Identity Card
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
And the number of my card is fifty thousand.
I have eight children
And the ninth is due after summer.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
Working with comrades of toil in a quarry.
I have eight children
For them I wrest the loaf of bread,
The clothes and exercise books
From the rocks
And beg for no alms at your door.
Lower not myself at your doorstep.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
I am a name without a title,
Patient in a country where everything
Lives in a whirlpool of anger.
My roots
Took hold before the birth of time
Before the burgeoning of the ages,
Before cypress and olive trees,
Before the proliferation of weeds.
My father is from the family of the plough
Not from highborn nobles
And my grandfather was a peasant
Without line or geneaology.
My house is a watchman's hut
Made of sticks and reeds.
Does my status satisfy you?
I am a name without a surname.
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
Color of my hair: jet black.
Color of my eyes: brown.
My distinguishing features:
On my head the 'iqal cords over a keffiyeh
Scratching him who touches it.
My address:
I'm from a village, remote, forgotten,
Its streets without name
And all its men in the fields and quarry.
What's there to be angry about?
Put it on record.
I am an Arab.
You stole my forefather's vineyards
And land I used to till,
I am all my children,
And you left us and all my grandchildren
Nothing but these rocks.
Will your government be taking them too
As is being said?
So!
Put it on record at the top of page one:
I don't hate people,
I trespass on no one's property.
And yet, if I were to become hungry
I shall eat the flesh of my usurper.
Beware, beware of my hunger
And of my anger!
(translated from the Arabic by Denys Johnson-Davies)
Thank you, sister, for lending me the book!
Saturday, October 31, 2009
Wednesday, October 21, 2009
Have you read Sven Lindqvist?
Am reading his A History of Bombing. Very stark and cutting. I've heard a lot about Exterminating All The Brutes too but haven't read it. I know Jason was made quite speechless by it... This is another writer that I find as powerful as Eduardo Galeano in a particular way+theme of writing:
Guernica in the Global History of Warfare.
La Vanguardia, Madrid 2003
The basic tool of modern war is quite simple. You take a piece of Chinese bamboo pipe, and fill it with gunpowder, invented in China in the 9th century. Then you have three options. If you close the pipe at both ends, it becomes a bomb. If you open the pipe at one end, it is blown forward by the explosion and you get a rocket. If you open the rocket at the other end, you get a gun or a cannon.
1.
The cannon was fully developed in China by 1280 and reached Europe 30 years later. In the 16th century the arms race between the coastal states of Europe created navies that could pursue strategic goals anywhere in the world. Their cannons could shatter fortresses and were even more effective against defenceless villages.
Preindustrial Europe had little that was in demand in the rest of the world. Our most important export was brute force. We were at the time regarded as nomadic warriors in the style of the Mongols or the Tartars. They reigned supreme from the backs of horses, we from ships.
The Chinese had cast the first cannon. But they felt secure and refrained from taking part in the naval arms race. The Moguls of India, instead of building their own fleet of gun carrying ships, chose to purchase defence services from Europe.
Thus the backward and poorly resourced Europe of the 16th century acquired a monopoly of ocean-going ships with guns capable of creating that kind of death and destruction which the name "Guernica" stands for.
Three hundred years later European guns had conquered a third of the world.
2.
Then it was the rocket’s turn. The Chinese used rockets already in their defence of Kaifeng in 1232. The rocket weapon spread to Europe around 1250 and was rediscovered by the British at the beginning of the 19th century.
The "Guernica" of the rocket was the Danish capital Copenhagen, destroyed by the British in 1807. After that carnage the rocket was reserved for non-European peoples. The British used rockets in North Africa 1816, in Burma 1825, in Ashante 1826, in Sierra Leone 1831, in Afghanistan 1837-42, in China 1839-1842 and 1856-60, in Japan 1864, in Central America 1867, in Abyssinia 1868, in South Africa 1879, in Afghanistan 1880, against Alexandria 1882 and against rebels in Sudan, Zanzibar, East and West Africa in 1894 – to mention only the most prominent occasions when British rockets burned down non-European towns and villages.
Thus Europe conquered another third of the world.
The British themselves did not get a taste of the rocket weapon until World War II when London was bombarded with a new generation of German rockets. Accuracy was still so low that all German rockets put together killed fewer people than a single British bombing raid over Germany.
3.
The bomb was first used by the Chinese a thousand years ago.
It was filled with thin slivers of porcelain, which were flung out in the explosion to "wound the skin and break the bones". The very first bombs were what we today call anti-personnel bombs, intended for so called "soft targets".
As long as the bomb was dropped at the enemy from the city wall, it was considered just a primitive forerunner to the rocket. But when it could be delivered from an aircraft, the power of the bomb became obvious.
The Italians started it on November 1st 1911 when they dropped the first bomb over Tagiura in Libya. The Spaniards came a close second. On December 17 1913, captains Eduardo Barón and Carlos Cifuentes attacked the village of Ben Carich in Spanish Morocco, dropping four "Carbonit" shrapnel bombs filled with explosives and steel balls, to punish rebellious villages.
Bombing "savage" civilians soon became standard practice of colonial warfare. One example was the bombing of Tetuan on June 29, 1924, when twenty Spanish planes dropped 500 bombs causing large civilian losses. The worst atrocity was committed in 1925 against the "Guernica" of Morocco, Xauen, by American airmen in the service of France and Spain. "A number of absolutely defenceless women and children were massacred and many others were maimed and blinded", wrote the London Times.
In September the German consulate in Tetuan reported that Moroccan rebel villages were now being punished with mustard gas. Gas, as a weapon of mass destruction, was forbidden by the 1925 Geneva Convention. In the summer of 1925, the Red Cross requested permission to send weapons inspectors to the war zone to investigate reports of a gas war. The Spanish refused. But two German officers were invited to serve with the Spanish airforce "in order to get experience, particularly of the use of gas in air warfare". In a secret report the Germans wrote, that "Spain was primarily dependent on the result of systematic air attacks and the devastating effect of poison gas".
Of all these bombed towns and villages, most of them in Africa, the Middle East or the Far East, only one went down in history: Guernica. After all, Guernica lies in Europe. In Guernica we were the ones who died.
4.
Already at the Hague Conference 1899 many participants feared a future "Guernica". The small countries argued for a total prohibition of air war. The then superpower, Great Britain, opposed prohibition:
"It can be proved to the hilt that scientific development of engines of destruction had tended a) to make nations hesitate before going to war; b) to reduce the percentages of losses in war; c) to shorten the length of campaigns, and thus to reduce to a minimum the sufferings endured by the inhabitants."
All through the 20th century these three arguments were repeated over and over again, in support of weapons’ systems able to achieve not only a new "Guernica", but a million new "Hiroshimas".
The fourth Hague Convention of 1907, which is still valid international law, states in article 25 that "bombardment by whatever means of towns. villages, dwellings or buildings which are undefended, is prohibited."
This Convention was systematically violated by all parties of World War II, especially by the British over Germany and the Americans over Japan. Immediately after the war the International Red Cross tried to restore the laws of war protecting civilians. But the victorious powers could hardly agree to such laws without incriminating themselves for what they had just done and planned to continue doing.
The French bombed Madagascar, Vietnam, Algeria. The British bombed Malaysia, Aden, Kenya. The US bombed Korea and Vietnam. Perceived as Communist or Terrorist threats, movements for independence were for three decades bombed all over the non-European world, creating innumerable "Guernicas".
The US and Britain skilfully and energetically worked against Red Cross efforts to protect civilians. Not until the decolonisation process was over, a new convention was finally accepted on June 10, 1977. It was for the first time truly international. It applied to all continents, to all political systems and to both external and internal conflicts. The basic rule says:
"The Parties to the conflict shall at all times distinguish between the civilian population and combatants and between civilian objects and military objectives and accordingly shall direct their operations only against military objectives."
Article 51 expressly prohibits the use of any weapon whose effects cannot be limited to a specific military objective.
Can these paragraphs prevent another "Guernica"? Yes, they could ¾ but only if international law is backed by the forceful support of public opinion all over the world.
Every time international law is violated with impunity, be it in the World Trade Cnter, in Afghanistan or in Iraq, its protective power is reduced everywhere. But the opposite is also true. International law is gaining power to protect us every time it is upheld by us, against the violators ¾ be it in New York, in Afghanistan, in Iraq or anywhere in the world.
Sunday, October 11, 2009
Forbidden birds, Eduardo Galeano
wanted to share this story with you :)
Forbidden birds
1976, in a jail building, called “Freedom”
“The Uruguayan political prisoners may not talk without permission, or whistle, smile, sing, walk fast, or greet other prisoners; nor may they make or receive drawings of pregnant women, couples, butterflies, stars or birds.
One Sunday, Didaskó Pérez, schoolteacher, tortured and jailed for “having ideological ideas,” is visited by his daughter Milay, a five-year-old. She brings him a drawing of birds. The guards destroy it at the entrance of the jail.
On the following Sunday, Milay brings him a drawing of trees. Trees are not forbidden, and the drawings get through. Didaskó praises her work and asks about the colored circles scattered in the treetops, many small circles half-hidden among the branches:
“Are they oranges? What fruit is it?”
The child puts her fingers to his mouth:
“Ssssshhh!" And she whispers in his ear:
“Silly! Don’t you see they’re eyes? They’re the eyes of the birds that I’ve smuggled in for you.”
Forbidden birds
1976, in a jail building, called “Freedom”
“The Uruguayan political prisoners may not talk without permission, or whistle, smile, sing, walk fast, or greet other prisoners; nor may they make or receive drawings of pregnant women, couples, butterflies, stars or birds.
One Sunday, Didaskó Pérez, schoolteacher, tortured and jailed for “having ideological ideas,” is visited by his daughter Milay, a five-year-old. She brings him a drawing of birds. The guards destroy it at the entrance of the jail.
On the following Sunday, Milay brings him a drawing of trees. Trees are not forbidden, and the drawings get through. Didaskó praises her work and asks about the colored circles scattered in the treetops, many small circles half-hidden among the branches:
“Are they oranges? What fruit is it?”
The child puts her fingers to his mouth:
“Ssssshhh!" And she whispers in his ear:
“Silly! Don’t you see they’re eyes? They’re the eyes of the birds that I’ve smuggled in for you.”
Friday, October 9, 2009
Jacques Verges and "Rupture Defense"
Jacques Verges bases his defense on a system defined as “rupture defense” in which the defendant accuses those who have put him on trial and calls public opinion as his defense witness.
An interview with Jacques Verges:
April 2009: Osama Bin Laden has just been captured by the US army in the mountains of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. He puts up no resistance. He chooses you as his defense counsel. Would you accept? How would you conduct the “rupture defense” for the man responsible for September 11th? What would you prepare as a line of defense?
There is no doubt I would accept. In this case, the line of defense is an easy one. You in the West occupy part of the Muslim community materially, and the totality, spiritually, because all the Heads of State and Kings are pawns under your control. We wage war against you, just as you bring war against us. The attacks that we commit are no different from the bombings and embargoes suffered by our civilian victims.
After the invasion of Iraq by the US army, a news flash announces that in a country in North Africa, a movement is underway to bring the most powerful man in the world, the American President George W. Bush, to trial. Naturally, a trial of this kind would be impossible today except in one place: on the stage of a theatre. Even more, it would not be possible in a state-owned theatre, but only in a private theatre, the Théâtre de la Madeleine. You have declared that you would assume Bush’s defense. On what would you base his defense? What explanations would you give for the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and for Guantanamo Bay? Once again, in this case what would you use as your “rupture defense” in a case against George Bush?
A trial against Bush could not be a “rupture defense” case because his actions are in line with Western moral ethics. There is a world of Good, which is ours, and a world of Evil, that of the others, and the planet is too small for both to coexist. It is essential that one of the two be eliminated. Since we are the stronger force, the other world must be the one to disappear. And it is by no means surprising that our methods are not coherent with what we state we believe in, because in conditions of war, the rules that are applied are not those that exist in times of normality.
When you state that the role of the defense counsel should go so far as to give some meaning to the life of the accused, doesn’t that unmask you as an unexpected humanist?
If, by humanism, you intend the fact of considering human beings as a unique end in themselves, then yes, I am a humanist. But when humanism becomes humanitarianism, and that humanitarianism provides the right to judge others based on the ideal image one has of oneself, then I am not a humanist. The true humanist is a pacifist. The “humanitarian” is an aggressor in good faith.
--> so far, this is the only law practice(r) that I found truly subversive without taking a given "constitution" or whatever framework basis for granted.
An interview with Jacques Verges:
April 2009: Osama Bin Laden has just been captured by the US army in the mountains of Pakistan on the border with Afghanistan. He puts up no resistance. He chooses you as his defense counsel. Would you accept? How would you conduct the “rupture defense” for the man responsible for September 11th? What would you prepare as a line of defense?
There is no doubt I would accept. In this case, the line of defense is an easy one. You in the West occupy part of the Muslim community materially, and the totality, spiritually, because all the Heads of State and Kings are pawns under your control. We wage war against you, just as you bring war against us. The attacks that we commit are no different from the bombings and embargoes suffered by our civilian victims.
After the invasion of Iraq by the US army, a news flash announces that in a country in North Africa, a movement is underway to bring the most powerful man in the world, the American President George W. Bush, to trial. Naturally, a trial of this kind would be impossible today except in one place: on the stage of a theatre. Even more, it would not be possible in a state-owned theatre, but only in a private theatre, the Théâtre de la Madeleine. You have declared that you would assume Bush’s defense. On what would you base his defense? What explanations would you give for the interventions in Afghanistan and Iraq and for Guantanamo Bay? Once again, in this case what would you use as your “rupture defense” in a case against George Bush?
A trial against Bush could not be a “rupture defense” case because his actions are in line with Western moral ethics. There is a world of Good, which is ours, and a world of Evil, that of the others, and the planet is too small for both to coexist. It is essential that one of the two be eliminated. Since we are the stronger force, the other world must be the one to disappear. And it is by no means surprising that our methods are not coherent with what we state we believe in, because in conditions of war, the rules that are applied are not those that exist in times of normality.
When you state that the role of the defense counsel should go so far as to give some meaning to the life of the accused, doesn’t that unmask you as an unexpected humanist?
If, by humanism, you intend the fact of considering human beings as a unique end in themselves, then yes, I am a humanist. But when humanism becomes humanitarianism, and that humanitarianism provides the right to judge others based on the ideal image one has of oneself, then I am not a humanist. The true humanist is a pacifist. The “humanitarian” is an aggressor in good faith.
--> so far, this is the only law practice(r) that I found truly subversive without taking a given "constitution" or whatever framework basis for granted.
Monday, September 21, 2009
a very cool talk by Olufemi Taiwo
EXORCISING HEGEL'S GHOST: AFRICA'S CHALLENGE TO PHILOSOPHY
A thoroughly enjoyable exorcism to go through!!!
I especially like what he says about pedigree arguments that always serve an imperialist purpose and the appropriate response to them.
A thoroughly enjoyable exorcism to go through!!!
I especially like what he says about pedigree arguments that always serve an imperialist purpose and the appropriate response to them.
Saturday, September 19, 2009
blessings from Achebe
Chinua Achebe: A Storyteller far from home
To be human, the writer Chinua Achebe has said, one must have a story. "It's one of the things humans do," he insists. "Not just have a story, but tell a story."
Some stories that i really like from Things Fall Apart:
Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went, and brought back a duckling. "You have done very well," said Mother Kite to her daughter, "but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?" "It said nothing," replied the young kite. "It just walked away." "You must return the duckling," said Mother Kite. "There is something ominous behind the silence." And so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. "What did the mother of this chick do?" asked the old kite. "It cried and raved and cursed me," said the young kite. "Then we can eat the chick," said her mother. "There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts."
***
All the umunna were invited to the feast, all the descendants of Okolo, who had lived about two hundred years before. The oldest member of this extensive family was Okonkwo's uncle, Uchendu. The kola nut was given him to break, and he prayed to the ancestors. He asked them for health and children. "We do not ask for wealth because he that has health and children will also have wealth. We do not pray to have more money but to have more kinsmen. We are better than animals because we have kinsmen. An animal rubs its itching flank against a tree, a man asks his kinsman to scratch him.
(What a revelation to elevate us from the usual "human beings are superior to animals because our minds can reason"!)
***
A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.
Looking forward to our next togetherings ;-)
love,
wb
To be human, the writer Chinua Achebe has said, one must have a story. "It's one of the things humans do," he insists. "Not just have a story, but tell a story."
Some stories that i really like from Things Fall Apart:
Mother Kite once sent her daughter to bring food. She went, and brought back a duckling. "You have done very well," said Mother Kite to her daughter, "but tell me, what did the mother of this duckling say when you swooped and carried its child away?" "It said nothing," replied the young kite. "It just walked away." "You must return the duckling," said Mother Kite. "There is something ominous behind the silence." And so Daughter Kite returned the duckling and took a chick instead. "What did the mother of this chick do?" asked the old kite. "It cried and raved and cursed me," said the young kite. "Then we can eat the chick," said her mother. "There is nothing to fear from someone who shouts."
***
All the umunna were invited to the feast, all the descendants of Okolo, who had lived about two hundred years before. The oldest member of this extensive family was Okonkwo's uncle, Uchendu. The kola nut was given him to break, and he prayed to the ancestors. He asked them for health and children. "We do not ask for wealth because he that has health and children will also have wealth. We do not pray to have more money but to have more kinsmen. We are better than animals because we have kinsmen. An animal rubs its itching flank against a tree, a man asks his kinsman to scratch him.
(What a revelation to elevate us from the usual "human beings are superior to animals because our minds can reason"!)
***
A man who calls his kinsmen to a feast does not do so to save them from starving. They all have food in their own homes. When we gather together in the moonlit village ground it is not because of the moon. Every man can see it in his own compound. We come together because it is good for kinsmen to do so.
Looking forward to our next togetherings ;-)
love,
wb
Friday, September 18, 2009
words from Muntazer al-Zaidi
Why I Threw The Shoe
I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents
by Muntazer al-Zaidi
I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.
I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.
Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com
I am no hero. I just acted as an Iraqi who witnessed the pain and bloodshed of too many innocents
by Muntazer al-Zaidi
I am free. But my country is still a prisoner of war. There has been a lot of talk about the action and about the person who took it, and about the hero and the heroic act, and the symbol and the symbolic act. But, simply, I answer: what compelled me to act is the injustice that befell my people, and how the occupation wanted to humiliate my homeland by putting it under its boot.
Over recent years, more than a million martyrs have fallen by the bullets of the occupation and Iraq is now filled with more than five million orphans, a million widows and hundreds of thousands of maimed. Many millions are homeless inside and outside the country.
We used to be a nation in which the Arab would share with the Turkman and the Kurd and the Assyrian and the Sabean and the Yazid his daily bread. And the Shia would pray with the Sunni in one line. And the Muslim would celebrate with the Christian the birthday of Christ. This despite the fact that we shared hunger under sanctions for more than a decade.
Our patience and our solidarity did not make us forget the oppression. But the invasion divided brother from brother, neighbour from neighbour. It turned our homes into funeral tents.
I am not a hero. But I have a point of view. I have a stance. It humiliated me to see my country humiliated; and to see my Baghdad burned, my people killed. Thousands of tragic pictures remained in my head, pushing me towards the path of confrontation. The scandal of Abu Ghraib. The massacre of Falluja, Najaf, Haditha, Sadr City, Basra, Diyala, Mosul, Tal Afar, and every inch of our wounded land. I travelled through my burning land and saw with my own eyes the pain of the victims, and heard with my own ears the screams of the orphans and the bereaved. And a feeling of shame haunted me like an ugly name because I was powerless.
As soon as I finished my professional duties in reporting the daily tragedies, while I washed away the remains of the debris of the ruined Iraqi houses, or the blood that stained my clothes, I would clench my teeth and make a pledge to our victims, a pledge of vengeance.
The opportunity came, and I took it.
I took it out of loyalty to every drop of innocent blood that has been shed through the occupation or because of it, every scream of a bereaved mother, every moan of an orphan, the sorrow of a rape victim, the teardrop of an orphan.
I say to those who reproach me: do you know how many broken homes that shoe which I threw had entered? How many times it had trodden over the blood of innocent victims? Maybe that shoe was the appropriate response when all values were violated.
When I threw the shoe in the face of the criminal, George Bush, I wanted to express my rejection of his lies, his occupation of my country, my rejection of his killing my people. My rejection of his plundering the wealth of my country, and destroying its infrastructure. And casting out its sons into a diaspora.
If I have wronged journalism without intention, because of the professional embarrassment I caused the establishment, I apologise. All that I meant to do was express with a living conscience the feelings of a citizen who sees his homeland desecrated every day. The professionalism mourned by some under the auspices of the occupation should not have a voice louder than the voice of patriotism. And if patriotism needs to speak out, then professionalism should be allied with it.
I didn't do this so my name would enter history or for material gains. All I wanted was to defend my country.
Muntazer al-Zaidi is an Iraqi reporter who was freed this week after serving nine months in prison for throwing his shoe at former US president George Bush at a press conference. This edited statement was translated by McClatchy Newspapers correspondent Sahar Issa www.mcclatchydc.com
Wednesday, September 16, 2009
A book review
Talking India: Ashis Nandy in conversation with Ramin Jahanbegloo
I read this book over the summer along with Beyza and Hima and liked it a lot. Highly recommend it to everyone. This is a good review of the book. I'm sure the concluding paragraph is bound to catch the attention of some of you :-):
For much too long Indians, Iranians, Indonesians, Africans and others have not conversed with each other, each reserving their cultural and intellectual exchanges for the ‘West’. Talking India, which brings an Indian intellectual into conversation with an Iranian one, is a refreshing sign of the possibilities of forms of interculturalism other than those which have been bequeathed to us by the West.
I read this book over the summer along with Beyza and Hima and liked it a lot. Highly recommend it to everyone. This is a good review of the book. I'm sure the concluding paragraph is bound to catch the attention of some of you :-):
For much too long Indians, Iranians, Indonesians, Africans and others have not conversed with each other, each reserving their cultural and intellectual exchanges for the ‘West’. Talking India, which brings an Indian intellectual into conversation with an Iranian one, is a refreshing sign of the possibilities of forms of interculturalism other than those which have been bequeathed to us by the West.
Wednesday, September 2, 2009
an old article i bumped into but the violence is anything but old
Farah tried to plead with the US troops but she was killed anyway
"What is perhaps most shocking about their deaths is that the coalition troops who killed them did not even bother to record details of the raid with the coalition military press office. The killings were that unremarkable. What happened in Mahmudiya last week should not be forgotten, for the story of this raid is also the story of the dark side of the US-led occupation of Iraq, of the violent and sometimes lethal raids carried out apparently beyond any accountability."
--> Is there a bright side of the occupation?!?! and how is the non-record the most shocking aspect of their deaths???!!!! What kinda unreal, dreamy idea these people fancy about war/colonial occupation?!
"What is perhaps most shocking about their deaths is that the coalition troops who killed them did not even bother to record details of the raid with the coalition military press office. The killings were that unremarkable. What happened in Mahmudiya last week should not be forgotten, for the story of this raid is also the story of the dark side of the US-led occupation of Iraq, of the violent and sometimes lethal raids carried out apparently beyond any accountability."
--> Is there a bright side of the occupation?!?! and how is the non-record the most shocking aspect of their deaths???!!!! What kinda unreal, dreamy idea these people fancy about war/colonial occupation?!
Sunday, August 30, 2009
hey, what have you guys been up to?
how was your summer? any interesting trips, experiences, readings, news... to share? :-)
I was at home for most of the summer, doing more readings than usual... more readings than writings I should've completed i regret to say... but it also felt great and rewarding to read so many stories from different places. I read Chinua Achebe's novels and loved swimming in his caressing river of Ibo words and proverbs while at the same time trying to immerge myself in his characters' poignant struggles. I read Homi Bhabha's Location of Culture and of course didn't understand nearly as much as i wished to. While I admire his sublimely poetic writing, I have this nagging feeling that if only he could write in less cryptic codes, i'd be able to agree with him so much more :-))) sometimes i marked a whole passage as if i got what he's talking about without understanding what he's saying at all :D Charmaine, did you by any chance feel the same? I know it's a book to revisit many times though, and im in no hurry :-)
I also read a few short books by Ashis Nandy and liked them all (The Intimate Enemy - this one is a classic - highly recommended!!, An Ambiguous Journey to the City, Talking India); was particularly struck by his observation about how secularly motivated and implemented violence is often belyingly produced as religiously rooted riots/strife in the Indian context.
Perhaps most engraved in my mind are the moving, inspiring, but also terrifying memoirs of the Vietnamese who fought against the French and the American, those who were imprisoned and tortured and yet resisted till the very last breath, those who battled and were soooo close to being buried by bombs and mines along with their friends in Dien Bien Phu, those who got shot in the eyes and still continued firing back fiercely, those who volunteered to have their leg amputated without any palliative drug to save the limited anesthetics for their comrades, pleading with the surgeon "please save it, please, many others will need it more than me".... One person I remember vividly: his legs were cuffed down to the floor in a pitch-dark black-painted windowless room, it was his fourth day of no eating, no drinking in protest of the enemy's inhumane in-prison treatment, his body was fatigued, they put human feces near him to make him suffer, and yet at this extremely trying moment he was making a poem (!!!) expressing his undying belief in eventual liberation, and what's more, he stretched his hand to grab the spoon they gave him for eating, rubbed it against the floor to hone one end sharp and, despite how little energy was left in him, tried to sit up (with torturously aching ankles) and use the sharpened spoon to carve the poem of fire on the wall!!!!! can you believe it?! I mean it's not unimaginable, it's like that revolutionary man in Rang De Basanti who engraved his immortal poem on the wall in his solitary confinement... and also like many other unyielding fighters who hold their heart's ideals sacred and intact in spite of all trials and tribulations... but still, totally credible as it is, the person's incredible account does not cease to amaze to me!!
...
I really wish we could all do a live adda together now (I actually wish that every day, especially now that so many of you are not around VC any more :-( )... but since a reunion's not possible until... maybe the next ISA?, let's blog adda in the meantime ;-) hope to hear from all of you soon!
Lots of love,
wb
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/28-1
I was at home for most of the summer, doing more readings than usual... more readings than writings I should've completed i regret to say... but it also felt great and rewarding to read so many stories from different places. I read Chinua Achebe's novels and loved swimming in his caressing river of Ibo words and proverbs while at the same time trying to immerge myself in his characters' poignant struggles. I read Homi Bhabha's Location of Culture and of course didn't understand nearly as much as i wished to. While I admire his sublimely poetic writing, I have this nagging feeling that if only he could write in less cryptic codes, i'd be able to agree with him so much more :-))) sometimes i marked a whole passage as if i got what he's talking about without understanding what he's saying at all :D Charmaine, did you by any chance feel the same? I know it's a book to revisit many times though, and im in no hurry :-)
I also read a few short books by Ashis Nandy and liked them all (The Intimate Enemy - this one is a classic - highly recommended!!, An Ambiguous Journey to the City, Talking India); was particularly struck by his observation about how secularly motivated and implemented violence is often belyingly produced as religiously rooted riots/strife in the Indian context.
Perhaps most engraved in my mind are the moving, inspiring, but also terrifying memoirs of the Vietnamese who fought against the French and the American, those who were imprisoned and tortured and yet resisted till the very last breath, those who battled and were soooo close to being buried by bombs and mines along with their friends in Dien Bien Phu, those who got shot in the eyes and still continued firing back fiercely, those who volunteered to have their leg amputated without any palliative drug to save the limited anesthetics for their comrades, pleading with the surgeon "please save it, please, many others will need it more than me".... One person I remember vividly: his legs were cuffed down to the floor in a pitch-dark black-painted windowless room, it was his fourth day of no eating, no drinking in protest of the enemy's inhumane in-prison treatment, his body was fatigued, they put human feces near him to make him suffer, and yet at this extremely trying moment he was making a poem (!!!) expressing his undying belief in eventual liberation, and what's more, he stretched his hand to grab the spoon they gave him for eating, rubbed it against the floor to hone one end sharp and, despite how little energy was left in him, tried to sit up (with torturously aching ankles) and use the sharpened spoon to carve the poem of fire on the wall!!!!! can you believe it?! I mean it's not unimaginable, it's like that revolutionary man in Rang De Basanti who engraved his immortal poem on the wall in his solitary confinement... and also like many other unyielding fighters who hold their heart's ideals sacred and intact in spite of all trials and tribulations... but still, totally credible as it is, the person's incredible account does not cease to amaze to me!!
...
I really wish we could all do a live adda together now (I actually wish that every day, especially now that so many of you are not around VC any more :-( )... but since a reunion's not possible until... maybe the next ISA?, let's blog adda in the meantime ;-) hope to hear from all of you soon!
Lots of love,
wb
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/28-1
Thursday, July 23, 2009
As if that was then, and this is now.
On Obama's message to Africans that they "stop blaming colonialism" for their "problems":
Because he has African blood, we were afraid to tell him that it takes more than a couple of brief visits to Africa to understand the continent. We agreed with him that, “Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict.” But we failed to explain to him that many of the Africans who bring up colonialism do not do so to blame the West. That we have never denied that in Africa corruption exists in endemic proportions; that we mention colonialism for the sake of practicality; that we want the West to understand that a continent brutalized and looted for centuries cannot turn around in 50 years.
We want the United States to look at where it was 50 years after its independence. Were the African slaves free? Could women vote? Had the civil war even happened? Wasn’t corruption rampant in the new, free nation?
But rather than ask this son of Africa to look at history, we let him spit the same Western rhetoric that implies that any African who utters the word “colonialism” wants Africa to wait 200 years for a strong “democratic commitment.” Because Obama is of our blood, we let him continue to push the same flawed, condescending idea that every African is in dire need of water, food and medicine. “And that's why," he said, "my administration has committed $63 billion to meet these challenges.”
We cheered when we heard Obama say that America “will put more resources in the hands of those who need it,” even though we know that most of that aid will end up in the hands of our not-so-democratically-committed African-born sons. We applauded when Obama said, “Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way,” although it’s no secret that even if the entire world opened its market to Africa, most of us would have nothing to sell.
Ironically, Obama's African blood has made us too blind to see that the heart that pumps it through his veins is American.
For the full article, click here
And a report on Obama's visit to Ghana here.
Because he has African blood, we were afraid to tell him that it takes more than a couple of brief visits to Africa to understand the continent. We agreed with him that, “Yes, a colonial map that made little sense helped to breed conflict.” But we failed to explain to him that many of the Africans who bring up colonialism do not do so to blame the West. That we have never denied that in Africa corruption exists in endemic proportions; that we mention colonialism for the sake of practicality; that we want the West to understand that a continent brutalized and looted for centuries cannot turn around in 50 years.
We want the United States to look at where it was 50 years after its independence. Were the African slaves free? Could women vote? Had the civil war even happened? Wasn’t corruption rampant in the new, free nation?
But rather than ask this son of Africa to look at history, we let him spit the same Western rhetoric that implies that any African who utters the word “colonialism” wants Africa to wait 200 years for a strong “democratic commitment.” Because Obama is of our blood, we let him continue to push the same flawed, condescending idea that every African is in dire need of water, food and medicine. “And that's why," he said, "my administration has committed $63 billion to meet these challenges.”
We cheered when we heard Obama say that America “will put more resources in the hands of those who need it,” even though we know that most of that aid will end up in the hands of our not-so-democratically-committed African-born sons. We applauded when Obama said, “Wealthy nations must open our doors to goods and services from Africa in a meaningful way,” although it’s no secret that even if the entire world opened its market to Africa, most of us would have nothing to sell.
Ironically, Obama's African blood has made us too blind to see that the heart that pumps it through his veins is American.
For the full article, click here
And a report on Obama's visit to Ghana here.
Wednesday, July 8, 2009
deaths and remembrances
2 articles i just read:
1. Are Afghan Lives Worth Anything? by Tom Engelhardt
i didn't like the ending, but the juxtaposition IS disturbing
... You'd have to make a desperate effort not to know that Michael Jackson (until recently excoriated by the media) had died, and you'd have to make a similarly desperate effort to know that we've knocked off one wedding party after another these last years in Afghanistan. One of these deaths -- Jackson's -- really has little to do with us; the others are, or should be, our responsibility, part of an endless war the American people have either supported or not stopped from continuing. And yet one is a screaming global headline; the others go unnoticed...
2. Evaluating McNamara by Pranay Gupte
... “Bob is a good man,” Maurice Strong told me, his voice quivering. “Your paper shouldn’t be carrying such criticism of him.” Implicit in what Strong said, of course, was that some sort of apology was due to McNamara.
Neither Susan Tolchin nor I ever issued such an apology. What for? Yes, Bob McNamara had served admirably well as the World Bank’s President, and later as a board member of the Washington Post Company and the Washington-based liberal think tank, the Brookings Institution. Yes, he made contributions to philanthropies. And yes, he came out against George W. Bush’s military adventure in Iraq.
But one’s past is not cleansed so readily. I know that a 93-year-old man has passed away peacefully in his sleep, and I know that it is traditional to view such a man’s life through the prism of kindness.
I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Too many of my friends died in Indochina. Too many of them came home without limbs. Their lives never got to be celebrated in the manner in which Robert McNamara was feted in his later years. That’s why, for me at least, he will always be Bomber Bob.
1. Are Afghan Lives Worth Anything? by Tom Engelhardt
i didn't like the ending, but the juxtaposition IS disturbing
... You'd have to make a desperate effort not to know that Michael Jackson (until recently excoriated by the media) had died, and you'd have to make a similarly desperate effort to know that we've knocked off one wedding party after another these last years in Afghanistan. One of these deaths -- Jackson's -- really has little to do with us; the others are, or should be, our responsibility, part of an endless war the American people have either supported or not stopped from continuing. And yet one is a screaming global headline; the others go unnoticed...
2. Evaluating McNamara by Pranay Gupte
... “Bob is a good man,” Maurice Strong told me, his voice quivering. “Your paper shouldn’t be carrying such criticism of him.” Implicit in what Strong said, of course, was that some sort of apology was due to McNamara.
Neither Susan Tolchin nor I ever issued such an apology. What for? Yes, Bob McNamara had served admirably well as the World Bank’s President, and later as a board member of the Washington Post Company and the Washington-based liberal think tank, the Brookings Institution. Yes, he made contributions to philanthropies. And yes, he came out against George W. Bush’s military adventure in Iraq.
But one’s past is not cleansed so readily. I know that a 93-year-old man has passed away peacefully in his sleep, and I know that it is traditional to view such a man’s life through the prism of kindness.
I’m sorry, but I can’t do that. Too many of my friends died in Indochina. Too many of them came home without limbs. Their lives never got to be celebrated in the manner in which Robert McNamara was feted in his later years. That’s why, for me at least, he will always be Bomber Bob.
Friday, June 19, 2009
Sunday, June 7, 2009
a chat w/ Galeano
a drab interviewer but a beauuuuutiful interviewee:
Eduardo Galeano most recently wrote Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone
G: I feel I'm full of people, as you are. Everybody's full of people. Nobody's really alone. We have a crowd inside :-)
I: When you look in the mirror, who do you see?
G: Oh so many people, especially the invisible. And I'm trying to write to recover them because I'm trying to help rebuilding, re-revealing... the very very beautiful rainbow of human conditions. There are so many colors and we are blind to these colors because of the mutilations done by racism, and machismo, and militarism, and elitism, and I dont know how many...
I love the tales he reads from Mirrors and the warm, composed, sagacious way in which he reads... he's such a precious storyteller!!!
"we are all half garbage and half marble... all of us" :-)
--> reminds me of reading in Shariati about God creating humans out of clay and spirit. Strange how stories from different places can resemble each other so closely!! Perhaps it is a sign that all of us can become "contemporaries and compatriots of anyone, anyone, men or women born in very distant places or in very distant times," a manifestation of "the conviction, the faith or the fact that we all form part of the same human conditions, we share fears, hopes, feelings, thoughts, memories..."! ^_^
Eduardo Galeano most recently wrote Mirrors: Stories of Almost Everyone
G: I feel I'm full of people, as you are. Everybody's full of people. Nobody's really alone. We have a crowd inside :-)
I: When you look in the mirror, who do you see?
G: Oh so many people, especially the invisible. And I'm trying to write to recover them because I'm trying to help rebuilding, re-revealing... the very very beautiful rainbow of human conditions. There are so many colors and we are blind to these colors because of the mutilations done by racism, and machismo, and militarism, and elitism, and I dont know how many...
I love the tales he reads from Mirrors and the warm, composed, sagacious way in which he reads... he's such a precious storyteller!!!
"we are all half garbage and half marble... all of us" :-)
--> reminds me of reading in Shariati about God creating humans out of clay and spirit. Strange how stories from different places can resemble each other so closely!! Perhaps it is a sign that all of us can become "contemporaries and compatriots of anyone, anyone, men or women born in very distant places or in very distant times," a manifestation of "the conviction, the faith or the fact that we all form part of the same human conditions, we share fears, hopes, feelings, thoughts, memories..."! ^_^
Sunday, May 3, 2009
a beautiful hymn
so sacredly beautiful:
Some call the Lord 'Ram, Ram', and some 'Khuda'.
koee saevai guseeaa koee alaahi ||1||
Some serve Him as 'Gusain', others as 'Allah'.
kaaran karan kareem ||
He is the Cause of causes, and Generous.
kirapaa dhhaar reheem ||1||
He showers His Grace and Mercy upon us.
koee naavai theerathh koee haj jaae ||
Some pilgrims bathe at sacred shrines, others go on Hajj to Mecca.
koee karai poojaa koee sir nivaae ||2||
Some do devotional worship, whilst others bow their heads in prayer.
koee parrai baedh koee kathaeb ||
Some read the Vedas, and some the Koran.
koee oudtai neel koee supaedh ||3||
Some wear blue robes, and some wear white.
koee kehai thurak koee kehai hi(n)dhoo ||
Some call themselves Muslim, and some call themselves Hindu.
koee baashhai bhisath koee suragi(n)dhoo ||4||
Some yearn for paradise, and others long for heaven.
kahu naanak jin hukam pashhaathaa ||
Says Nanak, one who realizes the Hukam of God's Will,
prabh saahib kaa thin bhaedh jaathaa ||5||
knows the secrets of his Lord Master."
Some call the Lord ' Ram, Ram ', and some ' Khuda ' - Sikh, Hindu, Sufi, Islam, etc
Some call the Lord 'Ram, Ram', and some 'Khuda'.
koee saevai guseeaa koee alaahi ||1||
Some serve Him as 'Gusain', others as 'Allah'.
kaaran karan kareem ||
He is the Cause of causes, and Generous.
kirapaa dhhaar reheem ||1||
He showers His Grace and Mercy upon us.
koee naavai theerathh koee haj jaae ||
Some pilgrims bathe at sacred shrines, others go on Hajj to Mecca.
koee karai poojaa koee sir nivaae ||2||
Some do devotional worship, whilst others bow their heads in prayer.
koee parrai baedh koee kathaeb ||
Some read the Vedas, and some the Koran.
koee oudtai neel koee supaedh ||3||
Some wear blue robes, and some wear white.
koee kehai thurak koee kehai hi(n)dhoo ||
Some call themselves Muslim, and some call themselves Hindu.
koee baashhai bhisath koee suragi(n)dhoo ||4||
Some yearn for paradise, and others long for heaven.
kahu naanak jin hukam pashhaathaa ||
Says Nanak, one who realizes the Hukam of God's Will,
prabh saahib kaa thin bhaedh jaathaa ||5||
knows the secrets of his Lord Master."
Sunday, April 26, 2009
some songs/poems by Mutabaruka...
Naw give up
It no good (to stay in a white man country too long) lol
Dis poem
It no good (to stay in a white man country too long) lol
Dis poem
Thursday, April 23, 2009
"yu studied me an filmed me - remember... remember I hav studied studying..."
A modern slave song
by Benjamin Zephaniah
When yu cosy in yu house
Remember I exist,
When yu drink expensive drink
Remember I exist,
When yu lying on me beach
Remember I exist,
When yu trying to sell me beans to me
Remember I exist.
When yu loving each other to death
Remember I exist,
When yu selling me me music
Remember I exist,
When yu sell dat cotton shirt
Remember I exist,
When yu interviewing me
Remember I exist.
I was de first inventor -- remember
I am black an dread an luv -- remember
I am poor but rich, don't mess -- remember
I made history -- remember.
Yu tried to shut me mouth -- remember
Yu studied me an filmed me -- remember
Yu spending me money -- remember
Yu trying to feget me but remember,
Remember I am trained to not give in,
So don't feget.
Remember I hav studied studying
So don't feget.
Remember where I come from, cause I do.
I won't feget.
Remember yu got me, cause I'll get yu.
I'll mek yu sweat.
by Benjamin Zephaniah
When yu cosy in yu house
Remember I exist,
When yu drink expensive drink
Remember I exist,
When yu lying on me beach
Remember I exist,
When yu trying to sell me beans to me
Remember I exist.
When yu loving each other to death
Remember I exist,
When yu selling me me music
Remember I exist,
When yu sell dat cotton shirt
Remember I exist,
When yu interviewing me
Remember I exist.
I was de first inventor -- remember
I am black an dread an luv -- remember
I am poor but rich, don't mess -- remember
I made history -- remember.
Yu tried to shut me mouth -- remember
Yu studied me an filmed me -- remember
Yu spending me money -- remember
Yu trying to feget me but remember,
Remember I am trained to not give in,
So don't feget.
Remember I hav studied studying
So don't feget.
Remember where I come from, cause I do.
I won't feget.
Remember yu got me, cause I'll get yu.
I'll mek yu sweat.
Saturday, April 11, 2009
Bocas Del Tiempo de Eduardo Galeano
TIME PLAYS GAMES
It’s said that once upon a time two friends were admiring a painting. The work of art, by who knows who, was from China, a field of flowers at harvest time.
One of the friends, who knows why?, fixed his faze on a figure in the painting, one of many women with baskets gathering poppies. She wore her hair loose, flowing over her shoulders.
At last she returned his gaze, let her basket fall, held out her arms, and, who knows how, carried him off.
He let himself be taken, who knows where, and with that woman he spent nights and days, who knows how many, until a gust of wind picked him up and returned him to the room where his friend remained standing before the painting.
So brief was that eternity that the friend had not noticed his absence. And neither had he noticed that the woman, one of many women in the painting gathering poppies in their baskets, now wore her hair tied at the back of her neck.
It’s said that once upon a time two friends were admiring a painting. The work of art, by who knows who, was from China, a field of flowers at harvest time.
One of the friends, who knows why?, fixed his faze on a figure in the painting, one of many women with baskets gathering poppies. She wore her hair loose, flowing over her shoulders.
At last she returned his gaze, let her basket fall, held out her arms, and, who knows how, carried him off.
He let himself be taken, who knows where, and with that woman he spent nights and days, who knows how many, until a gust of wind picked him up and returned him to the room where his friend remained standing before the painting.
So brief was that eternity that the friend had not noticed his absence. And neither had he noticed that the woman, one of many women in the painting gathering poppies in their baskets, now wore her hair tied at the back of her neck.
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