Southern Raven

I have watched brown birds fly south in the winter. I have seen trees turn grey with age and pale with cold. I have listened to the cry of innocence trapped. I have bred lies and sold them for meat. I have eaten words and fed my children silence. I have seen the world swallow green grass tall. I have sung the dawn-call loud and clear. I have heard my freedom’s death begin. I have known the anger of traitor’s laugh.

In the deep dark before morning when the shadows breathe cold, I have stood beneath the blackest branches of the hateful trees and smiled at the frosted path before me. I have tasted the blood beneath my skin and I will fear the rage that boils within. I have wept for the loss of knowledge and truth, knowledge and truth held ransom. I have shouted and screamed, raged and railed as the cold boughs twist in the ice-wind above. I have felt the rough collar bite my neck and I will feel the misery of forgotten sun.

I will listen again to the south-bird wings, I will trust the trees to grow green again. I will sell my words for the knowledge needed, I will feed my children the ransomed truth. I will weep for the freedom lost in time, I will forgive the traitor and heed his words. I will smile at the rage and watch it quiver, I will fight my blood for every beat. I will stand beneath the blackest branches of the hateful trees and watch the remembered sun singe the frost into oblivion. I will walk the path and sing the dawn.

I will wait and I will walk and I will sing again.

India faced 4,100 terror attacks from 1970 to 2004

Wed, Dec 3 10:21 AM

Washington, Dec 3 (IANS) India faced more than 4,100 terrorist attacks between 1970 and 2004, accounting for more than 12,000 fatalities, according to the Global Terrorism Database.

The database is maintained by the University of Maryland and the US National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

START's Terrorist Organisation Profiles (TOPs) collection has information on 56 groups known to have engaged in terrorism in India, including the Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI).

About 12,540 terrorist-related fatalities in India between 1970 and 2004 - an average of almost 360 fatalities per year from terrorism in India. These fatalities peaked in 1991 and 1992, when 1,184 and 1,132 individuals (respectively) were killed in such incidents, a University of Maryland statement said.

These figures are on the lower side as official figures in India put the toll at around 70,000 deaths.

Terrorists in India have employed a variety of attack types over time, 38.7 percent of terrorist events were facility attacks, 29.7 percent were bombings (in which the intent was to destroy a specific facility), and 25.5 percent were assassinations. Last week's terror attacks in Mumbai, which left at least 183 dead, would be classified as a series of coordinated facility attacks.

Who are we ? - Samuel Huntington

Since the 'Clash of Civilizations', Samuel Huntington has become a must read for anyone concerned with the new international order. This is not just because Huntington is close to the American establishment, but also because the events all over the world- from Bali to Beslan-seem to follow the Huntington script. Now Samuel Huntington has come up with a new book enigmatically named, 'Who are We?' ('We' being the Americans). The principal theme of this book is the centrality of the Anglo-Protestant culture to American national identity. Huntington admits that it was the flag waving patriotism of his countrymen after 9/11 and their reiteration of their American identity which prompted him to focus on this profound issue.Yet, the much hyped 'American creed of individualism and equality' which Americans flaunt as the touchstone of Americanism, is, according to Huntington, just a 'partial identity' which 'does not tell you anything about the society that attracted the immigrants or the culture that produced the creed'. Huntington emphasizes that the culture that forms the foundation of the American nation is the Anglo Protestant culture which the first British settlers brought with them. He asks rhetorically, 'Would America be the America of today if it had been settled not by British Protestants but by French, Spanish or Portuguese colonialists?' Huntington uses the word 'Settlers' (not immigrants) to describe the early English pioneers. America began as a society of settlers. Unlike immigrants, settlers moved into the new territory to create a new society and culture based on their earlier one. Immigrants, like those Mexicans who later moved into America in droves, as per Huntington, require to internalize this Protestant culture and language for America to retain its 'creed'. In other words, it is back to the 'melting pot' concept. The idea of 'American Mosaic' be dammed!

It is quite evident where Huntington?s political sympathies lie. Liberal elites, according to him, are 'Deconstructionists' who promote a multiculturalism ( a theory that America is a collection of cultures rather a single one) and thereby, like the colonialists aim to 'divide and rule' the country. There is a striking resemblance to the situation in India when he alleges that the media and academic elites of the US have been de-nationalized while the common people remain nationalistic. As Huntington puts it, 'Elites are cosmopolitan, people are local'.

And to those who swear by secularism while pointing to the US, Huntington says, 'America is a nation with the soul of a church' and 'American creed' is 'Protestantism without God'. Interestingly, he quotes President Bush saying that Jesus Christ is his favorite philosopher. Anyway, the reference to the influence of religion on American people must not have come as a surprise to anyone who has analyzed the Republican victory in the recent US elections.

And what about the universal concepts of Democracy,Human rights, Equality etc. etc., those hallowed terms which we love to use in the same breath with the word ?secularism?? According to Huntington, 'The principles of the American creed- liberty, equality, democracy 'are markers of how to organize the society. They do not define the extent, boundaries or composition of that society.' Democracy exists in other societies also. So what is special about the American Identity? Huntington reaffirms that it is the 'dissenting' Anglo Protestant culture which makes America what it is ! Can a nation be defined by a political ideology? Huntington answers his own question by pointing out that wherever ideology was used, either to unite people of different cultures or nationalities as with the Soviet Union, Yugoslavia and Czechoslovakia, or divide others as with Germany, as soon as the coercion weakened, the artificial entities disappeared and were replaced by countries defined by nationality, culture, and ethnicity. Lesson ? 'A nation defined by political ideologies is a fragile nation.'

'Fragile' is a relative term. In the end, all things good or bad come to an end. So also will America , the author admits ,citing the example of Sparta and Rome. The question is whether America will be able to postpone its demise by renewing its sense of national identity and cultural values. This, he hints, is the objective of this book.

Is this book a 'post- traumatic stress' reaction to the events of 9/11? Is it a WASP backlash to the increasing marginalization of the white male in continental America as portrayed in the movie 'Falling Down?' Or is it a genuine attempt at devising a worldview for postponing the inevitable demise of the American empire? The truth must lie somewhere in between.

I have a Rendezvous with Death

I HAVE a rendezvous with Death

At some disputed barricade,

When Spring comes back with rustling shade

And apple-blossoms fill the air—

I have a rendezvous with Death

When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand

And lead me into his dark land

And close my eyes and quench my breath—

It may be I shall pass him still.

I have a rendezvous with Death

On some scarred slope of battered hill

When Spring comes round again this year

And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows ’twere better to be deep

Pillowed in silk and scented down,

Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,

Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,

Where hushed awakenings are dear …

But I’ve a rendezvous with Death

At midnight in some flaming town,

When Spring trips north again this year,

And I to my pledged word am true,

I shall not fail that rendezvous. - Alan Seeger (1888–1916)

Making of the New Englishman - Revenge of history

It is said that British wars were won, not in the battle fields, but at its schools where young British children were inculcated with patriotism and noble values. One of such schools at Eton had its ceiling made of planks taken from Spanish ships sunk by the British navy. A child would gaze up during class and remember the valor of his ancestors. Today’s Britons have moved far, far away from the classrooms of Eton. I do not know if they have those classrooms or whether ‘multicultural sensitivity’ has dismantled those ceilings.

If the British patriots were formed inside the classrooms of Eton, its hooligans have also been fashioned in open classrooms across the country. A new generation of English has grown up under a public education system which taught that their forefathers were thieves and brigands and their country was founded on exploitation. Added to this, the instruments of adult education in Britain, the media, is wielded by an elite whose hatred for their own nation only surpassed by the guilt of the privileges they enjoyed. A new curriculum of words and terms for public discourse is in place. Thus, even as the rioters were looting and burning in central London, the BBC was referring to the rioters as ‘protestors’. The use of the term ‘rioter’ was seen as ‘politically incorrect’. The BBC was echoing Darcus Howe, writer and broadcaster who called the riots 'insurrection of the masses of the people’ akin to that in Port of Spain Trinidad, Syria and other parts of the world. So whatever happened, Britain was to blame.

Powerful ideas affecting our behavior can be visible only in brief sentences, even a phrase. Doris Lessing , Nobel Laureate, says that the phrase ‘political correctness’ was born as Communism was collapsing. The torch of Communism has been handed on to the ‘political correctors’. 

Thus the success of the Liberal thought police is that it has been able to use words - loaded words meant to convey totalitarian ideas which automatically blacked out any other point of view and in making these words the reference for public discourse. Words like 'committed', ‘racist’, 'progressive' 'politically correct' and ‘culturally sensitive’ have defined righteousness and sought to direct  actions ( or inactions ) in relation to anything – starting from race , gender to riots. Thus Policemen who acted against the rioters with firmness were 'race insensitive' and hence to be condemned. To point out that the rioters were looting shops is not 'progressive', never mind if the hooligans were taking away Reeboks and HD TVs. 

The conduct of the majority, especially the white Anglo Saxon element, is today constrained within the walls erected by these words - their ability to think outside this box severely curtailed by years of indoctrination.  It is revealing that while others migrants like the Sikhs stood up to the looters, the Englishman stood around like sheep and watched the mayhem. He is like a programmed robot paralyzed by conflicting inputs. He is somewhat like the Hindu who having been given a liberal does of Gandhism is faced with the reality of Malabar riots. 

The conversion of the British, from the resolute people who fought the Nazis to a standstill during WWII, into a confused and sheepish element has been one of the main achievements of Liberal thought control.

PM David Cameron has his task cut out. To inculcate moral values in a patchwork of nationalities that is the England of today will be quite a task and may require a major surgery.

Perhaps, it is Karma, a poetic retribution for the British- to be brought to heel by the same forces it sought to enslave throughout its history.

What did Gandhi tell the Jews facing Holocaust in Europe ?

Recently there was a movie about Gandhiji’s correspondence with Adolf Hitler. I do not know his exact advice to Adolf, but I came across what he wanted the Jews to do.
Let us not forget, Hitler was in the process of implementing the ‘final solution’ to the Jewish problem in Europe – that is the total liquidation of the entire Jewish population. It was destruction of human lives on an industrial scale. Jewish Men, women and children were taken in droves to the gas chambers across occupied Europe.

And this is what Gandhiji wrote to the Jewish leaders. :
“…the German persecution of the Jews seems to have no parallel in history. The tyrants of old never went so mad as Hitler seems to have gone. And he is doing it with religious zeal. For he is propounding a new religion of exclusive and militant nationalism in the name of which any inhumanity becomes an act of humanity to be rewarded here and hereafter. The crime of an obviously mad but intrepid youth is being visited upon his whole race with unbelievable ferocity. If there ever could be a justifiable war in the name of and for humanity, a war against Germany, to prevent the wanton persecution of a whole race, would be completely justified.”

So, Gandhi recognizes that, this is a war which could be justified. But then he goes on ...
“But I do not believe in any war. A discussion of the pros and cons of such a war is therefore outside my horizon or province.”

So for Gandhi, whatever the situation, “war is not the answer.”
And what should the Jews do in the face of imminent annihilation?
“Germany is showing to the world how efficiently violence can be worked when it is not hampered by any hypocrisy or weakness masquerading as humanitarianism. It is also showing how hideous, terrible and terrifying it looks in its nakedness.
Can the Jews resist this organized and shameless persecution? Is there a way to preserve their self-respect, and not to feel helpless, neglected and forlorn? I submit there is…If I were a Jew and were born in Germany and earned my livelihood there, I would claim Germany as my home even as the tallest gentile German may, and challenge him to shoot me or cast me in the dungeon; I would refuse to be expelled or to submit to discriminating treatment. And for doing this, I should not wait for the fellow Jews to join me in civil resistance but would have confidence that in the end the rest are bound to follow my example. If one Jew or all the Jews were to accept the prescription here offered, he or they cannot be worse off than now. And suffering voluntarily undergone will bring them an inner strength and joy which no number of resolutions of sympathy passed in the world outside Germany can. Indeed, even if Britain, France and America were to declare hostilities against Germany, they can bring no inner joy, no inner strength. The calculated violence of Hitler may even result in a general massacre of the Jews by way of his first answer to the declaration of such hostilities. But if the Jewish mind could be prepared for voluntary suffering, even the massacre I have imagined could be turned into a day of thanksgiving and joy that Jehovah had wrought deliverance of the race even at the hands of the tyrant. For to the godfearing death has no terror. It is a joyful sleep to be followed by a waking that would be all the more refreshing for the long sleep.”

What can be a more callous disregard of suffering ?
He is casually suggesting the Jews use his method of sathyagraha against the Nazis. If it could save the Jews, fine. But if not, then at least they would be massacred while doing the right thing. 

Gandhiji had the same advice for his own people:
“During his prayer meeting on 1 May 1947, he prepared the Hindus and Sikhs for the anticipated massacres of their kind in the upcoming state of Pakistan with these words: “I would tell the Hindus to face death cheerfully if the Muslims are out to kill them. I would be a real sinner if after being stabbed I wished in my last moment that my son should seek revenge. I must die without rancour. You may turn round and ask whether all Hindus and all Sikhs should die. Yes, I would say. Such martyrdom will not be in vain.” (Collected Works of Mahatma Gandhi, vol.LXXXVII, p.394-5) It is left unexplained what purpose would be served by this senseless and avoidable surrender to murder.
Even when the killing had started, Gandhi refused to take pity on the Hindu victims, much less to point fingers at the Pakistani aggressors. More importantly for the principle of non-violence, he failed to offer them a non-violent technique of countering and dissuading the murderers. Instead, he told the Hindu refugees from Pakistan to go back and die. On 6 August 1947, Gandhiji commented to Congress workers on the incipient communal conflagration in Lahore thus: “I am grieved to learn that people are running away from the West Punjab and I am told that Lahore is being evacuated by the non-Muslims. I must say that this is what it should not be. If you think Lahore is dead or is dying, do not run away from it, but die with what you think is the dying Lahore…”

 “He who is kind to the cruel ends up being cruel to the kind.”