimes against Hindu women.. their womanhood became their shield sufficient to protect them..

o o o

The Empire Begs Back: What does it mean when the UK High Commissioner visits Modi? by Badri Raina
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/the-empire-begs-back-what-does-it-mean.html

Symbol of Communal Harmony In Faizabad Attacked by Sandeep Pandey
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/symbol-of-communal-harmony-in-faizabad.html

Bajrang Dal activists display arms, take out rally
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/bajrang-dal-activists-display-arms-take.html

Kerala: VHP to provide Hindu nurses, Hindu car drivers and cars owned by Hindus for the needy 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/kerala-vhp-to-provide-hindu-nurses.html

UP: Communal Violence in the past seven months of 2012
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/communq.html

RSS functionaries linked with Nitin Gadkari's firm
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/rss-functionaries-linked-with-nitin.html

India: laws on hate speech ought to be toned up
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/india-laws-on-hate-speech-ought-to-be.html

India: Sena, MNS oppose Pak cricket team's tour
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/india-sena-mns-oppose-pak-cricket-teams.html

India: Billboard of “Hitler” men’s wear store in Ahmedabad taken down [possibly because Modi wants appear sensitive to international image] 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/india-billboard-of-hitler-mens-wear.html

Travelling exhibit on anti-Sikh riots 
http://communalism.blogspot.in/2012/10/travelling-exhibit-on-anti-sikh-riots.html

INTERNATIONAL

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11. Egypt: FASCISM in our new constitution
by Sherif Younis
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The most critical culprit in the current draft constitution being finalized by the Constituent Assembly is the definition of citizenship — who is a citizen? The draft constitution defines citizens as those whose identity is primarily Islamic, and, secondly, nationals of the country. In this conception of citizenship, the state aims to control and hegemonize citizens’ visions, stances and beliefs, working to entrench them and produce standardized citizens.

http://www.sacw.net/article3248.html

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12. THE EUROPEAN LEFT AND ITS TROUBLE WITH JEWS
by Ed Alcock for The New York Times
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Today, a sizable section of the European left has been reluctant to take a clear stand when anti-Zionism spills over into anti-Semitism. Beginning in the 1990s, many on the European left began to view the growing Muslim minorities in their countries as a new proletariat and the Palestinian cause as a recruiting mechanism. The issue of Palestine was particularly seductive for the children of immigrants, marooned between identities.

http://www.sacw.net/article3266.html

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13. BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA: TIME FOR REPUBLIKA SRPSKA TO MAKE REPARATIONS FOR WAR-TIME RAPE, SAYS AMNESTY
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Amnesty International Press release
31 October 2012

The full extent of the sexual violence during the 1992-1995 war in Bosnia and Herzegovina that shattered the lives of thousands of women across the country has still to be recognized by the Republika Srpska authorities which must to meet the needs of the survivors, Amnesty International said in a briefing paper published today.

When everyone is silent: Reparation for survivors of war-time rape in Republika Srpska in Bosnia and Herzegovina (http://www.amnesty.org/en/library/asset/EUR63/012/2012/en/5185778e-ebd2-4f66-9008-5e7812f4bffc/eur630122012en.pdf), gives a snapshot of the situation today of women survivors of war-time rape and is part of the organization’s ongoing project to get justice and reparation.

Since the start of the war Amnesty International has collected numerous testimonies of women who were subjected to torture, including often systematic and repeated rape, sexual slavery, forced pregnancy and other crimes of sexual violence.

“The silence surrounding the war-time rape of women in Republika Srpska, an internationally recognized crime under international law, is deafening. Both the authorities and the media are ignoring the suffering of part of the population,” said John Dalhuisen, Europe and Central Asia Programme Director at Amnesty International.

“Almost 20 years after the end of the conflict, the cruel failure to ensure justice for survivors of wartime sexual violence must at last be brought out of the shadows if the survivors themselves are to rebuild their lives and their families, communities and societies are to heal.

“Many of the survivors still struggle with the physical, emotional and social consequences of the crimes committed against them. Justice for survivors requires both the prosecution of perpetrators and the acknowledgement of – and resolve to redress – the continuing consequences of their abuse. The Republika Srpska authorities must move to meet these needs and work on de-stigmatizing war-time rape, so that survivors can be given the opportunity to speak out.”

To the knowledge of Amnesty International the authorities of Republika Srpska have never made a meaningful attempt to collect data on this population, to understand and quantify their problems, or to develop policies that would address their specific needs nor have they tried to stimulate public discussion and break the silence surrounding the crimes committed against these women during the war.

Vinko Lale, president of the local association of camp inmates told Amnesty International: “Often, out of fear of stigma, these women don’t want to say they were raped, so they just say that they went through different types of torture. Maybe if they knew that breaking the silence would improve their lives, they would feel able to speak out.”

As a result of rape and other war related human rights abuses, many survivors have developed post-traumatic stress disorder and other psychological syndromes. They feel insecurity, shame, self-blame, depression, fragmented memories, lack of concentration, nightmares, flashbacks, anxiety or mistrust of other people.

“The authorities of Republika Srpska must for a start recognize, loud and clear, that rape and other forms of sexual violence were committed during the war. This will help create an atmosphere where public debate on this issue will thrive and survivors will feel confident to come forward, tell their stories and demand justice,” said John Dalhuisen.

“The authorities must identify the number of survivors of war-time rape and look into their needs today. They must ensure that the public health system is well-equipped to provide the survivors with the necessary medical and psychological care.”

The current Republika Srpska Law on the Protection of Civilian Victims of War guarantees special measures of social protection to people who suffered at least 60 per cent damage to their bodies as a result of torture, assault, rape, or other crimes committed in the course of the conflict provided applications were submitted until 2007.

However, this law has excluded a great many survivors of sexual violence firstly, because of the time limit, and, secondly, by not taking into account psychological harm - benefits provided under this law do not extend to psychological care.

“In order to provide to provide reparation to survivors of war-time rape, the Republika Srpska authorities must amend the Law on the Civilian Victims of War: firstly, by creating a separate category of survivors of rape and other forms of sexual violence which does not impose a percentage of bodily damage as the only criteria for granting the status; secondly, by re-opening the applications procedure,” said John Dalhuisen.

Out of the tens of thousands of alleged crimes of sexual violence committed against women and girls during the war in Bosnia and Herzegovina, fewer than 40 cases have been prosecuted by either the International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia in The Hague, or by state and entity courts in the republic since 1995.

The central government of Bosnia and Herzegovina is developing a number of legislative and policy measures to ensure reparation for survivors of crimes under international law. These measures require implementation at the entity level including in Republika Srpska whose authorities must deliver reparations in order ensure the rights of survivors.

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14. MADONNA AND MILK CARTONS RUSSIA'S WAR ON GAYS AND LESBIANS INTENSIFIES
by Benjamin Bidder
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(Spiegel online 22 October 2012)
 Obscure conservative groups in Russia have intensified their fight against homosexuality, recently going after the pop-singer Madonna as well as an allegedly offensive milk carton label. The developments underscore a growing atmosphere of intolerance in the country.  

Russia's self-proclaimed morality police have discovered a new danger to the people's health and values, and it is to be found in the country's supermarkets -- in the form of dairy products from the American company PepsiCo. Activists from the Orthodox group called the People's Council have even gotten Russia prosecutors involved.

"The packaging of these dairy products with the label 'Vesyoly Molochnik' have long been a thorn in my side," says Anatoly Artyuch, of the People's Council. The brand means "happy milkman" in English.

Pepsi uses the brand to sell all manner of dairy products, including milk, yoghurt and kefir. Packages portray a smiling, slightly rotund milkman wearing a chef's hat. Behind him is a green meadow with a rainbow stretching across the sky. Artyuch believes that the rainbow isn't quite as innocent as it might seem. He thinks it is "the global symbol of the sodomite movement." Russia's judiciary is currently looking into the claims.

The grotesque offensive against the dairy brand is part of a conservative campaign in Russia aimed at gays and lesbians in the country. In their view, homosexuality isn't merely a sin, but also a symbol of damaging "Westernization."

The happy milkman isn't the only target. A court in the metropolis of St. Petersburg, once called the "window to the West" by Czar Peter the Great, has subpoenaed US pop icon Madonna for allegedly disseminating "homosexual propaganda" during her concert in the city at the beginning of August.

'Colossal Moral Damage'

She is being investigated in connection with a law passed in St. Petersburg at the beginning of the year by President Vladimir Putin's United Russia party which criminalizes "public behavior that promotes sodomy, lesbianism, bisexuality and trans-genderism among minors." Indeed, the passage of the law led the Canadian Foreign Ministry to issue a travel warning for gays and lesbians, urging them to avoid public displays of affection in St. Petersburg.

During her concert, Madonna demanded "respect, tolerance and love" for gays and lesbians and distributed pink armbands as a symbol of acceptance. She also displayed the message "No fear" on her back during the show. For the plaintiffs in the case, that was enough to cause "colossal moral damage." They are demanding that Madonna be made to pay 333 million rubles, roughly €8.3 million, in damages.

The two cases help demonstrate that today, more than two decades after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia remains an intensely intolerant country. According to a recent survey by the well-respected Levada Center, fully 62 percent of Russians condemn homosexuality. The only things seen as worse are suicide and rejecting one's own children.

'The New Jews'

Recently, when an outdoor clothing chain advertised in the Internet for applicants to a business academy, one of the five criteria listed was "traditional orientation," Russian code for heterosexuals. A columnist for the English language paper Moscow Times commented in response that "gays are the new Jews."

Despite the widespread discrimination, a homosexual subculture has been able to develop in Russia. In both Moscow and St. Petersburg, there are dozens of clubs catering to gays. They are the exception, however, tolerated in the niches of the cosmopolitan metropolises. Attempts to hold gay-pride parades in the two cities regularly end with bans, arrests or brutal neo-Nazi attacks. Earlier this month, when around 70 gays and lesbians were celebrating Coming Out Day at the Moscow club 7freedays, men in masks stormed the party. They threatened the security personnel and bartenders with a pistol and proceeded to beat up the guests.

Vitoly Milonov, a United Russia deputy in the St. Petersburg legislative assembly and one of the initiators of the city's anti-gay law, even went so far as to blame the partygoers for the violence. They provoked the violence, he said, by virtue of their "obnoxious, crude and permissive behavior." He said that homosexuals "run around like jackals at foreign consulates begging for another grant" or they "call from help from some star or from Hillary Clinton."

Sodom and Gomorrah

The charges against Madonna also have an anti-Western subtext. The singer is an "ideological weapon of the West" the complaint against her reads, she is perpetrating "moral genocide." The group behind the complaint is an obscure collection of Orthodox hardliners called the Union of Russian Citizens. Group members attracted attention previously by seeking to sprinkle holy water onto a square where Madonna had performed. The group glorifies the Soviet Union for being a "country of goodness and justice." They are currently collecting signatures for a referendum on changing the name of Wolgograd back to Stalingrad. Mikhail Gorbachev, who won the Nobel Peace Prize for his contribution to opening up the Soviet Union, would like to see the Union of Russian Citizens be brought to court for treason.

The radical Moscow priest Sergei Rybko even used the brutal attack on the club 7freedays as an excuse to call for the final battle between the East and the West. Russia, he warned, is threatening to become "a tolerant, Western country in which anything goes." He called for a "cleansing of the Fatherland."

That was too much even for some within the Orthodox Church. "Of course we denounce such phenomena," said conservative priest Roman Bratshik. "I would like to point out, however, that God sent angels to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah."


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15. HOW CHRISTIAN FUNDAMENTALISM FEEDS THE TOXIC PARTISANSHIP OF US POLITICS
When evangelicals attack 'the gay agenda' of an anti-bullying event in schools, something is sick in America's religious culture
by Katherine Stewart
=======================================
(The Guardian, 25 October 2012)
Mix It Up at Lunch Day is one of those programs that just seems like a nice thing to do.

The idea is that on one day of the school year, kids are invited to have lunch with the kind of kids they don't usually hang out with: the jocks mix with the nerds, lunch tables are racially integrated, et cetera. Sponsored by the Southern Poverty Law Center as part of their Teaching Tolerance division, it arose out of a broad effort to tackle the problems of bullying in the schools and bigotry in society – and it appears to have been effective in breaking down stereotypes and reducing prejudice. Over 2,000 schools nationwide now participate in the program, which is set to take place this year on 30 October.

You can argue about how permanent its effects are, or whether other approaches might be better, but the idea of making new friends in the lunchroom seems utterly benign. Right?

Wrong, as it turns out – at least, according to the American Family Association, a radical rightwing evangelical policy group. Mix It Up at Lunch Day is, in fact, part of "a nationwide push to promote the homosexual lifestyle in public schools", according to the AFA literature. The program "is an entry-level 'diversity' program designed specifically by SPCL (sic) to establish the acceptance of homosexuality into public schools, including elementary and junior high schools," warns the AFA website. "See if your child's school is on the list."

The AFA has urged parents to keep their kids home on 30 October, and claims that at least 200 schools have responded to its charge by canceling the program.

There's a backstory here. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which has fought for civil rights causes since its founding in 1971, conceived and promoted Mix It Up at Lunch as part of their Teaching Tolerance program. The SPLC also, as it happens, named the AFA, along with a dozen other "pro-family" groups, as a "hate group" in 2010, citing, among other factors, AFA's expressed views on same-sex relationships. The "homosexual agenda" is not the only factor in the SPLC's decision to include AFA on the list. AFA's director of issues analysis, Bryan Fischer, has appeared to suggest that what is biblically deemed "sexual immorality" merits punishment by death. He evidently hates Muslims, too, having recently opined that "allowing a mosque to be built in town is fundamentally no different than granting a building permit to a KKK cultural center".

So, now it's payback time. The AFA's jihad against Mix It Up at Lunch Day is its way of saying "I'm rubber, you're glue." It has come up with its own list of boycotts and hate groups, and sure enough the SPLC, on account of its "incendiary language", is on that list.

Funny word games aside, the SPLC is right. It is, by now, well known that the AFA and the kind of interests they represent spread conspiratorial falsehoods about the LGBT community, placing blame for a wide variety of social ills on a "gay agenda". They also seem to support a certain type of bullying and bigotry in public schools – the faith-based kind – and believe there should be more of it.

One example comes from an AFA cultural ally: Gateways to Better Education, formed in 1991 by Focus on the Family in tandem with a rightwing Christian legal advocacy group that calls itself the Alliance Defending Freedom (ADF). Gateways publishes a "Guide for Commemorating Religious Freedom at School". But the freedom Gateways and the ADF have in mind applies only to those who share their religion.

"Religious Freedom Day is not 'celebrate-our-diversity-day,'" members are reminded. Gateways advocates a "Biblical approach to tolerance", which apparently consists of intolerant attitudes toward what the ADF and Gateways call "pro-homosexual education" and "the gay activist agenda". Parents' No 1 goal, they say, should be to "encourage your children to be bolder" in expressing their faith at school.

The far right's fixation on same-sex relationships is so ludicrous that it defines a sub-category of camp. But let's take a step back for a moment. The big question, the one that keeps coming back in every one of these skirmishes in the culture wars, is: why is the loudest religion in American politics today so much about hate?

Consider Mix it Up at Lunch Day from the perspective of the almost limitless other conceptions of the Christian religion that are out there. You could, for example, construe it as an exercise in "loving thy neighbor". You could quote the gospel of John that "God is love." You could view it as part of the religious mission of charity. I have no doubt that there are countless Christian and non-Christian people in the US who would view Mix It Up Day in just this way.

So why does the form of religion that seeks to claim the term "Christian" in the political realm have to focus so relentlessly on a "gay conspiracy" – not to mention sexually active singles and the purely evil Muslims?

I don't believe for a moment that this hysterical voice that screeches in America's political sphere is the authentic voice of religion in America. Most religious Americans want to mix it up at lunch! They want to make friends across party lines, and they want to help people who are less fortunate. A survey by the Public Religious Research Institute, released on 24 October, reveals that 60% of Catholics believe the Church should place a greater emphasis on social justice issues and their obligation to the poor, even if that means focusing less on culture war issues such as abortion and same-sex marriage. Earlier this year, in response to the Ryan budget, the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops joined other Christian leaders in insisting that a "circle of protection" be drawn around "essential programs that serve poor and vulnerable people".

So why is it that the so-called "values voters" are urged to vote against the politician who supports choice, not the politician who wants to shred that "circle of protection" for the poor and vulnerable? Why is it that when politicians want to demonstrate just how religiously righteous they are, they talk about banning same-sex marriage and making contraceptives hard to get, instead of showing what they have done to protect the weak?

There is an obvious answer, and it is, in a sense, staring you in the face every time you watch a political debate or read about the latest antics of Focus on the Family and the AFA. The kind of religion that succeeds in politics tends to focus on the divisive element of religion. If you want to use religion to advance a partisan political agenda, the main objective you use it for is to divide people between us and them, between the in-group and the out-group, the believers and the infidels.

The result is a reduction of religion to a small handful of wedge issues. According to the religious leaders and policy organizations urging Americans to vote with their "Biblical values", to be Christian now means to support one or, at most, a small handful of policy positions. And it means voting for the Republican party.

This type of rhetoric is also championed by a segment of Jewish conservatives. Alarmed that Obama won 78% of the Jewish vote in 2008, they accused Democratic Jews of being "Jinos" – Jews In Name Only. "They eat bagels and lox; they watch 'Schindler's List,'" writes Town Hall columnist Ben Shapiro, "but they do not care about Israel" – at least, not in the way that Shapiro thinks we should.

When religion is thus reduced to a single policy decision and support for a political party, it becomes shrill and bigoted. This abuse of religion for political purposes has been tremendously damaging for American politics. But it is worth pointing out that it has been destructive of religion, too. According to another poll this month, this one by the Pew Research Center, record numbers of Americans are now reporting that they have no particular religious affiliation. Perhaps that is because, right now, the God of hate seems to be shouting louder than the God of love.


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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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