The Boring Hypocrisy of Knee-Jerk Outrage

Recently I met an old and dear friend for coffee. We got chatting about life and loves. Coming off of a bad break up, he announced to me that he’s taken marriage off the table for himself for the near and foreseeable future. He then proceeded to ask me to introduce him to some cute “fast” girls who wouldn’t mind just, you know, having a good time. I bristled at the suggestion and curtly told him I’m not really a pimp and find it hard to be complicit in his characterization of some women as such. He thought I was being such a bore. This isn’t the first time I’ve heard well-educated, well-travelled and seemingly liberal male friends or acquaintances make such disturbing remarks. And its not men alone. I often find women to be great supporters of these ideas. Not too long ago I was having dinner with a few close friends and the discussion turned to strippers and bachelor parties. The women on the table were the loudest in support of strip clubs, about how they have frequented them and how it’s a “choice” women should be free to make. When another friend made a few valid points about how anti-feminist they were, she was promptly made fun of. Of course all these women were "cool, liberal chics"! I have also heard a lot of women say how they are not feminists or political in a cute, coy way. Something to suggest that they are not one of “those” women… (as in your head wont hurt talking to me). I’d love to find out how these women would feel if they lost the privileges they enjoy as successful women in a liberal society entirely due to the strides made by feminists and political activitists over the years. Well here I go giving everyone a headache again. Now if something as sickening as the recent rape in Delhi takes place, I have full faith in these very people to wake up and shout themselves hoarse in protest. I’m aware that my examples don’t seem egregious or devastating. But attitudes matter. At all times. These light comments and attitudes are insidious and the fact that they happen amongst an educated strata of folks is a cause for concern. How are we to expect any progress in turning societal attitudes if these notions persist?! Women ought to be respected at all levels, at all times and one does not have to be confronted with an epic incident to have a political consciousness about it. So you may be a bore because you cant join in the joke of calling someone a slut, but be rest assured that you are consistent.

cosmo and the taliban

On facebook, a friend posted what I'm assuming is a satirical Cosmo cover of a veiled Taliban woman. In her tag with the image, the friend expressed what we're all thinking, "truly racist and trashy but a little bit funny." While there have been similar horribly mean-spirited stereotypes passing off as satire in the past, I have been trying to figure out what is the fine line that this pink cover is treading that makes you complicit in a guilty laugh. For example, here below is yet another Cosmo-based satire about the Taliban:

This above "cover" is a good starting point to understand the difference between the black&white one and the color one. The Cosmotaliban is focused only on a demeaning depiction of a women under Taliban rule - they don't speak, Muslim fashion is dull and "same old" and the worst of it, the allusion that this woman enjoys and submits to the "5 favorite unequal treatments." There is nothing funny about this because its primary intention is to be nasty to the woman. 

Meanwhile the pink Cosmo cover is able to really poke fun at the Cosmopolitan brand itself. If you look at the Fergie cover, you see the typical issues Cosmo aspires for western women to be interested in - how to make your man happy in bed, how to lose weight (but without much effort), that most pressing question, "why is love harder in the winter" and how to be stressed out without being a bitch (cos god forbid a woman expresses anger or aggression). And then the most popular type of feature - "what is the guy really thinking?" and in this particular research breakthrough "what his hug reveals." The Cosmo about Taliban is able to hone in on these particular cheap preoccupations of the actual magazine. While completely adhering to every possible racist, rude stereotype of Taliban (guns, hostages, stoning, child marriage) it still manages to express it in the utterly flakey, sex-obsessed, heteronormative language of Cosmopolitan - the kind that seeks to empower women while mainly being concerned with making slaves of male agendas and of course, of consumerism. 

What do you all think? Weigh in with your comments below...

poems for palestine

by Pedram Harby

Palestine made its bid for statehood at the United Nations today. While Abbas' tight half-smile reflected his years of fatigue with the situation, the standing ovations and the rapturous applauses to Abbas' speech affirmed that an international community stand behind him even though our now officially Israeli President Obama makes an aggressive move to veto Palestine's right to recognition. On an emotional day, lets reflect on some poems from, about and for Palestine....

We fear for a dream by Mahmoud Darwish
We fear for a dream: don't believe our butterflies.
Believe our sacrifices if you like, believe the compass of a horse, our need for the north.
We have raised the beaks of our souls to you. Give us a grain of wheat, our dream. Give it, give it to us.
We have offered you the shores since the coming to the earth born of an idea or of the adultery of two waves on a rock in the sand.
Nothing. Nothing. We float on a foot of air. The air breaks up within ourselves.
We know you have abandoned us, built for us prisons and called them the paradise of oranges.
We go on dreaming. Oh, desired dream. We steal our days from those extolled by our myths.
We fear for you, we're afraid of you. We are exposed together, you shouldn't believe our wives' patience.
They will weave two dresses, then sell the bones of the loved ones to buy a glass of milk for our children.
We fear for a dream, from him, from ourselves. We go on dreaming, oh dream of ours. Don't believe our butterflies.

storm in a tomato soup can!

After spending much time rooting for fasting impresario Anna Hazare, urban Indians have found another food related event to controvert. A Valencian festival called La Tomatina is being hosted in Bangalore where tomato pelting will synchronize with hot DJ spins. This has enraged some conscientious Indian youth who are busy signing petitions and calling for boycotts against this fairly silly event, as they refuse to "ape the West." Not only do I find this to be a laughable lament for an urban Indian, I want to add that the inspiration for this event is the recently celebrated Bollywood flick that is largely the Indian yuppie's homage to foreign holidaying, in that case, in Spain. I am not in any way supporting the idea that one must be anything but repulsed by hip, food-wasting events in poor India. But what about all those Hindu rituals of pouring milk over deities, or throwing rice at weddings or other celebrations. I somehow don't think one can exempt those occurrences from the same argument. It also makes me fairly irritable that people are quick to denounce the Western corruption of the Indian goodness. Lets not waste food, I agree. But let's protest that with some self-awareness please!

9/11 and aftermaths: mishra tells it like it is

I will let Pankaj Mishra do all the talking through this truly excellent piece on 9/11 and its violent aftermaths. It comes under the guise of a review of Jason Burke's book, "The 9/11 Wars." If you don't have time to read the entire article, below are some quotations that will give you plenty of food for thought:

"The sense of mad overkill, intellectual as well as military, grows more oppressive when you realise that, though al-Qaida murdered many people on 9/11 and undermined American self-esteem, the capacity of a few homicidal fanatics to seriously harm a large and powerful country such as the US was always limited. There is nothing surprising about their spectacular lack of success in rousing Muslim masses anywhere (as distinct from inciting a few no-hopers into suicidal terrorism). Their fantasy of a universal caliphate was always more likely to provoke fierce Muslim resistance than the globalising project of the west. Over-reaction to al-Qaida was by far the bigger danger to the west throughout the last decade; and, as it happened, groups of rootless conspirators, initially cultishly small and marginal, quickly proliferated around the world as a direct result of western military and ideological excesses after 9/11."

Pankaj Mishra

"The wars for which a small group of people in the west, essentially members of the military and their families, bore a disproportionate sacrifice were largely invisible to the rest. Unlike in the 1960s, the anti-war movement failed to animate political life; and there wasn't even a significant countervailing "support-the-troops" attempt at civic patriotism. "Why should we hear about body bags and deaths?" Barbara Bush, mother of George W, exasperatedly asked. "Why should I waste my beautiful mind on something like that?" Why indeed? The wars were kept invisible by such willed ignorance as well as governments eager not to advertise their high costs."

who writes? kashmir, 9/11 and literature

http://minutestocountdown.
deviantart.com/art/Blood-Ink-88568767

Literature is often a place of war. As a space for heated political contestation, it always offers the clearest possible insights into any realm of conflict. Two stories recently highlighted the enormity of the act of writing. Kashmir was preparing to host its first literary festival titled Harud and the website made its simplistic, "apolitical" agendas pretty clear - the emphasis on local writing, the evocation of a rich literary tradition and a way to celebrate "free speech." But after widespread protests and boycotts, they were forced to cancel the scheduled event. The opposing group of writers were shocked at the absurdity of an "apolitical" event in a place racked by repression, brutality, draconian laws, human rights violations and the lack of the most basic freedoms. In a joint letter, the group states: "We fear, therefore, that holding such a festival would, willy-nilly, dovetail with the state’s concerted attempt to portray that all is normal in Kashmir. Even as the reality on the ground is one of utter abnormality and a state of acute militarization and suppression of dissent, rights and freedoms." In light of this, the festival's focus on themes like "silenced voices" and "jail diaries" appeared nothing but trite. The whole issue also reinforced the fact that festivals which by virtue of their existence want to celebrate a flowering of literature and arts are often political tools to emphasize freedom and normalcy in places torn by violence and oppression.

Elsewhere, revealing a completely different mindset, BBC ran a piece about which novel best reflects the decade in the aftermath of 9/11. A chart showed that 1433 non-fiction works, 164 fiction and 145 juvenile works have been published that somehow depict the tragedy. While the writers from Kashmir wanted a deliberate, carefully thought-out process that would encapsulate the reality of Kashmir and its horrifying, violent history, the BBC story captured the rush to represent and solidify the event within the collective consciousness. Even though the comparison between the two may seem abrupt, what struck me was the fact that here are two different places contemplating the aftermaths of something very tragic and violent, yet, one story is so light and unfettered while the other is completely burdened by the very act of representation.

The BBC article also fails to grasp that while 9/11 may have happened in New York, the long term effects of it are also being felt in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo and every other site of rendition, torture and other American atrocities in the name of a global war on terror. The exclusion of those stories also speaks volumes when it comes to the breezy light-hearted tone of the 9/11 article. The issue here is, of course, the shameless commercialism and consumerism attached to any event, big or small. That is the frame from which the article emerges and it focuses only on the bestseller English-language novels about 9/11 and leaves out almost everything else. If there is a true attempt to understand the history of the 9/11 aftermaths, there will be very different questions asked and articles like this one by will only serve to make us cringe.

power of stories

After much cringing, below is something to make our hearts warm and proud. It is an old speech but still resonates with me everytime I listen to it. The immensely talented Chimamanda cautions us about the single story and its consequences so eloquently and beautifully that one cant help but fall in love with her. That is, if one hasnt already after reading her novels. 

pure bullshit of pregnancy tourism!

This astounding story showcases, in a single sweep, so many things that are wrong with the world; racism, poverty, ignorance, raping an indigenous people.. the list can go on. Without doubt, the idea of the pregnancy tourist seeking a racially pure seed is primitive and disgusting. But we have heard of the white American couple desiring adoption or surrogacy that leafs through a catalogue for the blond, Ivy-leagued, so-called superior sperm. So how is this any different?! What makes this phenomenon more egregious I imagine is the hark back to colonial plundering, the holocaust or other past racism of epic proportions. Circa 2011. Just want to say, I feel very sharminda.