hit & run
In my view, analysis and action in social conflicts ought to be grounded in the aspirations of people struggling for more freedom and equality before law, wherever in the world. Consistently following this principle, it is possible to support Tibet and oppose the Communist and Islamic insurrections, without being accused of double standards. Dennis Prager's contrast of the world reactions to the Israel-Palestine and the China-Tibet conflicts highlights the opposite kind of double standards practiced by much of the world community. Here are some excerpts:
The long-suffering Tibetans have been in the news. This happens perhaps once or twice a decade. In a more moral world, however, public opinion would be far more preoccupied with Tibetans than with Palestinians, would be as harsh on China as it is on Israel, and would be as fawning on Israel as it now is on China.
But, alas, the world is, as it has always been, a largely mean-spirited and morally insensitive place, where might is far more highly regarded than right.
Consider the facts: Tibet, at least 1,400 years old, is one of the world's oldest nations, has its own language, its own religion and even its own ethnicity. Over 1 million of its people have been killed by the Chinese, its culture has been systematically obliterated, 6,000 of its 6,200 monasteries have been looted and destroyed, and most of its monks have been tortured, murdered or exiled.
Palestinians have none of these characteristics. There has never been a Palestinian country, never been a Palestinian language, never been a Palestinian ethnicity, never been a Palestinian religion in any way distinct from Islam elsewhere...
... Why have the Palestinians received such undeserved attention and support, and the far more aggrieved and persecuted and moral Tibetans given virtually no support or attention?
The first reason is terror. Some time ago, the Palestinian leadership decided, with the overwhelming support of the Palestinian people, that murdering as many innocent people -- first Jews, and then anyone else -- was the fastest way to garner world attention...
The second reason is oil and support from powerful fellow Arabs...
The third reason is Israel. To deny that pro-Palestinian activism in the world is sometimes related to hostility toward Jews is to deny the obvious...
A fourth reason is China. If Tibet had been crushed by a white European nation, the Tibetans would have elicited far more sympathy. But, alas, their near-genocidal oppressor is not white... Furthermore, China is far more powerful and frightening than Israel...
A fifth reason is the world's Left. As a general rule, the Left demonizes Israel and has loved China since it became Communist in 1948...
The sixth reason is the United Nations, where Israel has been condemned in more General Assembly and Security Council resolutions than any other country in the world. At the same time, the UN has voted China onto its Security Council and has never condemned it...
The seventh reason is television news, the primary source of news for much of mankind. Aside from its leftist tilt, television news reports only what it can video. And almost no country is televised as much as Israel, while video reports in Tibet are forbidden, as they are almost anywhere in China except where strictly monitored by the Chinese authorities...
The world is unfair, unjust and morally twisted...
Required reading for all the rational fools out there!
Link via a comment by Oldtimer on a related post at the Acorn. Thanks.
Read More...
politics
Taslima Nasreen has left India — or more precisely, has been forced out. She is said to be somewhere in Europe, her location kept secret for obvious reasons. To me personally it was never a question of if, but when she would leave this state that has failed miserably in everything that it professes to uphold — democracy, secularism, and freedom of expression. A self-serving, weak-kneed government, has allowed itself to be browbeaten by a handful of fundamentalist thugs, who have chalked up an amazing victory over intellectuals, judges, writers, and concerned citizens from every sphere of life.
A chapter in Ms. Nasreen's life has ended. Another chapter in India's history has begun, which I am afraid, will be a tragic one, unless the script is changed miraculously somehow. Time to pay heed to the words of Kazi Nazrul Islam written at a different time, on a different crisis in the subcontinent:
The boat is trembling,
The water is swelling,
The sail is torn asunder,
And the boatman is losing his way,
Who will sit at the helm at this hour?
Who has the courage and the power?
The future calls you,
Come forward, all who are bold and true.
— Kazi Nazrul Islam, Beware My Captain. In Bengali : Kandari hushiar, Translation: Kabir Chowdhury
Read More...
hit & run
After the Jonestown mass murder-suicide, this one appears to be largest mass suicide by any living organism - in this case eggplants, or as the Indians would like to call them, brinjals. Well, technically they are not suicides but public hanging of a thousand eggplants in different parts of Mumbai, India, by the Greenpeace. A note attached to the rope by which the eggplants were hung said:
I cannot live in this place where my identity is being manipulated. For the first time crazy scientists and seed companies who want profit out of selling my (brinjal) seeds are tinkering with my genes.
Rajesh Krishnan, the campaign manager for Greenpeace said,
"The whole idea is to draw consumer attention to food safety issues as the government is about to commercialise BT brinjal, the first genetically engineered crop in India".
Lest this post be considered prejudicial to the identity of the GE eggplant, I'll point to one of the several articles and research reports on both the benefits and the safety issues relating to genetically engineered foods: Food Safety and Genetically Modified Foods, a report published by the Food Safety Authority of Ireland.
Read More...
politics
Reporters Sans Frontières has listed 15 countries around the world as enemies of the Internet. They are:
- Belarus
- Burma
- China
- Cuba
- Egypt
- Ethiopia
- Iran
- North Korea
- Saudi Arabia
- Syria
- Tunisia
- Turkmenistan
- Uzbekistan
- Vietnam
- Zimbabwe
On March 12th and 13th, RSF had organized a 24-hour virtual demonstration against Internet censorship, where 21,843 Internet users in nine of these countries participated. Thanking these protesters, RSF said:
“This cyber-demonstration has shown the public’s growing interest in online free expression... We urge Internet users to continue protesting against the different forms of online censorship imposed by 15 governments in particular. Our protest platform is still active and people can still come and demonstrate.”
Allow me to join the protest with this quote from Thomas Jefferson:
"No government ought to be without censors; and where the press is free no one ever will. If virtuous the government need not fear the fair operation of attack and defence. Nature has given to man no other means of sifting out the truth in religion, law, or politics. I think it is as honorable to the government neither to know, nor notice its sycophants or censors, as it would be undignified and criminal to pamper the former and persecute the latter.
— To President Washington iii 467 FORD ED vi o8 (M., 1792)"
Read More...
hit & run
The Supreme Court of India has called for an end to the growing tendency to curb freedom of speech, ostensibly to avoid hurting the sentiments of one group or another. No, my post On Moses and Aurangazeb yesterday had nothing to do with the justices' admonishment, however much I'd have liked it to be so. Unless, of course, there's reason to believe that the arrow of time was somehow reversed during the last few days!
While upholding a temporary shut down of slaughter houses in Ahmedabad during the Jain festival Paryushan in Hinsa Virodhak Sangh v. Mirzapur Moti Kuresh Jamat & Ors, Justices H. K. Sema & Markandey Katju wrote (para 66):
These days unfortunately some people seem to be perpetually on a short fuse, and are willing to protest often violently, about anything under the sun on the ground that a book or painting or film etc. has hurt the sentiments of their community. These are dangerous tendencies and must be curbed with an iron hand. We are one nation and must respect each other and should have tolerance.
Well, it's deplorable that "some people seem to be perpetually on a short fuse", but what if the state itself chose to intervene "with an iron hand" on their behalf?
If the arrow of time were reversed during the last few days, would the Chief Minister of Tamilnadu, Mr. M. Karunanidhi, have been cited contempt of court — again?
Read More...
politics
More than a week has passed since I read the report. All this while, I held my breath fearing the worst. Will there be violent protests on the streets of Moscow, Paris, London, Los Angeles, New York, and Mumbai? How many innocent bystanders will be killed in random firings of Kalashnikovs and home made explosives? Will they burn effigies of George Bush and Gordon Brown on the streets of Tel Aviv, for being silent spectators to this ultimate blasphemy? Will Cecille B. De Mille turn in his grave for the vilification of his hero of the Ten Commandments?
Guardian reported a week ago:
The Bible tells us that when the Children of Israel left Egypt, they had a 40-year trip through the desert before reaching the Promised Land. Now a leading Israeli academic has a new theory about exactly what kind of trip it was.
In the philosophy journal Time and Mind, Benny Shanon states that key events of the Old Testament are actually records of visions by ancient Israelites high on hallucinogens. Shanon is a professor at Jerusalem's Hebrew University, where he used to head the psychology department...
The psychedelic substance is a drink called Ayahuasca... So, when Moses first encountered God, he was high. "Encountering the divine is one of the most powerful experiences associated with high-level Ayahuasca inebriation," claims Shanon.
Here's someone delivering the ultimate insult to Moses — he was stoned high when he claimed to have seen god — and what was the reaction? No calls for the murder of Bill Shannon as there were for the Danish cartoonists, Salman Rushdie, or Taslima Nasreen. No suicide bombing, no explosions. Not even a whimper of a protest march on the streets of Tel Aviv. Only deafening silence from the millions of Jewish faithfuls around the world. Weren't their sentiments hurt by this scandalous report on the state of Moses's mind when he personally received the ten commandments from his god? Barring scattered murmurs of disagreement from a few rabbis, Shannon's contention has received scarce attention from both the Jewish community and the media.
For a contrast with the civil discourse on Moses's alleged hallucinations, try this one from Chennai, India:
French journalist Francois Gautier's Foundation Against Continuing Terrorism (FACT) has painstakingly -- and at great expense -- put together a collection of 40 miniatures and firmans that tell the story of Aurangzeb's rule [a notoriously cruel Muslim emperor of India]. The exhibition is called Aurangzeb as he was according to Mughal records. "We have taken care to present all facets of Aurangzeb, including his piety," says Gautier...
On March 5, a group of 15 Muslims (Gautier says "they were no more than six") affiliated to the Tamil Nadu Muslim Munnetra Kazhagam, Manitha Neethi Paasarai and other Muslim organisations, entered the exhibition hall and confronted FACT volunteers who were present there. Raising their voice, they rubbished the show and alleged that it did not portray the right image of 'their' Aurangzeb.
By Thursday, March 7, "higher authorities" in Tamil Nadu Government had issued instructions to the police to shut down the exhibition. [Assistant Commissioner of Police KN Murali], along with his men, stormed into the exhibition hall on Thursday evening and began taking down the paintings. "He was looking for the paintings showing the destruction of Somnath and Kesava Rai temples. He threw them to the floor," said a FACT volunteer...
The police say they acted after receiving "three complaints that the show would disturb communal harmony". They wanted the exhibition to be shut down immediately as the next day was Friday. The police also forcibly took into custody three FACT volunteers -- Saraswathi (65), D Vijayalakshmi (62) and Malathi (47) -- although women cannot be detained after sunset in police stations. They were not allowed to contact their families.
Were it a case of self-censorship under pressure or a bunch of Islamo-fascists vandalizing the exhibits and forcing the organizers to shut down the exhibition, it would have been just another milestone in the peace march of this religion. Unfortunately, the culprits here are the law enforcement officers of a democratic and secular state. What a shame!
Evidently, it's not only the prophet of Islam, who is beyond any reproach. The character and behavior of every ayatollah, caliph, and emperor of the Islamic world, dead or alive, cannot be called into question either. Those who dare will be doing so only at a grave risk to their life and property.
What is it that the apologists for Islam never seem to tire of asserting? Islam is a religion of peace and tolerance?
Read More...
hit & run
Parvin Ardalan, an Iranian dissident was expected to fly to Stockholm this week to receive the Olof Palme Prize for outstanding achievement in the spirit of former Prime Minister of Sweden. She would share this honor with other illustrious recipients of the award who include Kofi Annan, Václav Havel, Wei Jingsheng, and Daw Aung San Suu Kyi, among others. Ms. Ardalan was sentenced to three years imprisonment in April, 2007, for threatening national security, a sentence that she is appealing. Today, Amnesty International reports that she has been prevented by the Iranian police from leaving the country:
"[After boarding an Air France flight to Stockholm] They took my passport and asked me to refer to the presidential office department for passport affairs after 72 hours to take it back," she said. "The only reason for this move is to prevent me from taking part in the ceremony. I think this is unreasonable."
Ms. Ardalan, is a champion of equal rights for women and religious and cultural minorities, who have faced discrimination under draconian Islamic Law in Iran, since Ayatollah Khomeini seized power in 1979. The Telegraph reports:
"I am from the destroyed generation of the revolution," she said. "I always ask myself what happened that within a few months it was suddenly bad for me to ride a bicycle as a girl. I was thrown out of school for not wanting to wear a headscarf."
There are signs that the campaign for equal rights, and against theocratic tyranny, is winning more and more hearts and minds in Iran. Just last week, riots broke out in Tehran, when the Iranian Chastity Police attempted to arrest a young woman for wearing colorful clothes that violated the strict dress code for women. The officials fled the scene as the crowd chanted: "We don't want the Islamic republic."
The spark that started a prairie fire? Let's hope!
Read More...
hit & run
Some sculptors will say, "Yes, it can. Through the artful hands of the sculptor. If Rodin could make his sculptured man move his muscles, why can't a stone be made to move its vocal chords?". Well, in this case the stone hasn't spoken for centuries, and it's a smooth tetrahedron with no wrinkle or undulation to reveal the possibility of muscles and nerves. What's wrong with calling it a "dumb stone"? Will it be pc to call it a "speech disadvantaged stone"? Why do the followers of a religion that routinely derides and denounces idol worshipers get all upset about it?
Der Spiegel reports from Berlin:
A Berlin gallery has closed an exhibition of satirical art by the controversial Danish group Surrend after receiving threats from a group of Muslims. The men were objecting to a picture of the Kaaba at Mecca under the title "Dumb Stone." ... The men reportedly threatened the staff with violence should they not comply.
This is the latest in a series of incidents in Europe, involving the clash of the idea of freedom of expression with the idea of blasphemy of Islam and its prophet. Theo van Gogh's murder for his filming of Ayaan Hirsi Ali's "Submission", the Berlin Deutche Opera's cancellation of the staging of Mozart's "Idemeneo", the loss of life and property around the world in the violence that followed the publication of Muhammad cartoons by the Danish newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, and most recently, the protests against the republication of the cartoons by several Danish newspapers. Expressing his solidarity with the Surrend, the president of Berlin's influential Academy of Arts, Klaus Staeck, who opened the exhibition last week, is quoted to have said,
"I extend my solidarity to all artists ... whose work is threatened by violent people who hold different beliefs"... adding that he hoped the exhibition could re-open soon.
The Surrend group has appealed to the Berlin authorities to provide 24-hour police protection, so the exhibition can reopen. The most fundamental duty of any democratically elected government is to guarantee the physical safety and security of its citizens. I hope the Berlin authorities will do everything in their capacity to fulfill this guarantee.
The worldwide attempts by Islamists to silence anyone who is critical of their religion and its icons have gone far enough. It is time that everyone who believes in the freedom of expression — in principle, that should include everyone of my fellow bloggers — should join Klaus Staeck in expressing solidarity with Surrend, and everyone else who has preceded and will certainly succeed these Danish artists. I do.
Read More...
|
|
Posts
