[Reader-list] Words After Violence
inder salim
indersalim at gmail.com
Sat Nov 29 23:43:48 IST 2008
some thoughts:
sometimes the carrot tastes bitter,it happens, the times are such,
but last evening the moment i noticed this 'bitterness' inside the
carrot, I instantly thought of Mumbai,
where from these bitter carrots come ? , i dont know, probably we
have poisoned the earth so much that we have no choice but to harvest
these bitter carrots. and eat them, or our taste buds may eventually
transform in future ......
right now, it is bitter, very unpleasant, but i swallowed this bitter
carrot, that is how i expressed anguish in silence, or it still is a
word, i dont know...
i am wondering about a date in future when many such insane groups
will hit many cities simultaneously. thousands of innocent people
lying dead on the streets. what next, carrots will turn bitter and
bitter, and we will eat them in salads,
India can not disappear, even by a multiple of such a mayhem, India
is too big, too vast, and too deep.
Civilians have always paid the price in any conflict, any war, any
genocide, sad that the world has not changed a bit, at least when it
comes to violence....sad....
I was reading Gautam Navlakha in TOI, Save Pakistan to save us all.
A good article, only a fanatic or a hate monger would like nuke his
neighbour, we all want a strong Pakistan to eliminate this menace, but
is the Money a solution to all the ills of Pakistan, I doubt.
Few years back i met Gautam, and talked about the significance of
Arts, poetry, dance and culture in society, but i guess that kind of
thinking is not seen as functional, still, anymore. one only
regrets...all we want a great market, human beings as money making
machines, sad...
Poverty is seen as the biggest ills is our society. it is, but i
guess, unless a simple dignified living is restored back to LIFE we
are bound to make our lives worst, for the self and for others,
This simple living is necessary, primarily, since we are facing
environmental degradation, and what not that comes with it.......
Yes, we need to talk more on vital issues that can save us from total
annihilation. after all these lunatic fringe elements of society are
not aliens, but from our social system, political ills....
perhaps, we need to look deeper,
love and peace
is
On Sat, Nov 29, 2008 at 7:33 PM, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
> Dear Arti and all.
>
> I understand that. However the silence as a tool of condemnation has been rarely and very selectively used on this list. Whereas the role of state apparatus in Batla house encounter was condemned with the maximum possible vocality, what happened before that, the killing of innocent people in Delhi, even elsewhere, was perhaps silently condemned. I believe that the state excesses need to be condemned in the same full-throttled voice as the state inefficiency, the failure of protecting lives in this case. As much it is the right of a Jamia student to live without fear of discrimination, it is the right of the waiter of Taj, the waiters at the VT train station, the onlookers on Connaught Place ... have their fundamental rights too. Why do they require different standards, I never understand that. Unfortunately the Left in India has become very communal, very selective in its proactive approach. There isn't an iota of concern for the displaced tribals in Orisa due to many projects of Tata, I wonder how many know of it, as there is for the rich Muslims. My Muslim friends hate this condenscension for Muslims, disguised as sympathy for the minority/secularism, they believe that the basis of considering the social stratification should be wealth, or lack there of, than the religion. A Muslim factory owner exploiting the Muslim workers doesn't make to the headlines, doesn't figure in today's left discourse, as does Shabana Azmi's not being able to buy a house in Bombay.
>
> I am sure your reason for condemning this act in Mumbai with silence, was not caused by the fact that the act was done in the name of revenge by Muslims. However, There are many, otherwise champions of humanrights, who will look the other way for the same reason. This kind of selective approach is despicable, it is neither secular nor wise.
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: Aarti Sethi
> To: taraprakash
> Cc: Lawrence Liang ; Sarai Reader-list
> Sent: Saturday, November 29, 2008 1:49 AM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Words After Violence
>
>
> dear taraprakash,
>
> there are many ways in which condemnations of terror can be offered. silence is one of them. nor do i see why an expression of terrible pain and deep sadness is morally less valuable than a 'condemnation'.
>
>
> On Fri, Nov 28, 2008 at 11:08 PM, taraprakash <taraprakash at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> I think you forgot to offer an unequivocal condemnation of what happened.
> Thankfully not everyone will become speechless. It was henous, gruesome,
> barbaric, inhuman. It deserves condemnation without any nuances. Those who
> can take some of the most powerful people of the world hostage, it won't be
> difficult at all for them to attack and take hostages in our schools,
> colleges, universities and other such institutions. Somebody needs to root
> out this evil that divides human beings and those people who nurse such
> hateful feelings.
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Lawrence Liang" <lawrence at altlawforum.org>
> To: "Sarai Reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
> Sent: Friday, November 28, 2008 5:21 AM
> Subject: [Reader-list] Words After Violence
>
>
> > The madness of what has happened in Bombay leaves us speechless, even as
> > the
> > media din around evacuates words from their meaning.
> > So it only appropriate that we borrow words to remind us, int the midst of
> > death, what it means tolive
> >
> > Lawrence
> >
> >
> >
> > On January 11, 1998, unidentified gunmen entered a movie theater
> > and a small mosque in Sidi Ahmed near Algiers and massacred
> > 120 men, women, and children at close range during Algeria's
> > ongoing civil conflict.
> >
> >
> > *Disbeliever
> >
> >
> > *By the limping of the people of Iraq
> > By the sound of frantic running in Qana, in Kosovo
> > By the men and boys of Hama massacred
> > By the swollen bodies in a river in Rwanda
> > and Afghani women and the writers of Algiers,
> > I am a disbeliever
> >
> > in everything that refuses to kiss
> > full on the lips the ones still living
> > and receive them into the bosom of the self,
> > no matter the religion or the nation or race
> > I am a disbeliever in everything
> > that does not say "How was the movie? I love you"
> >
> > I need a body outside my life that can travel and kneel
> > on the sidewalk beside a movie theater in Algiers
> > over the bodies of the supple children
> > who will never be my children's playmates or marry them
> > over the bodies of the men and the women
> > who will never write a letter,
> > will never phone me from Algiers:
> > "How was the movie? I love you. I love you."
> >
> > I need time outside this history
> > where I can whisper in the ear of each of them,
> > By God, you will never be forgotten
> > By God, I will make sure the world
> > buries its face in your beautiful hair,
> > sings to you, learns your name and your music,
> > lifts you up in the crook of its arm like a gift
> >
> > I am a disbeliever
> > in everything but the purity of the bodies
> > of the men and women--with or without the veil,
> > with or without the markings of the right identity--
> > in everything but the suppleness of children
> > I am a disbeliever in every scripture
> > in the world that leaves out
> > "How was the movie? I love you. I love you."
> >
> >
> > *Mohja Kahf
> > *
> > _________________________________________
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