[Reader-list] On Sarai postings

[Nazneen Anand Shamsi]

Dear Tapas,

Thank you for your rejoinder. I am sure that many people on this list would
agree to what Tapas thinks. The issue is quite simple. The list is a place
for people to come and talk. Sarai does not prohibit anyone to come. They do
not prohibit anyone to speak also. All that is fine. The scene becomes
unpalatable when some of us start vomiting on other people's faces and
expect others to do the same. What fun haan!

All this is of course done in the guise of social engagement. The list
becomes a site of disengagement. In this case, I am forced to think, do our
list members who do all this, really want to 'expose' some of us or do they
just want people like us, the 'sarai-junkie', to become (what Tapas
articulates as...) 'disgusted' with the list.

In other words, we the 'sarai junkie' are the real targets of attacks on, if
I may use Pawan's euphemism, 'sarai express'.

I just want to urge everyone to MAKE NOISE to not let this SARAI EXPRESS
become SARAI MAIL or SARAI CHUK CHUK!

Either devise a strategy to counter this unwarranted abuse or mass mail
Sarai people to put in place a set of directives for formal public
engagement.

So that we really do not have to 'desist from clicking send'

Best

Nazo

On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 8:48 PM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com> wrote:

> Nazneen,
>
> My personal reasons for joining this list and staying on as long as I have
> are the same as yours. Just as you find some of the posts very rich and
> illuminating, so do I.
>
> But I have been completely ... disgusted is the word ... at times with some
> of the exchanges. I do not know if you were a subscriber when a group of
> members, who are very active in the current debate/shouting match as well,
> had tried to drown out opinions opposed to theirs. This went on for a long
> time, too long in my opinion. List administrators stepped in eventually, and
> things were better for some time. But only for some time.
>
> Since you have urged everyone to take up this issue, I have forwarded to
> you and Radhakrishnan, a little while ago, two messages on this subject,
> which I posted recently along with Aarti's response to the first. That
> wasn't the first time I had appealed for some semblance of civility. I have
> been asking for some system of moderating the posts, but this has not been
> accepted so far.
>
> However, this is not simply a matter of civility. It would have been bad
> enough had it been so. It is also about fostering rational critical debate.
> What we have here probably is nominally rational and critical, but lacks an
> essential *condition* for such a debate - I mean the absence of coercion (or
> attempts at that), bullying, etc.
>
> It is of course not possible in reality to have a discourse of purely
> communicative reason. A conversation is *never* purely an intellectual
> exercise and people *always* have motives other than finding the truth in
> ideas. It is not even the case that consensus over what is good or necessary
> can be reached on every issue. But the point is that in these exchanges, the
> purposive, strategic element - specifically, the urge to establish hegemony
> over opponents - seems to be pushing the real thing to the edges, or at
> least warping the debate far too much.
>
> That should be the real concern, I think.
>
> Tapas
>
>
> Nazneen Anand Shamsi wrote:
>
>> Dear Tapas, dear all,
>>
>> I don't want to either agree or disagree with you, Tapas. The reason for
>> this is, because, by either agreeing or disagreeing one is forced to take
>> sides. I don't subscribe to reader list to either form my belief system or
>> change it. I subscribe to reader list because, I want to, in all my
>> earnestness, engage with all that is happening around me.
>>
>> I value Aditya's, Pawan's or Radhikarajen mails as much as I do Shuddha's,
>> Shivam's or Inder's. What I don't like is sometimes unhealthy nature of
>> conversation. Now, for the longest time, I was silent. I thought it was
>> okay. I thought maybe this is the nature of a public conversation and so on.
>> Then there were these excellent writeup by many people on how to or how not
>> to comment/respond. I was okay with that too. But then in the middle of all
>> this, something changed and now I want to say, something. And I would urge
>> everyone, who's been subscribing to participate.
>>
>> Only we can correct ourselves. We have to find some way of engaging with
>> each other.
>>
>> I really don't care now whether a Pawan is right or an Aarti  is correct.
>> What I WANT is a strict protocol of engagement from the Sarai team.
>>
>> This is the only way we can have a decent conversation. If Pawan wants to
>> expose someone. Then I am all for it. All hypocrites, pseudo-secularists,
>> fake nationilsts must be exposed. If someone wants to have a total anarchy
>> and is disgusted with the Indian Nation state, I say good that you have this
>> position. Good that you can articulate it really well and I would love to
>> read what you have to say.
>>
>>
>> But this DING-DONG must stop.
>>
>> Sarai people are silent because these poor fellows are committed for a
>> non-moderated list.
>>
>> We are not. and I want to plead to the all my fellow members of the reader
>> list and ofcoruse to tongue tied memebers of Sarai community to please have
>> a system in place for people to nicely engage with each other.
>>
>> PLEASE!
>>
>> Nazo
>>
>>
>>
>>
>>
>> On Thu, Sep 25, 2008 at 7:05 PM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com <mailto:
>> tapasrayx at gmail.com>> wrote:
>>
>>    It's like a shouting match here between union types trying to decide
>>    the fate of the nation in a stuffy and hot college canteen with
>>    greasy walls and little oxygen. No wonder some folks are getting a
>>    little confused.
>>
>>