[Reader-list] Jamia Millia University should be prosecuted
Nazneen Anand Shamsi
nazoshmasi at googlemail.com
Mon Sep 29 00:27:50 IST 2008
On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 7:19 PM, Nazneen Anand Shamsi <
nazoshmasi at googlemail.com> wrote:
Dear Inder,
Thank you for your mail. It was a pleasure to read all those quotes
inter meshed with your thoughts. The foreground/background dialectic again!
I often think about death in relation to time and memory. As we grow older
we are burdened with the memory of times gone by. Yet when we are living a
moment we are so unaware of the weight we are producing for ourselves. We do
things because we want to. Yet that want seems so hollow after a while.
Bereft of any meaning. Devoid of any essence. We want to move on. Change
with times. Time of course, is experiential. I think about the intensity of
the present which consumes all other moments. The one which has just gone by
and the one which is yet to come.
Why is it that there is no memory of immediate present? We remember time
only through events. In this respect that quote from Socrates seems so apt,
' my face is merging with the mask'. He did not die a natural death. He
choose his time and place. He choose his event. He knew. He was aware.
Suicide for me, is perhaps much more than theologically inspired concept of
'weakness'. It is a moment of truth. In this world of appearances, where we
are always told to be someone, a toast of hemlock seems like a final
acknowledgment of one's being. That I will not negotiate. I will not be. I
remember, when I was a child, I used to freeze when someone would ask,
'badhe hoke kya banoge' (What will you be when you grow up?). I didn't know
it then. I don't know it now. Somewhere along the way I have stopped
searching.
We live in multiple times. Dream, fantasy, anxiety, desire, angst, anger
are all states of experiencing time while being at someplace else. Death in
a sense is perhaps the most pure experience of time. I think it is in the
moment of death perhaps we solve the problematic of time. But what about
other states of death. Like Jamia encounter. or the Delhi blasts. The
inspector didn't know. The students didn't know. The victims didn't know.
Death signified horror. The time code was interrupted. Or may be, on the
last day of their lives they didn't know. They died with their masks on. Or
perhaps the mask was never there. We will never know. 'Sar par kafan bandh
ke chalna' is only a contingent practice. We are trapped in this profound
fiction of normality. Floating in a river of fire. Sometimes we consume. At
others we are consumed. We want to believe that when we grow old we die.
Like four stages of life. We demand temporal stability. We dream about life
as if it will be fair to us. We forget that a still born baby also dies a
natural death. In an earlier post Jeebesh mentioned something about
'thanatocracy' with respect to Kashmir and the Indian state. Death signifies
power in this regard. The naked vulnerability. Death is an essential
condition for any state. Sovereign or otherwise. Yes death is political in
its nakedness. You observed about signifier and signified with respect to
that ramp walk of model terrorists. May be terrorism has become a new
pornography of our times. We have finally arrived at a live TV formula to
keep people/audiences/citizens/consumers/voters/individuals glued so that
they can see some soap and soft drink ads. A report in outlook (
http://www.outlookindia.com/full.asp?fodname=20081006&fname=BDelhi+Encounter+(F)&sid=1)
describes how a Delhi police special cell inspector was dressed as a
salesman when he knocked on the doors of student/'terrorist'. He had don a
mask perhaps to fabricate death. Death becomes a lure, a performance, to be
enacted convincingly in front of live TV.
And Kabir says, 'Aayein hain soo jaayenge rajah rnk faquir'.
Best
Nazo
On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 2:17 PM, inder salim <indersalim at gmail.com>
wrote:
through Montaigne's own Stoicism, that
"to philosophize is to learn to die" ,
For Deluze/Blanchot ' any death is double'
1. but it is not 'I' that dies and it is not 'my death' either
2. we never cease and we never finish to die. In this sense, living
is inseparable from the partial deaths that it goes through, up
until
the disintegration, in "the other" death, of its individualized
living
shape. This another Death is ahead of us.
Dear Nazo, thanks for a great and profound response. Death is
certainly where foregrounds meet backgrounds. They indeed collapse.
As Socretes, famously, said, while drinking Hemlock, ' my face is
merging with the mask ' . It is true that this 'event' can be
experienced only when one dies, but certainly that experience too
becomes part of that 'event'. All we have is THIS. This what the
learned heads say is OUTSIDE.
They also say, I quote, The Outside is a pre-individual intensive
universe of forces and unshaped matters that is "more distant than
any external world." On the other end, life as an intensity is
inseparable from shapes of life that appear in the folds or as the
folds of the line of the Outside'.
At this point, "death is rather the ultimate shape of
the problematic, the source of all problems and questions, the mark
of their
permanency above every answer, the "Where?" and "When?" that
designate
this (non)-being whereby every affirmation finds its energy" Death
as an event in "history" is only a point where two kinds of death
meet. But
it also reveals that death or "to die," as a pure Event, as an
incorporeal, is
essential to the creation and proliferation of life and thought. As
Deleuze and
Guattari stated in What Is Philosophy?:
In fact, artistic creation is often presented by Deleuze as a
counter-effectuation of a line of death.
Through this, all what I want to see is that the coded signs in our
life and thought are basically full of that emptiness of time. So,
collapsible. Whatever that be, and that actually gives us some
feeling
of change, else as the Greeks say, there is nothing new under the
sun.
Right now, the only thing which prompts me to write is, for myself
and
for those readers on the list who quickly lapse into malice and
personal abuse, if we can intensify the questioning keeping in view,
I
quote again, " death is rather ultimate shape of problematic, the
source of all problems and questions".
Recently, one of the active participants mr. Kshmendra wanted to
know
the territory of would be nation- Kashmir.
My answer was that how we are in a position to draw territories when
we have lost the earth collectively, sadly.
Now here again, if we don't intensify the discourse on the problems
of
environmental death/dying of earth, we actually remain fighting on
issues that are either irrelevant or shallow in nature.
For example, Sadanand Menon's piece on the Arab Scarves provided to
the three arrested from Jamia, made me to think again that what is
the Mask. So in that sense, the identity of a community or a person
represented by a sign or code is more lively than the person
underneath. amazing, how signs function between signifers and
signifieds.
The whole Muslim community was paraded naked by the red and white
Arab
scarves, intentionally.
It is indeed strange to see how subjectivities can be manipulated in
a
particular situation, by those who don't think that ' death' is
overpowering a subject which can turn the tables at any given point
of
time. That indeed is political, here.
But in poetic sense also, if we consider a saint like Kabir who
always
kept us reminding the futility of being too attached to materiality
of
this illusory world.
Love
is
p.s needless to say, that I am not a student of philosophy, even.
Thanks Tapas, i too read different reflections with this intention
that it liberates, educates....
On Sun, Sep 28, 2008 at 1:08 AM, Tapas Ray <tapasrayx at gmail.com>
wrote:
> It's exchanges like this that make it worthwhile to stay on here.
>
>
>
> 2008/9/27 Nazneen Anand Shamsi <nazoshmasi at googlemail.com>:
>> Dear Inder,
>>
>> Certain words, phrases crop up in my mind when I read your
response- reverse
>> engineering, hacking, hermeneutics, reading, translating. These
words are
>> fairly well circulated in our social life. All of these words
convey, in a
>> sense, perhaps, exercises in code making and code breaking.
Meaning making
>> as a hobby, I feel, is slowly fading away. I agree with you when
you say
>> that 'people want instant results'. Perhaps this is just one more
sign of
>> our times. We are not interested in processes anymore. We are not
interested
>> in exposing ourselves to a knowledge, which tells us in all its
rawness, how
>> a thing was arrived at. In this rush to consume, be it a national
identity
>> or a candy bar we have grown to appreciate just the product. In
its final
>> form. Packaged. Sealed. Sterilized. And yes with a price and that
crucial
>> date of manufacture and expiry date intact.
>>
>> Change- they say, is the essence of our common human existence.
But is it
>> not that the more people change the more they remain the same. I
still feel
>> sometimes, that even in this day and age we are essentially
hunter gathers.
>> Always out of our caves in search of something. Jobs. Spouses.
Causes.
>> Lifestyles. Thoughts. Ideas. And once we find something that
gives us a
>> little meaning. We stop. We demarcate. We build small fences
around and like
>> that dog on the street who pisses on four poles and thinks that
it is his
>> territory and we bark and we bite, sometimes we fight too against
all those
>> who contest and dares to question us. Present takes over. Truth,
or that
>> thing called truth! Takes over. When the only truth of our frail
existence
>> is of course death. That one day we will all be gone. And with us
all our
>> memories, desires, aspirations, bitterness, hunger, food, sex,
>> companionship, conversations, life plans, rights/wrongs,
smartness, style,
>> cleverness will go. Natural death, for me, is a calming thought.
The
>> calumniation of a journey. A full stop. The greatest leveler.
And the irony
>> is that in the moment of death we will take away with us its
memory and its
>> experience. The code will cease to exist. The translation will
stop. The
>> foreground will merge with the background.
>>
>> Regards
>>
>> Nazo
>> On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 4:31 AM, inder salim <
indersalim at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>>> well said, "we want to deliberately create that distance to
make
>>> meaning? " Dear Nazo
>>>
>>> certailly,the image in front of our eyes is illusion, beret of
that
>>> madness which created it in the first palce.. i am not only
talking
>>> about a photograph, but about the various derived meanings which
>>> resemble an image
>>>
>>> .what we get ? we are certainly struggling to make some sense
of what
>>> we see, feel, her and even touch.
>>>
>>> anything becomes a backgroound, in a situation. of image or
otherwise.
>>> what violence is happening in the background is struggling for a
>>> language, which is perhaps not there. It might be discovering
one
>>> only when someting replaces its own background. There is deep
flux
>>> going on between this background-foreground of reality. I am
>>> personally wondering if we could ever get a right picture of '
what it
>>> is' . since background instantly lapses into silence, without
those
>>> essential codes which occupy the meaning.
>>>
>>> we certainly create meaning of a history only when we distance
>>> ourselves from it. otherwise there is no way we can talk ' the
>>> hysteria of history' .... this is the paradox, which often keep
us
>>> busy, chasing the other, so distortions, wittingly or
unwittingly.
>>> the saner thing appears, here, is that we need to emancipate
ourselves
>>> from time to time, keep ourselves open to doubt. this is
perhaps, too
>>> much to demand, since people want instant results, both in
their
>>> private and public life. But we know how changes occur,
sometimes
>>> nothing seems to change. particularly when the word '
revolution' is
>>> passe.
>>>
>>> you have rightly said that social reality is coded, but how much
>>> quantum of the coded reality gets its ' time ' to occupy the
sapce for
>>> a meaning. ( i am perhaps vague ) . the impermenance of
whites,
>>> blacks and blues in the sky makes it all time grey.
>>> but then perhaps, we need a contrast to realise our own beings,
our
>>> identities, genders so that background ( greys ) are not talked
about,
>>> literally a grey is colour a coded shade too. an illusion
again. but
>>> something is more rapid than eye which thinks it catches full.
>>>
>>>
>>> in another post, i was thinking about a 10000 year old histroy
to
>>> begin with, where we can certainly make this grey more visible.
but
>>> since we have to talk and talk , so we need codes which are
available
>>> to us from our recent history only. so 1947 is coded in that
sense,
>>> but since we have moved far ahead of 1947 it strangely becomes a
>>> background reality. the pain of it atleast. even the recent
delhi bomb
>>> blasts become coded realities, but much happens always than we
can
>>> talk about
>>>
>>> love
>>> is
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>>
>>> On Sat, Sep 27, 2008 at 6:55 AM, Nazneen Anand Shamsi
>>> <nazoshmasi at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> > Dear Inder,
>>> >
>>> > Thank you for a wonderful post. It made me think. Wasn't codes
always a
>>> part
>>> > of our reality? I don't see any harm in that. What makes me
wonder is
>>> this
>>> > whole background/foreground dichotomy. I think to see a
picture as an
>>> image
>>> > composed of backgrounds and foregrounds is to engage in an
exercise in
>>> self
>>> > delusion.
>>> >
>>> > Are there any backgrounds or foregrounds in a two dimensional
frame. Or
>>> is
>>> > it that we want to deliberately create that distance to make
meaning?
>>> Would
>>> > it be wrong to say that a picture is only composed of
backgrounds etched
>>> in
>>> > time and as we move along we call, for the sake of
convenience, some of
>>> > those backgrounds foregrounds? Or that every foreground was a
background
>>> > first, till we re-frame our perspective? Is 1947 really the
background or
>>> is
>>> > it a foreground, we are revisiting as in a state of deja vu?
>>> >
>>> > The social world will always unfold in front our eyes and will
always
>>> seem
>>> > like a code, for we will never know what it was. We will
always try to
>>> > interpret it. Grasp it. Clinch it. Manipulate it. There are no
blacks or
>>> > whites, only shades of gray. Constantly changing its color
like those
>>> dense
>>> > over cast clouds on a windy day. Which shade of gray that
cloud will take
>>> > depends only on the wind.
>>> >
>>> > I do not know whether the Jamia incident can become a national
issue, for
>>> I
>>> > truly believe that public memory is short. Between September
and may,
>>> > between winter and summer, a lot may happen. Lets hope and
keep hoping
>>> that
>>> > it happens for the best.
>>> >
>>> > Warm regards
>>> >
>>> > Nazo
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> >
>>> > On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 3:29 PM, inder salim <
indersalim at gmail.com>
>>> wrote:
>>> >>
>>> >> Dear Nazo
>>> >>
>>> >> you have a point, it is now very intersting. thanks for very
good
>>> >> reflections...
>>> >>
>>> >> yes, where ever there is free health care , people tend to
consume
>>> >> more medicine. .... yet another paradox.
>>> >>
>>> >> it was not just another case of an arrest where student was
arrested
>>> >> say on charges of rape etc. but the situation is quite
political here.
>>> >> i still see 1947 kind of reality. I still see kings and
princes
>>> >> around, in that sense, i feel there were always prime
ministers and
>>> >> elections.
>>> >>
>>> >> i quote ronald barthi , The stadium is always coded, the
punctum is
>>> >> not. He is talking about photographs, where the backgroud is
almost
>>> >> insignficant, thus giving a mysterious presence to the
figures in the
>>> >> foreground. I am just learning myself, here, to understand if
we can
>>> >> talk about the background reality of the muslims. Li ving
on yumana
>>> >> pushta, i once asked a man what is your name, he politely
replied,
>>> >> mein to musalmaan hoon ( i am just a muslim ) . so the issue
of
>>> >> minority comes to the fore, the whole cane or worms begin to
swarm the
>>> >> surface which was meant for words, words which hold the
meaning....
>>> >>
>>> >> The media, the red and white scarf around the faces of the
arrested
>>> >> students, the muslim terrorism, the necessary and
un)necessary roles
>>> >> played by police, the shaheed police officer, and the
opposite side of
>>> >> the muslims fundamentalsim: RSS Parivar, Everything is coded,
and we
>>> >> readiilyy see green as muslim and orange as Hindu and so
on...
>>> >>
>>> >> But here, the punctum is the large background of human mass,
who are
>>> >> suspicious... ........ the term ' jamia, which was not a
major
>>> >> foreground part of the image till recently is begining to
become
>>> >> coded, Thus its VC who happens to be a muslim. Everhing is
becoming
>>> >> like a stadium.
>>> >>
>>> >> the palyers are playing the game. But there is unpridicatable
nautre
>>> >> of game,, a strange dynamics in the audience, hapening all
the time,
>>> >> outside the stadium too, beyond the hills too, beyond
terrotiers too.
>>> >> the air and sun mixed with history is such that the
background happens
>>> >> withoiut a representation, and thus a mysterioius, and
unpridictable.
>>> >>
>>> >> The entry of HRD in all of this has again added a code to the
existing
>>> >> codes. That was inevitable, because the stadium was bigger
than it
>>> >> looked before.
>>> >> NOt surprising , the jamia issue can become a national issue
for anti
>>> >> BJP campaing, who tried their best to catapult Amanath Land
issue into
>>> >> national election issue......, and thus all kinds of
distortions. One
>>> >> of the distortion is : creating legal cell, but how to see
that not
>>> >> happening, given the nature of coded presence, which is too
>>> >> overwhelming. we are caught in the laybrinth of paradoxes, i
quote
>>> >> Focualt
>>> >>
>>> >> The background is what sometimes, looks more deeper than the
the
>>> obvious.
>>> >>
>>> >> love
>>> >> is
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >>
>>> >> On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 5:56 PM, Nazneen Anand Shamsi
>>> >> <nazoshmasi at googlemail.com> wrote:
>>> >> > Dear Radhikarajen, Dear Iram, Dear all
>>> >> >
>>> >> > This is exactly what I was fearing. One incident happens in
a
>>> localized
>>> >> > setting, and people want to set up an institution to 'deal'
with it.
>>> >> > Creating one more category to trap a section of the society
which is
>>> >> > already
>>> >> > struggling with other categories. This is far more
alienating. I would
>>> >> > not
>>> >> > be surprised, that given the timing of this benign act,
some people on
>>> >> > this
>>> >> > list would be extremely happy, for their wishes were
answered. But the
>>> >> > larger fallout, in this case would be, that other
communities would
>>> >> > begin to
>>> >> > ask for such institutions as well. Which in turn would do
more harm
>>> than
>>> >> > good to vulnerable sections of society. I would expect the
members of
>>> >> > the
>>> >> > state to act with more impunity, in cases to come, for now
they can
>>> >> > always
>>> >> > say to members of minority community, yes we are doing this
but you
>>> may
>>> >> > go
>>> >> > to this institution and register your protest. This is
exactly what
>>> >> > happened
>>> >> > in East Germany, which allowed Statsi to harass people at
will as they
>>> >> > have
>>> >> > compensatory institutions at place.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > I find this act by HRD Minister deeply anguishing. This is
not called
>>> >> > for at
>>> >> > all. I register my protest in the setting up of this legal
cell in the
>>> >> > strongest possible manner.
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Best
>>> >> >
>>> >> > Nazo
>>> >> >
>>> >> >
>>> >> > On Fri, Sep 26, 2008 at 12:30 PM, <radhikarajen at vsnl.net>
wrote:
>>> >> >
>>> >> >> STOP PRESS
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> expect the vily old fox to encash the votes, Shri, Arjun
Singh, HRD
>>> >> >> minister visited the VC of Jamia Milia University to
extend all help
>>> to
>>> >> >> all
>>> >> >> terror accused, now Bhajrang dal also can expect all help
for the
>>> >> >> activities
>>> >> >> from HRD minister. A special legal cell has been
constituted to
>>> >> >> encourage
>>> >> >> obstruction of judicial proceedings with reputed
"criminal" lawyers
>>> >> >> and the
>>> >> >> panel will be headed by R K Anand, legal illuninary who
can obstruct
>>> >> >> all
>>> >> >> proceedings for the right fee, able assisted by minister
of Law, H R
>>> >> >> Bharadwaj, who was instrumental in obstruction of
impeachment of a
>>> >> >> judge in
>>> >> >> Parliament, Mr. Jce. Ramaswamy. Mr. Kapil Sibal will be
this time
>>> >> >> arguing
>>> >> >> both i and out of parliament for the legal aid cell. ( In
impeachment
>>> >> >> proceedings being non member of parliament, Mr. sibal had
argued at
>>> the
>>> >> >> entrance of the hall of parliament.)
>>> >> >>
>>> >> >> All the universities will be provided budgetary
allocations on caste,
>>> >> >> faith
>>> >> >> based estimates with funds to extend legal aid., the
minister
>>> assured,
>>> >> >> and
>>> >> >> particular care will be taken of the faith based
terrorists and all
>>> >> >> help
>>> >> >> will be extended to improve law and order and the accused
can have
>>> all
>>> >> >> the
>>> >> >> help from various minstries also like railway passes for
going to the
>>> >> >> courts, subsidised fertisiser, ammonium nitrate for the
needy.
>>> >> >>
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