SACW - 06 Jan 2015 | Sri Lanka: 2015 Presidential Elections / Pakistan: Terror and justice / Bangladesh: Freedom of press / India: Takeover by Hindu Right; Vedic aeronautics; Hindutva Historiography; Amit Shah's case; History Congress 2014 / Brazil's War on the Working Class / Turkey's Future / Internet Beyond Control

Harsh Kapoor aiindex at gmail.com
Mon Jan 5 15:27:10 EST 2015


South Asia Citizens Wire - 06 January 2015 - No. 2844 
[since 1996]
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Contents:
1. Rohini Mohan: Sri Lanka's Violent Buddhists
2. Sri Lanka: AHRC expresses concern regarding the safety of the common opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena
3. Sri Lanka 2015 Presidential Elections: End of the Rajapaksa regime? | Suhas Chakma
4. Bangladesh: Statement of Concern from scholars, writers and activists regarding Tribunal’s Contempt Judgment on David Bergman
5. Is the Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal Going After All Who Express Concern at the David Bergman Verdict ?
6. Pakistan: Not by anger alone | I A Rehman
7. India - Pakistan: After Peshawar - Seize the peace opportunity | Praful Bidwai
8. India: 1948 News of Gandhi's Assassination in Bombay - S.M. Mehdi remembers
9. India: Fallacies of Hindutva Historiography | Romila Thapar
10. Controversy over 2015 Indian Science Congress session on Vedic aeronautics
11. India: Modi Govt Scraps Rape Crisis Centres Project
12. From The SACW Archives: Agrarian Unrest in Bihar - A PUDR report from 1981
13. Kaushik Basu: What we need is a scientific temper, not obscurantist rantings
14. India: Amit Shah's case - A complete mockery of Justice system
15. India: How the Hindu Right is taking over institutions in education and culture | Praful Bidwai
16. India: Not enough evidence to prosecute Amit Shah? - Statement by Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association
17. India: Ordinance on Land Act Unconstitutional and Anti People - statement by social movements
18. India: Can Compensation replace Justice? - Statement by People's Union by Democratic Rights
19. India: Television discussions and recordings Indian History Congress 2014
20. On Heritage and History - a Lecture by Romila Thapar
21. India: Harvest of Innocent Blood: The Democracy Deficit in Bodoland, Assam | Statement by New Socialist Initiative (NSI)
22. India: The Hindutva project - Distorting history, manufacturing culture | Suhit K. Sen
23. India: Conversions - pay heed to our founders | Manoj Mitta
24. Taslima Nasreen: Religious Conversion a Fundamental Right
25. India: Outrage hasn’t helped, women’s cry for justice still unmet | Vrinda Grover
26. Women and Work in Rural India - reportage by People’s Archive of Rural India
27. Why the hulla baloo over bail to Lakhvi? | N. D. Pancholi
28. India: Saffronization of Education | Lalit Shukla
29. The Grinch wants to steal Christmas, again | Bharat Bhushan
30. Recent Posts on Communalism Watch:
 - India: Intimidation and threats to the media - statement by Markandey Katju (Former Chair, Press Council of India and former Judge of the Supreme Court of India)
 - We need to save the idea of India: Nayantara Sahgal
 - India: It’s not faith, but the politics of conversion that hurts (Tanweer Fazal)
 - India: The Politics of Ghar Wapsi about Hindutva drive to "reconvert" Muslims and Christians to Hinduism (Manjari Katju, EPW, Jan 3, 2015)
 - India: For the BJP-led government, development and communalism go nicely together (Kanti Bajpai)
 - India: RSS says its plans big rural push
 - The Nazis and Bhagwat Gita
 - No surprises this season - Why the BJP stole Christmas (Mukul Kesavan)
 - India: Shiksha Bachao Andolan, signed agreements with three universities to introduce vedic mathematics (Comment re this in HT Editorial, 31 Dec 2014)
 - RSS has taken its message to the streets and social media. What are the liberals doing? (Ravish Kumar in scroll.in)
 - In India, New Tolerance for Intolerance (Pankaj Mishra)
 - Religion in India bubbles over into politics | The Washington Post
. . . and more

::: FULL TEXT :::
31. How Turkey Sabotaged Its Future | Mustafa Akyol
32. Brazil: President Rousseff Declares War on the Working Class | James Petras
33. How Hitler Tried To Redesign Christmas | John Brownlee
34. John Berger: ‘Writing is an off-shoot of something deeper’
35. Soon, the internet will be impossible to control | Jamie Bartlett

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1. ROHINI MOHAN: SRI LANKA'S VIOLENT BUDDHISTS
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Extremist Buddhist monks are confounding; they directly contradict a canonically nonviolent religion often perceived as apolitical. Like radical monks in Thailand and Myanmar, Sri Lankan hard-liners reserve special ire for Muslims. The B.B.S. and its counterparts have incited mobs to demolish mosques.
http://www.sacw.net/article10316.html

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2. SRI LANKA: AHRC EXPRESSES CONCERN REGARDING THE SAFETY OF THE COMMON OPPOSITION CANDIDATE MAITHRIPALA SIRISENA
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The Asian Human Rights Commission expresses concern regarding the safety of the common candidate of the opposition Maithripala Sirisena, who has faced several attacks during the past several days.
http://www.sacw.net/article10337.html

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3. SRI LANKA 2015 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS: END OF THE RAJAPAKSA REGIME? | Suhas Chakma
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In the upcoming snap Presidential election in Sri Lanka slated for 8th January 2015, President Mahinda Rajpaksa’s defeat looks imminent sans rigging by the President. A formidable rainbow coalition of the opposition under the leadership of joint opposition candidate Maithripala Sirisena is firmly in place.
http://www.sacw.net/article10338.html

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4. BANGLADESH: STATEMENT OF CONCERN FROM SCHOLARS, WRITERS AND ACTIVISTS REGARDING TRIBUNAL’S CONTEMPT JUDGMENT ON DAVID BERGMAN
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The undersigned writers, academics and rights activists from Bangladesh have spoken out in defence of David Bergman criticizing the judgment of the International Crimes Tribunal on charges of “contempt of court”.
http://www.sacw.net/article10212.html

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5. IS THE BANGLADESH INTERNATIONAL CRIMES TRIBUNAL GOING AFTER ALL WHO EXPRESS CONCERN AT THE DAVID BERGMAN VERDICT ?
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The Bangladesh International Crimes Tribunal has issued a notice to the news paper Prothom Alo and to the New York Times that published or referred to a statement signed by some 50 citizens who have expressed concern for the journalist David Bergman who has been sentenced on a contempt of court charge for his reportage on the trials.
http://www.sacw.net/article10310.html

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6. PAKISTAN: NOT BY ANGER ALONE
by I A Rehman
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PAKISTAN is on trial. It is being tested for its capacity to overcome the threat from religious extremists/terrorists without losing sight of justice and its ideal of peace in the land.
http://www.sacw.net/article10272.html

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7. INDIA - PAKISTAN: AFTER PESHAWAR - SEIZE THE PEACE OPPORTUNITY
by Praful Bidwai
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. . . today is a unique moment for Pakistan, when issues long considered a taboo can be put on the agenda. India can make this a unique moment for South Asia too by reaching out to Pakistan with earnest proposals for cooperation—whether in fighting terrorism, aggressively promoting trade, or stabilising Afghanistan. This entails a sea-change in the official mindset—from regarding Pakistan as an enemy to be vanquished, to a potentially friendly neighbour, with whom contentious issues can be peacefully resolved. India must not squander this opportunity.
http://www.sacw.net/article10267.html

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8. INDIA: 1948 NEWS OF GANDHI'S ASSASSINATION IN BOMBAY - S.M. MEHDI REMEMBERS
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This is an MP3 format recording from 2009 of an interview with S.M. Mehdi (the well known communist who lived Aligarh) done by Amber Abbas.
http://www.sacw.net/article10327.html

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9. INDIA: FALLACIES OF HINDUTVA HISTORIOGRAPHY | Romila Thapar
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Would the Hindutva historians, who claim that the Puranas, the Ramayana and the Mahabharata are true historical records needing no further interpretation, be able to tell us which of their versions are we to read? This response to Rajan Gurukkal's article, "A Blindness about India" (EPW, 6 December 2014), argues that not only is this an impossible claim to make on our ancient texts, such "historiography" will lead (...) 
http://www.sacw.net/article10319.html

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10. CONTROVERSY OVER 2015 INDIAN SCIENCE CONGRESS SESSION ON VEDIC AERONAUTICS
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[(Petitioning Indian Science Congress Association This petition will be delivered to: Indian Science Congress Association Stop providing a platform for pseudo-science in 102nd Indian Science Congress Ramprasad Gandhiraman Sunnyvale, CA
   India's prestigious 102nd Indian Science Congress will be held in Mumbai, India from 3rd to 7th January. The conference will have high profile scientist speakers from India and Abroad including Nobel Laureates. What is strange about this India's highly (...) - 
http://www.sacw.net/article10318.html

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11. INDIA: MODI GOVT SCRAPS RAPE CRISIS CENTRES PROJECT
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NEW DELHI: The much touted "one stop crisis centre" — conceived in the aftermath of the Nirbhaya case and the Justice Verma report — has been scrapped by the NDA government. The project worth about Rs 200 crore was expected to provide medical, legal, police and emergency services to women in distress.
http://www.sacw.net/article10311.html

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12. FROM THE SACW ARCHIVES: AGRARIAN UNREST IN BIHAR - A PUDR REPORT FROM 1981
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The 1981 report by PUDR on Agrarian Unrest in Bihar has long been out of print it was scanned as part of sacw's digital archive.
http://www.sacw.net/article9403.html

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13. KAUSHIK BASU: WHAT WE NEED IS A SCIENTIFIC TEMPER, NOT OBSCURANTIST RANTINGS
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Religion is a private matter. People should be free to choose their religion and to not have a religion if they are so inclined. The mistake that we must not make is to treat religion as a substitute for thought and reason.
http://www.sacw.net/article10303.html

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14. INDIA: AMIT SHAH'S CASE - A COMPLETE MOCKERY OF JUSTICE SYSTEM
by Pratik Sinha
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Once again the Indian Investigating agencies and Judiciary have failed the people of India by letting out a powerful political leader despite having enough evidence of involvement in a henious crime. Amit Shah has been acquitted by the Special CBI Court, Bombay, in the Sohrabuddin murder case even before the trial for the case could start.
http://www.sacw.net/article10296.html

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15. INDIA: HOW THE HINDU RIGHT IS TAKING OVER INSTITUTIONS IN EDUCATION AND CULTURE | Praful Bidwai
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A two-part article on the Sangh Parivar's Long March through the Institutions appeared in Dec 2014 
http://www.sacw.net/article10301.html

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16. INDIA: NOT ENOUGH EVIDENCE TO PROSECUTE AMIT SHAH? - Statement by Jamia Teachers Solidarity Association
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Even by the plummeting standards set in the last few months, the decision of the special CBI court in discharging Amit Shah, (accused no. 16 in the second chargesheet; accused no. 1 in the third chargesheet) in the Sohrabuddin encounter case, seems outrageous.
http://www.sacw.net/article10297.html

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17. INDIA: ORDINANCE ON LAND ACT UNCONSTITUTIONAL AND ANTI PEOPLE - STATEMENT BY SOCIAL MOVEMENTS
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Today's Cabinet decision approving the Ordinance amending the Land Acquisition Act 2013, even before the law has been actually implemented on the ground is completely unacceptable and reminds us of the anti democratic and authoritarian streak of this government. In six months of its existence NDA government has already used the Ordinance route three times.
http://www.sacw.net/article10294.html

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18. INDIA: CAN COMPENSATION REPLACE JUSTICE? - Statement by People's Union by Democratic Rights
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On 18th December 2014, the Supreme Court directed the Central Government to pay Rs. 10 lakh as compensation to the family of Thangjam Chanu Manorama Devi. PUDR recognizes that this is a small step but cannot be a substitute for actual justice. Reacting to the SC Order, Manorama Devi's younger brother Thangjam Dorendro and Manorama's mother, Thangjam Khumanlei stated that though the SC ruled the incident as a staged encounter, their demand was not for compensation but justice.
http://www.sacw.net/article10293.html

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19. INDIA: TELEVISION DISCUSSIONS AND RECORDINGS INDIAN HISTORY CONGRESS 2014
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Rajya Sabha TV discussions & recordings on the occasion of Indian History Congress 2014.
http://www.sacw.net/article10286.html

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20. ON HERITAGE AND HISTORY - a Lecture by Romila Thapar
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Video recording of the Second Rukmini Devi Memorial Lecture delivered by Romila Thapar from Jawaharlal Nehru University, on Dec. 20, 2014, at Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai.
http://www.sacw.net/article10284.html

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21. INDIA: HARVEST OF INNOCENT BLOOD: THE DEMOCRACY DEFICIT IN BODOLAND, ASSAM | Statement by New Socialist Initiative (NSI)
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Once again, and very soon after the last instance of mass killings and displacement, another series of bloodshed and violence has rocked Bodoland Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) - Assam. On 21st December 2014, two suspected militants of the National Democratic Front of Bodoland- Songbijit Faction (NDFB-S) were killed by the security forces in an alleged cold blooded encounter in the Chirang district of BTAD-Assam. In retaliation, on 23rd December, armed militants of NDFB-S attacked  (...)

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22. INDIA: THE HINDUTVA PROJECT - DISTORTING HISTORY, MANUFACTURING CULTURE
by Suhit K. Sen
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All nationalist histories construct and reconstruct the past and have a political dimension to them. The Hindutva project has an additional, fascist, dimension as it essentialises an exclusionary Hindu nation and disempowers those excluded. By SUHIT K. SEN
http://www.sacw.net/article10161.html

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23. INDIA: CONVERSIONS - PAY HEED TO OUR FOUNDERS
by Manoj Mitta
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Given the increasingly aggressive campaign to reconvert Muslims and Christians to Hinduism, there is an urgent need to revisit the Supreme Court verdict as well as the state laws.
http://www.sacw.net/article10240.html

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24. TASLIMA NASREEN: RELIGIOUS CONVERSION A FUNDAMENTAL RIGHT
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For quite some time, India is undergoing a phase of mass conversions where groups of muslims are converting to hinduism. Are they becoming hindus because they are suddenly attracted to the religion? If indeed they are, then I see no problems. But if they are being coerced, I’ll protest. I have always been voluble against forcing people to do things — anything. The fact is hindu fundamentalists are coercively pressurising muslims to change their religion, who are obliging out of fear. Fear of life exceeds love of religious faith. Everyone will avoid threats to their lives.
http://www.sacw.net/article10236.html

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25. INDIA: OUTRAGE HASN’T HELPED, WOMEN’S CRY FOR JUSTICE STILL UNMET
by Vrinda Grover
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The second anniversary of the December 16 gang rape in Delhi is a time for sober reflection. Though the silence and denial that envelop sexual violence against women were shattered in 2012, the graph of sexual assault continues to rise. The public protests compelled an indifferent Parliament to codify as crimes all forms of sexual violence against women. However, the cry “We Want Justice”, which echoed on Raisina Hill, remains unmet.
http://www.sacw.net/article10189.html

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26. WOMEN AND WORK IN RURAL INDIA - REPORTAGE BY PEOPLE’S ARCHIVE OF RURAL INDIA
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A video on you tube by People’s Archive of Rural India with photos and commentary by P. Sainath
http://www.sacw.net/article10217.html

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27. WHY THE HULLA BALOO OVER BAIL TO LAKHVI?
by N. D. Pancholi
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I do not understand why there is so much ‘hulla gulla’ about bail to Z.Rahman Lakhvi- alleged to be the master mind of the terrorist attack of Mumbai (2008). Bail is part of legal process and a judge is not supposed to be influenced by popular perception or governmental or any other pressure. Every accused is deemed to be innocent till proved guilty. If a judge has erred in giving bail to an accused, remedy lies in appeal to the higher court. Indian Courts have given bail from time to time to large number of accused who were charged under terrorist or other equally serious offences.
http://www.sacw.net/article10216.html

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28. INDIA: SAFFRONIZATION OF EDUCATION
by Lalit Shukla
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Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) and its sister organizations are acting swifty to brain-wash school kids with their hatred filled fascist ideology in the name of Indian culture. They are re-writing books of school kids in which they claim that all the scientific discoveries were already discovered in ancient India by making ridiculous analogies with Indian mythological books. This systematic destruction of education will affect our present and future generations very adversely. 
http://www.sacw.net/article10204.html

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29. THE GRINCH WANTS TO STEAL CHRISTMAS, AGAIN 
by Bharat Bhushan
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It appears the Narendra Modi government is letting the Saffron Grinches go on a rampage so that mounting public anger allows it to come forward with legal provisions to prevent conversion
http://www.sacw.net/article10193.html

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30. RECENT ON COMMUNALISM WATCH:
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available at: http://communalism.blogspot.in/
 - India: Intimidation and threats to the media - statement by Markandey Katju (Former Chair, Press Council of India and former Judge of the Supreme Court of India)
 - We need to save the idea of India: Nayantara Sahgal
 - India: It’s not faith, but the politics of conversion that hurts (Tanweer Fazal)
 - India: Meerut villagers rally against Godse temple
 - India: In October and November of 2014, the 25 year anniversary of the communal violence in Bhagalpur went by like a whisper
 - India: In Support of Teesta Setalvad, Javed Anand and others a press statement by concerned citizens
 - India: The Politics of Ghar Wapsi about Hindutva drive to "reconvert" Muslims and Christians to Hinduism (Manjari Katju, EPW, Jan 3, 2015)
 - India: Banaras Hindus University's Vice Chancellor an RSS man
 - India: For the BJP-led government, development and communalism go nicely together (Kanti Bajpai)
 - India: What is Controversial about PK?
 - India: RSS says its plans big rural push
 - The Nazis and Bhagwat Gita
 - No surprises this season - Why the BJP stole Christmas (Mukul Kesavan)
 - India: Shiksha Bachao Andolan, signed agreements with three universities to introduce vedic mathematics (Comment re this in HT Editorial, 31 Dec 2014)
 - RSS has taken its message to the streets and social media. What are the liberals doing? (Ravish Kumar in scroll.in)
 - In India, New Tolerance for Intolerance (Pankaj Mishra)
 - Religion in India bubbles over into politics | The Washington Post
 - India: Business Evangelist Mohandas Pai, Another Sanghi in the Aam Adami Party ?
 - India: The PK debate on Times Now Television - Who crossed the line?
 - BJP President Amit Shah: the local dada of Sarkhej and the travesty of justice (Mustafa Khan)
 - 2014 Assembly Elections in Kashmir: BJP's gain for sure but a huge loss for Jammu
 - India : Betraying the electorate in Kashmir Elections of 2014 

available at: http://communalism.blogspot.in/

::: FULL TEXT :::
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31. HOW TURKEY SABOTAGED ITS FUTURE
by Mustafa Akyol
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(The New York Times December 23, 2014)

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey keeps making global headlines. First it was for claiming that Muslims discovered the New World. Then it was for asserting that you “cannot put women and men on an equal footing.” Last week, it was for supporting the arrest, by Turkish police, of a number of journalists. But in the long run, it is his reforms of the Turkish education system that will likely be the most influential — and detrimental — to the global competitiveness of the country’s next generation.

Earlier this month, Mr. Erdogan backed a proposal by Turkey’s National Education Council to make Ottoman Turkish — an older version of the language, written in Arabic letters — mandatory in religious high schools, and available as an elective in secular high schools. Flouting earlier rulings by the European Court of Human Rights, the council also proposed that religious education be compulsory from age six. The president’s response to sharp criticism of these initiatives from Turkish politicians and civil groups was characteristic: The changes would take place “whether they like it or not,” Mr. Erdogan said.

In other words, as is often the case in Turkey, a war over ideology dominated the agenda, while the practical needs of Turkey’s future generations were overlooked. The National Education Council did not put any emphasis on foreign language instruction, for example, despite the fact that Turks generally fare poorly when it comes to speaking any language other than their own — particularly languages like English, Chinese or Arabic that could help Turkish businesses grow, both in the region and globally. Nor was there any emphasis on critical thinking or democratic values — the very qualities that could help transform Turkey’s insular, rigid and intolerant political culture.

Some might view these proposals as a sign of Turkey’s regression from an open-minded, secular past, initiated some 90 years ago by the republic’s founder, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, to a dogmatic Islamist era spearheaded by Mr. Erdogan. But it would be more accurate to say that Turkey is merely replacing one official dogma with another.

Like Mr. Erdogan, Ataturk devalued critical thinking, preferring citizens to accept the truths he decreed as an all-knowing leader. During his single-party rule from 1923 to 1938, Ataturk tried to reshape the nation according to his Kemalist ideology, making sweeping reforms in culture, religion, education, language and science. Some facets of the Kemalist program were relatively eccentric — like Ataturk’s pseudoscientific thesis that prehistoric Turks in Central Asia were the progenitors of human civilization.

Today, after over a decade as prime minister and with plans for at least another decade in power as president, Mr. Erdogan seems to be embarking on a similar mission of nation-reshaping. He is using a language and symbolism that is increasingly similar to Ataturk’s; like Ataturk, he is attempting to teach his people the “correct” version of their history. And, like Ataturk’s, his political opponents are branded as traitors.

The big difference, however, is ideology. Ataturk was a secular nationalist who wanted to Westernize Turkey. (It was Ataturk who abolished the Ottoman
language, in favor of a more modern, Latinized Turkish.) Mr. Erdogan is a
conservative Muslim nationalist who sees Westernization as a historic
mistake.

But wasn’t Mr. Erdogan the same leader who once put Turkey on a path toward European Union membership? That was certainly the case during the initial phase of rule by his Justice and Development Party, or A.K.P., from 2002 to 2010. At the time, Turkey was under the thumb of Kemalist generals who threatened elected politicians. Hence, the European Union, and its liberal democracy, looked like a savior for Mr. Erdogan. Yet once the military was subdued, the incentive to Europeanize began to fade.

Now Mr. Erdogan even appears to be convinced of a great Western conspiracy to topple his rule; a “supra intellect"— none other than the United States, according to some of his supporters in the media — that manipulates the Middle East and creates trouble for the glorious “New Turkey.” The irony is that despite all this anti-Western rhetoric in domestic politics, Turkey remains a member of NATO; Ankara still welcomes Western leaders; and Mr. Erdogan vowed, just last month, to “strengthen the strategic partnership between Turkey and America.”

The deeper trouble is that while Mr. Erdogan’s Muslim nationalism may boost Turkish self-confidence, it risks depriving the next generation of the skills they will need to succeed in a global economy. Sure, Turkey boasts some success stories — like Turkish Airlines, which is frequently ranked Europe’s best. But it still does not have a highly skilled, creative or innovative workforce. To raise the latter, Turkey needs a much more globalist approach to education, and stronger commitments to the rule of law and meritocratic advancement (the lack of which is rightly recognized by Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu).

The masters of the “New Turkey” must curb their lust for power and control and help build an open society that rewards talent. If they don’t, they will go down in history as a poor imitation of the Kemalist “Old Turkey” they have criticized for decades — with their own official dogma, cult of personality, and endless witch hunts for enemies within. And Turkey will not move forward, but will fall into the vicious cycle once outlined by the great medieval Muslim historian Ibn Khaldun: Conquerors of a system eventually adopt the habits of that system; hope for change lies only in newcomers from the wilderness.

Mustafa Akyol is a columnist and the author of “Islam Without Extremes: A Muslim Case for Liberty.”

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/12/23/opinion/akyol-how-turkey-sabotaged-its-future.html

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32. BRAZIL: PRESIDENT ROUSSEFF DECLARES WAR ON THE WORKING CLASS
by James Petras
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(The James Petras Website, 12.13.2014) 
	
Introduction: The Brazilian working class is facing the most savage assault on its living standards in over a decade. And it is not just the industrial workers who are under attack. The landless rural workers, public and private salaried employees, teachers and health professionals, the unemployed and the poor are facing massive cuts in income, jobs and welfare payments.


Whatever gains were made between 2003 – 2013 will be reversed. Brazilian workers face a ‘decade of infamy’. The Rousseff regime has embraced the politics of “savage capitalism” as personified in the appointment of two of the most extreme advocates of neo-liberal policies

The “Workers Party” and the Ascendancy of Finance Capital

In early December 2014, President Rousseff appointed Joaquin Levy as the new Finance Minister - in effect the new economic czar to run the Brazilian economy. Levy is a leading member of the Brazilian financial oligarchy. Between 2010-2014 he was president of Bradesco Asset Management, an asset arm of the giant conglomerate Bradesco, with more than $130 billion dollars under management. Since his doctoral days at the U of Chicago, Levy is a loyal follower of neo-liberal supremo Professor Milton Friedman, former economic adviser to Chilean military dictator Augusto Pinochet. As a former top official in the International Monetary Fund (1992 – 1999), Levy was a strong advocate of the harsh austerity programs which a decade later impoverished southern Europe and Ireland. During the Presidency of Henrique Cardoso, Levy served as a top economic strategist, directly involved in the massive privatization of lucrative public enterprises – at bargain basement prices – and the liberalization of the financial system which facilitated the illicit financial outflow of $15 billion a year. Levy’s presence as a prominent member of Brazil’s financial oligarchy and his deep, longstanding ties to international financial institutions is precisely the reason President Rousseff put him in charge of the Brazilian economy. Levy’s appointment is part and parcel of Rousseff’s embrace of a new strategy of vastly increasing the profits of foreign and domestic finance capital, in the hope of attracting large scale investments to end economic stagnation.

For President Rousseff and her mentor, ex-President Lula DaSilva, the entire economy must be directed to gaining the “confidence” of the capitalist class.

The social policies which were implemented earlier are now subject to elimination or reduction, as the new financial czar Joaquin “Jack the Ripper” Levy, moves forward to implement his “shock therapy”. Deep and comprehensive cuts in labor’s share of national income is at the top of his agenda. The objective is to concentrate wealth and capital in the upper ten percent in hopes that they will invest and increase growth.

While Levy’s appointment represents a decidedly turn to the extreme right, the economic policies and practices of the previous twelve years laid the foundations for the return of a virulent version of neo-liberal orthodoxy.

The Economic Foundations for the Return of Savage Capitations

During the electoral campaign in 2002, Lula DaSilva signed off on an economic agreement with the IMF which guaranteed a budget surplus of 3%. Lula sought to reassure bankers, international financiers and multi-nationals that Brazil would pay its creditors, increase foreign reserves for profit remittance and illicit financial flows overseas.

The Lula regime’s adoption of conservative fiscal policies, was accompanied by his austerity policies, reducing public employees’ salaries and pensions and providing only marginal increases in the minimum wage. Most of all, Lula supported all of the corrupt privatizations which took place under the preceding Cardoza regime. At the end of Lula’s first year in office, 2003, Wall Street hailed Lula as the “Man of the Year” for his “pragmatic policies” and his demobilization and de-radicalization of the major trade unions and social movements. In January 2003, President Lula Da Silva appointed Levy as Treasury Secretary, a position he held until 2006 – the most socially regressive period of the Da Silva Presidency.This period also coincided with a series of enormously lucrative multi-billion dollar corruption scandals involving dozens of top PT officials in the Lula regime receiving kickbacks from leading construction companies

Two events in the middle 2000’s allowed Da Silva to moderate his policies and introduce limited social reforms. The commodity boom – a sharp increase in the demand and prices of agro-mineral exports filled the coffers of Treasury. And increased pressure from the trade unions, rural movements and the poor for a share in the economic bonanza led to increases in social spending, wages, salaries and easy credit without affecting the wealth, property and privleges of the elite. With the economic boom, Lula could also satisfy the IMF, the financial sector and the business elite with subsidies, tax breaks, low interest loans and lucrative “overpriced” state contracts. The poor received 1% of the budget via a “family allowance” a $60 dollar a month handout and low paid labor received a higher minimum wage. The cost of social welfare was a fraction of the 40% of the budget that the banks received in payments of principle and interest payments on dubious public debt incurred by previos neo-liberal regimes.

With the end of the boom, the government of Rousseff has reverted back to Lula’s orthodox policies of 2003 – 2005 and re-appointed Levy to carry them out.

Levy’s Shock Therapy and Its Consequences

Levy’s task of re-concentrating income, raising profits and revertng social policies is much harder in 2014 – 2015 than it was in 2003 – 2005. Mainly because, earlier, he was merely continuing the policies of the Cardoso regime – and Lula promised the workers it was only temporary. Today Levy must cut and slash gains that workers and the poor take for granted. In fact in 2013 – 2014 mass urban movements pressed for greater social expenditures for transport, education and health.

To advance Levy’s shock therapy ,at some point, repression will be necessary ,as was the case in Chile and Southern Europe when similar austerity policies depressed incomes and multiplied unemployment.

Levy proposes to rescue the interests of finance capital by taking several crucial measures which will be in line with the agenda of Wall Street, City of London and the Brazilian financial moguls. Taken in their entirety, Levy’s financial policies amount to “shock treatment” – harsh,rapid economic measures applied against workers living standards, equivalent to electric shocks to patients with disorders ,applied by deranged psychologists who claim that “pain is gain”, but more frequently than not, turn patients into zombies or worse.

Levy’s first priority is to cut and slash public investments, pensions, unemployment payments and public sector salaries. Under the pretext of “stabilizing the economy” (for the financial groups) he will destabilize the household economy of tens of millions. He will rescind tax breaks for the mass of consumers buying cars, household appliances and ‘white goods’, thus increasing the costs to millions of working class households or pricing them out of the market. Levy’s purpose is to unbalance household budgets (increase debt over income) in order to increase the state budget surplus and ensure full and prompt debt payments to creditors like his own Bradesco conglomerate.

Secondly, Levy will “adjust” prices. More specifically end price controls on fuel, energy and transport so that the financial oligarchs with millions of shares in those sectors can jack-up prices and “adjust” their wealth upward into the billions of dollars. As a result, the working and middle class will have to spend a greater share of their declining income for fuel, transport and energy.

Thirdly, Levy will probably let the currency weaken to promote agro-mineral exports under the guise of greater “competiveness” .But a cheaper currency will increase the cost of imports, especially, of basic foodstuffs and manufactured goods. The de facto devaluation will hit hardest the millions who cannot hedge their savings and favors the financial speculators who will capitalize on currency movements. And comparative studies demonstrate that a cheaper currency doesn’t necessarily increase productive investments.

Fourthly, Levy is likely to claim that energy shortfalls due to drought, which has reduced Brazil’s hydropower dams, requires “reform” of the energy sector , Levy’s euphemism for privatization.He will propose to sell-off the semi-public billion dollar petroleum giant Petrobras,and accelerate the privatization of offshore exploitation sites, at terms favorable to big investment banks.

Fifthly, Levy is likely to slash and burn environmental and business regulations, including those affecting the rain-forest, labor and Indian rights ,to facilitate the easy entry and fast exit of financial capital.

Levy’s “shock therapy” will have a profound social and economic impact on Brazilian society. Every indication, from past and present experiences, is that in every country “Chicago Boys”, like Levy, have applied their “shock” formula, has resulted in profound economic recession, social regression and political unrest.

Contrary to the expectations of President Rousseff, cuts in credit, salaries and public investment will depress the economy – and send it from stagnation into recession. Retrograde budget balancing lessens demand and does not induce productive capital flows. The most dynamic growth sectors in manufacturing, the car industry, will be sharply and adversely affected by the increase in taxes on purchases. And the same goes for appliances.

Heretofore the expansion of public investment has been the main driving force of even the current meagre growth. There is no rational reason to believe that vast flows of private capital will suddenly take up the slack, especially in a shrinking market. This is especially true, if as is likely to happen, class conflict intensifies from across the board reductions in wages, salaries and living standards.

Levy, like all free market fanatics, will argue that recession and regression are short-term, necessary and ,will succeed “in the long run”. But in all contemporary countries pursuing his shock formula , the result has been prolonged regression. Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal are in the seventh year of austerity induced depression and their public debt is growing.

The Real Effective Consequences of Shock Therapy

We have to discard the ideological “stability and growth” claims of the Levyites and look at the real results of the policies he promises.

First and foremost, inequalities will increase because whatever income gains ensue will be concentrated at the top. Government deregulation and fiscal and exchange rate policies, will deepen the imbalances in the economy, favoring creditors over debtors, foreign finance over local manufacturers, owners of capital over wage workers, the private sector over the public.

Levy will indeed “secure the confidence of capital” because what is dubbed as “investor confidence” rests on an unimpeded license to plunder the environment, reduce wages and eploit a growing reserve army of unemployed.

Conclusion

Levy’s shock therapy will heighten class tension and inevitably result in the break-down of the social pact between the so-calledWorkers Party regime and the trade unions, the landless rural workers and the urban social movements.

Rousseff and the leadership of the self-styled “Workers’ Party” regime, faced with economic stagnation resulting from the decline in commodity prices and the decision of private capital to withhold investments, could have chosen to socialize the economy, end crony capitalism and increase public investment.Instead it capitulated. Rousseff has recycled the orthodox neo-liberal policies which Lula implemented during the first two years of his regime.

Instead of mobilizing workers and professionals for deeper structural changes, Rousseff and Lula Da Silva are counting on the “left-wing” of the PT to complain, criticize and conform. They are counting on the co-opted leaders of the trade union confederation (CUT), to hyperventilate and confine themselves to inconsequential symbolic protests which will not disrupt Levy’s “shock therapy”. However, the scope, depth and extremism of Levy’s so-called adjustment and stabilization program will provoke general strikes, first and foremost in the public sector. The cutbacks in the auto industry and rise in unemployment, will result in job action in the manufacturing sector. The cuts in public investment and rise in the costs of transport, health care and education will revive the mass urban movements.

Within a year, Rousseff and Levy’s shock policies will convert Brazil into a boiling cauldron of social discontent. Lula’s pseudo-populist gestures and empty rhetoric will have no effect. Rousseff will not be able to convince working people to accept Levy’s class biased “austerity” program, his incentives “to gain the confidence of international markets” and his incomes policies shrinking incomes of the vast majority of working people.

Levy’s policies will deepen the recession, not “re-awaken the animal spirits of entrepreneurs”. After a year of “more pain and no gain” (except for higher profits for financiers and agro-mineral exporters), President Rousseff will face the inevitable negative political outcome of having lost the support of the workers, middle class and rural poor without gaining the support of the business and financial elite – they have their own reliable party leaders. Once having put in place his radically regressive free market policies, and having provoked massive popular discontent, Levy will resign and return to the presidency of Bradesco, the multi-billion dollar investment fund,claiming “mission accomplished”

Rousseff might replace Levy and try to ‘moderate’ his ‘shock therapy’. But by then it will be too little too late. The Workers’ Party will end up in the dust bin of history . Rousseff’s decision to appoint Levy as economic czar is a declaration of class war .And in order to win the class war, we cannot exclude that the radically regressive policies will be enforced by state violence – the repression of mass urban protests, the savage dislodgement of peaceful landless rural workers occupying fallow lands.

The “Workers’ Party” regime’s turn from “inclusive neo-liberalism” to Friedmanite free market extremism will radicalize and polarize Brazilian society. The oligarchy will push to remilitarize civil society. This in turn, will spur the growth of class conscious social movements, like those that ended twenty years of military rule. Perhaps this time, the social upheaval may not end in a liberal-democracy; perhaps the coming struggle will bring Brazil closer to a socialist republic.

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33. HOW HITLER TRIED TO REDESIGN CHRISTMAS
by John Brownlee
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http://www.fastcodesign.com/3024022/how-hitler-redesigned-christmas

23 December 2014

When the Nazis took power in 1933, Christmas was one of their first targets. Not even Santa was safe.

In December 1941, Adolf Hitler threw a Christmas Party for his fellow Nazis. It was a lavish affair, in which the Nazi Party's top officials, statesmen, and generals gathered before a massive Christmas tree to feast and exchange presents with hundreds of jackbooted S.S. cadets in attendance.

In surviving pictures taken by the Führer's own personal photographer, Hitler appears somewhat dour and maybe a little sad to be at this event, as if he feels out of place despite his importance, and no wonder: What holiday could be less suited to the sentiments of that genocidal, warmongering dictator than a Christian holiday celebrating the birth of a Jew?

Yet despite the expression on his face, Hitler sits in these pictures as a conqueror, not just of continental Europe, but also of Christmas—a holiday than in just six years, he managed to redesign into a potent propaganda tool.

Peace On Earth

It wasn't easy. Back during World War II, Germany's population was predominantly Christian. Then as now, Christmas was a popular holiday to celebrate among Germans; in fact, the modern-day Christmas tree actually traces its roots back to the Rhineland in the 16th century. Christmas was too important to Germans for the Nazis to get rid of, yet it represented everything that Hitler despised: the Christian ethic of peace on Earth. He couldn't get rid of it, but he could try to make it his own.

"Christmas represented everything that Hitler despised."

A propaganda article from 1937 entitled New Meanings For "Inherited Customs" shows the considerable mental aerobics that the Nazis had to go through to turn Christmas into a holiday they could broadly support. Christmas is traditionally viewed as a "holiday about a theoretical peace for all humanity,"—an interpretation should be rejected, the article said. (It is hard, after all, to wish peace to all men when you are simultaneously drafting up plans to shove millions of them into gas chambers.) Realizing this, the article's author said that Germans should instead present Christmas as a "holiday of actual domestic national peace," a peace which could presumably only be facilitated by getting rid of enemies of the state such as Jews, gypsies, communists, and homosexuals.

Killing Off Jesus & Santa

Hitler's propaganda war on Christmas by no means ended there. He also set out to get the "Christ" out of Christmas. Unlike in English, Christmas is called Weihnachten in German, so the actual name of the holiday did not require modification to suit the goals of an anti-clerical Führer. Even so, the Nazis preferred a different name for Christmas: Rauhnacht, the Rough Night, which had a tantalizing hint of violence to it.
"Santa was so beloved that not even the Nazis felt that they could wage a war against him. "


But many of the trappings of Christmas are inherently religious, right down to the purported event being celebrated: the birth of Jesus Christ. Luckily for Hitler, Germans had celebrated the winter solstice long before Christianity came to the country. It was fairly easy for Nazi propagandists, therefore, to reclaim Weihnachten as a pagan holiday in which the longest days of winter were marked by gift-giving and a festival of lights.

Songs that mentioned Jesus, like Silent Night, were rewritten with new lyrics espousing the benefits of National Socialism by none other than chief Nazi ideologist Alfred Rosenberg and Heinrich Himmler, one of the masterminds of the Holocaust. At the height of Nazi Christmas revisionism, any mentions of the Savior were replaced with mentions of the "Savior Führer."
"The Nazis preferred a different name for Christmas: Rauhnacht, the Rough Night, which had a tantalizing hint of violence to it."

Jesus had been taken care of, but Santa Claus was not so easily forgotten. Tracing his roots to St. Nicholas of Myra, a fourth-century Greek Christian bishop from Turkey, Santa was both explicitly Christian and very definitely not Aryan. Even so, Santa was so beloved that not even the Nazis felt that they could wage a war against him. Instead, they changed his name. Nazis argued that the white-robed and gray-bearded figure who came to people's houses and gave them gifts on Christmas Day was really the pagan god Odin. Christians had merely stolen him, but now he had been reclaimed.

Christmas Tree Decorations

Other aspects of Christmas had to change, too. Although the modern Christmas tree is an explicitly German invention, the star that is traditionally placed on the top represented a problem for Nazis: either it is a six-pointed star, and becomes the Star of David, or it's a five-pointed star, and resembles the red star of Communism. Ideologically, neither would do. Instead, the Nazis encouraged revelers to place a swastika, a German sun wheel, or a sig rune (the lightning-shaped symbol used in the emblem of the SS) atop their trees instead.
"It was not uncommon to hang replica grenades and machine guns on your Christmas tree during the Nazi years."

Christmas tree decorations also changed. In general, ornaments became a lot more warlike, and it was not uncommon to hang replica grenades and machine guns on your Christmas tree during the Nazi years. But they also became increasingly jingoistic. Surviving ornaments from the Nazi era include silver balls emblazoned with mottos such as "Sieg heil!" red bulbs covered in swastikas, and tchotchkes shaped like Iron Crosses and eagles. There are even ornaments that are just tiny metal Hitler heads (complete with mustache). To his credit, though, even Hitler didn't like these, leading to laws to prevent Nazi symbols from being misused for Christmas kitsch.

The Ghost Of Christmas Future

By 1939, just six years after Hitler came to power, Christmas had been totally transformed into a tool of Nazi propaganda. A contemporary article asserts that "when we celebrate a German Christmas, we include in the circle of the family all those who are of German blood, and who affirm their German ethnicity, all those who came before us and who will come after us, all those whom fate did not allow to live within the borders of our Reich, or who are doing their duty in foreign lands amidst foreign peoples."

"We cannot accept that a German Christmas tree has anything to do with a crib in a manger in Bethlehem," wrote the Nazi propagandist Friedrich Rehm in 1937. He added, "It is inconceivable for us that Christmas and all its deep soulful content is the product of an oriental religion."

Yet Hitler's redesign of Christmas didn't last long. As the Allies advanced, by 1944, worrying about the Christian influences on Christmas was the least of the Nazis' problems, and the holiday was rebranded as a day of remembrance for those who had been lost in the war.

1944 was also the year of last Nazi Christmas. Just four months later, the Führer was dead, and while a few of Himmler's hymns were briefly sung in post-war Germany, the survivors of the war did with Hitler's Christmas what they did with every other idea the Nazis had come up with: denounced it and buried it.

Perhaps that's what explains the strange, sad expression on Hitler's face, sitting there at a table with all his thugs on Christmas, 1941. Maybe he has seen the ghost of Christmas future.

John Brownlee is a writer who lives in Somerville, Massachusetts with two irate parakeets and his wife, who has more exquisite plumage. His work has appeared at Wired, Playboy, PopMech, CNN, Boing Boing, Gizmodo, and more. You can email him john.brownlee+fastco at gmail.com.

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34. JOHN BERGER: ‘WRITING IS AN OFF-SHOOT OF SOMETHING DEEPER’
=========================================
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/dec/12/john-berger-writing-is-an-off-shoot-of-something-deeper?CMP=share_btn_fb

I have been writing for about 80 years. First letters then poems and speeches, later stories and articles and books, now notes. The activity of writing has been a vital one for me; it helps me to make sense and continue. Writing, however, is an off-shoot of something deeper and more general – our relationship with language as such. And the subject of these few notes is language.

Let’s begin by examining the activity of translating from one language to another. Most translations today are technological, whereas I’m referring to literary translations: the translation of texts that concern individual experience.

The conventional view of what this involves proposes that the translator or translators study the words on one page in one language and then render them into another language on another page. This involves a so-called word-for-word translation, and then an adaptation to respect and incorporate the linguistic tradition and rules of the second language, and finally another working-over to recreate the equivalent of the “voice” of the original text. Many – perhaps most – translations follow this procedure and the results are worthy, but second-rate.

Why? Because true translation is not a binary affair between two languages but a triangular affair. The third point of the triangle being what lay behind the words of the original text before it was written. True translation demands a return to the pre-verbal. One reads and rereads the words of the original text in order to penetrate through them to reach, to touch, the vision or experience that prompted them. One then gathers up what one has found there and takes this quivering almost wordless “thing” and places it behind the language it needs to be translated into. And now the principal task is to persuade the host language to take in and welcome the “thing” that is waiting to be articulated.

This practice reminds us that a language cannot be reduced to a dictionary or stock of words and phrases. Nor can it be reduced to a warehouse of the works written in it. A spoken language is a body, a living creature, whose physiognomy is verbal and whose visceral functions are linguistic. And this creature’s home is the inarticulate as well as the articulate.

Consider the term “mother tongue”. In Russian it is rodnoy-yazik, which means “nearest” or “dearest tongue”. At a pinch one could call it “darling tongue”. Mother tongue is one’s first language, first heard as an infant.

And within one mother tongue are all mother tongues. Or to put it another way – every mother tongue is universal. Noam Chomsky has brilliantly demonstrated that all languages – not only verbal ones – have certain structures and procedures in common. And so a mother tongue is related to (rhymes with?) non-verbal languages – such as the languages of signs, of behaviour, of spatial accommodation. When I’m drawing, I try to unravel and transcribe a text of appearances, which already has, I know, its indescribable but assured place in my mother tongue.

Words, terms, phrases can be separated from the creature of their language and used as mere labels. They then become inert and empty. The repetitive use of acronyms is a simple example of this. Most mainstream political discourse today is composed of words that, separated from any creature of language, are inert. And such dead “word-mongering” wipes out memory and breeds a ruthless complacency.

What has prompted me to write over the years is the hunch that something needs to be told, and that if I don’t try to tell it, it risks not being told. I picture myself as a stop-gap man rather than a consequential, professional writer.

After I’ve written a few lines I let the words slip back into the creature of their language. And there, they are instantly recognised and greeted by a host of other words, with whom they have an affinity of meaning, or of opposition, or of metaphor or alliteration or rhythm. I listen to their confabulation. Together they are contesting the use to which I put the words I chose. They are questioning the roles I allotted them.

So I modify the lines, change a word or two, and submit them again. Another confabulation begins. And it goes on like this until there is a low murmur of provisional consent. Then I proceed to the next paragraph.

Another confabulation begins ...

Others can place me as they like as a writer. For myself, I’m the son of a bitch – and you can guess who the bitch is, no?

• John Berger’s many books include Ways of Seeing, From A to X and Collected Poems.

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35. SOON, THE INTERNET WILL BE IMPOSSIBLE TO CONTROL
by Jamie Bartlett
=========================================
(The Telegraph - UK, 10 Dec 2014)

From big companies to governments, the ability to censor what we do online is about to get a lot harder

We think of Facebook, YouTube and Twitter as public utilities, a sort of digital commons. Partly because we’ve got used to it all being free, partly because it’s where the debates of the day are now publicly thrashed out. Social media is now part of our political and cultural furniture – exciting, raucous and noisy. Subsequently, we imagine it's neutral and apolitical. Empty "platforms" to be filled with our clamourings.

This is nonsense, of course. Social media platforms are public in the same way that a shopping centre is. It looks and feels it until a security guard chucks you out for leaning over the railing, at which point you realise you’re on someone else’s private property. Take Facebook, with its 1.35bn monthly users. The company pays for and owns the hundreds of thousands of servers that host all of our inane content, not to mention the army of engineers and programmers required to keep the thing running. That’s why Facebook allows companies to target adverts at us based on the things we post – it means we don’t have to pay for it.

Then there’s all the social and legal responsibilities. All social networks have terms and conditions which forbid illegal, violent, threatening or abusive stuff. These reasonable requests are frequently ignored and so Google et al need to hire hundreds of "content managers" whose job it is to watch humanity’s bile (according to a recent article in Wired, there are 100,000 of them, dotted around the world) and remove it. Inevitably, this drags these usually American companies into uncomfortable decisions: should YouTube remove all Isil-related content? Should Twitter close down misogynistic accounts? Should Facebook proactively search out extremist material and pass it to the authorities, as the Intelligence and Security Committee has recently suggested? Important social questions, which are inevitably dealt with in the legal or policy department a company headquartered far away.

Because of the way the internet works, these companies also get to subtly influence what we encounter online: what we find, who we meet, and what we buy. Google’s search algorithm is increasingly personalised to your own search history, which means you end up finding stuff online it thinks you want. According to one recent study, if you tell your friends on Facebook you’ve voted, they are more 0.39 per cent more likely to vote too. Given that Facebook could decide through its newsfeed algorithm who gets to see your declaration of civic duty – that power could affect change the result of an election.

This is not the fault of these companies, who I think err on the side of free expression, and generally want to create a free, public service. But thanks to market forces and expediency the result is a public space that isn’t really controlled by the citizens. It’s curated, controlled, monetised, and censored, often from behind closed doors.

A growing number of people are bothered by this. According to a new survey of 3,000 Europeans released this week, just 3 per cent of respondents said they trust social networks with their data. The European Commission has woken up, and starting taking an interest in the power of the big tech companies by threatening to break up Google, imposing the ridiculous "right to be forgotten", and is making noises about tougher data protection for citizens.

But technology is more typically changed by innovation than regulation. And among the hacker community an alternative way of running the internet is being built already: an internet where no one is in control, where no one can shut you down, where no one can manipulate your content. A decentralised internet.

It’s not a new idea. In the early 2000s there was a burst of activity in "peer-to-peer" software designed so people could communicate online directly without going via some internet company. But the web became centralised, Joss Wright, a researcher from the Oxford Internet Institute explains, partly because it’s easier to build centralised systems, and partly because it was such a good place to advertise. As a result the personal data revenue model took off, which permitted large companies to pay for the infrastructure and server space to create attractive and functional services, which we all joined. And social media platforms rely on the network effect – everyone is on Facebook is because everyone else is – so the result was a centralisation of people, data, then power. A natural monopoly forms.

But this latest wave could be different, because of a neat but little known new technology. Back in 2009, in an obscure cryptography chatforum, a mysterious man called Satoshi Nakamoto invented the crypto-currency Bitcoin. You’ve probably heard of this digital cash because it was, and still is, the currency of choice on the illegal online drugs markets which are growing in popularity. It turns out the real genius of Bitcoin was not the currency at all, but the way it decentralises everything. Bitcoin works because it creates an immutable, unchangeable public copy of every transaction ever made by its users, which is hosted and verified by every computer that downloads the software. This is called the "block chain". Pretty soon, enthusiasts figured out that this block chain could be used for anything.

This is the plan of a crack team of computer geeks currently trying to re-engineer the entire damn internet using the block chain. Armed with 30,000 Bitcoin (around $12 million dollars) of crowd funded support, the "Ethereum" project is 40 of the smartest people you'll ever meet, based mainly in Amsterdam, Berlin and London. They are currently hard at work building a new programming language and platform that uses the block chain and applies it to anything on the internet (and should be released early next year). Vinay Gupta, a member of this team, explains that the current internet is layered with several piecemeal systems which have accreted over the years: the fact so much internet traffic goes via the US is because it was invented there; the certificate system which allows secure sites to be accessed is driven by the interests of a few large commercial browser companies, and so on. The end result, he says, is a hacked together network that is inefficient, insecure, and subject to invisible political expediency and control. Ethereum is a system that its developers hope will change all that, heralding a revolution in the way we use the net – allowing us to do everything online directly with each other, not through the big companies that currently mediate our online interaction and whom we have little choice but to trust with our data.

Already others have applied this principle to all sorts of areas. One clever chap built a domain name system that cannot be removed called Namecoin; another an untraceable email system call Bitmessage. Later this month Eris Industries, a company that specialises this type of thing, is being launched in London along with lots of smart tech. Perhaps the most interesting of all is a social media platform called Twister, which is a bit like Twitter but because it uses block chain technology, everything can be done anonymously, and censorship is close to impossible. No one can shut it down, because no one owns it. Miguel Freitas, the Brazilian who spent three months building this tells me he was sparked into action when he read David Cameron say he’d considered shutting down Twitter after the 2011 riots: "the internet alone won’t help information flow if all the power is in the hands of a few people".

Because of its ubiquity, it’s easy to forget the internet has already changed shape several times. It started in the late sixties as a military project, morphed into an academic network through the eighties, was co-opted into a vehicle for commerce and business in the nineties, before being invaded by social media and user generated content which became dominated by a few large companies in the noughties. It’s about to change again. If and when it does, that change will be gradual but significant: chipping away at the dominance of the big companies that currently rule the roost, and making it far harder, if not impossible, to censor and control what’s online. Doubtless Isil propagandists will be rubbing their hands with this, but so will democratic revolutionaries in Russia. And for the rest of us, it will mean more control over our own data and digital footprints, a peer-to-peer network where no one is in charge – because everyone is. 

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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/

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