[Reader-list] Re: A few words from the same time zone

[pratap pandey]

Dear Britta, and all,

To pun on your surname, you are truly a unit of
resistance!

Germany was Afghanistan, once (you say).

You live in Germany (whatever that means!). I do not.
But I have read Heinrich Boll (I am unable to put the
"umlaut" over the "o"; I am not a computer genius).
Boll narrates the horror of Germany transformed to
rubble, and takes part in it. (A country is
pulverised: so what if it takes British and American
help to put it back again? These were the countries
that supported Hitler, and then found they were wrong.
So, almost as if in revenge, they pulverised HItler's
country. At the same time, people lived through those
days: they survived, rebuilt their lives, went back to
work.) Boll is especially satirical of the moral
turpitude that has gone into the rebuilding of the
so-called "german" nation, post WW-II. We cannot blame
his Idealism. He comes from a long line of writers,
like Thomas Mann.

But Boll is also able to dream about a new German
nation. A nation that has shed its fascism (that, now,
can actually shed its fascism given the "betrayal" by
the Western nations). This is quite a reality, if I am
to believe that you are able to post this from
"Germany" [I put "germany" under quotes because I
believe West Germany has not quite reached East
Germany yet, despite "global" acceptance of the
breakdown of the Wall].

Boll was concerned about the norms under which Germany
would receive its unity. His novels put into place a
narration of a politics of hope. Unlike him, I am
unable to take recourse to a similar (identical?)
politics of hope.

It so happens that civil society in post-war Germany
did manage to unfold in a way in which it just hasn't
in post-independent India.

You can actually go and demonstrate. If I do that, my
neighbours will look askance. They needn't know, but
they come to find out.

I am here justifying my escapism. It will be difficlt
for you to understand this. If I am sufficiently
bothered, I should be out on the roads! But I am not.
I am merely pronouncing prognostications.

Indians take care of their young, but they don't groom
them. This is the problem. This is why an entire
generation does not take to the streets: they do not
know what protest means. (this is the culture that the
BJP fascists have taken advantage of: they know we,
the educated people, are in a minority!)      

Somehow, in "devastated" Germany, there grew a civil
society that made its own space, and made its voice
heard. (Boll is surely part of this "population". You,
too.)

In "devastated" India today, we are still, very
privately (not publicly at all), imagining that there
will be no war. The cynicism is a hollow cover. It
masks indifference.

It also expresses "private" hysteria. The inability to
do something. The fear of "organising" to do
something.
(Ask Shuddha about "organising". He has a terror of
it!)

I love, Britta, the way you ask me throw my cynicism
away. You are right: I am reproducing support for this
fascist NDA government. Then my middle-class values
spring to the fore and I throw away your suggestion
with vehemence.

I don't want to only snarl. I am not a trapped beast.
But this is how I behave. This is the behaviour I take
recourse to.

What do you do with such an asshole?

yours,
pp  





 --- Britta Ohm <ohm at zedat.fu-berlin.de> wrote: > Dear
Shuddha, dear PP, dear all,
> 
> I spent yesterday's afternoon at a big demonstration
> in this time zone, in
> Berlin, only two train-hours away from where
> Shuddha, Monica and Jibesh are
> installing the images of Delhi, and as war-torn as
> Kassel once was.
> 
> The demonstration was set out to protest against the
> American global war
> strategy and Bush in particular, who happens to be
> in town till today, and
> it was one of the most peaceful demonstrations we
> ever had in Berlin, with
> more than 20 000 people less voicing their protest
> and not in the least
> getting violent but showing ('demonstrating') how a
> peaceful existence can
> be lived (I'm very sentimental here, and am more
> than happy to be so, as it
> is far from self-evident that this is Germany, it
> felt like another time
> zone). It was just the police having to rush in at
> the end, obviously driven
> by it's own image that Berlin has to turn into a
> civil war-zone in the
> anticipation of every US-President after Kennedy.
> This was exactly what CNN
> had projected beforehand and it were just these few
> minutes of aggressive
> and manufactured police-raid which were aired on the
> same channel in
> self-fulfilling prophecy in the evening,
> conveniently neglecting a whole day
> of a completely different message, or rather: of the
> actual message itself.
> 
> It is in this that the cynicism lies, and in it's
> flip-side which showed in
> an interview the day before on German public
> television. President Bush gave
> his first interview ever to a German correspondent
> (I could not believe it
> myself), in which he managed to treat the chap like
> a mentally retarded
> representative of a far-away country (to avoid the
> no longer existing or
> rather about to be re-invented term "Third
> World-country"). Asked about what
> he thinks about the mounting protests in Berlin
> anticipating his visit, he
> said: "I have never been to Germany (well, that's no
> news, he's hardly been
> anywhere), and I'm looking forward to seeing a
> country in which different
> voices can be raised. That's democracy." Really? Is
> that all that democracy
> is about? Isn't there quite a difference between
> pluralism and democracy?
> 
> So whatever form the protest takes, and the variety
> of forms are inherently
> limited, it will fit into the anticipation and
> justification of current
> US-policy which will go ahead with what it is
> planning to do one way or the
> other, but definitely. Bush made it very clear that
> Germany has just
> appeared on his map by coincidence and will
> disappear as quickly - he has
> not come to visit Germany anyway, it's a stopover on
> his way to Putin.
> Germany is a 'dealt with'-country and Third World in
> a re-defined world
> order (and is struggling to become a 'proper
> partner' again with a
> right-conservative candidate for chancellorship in
> the pipeline), there are
> no lessons to be learned from here which would have
> any influence on a
> global scale now.
> 
> The even bigger cynicism - or rather tragedy - lies
> in the obvious
> dependency of the sane (and unfortunately very
> cynical) voices facing the
> unfolding horror-scenario in India on an invention
> or a prevention by a
> US-policy which is war- and not peace- or
> dialogue-driven, which has no
> knowledge of and interest in the finer truths of
> life and politics and which
> might by now know better where India is situated on
> the map than it knows
> where Germany is, but hasn't got a clue in what
> context to set the latest
> developments and what forces it is actually dealing
> with. The Hindutva-led
> NDA-government is caught in the same contradiction
> of wanting desperately
> US-attention whilst at the same time shouting that
> it does not need any
> interference which is the safest way to a war
> happening. No different from
> the US-government in this respect, it is able to
> turn protest as well as
> support into a legitimisation for this war. This is
> the cynisism of
> conservative post-modern governance which seems to
> have refined the modern
> Divide-and-Rule-Concept beyond democratic control.
> 
> Yet there is a difference and a hope which I think
> lies in two aspects of
> democracy (apart from many others like the
> protection of minority rights
> etc.): the right to resistance (which very much
> includes the resistance to
> pollution of the mind) and the concept of
> majorities, political majorities
> that is. I know that you all know that and that this
> does not seem to help
> in the momentary situation where the world and India
> in particular is
> heading for disaster with nations round the globe
> sheepishly assembling
> behind a leafless Bush promising protection and
> victory through 'final
> solutions' (none of our h'ble politicians today had
> the guts to utter even
> one critical word after Bush's utterly mediocre and
> 'Axis of Evil'-loaded
> speech in parliament) and India that in parts has
> changed beyond recognition
> as far as the re-definition of the majority along
> cultural and religious
> lines is concerned and where 26 or so coalition
> partners as sheepishly
> assemble behind a saffron hawk barely able to stand
> who promises the same.
> 
> But I have seen the same people I saw in the streets
> of Berlin yesterday at
> peace marches in Bombay and Delhi in the past weeks;
> they may not be
> organised enough, they may not be enough in number
> still, some of them may
> talk nonsense, but the last thing that helps at this
> very crucial point in
> time is to become cynical oneself, no matter how
> cynical the cynisism is,
> and by that reproduce the cynicism that is
> prevailing in the political
> arena. The idea of purification through war is the
> most grotesque of ideas
> commonly entertained by intellectuals and is itself
> part and parcel of
> fascist thought. India and Delhi might not have been
> through a war like
> Germany has, thank God, but weren't 1984 or Gujarat
> now enough to show that
> anything but purification is happening that way?
> That there will be no
> relief unless it is achieved in negotiation and
> acceptance of complexities?
> Civil society in Germany has lost far more through
> the war than it is since
> trying to regain under big efforts and frequent
> setbacks. There is no
> guarantee of set-free positive forces after cruelty,
> the loss is always
> bigger, and the problems do not really get solved
> but shifted. And I doubt
> very much that civil society would have re-developed
> in Germany hadn't it
> been with the help and force both of the US and its
> allies, particularly
> Britain. It was an urgently needed help and a loss
> of choice both, inflicted
> upon us by ourselves. We were Afghanistan once, but
> we were more lucky.
> 
> India has never been Afghanistan and is not now,
> even though it will
> probably never be the same again after all that
> Hindutva has already
> achieved. But there will be noone to come for rescue
> now unless you do it
> yourself, as there will come noone for rescue for
> vast parts of the rest of
> the planet unless we do it ourselves. Now.
> 
> 
> Shuddha, all the best for Kassel, I very much hope
> to see you there soon.
> Best regards  --- Britta
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
=== message truncated === 

________________________________________________________________________
Everything you always wanted to know about cars and bikes,now
 at: http://in.autos.yahoo.com/cricket/tracker.html