Riots

Farzana, like many Muslims, shows only selective outrage and indignation. Her heart weeps only when her co-religionists are at the receiving end. The misery Muslims have visited upon the rest of the world is invisible to the likes of her through deliberate distortion and self-delusion. To her and others like her, I offer the following:

http://www.rediff.com/news/2002/mar/07rajeev.htm

tantralogician

Farzana.

I am a foreigner but have great respect for people like you who protect their country in these two practical ways.

1. Being pessimistic, almost cynical in intellectual content about the country

2. Being equally positive in doing what needs to be done.

In melancholic and tragic days like these, when suspicion tops the list of everyone who is not numbed to the effects of hate, it`s easy to forget what matters. We must accept our limits of how much we can change in the world and yet do as if we can change. What matters when you take that approach is; personal communication, a witty line, a truthful statement in the press, courageous moves amidst disparity don`t go unnoticed. I did not realize that I could feel so bad about what is going on in India, the decayed flesh and rape and all I read in the TIMES issue, I wish there could be something I can offer to you for strength except that I know your choices and India`s sanity will prosper over this fanaticism. I hope and pray this is all over soon.

Sincerely,

Aisha F Sarwari

Pakis, please note: Rushdie loves India ``deeply.``

tantralogician

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A58173-2002Mar7.html

Slaughter in the Name of God

By Salman Rushdie

The defining image of the week, for me, is of a small child`s burned and

blackened arm, its tiny fingers curled into a fist, protruding from the remains of a

human bonfire in Ahmadabad, Gujarat, in India. The murder of children is

something of an Indian specialty. The routine daily killings of unwanted girl babies

. . . the massacre of innocents in Nellie, Assam, in the 1980s when village

turned against neighboring village . . . the massacre of Sikh children in Delhi

during the horrifying reprisal murders that followed Indira Gandhi`s

assassination: They bear witness to our particular gift, always most dazzlingly in evidence

at times of religious unrest, for dousing our children in kerosene and setting

them alight, or cutting their throats, or smothering them or just clubbing them

to death with a good strong length of wood.

I say ``our`` because I write as an Indian man, born and bred, who loves India

deeply and knows that what one of us does today, any of us is potentially capable

of doing tomorrow. If I take pride in India`s strengths, then India`s sins must

be mine as well. Do I sound angry? Good. Ashamed and disgusted? I certainly

hope so. Because, as India undergoes its worst bout of Hindu-Muslim bloodletting

in more than a decade, many people have not been sounding anything like angry,

ashamed or disgusted enough. Police chiefs have been excusing their men`s

unwillingness to defend the citizens of India, without regard to religion, by saying

that these men have feelings too and are subject to the same sentiments as the

nation in general.

Meanwhile, India`s political masters have been tut-tutting and offering the

usual soothing lies about the situation being brought under control. (It has

escaped nobody`s notice that the ruling party, the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), or

Indian People`s Party, and the Hindu extremists of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad

(VHP), or World Hindu Council, are sister organizations and offshoots of the same

parent body.) Even some international commentators, such as Britain`s

Independent newspaper, urge us to ``beware excess pessimism.``

The horrible truth about communal slaughter in India is that we`re used to it.

It happens every so often; then it dies down. That`s how life is, folks. Most

of the time India is the world`s largest secular democracy; and if, once in a

while, it lets off a little crazy religious steam, we mustn`t let that distort

the picture.

Of course, there are political explanations. Ever since December 1992, when a

VHP mob demolished a 400-year-old Muslim mosque in Ayodhya, which they claim was

built on the sacred birthplace of the god Ram, Hindu fanatics have been looking

for this fight. The pity of it is that some Muslims were ready to give it to

them. Their murderous attack on the train-load of VHP activists at Godhra (with

its awful, atavistic echoes of the killings of Hindus and Muslims by the

train-load during the partition riots of 1947) played right into the Hindu extremists`

hands.

The VHP has evidently tired of what it sees as the equivocations and

insufficient radicalism of India`s BJP government. Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee is

more moderate than his party; he also heads a coalition government and has been

obliged to abandon much of the BJP`s more extreme Hindu nationalist rhetoric to

hold the coalition together. But it isn`t working anymore. In state elections

across the country, the BJP is being trounced. This may have been the last straw

for the VHP firebrands. Why put up with the government`s betrayal of their

fascistic agenda when that betrayal doesn`t even result in electoral success?

The electoral failure of the BJP is thus, in all probability, the spark that

lit the fire. The VHP is determined to build a Hindu temple on the site of the

demolished Ayodhya mosque -- that`s where the Godhra dead were coming from -- and

there are, reprehensibly, idiotically, tragically, Muslims in India equally

determined to resist them. Vajpayee has insisted that the slow Indian courts

must decide the rights and wrongs of the Ayodhya issue. The VHP is no longer

prepared to wait.

The distinguished Indian writer Mahasveta Devi, in a letter to India`s

president, K. R. Narayanan, blames the Gujarat government (led by a BJP hard-liner) as

well as the central government for doing ``too little too late.`` She pins the

blame firmly on the ``motivated, well-planned out and provocative actions`` of the

Hindu nationalists. But another writer, the Nobel laureate V. S. Naipaul,

speaking in India just a week before the violence erupted, denounced India`s Muslims

en masse and praised the nationalist movement.

The murderers of Godhra must indeed be denounced, and Mahasveta Devi in her

letter demands ``stern legal action`` against them. But the VHP is determined to

destroy that secular democracy in which India takes such public pride and which

it does so little to protect; and by supporting them, Naipaul makes himself a

fellow traveler of fascism and disgraces the Nobel award.

The political discourse matters, and explains a good deal. But there`s

something beneath it, something we don`t want to look in the face: namely, that in

India, as elsewhere in our darkening world, religion is the poison in the blood.

Where religion intervenes, mere innocence is no excuse. Yet we go on skating

around this issue, speaking of religion in the fashionable language of ``respect.``

What is there to respect in any of this, or in any of the crimes now being

committed almost daily around the world in religion`s dreaded name? How well, with

what fatal results, religion erects totems, and how willing we are to kill for

them! And when we`ve done it often enough, the deadening of affect that results

makes it easier to do it again.

So India`s problem turns out to be the world`s problem. What happened in India

has happened in God`s name. The problem`s name is God.

Salman Rushdie is a novelist and author of the forthcoming essay

collection ``Step Across This Line.``

=== Interact Filtered ===
view this users filtered interacts

RE: EST Reply #: 3 tantralogician wrote

``Pakis, please note: Rushdie loves India ``deeply.``


tantralogician, Rushdie loves India so much that
he introduced himself as a ``Pakistani Author`` in his first major work ``Grimus``. Please get a
hard cover copy of this novel and read the intro.
To Rushdie, whatever sells at the moment...

Ras

Ferzi:

[…but it is a policy I follow – no foreigner will be allowed to get away with criticising my country…]

…understand that…now sit back and let the innuendos and vitriol be hurled about without abandon by the usual ‘admirers’…cyberlynching indeed!…these are trying times for everyone everywhere…

…it is interesting to note how more chowkies are soul searching…and more importantly taking a thoughtful and positive stand…despite the awareness that there are no easy answers or solutions and such tragedies will continue to occur in future as well…we are so imperfect!… may shanti and samaajh prevail!

bspnd,

t

ps: go to the dargah and check out jalo aur jalo…

... ah yes, just the objective voice - Farzana Versey - we need to weigh in on this grave topic ...

http://www.kavitanjali.com/pgfeb02/shame.htm

Shame Shame

Broken vessels on the floor

Once carpeted, now no more

Shards of glass from picture frame

sordid tale of last night`s shame

Neighbours cowered under their sheet

A ferocious mob entered the street

Hands carrying torches aflame

Shouting aloud their own god`s name

They broke down the door

They ransacked the house

Thrashed the old man

And then his frail spouse

Poured petrol on the carpeted floor

On the windows and the door

Pushed the couple into a room

And locked them within to face doom

They torched the house

Roaring louder than the fire

Who were these animals?

Men or butchers on hire?

Deaf neighbours didn`t hear them scream

Lost in their own nightmarish dream

Stuffing their ears with trembling sheet

Yellow bellies and soft clay feet

http://www.kavitanjali.com/pgfeb02/theseedofviolence.htm

Cries of anger and of pain

As images of a burning train

Like a branding iron hot

Seared hatred in the brain

A burning woman, sari aflame

Clutching her child without a name

Mouth open in horror and fear

For her death whom do you blame?

Burning embers far and wide

Carried forward on hatred`s tide

Setting afire innocent homes

For those inside, no place to hide

Other women in different garb

Impaled on vengeance`s barb

Mouth open in horror and fear

No protection far and near

An innocent life taken in vain

Cannot innocent life avenge

While culprits hide like cowards

This is barbarism and not revenge

Wild fire now burns the land

Flames that boil the blood

A torch now in a brainless hand

Who`ll stem this vengeful flood?

Politics the hot whirlwind

Emanating from barren souls

Laying waste a land of peace

Now inhabited by vengeful ghouls

Can`t you see it all you fools

`Tis what our enemies seek

That we hate and kill each other

And burning bodies reek

Stop this now, stop it please

Do not vengeance breed

For somewhere in a quaking soul

It plants a violent seed

The cycle will never end

Like weed upon this soil

Destroy the very garden

We have built with our toil.

http://www.kavitanjali.com/pow.htm

ONCE AGAIN MY HEAD BOWS DOWN IN SHAME

Oh! once again my head bows down in shame,

Eyes shudder to open to horrendous barbaric strains,

Ears plead to deafen out those agonizing wails,

Is that humanity being snuffed out by the humanity gone astray.

Why was I not born a bird or an animal tame,

Why not an unselfish flower or a river untame,

Why couldn`t my being help enlighten lives,

Why couldn`t my kind enthuse joy in place of cries,

How could fathers, brothers, sons be perpetrators of such heinous barbarism,

Killers, murderers, looters ,plunderers, maligning all that was humanism,

Torching, maiming ,killing, deriving sadistic pleasures from

Satanism,

Followers of God`s chosen path, calling themselves Hindus and Muslims,

Forgetting they are the Lord`s best creation indulge in all that is bestial,

Oh! to be a bird or an animal tame......

Once again my head bows down in shame.......

Women Chowkies,

Forgive me for using this board for this event, but I didn`t know where else to post it. Hope to see some NYC Chowkies at this event:

Its March 8th; to all the women Chowkies out there

Happy International Working Woman`s Day

Saturday, March 16 7:00 - 10:00 pm

The Brecht Forum & the Women of Resistance in Brooklyn present Roses & Bread: 7th Annual Open Poetry & Performance Event

An International Women`s Day Tribute to Arab & Muslim Women and Benefit for RAWA, the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan

Featuring: Nawal El Saadawi, Suheir Hammad and others TBA

We have just received word that Egyptian psychiatrist and writer Nawal Al Saadawi will be joining us at our 7th International Women`s Day

celebration. Saadawi is best known in the West for her novels, such as ``Women at Point Zero`` and ``God Dies By the Nile``. She writes against ancient customs oppressing Arab women, including her very personal account of the pain of female circumcision. In her words: ``We are living in a class patriarchal system, based on class and male

domination. This system breeds religious fundamentalism, paradoxes,injustices, and violence.``

Suheir Hammad is a Palestinian-American poet and activist, author of ``Born Palestinian, Born Black`` whose incendiary and lyrical verse ranges topics of police brutality, the

prison industrial complex, political prisoners, imperialism and the struggle for a free Palestine.

Join us for an evening of electric and intergenerational poetry,prose,politics and music as we celebrate International Women`s Day and

honor the inspirational and revolutionary work of the Revolutionary Association of the Women of Afghanistan.

[How can those going to Ayodhya be called pilgrims when they had a specific agenda? Do people go on Haj carrying weapons? This year Haj pilgrims were in fact put through extensive search, with US and French experts stationed at Jeddah airport doing digital eye scanning and finger printing. Why did an Islamic country permit such Western intrusion? Only to prove to the world that its hands were clean?]

Those who went to Ayodhya went with arms, according to the author. What use are arms in building a temple, when their avowed purpose in going to Ayodhya was to help build the temple? The police in Ayodhya certainly enforced the laws because nothing has happened in Ayodhya, NOTHING! So why blame the Ayodhya pilgrims for their thoughts, feelings, etc., when they were prevented from putting them into action? Isn`t it a crime only when an overt act that is against the law or against court orders is committed? Are you suggesting a Thought Police for India? Where was that Thought Police when the demand for Pakistan was mooted?

Regarding the search of the pilgrims to Mecca, perhaps this was a reaction to the Sept 11 events. With the knowledge that Osama bin Laden has an extensive network of operatives and that his aim would be to blacken the name of the Government of Saudi Arabia even if it means doing damage to the Kaaba, the Saudi Government took precautions to screen out terrorists. Were similar precautions taken at Ayodhya during periods of heightened tension? Yes; when I visited Ayodhya in March 1993, we went through a series of barricades, policemen searched us and security was ensured at the Babri Masjid site. That same month, to enter the Vishwanath Temple in Benares, I had to go through several checkpoints, through an airport-style metal detector and then was wanded with a metal detector before I was allowed into the temple. So long as there is a reason to anticipate trouble, the Indian government does take precautions. Benares was crawling with troops because the government knew fully well that the VHP had on its mind demolition of the Aurangzeb mosque there. There were groups of soldiers numbering in the dozens on every street.

To return from Ayodhya, one probably takes the train at Lucknow. Here are the major stations for the Gorakhpur-Ahmedabad Express: Gonda, Barabanki, Lucknow, Kanpur, Etawah, Tundla, Agra Cantt., Gwalior, Jhansi, Bina, Guna, Maksi, Ujjain, Nagda, Ratlam, Godhra, Vadodara, Anand, Ahmadabad. Do you mean to tell me there are no Muslims in Lucknow or Kanpur (remember Lucknow was the capital of the Nawab of Oude) or any of the other stations along the way? If there were, how come the pilgrims did not offend them by their behavior? How is it that only when they reached Gujarat they started exposing themselves to other passengers, abused Muslims, and alleged to have kidnapped a Muslim girl from the Dahod station? Don`t forget that we are talking about Gujaratis here who were derided only 10 days back on Chowk as never having the guts to fight the Pakistanis when they join the Indian Army. All of a sudden, they have become instigators of the incidents that caused the Islamic thugs of Godhra to set fire to their railway carriage?

The real trouble is that we will never find out the truth about how the whole incident on the train started. That is because all witnesses, after taking the oath to tell the truth, will say exactly what they think the tribunal wants to hear or what they have been told by their handlers to say. There is no respect for truth; so you can expect the Hindus to swear up and down the line that the Muslims started the trouble and the Muslims will say that the Hindus started the trouble. What we will get is a politically acceptable report that blames both communities in more or less equal measure.

[The daughter was a wonderful girl who said, “namaste”, but her father was less charitable (incidentally the only Malay Muslim I met who felt this way). He asked me what Vajpayee was doing. I said he was helpless.]

I would have told him that people were running amok and he should know exactly what that means, considering that `amok` is a Malay word. I would have also told him that the Gujaratis were doing on an extremely small scale what his cousins across the straits the Indonesians did in East Timor.

Farzana,

Our thoughts and prayers are with you.

Balbir Punj wrote in the Pioneer that those on the train were only chanting “Jai Sri Ram and Jai Bajrang Bali” and such ‘socio-religious slogans’. “But none can contend the VHP’s right to demonstrate for a cause it considers right, regardless of what others might think. Democracy also allows one to raise slogans in support of one’s cause so long as it does not hurt anyone else.” But this was meant to hurt and destroy. Following September 11, when Muslims in some pockets displayed Osama’s pictures, why was there a hue and cry? How did it hurt the Hindus? Are they Americans?



Comparing Ram with Osama??

re:tantra

with the comment

``The misery Muslims have visited upon the rest of the world... ``

you have only exposed your own communalism and ignorance which generally accompanies it.

re: Shah

The narration of incidence which lead to the burning of the carriage does not in any way absolve those who committed the act of burning innocent people whatever the provocation. It has to be condemned in no uncertain terms. But at the same time what happened afterwards can in no way be compared with this incidence. What has taken place during the following few days is a heineous crime which if not dealt with properly will lead to the destruction of India as we know it. Here it was not an angry mob at work. But it was an organised activity by a section of the fascist elements in our society, aided and abetted by the state machinery, which went on destroying lives on communal basis.

This is yet another sign of the rising confidenbce of the `Hindu Taliban`.

It has been said that people who condemn this carnage should also condemn the activities of the muslim fundamentalists. The boot is now on the other foot. Let us see how many condemn this act with the same ferocity as september 11 or the terrorists in Kashmir .

Farzana:

These riots should make all Indians hang their heads in shame. Period. No ifs, ands or buts.