9 Is Not 11 (And November isn't September)

[In case you have missed it]

9 Is Not 11
(And November isn't September)

ARUNDHATI ROY
Dec 22, 2008


We've forfeited the rights to our own tragedies. As the carnage in Mumbai raged on, day after horrible day, our 24-hour news channels informed us that we were watching "India's 9/11". And like actors in a Bollywood rip-off of an old Hollywood film, we're expected to play our parts and say our lines, even though we know it's all been said and done before.

As tension in the region builds, US Senator John McCain has warned Pakistan that if it didn't act fast to arrest the 'Bad Guys' he had personal information that India would launch air strikes on 'terrorist camps' in Pakistan and that Washington could do nothing because Mumbai was India's 9/11.

But November isn't September, 2008 isn't 2001, Pakistan isn't Afghanistan and India isn't America. So perhaps we should reclaim our tragedy and pick through the debris with our own brains and our own broken hearts so that we can arrive at our own conclusions.

It's odd how in the last week of November thousands of people in Kashmir supervised by thousands of Indian troops lined up to cast their vote, while the richest quarters of India's richest city ended up looking like war-torn Kupwara—one of Kashmir's most ravaged districts.

The Mumbai attacks are only the most recent of a spate of terrorist attacks on Indian towns and cities this year. Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Delhi, Guwahati, Jaipur and Malegaon have all seen serial bomb blasts in which hundreds of ordinary people have been killed and wounded. If the police are right about the people they have arrested as suspects, both Hindu and Muslim, all Indian nationals, it obviously means something's going very badly wrong in this country.

If you were watching television you may not have heard that ordinary people too died in Mumbai. They were mowed down in a busy railway station and a public hospital. The terrorists did not distinguish between poor and rich. They killed both with equal cold-bloodedness. The Indian media, however, was transfixed by the rising tide of horror that breached the glittering barricades of India Shining and spread its stench in the marbled lobbies and crystal ballrooms of two incredibly luxurious hotels and a small Jewish centre. We're told one of these hotels is an icon of the city of Mumbai. That's absolutely true. It's an icon of the easy, obscene injustice that ordinary Indians endure every day. On a day when the newspapers were full of moving obituaries by beautiful people about the hotel rooms they had stayed in, the gourmet restaurants they loved (ironically, one was called Kandahar), and the staff who served them, a small box on the top left-hand corner
in the inner pages of a national newspaper (sponsored by a pizza company I think) said 'Hungry, kya?' (Hungry eh?). It then, with the best of intentions I'm sure, informed its readers that on the international hunger index, India ranked below Sudan and Somalia. But of course this isn't that war. That one's still being fought in the Dalit bastis of our villages, on the banks of the Narmada and the Koel Karo rivers; in the rubber estate in Chengara; in the villages of Nandigram, Singur, Lalgarh in West Bengal; in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand, Orissa; and the slums and shantytowns of our gigantic cities. That war isn't on TV. Yet. So maybe, like everyone else, we should deal with the one that is.

There is a fierce, unforgiving fault line that runs through the contemporary discourse on terrorism. On one side (let's call it Side A) are those who see terrorism, especially 'Islamist' terrorism, as a hateful, insane scourge that spins on its own axis, in its own orbit and has nothing to do with the world around it, nothing to do with history, geography or economics. Therefore, Side A says, to try and place it in a political context, or even try to understand it, amounts to justifying it and is a crime in itself.Side B believes that though nothing can ever excuse or justify terrorism, it exists in a particular time, place and political context, and to refuse to see that will only aggravate the problem and put more and more people in harm's way. Which is a crime in itself.

The sayings of Hafiz Saeed, who founded the Lashkar-e-Toiba (Army of the Pure) in 1990 and who belongs to the hardline Salafi tradition of Islam, certainly bolster the case of Side A. Hafiz Saeed approves of suicide bombing, hates Jews, Shias and Democracy, and believes that jehad should be waged until Islam, his Islam, rules the world. Among the things he has said are:

"There cannot be any peace while India remains intact. Cut them, cut them so much that they kneel before you and ask for mercy."

And, "India has shown us this path. We would like to give India a tit-for-tat response and reciprocate in the same way by killing the Hindus, just like it is killing the Muslims in Kashmir."

But where would Side A accommodate the sayings of Babu Bajrangi of Ahmedabad, India, who sees himself as a democrat, not a terrorist? He was one of the major lynchpins of the 2002 Gujarat genocide and has said (on camera):

"We didn't spare a single Muslim shop, we set everything on fire...we hacked, burned, set on fire...we believe in setting them on fire because these bastards don't want to be cremated, they're afraid of it.... I have just one last wish...let me be sentenced to death.... I don't care if I'm hanged...just give me two days before my hanging and I will go and have a field day in Juhapura where seven or eight lakhs of these people stay.... I will finish them off...let a few more of them die...at least twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand should die."

And where, in Side A's scheme of things, would we place the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh bible, We, or Our Nationhood Defined by M.S. Golwalkar 'Guruji', who became head of the RSS in 1944. It says:

"Ever since that evil day, when Moslems first landed in Hindustan, right up to the present moment, the Hindu Nation has been gallantly fighting on to take on these despoilers. The Race Spirit has been awakening."

Or:

"To keep up the purity of its race and culture, Germany shocked the world by her purging the country of the Semitic races—the Jews. Race pride at its highest has been manifested here...a good lesson for us in Hindustan to learn and profit by."

Of course, Muslims are not the only people in the gun sights of the Hindu Right. Dalits have been consistently targeted. Recently in Kandhamal in Orissa, Christians were the target of two-and-a-half months of violence which left more than 40 dead. Forty thousand people have been driven from their homes, half of whom now live in refugee camps.

All these years, Hafiz Saeed has lived the life of a respectable man in Lahore as the head of the Jamaat-ud-Dawa, which many believe is a front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Toiba. He continued to recruit young boys for his own bigoted jehad with his twisted, fiery sermons. On December 11, the UN imposed sanctions on the Jamaat-ud-Dawa and the Pakistani government succumbed to international pressure, putting Hafiz Saeed under house arrest. Babu Bajrangi, however, is out on bail and continues to live the life of a respectable man in Gujarat. A couple of years after the genocide, he left the VHP to join the Shiv Sena. Narendra Modi, Bajrangi's former mentor, is still the chief minister of Gujarat. So the man who presided over the Gujarat genocide was re-elected twice, and is deeply respected by India's biggest corporate houses, Reliance and Tata. Suhel Seth, a TV impresario and corporate spokesperson, has recently said, "Modi is God." The policemen who
supervised and sometimes even assisted the rampaging Hindu mobs in Gujarat have been rewarded and promoted.The RSS has 45,000 branches, its own range of charities and seven million volunteers preaching its doctrine of hate across India. They include Narendra Modi, but also former prime minister A.B. Vajpayee, current Leader of the Opposition L.K. Advani, and a host of other senior politicians, bureaucrats and police and intelligence officers.

And if that's not enough to complicate our picture of secular democracy, we should place on record that there are plenty of Muslim organisations within India preaching their own narrow bigotry.

So, on balance, if I had to choose between Side A and Side B, I'd pick Side B. We need context. Always.

In this nuclear subcontinent, that context is Partition. The Radcliffe Line which separated India and Pakistan and tore through states, districts, villages, fields, communities, water systems, homes and families, was drawn virtually overnight. It was Britain's final, parting kick to us. Partition triggered the massacre of more than a million people and the largest migration of a human population in contemporary history. Eight million people—Hindus fleeing the new Pakistan, Muslims fleeing the new kind of India—left their homes with nothing but the clothes on their backs. Each of those people carries and passes down a story of unimaginable pain, hate, horror, but yearning too. That wound, those torn but still unsevered muscles, that blood and those splintered bones still lock us together in a close embrace of hatred, terrifying familiarity but also love. It has left Kashmir trapped in a nightmare from which it can't seem to emerge, a nightmare that
has claimed more than 60,000 lives. Pakistan, the Land of the Pure, became an Islamic republic, and then, very quickly a corrupt, violent military state, openly intolerant of other faiths. India on the other hand declared herself an inclusive, secular democracy. It was a magnificent undertaking, but Babu Bajrangi's predecessors had been hard at work since the 1920s, dripping poison into India's bloodstream, undermining that idea of India even before it was born. By 1990, they were ready to make a bid for power. In 1992, Hindu mobs exhorted by L.K. Advani stormed the Babri Masjid and demolished it. By 1998, the BJP was in power at the Centre. The US War on Terror put the wind in their sails. It allowed them to do exactly as they pleased, even to commit genocide and then present their fascism as a legitimate form of chaotic democracy. This happened at a time when India had opened its huge market to international finance, and it was in the interests of
international corporations and the media houses they owned to project it as a country that could do no wrong. That gave Hindu Nationalists all the impetus and the impunity they needed. This, then, is the larger historical context of terrorism in the subcontinent, and of the Mumbai attacks.

It shouldn't surprise us that Hafiz Saeed of the Lashkar-e-Toiba is from Shimla (India) and L.K. Advani of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh is from Sindh (Pakistan).

In much the same way as it did after the 2001 Parliament attack, the 2002 burning of the Sabarmati Express and the 2006 bombing of the Samjhauta Express, the Government of India announced that it has 'incontrovertible' evidence that the Lashkar-e-Toiba backed by Pakistan's ISI was behind the Mumbai strikes. The Lashkar has denied involvement, but remains the prime accused. According to the police and intelligence agencies, the Lashkar operates in India through an organisation called the 'Indian Mujahideen'. Two Indian nationals—Sheikh Mukhtar Ahmed, a Special Police Officer working for the Jammu and Kashmir Police, and Tausif Rehman, a resident of Calcutta in West Bengal—have been arrested in connection with the Mumbai attacks. So already the neat accusation against Pakistan is getting a little messy.Almost always, when these stories unspool, they reveal a complicated global network of foot-soldiers, trainers, recruiters, middlemen and undercover
intelligence and counter-intelligence operatives, working not just on both sides of the India-Pakistan border, but in several countries simultaneously. In today's world, trying to pin down the provenance of a terrorist strike and isolate it within the borders of a single nation-state is very much like trying to pin down the provenance of corporate money. It's almost impossible.

In circumstances like these, air strikes to 'take out' terrorist camps may take out the camps, but certainly will not 'take out' the terrorists. And neither will war. (Also, in our bid for the moral high ground, let's try not to forget that the Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam, the LTTE of neighbouring Sri Lanka, one of the world's most deadly terrorist groups, were trained by the Indian army.)


Afghan revenge: America’s debris, our headache

Thanks largely to the part it was forced to play as America's ally, first in its war in support of the Afghan Islamists and then in its war against them, Pakistan, whose territory is reeling under these contradictions, is careening towards civil war. As recruiting agents for America's jehad against the Soviet Union, it was the job of the Pakistan army and the ISI to nurture and channel funds to Islamic fundamentalist organisations. Having wired up these Frankenstein's monsters and released them into the world, the US expected it could rein them in like pet mastiffs whenever it wanted to. Certainly it did not expect them to come calling in the heart of the Homeland on September 11. So once again, Afghanistan had to be violently re-made. Now the debris of a re-ravaged Afghanistan has washed up on Pakistan's borders. Nobody, least of all the Pakistan government, denies that it is presiding over a country that is threatening to implode. The terrorist
training camps, the fire-breathing mullahs and the maniacs who believe that Islam will, or should, rule the world is mostly the detritus of two Afghan wars. Their ire rains down on the Pakistan government and Pakistani civilians as much, if not more, than it does on India. If at this point India decides to go to war, perhaps the descent of the whole region into chaos will be complete. The debris of a bankrupt, destroyed Pakistan will wash up on India's shores, endangering us as never before. If Pakistan collapses, we can look forward to having millions of 'non-state actors' with an arsenal of nuclear weapons at their disposal as neighbours. It's hard to understand why those who steer India's ship are so keen to replicate Pakistan's mistakes and call damnation upon this country by inviting the United States to further meddle clumsily and dangerously in our extremely complicated affairs. A superpower never has allies. It only has agents.

On the plus side, the advantage of going to war is that it's the best way for India to avoid facing up to the serious trouble building on our home front.

The Mumbai attacks were broadcast live (and exclusive!) on all or most of our 67 24-hour news channels and god knows how many international ones. TV anchors in their studios and journalists at 'ground zero' kept up an endless stream of excited commentary. Over three days and three nights, we watched in disbelief as a small group of very young men armed with guns and gadgets exposed the powerlessness of the police, the elite National Security Guard and the marine commandos of this supposedly mighty, nuclear-powered nation. While they did this, they indiscriminately massacred unarmed people, in railway stations, hospitals and luxury hotels, unmindful of their class, caste, religion or nationality.Part of the helplessness of the security forces had to do with having to worry about hostages. In other situations, in Kashmir for example, their tactics are not so sensitive. Whole buildings are blown up. Human shields are used. (The US and Israeli armies don't
hesitate to send cruise missiles into buildings and drop daisy cutters on wedding parties in Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan.) But this was different. And it was on TV.

The boy-terrorists' nonchalant willingness to kill—and be killed—mesmerised their international audience. They delivered something different from the usual diet of suicide bombings and missile attacks that people have grown inured to on the news. Here was something new. Die Hard 25. The gruesome performance went on and on. TV ratings soared. Ask any television magnate or corporate advertiser who measures broadcast time in seconds, not minutes, what that's worth.

Eventually the killers died and died hard, all but one. (Perhaps, in the chaos, some escaped. We may never know.) Throughout the stand-off, the terrorists made no demands and expressed no desire to negotiate. Their purpose was to kill people and inflict as much damage as they could before they were killed themselves. They left us completely bewildered. When we say 'Nothing can justify terrorism', what most of us mean is that nothing can justify the taking of human life. We say this because we respect life, because we think it's precious. So what are we to make of those who care nothing for life, not even their own? The truth is that we have no idea what to make of them, because we can sense that even before they've died, they've journeyed to another world where we cannot reach them.


Gujarat ’02: The elephant in the room

One TV channel (India TV) broadcast a phone conversation with one of the attackers, who called himself 'Imran Babar'. I cannot vouch for the veracity of the conversation, but the things he talked about were the things contained in the 'terror e-mails' that were sent out before several other bomb attacks in India. Things we don't want to talk about any more: the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992, the genocidal slaughter of Muslims in Gujarat in 2002, the brutal repression in Kashmir. "You're surrounded," the anchor told him. "You are definitely going to die. Why don't you surrender?" "We die every day," he replied in a strange, mechanical way. "It's better to live one day as a lion and then die this way." He didn't seem to want to change the world. He just seemed to want to take it down with him.

If the men were indeed members of the Lashkar-e-Toiba, why didn't it matter to them that a large number of their victims were Muslim, or that their action was likely to result in a severe backlash against the Muslim community in India whose rights they claim to be fighting for? Terrorism is a heartless ideology, and like most ideologies that have their eye on the Big Picture, individuals don't figure in its calculations except as collateral damage. It has always been a part of—and often even the aim of—terrorist strategy to exacerbate a bad situation in order to expose hidden fault lines. The blood of 'martyrs' irrigates terrorism. Hindu terrorists need dead Hindus, Communist terrorists need dead proletarians, Islamist terrorists need dead Muslims. The dead become the demonstration, the proof of victimhood, which is central to the project. A single act of terrorism is not in itself meant to achieve military victory; at best it is meant to be a
catalyst that triggers something else, something much larger than itself, a tectonic shift, a realignment. The act itself is theatre, spectacle and symbolism, and today, the stage on which it pirouettes and performs its acts of bestiality is Live TV.Even as the Mumbai terrorists were being condemned by TV anchors, the effectiveness of their action was magnified a thousand-fold by TV broadcasts.


Forgotten man: Former PM V.P. Singh’s death passed without a mention

Through the endless hours of analysis and the endless op-ed essays, in India at least there has been very little mention of the elephants in the room: Kashmir, Gujarat and the demolition of the Babri Masjid. Instead, we had retired diplomats and strategic experts debate the pros and cons of a war against Pakistan. We had the rich threatening not to pay their taxes unless their security was guaranteed (is it alright for the poor to remain unprotected?). We had people suggest that the government step down and each state in India be handed over to a separate corporation. We had the death of former prime minister V.P. Singh, the hero of Dalits and lower castes and villain of upper-caste Hindus, pass without a mention. We had Suketu Mehta, author of Maximum City and co-writer of the Bollywood film Mission Kashmir, give us his version of George Bush's famous 'Why They Hate Us' speech. His analysis of why "religious bigots, both Hindu and Muslim", hate Mumbai:
"Perhaps because Mumbai stands for lucre, profane dreams and an indiscriminate openness." His prescription: "The best answer to the terrorists is to dream bigger, make even more money, and visit Mumbai more than ever." Didn't George Bush ask Americans to go out and shop after 9/11? Ah yes. 9/11, the day we can't seem to get away from.

Though one chapter of horror in Mumbai has ended, another might have just begun. Day after day, a powerful, vociferous section of the Indian elite, goaded by marauding TV anchors who make Fox News look almost radical and left-wing, have taken to mindlessly attacking politicians, all politicians, glorifying the police and the army, and virtually asking for a police state. It isn't surprising that those who have grown plump on the pickings of democracy (such as it is) should now be calling for a police state. The era of 'pickings' is long gone. We're now in the era of Grabbing by Force, and democracy has a terrible habit of getting in the way.

Dangerous, stupid television flash cards like the Police are Good, Politicians are Bad/ Chief Executives are Good, Chief Ministers are Bad/ Army is Good, Government is Bad/ India is Good, Pakistan is Bad are being bandied about by TV channels that have already whipped their viewers into a state of almost uncontrollable hysteria.

Tragically, this regression into intellectual infancy comes at a time when people in India were beginning to see that the business of terrorism is a hall of mirrors in which victims and perpetrators sometimes exchange roles. It's an understanding that the people of Kashmir, given their dreadful experiences of the last 20 years, have honed to an exquisite art. On the mainland we're still learning. (If Kashmir won't willingly integrate into India, it's beginning to look as though India will integrate/disintegrate into Kashmir.)

It was after the 2001 Parliament attack that the first serious questions began to be raised. A campaign by a group of lawyers and activists exposed how innocent people had been framed by the police and the press, how evidence was fabricated, how witnesses lied, how due process had been criminally violated at every stage of the investigation. Eventually the courts acquitted two out of the four accused, including S.A.R. Geelani, the man whom the police claimed was the mastermind of the operation. A third, Shaukat Guru, was acquitted of all the charges brought against him but was then convicted for a fresh, comparatively minor offence.The Supreme Court upheld the death sentence of another of the accused, Mohammad Afzal. In its judgement, the court acknowledged that there was no proof that Mohammad Afzal belonged to any terrorist group, but went on to say, quite shockingly, "The collective conscience of the society will only be satisfied if capital
punishment is awarded to the offender. " Even today we don't really know who the terrorists that attacked Indian Parliament were and who they worked for.

More recently, on September 19 this year, we had the controversial 'encounter' at Batla House in Jamia Nagar, Delhi, where the Special Cell of the Delhi police gunned down two Muslim students in their rented flat under seriously questionable circumstances, claiming that they were responsible for serial bombings in Delhi, Jaipur and Ahmedabad in 2008. An Assistant Commissioner of Police, Mohan Chand Sharma, who played a key role in the Parliament attack investigation, lost his life as well. He was one of India's many 'encounter specialists', known and rewarded for having summarily executed several 'terrorists'. There was an outcry against the Special Cell from a spectrum of people, ranging from eyewitnesses in the local community to senior Congress Party leaders, students, journalists, lawyers, academics and activists, all of whom demanded a judicial inquiry into the incident. In response, the BJP and L.K. Advani lauded Mohan Chand Sharma as a
'Braveheart' and launched a concerted campaign in which they targeted those who had dared to question the integrity of the police, saying it was 'suicidal' and calling them 'anti-national'. Of course, there has been no inquiry.

Only days after the Batla House event, another story about 'terrorists' surfaced in the news. In a report submitted to the court, the CBI said that a team from Delhi's Special Cell (the same team that led the Batla House encounter, including Mohan Chand Sharma) had abducted two innocent men, Irshad Ali and Moarif Qamar, in December 2005, planted 2 kg of RDX and two pistols on them, and then arrested them as 'terrorists' who belonged to Al Badr (which operates out of Kashmir). Ali and Qamar, who have spent years in jail, are only two examples out of hundreds of Muslims who have been similarly jailed, tortured and even killed on false charges.

This pattern changed in October 2008 when Maharashtra's Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), which was investigating the September 2008 Malegaon blasts, arrested a Hindu preacher, Sadhvi Pragya; a self-styled godman, Swami Dayanand Pande; and Lt Col Prasad Purohit, a serving officer of the Indian army. All the arrested belong to Hindu Nationalist organisations, including a Hindu supremacist group called Abhinav Bharat. The Shiv Sena, the BJP and the RSS condemned the Maharashtra ATS, and vilified its chief, Hemant Karkare, claiming he was part of a political conspiracy and declaring that "Hindus could not be terrorists". L.K. Advani changed his mind about his policy on the police and made rabble-rousing speeches to huge gatherings, in which he denounced the ATS for daring to cast aspersions on holy men and women.

On November 25, newspapers reported that the ATS was investigating the high-profile VHP chief Praveen Togadia's possible role in the Malegaon blasts. The next day, in an extraordinary twist of fate, Hemant Karkare was killed in the Mumbai attacks. The chances are that the new chief, whoever he is, will find it hard to withstand the political pressure that is bound to be brought on him over the Malegaon investigation.

While the Sangh parivar does not seem to have come to a final decision over whether or not it is anti-national and suicidal to question the police, Arnab Goswami, anchorperson of Times Now television channel, has stepped up to the plate.He has taken to naming, demonising and openly heckling people who have dared to question the integrity of the police and armed forces. My name and the name of the well-known lawyer Prashant Bhushan have come up several times. At one point, while interviewing a former police officer, Arnab Goswami turned to the camera; "Arundhati Roy and Prashant Bhushan," he said, "I hope you are watching this. We think you are disgusting." For a TV anchor to do this in an atmosphere as charged and as frenzied as the one that prevails today amounts to incitement as well as threat, and would probably in different circumstances have cost a journalist his or her job.

So according to a man aspiring to be India's next prime minister, and another who is the public face of a mainstream TV channel, citizens have no right to raise questions about the police. This in a country with a shadowy history of suspicious terror attacks, murky investigations, and fake 'encounters'. This in a country that boasts of the highest number of custodial deaths in the world and yet refuses to ratify the International Covenant on Torture. A country where the ones who make it to torture chambers are the lucky ones because at least they've escaped being 'encountered' by our encounter specialists. A country where the line between the Underworld and the Encounter Specialists virtually does not exist.

How should those of us whose hearts have been sickened by the knowledge of all of this view the Mumbai attacks, and what are we to do about them? There are those who point out that US strategy has been successful inasmuch as the United States has not suffered a major attack on its home ground since 9/11. However, some would say that what America is suffering now is far worse. If the idea behind the 9/11 terror attacks was to goad America into showing its true colours, what greater success could the terrorists have asked for? The US army is bogged down in two unwinnable wars, which have made the United States the most hated country in the world. Those wars have contributed greatly to the unravelling of the American economy and, who knows, perhaps eventually the American empire. (Could it be that battered, bombed Afghanistan, the graveyard of the Soviet Union, will be the undoing of this one too?) Hundreds of thousands of people, including thousands of
American soldiers, have lost their lives in Iraq and Afghanistan. The frequency of terrorist strikes on US allies/agents (including India) and US interests in the rest of the world has increased dramatically since 9/11. George Bush, the man who led the US response to 9/11, is a despised figure not just internationally but also by his own people. Who can possibly claim that the United States is winning the war on terror?

Homeland security has cost the US government billions of dollars. Few countries, certainly not India, can afford that sort of price tag. But even if we could, the fact is that this vast homeland of ours cannot be secured or policed in the way the United States has been. It's not that kind of homeland. We have a hostile nuclear weapons state that is slowly spinning out of control as a neighbour, we have a military occupation in Kashmir, and a shamefully persecuted, impoverished minority of more than a hundred and fifty million Muslims who are being targeted as a community and pushed to the wall, whose young see no justice on the horizon, and who, were they to totally lose hope and radicalise, end up as a threat not just to India, but to the whole world. If 10 men can hold off the NSG commandos and the police for three days, and if it takes half-a-million soldiers to hold down the Kashmir Valley, do the math. What kind of Homeland Security can secure
India?

Nor for that matter will any other quick fix.Anti-terrorism laws are not meant for terrorists; they're for people that governments don't like. That's why they have a conviction rate of less than two per cent. They're just a means of putting inconvenient people away without bail for a long time and eventually letting them go. Terrorists like those who attacked Mumbai are hardly likely to be deterred by the prospect of being refused bail or being sentenced to death. It's what they want.

What we're experiencing now is blowback, the cumulative result of decades of quick fixes and dirty deeds. The carpet's squelching under our feet.

The only way to contain (it would be naive to say end) terrorism is to look at the monster in the mirror. We're standing at a fork in the road. One sign says 'Justice', the other 'Civil War'. There's no third sign and there's no going back. Choose.

Election, secularism, and us war policy in south asia

Here is a column by Farhad Mazhar which I found very interesting. If you have some spare time, you might want to check it out.

http://dailynayadiganta.com/2008/11/22/fullnews.asp?News_ID=115284&sec=6


Thanks

Not giving your vote simply means you are voting with the majority

Not giving your vote simply means you are voting with the majority whatever they decide.


With lot of things and rights that democracy gives us, it takes away a very big right: that is the right of not participating. At least all the various form of democratic society that we have, none have preserved this right.


So what do you do? Not registered to vote? Not going to poll?


And you thought that you did not participate? With all due respect, I don’t understand how a bunch of engineer can make such a profound logical mistake. Please think again, you will see it. It’s a no brainer.


By not exercising your right to vote, you have already cast your vote. You cast your vote for majority decision in advance. You are saying that I trust all the people who do give vote. That’s all.


There is no option for not giving your vote. Your options are as follows:


1) Vote YES on propX
2) Vote NO on propX
3) Vote with majority decision (you don’t have to vote, just relax and watch CNN)



Same goes for president candidates:
1) Mr X
2) Mr Y
3) Mr Z
4) Majority decision (you don’t have to vote, just relax and watch CNN)


If there were a democratic election that required 50+% of possible voters (not only the actual voters) to be elected, then and only then not voting means not participation. For all other case, you have already casted your vote to go with majority decision by default. Now all you can do is to change that vote the way you want (if you want).


Thanks,
Babu

[Okay, so looks like few countries are experimenting with idea of a "NO vote". For example, Bangladesh's December 2008 parliament election may have an option of "NO vote" in the ballot. If number of NO vote is greater than 50% of total given vote, election result will be rejected and a new election will be held. This will give you an opportunity to "participate" in a negative way. Then again, it will take you to square one where you face another election, so not much success there.]

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man"

"No, ma'am. He's a decent family man"?? That's all?
Few commentary I found interesting.


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Los Angeles Times
Opinion
'Muslim' shouldn't be a slur
Both McCain and Obama should condemn implicit attacks on Muslims and Arabs.

http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-rice15-2008oct15,0,5744288.story


That was a good step one -- until McCain blew it. A woman stood up in the audience and said that she just couldn't trust Obama because, as she put it, "he's an Arab." McCain shook his head, took the microphone and said: "No, ma'am. He's a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues."

So, what is he saying? Arabs aren't decent family men? They can't be citizens?
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CNN
October 14, 2008
How Being Called An Arab Became A Slur
http://edition.cnn.com/CNNI/Programs/middle.east/blog/2008/10/how-being-arab-became-slur.html

What if the woman had said she didn't trust Obama because he is Black? Would there have been outrage then? Would McCain's answer had been different?

The truth is that, throughout this campaign, the term Muslim or Arab has been routinely used as a slur. And both parties are playing the game.

-------------------------------------------------
Huffington Post
October 11, 2008
Is Muslim The New Queer?
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/hanna-ingber-win/is-muslim-the-new-queer_b_133870.html

Just yesterday an elderly woman at a campaign event with John McCain rambled into the microphone about how she doesn't trust Barack Obama and then said, as if it were her kicker, "HE'S ARAB."

McCain took the microphone back, shook his head, and acting like he is suddenly better than gutter politics, said something along the lines of, "No, no, mam. He's a decent, family man."

What?! That old lady did not say Obama is a terrorist. She did not say he is a murderer or a rapist or a drug dealer to little children. She said he is "Arab." And yet, McCain automatically understood her point and equated "Arab" with "bad man."
-------------------------------------------------
CNN
By Campbell Brown
Commentary: So what if Obama were a Muslim or an Arab?
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/10/13/campbell.brown.obama/index.html

So what if Obama was Arab or Muslim? So what if John McCain was Arab or Muslim? Would it matter?

When did that become a disqualifier for higher office in our country? When did Arab and Muslim become dirty words? The equivalent of dishonorable or radical?
-------------------------------------------------

Monsters on the phone: Who wants to answer them?

Monsters on the phone: Who wants to answer them?

I guess, it would be who does NOT? Once you see the consequence, you wouldn't dare to ignore.

I don't want to get into any argument, but just to release some of my frustration I would like to congratulate.

I would like to congratulate those who, by some magical way, succeed to bring back Pharaohs in the land.

Sure enough the phones are ringing. Guess who is on the other side? Yeap!! It's the monster himself. Live for a hiding place near you! There are many of them. Not to worry, we got lot of phones as well.

Welcome to the land of Pharaohs.

I hope some of us are happy!

If you can't see the attachment, you may access it here:
http://prothom-alo.com/archive/news_details_home.php?dt=2008-10-08&issue_id=1065&nid=MTkyMTU=
Prothom Alo, October 8, 2008


Thanks,
Babu

Recap: Democratic Convention 2008

Obama's acceptance speech:
--------------------------
Transcript:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/28/obama.transcript/index.html
Video:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/28/obama.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Sen. Joe Biden's acceptance speech
----------------------------------
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/27/biden.transcript/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/27/biden.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

John Kerry's DNC speech:
--------------------------
Years ago when we protested a war, people would weigh in against us saying, "My country right or wrong." Our answer? Absolutely, my country right or wrong. When right, keep it right. When wrong, make it right. Sometimes loving your country demands you must tell the truth to power.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/08/27/john-kerry-democratic-con_n_121944.html

Bill Clinton's DNC speech:
--------------------------
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/27/bill.clinton.transcript/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/27/bill.clinton.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Al Gore's speech
------------------
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/28/gore.transcript/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/28/gore.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Hilary's DNC speech:
-----------------------
"But remember, before we can keep going, we have to get going by electing Barack Obama the next president of the United States.
We don't have a moment to lose or a vote to spare.
Nothing less than the fate of our nation and the future of our children hang in the balance."
Transcript: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/26/clinton.transcript/index.html
Video:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/26/clinton.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Michelle Obama's DNC speech:
-----------------------------
Are we nominating the `wrong` Obama? I mean, she was so good. She over shadow her husband's 2004 keynote speech.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/25/michelle.obama.transcript/index.html
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/25/michelle.obama.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Ted Kennedy's DNC speech:
--------------------------
"And nothing -- nothing is going to keep me away from this special gathering tonight.
I have come here tonight to stand with you to change America, to restore its future, to rise to our best ideals, and to elect Barack Obama president of the United States."
Transcript: http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/25/kennedy.dnc.transcript/index.html
Video:
http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/08/25/kennedy.dnc.transcript/index.html#cnnSTCVideo

Look who failed the Wiretap test

Full Senate Roll-Call Vote - H.R. 6304 (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act of 1978 )

Yeas - 69

Alexander (R-TN)
Allard (R-CO)
Barrasso (R-WY)
Baucus (D-MT)
Bayh (D-IN)
Bennett (R-UT)
Bond (R-MO)
Brownback (R-KS)
Bunning (R-KY)
Burr (R-NC)
Carper (D-DE)
Casey (D-PA)
Chambliss (R-GA)
Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS)
Coleman (R-MN)
Collins (R-ME)
Conrad (D-ND)
Corker (R-TN)
Cornyn (R-TX)
Craig (R-ID)
Crapo (R-ID)
DeMint (R-SC)
Dole (R-NC)
Domenici (R-NM)
Ensign (R-NV)
Enzi (R-WY)
Feinstein (D-CA)
Graham (R-SC)
Grassley (R-IA)
Gregg (R-NH)
Hagel (R-NE)
Hatch (R-UT)
Hutchison (R-TX)
Inhofe (R-OK)
Inouye (D-HI)
Isakson (R-GA)
Johnson (D-SD)
Kohl (D-WI)
Kyl (R-AZ)
Landrieu (D-LA)
Lieberman (ID-CT)
Lincoln (D-AR)
Lugar (R-IN)
Martinez (R-FL)
McCaskill (D-MO)
McConnell (R-KY)
Mikulski (D-MD)
Murkowski (R-AK)
Nelson (D-FL)
Nelson (D-NE)
Obama (D-IL)
Pryor (D-AR)
Roberts (R-KS)
Rockefeller (D-WV)
Salazar (D-CO)
Shelby (R-AL)
Smith (R-OR)
Snowe (R-ME)
Specter (R-PA)
Stevens (R-AK)
Sununu (R-NH)
Thune (R-SD)
Vitter (R-LA)
Voinovich (R-OH)
Warner (R-VA)
Webb (D-VA)
Whitehouse (D-RI)
Wicker (R-MS)

Nays - 28

Akaka (D-HI)
Biden (D-DE)
Bingaman (D-NM)
Boxer (D-CA)
Brown (D-OH)
Byrd (D-WV)
Cantwell (D-WA)
Cardin (D-MD)
Clinton (D-NY)
Dodd (D-CT)
Dorgan (D-ND)
Durbin (D-IL)
Feingold (D-WI)
Harkin (D-IA)
Kerry (D-MA)
Klobuchar (D-MN)
Lautenberg (D-NJ)
Leahy (D-VT)
Levin (D-MI)
Menendez (D-NJ)
Murray (D-WA)
Reed (D-RI)
Reid (D-NV)
Sanders (I-VT)
Schumer (D-NY)
Stabenow (D-MI)
Tester (D-MT)
Wyden (D-OR)

Not Voting - 3

Kennedy (D-MA)
McCain (R-AZ)
Sessions (R-AL)

“Hussein” could be a common household middle name!

I am fascinated by this guy’s ability to inspire people.

This is a preemptive strike in good sense. Come this fall, it’s obvious that the right wing will use Obama’s middle name in a very ugly way. They don’t want to pull the trigger too early. Well, as it seems, they may have missed the train.

Nice move!

-Babu


Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/06/29/us/politics/29hussein.html?bl&ex=1214971200&en=442dcec2d2792561&ei=5087%0A

The NY Times
June 29, 2008
Obama Supporters Take His Name as Their Own
By JODI KANTOR


Emily Nordling has never met a Muslim, at least not to her knowledge. But this spring, Ms. Nordling, a 19-year-old student from Fort Thomas, Ky., gave herself a new middle name on Facebook.com, mimicking her boyfriend and shocking her father.

“Emily Hussein Nordling,” her entry now reads.

With her decision, she joined a growing band of supporters of Senator Barack Obama, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, who are expressing solidarity with him by informally adopting his middle name.

The result is a group of unlikely-sounding Husseins: Jewish and Catholic, Hispanic and Asian and Italian-American, from Jaime Hussein Alvarez of Washington, D.C., to Kelly Hussein Crowley of Norman, Okla., to Sarah Beth Hussein Frumkin of Chicago.

Jeff Strabone of Brooklyn now signs credit card receipts with his newly assumed middle name, while Dan O’Maley of Washington, D.C., jiggered his e-mail account so his name would appear as “D. Hussein O’Maley.” Alex Enderle made the switch online along with several other Obama volunteers from Columbus, Ohio, and now friends greet him that way in person, too.

Mr. Obama is a Christian, not a Muslim. Hussein is a family name inherited from a Kenyan father he barely knew, who was born a Muslim and died an atheist. But the name has become a political liability. Some critics on cable television talk shows dwell on it, while others, on blogs or in e-mail messages, use it to falsely assert that Mr. Obama is a Muslim or, more fantastically, a terrorist.

“I am sick of Republicans pronouncing Barack Obama’s name like it was some sort of cuss word,” Mr. Strabone wrote in a manifesto titled “We Are All Hussein” that he posted on his own blog and on dailykos.com.

So like the residents of Billings, Mont., who reacted to a series of anti-Semitic incidents in 1993 with a townwide display of menorahs in their front windows, these supporters are brandishing the name themselves.

“My name is such a vanilla, white-girl American name,” said Ashley Holmes of Indianapolis, who changed her name online “to show how little meaning ‘Hussein’ really has.”

The movement is hardly a mass one, and it has taken place mostly online, the digital equivalent of wearing a button with a clever, attention-getting message. A search revealed hundreds of participants across the country, along with a YouTube video and bumper stickers promoting the idea. Legally changing names is too much hassle, participants say, so they use “Hussein” on Facebook and in blog posts and comments on sites like nytimes.com, dailykos.com and mybarackobama.com, the campaign’s networking site.

New Husseins began to crop up online as far back as last fall. But more joined up in February after a conservative radio host, Bill Cunningham, used Mr. Obama’s middle name three times and disparaged him while introducing Senator John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee, at a campaign rally. (Mr. McCain repudiated Mr. Cunningham’s comments).

The practice has been proliferating ever since. In interviews, several Obama supporters said they dreamed up the idea on their own, with no input from the campaign and little knowledge that others shared their thought.

Some said they were inspired by movies, including “Spartacus,” the 1960 epic about a Roman slave whose peers protect him by calling out “I am Spartacus!” to Roman soldiers, and “In and Out,” a 1997 comedy about a gay high school teacher whose students protest his firing by proclaiming that they are all gay as well.

“It’s one of those things that just takes off, because everybody got it right away,” said Stephanie Miller, a left-leaning comedian who blurted out the idea one day during a broadcast of her syndicated radio talk show and repeated it on CNN.

Ms. Miller and her fellow new Husseins are embracing the traditionally Muslim name even as the Obama campaign shies away from Muslim associations. Campaign workers ushered two women in head scarves out of a camera’s range at a rally this month in Detroit. (The campaign has apologized.) Aides canceled a December appearance on behalf of Mr. Obama by Representative Keith Ellison, a Minnesota Democrat and the first Muslim congressman.

Mr. Obama may be more enthusiastic, judging from his response at a Chicago fund-raiser two weeks ago. When he saw that Richard Fizdale, a longtime contributor, wore “Hussein” on his name tag, Mr. Obama broke into a huge grin, Mr. Fizdale said.

“The theory was, we’re all Hussein,” Mr. Obama said to the crowd later, explaining Mr. Fizdale’s gesture.

Some Obama supporters say they were moved to action because of what their own friends, neighbors and relatives were saying about their candidate. Mark Elrod, a political science professor at Harding University in Searcy, Ark., is organizing students and friends to declare their Husseinhood on Facebook on Aug. 4, Mr. Obama’s birthday.

Ms. Nordling changed her name after volunteering for Mr. Obama before the Kentucky primary.

“People would not listen to what you were saying on the phone or on their doorstep because they thought he was Muslim,” she said.

Ms. Nordling’s uncle liked the idea so much that he joined the same Facebook group that she had. But when her father saw her new online moniker, he was incredulous.

“He actually thought I was going to convert to Islam,” Ms. Nordling said.

Sisters on the Planet - Sahena's story

UK based charity organization launched a campaign called "Sisters on the Planet".

They created 4 short films on 4 women fighting climate change from 4 continents. This one is on Sahena, a village community activist/leader from Bangladesh.

"As obvious as it sounds, climate change affects everybody. But climate change is already having a disproportionate impact on people in developing countries, and it's hitting women hardest."

"Watch them and become aware of the impact our changing climate is having on people's lives. And be inspired to join the fight against climate change too."

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/get_involved/campaign/climate_change/sisters/sahena.html

If you have problem watching @oxfam's website, you can watch it in youtube.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WqYgDGy8Z4M

Interesting development in Bangladesh

Hope you are enjoying the ride :)

1. Bangladesh army witnesses major reshuffle, silent coup?
http://www.edeshi.com/deshinews/2008/06/bangladesh-army-witnesses-major.html

2. BNP decoys endorsed AL in power (desperate? surely they know something that we don't)
http://www.shamokal.com/details.php?nid=95110

3. 1/11 key player Masud set for exile
http://nation.ittefaq.com/issues/2008/06/09/news0879.htm

4. Dr. Hasina released (went to exile?)
http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gpDmJ14RcB5d26Vf8RNqHgA0c7Qg

5. Heavyweight assault: Motiur Rahman on BNP decoys (both wing)
http://prothom-alo.com/archive/news_details_home.php?dt=2008-06-12&issue_id=951&nid=MTY2NTU=

6. One big happy family?

Keith Olbermann on Hillary's A-word

Opps...Hillary invoked the A-word which made lots of folks upset. Here
is Keith Olbermann's (MSNBC) commentary on this, just in case you
missed it.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pa85uo1QyGw

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sny8VfgcjaI


Thanks,
Babu

Asian states feel rice pinch

In the news: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7324596.stm

This article is related to what some of us have been discussing. One of my friends forwarded this with a note (commented at the bottom). It looks like that we are facing a worldwide food shortage. Keep in mind that BD is coming into this crisis with two legs down (by flood & Sidr).

I always believe that it is some kind of crisis that creates the opportunity for a great leader to emerge. (By pulling us back in to life) Let's pray that we do have a leader among us who can save the day. Let's not disguise ourselves by doing back comparison with our known evils (aka don makers and their dons).


Thanks,
Babu

Regarding questions from a non-Muslim on Muslims, Mohamed, Jesus, protest, violence

Regarding questions from a non-Muslim on Muslims, Mohamed, Jesus, protest, violence

A non-Muslim have asked following question in a forum I came accross:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------
Why is it the case that Muslims protests violently and many people died over number of cartoon, film, book which depicts Mohamed badly? But no one died when same thing happens with Jesus. Question #1: Are Muslims more violent then Christians?

Let’s forget Christians, let’s talk about Muslims and Islamic view only.
Muslims always tell me that Mohamed is not divine. He is a messenger/prophet of God. Muslims love and respect Jesus, Mary, Moses same way as all the prophets including Mohamed. Why is then we see Muslims protests violently against anti-Mohamed incident, but not against anti-Jesus incident? Didn’t you say that they both are prophets of same God and Muslims love them both!
Question #2: Is it because Islamic prophet Mohamed gave more violent teaching than Islamic prophet Jesus? (Compare only Islamic view of both the prophets and compare only Muslims reaction to both the prophets)
--------------------------------------------------------------------------


I do not have an immediate answer. But his questions made me thinking, REALLY THINKING!
I would ask you all to THINK about this:
“Compare ONLY Islamic view of both the prophets and compare ONLY Muslims reaction to both the prophets”


1. Are we following the real teaching of Mohamed (peach be upon him)?

2. Would he have approved this (http://southernledger.com/ap/117514/25,000_Pakistanis_Protest_Quran_Film)?

3. Who is actually defaming Mohamed (peach be upon him) more? Is it the cartoonist and film makers? Or is it these violent protesters?

4. Think as a third party and non believer’s perspective. Which one is more likely?
a) John Doe see a cartoon portrays Mohamed as bad person, he come to conclusion that Mohamed IS in fact a bad person.
b) John Doe sees 25000 angry followers of Mohamed burning cars, creating riots, people died, he come to conclusion that the very person they are following must be a bad person.

4. Who is doing more harm toward image of Muslims and Mohamed (peach be upon him)? Who is guilty more? Who would be disliked more by Mohamed (peach be upon him)? Who would be disliked more by God?

-x86