Category: Politics

May his tribe increase

I have always viewed Colin Powell with discomfort and mistrust for his role in the Bush administration’s war on Iraq. Yet this weekend, as he endorsed Obama, he redeemed himself to a great extent in my eyes; less for his endorsement – because I’m not sure how much that matters in terms of actual votes, though it is a significant nail in the Republican intellectual coffin – but much more for this statement:

I’m also troubled by, not what Senator McCain says, but what members of the party say. And it is permitted to be said such things as, “Well, you know that Mr. Obama is a Muslim.”

Well, the correct answer is, he is not a Muslim; he’s a Christian. He’s always been a Christian.

But the really right answer is, what if he is? Is there something wrong with being a Muslim in this country? The answer’s no, that’s not America.

Is there something wrong with some seven-year-old Muslim-American kid believing that he or she could be president?

Yet, I have heard senior members of my own party drop the suggestion, “He’s a Muslim and he might be associated terrorists.” This is not the way we should be doing it in America.

I feel strongly about this particular point because of a picture I saw in a magazine. It was a photo essay about troops who are serving in Iraq and Afghanistan.

And one picture at the tail end of this photo essay was of a mother in Arlington Cemetery, and she had her head on the headstone of her son’s grave. And as the picture focused in, you could see the writing on the headstone. And it gave his awards — Purple Heart, Bronze Star — showed that he died in Iraq, gave his date of birth, date of death. He was 20 years old.

And then, at the very top of the headstone, it didn’t have a Christian cross; it didn’t have the Star of David; it had crescent and a star of the Islamic faith. And his name was Kareem Rashad Sultan Khan, and he was an American. He was born in New Jersey. He was 14 years old at the time of 9/11, and he waited until he can go serve his country, and he gave his life.

Over this troubling US Presidential process, one of the most troubling moments for me was when a supporter of McCain’s said to him at a rally that Obama was Arab, and his response was “No ma’am… he’s a decent family man, citizen, that I just happen to have disagreements with on fundamental issues.” Add to that the sleight of a campaign that conflates racism with Islamophobia and uses Hussein, Obama’s middle name, as shorthand for suspecting all his credentials.

Almost as problematic as the Republican campaign on this, has been the Democrats’ response, or lack thereof. Less appalling in degree from McCain’s instinctual ‘No, Ma’am, he’s a decent family man’ in his rebuttal to the Arab comment, it corrects the premise that Obama is Muslim, because his professed faith is Christian, but it never goes beyond to address this question: why should it matter if he was Arab and/or Muslim? Can’t Arabs be decent family men, and American Muslims aspire to be Presidents of the US? As Naomi Klein says:

What is disturbing about the campaign’s response is that it leaves unchallenged the disgraceful and racist premise behind the entire “Muslim smear”: that being Muslim is de facto a source of shame.

Ditto being Arab. Obviously, it will take many geography and history lessons from Joe Biden to clarify that ‘Arab’ and ‘Muslim’ are not necessarily the same identities.

So for an Indian sitting in America, struggling with anger over remarks of this kind, as well as struggling with anger and despair over what’s going on back home – the persecution of Christians in Orissa and Karnataka, the continued persecution of Muslims, a growing fundamentalism across communities and caste and class violence in general – I have to say Colin Powell’s comment gives some cheer in uncheerful times. It also reminds me that with all my despair over violence in India, at the time I left last year, it had a Sikh Prime Minister, a Muslim President, and a Catholic and a Hindu as leaders of the two biggest political parties, besides an atheist as the Speaker of the House. We are not perfect in any way (very far from it), but there is a history of syncretism in the sub-continent that has been, and should continue to be, a strength we draw upon and expand, rather than abuse. Syncretic, plural cultures that have had some inspiration from the Arab world so vilified in certain American conversations today.

Like comfort food, I often return to simpler – and sometimes, more profound – truths of childhood. One particular poem I remember clearly encountering as a ten year old, was Leigh Hunt’s encomium to the sufi saint Ibrahim Bin Adham, or Abou Ben Adhem, in which ‘exceeding peace had made Ben Adhem bold’. Let’s hope that same exceeding peace prevails amongst others in the US like Colin Powell, who have the courage, if somewhat belatedly, to seek justice beyond popularity.

Oh geez, John Cleese!

From the Daily Kos (and elsewhere on the blogosphere), a brilliant poem by John Cleese on Sean Hannity, the Fox(ed) News anchor. (Btw, 86% of Fox News viewers reportedly thought McCain won the second US Presidential elections’ debate; everyone else thought Obama had).

Ode to Sean Hannity
by John Cleese

Aping urbanity
Oozing with vanity
Plump as a manatee
Faking humanity
Journalistic calamity
Intellectual inanity
Fox Noise insanity
You’re a profanity
Hannity

And my own humble response:

John Cleese
terrific tease
always at ease
such a wheeze.
more please?

Do we dream differently?

In the present climate of economic uncertainty meltdown, political hypocrisy and understandable social anger, I thought I needed to cheer myself up – and perhaps you, NotSoGentle Reader. The AWID Forum is a platform for feminists – of all shapes, sizes, sexualities, genders and agendas (!) – that is convened every three years. This time it’s mid-November in Cape Town, one of the beautifulest places in the world, inhabited by some of my bestest friends. However, I am not going for the Forum this year; the first time since the 1999 Forum. One reason is that I need to write this doctoral thesis that I have been promising myself – and others – to finish for the last ten years (aaargh). The other is that I do feel, increasingly, that every now and then, one should drop off the conference junket route (not that I’m on a plane every month, but certainly, every year so far in the last ten) to allow younger and newer – one doesn’t preclude the other – people to experience the energies of solidarity. And the AWID Forum is certainly a space for that energy.

I do feel like I’m missing out on something, though – particularly since this year’s Forum is on the power of movements. But then I think to myself that the struggle is fought every day, in the little moments, all over the world. And that power is shared, as I already know, with countless friends across the world. So perhaps then, just an opportunity to muse on the last Forum and a session we conducted there, based on the book – Defending our Dreams: global feminist voices for a new generation – that we launched at the Forum. Defending our Dreams is arguably the first international anthology of young feminist analyses ever; I’m proud of it, but I’m also proud of this session we did, with a bunch of contributors to the volume. And perhaps my reflections on the session go beyond the moment:

Do we really dream differently? It was easy enough to choose the title of our book – Defending our Dreams – once we had found Gabrielle Hosein’s quirky and questioning poem on feminism, but it was very difficult to judge whether a session at the AWID Forum on our dreams would be interesting at all. We shouldn’t have worried. Putting together a panel of extraordinary young women – articulate and honest – is all the recipe we needed. Five of our contributors, Alejandra Scampini (Uruguay), Indigo Williams-Willing (Vietnam/Australia), Salma Maoulidi (Tanzania), Jennifer Plyler (Canada) and Paromita Vohra (India), sat together to discuss what I, as moderator, had thought were banal, obvious questions: What are the dreams we dream – and how are they different, or not, from those dreamt (by feminists) before? What are the strategies we use that might be different? And where to, from here?

The questions may have sounded banal, but the session felt like magic. Like the others, I too struggle to understand why – how the last session of the day, with people coming in tired and overwhelmed, sitting at the edge of their chairs and at the back of the room (so they could exit quietly and quickly if needed), could have created a little oasis of joy, of reflection, of separately articulated dreams that somehow, wonderfully, fused together to be shared by others in the room, listening to them. Perhaps one reason for the magic was the simple truth we had overlooked in our grand theorising – that ‘dreaming’ is a very powerful word. That we so rarely use its power, both for ourselves and for others. That we are so caught up in the banality of the every day, that we forget we begin with a dream, and that somehow, somewhere along the way, that dream changes in shape and form and colour. Sometimes we even forget – in the cynicism of complexity and the routine efforts of struggle – that we had a dream at all, and that it whispers to us every now and then in quiet, unsuspecting moments.

What were the dreams that were shared? That not just ideology, or strategy, is about the personal being political; that our lives begin and end with the struggles of this truth and its reverse – the political is invariably, always, personal. Whether it was about a feminist daring to say that her dream is to be happily married to a wonderful man and have healthy babies, or about another feminist daring to say that perhaps body shape contributes to feminism (are ‘fat’ women more ‘feminist’???). That the struggles have changed in context over the years, but that our feminist histories have never been intimate enough for us to learn enough from them, or to acknowledge them in ways beyond the academic. We asked our older sisters in the audience: why is that we don’t have histories of the movement that tell us about the little struggles? About the jokes at the end of the day, the exhausted camaraderie at the end of a battle, the imperfections and human-ness of the process? Why is it that we feel we look at history as a series of perfect, coordinated responses to situations – when we know that the truth is sometimes painful, sometimes hysterically funny, always messy?

‘Intimacy’ was a word we used a lot. And ‘relationships’. And we came to the shared vision that grand political change is often about shared intimate processes of relational shifts. How we grow to live freely and well with our lovers, our families, our friends, our colleagues – and how they live with us – is often the longest, toughest journey. And that acknowledging that intimacy of change might make our future journeys easier. We ended with an acknowledgement to the wisdom of the past, while dreaming on. We quoted Gloria Steinem: ‘Without leaps of imagination, or dreaming, we lose the excitement of possibilities. Dreaming, after all, is a form of planning’.

Tom Lehrer and National Brotherhood Week

I’m sure to get ragged by TR about my comment in my post below, saying ‘dissent and debate welcome, hatred unacceptable’. But he certainly knows I’m following a rich and illustrious tradition.

Tom Lehrer, in his introduction to National Brotherhood Week:

I’m sure we all agree that we ought to love one another and I know there are people in the world that do not love their fellow human beings and I hate people like that.

Asma Jahangir on freedom of religion and belief in India

asmaj3.jpgAsma Jahangir is the Special Rapporteur on freedom of religion or belief of the United Nations Human Rights Council. She recently visited India, and made a statement on 20th March 2008. Some excerpts from the statement; the full text is available at The Hindu.

[…]Indeed, due to the religious diversity of India, this country visit has been an enriching experience for the mandate I hold since 2004. I will be submitting a detailed report with conclusions and recommendations to the United Nations Human Rights Council, therefore this press statement will only cover some preliminary impressions that I have formed during the past 2« weeks. In this press statement it would be impossible to make a general assessment of the current state of freedom of religion or belief in the whole of India. In fact, this was not the first visit of the mandate, as my predecessor undertook a mission to India in 1996 (see UN Doc. E/CN.4/1997/91/Add.1). Consequently, my forthcoming report will also be a follow-up on developments during the past twelve years, in order to analyze what has changed and why.

[…]Many of my interlocutors have pointed to the positive impact of Indian secularism as embodied in the Constitution. By and large, Indians do value secular principles and I was told time and again that the term “secularism” does not necessarily mean the same as in other countries. Historically, there have been believers of a whole range of religions and beliefs living in India. The central Government has developed a comprehensive policy pertaining to minorities, including religious ones. In this context, I would like to compliment various recent reports on religious minorities, for example drafted by the Committees headed by Justice Rajender Sachar in 2006 and by Justice Renganath Misra in 2007. Such Committees mandated by the Government are a good example of mechanisms put in place to analyse the situation and put forward recommendations for the Government to take action upon.

The National Commission for Minorities, too, has taken up several challenges. Their members took prompt action and issued independent reports on incidents of communal violence with concrete recommendations. However, the performance of various Human Rights Commissions depends very much on the selection of its members and the importance various Governments attach to their mandates. It is vital that members of such commissions have acute sensitivity to human rights issues and must reflect the diversity – particularly in terms of gender – as women are one of the worst sufferers of religious intolerance. At the same time, I noticed that women’s groups across religious lines were the most active and effective human rights advocates in situations of communal tensions.

All individuals I met recognised that a comprehensive legal framework to protect their rights exists, yet many of them – especially from religious minorities – remained dissatisfied with its implementation. By and large, the Indians respect the diversity of religions and beliefs. At the same time, organised groups based on religious ideologies have unleashed the fear of mob violence in many parts of the country. Law enforcement is often reluctant to take any action against individuals or groups that perpetuate violence in the name of religion or belief. This institutionalised impunity for those who exploit religion and impose their religious intolerance on others has made peaceful citizens, particularly the minorities, vulnerable and fearful.

I have received numerous reports of attacks on religious minorities and their places of worship as well as discrimination of disempowered sections of the Hindu community.

[…]Less than three months ago, there was widespread violence in the Kandhamal district of Orissa, targeting primarily Christians in Dalit and tribal communities. I received credible reports that members of the Christian community alerted the authorities in advance of the planned attacks of 24-27 December 2007. The police, too, had warned Christian leaders about anticipated violence. The National Commission for Minorities stated in a recent report: “Destruction on such a large scale in places which are difficult to access could not have taken place without advance preparation and planning.” Even today, the tensions are prevalent and the anti-conversion legislation is being used to vilify Christians in general.

Concerning the 2002 Gujarat massacre, I have read numerous reports, both of official bodies and civil society organisations and I met a large number of eyewitnesses and people who visited Gujarat during the trouble. The State Government reported that, prior to the Godhra incident, Gujarat had witnessed 443 major communal incidents between 1970 and 2002. As such, the warning was there. However, the massacre that took place after the tragic deaths at Godhra in 2002 is all the more horrifying since by all accounts at least a thousand people were systematically killed. Even worse, there are credible reports that inaction by the authorities was evident and most interlocutors alleged complicity by the State Government. In my discussions with victims I could see their continuing fear which is exacerbated by the distress that justice continues to evade most victims and survivors. Even today there is increasing ghettoization and isolation of Muslims in certain areas. The assertion of the State Government that development by itself will heal the wounds does not seem to be realistic. It is crucial to recognise that development without a policy of inclusiveness of all communities will only add to aggravate resentments.

Furthermore, I am disturbed that at various meetings with members of the civil society during my visit in Gujarat, plain-clothed Government agents took names of all my NGO interlocutors and also made their presence felt afterwards. On several occasions, I had to insist that police officers leave the room during my NGO meetings. The terms of reference of fact-finding missions by Special Rapporteurs (see UN Doc. E/CN.4/1998/45, Appendix V) are very clear in this regard. These terms of reference guarantee confidential and unsupervised contact with witnesses and other private persons as well as assurance by the Government that no persons, official or private individuals who have been in contact with the Special Rapporteur in relation to the mandate will for this reason suffer threats, harassment or punishment or be subjected to judicial proceedings.

[…]I was deeply touched to hear of the exodus of the Kashmiri Pandits in 1990s following a campaign of threats and violence. They remain dislocated to this day despite the fact the de-escalation of violence in Jammu and Kashmir has had a positive impact on religious tolerance. There have been public statements inviting the Hindu Pandits to return to Kashmir. Places of worship are now more accessible and the tensions are reducing. At the same time, many interlocutors have confirmed a continuing bias amongst security forces against Muslims who also face problems with regard to issuing of passports and security clearances for employment purposes. There are also reports of discrimination against them outside of Jammu and Kashmir, such as the refusal of hotel bookings.

At all places where I met with members of the Muslim community in India, I was informed that a number of them have been arrested on ill-founded suspicions of terrorism. They are disturbed that terrorism is associated with their religion despite various public statements from Muslim leadership denouncing terrorism. There was though recognition of the Government’s efforts in ensuring that Indian Muslims’ rights are protected when arrested abroad.

[…]The vast majority of Indians respects secular traditions and keenly follows the teachings of the nation’s founding fathers. I have noticed encouraging signs in the fight against religious intolerance and I am impressed by the outstanding degree of human rights activism in India. There are innumerable examples where individuals have come to each other’s rescue, crossing all religious boundaries. Indeed, in Gujarat, a large number of victims recognised the positive role played by some national media and other courageous individuals who effectively saved lives. It is a crucial – albeit difficult – task for the State and civil society to challenge the forces of intolerance.

I have written about issues of fundamentalisms before and some of the difficulties we face, fighting these fundamentalisms, particularly as feminists; one of those reflections was provocatively called The Fundamentalisms of the Progressive. I’ve been thinking about these issues quite a bit again recently – not that they ever ‘go away’ – but because I helped coordinate a fascinating workshop on fundamentalisms with young women from across the world, late last year, and because a few friends here in the US have been discussing our possible roles as Indians from afar (I’m not fond of the term NRIs, mostly because it has this – however mistaken – image of smug elsewhereness which I hope to hell we don’t have; we certainly don’t feel like Non Responsible Indians). This statement from Asma Jahangir only adds to the general tumult of thought. Watch this space for more sedition and unrest over the next while. Please feel free to chime in with ideas; dissent and debate welcome, hatred unacceptable.

Image from Jazbah.org

Tagged. Tugged.

So Black Mamba tagged me the other day:

Post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. The posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). Tag 5 other friends to do this meme. Try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better.

I was determined to do this, not only because I like Black Mamba (and I do), but because I had to prove Tabula Rasa wrong; he said BM wouldn’t get a cheep out of me (this childish tit-a-tat has, in fact, gone on since we were about ten. I love it.).

Result: near failure. Not because of my lack of output – though it certainly could be a lot more consistent than it is now – but because I rarely seem to write about anything other than politics and the big bad world outside. Of course, there’s a lot of me in there – the personal is political and vice-versa – but not in ways that are necessarily familiar or familial. sigh. Looking back, I think it was because I was determined, when I started out, not to make this a blog of the kind that led the blog-o-boom: the vicarious exploration of other people’s private lives and lesions. Frankly, I found that sort of blogging both terrifying and self-indulgent. I also felt I had nothing to offer of value online, that could remotely interest a set of unknown readers. Ashwin persuaded me otherwise; a lot of his argument had to do with the description of the blogging community he comes from: the techies. Clearly there was a space for blogging about one’s interests, one’s passions, rather than about oneself.

I realise now that I have – somewhere along the way – gone to the other extreme of the pendulum and am dangling hopelessly from an oblique position of self-denial. I find that many of the blogsters I read, write about themselves and theirs with humour and insight. I kid you not: I *like* reading them! If I don’t see these blogs as self-indulgent, is there possibly space for me to sneak back in a bit of me and mine into this blog? Black Mamba, you didn’t think you’d lead to an orgy of reflexivity now, did ya??

With this long preamble, here’s my meagre offering for the tag.

Family: A bit of a stretch, but to my extended family in Raichur. Also a cheeky aside to my pun-tashtic family (not really a post at all, but wothehell, I love xkcd).

Friend: about a friend in Gujarat, and her struggles with fundamentalisms.

Yourself: a post about ‘being an action hero‘. Also my previous stab at being tagged.

Your love: music and poetry. Unsurprisingly, a post about Gangubai Hangal that conveys both my awe-struck admiration and her comments on caste. And a tribute to Kaifi Azmi.

Anything you like: a whimsical post on Durga Puja and JK Rowling. And a diatribe against the news in India today.

…and I tag those I haven’t tagged before: Anindita (in the spirit of disclosure and familial-ity, my gorgeous sis-in-law who normally tags _me_), Mangs, Lalit and (relatively new) blog buddies: Pranav and Suzanna (whose blog I promised some time ago I would explore, and this is a great way to begin!).

Let’s get political

So… sitting here in the US of A, in California, in particular (gold rich in delegates for both Democrats and Republicans), it’s Super Tuesday. Basically a national primary. When 24 states vote for more than 3,100 convention delegates – the nominated candidates for the parties get directly chosen by these delegates; ‘the people’ cast their preferences – and we might know by the end of the night who the Republican candidate is, though we might not know the Democrat candidate (since Clinton and Obama are so close, it may be finally decided only at the Democratic national convention in August). A strangely confusing process.

Initially, I found the process more than confusing: it felt nasty, brutish and unbearably long (Indian elections might be nasty, brutish and bloody, but at least they don’t sputter on interminably). Candidates were slinging mud at each other, it seemed more like personality clashes rather than ideological debates, and nobody really seemed to define this amorphous word ‘change’ that was being bandied about furiously. Change not just for this country, but irrevocably, intrinsically, for the rest of the world.

It’s felt better over the past few weeks. Clinton and Obama seem to have quietened down their rhetoric against each other, and the Republicans are now busy slanging each other off, a process I enjoy (chuckle).

However, what’s really buoying my spirits as an inveterate politics junkie, is that the spirit of this country seems to be turning political. In a way that I have never seen before in all my trips here, and in ways that American friends themselves are feeling optimistic about. Politics is getting talked about. After all, as the Guardian puts it, this election has created a tableau like no other: those standing for President include a woman, a black man, a Mormon, a one time prisoner of war and a Baptist minister. No matter who wins, history will be made. Particularly if it’s the Democrats.

And here I am, the junkie whose rush comes from my conversations with the passionate auto driver in a dusty ride from MG Road to Koramangala, or the fiery isthri walla down the road, or the feminist panchayat leader in the middle of north Karnataka (who may not know the word but does the deed)… here I am, firm believer in Indian democracy – with all its ills and spills and grease and slime – a believer because my people are political. They care. They care, passionately, fiercely, deeply. Often disastrously and despairingly. But they care.

And finally, I find that we may not be that different from those rushing out to vote here in America, today. Finally, politics matters. It might be time for change. It might even be time for transformation.

Frankly, from the perspective of the rest of the world: it’s about bloody time.

He had a dream

Monday (January 21st) was Martin Luther King’s birthday; it also happens to be the only public holiday commemorating and celebrating the life of an African American in the USA. It seemed appropriate for CommonDreams.org to publish his speech of ‘independence’ from the war in Vietnam, called ‘Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence’, delivered in April 1967. It speaks to all of us, across the world, as we watch this nation debate wars that affect us, an economy that affects us, and a future President who will affect us. Let’s hope they choose right.

0121-06a.jpg

An excerpt:

I am convinced that if we are to get on the right side of the world revolution, we as a nation must undergo a radical revolution of values. When machines and computers, profit and property rights are considered more important than people, the giant triplets of racism, materialism, and militarism are incapable of being conquered.A true revolution of values will soon cause us to question the fairness and justice of many of our past and present policies. True compassion is more than flinging a coin to a beggar; it is not haphazard and superficial. It comes to see that an edifice which produces beggars needs restructuring. A true revolution of values will soon look easily on the glaring contrast of poverty and wealth. With righteous indignation, it will look across the seas and see individual capitalists of the West investing huge sums of money in Asia, Africa and South America, only to take the profits out with no concern for the social betterment of the countries, and say: This is not just.” It will look at our alliance with the landed gentry of Latin America and say: ” This is not just.” The Western arrogance of feeling that it has everything to teach others and nothing to learn from them is not just. A true revolution of values will lay hands on the world order and say of war: “This way of settling differences is not just.” This business of burning human beings with napalm, of filling our nation’s homes with orphans and widows, of injecting poisonous drugs of hate into the veins of peoples normally humane, of sending men home from dark and bloody battlefields physically handicapped and psychologically deranged, cannot be reconciled with wisdom, justice, and love. A nation that continues year after year to spend more money on military defense than on programs of social uplift is approaching spiritual death.

America, the richest and most powerful nation in the world, can well lead the way in this revolution of values. There is nothing, except a tragic death wish, to prevent us from re-ordering our priorities, so that the pursuit of peace will take precedence over the pursuit of war. There is nothing to keep us from molding a recalcitrant status quo until we have fashioned it into a brotherhood.

This kind of positive revolution of values is our best defense against communism. War is not the answer. Communism will never be defeated by the use of atomic bombs or nuclear weapons. Let us not join those who shout war and through their misguided passions urge the United States to relinquish its participation in the United Nations. These are the days which demand wise restraint and calm reasonableness. We must not call everyone a communist or an appeaser who advocates the seating of Red China in the United Nations and who recognizes that hate and hysteria are not the final answers to the problem of these turbulent days. We must not engage in a negative anti-communism, but rather in a positive thrust for democracy, realizing that our greatest defense against communism is to take: offensive action in behalf of justice. We must with positive action seek to remove those conditions of poverty, insecurity and injustice which are the fertile soil in which the seed of communism grows and develops.

These are revolutionary times. All over the globe men are revolting against old systems of exploitation and oppression, and out of the wombs of a frail world, new systems of justice and equality are being born. The shirtless and barefoot people of the land are rising up as never before. “The people who sat in darkness have seen a great light.” We in the West must support these revolutions. It is a sad fact that, because of comfort, complacency, a morbid fear of communism, and our proneness to ad just to injustice, the Western nations that initiated so much of the revolutionary spirit of the modern world have now become the arch anti-revolutionaries. This has driven many to feel that only Marxism has the revolutionary spirit. Therefore, communism is a judgment against our failure to make democracy real and follow through on the revolutions that we initiated. Our only hope today lies in our ability to recapture the revolutionary spirit and go out into a sometimes hostile world declaring eternal hostility to poverty, racism, and militarism.

We must move past indecision to action. We must find new ways to speak for peace in Vietnam and justice throughout the developing world, a world that borders on our doors. If we do not act we shall surely be dragged down the long, dark and shameful corridors of time reserved for those who possess power without compassion, might without morality, and strength without sight.

Now let us begin. Now let us re-dedicate ourselves to the long and bitter, but beautiful, struggle for a new world. This is the calling of the sons of God, and our brothers wait eagerly for our response. Shall we say the odds are too great? Shall we tell them the struggle is too hard? Will our message be that the forces of American life militate against their arrival as full men, and we send our deepest regrets? Or will there be another message, of longing, of hope, of solidarity with their yearnings, of commitment to their cause, whatever the cost? The choice is ours, and though we might prefer it otherwise we must choose in this crucial moment of human history.

Image from CommonDreams.org

My heart is in Nairobi…

Rally32.jpgThe only downside to having lots of friends across the globe is that you worry about them when things fall apart. In Gujarat, for instance, or Pakistan. Or Kenya. A few of us have been trying to contact friends there over the past few days, but it’s been tough. I’ve been reading Global Voices and Ethan Zuckerman’s blog, and watching Al Jazeera’s coverage on YouTube.

For those of you who came in late, violence has broken out across Kenya over the disputed election victory of President Mwai Kibaki, though ethnic tensions are believed to underlie much of the violence. As The Economist puts it:

THE decision to return Kenya’s 76-year-old incumbent president, Mwai Kibaki, to office was not made by the Kenyan people but by a small group of hardline leaders from Mr Kibaki’s Kikuyu tribe. They made up their minds before the result was announced, perhaps even before the opposition candidate, Raila Odinga, had opened up a lead in early returns from the December 27th election. It was a civil coup.

According to the BBC, over 180,000 people have been displaced and more than 300 killed.

This is today’s news update from the Kenyan blogger M., writing at Thinker’s Room:

  • Official death toll is now 300. Unofficial death toll is much larger
  • Yesterday there were skirmishes in Bahati, Maringo, Kangemi, Arwings Kodhek, Industrial Area and Thika Road
  • A man was killed on Thika Road when police fired in the air, severing an electrical cable that fell on him
  • ODM rally was moved to Saturday
  • At long last Mwai Kibaki addressed the nation in a lackluster speech long on hot air, ambiguity, vagueness and lethargy and short of concrete solutions
  • Archbishop Desmond Tutu arrived and met with the ODM leadership. The grapevine has it that Kibaki initially refused to meet with him. Subsequently it turned out that a meeting was indeed scheduled for this day.
  • Again proving that no matter how low the bar is, stupidity will always find a way to slither under, Government Spokesman Alfred Mutua, rose eyed lens firmly on, castigates the international community for interfering.
  • Flies on the wall allege that Kibaki himself is pretty amenable to negotiation. But as is the hallmark of his regime other elements in his administration are taking hardline positions.
  • Same flies say that Kibaki is willing to form a coalition government with the opposition. This I have to see to believe.
  • Nairobi water company allays fears that the city water supply is poisoned.

Blog aggregators for Kenya can be found at Kenya Unlimited and Mashada. Reading bloggers’ accounts on them seemed horrifically akin to reading stories of communal violence in India; substitute ethnicities for religion and caste identities, and there you have it. Stupid, unnecessary, maiming horror. As they say in Swahili (or at least I hope this is correct), we need wakati wa amani; a time of peace.

***

Update: in an extraordinary combination of technology and activism, Kenyan bloggers have created an amazing website to track the violence in Kenya, at Ushahidi (in fact, I want to check with them if we can develop something similar for India, and elsewhere). Add serendipity to that: Ashwin saw this, and suggested to his friend, Nick Rabinowitz, that this was the perfect place for the timeline tool he’d created. Sure enough, a few emails later, here it is, an extremely useful addition to the Ushahidi site: the timeline of events. Yay for all those who put this together, and a special yay for Nick!
Image from the Thinker’s Room.