[Reader-list] Ways of Life and Transgressions

Sun Sep 7 15:20:43 IST 2008

Dear Yousf,

Let us keep it simple.

I should have used the word ' unwittingly' instead 'boldly' and that
might have saved you from writing " I am the last person on earth to
condemn artists for having monopoly on liberalism ". I know you are
not against artists, and I consider you too an artist in your own
unique way.

Now you are looking for an alternative, right, take a case like Babri
Masjid. The Sang Parivar thought that their sentiments are 'hurt'
because a king demolished a temple and constructed a mosque on the
same spot. I am not speaking on behalf of Muslims, but on behalf of
Liberals, ( as  it is convenient to use ) that the mosque should not
have  been demolished.  But the monopoly on 'hurt' scored and we
witnessed a monumental tragedy.  what was the alternative?

There are hundreds of other such examples where this kind of 'hurt'
scored and we are reduced to mute spectators.  A government, based on
a secular constitution should not have given in to this so called
'hurt'. That is my premise. Recently there was an attack on a very
small exhibition of prints by Hussain organized by Sahmat. These are
not simple hooligans but are from a strong political base with an
agenda, to create a panic. They were so daring that they even called
the TV channels to document their action. How to denounce that, May be
Mr. Ishwar has an answer, People should be told simply that ' freedom
of expression' is as important to life as water, food and sleep.
Recently, an Italian museum rejected the Pope's desire to remove a
frog- Christ sculpture from their display. There was no hue and cry
from Christians world.  We need to learn from those examples. What is
so big about a cartoon. Cartoons are made to bring humour in our lives
and not hate. We need to cultivate an accurate sense of 'hurt'.  It is
time we feel hurt because of immense environmental degradation on our
planet.  We should be ashamed of our acts against women.  We should
feel 'hurt' on seeing people begging on the streets.

 Any answer Mr. Iswar,  why Taslima Nasreen was hounded out of Inidia.
Both Hussain and Taslima are known for their inaccurate works, but
have found a huge support from artists , poets writers and other such
segments of our society.  are we insane that we support a Taslima and
a Hussain, a Chandra Mohan from time to time. We are, indeed a small
segment of our society, and if we all don't support this minority
within the minority then what we have is complete absence of
alternative.   Is that what you want for the sake of a ' majority'.

Who is afraid of Artists, poets, and dancers?  Hussain sahib was once
a Rajya Sahba member, and all he did there was drawings of politicians
arguing in the parliament.  I wish he had drawn them masturbating
during sessions.  He is less courageous,  we all know, but in any
case, is he a threat to our society, or someone who announces monetary
awards to behead the artist or a writer? Opposing 'freedom of
expression' is not a 'view point'  but a bully.

Of course, artists and poets love audiences, without audiences there
is not art and culture, but how come we oppose a change of taste even.
Haven't people clapped to something fresh, new and radical, even on
the stage when politicians play it out like actors on the stage.
People want change, but 'some of well read persons' want to keep us
unchanged.   Even now we have very few women poets, let alone the past
when there were little chances for them to come forward. Males of the
family  and society were often hurt as and when their daughters would
come out in the open. Is it a view point ?  We are all here for a
change. Let us support the change.  Prophets and saints too have been
poets in their own unique ways who have always uttered verse with
freshness of mood and change. But we simply become worshippers of that
change, and obstruct the possibility of  change 'unwittingly'

Yes, millions go the Haridwar for a sacred dip. But, I guess the dip
becomes a very small component of the journey to a pilgrimage . The
spectacle of a concentrated human mass is what attracts the people.
The urge to brush shoulders with others, new clothes, picnic and
exchange of looks with strangers is what seduces the average Indian.
that is true, because the pollution level in Ganga does not 'hurt'
them in the first place, which proves they are not too serious about
the holdy dip.
Who is truly religious? The same applies to people who go to Haj.

With love
is

On Sun, Sep 7, 2008 at 10:13 AM, Ishwar <ishwarsridharan at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Guess I wasn't clear enough in what I intended to convey, and lack of clarity always invites misinterpretation.
>
> Inder, what made you come to the conclusion that understanding hurt sentiments in religious and other frameworks is tantamount to declaring support for fundamentalism? For that matter, when did understanding anything equated to supporting it?
>
> As an artist, can I assume that your work would not be received with enthusiasm from every section of the population?  That being the case. I think it's vital to understand that the religious communities' hurt comes from something that's fundamental to their current framework, in the local context. Saying 'Dude, everybody gets hurt, so chill' is not quite the answer.
>
> After respecting the reasoning behind the hate, one might choose to work towards a conversation. I find the comment 'how to
> denounce entire majority of religous world who have mononly on 'hurt'"' rather strange. We aren't here to denounce viewpoints are we? I'd thought certain actions are to be denounced, not word views. If that's not the case, how is liberalism any different from religion, the very majority we seek to denounce?
>
>
> P.S: Pardon my ignorance of keywords to express ideas.
>
>  Ishwar
>
>
> Just another resurrected Neozoic Archosaur comics.
> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosaurus/sets/72157600257724083/
>
>
>
> ----- Original Message ----
> From: inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com>
> To: reader-list at sarai.net
> Sent: Saturday, September 6, 2008 9:50:56 PM
> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ways of Life and Transgressions
>
> Dear Yousuf
> this is too sweeping a statement by a well read person like you.
>
> this also gives us a clue - how often well read people quickly throw
> reasoning to dust bins and join hands with those who boldy declare
> 'fundamentalsim' as their guiding light on the path of spirituality.
> if we condemn artists  for having monoply on 'liberalism' then how to
> denounce entire majority of religous world who have mononly on 'hurt'
> ?   Our sufi bhakti traditions  were much liberal in their ' ways of
> living' than what you consider as offensive.
>
> this also teachs me that we are basically too small to speak anything
> truely about these overwhelming issues through these short cut
> discussions,
>
> Here, i think of paintings, poetry, music  dance (  al erotic, sacred
> and profane ) and all the eccentric moods of our society, even if '
> well read people' consider it just an entertainment for artists
> themselves, and couple of few others in the world.
>
> We are in a serious trouble. or only I ( artist )  feel it ?
>
> love
> is
>
>
>
> On Sat, Sep 6, 2008 at 7:10 PM, Yousuf <ysaeed7 at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> Dear Ishwar
>> I can't decide whether I agree with you or not, but a friend of mine (to whom I was telling about this discussion) echoes your point. According to him, if the religious people have a monopoly on "hurt", the artists have a monopoly on "taking liberties". So these two "rights" should balance out each other, and no one should complain...
>>
>> Yousuf
>>
>>
>> --- On Sat, 9/6/08, Ishwar <ishwarsridharan at yahoo.com> wrote:
>> From: Ishwar <ishwarsridharan at yahoo.com>
>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ways of Life and Transgressions
>> To: "Aarti Sethi" <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>, "inder salim" <indersalim at gmail.com>, "Sarai Reader-list" <reader-list at sarai.net>
>> Date: Saturday, September 6, 2008, 6:07 PM
>>
>> Kudos to a well-written reply, andofcourse,  to TeadBeeDi too :)
>>
>> While we're at it, how about a little bit of thought on this too?
>>
>> While questioning religious communities' monopoly on "hurt", one
>> must also take into consideration frameworks.
>> Religious
>> frameworks by their very nature have the concept of blasphemy, to
>> various degrees, be it 'kadavul kutram' (blasphemous talk against the
>> divine)  from where I come, to  blasphemy laws, etc.wherein the concept
>> of individual liberty is weighed down in front of a higher divine.
>>
>> As
>> liberals(or feminists or apathetists, or any ists), we have
>> chosen/adopted/devised our own framework which channelises such hurt to
>> productive means.The world has other frameworks too. Taking this
>> concept of channelising hurt to a different religious framework and
>> expecting it to be adopted/respected is as naive as, say, a scientist
>> expecting his/her ideas on non-existence of god, or proof of evolution
>> to be accepted by the religious community.
>>
>> That religious frameworks can change is a different discussion altogether.
>>
>>
>> Ishwar
>>
>>
>> Just another resurrected Neozoic Archosaur comics.
>> http://www.flickr.com/photos/mojosaurus/sets/72157600257724083/
>>
>>
>>
>> ----- Original Message ----
>> From: Aarti Sethi <aarti.sethi at gmail.com>
>> To: inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com>
>> Cc: reader-list at sarai.net
>> Sent: Thursday, September 4, 2008 2:39:27 PM
>> Subject: Re: [Reader-list] Ways of Life and Transgressions
>>
>> A few thoughts on an interesting discussion.
>>
>> One term I think that has remained unexamined in this discussion is
>> "hurt"
>> or "sentiment". By this I mean not an assessment of whether that hurt
>> is
>> justified, valid etc, who is to decide whether this offends or not, whether
>> this is offensive or not, the relative self-sufficiency of value systems and
>> speaking across them. But the inherent value of hurt as a positive force in
>> itself. Let me try and explain what I mean.
>>
>> Why is "hurt sentiment" a bad thing in itself? Can having one's
>> sentiments
>> hurt, sometimes quite badly, not be a positive force? Might it not impell me
>> to re-think, or think, about my sentiments in a manner that is creative?
>> Maybe those sentiments are better discarded. Maybe my outrage alerts me to a
>> violence I have been commiting without realising it. Maybe if more people's
>> sentiments were outraged a little more forcefully, then we would be living
>> in a far more democratic and tolerant world.
>>
>> Further, I do not see why only religious communities have a monopoly on
>> sentiments which can then be hurt. As a feminist, my sentiments are
>> assaulted on a routine and regular basis. As someone who believes in a
>> version of social justice and equality, once articulated by, but not only
>> by, Marx for instance, my feelings are continually trampled over. As someone
>> who believes in a secular vision, the discussions on this list offend me
>> everyday. However i do not see this being taken very seriously. And it
>> needn't, that is the point. It is up to me to alchemize this outrage, hurt,
>> sadness in a manner that enables me to live and act in the world.
>>
>> This is actually how we live our lives generally. My mother, or father, or
>> lover, or friend might say something that hurts me terribly. Not always is
>> this clarified, discussed, put in its right perspective. All our lives are
>> all littered with silent archives of hurts we have never expressed. There is
>> no heroic moment in which resolution is sought for hurts. And no one can do
>> this for anyone...
>>
>> The recent Vogue advertisements doing the rounds, around which there has
>> been some discussion on this list, have hurt the sentiments of many people.
>> A few years ago another set of advertisements for brand equity in which two
>> tribal women are shown discussing the tans they have got in Monte Carlo to
>> an accompanying snide and contemptous copy which said something about how
>> advertisers need to accurately reach their consumers, also outraged many of
>> us. Having thought about this, I realised that though both the Vogue ads and
>> the brand equity ads trouble me, they do so in different ways.
>>
>> The Vogue ads can be read in one of many ways - that it posits a horizon of
>> desire that is unachievable for the people it uses for the ad. In some sense
>> then the frisson of the ad derives from the discrepancy in what is desired
>> and what is possible. Further it assumes that their horizon of desire will
>> follow the trajectory laid out by Vogue. But most interesting to me is that
>> both Vogue and the critics work with a fixed definition of poverty in the
>> first place, and  certain trajectory of the direction a life can take.
>>
>> The second set of ads function on precisely the opposite principle. Rather
>> than positing an eventual horizon of desire, they deem a present life as
>> failed, and urges us to recognise its failure. It presumes and makes me
>> complicit in a social consensus in which we can use languages in a manner as
>> if we are all agreed on the terms in operation.
>>
>> Can you see the difference in both ads? They both trouble me deeply, but
>> they trouble me in different ways. How is this at all useful, or valuable? I
>> think it is. I think to be able to carefully work through how and why and in
>> what ways something arrives to me and what it disturbs is a critical thing,
>> if we are to fashion any sort of language to deal with the violence of the
>> present.
>>
>> with regards
>> Aarti
>>
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