:: Saturday, September 21, 2002 ::

Kashmiri Elections - Ballots & Bullets Update

Kashmiri men carry torches through the streets of Jammu, India, calling for residents to vote and campaigning for their Jammu Morcha party Saturday Sept. 21, 2002. Kashmiris will go to the polls Tuesday in the second round of Kashmiri legislative elections. (AP Photo/David Guttenfelder)

Ghulam Hassan, a senior activist of the ruling National Conference Party, was killed in a shooting attack by suspected militants in Budgam Saturday, Sept. 21, 2002 in Srinagar. At least 11 other people were killed in separate incidents on the same day. Amongst the dead are one police officer; five other police officers were wounded.

There was a second abortive attempt on the life of Sakina Yatoo, a leading female politician -- she has survived the assassination attempt. Her motorcade was hit by a remote-controlled bomb according to police. Guerrillas then surrounded her car and opened fire, killing one of her bodyguards and a local resident. Yatoo apparently survived unhurt because the car was armored, but police gave no further details of the ambush.

Ali Mohammad Dar, an activist of the ruling National Conference party, was shot dead by suspected rebels in a busy shopping district in Srinagar on Wednesday Sept. 18, 2002.

Three people were wounded on September 17, after rebels fired a RPG into Congress party headquarters in Srinagar.

Law Minister Mushtaq Ahmad Lone, a member of the National Conference Party, was gunned down by a suspected separatist militant during an election campaign rally on September 12. At least 22 other people were killed between Setember 11th and 12th, ten of whom were BSF soldiers.

Election contestant, Sheikh Abdul Rehman along with three others (including two of his nephews) was gunned down by suspected rebels near his viilage in Gori Hakhura, about 100 kilometers (63 miles) north of Srinagar, India, Friday, Sept. 6, 2002. Apparently, bodyguards dropped their weapons and fled the scene prior to the assassination.

Despite this sporadic and deadly violence, voter turnout in the first round has been much more than expected. However, militants have vowed to continue their violence. In total, more than 5 million people are expected to vote in these elections.

:: Vikash Yadav 5:41 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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The Looming Debt Problem:

Below is a report carried by the BBC South Asia desk on the downgrading of Indian Government Bonds.

Brokers could ask for stiffer yields on rupee bonds High public debts and weak public finances mean Indian bonds denominated in rupees should be classed as "junk bonds", credit ratings agency Standard & Poors has announced. The agency cut the rating on long term rupee-denominated bonds from BB-plus to BBB-minus. The move may sound minor, but BBB-minus is the lowest rating that counts as "investment grade". In other words, the agency is placing a "let the buyer beware" warning on rupee bonds.

Home game
S&P's decision marks the eighth time in 12 years of grading sovereign debt - the name for bonds sold by national governments to raise funds - that a country has lost its investment grade. In India's case, strong capital controls mean that most of its bonds are sold in rupees rather than dollars, and are largely sold to the domestic market. That should limit damage for the moment, S&P said. But the loss of investment grade still means that risk premiums, the extra margin of profit demanded by investors for less-than-rock-solid deals, are likely to go up.

Trouble at the top
The problem, according to the agency, is that India's unwieldy 18-party coalition government has proved itself incapable of managing the federal budget effectively. As a result, the budget deficit is heading for 6% in the present financial year, while the overall level of public debt will probably top 80% of gross domestic product. But the tension within the government has also damaged the chances of reform, the agency warned. "Recent political disagreements threaten to set back India's privatisation programme," Managing Director John Chambers said. "The resulting loss in the government's credibility, along with the foregone revenue from the sale of large public sector firms, weakens investor confidence and enlarges the government's borrowing needs."

Most observers and commnetators on Indian Public finance have been sounding warnings for some time on on the need to reduce the level of governmnet debt and control the fiscal deficit. One of the more conservative of these group of scholars - the economists Vijay Joshi and IMD Little, in their book on India's Economic Reforms 1991-2001, modelled and forcast alternative scenarios if the primary and revenue deficits were not reduced to a managable 1%-2% of GDP by 2001. According to their calculations failure to do so would result in another fiscal crisis by the end of 2001. The level of government debt and the fiscal deficts have not been reduced to anywhere near the levels recommended yet the government has managed to stave off an outright fiscal crisis, like the one it faced in 1991. This may not be due simply to Joshi and Little getting their sums wrong (though it should serve as a warning not to take econometric too seriously and be aware of the dangers of economic forecasting) but can also be partly explained I would think by the use (or rather misuse) of long-term boorrowing for infrastructure to cover revenue deficits (the Resurgent India Bonds I suspect would have been used for this purpose rather than to fincace infrastructure projects as was the stated intention), partly due to sales from increased privatisation of Public Sector Companies (though again these have been meagre of late and many of the easy sales have already been made), as well as the usual creative accounting that goes on to hide the full implications of the budget deficit and stave off any painful adjustment ( this would include the old favourite of raiding the Oil Pool Account which is meant to be kept separate from the rest of revenue/expenditure items to cushion any sudden changes in the international price of crude oil). Yet all these measures are temporary in nature and cannot delay the adjustment from being made, in fact the later such an adjustment is made the more painful it will be; but it is an unfortunate aspect of the political ecnomoy of Public Finance in India that a voluntary or planned and steady change in public finances can never be taken under period of fiscal ease or relative freedom, instead we have to wait for a crisis to loom on the horizon or actually occur before the necessary measures are taken. It is a shame that in the current structure and system it is the crisis which all too often is the solution.

:: Conrad Barwa 8:38 AM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Re: Turbans 101

This is by way of a belated resonse to Vikash’s post on the prejudiced reporting and racist tinge to some occurrences in the US. I would like to add to the criticisms already well covered by Vikash and add my own thoughts; the Seattle Times article Vikash opens his post with is one of the more innocuous pieces on the subkect that I have seen but I think it is necessary to note that this superficial innocence conceals a coy approach to issues of race and ethnicity.

Two points should be noted immediately: firstly, I don’t think the right way to react or understand the nature of Fundamentalist Terrorism is to rush out and start buying books on Islamic culture, religion, philosophy or history. While it is a laudatory intention to study and learn more about regions and peoples far removed from one’s own; to do so in this case mystifies the incipient conflicts that are looming on the horizon and only serves to implicitly support Huntington-esque arguments about the coming Clash of Civilisations. It also, in my mind endorses the view that somehow, the Fundamentalists hate democracy, freedom, liberalism and the US and all who live there – basically the metaphors which people mean when the frequent question “Why do they hate us so much!?” (by us here I mean the US/American way of life). This is an incorrect approach to take for several reasons: firstly, while many Fundamentalists may hate the US and all that it (purportedly) stands for this is very low down on their priorities and motivations: even a cursory glance at the propaganda tapes of Osama Bin Laden circulating in the media will show that that the two explicit demands made are contained in the words “….until we live in peace and security in our lands in Palestine and the Army of Infidels has departed from the land of Mohammed…”. The recurring issue of Palestine and the presence of the US military are the immediate points of contention; this points towards the deeper nature of fundamentalism as such I would argue –it really has no foreign policy dimension by its very nature it is always directed towards internal and domestic issues. Therefore, Hindutva in India, besides obvious sabre-rattling against Pakistan has very little in its ideology that addresses outside concerns, Islamic Fundamentalists from Hassan al Banna (the founder of the Muslim Brotherhood) to Juhaiman al Utaiba (the spiritual leader of Mecca uprising of 1979) are far more interested in directing their efforts towards their own Islamic societies than they are about how non-Islamic societies behave; Christian fundamentalists in large I would think follow the same logic in their efforts to change the policy of the state they happen to live in, and express little interest or concern for foreign affairs. What does arouse anti-US sentiment is obviously the foreign policy of the US and the workings of the military-industrial complex as these are the most plainly visible structural factors that provoke a response. The more subtle and hidden forces, such as the need for cheap food and cheap oil linked to the lifestyles of many Americans as outlined by Vikash below, which shape US foreign policy is something which I think because of the subterranean way in which such forces operate eludes many Fundamentalists (as well as other political agents) on a conscious level anyway. In so far as foreign affairs/policy do enter into Fundamentalist thought I think that it tends to be extinguishable more the more extreme Conservative views on such topics. What Islamic Fundamentalists hate so much in this instance is less anything to do with American freedom, democracy or way of life but the concrete affects of US action in the region and the presence of the US military. Therefore one should not mystify the coming and existing conflict by assuming it is about civilisational clashes (whatever they are) or about the East vs. the West or some religious based tension but more to do with control over oil, US hegemony and the working of the military and financial networks within the US and abroad. In other words the answers lie very much at home rather than abroad.

Secondly, there is an unsettling paradox at play; as much of the thinking behind such attempts to explain and understand other cultures faces the same liberal dilemna – for example liberal defences of the right of Muslim school-girls to wear the headscarf in France and the UK in the left+liberal media based their arguments upon the premise of a universalist humanism; quoting one piece regarding the issue of headscarves for Muslim schoolgirls one writer L. Auslander remarked “Identification with Muslim traditions, including the decision to wear the headscarf, did not seem to necessarily involve an increase in religious piety, to say nothing of conversion to Islamic Fundamentalism. Many of those who now say they are part of the Islamic community are not religious”. This I think reflects the basic Liberal approach to issues of race, religion and ethnicity and seeks to demystify the threatening Other by arguing that, beneath their strange clothing, Islamists are really just like us. There are several problems with this approach and I while I sympathise with the intention I think the reasoning used is misguided – more than that it betrays an essential paradox within Liberalism itself: which means to say that the religious or racial Other can be absorbed into the collective national imaginary as long as it is stripped of any potential threatening aspects – this can mean all too often until the Other is not the Other. Taken at its most extreme there is something totalitarian about this Liberal need to violate and colonise the Other’s alterity and the lack of respect for this alterity speaks to me of a mindset that despite its own good intentions is still suffering from a Colonial Orientalist Myopia.

This article and photographs on the different turban wearing communities of the world replicates this mindset in an eerie way – the same cataloguing and defining of different ethnic and religious communities is performed under a nominally post-colonial setting but ironically it mirrors colonial practices of classification and categorisation that went on in the last two centuries and which is now so bitterly criticised by the Subaltern school of scholars. While it may go some way in introducing those unaware of the significance of the turban in the regions where it is worn, one should question the motives behind such expositions, especially after the WTC attacks. As Vikash notes it should not be an excuse to direct the nearest lynch mob to the correct as opposed to the wrong target. Furthermore, like the colonial mindset it represents external appearances should not be used a basis of judging internal beliefs/convictions. In Gilles Pontecarvo’s excellent film the Battle of Algiers, the FLN fighters use women to carry bombs, munitions and evade the security checkpoints set by the French security forces in urban roadblocks by using women who do not wear the headscarves or the veil, wear make-up and suitably modern westernised clothes. The French operating with the same mindset and heuristic shortcuts that all colonial masters do let these women through without subjecting them to close and humiliating body-searches assuming that by their dress they would be favourably disposed towards the French colonial government as a “modern” one and not be FLN agents. Apart from the glaring inaccuracies this is a self-legitimising discourse which confers a lacking level of legitimacy on the Colonial government which was seen as more “progressive” on the gender issue, which the Colonial Algerian government used at the time to attack the supposedly male chauvinist FLN. In a further twist women sympathisers of the FLN who were not directly involved in urban warfare started to wear the veil as a form of protest against the colonial government, frequently this included larges sections of the urban middle-class and intellegentsia – the very group that was mean to be the most westernised and modern, needless to say this caused further confusion and problems for the French security forces. This should be enough to warn any so-called patriot from relying on external signifiers as a guide to determining the signified – as in the daily exercise of communication through signs, it is the manipulation of such signifiers that is used by the terrorists to evade and confuse security apparatuses. The breakdown and manipulation of these physical and external signifiers should caution us not to take things at face value or use shortcuts without thought as the sign language of everyday normal life has broken down. As the article though in all fairness points out none of the hijackers on September the 11 wore any form of headgear, neither would I assume any currently active Al-Quaida agent do so if he is in the US, unless he wants to be arrested or is a decoy. As from Al-Quaida’s viewpoint they are engaged in a war already, and as the Bush administration ceaselessly reminds us they are involved in a war, almost all civilians in the countries are caught in the middle we should keep in mind the dictum: In war everything is confusing. The More confusion the better. (obviously this would be the strategy of the weaker power against the dominant one).

The politics of the Turban Issue:

While I agree with Vikash, that Sikhs should not be victimised; I am less sympathetic with some of the reactions that have come from the Sikh community, in particular as in an earlier post I noted the protest march by some Sikh community members in New York, I think, at which the Banner carrying the logo “Sikhs are not Taliban”. What does this imply? That it is all right to go and victimise or direct ire at Muslim wearers, as long as Sikhs are left alone?! I am deeply suspicious of these kind of sentiments not only because they are chauvinistic and intolerant but also because they accomplish the task of dividing ethnic minorities who live in a white majority country and prevent them from coming together to combat racism and discrimination at large in society. Moreover, while Sikhs in this case have been victimised; it should also be noted that while they have been subjected to virulent attacks through their history they have participated in majoritarian massacres and pogroms en masse as well. Any initial look at the history of communal rioting in the wake of Partition in Punjab in 1947 will show the level of involvement of Sikh in rioting against Muslims; I particularly recommend Urvashi Butalia’s bittersweet collection of stories on Partition entitled The Voices of Silence. It is a thought provoking and harrowing recount of the human costs of communal violence and many of the stories address the experience of the Sikh community which space prevents me from exploring here. Yet the Sikh community by virtue of its position as a minority community everywhere, including India the country of its origin has marked it out as a community that has and does suffer heavily from sectarian violence.

What does disturb me is the rather strong anti-Muslim feelings given vent to by many Sikhs, even those part of the diaspora. Within the UK relations between the communities are not good and this reflects the violent and conflict marred nature of the history between the two communities – interestingly though I hear strong criticisms of the Indian government and of Hindutva and anti-Muslim extremists from Muslims, I have seen/heard little that directly that attacks/demonises Hindus or Sikhs as communities by Muslims from South Asia; while the rhetoric from Hindus and Sikhs even from those quite moderate on most other issues tends to stigmatise not only devout or fundamentalist Muslims but Muslims as a community. This is a disturbing development. Ironic that Sikhs should have such antagonistic relations with Muslims given the strong Muslim influence on Sikhism – indeed Sikhism is very much a blend of Hinduism and Islam (however much individual Sikhs may want to deny this). After all Sikhism takes its strong monotheistic character from Islam, as does elements of its worship (in Sikhism as in Islam God is not represent ichnographically, indeed for both such a representation would be blasphemous), the wearing of turbans is also another part of the Islamic influence. Of course other Indian communities apart from Sikhs and Muslims wear turbans but none do so as part of their religious tradition and none do so rigorously; in anycase the fact that only Hindus in western and northern India follow the practise of wearing turbans shows implies that it is the result of prolonged contact with Islamic influences – in southern and eastern India such practices are rare amongst the Hindu community. In addition the concept of a warrior religion is also reflective of the Islamic influence (though originally Sikhism started as a peaceful religion, yet Islam has its pacific side as well) as such a concept is an anathema to Hinduism – in Hinduism there are warrior castes, warrior tribes and warrior groups but these are always located within the ethos of a society whose broader religious nature is definitely not that of a Warrior religion. It is possible to go on and note the similar importance given to a book of revelation such as the Granth Sahib in Sikhism and the Koran in Islam but the point is essentially the same. It is a shame and a disgrace that at a popular level there has been such a degree of studied ignorance and denial of the Islamic roots and influences on Sikhism and as such is part of the misunderstanding and misperceptions that are behind the some of the more virulent hatred that exists today. It is time to look at what these communities have in common rather than what divides them.

A clearer understanding of the basis and historical influences on one’s own religion can prevent the exploitation of religious sentiment for non-religious ends. Within India itself communal sentiments have been exploited by politicians for political gain with regards to all religious communities. The troubled history of the Punjab is another testament to the bungled attempts of the federal government to deal very heavily handedly with moderate claims for limited autonomy but by skilful manipulation and cynical posturing quickly spiralled into major secessionist movement that cost over 50,000 lives, the death of a Prime Minister and some of the worst communal rioting since independence much of it directing at vulnerable Sikh communities living outside Punjab. However, given the troubled nature of state policy towards the Sikh community it is worrying to note that the Akali Dal, the party the claims to espouse and defend Sikh interests, has been a member of the BJP-led coalition in Delhi in the current administration; conveniently forgetting the role of the BJP in stirring up communal animosity between the Hindu-Sikh communities in the Punjab during the 1980’s and in participating in the anti-Sikh riots of 1984 following Indira Gandhi’s assassination. With the current anti-Muslim pogrom in Gujarat, one would think that it is time for all religious and ethnic minorities to present a common front as majoritarian sentiments can all too easily turn against any minority no matter who they are. Finally I find the characterisation of Sikhism as a religion that espouses egalitarianism as ironic as precisely the same thing can be said of Islam – indeed it is one of the most popular reasons for marginal/low caste groups turning to Islam in preference to any other religion in India. Moreover, though all religious communities with the possible exception of Buddhism, in India practise some form of casteism no matter what their faith professes I think that Islam’s record on this score has been much more praiseworthy than that of Sikhism, Hinduism or Christianity. It is very significant that the mass conversion of over 100 Dalits in Meenakshipuram in Tamil Nadu in the early 1980’s was a conversion from Hinduism to Islam and not to any other religion (this was also one of the key rallying points in mobilising Hindutva passions politically and raising the concept of Hinduism as a religion under threat). Sikh regiments in the Indian army, since British times have been separated largely by caste with Scheduled caste Sikhs being recruited into distinct regiments (usually such regiments have had the prefix light in front of their regimental designation e.g. the Light 13th Sikh infantry, why this is so escapes me, a perusal of their combat histories suggests that this has nothing to do with their tactical performance or usage). Again this deserves a separate discussion so I won’t elaborate any further, except to add that for certain Sikh sects such as the Nirankaris the colour blue has a sacred significance and hence they usually almost always wear blue turbans; though again there is a controversy within the Sikh community as to whether the Nirankaris can be regarded as “proper” Sikhs; I mention this just by way of response to the article which says that blue is usually only worn by desert tribes/groups due to its association with water oasises.

Racial Politics in the USA:

I am concur fully with Vikash’s analogy between the police treatment of Blacks in the US and the ability to use racial profiling on various targets. It is somewhat amusing to hear the protests being voiced by South Asian immigrants in the US about racial profiling and incidences of racial discrimination – the surprise and indignation are the elements I refer to here, as when they do occur it is a depressing matter to all those committed to the proper functioning of a democratic and egalitarian society (not to mention to the victims and their families). After all why be surprised or shocked, in a country where de facto racial profiling of blacks and Hispanics is part of daily procedure in many metropolitan police departments how can the display of either reaction be credible; and where were these protests then? I think this points to the different structural position of South Asians a racial minority in the US than other countries like the UK; this is a position which has shielded them to a great degree from some of the harsher and explicitly discriminatory practises based on race.

My perception, and I stress it is only that, is that Asians have earned the general label of a model minority, earning educational qualifications and wealth at rates greater than that of whites themselves, yet the price of this has been a tacit agreement not to rock the boat and to consent to the existing racial hierarchy. As Shawn Wong remarks for minorities in the US “silence wins love.” Of course for there to be a model minority, there has to be a minority that is not considered as a “model” and this is the African-American community: dark-skinned, unassimilated and the unspoken fear – perhaps unassimilable. Tocqueville refers to “southern Americans” in his seminal Democracy in America, meaning those today are classified as Hispanics; and Tocqueville wrote of them that they had two active passions with regards to race: the fear of resembling the Negro and the fear of falling below the level of whites. The residual effect of this today can be seen in that the “melting pot” for many non-white minorities still means striving towards an unattainable “whiteness” and fleeing from the ever-threatening “blackness” in this view other racial minorities, especially those that are non-white tend no to be potential allies so much as the threats of the taints of blackness that they desire to escape.

The forced character of the immigration for blacks as well as the cultural filter at work influences this different reception. Africans have been for generations been intermarrying with non-African immigrants in the US, as they have in other societies such as the Caribbean and South America, most these ancestors came of their own free will, like other Americans. While numerous names may be used elsewhere to distinguish between an array of different racial mixtures, in the US there are only two; black and white. They refer to certain essentialised notions of race rather than to the actually existing variety and one has to see where South Asians fit into this schema. Different policies are shaped by different histories and racism experienced abroad by Indians obviously varies a great deal. For example, Indian immigrants to Britain came in the shadow of empire, with a culture of white colonial supremacy lingering even as the colonial power itself receded. Like Blacks in the US they performed mainly low-paid, semi-skilled work and like the blacks they tended to congregate in racially concentrated urban centres, which were marked out by overcrowding, fewer public service and lower property values. This however, led to a different type of racial consciousness emerging – as due to the class nature and the similar experience of racism at the hands of police and other Law and Order organs of the state, a coalition could be forged with black Caribbean immigrants. This has spilled over into current politics as Asian gangs and Asian youths are used as one of the main signifiers in the media and popular culture for urban violence, rising levels of street crime and propensity to using force to settle issues within local communities – even to the point of urban rioting against local police as the Oldham riots last year showed (the similarities with black groups in the US should be obvious). The terminology reflects this as since the 1960’s the term “black” is used as a blanket term to refer not only to Afro-Caribbean but to South Asians as well. South Asian communities in the UK have tended to be more cohesive and less mobile geographically and socially than their counterparts in the USA and have faced a more hostile racial environment.

In the USA most South Asian immigration has been relatively recent, occurring well into the era of decolonisation from 1965 onwards. The 1965 Immigration Act, which made historic expansions in quotas and abolished all explicit national discrimination, was the beginning of sizeable immigration from India. This was just a year after the Civil Rights Act enacted in response by a Democratic government in response to immense social unrest and powerful mass movements protesting against the empty rhetoric of American democracy. Most Indians in the US arrived after these movements had won their victories. Although they profited substantially from them, they did not necessarily identify with the participants in those struggles. Coming in from as skilled professionals, their class and caste backgrounds usually pre-disposed them towards viewing their privileges as a matter of right. With the reach of mainstream society much greater than in Britain, community networks were looser and more informal – an occasion for socialising rather than a force for socialisation. A more middle and upper class status, residential spread in the suburbs, much stronger pressures to assimilate exerted in the schools, combined with many other forces to bleed South Asians of many ethnically distinctive traits, especially from the second-generation onwards (e.g. according to the 1990 census only 14.5% of Indians spoke an Asian language at home compared to 65.2% for Asians within the USA as a whole – again note the difference with the UK where this week David Blunkett the Home Secretary, has caused an outcry over his insistence that Asian families need to get into the habit of speaking English in the home). These forces for assimilation meant that Indians tended to identify with whites rather than work out distinct identities for themselves in their new environments. I still remember being disturbed and shocked when a student from the US but of South Asian origin remarked to me that just as untouchables in India are converting to Islam to avoid casteism so Blacks with the USA are converting to Islam to avoid racism. Arvind Rajgopal in his excellent book on the uses of the Media in politics – “Politics after Television” recounts an encounter with two drunk blacks in a bar late at night while on a trip to the USA; after exchanging pleasantries and small talk one of them asked him “You’re black aren’t you? Just like us?”. Rajgopal, being a visitor from India, and operating on a different mental cartography of race replied that he was; to which the other black colleague added, “They’re black, just like us, but they act like they’re better.” This speaks volumes I feel for the existing racial hierarchy in the US and also goes further in the different self-perceptions of different diasporic communities – most Indians from the UK will refer to themselves as black, whereas it was somewhat of a surprise to me to hear Indians from the US refer to themselves as brown, behind this I see a hidden plea to not be called black. As a note I should add that Japanese and Chinese domiciles in the USA were denied citizenship on basis of the 1790 Naturalisation Law, which limited privileges to “free white persons”; after 1870 the privilege was extended to “aliens of African nativity or persons of African descent” as well. However, Indians were exempt from the earlier ruling as they alone amongst the Asians were judged to be member of the “European Race”, being believed to be part of the “Mediterranean branch of the Caucasian family” and many courts granted early Indian immigrants citizenship. This rend was closed in 1923 by the ruling of Justice George Sutherland in the Supreme Court (in the case of the US vs. Bhagat Singh Thind) who ruled that Indian national were ineligible for citizenship, closing this avenue for Indians.

Fear, inhibition and a sense of their political weakness has muted substantive expression of Indians within the US as a political community. They have however been successful to a greater degree than perhaps any other diasporic community, Vikash informs me that as an ethnic minority Indians have the largest per capita income in the US based on the last census figures. But material success in the US, as in most capitalist societies is pursued in individual rather than collective terms and this has made it harder not easier to address issues as an ethnic minority. Being members of a successful group, the competitiveness between individuals makes discussion of racism amongst them difficult: to raise the issue could be seen as an excuse for individual failure rather than as a description of a real social problem. As Ronald Takaki has argued, the “iron cage” of individualism has been one of the crucial constructs used to break down the immigrant community relationships, by constituting the autonomous, rational individual as sovereign. Some of these forces have already been mentioned: English-speaking, middle-class professionals who are in many respects attuned to individualistic aspirations do not tend to form cohesive ethnic communities in which to raise their children, but a deeper consideration of American social and historical factors is needed to provide as fuller picture.

Tocqueville’s piercing analysis has inaugurated a trend of examining the concept of American individualism by most social theorists looking at American society. Tocqueville understood individualism to be a “calm and considered feeling” which inclined people to attend to their own interests and well-being, and so withdraw from larger society. He saw this as an outcome of social equality and material prosperity, leading people to be able to fend for themselves. As a result of their self-sufficiency, people began to imagine that society was in their own hands, this led in the short term merely to “damming the spirit of public virtues” but in the long run merged into the “the blind instinct of egoism”. Robert Bellah in his impressive survey of American society has written that individualism lies at the very core of American culture. The ethic of “finding oneself” acknowledges the pain involved in such a distancing from family and friends but upholds the necessity of doing so in a collective “pursuit of loneliness”. If in other societies the family or the larger community ids the theatre in which important phases of socialisation occur, in the US the stage for these processes is the individual.

The project has strong Puritan overtones: self-fashioning is identified with Empire-building and has been so since the 17th century. The lasting rhetoric of self-making as heroism, requiring individual will and imagination, that was at the same time something like a civic virtue and a national mission. The allegory of America as the promised land has remained a potent if unrealised dream and symbol. What was for Cotton Mather a purifying wilderness became for Emerson, the redemptive frontier of the West. There is a persistent tendency to see this culture as a way of linking the self and social assertion with the moral assurance of a self-proclaimed people of God. As a powerful national and cultural force, it has combined claims of fostering freedom for the individual with the paradoxical ability to direct that freedom into the reproduction of a relatively homogenous culture, one which exacts high degree of conformity and is capable of mobilising unamity of will within a short period of time. The issue of race becomes an important theme in the Puritan enactment of will. The takeover of what was seen as empty land from the native Americans and the consignment of a whole people to the detritus of history, the establishment of an institution whose effects permeate society to this day, namely slavery, both of these acts were of fundamental importance to the establishment of America and testify to a deep belief in racial superiority, in part of the foundation stone in the project of American self-making. How can non-whites inhabit such a self? The frustration behind this does lead to a sort of rage, as eloquently demonstrate by Vikash’s observations on Salman Rushdie’s Fury. Sociologists such as Ruth Frankenburg, when interviewing white women, often found that there was a persistent denial of any substance to their culture – it was often referred to as no culture. Respondents spoke of the “formlessness of being white” and to the "unmarked nature of whiteness” leading to anonymity. The distinction of being unmarked, however, represents the privilege of a dominant culture that names others without having to identify itself. Whiteness then appears as the underlying basis on which all are evaluated and graded, and as the highest point of assimilation in a melting pot society. This is the blank or empty core at the heart of an ostensibly plural culture. White immigrants are always already to a great degree already assimilated, even if they have arrived recently, it is usually the recent non-white immigrants who would be asked casually if they are going back; yet the price paid for this is a peculiar “thinness” to self-definitions of white culture or ethnicity particularly amongst WASPs. To carry Vikash’s analogy of the Lacanian mirror stage further, as he points out black and South Asians staring into the mirror of American society will frequently see a “white self” staring back at them, representing for them a level of assimilation to which they can aspire but ultimately never attain – let us ask what do whites see when they peer into the Lacanian mirror? I am tempted to say that they see precisely nothing, as Frankenburg’s white women reply, they see not a defined culture or self but the absence of one. Such a thesis though questionable raises some tantalising questions; it raises the spectre of vampirism and the inability to cast a visible mirror-reflection. Given the erasure and suppression of alternative ethnicities/races upon which white predominance in the US was and is based I find the metaphor of witeness = vampirism as a somewhat apt if esoteric one.

To conclude, I hope the recent events within the US, will demonstrate the importance of solidarity amongst minorities and dispel the “model minority” myth propagated by Dinesh D’Souza and his ilk. Forging a common ground with other non-white minorities is crucial as now the temporary “whiteness” allocated to South Asians has been withdrawn; Vijay Prashad’s theme of South Asians being “whites on probation” in the US is I think an enormously persuasive one; now that this probation has been to a large degree revoked I hope South Asians will heed the dangers in being isolated and pursuing an ever elusive “white” status and join with other minorities. Not only will this go a long way in restoring democratic and civil rights to those communities who are most vulnerable to them being withdrawn it will also be a firm step in creating a really multi-racial and multi-cultural society.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:19 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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The Daily Howler:

Bob Somerby's "Daily Howler" has an excellent article on the way in which the media chose to report the case of the Florida Three as a "hoax" or "prank" even though there was no evidence to back up such an assertion.

:: Vikash Yadav 1:31 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Anti-Muslim Rhetoric In Gujarat:

Earlier yesterday the BBC aired a story of a tape recording of a speech where the Gujerat Cheif Minister Narendra Modi was heard to give vent to some strong Anti-Muslim rhetoric, allegging amognst other things that the refugee camps set up to provide shelter to the Muslim victims of the rioting, were breeding gournds for terrorism and the following news story from the Statesman demonstrates the perils of opposing the Saffron brigade.

Three CID (Intelligence) officers have been transferred by the Gujarat government in what is being seen as “punishment’’ for alleged leakage of recordings of Mr Narendra Modi’s speech during the Gaurav yatra at Becharji.Those transferred are — additional DGP (Intelligence) Mr RB Shreekumar, DIG (Intelligence) Mr E Radhakrishnan and SP (Intelligence) Mr Sanjeev Bhatt. Another reason is the report by the additional DGP (Intelligence) to the additional chief secretary (home) warning him of Mr Modi’s inflammatory speeches during the yatra. After maintaining that there was no audio tape of Mr Modi’s anti-minority remarks, the state government today said it was willing to make it public. “We can make it (the tape) public, we have no intention to hide anything,” a government spokesman said. The Governor, Mr Sundersingh Bhandari, has asked for the video-tapes from the TV television channels that aired it.

From the Statesman News Service.

While it is reassuring to see that not all parts of the Law and Order organs of the state have been captured by the BJP or been so blatantly politicised that they can no longer carry out their constitutional duties; what is more troubling is that even now we persist with the fiction that solid physical evidence is needed to confirm that the Modi administration in Gujerat is not fit to maintain public order and to act in a manner consistent with protecting the Fundamental Rights of all its citizens in this vein even solid proof can be denied as Bangaru Laxman the former President of the BJP claimed he was merely receiving party funds when caught on videotape receiving bribes from undercover journalists posing as businessmen; such ridiculous protestations just add insult to injury and should not even be given the chance to be aired much less taken seriously. In this light the numerous acts of omission and of commission of the Gujerat state government since the riots began several months ago should have been enough to remove the incumbent administration from power and impose President's Rule in the state; rather than the purely cosmetic noises of regret and moderation being currently heard from New Delhi; to ask for more proof before acting is to persist on participating in a charade that not only demeans the dignity of all those involved but allows a further corrosion of the ability of the Indian state to protect its citizens - of course it is possible to argue that this is precisely what the BJP and the Hindutva forces want. This is also an effort to reduce to nothing the pronouncements of the Supreme Court as to respecting the findings on fact by the Election Commission and the remedial action to be taken, which includes the state of the electoral rolls and an improvement in the law and order situation not to the ideal but at least to the extent of being able to conduct a reasonably free and fair poll. It is also necessary to distinguish the conditions in Gujarat and Kashmir, which Modi constantly seeks to blur. In Jammu and Kashmir the threat to law and order is partly external, it is being combated by all the power of the state and the Union government (moreover, the outbreak of violence itself was in no small part due to the blatant electoral rigging of the 1987 state elections). In Gujarat the chief minister and his government machinery seem to be bent on subverting the directions of the Election Commission and with the support of the Union government to rush the Supreme Court into pronouncing a deadline, all other considerations, including their own pronouncements in open court notwithstanding. The issue is simple, direct and of enormous importance. Is Modi to be allowed to subvert the holding of free and fair elections with impunity and rush to the Supreme Court to fix a time limit to suit himself without regard to the stipulations of the Election Commission, as regards bringing about conditions in which such elections can be held? The answer to this question will be an important litmus test as to the resilience of Indian democracy in resisting the efforts taking place currently to suborn it.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:34 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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India and Iraq: Strategic Partners or Myopic Opportunism

Vikash, has raised some excellent points, too many to respond to in one single post, so I will tackle them in reverse order; dealing first with the Indian foreign policy towards Iraq .As Vikash has pointed out many countries have done deals with Iraq on the side to further their own economic interests ranging from the EU to Russia and India is not alone in doing this. This is of course true of many state which the US considers to be pariahs or difficult to deal with politically like Cuba or Viet Nam. European companies have been very active in the latter and done some investing in the former despite the potential implications of Helms-Burton. I think I am correct in asserting that even US corporations are increasingly willing to do business with such countries and in some cases have put pressure on the government to remove existing restrictions. This is to be expected as part of the globalising process of capitalist expansion as the one thing that Capital hates is being shut out of markets however poor or marginal they may seem and follows its own internal logic in penetrating them. In some senses this generosity hides the distortions of bilaterally directed trade, I have in mind here the Schactian trade Germany for example practised with the countries of eastern Europe during the 1930s, in that much of it is trade that needs to be underpinned by State assurances and guarantees and would not occur if profit was the primary motive. Vikash has already outlined the politics behind such trading for India; part of the reason also stems from the fact that with large grain surpluses as well as stockpiles of goods produced by the public sector; these are goods which either can only be consumed if subsidised within India (as in the case of grain) or as in the case of much provided by the Public sector is not all that competitive in the marketplace and thus tends to be accumulated as inventories by PSEs rather than being sold; directed trade such as the deals with Iraq offers a good way of disposing of these stockpiles and earning some political capital as well. Of course I would argue that this is a really wasteful strategy, as it involves the subsidisation of a very inefficient productive apparatus at home and involves a fiscal burden India can ill afford at the moment and is a short-sighted strategy to say the least. The gains in anycase, as Vikash has illustrated are both limited and debatable and therefore not really worth the resources expended in pursuing them.

India’s Clouded Vision in the Middle East:

I would also agree that India has no real vision in the Middle East and has been following a confused and indeterminate strategy since independence. I have no strong feelings on the subject and I don't think that India's direct strategic interests automatically suggests any clear direction: so in a sense there are good arguments for taking a variety of differing stands. What I do think is essential is some semblance of stability or continuity towards the region, for example supporting either the Palestinian/Arab cause or allying with the Israelis-US front could have been a possibility in the past, both approaches having their dangers and advantages; yet I think that having chosen one side we should stick with them and not jump ship the moment it might seem that we can get some temporary (or even medium term) extra benefit from the supporting the other side. Not only do I think such an approach is ethically questionable it is also a very poor long-term strategy as no country is going to trust or value an alliance with us if we are perceived as so fickle in our choices - in other words this is also another way in which one can find ourselves without any friends at all. Historically, rightly or wrongly India has tended to support the Palestinian cause and support the Arab world; as Vikash notes the reciprocal benefits of this policy have been meagre; of course one doesn't expect the Palestinians to be able to do much in the international arena for any of its allies - in this case as Edward Said remarks in his autobiography supporting the Palestinian cause is one of the most thankless and costly tasks one can espouse in the modern political arena, this is as true for nations (the non-Islamic ones anyway) as it is for individuals. But the potential diplomatic and strategic rewards of supporting the Arab countries has, I feel, yielded only lukewarm support for India on issues such as the conflict over Kashmir with Pakistan. In fact I think though many Arab countries feel sympathetically towards India: given India’s cultural popularity and trade links in the region; as well as the common experience over decolonisation and the Non-Aligned Movement (unsuccessful though this was as a movement) and the amiable relations between individual leaders such as Nehru and Nasser; many find it difficult to back, in an open conflict a non-Islamic country such as India against an Islamic one such as Pakistan. I offer this interpretation hesitantly and with some trepidation as I think generally relations have been very good and in many international for a such as the UN, GATT and WHO there has been a fruitful working relationship; yet in the diplomatic arena it has not led to a decisive tilt in favour of India. One particular example which comes to mind is the proposal that India attend the conferences and summits of the Organisation of Islamic Countries (OIC) as an observer, given its large Muslim population (larger than most Islamic countries themselves) and until recently the strongly secular character of state policy within India such a proposal makes some sense. However, Pakistan aware of the potential signals this could insisted that such an occurrence was not possible until a resolution had been reached over Kashmir and peaceful relations on the Sub-Continent been reached and the rest of the OIC desisted from forcing the issue. This episode is of interest because I think it epitomises very well the nature of relationships between the Islamic countries, Pakistan and India; with the former quite willing to establish closer relations for a host of reasons with India but being constrained by the intransigence of bitter India-Pakistan relations and while unwilling to condemn India and side unilaterally with Pakistan prefer to maintain a discreet distance.

One aside now, with the BJP in power albeit as part of a coalition government at the centre its approach to the region should prove interesting. Given the generic pro-US tendency of the BJP (as evinced by the sharp reversal and tilt towards the US during the short-lived Janata party government during 1977-79 when AB Vajpayee the current PM was then the foreign Minister) and attitude towards Muslims at home, which are virulently anti-Islamic a move closer towards Israel is to be expected (though not necessarily welcomed). This also ties in with why the BJP administration is trying to make overtures to Iraq as the Iraqi regime is also quite anti-Islamic (though not anti-Muslim), given the domestic record in Gujerat and the treatment of Muslims in places such as Bombay which has strong historic links with the Middle East, no Islamic regime can be too well-disposed towards the incumbent government in New Delhi. But as Vikash has pointed out such a policy is shortsighted and not a viable strategy for Indian dealings in the region. A see-saw policy of moving closer to Israel and then opportunistically trying to exploit the isolated situation Iraq is in, fools no-one and doesn’t really accomplish all that much either of substance. What is needed is not a policy stance that is pacifist (I do not advocate pacifism as a foreign policy) nor based on purely moral principles/pragmatic realism but a stable, coherent and well thought out policy. Furthermore, as pointed out earlier, unless some basic structural condition occasions a rethink, once our allies/partners are chosen we should remain with them as switching sides and changing tack will in the long-run prove counter-productive.

As far as Indian policy towards Iraq goes, I think we should be guided by long-term considerations and act accordingly. Obviously I don’t think it is particularly in India’s interest to ally or be anything more than on cordial terms with the Saddam Hussein regime. Yet I don’t see why we should be any more favourably disposed towards the current US policy either, I think we should remember that during the 1991 invasion of Kuwait nearly 100,000 Indian migrant workers were left in Kuwait and Iraq; the then Foreign Minister IK Gujral managed to arrange for their release and airlift to India before the Allied forces commenced their hostilities and in this he was met with a fair amount of co-operation by the Iraqi side (this was no mean feat by the way, as it was accomplished by using Air India planes and organised by the government). This does not mean India should support Iraq, but it does mean that as a country we have no need or cause to regard the Iraqi regime as hostile towards us. Moreover, I strongly disagree with the suggestion that should the US invade Iraq, India should immediately announce its allegiance to the US; apart from anything else I belong to the school of thought that believes Indian foreign policy should be determined in New Delhi and not Washington. I think it would be extremely cynical to support and endorse the invasion of a country simply because a dominant power wants a regime change and I also think it is a dangerous course for India to take for several reasons.

Firstly, on the issue of national sovereignty it is dangerous to start supporting the invasion and occupation of sovereign countries simply because it suits the Hegemonic power at the time: after all if we endorse an invasion of Iraq where do we draw the line when it comes to invading and facilitating a “regime change”: Iran, Saudi Arabia, Kazakhstan, Pakistan!? Secondly, while foreign policy cannot be solely guided by moral considerations they do play a part, as any foreign policy is not a pure recourse to moral idealism or pragmatic realism but rather a combination of the two. In anycase while I am no follower of Panchsheel, I do think that such an occurrence would go against the principles that one would hope the Indian Republic can adhere to; otherwise we will be reduced to the position of a dependency by simply bending knee to the current dictates of the moment. I also think that it is difficult to separate foreign policy from domestic policy: a government that is happy to allow needless violence, ignore human rights violations aboard and look the other way while dubious means are used to achieve even more dubious goals will sooner or later be tempted to practise at home what it does/supports abroad. Most Imperial powers suffer from this: witness the current plight of democracy in the US, where recent electoral practises in Florida have again raised the ire of democrats; but as commentators have pointed out an administration that is willing to overthrow legitimately elected governments in countries such as Venezuela and disregard the electoral mandate in imposing selected rulers will naturally prove insensitive to the niceties of electoral procedure at home. I think therefore, we should be wary of drawing firm distinctions between the foreign polices and domestic policies of states: and if the goal of any citizen is to persuade/force his government to act in a manner that is in the interests of its citizenship at home, then he-she cannot stand idly by while the same government acts in a different manner abroad – this is as much out of enlightened self-interest as idealism. Thirdly, while I agree with Vikash that there are few gains to be had in being an ally of the US at the moment, I seriously question whether the consequences of not unreservedly supporting the US are quite as severe as Vikash argues. It is true that the fiscal situation in India is bad and the external debt situation is worrying; yet India if anything really faces an internal debt trap as the composition of government debt is such that most of the borrowing is done by tapping domestic savings; external imbalances do build up to crises but these can be managed by the government (indeed India has faced a serious balance of payments crisis every decade since Independence). While certain advantages that being a key US ally such as external debt rescheduling, easy IMF credit lines and concessions to US markets would be welcome they may not actually be very beneficial in the medium-long run. Given that many of India’s problems fiscally are internal: such as an inability to raise revenue through domestic taxation, a shaky financial sector and a weak currency; concessions on access to foreign capital and increased aid (as has for example been offered to Pakistan for its support in the War on Terror) will aggravate matters as it will allow the government to delay painful and unpopular decisions on the fiscal and financial front by borrowing and relying on cheap credit. This obviously would be detrimental in the long-run and is also a reason why Pakistan has only delayed the necessity of adjustment and not avoided it.

Lastly, there is also the problem of what allying with the US means. I want to only draw on two very broad observations. As we live in an age of what can be called Late Capitalism and financial globalisation, this is reflected in the global economy and the US as the global hegemonic power has an interest in pursuing a certain project of globalisation – namely that of financial liberalisation that removes barriers to finance capital across sectors and countries. Allying with the US will open up the financial sector and reduce the autonomy of states to regulate or control their own finance capital (this has happened to a great extent already), it is in anycase difficult to resist but will be almost impossible to do so for close US allies. If one looks to the fate of US allies elsewhere in Asia the picture is a sobering one; staunch US allies such as Indonesia and Fillipines (see Walden Bello’s recent interview in the New Left Review, where he describes how multilateral aid channelled through institutions such as the World Bank were closely tied to supporting US military policy and bases in the Fillipines) paid a heavy price in terms of the socio-economic destabilisation and faced collapse at various points in recent history, Pakistan the closest thing the US has to an ally in South Asia, has also not really benefited at all from its support of the US, I recommend all to read the excellent essay by Eqbal Ahmed on the Roots of Violence in Pakistani society (posted on this site, on 14th August, Pakistan’s independence day) for an outline of the deleterious effects of US involvement in Pakistan. A memorable quote comes from an anonymous Pakistani Army colonel in Tariq Ali’s book the Clash of Fundamentalisms who sarcastically remarks that Pakistan was the condom used by the US to enter Afghanistan and once the US had inserted itself and accomplished its mission in Afghanistan it threw away Pakistan just like a used condom. While, obviously, not all the serious problems facing these countries can be blamed on the US, I think there is a clear correlation at work here. The problems faced by India on this front are huge enough, and going down this route would only magnify them I fear. Lastly, we have no way of knowing exactly what the repercussions of an invasion of Iraq will be on the region and whether it might lead to increased outbreaks of Islamic fundamentalism. Given that India is next to Pakistan, a country that is somewhat unstable, has a strong Islamicist base and possesses nuclear weapons, this is a cause for concern; should the Pakistani polity be destabilised and the Army lose control of the nuclear resources to extremists the results could be disastrous for Pakistan, India and the region as a whole. Already Islamic elements within Pakistan cannot be happy with the Musharraf regime’s co-operation with the US and the continuing bombing campaign over Afghanistan; we should also remember that Kashmir is still suffering from an insurgency that is increasingly dominated by “jehadis” from the Middle East, Saudi money and Pakistani covert compliance have played an important role in their activities; I should note here that I distinguish the militant Jehadi element in the insurgency from the Kashmiri irredentist movement at large as the two have very different goals and visions for Kashmir. All this leads me to the conclusion that India should try to ensure (not that it can do much) a peaceful resolution to the current standoff and if hostilities should break out not do anything to aggravate the situation for India (like declaring unreserved allegiance to the US). I don’t think the only option apart from supporting a US invasion is to partner with Iraq; nor do I think that lecturing the US from a high moral ground will do India any good (as Vikash, reminds me India gave up the high moral ground long ago, though this could be an argument that we need to reclaim it, I think that haranguing the US as Krishna Menon did in the UN in the 1950s can only harm India’s position); I do however, support a stance that makes it clear that alternative channels to resolve the impasse such as negotiation through the UN should be exhausted first before hostilities are resumed and should this happen and an invasion of Iraq proceed; then while remaining neutral India should still make it clear that it cannot directly support a policy that violates national sovereignty and allows a dominant power to change the regime of a non-compliant one at will. In this sense, neutrality, as no direct Indian interest is at stake and no Indian ally is threatened is the wisest policy to follow. I think to do otherwise would be to set a dangerous precedent and to start down a very murky road and in this, other countries, for example China who also feel strongly about national sovereignty, will take a similar stance. While the need for allies is crucial we should be careful how we choose them and who we choose; moreover given the deteriorating internal economic, political and communal situation India can ill afford to expend valuable political resources and time on an adventurous foreign policy and needs to ensure domestic stability and security first before it can look abroad in a meaningful fashion.

:: Conrad Barwa 9:07 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Good Work:

Janvikas (www.janvikas.org) is a training and development support organization that provides legal support to vulnerable and marginalized people; trains NGOs in rural support needs; and runs training programs for organizations in India, Nepal, and Sri Lanka.

:: Vikash Yadav 10:24 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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Diaspora Politics:

Shabnam Hashmi never imagined herself leading an international campaign until she came from New Delhi to New York in July to implore Indian-Americans not to send money to militant Hindu organizations in India that she says are leading the country away from secularism into Hindu nationalism and religious violence....

- The New York Times

:: Vikash Yadav 9:50 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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On The Causes of War:

"...Then we'll have to seize some of our neighbors' land if we're to have enough pasture and ploughland. And won't our neighbors want to seize part of ours as well, if they too have surrendered themselves to the endless acquisition of money and have overstepped the limit of their necessities?"

-Plato/Socrates, The Republic, 373d.

The insatiably appetitive nature of American citizens is the major cause of its unending imperial wars.

Americans are currently debating whether and when to invade Iraq (as if the first war with Iraq ever ended; as if we have not had troops positioned in the region for over a decade already). Americans delude themselves in to believing that they are rising up to confront an exogenous threat to international stability and a menace linked to international terrorists. But many Americans scarcely realize that this external/exogenous threat is produced by their domestic lifestyle. Many Americans can only see the proximate causes of war, not the root causes.

An understanding of the root causes of America's unending wars, requires us to examine the basis of the American political economy. American civilization rests on two main pillars, cheap food and cheap oil. Cheap food is supplied domestically through subsidies and processes of industrialized agriculture that have resulted in a degraded environment and a crisis of overproduction. Americans have literally doubled themselves in their desire to consume as much as they produce; and yet there is still a surplus. The surplus of food is used to place nations suffering from famine on a short political leash or to force them to accept genetically modified food against their wishes. "Value Added" food products are forced down the throats of middle income countries that would rather use foreign reserves to purchase the tools of development. Thus, food is yet another weapon in the arsenal of American imperialism.

Cheap oil is supplied through bribery, cunning, and the threat of force. Regimes that are not willing to be bribed must be invaded. Regimes that cannot be subverted must be invaded. Regimes that threaten the stability of oil prices must be invaded. Regimes that seek to corner the oil market must be invaded. To be honest, any oil exporter that looks at the US funny must be invaded. America has built a military that is as great as the next 20 countries combined. This military has one main objective -- keep the oil flowing. The overproduction of the military is directly in proportion to the desire for cheap oil. The more that Americans demand cheap oil, the larger its military becomes. At the moment, Americans demand that a gallon of imported and processed oil should be cheaper than a gallon of bottled spring water.

A spoiled citizenry, incapable of limiting their own consumption, demands that its government and military ensure the supply of these items even at the expense of others. In fact, America has given birth to an entire economy based on eliciting the desire for the products and lifestyle associated with cheap food (Coke & McDonalds -- fast food) and oil (Cars & SUVs -- suburban culture). The economic system that Americans built to supply their uncontrollable appetite has come to enslave them as it has produced even more than Americans can consume. As the system has grown, so has its need to survive by acquiring access to foreign markets. Underneath an elaborate superstructure, the American military-industrial-government complex pries open the markets of the world and enslaves their people to an alien desire known as the American "way of life" while imposing tariffs on imports and closing market access to the poorest countries.

So why is it a surprise to us that American imperial troops billeted on the sovereign soil of other nations engenders hatred and resentment? Why should we be shocked that terrorists attempt to destroy our military and financial imperium? The American military places its boots on the necks of so many nations, and complains when those countries squirm or when the US gets stabbed in the toe. Is a nation born in rebellion from imperial tyranny not able to understand when it has become an imperial tyrant? Have Americans not seen their reflection in the mirror recently?

Of course, it is not by military might alone that the US exercises it hegemony, a great number of tools are at its disposal. The US produces the knowledge within which economic, political, and cultural debates are framed. The US can and does install puppet regimes through conspiracies and assassinations. The US uses international institutions to implement sanctions and conditionality.

Rival countries have little choice but to pursue gains within an international regime that is not designed to benefit them or their interests. Resistance is usually futile; no single country or group of countries can overwhelm the will of the US.

The end of US aggression must begin, quite literally, at home. If Americans cannot restrain their desires, if they cannot dismantle the desire producing machines that enslave and excite them, they will continue to be a tyrannical civilization. This will not be an easy process. The very landscape and architecture of America with its suburbs, freeways, warehouse shopping complexes is designed to generate and reproduce a culture of excess -- a culture where happiness is quantifiable by the number of durable goods one owns and the number of perishable goods one consumes. Nevertheless, the US "lifestyle" is unsustainable -- not so much because we are running out of resources (as services can replace goods) -- but because it produces economic and political instability across the globe. Unless Americans can control their desires, they will have to send more and more of their young men and women to suppress those who actively resist their imperialism. Ultimately, it will be up to Americans to discipline themselves, to restructure their lives and their economy if they want to create a world that is peaceful and prosperous.

:: Vikash Yadav 1:57 PM [Permanent Link] :: ::
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