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[Kirdar]

Dear all
You folks really have so much time and patience to write philosophical
explanations about your inability to take a bold decision, that I
myself have a doubt that you are being "paid to write these".
It was fun being on Sarai. May be I will join back after a few
decades. Thanks for everything.

Kirdar


On Thu, Nov 13, 2008 at 8:56 PM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com> wrote:
> Monica,
>
> It is, of course, your prerogative to decide whether the likes of Pawan
> and Aditya should be expelled or not. But I would like to repeat -
> because I would request you to consider - a couple of things I have said
> recently and had said two or three years ago (maybe earlier) when this
> whole thing started with Vedavati (as far as I remember) throwing in the
> cow slaughter issue out of nowhere, refused to stop repeating the same
> "arguments" ad nauseum, and was soon joined by a few others in that
> enterprise.
>
> After this had gone on for what then seemed like an eternity and now in
> hindsight seems like a few minutes, I had said that the expulsion of
> these people should be considered, because it was clear they had no
> interest in rational critical debate and were determined to disrupt such
> debates with their discourse of hate. As this list (in my understanding)
> had been set up precisely as a space for such debates, they had no
> business to be here. I was told that reasoned argumentation was the only
> possible response to whatever they had been doing, and coercive measures
> like expulsion were not acceptable.
>
> I had pointed out that the Nazis had used democracy to disrupt democracy
> and communist parties had been taking part in elections and getting
> elected in multiparty systems with the long-term goal of replacing that
> very system with dictatorship. In other words, there ought to be a limit
> up to which such forces can be allowed to operate freely. If not, that
> freedom - for others - will become a casualty.
>
> The situation escalated over the years. It is worse on this list today,
> but that should be the least of our concerns (or not). It is worse
> globally and internally (in India) in terms of the economy as you have
> noted, and is likely to deteriorate politically, again as you have
> noted. I agree with you - if we go back to the Great Depression and the
> rise of fascists and Nazis, we will see why. And it's there that we come
> back to the question of our list.
>
> Let us pause for a moment here to think why Vedavati, Pawan, Aditya,
> Chanchal, etc., have joined this list in the first place. Does their
> discourse show any interest in history or reason or theories or
> concepts? No. Do they expect those of us who engage them, to change our
> minds? No. Then why are they here, and why do they continue to flood the
> list with their inanities and their hate and their spit? What do they
> want to achieve? My answer is, to coerce us into submission, force some
> of us to unsubscribe in disgust, and effectively take over the list. Why
> do they spend so much time and energy on this? My answer is, they see
> some value in it - they know that this list has earned respect as a
> liberal/progressive forum hosting some high-quality discussions (along
> with their venom) and they want to snuff it out for that very reason.
>
> The question remains, why? The simple answer - in my opinion - is that
> these members are (as we have stated recently) part of the fascist creep
> we have seen in India, which is becoming a thrust with every passing
> day. If we did not see that in Babri, not even in Gujarat, or in the
> recent anti-Christian riots, not to speak of smaller riots and pogroms
> during these years, we should perhaps see it in the revelation that some
> army officers have been involved in terrorist activities. Some of us
> will probably object to my characterization. For their benefit I am
> quoting from the definition of "fascism" in the Collins Dictionary of
> Sociology.
>
> "... anti-intellectualism is a constituent element of the ideology ...
> The following are some of the main constituents in fascist writings and
> actions: extreme racist nationalism linked with territorial expansion;
> virulent anti-communism combined with intolerance of most other
> political ideologies and independent working-class organizations; the
> open use and glorification of physical violence and terror against these
> groups; a reliance on a mass party organized around a powerful
> leadership, and once in power engaged in most areas of civil life and
> depending on continual mass mobilization to sustain support for the
> leadership; the glorification of militarism, the cult of the presumed
> masculine virtues, with women defined mainly as mothers and supporters
> of men; predominant support from the middle classes who are the main,
> though not exclusive, mass support."
>
> The question for us is, can we fight these forces with reason alone? My
> answer is an emphatic no, on this list or outside it.
>
> Tapas
>
>
>
> Monica Narula wrote:
>> Dear All
>>
>> I think its rather cute the way dear everyone is asking for an
>> intervention from the admin - now increasingly feeling like a class
>> monitor!
>>
>> The coming years are going to be a difficult ones. There is going to
>> be a massive drop in employment opportunities, liquidity will fall,
>> infrastructure will remain half-built etc. There will also be an
>> increasing shrillness of speech. This, I am guessing, will lead to an
>> aggressive acceleration in both inclusive and exclusive
>> authoritarianism. So the future trajectory of the language game and
>> the rhetorical quotient on the reader-list will be something that I
>> am a little ambivalent about.
>>
>> I request list members to be aware that making charges without
>> substantial ground is more to do with incitement than to do with
>> discussion. It is odd that when the world is trying to come to term
>> with global seismic shocks that seem to come at all of us from all
>> directions, archaic accusations about the "foreign" seem to find some
>> votaries.
>>
>> Let us think a little harder. The world is not legible. In an
>> increasingly blurring reality, understanding the grounds of
>> accusations and rhetorical posturing will be necessary. Let us think
>> how to deal with language, and what it says, in what can feel like a
>> crumbling world, rather than merely becoming the dust that arises
>> from this process.
>>
>> best
>> Monica
>> List Admin
>>
>> Monica Narula
>> Sarai-CSDS
>> 29 Rajpur Road
>> Delhi 110 054
>> www.sarai.net
>>
>>
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