Arundhati Roy: The debater of big things

All she has done is bravely use her position to draw attention to the unjustifiable repression of unrest in the Kashmir valley that has been taking place over the past few months. Rather than chase after a novelist for speaking at a seminar, the Delhi government would be better off investigating the 100-plus people who are believed to have died in violence in Kashmir since June. Full article.

Probe of Balochistan torture, deaths urged

Amnesty International Tuesday called on Pakistan’s government to investigate the reported torture and killings of more than 40 Balochistan political activists. The human rights organization said activists, politicians and student leaders were among people targeted in “enforced disappearances,” abductions, arrests and cases of torture and other ill-treatment in the restive Balochistan province. More here.

reports from ohio

oct 27, 2010

in dayton, ohio. had some squash and pumpkin lasagna for dinner at winds cafe in yellow springs – a v hippie town about 30 minutes away. talked to two lovely ladies, who’ve organized the screening of my film. now off to bed. the screening’s tomorrow and they tell me there might be some resistance in the audience cuz this is still the bible belt. oh well, keeps things interesting.

oct 28, 2010

report on ohio screening: about 200 people. v diverse audience. extremely heated discussion. most people were open-minded but there was a sizable chunk of the aggressively defensive. one man complained that saying “violence begets violence” is anti-american (that’s pretty deep actually). a lebanese christian woman claimed that muslims want to spread islam by the sword (how original). but the moment i totally lost her was when she iterated that iraqis r converting to christianity en masse because of the love and good deeds of christian american soldiers. (one word: wikileaks). another woman became impassioned about how americans were fighting in iraq to give the iraqi people the freedom to practice their religion (say what?). a woman who had “many muslim friends” was more than happy to treat muslims decently but hey, they all wanna kill her and she’s just trying to survive. “i just want to live” said she. aie aie aie. my mantra for the evening: watch democracy now!

oh yes, my biggest supporter throughout the Q&A: a beautiful young woman sitting in the front row. she came to hug me later and was v upset at how ignorant many in the audience were. she was the wife of a young soldier who has just returned from iraq. she began to cry as she explained he had told her about the reality of the war in iraq. it was v moving for me to meet her.

also, thank u to sinclair community college for this cutting edge work on diversity, for reaching out to the community and trying to educate, and for their incredible incredible warmth and hospitality.

GOP candidate killed two unarmed Iraqis and ‘shot them 60 times’

In April of 2004, Pantano and his platoon stopped and detained two Iraqi men in a car near Fallujah. While the majority of his platoon was away, he and two others ordered the detained Iraqis to search their own car for weapons and then allegedly unloaded two full magazines of his M16A4 rifle into them. Sergeant Daniel Coburn, who was 27 at the time and one of the three soldiers at the incident, recalled wondering “when the lieutenant was going to stop, because it was obvious that they were dead.” “I believed that by firing the number of rounds that I did, I was sending a message,” Pantano told the New York magazine. Full article.

Workshop explores Muslims in America

screening “the muslims i know” in ohio on oct 28th 2010 at 7pm! here’s coverage of the screening/workshop in a local newspaper. do come by if u’re in ohio.

Workshop explores Muslims in America
By Eric Schwartzberg, Staff Writer
Tuesday, October 19, 2010

MASON — A workshop next week aims to explore the many facets of America’s third largest practiced religion.
Sponsored by Sinclair Community College’s Courseview Campus and Mason High School, “The Muslims I Know: Myths, Movements, and the Media” is scheduled for 7 p.m. Oct. 28. at Mason Middle School auditorium, 6370 Mason-Montgomery Road.
The workshop will be presented by Mara Ahmed, who filmed “The Muslims I Know” in 2008. The 55-minute documentary attempts to answer the question “Where are the moderate Muslims?” and focuses on Ahmed’s small American Muslim community of Rochester, N.Y.

The two-hour interactive workshop will feature a screening of the movie, followed by a discussion of Islam and Muslims among students, faculty, staff and area residents.

Ahmed, a Pakistani-American mother of two, earned her masters of business administration and a master’s degree in economics, but quit her job as a financial analyst to go back to school and study art, including filmmaking classes.

Along the way, she noticed the mainstream media giving short shrift to the Muslim community in the wake of Sept. 11, 2001.
“They didn’t really ever showcase people like myself and all the people I know, the vast majority of whom are Muslims,” Ahmed said. “There was this constant discussion about Islam and Muslims, but Muslims were not allowed to be a part of it.”

When letters to the editor aimed at providing more balance to what was being said about Muslims and their views went unpublished, she used her personal savings to finance the creation of a documentary.

“I thought this will be the only way I will be able to get my voice out and the voices of other people who are like me and feel the same frustration,” Ahmed said. “That was the whole idea of the film, is just to give the vast majority of Muslims a platform so that they could finally be heard.”

Link to article here.

MUSLIMS: Reclaiming religious liberty – Letters – Rochester City Newspaper

most excellent letter from my friend richard myers: “We will not stand for attacks on the principle of religious liberty. We will not sit by when our Muslim neighbors are threatened. We will not be silent when good people are characterized as terrorists. We will not be still when politicians disregard the Constitution and label people unjustly. Therefore, we appeal to our silent neighbors: speak up gently if you can, firmly if you must. Engage your neighbors to dispel uninformed stereotyping of Muslims. Learn all you can about Islam. Enter into interfaith conversations. Memorize the opening words of the First Amendment of the Constitution: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof.” Complete letter.

I pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice: Arundhati Roy

In the papers some have accused me of giving ‘hate-speeches’, of wanting India to break up. On the contrary, what I say comes from love and pride. It comes from not wanting people to be killed, raped, imprisoned or have their finger-nails pulled out in order to force them to say they are Indians. It comes from wanting to live in a society that is striving to be a just one. Pity the nation that has to silence its writers for speaking their minds. Pity the nation that needs to jail those who ask for justice, while communal killers, mass murderers, corporate scamsters, looters, rapists, and those who prey on the poorest of the poor, roam free. (Arundhati Roy) Full article.

the way we live now…

I Google you
late at night when I don’t know what to do
I find photos
you’ve forgotten
you were in
put up by your friends

I Google you
when the day is done and everything is through
I read your journal
that you kept
that month in France
I’ve watched you dance

And I’m pleased your name is practically unique
it’s only you and
a would-be PhD in Chesapeake
who writes papers on
the structure of the sun
I’ve read each one

I know that I
should let you fade
but there’s that box
and there’s your name
somehow it never makes the pain
grow less or fade or disappear
I think that I should save my soul and
I should crawl back in my hole
But it’s too easy just to fold
and type your name again
I fear
I google you
Whenever I’m alone and feeling blue
And each scrap of information
That I gather
says you’ve found somebody new
And it really shouldn’t matter
ought to blow up my computer
but instead….
I google you

t r u t h o u t – Fallujah, a Disgrace for the USA, an Eternal Curse on Humanity

n 2003, after the fall of the capital Baghdad following the US-led invasion, Fallujah remained calm and, contrary to what happened elsewhere, there was no looting. But the policy pursued by the US and UK of indiscriminate killing of civilians and of collective punishment generated resistance in the whole area. In order to eradicate the resistance in and around Fallujah, the invading forces attacked the city and the crimes committed in the course of these attacks are the subject of a new report by MHRI called “Testimonies of Crimes Against Humanity in Fallujah, Towards a Fair International Criminal Trial, ” presented at the15th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council. This report gives a grim view of a policy of collective punishment, war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by the US forces between 2003 and 2010. Full article.

War Does This to Your Mind

“War destroys people,” Khamad Jan concluded, after giving us a tour of the developing potato crisp production factory. Again, he stared at the ground as he thought about what he would say. “It destroys our livelihood. It damages our minds.”

“All the players in this war have their own purposes for being here,” he added, after a long pause. “There is absolutely no benefit to the people here from the wars that are being fought.” Full article.

Glenn Greenwald: The real danger from NPR’s firing of Juan Williams

The principal reason the Williams firing resonated so much and provoked so much fury is that it threatens the preservation of one of the most important American mythologies: that Muslims are a Serious Threat to America and Americans. Above all else, this fear-generating “nexus” is what must be protected at all costs. And it is this fear-sustaining, anti-Muslim slander that NPR’s firing of Williams threatened to delegitimize. That is why NPR’s firing of Williams must be attacked with such force: because it is an important step toward stigmatizing anti-Muslim animus in the same way that other forms of bigotry are now off-limits, and that is what cannot happen, because anti-Muslim animus is too important to too many factions to allow it to be delegitimized. Full article.

Comment from Jack Bradigan Spula:

I think Williams has made a lucrative career by playing various sides against each other – and quite deftly till now. He got in trouble last year with comments he made on Fox (in response to Bill O’Reilly, at al.) about Michelle Obama’s supposedly projecting a “Stokely-Carmichael-in-a-designer-dress thing” (we can only wish!). Most of his observations are boring rather than offensive. My impression, which gelled during his 2001 Rochester appearance, is that he’s a narcissistic blabberer, only slightly less hard to stomach than O’Reilly and company. I’m glad he’s now off NPR… But that doesn’t mean I think NPR (or public broadcasting overall) is worth a rat’s ass, either. The NewsHour, The Nightly Business Report, the 1370 Connection, practically anything other than This American Life (which mostly hews to soft topics but occasionally presents some really good stuff): all this “public programming,” which really is the product of private corporate interests above all, is boring, lifeless, supportive of the status quo and noticeably elementary in content. I’m sticking with Pacifica, Amy Goodman, et al., from whom you can depend on real journalism, and with whom you’ll never have to endure the foolishness of a Juan Williams.

Juan Williams Is Right: Political Correctness About Terrorists Must End!

Juan, you probably remember in 1986 when the Washington Post Magazine ran a Richard Cohen column defending jewelry store owners who wouldn’t buzz in young black men. It caused such a big controversy that the New Republic ran a bunch of responses to it, including one by you. You might find it interesting to go back and read what you wrote then — for instance, “Racism is a lazy man’s substitute for using good judgment … Common sense becomes racism when skin color becomes a formula for figuring out who is a danger to me.” (Michael Moore) Full article.

WikiLeaks Iraq files to be released – Middle East – Al Jazeera English

It is the biggest leak of military secrets in history. Al Jazeera has details of nearly 400,000 classified US documents. They are the secret Iraq files, leaked to whistleblower website WikiLeaks. For the past ten weeks Al Jazeera has had complete access to those files. As part of our forthcoming coverage, we reveal how the US military gave a secret order not to investigate torture by Iraqi authorities discovered by American troops. Full report.