Accidental Blogger

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  • Churchill: a hero to the west and a brute elsewhere

    Ahem. At last a western historian has the honesty to face up to what  India, the middle east, Africa and Barack Obama knew all along. In a new biography of Winston Churchill, British historian Richard Toye exposes the rampant racism of the WWII hero so revered in the west for his fight against the spread of fascism in Europe. In non-white, non-European parts of the world, his exploits were far from heroic.

    Winston Churchill is remembered for leading Britain through her finest hour — but what if he also led the country through her most shameful one? What if, in addition to rousing a nation to save the world from the Nazis, he fought for a raw white supremacy and a concentration camp network of his own? This question burns through Richard Toye’s superb, unsettling new history, “Churchill’s Empire” — and is even seeping into the Oval Office.

    George W. Bush left a big growling bust of Churchill near his desk in the White House, in an attempt to associate himself with Churchill’s heroic stand against fascism. Barack Obamahad it returned to Britain. It’s not hard to guess why: his Kenyan grandfather, Hussein Onyango Obama, was imprisoned without trial for two years and tortured on Churchill’s watch, for resisting Churchill’s empire.

    Can these clashing Churchills be reconciled? Do we live, at the same time, in the world he helped to save and the world he helped to trash? Toye, one of Britain’s smartest young historians, has tried to pick through these questions dispassionately. Churchill was born in 1874 into a Britain that was coloring the map imperial pink, at the cost of washing distant nations blood-red. He was told a simple story: the superior white man was conquering the primitive dark-skinned natives, and bringing them the benefits of civilization. 

    See the review of Churchill's Empire here for a candid assessment of  the cruelty, disdain and outright hostility he exhibited against non-white races and nations.  Note how similar his world view ["After being elected to Parliament in 1900, he demanded a rolling program of more conquests, based on his belief that “the Aryan stock is bound to triumph.”] was to that of the German Führer whom he opposed later in life, earning the undying gratitude of the western world.  Eleanore Roosevelt was one of the few western political activists who noted the hypocrisy of Churchill's  oppressive racism towards the "colonies" and his freedom loving stance against fascism in Europe. 

    The particular quote that Richard Toye left out, surprising Johann Hari, is a well known Churchillian utterance. It was aimed at Iraqi insurgents during the early 20th century when Britain was trying to gain a firm foothold in the middle east and its vast oil reserves. Churchill recommended the use of poison gas in Iraq while a majority of British citizens opposed it.  Churchill's no-nonsense view of poisoning Iraqis reads as follows:

    "I do not understand this squeamishness about the use of gas. We have definitely adopted the position …at the Peace Conference of arguing in favour of the retention of gas as a permanent method of warfare. It is sheer affectation to lacerate a man with the poisonous fragment of a bursting shell and to boggle at making his eyes water by means of lachrymatory gas. I am strongly in favour of using poisoned gas against uncivilised tribes. The moral effect should be so good that the loss of life should be reduced to a minimum. It is not necessary to use only the most deadly gases: gases can be used which cause great inconvenience and would spread a lively terror and yet would leave no serious permanent effects on most of those affected… We cannot, in any circumstances acquiesce to the non-utilisation of any weapons which are available to procure a speedy termination of the disorder which prevails on the frontier. "

    For many more such gems aimed at the "colonies" of the Raj and their leaders, see the Wikiquote  page of Winston Churchill.

    Churchill
    (a charcoal & ink sketch I made of Churchill as a teenager) 

  • How far from Ground Zero do you have to go to build a mosque?

    Really, really far, it seems.

  • “The World Cup, My White Afrikaner Skin, My Fascist Parents, Mandela, Obama, And Forgiveness”

    A very interesting piece of writing - part memoir, part commentary by Evert Cilliers over at 3 QD. Do take the time to check this one out. Evert wears his heart on his sleeves and it is quite astonishing to be a spectator.

  • Islamic Feminism: A revolution by the Book?

    I came across this post at Immanent Frame (via 3 Quarks Daily). It refers to  Paradise Beneath Her Feet: How Women are Transforming the Middle East by Isobel Coleman who argues that feminist advances in Islamic nations in the middle east is only possible through arguments found in the religious tenets.

    One question I get is why is there a need for Islamic feminism – isn’t secular feminism sufficient to push for women’s rights? Well, the most conservative countries of the Middle East do not now have, nor will they in the near future, secular systems. Moreover, secularism – meaning the separation of mosque and state – is not viewed in a positive light by millions of Muslims. If Muslim women in these countries must wait for a secular system to improve their status, they will be waiting a long time indeed. That does not mean that secular feminism and Islamic feminism cannot work together. Indeed, some of the most effective women’s rights campaigns in the Middle East in recent years have seen a blended approach between secular and Islamic feminism.

    Further down,an excerpt from the review of the same book in the Economist :

    Cracking down on women’s rights has often been an easy way for governments, secular or not, to placate their more extreme allies or enemies. But many Middle Easterners, both men and women, chafe at attempts to introduce Western-style feminism. An activist in Afghanistan gently berates do-gooding foreigners: “When they come here and start teaching the women about their rights, the women often go home and criticise their husbands and their life just gets worse.”

    Ms Coleman makes the case for Islamic feminism. Far from oppressing women, Islam endows them with plenty of rights; the problem lies in implementing those rights. Riffat Hassan, a Pakistani-American, argues that though the Koran treats women with respect, centuries of patriarchy have turned them into chattels. She and other Islamic feminists believe that by fighting for women’s rights within Islam, using the very same texts and doctrines that have proved so oppressive, women may be able to push through reform without being told that they have been indoctrinated by Western infidels.

    At the same time, for many Middle Eastern women, Islamic feminism is a tactical choice, a stepping stone to something better. Shirin Ebadi, Iran’s Nobel-prize-winning campaigner for human rights, concedes that she would rather that the fight for women’s rights did not involve interpreting musty religious texts. “But is there an alternative battlefield?” she asks. “Desperate wishing aside, I cannot see one.

    I didn't think secular feminism amounted to "going home and criticizing one's husband." But that aside, can a movement for equal civil rights within societies where inequalities are sanctioned by religion and tradition, be successful only by working from inside the system? Ishwar Chandra Vidyasagar debated  Hindu scriptures with the orthodox to gain sanction for widow remarriage in India. Gandhi had to evoke Hindu mythology while  advocating the abolition of the caste system. The anti-slavery and civil rights activists in the  US repeatedly pointed to the Bible to make their case. Similarly, Shireen Ebadi the Nobel Prize winning social activist from Iran reluctantly agrees that there is no "alternative battlefield" other than "interpreting musty religious texts" to ensure the rights of women.

    This post reminded me of an anthology of poems by Pakistani feminist writers I read some years ago. I am not much of a poetry person but some of the powerful statements relating to women's lives in  male dominated Asian / Islamic cultures both touched and invigorated me. I have often wondered how these brave women are doing now and if they are still in Pakistan. A google search of three of the names revealed that at least two have left – one now lives in Houston and another in London. I could not locate the current whereabouts of the third, the most controversial of the the trio.

    Here is one sample of feminist poetry from Pakistan. I am transcribing the original Urdu phonetically in English followed by my feeble attempt at translation. My Urdu is not fluent (my poetic abilities are worse). I may have messed up the exact pronunciation of some words. 

    (more…)

  • Prop 8 Unconstitutional (Joe)

    In case you somehow failed to hear the news, a federal trial court held that California's Prop 8 (the ballot initiative overruling the state supreme court's ruling that the state constitution required the availability of same-sex marriage) is unconstitutional. 

    I only skimmed the legal-conclusions section of the opinion, but it looks like it's a much broader ruling than just saying that Prop 8 is unconstitutional because it merely reflects animus and a desire to harm a politically unpopular minority (homosexuals) based on, e.g., the way it was passed.  Instead, it looks like the court is saying that the Due Process and Equal Protection Clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution require equal availability of same-sex marriage and opposite-sex marriage.

    So, yeah, kind of a big deal.  It's basically the same opinion as all the ones from the state courts (Massachusetts, Connecticut, California, Iowa, etc.), except decided on federal constitutional grounds rather than state constitutional grounds.

    The interesting question is what happens next.  I happen to think it's the more persuasive legal analysis, but at the moment the question is legally under-determined.  I have no idea what the court of appeals will decide, although that it helps that it's the (relatively liberal) ninth circuit.  At least if the court of appeals affirms the decision on anything but an extremely narrow rationale, the Supreme Court will definitely take the case.  And this isn't a legal case in the traditional sense — it's a political case.  It will be fascinating to see what happens, with same-sex marriage proponents needing Justice Kennedy to have any chance of winning.

    Losing would obviously be a political setback, and at this point, the general consensus among the U.S. population hasn't shifted enough, which hurts the odds in Court.  This doesn't address the real possibility that the Court holds that civil unions/domestic partnerships are constitutionally sufficient, and then the availability of those becomes required by federal law… which wouldn't be an awful mixed bag.

    But there's also a chance that winning would be a political setback.  There's a good argument that Roe v. Wade and its progeny actually enhanced public opposition to abortion rights: Before the Constitution mandated the availability of abortion, people didn't really care.  It wasn't a major issue.  The difference in this case is that people plainly do care about same-sex marriage, so the involvement of the judiciary might not get people more worked up than they already are.

    I don't know.  It will be interesting to see what happens, I suppose.  And 40 years from now, people will look back and wonder how our society thought it was okay to create unequal classes of citizens and deny people basic civil rights.

  • Philosophy and Faith (Joe)

    Interesting NY Times blog post here by Gary Gutting, who is a philosophy professor at Notre Dame.

    In these popular debates about God’s existence, the winners are
    neither theists nor atheists, but agnostics — the neglected
    step-children of religious controversy, who rightly point out that
    neither side in the debate has made its case.   This is the position
    supported by the consensus of expert philosophical opinion.

    This conclusion should particularly discomfit popular proponents of
    atheism, such as Richard Dawkins, whose position is entirely based on
    demonstrably faulty arguments. * * *

    An answer may lie in work by philosophers as different as David Hume,
    Ludwig Wittgenstein, and Alvin Plantinga.  In various ways, they have
    shown that everyday life is based on “basic” beliefs for which we have
    no good arguments. There are, for example, no more basic truths from
    which we can prove that the past is often a good guide to the future,
    that our memories are reliable, or that other people have a conscious
    inner life.  Such beliefs simply — and quite properly — arise from our
    experience in the world. Plantinga in particular has argued that core
    religious beliefs can have a status similar to these basic but unproven
    beliefs. His argument has clear plausibility for some sorts of religious
    beliefs. Through experiences of, for example, natural beauty, moral
    obligation, or loving and being loved, we may develop an abiding sense
    of the reality of an extraordinarily good and powerful being who cares
    about us.  Who is to say that such experiences do not give reason for
    belief in God as much as parallel (though different) experiences give
    reason for belief in reliable knowledge of the past and future and of
    other human minds?  There is still room for philosophical disputes about
    this line of thought, but it remains the most plausible starting point
    of a philosophical case for religious belief.

    But this defense of faith faces a steep hurdle. Although it may
    support generic religious claims about a good and powerful being who
    cares for us, it is very hard to see it sustaining the specific and
    robust claims of Judaism, Christianity and Islam about how God is
    concretely and continually involved in our existence. * * *

    We all know how I feel about religion.  Or maybe we don't — I recall some exchanges between Ruchira and Dean, but I'm not sure whether I've participated in that discussion.  Anyway, I think it's an interesting read. 

    And yes, he's obviously right that the agnostics have it right.  He's also wrong to ridicule the atheists, in that there's no evidence of God, or, at least there's insufficient evidence of God, and it's perfectly rational to say that we should base our beliefs on evidence. 

    But mostly I'm toying with the idea that this is all beside the point.  I don't know if consequentialist epistemology is a real thing, and in any event I'm not smart enough to do philosophy, but why not say that what we believe and think we know should be based on the consequences of believing it?  Religion is an easy target because it (1) gives people inner peace and (2) causes wars and has resulted in more human suffering than anything else I can think of, but why not expand that?  To take a popular philosophy example, the question isn't whether we know the sun will rise in the morning, but what are the consequences of knowing/believing or disbelieving/not knowing that the sun will rise in the morning.

  • “Law & Order,” Stanley Fish doesn’t like you !

    Another one of Stanley Fish's superior sounding fatuous essays appeared in the NYT's Opinionator blog. It is Law & Order he is criticizing this time. And why?  For having a "law and order" agenda and for being unkind to the rich and the exceptional. Heck, the characters that Jack McCoy and his band of justice seekers go after are scoff-laws. Whether rich or poor, smart or dim, brilliantly succesful or abject failures, they are in the show because they broke the law. So, naturally Law & Order doesn't like them. Duh. For Stanley Fish to make the show into a leftist commentary against successful, brilliant people reflects Fish's own snit against the "heartless, by-the-law" liberal society. Amidst the smog of his own superiority, Fish fails to appreciate that the wonderful TV crime series was often against the unjust sense of entitlement of many wealthy  and successful criminals and not against wealth and success per se. And unlike many other shows, and as in real life, justice was not always served.

    Jack-mccoy

    ‘Law & Order’ Probably Doesn’t Like You

    By STANLEY FISH

    Nothing personal. But now that Dick Wolf’s “Law & Order” has called it a day — or rather a 20-year run — it is time to notice what may be its most remarkable feature; not the brilliant formula that offers both the comfort of predictability and the promise of constant surprise (an episode almost never ends up where it seems to be going at the beginning), not the ability of the show to survive major cast changes without missing a beat, not the considerable accomplishment of making the arcane vocabulary of the law ( “fruit of the poisoned tree,” “asked and answered,” “prejudicial,” “allocute,” “goes to relevance”) as familiar to TV viewers as the jargon of sports, but the extraordinarily long list of professions, classes and category of persons it doesn’t like.

    Begin with rich people. “Law & Order” hates rich people; they are arrogant, they are condescending, they consume conspicuously, and, worst of all, they believe they are above the law. In one episode, the head of a foundation is informed of a $400,000 problem. She retorts, “$400, 000 is less than I spend on sweatpants.” In another episode (“Venom”), a 64-year old woman who is bent on protecting her 27-year old husband says to one of the district attorneys: “You have no idea of what a woman in my position can do.” Actually they have a very good idea. Time and again wealthy people manipulate the system by getting well connected friends to intervene in cases or by hiring high-priced lawyers who know how to put up procedural roadblocks forever. … (blah, blah and more blah!)

    …..From episode to episode “Law & Order” is engaged in a staying action against the forces that threaten its ideals, forces that live and have their being in the walks of life that afford the time and the resources to pursue nefarious, self-serving, agendas. The only way to be O.K. in Dick Wolf’s world is to have a job that is steady but doesn’t pay very much, to drive a five year old car you’re still paying off, to live in a small house with a large mortgage, to have an education that helps you get by but doesn’t give you any fancy ideas, to attend a house of worship that is the center of your social life, and to have almost no leisure time. Unless you fit that profile, “Law & Order” probably doesn’t like you.

    Oh dear! Fish managed to be passive-aggressive and a noodge in the same breath!

  • “Atlas Shrieked”

    Why am I not surprised? Because I have read some of the books.

    The content of the linked article is a bit disgusting but not surprising. Ayn Rand was authoritarian, controlling and heartless. That she would be attracted to a sociapathic killer without a conscience should not come as a shock. What is more disturbing is that a number of business leaders, elected officials and people empowered to formulate economic and social policies and a Supreme Court Justice of our country are so enamored of her. What other "philosophy" could be more heartless and devoid of compassion and ethics than "Randianism?"  

    Ayn Rand

  • Leaks on a Sticky Wicket

    Everyone knows that Afghanistan, is, in cricketing parlance, at best, a sticky wicket, if not a downright pigsty. Now, we have the Leaks pouring onto an already damp pitch, 90,000+  documents regarding the day-to-day conduct of the war in Afghanistan, of which 75,000 are now available for your perusal. Or if you don't have the patience, a select few of the more horrible accounts are highlighted in this NY Times piece.

    For instance:

    "JUNE 17, 2007 | PAKTIKA PROVINCE

    INCIDENT REPORT: Botched Night Raid

    Shortly after five American rockets
    destroyed a compound in Paktika Province, helicopter-borne commandos
    from Task Force 373 — a classified Special Operations unit of Army Delta
    Force operatives and members of the Navy Seals — arrived to finish the job.

    The mission was to capture or kill Abu
    Laith al-Libi, a top commander for Al Qaeda, who was believed to be
    hiding at the scene of the strike.

    But Mr. Libi was not there. Instead, the
    Special Operations troops found a group of men suspected of being
    militants and their children. Seven of the children had been killed by
    the rocket attack.

    Some of the men tried to flee the
    Americans, and six were quickly killed by encircling helicopters. After
    the rest were taken as detainees, the commandos found one child still
    alive in the rubble, and performed CPR for 20 minutes.

    Word of the attack spread a wave of anger
    across the region, forcing the local governor to meet with village
    elders to defuse the situation.

    American military officials drew up a list
    of “talking points” for the governor, pointing out that the target had
    been a senior Qaeda commander, that there had been no indications that
    women and children would be present and that a nearby mosque had not
    been damaged.

    After the meeting, the governor reported
    that local residents were in shock, but that he had “pressed the Talking
    Points.” He even “added a few of his own that followed in line with our
    current story.”

    The attack was caused by the “presence of
    hoodlums,” the governor told the people. It was a tragedy that children
    had been killed, he said, but “it could have been prevented had the
    people exposed the presence of insurgents in the area.”

    He promised that the families would be compensated for their loss.

    Mr. Libi was killed the following year by a C.I.A. drone strike."

    We knew the war was horrible, but these accounts enable us to put faces on the daily toll, reported or unreported in sterile terms by war-front press dispatches. Will this yield an outcry against the war sufficient to pull the troops out, or will  'other considerations' prevail? Only time will tell.

    The Obama administration's response to this disclosure has been surprisingly low-key. They have termed the Wikileaks disclosure 'irresponsible:

    "In a statement, President Obama's national security advisor, Marine Gen. James L. Jones,
    deplored the "disclosure of classified information" that he said could
    put the lives of Americans and U.S. partners at risk and threaten the
    nation's security.'

    However, no attempts were made to 'persuade' the NYTimes and other media outlets not to publish.

    “I did in fact go the White House and lay out for them what we had,”
    Baquet said. “We did it to give them the opportunity to comment and
    react. They did. They also praised us for the way we handled it, for
    giving them a chance to discuss it, and for handling the information
    with care. And for being responsible.”

    Jones said that WikiLeaks, unlike the Times, did not contact the U.S. government first.

    That's not too surprising, given the recent friction
    between WikiLeaks and the military. In April, WikiLeaks posted a
    classified video of a U.S. attack in Baghdad that killed several civilians and Reuters employees.

    This newly released trove of documents could raise
    further questions about the U.S. military's two long-running wars. For
    instance, the Times reports on new revelation that show how Pakistan’s spy service has aided the Afghan insurgency. The Pakistani military, the Times reports, “has acted as both ally and enemy.”

    The leaked documents contain other critical new information, including the Taliban's deployment of surface-to-air missiles.

    Does this release of leaked documents place the US government in a more untenable position dealing with the Afghan and Pakistani governments? Will it alter the ground realities in Afghanistan? Or will this turn the sticky wicket into quicksand? 

    So many questions, and as many answers as there a political pundits willing to fill the airwaves with the next big story, as the Sherrod mess has lost its hold on the fickle public.

    Update:

    And the drumbeat begins…on CNN, MSNBC… The meme being currently discussed is 'Did the leaks endanger the heroic armed forces?' and ' Isn't it such a terrible situation our troops are facing there, taking mortar and bullets to save our freedom!" The answer is yes and yes. Yes to the third question not being asked on the 'liberal media'- "Did many more civilians die as a result of these encounters than have been publicized?"

  • “I write like … David Foster Wallace”

    I came across a website last night that purports to "analyze" one's writing style and compares it to that of famous authors. Naturally, I was curious. After analyzing seven random blog posts, my writing style came out to be like that of Cory Doctorow (4 times), Kurt Vonnegut (2) and David Foster Wallace (1). "What, no woman writer?" I thought. I have read Vonnegut but not the other two. 

    This morning while discussing the Analyzer at another blog, someone pointed me to this post on Obsidian Wings. In the comments section a reader mentions that the compiler of the gizmo uses a list of 40 authors, just three of them women. Margaret Atwood, J.K. Rowling and Jane Austen account for the female voices. (Further scrutiny shows that a few more women have been added)

    Not satisfied with analyzing just my own posts I decided to run half a dozen or so posts and longish comments written by each of my co-bloggers. (You can tell I had a lot of time on my hands) Here is how they stacked up.

    Sujatha: Shakespeare, Cory Doctorow, Margaret Atwood, Stephen King

    Joe: Dan Brown, David Foster Wallace, Cory Doctorow, H.P. Lovecraft

    Anna: H.P. Lovecraft, James Joyce, Kurt Vonnegut

    Dean: Mary Shelly, Vladimir Nabokov, Dan Brown, H.P. Lovecraft

    Andrew: David Foster Wallace, George Orwell, Cory Doctorow

    Narayan: H.P. Lovecraft, Dan Brown, Vladimir Nabokov,

    Prasad: David Foster Wallace, Jonathan Swift, Cory Doctorow, William Gibson

    It just so happens that the first seven posts of mine that I ran through the scrambler were all political posts. I went back and compared some book reviews and art posts and came up with James Joyce, Nabokov and George Orwell. (again, no woman)

    Then of course, I did the obvious. Noticing that David Foster Wallace appears with alarming frequency in the Analyzer, I analyzed a piece of Wallace's own writing and apparently he writes like Stephen King!  Looks like Wallace and King are the two most frequently appearing authors in the results. I also plugged in a few of King's writing samples. Most of the time he comes out as himself. His "On Writing" musings resemble James Joyce. One piece (I forget which one) came out as David Foster Wallace (natch!). But in his old classic Salem's Lot, the Horror King apparently wrote like Chuck Palahniuk.  Go figure!

    I am not the only one who spent a rainy day playing with this internet gimmick. Others, including some authors featured in the I Write Like analyzer were curious too. (Margaret Atwood writes like Stephen King, she found out). However, some among us are confident enough or vain enough to not need an online scrambler to tell them which famous author's literary style mirrors their own. Get ready for  Wilhemina from Wasilla.

    Shakespalin

  • History and story telling through the “elementals”

    In my inaugural post I had indicated that my first choice of name for this blog was Periodic Table. I explained why in the end I decided to call it Accidental Blogger. Author Sam Kean's (who also writes for 3 Quarks Daily) book The Disappearing Spoon is about the Periodic Table. I plan to read it. Judging from the chapter on mercury (Hg), I know that these will be stories I will relate to happily. (Do read the excerpt of the mercury chapter) The Periodic Table of chemistry is a treasure trove of narratives – every element a glimpse into our world. The story "behind" the Periodic Table is fascinating as well, putting its creator Dimitri Mendeleyev right up there with the Oracle of Delphi and Nostradamus – only less inscrutable and far more accurate.

    As a child in the early 1980s, I tended to talk with things in my mouth — food, dentist’s tubes, balloons that would fly away, whatever — and if no one else was around, I’d talk anyway. This habit led to my fascination with the periodic table the first time I was left alone with a thermometer under my tongue. I came down with strep throat something like a dozen times in the second and third grades, and for days on end it would hurt to swallow. I didn’t mind staying home from school and medicating myself with vanilla ice cream and chocolate sauce. Being sick always gave me another chance to break an old-fashioned mercury thermometer, too…

    …Mercury also came up in science class. When first presented with the jumble of the periodic table, I scanned for mercury and couldn’t find it. It is there — between gold, which is also dense and soft, and thallium, which is also poisonous. But the symbol for mercury, Hg, consists of two letters that don’t even appear in its name. Unraveling that mystery — it’s from hydragyrum, Latin for “water silver” — helped me understand how heavily ancient languages and mythology influenced the periodic table, something you can still see in the Latin names for the newer, superheavy elements along the bottom row.

    I found mercury in literature class, too. Hat manufacturers once used a bright orange mercury wash to separate fur from pelts, and the common hatters who dredged around in the steamy vats, like the mad one in Alice in Wonderland, gradually lost their hair and wits. Eventually, I realized how poisonous mercury is. That explained why Dr. Rush’s Bilious Pills purged the bowels so well: the body will rid itself of any poison, mercury included. And as toxic as swallowing mercury is, its fumes are worse. They fray the “wires” in the central nervous system and burn holes in the brain, much as advanced Alzheimer’s disease does.

    (Thanks to Elatia Harris for bringing Sam Kean's book to my attention)

    Periodic table