Conversations with history

Conversations with history is an interview series done by a UC Berkeley prof Harry Kreisler. They also have YouTube webpage. They have more than 100 interviews with very eminent people (academics, politicians, and public servants) of US and also outside of US. I am currently addicted to it. The selection of people is so diverse such that you can get into all sorts of political and social opinions and get to know the people who are behind those opinions.

Here are some samples

The Noam Chomsky: The sophisticated Left

Christopher Hitchens: The ex-left. Now! He defends Iraq invasion. Outspoken atheist

Robert Fisk:  Journalist for a UK news paper, He says “Yes! middle east people need freedom. They need freedom from us (western powers).”

David Harvey: A Marxist

Shashi Tharoor:  Ex-UN diplomat, minister in current govt of India.

There are many other gems in the list. Find yourself.

Justice or Civil War!!

The large game of geo-politics is hard to understand. When you listen long and hard enough, you start grasping the essence of arguments said all over the sources. The discourse over terrorism is like this.

Today, state powers all over the world fighting with terrorists. States attacks them with extreme brutality.  Such as recently, Sri Lanka wiped out LTTE, while killing 20000 people, allegedly. Israel tried to destroy Hamas in January, while killing 1300 people. You see two kinds of response of such state brutality.

First, the cheer leading response of destruction of terrorist organization. The cheer leaders celebrate end of an era of barbarism. They say now it is a new start. Lets finish off all the rest of them and we will live happily ever after.

Second, the angry response against the way in which these brutal anti-terror operations are conducted. The angry ones argue that terrorism doesn’t exist in the thin air. Its source lies in the injustice done against some people at some point of time by the state. Slowly, it fed anger in the  oppressed people and a terrorist organization was born. Terror groups do horrible atrocities on innocent people. No injustice can be justification of another injustice. So, these terrorist organizations need some dogmatic ideology from which they can draw moral justification of their terrorist acts. Islamic fundamentalism is one of those ideologies. When these terrorist groups become large enough, all one see is the epic fight between the ideologies of state and terrorists. Each one of them hiding behind their own moral justifications. The angry people say deliver justice instead of killing people. The terrorist problem will disappear. As Arundhati says, “Justice or Civil War!!”

The cheer leading group responds with the amazement of the naivety of above argument. They say, ” Do you mean we should not kill  these horrible criminals. Let them walk around and deliberately kill  our innocent civilians. Do you think these people are demanding some kind of justice?”

The members of cheer leading group are not lapdogs of the  state. They also say, ” Yes! injustice has been done in the past by the state but these terrorists have nothing to do with those injustice. They are driven by the dogmatic ideology such as Islamic fundamentalism. They want to impose those ideologies on you. Don’t be naive. Let the state first kill these terrorists then we will deal with the justice.”

Meanwhile, state powers keep killing 1000s of civilians in the process of killing bunch of terrorists.

Pakistan vs. Algeria

Latest events of Pakistan are so reminding me the history of Algeria. I have a limited knowledge of Algerian freedom struggle. My analogies may not be entirely accurate or may be grossly generalized.

Algeria was boiling in 1960s against French colonial occupation. It was the  last front of old school colonial occupation. FLN—quite Islamic and nationalist group—was carrying out violent insurgency against French. Eventually French suppressed this uprising with extreme brutality. After few years of this violent attempt, the people of Algeria took matters to the streets with massive protests. Finally, French political climate did change and they saw the wisdom in leaving the country. Then ex-terrorist became the freedom fighter and took charge of the country. This new government didn’t turn out to be just enough. Military became powerful and yielding influence over politics. Democratic process failed to run fluently. In 1990s, an ultra Islamic group won the elections and military refused to recognize their election. The usual justification behind this move was that the Islamic group is not civil enough to understand the modern concept of running a just state. The ultra Islamic group didn’t take it very lightly and took up arms. So, it started a bloody decade of brutality. It was vicious loop. More Islamic group rebelled. Military got more justification for brutal repression. This makes rebels more angry and more violence. Algerian government took very horrifying strategy to fight with these rebels. They committed massacres themselves and blamed it to the Islamic groups. Mainly to defame the rebellion such that population start hating them. Slowly, rebellion became week due to their internal clashes and slowly died.  Now Algeria is trying to recover from this bloody history.

Now! Pakistan, quite similar history. Pakistan, which used be part of British India,  born when British left India.  Their creation struggle is lead by Muslim league, a quite Islamic and nationalist group. In Pakistan, democracy could never establish itself. Soon, Army was in control. Military coups has been regular in last 6o years. The government has not been effective in delivering the needs of population. Now! Ultra Islamics are taking hold of the country. Similarly as it was in Algeria, the Pakistani government is coming into direct confrontation to these Islamic groups.

Now! what is the route Pakistani government going to take? Try to kill them all? From Algeria case, we learn that it will be bloody specially for civilians. Is there another way, for example talking to them? It does not seems great idea as their demand is not to get justice but to deliver justice(Sharia law) at their will.

There are some questions whose answer can lead to the solution. How do they get sophisticated weapon system? Who is selling them? Why can’t they be stopped from getting weapons? There must be some genuine demands of locals. Why don’t pakistani government tries to address them?

Simply Comlicated!

Last few years in Europe has given me an opportunity to speak all kinds of people. I have been speaking to many religiously oriented people. I always try to understand how exactly they have convinced themselves about their set of believes. Most of them say that one day in their life they realized that this particular faith is true faith. They tell you a specific experience after which they couldn’t deny their faith.

This particular experience, which gave them this light, is the key to unlock to their framework of thinking. I have tried many ways to talk. Some times I try to debunk the experience. Or sometimes I try to invite them to help me understanding their position.

I have been vary unsuccessful in avoiding their anger. Most of the times, I say something miscalculated and they get furious immediately. I still don’t know how to deal with these conversations.

Fondness

Following video is part of the movie “La belle et La bete”(the beauty and the beast). The girl belle had to go and live with a beast for some reasons. She comes back to meet her family for a week. In this scene at 5:18 to 5:41, family ask her to stay and not go back. She says that she would go back. They ask if she loves the beast then she says, “No but, I am fond of him. It is not the same thing.”

It is quite interesting distinction. She made this distinction because she saw beast as an animal so far. She said many times before that she will do nothing which will hurt the beast. Many of us feel this way for animals but we may not love them. But, soon in the story beast elevates from the status of animal.

But when, he turns into prince charming then she says, “where is my beast?”. Now she is quite disappointed because of she made all that effort to love that beast and the beast is no more.

Just interesting!