SACW | 8-9 Aug 2004
sacw
aiindex at mnet.fr
Sun Aug 8 19:10:50 CDT 2004
South Asia Citizens Wire | 8-9 August, 2004
via: www.sacw.net
PLEASE NOTE: SACW dispatches will be interrupted
for period August 10 to August 14.
[1] Pakistan: Multi Mullah Alliance's Prayer Project (Edit, The Daily Times)
[2] Bangladesh: Ethnic minorities: A strength in diversity (Albert Mankin)
[3] Who is afraid of individual freedom (V.B.Rawat)
[4] Online Petition To Protest against ban on Final Solution
[5] Who owns culture? (edited transcript a
programme by Kenan Malik on Radio 4)
[6] Recently Published: Prophets Facing Backward
: Postmodernism, Science, and Hindu Nationalism
by Meera Nanda
[7] Anushakthi Amma: A One Act Play (S. P. Udayakumar)
--------------
[1]
The Daily Times - August 08, 2004
Editorial
MMA'S DUBIOUS PIETY
Friday was the first day of the observance of the
nizam-e-salat (prayer system) in the NWFP put in
place recently by the Mutahidda Majlis-e-Amal.
Predictably, the official edict of closing down
shops from 1 pm to 2 pm was only partially
observed. On Thursday, a day before the first
Friday after the MMA legislated the system, the
provincial chief and chairman of the
Nizam-e-Salat Committee told a press conference
that the Friday prayers would be said
simultaneously and markets and businesses would
close down, though he added that the government
would not punish anyone for lack of observing the
system. Another NWFP minister from the Jama'at-e
Islami, Siraj-ul Haq, said at the Friday prayers
that the system was part of the MMA's programme
of implementing Shariah to create an Islamic
welfare society. What should we make of this?
Let's begin with the obvious. Putting in place a
prayer system is no guarantee for a welfare
society whether based on the Shariah or
otherwise. Welfare, in common parlance and as
understood across the world, is about
this-worldly affairs, not other-worldly ones, and
therefore has nothing to do with prayers and even
less to do with praying under an official system.
Also, if prayer is a spiritual experience, as it
should be, it must be a personal choice and not
based on a collective coercive system. Let's not
forget that the MMA government began stridently
on the issue and initially thought of enforcing
the system with its usual zeal. It was only after
the trader community put its foot down and
refused to down shutters that it beat a retreat.
The religious parties thrive on the piety and,
more importantly, on funds from the urban middle
and trading classes and shopkeepers. They cannot
afford to alienate them. The traders told the MMA
that they were Muslims and said their prayers but
that they would resist any move by the government
to force them into closing shops because the
provincial economy was already wobbly and they
could not afford to lose business.
This is the ground reality. What the MMA fails to
understand is that governance is about this
world, not the life hereafter. The benchmark is
whether the MMA has been able to provide good
governance; the answer is a resounding no. The
Friday Times recently reported that the MMA chief
minister, Akram Durrani, had remitted the
sentence of a drug baron and absconder because he
had supported the JUIF leader Maulana Fazlur
Rehman and later his brother, Ataur Rehman.
Surely this political expediency has nothing to
do with the spirituality of what the MMA never
tires of stressing. And if it must function on
the basis of the political and the profane,
perhaps it should apply the same logic to do good
rather than make the kind of mischief to which we
have pointed.
No matter how we look at MMA's prayer system, it
is not possible to support it. Last Friday also
showed how difficult it is to make such a system
work. The MMA's official stance certainly does
not make room for sectarian differences in the
timings and duration of the prayers. This is why
it is important for the state to stay out of the
business of legislating on the basis of religion,
whatever that religion may be. The MMA cannot win
people over on the basis of such dubious piety. *
______
[2]
Daily Star - August 9, 2004
Indigenous Peoples Day
ETHNIC MINORITIES: A STRENGTH IN DIVERSITY
Albert Mankin
Bangala," the present Bangladesh, has always been
an abode for scores of ethnic groups from time
immemorial. Besides the Bengali majority people,
there are 45 ethnic groups with approximately 2.5
millions (according to the Bangladesh Adivasi
Forum) living side by side in this country. With
a marked concentration of 11 ethnic groups in the
Chittagong Hill Tracts, the rest of the 33 ethnic
groups live on plain lands scattered throughout
the country. The existence of numerous ethnic
groups has enriched the human geography of the
region that exhibits cultural and social
diversity.
However, the new nation that emerged in 1971 as
Bangladesh after a year of bloody struggle for
recognition willfully ignored the very existence
of ethnic groups other than the Bengalis. The
country's constitution, framed in 1972, is the
proof of such willful negation of the right to be
different. It has had policy implications on
ethnic groups as a whole. Initially there had
been a forceful demand from the ruling regime
that the ethnic groups in the country should
accept "Bangalism" as their identity. This
ideological posture contradicts the historical
language movement of 1952 and then the liberation
war in 1971, fought in the name of the
recognition of Bengali identity as a language and
as culturally different. The historic opportunity
for an harmonious multi-cultural Bangladesh was
lost and set the stage for three decades of
struggle. The subsequent history of the country
is a testimony of the immediate backlashes of
this policy adoption.
Mr. Manabendra Narayan Larma, the then sole MP
from the Jummas of Chittagong Hill Tracts
protested the move for framing the country's
constitution on a single nationality. He insisted
that the constitution should be based on
multi-ethnicity. He demanded that the adivasis
have rights to be different with distinct
cultures, customs, history, traditions and they
are not Bengalis His demand was forcefully turned
down. The result was the formation of the
Shantibahini and the struggle for autonomy by the
Jummas in the Chittagong Hill region lasting for
almost three decades. The struggle was concluded
through a peace treaty in 1997 led by Joyotiridra
Bhudipriya Larma, Chairman, Parbataya Chattagram
Jana Sanhati Samity.
Almost simultaneously, there was another struggle
in the North-Eastern part of Bangladesh (the then
greater Mymensingh),on the Bangladesh/Meghalaya
(India) border in 1975 following the death of
Sheik Mujibur Rahman. This struggle was commonly
known as Kaderia Songram (insurgence) because it
was led by a famous freedom fighter Kader
Sidiquee. The majority of the recruits were from
among indigenous/tribal communities -- Garos and
Hajongs who were freedom fighters earlier in 1971
(90 percent of Garos, Koch, and Hajongs residing
along the border of greater Mymensingh had to
take refuge in India during the liberation.
Hundreds of them joined freedom struggle). Being
frustrated for the willful ignorance of their
sacrifice and contributions to the 1971
liberation war, they justified joining the 1975
insurgency as an opportunity to promote their
rights. It was President Ziaur Rahman who took
the initiative of negotiations that led to the
end of the insurgency in 1977.
This adoption of the policy of ethnic majority
has eventually defeated the very ideology of
democracy, human rights and good governance --
and above all the very ideology of nationalism.
It was nationalism that brought the country
together to throw away the hegemony of West
Pakistan. It is indeed a paradox that the nation
imbued with an ideology of nationalism would
adopt a hegemonistic attitude towards other
nationalities in the country. A chance for the
development of multi-ethnic and multi-cultural
society was missed. Consequently in many cases
the rights of adivasis have been denied -- such
as in the case of the Modhupur Forest where
century-old roads are blocked with 6 feet high
brick walls, ancestral lands taken, livelihood
bases robbed -- and all these are done without
discussion and consultation. Modhupur National
park will be built for providing recreational
facilities for the affluent middle class of Dhaka.
Demands of ethnic groups are vibrant and grow
stronger. The voice that was raised in 1972 for
equality, fraternity and for constitutional
recognition still vibrates in the depths of
indigenous people's minds, in the murmuring
forests and alleys of hills where they live, and
it is getting louder and is trumpeting in the
streets of the capital. It is time policy makers
and the people of good-will in the country open
their ears and eyes to the rightful demands of 45
ethnic communities numbering almost 2.5 million.
It is encouraging to see that thousands of voices
from the mainstream Bengalis -- printed media and
civil society groups, are raised in support of
the ethnic communities and their rightful
demands. In the cases of Modhupur National park
at Tangail and at Mahalchari event, Kagrachori
Chittagong Hill Tracts, Eco-tourism at Kulaura,
Maulovibazar people from all walks of life came
to protest. Eventually this will not only prevent
and protect the indigenous communities from
marginalisation and social exclusion -- it will
also bless the nation at large by enhancing
democratisation processes, human rights
development, and arresting negative trends
towards mono-ethnicitism. Our generations will be
enriched with ethnic diversity and cultural
richness. After all, the signature of the
Chittagong Hill Tracts Peace Treaty is the tacit
recognition of the very existence of indigenous
and Tribal peoples in the Peoples Republic of
Bangladesh -- so why this hesitation and delay in
the constitutional recognition of all ethnic
groups in the country ?
Albert Mankin, a Garo, heads CIPRAD (Centre for
Indigenous Peoples Research and Development) and
is vice-chairman of Bangladesh Adivasi Forum.
______
[3]
WHO IS AFRAID OF INDIVIDUAL FREEDOM
By V.B.Rawat
[SACW, August 8, 2004]
It does not surprise any one of us who have seen
the campaign of the church in Europe when Pope
John Paul, the head of state of 'Vatican' and
guiding star of the Catholics world over to speak
on issues of feminism. Pope's campaign against
abortion is not new. He was against abortion in
Kosovo, Serbia where a large number of Muslim
women faced raped and ethnic cleansing by the
powerful Serbs. He advised the women not to go
for abortion as it was against the religion.
Rather then teaching his own fellow religionists
who take his words as 'final word' like the holy
book, he was guiding the poor women, who should
have got his sympathy, about why should they
continue to nurse a baby, for no fault of theirs,
which was in their womb. Just like rubbing salt
on their wound, isn't it.
It is time to evaluate how such dangerous
fanaticism creeping in civil society is
strengthening the fascist ideologies and
weakening the movement for civil rights and
individual liberty. Therefore, this issue is
wider than an attack to women's movement or
feminism. What is at stake it, the liberty and
freedom of choice and expression which has taken
us so many years to accept. And still there are
many societies and countries, where people are
divided on the basis of caste and gender. Pope's
word will sound musical to all those who are
afraid of a new way of life where choices are not
exactly dominated by the religious heads or males
in the family or tribal chieftains but by
individual. That religion was pretended as a
cultural identity was nothing but male chauvinism
though many in our continents give various
example of powerful 'Goddesses' shakti in their
efforts to get solace that we had 'feminist'
Goddesses. But that's in fact not true. They are
the creation of such oppressive minds who want to
control our thinking and way of life. For them
these things are not questionable. They are just
matter of faith and beliefs.
Individual's freedom is under attack at the
moment because questioning make life
uncomfortable for those sitting on our fortunes.
Those who have made us believe about their
wonderful lives, those who tells us not to
question the colorful lives of various gods,
others who feel that whatever written in their
four thousands year old texts as final, fool
proof. Nothing doing they say. You cannot
question the wisdom of our elders who contributed
so much to our society. So people like Burtend
Russel, PB Shelly, B RAmbedkar, Salman Rushdie,
Tasleema Nasrin became persona-non-grata for they
questioned popular myths and exposed them.
Primitives are not just happy with that, they
want to remove these 'cancers' from the society
by various other means. By keeping awards over
their heads to kill them or beat them, frighten
them. Why are we afraid of such independent
thoughts? Can a book written by Rushdie damage
Islam which has so many followers all over the
world. If you don't agree don't read that. If you
do want to read it then write a criticism of it.
Write another book exposing him but who has given
the Mullahs an authority to shut him up or kill
him. But that is what PB Shelly faced with the
hands of the Church. It is this questioning of
things which has been disturbing all those who
want to impose their irrational views on us. It
is to control a life under the garb of 'values'
and 'culture'.
Interestingly, if you ask them then why is the
world facing so many problems. Is not it a
religious hatred, which is killing people,
maiming the innocent, raping the women and
children? No, they would contend. Its not true.
The world has become 'adharmik', non religious,
because 'women' who should have been sitting at
home are at work. These scheduled caste people
who have no mind and should have been cleaning
our toilets are bossing us. It is 'Kaliyug,' they
would offer the explanation. A religious group in
Dhaka said that in Bangladesh all its problem are
due to the women heads that they have been
experiencing for the last few years. They are not
made to rule because they are very emotional and
sensitive. What does it means ? That the rulers
should be 'pig'skinned who is insensitive to the
people. But then all of them had been so. I must
say in disappointment, not even articulate Banjir
or Indira Gandhi during their time, threatened to
challenge this notion. Now, why is so much of
violence and killings in the name of religion and
the simple answer these pontiffs and their chums
give to us is that they are not true Muslims or
Christians or Hindus or Sikhs. But then who would
certify as who is pure and true? You are doing
everything to destroy the world and your
religious leaders fail to take any initiative.
After destruction you take over our platform
praying for peace and say all those who did it
are not representative of religion? Then who are
they? Why people have sypathies with them? Why
cannot religious leaders first do their own soul
searching that they are unable to preach
respecting the values of modern life, equality of
gender, brotherhood. Are they ready to say that
men and women are equal? Are they ready to say
that there is no justification in caste or racial
inequality? No, they cannot. They will offer too
many ifs and buts.
Therefore, Pope's concern about women's freedom
is similar to the Swamis and Mullahs of our time.
They are equally 'concerned' about the
'denigration' of 'family' values, which they
'love' so much. The more the authority of Popes,
Shankaracharays, Maulvis and Granthis are
questioned bigger will be their concern for the
'civil society'. Our own 'dharmik' rambhakt Lal
Krishna Advani said recently that he does not
believe in politics without 'dharma'. It is
dharma, which fetches good votes to Advani in
India and made him one of the most powerful
politicians and brought his party from nearly
oblivion to mainstream party. It is the power of
dharma that forced George Fernandez to look like
a 'Khakinikkardhari' and become a 'neelkanth'
after he was humiliated by the Americans who
wanted to find out the antecedent of our
honorable 'defense' minister. Today, a catholic
Fernandez boasts his Hindu antecedents to look
more Indian than others as patriotism is sole
hegemony of the uppercaste Hindus.
Concern for women is not new for the religious
fanatics who are responsible for their current
problems. The Muslim religio-political leaders
are already up in arm on the issue of triple
talaaq and whenever anyone questions them, the
readymade answer is that every thing is ensured
in Quran. The Bishops says that everything is
there in the Bible and therefore no need for
women to ask for more. The Shankaracharyas always
claim that we are the best 'dharma' in the world,
more liberal than any others and women are
worshipped in this country and therefore no need
for any more rights for her. They claim they had
the ancient scriptures and almost all of them are
'secular' in one way that women are not equal to
men. Secondly, all of them feel that whatever
woman do and achieve their first duty is towards
her husband and then to her family. So when the
Hindutva Sadhus said that the country should have
a constitution based on Manusmriti, the obvious
reference was regarding the two things. One the
growing challenges from the Dalits and other the
issue of women because when they go out to work
their 'Satitva' is endangered. Satitva is clearly
' virginity' which they have to keep intact till
they marry for 'their' husbands. The concept of
'Walima' is similar in Islam which mean
consummation after the marriage was successful
and hence people give 'Dawat', two three days
after the marriage. It is a kind of 'victory'
celebration of the man over his woman. The
argument by the 'leaders' of our communities is
that women are 'emotional' and don't understand
the intricacies and crookedness of life and hence
cannot be equal in all fronts.
The Fatwa of Pope has to be seen at an affront to
growing democratization and civil liberty
movement in Europe. The secularization process
has put a death knell to such forces who were
dominating Europe once upon a time. Even Rome,
which host Vatican, is out of control for the
Pope. The Churches are already empty in places
like Paris and Rome and not even 25% people visit
them. While the Church may focus its agenda in
the Asia and Africa, it is interesting that same
Europeans and Americans who have embraced secular
principles and don't go the Church seems to be
quite fascinated by the 'spiritual' Swamis from
India, who explain them the qualities of
different Gods and their 'lingas'. This rejection
of Church and fascination of 'liberal' beliefs of
Vasudhaiv Kutumbkum' is a new mantra in Europe
and United States. Some of these 'fads' speak use
of spiritualism in strengthening 'management' of
the corporates. They preach 'values' to the
people while charging a fairly decent amount of
money.
Now the question is how come the Swamis who come
from the feudal system are going to preach the
outsiders without first eliminating their own
feudal structure. Let alone demolishing such
feudal value system, our Babas, Swamis and
bankrupt intellectuals would justify the 'great'
cultural legacy of our country.
We always boast upon our culture, high moral
values and what not. Our culture demand women to
remain at home. She cannot go outside even if she
desire. Otherwise, how would a woman think about
society whose life is regulated by cooking
'garmagaram' meals for her husband and parents in
laws? She has to look after the children of the
family. According to one great woman
intellectuals of Saffron brigade, even if she was
beaten up by the husbands or in laws, she should
not complain. Numerous programmes on our 'modern'
TV Channels show girls how to behave, what should
they do to attract their husbands. Hundreds of
small time towns are organizing beauty shows
these days where the young girls exhibit them in
front of the gazing eyes of those who would not
like their own daughters and wives to watch the
same.
It is this value system of adjustment that has
kept us going. The adjustment from women and
that's why the domestic violence against women
are rarely reported. The violence she face in her
family before marriage are drowned in family
pride. Even if she is working, she is expected
not to cross the 'lakshman rekha'. Cities like
Delhi have become horrible places for girls to
venture out. This culture of obsession where we
don't allow girls to speak to others has resulted
in numerous murders of the girls who tried a way
out for them. The so-called boyfriend kills them
because they want full control of their woman and
anything that she does without their consent or
knowledge is severely punished. And the
punishment ends in gruesome murder every day with
new techniques with most of these 'innovative'
ideas taken from third rated Bombay films. We
have vehicles, cars, heavy ornaments and other
things to show others that we are a modern
nation. We are shining but our women cannot shine
independently. She has to be controlled all the
way.
Hence Pope's concern about homosexuality stem
directly from this threat. The church is again
looking back its old 'glorious' days in Europe
where it could wield its power on the states do
work according to the 'Christian' values. The
Christian values are nothing but Hindu Values and
Muslim Values because every one of them is
secular as far as the oppression of women is
concern. It is rather strange that many of the
bishops and pastors were found sodomising the
young children in the churches during the last
few years. In the United States this year the
Church accepted a gay to be their Bishops. So
perhaps now the Pope feel threatened that
barring Europe and United States, every other
religion and country is having 'strong'
'cultural' ties and hence they also need a
direction. Unfortunately for Pope, people have
enjoyed their freedom so much that they would not
be controlled that easily. It is not a matter of
my agreement with such marriages or rights. It is
a question of personal choices and Pope and his
'designers' must respect those argument that the
people with same sex give for their living
together.
Europe must come against Pope's reassertion
otherwise it would lose its freedom to religious
begots. Europe's own traditions that it developed
after the industrial revolution, the secular
values, liberty, equality and fraternity are the
hallmark of modern civil rights movement all over
the world. We take pride in following these
principles when our society is still in the
primitive stage. Secondly, the religious juntas
here in the third world are still dominant in
every sphere of our lives. The women in Europe
must come out in open against such fatwas because
it is a smarter way to govern their lives.
Remember the dark age of Europe when the Church
could not tolerate criticism and was dominating
the lives of the people.
More things are coming in future in the form of
campaign. IN the name of passion, you are asked
to pardon the wrong, embrace the guilty by
inculcating values. Rapist would be asked to be
pardoned because of the Gods wish but the life,
which was cut short due that will not be spoken
about. Is the campaign against the capital
punishment same because the most of these crimes
are committed by men? And we want to pardon them
and make them heroes? It is ironical that the
murder and rapist of Hanna Foster was presented
as a hero by a 'secular' Indian news channel and
other people are campaigning to save a rapist in
Kolkata giving the example of his 'old parents.
Where were these parents when their son raped a
young girl? Could the parents have said the same
thing if the crime was done by their daughter. It
is a same story in Rajasthan where a father asked
the chief minister to allow him kill his third
daughter because his wife conceived despite have
gone through a family planning operation.
Question were raised by a journalist who said
that could this man have written to the chief
minister if his wife had given birth to a boy. So
our values of tolerance and pardon the guilty are
feudal pattern of an old system which is based on
gender bias.
The danger of these values is the reimpositioning
of the religious class which threatened the peace
world over and now claiming that it only has the
keys to resolve those crisis. We have seen the
dangers of religion playing in our daily life
dictating us how to eat, how to wear, how to read
and how to sleep. Where to go, who to speak with,
who to make untouchables and who to kill.
The Shankaracharyas, Granthis, Maulvis all will
come together in their 'secular' act of support
for the 'great' work that Pope is doing
currently. His views are similar to all of them
who have one point agenda to keep women out of
their work. Some of them even say that in this
age when there are no jobs, why the hell should
women venture out. They are taking the cake of
the men. Secondly, with more concern about family
lives as the Hindu system is worried over the
western influence saying that the cases of
divorce are growing which means it is not good
for the families. Europe has already initiated a
breast-feeding campaign then there will be a
campaign for motherhood and family life. I am
sure in near future we will have such campaign,
which will confine women to 'cultural' values,
under the garb of the rights of a child,
motherhood etc and then will ask the government
to compensate the women for being home so that
they can make the world of the likes of Pope
safer.
______
[4]
As you know, the Censor Board of India recently
banned Rakesh Sharma's internationally-acclaimed
documentary - Final Solution. An online petition
has been created by Anand Patwardhan to protest
against the ban. The petition asks Central
Government to intervene and revoke the ban
immediately. As you may already know, under
clause 6 and 9 of the Cinematograph Act, the
Central Government is empowered to overturn any
decision/ recommendation by the Censor Board.
People who have already signed the petition
include Shabana Azmi, Nandita Das, Vijay
Tendulkar, Shyam Benegal, Javed Akhtar, Aparna
Sen, Karan Johar, Ashutosh Gowarikar, Farhan
Akhtar, Rahul Bose, Vishal Bhardwaj, Arundhati
Nag, Sanjana Kapoor, MS Sathyu, Lekh Tandon,
Yogendra Yadav and Teesta Setalvad among others.
Please extend your support by signing the
petition online by clicking the following link:
<http://www.petitiononline.com/FilmBan/petition-sign.html>http://www.PetitionOnline.com/FilmBan/petition.html
Please forward the petition details to people in
your mailing list asking them to sign and
circulate the petition widely.
Final Solution ( India; 2004; Digital Video format - miniDV; 209/148 minutes).
Final Solution is a study of the politics of
hate. Set in Gujarat during the period Feb/March
2002 - July 2003, the film graphically documents
the changing face of right-wing politics in India
through a study of the 2002 genocide of Moslems
in Gujarat. The film documents the Assembly
elections held in Gujarat in late 2002 and
records in detail the exploitation of the Godhra
incident (in which 58 Hindus were burnt alive) by
the right-wing propaganda machinery for electoral
gains. It studies the situation after the storm
and its impact on Hindus and Moslems -
ghettoisation in cities and villages, segregation
in schools, the call for economic boycott of
Moslems and continuing acts of violence more than
a year after the carnage.
Final Solution is anti-hate/ violence as "those
who forget history are condemned to relive it".
Awards :
Wolfgang Staudte award and Special Jury Award
(Netpac), Berlin International film festival.
Humanitarian Award for Outstanding Documentary,
HongKong International film festival.
Silver Dhow ( Best Doc category), Zanzibar International film festival
Special Jury Mention, Munich Dokfest.
Special Award instituted and given by NRIs for a
Secular and Harmonious India (NRI-SAHI), NY-NJ,
USA.
Festivals : Berlinale ( International premiere;
Feb 2004), HongKong, Fribourg, 3 continents
filmfest (South Africa), Hot Docs (Canada),
Vancouver, Zanzibar, Durban, Commonwealth film
festival (UK), One world filmfest (Prague), Voces
Contra el Silencio (Mexico), Istanbul 1001fest,
Singapore, Flanders (Belgium), World Social Forum
(Mumbai; Indian premiere), Vikalp (Mumbai
filmfest organised by Campaign against
Censorship), Films for Freedom, Bangalore and
several other filmfests.
______
[5]
kenanmalik.com
(This is an [edited] transcript of 'Who Owns
Culture?', a programme by Kenan Malik on Radio
4's Analysis strand. It was broadcast on 26 July
2004.
Taking part in the prgramme, [...] were Professor
Jack Lohman, Lola Young, Michael Brown, Robert
Foley, Neil MacGregor, Norman Palmer, Adam Kuper,
Professor of Anthropology, Brunel University
The programme was produced by Ingrid Hassler and
edited by Nicola Meyrick. Transcript © BBC.)
WHO OWNS CULTURE?
KENAN MALIK Museums used to be dusty
repositories of arcane artefacts. Today they are
fast becoming sites of conflict and controversy.
JACK LOHMAN I think it's high time for museums
to behave morally towards their collections and
towards the communities that they serve.
LOLA YOUNG The problem with some of those
collections is not just about the way in which
they're collected; it's about the motivation
behind them. So if something is collected in
order to, for example, demonstrate the
superiority of Europeans, the inferiority of
Africans or Indians so called other peoples, then
that is obviously highly problematic.
[...]
KENAN MALIK But isn't it unethical for museums
to cling on to items that were originally looted
or stolen? Not necessarily, Neil MacGregor
argues. The importance of the British Museum to
the world today, he suggests, outweighs the
dubious provenance of some of its artefacts.
NEIL MACGREGOR I think the purpose of the British
Museum is to allow people to see that all the
societies of the world and all the cultures of
the world are interconnected. That's the one big
thing that the British Museum, better than any
other museum in the world probably, can allow you
to do - to see the oneness of humanity.
KENAN MALIK Viewing the interconnectedness of
cultures and peoples, is that what you mean when
you describe the British Museum as a 'world
museum'?
NEIL MACGREGOR I think the British Museum is in
a sense the memory of mankind, as Ben Okri said.
And the extraordinary thing about it is that it
was set up in 1753 to gather together things from
all over the world, but always to be held open
free to people from anywhere in the world. So
from the beginning, this very idealistic notion,
if you like, of trustees holding for the entire
world the means of understanding the entire world.
KENAN MALIK A cynic might suggest that 'world
museum' is just a fancy phrase to allow the
British Museum to cling on to its treasures After
all, the museum may be free to anyone in the
world but most people in the world can't take
advantage of its largesse. Yet it's not just rich
tourists or white middle class Britons who
benefit from the Museum's treasures. Around 30
per cent of Londoners are non-white and the
fastest growing population is African. In an age
in which museums are seeking to be socially
inclusive, some curators believe that cultural
objects from around the world should be used to
attract groups - such as African-Caribbeans or
Asians - who might otherwise walk right past
their doors. Lola Young was until recently head
of cultural policy for the Great London
Authority. Does she agree with this approach?
[...]
KENAN MALIK The debate about human remains has
been especially fierce in America, Australia and
New Zealand, where guilt about the treatment of
indigenous peoples - Native Americans, Aborigines
and Maoris - runs deep. Museums in these
countries have thrown open their storage rooms,
and returned thousands of bones to source
communities for burial. In Britain the
government-appointed Working Group on Human
Remains recently published its report on what to
do with the remains held by English museums. Its
chairman is barrister Norman Palmer, Professor of
Law, Art and Cultural Property at London
University.
NORMAN PALMER We, to a large extent, base our
recommendations on the need to treat indigenous
people in the same way or a truly analogous way
to that in which other people are treated. Let me
give you some examples. Under English law certain
people have the overriding right to the delivery
up of members of their family for burial. Those
are the personal representatives. It might be the
executors if there is a will or administrators.
If there isn't, this is an absolute right by law
and no counter argument, for example of the
scientific value of research, can be allowed by
law to defeat that right. In the report what we
are saying is what argument is there for treating
indigenous peoples differently when their remains
are in museums rather than in hospitals. If we're
going to adopt notions of family, kinship and
ancestry, we should be careful not to confine
these in any insular or arbitrary or
discriminatory way to Western notions or
paradigms of kinship and ancestry and family. So
that if people have within their own community -
and this would be the community from which the
remains emanated in the first place - a
relationship or responsibility towards the
remains, which was akin to that under their own
culture of close family or direct genealogical
descendents, then we would say they too should
have the right to say what should happen to their
family. We are not so insular as to believe that
our way is the only way.
KENAN MALIK Most people would understand if
museums had to release human remains to close
relatives. But does it make sense to insist that
bones thousands of years old are off-limits for
study or display because a particular culture
views even remote ancestors as close kin? In any
case who exactly are indigenous groups? And how
do we know what they want? Michael Brown,
Professor of Anthropology at Williams College,
Massachusetts, and author of Who Owns Native
Culture?.
MICHAEL BROWN Where indigenous peoples have
formally recognised political organisations that
are recognised by the state and are authorised to
make and develop policies, then that's the group
that one deals with. Now internal to the
community, of course, there may be great debates
about whether elected political leaders or even
traditional authorities of one sort or another
have the power and the authority to make those
decisions. Who do you talk to? How do you get the
consent that you feel you need before you can
move forward? Even the question of who is
indigenous gets extremely vexed as indigenous
peoples inter-marry with non-native communities.
I mean right now American Indians have the
highest rate of out marriage of any ethnic group
in the United States. And that's a problem that
people are wrestling with in North America,
they're starting to wrestle with in Australia.
And that's going to be the next battleground -
trying to determine who qualifies as indigenous
in the first place.
KENAN MALIK Indeed, some anthropologists argue,
indigenous people are not just difficult to
define, they are a Western invention. Adam Kuper,
Professor of Anthropology at Brunel University.
ADAM KUPER These are the people who in the 19th
century were described by anthropologists as
so-called primitive people - hunters and
gatherers living in far flung parts of the world.
They were seen as being somehow at the bottom of
the evolutionary chain. Today, a hundred and
fifty years later, after anthropologists
completely deconstructed these notions of hunter
gatherers, of primitives, of racial exclusivity,
all these Victorian notions are being
reconstituted with the support of NGOs, World
Bank, United Nations in order to construct a new
category - the indigenous peoples of the world -
who are identical, it turns out, to these
primitive peoples. And they are thought to have
some sort of stable culture which dates back
before colonialism, which must be somehow
reconstructed, handed back to these people. It's
phoney ethnography. It seems to me mumbo jumbo
anthropology.
KENAN MALIK Mumbo jumbo anthropology it may be
but it has captured the imagination of many in
the West. So much so that even when there are no
claimants to bones or artifacts, museums insist
on burying them. You might think that a
government would only bother to set up a Working
Group on Human Remains, and consider changing the
law, if there's a real issue to address. Think
again. There have only ever been 31 claims for
the return of human remains held in British
museums. But some curators want to do the moral
thing anyway.
[...]
KENAN MALIK 'So what?', you might say. It's
their culture, their artifacts, they can destroy
them if they want to. For too long, argues Lola
Young, Western nations have been exploiting
non-Western peoples. We've got to get used to the
idea that we can't do what we like with other
people's cultures, whether these consist of
bones, artifacts or even symbols.
LOLA YOUNG If we look at the Olympic Games in
Australia in Sydney. It was very clear that the
Australian authorities wanted to promote
Australia as a country that had come to terms
with its past and opened its arms, as it were, to
diversity. Now the extent to which some of the
Aboriginal people feel that that is actually the
case and how that actually pans out on a
day-to-day basis for them is another question
altogether. So I think that that's absolutely
legitimate that a group of people should then say
well we want to have some sort of control over
how we're portrayed and how our symbols and our
symbolism are used.
KENAN MALIK In one current court case in
Australia, Aborigines are demanding that the
national airline Quantas stop using the kangaroo
logo as it's an Aboriginal symbol. In another
case, they are seeking copyright over all
photographs and paintings of the Australian
landscape which they say is central to their
spiritual life. Where will this end? Must the
British government approve every production of
King Lear and Othello? Should only Jamaicans be
able to play reggae? Professor Adam Kuper of
Brunel University.
ADAM KUPER I think the notion of ownership is
certainly meaningful and one could own objects
which you might describe as cultural objects
because you had made them or you had designed
them or you had bought them, but to claim some
sort of ownership on the grounds of descent from
a group of people who might in the distant past
once have invented those objects seems to me to
be bizarre, seems to me absolutely impossible.
Are we going to, as English people, ask others to
pay a copyright fee when they play cricket? It's
ridiculous.
KENAN MALIK Ridiculous it may be, but cultural
bureaucrats seem hooked on the idea. UNESCO has
suggested that 'each indigenous people must
retain permanent control over all elements of its
own heritage', including 'songs, stories,
scientific knowledge and artworks.' It has even
suggested the setting up of 'folklore protection
boards'. UNESCO's push to protect every culture,
Michael Brown argues, is counterproductive.
MICHAEL BROWN Every culture or every nation is
supposed to have members of its culture provide
inventories of all elements that are subject to
protection, but of course that is protecting by
making something public. That runs foul of the
sense of many Aboriginal Australian and Native
American groups that certain kinds of information
simply should not be made public, should only be
held and used by whatever sub-group of the
population - typically religious leaders - is
empowered to use it safely and effectively. At
the local level indigenous peoples themselves are
moving towards greater and greater secrecy.
KENAN MALIK Isn't there also a case of a native
American group trying to dissuade outsiders from
learning its language so as to be able to better
protect its culture?
MICHAEL BROWN Well I was told that people,
contract workers who work in Zuni, New Mexico,
are specifically prohibited from learning the
language of the Zuni people, the assumption being
- as you mentioned earlier - that learning the
language gives them access to ritual secrets and
others forms of understanding that they simply
should not have access to.
KENAN MALIK In a different context though, would
we not call this xenophobia or racism?
MICHAEL BROWN Well it's true - if the shoe were
on the other foot, if Anglo Americans were
forbidding native Americans from speaking
English, it would be considered a completely
unacceptable racist policy.
KENAN MALIK The campaign for the repatriation of
artifacts and remains, and for the protection of
minority cultures, is motivated by the best of
intentions. Its consequences, though, can be
deeply troubling. It presents an idea of culture
as fixed and immutable, and as something that
people own by virtue of their biological ancestry
- an almost racial view of the world. Many
museums now accede to demands from indigenous
groups that in any other context would be seen as
unacceptable. Some, for instance, ban women or
non-tribal people from viewing certain parts of
their collections. Others prefer to hide objects
away in basementS rather than risk causing
offence. This confusion and insecurity on the
part of museums needs to be sorted out, says
Norman Palmer - particularly where human remains
are concerned.
NORMAN PALMER The existence of all these
questions argues incontrovertibly for an
independent resolution process. These questions
must be examined. We do not say that one side is
incontrovertibly right or wrong. What we say to
each side is if you've got a good, arguable case,
submit that case to independent evaluation.
[...]
KENAN MALIK Museums are not keen on enforced
guidelines, preferring a case-by-case approach to
every dispute. But, says the British Museum's
Neil MacGregor, there is one area where binding
international agreements are not only welcome but
may defuse many of the currents disputes about
cultural repatriation.
NEIL MACGREGOR We have in the last thirty, forty
years, with the growth of international
exhibitions, seen an unparalleled sharing of
world culture. There has never been such
universal access to the culture of the whole
world as there has in the last thirty years
because of the phenomenon of exhibitions. That
has of course been focused overwhelmingly on the
rich countries of the world. I think the
challenge is to allow as many of our objects as
possible to be seen in different contexts - in
the contexts of our own museums and in other
contexts round the world - including, of course,
and especially, the countries of origin. So what
we need is a legal framework that will enable
that to happen.
KENAN MALIK What you're saying is that you'd
like to build a series of universal museums
across the world?
NEIL MACGREGOR Absolutely. I think what we need
across the world are series of the experiences of
universal museums through temporary exhibitions
and revolving loans, but we need a legal
framework that would allow that to happen.
KENAN MALIK The idea of a universal museum may
not be fashionable these days. But Neil
MacGregor's vision seems to me highly
commendable. We shouldn't be ashamed of the
treasures possessed by great institutions such as
the British Museum. Nor of the Enlightenment
ideal of a museum as an institution that can help
create more universal forms of knowledge by
collecting from across ages and cultures.
Cultures are not private property. They belong to
us all.
______
[6]
[Recently Published ]
Meera Nanda
PROPHETS FACING BACKWARD
Postmodernism, Science, and Hindu Nationalism
Hardback / 320pp / ISBN 81-7824-090-4 / Rs 695.00
/ South Asia rights / Copublished by Rutgers
University Press
This book argues that the secularization of
cultural commonsense is the best answer to Hindu
nationalist bigotry in contemporary India. It
demonstrates how, under a Hindu nationalist
regime, the country took a turn towards
reactionary forms of modernism, acquiring
cutting-edge technologies-including nuclear
weapons-while reviving superstition in the guise
of 'Vedic Sciences'. Aggressive modernization in
the technological sphere accompanied an assault
on modernity in the cultural sphere.
[...].
MEERA NANDA is the author of Breaking the Spell
of Dharma and Other Essays, and Planting the
Future: A Resource Guide to Sustainable
Agriculture in the Third World. Trained as
microbiologist, she received her second Ph.D. in
Science Studies from Rensselaer Polytechnic
Institute, USA. She was a recipient of a grant
from the American Council of Learned Societies.
PERMANENT BLACK <perblack at vsnl.com>
D-28 Oxford Apartments,
11, I.P. Extension, Delhi 110092.
Phones: (011)-2272-1494 / (0)-98184-03242
website: www.orientlongman.com
______
[7]
South Asians Against Nukes | August 7, 2004
ANUSHAKTHI AMMA
A One-Act Play
by S. P. Udayakumar
May 15-18, 2004
It is year 2015. The Kalankulam Nuclear Power
and Bomb Project (KNPBP) has been functioning
since 2007. The farming villages, fishing
villages, and the dalit villages around
Kalankulam had been vacated and the people were
removed to a modern hamlet called 'Development
Colony'. [...]
[FULL TEXT AT: URL:
www.s-asians-against-nukes.org/PMANE/AushaktiAmma_May2004.html
]
_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/_/
Buzz on the perils of fundamentalist politics, on
matters of peace and democratisation in South
Asia. SACW is an independent & non-profit
citizens wire service run since 1998 by South
Asia Citizens Web: www.sacw.net/
SACW archive is available at: bridget.jatol.com/pipermail/sacw_insaf.net/
Sister initiatives :
South Asia Counter Information Project : snipurl.com/sacip
South Asians Against Nukes: www.s-asians-against-nukes.org
Communalism Watch: communalism.blogspot.com/
DISCLAIMER: Opinions expressed in materials carried in the posts do not
necessarily reflect the views of SACW compilers.
More information about the Sacw
mailing list