Hindutva versus Hinduism

by

SARAL JHINGRAN

Hinduism is the most difficult religion to define as it does not have a Book, a prophet or a common creed. Consequently, both its supporters and critics can take up any one of its various aspects and present a conception of it that is nowhere near the reality. This is exactly what is being done by the protagonists of Hindutva.

First, let us take up the conception of Rama. They project Rama as the sole Deity of Hinduism, a symbol not only of Hinduism, but of nationalism. This is a fantastic assertion. Rama cannot be a symbol of nationalism, because religious faith and nationalism belong to two entirely different conceptual frameworks. Nationalism is a modern conception and is territorial and political in its connotation. Religious faith is a matter of heart, or soul if you wish, and is not related to territory or political sovereignty. More importantly, Rama could not be a symbol of Hinduism even, as the latter has so many gods, and Rama is but one of them, and that too a later entrant in the Hindu pantheon. If at all the votaries of Hindutva want to establish the historicity of Rama, they must depend on Valmiki’s Ramayana; and there is no suggestion of Rama’s divinity therein. It is in Tulsidas’s Ramacharita Manas that Rama is declared divine. But this was written approximately one and a half millennia after Valmiki’s Ramayana and cannot be cited to prove Rama’s historicity.

Second, granting that Rama is probably a historical figure in view of the depth of feelings for his story; also granting that Rama was born in Ayodhya, it is hard to believe that the exact spot of Rama’s birth can be pinpointed with accuracy. The declaration that the spot at which Rama was born is determined by faith is stretching the meaning of faith. Here it should be remembered that the greatest difference between Hinduism and the Semitic religions is that, unlike the latter, Hinduism has no historical beginning. If tomorrow, it could be proved that there was no historical Jesus Christ, Christianity would be destroyed. But if it were to proved that Krishna was not a historical person, it would not diminish the Gita’s authenticity. The same holds true for Rama. Hinduism is Sanatan dharma, marked by its content, attitudes and values, and not by its historicity.

Thirdly, the Hindutva people have destroyed the conception of Rama which the Hindus have worshipped through the ages. Rama is maryada purushottam, the embodiment of all Aryan virtues. An extreme dedication to duty, respect for elders, affection for juniors, compassion for all and peace (shanti) characterise him. He hardly ever gets angry and is unwilling to attack anybody unless absolutely necessary. His idols have traditionally portrayed Rama in shanta or abhaya mudra — with the right hand raised in a gesture of blessing and a beatific smile on his face. Also, traditionally, Rama, like Krishna, is never worshipped alone but always with his consort. The Rama of Hindutva stands alone, with bow held aloft, ready for aggression. Both innovations go against the traditional conception of Rama.

Fourthly, there is hardly anything common between traditional Hinduism and Hindutva. Traditional Hinduism worships many gods, and declares that all Gods are but different names of one Supreme Divine Reality. But the ideology of Hindutva seems to declare that there is but one God called Rama, who is the symbol of both Hindusim and Indian nationalism. The core of traditional Hinduism is religious toleration and even ahimsa which, though borrowed from heterodox sects, has been so internalised by Hinduism that it can be safely assumed as belonging to the core of Hinduism. In contrast, Hindutva’s central message is aggression and destruction of enemies, real or imagined.

Fifthly, Hindutva has distorted the meaning of religious symbols. The project of distributing trishuls is an example. That Shiva has been portrayed holding a trishul does not mean that every Hindu should carry one. Vishnu is portrayed as carrying four things in his hands—shanka, chakra, gada, padma, Rama carries a bow and arrow, and Kali is supposed wear a garland of skulls. Does it mean that a Hindu should carry these things?

The Hindutva people have randomly picked varied elements from all these traditions to project Hinduism as an aggressive religion, without learning about the intrinsic characters of their Gods. Rama is God of righteousness, compassion; Krishna of Vrindavan is a God of love; Krishna teaches one to do one’s duty selflessly; and Shiva is declared Hole nath, a simple-hearted God who is easily appeased. None of this holds value for the Hindutva lot.

Hindutva is an attempt at semitising Hindusim. The uniqueness of Hinduism lay in its extreme liberalness, toleration and vision of one Divine Reality residing in all. By trying to project Hinduism as a self-assertive, aggressive, and strictly monotheistic religion, Hindutva could destroy it.

(Indian Express, 31 October 2003, Chandigarh)

It's a Danger Signal

This Year, Contractor Deaths Exceed Military Ones in Iraq and Afghanistan

Thursday 23 September 2010

by: T. Christian Miller  

Eyrnis security personnel, contracted to provide security for the US Army Corps of Engineers in Iraq, pose at the Baghdad parade field. (Photo: jamesdale10 / WikiMedia)

Labor Department figures show that more than 44,000 contractors have reported injuries since 2001, compared to about 40,000 U.S. troops. The figures are not entirely comparable, since contractor injuries include minor workplace injuries.

More private contractors than soldiers were killed in Iraq and Afghanistan in recent months, the first time in history that corporate casualties have outweighed military losses on America’s battlefields.

More than 250 civilians working under U.S. contracts died in the war zones between January and June 2010, according to a ProPublica analysis of the most recent data available from the U.S. Department of Labor, which tracks contractor deaths. In the same period, 235 soldiers died, according to Pentagon figures.

This milestone in the privatization of modern U.S. warfare reflects both the drawdown in military forces in Iraq and the central role of contractors in providing logistics support to local armies and police forces, contracting and military experts said.

Steven Schooner, a professor of government contracting at George Washington University Law School, said that the contractor deaths show how the risks of war have increasingly been absorbed by the private sector. Private contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan provide fuel, food and protective services to U.S. outposts — jobs once performed by soldiers.

“It’s extremely likely that a generation ago, each one of these contractors deaths would have been a military death,” Schooner said. “As troop deaths have fallen, contractor deaths have risen. It's not a pretty picture.”

Schooner, who conducted a recent study of contractor fatalities published in Service Contractor (PDF), an industry newsletter, said contractors now make up more than 25 percent of total deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan — a proportion that has grown steadily throughout the conflicts. Official figures show that 5,531 troops and 2,008 civilian contract workers have died in Iraq and Afghanistan between the beginning of hostilities in 2001 and June 2010.

Many working under U.S. contracts are local civilians, often working as translators for troops, or are hired from third world countries to do basic labor, such as cleaning kitchens and toilets.

Previous ProPublica stories have noted that companies employing such workers often fail to report their deaths and injuries to the Labor Department, as required by law. Government figures likely understate the total number civilian contractor deaths.

The rising fatalities have received little public attention, concealing the full human cost of the war, Schooner said. When President Obama spoke of troop deaths in Afghanistan earlier this month, he made no mention of fatalities among the private workforce that feeds and fuels U.S. forces.

“I'm not accusing either the Bush or the Obama administration of intentionally deceiving the public,” Schooner said. “But when a president applauds a reduction in military deaths but fails to acknowledge the contractor personnel now dying in their place, someone isn't telling the whole story.”

The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are the most privatized in American military history. Today, there are 150,000 troops in Afghanistan and Iraq. As of March 2010, there were more than 200,000 private contractors, though that number is believed to have declined with the drawdown of U.S. forces.

Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced a plan last month to sharply reduce the number of contractors, saying the Pentagon has become overly dependent on private workers to carry out jobs once done by soldiers.

A recent Congressional Research Service report (PDF) found that the heavy use of contractors had exposed troops to supply shortfalls, wasted taxpayer money, and stirred anger among locals. In several high-profile incidents, heavily armed private security contractors have killed unarmed Iraqi and Afghan civilians.

“Some analysts believe that poor contract management has also played a role in abuses and crimes committed by certain contractors against local nationals, which may have undermined U.S. counterinsurgency efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan,” the report found.

Marcie Hascall Clark, an advocate for contract workers, said that contractor deaths and injuries reflected contractors’ importance in fighting the wars.

Labor Department figures show that more than 44,000 contractors have reported injuries since 2001, compared to about 40,000 U.S. troops. The figures are not entirely comparable, since contractor injuries include minor workplace injuries.

“I don’t think most contractors expect to be treated as nobly as our soldiers, but they don’t expect to be forgotten, either,” said Hascall Clark, who runs a group called American Contractors in Iraq and Afghanistan. “I think there should definitely be some recognition of what they do.”

We are Dirt Poor of India

C'mon, Time To Re-Brand Your Life!

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By John Pilger

Friday, September 17, 2010

In India, a similar re-branding is under way for next month’s Commonwealth Games. In the country that has most of the world’s malnourished children, the capital Delhi has been re-branded a “world class city” at a cost of $2.5 billion. A school for 180 slum children has been bulldozed so that a vast estate of luxury apartments can be built for visiting athletes. “They told us we were a security threat so we had to go,” said the headteacher.




The year before England won the 1966 World Cup, I interviewed its captain, Bobby Moore. Having not long arrived from the antipodes, where “soccer” was a minority sport beloved by Italians and Croats, I did not have a clue about the game. Nevertheless I had been assigned to write a “human interest” piece on the West Ham star by the same convivial assistant editor who had hired me believing I could play cricket, because I was Australian, and so assist the Daily Mirror team in its grudge match against the Express. I could swim and row and had done time in a rugby scrum, but cricket, no. (He forgave me). I met Bobby Moore outside West Ham tube station, and we walked round the corner to a greasy spoon that was filled with Woodbine fug. People beamed and shook his hand, reinforcing my impression of a gracious, modest man. Here was a star in every sense – talent, looks, fame – and yet he seemed genuinely surprised by the fuss. In the queue for tea and coffee he patiently engaged an elderly fan who was hard of hearing. When I unwisely feigned knowledge of the game, he let me down gently. As we parted, he said, “Look, this is a bit embarrassing, but I’ve got this agent and he’s asked me to ask for 50 quid for the interview.” I said I would pass it on to my editor; I don’t know if he was paid, and I doubt if he cared.

I remembered Bobby Moore when I read about another sporting star, Lleyton Hewitt, the Australian tennis seed and famous air-puncher. For all his classy, often tireless play, Hewitt’s behaviour on court has always been difficult to watch, because he gives the impression only he matters. His aggressive “C’mon!” and fist pumping are his trademark, literally. He is not merely a tennis player; he is Brand Hewitt, which is owned by Lleyton Hewitt Marketing Pty Ltd which owns the rights to two “C’mon” logos.

Lleyton Hewitt Marketing, or LHM, recently suffered a defeat against a sports fan in Australia, Josh Shiels, who since 2004 has used “Come-on” to promote his struggling sportswear business. In a statement, LHM says that it has no problem with other parties owning trademarks incorporating “C’mon” and “Come on”; however, having been “threatened” by Shiels and asked to “surrender” its own trademarks, it requested that the Trade Marks Office cancel one registered to Shiels on the basis that he failed to use it.

At an intellectual property hearing in Canberra, Shiels said that his wife and daughters had designed the logo and his business had sold “about 10 shirts”. He pointed out that “come-on” had been a popular catch cry in Australia since world series cricket began in the 1970s; there was even a song. The hearing officer decided that, however meagre Shiels’s business, he had the right to make use of the words. Shiels is left fearing he will face a re-match.

The stark contrast between Bobby Moore and Brand Hewitt is telling because it represents what has been lost and is a reminder of the ubiquitous nature of extreme corporatism. It seems that no idea, no event, no talent, no personality, no resource of nature has value unless it is owned and branded. When the public water supply of Bolivia’s second city, Cochabamba, was sold off to a foreign consortium, rainwater was included. The clouds became the property of multinationals – until the people fought back, and won. 

The pursuit of profit in sport seems unrelenting. Having said goodbye to foreign sports writers and their platitudinous eulogies for the “rainbow nation”, the South African treasury reckons it put $5 billion into the World Cup while corporate sponsors took home more than $4 billion in tax-free profits. All those corporate parties, free tickets, kickbacks and other “gifts” merely indulged a post-apartheid elite which presides over the most inequitable society on earth. Since 2008, during the feverish building of stadiums, several of them unnecessary, more than a million people lost their jobs. In the wake of the World Cup, 1.3 million public sector workers have struck for a living wage. The South African police now have paramilitary powers comparable with the apartheid era. A new Protection of Information Bill before parliament will conceal the corruption of the ruling African National Congress “wabenzi” (identifiable by their large silver Mercedes). “If journalists have to be fired [or go to prison], because they don’t contribute to the South Africa we want,” said the ANC spokesman, “let it be.”

In India, a similar re-branding is under way for next month’s Commonwealth Games. In the country that has most of the world’s malnourished children, the capital Delhi has been re-branded a “world class city” at a cost of $2.5 billion. A school for 180 slum children has been bulldozed so that a vast estate of luxury apartments can be built for visiting athletes. “They told us we were a security threat so we had to go,” said the headteacher. “All my children were crying.” It is one of many demolitions; over 100,000 families have been evicted to make way for “security zones” around the Games and facilities that will mostly benefit India’s small but powerful managerial and technocratic class who, besotted with all things corporate, prefer not to be reminded that 77 per cent of their compatriots are dirt poor. 

Corporate sport has enriched Rupert Murdoch, corrupted cricket and much of football, subverted numerous other play and appropriated the Olympics and similar spectacles. Its language is that of business schools, PR companies, consultancies and banks. Its “philosophy” is that everything is for sale and monopoly rules. Just wear the logo, pump your fist and bellow, “C’mon!”

Beyond Violence And Non-Violence

Resistance As A Culture

By Ramzy Baroud

Resistance is not a band of armed men hell-bent on wreaking havoc. It is not a cell of terrorists scheming ways to detonate buildings.

True resistance is a culture.

It is a collective retort to oppression.

Understanding the real nature of resistance, however, is not easy. No newsbyte could be thorough enough to explain why people, as a people, resist. Even if such an arduous task was possible, the news might not want to convey it, as it would directly clash with mainstream interpretations of violence and non-violent resistance. The Afghanistan story must remain committed to the same language: al-Qaeda and the Taliban. Lebanon must be represented in terms of a menacing Iran-backed Hizbullah. Palestine's Hamas must be forever shown as a militant group sworn to the destruction of the Jewish state. Any attempt at offering an alternative reading is tantamount to sympathizing with terrorists and justifying violence. 

The deliberate conflation and misuse of terminology has made it almost impossible to understand, and thus to actually resolve bloody conflicts.

Even those who purport to sympathize with resisting nations often contribute to the confusion. Activists from Western countries tend to follow an academic comprehension of what is happening in Palestine, Iraq, Lebanon, and Afghanistan. Thus certain ideas are perpetuated: suicide bombings bad, non-violent resistance good; Hamas rockets bad, slingshots good; armed resistance bad, vigils in front of Red Cross offices good. Many activists will quote Martin Luther King Jr., but not Malcolm X. They will infuse a selective understanding of Gandhi, but never of Guevara. This supposedly ‘strategic' discourse has robbed many of what could be a precious understanding of resistance - as both concept and culture.

Between the reductionst mainstream understanding of resistance as violent and terrorist and the ‘alternative' defacing of an inspiring and compelling cultural experience, resistance as a culture is lost. The two overriding definitions offer no more than narrow depictions. Both render those attempting to relay the viewpoint of the resisting culture as almost always on the defensive. Thus we repeatedly hear the same statements: no, we are not terrorists; no, we are not violent, we actually have a rich culture of non-violent resistance; no, Hamas is not affiliated with al-Qaeda; no, Hizbullah is not an Iranian agent. Ironically, Israeli writers, intellectuals and academicians own up to much less than their Palestinian counterparts, although the former tend to defend aggression and the latter defend, or at least try to explain their resistance to aggression. Also ironic is the fact that instead of seeking to understand why people resist, many wish to debate about how to suppress their resistance.

By resistance as a culture, I am referencing Edward Said's elucidation of "culture (as) a way of fighting against extinction and obliteration." When cultures resist, they don't scheme and play politics. Nor do they sadistically brutalize. Their decisions as to whether to engage in armed struggle or to employ non-violent methods, whether to target civilians or not, whether to conspire with foreign elements or not are all purely strategic. They are hardly of direct relevance to the concept or resistance itself. Mixing between the two suggests is manipulative or plain ignorant.

If resistance is "the action of opposing something that you disapprove or disagree with", then a culture of resistance is what occurs when an entire culture reaches this collective decision to oppose that disagreeable element - often a foreign occupation. The decision is not a calculated one. It is engendered through a long process in which self-awareness, self-assertion, tradition, collective experiences, symbols and many more factors interact in specific ways. This might be new to the wealth of that culture's past experiences, but it is very much an internal process. 

It's almost like a chemical reaction, but even more complex since it isn't always easy to separate its elements. Thus it is also not easy to fully comprehend, and, in the case of an invading army, it is not easily suppressed. This is how I tried to explain the first Palestinian uprising of 1987, which I lived in its entirely in Gaza:

"It's not easy to isolate specific dates and events that spark popular revolutions. Genuine collective rebellion cannot be rationalized though a coherent line of logic that elapses time and space; its rather a culmination of experiences that unite the individual to the collective, their conscious and subconscious, their relationships with their immediate surroundings and with that which is not so immediate, all colliding and exploding into a fury that cannot be suppressed." (My Father Was A Freedom Fighter: Gaza's Untold Story)

Foreign occupiers tend to fight popular resistance through several means. One includes a varied amount of violence aiming to disorient, destroy and rebuild a nation to any desired image (read Naomi Klein's The Shock Doctrine). Another strategy is to weaken the very components that give a culture its unique identity and inner strengths - and thus defuse the culture's ability to resist. The former requires firepower, while the latter can be achieved through soft means of control. Many ‘third world' nations that boast of their sovereignty and independence might in fact be very much occupied, but due to their fragmented and overpowered cultures - through globalization, for example - they are unable to comprehend the extent of their tragedy and dependency. Others, who might effectively be occupied, often possess a culture of resistance that makes it impossible for their occupiers to achieve any of their desired objectives.

In Gaza, Palestine, while the media speaks endlessly of rockets and Israeli security, and debates who is really responsible for holding Palestinians in the strip hostage, no heed is paid to the little children living in tents by the ruins of homes they lost in the latest Israeli onslaught. These kids participate in the same culture of resistance that Gaza has witnessed over the course of six decades. In their notebooks they draw fighters with guns, kids with slingshots, women with flags, as well as menacing Israeli tanks and warplanes, graves dotted with the word ‘martyr', and destroyed homes. Throughout, the word ‘victory' is persistently used.

When I was in Iraq, I witnessed a local version of these kids' drawings. And while I have yet to see Afghani children's scrapbooks, I can easily imagine their content too.

Ramzy Baroud (www.ramzybaroud.net) is an author and editor of PalestineChronicle.com. 

From : Countercurrents.org

Losing in Afghanistan

By Marjorie Cohn

Last week, the House of Representatives voted 215-210 for $33 billion to fund Barack Obama’s troop increase in Afghanistan. But there was considerable opposition to giving the President a blank check. One hundred sixty-two House members supported an amendment that would have tied the funding to a withdrawal timetable. One hundred members voted for another amendment that would have rejected the $33 billion for the 30,000 new troops already on their way to Afghanistan; that amendment would have required that the money be spent to redeploy our troops out of Afghanistan. Democrats voting for the second amendment included House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and nine Republicans. Both amendments failed to pass.

The new appropriation is in addition to the $130 billion Congress has already approved for Iraq and Afghanistan this year. And the 2010 Pentagon budget is $693 billion, more than all other discretionary spending programs combined.

Our economic crisis is directly tied to the cost of the war. We are in desperate need of money for education and health care. The $1 million per year it costs to maintain a single soldier in Afghanistan could pay for 20 green jobs.

Not only is the war bankrupting us, it has come at a tragic cost in lives. June was the deadliest month for U.S. troops in Afghanistan. In addition to the 1,149 American soldiers killed in Afghanistan, untold numbers of Afghan civilians have died from the war - untold because the Defense Department refuses to maintain statistics of anyone except U.S. personnel. After all, Donald Rumsfeld quipped in 2005, “death has a tendency to encourage a depressing view of war.”

There are other “depressing” aspects of this war as well. As Gen. Stanley McChrystal reported just days before he got the axe, there is a “resilient and growing insurgency” with high levels of violence and corruption within the Karzai government. McChrystal’s remarks were considered “off message” by the White House, which was also irked by the general’s criticisms of Obama officials in a Rolling Stone article. McChrystal believes that you can’t kill your way out of Afghanistan. “The Russians killed 1 million Afghans and that didn’t work.”

He and his successor, Gen. David Petraeus, likely disagree on the need to prevent civilian casualties (known as “Civ Cas”). McChrystal instituted some of the most stringent rules of engagement the U.S. military has had in a war zone: “Patrol only in areas that you are reasonably certain that you will not have to defend yourselves with lethal force.” Commanders cannot fire on buildings or other places if they have reason to believe civilians might be present unless their own forces are in imminent danger of being overrun. And they must end engagements and withdraw rather than risk harming noncombatants. McChrystal knows that for every innocent person you kill, you create new enemies; he calls it “insurgent math.” According to the Los Angeles Times, McChrystal “was credited with bringing about a substantial drop in the proportion of civilian casualties suffered at the hands of NATO’s International Security Assistance Force and its Afghan allies.”

While testifying in Congress before he was confirmed to take McChrystal’s place, Petraeus told senators that some U.S. soldiers had complained about the former’s rules of engagement aimed at preventing civilian casualties.

According to the Rolling Stone article, Obama capitulated to McChrystal’s insistence that more troops were needed in Afghanistan. In his December 1 speech at West Point, the article says, “the president laid out all the reasons why fighting the war in Afghanistan is a bad idea: It’s expensive; we’re in an economic crisis; a decade-long commitment would sap American power; Al Qaeda has shifted its base of operations to Pakistan. Then,” the article continued, “without ever using the words ‘victory’ or ‘win,’ Obama announced that he would send an additional 30,000 troops to Afghanistan, almost as many as McChrystal had requested.”

Both Obama and Petraeus no longer speak of “victory” over the Taliban; they both hold open the possibility of settlement with the Taliban. Indeed, Maj. Gen. Bill Mayville, chief of operations for McChrystal, told Rolling Stone, “It’s not going to look like a win, smell like a win or taste like a win.”

The majority of Americans now oppose the war in Afghanistan. Fareed Zakaria had some harsh words for the war on his CNN show, saying that “the whole enterprise in Afghanistan feels disproportionate, a very expensive solution to what is turning out to be a small but real problem.” Noting that CIA director Leon Panetta admitted that the number of Al Qaeda left in Afghanistan may be 50 to 100, Zakaria asked, “why are we fighting a major war” there? “Last month alone there were more than 100 NATO troops killed in Afghanistan,” he said. “That’s more than one allied death for each living Al Qaeda member in the country in just one month.” Citing estimates that the war will cost more than $100 billion in 2010 alone, Zakaria observed, “That’s a billion dollars for every member of Al Qaeda thought to be living in Afghanistan in one year.” He queried, “Why are we investing so much time, energy, and effort when Al Qaeda is so weak?” And Zakaria responded to the argument that we should continue fighting the Taliban because they are allied with Al Qaeda by saying, “this would be like fighting Italy in World War II after Hitler’s regime had collapsed and Berlin was in flames just because Italy had been allied with Germany.”

There is also division in the Republican ranks over the war. Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele made some gutsy comments about the war in Afghanistan, saying it is not winnable and calling it a “war of Obama’s choosing.” (Even though George W. Bush first invaded Afghanistan, Obama made the escalation of U.S. involvement a centerpiece of his campaign.) Steele said that if Obama is “such a student of history, has he not understood that, you know, that’s the one thing you don’t do, is engage in a land war in Afghanistan? Everyone who has tried, over 1,000 years of history, has failed.” Interestingly, Republicans Lindsey Graham and John McCain slammed Steele and jumped to Obama’s defense. Rep. Ron Paul, however, agreed with Steele, saying, “Michael Steele has it right, and Republicans should stick by him.”

Obama will likely persist with his failed war. He appears to be stumbling along the same path that Lyndon Johnson followed. Johnson lost his vision for a “Great Society” when he became convinced that his legacy depended on winning the Vietnam War. It appears that Obama has similarly lost his way.

Marjorie Cohn, a professor at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, is immediate past president of the National Lawyers Guild and deputy secretary general of the International Association of Democratic Lawyers. She is co-author (with Kathleen Gilberd) of Rules of Disengagement: The Politics and Honor of Military Dissent. See www.marjoriecohn.com.

Israel is a Rouge Nation ...US must distance from it

Reflections On The Flotilla Massacre

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By Pervez Hoodbhoy

Sunday, June 13, 2010

 
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Israel’s premeditated murder of the Mavi Marmara’s peace activists could become the turning point for the Palestinian struggle. Or, if the wrong conclusions are deduced, there’s a lot more misery ahead for the people of Gaza. A week after the event, it is time to ask some key questions and suggest answers.

Question: The decision to attack the 6-ship flotilla and stop it “at all cost” was a deliberate decision by the Israeli government. Given that international condemnation would surely follow, how can one understand Israel’s decision to go ahead?

Answer: The attack had little to do with “restoring Israel's deterrence” or capping the peashooters in Gaza. To understand Israel’s decision, one must hark back to Moshe Yaalon, then chief of staff of the Israeli Defence Forces, who in 2002 said that “The Palestinians must be made to understand in the deepest recesses of their consciousness that they are a defeated people.”

The flotilla attack was aimed to send a clear message: foreign nationals and peace activists will be treated just as violently as the inmates of the Israeli gulag. The Israeli bulldozer that crushed Rachel Corrie, the 23-year old American-Jewish pro-Palestinian activist, stands ever-ready to crush challenges to absolute Israeli supremacy. It scarcely mattered that the world was watching or that on board was a Holocaust survivor, white-as-lilies members of parliament from European countries, and even a six-month baby of unknown color and descent. Discounting those from Muslim countries, including three from Pakistan, the constellation of those calling for an end to Gaza’s blockade was impressive. The hope of a violence-free ending was therefore reasonable. But that did not happen. Israel wanted Gazans to know that even the international community cannot save them. It reasons that a hopeless people would eventually give up fighting.  

That the peace flotilla was attacked in international waters, and that a Hamas leader was murdered this year by the Mossad in Dubai, is also noteworthy. Israel, in effect, has declared that it knows no boundaries.  It is truly a rogue nation.

Question: Why did the United States refuse to condemn the Israeli action, even though the cost it shall pay will be large?

The cost is indeed huge! Imagine that the US had allowed a meeting of the UN Security Council to criticize Israel, and had called for an open investigation by the International Court of Justice. In a jiffy, the key US interest across the world – that of fighting Al-Qaeda and Islamic extremism – would have been immensely strengthened. This one act may have bought more security for the US than increasing its defense budget by 100 billion dollars. The world would have felt so much better about America. The steam would have gone out of rabid jihadist organizations. Conversely, in refusing to condemn the atrocity, the United States lost an opportunity to rescue its tarnished international image of being a slave of Israel.

It is unprecedented in history for one state to set aside its own security, and that of its allies, in pursuing the interests of another state. So what on earth makes the US behave in this way? This is a fascinating question. Most people think that this is because of shared US-Israeli strategic interests and/or some compelling moral imperative.

But John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, two leading American academics whose book caused a storm, argue that neither is true. Unqualified US support for Israel, they say, is unnatural and unnecessary. Far from being a loyal ally, Israel regularly spies on its principal patron. Moreover, Israel is racist while the US is democratic. Unlike the US, where people enjoy equal legal rights irrespective of race, religion or ethnicity, Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state where citizenship is based on the principle of blood kinship. Indeed, even Pakistan’s America-hating ulema think this way – they line up to send their children to the US and pray for grant of their Green Cards.

But, say Mearsheimer and Walt, America’s uncritical support for Israel actually owes to the Israeli lobby in the US. AIPAC (American Israel Public Action Committee) is a hugely influential organization that was ranked second behind the American Association of Retired People, but ahead of the AFL-CIO and the National Rifle Association. Thus, during the bombardment of Lebanon in the summer of 2006, the House of Representatives passed a resolution of total solidarity with Israel by 410 votes to eight. Today the Israeli tail wags the American dog. This is remarkable: Jews belonged to the oppressed people of America until a few decades ago, and only conditionally allowed to set foot on American soil although Hitler was sending them off to be gassed.

Noam Chomsky, my guru and friend, who was turned away from entering the West Bank some weeks ago, has long argued that Israel’s time is running out. Decades ago he wrote that “Israel is deliberately turning itself into perhaps the most hated country in the world, and is also losing the allegiance of the population of the West, including younger American Jews, who are unlikely to tolerate its persistent shocking crimes for long.” 

Is Chomsky right? Maybe. America’s formerly unqualified support for Israel is now qualified. Polls show that Democrat voters are unwilling to give Israel a blank check anymore. And, a glance at the Israeli press shows that while President Obama refused to condemn the massacre, his clear disapproval has made him Israel’s enemy number-one. But Obama, like other US presidents, is helpless before a political establishment which has internalized a belief that Israel should never be criticized. The consensus on Israel-can-do-no-wrong is only just beginning to crack.

Question: why are the Palestinians losing so badly when others have won against larger, more powerful, enemies?

The fact is that Vietnam lost a million people but won; Timor finally achieved independence from Indonesia; Cuba has withstood siege for 50 years; and Venezuela under Chavez is resisting America.

The usual excuses for Palestinian failure can be trotted out: grand conspiracies, disunity, and lack of firepower. But surely it’s time to get to the real reasons. The first is that of poor tactics: the weak cannot behave as the strong do. The leadership made disastrous decisions in Lebanon in 1982, then Lebanon again in 2006 (Hasan Nasrallah admitted his mistake), and Gaza in 2009. In arguing Palestine’s case before the Western world, Palestinian leaders and diplomats have performed pathetically, and American Zionists readily shot holes into them. But they viewed men like Edward Said and Eqbal Ahmad with great alarm because, with passion and reason, these stalwarts of secular humanism refuted Israeli propaganda in an idiom that the world could understand. Alas, they are gone.

Human history is a long story of injustice and cruelty. In our times, nothing stands out more vividly than Palestine. But, tragically, this struggle for justice has been turned into a religious cause. When the secular PLO led the Palestinians, it commanded power and respect. After the 1982 debacle in Beirut, Hamas took over. Sending suicide bombers on to Israeli civilian targets decimated international support, heightened Israeli repression, and led to The Wall.

The tragic loss of life notwithstanding, the flotilla episode is a huge moral victory for Palestine and a defeat for Israel. Israel was shown up to be paranoid, dominated by fundamentalist nuclear-armed crazies, and trigger happy. The moral high ground has again turned out to be the Palestinian’s principal weapon. It must not be wasted by firing off a few toy rockets from Gaza. Israelis love war and fear peace. This is why struggle for Palestine must be fought with different tactics.

Question: why are we Pakistanis so hyped-up about what Israel does but blind to what we do to our people and those in neighboring countries?

Let’s face the truth: Israeli crimes are extremely serious but they pale in front of those committed almost daily by religious extremists in Pakistan.  Israel murdered nine peace activists of the Mavi Marmara, but just hours earlier jihadists had killed over ninety Ahmadis peacefully praying in a mosque in Lahore.  Israel starves Gaza, but the Taliban have imposed an even more brutal blockade of Shias in Parachinar and Kurram. Israel does not amputate the limbs of its enemies or decapitate them, but the Taliban do. Israel has destroyed schools for Palestinians in Gaza, but the Taliban have blown up nearly a thousand schools.

Of course, it is not just the religious extremists but also our state – the Pakistani state and army – that is guilty of atrocities. Israeli forces have never been accused of mass rape, but the Bengalis have never forgiven the Pakistani army for what it did in 1971. Israel is responsible for many abductions and disappearances, but does anyone have an estimate for the number of “disappeared persons” in Baluchistan? One could go on. So, instead of riding the moral high horse and using different yardsticks here and there, it is time for us Pakistanis to also reflect upon the crimes of those from within us – and stop more wrongs from happening.

The author teaches at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad

Monsanto :The Principal Enemy of Peasant Sustainable Agriculture and Food Sovereignty for People.

By Beverly Bell
A new earthquake" is what peasant farmer leader Chavannes Jean-Baptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay (MPP) called the news that Monsanto will be donating 60,000 seed sacks (475 tons) of hybrid corn seeds and vegetable seeds, some of them treated with highly toxic pesticides. The MPP has committed to burning Monsanto's seeds, and has called for a march to protest the corporation's presence in Haiti on June 4, for World Environment Day.

In an open letter sent May 14, Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, the executive director of MPP and the spokesperson for the National Peasant Movement of the Congress of Papay (MPNKP), called the entry of Monsanto seeds into Haiti "a very strong attack on small agriculture, on farmers, on biodiversity, on Creole seeds ... and on what is left our environment in Haiti."(1) Haitian social movements have been vocal in their opposition to agribusiness imports of seeds and food, which undermines local production with local seed stocks. They have expressed special concern about the import of genetically modified organisms (GMOs).

For now, without a law regulating the use of GMOs in Haiti, the Ministry of Agriculture rejected Monsanto's offer of Roundup Ready GMOs seeds. In an email exchange, a Monsanto representative assured the Ministry of Agriculture that the seeds being donated are not GMOs.

Elizabeth Vancil, Monsanto's director of development initiatives, called the news that the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture approved the donation "a fabulous Easter gift" in an April email.(2) Monsanto is known for aggressively pushing seeds, especially GMOs seeds, in both the global North and South, including through highly restrictive technology agreements with farmers who are not always made fully aware of what they are signing. According to interviews by this writer with representatives of Mexican small farmer organizations, they then find themselves forced to buy Monsanto seeds each year, under conditions they find onerous and at costs they sometimes cannot afford.

The hybrid corn seeds Monsanto has donated to Haiti are treated with the fungicide Maxim XO, and the calypso tomato seeds are treated with thiram.(3) Thiram belongs to a highly toxic class of chemicals called ethylene bisdithiocarbamates (EBDCs). Results of tests of EBDCs on mice and rats caused concern to the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), which then ordered a special review. The EPA determined that EBDC-treated plants are so dangerous to agricultural workers that they must wear special protective clothing when handling them. Pesticides containing thiram must contain a special warning label, the EPA ruled. The EPA also barred marketing of the chemicals for many home garden products, because it assumes that most gardeners do not have adequately protective clothing.(4) Monsanto's passing mention of thiram to Ministry of Agriculture officials in an email contained no explanation of the dangers, nor any offer of special clothing or training for those who will be farming with the toxic seeds.

Haitian social movements' concern is not just about the dangers of the chemicals and the possibility of future GMOs imports. They claim that the future of Haiti depends on local production with local food for local consumption, in what is called food sovereignty. Monsanto's arrival in Haiti, they say, is a further threat to this.

"People in the US need to help us produce, not give us food and seeds. They're ruining our chance to support ourselves," said farmer Jonas Deronzil of a peasant cooperative in the rural region of Verrettes.(5)

Monsanto's history has long drawn ire from environmentalists, health advocates and small farmers, going back to its production of Agent Orange during the Vietnam war. Exposure to Agent Orange has caused cancer in an untold number of US veterans, and the Vietnamese government claims that 400,000 Vietnamese people were killed or disabled by Agent Orange, and 500,000 children were born with birth defects as a result of their exposure.(6)

Monsanto's former motto, "Without chemicals, life itself would be impossible," has been replaced by "Imagine." Its web site home page claims it "help[s] farmers around the world produce more while conserving more. We help farmers grow yield sustainably so they can be successful, produce healthier foods ... while also reducing agriculture's impact on our environment."(7) The corporation's record does not support the claims.

Together with Syngenta, Dupont and Bayer, Monsanto controls more than half of the world's seeds.(8) The company holds almost 650 seed patents, most of them for cotton, corn and soy, and almost 30 percent of the share of all biotech research and development. Monsanto came to own such a vast supply by buying major seed companies to stifle competition, patenting genetic modifications to plant varieties and suing small farmers. Monsanto is also one of the leading manufacturers of GMOs.

As of 2007, Monsanto had filed 112 lawsuits against US farmers for alleged technology contract violations of GMOs patents, involving 372 farmers and 49 small agricultural businesses in 27 different states. From these, Monsanto has won more than $21.5 million in judgments. The multinational appears to investigate 500 farmers a year, in estimates based on Monsanto's own documents and media reports.(9)

"Farmers have been sued after their field was contaminated by pollen or seed from someone else's genetically engineered crop [or] when genetically engineered seed from a previous year's crop has sprouted, or 'volunteered,' in fields planted with non-genetically engineered varieties the following year," said Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson of the Center for Food Safety.(10)

In Colombia, Monsanto has received upwards of $25 million from the US government for providing Roundup Ultra in the antidrug fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia. Roundup Ultra is a highly concentrated version of Monsanto's glyphosate herbicide, with additional ingredients to increase its lethality. Colombian communities and human rights organizations have charged that the herbicide has destroyed food crops, water sources and protected areas, and has led to increased incidents of birth defects and cancers.

Vía Campesina, the world's largest confederation of farmers with member organizations in more than 60 countries, has called Monsanto one of the "principal enemies of peasant sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty for all peoples."(11) They claim that as Monsanto and other multinationals control an ever larger share of land and agriculture, they force small farmers out of their land and jobs. They also claim that the agribusiness giants contribute to climate change and other environmental disasters, an outgrowth of industrial agriculture.(12)

The Vía Campesina coalition launched a global campaign against Monsanto last October 16, on International World Food Day, with protests, land occupations and hunger strikes in more than 20 countries. They carried out a second global day of action against Monsanto on April 17 of this year, in honor of Earth Day.

Nongovernmental organizations in the US are challenging Monsanto's practices, too. The Organic Consumers Association has spearheaded the campaign "Millions Against Monsanto," calling on the company to stop intimidating small family farmers, stop marketing untested and unlabeled genetically engineered foods to consumers and stop using billions of dollars of US taypayers' money to subsidize GMOs crops.(13)

The Center for Food Safety has led a four-year legal challenge to Monsanto that has just made it to the US Supreme Court. After successful litigation against Monsanto and the US Department of Agriculture for illegal promotion of Roundup Ready Alfalfa, the court heard the Center for Food Safety's case on April 27. A decision on this first-ever Supreme Court case about GMOs is now pending.(14)

"Fighting hybrid and GMO seeds is critical to save our diversity and our agriculture," Jean-Baptiste said in an interview in February. "We have the potential to make our lands produce enough to feed the whole population and even to export certain products. The policy we need for this to happen is food sovereignty, where the county has a right to define it own agricultural policies, to grow first for the family and then for local market, to grow healthy food in a way which respects the environment and Mother Earth."

Many thanks to Moira Birss for her assistance with research and writing.

1. Group email from Chavannes Jean-Baptiste, May 14, 2010.
2. Email from Elizabeth Vancil to Emmanuel Prophete, director of seeds at the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, and others; released by the Haitian Ministry of Agriculture, date unavailable.
3. Ibid.
4. Extension Toxicology Network, Pesticide Information Project of the Cooperative Extension Offices of Cornell University, Michigan State University, Oregon State University and University of California at Davis.
5. Jonas Deronzil's comments are from an interview in April. He was not specifically discussing Monsanto.
6. "MSNBC," January 23, 2004. "Study Finds Link Between Agent Orange, Cancer." The Globe and Mail, June 12, 2008. "Last Ghost of the Vietnam War."
7. www.monsanto.com
8. La Vía Campesina, "La Vía Campesina carries out Global Day of Action against Monsanto," October 16, 2009.
9. Center for Food Safety, "Monsanto vs. US Farmers," November 2007.
10. Andrew Kimbrell and Joseph Mendelson, Center for Food Safety, "Monsanto vs. US Farmers," 2005.
11. La Vía Campesina, October 16, 2009, Op. Cit.
12. La Vía Campesina, "La Vía Campesina Call to Action 17 April 2010 - Join the International Day of Peasant Struggle," February 23, 2010.
13. Organic Consumers Association, "Taxpayers Forced to Fund Monsanto's Poisoning of Third World," Finland, Minnesota.
14. Center for Food Security, "Update: CFS Fighting Monsanto in the Supreme Court," May 11, 2010.