Month: November 2007

Emergency in Pakistan: another dark night

On Saturday, President Musharraf imposed emergency in Pakistan, claiming the ‘visible ascendancy in the activities of extremists and incidents of terrorist attacks’ as the immediate provocation.

An excerpt from Tariq Ali‘s response in Counter Punch and the Independent:

Global media coverage of Pakistan suggests a country consisting of Generals, corrupt politicians and bearded lunatics. The struggle to reinstate the Chief Justice presented a different snapshot of the country. This movement for constitutional freedoms revived hope at a time when most people are alienated from the system and cynical about their rulers, whose ill-gotten wealth and withered faces consumed by vanity inspire nil confidence.

That this is the case can be seen in the heroic decision taken by the Supreme Court in a special session yesterday declaring the new dispensation ‘illegal and unconstitutional’. The hurriedly sworn in new Chief Justice will be seen for what he is: a stooge of the men in uniform. If the constitution remains in suspension for more than three months then Musharraf himself might be pushed aside by the Army and a new strongman put in place. Or it could be that the aim of the operation was limited to a cleansing of the Supreme Court and controlling the media. That is what Musharraf indicated in his broadcast to the nation. In which case a totally rigged election becomes a certainty next January. Whatever the case Pakistan’s long journey to the end of the night continues.

India’s official response, so far, has been cautious, merely asking for a ‘restoration of democracy’, without criticising Musharraf.

Sarah Baartman Speaks

Last month, I sent this piece around by email, by facebook, by almost every method of communication, but not by blog post, strangely enough. However, it is well worth having up for transient posterity on these pages; to those who might be interested, this is an extraordinary and powerful challenge to the editors of the recently published Norton Reader on Feminist Literary Theory and Criticism, an ambitious work seeking to ‘trace the historical evolution of feminist writing about literature in English from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century’.

Pius Adesanmi asks the editors why – in an edited volume spanning over 100 contributors – they did not see fit to include an article by an African feminist theorist:

It is your awareness of these things that makes your excision of African feminist theories and theorists from your volume all the more alarming. Could it be that you imagined that the voices of the African American women you selected adequately speak for those of their continental sisters? Possibly. If this is the case, I must tell you that African American women cannot be made to stand in and speak for continental African women. According to an African proverb, the monkey and the gorilla may claim oneness, monkey is monkey and gorilla gorilla. Perhaps you imagined that African women would be better served to find some space inside the Third World/postcolonial/transnational feminist umbrella you represented with the voices of Gayatri Spivak and Chandra Mohanty? Possibly. Could it be that you are simply unaware of the considerable body of African feminist intellection, right there in your back of the wood in the US academy? Possibly. Could it be that you just simply elected to disappear them like you disappeared me? Possibly.

I think his challenge goes beyond that of acknowledging the critical presence of African feminist thought – though that is clearly the immediate provocation – and pushes us all to think about issues of inclusion, exclusion and legitimacy in academic circles. Important indeed.