I write this text while sub consciously thinking of ways to get rid of the hangover I face due to the slightly exuberant consumption last night. Most of the people I know were out partying and I faintly remember being greeted with smiles and ‘Happy Halloween’ merchandise in the wee hours of the morning.
My initial eruptions of resistance emerged during my first encounters with Halloween party celebrations on social networking websites, that claimed to give you the spookiest night in town etc etc.
When the likes of Ashok and Pushpa express their excitement and discuss their state of preparedness for the Halloween celebrations, it makes me wonder about the extent of inroads that American culture (commercial aspect of it) has made into the lives of unsuspecting gullible global consumers.
Under no circumstances and in no way am I opposed to cultures coming together and people learning about different traditions and rituals, however, the ritualistic/meaningful aspect of Halloween has been lost somewhere between the costumes and the exorbitant ‘couple entry charges’ at every club that wants to milk this cash cow.
If Diwali, Christmas and Eid can be celebrated at home, what makes Halloween a tradition that somehow is restricted to clubs and parties!
If the real tradition is studied and compared, Hinduism has something similar in form of Shraadh and Shanichari Amavas ( The Moon-less night on a Saturday). Better than that, the Aghorees of Varanasi can make the Pumpkin ghosts shit their pants any given day.
But who cares, that’s so ‘local’ yaar, Halloween is ‘cool’, that’s the USP.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghori)
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amavasya)
The Average mundane concerned nationalistic retard would dutifully blame it on the ‘West’ and brush it off as “Indians always try to ape the West”.
What exactly is the WEST that we refer to? I guess Europe is West too, isn’t it?
For beginners, Halloween is a strictly American tradition and is a cultural newbie for all countries in Europe. However, all major European cities witness Halloween parties being organized with relentless pomp.
So here we are, being witnesses to the direct impact of Capitalistic power, the power of commercialization. Its impact so strong that when mixed adequately with the right media channel, it can even make people willfully accept foreign traditions partially ( the commercial party part).
The Germans have started celebrating and embracing Halloween in a big way while the younger generation pays lesser and lesser attention to traditions like Walpurgis Night, which are similar to the American Halloween.
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walpurgis_Night)
Everyone loves money and money has no loyalties, pretty true on a global scale when it comes to accepting American traditions with wide arms, all because of the right media mix and the power of money commercialization brings with it.
I felt the pressure too, I had to party since it was Halloween and I didnt wanna be left out while all my freinds went out to get drunk and dance with masks on. So while they had multiple orgasms in their quest for being semi American ( a.k.a COOL), I sipped my beer and enjoyed the night as another one where social pressure overcame sanity.
So what’s next ?
Oh crap, im runnin late, gotta attend that Thanksgiving Dinner at Bunty’s place !
Sunday, November 1, 2009
Monday, September 14, 2009
Russian Hospitality - The 5 lesson Program
My decision to visit Moscow was met with a mixed response by everyone who was informed of this news. It was exciting to go to Russia on one hand, on the other; I was warned and given looks that could put one of those angry characters from Dragon BallZ to shame!
I am someone who adapts quickly, pick up words in a foreign country and believe that it cannot be really difficult to get by in a new country.
With dreams of standing at the centre of the red square and saying “Spasiba” to the smiling faces around me, I boarded the Aeroflot Flight from New Delhi to Moscow.
Lesson one involved distortion and non compliance with standard appearance ethics and aesthetics. The flight stewardess was a big fat grumpy lady, in her early 40s who seemed to be forced by the KGB to operate on a flight full of tourists, in the vain hope of gathering intelligence. My heart skipped a beat, I knew something was different, only 3 minutes onto the flight and I started having a bad feeling about the next 7 hours.
With optimism and hope, I decided to don that smile on my face again and proceeded towards my seat.
Now, while I settled down in my seat looking forward to landing in Moscow and ‘maybe’ meeting some talkative Russian onboard who could reveal snippets about what, where and how much related questions about a city I’ve never been to.
A few seconds into my seat and I knew what I was getting into. It’s called depression.
With about 3 inches of leg space, no in-flight entertainment and a newly married Indian couple from Bihar next to me, this was going to be one of the longest flights of my life. Lesson two involved gearing up for the unexpected and I was up for the challenge. After all I was on vacation and nothing could deter me from enjoying myself and being happy.
Lesson three involved my first cultural awakening, the air hostess spoke little English. 2 sentences to be precise:-/
1. Seat Upright position please
2. Vegetarian meal order here now
That was her repository of the queen’s language. Nice.
Upon requesting a blanket since I was dressed for summer, the prompt response was ‘DA’ (which is YES in Russian). After about 6 requests and 18 DAs, I did not receive a blanket and was left wondering if she expects me to repeat DA and keep repeating it till I start feeling warm. (Might have been some secret Russian grandma recipe to beat the cold).
As I sat there wearing my 3 t-shirts, food was definitely on my mind and I was looking forward to devouring some assorted delicacies which would represent the best of Indo-Russian cuisine. As the food trolley painstakingly slowly got pushed towards me, I could feel my mouth salivating and the intensity greed and hunger multiplying itself manifold. I greeted the stewardess with a smile as wide as the River Mississippi and hurriedly grabbed the two neatly arranged foil paper covered boxes.
When I opened those boxes, something rolled down the side of my eye, it was a teardrop.
Since I had ordered a vegetarian meal, I was served RAW CARROTS (have to admit, they were stylishly cut into small pieces) and boiled rice. Yes, plain white rice boiled to perfection. With a dead appetite and a heavy heart, I asked her for a beer instead.
Voila! 3 seconds later I was sipping a chilled Tuborg! And exactly 3 seconds later to that, I heard a familiar voice of the female stewardess saying “3 Euro, beer 3 Euro”. I had to fuckin pay for beer on an international flight!
Finally we arrived in Moscow at 7.30 in the morning. I was hungry, cold and felt cheated but the thought of finally making it to the Russian Federation overwhelmed every other trivial negativity that might have cropped up in the previous seven hour airborne ordeal.
The immigration counter was my lesson 4, as I was filling up my arrival form and was not sure if I had to fill departure as well, I stood at the counter and asked the lady to stamp my passport.
She said something in Russian which obviously I did not understand, and responded with “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Russian, English only”. She repeated herself in a harsher, louder tone (Russian again)
After 3 attempts and my standard let-me-smile-and-pacify approach, she threw a pen on my face! And that’s when I realized I need to fill in the departure form as well. She had learnt her ‘sign language much better than me!
Out in the streets, everyone expected you to be a PhD in Russian linguistics, since every sign, every street name and every information board was in Russian. Thank fully I had researched my way to get to the Bellorusky train station and I somehow managed to meet my friend Alex who proved to be my Armor in the Shining Day.
Lesson 5 involved a little Absinth, a bunch of friends who really care, no knowledge of Russian, a baseball bat, a swollen head, a missed flight and detention at the airport J
Russians are known to be aggressive and treat their guests in a ‘special manner’. I was taken to a bar, I asked my Russian friends to order something for me since I could not read the Russian menu. They ordered a surprise for me. It involved Vodka, Tequila, Absinth, Rum, a helmet and a Baseball bat.
Join the dots yourself and you’d figure out the missed flight and the detention at the airport ;-)
if you cant, visit youtube for the video of the event :-)
I am someone who adapts quickly, pick up words in a foreign country and believe that it cannot be really difficult to get by in a new country.
With dreams of standing at the centre of the red square and saying “Spasiba” to the smiling faces around me, I boarded the Aeroflot Flight from New Delhi to Moscow.
Lesson one involved distortion and non compliance with standard appearance ethics and aesthetics. The flight stewardess was a big fat grumpy lady, in her early 40s who seemed to be forced by the KGB to operate on a flight full of tourists, in the vain hope of gathering intelligence. My heart skipped a beat, I knew something was different, only 3 minutes onto the flight and I started having a bad feeling about the next 7 hours.
With optimism and hope, I decided to don that smile on my face again and proceeded towards my seat.
Now, while I settled down in my seat looking forward to landing in Moscow and ‘maybe’ meeting some talkative Russian onboard who could reveal snippets about what, where and how much related questions about a city I’ve never been to.
A few seconds into my seat and I knew what I was getting into. It’s called depression.
With about 3 inches of leg space, no in-flight entertainment and a newly married Indian couple from Bihar next to me, this was going to be one of the longest flights of my life. Lesson two involved gearing up for the unexpected and I was up for the challenge. After all I was on vacation and nothing could deter me from enjoying myself and being happy.
Lesson three involved my first cultural awakening, the air hostess spoke little English. 2 sentences to be precise:-/
1. Seat Upright position please
2. Vegetarian meal order here now
That was her repository of the queen’s language. Nice.
Upon requesting a blanket since I was dressed for summer, the prompt response was ‘DA’ (which is YES in Russian). After about 6 requests and 18 DAs, I did not receive a blanket and was left wondering if she expects me to repeat DA and keep repeating it till I start feeling warm. (Might have been some secret Russian grandma recipe to beat the cold).
As I sat there wearing my 3 t-shirts, food was definitely on my mind and I was looking forward to devouring some assorted delicacies which would represent the best of Indo-Russian cuisine. As the food trolley painstakingly slowly got pushed towards me, I could feel my mouth salivating and the intensity greed and hunger multiplying itself manifold. I greeted the stewardess with a smile as wide as the River Mississippi and hurriedly grabbed the two neatly arranged foil paper covered boxes.
When I opened those boxes, something rolled down the side of my eye, it was a teardrop.
Since I had ordered a vegetarian meal, I was served RAW CARROTS (have to admit, they were stylishly cut into small pieces) and boiled rice. Yes, plain white rice boiled to perfection. With a dead appetite and a heavy heart, I asked her for a beer instead.
Voila! 3 seconds later I was sipping a chilled Tuborg! And exactly 3 seconds later to that, I heard a familiar voice of the female stewardess saying “3 Euro, beer 3 Euro”. I had to fuckin pay for beer on an international flight!
Finally we arrived in Moscow at 7.30 in the morning. I was hungry, cold and felt cheated but the thought of finally making it to the Russian Federation overwhelmed every other trivial negativity that might have cropped up in the previous seven hour airborne ordeal.
The immigration counter was my lesson 4, as I was filling up my arrival form and was not sure if I had to fill departure as well, I stood at the counter and asked the lady to stamp my passport.
She said something in Russian which obviously I did not understand, and responded with “I’m sorry, I don’t speak Russian, English only”. She repeated herself in a harsher, louder tone (Russian again)
After 3 attempts and my standard let-me-smile-and-pacify approach, she threw a pen on my face! And that’s when I realized I need to fill in the departure form as well. She had learnt her ‘sign language much better than me!
Out in the streets, everyone expected you to be a PhD in Russian linguistics, since every sign, every street name and every information board was in Russian. Thank fully I had researched my way to get to the Bellorusky train station and I somehow managed to meet my friend Alex who proved to be my Armor in the Shining Day.
Lesson 5 involved a little Absinth, a bunch of friends who really care, no knowledge of Russian, a baseball bat, a swollen head, a missed flight and detention at the airport J
Russians are known to be aggressive and treat their guests in a ‘special manner’. I was taken to a bar, I asked my Russian friends to order something for me since I could not read the Russian menu. They ordered a surprise for me. It involved Vodka, Tequila, Absinth, Rum, a helmet and a Baseball bat.
Join the dots yourself and you’d figure out the missed flight and the detention at the airport ;-)
if you cant, visit youtube for the video of the event :-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn-S_UKl9ss
Da ?
Friday, June 26, 2009
A terrible disease of the mind
I lost my gloves one day in a coffee shop in Geneva, and I tell you, it’s difficult to ride a motorcycle without them when it’s really cold. So as I was paying for a new pair with a credit card, the salesman - who I knew was from Israel - asked me what my family name means. I told him that it relates to the city of Nablus where my family is originally from. Suddenly, the most bewildered look got plastered on his face.“Where is Nablus?” he asked, “I’ve never heard of it”.
Then he pretended to remember. “Ah, Shkheim you mean?”With my insistence not to learn these ugly sounding names that the Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn’t ring a bell.Now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked: “And you’re from?”As he smiled, I replicated the look on his face moments ago. “Israel? Where is that?”Then after a brief pause: “Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine.”You see, if you want to get biblical, there was never such a thing as Israel, and I made that very clear to this gentleman with obnoxious chutzpah.
So here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy became a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies; that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy.While the gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.Then it finally dawned on me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instil this mentality in your followers.
Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, resulting from a terrible affliction of the mind.Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early 20th century and describe Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a serious blinding ailment.To assert property claims over real estate after thousands of years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is the essence of arrogance.
To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites - and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there - as some kind of a “return” to that land is a distorted misapplication of the verb to “return”.To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 per cent of the land, an astounding half of Palestine, is an arithmetical impairment.To eventually grab 78 per cent of Palestine through war, evict the population through massacres and then live in their same houses is unashamed theft.
To deny the orchestrated eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is compulsive forgery.To claim that having escaped the horrors of the Nazis is a justification for the murder, expulsion and occupation of another, guiltless, people is moral incapacity.To legislate that any resident of Poland, New York or Brazil, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map), has a right to “return” and settle in Palestine, unlike someone who has been expelled from his own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp and still holds the keys to his house, is racism.
To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else’s land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favourite children as an excuse for this crime, is insanity.To milk the pockets of the entire world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people, is perverted conceit.To keep blackmailing the world with expensive museums and endless movies of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the fate of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, is acute schizophrenia.
To impose collective guilt on the Western civilisation for the Holocaust and to criminalise all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is thuggery.To incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroy their livelihoods, confiscate their lands, steal their water and uproot their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism, and to exact vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their homes is sadistic cruelty.To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 per cent of 22 per cent of 100 per cent of what is originally their own land as a “generous” offer is macabre Shylockian humour.
To believe that you have the God-given right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gunpoint by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing their mothers to give birth at checkpoints, is a predisposition to bestiality.To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants’ heads and deny any wrongdoing is a severe delusional disorder.To build a huge separation wall which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is unrepentant immorality.To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is murderous depravity.To believe that the entire world is out to get you, and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the state of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is hysterical mass paranoia.To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet, in addition to having the most lethal arsenal of weaponry on earth, while continuing to demand sympathy, is the ultimate false victimisation syndrome.
And today, to blockade the world’s most densely populated strip of land for 18 months, suffocate its already displaced and miserable inhabitants by asking them to die a slow death, and then punish them for refusing to die silently by deliberately bombing their schools, mosques, hospitals and ambulances with internationally prohibited weapons and poisonous gasses in the ugliest televised massacre of children in modern history, all the while looking the world in the eyes and claiming that this is an act of self-defence, is a critical stage of dangerous psychosis, and is pure, unadulterated madness.Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be as insecure as a common thief to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country’s brutal military occupation is, sadly, more of the same infectious and ultimately fatal disease of the mind._______________________________________________________________
The writer is an attorney, partner in Nabulsi & Associates law firm.
Then he pretended to remember. “Ah, Shkheim you mean?”With my insistence not to learn these ugly sounding names that the Zionists have dug up from oblivion to erase our identity, that name certainly didn’t ring a bell.Now it was my turn. Although I knew where he was from, I asked: “And you’re from?”As he smiled, I replicated the look on his face moments ago. “Israel? Where is that?”Then after a brief pause: “Ah, the land of Canaan you mean. Palestine.”You see, if you want to get biblical, there was never such a thing as Israel, and I made that very clear to this gentleman with obnoxious chutzpah.
So here we were all of a sudden; my family descended from a place called Shkheim, and this guy became a Palestinian. God does work in mysterious ways, but I still thanked Him for His small mercies; that at least my name was not Zaid Shkheimy.While the gloves warmed up my grip on the bike, my heart was still frozen. I just cannot stand thieves who steal your gloves, or any other kind of thieves.Then it finally dawned on me. Zionism is a sickness, for it takes much more than just a twisted ideology to make people think like that. It requires a profound leap of immorality of a higher order to instil this mentality in your followers.
Zionism is not merely a political movement, but in its essence represents a deeply disturbed view of the world, resulting from a terrible affliction of the mind.Indeed, to deny the existence of a vibrant community such as the Palestinian society in the early 20th century and describe Palestine as “a land without a people for a people without a land” is a serious blinding ailment.To assert property claims over real estate after thousands of years with the same certainty of title as if one resided there yesterday is the essence of arrogance.
To describe the colonial immigration to Palestine of a European people with no proven historical link to the ancient Israelites - and whose great, great recorded ancestors have never set foot there - as some kind of a “return” to that land is a distorted misapplication of the verb to “return”.To blame the Palestinians for being unreasonable in rejecting a partition plan in 1947 which gave the Jews, who only owned 7 per cent of the land, an astounding half of Palestine, is an arithmetical impairment.To eventually grab 78 per cent of Palestine through war, evict the population through massacres and then live in their same houses is unashamed theft.
To deny the orchestrated eradications of hundreds of Palestinian villages in 1948 and then denounce the Israeli historians who later exposed this truth as self-hating Jews is compulsive forgery.To claim that having escaped the horrors of the Nazis is a justification for the murder, expulsion and occupation of another, guiltless, people is moral incapacity.To legislate that any resident of Poland, New York or Brazil, who happens to be blessed with a Jewish mother (yet cannot point to Palestine on the map), has a right to “return” and settle in Palestine, unlike someone who has been expelled from his own land, confined to a squalid refugee camp and still holds the keys to his house, is racism.
To blame God for the theft and occupation of someone else’s land by claiming that it was He who had pledged this land exclusively to the Jews, and to seriously promote the myth of a land promised by the Almighty to His favourite children as an excuse for this crime, is insanity.To milk the pockets of the entire world for the atrocities of the Nazis, while stubbornly refusing a simple admission of guilt, let alone compensation or repatriation, for the catastrophe that befell the Palestinian people, is perverted conceit.To keep blackmailing the world with expensive museums and endless movies of the plight of the Jews under Hitler 70 years ago, while at the same time inflicting on the Palestinians today the fate of the Jews of the Warsaw ghetto, is acute schizophrenia.
To impose collective guilt on the Western civilisation for the Holocaust and to criminalise all legitimate historical debate of the nature and extent of that horrific event is thuggery.To incarcerate the Palestinian people inside degrading cages, destroy their livelihoods, confiscate their lands, steal their water and uproot their trees, and then to condemn their legitimate resistance as terrorism, and to exact vengeance on the innocent families of suicide bombers by punishing them with the dynamiting of their homes is sadistic cruelty.To describe the offer of giving the Palestinians 80 per cent of 22 per cent of 100 per cent of what is originally their own land as a “generous” offer is macabre Shylockian humour.
To believe that you have the God-given right to continue to humiliate the Palestinians at gunpoint by making them queue for hours to move between their villages, forcing their mothers to give birth at checkpoints, is a predisposition to bestiality.To flatten the camp of Jenin on its inhabitants’ heads and deny any wrongdoing is a severe delusional disorder.To build a huge separation wall which disconnects farmers from their farms and children from their schools, while stealing even more territory as the wall freely zigzags and encroaches on Palestinian land is unrepentant immorality.To leave behind, in the last 10 days of a losing war in Lebanon, more than one million cluster bombs which have no purpose except to murder and maim unsuspecting civilians is murderous depravity.To believe that the entire world is out to get you, and to denounce any critic of the racist policies of the state of Israel as an anti-Semite, the latest victim being none other than peace-making Jimmy Carter, is hysterical mass paranoia.To possess, in the midst of a non-nuclear Arab world, more than 200 nuclear warheads capable of incinerating the whole planet, in addition to having the most lethal arsenal of weaponry on earth, while continuing to demand sympathy, is the ultimate false victimisation syndrome.
And today, to blockade the world’s most densely populated strip of land for 18 months, suffocate its already displaced and miserable inhabitants by asking them to die a slow death, and then punish them for refusing to die silently by deliberately bombing their schools, mosques, hospitals and ambulances with internationally prohibited weapons and poisonous gasses in the ugliest televised massacre of children in modern history, all the while looking the world in the eyes and claiming that this is an act of self-defence, is a critical stage of dangerous psychosis, and is pure, unadulterated madness.Yes, and for that salesman in peaceful Geneva to be as insecure as a common thief to refuse to acknowledge the name of the largest West Bank city under his country’s brutal military occupation is, sadly, more of the same infectious and ultimately fatal disease of the mind._______________________________________________________________
The writer is an attorney, partner in Nabulsi & Associates law firm.
Friday, June 19, 2009
An aid gone awry - War on terror
As the World's focus shifts to Af-Pak in the war against terror, and US President Obama describes it as one of the most important regions in the world in terms of global security, I trace back a money trail that originated from a natural calamity.
Osama Bin Laden's sanctuary and the recruiting fields for Al-Qaeda have now been in the focus of International attention, and funding for their weapons and terror operations could have been done by you , yes YOU, inadvertently.
The earthquake that rocked India and Pakistan in early October of 2005 secured international headline spots for the magnitude of destruction. Something that nobody had expected was the continuation of the earthquake in the news, but for very unobvious reasons.
The United Nations officials who supervised relief work in the quake affected areas of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and parts of NWFP had said that Pakistan would need at least 10 years to recover from the October 8 tremor.
The United Nations officials who supervised relief work in the quake affected areas of Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) and parts of NWFP had said that Pakistan would need at least 10 years to recover from the October 8 tremor.
Over 73000 people lost their lives and another 69000 were injured in the incident, and humanitarian aid from all over the world started pouring in.
The Pakistan government left no stone unturned in its effort to bring in as much relief possible into the country, at a donor conference convened by the UN and Pakistan in Geneva the flash appeal was raised to USD 549 million from the earlier appeal of USD 312 million.
The conference was addressed among others by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan who focused on providing international assistance to Pakistan for relief and rehabilitation of the victims.
President Pervez Musharraf had stated that the damage caused by the earthquake was more than a billion dollars.
The conference was addressed among others by UN Secretary General, Kofi Annan who focused on providing international assistance to Pakistan for relief and rehabilitation of the victims.
President Pervez Musharraf had stated that the damage caused by the earthquake was more than a billion dollars.
The hearts melted, the souls were stirred and the images of young orphans wandering in the cold rubble laden terrain were beamed into the living rooms of almost every developed country in the world to substantiate the cause for donation.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa played a considerable role in helping the residents of Pakistani-occupied Kashmir and northern Pakistan recover from the earthquake, which struck a region that is home to several camps and bases belonging to militant Kashmiri groups and other radical organizations linked to al-Qaeda.
Jamaat-ud-Dawa is a reincarnation of Lashkar-e-Toiba. In 2002, Pakistan's President, Gen. Pervez Musharraf had banned Lashkar-e-Toiba, but the group renamed itself Jamaat-ud-Dawa as a way to evade sanctions, according to the US State Department. Lashkar-e-Toiba is one of the largest and best-trained groups fighting Indian forces in Jammu and Kashmir. Lashkar-e-Toiba has been linked by U.S. authorities to al-Qaeda.
The very fact that Jamaat-ud-Dawa was created out of a rogue group placed the entire effort under suspicion. Hafiz Abdur Rehman Makki, the number two in Jamaat-ud-Dawa's hierarchy. An eloquent orator, Makki has the power to draw tears from his listeners. On October 21- 2005, Makki justified the earthquake as a punishment of Allah on the sinful quoting numerous verses from the holy Koran.
The very fact that Jamaat-ud-Dawa was created out of a rogue group placed the entire effort under suspicion. Hafiz Abdur Rehman Makki, the number two in Jamaat-ud-Dawa's hierarchy. An eloquent orator, Makki has the power to draw tears from his listeners. On October 21- 2005, Makki justified the earthquake as a punishment of Allah on the sinful quoting numerous verses from the holy Koran.
He ridiculed seismologists who rationalized the quake on scientific grounds, he said: “You are saying that the earthquake has occurred because the plates beneath the earth have dislocated. Oh foolish scientists, don't you know that the plates could have never moved without Allah's order? Human beings' knowledge is nothing before Allah who is the creator of the universe. Whatever knowledge you have today is due to His will. You could have learnt nothing had Allah not wished so! Don't you learn a lesson from the Jews? They are the worst receiver of Allah's wrath because they flayed His commandments blatantly. The earthquake is a reprimand to the rulers 
on their un-Islamic policies e.g. recognition of Israel, maligning jihad and ditching the jihadis, ridiculing jihad, perverting society with obscenity by urging women to work with men in all spheres of life, secularizing the curriculum, etc.”
on their un-Islamic policies e.g. recognition of Israel, maligning jihad and ditching the jihadis, ridiculing jihad, perverting society with obscenity by urging women to work with men in all spheres of life, secularizing the curriculum, etc.”“We can rise again. We can rule the world again. I give you a simple recipe. Donate money and sons for jihad and your glorious days will return. The entire world will be under your control. Bush and Blair will become your slaves and lick your boots.'”
Considering the fact this man was an instrumental figure in the relief efforts in PoK, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to assess that a lot of money was siphoned off to organisations that preach terror.
Considering the fact this man was an instrumental figure in the relief efforts in PoK, it wouldn’t take a rocket scientist to assess that a lot of money was siphoned off to organisations that preach terror.
With the unearthing of August 10-airliner terror plot, the murkier side of relief operations was highlighted. The incident sent shockwaves throughout the world and its ripples were felt in PoK too. The British intelligence community toiled hard to put the pieces of the terror-funding jigsaw together, and all fingers pointed at Pakistan after just two days of investigation.
Muslim Charity of UK remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in December of 2005 as earthquake relief money.
Muslim Charity of UK remitted a huge amount of money to three individuals in three different bank accounts in Mirpur, Pakistan occupied Kashmir (PoK) in December of 2005 as earthquake relief money.
But the money in the three accounts in Saudi Pak Bank, Standard Chartered and Habib Bank Ltd was solely for the purpose of financing the foiled bomb plot, according to the MI5 investigation. Two of the recipients were British citizens of Kashmir origin while the third was an Islamabad-based builder, also of Kashmir origin.
All three have been arrested lately, but the damage has already been done .Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Toiba might have benefited immensely from the relief money
All three have been arrested lately, but the damage has already been done .Al Qaeda or Lashkar-e-Toiba might have benefited immensely from the relief money
UK National Terrorist Financial Investigation Unit authorities carried out ‘discreet enquiries’ about all major money transactions involved with relief money to Pakistan and tipped off the Pak Intelligence agencies about the same. Interrogation of the suspects revealed some key elements of the aircraft-bombing plan. It was then that the Pakistani officials informed British authorities about the plan and the terror attempt was successfully foiled.
Large portion of the money sent from Britain to the charity was siphoned off and ultimately used to prepare for the attacks. About 5 million British pounds, or USD10 million, was transferred to Pakistan, but that less than half was used for relief operations after the earthquake last October.
British intelligence smelled a foul play the moment the transfer was made in December last year. The unsuspecting souls in Britain contributed generously for the victims of the earthquake without having absolutely no idea that their contributions were used to hatch one of the biggest terror plots.
Large portion of the money sent from Britain to the charity was siphoned off and ultimately used to prepare for the attacks. About 5 million British pounds, or USD10 million, was transferred to Pakistan, but that less than half was used for relief operations after the earthquake last October.
British intelligence smelled a foul play the moment the transfer was made in December last year. The unsuspecting souls in Britain contributed generously for the victims of the earthquake without having absolutely no idea that their contributions were used to hatch one of the biggest terror plots.
The extent of money that has poured into the devastated region has been unprecedented and surpasses any previous aid amounts that Pakistan has received. A snippet of what various countries and unions donated should help get an insight into the extent.
The United States pledged a total of USD 510 million to Pakistan for relief and reconstruction efforts, following the earthquake. The American private donations for the earthquake relief and reconstruction were nearly USD100 million. Sri Lanka also donated USD 100,000 for undertaking relief and rehabilitation work in earthquake hit areas of Pakistan besides dispatching relief supplies like tents and blankets.
Japan gave a loan worth USD100 million to Pakistan for earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction and a grant of USD270,000 for human resource development.
The European Commission earmarked 10 million Euros for the victims of the devastating earthquake in South Asia, out of which a major portion goes to Pakistan as the Indian side of Kashmir was affected less compared to its neighbour.
Japan gave a loan worth USD100 million to Pakistan for earthquake rehabilitation and reconstruction and a grant of USD270,000 for human resource development.
The European Commission earmarked 10 million Euros for the victims of the devastating earthquake in South Asia, out of which a major portion goes to Pakistan as the Indian side of Kashmir was affected less compared to its neighbour.
Jamaat- ud- Dawa initiated efforts to raise funds in British Pakistani areas in London, Birmingham and Manchester. The group also urged non-resident Pakistanis in Britian to go to the affected region to help in the relief efforts, and hundreds did. Out of the 23 suspects in custody after the arrests by British police, 17 are of Pakistani origin. As both a militant group and an organization for the masses, Jamaat ud Dawa resembles several of its counterparts that exist in the Muslim world, like Hamas in the Palestine and Hezbollah in Lebanon. The extent of suspicion the West has on these organisations can be gauged by the fact that post 9/11, the United States government shut down many Muslim charities suspecting them of funding terror activities.
A troublesome situation is brewing in Pakistan following the catastrophic earthquake. Exploiting the general public sentiment and riding on a wave of popularity gained by helping refugees, a host of religious extremist organizations have found new breeding grounds and a modus operandi to fill the void and present themselves as the better alternative to the secular and pro-West governance of President Pervez Musharraf. Lashkar-e-Toiba– an entity formerly known as Markaz-Dawa-wal-Irshad- looks all set to grow with the influx of millions of dollars.
Their ploy seemed to work and the earthquake that took lives of thousands proved to be a blessing for the terror group that intends to claim thousands of more lives.
The new question that arises out of this incident is a very disturbing one and even leaves the biggest of philanthropists in dilemma – How safe is it to donate to the ones in distress?
Racist attacks in Australia - Shut up Mate !
The 'alleged' racial assault on Indians in Australia has seemed to hog prime time on news networks and as always a million self styled experts on racial discord have mushroomed in every televised discussion on the subject.
The Indian media and its citizens have been vocal in condemning the attacks and have vowed to do nothing as usual but whine and crib.
Resorting to my intrinsic trait of 'investigative research' on the subject, I case studied the so called victims of racial abuse spread over suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney. Somehow, I had little presumptions about these men which turned out to be true eventually.
Most men, who were assaulted or rather mugged, share something in common.
Some of these attacks are racial, however as the Indians love the hype, explicably 'all' attacks have been termed racial.
The Indians in Australia (and other parts of the world), tend to live in a close knit community and are not very willing to adapt to the local culture. Their eating habits and culture preferences remain not very changed than when they are back home. This makes them extremely visible yet socially alienated.
Also, most of the immigrants going to Australia and Canada are from rural areas in Punjab, loaded with a fresh bag of money from land compensation or a farm sale. Lack of decent English language skills, non awareness of western culture and an upbringing where racial/communal disharmony runs high , and the whole Hindu-Muslim-Dalit issue at the national level creates an individual who chooses to live within his own community.
None of the students who were attacked in Australia were known to be socially active or very involved with local Australians. Imagine a community of White Australians in New Delhi, who refuse to hang out with Indians, live within their own ghettos, insist on eating beef and refuse to acknowledge Indian customs and culture.
On the contrary, most of the Indian students who are in Australia and have had a good upbringing rubbish the whole concept of the attacks being racist and accuse their fellow countrymen of 'whining as usual'.
Of course there is a bit of disgruntlement and hatred amongst the Australians, owing to the financial stability and growth of Indians and it should be condemned and stemmed. But the Australians do not hate Indians to the extent that they would beat em up outside train stations.
And for the record, 12 students getting jumped in a month aint bad at all, more shit goes down in Delhi than in entire Australia within the 1 month timeframe!
It is a known fact and even some of the victims admit that not all attackers were white. Lebanese men have been blamed for a few incidents and have been identified too! Well, it is kinda hard for a brown man to see another brownie comin to the promised land and being more successful, I'd call it jealousy rather than racism.
It is also an established fact that Indian men have had a successful run in molesting every woman in their line of sight once drunk, Australia wasn’t spared either. Young testosterone charged men with a non-existent sex life tend to go a little overboard with excitement on their first few visits to the beach. Now THAT doesn’t go down too well with the Aussie.
So here we are, trying to gain sympathy for men who have been social aliens, harassed/teased local women, smell of weird spices and live in one room apartments shared by 10 people, and eventually fail to communicate in a language that’s accepted worldwide!
I guess it doesnt take a lot of pondering before you realize there won’t be many locals advocating for them.
Every Student who leaves India for Australia nurses the little dream of never coming back home, even though he might be travelling for a 3 week advanced swimming course to Australia.
So a swollen eye and a couple of missing teeth to pay for living a life where you NEVER have to drive on GT road again, sounds like a sweet deal to me.
So the next time you hear your NRI friend whining " Apna desh to apna hi hota hai, baahar kuch nahi rakha", you should instantly realize that his taxi driving plans didnt really work out, and let him know "Its Aii'te MATE !"
The Indian media and its citizens have been vocal in condemning the attacks and have vowed to do nothing as usual but whine and crib.
Resorting to my intrinsic trait of 'investigative research' on the subject, I case studied the so called victims of racial abuse spread over suburbs of Melbourne and Sydney. Somehow, I had little presumptions about these men which turned out to be true eventually.
Most men, who were assaulted or rather mugged, share something in common.
Some of these attacks are racial, however as the Indians love the hype, explicably 'all' attacks have been termed racial.
The Indians in Australia (and other parts of the world), tend to live in a close knit community and are not very willing to adapt to the local culture. Their eating habits and culture preferences remain not very changed than when they are back home. This makes them extremely visible yet socially alienated.
Also, most of the immigrants going to Australia and Canada are from rural areas in Punjab, loaded with a fresh bag of money from land compensation or a farm sale. Lack of decent English language skills, non awareness of western culture and an upbringing where racial/communal disharmony runs high , and the whole Hindu-Muslim-Dalit issue at the national level creates an individual who chooses to live within his own community.
None of the students who were attacked in Australia were known to be socially active or very involved with local Australians. Imagine a community of White Australians in New Delhi, who refuse to hang out with Indians, live within their own ghettos, insist on eating beef and refuse to acknowledge Indian customs and culture.
On the contrary, most of the Indian students who are in Australia and have had a good upbringing rubbish the whole concept of the attacks being racist and accuse their fellow countrymen of 'whining as usual'.
Of course there is a bit of disgruntlement and hatred amongst the Australians, owing to the financial stability and growth of Indians and it should be condemned and stemmed. But the Australians do not hate Indians to the extent that they would beat em up outside train stations.
And for the record, 12 students getting jumped in a month aint bad at all, more shit goes down in Delhi than in entire Australia within the 1 month timeframe!
It is a known fact and even some of the victims admit that not all attackers were white. Lebanese men have been blamed for a few incidents and have been identified too! Well, it is kinda hard for a brown man to see another brownie comin to the promised land and being more successful, I'd call it jealousy rather than racism.
It is also an established fact that Indian men have had a successful run in molesting every woman in their line of sight once drunk, Australia wasn’t spared either. Young testosterone charged men with a non-existent sex life tend to go a little overboard with excitement on their first few visits to the beach. Now THAT doesn’t go down too well with the Aussie.
So here we are, trying to gain sympathy for men who have been social aliens, harassed/teased local women, smell of weird spices and live in one room apartments shared by 10 people, and eventually fail to communicate in a language that’s accepted worldwide!
I guess it doesnt take a lot of pondering before you realize there won’t be many locals advocating for them.
Every Student who leaves India for Australia nurses the little dream of never coming back home, even though he might be travelling for a 3 week advanced swimming course to Australia.
So a swollen eye and a couple of missing teeth to pay for living a life where you NEVER have to drive on GT road again, sounds like a sweet deal to me.
So the next time you hear your NRI friend whining " Apna desh to apna hi hota hai, baahar kuch nahi rakha", you should instantly realize that his taxi driving plans didnt really work out, and let him know "Its Aii'te MATE !"
Sunday, May 3, 2009
They need sex more than I do
Every morning the sun breaks over the Indian sub continent and semi literate , semi conscious humanity of this country wakes up and craves for their dose of daily news.What seems to be the norm of the day is an unsettling reality about the division bell that rings loud enough in this country to deafen the cries of sanity.
Impunity has become the buzzword for anyone wiling and able to break the law. Well, a realistic analysis would make you realise that almost 100% of all adults fall under the 'willing' category.The 'able' are another sect, not high in percentage but quite visible and vocal.
As if we had a shortage of religious and regional armies in India, the Ram Sena decides to beat up a few women in order to reprimand them for being a part of India that BJP showcased ( Yes, I do mean INDIA SHINING).If sitting in a pub is a crime, who gave them a licence to operate in the first place ?Or maybe we should attack Software companies and Business consultancies as well, I heard men and women eat lunch together in those offices ! ( Bal Thackeray would already be grinding his teeth in anger if he was reading this article, how dare the corporate world engage in such obsceneties? )
On the other hand, the core issue and the catalyst for such attacks remains elusive from discussions and war-cries between the liberals and the radicals.
For everyone following up on such stories, its about religious fanaticism taking over an otherwise secular and progressive society.
The truth is, by beating up that woman, the Ram/Bajrang/Shiv Sena warrior got the lucky chance to touch a woman's body for the first time in life ( unless he shared a room with his Didi, Dadi or Mausi).Legalise prostitution, encourage strip clubs, give these men a reason to unwind and feel like a man. And you will see how quickly these armies dissapear. id even say give them discounts because they have displayed extreme crave for women( 10% discount on displaying your Shiv Sena id card).
The now so popular Senas of different kinds are nothing but a bunch of frustrated men who would like to beat the lucky ones up and attack women to compensate for the feeling of rejection and neglect they grew up with.
All of you ladies out there, tell me one good looking religious leader, when was the last time you looked at raj Thackeray or Praveen Togadia and went " Ooh, thats my kinda man..hottie".Im sure you would not be able to recall any such thing from the last 2 million years.
We need to get these men laid, thats the solution to religious fundamentalism.
Considering ourselves the biggest democracy in the world, we expect our government and leaders to take action about this rampant rape of public security. The BJP Chief Minister of Karnataka, where most of these cases seem to be happening, releases a mild statement telling these groups to behave. ( For your reference, we would refer to the BJP Chief Minister as Pussy from now).
So Pussy decides not to do much and let 'destiny' take its own course, afterall destiny and luck have an integral role in the leadership structure and indian society.The Central government sits on its comfy chairs and decides to 'observe' these stray incidents, well no country is perfect afterall.
So half a century after indipendence, new IIMs coming up, Oscar winning slum stories and India's moon mission, things dont seem that bad, except for the fact that YOU, yes yes YOU (the reader) can be beaten up on the street anytime, anywhere and you should just quietly take it.
The government, the police and the pussies around you wont say a word or raise a finger.
Get these religious guys laid, buy yourself a Burqa, buy a gun for self defence.
These are the 3 ways out, make your choice.
Or else, end supporting radical forces, Do not vote for the BJP in this election, root out the political parties that support hate.
Lets hope we can sit down for a drink at a cafe in 5 years from now, without worrying about getting molested or beaten. Amen.
Impunity has become the buzzword for anyone wiling and able to break the law. Well, a realistic analysis would make you realise that almost 100% of all adults fall under the 'willing' category.The 'able' are another sect, not high in percentage but quite visible and vocal.
As if we had a shortage of religious and regional armies in India, the Ram Sena decides to beat up a few women in order to reprimand them for being a part of India that BJP showcased ( Yes, I do mean INDIA SHINING).If sitting in a pub is a crime, who gave them a licence to operate in the first place ?Or maybe we should attack Software companies and Business consultancies as well, I heard men and women eat lunch together in those offices ! ( Bal Thackeray would already be grinding his teeth in anger if he was reading this article, how dare the corporate world engage in such obsceneties? )
On the other hand, the core issue and the catalyst for such attacks remains elusive from discussions and war-cries between the liberals and the radicals.
For everyone following up on such stories, its about religious fanaticism taking over an otherwise secular and progressive society.
The truth is, by beating up that woman, the Ram/Bajrang/Shiv Sena warrior got the lucky chance to touch a woman's body for the first time in life ( unless he shared a room with his Didi, Dadi or Mausi).Legalise prostitution, encourage strip clubs, give these men a reason to unwind and feel like a man. And you will see how quickly these armies dissapear. id even say give them discounts because they have displayed extreme crave for women( 10% discount on displaying your Shiv Sena id card).
The now so popular Senas of different kinds are nothing but a bunch of frustrated men who would like to beat the lucky ones up and attack women to compensate for the feeling of rejection and neglect they grew up with.
All of you ladies out there, tell me one good looking religious leader, when was the last time you looked at raj Thackeray or Praveen Togadia and went " Ooh, thats my kinda man..hottie".Im sure you would not be able to recall any such thing from the last 2 million years.
We need to get these men laid, thats the solution to religious fundamentalism.
Considering ourselves the biggest democracy in the world, we expect our government and leaders to take action about this rampant rape of public security. The BJP Chief Minister of Karnataka, where most of these cases seem to be happening, releases a mild statement telling these groups to behave. ( For your reference, we would refer to the BJP Chief Minister as Pussy from now).
So Pussy decides not to do much and let 'destiny' take its own course, afterall destiny and luck have an integral role in the leadership structure and indian society.The Central government sits on its comfy chairs and decides to 'observe' these stray incidents, well no country is perfect afterall.
So half a century after indipendence, new IIMs coming up, Oscar winning slum stories and India's moon mission, things dont seem that bad, except for the fact that YOU, yes yes YOU (the reader) can be beaten up on the street anytime, anywhere and you should just quietly take it.
The government, the police and the pussies around you wont say a word or raise a finger.
Get these religious guys laid, buy yourself a Burqa, buy a gun for self defence.
These are the 3 ways out, make your choice.
Or else, end supporting radical forces, Do not vote for the BJP in this election, root out the political parties that support hate.
Lets hope we can sit down for a drink at a cafe in 5 years from now, without worrying about getting molested or beaten. Amen.
Thursday, April 9, 2009
The Grand rape of democracy
Whenever and whoever gets chosen as the next captain of this ailing ship, would be called the Prime Minister of India, post the April elections. The morning would start with the conventional national address by our leader, followed by yet another set of promises, which would emphasize on rural development and uplift of the downtrodden. Ironically 10% of India would not be able to witness the Prime Minister’s patriotic rhetoric owing to power cuts across the nation. Another 40% would miss it again owing it to their inability to purchase a television set.
But it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? The feeling of being a proud citizen of a sovereign democratic republic overwhelms any of such trivial blockages in witnessing a national address. Afterall we are independent, our fundamental rights allow us to travel anywhere we wish to, pursue any career we want to and practice any religion we want to!
The country is currently reeling under a severe terror threat , with airports resembling fortresses and the men in uniform outnumbering passengers at railway station. The government is prepared as always and so is the common man on the street who knows he will be at the receiving end of any onslaught by the mercenaries.
Why do we get attacked anyway ? The Indian troops have never even ventured into a rogue state like Iraq or Afghanistan , as they have been too busy fighting a proxy war on our on soil anyways. So what makes India a dartboard for several terror preachers? Why can ULFA and NSCN strike with impunity anywhere and at anytime and proliferate an agenda as well, while the govt. constitutes one task force after another to tackle the menace.
The biggest nationalists , patriots and our leaders have always taken immense pride in the country’s cultural diversity, which undoubtedly is a unique feature of the second most populous nation in the world.
After thorough analysis and observation, the same cultural diversity has lead to a severely intolerant society during the last decade. The acceptance of separate cultures has taken a beating in areas of exclusive dominance by a community. Terms like ‘communally fragile ‘ have been associated with several towns and cities across India.
How did an Independent India take this discourse from its road to supremacy ?
We might choose to ignore it but when the terror is right in your backyard, it is no longer a story in the newspaper. The suspect list for most of the terror attacks contains names of scores of young men from the minority community. Why does a citizen of this country does not feel like one, what compels him to take up arms against his own countrymen, and what satisfaction does he derive from all the mayhem he creates at the cost of hundreds of civilian lives?
The answer to these questions lies within, the truth that we witness but choose not to acknowledge. The hate games that are being sponsored in this country by the power hungry politicians post independence have been on an all time high in the last 20 years.
The consistent neglect of the poorer section of the country and the lack of will to address their problems have led to the naxalite movement, whose area of influence now ranges from Andhra Pradesh to Jharkhand.
The complete ignorance of sections and communities can be gauged by the fact that, inspite of being 7 different states, the entire group is just North-East to us. How many of us can name all these states with their capitals? And how often do they make top national news?
This stature of lesser importance is based on the fact that people there have major cultural differences when compared to the mainland states like UP and Haryana.
None of us would ever even think of considering UP, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab to being referred as just North!
Only lately after the persistent violence in the North East, people from mainland started identifying these states separately. Even then the common notion is that ,the entire north east is disturbed.
But as the age old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. 59 years of Independence and mismanagement in running the country has given birth to a new breed of people, which is non-vociferous but sizeable.
They believe in peace, hope and pledge to distance itself from trivial hatred fuelling issues and rather want to stick to development of self as well as the nation.
All this while when the Naxalite menace was on the rise, the bombs went off in markets and politicians were entangled in one scam after another, this breed was unfazed and kept working towards a better nation. The men and women who instead of crying hoarse over the state of affairs, decided to make a difference and worked hard to make this country a better place to live in.
The silver lining is visible now, after three decades of below average progress, the country's economy grew at 6 percent a year from 1980 to 2002 and at 7.5 percent a year from 2002 to 2006 , making it a formidable global player well as one of the world's best-performing economies for the quarter century. Meanwhile, population growth rate subsided from 2.2 percent a year to 1.7 percent at present thereby boosting the per capita income, from $1,178 to $3,051 (in terms of purchasing-power parity) since 1980. India is now the world's fourth-largest economy. Soon it will surpass Japan to become the third largest.
All this seems non-sense to a person who is still worried about vehicle-clogged roads, corrupt politicians and rising taxes. A change in the perception is what would make all the difference - The roads are vehicle clogged because people can afford cars now, the taxes are rising but so is the income but the lesser said about the politicians the better. When were they supposed to be clean anyway!
All these years of independence have not gone in vain afterall, the exuberance and dedication of the men and women who have been instrumental in bringing about this change is clearly evident from the results now. Team India is a force to reckon with, our education is considered one of the best and our religious tolerance despite being scarred continues to set an example for the global community.
Who are these people who have been working hard all this while, undeterred and consistent in their strive for a better India? The people to whom differences based on caste, community and race do not make sense.
My salute goes out to you my fellow countrymen, my brothers and sisters who have worked hard inspite of the setbacks and testing times.
On this occasion of India's yet another grand display of its democratic prowess, lets give ourselves a reason to cheer and root for the country we were born in. Jai Hind!
But it’s the thought that counts, isn’t it? The feeling of being a proud citizen of a sovereign democratic republic overwhelms any of such trivial blockages in witnessing a national address. Afterall we are independent, our fundamental rights allow us to travel anywhere we wish to, pursue any career we want to and practice any religion we want to!
The country is currently reeling under a severe terror threat , with airports resembling fortresses and the men in uniform outnumbering passengers at railway station. The government is prepared as always and so is the common man on the street who knows he will be at the receiving end of any onslaught by the mercenaries.
Why do we get attacked anyway ? The Indian troops have never even ventured into a rogue state like Iraq or Afghanistan , as they have been too busy fighting a proxy war on our on soil anyways. So what makes India a dartboard for several terror preachers? Why can ULFA and NSCN strike with impunity anywhere and at anytime and proliferate an agenda as well, while the govt. constitutes one task force after another to tackle the menace.
The biggest nationalists , patriots and our leaders have always taken immense pride in the country’s cultural diversity, which undoubtedly is a unique feature of the second most populous nation in the world.
After thorough analysis and observation, the same cultural diversity has lead to a severely intolerant society during the last decade. The acceptance of separate cultures has taken a beating in areas of exclusive dominance by a community. Terms like ‘communally fragile ‘ have been associated with several towns and cities across India.
How did an Independent India take this discourse from its road to supremacy ?
We might choose to ignore it but when the terror is right in your backyard, it is no longer a story in the newspaper. The suspect list for most of the terror attacks contains names of scores of young men from the minority community. Why does a citizen of this country does not feel like one, what compels him to take up arms against his own countrymen, and what satisfaction does he derive from all the mayhem he creates at the cost of hundreds of civilian lives?
The answer to these questions lies within, the truth that we witness but choose not to acknowledge. The hate games that are being sponsored in this country by the power hungry politicians post independence have been on an all time high in the last 20 years.
The consistent neglect of the poorer section of the country and the lack of will to address their problems have led to the naxalite movement, whose area of influence now ranges from Andhra Pradesh to Jharkhand.
The complete ignorance of sections and communities can be gauged by the fact that, inspite of being 7 different states, the entire group is just North-East to us. How many of us can name all these states with their capitals? And how often do they make top national news?
This stature of lesser importance is based on the fact that people there have major cultural differences when compared to the mainland states like UP and Haryana.
None of us would ever even think of considering UP, Haryana, Rajasthan and Punjab to being referred as just North!
Only lately after the persistent violence in the North East, people from mainland started identifying these states separately. Even then the common notion is that ,the entire north east is disturbed.
But as the age old saying goes, every cloud has a silver lining. 59 years of Independence and mismanagement in running the country has given birth to a new breed of people, which is non-vociferous but sizeable.
They believe in peace, hope and pledge to distance itself from trivial hatred fuelling issues and rather want to stick to development of self as well as the nation.
All this while when the Naxalite menace was on the rise, the bombs went off in markets and politicians were entangled in one scam after another, this breed was unfazed and kept working towards a better nation. The men and women who instead of crying hoarse over the state of affairs, decided to make a difference and worked hard to make this country a better place to live in.
The silver lining is visible now, after three decades of below average progress, the country's economy grew at 6 percent a year from 1980 to 2002 and at 7.5 percent a year from 2002 to 2006 , making it a formidable global player well as one of the world's best-performing economies for the quarter century. Meanwhile, population growth rate subsided from 2.2 percent a year to 1.7 percent at present thereby boosting the per capita income, from $1,178 to $3,051 (in terms of purchasing-power parity) since 1980. India is now the world's fourth-largest economy. Soon it will surpass Japan to become the third largest.
All this seems non-sense to a person who is still worried about vehicle-clogged roads, corrupt politicians and rising taxes. A change in the perception is what would make all the difference - The roads are vehicle clogged because people can afford cars now, the taxes are rising but so is the income but the lesser said about the politicians the better. When were they supposed to be clean anyway!
All these years of independence have not gone in vain afterall, the exuberance and dedication of the men and women who have been instrumental in bringing about this change is clearly evident from the results now. Team India is a force to reckon with, our education is considered one of the best and our religious tolerance despite being scarred continues to set an example for the global community.
Who are these people who have been working hard all this while, undeterred and consistent in their strive for a better India? The people to whom differences based on caste, community and race do not make sense.
My salute goes out to you my fellow countrymen, my brothers and sisters who have worked hard inspite of the setbacks and testing times.
On this occasion of India's yet another grand display of its democratic prowess, lets give ourselves a reason to cheer and root for the country we were born in. Jai Hind!
Saturday, February 7, 2009
Zionism and 'our' world
Before the rational human being inside you spurts out words like ‘racist, biased or bloody Palestinian supporter’, let me make this clear, no matter what happened back in the holocaust days, nothing justifies the Israeli massacre of civilians.
Now if my rigid stance and opinion is something you can live with, I would welcome you to be party to my opinion on the situation in the troubled Middle East.
Stumbling block, just the bare essentials of this problem are so messed up . To begin with, the gravity of the situation and the West’s seriousness can be gauged by the fact that they choose to call this region the ‘Middle East’, and everyone else follows suit. Geographically (and adding a portion of respect) it should be Central Asia, and not the ‘Middle East’. Anyway, for now, we’ll just consider it as a precedent that the west started and the world aped, so lets move on to the core issues and highlights of the manslaughter and victimization whining by both factions of the hostility.
Fellow inquisitive surfers, to quench your first bout of thirst, let me explain the concept of Zionism, the fundamental root cause of my unstoppable hatred towards them and the grey areas that point a finger at their existence itself.
For those of you who like to recline and take life as it comes, I would simply quote Wikipedia on this one. As per Wikipedia:
Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in the historic Land of Israel , later called Palestine, and continues primarily as support for the modern state of Israel. Zionism is partly based on strong historical ties and religious traditions linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, where the concept of Jewish nationhood first evolved somewhere between 1200 BCE and the late Second Temple era (i.e. up to 70 CE) The modern movement was mainly founded by secular Jews, beginning largely as a response by European Jewry to anti-Semitism across Europe. Zionism grew rapidly and, after the Holocaust, became the dominant Jewish political movement.
Since the first century CE most Jews have lived in exile, although there has been a constant presence of Jews in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel). According to Judaism, Eretz Israel, or Zion, is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible. After the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine, thus forming the Jewish diaspora.
Now wait a second, doesn’t this sound like something we read in a story book when we were 7 years old! A young prince was visited by god in his dreams, and then god told him that your kingdom lies in XYZ, go get it tiger!
The prince goes on with his followers and believers of his ‘vision’, hack the people of XYZ to death and then announce “this land was promised to us by god himself, its ours.”
To sum it all up, that’s how I look at Israel. A bunch of aggressive (Backed by the West, they can actually afford to be aggressive) Jews who would go to any extent to seek their ‘promised land’.
Well, enough said about the history and the concept of the land of olives ( hah! What an irony, OLIVES!)
The spat between the Arab world and the West is not new. Differences of race, religion , culture and global opinions have been long standing and will do so till the time the cost of life doesn’t become standard on both sides.
Strategically, the United States loves the concept of Israel. If I could have my younger brother living in the house of a neighbor who hates me, I would love it too!
So this is how the little game of “Kill Arabs and Condoleezza releases statements on TV” is played. The rules are straight…there aint no rules for Israel. That’s the first rule.
The second rule, disarm every single person in Palestine, starve them till they lose their frame of mind, and then kill their little children so that they throw rocks at you out of helplessness.
The ‘throwing rock’ part is extremely essential here, you need some footage on CNN to prove that they were killed because Israeli Forces (wearing bullet proof gear and carrying rifles) were under attack. Any other media would not be allowed and all information from the war zone filtered by the American-Israeli players of this annual sporting event.
Stumbling block 2. - Now isn’t the UN supposed to do something at this stage?
Well, the UN involves itself in the game and hangs a ‘Shoot Me’ banner on all of its buildings, since it buys them a genuine excuse to shrug their shoulders and say “See, they don’t even listen to us, we get shot at too”
What surprises and secures my admiration for our world leaders is their impeccable capability to kiss ass. Since Obama-Bush-Whoever the fuck Mr. President decides to silently observe and analyze the situation for weeks before claiming that there is ‘some tension’ in the Middle East, they all try to imitate the same and the world quietly switches television channels feeling helpless about those little children draped in white clothes. We don’t even have the IDF around here to throw rocks at!
Now just before you presume that I am a big Mel Gibson fan and I have the collector’s edition of ‘Passion of the Christ’ in my closet, I would bring out the dirty linen from the other side too.
The Arab world is a world of neatly padicured, soft gentlemen in their Maybachs and Bentleys who feel pained at the sight of the Palestinian misery.
So the rich, influential, and powerful Arab lobby decides to do something that makes a huge difference. They issue Statements. (for the uninitiated, pun intended here)
“The Arab world stands behind Palestine in this troubled time”
The key word here would be ‘behind’. They have the front row seats to the massacre game!!
The Jews all over the world start ranting their 60 year old crap about how they were subjected to genocide and how their grandparents were melted, burnt, tonsured, raped, whatever.
I’m not a holocaust denier, but neither am I in favor of repeating the damn thing a million times every single fuckin year since 1945. Romas, Ukranians, Polish, Homosexuals were killed during the holocaust too. Do you ever meet a Polish or Ukranian who whines and victimizes himself as much as the Jews do? (The whole world knows the kind of money Jews make, please stop the self pity, please.)
Now before you put your finger on your chin and start to take interest in this little piece of informative racism here, I would request you to do that math yourself.
Dig out a few Israeli Human Rights violations, let every Israeli know that the world hates them for what they do, express yourself and don’t just feel bad about that little dead Palestinian child on your newspaper website.
Im just the rain man, you bring the change to the weather yourself.
Support the right to live, support the right to fight when you get thrown out of your home, support the right to have children and see them grow, support the right to say ‘Allah ho Akbar’ as a praise of the almighty.
More concrete evidence towards zionist aggression can be studied at: ( DISTURBING IMAGES)
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine46.html
http://palsolidarity.org/2007/07/2467
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1-_JmXQt0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo59c7zU&feature=related
Take a stand now, spread the word.
May the Zionists seek the answer in peace. Shalom.
Now if my rigid stance and opinion is something you can live with, I would welcome you to be party to my opinion on the situation in the troubled Middle East.
Stumbling block, just the bare essentials of this problem are so messed up . To begin with, the gravity of the situation and the West’s seriousness can be gauged by the fact that they choose to call this region the ‘Middle East’, and everyone else follows suit. Geographically (and adding a portion of respect) it should be Central Asia, and not the ‘Middle East’. Anyway, for now, we’ll just consider it as a precedent that the west started and the world aped, so lets move on to the core issues and highlights of the manslaughter and victimization whining by both factions of the hostility.
Fellow inquisitive surfers, to quench your first bout of thirst, let me explain the concept of Zionism, the fundamental root cause of my unstoppable hatred towards them and the grey areas that point a finger at their existence itself.
For those of you who like to recline and take life as it comes, I would simply quote Wikipedia on this one. As per Wikipedia:
Zionism is an international political movement that originally supported the reestablishment of a homeland for the Jewish People in the historic Land of Israel , later called Palestine, and continues primarily as support for the modern state of Israel. Zionism is partly based on strong historical ties and religious traditions linking the Jewish people to the Land of Israel, where the concept of Jewish nationhood first evolved somewhere between 1200 BCE and the late Second Temple era (i.e. up to 70 CE) The modern movement was mainly founded by secular Jews, beginning largely as a response by European Jewry to anti-Semitism across Europe. Zionism grew rapidly and, after the Holocaust, became the dominant Jewish political movement.
Since the first century CE most Jews have lived in exile, although there has been a constant presence of Jews in the Land of Israel (Eretz Israel). According to Judaism, Eretz Israel, or Zion, is a land promised to the Jews by God according to the Bible. After the 2nd century Bar Kokhba revolt, the Romans expelled the Jews from Palestine, thus forming the Jewish diaspora.
Now wait a second, doesn’t this sound like something we read in a story book when we were 7 years old! A young prince was visited by god in his dreams, and then god told him that your kingdom lies in XYZ, go get it tiger!
The prince goes on with his followers and believers of his ‘vision’, hack the people of XYZ to death and then announce “this land was promised to us by god himself, its ours.”
To sum it all up, that’s how I look at Israel. A bunch of aggressive (Backed by the West, they can actually afford to be aggressive) Jews who would go to any extent to seek their ‘promised land’.
Well, enough said about the history and the concept of the land of olives ( hah! What an irony, OLIVES!)
The spat between the Arab world and the West is not new. Differences of race, religion , culture and global opinions have been long standing and will do so till the time the cost of life doesn’t become standard on both sides.
Strategically, the United States loves the concept of Israel. If I could have my younger brother living in the house of a neighbor who hates me, I would love it too!
So this is how the little game of “Kill Arabs and Condoleezza releases statements on TV” is played. The rules are straight…there aint no rules for Israel. That’s the first rule.
The second rule, disarm every single person in Palestine, starve them till they lose their frame of mind, and then kill their little children so that they throw rocks at you out of helplessness.
The ‘throwing rock’ part is extremely essential here, you need some footage on CNN to prove that they were killed because Israeli Forces (wearing bullet proof gear and carrying rifles) were under attack. Any other media would not be allowed and all information from the war zone filtered by the American-Israeli players of this annual sporting event.
Stumbling block 2. - Now isn’t the UN supposed to do something at this stage?
Well, the UN involves itself in the game and hangs a ‘Shoot Me’ banner on all of its buildings, since it buys them a genuine excuse to shrug their shoulders and say “See, they don’t even listen to us, we get shot at too”
What surprises and secures my admiration for our world leaders is their impeccable capability to kiss ass. Since Obama-Bush-Whoever the fuck Mr. President decides to silently observe and analyze the situation for weeks before claiming that there is ‘some tension’ in the Middle East, they all try to imitate the same and the world quietly switches television channels feeling helpless about those little children draped in white clothes. We don’t even have the IDF around here to throw rocks at!
Now just before you presume that I am a big Mel Gibson fan and I have the collector’s edition of ‘Passion of the Christ’ in my closet, I would bring out the dirty linen from the other side too.
The Arab world is a world of neatly padicured, soft gentlemen in their Maybachs and Bentleys who feel pained at the sight of the Palestinian misery.
So the rich, influential, and powerful Arab lobby decides to do something that makes a huge difference. They issue Statements. (for the uninitiated, pun intended here)
“The Arab world stands behind Palestine in this troubled time”
The key word here would be ‘behind’. They have the front row seats to the massacre game!!
The Jews all over the world start ranting their 60 year old crap about how they were subjected to genocide and how their grandparents were melted, burnt, tonsured, raped, whatever.
I’m not a holocaust denier, but neither am I in favor of repeating the damn thing a million times every single fuckin year since 1945. Romas, Ukranians, Polish, Homosexuals were killed during the holocaust too. Do you ever meet a Polish or Ukranian who whines and victimizes himself as much as the Jews do? (The whole world knows the kind of money Jews make, please stop the self pity, please.)
Now before you put your finger on your chin and start to take interest in this little piece of informative racism here, I would request you to do that math yourself.
Dig out a few Israeli Human Rights violations, let every Israeli know that the world hates them for what they do, express yourself and don’t just feel bad about that little dead Palestinian child on your newspaper website.
Im just the rain man, you bring the change to the weather yourself.
Support the right to live, support the right to fight when you get thrown out of your home, support the right to have children and see them grow, support the right to say ‘Allah ho Akbar’ as a praise of the almighty.
More concrete evidence towards zionist aggression can be studied at: ( DISTURBING IMAGES)
http://www.revisionisthistory.org/palestine46.html
http://palsolidarity.org/2007/07/2467
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tW1-_JmXQt0
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l0aEo59c7zU&feature=related
Take a stand now, spread the word.
May the Zionists seek the answer in peace. Shalom.
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