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| it's all in the name
contrary to the spirit of shakespeare's assertion, the big cities in india seem to be as much affected by their names as by the people who inhabit them. in the past few years three of the larger metropolises have had their names changed, calcutta became kolkotta, madras chennai and my beloved bombay became mumbai. i remember being fairly agitated at the name change as was a large portion of the people of my age and class(upper and lower middle). the shiv sena was then in power, a sometimes extremist and unnecessarily violent political party the members of which think nothing of taking the law in their hands as and when the need arises to stir up the masses or to launch a new leader. bombay has been the name of this city for hundreds of years now but was changed, ostensibly, because it was a legacy of the british raj. there are theories on the origin of the name, one being it is an anglicized version of mumbai, the city's current name, which is plausible. the name mumbai is derived from the goddess mumbadevi, deity of the kolis, fisherfolk who were the first settlers of the islands that now constitute bombay.
i'd thought the controversy surrounding the name change, though it was never really consequential, was over but was a little surprised to learn shiv sainiks, grass roots workers of the shiv sena, had protested a prominent mumbaikar's use of the term bombay for the city by stripping in front of his house. the shiv sainiks have perfected the art of intimidation in a way, they use force or the implication of force against law abiding citizens without any real risk of legal persecution. an ad campaign featuring a male and a female model wearing just shoes invoked a similar form of protest, they stripped to their undergarments and protested against vulgarity!!
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| via ublog
peaceniks
there seems to be a sliver of sense being exhibited by the pakistanis in the indians in an effort to solve the kashmir issue. pakistan has made overtures as the times of india reports. i'm wondering if america's actions in iraq have anything to do with all the flurry of activity to solve the region's considerable problems with terrorism. with their support for the so called 'freedom fighters' hardly being secret, it is time for the pakistanis to rethink their strategy of supporting infilitration into kashmir and let the indians some breathing space to nurse that region back to normalcy. of course the onus does not lie with pakistan alone, india has to take its share of the blame in screwing up things so badly in that most beautiful of the country's states, and to work out a plan to recovery.
tacitus noted how america's granting of a free trade pact to singapore snubbing chile, atleast for a while, smacked of vengeance for chile's stand in the run up to the war. we in the subcontinent have a different tack, we stopped playing cricket with pakistan! i particularly sorry episode took place several years ago (and in fact has been repeated recently) when a local politician's thugs, a night before the start of an eagerly awaited game, dug up the cricket pitch making play impossible. | | |
| quiz time
i'm an interpersonal thinker, atleast that's what the quiz at bbc tells me. with nothing better to do, i checked out this test though i'm normally wary of such attempts to analyze or characterize myself. other interpersonal thinkers include winston churchill, mother teresa and, ahem, william shakespeare, so i'm in really good company. i'd be much more suited to politics, psychology, counselling or teaching they say, i knew i was in the wrong profession, sigh!
thanks to zoheb for this. | | |
| an unreasonable fear
i've mentioned this before, but haven't discussed it at length. i was at the federal building today, 300 N Los Angeles St., i'll be there again next week, to get the papers that will allow me to make a trip outside the states. this was the first time i was there, for, i'm of that tiny group of non-american muslims currently in america who did not have to go to the ins and get fingerprinted. it is humbling. i'm very proud of being an indian, to think that i'm not being subjected to what can only be called religion based profiling because of my nationality is a perk i'd never imagined i would be required to enjoy. the time i was there, i had this strange feeling, somewhere deep in my heart, that they'll suddenly decide to get hold of me, and haul me off to an interrogation room, "we've been reading ublog, hmm, u need to answer a few questions". this is anecdotal of course, but yeah, the thought did occur to me.
of course, going to the ins has always been a nightmare from the horror stories i've heard from seniors. you're required to be there at 3am or earlier to ensure that you get your work done. they do not seem to have online applications or appointments, atleast none that i know of. there is a lot more, guess i'll put that up next week, after my visit. | | |
| via ublog
discussing the crisis - 3
lewis, in his latter chapters discusses the rise of america in the arab consciousness from being just another western civilization at the other end of the world to its present representation as the great satan. an argument cited by lewis as carrying a lot of weight in the arab, and i must say a large portion of the non western world, is the issue of american moral depravity. radical and nationalistic commentators often decry the lack of societal values in america and by association, that of the western world. another closely related topic is the apparent lack of a civilization of america as a nation. both of these arguments are intrinsically flawed, though they may do have some elements of truth which have been used to justify the easy manner in which the america, as a society, has been subject to arab ridicule and derision. lewis quotes sayyid qutb, To attract clientele, churches advertise shamelessly and offer what Americans most seek -- "a good time" or "fun" (he cited the English words in his Arabic text). The result is that church recreation halls, with the blessing of the priesthood, hold dances where people of both sexes meet, mix, and touch. The ministers go so far as to dim the lights in order to facilitate the fury of the dance. "The dance is inflamed by the notes of the gramophone," he noted with evident disgust, "the dance-hall becomes a whirl of heels and thighs, arms enfold hips, lips and breasts meet, and the air is full of lust." bill allison talks from personal experience in a very interesting post with reference to this specific quote.
it is easy to see why such arguments have gained so much currency not only in the arab countries but also in other conservative cultures like those in india. i was horrified when i first saw the jerry springer show, a feeling worsened by being subjected to trashy talk shows like those of ricki lake, jenny jones and even emmy winning 'outstanding talk show host' montel williams. it may be contended that such material on television either does not affect public behavior and should be taken as some form of perverted entertainment, or the 'the gun is not at fault it is the person wielding it' argument may be used to justify the continued existence of such idiocy on the idiot box. with the news networks' enslavement to public opinion evident from the recent war coverage it is atleast obvious that the talk shows do not represent american society in general, they merely seem to be playing to the audience's perverse fantasies.
osama bin laden and fellow extremists, in their harangue against america keep referring to this apparent flaw in the american society and perhaps strongly believe in it along with their fantasy of divine license to root that filth out. by disregarding america's military might with the moral depravity argument the islamic radicals probably committed their biggest tactical error, unfortunately also causing thousands of lives, a major upheavel in the gulf's and the world's political landscape and significant damage to the image of islam in the west. it is their behavior that, and i'm saying this from my own experience, makes muslims subject to verbal abuse from people with little to no knowledge of islam and its followers. the quran, an object of the greatest muslim reverence, has been called the guidebook of terrorists, an assertion that is not only wrong but also rather frustrating. just as the arguments used by the radicals has convinced a portion of their intended audience, so has this talk of islam being an 'evil and wicked religon' and the quran being a tool for recruiting terrorists, created a false but convincing picture of the muslims in the western mind.
though it would be tempting to, it is not possible to absolve for its own botched foreign policy in the years following world war II. bernard lewis quotes the incident of the 1953 mosaddeq government in iran being overthrown as an example of american interventionism that constantly alienated the arabs and led to their hate and distrust of america. the cia's cowboy behavior where diplomacy would have played a greater role in winning over the arabian countries to democracy may have contributed as much to the current crisis as anything radical islam came up with. other reasons that continue to fester the wound, so to speak, is the perception that america is solely driven my material gains, of america's eagerness to go to war, its support for israel even in the face of world opposition and of its abject failure in bringing about a lasting solution to the 'palestine problem'.
in summary, radicals have attacked america on the basis of its culture, or rather, the alleged lack of it. their belief that american society is intrinsically flawed and will not stand up and fight, literally and figuratively, powered their thrust which eventually resulted in the attacks on the world trade center. the solution to this problem is not that propsed by the people at pnac, neither is it belligerence. the solution, very simply stated, will require the americans to be impartial in their approach to the israel-palestine issue, and to cap their interventionist urges. it will require for the arabs to grow out of their self created cocoon where they refuse to accept all the good that american technology, philosophy and thinking has brought the world. | | |
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